#can you tell i really like madeleine miller?

[riality-check]

First bit of Eros and Psyche (but make it Steddie), inspired by this post by @babyboymunson Thanks for inspiring me to dig these out of my notes app!

Steve is beautiful, and he despises that fact about himself.

He did not ask for such a “blessing,” as the rest of the city calls it. He did not ask for a lifetime of idolatry, of being placed on a pedestal to be admired instead of spoken to, marveled at instead of humanized. He did not ask for the countless empty flatteries, nor the constant remarks of how jealous his sisters must be.

(They are not jealous. They are the only people Steve feels human around.)

Steve would not call his beauty a blessing. He also would not call it a curse. He has seen curses, seen women’s bodies become twisted and ugly, seen men commit unspeakable acts under the influence of madness.

No. This is not a blessing. This is not a curse. Those are only bestowed upon humans, and while he is still young, Steve is beginning to think that he is other.

Eddie is a monster, and he embraces it.

He takes his task seriously in the sense that he accomplishes all he needs to. If he flirts with a few mortals along the way, well, that never killed a soul.

(Eddie will not let himself become involved enough for that to happen. A few kisses, a night or two, and then he leaves.)

His arrows land true, and he steers the course of the world with them. A marriage between two cities establishes peace for a lifetime. An errant husband and a wife’s righteous wrath destabilize a region for years to come.

Eddie looks on all of this with a sense of detachment. They are mortals. Mortals are small, petty, trivial beings.

But they love. They love deeper and truer than the gods do, though it would be blasphemous for Eddie to voice as such. And it would be worse for him to voice his envy.

Eddie is a monster for toying with that love.

Love, after all, is the most monstrous thing. Eddie has plenty to give, but none for himself.

[gigisnetwork]

NERDIFYING UR DEMIGODS 🗣️🗣️ (things I think they’d enjoy :3)

Nico

- Batman - in fact, the whole DC universe (he would collect figures + comics)

- The Maze Runner (he’s read all the books and watched all the movies and has a crush on thomas) (maybe newt too)

- Gravity Falls (insane lore, enough said) (also he’s the one who introduced it to Hazel) (They see themselves as Mabel n Dipper) (also went ballistic over the Book of Bill)

- Song of Achilles (LOVES madeleine miller) (Bonds over her books w annabeth i don’t make the rules 🤷🤷)

- POKÉMON (YOU DONT UNDERSTAND ITS SIMILAR TO MYTHOMAGIC I KNOW IT) (also had a HUUUGGEE hyperfixation on pokémon go) (collects cards (ofc) and plushies too)

- My Little Pony (hazel got him into it) (thinks it’s super cute) (collects plushies of them)

- Fallout (Thinks it’s sick and loves dystopian stuff) (frank introduced it to him 😇😇) (sometimes like redesigns things so they look like they’re from Fallout) (like MrsFallout on yt)

Annabeth

- AGGTM (you can’t tell me she wouldn’t love pipravi)

- The Hunger Games (shes read all the books and absolutely LOVES katniss) (also she definitely sees her n percy in peeniss)

- Murder Most Unladylike (idk she seems like the kinda girl to be into murder mysteries n stuff) (also i just think it’s fitting for annabeth)

- Circe (again LOVES madeleine miller) (hasn’t read medusa yet, i don’t think she would) (hubris + she isn’t fond of medusa AT ALL) (bonds over her work w nico 😇😇)

- The Sims (SHE THINKS ITS SO FUN) (she absolutely loves character customisation, and interior design n stuff) (has so much custom content it’s insane)

- Minecraft (Again, loves designing things) (makes the most intricate builds EVER) (super skilled like it’s actually insane how she makes her builds) (usually plays on creative but absolutely has a hardcore world she’s been working on for YEARS)

Hazel

- Bee and Puppycat (she loves how pretty the show is) (also she kinda sees herself in Bee)

- Steven Universe (Again, pretty art) (also, the lore goes crazy and has pretty good music ‼️)

- Gravity Falls (again, pretty art n insane lore) (also she went BALLISTIC over the Book of Bill) (She and Nico see themselves as Mabel n Dipper)

- Dolls (haunted/creepy dolls, cute dolls, ball jointed dolls, figures, you name it) (she’d try and communicate w the haunted dolls w nicos help) (its actually pretty fun to her)

- My Little Pony (it’s cutesy) (also she likes the message it gives ^^) (has a ponysona) (LOVES EQUESTIRA GIRLS YOU CANT CHANGE MY MIND) (AND THE NEW GEN TOO)

- Animal Crossing (she likes all the versions but mainly plays new horizons bcus she thinks it’s like the best) (loves the character designs, and being able to basically make her own island)

Percy

- Spider-man / The Spider-verse - actually, the entire marvel universe (He thinks it’s sick) (also ABSOLUTELY relates to peter parker and miles morales) (only really got into it bcus of the movies, before starting to collect comics)

- One Direction (no one knows this) (was absolutely HEARTBROKEN when they broke up)

- The Hunger Games (annabeth got him into it) (but he only watched the movies, got half-way into the first book before being like “i can’t do this anymore” and watched the movies) (RELATES TO KATNISS 🗣️🗣️)

- SEGA/Mainly Sonic (he thinks it super silly) (also sonic boom was incredibly funny to him) (CONSTANTLY quotes him too) (has every single game w him in it)

- SUBNAUTICA. (you CANNOT TELL ME HE DOESNT LOVE THIS GAME) (EVERY TIME HE PLAYS HE IS SO INVESTED LIKE YOU CANT TEAR HIM AWAY FROM HIS PC OR CONSOLE)

Frank

- POKEMOONN 🗣️🗣️ (he introduced it to nico) (they both play in both mythomagic and pokémon tournaments, when they can find some) (they also love playing them together) (he has all the games)

- Unpacking (thinks it’s super relaxing and absolutely loves the visuals) (also loves how it tells a story, ykwim ???) (introduced it to hazel) (really, he’s the one who introduced hazel to all the video games that she likes)

- Resident Evil (people are like incredibly surprised when they find out he’s into that game) (he really likes the lore/story, thinks it’s super sick)

- The Last of Us (again, people were super surprised he was into this game) (he likes shooter games) (also thinks ellie and joel’s dynamic was super sweet) (has a love/hate relationship with the hbo series) (100% thinks dystopian stuff is sick)

- Yu-Gi-Oh (another card game) (idk i feel like he would really be into it) (this definitely came before pokémon to him) (he’s known this before mythomagic) (the OG 🗣️🗣️)

- Fallout (he introduced it to nico) (again, game mechanics are sick and loves the lore 🗣️🗣️) (sure, he’s the one who liked it first but he isn’t as big of a fan of it as nico)

(will update when i think of more 🗣️🗣️)

[tigergingicat]

I have really, really, really been enjoying EPIC: The Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans. Watched the Wisdom Saga release last night. I love the overall theme of "ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves."

That said, I have been inspired to go back and read the related mythology, history, and literature, and now a have a whole lot of things I want to write (or see someone else write):

an essay on how Odysseus, Polites, and Eurylochus were differently affected by veterans' PTSD

a story or essay about Odysseus coming up with the Trojan Horse in desperation to go home

a story about Polites and Patroclus being friends and Polites trying to talk Patroclus out of pretending to be Achilles

a story about Odysseus convincing Helen's suitors to defend her, how he was convinced to come to war himself, and him then convincing Achilles, with all of the troubled motivations involved (maybe as poetry? I've written prose poetry-adjacent fic before...)

I came across some amazing meta about why Artemis demanded the sacrifice of Iphigenia (she wanted Agamemnon to think a little harder about going to war since children and women like his daughter would be killed and raped; it backfired)

A story or essay regarding the point that not a single male adult in this story (except perhaps Polites, who as far as I can tell was invented by Jay) is a good guy and that most of the not-so-great women have noble intentions.

A poem or story about the sheer bitterness that Telemachus and Penelope feel over their apparent abandonment (cf Book One of the Odyssey)

I would also LOVE to see a one-year teen/adult education class based around the Homeric epics - curriculum would include the Iliad, the Trojan Women by Sophocles, The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, and The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller, interspersed with essays about war, the history of Anatolia, the ethics of archaeology (I hate you Schliemann), finishing up with The Odyssey and EPIC. A teen/adult literacy class could start with EPIC and branch off from there based on the interests of the students.

[kore-pythia-hayashi]

Ethan: *shyly walks into your room* Hi, Kore. Hope I’m not bothering you. I just wanted to pass and tell how sick I am of prophecies, of all our doomed fates, of you having to go through it all. So, for once, I came to pretend that we’re normal teenagers trying to know each other better. So, um, what do you like doing in your free time, really? You can’t be decoding magical visions aaalll the time.

Oh, hi Ethan, [soft smile on her lips] thank you for your sympathy and I understand your hatred, - the prophecy and our doom is what I really hate [the smile turned bitter, she quickly wiped an unbidden tear with her sleeve] and the fact that you decided to ask my hobby is very sweet..

And you're just in time, I made green tea and my dad sent Daifuku, I hope you like it [She quickly gets up and goes to the kitchen and returns from the tray]. take it, don't be shy, they are very tasty and the tea should be at least tolerable.

about my hobbies.. I think it's watching movies, reading literature and a little sewing, I tried to learn how to bake, but it turned out terribly. My favorite movie is Men in Black 3, my favorite book is Circe Madeleine Miller. And I also sing a little Japanese sometimes it helps to calm down... after... I think you got it.

My favorite movie character is Griffin, an alien who can see the future and is always optimistic... I try to look up to him. My favorite character from the books is Circe, she is depicted in this book as really cool.

The best thing I've ever sewed is a stuffed rabbit that my mortal father has.

[A gentle and sad smile at the same time]. Thanks for coming and asking me about my hobby, Ethan, I feel like an ordinary teenager and that's good.

[marietheran]

List of authors I wish I could read but cannot due to sexual content ™ (not exhaustive) because I need to get it out and also like to make lists:

N.K. Jemisin - Having read a few pages from the beginning of The Fifth Season and A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms both and seen a fair number of quotes, I can say she's got an absolutely incredible, really and truly poetic writing style. I know she got some criticism for writing a book in second person but I love second person pov. Alas, I can't allow myself to read them. (Maybe I wouldn't enjoy them even if they didn't have sexual content - it seems I would disagree with most of Jemisin's theses, and reviews I've read make me doubt if I'd find the characters likeable, but it's such a pity this writing style has to be lost on me)

Guy Gavriel Kay - he helped Christopher Tolkien put together my favourite book of all time; could there be a better recommendation? And I've seen dozens of beautiful quotes from him so it feels like this paid off, but... tbh I wouldn't have expected him to put explicit sex scenes in his books but apparently he does. Can you be disappointed in someone you've never met? Somehow I am, but mostly I'm sad and longing, because I crave those books and cannot read them.

Madeleine Miller - read a few pages from Circe, got slapped in the face with something quite vulgar and sexual, and didn't buy the book, but it was enough for me to tell the writing style flows in the best of ways. I know I've heard some doubtful statements about the literary value (and apparently she made numbers on Tiktok which is an anti-rec) but I've also seen examples of ways in which she succeeded to add something to the myths, and while I don't care for the mythology per se that deeply, I do love retellings. Unfortunately they're often no less (and perhaps more?) sexual than the source material and hers seem to be no exception (also I absolutely don't ship Achilles and Partoclus so I couldn't read SoA which interests me more anyway and I hate that)

G.R.R. Martin - On the one hand I've heard your standard griping about how he makes everything and everyone so dark and awful, and kills everyone off. But my favourite book is about a large, often dysfunctional, family with very complicated relationships between it's members and everyone dies in it so I feel like the chances of me liking it are there. And writing styles are very important to me - and I've heard people call GRRM's poor - but the few quotes I've met with are more appealing rather than less. But either way I cannot even try it because of all the debauchery and I wish I could say I don't need to regret it, but it may be the opposite.

[anouri]

ik this is so out of the blue but which booktok books are actually worthy? i have some of them and read some of them, i can tell you my opinion lol:,)

hmmm i have been trying to avoid the very tiktok-y side of booktok… that doesn’t make sense. basically i have been trying to cater my fyp to give me like unique suggestions instead of the same seven books a million times. i’ll just list the books that could be considered tiktok books that i’ve read and what i thought, and yes it does pain me to list some of these as “tiktok books” but unfortunately i believe they fit the criteria :’)

all colleen hoover books suck ass. i’m sorry. i’ve read several and they’re all shite

heartstopper is amazing

six of crows duology is amazing (in my fav books list)

villains duology is amazing (vicious & vengeful) (in my fav books list)

the secret history is a fav too

if we were villains is a fav, but don’t read it right after/before you read tsh bc i feel like people compare them too much

all for the game series is SHIT but also ADDICTIVE. like so bad it’s good hahaha idk how else to explain it

a little life is a fav, but i don’t really like recommending it bc it’s depressing as shit

spanish love deception is not good

love hypothesis is not good

solitaire is pretty good

book lovers by emily henry was so bad i couldn’t finish it lmao

never been kissed by timothy janovsky is pretty good, i appreciated the demisexual representation

funny you should ask is meh.

see you yesterday by rachel lynn solomon was surprisingly good!!

johannes cabal the necromancer is good, it has very dry sarcastic humor which is always a fav of mine

a marvelous light by freya marske was good until it wasn’t

icebreaker by A.L. graziadei was good!!

i wish you all the best by mason deaver was pretty good, it has enby rep too if i’m remembering correctly

the carry on series by rainbow rowell is meh. like it’s good if you have a gay wizard itch to scratch, which i suppose i did when i was reading it lmao

from lukov with love was shit

perfect on paper was meh

beach read by emily henry was meh

punk 57 was so bad i wish i didn’t read it lmao

red white & royal blue was “good if you turn your brain off and put on some rose-tinted glasses”

serpent & dove was shit

all this time by mikki daughtry was pretty good

all of christina lauren’s books that i’ve read are shit

all of madeleine millers books are very good

tender of the flesh was good but not amazing, but i also think i had high expectations for it

i could go on for a bit longer but i’m stopping there!!! hope this helped hahaha

[stevie-wicks]

Tag 10 people you want to get to know better

tagged by @wherearetheplums 👉👉 thanks, friend!

relationship status: single, but I fall in love just a little bit every day with someone new <3

favorite color: green, but, like, greyish green (google's telling me it's sage green but i don't want to sound too pretentious so I'm gonna call it grey-green lmao). also, pink!

favorite food: i was gonna say chocolate (specifically the marabou milk chocolate) but now i want pizza and i blame rae :(

song stuck in your head: listening to the kids are alright by hoonch rn, so I'm gonna go with that

dream trip: anywhere with a sandy beach :(

last book you read: galatea by madeleine miller counts, right?

last book you enjoyed reading: the seven husbands of evelyn hugo! didn't like it much during reading but i gave it a while and now i love it <3

last book you hated reading: anna and the french kiss :( i wasso so excited to read it, only to actually read it and find out it was shit

favorite thing to cook/bake: i'm absolute shite at cooking lmao :,) probably the least disastrous thing i can attempt is toast :(((

favorite craft to do in your free time: i draw! well, doodle, more like :,) haven't really drawn in ages, though :(

most niche dislike: walking barefoot? is that niche?

opinion on circuses: i've never been to one :( i like the aesthetic but i think if i ever went irl i'd probably be freaked out by the crowd

do you have a sense of direction: this is a personal attack :(

tagging: @lazybakerart, @duckslayer254, @meowmeowbilly, @mourntheantagonist, @cupidsintern, @iwigyousub, @dollyau, @drinkingbeerfroma, @mrsblackruby and @officialsteveharrington! sorry if you did this already lol ;-; in that case please ignore <3

[alj4890]

Angst Prompt

(Liam x Riley) with the prompt of Riley getting shot in another country while Liam was in Cordonia and it have been ordered by King Bradshaw as requested by Anonymous.

A/N Oof. What a way to knock me off my fluff kick, LOL. This isn't a part of my AU's but let's see what I can do for your prompt, Nonny. This takes place after the Bradshaw/Isabella mess but before Barthlemy's challenge. I guess I will ruin that brief moment of peace, LOL.

@gkittylove99​​​​​​ @krsnlove​​​​​​ @kingliam2019​​​​​​ @texaskitten30​​​​​​ @hopefulmoonobject​​​​​​ @yourmajesty09​​​​​​ @mom2000aggie​​​​​​ @ofpixelsandscribbles​ @twinkleallnight​

Masterlist

News

The Royal Palace, Cordonia...

"Here we go, princess." Liam settled his seven month old in her swing. "How about you help your father with reading through these proposals the Council is considering?"

Eleanor smiled around the teething ring she had put in her mouth.

Liam pressed a quick kiss to her cheek then started the swing.

He settled behind his desk, finally feeling a sense of calmness. With all the ups and downs he had gone through since his brother's abdication, he rested in knowing that he, his family, and country were at last entering into a season of peace.

He intended to keep it that way.

The gurgles and coos from Eleanor drew his attention. She waved the teething ring a few times before putting it back in her mouth.

He chuckled at her antics.

He was enjoying these few days of one-on-one time with his daughter. Riley had been asked to be the guest of honor at Lancelin St Clair's fashion grand opening. The renowned designer had created a place where his creations could be not only sold, but created specifically for the customer.

Lancelin had completely renovated a four-story building in Paris's Faubourg Saint-Honoré district, turning each floor into one with a definite purpose. The first floor was a shop that housed various sizes of his most popular creations. The second floor was part runway/part design on demand for the shopper looking for something completely original. The third floor would debut his new bridal line. And the fourth was set as his personal work area/apartment for when he needed to stay late and work on his designs.

All this was to be shown to the public to set off Paris's fashion week.

Since Riley had walked his runway during Liam and Madeleine's engagement tour, he had invited her to be part of his grand opening. Ana De Luca was traveling with Cordonia's queen to do an exclusive spread of Riley in some of the dresses Lancelin had made specifically with her in mind.

It was just the sort of news the people of Cordonia would enjoy after months of uncertainty.

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

"I really don't want to go without you and Eleanor." Riley told Liam the night before she left.

"I don't want you to either." He held her close. "But I have to meet with the Farmers' Association about the progress of the apple orchards." He pressed a tender kiss to her lips. "I've already had to reschedule twice with them. They need to see I take their concerns seriously."

"I know." She sighed. "And I know that Eleanor would distract everyone from Lancelin's moment." She eased out of his embrace. "This will be the first time I go out without you or any of our friends."

Liam took her hands and tried to ease her worries. "You will do great." He smiled at her. "You charm everyone you meet. I believe I am proof to your effect."

Riley shook her head before kissing him. "If anyone is the charmer, it's you."

He chuckled while tugging her toward their bed. "Do you want me to find someone to go with you? Penelope or Kiara perhaps?"

"No thanks." She snuggled closer to him. "I wish Hana was well enough to go. She was looking forward to it."

Liam gently rubbed her back. "With Maxwell in Hollywood and Drake in Texas, we don't have anyone left."

"I wish Olivia was back." She muttered.

"Amalas needed her expertise." Liam reminded her.

"I know." Riley sighed again. "If I can't have you with me, I do tend to depend on the others to be there. I need to learn how to stand on my own."

"The world will once again be amazed by Cordonia's queen." He kissed the top of her head. "You'll see."

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

Liam glanced at his desk clock. It was nearly time for Ana's live report of Lancelin's grand opening.

His princess had fallen asleep in her swing, drawing another smile from him as he carefully lifted her out. Cuddling her close, he sat down on one of the sofas and turned the television on.

Finding the right channel, he relaxed as the first images appeared.

Cordonia's Queen Riley has been given the honor of walking the red carpet first. Lancelin St Clair awaits, giving her the shears to cut the ceremonial ribbon.

He readjusted Eleanor in his arms as he watched his wife's bright smile flash towards the cheering crowd.

Ana continued to detail what they would soon see when shots rang out.

Liam stood up, causing Eleanor to whimper at being rudely awakened.

Ignoring her fitful cries, he watched as the camera caught his wife and Lancelin falling to the ground.

Then the feed went dead.

"BASTIEN!" Liam shouted over Eleanor's wails.

The head of the King's Guards hurried inside while talking on his phone. Regina rushed in behind him.

"Give me the baby." She insisted, gently taking the fussy little one in her arms. She left the study, allowing Liam to be able to focus on what Bastien was saying.

"And the shooter?" He asked. "I see. Where is her majesty being taken?"

Bastien wrote down the information. "Keep me updated."

Once he ended the call, he faced Liam.

"What happened?" He demanded.

Bastien cleared his throat. "A lone gunman shot both Riley and Mr. St Clair."

"Is she alright? Have the plane prepared. We must get there as quickly as we can!"

"Sir," Bastien hesitated. "I must insist you remain here. The gunman was killed by one of our guards. We don't know if there is another and--"

Liam shoved past him and called the airfield. Declaring it an emergency, he then rushed to tell Regina.

"Liam." She teared up as she took his hand. "Be careful and call as soon as you know more."

"Your majesty, I insist you remain here while I go to Paris." Bastien followed after him. "Once my team has investigated, I can then guarantee your safety--"

"Do you honestly think I give a damn about my safety?!" Liam rounded on him. "My wife was just shot! She is alone in another country and hurt. If you think I will sit here behind these so called protective walls, then you do not know me at all." He went back to his study and quickly packed his briefcase. "Now get me to the airport."

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

Early evening, Paris...

"Her majesty is at one of the private hospitals." Bastien explained as the car continued through the city. "Interpol is working with us to identify the shooter."

Liam stared blindly out the window. "Is my wife conscious?"

"She was." Bastien tried to explain. "She lost some blood from her wound and--"

Their car stopped at the front entrance.

"Liam!" Bastien shouted as the king didn't bother to wait on guards or to check that it was safe.

The young king ran inside, pausing long enough to ask where he should go.

"Je suis le roi de Cordonia. Ma femme a été amenée avec une blessure par balle. Où est-elle? Est-ce qu'elle va bien?" He said quickly.

"Elle se repose dans la chambre 138, Votre Majesté. Dr Miller a dit--" the receptionist blinked when he took off running once more.

Liam slid on the freshly waxed tile floors, barely catching himself as he followed the signs.

A doctor and nurse were just leaving Riley's room when he arrived.

"My wife," Liam gasped, trying to catch his breath. "Is she alright?"

"Oui. She was struck in the shoulder." He paused as both King's Guards and Interpol Agents joined them. "We removed the bullet while she was unconscious."

Liam reached for the door handle as the others began to question the physician.

He paused at seeing his wife laying there, looking so fragile.

One of the first things he had first noticed about her was her inner strength to face any obstacle she encountered. He realized he had taken that he had taken that for granted. The only other time he had seen her like this was when she collapsed during Eleanor's birth.

Liam knew there were only a few things he feared in this world. But those few things centered on something specific: his family.

He could face an entire firing squad and not bat an eye. But let it be Riley or Eleanor that was to be threatened, and he could not take it.

He collapsed in the chair by her bed and pressed a kiss to her fingers. Bowing his head, he waited by her side until she awakened.

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

A few hours later...

Liam stood up when Riley became restless. Soft cries escaped her lips as she slept. He reached for the buzzer.

Explaining that his wife was in pain, he waited for a nurse to come in.

Bastien entered first.

"Have you learned anything about the shooter?" Liam asked in a low voice.

"We have." Bastien stopped the nurse.

He and an Interpol agent patted him down and checked the IV bag of morphine he held.

They stepped back and allowed him to tend to Riley.

Liam watched him replace the bag that had been on a slow drip.

"Can she have more?" He asked as she cried out again.

"Yes sir." He showed Liam the button he could push if she needed more, reassuring him that it wouldn't administer any past the dosage she could have. He increased the flow and left.

Riley's eyes barely opened. "Liam?"

He went back to her bedside. "I'm here, my love."

"My shoulder." She sucked in a painful breath. "What happened?"

"A man was in the crowd." Liam gently explained, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "He shot at you and Lancelin and--"

Her eyes widened. "Lancelin! Liam, he was bleeding so much!"

Bastien cleared his throat as he stepped forward. "He is in intensive care at another hospital, mam."

He pointed at the right side of his chest and mouthed lung to Liam.

Liam frowned some before turning back to Riley.

"Where's Eleanor?" Riley asked, turning her head. "Did you bring her?"

"No. Regina is watching over her at home." Liam eased down on the bed. "Do you need anything? Is there something I can do to make you more comfortable?"

"No." Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him. "Liam, if...if I had died...you...my baby..." She began to cry.

Unable to take her in his arms, Liam did his best to comfort her. He wiped her tears while speaking in a calming tone that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. That she was safe. That they would soon be home with Eleanor.

Riley tried to calm down but she shook her head. "We'll never be truly safe, will we?"

Liam paused in his assurances. He felt exhausted from the trials they continued to face. Should he now fear peace, knowing it would end horribly in some new threat?

Running a hand through his hair he spoke of what he did know. "No one is ever truly safe, my love. Even if we were locked away somewhere, accidents can happen. Sickness can strike. Bad things happen just as good ones do."

She sniffed and closed her eyes. "I know you're right," she opened her eyes and met his steady gaze. "I just wish we didn't keep having trouble."

"I do too." He cupped her cheek and softly kissed her. "All I need to know to make it through our trials is that you and Eleanor are taken care of." He struggled with swallowing. "I should have been there today to protect you."

She weakly raised her hand and caressed his cheek. "Then you might have been hurt or..." She couldn't finish that sentence. "I can't lose you, Liam."

He nodded, kissing her again. "I refuse to lose you." His words came out in a harsh whisper. "I will find who did this and will make certain they never do so again."

Riley rubbed her cheek against his hand and closed her eyes.

Liam relaxed once he saw her drift into a peaceful slumber.

"Sir?" Bastien motioned for him to step outside.

"What did you find?" Liam asked.

"The man was a hired gun from America." Bastien began. "But he was born in Auvernal."

Liam's eyes narrowed. "And who hired him?"

"King Bradshaw."

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

Cordonia, a week later...

Riley was rocking back and forth with Eleanor sleeping in the crook of her good arm. She heard voices outside the nursery door. Curious, but unable to hold her daughter properly, she remained where she was.

A few moments later, Liam slipped quietly inside and smiled at her.

"Is she down for the night?"

"She fell asleep long ago, but I wasn’t ready to let her go." Riley let him put Eleanor in her crib. "I missed her so much. I'm so thankful to be home with you both."

"Nowhere near as much as I am." Liam wrapped his arms around her waist.

"I heard voices earlier. Is everything alright?"

He nodded. "Everything is fine."

Riley chewed on her bottom lip. "You never told me what was found about the gunman."

"There wasn't much to discover." He told her.

"Was he just some crazy person or was he hired by someone?" Riley prodded.

Liam let her go and motioned for them to leave the nursery when Eleanor made a disgruntled, sleepy noise.

"I don't want you thinking anymore about this." Liam insisted. "We are taking care of eliminating the threat."

"Eliminating?" Riley's brow furrowed. "But that means he was hired--"

"I want you to rest."

His nearly cold evasiveness alarmed her.

"Liam," she reached for his hand. "Please talk to me. I can handle whatever you have found."

Remembering how upset she was in the hospital, he averted his eyes. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

Her lips parted to insist. She shut them when he escorted her to their chambers.

"Do you need anything?" He asked after helping her change.

"No." She murmured.

He covered her up and began to leave the room.

"Where are you going?" She sat up in surprise.

"I have somethings that require my attention in the study." He explained. "I'll be back in an hour or so."

She quietly watched him leave, feeling even more uneasy than before.

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

A little after three in the morning...

Riley awoke when she felt the bed dip down.

"Liam?"

"Forgive me, I didn't mean to wake you."

She checked the time. "Are you just now coming to bed?"

"Yes. It took longer than I planned." He stretched out beside her.

"What did?" She demanded, turning a lamp on.

She gasped when she noticed his bruised face and bloody knuckles.

"What happened? How did you--"

"It's nothing." He winced as he tried to get comfortable. "I'll be fine."

"Liam!" She snapped. "Talk to me." Her eyes narrowed. "Now."

"I took care of the one who tried to take you from me." He snapped back.

"So there was someone else involved?"

"Yes. And he will never have a chance to hurt anyone again." Liam declared.

Riley gently touched his face. "Liam, you didn't..."

"I wanted to." He admitted. "I was so close to beating Bradshaw to death." He closed his eyes at that memory. 

It would have been so easy. A few more strikes, a quick twist and the king that had caused Liam’s world to nearly crumble would have had his last breath.

 "I allowed Interpol to take him." He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. "Olivia found all the evidence we needed to make certain the only way he will ever leave prison is to attend his own funeral."

Riley blinked back tears.

She then punched Liam in the arm.

"Riley!" He sat up when he noticed her shaking with rage. "What--"

"How could you?!" She screamed. "How could you risk your life when you already had everything in place to arrest him?!"

"He tried to kill you!" Liam yelled back. "All because we caused him embarrassment." His eyes narrowed. "Did you think I would do nothing to the man who set out to take my wife from me? Take my daughter's mother?!"

"He wasn't worth you taking a chance on him having a weapon or one of his guards kill you! What would Eleanor and I do without you here?" Tears fell, nearly blinding her. "How could you risk our family?"

All of Liam's anger disappeared at hearing that she had his own fear. Gently pulling her close he silently held her as she cried. His own tears mingled with hers as he thought of a life without her.

The sun was beginning to rise as their tears came to an end. They still held to one another, speaking in low tones of their life together. An occasional hitch in one's words caused the other to try and comfort the one temporarily unable to speak.

As light crept through the drapes, the two remained upright, still clinging to the one they loved.

Riley lifted her head off his shoulder. "Eleanor will be awake soon."

"Yes, she will." Liam pressed a kiss to his wife's forehead. "You should rest. I'll take care of her."

"I'll help you." She hugged him close with her good arm. "I don't want to be apart from either of you today."

His arms tightened around her. Unable to say all that filled his heart, he simply nodded while muttering that he didn't either.

She pressed a tender kiss to his lips and smiled. "It's a new day, my love. A new day just for us."

[ijustkindalikebooks]

I can't believe we're now at the end of April.

How did that happen?

Anyway, I don't know why but most the books I really liked this past month are quite short reads and if you can make something this good in such a short amount of pages, I think that's a good sign from an author.

Here are my favourite books for April! Let me know what your favourite books were in the replies, I love to hear what you've been reading too!

The Agathas by Liz Lawson and Kathleen Glasgow - I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this book thanks to Netgalley and I'm so glad I did. A fantastic YA mystery that follows two girls as they try to figure how a girl was murdered who attended their school (and was friends with one of them!) it has incredible twists and turns with characters that you grow to care about and get mad at also a little bit. I loved reading this book and I hope you do too.

Galatea by Madeleine Miller - A short story from the writer of 'A Song Of Achilles' and 'Circe' I knew to expect great things, and what an incredible 32 pages this little book has. A twist on a greek myth, Galatea is a statue brought to life by an awful and these are the consequences of said man's actions. Made me furious, made me sad, made me think good for her, Galatea is a literary treat.

The Griffin Gate by Vashti Hardy - This book is about seventy pages along and a middle grade, but the adventure you go on in such a short amount of pages is incredible and I loved every minute of this book. The story of a young girl born into a family of rescuers, she gets caught up in her own when she trapped in a village where her family has been called for a rescue. A fantastic first book in a series, I can't wait to read more of these.

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie - I'm getting closer to the end of the Poirot books by Christie, and this is definitely one of my favourites from the thirty or so books I've read by her so far. Poirot returns to a closed case of the murder of Artist Amyas Crale who was supposedly killed by his wife Caroline, however she sends a letter to her daughter saying she didn't do it, is she lying or is she telling the truth? Honestly I felt absolutely deceived at the end of this book and I bloody loved it.

The Bear In The Stars by Alexis Snell - A picture book that is beautifully illustrated throughout, this story is a parable about the tragedies of climate change, but also a really bittersweet tale about a bear slowly losing his home and trying to find a new one. I was in tears over this book and it's for children, and I don't know what that says about my brain chemistry, but it is a beautiful book (and I also technically read this March but I didn't anticipate hoow good this book would be, smh).

Have you read any of these? Do you want to read any of these? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I hope your May is gonna be a good one.

Vee xo.

(Also please if you can donate, donate to the DEC Appeal for Ukraine here).

[shehzadi]

2; 10; 20 for the book ask :0

2. top 5 books of all time?

they tend to change pretty often i don’t have like a fixed list because i usually forget how much i really loved a book a few days after i read it until something reignites it! so, in no particular order:

— solaris, stanisław lem

— the poppy war, r.f. kuang,

— the long way to a small angry planet, becky chambers

— ninth house, leigh bardugo

— aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe, benjamin alire sàenz

10. do you have a guilty fav?

i don’t think so but classic lit folk and madeleine miller haters will kill me for not caring about how accurately greek classics have been adapted into modern re-tellings. what can i say, i have no pre-existing knowledge or particular interest in classics. i’ve read tsoa which i enjoyed but it wasn’t like life-changing or anything; i also have circe (by miller) and piranesi (not by miller) on my tbr!

20. what are things you look for in a book?

honestly all i look for in a book is that it’s not non-fiction (usually boring sorry) and that i enjoyed reading it. i read pretty much any genre but my favs are sci-fi and fantasy and always have been! i’ve been branching out more into sort of thrillers & supernatural/horror fiction as of late which i’m really enjoying and have a lot more i’m planning to read :) AND, finally, i do like it when books have found family dynamics in them (cue the endless trope discourse) but that’s not something i exclusively search for

book asks

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #17: Angelina Ballerina

It’s about time I started the second run of Kisekae Insights after taking a break for the past few months. My objective is to hopefully cover Gokaiger, Decade and Soulbound this year, but there are some things that I need to cover before that because they are needed in order to understand certain aspects.

Like Fifi and Roary, Angelina Ballerina was implemented early on in my personal project and the characters continue to play big roles to this day. At the time, I was playing Warriors Orochi 2 on the PSP, which introduced me to the characters of the Samurai Warriors series. As a result, some of these guys got Japanese warrior names whereas the rest got Chinese warrior names.

In case you haven’t noticed, yes, I have (predominately) used the CGI-animated sequel, The Next Steps, in this project. Watching the sequel was how I got into this series a decade ago; while I have heard about the original 2D-animated series, it never really appealed to me, which is why I prefer this version over that. And look, I know there are people who don’t like the sequel for various reasons, but you are free to have your opinion as long as you respect the opinions of others. Don’t worry, characters from the original series have been implemented as well.

Setting the record straight (voice actors)

I’m putting this list before the break because this is really important. Here are the characters’ voice actors for the UK and US versions of The Next Steps:

Angelina Mouseling: Charlotte Spencer (UK/US)

Alice Nimbletoes: Rachael Louise Miller (UK)/Naomi McDonald (US)

Marco Quesillo: Louis Williams (UK)/Jules de Jongh (US)

Gracie: Charlie Cameron (UK)/Jo Wyatt (US)

Viki/Vici: Emily Dormer (UK)/Jules de Jongh (US)

AJ/AZ: Lizzie Waterworth (UK)/Larissa Murray (US)

Ms Mimi: Larissa Murray (US)

Maurice Mouseling: Simon Mattacks (UK/US)

Matilda Mouseling: Emma Tate (UK/US)

Polly Mouseling: Leah Zabari (UK/US)

Mrs Thimble: Beverly Klein (UK/US)

Alright, time to rant about the English dubs of this series. See, because the characters of this series are not credited under their voice actors, it can be hard to exactly determine who voiced who (a pain I know all too well in regards to Sea Princesses). On top of that, because there are different English voices for the US and the UK (because they don’t want American kids to end up speaking with British accents or vice versa), it can be easy to miss things or mess them up. Some US voice actors are based in the UK, which can throw things off as well.

Just as there are UK-produced children’s shows that get redubbed for the US, there are US-produced children’s shows that get redubbed for the UK (particularly on Nick Jr). In Australia, we tend to get the “original” version of the dub depending on where the show (or its source materials) originated – if it originally came from the UK, then we get the UK dub, but if it originally came from the US, we get the US dub. In the case of Angelina Ballerina, we get the UK dub and as such, I implemented the series with the assumption that the characters would speak as they did in the UK dub. As such, Marco and Gracie don’t speak in Hispanic or French accents.

Due to my initial ignorance and lack of information, I ended up crediting the characters’ US voice actors for Marco, Gracie and Ms Mimi instead of their UK voice actors. Even worse, I thought Naomi Wilkinson voiced Angelina until a friend of mine tweeted her years ago and confirmed that she didn’t voice Angelina. Also, the really funny thing is that there are people who unironically believed that Hilary Duff and Justin Bieber voiced Viki and AZ in the series. If only we all knew this one simple rule: If an actor isn’t credited in the series/episode, then they didn’t have a role in the series/episode. I did manage to work out the UK voice actors for the other characters, but why Alice’s voice actor was different in both versions despite her voice sounding similar I’ll never understand.

For some reason, I have been unable to find out who Ms Mimi’s UK voice actor is because nobody in the credits has owned up to voicing her. However, if I really had to guess, I would say that Emma Tate voiced her because even though the Scottish accent threw me off, she sounds a bit like Matilda (Angelina’s mum). As for Marco and Gracie’s UK voice actors, Louis Williams and Charlie Cameron, trying to find resumes or records of their past work has been impossible so I wasn’t able to find any proof, but I eventually did. Louis William’s LinkedIn profile mentions that he voiced Marco (he’s an English teacher in Japan now, shock of all shocks) and while Charlie Cameron doesn’t have a site or official profile of her own (why), I managed to link her roles for Dark Souls and Poppy Cat on IMDb to BTVA.

In the Moushouden Series, I ended up “recasting” Marco and Ms Mimi while keeping Gracie’s voice actor the same. Marco and Ms Mimi played major roles in my stories and I needed credits for them. “Getting” Louis Williams to “reprise” his role would have been impossible because he’s not an actor anymore, though it wouldn’t have been a big problem if I had found out earlier that he voiced Marco. Likewise, if I had managed to guess Ms Mimi’s UK voice actor earlier, then maybe I wouldn’t have needed to keep scratching my head all these years.

What’s in a name?

There has been quite a bit of speculation regarding the characters’ middle and last names, and I say “speculation” because there don’t seem to be any official sources that confirm it or the only official sources available can’t be accessed from the Wayback Archive because Adobe Flash is dead. Though the names were on the Wikipedia page at some stage, the only place where they exist now is on a poorly-maintained wiki of the series on Fandom. It is possible that Angelina and Alice’s middle and last names can be backed up because they were in the original series, but even then, I’m unable to do that due to lack of information (seriously, even the official website redirects to Mattel’s website, the absolute sellouts). So please take these names with a grain of salt:

Angelina Jeanette Mouseling

Alice Bridgette Nimbletoes

Marco Fernando Quesillo

Grace Madeleine “Gracie” le Chateau

Viktoria Andrea “Viki” Whiskerson

Adrian Zander James “A.Z.” Smithers (even though an official PDF from PBS WNET13 states that A.Z. stands for “Adam Zachariah”)

Mimi Jane Squigglytail

Maurice Rupert Mouseling

Matilda Felicity Mouseling

Polly Anne Mouseling

Harriet Cecily Thimble

Other stuff before I begin

In late 2015, there was talk of Angelina Ballerina getting relaunched in 2017 by Mattel and 9 Story Media Group. By 2017, however, nothing really came of it, or at least nothing significant that we could see. 9 Story currently have the distribution rights to both the 2D and CGI series, clips and episodes have been uploaded on the official Angelina Ballerina YouTube channel (a mix of UK and US versions, with Brazilian Portuguese and Latin American Spanish dubs on other channels) and the original books created by Katharine Holabird have been republished in the past two years.

Not seeing anything in 2017 has allowed Angelina Ballerina’s involvement in my personal project to flourish, but only time will tell whether anything else will come of this so-called relaunch. This series would probably have gone down the path of Fabio Yabu and Sea Princesses if it wasn’t so well-known all around the world.

The 9 Story pages show that there are some specials for the series. While the 2D series does have three specials, I could only find two movies in the CGI series that are fully original stories and not just episode compilations, namely The Shining Star Trophy and Dreams Do Come True. They don’t seem to be available on YouTube and the only online versions I could find use the US voices, meaning that a UK dub of these movies is unknown.

If you follow Gail Chord Schuler/Gabrielle Chana/The Church of Gail online, you might know that there is a Satanic Jesuit villain named Angelina Ballerina, depicted as a woman modelling a ballerina costume with wings. Rest assured that she is NOT the Angelina we all know and love, as Gail confirms in the comments of one of her videos (though there is a chance that trolls could have fed her that information).

All About Angelina

As I stated in #12, Maurice and the Takeda Army of Mouseland were in conflict with the Salacians before the Dimensional Merge. Because the time in their world, AB-561, was running faster compared to other worlds, they ended up on our Earth in 2009. In both timelines, Angelina and her family and friends became Hiroki and Parker’s comrades. In the first timeline, Angelina had an adventure with the Third Doctor. The second timeline is where things get detailed.

Before the Archangel Tunnel System was activated, there was no other way to get to Chipping Cheddar from Hong Kong, so when the Takeda Army were brought to this world, they had to do what they could to survive. Eventually, they ended up being controlled by another local army and used as their mascots. When Parker went to them to seek an alliance, he discovered this and helped the Takeda Army escape, which led them to pledge their allegiance to Parker.

Over the next two years, Parker and Hiroki became great friends with the Takeda Army’s officers. In 2010, Ms Mimi became disillusioned with Parker when she realised that he only seemed to care about fighting and enjoying himself on the battlefield. When the JIMPS were formed, Ms Mimi began to side with them as she saw Minnie and the others as the better strategists, but she had a newfound respect for Parker when he made peace with Minnie following their battle against each other.

When Squid Girl turns Minnie against Parker, however, Ms Mimi sides with the former again and a split occurs within the Takeda. Ms Mimi became one of the Sanada Army’s commanders while Gracie, AJ and Viki surrendered to the Sanada. Angelina was the first officer Parker found after being separated from Hiroki. Her family was being guarded by Alice and Marco before Parker arrives with reinforcements from the Date Army.

Months after Parker’s death and resurrection, the Sanada Army finally fell. Ms Mimi and the Takeda defectors rejoin their former comrades; Ms Mimi finally admits that she was a fool who never really understood Parker because she believed in loyalty and discipline.

With Parker’s army disbanded and the Flowertots returning home, the Takeda became the only close friends Hiroki had left. They supported him in his fight against Girl Power and the Teiro Army, so much so that they were willing to accept him in their ranks if he decided to leave his secondary school army. Ultimately, Hiroki declined their offer and became a ronin.

The Next Step

The Takeda Army eventually managed to resettle in Mouseland which was transported to Shizuoka Prefecture between the Archangel Tunnels to the Shikoku region and Cardiff. The Takeda Army had no significant relevance in 2013, but Angelina and her family attended Hiroki and Akari’s wedding, which was held in Chipping Cheddar (Kikugawa).

In 2014, the Takeda Army rose back to significance again as a result of events in real life (see #16). Following the Battle of Mikatagahara and Akari’s betrayal of Hiroki, Angelina joined the Doctor (again) as his companion. Later that year, Maurice would attempt another expedition to Kyōto when Girl Power forces stationed around Nagashino Castle in Nagoya would block his army’s path. When the Doctor arrives with Hiroki and Angelina, Hiroki gathers up some reinforcements before the Takeda Army splits up into three groups; one group defending the main camp, one group laying siege to the castle and one group attacking Girl Power forces stationed in nearby Shitaragahara. Despite the Takeda suffering severe casualties at the hands of the superior Girl Power army, Hiroki charges into Nagashino Castle alone and fights the enemy commanders before leaving his drones to crash into the castle keep.

Soon after, Angelina would participate in prototype testing for the Superhero Project, becoming the Pink Samurai Ranger alongside the Doctor and his other companions as they fought Girl Power in a parallel world. Following that adventure, Angelina would be summoned back by her father upon hearing word that Girl Power were preparing for an all-out siege on Yokohama. The Takeda Army allied with their old enemies, the Salacian (Uesugi) Army as they fought at Sekigahara and Ōsaka Castle. After the world was destroyed and restored, the Takeda were one of the armies that helped UNIT defend Yokohama from Girl Power.

Though Angelina stopped being the Doctor’s companion after 2014, she would regain that role again in 2017 when she and Alice officially joined the Superhero Project. Angelina and Marco make a cameo appearance in the Series 10 premiere as a couple and that’s the only time their relationship is brought up (I think that ship was hinted at in the series but not explicitly shown).

Having been selected, Angelina and Alice joined the Gokaigers as GokaiPink and GokaiGreen respectively. Their fighting styles were adapted to fit with their characters and the original Gokaiger footage; on top of predominately wielding guns, GokaiPink incorporates ballet into her fighting while GokaiGreen clumsily incorporates gymnastics which she makes up for with stealth and trickery.

As for the rest of the mouselings, they were hired by BOARD to become Kamen Riders as follows:

Kamen Rider Blade – Marco

Kamen Rider Garren – AJ

Kamen Rider Leangle – Viki

Kamen Rider Glaive – Ms Mimi

Kamen Rider Larc – Gracie

Kamen Rider Lance – Polly

Although not as significant compared to Fifi and Roary, the mouselings do play a significant role in the project. As with many obscure series I’ve encountered, finding accurate information is a daunting task. Though I have managed to find information that I haven’t been able to find in the past, there are times where I am still unable to do so, which results in me having to speculate missing information (usually by observation) that may or may not be correct. This is not so much a problem in Angelina Ballerina compared to Sea Princesses, but regardless, it’s better to have every piece of information confirmed than have even one piece of speculated information.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Treat Your S(h)elf: The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

We’re going to survive - our songs, our stories. They’ll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We’ll be in their dreams - and in their worst nightmares too.

- Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls

“It’s always hard on women, when a city falls.” Briseis, former princess of the Trojan city of Lyrnessus, has been Achilles’s slave for several months when someone she knew in her old life says these words. From the ancient world to our modern world there is this ugly and unspoken line of rape as a weapon of war. History is replete with examples. In the 20th-century where Nazis raped Jewish women despite soldiers' concerns with "race defilement" and raped countless women in their path as they invaded the Soviet Union and then in Berlin 1945 Russians in turn went on a brutal raping spree to punish the Germans. In the bloody Balkan wars in the 1990s, Serbian forces tortured and summarily executed scores of Muslims and Croats. In the Iraq war and the many conflicts in Africa in the 21st Century, rape is systemically used to subdue a defeated enemy. History shows the ugly truth that women’s bodies have always been viewed as the spoils of conflicts waged primarily by men.

The issue of rape in war is something that has always sat uncomfortably with me ever since I did my stint as an army combat helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. From my high vantage point I felt a detachment from the electronic battlefield - for everything was viscerally seen from my helmeted eye patch visor lens and not the naked eye. I couldn’t look people in the eye as as soldier on for patrol would have. The fear and sweat is the same but the risk is different. Soldiers on patrol or on a mission risk the constant threat of ambush, sustained attack under mortar or fire fights as well as the ever present danger of being blown up by an IED by accident. Pilots risk being coming under attack too by being ambushed by RPG rocket fire or coming under fire from below. Worse, was to think if you got hit and you had to bail and you were all alone, survival and evasion from capture becomes fearfully paramount. Of course they train you for this until it hopefully becomes muscle memory in how to survive and take evasive action from being captured and resisting as long as you could under interrogation. But as a female pilot the unspoken fear that dare not speak its name was ever present: the fear of rape.

I’m not sure my brother officers - no matter how sincere and well intentioned they were because we were all fiercely protective of one another - really understood what the word ‘rape’ means for a woman. Indeed a male friend and ex-army colleague said to me in jest don’t ever kid a man about kicking him in the balls because it’s one thing every man can imagine feeling but would find it hard to explain the excruciating pain when a man does get his balls bashed in. I don’t think the two ‘experiences’ are the same obviously but I understand how hard it is to articulate what it might feel like. I never really allowed myself to be consumed by the fear of what might happen if I ever got shot down and was captured but instead I made sure to focus on my job. It never really became pressing issue for me throughout my time in on the battlefield. I was lucky I got out in one piece despite a few close scrapes along the way.

I did hear awful and terrible stories from my oldest brother who served in the Iraq War of the raping of Kurdish women by Iraqi forces. It sickened him and left him hollow the the things he witnessed first hand. Through the charitable work of ex-veterans I have come across refugee woman who shared their harrowing stories of how they were violently and systematically raped as war booty and as primal assertion of victor dominance and control.

I was thinking about all these things as I read Pat Barker’s novel about one of the most famous wars of all, telling the story of the siege of Troy from the point of view of the local Trojan women taken by the Greek forces. It’s The Iliad as seen through the eyes of 19-year-old Briseis, the Queen of Lyrnessus who’s taken as Achilles’s “bed-girl”, his “prize of honour” for mass slaughter.

Barker’s not the first to turn to the classics for inspiration. It’s popular practice these days. Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire and Michael Hughes’ Country, for example, transpose classical stories onto contemporary settings.  The Silence of the Girls is yet another much welcomed book to offer a fresh perspective on Homeric women, following Madeleine Miller’s brilliant Circe. But while Miller’s reinvention of literature’s first witch brilliantly evoked a world of ancient magic in retelling The Odyssey from the witch’s point of view, not that of the warrior she waylays on his journey home, Barker’s story has its feet very firmly on the ground. Yes, the gods are still there – you can’t tell the story of the Trojan wars without them, after all. The gods remain mostly off stage but they are present in the background, magically restoring the mutilated dead body of Hector. The sea goddess Thetis, Achilles’ mother, is a briny, frightening presence, as are the dark shore and the waves by which the whole horrible story takes place. Apollo still sends a plague, Achilles is the son of a sea goddess who brings him divinely forged armour and Hector’s body is magically restored to freshness after being pulled behind Achilles’s chariot.

But what really stands out are not heavenly allusions but the dirt and filth and disease and sheer brutal physicality of the Greek army marauding everything that stands in their way to Troy - there’s no magic here to ease the pain and trauma of rape or murder or even to help exact revenge. And while Achilles’ divine mother makes an appearance, and Apollo is beckoned by Briseis to bring about a plague, the gods remain on the peripheries of this story. If Circe, which chronicles the life of its titular character, is very much about the gods and their egos, then The Silence of the Girls, however, is very much about humans, their egos and their wars - both personal and political.

In all this Barker gives female characters such as Circe and Briseis the voice they’ve traditionally been denied, readers glean a different version of events behind the Trojan War epic myth. “Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles…How the epithets pile up,” Briseis begins. “We never called him any of those things; we called him ‘the butcher’.”

In The Iliad, a poem about the terrible destruction caused by male aggression, the bodies and pretty faces of women are the objects through which men struggle with each other for status. The women are not entirely silent, and goddesses always have plenty to say, but mortal women speak primarily to lament. They grieve for their dead sons, dead fathers, dead husbands and dead protectors; for the city of Troy, soon to fall, and for their own freedom, taken by the victors of war. Andromache pleads with her Trojan husband Hector not to leave her and their infant son to go back to fight Achilles. She has already endured the sack of her home city by Achilles, and seen the slaughter of her father and seven brothers, and the enslavement of her mother. If Hector dies, their child will be hurled from the city walls, Troy will fall and Andromache will be made the concubine of the son of her husband’s killer. Hector knows this, but he insists that his own need to avoid social humiliation as a battle-shirker trumps it all: “I would be ashamed before the Trojan men and women,” he says. He hopes only to be dead before he has to hear her screams.

Barker’s absorbing prose puts the experience of women like Andromache at the heart of the story: the women who survive in slavery when men destroy their cities and kill their fathers, brothers and children. The central character is Briseis, the woman awarded to Achilles, the greatest Greek fighter, after his army sacks one of the towns neighbouring Troy. Agamemnon, the most powerful, although not the bravest, of the Greek warriors – a character whose downright nastiness comes across beautifully in Barker’s telling – has lost his own most recent female acquisition and seizes Briseis from Achilles. Achilles’ vengeful rage against Agamemnon and his own comrades, and the subsequent vast death toll of the Greeks and Trojans, is the central theme of The Iliad.

Homer’s poem ends by foreshadowing the fall of Troy in the death of its greatest fighter, Hector. Barker’s novel begins with the fall of another town: Lyrnessus, Briseis’ home, destroyed by Achilles and his men. We then see that the fall of a city is the end of a story only for the male warriors: some leave triumphant and others lie there dead. For the women, it is the start of new horrors.

Barker’s subject has long been gender relations during conflict, along with the machinations of trauma and memory, so she’s in her element here. Her blood-drenched battle scenes are up there with the best of them, and she shows a keen understanding of the “never-ending cycle of hatred and revenge” fuelling the violence. Her focus, however, is that which takes place off the battlefield, inflicted on the women in the “rape camps.”

Barker keeps the main bones of the Homeric poem in place, supplementing Homer at the end of the story with Euripides. His heartbreaking play The Trojan Women is, like Barker’s novel, a version of the story that shifts our attention from the angry, destructive, quick-footed, short-lived boys to the raped, enslaved, widowed women, who watch their city burn and, if they are lucky, get a moment to bury their slaughtered children and grandchildren before they are taken far away.

One of Barker’s most tear-jerking sequences is lifted straight from Euripides: the teenage daughter of Priam and Hecuba is gagged and killed as a “sacrifice” on the dead Achilles’ tomb, and then Hecuba is presented with the tiny corpse of her dead grandson, a toddler with his skull cracked open. The girl’s gagged mouth and the child’s gaping brains conjure a gruesome twinned image for the silenced voices that should tell of the horror and pity suffered by the victims of war.

For most of Barker’s novel, Briseis is the first-person narrator, but in the final part, the narrative is intercut with third-person chapters told from the point of view of Achilles. We never get as close to Achilles as we do to Briseis, but he is a compelling figure in his fascinating combination of brutality and civility. Like Siegfried Sassoon in Barker’s 1991 novel Regeneration, this Achilles has the soul of a poet as well as of a killer and hunter: he is a man whose physical courage and compulsion to fight sit uneasily with his clear, articulate awareness of the futility of war.

But Achilles, however fascinating he may be, is not then at the centre of this story. Still, the novel does provide a moving, thought-provoking version of what is perhaps the most famous moment of The Iliad: when the old king Priam makes his way, alone and unarmed, through the enemy camp, to plead with Achilles to give back the mutilated body of his son, Hector. Barker twice quotes Priam’s Homeric words to Achilles: “I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son.” Barker lets us feel the pathos and pity of this moment, as well as the pathos of all the many young men who die violent deaths far from home. We glimpse, too, Achilles’ alienation from his own “terrible, man-killing hands”, which have caused so many deaths.

Briseis has a powerful riposte to Priam’s words, weighing this unique encounter between men against the myriad unremembered horrors suffered by women in war. “I do what countless women before me have been forced to do. I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers.”

Reduced to objects, they’re catalysts for conflict – Barker’s Helen inspires ribaldry not worship, “The eyes, the hair, the tits, the lips/ That launched a thousand battleships...” chant the soldiers – blamed for inciting hatred between men. Or they’re regarded as the victor’s spoils, claimed along with cattle and gold.

Briseis is both. Taken as a slave, Achilles and Agamemnon then feud over her: “It doesn’t belong to him; he hasn’t earnt it,” fumes the former. Men - Greek and Trojan alike – are afforded the privilege of vocalising their pain and loss, while women have to repress their suffering. “Silence becomes a woman,” they’re told, even when they’re free.

No longer an issue of decorum, now it’s about staying alive. “I do what no man before me has ever done, I kiss the hands of the man who killed my son,” declares Priam when he prostrates himself before Achilles begging for Hector’s body. “And I do what countless women before me have been forced to do, Briseis thinks bitterly, “I spread my legs for the man who killed my husband and my brothers.”

Barker has a very clear feminist message about the struggle for women to extricate themselves from male-dominated narratives. In the hands of a lesser writer, it could have felt preachy and woke but she masterfully avoids that. The attempt to provide Briseis with a happy ending is thin, and sometimes the female characters’ legitimate outrage seems a bit predictable, as when we hear Helen thinking: “I’m here. Me. A person, not just an object to be looked at and fought over.”

The novel has some annoying anachronisms, such as a “weekend market” (there were no weekends in antiquity), and a reference to “half a crown”, as if we were in the same period as Barker’s first world war novels. One wonders if any woman in archaic Greece, even a former queen, would have quite the self-assurance of Barker’s Briseis. But, of course, there is no way to be sure: no words from women in this period survive but Barker is surely right to paint them as thoughtful, diverse, rounded human beings, whose humanity hardly ever dawns on their captors, owners and husbands. This central historical insight feels entirely truthful.

Barker has a quasi-Homeric gift for similes: “that shining moment, when the din of battle fades and your body’s a rod connecting earth and sky”, or Achilles’ friend Patroclus dying, “thrashing like a fish in a pool that’s drying out”. There is a Homeric simplicity and drive in some of the sentences: “Blood, shit and brains – and there he is, the son of Peleus, half beast, half god, driving on to glory.” She is Homeric, too, in her attentiveness to what happens between people, and to the details of the physical world: the food, the wine, the clothes, the noise and the feel of skin, blood, bones, crackling wounds and screams. Barker, like Homer, understands grief and loss, and sees how alone people can be even when they are crying together. Loneliness in community is one of the major themes of this book, as it is of The Iliad.

Angry, thoughtful, sad, deeply humane and compulsively readable, The Silence of the Girls shows that Barker is a writer at the peak of her literary powers. You sense her only priority is to enlarge the story that we all know and she adds to it magnificently.

I have always enjoyed reading Pat Barker especially her enviable experience of writing about military life in her earlier novels and here in this book it shines through in the depiction of the Greek forces. The men are dehumanised by the wars they have created. This is primarily a book about what war does to women, but Barker examines what it does to men too. I was disturbed by the magnificently poignant final section which can’t help but make you reflect on the cultural underpinnings of male aggression, the women throughout history who have been told, by men, to forget their trauma. When Briseis is told to forget her past life, she immediately knows it is exactly what she must not, can not do: “So there was my duty laid out in front of me, as simple and clear as bowl of water: Remember.”

Briseis knows no one will want to record the reality of what went on during the war: “they won’t want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They won’t want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won’t want to know we were living in a rape camp. No, they’ll go for something altogether softer. A love story, perhaps?” But even so, Briseis, for all that she must bear, understands eventually that the women will leave behind a legacy, though not in the same vocal, violent way the men will.

“We’re going to survive,” she says, “our songs, our stories. They’ll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We’ll be in their dreams - and in their worst nightmares too.”

I felt disconcerted reading this and also very moved. As much as I love the Classics and firmly believe in it providing the foundational building blocks of our Western civilisation I also have to pause and remind myself that heroic behaviour, something the greatest of the Greeks are known for, isn’t anything admirable when viewed from the lens of the women they abuse. Heroism can be tainted by the dark side of one’s nature. However pure one soldier’s sacrifice for another can be, so there is the bestial side of us where the chains of civilised moral behaviour are unshackled and left to satiate our primal instinct for cruelty, conflict, and domination. Indeed what Barker does is be a much needed corrective because just as you think her perspective of the Greek heroes may be softening, she pulls back to remind you of Odysseus tossing Hector’s baby from the battlements, or Achilles’s casual butchery. “It’s the girls I remember most,” Briseis says. This then is a story about the very real cost of wars waged by men: “the brutal reality of conquest and slavery”.

In seeing a legend differently, Barker makes us rethink who gets to write history but also to remind us of our tainted human condition. There is no god in the machine to sort out most violent conflicts and situations with a thunderbolt here. There are only mortals, with all their flaws and ferocity and foolishness. And we all have to live with that but not I hope in silence.

[littlespoonevan]

they say you can tell a lot about a person by their favourite lyrics or their favourite quotes. what are yours? 💛

oh my god anon this might be my favourite question ever??????? sajkdhs how much time do you have lmao okay this won’t even come close to all my favourite quotes/lyrics but here’s an unfinished list:

“But, dear me, let us be elegant or die.” - Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

“I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long.” - The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson

“Must be the time of year for shooting stars. Looking for each other, like everything is.” - Days Without End, Sebastian Barry

“In the end, it is my belief, words are the only thing that can construct a world that makes sense.” - Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson

“There is no hard truth, only truth on a given day by a given person. It is people who are hard or soft.” - It’s Not Yet Dark, Simon Fitzmaurice

“He is half my soul, as the poets say.” - The Song of Achilles, Madeleine Miller

“I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.” - The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

“It’s a lot easier, she realised, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it.” - The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy who loves you.” - The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

“Hope was a dangerous, disquieting thing but he thought perhaps he liked it.” - The Foxhole Court, Nora Sakavic

“I suppose...she makes me quiet. Like Henrietta.” - The Raven King, Maggie Stiefvater

“Whatever souls are made of his and mine are the same.” - Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

“What will survive of us is love.” - “An Arundal Tomb”, Philip Larkin

“The end of art is peace.” - “The Harvest Bow”, Seamus Heaney

“It should be enough. To make something beautiful should be enough. It isn’t. It should be.” -  Landscape with a Blur of Conquerors, Richard Siken

“Oh must we dream our dreams and have them too?” - “Questions of Travel”, Elizabeth Bishop

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'.”- Alfred Lord Tennyson

“When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it.” - Caitlyn Siehl

“A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed: and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.” - “The Mermaid”, WB Yeats

“There is no answer. But Eleanor is the answer.” - Chidi Anagonye, The Good Place

“People aren’t thinking about you the way you’re thinking about you.” - Alexis Rose, Schitt’s Creek

“I'd be the last shred of truth In the lost myth of true love

[...] Before he feels alone One final time And marries the sea Imagine being loved by me” - Talk, Hozier

“But you’re not what you thought you were,” - Liability (Reprise), Lorde

“Catch us in the mirror and it looks a lot like love Then you stop me talking as you kiss me from above” - Another Place, Bastille

“What a feeling to be right here beside you now Holding you in my arms When the air ran out and we both started running wild The sky fell down But you've got stars, they're in your eyes And I've got something missing tonight What a feeling to be a king beside you, somehow I wish I could be there now” - What a Feeling, One Direction

“Everybody's looking for love to start a riot But every time I look in your eyes The world gets quiet” - Silence, Before You Exit

“I can see you starin', honey Like he's just your understudy Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me” - Exile, Taylor Swift & Bon Iver

“How the faces of love have changed turning The pages And I have changed oh, but you, you remain Ageless” - Crystal, Stevie Nicks

“Her fight and fury is fiery Oh but she loves Like sleep to the freezing” - Cherry Wine, Hozier

“And if I ever see you again my love All I m ever gonna do is send shivers down That spine of yours” - Lover, Where Do You Live?, highasakite

“Would it really kill you if we kissed?” - Drive, Halsey

“Some love was made for the lights Some kiss your cheek and goodnight” - Slow It Down, The Lumineers

“This morning, with her, drinking coffee” – Johnny Cash about June Carter when asked his description of paradise.

“There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.” - Leonard Cohen,

[jasonfry]

With baseball quickly approaching (for who knows how long), time for a pandemic installment of Classic Movies Everyone’s Seen But Me!

Summertime (1955) 

David Lean works small (for him) in terms of both running time and vistas. He does a wonderful job with Venice, making the city practically a character in its own right -- and as someone who knows Venice well and loves it, I only caught Lean cheating on the geography a couple of times.

The real star isn’t the setting but Katherine Hepburn. Hepburn plays Jane Hudson, a middle-aged secretary from Akron, Ohio, who claims to have given up on romance. She hasn’t, of course, but it appears as if romance has given up on her -- Jane is a third wheel for the movie’s other couples and feels left out of even men on the make’s appraisals, spending the early part of the movie bonding with a street kid and the widow who runs her pensione. I’d write that it’s the kind of part that wasn’t written for actresses in the 1950s, but it’s the kind of part that isn’t written for actresses today. Hepburn inhabits the character beautifully, letting you see Jane’s hesitation and heartbreak in piercing scenes that sometimes rely entirely on body language, and Lean gives her the space to work, even when it’s an uncomfortable experience. A near-flawless performance.

The love story feels a little slight at first, but the ambiguity about what you should feel is intriguing. (Apparently this was even more the case in The Time of the Cuckoo, the play upon which Summertime was based.) Extra points for the Code-evading shot that tells us two characters have consummated their relationship. It’s only slightly subtler than the famous conclusion of North by Northwest.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Claude Rains has a marvelous time as the title character, an unruffled bureaucrat in charge of the afterlife who has to fix the case of a boxer taken up to Heaven a bit too soon. (The film was remade in the 70s with Warren Beatty and called Heaven Can Wait, the name used in its first incarnation as a play.) Rains is terrific, but the rest of the movie is pretty forgettable: Robert Montgomery is genial but not particularly memorable as prizefighter Joe Pendleton, and the plot logic breaks down completely in the endgame. 

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Another Rains vehicle, in he stars as the evil Prince John, scheming brother of Richard the Lionhearted and foe of Robin Hood, played (of course) by Errol Flynn. Rains somehow retains his dignity despite a horrific wig and some astonishing costumes -- there’s one black and silver getup whose shoes have to be seen to be believed.

But all the characters are wearing ridiculous things all the time, shown off via the movie’s thoroughly saturated palette. There are men-at-arms in purple and pink motley, the merry men’s green tights, Flynn’s honest-to-goodness bedazzled emerald top, a lady-in-waiting’s Fancy Shriner fez, and we haven’t even discussed the get-ups Olivia de Havilland sports. The costume designer whizzes past All Too Much before the first reel’s over and just keeps going. And the dialogue keeps up with the costumes. Robin Hood may be the campiest movie I’ve ever seen -- it makes The Birdcage look like Shoah. 

Flynn is capable with a sword and performs his stunts with swashes properly buckling, but man oh man could he not act. He has two basic expressions: fighting and making merry, and looks a little lost when the story requires him to investigate whether a situation requires choosing between the two.

Fortunately that doesn’t happen too often, and you’ll have fun anyway. This is the template for about a billion adventure stories made since then, and it’s entertaining even when you’re not elbowing the other person on the couch to point out what was waiting in Claude Rains’s dressing room this time. Think of it as a live-action cartoon and enjoy the ride.   

Love in the Afternoon (1957)

Audrey Hepburn is the innocent, cello-playing daughter of a Paris private investigator (Maurice Chevalier) who interferes with her father’s work by preventing an American playboy (Gary Cooper) from getting shot by a jealous husband, then pretends to outdo the playboy at his own no-consequences game.

The story is light and amusing, with Chevalier ably serving as the fulcrum who helps it turn into something poignant and more interesting at the end. (The voiceover as coda, by the way, was added for Code reasons.) And Billy Wilder (co-writing and directing) guides the ship with a light, skilled hand -- the scenes between Cooper’s Frank Flanagan and his hired band are particularly fun.

There’s a fatal flaw, though: While Hepburn has never been more luminous, Cooper is too old to be the leading man. Wilder knew this, using soft focus and dim lighting in an effort to be kind that just calls attention to the movie’s fatal flaw. Moreover, Flanagan’s neither particularly interesting nor pleasant, so you never believe Hepburn’s Ariane would actually be interested in him. (He’s rich, granted, but she doesn’t seem to care about that.)

Directors kept doing this to Audrey Hepburn in the 1950s: Three years earlier, Wilder stuck her with a half-rotted Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina; in 1957 she also had to put up with a mummified Fred Astaire in Funny Face. Beyond the fact that it’s creepy, it doesn’t work for those stories. 

I’m going to look on the bright side: Hepburn deserves even more adulation than she gets, since she rises above her AARP romantic leads to carry all three pictures.

The 39 Steps (1935)

A clever early Hitchcock I found intriguing because you can see the visible language of film evolving before your eyes. Some scenes look utterly modern, with intriguing camera angles and blocking, but they’re right next to oddly static compositions, or scenes filled with cuts that cross the line for no apparent reason. But there’s also a justifiably famous transition shot from a cleaning woman’s horrified discovery to a train whistle, a tricky perspective change from inside a car, and some other nice surprises.

The movie is a prototype Hitchcock thriller, with a plot that carries you along provided you don’t ask too many questions. (Or any questions, really.) But the movie hits its stride surprisingly late, coming into focus once Robert Donat’s Richard Hannay winds up manacled to Madeleine Carroll’s Pamela. Hang around that long and you’ll be well entertained.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

This one made my list because it was an inspiration for Solo, a Star Wars spinoff movie I think deserved a better reception and suspect will be viewed more fondly in time. Yep, that’s Warren Beatty’s fur coat that Alden Ehrenreich wears, and the bar Beatty visits in the town of Presbyterian Church is a dead ringer for the one where Han and Lando Calrissian meet over cards.

So that was fun. As for the rest, after my usual post-movie reading, I get what Robert Altman was going for. This is an anti-Western that relentlessly inverts the genre’s tropes, with the climactic gunfight happening not in the center of town before all eyes, but scarcely noticed as the townspeople rush to put out a fire.

But I found that more interesting to read about than to watch. I was never invested in Beatty’s McCabe or Julie Christie’s Mrs. Miller, finding them less memorable than a young visitor who runs afoul of trouble (Keith Carradine) or the lead bounty hunter sent after McCabe (Hugh Millais, exuding genial menace).

Still, the movie has a powerful sense of place, I keep finding myself thinking about it, and lots of people whose opinions I respect consider it a classic. So perhaps I’ll revisit this one someday. But for now, my conclusion is that I’m missing whatever gene you need to appreciate chilly, airless Hollywood art-house movies of the 1970s -- a movement, ironically, that screeched to a halt when Jaws and Star Wars introduced the era of the summer blockbuster.

[moonb-eam]

Hi! I just started reading your fics. You're such an amazing writing. Do you have any writing advice? Also what books/movies/TV shows have influenced your writing?

ahh hello darling!! 🧡🧡🧡 these are such lovely questions thank you so much!! 

okay, so i answered a fanfic ask about writing advice here a little while ago, but i’ll reiterate a few points, and add some new ones!!

i do want to say that these tips are just my opinion, and writing, like any other form of art, is so specific in process to each individual writer that what works for me definitely won’t work for everyone 🧡

(these are going to be very general and conceptual, but if you’d like some more technical “craft” advice then please let me know!!)

1. i’m going to keep repeating this until i die - the most important thing is to write, as basic as that sounds! i know some people who write every single day - i don’t, i find that exhausting - but i do try to write as often as i can, even if it’s something i observe on the bus to work that i write down on my phone, or it’s a single line for an opening of a new story. for me personally, i find it important to keep that part of my brain exercised, which is actually why i started writing fan fiction in the first place - so i could make deadlines for myself and keep writing in the midst of a terribly depressing job search, so i don’t lose that part of myself.

2. now, that being said, there are some days where writing just straight up doesn’t work. i sit down at my laptop and i have no words inside of myself, and it’s so frustrating when that happens, especially when you only have certain times of the day/week/month dedicated to writing. when that happens, i don’t force it. i have a friend in edinburgh who bakes every time he’s frustrated with a story - he says it always helps him to methodically create something and see it come to fruition, so he doesn’t feel so mentally stuck whenever he returns to his story. i have another friend who draws whenever she hits a writing snag. for myself, i like to go for runs whenever that happens  - it helps me clear my head and sometimes, gives me new ideas. writing is something that doesn’t just happen at the computer or the notebook. it’s happening constantly, with the media you consume, the interactions you observe, the new words you learn, the  fragments of ideas that pass through your mind. so yes, the actual writing of the words is critical, but so are all the other parts, and above all, it’s so important to take care of your mental state before anything else.

3. it’s also important to read a lot!!! there is no better inspiration that consuming the work of authors you really love and admire! i pretty well always have a book on me, and in the rare moments that i don’t, you know i’ve got ao3 loaded on my phone

4. rules and conventions exist for a few reasons, and one of those reasons is so they can be broken. so often young writers are told time and time again to find their “voice” or their distinct writing style, and what can happen is they feel pressured into boxing themselves up so early in their career - for example, in my master’s program, i wrote mostly science fiction, and was essentially labelled “science fiction girl” - that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because i love sci-fi, but i felt like i could never step outside of that box, because the people in my workshop would say, “this doesn’t feel like you” - but i didn’t even know who i was as a writer at that point, and honestly i still don’t - writing fan fiction has actually been really good for me to experiment with my prose and see how readers react to it. what i’m saying is, try something new, try whatever interests you, whatever you think may be cool, and if it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t, but don’t let yourself be swayed by what you think people may want to see from you. does that make sense? always remember that you’re writing for yourself before anyone else

5. the “don’t be afraid to write badly” advice is overused, but that’s because it’s important. i have a bad habit of self-editing as a write, which means writing a first draft can take me ages. sometimes, the best thing you can do is try to let go, and just let yourself put the words down without overanalyzing them. i described it in a group chat as “no thoughts, only words” asdfjkdf - when i first started in my workshop in edinburgh, i was terrified to write anything that wasn’t perfect, as though i would be judged for it. but the best thing you can do, is to show unfinished, imperfect work to people you trust. it is inherently embarrassing to share your writing, to let people see the inside of your heart, more or less, but it is the best way to improve - to get feedback, and to take it into consideration for your own work. not all feedback is good feedback, but all of it should be listened to! (conversely, if you’re ever asked for feedback, it’s so important to learn the distinction between being critical and being constructive)

6. this is getting quite long 😬 so i think i’ll do just one more - in the midst of practicing writing, receiving feedback, drafting and editing, i think it’s important to remember that, on a base level, what we do is tell stories, and that’s something that is really special. the act of writing isn’t always fun. editing certainly isn’t always fun, but telling stories is. finding new ways to look at the world is. discovering something new about a character is. what i mean to say is, get excited about your own work. get excited by your own ideas. those moments of excitement, for me, always help to carry me through some of the rougher bits

and now for a bit of inspiration!!

there are a lot of writers whose work i really admire - i would never say i’m as good as them asdfjk but i think they all have influenced me in one way or another

for novelists, i’m really inspired by madeleine miller, erin morgenstern, cherie dimaline, maggie stiefvater, leigh bardugo, ursula leguin, kurt vonnegut, mary shelley, shirley jackson, thomas king and kazuo ishiguro 

then there are some writers who do short stories and more experimental work, who have influenced me more in the last year or so: helen mcclory (i highly recommend everyone check out her work!!), shane jones (specifically the short novel light boxes), leanne shapton, and susannah m. smith (specifically the fairy tale museum)

and poets!! anne carson, richard siken, pablo neruda, amanda lovelace, i know there are more i’m forgetting....damn it

then there are a few illustrators/comic artists whose work really inspires me, such as tom gauld, emily carroll, tove jansson (moomins!!) and again i just know there are more i can’t think of!!! 😫

okay, okay lastly film and tv: i love any work by guillermo del toro, jane campion, alfred hitchcock, hayao miyazaki (so i LOVE your icon!!) and joe wright (except the peter pan film...we don’t talk about that...) i also think phoebe waller-bridge and dan levy are such stellar tv writers and i am very, very jealous of them - and OF COURSE skam, and all its iterations 🧡

(and if you browse through my “fic rec” tag on here, everything on there is from incredibly talented writers!!)

alright this got very long, I'm sorry about that!! but i hope there’s something in here that speaks to you in some way ✨ best of luck to you in your writing, and please drop by my inbox anytime if you’d like to talk more about it!! 😚

[kimberblog]

Het jaar 2019

De recepten voor kerst zijn klaar en de schoonfamilie landt binnenkort op Nederlandse bodem. Tijd voor tradities, waaronder het invullen van het overzichtslijstje. Net als in  2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 en 2018.

1: What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before?

Ik ging bij een naaiclubje. Ik ben (iets) politiek actiever geworden. Ik ben op bezoek geweest bij mijn oude middelbare school. Ik mocht in het stadsarchief Amsterdam een presentatie geven over vrouwenkiesrecht.

2: Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Absoluut niet: een nieuw ritme vond ik wel, maar dit is nog niet het gezonde ritme dat ik wilde hebben. Ik heb wel veel geklust, maar totaal geen opgeruimder leven. Alhoewel, nu ik er zo over nadenk heb ik misschien wel opgeruimder qua spullen geleefd, maar niet qua hoofd.

Voor volgend jaar: Rust, reinheid, regelmaat. Meer vakanties en momenten van reflectie inbouwen voor mezelf.

3: Did anyone close to you give birth?

Ja, een vriendin (meisje). Verder nog eentje zwanger die a.s. zomer bevalt.  

4: Did anyone close to you die?

Nee.

5: What countries did you visit?

Curacao, Duitsland, Frankrijk, Italië en Polen.

6: What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?

Rustmomenten voor mezelf zonder dat ik me er schuldig over voel. (hahaha ik hoefde deze zin niet te wijzigen!)

7: What dates from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory?

14 maart: presentatie vrouwenkiesrecht in het stadsarchief Amsterdam

20 en 21 juli: groot verjaardagsweekendfeest.

15 oktober: een vast contract bij de gemeente Haarlem!

8: What was your biggest achievement of the year?

2 Nota’s schrijven over onderwijskansen voor 2 hele verschillende gemeenten, terwijl ik me ondertussen nog aan het inwerken was bij beide gemeenten.

9: What was your biggest failure?

Ik kan nu een heel verhaal ophouden over hoe ik had gepland dat één van die nota’s in juni zou worden goedgekeurd, en dat dat niet doorging, en hoe ik daar van baalde. Maar in feite lag dat buiten mijn eigen invloed. Het enige waar ik in faalde was dat ik dat bij tijd en wijlen niet kon verkroppen en me persoonlijk aantrok. Dat ik niet zo goed om kon gaan met tegenslag omdat er veel te veel hooi op mijn vork lag.

Een ander voorbeeld daarvan was het regelen van een vrijgezellenfeest en balen van het feit dat het regende en ik (en anderen!) achteraf sommige dingen niet goed hadden doorgedacht.

10: Did you suffer illness or injury?

Ik ben afgelopen zomer meerdere keren ziek geweest van een oorontsteking. Na lang zoeken waar de oorzaak lag, bleek het door tandenknarsen te komen. En dat kwam natuurlijk weer door de grootste silent killer… Stress. We kunnen geloof ik wel concluderen dat ik daar behoorlijk ziek van ben geweest, met burn-out achtige klachten en af en toe een huilbuitje.

Afgelopen week nog gevallen met de nieuwe fiets.. Aangezien ik dat vorig jaar ook op deze plek tikte, denk ik niet meer dat dat heel bijzonder is.

11: What was the best thing you bought?

Oei, zoveel keus! Voor een jaar waarin ik probeerde "groener" te leven, is er verrassend veel aangeschaft en niet allemaal even groen.. Het begon met de keukenmachine, waardoor we de rest van het jaar alleen nog maar eigen brood hebben gebakken. De droger deze zomer leverde heel veel extra vrije tijd en ruimte op, net als de robotstofzuiger die recent is aangeschaft. Verder nog een ladder voor het snoeien van de appelboom, en een racefiets voor naar het werk. Ja, die ene waar ik dus net hierboven van vertel dat ik ben gevallen.

12: Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Mijn man, die duidelijk meer geduld heeft dan ik.

13: Whose behaviour made you appalled?

Een collega en een partner uit de stad die veel te laat met op- en aanmerkingen kwamen, waardoor één van de nota's bleef hangen.

14: Where did most of your money go?

In het huis! Na een jaar officieel huiseigenaren te zijn, blijkt dat we het financieel allemaal goed redden en zelfs extra konden aflossen. Daar ben ik best trots op. 

15: What did you get really, really, really excited about?

De robotstofzuiger. Drie huwelijksfeestjes deze zomer en het vrijgezellenfeest van eentje ervan organiseren. De vakantie naar Rome. Nieuwe muziek van Coldplay en Taylor Swift. De bizarre hoeveelheid appels uit de boom. De spontane acties in de keuken die een positief resultaat hadden, zoals het maken van druivensap.

16: What song will always remind you of 2019?

"Lover" van Taylor Swift. Eigenlijk het hele album.  

17: Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter?  c.) richer or poorer?

a.       Sadder

b.       Fatter

c.       Richer

18: What do you wish you’d done more of?

Tijd voor mezelf nemen zonder me schuldig te voelen, zodat ik niet me steeds zo "op" voelde.Veranderingen aanbrengen in routines.

19: What do you wish you’d done less of?

Ongezond eten als het niet hoeft. Overwerken voor klusjes die niet functioneel zijn.

20: How did you spend Christmas?

Ik ben dit jaar vroeg met het invullen van deze lijst, dus Kerst ligt nog in het verschiet. Op 6 december was het kerstdiner van de club8 2010. waar we hebben gegourmet.

Morgen (20 dec) komen mijn schoonouders vanuit Curacao en blijven een week bij ons slapen. Eerste kerstdag gaan we naar mijn ouders en tweede kerstdag eten m'n schoonouders, schoonbroer en -zus en oom hier kerst.

21: Did you fall in love in 2019?

Was ik natuurlijk al. Verliefd ben ik wel geworden op een paar goede muzieknummers. En op de appelbloesem in onze tuin.

22: What was your favourite TV program?

Vroege Vogels, Heel Holland Bakt, Good Omens, Zondag met Lubach, Het geheime dagboek van Hendrik Groen. 

23: Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Ik sta er inmiddels een beetje versteld van hoe grof iedereen met elkaar omgaat op wereldniveau. Dus probeer ik zelf iets minder te haten, maar dat is nog best lastig als haten om het haten bijna normaal wordt.

24: What was the best book you read?

Ik heb dankzij de e-reader zoveel boeken gelezen dit jaar! 41 boeken and still counting! Een kleine greep die me bij zullen blijven: Met Circe, van Madeleine Miller, verbaasde ik me weer hoe mooi de Griekse Mythen waren. Born a crime van Trevor Noah deden me beseffen hoe erg het racisme was in de apartheidsperiode in Zuid-Afrika. Gratis Geld voor iedereen van Rutger Bregman gaf stof tot nadenken en alle boeken van Holly Bourne waren de perfecte combi tussen feminisme en chick-flick. Maar het tofste boek dat echt bijna een obsessie werd qua fanfiction zoeken toen het uit was, was "Red, White and Royal Blue".

25: What was your greatest musical discovery?

Geen echte ontdekking, maar zoals gezegd kwam Taylor Swift met een nieuw album dat ik na een maand uit het hart kende.

26: What did you want and get?

Ons huis is een thuis geworden. Niet alleen door de aanschaf van nieuwe dingen, maar ook door de tijd die we erin steken. Dat hebben we gevierd toen we dertig werden met een groot tuinfeest met vrienden en familie. Verder een hele leuke familievakantie naar Curacao.

27: What did you want and not get?

Geduld. Ik had van te voren te hoge verwachten over hoe snel je op een nieuwe werkplek went en liep mezelf daardoor voorbij. Ook mag het leven wel wat avontuurlijker. Maar misschien is dat het ongeduld dat spreekt.

28: What was your favourite film of this year?

Zoals altijd kan ik niet kiezen. Goede films waren in ieder geval Booksmart, Vice, The long Shot en On the basis of Sex. Verder ook best genoten van Frozen 2.  

29: What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Een uitje met de club 8,het spontane samenzijn met familie of vrienden. O ja, en dat ik tijd (en geld) durfde uit te geven aan hulp voor 1 van mijn hobbies, nl kleding naaien.

30: How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019?

Ik wil het zelf kunnen maken, waardoor ik beter weet wat me staat en niet. Maar ik wil ook zo lang mogelijk in bed liggen smorgens, dus als ik me kan opmaken in de bus naar werk is dat een pluspunt.

31: What kept you sane?

Weinig. Als ik probeerde een schema te volgen werd het ietwat obsessief.

32: Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Kristen Bell, Taylor Swift.

33: What political issue stirred you the most?

Global warming. En via Rutger Bregman het minimum inkomen.

34: Who did you miss?

Een aantal vrienden die wat verder van ons af kwamen te staan.

35: Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019.

Je zal vaak in dezelfde valkuilen vallen, zoals overwerken. Dat is niet altijd onvermijdelijk. Eruit op krabbelen gata hopelijk wel steeds sneller.  

36: Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I’m so sick of running as fast as I can.