#char

[dreamgrlarchive]

Got anymore favourite quotes from bgc?

“because we didn’t want to, we changed our mind!”

“a broken nail is very tacky.”

- tiara

“i just like to do ME, and if you like to do ME, then hop on this bandwagon because we’re doing ME!”

“either stand beside me or behind me, NO ONE is in front of me!”

- char

“i got more expensive shit to worry about!”

- shannade

“hate on it!”

- janelle

“everyone hated me because i was just so cute and little!”

- sarah

“i did not apologize because im a punk ass btch! i apologized because im a REAL ASS btch!”

“i’m never fcking wrong, i wish mfs would learn how to listen!”

-paula

“i just came so i could be the cutest and everybody can be mad.”

-loren

“i don’t tell you what i’m gonna do, i do it when i wanna do it.”

- camilla

[wordsandrobots]

This is not in response to anybody in particular but I’m going to be grumpy and pedantic for a moment (I’m in a mood this week, sorry).

Throughout the Gundam franchise, far more major stories end on ‘hopeful’ terms than do not. This is entirely reasonable because hopeful endings are oftentimes more broadly appealing and therefore more saleable. Working shown below, but my point is that liking the qualities in a particular ending is distinct from categorising it. Whether something executes a ‘hopeful ending’ with technical competence or to your liking are important questions, but the truth is, few Gundam shows are totally bleak. A lot of them would probably hit harder if they were, but that isn’t the kind of product they are. I don’t even say that as a value judgement; it’s simply a consequence of what they are and the many, occasionally competing influences upon them.

I suspect this is one of those places where the franchise’s reputation is clashing with the reality, which is why I felt it necessary to write this out. Similar to earlier comments regarding the body-counts in various series, from what I can gather, the . . . let’s say, utter grim and bloodiness is largely restricted to particular iterations (Zeta, Pocket etc.). Again, that’s not me saying ‘that’s bad’ (or even ‘that’s good’). It’s simply a facet of the general tone of the thing.

This isn’t Blake’s 7 or, I dunno, some more culturally up-to-date reference to something that ends horribly my brain is too frazzled to produce. Gundam is more often ‘hope emerging from adversity’ than it is not.

SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT. AS IN, END-OF-THE-SHOW SPOILERS.

I’ve cludged a couple of the movies together with the series where I think it’s funnier to give the filmic endings, but the endings of those particular series don’t go against the trend. Some of the ones I don’t list are more ‘neutral good’ endings than actively hopeful, too, so it’s not like everything not here is automatically hopeless. (Gosh, it’s handy having all these typed up in list form already; usual caveat that I haven’t watched Victory.)

(Also, the IBO part features me going off on one because of course it does. Again, sorry.)

Mobile Suit Gundam (1979): the crew of the White Base reunites as the war finally comes to a close; it is both a happy ending and one that points towards their capacity to be/become newtypes.

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (1986): Judau and co head into new lives with (some) maturity and responsibilities. Even prior to that, it takes the route of a triumphant recapitulation of Zeta’s explicitly harsh ending.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988): Char’s cynicism is disproved, the rock is moved, the sky literally lights up with the power of the human heart.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994): the power of love defeats the Devil. In space!

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing/Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz (1995/1997): peace is restored, the weapons are discarded, Heero finally gets to rest.

After War Gundam X (1996): the entire philosophical underpinning of the UC timeline is ejected in favour of working together to restore the Earth.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1996): star-crossed lovers ditch the war entirely to live together off the grid.

Turn A Gundam (1999): a new understanding between the Moon and Earth is made possible; Loren and Diana settle down into queerplatonic domesticity.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002): The war is ended, the mega weapons are busted, Kira and Athrun part on speaking terms.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Destiny (2004): Ditto.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00/Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer (2007/2010): Setsuna (the world’s least people person) becomes a vector for understanding between species; humanity journeys to the stars.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Unicorn (2010): A broadly positive resolution despite the losses; Amuro, Lallah and Char fly off into eternity together because . . . sure.

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE (2011): The Earth and Mars make peace and work towards recovery, the family is reunited, and Flit is remembered as a unifier.

Gundam Reconguista in G (2014): Bellri ditches his responsibilities for a world tour, also everything else finally calms down a bit.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (2015): For goodness sake, this series ends hopefully. You can problematise the heck out of some of the things we’re shown but if you don’t see the survivors of Tekkadan getting to grow up and (by and large) live peaceful lives as a hopeful ending, I genuinely question your understanding of the term. Hope gained at cost is still hope, hope tinted with bittersweetness is still hope, hope alongside tragedy is still hope.

Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative (2018): Most everyone dies but even so. There are still things to live for and both living and dead find peace.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway (2021): Mafty gets away with it by the skin of their teeth; yes I am aware where the rest of the story goes but this film ends unquestionably upbeat.

Mobile Suit Gundam the Witch from Mercury (2022): Not actually an outlier on this particular score.

[queersrus]

Fire Emblem theme

a name list from fire emblem Three Houses specifically! including dlc characters.

made for a friend!

ash, ashe, ashen an, ann, anna, annette, al, alo, aloi, alois, ael, aelf, aelfri, aelfric, aby, abys, abyss, abysskeep, abysskeeper, ar, aru, arun, arund, arunde, arundel, ad, adra, adras, adrast, adrasti, adrastia, adrastian, ach, ache, acher, achero, acheron, ans, anse, ansel, anselm, anselma, aub, aubi, aubin,

by, byl, byle, byleth, ber, bern, berna, bernad, bernadette, bernadetta, bal, balthus, blake, black, bar, baro, baron, be, bee, bea, beast, bi, bia, bias, berna, bernha, bernhard, bly, blyd, blydd, blyde, blyddyd, blai, blaid, blaide, blade, blaidd, blaidde, blaiddy, blaiddyd, bladed,

caspar, casper, cas, cass, clawd, claud, claude, cath, cathe, cather, catheri, catherin, catherine, cy, cyr, cyri, cyril, cyrill, con, cons, const, constan, constance, constanz, constanza, cor, corn, corne, cornel, corneli, cornelia, chi, chil, chilo, chilon, chav, chave, chavel, chaveli, chavelie, chavelier, chava, chaval, chavalie, chavalier, cheva, chev, cheval, chevali, chevalie, chevalier, char, charo, charon, chri, chris, christ, christo, christoph, chrisophe, christopho, christophon, christophone, cou, coun, count, claudi, claudie, claudia, ceth, cethl, cethle, cethlea, cethlean, cethleen, cethleann, ci, cic, cice, cich, cicho, cichol,

deer, dear, doro, dorothy, dorathy, dorothee, dorothea, dim, dimi, dimitry, dimitri, dedue, duk, duke, dom, domi, domin, domini, dominic, dominik, dominique, dea, dae, dee, death, daph, daphn, daphne, daphnel, der, deri, derik, derek, derick, derrick

eagle, edel, edelgard, em, emp, empo, empor, empe, emper, empero, emperor, er, erwi, erwin, ed, edd, edmun, edmund,

fer, ferd, ferdi, ferdinand, feli, felix, flay, flayn, fle, flech, fleche, fae, faer, faergh, faerghus, fla, flame, fo, fod, fodl, fodle, fodla, fodlan, fral, frald, fralda, fraldar, fraldari, fraldarius,

gil, gilbert, gate, gatekeep, gatekeeper, ger, gerth, gwen, gwend, gwenda, gwendal, gar, gare, gareg, garr, garre, garreg, gaj, gajas, gajus, gau, gaut, gauti, gautie, gautier, glau, glauc, glauce, glauces, glaucest, glaucester, glou, glouc, glouce, glouces, gloucest, gloucester, gon, gone, goner, goneril, greg, grego, gregoi, gregoir, gregoire, gun, guna, gunar, gunn, gunna, gunnar, glen, glenn, godfr, godre, godfre, godfrey,

hu, hubert, hi, hil, hild, hilde, hilda, han, hanne, hanneman, hapi, hol, hols, holst,

in, ingri, ingrid, igni, igna, ignat, ignite, ignatz, io, ion, ionu, ionus, ioni, ioniu, ionius, iri, iris, ind, inde, indech,

jer, jeri, jerit, jeritz, jeritza, jera, jeral, jeralt, jud, jude, judi, judo, judie, judy, judith,

kni, knigh, knight, ko, kos, kost, kosta, kostas, kro, kron, krony, kronya, klau, klaus, klause, ky, kyph, kyphe, kypho, kyphon, kyphone, klie. klei, kleim, kleima, kleiman,

lion, leon, liona, liono, leona, leono, leonie, lin, linhardt, lor, lore, loren, lorence, lorenz, lorenzo, lorenza, ly, lys, lysi, lysith, lysithe, lysithea lu, lud, ludwi, ludwig, lad, ladi, lady, ladis, ladisa, ladisal, ladisalv, ladisalve, ladisalva, ladisla, ladislav, ladislave, ladislava, lon, lona, lonat, lonato, lei. leic, leice, leices, leicest, leiceste, leicester, luc, luca, lam, lami, lamin, lamine, leo, leop, leopo, leopol, leopold, lyc, lyce, lyca, lycao, lycaon, lamb, lambe, lamber, lambert, loog,

mer, merc, merca, mercade, mercades, merce, mercede, mercedes, mar, mari, maria, marian, mariann, marianne, marianna, man, manu, manue, manuel, manuela, mon, moni, monic, monica, monika, monique, moniqua, met, meto, metody, metodey, mi, mik, mike, mika, mikla, miklan, my, mys, myso, myson, marc, marce, marcel, marcell, marcelle, marcela, marcella, mau, maur, mauri, maurice, marc, mark, marque, marqui, marquis, marquise, mat, matt, matth, math, matthi, matthia, matthias, may, maya, marg, margre, margra, margrav, margrave, mac, mack, mach, macu, macui, macuil,

nad, nade, nader, nem, neme, nemes, nemesi, nemesis, noa, noah,

och, oche, ochs, od, ode, odes, odess, odesse, os, oz, oswa, oswal, oswald, or, ord, orde, ordel, ordeli, ordelia,

petra, pal, pall, palla, pallad, pallar, pallard, pallardo, pit, pitt, pitta, pita, pittac, pittacu, pittacus, pan, pat, patr, patre, patri, patrice, patrici, patricia,

raph, raf, rapha, raphae, raphael, ran, rand, rando, randol, randolph, rod, rodr, rodre, rodri, rodrig, rodrigo, rodriga, rodrigue, rodriguez, rhe, rhea, rie, rieg, riega, riegan, ru, rufus, ro, row, rowe,

seiros, ser, seir, seiro, sy, syl, sylv, sylve, sylva, sylvai, sylvain, set, seto, setos, sete, seteth, sham, shami, shami, so, soth, sothi, sothis, solo, solos, solon, si, sim, simo, simon, simone, sit, sitr, sitre, sitri,

tom, tomas, thomas, thal, thala, thalas, thale, thales, ti, tia, tian, tiann, tianne, tiane, tiana, tianna tim, timo, timoth, timothy, timothee, timothie, timothea, timothia, timotheo, timotheos,

um, umb, umra, umbral,

ves, vest, vestr, vestre, vestra, vi, vis, visc, visco, viscou, viscoun, viscount,

wolf, wolfe, wolve, wil, wilh, wilhe, wilhel, wilhelm, wal, wald, walde, waldem, waldema, waldemar,

yu, yuri,

zol, zoltan,

list

[mexcine]

Un vampiro para dos [A Vampire for Two, 1965] review:  as so often happens, I stumbled across this film on the Internet, and was surprised I’d never heard of it before.  A vampire comedy with 3 of Spanish cinema’s top stars of the period?  Genial! 

            As it develops, Un vampiro para dos is quite entertaining but oddly structured.  Vampire Baron de Rosenthal* (Fernando Fernán Gómez) doesn’t appear until the 37-minute mark of this 81-minute film.  Literally the first 45% of the film deals with married couple Pablo and Luisita in Spain and their subsequent emigration to Germany.  Then the latter half of the film is essentially non-stop vampire-related slapstick.

            *[nothing particular is made of it, but his name suggests Rosenthal may be a Jewish vampire, preceding the one in Roman Polanski’s Fearless Vampire Killers (aka Dance of the Vampires).  Luisita wears a crucifix around her neck—sometimes, it comes and goes--which doesn’t seem to affect Rosenthal or the other vampires, but they are repelled by garlic.]

            Pablo and Luisita both work in the Madrid metro system, but on diametrically-opposed shifts, thus they’ve been able to spend no quality time together during their year-old marriage [Pablo’s two additional jobs—night watchman on a construction site, and fútbol referee—don’t help this.] A friend has written to them extolling the benefits of working in Germany as gastarbeiters, and they finally decide to go.  After a long sequence showing their airline journey, the couple arrives in Düsseldorf only to discover their friend has returned to Spain.  A  helpful clerk finds them employment as domestic servants in Baron Rosenthal’s employ.

            The usual Dracula-inspired shenanigans occur: at first no one will take them to his remote mansion until a Condor Legion veteran (he’s also a veteran of the Afrika Corps “with Rommel,” the Battle of Stalingrad, and a former “prisoner of Stalin’s in Siberia” – so “this isn’t worse than that”) agrees to take them part of the way.  They subsequently transfer to a horse-drawn coach driven by Wolf, who—as in Dracula—drops them off at the Baron’s castle then reappears to open the front door! [Wolf literally turns into a wolf (well, a German shepherd) from time to time.] Rosenthal—who speaks good Spanish as a result of serving with Sir Francis Drake in the Caribbean in the 16th century—appreciates sangría and Luisita’s cooking, unaware of her predilection for garlic.  Having no success chatting up potential victims in bars, Rosenthal purchases blood plasma from a pharmacy to drink.  Pablo suspects something is odd about their new boss—“he looks like…Drácula!”

            However, Rosenthal thinks Pablo and Luisita are “too thin” to supply him with sufficient Spanish blood, and the trio gets along famously, drinking and singing.  An informer (a bat who turns into a human vampire long enough to make one phone call, is identified as the military attaché at the Rosenthal castle, then is never seen again) calls Nosferata, Rosenthal’s sister (?) in England.  Worried about the Baron’s apparent weakness, Nosferata and her vampire women travel to Germany.  After some running around, Pablo, Luisita, and Wolf flee in the horse-drawn carriage, pursued by Rosenthal in bat form.  The carriage soars into the air (unimaginatively via back-projection), finally landing at the Spanish border.  Rosenthal changes the traitorous Wolf into a wolf, and then into a tiny dog.  However, the vampire's hypnotic/magic spell is (apparently) reflected back at him by the shiny leather cap of a Guardia Civil, and Rosenthal bursts into flames, runs away, and plunges off a bridge into a river.

     Un vampiro para dos concludes with Pablo and Luisita poolside in Southern California (a charred black shape in a fishbowl is apparently the remains of the Baron).  Wolf, the talking tiny dog, has become a movie star.  Pablo turns down an offer from MGM, but when Carlo Ponti calls and says Sophia Loren wants to co-star with the dog, Wolf says “Sophia Loren?!  I’ll do it for free!”

     As mentioned earlier, the film is split into two distinct sections, and neither one is paced particularly well.  The first half has its amusing scenes—and some which are actually rather touching—but the sequence of Pablo as a fútbol referee who’s pursued through the streets of Madrid by irate players, goes on far too long and doesn’t seem especially relevant (except that it is the final straw that convinces them to move to Germany).  The trip to Germany scenes are also prolonged (although it is surprising to note that the production actually went on location to Germany) and not really funny.  The vampire section has very little plot, and is also confusing.  Rosenthal already has one servant (Wolf), and apparently only wants Pablo and Luisita for their warm Spanish blood, but this idea is discarded almost immediately.  The existence and appearance of Nosferata and her vampire women comes completely out of left field; this leads to a bit of running around in the castle, then the vampires go back to their coffins when day breaks. Wolf, Pablo and Luisita decide to stake them all but procrastinate too long, the vampires wake up, and then there’s the long chase sequence to the conclusion.

      Un vampiro para dos is basically a four-character film: Pablo, Luisita, Baron de Rosenthal, and Wolf.  The first 30 minutes focuses on José Luis López Vázquez, but the second half of the film is fairly evenly balanced in terms of screen time and “business.”  Gracita Morales—she of the distinctively cartoonish voice—and López Vázquez made nearly 40 films together, frequently but not always as co-stars.  Fernando Fernán Gómez was a director as well as one of the most popular Spanish actors from the 1940s through the 2000s, and had previously directed Morales and López Vázquez in the comedy Los Palomos (1964).

      Pedro Lazaga’s direction is quite interesting.  The film opens with a POV, subjective-camera visit to the Madrid subway, as various passengers chat among themselves and complain when the camera bumps into them.  The rest of the film is somewhat more conventional, but Lazaga’s camera is extremely mobile and the camera angles are stylish.  There are several surprising practical effects: at the 40-minute mark, Rosenthal leaves for a night out, leaping from an upper window and gliding (via nice wire-work) into the night.  There’s also the “fire gag” at the Spanish border, which is quite well-executed.  The vampire bat puppet is deliberately comedic and unrealistic in design, but is effective enough, aside from the visible wires.   It might be noted that both Fernando Fernán Gómez and Trini Alonso (as Nosferata) wear prosthetic fangs in some scenes.  Production values are fine: as noted, location shooting was done in Madrid and Germany, and the sets (if they were sets) such as the Baron’s castle are effective and impressive.

     Not a classic, nor even a hilarious horror-movie spoof, Un vampiro para dos is nonetheless interesting and moderately entertaining due to the performers, the directorial style, and some fascinating historical views of Madrid (and, to a lesser extent, Germany) in the mid-1960s.

Un vampiro para dos [A Vampire for Two] (Belmar Producciones Cinematográficas, 1965) Director: Pedro Lazaga; Screenplay: José María Palacio, Pedro Lazaga: Photo: Eloy Mella; Music: Antón Ga[rcía] Abril; Prod Chief: José María Rodríguez; Asst Dir: Francisco Illera; Film Ed: Alfonso Santacana; Art Dir: Martín Cerolo; Second Cam Op: Javier Pérez; Makeup: Mariano García; Sound Tech: Enrique Molinero

     Cast: Gracita Morales (Luisita), José Luis López Vázquez (Pablo), Fernando Fernán Gómez (Barón de Rosenthal), Trini Alonso (Nosferata), Goyo Lebrero (Wolf), José Orjas (don Tomás), Adriano Domínguez (Casa de España employee), Manuel Arbó (neighbour), José Villasante (cab driver), Guillermo Méndez (first man in Metro), Ángel Menéndez (porter), Ana Carvajal (girl in Metro), Claudia Gravy (vampire woman), Aníbal Vela (Juan), Rafael Alcántara (Guardia civil), Sultán (dog), Inocencio Barbán (fan in Metro), Rafael Hernández (man in Metro 2), Carmen Porcel (cleaning lady),   Matías Prats (radio announcer),José Luis Zalde (Mariano)   

[chal-chitra]

2020 (pandemic year)

Chitra 2020

Star Wars

The last 40 minutes of Argo

Play: उसकी पाँचवीं

Irishman

Brian Banks

Kapil Sharma (Shatrughn Sinha)

Simmba (Sara Ali Khan)

Two popes

Late Night (Mindy Kaling)

The boy who harnessed the wind (Africa - wind turbine)

Petta (Rajani)

KwK (Saif and Sara)

Lady Bird

It rains in New York (Woody Allen)

Chopsticks

Guilty (Kiara Advani) *

Kabir Singh (Sahid, Kiara)

Alifa (Assam)

Jojo Rabbit (WWII) *

Ford versus Ferrari (Matt Damon) *

Made in China (Rajkumar Rao, Boman) *

Badla (Bacchan, Tapasee) *

Ellen Degeneres: DL

Barak Obama : DL

The great Gambler

Games (Abhishek, Anupam, Kangana) *

Taj Mahal 1989. 7 episodes. (Anshul Chauhan) **

Chupke Chupke *

The Devils mistress (Goebells) *

Little Italy

Como Ciado Del Ceila *

Jai mummy di (Supriya and Poonam)

Shimla Mirch (Rao, Hema)*

Karthik calling Karthik *

Andaz Apna Apna * (so bad it’s good)

Bara Ana (NUShah) *

Gol Mal old *

Sangam

Gol Mal new

Very bad movie

Mathausen (WWII photographer) *

Namak Halal*

Mumbai Matinee (terrible)

Resistance Banker *

Maska *

LuvShuvtey Chicken Koorma*

Badshaho (Ajay + Illeana)*

Schitt Creek* (serial)

Do duni chaar (Rishi Neetu)*

Bend it like becham

Dostana

Little things* (serial)

The Lift Boy *

Qarib qarib single (Irrfan)

Love Aaj Kal x

George Clooney - DL

Jay-Z - DL

Seinfeld - DL

Back to the Future

Back to the future 2

Hasmukh (serial)

Material (Muslim comedian)

Deadline sirf 24 ghante (IK)

Melinda Gates - DL

Meri pyari Bindu (Parinerti)

What are the odds? (Abhay Deol)

Hasi to phasi (Parineeti)

Pink - last 20 min

The Goldfinch (panting)

Arthur Newman

Aarakshan (Amitabh Deepika)

Thappad

Space Force (Episodes)

Just mercy (death row)

SNL (Reese Witherspoon)

This beautiful fantastic

American Son

The Indian detective (Russel peters)

Casablanca (Ingrid Bergmann)*+++

Indiscreet+

Choked*

351 DNI-

Mr and Mrs 55 (ठंडी हवा काली घटा)*

Dil tera diwana (Shammi, Mala)*

Darbar (Rajni)*

Do Anjane

Tumsa Nahi Dekha (जवानिया ये मस्त मस्त. यूँ तो हमने लाख हसीं. छुपने वाले सामने आ. देखो क़सम से. आए हो दूरसे )***

CID (कहीं पे निगाहें. *

Andaaz (दिल उसे दो जो जाँ देदे, जाँ उसे दो दिल देदे. **

Brahmachari

Chori chori

Paying Guest *++

Evening in Paris *

Itefaq (RK) *

Penalty (Manipur discrimination) ***

Love marriage***

Extra ordinary journey of a fakir (Dhanush, Erin Moriarty) ***

Door Ke Darahan *** (Alice after 30 years)

The last dance*+

Chaman Bahar***

Raat akeli hai **

Aagey se right (Shreehas Talpade)

Shakuntala Devi *

Vanaja **

Gunjan Saxena ***

Making of Lagaan (madness in the desert)***

Lagaan***

Yuva

Midnight in Paris ***

Firebrand (sexual abuse) ***

Class of 83***

Gour Hari Das: freedom (Vinay Pande)***

For here or to go*

The sky is pink (SCID)***

Hope Aur hum**** (NUShah)

Bandish Bandits***

Axone **

Cargo***

15th Aug *** (Mrunmayi Deshpande) marathi

Aaron (marathi - 🇫🇷). **

Dr Kashinath Ghanekar***

Social Dilemma

Cycle****(Dipti Lele; Maithili Patwardhan)

Poshter girl *

Bhai

A bridge too far **

SNL

Kisi se na kehna

Enemy at the gates***

Gran Torino***

Dedh Ishqiya x

The world is not enough

Serious men **

Solva. saal. ***

Dalai Lama Scientist ****

Lizzo *+

Karadashiyan

Borat

Seberg

Gran Torino

Enemy at the gates

Manet

The vision after sermon (Gaugin)

Self portrait Bandaged Ear (van Gogh)

The card players (Cezanne)

Young and Old (William Dobson)

DL: Robert Downey Jr

Bad boy Billionaires (Mallya)

Guillermo Vilas

The life ahead (Sophia Loren)

Fargo

Ginny Weds Sunny**

Beyond the clouds (Bombay slums)*

Love per square foot (Angira Dhar)**

Shimla Mirch 🌶 *

Waiting room Coma (NU Shah)**

Yeh Ballet *

The office

Creative Indians:

⁃ Boman Irani

⁃ Nawazuddin Sheikh

⁃ Radhika Apte

(Radhika Apte)

Lust Stories (4 stories; Zoya, Karan, Anurag. Banerjee)

Hunterrr (4 women)

X past is present (Rajat Kapoor)

I am (4 stories) Juhi

Bhag Beanie Bhag (Manto) dark

Do paise ki dhoop char aane ki baarish* (Deepti Naval; Manisha Koirala, Rajit Kapoor)

[horrorladies]

“Darling, the only ghoul in the house is you.” House On Haunted Hill (1959) dir. William Castle

[reallyhardy]

i was thinking today since the completion of over the sea (around the mid point of the day when i was like hm, ive run out of drawing energy, how about some writing and then i remembered my huge project is over) so now just WHAT. do i write

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Murders of Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman

On December 29, 1999, high school friends Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman spent the evening together celebrating Freeman's sixteenth birthday. Bible received permission from her parents to spend the night at Freeman's home. Earlier that day, the girls had spent time at a local pizzeria with Freeman's mother, Kathy.

At approximately 5:30 a.m. on December 30, 1999, a passer-by called 9-1-1 reporting that the Freeman home was engulfed in flames. Law enforcement determined the fire had been an arson. Inside the home, the charred remains of Kathy were discovered lying on the floor of her bedroom; she had been shot in the head. Initially, no other remains were located, leading local law enforcement to extrapolate that Ashley's father, Danny Freeman, had slain his wife and fled with both girls. Bible's parked car was in the driveway of the home with the keys in the ignition.

On December 31, Bible's parents Lorene and Jay returned to the scene, hoping to find any additional clues that law enforcement may have missed. Amidst walking around the extensive rubble, they discovered what appeared to be another body and notified the police. The second body was determined to be that of Danny; like his wife, he had also been shot in the head execution-style. Following this discovery, the crime scene was re-examined, yet no sign of Bible or Freeman was found. In 2010, the Freeman family initiated court proceedings to have Ashley declared legally dead.

[britishsass]

Heya! Random title that totally isn’t me thinking bout a certain char: And Time Stopped Right Then

How Loren Stopped Time, the fanfic. Crispin gets punched into next century.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

20 years a blogger

It's been twenty years, to the day, since I published my first blog-post.

I'm a blogger.

Blogging - publicly breaking down the things that seem significant, then synthesizing them in longer pieces - is the defining activity of my days.

https://boingboing.net/2001/01/13/hey-mark-made-me-a.html

Over the years, I've been lauded, threatened, sued (more than once). I've met many people who read my work and have made connections with many more whose work  I wrote about. Combing through my old posts every morning is a journey through my intellectual development.

It's been almost exactly a year I left Boing Boing, after 19 years. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't fun, but it was definitely time. I still own a chunk of the business and wish them well. But after 19 years, it was time for a change.

A few weeks after I quit Boing Boing, I started a solo project. It's called Pluralistic: it's a blog that is published simultaneously on Twitter, Mastodon, Tumblr, a newsletter and the web. It's got no tracking or ads. Here's the very first edition:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/19/pluralist-19-feb-2020/

I don't often do "process posts" but this merits it. Here's how I built Pluralistic and here's how it works today, after nearly a year.

I get up at 5AM and make coffee. Then I sit down on the sofa and open a huge tab-group, and scroll through my RSS feeds using Newsblur.

I spend the next 1-2 hours winnowing through all the stuff that seems important. I have a chronic pain problem and I really shouldn't sit on the sofa for more than 10 minutes, so I use a timer and get up every 10 minutes and do one minute of physio.

After a couple hours, I'm left with 3-4 tabs that I want to write articles about that day. When I started writing Pluralistic, I had a text file on my desktop with some blank HTML I'd tinkered with to generate a layout; now I have an XML file (more on that later).

First I go through these tabs and think up metadata tags I want to use for each; I type these into the template using my text-editor (gedit), like this:

   <xtags>

process, blogging, pluralistic, recursion, navel-gazing

   </xtags>

Each post has its own little template. It needs an anchor tag (for this post, that's "hfbd"), a title ("20 years a blogger") and a slug ("Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting"). I fill these in for each post.

Then I come up with a graphic for each post: I've got a giant folder of public domain clip-art, and I'm good at using all the search tools for open-licensed art: the Library of Congress, Wikimedia, Creative Commons, Flickr Commons, and, ofc, Google Image Search.

I am neither an artist nor a shooper, but I've been editing clip art since I created pixel-art versions of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood glyphs using Bannermaker for the Apple //c in 1985 and printed them out on enough fan-fold paper to form a border around my bedroom.

As I create the graphics, I pre-compose Creative Commons attribution strings to go in the post; there's two versions, one for the blog/newsletter and one for Mastodon/Twitter/Tumblr. I compose these manually.

Here's a recent one:

Blog/Newsletter:

(<i>Image: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg">Marc Nozell</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">CC BY</a>, modified</i>)

Twitter/Masto/Tumblr:

Image: Marc Nozell (modified)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg

CC BY

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

This is purely manual work, but I've been composing these CC attribution strings since CC launched in 2003, and they're just muscle-memory now. Reflex.

These attribution strings, as well as anything else I'll need to go from Twitter to the web (for example, the names of people whose Twitter handles I use in posts, or images I drop in, go into the text file). Here's how the post looks at this point in the composition.

<hr>

<a name="hfbd"></a>

<img src="https://craphound.com/images/20yrs.jpg">

<h1>20 years a blogger</h1><xtagline>Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting.</xtagline>

<img src="https://craphound.com/images/frnklogo.jpg">

See that <img> tag in there for frnklogo.jpg? I snuck that in while I was composing this in Twitter. When I locate an image on the web I want to use in a post, I save it to a dir on my desktop that syncs every 60 seconds to the /images/ dir on my webserver.

As I save it, I copy the filename to my clipboard, flip over to gedit, and type in the <img> tag, pasting the filename. I've typed <img src="https://craphound.com/images/ CTRL-V"> tens of thousands of times - muscle memory.

Once the thread is complete, I copy each tweet back into gedit, tabbing back and forth, replacing Twitter handles and hashtags with non-Twitter versions, changing the ALL CAPS EMPHASIS to the extra-character-consuming *asterisk-bracketed emphasis*.

My composition is greatly aided both 20 years' worth of mnemonic slurry of semi-remembered posts and the ability to search memex.craphound.com (the site where I've mirrored all my Boing Boing posts) easily.

A huge, searchable database of decades of thoughts really simplifies the process of synthesis.

Next I port the posts to other media. I copy the headline and paste it into a new Tumblr compose tab, then import the image and tag the post "pluralistic."

Then I paste the text of the post into Tumblr and manually select, cut, and re-paste every URL in the post (because Tumblr's automatic URL-to-clickable-link tool's been broken for 10+ months).

Next I past the whole post into a Mastodon compose field. Working by trial and error, I cut it down to <500 characters, breaking at a para-break and putting the rest on my clipboard. I post, reply, and add the next item in the thread until it's all done.

*Then* I hit publish on my Twitter thread. Composing in Twitter is the most unforgiving medium I've ever worked in. You have to keep each stanza below 280 chars. You can't save a thread as a draft, so as you edit it, you have to pray your browser doesn't crash.

And once you hit publish, you can't edit it. Forever. So you want to publish Twitter threads LAST, because the process of mirroring them to Tumblr and Mastodon reveals typos and mistakes (but there's no way to save the thread while you work!).

Now I create a draft Wordpress post on pluralistic.net, and create a custom slug for the page (today's is "two-decades"). Saving the draft generates the URL for the page, which I add to the XML file.

Once all the day's posts are done, I make sure to credit all my sources in another part of that master XML file, and then I flip to the command line and run a bunch of python scripts that do MAGIC: formatting the master file as a newsletter, a blog post, and a master thread.

Those python scripts saved my ASS. For the first two months of Pluralistic, i did all the reformatting by hand. It was a lot of search-replace (I used a checklist) and I ALWAYS screwed it up and had to debug, sometimes taking hours.

Then, out of the blue, a reader - Loren Kohnfelder - wrote to me to point out bugs in the site's RSS. He offered to help with text automation and we embarked on a month of intensive back-and-forth as he wrote a custom suite for me.

Those programs take my XML file and spit out all the files I need to publish my site, newsletter and master thread (which I pin to my profile). They've saved me more time than I can say. I probably couldn't kept this up without Loren's generous help (thank you, Loren!).

I open up the output from the scripts in gedit. I paste the blog post into the Wordpress draft and copy-paste the metadata tags into WP's "tags" field. I preview the post, tweak as necessary, and publish.

(And now I write this, I realize I forgot to mention that while I'm doing the graphics, I also create a square header image that makes a grid-collage out of the day's post images, using the Gimp's "alignment" tool)

(because I'm composing this in Twitter, it would be a LOT of work to insert that information further up in the post, where it would make sense to have it - see what I mean about an unforgiving medium?)

(While I'm on the subject: putting the "add tweet to thread" and "publish the whole thread" buttons next to each other is a cruel joke that has caused me to repeatedly publish before I was done, and deleting a thread after you publish it is a nightmare)

Now I paste the newsletter file into a new mail message, address it to my Mailman server, and create a custom subject for the day, send it, open the Mailman admin interface in a browser, and approve the message.

Now it's time to create that anthology post you can see pinned to my Mastodon and Twitter accounts. Loren's script uses a template to produce all the tweets for the day, but it's not easy to get that pre-written thread into Twitter and Mastodon.

Part of the problem is that each day's Twitter master thread has a tweet with a link to the day's Mastodon master thread ("Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at @pluralistic@mamot.fr. Here's today's edition: LINK").

So the first order of business is to create the Mastodon thread, pin it, copy the link to it, and paste it into the template for the Twitter thread, then create and pin the Twitter thread.

Now it's time to get ready for tomorrow. I open up the master XML template file and overwrite my daily working file with its contents. I edit the file's header with tomorrow's date, trim away any "Upcoming appearances" that have gone by, etc.

Then I compose tomorrow's retrospective links. I open tabs for this day a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and (now) 20 years ago:

http://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2011/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2001/01/14

I go through each day, and open anything I want to republish in its own tab, then open the OP link in the next tab (finding it in the @internetarchive if necessary). Then I copy my original headline and the link to the article into tomorrow's XML file, like so:

#10yrsago Disney World’s awful Tiki Room catches fire <a href="https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/">https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/</a>

And NOW my day is done.

So, why do I do all this?

First and foremost, I do it for ME. The memex I've created by thinking about and then describing every interesting thing I've encountered is hugely important for how I understand the world. It's the raw material of every novel, article, story and speech I write.

And I do it for the causes I believe in. There's stuff in this world I want to change for the better. Explaining what I think is wrong, and how it can be improved, is the best way I know for nudging it in a direction I want to see it move.

The more people I reach, the more it moves.

When I left Boing Boing, I lost access to a freestanding way of communicating. Though I had popular Twitter and Tumblr accounts, they are at the mercy of giant companies with itchy banhammers and arbitrary moderation policies.

I'd long been a fan of the POSSE - Post Own Site, Share Everywhere - ethic, the idea that your work lives on platforms you control, but that it travels to meet your readers wherever they are.

Pluralistic posts start out as Twitter threads because that's the most constrained medium I work in, but their permalinks (each with multiple hidden messages in their slugs) are anchored to a server I control.

When my threads get popular, I make a point of appending the pluralistic.net permalink to them.

When I started blogging, 20 years ago, blogger.com had few amenities. None of the familiar utilities of today's media came with the package.

Back then, I'd manually create my headlines with <h2> tags. I'd manually create discussion links for each post on Quicktopic. I'd manually paste each post into a Yahoo Groups email. All the guff I do today to publish Pluralistic is, in some way, nothing new.

20 years in, blogging is still a curious mix of both technical, literary and graphic bodgery, with each day's work demanding the kind of technical minutuae we were told would disappear with WYSIWYG desktop publishing.

I grew up in the back-rooms of print shops where my dad and his friends published radical newspapers, laying out editions with a razor-blade and rubber cement on a light table. Today, I spend hours slicing up ASCII with a cursor.

I go through my old posts every day. I know that much - most? - of them are not for the ages. But some of them are good. Some, I think, are great. They define who I am. They're my outboard brain.

[otterspiritrps-blog]

[osurp]

                             𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐀-𝐅𝐄𝐈𝐑𝐀 ── 01h30min.

As luzes piscavam no ritmo das batidas da música eletrônica que soava por todo o campus, a festa de boas-vindas da OSU parecia estar ainda no começo mesmo que houvessem alunos e alguns funcionários já embriagados. O falatório demonstrava o quão envolvidos todos estavam… E vulneráveis. Tão desligados, ninguém percebeu as figuras estranhas que saíam do prédio principal aos risos, entrando em um carro e indo embora. O DJ contratado por um dos alunos se preparava para a próxima música que tocaria, quando todas as luzes se apagaram. Um enorme apagão que atingiu toda a universidade. Os alunos não se encontravam apenas na escuridão, como também no total silêncio até que veio a explosão de vozes se perguntando o que tinha acontecido. Tentativas de restaurar a energia foram feitas e nenhuma teve sucesso. Apenas meia hora depois as luzes voltaram na companhia de um barulho ensurdecedor de sirene se fez presente por todo o campus. Então a voz de um desconhecido se fez presente pelos alto-falantes que antes tocavam a música da festa. “Vocês acharam mesmo que iriam ter um início de ano tão calmo, tigers? Depois do que fizeram com a gente no ano passado decidimos dar o troco. Pegamos o precioso troféu de vocês e escondemos. Vocês tem até o amanhecer pra encontrar. Se não conseguirem só vão provar que são uns perdedores. Fomos bonzinhos e colocamos dicas em pontos específicos… E umas surpresas também. Tenham muito cuidado se não quiserem se sujar. Peace, suckers!” E desta forma deu-se início a tradicional gincana entre a OSU e a Columbus State Community College, uma competição amigável que resulta em prêmios para os alunos de ambas as universidades. Que vença o melhor!

INFORMAÇÕES OOC.

EXPLICAÇÃO:

A queda de energia terá uma duração de aproximadamente meia hora. O que não impede de os personagens usarem a lanterna do celular ou coisa assim para se localizar.

O retorno da iluminação da festa acontece junto ao som da sirene. Uma gravação dispara das caixas de som, substituindo o que antes era a música alta. Sendo feito o anúncio da caça ao tesouro.

A caça ao tesouro nada mais é do que recuperar o último troféu da temporada, símbolo do primeiro lugar da OSU frente aos adversários da  Columbus State Community College. O que é uma questão de honra!

 Essas pranks são bem comum entre os rivais: OSU e Columbus State Community College Só que naturalmente todos os personagens serão pegos de surpresa. É praticamente uma gincana que ocorre anualmente entre as rivais.

 Em IC: Haverá dicas espalhadas por todo o campus. Elas poderão ajudar ou atrapalhar no processo. CUIDADO: Para que o seu personagem não se suje de tinta! *Tem várias armadilhas espalhadas por aí. Fica a critério de cada um escolher se o personagem vai ou não ser um dos alvos.

 A primeira equipe a desvendar o enigma (encontrar a bandeira da OSU e o troféu) vai ter a vantagem de 500 pontos para o próximo evento! Boa sorte a todos.

 A duração do plot drop é até o início da madrugada de DOMINGO, 23/08.

SOBRE AS EQUIPES:  

Esse evento vai dar início as competições internas na OSU! O que significa que esses serão seus colegas de equipe. Como isso vai funcionar e demais detalhes vão ser disponibilizados na segunda-feira!

 As cores das equipes correspondem a bandeira de Ohio.

Os treinadores são os líderes da equipe, o que não significa que eles não possam escolher outra pessoa do time para liderar. Seja essa primeira “MISSÃO” ou as próximas.

DETALHES SOBRE A PRANK:

Fica a critério de cada um fazer o personagem ser um dos alvos ou não. Durante a caça ao tesouro é possível que alguém fique sujo com tinta, por exemplo, com as cores do time da universidade rival.

PONTUAÇÃO:

A pontuação acontecerá por meio de interação! Usem a criatividade: Pode ser por chat, SMS, turno ou até mesmo POV. O que for mais confortável para vocês! Para diferenciar uma equipe da outra recomendamos que usem a tag (de acordo com o grupo du char): #OSU:VERMELHO #OSU:CINZA #OSU:AZUL.

TABELA PONTUAÇÃO: 

TURNO / SMALL: 15 CHAT: 5 POV: 10 SNAPCHAT: 5 EDIT: 5 SMS: 1

DIVISÃO DAS EQUIPES:

EQUIPE VERMELHA: Brielle “Elle” Alkaev, Francesca “Frankie” West, Bianca Cornelia Hatheway,  Marina Rossetti Delacost, Aurora “Rory” Laffayette, Levi Du Lac, Jared H. West, Mike Johnson, Sebastian “Bash” Barnes Anderson, Victoria Nimue, Austin Schwart. Kenna Reyes. TREINADOR: Mael griffin. (12 alunos + 1 treinador ).

EQUIPE CINZA: Cassius Skylar Lafayette, Archibald “Archie” Harvey O’Connor, Vincent Loren, Adora “Addy” Banner, Alanna B. Campbell, Hadley Howard, Cheryl Rockholt, Khaleo Reed Cooper, Nora Aube Fauvel Hozier, William Lecter. Ian Banner. Dahlia Song. (12 alunos + 1 treinador).  TREINADOR: Eric Phillip Harden.

EQUIPE AZUL:Teresa Adelaide Bochard, Debra Ellen Rhodes, Madeline “Maddie” Laffayette, Roxanne Belaware, Maggic Nathaniel Russell, Keith Collins, Joseph Mckinley, Ethan Williams, Richard “Dick” Hammer, Gwen Nguyen-Lýnn. Casey A. Traynor . (10 alunos + 1treinador).TREINADOR: Christopher “Chris” Carter.

[captainmarvels]

The end of the year decade is upon us, and I think it’s only fair I take some time to thank and appreciate the friends I’ve made along the way for being amazing, wonderful, and making my time on this hellsite a worthwhile experience!

This is by no means a complete follow forever, so if i miss anyone, please know i love you and appreciate you more than words can express ♥ ♥

thanks to anelle for the header that i borrowed for this post :’)

(pals in bold are those i’ve known for awhile and have come to consider some of my closest friends♥)

char @joshuaparker ❈ cass @laurencetheodore ❈ anelle @merrychrismas ❈ maryrosa @ransomhugh ❈ brenna @hardytoms ❈ kristine @jennyslatess ❈ vic @scottlangs ❈ abril @cherrynat ❈ angie @hunters-schafer ❈ blake @eggogorgon ❈ nums @rhodey ❈ prachi @fallenvictory ❈ carley @chrishemsworth ❈ theodora @carol-danvers ❈ nush @feliciahardy ❈ ananda @scully-dana ❈ becka @captainevans ❈ cass @bette-porter ❈ syd @loganroys ❈ elysia @biggsdarklighters ❈ lili @chrisheavans ❈ christina @yengeralts ❈ bianca @bisteverogers ❈ jamie @wespers ❈ mandie @catherinemiddletons ❈ caro @nightwings ❈ toshita @gwandas ❈ drea @karolinadean ❈ alex @genekellys ❈ betty @guillermodltoro ❈ laura @anadeaarmas ❈ madison @k-2sos ❈ cody and jas @daughtersofthanos ❈ kristen @gayrue ❈ kit @cmarvels ❈ kesh @wonderwomans ❈ mckayla @dowlingalexandra ❈ robin @sybbie-crawley ❈ kat @reyskywalker ❈ manu @jurassicbarnes ❈ leah @daenerys-targaryen ❈ shar @snicketfiles ❈ sabrina @peterbparkerr ❈ nicole @buckyywiththegoodhair ❈ loren @dicapriho ❈ tom @billybatson ❈ rajan @milesgmorales ❈ tesla @captainrogerss​ ❈ lily @spidersverse ❈ francis @zacharylevis ❈ amy @bills-skarsgards ❈ alyssa @sharons-carters ❈ lea @ellabalinska ❈ nic @maggierogers ❈ lena @joewright  ❈

[biiscione]

(  RHAENYRA.  )

@reynlrunnr​

“You do.” Hands crossed over her arms defensively, all while she refused to look at him instead opting to look out on the of charred windows of the Harrenhal. Her jaw tightened in anger and pain, as did her fists. Rage coursed through her veins, it CONSUMED her entire being. It wasn’t directed at him or anyone in particular, but it was anger nonetheless. Anger at having born with teats and no cock. Had she been born with a cock between her thighs, perhaps she would have not been treated this way. Perhaps then ANY of the lords, even her own blood, would acknowledge that she was capable of far more than just providing heirs. She could be the heir. Rhaenyra truly had no aspiration for the crown. She’d never wanted it, never craved it like Saera always dreamed of, but nothing hurt more than to have EVERY lord - from great lord to even the lesser ones, disregard her claim so easily. All while chuckling, too. The mere memory of them chuckling at the reading of her claim - submit only out of formality given her status as princess - threatened to send her into a rage. But the rage never came. It stayed inside her, gnawing and boiling at her insides. Nearly 40 years and still to be seen as nothing more than a silly girl. Even the calmest of knight would have snapped at that. “You know some things,” the Princess continued. Her tone grew colder and colder as she spoke, but still she could not bring herself to shed a single tear. Or even gaze upon her husband. “You have daughters. Not sons. But you will NEVER know the humiliation of having your claim disregarded on the basis of what is between your legs. You will never know that FURY, that HURT. You, my love, will never experience that. You… You have a cock.” She uncrossed her arms and instead held on to the stone of the window still, leaning into it and grasping it so hard that she may have split in two. From her position, she could see the sun settling behind the Tower of Dread. It was beautiful, but it did little to calm her. “How quick they are to forget Aegon was not alone when he toppled their petty kings and conquered their lands. Have they forgotten it was Rhaenys and Visenya who brought this kingdom to its KNEES with dragon fire? Three conquerors, Raph, two of them were queens. They had no need for a cock when they burned the Arryn fleet… when they burned the men of King Mern and Loren at the Field of Fire.”

            Oh, a truly vain attempt it was for him to express empathy            that he understood her RAGE and pain to its fullest extent. He COULD imagine but even in his mind’s greatest ( or damndest ) imagination, he could not intimately know her pain. He knows only what he’s been told, by her and their daughters, and what he had witness of his mother and sisters, but he, as she passionately spoke, could never know. So, throughout her confession and appropriate tirade, he sits in his suitable and stoic silence upon his padded chair and shifts only to scratch at a cheek of silver stubble or settle more into his uncomfortability.             To Lord Rowan, it was unfortunate circumstance his Princess wife found herself, what his mother, sister, and daughters found themselves in. Aegon became king of the Andals and of the First Men and with them came their beliefs, their cultures. Valyrian blood may have separated the Crown once from its subjects but when Aegon claimed his crown, he, unknowingly or knowingly, took to their rules, their mores, their edicts              and thus cemented HIS legacy. For Westeros has always been a land that has favored high - born men and never the women of similar or higher rank or intellect or honor, those most deserving of it. Quite a toll it took to even THINK of remedying this, years, centuries, perhaps, of breeding this sort of injustice. He did what he could to help in the shortness of his life, for his daughters and his sisters, but, unfortunately, he was either too late or too outranked to do so for his mother and wife.              He shifts again, this time allowing his elbows to rest on his knees, chin atop of long fingers woven together. “I did not mean to imply I knew your pain, my love. That, I could not do.” A harsh swallow as his gaze follows her hands to the black stone, shifting hues with that of the sunset. A great pause follows his attempted apologies, only for relatively grave questionings to slip off his tongue. “ Would you let your rage burn the seats of lesser lords? Any nobleman who would mock your claim? Bring them to their knees with dragon fire? ” He knew the answer; it would be foolish to think she would, out of spiteful pride, do such a thing. Wouldn’t it?              “ I        ” slouched back in his chair once more, he anxiously scratches at his bearded jaw, “ I know not how to ease your suffering, my princess. Perhaps if this old man had more power and a much longer life, he could make this world a bit more just. Gods know I've TRIED. ” Maybe not as zealously as he should have.

[laurelsofhighever]

Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins Chapter Rating: Mature Relationships: Alistair/Female Cousland Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fereldan Civil War AU - No Blight, Romance, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Demisexuality, Cousland Feels, Hurt/Comfort Chapter Summary: Having arrived at Deerswall, plans are made for the push to Highever, but Rosslyn has a lot on her mind. 

--------------

Twenty-fifth day of Firstfall, 9:32 Dragon

“Something isn’t right.”

Alistair pulled his gaze from the vista before them. “What do you mean?”

Under a brief easing of the weather, the king’s army stood outside Deerswall, massed on the flat plain that had once fostered so many refugees. Rosslyn sat at the front with Alistair, Cailan, and the senior officers of their guards, wrapped up in furs to ward off the wind as they studied the high, closed gate of the fort and the eerie quiet of its walls. A pair of crows hopped across the top of the eastern watchtower by the gate, but nothing else moved.

“They’ve abandoned it,” she realised. “There’s no one here.”

“Would Howe give up such an advantage so easily?” Cailan asked.

“He knew we were coming. It’s probably part of some larger plan, snake that he is, but we’ll still be better off inside than out until we’re ready to move again.”

“Or maybe it’s more simple than that,” Alistair replied. “Maybe it’s an ambush and they’re waiting for us to get too close so they can poke us with a lot of arrows.”

She nodded slowly; she had considered it. “Gideon?”

“Ma’am?”

“What is the size of the garrison here?”

The old commander shifted in his saddle. “Scout reports put the number at forty to sixty swords – what was left of the Red Iron after Wythenshawe.”

“Mercenaries have horses,” she murmured, and pulled down the scarf that covered the lower half of her face. Icy air stung her nose but she breathed deeply nonetheless, and marked the claggy, stale odour of mud and water, without a hint of smoke or animal dung to taint it. Beneath their feet, a trail of hoofprints led away from the gate, with lumps of manure scattered here and there at least three days old. The emptiness reminded her of Harrowhill, the cold, the quiet, even the blank walls fluttering with the Orange and White of the hated Bear. She turned from the banners with a curl of her lip, aware of the army at her back and Lasan’s nervous shift beneath her. Back then she had trembled, a lost girl stripped of everything she had ever known.

“Should we go up and knock?” Alistair asked, to fill the silence.

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“Wait –” His hand shot out as she slipped from the saddle. “I didn’t mean to actually do it!”

“We need to know for sure if there’s anyone in that fort,” she replied easily, unslinging her shield from the saddle and buckling Talon to her waist.  

“Then let someone else go.” He had dropped to the ground beside her, stepping around the groom that had come to take their horses’ reins. “Cailan –”

“You think I’ve the power to persuade her from this?” The king shook his head. “I trust Her Ladyship’s judgement, and her skill.”

“I’ll be careful.”

But Alistair moved closer, heedless of the ranks watching them, and laid a hand over hers. “We talked about this,” he murmured. “You – taking risks.”

“Would you have me send one of my soldiers to do something I wouldn’t be willing to do myself?” she asked.

“The problem is, you’re entirely too willing.” He attempted a smile. “The first sign of anything –”

“I’ll come back,” she promised, and squeezed his fingers. “Just try and stop me.”

She felt his eyes bore into her back as she started across the open ground with her standard bearer at her heels. Howe’s forces had been busy in the months left to themselves, bolstered the defences with stone bracing at the base of the palisade, and set a ditch in front of the main gate. They had even built a bridge over the lumpy, half frozen sludge at the bottom, though the only thing left of it now was a charred skeleton of pilings and planks doused by the rain before the fire could fully take them. It made a great delaying tactic.

Mud sucked at their boots. Their progress was slow, hampered by the search for caltrops under their feet and movement in the crenelations above, and as they crossed the invisible line that put them within arrowshot of the walls, Rosslyn raised her shield just a little bit, ready in case Alistair’s worry proved true. The moat stopped her reaching the whole distance to the gate, so instead she stopped at the lip of the bank and planted her feet as if she were exactly where she wanted to be, waiting for her standard bearer to raise the Laurels at her back.

No sign from the walls. The crowd stopped their preening to watch as Maddow opened his mouth to speak.

“Hail to Her Ladyship Teyrna Rosslyn Cousland, Falcon of Highever, Commander in the North, right hand of His Majesty King Cailan Theirin, true and just ruler of Ferelden, defeater of the traitor Loghain and the snivelling polecat Howe who waits on him!”

Rosslyn’s brow quirked. “Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?”

“I thought we were trying to bait them, ma’am.” He shot her a grin, which only widened when she rolled her eyes and nodded for him to continue.  

“Enemies of His Majesty! You are called on to surrender yourselves, this fortress, and its environs immediately to the grace of Her Ladyship, or else it is decreed to a one you will suffer a most painful death!”

Unimpressed, the crows resumed their business and let the last echoes of the challenge rebound off the palisade, but nothing else moved. Rosslyn counted to ten, and when no arrows came streaking from behind the walls, let go of the breath she had been holding and half-turned back towards her lines, a grin wild and triumphant across her face.

“What do you think?” she called to them. “Should I blow a raspberry?”

A chorus of jeers answered her, meant for the ears of whatever forces might be hiding behind the gate, and when even that met only silence, she nodded, once, and gestured for Maddow to follow her back to the ranks, where Gideon was already waiting.

“I want to be in there by nightfall,” she ordered. “The ground looks solid enough to put a bridge in, so get the carpenters to work on it – utility only, no flourishes. It needs to get everybody across and hold up until we leave. In the meantime, sweep the whole place for traps and anyone that might be hiding, groups of three at the least so alarms can be raised.”

“Aye, Your Ladyship.” The commander bowed, and turned to bark orders to the unit of scouts already waiting for orders, leaving her free to return to Alistair’s side.

“And now we wait?” he checked.

She huffed and went to loosen the girth strap on Lasan’s saddle. “And now we wait. It’s surprising how much of that there is in battle.”  

“I see.”

“What’s that look for?”

“Uh…”  

With a cough and a quick glance to make sure all attention was elsewhere, he sidled up next to her, settling his hand on the small of her back to keep their conversation close enough that no one could overhear. The touch barely reached her through all her layers of metal and cloth, but its tenderness, the clarity of his gaze, sent a lick of heat shooting along her limbs nonetheless, and she had to turn her face into her horse’s flank to avoid being overcome. She could see Loren and Franderel in the distance, guiding their horses over from the wing, but still too far away to trouble them yet.

“I’ve never seen you command like that,” Alistair said, with the slightest tinge of pink at the tips of his ears. “Not even at Lothering – when you swooped in and saved me, remember?”

“Does it bother you?” She had grown up hearing comparisons between herself and the more elegant ladies of the court, the ones like Anora who kept to their arms training as a formality only and never tried to go to war.  

His touch rose to the back of her neck, playing with the loose strands that had fallen out of her braid. “I wouldn’t say it bothers me, at least not in a bad way. It just makes me wonder what you would have been like raising horses on the coast – if you hadn’t had to deal with all this.”

“Would I have met you, then?” she asked.

“Of course,” he answered, and brushed his lips against her forehead. “Blight wolves couldn’t keep me from such beauty.”

A smirk lifted the corner of her mouth. “And you think a line like that would have worked on me?”

“Ohhhh you? No, I’d have better lines for you. Trust me.”

“Such as?”

“Well, let me think…”

“Your Highness, Your Ladyship!” Franderel reined his charger sharply to a halt and dismounted, with Loren not far behind. “I trust everything is going well?”

“Fine,” she replied, leaning back out of Alistair’s reach as if they hadn’t been interrupted. “We were just about to join His Majesty in his pavilion.”

Her vassal nodded, either oblivious or choosing to ignore it, and gestured towards where servants had already posted the War Dog standard and offloaded the tent canvas from its supply cart. “Shall we, then? It will be good to finalise the details of our campaign to the north, even if we may have to face the prospect of getting underway before we can fully claim Deerswall.”

“Why don’t we keep the doom and gloom until after lunch?” Alistair made the suggestion with a smile, but he kept close to her side, gaze narrowed at the elderly bann.  

“Of course, Your Highness.”

“His Majesty has sent outriders to establish a perimeter,” Loren offered, interposing between them, “so if we are forced to stay outside the walls tonight, we won’t be caught unprepared.”

At a stalemate for the moment, they left their horses with the grooms and weaved through the ranks of soldiers being kept busy with menial tasks while the carpenters and the advance worked on the bridge and on clearing out the keep. Others still had been sent into the surrounding forest for firewood, and on the few cookfires already established here and there, the rest lined up for their midday meal. It would likely be nothing more than thin meat stew bulked out with vegetables and hard bread, but on such a cold day with damp nipping at the fingers, it would provide welcome warmth for a few hours, and the smell was already rising through the camp.

“How are your lands coping with the refugees, my lord?” Rosslyn asked Franderel, to distract from the cavernous feel of her stomach.

“Many moved on to the west where fighting was less likely to spread, Your Ladyship,” the bann replied, falling into step beside her. “Those who stayed have been a mixed blessing – extra mouths, but also extra hands to help with the harvest. And extra eyes to watch the northern border for trouble.”

She nodded. “Highever will not forget the generosity shown to its people.”

“West Hill is only glad to offer assistance when called upon. And…” He allowed a smile. “I am also relieved to see our worst fears turn to smoke. I knew your father, fought with him. It seems you’ve inherited his talents.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

She decided not to push the issue, despite her suspicion over his apparent sincerity, and only nodded her acknowledgement as Cailan waved them over to the table he had set up by the supplies, already in attendance with Teagan, Knight-Captain Irminric and a bevy of servants swirling around them. He had decided to forego the entire pavilion, choosing optimism instead, and had directed the servants to pitch only a windbreak and a roof over his map table in case it rained. The openness of the arrangement allowed a view across the entire camp, with Deerswall as a backdrop and a fine detail of cartography splayed across the war table readable in the daylight.

“Ho!” the king called. “Are we on track?”

“That depends on what surprises the Red Iron left for us,” Rosslyn answered.

“Tch, cowards. Although in fairness, I doubt I would dare brave the Falcon’s wrath waiting inside a wooden fortress!” He greeted the others and ushered them around the table. “In an ideal world, the keep is perfectly safe, and we will be in it in time for a decent night’s rest, which means we will have limited time in the morning to prepare for anything but an immediate departure. As you can imagine, if the rumours of the queen’s presence at Castle Cousland prove true, we must reach it – and take it – as soon as possible. Since we can do nothing further to aid us in that for now, we should solidify our plans.”

Loren bowed. “We stand ready, Your Majesty.”  

“Good. Now then, the spear of our attack will come from two fronts.” Cailan rearranged the maps to find one of the northern coast, which he smoothed out and weighted at the corners. “One group, led by Her Ladyship and Prince Alistair, will travel along the coast and infiltrate the castle to secure the queen and the gates ahead of the army’s arrival.”

“Castle Cousland’s walls are nigh unpassable,” Franderel scoffed. “And there can be no certainty that any within those walls are yet loyal to the Laurels. How many are you taking for this venture?”

“Enough,” Rosslyn replied. “Our strength will be my knowledge of the castle, rather than numbers. Without the help of a dragon to breach the curtain wall, the keep could never be taken in time to ensure Queen Anora’s safety.”

Cailan sighed. “There is no ideal solution to this, but no better. The second force will approach as if for a traditional siege, with as much fanfare as we can muster. This main force will be both diversion and bait to try and draw out Howe, and once we have him, Loghain will have nothing left behind which to hide. You have thoughts, my lord Loren?”

The bann startled out of his frown. “What of Loghain’s forces?”

“If this is a trap, then we will turn it against the trapper. We have surprise on our side. He will expect to face an army with nowhere to run, with a castle for his defence, when in fact, thanks to Her Ladyship’s actions, the opposite will be true.”

“I see.” Loren stroked a hand along his chin. “It might still be wise to send an advanced guard ahead, in case the teyrn is not where he is expected to be.”

“That’s unlikely,” Rosslyn interrupted. “Loghain is an experienced general, and for the first time, our forces outnumber his. He’ll want every advantage he can get, which means having Castle Cousland at his back.”

“Still,” Irminric reasoned, with a glance in her direction. “It would not hurt to be wary, if we could find a unit suitable for the task.”

“I would like to volunteer,” Loren said, and at Rosslyn’s blink of surprise, drew himself up. “I have spent months watching the border, hearing of your successes, and I wish for an end to this as wholeheartedly as any of you.”

“How will Your Majesty know if this… infiltration force has succeeded?” Franderel asked.

“We are due to meet in six days after Her Ladyship leaves for the coast,” Cailan replied. “Once Howe’s colours are struck from the tower, her party will open the gates to the rest of our forces, and we let our enemy beat itself to exhaustion against the walls.”

“Most of the mages will stay with that force. We expect the most casualties there, and if Her Ladyship does not manage to reach the gates it in time, they will make the greatest difference in fending off an attack. Given the lack of templars, they will need a guard.”

“Would my knights be suitable, Captain?” Teagan asked. A slight hesitation shook his voice, but he had adapted quickly to the idea of being Arl of Redcliffe in his brother’s place, with all that entailed.

“They will, my lord.”

The jangle of mail alerted them to the arrival of a messenger in blue, who bowed low, cheeks flushed pink as she started to speak.

“Your Ladyship, Guard-Commander Gideon said to inform you the bailey and upper battlements are clear for occupation, and the bridge will be completed to standard in an hour.”

“Thank you, corporal. Have units start to move across as soon as possible, and draft more people into the search of the keep to speed the clearance.” Rosslyn waited for the messenger to leave before turning back to her audience, her back straight and her voice steady. “One question remains before we set out. My volunteers are ready, but what about the ship we commissioned?”

“It’ll be waiting for you at Rothsbridge, Your Ladyship,” Franderel replied. “Supplied and ready, as per your order.”

“Good.”

Despite the mask of confidence, nerves jittered beneath the surface, turning her stomach and shortening her breath no matter how many times she forced her muscles to relax. The prospect of finally going home lurked at the back of her mind, pushed aside for as long as the council discussed troop placement and travel times, but every detail only added to the weight of reality pressing down on her, and would not be ignored forever. This was the campaign for Highever. The end she had wanted for so many months was suddenly in sight, real, complete with the very real consequences they would all suffer if she failed.  

Even once darkness fell and the last of the army had squeezed through the gate, and the Amarathine banners were torn from the walls, her mind wandered, dwelled on what she might find, how little might remain. Without people to occupy them, most of the rooms on the private floor would have to be shut up, the furnishings covered with dust sheets to ward off damage. She would be expected to move into the big room at the front of the house that had always belonged to the teyrn, never mind the sea view in her own chambers, or the fact that she could never think of the big room without hearing her father’s jokes and her mother’s deep, rich laughter.

What had become of her parents’ things – the dressing sets and the lifetime of trinkets? Oren’s toys? How much of her whole life had been thrown aside, or melted down for coin to fund the ransacking of the rest of the teyrnir? The more she tried not to think about it, the more she dreaded having to walk the halls again, accompanied by nothing but draughts through ancient corridors, the echoes of her own solitary footsteps. The heat of battle forced her mind to other things, but once the war finished and everyone went back to their lives, what could she do?

She lay awake for an hour trying to get comfortable, trying to put it from her thoughts, until her patience snapped and she threw back the bedcovers hard enough that they half-buried Cuno. He opened one bleary eye, but she soothed him with a murmur and he stretched out with a doggy sigh that took him back to sleep. Nobody would bother her at such a late hour. She threw on shirt, breeches, and a gambeson for warmth, and headed to the stables.

Alistair would have to go to Denerim, to fulfil his duties as heir apparent. She scowled at her boots as she dwelled on the idea. It was one thing to have their affection for each other made public, but to live together without any formal arrangement between the two of them would cause scandal in the court. Anora would never allow it. And she would never ask him to shoulder such a burden.

The horses greeted her with soft snorts and sweet breaths. As she slipped into Lasan’s stall with a grooming kit on her arm, he turned to her with a low nicker that eased her worries away. Spending time with the large, graceful animals always calmed her, and after topping up her charger’s supply of hay and water and discarding her gambeson on a hook outside, she lost herself in in long strokes of the dandy brush, working from neck to haunch until even the thickest parts of his winter coat gleamed like marble. She spotted burrs in his tail and teased them out with a comb, then looked for anything else the grooms might have missed, details that might keep her mind focused just a little bit longer. She couldn’t take him with her, after all. Her mount for the morning run to Rothsbridge stood further down the line in the narrow barn allocated to the geldings of the messenger service.  

A hoof stamped in the straw.

“I’ve overstayed my welcome, huh?” she asked, coming up to stroke her horse’s ears.  

He pulled his head away from her, swishing his tail and giving a meaningful tug on his haynet.  

“I see I’m dismissed.” She shook her head and left him with a final pat. “Don’t bully the hands too much while I’m gone.”

A rustle in the straw alerted her to another presence as she bolted the stall door.

“There you are.”

She smiled and turned, and found Alistair leaning against the post by the door. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

“You definitely aren’t,” he replied.

Whatever response she might have given died under the soft scrutiny of his gaze. He was already moving forward, reaching for her, warm and solid, a strong heartbeat to calm the tempo of hers.

“The plan will work,” he told her as her arms slipped around his neck.

“It’s not the plan,” she breathed. “It’s after.”

A sigh, the embrace tightening about her shoulders. “We’ll face it together.”

“I’m glad you’re going with me.”

He loosed a chuckle above her ear. “We both know you just need someone to carry the bags.”

She snorted, because he said it to make her laugh, but she pulled back nonetheless, just enough, and threaded her fingers into his hair. “That isn’t true.”

He searched her face. She nudged forward, drawing him down, until he leaned the last little distance and kissed her first, starting with a hand feathered along her jaw, the tiniest of steps to eliminate what little space remained between them.

“Is anyone else here?” he asked, without breaking away.

Unable to speak, she merely shook her head. The kiss deepened, they moved. Alistair’s hand stretched out to brace them both as her back met the wall, while hers roved, pulling him closer at waist and neck. The press of his body trapped her, all strength and safety like she had never known with anyone else, and when a groan tore from his throat with an involuntary stutter of his hips, she took it, and answered, and followed him when he turned his head to pause for air. For a moment they stood, sharing heavy breaths, unmoving save for the whisper of hands across cloth, the slight sway as their senses righted and reminded them of the ground beneath their feet.

“We, uh, never got to finish our conversation,” he managed, voice rough, fingers soft as rain as they slipped beneath the fabric of her shirt and wove delicate, distracting circles across her back. “I’ve been thinking about it – about what might have happened if we weren’t interrupted.”

She leaned into him, grinned as her touch on the back of his neck made him shudder. “So have I. What… what would you have said?”

“That…” He swallowed, untangling her fingers so he could take them in his. “I want you, and I’ve wondered – imagined – what it would be like for longer than is probably decent. And I want – I’m willing to wait, until the perfect time, the perfect place, until you’re ready, and it’s what you want.”

The words held a practiced air, as if he had rehearsed them, scanned them for any misinterpretation, and now he held himself before her, all brittle hope as he waited for a response. Rosslyn’s doubt all but bled away, her uncertainty not for what she wanted, but that the lack of wanting before might show itself in the moment, in other ways. She tightened her hold on his hand.

“You think it would be worth the wait?”

He sighed, disbelieving. “You’re worth everything already, but that… it would be special.”

A bright knot of tension coiled beneath her ribs, expanding around her heart until her breath stalled and her limbs shook, but in its suddenness the strength of her yearning defied mere words. Her silence drew his brows together, however, and the purse of his lips as his gaze dropped to their linked hands was unacceptable.

“I love you so much,” she told him at last, laying her free hand against his cheek. “I’m just… not sure how to explain it. I haven’t changed – what I am is the same, and my feelings for you don’t…” She stopped, biting down on a growl. “I don’t see you and desire you like I’ve heard other people say. But I feel you, and this isn’t close enough, and I want – I want to be with you for that. I want to touch you and never stop, I –” the words were tumbling out too rushed, an embarrassment buoyed by disbelief that such an admission was hers at all. And she was too easily distracted. Alistair’s spare hand still lay at her waist, still turning circles against her skin with the blunt edge of a nail. “I don’t want you to stop doing that.”

It took him a moment to work out what she meant. “You like that?”

“Mmhm.” Her eyes closed to better concentrate on the trail of his touch, but when she tilted forwards, he dodged the kiss and let his mouth run the length of her jaw instead, all the way to the pulse point at the top of her neck. There, he paused, the tip of his tongue flicking against her skin as he wet his lips.

“I want to learn every inch of you by heart.”

She realised her lungs had stopped working. A snide part of her wanted to deny the rush of heat through her limbs, the tingle low in her belly, as merely a reaction to the road ahead or some vain hope that this might finally be the cure to whatever ailment had left her cold all her life. Terror gripped her through that tiny instant of doubt, but Alistair stood ready to lead her away from the precipice. His eyes darkened to the rich, sweet hue of spiced mead as he looked at her, his fingers careful as they left her waist to play with the wispy hair at the back of her neck.

“Breathe,” he reminded her, with a fond twist to his usual cocksure grin. It faltered. “Would – what I said, is that alright?”

She caught his face again, her focus slipping to his mouth. “As long as you let me do the same with you,” she answered.

The shudder that ran through him wiped away any hesitation about claiming his lips again. He pushed her back into the wall as he opened to her, smirking at the noise the movement startled from her throat. Deliberately this time, the cover of his body rocked forward, a slow, cautious push against her hips. His head dropped to her shoulder.  

“Is this alright?”

All she could manage was a strangled hum and a nod. She knew enough to recognise the long, hard line trapped between his body and hers, and thought of it made her stomach flutter. She kissed his neck, cradled his head in her palm. Every nerve sang like a plucked string. In the stalls around them, the horses shifted in their sleep, a small noise amplified by the darkness and the need for discretion.

She squeezed his arm. “Someone will find us here.”

“And we can’t have that.” He chuckled and dragged himself away, though his hands lingered. They followed invisible tracks along her sides, as if memorizing the shape of her ribs. “It must be getting late – we can’t stay here all night.”

Without losing each other, they wandered from the stable and paused at the trough to wash their hands of dust. A thin rime of ice lay like a skin over the water. Rosslyn threw her gambeson around her shoulders like a cape as she broke through with a bucket to fill the washing station, grateful for the extra layer and for Alistair’s warmth huddling next to her. He fished stray wisps of straw from her hair as he waited for his turn with the horsemaster’s caustic soap, and smiled at the way she blushed, which only encouraged the spread of heat across her face.

Nobody bothered them as they picked their way around the sea of canvas tents to the keep steps. The only movement came from the guards on the battlements, and without the light of either moon to lessen the darkness, the night closed around them like a curtain, allowing them the privacy that came so dearly in daylight. Tucked under Alistair’s shoulder, with his arm around her trying to stave off the chill leaking through her still-open gambeson, Rosslyn almost allowed herself to believe they were like any other couple, leaning into each other, stealing each moment as they found it, all but inseparable, and barely caring what the royal guards thought of them as they passed.  

The highest floor of the keep had been set aside for the king and his closest companions, and it was deserted. They halted awkwardly as they came to Rosslyn’s door, limned by the low, harsh light of the storm lantern in the alcove opposite, and stood with hands still linked and eyes averted in a vain attempt to prolong the moment before they had to part. Her heart thumped a harsh rhythm in her ears, but before she could say anything, Alistair caught her chin and with the smallest hesitation leaned down to tilt a kiss against her mouth. She reacted instinctively, closed her eyes, stretched upwards to make it last. He stroked her face as he pulled away.

“Goodnight, my love.” His smile turned self-conscious. “Just think, the next time we’ll be sleeping in beds, we’ll be in Highever.”

“Alistair.” She kept hold of his fingers as she glanced to her door and back. She felt her mouth twitch in a brief, reassuring smile, but nerves quickly stole it away.

“You…” His glance mirrored hers, eyes wide. “When I said – down in the stable, I didn’t mean for any of what I said to pressure you.”

“I know.”

“And… you’re sure you want me to – to spend the night? With you?”

Every fibre of her body ached towards him, the feeling too strong for words. She loved him. She wanted to know what it was like.

“I was under the impression that it’s not the done thing to leave – after,” she tried, and winced when the nervous, joking tone fell flat. “I… we wouldn’t have to do anything, but regardless, I don’t know if I could sleep without you, not tonight.”

To her surprise, he giggled. “Woman, do you know how many nights I’ve had to bully myself into not knocking on your door because I thought you’d turn me away?”

“I won’t,” she promised. “I want this. If you do.” She barely had time to raise her eyes to his before he came crashing down to meet her once more.

[mollymauk-the-peacock]

Character Questionnaire

Poesy Eliane de Carstiens Mountbatten

Tagging! If you’d like to do this as well and you’re not tagged have a go! And lemme know too, I’d love to read about your chars!

@daughterofsarenrae​, @statesideshift​, @squishy-rogues​, @windguaerd​, @wardenmurphy​

Questionnaire under the cut!

GENERAL

Name: Poesy Eliane de Carstiens Mountbatten

Alias(es): Poe (nickname), Poe “Hawkeye” Keaton (stage name)

Age: 25 years old

Place of birth: Mountbatten, Triquetra

Spoken languages: Common, Dwarvish, Celestial

Sexual orientation: Demi-pan

Occupation: Gunslinger of Vindices Populi; former competition sharpshooter; trained cartographer/historian/archaeologist (which used as a cover to sneak out to do those marksmanship comps...)

APPEARANCE

Eye color: Grey/blue

Hair color: Light Blonde

Height: 5′4″ (162cm)

Scars: Jagged bite mark on left side of neck from vampire fledgling; a pair of arrow punctures on her back from an orc ambush; deep graze on left side of ribs she let heal without magic (from her allies trying to break the mind control that had her-- briefly-- kill her S/O, Jesse)

FAVORITE

Color: Deep blue and purple

Entertainment: Reading; crafting (be it herself or others; string music (violin being the favorite)

Pastime: Cheating her ass off at the card tables while traveling in disguise for shooting competitions.

Food: Comfort foods from home, hearty stews and root veggies; also rather fond of lighter fare like tea sandwiches and petit fours that her mom would serve when entertaining

Drink: Mountbatten rye whiskey

Books: A wide range-- from historical non-fiction to the trashiest, cheesiest of bodice rippers

HAVE THEY

Passed university: And graduate school. She’s a history major, following in her aunt’s footsteps

Had sex: Certainly

Had sex in public: Most likely never

Gotten someone pregnant: Nope

Kissed a man: Just the one

Kissed a woman: Considered pursuing a deeper relationship with her college roommate, but they grew apart

Gotten tattoos: One is to come, probably very soon, an enchanted something to allow her and Jesse to communicate telepathically when he’s transformed into his werewolf form (we’ve discovered that it helps to keep him from going feral, having someone there who can interpret his feelings/emotions and speak clearly too him. Poesy’s easily the most trusted to do this) 

Gotten piercings: Ears, double

Had a broken heart: Not really, no. 

Been in love: Jesse’s the first, and it wasn’t exactly pursued or planned, just happenstance (when reviewing the footage, they pretty much couldn’t stand each other when they met over half a decade ago-- Poesy 17, Jess 20)

Stayed up for more than 24 hours: Too many times to count

ARE THEY

A virgin: Naaaah

A cuddler: Very much so

A kisser: She does enjoy it, yes.

A smoker: Negative

Scared easily: Depends on setting? Generally, no; some fright guaranteed (like anything involving open ocean)

Jealous easily: Less likely to be jealous, more likely to feel less than or envious of the person that might incite jealousy.

Trustworthy: Yes. She values her good word because she has no intention of damaging the trust others might place in her family

Dominant: Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Submissive: No, not really.

Single: Nope! Most likely the last relationship she’ll have, however it ends

RANDOM QUESTIONS

Wanted to kill someone: A noble fuckwit called Renee Taveolt for forcing their party through the Labyrinth and orchestrating a large part of the mess they’re in; Parre Despa, for playing part in Taveolt’s machinations and effectively decimating the Edgewood family over a few centuries.

Actually killed someone: Renee Taveolt and Parre Despa. Things worked out nicely.

Ridden a beast: Only horses and a wildshaped druid friend. She was a giant eagle and she was carrying Poesy’s ass out a battle gone south (see scars: pair of arrow punctures) while Poesy shrieked obscenities at her all the while before she ran out of steam and just cried the rest of the way home. It was a bad time.

Have/had a job: Sharpshooter, traveling cross country for competitions, competing and winning against a lot of Triquetra’s top marksmen; currently a mercenary. Their team goes by Vindices Populi, but they’re technically a sect of the greater mercenary group The Champions. Essentially acting as their spec ops team.

Have any fears: Losing the people she loves. Her family is massively important to her, essentially her driving force. Secondary, much lower tier, but the most consistent, not being able to rely on her own sight. Particularly manifests in fear of the leviathans that live in the sea, only just off the coast. (but not limited to the water; encountering bulettes in the sand sea had her about lose her shit)

FAMILY

Sibling(s): Her brother Loren, senior to her by seven years. She’d almost consider her aunt a sibling, as she was so often around, and Alta at 37 is almost closer in age to Poesy’s brother than she is her own next older siblings. Also a long time family friend, Robert Balten, is as good as a second brother to her. She’s known him since she was born and his family has been close to hers for decades.

Parents: Astor and Elise. Very very much in love. The current Lord and Lady of the city-state Mountbatten. They’re the de facto leaders, but share a lot of the lawmaking with an elected council. Astor is a calm and collected man; logical and thoughtful. If he’s the head, Elise is the heart. She’s a feeler. 

Spouse/Significant Other: Jesse Edgewood. Essentially inseparable since he started traveling with the party. They grew closer to each other after Poesy ended the man who orchestrated the murder and attempted murder of his ancestors and the man who removed them from their ancestral home and shattered his family. In the search to find a magical method to travel back home, they fell along along the way.

Children: None; never really gave much thought as to whether she’d want kids until she had a significant other that she’d like to spend her life with. Much more plausible to her now (even though there will be... complications... like genetically inherited lycanthropy...)

Pets: None of her own. Her dad raised wolfhounds and the family kept mews to house recovering hawks (their family’s sigil). The party sorta adopted a tiger? It’s a long story. He doesn’t travel with them, but they love spending time with him when they can.