#especially when it comes to haunting in Venice

[poirot]

anyone here read agatha christie and wants to let me know what they thought about ‚a haunting in venice‘ (or any of the other kenneth branagh christie adaptions)

[lovelytsunoda]

kill of the night // lando norris

summary: she hates parties. especially quadrant parties hosted in large creepy mansions. at least the hot pirate hosting the party is into her, or she would have left ages ago.

pairing: lando norris x female reader

warnings: consumption of alcohol, lando cannot take anything seriously to save his life, the eerie feeling of being watched (anxiety or haunted house, you decide), pirate themed sexual innuendos, mention of spiders (arachnophobia warning!) reader has mild autism

the lights were low and the music loud as she pushed her way through the crowd, desperate for a drink and a moment of peace. the music was bad (some club mix of the rocky horror picture soundtrack) and all she wanted was for her massive headache to go away.

too bad she didn’t drink often. maybe something stronger than a hard lemonade would make this evening bearable.

she sat at the bar, feeling the eerie sensation of all eyes on her as she scanned the sea of bodies for the slew of other glittery fairy wings she had arrived with. she didn't even know some of the girls that well. all of the girls from her program had been invited, and she was trying to be a team player.

one girl was making out with a stranger, two others playing beer pong. the rest were lost to the crowd, dancing in ways that would definitely have disappointed their parents.

when the tuxedoed bartender came back with the crystal tumbler that had her vodka lemonade in it, she frowned at the tiny plastic sword, a gummy worm speared through it.

she just wanted a normal fucking drink.

sighing, she grabbed the glass and got to her feet, sending one last glance to the other girls before she started making her way towards the exit, mindful of the massive plastic wings strapped to her back. she had half a mind to just rip them off and throw them into the nearest trash can.

the outside hallway wasn't much better, and she found herself reaching into her purse for her airpods, less for music and more to just to cancel out the noise. she extracted the green plastic sword, taking the gummy worm off the plastic and dropping it into her mouth. the dj was playing ghostbusters, and she wanted nothing more than to be back home in her small, peaceful dorm, wrapped in her fleece blanket and reading 'love in the time of serial killers', or in the warm movie theatre watching 'a haunting in venice'.

instead she was here.

folding the small sword over in her hands, she grabbed her drink from the side table and made her way down the dreary hallway to get some fresh air.

the outside of the mansion was peaceful, if not a little disused. the hedges were neatly trimmed, the flowers well tended to as she sat down on a stone bench, the cold from the surface seeping in through the fabric of her dress as she took a sip of her drink.

truth be told, the peaceful atmosphere of the large, creepy mansion had been one of the few reasons she had agreed to come, living out her 'haunted mansion' fantasy: ghost who's been pining after her for centuries, the promise of eternal love. all but the evil ghost butler trying to kill her.

"the party's inside, you know!" a shout carried over the breeze, bristol accent sharp.

she yelped, dropping her drink and watching the glass shatter against flagstone.

"jesus! you can't just sneak up on people like that!" she shouted, yanking out her earbuds. "what is wrong with you, you fucking wanker!"

she got to her feet, spinning around to see who had spoken. he was tall enough (taller than her at least), dressed in a billowy white shirt and leather vest, leather breeches hugging his impressive thighs, a mane of curly brunette hair on the top of his head, and a fake sword strapped to his thigh.

at least, she hoped it was fake.

"woah, hang on." he frowned, coming closer to her. he looked like a prince, straight out of a disney movie. "i didn't mean to scare you."

could this be him? the ghost lover from her haunted mansion fantasy?

"it's fine. i guess i'm just jumpy. mansions that are almost certainly haunted will do that to a girl." she took a step back, trying to avoid the smashed glass as she turned, intending to go back to the stone bench before her wing got caught on a hedge. she cursed, resisting the urge to yank at the iridescent plastic.

"let me help." the stranger encouraged, coming closer to the hedge.

she shook her head. "it's fine, just let me take it off my back."

she gently eased out of the elastic straps securing the wings to her body, attempting to make it happen as gracefully as possible. one wing snapped back and smacked her in the face, and she tried to shake it off as she moved away, allowing them to dangle dejectedly from the hedge.

the prince came to stand beside her, his cologne overloading her senses as her reached over her to help disentangle the wings, his body heat against her back making her skin flush.

"here you go." his voice was soft as her passed her back her costume.

she could have left the wings there, she'd only paid three dollars to make them. she folded them up, placing the scratchy plastic on the stone bench before looking down at the shattered crystal.

“sorry about the glass. you’ll probably have to pay for it, being the host and all.”

“how did you know I was the host?”

her face blushed pink “havw you ever seen the haunted mansion? the original one with eddie murphy and wallace shawn?”

she gave him an opening, ready to hide her face behind her hands if it didn’t work out. there was a slight pause, and then he burst out laughing.

“you think that I’m some dead ghostly prince searching for his lost love?” he sputtered. “hate to break it to ya, tinker bell, but I’m not a prince, and I am very much alive.”

“I never said you were dead!” she crossed her arms indignantly, stomping one sneaker-clad foot against the flagstones.

chuckling, the suitor extended his hand. “I’m lando.”

“y/n.” she sighed, reaching to shake his hand. “sorry about the hostility, I just felt overstimulated in there. it’s the ‘tism in me.”

lando gestured for her to sit on one of the benches, looking out at the algae-caked fountain. it smelled earthly, yet his cologne was still all she could comprehend.

“have you had a chance to explore the house? based solely on your haunted mansion statement, I feel like that would be something you were in to.”

“it’s the only reason I came, truth be told. I hate parties, but some of the girls o study with thought it would be a good idea. what i didn’t realize was that we’d all be packed into the ballroom and pretty much the rest of the house would be off limits.”

lando laughed, straddling the bench next to her, one leg on either side. not very prince-like, if you had asked y/n. “well, I didn’t pick the venue. you can thank max and steve for that.”

“I don’t know who either of those people are.”

“I work with them in quadrant, they’re hosting this thing. I’d stepped out for a minute to take a business call.”

she snorted. “you? a business call?”

“what’s so hard to believe about that?” lando feigned offence, smacking his chest with his palm. “and why did your mind immediately go to the haunted mansion when you saw me? I was going for less master gracey and more will turner.”

“please, you’re jack sparrow at best. I can tell you bought your little pirate outfit at spirit halloween. and if my first instinct was that you were dressed as a prince, something is missing.”

she propped one leg lengthwise on the bench, tucking one sneaker-clad foot under the other, smoothing her dress over as to not give the man in front of her a glaring look at her dusty pink panties (although an intrusive thought did prompt her to wonder what would happen if she did).

“have you had a chance to explore the mansion yet?” she asked the man. well, the boy. he couldn’t have been too much older than she was.

lando shook his head, a few errant curls falling from his shaggy hair and over his eyebrows, and something about the way he shook his head to clear the curls from his eyes had her mouth watering. she wondered briefly what it would be like to kiss him.

“i saw a bit of it when we were bringing everything in. it’s a maze of service tunnels and secret doors. i actually got myself locked in a cellar.” lando laughed, and the butterflies erupted in her stomach, a giddy feeling spreading through her bones. “and that’s why ria thought it would be a good idea to cordon off most of the house. so that idiots like me didn’t get themselves locked in anywhere they couldn’t get out of.”

she raised an eyebrow, almost questioning exaclty how th man in front of her got himself locked in a cellar before she thought better of it. “so you know where all these secret passageways are?”

lando wagged his eyebrows. “is that something you’re into?”

“why do you have to say it like that?” she giggled, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth when she remembered how she usually looked when she laughed. “you make it sound weird. like a sex thing.”

“well, it’s not a sex thing,” lando reassured, stepping off the bench like he was dismounting a noble steed. “unless you want it to be? I’d be down to, uh, shiver your timbers in a secret hidden alcove.”

“not if you make bad pirate puns.” she rolled her eyes, taking landos extended hand in hers and allowing him to help her up. “but we can see where the night takes us.”

she shouldn’t have said that. why did she say that? would he think she was propositioning him?

the wind was breezy on her bare legs as lando led her across the moonlit backyard, pushing open the same door they had just come through. the family photos on the wall were old and faded, frames of orange gold around them. lando ushered her up the stairs, clouds of dust flying off the carpet as they ascended. the further up the stairs they moved, the mustier it smelled.

lando stopped her on the landing, hardwood covered in a threadbare oriental carpet, everything covered in a fine layer of dust, save for the cracked mirror.

"press on the edges of the fame, but stand back." lando suggested. "max brushed up against it earlier and almost got flung off the landing. it's a service entrance door."

"sick." she mumbled, pressing her slender fingers along the filigree gold frame. "just like this? do you remember where the latch was?"

"if i did, i'd have opened the door myself." he shrugged.

all at once, she felt the mirror give way under her hand, a clicking sound barely audible as the door began to move. lando reached for her hand, gently pulling her out of the line of fire.

"that was fucking awesome." she giggled, pulling her phone out of her purse and switching on the flashlight. "you know we need to go in there now, right?"

"just as long as you can get us back out." lando pleaded. "i don't want to die in a service tunnel."

she lead the way up the stone staircase, her flashlight illuminating the pounds of dust and cobwebs (as well as the occasional lump that might have been a dead rat, but she actually didn't want to know).

"if i see any big ass spiders in here, killing them is your job." she tried to keep her voice steady, but the thought of a massive spider crawling up her leg was not her idea of a good time. in fact, it would likely send her into hysterics.

they reached the top of the winding staircase, coming to rest in front of a large wooden door with a wrought iron knocker shaped like medusa's head. the hinges were slightly rusted, and it was clear that nobody had come up here for a while.

until them, of course, their footsteps clearly imprinted in the dusty stairs below.

"well, it would be a shame to turn back now." lando remarked, reaching for the door handle. it was stiff, but the room was unlocked.

she followed lando inside, reaching blindly for the old dial lightswitch on the wall. the room flickered to life, lit by two dull bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

a large bookshelf took up one wall, a dust and dirt caked window overlooking the grounds on another, equipped with a window seat for reading. a small crosley record player sat on a teak stand, pressed up against a wall painted an off cinnamon color. she walked to the milk crates stacked neatly next to the the player, flipping through well-worn vinyls.

"whoever was last up here was really into seventies disco. we've got abba, donna summer, elton john, blondie, hot chocolate, earth wind and fire." she mused, pulling a blondie album out of the basket. "although i always considered blondie to be more new wave than anything."

lando reached over her, his chest just faintly burshing up against her arm, body heat causing her skin to flush as he grabbed an elton john record from the basket.

"elton john? now this guy wrote some great stuff."

"nothing in this basket is organized in any way! they've got wild cherry at the front with earth, wind and fire, but blondie is pushed way to the back with chaka khan and ike and tina. no rhyme or reason! i have half a mind to rearrange it myself."

the record player crackled to life, the sound coming out of two old wooden marley speakers, a sound system that hadn't been updated in a while but still came through crisp as they day it was put together. elton john and kiki dee's duetting voices began to fill the room, and lando extended a hand.

"can i have this dance, my fair maiden?"

she smiled, leaning against the stack of milk crates. "i dunno. ladies like me don't dance with scoundrels like you."

"but a scoundrel like me will show you a damn good time. if you let me, of course."

giggling, she grabbed his hand, allowing the young man to twirl her in a circle before dipping her towards the floor, her hair dusting the shag carpet. soon, their laughter was louder than the stereo itself.

out of breath, their gleeful dance began to slow. they stood in the middle of the dimly lit room, 'don't go breaking my heart' playing lowly in the background, the thumping bass from the ballroom travelling upstairs as lando leaned in.

the craned her face up, pressing on to her tip toes to meet him halfway, brushing her lips against his before her pulled her in for more, his strong arms like a safety net around her body, ready to catch her if her knees buckled (which she was almost sure they would).

"i've gotta hand it to ya, captain. you're one smooth operator." she giggled, kissing him again. "i wonder what else you can do with that tongue?"

"come dock in my port, and you'll find out."

she burst out laughing, dropping her arms to playfully smack him in the chest. "that was your worst pick up line yet!"

"really? i've got a ton more, read up for this very occasion. what else have i got? there's 'i sure would like to pillage your booty', but that one sounds a little sleazy, 'not only do i have a ship, but it's a long one."

"oh my god, you need to stop. they're all as bad as the one that came before." she was laughing so hard there were tears in the corners of her eye. he thought he was so suave, rattling off stupid pickup lines while he leaned against milk crates of vinyl pressings.

and the stupid thing was, it was working.

tired of listening to him ramble, she stalked over to him, grabbing his leather vest and pulling him in for another kiss.

TAGS: @userlando @magnummagnussen @diorleclerc @scuderiamh @lorarri @cartierre @clemswrld @httpiastri @love4lando @silversainz @silverstonesainz @scuderiasundays

[gorbalsvampire]

What are your top 3 favorite clans? Either to make a character for or to use as a Storyteller? :3

Oooooooh, thanks for asking! I'll do these in reverse order, build up to the best.

Number three: Malkavian

My original faves, and a clan about whom I have some sTRoNg oPiNIoNs. See, the thing with Malkavians is that for years and years and years it felt like nobody thought for two minutes about how the rules for Derangements work. Too many Malks were played as hapless victims of their insanity, driven to ooky-kooky comic relief bullshit behaviour or dark tormented scary deep mental anguish all the time - and that's not how it works. The Malkavian Derangement was incurable, as in it would never be removed - it was not insurmountable!

Derangements could be overcome through the expenditure of Willpower, scene by scene. Willpower could be recycled through a careful choice of Nature and Demeanour to indulge. Malkavians were about powering through, being a dangerous and cogent master of the mind whammy, surfing your own mind's wild tides with gritted teeth and every now and then, when it didn't matter so much, when you had the luxury of rest, unclenching your jaw and letting the madness take you.

Therese Voerman is my poster girl for what a Malkavian should be: she's competent, ruthless, and clearly has problems that she's keeping under control through sheer cognitive heft/letting Jeanette out to play when it's all too much.

Anyway. Malks. Love the Disciplines, love the Network, love the visions, love the savagery of a well done, targeted prank. V5 moving them away from "a specific instance of mental illness with oversimplified game rules" and toward "chronic mental overstimulation which manifests as a consistent game rules penalty" is a subtle change but a good one. None of my games feel complete without at least one Malkavian.

Number two: Lasombra

Elegant, classical, lordly, and aggressive. None of the subtlety and resilience of their Ventrue arch rivals: the Lasombra will break you in body (Potence) mind (Dominate), or both (Oblivion), and if you're mortal and you impress them, they will make you rise again.

I love the existential, spatial, cosmic horror of Obtenebration; I love their connection with the ocean and their warring against themselves over and over (and yet with an oversight body that transcends the lines of conflict); I love the hubris that swears they destroyed their Antediluvian and how that's come back to haunt them in V5.

They make great antagonists - I've always felt that in OG Masquerade especially, the Sabbat pillar clans' Disciplines were designed to enable cool boss fights, and being thrown around by a shadow monster or enveloped and consumed by a roiling tide of darkness... mmmm... sorry, I was supposed to be talking about tactical challenge, but then I got to thinking about how sexy Lasombra are and... look, check my intro post, Ib from LABN nailed the archetype and frankly she could nail me too.

Number one: Hecata

Always and forever. The OGs. Every incarnation of them has delighted me. Necromancy and vampirism walk hand in hand for me (I was a Warhammer Undead guy before I was a Vampire: the Masquerade enby). The Cappadocians are patient, thoughtful, genteel court wizards who get done dirty (by their mediocre "here to go!" Clanbook as well as by the Giovanni) and come back SCARY/become something new in hiding. The Giovanni are delightfully loathsome literary-Gothic villains - seriously, they're rich decadent incestuous black-magic loving Italians? did Anne Radcliffe write for V:tM? - AND sassy East Coast gangsters with a sorcerous twist.

They aren't perfect - the Family Reunion creaks with artifice, the Nagaraja shouldn't exist be there, there is no WAY a skyscraper in the middle of Venice is acceptable world building, the Nayson San An are one of those early WW concepts that's always going to be stained by racism, and what's been done to Necromancy over the years, from a rules bloat/design standpoint, is a bloody shambles.

I think a lot of what I love about them comes from me rather than from the developers. I've put a nonzero amount of thought into who ended up where vis. Reunion, Chamber, Council, into the history of Venice and its involvement with the Fourth Crusade and the collapse of Constantinople's Dream, into reinvigorating the gangster stereotype and into the history of Scottish banking and slave trading... but! but! no other clan has ever inspired me to do so many deep dives, to commit to such bits as "how do you make a Giovanni who can just hang out with any old coterie and you'd barely even know he was a Giovanni?"

The bottom line is that I like concepts with flaws, because flaws inspire creative fanwork. I yearn to work a problem, and the Hecata are raddled with problems. Marbled with them, like a tasty steak - they just need proper preparation to be served.

[poirott]

your gifs look so good! but they're a little slow. have you tried speeding them up to 0.05? when you save them from the video timeline window they actually save at 0.07. they'll be even faster sped up a little! anyways, love your blog, definitely a legendary one. xx

Hi! Thank you for the compliments! The frame animation sequences are slower in my gifs on purpose for three reasons: personal preference, for effect and because I've never liked fast-running gifs. :) When giffing a moment from a tv show/movie/celeb appearance I really enjoy (Poirot and other crime shows, the Branagh Poirot trilogy, a Benedict appearance at an event, cast at movie premieres, etc), I prefer 0.08 or 0.07 than 0.06 or 0.05 speed across the board.

I know a lot of gif makers use 0.06 as some sort of "standard" on this site but it honestly comes down to personal choice and style. 0.06 may not suit every scene in every show, and 0.05 can look distracting given its speed, again, depending on the scene. You know how sometimes a fast, busy gif has to loop several times before you can tell what's going on in it?

It's easier for me to take in more details in a gif, like the costumes, sets, cinematograpy, facial expressions, characters' emotions, etc, when said gif is slowed down a bit. Otherwise it can be too quick and "jerky" (like a shaky camera effect) for me to enjoy, similar to those short 5 or 10 or 20-frame sequences in tv/movie trailers that just breeze by because they have too few frames. Once they're slowed down in gif form, you can appreciate them to the full extent.

These B-roll footage gifs of A Haunting in Venice are at 0.07 and 0.08 to fully enjoy the on-location filming moments and behind the scenes footage of Branagh's Poirot. They are slowed down for effect to show off the stunts. Especially when a gif has two action-packed sequences in it, if it runs slower, it's not as headache-y and busy to look at when it's switching from sequence A to sequence B. Some are also pretty dark due to spooky lighting on the sets and your eyes need more time to adjust to take everything in. Trust me, I spend a lot of time deciding what the best speed is for each gif. But most of my gifs are still faster than these.

The following Poirot gif from this gif set is one of my slowest at 0.08 speed, for effect because the point was to focus on Poirot's pleased expression, he looks very sweet tipping his hat at the lady, not expecting a kiss from her for solving the case:

With the gif sped up to 0.05, I don't think you can catch all the minute details:

It's just how I personally like my gifs. Most of the time they're 0.07, and 0.08 on occasion. The slower speed lets them "marinate" more. Especially with tumblr's large format HD gifs nowadays, it's fun having such a big canvas to play with and the chance to observe every detail in a frame, when I didn't even notice it at the cinema or when watching the show originally.

Cheers!

[darkmessiah2000]

2023 has been a really hectic year when it comes to the entertainment industry, what with the writers and actors strikes and project delays, but overall we still got a lot of good content this year and I’m especially looking forward to what 2024 has to offer.

Suzume

Oppenheimer

The Creator

John Wick: Chapter 4

A Haunting In Venice

The Super Mario Bros Movie

The Boy And The Heron

Godzilla Minus One

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

Napoleon

Flowers Of The Killer Moon

Scream VI

The Covenant

Evil Dead Rise

The Boogeyman

Rebel Moon

M3GAN

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter

Five Nights At Freddy’s

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny

Haunted Mansion

Renfield

Talk To Me

The Exorcist: Believer

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3

Ant-Man: Quantumania

The Owl House Season 3

Castlevania Nocturne

Barry Season 4

Attack On Titan Final Season

Invincible Season 2

Ahsoka

The Mandalorian Season 3

The Bad Batch Season 2

The Amazing Digital Circus

Godspeed

Lackadaisy

Good Omens Season 2

Archer Season 14

Lawman Bass Reeves

Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters

Harley Quinn Season 4

Skull Island

Solar Opposites Season 4

Rick And Morty Season 7

Sonic Prime Season 2

The Witcher Season 3

The Last Of Us

The Continental

Sister Boniface Mysteries Season 2

Father Brown Season 10

Loki Season 2

A Small Light

Scavengers Reign

Blue-Eyed Samurai

Gamera: Rebirth

Starfield

Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora

Hogwarts Legacy

Dead Space (Remake)

Dead Island 2

Star Wars Jedi Survivor

Spider-Man 2

The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

Remnant 2

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Resident Evil 4 (remake)

[awrestlinggirlwholoves80sbands]

AU of GNR going to a carnival?

Hi, my brain could only come up with headcanons, so I hope you like it. Also I might have blended a bit of how luna parks work here, because honestly I'm not American and carnival to me is like the Venice carnival hahaha.

Axl:

- Mr recklessness himself. He will try every ride that looks like it could kill you.

-"Axl, I'm not going on something that looks like it's about to shoot me out of space. "

-"C'mon it's going to be fun!"

- Probably he will drag you into the house of horrors but then you both get scared.

- He will spoil you. Are you hungry? He will buy every treat you want. You see a cute souvenir? Boom, it's paid and in your bag now.

- However he is extremely competitive. Shooting gallery? He will look like those poor targets own him money. He wants to win the plushie and he will win the plushie for you.

- If he succeeds, he makes sure you get the biggest one, if he doesn't, he will pout but still try to have fun for you.

- Beside the shooting gallery, his worst enemy is the punching machine. He wants to impress you, no matter what, even if you are aware of how strong he is.

-"Babe c'mon. No need to impress me, that's not our first date!"

-"I gotta beat my record!"

-Before getting home, you will have your romantic moment on the top of the ferris-wheel.

Slash:

-Slash loves rides, especially the one that will spike your adrenaline. So be ready to not have a break.

-You will both scream at the top of your lungs, out of excitement and fear.

-If your stomach is upset, he will take pity on you and wait before hopping on the next ride.

-Even more than rides, he loves the haunted house. If you are a big horror fan like you, then great!

-But if you are not, you either gather your courage or don't follow him.

- He will probably be so happy to be scared by random noises and flashing lights. He has even the courage to tell you that he didn't find it scary enough.

-"To be honest that scream wasn't even that scary."

-" I'm happy you didn't, because I found it very fucking scary."

- He will wear his sunglasses on every ride, it doesn't matter that you get thrown upside down. Somehow they will stay on him.

- If either you manage to win a prize, you already know if there's a snake stuffed animal, he will choose it and you will make him carry it around.

-"We should call it Elton John, it will make him a gentleman"

- Slash will laugh and you will know everything is worth that smile.

Duff:

-Duff loves carnivals, he didn't have a lot of money growing up so he didn't manage to go often.

- He will take advantage of his height at any time and make lighthearted jokes about you being shorter than him.

-"Are you sure you can go on this ride? Are you tall enough?"

-Jokes on him tho, because you drag him on the carousel and other rides for people who are not as tall as he is.

-"Is the horse too small for you, Duffy?

- Food doesn't discriminate and you make sure to get different dishes so you can taste them all, from funnel cake to chicken and waffle.

- You convince him (more like he pretends to have to be convinced) to go on the ferris-wheel for a romantic moment.

- The view isn't the best but the kiss at the very top pays off everything. You even joke about how this is the way Duff sees the world, so up there, and he will laugh.

- Lastly you want to take a photo in a tiny photo booth, to remember this day.

-Needless to say you take a few minutes to figure out how to get both in frame, without cutting Duff's head in the picture.

-"Say cheese!"

-" I can't feel my legs anymore."

-" But look how cute you are in this!" And you really mean it.

Izzy:

-he is not a big fan of carnival, but he will still go with you.

- Will skip most rides with the excuse that he needs to hold your stuff and he likes to look at it better anyway.

- You will manage to drag him to some rides, and he will be the most chill even while he is excited.

- "Did you have fun?"

-"It was okay. I liked when it felt like we were about to fall into the void."

- However you discover he has a secret talent : guessing how much something weighs by holding it.

- How's that helpful at a carnival? A game where you have to guess precisely the weight of an object.

-He will win a giant teddy bear that will make you both take turns to hold.

-"Why are you so good with weights?"

-"My previous "legal" job? "

-You know he had fun, even if might not show it. He can be just as crazy and childish as the rest of the band.

Steven:

-He is a child at heart so he will try every ride. Every single one of them.

-He will drag you to the carousel, saying it's not only for kids but for couples too.

-He is not the most precise with tiro al segno, but he will manage to win a small stuffed animal. Great, now it is your child.

-"C'mon, I bet we are short enough to pass for teenagers!"

-"Steven, it's literally a dog shaped train for children."

-His second favorite thing to do is eating. He will want to try every single food and will get upset if you say he can't.

- "I can't choose just one! You know I love both the caramel apple and the deep fried oreos."

-Needless to say he will get both and feel full for approximately an hour before asking for food again.

-He will still want to ride even with a full tummy, which means he will look like he's about to puke most of the time.

-"No way we are going on that roller-coaster after you ate a whole turkey leg."

-"But I feel fine!"

- At the end you will spend a fun day, feeling like a child again, with a new stuffed animal, hopefully with a non-sick Steven and getting over some of your roller-coaster fear.

[anosrepasi]

1-4?

Yay <3

Tell us about your current project(s) So Prima Lingua has revived itself again and is probably my most current project. The thing that I love about PL in particular is that I've come to adore every chapter of it, which is unusual for a project, especially one as long as PL but with such a short number of chapters. I thought I would really struggle through the Booker and Nile chapters because at least the Nile chapter is a lot of rehashing scenes from Lingua Franca with additional context and my brain didn't want to do that for the longest time. Progress is actually really close, I have two chapter left, including the one I'm currently writing, and the fic is complete. Which is also crazy to think about cause that'll be my second long-fic completed. The other project that's been taking shape in my drafts is a ghost fic for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla because unfortunately when I replay games I tend to get weirdly attached to the characters I know are doomed. Ivarr was one of those characters, and I thought his death had way too much angst to not play around with the idea of him haunting Eivor afterwards. Progress on that is that it's almost completely written I just have to nail the epilogue/ending and some placeholder text spots. What I love about it is that it is a fic about conflict and guilt and I really really love the dialogue in the fic because I made one of the characters unwillingly mute for most of it, and that gets addressed.

Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing Honestly, I'm looking forward to Nolexi and where I finish off the Lingua Franca series. I have a couple of scenes I refer to in my head that I'm looking forward to writing that are coded in my brain as: Yusef in the dark, Booker in Chicago, Nicolo gets mad, Nile in the museum, and the family dinner. They're kind of acting at my waypoints for the fic and oooof I have lots of feelings about all of them and cannot wait to get into the strange messy world of estranged and grieving no longer but still dysfunctional immortals.

What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? If I had to pick a scene from an existing fic, I wish I could see and have a fleshed out version of Booker exploring the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 that I touch on in Prima Lingua. I know I wanted to have Booker end up in Chicago for a while back when I was writing Lingua Franca and having Nicolo experience the world fair as a second hand observer was one of the best unexpected plot points I created when writing chapter 4 of Prima Lingua but. I also hint that Booker was literally a victim of H.H. Holmes in the fic and it gets brushed off cause Booker and Nicolo are too busy being amazed by everything happening at the world fair. Which having been to just a Venice Biennale, I get it. If i was immortal and getting murdered got in the way of seeing everything i could, i would also minimize the whole murder thing. Alas. I don;t really want to write this but I wish i could watch an episode of Booker and by extension, Nicolo, wandering around the Chicago world fair. i think it'd be fun.

Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like) (I wrote more than a paragraph) From chapter 1 of Nolexi, I have an exchange that just I was like. Wow! This is fucking rough! And what a great way to set up how rough this is going to be for everyone! I had a bit of character conflict in Lingua Franca, but the first two fics in the series are mostly man vs. situation/setting conflict not interpersonal conflict and Nolexi is about all the character conflict. So yeah. Many a struggle ahead for the group.

“No, I understand you fine, it’s not your language skills," Booker motions to himself, “I haven’t spoken Provincial since I was a child.” Nicolo tilts his head at the statement, his confusion evident for a moment before something like understanding, though understanding for what Booker couldn’t begin to fathom, replaces it with a blank clarity. “It’s a lonely life, being so far removed from that which you consider home.” And that’s- that’s too close to something Sebastien doesn’t even want to acknowledge and like a fool his mouth is on the defense before his brain catches up. “You’d be the expert in that, I think.” Nicolo’s sad smile doesn’t waver and Booker is ready to shoot himself out of this conversation. Fuck. He just always has to get the last word in doesn’t he. Nicolo rises from the table and Sebastian flinches if expecting a blow. “Goodnight, younger brother. Rest well.” Great job, self.

Fun Meta Writer Asks

[stewblog]

A Haunting In Venice

How do you find a suitable challenge for the world’s greatest detective? You force him to confront and consider the unexplainable. 

To the rational, calculating mind, ghosts are a laughably naive concept. Such is the stance of the now-retired Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh). As we encounter him in Venice, he seems content to live a solitary life of retirement, tending his garden and indulging in pastries, all while fending off constant streams of people desperate to employ his impeccable deductive skills. But when the closest thing he has to a friend, best-selling murder mystery author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), implores him to try and debunk the work of a spiritual medium on Halloween night, it’s not long before he is thrust out of retirement and back on the case. 

Poirot is certain he’ll make short work of Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) and her sham seance’ as she claims to be in contact with the spirit of a girl who jumped to her death from the house’s balcony one year ago. But when someone is murdered with no immediate suspects and seemingly inexplicable occurrences begin filling the house, the master detective is forced to reckon with what is and is not impossible. 

There are twists and reveals and jump scares a-plenty. But what A Haunting In Venice may lack in originality, Branagh more than compensates for with good old-fashioned style and a satisfying (albeit straightforward) execution of its story and characters. 

The visuals are by far the film’s strongest suit so let’s start there. This is an absolutely gorgeous film to take in and I recommend seeing it in the largest format available. Is it in IMAX near you? It’s absolutely worth the premium format fees. This is a sumptuous movie to behold with deep shadows and a superbly established sense of place. The palazzo where the majority of the film takes place isn’t your typical haunted house locale but Branagh shoots it to be perfectly disarming. I’m not the first writer to make this comparison, but it bears repeating that Branagh clearly took more than a little inspiration from Orson Welles’ 1962 surreal film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s dystopian novel The Trial. Welles’ film uses unusual and disarming camera angles and depths of field that create a deep sense of unease and paranoia. It’s done in a way that I’ve rarely seen imitated, making Branagh’s point of inspiration all the more clear. It’s a lovely tribute to an underrated, underseen film that also serves to further underscore the psychic duress these characters, but especially Poirot, endures. It deserves to be seen as large as possible because much of the film’s sense of dread and oppression comes from seeing this house and its shadowy structures tower and overwhelm. 

As for the substance beyond the style, Branagh and the film’s script are a bit more subtle. It’s a Poirot mystery so it shouldn’t shock anyone that a murder happens within the first 20 minutes, but to whom it happens may be a bit more of a surprise. Each surviving character has their own ultimately sympathetic (though some more than others) motivations and connections, but it’s seeing the measured ways in which Branagh shows the cracks in Poirot’s confidence and the roots of his dedication to logic and deduction that I found most endearing. Heroes are at their most interesting when they’re vulnerable in one way or another, so seeing this nigh-invincible mind forced to confront mysteries he may not be able to solve as he’s forced to consider concepts he’d long since evolved beyond is right where Poirot should be at this point in the series.  

If there’s a complaint that lingers, it’s that a single casting choice stuck out like a sore thumb. This is due almost entirely to the character’s unmistakable similarity to another played by the same actor in a contemporary piece of entertainment. I’m trying to be vague in the hope that no one else will be immediately distracted as I was, but it took me out of the moment multiple times. I realize this is almost entirely on me and through no fault of the actor’s but there it is all the same. 

All that said, I can’t recommend this enough, especially if you’re looking for a more old-fashioned haunted house mystery now that we’re on our way into this year’s Spooky Season. 

[rainbowcarousels]

What are some of your headcanons about Trinity Gate as a place of healing for Armand, Louis, Daniel, et al?

So I like this idea that Trinity Gate was initially set up as a place for Armand to deal with his shit at the same time as keeping Benji and Sybelle safe. It just happened that Louis had his Merrick-era meltdown and Lestat left not that long into it all happening, so Armand flew out and picked up Louis and it ended up becoming a place for all four of them to deal with some pretty big changes. Benji and Sybelle were newborn vampires, it’s a process that can be difficult especially for people prone to obsession like Sybelle is and Armand always prioritises safe spaces for loved ones first. 

As such, I think Trinity Gate has been a place for healing from design to current day. I think that when he found out about Daniel, he wanted to bring him there but didn’t want to make things worse for him so there has been a place for him for years. The same is true for Lestat, they were often worried about him and wanted him to come home, so there was always a place for him too.

In terms of specifics:

Louis spent most of the first time he was there in the libraries, but he branched out into the gardens as time went on. Armand invested in chairs for him to read in most of the communal rooms including the music room so he can listen to Sybelle play. There’s a lot of time spent without words when it comes to Louis, they understand each other well enough without it and as their romance blooms again, they start taking the steps forward together.

The garden has been Louis’ domain for a while; there is something about investing in helping something grow and the feeling of being part of the earth that helps ground him. I think he struggles with isolation when left to his own devices, so Armand begins dragging him out into the world before long and he begins to feel more like a person than someone who haunts the house. 

Armand for his part doesn’t think of himself as healing there, but he does – he finds his reasons to go on in his children, in falling in love again, and from there, begins to work backwards in dealing with his feelings about himself and his own autonomy. Trinity Gate and NY in general are his bubble in those years and he has the time to really settle down and consider himself, to confront things he hasn’t and admit things to himself that he has had trouble doing before. 

I think Armand finds himself thawing from a numbness he’s struggled with on and off since he was mortal in his little family era here. It makes him more comfortable when people begin to show up in Prince Lestat, it makes it easier for him to be open to what Gregory says and to know he doesn’t want to be the core. He’s learning about his own voice, his own autonomy and in some ways, this is something that he never gets to keep – the eras of Daniel and Louis are the closest, but he was catering more to their lives than his own, not ready to face it. His autonomy has been repeatedly lost ever since he was down in the caves, since the kidnapping, even to a degree in the erasure of his past identities both in Venice and under Santino and even though it was necessary, through Lestat. Getting time to be himself, feel his own emotions whether they’re good or bad, has been good for him. He’s learning.

Daniel at Trinity Gate is a case of learning to trust himself and his instincts. I think as much as he tried as a baby vampire, he struggled with being overwhelmed and this is the era where he starts to explore and really enjoy what it means to be an immortal. He floats from one thing to another, just trying to see what he wants and experience things as a vampire or experience things he has no history of like modern smart phones or VR. Armand helps him a lot with that and the humour of the role reversal isn’t lost on them. 

For Daniel, Trinity Gate is the place where he doesn’t so much fall in love again as feel ready to address it as a whole person when he’s been feeling fractured for so long. It’s a time for reunions – they go on dates, they’ll skip off to Miami or Tokyo for a week, they’ll spend nights curled up catching up on streamed television shows as Netflix becomes more of a thing. It’s an era of Daniel learning to feel comfortable in himself and his place, knowing he isn’t reliant on someone but instead is choosing to be there. I think that in my headcanon for their relationship, this is the turning point for it being a little more ot3 than otp because he and Louis come to their own understanding of their dynamic.

Lestat’s time at Trinity Gate is on and off, not unlike his relationship with Armand. He doesn’t know where he stands at Trinity Gate, he is The Prince, he is Louis’ maker and he and Armand have their on again/off again thing. I think the important part is when he stops looking at himself as his roles and starts figuring out how to just be who he is, not the roles he tries on like clothes and he gets scared to interact like that for any specific amount of time. It’s hard for him to shed that armour and not worry he’ll be abandoned or ridiculed – so he doesn’t really know what to do when he’s accepted into the Armand Bed Pile without question. Okay, maybe one question and it’s ‘can you get your hair out of my face’.

I think it helps him open himself up more - this makes their relationship less of a dalliance and more something they’re actively pursuing for both Armand and Louis. Daniel’s just along for the ride, it’s Lestat, but they do bond over the more difficult moments and build forts downstairs. They like to listen to music on shared headphones/pods and Lestat loves an audience that will listen to him ramble on and Daniel is a good, engaged listener. For Daniel’s part, Lestat’s happy to show him how to do a few more ‘tricks’ and help him gain confidence with what he has. Lestat had to figure his shit out alone, so having another chance to help someone else is good for him too – especially when it’s Armand’s only fledgling. It feels like coming full circle from Nicki.

On a similar vein, I think Antoine’s time here gives him a level of support he didn’t really get due to the circumstances in which he was made. He has a kindred spirit in Sybelle for music, and though he does follow Lestat to France, I think there had to be a small period of reconnection for them here. 

I want to believe Bianca stayed here for a while after losing her fledgling. Not right away, but perhaps a couple of years later when she’s trying to rebuild. I like to think at first, it was like having a sleepover, Bianca and Armand getting some time to reconnect with older parts of themselves, then Armand dragging her out to see the world she’s not familiar with. I want to believe Riccardo came along for the ride and for a couple of months, the three of them are thick as thieves. Playing games, running around in the world to bars and clubs and private establishments – it’s a time for them to reconnect as people.

It gives them all a chance to finally talk through their losses and experiences – Bianca leaving in Paris, Riccardo having been unable to corporealise but wanting to stay with him as much as he could but being unable to communicate and Armand talking about losing himself. They start their mourning process together, for their lives, for the boys, for what they lost along the way, but also learn to celebrate some that they’re here together. It makes all three a little more childish and silly, there’s multiple chases throughout the house and mucking around and it’s good for them to just feel young and free for a while. It’s a side Armand’s partners so rarely see of him and they love it, especially when Armand loses races down the stairs because Riccardo can teleport his way there by going incorporeal. (Armand insists it’s cheating, but his sulking just leads to more silly stories about his teenage years.)

There are others who come and go – Marius is there sometimes and not others, but he isn’t really ready to heal completely. He is learning more about flowers from Louis and spends more time around Daniel there than anyone else, but it’s a foot in the door when he’s ready. They have Pandora there for a bit when she needs time away, giving her the space she needs from the world while still keeping her in it until she’s ready to move on. Even Mael has crashed there, talking quietly about his experiences with going into the sun with Armand before retreating but seeming a little lighter for it. Jesse spends some of her grief there, talks about how the family that used to feel like it spanned the world feels like it’s dwindling and leaves feeling renewed by the way people make their own families in their world.

The tl;dr of this being that Trinity Gate is the Vampire Chronicles equivalent of going on a life changing adventure with Zuko. 

[watchingalotofmovies]

A Haunting in Venice

A Haunting in Venice    [trailer]

In post-World War II Venice, Poirot, now retired and living in his own exile, reluctantly attends a seance. But when one of the guests is murdered, it is up to the former detective to once again uncover the killer.

Branagh's Poirot movies continue to fail to grab me. But I was grateful it didn't turn out to be "supernatural".

And it much more looked like it was filmed on location than the previous instalment. Which I especially appreciate when it comes to Venice.

Jamie Dornan was hard to recognise and felt mostly wasted.

[cookinguptales]

Hey, just read your post on A Haunting In Venice (great analysis by the way), and I was wondering if there’s anywhere to read your poisonous beekeeping story? In fact if you have any more facts about poisonous beekeeping or mad honey I’d be DELIGHTED to hear about them

Hmm. Well, with the caveat that I wrote this several years ago and consider myself to be a much stronger writer now, you can read the story here. Maybe I should post it on AO3, too... Maybe I will once I get back from Japan in a few days.

The Dose Makes The Poison Word Count: 24k Pairing: F/F Rating: M (Violence, some suggestive content) Used by the crown and reviled by the public, Adira is known for the poisonous honey her sacred bees produce. She secludes herself away from it all, carefully tending to her bees and trying not to fall too hard for Ranni, a palace cook who doesn't have the good sense to be afraid of her. But when machinations are revealed to be at work in the palace, poisons may be at the heart of the problem -- and the solution.

I've actually been thinking recently about using some of the concepts I used in this fic to write a new one... A rewrite or a sequel or at least some more in this universe. I really enjoyed a lot of the worldbuilding I did in this, particularly the honeyed religious stuff, so maybe it would be fun to give it another try...

As for mad honey itself... I did a lot of research on beekeeping when I was writing this! Especially cliffside beekeeping, which is still practiced in some parts of the world. Mad honey itself is made when bees harvest nectar from poisonous plants and turn it into honey. Usually, this doesn't actually affect the bees even when they consume it. It's sort of like how mint/caffeine/capsaicin is toxic for many animals but pleasant to humans. That said, sometimes bees do get a little sleepy and "drunk" off some plants! Which is kind of cute, though apparently the bees don't enjoy it.

I come at this from the POV of someone who studies religions (which is also why I got so into the religious worldbuilding in that fic) so I was really fascinated by how mad honey has been used to purposefully induce hallucinogenic states in some shamanistic rituals. In parts of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, there are bees that live on cliffsides and ingest grayanotoxins, which in turn creates mad honey that is purposefully harvested and ingested in small quantities to induce a psychedelic state. This is often used in religious rituals in some communities, particularly in Nepal. (Which was what inspired my story.)

But also, y'know, reindeer eat Amanita muscaria, a deeply poisonous mushroom, and people have used their pee (yes, sorry) in order to get high, also often for religious reasons. It's a whole thing where animals can ingest a poisonous plant, process it, and then secrete a less-poisonous version that humans can ingest in small quantities for hallucinogenic reasons. It's something that you see in a lot of cultures that emphasize altered states for cultural and/or religious purposes.

Honey has been used in religious rituals (and religious ideas more generally) for thousands of years in a lot of different cultures, and bees themselves are often seen as sacred or particularly close to the gods. I liked the idea of a fantasy culture that saw honey as sacred and that incorporated it into most of its religious traditions -- and I wondered how something like mad honey could fit into that, especially if it was being used for violent rather than religious means. And that's how I came up with a poor, lonely beekeeper scooped from her remote village for her accidental talent in creating poisonous honey and placed in the capital city at a very young age. No matter how useful her work is to the crown, the people see her very differently. How much blame does she carry for that bloodshed, and is she diluting sacred rites...?

It's a complicated question for a woman who just wants to be left alone with her bees, y'know? I think I'd like to examine it a little more closely in the future haha. I think I'd like to incorporate more of the shamanistic aspects of the topic next time, too.

Maybe that's what I'll write when I get home from Japan... More honey fic...

[unwanted-animal]

Modern WillBilly AU: California Dreamin’

Moving across the country had been harder than Will expected. Not just moving their physical things, but saying goodbye to his mom, to Jonathan, to his friends… but Indiana was growing too small for him. For them. People were talking, throwing questioning looks their way. He was seventeen, Billy twenty, and every day together risked someone running their mouth to the wrong people. Secret dates were hard, running around was hard, and though Joyce knew (and slightly disproved) and the gang knew (and greatly disapproved) Will could feel eyes on them when they were out. The bad boy and the ghost. Mismatched.

But they were the only ones who knew the touch of the Mindflayer. A better match? There wasn’t one. It was something intimate they’d experienced, and with no one else to share with the boys had found each other. Why was that so wrong?

Billy couldn’t wait to go back and show Will the sights California had to offer. To get away from Neil, to get out of that fucking house and restart his life. Again. This time, though, he wouldn’t be alone. He had Will. Will, the cute little nerd who hung around with Max. Who had looked into his eyes and known. Known what haunted him, what things stalked his dreams, how the world around Hawkins flickered in and out of reality.

Who Billy really was. Because Will was the same.

It wasn’t like he was the only guy in Hawkins who liked guys too, but he was sure as shit the only one Billy trusted. It started after the mall fiasco - after Billy got out of the hospital.

Will was there with Max, reading a book quietly in the corner. Billy had laid there silent, feigning sleep until Max went to get food. Only when she was gone did he turn his head toward Will and speak.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Will had replied flatly. “I’m the only person in Hawkins who knows what you went through this summer. I’m only gonna offer this once, Billy - if you want to talk someone, I’m here for you. If you don’t, fine. But you’re gonna have nightmares. You’re gonna see things. Even El doesn’t know what it feels like to have that thing inside you. So think about it. And be a little nicer to me.”

The kid had a spine. And he was right. After that, the two were almost inseparable. When Will got to high school and the slurs came harder, Billy beat the shit out of anyone who ran their mouth to him. Before long Will had peace, in the protection of Billy’s reputation and willingness to hurt bullies.

Soon that friendship began to grow into something more. Billy noticed workout mags hidden in Castle Byers. He caught Will staring at him from the corner of his eyes. Sometimes Will would come to the pool, fully dressed, and sit with his feet in the water all alone - trying not so subtly to catch glances of Billy in his trunks. Even on days his scars bothered him and he wore a tank top to hide them.

And Will was growing into a good-looking guy, especially after he ditched the bowl cut Joyce insisted on. Like Harrington he had a few small moles scattered on his skin, and his eyes were a rich shade of brown that reminded Billy of autumn. His smile was bright, and he shot up like a weed his freshman year. He could look Billy in the eyes. And that changed everything between them.

“You doin’ okay?” Billy asked as they drove through the city, heading toward Venice Beach. He couldn’t hold Will’s hand, the Camaro was a stick shift, but now and again he reached over and brushed his fingers against his thigh.

“Just nervous. I’ve never surfed before. Obviously. I’m not a sports kind of guy.”

“It’s alright, baby. It’s just for fun! I’m a lifeguard, remember? You fuck up too bad I’ll be right there to save you.” He grinned and stuck his tongue between his teeth, peeking over at Will.

Will smiled at him. “You better be.”

Adjusting had taken time, and Will still had to finish his last year, but he’d gotten a job working with a guy named Argyle at a pizza place and with Billy picking up work at a local mechanic, they’d been able to get a little place of their own. This was their first vacation since arriving, a day trip to the beach to relax and spend some quality time together, and both were looking forward to it.

The past few years felt like a dream. Now they were far away from Hawkins, and if they saved up Will could go visit his family back home. But now, in the California sunlight, flying down the road in Billy’s Camaro, Will was grateful for the chance to start a new family. To be free. Himself, with the man he -

Hell. He really meant it, didn’t he?

The man he loved.

[sloshed-cinema]

Lady Chatterley’s Lover (2022)

What a comprehensively hideous and boring film to look at.  The “blue for every other color” handling of color timing is a distressing trend in a lot of movies (especially ones made for streaming platforms, for whatever reason), somehow even more egregious than the infamous Mexico Filter.  This adaptation of the DH Lawrence novel is awash in washed-out windows and ugly, pallid scenes that make actors look gaunt and somehow manages to render even the verdant countryside of the English Midlands bleak and desolate.  And yet it’s somehow so much worse than just that.  At points, the film remembers that a springtime scene of love blossoming should be swathed in pastels and warm, gentle sunshine.  Connie Chatterley wears a bright yellow blouse or a warm crimson dress.  And yet not even a scene later that same blouse looks jaundiced because everything’s turned monochrome again.  Perhaps this was an attempt at using color palettes to inform themes: maybe jumping from naturalistic or saturated colors to this world drained of vibrancy signals an emotional shift.  When Connie visits Venice with her family, for instance, within three shots the movie goes from a summery Venice to an icy one and back.  Is Connie still haunted by dark memories of dreary England?  This doesn’t seem to hold up when random sad sequences are shot brightly and random happy ones are sent to the Blue Zone.  Hell, by the end of the film, it fully stops giving a shit.  The cast of the light will shift from soft to harsh without rhyme or reason and the edit starts making heavy use of dissolves to black out of nowhere in the final minutes.  In a final middle finger to aesthetics, Lady Chatterley’s Lover even manages to ruin an effective final shot.  Journeying out to Scotland to find Oliver, Connie comes to his farmhouse.  He approaches her from behind, out of focus.  She stops and he draws near, stepping into her plane of focus to embrace her.  She inhales sharply.  Cut to black.  Brilliant.  A reunion and the promise of a future together.  Oh wait, what, there’s another shot?  Oh… oh, it’s just a boring middle shot of them embracing in front of a mountainside before it cuts to black and the credits roll.  It’s hard to comment on the film’s handling of the novel’s themes of social class, sexual frankness, and a post Great War England struggling to find its footing in a changing, ever more industrialized landscape.  I’m sure the book is better.  At least the movie gave us alternatives to missionary position sex; I guess it’s got that going for it?

THE RULES

PICK ONE

Select either CLIFFORD or OLIVER and sip when they are named.

SIP

Someone says ‘divorce’.

Washed out exterior light coming in through a window.

Someone begins to narrate a letter.

Oliver says ‘ladyship’.

Someone names the Chatterley estate.

BIG DRINK

Clifford’s hut is mentioned.

Oliver tells Connie to look at him.

[vampiresuns]

As They Covered The Sun With Swords They Had Bloodied, I Found Your Eyes Like A Worship Song of Old (Part 2)

A Tamnana centric spin-off to @ilyamatic​'s pirate au. Tamryn & the Olenevs belong to @valhallanrose​.

You can find Part 1 here.

Series Summary: 16k words. Set during the first decades of the XVIII century, Aelius Anatole, or Inti Ankuwilla, as history might or might not remember him, meets a certain Tamryn Olenev when his family relocates from Poland to Venice. In meeting each other and falling for each other, the two of them will discover a kingdom of their own, where they can figure out what it is to exist despite all odds telling you not to.

Part 2: 6k words. After sharing a furtive kiss on a deserted alleyway in Venice, Anatole’s job catches up to them. With the promise of returning, Anatole sets off to the Caribbean and upon his return, he decides to face Tamryn’s parents before confessing his feelings to him. Meanwhile, Tamryn frets, prays and finds a strange form on solidarity in Milenko.

Content warnings: Minors DNI. This is a piece of historical fiction set in the early XVIII century, during the golden age of piracy. As such it may contain depictions, allusions and episodes of racism towards black and indigenous peoples, anti-semitism, islamophobia, and LGBTQ people, as well as legitimate aspects of colonial violence.

Footnotes can be found at the end of the piece if applicable. Check part 1 for the main references and background research used for this piece.

Late at night, Tamryn had been going over the same detail of his project over, and over again.

“Alright honey, I think it’s time for you to go to bed,” Evalina said.

Tamryn kept going over his project.

“Tamryn.”

His mother called his name again: “Tamryn.”

Only when she gently shook his shoulder, he realised she was talking to him.

Tamryn grew more and more distracted as days passed. Half agony, half hope, altogether dreading Anatole might regret what he did. He knew he had held his hand, he could still hear him promising he would come back but that wasn’t enough to calm his fears, especially when the fear of him changing his mind about him hid a fear much, much worse: that Anatole might not come back.

Tamryn hadn’t told his family what had happened between him and Anatole yet. Part of him wanted to, longing the familiar feeling of crying to his parents (as he had the honour to have good parents who understood him) and them comforting him about it. He could almost hear their voices telling him it would be just fine, he just had to be patient. For his own reasons he had opted not to say a thing yet, at least not to them.

His gut twisted at the idea it might end up in nothing, having a kiss under the golden light of the early evening to haunt him for the rest of his life. Tamryn didn’t know if he could forget that kiss, let alone the man who delivered it.

To no avail, he wondered often what Anatole must be doing. News of him was scarce. The Olenevs didn’t know a lot of details about what the Cassano did exactly. A House of accountants, some public servants, some scholars, musicians, artists, people of science, printers; at least on the outside. Eccentric as they were, they were good people. They also knew that was not all there was to them.

They helped people they knew as much, that’s how they have come to know them: another family that needed to make haste to leave Kraków, also for their own security and wellbeing, had been helped by the Cassano before. They knew their methods weren’t particularly straightforward, nor orthodox, but they got things done. Tamryn didn’t doubt Anatole was helping people, but ignorance wasn’t bliss, it was a torment.

The Cassano were also extremely private. During the five months Anatole was away, Tamryn learnt it was less due to mistrust (even if that was a considerable element) and more due to protection of their clients, closest friends, associates and collaborators.

Some of their clients were easy to locate and identify. The Cassano ran their business and lent their service with a public facade of acceptability and exceptional skill at plausible deniability. Plenty of people required help keeping account of their affairs for which they felt professional help was better than house servants.

Yet, Tamryn and his family had learnt that their most important clients had, for all effects and purposes, no names: they kept their identities with an iron grip. Even Anatole’s father, who liked to bounce ideas back and forth with Evalina on his own blueprints, never made explicit what they were for, if they were commissions or just silly drawings he indulged himself with. Nor did Anatole’s mother, Qhispi Sisa. She often talked about approaches to medicine with his father and Zelda, but now that Tamryn thought about it, she had never said what she used it for, nor who, beyond their usual house visits.

Tamryn had always missed Anatole when he was away, but at least the other times there had been letters. On this occasion there was none. Not even a note. He had tried to ask Amparo one day, when she came to see Zelda, only to be met with a gentle refusal to answer questions about her cousin, which differed from Amparo’s purposeful reluctance to explain herself.

Milenko was no different. Tamryn knew him and Anatole had been abroad together more than once during these last two years, so perhaps he would spare details about Anatole’s business. It wasn’t that Tamryn didn’t respect his privacy, it wasn’t that he didn’t understand Anatole not giving him information yet was a way to keep him safe (the thought that Anatole was taking care of him, no matter the distance, made him feel dizzy), but he just wanted something to hold onto. Some indication that he might be alright.

When he mustered the courage to ask him, Milenko knew what Tamryn would say before he even said it. “You’re in love. Nothing I say will ease your heart, Tamryn. You will worry anyway.”

“But you’ve been with him, while working.”

“Nothing that I say about myself in that regard will ease your heart either. Let it float away in the water. I like to think it carries my prayers so he is safe. There is life in water, Yhwh is the water.

“I know what it’s like when the heart misses the name spoken for it,” Milenko paused, taking just a little pity on him. He sighed. “Alright, it’s not news, precisely, but are you familiar with Rabbi Al-Harizi?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Suspected as much,” Milenko said with warmth and an audible smile. “Part of my family lived in Spain before we were driven away from it. My nono’s family went there all the way from Aksum and Ethiopia; but mi vava’s family was from the peninsula, but you know what happened there. As it may, Al-Harizi could have some verses which you might appreciate. Would you like to borrow the book so someone else might read it for you?”

“I don’t mind if you do”

Milenko thanked him, and read:

If the son of ‘Amram had seen the face of my beloved, his ringlets, and his gloriously beautiful face blushing whilst imbibing alcohol, he would not have written in his Torah, “…and with a man”(1)

Tamryn would feel his face heat up. “I don’t think that helps. At all.”

Milenko took his hands in his, laughing as he squeezed them. “Be thankful I’m not pulling out The Conference of Birds or any Attar at all.”

“You’re worse than Amparo.”

“Believe me I am not, but What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love. / What do they whisper to each other? Love. / Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts. / In Love no longer "thou" and "I" exist, / For Self has passed away in the Beloved!” (2)

All he could do for Anatole was to include him in his prayers. So Tamryn prayed for him, for his safe return, for more time. That Anatole may come back and kiss him again, or if not, at least that they could talk about it. Every time he said his name Tamryn felt the ghost of Anatole’s lips against his own. He hoped that too was a prayer. A prayer crowned with the sentiment that anything was worth it if it was for love, like his father said.

He should’ve expected Zelda noticing the way he muttered Anatole’s name between his prayers.

“That’s the third time you mention him. Did something happen? You look more lost than usual even since he left.”

“Hey.”

“I know you care about him, I just want to make sure you’re alright, and you’re not keeping anything inside that dumb big heart of yours, when it should be said out loud.”

His mouth became a waterfall of words. He had never been good at keeping things from his family, but he had always been notoriously bad at keeping them from Zelda.

* * *

Somewhere in the Atlantic ocean, Decimo Lemione’s body sunk and rotted in the water, his skull shattered with several pistol shots.

Anatole didn’t think he ought to be pitied. Yes, the ocean was big, but he wouldn’t be alone: he would have half his family to make him company.

* * *

Andrico was late. Of course he was late. Anatole had no time to waste. He needed to find the papers from the Casa de Contratación and get the fuck out of there. Decimo might have been dead, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t still be ambushed.

He heard someone approach the room.

“Oh, you’re not who I’m expecting.”

Anatole hated when things got violent for no reason (“It was just a little trespassing,” he muttered to himself after the second, third guard had come to check why the first, then second, person who had come to check on this room wasn’t returning). He hated it as much as he hated being inconvenienced. Only the fourth guard recognised him, but he was dealt with before he finished saying his name.

“Very rude, I am trying to keep a semblance of privacy—” a fifth person came in. “Oh, where the fuck is Andrico.”

He showed up 15 minutes after the fifth, and hopefully last guard had been dealt with, coming into the room with Jean-Marc, his Quartermaster, when Anatole was finding something to clean his sword, Dawn Piercer, with.

Anatole shot him a murderous look. “Glad to see the Solanaise II is sailing again, glad to see you’re in one piece. Far less glad to see you’re fucking late, El-Saieh. I’ve been waiting here for forty-five minutes.”

“Forty-five,” he repeated, hissing through his teeth.

“What are you doing here? I’m supposed to meet— No. You’re my accountant?”

“For someone who had the audacity to be three-quarters of an hour late, you have no right to be that irritated.” Anatole turned to Jean-Marc, walking over a dead body to hug him. “Marco! You, however, I am glad to see.”

Jean-Marc whistled. “I always knew you’d be one to watch out for.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, but thank you.”

“So Zia Solange didn’t tell him?”

“She sure fucking didn’t.”

Anatole snorted, not even trying to hide how amused he was. Still, he was a professional, and the sooner he was done with this, the sooner he went over the Solanaise II’s accounts and routes, the sooner he could go back to Venice.

 “Look, Andrico I know last time we saw each other we didn’t part on the best of terms, but this is different. You know it is. I am willing to set that aside for the sake of the contract, if that’s alright with you. My plan is to keep you alive for long enough, and I don’t think Solange asked for me to see your accounts only to piss you off.”

“Put what aside?” Drico asked, cocking his head to the side, in the same way Anatole’s dogs did. “I apologised for that! You’re the one who hasn’t accepted my apology for offering you friendship—”

Anatole sighed. “You’re worse than dealing with Christians.”

“Excuse me.”

Jean-Marc pinched the bridge of the nose. “Andrico, Anatole, the contract.”

“He called me worse than a Christian!”

“And I’m going to call you something even worse if you keep making me waste my time where we could be easily ambushed. Again.”

Andrico eyed the dead people, then Anatole. In many ways, before him stood someone he had known forever; in many ways, before him stood someone he had never met before. “You changed.”

“If you say so.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Andrico, the contract.”

He grabbed Anatole’s hand and shook it, despite feeling like somehow this would come back to bite him on the ass. “Deal.”

“Excellent! First of all, as your accountant,” Anatole said with something akin to murderous politeness, “next time you’re this late, or late in any unjustifiable manner whatsoever, I’ll feed you to the Mami Wata myself. Second of all, I found the papers from the Casa de Contratación and I have this,” Anatole showed them a signet ring. “It's only a matter of leaving it in the right place now and to get out of here. And thank all Gods-I-don’t-have-contempt-for that you brought Marco with you. I know you’re terrible with accounts when you’re in a sulky mood.”

“I’m not sulking.”

Jean-Marc groaned.

Once they were back at the Cassano’s safe-house, while Andrico was too busy proving him right by being taciturn and ill-tempered about his circumstances, Jean-Marc made conversation with Anatole. He told Anatole about his travels, and Anatole told him about his. The sooner he was done here, he had said, the quicker he could go back.

“So soon?”

“I left some, hm, business unfinished, and I want to be done with that before I come back in a more permanent fashion.”

“I see. With this business you mention, that is. Or alone?”

Anatole smiled at him and told him nothing. 

* * *

It had been five months and a couple of weeks since he had last seen Tamryn, five months and a couple weeks since he had kissed him. Hadn’t it been because he wanted to wash his hair properly before he drove himself crazy and speak with his parents about what he was about to do, Anatole would’ve docked off in Venice and gone straight towards the Olenevs’ house.

His lips had haunted his every hour, as if the kiss itself had been as long as his exile. Yet, if the desire to see him again had pushed him forward, now that he was in the same place as him, his heart threatened to escape his chest through his mouth out of nerves alone.

What if he was angry at him for not writing? What if he had changed his mind? What if Evalina and Galen didn’t approve of him like this? Anatole thought they did, they both seemed to be both aware and protective of both Tamryn’s and Zelda’s choices in companions, as long as they were good for them.

It didn’t matter. All the reasons he had used to give himself hope and grit when he was away, all the beautiful things in nature, in his quarters,  in the island, in people; all those beautiful details  that he longed to show and tell Tamryn about were whisked away, as if they were trunks he had left on the ship and only now realised so.

The idea of being rejected made him physically ill. He knew his skin was intact, but he felt it crawl out of his body. Anatole hated this feeling. He hated how, despite feeling it all of his life, he still couldn’t get used to it, nor stop it, nor anticipate it. He had been learning, slowly, how to deal with it, but it made him overwhelmed and queasy.

The feeling itself had nothing to do with Tamryn and everything to do with Anatole’s mind. His mind has never known how to stop thinking, how to stop doing things, how to stop bouncing off the walls and digging his claws into certain things. For good or for evil.

He made a whining noise. His three dogs, three pomeranians he had “borrowed'' during one of his working seasons a couple of years ago named Duke, Zapa and Astrid, echoed it. His mapachitli tried to climb him, which Anatole had to stop by holding him in his arms, lest he damaged the fabric of his favourite suit.

Some of the people who had tried to capture Andrico (hired swords, privateers, bastards overall) when he was waiting for the latter had him in a miniscule pen. Before leaving, Anatole had released it, but it refused to go back to the wild, following Anatole instead. No matter how many times he tried to release it, the mapachitli came back.

The witty little thing even followed him to the ship. Anatole did the only thing he could think of: washing him, drying him, and taking care of it.

Now it was there, between his arms as Anatole was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. “I’m going to die.”

“No you’re not, Inti,” his father said as he kissed his brow.

“I am.”

“You are,” his mother said as she also gave him a kiss, “but not now. It will be alright, and we’ll be right behind you. Are you taking the dogs?”

“I think it’s more of a matter of the dogs not letting me get out of their sight.” 

If it weren’t because his grit and determination were stronger than his nerves, he would’ve never made it out of the house. He looked at himself in the nearest mirror one last time: instead of his usual working attire of boots, fitted trousers with buttons to secure the waist-band, a shirt and perhaps a cravat that had been embroidered by his mother, he opted for one of his more formal suits. A fitted coat that reached his knees over a vest, a carefully crafted white shirt with lace details. While he still wore fitted trousers that reached his calves (mostly because he hated the feel of breeches’ clasps around his legs), he opted for dress shoes.

He pressed his coat against his skin, where the inner breast pocket should be. Right, he could do this.

He still wanted to vomit, but it was better to do things while his bones threatened to vibrate out of his flesh than not do them at all. 

* * *

Evalina and Galen greeted Anatole in their foyer, exchanging pleasantries and asking him about his journey: if it had been good, if he was in good health, if the weather was agreeable for sea-travel  and if his nondescript obligations had been alright.

As he did every time he stepped inside their home, Anatole left his cane —the one that had a stiletto rapier inside— by the door. The Olenevs already knew his dogs, the three of them trained enough to be decent guests and not to bark at Pomarańczowy, Evalina’s cat. The mapachitli had stayed back home. It was too small still to roam by the dogs, and in case of an emergency, Anatole needed to be able to manoeuvre a sword.

Sometimes he thought paranoia and overthinking would kill him, but they hadn’t yet. He supposed there was something auspicious about that.

Evalina and Galen had never seen him like this. He looked pale, despite clearly having acquired a slight tan that made his skin deeper and more freckles when oversea. He was shaking and spoke in circles, with a nervous verbosity they had never witnessed in him. They had heard him talk to his heart's content about things he was passionate about, but the way he spoke in the throes of academic passion was not the way he was speaking himself into a spiral now.

“If you came for Tamryn, I’m afraid he’s not home, but you’re always welcome to wait with us.”

“It’s not Tamryn who I want to see,” he said, fidgeting with his own hands. “I mean I do, I just mean right now, as in right-now-immediately.” He sat down, he sat up, he circled one of their sofas, he sat back in it by swinging his legs over the back of it. “I,” he paused, exhaling a nervous breath, “I need to speak to you both, as a matter of fact.”

Galen and Evalina exchanged a look between each other that, in itself, was an entire conversation, in the way only people who had been together for years could. Evalina offered him tea, hoping it will give him pause so he may speak freely, saying they will be happy to hear what he has to say.

Galen, however, offered him a light teasing smile. “Oh no,” he said, “I wonder what it is.”

Evalina whacked his arm, chastising him in Yiddish. Anatole didn’t speak the language very well yet, so he only understood something along the lines of “tea”, “offer”, and “tease him”.

In the time he was away he had prepared a speech in his head. He had even written it down, afraid his mind would consume itself with something else and he would forget it. He brought it out of one of his inner pockets, only to fold and unfold the parchment as he read none of its contents.

The only thing he managed to say before crying was “I”.

This is it, I have ruined all my chances for not being able to be better, as I know I ought to be, he thought, forgetting his hosts felt nothing but kindness for him. How could they not when he was so caring of their son.

Galen brought tea, which Anatole tried to drink but one of his dogs had made it to his lap.

“No, Astrid, get down.”

Impervious to her human, she tried to lick his tears.

“We’ve never asked, what kind of dogs are they?” Galen asked, offering him a reassuring smile, hoping speaking about something else would help him calm his nerves.

Anatole managed to wrangle Astrid down, but now he couldn’t stand up as all three of his dogs decided to perch themselves against his legs, trying to comfort him. He appreciated the change of topic as he, shakily, took the cup of tea.

“We know you only like spiced tea.”

“Thank you,” he sniffled. “I’m sorry. They’re pomeranians.”

Evalina and Galen both raised a curious, alert eyebrow. “You mean Polish spitzes? Those Pomeranians?”

“Yes.”

“How did you even manage to get a hand on three of them?”

“If I want to be completely honest, I stole them,” he laughed. Before his nerves could undermine him any further, he stopped himself from thinking the watery chuckle sounded pathetic. He was trying his best. He wasn’t pathetic. He was brave and strong, and he was around people whom he trusted.

With slow breaths, he calmed down somewhat and took a tiny sip of tea. “In truth, I don’t think certain types of people deserve good things… but I didn’t come here to talk about my job, or my political opinions, at least not just yet.”

At the same time as Galen told him he could take his time, Antole said: “I’m in love with Tamryn.”

Silence fell on the room.

“So tell him that?” Evalina said, tentatively. Anatole stared at her as if she had begun speaking in tongues.

“That’s not the point, though. I mean, I do plan to ask him to m—, rather, I mean, tell him, if that’s okay with you. Please do let me finish before I ruin the impression you have of me again. I want to ask him but I refuse to ask him before I talk to the two of you, no matter if I cry or if my voice shakes. As long as you allow me the audience I need to speak to you before I do that.

“I don’t think there’s more important people in this world, to Tamryn, than his family and his community. Even if I didn’t know Tamryn as I do, I would know how important community is for you, not because it is also important for me and the likes of me, but because I see it in Milenko and Zia Aurora and her siblings. The Tesfaye are nothing without their community.

“My job is dangerous, my job involves travelling at sea back and forth. I will tell Tamryn, but you must know first: my family does a lot of things, but our most important guild is not the ones we make public, but those which we don’t speak of. We administrate and protect several pirate communities. These pirate communities actively sabotage Imperial ships. It matters not the empire: what matters is this. Justice.

“Conquistadores take African peoples from their land and lives, in vile kidnapping as if they didn’t deserve their freedom. They take our lands and exploit our people to die in mines like Minas Gerais and Potosí and Nueva España, like we were nothing but things to be crushed under their ambition and their cruelty. Things to be re-educated, when what they mean is ‘eliminated’.

“We refuse to let that stand. I refuse to let that stand. This is not something I will stop doing and you have to know it because I do not love Tamryn to leave him here while I have a life away from him. I want him to occupy every waking thought I have and share with him every waking hour. I want to live with him and love him as if he were my husband. I know you suspect I rather entertain men, and everything I have seen in you makes me think you also know it about Tamryn.

“Not only that but I can tell you respect it, that you even protect it, instead of pushing him into a union with a woman that would’ve made him unhappy or unfulfilled, not because there was something wrong with the woman in question but because he did not like women. If I could, were I allowed to exist and love as a man and to marry other men, I would’ve come here today to ask your son’s hand in marriage, hoping toI propose to him and that he said to me: ‘yes’.

“But,” his voice shook again, yet he kept on going forward, “I cannot. Not because of lack of wanting, not for lack of the most profound love I have ever felt for someone. But despite all my fears, nerves, overthinking or doubts, I am yet to find something I allow these people, who think they know anything about people like us when they do not, to rule over my life. So I ask, because I love him more than I have ever loved any other man, and I plan to love him from this day forward for as long as he has me, as long as he has me.

“I cannot swear or promise this on the same grounds of your faith in your God, not because it’s a problem to me, but because you see me as I am. I am a half Quechua man, and I please ask you to understand I want no religion to claim me, because the one which could’ve was taken from me when my mother was severed from her own people. Perhaps even before.

“But I will do whatever I must that I’m either allowed or obliged to do under it as long as it is custom, so I can show you I truly do love your son. I know a bit, but I also know you do things differently from my Milan, but I am willing to learn him, just as I know he is willing to learn me.

“I can offer him protection, and as long as I’m able nothing will be lacking if he wants it, and we will visit if he wishes to come with me, and I will do everything in my power to keep him safe, because if nothing else convinces you, please take my word when I say I would never forgive myself if something happened to him because of me.

“I do not want to deny myself the chance that he may love me as I love him, because I had been doing that ever since I met him, and I love him too much to hide it.”

Somewhere mid speech he had begun petting Zapa’s fur in self-soothing motions. Now that he had said his piece, he was still nervous but what was done was done: he had spoken truthfully, and few things were as important to him as his own word. Now he waited, moments seeming longer than they were as Galen and Evalina shared another of their knowing looks.

Without words, Evalina asked Galen if there was something he wanted to say. Without words, he indicated to her that she should speak first.

She sat beside him, gently ushering Anatole’s dogs so she wouldn’t step on them by accident. Just as gently he took his hands and just as gently she spoke: “It is said in the shtetl that Elohim calls out the name of the one a boy is meant to marry upon his birth, and that to find the one that he has willed for us is one of the greatest fulfillments of the divine will.

“It is a bond meant to endure forever, it is our joy, it is our completion when we find the one decreed for us by heaven. If Elohim has called you for our son, sweet boy, if you are the one to make him happiest in this world and the next, then we will not interfere - we will celebrate you loudest of all.”

He must be hearing things. He surely must become nervous enough for his mind to become delirious, surely that must be it. Yet, Evalina cupped his face and kissed his brow like she did with her own children. A dog barked, all dogs barked as Galen had to widen his steps because they insisted on walking between his legs.

Galen squeezed his shoulder affectionately. “But you should be telling our son. You are going to tell our son, right?”

Reality caught up with him. They were giving him their blessing to tell Tamryn what he felt for him. If smiles could dazzle and momentarily blind, like the sun the eyes after stepping out of a tunnel did, Anatole’s smile would’ve dazzled Evalina and Galen into seeing spots.

He tried to speak but all he could do was smile.

Evalina squeezed his hands. “I assume he will, won’t you darling? If you’re still undecided, I have more to say to convince you. I am very persuasive.”

“She is.”

“But if you don’t, we will need to have a conversation.”

Anatole frowned as he tried to think. “Wait, did he tell you something?”

Evalina and Galen exchanged curious looks. “Should he have told us something?”

Anatole’s cheeks lit up with a blush that felt alien on his cheeks. With a laugh, Tamryn’s parents said they didn’t need to know. 

* * *

Anatole’s heart stopped with the sound of the door opening. It remained suspended when it closed, frantically starting to beat again when Tamryn’s voice came through the hallway. That he was home, that Zelda would come back later because she had made way to the Cassano’s house, that the commission they had gotten was delivered with no problem. That he even helped one of their neighbours with a faucet that wouldn’t work.

Evalina and Galen smiled at Anatole, then called out to their son: “We’re in the drawing room.”

Anatole stood up, being unable to wait a minute longer, but Evalina ushered him to do so, whispering to him that it’ll be a nice surprise. In the foyer, Tamryn shuffled with his things, peeling layers of clothing and who knew what else. To him, it was another day of arriving home after running errands.

Anatole’s dogs weren’t as patient as their owner, three sets of paws announcing their way through the hallway, excitedly greeting Tamryn who greeted them just the same, in the most adorable cooing voice Anatole had ever heard.

“Why are you three paying us a visit? Are Vlad and Sisa at home?”

He was expecting his parents to reply to him, but it was someone else’s voice that reached him. A voice that felt like a dream or a memory, a voice that came with footsteps that stopped after a couple steps.

“No, no yet,” Anatole said. “They will later, but for now it’s just me.”

A sharp breath came out of Tamryn. He had been lingering around the docks, trying to get news of ships, but he must have gotten his information wrong because the sailors there told him the weather wasn’t in the best condition from timely arrivals. Tamryn had always liked the sounds of the waves against the shore, the sounds of birds flying up high —free and unrestrained— and the sounds of people who worked there going on with their daily jobs; but he wanted to think maybe the wind would carry news of his Anatole.

Not directly, of course, he knew as much. Anatole had been a ghost in the docks, his purpose hidden from official records or unwanted questions, but ships came carrying produce and people from the west all the time. He wanted to think that the auspicious news he heard was about him. Now he was here, close enough that all Tamryn needed to do was walk towards him.

Tamryn tried not to cry. He was unsuccessful.

“I’m sorry I didn’t write. There was a,” Anatole came closer to him, “a lead on a potential capture on Andrico, my Client. I didn’t want a letter to accidentally end in the wrong hands. Not when,” he was close enough to reach out to him now, “not when I would never forgive myself if harm came to you because of me.”

“What, what does that mean?”

“That I’m in love with you and if that’s agreeable to you, for as long as you’ll have me, I want to, I’d like to—”

Anatole couldn’t finish his sentence. Tamryn reached for him, holding him between his arms in the warmest, safest embrace Anatole had ever experienced. He held onto him as if he might disappear at any moment, lifting him and spinning him around in the tight hallway of his parents house.

“All I have wanted is for you to come back safe, and you’re here, you’re here.”

In their spinning Tamryn hit the wall with his back, making him tumble. He didn’t let go of Anatole, who managed to keep himself somewhat upright by freeing one of his arms from Tamryn’s hold and  frantically trying to reach the opposite wall.

“Solnishko, are you alright?”

With eyes closed, he buried his face in Tamryn’s chest. He never wanted to leave it.

“I’ve never been better.”

* * *

FOOTNOTES

(1) This is the source used for the translation here. Al-Harizi was an Andalusian jew and if there is one thing you can trust them with, is the gayass medieval poetry, everyone say thank you Rabbi Al-Harizi. One of the works referenced in part 1  (A Rainbow Thread) speaks more of him.

(2) Attar of Nishapur, "Intoxicated by the Wine of Love" as translated by Margaret Smith.

Because I am not really writing Milan if Attar of Nishapur does not make an appearance.

[apencilandpen]

MAC Movie Reviews: 2023 Year in Review

A few years ago, I started keeping track of every new movie I watched in a year. I love movies, I love all kinds of movies, and I like to know what I've seen. I watched between 77-80 new movies in 2023 (I may have forgotten to write some down and/or miscounted). I also happen to have a lot of thoughts about the movies I watch.

At the beginning of 2023, I read the book They Shouldn't Have Killed His Dog: The Complete Uncensored Ass-Kicking Oral History of John Wick, Gun Fu, and the New Age of Action by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross because I love the John Wick movies. I also made a list of every movie they mentioned when discussing the history of the action genre and spreadsheet-ified it. It's been a bit of a goal to watch every movie on that list. Currently I've seen 14/82, most of them this past year. So I'm still working on it :D

The ones I did see this year included Yojimbo, The Wild Bunch, and Bullit but my favorites were:

Atomic Blonde

The Villainess

Predator

Rambo: First Blood

Speed

I really like action movies with female leads who fuck shit up just as much as their male counterparts, and besides Atomic Blonde and The Villainess, I watched a good chunk in 2023:

Ava

The Terminator/Terminator: Dark Fate

The 355

Peppermint

The Courier

I kind of ended up hosting little genre marathons or film festivals for myself throughout the year. One of my favorites that I came up with was my sci-fi one:

HAPPENED/HAPPENING - An optimist's hopepunk science fiction film festival, "An expression of faith in the mechanics of the world" (Tenet)

Tenet

Arrival

Pacific Rim

Edge of Tomorrow

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Also included in this festival would be the Blade Runner films, Mad Max: Fury Road, and possibly Looper and The Old Guard.

I also had a martial arts movie marathon, including:

Shaolin

Ip Man

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

House of Flying Daggers

Hero

It's always my goal to go to the movie theater as often as possible. Some of my favorite movies that came out in 2023 were:

John Wick 4

Fast X

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1

Barbie

I also saw Cocaine Bear and A Haunting in Venice, both of which I enjoyed, but I don't need to see Cocaine Bear again :D

I watched some great animated movies as well, especially from the DC animated universe, including:

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Batman: The Long Halloween

Ninja Batman

Akira

Princess Mononoke

I've recently discovered that I enjoy certain subgenres of horror movies more than I ever thought I would. In 2023 I liked:

The Turning

Annabelle Comes Home

The Nun

Insidious: The Red Door

There were some movies that I saw this year that I thought I would love and ended up being disappointed by, and there were some that I had absolutely zero expectations of that blew me out of the water. The disappointments included ATSV, Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins, and Dune.

My sleeper hits of this year were:

Pitch Black (Riddick #1)

Rambo: First Blood

Rocky

Dracula Untold

Real Steel

Some runner-ups would be Marry My Dead Body, The American President, Mortal Kombat, The Knight of the Shadows, and Assassin's Creed.

Overall, I think my favorite movies I saw in 2023 were, in no particular order except for how I broke down this post:

Atomic Blonde

Pacific Rim

Ip Man

John Wick 4

Batman: The Long Halloween

Insidious: The Red Door

Real Steel

I could go on and on about almost all of these movies, so if your interest is piqued about any of them, shoot me an ask or a message! I'm also always looking for movie suggestions and recommendations, so shoot me those as well!