#french protests are fucking excellent

[disast3rtransp0rt]

We shit on France a lot for a country that does most of our favorite stuff, such as:

Antagonizing England.

Antagonizing and disrupting global religious norms (Western Schism, anyone?).

Beheading the greedy, overwealthy bourgeousie and demanding various workers'/civil rights on a regular basis.

Holding their governing body accountable, with very real consequences if citizens' demands go ignored.

Normalizing snack culture (bread and spreadable cheese with juice, amirite, fellow neurodivergents?)

Having the BEST possible villain accent for campy children's cartoons (step aside, Cockney Brits)

Providing endless meme content.

Like I'm not a France Stan by any means. Please don't get me wrong. The one French exchange student in my university's English Literature MA program did his thesis on Homestuck, for fuck’s sake.

But damn... They have the vibes.

[chemicalvelocity]

Happy Friday! I need therapy

So I wrote a fic for Fingers in my mouth Friday! Hope Y'all enjoy it.

AO3 Link

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No warnings apply

Pairing: Dean Winchester / Castiel

Word Count: 3545

Read Below the Cut:

Dean's not a creep. He's not, he swears. It's just that he's... noticing things now that he's not on high alert for monsters anymore.

He remembers the first evidence of Castiel he'd ever seen, an angry burn scar of a handprint. He thought it was a demon's for christ's sake. He hadn't paid mind at the time to the fact that it took up his entire deltoid.

Now, however, he was absently tracing its outline after a shower, staring more through the mirror than at it while recalling the events of breakfast. Jack had playfully started the comparing hand sizes game that seems to entertain kids so much.

Dean hadn't even put any thought into it until it turned into everyone else doing it to humor him; which culminated in Dean foolishly slapping his palm to Cas's and then realizing just how much smaller his hand was.

Naturally, he'd joked it off and found his way out of the conversation, acting like it wasn't a bruise to his ego. He had thousand-yard stared his way through a shower, and now, here he was.

He carefully fitted his hand over the scar tissue on his shoulder, and yep, there it was, a literal physical reminder of Cas's massive hands. He got over himself as quickly as he could and threw on his clothes before going to the garage to wash Baby.

*

That turned out to be a bad idea, as many of Dean's ideas do. Cas was sat in a lawn chair with the tunnel doors cracked, rolling a joint. Dean had pointedly ignored him, turning to rinse the car until Cas spoke up.

"Would you like some?" He asked, looking over at Dean with a twist of his slender fingers as his tongue darted out to wet the rolling paper's adhesive. Dean swallowed.

"Y'know that shit's bad for you, right?" Dean grumbled, but his heart wasn't in it. He opened a drawer to pull out sponges and brushes, tossing them into nearby buckets and setting them  down near Baby's rear fender

"I think you know that's not true." Castiel hummed, placing the fresh joint between his lips, bringing the flame of his zippo to the end, and inhaling deeply.

"Whatever, Stoney baloney... Don't you usually smoke out on the roof, anyway?" Dean asked, filling up the first bucket with hot water and suds, the second with only cold water.

"It's raining," Cas replied, voice husky from the strain of holding in a hit. "Frankly, the Bunker is well ventilated enough that I could smoke in the library... where we still keep ashtrays on the table, but I figured I'd come in here to keep it away from Jack." He mused, blowing his lungful of smoke out the door.

"Right... Gotta say Cas, I'm sure second-hand smoke doesn't affect 20-year-old Nephilim toddlers." Dean chuckled, saturating the sponge in the first bucket and slung the soap across the Impala's roof, leaning up to scrub away the dust and bugs that come from hauling her back and forth across the Midwest.

"No, but I don't want to influence him, he's very impressionable, you know." Cas flicked the collecting ash into a labelless beer bottle that sat discarded in his chair's cupholder.

"I wonder where he could've gotten that from. Claire came to visit for one weekend and all of a sudden you're Bob Marley!" Dean teased, and Cas narrowed his eyes at him.

"I am not a musician, nor a Rastafarian, Dean. Claire simply pointed out that I think too much, and that cannabis is known to help." He drew in a deep hit and outstretched his arm to Dean, the cigarette balanced between two fingers. Smoke twirled lazily into the air around him.

Dean made a show of rolling his eyes before coming over to pluck the smoke from Cas's possession. Cas watched him appraisingly as he took a drag, then another, and Dean almost choked when Cas's lips parted for the stream of smoke to travel neatly into his nostrils.

Okay, so Claire taught him how to french inhale. Dean idly wondered if he knew what ghosting was, before passing it back and returning to his task, pretending like his lungs didn't burn from the comparative lack of practice.

*

Dean hit the wall hard, his breath punched out of him with a grunt. He scrambled to his knees and whipped his head around to see Sam in a similar position nearby. Cas was still standing though now surrounded by three, very pissed-off demons, one of which had Dean's angel blade. Dean attempted to gather himself and help out, but his vision went sideways and he steadied himself against a table, opting to call out the angel's name, stupidly.

Cas had slashed the leg of the demon to his right and grappled the one to his left. As the first one went down, his palm met its forehead and smote it out of its meatsuit. The middle one charged him, but he spun the demon in his grip, shielding himself by launching his captive forward onto the blade, then seizing the neck of the remainder, holding him in place firmly. He turned to the bewildered hunters casually.

"Did you need him for anything else?" Dean bit down on his tongue in a failed attempt to reintroduce moisture to his mouth.

"N-No, Cas I think we're good, knock yourself out..." he rasped as Castiel tightened his grip on the demon's throat, and light burned out from under its skin. Sam and Dean had picked themselves up off the floor by now and made their way to the middle of the room.

"Good work, buddy," Dean panted as Cas piled up the bodies at his feet, and wiped blood away on his jeans. "Guess you hardly need us."

"Of course I do, You made an excellent distraction." Cas smiled and while Dean was sure it was a genuine statement, definitely felt the hit to his pride. Maybe he was just getting too old for this shit. Sam snorted at something and walked out. Dean didn't know what, but he didn't want to hit him any less for it.

*

"Hey, Cas, I have a bit of a concussion from the hunt the other night. Can you work a little magic?" Sam rubbed at his eyes, setting his laptop aside. Dean raised his eyebrows from his seat, taking a sip of beer. He wouldn't have asked Cas to expend any healing energy on himself, but Cas didn't protest. Instead, he hardly looked up from his book and snapped his fingers. Sam visibly relaxed. Dean did not.

"Thanks, man, I appreciate it. I'm gonna go grab some grub, probably just pick up a pizza and some beers or something." Sam held his hand out for the impala keys. Dean tossed them to him with half a mind.

When Sam was gone, he was still staring at Cas in confusion.

"Can I help you with something too, Dean?" He quirked an eyebrow over his book. Dean cleared his throat and shook his head.

"Nope, no, I'm okay, just a few scrapes. Can't have you wasting your mojo on that... I was just wondering why you didn't, uh, y'know," He tapped two fingers to his forehead and Cas's eyes turned up in a half-smile.

"I don't need to do that to heal."

"Oh... okay." He'd already asked a weird question, probably best not to pry into why Cas always touched him to heal.  He tipped back the rest of his beer and fumbled around for an excuse of some sort to break the silence, but Cas stood first.

"I'm going to go find Jack. Let me know when Sam's back with dinner." He passed Dean with a  warm squeeze to his shoulder. Dean watched him go, then realized just how long it's been since he's been laid. Too fucking long, apparently.

*

Yeah, no. Way too long. Dean's half-convinced Cas is fucking with him, too. His suspicion stemmed from Cas's sudden love of eating every meal with them and requesting things like wings or fries.

"Morning sunshine, Sam and Jack already left to go check out a case. I made pan...cakes..." Dean's sentence fell flat when his eyes met Cas entering in a half-buttoned-up shirt. His long fingers slipped buttons into place as he yawned his greeting and trudged his way to the coffee maker.

Dean was a little concerned that he noticed Cas's hands before he noticed the toned and tanned chest underneath the shirt. He ran a hand down his face and moved to pour more coffee. Cas passed over the pot and turned to the stack of pancakes, tossing two onto a plate and proceeding to destroy them with fruit and whipped cream.

"When was the last time we cleaned our firearms?" Cas asked, swirling his finger through the toppings of his breakfast before popping it in his mouth. Dean set his mug down, a little too hard. Cas gave him a look.

"Are you fucking with me?" Dean tried not to sound petulant, but he can't catch a single break.  Cas bit his lower lip, and then cleared his throat.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Was his response, innocent and hid behind a sip of coffee. Dean pursed his lips.

"You- you don't?" Dean was momentarily taken aback. Was he so unbelievably tense that he'd imagined the whole problem?-

"No, Dean, you've been staring at my hands all week, I have no idea what you're talking about." he deadpanned.

Dean's face burned. He didn't think he was being obvious about it or anything. Cas was observant, though.

"At first I thought you were just insecure about your hand size, but surely you'd have gotten over that in a day. Then I did some research and decided to... Encourage you." He continued casually as if Dean wasn't praying for the earth to swallow him whole.

"I uh, appreciate that, Cas... Um, what conclusions exactly did you draw?" Dean squeaked out because frankly he still wasn't sure what was going on here.

"You may have a sexual preference for hands, which makes sense, given your previous statements regarding slapping." Cas hummed into his coffee and, yeah okay Dean needed to end this conversation before he melted from shame.

"Okay, right, got it, I'll stop staring." He managed, grabbing his mug and turning to leave before Cas grabbed his arm. He glanced down at the sudden warmth around his wrist, then up to meet Cas's cobalt gaze.

"I never told you to stop," Cas said calmly, loosening his grip to slip his fingers into Dean's hand and pull him closer. "Dean, I researched it." His expression was earnest, and Dean shuddered involuntarily.

"Listen, man, It's not like, a thing... It's just, well, you have nice hands, and you kinda marked me... with your very large hand." Dean still wanted to disappear, but Cas didn't seem too bothered.

"I wanted to tell you, I touch you when I heal because I like the excuse to," Cas murmured, raising his other hand to cup Dean's jaw. Dean's breath hitched. "I enjoy the warmth. Everything else is always so cold." Cas whispered, running his thumb lightly across Dean's bottom lip. Dean couldn't stop the noise he made as it caught on his nail.

Cas's pupils grew wide, and he curiously pushed his thumb deeper. Dean closed his lips over it and sucked gently, noting the faint taste of the strawberries Cas had put on his pancakes. Dean pulled back before he embarrassed himself any further.

"Uh," Dean's brain replied dumbly. "Can I kiss you?" His dick helped with that one.

"I just put my thumb in your mouth and you feel the need to ask-" Cas's snark was cut short by Dean pressing him up against the counter and slotting their lips together. Cas gripped the front of Dean's shirt and kissed him back like a man dying of thirst. This is why Dean's thought process is filled with question marks when Cas puts a hand firmly on his chest and pulls back to speak.

"I don't think the kitchen is the best place for this." He rumbled into their shared space. Dean perked back up when he realized the proposition.

"Did you wanna finish your breakfast first? I can't guarantee we'll be back in here any time soon." Dean wiggled his eyebrows at the angel.

"That's very thoughtful of you, Dean," Cas smiled. "I'd love to. While I do I think you probably want to go get ready." Cas wiped the look off Dean's face when he reeled him back in for another kiss.

"O-oh, yeah, okay. Meet you in my room in ten." And then he was speedwalking out of the kitchen.

*

Dean turned off the shower after a very thorough cleaning and wrapped his towel around his waist, hurrying back down the hallway to his room. Cas was sitting on the bed patiently.

"Hello, Dean." He smiled, reaching up to tug off his tie. Dean's throat went dry again.

"Hi," Dean was clutching his towel like a lifeline. Cas observed him fondly as he unbuttoned his shirt. "Did you want me to put something on? Or..."

Cas just chuckled and beckoned him closer. Dean stood between his legs and his heart dropped out of his ass when Cas took his hands and pulled gently, signaling for Dean to kneel. He lowered himself slowly to his knees and looked up at Cas, expectant, and not at all freaking out on the inside. Cas leaned in to kiss him again. That, he could work with.

"I want you to put your hands on my knees, and you can't move them unless I say so, is that alright?" Castiel spoke when they parted.

Oh.

Apparently, hand kink isn't the only thing Cas researched. Dean felt the command go straight to his dick. He nodded hastily, but Cas said nothing, only waited, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yes, Cas." He breathed, and Cas grinned and shrugged off his shirt, tossing it into Dean's desk chair.

"Good. Get comfortable." Dean sat back on his heels and placed his hands on top of Cas's thighs. Cas placed both of his hands on Dean's shoulders, rubbing small circles in the muscle before he slid them upwards to massage the back of Dean's neck. When Dean was staring up at him with hooded eyes and humming his appreciation, Castiel's patience grew thin.

Cas held the back of Dean's neck steady, tracing the fingers of his right hand down Dean's temple and across his lips. This time, Dean didn't have any reservations about darting his tongue out to meet them. Cas inhaled deeply through his nose and pushed his index and middle fingers into Dean's mouth.

Dean sighed and let himself go, he lapped at Cas's fingers like he was starving. He held Cas's heated gaze and felt his dick wake back up, twitching underneath his towel.

"So good, you're such a good boy for me, Dean." Cas praised. Dean thought he might pass out. The feeling of Cas inside him, even if it was just his fingers sliding along his tongue was heady. He looked down and took notice of the increasing tightness of Cas's pants. Cas slid his fingers out and leaned back on his elbows. Dean panted, his fingers gripping Cas's thighs with the effort of keeping still.

"Would you like something else, Dean?" Cas smirked down at him. "All you have to do is ask." Dean screwed his eyes shut and swallowed his pride.

"I want," He let out a shuddering breath as Cas ran a hand through his hair. "I want to suck you off."

"You can move your hands now." Cas hummed and leaned his head back. Dean practically sprung forward, ignoring the ache in his calves as he latched his mouth onto one of the angel's nipples. His hands made quick work of Cas's belt and fly, tugging firmly at his pockets to get them off. When Cas's flushed erection came free, Dean leaned forward to mouth at the head and cup his balls.

Cas wove a hand into Dean's hair and pulled. Dean moaned around the cock in his mouth, drawing a deep groan from Cas in response. Dean drank in the sound and relaxed his jaw to swallow him down further, bobbing his head rapidly.

"Dean." Cas sounded wrecked, and Dean's head snapped up to attention.

"Yeah?"  He asked, breath heaving as he leaned up to his eye level.

"May I-"

"Anything, Angel, seriously." He pressed his lips to the heated flesh under Cas's jaw, sucking hard and nipping gently.

"I want to fuck you." Cas gasped, leaning into Dean's mouth. Dean nodded and climbed to his feet to get the lube from his nightstand. Cas sat up and wrenched Dean's towel away. His eyes roved Dean's body appreciatively before pulling him down on the bed. "Lie down on your front, please." He purred, and Dean was on his elbows in an instant, handing back the lubrication.

Cas caressed the contours of Dean's back reverently, before gingerly parting Dean's cheeks and licking a broad stripe across his hole. Dean felt his whole body twitch.

"Fuck, C-Cas..." Dean whined out, completely sideswiped by Cas's impromptu rimjob. He helplessly thrust his hips back against Cas's grip. Castiel reeled back a single hand and gave Dean's ass a hard smack. Dean dropped his face into his pillow with a keen from the back of his throat.

"Sit still, Dean. Let me take care of you." He growled, mouthing kisses from the base of Dean's spine to the cleft of his ass again. He laved his tongue in tantalizing circles, fucking it in and out nimbly and drawing a chorus of breathy sounds from the hunter.

"Please, Sweetheart... I need you... Need you inside me, c'mon." Dean whimpered, writhing under the sensation of Cas's hot breath and slick tongue. Cas finally gave in and sat up, reclaiming the bottle of lube to squeeze a sizeable portion directly onto Dean's entrance. Dean shivered from the sudden cold, only to cry out again when Cas's strong index finger slid in with very little resistance.

Cas continued to pepper Dean's shaking shoulders with wet kisses as he thrust his finger in, curling it hard against Dean's prostate and savoring the faint sound of Dean nearly wailing into his pillow. He slid in a second finger and scissored them back and forth to make way for a third. At this point, Dean had lifted his head and turned towards Cas with pleading eyes. Cas leaned forward and kissed him deeply.

"You're doing so well, Dean... Are you ready?" Cas mumbled into Dean's mouth.

"Yeah, Christ... Yes, Cas, please." Dean managed to get his knees under himself and Cas slicked himself up, working the head of his cock into Dean's fluttering hole. He clutched at Dean's hips and slowly rocked himself in deeper. "Fuck!" Dean yelped, trying to meet Cas's thrusts to no avail.

"Relax, my love." Cas moaned, rolling his hips into Dean, captivated by the catch of skin around him. "Do you want to move?" He asked, and released his iron hold on Dean's waist with a chuckle when Dean nodded eagerly. Dean thrust back against Cas with abandon. A surprised gasp was drawn from both of them as Cas sped up his thrusts to match. Dean was going to come if Cas didn't slow down, so he gathered his thoughts enough to speak up.

"Cas, wait. Can I flip?" He panted, and Cas's onslaught came to a stop.

"Of course, Dean." He pulled out carefully and leaned away for Dean to position himself on his back. Castiel admired the flush that spread down Dean's neck and covered most of his chest. He leaned forward to suck dark hickeys into Dean's collarbone to contrast. Dean reached down to guide Cas back inside, sighing amorously when he was seated again.

Cas rocked in and out once more with renewed enthusiasm. He snapped his hips forward, causing Dean to arch up off the bed with a shout. Stars burst behind his eyelids as Cas lifted Dean's legs to wrap around his waist and repeated contact his prostate shot sparks through his bloodstream.

"Ah-fuck, Cas, Baby... I'm gonna come. Are you almost there?" Dean gasped and reached up to pull Cas down for a vehement kiss when he grunted his confirmation. Dean felt the heat of his release coil deep in his gut and rocked up into Cas with a fervor, moaning heavily into Cas's mouth with each collision of their hips.

Then the tension in Dean's core snapped, and he was coming without so much as a moment's attention to his dick, clinging to Cas's shoulders with a fucked out whine. Cas kept going and Dean's synapses felt like they were being deep-fried as Castiel's stuttering hips drove him in deeply one, two then a final time as he emptied himself into Dean with a low groan. He then pulled out slowly and rolled off a now depleted Dean to spoon him.

"I think I'm in love with you." Dean wheezed, and Castiel grinned into his hair.

"I'm glad I could help you come to that epiphany. I love you too, Dean."

[lordmartiya]

lord Martiya’s Lilanette Week 2021, part 4: Travel

@lilanette-week

@lilanette

This chapter features Luupa the Wolf Kwami, a character by StellarStylus. It also features an actual restaurant from Rome. Let’s face it: we Italians are a weird nation, and Rome is our capital for a reason.

06/23: Travel

The school was having a trip to Rome… So headmaster Damocles had asked Lila’s advice to plan certain parts, reasoning that, being from Rome, she knew the place better. And the entire school would suffer for his ignorance – after all, only Marinette and Chloè knew just how trolling Lila’s sense of humor could be.

Still, it had been two days in the trip, enough to calm them down after waiting for the other shoe to drop without anything weird happening – she had even forewarned everyone of the horrible state of Rome’s roads, and the worst they had got had been when Sabrina had said one couldn’t go to Rome without visiting the Vatican and the Roman girl had pointed out it’s the same as saying that you can’t go at someone’s house without going to the bathroom (she had particularly enjoyed the appalled shouts when they had got that). That and trying to flirt with Marinette, but while she understood the language and even a bit of the slang courtesy of her grandmother and the similarities of Italian and French she didn’t know the latter enough and had missed the double meanings.

Of course all of that was about to change now that they were to dine at “Cencio La Parolaccia”.

“It’s my favorite restaurant.” she had introduced it, much to Marinette and Chloè’s horror. Especially Marinette’s, who could translate the restaurant’s name.

Then Damocles paved the way, and as soon as he had confirmed they were the French school that had reserved the place the waiter announced them with “Apprepara l’acqua per’ brodo, so’ arrivati i Francesi!”

The entire group of students and teachers was appalled at how they had indirectly been called a bunch of cowards, with insults to their national bird to boot.

“What were you expecting? This place is called “the swearword” for a reason.” Lila stated.

Or, in other words, they were basically paying to get insulted the whole time, as per the restaurant’s gimmick based on just how crass Rome’s dialect was.

“You’re terrible.” Marinette said at her Italian suitor.

“Welcome to Rome, where a mother can call her own child a “son of a whore” and it only comes off as mildly insistent.” Lila replied.

“Fucking truth.” confirmed the waiter.

That was when Damocles realized he had screwed up. Especially as it was now too late to go somewhere else.

__________

“You have no idea what I just got through.” Chat Noir said to the female superheroines as they met near Trajan’s Column. “It got my group too weirded out to notice I disappeared, but…”

“Welcome to Rome, Paris’ exclusive twin city.” Volpina replied, sure that whatever Chat Noir had gone through couldn’t be as traumatic as the prank she had pulled on her classmates to get them to go to sleep early. She’d have done that anyway, but this way she had joined the useful and the fun, as the saying went. “And don’t worry, you’ll get over it soon.”

“But-”

“She’s right.” Ladybug agreed. “Our cities have an exclusive twinship because we aren’t that different… And I can already see the fun about what this one pulled to get us a distraction. You all remember what we’re here for?”

“Wolf Miraculous – apparently linked to Rome’s foundation and rise to power, and the guys here are now exposing what could well be it in their museum.” Volpina stated. “Guess their claim of descending from Julius Caesar’s family isn’t that fake, if they inherited it from the Julii’s cousins the Romilii…”

“We don’t have time for a history lesson.” Chat said.

Before they could start bickering Ladybug had Volpina cast her Mirage on the cameras and then, using the Horse Miraculous, opened a portal to the room where the possible Wolf Miraculous was being held…

“A’nfame, chi cazzo chiami inutile?! Io te piscio n’culo, e te corco!”

And the related Kwami was insulting Papillon, going so deep in his vulgarity that even Volpina, the Roman one, was blushing. Immediately imitated by two security guards and a man who had arrived there.

“Siam qui apposta.” Volpina said after the Kwami had wished someone killed Papillon.

Then Papillon threw the Miraculous right in Volpina’s face and jumped out of the window, ignoring the guards shooting him.

___________________

“Well, that was weird.” Ladybug said after they had left with the Miraculous, that the man, the apparent head of the family, had insisted they took away.

“Not really, Marcanto’ has heard of the actual stories about jinn, and while he can’t tell the difference with a Kwami he’s smart enough to not mess with them.” Volpina explained. “And speaking of our not-jinni… May we know your name and power, Wolf Kwami?”

“I am Luupa, Kwami of Cooperation, and I grant the power of Pack Unity.” the Kwami replied. “My wielder can allow their companion the best possible coordination in battle-”

“Like a Roman legion! You inspired them!” Volpina was Italian, and while she knew the tales were a bit exaggerated she knew far too well how the ancient Romans used to overcome numerically superior opponents through maneuvers made possible by excellent coordination among their units.

“And a power Papillon can’t use!” Ladybug noted.

“Ugh! Don’t talk me about that idiot.” Luupa protested. “Seriously, what idiot calls himself “The Bowtie”?”

As she chuckled, Volpina mused that this was indeed the Kwami that made Rome, both ancient and present, she wondered how he and Mayura had loved the temporary Heroine they had left behind to deal with Akumas and, if he had done as he had back when they had been in New York, distraction Sentimonsters.

_____________________

The following morning, Lila hadn’t even got her Espresso when Alya made the first attempt to kidnap her. Though even she wasn’t reckless enough to not stop when faced with the Italian’s glare, waiting until she had her coffee before dragging her in a secluded corner and showing how the Tiger Miraculous-equipped heroine, Waghoba sor Roaar, kicked into smithereens the Gamer mech Sentimonster before hammily announcing her name and that Ladybug and Chat Noir were on vacation and had her substitute.

“Lila, you’re her friend… Can you tell me what was Ladybug thinking when she gave my sister a Miraculous?” Alya asked.

“What makes you think it’s Anansi?” Lila asked back, making sure to use Nora’s preferred ring name.

“A Muay Thai championess who uses a tiger god’s name, who else can she be?”

“Point. As for your question… Ladybug’s really stressed, and didn’t take well when “The Bowtie” ruined her previous attempt at getting a vacation.”

“… Remind me to never get her angry at me.”

[bonnini]

Well I promised you a post about my bi Geoffrey Martewall headcanons so here it is guys <3

So…as I previously mentioned in a tag under one of @agapantoblu's posts, I've been half-seriously headcanoning Geoffrey Martewall a.k.a. the best character in the Hypervesum series as a clueless bisexual for... well, for some time. Let's say a year and a half. I've never bothered actually sharing these headcanons online because I didn't really have a clear idea for an actual argument in support of this claim of mine, but now I’m finally ready to put the all the reasons why I get extra-strong bisexual vibes from Geoffrey Martewall into words. Beware…it’s a lot of words :’’)

Exhibit A: Geoffrey and women

1.1. Geoffrey’s taste in women is just too good

Listen. LISTEN. Our man’s taste in women is IMPECCABLE: he could, as Brianna said herself, have chosen to take any young noble maiden as his wife, but he decided to go for a woman that 1) is a couple years older than him 2) is not noble at all and, you know, used to be just a poor paesant before coming to Châtel-Argent 3) already has a son who was fathered by a French knight to whom she was never married and that she had to raise as a teen single mom 4) at the time of their first meeting had a crush on his current worst enemy. LISTEN!!!!!!!! Geoffrey’s taste in women is suspiciously good, way too good, in fact, to be that of a medieval straight guy. I mean…Ian, a man who comes from the 21st century, fell for the textbook angelic maiden, while Geoffrey literally did not even bother looking around for some young blushing bride and just decided that the hot milf who threatened him with a pitchfork in book 2 was his first and best choice. What an Absolute Fucking King. This choice of his is, in my opinion, very telling of the kind of view he has of romance and women in general.

Which brings me to the next point, namely:

1.2. Geoffrey appears to have an attitude towards women and a view of womanhood that are significantly more modern than those of an average knight of his time

Is it just me or is Geoffrey actually the one with the most… modern mindset out of all the knights starring in the saga? There are a couple of specific scenes that kind of make me think of him as an outlier among his peers, and although some of those are definitely there for the purpose of showing us that Martewall is indeed a rather peculiar knight, others contribute to creating the picture of a character that is almost… out of place in the 13th century? 

Allow me to expand a bit further on the “Geoffrey and women” topic: we saw how chivalrous and respectful Geoffrey was towards an unconscious and injured Brianna. First he made sure her son was comfortable with him warming her up using his own body, and reassured him he meant no disrespect by removing her clothes; then, he proceeded to strip her in the most methodical and detached way possible, which let us know Geoffrey respects a woman’s body and modesty the way any proper, courteous medieval man would. But then there’s another, and in my opinion far more interesting, instance in which Geoffrey is seen interacting with a woman: I’m talking about his brief conversation with Blanche of Castile in book 3. Here we see 1) how Geoffrey treats women he is not attracted to (“not attracted to” as in: women he has no interest in romancing), and 2) to what degree he actually respects female authority. 

Our first introduction to Blanche is the scene in which Guillaume, Ian and Henri de Bar are talking about her right before the audience in Paris, during which we learn that the vast majority of noblemen do not take her opinions seriously and do not appreciate seeing her talk during political debates. Even Henri de Bar, although he does not mean to be insolent, raises an eyebrow at the thought of a woman participating in conversations that concern military strategy, while Guillaume seems almost amused at Ian’s heartfelt defence of her speeches. Which is why Geoffrey’s brief interaction with her stands out so much: when she starts talking about the war in England with him, he carefully listens to her as if she were just another male superior officer: he does not appear even slightly surprised by her competence, he does not try to dumb down the topic of discussion, he listens carefully to what she is saying, he offers his opinion only when she asks for it and he answers her questions in the most straightforward way possible. At no point during the conversation does he ever attempt to pull the condescending “with all due respect, madame…” to correct or contradict her statements. He is not in courteous knight mode, he is in soldier mode, and is unfazed by the fact that the one he is discussing logistics and war strategy with is a delicate looking princess.  Once again, the author is fleshing out Geoffrey’s character by having the protagonist and point of view character draw a direct comparison between him and other men. Martewall does not simply respect women as in “oh I’m a proper knight and I use my blade to protect defenceless maidens”, he actually, genuinely respects women. 

Which in my opinion is such an interesting facet of his values and personality: in the second half of book 2, Ian notices how thoroughly Harald Martewall managed to drill the code of chivalry into his son’s head, and remarks on the fact that the Martewalls are all perfect examples of the True Old School Knights. Both Harald and Geoffrey are the embodiment of the honourable, unyielding, upright warrior trope, and they perfectly fit the image we modern people conjure in our minds when we think of a knight of the Middle Ages. This specific aspect of Geoffrey’s set of values gives his character a strong, let’s say “old-fashioned” connotation, and yet said set of values seems to come from an internal source rather than rely on tradition and external rules. He, for example, got rid of his helm and shield when he saw his adversary in combat was not fully equipped, but he also willingly assisted the Dauphin in taking over England despite having previously sworn an oath of loyalty to John Plantagenet, since his sense of honour compelled him to aid the man who provided him with the help he needed to get his home back. Geoffrey is way more likely to base his choices on what his own moral compass compels him to do rather than resort to convention and tradition to tell right from wrong. This makes Geoffrey a perfect blend of both old and modern qualities, and in the context of his relationship with women he tends to lean quite heavily on his more modern side.  

Let’s go back to discussing his first introduction to Brianna for a second: he witnesses Brianna express her unrequited attraction to Ian, flirt with him and even mock-kiss him straight on the lips, and yet not only does that not make Geoffrey respect her any less, it also does not concern him at all later in book 3 when the story hints at the fact that he might have an interest in taking her as his wife. This is a rather unusual attitude! I mean, even the exuberant Etienne de Sancerre, who has shown an overt preference for feisty and confident women, grumbles and protests in jealousy when his wife Donna and Daniel greet each other with a hug while out in public, deeming the gesture to be inappropriate. What I’m trying to say here is that this is a man who is waaaaay ahead of his peers in regards to his view of women and womanhood, and who also appears to be very confident in his masculinity (so confident, in fact, that the thought of having to “put women in their place” never once crosses his mind), hence why I keep sensing the most excellent kind of bisexual vibes coming from him.

Exhibit B: Geoffrey and men

2.1 Jerome and Geoffrey’s friendship makes NO sense

And I mean it. Yes, we do read about Ian wondering how two people with such different sets of core values (ok maybe Jerome lacked core values all together lol) could have ever been friends, which means that yes, readers are in fact meant to notice how misguided Geoffrey is in his commitment to honour this bond of friendship and avenge Jerome’s death, but the more I think about this, the more I convince myself that this whole situation is, in fact…really weird.

Let’s start from the beginning: so, Geoffrey’s anger over Jerome’s death is the main source of conflict between him and Ian, and it puts the plot of book 2 in motion. Now, we never actually saw Geoffrey and Jerome talk to each other in book 1 (because at the time of its drafting the author had not yet planned on writing a sequel for it) so all the available details about their relationship (mind you, there aren’t that many) have to be gleaned from Geoffrey’s recollections present in book 2 and pieced back together in order to get a clearer picture. Another fact that should be noted is that we also never saw Jerome talk about Geoffrey (again, because Geoffrey wasn’t really that relevant to the plot of book 1): Geoffrey’s words are the only source available when it comes to trying to reconstruct what their interactions might have been like, which means that our perspective on their friendship is going to be inevitably, extremely one-sided. 

So here we go, book 2, chapter 5: Geoffrey has decided to abduct Ian and Daniel and drag them to his home in England to get some answers and avenge Jerome’s death and he currently has Ian at his mercy, so he immediately starts asking questions. He asks why he currently is not home, he asks why his brother has no knowledge of his whereabouts, he asks if his name really is Jean Marc de Ponthieu, and these are all very dangerous questions: they pose a real threat to Ian’s credibility. But then, when Geoffrey asks why Jerome was so certain he was an imposter, Ian breathes in relief, because that means Geoffrey knows nothing about the ambush in Couronne.

But. Wait a second.

How could Geoffrey possibly not know about Couronne? That’s how Derangale KNEW without a shadow of a doubt that Ian and Jean de Ponthieu were never the same person! Dude was busy forging incriminating letters left and right with Ponthieu’s help??? He was the one who helped Ponthieu and Renaud De Dammartin set Isabeau up to be assaulted by Claude de Dammartin??? Geoffrey explicitly says Jerome was obsessed with Ian, so Derangale must have talked his ear OFF with all his incessant rambling about him being an imposter…and Geoffrey did not bother asking him about the details of this weird doppelganger theory of his ONCE? We know how sharp and observant Geoffrey is. We know he is perceptive, and straightforward in voicing his opinions, and not easy to fool. We know he is the type of guy who likes to ask direct questions and get believable, clear answers in return, so he MUST have asked Jerome why he was so sure about the illegitimacy of Ian’s identity. How did Jerome answer? Did he make up a lie on the spot? Geoffrey is equipped with a very functional built-in anti-nonsense super-sensor (the one that allowed him to immediately spot all the places in which Ian’s deception and intentional gaslighting were coming off at their seams even after Ian had managed to convince Geoffrey’s own father that he was Jean de Ponthieu’s second-born son), so if that was the case – if Jerome had indeed tried to make up some story about why he knew who the real Jean de Ponthieu was – Geoffrey (in theory) would have easily been able to tell that he was being lied to. 

Do we then have to assume Jerome simply replied with “I just know”? Well…the text implies that this is the most plausible option: as Ian and Geoffrey’s heated conversation goes on, we realize that the only reason Geoffrey believes Ian to be an imposter is…because Jerome said so. And this, in my opinion, says a lot about both Geoffrey’s relationship with Derangale and his current emotional state. Let’s really think about what this little kidnapping stunt of his must look like from an outside perspective: Geoffrey just decided to abduct a man whose identity has been publicly confirmed by Guillaume de Ponthieu, one of the most powerful men on French soil, who also happens to be a relative of king Philippe Auguste (which means Ian has ties to the royal family as well lol???), who ALSO confirmed that Ian is the youngest Ponthieu brother and PERSONALLY BESTOWED the title of Faucon du Roi upon him. Geoffrey does not (currently) have a shred of proof against Ian: he just chose to believe that Ian is some random foreigner who has been allowed to pretend to be a nobleman and marry Isabeau de Montmayeur by the count of Ponthieu and the king of France because that’s what Jerome believed. Jerome stood alone in front of the entire French court, subjecting himself to ridicule, to denounce Ian as an imposter and Guillaume as a liar (and readers know he is 100% right, but look at this from the perspective of one of the characters who are not involved in this intrigue), which are such far-fetched, absurd, ludicrous accusations, even the closest of Jerome’s friends would have demanded at least some evidence in order to give his version of the story some credit. And yet Geoffrey, who has not been given even one crumb of information on the real Jean de Ponthieu’s actual political alignment, simply decided to stand with him against the rest of the world. 

And then, Ian starts answering Geoffrey’s questions by telling him all the vile things Jerome did to him, his family and his friends (while still carefully avoiding the Couronne topic): he tells him of his sadism, villany and criminal actions, and Geoffrey does not believe a single word of what he’s saying. He straight up calls all these accusations lies, and he urges Ian to stop insulting a knight of England his peer and a man of honour deserving of respect. Geoffrey refuses to listen to any negative remark Ian has to make and threatens him with violence when he insists on calling Jerome an unworthy man. “Jerome wasn’t a liar”, he says; “he was my friend, and you killed him”. This is exactly what I meant when I said their friendship strikes me as extremely weird: I mean come on, really? Derangale was a textbook piece of shit. He was violent, vengeful, and arrogant, and yet Geoffrey describes him as a “man of honour”??? It almost seems as if he and Ian are not even talking about the same person??? The sadistic felon Ian met in Cairs is nothing like the friend Geoffrey has such a high opinion of. Which can only mean one thing, namely that when he was with Geoffrey, Jerome was on his best behaviour. And in order to have adapted his behaviour to fit Geoffrey’s expectations of a good and honourable friend, Derangale must have had a very clear picture of the kind of person his “friend” was. Jerome knew Geoffrey would never have allowed all that malicious shit to happen under his watch, so he decided to keep all his plotting a secret from him. Geoffrey never was Jerome’s accomplice in aiding Renaud de Dammartin, Ferrand de Flandre and Jean de Ponthieu steal the Montmayeur fief for king John, and therefore has no reason to believe Ian’s words. 

There are two things about this situation that strike me as particularly weird. First of all: Derangale wasn’t just witholding information from Geoffrey, he was also hiding his true nature from him. And Geoffrey…never noticed? Geoffrey, who can usually smell bullshit and deception from a mile away, who has no difficulty in telling a man of honour from a felon, who normally would not bother wasting his time being friends with such an insufferable prick, never managed to guess the true nature of Jerome’s character? Huh??? And secondly: why exactly did Derangale ask for help from a guy he was so sure he would never have been able to turn into one of his accomplices he had to actively keep parts of himself and his plans hidden for months up to the battle in Bouvines? What we know, thanks to Harald Martewall, is that Jerome was the first to reach out to Geoffrey back in book 1: apparently, the two of them used to be friends as young boys, then stopped seeing each other for a couple of years until Derangale decided to pick up the phone and give him a call. Geoffrey was in England, minding his own business, when Jerome contacted him to ask if he was willing to join him in Béarne. He, as sir Harald recalls, “was busy raising a cavalry troop for Ferrand De Flandre, and wanted my last-born as champion in a tournament”. It is not difficult to guess why Derangale asked specifically for Geoffrey to join his faction. Martewall is, simply put, the baddest bitch in the area: he is easily the scariest and most skilled warrior out of all the knights we get to meet in the saga, and an experienced tournament champion is precisely what Jerome needs for the little show he has in plan for Béarne. What I really want to know here is: couldn’t Derangale have called for literally any other English knight to help him win? Why did he risk enrolling a guy he knew would never have approved of his schemes and totally could have kicked his ass if he ever found out about his misconduct? Couldn’t he have called for a couple more champions who would have been overjoyed at the opportunity of beating the shit out of all those French knights? Why did it have to be just him and Geoffrey against the ENTIRETY of Philippe Auguste’s lineup? Why was he so confident in his ability to manipulate Geoffrey? Oh AND. This is an information that is nowhere to be found in the actual books but it is something I asked the author to confirm because I was just too curious: Geoffrey…did not have fun in Béarne, like at all. He did not care for the show Jerome wanted to put on, he did not enjoy participating in that display of strength and superiority, and he was grumpier than usual during the whole ordeal. So our man Jerome basically decided to rely exclusively on Geoffrey’s excellence and made him travel all the way to Béarne instead of putting together a slightly larger faction of fellows who could have maybe shared his immoral cause (like hello?????? it’s literally JUST the two of them against ALL the French nobles competing at the tournament lmfao??? I mean ok girl!!! give us drama! give us spectacle!) despite knowing that 1) he would have had to completely alter his behaviour around him 2) he could never have explained to him why he knew with absolute certainty Ian was an imposter and 3) Geoffrey would have intensely disliked being at the centre of theatrics. Like…I get that Geoffrey is your most skilled friend when it comes to the art of jousting, but… his presence is also a bit too inconvenient in this context? I mean really? You didn’t know any other knights in the area who could have been available as champions? You had to call for Geoffrey? Specifically for him? Haha girl ok! (oh and you also saved some of the custom higher quality blades you had made for your squadron to arm Geoffrey? Ok! Oh and you decided to pick Geoffrey as the other leader of your special squadron? Girl Ok!!! The guy would leave your ass in less than a second if he ever found out about your awful crimes so keeping him at your side is quite the risky move, but you do you I guess).

And another thing is, not only did Geoffrey hate every second of that charade, he (and this is also information that I got directly from the author) was downright shocked at Derangale’s unprompted act of violence against the young count of Grandpré… that was something that caught him completely off guard and that left a bitter taste in his mouth. It makes total sense for Geoffrey to feel this way, that’s very in character for him. What actually, really surprises me is Geoffrey’s reaction at hearing Ian mention this particular incident. You were there, says Ian, you saw Derangale attempt to kill a friend of mine with your own two eyes, and yet you insist on threatening me for calling him a criminal and an assassin. And that’s what finally prompts Geoffrey to lay hands on him. He silences him with a slap so violent it almost makes him fall on the ground. Geoffrey reacted with anger and disbelief when Ian was describing him heinous crimes that he never witnessed and did not believe to be true, but only resorted to physical violence when Ian forced him to acknowledge and condemn an action he actually saw Jerome commit. This brief scene alone is enough for me to confidently conclude that Geoffrey is, there are no other words fit to describe his current emotional state, deep in DENIAL. He hears an uncomfortable truth he has no way of denying, he lets that send him into a violent rage, he acts that violence out and then he ends the whole conversation there. He just. Leaves. And he repeats the same exact pattern of behaviour a second time! Book 2, chapter 12: Martewall starts to interrogate Daniel, who tells him about Derangale’s first attempt at kidnapping Isabeau AND manages to have one of his own men confirm his story. Then Geoffrey becomes visibly agitated, to the point he inadvertently breaks the rod he brought to beat information out of his prisoner in fucking two, CHANGES THE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION ON PURPOSE, and then when Daniel insists on bringing the conversation back to Derangale’s crimes he draws his sword, points it at him in another fit of anger and then! He LEAVES!! AGAIN!!! Bro???????????? You keep saying you “want the truth” and yet when you finally get it you cut the conversation off because you don’t like what you’re hearing? Hello???

“You insist on defending him only because you do not want to admit you have been lied to and manipulated by him”, this is what Daniel says to Martewall’s face, and the most articulate rebuttal he is able to come up with on the spot is “that is not true”. He absolutely did not expect to be confronted with such merciless answers, and he has no idea how to cope with Ian and Daniel ripping into the image of the good and honourable Jerome that only exists in his mind, so he just rejects anything negative they have to say and breaks things like a moody teenager.

His behaviour is extremely erratic. For the entirety of the first half of book 2, Geoffrey is clearly not his usual self. His own father tells him he does not recognize him anymore. And when Sir Harald confronts him and makes an attempt at urging him to release Daniel, Geoffrey reacts with something I would almost describe as a…temper tantrum? Sir Harald’s request for an explanation from his son is more than legit: after all, he just learned from Daniel that Geoffrey decided to kidnap a renowned nobleman on a whim, without any evidence of his supposed crimes, WITHIN THE BORDERS OF HIS FIEF IN FRENCH LANDS. That could get them in SERIOUS trouble with both his brother Guillaume de Ponthieu and Philippe Auguste himself, as Salisbury will later remark on. I mean, this action is not only dishonourable, as Sir Harald will be very quick to point out, but also extremely stupid. And Geoffrey is not stupid. Like, at all. He knows when to shut up, his rage is usually under check, he is not prone to acting out in anger or taking rash decisions. But here, Geoffrey is letting his emotions run rampant. His father is being perfectly reasonable, and he replies quite disrespectfully by stating that he is not a young boy anymore and that he will not allow for any reproach o interference on his part.

It should be noted that Geoffrey’s troubled state of mind is not solely the result of Jerome’s death. In fact, in chapter 12, Geoffrey makes it clear why he is so angry and frustrated. He lays out all of his reasons to his father:

“I’ve always done my duty and I lost my honour because of those to whom I owed my loyalty. I fought loyally until the very end, I paid my defeat with imprisonment, only to discover at my release that my name is associated to those of a friend deemed a felon and a king judged a coward; I return to my homeland and I end up on a list of traitors because of you! I am forced to be subject to the last two accusations, but the first…that one I intend to acquit myself from with any means necessary. At this point, I have already lost my dignity as a knight and you are the last person who can reproach me for it, since you are the one who dealt me the final blow”.

Geoffrey’s words reveal that he is also doing all of this for himself. He is now more desperate than ever to prove Jerome was always in the right, since this seems to be the only means of coping with the loss of his precious honour. The thought of having been friends with a felon of this magnitude is something Geoffrey could never, ever tolerate, because what would this say about him as a person? This explains the state of denial he currently is in: he has done something he would normally see as despicable by kidnapping Ian in his own lands, but he could excuse acting like a vulgar bandit if only he managed to force a confession out of Ian and avenge Jerome’s death (have I already mentioned Geoffrey has NO business being mad about Jerome meeting his demise at Ian’s hands? Dude was killed in fair combat. On a battlefield. Ian did not assassinate him or anything of that sort, there simply are NO good reasons as for why Geoffrey could ever want to “avenge” his friend’s death?? like there’s literally nothing to avenge here??? Lol???). And although Geoffrey is indeed defending Jerome’s honour because he feels that his crimes, if proven true, could reflect badly on himself, Geoffrey’s words still betray real attachment and a genuine feeling of affection for Jerome. Ian himself will later recognize their bond as valid by directly comparing it to the sentiment of friendship he shares with Daniel. At the time of Ian’s abduction, Geoffrey did not yet know that he would eventually be forced to fight yet another war once he’d finally reach his home: at that point in the story, Geoffrey’s motives for taking Ian and Daniel as prisoners had little to do with him wanting to gain back the honour he now feels his father tore from him by ordering him to side with him against their king. The primary motivation for his disreputable conduct in chapters 4 to 10 was, in my opinion, grief.

Another thing that I find extremely interesting and that in a way contradicts what I mentioned above about Geoffrey not being able to tolerate the thought of having been friends with a criminal, is that once he starts to come to terms with the proof of Jerome’s misconduct…he never disavows their friendship. What he says once he finally accepts Ian as his friend and lets go of Jerome’s obsession is: “I did everything in my power to honour our friendship, going even beyond common sense”. He never tries to claim they were never really friends or proclaim he wants to cut all ties with such a man. And towards the end of book 3, when Geoffrey and Ian are discussing what Ian’s exile really implicates and Ian is finally forced to admit he never was Jean de Ponthieu, Geoffrey all of a sudden brings Derangale into their conversation to reflect on how Jerome was right all along and how happy he is to learn that he at least did not lie to him about this one specific thing. Well, maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I was expecting him to focus on the sheer amount of lies he had been fed by…you know, Ian, the friend who happens to be alive and whom he is currently confronting. He does not even seem interested in asking Ian to explain himself, it is Ian who apologises to him, completely unprompted. They were having a conversation about Philippe Auguste and Guillaume de Ponthieu wielding the power to destroy his life, and after several beats of silence and intense consideration, what Geoffrey decided to say out loud was “I’m happy Jerome didn’t lie to me about you”? Ummmmmmm ok??????????? Lying to him certainly was not the worst thing Jerome has ever done? What about the many crimes he committed against Ian, his friends and his family? What I’m trying to say here is that Daniel’s argument about Geoffrey having been manipulated by Jerome must have cut deep, since here he is, bringing this up again. Derangale died more than two years ago, and Geoffrey already gave up on trying to redeem his honour and reputation, but he appears to be still in the middle of the process of learning to truly let him go. Dealing with the idea of having been deceived in such a cold way by a close friend to whom he though he owed unwavering loyalty is proving to be challenging. I might be delusional but I can only make sense of the fact Geoffrey brought Jerome into their conversation about Ian only to briefly touch on a strictly personal matter that concerned his own feelings and his private relationship with Ian’s old archenemy if I assume Geoffrey was, at this point in time, still dealing with some very intense and complicated feelings (….furthermore…………it doesn’t…really…make sense…for Geoffrey to be happy about Jerome telling him that Ian’s identity was a hoax…since the whole point of telling him that…was getting his help in destroying Ian and not really “being honest” with him…like…Geoffrey, love, why are you so desperately hanging on to these miniscule scraps of “““honest and genuine interactions”””, why do you still treasure this literal MICROSCOPIC CRUMB of “““sincerity””” on Jerome’s part…hello…………………???). Sorry but this whole Jerome/Geoffrey mess just exudes one-sided, unfulfilled and unacknowledged tenderness in copious amounts once you really start to read into it. My personal interpretation of the situation is that Geoffrey is having such a hard time trying to make sense of the extent of Derangale’s manipulation and condemning him as someone who was always undeserving of his friendship and devotion because he completely lacks the tools to properly analyse and interpret his own feelings on the matter.

2.2 Geoffrey and Ian vs Geoffrey and Jerome

I’m touching briefly on Ian and Geoffrey’s friendship dynamics in book 3 mainly because I think that their relationship will provide me with some good clues and parallels that could be of help in determining what Geoffrey was like when he was in Jerome’s company, since the third instalment in the series gives us such a wonderful and complete picture of the kind of friend Geoffrey is. Remember how Geoffrey immediately sided with Ian against Gant without asking for evidence against him and came to Ian’s rescue twice despite having very important businesses to attend to? Geoffrey has repeatedly shown that he has a tendency to be aggressively protective of his closest friends, to the point he has no problem resorting to extreme violence to ensure their safety (Ian, bleeding on the floor, gripping Geoffrey’s arm: “please tell me you took at least one of my assailants alive I’m going to need a witness???????” Geoffrey: “…” Ian: “…” The pile of corpses right behind them: “…” Geoffrey: “…sorry lol I kinda dealt with them in a bit of a heavy handed way” Ian: whimpers and collapses in his arms). Geoffrey’s attitude in regards to Ian’s enemies perfectly explains why he never had any qualms siding with Jerome against Ian despite the fact Derangale wasn’t telling him shit about the supposed evidence behind his outlandish claims. This is actually part of his regular pattern of behaviour: Geoffrey has consistently shown a thorough commitment towards undying trust and unconditional support through direct action. He might seem cold and aloof since he is never seen behave in an overtly friendly or approachable way when he is out in public (he also does not smile ONCE throughout the whole trilogy), but this right here is, in my opinion, a very affectionate man who is capable of forming true and intimate bonds with a handful of hand-picked men whose company he deeply treasures. Let’s talk about how Geoffrey U-turned at the speed of light to go back and help Ian corner Gant even though he was in the middle of carrying out an extremely important mission for Blanche of Castile. Let’s talk about how Derangale did not even have the time to fall to the ground after Ian delivered him the finishing blow, because Geoffrey literally teleported behind him to catch him, hoist him on his horse and take him to safety (let’s also talk about how Ian later found Derangale’s corpse among those of all the abandoned fallen soldiers the imperial army was not able to retrieve, and saw that his dead body had been laid on a shield with care, which means Geoffrey probably was the one responsible for preserving his dignity in death since we know for a fact he was there to hear Derangale’s last words and witness him die – I am literally about to start screaming please send help :)))))))). Do not let his grumpiness and harsh words fool you, Geoffrey is the most dedicated best friend another knight could ever ask for.

HOWEVER, the main difference between the two relationships I am comparing is that Geoffrey’s support of Ian is always unconditional, but never irrational in the same way his pursuit of revenge on Jerome’s behalf was, and at no point in the story does Geoffrey fail in evaluating Ian’s character or intentions. Furthermore, Ian’s gaslighting game was ON POINT in book 2, he was warping reality around Geoffrey like a damn magician, but Geoffrey never fully bought into his carefully crafted lies. And yet I am expected to believe that Derangale was such a skilled master manipulator he was able to conceal his true nature and agenda from Geoffrey for months? Hello??? PLEASE! Make it make sense!!! The ease with which Derangale was able to withold crucial information from him is extremely suspicious. Really? You mean to tell me Jerome Derangale had one of the least gullible people in the saga wrapped around his finger for years and never once slipped and misbehaved in front of him? Sorry I know at this point I must sound extremely redundant but Geoffrey’s selective blindness towards anything that concerns Derangale really is the weirdest thing ever, like, uh oh! Are you sure you didn’t catch any overly soft feelings for your bestie? So…I’m gonna say it: my theory on why Geoffrey’s behaviour was all over the place in the first chapters of book 2 is that he has always been completely unaware of the true nature and extent of his emotional attachment to Derangale, and this cluelessness of his contributed to worsening his already frustrated state. Furthermore, I also think Derangale must have noticed something was going on with Geoffrey and decided to use it to his advantage. Dude was a bit too confident, suspiciously confident in his ability to keep Geoffrey at his side without having to disclose any kind of compromising information.

In conclusion:

What I’m trying to say here is that I’m pretty convinced Geoffrey Martewall is not one of the straights. To sum all of this up, he:

-drinks astronomical amounts of his own extra strong brew of respect women juice on a daily basis

-has a tendency to get very attached to a few selected male friends who he then proceeds to protect with everything he has

-never noticed his old friend (👀) was lying to him, acted in a very out of character and erratic way for a while after his old friend’s (👀👀) death and was ready to commit actual crimes in an attempt to honour his old friend’s (👀👀👀) memory.

So. Yeah. The bi vibes are there. I would rather die than give up my Clueless Bisexual King Geoffrey Martewall headcanons! Sorry but a straight Geoffrey would make zero sense to me. Your honour can’t you see!!! this guy is WAY too cool not to be bi!!!

I rest my case.

P.S. I cannot BELIEVE I’m actually posting this monster on the day of the anniversary of the battle of Bouvines??? I swear I didn’t do it on purpose, at first I was really annoyed at the fact that putting this together was taking me weeks but then yesterday while I was editing I realized I would eventually be able to publish this on the very day Derangale died and Geoffrey was taken prisoner :’’) Perfect timing am I right?

[unexpectedcronchiness]

part 10 of drabbles from the chat my dudes i love wolfstar

Big thanks to @remusjohnblack-fics for the idea and premise and sorry in advance for the bad french

remus knew that it could have been worse. "Bonjour", the word said in an aristocratic scrawl on his collar bone. Since he could begin even thinking about his soulmate he had decided that he would not be ignorant and that he would know everything there was to know about the language and country. but still, could remus ever visit france then? I mean it's hello, everybody says hello. if he were to go to france would it be the first person he'd see? Maybe that was what needed to happen? so he put it off, and continued his learning from afar. 

By 18 remus was an expert in everything french and decided it was time to meet his soulmate so he enrolled in a french university and hopefully that would be that. Tonight however, he didn't have to worry about any of that. It was his going away dinner with his family, and that was all that mattered. They were in a small, cheesy french restaurant that his parents had picked out ("you'll be able to eat good french food everyday darling, we won't, indulge us.") they were waiting for their waiter, the smells of fresh bread wafting throughout the restaurant. Finally the young man had shown up and, well, damn, to put it simply. Sometimes remus wished he hadn't decided to save everything for his soulmate (as many did, but others chose to experiment to see what they liked or to make their future soul mate happy) because when he saw the tall, aristocratic, silver eyed, raven haired waiter, he could feel himself flushing. His soulmate wouldn't look like that, he thought, a tinge of sadness lurking through him. Waving that odd thought away he turned his attentions back to the present. The waiter, sirius black, his name tag said. His handwriting was pretty, and a little familiar, wait-

"Bonjour" remus gaped, and his collarbone tingled, no,no, no way at all- "Welcome to bon voyage hunger, ill be your waiter for the evening, sorry for the wait..." his parents were listening happily, why should they be doing any different, he hadn't shared what his tattoo said, they just knew it was something french. And the way he said it, in the thickest faux french accent that only a british man could do and it all set remus off

"J'ai appris l'intégralité de la langue française, la culture française pour être putain de gentil et il s'avère que votre britannique et vous venez de valser ici" Bonjour "bonjour mon cul c'est de la connerie juste ici-"

(("I learned the entirety of the french language, french culture to be fucking nice and it turns out your british and you just waltz in here "Bonjour" hello my ass, this is some fuckery right here-"))

the waiter-sirius- gasped, and gripped his hand, and then started laughing, with an amused glint in his eyes. "well thats one mystery solved then" He grinned and continued "on dirait que nous avons eu la même idée, quelques faux français nous sommes" in flawless french

((looks like we had the same idea, a couple of fake frenchies we are))

remus flushed, he had not expected him to understand him, much less reply and oh god this was ridiculous they had both learned french to answer the other that had learned french just to answer- this was so confusing

remus's parents heads were whipping back and forth between the two of them, know something had just happened while also not knowing why their son had blown up at the poor waiter

"puis-je le voir ... votre marque qui est... voir voici la mienne" sirius whispered, pulling off his gloves

(can i see it... your mark that is... see here's mine)

sirius held his hand out for remus to read and sure enough, in remus's loopy sloppy cursive there was his paragraph. the words looks so small and bunched together and remus couldn't help but feel a little guilty

Remus nodded, slowly he took off his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt, and slid it over to the side just enough to make out the word.

Remus's parents gasped understanding what had just happened

Sirius gazed appreciatively over remus's collar, and then he looked up and caught remus's eyes. "so" he said breaking the silence finally and slid into the booth next to remus "my name's sirius black, obviously." he gestured to his name tag and in general. "what's yours darling?"

darling? remus thought, that was rather forward he sniffed. then he sighed because no it wasn't. "it's remus, remus lupin." then he added "snookums" dryly and deadpan, just for good measure.

sirius laughed at this "oh gods you're better than i ever hoped" this caused remus to blush "How can you say that we've only known eachother a period of practically 15 minutes that's ridiculous-" sirius cut him off "I'm an excellent judge of character, pudding" he smirked and popped the p on pudding, close to remus's ear. remus couldn't help it, he shivered, and blushed, looking away. sirius noticed this reaction and grinned to himself, obviously pleased but then he looked nervous "Besides, we've got the rest of our lives to prove my point...right?"

"well of course-" remus began but then the impact of sirius's words hit him

"y-yes" he said softly after a brief paus

someone cleared their throat

oh, whoops

mr lupin was looking slightly shook, but mrs. lupin was highly amused and she continued "well remus, i think we'll leave the two of you to talk then"

they got up and left "but- wa-wait" he protested meekly

"afraid of being alone with me then?" sirius joked, but remus could tell he was nervous that that was the truth.

"no" remus elaborated after gathering himself "not at all, pookie. It's just this was supposed to be our goodbye meal before i left for university in paris and-" "oh shit i shouldn't have interrupted maybe they're still outside we can go get them and wait did you say going to paris-" oh whoops remus thought again "nonono its ok, i mean you're my bloody soulmate, they understand and uh yeah, paris-" "oh thank god that's such a relief i had no idea how i was going to break it to you i was moving to paris for university either, thats a relief" sirius cut in, a weight lifted off his shoulders

then sirius added "muffin" for good measure

remus couldn't help it, he laughed, he laughed at the whole thing, it was rather ridiculous, he found his soulmate in a restaurant called "bon voyage hunger" and he didn't speak french and they had already dove head first into pet names and he was gorgeous and seemed like a genuinely good person, it was just too much

"ahem, so what university are you going t-o...in -pa-paris" remus started to say after he had gathered himself but started stuttering as he turned to look at sirius who was staring at remus with such an intense fondness that remus couldn't help but blush again. god dammit he'd practically spent the whole night with his newfound soulmate blushing and stuttering.

"hmm, oh um Paris college of art, i want to be a sculptor" "th-the paris college of art? you're serious" sirius grinned goofily at this and said "why yes, yes i am, pleased to meet you" remus groaned but continued "so am i, i want to study art though im not sure which area specifically yet, they're all so interesting and fun and i love them all theres too many but i don't have the money to major in literally everything and each of them convey emotions in such a different way and i just-"

remus was aware that he had started rambling but stopped when he felt a soft tentative hand on his

"that's bloody excellent remus, really" and then he looked nervous again. he seemed to constantly be switching between confident and apprehensive yet remus found it endearing. "and uh" he coughed, "you don't have to worry about money, i mean if you want you could study everything for the rest of your life and we could live, well uh, lavishly to say the least, um im kind of bloody rich i guess...." he trailed off, clutching remus's hand

"did-did you just offer to be my sugar daddy?” remus could not believe it

sirius laughed "not intentionally,and i prefer the term, caring supportive spouse to be , maybe to sugar daddy?"

"spouse to be, you're rather confident aren't you"

"i'm not saying we have to get married or anything im just-" "oh gods you already have a ring don't you" "-no!" "YOU DO" "no i doN"T" remus felt a surge of confidence and dug his hand into sirius coat pocket. sirius yelped at remus who was now practically on his lap "damn remus we're in a restaurant im not big int exh-" "aha found it!" remus pulled out a silver ring case and handed it to sirius "if you're going to propose to me, you better do it full on" this time it was sirius's turn to stutter and blush

"it wasn't supposed to be an engagement ring more like an uh" he trailed off, clearly embarrassed. Remus couldn't resist teasing him "oh, so you don't want to get married to me" he pouted, just a little "Oh gods no i want to marry you so bad i just didn't know if you would so it's it's more like a promise ring maybe?" that stopped remus in his tracks

sirius greatfully took the pause to gather himself and got on one knee "Remus lupin, shit i don't know if you're supposed to get on your knee for a promise ring, i don't know if im proposing or just- shit just,  i promise to be yours, do you want to be mine?"

"oui vous beau salaud" (yes you handsome bastard)

"but i refuse to get officailly married at 18, so you're just going to have to wait and sit your pretty little ass back down" sirius's smile glowed as he said "I would wait eternity and back for you remus"

THE END

[gascon-en-exil]

A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

[pinkysfaultorbrainsfault]

animaniacs - s1e44: the world can wait

episode summary: brain puts off his plan of taking over the world so he can try to pick up a girl mouse he met and instantly fell in love with for some reason.

there’s no plan in this episode, but it’s funny, so it goes here anyway.

the rundown:

we open with pinky bothering brain about how they’re going to take over the world tonight. his initial plan is to “trap them in super sticky chewing gum”, which i’m not entirely convinced by, but as we learn later pinky kind of has a knack for this sort of thing, so i’m willing to go with it if they are.

but no! apparently not. pinky’s next suggestion is “how about we wrestle the president?” before suplexing himself. shame this episode was made in the 90s, huh. keep that energy for the 2020 reboot please, pinky.

zort.

yet another refusal has pinky worried. as he questions “but gee, brain, we are going to take over the world, aren’t we?” brain replies with the unthinkable.

“not tonight, pinky. the world can wait.”

“egad, brain. are you feeling alright?”

turns out that brain is putting off his plans for world conquest for more noble, heterosexual persuits - namely, a girl mouse who lives in a cage on the opposite shelf. pinky finds the prospect of brain being into anyone completely fucking hilarious, apparently, and makes fun of him in the background as brain witters on about his new waifu.

“she is of simple folk, fair and true.” “you mean she’s stupid?” “a bit.” mean. pinky keeps negging brain about it until he gets bonked on the head for his troubles, and then brain puts on a fancy jacket and drags pinky off to be his wingman.

isn’t he cute?

but anyway, here comes billie. apparently she lives in this sparse, empty cage by herself, which you’re really not supposed to do with female mice. they need companions otherwise they get lonely and actually you’re not supposed to keep male mice together either.....

.............................................................................................

everyone in this show is trans.

ok that was half a joke. undeterred, brain goes off to harass his Fair Damsel.

“i, my lady, am the brain,” he says, introducing himself without his fedora, for a change. “we met together in the maze.”

“oh yeah. i remember you. egghead.” what the fuck is her accent?? new york?? i’m genuinely lost. this is not a voice normal people have.

pinky thinks this is hilarious, and agrees enthustically that brain is, in fact, Egg Head, so brain bonks him over the head with a baseball bat he found somewhere. undeterred, he moves onto presenting billie with a “precious, simple gift.”

“it’s an actual working mockup of the betatron particle accelerator.”

that’s... cute, brain. not entirely sure what she’s going to do with a particle accelerator in her otherwise totally empty cage, but he’s trying! and that’s what matters.

“it kinda looks like a--”

“BIG METAL DONUT.”

HAHAHEHEHAHAHA.

“yeah, like a big metal donut. say, egghead? who’s your friend? he’s funny.”

oh dear.

oh dear. this date has been going for like two minutes and already, brain is getting cucked. still, he introduces pinky, out of politeness.

and then he decides “fuck that” and puts him in the particle accelerator and spins him away.

which is just kind of mean, honestly.

“aw, i like him.” “pinky? but he’s barely verbal.”

“well pardon me, mr egghead, but i happen to like that. goodnight.”

ouch. brain tries to change her mind, and has all of two seconds to do that before pinky bonks him off the shelf.

if you love me let me go, etc.

cut to back in the cage, where pinky is bandaging brain’s head. he must have bonked it on his fall, which is very sad. pinky seems otherwise unharmed, and is bullying brain over how the previous three minutes or so of the short went. “i think she likes you!” he chortles, amidst brain’s protests. haha, narf.

“no, pinky, the fact of the matter is, she likes you.” “but brain, i’ve already got a girlfriend.”

“pinky. you are a mouse. that is a horse.”

still, unconventional taste in partners aside (and how cute it is that he has a little picture of fignewton by their bed!) brain eventually figures out that in order to win billie’s heart, he should ask pinky what he would say to woo her. this obviously goes about as well as one would expect.

ok i wasn’t going to talk about this but when he gets there billie is like “who’s there? pinky? is that you pinky?” and brain makes this face.

“no.”

which i thought was very funny.

billie is less enthused by this particular mouse, until he starts saying some completely nonsensical shit, to which she is instantly on board.

“please, call me eggy. n. narf.”

“now, tell her-- poit-- i like your toenails.”

thanks! i got them from the president.

brain goes above and beyond, also mentioning that her head looks like a “really clean carrot”-- yknow what, i really don’t think these were serious suggestions from pinky. i think he was just being a dick. but it works! billie is swayed.

“i guess i got you pegged all wrong. why don’t you come up here? i like you.”

hee hee.

conclusion:

alas, unfortunately, brain never gets the opportunity to get pegged correctly, this time. hoo hoo. at that exact moment a bunch of scientists show up. despite complaining that they’re “going to be late for bowling”, homeboy needs to electrocute a mouse right now, immediately, so he goes ahead and does that.

the boys do their best! unfortunately, they don’t quite get there in time to stop this from happening.

(at this point brain gives off the most unconvincing “oh no, we’re too late” that i have perhaps ever heard, but i don’t blame maurice for that, because i understand it must be hard to make drunk orson welles sound sympathetic. hrrraaarrrgh. french excellence.)

still, he does seem genuinely concerned. “billie, are you alright?”

“eggy?” she asks, on the verge of death. “is that you, eggy?” brain confirms that he is, in fact, Eggy, and she goes in for a hug.

“oh, eggy. i thought the electro-polarity had altered the reticular formation in my medulla oblongata.”

oh no.

“egad, brain,” says pinky, who is bad at helping. “she’s probably even smarter than you.”

oh no indeed.

so.... yeah. turns out she is. she even makes a habit of correcting brain’s formula. as brain has a small breakdown over the fact that he’s been obsessing over that for the past five months... um. actually, that’s like... ~17 years to a mouse, give or take. how old are these guys??? what did acme do to them?

brain makes this face.

and then leaves.

“but brain! oh, so you don’t love her any more just because she’s smarter than you?” you can’t really see it in this screencap, but pinky does look genuinely concerned. good on him for calling out this fuckboy behaviour! absolutely appalling. you’re definitely not getting pegged with that attitude, brain. work on yourself.

“oh, i do love her, pinky. i do. but i must quickly go develop a plan so that we can take over the world.”

“why.”

“because if i don’t, she may beat us to it.”

so, theoretically, the tally stays the same. nothing happened in this episode. there was no plan. it was just brain being straight for seven minutes or so.

brain: 3 pinky: 3 outside influence: 5

but billie also gets a fair few points for not pegging brain while she had the chance, so there’s that.

billie: however many points that is

this has been another

useless review.

[herpronuonsarefemslash]

Teaser for “Hop, Skip, and a Jump”

A Bellamione fic that explores what happens when the Department of Mysteries duels end in Hermione taking Bellatrix down with a whip, which leaves an impression on Bella when she's sent back to Azkaban. Luna invents a longer-range time turner, Hermione is lonely after divorcing Ron, and the Black sisters were just legendary for getting up to gay nonsense... https://www.patreon.com/posts/48881466 Harry is thrashing in Remus grip, refusing to believe it and trying to dive through the Veil. Hermione takes in the other members of her merry band of child soldiers.

Ron's a mess. Black eye. Split lip. Bloody knuckles. Dark red staining the tips of his sweaty ginger hair where it dips against a cut on his forehead. Looks like a soccer hooligan after a riot. Made excellent use of that table leg when he lost his wand, though.Full marks.

Ginny displayed raw elemental force with wind, cold and lightning that her tiny body shouldn't have been able to contain and reflexes none of them could keep pace with.

Luna was bloody terrifying. She nearly killed a man with an origami dragon made out of interdepartmental memos. Hermione nearly threw up after her first real curse connected, after the first time that she did magic that truly harmed another human being. Yet Luna simply cocked her head and looked curiously at the dragon and was about to pet it when it dissolved.Creativity and lack of inhibitions are useful in a soldier, Hermione supposes.

Tonks is badly hurt, but she's breathing at least. What the fuck was that curse? Dumbledore has been letting her read up on Dark Arts, supervised, and she's never heard of those elements being combined. If there's a person spending their rainy Sundays with a notepad working out new ways to use dark arts, it's probably Bellatrix Lestrange.

A magically amplified voice rings throughout the room.

"I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black!"

Harry slips out of Remus' grip and then he's gone.

Fucking invisibility cloak. One of these days, I'm going to hang him with it. ----- Never used an Unforgivable Curse, have you, boy?" she chuckles.

The dark witch's hand is not far from her own wand. She's taunting Harry about having to mean it when he does dark magic. 

Pathos versus logos, one French scholar decided when studying the topic. Someone can do ordinary magic emotionlessly, acting out just an idea. Not dark magic. Dark spellwork takes raw emotion and blood magic and dark rites more so.

Which also brings her to the disturbing realization that Bellatrix is not nearly as broken as everyone thinks, and at the same time, she's so much more broken than anyone realized.She's never seen Harry this angry, or this torn up, and he can't summon a cruciatus for a woman who really deserves one. 

Bellatrix can let one drop from her lips like its nothing, ten seconds after telling a joke. She's not cold. She's not empty or numb or hollow. Bellatrix Black Lestrange is just too much. She's always boiling over.

She's not dangerous despite being insane because it's not a handicap. Bellatrix is dangerous because she can use her own insanity. Uses her instability as just one more weapon. To be able to do the things she does, to channel wildly different emotions on a moment's notice like that... ----- Hermione spots a bit of velvet rope on the ground, not far from one of the entrances.

"Accio rope," she whispers, calling it slowly into her hand.Bellatrix's fingers are curling around that clawed wand of hers. Any moment now, she's going to make use of the fact that Harry's standing there, barking out curses he doesn't understand the mechanics of, his lip trembling. She's going to kill him.

"Flagellum ingis!" Hermione shouts and the rope in her hand catches fire. Crimson, bloody-looking flames. What had been a few inches of fat velvet is now a thirty-foot coil of nasty-looking black leather. The frayed end becomes a hard metal handle. She swings and, by some miracle, connects. ----- Shacklebolt stares at her for a long time, like he doesn't believe her.

There's a knock on the door.

"Enter," he calls over his shoulder. It's Tonks, wobbling on crutches with an expandable sack under her arm. Her typically pink hair is a messy gray and her metamorphagus skills seem to be trying to shift her dislocated jaw back into shape, against the bracing charm the healers put on her.

"Tonks!"

"Wotcher, Hermione," she chuckles.

"Get it?" Kingsley asks.

"Kreacher wasn't happy about it, but yes."

She tips the sack upside down and drops a huge book on the table. It's bound in crimson silk and black lace. No title on the spine, instead two words. Tojous pur. Always pure. The motto of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. "Looks a bit like fancy knickers, don't it?" Tonks jokes. ----- When the Black Grimoire teleports itself into Hermione's lap, no one's laughing. Arthur Weasley goes white as a sheet and Remus's eyes flicker gold momentarily and she could swear she heard a canine's whine.

"Hermione," Remus says, his voice scratchy and small. "Please. That's..."

"Dangerous," Arthur fills in.

They're all looking at her like she's Darth Vader, suddenly. Like she has to be talked down. Like she's suddenly the most dangerous person in the room. She looks at the book. What spells are in this, anyway, that it being in her lap makes the entire Order of the Phoenix flinch?

"I don't want it!" she protests.

The book teleports itself again. Where it goes, none of them can figure out.

----- The book comes back again the night before the battle. She asks Tonks over to try to get rid of it. "S'not something to be afraid of, little devil," Tonks says. "Doesn't have to be." Little devil is Tonks' nickname for her, after finding a photo of Hermione gothed-out at age eleven, a few weeks before she got her letter. She's stopped using it around others. "I'd think you'd hate the Blacks," Hermione mumbles.Tonks sighs, shifting her skirts out of the way and sitting down on the bench beside her. Hogsmeade is empty. Cleared out so fast that everyone left almost everything. They've been eating like kings, and it helps. Tonks especially is thriving. Crazy bitch decided to put the witch-or-wizard debate to bed for all time by rejoining the war nine days after giving birth, slinging spells while leaking milk into her clothes. "I think that'd be like using a time turner to kill my grandparents," Tonks admits. She puffs at her hair, which goes pink, then blue, then green, then turns to something rather like glass. "Being a Black gave me this ability.” "Let's take a look, shall we?" Tonks squeezes her hand tight, and together they open the grimoire. "I'll keep you safe." ----- She's staggering out of the Great Hall. Bloody. Aching. Alive. Before she can find a banister to lean on, Tonks slams into her. Hermione wails. "Sorry," Tonks squeaks. "Just ribs," she grumbles. "What is it?" "Page two hundred seventeen. Knowing what that curse looks like? Saved my life. Remus' too." Hermione huffs."Next time you're trying to thank me, let's talk, all right?" The Grimoire appears in her trunk on the way back to Hogwarts to re-take her seventh year. This time, it won't leave, even when ordered to. ----- Everything is pain and exhaustion. But Rose is gorgeous. She's everything. Hermione fumbles for her wand, gathers the birth blood into the air and then whispers out an ancient curse with her lips pressed to her eldest's tiny, sticky head. Not all curses are meant to hurt the one at the center of them. The Mother's Curses are darker than night and because of the blood linking caster to target, far more powerful than ordinary spells. ------ They split after Hugo's born. It's more to do with her campaign for Minister, which she loses by a hair, than the 'neglect' of Hugo who she keeps so close she thinks that Molly would have blushed. As divorces go, it's bloodless. Pureblood-muggleborn marriages can be rocky, of course, and she produced heirs for the Weasley line. So from the traditionalist point of view, the muggle divorce and the Gringotts paperwork don't mean much. The same ceremony showed that their children's blood bears more of her magic than his. For that reason, or some other reason, Ron never bad-mouths her in public. She never moves to have their names changed to merely 'Granger'. She hears 'mudblood' whispered for the first time in a long while. ----- On one side of her desk, the plaque bears bold green letters that thrum with sorcery. Hermione Jean Granger, Minister of Magic On the other side, visible only in the presence of a Dumbledore's Army coin, she scratched a second marking in one of Tolkien's half-right, half-wrong scripts of Elvish. here sits a servant of the elves ----- "WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, A BLACK?" a woman shrieks outside her office. Hermione groans, dropping her fork back into her takeout container.Harry chuckles, glancing up from his case file. "Your damn fault," she mutters."You needed the help, old friend. Be a shame if paperwork killed you after all this." "It'd be the most evil thing that tried, so it makes sense." She flicks her wand at her office door. "In here, both of you!" she barks. ----- "Sarah?" Hermione asks, desperate to hear a human voice across the shuffling of papers. "Yes, ma'am?" "Something's been bugging me about...the incident." Missy stiffens. "What?" she asks, flipping another sheet face down."You said, what do you take me for, then added the word Black." There's a polite throat-clearing so familiar sounding that has Hermione scrambling for her wand and leveling it at a sixteen-year-old girl. "Right. Sorry," she mumbles. "Sounded a bit like..." "Umbridge," the girl laughs. "Professor Longbottom and Professor Abbot complain too." "I keep telling her that's going to get her jinxed," the boy next to her huffs. "Interrupting people who that lunatic tortured in mid-lecture rather than just raising her hand." "Shut up, Ballard." "Go on...uh...""Myn," the girl chirps, offering her hand. "Mynara Wallsworth." Hermione shakes it and then bows. "Enlighten us, wise one." "It's just that the Blacks are notorious. There's a bunch of scratches on the sixth-year Slytherin dorm's walls. Hard to tell with fading, but at least twenty. According to legend, it's one mark for each girl who got a hat trick." "A what?" "Each girl who snogged all three of the Black sisters during school."

[ultimatebottom69]

Okay so listening to the French Journal talking about the Trump supporters is funny enough.

I quote : "The prime ennemy of Donald Trump is Science. Every week his suporters organize rallies to protest against it..."

"55 millions voters. Way more than 2016. Is it due to a favoritism to a certain candidate or due to the pandemic ? We will know the results the 3 november."

So excuse me while I am quacking as the journalist (since she is french) looked like she wanted to laugh but was not allowed to. Though she said every line with great disbelief. Like mam could not believe what the fuck she was reading.

Anyway congrtas people. 55 millions voters :D that is excellent.

I would have prefered more than that but I am already happy.

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

Hello ! Can you tell me about Charles I, King of England? I am curious about this king. Thank you :)

Sigh, my problematic fave... Charlie boy got greedy and forgot he ruled England not France lmao. 

No but no shade, of course it is more complicated than that. Charles is a very controversial figure. A number of Protestant historians have condemn him and his reign. He is often depicted as cold, indecisive, or even as a tyrant. Even though there is a certain truth in each of this qualifying adjectives, I tend to agree with historians who have written a more nuanced portrait of Charles without erasing the shaddy things he did because he did cross the line of legality. I like this quote from Katie Whitaker : "Charles was the last medieval king in Britain, a man imbued with all the ideals of chilvary, who believed he was appointed by God to rule." And here lies the tragedy. His reign was a defining moment where two conceptions of power came into collision : the divine prerogatives of the King against the privileges of Parliament.

Charles as a child had a weak constitution, some historians stated he was suffering from rickets. At some point, he conquered this physical infirmity however his speech came slowly and with difficulty and until his death he had a stutter. He spent his childhood in the shadow of his strong and radiant older brother, Henry, who he loved dearly. When Henry died in 1608, Charles was eleven, he had an excellent education, he studied French, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Greek, theology, drawing, dancing, fencing... His father, James I, was very much interested in the education of his children and one of the first letter Charles wrote to his father was :  "Sweete, Sweete Father, I learne to decline substantives and adjectives, give me your blessing, I thank you for my best man, your loving sone York". In his late teens he spent more and more time with his father even though he despised his "decadent" Court. He was religiously devot and of a strong moral stance which reflected in his Court when he was king. The guiding principles was order and decorum. Contrary to his father, he was also eager to play the role of an international statesman, which made his situation with Parliament even worse. However, he lacked confidence which caused him to be influenced by the ideas of the people he most trusted: Buckingham, his father... James could read the room, Charles unfortunately not so much. After James' passing, he started taking some of his father views to an extreme. However, it's important to note that when he came to power in 1625 the situation was already tense :

His father had a patriachal view of the monarchy. He wrote political treatises exposing his own views on the divine right of kings, stating :"‘Kings are justly called gods for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power on earth". This kind of discourse didn't sit well with the House of Commons which was already sensitive on the matter of its rights and privileges. Parliament thought it had a traditional right to interfere with the policy of the realm. And so the political atmosphere soured quickly between both parties. For instance, when Parliament tried to meddle with the Spanish marriage negociations (between Charles and the Infanta of Spain) James was furious.

Parliament had considerable leverage : was the one holding the purse strings. This proved to be a thorn in the side of EVERY Stuarts rulers and it’s why throughout out the 17th century, England was shy with its foreign policy. Unlike the French King who was doing whatever he wanted, the English monarch had to beg subsidies to Parliament. Schematically, here was the usual scenario : 

King opens a new Parliamentary session because he needs moneeey, the House of Commons says maaay be but before we reeeally need to discuss something else *push his own agenda*, *criticise the royal policy* (rumor has it that you can still hear the king muttering not agaaain), thus ensues many excruciating negotiations and conflicts which usually ends up with the king saying fuck you and either proroguing or dissoluting his Parliament (this hot mess found its peak during the Exclusion Crisis, was a real soap opera lol). 

Again, it is schematical because even in the House of Commons some MPs were content with James' patriachal views. Anyway, at the core, it was truly a battle between royal prerogative and privilege!

THEN, you add the very sensitive matter of religion, its impact on politics was huge.

There were the Anglicans and Presbyterians which didn't see eye to eye. Yet compromises were made which made coexistence bearable for some while others fled to Europe or in the colonies in order to set up their own independent churches. James had hoped to bring the two Churches together and to create uniformity across the two kingdoms (Scotland & England). He tried to establish a Prayer Book similar to that used in England but faced with great opposition, he withdrew. (but guess who tried to follow daddy’s steps but didn’t withdrew?)

And last but not least... who the English despised the most above all? The followers of this boy right here...

... CATHOLICS, satan's minions on earth. 

With the outbreak of the Thirty Years War in Europe the fear of Catholicism was very much alive. Charles and Buckingham pushed James to summoned Parliament to ask for money to finance a war with Spain. The very much anti-Catholic Parliament agreed to the subsidies but unfortunately the expedition failed. James died, and Charles at the age of 24 had to deal with the consequenses. 

Relations between King and Parliament deteriorated quickly. There were the matter of war + Buckingham had negotiated a marriage for Charles to Henrietta Maria, the sister of the French King, promising that she would be permitted to practise her own Catholic religion, and that English ships would help to suppress a French Protestant rebellion in La Rochelle. Obviously, Parliament was furious especially towards Buckingham and Charles was forced to dissolve Parliament. For the King it was a direct challenge to his right to appoint his advisers and to govern. The Privy Council started to consider ways of raising money without the help of Parliament : forced loan, ship money... let's say that from here it started to go downhill.

For the matter of religion, unfortunately the caution of James I was replaced by Charles' desire for uniformity. Moreover, the King was interested by the Arminian group which was an alternative to the rigid Calvinism : the emphasis was on ritual and sacraments and they rejected the doctrine of predestination. Howerver, for many English, this group had too much ties with Catholicism. Also, some of them were great supporters of a heightened royal power which freaked out a lot of people who feared a sort of takeover. Of course, as often with fears and phobias, it was out of proportion with reality. Nonetheless, for many, Arminian meant : Catholicism +  absolute monarchy = tyranny. When William Laud (the Arminian leader) became Bishop of London in 1628, another stormy Parliament session took place. Charles decided to prorogue it but the Commons refused and they passed the Three Resolutions which condemned the collection of tonnage and poundage that Charles was doing without their consent as well as the doctrine and practice of Arminianism. Charles dissolved the Parliament and proclaimed he intended to govern without the Parliament until it calms the fuck down. This proved to be a significant breakdown within the system of government and the situation got a whole lot worse.

It's already a lot right? BUT HANG ON because in this very healthy anti-Catholicism atmosphere who Charles married? A FRENCH CATHOLIC PRINCESS. It made the crown more vulnerable and perhaps a lot of things would have been different if she had been Protestant but damn they were good together!!! The romance of Charles and Henrietta Maria is one of the greatest love stories in history. At first one could say it was a mismatched couple : a Protestant King with a Catholic Princess. Their differences and lack of understanding made their earlier years together complicated and turbulent. There were lot of quarrels and yet, they fell passionately in love. Their daughter, Princess Elizabeth wrote an account the day before Charles was beheaded and she said: “He bid us tell my mother that his thoughts had never strayed from her, and that his love would be the same to the last.” Lina wrote on her blog her top 10 favourite titbits of info of love and heartache about Charles I & Henrietta Maria, go check it out ;)

This is getting too long lol I'm not going to get into what most historians called his "personnal reign" and the civil wars. I just hope that this couple of informations made you want to find more about Charles and his time :) 

Don't settle for just one book about him because as I said at the beginning, he is a very controversial figure and lot of biographies (not so much with the recent ones but still) tend to insist on his supposedly taste for "tyranny" and romanticise the role of Parliament (aka the whole Whig historiography). Charles' reign sparked off a revolution where new ideals of liberty and citizens' rights were born HOWEVER it was a matter of decades/centuries for these ideas to penetrate society and every strats of the political spectrum. The Parliament's ideology of the 1620-1640 (and then during the Restoration) had a very nostalgic vision of politics. The idea of reform was light years away from these ultraconservative men.

But to be honest even outside Parliament. When you look at men such as Fénelon, Bolingbroke or Montesquieu. They were all convinced that a restoration (often of a magnified past) was the only response to the evils of their time. Reform in the early modern period, whether it was religious or political, was thought as a restoration. It's in mid-18th century that the shift happened, the future was at last conceivable. Anyway, all of that is to say that I'm a bit wary of all the authors who depict the MPs of this period as great reformers, who fought against the tyranny. They were mostly conservative men and very attached to THEIR priviliges.

[artificialqueens]

Ungodly Hour, Chapter Two (Jaida x Nicky) - Scarlet Bloo

A/N: Thank you so so much to anyone who’s commented on this fic, either here, or on ao3! It really means a lot to me and is my biggest encouragement. This chapter, Jaida comes home to an unexpected visitor.

Summary: Nicky is crushing hard on a bubbly soccer playing sorority sister. It’s unusual for her to ever be into anyone like this, and all she wants is to be on her radar. Popular girl Jaida is captain of the basketball team, and while she’s usually smart, French just isn’t her forte. Lucky for her, Nicky is a native speaker, so she makes it her mission to get her as her tutor.

Jaida was pretty sure her roommates were wasted when she walked into the living room after study group. On the coffee table sat two shot glasses, and two rather large bottles of cheap prosecco. Heidi and Jackie were battling each other in a heated game of Shinobi Striker (Jackie had obviously been roped into it by Heidi) their gazes glued to the flat screen as they furiously clicked their controllers. Heidi’s gaze shifted slightly when she noticed Jaida in the doorway, and her split second of distraction cost her.

“Fuck yes! !” Jackie crowed as she won the game.

“Aw, for fuck’s sake!” Heidi leveled a dark glare at Jaida. “What the hell, Jai? I just lost because of you.”

Jaida didn’t answer, because now she was distracted—by the half naked make out session happening in the corner of the room. Akeria was at it again. Some guy Jaida had never met before - bare-chested and barefoot, was sprawled in the armchair while Akeria, in nothing but a lacy black bra and booty shorts sat astride him and grinded against his crotch.

Akeria gave a slightly awkward giggle. “Jaida! Where’ve you been?” she slurred.

She went back to kissing the guy before Jaida could answer the drunken question.

For some reason, Akeria liked to hook up everywhere but her bedroom. Seriously. Every time one of the other girls turned around, she was in the midst of some form of debauchery. On the kitchen counter, the living room couch, the dining room table—girl’s gotten it on in every inch of the off-campus house the four girls shared. But she was completely unapologetic about it, and Jaida respected that.

“Girl, I’ve been texting you for the past hour,” Heidi informed her

Her tiny frame hunched forward as she poured herself another glass of prosecco. Heidi might’ve been short, but she was an excellent dribbler, one of the best Jaida had ever played with, and also the best friend she’d ever had.

“Seriously, where the hell have you been?” Heidi grumbled.

“Study group.” Jaida grabbed another glass out the cupboard and poured her own drink. “What’s this surprise you kept blabbing about?”

She could always tell how drunk Heid was based on the grammar of her texts. And tonight she must be shit-faced, because Jaida had to go full-on Sherlock to decrypt her messages. Suprz meant surprise. Gyabh had taken longer to decode, but she thought it meant get your ass back here? But who knows with Heidi.

From her perch on the couch, she grinned so broadly it’s a wonder her jaw didn’t snap off. She jerked her thumb at the ceiling and said, “Go upstairs and see for yourself.”

Jaida narrowed her eyes. “Why? Who’s up there?”

Heidi giggled. “If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re up to something?”

“Damn,” Akeria piped up. “You’ve got some major trust issues, Jai.”

“Says the girl who has had many one night stands in my bed.”

Akeria grinned. “Aw, come on, you love me really.”

“Come on,” Heidi groaned. “Just go upstairs. Trust me, you’ll thank us for it later.”

The knowing look they exchanged eased Jaida’s suspicion, even if it was just a little bit. She stole another glass of prosecco on her way out. She didn’t’t drink much during the season, but Coach had given the team the week off to study for midterms and they still had two days of freedom left. Her teammates seemed to have no problem going out every night then playing flawlessly the next day. But Jaida? Pres alone gave her a rip-roaring headache the morning after. Once she was back to a six-days-a-week practice schedule, her  alcohol consumption would drop to the usual one/five limit. One drink on practice nights, five after a game. No exceptions. She planned on taking full advantage of the time she had left.

The captain headed upstairs to her room. The master bedroom. She was not above playing the I’m-your-captain card to snag it and it was worth the argument her teammates put up. Private bathroom, baby.

Her door was ajar, a sight that snapped her right back into suspicion mode. She warily peered up at the frame to make sure there wasn’t a bucket of blood up there, then gave the door a tiny shove. It gave way and she inched through it, fully prepared for an ambush.

She got one.

Except it was more of a visual ambush, because damn, the girl on her bed looked like she stepped out of a Victoria’s Secret catalog.

“Took you long enough.” Dahlia shot Jaida a sexy smile that said you’re about to get lucky, baby girl. “I was giving you five more minutes before I took off.”

“I made it just in time then.” Jaida’s gaze swept over her drool-worthy outfit, and then she drawled, “Aw, babe, is that all for me?”

Her brown eyes darkened seductively. “You know it, baby.”

Jaida was well aware that she and Dahlia sounded like characters from a cheesy porno. But come on, when a sapphic woman walks into her bedroom and finds a woman who looked like that? She was willing to reenact any trashy scene she wanted.

Dahlia and Jaida first hooked up over the summer, out of convenience more than anything else because they both happened to be in the area during the break. They hit the bar a couple times, one thing led to another, and the next thing Jaida knew she was fooling around with a hot sorority girl. But it fizzled out before midterms started, and aside from a few flirtly texts here and there, she hadn’t seen Dahlia until now.

“I figured you might want to have some fun before practice starts up again,” she said, her manicured fingers toying with the tiny blue bow in the center of her bra.

“You figured right.”

A smile curved her lips as she rose to her knees. Her tits were practically pouring out of the lace. She crooked a finger at Jaida. “C’mere.”

“I think you’re a tad overdressed,” she remarked, then tugged on the zipper of Jaida’s jeans and a moment later she too was standing only in lace underwear. Dahlia peppered Jaida’s neck and breasts with kisses and Jaida sighed in satisfaction. Nothing felt better than this. Nope, she was wrong. Dahlia’s tongue came into play, and holy shit, it was even better.

Around an hour later, Dahlia snuggled up beside Jaida and rested her head on her chest. Both pairs of lingerie were strewn on the bedroom floor. The cuddling made Jaida apprehensive, but she couldn’t exactly shove her away and demand she hit the road, not when she clearly put a lot of effort into this seduction. But that worried her too. Dahlia’s next words validated her uneasy thoughts.

“I missed you, baby.”

Jaida’s first thought was shit.

Her second thought was why?

Because in all the time they’d been hooking up, Dahlia hadn’t made a single effort to get to know her. If they weren’t  having sex or making out, she just spoke non-stop about herself. Jaida didn’t think she’d asked her a personal question about herself since they’d met.

“Uh…”  she struggled for words, any sequence of them that didn’t consist of I, miss, you, and too. “I’ve been busy. You know, midterms.”

“Obviously. We go to the same college. I was studying, too.” There was an edge to her tone now. “Did you miss me?”

What was she supposed to say to that? She wasn’t going to lie, because that would only lead her on. But she couldn’t be a bitch about it and admit she hadn’t even crossed her mind since the last time they had hooked up.

Dahlia sat up and narrowed her eyes. “It’s a yes or no question, Jaida. Did. You. Miss. Me.”

Jaida’s gaze darted to the window. She was on the second floor and actually contemplating jumping out the  window. That was how badly she wanted to avoid this conversation.

But her silence spoke volumes, and suddenly Dahlia flew off the bed, her black hair whipping in all directions as she scrambled for her clothes. “Oh my God. You are such fucking bitch! You don’t care about me at all, do you, Jaida?”

Jaida got up and made a beeline for her discarded panties. “I do care about you,” she protested. “But…”

Dahlia angrily shoved her panties on. “But what?”

“But I thought we were clear about what this was. I don’t want anything serious.” Jaida shot her a pointed look. “I told you that from the start.”

Dahlia’s expression softened as she bit her lip. “I know, but…I just thought…”

Jaida knew exactly what she thought—that she’d fall madly in love with her, and their casual hookup would transform into the fucking Notebook.

“Basketball is my entire life,” she said apologetically. “I practice six days a week, play twenty games a year—more if we make it to the post-season. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, Dahlia. And you deserve a hell of a lot more than I can give you.”

Unhappiness clouded her eyes. “I don’t want a casual fling anymore. I want to be your girlfriend.”

Another why almost flew out of Jaida, but she bit her tongue. If she’d shown any interest in her outside the carnal sense, she might believe her, but the fact that she hadn’t made Jaida wonder if the only reason she wanted a relationship with her was because she was some kind of status symbol to her.

She swallowed her frustration and offered another awkward apology. “I’m sorry. But that’s where I’m at right now.”

As Jaida zipped up her jeans, Dahlia refocused her attention on getting her clothes on. Though clothes was a bit of a stretch—all she was sporting was lingerie and a trench coat, which explained why Heidi and Jackie knew exactly what would happen when she went upstairs.

“I can’t see you anymore,” she finally said, her gaze finding Jaida’s. “If we keep doing…this…I’ll only get more attached.”

The taller girl couldn’t argue with that, so she didn’t. “We had fun, though, right?”

After a beat, she smiled. “Yeah, we had fun.”

Dahlia bridged the distance between the two of them and leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss Jaida. She kissed her back, but not with the same degree of passion as before. She kept it light. Polite. The fling had run its course, and she wasn’t about to lead her on again.

“With that said…” Her brown eyes twinkled mischievously. “Let me know if you change your mind about the girlfriend thing.”

“You’ll be the first person I call,” Jaida promised.

“Good.”

She smacked a kiss on the captain’s cheek and walked out the door, leaving her to marvel over how easy that went. Jaida had been steeling herself for a fight, but aside from that initial burst of expected anger, Dahlia had accepted the situation like a pro.

A hookup always stirred up her appetite, so she headed downstairs in search of food, and was happy to find there was still leftover rice and fried chicken courtesy of Jackie or Akeria, who were the resident chefs seeing as she and Heidi couldn’t boil water without burning it. She settled at the kitchen table shoving a piece of chicken into her mouth just as Heidi strolled in wearing nothing but her bra and knickers.

She raised a brow when she spotted Jaida. “Hey. I didn’t think I’d see you again tonight. Figured you’d be VBF.”

“VBF?” she asked between mouthfuls. Heidi liked to make up acronyms in the hopes that her friends would start to use them as slang, but half the time Jaida had no idea what she was babbling about.

Heidi grinned. “Very busy fucking.”

Jaida rolled her eyes and ate a forkful of rice.

“Seriously, sororitiy’s  gone already?”

“Yup.” Jaida chewed before continuing. “She knows the score.” The score being, no girlfriends and definitely no sleepovers.

Heidi rested her forearms on the counter, her brown eyes gleaming as she changed the subject. “I can’t fucking wait for the St. Matthews’s game this weekend. Did you hear? Cracker’s suspension is over.”

That got Jaida’s attention. “No shit. She’s playing on Saturday?”

“Sure is.” Heidi’s expression turned downright gleeful. “I’m gonna enjoy seeing her face when we win!”

Brianna Cracker was Matthews’s star point guard and a complete piece of shit human being. The girl had a sadistic streak that she was not afraid to unleash on the court, and when ther teams faced off in the pre-season, she sent one of the freshman girls to the emergency room with a broken arm. Hence her three game suspension, though if it were up to Jaida, the girl would’ve been slapped with a lifetime ban from college basketball.

“You’re gonna beat her, I’ll be right there with you,”Jaida promised.

“I’m holding you to that. Oh, and next week we’ve got Kressley heading our way.”

Jaida really should’ve paid more attention to her schedule. Kressley College was number two in the area (second to Charles, of course) and their matchups were always nail-biters.

It suddenly dawned on Jaida that if she didn’t ace the French redo, she wouldn’t be on the court for the Matthews game.

“Fuck,” she mumbled.

Heidi swiped a piece of chicken off Jaida’s plate and popped it into her mouth. “What?”

She hadn’t told her teammates about her grade situation yet because she’d been hoping her midterm grade wouldn’t hurt her too bad, but now it looked like fessing up was unavoidable.

So with a sigh, she told Heidi about her F in French and what it could mean for the team.

“Drop the course,” she said instantly.

“Can’t. I missed the deadline.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

The girls exchanged a glum look, and then Heidi flopped down on the seat beside Jaida and rested her chin on her hand. “Then you gotta shape up.. Study your titties off and ace this motherfucker. We need you, Jai.”

“I know.” the captain gripped her fork in frustration, then put it down, her appetite vanishing. This was her first year as captain, which was a major honor considering she was only a junior. She was supposed to follow in my predecessor’s footsteps and lead her team to another national championship, but how the hell was she meant to do that if she wasn’t on the court with them?

“I’ve got a tutor lined up,” She assured her teammate. “She’s a frickin’ genius.”

“Good. Pay her whatever she wants. I’ll chip in if you want.”

Jaida couldn’t help but grin. “Wow. You’re offering to part with all your sweet, sweet cash? You must really want me to play.”

“Damn straight. It’s all about the dream, bitch. You and me going pro, remember?”

Jaida had to admit, it was a damn nice dream. It was what she and Heidi had been talking about since they were assigned as roommates in freshman year. There was no doubt in Jaida’s mind that she’d go pro after she graduated. No doubt about Heidi getting drafted, either. The girl may have been short but she was faster than lightning and a goddamn beast on the court.

“Get that fucking grade up, Jai,” she ordered. “Otherwise I’ll get Jackie and Kiki to help me kick your ass.”

“Coach will kick it harder.” Jaida mustered up a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m on it.”

“Good.” Heidi stole another piece of chicken before wandering out of the kitchen.

Jaida scarfed down the rest of her food, then headed back upstairs to find her phone. It was time to ramp up the pressure on Nicky-not-with-an-S.

[phrynewrites]

so congratulations u have now got me Hype for ur lrpd au (i'm a hozier gay let me live) but the concept is Excellent and i am certain the execution will be just as. im curious as to what eras you're thinking of discussing - like the ancient world, middle ages, french revolution, world wars? will there be any other immortals/characters who frequently occur throughout history? will a preference be given to american history over the rest of the world's? (sorry for the lot of qs im just v excited!)

okay okay okay it's 1:20am and it's time get into my planning doc and to go off nessie !! 

So for characters: 

Yvie. She's an eternal being, living out lifetime after lifetime. She begins by getting into a serious car accident and being brought to the hospital where Scarlet works as a nurse and though she's not entirely tuned into reality and barely hanging on, she's got an unending pang in her chest that that she's loved Scarlet before, just as much as she does now. 

 Scarlet. She's a mortal, but Yvie's convinced she's been her lover in every lifetime. In this lifetime, Scarlet's her nurse, who's both flattered and perplexed by this woman. And when Yvie claims they're obviously soulmates, Scarlet doesn't protest, even though every sane person she runs this by tells her that her patient's literally not thinking straight and that Scarlet's crazy for thinking otherwise. 

Brooke. Scarlet's coworker, who is sitting at the nurses' station, eating a jello cup, disinterested in her claims that the universe is putting her and Yvie together, especially because Scarlet makes claims about the universe based on shit like her horoscope app and whether or not the barista at Starbucks accidentally gives her a venti iced coffee instead of a grande. 

And times in history: tbh a lot of this is American, mainly because 1. I'm American and 2. My AP world history class consisted almost entirely of round table discussions about how we felt about the class and motivational videos from Nike ads. But there will be multiple time periods:

Salem Witch Trials 1600s: They're both spinster lesbians who are, of course, burned for being witches. The major flash back scene here is the two being burned back to back, still holding hands. 

French Aristocracy 1792: Both Scarlet and Yvie are members of the French aristocracy and the scene's set at this huge engagement ball for Yvie, who's marrying Scarlet's brother. And Scarlet's not fully getting it through her head that her and Yvie can't be romantically involved anymore like she still thinks that this is the best case scenario because now Yvie will be closer. But it's clearly not and Yvie tries to drill that into her head, like, you'll probably be married off soon enough either way, so what does it matter. This, of course, ends with the guillotine. 

London 1800s: Scarlet's a fortune teller in London, whom Yvie consults because she suspects her husband is having an affair with one of their maids or whatever, and she doesn't know who to turn to. Here Scarlet reads her palm, finding it weird that she doesn't have a lifeline, and really the love line is jagged and stops and starts haphazardly, which befuddles Scarlet. Not that Yvie notices because she's very taken by this woman holding her hands and leaves somehow having none of her questions directly answered, but in a sense, knowing what to do about her husband (hint: it has to do with lesbian thoughts about the back-alley fortune teller). 

New York, 1923: Both Scarlet and Yvie are performers at a jazz club/speakeasy and it's all smoky and sensual and they very much fuck in the back dressing room.

[beatrice-otter]

Yuletide Recs 2019

Happy Yuletide, everyone! First, I got a delightful little fic written for me: promenade.  My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle and Mrs. Higgins.  Wonderful story.  Mrs. Higgins was superb, and Eliza's reactions to the English upper class abroad are perfect. Here are some other fics I have enjoyed: 4'33"--John Cage The Sound Of A Yuletide Fic Not Being Written. There sure are a lot of cars going by.  Great meta look at writing, and 4'33" The Addams Family (movies) An Addams Family Contract (Written in Secret, Signed in Blood).  “I’m an Addams,” Debbie protests indignantly. Immediately after making this statement, Debbie realized that it was true.  (Or, Wednesday wants to exorcise Debbie. Debbie wants to kill Wednesday. A negotiation begins.)  This is AMAZING and hysterically funny, and the thought of Debbie and Wednesday working together is TERRIFYING. Don't I Deserve Love (and Jewelry).  The plan to win Wednesday’s friendship did not start well. She shared her admiration for the girl’s blowtorch, then hinted about her own childhood affinity for matchsticks and fire accelerants, but Wednesday was unimpressed.  Do better,” she said before lowering her hockey mask and stalking after Pubert. Honeymoon in Transylvania.  Ahahahaha, this is wonderful.  Gomez and Morticia vs. the TSA! Alien Series A Room with a Crappy View. 17k of Ripley and Hicks awesomeness post-Aliens. This is an absolutely AMAZEBALLS fic, and I LOVE it. I love that they deal with their trauma. I love how they wrote the Colonel, doing the best she could on the evidence she had and how frustrating that was and yet, when you look at it from her POV, what better way could she have handled it? The action is great, the relationships between Ripley and Hicks and Bishop were awesome, this is an absolute treat. All About Eve Getting Back to Being a Woman.  Karen knew enough not to go to New Haven.  Never let it be said that Margo Channing doesn't know how to take care of her friends.  I love this. I could just hear Bette Davis and the others saying their lines, and the ending is perfect--I think Karen and Lloyd will be able to have a much better relationship after this, if he's willing to accept and live into the changed relationship. Till I have the possession of everything she touches.  Addison DeWitt/Eve Harrington and their daughter.  VERY well done Addison perspective. Aubrey-Maturin series. Vent de Boulet.  Jack & Aubrey, Teen.  The aftermath of Stephen's escape from the French interrogators at Port Mahon.  Wonderful portrayal of the relationship between them and natural consequences of their trauma-filled lives. Babette's Feast Body and Soul.  After the French dinner, a new normal established itself among the faithful. Ballet Shoes A Long Way from the Cromwell Road.  Petrova visits Pauline in Hollywood after the war ends. Bletchley Circle Logical Recovery.  After the showdown with Marta Magro at the warehouses, Jean, Millie, and Lucy embark for Glasgow to find Eliška. Archival research, an extended stay with Jean's cousin, undercover rescue missions, and much emotional processing of past events ensue. Cabaret Infinite Variety.  London, 1950. Clifford has coming looking for Sally. Instead he finds a girl who may or may not be her – or their – daughter, the reclusive former Master of Ceremonies, and an annoying parrot. He becomes part of their strange household, full of love and bickering; sorrow, pain and music. No-one will tell him where Sally is, or even whether she’s alive. No-one will tell him anything. Except the parrot, who tells him that life is a Cabaret.  Oh, wow, this is painful but SO GOOD and the ending is perfect. DC Teen Titans From Cold to Fire.  "Do you want to go out with me?" "What?" Young Justice Getting Stupid in your area.  Hang-time includes considerations of evil clones and taking down a newly raised lich lord.  Love the banter. Die Hard Your Answers Please.  “Come on, kid,” McClane said gruffly. “This place is fucking depressing. You’re coming to stay with me.” Enchanted Forrest Chronicles Best Served Cold.  In which Antorell causes trouble in the Enchanted Forest, and Cimorene and Alianora make an amphibious new friend.  Hilarious, I love Ribbita! Ghostbusters Better Than Roses. Janine dates. It's...something. The Goblin Emperor Imperial (non) Immunity.  Csevet doesn't get sick. Maia's not so confident. Light a Mourner's Candle.  The Archprelate finds a chaplain for Maia. Against a Sure Winter.  When the opportunity arose to become one of the four ceremonial bodyguards for the new Emperor, Cala Athmaza volunteered. He didn't fully realize what he was letting himself in for, but he knew in his heart he had made the right choice. Sugar Lumps.  Maia spends some time with his horse. Greek Mythology beauty, her artificers.  Shortly after their wedding, Aphrodite sustains a small wound.  Really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus dynamic. a thing of beauty, golden.  Olympus’ one-century wonder appears in Hephaestus’ workshop between one strike on his anvil and the next..  Another really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus fic. Hancock yeah I know the shortcut, rather take the long way. Ray daydreams a New York that looks a lot like something out of an old Daredevil comic - towers looming over the city like cragged, jaded sentries, impartial to the neon kaleidoscope of chaos churning along below them. Hancock roosts on the tallest, craggiest one of course, brooding as he watches the slow pulsing heartbeat of the city below him. Ready to dive off his perch and into action with the first cry of distress, and there’s probably lots of those in a city like New York. Lots of zooming around, saving people, saving the world. Hopefully with slightly less metaphorical middle fingers to the world. And less alcohol. Ray’s not an idiot though, and one sparkly life-changing month doesn’t just fix people. History RPF 15th Century. these late eclipses.  Anne Neville, like others of her line, is born with a gift.  I LOVE the way magic is brought into this, it melds so well with the history. 19th Century/German folklore The Bargain.  Bettina finds a secret door at her grandmother's house, one that leads to something very unexpected. The things she learns as a result change her life in small but important ways. Imperial Radch Still Left in Want of Mercy.  The Republic of Two Systems is about a month old. Seivarden is having yet another crisis - can Mercy of Kalr get her through it? Maybe, with the crew's and Fleet Captain's help.  Interesting Ship perspective. high above the trees.  An unexpected embassy. Really excellent, probably the best way I've ever seen "Awn Lives" done. The Incredibles Life of a Superhero, Junior Grade.  Fortunately, this was Tuesday night training, not a real villain-chasing experience. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell The Magicians of Starecross Hall.  Being a series of interludes in the life of John Segundus, newly practical magician, in the year following the disappearances of Messrs. Strange and Norrell. Including: a new school for young magicians, explorations of the King’s Roads, Lady Pole’s alarming needle-work, unanticipated trips to Faerie, and John Childermass.  I love this story!  How the school got started, and 'Miss Wintertowne' (although I do think she would style herself 'Mrs' Wintertowne, because she is married and up through the 18th Century 'Mistress/Mrs' vs. 'Miss' had as much to do with age and experience and such as it did with marital status) and how she uses embroidery as a kind of art therapy.  I love the slow burn, and I love the stuff about exploring the King's Roads and Faerie.  It is excellent and awesome. Lilo & Stitch The Dance.  Lilo peeked out from behind the curtains and looked over the stage. A Little Princess Discipulae.  "I just realized," Sara said. "Becky, I could have a tutor now. I could hire someone to teach me anything I wanted. All the things that are hard to learn alone from books — Greek and Latin, Sanskrit, algebra, anything I wanted. What would you learn, Becky, if you could?"  Really great look at what their lives could be like post-canon. Marvel Captain Marvel Take my hand (and we'll march to the front lines). There's a dream Vers has sometimes. this youthful heart can love you. Carol waited a week before she left with the Skrulls. Space Cases.  Monica tried many other times to win her mother over to a pet. A rabbit, a pony, a parakeet. This is not any of those stories. This is the story of Monica Rambeau and a Flerken named Goose.  Or: Why Nick Fury is never allowed to babysit ever again. The Tesseract's Wife.  A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points: non-linear snapshots of a love story. Fly Me To The Moon.  "It's a vacation. Like spring break," Carol says. Monica's eyes widen. "Really? So we can hang out? What are we going to do?" "Well," Carol says, leaning back in her chair and flashing that old, familiar smirk. "I thought we could go to the moon." Into the Spiderverse i got you.  Miles thinks he's hiding the truth about Spider-Man, but one unfortunate night, it comes to light. one last leap.  Telling his parents he's Spider-Man is a leap of faith Miles can't bring himself to take. My Life to Liv.  Liv survived her encounters with her interdimensional Spider-nemeses, of course. So what's next for her? Interdimensional Phone Pals.  Gwen Stacy is many things, but open to friendships isn’t really one of them.  Or,  Five rules Gwen makes for herself, and how Peter B. makes her question them. Into the Spiderverse/Murder, She Wrote Spider, She Wrote.  Miles and May visit her old friend Jessica in Cabot Cove. Mulan (1998) the proper order of things. Great outsider perspective. The Mummy After the Mummy.  London was becoming Rick's least favourite place, and not just because of all the rain. Loving Evy was one thing: figuring out whether she loved him back after the Egyptian heat faded away was something else. Where's a good rising of the undead when you need one? Don't worry, Jonathan found one.  Lovely fun adventure. Course Correction.  Jonathan really is serious about staying away from tombs and mummies this time (except trouble always seems to find him). Good thing Ardeth is there to help him stay on-track. Travelers by Night.  Very quickly, Jonathan weighed the odds. On one hand, potential death, whether by armed bandits, a mummy’s curse, or people who looked like bandits and who were very angry about someone unleashing a mummy’s curse. On the other hand, potential riches, home ground, and topics of conversation other than what happened at school fifteen years ago and who got it in the neck where. Murderbot How I Spent My Vacation Between Survey Missions. What happens when ART reunites with Murderbot during another break between research survey missions? Media gets viewed, of course, but there might also be some bad news for more shady corporations. Situation Normal.  Hi, I said, along with amusement sigil 159 = wave. It seemed a little inadequate, but what do you say to the ship that radically altered your appearance, helped you figure out your past, and also threatened you with terrifying weapons? Amusement sigils seemed like my best bet. My Fair Lady Here We Are Together.  Eliza and Freddy are working together. Henry isn't happy, and makes sure everyone knows it. One Day at a Time what they say about the young. Without the kids around, it feels like everything has changed, except for all the other things about Penelope's life that could change, too. a return to normal.  Penelope and Schneider's Friday night plans fall through, so they have a movie night instead.  Very sweet. Persuasion. The Pen in Their Hands. Five letters that were written, but were never sent, aboard H.M.S. Laconia. (And one that was.) Smooth Water. “If I wanted easy comfort, I should not have become a captain’s wife.” Wonderful Austen voice. A Step Not Taken.  What if that day at Lyme had gone just a little differently? Peter Wimsey The Duke's Parlormaid.  A story in correspondence, with detective interruptions.  Really captured the feel of the books and all the character voices. Poirot The Mice Will Play.  When Poirot returns unexpectedly from a case, he finds out something new about Miss Lemon. RED The One Bathtub.  “I did have dinner plans,” Han said, grudgingly, and so Victoria kicked the door in and graciously allowed Han to be the first into the bathroom. She understood the pain of missed reservations. Rivers of London Through All the Years, This Is My Home.  At night, when the rest of the staff and most, if not all, of the masters were asleep, Molly would wander the moonlit halls and remember what fresh air felt like on her skin. Of Molly, of Thomas, and of the years they've spent together - and of the Folly, strong and everlasting.  Lovely Molly perspective. Peelian Principles.  "You're very calm about this," Seawoll said on the fifth day.  Nightingale's perspective on Peter's time as a hostage, and REALLY AWESOME. UXB.  When one the deadliest weapons of the Blitz threatens London once again, Peter finds himself on the front line.  Wonderful casefic, just perfect. Saved! Conversation Starters. Cassandra and Roland have five important conversations. Sense and Sensibility Realization and Renewal.  As Marianne recovers, Elinor and Colonel Brandon find themselves drawn to one another. Sense8 Blue and Gold.  Wolfgang comes home with Kala and Rajan after Paris. Finding a place with them. Star Trek: Rihannsu Day Comes Up New.  "I have done something spectacularly stupid," Arrhae said.  This is a wonderful extension and meditation on what might happen past canon.  Ever since I first read The Romulan Way as a teen, I've wondered what happened to Arrhae in the end, and the subsequent books were great but didn't answer the ultimate question.  This doesn't either, but it suggests something further, which I appreciate. Terminator Movies A Fistful of Sarahs.  The sky cracks open, and Sarah watches herself tumble out of a rift in the space time continuum. She’s older than she is now, and she’s got a lot more scars, and she’s carrying the biggest and weirdest looking gun Sarah’s ever seen. with all the hope in my heart (and doubt in my mind). Sarah Connor has done this before. Dani has not. Post-Terminator: Dark Fate. Fate, the Future, and Other Sons of Bitches.  Sarah and Dani hit the road. Winnie the Pooh In Which Pooh Hunts for the Meaning of Christmas.  Pooh finds a mysterious envelope pinned to the door of his house. In Which Eeyore Loses His Tail Again, Or At Least Plans To.  It's a bright, sunny day, and Eeyore has a plan to make it tolerable. Now if only his friends will cooperate.

[wolfhuntsmoon]

Sarah Rogers pt 2: or, how baby!Steve imbibed a fuck-you attitude with his mother’s milk

Okay, so after looking at Sarah’s backstory, how she met Joseph and had Steve and decided to go to America, I couldn’t stop thinking about: what next? The MCU wiki is VERY thin on the ground with detail, and she’s so interesting! Plus, this is, like, one of the most criminally underdeveloped sources for Steve Rogers’ character, as I mentioned in pt 1. So, what can we reasonably source from the time to fill in the gaps?

So: I said in my previous post Sarah likely arrives in January/February of 1918. This is because in those days, travel times were long, conditions were VERY poor and you did not want to be heavily pregnant on a cheap ship to America with the conditions on board. Plus, in those days there was no guarantee a ship company would even sell you a ticket if you were visibly pregnant. It did happen, but was risky for the company, so you could never be sure. Sarah would have left asap once she made a decision. 

The journey itself would have taken about 3-4 weeks. First she would have had to travel to London, because nothing would have been leaving to America from the French or Belgian coastline, as a) most of it was too close to the war and b) the bits that weren’t wouldn’t have been profitable. Travel to London from Passchendaele would have taken a few days to a week, given the mud and absolute priority troops and military materials were given on all journeys. This map here shows it took between 7-10 days to arrive in New York from London (by ship, no flights until the late 1920s/1930s) in 1914 before the outbreak of the war. I mentioned how at this point the German U-boats were basically sinking anything they found not flying a German flag, which made this journey pretty hazardous, even with the newly introduced (and very effective) protection of the convoy system. If Sarah was travelling on a fast convoy (less likely as they were primarily for troop ships) it would have taken about a week. Slower moving convoys carrying mostly cargo might have taken 2 weeks, even 2 and a half weeks if the weather was bad. Convoys, by the way, were where groups of ships were clustered together and escorted across the Atlantic by a combination of naval ships bristling with every explosive known to man, and navy ships disguised to look like harmless merchant cargo ships but ALSO bristling with every explosive known to man, to prevent U-boats sinking them. And also attack U-boats when they turned up. Not if. When. As you may be imagining, these journeys often contained lots of Things Going Boom and people Dying in Unpleasant Ways. Sarah would have been told by literally everyone she knew that this was a stupid, near-lethal decision, and that she should just NOT. But Sarah being Sarah, ignored this in the pursuit of what she felt was right and best for her and her baby... that doesn’t sound familiar at all, does it?

Okay, so she’s made it through the journey to the iconic Ellis Island. The next problem was that Immigration to the USA was incredibly curtailed by 1918, compared to the levels of immigration to the US prior to WWI beginning. In this, Sarah was lucky. Prior to WWI, on average between 1900-1914 about 1 million immigrants arrived into the US each year. In 1918, roughly 110,000 did - Sarah being one of them. I’ve said before that she would have had an easier time getting passage on a ship in the first place because she was comparatively better off on a nurse’s wage and was a middle class professional. More than that, most travel was reserved for the military - and Sarah likely had connections, being the wife of an American soldier, which made it easier for her to gain passage on a ship. (More on this later.)

Her status and profession is also very important for explaining how Sarah gained entry to the US, because by the end of WWI, the open door policy of the 19th and early 20th century had been solidly shut. The open-door policy had essentially allowed anyone who could pass a very basic medical and legal check free entry to reside in the USA, and the Ellis Island museum has a very good description of just how cursory these checks were - they were nicknamed the ‘six second physicals’. 98% of immigrants passed straight away, and a only a very small percentage of the remainder were put on a ship back to their country of origin. But by the outbreak of WWI, politicians and the public had become uneasy about this. Mostly due to racial concerns - Chinese immigration was the first to be restricted in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Japanese immigrants were targeted in 1907 and all Asian immigrants in 1917. (I see a lot of posts on tumblr talking about how immigration restrictions in the US began by denying Jewish refugees entry in the 1930s, which... is wrong. So, so wrong. But anyway.) Here is a contemporary cartoon showing a pretty good summary of attitudes to immigration by the time Sarah would have been travelling:

(The 3% refers to immigration restrictions put in place by Congress AFTER the war, btw.)

But the US wasn’t just worried about one continent’s people! Or even ‘just’ non-whites! Oh no... they were also VERY worried about the ‘wrong sort’ of white immigrant too. Namely, anyone from southern and eastern Europe, and the Irish. 

The discrimination against the Irish is an interesting one, because on the face of it, the Irish were the kind of immigrants the US wanted - north and western Europeans. But here’s where eugenics and pseudoscience come along and fuck things up for a lot of people. Part of the reason why the US was suspicious of southern and eastern Europeans was political - that they harboured a tendency towards violent revolutions, communism and anarchy. The Irish, after the violence of the 1916 Easter Rising and the fact that a not-insignificant number of violent revolutionaries tried to facilitate a German invasion of Ireland (and then unionists ran guns during the war through Kriegsmarine U-boat dropoffs on the Irish coast in... defence???? Idk either.), came to be included in this politically radical group. That’s the first strike.

The second strike came from the fact Irish had the British working against them. In those days, British media and culture really set the tone for the rest of the world. Remember, the US was not a world superpower yet - this is when Britain is at the height of its power, ruling 20% of the world’s people and 25% of its land surface by 1924. Britannia really did rule the waves, and much of the world’s culture, at this point. Hollywood, and American ‘soft power’ had yet to develop into the behemoth it is now. British culture persistently depicted the Irish as subhuman, ape-like, feckless, uncivilised and dangerous, as you can clearly see here:

The top one is from 1866, and the second one from 1849. Both were cartoons published in Punch Magazine, which was the pre-eminent social and political publication that EVERYONE read in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. It also played a huge role in shaping social attitudes, and you can see more of its, and others, views on the Irish in these excellent galleries. The rest of the British media was the same - almost universally negative views of the Irish, which filtered across the Atlantic over time. And seemed to be vindicated by events like the 1916 Easter Rising, and before that a long running number of secret societies the British kept discovering, plotting revolution against their rule. The whole ‘kiss me I’m Irish’, dying the Hudson green on St Patrick’s day, ‘omg I love an Irish accent’ thing? Didn’t happen until the latter half, or really the last quarter, of the twentieth century. The Irish were pretty much persona non grata when Sarah was alive. Part of the explanation for this came from the idea that the Irish were a part of a lesser race, their Celtic origins leading to a lack of judgement, predisposition to alcoholism and hotheadedness, and passionate outbursts which meant you needed to treat them more like children. Conveniently enough for the British, this explanation meant you didn’t need to treat your subjects like equals, deserving of the vote, or indeed with anything except violence and condescension. Ha. Funny that.

But anyway, back to America.

Third strike: the Irish were Catholic, as Sarah would have been. Only the very richest in society were Protestant, because they were descended from British settlers. Both the British and the US governments of the time viewed Catholicism with deep suspicion, partly for historical reasons (Martin Luther, 1517 and all that jazz) but ALSO because the Catholic Church remained a vastly powerful institution which could and did command the loyalties of people more than the national government, and this represented a dangerous fifth column within the nation state. Most of north and western Europe was Protestant, unlike the south and east which was predominantly Catholic (with the exception of France. But hey, they’re the French. No big.) so the Irish being 99% Catholic was yet another reason they got lumped in with the other ‘undesireables’. 

Not a small part of this was caused by the fact that the Irish had been immigrating to America in vast numbers ever since the Great Famine (aka the Potato Famine/Blight) to the tune of and average of c450,000 Irish per decade between 1850-1900. That is... a LOT. Like, New York’s population in 1890 had only just hit 2.5 million! Ireland’s population TODAY is 5 million! So by the end of WWI, there was already a sense that Too Many Irish were here, particularly since the Irish tended, like most immigrant communities, to move into certain areas in large numbers via family groups and connections. Sarah would have been no exception to this, which I’ll explore more in pt 3 later. It was a very common practice in this period for a man to go to America and work, then bring his family and extended family over. Or for young relations to go and live with family already in America if there was no work in Ireland - which there wasn’t, the Irish economy being subsistence agriculture and not a lot else. 

All of this together means that when Sarah arrives in Jan/Feb of 1918? She’d get a pretty rough welcome at Ellis Island (still used for incoming immigrants until new legislation establishing a visa system in 1924 went through and basically made it redundant.) and beyond.

Below is a pic of an Ellis Island arrival card, just because it’s cool:

These tightened restrictions resulted in not just health checks, but intelligence tests and ‘mental fitness’ tests, which if failed, could result in the immigrant being sent back to their country of origin. However, Sarah would have made it through okay, because she had good English, her profession and likely her marriage cert and references from Joseph Rogers’ commanding officer to speed her passage. She may even have had family connections already in New York or America, but for the reasons outlined in my previous post, probably wasn’t in contact with them. Or if she did contact them, was likely to be ignored and ostracised. Because patriarchy, yay.

But ironically? Getting into America was the easy part. I know, I know, unbelievable, especially when you consider she was PREGNANT during this. I mean, can you imagine enduring morning sickness and all the other joys of pregnancy on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic in WINTER, in danger of sinking from a U-Boat torpedo at any moment? Can you? Can you??? Sarah Rogers came up against an immense set of obstacles just to get into America and just fucking ploughed through them like they were tissue paper. Which explains a LOT about Steve Rogers, that’s for sure.

Join me next time for pt 3, where I explore Sarah’s living and working situation after she arrives and we all learn to be even more in awe of how fucking metal she was.

[catloud]

Greta Gerwig is The Best One

I grew up loving, living and breathing two films: Little Women, with a wild and passionate Winona Ryder, and Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility. The middle of three sisters, I saw our dynamic as a trio in both of them. We cast ourselves as these women, making our own Pickwick Papers and putting on plays in the garden, just like our beloved March sisters. My own teenage solitude revolved around moody walks in the hills near my house on a Scottish island, calling Willoughby’s name in the rain, usually to the soundtrack of Greenday or Alanis Morisette or Damien Rice.  These were the raw materials I had to craft my identity with. Sisters. Sisterhood. Love. Passion. Power. Freedom.

And, just as I was conditioned to pick a favourite Spice Girl or colour of Starburst, I immediately made Jo and Marianne my respective LW and S&S favourites. But Jo is something special. She is, after all, the patron saint of all aspiring writers and country bumpkins who move to the city for adventure. I feel that.

I know there’s something about Jo. Why did I make her The Best One?

What about Meg? Lovely Meg! Naturally maternal and equal parts severe, sensible and sweet, she gracefully bears the burdens of societal pressure and familial responsibility as the pioneering eldest child, while also taking responsibility for wrangling her more wayward sisters. She is a Mini Marmee, and lord knows we all love Marmee.

Or gentle Beth, wistful and musical, always striving to keep the peace between more the more overwhelming personalities within the household, and trying to make the world a better place for those less fortunate in times of extreme uncertainty. She loves everyone and everyone loves her.

Or Amy?  Artistic and refined Amy, who matches Jo in talent and strength of will but is a thousand times more socially savvy. She makes the rules of the world (for women like her) work as she intuitively knows how to wield and tame them, while Jo fights them kicking and screaming all the way.

The March sisters are timeless because they pose a question that has refused to leave me alone – what am I supposed to want? Jo is our natural Girl Power era heroine. She is all of the great feminist moments in one person. She’s Jane Fonda getting arrested at a protest. She’s telling a mansplainer to shut the fuck up. She’s not taking “because you’re a woman” for an answer, ever.

She’s wild and proud, recklessly emotional and deeply ambitious. And there it is. Ambition. The most masculine of fatal flaws that is at first admirable before it devours everything in its path, stopping at nothing till the whole world has been swallowed and spat out again.

We can’t all be Jos. Stoking and sustaining that level of craving and chasing is absolutely exhausting. And when what you want comes to you, and comes crashing down again because nothing is forever, then you’ll see the holes left behind. Creative projects and the pursuit of the next thing can be Polyfilla for the gaping, untreated hole left by perpetual loneliness. No one wants to look into its mouth for long, and so the great cycle begins again.

And I think about this now, because Hollywood’s Remake Olympics feels necessary this time. I need to see Jo again.

I find myself thirty, solo and skint. I have yet to find a like-minded soul who is more Alcott’s Laurie and less Austen’s Willoughby, and I’ve spent most of my twenties pursuing a career that I have loved but I’m convinced hasn’t loved me. I’ve hunted opportunities, scraped by when cash was tight with a knot in my stomach and instead of chasing something brilliant and wonderful, I have been obsessed with not failing. Failing isn’t an option. I don’t know what else to be instead.

Why was my hometown not enough?

Why did I have to want more?

These questions are Greta Gerwig’s territory, an artist who has made herself very much at home with stories about women at crossroads who sense good things on the horizon, but struggle to get their bearings. She is an artist I watch with so much strange pride, horrified that so few women are staking claims and taking names in a director’s chair and yet, there she is. There she has been, for years.  

As a writer and as a performer, Gerwig understands how painful it is to be in a perpetual state of becoming. Frances Ha - the 2012 film she starred in and co-wrote with director Noah Baumbach - is a masterpiece.  I resisted watching it for years, because I was scared of seeing myself in it. I was right, but I didn’t need to be scared. It’s filled with the same mundane intimacy in Little Women - girls sitting in bed together, making plans for a big, varied, wild life. Gerwig and Alcott write love stories about wanting to love life and have life love you back. Her eponymous character is the earnest, awkward and mis-stepping heart of a film that scrambles up the crushing economic realities of modern life with whimsical and chic French New Wave aesthetics, adding glimmers of Fame and Footloose for fun. “Scrambling” is the most appropriate adjective for her. A precariously-employed dancer, she tells successful and self-assured best friend Sophie in the film’s deeply intimate opening montage “I tried to make a frittata and it’s really more of a scramble”.  And we all know you can’t make an omelette without cracking eggs. They feature again in her Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning Lady Bird. Arguing with her mother, Saorise Ronan’s Christine/ Lady Bird asks why she can’t cook breakfast, to which the excellent Laurie Metcalf replies “Because you take too long and make a big mess and I have to clean the whole thing up.” Eggs. Metaphors for messy lives, and a nod to the mothers we came from. The mothers!  They’re poets and they don’t even realise. I love Gerwig and Alcott’s big-hearted mothers, so afraid for wayward daughters who want more than they can provide and say things like “I didn’t raise you like this!” when they act up. When we act up. I know you didn’t, and I’m sorry.

At the helm of Lady Bird, Gerwig is even more masterful at painting sisterhood and choices with a bold intensity, coloured with vivid metaphorical visuals. Juxtaposing the joy of a first kiss with a hushed conversation about tight finances gives economic hardship and anxiety the same weight in the drama as romantic entanglements. Lady Bird’s mother is often visibly crushed by her daughter’s ungrateful and embarrassed recognition that they aren’t wealthy, and “wrong side of the tracks” cliches are shown to be careless, throw away words for painful and inescapable realities. Gerwig crafts anxious and relatable narratives around being economically downtrodden and feeling less sure-footed in the face of those who have hit certain milestones. Her work is peppered with the many little audacious deceptions we pull off that conceal deep-rooted despair; the greater truths can be reached when we take sex out of the equation, or throw it in; the sorrow of being left behind. But she always gives us joy, too. Writing the names of boys we love on the wall and painting over them when don’t anymore.  Going to view houses, trying on other lives for fun, because it’s wonderful and poignant to deliberately get lost in the woods to simply feel every now and then.  

She makes me nostalgic for that particular sweet spot in my adolescence. There is so much I hated about being a teenager, but I was restless and hungry and I miss that person. I still want to believe that the world is full and vibrant, and that I deserve a slice of it nut sometimes I fear that I will never feel brave or excited again. But Gerwig is familiar with this feeling and Little Women, in essence, explores all of these fears. Her films show women living their lives differently and overcoming the battles that ensue, and this makes her the perfect wrangler for the March sisters, each with their own diverging life paths but all of them equally valid.

Of course, to call it an exploration of modern feminism isn’t wholly true. Feminism that isn’t intersectional isn’t feminism and Little Women as a historical piece is incredibly white and heteronormative. But, there are lessons to be learned about what being a woman today looks like. It takes guts to be a mother and raise children, or to pursue the life you desire even if it takes you thousands of miles from what you know and who you love. She understands that choosing a creative career - and continuing to choose it in the face of all its difficulties – is to peer into the lion’s mouth. Her films have a simmering undercurrent that points a finger directly at the harsh reality and unspoken acceptance that art is for the rich, and the pursuit of culture indicates a sense of superiority or reaching above station. And it will always take courage to break free from expectations, even if those expectations come from the people you love most.

I refuse to pick a favourite this time.

Meg March is coming home.

Beth March is your favourite album on vinyl.

Amy March is playing poker, and winning.

And Jo? Jo March is every foolish text and all sparkling, heartfelt conversations.

If I have to pick My Best One, it’s Gerwig herself. She is a storyteller who handles life’s tiny disappointments and triumphs like precious ornaments. She is a master of making mountains out of moments, of carefully handling stories that give women space to live untidily and brilliantly, of big and small rituals we do to root the person we’re becoming to the person we used to be, and to the people, places and things we’ve loved, always.

I feel safe in her hands. I couldn’t trust my March sisters to anyone less worthy, and I can’t wait to see these women I love through her imaginative, sensitive and determined eyes.

[thewordreaper]

Short story slam day 1

Prompt: Your protagonist finds out they’re on a date with a wanted criminal.

@short-story-slam

(I’ve been working on my main wip for a while so i wanted to write something fun. I hope it makes you laugh.)

Why In A Family Restaurant

“Well,” I said, drumming my fingers on the table. “This is quite lonely.”

“Uh-huh.” He said scratching his neck as he peered through the large french windows.

“The decor is pleasant isn’t it?” I persisted. He looked around as though he just realized where he was.

“A bit posh for a dosa place don’t you think?”

I shrugged, “I think they do pancakes as well.”

“Oh.” He said before turning to look out again.

I slumped a little in my chair. This was ridiculous, maybe I should just give up and ask my mother to find someone for me. How hard is it to find one nice date, Just one! 

“It’s great to see how much you’re enjoying this.“

“Oh yes.” He peered in the direction. “Do you think our food should have come by now?”

“I think you’re supposed to order first,” I said sourly.

“I thought you had taken care of that.” He replied as he gingerly picked up the menu.

“Well, you can order now. And pay as well. I’m done.”

He looked up at me, suddenly panicked.

“Uh Roshini, wait! I was distracted.”

I placed my hand against my forehead. “Give me a reason to stay. Just one.”

He cast a panicked look around the room and I could almost see his brain turn to clay. He turned back to me with a strained look. “Roshini. You are here. In this posh restaurant. And your uh eyes gleam like oil.”

I gave a groan. “I give up,” I announced at large. “No more dates for me.”

He looked worried “Do you want to marry me or something?”

“I don’t know why anyone would want to marry you.”

“You don’t know that.” He protested. “Maybe I’m just a bad date?”

I groaned again. “Every single date, every single one has been a failure. I hoped that you would be nice at least.”

“They couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Oh really?” I said, sitting up straight at him. “Well the last guy I went out with, every time I said something he would explain to me how his ex-girlfriend would have said it.”

Oh.“ He said. “I don’t think he’s ready for a new relationship just yet.”

“And before that? Do you know who it was before that? Pradyuman Reddy, the Shaktiman of Kolkata. This city’s favourite hero.”

His eyes lit up, which I felt was rather unfair. “It was terrible.” I snapped. “He led by quoting Churchill! Did he even pass his tenth-grade history exam? And he spent the entire evening informing me how he upholds the proud values of Kolkota. I didn’t know we had values!”

In response, he held out a tiny vial across the table. I stared at him in confusion. “Are you suggesting that I drink my worries away? Because, one, that’s not an effective way to sneak alcohol into a family restaurant. And, two, that’s not enough alcohol to get drunk. I think.”

“Oh no. It’s Arsenic!” He said brightly. “I was hoping you could sneak this into his drink the next time you guys meet.”

After a beat of stunned silence, I clamped my hands around his, hiding the vial from the sight.

“Oh god.” I cursed. “You’re the bloody Zehar. I was praying that your looks and voice were just a coincidence. God, I was so desperate for a date.”

He sniffed. “I prefer to go by Advaith in situations like this.”

I laid my head to rest on the table cloth. “Am I allowed to cry? Is that a thing I can do?”

"You just need to pour it into his drink. It’s not that hard.“

“I don’t want to be a murderer!” I hissed raising my face only two inches off the table.

“Do you want anything?” He asked desperately. “Maybe a farm? Or a dog?”

“All I want is one nice date.”

“That’s doable. My intern is usually free on Saturdays. He’s a cool dude. Or I have this friend who’s very into uh… pyrotechnics? He has Friday evenings off.”

“Are you trying to bribe me… with a DATE?”

“Love is an excellent motivator.” He muttered, looking downcast.

“What the fuck.” I said very eloquently.

“I can book an entire restaurant for you guys.’ He looked down at his watch. "And I’ll text you the rest of the details. Pradyuman will be here in an hour or so. I thought I could drop you home before that.” He reached below the table.

“What are you doing?”

“Turning on my rocket shoes. They’re a new edition. I’m not quite used to them yet.”

“That’s kind of cool,” I admitted reluctantly.

He got up from the table and tucked the vial into his pocket. “Hold on to me.” He said, stretching out his arms, ignoring the dirty looks people were throwing us.

“This is still the first date,” I warn him.

He looked pleasantly surprised as I put an arm around his waist. “Does that mean you’re up for more dates then? I think you’ll really like Revanth.”

I groaned. “Can we leave already?”

He threw something up and with a sizzling noise a huge hole appeared in the roof above us. A middle-aged lad sitting at the table opposite ours gives an outraged gasp. “This is a family restaurant!”

“What was that?” I asked as we are soaring above the city.

“Pyrotechnics?” He said brightly.

“That’s not what pyrotechnics is and you know it.”

“Listen Pradyuman’s going to pay them thrice over for it. Their business is going to go through the roof.”

“They’re going to need it. I’m never eating there again.”

He smiled at me. “You know, comparatively, you’re the most interesting person I’ve met.”

“Why comparatively?”

He looked like he wanted to shrug but didn’t. Which is probably the safe thing to do when you’re floating above the city.

“I don’t really get to spend enough time with people to actually talk to them.”

“Because you’re bloody evil.”

“I don’t have a lot of free time.” He said miffed. But I had a lot of time to think about on the flight home.

“Whatsapp is fine right?” He asked as he put me down.

“I can’t believe you’re so eager to go on another date already.” I said.

“I thought you were interested in Revanth.” He said but there was an embarrassed smile already creeping across his face.

I sigh. “I don’t even know who he is! And comparatively? You’re the best date I’ve had.”

He laughed as he flew back up and winked at me as he pulled the arsenic bottle out of his pocket and shouted loud enough for the whole damn neighbourhood to hear, “I’ll make a villain out of you yet.”

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