#on the other hand it seems like Dumas wants us to cheer him on while he helps bandits escape

[lady-of-the-lotus]

wait you don't like novel xy? why not? 🤔

I should probably say I don't like the parts of him I've actually read or seen excerpts of.

I simply don't jibe with him.Much as I love me my villains, I don't wholeheartedly embrace all shapes and forms and draw the line at certain crimes and threats for personal reasons. Also, I actually usually get really into villains who are more along the lines of Loki, Magneto (#Magnetowasright), Erik (Phantom), Count Fosco (The Woman in White--one of my all-time favorite characters)--and from what I've seen of novel!XY, he's even further from my usual type than the cql version.

In short, there was some "that's too much for me" and there was no emotional clicking to compensate. I might like him better if I read the I-assume-better-translated version of him in the official novels. I very much rely on writing style and realistic dialogue when it comes to books, which is why I find it hard to connect to anyone in poor translations, no matter how good the original work. I recently gave up on The Man in the Iron Mask halfway through to wait for a different translation to come into the library as the one I was reading (from a major classics publisher!) was so poor as to be distracting. (Still bitter about how that one got published.)

I'm sure people have great reasons for liking novel!XY and am glad he made enough of an impression on readers for him to get the screen time he did in cql!

[kikinom]

Lost Lending, Chapter 3 - “A Shift in Perspective”

The roads always feel a bit boring, at least to Hadien. Duma’s walking a bit ahead, occupied. He walks from the road to the sides, as he picks flowers and grabs at butterflies. Hadien’s already a bit zoned out, just feeling his legs hit the ground. Step, step, step, step-

He’s pulled out of his almost-trance when he hears Duma cheering loudly from somewhere behind him. Hadien turns around, surprised he managed to pass his thane, and spots Duma holding a very unhappy bunny in his arms.

“Hadien! Hadien look!” Duma says with childlike glee, holding the tan hare gently in his arms as it struggles to break free. “I caught a bunny! Hadien what should I name him?”

“Maybe,” Hadien thinks for a second and walks back to him, before saying the first name that comes to his mind. “Lex? That seems like a hare name to me.”

Duma nods, and casts some magic that Hadien doesn’t understand on the bunny. The hare seems to relax at that, and Hadien takes a better look at it. It has pale green-yellow eyes, and tan, softlooking fur.

“Are you just going to keep it, my thane? It’s a wild animal.”

Duma just nods, and shifts the hare to sit in one of his bags. The hare seems surprisingly content to sit in the bag, quickly closing its eyes.

“It has interesting eyes. I’ve never seen one with eyes like that.”

Now it’s Hadien’s turn to nod. “It reminds me of a lemon. Lex the lemon.” Duma and Hadien both laugh at that, Duma’s boisterous laugh filling Hadien’s mind. He always laughs so happily, loud as he pats a large, armored hand on Hadien’s back.

The sharp claws on Duma’s gauntlets resting softly on his back. Hadien looks up to Duma’s glowing amber eyes, shaded from the bright sun by his hood. Catching his shining eyes makes Hadien almost wish Duma was wearing his helmet.

~~~

The duo, newly a trio, pass quickly through Dragon’s Bridge, because Duma’s never liked it there. Hadien’s asked why quite a few times, but he's never opened up about it. Something about an old job and old friends, but never anything he’d actually elaborate on. He always makes sure to cover his face as he passes through, and Hadien does the same.

They are a bit more than halfway between Dragon’s Bridge and Morthal when Duma turns ahead of Hadien, and moves to a small clear area between the trees.

“Hadien, are you tired?”

As he asks, Hadien realises how tired he actually is. A day of walking since early morning has gotten them far, but he feels the ache in his legs. He nods, and sits on a rock as he takes off his hood and mask. The final beams of the setting sun feel pleasant on his face, and he pauses to bask in it as Duma gathers sticks to build a small fire.

Hadien is pulled from his basking when he sees Lex moving towards him, and he reaches a hand out for it to sniff. It bumps its nose to his hand and it feels cold, and the surrounded fur is the softest thing he thinks he’s ever felt. He looks up and sees Duma using some magic to start the fire. It shines off his armor as he takes his helmet off.

It always takes Hadien a minute to soak in how pretty Duma is. Most people would call him handsome, but they haven’t seen his thane shake and clap in joy while eating good food, or taking a long break on the side of the road to weave a flower crown. Something about him is so fundamentally pretty that it always makes Hadien want to stop and just watch him. He moves almost gently in his armor, with practiced grace. How he uses the knife-sharp nails of his gauntlets to do anything from gently untie knots to gut a deer. He’s practiced in everything he does, almost like a dancer.

Hadien watches as Duma reaches into the fire to adjust some of the wood until he’s satisfied with it, and then pulls two horker loaves and a loaf of Livia’s bread. Hadien moves off of his rock, mourning his almost already gone sunbeam as he goes to sit near Duma.

“Which loaf would you like?” Duma asks, holding both of the horker loaves out to Hadien.

They look identical to him, so he just points at the one to his left. Duma nods and sets them both on a smooth rock next to the fire to warm. He then rips the small loaf of bread in half and hands some to Hadien.

Hadien rips a small chunk off of his half to eat, and, like all of Livia's bread does, it tastes fantastic. If most good things get worse over time, Hadien hopes Livia’s bread isn’t one of them. He peers over to see Duma eating his own half, seemingly having similar thoughts. Soon, Duma gingerly hands Hadien his half of the tough horker meat, and starts eating at his own piece. The meat is tough but filling, and Duma eats it easily with his sharp teeth, taking large bites off of his piece. Hadien has to fish the small knife out of his bag to cut the meat smaller so he can chew it.

Duma finishes his piece quickly, and shifts to leaning back, hands on the ground behind him. Hadien watches as Duma looks up at the moons with the same fascination he looks at everything, amber eyes seeming even more orange as the fire glints off of them. Hadien’s seen Duma look and study most things, like when he watched him pick out daggers for Sofie and Lucia.

Duma stands with a stretch a few minutes after Hadien finishes his food. He reaches for his pack and pulls out his bedroll, laying it out near the fire. Hadien does the same, laying his out on the other side of the fire.

Duma takes his cloak out of his bag and sets Lex on it, and the hare lays down. Hadien watches his hands as he pulls a small notebook out of the same bag, opening it up to the next unused page and as he starts to write.

They sit in comfortable silence for a while longer, Duma lightly scratching away in his notebook. Eventually Duma tucks his notebook back in his bag and stands to do some magic Hadien doesn’t understand. Something to protect them so they both can sleep, Duma says in many more words.

Hadien finally takes his eyes off Duma to move to his bed roll, and hears Duma move to his. The magical fire still burns warmly at his back as he curls up and lets his head rest on the small pillow, listening to Duma do the same.

Hadien’s always been quick to fall asleep, and that stays true.

~~~

Eyes peer out from the shadows at the sleeping forms. No soul is awake to feel the sudden chill, but the smaller man shivers. The flames of the fire go out, and the small camp is bathed in darkness.

~~~

(MASTERLIST)

[bluewatsons]

Joseph A. Harriss, The Elusive Marc Chagall, Smithsonian Magazine (December 2003)

With his wild and whimsical imagery, the Russian-born artist bucked the trends of 20th-century art

David McNeil fondly remembers the day in the early 1960s his father took him to a little bistro on Paris’ Île St. Louis, the kind of place where they scrawl the menu in white letters on the mirror behind the bar, and masons, house painters, plumbers and other workingmen down hearty lunches along with vin ordinaire. Wearing a beret, a battered jacket and a coarse, checkered shirt, his father— then in his mid-70s—fit in perfectly. With conversation flowing easily among the close-set tables, one of the patrons looked over at the muscular, paint-splotched hands of the man in the beret. “Working on a place around here?” he asked companionably. “Yeah,” replied McNeil’s father, the artist Marc Chagall, as he tucked into his appetizer of hard-boiled egg and mayonnaise. “I’m redoing a ceiling over at the Opéra.”

Chagall, the Russian-born painter who went against the current of 20th-century art with his fanciful images of blue cows, flying lovers, biblical prophets and green-faced fiddlers on roofs, had a firm idea of who he was and what he wanted to accomplish. But when it came to guarding his privacy, he was a master of deflection. Sometimes when people approached to ask if he was that famous painter Marc Chagall, he would answer, “No,” or more absurdly, “I don’t think so,” or point to someone else and say slyly, “Maybe that’s him.” With his slanting, pale-blue eyes, his unruly hair and the mobile face of a mischievous faun, Chagall gave one biographer the impression that he was “always slightly hallucinating.” One of those who knew him best, Virginia Haggard McNeil, David’s mother and Chagall’s companion for seven years, characterized him as “full of contradictions—generous and guarded, naïve and shrewd, explosive and secret, humorous and sad, vulnerable and strong.”

Chagall himself said he was a dreamer who never woke up. “Some art historians have sought to decrypt his symbols,” says Jean-Michel Foray, director of the Marc Chagall Biblical Message Museum in Nice, “but there’s no consensus on what they mean. We cannot interpret them because they are simply part of his world, like figures from a dream.” Pablo Picasso, his sometime friend and rival (“What a genius, that Picasso,” Chagall once joked. “It’s a pity he doesn’t paint”), marveled at the Russian’s feeling for light and the originality of his imagery. “I don’t know where he gets those images. . . . ” said Picasso. “He must have an angel in his head.”

Throughout his 75-year career, during which he produced an astounding 10,000 works, Chagall continued to incorporate figurative and narrative elements (however enigmatic) into his paintings. His warm, human pictorial universe, full of personal metaphor, set him apart from much of 20th-century art, with its intellectual deconstruction of objects and arid abstraction. As a result, the public has generally loved his work, while the critics were often dismissive, complaining of sentimentality, repetition and the use of stock figures.

A major retrospective of Chagall’s unique, often puzzling images was recently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, following a highly acclaimed run at the Grand Palais in Paris. The first comprehensive exhibition of Chagall’s paintings since 1985 brought together more than 150 works from all periods of his career, many never before seen in the United States, including cloth-and-paper collages from the private collection of his granddaughter Meret Meyer Graber. The exhibition, says Foray, the chief organizer of the show, “offered a fresh opportunity to appreciate Chagall as the painter who restored to art the elements that modern artists rejected, such as allegory and narrative—art as a comment on life. Today he is coming back strong after a period of neglect, even in his home country.” Retrospectives are planned for 2005 at the Museum of Russian Art in St. Petersburg and at the State Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow.

Movcha (Moses) Chagal was, as he put it, “born dead” on July 7, 1887, in the Belorussian town of Vitebsk, near the Polish border. His distraught family pricked the limp body of their firstborn with needles to try to stimulate a response. Desperate, they then took the infant outside and put him in a stone trough of cold water. Suddenly the baby boy began to whimper. With that rude introduction to life, it’s no wonder that Marc Chagall, as he later chose to be known in Paris, stuttered as a boy and was subject to fainting. “I was scared of growing up,” he told Virginia McNeil. “Even in my twenties I preferred dreaming about love and painting it in my pictures.”

Chagall’s talent for drawing hardly cheered his poor and numerous family, which he, as the eldest of nine children, was expected to help support. His father, Khatskel-Mordechai Chagal, worked in a herring warehouse; his mother, Feiga- Ita Chernina, ran a small grocery store. Both nominally adhered to Hasidic Jewish religious beliefs, which forbade graphic representation of anything created by God. Thus Chagall grew up in a home devoid of images. Still, he pestered his mother until she took him to an art school run by a local portraitist. Chagall, in his late teens, was the only student who used the vivid color violet.Apious uncle refused to shake his hand after he began painting figures.

For all his subsequent pictorial reminiscing about Vitebsk, Chagall found it stifling and provincial—“a strange town, an unhappy town, a boring town,” he called it in his memoirs. In 1906, at age 19, he wangled a small sum of money from his father and left for St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in the drawing school of the Imperial Society for the Protection of Fine Arts. But he hated classical art training. “I, poor country lad, was obliged to acquaint myself thoroughly with the wretched nostrils of Alexander of Macedonia or some other plaster imbecile,” he recalled. The meager money soon ran out, and although he made a few kopecks retouching photographs and painting signs, he sometimes collapsed from hunger. His world broadened in 1909 when he signed up for an art class in St. Petersburg taught by Leon Bakst, who, having been to Paris, carried an aura of sophistication. Bakst indulged Chagall’s expressive, unconventional approach to painting and dropped names, exotic to the young man’s ears, such as Manet, Cézanne and Matisse. He spoke of painting cubes and squares, of an artist who cut off his ear.

“Paris!” Chagall wrote in his autobiography. “No word sounded sweeter to me!” By 1911, at age 24, he was there, thanks to a stipend of 40 rubles a month from a supportive member of the Duma, Russia’s elective assembly, who had taken a liking to the young artist. When he arrived, he went directly to the Louvre to look at the famous works of art there. In time he found a room at an artists’ commune in a circular, three-story building near Montparnasse called La Ruche (The Beehive). He lived frugally. Often he’d cut a herring in half, the head for one day, the tail for the next. Friends who came to his door had to wait while he put on his clothes; he painted in the nude to avoid staining his only outfit. At La Ruche, Chagall rubbed shoulders with painters like Fernand Léger, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani and Robert Delaunay. True to his nature as a storyteller, however, he seemed to have more in common with such writers as French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who described Chagall’s work as “supernatural.” Another friend, Blaise Cendrars, a restless, knockabout writer, penned a short poem about Chagall: “Suddenly he paints / He grabs a church and paints with a church / He grabs a cow and paints with a cow.”

Many consider Chagall’s work during his four-year stay in Paris his most boldly creative. Reconnoitering the then-prevalent trends of Cubism and Fauvism, he absorbed aspects of each into his own work. There was his Cubist-influenced Temptation (Adam and Eve); the disconcerting Introduction, with a seven-fingered man holding his head under his arm; and the parti-colored Acrobat, showing Chagall’s fondness for circus scenes. At La Ruche he also painted his explosive Dedicated to My Fiancée, which he tossed off in a single night’s feverish work and later submitted to a major Paris exhibition. It took some artful persuasion on his part to convince the show’s organizers that the topsy-turvy mix of hands, legs and a leering bull’s head was not, as they contended, pornographic.

Returning to Vitebsk in 1914 with the intention of staying only briefly, Chagall was trapped by the outbreak of World War I. At least that meant spending time with his fiancée, Bella Rosenfeld, the beautiful, cultivated daughter of one of the town’s wealthiest families. Bella had won a gold medal as one of Russia’s top high-school students, had studied in Moscow and had ambitions to be an actress. But she had fallen for Chagall’s strange, almond-shaped eyes and often knocked on his window to bring him cakes and milk. “I had only to open the window of my room and blue air, love and flowers entered with her,” Chagall later wrote. Despite her family’s worries that she would starve as the wife of an artist, the pair married in 1915; Chagall was 28, Bella, 23. In his 1914- 18 Above the Town (one of his many paintings of flying lovers), he and Bella soar blissfully above Vitebsk.

In 1917 Chagall embraced the Bolshevik Revolution. He liked that the new regime gave Jews full citizenship and no longer required them to carry passports to leave their designated region. And he was pleased to be appointed commissar for art in Vitebsk, where he started an art school and brought in avant-garde teachers. But it soon became clear that the revolutionaries preferred abstract art and Socialist Realism— and how, they wondered, did the comrade’s blue cows and floating lovers support Marxism-Leninism? Giving up his job as commissar in 1920, Chagall moved to Moscow, where he painted decorative panels for the State Jewish Chamber Theater. But ultimately unhappy with Soviet life, he left for Berlin in 1922 and settled in Paris a year and a half later along with Bella and their 6-year-old daughter, Ida.

In Paris, a new door opened for Chagall when he met the influential art dealer Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned him to illustrate an edition of the poetic classic the Fables of La Fontaine. Chauvinistic French officials cried scandal over the choice of a Russian Jew, a mere “Vitebsk sign painter,” to illustrate a masterpiece of French letters. But that blew over, and Chagall went on to do a series of resonant illustrations of the Bible for Vollard.

Increasingly alarmed by Nazi persecution of the Jews, Chagall made a strong political statement on canvas in 1938 with his White Crucifixion. Then 51 and in his artistic prime, he por- trayed the crucified Christ, his loins covered with a prayer shawl, as a symbol of the suffering of all Jews. In the painting, a synagogue and houses are in flames, a fleeing Jew clutches a Torah to his breast, and emigrants try to escape in a rudimentary boat. Not long after, in June 1941, Chagall and his wife boarded a ship for the United States, settling in New York City. The six years Chagall spent in America were not his happiest. He never got used to the pace of New York life, never learned English. “It took me thirty years to learn bad French,” he said, “why should I try to learn English?” One of the things he did enjoy was strolling through Lower Manhattan, buying strudel and gefilte fish, and reading Yiddish newspapers. His palette during these years often darkened to a tragic tone, with depictions of a burning Vitebsk and fleeing rabbis. When Bella, his muse, confidante and best critic, died suddenly in 1944 of a viral infection at age 52, “everything turned black,” Chagall wrote.

After weeks of sitting in his apartment on Riverside Drive immersed in grief, tended to by his daughter, Ida, then 28 and married, he began to work again. Ida found a French-speaking English woman, Virginia McNeil, to be his housekeeper. A diplomat’s daughter, and bright, rebellious and cosmopolitan, McNeil had been born in Paris and raised in Bolivia and Cuba, but had recently fallen on hard times. She was married to John McNeil, a Scottish painter who suffered from depression, and she had a 5-year-old daughter, Jean, to support. She was 30 and Chagall 57 when they met, and before long the two were talking painting, then dining together. Afew months later Virginia left her husband and went with Chagall to live in High Falls, New York, a village in the Catskills. They bought a simple wooden house with an adjoining cottage for him to use as a studio.

Though Chagall would do several important public works in the United States—sets and costumes for a 1942 American Ballet Theatre production of Tchaikovsky’sAleko and a 1945 version of Stravinsky’s Firebird, and later large murals for Lincoln Center and stained-glass windows for the United Nations headquarters and the Art Institute of Chicago—he remained ambivalent about America. “I know I must live in France, but I don’t want to cut myself off from America,” he once said. “France is a picture already painted. America still has to be painted. Maybe that’s why I feel freer there. But when I work in America, it’s like shouting in a forest. There’s no echo.” In 1948 he returned to France with Virginia, their son, David, born in 1946, and Virginia’s daughter. They eventually settled in Provence, in the hilltop town of Vence. But Virginia chafed in her role, as she saw it, of “the wife of the Famous Artist, the charming hostess to Important People,” and abruptly left Chagall in 1951, taking the two children with her. Once again the resourceful Ida found her father a housekeeper— this time in the person of Valentina Brodsky, a 40- year-old Russian living in London. Chagall, then 65, and Vava, as she was known, soon married.

The new Mrs. Chagall managed her husband’s affairs with an iron hand. “She tended to cut him off from the world,” says David McNeil, 57, an author and songwriter who lives in Paris. “But he didn’t really mind because what he needed most was a manager to give him peace and quiet so he could get on with his work. I never saw him answer a telephone himself. After Vava took over, I don’t think he ever saw his bank statements and didn’t realize how wealthy he was. He taught me to visit the Louvre on Sunday, when it was free, and he always picked up all the sugar cubes on the table before leaving a restaurant.” McNeil and his half sister, Ida, who died in 1994 at age 78, gradually found themselves seeing less of their father. But to all appearances Chagall’s married life was a contented one, and images of Vava appear in many of his paintings.

In addition to canvases, Chagall produced lithographs, etchings, sculptures, ceramics, mosaics and tapestries. He also took on such demanding projects as designing stainedglass windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah-HebrewUniversityMedicalCenter in Jerusalem. His ceiling for the Paris Opéra, painted in 1963-64 and peopled with Chagall angels, lovers, animals and Parisian monuments, provided a dramatic contrast to the pompous, academic painting and decoration in the rest of the Opéra.

“He prepared his charcoal pencils, holding them in his hand like a little bouquet,” McNeil wrote of his father’s working methods in a memoir that was published in France last spring. “Then he would sit in a large straw chair and look at the blank canvas or cardboard or sheet of paper, waiting for the idea to come. Suddenly he would raise the charcoal with his thumb and, very fast, start tracing straight lines, ovals, lozenges, finding an aesthetic structure in the incoherence. Aclown would appear, a juggler, a horse, a violinist, spectators, as if by magic. When the outline was in place, he would back off and sit down, exhausted like a boxer at the end of a round.”

Some critics said he drew badly. “Of course I draw badly,” Chagall once said. “I like drawing badly.” Perhaps worse, from the critics’ point of view, he did not fit easily into the accepted canon of modernity. “Impressionism and Cubism are foreign to me,” he wrote. “Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul. . . . Let them eat their fill of their square pears on their triangular tables!”

Notes veteran art critic Pierre Schneider, “Chagall absorbed Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism, Expressionism and other modern art trends incredibly fast when he was starting out. But he used them only to suit his own aesthetic purposes. That makes it hard for art critics and historians to label him. He can’t be pigeonholed.”

When he died in Saint Paul de Vence on March 28, 1985, at 97, Chagall was still working, still the avant-garde artist who refused to be modern. That was the way he said he wanted it: “To stay wild, untamed . . . to shout, weep, pray.”

[thisway-imagines]

17 for Conrad if possible? // PS. Gimme that angst >:D

17) “You mean so much to me. Please let mehelp.”

Conrad had always believed that he did everything that he could to the best of his abilities.

Shortly after leaving Sage’s Hamlet and Halcyon behind, Conrad was relieved to find Anthiese truly well after all these years. He swore solemnly that he’d do everything he can to aid her - and he never intended to go back on his words. His masked knight persona finally broke down after Anthiese’s selfless act of throwing her life away for others (hearing her words made him shiver with fear - the confidence in her voice haunted his very core, why was she so ready to kill herself?), thanking Mila that he had managed to be the knight and brother Anthiese needed to see her alive for another day.

For the weeks to come, you would observe Conrad’s actions in camp. There was never a moment where he sat idly in one place - you’d always see him doing chores with the others, patrolling alongside Celica often, and so on. You had gotten a better chance to know him after you worked together on tasks around camp; sparring sessions were also frequent between you two, lance to lance clashing with each other fiercely until you both retire for the day.

But when you turned your back away from him, he had far more duties to do than just simple duties around camp. As a brother, he was willing to give a helping hand to Anthiese when her burdens felt too heavy to bear by herself - if her doubtful thoughts wandered too far, or her responsibilities too hard to handle, Conrad was always prepared to carry them with his sister.

But no matter how troubled her face looked or how pale her skin got, the knight never got a response from Anthiese. The princess had locked herself away inside a barrier too far away from his reach, choosing to bear the struggles by herself. She would place a hand on Conrad’s face, fake smiles and false cheer in her voice when she uttered out:

“I’ll be fine.”

Conrad had always believed that he did everything that he could to the best of his abilities.

…but was he really when Anthiese refused to look at him honestly?

“I await you at Duma Tower, my child,” Jedah spoke smoothly, disappearing further into the shadows as he retreated. The heavy, threatening implication of his words left an impact on everyone after they were left wondering what Jedah’s and Celica’s true intentions are.

“I’m sorry, I never thought it would play out that way.”

As you lay heaving on the dirty grass whilst staring at Celica in shock, the silence was quickly cut off with Saber’s frustrated shouts towards the princess.

“You’re SORRY?! What in the name of hell just happened here?”

The others stayed dead silent as Saber continued to sharply follow up with further questions. “You KNOW that dog Jedah? And what’s this “bargain” he was talking about?“

You took your eyes off of Saber and Celica for a moment, only to look at Conrad. Even behind his mask, you knew he was just as frustrated with Celica as Saber was. The grip he was holding his lance with was tight, and it almost seemed as if he had the power to even snap it right then.

Celica could only weakly reply with: “I… I can’t say. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but-”

“Just… stop.”

Your head was already spinning from the battle, and as those two continued to argue over trust and intentions, all you could focus on was how still Conrad was as he witnessed all of this.

How could she be so selfless yet so selfish all at the same time?

As you laid in the medical tent in silence, sore from fighting and hurt from your wounds, you still stood up to get some fresh air from the outside. After the battle, everyone quickly gathered to the medical tent to require attention from the priestesses, sages and Genny - their healing magic worked wonders on everyone’s injuries, and you’d never been so thankful that there were plenty of them in the army to treat soldiers like you.

But there was one problem. Although Conrad was heavily damaged in the battle against Jedah like the others including you, there was no sign of him anywhere inside the tent when all of you had settled down. When you had asked Mae about his whereabouts, all she could reply was:

“I honestly dunno. The last time I saw him was with Celica.”

A heavy sigh was heaved out from your lungs as if you had held this tension throughout the entire day. As you stuck your head out of the tent flaps, you quickly bumped into someone lightly, a quiet “oof” uttered out from your lips.

“Ah! Apologies, [Name]. I didn’t realize you were there. Shouldn’t you be inside resting?”

It was Conrad.

Now gasping, you looked at Conrad’s face - his mask was no longer present on his face. Once bright and warm, the knight’s eyes were weary from stress and heavy from tiredness. You had noticed the various cuts and bruises he got from the Mogalls as well, purple and blue littered across his skin.

“I should be the one asking you that,” You looked into his eyes, which were now downcasted with shame. You continued, “The fights are only gonna get tougher from now on - Celica will only need more help from now on, so she needs you at your best, okay? Here, I’ll help you clean your wounds.”

As you sat him down onto a nearby cot and turned around to get some clean cloth, water, and gauze, his expression turned grim and started to voice out something.

“Does Anthiese really need me?”

What? “Conrad, what’s with that question all of a sudden?” As soon as you had some water on the cloth, you looked back at the prince in concern.

“She… does she trust anyone at all?”

As you started to clean up the dried blood on his face, tears started to flow onto his face freely as he looked at you in absolute despair.

“I’m not worthy as a brother if I can’t help her at this state…! She won’t tell us anything… she won’t tell me anything… gods, I just want to help her…!”

Soft sobs started to fill the medical tent as you stared back at him, heart now twisting from his miserable confessions. Your hand was now frozen in place as he cried into your palm, and you couldn’t find yourself being able to clean his wounds anymore.

“…Conrad.” You wiped his tears away from his cheek, now kneeling down to meet his tearful eyes. “Please… don’t blame yourself. Celica is bearing an obvious burden that no one seems to understand - she doesn’t want to make you suffer even further than you already are now,” you whispered softly to him, trying to make him understand Celica’s plight. “You mean a lot to her…”

Conrad leaned further into your touch.

“…and a lot to me. You mean so much to me, please, let me help. I’m not Celica…but I want to help you in any way that I can. Even if it’s just like this, Conrad.”

Removing your hand away from his face, you pulled him back into an embrace and allowed him to bury his head in your neck. His tears further soaked into you and your clothes, but all that mattered now was Conrad’s comfort.

“[Name]… please, let me cry. Just for a while. Thank you…” Conrad sniffed, finding solace in your very being. “Thank you for being here.”

[vicioushyperbolizer]

Random Nurseydex prompt if you want : one of them comforting the other after a bad day? Doesnt even have to be anything happened theyre just sad. :( but the other cheers them up :))) (also if relevant ace Dex always appreciated - i really really love your fics!!)

This was self-indulgence, guys. I just wanted a loving and supportive partner for someone with migraines. Dex’s medication is sumatriptan. I personally hate it, but a lot of people have great success on it. cw: throwing upread it here on AO3

The minute Dex woke up, he could tell that it was going to be a bad day. It felt like someone had taken an icepick to his head while he was sleeping. Or maybe attached an ice pick to a wood clamp and tightened it until it couldn’t squeeze any tighter. Or maybe not. He hurt too fucking much to come up with a better analogy.

Dex had migraines for about as long as he could remember. He didn’t get them frequently enough to take the daily preventative medications, maybe once every few months, but they were bad enough to keep him laid up for the day. And, of course, it had to be his off day, the first day in months where he didn’t have classes, early morning practice, study groups, or shifts at his part time job.

He and Nursey had planned a full day together. They were going to do a bunch of cliched, romantic things, and end the night with a double-date dinner with Chowder and Cait. It had started out as a joke, but somewhere during their conversation, they decided that it sounded fun, in a schmoopy and embarrassing way.

So, of course that was the day his body decided he needed a migraine. When he could think more clearly, he would try to figure out what triggered it. Now was not that time.

The one good thing about this happening on an off day meant that he didn’t wake up to any blaring alarms or to Nursey’s cheerful and very off-key singing. He could feel his boyfriend still snoozing next to him.

Dex carefully tried to roll over, in an attempt to close the curtains, or maybe make it to the bathroom for his emergency medication, but he barely got halfway over when his head and stomach seemed to opposite directions. There was no way that he was going to be able to get out of bed the way he was.

Nursey knew, in theory, that Dex got migraines. He told the whole team a few months into his freshman year, and there were a few days where he had to call off of practice because of them. When he moved into the Haus, he made a list of scents that triggered them and foods he had to avoid during team dinners.

This was the first time since moving in with Nursey that he actually got one, though. So even though his boyfriend knew, in theory, how bad it was, he never actually experienced it first hand. It was downright embarrassing that Nursey was going to see him like that. He couldn’t even move without feeling like he was going to throw up… or cry.

He was worse than useless, he was a burden. And he really, really wanted to not need Nursey. Except he did. As carefully as he could, Dex extended a hand and tapped Nursey until his boyfriend started to stir.

Nursey groaned and stretched, arms reaching wide over his head. The bed jostled uncomfortably, and Dex felt his stomach roil worse than ever. He waited a minute for his boyfriend to settle before Dex tapped him again.

“Migraine.” He said it as low as he could.

“Aw, babe. What can I do to help?” Nursey followed Dex’s example and kept his voice low. It didn’t matter, though, because the echo of his own voice shot starbursts through his head. It was unbearable.

Dex felt a tear run down his cheek. He hated this so much. “Meds. Bathroom. Sumi...something.”

Thankfully, Nursey didn’t ask anymore questions. He climbed over Dex more delicately than he ever had. It still made Dex’s stomach twist uncomfortable, though. Before Nursey got to far away, he hit the side of the bed frame to get his attention.

“Pepto. Trash can.”

Nursey scrambled for the trash can across the room and dumped out all the paper just in time to get it to Dex. Migraines fucking sucked. Life sucked.

The only upside was that throwing up seemed to make everything calm down a little. The vice around his head loosened, and the sea in his stomach calmed down. He was able to roll onto his side to watch Nursey make his way back in from the bathroom.

In one hand, he had Dex’s orange pill bottle. In the other hand, he had what looked like a rag. Nursey carefully fiddled one of the pills out of the container and reached for one of the half full water bottles on the desk.

When he was done, Nursey took the bottle and put it back on the desk, then carefully laid the rag on his forehead, and oh, it was a damp towel. Honestly, it was amazing. Dex always felt sensitive to temperature when he had a migraine, and the cool cloth against his forehead was just right to help cool him down without making him feel too cold.

“I used to get sick a lot as a kid, and this is something my dad would do to make me feel better.” He adjusted the cloth a little.

Dex threaded his fingers through Nursey’s free hand on his chest. The love and care and attention his boyfriend was showing him felt pretty nice, too.

“What else did your dad used to do?”

Nursey thought about it for a minute. “Well, sometimes he’d read to me. Poetry, biographies, satire, whatever he happened to pick out of the bookshelf. One of his favorites was Don Quixote, but he would only read it for me in Spanish. I’ve actually never read it in English.”

That made Dex smile, a little. He knew how much Nursey loved his parents, and it was clear from how he talked about them that they loved him just as much. Dex savored every little detail about the Nurse family.

They sat there for a few minutes, waiting out Dex’s migraine. It never took very long for his medication to kick in, and between that, the throwing up, and Nursey’s presence, he started feeling a little better quickly. Not 100%, not even good enough that he was willing to get out of bed anytime soon, but down to a 5 instead of an 8.

Dex scooted over, as much as he could in the small bed anyway. He gently pulled on Nursey’s hand, until he understood that he wanted Nursey to lay back down with him. Dex curled up against his side, resting his head on Nursey’s strong chest.

“Tell me more?”

Nursey checked that the damp cloth was still in place, then threaded his fingers into Dex’s hair, careful not to pull, just a comforting touch.

“You know how he’s an English professor, right? Well, there was this one week when I had a really bad ear infection and had to stay home from school. My mom was on a business trip, and my dad didn’t want to cancel class last minute, so he just took me with him. So, imagine a seven year old me, in my Reptar pajamas, schooling college kids about Alexandre Dumas…”

[wingsy-keeper-of-songs]

Holy Men and Songbirds

Anon requested some Cardinalstoph, and I in my great need for more Sasstoph in my life, readily complied. Seriously, Cardinal Richeleiu is a delight to write for. He’s always so taciturn and pissy. I love him. I hope you guys enjoy this!

King Louis: (ง'̀-'́)ง Fite me Cardinalstoph: ಠ╭╮ಠ omg louis no “You know, one of these days I am really going to teach the Duke of Buckingham a lesson,” Louis was saying as he pranced about the hall. Behind him, his most trusted advisor (and really, was there anyone more trustworthy than a man of God) tried his best to keep his voice level and even. It was taxing at times when your king was little more than a child, but that would soon come to pass. Hopefully, at any rate. “I can imagine so,” the Cardinal replied, not taking his eyes off of the letter he was writing to the Duke in question. “You’re a capable fencer, Richelieu. Why don’t you teach me how to fight?” Louis asked, spinning on his heel and nearly falling backwards. The Cardinal looked up then with a puzzled frown. “I…I’m sorry, Your Majesty I don’t believe I heard you correctly.” He said, placing the reading glasses down. “It’s really quite simple, Richelieu.” The boy king continued, flapping his arms about. “You teach me to fight, and I shall challenge the Duke to a duel!” It took every ounce of willpower Richelieu had not to burst into raucous laughter at the very thought. A man of the cloth didn’t do such things. “I…I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, Your Majesty.” The Cardinal replied with a blank stare. “Say on the frankly low chance that you were to lose, who would run the kingdom?” “Why Anne, of course! She is more than capable, wouldn’t you agree? And you would take full responsibility of her. But I’m not worried. With you as my teacher, I am sure to win!” Louis said brightly. “Well? How about it?” “Your Majesty, as capable as you might be, I’m not certain that I would want to balance the future of France on a duel.” Richelieu explained. “The risk is simply too great.” ‘Besides, it would give me far more pleasure to kill you myself.’ Louis looked to be on the verge of a tantrum and the Cardinal braced himself. “And why not?” The boy king demanded. “I am more than willing to lay life down for country!” “A noble cause,” the Cardinal replied solemnly. “But I don’t think it is in our country’s best interest at the moment. As much as I would enjoy seeing Buckingham knocked down a few pegs, I simply must insist that you do not challenge him to a duel.” This was partly true, actually. He did hate that pompous Duke of Buckingham. Almost as much as he hated the king, really. “Well, if you think it is in our best interest,” Louis replied sulkily. “I do. Now, if Your Majesty doesn’t mind, I’d like to finish this letter.” Louis harrumphed and turned on his heel to go and hurl insults at his tailor again.

```

The Cardinal turns out to have a friend in one of the Queen’s songbirds. She’s clever and witty and really quite pretty which is distracting and not at all helpful when plotting world domination. “Marguerite, why don’t you sing a song for me?” Anne said as the ladies in waiting sat around her in a circle. “I think our afternoon could use a little music.” “Is there any song in particular you would like to hear, Your Majesty?” The girl asked as she folded her hands in her lap. “There is one I would like to hear,” Anne replied. “Buckingham sang it once to us, of course, he put on several airs.” She laughed at the memory. “I remember it being rather sweet. It’s called Flow My Tears. Do you know it?” “Forgive my impudence, Your Majesty, but I’m not sure if the King would enjoy hearing an English lute song.” Marguerite said with a little smile. Anne laughed, charmed by the girl’s cheekiness. “Never you mind what the King wants,” Anne said kindly. “Go ahead, now.” Marguerite nodded and settled herself straight as Anne nodded at the court musicians. Marguerite breathed deep as her corset would allow her to and she began to sing a soft lilting melody. ‘Flow my tears, fall from your springs! Exiled for ever, let me mourn; Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings, There let me live forlorn.’

As Louis was going on about the colors he would wear and certainly surpass Buckingham this time round, Cardinal Richelieu was staring off into space and trying very hard not to bash his head into something hard. However both men paused when the first plaintive notes echoed through the palace. It was unlike anything either of them had ever heard before, clear and sweet as Notre Dame’s bells. Louis paused his venting and turned to the Cardinal in utter surprise. “Do you hear that, Richelieu? It’s lovely.” For once in his life, the King was right. The voice singing so sweetly was almost beyond lovely. Music was a big part of church life, but never had the Cardinal heard such beautiful secular music. “I hear it,” Richelieu said quietly. “Must be one of Anne’s ladies in waiting,” Louis said sagely with a nod of his head. “Hurry along now, Cardinal! We may very well catch her in the act!” He dashed off ahead while the dazed and confused Cardinal trailed slowly behind. Both men followed the beautiful sounds of the lute song until they happened by the alcove where the Queen and her ladies were, well, waiting for lack of a better term. Louis darted behind a column and gestured for the Cardinal to do the same. Richelieu did no such thing. He stood off to the side and merely listened as the brassy-haired young lady concluded her song. ‘Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell, Learn to contemn light Happy, happy they that in hell Feel not the world’s respite.’

Louis, ever feeling the need to announce himself, applauded jauntily. “Bravo! Bravo! Absolutely splendid!” He cheered merrily. “Anne, I must say this young lady is in possession of a very lovely voice!” He said as the women stood to greet him. Marguerite could feel her face burn just a little to receive such high praise, but it was nice all around. She also took notice of the fact that the Cardinal wasn’t too far behind the King and the thought made her just a bit nervous. “Thank you, my Lord.” Marguerite said, bowing her head. Louis shook his head, feathered hat flapping about comically. “Not at all! Thank you for gracing us with such a beautiful song! In fact, I was just remarking to Richelieu…dash it, where did that man get to…Richelieu! Come over here and meet our royal songstress! What is your name, my dear?” Louis turned back to the girl. She curtsied politely and tried not to giggle at the annoyed expression on the Cardinal’s face. “Marguerite Dumas, my Lord.” She replied softly. “And do you sing other songs, Mademoiselle Dumas? Perhaps another song preferably in French?” Louis asked. Marguerite nodded, trying her best not to fiddle with her skirts. “Yes, my Lord. I know very many songs. My father is a traveling musician.” She replied politely. “Fantastic!” Louis exclaimed. “If you wouldn’t mind terribly, could you sing another? The Cardinal and I have grown rather bored of late. It would be a treat indeed to hear you again.” Marguerite snuck another glance at the Cardinal who looked somewhat pained. “I believe his Eminence has something better to do,” she replied with a knowing smile in his direction. “Oh of course he doesn’t. We were only chatting about Duke Buckingham’s visit, weren’t we Richelieu?” Louis turned to the Cardinal who fixed a neutral expression on his face, though any fool could see the annoyance in his eyes. “We do have a few more important things to discuss, Your Majesty. We have a treaty to write out and—“ “Oh, don’t bother with that, Richelieu. We can resume later! For now, let’s enjoy another song from Mademoiselle Dumas!” Louis interrupted. Richelieu looked as if he’d much rather be guillotined now, please and thank you, but he had no choice. Once the King made up his mind, it was nigh impossible to get him to change it (unless one were to divert his attention, and that wasn’t too hard). Sighing and resigning himself to yet another uneventful afternoon, the Cardinal sat in the back while the court musicians waited for a nod from either King or Queen.

```

Marguerite is half-dressed and runs into Richelieu, who may or may not be doing unCardinal-like things having to do with blackmail and murder. Also boners are distracting.

It wasn’t like she wouldn’t sleep, it was more along the lines of she couldn’t sleep. Constance had been scolding her again and Marguerite had gone to bed in anger. Even as she tossed and turned on her bed, she couldn’t seem to calm herself down and settle into a nice blissful sleep where she could dream of petty revenge. It was a fruitless attempt, unfortunately for her and it only served to make her angrier. Not only did Constance manage to embarrass her in front of the queen, she also robbed her or her beauty sleep and that was inexcusable. Frustrated, Marguerite sat up and swung herself out of bed. She needed air to cool her head and a walk in the palace gardens sounded lovely about now. She threw on a thin housecoat and headed out of the dormitories. She passed a few of the Cardinal’s personal guardsmen who were keeping watch for any pesky Musketeers or that boy of Constance’s. What was his name, D’Artangion! Yes, that was the boy Constance strung along like a lovesick puppy. Marguerite could understand why, really. He was much too arrogant for her tastes, and she could tell that he’d make a good match for Constance. Perhaps they could annoy each other and leave her well enough alone.

She was so enraptured in her swirling thoughts of Constance and D’Artangion that she didn’t look where she was going and found herself someplace in the palace a lady in waiting really oughtn’t be. It looked like the wing where the Cardinal worked or slept or did whatever it was he did. Not many were allowed back here if any at all. And she wasn’t sure where the front door was from here either. Keeping a level head, she started off down one of the hallways and found a wooden door. She tried the handle, but found it locked. She cursed to herself and decided to try the door in front of that one. Why did this place have so many damned doors? Before she could attempt a third time (the second one had been long jammed by something or other and she didn’t bother to find out what), the handle twisted on its own! She covered her mouth to stifle a shriek of surprise when the Cardinal himself came face to face with her. “You,” he said quietly and looking just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. Immediately, he frowned and Marguerite did not like the look that crossed over his face. “What are you doing here?” He asked silkily. Marguerite recalled Anne telling her that the Cardinal was not a man to be trusted with anything. “I’m lost,” she replied, not looking him in the eye. It wasn’t technically a lie either. He looked as if he rather doubted this. “Oh you are?” He replied, eyes narrowing. “And what exactly has brought you out of bed and to my chambers at this hour?” “I wanted to go for a walk,” she said, unable to find the courage to look him in the eye. Those eyes of his were hard as flint and she was sure she wouldn’t be able to look at him without wincing. “I…have a lot on my mind, and I was not looking where I was going. Forgive me.” This seemed to calm him down a little, though he was still suspicious. “The palace gardens are a much more suitable place for a walk,” he said, locking the door behind him and wrapping the key around his wrist. It was attached to a rosary, she noticed. She wondered if he kept that on his person at all times. Best not to ask that question. “That’s where I was headed, Your Eminence.” She replied, running a nervous hand through her braided hair. “But I was lost in my thoughts and I wandered here instead.” “Interesting,” he muttered. “Roquefort should have seen you. I ought to have a chat with him when this is dealt with.” “Dealt with?” Good Lord, he wasn’t going to kill her for this, was he? She had heard rumors that the Cardinal was a cruel man, but all she’d done was wander into his chambers by mistake. “Yes, when you are back in your dormitory where you belong.” He replied with a raise of his eyebrows. “Unless you plan to sleep on the stone floor, and I would have the greatest sympathy for you if you do.” She shook her head. “No, I ought to be going.” She agreed. She was about to head back the way she came when the Cardinal caught her by the wrist. “Before you go,” he began quietly. “I would like to advise you of something.” “Yes?” She asked just as softly, almost fearfully. He lowered his face closer to hers and she could just barely make out rings of dark brown around the pupils of his eyes. “Do not tell a soul that you saw me here tonight. Or Queen Anne will be sans a songbird the next time we meet.” His voice was steady and calm, but it still caused a shiver to travel down her spine. “I understand,” she replied. He nodded as if he agreed with her. “Off with you now.” He waved her away. “Wouldn’t want you to catch your death.” She did as he asked and took off in the opposite direction, heart racing wildly. He shook his head and took a deep breath.

That had been far too close.

[nataliesnews]

the Haj, Arab marriages, an arab epiphany, a Greek marriage dance, fireworks for Matric and Corona, hiking areas and laws against democracy and to save a Jewish terrorist, empty promises 12.7.2020

From: Natanya Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2020 9:49 AM Subject: the Haj, Arab marriages, an arab epiphany, a Greek marriage dance, fireworks for Matric and Corona, hiking areas and laws against democracy and to save a Jewish terrorist, empty promises

 12.7.2020 Suha, my Arabic teacher, was telling us yesterday that for the first time in the history of Islam, there will be no Haj this  year. She also told me of one of her relations who had already put off her wedding once and so many others have done and this time was sure it would happen. Evidently with the Arabs the wedding celebrations can go on for a few days and not just one. Many of them have extended families and according to a news report there are rarely less than at least 500 people attending and sometimes the numbers rise to 3000. Her relation bought dresses for each of these days and now…..when will she wear them. And as Suha says to hold a celebration after the event will not be the same as being present at the marriage and many people simply would not come.

She also told us a story about her father who had been a communist and bitterly against religion. Her mother wanted to go on the haj but would only go with him and when he refused she said that her sins would be on her head. So he went with her saying he was going as her companion and not on a religious journey. When they got to Mecca, he had an epiphany and phoned his brother in an arab other.

I heard something very interesting about masks. Many people have difficulty hearing when people speak through the masks. Today I heard that there is an idea of covering  the area of the mouth with a transparent patch which will help people and especially those who cannot hear so that the lips can be seen.

I have always found the rebbe dance of the ultra orthodox revolting. And the whole scene around it. A couple who hardly know one another, the religious ecstasy of those who do  not think for themselves but only do the rabbis bidding, the way the women are relegated to areas where they can hardly see.  But now listening to Victoria Hislop  “The Island’ found that there is an Isaiah dance which is done by the priest, the couple and it seems the parents. So different.    The book also sent me back to “n Haan vir Elounda   by Jan Rabie which I had read many years ago about the leper island and I took it down to find “Many happy returns of the day, with love from Oscar” in Jessie’s handwriting. I can only think that she must have got it for him and sent it to me. But what really interests me and I wonder if there is some correlation, I have already come across two names which both authors use for main characters, Manoli being one of them. Maybe it is a name often used.

 To introduced something more cheerful to such a letter…meet our Nofim cats

 Walking in the wadi in the morning I could not understand what the noise was that I kept hearing…banging and like thunder. On a Saturday when nothing works and there are no trucks or anything else in the wadi.

And it accompanied me on my whole walk of two hours. To such an extent that I wondered if Corona did not only affect one’s sense of taste but also hearing. I even asked a man and he said he could also hear it but did not know what is was. Listening to the news later it was  said these were fireworks from the Arab villages to celebrate the end of the matric exams. But I really thought there was something wrong with me. Since then all day we have been hearing the fireworks. One Arab driver who took me to the pool said that they were crazy to do it in the morning which I had never thought of.  It went on until the night and I ask when we keep hearing of the economic problems how come people spent so much money on such a waste. Maybe because there is so little else to enjoy.

 Watching the news last night and seeing that Katz giving forth about the economic program,  I found myself wondering if he and Balfour had had the same elocution teacher for their speeches. The same smirk, the same grandfatherly smile, the condescending look, suddenly all is serious until the smile breaks out again, the look of ….I know you all understand what I am saying, the same body language. If you changed the two faces you would not know which was which. And now this week we will wait to see how much cash is in the bank or will be we be treated to another speech of empty promises.

Last night at supper friends were telling me how many hiking areas have been closed because of Corona and people even given fines. That is so stupid. Out in the open air and groups spaced out. And yet yeshivot are left open. Also that more and more people are forbidden to go off the designated paths. I can understand that part of this is to keep the desert and hills pristine but when I think of the hikes we did through undergrowth that we had to beat our way through and the things we saw as a result I am glad that I was a hiker in the free days. 

Sentence was to have been passed on the Jewish terrorist who murdered a family of three in the village of Duma some years ago. Suddenly it was postponed. Why? The grandfather who lost his family in that terrible fire has been called to again give evidence and also the little boy, the only survivor. The child is terrified and refuses to go the court. But I have never  heard of a case coming to an end, guilt to have been passed and suddenly it gets reopened. It is so cruel to put both them through this again and it is only to give the murderer a break.

According to a law which was passed by night like a murderer in the dark if  the prime minister decides to close down certain areas of the country but not others, no one can stop him. If he decides to severely limit the right to protest, he can. If he decides to shut down the courts because infection rates are high, the Knesset can only intervene in retrospect. Of course all this is under the threat of Corona. Besides that the Israeli government intends to approve next week a reform that would require every citizen to give the Interior Ministry his or her cellphone number and email address, with the objective of improving the quality of postal delivery. And all this at a time when many Iisraeli have been sent into quarantine wrongfully after they were “tracked” by the system. To give you an idea one woman was told she had been in a maternity unit when she was not even pregnant and one man had not even been in the country. And two ministers disregarded the Corona laws, Regev to open a new road with too many people and sumptuous dishes while people who once had good jobs have landed up washing dishes in restaurants. Another held a party for his wife…granted that day that a new law was passed…not illegal but showing the lack of sensititivty for the public which is being handed fines left and right.

And another week which has not started off well with the news that overnight our pool has been closed again…yesterday I swam. Today less than 24 hours later it is closed. It is so symptomatic of the way things are going…with decisions and solutions being grabbed out of the blue and thrown into the general confusion to see if anything will help.

Natalie

[mrsbluebertgreggleson]

“Bring ‘Em Back Alive”

-100 for Lucifer trying to get what is technically his little sister to play strip poker with him. What a classy characterization we have going here.

+10 because I like Sister Annaby's outfit.

+20 for when Lucifer flipped his eyes red and said "He's a PRIORITY" to try to spook Duma and she was... very much not intimidated. She's just like, "*sigh* *fake smile* Of course!" like he's her annoying boss. I love this angel. She'd better live.

+30 for the "You sure that's what this is about? You sure it's not... personal?" about AU Charlie because oh MAN I could feel the editors just itching to drop like 10 flashbacks in that pause. Thank you guys, for the restraint.

+5 for when Dean was getting jumped because I really wanted him to look up and see Ketch hiding behind a tree, just peering out at him and cocking his eyebrow. Dean should probably know the importance of being stealthy since he's been hunting since he was a teenager, but I'll let this one slide because Sam and Dean usually are pretty inelegant in their approach to hunting, lol.

-5 for Dean: "Where were you going to take me?" Slaver: "You think I'm going to tell you?" Dean: *shoots him right in the stinkin knee* Slaver: "AAAAH!! ... okay, all right." Like dude you are SO composed, you should be crying like a baby into that snow and blubbering out answers.

-20 because it’s weird to me that the writers explore the fallout of Gabriel’s torture trauma but not so much Sam and Dean’s. Angels canonically per S4 can’t be tortured but degraced ones can and degracing is canonically extremely painful as well, so Gabriel being traumatized I can believe, and I can headcanon an explanation on torture in Hell affecting the mind differently than torture on Earth to justify why Sam and Dean are even remotely functional, but the show itself doesn’t really touch on this and really, after all the angst and suffering the Winchesters have undergone, they really should be allowed to fall apart and build back up. It’d be cathartic for the audience. The fanficcers do a way better job exploring this and I really wish the show writers would show at least some instances of Sam and Dean dealing with their issues in the day-to-day and trying to handle it as best they can. Otherwise it’s just a Trauma Conga Line and it’s harder to care about bad things happening to them when we know it’s gonna be like water off a duck’s back and never really addressed/handled.

-20 So Gabriel faked his death well enough to fool Lucifer and also God? I'd think either one of them would be able to tell whether Lucifer was killing the real deal... I mean the fake Gabriel's death looked very permanent so maybe Gabriel created a lesser angel replica of himself to bite it so the light show would convince everyone, but... idk that explanation is not a great explanation to me, I would've preferred it if he'd really died and then been resurrected (maybe from Cass waking up, maybe somehow that woke up Gabriel too and in his newly resurrected state Gabriel got captured). I also just really like how the big explanation does not at all try to explain how presumably fully powered and crafty Gabriel got captured by Lucifer's weakest creation. I have to assume he found some spell similar to the one Crowley used on Lucifer, to enslave an archangel; it's just weird that they glossed over it so completely.

-5 Also dinging them for the “Hammer of the Gods” flashbacks. Just a little, because it has been eight seasons since it happened, but still, I count it as excessive flashbacking.

-5 because that Exorcist's girl “demon” voice was very unfitting and goofy.

-10 for "Your wound might be more serious than we thought." HE GOT SHOT, DUDE. Like TV is usually pretty flippant with how serious gunshot wounds are if they're not in the heart/head, but I'm pretty sure in real life Dean would be bleeding to death no matter where he got shot, lol. Let's assume they patched him up offscreen with some secret MoL magic trick that kept him from dying.

-5 because I'm surprised Dean doesn't fight Ketch more on the cure. I think Ketch is probably honest here, but Dean obviously didn't trust him a whole hell of a lot - and Ketch could easily be poisoning him or something. I guess he figures Ketch is his only shot, he's Ketch's ride home and route to possible redemption, and Sam and Cass would kill Ketch if he came back alone, but still, Dean doesn’t forgive easily, likes to be stubborn, and give people a hard time. It’s to advance the plot faster but still a little OOC that he didn’t at least give a token protest.

-10 because shouldn’t the BMoL already know about the Winchesters' connection to Charlie? Even though they were supposed to be all researched about the Winchesters and went through their bunker and belongings and never found anything out about her?

-30 because THERE'S the sad Dean-Charlie flashbacks. I’m taking back all my restraint points.

+5 Now I want Ketch to feel bad about killing Mick, because Mick was the only cool BMoL. Five points in remembrance, cheers, mate.

-10 because what the hell, Dean is all cool with Ketch now, even after everything? That's weird, he usually holds onto grudges like a mofo. Is it because Ketch has a thing for Mary and Dean wants someone for his mom to live with? I... wouldn't think Dean would want his mom to be with anyone other than his dad, and I especially wouldn't think Ketch. It's weird Dean is doing such a turn-around on this guy he was eager to kill. Between Ketch and Benny, I guess there's just something about washed out, dirty pocket universes that makes Dean click with the guy he's with.

-5 for Sam's Inconvenient Auto-Speakerphone Phone

-5 because Sam should’ve just fuckin hung up on Asmodeus after Asmodeus was like “DON’T YOU DAHR HANG UP”. That would've been such a power move. Just keep pissing off King Dedede while he's riled.

+10 because Sister Annaby is really pretty, dang. I do like that healer-for-pay business she set up in the last (?) episode she was in, it was a good idea for Earth-bound angels. I just wish she weren't stuck in a storyline with Lucifer because he's just... the worst (or that the had not named her so similarly to my poor lost Anna). If they'd used her in a separate role and spent more time on the healer-for-pay thing, for example, that could've been a cool nugget.

-5 Shouldn't the angels have known and called her by her real name instead of "Charlie Bradbury"?

-50 ABADDON SHOULD HAVE ATTACKED THE BUNKER, DAMN IT. She should've known where it was after her first episode, she wanted the things in it, and we got a demon break-in this episode. I’m still so mad that the writers in S8/S9 didn’t do this, and I’m taking it out on this episode! MANNN.

-30 lol Sam's like, "I'm warding the bunker!" You should always have the bunker warded, my dude! Otherwise you're sitting ducks staying in one unprotected spot.

+15 Sam and Cass were sitting close enough during Asmodeus's attack that for one second I really thought one of them would reach out and hold the other one's hand while they were dying. I don't know why I thought that because the writers would never in a million years do that, but it would've been touching (and also because it would be so funny to see the fandom explode).

+100 Don't have to listen to Asmodeus ever again, yeeeee. I'm just disappointed he didn't die via punch-to-the-heart so that his killer could pull their arm out, smack their lips, and say "Finger-lickin' good", the ultimate final and best joke.

-50 Dean's whole emotional, angry blowout at the end, Sam and Cass standing all silent and scared, and I'm just thinking of "The Thing" like, "If you cared so much, maybe you should've read more fucking books last episode to help your mom sooner, Dean." Like my dude, don’t get mad that your brother and friend restored Gabriel (he also killed Asmodeus, who would’ve killed them if Gabriel wasn’t all juiced up? and SINCE he was all juiced up, how were they supposed to stop him? I get Dean’s upset and frustrated because it seems they’re all out of options, but it really seems like he’s not getting that they’re only alive because of that, and lashing out at them because he’s frustrated, which is one of his worse character traits), another one will probably fall into your lap in like... four episodes? whenever the next big plot advancement needs to happen. It’s been awhile so I don’t remember if Lucifer got his archangel grace still or not, but I think he’s recharged by now, so they can just concentrate on tracking him down. Or hey, maybe convince Rowena to pop the Cage back open and snatch some of your Michael’s grace. I just wish character development meant addressing Dean’s anger issues so that Dean’s loved ones maybe don’t flinch and get scared whenever he gets mad. Not a good look for a heroic character.

To sum it up: Pure plot episode. We were teased the idea of Dean and Ketch in Apocalypse World saving Mary and Jack, but somehow ending up too far away (is the portal opening up in different spots going to come up again?) and saving AU Charlie instead. Dean bonding so quickly with Ketch seemed hinky considering their past; since it seems like Dean might have a snarky frenemyship with Ketch in the future like the one he had with Crowley, I guess Ketch is gonna die by the end of this season since Death Equals Redemption and we need a reason for Dean to look stoically sad. I think it would’ve been more fun to leave Dean trapped in Apocalypse World to get more POV on it for the audience, maybe see some other old characters, and reunite with Jack and Mary.

Meanwhile, Gabriel recovered enough to kill the Big Bad. Sleep well, sweet Prince. You were the only thing I was looking forward to going into the season and I had high hopes you’d be cool, and much like Dagon, you were not. Hopefully the next demon Big Bad is better - maybe a white-eyed demon, so we can find out what those were compared to Knights and Princes? ... but only if it doesn’t finish ruining the demon mythos for me. I’m surprised they repowered Gabriel so quickly since I thought they brought him back to be a fan favorite member of Team Free Will and that means he can’t be too powerful, but part of his appeal is that he can snap his fingers and do whatever zany thing he wants, which would be considerably harder to pull off if he were powerless. I’m still kinda surprised that they went the route of bringing him back the way they did, but until we see more of him, I’ll have to wait to see if it was worth it in terms of character development. Still kinda weird they never explained how Asmodeus got him.

Grade: -140 Kentucky Fried Demons in the Empty