#original: greatcoats

[incorrectnancydrewquotes]

Alec: No sounds of anyone coming from behind.

Zoe: No signs of danger at all.

Nancy: So, definitely a trap, then.

Zoe: Oh, absolutely. I imagine you’ll want to walk right into it.

[its-elvish-for-two]

The first twelve greatcoats symbols

[thefandomless]

If "Song of the Seven" from Witcher Blood Origins isn't the most "Flacio pulling a classic val Mond" song you have ever heard than idk what is.

[ratwithhands]

Decided to polish some jacket designs!

Emmet originally received a strait from the League after they thought he posed a safety risk to others and mandated him to wear it. Big surprise, they literally just went to a Unovan hospital and asked if they had any of the old jackets lying around. It's ill-fitting and unpleasant, not to mention the hasty edits they made to his uniform to act as a secondary restraint looks awful. As much as he is still operating as usual, having to walk around in the strait is humiliating and dehumanizing, especially because of the stares from other people.

Of course this crime against dignity and fashion had to be corrected, so Elesa called her designers and offered to make the League Council a more appropriate uniform for him. The only rule given was that it must still restrain as well as the original straitjacket, so Elesa ended up modelling the jacket after a vest and the secondary restraint after a double-breasted greatcoat. It's meant to look like clothing, more like everyday wear than something out of an asylum. It also uses hand covers (i.e. socks) instead of a grossly oversized sleeve to keep the hands restrained.

It resolves a lot of the issues Emmet had with the original, namely that it blends in with the crowd rather than making him stick out. It also has an air of professionalism and formality that the original didn't have. He's much more willing to wear it and keep it on, as well as being more comfortable in it.

I'm struggling to describe this in sentences so as for the differences:

League Straitjacket:

actual retired straitjacket from hospital storage

made of old canvas and leather

uses oversized belted sleeves to restrain arms

uses belts and buckles to restrain upper arms and tighten back

can't fit anything thicker than a tank top underneath

Elesa's Modified Straitvest:

bespoke articles custom tailored to Emmet's measurements

made from stiff cotton and fabric straps

uses belted cuffs and hand covers to restrain arms

uses straps and locking slide buckles to restrain upper arms and tighten back

able to fit a collared shirt underneath

Elesa's outfit also has the added bonus of being more breathable, soft, and being able to function as regular clothes.

Anyways bonus sketch comic:

Dignity restored.

[madseance]

I keep seeing people suggest Crowley's presentation in 1827 was feminine, and listen—headcanon what you want, I'm not your mom. But the justification is that he's supposedly dressed in feminine, as opposed to masculine, clothing? He isn't. You're just looking at Regency fashion with 21st-century eyes.

Both Aziraphale and Crowley are exemplaries of well-dressed gentlemen of the early 19th century, just in different styles.

On the left, a many-caped greatcoat like the one Aziraphale is wearing; on the right, a coat with puffed sleeves and a narrow waist like the one Crowley is wearing. (Both images seem to originate from Journal des Dames et des Modes, 1811 and 1826, respectively.)

I also saw something about Crowley's fob watch actually being a chatelaine?

Again, I have to disagree. What Crowley's wearing just looks like a watch chain, which both men and women wore. What you can see is the chain and a charm at the end; the watch itself is tucked into a pocket (same as with Aziraphale's).

Watch chain (left; another plate from Journal des Dames et des Modes) vs. chatelaine (right, from here).

While a chatelaine could possibly refer to a decorative watch chain, the chatelaines specifically associated with women are the accessories worn by female heads of household or housekeepers (hence the name) to hold keys and other useful items. They could get quite elaborate. Crowley's doesn't look particularly like a chatelaine more than it looks like a watch chain, to me.

To sum up, there's not really anything I can see about Crowley's fashion choices in 1827 that specifically says "female presenting"; it all fits in with men's fashion of the time. You can headcanon whatever you want! But this particular era isn't one in which Crowley's wardrobe and styling definitively reads as feminine.

Note for a couple people with poor reading comprehension: TERFs are not welcome on this post. Fuck off.

[pathesis]

My friend @doctordash joined our PF2 game and his character, Patches is so cool and hot I'm going to explode.

Here's the Character bio he wrote for him below!:

Patches stands at a towering 7'2" despite his somewhat hunched over posture, his bloodline of a Great Gnoll is clearly evident in his powerful build and light-brown fur. The height is accentuated by a shock of vivid red hair, styled up into a wild mohawk that seems to keep its own shape despite any outward influence. Dark brown/black spots speckle his hide, though the distinction between what is natural and what is simply oil and grease can be hard to determine. His eyes are vivid yellow, crowned by a pair of dark-lensed goggles that frequently rest on his forehead, and his snout and ears are accentuated with multiple humble piercings made of reused nuts, bolts, and bits of junk, including a prominent ring dangling from his chunky black nose. His namesake is a dull grey-blue captain's greatcoat that has been patched, corrected, and carefully repaired dozens of times, frayed at the edges and showing its age. Beneath it, a tattered white shirt covers his shaggy chest, or often times, nothing. A pair of thick leather gloves, fingerless to account for claws, protect his hands when he works. A belt with a tarnished skull buckle holds up a baggy boiler suit tied at the waist, festooned with numerous tools of the smith's trade.

His pride and joy, far and above all else, is his reinforced Powered Armor. An unholy union of clockwork, steam, magic, and steel, the great metal behemoth serves as Patches' second skin. An intelligent design, custom built to fit his powerful frame, that turns the already intimidating visage of a Gnoll into an 8-foot unyielding titan of iron and flame. The base frame was clearly built from a mundane suit of plate armor, fitted with clockwork gizmos and clad in scattered salvage dredged from the depths of the Serpent Isles. The left forearm sports an array of gauges, dials and buttons, hooked into pipework that attaches to a back-mounted unit with a large smokestack. The helm piece has a slot for Patches' goggles to fit into, is fitted with rows of razor sharp metal teeth, and proudly displays its own signature mohawk, fashioned from a discarded sawblade and splattered with red paint. A worn ship's crest has been bolted to the front of the suit, the original name long since lost to the waves, and the passage of time. Instead, a new title has been cast onto the faded metal plaque with blocky, hand-engraved letters. MAYHEM.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dave Maass and Patrick Lay’s “Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis”

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

"The Emperor of Atlantis," is an opera written by two Nazi concentration camp inmates, the librettist Peter Kien and the composer Viktor Ullmann, while they were interned in Terezin, a show-camp in Czechoslovakia that housed numerous Jewish artists, who were encouraged to make and display their work as a way of proving to the rest of the world that Nazi camps were humane places.

Of course, it was all a sham. Like nearly all of Terezin's inmates, Kein and Ullmann were eventually shipped to Auschwitz to be murdered. "The Emperor" was never performed during their life, but the manuscript, written on scrounged paper (including the backs of other inmates Auschwitz transfer papers) survived.

In the decades since, "The Emperor" has been mounted a few times, with varying degrees of faithfulness. But those live performances were limited to the people who could attend them during their limited run. Now, a new graphic novel called Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, brings the work to us all:

https://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/3726/berger-books-and-dark-horse-comics-present-death-s

Death Strikes was adapted by my EFF colleague Dave Maass, an investigator and muckraker and brilliant writer, who teamed up with illustrator Patrick Lay and character designer Ezra Rose (who worked from the Kein and Ullmann's original designs, which survived along with the score and libretto).

The tale is set in the mythical kingdom of Atlantis, where the reclusive emperor has been holed up in an armored tower for decades, directing a forever war, greeting each battlefield report with fresh orders, all the while carefully scheming to maintain his grip on power by prolonging the war footing among his people.

But the Emperor has a problem: he's won the war. Every enemy has fallen. Without endless war, his system of social control will shrivel and he will be vulnerable to his people. So the Emperor declares a new war of all against all, announcing that it is every citizen's duty to make war on their neighbors. Problem solved!

But the Emperor goes too far. In announcing his new war, he directs his messengers – drum-beating automata who march through the streets of Atlantic rapping out his edicts – to claim that Death himself has blessed this new war, and "when the final drum sounds, our old friend DEATH, our flag-bearer, will raise his sword in salute to our great future!"

For Death – a swordbearing skeleton in a soldier's greatcoat and shako – this is too much. The Emperor's endless wars have already tried Death's patience. Death brings mercy, not vengeance, and the endless killing has dismayed him. The Emperor's co-option drives him past the brink, and Death declares a strike, breaking his sword and announcing that henceforth, no one will die.

Needless to say, this puts a crimp in the Emperor's all-out war plan. People get shot and stabbed and drowned and poisoned, but they don't die. They just hang around, embarrassingly alive (there's a great comic subplot of the inability of the Emperor's executioners to kill a captured assassin).

The Emperor will not be denied. He embarks upon a war of wills with Death, to see who will give in first. The surreal tale plays out among the people of Atlantis, the living and the undead, as they struggle to fight a war where no one can die. The tale cuts between these people, the Emperor, and Death, who is in company with Life, a sad harlequin who is even more demoralized than Death by the Emperor's long war.

What follows is a tale of revolution and love and hope snatched from despair.

Maass discovered "The Emperor" through a bargain bin CD of "degenerate music" he found in a suburban Best Buy in the 1990s, which was accompanied by illustrations by Art Spiegelman:

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-music-survives%21-degenerate-music-music-suppressed-by-the-third-reich-mw0000711660

Maass found a six-panel cartoon Kein drew "expressing his frustration with the evolution of his libretto." Over the years, Maass turned this little strip over and over in his head, until he found himself travelling to Prague with Lay, where they were able to handle the surviving manuscript pages. After consulting with experts all over the world, Maass and Lay and their collaborators created this extraordinary graphic novel, updating it, queering it, and lavishly illustrating it.

While this is clearly an adaptation, Kein and Ullmann's spirit of creativity, courage, and bittersweet creative foment shines through. It's a beautiful book, snatched from death itself.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/23/peter-kien-viktor-ullmann/#terezín

[cliozaur]

We know you've been waiting for this: it’s finally time to construct your favorite Javert for a Valvert fanfic! As always, @philanthrophic-misanthrope and I have gathered popular features of Javert’s appearance from fanfics. Many important features were already described in the Brick (whiskers, big hands, tall figure, leather stock), so we didn’t include them here—only those frequently used by fanfic writers.

*We were specifically asked to include a ribbon, so here it is. **For Crowevert truthers.

[praazlwurm]

Codename: CARVER challenged you to battle!

Lore and close-ups below the break

(❁´◡`❁)

Y'all ever struck by the realization your self-insert immortal incongruently-wizard-coded character can, in fact, have pink hair and eyes?

Okay so anyone happening across this, this is my blorbooo, Magpie, who got isekai'd into the Pokemon world in my pair of fics here and gets runic-flavored quasi magical abilities and immortality by blessing of arceus

Feat. the conceptual design for a Survey Ball - modeled after the Origin Ball and the first/only pokeball Magpie has built out of unown-inscribed starshards since she was experimenting with using shards as charms in tell-the-stars

Anyway Magpie redesign because my poor girl is sick of ruining shirts when she does a Big Magic, hence sleeveless top and experimental runic-imbued greatcoat that can withstand all but the Biggest Magic. In my mind she got pinged by InterPol but refuses to "be a cop" (even if the IP isn't exactly like irl cops) - instead she and Volo serve as consultants and Big Guns whenever the local evil team gets too big for their britches or things like the Ultra Beast/paradoxmon/rediscovered Ultimate Weapon crop up.

Besides the coat she's got unown-style colar chains, her old survey corps badge and the (now empty) Hisui ball to remember her first team of pokemon by.

Team would probably vary by region, the one here is the like ideal aesthetic/lore team (ft allotted quasi-legendary, single shiny (after a couple centuries of idle breeding rather than concentrated focus), and ever the necessary cute mascots Irony the unown and lil baby inkay)

The most mainstaying 'mon on her team is Otto the golurk, which she inscribed-to-life herself in a drawing that I… procrastinated on doing the background on with this character page lmao but here's a sneak peak at that:

ft. chienpao bc it loves Volo a lot, Volo's spiritomb and togetic in the background bc this is their idyllic home in paldea ig (im probably going to redraw mags, ursa and maybe inkay down the line because i remain intimidated by the background i tasked myself with RIP

anywho im going to work on making this a proper pinned post with links and tags for all of the Lore so expect to see it updated lol

[givemea-dam-break]

hi my love, can you do anthony lockwood x reader

possibly with prompt 17 or 24 from the angst list?!? ive been craving some lockwood angst recently and i love your fics so who else could i ask to fulfill my needs

a/n: yes yes yes i have been dying for angst it’s my favourite thing to write. i'm so glad you like my fics! feeling honoured rn. this is shorter than some of my other fics, but i hope you like it!

warnings: angst, language prompts: "You're not my friend anymore, remember?" and "You left, you left, and now you have the gall to come back like nothing happened." gn reader

Your day couldn't have gone worse.

Originally, your plans for your first day off in weeks had been to spend your time in the library nearby, listening to the rain on the tall windows as you read in your favourite seat before stopping off to grab a takeaway on your way home.

Of course, things can never go to plan in a world haunted by ghosts.

To preface, the Visitors aren't the problem, not today at least.

You've reached a particularly good chapter of your book when things start to go wrong. You're completely content just reading away, sipping on some tea in your travel mug, when a shadow looms over the pages, making it hard to read.

Looking up, slightly irritated, you say, "Hey, do you mind moving, please?"

Then you see the face, and the irritation melts into something more: fury.

Anthony Lockwood stands before you, soaked with rain and dripping all over the floor. His hair, usually neatly brushed, looks like a wet rat, and his cheeks are flushed from the November chill. From the way he smiles, they remind you a little bit of apples. You like apples considerably more than you like him.

"What do you want?" you ask.

Lockwood points at the free chair next to you. "Can I sit?"

"Absolutely not."

"Right." He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat. "Can we talk?"

"Also, no," you say, returning your attention to the book. "Goodbye."

A sigh. "(name), please, it's important."

"Important enough to bug me on my only day off? No, I don't think so."

You hope for a moment that he'll turn and walk away, but this is Anthony bloody Lockwood, and when does he ever listen to you? He moves, sinking into the seat beside you, and crossing his legs. You make a point of ignoring him, continuing to read the last paragraph you were on.

"We need your help."

No response. You keep on reading.

"(name), please. It's a big case, and we could really use your Talent."

Again, you ignore him, silently mouthing the words as you read them. Your focus on him strays, and for a minute it's as if he's no longer there, but the scent of bitter tea and citrusy shampoo lingers, taunting you.

Swiftly, you shut your book and stand, grabbing your bag. The action seems to shock Lockwood, and his daze gives you enough time to slip the book back into its slot on the shelves and storm out of the library.

Alas, Lockwood has long legs and catches up momentarily.

"I don't want to talk to you," you grumble, pulling your hood over your hair as you step out into the rain.

"I know, and that's my fault, but, please, listen this once. We -"

"Need my help. Yeah, I got that." Squeezing through a crowd of kids heading into the library, you continue, "But, thing is, I'm not an agent anymore. And, even if I was, you're not my friend anymore, remember? You gave up that right months ago. I wouldn't help you even if my life depended on it."

That stops him short. You keep on walking, arms crossed tightly over your chest.

"You're not an agent anymore?" he asks, catching up once more.

You scoff. "Haven't been since that last case we went on, and I don't plan on becoming one again."

Judging from his expression, he hasn't taken the news lightly. He almost looks betrayed, and that makes you want to strangle him. He's got no right.

"Why not?"

"Because," you say, stopping at the side of the pavement, out of the way of other people, "you left. You left me there, Lockwood. And now you have the gall to come back like nothing happened! You don't just do that."

His frowns. "I didn't leave you."

You want to scream at him, to pull your hair out. It feels like you're about to explode from the rage you're feeling.

"Yes, you left. I was left in that goddamn maze of a mansion by myself while you and George, what? Went to go have some celebratory doughnuts? Not all of the sources were secured, Lockwood. I almost died trying to get out of there."

"I didn't -" His face blanches, and he looks like he's going to be sick. "We thought we'd secured them all."

"Well, you didn't. Want to know why I didn't go back to Portland Row for a week before getting my stuff? I was in the hospital recovering from ghost touch. Took my a month to regain full use of my right arm, you know. I almost lost my arm, in fact. But you didn't ask, you just stood and watched as I packed my stuff."

That makes him angry. "What was I meant to do? There was no stopping you."

"I wanted you to try," you say, and your voice wavers. His expression softens. "If you'd tried, I might've stayed. I might've forgiven you. But you just watched. You never asked me where I was for that week. No, you were busy revelling in your success and hiring other agents."

"We needed another agent, anyways."

"You should've checked on the one you had!" Your breathing is heavy, and your head hurts from the myriad of emotions swirling around. "I'm not - I'm not doing this right now. Today was meant to be a good day. Goodbye, Lockwood. Don't come see me again."

You start to walk away, but his hand clasps around your wrist. Scowling, you tug it from his grip, looking at him incredulously.

"I'm sorry, (name)," he says. In his defence, he's being genuine, but that doesn't mean that you're having any of it. "I am. About all of it. Please, can we talk it out?"

Thank god for the rain, because it hides the tears in your eyes. "No. I - I'm going home, and you're going to leave me alone. I don't want to see you again."

Lockwood's jaw goes slack. "Please, I'm sorry. I can't lose you."

"The minute you left me alone on that case, you lost me," you say. "I don't care how sorry you are. It does nothing. It doesn't stop me from seeing the moment I almost died every night when I sleep. It doesn't change the fact that I don't trust you anymore."

"(name) -"

"I pray that your new agent, Lucy, 'the Superstar' - that's what you called her on live TV, right? - I pray she doesn't have the same fate. I hope things work out well for you, Lockwood, truly, but that doesn't mean we'll ever be friends again. Now, I'm going home."

"Please don't go." His voice is a little shaky. It's the most emotion you've seen from him other than that fake smile he gives to the press. "Please, I'll do better."

You shake your head. Then, wordlessly, you turn and make your silent, miserable trek home.

[the-torchwood-archive]

Hidden by Steven Savile

Originally released in 2008, narrated by Naoko Mori. This story is set in early 2008, between Combat and Captain Jack Harkness.

Chapter One

Owen Harper sat with his feet up on his work station, feigning deep thought. He rolled a biro across his knuckles, catching it in his palm and sending it back again, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. On its third pass, the pen caught his thumb and spun away, bouncing off the edge of his keyboard. It rattled on the corner of the desk and rolled across the floor, stopping beneath Toshiko Sato's chair.

His gaze lifted from the floor to Tosh's shoe. Her foot tapped out the rhythm of some unheard tune. From the black leather, his eyes moved slowly up the curve of her calf to the trailing edge of the white coat, and finally over her shoulder to the television.

The image on the small screen was brutal. A helicopter, a black Gazelle, spinning out of control against a molten sky. The tail fin blazed, leaving a flame wake trailing through the air behind it. The image feed cut seconds before the Gazelle became a fireball, replacing death with the four faces of the damned. The pilot and his three passengers. Mid twenties, utterly normal. They looked happy in the photos. Proud. He wondered what expressions they would've worn had they known those photographs would become their death masks.

A map of the Brecon Beacons followed a moment later. An angry red smear marked the place where the helicopter had gone down, just north of Merthyr Tydfil.

"Turn it up."

"What?" Tosh said, not looking up from the algorithm she had been testing out for the last six hours. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She hadn't slept. "Bloody hell. That's just brutal. What a way to go." She craned her neck to see the screen. The cameras had returned to the anaemic face of the newscaster in the studio. The woman tried to look like she wasn't just reporting another day's tragedy, no different from the ones she had read out that morning, and the evening before, and every day for the last week.

"It has been confirmed that the pilot and all three passengers were Environment Agency representatives returning from the site of a recent archaeological find in Breconshire. Investigators are on the scene, but it is still too early to say with any certainty the cause of the crash. This fresh tragedy comes less than a day after the death of Sir Giles Walbridge, head of the Environment Agency's species recovery program dedicated to the protection of rare flora and fauna." The newscaster paused for a beat, as the faces of the victims returned to the screen. 

Tosh muted the sound.

"One accident's unfortunate. Two…well, that's just careless." Owen said.

The sound of footsteps echoed down from the metal gantry. A moment later, the hydraulics of the blast door's mechanism steamed and hissed. Two sets of footsteps this time. Captain Jack Harkness entered the Hub. He grasped the rails and half-bounced, half-slid down the short flight of metal steps. Ianto Jones followed three paces behind him, balancing a sheaf of papers and a styrofoam coffee cup as he negotiated the stairs.

Ianto sank into the ratty couch beneath the grubby Torchwood sign set in the ceramic wall, while Jack shrugged off his military greatcoat. "Give me the goods news first, Tosh," he called, draping it over the balcony rail. He came around to stand behind her at the bank of computers. "Looking good, looking good..." he said, approvingly, as a flurry of shapes and forms flitted across the monitors. None of them stayed on screen long enough to focus on. "So, is it like me on a Friday night, all dressed up with nowhe..." Jack broke off mid-word, seeing the faces on the screen. "Oh no. No, no no no!"

"Jack? Jack, what's wrong?" Tosh said. Her chair groaned as she leaned back in it.

The threads of colour drained from his face. Jack Harkness leaned forward, gripping the back of her chair with one hand. "I know her." Jack said, pointing up at the second face on the screen with the other.

The rest of the story is here:

Google Docs: Hidden by Steven Savile

[clove-pinks]

Hi! This is purely out of reaction to that Napoleonic portrait with the carrick coat and bc I recently started following (and enjoying) your blog, but is there any chance you know the name of this kind of toga-like cloak from the late 1790s? I drew one recently from a bunch of painting references but haven't been able to associate a term.

These are 1798 Louis-Léopold Boilly - Artists in Isabey's Studio and 1798 Jacques-Augustin-Catherine Pajou - Portrait of a family respectively

Either way, love your commentary on 18th-19th century fashions!

Hello, and my apologies for taking forever to answer this!! I didn't forget about this ask, I just didn't feel like I had a satisfactory answer.

As far as I can tell, these are both examples of a loose-fitting greatcoat or cloak. It feels anachronistic in an era when men's coats are getting a lot tighter and more fitted, but 1800ish men still had billowing cloaks and greatcoats (sometimes).

Men's long greatcoat of 1809-1810 at centre, from Handbook of English Costume in the 19th Century by Phillis and C. Willett Cunnington.

The same source describes men's overcoats of the period 1800 to 1810:

THE BOX COAT was a very large and loose great coat with one or more capes. Originally a driving-coat for wearing on the box of a coach this came to be worn, in cold weather, even on foot. [...]

THE CLOAK was not in fashion though often worn when travelling on the outside of a coach. It was very long and usually fastened by straps down the front.

The Dictionary of Fashion History by Valerie Cumming dates box coats to the late 18th century, so that's one possible answer.

[writingcold]

One WEEK!! So how about a teaser?

We're only one week away from starting to post this gothic love story!

Jake X F Reader

Content warnings - This is an original, fictional story. Topics that carry throughout the story include death, ghosts, violence, historical mindsets towards women and poverty, violence towards women, sexual situations (not at the beginning), implied sexual situations, illness, serious illness, major character deaths.

The sky was a fragile kind of clear after days of weeping. Pungent ribbons of earth lingered in the air as the ground seemed to delight in the briskness of the autumn. I pulled the heavy greatcoat closer, feeling the press of my pistols in a comforting caress. I knew he was close. I knew he had hired hands meant to rid me of my breath and soul at his side. I knew they had been tracking me for weeks as I reigned my last efforts of sabotage with exuberance.

The ground was unmarked and unclaimed save by Mother Earth herself; a craggy stretch that looked to be willing to take my sacrifice. I pushed out from between the thick pines, turning my eyes to the faded blue of the sky above, her name upon my lips with a whispered call of love. I knew she would have disapproved of the man that I had become. I knew she would have cried over my need to dismantle their beings just as he had stained and bloodied and slain her without mercy or shred of humanity.

I do have a fresh taglist that I am building for this fic - you can join the list here

Thank you to those who have joined all ready! Forehead kisses to all of you!

@edgingthedarkness @its-interesting-van-kleep  @lvnterninthenight  @katuschka @thewritingbeforesunrise @ignite-my-fire @takenbythemadness @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @fleet-of-fiction @demonrat444 @klarxtr @peaceloveunitygvf @hollyco @lipstickitty @joshym @itsafullmoon @josh-iamyour-mama @jake-whatthefisgoingon-kiszka @way-to-go-lad @jjwasneverhere @gretavangroupie @emojakekiszka @wetkleenex-gvf @vanfleeter @losfacedevil @myownparadise96 @lizzys-sunflower

I will see you on August 1st!! I can't wait to share this story with you! *mwah*

[allergictocolor]

Character Profile - Fester Addams

“[Uncle Fester] is incorrigible and, except for the good nature of the family and the ignorance of the police, would ordinarily be under lock and key. The complexion, like [that of] Morticia, is dead white, the eyes are pig-like and deeply imbedded, circled unhealthily in black - no teeth and absolutely hairless. He likes to fish but usually employs dynamite or any other unfair means. He keeps falcons on the roof which he uses for hunting. His one costume is a black greatcoat with an enormous collar - summer and winter. He is fat with pudgy little hands and feet.” - Chas Addams

We’ve already gone over the fact that Charles Addams did not fashion Gomez after himself. He actually stated more than once that Fester was “like me - or how I feel I look - with a bit more hair.” Fester was sometimes pictured with the family, but more often alone, just being a weird creep. Perhaps Charles Addams, with his dark sense of humor, saw himself as a weird creep, and saw Fester as his avatar.

Charles Addams never specified how Fester was related to the rest of the family. In the descriptions he wrote for the producers as the show was in development in 1963, he didn’t even say whether Gomez and Morticia were married, or what their last name was. I’m not sure whether he was even aware the TV family was being named after him, but more on that in the Grandmama post.

The show itself doesn’t really make it clear right away where Fester fits in the family tree. Most of the family members refer to him as “Uncle Fester”. Gomez explicitly says, “He’s my uncle” more than once. Early in the second season, Gomez and Morticia celebrate their 13th wedding anniversary and tell everyone the story of how they met. In the flashbacks, Fester is Morticia’s uncle, brother to her mother. The actor who played him, Jackie Coogan, was about 16 years older than the actors who played Gomez and Morticia, so it could make sense that he was a generation older.

As the first actor to play the character, Coogan got to pick Fester’s voice and mannerisms, which have endured for the most part in all following iterations. He has a nasal voice and goofy manner. Even at his most menacing, there’s an aura of slapstick to him, as if all three Stooges were reincarnated simultaneously in him.

The 60s TV show made great use of those trick light bulbs you can still buy today to demonstrate Fester’s magic power of generating electricity. This seems to have been created just for the show, and it’s commented on many times. Gomez relies on Fester to power several small appliances around the house, and they consult a doctor when his electrical capacity wanes. It also manifests as electromagnetism, allowing him at one point to attract a metallic paperweight to his hand. In the 1991 movie, a bolt of lightning allows Fester to regain both his memory and his electrical ability. In the Netflix series, he demonstrates this ability for dramatic effect and to save a life.

In the sitcom, Fester spends a lot of his time in the family’s “playroom”, also known as the dungeon. He naps on the bed of nails, sometimes with concrete bricks as a pillow. He gleefully offers the iron maiden as a place for guests to chill out. He frequently uses a press to alleviate his chronic headaches. (Not a completely unfounded treatment. I sometimes wear a tight hat for mine, and it works!) The original comics depicted torture equipment, and the family’s love for these things endured beyond the sitcom. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar playroom if some of the action in season 2 of Wednesday takes place in the mansion.

Another thing that comes up often in the sitcom is Fester’s search for love. Many times, he has a pen pal (how to catfish people before the internet) or tries to find a date in some other way. This is an uphill battle for him, due to his appearance and lifestyle. While Gomez is ridiculously wealthy, that doesn’t seem to extend to the rest of the family. Fester is living there rent-free, and doesn’t have a job.

In the 1991 movie, The Addams Family, Fester is Gomez’s older brother and therefore heir to the family fortune, and he’s manipulated into taking over the mansion and kicking the rest of the family out. Of course, there’s a happy ending, just like in a sitcom. In the sequel, Fester’s romance is central to the plot, and once again he’s manipulated. But his best match is someone just like him. Similarly, in the 2019 animated film, he ends up with someone who is off-putting to everyone else.

When Fester shows up in Wednesday, we only learn a little about him. He has the same nasal voice, wardrobe, and electrical ability. In this story, he’s a criminal on the run, a former mental patient, and proud of both. He mentions that he can crack a safe (something the sitcom version did back in the 60s), but Thing does it instead. He drinks a bottle of ketchup and tries to eat some bees, but Wednesday stops him. In that one episode, he provides enough information about himself and his past to potentially make some people want more.

It appears that Netflix is working on a spin-off series based on Fester, but if they’re smart it won’t be based on Fred Armison’s version of the character. He certainly did a fine job, but most of what made Wednesday successful was the age of the characters and the school setting of the series. I think that if they want to make a successful spin-off about Fester, they’ll focus on some earlier part of his life, possibly even the time when Gomez and Morticia were in Nevermore and he “dropped in” on them, “usually with a knife between [his] teeth.”

[penig]

I’m impressed that the Cratchitts can pay rent on a house, however small. Four rooms, yard, and wash house is an impressive property in a city where larger families are living in single rooms and sharing one pump and one outhouse with the entire building, or even multiple buildings.

Of course the Cratchitts are a bit idealized here. Dickens was a journalist and a social reformer as well as a novelist, and moreover had some personal experience of poverty. He knew a lot about the struggles of people living and raising children on 15 shillings a week. But he also knows his audience and his craft. The Cratchitts must be the antithesis of Scrooge and they must be attractive and squeaky clean, physically and morally, and the forces threatening them must not even hint at vice. A sickly and disabled child is a threat to their happiness not the most rigid middle class moralist can hold against them.If Martha is ever desperate enough to be tempted by sex work, or subject to the sexual predation of her employer’s husband; if Peter’s friends are pressuring him to shoplift; if Bob or his wife ever drink gin out of the context of a family holiday party - we’ll, now is not the time to explore that.

No, what is necessary now is a demonstration of the very important fact that Bob and his family, despite everything Scrooge has done to make them miserable, are happier than he is. They get much better value for the money they spend than he ever gets for the money he hoards. They don’t have enough money for new clothes, but they can make a good show for sixpence by adding ribbons to a twice-turned gown, and Bob can keep warm with exercise instead of a greatcoat to keep the kids clad, and even loan clothes to his offspring to make them feel dressed up. And they can eat their fill and have a proper holiday dinner, even the dessert, and pretend that the feast is more lavish than it is, to maximize their pleasure.

A twice-turned gown, by the way, is a labor-intensive bit of frugality. Victorian women’s clothing took acres of fabric, all of which had to be sewn by hand by the household or someone paid by them. A good dress had to be made to last! But everything fades with time and exposure, no matter how carefully laundered and protected. So once the original color faded, you took the dress apart, turned the unfaded side out, and put it back together again, probably with variations to accommodate changes in fashion or figure, or even, in a house with growing girls, of wearer. And if the fabric was good enough, when that side faded, too, you could turn it inside out again and re-remake it, if you were clever enough.

[lemon-whiskey]

‘The Tarnished Knight, Part Two.’ — Ironwood’s Redemption Concept (Vol 9 spoilers)

My theoretical of if James Ironwood was the extra person to fall with team RWBY, instead of Jaune, into the ever after and how I think that would work. Biggggg post beyond the cut. My posts tag for this idea: [ #The Tarnished Knight RWBY au ]

You can reblog if you want to!

We left off with The Blacksmith.

James accepts The Blacksmith’s offer to be given the start to be who he wanted to be. She re-carves him for his second chance.

He wakes up on the beach again, covered in multicolored maple leaves. James takes a deep breath as he slowly sits up, blinking widely. He felt as different as he felt the same, one notable change is that he didn’t feel the pain. He still had an ache but he felt,,, better. More alive. His pants- once dark blue- now a charcoal grey. A dark blue tunic almost like a gambeson replaced his greatcoat and uniform. Worn Silver Paldrons and rerbraces that stopped at his elbows, tassets at his hips and thighs, his arms now matching and in a gently used silver, no gloves in sight.

He’s ticking softly, only noticeable because he can feel it. He holds a hand up to his right breast and unbuttons his tunic to look down and see the face of a small clock flanked by filigree in the metal side of his chest, ticking along with the rhythm of his heart. Yes he still has that for human reasons because he is indeed still human.

His gun is no longer a gun, it’s an axe that matches the silver and black of his old gun(s) with the filigree along the handle as well. A small blue stone set in the bottom of the pommel. He’d see himself in the weapon’s reflection, years younger. A smooth face he didn’t remember he ever had, alone in what he believed to be purgatory. He gets a helmet too, dramatic reveals and all that.

From here, he would now take the place of the rusted knight in Lewis’s story. He would realize he’s not in purgatory, but a different universe entirely.

James would not have ended up with the paper people though, this I will stray further off the script for as I’m echoing the tin man from The Wizard of Oz a little more here. He’s a forest dweller who makes a home and protects the flora and fauna while frequenting markets. We’re keeping juniper here because I love her so much except in his case she is either Ace or something else. Maybe the rabbit in the beginning fell in with him instead of running off idk. She gets silver antlers as a treat if you wanna play on the lucky rabbit vibes add a horseshoe symbol to her chest.

We’ve now approached the point where he’d be back at his original vol 8 age, beard and maybe a pony tail for vibes. And now he’s gonna re-meet team RWBY and oh boy! It’ll be ugly but also hilarious. Get ready for ‘Just James.’

Yeah Weiss still gets her mature comment except it’s replaced with a shocked but appreciative, ‘Striking.’

James is trying to get RWBY to trust him, the cat plays on the fact that they don’t.

Things go a similar way as the original story but with a lootttt more tension and we get James backstory possibilities!

In the mirror domain we get him seeing some options: maybe himself but in his old atlas uniform, or possibly Qrow in the mirror, maybe Clover. Hell both maybe, I’m just a gremlin here.

I might draw this in the future, I’m pretty content with the idea!

Part One: [HERE]