#ritz jewelers

[ritzjewelers]

Classic, Vintage Omega Watch. Contact for Details... Ritz Jewelers

[gin-and-diamonds]

[elexnorislingtxn]

rating every single arctic monkeys song (on spotify)

(this is in no particular order tbh and I am very biased. sorry I'm still stuck in my 2004 alt rock phase. and no there is like zero commentary.

I bet you look good on the dancefloor

⭐⭐⭐⭐

groovy and an absolute classic

bigger boys and stolen sweethearts

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I love alex's voice in this, like, it's so emotional in a way. definitely not my favorite though.

chun li flying bird kick

⭐⭐⭐

belongs on my lemon demon playlist tbh

when the sun goes down

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

very vampire-ish, catchy

stickin to the floor

⭐⭐⭐⭐

reminds me of some queen songs for like, zero reasons? groovy tho

7

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

UNDERRATED OMG so good tbh

settle for a draw

⭐⭐⭐⭐

literally love this one sm

the view from the afternoon

⭐⭐⭐⭐

literally anything from wpsiatwin is awesome, but this one >>

cigarette smoker fiona

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

omg this is SUCH a finn lynch (dirty old town) song!!

despair in the departure lounge

⭐⭐⭐

this feels like a hint to tbh&c tbh

no buses

⭐⭐⭐

it's okay honestly

who the fuck are the arctic monkeys?

⭐⭐⭐

groovy ig

leave before the lights come on

⭐⭐⭐⭐

also super underrated

put your dukes up john

⭐⭐

not for me tbh

fake tales of san fransisco

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I love the storytelling

dancing shoes

⭐⭐⭐

groovy (not my favorite tbh)

you probably couldn't see it for the lights but you were staring straight at me

⭐⭐⭐⭐

storytelling again!

still take you home

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

one of the few songs I can actually sing 👍

riot van

⭐⭐⭐⭐

ah, memories of childhood

red lights indicate doors are secured

⭐⭐⭐⭐

solid track tbh 👍

mardy bum

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

idk but I love his accent in this

perhaps vampires is a bit strong but...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

def on my top twenty

from the ritz to the rubble

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

literally cannot sing this but I love it sm

a certain romance

⭐⭐⭐⭐

underrated and a bop

if you found this, it's probably too late

⭐⭐⭐⭐

brianstorm animation aftermath tbh

brianstorm

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

AHHH SO SO SO GOOD OMG

temptation greets you like your naughty friend

⭐⭐⭐

it's okay.

what if you were right the first time?

⭐⭐⭐⭐

groovy (pt 3)

da frame 2r

⭐⭐

goofy

matador

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

love love

florescent adolescent

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

catchy and again sUCH A FINN SONG

the bakery

⭐⭐⭐⭐

cornerstone before cornerstone existed

plastic tramp

⭐⭐⭐⭐

why does this feel like a regulus black song 💀

too much to ask

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

omg I love this one

teddy picker

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

AHHHHHHHHBHBBBHBHHHHH

bad woman

⭐⭐⭐

not my favorite but it's good

the death ramps

⭐⭐⭐⭐

so so so so good

nettles

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

OMG I LOVE THIS SM (and it needs a fic 100%

d is for dangerous

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

literally anything from fwn is a solid 10/10

balaclava

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

ALSO SUCH A ZARA SONG LIKE OMG

only ones who know

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

gives off dramatically sobbing while baking chocolate chip cookies vibes

do me a favor

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

AHHHHH

this house is a circus

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

fwn basslines are just so yummy

if you were there, beware

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

his voice in this>>>

the bad thing

⭐⭐⭐⭐

okay song buttt not my favorite

old yellow bricks

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE OFF OF FWN

505

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

fan favorite that deserves it tbh

diamonds are forever

⭐⭐⭐⭐

good cover 👍

crying lightning

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

my favorite off of humbug

red right hand

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

sounds like the plot of a show or something

I haven't got my strange

⭐⭐⭐

it's good, not a favorite

cornerstone

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

only because of the mv

catapult

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

underrated af

sketchead

⭐⭐⭐

not for me tbh

fright lined dining room

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

the writing omg>>>

my propeller

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

omg omg omg his voice

joining the dots

⭐⭐⭐⭐

good 👍

the afternoon's hat

⭐⭐⭐⭐

not a favorite, but good

don't forget whose legs you're on

⭐⭐⭐⭐

one of the best b-sides tbh

dangerous animals

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

so hot but slightly cringe with the spelling

secret door

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

underrated and for what? I love this one sm

potion approaching

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

AHHH YESSSSSS SO SO GOOD

fire and the thud

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

OMG THE WRITING>>>>>>

dance little liar

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

hot

pretty visitors

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

literal drugs

the jeweler's hands

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

so underrated, and the writing !!

don't sit down because I've moved your chair

⭐⭐⭐

it's okay.

the blonde-o-sonic shimmer trap

⭐⭐

💀

i. d. s. t

⭐⭐

💀

the hellcat spangled shalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala

⭐⭐⭐⭐

goofy.

little illusion machine

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

omg I love miles in this!!!

suck it and see

⭐⭐⭐⭐

you never kNoWwWwW

evil twin

⭐⭐⭐

their most y/n song ever

she's thunderstorms

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

the whole sias album is a lullaby tbh

black treacle

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

yawn

brick by brick

⭐

no. no. no. no. no. (it's catchy)

library pictures

⭐⭐⭐

goofy and definitely hinting at tbh&c

all my own stunts

⭐⭐⭐⭐

it's good

reckless serenade

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

play this at my wedding pls

piledriver waltz

⭐⭐⭐⭐

the submarine version was better

love is a laserquest

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

so good

that's where you're wrong

⭐⭐⭐

it's okay 👍

r u mine?

⭐⭐⭐⭐

boppy, not my favorite

electricity

⭐⭐⭐⭐

underrated

do I wanna know?

⭐⭐⭐

good, not the best

2013

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I actually enjoy this 💀

why'd you only call me when you're high

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

yesss one of my favorites

stop the world I wanna get off with you

⭐⭐⭐

you really that horny?

one for the road

⭐⭐⭐⭐

wHooOo wHooooOoooO

you're so dark

⭐⭐⭐⭐

pure longing

arabella

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

yesss another Finn song

I want it all

⭐⭐⭐

why does this remind me of varya 💀

no. 1 party anthem

⭐⭐⭐⭐

yawn but it's good

mad sounds

⭐⭐⭐⭐

ohHh laaAALaaLaAaa

fireside

⭐⭐⭐⭐

it's good, feels like my grandparents' car

snap out of it

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I wanna dance to this one

knee socks

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

same as with snap out of it

I wanna be yours

⭐⭐⭐

this just makes me laugh 💀

star treatment

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

literally all tbh&c are gonna get the same ratings bcs the instrumentals are bops

one point perspective

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

omg the 'di di di di di di'

american sports

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

tranquility base hotel and casino

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

golden trunks

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

the world's first ever monster truck front flip

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

the ultracheese

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

the ending omg omg

batphone

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

four out of five

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

science fiction

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

she looks like fun

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(cheeseburger)

-

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

omg I love this one sm

anyways

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

there better be a mirrorball

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

AHHHHHH THE 'FORRRE MEEEE' PART>>>>>

body paint

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

omg the emotion in his voice>>>>

perfect sense

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

why do I relate to this so much -

I ain't quite where I think I am

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

omg the 'wah wah' guitar -

sculptures of anything goes

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

SO GOOD OMG

jet skis on the moat

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

so good but I don't really understand it

the car

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

ahh this feels like a goodbye

big ideas

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

OMG YESSSSSS

hello you

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

one of my favorites tbh

mr. shwartz

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

so good omg

(this took like, two hours 💀)

[thepastisalreadywritten]

In her 13 years as creative director of the French jewellery house Boucheron, Claire Choisne’s mood boards have featured some unusual suspects.

This January, she introduced the latest high jewellery collection with a picture of Prince Philip waving at crowds during the coronation in 1953.

He’s decked out in his Admiral of the Fleet finery, decorated with military medals and orders of chivalry, white ribbons fluttering at his shoulders.

‘OK, Prince Philip is not my absolute muse – but I love this picture,’ says Choisne via video call from the Tucson Gem Show, where she is shopping for the stones that will feature in the house’s 2026 collections.

She was drawn to the unexpectedly feminine details of the late Duke of Edinburgh’s ceremonial uniform.

‘You feel the power and the strength, but at the same time, there are all these couture details: bows, ribbons, embroidery. It’s a paradox.’

She decided it was the perfect way to interpret the well-trodden high jewellery theme of ‘couture.’

‘I didn’t want to do something too girly or cheesy. I wanted to give strength to the pieces. When I saw this picture, I said to myself, “OK, now I know how to manage the creation of this collection.”’

The resulting 24-piece collection, The Power of Couture, is the latest chapter in Boucheron’s annual Histoire de Style series, which sees Choisne reinterpret designs or themes from the house’s 166-year history.

Its founder, Frédéric Boucheron, was the son of a draper and so the archive teems with diamond-set bows, ribbons and lace, with gold worked into supple-as-silk scarves.

A lace-like shoulder adornment made circa 1880 was a Belle Epoque predecessor of today’s white gold and diamond epaulettes, whose overlapping loops were inspired by a tiara made in 1902 for the Princess of Wales, later Queen Mary, Prince Philip’s grandmother-in-law.

Clipped across the shoulders, they’re a precious take on the traditional tasselled gold epaulettes of naval uniforms.

They also transform into cuffs; such versatility is a hallmark of the collection.

A set of 15 medal brooches can be strung into a bib necklace of epic proportions.

A rock-crystal and diamond bow can fasten to the shoulder or chest, or be fashioned into a multi-wear necklace, while its central diamond can be plucked off to become a ring.

A braided aiguillette can be worn military-style across the chest, draped around the waist, or disassembled into brooches and a bracelet.

‘In ceremonial attire, there are so many rules that you have to respect. For the collection, I wanted the opposite,’ says Choisne.

‘I wanted people to be able to play freely and design their own style.’

She sees the collection as a ‘kit’ with an almost infinite number of styling combinations.

Her dream, she says, would be for one client to buy the lot. Whether that client is male or female is of little importance.

‘A long time ago, the people who wore high jewellery were men. The maharajas, the tsars, the kings. The biggest and most beautiful pieces were designed for men.’

One of Boucheron’s most famous clients was the Maharaja of Patiala who, in 1928, had his guards cart some 7,571 diamonds and 1,432 emeralds from The Ritz to the Boucheron boutique, to be set into 149 extraordinarily opulent jewels – a commission that inspired New Maharajas, the house’s 2022 Histoire de Style high jewellery collection.

Sir Bhupinder Singh, Maharaja of Patiala, GCSI GCIE GCVO GBE (12 October 1891 – 23 March 1938)

'Today,' continues Choisne, 'I don’t want to do pieces for men or for women. I want to make beautiful and meaningful pieces. And I want to show that it’s beyond gender.’

She says that men do buy and wear Boucheron high jewellery, but she doesn’t know the precise proportion of male customers.

‘I almost don’t want to know exactly, because I’m sure of my idea. And maybe we have to show them that it’s a good one.’

Three years ago, Boucheron’s art deco-inspired Histoire de Style collection was photographed on male and female models – a first among Place Vendôme’s traditional maisons.

‘I knew that some of the pieces were even stronger on men. But the idea of it was almost weird at that time. People asked me, “Are you sure, high jewellery on men?” And my answer was, “Yes, definitely,”’ says Choisne.

The Power of Couture collection, conversely, was exclusively photographed on and modelled by women; another deliberately defiant move.

‘When you think of ceremonial attire, you naturally think of men. So I wanted to show the opposite. It doesn’t make sense for me to choose between men and women. Nowadays we can do what we want.’

A pair of embroidery-inspired diamond ferns have an ethereal, Greek goddess-like beauty when worn as a headpiece.

But one can also imagine them pinned to a tuxedo, echoing the actor Regé-Jean Page, who wore a feather-shaped diamond Boucheron brooch at last year’s Oscars.

Although it may take a Liberace-channelling peacock to carry off a lacy diamond collar, even the most bling-averse gentleman could be tempted to affix a few rock crystal and diamond buttons to his dress shirt.

Choisne says Boucheron’s clients span the whole spectrum.

‘It’s the same for men as it is for women: some are more classical, and some are super edgy.’

Culture plays a role. ‘Maybe European men are a bit more traditional, whereas in Asia men can be more open-minded when it comes to style.’

It was important that the Power of Couture collection wasn’t too literal, says Choisne; it couldn’t feel like fancy dress.

A restrained, all-white palette of rock crystal and diamonds helps; she champions texture and detail over bold hues or glitzy brilliance.

The pieces are labelled with their carat weight along with the hours involved in their creation – many run into the thousands.

��If you put a lot of little diamonds everywhere, it’s easy. It will shine, so you have no doubt that it’s precious,’ says Choisne.

‘But I prefer to find preciousness with purity of design and elegance, which come from the craftsmanship. It’s not about having lots of diamonds. The number of hours is what makes it high jewellery.’

The transformable Noeud bow, for example, is crafted from hundreds of individually cut lines of frosted rock crystal, threaded together through their diamond edging to evoke the texture and fluidity of grosgrain ribbon.

‘It would be much faster and easier to engrave a single piece, but I wanted it to be really flexible. So they cut every little line by hand. Each one is a different length. It’s crazy work to achieve that.’

That’s 2,600 hours of crazy work, to be precise.

Elsewhere, sandblasted rock crystal is knitted together into the flexible, five-strand Tricot choker.

’The idea was to give an illusion of knit work,’ says Choisne. ‘The unpolished rock crystal gives the feeling of softness, like wool.’

The Médailles feature grosgrain-effect rock-crystal ribbons, from which hang 15 medallions of sculpted rock crystal overlaid on to beds of brilliant-cut diamonds.

‘We cut the rock crystal with the glyptic technique – it’s much more complicated than engraving. Then we set diamonds underneath so they are a bit blurred. For me, it’s more magical.’

It’s clear that Boucheron’s craft workers relish Choisne’s technical challenges.

They are currently making the pieces that will launch in July 2025 (Boucheron presents two high jewellery collections a year), while Choisne is finalising designs for 2026 and developing her ideas for 2027.

It’s not always easy to sleep with so many different concepts buzzing around her brain, she admits.

Her approach to design mirrors the demands she asks of her atelier. ‘I don’t love it when it’s too easy.’

boucheron.com

[wrapmyarms]

I'm really bored at school so here's good arctic monkeys songs i recommend :)

I've been listening to them for a year and a couple of months at this point and these have been my favs from each album

»»————————————　★　———————————-««

Whatever People Say I Am, Thats What Im Not

Still Take You home

From The Ritz To The Rubble

Fake Tales of San Francisco

Perhaps Vampires A Bit Strong But...

Favorite Worst Nightmare

This House Is A Circus

Balaclava

Teddy Picker

Do Me A Favour

Old Yellow Bricks

Humbug

Dangerous Animals

Crying lightning

The Jewellers Hands

Secret Door

Dance Little Liar

Fire And The Thud

Suck It And See

Piledriver Waltz

Black Treacle

The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala

Suck It And See

Love Is A Laserquest

AM

No. 1 Party Anthem

Fireside

Knee Socks

R U Mine?

Mad Sounds

Arabella

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

American Sports

Star Treatment

Golden Trunks

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

The Car

Body Paint

Sculptures Of Anything Goes

There'd better be a mirrorball

Big Ideas

B - Sides

The Bakery

Too Much To Ask

Joining The Dots

Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?

Cigarette Smoker Fiona

You're So Dark

Plastic Tramp

Bigger Boys And Stolen Sweethearts

Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend

Bad woman

2013

Electricity

That's It Thank u :)

Personally I mostly Listen To B-Sides Right Now, But i Loveeee Humbug, fwn and Wpsiatwin as well :D

[xtruss]

Mohamed al-Fayed, Tycoon Whose Son Died With Diana, Is Dead At 94

An Egyptian businessman, he built an empire of trophy properties in London, Paris and elsewhere, but it was all overshadowed by a fatal car crash that stunned the world.

— By Robert D. McFadden | September 1, 2023

Mohamed al-Fayed in 2003 outside the Court of Session in Edinburgh, where a judge was asked to consider whether the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and his son Dodi, was caused deliberately. Credit...David Cheskin/Press Association, via Associated Press

Mohamed al-Fayed, the Egyptian business tycoon whose empire of trophy properties and influence in Europe and the Middle East was overshadowed by the 1997 Paris car crash that killed his eldest son, Dodi, and Diana, the Princess of Wales, died on Wednesday. He was 94.

His death was confirmed on Friday in a statement by the Fulham Football Club in Britain, of which Mr. Fayed was a former owner. It did not say where he died.

The patriarch of a family that rose from humble origins to fabled riches, Mr. Fayed controlled far-flung enterprises in oil, shipping, banking and real estate, including the palatial Ritz Hotel in Paris and, for 25 years, the storied London retail emporium Harrods. Forbes estimated his net worth at $2 billion this year, ranking his wealth as 1,516th in the world.

In a sense, Mr. Fayed was a citizen of the world. He had homes in London, Paris, New York, Geneva, St. Tropez and other locales; a fleet of 40 ships based in Genoa, Italy, and in Cairo; and businesses that reached from the Persian Gulf to North Africa, Europe and the Americas. He held Egyptian citizenship but rarely if ever returned to his native land.

Mr. Fayed lived and worked mostly in Britain, where for a half-century he was a quintessential outsider, scorned by the establishment in a society still embedded with old-boy networks. He clashed repeatedly with the government and business rivals over his property acquisitions and attempts to influence members of Parliament. He campaigned noisily for British citizenship, but his applications were repeatedly denied.

“It’s the colonial, imperial fantasy,” Mr. Fayed told The New York Times in 1995. “Anyone who comes from a colony, as Egypt was before, they think he’s nothing. So you prove you’re better than they are. You do things that are the talk of the town. And they think, ‘How can he? He’s only an Egyptian.’”

Mr. Fayed at a party at the venerable London department store Harrods in 1989. His takeover of the store in 1985 struck many Britons as akin to buying Big Ben. Credit...Fairchild Archive/WWD, via Penske Media, via Getty Images

He reveled in the trappings of a British aristocrat. He bought a castle in Scotland and sometimes wore a kilt; snapped up a popular British football club; cultivated Conservative prime ministers and members of Parliament; sponsored the Royal Horse Show at Windsor; and tried unsuccessfully to salvage Punch, the moribund satirical magazine that had lampooned the British establishment for 150 years.

His takeover of the venerable Harrods in 1985 struck many Britons as shameless brass, something akin to buying Big Ben. A year later, as if securing a jewel in the crown of British heritage, Mr. Fayed signed a 50-year lease on the 19th-century villa in Paris that had been the home of the former King Edward VIII of Britain and Wallis Warfield Simpson, the divorced American woman for whom he abdicated his throne in 1936.

But Mr. Fayed’s triumph as an Anglophile was the made-for-tabloids romance between his eldest son, Emad, known as Dodi, and the Princess of Wales, who had recently been divorced from Prince Charles (now King Charles III) and alienated from the royal family. It began in the summer of 1997, when Mr. Fayed invited Diana and her sons to spend some time at his home on the French Riviera and on one of his yachts. Dodi was there too.

The Egyptian-born nephew of the Saudi billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, Dodi was a notorious playboy who gave lavish parties, financed films, dated beautiful women and was once briefly married. He and Diana had been acquainted, but by many accounts they fell in love on the Mediterranean sojourn. As their romance bloomed, the British press pounced. Paparazzi hounded the couple everywhere they went.

A cameraman filmed the site of the car accident in Paris that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and Mr. Fayed’s eldest son, Dodi al-Fayed, in 1997. Mr. Fayed declared that they had been murdered by “people who did not want Diana and Dodi to be together.”Credit...Jacques Demarthon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In the early hours of Aug. 31, 1997, a Mercedes-Benz carrying Diana and Dodi and driven by Henri Paul, a Fayed security agent who was drunk and traveling at a high speed trying to elude carloads of pursuing paparazzi, slammed head-on into a concrete pillar in a tunnel in Paris. All three were killed.

Controversy exploded over the cause of the crash and the implications of the affair. Some tabloids suggested that an immigrant had been an unfit suitor for a princess. But friends said that the couple had planned to marry, and that the Fayed family had offered Diana and her sons a warmth that contrasted with the way Britain’s royal family had shunned her after the divorce.

As rumors and conspiracy theories swirled, Mr. Fayed declared that the two had been murdered by “people who did not want Diana and Dodi to be together.” He said they had been engaged to marry and maintained that they had called him an hour before the crash to tell him that she was pregnant. Buckingham Palace and the princess’s family denounced his remarks as malicious fantasy.

The deaths inspired waves of books, articles and investigations of conspiracy theories, as well as a period of soul-searching among Britons, who resented the royal family’s standoffish behavior and were caught up in displays of mass grief. In 2006, the British police ruled the crash an accident.

And in 2008, a British coroner’s jury rejected all conspiracy theories involving the royal family, British intelligence services and others. It attributed the deaths to “gross negligence” by the driver and the pursuing paparazzi. It also said a French pathologist had found that Diana was not pregnant.

Mr. Fayed called the verdict biased, but he and his lawyers did not pursue the matter further. “I’ve had enough,” he told Britain’s ITV News. “I’m leaving this to God to get my revenge.”

Mr Al Fayed, with his wife Heini, at the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997. Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, Dies in a Crash in Paris. August 31, 1997.

Mohamed al-Fayed was born Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed in Alexandria, Egypt, on Jan. 27, 1929, one of five children of a primary-school teacher, Aly Aly Fayed. Details about his early life are murky.

His accounts of growing up in a prosperous merchant family were discounted by British investigators. He sold sewing machines and joined his two younger brothers, Ali and Salah, in a shipping business. In the early 1950s, Adnan Khashoggi set the brothers up in a venture that exported Egyptian furniture to Saudi Arabia. It flourished.

In 1954, Mr. Fayed married Mr. Khashoggi’s sister, Samira. Dodi was their only child. They were divorced in 1956. In 1985, he married Heini Wathén, a Finn. They had four children, all born in Britain: Jasmine, Karim, Camilla and Omar.

Information on survivors was not immediately available.

The Fayed shipping interests profited handsomely from an oil boom in the Persian Gulf in the 1960s. Acting as middlemen for British construction companies and gulf rulers, they helped develop the port of Dubai, the Dubai Trade Center and other properties in what is now the United Arab Emirates.

Mohammed Al Fayed stands in front of the east stand of Craven Cottage, home of Fulham. Photograph: Kieran Doherty/Reuters

Mr. Fayed at the Craven Cottage stadium in London in 2012 before an English Premier League soccer match between Fulham and Sunderland. Mr. Fayed was Fulham’s owner and club chairman. Credit...Alastair Grant/Associated Press

Mr. Fayed, who made all his family’s major investment and financial decisions, moved to London in the mid-1960s. He added “al-” to his surname, implying aristocratic origins. After buying the Scottish castle, he expanded its estate to 65,000 acres; after acquiring the Fulham Football Club, he built it into a top team in a nation infatuated with the sport. (He sold the team in 2013 to a Pakistani American businessman.) A heavy contributor to the Conservative Party, he nurtured relationships with members of Parliament and Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

In 1979, the Fayed brothers bought the fading Ritz Hotel in Paris for under $30 million and, with a 10-year, $250 million renovation, turned it into one of the world’s most luxurious hotels. Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed dined in the Imperial Suite before their fatal crash.

In 1984-85, in their greatest commercial coup in Britain, the Fayeds paid $840 million for the House of Fraser, the parent company of Harrods and scores of other stores, and invested $300 million more to refurbish the chain’s flagship, in London’s exclusive Knightsbridge section.

After the sale of Harrods to Qatar in 2010 Mr Al Fayed stayed on as honorary chairman for six months

Mohamed Al Fayed in the Harrods food halls. Photograph: Mark Richards/Daily Mail/Shutterstock

Prodded by a business rival, the government investigated the Harrods deal and in 1990 concluded that the Fayed brothers had “dishonestly misrepresented” themselves as descendants of an old landowning and shipbuilding family. The government report said the money for Harrods had probably come from the Sultan of Brunei. The sultan denied it, and Mr. Fayed, who was not accused of wrongdoing, called the report a smear.

In investigative reports by the press and the police, Mr. Fayed was accused by many women of unwanted sexual advances, job-related sexual harassment of female employees at Harrods, and even sexual assault involving teenage girls. He denied the allegations and, although he was questioned by the authorities in Britain, he was never prosecuted on such charges.

Mr. Fayed was bitter about being stymied in his quest for British citizenship, although all his children by his second wife held that status. As he noted, he had lived in Britain for decades, paid millions in taxes, employed thousands of people and, through his enterprises, contributed mightily to the economy.

Mohamed Al Fayed leaves the High Court in London, after giving evidence at the inquest into the death of his son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

“They could not accept that an Egyptian could own Harrods, so they threw mud at me,” he told reporters. He sold Harrods in 2010 to Qatar Holding, the sovereign wealth fund of the Emirate of Qatar, for more than $2 billion, and announced his retirement.

— Robert D. McFadden is a Senior Writer on the Obituaries Desk and the Winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting. He joined The New York Times in May 1961 and is also the Co-Author of Two Books.

[alexturne]

3, 5, 23, 36, for your diwk ask!

Thanks for your qs, I don't know why I do this to myself, I'm the worst at choosing stuff! But I'll try!! 😘 (I already know I won't be able to go with one for any of these.. sorry in advance)

3. Favourite music video?

So difficult, they've done so many good ones!!!

Teddy Picker, R U Mine?, TBHC, You and I with Richard Hawley, Cornerstone.

Honorable mention to Crying Lightning

5. Favourite Alex Turner hair era?

Immediate response is the ethereal creature of Humbug baby. Also the luscious locks of EYTCE. And of course my soft spot, the early days of WPSIA 💖

23. Favourite TLSP song?

Absolutely impossible to pick one!!

The Element of Surprise, Used To Be My Girl, Hang The Cyst, Pattern, Gas Dance, Aviation, Standing Next To Me, Sequels, The Age Of The Understatement

36. Favourite song from each album?

Most difficult question of all time!! I'm giving myself two... Or more...

WPSIA - From The Ritz To The Rubble, Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured, A Certain Romance

FWN - Teddy Picker, Fluorescent Adolescent, Do Me A Favour

Humbug - Secret Door, Jeweller's Hands, Fire And The Thud, Dance Little Liar

SIAS - Don't Sit Down Cause I've Moved Your Chair, All My Own Stunts, Piledriver Waltz

AM - Fireside, I Want It All, R U Mine?

TBHC - American Sports, TBHC, Golden Trunks, Science Fiction

The Car - Perfect Sense, Mr Schwartz, The Car, Sculptures

Thank you 💕✨

[news24news]

A Trump Tower Goes Bust in Canada

The failure this week of Trump Toronto showcased a familiar scenario: big promises, glitzy image, a Russian-born financier, aggrieved smaller investors – but few losses for the mogul himself.

The 65-story Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto has all the glitz and ambition of the luxury-brand businessman with his name in giant letters near its spire. It’s the tallest residential skyscraper in Canada, and probably the fanciest. The hotel’s sleek cream-and-black interiors were inspired by Champagne and caviar. Every room features Italian Bellino linens and Nespresso coffeemakers. Guests can book a Trump Experience outing through the Trump Attache concierge service. Their furry friends are eligible for the Trump Pets program, which “will fill your best Fido’s tummy with gourmet treats, and see them off to sleep on a plush dog bed.”

This Trump-branded and Trump-managed jewel is also, as a business venture, a bust.

On Tuesday, a Canadian bankruptcy judge placed the glass-and-granite building into receivership, just four years after Trump and his children cut the ribbon at its grand opening. Once it’s auctioned off, whether or not Trump is the leader of the free world by then, his name may well vanish from its marquee. Trump is not the project’s developer or even an investor; one of his partners, a Russian-born billionaire who got rich in Ukraine’s steel industry, controls the firm that’s in default. The Trump Toronto is still a posh hotel, and even though nearly two thirds of the tower’s condo units remain unsold, they’re still upscale residences. Still, the saga of the property’s glittering rise and rapid fall is classic Trump, featuring a tsunami of litigation and bitterness, money with a Russian accent, and a financial wreck that probably won’t hit its namesake particularly hard.

Trump has vowed to run the country the way he runs his businesses, and Trump Toronto is yet another reminder that his businesses do not always run smoothly. Even before the bankruptcy, the Trump Organization was already mired in litigation over management issues with the project’s owner, Talon International—led by Alex Shnaider, the steel magnate who is perhaps better known for buying a Formula One racing team and hiring Justin Bieber to sing at his daughter’s Sweet Sixteen. The project also faced lawsuits filed by middle-class investors who claim they were suckered into buying time-share-style units in the hotel with wildly overstated projections of Trump Toronto’s performance. Now it’s in receivership, which will produce new ownership and, quite possibly, a new brand.

Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller noted that the company still has a long-term deal to manage the Toronto property, no matter who controls it after the auction. “This has been a record year for the hotel, and we look forward to its continued success,” Miller said. “Guests can expect to receive the same superior level of service and quality that is synonymous with our brand around the world.”

But it’s not clear that Trump Toronto will keep its name, much less its management team. Toronto is one of the world’s most multicultural cities, and Trump’s run for the presidency, especially his provocations against immigrants and Muslims, have made his hotel a target for protests. And one insider familiar with the bankruptcy proceedings said that local rivals in the luxury condo and hotel market, notably the Four Seasons and the Ritz Carlton, have dramatically outcompeted the Trump property. Court documents show that even though investors in the hotel units were told the “worst case scenario” for occupancy rates would be 55%, they’ve ranged between 15% and 45%. The average room rate, despite the snazzy crystal sconces and in-mirror bathroom TVs and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Ontario, has been nearly $100 below the initial projections.

“The whole business model has been overpromise and underdeliver, and it’s Trump’s name on the thing,” the insider said. “You can’t put all the blame on him and his people. But if they did a terrific job, do you think it would be in bankruptcy?”

Trump first got involved in the project 15 years ago, when he held a press conference with Toronto’s mayor to announce his plan to build a new Ritz Carlton downtown. That plan fell apart when it came out that his development partner was a fugitive who had been convicted of bankruptcy fraud and embezzlement in the U.S. Trump then forged a licensing and management deal with Shnaider and another Russian-Canadian named Val Levitan, whose name comes up a lot in the documents because he had no development experience. Talon pre-sold 85 percent of the units at near-Manhattan prices before the groundbreaking in 2007, but most of the buyers backed out after the global financial crisis ravaged the real estate market, and Levitan was eventually forced out.

It is clear from affidavits in the fraud cases and the bankruptcy case that the buyers have taken a financial beating. A warehouse supervisor named Sarbjit Singh, who was earning about $55,000 a year, testified that he borrowed money from his father, a retired welder, for the deposit on his hotel unit; he never closed on the deal, but he says he still lost $248,000. Se Na Lee, a homemaker who was married to a mortgage underwriter, borrowed money for her deposit from her parents; she did close, and ended up losing $990,000 through December 2014, she says.

A judge later described Talon’s prospectus and other “deceptive documents” as “a trap to these unsurprisingly unwary purchasers,” and ruled that they could sue Trump as well as Talon. The surnames in the court filings reflect the global diversity of the people who put their trust in the Trump brand and the Talon sales representatives: Ayeni, Surani, Yuen, Rhee, Okwuosa, Gupta, Radhakrishman, Varadarasa, Akinkuotu. Some said they were assured that Trump’s involvement would make it easy for them to get mortgages, but banks have shied away, even as the local real estate market has become one of the hottest on the planet.

These problems were already simmering when Trump—along with his children Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, who oversees his worldwide hotel operations—stepped out of a Cadillac Escalade for the hotel’s ribbon-cutting in April 2012. There are snippets of the event on YouTube, where you can see Trump smiling dutifully as he congratulates hotel staffers, accepting a Maple Leafs jersey with his name on the back, and watching a speech by Toronto’s late mayor, Rob Ford, who would later become a household name after a crack-smoking scandal.

By 2015, Trump and Talon were suing each other, with the Trump team alleging a Talon scheme to take over the management, Talon alleging a Trump scheme to devalue the property in order to buy it at a discount, and both sides accusing each other of shoddy financial record-keeping. Talon also disparaged Trump’s performance running the hotel, but the dispute is now in mediation. It probably won’t matter, because Talon is about to lose the property, most likely to JCF Capital, a U.S. investment firm that purchased its $225 million construction loan.

Talon’s attorney, Steven Rukavina, would only say that the company is cooperating with the restructuring, and views the court’s appointment of a receiver as “a positive step forward toward achieving that objective.” JCF declined comment, though it has said in its filings that it intends to honor Trump’s contract if it assumes control of the property.

But Trump’s campaign, with its hostility towards foreigners, progressives, and others, has not played well in Toronto. A city councilor has called for the property to change its name. Hollywood types reportedly blackballed the hotel—along with its 31st-floor restaurant, which is actually called America—during this summer’s Toronto Film Festival. There have been protests outside the building by union workers, women’s groups, and Muslim groups. The Trump brand is under siege, which has delayed the opening of a similar Trump-licensed hotel and condo project in Vancouver until after the election. The colorful mosaic celebrating multiculturalism at the entrance to Trump Toronto, titled A Small Part of Something Larger, now seems to clash with the nominee’s white-backlash message.

Trump has presided over four corporate bankruptcies, and the flurry of lawsuits and countersuits over Trump Toronto’s broken promises is rather typical for a Trump property. But this is Talon’s bankruptcy, not his. The project was built with other people's money; he just got paid for the use of his name and his hotel management team. It’s not clear how much he ever knew about Talon’s high-pressure sales tactics. It’s also not clear how much he ever knew about his Russian-Canadian partner's business activities in Eastern Europe.

“We heard fantastic things about [Shnaider],” Trump told a Forbes reporter by phone from his 2005 honeymoon. “But sometimes people say wonderful things whether they mean them or not.”

Then again, Trump did license his name and his brand to Talon. This isn’t his main concern this week, but he can’t deny all responsibility for the failure of a Trump project, especially when the Trump Organization is running the Trump hotel. The project's partners, investors, and lenders all got a Trump Experience, one that isn't available from the concierge.

[centrally-unplanned]

Speaking of Anime Discourse ,Trixie/The Golden Witch, formerly Digibro, retired from Youtube last week. For most people this is just an obit for a long-gone career - Trixie’s videos haven’t been reaching audiences for years now. Extremely happy she is moving on; in the ‘goodbye’ video its harsh to watch how much discussion of money is the focus of the long downward spiral. Which is not a criticism, paying bills is good, but its obvious that 95% of the actual drive for making anime videos vanished, replaced with whack-a-mole attempts to chase the ghost of lost glories from ~2017. Real “Romanov-adjacent in 1920′s Paris, bedecked in whatever furs and jewels fit in the suitcase lugged onto the last steamer out of Petrograd, smoking away the years at the Ritz bar awaiting the inevitable Restoration” vibes, even down the mismatched furs. It was never going to work, primarily because it never works for almost anyone and the lack of passion is openly transparent. Absolutely quit, there is nothing for you here, I hope you go be happy.

Though it is funny to hear a decade+ YouTuber discuss subscriber counts like they are meaningful metric, like she needed to ‘recapture’ an audience that is still there due to a 300k subscriber count. Those account aren’t real, if your videos are getting 3k views its because the ‘active’ accounts ditched, all that is left are dead emails & spambots juicing a number. Another ghost from the past, hard to admit that the one thing you do have means nothing. I am not trying to roast here, I just don’t want to pretend that this whole process wasn’t a negative thing. Her trajectory in life was tragic, and it was painful to watch.

At least she admitted she got ridiculously addicted to weed for a time there, heartening for the obvious to finally be acknowledged.

Still for how sad the last chapter was, as Digibro Trixie was one of the most influential anime YouTubers to ever do it. Youtube has era’s, and starting in like ~2014 there was a big upswing in higher-effort ‘analytical’ videos, and Digi was absolutely a leader of the pack the anime space. She brought the caustic, humor-laden but actually-substantiative analytical style of Red Letter Media to the anime sphere and blended it with gonzo-inflected, despair-laden personal rants. The peak of her legacy is of course turning the tide on Sword Art Online, which was an immensely popular anime in 2012 but Digi’s viral 2014 review started a floodgate of counter-appraisals in the western fandom such that a few years later liking SAO was the hipster stance. Pedantic Romantic even documented the ‘digi effect’ on SAO & the fandom in a video, which is exactly the kind of investigative journalism we need more of.

At the time Digi spawned waves of imitators and also was the center of a crew of other creators, people like Endless Jess & Best Guy Ever, she was a member of the PCP crew, and there were others less directly connected but still strongly influenced like Steak Bentley, who’s video on Cowboy Bebop & the West is still one of my absolute favourites. Digi was really good about highlighting other interesting anime YouTubers and giving you an idea of what could be out there, being responsible for half of their viewership, and through that building a sense of community.

Of course I chose those specific names tactically - they are mostly gone now. Some off the internet entirely, others occasionally appearing once a year with a tweet or a video, others pivoting to video games or Twitch streaming, etc. Just like that era of YouTube is now gone, Anime YouTube still exists of course, but it isn’t just the names that have changed; the content, the style, the market, expectations, all moved on. Even Trixie’s later content showed that, making fun of the depression-inflected rage she used to exhibit at properties like High Guardian Spice, because while rage-merchants are a thing on Youtube, oh for sure they are a thing, its now its own thing, not part of the analytical-emotional melting pot in the same way anymore (and pretty inextricably tied to politics). And we are in the golden era of western creators doing serious dives into production histories, industry reporting, etc, but that's too serious, there is also no place for Digi there either.

Or I am wrong, and I just don’t know the new generation doing it out there. Would love to see them. From my vantage point, Anime YouTube’s “Gonzo” era is over, and Digi was the center of it. Maybe itll come back. But its certainly over for Trixie, and I am glad she is finally letting the ghosts fizzle out in the wires of the internet in peace.

[startreatment]

AM songs that i think of when i see their respective album covers:

wpsia - from the ritz to the rubble or the view from the afternoon, fwn - this house is a circus or old yellow bricks, humbug - the jeweller's hands or crying lightning, AM - do i wanna know, tbh&c - batphone. no idea why. also maybe star treatment! and the car - perfect sense

[ritzjewelers]

Chris choose this promise ring to let his girl know that she is the one and he will propose to her in the next few years!!! Come check out all the different pieces we have! Ritz Jewelers, Los Angeles.

[talesfromthegameff14]

Prompt #23: Suit - Arrosez

Writing Music: Putting on the Ritz - Taco Wear something nice. 

It was Ishgard. Something nice for a wedding meant something fancy and typically expensive.  The card in their hand for the recommended seamstress only reinforced that stereotype, the gilded script on the pale cream card gleamed in the morning light.  Only the best for the best!  “If it was anyone else I’d tell him to bury his idea in a pile of chocobo shit.”, Rose muttered before stuffing the card back in a pocket.  Alas, it was Barton asking and they weren’t about to burn that bridge over some fancy clothing. 

You must understand! She’s my only daughter and there has been a bit of a fuss with a jilted suitor.  He’s been an ass over being put aside for love.  But my Jannie is so happy with Nixi!  I know the woman is just an adventurer, but look at them Rose!  They are so in love! 

Even Rose couldn’t argue that fact. Watching them, the young couple was well suited for each other if the looks, whispers, and laughter they shared was any indication.  But, if Barton was to be believed, the suitor was a vindictive bastard and he feared problems at the wedding.  He didn’t want guards there, but a few more adventurers on the guest list surely would help.  Surely Rose wouldn’t mind coming for the celebration?

Which is how the Elezen found theirself at the window of a seamstress, staring at the dresses showcased on mannequins for all to see.  Rich velvets, gleaming satins, lucious silks, and hand tatted lace all on display to tempt even the most frugal of Isgardian’s with dreams of swishing skirts and absolutely nothing Rose wanted.  They had nothing against dresses, sometimes a flowing skirt brushing around their ankles was exactly what they wanted.  But Isghardian dresses were stiff, heavy, formal and utterly unappealing.  It didn’t help that the last time they walked into these places they had to listen to a constant stream of critique and suggestions on how to enhance their figure. 

If they wanted cleavage they’d wear a damn bra instead of wrapping their tits as flat as possible to mask their existence most days.

A resigned sigh and Rose turned towards the door when a window across the street caught their eye.  Of course there would be a matching shop across the street.  Dresses on one corner, suits on the other.  They looked back towards the dresses before slowly walking across the cobbles of the Jeweled Croiser to the other shop.  A bit of hesitation and they opened the door to walk in. Pants and a jacket sounded so much more appealing than lace and petticoats. 

A few hours later, Rose walked out of the shop with a garment bag draped over their arm.  It had taken time to find the right fit, but the tailor had been marvelous and not batted an eye over the more feminine flare of hips and thigh than most of his customers had.  Smiling, they made a detour to a nearby trash can, dropping the gilded card into the trash with a sigh of relief.  Maybe they would enjoy the wedding after all. 

[crossbackpoke-check]

most boys could be improved with a little nail polish bit thomas bordeleau especially. like what is not clicking for him that he hasn’t done it already my god

EX 👏 ACT 👏 LY you understand. i saw this post one time and simply never looked back so without further ado here are the top ten nail polishes, in no particular order, that i think thomas bordeleau should try:

1. sally hanson xtreme wear in 140 rockstar pink

we’re starting with this one because i previously mentioned it in another post, and, while i think thom gives the vibes of a single color natural nail mani, i like this one because it’s one polish that’s multicolor—dark pink glitter with a little bit of blue to call in the sjs and the baby blue suit he was wearing. also, glitter nail polishes will last you FOREVER

2. chanel le vernis in 339 cassis

also have to start out by including my closest approximation to the nail polish in the photo that started this all. i love the sheerness of this polish, which means it can be more unobtrusive and a little blink-and-you’ll-miss-it barely-there detail or more prominent with more layers

3. gucci glossy in 715 winterset snow

personally i don’t often go for a white nail but i think borde would like something very crisp and clean (white does look nice on him). however, i think his white and/or cream needs to be a little cooler and not as much on the yellow side, which made finding this polish difficult but like. what else was i doing today (so many things)

4. les mains hermès in 85 rouge h

we have solid evidence that borde loooves a good maroon moment and i did specifically pick hermès (no idea why. fancy? would appeal to him?). love the cooler tones in this red for him and i heavily debated giving him this really deep rich purple (violet byzantin) of the same style of polish but we can work up to wearing that one

5. cirque colors x live. love. polish in puttin’ on the ritz

while i know the first color on here is literally a fine glitter, To Me thomas bordeleau is a chunky glitter gorl. it’s got artsy details, a bunch of different types of glitter, it’s iridescent, it can be layered, i’m in love with it. it will match any outfit thom i promise

6. maniology in b333 gold rush

imho i would wear more silver jewelry to compliment the cool tones he likes to wear BUT. borde almost always sports gold (honestly not bad wrt bringing out the california tan, it doesn’t wash him out) so i am giving him a boring, but very specific metallic not-too-yellow-or-light-or sparkly gold nail color. sorry. just paint one nail and use it like an accent or for french tips for spice, idk bud you’re the hand model here and i am simply an incredibly picky art director

7. àuda.b in my cactus

i love how vibrant this green is, i love the finish on it, i think we could convince thom to branch out into more jewel tones and pastels. also yes i picked this to match his houseplants

8. nails.inc caught in the nude in hawaii beach & boy de chanel in 404 black

i have a lot of shiny and glittery finishes on this list and i reeeeally wanted to throw in a matte finish so. this is a two for one because i couldn’t find a matte version of this chocolate brown that i really liked for him but also i’m giving him a special matte black polish because to me these are both neutrals

9. mooncat in millennia

this one just looks dope. i feel like he would like the chrome effect to it? it is more high effort because it’s a magnetic polish, but also given that he loves juicewrld now i think i could swing this one on that basis alone (it’s the same colors as legends never die).

10. zoya in zp797 cecilia

how could i make this list and not include a pacific teal nail polish for the san jose sharks 🦈 this also would be stunning as a pop of color to accent his grey game day suits just saying

ok if you made it to the end of this i love you ✨ thank you for coming to my ill-advised impromptu ted talk @ thom please paint ur nails and also confirm or deny whether you have pierced your ears thank you

[more-than-a-princess]

Munday Thursday meme!

Tag nine people you want to get to know better! Do the meme if you want to!

Favorite color(s): Jewel tones, especially sapphire blue, navy, blush pink, burgundy, and all sorts of neutrals. Soft colors are welcome too. Not a fan of brights/neons.

Favorite flavor(s): Tea, champagne (Sugarfina’s champagne gummy bears are the best), fresh strawberries, penne alla vodka, spaghetti carbonara, chicken tikka masala, rose-flavored macarons, Korean BBQ, red velvet cake, a fresh croissant, cannoli, a traditional afternoon tea set somewhere bougie like The Ritz and/or Claridge’s, baked macaroni and cheese, and chocolate. Yes these are all flavors do not test me.

Favorite genre(s): historical drama, historical romance, romance, horror, drama, thriller, and some action and comedy. Basically: give me a costume drama and I’m usually happy, unless I see glaring outfit inaccuracies.

Favorite music: Uhh...something pop/rock/oldies/pop goes classical/soundtracks go here.

Favorite movie(s): Dead Poets Society, Shakespeare in Love, Good Will Hunting, many things starring Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn, most Jane Austen adaptations. For animated: Beauty and the Beast, Lilo and Stitch, Howl’s Moving Castle. For pure camp/rewatch value: The Mummy, Clueless, Legally Blonde, The Addams Family + Values. For Horror: R U D E as fuck question. Depends on what I’m in the mood for. Cannot narrow it down to a handful.

Favorite series: Downton Abbey, Bridgerton, A Court of Thorns and Roses/SJM multiverse, What We Do in the Shadows, Endeavour, Outlander, Sanditon, The Great, Danganronpa, Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Rose of Versailles, Lupin III, Mobile Suit Gundam (mostly 0079 and Zeta, with soft spots for 0080 and Char’s Counterattack), Umineko no Naku Koro ni. And for garbage taste background noise: Gossip Girl, Emily in Paris.

Last song: I don’t care that it’s like six months too early I am hype dammit

Last movie: History of the World: Part 1 rewatch in anticipation for Part 2. But Scream VI tomorrow finally! And after that, the Luther movie at some point.

Currently watching: The aforementioned History of the World: Part 2 (roughly half the skits were great, half were painful), The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? (as I just found it on Hulu and loved the webtoon), Sanditon, Call the Midwife, Marie Antoinette, Tom Jones, Call My Agent! (I need to watch 10 Percent too, but CMA is on Netflix and has Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, which is who I want to be when I grow up). 

Currently working on: Oh, a constant mishmash of replies, researching costumes for my conventions this year (one of my local friends is revamping her Despair!Kazuichi for a con and is giving me all the more reason to bring Despair!Sonia back out again, even if I wore her last year at this event. We wish we had a Gundham!), work, absolutely losing my shit with Jennifer L. Armentrout’s From Blood and Ash getting picked up by Amazon before we’ve even seen an ACOTAR finalized script/casting/anything from Hulu (ACOTAR > FBAA by a long shot. Heck, give us the Throne of Glass series we were promised!), prepping for cooking date with the husband on Saturday (we’re making a tomato-based chicken curry full of veggies with white rice (his) and shirataki/konjac rice (mine). 

Tagged by: Tagging? We don’t need tagging. I stole it like the Straw Hat Pirate I am (no really I was big into One Piece like 6-7 years ago with offline friends. Still have costumes sitting in my closet that I should sell)

Tagging: Hey you! Yes, you! Do you want to do the Really Cool Thing all the kids are doing and avoiding your drafts with literally Anything Else On The Internet? Then I’ve got exactly what you need! This meme.

[kxlinthesky]

EPISODE 1+2 LIGHT NOVEL Chapter 1-6 English Translation

WARNING: This chapter contains Shaun again, so Shaun warnings apply. I’ve once again put asterisks (*****) around the worst of it. Bear in mind there’s less of it this time, so “the worst of it” is only a few paragraphs.

“What is the meaning of this?!”

“My jewels are safe, right?”

“You said there was no way the phantom thief would appear during the auction, didn’t you?!”

“You lied to us!”

A cascade of indignant voices reverberated around the entrance to the auction hall. The response was only natural – the guests hadn’t been told that the thief would appear in the middle of the auction, souring the whole event. Logically, their anger turned towards the police and museum staff.

“Like I said, we were also told that the thief would appear at midnight! The detectives said as much!”

“What are those detectives even doing?! They’re not even here!”

“W-Well, that’s....” The officers and staff members were sweating bullets as they tried to stumble through their excuses.

One voice rose above the rest, incandescent with rage. “That filthy little thief stole my statue from under your noses! You worthless ingrates! Are all the police and detectives in this city this incompetent?!” Baron Shaun, in his endless fury, kicked a nearby chair over. “Get my statue back this instant! She is mine! She is made for me!”

“As I said, the police and detectives are currently searching for the thief’s whereabouts...!”

“And when will they find him?! I want to take Li’l D home tonight! You hear me?! Tonight!”

“E-Even so….”

Faced flushed scarlet, Shaun shoved the staff member away and grabbed a different officer by the collar. He stamped his feet, ranted and raved, kicked the closest artworks – he honestly looked rather like an oversized baby throwing an impressive tantrum.

At some point, though, he noticed Ritz standing among the other officers and turned all his ire on her. “You! Why didn’t you go after the thief immediately?!” He yanked her necktie and hoisted it into the air, constricting her throat.

“I-I determined that the safety of the guests took precedence!” she answered, voice surprisingly clear despite the strangulation.

Her reply only enraged Shaun further. “The guests’ safety? You prioritized these cretins over my Li’l D?! You foolish girl!” His free hand rose in the air, balled into a fist, before he brought it back down without hesitation. Ritz squeezed her eyes shut the second she saw the blow coming, gritting her teeth in anticipation.

… But several seconds passed and the impact never came. Ritz hesitantly opened her eyes a crack to see the fist frozen in place directly before her eyelashes. The sight sent a thrill of fear down her spine for a moment, but as she watched the fist gradually drew back… to reveal Owl, hand clamped around Shaun’s wrist, forcibly drawing him away from her face.

“O-Ow! What do you think you’re doing, you bastard?!” the baron shouted as his wrist twisted. He let Ritz go, and immediately Nick maneuvered so he stood in front of her as a human shield.

“Pardon me, mister, but you’re raising your hand at the wrong person,” said Owl mildly. “I was the one who instructed her to secure the wire and evacuate everyone.”

“WHAT?!” Shaun glanced wildly around to his guards and shouted, “Oi! What are you doing?! Do something about this man!”

One of the guards lunged at Owl at once. The detective swiftly let go of Shaun and backpedaled, but more guards caught him and pinned his arms behind his back.

Shaun glared spitefully at Owl. “You say it was on your orders?”

“That’s right.”

“You bastard –!” Shaun raised his fist again, and this time he didn’t stop halfway. There was a dull whack as his knuckles collided against Owl’s face, followed by the clatter of Owl’s monocle falling to the floor, and then another smack as he struck the other cheek for good measure. Owl was sent stumbling back from the blows, and as the guards released him he tumbled to the floor.

“Mr. Owl!” Ritz shouted, face pale.

“Damn you –!” Nick screamed, shuddering in rage. He lunged for Shaun, teeth bared in a feral snarl.

“Nick, don’t!” Owl grabbed Nick’s wrist in the nick of time.

“Owl! But he –!”

“There’s no need for you to hit him back. Besides, you don’t like pain, do you?”

Nick groaned in frustration, “Geez, I’m already hurt, though...!” Still, he took Owl’s hand and pulled him up to his feet.

Shaun didn’t seem to have gotten his fill yet, but his attention was diverted by a police officer who rushed up and reported, “We have a reported sighting of Hude Lou in the fourth district!”

“You caught that filthy thief?!”

“N-No, not yet....”

“Then hurry up, you dolts!”

Owl cast a sidelong glance at the shouting baron and said, “Let’s keep working.” He picked up his monocle from the floor and urged Nick and Ritz back towards the auction hall.

“Work, you say, but... the thief has escaped,” pointed out Ritz. Her shoulders were slumping as she followed Owl. “Once again, I couldn’t do anything….”

“What’re you saying, Ritz?” interjected Nick. “You helped out a lot! You for the fire department on standby and got all the guests to safety!”

Ritz wasn’t convinced. “... That was all on Mr. Owl’s orders, and I was only able to call on the fire department because of my father’s connections.”

Nick patted her on the back. “All of that was thanks to your power, though.”

Others nearby overheard their conversation, and soon they had admiring voices calling after them.

“So it was thanks to you! Your evacuation efforts just now were excellent! All of the guests are safe because of you.”

“Huh…?” Ritz turned to see a deeply impressed man standing there.

“Nice to meet you, brave police officer. You have my deepest respect for your actions.”

“Sir Mastema!” Her spine straightened the second she saw who it was – the government official Mastema.

He smiled broadly and gently took her hand. “You are a brilliant officer, miss, and you performed your duty splendidly.”

Ritz’s face flushed at the praise. “Eh, um, th-thank you v-very much.”

“I will also take the liberty of reporting your actions to the chief of police. You could certainly stand to earn more praise for this.”

“No, I, I was only doing what was expected of me as a police officer....”

Mastema simply chuckled at her reflexive deflection, his eyes narrow. In a voice too quiet to hear, he whispered, “If it were known that such a young woman was so highly recognized for her work, I wonder what expression her male colleagues would make....”

“Sorry? I didn’t quite catch that.”

Even Ritz hadn’t picked up his words, but rather than repeating himself, Mastema instead turned to his secretary, saying, “Well, let us meet again someday,” and walked off. He headed next for the still-ranting Shaun, possibly hoping to calm him down.

Ritz was captivated by his retreating figure, but Nick jolted her from her thoughts, patting her shoulders and told her, “See, there’s plenty of people who recognize your hard work!”

She finally relaxed a touch, pressing both hands to her reddened cheeks and sputtering, “Wh-What are you saying, just because I received one compliment! L-Let’s go!” And with that, she broke out in a run towards the auction hall.

 Inside, firefighters and security guards were still tidying things up. The once-dazzling hall was now completely flooded. All of the curtains had burned, and the wallpaper was scorched. The wooden pedestal was still up on stage, though it no longer held a statue.

“Disappeared without a trace, huh.” Owl crossed the damp carpet and approached the windows, touching the burnt curtains, which crumbled to ash under his touch. “Fire…,” he murmured, picking the ash up and rubbing it between his fingers.

He headed for the stage next, looking to examine the wooden base. As he stepped up onto the platform, water splashed under his feet. This drew his attention – he glanced down, intrigued. The carpet on stage was also wet enough to dampen his shoes. When he tapped his toes on the floor, he felt the distinct sensation of grit.

“Gravel...,” he whispered, glancing next to the ceiling. The lovely fringe hanging from the drop curtain swayed gently in the breeze drifting in through the broken window. He held his hand aloft under it for a moment, but no droplets fell. His gaze fell back down to the wooden pedestal, which was dripping wet. “… Water.”

A single card lay atop the pedestal, one that Hude Lou was said to always leave after his heists. Owl reached for it, but a voice called out to stop him.

“Please do not touch that!” A young guard rushed up. It was the same guard who had stopped him earlier.

“I can’t?”

“No, the police inspection hasn’t wrapped up yet, so….”

“... I see.” Owl retracted his hand. His gaze roved from the curtains, to the wooden base, to the water in the carpet again. “So that’s how it is.” He’d come to some sort of conclusion, if the way he nodded to himself was any indication.

“What’s up?” asked Nick, who had come up to stand next to him. Owl leaned over and whispered something in his ear. The boy’s expression fell into a sullen scowl as he grumbled, “If you’re hungry, you can go buy something yourself!”

“You sure?” Owl hummed at a more normal volume. “Because I might get lost and never find my way back.”

“… You’re really just gonna come out and say it? Yeesh.” Nick grabbed Ritz’s hand. “Let’s go, Ritz. Owl’s apparently hungry and he wants us to go get him food.”

“Huh?”

“Jeez, and are there even any shops open this late...?”

“Well, I must admit that I’m rather hungry as well,” said Ritz as the two walked off.

“It’s ‘cause you were all tense all day, probably.”

The pair left the hall. Firefighters and museum staff were finishing up their cleaning and also started leaving. Owl glanced up to the ceiling again, gaze fixated on the drop curtain. “It’s not wet, right?” he checked, though the certainty in his tone suggested the question was rhetorical. He wasn’t talking to himself, though – his words were directed to one remaining person nearby.

“... What?” said the security guard, still standing near the wooden base. He stared at Owl. It was difficult to gauge his expression due to the brim of his hat being pulled so low over his eyes, but it was clear he was perplexed by the sudden address.

Owl pointed up and repeated, “It’s not wet, right?”

Realizing Owl meant the curtain, the guard glanced up and replied, “Ah, yes, it appears not.”

“Isn’t that strange?”

“... What is?”

“That it’s not wet.”

The guard tilted his head, finding nothing amiss. “Isn’t that simply because it wasn’t caught in the blaze and didn’t need to be extinguished?”

“Even though the floor’s this wet?” Owl tapped his foot on the carpet. It squelched beneath his heel. “If they didn’t spray any water at the curtain, then why’s the floor so wet? Especially around the pedestal – there’s basically a puddle around it.”

“... Perhaps it’s just a coincidence.”

“Not to mention there’s grit mixed in as well. Strange, don’t you think? The hall was just remodeled, but the carpet has this much grit in it. And it’s just up on the stage, not anywhere else. There’s no way the auctioneer tracked all this in on his shoes.” Owl ran his finger over the carpet. Some of the gravel clung to his glove. Looking closely, the carpet around the pedestal had a rather large quantity of fine grit mixed into the fibers. “Do you read the newspaper?” asked Owl apropos of nothing.

“Huh?”

Owl brushed the grit from his gloves, taking a step closer to the guard. “The paper this morning, did you see it? A few days ago, some research materials were stolen from the Royal College… you didn’t hear?”

“No, I don’t believe so.” The guard took a step back. He didn’t care for such trifling things.

“Let me tell you about it, then. The stuff that was stolen from the university was a special kind of gravel used in alchemy called ‘hydrocarcerite.’ If you slowly mix it with water, the particles merge together to form a sort of cage that traps the moisture inside and solidifies. A lot of it got stolen.”

“... Huh. Gravel. What a strange thing to steal, huh?” the guard chuckled. Why steal what could be so easily found on the ground outside?

Owl took another step towards the guard. “Did you know that there’s a country in the east with a lot of land subsidence?”

“What?”

“It’s an island country frequented by earthquakes. All of the shaking causes a phenomenon in which the ground contains so much water it liquefies, and the buildings built on that ground sink into the ground. Pretty scary stuff.”

“Please wait a moment. What are you talking about?”

“The stolen hydrocarcerite is a material that causes instant liquefaction. And since it can also hold more water than regular gravel, it will, accordingly, swallow up everything around it the instant it expels the liquid.”

“... Um, if you want to explain this to someone, maybe pick someone with free time. I’m rather busy, you see.”

The guard made to step away from the conversation, unable to listen any longer, but Owl barreled on, strolling up to the wooden base. “Moreover, unlike an earthquake, hydrocarcerite doesn’t require protracted vibrations to liquefy. A single powerful tremor is enough to break the cage apart and expel all the water.” He raised his fist above the pedestal. “For example –”

“Hold on!” the guard involuntarily yelped, seeing Owl prepare to strike.

However, Owl simply thrust his hand into his coat. “… For example, if one were to punch or kick a case containing hydrocarcerite, the impact would discharge all the water within. That said, hydrocarcerite is a fairly unknown material even within the alchemical community. It’s still a few years away from full development – no, actually ‘development’ is too strong a term. It was created by pure accident in the middle of an experiment, and people are still testing it to see how it can be effectively used.”

“Please, that’s enough already,” groaned the guard, one hand rising to press against his forehead. “What exactly are you getting at? Are you trying to say that the grit in the carpet here is this hydrocarcerite?” His voice rose as he continued, “No matter how you look at it, it’s just regular dirt! Who on Earth could possibly tell the two apart?!” The whole thing seemed completely absurd to him.

“I can. There isn’t an alchemist alive who couldn’t recognize one of their own creations.”

“Huh...?”

“Hydrocarcerite is one of the recipes I came up with when I was still in university.”

The guard’s breath caught in his throat.

“I’m surprised, too,” continued Owl. “To think it could be used in this capacity....” He removed his hand from his coat, revealing a handgun. The black muzzle gleamed as he aimed it squarely at the guard.

“What are you –?!” The guard lost his cool upon finding himself on the business end of a gun. “Stop! Someone! Anyone!”

His cries for help were for naught. At some point during Owl’s long-winded explanations, the room had completely emptied, leaving the two alone in the room with the doors closed. No matter how hard he screamed, no one would come to save him.

“Wh-What is wrong with you?! I thought you were just picking a fight for no reason, but to pull a gun on someone –!”

“I have a reason.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been watching me for a while, despite the fact that I should only be a lowly gofer in your eyes.” Owl kept his gun trained on the guard as he spoke. “I first became interested in you when the other detectives were discussing when the phantom thief would strike. Back then, you also joined in on the discussion, didn’t you? I thought that was odd. Why was a security guard taking part in the debate? Perhaps you wanted to mislead their deductions.”

“Please, that’s absurd.”

“You also helped set the hall up for the auction. I saw you taking the initiative to move furniture around. That’s when you mixed the hydrocarcerite into the pedestal, right? And you also put lycopodium powder in the curtains around then. Lycopodium is a highly flammable substance, makes for some impressive flames when lit. When I inspected the curtains earlier, some of it stuck to my gloves. Thanks to that, my heat output increased dramatically, and I ended up burning a meat pie and setting a customer’s bangs on fire.” Owl snapped his fingers with his free hand, producing a tiny flame on his fingertip for a brief moment. “My gloves have a lot built into them. Pyrite, charcoal… and lycopodium, too. Nice, right? They were specially made… one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten.”

He rotated his wrist around, showing the glove off. The guard was silent.

Owl went on, “It would be simple for an alchemist to set fire to a window far from the stage. I imagine Hude Lou also practices alchemy.” He tilted his head at the guard, silently prompting him to agree, but the guard still didn’t speak.

Right then, the door to the hall creaked open, and Nick unexpectedly poked his head in. “Owl!~ You done yet?”

The guard unfroze. “You!” he shouted. “Call the police, now!”

“If you want the police, then I am here.” Ritz appeared next to Nick, hands on her hips and spine ramrod straight. “Mr. Owl, you have received permission from my father to examine the pedestal. Feel free to be as thorough as you like.”

“Thanks, Ritz,” called Owl.

Ritz nodded, then silently threw a glare at the guard.

“Now, then, before I get to examining, let’s talk about ‘you.’” Owl turned his attention back to the guard. “You snuck into this museum shortly after it was decided that the auction would be held here. Once you got in good with the other guards, you were free to move around as you pleased. From there, you slowly began to make your preparations, putting lycopodium in the curtains, preparing a special pedestal, and the like. A security guard could also easily leave an advance notice on the curator’s desk. Seems like you’re a hard worker – you like to prepare things as thoroughly as possible beforehand.”

As Owl spoke, Nick slipped fully inside the hall and made his way over to the pair.

“That’s how the laid-back curator got to be so anxious. The untitled auction items still weren’t registered, and the catalog was only barely printed in time… which is why the calling card only appeared the day of the auction.”

Owl took a single slip of paper out of his pocket – the ripped-out page from Nick’s notebook. “‘Tonight, when the silver moon reaches the heavens, I will come to claim the statue of a young girl,’” he read. “The ‘silver moon’ wasn’t referring to the actual moon, it was referring to the statue. I was careless – the baron called it ‘Li’l D’ so many times, and I still missed it. The curator probably gave it the name he did because of the baron’s nickname.”

At Owl’s side, Nick produced a copy of the catalog.

“‘Li’l D.’ The ‘D’ is short for a certain name. That name is –”

Nick flipped to the last page and turned to show it to the guard. On the page was a picture of the statue along with its title. The title read:

“Diana.”

The guard’s posture slowly straightened at Owl’s words. The only visible part of his face, his mouth, thinned into an emotionless line.

“Diana is the name of the Roman goddess of the hunt and the moon,” Owl said, “and it was also the provisional name given to the statue. ‘When the silver moon reaches the heavens’ meant ‘when Diana reaches the heavens’… the ‘heavens’ being the highest price at the auction, right? That’s why you appeared when you did.”

Owl flicked the hammer of the gun with his thumb.

“The statue was placed on a pedestal infused with hydrocarcerite. The second the baron shouted the highest price, you cut the lights in the hall, revealed yourself by candlelight, then fired a blank at the ceiling. That was when you kicked the pedestal – shooting the blank was just to mask the sound. The hydrocarcerite, having received a powerful shock, expelled all the water it had absorbed and ejected it out a hole at the bottom, while the statue was sucked inside. All you had to do after that was replace the top of the pedestal, and no one would be the wiser.”

The muzzle of the gun wavered away from the guard for the first time… and slowly shifted to point instead to the pedestal in question.

“Setting the curtains on fire was also a mask, to prevent anyone from noticing the water around the pedestal. People would be carrying water in to put out the flames, flooding the room. You broke the window to make people think you escaped outside, while in reality you remained here. You planned on taking advantage of the commotion to switch the pedestal out for something else, but….”

Nick chimed in as Owl trailed off. “Ritz calling in the fire department wasn’t according to plan! Owl told her to bring them in when he noticed the lycopodium on the curtains, since he said there was probably going to be a fire.” With a Cheshire grin, Nick pointed at the guard and crowed, “Bull’s-eye!”

Owl spoke up again. “The fire being put out in such a short span of time was a miscalculation on your part. You lost your chance to switch out the pedestal, so you couldn’t leave the hall. And while you were subtly directing other security guards and firefighters away from the stage, I showed up.” He winked behind his monocle, a touch of irony in his tone. “Apologies for the late introduction, Hude Lou. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Owl. As of now, I’m still a no-name detective.”

The guard slowly took a deep breath in, then repeated, “Owl….” He exhaled… and then gave an acquiescent shrug. “It’s very nice to meet you, Owl. As your name implies, your sight pierces through the night, it would seem.”

The guard lowered his hat even further over his eyes and groaned, “To think you figured it out from the tiny bit of hydrocarcerite that was expelled with the water....”

“Can I take that to mean my deduction was correct?”

The guard didn’t reply.

Owl didn’t seem perturbed by the silence. “It’s in there, right? The statue you locked away.” As he spoke, his finger tightened on the trigger, still aiming for the pedestal.

“... Why don’t you see for yourself?” suggested the guard. “You received permission to examine it, after all.”

“Then I will.” Owl turned to the pedestal and murmured, “Disassembly formation,” calling a golden formula to life before his eyes.

“Disassemble – wave soil.”

As Owl blew gently on his gun, the formula morphed into a ring, which then became two, then three, overlapping each other and interspersed with patterns and formulas. The light sparkled strangely off the pitch-black barrel of the gun.

The guard’s breath hitched again at the display, dumbfounded by the complicated golden pattern hanging suspended in midair. “This is....”

The golden array revolved around Owl’s hand, then steadily disintegrated and began vanishing into the air. Then the sharp crack of gunfire rang through the hall. The bullet pierced straight through the remaining dregs of light and scored a direct hit on the pedestal, causing it to incline forward. The second shot sent splinters of wood flying.

However, the pedestal wasn’t destroyed – the gunshots instead “deconstructed” it, disassembling it into neat little parts. As the pieces scattered apart, there was a hiss as a large quantity of fine gravel poured out, revealing a pure-white statue buried within.

A statue of a praying girl.

It was the missing Diana. Nick whistled when he saw it.

“I’ve solved the mystery, Hude Lou!” Owl turned his gun once more on the guard… no, on the phantom thief Hude Lou.

The thief suddenly burst out laughing, shoulders shaking from mirth. “Ah-ha-ha! It seems I’ve been beat! And all of the other detectives were so entertainingly misled, too.” He spread his arms wide as he continued, “To think a young detective like yourself would be the one to stand in my way.” Once more, he took a slow step back.

“Hude Lou.”

“Yes?”

“There’s still one thing I want to know.”

“And what would that be?” The thief’s tone took on a suggestive lilt. “Perhaps whether I have a lover?”

“Well, I’d be lying if I said no,” Owl answered. “I am a fan of the articles detailing your… activities. But no, that’s not what I want to ask. Up until now, your only targets have been jewels – the miserly Lady Selena’s broach, the tyrannical cabinet member’s golden ring, the womanizing Count Marchis’ heirloom necklace, to name a few – so why this time did you choose to target a statue?”

Hude Lou’s playful expression fell at Owl’s question. His reply was deadly serious. “There is no need for you to know.” His gaze turned to the statue as he murmured, “Now then, how will I carry that out of here…? It wouldn’t be impossible, but….” Keeping a close eye on Owl’s gun, he took a step closer to the statue.

Ritz, however, had other plans. She turned to the door and shouted, “Everyone charge in! Capture the phantom thief Hude Lou! Cover Sir Owl!”

A whole horde of men burst into the room. Police officers burning with a desire to arrest Hude Lou… they were not.

“You found the statuette?! You found my Li’l D?!” It was the man with a bizarre fixation on the statue, Baron Shaun, who came striding into the room hollering in his raspy voice. As always, a cavalcade of security guards trailed his heels. There seemed to be even more of them than before, though it was difficult to tell – their matching suits and eye guards made them completely indistinguishable from each other, almost as if one man had been cloned several times over.

Ritz let out a surprised exclamation at the sight of him. She was certain she’d placed her fellow officers outside the door, not him.

“You lot! Recover my Li’l D! And snuff out that contemptible thief while you’re at it!” ordered Shaun.

The identical soldiers marched forward, heading straight for Owl’s little group. Ritz shouted, “Don’t come! It’s dangerous!” but their steps didn’t falter in the slightest.

Shaun had cast aside any gentlemanly demeanor he’d once possessed, shoving his way up to the statue with no regard for anything going on around him. “Li’l D! My Li’l D! Mine! She is mine! I won’t give her to anyone!”

Several police officers chased after him in an attempt to stop him, calling, “No, you can’t! It’s dangerous here! Please go back outside!”

“Out of my way!” Shaun shook off everyone who tried to grab him. Rather than restraining the baron, the officers instead found themselves restrained by Shaun’s guards and carried back outside the hall.

“You can’t, Lord Shaun!” Ritz desperately clung to Shaun.

“And I’m saying I refuse!” Shaun flung Ritz away as well, and more guards immediately captured her. “Don’t you dare think that you complete imbeciles can order me around! I have no business with fools who can’t even catch a single burglar!”

“Ritz!” Nick didn’t even have a chance to try and help before Ritz was also unceremoniously flung from the room. The guards rounded up the last of the officers and drove them all off.

“Now, I’ll be taking that....” Shaun licked his lips and approached the stage. The madness in his expression was apparent. His pupils were blown wide, oddly marbled and cloudy.

Nick saw that and realized what was happening. “Owl, he’s...!” he gasped, pointing at Shaun.

Owl nodded. “It looks like he’s infected.”

“Oh man, I thought so….” Nick stuck his tongue out and hid behind Owl’s back, sneering, “Guys who can’t read the room are the worst.”

Hude Lou spoke up, shrugging with a theatrical sigh. “It appears that it would be wise for me to give up here. My position seems to have become untenable.” As he reached for his hip, he added, “I look forward to settling the score with you another day, little owl.”

The thief suddenly pointed a small handgun at the guards and pulled the trigger with a bang. There was no bullet – he had once again fired only a blank – but Owl and the guards faltered for an instant, and an instant was all he needed. Before anyone could react, Hude Lou had vanished out the back of the hall.

“Hude Lou!” Owl started to chase after the thief, but he paused. He couldn’t ignore the baron in his current state. He turned to Shaun, pointing his gun in warning. “Baron! Calm down!” he called. “Don’t give into your desires any more than this! You’ve been infected with a virus! It feed and multiplies off your desires, and if you keep going like this, you’ll be taken over! You won’t be human anymore!”

*****

“Quiet, you!” spat Shaun. “You’re just saying that to steal Li’l D away from me! You’re the enemy! Anyone who tries to take Li’l D from me is an enemy! Disappear! Die! All of you should die! Everyone but me and her can die for all I care! I’ll suck up every last girl in the whole world!”

Owl’s earnest persuasions fell on deaf ears. Shaun ranted and raved and stamped his feet, drowning in his own desires. His eyes rolled upwards, and in the slits between his eyelids a black fog-like substance began to leak out – miasma. More miasma flickered like flames in his footsteps and began to spread over the whole floor.

“Give her to me! Give her here! All girls in the world are my toys – my fleshy beds! I’ll defile them all with everything I have! Now! Give! Give! Give me my girl! Give her all to me!!”

*****

“I’m telling you to calm down!”

“Shut your mouth!!”

Miasma gushed out of his eyes like black flower petals. It spread over his face and began to blanket his head and chest.

“Owl! It’s too late!” Nick appealed to Owl. “He can’t recover from it now! I would know! Once you’re that far gone...!”

There was no choice. “… Shit –” Owl cursed. He pointed his gun at the ceiling and fired. The warning shot reverberated through the hall. “Anyone who can hear me, get out of here! This man is infected with the Black Rose Disease, and it’ll spread!”

 The Black Rose Disease.

This dreadful disease was spreading across the entire world. Those who heard its name trembled in fear and scrambled away, screaming. Those who contracted it would inevitably transform into a hideous demon.

There was no way to fight it. All an infected person could do was wait for their soul to rot away.

 Owl’s warning had no effect; the security guards remained in place, showing no signs of wanting to flee. They stood stock-still, even, awaiting orders like emotionless soldiers. Owl fired another warning shot to no avail. “They’re like wind-up dolls…!” Owl clicked his tongue.

Shaun twisted around, giggling like a child. Miasma spewed out of his gaping mouth and enveloped his body, masking him from view beneath a massive black cocoon.

“He’s coming, Owl!”

“I know!” Owl popped the cylinder of his gun out. Bullets and casings clattered to the floor around his feet. “Looks like I was right to come prepared,” he grunted, opening his coat and thrusting his hand into one of the interior pockets. His coat was loaded with glittering knives and test tubes full of liquid that had definitely not been there earlier that day. He took a glass case full of medicine out of the pocket.

As Owl prepared, the black cocoon swelled to double, then triple its size. Heat sizzled from the miasma, burning with Shaun’s passion. The surface crumbled to ash before their very eyes, and from within the tattered remains appeared the baron’s now-immense body.

Shaun had completely transformed.

… No, he had been reborn.

Into a demon.

The baron-turned-demon was fat, his hair standing on end, colorful patterns painted on his face. His repulsiveness was only amplified by the wide mouth splitting under his round nose. He looked rather like a particularly disgusting clown. He towered over Owl and Nick, cackling maniacally in a powerful, resounding voice. “E-E-Ev-Everyone is mine, my t-t-to-toys, my d-d-do-dolls…!”

Nick glared up at Shaun… no, at the clown demon, muttering, “Who the hell would wanna be his toy?” He then walked up to the demon without so much as flinching. The opposite, even – with his eyebrows raised and posture straight, he was the very picture of resolve. “Aren’t you getting a little carried away? Don’t go thinking a baby demon like you can beat me!” His wide eyes held a strange red light, steadfast and clear.

“I’m leaving this to you, Nick,” said Owl.

“Okay.”

All expression fell from Nick’s face as his eyes brimmed with red light.

“Immune depression....”

With those words, Nick’s eyes widened even further, and miasma began spouting from his body as well. It fluttered up around him like shining flower petals, forming a thin membrane that enveloped his entire body in light.

“Rise and shine.”

A confident voice echoed from within the steadily growing glow. The membrane cracked like a sheet of ice, and an even more powerful light poured out of the gap. Pale scales spilled through, followed by a pair of strange blue butterfly wings.

“Now, it’s time for your examination...!”

Nick had transformed… though it might be better to say he’d spread his wings, so to speak. He didn’t look nearly as sinister as the clown – rather than a demon, he was more like a cute fairy, or a butterfly dancing in a field. His coat was inlaid with flowers. He wielded a staff seemingly carved from crystal. His hair was so dazzling it seemed to flash like lightning. His eyes were a deep crimson.

The blue wings on Nick’s back spread wide in a show of intimidation. Iridescent scales scattered as they flapped. “Detect scope,” said Nick, forming a circle in front of his face with his index finger a thumb. He peered through it to stare at the clown, iris turning an even deeper crimson as tiny crackling lightning bolts danced around his eyelashes. As more electricity sparked to life and began crackling around Nick, he continued, “You can’t hide anything from me. I ‘see’ everything.”

Unsurprisingly, the clown demon cackled at Nick’s provocative words, sounding uncannily similar to a Lachsack toy. “L-L-Li-Little b-bu-but-butterfly, I’ll c-c-ca-catch you and turn you into a s-sp-spe-specimen!” He held an enormous hand aloft and slammed it down, aiming for Nick. He wasn’t really trying to catch Nick so much as smash Nick.

However, the boy flew up into the air before the hand struck, avoiding the blow. He hummed, twirling his staff in midair. “Subject: unknown. Object: clown…!” The tip of the staff began to emanate even more lightning, which he directed at the clown. A single bolt fired off, which split into innumerable smaller bolts that penetrated the demon’s body, scanning each individual cell and absorbing the information within.

The clown, beset by the painful lightning, let out an agonized scream, his massive hands convulsing about. “S-S-St-Stop, you i-i-in-insect!! L-L-Li-Listen to m-m-m-meee!!” He swung again, but Nick avoided it by a hair. His hand instead slammed into the floor, shaking the entire building with a deep rumbling sound.

“Assessment: prideful, childish, petulant, domineering… you’ve got a pretty weak heart under all that thick skin, huh? Guess that’s why your form looks like that.” Nick fluttered around in midair, dodging more attacks and licking his lips. “You’re just a baby demon, so lemme tell you something. Demons aren’t friends with each other; they’re predator and prey. Whoever figures out how to eat the other one first wins.”

“E-E-E-Eeeaaat?!”

“Well, I’ve got Byron’s yummy food, so I’m not gonna eat you, though,” Nick singsonged.

He twirled his staff around again, forming a massive lance of lightning that he stabbed into the clown’s giant hand, forcing him to a halt and drawing a guttural screech from the demon. “Gyaaahhh!!”

Nick idly commented, “You used this hand to hit Owl, so I won’t show it any mercy. I won’t show you any mercy. I will never, ever forgive you.” There was no hint of compassion in Nick – in that moment, he was like a demon himself. “Now, I think the ‘medicine’ I gave you should be kicking in right about now, don’t you?”

His blue wings spread wide again, sending another flurry of scales through the air. The clown inhaled some, and his movements began to grow sluggish. “T-Th-Th-Thi-This, p-p-pow-powder –!!”

“You’re going numb, right? Soon you won’t be able to move at all.”

“Y-You YoUUUU! W-W-W-Wo-o-o-orm!” The clown sent a malevolent glare at Nick, anguished and enraged.

Nick stared right back, his own eyes cold. “Plan: melt through that thick skin and take out the weak core in one shot!”

As he shouted, a golden light flared to life in front of the one he’d been protecting the whole time, Owl. “Medical record…!” Owl yelled as he drew a square with his finger around the light. The glow morphed into words, manifesting in the shape of a single document. His eyes traced over the words. He gripped the glass case in his hand tight until it shattered with a crack. An alchemical array materialized around his hand.

“Transmute – exmycin!”

           As he spoke, something swaying like steam leaked out from between his fingers. He appeared to be compressing something, so tightly was his fist clenched. When it opened, a capsule in the shape of a bullet lay in his palm. He loaded it into his gun, spread his stance wide, and pointed the muzzle straight at the clown.

“Disassembly formation!” His violet eyes darkened behind his monocle. The words spilling from his lips appeared in gold in the air. An array emerged around the muzzle of the gun, rotating slowly in midair.

“Owl, the core’s right here!” Nick shouted, pointing at his own nose before hastily putting some distance between himself and the clown.

“Understood.” Owl aimed at the clown’s round nose. “This is the end...!”

The clown’s face grew increasingly contorted as he realized what was happening. His entire body quaked with rage as he roared, “Damn youuuuu!! A-A-A-All g-g-gi-girls are m-m-miIiIINE!!” He crushed the lance of lightning stuck in his massive palm, then raised his arm high, poised to bring it down on Owl’s head.

However, right before the fist struck --

“Disassemble – lutistor!”

Owl pulled the trigger.

BANG! The bullet fired through the golden array and straight through the clown’s nose before anyone could blink.

“Gyahi –"

The clown let out an odd, choked scream.

“Hihi, hiiIIIIIII!!!”

His voice rose in a shrill death wail. Pale flames wreathed his form as it began to drip and dissolve. And there, buried in the depths of his body, a dark blood-red lump became visible.

“Transmute – exnife...!” Owl pulled the trigger again. The second bullet lodged in the lump.

“Gyaaaaahhhhh!!”

The clown’s swollen body burst open. There was a loud popping sound, as if a balloon had burst, followed by the hiss of tepid air leaking out of a hole. The clown’s body gradually deflated, crumbled to ash, and began to vanish without a trace.

“... Aaah, ah....”

Even now, his hand reached for the statue, still unwilling to give up, but his struggles were in vain as he disappeared within the flames.

“... Completed,” Owl sighed. He kept his gaze firmly trained on the dust, making sure it all disappeared. He lowered his gun, keeping his breathing controlled, and surveyed his surroundings. The room was now dead silent. The clown had destroyed all the lighting during his rampage – nothing was visible in the pitch-black hall. “Nick, you all right?” he called.

A tiny light flashed deep in the room, followed by the tap-tap-tap of footsteps as Nick rushed up. As he approached, the clouds that had covered the sky since that afternoon finally began to clear, and the silver light of the moon shining through the windows made the room bright enough to see.

“Good job, Owl!” Nick came into full view. He had reverted back to normal, looking like a detective’s assistant once more; no trace of the charming fairy remained. His tone and countenance were completely nonchalant, like he hadn’t just gone toe-to-toe with a titanic demon and won.

“Thanks, Nick. Any injuries?”

“Nope. It was a good thing you helped out. What happened to the great and powerful baron?” Nick glanced at the hairy lump by Owl’s feet. It was a dirty, rumpled fur coat – Baron Shaun’s coat. Nick turned it over, revealing only a tiny bit of dust left behind. “Completely annihilated?”

“Looks like it. He’d probably been infected for a while. That’s probably why he had the ability to control people….”

Owl sounded rather discouraged. He might have been able to get away without disassembling the demon if he’d caught it a little earlier. Nick, however, sounded as dry as a desert as he responded, “Even if you’d cut the demon free, I don’t think you could’ve done anything about his pervertedness.”

“Did you really hate him that much?”

“Yes!” was Nick’s merciless reply. He glanced out the window. “There’s probably no point chasing after him now, huh?”

“Probably.”

“We didn’t collar him after all. What a shame.”

“It’s fine. We kept the statue safe.... Wonder if we worked hard enough to make our rent.” Owl holstered his gun inside his coat and glanced around the room again. It had really fallen into ruin thanks to the demon. The walls, the floor, the furniture, everything was in shambles.

But there was something more important than the state of the hall on Owl’s mind. “What should we do about them?” he wondered as he scratched his head, staring at all the men facedown on the floor.

They were all Shaun’s bodyguards. When he’d demonized, his control over them had apparently severed temporarily, and they’d all lost consciousness and fallen prone.

Owl continued, “They’ll probably come ‘round soon enough without us lifting a finger, but....”

“What if we say you took them all down?” suggested Nick.

“This many guys? This isn’t just ten or twenty people, you realize. Do I look that good at hand-to-hand to you?”

“Then should we say it was me? There’s even less chance of us persuading anyone that a cute li’l boy like me took down all these big, strong bodyguards.”

“Hm....” Owl brooded over the problem, wondering how they were going to get Ritz to accept it.

Nick turned around. “I don’t have a clue,” he said. His gaze wandered around, but it screeched to a halt at the statue. “Huh...?”

At that moment, he realized – there was something floating right above the statue. Some kind of red… liquid, or something.

“What’s that?” asked Nick. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he might be seeing things, but no matter how hard he scrubbed it didn’t vanish. The red liquid-thing stayed floating in midair, wriggling and wobbling. His face drained of all color as he reached out to tug on Owl’s coat, keeping his gaze fixed on the substance writhing like it had a mind of its own. “Owl?!”

“What?” Owl glanced back at the fear in Nick’s voice.

Nick pointed at the floating thing. “That, what is that?!”

Owl’s gaze fixated on it as soon as he saw it. “What is…?” he whispered. “That’s….”

He’d never seen anything like it. Was it something alchemical that Hude Lou had set up? He entertained the thought, but soon discarded it. Whatever it was, it clearly hadn’t been made by human hands – somehow, he instinctively knew that.

“... How on Earth –"

Owl tried to take a step closer to it, but Nick yanked him back, halting him in his tracks. “Don’t! That thing’s not right – it’s, I dunno, it feels wrong. It’s giving me chills...!” Nick was positively clinging to Owl’s arm, deathly pale.

“Feels wrong...?” Owl didn’t try to get closer again, instead keeping a firm grip on Nick’s shoulders.

“It feels like... like something in me is being pulled towards it....”

While they spoke, the thing in the air continued to undulate. It wiggled as if whatever liquid it held was trapped under a thin membrane. Its movements were… grotesque. It almost looked alive.

Nick averted his gaze from the thing, hiding behind Owl’s back, but the detective’s eyes held more interest than fear. Several scientific operations danced in his mind. It was possible to make a liquid float and move around with alchemy, but….

“I don’t sense any alchemy....” There were no other alchemists in the room save Owl, and he sensed nothing from the floating object suggesting as much. “Why...?”

Maybe he would learn something if he touched it. The thought crossed his mind, but he wouldn’t get the chance to see it through.

The red object floated in space for a while, but it suddenly began to tremble and shake, and in a flash it had vanished without a trace… no, not vanished. It had reached for the statue… and been sucked inside.

The statue should have been made of silica, but it swallowed up every last drop of the stuff like parched soil absorbing rainwater.

“What is this?!” exclaimed Owl. He drew closer to the statue, trying to figure out what had just happened.

Nick once again grabbed Owl’s arm and pulled. He shouted, “Owl! Seriously, it’s dangerous! Don’t touch it!”

However, even without Nick’s interference, Owl kept his hands to himself. He took a breath in, then steeped back. “… Is something burning?” he murmured.

“Eh?”

“No, this is....”

Owl turned and covered Nick with his coat in a flash. He was just in time – a second after he did that, something black and shaped like flower petals burst out of the statue’s chest, right around where it had absorbed the red substance. It was miasma, the same kind that had appeared when Shaun and Nick had assumed their demonic forms. A massive amount of the stuff flooded out of the statue, with enough force to blanket the entire area. Owl shielded his face with his arm. The deluge went on for several seconds, giving them no time to even think.

Owl heard a thud as something fell over. He raised his head… and was immediately dumbfounded.

The pure-white statue that was supposed to be in front of his eyes had vanished, leaving only a pile of black petal-like material behind.

And in its place was….

“... A girl...?” whispered Nick.

Owl took a big gulp of air.

Beneath the pale moonlight streaming in through the windows was a small, cowering girl. She looked exactly like the statue, albeit alive. She was around ten, with cheeks the color of peaches, long hair gently waving in the breeze, and her lips slightly parted to breathe. Her eyes stared up at Owl and Nick, utterly befuddled.

Owl couldn’t raise his voice above a whisper himself. “You’re....”

As if reacting to his voice, the girl blinked. A faint smile curled her lips.

“She’s alive?!” Nick yelped. “Owl, she’s alive! She’s a real girl! And not a demon! The statue turned into a real live girl!” He rushed up to her. “Hey, are you okay?”

“... Ah...” Nick’s voice clearly agitated her – her expression made it seem like she’d never expected anyone to speak to her at all.

Owl also approached. He asked, “How’d you end up like this? Li’l... no, not calling you that. Hey, can you say your name?”

The girl tilted her head at his questions, blinking puzzledly. Her eyes, framed by long golden lashes, were redder than any sunset.

“You’re pretty cute, huh?” said Nick without thinking.

Owl poked him automatically, but the girl really was rather cute. She’d been captivating as a statue, but as a real flesh-and-blood human, her loveliness had only increased. Golden hair. Fair skin. Innocent rosy lips. Anyone who got even a fleeting glance at her would want to hug her tight.

“Can you tell us your name? Or where you came from?” pressed Owl.

It seemed to take time for the girl to snap out of whatever daze she was in, but finally comprehension dawned on her, and she quietly opened her mouth. However, no words came out at first, and she had to move her lips several times before a soft voice finally slipped though. “Ah… I….” By her hesitance, she seemed to have only just remembered how to speak. “… llie….”

Her quiet, hoarse voice finally produced something resembling a name, but she was difficult to hear. Nick, however, managed to catch it. “Did you say Ellie just now?”

“Ellie?” repeated Owl. “That’s your name?”

The girl moved her lips again, looking rather bewildered. She earnestly tried to say, “I-I... you....”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence. All of a sudden, a shrill, piercing noise echoed from somewhere on the other side of the door – a whistle. Then there was the sound of rumbling footsteps. It was immediately apparent that there was a crowd of people fast approaching the door.

Owl knew who those footsteps belonged to. “Looks like the police are here. Sounds like there’s more of them than just the ones the baron drove off.”

“Ah, Ritz! I forgot about her!” Nick yelped. “Owl, what should we do about this girl?”

“Ahh... yeah, good point.” Owl’s gaze wandered for several seconds, considering. Then he pointed to the back door. “Nick, take her and leave. I have some things I want to ask her. We can give her over to the police afterwards.”

“Huh? What about you, Owl?”

“I’ll explain the situation to the police and come after you. Don’t worry about me. Hurry and go.”

“Got it.” Nick nodded and took the girl’s hand. “Let’s go, Ellie. C’mon, stand up.” The two walked off, Nick supporting the girl by the shoulders.

“All hands! Charge in!” A gallant voice rose from the direction of the front door. It was Ritz. She seemed to be all right after all.

Owl took a deep breath. “... Now then, how am I gonna talk my way out of this one.... Hude Lou, the baron, and the statue are all gone, after all....”

He turned to the door, posture straightening. Then, a few seconds later, he donned the face of a young, brash detective and stood dignified, ready to receive the slew of police officers that would no doubt fill the hall to bursting.

  – There was a pair of eyes watching that young, brash detective from the shadows. The person gave not the slightest indication of their existence, their glittering red eyes gently narrowed.

“Ahh, and after all the trouble I went to... and it was so splendidly ‘evil,’ too....” Their tone was regretful, but it faded as they carefully observed Owl being surrounded by the police. “But, well… I did get to witness something rather intriguing, so I suppose it was no great loss….”

With a quiet chuckle, the person disappeared, without anyone realizing they had been there.

■■■■■■■■■■■

“Owl! Over here!” Ensconced in the shadows of the museum, Nick raised his hand and called out to Owl. “That was fast, huh?”

It hadn’t even been fifteen minutes since the police had stormed the auction hall, and Owl was leaving the museum. Nick had expected it to take more time to explain things to the police.

“They kept talking about how helping all the collapsed security guards took precedence, and I got out of there as soon as I saw my chance. Ritz is going to hear us out later.”

Owl clearly thought the whole thing was more trouble than it was worth. Nick laughed, “Then let’s follow your lead and escape.~”

“Yeah, let’s go home already. I’m starved. Byron’s bagel sandwich was so long ago.”

“Same.”

The two walked side-by-side. Or rather, they started to, but then they turned back. Behind them was the girl… Ellie, standing stock still with anxiety etched into her features.

“I was asking her earlier, and it seems this girl doesn’t have any memories,” murmured Nick. “Doesn’t know where she came from, either.”

Owl’s brows furrowed at Nick’s words. “Amnesiac, huh... that must be tough.” He smiled at Ellie. “Don’t worry. I’m not a big fan of troublesome things, but I’m not the kind of guy to leave a little girl all on her own, either.” Spreading his coat, he beckoned her forward. “C’mon.”

“... Thank you....” She was still rather disoriented, but he headed straight for Owl.

Owl’s gaze landed on the marks on her legs, and he started to say, “In you, too....” But he cut himself off partway, and with the girl wrapped tightly in his coat, the three set off.

 Within the darkness of the city, the owl was returning to his nest.

A silver moon watched him from the roof of a building as the owl walked away with someone nestled close to his side.

“To think she was a flask....” His white cape fluttered in the wind as the thief whispered to himself, having tasted defeat for the first time in his career as his prey escaped him. His expression was hidden behind his mask, thinking about the sun crest embroidered on that owl’s coat.

At that moment, a sense of expectation, a rivalry, flared to life in his heart.

“That detective... maybe....”

There were a few mysteries left unsolved, but any speculations melted away in the night breeze.

On that night, their gears perfectly interlocked. Their path was determined. The wheel of fate began to turn.

original written by Nagaya Kawaji here