#shopkeeper dead estate

[youryurigoddess]

Aziraphale’s secret investigation and overlooked Clues

Remember this frame from Good Omens S02E06? Apparently Aziraphale had been using the empty carton box brought by Jim to store things in. It became a new home to at least two out of three “Lost Quartos” — the supposedly lost Shakespeare plays briefly but hilariously mentioned in the Good Omens book — as well as a very mysterious legal document.

Thought probably half of the Good Omens analysts here, including the ever so wonderful @fuckyeahgoodomens, who managed to find some information about the deceased John Gibson from New Cumnock (1855 - 1905).

Unfortunately the most interesting thing about this early 20th century provincial postmaster was his youngest child James (1894 - 1973), a quite famous stage (West End!) and film actor immortalized on screen in The Master of Ballantrae (1962), Witch Wood (1964) and Kidnapped (1963).

After that particular discovery the fandom-wide search seemingly led nowhere and the topic died a premature death.

And I almost figured it out seven months ago.

“But Yuri, you’re so clever. How can somebody as clever as you be so stupid?”, you probably want to shout across a busy London street at this point. Well, let me tell you. Much like Aziraphale, I'm blindingly intelligent for about thirty seconds a day. I do not get to choose which seconds and they are not consecutive.

Only tonight the stars have aligned in an ineffable way.

For those of you who don’t follow this account, some time ago I’ve realized that John Gibson isn’t the only testator whose estate was being investigated by Aziraphale right before The Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers Association monthly meeting.

If you watch S2 finale closely enough, you should notice that Crowley not only stress cleans Aziraphale’s bookshop — he also goes through the books and papers on his desk between the last three angels leaving the bookshop and Maggie and Nina’s intervention. A seemingly permanent arrangement of the props post-shooting, visible in detail both on Radio Times tour and SFX magazine photo shoot, sheds even more light on this detail.

The close-ups published after S2 release are legible enough to refer us to a much more prominent historical figure, Josiah Wedgwood (1730 – 1795) — an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the industrialisation of the manufacture of European pottery.

Long story short, I transcribed the handwritten pages abandoned on Aziraphale’s desk, found out the source and the full text of what could be identified as Wedgwood’s last will and testament, took a walk to visit his Soho workshop, and proceeded to write a lengthy meta analysis about it.

I was today’s years old when I realized that there’s something else connecting those two dead British men.

The Scottish Post Office Directory of 1903 recorded John Gibson from New Cumnock as a “stationer and china dealer” (above) operating from the shop located in the town’s post office building.

Indeed, a close look at his post office shop window in the Henderson Building (below, bottom left) reveals an artful display of fine china and pottery next to postcards printed by Gibson.

There are multiple ways to connect this surprising link with possible S3 plot points, obviously, but it’s getting late, so let’s just name the two most important ones.

You’ve probably heard of the Holy Grail, maybe from Monty Python or Good Omens S01E03 1941 flashback. Depending on the version of the story, if can be a cup, a chalice, a bowl, or a saucer — but almost always a dish or a vessel connected personally, physically and metaphysically to Jesus (unless you’re partial to Wolfram von Eschenbach’s idea that the Grail was a stone, the sanctuary of the neutral angels who took neither side during Lucifer's rebellion).

A slightly more obscure dish related to the Son of God appears in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation as a vital part of His Second Coming. The Seven Bowls (or cups, or vials) of God’s Wrath are supposed to be poured out on the wicked and the followers of the Antichrist by seven angels:

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.

The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, “Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!” And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!”

The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.

The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.  (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.

[deadlinesmb]

Shop Fusion Collab - Splatoon 3

Hooooh boy, I have a lot to say about this one.

Let me preface this part by saying that this section would straight up not exist without the talented work of my teammate Nico. Not only did he model/rig Cordelia and the background, but it's thanks to him that I was able to learn the Blender animation pipeline. He was extremely patient with me and answered every question I had, and for that I'm extremely grateful.

For this section, I animated the shopkeeper Cordelia, from the game Dead Estate! While developing this part, I pitched the idea for a Splatoon 3 section and agreed to do the art for it regardless of what game it was paired with! That game ended up being Dead Estate, a game I had never heard of up to that point.

So, what followed was a period of deep research into the game as well as Cordelia, so I could get the best understanding of how to portray her in the Splatoon universe. First thing was first, I had to redesign her. Even for SiIvaGunner projects, humans existing within the Splatoon universe is a bit jarring, so I decided that for Cordelia's model sheet, I would try to jazz her design up to make her a better fit for this artstyle!

I explored some potential species design before deciding to make her an urchin, as I felt like it'd be the coolest way to adapt her hairstyle. I made some minor changes to her outfit and passed it along to Nico for modeling!

(image from Nico's Twitter post on his contributions, def check it out)

Needless to say I was blown away with how well he adapted the design. It came out better than I could have imagined. What soon followed was me forcing myself to learn the Blender animation pipeline from scratch!

It was a very interesting but invaluable process. I am a 2D animator by trade, with very little interest in expanding to 3D, but the more I was exposed to Blender, the more natural the process came to me. I was very surprised. I think the animation took me about a month in total to create, as I was balancing it with schoolwork at the time, but I'm very happy with how it came out considering my 3D experience level.

Beyond the 3D animation side of things, there was also the 2D assets needed for the UI, which I recreated from scratch through editing software with the help of some gracious Splatoon modders who were willing to help me rip UI and SFX from the game. All of the unique 2D weapon icons were drawn by me, each being direct callbacks to actual weapons from Dead Estate! Eagle-eyed viewers also may have caught that I snuck in a teaser for Prince Fleaswallow's upcoming section in the top right of the UI, which required me to make a Splatoon-styled head icon for him!

Overall, this one was a blast to work on. Everyone was surprised to see it being one of the earliest sections finished for the collab. We made sure to get it locked down because we knew we were in for a labor-intensive time if we wanted it to look just right.

[veesdead]

Dead Estate - Faith

Now, time for a model that WASN'T a commission -- Faith from the game Dead Estate!

Dead Estate is one of my favorite games... period? I think? And after the Cordelia model, I requested to model Faith, another shopkeeper in the game!

[save-the-spiral]

this might as well happen

Content warning for parental neglect, bullying, isolation, ableism.

Nolan grows up in Wizard City, actually. He grows up right there in his parents' estate on Cyclopes Lane. His parents are... distant. He doesn't catch on to how different they are to the other parents around Wizard City, not with how eccentric wizards can be.

His parents are not wizards. And to some that may be its own abnormality, but it's common enough in some worlds, and people just assume everyone has some level of magical schooling, at least the basics.

Nolan's parents rarely have time for him- they're busy, after all. Adults with jobs and responsibilities. (Nolan doesn't realize until much, much later, that he should have been one of those responsibilities.)

Nonetheless, there are moments Nolan and his parents shared. Nolan remembers his father unrolling maps, teaching him how to read them. Remembers his father grinning and pulling a compass from his pocket, telling him about how its needle always seeks north.

Nolan remembers a family dinner, a rare time when all three of them are seated at the uncomfortably large dining table in an uncomfortably large dining room. His mother offering him the glass she had in her hands, purple liquid sloshing against the sides with the movement. He remembers taking a timid sip, cringing away at the taste of overripe fruit and sugary syrup.

He remembers his parents laughing, sharing a look, and telling him that he'll come to like it with age as his mother takes her glass back, downing it in a manner most would call uncivilized.

The Stormgate name is a strange one. Most wizards create their names, taking on a title and giving it meaning. Some, the more accomplished, will be gifted a title and wear it with pride as their own name.

When Nolan asks his parents, a preteen just starting out at Ravenwood Academy, what the Stormgate name originated from, his father doesn't answer him. His father snaps at him that he's busy, damn it, go back to your little books and spells.

It only takes a few years of independence for Nolan to sate his own curiosity, to find half-answers to his questions. Thankfully his schoolwork gives him ample reason and excuse to wander about Wizard City and speak to all manner of people. When he asks the more elderly residents about when his parents settled in Cyclopes Lane, he gets answers.

"They arrived by ship like those Grizzleheim traders." Someone says.

"They must be from money, given the wealth they flaunt." A shopkeeper mutters.

"I remember, your father once tried to duel me when we argued at a bar!" An old man laughs. "Had a sword and everything!"

Of course when he asks the right questions, he gets the right answers.

His mother tells him that his father and her were once little more than mercenaries. That they came from a place where true magic is rare and practicing it can be a crime.

They came from a place where violence is the true order of things. They followed a map- call it a quest, dear, if it makes it easier for you to understand- and got the treasure, and left while they were ahead. Oh, surely, all of their companions must think them dead, lost at sea or simply never returning, but they were never that close.

The magical folk here know better than to ask questions, and Nolan can rest easily knowing all he must do is go to school and his family is set for life anyway, resting on their laurels and heaps of gold that lie in the cellars alongside caskets of strange purple alcohol.

The Stormgates were a pair of pirates who had found El Dorado, after all. Their son needs not worry about such things though, not when he has the easy life of a scholarly wizard ahead of him.

All he has to do is stop asking so many questions, when he surely won't enjoy the consequences.

It is a shame, then, that after a few years more of learning and being content with his answers, that Nolan's life is ruined.

When Sylvia Drake dies, when the Death School falls, when Bartleby's eye is stolen, when Malistaire Drake flees for unknown reasons, many people in Wizard City would very much enjoy having a scapegoat. Someone to point their fingers at as the suspect who isn't a respected professor, a poor widower. It is easier to have a person to blame than say this is caused by things outside of our control, by the vast intricate natural forces of the universe, by a strange illness that could not be cured.

There are many smaller problems that Malistaire's flight caused, after all. The flooding of the streets with monsters, no longer held back by simple sigils and boundaries.

Eventually the right word hits the wrong ear. Rumors spread. And Nolan is implicated in the sabotage that must have occurred to allow monsters into our homes.

He always was rude, after all. He was never truly social, never had real friends. He lorded his intelligence above all of us, maybe this is another way to ensure his superiority. He just isn't normal. He isn't like us. Don't you see the way he never truly smiles, never looks you in the eye?

Suspicious.

Nolan's parents react accordingly by disowning him. He is no longer worthwhile to keep around, not that they truly cared for having an heir anyway.

Everyone seems to turn their back on him, refusing to say explicitly why but never giving him the time of day nonetheless.

The few students he would consider acquaintances are busy, newly dubbed the teaching assistant of their school, or clearing other streets, ensuring the safety of younger students. None of them hear the rumors, or notice the isolation.

Nolan thinks he has no one. Nothing left.

The last nail in the coffin is when Professor Cyrus Drake ignores him as well. Nolan doesn't know that Cyrus is too consumed by grief to even care for a rumor, he can't possibly know that Cyrus thinks distancing himself from his students is the best way to keep them safe from his own anger at the loss of his brother and best friend.

Nolan leaves Wizard City. Everyone seems to want him gone anyway. He does so after raiding his parents' estate, stealing their maps and a couple pocketfuls of gold. He takes the ship in a bottle that sat on his mother's shelf in her study, feeling the magic inscribed in the glass.

He leaves Wizard City by ship.

Sure, he ends up crashing the ship and getting arrested by the Armada for 'witchcraft' when he fights back with magic, but he's doing his best. Getting busted out of a brig by an old pirate and his little monkey friend just seem par for the course on how ridiculously fucked his life is, now.

And when Captain Avery says he used to know Nolan's parents, isn't it such a shame they passed before their time, there's a knowing look in his eyes that Nolan finds himself resenting.

He takes Avery's deal nonetheless.

[rockislandadultreads]

Book Recommendations: More Gothic Fiction

Mrs. March by Virginia Feito

George March’s latest novel is a smash. No one could be prouder than his dutiful wife, Mrs. March, who revels in his accolades. A careful creature of routine and decorum, she lives a precariously controlled existence on the Upper East Side until one morning, when the shopkeeper of her favorite patisserie suggests that her husband’s latest protagonist - a detestable character named Johanna - is based on Mrs. March herself. Clutching her ostrich leather pocketbook and mint-colored gloves, she flees the shop. What could have merited this humiliation?

That one casual remark robs Mrs. March of the belief that she knew everything about her husband - and herself - thus sending her on an increasingly paranoid journey that begins within the pages of a book. While snooping in George’s office, Mrs. March finds a newspaper clipping about a missing woman. Did George have anything to do with her disappearance? He’s been going on a lot of “hunting trips” up north with his editor lately, leaving Mrs. March all alone at night with her tormented thoughts, and the cockroaches that have suddenly started to appear, and strange breathing noises... 

As she begins to decode her husband’s secrets, her deafening anxiety and fierce determination threaten everyone in her wake - including her stoic housekeeper, Martha, and her unobtrusive son, Jonathan, whom she loves so profoundly, when she remembers to love him at all.

The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon

When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives deeper into the research herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined. In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.

Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May

On Crow Island, people whisper, real magic lurks just below the surface. Neither real magic nor faux magic interests Annie Mason. Not after it stole her future. She’s only on the island to settle her late father’s estate and, hopefully, reconnect with her long-absent best friend, Beatrice, who fled their dreary lives for a more glamorous one. Yet Crow Island is brimming with temptation, and the biggest one may be her enigmatic new neighbor. Mysterious and alluring, Emmeline Delacroix is a figure shadowed by rumors of witchcraft. And when Annie witnesses a confrontation between Bea and Emmeline at one of the island's extravagant parties, she is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested, and the cost of illicit magic might be death.

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides 

Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike - particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens. Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge. Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld? When another body is found, Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything - including her own life.

[blushroom20]

What is Dead Estate?

Dead Estate is an isometric room based rougelite shooter. World generation is similar to Binding of Isaac; there are set biomes but room layouts are random. Clear the enemies in the room to move onto to the next. Don't take too long, or a powerful enemy will appear and chase you down!

You start with one weapon and you can find others as you explore. Alternately you can scrap those weapons for money you can spend at the store. The shopkeeper, Cordelia, is probably the most well known character from this game for... reasons. The plot of the game does focus a fair amount on her

There are a handful of playable characters to choose from; my personal favorites are Mumba and Digby (latter of which was seen in this meme I made). As well as the demo on Steam and itch.io, an older version of this game is available to play for free on Newgrounds.

[toilethamster]

123 Georgian Jobs

Because I made a list for fun out of the records I was transcribing & wanted to do something with it - these are all occupations done by the head of a household in 1780s England. Definitions are from the OED website.

Attorney

Auctioneer

Baker

Basket Maker

Blacksmith (works specifically with iron)

Bookseller

Brazier (works with brass)

Breeches Maker

Brewer

Burler (dresses cloth by removing knots and loose threads)

Butcher

Butler

Button maker

Cabinet Maker

Cardboard Maker

Cardmaker

Carpenter

Chaff Cutter

Chandler

Chimney Sweeper

Chinaman

Cloaths Shop

Clerk

Clock Maker (makes cards for preparing wool / playing cards)

Clothier (someone engaged in the cloth trade)

Cloth Jobber (a wholesaler of cloth)

Coal Miner

Cocker (a field labourer / involved in cockfighting)

Collar maker

Cooper (makes wooden vessels like casks / buckets / tubs)

Curate (often a parish priest)

Currier (dresses and colours tanned leather / transports packages and documents)

Cutler (makes / deals in / repairs cutting utensils)

Dairyfarmer

Dissenting Teacher (dissenters = Protestants not conforming to the Church of England)

Draper (a dealer in cloth)

Druggier (seller of drugs or medicinal substances)

Drysalter (dealer in chemical products)

Dyer (dyes cloth and other material)

Farmer

Fellmonger (deals in animal skins)

Fishmonger

Freestone Cutter (freestone includes some sandstone and limestone)

Gardener

Gate keeper

Gentleman

Gingerbread maker

Glazier (glazes windows)

Grocer (sells food and other household supplies)

Hailer (a slater / tiler)

Hair dresser

Handle Setter

Hatter (makes or sells hats)

Hat maker

Hay maker (often one engaged in lifting, tossing and spreading hay after it's mown)

Heaver (someone employed to lift goods)

Horse Driver

Horse jockey

Ironmonger

Labourer

Land Surveyor

Lath maker

Lawyer

Linen Draper (a trailer dealing in linens, calicos, etc)

Lockmaker

Malster (makes malt)

Mason (works with stone)

Mercer (deals in textile fabrics)

Midwife

Miller

Millwright (a person who designs / sets up / maintains mills)

Officer of Excise (overseas tolls and taxes)

Outrider (officer of an abbey or convent / a tradesman's travelling agent)

Paniter (in charge of the pantry & supplied the bread in an establishment)

Pattern Maker

Pedlar (an itinerant trader in small goods)

Perucke Maker (perucke = a skullcap covered with hair, a kind of wig)

Plaister (plasterer)

Plumber (works with lead / fits or repairs pipes)

Postboy (carries and delivers post)

Post Officer

Publican (owns or manages a public house or tavern)

Quilter

Ragman

Sadler (makes or deals in saddles)

Salter (manufacturer or dealer in salt)

Sargeant

Schoolmaster/mistress

Scribler (a writer, particularly one whose work is regarded as of low worth / a person employed to scribble wool)

Seaman

Servant

Shearman (one who shears metal / woolen cloth)

Shoemaker

Shopkeeper

Shuttlemaker (shuttle = an instrument used in weaving)

Skinner (one who removes the skin of a dead animal)

Smith (works with multiple kinds of metal)

Spinner

Spoon maker

Stocking maker

Stone Cutter

Supervisor (a person overseeing a task / someone appointed to supervise the execution of a will / official appointed to inspect highways)

Surgeon

Tallow chandler (makes or sells tallow candles)

Tanner

Taylor (tailor)

Thatcher

Tinman (works with tin)

Twistor (twisted yarns or threads)

Tyler (a tile-layer)

Tythingman (a tithe collector)

Waggoner (drives wagons)

Watch Maker

Weaver

Weaver of Tick (tick = strong hard linen or cotton material)

Wheelwright (males wheels and wheeled vehicles)

Whitesmith (makes articles from tin-plated iron)

Wire Drawer (draws metal into wire)

Woodstapler (grades and sells wood to manufacturers)

Woodward (officer of a wood or forest)

Wool-sorter

Writer

Yeoman (holds a small landed estate)

[jarofmag1c]

Cordelia my beloved ❤

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

Every video game character I share my name with (that I know of) is very gender I think. I mean you got Cordelia the Pegasus riding knight from Fire Emblem Awakening (even if they did write her to be obsessed with Chrom 🙄)

You got Cordelia the witch shopkeeper from Dead Estate. (I have never played this game and know nothing about it but I mean look at her)

And then you got Cordelia the Evil Goddess / Fairy Queen from Panel de Pon

I am in good company I think

[chartedrights]

FIC ASK GAME: Perfume and Poison

Okay so this took me awhile because it immediately conjured a very specific aesthetic and character cast that I had to like. Shove together.

Imagine, aesthetically, a Victorian city. Just post-industrial revolution, everything is smoke-stained and grey and vaguely horrifying. People are wearing just horrifying Victorian neon colors. Arsenic green. Vivid pinks and oranges. Due to the smoke, everyone is putting a very specific emphasis on perfume, as it’s one of the only ways to ward off the smell of smoke and poor hygiene.

Enter Charlotte. Having just been abandoned by her bastard husband for a woman almost half her age, she’s understandably upset. Disquieted. Inconsolable. Wearing mourning black and carrying around tear jars to collect her sobs. Her whole life Charlotte has been wearing a very particular perfume. Her mother wore it, and made her wear it, and Sam liked it, so she’s simply never stopped. Until now. Now she just needs something that won’t remind her of all the people who have left her. Roses aren’t comforting anymore.

So she decides to stop in at the strange little shop on the corner, the one nobody goes to unless they are well and truly desperate, the one that never closes and never opens. The woman at the counter offers no name, just sips her vodka delicately, blinks slow and snakelike at her customers.

“What do you want?” She asks in a blunt Russian accent, and Charlotte sniffles, because oh goodness, what does she want? Does she want her husband back? Does she want to find new love? Does she want her heart to be lightened? Does she want to be better at dancing or singing?

“I want....” and Charlotte pauses, something tired and furious rising up inside of her. “I want to ruin lives.”

“I can work with that,” the woman nods, thinking.

She gives her a vial of jasmine perfume, heady and decadent. It’s a beautiful, deep, nighttime scent that fills the air all around her and wards off smoke and grime like a shield. It also draws eyes to her, pulls every glance and glare and admiring look.

There’s a man, Ted, who she met at work. He’s sweet, in his way, and he always liked her, but something about the way he looks at her is different now. She tells him about Sam, about how cruel he was and how he left her. Ted kisses the backs of her hands and tells her not to worry.

He kills Sam that night.

Charlotte wishes she was more disturbed. She’s read stories like this, where the heroine is full of grief and learns her lesson. But Charlotte is no heroine. She is no ingenue. She asked to ruin lives, full of fury and rage, and she is still full of fury and rage. She meets a man named Gary, a local solicitor, and he seems just as smitten as Ted was, before they dragged him away to bedlam. She tells him about her landlord, how he looks at her in a way she doesn’t like, how he’s more than once implied that now that she’s alone she could pay in... other ways.

The next morning they find him dead- suicide, they say, and his will leaves his whole estate to Charlotte.

The third time Charlotte goes to see the shopkeeper again, and she smiles as Charlotte picks a tin of jasmine tea, asks for ten pence that she then swallows. Charlotte just smiles back, red lips like a warning sign, and there is a recognition there. A kindled kindred spirit between them.

The next day she wakes to find Sherman Young dead, his will also leaving everything to Charlotte.

She uses the money to fix up what needs fixing- roads, schools, orphanages, bridges and wells. She uses the massive, ornate manor to host about thirty formerly stray cats, each of whom is lovingly named after something deadly. Guillotine and Nepenthe, Arsenic and Arson, Strychnine and Cyanide. She has a beautiful menagerie of poisons, and each time she visits the Russian woman’s shop, she brings a cat to say hello.

The fourth time she wears the perfume, she visits the shop in the middle of the night, cloaked and hooded, and she asks the shopkeeper for the truth. The other woman stops smiling, blinks one long, slow, final time, and then beckons her to the back of the shop- past the books and scrolls, past the jars of spices and herbs, past the racks of bones and the boxes of teeth, past the dried bouquets and the eerily beautiful musical instruments- to the very back door, which leads out to a small, dark cobblestone alley. Charlotte steps out. The shopkeeper steps out, too, just a breath behind her. And then-

She presses Charlotte flat to the wall of the alley and kisses her, sharp and intense. She pulls away and whispers that her name is Tatiana, in a voice that pushes Charlotte’s breath from her lungs. Charlotte pushes back, kisses back, and there’s fire in her heart that was never there before. A kind of contented beast. Tatiana tells her, between heated, relieved kisses, that she is a demon. That she grants wishes. That she has only ever had one wish of her own. “You,” she whispers, lips grazing Charlotte’s. “I wanted to help you.”

“Why?” Charlotte breathes, half-smiling.

“You know why,” Tatiana whispers, and says no more.

Tatiana runs her shop. Charlotte collects stray cats and gives diamonds to flower girls. And every now and then, when she needs something taken care of, Charlotte will wear the jasmine perfume, and the night will claim another body.

Tatiana’s kisses taste the most like blood after those nights, but so does all love if you’re angry enough.

[ezekielbhandarivalleros]

Cooking

Pairing: Luke Harper and Leah Ironfurnace

Summary: Leah tries to cook a Meal for Luke

Rating - Appropriate for all ages

Taglist - @princess-geek @secretaryunpaid @schnitzelbutterfingers @cts-tj1@daddytyrilstarfury @choicesficwriterscreations

Within the swirling vortex of moving, meetings, and matrimony, the newly dubbed Leah Iron had very little time or even inclination to consider the mundane particulars of her soon-to-be-life. Upon arriving in Harper Manor , her primary energies had been spent on winning over the dour, suspicious faces of her beloved’s kinfolk, and, once achieved, had moved on to planning and preparing for her nuptials.

But several weeks into wedded bliss, after the church bells had faded into far-off echoes and the soft, pink petals of her bouquet had withered to brown, crunchy flakes, she knew it was time to get down to brass tacks: grocery shopping, laundering, sweeping floors, and cooking quaint, home-style dinners for Four.

Luke was quick to contest the final point. Rather vehemently.

“I didn’t marry you so you could become my servant!” he exclaimed. “I don’t need a maid, or a cook. Especially not a cook,” he said with a small shudder.

Leah looked confused. “Then what shall we eat? Shall you cook? Are we to hire a cook? Will we just go out for all our meals?” She frowned. “Won’t that get rather expensive?”

Her protestations rambled innocently along as Luke stood mute, struggling for answers. Little could his dear wife have known that the bulk of his modernity concerning the allotment of household tasks had little to do with progressive ideals and much with his unfortunate experience with her suspect and far from esculent cooking abilities. But at the moment, with Leah’s severe eyes demanding explanation, he knew the truth would never answer, and decided this clash of wills would best be resolved by flight. With one quick kiss to Leah’s cheek he fled hastily out the door, a weak “I’ll see you after I take care of some things, love!” issuing from his wake.

Leah huffed about as she cleared away the breakfast things, disregarding her husband’s concern and strange behavior. After all, he was just being silly! Almost insulting, really, thinking she, Leah Iron, could not get her hands good and dirtied. Stopping mid-scrub, she set the mug in her hand into the basin of sudsy water, gazing soulfully out the window with a rather bold profile. She was no longer the dainty miss of her youth, oh no! She was empowered. She was free. She Was Woman.

It was with this slogan in mind that she made her way to the local market that morning, traversing the loud and crowded lanes by herself for the very first time. Looped about her arm rested an adorable wicker basket with which she would carry home her purchases, much like the butcher’s wife or baker’s daughter she recalled from her adolescence, those capable woman who strode about Grantham village with aplomb.

Her first stop was at the vegetable stand, where with great care and little acumen she picked out a batch of semi-wilted green beans. Surely their lack of vibrancy must mean some kind of reduced cooking time, and it seemed perfectly acceptable to her mind to consider them as practically cooked already. Settling the bundle into her basket, she applauded herself for her foresight. Efficiency, yes, that was the key to being successful in this new life!

With considerable pluck she next elbowed her way through the roving masses towards the distinct sound of clucking. A half-lidded lady missing roughly three-quarters of her teeth stood behind a makeshift counter with several rows of caged birds squawking behind her.

“I’d like a chicken, please!” Leah sweetly requested, but with the authority of command hanging in her voice.

The purveyor dispelled a grunt and moved to fulfill the order. Sybil stood patiently by, expecting to be handed several pieces of neatly butchered and precisely trimmed meat, perhaps even already cooked – that would have been quite the bargain! – but with visible shock outlining her face was instead presented with an actual chicken.

Alive.

Not dead.

“Heavens!” Leah cried. “What ever am I supposed to do with this?”

The reply was as succinct as it was helpful:

“Kill it. Cook it. Eat it.”

Leah doled out the payment and hesitantly accepted her purchase, uncertainty clinging to her brow. She held the writhing beast aloft as far off from her person as her arms would enable her as it flapped furiously and its talons plunged painfully into the fleshy meat of her palm. Biting her lip, she worried over the first point of instruction.

Kill it.

“What do you mean kill it?” she tremulously asked. “Do you mean right here, right now? Am I to throw it against the wall? Crush it under my foot?” A less apathetic shopkeeper might have laughed or scoffed at such naivety, but the lady simply gave a sleepy smile as she retrieved the chicken from her confused customer. Leah leaned in, curious, when a sharp thwack sent her careening back, narrowly avoiding a direct hit with the lobbed off chicken head now sailing through the periphery of her vision.

The decapitated bird was promptly handed back to Leah, whose mouth hung open in a word of silent horror. A delayed spurt of blood erupted from the severed neck clenched in her fist, and over the gurgling sounds of gore and her own belated screams of dismay she could just discern a toothless, “That’ll cost you extra!”

The senior Mrs. Daly was known around the neighborhood for her small yet tightly run seamstress business which she operated out of her little house on Edgewater Estate. Punctuality was key to her success, and what kept her customers coming back time and time again. With only herself and her ten tired fingers to keep things running on schedule, she had little margin for error, and even less time to spend on a  dopey-headed daughter and her husband who serendipitously just happened to live a mere three blocks away – a perfect distance for dropping in whenever the bread refused to rise or lighting the stove became too much to bear.

She heard several petit knocks in the middle of bustling a wedding train, and opened the front door to see Leah bearing a sheepish look, a plethora of feathers sticking out of her lustrous, aristocratic hair.

Mrs. Daly pointed to a limp object weeping with blood.

“Dearie, is that a chicken you’ve got there?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” Sybil nodded seriously and lifted the pathetic beast to eye level. “You see I wanted…well, that is to say….I’m not quite sure…”

Mrs. Branson heaved a sigh.

“Come on inside, dearie, and we’ll get it cleaned up.”

There were feathers everywhere.

Peppering her hair, tickling her nose, troubling her tongue, and she was fairly certain that downy feeling beneath her stays had not been present five minutes ago. Indeed, the only area in which feathers could not be found was the now naked, glistening chicken corpse.

“Well that’s that,” Ms.Day declared. Leah sighed with relief. The ordeal was finally over. “Now for the butchering!”

A half hour later Leah’s apron was markedly more blood-splattered. Her face was splattered as well, though with a different substance: fat dollops of tears stained her face, rimming her eyes with the telltale signs of sorrow.

“I’m a healer, not a killer!” she wailed into the gizzards.

Mrs. Daly sighed – “You’re being dramatic again…” – and continued wrapping up the chicken portions in paper and placing them neatly into her  wicker basket. She shooed Leah out the door, and on her way back home Leah pondered the macabre turn of her day. If she’d known part of the requirements for living a common life would be becoming adept at portioning recently slain animal products she might have….

Leah stopped and took a mighty sniff, glancing down to the band on her left hand, the chain that would forever gird her to a life as a slaughterer. Well. It was far to late to consider that. She would just have to prove them and herself wrong. Yes, she would prove them all wrong!

And prove them wrong she did, six hours later and leaving behind her a path of destruction in what had once been called the kitchen. Piles of pots wobbled, brown splotches of grease speckled every vacant surface, and she prayed that the hazy layer of smoke circling above would dissipate by the time her husband arrived home. But despite all these drawbacks, there on the table sat a steaming hot supper, freshly prepared by her own hands with ingredients she purchased herself.

Now all she needed to do was wait. Wait and listen.

In due time she heard the familiar jangling of keys and jumped to her feet, assaulting her husband with vigor before he was barely through the door.

“Darling, look, look! Look what I’ve done!” Luke was immediately accosted by the sight of his wife, filthy, frantic-eyed and with trickles of dried blood adorning her once spotless frock.

With a crash the contents of his arms landed on the floor and he rushed forward, pulling her unwillingly into a chair.

“Are you all right?” he asked. Luke nodded.

“Yes.”

He placed a concerned hand over her brow.

“Are you feverish?”

“No.”

He stared intently into her eyes.

“Did someone attack you?”

“No, no, no! Don’t be silly, !” She shoved him away and rose again, gesturing to the chaotic splendor of their kitchen. “I’ve just been cooking dinner!”

Luke immediately relaxed – that explained everything – but was soon beset with a consuming dread. If she’d been cooking that meant soon they would be eating. The food she’d been cooking.

Luckily Luke had seen this scenario impending for some time, and had spent a good amount of his break time in front of the washroom mirror of his office, trying on new and hopefully sincere-looking expressions for the moment when a forkful of her hideous creations entered his mouth.

That moment was now nigh, and husband watched in trepidation as his portion was meticulously laid on a dish and set carefully before him, a pair of hawk like eyes trained expectantly on his face as he took his first, painful bite.

His fears were justified.

Leah’s “chicken” (he rather generously dubbed it) left much to be desired, such as seasoning, moisture, and the ability to be digested. Although the practice sessions had been helpful, Luke’s expressions were naturally incapable of displaying anything but the perfect truth of his feelings, and at the moment they spoke plainly of thorough disgust.

His mouth attempted to speak otherwise:

“It's…it’s really good.”

“Really?” she asked, aflutter.

He grimaced. “Really.” A few beats of silence passed wherein Luke stared anxiously at the plate, no other bites forthcoming. Leah’s joyous features began to wane.

“I’m not sure,” she said, her tone distrustful. “It seems as though you don’t really like it.”

“Well. You know. Chicken.”

“But I thought you loved chicken. Your mother went on and on about how it was your favorite and if I had any intention of being a good wife then I had best remember what you liked and –”

“Leah, please. That’s not what I meant. I only mean that…well…”

“You think it’s terrible, don’t you?” she asked quietly. Leah appeared petrified.

“I think you worked very, very hard.”

“And yet…and yet all my work was for nothing?” At this point she quickly shoveled a portion of her masterpiece into her mouth, only to instantly spit it out with a strangled noise. That noise was quickly followed by another, a hollow, dispiriting wail as the strong, the brave, the indomitable Leah Iron burst into an uncontrollable bout of tears.

“It’s terrible!” she wailed. “It tastes like old dishwater and it’s as dry as sand! Mrs. Daly said I’d never amount to much in the kitchen and she was right, she was absolutely right!”

What words could soothe such pitiful outpourings of melancholy? None that Luke could think of, and he found himself inexplicably in want for words, substituting vocal comfort with a sure hand that stroked fondly down her shaking back. Presently she mastered her emotions enough to look back up to him with a rueful smile, her kind eyes shining.

“I’m a failure, aren’t I?” she asked in surrender. Luke had never before seen his Leah look so defeated, and this time was fully capable of summoning a defense.

“Of course you’re not! I’m not going to sugar coat things. You did fail, quite grandly, at cooking dinner.” He cupped her chin and smiled. “But it doesn’t make you a failure.”

“I know you’re right.” She wrestled away from his grasp and smeared the last of the drops in her eyes against her sleeve. “And of course I won’t get everything just so right away…but I’m not ignorant. I know what they must be saying about me back home, and what they’re saying about me here, and I wanted so desperately to show them…I don’t even know what, but I wanted to show them something.”

“You’re here, with me. You went to the market and bought food and butchered a chicken. That’s so much more than anyone would think you capable. And maybe it’s not perfect, but you’ll get there in time. And in the meantime we’ll just have to make do.”

She shook her head. “But how?”

Luke patted her hand and rose from his chair with that familiar, infuriating smirk.

“I’ve been a bachelor for most of my life. I don’t promise to be a whizz in the kitchen but I’m not completely useless, either.” And a fair sight more useful than you, he added, but with the foresight to do so silently. Rummaging through the icebox for a few moments, he emerged with several white, oval shaped objects, and grinned.

“How would you like some eggs?”

[damien-ward]

No Honor Among Thieves

(Vibe Music)

Stormwind City, approximately 10 years in the future..

Hands moved to push civilians out of the way, or as best they could given the petite stature of the hooded figure that pushed them as they ran past in a hurry.

“Stop! Stop that thief!” Shouted a man standing outside of his shop. The nearby guards perking up and quickly looking at the man and then in the direction the shopkeeper was pointing, leading their eyes to the hooded figure in the long black coat running away. The guards moved as quickly as they could as they jumped into action and began chasing after the culprit.

Bright blue eyes went wide as the hooded figure looked over their shoulder to see several of the guards suddenly giving chase, their heart then suddenly beginning to race even more than it already was. Picking up their pace they maneuvered through the crowd with haste while citizens moved out of the way for the guards allowing them to gain ground. The thief then cut hard and ran into an alleyway sprinting at full speed. Reaching the end and exiting back onto a street on the other side, guards not far behind, the hooded figure turned and continued sprinting until finding another alleyway to run down in hopes of losing their pursuers. 

“Hurry this way!” Came the shouts from behind.

Entering another alleyway the thief came to an abrupt stop as they quickly realized it was a dead end. Frantically looking around they heard the footsteps of the guards fast approaching and just then noticed a stack of boxes and barrels. As they ran and jumped up the boxes the guards entered the alleyway yelling to halt, the hooded figure then used their foot to push off the wall while they jumped to grab a window sill. All the guards rushed forward reaching up to attempt to grab the thief’s leg or coat only to fail once as the thief continued to climb up the building using careful precise movements.

Looking down over their shoulder the thief smirked, despite their face being concealed by a scarf. seeing the guards dumbfounded, all the years climbing ship masts was paying off. 

“Quick, summon the gryphons!” One of the guards ordered before another began to whistle.

By this point the thief had reached the top of the building, pulling themselves up before beginning to run again across the rooftop carefully watching their step as not to slip and fall. Fortunately the buildings in this section of the city were close enough that it was relatively easy to hop rooftops, however the sight of the gryphons flying over to pick up their riders down on the street quickly put a damper on any feeling of hope of escape. Especially once the gryphons dove down past the rooftops, it would be a matter of moments before the guards were airborne and outrunning them would be impossible.

Sprinting across the rooftop the thief was running out of real estate, but directly across from the roof was another building, it was too far to jump to the roof of the other building.. but the wide open window a few feet below? 

Clenching their jaw the thief made a split second decision. It was now or never. Escape or be caught. Running at full speed the thief used every bit of strength in their body as they reached the edge of the roof to push off and jump sending them flying through the air. 

Time seemed to stand still as the thief flew through the air for what felt like an eternity, their arms stretching out, and mentally saying a prayer to Elune that they make it. Icy blue eyes went wide as they cleared the window and came crashing into the room of the building. The thief’s feet slammed onto the floor and carried them forward from the momentum of the jump causing them to run into a bed and roll across it  before rolling off and ramming into the wall on the other side. The now intruder letting out a loud grunt upon impacting the wall with their shoulder and back before falling to the ground.

Breathing heavy the thief looked up to see the face of a woman in utter shock while holding a dress over her body, using the wall they pushed up to stand, “Sorry! Didn’t mean to intrude.” The thief spoke in a clear feminine voice with a heavy Gilnean accent before moving to exit the room before the woman could respond.

Exiting the room the Gilnean thief looked to her left and right to get her bearings, the room she came from was at the end of a hallway so she proceeded towards the other end as fast as possible as to not make the owners panic by lingering around. At the other end of the hall she found a few more rooms where one had a window leading to what looked like an alleyway, and that was exactly what she wanted. Moving hastily into the room she shut the door and locked it, she figured the owners had a key to unlock it later and didn’t want them to follow her or try to stop her. The blue-eyed thief opened the window and climbed up and out, using careful placements of her hands and feet to scale down the building into the dark alley, it was the perfect cover for the time being.

Jumping down to the ground she let out a sigh and moved quickly. She pulled her hood back causing wavy black hair to fall to her shoulders, and then removed her coat turning it inside out revealing a white lining making the once black coat now a long white coat. She then slipped her arms back into the armholes and briefly winced from pain in her shoulder, clearly from her collision with the wall, as she pulled the coat back on. The Gilnean thief then reached into her pocket and pulled out a ribbon before running her hands through her hair and pulling it up into a ponytail. Finally, she removed the scarf she was using as a mask revealing the complexion of someone who had not seen more than sixteen winters, she then wrapped it around her waist and tied it to make a belt.

She caught her breath for a few seconds as she moved towards the edge of the alley and peeked out to see if any guards were near. The coast was clear, just a crowd of people walking by, the perfect camouflage. As the group strolled by the young Gilnean thief walked out of the alley and followed behind them, not close enough to be suspicious but close enough that she looked part of the group. She also reached into her little bag on her waist and pulled out a small book, opening it to make it look as if she were reading as she walked along.

The young Gilnean looked over shoulder and swallowed as she continued walking, her breathing had slowed, but her heart was still racing. No guards were visible on the street but overhead the guards circled on their gryphons seemingly unaware of who she was. And she wanted to keep it that way.

Casually walking behind the group of civilians she followed them until she reached the tunnel leading out of the Trade District and finally decided to split from their group and headed towards Old Town to make her way to her final destination. To return the item she stole to its rightful owner. Once she knew she was clear of the Trade District she walked with a purpose to make her way to the area around the Stormwind Embassy where she knew she’d find the owners of the item.

She arrived to find them, two Night Elven women, where she expected, admiring the lake and the beauty of the water as the sun shined across it at this time of day. As she drew closer she pulled out the item she was returning, a small purple brooch of Kaldorei design with silver trim and what looked like a glaive attached to it, and fiddled with it in her hand. 

Hearing the girl approach the two Kaldorei women turned to face her puzzled to see her again. Last time they had seen her they had just been shaken down for any valuables by a group of thugs and the Gilnean girl had happened to come across them and try to console them as best she could after they told her what had happened.

“Hi.. I, uh, I have something of yours.” She spoke softly in Darnassian, not perfectly especially with her accent but well enough, and then held the brooch out to the two of them.

Both of the women’s eyes went wide seeing the brooch they had thought lost forever, one of them bringing a hand to their face in total shock. “Where did you get this? How?” One finally asked, also speaking in Darnassian, while the other was still speechless.

“I... bought it from a merchant.” The Gilnean lied.

The two women stepped forward to take the brooch and look it over, the one who had asked the questions began to get teary-eyed as she brought the brooch up to her chest. “This belonged to my mother when she was a Sentinel. You have no idea how much this means to me.. Thank you.” The woman stepped forward and bent down wrapping her arms around the Gilnean girl.

She didn’t resist and returned the gesture in kind. Once the two separated she nodded and smiled, “Well my work here is done and I need to get home. I hope you two stay safe.” moving to walk away she watched as the woman stared down at the brooch once more with a warm smile on her face. 

“Wait, we never got your name?” The speechless Kaldorei finally spoke up.

“Celina Ward.” She responded walking backwards while waving.

“We will remember this kindness, Celina. May Elune guide your path.” The woman responded and they both waved to the girl as she left.

With a smile on her face Celina decided it was time to head home, that was enough excitement for one day.

(I know I am getting ahead of myself here but I figured it would be fun to write a little bit about Dard’s daughter when she is older. )

[homenum-revelio-hq]

THE WAR RAGES ON...

The appearance of Lord Voldemort unsurprisingly unleashes even more chaos in the streets of Diagon Alley, but as more and more people Apparate to safely, their absence leaves little but dust and smoke to float quietly in the air. The Alley is left with an eeriness as Order members find themselves moving to various locations, many to the safehouses belonging to the organization. 

Those that find themselves at the Potter Estate see a similar scene to what they’d left. But the battle does not last long. Soon, Voldemort has had his way with Dorcas Meadows and Annalise Fawley and calls his loyal servants back to him.

The destruction at the house is palpable. A chandelier was broken thanks to Remus Lupin not too far outside the infirmary, which looks like it’s gone through an explosion. Inside, bloodstains litter the floors from one Emmeline Vance, whom Benjy Fenwick managed to transfer to the McKinnon Farm. Emmeline’s life was saved thanks to help from Benjy and Severus Snape. 

While the explosions in Diagon Alley had been used at least in part as a distraction for the attack on the Potter Estate, that doesn’t mean the damage wasn’t real. Florean Fortescue died in Sirius Black’s arms, a target of the Dark Lord’s attack due to Fortescue’s general speaking-out against Voldemort’s cause. Sirius thought he recognized the spell used as Severus Snape’s sectumsempra spellwork.

Lucinda Talkalot, after witnessing the destruction of her uncle’s shop, joined the ranks of the Order via an accidental trial-by-fire initiation when Lily Evans brought her to the Potter Estate, only to encounter more Death Eaters. While Lucinda’s uncle did not perish in the fray, his shopkeeper Verna died on impact of the explosion. Rumors speculate that she may have been the target.

Also in Diagon, Ainsley Abbott, in silver mask, lifted a jinx off Artem Tremblay’s eyes then ran back into the fight on the side of the Death Eaters, while Branwen Yaxley carved up a Death Eater (later discovered to be Thorfinn Rowle) like a Christmas ham. Artem was able to convince Branwen to let them play with their prey and bring her next target (Alcott Avery) back to the House of Bones for interrogation. 

Lu Travers protected Charlie Weasley from being tortured by Eleanora Avery, taking the Cruciatus in the child's place. After confirming the stunned Eleanora as the Death Eater, Caradoc Dearborn wiped her memory and sent Lu to "the safe house," where they stumbled into the battle and fought alongside the Order, albeit taking care to prevent the Death Eaters from making note of their allegiance.

Regulus Black, over the ineffectual protests of Gideon Prewett, captured and murdered Death Eater Julian Selwyn to prevent his “miraculous” survival from being exposed to the rest of the Death Eaters.

Mundungus Fletcher found a list of dates that had been taken from Nott Manor on the night James Potter died. He showed it to Amelia Bones and, together, they discovered that date of the explosion was right on top. 

It will likely take weeks to sort-through and repair all the damage in Diagon Alley, and even longer before some people feel safe shopping there again -- and of course, the dead cannot be revived -- and as for the Potter House, it is hard to say what will happen with no proper master left to care for it. One thing is for sure, though: this attack on the very heart of wixen London is going to bring the reality of the war home to many people who thought themselves safely insulated before. This is the sort of wound to the spirit of a community that will not soon heal.

DETAILS.

The Death Eater list will be updated to include the changes reflected from this event.

The Potter Estate has been compromised and is no longer safe. Think about what this might mean for your character.

Peter Pettigrew had given up the location and helped get the Death Eaters through the wards. At this time, only a handful of Order members (Severus Snape and Regulus Black) suspect it to be him, but this may change as the plot progresses.

The above notes of what happened during the event is not everything that was on the dash. Admins chose certain plot points to highlight, as they will be most likely to effect the overarching plot moving forward. If you believe something is missing, please IM the admins through discord and we will edit this post as necessary. 

You may now begin paras set after March 21st. Threads set during the event or prior to March 21st can still be continued, with new threads being kept to a minimum.

[drowning-in-dennor]

Dear Friend Of Mine

Linnea is on the run from her feelings, but an accident at the pub she escapes to forces her to confront the emotions she has been hiding from for a long time. [Written for @nordipalooza with the prompts of Denmark and Norway, 1800s and “promises”, as well as @dennorweek with the prompt of “royalty”.] [This work contains mentions of homophobia.]

  A braver person might’ve shouted.

  They might’ve thrown things around, screamed to the sky, let everyone around them know of their anguish. But Linnea has never been brave; she’s never been one to let people see past her indifferent mask; she’s nothing short of a coward. So she didn’t shout.

  She ran.

  There isn’t even anything to flee from, nothing but the image of the tearstained letter from her mother, informing her that her younger sister was trampled underfoot by a carriage last month and is barely hanging on to life; nothing but the nonchalance of the Countess when she gave her the letter, concern absent from her expression because it isn’t her little sister on the brink of death. But Linnea runs, shoes clicking against the rough cobblestone roads, to a shelter she cannot find.

  The hem of her skirts are already soaked after a few moments of running, and she’s not even that far from the estate. She doesn’t know where she’s going, or what she’s going to do. There is no way she can go home; she doubts she has the courage to face her injured sister. Linnea presses her hat to her head and trudges on, unaware of the people milling around her.

  After who-knows-how-long, she finds herself standing in front of a pub, filled to the brim with shouting drunkards and the sound of glasses clinking together. She slips inside, pulling her cloak tighter around herself, and tries not to gag at the putrid smell of sweat and regurgitation. After a few moments of pushing around the other customers, Linnea finds a small, unoccupied table at the corner of the pub and sits down there, shivering despite the heat. 

  She is too tired to cry. Her feet ache from walking, and though the knowledge that her sister could be dead, and that she wouldn't know until - if - the Countess called her in and told her tears her apart inside, somehow she cannot find the energy to shed tears because of it. Drunken screeching fills her ears, makes her head ache, but Linnea's eyelids droop despite the ruckus, and she drifts off to a fitful sleep.

  When she awakes, she is not alone. Next to her, squeezed haphazardly onto the seat, is a young woman dressed simply in a plain gown. Linnea rubs her eyes, preparing to deliver an icy retort, when she catches sight of the woman's face. The sparkling sapphire-blue eyes and elegantly-styled blonde hair are almost identical to the Countess'; this is surely her daughter sitting with her.

  At the estate, though, Lady Maren is almost always dressed extravagantly, draped in jewels and bright, patterned fabrics. To see her in a commoner's clothes at the corner of a stinking pub is peculiar, to say the least. Linnea sits up a little straighter and shuffles deeper into her seat, praying that Maren doesn't see her.

  Then Maren turns her head and looks right at her.

  She flails for words, for an excuse as to why she was asleep in a pub when she should be in the library tidying shelves. But Maren speaks first. "You shouldn't fall asleep in places like this, you know. Many a savage has taken advantage of a sleeping lady."

  Linnea knows the things that have happened to ladies in her position - theft, kidnapping, assault and much, much worse. Her hands fly to her pocket, her skirts. Maren laughs. "Nobody's done anything to you. I made sure of it." She holds up a thick wool blanket that is thankfully clean-looking. "Doesn't mean you can't go back to sleep, though. Look, I got you something."

  Still saying nothing, Linnea can only stare apprehensively at Maren and the blanket she is offering. This could be trap, could be the Countess ordering her daughter to catch the estate librarian off-duty.

  Maren laughs again. "You'll be safe, I promise. My brother's right over there, see?" She points at a tall young man, neat golden hair poking out over the sea of intoxicated heads. "If I shout, he'll be here to protect us."

  Cautiously, Linnea inches towards Maren, allows her to drape the blanket over her shoulders. It smells of cinnamon. Before she can thank her, Maren wraps an arm around her and pulls her flush against her side. Linnea's head rests against the crook of the Lady's neck, and she can smell her flowery perfume. It makes her dizzy. 

  "Rest easy, Linnea," she hears Maren whisper. "I'll watch over you."

  When she awakes for the second time, Linnea's shoulder aches, and she feels warm. As her eyes flutter open, she takes in the sight of Maren, who is still watching over her attentively. Her arm is still around her waist, firm and grounding. "Ah, our Sleeping Beauty is awake," she teases. "And it didn't even take a kiss."

  She cannot know. They have exchanged many a conversation while Maren was tending to her studies in the library, and they have pored over books together, leaning in so close they could see the details of each other's faces, but she simply cannot know of Linnea's inclination. Linnea rubs her eyes and sits up, flexing her shoulders. The bar is still rowdy, but the young Lord Oxenstierna is nowhere to be seen.

  "Berwald's gone home already," Maren supplies. "I told him I'd walk you home when you woke up."

  The blanket falls off her shoulders as she sits up, still drowsy and placid from Maren's warm, welcoming embrace. "'m sorry," she mumbles, "I shouldn't have made you wait for me."

  "Oh, no, dearie, I wanted to wait for you." Maren folds the blanket neatly and helps her to her feet. "What kind of person would I be if I didn't help a fellow lady?" As they leave the pub, Maren's arm still protectively around her, she adds, "as long as my mother doesn't hear about this, all will be well."

  The sky is dark outside, lit up by only a few lamps that illuminate the roads. Carriages rumble across the streets, the passengers inside safe and warm. A few beggars call out for spare change. They walk. 

  After a few moments of silence, strolling past shopkeepers closing their stores, a few men scurrying home, Maren repeats, "my mother will hear nothing about tonight. Not about us going to the pub, or Berwald following us, or how you fell asleep." Her arm is still around Linnea's waist. "She won't hear about our..." she cannot find the words for it. "Yes."

  "Our?"

  "Yes, ours. My mother will be mystified as to why I grow up a spinster." She delicately steps over a puddle on the road. "Better for her to wonder than to know that I think of women."

  The knowledge that she is not alone sends a wave of relief crashing through Linnea. But then she notices a police officer patrolling across the street, and she signals for Maren to stop right beneath a flickering street lamp. With a cautious glance at the officer, she leans in close and whispers, "what do you think would happen if a peeler caught us like this?"

  "If a what?"

  "A police officer. Do you think they would arrest us like they do the gents? Throw us before court, accuse us of sodomy, buggery and a hundred other terrible crimes; call us all sort of horrible names? Then, as a final blow, perhaps they would throw us into prison for years." 

  Maren turns to face her, cups her cheek tenderly. It is as though she has not heard a thing Linnea said. "It's terribly unfair, but we are lucky compared to the gentlemen." Her thumb strokes Linnea's cheekbone, the gesture so sweet that her breath catches in her throat and her heart flutters. "If somebody were to catch me doing this, I could simply say that we are very close friends."

  Linnea's face feels hot. "Friends," she repeats.

  "Only the most intimate friends." Maren winks and pulls her hand away, resuming her hold around Linnea's waist. "And surely the police cannot accuse two ladies of being acquainted."

  She cannot help laughing out loud, though she certainly will not be laughing if a police officer does get suspicious of them. Linnea makes sure that there are no other officers around before leaning in to Maren's embrace, feeling warm and giddy and perhaps a little in love.

  When they reach the estate, Maren pulls her arm away, and though Linnea longs for her to hold her all the way until she has to return to her quarters, she knows that the Countess would throw a fit if she saw them so close. Maren has to enter through the main door, while Linnea goes indoors through the servant's one. At the gates, Maren smiles at her, lowering her voice so that the doormen don't hear her, "not a word about this will go to anyone. I promise."

  Practically tingling from Maren's touch and wishing for some magical, impossible world where they could hold hands and maybe live together one day without people telling them that their love is terribly, terribly wrong, Linnea nods quietly. She can only reply with a quiet, "thank you."

  "For what?"

  "For taking care of me at the pub, and walking me home." She wants to kiss Maren, but surely there are people watching. "And... and for being a very good friend."

  "My pleasure." Maren smiles, looking ever so beautiful even though her face is half-shrouded in darkness. Linnea's cheeks burn. "Goodnight, Linnea."

  "Goodnight." Linnea slips into the manor, careful not to run into the housekeeper, and tries not to feel guilty over something that cannot be wrong.

...

  The next time Maren manages to talk to Linnea personally is one week later, as she is rushing to pack all her belongings into her battered suitcase. Before any questions can be asked, Linnea supplies, while balancing two stacks of books, "your mother has let me take the rest of the month off to see my sister, which I have yet to believe is actually happening. But I've earned enough working here that I may not need to return at all." She lays the books in her suitcase, squashing her small assortment of clothes, and turns to gather more of her things. "I can afford to pay off the doctor who treated Sula and still have enough for the four of us to live comfortably. I could finally settle down and be a writer."

  She does not miss the slightly crestfallen expression on Maren's face. "Will you?"

  "I don't know." Linnea gathers the writing materials on her desk, delicately placing the ink bottle and her box of pens, as well as a thin stack of paper, at the top of her suitcase. "On one hand, your library is truly impressive, and I would miss it greatly. On another, working as the estate librarian has made my eyes and back sore; if I have to shelve another stack of books, I will kill somebody." She sighs. "But I have the next week and a half to decide."

  "It'd be most unfortunate if you didn't at least visit."

  Linnea closes her suitcase and sits on it in an attempt to wedge it closed. "If I visited, I'm sure the rest of the staff here would be plotting to murder me. You're the only one in the entire estate who can remotely tolerate me."

  Maren sits down next to her on the suitcase and the thing creaks. "I wouldn't use the word 'tolerate'." She shifts closer, hand brushing Linnea's. "Perhaps 'adore' would be more appropriate."

  Thankfully, her door is closed and their conversation will not be heard by any staff members walking along the corridor outside. Linnea stands up and buckles her suitcase, brushing dust off her skirt. "If I do not return for work, I will definitely visit. The library here is honestly too good to be away from for long."

  "That's why you'd visit?" Maren stands up as well, and takes Linnea's hand. She laces their fingers together, pressing her thumb to Linnea's swift pulse. "Just to read books? Not to visit your friend?"

  Her friend. Not her lover, for the world is not kind to two ladies in love. Linnea squeezes Maren's hand. "All right, I'd visit to see my friend as well.

  Shoes click in the corridor outside. Maren's personal maid calls for her. She will be at the door soon, to sweep her away from Linnea and place her firmly back into her hectic schedule. 

  She's closer now. Maren throws one furtive glance at the door, pulls Linnea close and kisses her.

  It is quick, nothing more than a quick brushing of lips with the ever-present fear that they will be caught. Maren's lips taste of the tea she had with her breakfast, and as she pulls away, Linnea finds herself yearning for another kiss.

  The maid is only a few seconds away. Maren traces Linnea's lips with her thumb, and says reverently, "I hope I'll see you soon...

  "My dearest friend."

[olympedupuget]

Gif Request Meme - A Musical of my Choice + a Villain:  Artois and Orléans

↳ Requested by @fallenidol-453

Philippe Égalité: The only legitimate son of the Duc d’Orléans, a prince du sang from birth, Philippe was a very unlikely revolutionary. And yet Philippe showed a strong level of compassion for the lives of the lower class, going down a coal shaft to see the conditions faced by miners, pulling a groom of his from a river with his own hands, and providing shelter for the poor during the bitter winter of 1788-89. 

He was noted for his extravagant lifestyle; a noted lover of racehorses, gambling, architecture, his various and assorted mistresses, and all things English. Despite being the richest man in France, with a truly astronomical income, he nonetheless found himself frequently in debt. That was the impetus for him to totally redesign the Palais Royal over the course of two and a half years, opening it up to shopkeepers and establishing it as a major area for counter revolutionary activity, with the police being banned from intervening. As such, an overwhelming feeling of liberty prevailed there, with people from all social classes gathering to observe the spectacles and walk along the gardens there. 

There was a certain amount of hostility to be expected between the two branches of the Bourbon family, going as far back as the first Duc’s tempestuous relationship with his brother, Louis XIV. Still, the relationship between Louis XVI and Philippe gradually deteriorated over time, despite several attempts to patch things up. Orléans blamed Louis for the loss of his naval career, with the controversial Battle of Ushant in 1778 being a major breaking point in their relationship. In 1788, he spoke up at a “Royal Sitting” where Louis tried to press the Parliament into obeying his will, saying “Sire, this appears to be illegal.” Louis responded, “It is legal, because I wish it to be so.” Orléans spent the next five months in a comfortable exile at his estate, and he returned more popular than ever. 

When the Estates General was called, Orléans sided with the Third Estate, taking his place with the other delegates rather than sitting with the Royal Family as his rank entitled him to. His name was consistently brought up alongside revolutionary activity, with his bust being paraded alongside Necker’s on July 12, 1789, when the rash charge of the Prince de Lambesc into the Tuilleries heightened the people’s fears over an armed crackdown of Paris. It would be in the Palais Royal where Camille Desmoulins would jump on a table and call the people to arms, and even though the exact impact of that statement’s been disputed, the fact that Palais Royal was a huge locus point for revolutionary activity never has been. 

Among the royalists, it was popularly thought that Orléans was behind the entire Revolution, masterminding the Storming of the Bastille, the Women’s March to Versailles, a famine, and various and assorted other disturbances, in lieu of believing that the common people themselves were discontent. However, the sources nearest and dearest to Philippe suggest that he had no intention of seizing power, and Philippe’s own action of going and staying in England at Lafayette’s suggestion between October 1789 and July 1790, when he had a strong chance of fighting back against the charges and seizing power for himself by riding off the highest point of his popularity, strongly indicates that he had no intention of seizing the throne for himself. Overall, while he was a man of undeniable courage, the popular consensus is that he was, by nature, too passive to do it on his own, generally being very diffident to those near him such as his former mistress and longtime friend, Madame de Genlis, as well as her rival for his attention, Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos, and generally disinterested in long-form plans, preferring to throw himself into whims. It is far more likely that, if a plan existed to make Philippe king, it came from one of those brains, as opposed to anything Philippe himself considered in any detail. 

He did, however, become embittered over the increasingly chilly reception he received at Versailles, including one occasion where a courtier shouted “Do not let him touch the wine!” when he entered, with him then being spat on as he made his leave. 

In the latter half of 1792, Philippe faced a bevy of problems, both personal and political, as his long-suffering wife had filed for a separation, his daughter was put on a list of émigrés and was forced to leave the country very shortly after arriving (after Madame de Genlis, who he had instructed to take her back before her name could be added, lingered for too long, causing a final breakdown in their long relationship), his popularity was rapidly fading, and he had been called, as a Deputy of the National Convention, to sit at the trial of his cousin. According to one anecdote, found in William Cooke Taylor’s Memoirs of the House of Orléans, it was in that particular maelstrom that he changed his name, as a last ditch effort to save his daughter and prove his loyalty to the Revolution, to Philippe Égalité. Many options were considered for him to not sit the trial, and there is no reason to believe, despite the long-lasting enmity that the two of them had, that Philippe, when he went to sleep the night before the trial of Louis began on December 26, that he had any idea that when it came time to give the verdict on January 14-15, he would vote “yea,” a decision that shocked the entire room, not the least Louis himself. Perhaps it was a last ditch effort to save himself, perhaps he felt pressured to do it by everyone else in the room, perhaps in that moment he truly believed that Louis’ actions merited the death penalty. It’s impossible to truly know, but in the end that one decision, more than anything else, has defined his legacy. 

However, the Royalists would soon be able to find some comfort, as, on the 4th of April 1793, his son, Louis-Philippe, Duc de Chartres, defected along with General Dumouriez, and Philippe’s enemies had the ammunition they needed.

On 7 April, 1793, he was arrested and sent to Fort Saint-Jean in Marseilles, along with two of his sons. Throughout his imprisonment, Philippe kept up an optimistic front, constantly reassuring his sons, the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais, on the rare occasions he was allowed to speak to them after they were separated, that everything would turn out well, even expressing optimism about his trial in Paris. Whether this was real or simply an attempt at keeping up morale will never be known, but on November 2, 1793, he was sent back to Paris, to be imprisoned in the Conciergerie. He was tried on the 6th and, at his own request not to prolong things any longer than necessary, he was executed on that same day. By all accounts, he met his death courageously, his composure only threatening to break when the cart he was in stopped in front of the Palais Royal, so that he could very clearly see the sign on it that said it was now national property. His last words were to stop the assistants at the guillotine from taking off his boots, saying “You are losing time, you can take them off at a greater leisure when I am dead.” 

Unlike his royal cousins, his body was never found, and to this day, he is generally considered as one of the great villains of the Revolution in media associated with it, though none of the serious charges against him (the October Days being prime) were ever proven.

Charles X- For most of his younger years, like his older cousin, Charles’ defining quality was his wild life, which was punctuated by multiple love affairs, copious gambling and alcohol, and even more copious debts, with his brother, Louis XVI, somewhat reluctantly paying the bills. He also had a close friendship with his brother’s wife, who he shared a love of high living with, the two of them often being seen together at the theatre and balls. This close friendship was much remarked upon, with Artois being a frequent subject of the pornographic pamphlets that circulated about the queen, along with Marie Antoinette’s favorite, Madame de Polignac. In the years preceding and following the Revolution, however, the two of them gradually cooled, with their later relationship being marked by political disagreements. Charles consistently pressured his brother into more conservative stances during the meeting of the Estates General, arguing against doubling the Third Estates’ representation and conspiring to get rid of Louis’ liberal finance minister, Jacques Necker. The dismissal of the Necker would end up being one of the leading causes for the Storming of the Bastille, with Charles’ temporary personal victory being quickly eclipsed by the blaze that the little spark of Revolution had turned into. In the days immediately following the Storming of the Bastille, Artois was ordered to emigrate by his brother, along with the rest of his family.

He wouldn’t see France again for decades, going from court to court in Europe asking for help and trailed by a small army of creditors (who would become some of his most frequent companions, the avid huntsman only being able to go out riding at his estate at Holyrood on Sundays, when his creditors would be unable to pursue him), but with very little materializing, even less of which was successful, with the Battle of Quiberon being particularly disastrous to any hope of a royalist win by military might. Instead, he set up his main residence in London, with his mistress, Louise de Polastron, sister-in-law of Madame de Polignac, upon whose death he swore a vow of celibacy, the former playboy becoming sober and religious in his later years. The family briefly returned to France in May 1814, with the exile of Napoleon to Elba, however his later escape and mustering of the troops led to them leaving the city in February 1815, only able to fully establish themselves back in the country shortly after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Upon his brother, the Comte de Provence’s ascension to the throne as Louis XVIII (the space between XVI and XVIII being taken up by Charles’ young nephew, Louis-Charles, who died in prison and therefore never ruled), Charles became known as a leading member of the Ultra Royalist faction, who were, as the name suggests, “More Royalist than the king.” His brother dying without a male heir, Charles took the throne in 1824, though his highly conservative policies following his more tolerant brother’s reign made him highly unpopular with the public. 

In 1830, he was forced to abdicate. His intent had been for the throne to go to his young grandson, however, it would go to Louis-Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, the son of Philippe Égalite (who would himself end up being deposed.) He spent the remainder of his life similarly to how he spent his exile, traveling from place to place, hounded by debtors.

 Eventually, he would die in Austria, on 6 November 1836, 43 years to the day of his revolutionary cousin’s execution. 

Sources: 

The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow: Gabriel Banat

A French King at Holyrood: Alexander John Mackenzie Stuart

The Journalists and the July Revolution in France: The Role of the Political Press in the Overthrow of the Bourbon Restoration 1827–1830: Daniel Rader

Memoirs of the House of Orléans: William Cooke Taylor

The Perilous Crown: France Between Revolutions, 1814-1848: Munro Price

Prince of the blood : being an account of the illustrious birth, the strange life and the horrible death of Louis-Philippe Joseph, fifth duke of Orleans, better remembered as Philippe Egalite: Evart Seelye Scudder

Revolutions in the Western World 1775–1825: Jeremy Black, ed.

[animal-crossing-but-for-class]

Animal Crossing is a Japanese Game, but Here’s How it’s Obvious

The Animal Crossing series as a whole has always contained explicit elements of Japanese culture through its characters and collectibles. Three of its most famous characters, Tom Nook, Timmy, and Tommy, are Tanuki. The Tanuki are sort of raccoon-dogs in Japanese folklore known for their wealth and for the ability to transform items into Tanuki leaves. Tom Nook started the series as a shopkeeper but has stepped up in recent titles as a real estate salesman, giving his shop to Timmy and Tommy. In each game, your character owes debt to Tom Nook and is able to buy items, which are represented by leaf icons in your inventory, at his shop, Nook's Cranny. Your character can sell each and every item they get to the shop and it never runs out of money.

Another famous character in Animal Crossing is Kappa, who is a Kappa. A Kappa is a creature in Japanese folklore which, as children, warn human children about the dangers of the water. As adults, they can be tricksters, either by pulling pranks or by drowning people and animals. Kappa in Animal Crossing is based much more heavily on the child Kappas, providing your character with safe passage to your character's towns in past installments and across the ocean to his family's island in more recent titles.

The last big name character from the series is colloquially known as either "Crazy Redd" or "Jolly Redd" in the most recent game. He is a Kitsune, a type of fox in Japanese folklore known to be a trickster or a shape-shifter. In this case, Redd is a trickster, trying to scam your character out of their money by selling fake art to them and not providing refunds. Sometimes, your character will receive a real piece, but it is also rather suspicious that a fox would have the real Michelangelo's David.

Other characters sometimes appear as villagers that move into your character's town or island. Kabuki, a cat, is one such character, representative of the Kabuki style of drama theater through his fur markings. Zucker, an octopus, is another example, with his head representing a Japanese snack called takoyaki, which is made of octopus. The implication is one that I do not recommend thinking about.

One villager ties into items specific to the series: a bunny named Coco. At first, she may look creepy, seeing as her eyes and mouth appear to be empty, but she is representative of Japanese haniwa artifacts. Haniwa are statues that were found buried alongside the dead in Japanese tombs between 250-710 AD. No one knows what their purpose is nor was to this day. Coco is one such representation, but the items known as gyroids to English speakers also represent these statues. Most are found by digging them up from the ground, which is quite morbid when put into context. The most famous gyroid is Lloid, who helps to handle donations for structures across the various titles.

While much of the series' Japanese roots come in the form of bamboo, fruit trading, seasonal cherry blossoms, and various innocuous furniture items, the subtleties for those who are not Japanese are fun pieces of information to keep in mind and enrich the experience of the games even further.