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Count Alexander Grabbe’s impressions of OTMA.

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Minor Nobles (08/?): Sophie Botta aka The Dark Countess of Hildburghausen

On February 1807, a veiled woman and a man arrived in Hildburghausen, Saxony. They would live there for the next three years until they moved to Eishausen Castle, outside of town.

Not much is known about this mysterious woman who the locals called Dunkelgräfin [Dark Duchess]. She never ventured outside without a veil or hidden inside a carriage where no one would see her face. The man who had arrived was later indentified as the Dutch secretary Leonardus Cornelius van der Valck. He had worked at the Dutch embassy in Paris from July 1798 to April 1799. In the time of their presence in Hildburghausen, he called himself Count Vavel de Versay and states that they were neither married nor lovers.

After the Countess’ death in 1837, he said her name was Sophia Botta, a single woman from Westphalia. However, no such name could be found in birth registers of the area. So her identity still remains a secret until this day.

For a long time, it had been speculated that she was actually Marie Thérèse of France, the daughter of Marie Antoinette and granddaughter of Empress Maria Theresia. The girl pretending to be Marie was, according to this theory, actually her adopted sister Ernestine Lambriquet. However this theory has been disproven since 2013. DNA analysis of the exhumed body and a study of her reconstructed facial features clearly confirmed that the Dark Duchess was not the French Princess.

This mysterious story has been the basis of many stories and essays ever since. Works include for example a trilogy of theater plays. Even a German metal band was inspired to name themselves after the Dunkelgrafen couple.

// Felicitas Breest as Dunkelgräfin in Geschichte Mitteldeutschlands - Episode 47 “Die vertauschte Prinzessin - Die Dunkelgräfin von Hildburghausen” (2007)

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Love this omg

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Sylvia Plath with typewriter in Yorkshire, September 1956. Presumably by Ted or Olwyn Hughes.

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“Marie Antoinette With a Rose,” painted by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun in 1783 🌹

Portrait of Marie Antoinette (Kristen Dunst) in the 2006 movie, Marie Antoinette, directed by Sofia Coppola. Painted by Jenna Gribbon🌷

So interesting to see the artist’s take on both. I actually quite like that the 2006 portrait is not a carbon copy of the original one. Both are very striking🕊💫

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x | ❥悪魔

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Bands I’d get tattoos for:

Linkin Park:

Avenged Sevenfold:

Twenty One Pilots:

Bring Me The Horizon:

The Pretty Reckless:

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I have BPD and am in an abusive relationship. It sucks that when I look for help the immediate instinct is that I’m the abuser.

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One thing about people with BPD is that we know the most useless shit.

Having no sense of identity causes us to pick up random hobbies.

Having black and white thinking makes us lose interest in those hobbies quickly.

So we’ll very briefly be obsessed with art, languages, diets, science, pursuing specific careers, collectible items, books, stuffed animals, etc… then stop caring about it.

And then we’ll meet someone who’s actually into one of those hobbies and they’ll start talking about art or something, and we’ll be like “oh word? Prismacolor or faber castelle?” and sprout random bullshit facts we know about said hobby and literally no one expects our top tier trivia knowledge.

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stolen from fb

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I was desperately trying to think of James Franco and all I could think of was James Franklin

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I miss when I had something to give to the world

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Thank you for the pdfs! I have a question about the shorts story 'A Sleepyhead Baby Bear'. After mentioning 곰 once, each new sentence starts with 그. I'm guessing that means 'he'? I was taught in my classes that that is a way to speak in English but very unnatural in Korean. My teacher said either to repeat the subject 곰 or to leave it out. What do you think?

Hello anon! So to start off, I didn’t write the story. In the pdf I give credits to the book itself that I created a lesson from right under the title - can’t miss it :). So, I can’t discredit the native speakers that wrote it (Ryu EunSun and EunSun You), and question its authenticity.

I will say that it’s extremely common in stories (especially children’s books) to use 그(he) and 그녀(she) when talking about a subject. You should look at it in context to what a language learner would be learning - much like a Korean child learning Korean. I have mentioned, a bit, in the past on my blog that when speaking to someone or mentioning / referencing someone as the subject, you do in fact say the name (followed by their title if needed) - but it’s not rare to use ‘he’ and ‘she’ as the subject. 

The only time you should leave the subject out is when the following sentences are obviously about the subject that was previously stated. For example, if I kept talking about my friend, I wouldn’t keep saying ‘제/내 친구’, and instead take out the subject.

However, I asked my Korean friend Jisoo, and she also mentioned that it’s not as unnatural to use ‘he’ and ‘she’ in Korean, as one may think it is. It’s especially common when you don’t know the person’s name. But, it would be uncommon if you’ve known the person for a long time.

I hope that cleared up some confusion! Happy Learning :)

~ SK101

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she lives under ladders and sleeps with black cats 💉