#(tagging him because he wrote the testimonials)

[williamedwardparry]

Happy very probable birthday to Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier (1796–c. 1848)! 🧭

Captain Crozier was distinguished for devotion to his duties as an officer, zeal for the advancement of science, and for the untiring assiduity and exactness of his magnetic and other observations. The Transactions of the Royal Society, as well as the published results of the Antarctic Expedition, bear ample testimony to his diligence and ability.

— Obituary notice of the Royal Society, 1854

In conclusion we may remark, that Captain Crozier was of an amiable and cheerful disposition, and his unbending integrity and truthfulness invariably won the affection and respect of those he commanded as well as the admiration and firm friendship of all those officers under whom he had served.

— A Memoir of the Late Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, R.N., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., of H.M.S. Terror, 1859

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 14

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

Because he couldn't put Jokaste in a sack and carry her bodily across the border into Kastor’s territory, the journey presented certain logistical challenges.

In order to justify two wagons and an entourage, they would be pretending to be cloth merchants. This disguise was not going to stand up to any serious scrutiny.

well, actually...

Laurent wandered in and outlined a plan so outrageous that Damen had said yes with the feeling that his mind was splitting apart.

i’ve said the thing about laurent and tabletop rpgs before but UGH. he’d be living his best life

Jord who had won short sword, Lydos of the trident, Aktis the spear thrower, the young, triple-crowned Pallas, Lazar, who had whistled at him,

i like how everyone has qualifications except for lazar, whose identifying quality is that he is gay

Laurent’s addition to the expedition was Paschal, and Damen tried not to think too deeply about the reasons why Laurent thought it necessary to bring a physician.

LMAOOOOO

And if the worst happened, Guion’s testimony had the potential to bring down the Regency. Laurent had said all of this succinctly, and told Guion, in a pleasant voice, ‘Your wife can chaperone Jokaste on the journey.’

wait does damen not even know what the testimony is? iirc guion told it to laurent off the page, after the chair scene. is it the thing about the regent killing the former king, or was that paschal’s piece of the trial? do both of them say it? whatever, the trial stuff is fun but i’m not that determined to work it all out ahead of time. it was a lot more rewarding to that with laurent’s perspective, especially earlier on, but ehhhh here i’m going to take it easy

Guion had understood more quickly than Damen.

shocking (sorry damen)

‘I see. My wife is the leverage for my good behaviour?’ ‘That’s right,’ said Laurent.

when does loyse talk to laurent? does she ever, or does she just speak at the trial uncalled for? guess we’ll see and i’ll trace back what i think probably led to it

Damen watched from a second-storey window as they gathered in the courtyard: two wagons, two noblewomen, and twelve soldiers of whom ten were soldiers and two were Guion and Paschal in metal hats.

He was waiting for Laurent to arrive in order to discuss the finer points of his ridiculous plan.

Laurent was standing in the doorway wearing a chiton of unadorned white cotton. Damen dropped the pitcher. It shattered, shards flying outward as it slipped from his fingers and hit the stone floor. Laurent’s arms were bare. His throat was bare. His collarbone was bare, and most of his thighs, his long legs, and all of his left shoulder. Damen stared at him. ‘You’re wearing Akielon clothing,’ said Damen. ‘Everyone’s wearing Akielon clothing,’ said Laurent. Damen thought that the pitcher had shattered and he could not now take a deep draught of the wine. Laurent came forward, navigating the broken ceramic in his short cotton and sandalled feet, until he reached the seat beside Damen, where the map was laid out on the wooden table. ‘Once we know the rotation of the patrols, we’ll know when to approach,’ said Laurent. Laurent sat down. ‘We need to approach at the beginning of their rotation in order to give us the most time before they report back to the fort.’ It was even shorter sitting down. ‘Damen.’ ‘Yes. Sorry,’ said Damen. And then: ‘What were you saying?’ ‘The patrols,’ said Laurent.

damen can you PLEASE focus.

(this is part of why the baby thing doesn’t work for me. if this is a lighter comedy interlude, why is the baby meant to be understood as a dire, war-altering problem? and if it is a serious dire situation, why are we getting this moment straight out of a fanfic? i know damen is horny despite the horrors and it’s a treat for the reader, but i guess i’m just built different because this moment really does not do anything for me. although to be fair i think that’s partially just because i’m apparently sensitive to instances of laurent being reduced to his body and sexuality, or at least in a way that he is not aware of—see my chapter 12 analysis for the most blatant example. reminds me of the time last week that my mom said on the phone “you only want people to like you on your own terms,” which is a very accurate and damning statement tbh)

They had only twelve soldiers. Twelve-ish, amended Damen, thinking of Paschal and Guion.

AGAIN?? brutal. also i like the “ish,” it’s a little anachronistic and very charming

Vannes could handle Makedon, Laurent said.

i want more laurent and vannes interaction…

The soldiers only needed to know their own roles in the enterprise, and Damen’s briefing to them was short. But Nikandros was his friend, and he deserved to know how they would get across the border. So he told him Laurent’s plan.

honestly damen i think it would be a mercy not to tell him

‘It’s dishonourable,’ said Nikandros.

nikandros private twitter complaint #13. also akielions don't know what "honor" means

‘I wish to restate my strong objection,’ said Nikandros. ‘It’s noted,’ said Damen.

and there's #14

the awkward mien of his own soldiers, who had had to be schooled multiple times not to call him ‘Exalted’

clearly they did not attend the lamen school of committing to the bit

‘Your reports are wrong. The Lady Jokaste is in that wagon.’ There was a pause. ‘In that wagon.’ ‘That’s right.’ Another pause. Damen, who was telling the truth, looked back at the Captain with the steady gaze he had learned from Laurent. It didn’t work. ‘I’m sure the Lady Jokaste won’t mind answering a few questions.’

he rolled like a 9 for persuasion

He was red-faced and sweating slightly. ‘At the Lady’s request, I will ride with you personally through the last of the checkpoints, to ensure that you are not stopped again.’ ‘Thank you, Captain,’ said Damen, with great dignity.

i love that pacat didn’t tell us what the plan was, so we could worry for a second that they'd already failed. and then, this

‘The stories of Lady Jokaste’s beauty are not exaggerated,’ said the Captain, man-to-man, as they wound their way across the countryside. ‘I expect you to speak of the Lady Jokaste with the greatest respect, Captain,’ said Damen. ‘Yes, of course, my apologies,’ said the Captain.

“that’s my fucking DIVORCE HUSBAND”

He said, ‘How did you convince Jokaste to play along with the guards?’ ‘I didn’t,’ said Laurent. He tossed the wad of blue silk in his hands to one of the soldiers to dispose of, then shrugged into his jacket in a rather mannish gesture. Nikandros was staring at him. ‘Don’t think about it too much,’ said Damen.

i love the way “mannish gesture” is specified. like he can do both. good for him.

(this is sooooo botw/totk link. anyway)

Laurent held out his hand to escort her back from the supply wagon into the main wagon, a bored Veretian gesture. Her eyes had the same bored look as she took his hand. ‘You’re lucky we’re alike,’ she said, stepping down. They looked at one another like two reptiles.

they should be best friends

‘Keep the wagons on course,’ Damen said to Nikandros. ‘I’ll be swift, and I’ll take our best rider with me.’ ‘That’s me,’ said Laurent, wheeling his horse.

“and our horses are canonically in love. just in case you’ve forgotten”

Sweeping a branch out of his face, Damen said, ‘I thought when I was King I wouldn’t be doing this kind of thing again.’ ‘You underestimated the demands of Akielon kingship,’ said Laurent.

i love prince's gambit

‘The undergrowth was thinner when I was a boy.’ ‘Or you were.’

did laurent just call him thicc

‘Stop,’ said Laurent. Damen stopped. Following Laurent’s gaze, he saw a dog lounging on its chain near a small penned field full of horses on the west side of the estate.

me when i want to pet a dog

‘I’ll take care of the sentries,’ said Laurent. ‘You left the dress in the wagon,’ said Damen. ‘Thank you, I do have other ways of getting past a sentry.’

The light through the trees dappled Laurent’s hair, which was longer now than it had been in the palace, and showing signs of minor disarray. It had a twig in it.

how dare that twig mess with laurent’s gorgeous hair!!!

There was no sign of a blond head, but somehow the dog got loose and went streaking through the yard to where the unfamiliar horses were penned.

dog = pet

The spasming excitement of the dog egged them on. As did the sylph-like actions of a ghost, untying ropes, slipping open rails.

laurent is an animal whisperer. that’s a personal headcanon of mine

They probably felt they had the most to lose, but in fact everyone would lose the same thing: their lives. Everyone but Jokaste. She only said, mildly, ‘Trouble at Heston’s?’

i love jokaste. spinoff please

And then he saw the pale head, and the paler white shirt, a lithe figure palming his way from tree trunk to tree trunk. ‘You’re late,’ said Damen. ‘I brought you a souvenir.’ Laurent tossed Damen an apricot. Damen could feel the quiet exultation of Laurent’s men, while the Akielons looked a little dazed. Nikandros passed Laurent his reins. ‘Is this how you do things in Vere?’ ‘You mean effectively?’ said Laurent. And swung up onto his horse.

i’m sad that this series is best known for being horny because i am infinitely more interested in laurent being a snarky action hero than i am in him having sex. and i think lots of other people would be too

Risk of laming was high

i read that as “lamen-ing” at first

Earlier, Laurent had tossed Damen his bedroll and said, ‘Unpack this,’ and Pallas had almost challenged him to a duel for the insult.

Sitting down and eating cheese casually with their King was not something that they knew how to do.

i cannot believe people in the fandom would apparently rather live in akielos than in vere. in akielos, you’re not allowed to acknowledge the humanity of people beneath your class, which as far as i can tell is determined by birth. in vere, people like jord and laurent are homies who mutually respect each other, and you can social climb your way to the high court by giving good head

Laurent strolled up to the impasse, threw himself down on the log next to Damen, and in an expressionless voice launched into the story of the brothel adventure that had earned him the blue dress, which was so unabashedly filthy it made Lazar blush, and so funny it had Pallas wiping his eyes.

i love laurent of vere

‘You smell of horse,’ said Damen. ‘It’s how I got past the dog.’ He felt a throb of happiness, and said nothing, just lay on his back and looked up at the stars. ‘It’s like old times,’ said Damen, though the truth was, he had never really had times like this.

damen are you forgetting prince’s gambit again

‘My first trip to Akielos,’ said Laurent. ‘Do you like it?’ ‘It’s like Vere, with fewer places to have a bath,’ said Laurent.

yeah i’m sure that’s not the sum of his thoughts, but he’s trying to take it easy

‘You want me wandering around the Akielon countryside naked at night?’ And then, ‘You smell just as much of horse as I do.’ ‘More,’ said Damen. He was smiling.

laurent: if you want me to get naked you’re going to have to do it too damen: bet

‘They’re Artesian. Aren’t they? From the old empire, Artes. They say it used to span both our countries.’ ‘Like the ruins at Acquitart,’ said Laurent. He didn’t say, And at Marlas. ‘My brother and I used to play there as boys. Kill all the Akielons and restore the old empire.’ ‘My father had the same idea.’ And look what happened to him. Laurent didn’t say that either.

you just know child laurent used history books and his imagination to construct a sophisticated and complex narrative for him and auguste to play-act

His pulse beat with uncharacteristic nerves, so that he felt almost shy. ‘When all this is over . . . we could take horses and stay a week in the palace.’ Since their night together in Karthas, he hadn’t dared to speak about the future. He felt Laurent holding himself carefully, and there was a strange pause. After a moment, Laurent said, softly, ‘I’d like that.’ Damen rolled onto his back again, and felt the words like happiness as he let himself look up again at the wide sweep of stars.

i think it’s sweet how nervous and awkward they are about admitting the desire to do something this simple, when they’ve had the most complicated and intensely intimate relationship i’ve ever read in fiction

[earlgreytea68]

Sorry - you mentioned that I Don’t Care was written by Patrick when he was angry at Pete. Do you have any context around this? I’ve not heard that before. Thanks!

Like much about this band, I have pulled this together based on a couple of stories floating around. I feel like I have seen various statements that have kind of been like, "Patrick was angry at Pete and he said to him something to the effect of, "I don't care anymore. I'm going to write a song and I'm going to call it 'I Don't Care,' that's how much I don't care."

One of them is this story from Neal Avron:

The pair had another argument over how Folie should sound. Pete didn’t agree with Patrick’s vision, and Patrick rage wrote two songs as a ‘fuck you’ to Pete, which became Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes and I Don’t Care… “I definitely can tell you that was the case for I Don’t Care. That was actually written in my studio. Patrick was in a terrible mood, I’d just put together a whole studio, and I had a vocal booth that I had stuffed a drum kit into. Patrick was playing, we were working on pre-production for the third record, and I think Patrick said, ‘Hold on a second…’ He was on a long phone call with Pete, then he threw one of the drum sticks against the wall, and I was like, ‘Hey! That’s my fuckin’ brand new studio you’re doing that to (laughs)!’ Then he told me about it, and then he literally wrote I Don’t Care. He literally didn’t care!”

Also, there's another interview, and I cannot find it now but I've seen it on a Tumblr post that I've reblogged in the past with commentary even, but my Peterick tag is such a mess by this point... But in the interview, Patrick says something like, "I was angry at Pete, and I was like, 'I'm going to write a song and I'm not going to put any love into it at all, SO THERE. Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH.'" The two songs in question he wrote like that were Disloyal Order and I Don't Care. But because I've heard them more often say that there was a big fight around I Don't Care, to me that's the song that stands out as being the one that was really the quintessential disintegrating-relationship-between-them song. Pete says in the same interview that he thinks "I Don't Care" is perfect but Patrick clearly wrote it in a state from the testimony of himself and of Neal Avron.

Of course, the most wonderful thing about the song is Patrick was angry and wanted to write a song about how much he didn't care, and the lyric is: I don't care what you think...as long as it's about me. Hahaha, Patrick, that song is not really sending the dismissive message of independent indifference that you think lol

[cyncerity]

ok guys bit of a serious poll today.

don’t read if you don’t wanna think about or read about the controversy stuff rn (talking about mostly George and bringing up Wil a little bit)

i have a bunch of wips (like, a lot) that i’ve been looking to finish for a while. With my first year of college coming to an end next week (yippee!) i’ll hopefully have more time to write again and finish those. The downside here is that a significant amount of them involve someone who has had recent controversy. Not that one, but George’s.

If you wanna answer this poll without all the context (i’m physically incapable of writing a post without making it a wall of text), go right ahead, the tldr is that I believe the situation is extremely opinionated and there’s no right or wrong way to view it. With a community this size and the larger group of gnf fans so divided on how to feel, I feel it better to let you guys pick whether or not he should still be in stories.

context under the cut for those who wanna read everything before voting on the poll. I kinda wrote a lot tho so sorry lol

I wanted to give it time before I made this post given that unlike with the first situation, there are a lot more holes and a lot more nuance. I wanted to wait until both sides stated their cases and make my own decision from there. And in my opinion, this situation 1) should have been handled personally and 2) is entirely based on opinion. Both sides did right and wrong, but there isn’t a correct way to perceive this. Some people will believe one side while others will believe the other because the evidence presented can be taken in many ways. I know I personally lean one way, but this post isn’t about my own opinions.

I’m making this post to ask if people would still be ok with me using his character in stories. I’ll say it again: I haven’t really ever watched the DTeam so I do mean it when I say that I base what I write around a character and not him. I stopped writing for C!Wil because I am uncomfortable with writing his character interacting with the characters of people who have spoken against him, but so far most of George’s friends have defended him or stayed silent since this situation isn’t like Wil’s at all. It’s mostly all died down since both sides have moved on (i think?) knowing that they won’t agree on what happened.

I’ve already given my piece on You Know Who, and how numerous people spoke against him and many of his close friends dropped him. This post is not about him, I believe that there is no argument to be made for him. The facts are clear and the testimonies clearer: he is a bad person. As of right now and for the foreseeable future, I will not write him or his character, not unless he gets some serious help or makes some serious changes. I believe that people can change, but trust is easier destroyed than built. You shouldn’t forgive someone who doesn’t seek forgiveness.

anyway i know that this is a smaller community, so i wanna know how many people want me to just re-write things or feel uncomfortable with him in stories now. This isn’t asking if you think George is innocent or if you think he’s a bad person or anything like that, this poll has nothing to do with personal opinions of the situation itself. It’s simply asking if you would be uncomfortable with reading about his character because of the situation.

[these-detestable-hands]

I just sent a mutual a very normal ask about this but oh my gosh guys imagine Godot as the phantom. This only works one way because Godot could write Don Juan triumphant and he could definitely write it to seduce a cute girl but Erik (book) couldn't drink 17 cups of coffee it would kill him. Movie/musical maybe could but his overall bloodlust and lack of decorum

Hey wait

As I'm typing this out I'm realizing Erik is a horrid mixture of all the worst traits of Franziska and Godot

Hates women

Whip user

Weird face

Scary as crap

Absolutely DESPISES the male lead for a weird reason

And idk I think Godot could make that entire desert torture chamber for Phoenix. Him and Franziska work together to give Phoenix the worst 24 hours of his life. Anyway I think I need to reread the book sometime soon cause all I really remember is the rat catcher (that's Pearl btw) and Nadir (Iris) (man this is so easy) and the torture scene and I think there was definitely a lot of stuff before that.

Mia would not make a good Christine. I think Phoenix could be a good Raoul and Franziska could be an AMAZING (book!) Giry but Mia could NOT work as Christine. Maybe Maya?? But then you'd have to remove all romantic implications. Misty also works just fine as Christine's dad methinks, except Misty has to actually be dead.

Oh my gosh Edgeworth would have a field day prosecuting for the burning of the opera house.

Phoenix: Maya were screwed, our client is so guilty, he definitely killed Joseph

Gumshoe: uh, sir, we have conclusive evidence he also hung a guy, kidnapped a woman and tried to kill two other guys"

Phoenix:

Phoenix asks why he wears a mask and 1 million psychelocks appear regardless of which version of Erik it is

Running gag in the trial where André keeps correcting anyone who says junk instead of scrap metal.

Godot: next witness is André, a rich junk enthusiast who bought an operahouse because he could

André: actually it's scrap metal-

Godot: it's junk. Give us your testimony

Anyway back to what I was saying before

You lose half of Erik's character if his motivation isn't lust but Godot kidnapping Maya could still work.

He goes to the operahouse after waking up from the coma cause what else is he supposed to do. Lives there for a while then finds out his dead gf's little sister is an actress there and desperately needs to talk to her but can't cause the current owners hate him.

On second thought Franziska doesn't work as Madame Giry, that could be Morgan maybe?? Or preferably Misty but Misty is already dead. I guess Morgan is okay then, then Iris gets to be besties with Maya I guess.

Anyway. Godot does Don Juan triumphant but instead of whatever is going on with the prostitutes, it's some different story that he wrote about Mia idk. We're sorta crossing into [I refuse to tag octopath spoilers on a post that is not octopath] territory, don't like that.

Also I forgot to mention before but obviously there's no romance between Phoenix and Maya in this au.

ACTUALLY

Franziska could be a pretty good Raoul....

Ok let's see what we have so far:

Erik: Godot

Christine: Maya

Raoul: Franziska

Meg: Iris

Madame Giry: Morgan

André: honestly it's the judge

Franziska: how dare you kidnap my gf to force her to marry you >:(

Godot: what? No, that wedding dress was supposed to be for her older sister, Mia, I just wanted to ask Maya what happened to her

Maya: hey Franzi, we're playing monopoly, do you wanna join?? :3

Franziska:

Franziska: ough fine whatever

CRAP I COMPLETELY FORGOT NADIR HOW COULD I HE'S MY FAVORITE

Nadir

Ough

Honestly Misty almost? Again, she's supposed to be Mr. Daae and therefore very much dead and it also wouldn't work to have the daroga be someone so close to the Mcs because his entire thing is that he's far off and only really Erik knows him.

But Godot doesn't really have anyone in his backstory that could fulfill that role. At absolute best, there's Grossberg but Grossberg and the daroga are honestly opposites when it comes to lawful good characters.

I don't wanna cut Nadir from this au cause he's my bestie :(

Gumshoe???

I guess it could work

I could see Gumshoe just being buddies with everyone and hanging out below the opera house.

"mysterious weird foreign guy" is just some really friendly idiot who was specifically asked by the big bad guy to pretend to be mysterious and weird.

Again, I think Gumshoe is not at all similar to Nadir in personality but he's the best we've got and at least they're both detectives more or less

Godot could probably sing, he seems like the kinda guy to have the voice of an angel (ha!) for no good reason

Also rereading this post before posting it, I realize I forgot the rat catcher. Near the beginning, I said that could be Pearl but now with Morgan as Giry, it doesn't work. That being said, Dahlia could make a PERFECT rat catcher :3

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

@tackytigerfic tagged me in the stats game, for which i am very grateful bc i love these games!

so i've written 119 fics across 11 fandoms, but i'm going to stick to my HP stuff just for the sake of a cohesive list. i'm also going to stick to fics with 1k+ wordcount bc drabbles feel like cheating a bit. also even all these have over 1k hits which is like!!! imagine a thousand people picking up your story off the shelf at the library or bookstore and reading it or even just quietly thumbing through it or thinking hmm i like the look of this and i'm going to take it home. and then they don't get to it. but still! it's kind of a staggering number.

Without Pretense (3.5K) harry and draco are friends but still dancing around whether they'll wind up dating. draco gets curious about harry acting strange one night, and after following him, discovers harry doing something bizarre but very harry. i have a soft spot for this story! i love all my stories really. obviously a lot of the emotional catharsis in this story comes from the release of tension between harry and draco (they DO get together in the end!) but also. this story is partly about how rootless harry feels as an orphan (and a Black orphan tbh!) and the silly, reckless, loving thing he does with that feeling.

Forth They Went Together (11.8K) so this is the 4th and final part of my moonrise series, and being part 4 of a 60K series is kind of a high barrier to entry to be fair. so i'm not surprised this fic has relatively fewer kudos. also it's a christmas story and i kinda feel like ppl don't like that? anyway, not super plotty. draco is a lycanthropy rights activist (and a werewolf) and a reform bill has just been passed granting lycanthropes some rights that have been denied them, in large part due to draco's work and his testimony to the wizengamot, and he's So Excited! this story is about the two of them basking in the love and light of their chosen family, really. there are also a couple of moments of sharp contrast between draco's chosen family and his family of origin. one of my favorite things in this fic is the relationship between draco and ginny! i love their stupid nicknames for each other. best friend shit. i also LOVE harry dressing up as santa (so does draco lol...)

Homing (8.6K) this is another christmas story! i do kinda feel like ppl don't rlly like reading christmas stories in this fandom? and yet i'm working on another one (which isn't actually about christmas but it'll be kind of holidayish)(i digress). draco gets disowned by his parents for refusing to marry astoria (his best friend) and astoria and harry conspire to have him stay with harry at grimmauld place. there are some letters back and forth between draco and astoria which is always fun. draco is a pianist who plays at a muggle gay bar, which i love. my spouse noted that i (who have a complicated relationship with my homophobic parents) keep giving draco a clean break in my stories. changing for the better is exquisite and painful, and not everyone you wish would come with you always does.

The Joy of Bleeding (6K) draco has just lost his estranged mother, and through a confluence of factors, harry is the eldest member of the Black family and has to assist with her burial, as draco no longer has the legal right to. oh also harry is draco's ex boyfriend who's still in love with him. this is another story about loving the people who are there for you and loving the people who fail you. draco's chosen family rallies around him, and everything sucks and hurts so bad but there are beautiful and sublime things too. i'm not going to say what the opening scene is because i think it's better unspoiled, but i really liked that choice.

Solarium (10.3 K) this is part 2 of moonrise, my werewolf draco series. i wrote this in 2020 and it shows! harry gets cursed through handling a cursed artifact at grimmauld place (where he and draco happen to live) and winds up in the hospital for a few weeks, struggling to throw off a sleeping curse. he's miserable and bored and his mind is foggy and he's scared he'll never be the same again. and also he doesn't want to move out of grimmauld place -_- draco is so worried and loves harry so much and is so fucking frustrated with him for not taking the obvious precaution. they figure it out, though. i really like the scenes with hagrid in this story. nobody includes hagrid for some reason, but he's So Important. also love the very last scene. more about how harry's relationship with his background so to speak, as a Black orphan (all my harry potters are Black; just remember that when you read my work!) i'll include a snippet bc i just can't resist

thanks again for tagging me, @tackytigerfic!!!! i love these games! i'm not sure who's already done this but anyone who wants to play should play and feel free to tag me so i can see your work!

[a-queer-seminarian]

Hello, you seem to be knowledgeable about god. Do you know where to find him and what his weaknesses are? I have dedicated my life to hunting him down and killing him for the indescribable amount of suffering he has directly or indirectly caused.

cw: violent language, including about fighting / killing God; as well as discussion of the Shoah / Holocaust later on in the post

(gonna start this long-ass response by saying that yes, i know this anon is probably joking about dedicating their life to hunting down God, but i’m gonna answer it like they’re serious because that’s the kind of person i am haha)

honestly anon, all power to ya! it sounds like my own understanding of God is quite different from yours (for instance, i would claim that God’s main weakness is actually Their best strength, which is compassion and steadfast solidarity) -- but the question of why God allows suffering is one i come back to all the damn time.

if you do track God down -- if God turns out to be a Being that can be tracked down to one location and time -- please do deliver my regards and my sincerest “WTF??”

you’re not the first to demand God answer for the suffering that’s happened on Their watch --

for if God is truly omnipotent, and truly all-loving, why don’t they do something about all this pain??? Indeed, the Bible is rich with similar demands -- from the psalmists to Job to Jesus himself from the cross (quoting a psalm, he cries, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me??”).

You might already know all this, but if not, the question of God’s place in suffering is often referred to as theodicy, at least in Christian circles.

That term comes from the Greek for god + justice, so what it literally means is “justifying (or vindicating) God”....which I’m not a huge fan of, because it implies that when we explore this question of where God is in suffering, we already know the result will be that God will be proven innocent (or at least “not guilty”).

But do we know that?? See the bottom of this post for an example of a time people of great faith found God guilty!

Anyway, theodicy describes intellectual efforts “to jerry-rig three mutually exclusive terms into harmony: divine power, goodness, and the experiences of evil.“ - Wendy Farley

If you want to learn more about theodicy and the way some theologians have “made sense” of suffering, check out this introductory post I’ve got.

Or wander through my whole #theodicy tag over on my other blog.

I invite you to explore theodicy not in any attempt to convince you of anything, but so you know some of the arguments you’re up against! Honestly, the more i explore theodicy, the less satisfied i am with any justifications for why God doesn’t intervene in the face of so much suffering...so if you do the reading and still conclude God is guilty, i’m not gonna tell you you’re definitely wrong.

Anyway. Like i said, you’re not alone in wanting answers for why God -- however, i don’t know that i’ve seen anyone else with your determination to find and kill God!

(Except, and i hate that i know this lol, that’s apparently the plot of the final season of Supernatural -- they find out God’s a total ass who not only is guilty of negligence but also directly responsible for a lot of suffering for his own sadistic enjoyment. so. they kill the bastard.)

Still, while i don’t know that i’ve seen too many people who want to take God out, the idea of wrestling God is pervasive -- especially within Judaism, but also among some Christians.

i’m very into wrestling God, myself, finding it far more faithful to the God who gifted us free will and invites us into true, mutual relationship than unquestioning obedience.

i have a whole #wrestling God tag over on my other blog.

For the most intense example of wrestling with God i’ve yet seen, with God put on trial and found guilty, keep reading.

_________

cw: discussion of the Shoah / Holocaust below

You might connect to Elie Wiesel’s play The Trial of God, or the movie that was made based off it. Wiesel survived Nazi concentration camps but ceased to believe in God after what he suffered. His play was inspired by something he witnessed while a teen at Auschwitz:

"I witnessed a strange trial. Three rabbis—all erudite and pious men—decided one winter evening to indict God for allowing his children to be massacred. I remember: I was there, and I felt like crying. But nobody cried."

Robert McAfee Brown wrote more about this trial Wiesel witnessed:

“The trial lasted several nights. Witnesses were heard, evidence was gathered, conclusions were drawn, all of which issued finally in a unanimous verdict: the Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, was found guilty of crimes against creation and humankind.”

Note that in 2008 when commenting on this event, Wiesel clarified that “At the end of the trial, they used the word chayav, rather than ‘guilty.’ It means ‘He owes us something.’”

In the chapter “No God, Only Auschwitz” of his book Embracing Hopelessness, Miguel A. De La Torre comments on this verdict by explaining that if God wasn’t going to intervene, then God must at the least speak -- but instead, God was silent:

“God must be held accountable for refusing to speak to those yearning for God’s voice. Something. Anything. A note of solidarity. A testament of love, accompaniment. But they hear and receive nothing. The trial...ends with God owing us something.

De La Torre goes on to describe the play Wiesel wrote based on this memory, which actually takes place in a 1649 Ukranian village, rather than at Auschwitz. The Cossacks raid the village and kill all but two of its Jewish residents.

“In Wiesel’s play, he has the inkeeper Berish voice the same questions those sitting in death camps centuries later asked, if not audibly, then silently:

‘To mention God’s mercy in Shamgorod [Auschwitz] is an insult. Speak of his cruelty instead. ...I want to understand why. He is giving strength to the killers and nothing but tears and the shame of helplessness to the victims. ...Either he is responsible or He is not. If He is, let’s judge him; if He is not, let him stop judging us. ...

‘[I] accuse Him of hostility, cruelty and indifference. ...Either He knows what’s happening to us, or He doesn’t wish to know! In both cases He is...guilty! Would a father stand by, quietly, silently, and watch his children being slaughtered?’”

De La Torre continues with his own thoughts on all this:

“The horrors humanity faces indict God as being less loving and attentive than sinful parents. I hesitate to make any pronouncements as to the character of God because in the final analysis, I lack any empirical knowledge upon which to base my study. Still with all my heart and being I want to say: my God is the God of the oppressed who incarnates Godself among the least of these.

I want to make this bold claim based on the testimony of the gospel witness. But in the midst of the dark night, I confess this hopeful belief is at best a tenet accepted by faith, lacking any means of proving the truth or falsehood of the claim. In the shadow of Auschwitz, though I am not Jewish, nonetheless I am left wondering if the precious Deity who notices the fall of a sparrow is blind to God’s children crushed in the winepress. Do I dare wonder if God is the God of the oppressors?

...Or maybe this is a God who really wants to do good, but lacks the power to do anything in the face of inhumanity. ..."

There’s one more piece to this tale of Wiesel’s witness of the trial of God at Auschwitz. And that is that, after declaring God guilty (or chayav)...

...after what Wiesel describes as an "infinity of silence", the Talmudic scholar looked at the sky and said "It's time for evening prayers", and the members of the tribunal recited Maariv, the evening service. (McAfee Brown)

...That ending is the part that astounds and awes me. These Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz find God guilty -- and then proceed to pray as they always do. I am reminded of what my Jewish friends as well as various Jewish scholars have told me: that Judaism is totally compatible with wrestling with God and even with disbelief. Whether these Jewish prisoners believed God even existed, they prayed -- because that tradition of prayer is what unites them to one another, to their people.

As De La Torre closes his telling of Wiesel’s story,

“At the conclusion of the movie God on Trial, based on the events Wiesel described, shortly after the barrack inmates find God guilty, and those chosen are marched to the gas chamber, they cover their heads and pray. ...

Believers and unbelievers who took the audacious act of placing God on trial do what is totally illogical -- in the midst of their hopelessness they demonstrate their faith as they march toward the gas chambers, or they defiantly embrace who they are while still remaining in heated conversation, damning God. It matters not if God still hears their prayers, or if there even is a God to hear; they still pray, they still debate -- not for God’s sake, but for their own.”

And that brings me to the one bit of actual advice I’ll give you, anon:

If you want to spend your life “hunting God down,” as I said, all power to you! But I do suggest you ponder for whose sake you do so -- and whether you do so for justice or just revenge. What good does such a quest do for those who are suffering now? Are their other paths you could follow that would bring more good? What about your own healing? I imagine you’re not interested in repairing any relationship with religion -- would walking away from God rather than hounding God be a more healing and fruitful path for your finite life?

I’ll close with one more quote from De La Torre, from the very end of his chapter:

“As I stroll through what was once the concentration camp of Dachau, I am cognizant that this space witnessed the unspeakable horrors that befell God’s children at the hands of Christians hoping for a better, purer society and future. ...So do not offer me your words of hope; offer me your praxis for justice. ...In the midst of unfathomable suffering, the earth’s marginalized no longer need pious pontifications about rewards in some hereafter. Nor do they need their oppressors providing the answers for their salvation. What is needed is disruption of the norm to push humanity toward an unachievable justice.

When there is nothing to lose, when work does not set you free, not only are multiple possibilities opened up with new opportunities for radical change unimaginable to those playing it safe; but also a venue is provided by which to get real with whatever this God signifies. ...”

[hermette-historian]

Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.

Today in ex-hermits that nobody’s ever heard of (this one thankfully) who was IAmSp00n, and what happened to him? In light of me finally getting curious enough to start digging around outside of YouTube...

Spoon joined Hermitcraft as an early invitee (I personally forget from whom, though it doesn’t really matter) during the first server boom that gave us Jessassin, Aureylian, and TPN. He stuck around through the first few months of Season 3, making him one of the longer-lasting initial members. He mostly did livestreams, though he did managed to keep up decently well with his YouTube series, and after leaving followed the trend that was shifting over to Twitch completely as Google acquired YouTube.

On Hermitcraft, Spoon was by far one of the least family friendly members. Gifted with a loud personality and a two-step temper, he frequently touted the fact that he didn’t give two shits what anyone else thought of him, including the viewers. He was a frequent culprit of creative swearing as well as extremely dirty and explicit jokes, and it worked for him. That was his brand. But it had its drawbacks...although he was fairly close with Jessassin (one of the most family friendly members) off camera, few of the hermits were willing to have him film with them assumedly because he didn’t quite fit their vibe and wasn’t willing to conform.

The elephant in the room is what happened in the intervening years after he left the server. Extremely triggering things are ahead so if you got past the tags please be careful.

Over the past several years and the rise of the MeToo movement, Spoon gathered quite an impressive collection of accusations against him. Several women posted publicly on Twitter and YouTube telling their stories of experiences with him, and suffice to say zero of them were good. They built the picture of him behind the scenes as a sexual manipulator, extreme misogynist, and in a few cases a straight-up r*pist. I read their testimonies, saw their discord screenshots, and unsurprisingly they were shocking and disgusting. But I have no problem connecting that picture of Spoon as he really was with the personality I’ve seen on camera.

On June 20, 2020, as the tide of accusations and angry fans rose exponentially, Spoon finally caved. Having lost the backing of even some of his most loyal fans and, it seems, his PR employees, he wrote an apology and posted it to Twitter, then completely disappeared off the face of the internet. The google doc apology asked his fans to believe absolutely everything that was said about him, without question, not to fight it because he was completely giving in. He explained that while he was going to leave all of his accounts online, this was the last the internet was going to see of him. So far, he’s kept to his word.

What does all of this mean for this blog? Having acknowledged all of this, I am certainly going to stop posting anything joking or subjective about this individual, and I will trigger-tag all of my posts that have mentioned him. However, he is still a fairly large part of Hermitcraft history and thus, I cannot continue my work accurately while swearing to leave him completely out of it. If I do mention him, it will be as a part of a group event or large collaboration. I do not plan to include his base in my final analysis video and server tour, and to be fair I wouldn’t have much to say anyway as most of his work was done on livestreams. I will continue to watch his content without qualms though, because he has made it clear that he is no longer connected to his YouTube account and therefore consuming his eight-year-old videos for the sake of study will not support him in any way. Also, he’s been banned from Twitch.

I’ve an unfortunate premonition that this may not be the last time that we run into this situation on our journey. But it is our duty as scholars of history to report things as they actually happened, so that we might accordingly reflect them in our future actions.

[rpsocsandcanonohmy]

Written On A Bar Napkin

Summary: "A lot's changed since we wrote those rules on a bar napkin."

Rating: Gen

Pairing: Larry James & Cordell Walker

Tags/Warnings: Pre-Series, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Friendship

WC: 589

@walker-bingo Square Filled: Larry James

A/Ns: Inspired by a recent rewatch of the episode -------------

“I’m just saying, if we’re going to work together, we should set some boundaries. Rules. Whatever.” Cordell was stumbling over his words a bit, which was fair as they both had a few drinks in them at that point in the night.

“So you wanna write down a bunch of rules about working together? Are you always this anal?”

“Not ‘rules’,” Walker insisted. “More like guidelines. Like, we can go ahead and talk about the shit that annoys us and learn how not to piss each other off when we’re working together, you know?”

Larry wasn't sure how he felt about "guidelines" either but what the hell, why not? They were going to be working very closely together in the near future. It might help their sanity to have a list of buttons not to push. "Alright, fine," he huffed. "Got any examples for me?"

"Uh, like…." Walker's nose scrunched while he thought. "Like if we get food together, it's gotta be something we both already like. No weird experiments on stakeouts."

Okay, that one seemed reasonable. "Alright. What about like…. We gotta always have each other's backs. Like if I have a hunch you gotta at least hear me out. And I'll do the same." Being the only black Ranger in the office meant he was gonna need someone in his corner. Who else would it be besides his own partner?

"Yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good." Walker grabbed one of the napkins and fished a pencil out of his pocket. "Gotta write this shit down."

They sat in their booth for the rest of the night making their rules. From serious ones like Rule Number 17: “Always have your partners back” to silly ones like Rule Number 14: “James can't air his feet out in a confined space” (totally unfair in his opinion but he got Walker back with Rule Number 28). Even though they promised to renegotiate at a time when they weren't drunk, they never changed a single one.

Never once did they imagine one might get broken.

—---------

“Walker, what the hell are you still doing here?” James stopped in front of his desk and aggressively turned off his desk light. “It’s late. You’ve missed dinner with your family and the whole damn office is empty.”

“Then what the hell are you still doing here?” Walker muttered, drinking another sip from a mug of what was definitely not pure coffee.

“Waiting on your dumbass.” James sighed and sat in the chair next to his partner. “What’s going on with you, hm?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hey, Rule number 10. None of that deflection bullshit. Talk to me.”

Cordell glared at him. “Really, you want me to talk to you?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you think I’m crazy.”

“Why do-”

“Because you don’t listen to me!” Cordell opened up his bottom drawer and dug around until he found a case file in the bottom. He flipped on the desk lamp and James could see it was a copy of Emily’s case. “You can’t- I’ve looked at this thing a million times and Carlos Mendoza’s testimony just doesn’t add up with any of the evidence, which there’s shockingly little of. The captain won’t hear it, Stan won’t hear it, and neither will you.”

James sighed. “Walker, I-”

“Don’t.” He stood abruptly. “Rule number 17,” he muttered before grabbing his coat and walking away. 

James stood up to follow but stopped himself. Walker wouldn’t listen to him, not tonight. He could try fixing this tomorrow.

[aion-rsa]

The True Story Behind James Cameron’s Titanic

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James Cameron’s 1997 blockbusting tearjerker, Titanic, puts an epic love story in the middle of the greatest maritime disaster in the history of the North Atlantic. On April 15, 1912, midway through its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. Because of a severe shortage of lifeboats, 1,517 people died. In the weeks which followed, the luxury liner was said to have been billed as “unsinkable,” but that claim had never been made until after the nautical disaster.

This and other myths have lived on, thanks particularly to Cameron’s romantic (and often fanciful) movie. And yet, not all truths have been lost at sea.

Jack and Rose

Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and Rose DeWitt Bukater, played by Kate Winslet as a young woman and Gloria Stuart when elderly, are a myth. They are fictional characters. Jack wasn’t slipped $20 for rescuing Rose, and never taught her how to spit off the side of a ship like a man. But there was a member of the Titanic crew named Joseph Dawson. Born in Dublin, Joseph Dawson worked as a coal trimmer, evening out piles of coal which were shoveled into the ship’s furnaces.

Rose DeWitt-Bukater is the first film character portrayed by two actors who were both nominated for an Academy Award. Winslet was nominated as Best Actress, and Stuart was nominated as Best Supporting Actress. Rose is modeled on Beatrice Wood, who did not travel on the Titanic. Born in San Francisco to wealthy parents, her coming out party was cancelled the same year the Titanic sank.

Beatrice joined the French National Repertory Theatre under the stage name Mademoiselle Patricia, playing more than 60 roles before she was noticed by artist Marcel Duchamp. She was well known by artists during the Dada period, and lived long enough to be invited by James Cameron to the opening of Titanic.

Captain Edward John Smith

Before skippering the Titanic, Capt. Edward John Smith (Bernard Hill) spent 40 years at sea without major incidents. Smith had been working on boats since he was a teenager. He earned a master’s certificate, which is required to serve as captain, in 1875. He became a junior officer with the White Star Line in 1880. He commanded his first ship in 1887. Like many veteran captains, he occasionally ran ships aground, and was captain of the Olympic when it collided with the British cruiser Hawke off the Isle of Wight in 1911, a year before he helmed the Titanic.

The Titanic received iceberg warnings several days into its maiden voyage. Smith adjusted the course but reportedly did not decrease speed. He was away from the bridge when the ship struck an iceberg. The first damage report, from Fourth Officer Joseph G. Boxhall (Simon Crane), found no damage. But a closer inspection from the Titanic’s designer Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber), found five of the ship’s 16 watertight compartments were flooded. The Titanic could have stayed afloat with up to four flooded compartments. At about midnight, Andrews reported the ship would founder within 60 to 90 minutes. Smith gave orders to uncover the lifeboats and alert the passengers at 12:05 a.m.

Because of some of the reported incidents, some historians wonder whether Smith was in a state of shock at the news. Crewmen didn’t lower the lifeboats until 12:45 a.m., and only because Second Officer Charles Lightoller (Jonny Phillips) reminded the captain to give the order.

Smith’s final moments are unknown. Early newspaper reports alleged he shot himself with a pistol. Several witnesses claimed to have seen him swim to a nearby lifeboat with an infant in his arms before swimming back to the Titanic. Some witnesses said he was swept off deck by a wave, others believed he made it to an overturned lifeboat. Smith’s body was never found.

Joseph Bruce Ismay

J. Bruce Ismay (Jonathan Hyde) was born Dec. 12, 1862, near Liverpool, England. His father was the founder of the White Star Line. Educated at Harrow and tutored in France, he travelled the world before becoming the New York company agent for White Star Line. He became head of Ismay, Imrie & Company after his father’s death in 1899, oversaw its acquisition by J.P. Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Company in 1902, and was named president of IMM in 1904.

In 1907, Ismay met with Lord Pirrie of the Belfast shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff to discuss building a fast luxury liner with huge steerage capacity which would rival the Cunard Line’s RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania. Three ships were built, the RMS Olympic, RMS Britannic, and the pride of the fleet, the RMS Titanic. The ship was built by British White Star Lines at a cost of $10 million. It weighed 46,000 tons and was 882.5 feet long.

History puts culpability for the Titanic disaster on Ismay. He reportedly demanded the captain increase speed in spite of the iceberg warnings, but during the U.S. Senate’s Inquiry into the disaster, he testified the ship was never going at full speed and didn’t even have all of the boilers on. Ismay was the company officer who gave the order to cut the number of lifeboats onboard from 48 to the Board of Trade standard minimum of 16, plus 4 collapsible Engelhardt boats. But Ismay also helped crewmen get the lifeboats ready and convinced passengers to board the lifeboats before danger was visibly apparent. Ismay boarded Engelhardt C, the last lifeboat launched, only 20 minutes before the Titanic crashed beneath the waves.

While Ismay was attacked in the press and branded a coward for escaping while so many working-class women and children died, testimony from surviving officers exonerated his actions as in the best interest of the passengers. Ismay retired from IMM and the White Star Line in 1913.

Chief Engineer Officer Joseph Bell

Joseph Bell (Terry Forrestal) was from Farlam, Cumbria, and a family who had been farmers for generations.  Born in March 1861, Joseph began his seafaring career as an apprentice engine fitter at Robert Stephensons and Co. in Newcastle. Bell joined the White Star line in 1885, serving on vessels working the waters of New Zealand and New York.

Joseph, was promoted to Chief Engineer on the Coptic in 1891 and married Maud Bates in 1893. By 1911, he was the Chief Engineer on White Star Line’s Olympic before being transferred to the Titanic. His staff consisted of 24 engineers, six electrical engineers, two boilermakers, a plumber, and a clerk. None survived the sinking.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown

Legend has it, Margaret Tobin Brown (Kathy Bates) was called “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” because she helped evacuate the ship, took up one of the oars in the lifeboat, and threatened to throw Quartermaster Robert Hichens (Paul Brightwell) overboard if he didn’t go back to the boat to save more people. The myth says the nickname was plucked from the first words she said upon landing safely in New York: “Typical Brown luck. I’m unsinkable!” But Brown actually got the tag as an insult from Denver gossip columnist Polly Pry as revenge for the story of a local hero being printed in another magazine first.

Molly Tobin was born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1867. Her Irish family was part of a wave of immigrants who came to America after the country’s industrialization. Margaret went to school until age 13 when she began working in a factory. She left in search of better work conditions. She met J.J. Brown, a mining engineer, and they were married on Sept. 1, 1886. While most of their neighbors in the Leadville, Missouri community lived in devastating poverty because of the 1893 Silver Crash, J.J. discovered gold in Ibex Mining’s Little Johnny Mine, where he was made a primary shareholder. The couple became nearly instantaneous millionaires.

Moving to Denver where the Silver Crash also took a heavy economic toll, Margaret became part of the Progressive movement, fighting for public baths, public parks, and other city improvements. The Browns separated in 1909 but never divorced. Margaret and her daughter Helen were on an extended vacation with Col. John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV and Madeleine Astor in 1912 when they heard news about a family member’s health issue at home and booked passage on the first available ship, the Titanic.

After the crash, Margaret was lowered in lifeboat number six, which was equipped to hold 65 passengers, but set off with 21 women, two men, and a twelve-year-old boy onboard. Margaret manned an oar. Her knowledge of foreign languages helped her bring passengers aboard the Carpathia, the first ship to answer the distress call. Margaret distributed blankets and supplies, and got the first-class passengers to donate money to help less fortunate passengers.

Brown continued her Progressive program, helping miners striking against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Twenty people were killed when a battle broke out between the miners and private guards hired by the company in one of the most violent labor conflicts in American history. Once the aftermath and PR battles died down, Margaret moved into her summer home in Newport, Rhode Island where she became involved with Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, the President of the National Women’s Suffrage Association.

The two women spearheaded the National Women’s Trade Union League, which advocated for a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday, and did not distinguish between women of the upper classes and working women.

Margaret wrote newspaper articles, gave public speeches, and was drawn to the radical side of the party, which pushed for a national suffrage amendment. In July 1914, Brown and Belmont organized the Conference of Great Women, which led to Margaret’s bid for a U.S. Senator seat representing Colorado. She shifted her focus when World War I broke out, traveling to France to work for the American Committee for Devastated France.

After WWI, Molly indulged her lifelong passion for the stage, performing in plays in Paris and New York. The 1960 Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown was based on her life, Debbie Reynolds played her in the 1964 film adaptation.  Brown died in her sleep on Oct. 26, 1932, at the Barbizon Hotel in New York City.

Madeleine Astor and Jacob Astor IV

Madeleine Astor (Charlotte Chatton) was five months pregnant when she boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg, France with her husband Col. John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV (Eric Braeden); her husband’s valet, and her maid and nurse. Madeleine was the daughter of William Hurlbut Force, a shipping magnate, and her family was part of Brooklyn high society. The Astors were ending their extended honeymoon which began with a trip from New York on Titanic‘s sister ship, the Olympic.

When the Titanic was sinking, Astor’s husband helped her and her maid into lifeboat four but was denied entry himself by Second Officer Lightoller, who said the boats were for women and children only. Col. Astor perished with the ship. Madeleine Astor gave birth on Aug. 14, 1912. Her late husband’s will was conditional, and when Madeleine married her childhood friend, the banker William Karl Dick, four years after the Titanic tragedy, she lost her stipend from his trust fund.

Isidor and Ida Straus

Here’s a real heartbreaker greater than even Kate and Leo. Remember the image of a couple holding each other and crying as water seeps into their cabin? They were based on the tragically real figures of Isidor and Ida Straus, two of the wealthiest people on the Titanic.

Born into a Jewish family in Otterberg in 1845, back when that village was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria and Germany did not yet exist, Isidor immigrated as a child with his family to the United States. Growing up in Georgia when the Civil War broke out, he even considered joining the Confederacy before instead becoming a blockade runner for the South (think Rhett Butler). After the war, he moved to New York City where he met Ida, a fellow immigrant from the Germanic states.

In New York, Isidor worked at L. Straus and Sons, which quickly became the glass and china department at Macy’s. Yes, that Macy’s. The original one. By 1888, Isidor and his brother became partners in the first major American department store. By 1896 they owned it. Around this time, Isidor even served a single term as a Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When the Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912, Isidor and Ida were returning home after a holiday in France. As a first class passenger woman from one of the finest cabins on the ship, Ida was almost immediately offered space on a lifeboat. Isidor escorted her to it, but when it came time to get on, she refused. She wouldn’t leave her husband. Isidor was then also offered a spot on the lifeboat beside her, but he also refused, saying he would “not go before other men.”

So both of them declined the lifeboat space and instead gave it to Ida’s maid. One witness said she heard Ida say, “We have been living together for many years. Where you go, I go.” They walked off back toward the neck, never to be seen again.

And the Band Played On

The crew of the RMS Titanic took the adage “women and children first” very seriously. The Titanic‘s eight-member band, led by violinist Wallace Hartley (Jonathan Evans-Jones), never even jockeyed for position. When the band heard the ship was going down, they set up in the first-class lounge and played to keep passengers calm. As the water rose, the band moved to the forward half of the boat deck. Hartley worked for the Cunard ship line before taking the gig on the Titanic. The other band members were violinists George Alexandre Krins and John Law Hume, violist and bassist John Frederick Preston Clarke, cellists John Wesley Woodward, and Roger Marie Bricoux, and pianists Percy Cornelius Taylor and Theodore Ronald Brailey.

According to some passengers, the final song played was “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” a hymn written in 1861 by the Rev. John Dykes. Versions of this song play in the films Titanic (1953), A Night to Remember (1958) and Cameron’s Titanic. This was discounted by Colonel Archibald Gracie, an amateur historian who survived the disaster.

Read more

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“I assuredly should have noticed it and regarded it as a tactless warning of immediate death to us all, and one likely to create panic,” he is quoted as saying in Steven Turner’s book, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the Eight Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic. He recalled that the band played cheerful songs to keep spirits up. Other survivors also reported hearing songs like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “In the Shadows.”

“Nearer, My God, to Thee” was sung by passengers who survived the 1906 wreck of the SS Valencia and had been played during the impending doom on the decks of the Titanic, but those passengers who heard the song had disembarked earlier than the crew.  Wireless operator Harold Bride told The New York Times he heard the song “Autumn” before the ship sank.

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[prorevenge]

[Long] How we destroyed our teacher and principal:

Apologies in advance if some details are blurry as this happened almost 14 years ago. Also, this is going to be a long one, so bare with me, I swear the result is worth it, at least it is to me.

The beginning: It all started when I (M25) was 12 years old. My grade 7 teacher (M46 at the time) was infamous for being intimidating and, in my opinion, abusive to his students. He was the disciplinarian of the school. He was in charge of keeping track of detentions and announcing who will be sitting every Friday during assembly.

We suspected at that time that the reason why he never got fired was either because his students were too scared to report him, or because of the fact that the principal was his brother-in-law.

Reasons why I hated him: He was constantly making vaguely racist remarks, complaining about the "New South Africa" and constantly bringing up how his life was better during the Apartheid regime (He's a white guy who was raised on a farm).

I always felt like he had an issue with me as a person because I'm a practising Muslim. He would make the class laugh at how "funny" Muslim women looked with their heads "wrapped up". His jokes about Muslims missing out on eating bacon were endless, in fact, he one day purposely stood in front of my desk eating a cheese and bacon panini.

He used to often rant about how the school is no longer a "pure Christian institution as it once was back in the day". He would say these things and glance at either me, my twin sister, or the black students in the class who practiced their own African religions.

When it was his birthday, my mom encouraged me to buy him a gift. I spent of my pocket money, which was already limited (my parents didn't believe in allowances) to buy him a big slab of chocolate and a long piece of Droëwors (dried sausage). Throughout the day, he would get gifts from students in his class and others.

He would get up from his desk to greet and thank them, and then shake their hand. I remember noticing this because I always found it weird when students shook hands with teachers because of how small our hands were compared to theirs.

However, when I gave him my gift, all he did was look at me for like a second, look away and nod his head slightly. I remember being thankful for not offering my hand out for him to shake because I thought he might have ignored it in front of the entire class. To say I felt like shit is an understatement.

The experience that made me hate him the most happened just before we wrote 2nd or 3rd term exams. I was walking with my friend David (fake name) back from the tuck shop during interval. We took a shortcut between the English and Afrikaans kindergarten classes and saw a group of boys huddled together.

One of them walked towards us and I saw that he had one of those camping multi-tools with the folding knife out, and instantly got a fright. He told us "Give me your stuff before I cut your neck" and then started laughing and walked back to his friends. It was clearly a joke but David looked close to tears and I had a very bad fright because of what he done. I told the guy (Fake name Xander) that he's not allowed to have knives at school and that I'm going to tell my teacher.

We walked straight to our teacher and when we spoke to him, David burst into tears.

We told him what happened and David was sobbing when he said he felt like he was going to die. Our teacher barely looked up from his computer while we were speaking and when he asked for the guy's name. We told him the name and he said he will deal with it and for us to go out for interval again.

I went home and told my mom who I felt didn't fully believe me at the time.

The next day we saw Xander were basically making fun of him for getting into trouble with our teacher and likely getting expelled at worst, or sitting a Saturday detention at best. He laughed back at us and said our teacher just came to his class, asked to speak to him and told him to never bring it to school again. No detention. No suspension. Basically nothing. He still had the knife on him for the rest of the day before.

We were so upset we went back to our teacher and I told him that Xander said that he didn't get into trouble for having the knife. He gave me the ugliest look as if I was bothering him, and coldly said to me that maybe I should fix my late-coming problem before I try to get other people in trouble.

I would come late 4 or 5 times a month because my mom's car's battery terminals were broken so the battery would run flat and she couldn't afford to have it fixed. She had to put the neighbour's battery in her car, start it, and then idle it while she took that battery out and put her own battery back in to charge up. My mom taught me the value of always having a number 10 spanner in your car lol.

I felt betrayed by my teacher. The person who was supposed to make us feel safe while we were away from home.

When I spoke to my friends about it, they told me that Xander was actually the principal's son, meaning he was my teacher's nephew. I decided to take the opportunity to speak to my friends about getting evidence that our teacher is treating students unfairly.

3 of my 4 close friends had camera phones. I sat in the far left corner, my one friend sat in the opposite corner by the door, our other friend sat in the middle, and the last friend was right at the back of the class by the window on the left. One thing about our teacher: he did not give a fuck about where we sat as long as we answered him when he done roll call and didn't bother anyone when we swapped seats.

We came to an agreement that whenever our teacher would sound like we was going to say something vaguely racist or islamophobic, we would all discreetly take videos of him.

Any private conversation we had with him was voice recorded on our phones. We caught him on camera telling a really racist joke about black people, and saying that Hindus must have a lot of problems since they have so many Gods. We caught him saying a lot of bad things, but a lot slipped through our fingers because we weren't fast enough.

It was extremely difficult to keep our friend group motivated to record him and not tell anyone else about it. It was especially difficult because at the time I had a hand-me-down Samsung D900 which was seen as an expensive phone at the time.

My mom prohibited me from taking it to school. She instead bought a cheap R79 ($5) phone for us that could only make calls and send SMS's. This was in case she needed to reach us in an emergency. I got caught several times sneaking my camera phone to school. My biggest mess up at school was when my mom phoned me on my Samsung and I answered it. Big oof but I was a dumbass.

After I think a month we decided that we couldn’t let it go any further.. One of our friends was a black guy named Tatenda (fake name). Tatenda was a problem child. His mom died when he was four and his dad was an alcoholic. He was raised mostly by his uncle who up until today I think was a pimp. He used to act out at school because of undiagnosed ADHD, his dad and uncle didn't believe in learning disabilities and always assumed he was just lazy and badly behaved.

Tatenda especially got onto our teachers nerves because not only was he black, but because he would bring broken calculators from home and take them apart during class. One day our teacher told him to clear his desk and throw away the bits of plastic and calculator shit. He ignored the teacher. The teacher then started screaming at him, and Tatenda done the only logical thing an 12/13 year old would do in such a situation: he mockingly put two pencils into his ears.

Our teacher lost his shit, grabbed Tatenda and threw him against the door. The narrow window pane cracked and Tatenda's head was bleeding. He told us he was fine during interval afterwards and we put money together to buy him a Sprite. I almost cried when my friend who sat way behind me said he got the whole thing on camera. We didn't even trust that the whole class' testimony would get him into trouble. We decided that enough was enough.

The revenge: First we showed the video to Tatenda's uncle, who showed it to his father. Then I showed my mom all the other videos and recordings.

She. Lost. Her. Mind.

One of my friends sent all of it to his older sister who had a Facebook account and she posted it there and tagged the school and as many parents as she knew. It blew up. Parents and people from around the province phoned the school demanding answers as to what is going to happen to our teacher. He was immediately suspended.

There were rumours circulating that he had to go into hiding because Tatenda's uncle and his friends were looking to kill him. I even met Tatenda's dad for the first time in the weeks after the whole thing exploded. He liked to joke that his dad sobered up especially for this lol.

The principal pulled Xander out of the school. We never saw him again. My mom told me an investigation was launched against the school because of the improper handling of bullying complaints. If I remember correctly, 3 English kids in my class alone spoke out against teachers dismissing their complaints of bullying by the Afrikaans kids. We were a mostly white, Afrikaans speaking school with 3 Afrikaans classes but only 1 English class per grade.

They called us"souties" which was short for "soutpiel" which literally tranlates as "salty dick". It's a derogatory term for English speaking, white South Africans. It means your one leg in is South Africa, your other leg is in England, so your dick is hanging in the ocean.

We only saw our teacher once after he was suspended. He looked badly beaten up, and was accompanied by a policeman and two other male teachers so he could gather the rest of his stuff from his class.

But it didn't end there.

Because so many kids needed the evidence that they were being bullied and nothing was done because of it, the CCTV footage was brought up. My friend's mother who was part of the school governing body that time, told us a few years ago that when they reviewed the footage, it became apparent that the principal was having an affair with one of the grade 2 teachers.

He could be seen grabbing her ass at the furthest point away from the camera. They slipped up a few times and kissed in clear view of the camera, but I guess once you're surrounded by the cameras everyday at work, you forget that they're there. It was very apparent that sometimes they thought they couldn't be seen.

My mom's friend's sister (basically my aunt) sells Tupperware and one of her regular customers and close friend's is the principal's ex wife. Not only did she leave him, but they were not married in community of property due to a prenup agreement. The house they lived in was in her name since before marriage, so she effectively made him homeless because none of his family wanted to take him in.

He ran into severe debt from staying in guesthouses and burned many bridges from overstaying his welcome at friends. As for my teacher, his reputation was destination fucked. He served jail time, don't know how long, and eventually left the country because it seemed everyone knew his face from the media attention he received.

The reason why I made this post: I was never going to tell this story on Reddit as I've told it over and over through the years since primary school. But I felt I had to because of what I experienced at the beginning of this year.

My family is part of a non profit organisation that has feeding schemes all over the country. The last Friday feed of February I'm standing security as I usually do since we're few volunteers and there's many homeless people and most are on drugs and can get violent.

I'm walking down the line to make sure there are no fights or anything that could start a riot, and I see a familiar face. My old principal is standing in the line, waiting for a bowl of stew and bread, with absolutely no idea who's standing beside him. Obviously he wouldn't have recognised me, but I never forgot his face. I'm not gonna lie, I cried quite a bit behind my sunglasses. Seeing him brought back the feelings I had when I was 12 years old in 7th grade, trying absolutely every excuse in the book to not have to go to school and be bullied by my teacher.

So yeah, for those of you who are still reading, this is the end of how my friends and I destroyed the lives of my teacher and principal.

If you got this far and are feeling depressed, worthless, or less than your peers, I love you. I appreciate you, and you, are seriously fucking awesome. Bye Bye..

(source) story by (/u/Mobi_Wan_Kenobi786)

[filthyfundie]

Adnan Syed? What happened there? I might regret asking but I will regret turning a blind eye on social issues. Also how do you learn about all these different people? Did you study criminology or do I live under a rock? 😬

How I learn about these things - I partially seek out these stories and they also tend to come to me. The majority of the media I consume is nonfiction. I listen to a lot of podcasts and primarily watch documentaries, and because of my interest in criminology that tends to be where I’m drawn. Another factor is my interest in social politics / activism and that being an interest in my friend groups too. Also friends who have a big interest in true crime. So between social media posts and casual conversation, I’m usually Aware of Things. To top it off I’m a pretty avid researcher so I’m not stranger to deep dives when a topic catches my attention, as you’ll soon see.

We all start somewhere ! Even if you don’t want to deep dive into any particular person or incident, I think it’s helpful to have some knowledge of specifics in various case just to build your own understanding.

So I will try to keep it concise when it comes to Adnan Syed but I’ve consumed about 30 hours of content on this one case. If you gave me the ability to pardon people, he would be near the top of my list. Okay let’s go!

The State of Maryland vs Adnan Syed (1999)

Basics:

Adnan was arrested and charged with the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. There was no physical evidence. The state had one witness, Jay, and relied on his testimony + cell tower evidence to convict. Adnan was 17 at the time and is currently serving life in prison.

The Witness -

his testimony changed a lot and not in regards to minor details. There’s reason to believe he was heavily coerced by the police into cooperation. On interview tapes there are pretty clear indicators he was receiving nonverbal clues to adjust his answers. Some thinly veiled threats were also made to Jay by the police if they didn’t get what they needed from him (primarily saying they would send his case to a district that is primarily white - meaning that his jury would be predominantly white; Jay is black).

Cell Tower Evidence -

absolute nonsense. I believe this was the first case to ever use cell tower evidence to convict and iirc it’s no longer viable in court because we have a much better understanding of it and the lack of dependability. It was misrepresented in Adnans case as being an infallible source for location tracking.

The Worst Lawyer Ever -

omg I hate this woman so much. Adnan was represented by an attorney named Cristina Gutierrez. It’s widely believed that she threw his first case and in fact she was eventually debarred for the mishandling of client funds - namely dragging out cases to get more money. (I’ll mention a particularly horrific thing she did in another case in the tags - tw for child abuse). Gutierrez failed to contact or interview a key witness for Adnan (a classmate that had recalled being with him at the time of murder). I’ve listened to a lot of tapes of this woman talking, she’s impressively unlikable. Fun fact - Adnans first trail was thrown out because the jury heard Gutierrez arguing with the judge (iirc this argument resulted in the judge calling her a liar and the jury asked about the implications of that) the jury was interviewed regarding how they would have convicted and it was majority not guilty.

Racism:

Adnan’s parents are Pakistani immigrants. The murder was painted as a “honor killing” from day one. The prosecution painted Adnan as a devastated, revenge focused individual. They claimed that he broke all his rules to be with her (a strict household, he wasn’t allowed to date) and that Hae had humiliated him by ending the relationship. An attorney at a bail hearing referenced “many” similarities between Adnans case and the case of another Pakistani man who had been on trial for an “honor killing” who got out on bond and fled to Pakistan and couldn’t be extradited. This attorney later wrote a letter to the judge clarifying that the only similarity was that both defendants were of Pakistani heritage. By the accounts of Adnans friends AND Hae’s personal diary (which was read at court) their breakup was actually quite drama free - they both moved on and remained friends. Also under the category I’ll mention Hae’s new, white, boyfriend was never seriously considered even though his alibi was sketchy AF.

Misc:

Adnan’s DOB was entered incorrectly on his entry paperwork - listing him as 18 instead of 17. This impacted everything including his ability to qualify for parole and was never caught or corrected.

Adnan was picked up by police 6 weeks after the murder took place. The most damaging thing against Adnan is that he can’t recall for certain what he was doing at the time of the murder. But we’re looking at a time frame of under an hour and youre asking a teenager what they did a month prior.

The CrimeStoppers reward amount was weirdly specific and correlated to a note a police officer had made when Jay mentioned a second hand street bike he wanted to buy. An anonymous CrimeStoppers tip is what police claimed caused them to look into Adnan as a suspect.

There’s a lot more that I want to mention but the biggest thing I have to say is that I’m 50/50 regarding if he did it. But I’m 100% sure he was not rightfully convicted. There was no physical evidence. The police tunneled visioned when they got a young man of color in their radar and Adnan had the misfortune of an incredibly incompetent team.

[queerchoicesblog]

A  Life So Changed (SC Titanic, Zetta x Adele Series, Ch. 15)

So, folks, here’s the new chapter of the series. Thank you so much for your support, hope you enjoy it!

Little disclaimer-favor: especially since the tags don’t seem to be working anymore, if you do enjoy it, please consider supporting the author & sharing this. A little gesture that means a lot!

Also, this chapter contains reference to THIS FIC I wrote about James and Zetta inevitable confrontation not showed in the original book.

Word Count: 2000+

Zetta x Adele Tag: @storyscaped​ ​ @storyscapefanficarchive​ @marmolady​ @animus-and-anima​ @hayley-carter19 @escako​  @everlastingchoices​ @indescribablechoices​ @ahrielstuff​ @bornonawdnsday​ @nazario-sayeed​  @h-doodles​ @adele-serda​ @marlcasters​ @brightpinkpeppercorn​  @michelleconnoly​ @charliejane-blog​ @ghost-of-yuri​  @choicesgremlin​  @lanzhansguqin​ @orange-elephants​ @wonder-falcon​

Zetta x Adele Series Tag: @eternal-langdon​ @nydeiri​

➡️ Ch. 1, Ch. 2/1, Ch. 2/2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8/1, Ch. 8/2, Ch. 9, Ch. 10/1, Ch. 10/2, Ch. 11/1, Ch. 11/2, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14

____________________________________

What follows that night is a feverish dream. The following months flow in a haze as days blend into each other. New York, my apartment...all is familiar yet ever distant. As if I'm back home and somewhere far away simultaneously. I'm here and I'm not here.

Moving on is tougher than I could have possibly imagined. Sabine and Richard take care of me with tender compassion, doubling their usual efforts: it's heartwarming, truly. It leaves me wondering what I have ever done right in my life to deserve such adoration and, most importantly, affection because it's genuine concerned affection what I see in their eyes when our eyes meet. Sabine immediately added a newfound touch of sweetness to her proverbial efficiency and joins me at the breakfast table more often these days: sometimes it happens that I am not in the mood for talking and we sit together in complete silence. At first it made me nervous but my little Napoleon doesn't seem to mind: she would offer me a smile and gesture to the coffee pot or the plate filled with slices of my favourite bread and my nervousness melts away replaced by a sense of comfort. Richard visits me more than usual and invites me to join him for a walk at Central Park: "you always say how much you love that place, let's go together...it will do you good" he suggests, smiling sheepishly and offering me his arm. Just like Sabine, he doesn't mind that at times I fall quiet and melancholy takes over me. He would gently stroke my hand resting on his arm and keep walking at my side. One day, as I took a seat on a bench, he picked a flower, a gorgeous little daisy, and pinned it to my hat. He smiled at me and gave my hand an encouraging squeeze before taking a seat beside me. He's surprisingly sweet, sweeter than I deserve, and more mature than I thought when we first met. Richard never once mentioned nor complained about James. He would have every reason and right to question me about him after the secret letters my nephew sent him, asking for money. He never did: the day after our arrival, he even asked his friend John to make sure Mr. Eisler and his valet were safe in their New York apartment. Richard is probably waiting for the moment I'm ready to have that conversation. How could I never be ready for it? Yet, I must, I must confront my nephew: what he did is too hurtful and serious not to come with harsh consequences. Before I send a note to James, I share with Richard my decision: as much as I have little desire to see him now, he's still family and I have at least a moral obligation to him, the old oath I made to Theresa, so I will grant him a generous monthly income. I will set a few conditions, which include no more letters or inappropriate requested to Richard and no more interferences with the marriage under the treat of a legal action from my lawyers. I explain my fiancée the hideous scheme my nephew planned, omitting some details, and I assure him that I was in the dark about the letters: I knew nothing about them and I'm deeply ashamed and sorry he went this far. Richard listens to me carefully and gives me a painful smile as he take my hand into his. "I knew, Zetta. I always knew and I didn't suspect you when I received them, not even for a split second" he sighs. "I trust you, my darling". He just worried about me and he is still concerned because as much as it pains him to say that, my nephew seems dangerous and he has no sympathy for him. I assure him we won't see him anytime soon: after what he did, the things between James and I will never be the same. I don't even know if I will ever be able to forgive him. I repeat the same words to Jaime a few days later and having such a conversation with him is one of the toughest thing in my whole life. I'm angry and disappointed as I speak, wounded in the deep yet tortured by the familiar affection refusing to die inside me. When he close the door behind him, full knowing I don't know when we will see each other again, my heart breaks and I fall sobbing on my knees. My little prince is gone. There is a big fuss in town about the Titanic hearings: American and British authorities are investigating the disaster and the White Star Line company is covered with shame. The hearings are held in New York at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel so I try to keep updated. I spoke to a committing magistrate too: he asked questions about that night to see if I could provide valuable information for the official investigation. It turned out I had none or at least very little to offer him, aside from reporting the questionable decision of lowering half-empty lifeboats and the stubborn refusal to go against it of many officers, like the one I yelled at on the deck. I sign my deposition, which adds up to many others he gathered since the inquiry started. I don't need to testimony at court, he said, he has tons of other witnesses reporting the same issue and he will just add my deposition to the documents to be sent to the judge. "You can go, thank you for your time, Miss Serda" he smiles, vigorously shaking my hand. He praises my heroism but I don't know what he's talking about. Apparently, other witnesses claimed that they owe me their life or saw me protesting on the deck. I'm no hero, I think as my mind runs to the young steward who stayed behind, down in the belly of the sinking ship to keep the light on and give us all a chance to survive. I think his name was Charlie. A few weeks after the beginning of the hearings, about the end of May, I receive a letter from Lucille. She hadn't hear from me since our arrival and she's worried about me, she writes. She had sent me letters but I answered none. She profusely apologises for not waiting for me as she promised but "they had no choice, the chaos was mounting": she hopes this won't be the end of our friendship. Hoping so, she renews her invitation: Richard and I will be her most welcome guests if we fancy joining her and Cosmo for dinner at their apartment whenever it suits us. I don't know how to feel about this. Under different circumstances, it would have filled with joy, maybe relief after all we've been through, now...now things are more complicated than that. Unlike me, Lucille and Cosmo were asked to appear at court during the hearings to verify certain details. They had been all over the press ever since the news spread and I wonder if I'm being a bad friend "abandoning" her in a time like this. The press predictably feasted and is still feasting over the disaster: tragic stories, eye catching headlines, shocking revelations, heartwarming and heartbreaking pictures from the pier: ça vien sans dire, the touching embrace between me and Richard - "reunited lovers" as the caption said - made it to the front page. As weeks went by, my brief appearance was replaced by the new scandal involving nothing less than the Duff-Gordons, not only my personal friends but also a couple of incredibly famous socialites. When I first read it, my heart sank while Richard declared himself disgusted by what journalists write these days. Rumor has it that Lucille, sitting with her husband and secretary on Lifeboat No. 1, commented to her Laura something like, "There is your beautiful nightdress gone" in the aftermath of the sinking. When the Titanic disappeared to the bottom of the sea and poor souls were freezing to death in the ocean, begging us on the lifeboats to come back and save them. I still hear their screams in my nightmares. There's more though: reportedly Cosmo had bribed the lifeboat's crew not to return to save swimmers out of fear the vessel would capsize; he handed checks to them on board of the Carpathia. But Lifeboat No. 1 was designed to carry 40 passengers. Only 12 people were on board when it was lowered unlike the one I was on, filled beyond its capacity. How could an half-empty boat capsize? They could have saved so many lives that night! The thought made my stomach turn to the point that I feel almost nothing when I see the pictures of them during the inquiry: Cosmo looking grim and tensed in his seat and Lucile dressed in black, a mourning dress with a veiled hats, entering the court. I know better than to trust rumours blindly...but I know them. I've known her for ages and, as much as it hurts to say, I can't completely rule out the possibility that for once the press was right. Maybe I'm wrong but I can't vouch for them this time. And doubt is an uncomfortable thing... The final report by the inquiry is more generous than me and clear their names, even if - I'm sure - the general public will be less forgiving. Anyway, Richard is quite fond of the couple, we will surely go visit them... I do not pretend to be fine after what happened on my birthday's night -the sinking, James' betrayal, but I can conceal. I know how to conceal, if need be, in public, in front of people who cannot understand. I'm an actress, a great actress after all. But I feel numb, a ghost of my usual self. During the day I try to keep myself busy. My renaissance requires hard work and commitment as well as a good plan. Sabine and Richard are excellent helpers: I need new projects to work on to make my comeback and an efficient daily schedule to prevent me from drowning in my sorrow. I may conceal it but I dread the time when I have nowhere to run and my mind races back to that memory that fills me with excruciating sadness and guilt. My sweet revolutionary. At night I drink sherry and write letters to Adele. They're passionate, melancholic, tearful. I throw them away in the morning: my words flow on the paper but they ring hollow in the daylight. I don't know what I am supposed to write her. What should I tell her? What could possibly excuse my silence as times go by? I wish I could speak freely what's inside my mind but it's unbelievably difficult. More than she deserves, probably. For some time I tried to convince myself that our little romance on the Titanic was mere attraction, a secret affair favoured by the circumstances: two women growing close, Adele's protectiveness, my heart susceptible to women's beauty and charm just like hers. We found each other and it happened. That's all. But her memory lingers, it never fades away. Never. She always finds a way back to me. At night or during the day, by accident. She's everywhere even if this isn't a place she belongs to. She's in the announcement of a referendum for women's suffrage in Michigan: I read the news and think how excited she must be about it. Maybe she knows it already but I feel a silly urgency to send her the page of the newspaper: your dream may come true after all, see, my love? She's in a gorgeous dress I see hanging on a mannequin in a boutique and I know would fit her perfectly. I have to refrain myself not to buy it and send it to her with a sweet note because I don't care if she needs it, I just want her to have it. She needs beautiful things in her life too. She's in a witty joke I hear in a fancy cafe: I laugh and turn towards Sabine to say "Oh Adele would love this humour" but words die in my throat. When I turn, my cheer has turned into a grimace. Adele isn't here. I don't even know her address here. The thought pains me. I could ask Sabine to find it, I could visit her...but I find myself wondering if it would be the better judgement. I'd give up half my fortune or even more to know about her, even just a quick update. Is she fine? Is she still hurting? Did she and her sister settle down safely? Does she have nightmares at night? She looked so defeated and forlorn on the Carpathia, it pains me to remember seeing the light in her eyes flicker. But maybe this way it will be easier for her to move on. To forget me, if that's what we must get to, no matter how much it hurts. Sometimes I drink myself to a stupor to break the spiral of such thoughts and I'm quite ashamed of myself when Sabine finds me like that in the morning. I mutter nonsense excuses I don't owe her - but I feel like do, she's not a maid, she's my friend - as I hold onto her since I can barely stand on my feet at times and I burst into tears whenever she says: "You have nothing to apologise for, Madam" I do, though. I should - no I must apologise to Adele and Hileni too for disappearing and abandoning them on that pier. I must tell Adele how things really are, how I miss her, it's unbearable... So it's no surprise then that when Richard announces me his idea to postpone the grifter story project I've been working on in favour of a new one, "an homage to the Titanic tragedy", my mind comes find her once again. The project is a wise mix of ambitious opportunism - the sinking is still the talk of the town and people will love it - and genuine concerns. He says I'll not only play the main heroine but also pick the subject, he will just help assessing the script but he wants me to be the one calling the shots on the story to tell. I believe he feels it might be somehow therapeutic for me, aside from the alluring detail of having the star Zetta Serda co-writing an announced success. I consider it for a while, but in the end I write down the Carrem sisters story. I'm fully aware that the picture will hardly be able to bring back to life what it truly happened, the grandeur and the terror. I'm experienced enough to know that the audience can take only that much of the tragedy: they wanna cry and say that they felt as if they were there but they would scream and leave the room if I showed them the truth. A giant ship collapsing in front of you, officers shooting to maintain orders, stewards stubbornly denying desperate passengers their only chance to jump on a lifeboat and to survive, the screams of those who floated in the chilly waters and the dreading silence that followed their unmerciful death. They will never take that much. On the contrary, they will likely enjoy the story of two sisters separated and reunited, prevailing over the impending tragedy threatening to kill them both. It's an heartwarming story with an happy ending and the right amount of pathos and hope. It's also the story of my love that I'm writing down on paper and hand to the posterity. When I present it to Richard, he loves it. He himself couldn't have found a better story, he says, barely containing his excitement. I explain quietly that it's a true story, I just changed the names in respect of the real protagonists of this story. I can only hope Adele won't hate me for this when she sees it. Hate me even more than she's probably doing right now, I frown. I can only hope she will understand.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Nate and Danny: The Lucky Ones

This is just a little recovery drabble - someone a while back requested a sweet moment with Nate and Danny, so here it is! You know, to get you all nice and relaxed before the next BTHB piece.

CW: Referenced past abuse/violence, noncon, drugging, dubcon (on both sides), trauma recovery. But, you know, I swear this one is really sweet at heart. Some hint of spice. Like PG-13 spice. 

Tagging @bleeding-demon-teeth, @spiffythespook, and @special-spicy-chicken. Also I owe a debt to @orchidscript for this one, as it pulls from a scene she and I wrote out a while back in a different context. Oh, and here is a link to the song that is in this piece if you haven’t heard it before.

“No, Danny.”

“Please? Come on, Nate, please, it’ll help, I know it will.”

Nate looks up from his position lying in the bed, where he’s been for the past three days. Danny stands between him and the window, and the hint of sunshine outside lights a halo around the red hair, turning the edges to a brilliant gleaming copper. Danny’s face is slightly shadowed this way, not exactly silhouette. It fades out the scars until they’re barely visible, lessens the hint of silver-gray visible just at his scalp if you know where to look.

But it doesn’t matter how dark the shadows make Danny’s face, Nate can still see the vibrant warm blue of his eyes.

Danny’s wearing a heavy sweater and soft cotton pants - he’s always wearing sweaters now, even as the weather begins to warm, even as flowers bloom in the landscaping at the edge of the apartment complex’s parking lot and the leaves bud on the trees outside. The sweater is a deep green, nearly the same color as Nate’s own eyes, and sets off every inch of the redhead’s pale freckled skin.

Nate swallows against the way the guilt pricks at him, a million little needles that never leave him alone. He hasn’t moved in days because he’s been thinking about how much they’ve all lost, and his sense that the life he is building here - taking care of Danny, going to therapy, watching Ryan Michaelson be the world’s biggest jackass until he looks at his brother and suddenly that drops and melts away into a devotion Nate has never seen before - is all going to be ripped away.

It was too easy, sending Bram to prison.

It was all too easy, and it won’t last.

Nate looks up at Danny, who gives him a shy and nervous smile, and thinks, My hands tied you to the headboard even when I begged him not to make me. My hand held the knife. My hand pulled your head back by your hair so he could watch the blood drip in your eyes. My hands helped him put the muzzle on your face that last time, my hands cleaned you up when he let you back out of the cellar, my hands, mine, I am covered in your blood. I am complicit, I’m as guilty as he is, it doesn’t matter what happens with his eyes.

I deserve to be dead.

Why am I here?

He slumps back onto the bed. “L-Leave me alone, Danny. I j-j-just want to stay here today.”

“No.” The word is a surprise to both of them - when Nate blinks and looks up, Danny’s eyes are wide and a little frightened at himself. 

Nate swallows hard against the rush of self-loathing as he reads the thought clear as day across Danny’s face: puppies don’t get to say no. “I, I mean…” Danny’s jaw sets, and Nate is even more surprised by the look of determination when those blue eyes move back to his. “I mean it. No. This always helped me when we did it up in the woods. I want to help you, Nate. I want you to believe me when I say I want you here. I want, um, I want… I want you to get out of the bed. Okay?” As though all his strength had bled out in his words, Danny’s shoulders slumped a little, hunching into himself, making himself smaller. “... please?”

It’s the crack in his voice on the final word that gets Nate to move. He’d tried to kill a man to save Danny. He’d burned down the cabin and driven away in the middle of the night. Whatever he was - however guilty - Danny didn’t see him that way.

Danny never seems to see the man that held him down to be hurt - only the man who watched movies with him late at night and helped him pick bundles of wildflowers to press, only the man who would sometimes kiss the bruises Bram had left with perfect tenderness. Danny saw the man who had saved him and not the man who was the reason he had been broken in the first place.

Danny saw the man who stitched him up after he was forced to step into the trap and not the man who had done nothing but uselessly hold him while Abraham made him do it.

Whatever he is, has been made into, Nate had discovered the ability to stand up when Danny needed him, in the end. Danny needs him to stand up now.

So Nate pushes back the covers, which seem to weigh three tons, and slides his feet off the side of the bed. He leans over for a second, hands on the edge of the bed, just sitting in his pajama pants and looking down at himself - the wicked stripe of pale, faded scar up his torso (Ashley), the twisted one along his collarbone (Bram), the smaller pockmarked places knives had gone in and out of him like love (Bram, always Bram, endlessly Bram).

When Danny holds out his hand, Nate reaches up with his good one to take it, lets Danny pull him up off the bed. Danny holds both of his hands, grip gentle and barely-there on the bad hand so as not to push the misplaced bones together.

“This helped, when you used to do it with me,” Danny says softly, looking down at him, and Nate tilts his head back to look up. It’s always so strange the way Danny can seem so small until you stand next to him and realize how tall he is, the height he hides as much with his personality as with the way he rolls his shoulders forwards and curves his spine.

If he disliked Ryan a little less, he’d ask if he was always like that, or if that was something he’d only learned in the cabin. After all, he and Danny had only seen each other a handful of times before Abraham came for him.

Nate had met some people and kind of fallen in with them, and Danny had been on the periphery of the group. Most of Nate’s interactions with him prior to the night Danny had come over to watch a movie with him - and Bram had finally hunted Nate down - had involved pretending not to watch Danny push and shove and dance with a crowd in a dark bar in front of a stage. Pretending his mouth wasn’t dry, that he wasn’t staring at the way Danny moved when the sweat slicked him up, dampened his shirt, left little bits of red hair stuck to his forehead and the back of his neck as he knocked back another drink, shot Nate a half-shy, half-bold flash of toothy smile before he went back to the crowd.

Nate had spent the time they were around each other pretending he wasn’t interested, because it wasn’t safe to be interested. Then he’d let his guard down, and here they are, nearly five years later, a broken puppy and Bram’s black-haired prince who burned down the fucking castle.

Danny takes Nate’s other hand in his, tilting his head with a nervous, shy smile, and Nate lets his eyes move back up to the halo of sunlight around his hair. Maybe Bram named the wrong one of us the prince. “H-How long have you been awake?” He asks, voice low and deep and uncertain. Danny smells like his shampoo and soap, an odd mix of flowers and something like mint. This close, Nate can tell his hair is still the slightest bit damp.

(do you like him better this way, baby?)

Of course I like him better free

(but he was so good for you, before)

He’s better for me now

Nate shakes off the thoughts, the hint of Bram’s voice that never quite leaves him, and sighs. “Fine. We’ll t-t-try it. But if it doesn’t w-work, you let me get b-back in the bed, okay?”

“It’s a deal. It’ll work, Nate, I know it will.”

There’s hardly enough room, with Danny’s big bed and his desk and a dresser, but Nate lets himself be pulled, moving to the one space in here big enough for what Danny wants to do. Now that he’s agreed to it, Danny’s smile has shifted, widened, become more certain of itself and sincere. It crinkles the scar tissue at the bridge of his nose, makes the broken line of his jaw on each side less obvious, makes the tiny pinprick scars from the sharp pieces that stuck off the metal and jabbed his skin less noticeable.

Nate wants to touch the scar, to trace it with his hands like he does when Danny is scared or goes too far inside his own head for them to follow. The touch that brings him back when he’s lost in the woods. He never wants to stop touching the scars, rub his thumbs right into them until they both forget what made them.

He swallows as Danny moves him, the taller man’s face gone serious and thoughtful, his eyes a little distant, lost in thought, in memory.

He made me hurt you so many ways, and when I can’t get out of bed, you still come here to pull me up.

There’s an infinite, innate capacity for forgiveness in Danny that Nate cannot begin to fathom, is utterly unprepared for. He doesn’t deserve it, didn’t expect it. He expected to be tossed out as soon as his testimony was done, as soon as his part in putting Bram away was over. Instead, Danny spent a day with his parents and came back shaking, fucked up, but with enough promised money to cover Nate’s therapy and medical bills and an offer to let Nate stay here as long as he wanted to stay.

Forever, Nate wants to say, but he never does. I don’t know how to start over any longer. I don’t want to start over without you.

“No, come, come here,” Danny murmurs, sliding an arm around Nate’s waist, pulling him close until they’re pressed together. Danny’s hipbones, still sharp from years of never eating enough, push just a little against Nate’s abdomen. “Too far away.”

“Wh-why?” Nate asks, and he’s asking a dozen different questions with that one single word - afraid of what the answer might be for most of them, desperately wanting an answer to the rest.

“Because it worked, when you did it on the days I didn’t want to get up off the mat. Because it worked, then. It can work for you, too.”

Danny’s arms slide around him, and Nate echoes the motion, his forehead dropping to rest on Danny’s shoulder, feeling the jut of his collarbone even through the heavy fabric of his sweater. When Danny starts to move, Nate moves with him, the slow shifting back and forth of a middle-school dance but without what Nate’s grandmother had called ‘space for Jesus, Joseph, and Mary’ between them.

He fights the hint of helpless, sad laughter, the thought of what his grandmother would think of him now, slow-dancing in the bedroom of… whatever Danny was to him. Whatever they were to each other.

(I’ve met real gods, you know - and real gods never forgive you)

Nate swallows, and he must tense, because Danny’s arms tighten around him. “Here, let me help the wrong thoughts,” Danny whispers, and Nate closes his eyes at the rush of shame there. Wrong thoughts, Bram’s words in Danny’s voice.

(do you think you’ve earned forgiveness, sweet thing? do you think you’ll ever earn it?)

Danny begins to hum, slightly tuneless and off-key, resting his chin on Nate’s hair, the two of them still moving slowly, back and forth. He’s too aware of Danny’s body, of the warmth of the arms around him. He’s too aware of the scars that his hands caused at Bram’s command, inside and out.

He’s too aware of what he’s done, too sure that he will never, ever deserve the forgiveness that Danny never stops offering him.

“I c-can’t-” He starts, and Danny’s arms tighten even more, until they nearly hurt, until they nearly steal his breath.

“Yes, you can,” Danny murmurs into his hair. “I could, for you. You can for me.”

There is silence, for a while, the sun cutting stripes through the blinds across Danny’s old wooden desk under the window, the rumpled covers with the quilt on top. The green of Danny’s sweater soft against his cheek, the hint of dark red and copper blending in his hair. He knows just what Danny’s eyelashes look like right now, closing against his cheek, bright, light ginger-copper and so long it’s fucking ridiculous - no one should have eyelashes that long.

“Better?” Danny whispers - and it almost is.

(your body belongs to me, your love is for me, your life is mine)

Nate shudders and shakes his head.

Danny nods against his hair, and there’s quiet for another little while. He’s not sure how long, because all he can think of is how much he doesn’t deserve this moment. He should be in prison right next to Bram, in his own solitary cell, a menace, a destroyer, a villain in Danny’s narrative.

Then Danny starts to sing.

It’s halting and cracked in his hoarse, rough voice, and Nate turns his head so his ear is against Danny’s shoulder, mouth just barely brushing the skin of his neck. This way he can feel the vibration of sound through Danny’s chest.

“It was a Monday when my lover told me, ‘never pay the reaper with love only’,” Danny sings, off-key, but Nate presses his lips together and his ear a little more against Danny’s sweater, listening to the soft sound. He knows this song, doesn’t he?

He’s heard this song before, but where?

“What could I say to you,” Danny sings, “Except ‘I love you’, and ‘I’d give my life for yours’?... I know we are, we are the lucky ones-... I know we are, we are the lucky ones. I know we are, we are the lucky ones, dear…”

“Wh-what are you s-s-singing?”

“Sssshhh,” Danny says softly, and Nate falls silent again. Danny never gives orders, never gives commands. He’s submissive and eager-to-please, nervous and worried all the time. This version of him is vanishingly rare, and Nate wonders if this was what he was like with his boyfriends, before - and Nate just never had the chance to learn about it, then.

“The first time we made love, I wasn’t sober,” Danny sings, voice warming a little, “And you told me you loved me over and over-”

I’m s-s-so sorry, I’m so s-s-sorry, Red, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, j-j-just look at m-me now, okay?

(what are you waiting for?)

‘Kay, can do it, can look-... your eyes are bleeding, Nate, like green sky, you’re stained glass, you’re a fucking saint sparking fucking starlight fuck, ah

J-Just look at me, Red, just look right at me, it’s going to be oh-okay, it’s okay, I d-d-don’t want to, I promise, I just, I have to-

(of course you want to. and if you don’t, I will)

Sssshhh, s’okay if it’s you. Always if it’s you. I want you too. Saint Nate, ha, Saint Nate saint… Saint Nathaniel, patron saint of, of puppies and fuck, what’d he put in my drink? Shit, you feel so good, don’t stop

Fuck, R-Red, I’m so sorry

(stop holding out on him, baby, he’s asking for it)

“-how can I ever love another, when I miss you everyday?” Danny kept singing, shifting them back and forth with the slightest movements in rhythm to his song. Nate kept thinking he’d heard this song before, somewhere, in his past, in the life before Abraham. 

There was a life before Bram.

“Remember the time we made love in the roses? And you took my picture in all sorts of poses-”

Look at this, Nate! It’s like all the flowers bloomed at once this year! Here, let me make you a dandelion chain. My friend Kelli taught me how to do this when we were kids, let me make you one, it’s like a crown, like you’re a, a prince for real.

G-G-Go for it, Red, I’ll pretend I d-don’t look ridic… ridic-... that I don’t look stupid.

You never look stupid, you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Here, I’ll make chains for us both, that way we both look stupid, right?

Right.

You could never look stupid, you know. You always look so good.

Wh-what?

Never mind. Let me grab more dandelions, I’ll be right back.

Danny with the yellow dandelions woven through his hair, grinning at him, a flash of white teeth and crinkled scars and the sunlight that turned his freckles darker and darker while his skin stayed pale and white. Sitting shirtless in the garden while they worked, sun burning his shoulders reddish pink, the smile on his face when he settled the second chain on the top of Nate’s head.

And Bram never saw that moment - that memory was theirs, alone.

“-How can I ever get over you, when I’d give my life for yours?”

I tried to kill for you.

“I know we are, we are the lucky ones-... I know we are, we are the lucky ones… I know we are, we are the lucky ones, dear… my dear…” Danny’s voice cracks again when he tries to hit the high notes, and Nate is struck by how fucking awful his singing voice is, and how he doesn’t care at all, it sounds amazing to hear it.

Like watching him dance in his kitchen when he thought no one was watching, barely hitting the high note. The way his heart had leapt when Ryan had popped out onto the patio with a finger on his lips, the sound of Danny’s music blaring in the kitchen behind them, and whispered, come on, motherfucker, you have got to see what he’s doing now.

“It’s time to say I thank God for you,” Danny sings, “I thank God for you… in each and every single way-... and I know, I know, I know… it’s time to let you know, time to let you know, time to sit here and say…”

I’d kill for you again.

“I know we are, we are the lucky ones-”

I hurt you.

“I know we are, we are the lucky ones-”

I couldn’t save you for four fucking years.

“I know we are, we are the lucky ones, dear…”

I loved you so much and I still couldn’t save you.

“We are the lucky ones, dear…” Danny’s voice trails off, the two of them still moving in rhythm, and Nate takes a deep breath of the smell of Danny, the simple scent of his skin layered under clean soap and that weird floral shampoo he buys. His hands tighten in the fabric of Danny’s sweater.

“What’s that s-s-song?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s… it’s B-something, Naked…”

“Bif Naked,” Nate blinks. “I knew I kn-knew that song. I used to l-l-love her… where d-d-did you ever hear that song?”

“... promise not to laugh?”

“C-Cross my heart and hope to d-die.”

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Nate has to bite back the instinctive laughter in return, and barely manages it, and feels Danny stiffen a little. “Don’t judge! Ryan loves Buffy, or did. We watched all the reruns. She and some guy dance to that song, and I… I liked it, so I downloaded it and listened to it a bunch. I was listening to it earlier cleaning the kitchen, and it… made me think of you. Of… of us.”

There’s a silence that stretches between them, comfortable but weighty.

Then Danny says softly, “There’s an us, right?”

“Danny, I w-w-want to go back to the bed,” Nate replies in a rush, and feels Danny’s shoulders drop a little. Feels the sudden well of fear that threatens him. “W-wait. Don’t, just… just let me f-f-finish. I w-want to go back to the bed and I want y-y-you to come with me.”

Danny pulls back and away all at once, and Nate swallows back the spike of panic that he’s crossed a line, gone too far. They’ve done nothing more than this, than maybe a few kisses, since they came back. He doesn’t deserve any more. He doesn’t deserve this.

Danny catches his eyes, and Nate thinks, no one could ever earn the forgiveness you never stop giving me.

The scarred hands find their way up to his face, rough fingers with skin calloused to near-numbness by years of being forced to work too hard, to hurt himself. Nate’s own hands cover them, the pads of his own fingers pressing into the scars without flinching, without fear. He doesn’t mind Danny’s hands, he never has. He loved them clean and he loves them scarred. He loves the body he knows too well and for all the wrong reasons.

He wants to erase all the wrong ones, all the times Danny was hurt, and cover him over in something new. But maybe he isn’t the right person, for that - maybe Danny needs someone else, someone who isn’t complicit, who isn’t guilty, who isn’t-

“Yeah, let’s go to the bed,” Danny says, and smiles. Nate’s heart breaks, but it beats harder, too, and he can’t reconcile the two feelings, the sense of being given a gift, again, that he should never have been given at all.

“D-don’t, you don’t have t-to,” Nate says softly. “I know that y-you, that you need to take time-”

Danny leans in to kiss him, and Nate hasn’t felt the warmth of his lips quite like this since that night in the truck, since he took the muzzle off and Danny came back to life. “I need time,” Danny agrees, nuzzling against the side of his face. “But I have time. And I have, um, I have you. Can I have you, too, and time? Do I get to have both?”

Nate hesitates, uncertain what answer he’s meant to give to that, what the question even means. Then Danny grabs him by the hands and pulls him back to the bed, pushes him onto his back, and Nate’s uncertainty breaks apart and melts under the sudden weight of Danny climbing on top of him, pressing him into the soft blankets and the mattress that gives just a little under their weight. Danny kisses him again, slowly, wonderfully, hands running slowly up Nate’s sides. There’s a surety, a certainty, to him that Nate would give anything to see more of.

Nate, look, the body had a canoe in this shed. Do you… do you think I could lay down in it? Do you want to see if we can, um... do you want to?

Look, I found baby rabbits. Do you think the mother’s around here somewhere?

I, um, I made you this - for you. Do you like it? Is it okay?

Do you think we would have really gotten together, if it hadn’t been like this?

I’ll take a shower before he gets back, Nate, he won’t ever know.

Danny’s hands slide rough-skinned over Nate’s shoulders, feeling over the scars Bram left on him. He licks at the scar on Nate’s lip, the tiniest nick that only shows when he smiles, really, and finds his way to his ear and down his neck, trailing lips over the circles that Ashley cut into him, over and over again.

“D-Danny,” Nate murmurs, sliding hands up into his hair. “Danny, don’t d-d-do anything you don’t w-want to do-”

“I want to,” Danny says softly. “I want to. I want to all the time, but I’m not, I’m not supposed to want to any longer-”

“Hey.” Nate’s fingers tighten just a little in his hair and Danny stills, looking at him with the blue eyes, the sun catching them just right to make them seem almost to glow. His face is flushed and red, and Nate smiles at the sight of him, the way he bites his lower lip, just a little bit. “You  get to w-w-want whatever you w-want, now, remember? We’re free.”

“Free,” Danny breathes out, shivering at the word. His hips press just a little into Nate’s, and he can’t quite catch his breath at the way that feels. Warm and human and he feels like a live wire under Danny’s body, shifting a little at the press of Danny against him. “I get to say no, now, right?”

Nate nods, slowly. “You get to say no. Forever. Anytime you w-w-want. Even right n-now, Danny. Tell m-me to fuck off, and I will. No hard f-f-feelings.”

“I don’t want you to fuck off. I want you to...” Danny colors, bright red covering up the freckles and scars across his cheeks, and they both realize the joke Danny wants to say at the same time as they realize he’s not quite ready for that, yet.

“You d-d-decide what happens now,” Nate says, firmly. “All y-you, Danny. Every step of the way.”

Danny swallows, hard, and lowers himself until he’s resting on his elbows, their bodies touching from breastbone all the way through their legs. The weight of him isn’t nearly enough for his height, and Nate feels the curve of his muscled shoulders, down his biceps, slides his hands up under the sweater, pushing it up to feel the rippled whip-scars that line his upper back. “If I get to say no, Nate, I want… I want to, um.” Danny looks to the side, shyly, then back at him. He leans in to kiss him, one more time. “I can’t... not to everything. But to a little... I want to say yes.”

[marithlizard]

Ace Attorney: Rise From the Ashes (Day Two, Trial Latter) (part 3)

Wherein I attempt to liveblog a mostly text-based videogame.  The trial continues!  Lunch is over and yet we’re still being fed indigestible statements. 

Court has recessed briefly for information-gathering. The clock says it's not even noon, but I feel like we've heard hours’ worth of (mostly untrue) testimony.

Lana has been called to the judge's chambers for reasons unknown.  Ema is realizing just how much of a, what's the polite word, “freewheeler” she's chosen to represent her sister.  But Phoenix is still flailing about when any other defense attorney in this world would have given up, so she'd best appreciate him.

It's the cowboy!  Who pointedly mentions Lana's scarf, which he saw her wearing on the day of the murder.   Since she wasn't wearing it in the photograph taken afterward, presumably the missing muffler is...in the car muffler?  Was she trying to hide something, or give Edgeworth carbon monoxide poisoning?  And just why is Marshall dropping us this helpful hint?

Court resumes with Edgeworth on the verge of some kind of conniption fit.   The judge lists off his symptoms concernedly - oh NO surely you didn't eat one of the lunchboxes, Edgeworth!  I've already been wondering how Angel Starr resisted the urge to give you food poisoning for two years, and that was before you verbally eviscerated her on the witness stand.

...Hello, who's this?

Peach suit, white hair, pink glasses and an avuncular folksy charm.  You. I don't like you.  

"Udgey?"  Is that the judge's name, or some sort of twee pig-latin nickname for Judge?  And "Wrighto" and "Worthy".  And he can get away with calling people slightly demeaning and offbeat nicknames, because apparently he's the district chief of police,  Damon Gant.  Phoenix is chastised for not recognizing him, which is probably fair.

Okay, that technique of taking away the dialogue box for several seconds while Gant cocks his head and blinks at us is quite effective.  This, we're silently being told, is a character so powerful they can interrupt the flow of the game itself. 

The judge notes that it's been "over two years" since Gant was in the courtroom.  That matches when Angel was fired.   This is all about one case, isn't it?  The case Lana and the victim worked on, the case that got Marshall demoted.

Gant has brought some false sympathy for Edgeworth and also Lana's missing scarf, which was indeed found stuffed in the car muffler.   (So the lunchlady was telling the truth about at least something.)  The scarf was wrapped around a switchblade with a tag on it. So, not a personal possession like Edgeworth's knife, but...an exhibit?  Something from storage? Like, evidence storage?

Edgeworth is justifiably upset that the police investigation didn't notice a scrap of red cloth hanging out of the car muffler inches away from the body.  Gant's initial sheepish admission that "this is embarrassing, even for us"  suddenly turns into that blinking Look again.   I feel like a trap is about to be sprung.

It's the envelope from yesterday, the one delivered by the hapless mailman!  Who told Edgeworth it wasn't related to the case, so he refused to take it.   Ouch.  It is Edgeworth's error, but there's something gleefully malicious about the way  Gant just set him up and then sucker-punched him.  There was no need for this to be a public humiliation.  In fact, it could've been discreetly sorted out before Gant got on the stand.  Or before trial started this morning.

(Why IS he on the stand? He's not a testifying witness. He just kinda...strolled in and took over. )

The judge asks Phoenix to examine the switchblade.  The knife tip is broken off and the blade and handle have bloodstains.    The tag, when I zoom in focus to max, says "S-L 9 2".   As for the envelope, it appears to be an autopsy report on Goodman, and doesn't mention the muffler or switchblade at all.  It also has a much vaguer timeframe than 5:15. 

Edgeworth tries to regain face by demanding an explanation about the missed evidence.  This is a bad, bad idea. I could've told you that even before Gant delightedly agrees  to testify.

Gant says the knife is special, but that he can't say how unless a  "connection is proven between the knife and Goodman."   Um. Doesn't the very presence of the knife, deliberately concealed at the crime scene, in itself mean it's not only connected but vital to understanding what happened?  I don't think you should get to withhold that information.

Nor do I think "we were having a bad day" is an acceptable excuse for not investigating the crime scene properly.  Cops get aggressively motivated when one of their own is attacked, everybody knows that.  Or was Goodman some kind of pariah?  

...wait.  What???   What Gant's saying is so bizarre I misread it.  There was a SECOND murder, at precisely the same time (and that's an awfully precise time),  at the police department?  "Not officially linked to this case" my aunt Fanny.

And Phoenix isn't supposed to ask about it in cross-examination?  I predict that will last about five seconds, because we're going to press every one of these statements hard enough to extract olive oil.

Starting with the knife.  Both Phoenix and Edgeworth push for more, but Gant refuses.  Can I make a connection that will impress the judge?  My inventory contains a phone, a shoe...and a note found in the trunk of the car that says "6-75 12/2".    Which looks a lot like "2/21 SL-9" if you turn it upside down.

Gant is acting as though this is a circus and he's never seen a clown before, delighted at everything Phoenix and the judge say.    This conveys an impression of total contempt behind a fig leaf of friendliness that can't be questioned.  It's a passive-aggressive masterpiece.  Somewhere in the audience Himemiya Anthy is probably taking notes.

And his facade barely flickers when faced with the memo.  The knife was evidence in a case (duh).  Stolen from the evidence room...and that's it? That's all we get?

Oh, this guy is skilled.   Edgeworth quite reasonably asks why he wasn't told about this impossibly coincidental murder, and Gant promptly insinuates that he's incompetent because he didn't proactively ask.  As though a proper prosecutor would have called the department every day with a checklist of possible events.  Why, I bet you didn't even consider a Godzilla attack contingency, did you?   Tsk tsk.

Gant continues to playfully refuse to give information on this second murder (except that a suspect has been arrested).  He offers to give Phoenix one data  point of his choice: where, how or when.  Apparently this trial has turned into a game show.

We already know when, so I choose where.  And Gant makes a curious distinction.  The crime took place in the evidence room (where the knife came from), but he won't say where the corpse was found.    Was the body moved?  As they say, he is playing a game and it is called silly buggers.   I'm absolutely assuming he is behind both murders (though sadly he can't have committed both, unless something paranormal or very complicated is going on).

Phoenix points out that a knife being stolen from the evidence room and then found at crime A, precisely when crime B is committed in the evidence room, is a pretty "duh" link.  Edgeworth supports by mentioning the note.   Whoever wrote it (Goodman, the murderer, or Lana)  presumably either stole the knife or was investigating its theft.    Even the judge agrees this has to count.  Gant just does his blink thing again.

And says his men took two days to assemble that logic.  In other words, he knew. And he STILL wants to play games.  He'll talk "unofficially", but not reveal the name of the victim.  (Why is that so important?)  When pressed, he offers  another one-data-point choice.   I choose ID number which should be easy to link to a name...although apparently Gant doesn't think so.

Victim ID number: 5842189.   The judge looks expectant.  I have a horrible idea, and check the court record.

Yep. It's Goodman's ID number.

Simultaneous murders of the same victim in different locations? That's an impressive level of silly buggers, chief.  And you didn't want this to come out in the trial? If I didn't already know Lana was innocent by video-game rules, I'd know it now.

Even this doesn't faze Gant.   (I really wanted to see him look thwarted. Damnit.) 

Edgeworth keeps on asking "Why didn't I hear about this?"  even though the answer is always "Because Gant has it in for you, and you just gave him another opening to attack."   It's as though he can't quite believe what is happening.  

Yep, there's that trap-springing look again.  With the first honest expression I think we've seen on Gant's face so far!  Just for one frame,  a flicker of anger and malice. This time he claims the police department sent Edgeworth all the information in that envelope delivered by Hapless Mailman Meekins, which Edgeworth didn't look at.

Hang on.  That's not even true.  We have that envelope in the court record, and...*scrolls up*...it's an autopsy report on Goodman.   It doesn't say which.  Even if Edgeworth had read it, he would have had no reason to think there was a second crime and victim.   Moreover,  Gant already raked him over the coals for not reading it,  in this same trial session!   No...as the trap unfolds,  Gant seems to be claiming this is an entirely different envelope also delivered by Meekins(?)  It doesn't make sense.

But truth isn't going to matter here.  This is a career-destroying maneuver, and it's uncomfortable to watch.  Edgeworth is helpless under the crushing accusations,  protesting vainly that Gant could have submitted all this evidence  when the trial started.   Well, yes, that's what anyone but your enemy would have done...    The flicker of malice is back as Gant rubs it all in with a technicality about evidence law.

(Ah, this detail might be relevant:  Edgeworth  apparently submitted a list of evidence to be used in the trial, which of course did not include things he didn't know existed.    That flies in the face of all Phoenix Wright games past and present, in which new evidence is produced about every five minutes during trial, this one included.)

This morning's Public Career Assassination, I mean trial,  comes to an end with Gant mentioning the rumors about Edgeworth, and even using his own brief status as a defendant against him.  Edgeworth can do nothing but formally grovel.  He begs for one more day of trial to investigate all this new information.   The judge grants it,of course, but joins in condemning him.

I don't know why Gant wants to get rid of Edgeworth, but it's obvious the plan is to fire him after tomorrow's trial no matter what happens.   The only way to save Edgeworth (and oh yeah, our actual client who's barely been mentioned lately) is to bring Gant down.  I am on board with this.  He's a mean lying stinkyhead and he's smug about it.   Get him, Phoenix!

(Rereading my notes from last time,  I'm remembering the moment when Angel Starr told Edgeworth "I might be able to save you".  Did she know this was coming down? )

[clarasimone]

Iain Glen nailing Hamlet (1991)

In 1991, after winning the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actor, Iain Glen gave his soulful all, not on the stage in London, no, not yet, though really he could have, but at the Old Vic in Bristol, donning the persona of the Dane, Hamlet. He won the Special Commendation Ian Charleson Award* for his performance and yet it appears we will never see but stills from this production as no video recording was made, not even by and for the company. The University of Bristol has the archives of the production: the playbook, the programme and black and white stills. The V&A archives have the administrative papers. In our day and age, this sad evanescent corporeal sate of affairs is unimaginable. The memory of the play, of this performance fading away? We rebel against the very thought. We brandish our cell phones and swear we shall unearth and pirate its memory, somehow, somewhere. Even if we have to hypnotize patrons or pull out the very hearts of those who saw Iain Glen on stage, those few, those happy few, to read into their very memory and pulsating membrane just how brilliant he was. Because he was, he was. That’s what they’ll all tell you... 

Below, those pics and testimonies....

*(The Charleson Awards were established in memory of Ian Charleson, who died at 40 from Aids while playing Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1989)

- Iain Glen is a rampaging prince, quixotic, technically sound, tense as a coiled spring, funny. ‘To be, or not to be’ results from throwing himself against the white walls, an air of trembling unpredictability is beautifully conveyed throughout. ‘Oh, what a rogue and peasants slave’ is blindingly powerful. My life is drawn in angrily modern post Gielgud Hamlets: David Warner, Nicol Williams, Visotsky, Jonathon Price. Iain Glen is equal to them. He keeps good company. THE OBSERVER, Michael Coveney

- Paul Unwin’s riveting production reminded me more strongly than any I have ever seen that the Danish Court is riddled with secrecy. Politics is a form of hide and seek: everyone stealthily watches everyone else. Iain Glen’s Hamlet is a melancholic in the clinical sense: his impeccable breeding and essential good nature keep in check what might be an approaching breakdown. His vitriolic humour acts as a safety valve for a nagging instability, his boyish charm is deployed to placate and deceive a hostile and watchful world. Glen brings out Hamlet’s fatal self absorption: the way he cannot help observing himself and putting a moral price tag on every action and failure. He is a doomed boy. And his chill but touching calm at the end is that of a man who has finally understood the secrets behind the closed doors. The Sunday Times, John Peter

- This is an excellent production of Hamlet from the Bristol Old Vic. The director Paul Unwin and his designer Bunnie Christie have set the play in turn of the century Europe. Elsinore is a palace of claustrophobically white walls and numerous doors. All this is handled with a light touch, without drawing attention away from the play. Our first encounter with Hamlet shows him bottled up with rage and grief. Glen gives a gripping performance. The self-dramatising side of the character is tapped to the full by this talented actor. The Spectator, Christopher Edwards

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The following though is my favorite review/article because it situates Iain Glen’s creation is time, in the spectrum of all renowned Hamlets.

How will Cumberbatch, TV’s Sherlock, solve the great mystery of Hamlet? by Michael Coveney - Aug 17, 2015

In 1987, three years before he died, the critic and venerable Shakespearean JC Trewin published a book of personal experience and reminiscence: Five and Eighty Hamlets. I’m thinking of supplying a second volume, under my own name, called Six and Fifty Hamlets, for that will be my total once Benedict Cumberbatch has opened at the Barbican.

There’s a JC and MC overlap of about 15 years: Trewin was a big fan of Derek Jacobi’s logical and graceful prince in 1977 and ended with less enthusiastic remarks about “the probing intelligence” of Michael Pennington in 1980 (both Jacobi and Pennington were 37 when they played the role; Cumberbatch is 39) and emotional pitch and distraction of Roger Rees in 1984 (post-Nickleby, Rees was 40, but an electric eel and ever-youthful).

I started as a reviewer in 1972 with three Hamlets on the trot: the outrageous Charles Marowitz collage, which treats Hamlet as a creep and Ophelia as a demented tart, and makes exemplary, equally unattractive polar opposites of Laertes and Fortinbras; a noble, stately Keith Michell (with a frantic Polonius by Ron Moody) at the Bankside Globe, Sam Wanamaker’s early draft of the Shakespearean replica; and a 90-minute gymnastic exercise performed by a cast of eight in identical chain mail and black breeches at the Arts Theatre.

This gives an idea of how alterable and adaptable Hamlet has been, and continues to be. There are contestable readings between the Folios, any number of possible cuts, and there is no end of choice in emphasis. Trewin once wrote a programme note for a student production directed by Jonathan Miller in which he said that the first scene on the battlements (“Who’s there?”) was the most exciting in world drama; the scene was cut.

And as Steven Berkoff pointed out in his appropriately immodestly titled book I Am Hamlet (1989), Hamlet doesn’t exist in the way Macbeth, or Coriolanus, exists; when you play Hamlet, he becomes you, not the other way round. Hamlet, said Hazlitt, is as real as our own thoughts.

Which is why my three favourite Hamlets are all so different from each other, and attractive because of the personality of the actor who’s provided the mould for the Hamlet jelly: my first, pre-critical-days Hamlet, David Warner (1965) at the Royal Shakespeare Company, was a lank and indolently charismatic student in a long red scarf, exact contemporary of David Halliwell’s Malcolm Scrawdyke, and two years before students were literally revolting in Paris and London; then Alan Cumming (1993) with English Touring Theatre, notably quick, mercurial and very funny, with a detachable doublet and hose, black Lycra pants and bovver boots, definitely (then) the glass of fashion, a graceful gender-bender like Brett Anderson of indie band Suede; and, at last, Michael Sheen (2011) at the Young Vic, a vivid and overreaching fantasist in a psychiatric institution (“Denmark’s a prison”), where every actor “plays” his part.

These three actors – Warner, Cumming, Sheen – occupy what might be termed the radical, alternative tradition of Hamlets, whereas the authoritative, graceful nobility of Jacobi belongs to the Forbes Robertson/John Gielgud line of high-ranking top drawer ‘star’ turns, a dying species and last represented, sourly but magnificently, by Ralph Fiennes (1995) in the gilded popular palace of the Hackney Empire. Fiennes, like Cumberbatch, has the sort of voice you might expect a non-radical, traditional Hamlet to possess.

But if you listen to Gielgud on tape, you soon realise he wasn’t ‘old school’ at all. He must have been as modern, at the time, as Noel Coward. Gielgud is never ‘intoned’ or overtly posh, he’s quicksilver, supple, intellectually alert. I saw him deliver the “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave” soliloquy on the night the National left the Old Vic (February 28, 1976); he had played the role more than 500 times, and not for 37 years, but it was as fresh, brilliant and compelling as if he had been making it up on the spot.

Ben Kingsley, too, in 1975, was a fiercely intelligent Royal Shakespeare Company Hamlet, and I saw much of that physical and mental power in David Tennant’s, also for the RSC in 2008, with an added pinch of mischief and irony. There’s another tradition, too, of angry Hamlets: Nicol Williamson in 1969, a scowling, ferocious demon; Jonathan Pryce at the Royal Court in 1980, possessed by the ghost of his father and spewing his lines, too, before finding Yorick’s skull in a cabinet of bones, an ossuary of Osrics; and a sourpuss Christopher Ecclestone (2002), spiritually constipated, moody as a moose with a migraine, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

One Hamlet who had a little of all these different attributes – funny, quixotic, powerful, unhappy, clever and genuinely heroic – was Iain Glen (1991) at the Bristol Old Vic, and I can imagine Cumberbatch developing along similar lines. He, like so many modern Hamlets, is pushing 40 – as was Jude Law (2009), hoary-voiced in the West End – yet when Trevor Nunn cast Ben Whishaw (2004) straight from RADA, aged 23, petulant and precocious, at the Old Vic, he looked like a 16-year-old, and too young for what he was saying. It’s like the reverse of King Lear, where you have to be younger to play older with any truth or vigour.

Michael Billington’s top Hamlet remains Michael Redgrave, aged 50, in 1958, as he recounts in his brilliant new book, The 101 Greatest Plays (seven of the 101 are by Shakespeare); Hamlet, he says, more than any other play, alters according to time as well as place.

So, Yuri Lyubimov’s great Cold War Hamlet, the prince played by the dissident poet Vladimir Visotsky, was primarily about surveillance, the action played on either side of an endlessly moving hessian and woollen wall. And in Belgrade in 1980, shortly after the death of Tito, the play became a statement of anxiety about the succession.

There’s a mystery to Hamlet that not even Sherlock Holmes could solve, though Cumberbatch will no doubt try his darndest – even if he finds his Watson at the Barbican (Leo Bill is playing Horatio) more of a hindrance than a help; there are, after all, more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his friend’s philosophy.

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Oh! Did I say that we were never going to see Iain Glen in the skin of the great Dane? Tsk. How silly of me. Meet IG’s Hamlet in Tom Stoppard’s postmodern theatrical whimsy ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, shot the year before the Bristol play.

Though almost surreal and most often funny as the film follows the Pulp Fiction-like misadventures of two forgettable Shakespearian characters, crossing paths with other more or less fortunate characters, their time with Hamlet makes us privy to the Dane as we never quite see him in the Bard’s play... but for one memorable scene,  in which Iain Glen absolutely nails it, emoting the famous “To be or not to be” which you see tortures his soul, brings tears to his eyes and contorts his mouth; the moment made all the more memorable by the fact that it is a silent scene. You never hear him utter the famous line, but you see the words leave his lips and feel them mark your soul.

I’m kinda telling myself that it’s 1991 and I’m sitting in the Old Vic, in Bristol, not London. Not yet.