#1) classics conferences are not like that

[harrysfolklore]

charles leclerc simping over his girlfriend: a compilation

MASTERLIST | MY PATREON | charles smau | charles headcanon

PART TWO

No matter where Charles went or what he did, one thing was constant - he simply could not stop talking about his girlfriend.

He was utterly smitten, and it showed through his words and massive smile every time her name came up. Fans quickly noticed Charles' habit of gushing over YN in interviews, on social media, with reporters, and even during casual interactions.

It became such a phenomenon that Formula 1 super-fans began compiling clips of Charles being a total simp for his girl into viral videos.

The most popular one was called "Charles Leclerc simping over his girlfriend: a compilation, and the 15-minute long video compiled some of the most hilarious, heartwarming, and over-the-top examples of the F1 star's borderline obsession with his girlfriend.

It opened with a clip from Charles' interview on Sky Sports before the Monaco Grand Prix. The reporter asked how special it was racing at his home circuit.

"It's amazing driving here where I grew up," Charles said with a huge smile. "But honestly, the best part is having my girlfriend YN here supporting me, this is already such a special race but having her here just adds another layer to it."

"Could you say that you have a good luck charm with you today?" the reporter asked again.

"Definitely, she's always my good luck charm."

The next clip was from Charles and Carlos' music challenge for Ferrari's YouTube channel, they had to guess the song that was playing with just a three second snippet.

"As it was, Harry Styles!" Charles said and rang the small bell that was placed in the middle of them as soon as he heard the first second of the intro.

"You've been practicing," Carlos stated as he pointed at him raising an eyebrow.

"I love this song," Charles said to the camera, "My girlfriend is obsessed with it, she plays it every day."

"And you talk about her every day," Carlos teased, elbowing him.

"I do, I do."

The video moved to show Charles with some fans, he was getting his luggage after a flight and they approached him asking for a picture, one of them filming the whole interaction.

"Of course, no problem at all," Charles replied warmly with a small smile on his face.

As he posed for a picture with the group, Charles noticed that one of the fans was wearing a Taylor Swift shirt. His eyes lit up with recognition and a smile spread across his face.

"I see you're a Taylor Swift fan," Charles remarked, pointing to the shirt. "My girlfriend loves Taylor too. She's always playing her songs around the house and talking about her."

"Wow, that's so cool!" the fan's eyes widened in surprise, "What's her favorite song?" they asked.

"I think her favorite is 'Love Story," Charles chuckled, "She says it reminds her of us."

"That's such a classic! Your girlfriend has great taste," the fan said.

"Thank you, I'll let her know you said that."

The next clip was from Charles' interview promoting his new ice cream brand called LEC, a reporter had asked him how did he come up with the creative names for each flavor.

"It was a teamwork between me and my girlfriend, actually," he replied with a smile, "She played a huge part on this project, everyone knows I could't had come up with Vanillove and Pistachi-on on my own."

The video then cut to a clip from the F1 Grill the Grid challenge, where drivers were playing 'Never Have I Ever", when asked "Have you ever missed a flight?", Charles immediately knew his answer."

"I have, more than once," he said, quickly adding, "But it wasn't my fault, my girlfriend has this long morning routine that she refuses to skip, even though she looks beautiful no matter what."

The video also included footage of Charles during a press conference before the Australia Grand Prix, a reporter asked him about his pre-race rituals.

"Well, I have a few things I like to do before getting into the car," Charles began. "But one thing that's become a bit of a tradition is a phone call with my girlfriend. No matter where we are in the world, we always find time to talk before the race if she's not there."

"What do you two usually talk about?"

"Oh, just the usual stuff," Charles replied with a grin. "She gives me some last-minute words of encouragement, tells me to be safe, that sort of thing. It's nice to hear her voice before such a big moment."

A clip form Charles' 'One week in Los Angeles' was also included, he was playing around at the basketball course shirtless.

"No way!" he said after he missed the basket again, "This is making me look really bad, I need to impress my girl."

The camera panned to her for a moment, and Charles sent a wink her way.

"Are you impressed, love? he asked, throwing the ball and missing once again.

"Very, but not by your basketball skills."

The compilation went on and on, clip after clip of Charles finding any opportunity to mention his girlfriend and proclaim his love for her. From the most casual conversations to the highest-pressure interviews, he just could not help himself from gushing.

As the video ended, the caption displayed: "Get yourself a man who loves you like Charles loves YN."

[cosmogyros]

(Reblog this version please!) Okay fuck it. I was too nervous to post this at first, but I see tons of non-Germans wanting to know what's going on right now. So here's my summary. Thanks to my buddy @keldermans and another German friend not on Tumblr for taking a glance at it to make sure I didn't get anything too horribly wrong <3 Any remaining errors are my bad!

I spent much of today writing up an outline of the current soap-opera drama going on in the German government, for my non-German-speaking friends who'd like to enjoy the tea as well.

Disclaimer: I am not technically German, but I did my best to explain this all as accurately as possible (and I did get a couple of Actual Germans to check it over for me).

For THE GERMAN DRAMA, see below...

Cast of characters:

The German government coalition (known as the “Ampel” – traffic light – due to its colors):

Olaf Scholz, Chancellor (leader) of Germany. Party: SPD (color: red). - and the other Red party members in the coalition - this includes the Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach

Christian Lindner, Minister of Finance of Germany. Party: FDP (color: yellow). - and the other Yellow party members in the coalition (four FDP members) - this includes the Minister of Transport, Volker Wissing - and the Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann

Robert Habeck, Vice-Chancellor of Germany. Party: Greens (color: green) - and the other Green party members in the coalition.

Other characters: Friedrich Merz, likely to become the next Chancellor. Party: CDU (color: black).

The events I can recall so far, in roughly chronological order over the past five days:

1. The government coalition argues all day Wednesday, trying to pass laws while Lindner refuses to agree to anything. In the evening, Scholz loses his patience and fires Lindner with the legendary words, “Dann, lieber Christian, möchte ich nicht mehr, dass Du meinem Kabinett angehörst. ...So. Doof.” (In that case, my dear Christian, I don’t want you in my cabinet anymore. ...Well. Sucks.)

2. Scholz then calls a press conference and gives a surprisingly impressive speech in which his rage is barely concealed. He includes some sharp jabs at Lindner and sounds very personally betrayed by the breakup.

Scholz's speech includes the immediately-legendary line “Zu oft hat er mein Vertrauen gebrochen” (Too often has he broken my trust), which everyone here in Germany is now obsessively quoting.

He declares that he will ask for a vote of confidence in January, and if he fails it (as is expected), he will call for new elections in March, six months earlier than they would otherwise have taken place.

3. Lindner gives a very emotional and self-pitying speech in which he declares “Ich habe gelitten” (I have suffered) – another phrase that becomes an instant classic with those of us watching from the sidelines – and he includes some sharp jabs at Scholz.

4. Showing solidarity with their fellow party member Lindner, all the rest of the FDP members in the coalition resign from the government too… except for Wissing, who instead decides to quit his own political party, the FDP, in order to stay in government and keep his job. He is now a party-less politician!

5. Habeck gives an emotional statement to the press, practically in tears, coming across like a kid whose parents are divorcing and he doesn’t know how to handle it. In a maudlin moment of his speech, he compares the collapse of the coalition to the end of a relationship.

6. At the end of Habeck’s statement, a reporter calls after him: “Is Lindner going to apply for Bürgergeld benefits?”

(Background: There are two tiers of unemployment benefits in Germany. To explain it in a somewhat tasteless way, there’s kind of a class distinction. If you come from a “higher-class” profession, you can typically start by getting ALG I, which is more money. If you are unemployed for the long term or come from a “lower-class” working background, you get Bürgergeld. The stereotype about people on Bürgergeld benefits is that they spend it all on drugs and alcohol and sit on park benches getting drunk all day. Also, Lindner is known for trying to pass legislation to reduce social benefits of all kinds, including unemployment benefits.)

7. Background: After the failed assassination attempt on Trump earlier this year, a popular German comedian called El Hotzo posted a joke online saying basically “too bad he missed” and promptly got fired for saying that. He kept his spirits up and joked about the job loss, saying “Ich bin Deutschlands frechster Arbeitsloser” (I’m Germany’s cheekiest unemployed boy).

Back to the present: At a press conference, a reporter asks Lindner: “How are you handling the statements being made about you online right now, such as ‘This is Germany’s cheekiest unemployed boy’?”

Lindner seems to need a long moment to figure out how to reply to this question.

8. The next day, Habeck coyly soft-launches his candidacy for Chancellor by posting a mysterious video of himself on social media in which he’s wearing a cute beaded friendship bracelet that spells out “Kanzler Era” (Chancellor Era). This is apparently a Taylor Swift reference (?).

In this video, he’s sitting in an atmospherically-lit room, writing at a table. It appears that Lindner had posted a very similar picture of himself in the past, because he now tweets in response to Habeck: “All Democrats welcome here, Robert! You got the setup almost right – the lamp was on the other side. ;)” (and he adds his own pic, which indeed very much resembles Habeck’s video)

9. Angela Merkel muses publicly, “Maybe God only created the FDP in order to test us all.” (ETA: She said this a while ago, not in response to the present situation. But it's still so true :'D)

10. A mainstream German news podcast sassily comments on Friday:

“While Olaf 'Too often has he broken my trust' Scholz is enjoying his party’s admiration for his cowboy moment and Christian 'I have suffered' Lindner is going through his own personal St. Matthew’s Passion […]”

11. Buschmann (one of the FDP party members who resigned), who apparently moonlights as a composer of electronic music under the handle "MBSounds", drops a new self-composed track on SoundCloud about the collapse of the Ampel government. It’s called “To Go Is to Stand”.

The news comments dryly: “Well, at least he doesn’t sing on the track.” (Buschmann's previous biggest hit was simply an angry speech of Lindner’s, set to music.)

Lauterbach (one of the SPD party members still in office) tweets: “No offense, but I don’t think I’ll be listening to that song more than once. But still, it was good working with you, Marco.”

12. The media ask Scholz if he’s throwing his hat in the ring to run for Chancellor again. He says yes. They ask, in what ways is he different from Friedrich Merz (the dude who’s currently expected to win)? And he replies “Ich finde mich etwas cooler, wenn es um Staatsangelegenheiten geht” (I think I’m somewhat cooler [than him] when it comes to matters of state).

And now the German media is making up new words like "scholzen" (which I can only presume means "as the leader of a country, to fire other government members you don't get along with"):

[Headline translation: "Who Donald Trump will 'scholz' first"]

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Judy Garland (Meet Me In St. Louis, A Star is Born, Summer Stock)— Judy is the GOAT when it comes to classic movie musicals. The voice of an angel who deserved so much better than she got. She can sing she can dance she can act she's a triple threat. Though she had a turbulent personal life (her treatment as a child star by the studio system makes me mad as hell like Louis b Mayer fight me ((she was made to believe that she was physically unattractive by the constant criticism of film executives who made her feel ugly and who manipulated her onscreen appearance by capping her teeth and using discs in her nose to change its shape and Mayer called her "my little hunchback" like imagine hearing that as a child and not having damage)) she always goddamn delivered on screen and in any performance she gave. She began in vaudeville performing with her sisters and was signed to MGM at 13. Starting out in supporting parts especially paired with mickey Rooney in a bunch of films (she's the best part tbh) she eventually transferred to the lead role. She is best known for her starring role in movie musicals like the iconic Wizard of Oz (somewhere over the rainbow still hits hard and is ranked the top film song of all time), meet me in St. Louis (Judy singing have your self a merry little Christmas brings tears to the eyes she is that powerful), the Harvey girls (she looks like a technicolor dream and sings a catchy af song about trains), Easter parade ( dancing and singing with Fred Astaire), for me and my gal, the pirate, and summer stock ( with pal Gene Kelly who she helped when he was starting out and he helped her when she was struggling). But she also does non- singing just as well like the clock ( her first movie where she sings no songs and is an underrated ww2 era romance), her Oscar nominated a star is born ( like the man that got away she put her whole soul in that and I have beef with the fact she lost to grace kelly ((whom I love but like still not even her best work)), and judgement at Nuremberg (a courtroom drama about the nazi war criminal trials). Outside of film she made concert appearances to record-breaking audiences, released 8 studio albums, and had her own Emmy-nominated tv series. She was the youngest (39) and first female recipient of the Cecil B DeMille award for lifetime achievement in the film industry. Girl was a lifelong democrat and was a financial and moral supporter of many causes including the civil rights movement (she was at the March on Washington and held a press conference to protest the 16th street Baptist church bombings). She was a friend of the Kennedy family and would call jfk weekly often ending the calls by singing the first few lines of somewhere over the rainbow (she thought of them as Gemini twins).She was a member of the committee for the first amendment which was formed in response to the HUAC investigations. Though she died far too young and tragically she remains an icon for her work and her life. As a girl who didn't feel like i was as pretty as everyone else I have always felt a connection to Judy and I just really love her.

Patsy Kelly (The Countess of Monte Cristo, Merrily We Live, Topper Returns)—patsy kelly was a character actress best known for her brash wisecracking best friend roles, first appearing in a series of comedy shorts with thelma todd and then in a number of feature films. she was openly gay (lovers included tallulah bankhead), even candidly referring to herself as a dyke to the press on occasion and declaring she didn't intend to marry.

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Patsy Kelly:

Oh, that wry little smile! She could sing. She could dance. She could do comedy and drama. Her mother enrolled her in dancing school to distract her from playing baseball and trying to become a firefighter. At the height of her career, she burned the whole thing down (heh) by answering a reporter's softball question about why she never married with "Because I'm a dyke." She became Tallulah Bankhead's "private secretary" and by the 1960s, she was once again a prominent character actress. Remember Laura-Louise in "Rosemary's Baby"?

Judy Garland:

Judy's voice alone qualifies her for at least top ten hottest HOT VINTAGE MOVIE WOMEN. She was a truly incredible swing singer, with a stunning voice on top of her technique. Her short dark hair looked incredible in just about any style. Have I mentioned her swagger? I can’t do it justice with words. She had swagger. She was funny as hell, and clever too. Incredibly charming and cool. I adore her.

Her eyes, her voice have bewitched me

I mean how can you beat the one and only Judy? She's beautiful, her smile is contagious, the way she sings with her whole body. You can't help but love her.

Beautiful woman, love her singing voice. And she can do everything between happy or silly and angry or heartbroken

[moderndaypandora]

The LAYERS needed in a modern/human Dreamling au.  Some level of Endless family dysfunction, obviously.  Hob's family can be be dead or not, it's all good. Are they old enough to have individually gained the awareness they are off-puttingly intense and should hide it a bit at first, or still in that "no, why would I need to Elsa this" stage?

Option A is both of them trying to play it cool, like "don't scare him off" except they so badly want to go from zero to sixty.

(Death and Desire have ruthlessly drilled Dream with flashcards about how to react appropriately in situations.

Desire: it's your one-month anniversary, what do you do?

Dream: [hesitantly] NOT propose?

Desire and Death, conferring, because that's technically correct but the delivery was suspect.

Death, encouragingly: Good start. And?


Dream: a nice dinner and maybe a walk?

Desire: well done!

Death: and for a three-month anniversary?


Dream: give them a key to my flat.

Desire: [airhorn] NO. RED CARD.)

Option B makes them the classic anecdotal "my grandparents got engaged within seven days of meeting each other and still are happy together".

(Death, rubbing her temples: so you met this guy--

Dream: Hob

Death: -- Hob, and within 1 day you gave notice to the Registrar's Office and figured out the best day to get married. And Hob agreed to this?

Dream: NO.

Death: oh thank go-

Dream: Hob SUGGESTED this.

Death: . . .

Dream: are you going to be a witness or not?

Death, 29 days later in the Registrar's Office, to Hob's witness: Is he sane?

Johanna Constantine, drinking heavily from a large flask: unfortunately yes, by all legal definitions.

Death: fuck

Johanna: [passing the flask over] if your brother's even a tenth as intense as Hob, they'll be fine. Probably.

Death, brightening: Is Hob that bad?


Johanna: You know how sometimes you meet somebody and think "oof, they're a bit much, best give them a wide berth"?


Death: yeah.

Johanna: Hob's like a camouflaged hole in the ground of muchness. Except he's done the hole up all nice and he knows that sometimes you just want to be left alone in the hole to sulk and rattle the spikes for a bit, and occasionally get a F&M hamper tossed in.

Death: [hmmmmmmm'ing approvingly]

Johanna, morose: the bastard.

In the background, Hob and Dream are pressing their foreheads together and basking in each other's presence)

[beemovieerotica]

hey can you tell me how you got tested for OCD and/or started to think you had it?

yeeeess so it was literally 2018 when i was like "hm maybe i have OCD" to my therapist (who was not specialized in this) and she did not disagree with me and everything kind of clicked in that session between us when we both simultaneously realized a lot of my behaviors could be explained that way.

the hardest thing was that i'd already been diagnosed with generalized anxiety so like. "yes i obsess over conversations i've had or will have and repeat things over and over in my head" "yes i constantly check to make sure things are okay" "yes i hyperanalyze and hypercriticize myself" all got wrapped up in that.

i think the behavior that i actually brought up with that therapist that precipitated the realization was i started vacuuming a corner of my room repeatedly like over the course of several weeks, every day. just obsessively vacuuming this corner because i kept finding tiny cat litter crystals there from a previous tenant. i'd be literally picking it out of the carpet with my fingers with my head parallel to the floor just staring and trying to find these things for like an hour at a time. colossal waste of time. but it was "important." and i was finally like...THIS is excessive, right?

but i do a lot of things that are the opposite of "classic" OCD which confused me for YEARS - like i genuinely have such poor food hygiene and don't care about bodily fluids, i love touching sticky things, my personal things are poorly organized, my room was always a mess, etc etc.

i got officially evaluated when i went in for the psilocybin study (beginning of this year) where i met an OCD specialist for the first time who did this complete battery of questions with me. there were things i never realized were OCD for me:

very obsessed with parasitic insects and constantly checking for bedbugs and fleas even when i have no reason to suspect these things

constantly re-reading everything i write. 5x. 10x. saying whole sentences over and over in my head. the sentence is fine, i didn't make a mistake, but i just have to keep reading it to be 1000% sure.

rubbing my scalp a lot and pulling out random hairs on my legs, eyebrows, eyelashes

over-explaining so fucking much to be absolutely sure i'm not misunderstood or that someone can read bad intentions into what i'm saying. "predicting" conversations and anticipating entire lines of questioning and how i would defend myself. lol.

intrusive horror film-esque thoughts

being terrified as a child that i would be possessed by a demon if i yawned too wide - i had other extremely irrational superstitions that i would force on myself and try to live by for no reason, these started at like age 10

obsessions around my health (orthorexia, i've ping-ponged between various diets like vegan / gluten-free / vegetarian thinking that it would help me)

only ever felt normal when drinking. like i could just let go of the compulsions and anxiety while drunk.

it was really hard to even parse a lot of this out being 1) already anxious, 2) raised very religious, and 3) BOTH my parents and my older sister have OCD, so all this was just normal!! my mom also pulled out her hair. my mom and my sister also had eating disorders and very weird attitudes around medicine. superstitions and moral scrupulosity were encouraged in our community. i had no reason to think that any of this could all be linked back to an actual disorder.

i really wish i'd had intervention at least a decade or more earlier. this started when i was in grade school at least. it sucks. so much of the public perception of OCD is centered on the classic symmetry / cleanliness / hand-washing shit. it did not help that my family loved watching Monk when i was growing up so i was like "oh, i'm not like THAT" and never questioned it.

i think(?) i might go to the big OCD conference happening in the states next year, not sure, but i really want to talk to people about psilocybin. idk let me know if you have any other questions, i'm still processing a lot of this.

[dragoneyes618]

The Left in the West is also almost uniformly hostile to Jews and Judaism, and the further Left one is on the political spectrum the more intense is the antisemitism. In the United States, for example, the Socialist Workers Party argued that "the major task confronting American revolutionaries [as regards the Middle East] remains that of educating the radicalizing youth...for destruction of the state of Israel. In 1972, the party's paper, the Militant, criticized the Palestinian terrorists' murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, but only on the grounds that it made "the criminal look like the victim." The Communist Party USA differed from the Socialist Workers Party in that it conceded Israel's right to exist. But typical of its view of Zionism is this statement in the party's journal by Hyman Lumer, the party's theoretician on the Middle East: "Zionism is...in its very essence a racist ideology. It sets the Jewish people apart as a special people, a 'chosen' people - if you will, a superior people. In Israel, the Zionist rulers have created a racist state."

Similar denunciations of Jewish nationalism were made by other Communist parties in the West. Individuals on the revolutionary Left were even more aggressive. Vanessa Redgrave, for example, the Academy Award-winning actress and a member of the Central Committee of the British Workers' Revolutionary Party (a Trotskyite Communist organization) made a propaganda film for the PLO in the late 1970s, at a time when the PLO was officially committed to Israel's destruction. In it, Redgrave performed a sensuous dance with a PLO machine gun. Under the guise of only attacking Zionists and Zionism (the film uses the Arabic word for Jew, Yahud, but the English subtitles speak of "Zionists"), the movie utilizes some classic Jew-hating images. In one scene Redgrave asks a young Arab girl, "What would you do if he [a Jewish soldier] tried to kill you?" Marie Syrkin, in a critique of the film, wrote: "At this point my mind wandered to the prioress of The Canterbury Tales who devoutly recounts a medieval tale of a Christian child murdered by the Jews. the killing of children: the hoariest of antisemitic libels."

The non-Communist far Left was similarly single-minded in its attacks on Israel and the Jews who identify with it. For example, during the 1970s the left-wing National Lawyers Guild sent a delegation to only one country in the world to examine human rights - Israel. The delegation met with PLO representatives, heard their story, and returned with a report denouncing Israel. A Jewish lawyer in the group wrote a dissenting report, but the National Lawyers Guild suppressed it.

At the Harvard Law School in 1979, leftist Third World students sponsored a conference on "Human Rights in the Third World." Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz reported that, "At that time, there were massacres in the Central African Republic, the blood of people killed by Idi Amin was still fresh in people's minds, and the atrocious record of Libya on human rights could well have been discussed. But only one item concerning human rights as placed on the agenda: 'The So-Called Nation of Israel's Terrorism and Genocide.'"

The title of the Harvard leftists' program on Israel exemplifies two characteristics of contemporary left-wing antisemitism: (1) the denial of Jewish nationhood, hence the appellation "the so-called nation of Israel," and (2) the constant accusation of genocide against the Jewish state. The charges are related in an Orwellian manner. The denial of Jewish nationhood legitimates all efforts at annihilating the Jewish state and Zionists, what may truly be called genocide. But this genocidal attempt against Israel is then inverted and projected from the enemies of Israel onto Israel itself.

Thus it is not coincidental that on one issue, the annihilation of Israel, the far Left, and neo-Nazis agree. On April 14, 1970, the New York Times reported that the radical Black power leader Stokely Carmichael declared, "I have never admired a White man, but the greatest of them, to my mind, was Hitler." In Chicago in October 1970, a speech by Israel's foreign minister, Abba Eban, was picketed by the far Left Youth Against War and Fascism and by the American Nazi Party.

Leftist antisemitism has also deeply infected left-wing Christians. Among Protestant groups, the World Council of Churches and affiliates such as teh (US) National Council of Churches were among the ajor advocates of recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization, even though at the time the PLO was committed to the destruction of Israel and was the world's leading supporter of terrorism against Western democracies. Siilar support was offered by the American JFriends Services Committe, which represents American Quakers.

In 1976, the Christian Science Monitor was the only one of the fifty major newspapers in the United States to condemn Israel's raid on Entebbe, Uganda's main airport, where PLO terrorists were preparing to murder Jewish passengers on a hijacked plane.

The same situation holds for the Catholic Church, wherein Leftist theologians, clergy, and lay leaders with Third World Orientations have combined traditional church resentment of the "old Israel" with the Left's resentment of the new Israel. One such leader was Archbishop Hilarian Capucci, formerly of Jerusalem. On August 18, 1974, Israeli police caught Capucci, smuggling weapons and explosives for terrorists to kill Israeli civilians. Though Israel sentences him to twelve years in prison, it released him after fewer than three years at the personal request of Pope Paul VI.

Upon his release, Capuci declared, "Jesus Christ was the first fedayeen [Arab freedom fighter]. I am just following his example." A short time thereafter, he celebrated a Mass "in protest against the genocide perpetrated against the Arab people." A Catholic journal, Resumen, responded to Capucci's activities with a denunciation of his "propaganda pamphlets which revive the myths which make Capucci a Jesus and the Israelis deicidal mercenaries." In January 1979 Archbishop Capucci attended meetings in Damascus of the Palestine National Council, the supreme authority of the PLO, which had earlier made him an honorary member. Twenty-three years later, in 2002, Capucci repeatedly and publicly spoke up in favor of Palestinian suicide bombings directed against Israeli civilians.

Whereas in the past, Christian attitudes toward Jews were almost uniformly hostile, today such hostility emanates almost exclusively from Christianity's far Right and Left. On the other hand, moderate and conservative Christians in the United States are among the most aggressive supporters of Jewry and Israel's right to exist.

The Left has opposed Jews both for their religion and for their nationality. The Jewish fusion of religion and nationality is anathema to both the secularism and the universalism of the Left. This partially explains why the Left, though so hospitable and supportive of the national liberation movements of almost all other peoples, is so antagonistic to the nationalism of the Jews. It was regarding this Leftist hatred of the Jews that Social Democrat Irving Howe wrote, "In the warmest of hearts there is a cold spot for the Jews."

From Marx and the French socialists to to the Soviets, the Third World, and Western leftists today, an intense Jew-hatred has prevailed. As the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "Antisemitism has become a unifying global ideology of the totalitarian Left." And many on the nontotalitarian Left have been compromised by their "no enemies on the Left" attitude. Thus a movement founded, established, and supported in large part by Jews has come to constitute, along with the Arab/Muslim world, the Jews' greatest enemy at this time.

- Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, pages 133-136

[loveerran]

I was recently reading through The Melchezidek Priesthood, a book given to me as a gift by Elder and Sister Renlund via my friend @nerdygaymormon.

On pages 1-2 I found a quote about learning and progression in the form of a metaphor. The book imagines someone being given a piano that is “restricted to only some keys, such as the middle register” and learning to play when “initially, the music is simplistic and occasionally cacophonic”. This idea struck me as I thought about how my life and discipleship can be likened to that analogy, and I wanted to share the imagery that came to my mind as I read:

Iteration 1:

I first imagined myself, like a small child in front of Heavenly Parents, banging away with a mallet on a classic Fischer Price xylophone (quite simplistically and cacophonically), as they smiled benevolently and told me I was doing “Such a good job!”

Iteration 2:

Imagining myself as a young adult at a piano recital, but with a limited set of keys. As I plunked away with novice earnestness (much improved from my child-self, though my timing was off beat and some of my notes incorrect), I could picture a divine presence, visible in glimpses, playing in such a way that my discordance was enfolded neatly into their performance and became part of an unexpectedly beautiful piece greater than the song I thought I was playing.

Iteration 3:

Imagining myself now before a grand organ, like the one in the conference center, my previously limited keys still laid out before me but interspersed now with half-seen keys, and with rows of keys and stops above, below and to either side that I could not use and did not know the meaning of. I was now playing a recognizable piece of music, playing well though still imperfectly. And sitting with me in the bench seemed to be that same divine presence, as though we occupied the same space, such that as I played my simple song, they wove in above, below and around me on all the keys, a beautiful concerto that anticipated, embraced, magnified and made pure and beautiful what would otherwise have been my halting individual performance.

I think this is what life is like to some degree? Each of us is working with our own individual set of skills, strengths and weaknesses. One of my favorite themes in Christianity is growth, moving from one level to another as we develop our discipleship and capacity to serve others. Today I am sending love and encouragement to all of us as we try to do good, become better and help each other along the way.

Love, Erran

[accol-fics]

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT ALEX:

At the Melbourne Climate Conference, Alex tries talking to Henry who promptly walks away. Alex felt really rejected, like Henry left him hanging in the wind at one of his first appearances as First Son. He was nervous at the event and saw Henry as a possible friend / coach / ally, but then Henry walked away.

At the wedding, the first thing Henry does is walk away from Alex's greeting AGAIN. And this is right after Henry tells Nora he's super nervous about using the wrong fork and being an embarrassment in his role as First Son particularly in comparison to Prince Henry's composure.

(Oh, sweetheart, if only your faux pas was using the wrong fork.)

Alex copes with it in a not-at-all-wise way: by drinking until he isn't nervous anymore.

Then he's brave enough to try talking to Henry again!!

(Ok, this was not without a Texas-sized helping of wanting to (1) provoke Henry, and (2) figure out what the fuck his problem is. Alex's ego is hella bruised that this guy doesn't want to be his friend. That never happens.)

Alex misinterprets Henry's "It's Schubert" as snobbery, even though Henry doesn't mean it that way.

(For real, look at Henry's face. He's not trying to lord it over Alex that he knows classical music better than he does. He doesn't know how to talk to the hot person. We've all been there, amirite.)

Fast forward to the children's hospital. As soon as Henry says he comes to the hospital often-ish but never for the publicity, Alex is like "um wait one darn minute here this guy is nice?? And hot?? And I'm enjoying being here with him??"

Community service is the way into Alex Claremont-Diaz's pants.

[arimiadev]

recommendations of visual novels on sale for the steam winter sale 2023

steam's winter sale just started and will run for the next two weeks, so if you're looking for a new visual novel to try (or want to get into them), here's a lot that I've played that are on sale on steam.

umineko when they cry

the ushiromiya family returns to the family head's home on an isolated island for their annual conference with the intention of settling how his vast amount of wealth is divided. instead, though, a letter is left from someone claiming to be a "witch". with the ushiromiyas dropping left and right, the mystery behind everything remains to be solved.

I can't make a recommendation list without mentioning umineko. it's life changing. it might even trans your gender. it's hard to describe umineko, but just know that it's absolutely deserving of the "cult classic" tag.

notes:

kinetic/linear - no choices

VERY long

divided into two games on steam - Questions Arcs is the first 4 episodes and Answers Arcs is the last 4 episodes (8 episodes in total, play Questions Arcs first)

created by Ryukishi07, creator of Higurashi

fantasy mystery

ace attorney

follow phoenix wright as he embarks on his career as a lawyer to help people. meet a variety of clients and prove their innocence by collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, and exposing lies in court.

ace attorney is one of the classic mystery visual novels, being a blend of point-and-click elements via investigations and visual novel storytelling. the steam port is a massive collection, combining the first 3 games (the original phoenix wright trilogy) as 1 game.

notes:

investigative gameplay segments, a good chunk of the story is point-and-click parts

VERY long for the whole trilogy- each game is around 20 hours long and the steam edition is 3 games

modern mystery with supernatural elements

ai: the somnium files

play as detective kaname date as he hunts down a serial killer using a cutting-edge technology which allows him to "psync" with a person, diving into the memories of others to solve crimes in a limited amount of time with the help of his AI assistant/eyeball Aiba.

aitsf is a lot. it's probably the raunchiest non-eroge game I've ever played and despite my low tolerance for dirty jokes I found most of it to be laughable and a fun experience, though I did play this with friends. if it's a miss for you, it's gonna miss you by a wide margin, but if it's a hit for you, you're going to be recommending it nonstop. either way you'll want to hit kaname date with a car.

notes:

long, around 25-35 hours

this game heavily relies on going back to prior choices via their branching menu to try other options in order to get the full story (and true ending). there are several endings to this game but you're meant to play through them all, not just one or two.

a lot of gameplay and interactive segments

sci-fi mystery

english voice acting

witch on the holy night

aoko aozaki is a highschooler who has to balance her class president, perfect grades life with her secret afterschool life of being a mage—a secret she has to keep at the risk of death. keeping this balance already isn’t easy but one day she gets a wrench thrown into it with the introduction of a transfer student, soujuurou shizuki, a country boy so out of touch that he’s never seen electricity before.

I love witch on the holy night so, so much. it's one of the most beautifully directed visual novels ever made with so much love and care put into each frame. the cast is wonderful (touko my beloved) and it's a must-read for anyone who likes modern-ish fantasy.

notes:

kinetic / linear - no choices

long, around 25-30 hours

originally written by kinoko nasu, one of the co-founders of type-moon and creators of fate/stay night. has some relation to tsukihime and garden of sinners but you don't need any knowledge of those going in

modern-ish (1980s) fantasy with lots of talking about magic

ghostpia

a snowy town filled with "ghosts" is where the young woman sayako finds herself trapped, feeling like she doesn't belong and wants to leave this town where no one dies.

it's hard to describe ghostpia. it's a surreal-ish story about "ghosts" where every character is quirkier than the last but every part is made with so much heart behind it. you never really know where the story is going, but unfortunately only 1 season is currently out on steam.

notes:

medium length, around 10 hours

very innovative and unique use of visuals and paneling

surreal-ish (sometimes violent) fantasy

please be happy

as a shapeshifting fox called a "gumiho", miho has traveled the world in search for a traveler who showed her kindness many years ago. afraid of sticking around in one place for too long, miho has never stayed anywhere for more than a few nights- but all of that changes when she arrives in wellington, new zealand and meets the barista/writer aspen and the vampire archivist juliet.

okay okay I had to recommend at least one visual novel I worked on. please be happy was a labor of love for our team that took over 3 years to make and is a slice of life story about love, trust, and what it means to be human.

notes:

medium to long, about 20 hours

2 romanceable ladies, aspen and juliet, and a plethora of side characters to meet via a map system

modern slice of life fantasy

english voice acting

WE KNOW THE DEVIL

find yourself back at summer camp with all the queer religious horror of it.

WE KNOW THE DEVIL is a short, atmospheric and slightly surreal story about 3 teens at a religious summer camp waiting for the devil. if you want something that feels familiar and otherworldly at the same time, this is right up your alley.

notes:

very short, about 2 hours

3 endings and 1 true ending

isolation, psychological horror

------------

this is just a handful of recommendations of visual novels I've played and enjoyed that are on sale right now on steam.

some of these titles, like please be happy and WE KNOW THE DEVIL, are also available on itch.io which is a website for indie games! they're also currently having a winter sale so a lot of indie visual novels are on sale over there too, if you want DRM-free versions of games while also giving a better revenue split to devs.

[f1tyreslightmyfyre]

Immortal Artistry - Ch. 1

Series Main List

A Vampire AU F1 Fic Featuring Charles Leclerc x Fem!Reader, George Russell x Fem!Reader, hints of Max Verstappen x Fem!Reader, Lestappen, Sebchal, and Sainzell (or Russainz?)

Also on AO3

Ch. 1 Warnings: Language; vampire blood violence

2023

“Now, remember,” Xavier Marcos Padros instructed. “Señor Leclerc is a very important client of this firm. His family has been with us for nearly 100 years, and we don’t want to cast a poor impression on the newest generation.”

“No, sir.” You agreed, nodding at your boss.

“That is why I want you to personally oversee the meeting.” The lawyer continued. “There is no other paralegal that I trust more with the closure of his documentation. The paperwork has already been signed by his grandfather, and Señor Leclerc just needs a witnessed signature to complete the transfer of estates and power of attorney to his name.”

“Yes, sir.” You bit back an irritated sigh, listening for the third time as your boss explained the situation. As if you haven’t already spent long hours and late nights preparing the Leclerc account paperwork for the all-important transfer and supporting the grandfather’s witnessed signature process. 

“Your work on this family case continues to impress, and I’m confident that you will represent our firm proudly.” He paused to consult his notes. “Now, Señor Leclerc has been arranged for 2100 hrs tomorrow night at his personal request.” He looked back at you unashamedly. “I assume that time won’t be a problem for you.”

Even now, your boss’ haughty words still gnaw at you. Just because the man is a senior partner in one of the world’s most prestigious law firms and you’re fortunate enough to be on his team of paralegals doesn’t mean that you’re not entitled to a life of your own outside of work. All of your clients are wealthy and successful and privileged, and you see no reason why Señor Leclerc should be treated any differently.

But at the end of the day, part of your job is client satisfaction, and your boss won’t hear of you inconveniencing a client, no matter their assets. That’s why you’re still at your desk despite the clock reading 2051 hrs. That’s why you’re still in your pristine business suit and heels while the rest of the building grows dark and empty around you. That’s why the executive conference room table contains the spread of the various official forms for Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc, III to sign upon his arrival.

You exhale another sigh as you casually scroll through the newsfeed on your phone, skimming headlines and associated ledes.

DESPITE ALL ODDS, BRANGELINA BACK TOGETHER

Earlier this year saw the return of Bennifer, and now, fans are stunned at the return of Brangelina. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt famously wed in 2014, and Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt just two years later. The divorce proceedings have been anything but amiable, and despite the divorce never being legally finalized, it appears that may no longer be needed…

FAMOUS RAPHAEL, DA VINCI PAINTINGS MISSING SINCE WWII TURN UP IN BELGIAN HOME

Among the scores of artwork lost during the chaos and destruction of WWII, two of the most famous pieces have finally resurfaced after more than 75 years. Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man and da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine were last seen at the Wawel Castle in 1945, at the home of Hans Frank, who Hitler appointed as governor of the General Government in Poland. The Belgian businessman now in possession of these classic masterpieces has come under investigation as authorities seek to understand how the artwork came into his custody. Historians value the Portrait of a Young Man and the Lady with an Ermine at over €500 million and €300 million, respectively…

STAR WARS FANS SPOT LIGHTSABER-LIKE OBJECT ON MARS SURFACE IN NEW NASA PICTURES

New photos released by NASA show an object on the surface of Mars, looking like a lightsaber from the iconic Star Wars series. Despite its appearance, this mysterious item is actually a titanium tube containing a rock sample that rests on the Red Planet’s surface…

You glance at the time, not willing to risk being late, and set your phone down. Smoothing the drape of your suit jacket and matching skirt, your heels echo off the marble as you walk down the empty corridor. The elevator ding breaks the silence, and you glance out over the Monaco skyline as you descend to the front lobby.

With two minutes to spare, you offer a nod in silent greeting to the night guard on duty at the front desk and come to a stop just inside the tall, glass doors. You keep a keen eye on the street for the approach of a dark sedan or SUV, something that won’t be easy to see in the glow of streetlights. But that’s not the vehicle that pulls up to the front kerb.

Actually, you don’t know what kind of vehicle it is, but the vintage bright cherry red sports car is impossible to miss. It screams elegant taste and wicked speed, and with the convertible top down, it puts the driver on full display. His pale skin stands out immediately against the cut of his black suit and as he exits the car, closing the door behind him, it’s a devastating combination. Or, perhaps, it’s just the expertly tailored lines of his suit or the rakish sweep of his brunette hair or the mercurial glow in his green eyes.

You may spend your life catering to the ultra-wealthy and well-dressed, but this man is truly in a league of his own.

Forcing a swallow and hoping your cheeks aren’t too flushed, you step forward to push open the front door. “Good evening, Mr. Leclerc. Welcome.”

He nods, offering a polite smile as he steps inside. “Thank you. And thank you for taking this meeting so late.” His crisp dress shoes echo off the marble in tandem with your footsteps. “Xavi’s office has always been gracious to accommodate my chaotic schedule.”

You nod gently even though his words give you pause. Nothing about him looks chaotic, whether in the details of his appearance or his calm, collected demeanor. In fact, he looks crisp and polished, as if his day has just started. Pushing the thought aside, you guide him towards the elevator lobby. “Of course, sir.” You say as you press the ascent button. “We’re always happy to work with our clients to assure their needs are met.”

“An admirable sentiment.” The corner of Leclerc’s mouth lifts as he motions you first into the elevator. “I think you are new to Xavi’s team as we have not met before, no?”

Your cheeks blush full red hot as you realize your breach of etiquette. “Oh, goodness – yes, I… apologies for not introducing myself.” You give your name and extend your hand which he politely accepts. Immediately, the firmness of his grip, the softness of his skin, and the chilly temperature against your own strikes you.

His eyes glitter under the elevator’s overhead lights. “Pleased to meet you. You already know this, but I’m Charles Leclerc, III. Though, Charles or ‘Charles’ is just fine.”

Even after letting go of his hand, the phantom chill still lingers on your skin. It’s not a particularly cool night outside, as evidenced by the open cockpit of his car, and you can’t put your finger on why his skin should be so chilly. 

He must sense your confusion because a small, sheepish smile comes to his handsome face as he rests a hand in his trousers’ pocket. “I apologize if my cold fingers surprised you… I should have warned you before that I’m cold blooded. I never can seem to get warm.”

“Oh no, please,” you say with a reassuring smile despite the heat rushing to your cheeks and the quickening of your heartbeat as the elevator dings. “You don’t need to apologize – I was just wondering if I could offer you some warm tea.” The words roll off your tongue as you step out of the elevator with him close behind. Thinking on your feet is a key part of your job even if it stresses you out.

“That’s not necessary, though I do appreciate your concern. And you needn’t worry or be so nervous.” He flashes a hint of a teasing, yet reassuring smirk. “I’m not going to give Xavi a poor report about you this evening.”

Your eyes go wide, and you hate that he’s so perceptive. Pushing open the door to the executive conference room, you exhale a gentle sigh. “Thank you, I… I-I’m sorry that you felt the need to say something. I will work to improve in the future.”

“No need.” He shakes his head shortly. “My grandfather says that I unnerve people, so that is something I am also working to improve.”

Is that what it is? Right from his opening comment on chaotic schedules to the chill of his skin, something about him has set you off-balance. You can’t even recall the last time that you forgot to introduce yourself in a business meeting, and yet tonight… tonight is quickly devolving into a night you want to drown with a bottle of wine.

You can’t find an immediate answer, instead turning your attention to the spread of paperwork on the table. “If you’d like to be seated, I have everything arranged for you here.” You watch him move around the table on silent footsteps and fold elegantly into a plush chair as you continue. “I understand that you previously had the opportunity to review the transfer of estates, accounts, and power of attorney paperwork prior to your grandfather signing.”

He nods in confirmation. “Yes, and everything was as expected.”

You nod in return as you motion at the pen resting alongside the first form. “Then, please, feel free to confirm the versions signed by your grandfather align with your understanding prior to signing.”

Stepping back to allow him a modicum of privacy, you fold your hands in front of your jacket and quietly wait. Instead of hideous fluorescent lights, the can ceiling lights emit a soft golden glow that plays handsomely off the tint of his hair and highlights the elegance of his fingers as he traces the words on the paper.

You’ve never met the grandfather – the original Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc – confined as he is in an exclusive care facility, and the paperwork provides few clues about how he amassed his vast fortune. He became a client in 1946 after rising to wealthy prominence and only continued to add to this fortune and collection of estates. His son - Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc, II – passed away after a long battle with illness, leaving only his son – the man now seated at the conference table – as the sole heir. But where are the wives and mothers in all of this family business? Are the Leclercs truly so old-fashioned as to only let the men inherit the estates and conduct family business?

Of course, it’s all no business of yours whatsoever. Europe still harbors its pockets of aristocratic thought, and your job isn’t to judge them for it.

Your train of thought derails as you watch Charles reach into the interior pocket of his suit jacket. He withdraws a sleek, black capped pen with gold accents and deftly unscrews the cap. Glancing up at you, he offers another cute, almost shy smile. “You’ll forgive me if I’m a little old-school,” he says as a gleaming gold fountain tip comes into view. “Ball point pens just aren’t as artistically satisfying.”

His signature isn’t the neatest that you’ve ever seen. In fact, next to his grandfather’s, it’s downright illegible aside from the leading C and L. For someone who shuns ball point pens in favor of artistry, you’re surprised that his signature is so… unremarkable.

Wetting your top lip, you take a breath. “If I may… are you an artist, sir?”

The corner of his mouth lifts – whether with amusement or a more private sentiment, you can’t tell. “I have certainly studied art,” he says as he continues to scan and sign the array of papers. “I suppose one could call me a collector of art, but while I claim paltry skill with a brush, I do favor myself for having an appreciation of beautiful pieces.”

Admittedly, understanding the art of art isn’t something you pride yourself on. You appreciate museums and the history they hold, but you’re not all that familiar with art history or defining characteristics of art over the centuries. Slowly, you nod as he recaps the pen. “It sounds like you would have seen a lot of interesting pieces over the course of your studies.”

His eyes flash with something you can’t place – something predatory, something fond, something satisfying. “Yes,” he says at length as he rises. “I have seen much, with much still left yet to see.”

All at once, you remember the late evening hour. “Of course, sir, please – I don’t mean to keep you any longer than you need.”

“It’s no trouble, and your curiosity is not unwelcome.” A charming smile warms his face. “Actually, it’s flattering that despite this suit you would still consider me to be an artist.”

Your brow furrows as a confused smile slants the corner of your mouth. “Artists come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they? Just because you’re not starving and dressed in rags doesn’t mean that you couldn’t be an artist.”

“Art is what we make of it, non? As are those who create it.” He steps towards you and the door, offering the clumsiest attempt at a wink you’ve ever seen. “And that is for each of us to decide.”

Maybe it’s the sonorous tone of his voice or the light glinting in his green – or grey? Or hazel? – eyes, but you can’t look away. He’s utterly gorgeous and your body heats up in appreciation of this handsome man standing before you. The scent of cedar, citrus and earth reaches your nose – and fuck, how did you not notice his cologne earlier? It entrances you, and the longer you hold his gaze, the more you feel yourself floating…

Until he blinks away and motions towards the door. “After you.”

Shaking from your stupor, another embarrassed flush stains your cheeks as you move towards the elevator. He’s hardly the first supremely attractive man that you’ve interacted with on this job, but none of them have rendered you so stupid before.

“My grandfather says that I unnerve people, so that is something I am also working to improve.”

You brush the memory of his earlier words aside, swallowing your unease as you search for something to say. “Thank you again for coming by this evening.” You finally say, sticking to the safe topic at hand. “I’ll file the paperwork in the morning, and Señor Padros will be in touch if there are any unforeseen complications with the transfer.”

“I have complete faith in Xavi, and you, by extension.” Charles says breezily as you both step into the elevator. “He has served my grandfather well, and no doubt, will continue to serve me well in his stead.”

The odd choice of words strikes you. You don’t consider yourself in the service industry and you’re pretty sure that your boss doesn’t consider himself a servant to the wealthy elite, but maybe it’s just another indicator of how old-school this young man next to you truly is.  

“As always, we appreciate your support and business.” You say on professional reflex, despite the distracting scent of Charles’ cologne that you can’t stop noticing. “I will be sure to pass along your reassurance to Señor Padros.”

“Again, there is no need.” He flashes another reassuring smile as the elevator doors open to the main lobby. “I owe Xavi a visit soon to discuss further matters and I will gladly tell him in person.”

His words beg further questions in your mind but you know better than to ask. Whatever relationship he has with your boss – professional or otherwise – is also certainly none of your business.

Your heels click to a stop near the front door and he pauses beside you. With a bow of his head, he holds your gaze as he speaks. “Thank you again for accommodating such a late meeting. It’s been an unexpected pleasure.”

“Thank you, sir. You, too.” You nod in thanks as he turns for the door. “I hope that you have a good rest of your evening.”

His mouth slants with a wicked grin as he pushes out into the dark night. “Of course. I’m just getting started, after all.”

A shiver crawls down your spine as he saunters up to his red car and sinks down into the plush leather seating. The glass building façade muffles the revving engine, but as he shoots off into the night, you’re left with more questions than answers.

Sighing deep, you offer a good night wave to the front desk guard, focused only on getting your bag and going home. The trip back to your desk and down to the parking garage passes in a familiar blur only broken when the elevator doors ding open. Yellow light from the sodium-vapor lamps paint the concrete surroundings in a hideous, monochromatic glow. Even through the glass doors of the elevator lobby, the ubiquitous buzzing of the light fixtures can still be heard. But it’s the frustrated groans of a tall, slender man carrying a box piled high with file folders and trying to pull the doors open that draws your attention.

“Here,” you say in greeting, offering a friendly smile as you step up to assist with the door handle. “It looks like you’ve got your arms full – literally.”

“Oh, thank you.” The man turns brilliant, blinding blue eyes on you and a megawatt smile around his posh British syllables. “You have no idea just how heavy this box is.”

You hold the door open for him as he steps through, maneuvering the box and his messenger bag through the opening. “You’re welcome. Do you have a big case ahead?”

“Yeah,” he says with a nod as the door closes behind you. “Boss needs recommendations by noon tomorrow and I’m so far behind.”

“Ugh,” you groan in commiseration. “I’ve been there, too – it can be so fast-paced sometimes. Who’s your boss?”

“Musconi. He’s not one of the senior partners or anything – not like Padros or Bonnington – but, well, I’ve only been here for a few weeks, so I’m still learning. I’m George Russell, by the way. I’d offer you my hand, but well…” He shrugs and flashes another handsome smile as he hefts the box in his hands.

“No worries, George.” You say before offering your own name. “Welcome to the firm. I hope you continue to settle in alright.”

“Thank you. Everyone’s been really helpful so far.”

You spot your car ahead and turn to offer him a wave. “Well, if I can help with anything, please let me know; otherwise, have a good evening and see you around, George.”

“Lovely to meet you, and thanks again!” He calls out after you, poorly attempting to offer a wave despite his full arms.

As you start the ignition and drive through the garage, you just catch George rounding a concrete pillar to another car.

You don’t see George open the car’s boot, depositing the box and bag before slamming the top down. You don’t see George reach into the backseat, to the dead body slumped across the backseat like someone sleeping. You don’t see George tuck the borrowed employee badge back into the man’s pocket before sliding into the driver’s seat.

And you definitely don’t hear George make a phone call as he drives off. “Yeah… Leclerc just left, and I’ve made contact.”

1940

“Quel est l’ordre, Lieutenant?”

Charles slows his steps, surveying his assembled platoon of French and Monegasque soldiers as he answers in French. “We’re stopping here for the night.”

Beaufort glares over at Charles. “Stopping here, sir?” He glances around at the splintered remains of the French woodlands, the craters in the earth, and the tree shards that litter everywhere. “I’ll roll over and get a splinter in my ass.”

“Better than up your ass!” Moreau bellows as he laughs at his own jab and a few others join in.

Charles can’t say that he disagrees, but he’s careful to keep the amusement from his face. “Either way, I suggest that you use this last bit of daylight to clear a resting place that won’t result in needing medical aid.”

A low murmur of chuckles and assent rises from his men as they start to settle into the destruction. Other platoons flank them on all sides, making similar encampments as they stretch out among the shattered trees and the growing shadows of twilight that rapidly obscure into darkness.

For days now, they’ve been marching through burned and battered countryside, each ruined village indistinguishable from the next. The Panzers prove relentless in their siege, and the Luftwaffe bombs haven’t helped, either. Charles isn’t a high enough rank to possess a map, but his basic knowledge of the sky from training indicates a steady march in a northwesterly direction.

Fall back to Dunkirk. That’s his command from on high.

He yawns as he continues to survey his men. They number so few now, and the missing faces will haunt the rest of his days. As their commanding officer, he knows every last man in his platoon, but now… only a handful remain. A handful that he is personally responsible for leading out of this hell and into the unknown.

If the Allied Forces are well and truly surrounded, what fresh horrors await them when the enemy finally catches up to them in Dunkirk? Will the British prioritize evacuation of their own troops first? What chance does he stand to ever get back home to Monaco?

But wars are lost on pointless thoughts like that. Thinking so far ahead won’t serve him well in the here and now. He just needs to solve this problem, and then solve the next problem. To stay alive and always keep moving forward.

Someday – when Charles has access to endless alcohol and a real bed – he’ll lose himself to those other dark, destructive musings.

“Merde, that’s an ill wind, isn’t it?” Severin’s voice carries low in the night.

“Sure… like ghosts are riding its wings.” Porcher agrees with a grumble as the sound of a hand slapping thick fabric becomes audible. “But no more of that talk. Between the Jerrys, your ass, and these damnable tree roots, I don’t need any extra help from nightmares for not sleeping.”

Allowing his lips to quirk in the cover of darkness, Charles turns from his men, satisfied that they’re settling in well enough for the night. He slows and steadies his footfalls, not wanting to disturb anyone as he makes his way through the dimly lit landscape.

Moments alone are truly rare, but he can steal a few to relieve himself. Counting his steps to gauge his return, the sounds of men snoring, breathing, talking and coughing fade into the breeze.

True peaceful silence at last.

Charles closes his eyes, indulging it for the space of a breath, before going about his business. His eyes roam skyward, catching glimpses of starlight through the wispy clouds. In his mind’s eye, he imagines the brush strokes to try and capture such splendor on canvas. It makes him long to return to his position at the art institute, to nurture creation instead of destruction. With a sigh, he looks back down to the war-torn ground, righting his uniform and webbing. In truth, it’s better not to dally.

A cigarette is his next order of business. It helps him forget about his toothbrush that went missing during a forward advance some weeks back.

In complete silence, strong, vice-like hands grip his shoulders out of the darkness, throwing Charles off his feet. He hits the ground hard, breath forced from his chest and stealing his voice as plain blooms in the back of his skull. His assailant looms over him, a shapeless shadow that pins him to the ground with effortless ease.

Charles kicks feebly as his vision swims, thrashing to dislodge his attacker and break free from the commanding hold. But the impossibly cold weight above him remains immobile, crushing him into the muddy ground. Surely, this must be another man… but a German soldier? Or possibly a confused Allied soldier?

Icy fingers suddenly claw at the collar of Charles’ uniform, wool and buttons shearing easily as horror creeps into Charles’ rising panic. The dark shadow above him bears down, unbothered by Charles’ desperate attempts to scratch and claw along his back. Twin points of searing pain explode in Charles’ neck as sharp, pointed teeth rip through his skin. A strangled cry rasps in Charles’ throat against the agony as the shape of the attacker’s mouth changes, and he seals his lips to Charles’ skin, supping greedily as he pulls suction.

A new sensation erupts – one of ragged, exquisite pleasure – that mixes with the blinding pain to ebb and flow through his entire body. Charles’ mind overloads at the onslaught as his body grows stiller and more pliant. His pitiful protests become sluggish as a creeping fog eats at the very center of his being. His arms fall to the ground, weakened and motionless as the delicious, terrifying pressure continues on his neck.

And then… only darkness.

Series Main List

[keanuquotes]

The Enduring Appeal of Keanu Reeves He battles evildoers in 'John Wick 4,' manufactures two-wheel pieces of art, and is worshiped by the internet, but Keanu Reeves swears he's just a normal guy. And he’s got the scars to prove it. Ky HendersonMar 15, 2023 9:00 AM EDT It’s easy to look cool when you’re riding a motorcycle, but it’s hard to look cooler than Keanu Reeves on a brisk, sunny afternoon in Los Angeles. He rests his left hand on his thigh and steers with his right, which gooses the throttle as he weaves around slow drivers. He wears a form-fitting black canvas motorcycle jacket that accentuates how trim he is—even more fit than he appears on-screen—and a beat-up Shoei helmet. He leaves the visor up, choosing instead to shield his eyes with sunglasses the Terminator might wear to a Hamptons garden party. Reeves looks at home and at ease on a motorcycle. He looks cool.

At a gas station stop, he suggests switching bikes. We’re each riding cruisers made by Arch, the motorcycle company Reeves co-founded with designer Gard Hollinger in 2011. The company produces high-end, highly personalized production bikes; I’m on a 1s, the company’s new $100,000+ sport cruiser. Reeves is on an older model, KRGT-1, but it’s his personal Arch, a true one-of-a-kind. It's the only Arch ever painted YK Blue, a color Reeves and Hollinger commissioned based on the ultramarine pigment famously mixed by mid-century French artist Yves Klein. Reeves says all that’s left of the paint is in a tiny can stored somewhere at Arch in case the bike’s paint ever needs touch-ups.

Which it most certainly would if, let’s say, some idiot were to put the bike down in front of a horrified Reeves while riding down the Pacific Coast Highway. Thankfully, there’ll be no lowsides today. Although the bike is beefy, with a 2,032cc V-twin powerplant, it’s easy to maneuver and comfy as a BarcaLounger.

Keanu Reeves stands in motorcycle factory holding blue mug Brian Bowen Smith

Reeves eventually leads us back to Arch’s factory building, which is nondescript from the outside but artfully decorated inside using shipping containers to separate working areas. Metal fabrication is done behind one; customer bikes are lined up in another with technicians hard at work. After Reeves dips outside for a cigarette—the 58-year-old both looks like a much younger man and smokes with the frequent abandon of one—he leads us to a small conference room.

“I like meeting people, but I’m a little reserved,” he warns as he settles into an office chair, looking far less comfortable than he did on a motorcycle. “How much of my private life do I want to talk about? I don’t know. Otherwise, let’s hang out.”

When Reeves was growing up in the Yorkville neighborhood of Toronto, he was consumed with existential thoughts. He discussed death a lot more than the average 11-year-old, for instance—but not because he wanted to die. He just wanted answers to big questions. Perhaps not entirely unrelated to his interest in mortality, he was also obsessed with the biker gangs that periodically motored into the neighborhood. It wasn't pods of dentists letting loose on weekends. It was leathers, patches, menace—the whole deal. And Reeves loved it.

“They looked exotic,” Reeves says. "They looked to me like they were free. Plus the bikes were cool and sounded great.”

Despite his childhood fascination, Reeves was in his early 20s before he first rode a motorcycle. It happened at a movie studio in Berlin—where else?—when he saw a woman on an off-road enduro bike in a parking lot. He approached her and asked if she’d teach him to ride, which she agreed to on the spot. (If you’re wondering why a woman would do that for a total stranger, search “Keanu Reeves in the 80s” in Google Images.)

Not long after he got back to Los Angeles, he bought a 1973 Mk2a Norton Commando, having long admired the classic brand. That bike currently sits in the Arch shop, which is notable for two reasons: One, few longtime riders are lucky enough to be able to hold onto their first bike. Two, over the years Reeves has…suffered some mishaps.

“Yeah, I’ve fallen off a few times,” he admits of the accidents he’s had on a variety of bikes. He takes a swig of water, then corrects himself. “Not ‘fallen off.’ Crashed. I’ve got a couple of hit-by-cars. A couple of going-too-fast. I’ve laid a couple of bikes down but I was riding in the winter, so that’s not really ‘crashing.’ That’s about it. The usual stuff.”

He’s broken ribs, knocked out teeth, sliced his leg open so deep that bone was visible. His most spectacular accident occurred in 1988, only a couple years after that day in Berlin. Reeves was riding alone at night in Malibu’s Topanga Canyon when he took one of the twisties too fast. By the time he came to a stop, he was lying on the pavement wondering if he was about to die. As you know, he didn’t—but he did fuck himself up pretty bad.

“I ruptured my spleen,” he says matter-of-factly. The widely reported version of the story goes that he needed the organ removed, but Reeves says it’s still intact. “They sutured it up and put a Band-Aid on.” He has a gnarly scar running vertically from his sternum down to his belly button, but in the right light it just ends up accentuating his abs because, well, he’s Keanu.

Reeves first met Hollinger through a mutual acquaintance about two decades after that crash, when Reeves wanted a custom sissy bar—basically, a backrest for a passenger—added to his 2005 Harley Davidson Dyna. Hollinger, who at that point was a relatively well-known, well-respected customizer with his own small LA shop, wasn’t interested.

“I knew I could build him the world’s most expensive sissy bar,” Hollinger says, “but I also knew it wouldn’t be satisfying for either of us.”

Instead, Hollinger spent the next five years completely reimagining the bike. He’d work in spurts, changing or adding something, then handing the bike back over to Reeves for months. By the time the bike was finished, Hollinger says, about the only parts of the original Dyna still remaining were the engine and the serial number on the chassis. Today that bike—a chromed-out ride fit for Mad Max—is displayed in the shop, the inspiration for what eventually became Arch.

Keanu Reeves on motorcycle wearing black canvas jacket and sunglasses Brian Bowen Smith

Eventually being the key word. When, during the long process of modding the bike, Reeves first suggested to Hollinger that the two team up to start a motorcycle company, Hollinger didn’t have to think about his answer.

“I knew what a tough business it is, what a challenge it would be—and that it would not be a great investment,” Hollinger, now 63, says with a laugh. “It was a wonderful motorcycle I built and it was wonderful getting to know Keanu, but starting a motorcycle company sounded like a horrible idea.”

Reeves didn’t relent. As the pair became better friends—and as the motorcycle continued to take shape—they’d have long conversations about the realities of starting the company. Hollinger would show up to their discussions with pages of questions written on a legal pad, but what gradually eroded his hesitation was the thoughtfulness with which Reeves described the experience of riding a motorcycle.

Finally, nearly convinced, Hollinger asked Reeves to boil everything down to one reason why they should do something as seemingly crazy as starting a motorcycle company. The actor came up with it on the spot—a reason Hollinger immediately understood, which allowed him to envision the company and its worth as an opportunity to do something meaningful and long-lasting.

“Because,” Reeves told him, channeling the mortality-obsessed 11-year-old kid gawking at dudes on motorcycles, “we’re going to die.”

Related: 2023 Arch 1s Sport Cruiser Is the American (V-twin) Dream

There have been many jokes made over the years about Reeves being a dummy, but after spending about 8 seconds with the guy it’s obvious he’s keenly intelligent. I mention that I read lots of sci-fi and fantasy books as a kid, which prompts him to ask whether I have opinions on several titles, followed by recommendations to read several others.

Thing is, his idiosyncratic public persona—which is sort of like Ted (not Bill) if Ted were a little more shy and a much better dresser—isn’t an act. Reeves isn’t trying to fool his critics or fans. And he isn’t really putting on an act in an attempt to prevent people from knowing who he is. He’s just this very singular, introspective, likable person who happened to become a pop culture icon.

All of that said? He can be pretty goofy. His physical mannerisms are sometimes at odds with what he’s saying, like he’s being controlled by feuding puppeteers. He speaks haltingly, stopping and starting and stopping again, often all in the same sentence, as he considers what exactly he wants to say or, just as likely, what he doesn’t want to say. More than once over the course of an afternoon he giggles—yes, giggles—at something he says or thinks, placing his cupped hand over his mouth like a theatrical school child hiding laughter; the gesture is as strange as it is endearing. He's somehow both laconic and verbose, calm and keyed up.

Although Reeves has long been known as “The internet’s boyfriend,” he’s currently dating—sorry, internet—acclaimed visual artist Alexandra Grant. The pair first collaborated on the 2011 book Ode to Happiness after having known each other previously; in the following years they collaborated on other projects and co-founded the small book imprint X Artists’ Books. Their romantic relationship began about five years ago but only became public knowledge two years in, when they arrived at a red carpet event together.

When asked about Grant, Reeves leans back in his chair as though trying to put both metaphorical and literal distance between himself and the idea of discussing his personal life.

So, uh, maybe it’s best to make it about bikes: What’s Grant’s opinion of Reeves’ (occasionally injurious) motorcycle fixation?

“She used to have a motorcycle, so she’s fine with it,” Reeves says. Then he pauses, as he so often does, seemingly considering whether to say anything more. “She hasn’t ridden in a while.”

Despite his lifelong love of bikes, Reeves hasn’t ridden them much in his movies. There’s a brief scene in the landmark 1991 indie film My Own Private Idaho. There’s some riding in 1996’s Chain Reaction, including one scene in which he manages to outrun an exploding hydrogen reactor. He’s technically on a bike in John Wick 3 while battling bad guys, but that was all done while stationary in front of a green screen. He has no interest in shoehorning Arches into his movies, though a couple of Arches are featured in the futuristic 2020 video game Cyberpunk 2077, in which he also played a major role.

Reeves says there’s a brief motorcycle scene in the upcoming John Wick 4, a movie whose eventual existence might have been laughed at when the original film debuted. Despite the series’ current status as an unstoppable franchise juggernaut, it originally wasn’t even planned as a franchise—and it certainly didn’t appear destined to be one after John Wick received a somewhat tepid theatrical reception in 2014.

“It had some success in the theater, but it really became more popular in second viewings,” Reeves says. “So the studio asked if we wanted to do another one.”

Reeves does more than just kick unbelievable amounts of ass in the movies; he’s also had a hand in plotting out the sequels. The genesis of the third and fourth installments, he says, took place while he and director Chad Stahelski were on the road promoting the second and third movies, respectively.

“Generally, Chad and I cook ’em up while we’re doing press tours,” Reeves says. “We talk about what we’d do next if the current film does well. I’m like, ‘I want to ride a horse and do a horse chase!’ And Chad says, ‘Yeah, we can do it in Central Park!’”

Reeves says he doesn’t know what comes next for him, but John Wick 5 will almost certainly be an option—if he wants to do it. He’s currently developing a TV series, and maybe he’ll make the motorcycle road movie he’s long thought about making. He’ll also no doubt continue riding bikes and growing Arch because he loves doing both.

He says he may continue BRZRKR, the comic series he co-writes. He won’t stop helping others via his philanthropy (he declines to discuss other than to say it’s “in health and the arts”). And he’ll burnish his already-glowing reputation as, in his words, “a pretty respectful and considerate person,” because that’s how he likes to treat people.

“I’m just,” Reeves says as his mouth curls into a smirk and his arms shoot out in front of him as though he’s pleading to be believed, “a normal guy.”

via keanuworld

[blueiscoool]

Maya Sacrificial Victim Discovered with Jade Ring

In a significant find, experts from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have revealed an ancient Maya burial site. This discovery sheds light on a human sacrifice accompanied by the presence of a precious jade ring.

The unearthing of this find occurred while archaeologists were diligently excavating within the ancient Maya city known as El Tigre, or Itzamkanac.

This city, with its intriguing moniker translating to “the place of the lizard serpent,” rests in the Mexican state of Cameche, adjacent to the Rio Candelaria.

The INAH reported in its official newsletter that the antiquity of these findings is estimated at around 1,200 years.

Reporting at Mexico’s morning conference led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Diego Prieto Hernández, the head of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), shared details about this significant find.

He also talked about the use of something called “Promeza” at these historical places. This technology helps shape today’s understanding by learning from and sharing insights about the past.

The skeleton of Maya’s sacrificial victim

The found skeleton, as Diego Prieto Hernández clarified, was actually part of a burial offering. Moreover, this discovery was found on platform 1E, which is situated to the west of the big complex known as Structure 1 in the El Tigre Archaeological Zone.

The ceremonial arrangement included two big vessels. These containers were topped with ceramic bowls used as covers. Among them, one vessel caught the archaeologists’ focus. Inside, they found the skeleton of a young person.

Moreover, this individual was placed in a bent position, and there was also a striking and well-preserved jade ring accompanying the remains. This ring was quite unique and stood out.

Considering the features of the containers, experts believe that this burial can be linked to the Late Classic period, which falls between AD 600 and 800. Additionally, this era matches the peak of population and political influence at El Tigre, reported INAH.

Prieto Hernández mentioned that the investigation will progress in the laboratory. There, a micro-excavation will take place. However, the aim is to gather precise details about the physical characteristics of the remains.

Moreover, they’re also hoping to uncover any other related items, like seeds or smaller ornaments, that might be connected to this discovery.

177 pre-Hispanic human burials located in Mayan train

As highlighted by the INAH’s director, this skeleton adds to a total of 177 ancient human burials found in Section 1 of the Mayan Train project.

These discoveries come from two sources: first, during the monitoring of archaeological rescues while laying the railway tracks, and second, through the utilization of the Promeza technology in the three specific regions.

Up until August 14, 2023, a total of 2,698 structures had been safeguarded, according to INAH’s director.

These include 248 pieces of furniture, 281,353 fragments of ceramics, and 55 natural elements linked to the existence of past human communities along this segment of the train route.

By Abdul Moeed.

[talenlee]

The Nemuranai System

Alright, in Oriental Adventures‘ expanded 3e books –

Wait wait wait don’t go, hang on.

Content Warning: This is going to discuss some books that are, very simply, quite Orientalist, in the classical Edward Said sense. Not nakedly racist in a slursy way, just racist in how it simplifies cultures in the names of telling a particular form of story. If you don’t wanna mess around with that, y’know, probably want to avoid it.

Anyway, there’s this system in the Rokugan books for handling gear. Specifically, the idea is that as a character in the Rokugan setting levels up and accumulates experience, rather than going to a magic store and picking up new swords and armours that are part of an ongoing escalation of gear in a marketplace that is constantly creating an increased demand, rather that player characters themselves, by dint of being powerful and cool and renowned, start to affect the gear they’ve been travelling with the whole time. The spirits of their equipment awaken and become powerful in response to the person who owns them being powerful.

This also is transitive – if someone powerful gives you their sword with its awakened spirits, it can be a powerful item thanks to them conferring it, but not as powerful as if they had it, or if you take something off someone that was powerful, it won’t work for you and will just be a sword. This association, this effective transformation of gear into a social improvement, where you have to convince spirits in the equipment that you’re worthy of how cool they are, is interesting in that it both serves as a way to disincentivize theft and looting, but also means that player characters are going to get equipment that’s explicitly coded to them as they level up and fitting the way they want to do things.

This system for the ‘spirits of the item’ was known as the Nemuranai system, based on the word ‘nemuranai’ which I think translates to ‘not sleeping.’ I don’t know if this is a full-blown hilarious translation mistake in an early guidebook way, but it might be and I’d leave it to someone who knows Japanese properly to ask.

The number of books that were put out for 3.5 really is hard to hold in the mind. In a time when ebooks were just starting as a market, in a time when we didn’t have the same obvious massive front-end surfaces like DriveThruRPG and its subordinate DM’s Guild. The OGL came along at just the right time, in the same vein as other Web 2.0 stalwarts, to be a thing that resulted in a lot of people creating a lot of material the whole time.

Like me!

Anyway, that meant that not only were you getting unique lines for D20 like Warcraft and BESM but we also saw the rise of D20-ified existing games, like D20 Rokugan. I’ve talked in the past about how great Rokugan was because its creators didn’t give a stuff about Wizard Supremacy (even if they didn’t appreciate the scale of the problem). The D20 Rokugan books included books about handling magical spells and items, in a setting that didn��t really have a lot of those things.

And make no mistake, I do not have any illusions about what real Samurai or real Asian adventures in the same vein as the Dungeons & Dragons ouvre are. This is not really about Actual Asian Adventures, this is about the vision of Samurai adventure media made and distributed and remembered and replicated in the west. There, people aren’t questing and finding ancient swords (which is ironic because of all sorts of things to do with palingenesis), but instead, it’s about inheriting old swords. Notably, nobody kills people and takes the sword off them unless they’re someone bad.

This is what Nemuranai was trying to address.

I really can’t underscore how important your equipment was to your character in 3rd edition. Gear was so important to how a character functioned that when you built a character higher than level 1, there was a table that showed the appropriate amount of magical gear you started with. There were functions of how a character works in 3rd edition, like your access to weaponry with an appropriate set of bonuses, your ability to absorb or escape damage, and even your ability to engage on multiple platforms. Around level 9, everyone flies, and if you don’t pick up a way to fly around that level, even for a little bit, you are going to be in trouble as encounters are sculpted assuming you can handle an enemy just flying away and pelting you with ranged attacks.

What’s more, gear is so important that if you level up manually, and follow the tables that generate treasure and gear — distinct categories, make no mistake! — then you wind up with a character whose budget is larger than these characters who were made at a higher level, because you were expected to lose some money through the course of operations by things like selling gear or consumables, like potions and wands and scrolls or stuff you crafted for yourself (oh hi, Wizard problems, why are you here)?

Looting is a big part of the game, in that there’s a big pile of tables for it, but it’s also a meaningless part of the game in that as long as the DM is doling out rewards appropriate to the table. What this meant in my experience was players constructing wish-lists, hoping for particular items, or the DM using that level-by-level budget to construct a chain of items to give to the players. It’s there, I did run the game using the loot tables sometimes, but it wasn’t an interesting tool to use and it relied heavily on preloading, adding an accountancy element to the interesting thing (designing meaningful combat encounters).

And then you throw this game into a different thematic space, where ostensibly, ‘people don’t loot.’ Which doesn’t break the game, because the looting and the loot tables aren’t… that… important. The gear is, but the way you get the gear, it turns out, isn’t.

Look, Dungeons & Dragons, in every edition, is a modular game system of exclusions. There’s a body of opinion about D&D that thinks the idea that players don’t have an exhaustive, comprehensive vision of the rules, is a sign of a problem in the game, which is completely unhinged. The nature of a class system is to make it so that there’s ways the game can sequester operations. Don’t have a Barbarian in the party? Then nobody needs to track Barbarians. You’re not using the encumbrance rules for anyone? Then nobody needs to worry about them. If you are using them, they interact across all people.

There’s a vision of how this is a sign that there’s something wrong, or broken in how D&D works, as opposed to literally structural to the entire design methodology. If a thing is not present in the game, its operations aren’t necessary, and therefore, any new thing can bring its own operations with it. Now this is a design approach that is volume-heavy. There’s a reason you can print a dozen monster books and still not really have a reasonably varied ecology for a real world scale, because every one of those monsters is a discrete module that lets you pull it in and out. There’s a reason that building real estate is in a bonus supplementary book and the core rule book has optional content like ‘the fighter.’

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[nevertheless-moving]

Nevertheless MDZS AUs

1. The Demon of Yunmeng

(AKA The Fake Dating AU:) CANON TYPICAL ROM COM AMIDST AND AGAINST CANON TYPICAL HORRORS. With the Sunshot campaign over, this should be a time of peace and unity. But the Jianghu is never short of men who would go to any length for power. CW: Rape References

2. Open Eyes

3. Lan Sizhui the Blessed

In which Lan Sizhui is the absolute best. Even fierce corpses agree! Canon a little bit to the left. Hanguang-Jun's romantic adventure with his recently resurrected crush gets hijacked by their son and Wen Ning. He's okay with half of that.

4. Wei Ying and These Guys He Suddenly Has an Inexplicably Intense Connection With

Wen Ning, Jin Zixuan, Jin Zixun, and Wei Ying all abruptly double over during the Qishen Wan discussion conference. A close observer might notice a slight difference in their symptoms — Quionglin is grabbing at his heart, Zixuan at his stomach, Zixun at his chest, and Wuxian at his lower dantian. Their following interactions are... bewildering and alarming.

5. Not That Crazy

6. Oh, you haven't heard?

7. Jiang Wanyin’s Dog

Wei Wuxian is the Jiang Sect's answer to the core melting hand, except somehow even more terrifying. Did you hear what Jiang Wanyin had him do to Wen Zhuliu and Wen Chao? Did you know he summoned an ARMY of the damned to protect Lotus Pier when the wen sect retaliated?? Part One, Part Two

8. End of The Rope

Junior quartet time travel pre-phoenix mountain hunt. Classic mostly informed fix-it shenanigans, Jin Ling’s slightly violent lessons in emotional intelligence, manly crying, Lan Zhan’s vinegar jar, and interuniverse struggles in putting those guys back where they came.

9. starting to think this might not be a dream

considering the canonical incense burner mdzs extras, if Lan Zhan and Wei Ying time traveled back together they would assume it's a dream, have kinky sex wherever they are (possibly a public location), then fall back asleep, assuming the dream will end, only to wake up sticky with problems. Cloud Recesses First Meeting Edition

10. Doesn’t Feel Like A Dream

[cinnamoncascadian]

10 years of TWS - classic catws fanart queues for @catws-anniversary

Check out the queues I've made for this excellent event by @sparkagrace and @cable-knit-sweater! Prompt links are tag searches in my blog, so more and more will show up as we move into the week, and the queues grow.

March 26 prompt queues - theme: on your left - the smithsonian - first meetings - endurance - mission - "I'll put it on the list" - ptsd - the smithsonian - catws quotes

March 27 prompt queues - theme: steve rogers - camp lehigh - elevator - motorcycle - steve's list - "It kind of feels personal" - favorite steve quote

March 28 prompt queues - theme: shield - the triskelion - compromised - surprise visit - neighbor - weapons - "It's called compartmentalization" - favorite scene

March 29 prompts - theme: natasha romanoff - mall - disguise - redemption - matchmaking - trust issues - "Did I step on your moment?" - nat quotes (i don't have a favorite)

March 30 prompts - theme: tws cast - press conference - character bleed - photoshoot - social media - stunts - behind the scenes - "I'll take this one" - favorite cast member

March 31 prompts - theme: sam wilson - VA - partners - soundtrack/music - wings - missing scenes - "I never said *pilot*" - favorite sam quote

April 1 prompts - theme: hydra - lemurian star - project insight - politics - STRIKE - post-credit scenes - "Order comes through pain" - favorite catws fight - all catws fights

April 2 prompts - theme: bucky barnes - bank - metal arm - memories - ghost story - revenge - "But I knew him" - favorite bucky quote

April 3 prompts - theme: cap quartet - washington DC - breakfast - bedside vigil - uniform - found family - "When do we start?" - favorite duo

April 4 promts - theme: to the end of the line - helicarrier - 1940s - devotion - identity porn - reunion - "Schoolyard and battlefield" - favorite stucky scene

My extra catws10 prompts:

On this date in catws history

Specific scenes reimagined

He calls it warpaint audrey

New 2024 catws fanart

All catws10 stucky fanart

Limited pallette challenge

PS. Be aware, this is a Stucky blog, so occasional Stucky and Stucky-adjacent shipping may occur ;-) Filter #stucky fanart and #stucky+ fanart, if you no like.

@catws-anniversary it's ready :-)

[wishcamper]

All in the Family: ACOTAR PART II

Welcome back to our multi-part lesson on ACOTAR and Family Systems! Today’s topic is family roles, the interplay between them, and their combination’s influence on the nuclear family emotional process in the Inner Circle.

Pre-requisites: Part I

Creds: license and mf master's degree in counseling babyyy. and unhinged enough to write it all down.

No content warnings, just garden variety family dysfunction.

oh my god what the fuck does that mean

Let's back up and start with the structure of the IC pre-Archeron invasion. We have Rhysand, Cassian, Azriel, Morrigan, and Amren in a found family. This is where we have to suspend our disbelief a bit, because you’ll notice there are no parents in this family. However that doesn’t mean no one functions as a parent, because in any system there is a hierarchy, at least in an emotional sense, and the power vacuum will always get filled.

When a parent is missing from a nuclear family, very often one of the children will step in to fill the role and rebalance the system. Older siblings caring for younger ones, female children picking up housework, even phrases like calling someone the “man of the house” confer symbolic authority and responsibility to someone theoretically on the same level as the others. The dark end of this road is emotional incest, when parents rely on a child emotionally in the same way they would a spouse, a dynamic that is deeply inappropriate and incredibly damaging for a child.

Okay, so let’s talk about sibling position to see who is most likely to step up. This is a found family, so obviously none of these are based in biology, but if we look at the core four, they have a pretty clear birth order layout in terms of both power and personality. 

Rhys: A textbook oldest child - responsibility-seeking, serious, tending toward leadership roles. Oldest children often feel the burden of setting a good example for others. Prone to relieving anxiety via control.

Az and Cas: Classic ends of the middle child spectrum (invisible to hyper-visible). Middle children are flexible, adaptable, and competitive, and often struggle with questions identity. They may seek to meet needs for connection and validation in unhealthy ways.

Mor: Baby of the family energy through and through. Youngest children are more likely to be outgoing, creative, and rebellious, and struggle with inferiority and self-centeredness. Interestingly, they’re also more likely to abuse alcohol and are overrepresented in psychiatric populations.

Amren, hilariously, comes across as an only child - they tend to be wise, independent, and private, struggling with social skills and receiving criticism. (1)

So who’s filling our parental roles here in the IC? Who has power over the others? Rhysand is an obvious choice - he regularly makes decisions for the group as well as individual members on the basis of his feelings and his political position. I think you could even argue Rhys sees the people of Velaris as his children, too, though he definitely plays favorites lol. Amren also emerges as a person with power, given everyone is afraid of her and she has influence over Rhys. Amren has some authority over the others, though she is less invested in their personal lives and so functions differently in the system than Daddy Rhys.

So Rhys is one parent, and Amren is like a weird aunt. It’s very normal in systems with a parentified child (PC) that the other children feel resentful - they’re all supposed to be on the same level, and yet one of them has been exalted above the rest. The PC can respond to this so many ways - force, charm, control, bribes, threats, ignoring them - it’ll depend on the person and the individual system. But the PC will also feel that counter-resentment and leverage the power position to create balance in the family (Cassian, Azriel, stop trying to kiss your sisters). The irony is that, in this system, no one asked Rhys to be in power over his friends - he decided he wanted them in his court and blurred those lines himself. I suspect this was intentional, though likely unconscious, because it gives him a nuclear option if he ever needs to reestablish order and control in his family. We see him pull rank in tense personal moments that have literally nothing to do with politics despite his excuse they do.

(I do think, though, that there’s an argument to be made here that, for people in certain positions of prominence and influence, all your choices are political. Your image is part of your power and so, by extension, the parts of your personal life that become public have an effect on your ability to rule. Rhys and Feyre use this rationale with Nesta in ACOSF, though my babe isn’t exactly a Hunter Biden. More of a Claudia Conway, I’d say.)

Let's go back to our scary image from the beginning.

Bowen believed in the importance of visualizing this structure, so he advocates for family mapping or construction of a genogram (2). Given what we’ve unpacked so far, we can roughly plot the individual connections and hierachy. I’ve created this one to show the basics of the relationships and power structure in the IC, and we’ll get more specific from here.

Solid lines=connectedness

Dashed lines=conflict

Arrow=direction of energy

Squiggles=ambivalence/fluctuation

Line thickness=emotional closeness

Amren’s special line to Rhys=whatever ulterior motive she has

If you remember from my last post, one of the most important forces in a family is the triangle. Take another look at the triangles above, and see which ones seem unstable to you. The one that immediately stands out to me, even just visually, is the Cas/Az/Mor triangle. Each individual relationship has a different tenor, which creates a lot of instability. You can see how Mor needs that closeness with Cas to balance the tension with Az, but in order to keep their relationship stable, Cas and Az have Rhys as a moderating presence. Because what is the one thing they all have in common? A close relationship with Rhys. And Rhys has Amren to reinforce his power and responsibility, keeping the whole system in balance.

In this way, the IC’s system, while dysfunctional, is relatively stable pre-Archerons.

To understand how that’s possible, we have to talk about anxiety. Anxiety is the main energy that moves conflict through the family and sets off the nuclear family emotional process (NFEP). Anxiety must go somewhere. In enmeshed systems like this one (members’ emotions and security are highly dependent on one another), members relieve their anxiety through the system instead of resolving it individually or in dyads. In cut off, emotionally distant systems, anxiety gets internalized or displaced outside the family.

Given the sheer variety of relationships in the system, the most likely source of anxiety is Morrigan. She has a different relationship to every person in the system. She’s in the middle of the power hierarchy between the “parents” and the “kids”, and floats around inside the relatively stable triangle of the bat boys, with individual connections to each one . She also has a pattern of internal conflict that she moderates externally via alcohol and relationships. Despite not having the most power externally, Mor’s actions and reactions often cause the rest of the system to shuffle around her, giving her a great deal of power.

But don’t just take my word for it - let’s look at this in action.

Say Mor, Cas, and Az go out together bc apparently that is something they do regularly. Mor feels Azriel getting too close, which triggers her anxiety because she does not want to talk about whatever is between them. In response, she communicates her displeasure by leveraging the triangle and focusing her intimate attention on Cassian. But this creates conflict for Cassian, who wants to moderate Mor’s anxiety without rupturing his relationship with Azriel. Hence, we get the weird overfamiliar platonic besties routine, threading the needling of giving Mor the protection she’s asking for without out-and-out antagonizing his brother. Azriel buries his hurt feelings and retracts emotionally, despite wanting to be connected, and they go back to how they were.

So we can see how Mor has generated the anxiety, and it follows down the chain: she passes it off to the boys, who deal with it through emotional cutoff (Az) and enmeshment (Cas). Cassian steps in between the conflict at Mor’s unconscious request and takes inappropriate responsibility for Azriel’s feelings of rejection and Mor’s anxiety, while Az puts his feelings away and reestablishes emotional distance. This is the NFEP in action.

And yet Cassian and Azriel are still shown to be close, so where do these feelings go? I mean, they do physically fight each other all the time lol. Azriel banks a lot of repressed resentment he has to discharge elsewhere. Cassian feels the burden of peacemaking and internalizes the unresolved conflict as his own fault, doubling down on his commitment to making it better. Mor avoids contending with her own feelings because everyone else is doing it for her.

And here’s where Rhys becomes a moderating presence for all of them. Rhys has ultimate decision-making power over who is in and who’s out of the family, and sets the rules of engagement. He decides who gets respect, who’s allowed to initiate conflict. Rhys hold’s the power in the bat boys triangle, the strongest alliance in the system, incentivizing Cas and Az to get along with each other. He also incentivizes Mor/Cas/Az to keep their shit together because Amren has influence over him, and they need their alliance to leverage power against her. Rhys doesn’t have a problem with the buffer, so they rest of them “don’t” either.

The best question to ask when it comes to dysfunction is this: who benefits? We can see this in larger systems, too: who benefits for housing disparity, patriarchy, systemic racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia? People in power. If a system is balanced via dysfunction, it’s because whoever is in power wants it that way. With families, this is often more unconscious - perhaps Rhys is just as afraid of family disintegration as Mor, and believes addressing their issues will cause them to split. Perhaps there is a more generational pattern at play. I think it’s worth considering not just how this family functions, but what conscious and unconscious choices are being made given their individual families of origin.

And then the Archeron’s come, and all these cracks will be exposed and the system will get blown to shit. See you next time, class dismissed!

Sources: 

Eckstein, D., & Kaufman, J. A. (2012). The role of birth order in personality: An enduring intellectual legacy of Alfred Adler. The Journal of Individual Psychology, 68(1), 60–61.

Brown, J. (1999). Bowen family systems theory and practice: Illustration and critique. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 20(2), 94-103.

Genogram made with Canva, art by @artworks_by_rokii, rosalynnart on deviant art, @sallteas