#18th century childhood

[eustasskiddsprosthetic]

I usually don't post wips so openly like this but I have an idea.

What if canon Ace, after marineford, is isekaied to an old-fashioned, coloniser England? He wakes up confused like what the God-fuck happened and it just so happens that he ends up in a noblefamily's courtyard where he meets their youngest son who's his age who reminds him a bit too much of someone very familiar. The guy's name is Sabo too.

As of writing this, the fic is still a nebulous mess in my head but here's what I have.

Ace's immediately interested. The moment he went up to the study to ask for help, everyone just screams how indecent he is because he's shirtless and very attractive. The women blush, which Ace, being a greasy player to some extent, doesn't mind, but then there's Sabo who blushes in the same way. The neurons started activating in his mind. Ace never did it with guys too often but hey, he nearly died! He'll figure it out! Let's Fucking Go!

Sabo's also interested in this sense, "H-how rude! Who's this naked imbecile (Ace's just wearing his iconic shorts and boots)? Is he mad? In this weather? (looks down. Blushes immediately) That's a rather... large... scar........ What kind of w-warrior is he? Where is he from? Roman soldiers were known for being handsome, is he... (he can't believe himself for looking at his tits again) Why is he looking at me? His hair is too long for a man. (Sabo sees his smoky black eyes once more and turns away, out of breath) He's the Devil himself. I refuse to give in to temptation. I r-refuse to sin. I refuse!"

It doesn't end there, though. This hunk of a man gets thrusted to Sabo's care because no one trusts women to keep it in their pants if the Portgas D. Ace with his infinite, maxxed out rizz is right here. Sabo wants to cut his hair but couldn't bring himself to because it's just too beautiful. He simply cuts the fringe and dry-ends off before forcing Ace to shower and change into more appropriate clothing, aka this multi-layered suit that Ace wore wrongly.

Sabo couldn't stop himself from laughing. Ace pouted so much like a grumpy cat. Sabo started coughing and wiped his eyes.

"Why'd you stop?" Ace said. "Laugh more. I don't mind 'cause you're so cute."

Sabo finally sobered up. What was he doing? Acting like some lovesick fool. He never acted that way towards his own fiancé...

He didn't say anything as he helped Ace wear it properly. He couldn't help but feel he's doing something wrong. Ace looked so uncomfortable but it seemed that he understood why he's wearing this. Sabo hid his smile when Ace sneezed. Maybe he wasn't so bad.

When he's done, Sabo thought... Well, Ace is still handsome but he felt like he had taken something away from him, the thing that made him so special to begin with: his freedom. There's some spite in Sabo's grimace.

Sabo never had the chance to even dream of freedom.

[enlitment]

Saw this in an antique book shop today and simply couldn't resist

Actual cost: 150 CZK (around 6 $)

Cost to my mental well-being: incalculable

[wytchisle]

The Oddie Children | 1789 Sir William Beechey

[tubut]

Old (2011)

New(2024)

When I was a kid I loved the movie "Beauty and the Beast". Even after all these years I still like it.

I got a little tired while coloring (yeah those crayons!!!)

Well, have a peaceful dependency day when you see this!

Links to my other media:

Instagram

Deviantart

Twitter or X As you prefer

[dyingroses]

[kugirocks]

Children of the Sea - Years Later (on Wattpad) https://www.wattpad.com/1360637143-children-of-the-sea-years-later?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_reading&wp_uname=thebretange&wp_originator=xaXfvLmB6qUGQUUZLy%2Fk0zJzeXodo7XYDi7h7Z89tY9Z6AszbXdMgONxGiT6wT4ZsC8SEC36QaGLIeVXPLrvQqmTqDWNBrDc7F8vf%2BhuTHEQhnqh4dHX35RG3xhvkDSY In the bustling harbor city of Brest, France, Jacques and Colette, two young and inquisitive siblings, embark on a transformative journey into their father's world of seafaring. Guided by their robust seaman father, Pascal, they explore the vibrant dockyards, touch the heart of a legendary ship, and uncover the ocean's secrets.

[nedlittle]

4&20 for the book asks

[through tears] haha that's the weed number

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

hmm. i didn't necessarily discover any authors whose entire oeuvre i felt the need to read immediately which is how i would define "author i love". i've been enjoying mimi matthews' belles of london series (the third book is the weakest least of all bc anne is a lesbian and the plot is ass. will read the fourth & final book before the year is out). i think darcy liao had a great debut with make room for love (BUTCH LOVE INTEREST. UNION ORGANIZATION SUBPLOT. RUN DON'T WALK). i need to hold a seance so i can make karleen winsor do the autism test after her research process for forever amber drove me to madness (complimentary). overall i discovered a lot of authors whose work i found very interesting and for whom i will be on the lookout for in the future

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

my most anticipated release was the ministry of time by kaliene bradley which i learned about like. a month before its release and was mildly wary of bc i've found that a lot of franklin expedition-adjacent fiction is Bad. and then it ended up being one of my fave books of the year!!!!!!! i rarely buy new releases bc in this economy a single hardcover costs anywhere from 35-40 canadian dollars (tmot was $34 before tax) and they are heavy but i have no regrets here :)

end of year book asks

[kazz-brekker]

thinking fondly of my favorite cat pov story today

[opbackgrounds]

The Romanticism of One Piece I: Definition

Part II Full essay posted on AO3 here

“Romanticism is the star which weeps” —Alfred de Musset

One Piece is a Romance. It’s the title of the opening chapter as well as the first volume, and was liked enough by Oda that he recycled it for the first chapter and volume after the time skip. Sprinkled throughout the story Luffy and others will declare certain moments to be romantic. But what does that actually mean?

If you go to website for Mirriam-Webster and scroll down to the fourth definition, you’ll read that romance is “a: marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized 

b: often capitalized : of, relating to, or having the characteristics of romanticism”

It’s this second aspect of romance that I want to focus on today, because while One Piece is imaginative, and emotional, and adventurous, the roots of the manga dig much deeper than these superficial traits and tap into the much bigger movement that at one point dominated the Western World. 

As with many things, Romanticism is a concept that at its face seems quite simple, but the more you try to pin down specifics the more it squirms into something amorphous and difficult to define. In his lectures on Romanticism, Isaiah Berlin described it as, “the greatest single shift in consciousness of the West” before spending an entire hour of his introductory lecture trying to distill it down to its purest essence. In the Romantic movement we find our modern ideas of imagination, childhood, and sentimentality. Its influence dominated everything from politics, philosophy, poetry, literature, art, music and architecture. From the Romantics was born the Nationalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, which would lead to tragic results in the 20th. It spanned Europe and America, the Western world alight with hope after the French Revolution only to watch with horror as it was followed by the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, and the wars he brought to the rest of the continent. 

Pinpointing dates is difficult, but for simplicity’s sake it’s easiest to put it as lasting from approximately the mid 1700s through the mid to late 1800s. As Romanticism was a pan-European movement, it didn’t hit every place at the same time. It swept from France through Europe and eventually America at its own pace, blooming and dying independently of one another, with various precursor movements such as the Storm and Stress era in Germany, as well as holdovers lasting well after the golden age ended, the last embers clinging on until the First World War. Romanticism picked up the local flavor of wherever it went, the Romantic ideals of France related but not identical to the Romantic ideals of Germany, just as the Romanticism of William Wordsworth wasn’t the same as the Romanticism of Lord Byron. 

When attempting to define Romanticism, it is perhaps easiest to see it in what it was trying to push back against. As with every movement, the Romantics were in conversation with the past, in their case the Enlightenment thinkers of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The Enlightenment as a movement is just as difficult to pin down as the Romantics, but on the whole it said that there was one, specific way men should live their lives, that there was a formula for happiness and improvement of the human condition using reason, science, and an appropriate methodology. While the various Enlightenment figures all disagreed what that methodology was, for the most part they all agreed that it existed. It favored cold, hard logic, a celebration of science and of learning, and was hopeful for a future where humanity could better itself through its own effort by understanding the universe in which it lived. 

The Romantics looked at all of this, and said…no. 

There are other factors to consider when discussing Romanticism, such as the increase in urbanization following the Industrial Revolution and the political instability brought on by corrupt, crumbling monarchies and the revolutions they spurned, but in my mind this defiant no is the beating heart of Romanticism. It’s a philosophy that emphasizes the self over all, prioritizing feeling over reason and experience over logic. In fact, to the Romantic, there was no knowledge without feeling.

Institutions such as the church lost some of their power even as the Romantics became more obsessed with spirituality and the occult. The idealized, pastoral past of their beloved romantic ballads was yearned for even as revolts broke out against the monarchies that ruled in those stories of old. There was veneration of the child and the so-called Noble Savage, who were free from the corrupting forces of society and civilization. Freedom was the rallying cry, with abolition, women’s, and animal rights movements all stirring within this time period, but there was no greater freedom than the freedom of self. To do what you wanted when you wanted to do it.

There was a preoccupation with individual genius, and there was little that could bolster one’s career more than living fast and dying young. The Romantic world was one where death was frightfully common, with the increased density of the rapidly growing cities leading to frequent breakouts of disease even as populations boomed. Nearly half of children didn’t live to see their fifth birthday, and for those who did survive to adulthood, the political instability of the time made the future seem uncertain. Better then, to reject the all-consuming industry of the modern age and the cities that seemed to destroy more than they built in favor of spending time alone in the glories of nature and their own imagination, living as they pleased, beholden to no one but their own conscience. 

You’ll notice in the examples that I quote that most are white men and most of these men were well-educated. It’s a simple fact that the opportunities they were afforded were different than women and people of color, and their voices were amplified as a result. While there’s been increasing scholarship in recent years to diversify the canon, and there’s good fruit to be found in that regard, it must be acknowledged that the worldview shaped by the most famous Romantics is limited by this singular perspective.

That being said, there can be a more universal application to Romanticism, and One Piece proves that. The defiant no to the binding chains of society and the enthusiastic yes of personal freedom is something that we all feel at one point or another, and it’s what makes up the core of One Piece. Romanticism is a cosmic wanderlust, the ability to poeticize everything both great and small, the neverending search for, well…that depends on the person. But the important part is that they do search and they do dream. And it’s that search that I want to explore in more detail as I dig into specific aspects of Romanticism, and how One Piece applies.

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Taylor Swift is a Female Rage icon? Get a Grip.

I’ve just received word that Taylor Swift is calling her show “Female Rage: The Musical.” Here is my very much pissed off response to that nonsense:  

The phrase, Female Rage has an intimately rich history:  

Some of the first accounts of female rage dates to the Italian renaissance. To be clear, women in those days were not allowed to become painters- the arts were seen as the domain of men. They did not believe that women have rich inner lives capable of delivering the type of artistic innovation with which renaissance men were obsessed.  

However, rebels abounded, through the might of their fucking rage. Several women created some of the most compellingly emotional paintings I’ve ever fucking seen. They did it without permission, without financial support, and often under the threat of punishment. They did it as a protest. In paintings like “Timoclea Killing Her Rapist” by Elisabetta Sirani (1659), and another by Artemisia Gentileschi “Slaying of Holofernes” (1612) as it depicts the bravery of Judith as she slayed a traveling warlord out to rape Judith and enslave her city. The painting often is referred to as a way Artemisia was envisioning herself as slaying her rapist. These paintings were used against these women as proof that they were unfeminine- and far too angry.  Both these women suffered immensely for their audacity to call attention to the violation men perpetrated on them. Female Rage bleeds off these paintings- bleeds right through to the bone-deep acknowledgement of the injustice women faced being barred from the arts and having their humanity violated in such a sick way. Both women were hated- and considered far too angry.

In philosophy, also as early as the 15th century, an example of female rage is a philosophical text, often hailed as one of the first feminists works in the western world, written by Christine de Pizan titled The City of Ladies (1405). She wrote in protest on the state of women- writing that “men who have slandered the opposite sex out of envy have usually know women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are” (“The City of Ladies”). People mocked her all her life- but she stood fast to her convictions. She was widowed at a young age with children to feed and the men wouldn’t let women have jobs! She wrote this book and sold it so that she could feed her family- and to protest the treatment of women as lesser than men. Her work was called aggressive and unkempt- they said she was far too angry. 

In the 18th century, a young Mary Wollstonecraft wrote, A Vindication of the Right of Women ( 1792) upon learning that the civil rights won in the French Revolution did not extend to women! She wrote in protest of the unjust ways other philosophers (like Rousseau) spoke about the state of women- as if they were lesser. She wrote to advocate for women’s right to education, which they did not yet have the right to! She wrote to advocate for the advancement of women’s ability to have their own property and their own lives! The reception of this text, by the general public, lead to a campaign against Wollstonecraft- calling her “aggressive” and far too angry.  

Moving into modernity, the 1960’s, and into literary examples, Maya Angelou publishes I know why the caged Bird Sings (1969) in which she discusses the fraught youth of a girl unprotected in the world. It beautifully, and heart-wrenchingly, described growing up in the American South during the 1930’s as it subjected her to the intersection of racism and sexism. The story is an autobiographical account of her own childhood, which explains how patriarchal social standards nearly destroyed her life. Upon the reception of her book, men mostly called it “overly emotional” and far too angry. Maya Angelou persisted. She did not back down from the honesty with which she shared her life- the raw, painful truth. With Literature, she regained a voice in the world.  

Interwoven into each of the examples I have pulled out here, is the underlying rage of women who want to be seen as human beings, with souls, dreams and hopes, yet are not seen as full members of society at the behest of men. They take all that rage, building up in their souls, and shift it to create something beautiful: positive change. Each of these cases, I have outlined above, made remarkable strides for the women as a whole- we still feel the impact of their work today. They were so god-damn passionate, so full of righteous anger, it burst out into heart-stopping, culture-shifting art. Feminine rage is therefore grounded in experiences of injustice and abuse- yet marked too by its ability to advocate for women's rights. It cannot be historically transmogrified away from these issues- though Taylor Swift is doing her best to assert female rage as pitifully dull, full of self-deprecation, and sadness over simply being single or losing money. She trivializes the seriousness with which women have pled their cases of real, painful injustice and suffering to the masses time and time again. The examples above deal with subjects of rape, governmental tyranny, and issues of patriarchally inspired social conditioning to accept women as less human than men. It is a deadly serious topic, one in which women have raised their goddamn voices for centuries to decry- and say instead, “I am human, I matter, and men have no right to violate my mind, body, or soul.”  

The depictions of female rage over the last few centuries, crossing through many cultures, is an array of outright anger, fearsome rage, and into utter despair. The one unyielding, solid underpinning, however, is that the texts are depicting the complete agency of the women in question. The one uniting aspect of female rage is that it must be a reaction to injustice; instead of how male depictions of female rage function, (think Ophelia), the women are the agents of their art with female made- female rage. They push forth the meaning through their own will- not as subjects of male desires or abuses, but as their own selves. That is what makes the phrase so empowering. They are showing their souls as a form of protest to the men who treat women like we have no soul to speak of.  

Taylor Swift’s so-called female rage is a farce in comparison. Let’s look at an example: “Mad Woman” (2020). I pull this example, and not something from her TTPD set, because this is one of the earliest examples of her using the phrase female rage to describe her dumb music. (Taylor Swift talking about "mad woman" | folklore : the long pond studio sessions (youtube.com)  

The lyrics from “Mad Woman” read “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy/... And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry”  

How exactly is agreeing with someone that you are “crazy” a type of female rage in which she’s protesting the patriarchy. The patriarchy has a long history of calling women “insane” if they do not behave according to the will of men. So, how is her agreeing with the people calling her crazy- at all subversive in the way that artworks, typically associated with concept of female rage, are subversive. What is she protesting? NOTHING.  

Then later, she agrees, again, that she's “angry.” The issue I draw here is that she’s not actually explicating anything within the music itself that she’s angry about- she just keeps saying she's angry over and over, thus the line falls flat. The only thing this anger connects to is the idea of someone calling her angry- which then makes her agree that she is... angry. So, despite it being convoluted, it’s also just not actually making any kind of identifiable point about society or the patriarchy- so again, I beg, what on Earth makes this count as Female Rage?  

In essence, she is doing the opposite of what the examples above showcase. In letting an outside, presumably male, figure tell Taylor Swift what she is feeling, and her explicit acceptance of feeling “crazy” and “angry,” she is ultimately corroborating the patriarchy not protesting it. Her center of agency comes from assignment of feelings outside of herself and her intrinsic agreement with that assignment; whereas female rage is truly contingent on the internal state, required as within our own selves, of female agency. As I stated above, the women making female rage art must have an explicit agency throughout the work. Taylor Swift’s song simply does not measure up to this standard.  

Her finishing remarks corroborates the fact that she's agreeing with this patriarchal standard of a "mad" or crazy woman:

"No one likes a mad woman/ You made her like that"

Again, this line outsources agency through saying "you made her like that" thus removing any possibility of this song being legitimate female rage. There is simply no agency assigned to the woman in the song- nor does the song ever explicitly comment on a social issue or protestation of some grievous injury to women's personhood.

She honestly not even being clever- she's just rhyming the word “crazy” with “crazy.” Then later rhyming “angry” with “angry.” Groundbreaking stuff here.  

Perhaps Taylor Swift is angry, in “Mad Woman,” but it is not the same type of rage established in the philosophical concept of female rage of which art historians, philosophers, and literary critics speak. Instead, it is the rage of a businesswoman that got a bad deal- but it is not Female Rage as scholars would identify it. In “Mad Woman” I fear her anger is shallow, and only centered on material loss- through damaging business deals or bad business partners. She is not, however, discussing what someone like Christine de Pizan was discussing by making a case for the concept that woman also have souls like men do. In her book, she had to argue that women have souls, because men were unconvinced of that. Do you see the difference? I am saying that Swift’s concerns are purely monetary and material, whereas true examples of female rage center on injustice done against their personhood- as affront to human rights. Clearly, both things can make someone mad- but I’d argue the violation of human rights is more serious- thus more deserving of the title “Female Rage.”  

Simply put, Taylor Swift is not talking about anything serious, or specific, enough to launch her into the halls of fame for "Female Rage" art. She's mad, sure, but she's mad the way a CEO gets mad about losing a million dollars. She's not mad about women's position in society- or even just in the music industry.

She does this a lot. The album of “Reputation” was described as female rage. Songs in “Folklore” were described as female rage. Now, she’s using the term to describe TTPD, which is the most self-centered, ego-driven music I’ve heard in a long time.

Comparing the injustice, and complete subjugation, of women’s lives- to being dumped by a man or getting a bad deal- wherein she is still one of the most powerful women of the planet- is not only laughable, but offensive. 

[malicious-compliance-esq]

New year, new boggling double standards in The Patriot to disentangle! Once again @lyledebeast delivers a cogent and detailed analysis of the multi-barreled messaging of this often puzzling film. I'm nodding vigorously—and entirely chilled—at this observation:

Even beyond the Martin family, the film only stresses the purity and innocence of childhood in cases where the children involved are dead or about to be.

Bleak! And entirely accurate. Perhaps especially apt as well in light of current global events in which the plight of children in clear and present danger of losing their lives gets sensationalized and commodified in times of catastrophic upheaval while often going unexplored during times of relative stability.

Man of the House or Stupid Little Boy?: Eighteenth Century Childhood and The Patriot

A new year, a new semester, a new analysis post about The Patriot: the circle of life on this blog!

One of the most stretched, contorted, and ill-defined concepts in this film is that of childhood. "I'm not a child!" twenty-something Gabriel Martin shouts at his father. "YOU'RE MY CHILD!" Benjamin Martin hollers back louder, because that's how you win an argument when firearms aren't involved. By any standard besides a subjective parental one, Gabriel is further from being a child than any other offspring featured in the film. He's a veteran of three years of war. He's soon to be married. In modern times he would've totaled three cars by now (probably trucks given this is South Carolina).

The other character explicitly framed as a "child" is Thomas Martin, who is fifteen. The redcoat of his father's that he tries on is not too far off from fitting. While fifteen did represent the lower end in the age range of Continental soldiers during the American Revolution, Colonel Tavington would have had regular occasion to kill such soldiers while they were simultaneously trying to kill him. Why, then, does he later refer to Thomas as "that stupid little boy?"

Meanwhile, Benjamin Martin is so agog and aghast that a British officer would shoot an infant babychild just for trying to save his brother that he gets his remaining children to safe place and then . . . wait, no. No, he very much does not do that. Instead, he runs into the burning house and comes out with an armload of muskets that he distributes to his next oldest boys, takes them to the woods, and orders them to shoot as many men in Gabriel's escort as they can, starting with the officers. And they do so with more accuracy than any of the trained British regulars shooting back at them.

Samuel Martin reacts to these events the way we would expect of any sane person a child: he weeps in terror while reloading for his brother. His slightly older brother Nathan, though, is chillingly okay with the whole ordeal. He later tells their father "I'm glad I killed [those men]. I'm glad." When Benjamin follows Gabriel back to the war, he leaves Nathan in charge, "Take care of your Aunt Charlotte." Nathan evidently takes this order very seriously. He is the first to alert his family to the Green Dragoons' arrival because he is sitting on the front porch with a gun when they ride up! While his aunt and siblings are hiding in the cellar, he's contemplating taking a shot at Tavington about 100 years before that occurs to his father. As far as almost everyone in the film is concerned, Nathan is a little adult. The only character to reprimand him for his age-inappropriate behavior is, ironically, Abigale, who as a free Black woman also has less authority over him than any of the other adults.

What makes Nathan so much less of child than his older brothers? Tavington never kills him. Even beyond the Martin family, the film only stresses the purity and innocence of childhood in cases where the children involved are dead or about to be. The wide-angle shot of Tavington after he enters the church reveals a row of children standing in front of their parents, waiting to be burned to death. Before John Billings' suicide, the camera lingers on his son's dead body. Who knew arming small children with wooden weapons wasn't an effective means of home defense against the Green Dragoons? That the film visits the consequences of sending a boy to do a man's job fall on someone other than Benjamin Martin, even though both of his sons die doing things he refused to do himself, makes this point very easy to overlook.

The problem is not really that children in this film do things no sane person would ask of a child today. Childhood was shorter in the eighteenth century. People we would today regard has children took on all manner of adult responsibilities, including fighting for their country or arming themselves to protect their homes from foxes, wolves, and the British. The problem arises when the film frames Tavington as killing children out of the wickedness of his heart and five minutes later gives two children a higher body count than any British soldier but himself (and, arguably, General Cornwallis). Villains in Westerns often rationalize killing the children of their foes as investing in a future in which those children do not grow up and come after them. Tavington could argue the same with more merit because Martin's children obviously do not have to grow up to create problems for him. He could, and more likely would, see Thomas not as an unarmed child but as a young man who could very easily arm himself. Instead, he explicitly underscores Thomas's childishness so Martin, and the audience, will know he knows how evil he is.

I hate this movie!

[iamthemaestro]

cannot believe it has taken me this long to start reading temeraire. it’s my childhood how to train your dragon special interest set in the era of my adulthood long 18th century special interest. I think part of me was worried it would be grittier or something but no it’s just Well Meaning Navy Man Acquires A Giant Danger Puppy. 10/10

[squirrellypoo]

Loustat fic rec

Since my last fic roundup it appears I've been promoted into the role of Loustat fic librarian, LOL. I've been asked for a lot more recomendations, and I thought I'd group these thematically rather than by length or AU type. There's a few repeats here from the previous list but that just means you really should read them!

Time-bending

“Once more, with feeling” Human Loustat are caught in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over… By @cher-horowitz

“Come (Back) to Me” Modern painter Louis is drawn to a painting an an old chateau and time travels back to the 18th century to meet the young marquis in the portrait… By @suikamelon6

“Return” Modern vampire Louis suddenly time travels to 18th c Paris, where he encounters human Lestat and Nicki at the theatre… (ongoing)

“Ten Minutes” Lestat’s caught in a time loop, destined to relive the Paris trial again and again

“Daniel Molloy, Time Bandit” Daniel time travels from 1980s Night Island back to 1790s TdV where Armand doesn’t know him, but is intrigued… (This one's not Loustat but I still wanted to include it)

Fairy Tales

“Tale as Old as Time” Beauty and the Beast AU with Loustat trapped in a cursed castle

“Fly Away with Me” Peter Pan AU mixing childhood memories of the du Lac children flying to Neverland with grown-up Louis and Pan/Lestat (ongoing)

“La Bête” Human Louis travels to France to research a mysterious 18th tale of a beast that roamed the Auvergne… (ongoing) (Not a straight 1:1 fairytale but fuck it, I love this one so much and it deserves more readers) By @penguinsandbats

“Bittersweet” (ch18) Standalone Beauty and the Beast Loustat chapter from a month-long challenge

“Rumpelstiltskin” Louis wakes up in the Dubai penthouse and must complete tasks for his mysterious captor will eat him (Loumand, not Loustat)

“The Wolf Fur Slipper” Prince Louis must get married, and a Cinder-fella Lestat dreams of escaping his awful family to live in a fairy tale romance…

Crossovers

IWTV x The Newsreader: “One of our Reporters Is Missing” The original crossover fic! Louis sees Dale on Australian tv, and travels to reunite with what he thinks is a mind-wiped Lestat. By @angstosaur

IWTV x The Newsreader: “Roving” Helen Norville meets up with Daniel Molloy in the 1980s in America and travels to NOLA, tapes in tow, and stumbles upon Lestat…

IWTV x The Newsreader: “I thought we could have an orgy” Loustat/TimDale PWP set in the Darwin episode of S1

IWTV x Cunk on Life: “Cunk on Fangs” Philomena Cunk is asked by her good friend Daniel Molloy to travel to Dubai to interview a vampire with him… (ongoing)

IWTV x Ted Lasso: “No Such Thing As Bad Publicity” Keeley is employed to improve Lestat’s PR for his European tour

IWTV x Killing Eve: “In the White Room (L’homme Lestat)” modern vampire story where Lestat is kidnapped by a mysterious organisation and forced to become their assassin while Louis and Armand try to help/rescue him with help from Villanelle. By @angstosaur

IWTV x True Blood: “Under the Blood Moon” Human Louis finds out at his dad’s funeral that the company is bankrupt and meets a vampire Lestat at a dive bar while he’s drowning his sorrows (ongoing/abandoned?)

(There's also some IWTV x Hannibal ones but I'm not really into that show SORRY! Feel free to suggest some in your RBs if you're into it though)

Sex Workers

“Before You See Me” Human AU with sex worker Louis hired to help heal a heartbroken actor Sebastian Wilde (Lestat). Sex with all the feelings. By @suikamelon6

“Many happy returns” Modern human PWP with sex worker Lestat delivering a birthday gift to Louis in the library

“Make me, break me, shake me” Human AU with escorts Loustat as roommates until Louis realises what Lestat really needs - a good dicking.

“Baby Treat me Nice” Human AU with kindergarten teacher Louis discovering the dad of one of his students is actually his Only Fans crush… (ongoing/abandoned?)

“Assignment” Modern AU with an anxious and stressed human Louis requesting professional services to lose his virginity, and a blond man appears at his door... By @riley-beautrelle

“Pretty Boy” Daniel discovers after Dubai that Lestat became a porn star after being left for dead and penniless and is now the highest paid gay porn star in America

“Music When the Sun Goes Down” Modern human/vampire AU with sugar baby Louis gaining a new & exclusive rich blond client… (ongoing/abandoned?)

I've tried to tag authors where I can but my memory is terrible when AO3 & Tumblr handles differ... sorry!

[tisajest]

I'm bored so imma share my ethnicity headcanons for the batfam. If you want the tldr version just read the bolded text lol

Bruce - WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) American, Irish, and Dutch Jewish

The Wayne family has been in Gotham for centuries and has stayed mostly WASP, the few exceptions before Martha were French, German, or Dutch typically. Martha comes from Gotham's Kane family and it is an Irish Jewish family that was established over a century ago. Her mother was from a wealthy Jewish Dutch family that fled in the early stages of WWII.

Dick - mostly French Sinti (Manouche) and Mexican Calé Romani, but also has Hungarian Boyash and British Romanichal Romani ancestry, English, WASP American, Hungarian, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Indigenous Mexican, West African, and North African. Looks like a lot listed out like that but it really just comes from being from a nomadic culture and from the Americas. He just considers himself Romani, Sinti/Calé if pressed. You won't get the whole "I'm 1/8 Italian" thing from him.

Dick's mother (Mary) was from France and had a lot of French/other Western European ancestry as well as her Sinti ancestry. Her family was culturally and ethnically Sinti Romani and had been in France primarily for centuries. Her mother was a dirty blonde with more Eurocentric features and her father looked more Mediterranean and had more Romani features.

Dick's father (John) was culturally Mexican Calé Romani because of his Mexican mother (Maria Perfecta). Her family has been in Mexico for a long time, having immigrated primarily in the 17th and 18th centuries. As such, she also had some Indigenous Mexican (primarily from Central Mexico, so Otomí, Purepecha, Nahua, Cora (among others but those were the first examples that came to mind)), West African, and Iberian ancestry, as well, primarily. Her family mostly stuck to Central Mexico, some distant lineages went either North or South.

John's father (William Grayson) also had Romani ancestry because his father, William Cobb, was Boyash and Romanichal. Cobb's mother was the daughter of Hungarian Boyash immigrants and his father immigrated from London. Grayson was disconnected from his Romani heritage, however, and was raised collectively by Haly's Circus as a multicultural orphan. Grayson's mother was Amelia Crowne, who came from a wealthy WASP American family. Due to the disconnect from his father's side, most of John's Romani cultural practices come from his mother.

Bonus: just for funsies I had Dick be born in Brazil, he's not Brazilian ethnically nor culturally, but he does speak Brazilian Portuguese and has Brazilian citizenship. Haly's also picked up a Brazilian performer around the time Dick was born. They were the honorary uncle/nephew duo of Dick's early childhood and he made sure Dick grew up speaking Portuguese correctly (John was born in Portugal and spoke conversational European Portuguese). Thus, Dick has Brazilian, American, Mexican, and French citizenship.

*I corrected some spelling errors in this section (Caló (language) to Calé (people), Senti (1 typo) to Sinti) and corrected some details that I missed in my late night writing this post (I added "more" before "Eurocentric features" bc I feel like I was implying that Mary's mom looked like a more typical white woman, which isn't the case. I also added "and had more Romani features" after Mary's father's Mediterranean description bc I feel that I implied he didn't look Romani at all, just Mediterranean, which also isn't the case. Yes both had more mixed features but both were still solidly Romani in appearance)

Jason - Irish, Italian, Greek, WASP American, French Canadian, and Anglo-Australian

Jason's father (Willis) was born to a single teen mother in Gotham. She was the granddaughter of Greek immigrants, descendant of Irish immigrants a little further back, and has general WASP-y American ancestry as well from having been in the Northeastern US for centuries. She likely also has Dutch, German, French, and Indigenous American ancestry as well, but those are generations removed and irrelevant. Willis's father was never in his life, but he had French Canadian grandparents on his mother's side and WASP American on his father's.

Jason's mother (Sheila) was the granddaughter of a WWII vet and an Australian war bride on her mother's side. Her grandfather was the son of Southern Italian immigrants and her grandmother was an Anglo-Australian primarily, with 1 Irish immigrant grandfather. Sheila's father was basically just WASP American with a somewhat recent German immigrant grandmother.

Despite being the whitest mfer, he was a polyglot from an early age because he was always out interacting with his community. So he is very conversational/fluent in Puerto Rican Spanish (has been mistaken as Puerto Rican as a result, too, and this was him when he was told he wasn't actually Puerto Rican lol), knows quite a bit of Yiddish, Cantonese, Tagalog, and other languages. He picks up languages quickly.

Tim - German, WASP American, White Cuban (mostly Spanish, French, and Chinese)

Tim's father (Jack) is mostly WASP American and German, as his mother's parents were German immigrants. The Drake family is a more recent addition to Gotham's elite, but the ancestors had been in the Northeast (New York and north New Jersey specifically) for generations.

Tim's mother (Janet) is the daughter of Cuban immigrants, both parents having left Cuba as children. Janet's mother (Emilia) was mostly of Spanish and French ancestry, her family were Cuban elites that were able to recover their wealth in NYC. Janet's father (Alfonso) was biracial, his father was Spanish and his mother was mostly Chinese. His family was also very wealthy, but lost most of it in the exile. They had to rebuild their business in Miami.

Tim speaks Spanish, but not nearly as fluently as Jason. Janet mostly spoke English to him. Tim grew up mostly monolingual, the languages he speaks later are learned through study primarily. His Spanish, thus, is a mix of Cuban, Mexican (Dick), Textbook, and Puerto Rican slang and profanity (Jason).

Cass - Han Chinese (mainland China (South) and Malaysia), Malay, Irish, and WASP American

Cass's mother (Lady Shiva) was born in Malaysia to a Malaysian Chinese mother and a Chinese immigrant father. They moved to Guangzhou when she was very young. Her Malaysian Chinese mother had some Malay ancestry as well, but she was primarily Chinese.

Cass's father (David Cain) is the son of a Northern Irish immigrant and WASP Americans. That's about all I got, I don't give a shit about him lol

Damian - Arab (specifically Jordanian circa like half a millennium ago; Palestinian and Yemeni), Han Chinese, Miao Chinese, plus Bruce's ethnicities above

Damian's mother (Talia) was half Arab and half Chinese from both parents. Her father (Ra's) was born in what is now Jordan to parents from the region, one of which (his mother) was Han Chinese originally from Western China. His father was ethnically Southern Levant, Palestinian/Jordanian. Talia's mother (Melisande) was the daughter of an American mother with a Palestinian father and a Yemeni mother. Melisande's father was the American son of parents from Yunnan, he was Miao.

See Bruce above.

Duke - African American, Gullah, (maybe Mandika, it depends)

I don't fully understand what's going on with his bio dad (Gnomon), so Imma just ignore him and just do his mother. If he's an immortal metahuman, he's Mandinka from Senegal. If he's a non-human immortal being, then he's that ig.

Duke's mother (Elaine) is Gullah. She was born and raised in Georgia and later moved to Gotham, but she was very connected to her community and culture. She raised Duke in the Gullah culture at home, as well. She also taught Duke the Gullah language, it's his first language. As Duke grew up, the home became more bi-cultural (Doug is a Gotham native, so not Gullah and thus had different traditions and culture to share).

Steph - Scottish, Polish, Lithuanian, and Black

Steph's father (Arthur) is originally from Chicago, his father was the son of Scottish immigrants and his mother was the daughter of Polish immigrants.

Steph's mother (Crystal) is a native Gothamite, her father was unknown to her (he was mostly WASP American, but he did have a black grandmother) and her mother was the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants.

That's about it, I didn't include Alfred bc I just see him as ethnically English, maybe some Celtic ancestry (Welsh/Cymry and/or Cornish) and from the South of England.

Anyway, those are my headcanons! Let me know what you think if you want.

[demifiendrsa]

The Rose of Versailles (2025 movie) - Teaser PV2 (with English captions)

The Rose of Versailles anime film will hit Japanese theaters in early Spring 2025.

Poster

Cast

Miyuki Sawashiro as Oscar François de Jarjayes

Aya Hirano as Marie Antoinette

Toshiyuki Toyonaga as André Grandier

Kazuki Kato as Hans Axel von Fersen

Staff

Original Creator: Riyoko Ikeda

Director: Ai Yoshimura

Screenplay: Tomoko Komparu

Character Design: Mariko Oka

Music Producer: Hiroyuki Sawano

Music: Hiroyuki Sawano, Kohta Yamamoto

Animation Production: MAPPA Production

Synopsis

Oscar François de Jarjayes, raised as the "son" and heir of a general's family, masquerades as a beautiful woman in men's clothing. Marie Antoinette arriving from neighboring Austria as a bride to become a noble and graceful queen.. Oscar's servant and childhood friend, the commoner André Grandier. Hans Axel von Fersen, a handsome and intelligent count from Sweden. They meet in Versailles, France in the prosperous late 18th Century and live their respective destinies beautifully while being tossed about by the tides of times.

[hazellvsq]

hazel drawing her friends

she doesn't draw leo's face bc she's drawn that same face before and its very weird for her but she'll draw faraway shots of him steering the ship like an 18th century sea captain

she drew festus too, asleep but still frightening

piper's self conscious about being drawn but hazel loves her and loves how she looks and spends a lot of time trying to capture what makes piper so magnetic

she herself is kind of self conscious about drawing reyna or annabeth but she draws them in each other's clothes - reyna in jorts, annabeth in a toga and cape - and they both think its funny as hell

hazel draws reyna's dogs too. they pose for her and everything.

obviously arion is her top model

she draws frank all the time and it makes him blush. she'll draw frank drinking juice and caption it "frank drinking juice"

she drew frank in a world war one uniform for childhood crush reasons but felt like something was missing so she drew him in a plane that was about to crash and ended up getting super invested in the plane detail so its a very dramatic drawing. frank was like "uuhhh why am i getting shot down?" and she was like "clearly you don't understand art???"

she draws nico and gives him better hair bc she's nice

she also gives him a cool vintage car in some pictures. or a vespa.

she won't do a self-portrait

she draws percy destroying the glacier, like if the son of neptune cover was drawn by a non-professional artist.

she had one drawing of jason based on the day that she met him at camp jupiter. it was not a good day for her bc she was newly resurrected and very scared. it is a very good technical drawing of jason, and he looks powerful and strong, but he has intense eyes with no expression behind them and there is a very unnerving feeling to the drawing itself.

to piper and leo it reminds them a little of when jason had amnesia, but this is a drawing of him before that, which is not quite accurate to how hazel perceived him or to how he really was. its probably hazel's best work but it makes her and everyone a little uncomfortable.