#England’s accidental sex symbol

[onthecrosslook]

who is benedict cumberbatch

You

mean

this

handsome

British

man?

-AE

[benaddicted-and-deranged]

Something about the way he’s sitting makes me want to bang my head against a wall like LOOK at him he looks like a little kitter cat

[alifeasvivid]

Payback, a canonverse short, rated M+

you can thank @pastelsugar6w6 for this and also @irisoflunadreams because she’s not the only one who can be sadistic! HA! Please read warnings

Rating: M/M+ Warnings: angst, graphic discussion of sex... which was arguably dubcon, America is spoken about as if he is very very young, but he’s not underage; definitely no happy ending, not even a proper resolution Notes: the transition from country names to human names is not accidental, but it is merely symbolic. Takes place very shortly after 1783. France and England are both perverted bastards.  Summary: France was given America’s virginity as recompense for his assistance in America’s war for independence. He’s just dying to rub England’s nose in it. Word Count: ~1950

The early afternoon sun is streaming in through the study window when England's servant brings France into the room and announces him as Mr Francis Bonnefoy and leaves when England waves his hand.

France flounces casually, smugly, into an armchair some distance from England's desk.

England says nothing, pretends to be busy with his correspondences. He has an inkling of why France is here and he's not eager to engage in conversation.

"And a 'good afternoon' to you as well, mon ami," France says, the smirk dripping from his voice. "Will not you not even acknowledge my presence?" He is very eager to engage in conversation because he knows his news will devastate his dearly hated enemy and rival.

“I’ve hardly patience for you even when I’m in good humor which I am certainly not today. Just say whatever it is you came to say and then be gone.”

“I thought you would like to know that I have recently returned from the United States. I thought you would like to know that he was very hurt that you could not even be bothered to properly fight him and that you would not even be present at the resolution of it.”

England continues writing, but it’s actually only scribbling across the page. He doesn’t want to hear about America, particularly not anything France has to say about him. “Those colonies weren’t worth the trouble. I simply could not let his little tantrum go wholly unopposed, it would set a terrible precedent. If he no longer wants my protection or my resources, then fine. We can all watch him collapse under the weight of his own stupidity. Apparently, his nascent government is utterly inept. They do little more than squabble. Although from what I hear, you are more than willing to support him. How very generous of you.”

France could almost cackle with glee. “Not so generous, really. You are right about the men in power, if there is any to be had in all that mess and confusion, but they were quite desperate. Desperate enough to promise me anything I wanted in exchange for my help to defeat your armies.”

England freezes and finally looks up at France’s stupid, arrogant face.

“I could tell part of his anguish stems from his... fervent wish that you would see him as more than a child. That you might see him... as a man, so to speak,” France grins lewdly. “America has so much anger toward you because dear little Alfred is so in love with you, he hardly knows what to do with himself.”

England tries to hide his surprise at this revelation. “Having such an outsized fit over minor grievances was never likely to convince me he is not still a child,” he says dryly even as his stomach churns.

“Indeed that is a shame, for he is a very fine young man and even you can agree that he is quite beautiful.”

England grits his teeth. America is handsome enough that it borders on absurdity, but England has a feeling where France is leading the conversation and so he says nothing.

“And when his leaders, desperate for aid to fight your exceptional army against whom they had no chance otherwise, asked me what I would require as repayment, the answer was obvious,” Francis says airily. He laughs as the blood drains from Arthur’s face. “They were so desperate to defeat you that even their silly human mores against it didn’t stop them from delivering him to me. To my bed.”

Arthur growls. “Shut up.”

Francis continues as though he hadn’t heard. “They delivered to me a blushing virgin of a boy and I returned him to them as a fine young man,” he says, preening. He directs a cruel look at Arthur. “If I am honest, I think he was saving himself for you, mon ami. Your loss,” those last words twist around his smirking lips.

“Shut the hell up!” Arthur shouts, jumping up from his chair and leaning over his desk. His stomach churns and then drops. He has known for awhile what a fine young man Alfred has become and he has had so many fantasies of coaxing the boy into his bed, of taking him, claiming him... loving him. “I don’t care!”

“Yes you do,” Francis says plainly. “I know you, Arthur. You adored him so much. He captivated you. Now he has allowed them make him a whore to your one of your most hated enemies. I flatter myself to say he enjoyed it.”

Arthur goes to reach for the pistol he keeps in his desk drawer, but notices one at Francis’ hip and rethinks his plan. He himself is weakened, tired from being spread too thin. He wishes he could have been there, at the end, to beg Alfred to reconsider, to plead for amicable relations between the two of them if nothing else. In any case, he has no advantage over Francis in this moment. “I am certain he did not,” he hisses back instead of firing his gun. “Or do you forget that I have also been in your bed?”

Francis laughs. “It was quite forgettable, Arthur. Alfred, on the other hand, I believe I shall remember how lovely he was as I deflowered him for the rest of my days. You want to hear all about it, do you not? Shall I be gracious and let you live vicariously through me?”

Arthur turns red and turns his face away, scowling. “I absolutely do not want to hear it.” It’s mostly the truth.

“Non? You do not want to hear about the pretty shade of pink that graced his cheeks? How he regarded me so shyly until I eased him from his trepidation with sweet kisses and soft whispers of how handsome he is, how well he has grown. It took almost no time at all to erase whatever notions of my supposed cruelty with which you had poisoned him. You are the one who starved him so for affection and made him yearn for it from anyone who would show it to him.”

Arthur collapses into his chair, hanging his head in his hands, but he says nothing. He closes his eyes since the light of the sun seems to pass judgment on him: a clear condemnation.

“Ah, he was so eager, he melted under my touch and did absolutely anything I asked. Incidentally, though his technique needs refinement, he has a tremendous natural talent with his mouth. He instantly engulfed all of me and swallowed around me again and again as if to consume me. I thought I might die and he did not choke even a little when I thrust into his throat. He said it feels so good to him. Can you imagine?”

Arthur feels like he might die right then because he can imagine, it’s too easy to imagine.  “Shut up,” he mutters, even though he can admit to himself (and to only himself) that he wants to hear more. He wants to know what Alfred is like in bed so he can torment himself with even more vivid fantasies. His own cock twitches.

“The whole time, he looked at me with curious eyes in that striking shade of blue. I had him with me for two full months, you know. He hardly left my bed, he didn’t want to,” Francis sighs. “His skin, ah~ it is so soft, like golden silk and every inch of his body is delightfully sensitive. To confirm it, I spent the course of several days merely mapping him with my lips.”

Arthur tries to stifle the groan that escapes his throat. How many times had he imagined doing that very thing?

“If I tormented him enough, he would achieve release without my touching his cock even once. It broke my heart a little for him, truly, when the first several times I brought him to his fall, he called your name,” Francis says, affecting an insincere tone. “It was precious how he apologized for it, but when my time with him was finished, he knew exactly who was giving him such pleasure.”

Arthur bites back a sob. “No more,” he says and he half means it.

“He’s quite the hedonist, he’ll chase anything that makes him feel good. And oh, his cute, perfect ass. It should be a crime for him to clothe it. I had him on his knees, his face hiding in my pillows, while I kissed that tender flesh, bit him, pressed my tongue inside him. He liked that so well that he nearly screamed. Don’t hide your face like that, you and I both know you’re enjoying this even if you hate it,” Francis snaps. “Filthy lecher.”

Arthur knows he’s right. Advantage be damned, he should kick Francis out right then. But he cannot... and he cannot show his face. The sunlight reminds him too much of Alfred.

Francis relaxes into the armchair he occupies, uncrossing his legs and throwing one of them over the armrest. “When I finally took him, he wailed. He begged me for more. I wish I could adequately convey how sweet he sounded. His stamina is quite infectious and I stayed inside him for a few hours at least until he cried for me to fill him and then I did. I will always have been the first to mark him that way, isn’t it grand?”

“He deserved better,” Arthur grinds out through his teeth, even though it’s all too easy to slip his hand under his desk and press harshly against his cock. Alfred did deserve better. He deserved to be made a man by someone who loves him. He’s not nearly mature enough to properly handle being used by Francis like he was. The lad must surely be in some sort of emotional turmoil right now, Arthur knows him well enough to know that. Yet all he can do is mash his palm against his cock.

Francis scoffs and stands up from the chair. He sneers at Arthur. “Like you? As if I cannot see what you are doing at this very moment? You are a disgusting pig. But I know you care for him very much.” He moves toward the door, donning his coat. “Do not worry yourself, mon ami, I was very gentle with him. Someday, if you are ever fortunate enough to have your chance with him, you’ll thank me.”

Arthur curses after Francis as he leaves. He shouts for his servant to bring him a bottle of whiskey, yes a whole bottle, yes at this hour just do as I say. The servant closes the door and Arthur takes a long burning swallow of the amber liquid. He splays out on the floor on his back in the patch of sun on his carpet, undoing his breeches and furiously stroking himself, all while lamenting his own foolishness.

It could have been him.

Alfred had wanted it to be him.

Arthur could have spent all that time making love to him, not merely using him.

Instead, the men who stole Alfred away, filled his head with nonsense about liberty and independence, the men who hate England the most, made America into a whore… a means of repayment to France.

France! of all bloody people.

England drinks and imagines America on top of him, his cock buried in the boy’s perfect arse. He could have had it; he could have had America in his arms, England thinks bitterly when his orgasm hits him.

England lies spent on the floor. He drinks more and more whiskey until all he can think about his how much he hates that damn frog. The feelings of fatigue fade away and suddenly, his motivation has returned and all that matters is get back at France.

[marjanefan]

‘It’s only a tin full of Humans’- an Analysis of ‘Sardines’

Spoilers- please only read after watching 'Sardines'

Sardines was the first ever episode of ‘Inside No.9’ to be both filmed and broadcast (if I am correct it was the pilot episode for the show). The episode is a terrific statement of intent. It illustrated how Pemberton and Shearsmith would use a single location to skilfully tell a complex story and how they would manage to take the narrative of each episode in surprising and frequently dark directions.

Shearsmith and Pemberton have spoken about the fact that the original intention was to write an episode to see how many characters they could fit into the wardrobe. They managed a very impressive twelve. To this day this remains the largest cast of named characters of any Inside No. 9 episode. You can absolutely enjoy the episode for the way the wardrobe gets more and more full and the social comedy of the interactions this causes. It carries on the tradition of dark social farces of Alan Ayckbourn. Pemberton and Shearsmith have both appeared in stage productions of Ayckbourn plays (indeed Pemberton actually appeared in Ayckbourn’s ‘Season’s Greetings’ alongside Katherine Parkinson) . Their long-time producer Jon Plowman suggested the dark ending.

The game of Sardines in this episode acts as a metaphor for the claustrophobia of the relationships between the characters. It is symbolic of people get trapped in a social situation with people they would rather avoid. Rebecca is forced to interact with her fiancé Jeremy’s ex -girlfriend Rachel and confront the fact he has not moved on from her. It is symbolic for the fact that several of the characters have secrets or agendas they want to hide from others that will eventually be revealed by this enforced closeness (such as Mark and Elizabeth who want to use Andrew to get a business deal). But most importantly it acts as a metaphor for the claustrophobic relationships caused by a significant secret involving several characters that is revealed at the end of the episode.

The ostensible plot of the episode concerns the character of Rebecca (played wonderfully by Katherine Parkinson) who is celebrating her engagement party. While Rebecca is the central character and we have a plot centred on her growing discomfort at her fiancé Jeremy’s apparent closeness to his ex girlfriend Rachel who is also attending the party, the episode actually turns out to be about something very different…

For it turns out the apparently mild mannered and socially awkward Ian (Tim Key) has decided to use the party as the occasion to take his revenge for the for abuse he suffered as a child. Tim Key is excellent as ‘Ian’ and he is absolutely chilling in the final moments of the episode.

But ‘Ian’/Pip (as I will call him) was not the only victim. The implication in is that Rebecca’s brother Carl ('We weren't all that lucky, were we John?') and John (Marc Wooton) were also abused by Rebecca and Carl’s father Andrew (brilliantly played by Timothy West). ‘Stinky’ John will not wash because the smell of soap reminds him of the abuse he suffered. John’s unwashed smell upsets the other characters not just because it is unpleasant but that it is an unconscious reminder that there is something amiss in these characters past (he quite literally creates a ‘stink’). It also explains Carl's fear of intimacy and his anger when Stuart confronts him about it (and why he gets annoyed when Stuart discusses the smell of carbolic soap with him). We also see he is deeply uncomfortable being back in his childhood home.

There are some clues early on that ‘Ian’/Pip is not what he seems. He makes several morbid jokes such as the date of Rebecca’s wedding being 11/9 and his initials being RIP. These are not just a product of his social awkwardness. They foreshadow his later murderous actions. He also acts in a creepy manner toward Rachel when asked if he is dating anyone (‘I’ve had some experiences’ could refer to his abuse)

It could be argued that ‘Ian’/Pip is the Id to Carl’s Superego. They look alike, are dressed similarly and both wear glasses. When ‘Ian’/Pip accidentally calls Rebecca a bxtch and apologises, Carl jokes he is right. ‘Ian’/Pip ‘misinterprets’ Rebecca’s explanation of Carl and Stuart being partners. This causes Stuart to explain in no uncertain terms what the nature of their relationship is (something Carl himself is unable to do). Carl is the one character that shows any sympathy or anger on Pip’s behalf at the end and he tries to talk to him when his identity is revealed. ‘Ian’/Pip starts singing the Sardine song (written by Spike Milligan) to reveal his identity and Carl’s anger when his father sings this song shows he also associates it with his abuse. It is no accident that ‘Ian’/Pip’s revenge happens at the very location that the abuse of several characters occurred. We see Carl’s discomfort at being in the room (which Rebecca picks up on). He also says he hid in the wardrobe as a child. So ‘Ian’/Pip’s actions also reflect Carl’s own anger at what happened to him and the people who hurt him.

Andrew is shown to be a powerful overbearing character. He thinks nothing of bullying everyone, forcing Stuart, Lee and John into the wardrobe (probably sealing all the characters fates), belittling Carl and shattering Mark’s business hopes. He refuses to admit he did anything wrong and cares nothing about Carl’s discomfort at his behaviour. Perhaps Andrew is so keen on the game of Sardines as it reflects how he enjoys controlling the actions of others and keeping them in a space where he has ultimate power. Similarly Rebecca seems keen on the game and forcing others to play it because it allows her a measure of control over them and events. She cannot control the situation with Jeremy and Rachel but she can make them play this game. As several reviewers have also noted Sardines is a children’s game so it says something about Rebecca she seems so keen on it and the other guests that they go along with the game. Geraldine mentions Rebecca and Carl’s sister Caroline, who is married with young sons, is not attending the party. Rebecca’s discomfort when this is pointed out may indicate Caroline is aware of Andrew’s abusive behaviour and does not want him around her and her children. She quite literally refuses to play the game and put herself into this claustrophobic unhealthy situation (saving herself from the assumed final fate of the characters in this episode).

The episode does include some pointed class commentary in the treatment of Geraldine (Anne Reid). She had been Rebecca and Carl’s nanny and assumes that she has been invited as a guest to honour her role in their life. She is not aware she is still perceived as a servant as she had actually been invited to serve drinks. Ian may be rude when he demands she serve him champagne but at least he is not being hypocritically polite like Rebecca. The other characters make fun of her appearance (‘feed the birds’) even though she has probably gone through a lot of effort to appear well dressed for the party. It is worth noting ‘Ian’ makes a pointed comment ‘Shouldn’t she be using the staff toilet?’ about the other character’s attitude toward Geraldine. Geraldine remains blissfully unaware of how the other characters real feelings toward her and even sides with Andrew against the accusations ‘Ian’/ Pip made about him. This shows her lack of awareness of how the family she worked for actually view people who are not of the same class as them. In the end she gets punished along with the other characters by ‘Ian’/ Pip for this. Indeed his actions seem to be punishment toward the type of people who allow people like Andrew to operate.

It is worth analysing the relationship between Carl and Stuart. We have to assume they have been together for a reasonable period of time as they live together and are at the old married couple stage of bickering. Why would the highly repressed Carl choose to be with a man who is so extravert in his behaviour and open in his sexuality? Carl seems almost embarrassed and ashamed of Stuart during the events of the episode. Perhaps there is a clue in when Stuart explains his relationship with Carl to ‘Ian’ (When he says ‘We’re queer dear, get used to it’ it seems as much aimed at Carl as ‘Ian’). Carl doesn’t need to bother to explain Stuart’s role in his life or be public about his sexuality because Stuart does it for him. Could it be that Carl got together with Stuart because he knew that this would happen? This places a huge emotional burden on Stuart of being ‘out’ on behalf of both of them. He also has to deal with the hurt of Carl refusing to be more public about their relationship. When Carl calls him his ‘flatmate’ Stuart reacts by leaving the wardrobe and his hurt is evident. This explains some of why he acts so outrageously. He is both trying get Carl to be more open about being gay and to acknowledge they are a couple in front of others. Indeed, Stuart is the one character in the whole piece who is open in his sexuality and who is comfortable discussing sex.

This is symbolic of Stuart’s more open and outgoing nature. Stuart tries to put the other people in the wardrobe at ease by joking with them like he does with Geraldine and Rachel (even if his jokes may be inappropriate!). Stuart is also the one character (seemingly) who cannot be contained by the wardrobe and he leaves it at least three times. He does not have any hidden agenda in attending the party unlike several of the characters. Stuart is also obviously from Northern England and presumably working class in contrast to rest of the party attendees (bar Geraldine) who are southern and upper-middle class. Did Carl chose to be with a partner who was from a completely different background because of his feelings of discomfort at his own background?. It is also interesting Stuart does not wear a suit like all the other male characters (bar Ian who is considerably younger than the other men). Shearsmith is just fabulous as Stu, managing to convey the vulnerability beneath Stu’s camp exterior.

Stuart has also had to deal with Carl’s fear of intimacy without having any explanation. Carl is so locked in his pain he finds it hard to reach out to Stuart . Pemberton invests the line ‘You have no idea!’ with such power- indeed his performance as Carl manages to bring out all the pathos and repressed anger of the character (Worth noting Reece Shearsmith confirmed in a twitter exchange with Charlie Higson Carl’s look is based on the personas of the artists ‘Gilbert and George). Both have been unable to communicate in a healthy manner about the issues at the heart of their relationship. But according to a tweet Reece Shearsmith sent shortly after the episode was broadcast, there was a section where Carl and Stuart were reconciled

https://twitter.com/ReeceShearsmith/status/431805111888003072?s=20

While this section has never been aired it may be supposed it built on Stuart's realisation of what Carl had been through as a child and its impact on him and Carl’s realisation of the pain his behaviour was causing Stuart. This mutual realisation would have hopefully offered them a way to move forward together and communicate more openly. It would have also shown they did genuinely care for each other and want their relationship to work. It is a pity the BBC has not released the scene as a DVD/Blu Ray extra. It would have made the eventual resolution of the episode even more powerful.

It is worth noting that 'Sardines' was filmed around the time of revelations about historic child sexual abuse involving powerful men in the UK. This primarily focused on figures in entertainment in the 1960s/70s (Operation Yewtree) but would also involve investigations into MPs and other figures of authority (such as Operation Midland and Operation Athabasca that looked at Cyril Smith and his associates). When discussing this episode in the South Bank show about their career Steve Pemberton said he and Shearsmith were keen to treat the topic sensitively and with care. Certainly the episode shows the long term damage to several men of both the abuse they subjected to and the fact their abuser was allowed to silence them.

The episode seems to be saying that failure to address such abuse ends up destroying all involved- the abuser (Andrew), the bystanders who turned a blind eye (such as Geraldine) , those associated with the abuser (Mark and Elizabeth who want to get a business deal through Andrew), those who were too young or powerless to do anything to help (Rebecca) and even the abused themselves (Carl and John). If Andrew had not been allowed to get away with what he did to Pip and been made to answer for what he did earlier, Pip Carl and John might have found some resolution and peace. Pip would also not have taken the form of revenge he did.

This is just my analysis and reading of the episode. It remains one of my favourite episodes of Inside No.9

[sifshoney-notactive]

Ragnarssons: saga vs show.

This is the first post of a serie, in which I will point the difference between each son of Ragnar, not only from a narrative point but also from a point of characterization, and their relationship with their parents and other people, and what makes them who they are.

Ivar The Boneless.

Birth and circumstances

In The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, Ivar The Boneless is the first of Aslaug and Ragnar's children. After Ragnar and Aslaug meet for the first time, and she comes to him answering his riddle ("to come to him neither undressed nor dressed, neither hungry nor full, neither alone nor yet in company") she tells him she will marry him under the condition that he completes his deeds in Sweden. Ragnar thus accomplishes his goals, and comes back to her seven months later. She finally agrees to marry him, but during the wedding night she tells him she won't sleep with him for three days, and that if he will still have his ways she will give birth to a "deformed son". That same night Ragnar does have his way, and Aslaug subsequently gives birth to Ivar, whose name will be the Boneless because "his legs were only made by cartilage". While Aslaug's warning did suggest she wanted to prevent this, the condition does not cause any disruption among his parents nor among his brothers (the already existing sons of Thora Town-Doe and his future ones), and it sharpens his mind to find alternatives to make up for his disability.

Ivar the Boneless is described as the handsomest of the Ragnarssons, and the wisest too, the last trait inherited by his mother Aslaug and her lineage (Sigurd's acquisition of wisdom in the Volsunga saga). He was a patient man with an inclination to be quiet, observant and reserved, which caused his enemies to be wary of him, considering him the most dangerous of all the sons of Ragnar. Ivarr's condition is speculated to be connected to his father Ragnar and his grandfather Sigurd's slayings of two dragons, the dragon of Thora Town-Doe and Fáfnir. The correlation between Ivar and the two dragons could be that they were serpentine creatures, no legs or wings to help them move, and his way of being patient and quiet and striking his enemies in a calculated way.

In the show Vikings, Ivar is the last and fourth son of Ragnar and Aslaug. After Aslaug and her children have to flee from Kattegat due to Jarl Borg's invasion, and the subsequent rescue by the hands of Ragnar and his former wife, Aslaug and Ragnar have a peaceful moment in the barn they are hiding in. There, Ragnar clearly wants to initiate sex, and Aslaug reveals later on that she told him that she would bear him a monster if he ever forced himself on her. In the show Ragnar does have his way, and Aslaug gets pregnant soon after. Her pregnancy causes her troubles with unusual pain, and she starts to worry about her prophecy, revealing to Siggy that "it wasn't her who spoke those words", and that she did not know who or what made her say them. Ivar's birth shows Aslaug in extreme pain, that causes her to faint for a few minutes before finally gathering strengths and releasing him into the world. Soon after we are shown Ivar's condition, that is just like in the sagas: his legs only constitute of cartilage. Unlike the Sagas, his condition is shown as almost a monstrous foreshadowing of his conduct and create clear disruptions among the family; Ragnar is intentioned to leave him to his destiny in the woods, which he even attempts to, and Aslaug intentioned of saving him and raising him taking in account his disability. While his brothers were either neutral or not disturbed of the situation at first, it then sparks disruptions among them too, sometimes even causing them to outright mock him or exclude him because of it.

Ivar is shown as a handsome young man with an unusual intelligence, which was (implied) inherited from his father. His intelligence though doesn't make up for his character, that is arrogant and quick tempered, extremely different from his saga counterpart. His brother's constant mocking and the knowledge of his father wanting to get rid of him hunted him, which resulted in his inclination to need other's approval and attention.

His condition had no correlation to any of his parents' deals, and is actually used in the narrative as a physical reflection of Ivar's monstrosity^. His already existing intelligence and inclinations are further enhanced by Floki who mentored him since a young age, after his accidental slaying of a child.

^ I feel the need to add that I do not condone this since it is an ableist connection, but it is indeed present in the show so I have to mention it.

We can argue that while in the saga Ivar is shown as a continuation of Ragnar's legacy, completing his deeds (the Hvitabø expedition which Ragnar never managed to complete) and reflecting Ragnar in many ways, but filling the gaps in his personality, becoming a person of his own, Ivar in the show, just like his brothers, is actually a part of Ragnar in a symbolic way, trying to prevail amongst his brothers (one of the many parts of Ragnar trying to prevail amongst the others).

Relationships

Father:

In The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok we are shown that Ragnar tends to flee fairly often from home, even after his marriage with Aslaug, to engage in Viking activities. Despite this Ivar is shown to be a devoted son, who actually shares Ragnar's desire for exploration and adventure, without giving in to what are Ragnar's impatience and flaws.

In the show, Ragnar and Ivar's relationship is stern since he was just a child due to Ivar's condition, after his attempted abandonment and Aslaug's consequent rescue, Ragnar is left unsure on how to move when it comes to him, almost neglecting the child but for rare occasions. When Ragnar comes back after an absence of 10 years, he takes Ivar with him on his doomed journey, and that bonds them as Ivar is the last Ragnarsson to see Ragnar alive and the one to whom Ragnar gives the reins of his legacy.

Mother:

In the saga, Ivar and Aslaug's relationship is stated as a happy one, bonded not just by their family relation but by her lineage and prophecy. We also see that, after the death of the sons of Thora, Ivar and Aslaug discuss wether to avenge them, having different views on the matter; Aslaug is decided in avenging her beloved step sons, but Ivar is unsure about the success of such deal.

His opinion is changed afterwards by young Sigurd, whose stance of support for their mother and her praise for it, convinces his brothers and he himself to avenge Eirekr and Agnarr. This passage shows that the Ragnarssons strive to be praised by Aslaug, and Ivar is not an exception. After Ivar and his brothers go to England with the quest of avenging Ragnar, he stays in the lands he was given by King Aelle never coming back home.

In the show Ivar is clearly preferred amongst his brother, and Aslaug gives the majority of her care to him due to his special condition. She is clearly very protective and defensive of him, and he finds that she is the only one who ever truly loved him. When Ivar departs with Ragnar, Aslaug tries to stop him from going because she sees "it will end in disaster". Ivar doesn't listen, and a footage shows Aslaug "miscarrying", symbolically and magically bonded to Ivar, as in the same moment a storm rages and drowns the ship Ragnar and Ivar are in.

After her death, Ivar pledges to avenge her and remembers her often, mentioning their bond or her beauty.

Brothers:

Ivar in the saga is extremely respected by his brothers, who look up to him. We can see him lead during their battles, the first example of this was Hvitabø, where he suggested raiding there even if Ragnar had attempted and failed the same quest before. Even with this dominating stance, or his teasing ways of encouraging his brothers, their relationship is a happy one, and they all avoid to go against each other. Ivar gives great respect in return to their opinions, even young Sigurd who was only three years old when he started participating in battles.

In the show, Ivar is often mocked or excluded by his brothers, who do not appreciate the attention Aslaug gives to him. His condition is sometimes brought up by Sigurd in a mocking way, and he struggles with being respected until he shows his skills in battle and strategy on the field. His relationship is especially troubled with Sigurd, who feels neglected by Aslaug and blames Ivar for this. Conflicts amongst the Ragnarssons are not uncommon, and after Ragnar Lothbrok's death Ivar kills Sigurd after an argument, for which he does show remorse but not guilt.

Ways of ruling

In the saga, when Ivar is given lands by King Aelle he was considered a generous ruler who "gave money with both hands", and his wisdom was considered so great that everyone seeked him for advice. He became very popular amongst the people and was considered friend by everyone, even nobles of adjacent lands.

In the show, when Ivar becomes king, he creates a regime of control and fear, in which he was not very generous and often killed whoever went against his word. The people of Kattegat did not trust him as a ruler, and were forced to refer to him as if he was a God.

Sources:

The Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok

Þóra and Áslaug in Ragnars saga Lođbrokar : WOMEN, DRAGONS AND DESTINY

Vikings the tv show (2013)

Tags: @philomaela @edythofhastings

[solacefruit]

Hi Grey, I struggle a lot with world building and I think it's easiest for me to learn by example. I was wondering if you had any books or series you'd recommend that you thought did particularly well in the world building department or that you found inspiring. I'm trying to start building a list of things to read, could be any genre

Hello there and thank you for your patience! I’ll be honest, this one’s a challenge to answer, but I’ll do my best. I’ll put it all under a read-more, because I’m going to talk a lot about why I feel these books are good places for thinking about world-building. 

Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman. (fantasy)

This one comes up a lot when I’m making recommendations and that’s because I love it. For me, it was deeply formative in many ways, and especially when it came to world-building, because Pullman uses a style of world-building which really clicks for me--which is basically throwing your reader into a world and not explaining much at all, leaving many things gestured at but never explicitly said. Things just happen, things just are, and the reader has to keep up. There’s a lot that goes unsaid in this book, and it means you as a reader have to start thinking and “solving” the gaps in the world yourself. There’s room for speculation and I thrive in that environment, and lean on it heavily in my own work. 

A great example of that comes in the first chapter of the novel, on the fifth page and then again on the seventh: 

“As Lyra held her breath she saw the servant’s daemon (a dog, like almost all servants’ daemons) trot in and sit quietly at his feet...” - page five. “... and said something to his daemon. He was a servant, so she was a dog; but a superior servant, so a superior dog. In fact, she had the form of a red setter.” - page seven.

That’s good oblique storytelling, because you are told so much and simultaneously so little. From these two tiny pieces, you now know that:

servants usually have dog-shaped daemons

some daemons, even within a family, are “better” than others

daemons mean something about their person

But these pieces tell you enough that you can now speculate and question the world as you read on. Things like:

why do servants have dog daemons?

what makes a red setter daemon better than another dog daemon?

what does a dog daemon mean?

what is the hierarchical system of daemons, who is better than whom?

are people sorted because of their daemons, or do the daemons reflect where the person is sorted to after the fact? 

what do other daemons mean?

are these meanings innate or cultural? 

The book itself will directly answer maybe one or two questions, hint at a few others, and leave many completely unresolved. But that’s not bad world-building. For me, that’s the kind of world-building I love best. The book can now say, “this person’s daemon is a butterfly,” and you will be primed to read symbolism and significance into that, even in moments where the book itself doesn’t give you any. You’re a participant in creating the world as you read. A little goes a long way. 

The Discworld novels, by Terry Pratchett. (fantasy, comedy) If you’re trying to pick a first book, start here. 

And now for something completely different. Pratchett’s Discworld is an absurdist world, created to satirise fantasy tropes and play as the stage for social and political commentary. What makes Discworld so interesting as a place to learn about world-building is that it is a world that doesn’t take chronology or “consistency”  or “authenticity” seriously. Where a lot of fantasy writers will stress over making sure every detail lines up, and their fans will often get very upset if they find anything “inconsistent” or “incorrect”, Pratchett’s world entirely rejects that way of doing things. Pratchett commented: 

 “[S]ometimes I even forget [...] where things are ... I don’t think [...] even the most rabid fan expects complete consistency within Discworld, because in Ankh-Morpork you have what is apparently a Renaissance city, but with elements of early Victorian England, and the medieval world is still hanging on. It’s in a permanent state of turmoil, which is very interesting for the author.” (quoted in Hills, Guilty of Literature).

There’s something very liberated and fluid in how Discworld forms, because it’s such a committed pastiche, but it doesn’t at all (at least, for me) undercut believing in the characters or story. I adore Discworld and its characters. I think it’s very valuable to read if you’re in fantasy writing (or speculative fiction in general), because it’s easy to fall into thinking that unless you make everything Perfect and Realistic and Consistent, your world-building isn’t good. 

Something else about Discworld worth noting is that, despite being absurd and fluid, it is also grounded in the real. Pratchett’s world is in turmoil, but it includes sewer systems, passages of trade and commerce, and a pervasive sense of the civic life happening and living outside of the plot-line: it’s not just a diorama to be walked through, but a place where people exist and do mundane things and have everyday needs. I personally find it fascinating that the story manages to exist sort of balancing at oppositional ends of the “realism” spectrum at all times, but I think that’s also the key to why it is so successful at what it does. 

(Side note: Matt Hills’ chapter in Guilty of Literature is a great read if you want to know more!) 

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie (science fiction)

I’m not a big reader of science fiction, because my heart is with fantasy, always. But this series was super interesting and I can recommend it, especially if science fiction is more your flavour! It’s been a while since I’ve read it, so I can’t give the same amount of detail as I’ve done above, but it was thoughtful and intriguing and I loved the ways this trilogy defamiliarised and refamiliarised ideas through the world and characters. 

“The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas,” by Ursula K. Le Guin. (short story)

It’s only four pages long, but it’s haunting. I’ve put this story on the list because I feel like Ursula K. Le Guin belongs in many conversations about world-building; her work, in her time, was often radical--and remains so, in many cases. She didn’t flinch away from making her worlds alien, not in the sense of writing about space and people out among the stars (which admittedly she did also do!), but truly questioning and challenging cultural and societal norms and creating new ones, even (and especially) when they were uncomfortable to the status quo. 

To me, that’s a core part of good world-building. You can just recreate the world we live in, with all the biases we’re raised to have, with the beliefs and expectations of conduct we have, with all the same bigotry--or you can push yourself to pull it all apart and pick from it the pieces you want to play with. You can push things to their extreme limits, or erase them entirely, or just... slide things a little to the left and make the whole world slightly off. Being able to be flexible in your thinking is vital for making vivid, interesting worlds, and Ursula K. Le Guin's work is a place you can start exploring that kind of thing if you’re unfamiliar with it. 

For instance, in her novel Left Hand of Darkness, there is only one pronoun (a theme you’ll notice in Ancillary Justice) and the people of the planet Gethin change sex regularly. In her collection of short stories, “The Birthday of the World and Other Stories,” she writes about sedoretu, a four-way marriage she invents, as well as exploring gender, religion, culture, and society. Any of these are worth taking a look at, if you’re feeling a little boxed in. 

However, despite saying all this: I don’t really enjoy her writing! I don’t have fun reading Le Guin’s work in practice; it doesn’t mesh with me beyond my delight at the conceptual elements she discusses. I often feel about reading her work like how kids think about medicine: tastes kind of awful, but it’s good for you. I’m grateful to her for paving the way, but I don’t read her work for fun. 

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente. 

I’m throwing this one in the ring for a few reasons. One is that I am heavily indebted to nonsense; I grew up on Dr Seuss, Roald Dahl, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland + Alice Through the Looking-glass, Edward Gorey, A. A. Milne, H. R. Pufnstuf, and a little later, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Discworld. This book feels representative of that big love, and taps into what I love about nonsense. 

Another reason is that it’s a good example of what I think of as delightful lawlessness in storytelling. It feels--as respectfully and lovingly as I can say this--like a game of mad libs turned into a book, because of how free and wild it is with what is allowed to happen. I think it’s very difficult to do something like this well, but I also think it’s a great place to play around when you’re first beginning to get to grips on world-building. Spin a wheel of options and go, “okay, so there’s a manticore in the basement, what now?” Make up reasons for things on the spot as a game for yourself. Ask and answer questions, just for fun! “Why is there a manticore there?”  “It got in through the magic portal.”  “Where’s the magic portal?”  “It’s an old picture of the protagonist’s grandmother.”  “Why is it a portal?” “The grandmother is secretly a witch and the ex-queen of a fantasy land.” “Why is the manticore here?” “Come to retrieve the queen, but accidentally takes the protagonist by mistake.” “Why does the manticore want the queen?” “Extreme Trivia Night at the Castle has really sucked lately. Also she misses her.” And just like that, you’ve got the start of a wacky but not impossible-to-tell story.  

My final suggestion isn’t a book, but a podcast!

Be The Serpent (a podcast of extremely deep literary merit). 

A fortnightly podcast by three charming writers who discuss a different theme or topic each episode (using a couple of texts as reference material), and will also make media recommendations. I love listening to it and it’s a great place to think about writing, both as a reader and as a writer. I don’t have a lot of writing friends myself, unfortunately, so it’s honestly so valuable to me to be able to hear them discuss their process and ideas on topics I care about. 

I hope this helps! Best of luck to you, and please feel free to write in if you have any other questions. 

[themildestofwriters]

Writing Ask Game

Thanks to the magnificent @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz​ for tagging me in this wonderful little tag.

I don’t think I’m going to choose one WIP rather just the universe itself – The Divine Intervention universe. By that, I mean I’ll be doing it for these two novels I’m working on: Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? & The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess.

1. Describe the plot in one sentence.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? 

A goddess and a girl meet at a bus stop and while things are a bit awkward at first, they soon begin hitting it off and begin regular correspondence, however, there’s something more lurking under the surface that neither of them wish to peruse and that one thing is forgiveness and love respectively.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

Sex and Babette go together as well as water and oil, yet it was not always this way and in this story she decides to heal herself, to improve herself, and to choose love over her almost selfish desire to dwell on the past and wallow in a pit of guilt and suffering.

2. Pick one sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste to describe the aesthetic of your novel.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

Flashes of blood, death and gore in the small hours of the night. The smell of petrichor as rain descends. The sound of deathly silence. The feel of soft arms holding you tightly. The metallic taste of blackened blood coughed from the lungs.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

Bodies intertwined in a lover’s embrace. The smell of lust in the air. The sound of ceaseless screaming. The feel of suffocating pain and smooth stone. The bittersweet taste of lip balm.

3. Which 3+ songs would make up a playlist for the novel?

Because I’m not very knowledgeable on music myself, this list is filled only with songs I have on my phone.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

“Viva La Vida” by Coldplay; “Accidentally In Love” by Counting Crows; “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five for Fighting; “Stressed Out” by Twenty-One Pilots; “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

“Somewhere Over The Rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole; “All of Me” by John Legend; “Let Her Go” by Passenger; “Like A Virgin” by Madonna; “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri

4. What’s the time period and location in which the novel takes place.

Both books take place in the modern era and mostly in Salisbury/Adelaide, South Australia. WCAI? takes place in 2016 and TTVG takes place in 2017. However, at least specifically in TTVG, it does take place in other countries with Babette visiting Japan, America and perhaps even England as either a part of her job (Street Performer) or as the plot demands.

5. Is this a standalone or a part in a series?

Well…

6. Are there any former titles you’ve considered but discarded?

For WCAI? I only had Divine Interruption and for TTVG there was “Babette Visits A Sex Shop” “Babette Visits An Adult Shop” and The Weird and Wonderful Sexual Awakening of Babette Mewlyn.

7. What’s the first line of your novel?

I have a tendency to only have a single line to begin a book.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

“The sky was a dark crimson haze.”

or

“It was supposed to be a bright and sunny Saturday morning in suburban Adelaide.”

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

“We had planned this for nearly an entire week now and today was the day.”

8. What’s a dialogue you’re particularly proud of?

“ “心���しないで,” she said, a devilish smirk twisting onto her lips. “少なくとも 見る かわいく 、ジョセフィーン様.” “ – Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? Chapter 2(draft)

If you’ve got a problem with my Japanese, please tell me because I’m winging it on Google Translate and outdated information.

“ “It—it hurts.” It took all my power to just say that and once I did, I was hit by a new wave of grief—of agony—of heart-rending guilt. ” – The Trials and Tribulations of Babette Melwyn Chapter 3(draft)

9. Which line from the novel most represents it as a whole?

“It—it hurts.”

10. Who are your character faceclaims?

Babette… well, I’m tossing up between these girls: Jaimie Alexander; Abbey Lee Kershaw; Amanda Seyfried; Astrid Berges-Frisbey; Zoey Deutch; and Willa Holland.

For Josephine, she’s a bit difficult to find a face claim for. If you’d like to help, that would be appreciated but so far, I’ve not found anything that fits her yet.

11. Sort your characters into Harry Potter houses!

Babette Melwyn – Slytherin

Josephine Williams – Hufflepuff

Henrietta Phillips – Ravenclaw

Maria Camhain-Schmidt – Gryffindor

Kurt Schmidt – Gryffindor

Flynn Camhain-Schmidt – Hufflepuff

Adrien Williams – Hufflepuff

Samuel Meric – Gryffindor

Sofía Meric – Hufflepuff

Harrison Williams – Ravenclaw

Alyssa Williams – Gryffindor

Samantha Bailey – Ravenclaw

12. Which character’s name do you like the most?

Respectfully, I love them all, specifically the girl’s names. Henrietta, Josephine, Babette, Alyssa, Maria, Sofía.

13. Describe each character’s daily outfit.

Babette Melwyn; Babette’s daily outfit could be summarised as well cared for rags with a history with radioactivity. By this I mean, Babette hasn’t changed out of the dress she wore when a group of revolutionaries decided to nuke her. While incredibly old, magic makes a great cleaner and preserver for the cloth and during the course of this novel, she’s usually seen wearing it often. It’s a plain black form fitting V-neck dress with long sleeves that reach up to her hands. The skirt used to be long and flowing, but since being nuked, it’s much shorter, ending around her calves—jagged and looking like some kind of tattered flower blooming from her waist down.

Aside from the dress, she wears leather strapped calf-high sandals and her ruby necklace—her ruby necklace is a constant with every single last outfit she wears.

After settling down on Earth, she finds herself wearing other bits and pieces. She feels comfortable outside her tattered remains and has a small wardrobe filled with a verity of clothing. Her aesthetic could best be described as gothic and Victorian gothic. Expect lots of lacy black dresses of varying lengths along with several sundresses and perhaps a few gowns. Hats are usually wide-brimmed and floppy, and she will not wear heels.

Josephine Williams; Josephine doesn’t have a daily outfit because she’s a normal person who doesn’t have a set outfit and often changes as the clothes she wore previously gets dirty. However, she has that kind of… art student vibe to her, befitting her artistic inclination, though she does were certain jewellery or outfits that have a certain Hellenic aesthetic. What you’ll mostly see her around in is either some kind of cardigan, perhaps a really large jumper while wearing a dress, whether short or long with some leggings underneath. She mixes it up, shirts and shorts, pants and with different colours as well. She keeps her options wide and varied but if you spent enough time with her and paid attention, you’d notice similarities.

Heels, like her girlfriend, is a no-no, but her outfits are certainly more colourful then Babette’s who prefers black and occasionally other colours.

14. Do any characters have distinctive birthmarks/scars?

Babette has a lot of scars but specifically there’s the scars across her heart—two, specifically, one on her back and on her chest, both from being impaled by a weapon that wiped out all life in a galaxy. It wasn’t fun getting that one.

Josephine once had a scar on her calf, but I think she might not have any major scars nor any tattoos—yet. I might give her a distinctive back tattoo that’s basically a string of astronomical symbols which relate to the Underworld in Greek Mythology.

15. Which character most fits a character trope?

I wouldn’t be able to say for sure but I’m sure that Babette and Josephine both fit into a character trope/archetype.

16. Which character is the best writer? Worst?

Babette, hands down. Babette’s not so good at writing songs and whatnot but she’s an academic and a Bard, having transcribed ancient texts, her own stories and a few she’s plagiarised from Earth because Earth Copyright doesn’t exist outside of Earth. Out of the main characters, I’d say that Josephine isn’t so good at the writing of things and prefers visual art. Like, she could write a story, but it’d read like a synopsis.

17. Which character is the best liar? Worst?

This entirely depends on when we take the characters. Before Babette was unceremoniously dethroned, she was a magnificent liar who would often use the skill in her youth on the run. However, at the same time, she’s spent literal aeons alone and her skills at lying have atrophied. She still does it, she’s just noticeably worse. I would say the worst liar would probably be Adrian because out of the children characters, he’s younger and got the biggest tells out of the lot of them. And yes, I have to pick children because everyone else are massive liars whether it’s lying to themselves, their parents, or others. In my experience, everyone lies at least once and their skill isn’t proportional to how much they

18. Which character swears the most? Least?

Henrietta swears like a fuckin’ sailor, Josephine can swear but only does it rarely—or at least where people can’t hear her.

19. Which character has the best handwriting? Worst?

Babette, again due to living for millions of years and the necessity she had to perfect her handwriting. So far, I’ve described her handwriting thusly:

‘…it was clear that it was one-hundred per cent handwritten, and it was a masterpiece. Each letter, each word was written in a way that made reading it clear and easy to read, but also incredibly pleasing to the eye. Cursive, almost like calligraphy but written in clear bull-point pen, as if someone managed to distil handwriting into an artform then decoded to perfect it because why not?’ – Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? Chapter 4(draft)

Unfortunately, she’s not so good at art unless it’s literally putting the image in her mind onto paper using magical means. Nevertheless, I could see her girlfriend asking Babette to do some calligraphy for her blog.

Flynn has the worst but honestly you can’t blame the kid… he’s a kid!

20. Which character is most like you? Least like you?

I’d probably have to say Babette, but it’s a close tie between her and Josephine because both of them contain facets of me but are also their own people with different desires and personalities.

Least like me are the other characters, pretty much. Henrietta, Maria, Kurt, Samuel, Sofía, Flynn, Harrison, Alyssa, I’m not really like these characters at all.

21. Which character would you most like to be?

Josephine. Hands down, Josephine. Listen, I like Babette and all and she’s an extension of myself in some ways, and, honestly, I’d feel a lot more comfortable in her skin then my own, but Josephine is just a quiet suburban girl with her own slice of the Earth doing her own thing. She’s an artist, she’s got a loving family, a healthy online presence, a healthy sleeping schedule, and… yeah.

To tag some folks, I think I’ll tag: @randomestfandoms-ocs; @rose-writes-and-drinks-tea; @ariellaskylark; @focusdumbass; @i-tried-and-i-loose; @undinisms; @alixismad; @sweet-scribes; @sunlight-melodies and literally anyone else who wants to try it!

[tumblunni]

My ideas if Wales gets referenced in this new britain region which is probably unlikely but we can hope:

* Another sheep pokemon/a mareep regional variant/just mareep being common over here

* llamhigyn y dwr regional variant of gligar! As a kid i always thought gligar was meant to be one of those! Its a mytholigical flying frog with a scorpion tail, and really the only reason i dont think gligar is based on it is because its ground instead of water type. Like its really specifically similar right down to the wings being webs under the arms!

* Welsh Lady pokemon! (The traditional costume kids wear at eisteddfods)

* Maybe instead some sort of legendary based on eisteddfods in general? Theyre a poetry/art festival where the winner gets "the chairing of the bard" aka just imagine ur average school contest except if ur in wales u literally get knighted with a fake sword, crown and The School's Personal Throne. Its very weird in retrospect but it just seemed normal when i was a kid. I won it once and i was so anxious having to go thru the big celebration thing!! Like aaa just let me take my certificate and run! XD So yeah maybe a legendary based on the eisteddfod throne itself? Its called a throne but its more of a fancy wooden chair with patterns carved into it. So some sort of wooden dragon! And the legend would be that only the most talented bards can ride it and it bucks off anyone it thinks isnt purehearted enough. And maybe it could have a lovespoon for a tail cos thats also another wooden welsh thing. (Fancy carved spoons for good luck and/or romantic gifts)

* welsh cake pokemon!! Theyre just a sweetened scone with raisins in it, but i think it could be really cute as a design. Im thinking a rock type that just coincidentally looks like a cake with raisins, and it rolls around sideways like a big goofy crab~

* or if you wanna go for other local foods maybe mix the kelpie with bara bryth? (Seaweed bread paste stuff) So its just a loaf of bread that evolves into a badass horse and it would make no sense to anyone except brits, lol.

* perhaps a legandary based on the bard taliesin? It could be similar to nebby in starting off with a weak baby form but then becoming a badass! Cos his origin story was that he wasnt naturally all super cool so talented at singing that he could make literal magic happen just by sheer creativity. Instead he accidentally drank a magic potion of creativity that a witch made, and his abilities came at the cos of Pissing Her Off Forevermore. So maybe the baby form cpuld be a witch's cauldron? And have a tail made of chains to symbolize how he was enslaved as that witch's assistant and managed to escape with her most valuable prize. And then his ethereal fancy humanoid form could maybe be similar to meloetta's living music thing but more with calligraphy instead? But perhaps still have a similar chain tail to show his origins, except now the links in the chain are all fancy calligraphy Os, lol

* accompanying legendary possibilities: ceridwen (the evil witch from that story) or morfran (her innocent son) Morfran did nothing wrong but is often painted as more of the villain of the story than she is, simply because he was black. Yeah there's racism even back in our mythology, ugh...! I always felt so depressed for morfran cos the story is that ceridwen only made this super magical potion of being the best bard ever cos everyone said her son was the ugliest man on earth and EVEN SHE AGREED so she thought she had to give him some magic powers to stop people from hating him. And instead taliesin steals it and goes off to be the most powerful and respected and also handsome man ever, the end. And seriously the ONLY THING they mention about why this child is ugly is that he was "black like a crow" and also his name means evil crow. And thats just the end of his story forever, being some other dude's origin story and then forgotten into the void :( So like hey a pokemon criticizing that part of the myth wouls be great too! Like maybe have morfran be a counterpart legendary like latias to latios and he just looks equally beautiful with a reversed colourscheme of dark skin and white calligraphy patterns. And maybe the pokedex entry could be like "taliesinmon got its powers thru a magical gift from meloetta" and "morfranmon worked really hard for its powers all on its own and also is very socially anxious and relateable and tumblr user tumblunni's favourote character in all british mythologies despite also representing the worst part of our nation but hey its not this man's fault please rescue him ok" Srsly its not like its common to see taliesin referenced in fiction but morfran is even more forgotten and i think he needs at least one positive fictional depiction to make up for being screwed over in the original myth.

* Another myth with unintended bad messages is the one of Blodeuwedd or Dwedd (friends may recognize that i named my Gourgeist after her!) Her story is that she was an artificial human created out of plants in order to be some guy's sex toy basically. Yet she's the villain of the story cos she refused to marry him and ran off with another guy. Like seriously she was BORN to marry this dude! Even if he's the big mythological prince we're supposed to root for, with modern morality perspectives its kinda impossible to see it that way. At least unlike morfran she actually does do other stuff to establish her as a villain other than just existing, she comes back with her new boyfriend to kill the dude who made her and thus set the course of history awry cos he was A Really Inportant Destiny Prince And All. But seriously dude this is 100% your own fault for being creepy enough to not want to date real women and instead have some messed up preprogrammed woman who'd do whatever you want. "The only reason she wouldnt obey like he wanted must be because the seed of evil was in her heart" yeah no maybe it was the seed of free will u bastard. Anyway they have a funny sequence where prince douche mc douchebag is prophesized to never be killed by etc etc etc so dwedd and her new boyf have to trick him into THE MOST CONTRIVED CIRCUMSTANCE EVER to find a loophole. I think it was something like one foot on a goat and one on a bucket while at the border line between two countries at the crack of dawn? And as fitting a standard boring hero story of course eeeevil dwedd gets thwarted and prince pompous is ressurected and she's punished forever by being turned into an immortal owl for some reason.

* SO YEAH! Plant owl legendary! I just thought this myth in particular would be cool cos a female plant legendary with a disney villain aesthetic instead of the cliche pretty sexy thing everyone would probably expect. Make her bombastic and badass and terrifying!!! The pumpkaboo line is the closest thing so far cos bat pumpkin is KINDA close to daffodil owl. At least in terms of spooky aesthetic, lol

* oh and also her boyfriend was named gronw pebr and honestly he barely does anything in the whole story but he has a really cool name so i felt like mentioning it

* our national flower is the daffodil and our national vegetable is the leek so maybe a farfetch'd variation with a daffodil? Or maybe a saucepan or somethin. It could kinda work with farfetch'd origin, plus one of our most famous nursery rhymes is about saucepans. AR GATH WEDI SCRAPU GROOKEY BACH

* our national animal is actually the dragon not the sheep! So definately give us some good dragon types!! Our flag is a dragon so maybe our legendary could be that? And perhaps reference the whole "red dragon beats the white dragon symbolizing how much england sucks" legend by having it have two forms like minior or darmanitan and the weaker cowardly defensive one is england. Just sayin!!

* i dont think you can really make a pokemon personification of england conquering and literally owning us and us taking so long to even get considered a separate country again and be able to have our native language in schools except it was already so many generations passed of it being forbidden to be spoken that barely anyone still knew it and even nowadays when we have billingual road signs the rate of billingualism is incredibly low and im really jealous of my sister growing up in a school that taught it from a young age cos i was thrown into intermediate level welsh without having the basic lessons and thus nevee managed to learn it at all and felt both stupid and disconnected from my ancestors irretreiveably

* MAYBE A RUGBY POKEMON I DUNNO LOL

[gildinwenthekitten-blog]

The World Cup

So. It happened. 

England didn’t win, but then I was kind of expecting that. 

What I wasn't expecting?

To get to the Semi Finals and the third place play off

To fall in love with football and the England team again. 

To actually be *happy* when watching our team. 

To fall head over heels for the England Manager (and accidental sex symbol / fashion icon) I mean What. The .Fuck. 

WHAT. THE. FUCK. 

I don’t know if I’ve just talked myself into it, though I was checking out his - very nice -arse in pics well before I found other people who liked him too, but whatever the way it happened.....well …….

IT HAPPENED. 

And now I don’t know what to do with my self. For the past week I’ve been literally trawling through the #Gareth Southgate tag on tumblr and youtube and twitter and falling more and more in love with him and  just *flails*. 

So to anyone who follows me an apology, there’s going to be quite Gareth Southgate re-blogs on here. For like a really long time 

Can we clone him? I need my own Gareth Southgate in my life

(I mean he’s Luke Skywalker and Steve Rodgers and Clark Kent for god’s sake. I didn’t realise that men like that actually *existed* in the real world)

And I grabbed this screenshot from twitter because, well you’ll see

[onthecrosslook]

Meet the Blogger!

༺═──────────────═༻

Hello, everyone, and welcome! I should probably tell you a bit about myself.

I am a Puerto Rican/American transmasc/nonbinary person who goes by he/they pronouns, and I’m bisexual. Also disabled and mentally ill. You can call me Alex, or Quinn- or Quinnie, if we’re close.

I’m an artist, writer, photoshopper, violinist, singer, and editor. My main fandoms are Markiplier and Hannibal at the moment.

Adieu!

Carrd

-AE

༺═──────────────═༻

Miscellaneous:

Benedict Cumberbatch and Perpetuating Homophobia

Martin Freeman + Losing Who He Loves

My Marriage Certificate

My OTHER Marriage Certificate

A Guide to Sherlockian Vocabulary

Mary Morstan Shitty Saw Traps

As You Wish (Sherlock Comic)

Smaug: A History

Purple Benny Cinematic Universe Timeline

Something Happened…

Bond Fancasting

Do You Love the Colour of the Martin?

Do You Love the Colour of the Benedict?

Barachiki Answered My Ask

Johnlock Top/Bottom Discourse Explained

Cursed Mary Edit

TRANSPHOBES DNI/ BLOCK LIST IN NOTES

La Lista de DILF

How To Kill Someone For Approximately One Minute (and Get Away With It)

Doctor Strange Christmas Edit

Height Chart

Depressing Tarmac Poem

Depressing Destiel Poem

My Fics

Moftiss Being Dense

The Ones You Don’t Think About

Johnlock Happy Edit

My AO3 is below:

J. Alexandria

Live-Blogging:

Patrick Melrose- 1

The Power of the Dog

Requests:

Writing

Art

Art Blog

Sherlock AUs

WIPs

Ask Game

Asks and Submissions

Fan-Made Content:

Dinner, Mr. Holmes? Memes

Dinner, Mr. Holmes? Memes Parte Dos

Dinner, Mr. Holmes? Plug

Dinner, Mr. Holmes? Official Cover Art

Moo’s Advertisement

Steph’s Advert

Fulfilled Requests:

Something Quite Unlike Most

Dadstiel Ficlet

BBC Sherlock Episode Recaps:

The Empty Hearse

The Sign of Three

The Stag Night

The Lying Detective Highlight Reel

Metas:

Hannigram Cliff Meta

The Tarmac Confession Meta

Supernatural Theology Meta

Sherlock Violin Meta

[benaddicted-and-deranged]

Well yes actually I would let him break my leg if he asked because he’s never done anything wrong ever ☺️

[nellygwyn]

Harlots Season 2, Episode 1 & 2, thoughts

I watched the first two episodes of Harlots Season 2 and the main thought going through my mind is ‘AAAAA EVERYTHING HAPPENS SO MUCH” but here are a list of more specific and lucid thoughts. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT: 

Episode 1

Characters we don’t seem to have anymore: Marie-Louise (she’s left, leaving Mags £50 out of pocket), Betsy, Daniel Marney. There are a plethora of new characters, though, 

Justice Josiah Hunt is a REALLY interesting new character to me. He genuinely thinks he is doing good and occasionally, he had periods of sympathy and reason (re: when he spoke to Lydia Quigley about the violated, mutilated body of a girl found a few nights earlier). However, in the next breath, he is having Violet branded and potentially transported for stealing a tiny amount of money from a notorious drunkard. @marieduplessis and I were discussing that he may be based on Henry Fielding who was not completely devoid of true morality, but he certainly was no saint. 

Speaking of both Lydia and Violet, the episode begins with them both being thrown in jail. Violet is to be transported, though Amelia is intervening for her, and Lydia faces the House of Correction if she fails to pay her fine. However, Mags and Nancy were accidentally present during Lydia’s sentencing and Mags declared she was a kidnapper and responsible for many rapes.....so now she and Nancy are trying to prove their accusation to send Lydia to the gallows. Lydia, meanwhile, contacts all her “friends” (I say this loosely considering the only reason she has them in her grasp is because she blackmails them with their own secrets) in the aristocracy to help get her out of her predicament. This is where Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam, as well as Lord Fallon, come in. I liked this touch as bawds often had friends in high places to bail them out. 

Violet’s storyline thus far is reminding me of Moll Flanders, though in Moll’s case, she was sent to the gallows for her petty theft. 

I LOVE Charlotte and Lady Fitz’s budding relationship. It wasn’t much in this episode, which is fine, I think Lady Fitz should remain a background character, but their conversation was cool. I think Lady Fitz likes her a lot. And I do actually think Lady Fitz is heavily based on Georgiana Cavendish, because not only is she potentially going to be sapphic, but she has major issues with gambling. 

Lady Fitz has very specific problems of her own, mostly concerning the fact her brother (her CREEPY brother, so I hope this doesn’t turn into an incest storyline) holds the purse strings on her own fortune. Also, Liv Tyler’s English accent is really good. She lives here with her husband and kids now so that probably explains it. I can hardly tell she isn’t British. 

I HATE that Mags and Will have broken up. I’m tender about break ups right now anyway, but I also feel it was a little bit....ooc for Mags to be so jealous of Harriet. Harriet and Will, of course, have no sort of romance at all but Mags seemed to believe they did which didn’t seem Very Her. She’s too confident in herself??? Of course, this was a last straw for Will; he has been maligned by Mags before. I hope they get back together. Poor little Jacob didn’t want his dad to go. 

EMILY LACEY AND CHARLIE!!!! Emily seems to want to testify against Lydia but she wants to keep it from Charlie. God, they have such a cool relationship. They just love to have fun. I thought it was hilarious, too, when they came across Lydia’s dildo in her private things. 

I love Charlotte Wells so much. I have such a strong affinity to her, especially now that she’s really going it alone. She’s so iconic. Makes me tres emosh to see her on screen, I feel like I’m being represented. 

Lucy is still around and I’m excited to see how her storyline progresses. She doesn’t feature super heavily in episode 1, though I do have to comment on two things. 1) I loved her conversation with Will, where she said “I know you didn’t fuck Harriet” and he said “Coarseness doesn’t look well on you,” which is true as I think a lot of Lucy’s bravado is a front. 2) She’s started wearing sackback dresses now which is AMAZING. Love these new fashion choices. 

MAJOR SPOILER: Lord Fallon (and the Spartans, presumably) murdered Kitty. Took her to Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens instead of taking Lucy, probably raped her (which is so sad considering what she told Lucy about how she lost her virginity in the first place), and then dumped her dead body on Mags’ doorstop for Fanny to find. I am DISGUSTED. 

“Historical advisor: Hallie Rubenhold“ DOUBT 

Episode 2

Opening the episode with Mags sewing up Kitty’s slit throat was so.....powerful. What a symbol of all the sex workers who did die and do die at the hands of clients in brutal, degrading ways.  

Fanny is so angry and I feel it. She’s even starting to see through Armitage’s façade of being nice to her but not very kind to other women. When he told her that Kitty was just another dead street girl, her lividness was palpable. I hope she gets some justice, Kitty was like a sister to her. 

Amelia helping Violet is sweet, of course, but I don’t know how I feel about her suggestion to Josiah Hunt, that Violet should work for him instead of facing slavery in the Colonies. I know Amelia means Violet to become Josiah’s maid, rather than a slave, which is infinitely better but........Don’t Trust Like That (especially since, if Violet tries to leave Hunt’s employ, she’s just gonna be sent right back to prison). Amelia means so much good though. I love her. She uses Christianity the right way.

Lydia’s out of jail, since Charlotte came to pay her fine, and she’s not impressed by Charlie and Emily’s behaviour in her house whilst she was locked up. In this scene, she calls Charlotte her true heir. I wonder how furious she’s going to be when she finds out that Charlotte is actually working to bring her down, in the same way everyone else is.

“She was guilty.....of being poor. The worst crime you can commit!” 

“There’s no evidence strong enough to condemn a white wig. And none too weak to hang a whore”

To be honest, I am loving this growing class consciousness!!!!

I hate Lord Fallon, I hate Lydia Quigley, I hate all their rich friends who love murder and kidnap and rape. I hate them all!

Nancy, poor Nancy...her anger at Kitty’s death leads her to go up against the law and in return, she faces a public whipping. I think this is one of the worst punishments, other than being tied to the pillory post, in 18th century England.

I think Lucy is suspicious of Lord Fallon, at least a little bit so I’m not sure EXACTLY why she’s trying to catch him as a keeper. Maybe she thinks his money outweighs his creepiness, especially since she sends the money he gives her as a kind of deposit to Kitty’s daughter. 

There’s a lovely scene near the end of the episode where Florence and Amelia take some soup with Mags, Fanny and Lucy at Mags’ house. Florence makes a comment about Kitty’s “ungodly gash” (meaning her slit throat) and everyone, including Florence, starts to laugh at the unplanned double entendre. Was so lovely.

So, we know Lydia is a creep and has some kind of hold over anywhere who comes under her spell but I genuinely hope Charlotte doesn’t become tied up in the web. I know she’s planning to take her down but Lydia still seems to be running rings around her.....maybe Charlotte feels wanted and needed for the first time in her life. Which I get. But Do! Not! Trust! Lydia! Quigley! 

Emily is starting up her “House of Exotics.” Harriet is her first girl, I think she’s going to have a new character, Cherry Dorrington, in there too (who is a little person). Plus, there is a new black sex worker, but I don’t know her name yet, so I reckon she will also be living there. How exciting! I hope we get a few more women who aren’t white and/or able-bodied because of this. 

For anyone wondering: here is where I watched Episode 1, and here is where I watched Episode 2. 

[ao3feed-spamano]

Marks

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2Ip9dQK

by MangaBitch

You discover the nations have tattoo's in many awkward, funny and unexpected situations. But you learn their meanings and their history, understanding about their culture. A part of who they are

Words: 1090, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Hetalia: Axis Powers

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/F

Characters: Female America (Hetalia), Female Prussia (Hetalia), Female England (Hetalia), Female Lithuania (Hetalia), Female Russia (Hetalia), Female Spain (Hetalia), Female Scotland (Hetalia), Female China (Hetalia), Female Germany (Hetalia), Female France (Hetalia), Female South Italy (Hetalia), Female Canada (Hetalia), Female Norway (Hetalia), Female Iceland (Hetalia), Female Denmark (Hetalia)

Relationships: Female America (Hetalia) & Reader, Prussia (Hetalia)/Reader, Female England (Hetalia)/Reader, Lithuania (Hetalia)/Reader, Russia (Hetalia)/Reader, Female Spain (Hetalia)/Reader, Scotland (Hetalia)/Reader, China (Hetalia)/Reader, Female Germany (Hetalia)/Reader, Female France (Hetalia)/Reader, South Italy (Hetalia)/Reader, Female Canada (Hetalia)/Reader, Norway (Hetalia)/Reader, Iceland (Hetalia)/Reader, Denmark (Hetalia)/Reader, Female South Italy/Female Spain (Hetalia), Female North Italy/Female South Italy (Hetalia)

Additional Tags: Tattoos, Established Relationship, Nyotalia, Sharing a Bed, Bedrooms, Beds, Partial Nudity, No Smut, No Sex, Culture, Ancient History, Historical Hetalia, Yuri, Lesbian Character, Female Homosexuality, Bisexual Female Character, Reader-Insert, Flirting, Symbolism, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Nordics, Sad America (Hetalia), Feels, Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Late Night Conversations, Long Hair, Bottom Prussia (Hetalia), Pillow Fights, Pillow Talk, Play Fighting, Marks, Birds, Flowers, Questions, Curiosity, Affection, Past Lives, Romance, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Hugs, Revenge, Poor England (Hetalia), Christianity, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Childhood Memories, Bullying, Memories, Self-Reflection, Early Mornings, Body Worship, Countries Using Human Names, Staring, Sleeping Together, Top Russia (Hetalia), Kissing, Girls Kissing, Smoking, Light Angst, Angst and Feels, Sleeptalking, Comfort, Nicknames, Top Spain (Hetalia), Blankets, Reading, Coffee, Surprises, Shock, Arguing, Sulking, Explanations, Conversations, Bathing/Washing, Asian Character(s), Towels, Snacks & Snack Food, Watching, People Watching, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute, Cooking, Breakfast, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Blushing, Embarrassment, Bonding, Books, Moaning, Watching Someone Sleep, Touching, Forehead Kisses, Roses, Wine, Food, Bottom France (Hetalia), Peeping, Accidental Voyeurism, Dinner, Unexpected Visitors, Worry, Hiding in Plain Sight, Teasing, Jeans, Guilt, Awkwardness, Secrets, Passion, Love, Love Confessions, Accidents, Clumsiness, Apologies, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Sister-Sister Relationship, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Promises, Bottom Canada (Hetalia), Locker Room, Hockey, Showers, Glasses, American History, Minor Canada/France (Hetalia), Shyness, Norway (Country), Bathtubs, Protectiveness, Vikings, Hot Springs & Onsen, Making Up, Dating, Alcohol, Scents & Smells, Tsunderes, Returning Home, Exhaustion, Stripping, Couches, Blue Eyes, Women's Underwear, Lingerie, Mild Language, Carrying

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2Ip9dQK

[i-am-very-very-tired]

‘What makes me so sad about Lee’s killing himself is that there are so few people with that kind of talent mixed with that fury of originality. Now we have one less of the few who are amazing. Why did he have to go and do that?” wondered Sam Taylor-Wood, the British artist. She was throwing out the big question that has consumed the fashion world since the suicide of her buddy and sometime subject Alexander McQueen, the 40-year-old designer, known to his friends by his given first name, Lee. His body—a physique that he’d worried over and tried to sculpt at the gym—was found at 10:30 a.m., February 11, hanging in his wardrobe, by his housekeeper in the apartment he’d been renting in London’s Mayfair, a far cry (and six or so miles) from the working-class East End neighborhood where he’d grown up. The tragedy was compounded in that it came just a week after the death of his beloved mother, Joyce, who at 75 had succumbed to an undisclosed illness. But even though McQueen’s brutal act of self-annihilation ultimately did not surprise those who knew him best, and were aware of his dark moods and inner agonies, plenty about his death didn’t add up.

After all, he’d been busy preparing for his autumn-winter ready-to-wear show in the days just before the tragedy. He’d been tweeting and texting his nearest and dearest, and apart from his obvious sadness about his mum, there wasn’t anything particularly unusual about his actions or his messages. In retrospect, some of his pals say they see portents in how loving his greetings were, but even they caution that they may be reading too much into this. The photographer Steven Klein, who was close to the designer for years, found him to be in good shape at the lunch they had in London at Christmas. “He was very together, in great form,” says Klein. “We made plans to do several new projects together.”

McQueen had even put in a surprise appearance at a dinner for Tom Ford, given by *Vanity Fair’*s editor, Graydon Carter, at Harry’s Bar in London on February 1. McQueen, who lived nearby, popped in uninvited; he sat at the bar, had a drink, chatted with Ford, and split. Ford had initiated the purchase of a majority stake in McQueen’s label in 2000 when Ford was the guiding force at the Gucci Group, owned by the French luxury-brands company PPR, and thus was McQueen’s old boss. So there was plenty of symbolism in this encounter. But then again, symbolism is everywhere in this story, as it was in the presentations of McQueen’s collections.

At their best, these shows were feats of magic, drama, and the sheer beauty of high fashion. McQueen was a traditionalist and an avant-gardist both. He liked to provoke with his ideas and shock with his ability to create unforgettable, original, sometimes extremist, often breathtaking clothes. He designed for both sexes, and in between, but soared highest with the women. His signatures were strong shoulders, strong tailoring, and a love of the corset. His collections were so specific, so true to himself, and so visceral that they are easy to remember. It helps, too, that they earned nicknames nearly as evocative as the clothes themselves—“the Shipwreck Collection” (spring-summer 2003), “the Chess Collection” (spring-summer 2005), “the Hitchcock Collection” (autumn-winter 2005). Among the most memorable was the now iconic “Highland Rape Collection,” from autumn-winter 1995 (one of his earliest shows, when he was starting out with his then-shoestring label), which mixed flesh-baring see-through material with eruptions of tartan, the clashes and juxtapositions intended as condemnation of England’s historic bullying of Scotland. (The folklore: one model hit the catwalk with a visibly dangling tampon string. To this day McQueen’s intimates aren’t sure whether that was accidental or intentional.) The rawness may have been polished as time went on, but it never went away. “The They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Collection” (spring-summer 2004) was presented as if in a Depression-era dance-hall, a marathon where the models had to dance till they dropped in dresses that started out as perfect specimens and ended up in tatters. “The Wolves Collection” (autumn-winter 2002) was shown at the Conciergerie, in Paris, where Marie Antoinette had been held before she was sent to the guillotine. The opening model came out in a lavender hooded leather cape, walking a couple of trained wolves on leashes. (I think I only imagined their howling.) McQueen was the king of metaphor.

The immediate reaction to his death reinforced the notion that his wasn’t just another name on a label. Beyond the front-page stories and worldwide headlines, beyond the reports of his clothes’ selling out in department stores, there were Diana-like tributes. Students, artists, and fans left farewell notes and bunches of flowers outside his boutiques in London, Milan, Los Angeles, and New York, all of which were shuttered after the news broke. (The designer Diane von Furstenberg was spotted adding a bouquet to the ones that had already been dropped off at his shop on 14th Street in New York’s Meatpacking District.) McQueen’s death also coincided with the opening of New York Fashion Week, and there were nods to him in a number of the shows, including the beautifully elegiac opening of the Marc Jacobs presentation. No question: Alexander McQueen had become a name for the ages, the James Dean of fashion.

To call someone an artist in this milieu is tricky, because that can connote pretense, a rarefied air, a certain self-conscious preciousness—all things that were not true of McQueen. But fashion has produced genuine artists, designers with deeply iconoclastic visions such as Charles James and the painter and sculptor Lucio Fontana, who made clothes and jewelry for a short while. Although McQueen was very much a fashion person, working with a fashion vocabulary, his clothes and presentations had a true art streak. He even behaved like an old-fashioned artist, never letting the fact that he worked for giant, powerful fashion corporations—first for LVMH, where he was installed in 1996 as the designer of Givenchy, and then for PPR—curb his creativity or freedom. This wasn’t someone who’d suck up to the bosses or important editors or celebrities. Elton John, who befriended the designer and respected his talent, says, “McQueen was never anybody’s boy. He was never going to bow down and kiss ass to anyone, which made him rare in that world.” He was freakish in terms of his natural abilities too. Mark Lee, the highly respected former president of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent (also owned by PPR), remembers, “Besides his eccentric vision, he really knew how to make and cut clothes. All the seamstresses, technicians, and product-development people who were around from the Gucci Group would talk about it all the time. He would just take a bolt of fabric and, in front of their eyes, would cut the pattern for his clothes. People said it was like watching Edward Scissorhands. There are not many designers around who can do that.” Similarly, McQueen often displayed a fearless, tour-de-force way with materials. There was nothing too fine or too common for him: neoprene, plastic, crocodile, paper, rose petals, antique lace, lamé … there was no stopping him. The finale of his autumn-winter 2006 collection, a pale-gray organza spiral ruffle dress, worn by Kate Moss, was as dreamy as it gets. That was highbrow McQueen; for lowbrow, look to his witty “bumster” pants from 1993—a feat of anatomical engineering described by one aficionada as “as low as you could go without having your trousers fall right down.”

McQueen used to call himself an East End bloke, which was code for saying he was not born into the world of caviar, champagne, and fine cloth. On a couple of occasions I had what he called “a proper English lunch” with him (I remember picking out the kidney in my steak-and-kidney pie), and each time he wanted to discuss the painter Francis Bacon. The combinations of gruesomeness and beauty, of raw flesh, homoerotic desire, and highly sophisticated execution that Bacon brought to his painting are not so far away from the concerns and approaches of McQueen’s work. There are personal parallels, too. I think of Bacon’s predilection for sex with men who were streetwise and of his finding refuge in the old London gay subculture. I think of the fact that his lover took his own life in 1971, on the eve of the opening of Bacon’s big retrospective in Paris, at the Grand Palais. (Camping it up, Bacon is supposed to have said, “Oh my dear, she’s gone and committed Susan-cide.”) For McQueen, too, a vociferously open gay man, there was an unforgettable combination of tough and fragile that was intrinsic to his emotional makeup. By all accounts, the designer’s childhood, growing up in the 1970s and early 80s, was like something out of Billy Elliot. His dad, Ronald, a taxi driver, reportedly had plans for his youngest child to become an electrician. (The designer had three sisters and two brothers.) McQueen, though, had fashion dreams, and as if that didn’t already make him a misfit in his environment, he had to put up with early torture about his sexuality; in his later life he often spoke about having been taunted with the nickname “McQueer” when he was young. Throughout, his mother was his shield, his advocate, the parent who eventually turned up at his shows, believing in his talent and adoring him unconditionally. Their bond was unbreachable from beginning to end.

McQueen’s formal education and professional rise are now part of fashion lore: the old-school tailoring training on Savile Row, where, as he later admitted and denied in equal measure, he had scrawled a punk-style slur—i am a cunt—inside the lining of a jacket being made for Prince Charles; the graduate fashion-school training at Central Saint Martins College; the meteoric trajectory of his career as a designer, which saw him going from overnight sensation after his last student collection to taking the reins for his bumpy five-year tenure at Givenchy, to finally having a house of his own, as Virginia Woolf might say, and really stretching his wings as a designer, to the sad, sad end.

The search for an answer as to why McQueen decided he’d had enough is really a struggle to find meaning in an act of nihilism. But as an old friend of his said to me, McQueen’s life was like an onion, and you have to peel away the layers to get to the center; it’s a process that can sting and bring tears. There was the loneliness, no doubt made all the more visceral by his mother’s death. Despite the surrogate family that McQueen created with a tiny clutch of fiercely close and protective friends—including Shaun Leane, the jewelry designer; Philip Treacy, the milliner; Daphne Guinness, the heiress, editor, and most daring dresser in fashion; Annabelle Neilson, a sort of sidekick; and Sam Gainsbury, who produced nearly all of McQueen’s shows—he had no long-term Mr. It. People remember how he’d say he was unlucky in love: he’d had a failed marriage to George Forsyth (Kate Moss was a bridesmaid at the 2000 wedding), and in the last years he seems to have had on-and-off liaisons with men, some of whom he met online. (Word is there was at least one porn star, a so-called Mr. Stag. There was also an older East End gangster he had a longer romance with.) Then there was his well-known history with drugs, especially cocaine. He was open about his substance abuse, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the autopsy told the same story when the results are released.

But it is my belief that all these traits were symptoms of something else. McQueen loved and collected art, and it is no coincidence that one of his favorite photographers was Joel-Peter Witkin, whose bleached and scratched images of masked figures, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, and corpses occupy a sometimes grim, sometimes joyous netherworld. The more one talks to those who knew McQueen, on and off the record, the deeper one goes, the clearer it becomes that what friends refer to as his “darkness” is where the truth of his death lies. Virginia Woolf and her struggle with depression is a kind of specter here. Sam Taylor-Wood says, “Lee would just sometimes go into this void, and we’d wait for him to resurface.”

He was not the only one in his circle to have terrible bouts with deep depression. Isabella Blow, his over-the-top, born-to-the-manor-but-without-a-pot-to-piss-in pal, who had an unlimited clothing allowance at his company and was often credited with discovering McQueen when he was in art school, also committed suicide, with weed poison, on her third attempt.

When Blow died, in May 2007, McQueen dedicated his next show to her, but some say he was angry at her for taking her own life. The rub is that he leaves behind a similar sense of frustration. There was a suicide note—what McQueen wrote hasn’t yet been disclosed—but it’s likely no one will ever know his whole story. Some have speculated that he may have felt he was done in fashion, sure of his legacy, and that his suicide was a kind of deliberate statement to that effect. Or was it something more uncontrollable? Sam Gainsbury says, “I appreciate that some people who were close to him think it was purposeful. But I think Lee got to a really dark place and could not get out of it. It was in that instance on that night. On another day maybe he would have gone to sleep and gotten out of it.”

People have commented on how, as the years went on, McQueen would disappear with lightning speed after his shows, rather than sticking around for the ritual backstage congratulations. “It always made me think of J. D. Salinger,” says Kerry Youmans, one of McQueen’s publicists. His suicide is perhaps the ultimate version of that impulse to withdraw. But PPR has announced that the McQueen business will continue. Fashion insiders have raised their carefully shaped eyebrows at the notion of replacing someone with so strong and individual a voice. McQueen’s friends remember his infectious laugh, and I wonder, could he be out there somewhere laughing now—maybe at the prospect of what will surely be a hard, hard search to fill his shoes? Or maybe in happiness that the line will go on?

I’m reminded of a show that McQueen did for autumn-winter 2007. It was known colloquially as “the Witches Collection” and was inspired by the fact that his mother, a genealogist, had discovered a relative who’d been a victim of the Salem witch trials. Like so many of McQueen’s presentations, this one had a high element of performance art to it—and a theme of death. The venue was very dark, people had difficulty finding their seats, the show started very late, it was raining outside, and there was an all-around bad mood in the air. Editors, who normally worshipped at McQueen’s feet, were yelling, “Who the fuck does he think he is? How dare he keep us all waiting like this?” The way people feel today, they’d be happy to wait for a much longer time to see one of his spectacles again, and they’d probably pay almost anything for his clothes.

[neon-nocte]

Another installment of “Arielle Reads Way Too Much Fanfiction!”

Title: Transfigurations

Fandom and ship: Harry Potter, Drarry

Words: 71k

Rating: explicit

——

Summary: Five years after Voldemort's defeat, Harry returns to England to help re-open Hogwarts.

Featuring:

• American magic (based on Native American culture!)

•magic-mined (like land mines, but magic) Hogwarts that threatens to destroy the castle and kill everyone in it and then some

• calligromancy, your favorite new magical symbolic language used to remotely kill, maim, or otherwise torture your enemies

• Ron is a badass

• Hermione and Draco are BFFs and Draco calls her ‘Mione

• having to work one-on-one with your former rival and then ending up having repeated sex with said former rival due to the tension

——

So this fic was written just before Order of the Phoenix was released, so what was then canon-compliant has aged gracefully into a spectacular AU. It’s fun and interesting to see which aspects of the post-war HP universe the writer was accidentally on the nose with, and how they explained circumstances that wouldn’t be canonized until years later.

Harry and Draco! I loved their dynamic! There’s undeniable sexual tension and then the weirdness that comes from repeated no-strings-attached casual sex. Because Malfoy is still Malfoy, even if he’s suddenly close with most of Harry’s friends and colleagues. But then, there’s also emotional tension leading to an uneasy friendship and then some, because they both have so much to learn about each other from the 5 years Harry was in America. This fic was more plot based than my usual fic reads that are more romance-based, but I loved Harry and Draco all the same.

The magic was unique and kept me on my toes, the writing was well-paced, and the supporting characters were all great. A joy to read.

[xseaxwitchx]

Snape’s Parents

Today, I’ve  decided to just ramble on about my thoughts on how Tobias and Eileen somehow became a thing. I don’t claim to have much knowledge about 1950s England in the slum-ish districts, but based on what I read on reputable blogs (and the minimal research I had a tiny amount of time for), Imma just see where this heads. Here are my unfiltered, unedited, and disorganized thoughts on Day 6: Snape’s Parents of Snape Appreciation Month. @snapeloveposts

So, we know that Eileen isn’t exactly conventionally attractive, but we never get the physical description of Tobias (not at least that I remember; the last time I read the books was about three-ish years ago because I’ve been swamped with homework since I started high school about, what do a know, three-ish years ago). Sometimes I like to think that Tobias himself was conventionally attractive either, and that’s one of the reasons they noticed each other in the first place; because neither of them were conventionally attractive. Sure, Tobias had muscle from going to work to provide for his immediate family that moved from Ireland (a headcanon a thoroughly accept and enjoy that can be found on @deathdaydungeon because that’s an a+ Snape blog with a+ headcanons by the blogger and the askers). 

Now, I ask the question of how did they notice each other? When did they notice each other? Where, why? These are the questions that truly fascinate me because I also headcanon that Eileen’s family, while pureblood, never was actually rich, open about being wizards/witches, and hid in the shadows, surviving on magic that wouldn’t bring any suspicion to them, i.e. suddenly bringing in more money to live in an upper-state (?) neighborhood, or at least a good one. I like to think they also lived in Cokeworth, but disowned Eileen after she married muggle Tobias (the pureblood-ness of the family stayed pureblood because of a shit-ton of incest in the Prince family, but that’s another fucked up headcanon for another time (and also why she’s unattractive)), making her life worse. But anyway, more meta for another time. Back to the actual subject.

She helped to provide for her family through working as a waitress at the local pub. Sure, it wasn’t much pay, but it was enough to get her by and contribute enough to the rent and basic needs of a six-person household (more meta for another time). Obviously, she put up with the usual drunken bastards and sexual harassment by said men (being drunk and wanting sex does not mean the girl has to be attractive, bear in mind). Tobias, albeit being a regular, was never exactly drunk, just a bit...ah...tipsy. But he never sexually harassed her (though he never told his drunk buddies to stop when they did it to her). There were two other women who worked at the local pub, but they embraced the sexual harassment and used it to gain extra money with offering certain recreational activities after hours. Eileen has pondered about asking one of them about it, but she overheard the two discussing how unattractive Eileen was. So Eileen’s idea was dropped.

Tobias, here, is interesting. While not being conventionally attractive, he was a foreigner with a thick Irish accent, something ladies tend to love for some odd reason (foreigners with thick accents; don’t ask me why, I honestly don’t know). But when Eileen actually snaps one day and slaps a man across the face after he grabbed her privates, Tobias took notice. After that, it was little glances and knowing looks of something, they didn’t know what. It evolved into their first date, late at night looking at the stars. I’ve always believed they were genuinely in love with each other once upon a time. Anyway, they dated over a year, then kind of eloped. What I mean by “kind of” is that there was never any legal documentation, never any ceremony, just him slipping his great-grandmother’s engagement ring (a simple gold band engraved with Irish love symbols) on her left ring-finger and they left it at that; they considered themselves married to each other after that.

Eileen, of course, gets disowned and thrown out of her family’s house after her grandmother was a little too observant and relentless in getting an answer. So, Tobias and Eileen both bought a house in the parallel-to-slums area, deeper into Cokeworth so Eileen would not have to run into her family accidentally. Tobias told his boss about the address change and the boss, knowing now Tobias’ and Eileen’s situation of extreme poverty, offered to “pay” for the rent (basically, took it out of Tobias’ pay before giving Tobias the rest of his pay; I know there’s some meta or another about it that is explained more clearly on @deathdaydungeon‘s blog, I’m trash at explaining it here). 

Eileen does keep her job at the pub, but now she has to find an alternate route to get there to avoid her family plus factor in more walking distance, which means leaving earlier. Tobias also keeps his job at a mill factory, in the same basic situation as Eileen, but it doesn’t bother him too much. Times start to get harder, rationing becomes extreme, and eight months later, Severus is born. Eileen loses her job because she now has to stay home to take care of their boy (because in those days, women were replaced left and right--your position was never held for you (at least that was the case in America, and maybe it’s safe to assume the same for Britian?)). That’s when it all went to hell for the both of them. Eh, more meta for another time though.

Okay, maybe I got carried away a little bit, but like I disclaimed: unedited, unfiltered, and disorganized thoughts. I will also say that this is all based on my headcanons and many headcanons that I love and accept from @deathdaydungeon because my god, are those headcanons wholesome, whether they be from asks or from the blogger. So, hope you didn’t die on me yet.