#Eugenia Garland

[ulisesbarreiro]

Cardano Projects and Use Cases in Latin America

[thatsmzbitchtoyou]

Norsemen & Anglo-Saxons Chapter 1

Here's the new story! I hope y'all like it.

Summary: Princess Y/N has a secret that her parents are ashamed of.  A conquering Viking chief recognizes the gift she has.  Will they be able to bring peace between warring people, and maybe find love along the way? Viking!Bucky Warnings: eventual smut, abuse, violence, animal attack, blood

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The New Year was upon them.  The castle was bustling with maids and squires decorating and scrambling to get everything ready in time. The halls were filled up with garlands, pinecones, dried oranges, berries, and candles lit every ten feet.  A large tree had been hauled into the great hall during Christmas Time and decorated with the same oranges, berries and pinecones, as well as ornamental pieces that shone through the branches in the candlelight.  The last seasonal ball was to be held in a few days time, and the noble families from all over the Isles had traveled in to be part of the festivities.

Princess Y/N watched the chaos in boredom as her little brother Prince Alfred, or Alfie,  ran around the room with a stream of ribbon in hand, singing holiday songs at the top of his lungs.  As much as she loved and adored him their age difference was definitely apparent during these moments.  “I watched three ships come sailing in on Christmas day on Christmas day…”

“Alfie if you sing that wretched song one more time I will–”

“You will do nothing,” her mother, Queen Eugenia interrupted as she walked into the great hall to inspect the decorations.  “After all these years of training, you still resort to violence, you ridiculous child.”

“And you still call me a child when I near my thirtieth year, Mother,” Y/N spat back.  “Perhaps my penchant for violence comes from my frustration with said training and the constant degradation of my age and ability.”

“Your petulance and independence has made you unmarriable and therefore a thorn in my side,” Eugenia sighed.  

“There have been no, as you and Father called them, “suitable” suitors to marry me off to, Mother.  And this,” she held out her hand, opening her palm, wherein a green orb of light appeared, “scares you both to death.”

“Put your hand away!” Eugenia ran over and slapped Y/N’s hand down before anyone could see.  “Stop being so careless!”

Y/N rolled her eyes.  “Yes, Mother.”

Eugenia sat next to her.  “You will attend tonight’s ball, dressed appropriately, with a smile on your ungrateful face and nothing but patient, polite mannerisms escaping that mouth of yours.  And you will not play tricks,” she looked pointedly at Y/N’s hands.

Y/N glared at her.  “Yes, Mother.”

Eugenia sighed again.  “Go get ready.”

Y/N left the great hall as Alfie continued singing away.  Her lady’s maid followed her as she roamed the halls towards her room.  The only ones who knew about her ability were her family, the royal advisory court and her lady’s maid.  No one had been able to figure out what to do with it.  She didn’t have a handle on it, either.  She could manipulate objects and people’s bodies to move how she wanted, heal minor injuries, and when touching someone she was able to see their thoughts and feel their feelings.  She could feel that there was something more to it, that her power had the potential to grow, and yet she and her ability had been tamped down so heavily from the moment she first started exhibiting it that she was unable to truly hone it and see what she was capable of.  The advisors had researched their history and fairy tale books extensively and could not find a rhyme or reason as to why she had this power.  The only reason she had not been burned at the stake as a witch was because her father thought it could be useful to him and his never ending battle against the Norsemen.

Y/N had only seen one Norseman in her entire life.  Her father had captured one after a horrible battle and brought him back from the battlefield.  He was what they called a Berserker, a Norseman warrior that would lose all sense of self-preservation and run into battle like a feral animal, like they were out of their minds and drunk with bloodlust.  Her father had put them in a room together, separated by a line of thin prison bars.  The Norseman didn’t try to attack her, just watched her intently.  Her father told her to try her powers on him, see what she could make him do.  Y/N had refused, so her father flogged her to try and make her submit.  The Norseman had become so incensed by her father’s mistreatment that he had broken through the bars, bending them like they were butter, and just as he was about to lay his hands on her father she threw her hands up.  The Norseman was encircled in the green light, stopping him midair.  Her father gave the first genuine smile towards her she had seen in years.  

The guards had shackled him and took him away shortly after that.  The look in his eyes as they dragged him away was one of shock and betrayal.  Y/N couldn’t stand it, and that night snuck through the castle to the dungeon.  She had found secret passages as a child that she used regularly, and slipped through undetected.  She stole the keys and found his cell.  He was awake, and when he heard the jingle of the keys he looked up at her.  His eyes widened and he scurried towards the farthest wall from her.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Y/N had whispered, holding her hands up.  He watched her carefully as she unlocked the door and swung it open.  She had stepped away, giving him room to leave.  He had slowly walked out of the cell, watching her constantly.  He stepped away towards the nearest exiting door.  “Run,” she whispered as she backed away from him, keeping her hands up.

He stopped for a moment.  He cleared his throat and asked in perfect English, “Are you a witch?”

Y/N had blinked at him in surprise.  “I…I don’t know,” she answered honestly.  This man could kill her in a second without making a sound, and yet he merely nodded.  “Thank you, Drottning,” he bowed his head to her then ran off towards the door.

Y/N had never seen or heard from him again.  The castle had been abuzz with confusion and fear upon finding him missing the next morning, but they ultimately decided that the barbarian had his ways and wasn’t worth pursuing. 

Y/N had never trusted her father again after that day, and had steered clear of him whenever and however she could.  He only wanted her for her power and what it could do for him.  He didn’t love her, he didn’t love Alfie.  He was a true English King, hoarding power and wealth wherever he could.

Y/N dressed in her holiday best for the ball and begrudgingly entered the great hall later that night.  The party was in full swing, nobles dancing together as the music played, the King and Queen laughing madly at the jester performing in front of them.  The wine was flowing, making the crowd more rowdy by the second.  As Y/N ascended the stage where the King and Queen sat she saw two short legs poking out and found Alfie hiding behind the Queen’s wide throne chair.  She quickly walked over and pulled him into her arms.  “What are you doing here, Alfie?  It’s late, and this is no place for a young boy,” she scolded him.

“Papa said I had to be here, because I’m to be king, and this is what kings do,” he mumbled.  Y/N glared over at her father, who was drinking himself into a stupor.  Alfie was a mere 11 years old, and already her father was trying to sink his dirty claws into the little boy’s mind and heart.

“No, Alfie, this is not how kings should act,” Y/N reassured him as she ran her fingers through his hair.  “Let’s get you to bed.”

Suddenly there was a loud bang and a whistling as wind whipped through the hall from where the front doors burst open.  A thunderous roar from what seemed like hundreds of men swarming the hall filled the room, echoing through the high ceilings and making Alfie cover his ears.  Y/N held him close as she huddled behind the throne, concealing him and herself as best as possible.  There were shouts and screams from the nobles as the men started to cut many of them down, pushing and beating others as they made their way to the stage.

The King and Queen sat in shocked silence as they watched their guards and nobles die or be captured around them.  Y/N glanced around looking for an escape and saw men standing in the higher windows, pointing arrows at the royals.  She knew they were seen and so any attempt to run would be met with death.  

Heavy footsteps walked up the stage steps, and before she could even move large hands were hefting her and Alfie from behind the chair.  They ripped Alfie from her arms and she screamed, trying to get ahold of him again as he cried and tried to grab for her.  Y/N’s body was wrenched around and she came face to face with a familiar looking man.

“Hello, Drottning, remember me?” the Norseman from years earlier smiled at her.

“You!” Y/N breathed as her eyes widened.

The Norseman chuckled as he led her to the front of the stage to stand next to her Mother and Father who sat dumbfounded on their thrones, Alfie on the other side of them being held back by another man.  Y/N looked around and even through her fear was struck by the attractive nature of these men.  Most of them were spattered in blood and sweat from fighting, and yet she had never seen so many handsome men.  The yelling started to die down as one Norseman walked forward, assumedly the leader, the rest of them parting to let him through.  The one approaching her and her family was easily one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen in her life.  His long, dark brown hair was half tied back with braids that had ornaments of beads and metal cuffs attached to them.  His full beard was cut neatly and framed his pink lips, which were stretched into a menacing smirk.  His blue eyes shone bright like the ocean just after a storm, and she could see the mischievous glint in them as he scanned the family.  He was covered in Norse battle gear from just under his jaw to his feet, a large sheathed sword on his right side and a war hammer at his left.  His left arm was bare, and upon further inspection Y/N realized it wasn’t flesh, but some kind of metal, yet it looked and functioned like a normal arm.  He was huge, like all the other men, tall and broad.  His eyes settled on her and he appraised her, giving her a long look up and down.  Y/N straightened herself under his stare, refusing to bow or show weakness to him.  His smirk deepened at her as he looked back at her parents.

“King Henry, Queen Eugenia,” he greeted them in a deep, booming voice.  “I am James Barnes, Jarl of the Danes, or Norsemen as you like to call us.”  He nonchalantly took a half eaten pastry off the table closest to him and popped it in his mouth, chewing it slowly.  “What a lovely party.  We missed our invitation,” he said with a sly smile, making his men laugh heartily around him.

Henry just couldn’t help himself as he stood up.  “You aren’t wanted, heathens!  Leave immediately!”

“Now now, Henry, is that any way to speak to the ones who have conquered you?” James admonished him.  “I’ve come to make peace, and you want to scream insults?”

Y/N silently gasped.  Peace?  With the Norsemen?  

“Make peace?  While you murder my nobles and threaten my family?  That’s preposterous,” Henry scoffed.  Y/N glared at her father, silently wishing for him to shut up.

“Well you could either choose peace, or watch the rest of your nobles and your family die, starting with your heir,” James threatened, glancing at Alfie.  Y/N squirmed against the Norseman behind her at the threat.  “And we’ll make some stops along the way to some of your most prosperous cities and take what we need.  The choice is yours.”

“That’s no choice!” Henry yelled and then started to move towards James.  “You wretched, barbaric–”

A whistle sounded through the hall as an arrow was loosed.  It flew straight towards Alfie’s chest.  Y/N’s hand yanked out of the Norseman’s hand that was holding her and stretched toward her brother as she screamed, “NO!”

The arrow stopped, hovering right in front of Alfie’s heart, surrounded by the green light.  The men gasped, James staring at Y/N with an awestruck smile on his face.  “So it’s true,” he whispered.  Y/N flicked her wrist and the arrow went flying towards the wall and shattered.  Before she could even drop her hand James was in front of her.  He looked at the Norseman holding her back and nodded to him.  “Thor, is this the English witch of royal blood who freed you?”

The man behind her nodded and lightly shoved her into his arms.  James held her by her arms and looked down at her.  “What’s your name, Princess?”

Y/N could only stare at his bright blue eyes, her heart hammering in her chest at exposing herself and her ability.  “Y/N,” she whispered.  

“Y/N,” he repeated it like it was a prayer.  “I’ve been talking to the wrong person.”  He pulled her forward to face her family.  “Henry, you’ve been hiding something,” he chuckled as he plopped his chin on her shoulder so they were cheek to cheek and ran his fingers up and down her arms, the metal ones sending chills up her spine.  “She’s the one with power, not you.”  Henry glared at her, a hateful look on his face.  “Oh, I see,” James’ voice became sharper.  “You feel threatened by her, so you’ve hid her away, stomped on her potential to grow,” Y/N was nearly shaking as she felt the adrenaline rush through her.  “She’s a goddess among you pathetic royals,” he kissed the side of her head, “and you wanted to reduce her to a torture device.  You let the magic go to waste.”  He turned her towards him again and dipped his face to be at eye level with her.  “We have magic at home.  We can help you learn and grow,” Y/N’s eyes widened at him.  “So I ask you, Princess Y/N.  What do you choose, death or peace?”

Y/N exhaled a shaky breath as she stared at him.  As he touched her she let her ability slip into his mind.  She could find no lie in his words.  He and his people were tired, the constant war depleting their resources and wiping out families.  They won the battles more often than lost, but it had put a strain on their lives.  His mention of magic seemed real, too, with glimpses and flashes of things that were unexplainable popping up in his mind.  Y/N thought about her people and how the English had been begging for peace for years as well, all of it falling on her father’s greedy, prideful ears.  She could tell James was good, and only wanted good for his men and his people.

“I propose an allyship,” she said.  James blinked and his eyebrows furrowed at her.  “A peace treaty with a tradition as old as time,” she clarified, gulping quickly.  “We join our families in marriage.”  His eyes flicked between hers, like he was studying her.  His men around him mumbled as they considered the idea.  “If you are unmarried,” she amended, since she wasn’t sure, “or if someone in your nobility is unmarried, I will come with you as a peace offering, a marriage tribute.  You will have me, and my power, and leave my family and my people be,” she said, trying to look and sound every bit the princess her mother had always wanted her to be.  “And we will end this war and finally bring peace to our people.”

James stood straight, towering over her.  He watched her for another moment, then stepped back and looked to his men behind him.  Two of them walked up and spoke to him quietly.  Y/N waited on baited breath as they consulted with each other.  They stood back and he turned toward her again.  “Done,” he said simply, the smirk returning to his lips.  Y/N nodded and quietly sighed.  “My Drottning,” he spoke lowly, holding out his metal hand.  She put her right hand into his metal hand, admiring it.  

“What does that mean?” she asked him.

“My Queen,” he winked at her.  Y/N blushed deeply.  He turned to his men and held her hand up high in his.  “We have peace!” he yelled triumphantly.  The thunderous roar returned as they cheered, their hands and swords and axes held high as they hugged each other and drank some of the wine left on the tables around them.  James dropped their joined hands and kissed the hand he held, making her blush again.  “Say goodbye to your family, Drottning, we leave immediately.”

He let her go and she ran up the stairs towards her family.  She ignored her parents altogether, grabbing Alfie and holding him tight against her.  

“Don’t go,” Alfie cried as his fingers clutched her dress.

“I have to,” Y/N cried as she carded her fingers through his hair.  “You listen to me,” she knelt in front of him and held his face in her hands, “you remember what I’ve taught you.”  He nodded frantically.  “Do not listen to Father,” he nodded again, making her father sneer at them next to her.  “I’ve seen it in you,” she whispered, laying a hand against his heart then tapping her finger to her head.  “You will become one of the greatest kings England has ever known, as long as you don’t do as Father has done.  You will bring continued peace and prosperity, you hear me?”  She wiped his tears away.  “Because you are a good boy, and will become a great man.  My little king,” she kissed his forehead firmly before pulling away.

Alfie cried harder as she stepped away from him.  She turned to her father.  “Stay away from him,” she warned him, glancing at Alfie.  “I have procured a peace that you, and your father, and your father’s father could never have dreamed of,” she sneered back at him.  “Do good by our people, for once in your miserable life.”  She glared at him before turning back towards James who stood patiently waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.  

His men were slowly retreating out of the great hall as he held his hand out for her again.  She took it as he flashed one last glance and triumphant smile at her father before leading her out the front doors.  As they walked through the courtyard and towards the horses waiting for them he glanced at her attire.

“Hm, this won’t do while riding,” he said as he twirled her around.  Y/N furrowed her eyebrows at him.  “Where’s your lady’s maid?”

Y/N looked around and saw the telltale eyes peeking from behind the stables.  “May,” she pointed.

James summoned her forward out of hiding.  She quickly ran across the courtyard and into Y/N’s arms, sobbing as Y/N pet her hair.  “Miss May, go fetch your princess’ riding clothes and some simple dresses for travel,” James instructed her.  May stared at him with wide eyes, looking at Y/N who nodded to her.  She was escorted back inside with Thor to get Y/N’s things packed.

As they stood there waiting, the snow started to fall.  Y/N looked up and sighed as the cold kissed her face, a welcome reprieve to her inflamed cheeks from the night’s tension.  She looked towards James who was already looking at her.

“What do I call you?” she asked him.  

“You can call me Bucky,” he said.

“Bucky?” she asked, a small smirk pulling her lips.

“A nickname,” he laughed at her perplexed look.  “Saved for those closest to me.  And since you’ll be my queen–”

“So it is you I’ll be marrying then?”  Y/N asked.

“Yes,” Bucky laughed harder.  “I guess I didn’t make that very clear.”

“Hm,” Y/N hummed.  “You have a very English name...James.”

“Yes,” he agreed, sighing as he looked at the falling snowflakes.  “We Norsemen and you Anglo-Saxons are not that different from each other,” he said with a twinkle in his eye as he winked at her again.  

Y/N pondered that as May came out holding Y/N’s riding clothes and boots with Thor holding a small trunk that he loaded onto one of the wagons they had waiting.  May ran back to Y/N.

“Go change, and then we’ll be off,” Bucky excused Y/N, who led May over to the stables.  They went into an empty bay and May quickly stripped Y/N out of her gown and into her riding clothes.

“My lady,” May said as she held Y/N’s crown in her hands.  Y/N looked at it and gingerly took it from her.  She stared at it for a moment before giving it back to her.  She gave May another hug.  

“Take it, my love,” she said as May sobbed in her arms again.  “Run away and marry that stable boy, Ben, and use it to live long happy lives together,” she said as she pulled away.

May nodded as she cried, gathering up the gown as she said goodbye.

Y/N came back out in her riding clothes.  She approached Bucky who was preparing his horse.  He mounted it and held his hand out to her.  She took it and he helped hoist her behind him on the saddle.  He wrapped her hands around his waist then she felt him tying her wrists together.

“What–” she started, trying to look over his shoulder.

“So you don’t run off,” Bucky cocked an eyebrow at her in warning as he looked back at her.

“I won’t,” Y/N promised.

“That’s what they all say,” Bucky chuckled before he turned to his men who were all waiting.  “To Danmark!!”

“To Danmark!” they all yelled, and the pounding of hooves rang through the night as they all rode out of the courtyard and into the English countryside.

Y/N’s arms tightened around Bucky, her head tucking in between his shoulder blades as the winter wind stung her face.  She was not going to run and wanted to prove it to him.  She wanted peace, even if it meant giving up herself to get it. After about an hour they all started to slow as they reached the water’s edge where multiple ships were docked, secured by other Norsemen who waited anxiously for them.

Bucky untied the rope around her wrists then dismounted.  He held his hands up to her hips and helped her down as well.  He inspected her wrists, giving them a short rub.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss to each wrist.  Y/N was surprised at his affection, but welcomed it in the moment.  He pulled her towards one of the boats.  He helped her step onto it and settled her into a corner of the stern that was covered in furs and quilts.  He pulled one of the furs up and covered her with it, securing it around her shoulders.  There was plenty of room around her as she got herself comfortable.

“It’s going to be a four day journey, Drottning,” Bucky kneeled in front of her.  “This area is for all of us to sleep, so you’ll have at least a few men next to you, but don’t fear,” he reassured her at the look on her face, “they’re harmless.  Just tired.”

Y/N looked around at the men loading themselves into the boat, many of them taking seats at the benches where the oars were sitting.  She felt worried but nodded at him.  He gave her a smile and stepped away to help load more things into the boats.  They all worked methodically together until in just a few minutes they were ready to pull off.  Bucky was stationed at one of the oars as well, giving the signal and they shoved off the shore.

Y/N watched the men in her boat and the others row in perfect unison.  She admired their strength and the way they all seemed to be of one mind as they worked together to get into a good rhythm, making the boat fly through the water.  The rhythmic rowing lulled her to sleep as she snuggled down into the furs below her.

She woke a few hours later.  It was still dark out, the rowing still going strong.  As she shifted to get more comfortable she felt a heavy weight around her waist.  She panicked until she turned and saw Bucky’s peaceful face sleeping next to her, his metal arm resting on her side.  Y/N looked down at the arm.  She admired its craftsmanship, unsure of how he was able to find or create such a thing.  Her fingers traced along the metal, the plates and divots carved like the muscles of a real arm would be.  When she reached his hand she lightly traced each finger with the tip of her pointer finger.  His hand suddenly moved to grasp her wrist.  She gasped as he gently maneuvered her to face him.  His eyes were still closed as he let go of her wrist then wound his metal arm around her back this time, holding her to his chest.  “Sleep, wife,” he mumbled, his voice coming out hoarsely as he kissed her forehead and rested his chin on top of her head.  

Y/N was stiff for a moment until the warmth enveloped her and she melted into his embrace.  She pressed her nose into his sternum and breathed deeply as her hands gripped the fur coat he was wearing.  He hummed as his breathing evened out and a soft snore rumbled in his chest.  It lulled her to sleep again, a small smile on her face.

**picture is A.I. from Pinterest, unknown original "artist" or "creator"**

[covenawhite66]

10. Queen's Hedgehog-Fungi

9. Carpotroche caceresia-tree

8. Victoria Boliviana-Flower

7. Garland of Nails-Plant

6. Denise's Orchid of the Fall-Plant

5. Sternbergia mishustinii-Plant

4. Bruising ink bolete-Mushroom

3. Impatiens banen-Plant

2. Impomoea aequatoriensis-Plant

1. Eugenia paranapanemensis-Tree

[thedreammweaver]

I love that YouTube scares it’s creators into talking like babies, having to not say the words sexual assault, rape, death, etc. when talking about serious things. But on random searches and scrolling through Shorts I get recommended triggering videos of Eugenia Cooney, graphic injuries, and this one video of Judy Garland in blackface

[jomiddlemarch]

Know your own happiness

Chapter 6

There were no roses left in all of England, the night of the ball; they filled every vase along the great table laid with delicacies, had been woven into garlands for every mantle and bannister, their heady scent warmed by the thousand candles it had taken the maids an hour to trim and light. Alina filched a cluster of white rosebuds from the hothouse for her sash, to match the ribbon she’d wound around her head, and pinched her cheeks to rosiness. If General Kirigan came, she would be glad to look her best and if he did not, it was a good reminder that all her reckless hope could bring her was a pain so ignominious she couldn’t even complain of it. She chose a spot at the far side of the ballroom, suitable to her low station, with a fair view of the dancers and the throngs on the perimeter; if he arrived, he would know to look for her in such a place and she would be well-positioned to notice his entrance. If, if, if…there seemed as many overlaid ifs as there were petals on the rosebuds she wore!

She endeavored to observe the other guests, the ladies in their fine gowns and jewels, the men in jackets and breeches and snowy linen, engaging in lively conversation and even more lively dancing, a scene full of myriad delightful tableaux, which once would have provided her endless amusement. Miss Anne was beguiling the stiff young curate and Miss Elizabeth moved most artfully through the figures of the country dance, attracting the attention of many gentlemen who’d paid her no mind when she was a shy and solitary miss waiting to be invited to the floor. There was so much worth regarding that she told herself she might not even appreciate General Kirigan’s admission to the throng.

Yet despite his sober dress and even more solemn mien, she saw him at once. As much as she had told herself he was simply a man with any man’s flaws and foibles, the moment she saw him, she was struck by how he stood apart from his fellows; how his gait was both graceful and puissant, his gaze acute, every aspect more refined, more compelling than every other gentleman in the room. She let her eyes rest on him as he moved through the room, preparing herself for his approach, his hand offered to invite her to dance or to squire her to the refreshments. Her anticipation, however, was in vain. He walked purposefully, but not towards her, and the arm he held out was to Cousin Eugenia. She could see the care he took in the way he touched her hand, the incline of his head, and could not fail to notice what a lovely pair they made, Eugenia’s bright beauty set off by the General’s regal dark elegance, her attention so focused she did not perceive the Honorable Zenobia’s presence beside her until the other woman spoke.

“It seems I shall have to resign myself to Lord Nicholas,” she said. “A pity, but given his estate and his rather more exuberant and entertaining temperament, a tolerable one. What shall you do when your companionship is no longer required, Miss Starr? Eugenia will be much occupied as the General’s wife and she shan’t need a timid little mouse like yourself scuttling about the halls.”

“I shall go home,” Alina said, as much to herself as to the sneering Zenobia. “I shan’t stay where I’m not wanted—” She broke off, watched as General Kirigan bowed to Eugenia and allowed another young gentleman to take his place as her partner, somehow managing to drift into the shadows.

“Go home? Will they welcome you back? Another mouth to feed, when they have so little. They must have so little, to send you away here,” Zenobia said. “If you had the least vivacity, I might be able to persuade Lord Nicholas to allow you to come visit, but that’s hardly the case. You could make a decent governess, Eugenia’s parents might try to find you a situation—”

“Miss, if you please, you’re needed,” Sukey interrupted from the doorway that led to the servants’ hall, breathless as if she’d run all the way from Cook, afraid of having her ears boxed.

“It seems your future has found you, Miss Starr, how very convenient,” Zenobia said. She didn’t bother to wait for Alina to respond and walked toward the end of the room where Lord Nicholas was laughing gaily, surrounded by a coterie who parted to allow Zenobia through. Sukey stood, anxiously twisting the hem of her apron, and Alina nodded and followed as they made their way to the housekeeper’s private sitting room, oddly empty of the housekeeper or anyone else.

“Sukey?”

“You’re meant to sit down, miss, it’s not long,” Sukey said. “There’s fresh tea in the pot, I made sure I did as was told.”

“Mrs. Bagshaw has allowed this?” Alina asked. The housekeeper was a stern woman and Alina would not have Sukey run afoul of her temper on whatever this errand was to be.

“Oh yes, miss,” Sukey answered. “Once he spoke to her, tweren’t any trouble.”

“He?”

“I beg your pardon for what must appear to be the most arrant nonsensical subterfuge, but I needed to speak with you alone without any risk of discovery and the ball makes that exceedingly difficult,” General Kirigan said from the doorway, somehow taller and even more impressive in the more homely setting than he had been in the middle of the candlelit ballroom.

“As you wish,” Alina said, Sukey slipping out as General Kirigan stepped in and sat down across from Alina, looking like a medieval king on his throne in Mrs. Bagshaw’s worn armchair.

“Miss Starr, there is something of the utmost importance I must discuss with you,” he began and suddenly she was terribly tired, though she had not danced one set. He had and it was enough.

“I must offer my felicitations on your happy news,” she said.

“I don’t understand—”

“But I do, General Kirigan,” she said, as coolly as she was able. “I understand quite well what it signified when you chose to offer your arm to Cousin Eugenia in view of every guest at Gregory Hall, what it meant when you spoke to her and she nodded, and the brevity of the duration between your departure from her and your arrival here is only evidence of her father’s eager approval of your suit.”

“Miss Starr, with all due respect, you understand nothing. In fact, you could not be further from the truth,” he said, his voice a mixture of impatience and reassurance. “But in order for you to do so, I will need to tell you a story and I don’t believe I can manage it if you interrupt. It is not an easy story to tell, especially since not all of it is my own.”

“Should you tell it then?” she asked, knowing she would be up all night wondering about what it was if he demurred, ruing, most bitterly, the questions she’d felt required to ask.

“I must and she will not hold it against me, I cannot think, if she knew what keeping silent would cost. She was tender-hearted, you see, much as you are. She would think of what my silence would mean to you and urge me on, I feel confident of that,” he said. Alina folded her hands in her lap and tried to believe that whatever he told her, she would be able to rise from her chair and walk to her little room with her composure intact, any degree of heartbreak entirely concealed.

“Her name was Louisa and she was my sister, my half-sister actually, the child of my mother and her first husband,” he said. “She was five when I was born. She might well have taken no notice of me, a colicky squalling infant I’ve been told, with nothing much to recommend me, my father dead within a fortnight of my birth, my mother once again an impoverished widow, now with another mouth to feed. But Louisa loved me. Dearly. Even if I never deserved it. Young as she was, she always looked after me, took care of me, played with me. My mother was not one to…coddle her children. It was Louisa who tended my scrapes and bruises, sat with me when I was ill, who told me there was no such thing as a monster when I woke with a nightmare. If only she had been right.”

“What happened to her?” Alina asked, when the pause grew too long, a rose becoming a briar.

“What happens to tender-hearted young ladies who trust too easily, Miss Starr. She fell. From grace. Into ignominy, into despair. She fell ill and when I found her, I knew she did not want to recover, no matter what future I promised her could be hers,” he said. “She only wanted a future for the child, so that is what I vowed to give her, the comfort of knowing her child would never suffer as she had. I had already amassed a sizable fortune and I traded upon my dead father’s name with his distant cousins and their need to take care of a mortgage coming due on Gregory Hall; I made sure everyone knew Eugenia to be the long-desired daughter of the mistress of Gregory Hall, including Eugenia herself.”

“General Kirigan—”

“I kept my vow to Louisa all these years and then, within the past few weeks, I discovered I had failed, or nearly so,” he went on as if having begun, he was unable to stop, driven to the brink by an inexorable candor Alina wondered at him bestowing upon her. There was such pain in his voice, in his countenance, such aching self-recrimination, it was all Alina could do to keep herself from reaching over to take his hand.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean Sir Basil L’Entasser. I mean how he was trying to entice her to run away with him and very nearly succeeding,” he said.

“But however unorthodox a fashion it came about, wedding Sir Basil would have been considered a fine match, sir,” Alina pointed out. “Society would forgive an impetuous match between a beautiful girl like Eugenia and a well-connected peer.”

“I said run away, not wed,” he replied. “He had no intention of marrying her—only ruining her.”

“Dear heavens!” Alina exclaimed.

“He is as far from heaven as it is humanly possible to be, an utter rogue, a loathsome, bloody blackguard—the only saving grace is that he is used to getting his own way and didn’t take much care beyond the obvious to conceal his intent, writing a number of letters which I was able to obtain, to the detriment of his nefarious plans,” he said.

“He will not try again, with some other girl?” Not every young woman would have a guardian as fierce with their seducer as General Kirigan, nor as understanding regarding what insincere words of praise might seem like love’s truest devotion to an innocent.

“I rather think the climate in Madras will end any machinations on his part, if it does not end him entirely,” General Kirigan said with a bitter satisfaction. “The Prince Regent was quite enthused about the plan to send him there, once I mentioned Sir Basil’s disdain for court and the Ton and his vast eagerness to venture further afield. Prinny displayed an uncommon degree of alacrity, I wonder whether Sir Basil has tried to sully more than one daughter of the aristocracy.”

“And the letters—do they pose a risk to Eugenia’s reputation?” Alina asked.

“They are ashes, the ones she received and the ones she sent. She is safe, as safe as I can make her. As I couldn’t make Louisa,” he said. “And that is what I said to her, when we danced just now, our public appearance creating an otherwise unachievable measure of privacy, at no cost to her reputation.”

“And this is why you left so abruptly,” Alina said. “Without any missive or note.”

“It was badly done, I know,” he said, shaking his head. “But I was not sure, when I got word, if I would be able to rescue Eugenia from that wretch and his revolting lust—I could not risk tarnishing your good name with any association with my own, if my initial plan failed and I had to fall back upon the one I hoped to avoid.”

“You could not have meant to marry your own niece, sir—"

“No, of course not! I believe that is the first truly daft remark I’ve ever heard from you, Miss Starr,” he said, some small measure of amusement appearing in his tone and his serious, dark eyes. “I would have found Eugenia wherever he’d abandoned her and taken her abroad, to live a quiet and untroubled life as a widowed Englishwoman. A villa in Portugal maybe or perhaps Malta. But if that was what transpired, I could not give you what you deserved, could not possibly convince you to shackle yourself to me, with the shadows that would cling to my name.”

“You believe I would think less of you, of your offer, if you had had to amend it to protect Eugenia?” Alina asked. He raised an eyebrow, shrugged and nodded.

“That would be the generally accepted response of a properly brought-up young lady and if I sought to use your station to consternate the Ton, I could hardly do well by you by lowering you further. I had intended to make you fall in love with me, I stated that in no uncertain terms, and yet—”

“And yet you acted in perhaps the only way that would ever have accomplished your goal,” Alina said, unable to bear his eyes upon her after the first moment when they lit up like stars, glancing at the teapot, at her folded hands. If she had worried that her feelings were only the idealization borne of absence, his anguished tone while speaking of his lost sister and his restrained ferocity towards Sir Basil, the gentle fondness in his dark eyes when he mentioned Eugenia directly and his concern about the possible harm he might pose to Alina herself had convinced her that her own affections were most definitely secured, far more than by a thoughtful cup of tea or aptly worded compliment.

“I cannot fail to observe you said would, not could or might, Miss Starr,” he replied. “There is a certain implication in that choice, but I shall not speak of it further if I have misconstrued your meaning.”

“I daresay you would not,” Alina replied. “But we have a pot of tea yet to be poured and I believe Mrs. Bagshaw has ceded her chamber to you for at least another hour; I should hate to waste such a rare opportunity for fruitful conversation, Aleksander.” She let him hear his name on her lips, the name she had vowed never to speak, pronounced with the same inflection as the most intimate endearment shared in the marriage-bed. “One lump of sugar or two?”

The correct answer was three.

But that was not something she discovered until much later, when the tea was stone-cold and stewed in the housekeeper’s best Wedgewood pot, the rosebuds at her sash were tucked into Aleksander’s vest pocket, and she was so far beyond the boundaries which constituted being compromised that it was very good indeed that she’d accepted his proposal along with what she considered a most satisfactory expression of his reciprocated affection and he countered was merely a glancing intimation of what he averred was his profound and abiding regard.

Such were his powers of persuasion that she declared, a little breathlessly, that she meant to take up beekeeping, happily provoking a look of such adoring, ardent curiosity she relented nearly at once when pressed for an explanation:

“I see you will require a positively vast supply of honey, given your impressive appetite for sweets.”

[thefandomlesbian]

Burning Garland question! Is there anyone you envision when you write the characters yet? Or anyone you would cast in an adaptation 🙈 or am I rushing way too far ahead in it here at this point 👀

SCREAMING okay so i actually am waiting for Mariana to design a cover so yes, I had to forward her some tentative faceclaims. Once the cover is designed, I’m planning on uploading to AO3 so it can get a few more readers. @rabexxpaulson ;) 

The main character, Steve, is based on a younger (2000s) KD Lang. She has more dark blonde/pale brown hair, but she has similar sharp features, is fairly tall, and has a very androgynous look.  

Steve’s ex-wife, Mallory, is still in search of a good faceclaim, but the best I’ve got right now is Teyonah Parris--Teyonah is about ten years younger than Mallory, but she has the right vibe going on. 

Their teenage son, Malcolm, has been living in my mind with the face of Jorge Lendeborg Jr. With his appearance in Love, Simon, specifically. 

Eugenia, the cult escapee, has been the hardest to nail down, mostly because she belongs to a particularly conservative family which gives her a very peculiar sense of style, and trying to compare the image in my head of a woman wearing a heavy dress and apron to the popular images of celebrities is difficult. For right now, I’ve landed on Amy Adams for her, mostly because of Amy’s performance in Doubt (phenomenal movie, btw, if you ever get to watch it). 

These guys are the only ones who have been nailed down 100% yet. There are a few minor characters I’m picturing--Cathy who is Octavia Spencer but like a foot taller (Octavia is tiny!!! I didn’t realize), Lori who is probably Jennifer Holloway, Joan who is like a chubbier Pink with dark hair. But ultimately these characters will probably not have a large enough role for me to go into great lengths of description about them. 

I’m really excited to continue writing this story! I’m having a ton of fun with them. 

[fearsmagazine]

100 CANDLES - Review

DISTRIBUTOR: Devilworks

SYNOPSIS: 100 CANDLES centers around four friends playing a game, in an old house, that requires them to tell one another horror tales by candlelight and then go off to this room and stand in front of a magical mirror and blow out their candle. Supposedly, one story for every candle. They cannot leave the game until all the candles are out; otherwise they will fall victim to a witch’s curse.

REVIEW: The good news is that there are not 100 stories, as you may have surmised. There are six tales, and the wrap around story. While the six tales each have their own list of credits it is interesting to note that they all feel as if they were produced by the same filmmaking team. They all have a similar level of production design, cinematography, and effects that sets this film at a level of a production that looks like an independent film budget as opposed to a home grown horror film.

I thought the six stories were interesting and well acted. Some had a well developed narrative while a few were just about the “gotcha” moment and the special or visual effects. I thought that “Blight” was the most ambitious of the tales and very well made. It features a solid cast, some impressive visuals. And, as a period piece, nice costumes and location. It was a bit curious that the story “Buried Alive” was in Spanish. All the other tales were in English, and even the storyteller spoke English, and no explanation as to why it was in Spanish. It was well done but didn’t offer anything in the way of surprises. “When Demons Die” was interesting in that it really isn’t a genre tale. It was a good story with nice production values and a good cast, but would have been more effective if the director could have told the story more from the child’s point of view.

The “100 Candles Game” is the weakest link. Because the characters have to go into another room, alone, where the mirror is after telling their story you expect something “scary” will transpire there. Also the mannequins covered with sheets does nothing to offer any suspense, surprise, or a red-herring in terms of what is going on. The acting is good, the production values above average, but simply serves as an excuse to unite these six other short films.

100 CANDLES is an interesting anthology film whose six tales are worth your consideration. The warp around story can simply be discarded by fast-forwarding if you choose to view on demand or DVD, which I would recommend watching that way as opposed to in a theater. The six short films are well worth the watch, and might look good on a big screen, but taken as a whole I don’t think it has the gravitas to warrant a theatrical viewing.

CAST: Magui Bravi, Clara Kovacic, James Wright, Agustin Olcese, Luz Champane, CREW: Director/Producer - Nicolas Onetti; Screenplay - Guillermo Lockhart & Mauro Coroche; Story by/Producer Michael Kraftzer; Cinematographers - Carlos Goitia & Luciano Montes de Oca; Editor - Carlos Goitia; Costume Designer - Taz Pereyra; “100 Candles Game” - Dir. Guillermo Lockhart “A Little Taste” - Dir. Victor Catala / Scr. Carlos C Tome / Cast Ayla Lopez, Zoe Arnao, Miko Jarry “When Demons Die” - Dir. & Scr. Daniel Ruebesam / Cast Jonathan Ohlrogge, Crispian Belfrage, Liis Laigna, Madis Maforg “Black Eyed Child” - Dir.& Scr. Tony Morales /Cast Puri Palacios, Gonzalo Fiorito, Diana Fernandez “The Visitant” - Dir. & Scr. Nicholas Peterson / Cast Amy Smart, Doug Jones, Ashleigh Buxton “Buried Alive” - Dir. Oliver Garland / Scr, Guillermo Lockhart, Oliver Garland, Mauro Croche / Cast Eugenia, Soledad Ramirez, Oliver Garland “Blight” - Dir. Brian Deane / Scr. Matt Roche / Cast George Blagden, Alicia Gerrard, Joe Hanley, Marie Ruane, Matthew O’Brien “Drip” - Dir. & Scr. Christopher West / Cast Wallis Barton, Kristian Chapalik, Tom Draper OFFICIAL: N.A. FACEBOOK: N.A. TWITTER: N.A. TRAILER: https://youtu.be/AONbBqQULxo RELEASE DATE: In theaters, on demand, and DVD May 18th, 2021

**Until we can all head back into the theaters our “COVID Reel Value” will be similar to how you rate a film on digital platforms - 👍 (Like), 👌 (It’s just okay),  or 👎 (Dislike) Reviewed by Joseph B Mauceri

[uomo-accattivante]

Oscar Isaac in the role of painter Paul Gauguin is trouble you see coming from a mile away—the kind you live to regret falling for anyway.

He’s a holier-than-thou painting bro with a “slightly misanthropic” streak (Isaac’s generous wording), eyes glinting with disgust in his first close-up. Pipe in one hand, book in another, dressed all black save for an elegant red scarf, he slams a table and shames the Impressionists gathered around him: “They call themselves artists but behave like bureaucrats,” he huffs after a theatrical exit. “Each of them is a little tyrant.”

From a few tables away, another painter, Vincent van Gogh, watches in awe. He runs into the street after Gauguin like a puppy dog.

Within a year, a reluctant Gauguin would move in with van Gogh in a small town in the south of France, in the hope of fostering an artists’ retreat away from stifling Paris. Eight emotionally turbulent weeks later, van Gogh would lop off his left ear with a razor, distraught that his dearest friend planned to leave him for good. He enclosed the bloody cartilage in wrapping marked “remember me,” intending to have it delivered to Gauguin by a frightened brothel madam as a bizarre mea culpa. The two never spoke again.

Or so the last two years of Vincent van Gogh’s life unspool in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, itself a kind of lush, post-Impressionistic memoir of the Dutchman’s tormented time in Arles, France. (Not to mention artistically fruitful time: Van Gogh churned out 200 paintings and 100 watercolors and sketches before the ear fiasco landed him in an insane asylum.)

Isaac plays Gauguin like an irresistibly bad boyfriend, a bemused air of condescension at times wafting straight into the audience: “Why’re you being so dramatic?” he scoffs directly into the camera, inflicting a first-person sensation of van Gogh’s insult and pain.

Yet in the painter’s artistic restlessness, Isaac, 37, sees himself: “That desire to want to do something new, to want to push the boundaries, to not just settle for the same old thing and get so caught up with the minutia of what everyone thinks is fashionable in the moment.” He talks about “staying true to your own idea of what’s great.” He talks about “finding something honest.”

From another actor, the sentiment might border on banal. But Oscar Isaac—Guatemalan-born, Juilliard-trained and, in his four years since breaking through as film’s most promising new leading man, christened superlatives from “this generation’s Al Pacino” to the “best dang actor of his generation”—might really have reason to mean what he says. He’s crawling out the other end of a life-altering two years, one that’s encompassed personal highs, like getting married and becoming a father, and an acutely painful low: losing a parent.

He basked in another Star Wars premiere, mined Hamlet for every dimension of human experience, and weathered the worst notices of his career with Life Itself. Through it all, he says, he’s spent a lot of time in his head—reevaluating who he is, what he wants, and what matters most.

Right now, he’s aiming for a year-long break from work, his first in a decade, after wrapping next December’s Star Wars: Episode IX. “I’m excited to, like Gauguin, kind of step away from the whole thing for a bit and focus on things that are a bit more real and that matter to me,” he says.

Until then, he’s just trying “to keep moving forward as positively as I can,” easing into an altered reality. “You’re just never the same,” he says quietly. “On a cellular level, you’re a completely different person.”

When we talk, Isaac is in New York for one day to promote and attend the New York Film Festival premiere of At Eternity’s Gate. Then it’s back on a plane to London, where Pinewood Studios and Star Wars await.

Episode IX, the last of Disney’s new Skywalker trilogy, will see Isaac reprise the role of dashing Resistance pilot Poe Dameron, whose close relationship with Carrie Fisher’s General Leia evokes joy but also melancholy after Fisher’s untimely passing.

Each film was planned in part as a celebration and send-off to each of the original trilogy’s most beloved heroes: in The Force Awakens, Han Solo (Harrison Ford); in The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill); Fisher, meanwhile, had hoped to save Leia’s spotlight for last but passed unexpectedly long before filming began. Director J.J. Abrams, returning to close the trilogy he opened with Episode VII, has since said that unseen footage of Fisher from that previous film will ensure the General appears, however briefly.

For his part, Isaac promises the still-untitled ninth film will pay appropriate homage to Leia—and to Fisher’s sense of fun. “The story deals with that quite a bit,” he says. “It’s a strange thing to be on the set and to be speaking of Leia and having Carrie not be around. There’s definitely some pain in that.” Still, he says, compared to the first two installments, “there’s a looseness and an energy to the way that we’re shooting this that feels very different.”

“It’s been really fun being back with J.J., with all of us working in a really close way. I just feel like there’s an element of almost senioritis, you know?” he laughs. “Since everything just feels way looser and people aren’t taking it quite as seriously, but still just having a lot of fun. I think that that energy is gonna translate to a really great movie.”

Fisher’s absence is felt keenly on set, Isaac says. As if to reassure us both, however, he reiterates: “It deals with the amazing character that Carrie created in a really beautiful way.”

Two months after Fisher’s death, Isaac’s mother, Eugenia, passed away after an illness. A month after that, the actor married his girlfriend, the Danish documentarian Elvira Lind. Another month later, the couple welcomed their first son, named Eugene to honor the little boy’s grandmother. Work offered a way for a reeling Isaac to process.

There was his earth-shaking run at Hamlet, in which Isaac starred as the titular prince in mourning at New York’s Public Theater. And then there was writer-director Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself, a film met with reviews that near-unanimously recoiled from its “cheesy,” “overwrought” structure, filled with what one critic called the genuine emotion of “a damage-control ExxonMobil commercial.”

The reaction surprised Isaac. “I thought it was some of my strongest work,” he says. “Especially at that moment in my life. This guy is dealing with grief and, for me, it was a really honest way of trying to understand those emotions and to create a character who was also going through just incomprehensible grief.” He’s proud of the performance—and, in a strange way, heartened by the sour critical response.

“To be honest,” he says brightly, “there was something really comforting about it.” That the work “for me, meant something and for others, didn’t at all, it just made the whole thing not matter so much in a great way.”

“I was able to explore something and come out the other end and feel like I grew as an actor,” he explains. “That matters to me a lot. And the response to that, you know, it’s interesting of course, but it was a great example for me of how it really doesn’t dictate how I then feel about what I did.”

He thinks for a moment of performances and projects that, conversely, embarrassed him—ones that to his shock, boasted “really great notices” in the end. “You just never know, you know? It’s completely out of my control.”

Isaac is an encouraging listener in conversation, doling out interested yeahs and uh-huhs, and often warm, self-deprecating laughter. When I broach a particularly personal subject, he seems to sit up—somehow, suddenly more present. It’s about his last name.

Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada dropped both surnames before enrolling at Juilliard in 2001. He’d run into several Óscar Hernándezes at auditions by that point, and taken note of the stereotypes casting directors seemed to have in mind for them—gangsters, drug dealers, the works. So he made a change, not unlike many actors do.

Whether Óscar Hernández might have had a crack at the astonishingly diverse roles Oscar Isaac has inhabited, we’ll never know. But given Hollywood’s limiting tendencies, it’s less likely he might have played an English king for Ridley Scott in 2010’s Robin Hood, three years before his breakthrough role as a cantankerous folk singer in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis. He was an Armenian genocide survivor in last year’s The Promise, an Israeli secret agent in August’s Operation Finale, and now, he’s the Frenchman Paul Gauguin.

Star Wars’ Poe Dameron, meanwhile, or the mysterious tech billionaire in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, or the army commando in his second Garland mind-twist, Annihilation, specify no ethnicities at all. It’s the dream: to be hailed as a great actor, period, and not a “great Latino actor” first. To be appreciated for your talent, and seen as “other” rarely at all.

There’s a crawl space between those distinctions, though, where another anxiety lives. The one that makes you wonder: Am I “representing” as loudly as I should? Am I obligated to do so in my work? If I don’t, what does that make me? Questions for when you grew up in Miami, or another Latino-dominant place, reckoning with how you’re perceived in a spotlight outside of it. Isaac listens attentively. Then for several unbroken minutes, talks it out with himself.

He rewinds to yesterday, when he boarded a plane from London on which an air steward addressed him repeatedly as “señor,” unbidden. “It was just a little weird. So I started calling him ‘señor’ as well. I was like, thank you, señor!” Isaac recalls, cracking up. “But then at the same time, I had that thought. I was like, but no, I should really, you know, be proud of being a señor, I guess?”

“I think for a lot of immigrants, the idea is that you don’t always just want to be thought of as other. Like, I don’t want him to be just calling me ‘señor.’ Why?” he asks, more of the steward than himself. “Because I look like I do, so I’m not a mystery anymore? It did bring up all those kinds of questions.”

He grew up in the United States, he explains; his family came over from Guatemala City when Isaac was 5 months old. “I’m most definitely Latino. That’s who I am. But at the same time, for an actor it’s like, I want to be hired not because of what I can represent, but because of what I can create, how I can transform, and the power of what I create.”

Still, Isaac has eyes and ears and exists in the year 2018 with the rest of us. “I’m not an idiot,” he adds. “And I know that we live in a politically charged time. There’s so much terrible language, particularly right now, being used against Latinos as a kind of political weapon.” He recognizes, too, the necessity “for people to see people that look like them, because that’s a very inspiring thing.”

As a kid, Isaac looked up to Raúl Juliá, the Puerto Rican-born actor and Broadway star whose breakthrough movie role came as Gomez Addams of the ’90s Addams Family films. “But I looked up to him particularly because he was a Latino that wasn’t being pigeonholed just in Latino parts,” Isaac adds.

“I do think there is a separation between the artist and the art form, between a craftsperson and the craft,” he says, applying the difference in this context to himself. He calls it “that double thing,” as apt a term as any for that peculiar, precise tension: “Like yes, I am who I am, I came from where I come from. But my interest isn’t just in showing people stuff about myself, because I don’t find me to be all that interesting.”

“What is more interesting to me is the work that I’m able to do, and all that time that I spent learning how to do Shakespeare and how to break down plays and try to create a character and do accents,” he says. “That, for me, is what’s fun.”

But it’s always that “double thing”—reconciling two pulls and finding a way not to get torn up. He wants American Latinos “to know, to be proud that there is someone from there that is out and doing work and being recognized not just for being a Latino that’s been able to do that.” On the other hand, he’s “just like any artist who’s out there doing something. I feel like that’s…” He pauses. “That’s also something to be proud of, you know?”

Isaac’s focus lands on me again. “And I think for you too, you’re a writer and that’s what you do. Your identity is also part of that, but I think that you want the work to stand on its own, too.” His sister is “an incredible scientist. She’s at the forefront of climate change and particularly how it affects Latino communities and low-income areas. And she is a Latina scientist, but she’s a scientist, you know? She’s a great scientist without the qualifier of where she’s from. And that’s also very important.”

Paul Gauguin’s life after van Gogh’s death by gunshot at 37 revealed more repugnant depths than his dick-ish insensitivity.

He defected from Paris again, this time to the South Pacific, determined to break from the staid art scene once and for all. He “married” three adolescent brides, two of them 14 years old and the other 13, infecting each girl with syphilis and settling into a private compound he dubbed Maison de Jouir, or “House of Orgasms.” “Pretty gnarly, nasty stuff,” Isaac concedes, though he withholds judgment of the man in his performance onscreen.

To do so might have made his Gauguin—alluring, haughty, insufferable, brilliant—“not quite as complex.” Opposite Willem Dafoe’s divinely wounded depiction of van Gogh, however, he found room to play. “It was interesting to ask, well, what’s the kind of person that would feel that he’s entitled to do those kinds of things?” The man onscreen is an asshole, to be sure, but hardly paints the word “sociopath” onto a canvas. He’s simply human: “I think that anyone has at least the capacity to do” what Gauguin did, Isaac reasons.

The actor has had more than one reason to think on a person’s capacity to do terrible things in the last year. Two men he’s worked with—his Show Me a Hero director, Paul Haggis, and X-Men: Apocalypse helmer Bryan Singer—were both accused of sexual assault in the last year, part of a torrent of unmasked misconduct Hollywood’s Me Too movement brought to national attention.

“It’s a tricky thing,” Isaac says, “because you get offered jobs all the time and, I guess, what’s required now? What kind of background checks can someone do beforehand? There isn’t a ton.” (Just ask Olivia Munn.) “Especially as an actor, to make sure that the people you’re working with, surrounding yourself with, haven’t done something in their past that I guess will make you seem somehow like you’re propping up bad behavior.”

Carefully, he expresses reservations about the phenomenon of the last year. “People don’t feel like they’re getting justice through any kind of legal system, so they take it to the streets,” he ventures. “It’s basically street justice. You have no other option. And what happens when you take it to the streets is that damage occurs, and sometimes people get taken down, things get destroyed that you feel like maybe shouldn’t have.”

“But some of it had to happen, and hopefully now there’ll be more of a system in place to take these things seriously,” he says. “It seems like it is starting to happen more, but then you see things like, how can this person get away with it? How can that person? It just boggles the mind.”

He pulls back again, remembering what’s out of his control.

Tomorrow, he’ll be back in an X-Wing suit, as Poe struggles to accept the same truth. In a year, he’ll be home in New York with his wife and young son, focusing on matters more “real” than Hollywood, its artists, and its art. Whatever he chooses whenever he returns, he’ll be ready—for the critics, the questions, for this new reality.

“All I can do is just do what means something to me,” he says. “You just have to find something honest.” One expects he will.

###

[wakingupinnature]

11 is Jawsome Shark Party

Take a big chomp at this 11 is Jawsome Shark Party by Jeana Baughman of Eugenia B. Photography, out of Canonsburg, PA!

Swimming towards you with fab decor, scary shark eats and underwater fun, this event is a thrilling one!

So dive in and watch out below for these lurking details that take the show:

Jaws-inspired Birthday Cake

Jaws Movie Themed Party Invite

Shark + Beach Ball Balloon Garland

Watermelon Shark Fruit Platter

Personalized Tube Favors

The post 11 is Jawsome Shark Party appeared first on Kara's Party Ideas.

from Blog – Kara's Party Ideas https://ift.tt/3B4jjy2

[rihanguardian13]

11 is Jawsome Shark Party

Take a big chomp at this 11 is Jawsome Shark Party by Jeana Baughman of Eugenia B. Photography, out of Canonsburg, PA!

Swimming towards you with fab decor, scary shark eats and underwater fun, this event is a thrilling one!

So dive in and watch out below for these lurking details that take the show:

Jaws-inspired Birthday Cake

Jaws Movie Themed Party Invite

Shark + Beach Ball Balloon Garland

Watermelon Shark Fruit Platter

Personalized Tube Favors

The post 11 is Jawsome Shark Party appeared first on Kara's Party Ideas.

from Blog – Kara's Party Ideas https://ift.tt/3B4jjy2

[bbabybblack]

11 is Jawsome Shark Party

Take a big chomp at this 11 is Jawsome Shark Party by Jeana Baughman of Eugenia B. Photography, out of Canonsburg, PA!

Swimming towards you with fab decor, scary shark eats and underwater fun, this event is a thrilling one!

So dive in and watch out below for these lurking details that take the show:

Jaws-inspired Birthday Cake

Jaws Movie Themed Party Invite

Shark + Beach Ball Balloon Garland

Watermelon Shark Fruit Platter

Personalized Tube Favors

The post 11 is Jawsome Shark Party appeared first on Kara's Party Ideas.

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[tharakoekenbiergraduation]

In the early Hindu society, the use of flowers was secular. Indian culture enjoyed the scent of fresh flowers at ceremonies; garlands were sought after for their splendour as well as fragrance. Flowers, in the form of a mala (garland), were utilised for the adoration of gods, men and women. Garlands used by women as hair adornments are known as gajrai; fragrant flowers like the jasmine are the most preferred as hair adornments. The Ramayana refers to personal floral decorations used by women, including the use of lotus or jasmine flowers in the hair, and men wore floral garlands, especially in the bedroom. The gift of garland was connected with courting and marriage; according to the Manav Dharmashatra, or the Laws of Manu, it was permissible to send a woman flowers or perfume providing she was free. Comparably, a garland is a preferred prop, for a recurring theme Indian literature as well as painting, i.e. – ‘women seeking their lovers.’ For example, in the Ragamala (garland of musical modes) paintings, some melodies are represented as women waiting for their lover with garlands in their hands. The tradition of varamala (garland for the bridegroom) originated from the ancient ritual of svayamvara (the act of selecting a groom by self-choice), a type of marriage where a princess selected her husband from a public assembly of suitors by placing a flower garland around his neck. The most well-known svayamvara appear in the Vedic epics of Indian literature, i.e., Sita’s svayamvara in Ramayana and Draupadi’s in Mahabharata. Even today, in traditional Indian marriages, the ritual of a bride garlanding a groom marks the commencement of wedding ceremonies. 

Flowers are yet more important in religious rituals. Garlands serve as offerings to the gods in magnificent temples, in domestic rituals, and in public ceremonies of devotion. The name of the Hindu worship ritual ‘puja’ that translates to the “flower act” emphasises the significance of flowers in the religious context. In the past, it was customary for Brahmans to gather flowers after bathing. Flower trade is a booming industry in India even today and famous flower markets are a must on the bucket list for tourists visiting India. Garlands can be purchased from stalls in the town or even home delivered for the everyday puja. Having been brought up in a Brahman family, I have had the privilege to witness my father perform the puja every morning, clad in a dhoti (traditional attire) in an accurate Brahman flair. In our home, the usual offerings to the many gods of the pantheon include offerings of garlands, lighted lamps, incense and vermilion powder. On special occasions, there is an addition of sweetmeats as prasad (food offerings made to god). In temples and elaborate pujas, the offerings mentioned above are paired with coconut, clothing, jewels, perfumes, music, dance, betel, fruit, etc. The offerings are seen as a gift to be enjoyed, of the same kind that one would offer to humans. In this flowers are the food of the spirit, a sign of respect and love. At the time of performing homa (or havana, a form of fire worship) on auspicious occasions like weddings, house-warming, and other worships, the individuals taking part in the worship are also made to wear garlands. This is so because the act of taking part in a religious worship is considered honourable. 

Sweet-scented flowers are more preferred than others for making garlands. In India, the most preferred flowers for garlands are red roses, spider lilies, frangipani, paras, jasmine, and marigolds. However, there is more substance with regard to the use of flowers in a religious context. Particular blossoms are linked to particular deities: for example, a garland made of durva (grass) is preferred for Ganesha (the elephant headed god); for Hanuman (an ardent devotee of Lord Rama), a garland of ankada (crown flower); for Shiva, that of dhatura(moonflower); for goddess Kali, that of red hibiscus, etc. That is so because it is believed that the characteristics of certain flowers are more suited to specific deities. For example, the petals of the red hibiscus resemble the tongue like that goddess Kali put out when she stepped on Shiva. As per Hindu mythology, the lotus has ever been conceived as the symbol of purity and charm; it is considered that within everyone resides the spirit of the sacred lotus flower. Each colour of the lotus is sacred to one aspect of the Hindu trinity: the blush coloured lotus is the flower of sunrise, Brahma’s prayer; the blue is sacred to Vishnu, upholder of the blue noontide universe; the white is the flower of evening, the flower of death and resurrection, the emblem of Siva, destroyer and preserver. Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, sits on a lotus throne with a lotus footstool, holding a lotus flower in her hand. Flowers and their symbolism as per the Hindu mythology can become an entire subject in itself! 

Garlands are not only used to decorate gods and individuals but also roads, houses, palaces, and even cities. During auspicious occasions, the frame of the entrance, which marks the threshold of a house, is decorated with torana (garlands made of flowers and leaves) as a symbol of welcome. As per Indian customs, the initiation of a new activity—be it a passage of rite, or acquisition of new possessions such as a vehicle or a home, etc.—is graced with the usage of garlands. On the festival of Dussehra, people use garlands to decorate their tools or vehicle on which they depend for their livelihood, recalling the worship of weapons in the Ramayana. Family members embarking on or returning from long journeys are also bedecked with garlands as a sign of good luck and welcome respectively. Welcoming guests with a high degree of hospitality is ingrained in the Indian culture. Considering that the tradition of welcoming guests is based on the ancient Indian dictum Atithi Devo bhava that translates to “may the guest be a god unto you”; it is only apt that, like the gods, the guests are also welcomed with garlands as a symbol of good will and honour.

The perishable nature of a garland is indicative of the fragility of human sentiments. Nonetheless, despite their short-lived lifespan, garlands remain a medium to express sentiments of purity, honour, goodwill, love, and beauty. In such a large and diverse nation that India is, many differences occur with regard to the use of garlands. Some differences are highly local, whereas others, broadly regional. However, the symbolism imparted by flower garlands in ancient Indian culture holds true even today. 

Buchmann, Stephen. 2016. The Reason for Flowers: Their History, Culture, Biology, and How They Change Our Lives. Reprint edition. New York: Scribner.

Goody, Jack. 1993. The Culture of Flowers. CUP Archive.

Herbert, Eugenia W. 2013. Flora’s Empire: British Gardens in India. Penguin Books Limited.

Rhind, Jennifer Peace. 2013. Fragrance and Wellbeing: Plant Aromatics and Their Influence on the Psyche. 1 edition. London ; Philadelphia: Singing Dragon. Flowers, Jack Goody

[a-sam12334]

Lungs // Florence And The Machine

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Eugenia Kim Athena Floral Crown

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Eugenia Kim Athena Floral Crown ❤ liked on Polyvore (see more floral garlands)

[thefandomlesbian]

Hi, so I still haven't started Burning Garland, (I want to, and I will! But time is not currently on my side :( but I've been reading the snippets, and the way it makes me feel.... you have such a beautiful writing style! Anyways, my actual question was, how did you choose the names? Was it all random, or is there a story, or is it because of what they symbolise/mean? I don't know, it's silly, but last night I kinda just went: oh! I like hearing about these things, and yeah!

Hi! This is such a sweet ask! (It's also the kick in the balls I've been needing to keep working on Burning Garland, haha.)

So I'm one of those writers where I tend to just chuck placeholder names at my works until I find "the right one" and the placeholder ends up sticking. But for Burning Garland, I didn't do that exactly!

Steve's name is a reference to the 1928 novel, The Well of Loneliness, one of the first works of lesbian fiction. The novel follows main character Stephen Gordon, an upper class Englishwoman who comes to terms with her existence as a masculine lesbian, much like the author. It was important to the plot when I was picking names for Burning Garland that Steve have a traditionally male name, so I thought this could be a proper nod to an older lesbian piece. Martin, nickname Marty, was also a contender, but Steve won out.

The other names aren't quite as involved. Eugenia is just an older name that I love, and I love the nickname Genie, which is something Steve eventually lands on with her. Malcolm was named after my favorite dog at the shelter when I started writing (Malcolm has since been adopted!), and because it was relevant for Steve to have named their son after her ex-wife, I made the ex-wife's name Mallory.

I threw in some Google searches for Eugenia's husband, in-laws, and sons, to dig up things that I thought would be pertinent to their patriarchal cult. Crowe and Orion are racist/white supremacist dog whistles, and the other names are biblical/holy trinity references. (And I think this goes without saying given the nature of the story, but Eugenia didn't have any say in naming her children and stopped being educated at the age of thirteen when she was married against her will; she is not complicit and is actively trying to escape an abusive household.)

The other names were placeholders that may change, except Joan, who has really grown on me as a character; she ended up nosing her way into one of my RPs with an entirely different base character, so Joan is here to stay.

I don't tend to get too caught up on names, but for this story in particular, I had some fun assigning monikers to these characters. Thank you for asking!