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c-is-for-circinate · 4 years ago

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For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

#I don't actually know how to tag this #representation #maybe?#C needs help feeding the dinosaurs #because this is very much about being a fandom old #probably also #driveby meta attack #because that's where I keep my impromptu rambles #CR spoilers #technically I guess?#there's one line that references the finale #fandom history

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royalpain16 · 4 years ago

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A Brief History of Princess Diana’s Fiery Family

HADLEY HALL MEARES

JUNE 29, 2021 4:04 PM

According to Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles. Indeed, the role of the aristocratic family of Diana, Princess of Wales, for centuries has been that of royal disrupter. This legacy stretches to the 14th century, with their disputed ancestor Hugh Despenser’s alleged torrid affair with King Edward II and Despenser’s eventual brutal execution. Clever, charming, and fiery, much like Diana, her ancestors learned how to play the royal game—and then ripped up the rule book.

“Nearly 300 years on, my father would talk about him with an ashamed, resigned chuckle,” Charles, Earl Spencer, writes in The Spencers: A Personal History of an English Family of the mercurial family blackguard Robert Spencer (1641-1702). While the second earl would secure the Spencers’ status as political power players for centuries, he was also “cunning, supple [and] shameless” with “a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirt.”

Sunderland’s ascendancy began in the 1670s when he orchestrated King Charles II’s secret pact with England’s traditional enemy, France. Securing large payments from the French king and court for Charles II and himself, Sunderland was rewarded when he was appointed secretary of state.

After double-crossing Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, Sunderland cleverly insinuated himself with new King James II. He converted to Catholicism to appeal to the very Catholic king, and became one of James II’s closest advisers. But the king, though he valued the brilliant man’s diplomatic skills, was fully aware of Sunderland’s duplicity.

James II finally dismissed Sunderland from service in 1688, and he was later exiled. But in December of that year, James II was deposed by the Glorious Revolution, bringing his daughter Mary and her husband, William, Prince of Orange, (with whom Sunderland had conspired) to the throne.

Again in favor, he was rewarded with the post of Lord Chamberlain before retiring from public life in 1697. “Too much cannot be said of his talents,” one historian noted. “Nor too little of his principles.”

The Boss: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

The daughter of Parliamentarian Richard Jennings and his scandalous wife, Frances, the passionate, brilliant Sarah (1660-1744) started out as a maid of honor in the court of James II. She became the most powerful woman in England, through her magnetic control of the future Queen Anne, a comparative dullard who worshipped her and perhaps became her lover. (You may remember their relationship from the 2018 movie The Favourite, in which Rachel Weisz played Sarah.)

For Sarah, her friendship with Anne was a way to advance her family and her liberal Whig politics, which she shared with her equally powerful husband, the military hero the Duke of Marlborough. “I hated tyranny by nature,” she wrote in one version of her memoir, according to Ophelia Field’s The Favourite: The Life of Sarah Churchill. “I thought mankind was born free, & if Princes were ordained to make their subjects happy; so I had always in me an invincible aversion to slavery, & to flattery.”

In 1700, Sarah arranged the marriage of her distant relation Charles Spencer, the future Third Earl of Sunderland, with her favorite daughter, Anne. Over the next 44 years, she would shape the family fortunes—and gift them with their famed auburn-tinted locks.

According to The Favourite: The Life of Sarah Churchill, with Anne’s accession to the throne in 1702 Sarah reached the peak of her power, racking up virtually every important post in Queen Anne’s suite, dictating cabinet appointments, and encouraging the ire of satirists.

But cracks would soon begin to appear. Queen Anne was naturally inclined to support the royalist Tories and was encouraged in these leanings by a new favorite named Abigail. A vindictive Sarah became a master propagandist, leaking insinuations about their relationship to the press, and allegedly threatening to blackmail Anne over the contents of their highly charged correspondence.

Sarah was finally forced to vacate her royal apartments in 1711, but she was not down for the count. A brilliant businesswoman, she became the richest woman in England, according to Field, controlling her Spencer grandchildren with promises of money and power. Centuries before the modern Diana and Prince Charles wed, Sarah even attempted to marry her favorite granddaughter—Lady Diana Spencer—to the broke Frederick, Prince of Wales, with a promise of 100,000-pound dowry. The plan fell through.

But not all her grandchildren were willing to be manipulated by their formidable matriarch. Sarah claimed her equally tough granddaughter Anne “[deserved] to be burnt,” and she disinherited her grandson Charles, Fifth Earl of Sunderland, which prompted him to write her:

As for putting me out of your will…I neither expected or desired to be in it. I…assure Your Grace that this is the last time I shall ever trouble you by letter or conversation. I am Your Grace’s grandson, Sunderland.

Sarah’s letter back was brutal. “You end that you are my grandson. Which is indeed a very melancholy truth…had you not been my grandson, you would have been in as bad a condition as you deserve to be.” Fitting words from a woman immortalized by Alexander Pope thusly:

Sixty years the World has been her Trade, The wisest Fool much Time has ever made. From loveless youth to unrespected age, No Passion gratify’d except her Rage.

The Star: Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

From the start there was something special about Georgiana (1757-1806), the coddled daughter of John, First Earl Spencer and his wife, Margaret. The captivating teenager married the sophisticated William, Duke of Devonshire, in 1774, and quickly became a sensation in London’s highest circles. “[The Duchess of Devonshire] effaces all,” Horace Walpole wrote, according to The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation. “Her youth, figure, flowing good nature, sense…and modest familiarity, make her a phenomenon.”

Georgiana soon found her cold, older husband was not nearly as interested in her as everyone else. Luckily, she had many talents with which to amuse herself. She set fashions of the day, developed her own haughty way of speaking, known as the “Cavendish drawl,” and became dear friends with Marie Antoinette, according to Amanda Foreman’s The Duchess. She was also a successful novelist, and an amateur scientist.

But it was Georgiana’s brilliance as a Whig operative that would turn her into a target of the press. Constantly brainstorming with her friend, George, Prince of Wales, and political soulmate Charles James Fox, she hosted countless summits at her home. Georgiana was, she later wrote, “in the midst of the action,” seeing

“partys rise and fall—friends be united and disunited—the ties of love give way to caprice, to interest, and to vanity…”

Georgiana also worked essentially as a campaign manager for Whig candidates. During the 1784 election she bravely canvassed the street for Fox, charming Londoners with her common touch. “During her canvass,” Walpole wrote, “the Duchess made no scruple of visiting some of the humblest of electors, dazzling and enchanting them by the fascination of her manner, the power of her beauty and the influence of her high rank.”

According to Foreman’s The Duchess, there were rumors Georgiana kissed men in exchange for votes, leading to scurrilous cartoons distributed by the Tory opposition. “You have almost unavoidably amassed a great deal of useless trash—gathered weeds instead of flowers,” Lady Spencer wrote Georgiana. “You live so constantly in public you cannot live for your own soul.”

Her mother was worried about more than bad press. The hard-partying Georgiana was one of a long line of Spencer gambling addicts. She also had a laudanum dependency, and a scandalous ménage à trois arrangement with her husband and the disreputable Bess Foster. Calamity struck in 1792, when Georgiana became pregnant by the future Prime Minister Charles Grey and was banished from the country for a while.

Georgiana returned to her husband and children two years later. For the remainder of her life she battled ill health, but continued her role as a political operative, aware of what she could have been. “Would I were a man,” she mused to Sir Philip Francis. “To unite my talents, my hopes, my fortune, with [Charles James Fox’s], to make common cause, and fall or rule.”

From the start, the Spencer legacy laid heavily on John Spencer’s (1924-1992)

shoulders. As a child he was constantly cowed by his genealogically obsessed, brutal father, who considered him an intellectual lightweight. “He used to dread the train journey home [from boarding school],” his son, Diana’s brother Charles, writes. “He would hide in shadows of the train carriage, hoping his father had forgotten to collect him.”

But by the 1940s, John’s heroism as a captain in the Royal Scots Greys during World War II, and his tall, good looks and simple charm made him a most eligible bachelor. According to the documentary When the Spencers Met the Monarchy, he was even once looked at by the palace as a suitor to the future Queen Elizabeth II.

Instead, in 1954, Queen Elizabeth II (whom he served as an equerry) attended his wedding to heiress Frances Roche at Westminster Abbey. The couple had four children—Sarah, Jane, Diana, and Charles (another son, John, died shortly after birth). They were a mismatched pair, he rather dull and she vivacious, but John was reportedly blindsided when he discovered Frances was cheating on him. “How many of those years were happy?” he later said of his marriage. “I thought all of them until the moment that we parted.”

After the dissolution of his marriage, John became Diana and Charles’s primary caregiver and developed what Lord Glenconner once termed “an unfortunate raw sausage look.” Although he was stiff and old-fashioned, he attempted to be an involved father, and Diana was determined to be his “comforting angel,” according to The Diana Chronicles.

In 1975, John’s fortunes turned when his curmudgeonly father died, making him the Eighth Earl Spencer. According to Andrew Morton, he also inherited a 2.25-million-pound bill for death duties as well as 80,000-pounds-a-year running costs for Althorp, the family estate in Northamptonshire. He also found a helpmate to run Althorp in the fascinating Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, whom he married in 1976 without even telling his children. “We weren’t invited. ‘Not grand enough,’” his daughter Sarah quipped to a reporter at the time.

Despite the flippant tone, John’s betrayal would cause a deep rift in the family. A severe stroke in 1978 caused him to become frail and even more distant from his children. “He was one person before and he was certainly a different person after,” Princess Diana said, according to Morton. “He’s remained estranged but adoring since. If he comes and sees me he comes and sees me, if he doesn’t he doesn’t. It’s not my problem anymore. It’s his.”

The Rebel: Frances Shand Kydd

Frances Ruth Roche (1936-2004) wasn’t from as noble stock as the Spencers, but her family was far richer. Her father Maurice, fourth Baron Fermoy, was a conservative politician and a “terrible bottom pincher,” Lady Glenconner says in The Diana Chronicles, while her wealthy mother, Ruth, was a scheming, incurable snob and great friend of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

It was Ruth who encouraged a teenage Frances to marry the much older John Spencer, despite her tender age. “When you meet someone at the age of 15 and get engaged just five months out of school at 17, you can look back and ask, ‘Was I adult?’” she asked years later. “I sure thought I was at the time.”

The couple cultivated a farm at her family home of Park House in Norfolk, but Frances was quickly disillusioned with life in the country as a young aristocratic mother. “I’m so bloody bored with opening village fetes,” she told a friend. It was no wonder that the fiery Frances wanted more. “She was very attractive and blonde and sexy with such joie de vivre and fun about her,” a friend told Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles.

By the 1960s, Frances escaped to London more and more. She also started having an affair with a married bon vivant named Peter Shand Kydd. In 1967, she separated from John and left her two youngest children with him. “The biggest disruption was when Mummy decided to leg it. That’s the vivid memory we have—the four of us,” Princess Diana later told Andrew Morton.

Frances fought for custody of the children but lost to John, partially due to her own mother, Baroness Fermoy, who testified against her. Social outcasts, the Shand Kydds eventually moved to the coast of Scotland, and their warm household was a refuge for her children when they were allowed to visit. “Diana and I adored it for its wild beauty and the fun we had on the sea, lobster potting and mackerel-fishing,” Charles Spencer recalls.

Frances counseled against her youngest daughter’s marriage to Prince Charles, seeing too many parallels to her own first marriage—including her mother’s encouragement of the match. According to Brown, after voicing her concerns, Diana said, “Mummy, you don’t understand. I love him.” Frances replied, “Love him, or love what he is?” To which Diana asked rhetorically, “What’s the difference?”

The Grande Dames: Barbara Cartland and Raine Spencer

Perhaps no writer influenced generations of British romantics—including Princess Diana—more than Barbara Cartland (1901-2000). The author of 723 books, Cartland had, in the words of Brown, a “penchant for pink, her meringue coiffure and false eyelashes,” which betrayed a steely, snobbish character that was tough as nails.

Cartland would pass both her strength and outrageousness on to her daughter Raine (1929-2016), whom she raised to be, in Brown’s words, a “social monster baby.” Not only did she nab Gerald Legge, Ninth Earl of Dartmouth, but she also forged a career as a conservative politician, becoming the youngest person to ever serve on the Westminster City Council.

“She never took any prisoners, and never took no for an answer,” a friend recalled.

In the early 1970s, Raine set her sights on the divorced John Spencer. “She wanted to marry Daddy; that was her target and that was it,” Princess Diana recalled. According to sources, “Acid Raine” alienated the children and old friends. She also took the reins of Althorp, allegedly selling off family treasures and decorating it in her and her mother’s garish style.

During the lead-up to Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles in 1981, what to do with the clownish Cartlands became a national conversation. According to Brown:

Alexander Chancellor, the editor of The Spectator, wrote an editorial in which he called for a special Act of Parliament to ban Raine and her mother from St. Paul’s Cathedral, adding, “For it would be more than a little unfair on everybody if these two absurdly theatrical ladies were permitted to turn a moving national celebration into a pantomime.” Diana was so afraid the pantomime might indeed take place, she pressed for stratagems to blackball Cartland.

In the end Raine was invited but her mother was not. This would not be the most awkward Spencer wedding—that prize would go to Charles Spencer’s first wedding in 1989, where Diana scolded Raine for her rudeness to their mother. “If only you knew how much we all hated you for what you’ve done, you’ve ruined the house, you spend Daddy’s money and what for?” she hissed.

For her part, Raine would tire of being the scapegoat for the Spencer dysfunction. “I’m absolutely sick of the ‘wicked stepmother’ lark,” she said, according to Kitty Kelley. “You’re never going to make me sound like a human being, because people like to think I’m Dracula’s mother.”

Surprisingly, Diana would come to agree. Toward the end of her life, she grew close to her stepmother, whose no-nonsense advice she came to admire. However, it appears there was no love lost between Diana and her former favorite writer, who would quip of the royal breakup, “Of course, you know where it all went wrong. She wouldn’t do oral sex.”

The Role Model: Lady Sarah McCorquodale

Born in 1955, Sarah Spencer was the oldest, and wildest of John and Frances Spencer’s brood. Reckless and salty from an early age, Brown writes that she was kicked out of boarding school and rode her horse into her grandmother’s living room. “Sarah always had to be the best at everything,” a friend recalled. “The best car, the wittiest put-down, and the best dress.”

She also had a constant shadow in her youngest sister, Diana. “I idolized my eldest sister and I used to do all her washing when she came back from school. I packed her suitcase, ran her bath, made her bed—the whole lot. I did it all and I thought it was wonderful,” Diana told Morton.

In 1977, Sarah, who had suffered from anorexia, according to Brown, met Prince Charles at Ascot. The two began dating, and it was Sarah who introduced Diana to the prince during a shooting party at Althorp (“I’m cupid,” she’d later quip). “I remember,” Diana later said, “feeling desperately sorry for him that my sister was wrapped around his neck because she’s quite a tough old thing.”

But Sarah’s romance with the prince would soon end. She made the mistake of talking to reporters. Not only did she reportedly confess to having “thousands of boyfriends,” she also disparaged Charles as a hopeless romantic. “I wouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love, whether it was a dustman or the King of England,” she said. “If he asked me I would turn him down.”

This cardinal sin would cause Sarah to be promptly frozen out, with Charles reportedly informing her, “You’ve just done something extremely stupid.” And so, only three years later Charles would begin to court the blossoming Diana. Perhaps there was a hint of jealousy in her alleged counsel to a despondent Diana to not pull out of the wedding over his relationship with Camilla: “Bad luck, ‘Duch. Your face is on the tea towels so you’re too late to chicken out.”

#princess diana #lady diana spencer #the spencers #the spencer family #a brief history into princess Diana's fiery family

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closetdwellertales · 5 years ago

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a heart more loyal

Whoever finds this, please know: I was a knight, once, and the land had not known a heart more loyal.

My friend (I hope I am allowed to call you so, for your hands will soon grant me the greatest gift), I know the purpose of your visit. I know what is coming, but I cannot find fear within me. My hand writes these lines as steadily as always, and the quill shivers, its trusty iron end almost dulled down. It has followed me through victories and failures. It has written my story in orders and signatures under the death sentences. I never cared to leave another memoir, for I never desired fame – and I do not desire it now. Please, read carefully, as it is a will; and even the worst of the worst are allowed a death wish.

I was a knight, once. You do not know my name, yet I had one, and it was spoken with respect. I never desired fame, but it followed me like a loyal dog: it slept by my bed and licked my hands. I was among best of the best. I dined with kings and made friends with jesters. People and beasts alike feared the cry of my horn. I had a bleeding heart, you see, easily driven to sympathy. Never did I ignore a reaching hand, a cry for help; never did I pass a battle, either.

I entered maturity under the welcoming glow of my lucky star. I did not know strife past what a heart may bear, nor did anguish touch my soul in times of struggle. Respected by most, loved by many, I basked in peace; and I knew that, should the age make my limbs leaden and my eyes weak, I would spend the rest of my days as a relic of a troubled past, amusing my children and grandchildren with the tales of my glory. No regrets, no shame would follow me into the old age. Perhaps at times I would glance at my armor, still shiny but abandoned, and feel a rush of blood, a useless quickening of the heart longing for another battle; but the pain would be soothed, and hollowness filled, by the warmth of my loving home.

I was a knight once, but the armor and the shield are no more. They were never displayed with pride, telling many a tale of courage and victory. Instead, forgotten, they rusted away. The dust under your feet may as well be the sad remnants of their shine. I took a piece of my broken sword and forged it into the iron tip for my quill, and it remained just as deadly as when it had been glistening at my hilt. The feasts and fights of my glorious youth are but a bleak memory. They thundered away and fell silent, only a distant echo still ringing in the vacant halls; and not a soul is left to listen.

My dear friend, I know the surprise you must feel. Now you must be looking with anger and confusion at the results of my toll: the dark towers of my castle, the blood-soaked fields of the land I once called mine, the rising smoke that threatens to overcome the heavens above. I am a beast among beasts, a plight among plights, a demon among men. In a dark fortress I sit, ruling over my domain with iron and fire, and not a heart may turn to me in sympathy; no lips may utter my name without disgust.

If I truly was a knight, you must say, what could have brought such a descent? What made me turn away from worldly pleasures and seek satiation in pain and suffering? Had it been a bitter love, a broken heart? Had it been revenge against a mightier foe? Had a friend betrayed me in times of need, or a liege robbed me of what was rightfully mine?

No, my friend, none of these were the reason of my fall from grace. My love stayed faithful, my friends loyal, my patrons generous; and no foe was mightier than the hand that brought them down. No, there is no need to seek the root in other places, for me myself was the reason.

Perchance you have heard of the old fairy king of the Losol forest. Know that it was my sword that brought him down, and my dagger that drew the last drops of blood from his stilling heart. Yet the old beast did not die at once, for the other folk does not live as we do; and, before his eyes closed to the daylight once and for all, he managed to utter a curse; and what curse!

I was born under a lucky star, but I did not know that its light was to shine no more. I took his crown from him, and it turned to useless twigs in my hands; I took his gold, and it turned to leaves. Oh, it was a dreary day when the fairy king cursed me. Ever before, he said, my life was a blessing; now it was to be torture. Ever before my every wish would come true; now, the curse would twist my fate and give me the opposite of what I sincerely desired. I took his life, he said, and so I was to live no more.

I was reckless, young; I did not believe the dying beast. Yet, since that dreadful day, my victories turned sour, my gains bitter. The kindness of my heart turned poisonous. When I desired peace, war would break out; when I wished for love, animosity would slither in. My old friends were thrown into poverty and grief, and their wails rang clear over the ashes. I wanted my loved ones to feast and celebrate; instead, a different feast was prepared for them, and only vultures attended. My home was broken, my beloved land in disarray. Oh, how many times I cursed my pitiful existence! Not even the fairy king could hate me more, dying, than I did still alive.

In vain, I tried to break the chain that fettered me. I turned to magicians, old wizards, witches who dabble in light and darkness both; but none of them could vanquish the curse that was sealed with a dying breath. The more I wished it gone, the stronger it remained. I despaired, I fought, but all for nothing. In the dead of the night, I could hear the voice of the dead fairy king; he laughed, he rejoiced in my pain!

Thus, I had only one way left; and I forged salvation from misery.

I taught myself to hate, to despise everything good and light; I learned fury, I planted seeds of darkness within my soul. Oh, how it ached, how it resisted! – but I was just as relentless with myself as I used to be with my worst enemies. I gave myself every repulsive habit, every deep and twisted desire that I knew in those dead by my hand. I fled from company. I threw curses at those approaching me until I was shunned from everywhere. I looked upon my past friends and lovers with repulsion; I kept reminding myself of every bit of luck they had until envy burned out love. I tore away my heart and replaced it with bronze. I weeded out every sprout of sympathy. I ached for love and friendship to blossom, so I denied myself both and bore the torture of seeing my familiars prosper. What a miserable, pitiful creature I was!

Yet I was not done; for my love brought endless destruction that my hatred could not so easily correct.

I sought souls as dark as mine; I found unity in them. I sowed the hatred and fed on the harvest. They were naturally repulsive; tender from birth, I had to learn their ways; and experience overcame nature. They obeyed me easily. Dirt commanded dirt, and the disease spread. I was repulsed; I gained respect. I wished them ill; they prospered. Knowing the art of battle, I gave them much and promised them more, and my troops brought me victory after bitter victory.

I ached for peace, so I commanded war.

How my soul grieved! – for every soul grieves its own death. I dissected it, replacing its very nature, and the seams never healed. Yet I was getting used to my misery. I delighted in things most unholy; what should have brought anguish, made me laugh. I ordered this fortress built, and from its heart I sent away the doves of fake treaties and ravens of attacks. I spilt blood to obtain and burned the spoils. I learned the art of magic, and the terror of my reign grew stronger. Even my very servants learned to fear me, for the darkness of my soul overshadowed theirs.

Yet I was not done.

I ordered every story about my knightly days burned; I took down memorials; I tore away pages. I threw my very name into the waters of oblivion and watched it sink. Who would suspect that such a grisly figure had known days of camaraderie, of love and fame? The knight was gone; only the king remained.

Even so, after all these years, my soul ached. Sometimes, after a day of dark madness, I would see a single ray of light come through the heavy clouds and weep; useless, empty tears! – like the rotten and disgusting ichor seeping from a fevered wound. I wished for love and respect; I obtained hatred and repulsion. I wished for salvation; I saw the entire land unite against me. I saw heroes rise to strike me down, the cries of their horns making my heart stir. Their steeds trampled my burned fields, their swords stroke down my armies. Young hearts, reckless hearts; I cursed every one of them, knowing that my curses will never come true. I wanted to take them down; now I see my armies broken, my fortress besieged. You must be one of them, my friend. I heard your horn at the gate; I must hurry.

For, as you see, lately I tried very hard to wish for life.

I spent hours upon hours, seeking enjoyment in my existence, thinking of the smallest blessings, the bleakest gifts; and now I want to keep living more than ever. Just as a single ray of sunlight finds its way through the storm clouds and lights the silenced battlefield, the sunset of my life is lit up with sublime clarity. I know that, with my death, this land will finally enjoy peace and happiness. My heart trembles with bitter bliss. Please, hurry, my trusted quill, for I will be needing you no more; you have served me well, you may lay to rest. Please, hurry, my friend; let your sword be as sharp as mine was when it cut down the fairy king, and let your luck be mightier. Don’t hesitate; deliver the greatest gift you could have given me; I am here, I am waiting.

My friend, if I may ask for a single favor: erase all my victories, all my bloody gains. Take down my kingdom, destroy my fortress, don’t leave a sign of anything that misery constructed; let dust and grass cover the battlefields; let rust eat away the obsolete swords. Oblivion is the highest reward I could ask for; let the terrors and fire wash away as a heavy dream before the dawn.

Farewell, my friend! My heart aches for rest; please, bury it in the ground of my beloved, hated, tortured land.

I served it well, and it had never known a heart more loyal.

#storytime #fae #fairy #knight #magic #original story

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dailyaudiobible · 5 years ago

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02/02/2020 DAB Transcript

Exodus 15:19-17:7, Matthew 22:1-33, Psalms 27:1-6, Proverbs 6:20-26

Today is the 2nd day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it's great to be here as we twist the knob and throw open the gateway and step into this brand-new shiny week. And it's a brand-new shiny month. So, new beginnings all around and we have a story to tell and it's certainly telling the story of the Bible as we read through it each and every day but it's also the story of our lives and we will write that story this week with our decisions and choices and attitudes and we will write the story of this month with the same things. And thank God, right friends? Thank God we have His word to counsel us. So, this week we’ll read from the Voice Translation and we’ll be picking up where we left off in the book of Exodus where the children of Israel have crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and the Egyptian army, they didn't. They didn't quite cross and it wasn't dry and so they ended up at the bottom of the sea. And, so, today Exodus chapter 15 verse 19 to 17 verse 7.

Prayer:

Thank You, Father for bringing us into this new week and into this new month. And again…again, we thank You, we thank You for last month, we thank You for bringing us safely through January and for all that You did in our lives through Your word and that month. And, so, we have great anticipation as we continue the story forward and we invite You fully. New beginnings, new month, new week and we give it to You in advance. Come Holy Spirit we pray in Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website and that is home base and its where you find out what’s going on around here. So, like I say every day, be sure to stay connected in any way the cam or any way that you want to.

Reminding you that the Prayer Wall also lives there in the Community section and that is a fantastic place to go and receive prayer but also to offer prayer. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There's a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or if you prefer the mail, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request a comment you can hit the Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top or there are a number of phone numbers you can use. In the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number to call. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078. If you are in Australia 61-3-8820-5459 is number to call.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning, I am Surely Goodness and Mercy from Sarasota Florida I’ve listened to Daily Audio Bible for several weeks now and I enjoy being a part of this group. I’m responding to that prayer request of Paula the child advocate from LA area. Paula’s ladies group friend Dolores committed suicide this week and they thought she was better after her son’s sudden death. Dolores had announced a Christmas for daughter’s engagement the wedding to be held later this year. Father God help Dolores and her Father to heal from this tragedy. Lord God I ask that You’ll please heal this daughters broken heart, give her wisdom and insight into the grieving process, and let her not go into blame but to forgive even though she’s been robbed of her mom and robbed of her mom being mother of the bride and being a grandma and seeing the birth of these grandchildren and I pray God that she’ll not lose the dad as well. Holy Father help this daughter not to blame herself or blame God or blame others. Help her not to linger with anger over these losses. Help this daughter to walk with You and to look to You Father God for answers for the future and comfort and peace. May she enter to God’s Sabbath rest. I pray that she’ll, as an orphan, she’ll not be overwhelming reality to her but to realize that she’s grafted into God’s family. I ask for family members to rally around and be a strong support to her and the ladies that have known Dolores for these 30 years will have a soften heart in a powerful way toward this daughter. If it’s God’s will, please raise up another mom substitute that can encourage and love and step into a significant role of this Young lady as she goes through her wedding plans and wedding celebrations. And then I have a prayer request. My husband’s niece Gail had emergency back surgery this week. They live in New York and have two small children. My prayer request is that the nerve function in her leg return, that everything will be knit properly, and pain will continue…

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is J from Nashville. So, I woke up this morning with some amazing news. Those of you who have been listening for a while know my story and I have, through a friend of a friend, located the state in which my ex-wife and my child are located. So, what I’d like to do is I’d like to pray that God will give me guidance, discernment and clarity and a means by which to have a relationship with my child. Lord Jesus, I thank You Father for this glorious day and this wonderful overwhelming news. Father, every bone in my body wants to completely relocate in the next 30 seconds to that state so that I can be close. But Lord I don’t want to do these things in my own power, in my own wisdom, in my own strength, in my own desires. I want to do them according to Your will. So, Lord I pray that You will send Your Holy Spirit before me and soften my ex-wife’s heart, clear her mind, and open her eyes spiritually to allow her to see me the way that You see me. All the hurt and pain that I’ve caused as undoubtedly caused serious trauma. I pray Lord that You will begin to mend that trauma in a way that will allow a relationship with this child. I pray that in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hello family this is Cindy the flute player. I’ve called in before and been a listener for a long time, but I wanted to call and apologize to my family. When I called in, I was discouraged and just wanted to give up and after 40 years of being a believer I haven’t given up and actually I feel like I’m in the season now where I have seen so many answers to prayer. The one that steepest to my heart, well there’s a couple, I haven’t seen but I am trusting Him. I’m trusting that He will and is moving and I just keep speaking my heart to Him. And I want you to know out there family that I’m listening to your heart and I’m praying for you instantly when you’re talking and you’re bringing your requests to us and I especially have Esther and Anonymous on my heart and want you to know that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit reminds me to pray for you and to not give up and that He sees you and that He loves you and so do I even though we’ve never met. And I want…I just…I’m so thankful for all of you out there and thankful for this format. It really is beautiful. And there’s lots going on on this reservation and by heart is deeply troubled for the children but I’m sure that’s why He’s planted me here. And, so, you know, God bless all of you. I hope, sometime I get to meet you. I’ll be able to come to Tennessee someday. All right. Love you. God bless you.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is for Danny in southern Oregon and I just started listening to the Community Prayer for the weekend and…whew…I’ve got five hours to go but you were in the beginning and I heard you talk about your mom being very sick and that you’re gonna read scriptures over her. I don’t know if that was my suggestion, but I know I had said it. And I just wanted to share with you that at the end of my father’s life he started to see dark figures and he looked at me and he said there are dark men behind me, and they’ve come to get me. And I looked at him and I swore up, but I won’t swear here and I said the bleep they ain’t. And I canceled all of my appointments that day and I started praying with everything I had out loud. He was in and out of consciousness and I was just praying, bringing down the Angels because I said I will not lose my father to whatever has come to get him. And the nurse came into the room and she looked at me and she said is everything all right in here and I said I think it’s…we’re at the end and he is seeing dark figures who have come to get him and she locked eyes with me and she said well we need Jesus. And I said yes we do. And she worked all day and then at the end of her shift she came in. She prayed with me and we…we brought…we opened the doors of heaven and I felt Angels around us and I just read and read and read. I didn’t sleep that night. I went home and I changed it to work out cloths, I broke out into a sweat. I mean I was up all night and the next morning was when he mouthed back the Psalm back to me. And, so, Danny I just tell you, you fight and Lord I just I build up my sister Danny to fight for her mother’s soul and that what she reads over her mother would yield fruit in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Hi this is Cheyenne butterfly from Bakersfield I haven’t called in for a long time. I used to call regarding my son JJ. Today’s situation is he got off the spice, still using straight drugs. He has a mental illness. He has schizophrenia and he has a pay service, got his pay service to give him $2000 for a car, brought the car home, the car was worth $200, couldn’t run. I couldn’t get…convince him to let me have the contact person who would sell him a car that wasn’t worth $200 and couldn’t get smogged, couldn’t get registered, car broke down. Some other drug dealers or drug addicts sold him another car for $500. He lived in it for about three weeks. Cops arrested him for Grand Theft Auto for stealing the car. Now he’s sitting in jail. He has a mental illness. He needs lots of prayer. I’m leaving a whole lot of the story out, but the bottom line is this child needs God, he needs prayer, he needs redemption, he needs somebody in his life. God pray that somebody in jail is a Christian and helps him because he won’t listen to me. I’m just calling and asking for prayer for this child his name is JJ. He’s almost 30, he has schizophrenia, he’s been homeless on and off now for the last 10 years. I’m just asking for major prayer for this child. I listen to you daily, been listening to daily for the last couple years and I know the power of prayer on this is strong. I’ve watched it happen. I thank you so much and I thank the Daily Audio Bible for providing us the service. I love you all and thank you so much.

Good morning DABber family this is Walta the Burning Bush that will not be Devoured for the Glory of our God and King. I’m calling for, I believe, Cara and her son Nitch from Denver. I just want you to know that I heard your request and I prayed for you and it meant something special to me because I struggled with what you’re going through. I guess it’s been, gosh since, my son was 17 years old. He’s 22 now he struggled for three straight years with addiction and had problems with the law. And praise God, for the last two years he’s been sober. He’s…he’s back in college and he’s counseling other people with addiction. He’s actually found the Lord. I’m staring this testimony with you so that you know that there is nothing impossible for God. While I was walking through my struggled God reminded me that my son Emmanuel is not just my son, he’s God son who God entrusted to me. God entrusted Nitch to you and now you give him back to God as Abraham gave his son back to God. He is God’s son and God will watch over him and He will protect him while he’s out there in his prodigal phase. But know that God loves niche more than you do and be at peace in your heart knowing that God is faithful to do exceedingly abundantly above our expectation. If God can heal and deliver my son from addiction, if God can save him, God can do the same for Nitch and I’m praying that through this testimony that you will overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony I pray that you will be encouraged. I pray that you will be encouraged. Look for Insight, the Insight program online and see if you can find a community with which you can just find support because there are many families struggling with this addiction problem. I love you my sister. I can’t wait to hear your testimony and I will continue to pray for him until I hear…

Hi DAB family this is Tahara in Southern California and there are a few people that are on my heart today. I’ll try to do this quickly. Cara from Denver your call really resonated with me. I have two sisters who were out and using for years and it is so hard. I had a friend once say that loving an addict is like hugging a chainsaw. So, I just pray…first of all I want to thank God for your sobriety and I pray that He will give you supernatural peace and secondly I pray for your son, that God will protect him until he is ready to just fall to his knees in that broken openness that we need for healing. There was a woman who did not leave her name, she has a 22-year-old nephew with lupus and possibly dyskinesia and I pray for complete healing and that God would protect him from despair. I also pray that her nephew would recognize his unique placement to let Jesus love shine through him. Sienna, I heard so much fear in your prayer request. I just want to give you a hug girl. I pray that God will redeem the incredible difficult circumstances that you’re going through. I also pray that He will give you strength to hold healthy boundaries and also for healing over your body. I pray that He would bless you with peace and trust in Him. Diana Davis you are in my heart and on my mind. I pray for your healing as well as for your two wonderful sons. I pray that God will bless them and protect them and surround them with loving people. I pray also for Isaiah who was given mind altering drugs and abused and I just pray for the healing of his mind and soul. Becky from Orlando thank you for the praise report that you shared. I just...I really needed to hear that. I needed a reminder of God’s power. And finally, God’s Smile in England, thank you for your brief and joy filled testimony, it really touched my heart and made me smile.

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toyfrog · 6 years ago

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“Parents don’t stay angry with their children. Or their grandchildren.”

“And that's who you are to us. It doesn't matter who you were. This is who you are and who you'll always be.” “It’s like Lipstick on a pig.” Ahhh Brimley be still my heart... Sending out a hug to Lizzington fandom. This is not a “I told you so,” post that would be mean. However this *is* and *always* has been the direction of the show since season one with a surprising twist. Was the show wrong to manipulate you guys? Yes. But at this level of you think there’s any hope or prayer for a coupling you’re not going to get it. You never were. The dynamic has always been the same- Liz/Ressler the love couple: Red/Liz father/daughter it’s complicated love story. This wasSeason 2 until Eggold’s story disrupted the flow, the pace, and greedy writers room took a surgical knife and gutted solid portions of story, left characters in limbo. It sucked. “I'm not conflicted about killing you. I'm conflicted because I can't. Because I can neither kill nor trust nor forgive.” This deep freeze will go on through Season 7. Now that Agnes is returning-Liz plans to use her inadvertently to bond with Reddington... This writing team is creating new shifty characters which I do like because they don’t change the main plot line it’s still the same. Lol “I’m a sucker forLimoges.” So am I 😊 Love seeing Red negotiating. “Are you upset? Conflicted. About what? I live and work by a very strict code built on loyalty, justice, trust. I survive because I eliminate those who betray it. Up until now, no one has been spared, not even my closest associates. Not even Kate Kaplan.” This should’ve been Red’s reaction against Liz in Season 2 after he was shot and in season 3 after he discovere Liz faked her death... but there was no fallout- just Kate getting “killed” Or is she really dead?🤔 to write the wrong of this show is to bring her back! This is key dialogue so pay attention. Key dialogue.... “So that's what you're conflicted about? Whether or not to kill me because I betrayed some "code"? You can mock it because you live in a world with institutionalized codes, where order has already been imposed by powerful forces outside of yourself, where there are laws and rules for everything. I live in a world with no laws, no rules, and certainly no order. So I have to impose my own.” Task Force and Ressler and Liz will be adopting these rules because Anna McMahon and the Cabal will Be rewriting the rules. Hey. Where have you been hiding? - What do you mean? - You've been a ghost ever since I told you that I've been looking into who Reddington was. Ahhhh sweet. Not plot driven. Ressler Missing his partner-life partner lol. The more intimate details they share, the more season 3 dialogue up till end of artax network should piss you. Off. “Thought maybe you were still pissed at me.” What? No. I'm grateful. Ressler’s heart swells three sizes with her response. Her, who knew? Oh gee not me no sireee what do I know wishful thinking right? “If anything ever happened to you I’d never forgive myself.” You did what you thought was best for me. I'm grateful for that. “IF ANYTHING EVER HAPPENED TO YOU ID NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF.” What I said earlier was true. I'm grateful that you're a good friend. But, um, I'm also grateful for what you did, for telling me about my grandfather. This means Liz has the hots literally and FEELINGS forRessler.. the Ummmms will continue. “Nothing worse than when a child disappoints-like being impaled by a unicorn.” HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Glorious. Yes Liz has pissed off her Dad! Red is so so SO disappointed with her. And here comes more KEY DIALOGUE!!! [WHISPERING] I found him, and he told me about Reddington, about who he was. Wait. You You know? His name was Ilya Koslov. He and Katarina were childhood friends, and then they were in the Cabal together. Ah childhood... “But why take on Reddington's identity?” I KNOW I KNOW!!! My lips are sealed. “After the fire, after I shot my father and the world was after Katarina, the only way for her to survive was to access the funds they used to frame Reddington.” “You are going to be SO WEALTHY.” Yeah, but they couldn't do it without Reddington. Since he was already dead, Ilya Koslov brought him back to life. That's the answer that Reddington killed people to keep quiet? - I mean, why? - I don't know. SEASON 7. To protect me somehow? To protect himself. Ilya Koslov and Katarina Rostova disappeared after betraying powerful people with long memories who were willing to kill to find out information about their whereabouts. Or try to. So guess whose the next couple to betray people with long memories? Or at least be framed thanks to Anna McMahon? Reddington will so be needed and his code of NO RULES. Welcome to the CIA. A couple of weeks ago, I got the drop on some KGB mook who had heard that I was looking into Katarina.” Yeah Ressler- you in danger babe... your bae will be freaking out and blaming herself... “IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO YOU ID NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF.” This is KEY TO THE ENTIRE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BLACKLIST. It GOES ALL THE WAY BACK TO ANSLO GARRICK. what kind of leads I had. That's why he's keeping it a secret. That's why we can't tell anyone. Yeah, but we got to tell Cooper and ARAM. Pillow talk. How sexy. Go back to Season 2 after they bumped off Alan Fitch... Whoever he was, he is Reddington. Cooper will understand that, but he might feel obliged to tell someone in the Bureau who doesn't. KEY DIALOGUE... Anna McMahon does not trust the Task Force, and she hates Reddington. She's looking for any excuse to shut us down. Perjury, breaking the law, letting fugitives go... yeah those are causes to shutdown and assasinate everyone... that dossier is the new fulcrum. THE SHOW NEEDS LEONARD CAUL FOR THIS LEG OF STORY HELLO!! You're worried that they'll void his immunity agreement. YUP THEY WILL AMONG OTHER THINGS. Once Reddington disappears that’s the mystery isn’t it? I'm pretty sure I had the right to know the truth, and I'm absolutely sure no one else does.” Yeah NO you’re wrong. Go back to Season one and you’ll recall why. An episode featuring Diane Fowler being shot in the belly—-a house blown to smithereens. Look, I get that, but is it the truth? KEY DIALOGUE. I mean, does it make sense that this is the answer he'd kill to keep quiet? This is why what happens to Ressler is essential to understanding Reddington’s secret. That so many people have died trying to find out? It's because so many people died that I gave up my child. To protect Agnes until I learned the truth. She hasn’t learned the truth so guess who will e in danger in the finale? Except not a infant this time... Am I sure I know why he guarded his secret? No. Is it possible that I'm overlooking some of the holes in the story because there's a sweetness to it? Yes, it's possible. Rose colored glasses are cute on Liz. But it's more possible that it's true. "More possible. " Ilya Koslov had motive and opportunity. If this were a crime, you'd say it was solved, and you'd believe you were right.” Don’t it words into his mouth... Ressler’s gut instinct won’t let it go and that is a good thing. IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO YOU ID NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF.” Hang tight. Enjoy this moment where THE WRITERS ROOM ROBBED KEENLER OF THEIR BABY AND WEDDING. If you can’t see it here compared to now... You’re fooling yourself.

#blacklistrants keenler theblacklist

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garethito · 6 years ago

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Today is the 26th of May, 2019. This is one of the most important dates in my life, because I am celebrating the 1st anniversary of the best moment in my entire football fan life, which happened one year ago, today.

26th May, 2018. Oh, how much this day means to me. The day in which I saw history being written by my idol, Gareth Frank Bale, the day I saw him be the player who had the best performance in an UCL Final, by scoring what is, for me personally, the best goal in the history of football, and an incredible long shot goal.

I would like to start by saying that there is nothing that could ever come close to that night. Absolutely nothing. I have never witnessed something like that before, and I don't think I will again, I don't think anything will ever come close to this, unless Gareth scores a hattrick in the World Cup Final or something, lol. This is something I intend to tell my grandchildren about, this is something that nobody could ever understand how much I cherish, this is something that will be in my memory for eternity. I think about that night every single day of my life, and I have seen those goals billions of times. Never in my entire life have I been so surprised, shocked, happy, proud, astonished. Never in my life have I cried like in that night. Never. Absolutely never. I have looked at my life as a person, at my hardest times, when I cried a lot, but not even that can even slightly compare to the amount of crying that I have done on that glorious day of May 1 year ago. But in the best way possible, the happiest tears that I have ever shedded.

For me, it wasn't an ordinary Saturday. I wasn't getting prepared to do my homework, or to have a normal day. I was preparing for the Champions League Final. ”Real Madrid vs Liverpool”, ”UCL final is today!” were the subjects in everyone's conversations. We were on the way to write very important history that day, we were to be crowned Champions of Europe for the 13th time, for the 4th time in 5 years and for the 3rd time in a row. And boy, did we write history that night. La Decimotercera. Even the mere name sounds like the prettiest trophy name to me, a symbol of our history and of the fact that we are the best team in the whole world. This remains my favorite Champions League Final, La Decima being the close second.

I was so scared, of course, it's a freaking Champions League Final! And I feel like as years go by, I get more and more scared of the Champions League. But, I was also very excited because duuuh, it's a Champions League Final, lol! My whole emotional state was ruined, however, by Gareth not starting. I don't need to explain the whole February-May Gaz-Zidane 2018 situation, because I think everyone knows it too well by now and my opinion on it. I had never been so enraged in my entire life (up until then at least, wait for another year @me lmao). After all he has done, still no place in the starting XI. This whole situation really, really angered me, and I was so freaking disappointed. He SO deserved to play until the start, I thought. But, coming to think about it, maybe he wouldn't have done what he did if he had played from the start? He himself admitted that what he did was hugely based on his anger. So, in a way, I am grateful he was a substitute. That was even more amazing for him, because he did THAT while being a substitute, which is way more impressive!

The match started. Both Real Madrid and Liverpool were going at it. The first half was eventful, because there was that whole Sergio – Mo Salah drama, and poor Carva also got injured, but thank God he managed to play in the World Cup!

Halftime at 0-0, my optimism honestly grew. I felt like we will have more urgency in the second half and that we would win.

The second half came, with me just desperately hoping for a goal. Because we were playing so well, we deserved a reward!! And it did come, with Benzema's goal, God I felt so relieved and happy. I have seen people saying that his goal was not good but? You literally take everything that is being offered to you in a Champions League final! He scored, he gave us a goal, we were 1-0 up, and I was I was the happiest person alive. God, I love my team. Then, Liverpool's equalizer came. I didn't think anything of it. I wouldn't get rid of my optimism. I was looking at my boys and I knew we would win.

And Oh My God, here we fucking go.

Minute 61. Gareth comes on. I was so grateful that he at least got to play 30 minutes, I literally only wanted to see him. At that time, considering everything that was happening, I was already emotionally starting to prepare for his departure to another team. I was watching him in those moments, flashbacks through my mind of all the glorious times I got to see him, all of his goals, everything.

But I could only think for 2 minutes. Because, 63:01 came. That moment. The one that takes it all. The creme de la creme of moments. The moment in which my soul definitely left my body. The most beautiful moment I have ever lived as a football fan. The moment in which I was the proudest person alive. A moment I will never, ever, ever forget, for as long as I get to live. The moment I have literally seen history being made, right before my eyes. The moment in which I literally evaporated, left the Earth, idk how to explain this but I hope you understand me. My idol, that had suffered so much because of unfair decisions that season, scored a fucking bicycle kick in a FUCKING UCL FINAL. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. The happiest, most full of joy, best, most emotional moment. Ever. In My Life. No exaggeration. Surely, for everyone that moment was a shock, because literally no one, not even me, expected him to score such a goal, considering the situation. But what I felt in those moments cannot be explained with words. In this 1 year, since this moment has happened, I have been trying to find suitable words to describe how I felt during those moments, but still, to this day, I cannot find words to describe my feelings. My idol had the best moment of his career, so even to say that I was the happiest, proudest person on the entire planet is an understatement. I literally felt like I reached Heaven. I had never started crying so fast in my entire life, and I had never cried that much in my entire life. And, as if that wasn't enough, 82:43 came. And he scored ANOTHER goal, this time a long shot. And in that moment, I literally died lmao. I was definitely the proudest person alive, the happiest and the most full of love. Like, can you imagine this? Your idol has arguably the best season at Real Madrid, but gets disrespected in the UCL by the coach. He then comes and gets his revenge in the final, and puts in the best performance ever in an UCL final. It's something that these simple words can't describe, your mind goes crazy and that's the only thing you think about forever basically lol. AND, he almost got a hattrick! But he was dispossesed at the last second, unfortunately.

And then?

We fucking won it. We DID IT. THE DECIMOTERCERA WAS OURS.

In the moment in which Sergio lifted it I... I don't have words, did I go into another Universe, did I ascend, did my soul leave my body I don't even know but what I do know is that I spent the rest of the night, up until like 6AM, crying my heart out. And this is what I mean by ”I have never cried so much in my entire life”. Like I have never spent a whole night crying.

And then, of course, the celebrations, Cibeles, Bernabeu... of course your sensitive girl bawled her eyes out again lol!

Thank you, Gareth Bale, for being the incredible person that you are and for blessing the world with such a performance.

Thank you, Real Madrid, for being the best club in the world and for blessing the world with such a performance.

26th of May, 2018. Forever in my heart.

Hala Gareth y Madrid Y Nada Mas! ♥

#gareth bale #real madrid #season 17/18 💙#ucl final #la decimotercera

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itsyourchoicedevotionals · 5 years ago

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Preparing Your Children

“Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name.” Mt 24:9NASB

Growing up in the holiness church, ‘hell fire and brimstone’ sermons came weekly. Evangelists’ charts showed the timeline about the end of time. Every word was to scare the hellish nature out of individuals and chase everyone to Jesus.

Rewards for serving God; the wondrous love of God; our glorious redemption; our home in heaven, every gift Jesus bought and paid for His bride wasn’t mentioned. They scared me for sure. I knew I’d never be good enough for God. Not once did I even remotely think God could be good during all these horrors.

What kind of God allows bad things to happen to His own people? To answer this question, look at Genesis 3:5-6ESV “For God nows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, …you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight for the eyes… to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” They sinned; disobeyed God; gave up their covering of God’s glory; and handed rulership, (see Gen 1:26-28), of planet earth over to satan.

With satan in control of earth, sin reigns, worse every day. Mt 4:8-9 “Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these I will give to You, if You will fall down and worship me.” This scripture proves satan rules planet earth.

Rev 12:11 “…they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Jesus will return to earth, to receive His bride, who are walking in His power and authority. He will come as the conquering King to destroy evil forever.

I’ve always hoped, we, American Christians, would be safe from the persecution of our text scripture. Over the last thirty years, evil has flooded across the nation and the land I love. What will life be for us, for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Will they endure the sufferings of persecution and communism. We’ve allowed the schools to teach children socialism as a ‘better life.’ Not even aware of what children are being taught, we’re at fault. God forgive us.

The time has come to teach our children from babies up— ‘Mommy and Daddy may go to jail for loving Jesus. They may beat Mommy and Daddy up, even kill us. You must pray for Mommy and Daddy while we’re gone. Don’t stop believing and trusting God. All, anyone who hates us can touch, is our shell— flesh— our souls, the who we really are, will always be safe. Trust God, and He will give us strength to endure. Our real home is in heaven with Jesus. Our home there far exceeds our wildest imaginations here. Love will incapsulate us forever. Eternity— forever, we will be safe in the Lord’s house, built for us.’

Iran, Middle East, China and many other nations, believing parents have been teaching their children for years. —When they’re imprisoned, not if. Often it’s the child’s prayers bringing parents home. For those whose parents are killed, strength is found in prayers to endure until the end.

Not a light fun devotional, God awakened me, in the middle of the night to write this. Take the warning, preparing your children. Can you afford not to? It’s your choice. You choose.

PRAYER: Lord God, I pray for parents in this nation to work, teach and fight for their children as no generation before them has done. Give them success to push back the forces of darkness, in Jesus’ name I pray.

#Jesus Christ #lord of lords #Word of God #Holy Spirit #God #it's your choice #devotional #preparing #your children #persecution #control #rules #love #hope #faith

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incorrect-star-trek · 6 years ago

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7 of 9, B'Elanna Torres, Deanna Troi, Jadzia Dax, Quark and William Riker for the ask thing. Any one or all of them. :3

This is ganna be long so lets do this

1.) 7 of 9

favorite thing about them

Just everything about her honestly. Her personality, her sense of humor, her desire to learn. I think it’s because my ADHD pairs very well with people who are on the spectrum making them my best of friends.

least favorite thing about them

I feel like she could have been less sexualized

favorite line

“Impossible is a word humans use far to often.”

brOTPTuvoc

Tuvoc and the Doctor

OTP

Harry Kim and you can take it from my cold dead hands

nOTP

Janeway

random headcanon

Naomi gave her a stuffed animal one day and even though she thinks it’s unnecessary she still keeps it and uses it as a display.

unpopular opinion

Even though she was dressed to be sexy it’s ok. Based on the times isn’t that bad.

song i associate with them

Man in the Mirror

favorite picture of them

2.) B'Elanna Torres

favorite thing about them

She’s super strong and doesn’t take no shit from anyone

least favorite thing about them

The way she abandoned her Klingon side. It caused problems with her anger issues. It’s one thing to chose not to engage in the culture but you can’t ignore who you are.

favorite line

It may be the warriors who get the glory, but it's the engineers who build societies.

brOTP

I actually can’t imagine her having a bro type relationship with anyone

OTP

Again I have no real desire to see her in a relationship.

nOTP

Chakotay

random headcanon

I honestly don’t care enough about her to have headcanons.

unpopular opinion

She’s actually don’t really care much for this character. Idk why I just don’t. I do think she should have appeared a bit more Klingon tho

song i associate with them

Never cared enough to look

favorite picture of them

3.) Jadzia Dax

favorite thing about them

Her wild spirit

least favorite thing about them

I love her so none I can think of

favorite line

What is this preoccupation you have with dying? I think living is much more attractive.

brOTP

Sisko, Bashir and/or Quark

OTP

Let her be single and fool around. OR Worf but it’s not monogamous

nOTP

Bashir and Sisko

random headcanon

Jadzia owns a stripper poll. Really it belongs to Dax Jadzia just choses to own it

unpopular opinion

The actress had every right to leave the show because she had enough of the director. And she should have never been replaced

song i associate with them

Mooo! by Doja Cat

favorite picture of them

4.) Quark

favorite thing about them

Him sneaky and snarky. Also his own morals mixing with ferengi ideals

least favorite thing about them

He’s a rat bastard and a bitch

favorite line

Go ahead, kill me! That's why I'm here, isn't it, to be killed? Well, here I am, so go ahead and do it. You all want me to pick up that sword and try to fight him, don't you? But I don't have a chance and you know it! You only want me to put up a fight so your precious honour will be satisfied. Well, I'm not going to make it so easy for you. Having me fight D'Ghor is nothing more than an execution, so, if that's what you want, that's what you'll get. An execution. No honour, no glory. And when you tell your children and your grandchildren the glorious story of how you rose to power and took Grilka's House from her, I hope you remember to tell them how you heroically killed an unarmed Ferengi half your size.

brOTP

Jadzia

OTP

Odo and Pel

nOTP

Literally anyone else

random headcanon

He likes strong women who can kick his ass

unpopular opinion

He’s actually a super charming individual and I know he can charm his way into anyone’s pants if given enough time

song i associate with them

Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time

favorite picture of them

5.) Deanna Troi

favorite thing about them

Her compassion and open mindedness

least favorite thing about them

Really it was all the writers fault about anything I didn’t like so yeah

favorite line

Confidence is faith in oneself. It can't easily be given by another.

brOTP

Tasha, Riker and Data

OTP

Idk I don’t really ship her with anyone

nOTP

Riker

random headcanon

She likes to spend time with Data to help him practice poetry and being more human. Spot has taken a liking to her

unpopular opinion

She should have been able to be a stronger character. Also she shouldn’t have married Riker

song i associate with them

Strut by Cheetah Girls

favorite picture of them

6.) Wiliam Riker

favorite thing about them

You have to earn his respect and I respect that

least favorite thing about them

I feel like he could be less of a womanizer

favorite line

Maybe if we felt any human loss as keenly as we feel one of those close to us, human history would be far less bloody.

brOTP

Data, Deanna and Picard

OTP

Guinan and Data but both as like a fuck buddies thing

nOTP

Deanna

random headcanon

He’s pansexual

unpopular opinion

I don’t hate the character. He’s good but the writing was done poorly

song i associate with them

Girls/Girls/Boys

favorite picture of them

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soopersara · 6 years ago

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I have a theory...

The timeline of Zuko’s family has never made that much sense to me. I know I’m not alone in thinking this, but the fact that Sozin and Roku were both white-haired old men in their final showdown 112 years before the events of ATLA has never sat quite right with me. It just doesn’t seem possible that they could have been that old if they were Zuko’s great-grandfathers. Cue my overly analytical brain, and a theory that I’ve been sitting on for almost a year now.

So the Avatar wiki is kind enough to provide us with dates for a lot of events in the show. The page is here if anyone cares to see where I’m drawing all this nonsense from. But I pulled out the relevant dates and stuck them in this nifty little timeline:

That’s all the confirmed births, deaths, etc. that the wiki gives us on Zuko’s family from Sozin through the first episode of ATLA with a few bonus Aang-and-Roku events thrown in for reference. And there are some pretty big gaps.

I’m willing to let the gap between Sozin’s death/Azulon’s coronation and Zuko and Azula’s births slide, though, because we have Iroh and Ozai to fit in there somewhere. Given their appearances in ATLA, I’m willing to bet that Iroh is in his 50′s or 60′s, and Ozai is considerably younger, probabably in his 40′s. So I threw in a guesstimation of when they would have been born (in blue) here:

I’m not sure why their ages aren’t confirmed on the wiki, but whatever. These dates would put Iroh on the younger side (54 at the time of ATLA), but there’s plenty of wiggle room depending on how old you think Azulon was when Iroh was born and how big an age gap you think there is between Iroh and Ozai. Like I said, I can buy that hole in the canon timeline because there are reasonable ways to fill it in.

But the gap of 58 years between Sozin’s coronation and Azulon’s birth doesn’t sit right with me. Am I supposed to believe that Sozin was eighty-two years old before he had his first son? This is a monarchy, for crying out loud. A monarchy needs heirs, and I never got the impression that the Fire Nation was that opposed to putting women in positions of power. A daughter probably could have taken the throne, so if Sozin and his wife had cranked out a bunch of daughters, I’m assuming at some point they’d give up and just pass the throne to their firstborn daughter. But that didn’t happen, so I think we’re supposed to conclude that Azulon actually was the firstborn. And again, Sozin was eighty-two before Azulon was born, and if a monarch is waiting THAT long to have children, there’s going to be grumbling from many corners of government. Not to mention the fact that menopause is a thing, and unless Sozin was doing some Henry VIII-level wife swapping (and that probably would have been seen as a stain on Sozin’s otherwise “glorious” reign), he kind of missed his chance to have kids at all.

Basically, that gap makes no sense whatsoever.

So here’s my theory:

Azulon wasn’t Sozin’s son.

Sozin started his warmongering ways early enough that he might have put off the “creating an heir” thing until his 40′s or 50′s, but he had a son, who I’ll call Druk. What can I say? I suck at names, but if it was a good name for a dragon, it stands to reason that it should be a good name for a Fire Lord too. Anyway, the government was happy because, Hey, look! Sozin has an heir! Now if something happens, we know who to crown!

But Sozin’s son never became Fire Lord. Druk would have lived a normal royal life, gotten married, and had a son of his own: Azulon. And then, since Sozin lived for an absurdly long time, Druk passed away before his father, and the crown passed to Azulon.

So then why did Zuko and Azula refer to Sozin as their great-grandfather? Wouldn’t they have known about the “missing generation” in their family tree? Mwahahaha. Never fear, skeptics. I’m this far down the rabbit-hole, I’m not stopping now.

Sozin was disappointed in Druk in much the same way that Ozai was disappointed in Zuko. Druk had a soft side and didn’t care for the war efforts - he grew up in a world at peace, and while he probably didn’t want to speak out against his father, he never fully bought into the Fire Nation supremacy malarkey. Sozin realized that if Druk was ever allowed to take the throne, his efforts would all fall apart, and Druk would work to restore peace.

But Sozin was a patient man. He knew that he needed an heir who wouldn’t back down from the war effort, and from very early on, it looked like Azulon would be perfect for the job. So Sozin took over his grandson’s education and did his best to distance Azulon from his father. By the time that Azulon was a teenager, he shared Sozin’s contempt for Druk and was more than willing to go to extreme lengths to further the Fire Nation’s goals. Sozin knew that he had shaped the perfect heir, so now the only problem was getting rid of Druk.

Sozin had Druk murdered. There was some suspicion surrounding the former crown prince’s disappearance, but Sozin planned the whole thing well enough that no one could ever prove what happened, and Azulon was named as the official heir to the Fire Nation throne.

So there’s my final timeline with Druk added in. Sozin and Azulon both took measures to gradually erase Druk’s name from history: Sozin mostly because filicide (I had to Google the right word for son-killing) is frowned upon, and Azulon because he thought that Druk’s inclusion in the history of the royal family would weaken their legacy. Neither Iroh nor Ozai would have ever met their true grandfather, so if Azulon never mentioned Druk and had records of his existence erased, it would make sense he would have been forgotten by the time that Zuko and Azula came along.

And why does all this matter to ATLA, aside from making Zuko’s family even more screwed up than it was already? Well, personally, I think that having moral conflict within the royal line is a better reason for Zuko’s continual inner struggles than having both Sozin and Roku as his ancestors. Don’t get me wrong, I still kind of like the idea of Roku as Zuko’s great-grandfather (although there’s gotta be a generation missing there too - it’s just basic math), but it was a huge reveal that was done very quickly, and then never touched again. And yeah, introducing a “missing” generation in the royal line would have been a big deal too, but it would have mirrored a lot of Zuko’s family dynamics really well, AND given a reason for why Iroh had so much good in him too. After all, Iroh wasn’t related to Roku.

Also (and this might seem unrelated, but bare with me), I’m not sure I ever bought Ozai’s reasons for wanting to bring Zuko back to the Fire Nation at the end of Book 1. Like, he had three years to change your mind on the banishment. And yeah, Zuko keeps failing spectacularly, but he’s gotten a lot closer to catching the Avatar than anyone else. Bringing him back just to throw him in prison doesn’t make the most sense to me. BUT, what if Ozai found records of what happened to Druk? Azula was Ozai’s “golden child” but putting her on the throne was never going to end well, and maybe Ozai was smart enough to see that. So when he realized that skipping a generation was possible... well, Zuko’s sixteen. By the standards of most fictional worlds, that makes him an adult, and therefore old enough for a family of his own. Even if the ATLA world didn’t consider him an adult, there was a chance that he’d find a girlfriend and "accidentally” father a couple of grandchildren before Ozai disposed of him once and for all. After all, Zuko’s far less likely to produce a child who’s a raving lunatic than Azula is. He would be the logical choice for producing a new generation of backup heirs quickly.

Anyway, that’s just what I’ve been able to come up with. Do with it what you will. It’s dark, but I think it makes a lot of sense. Also... I kind of like the idea of Zuko naming his dragon after the great-grandfather that history forgot, who happened to be named after a mythological dragon. I don’t know. I like adding layers to the meanings of names, but I hate coming up with names of my own. Go figure. Hope you enjoyed my waking-up-at-5:30-on-a-Sunday rambles!

#ATLA theories #atla #Zuko #soopersara's scribbles

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worryinglyinnocent · 6 years ago

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The Real Housewives of Storybrooke

A ficlet series based on this premise here, following the lives of Storybrooke’s elite wives, with all the scandal, bitching and backstabbing that goes on behind the scenes of high society…

This verse is open for prompts!

====

Previously on the Real Housewives of Storybrooke: Gold and Belle had a romantic weekend away whilst Bae stayed with Mary Margaret, who can’t decide if she wants him and Emma to be more than friends or not; Ariel planned her birthday party, and Regina’s rival Fiona revealed trouble is coming to Storybrooke in the shape of Victoria Belfrey.

[Part One][Part Two] [Part Three] [Part Four] [Part Five] [Part Six] [AO3]

====

ARIEL

So far, everything at the party seemed to be going very well. Everyone was behaving themselves and no-one had started dancing on the tables. As entertaining as last year’s events had been, Ariel was glad about that. This year, she’d chosen to host the party at a new fish speciality restaurant that had just opened near the docks. Spending so much time there working on the boat, Ariel and Eric were well aware of all the new developments going on and they’d been quick to try this one out. Now it had become a firm favourite, and she really didn’t want to end up banned for raucous behaviour.

Although Ariel always enjoyed her birthday parties, there was also a slight sense of frustration at the constant onward march of time. Everything went by so quickly now. It didn’t seem two minutes since she’d graduated college, met Eric, and started their business, all in the same year. Now the business was thriving and practically running itself; she’d been married to Eric for ten years, and the thought of grabbing him and making a run for it on the boat was becoming ever more tempting.

To make matters worse, her father was talking about grandchildren again. It had been the first thing he’d said to her on the phone this morning after wishing her happy birthday - expressing his hopes that she and Eric would finally start thinking about having a family now, because after all, women’s fertility started to drop after the age of thirty-five, everyone knew that. Ariel had hung up on him, not sure what made her skin crawl more: the fact that her father was talking so enthusiastically about her fertility or the fact he was still adamant that Ariel should have a baby and make him a grandfather despite the fact that he had three other daughters, all of whom had children. Ariel had seven nieces and nephews and she had no intention of adding any more to the family. It was something that she and Eric had discussed very early on - no kids. The tropical fish in their aquarium were children enough for them.

Speaking of children, though… Ariel glanced down the table at Belle, chatting animatedly to Carrie. She’d been on soft drinks all evening, and Ariel wondered if something had finally happened in that area. She hoped that it had; Belle was so desperate to be a mother and Ariel could sympathise with her frustration even if she had no desire to feel it herself.

The meal was coming to a close, with glasses being refilled for what was probably the last time. That said, when this particular group of people got together to celebrate an occasion, they could quite easily sit there until the restaurant closed.

“Happy birthday, Mrs Prince.”

Ariel turned as Sebastian, the head chef, came over to her from the kitchens, and she smiled.

“Thank you, Sebastian. The food has been absolutely wonderful, as always. I think you outdid yourself with the lobster tails this time.”

“I always try to. I need to keep you coming back for more; you’re my best customer.”

“That can’t be true, surely.”

“Oh no. Without you I’d go out of business. So, I’ve prepared a little something for you as a thank you, and an incentive to return again, of course.” He waved over to the kitchen and one of the other chefs came out bearing a birthday cake with candles as the rest of the staff gathered around to sing happy birthday. Thankfully, Ariel had never been one to be easily embarrassed by such gestures, and she just raised an eyebrow at Eric across the table from her. He gave a sheepish shrug.

“I thought you deserved something special. It’s a milestone birthday, after all.”

Thirty-five years old. Where had all that time gone?

The cake was a glorious confection of silver and purple frosting in the shape of an oyster holding a shiny pearl, and despite being full of seafood, no-one could resist a slice of the rich chocolate cake beneath the icing. More wine was poured, the chatter around the table became louder and more animated, and Ariel really wouldn’t have minded if anyone had got up and started dancing as long as they didn’t stand in the cake.

She had never been one for the idea of a false sense of security, always taking everything as it came, but after tonight, she would certainly appreciate the meaning of the phrase.

“It seems as if I’ve missed the party, then. How distressing. Of course, since I didn’t receive an invitation, it was somewhat difficult to track you down.”

Zelena had arrived, and if Ariel hadn’t been so incandescently furious, she would have laughed at the forced drama of her entrance. Everyone else in the restaurant was looking at her, and it was akin to the beginning of Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent arrived. Zelena was certainly doing her best impression of a cartoon villain, but Ariel was too angry to laugh it off as she might otherwise have done. On the whole she was a laid-back person, not usually living up to the fiery redhead stereotype and usually being the one to step in when Zelena started antagonising someone else, like Belle.

Today though, Zelena’s sheer audacity was too much for even Ariel to bear, and the scrape of her chair legs on the floor was excruciatingly loud n the now silent restaurant. With all the cold poise and dignity that she had gained from years of hard-headed negotiation as she’d built up her business, she stepped around the table and over to Zelena.

“Surely, Zelena, the fact that you didn’t receive an invitation would have told you that you were not wanted at this gathering, so I’m at a loss for why you felt the need to track us down in the first place.”

“Not wanted? How rude.”

“No, Zelena, what’s rude is you walking in here uninvited and ruining what had been, up until your arrival, a perfectly pleasant evening. In what universe is such a thing ever acceptable? If you’ve got a problem with me, Zelena, then you know where I live, but I’d appreciate it if you air those grievances to me and me alone rather than making a spectacle of yourself in front of my friends. That is rude.”

“Madam, I must ask you to leave.” Sebastian had come back out of the kitchen. Ariel didn’t know if he was holding the rather large cleaver on purpose, but she certainly liked the effect. “You’re disturbing the other guests.”

“This isn’t over,” Zelena hissed. “I won’t be ostracised by you, or any of you. I’ve earned my place at this table just like any of you, so don’t you turn your noses up at me. At least I didn’t marry a man twice my age for his money or snap up some poor yokel off a farm out of pity.” These last two remarks were directed at Belle and Mary Margaret, and Ariel was so close to slapping Zelena around the face that she had to curl her hands into fists to stop herself, nails biting into her palms and leaving angry red crescents there. Luckily, Zelena flounced away at that point, and the other diners, sensing that the entertainment was over, went back to their meals.

“Come on, babe.” Eric came over and slipped an arm around her waist. “It’s over now, she’s gone. Forget about her and enjoy the rest of the evening.”

Ariel turned back towards the table. Conversation had tentatively started again. Mary Margaret was rolling her eyes; comments about her marriage had long since stopped affecting her. Belle had gone beet red and was refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, still sensitive to it all. Regina had her head in her hands. The evening would continue, but it had been irreparably spoiled now, and Ariel couldn’t help but fear that it just wasn’t over yet. Zelena was petty, and she did not like being bested; everyone knew that. She was probably cooking up a dish of revenge right now.

Still, there was nothing to be gained by standing in the middle of the restaurant, so she let Eric guide her back to her seat.

“Ariel, I’m so sorry,” Regina began.

“It’s not your fault, Regina, you’re not your sister’s keeper. You wouldn’t know she was going to do this more than any of the rest of us would.”

“I know, but I still feel like I ought to keep her on a tighter leash or something.”

“She’s her own person. We can’t help what she does,” Robin said sagely. “One day, she’ll take the hint. I’m not having everyone start inviting her to these things because they’re scared of what will happen if they don’t. She’s got to learn basic manners at some point.”

Regina raised an eyebrow. “You’ve known her longer than any of us except me. Don’t you think she would have learned by now?”

“Life is nothing without hope.”

“You’re far too optimistic for your own good, you know.”

In spite of the interruption leaving a sour taste in her mouth, Ariel had to laugh at the interplay between Robin and Regina. They were truly an opposites-attract pair, and considering the history between Robin and Zelena, Ariel didn’t that that they could ever have made as successful a marriage as they had. It was always good to see them stick together in the face of sister-shaped adversity, and it gave Ariel hope that no matter what might happen, she and Eric could get through everything life threw at them as well.

Eventually, the party began to break up of its own accord, with people wanting to get back to relieve babysitters. Sebastian came out of the kitchen again to say goodbye, and by the time they were leaving the restaurant and making their way towards home, Ariel was happy again. Wandering through the docks, they passed their boat, now finally in working order and ready to set sail.

Ariel stopped as they came up to it, pulling Eric back towards her.

“Let’s go somewhere,” she said. “Right now. Well, not right now, we’d have to stock up on food and fuel. But let’s go somewhere tomorrow. Take her down to… Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere far away and sunny. Just escape from here and all the bitching and social politics.”

“Ok.”

Ariel looked at Eric askance, but he seemed completely in earnest.

“Are you serious? Normally when I propose impromptu boat trips you’re always the voice of reason.”

“Well, I’m not being the voice of reason today. You’ve wanted to get away for months, so I figure, why not? We just need to make a couple of calls to make sure that the office can live without us for a while, and we can go anywhere you like.”

“Oh, Eric!” Ariel pulled him in for a long kiss. “I think that’s the best birthday present you could have given me.”

“Does that mean I can take the jewellery back to the shop?”

Ariel just laughed and rested her head against his shoulder with a sigh of contentment. Let the town think what they would. True freedom was almost within reach.

#OUAT Fanfiction #Ariel #Eric #Ariel/Eric #Series: The Real Housewives of Storybrooke

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jswdmb1 · 6 years ago

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Up On Cripple Creek

“Good luck had just stung me,

to the race track I did go.

She bet on one horse to win

and I bet on another to show”

- The Band

I am an enormous fan of horse racing and have been for a long time. I chuckled a bit at the recent “controversy” at the Kentucky Derby and at those who suggested the result was unfair. Anyone who knows anything about the sport knows that was an easy call and we have all had winners taken down for that reason (on one glorious afternoon at Arlington a couple of summers ago I had TWO winners taken down after inquiries). It’s part of a sport that needs to be carefully regulated due to the gambling involved and the danger recklessness can bring to the jockeys and horses involved. So, while the decision was clear cut, I recognize how difficult it was for the judges to do what they did in front of millions of people who probably didn’t know much more about racing than the fancy hats and mint juleps. I’m also grateful we are not talking about a catastrophe that was adverted by some skillful moves by the jockeys on the horses that were affected by the interference. All-in-all, it was the best result possible given the circumstances.

But last week’s race is not what I want to talk about today. Rather, why it is that I am such a big fan of a sport that is frankly not all that popular anymore. The truth is that there was one very special person who help me develop the bug and who I thought of immediately when the Churchill Downs objection sign went up in that race. You are probably thinking you know who it is, but I’ll give you 10-1 odds you can’t guess.....no, it’s not my dad, or an uncle or grandfather. It was a quiet woman I knew named Rita Hendren.

Rita was, and still is to the day, one of the most interesting people I have ever met. Born in 1920 to a Southern Illinois coal miner, she was the fourth child of fifteen. That is not a typo. I met thirteen of them and can vouch that it was true (two passed away as infants as unfortunately was quite common at that time). Unlike today, where coal miners are men of great wealth, it was a tough living back then (before you write me a note, that was a joke). They lived in a small house with no indoor plumbing. Then, the depression hit and things really got rough. The story I was told was that when dinner time was called you ran to the table because the competition was fierce and there wasn’t always enough for everyone. Still, Rita would talk fondly of a childhood that seemed to have plenty of good times. I know better now that she likely sugarcoated some of the details, but generally she seemed to appreciate what she had.

She also appreciated her education and graduated high school in the late 30′s. That may not impress many people these days, but a high school diploma was not an easy thing to obtain in that era, especially for a woman. I’m certain that now she would have been offered free rides to the college of her choice as she was well-read on many subjects and could speak intelligently on them all But for a career, she did what she had to do to make money and moved to Chicago where the jobs were. She eventually landed at the Sunbeam factory in Cicero where she worked for many years as a quality control inspector. But despite the blue-collar nature of her life, she spent whatever free time she had reading books and watching whatever was on WTTW. In addition, she read the Sun-Times cover to cover every day and also enjoyed music. She had this great old Zenith console stereo (her sister worked there) and played 45s all day long (lots of big band and country music). She also made the best fried chicken I have ever tasted and rarely eat it to this day because nothing I have had since then can cut it (including me trying her recipe once - I just can’t figure it out!).

While she would be reading the paper, I noticed she would linger in the sports section. Then, one day when I was at her house, she made a point to turn the TV to the old channel 26 to watch Phil Georgeff on his Hawthorne recap show. I asked her why the interest in such an odd thing. She just said that she loved watching the horses and had all her life. As I got older, I found out there was a guy at Sunbeam who booked bets (this was well before OTB’s on every corner) and she had some money down on a hot tip she got in one of the races. This did not shock or surprise me. I had been watching her rake in huge pots for years at the Christmas poker games with her brothers and she always talked about how she loved the excitement of Las Vegas the one time she had been there. I was awfully curious about how she got so good at handicapping races, but I hit my teen years and got distracted.

Then, I found out at around the age of 18 that I could bet myself on the races. I went a time or two and was pretty timid about the experience with limited success. At one point, I mentioned my trips to the track to Rita and she suggested we go together sometime. So, we planned for a nice day that spring when the Hawthorne meet started and I scraped up $20 to see what I could do with a real expert at my side. I don’t remember the exact results that day (let’s just say I didn’t get rich), but I do remember learning every in and out of how to read a race program that you would ever want to know. I came to appreciate the joy of the sport and getting to be an active participant. I know it sounds insincere, but the money doesn’t really matter. When I go to the track now, I don’t bet much more than I did then and still have tons of fun. I was given a gift of analysis that could be used in a really fun way. More importantly, it gave me insight into how this woman’s brilliant mind worked. There were times I felt bad that she was just a factory worker and didn’t get a real opportunity in life, but I realized that she was a pretty happy person despite a tough life (lots of sorrow for her came in many ways, but those stories are not for public consumption). Being around her taught me what it means to be tough and use what you’ve got and not to worry about what you don’t have.

I doubt it is much surprise that I’m talking about my grandmother (on my mom’s side). Eventually, she developed a form of dementia and the last decade or so of her life was a real struggle. That hurt me more than anything as I knew (along with many others) just how beautiful her mind was and it was tough to see her unable to use it. I never forgot, however, the lessons she taught me and the countless hours we spent talking about the news, listening to old records, or the time she talked me into ditching a class in college to meet her at old Sportsman’s Park. And, as bad as I felt for her not getting more opportunity in life, I was selfishly grateful that she didn’t. It enabled her to spend so much time with me and give me wonderful gifts like appreciating how to handicap a horse race. I look forward someday to sitting with one of my own grandkids and sharing whatever quirky knowledge I have that may be of interest. Until then, I’ll keep plugging away at my two or three times a year visit to the track and I’ll never forget who got me there in the first place.

So on this Mother’s Day, in addition to wishing my beautiful wife and wonderful Mom the most joyful of days, I want to send a special thanks to my Grandma, who I just know had a bet on the long shot Country House and was slyly smiling when he was put on top at 30-1 odds. I’m sure right now, she is using that bankroll to bluff her brothers out of another pot with a pair of fours with a glimmer in her eyes the whole time. And while I miss her a lot, it warms my heart greatly to know that she can be back doing what she loved best.

And, for all of you out there who are Moms, thank you for the special talents you have that sometimes may be overlooked, but make such a huge difference on your children’s and grandchildren’s lives. It is now more important ever that kids have strong female role models in their lives, and I was incredibly lucky to have several. You are now providing that to a new generation, and I hope you had a wonderful day with those you love and they were able to show you the appreciation you deserve.

Happy Mother’s Day,

Jim

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beazulu · 6 years ago

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To my dearly beloved

You’ve been through a lot. You’re tired. You’re weak. But more importantly, you’re hopeful. You’re hopeful that another day will go by without ever regretting anything. You’re positive that life has greater things to offer. I’ve so much to tell you. 10 years worth of joyful and sorrowful tears, of fake and genuine laughs, of inevitable and avoidable misfortunes, of love and hate— these are the things that make you, you. I’m proud of what you’ve become, it’s true. However, there are things yet to learn from your mistakes. There are still things and happenings you yearn for, and I, your present self am striving so hard to find them. We’re not there yet, but until then, I have four important messages for you.

To the 8-year old me, I thank you. I thank you for giving me a strong foundation. I thank you for being that kid who was curious about everything. I thank you for being respectful to your parents and of people’s differences. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I thank you for cultivating a sport which has earned me pride and thousands of lessons. Sadly, I got tired of swimming. The sport that once earned me pride and honor became the one thing that caused me much pain. Just so you know, it gave me much anxiety and a bunch of nervous breakdowns. Still, today, I stand proud for being able to acknowledge that weakness and my anxiety; and furthermore be able to tell our parents about it. They remained the same, the supportive parents you were able to experience.

To the 8-year old me, we lost Apo. Apo. Do you remember when she’d wake up at four in the morning to prepare your breakfast? She’d cook chicken nuggets, corned beef, eggs, etc. As you grew up, she started heating leftovers. Months later she started cooking pancit canton, consistently. Weeks later, there was no food on the table, just a glass of milk and your vitamin C. She had Alzheimer’s disease. Gradually she forgot about simple things, like putting salt in her meals. These things got bigger, like forgetting where she lived, until one day, she forgot us. She knew i her heart that we were her grandchildren, but she couldn’t tell. Her weary eyes showed how much confusion there was in her mind. She was like a mother to us. She was always selfless and caring. Her love was unconditional. She was truly an embodiment of service. Her passing was painful, but it was also a relief. She was finally able to rest. Until now, I feel sorry for not spending enough time with her. I feel sorry for shutting her out every time I was busy. But all is okay now. She’s with the Creator whom she longed to see for so long.

To the 8-year old me, we lost our best friend. I can’t recall, but you probably remember this situation: Martina came running towards you at school, and asked if she could be your friend. Do you know what you did? You ran away. Hahaha! One school year later, you became classmates and the best of friends. Our families were extremely close. Yes, we had a lot of major and petty fights, but nothing really beats this friendship. We both ran for JA president in the 5th grade but nothing changed. Even during campaigning we were together. We were never rivals. Sadly, a severe case of shingles hit her. she got well, but her immune system started to break down. This led to leukemia. She wasn’t able to fulfill her presidency in 6th grade because she had to drop out. Despite her condition, she remained the sweet girl who remained faithful that she’d get better, and that one day, we’d be in the council together. And yes, she beat cancer just as we were about to enter 7th grade. She took a test in Manila that would help her skip the lessons she missed, then she passed. We both ran for positions in the council for the next school year. She won! On top of it, she finished 7th grade with highest honors. During the start of 8th grade, she was absent very often, and she got high fevers. The cancer has relapsed, which means again, she dropped out of school. This time, the enemy was stronger and Tin couldn’t fight back. She was in so much pain. She kept in touch and told me all about what she felt. I couldn’t do anything about it. She was tweeting “I’m sorry, Ma.”, “I’m sorry kuya”, “I’m sorry ate.” Months later she had a stroke. I was grade 9 at the time. She was unconscious, but the doctors said she could hear me. The next day, she passed away. I was in the classroom and we weren’t doing anything. I saw my mom walking towards the room, so I went out. I brought her to the CR because somehow I was expecting it. A part of me couldn’t believe it, because I remained faithful, faithful that she would survive like she always has. To this day, it pains me. It pains me that I’ll be graduating high school without her. It pains me that we will no longer take up law together. However, to this day, I remain hopeful, hopeful that one day she’d appear in my dreams comforting me. Hopeful that one day I’d be able to hug her and be with her. Hopeful that one day, we’d be together without anything getting in the way.

To the 8-year old me, we’re doing fine. Life is still full of surprises, surprises within the family, with friends, and loved ones. Friendships were lost, some because of pride, others because of misunderstandings. Friendships were gained because of similar interests and multiple hangouts. Most importantly, love presented itself in the form of a person with small eyes but a big heart. Not to be clingy or overly attached, but our biggest achievement will always be J. J is someone I liked back in 7th grade. He pushed me away in ways unimaginable, but of course, I kept pulling myself back. Kept in touch until one day, after a year of annoying messages from me, after forcing myself inside his life, he finally liked me back. (Just so you know, I didn’t force him to like me.) Three years of love and laughs, of petty fights, of food trips will always be worth the wait. I couldn’t possibly wait for more. Thanks to you, at a young age I learned never to give up on things we really want. Life is glorious if we want it to be. Love is everywhere if we do our best to find it. To my dearly beloved, good job! I’m proud of you.

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duhragonball · 6 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (97/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[16 June, 234 Before Age. Planet Shenia]

The military of Planet Shenia was formidable, much more so than would be expected for a planet considered insignificant by the major galactic powers. Centuries ago, Shenia was a client state of the Camelian Empire, and used as a buffer against a rival power, the Qophean Khanate. Decades later, the balance of power shifted, and the border moved, and Camelia withdrew from Shenia. But the people of Shenia had not forgotten their vigilance against foreign invasion. Their armies were well-trained and well-armed, and rumors of their ki techniques were enough to frighten away would-be raiders. One of Shenia's national holidays celebrated a time when they defended their world against a Saiyan invader, and prevailed.

This time, however, Shenia was visited by two Saiyans, and the outcome was not as favorable. A week later, the entire Shenian parliament was captured, and they quickly surrendered. Over the next several days, a ransom payment was assembled to pay the Saiyans to leave the planet peacefully. A portion of this was converted into a sort of expense account, which the Saiyans used to pay for meals and souvenirs while they enjoyed Shenia's nightlife.

"Look at this," Seltiss asked as she twirled around in a dress she had just purchased. The price tags still dangled from the hem as she showed it off. "I thought it was sequins, but it's actually some kind of fiber optic technology, so when the lighting changes..."

The discotheque's lighting included a number of lasers and other devices to shine an array of colors onto the patrons. Seltiss was sticking close to the bar, but she stepped just slightly to one side so a passing strobe light could flash onto her clothes. Her dress refracted and shifted the frequency of this light, producing a vivid pattern of oranges and violets.

Sitting at the bar, Xibuyas could only stare and nod awkwardly. To everyone else in the club, they were just unusual-looking humanoid, not so different from the Shenians themselves. To the bartender serving them meals, they were just a couple of rowdy adolescents. But to Xibuyas, the teenage girl standing before him was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The dress had nothing to do with it.

"It's nice," he muttered, and then he looked away to take another piece of fish from his bowl.

"Everything's so colorful here," Seltiss said. “Not like Planet Saiya at all. Dad would flip out if he saw me wearing anything but royal blue. And the academy on Protef is even worse, if you can believe it. Four options in their dress code, and all four are drab earth tones. And they wondered why I dropped out."

Xibuyas said nothing. For what it was worth, he liked her school uniforms, with their pleated skirts and the crisp sharp lines of their starched suit jackets. They made her look very cosmopolitan, unlike the handful of other Saiyan females he had encountered in his young life. Most of them were caregivers or teachers, middling warriors who only attended to his upbringing because they lacked the talent to do anything important on their own.

Seltiss was different. His instructors and King Rehval had told him that he would be married to her when they were of age, and he had absorbed this information like any other dry fact they had taught him. But Seltiss herself was so much more than a princess of the Saiyans. She was smart and funny and mischievous, and completely unafraid of anything. She was the only Saiyan he knew who routinely disobeyed the king.

And she really liked him. She wasn't just using him for his power, the way her father did. His power was important to her plans, true, but she spent time with him, and complimented him, and told him things that she never told anyone else.

"What's eating you, Xibuyas?" she asked. "Don't tell me you're still sore about your fight with Luffa."

He didn't know how to answer that, so he changed the subject. "Would your father still let us marry, Seltiss? I failed him, and he knows not that I survived that battle. I doubt that he would be relieved to find that I survived."

"Oh, is that all?" Seltiss said. She approached him and patted his cheek, causing him to wince with embarrassment. "Take it easy, Xibuyas. Public displays of affection are normal for most civilizations. You don't have to be so stuffy all the time."

But he did. It helped him stay focused, especially around her. King Rehval had great plans for him. He was destined to become the king of the Saiyans, and through Seltiss, King Xibuyas' descendants would rule their people through centuries of prosperity. It was a glorious opportunity, and he found it much less overwhelming when he used formal speech, and carried himself like he mighty warrior he was expected to be. A mask of false pride to hide the cracks in his confidence.

What frustrated him was that he couldn't even use royal address with Seltiss, because she had commanded him not to. "Princess Seltiss was never here," she had explained. "As far as the universe knows, we're just two anonymous Saiyan raiders."

It hadn't really been a command. More like instructions for her plan. He loved that about her too. Seltiss respected him, and what little regal bearing she had, she dropped it completely with him. He didn't know if that was because she loved him back, or because she saw him as a fellow royal due to their engagement.

"Why don't we get some air?" Seltiss offered. "You don't look like you're in the mood to dance."

He sighed with relief. Sometimes she seemed to understand him better than he knew himself. After a few minutes to settle their bill, they walked outside together, though Seltiss stubbornly held onto his arm the whole way.

*******

The night air helped improve his disposition a little, and getting away from the crowd made a bigger difference than he would have expected. Normally, he craved every moment alone with Seltiss that he could get, but things were different now.

"So what's up, Xibuyas?" Seltiss asked as they flew. "You can tell me."

"It's difficult to put into words, your h-- er, Seltiss," he said.

"Good catch," Seltiss said. "You were great the other day, you know that? The way you tore through the Shenian fleet..."

"I could have done it faster," he said.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," she said. "You're the strongest Saiyan alive! The strongest Saiyan who ever lived, I bet."

"I wasn't stronger than Luffa," he grumbled.

"Well, she's not really a Saiyan, right?" Seltiss replied.

"That is what your father always told me," Xibuyas said. "Suppose... well, what if he was... wrong?"

"You think she's really one of us?" Seltiss asked.

"I don't know," Xibuyas said. "But she... seemed Saiyan enough. I don't mean her eyes and hair, but the way she moved. Her scent and the sound of her voice. It was much easier to believe her a fraud before I faced her in battle."

"Okay, but what difference does it make if she’s a Saiyan or not?" Seltiss asked. "She's still an enemy of the crown, the one you'll be wearing one of these days."

"You're so certain of that," Xibuyas said. "Your father has other heirs to choose from. One of your sisters, or perhaps he'll have another child in the future."

"You forget how stubborn my dad can be," Seltiss said. "He likes to pretend that he's flexible, but once he makes up his mind, he's pretty much locked in." She pointed at herself and smiled. "You're not his only pet project, you know."

They landed on the beach of an island that happened to catch Seltiss's fancy, and she took off her boots so she could feel the sand between her toes as they walked.

"My father had it all worked out since before I was born," she explained. "He used some special system to test Saiyan women, then he picked one that would give him the best heir. That was my mother. He tinkered with me the whole time I was in the incubation tank. I couldn't tell you what he did, but it was all for the sake of making me his ideal successor. That's what I've been hearing my whole life. My sisters are just Plan B. I'm the one he put the most work into. He made me smarter than all of them. Don't ask me how."

She suddenly drew back her fist and tried to punch him in the jaw, but he blocked it with his open palm. Seltiss grinned and shook her head.

"I'm not very strong, but dad doesn't seem worried about that. My children will be stronger, he tells me, as long as their father has the right genes. That's where you come in, tough guy."

"I never even knew my parents," Xibuyas said. "King Rehval told me I was gifted with a strong bloodline, but he still used his potions to make me even stronger."

"You must have something about you," Seltiss said. "Otherwise, he wouldn't be marrying you off with me. Don't you see, Xibuyas? I know you’re grateful to him and all, but in the end, he needs us more than we need him."

She threw her arms around his neck, and for a brief, nerve-wracking moment, he thought that she might kiss him. She only smiled instead, and he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

"At least, he needs us until we give him a litter of grandchildren," she said. "So in the meantime, we're pretty much free to do whatever we please."

"And this is what pleases you?" he asked. “Invading a backwater planet and playing tourist?”

"I studied military tactics for a semester," Seltiss said. "This is the first time I've gotten to put it into practice. I always wanted to conquer my own planet, but I was hoping you'd enjoy it. You've been so depressed ever since the battle on Pflaume."

This time she really did lean in to kiss him, and he backed away from her, a little more forcefully than he would have liked.

"Xibuyas, what's wrong?" Seltiss asked. "What happened between you and Luffa?"

"Nothing!" he lied. The look in her dark brown eyes told him that his response was a mistake. Seltiss was the smartest person he knew, with the possible exception of her father. And she knew him much better than her father.

"There can't be any secrets between us," she said. "It's just you and me against the galaxy, remember? Dad isn't going to look out for us beyond his own needs, and the rest of the universe thinks we're a couple of brainless savages."

"I know," he said quietly. That was exactly why he didn't want to tell her.

"Whatever it is," we'll deal with it together," Seltiss assured him. "I'm the brains of this outfit, remember?"

For a long monent, he struggled with his indecision, and then he finally mumbled: "Very well. The truth is that..."

But before he could say another word, the ground beneath them exploded.

"Saiyans!" a voice cried out. "I never expected to find creeps like you on Shenia, but I guess I could use the workout!"

When the dust settled, they could finally see their visitor hovering twenty feet above them. It was an alien, insectoid in appearance, though its lower body resembled the tail of a massive serpent.

"Where did you come from?" Seltiss asked. Before she could get an answer, Xibuyas stepped in front of her.

"Careful," he warned her. "it's stronger than it looks."

"Smart boy," the alien said. "And to answer the female's question, my name is Clondique. You might call me a superhero. I'm kind if a big deal in this sector."

"I've never heard of you," Seltiss said.

Clondique shrugged all four of her shoulders. "I knew that publicist was a waste of money. Well, take my word for it, I was a major player in this part of the galaxy. Came to Shenia for my third metamorphosis, wanted someplace nice and peaceful while I chilled out for eighty years, and I wake up to find the whole planet's been conquered? By a couple of kids?"

"I'm more than a match for a talking eyesore like you," Xibuyas replied. "If it's a fight you crave, I'll--"

He took two steps toward Clondique, and then Seltiss called out to him.

"Hold it, Xibuyas!" she said. "I'll handle her myself."

"What?" Xibuyas asked.

But she had already removed her dress, revealing the pink leotard she normally wore in combat situations. She looked up at Clondique and smiled.

"You may be stronger than me, but I'm as much a Saiyan as you are," she said. "This guy wants a workout, and so do I."

"Your boyfriend is right, kid," Clondique said. "You shouldn't take me so lightly."

"Prove it," Seltiss demanded.

*******

Clondique's power was substantial, but this wasn't Seltiss' main concern. She knew Xibuyas would step in if she appeared to be in any real danger. The real challenge was getting him to open up to her, and she believed she could accomplish that through battle.

She and Xibuyas were the same age, though the chronology of their young lives was distorted by her father's use of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. It allowed beings to enter another dimension where time flowed at a faster rate. On different occasions, King Rehval had sent Seltiss into the Chamber to focus her studies, and to hone her combat skills with different instructors. Xibuyas, on the other hand, had spent most of his life inside the Chamber. He had been a baby when Seltiss first met him three years ago, but each time she saw him after that, he was always a little bit taller, and a great deal stronger. Her father saw him as little more than a breeding stock, but he also wanted to use him as an enforcer. More than four-fifths of his life had been devoted solely to mastering the art of war.

And so, as Seltiss charged after Clondique and exchanged blows with the alien, it was with the hope that she could reach him in a language Xibuyas would understand better than words.

Clondique's chitinous fists managed to connect with her a few times, though Seltiss managed to recover and back away before taking too much of a beating. She responded with a hail of energy bullets from the palm of her right hand, but Clondique was able to avoid them with astonishing ease.

She had her suspicions about what was bothering the boy, and with some clever manipulation, she was sure she could trick him into revealing enough information for her to figure the rest out without him even realizing it. But that would defeat the point, which was to convince him that he should confide in her no matter what.

"Hold still, you little--!" Clondique griped as she chased after her through the air. Seltiss had no intention of standing her ground until she knew exactly what she was up against. Until then, she danced around Clondique, a avoiding her offense as well as she could, and only fighting back when it was safe to do so.

The message she wanted to send was this: I'm a Saiyan warrior like you. We share the same passions, the same longing for combat. Xibuyas already knew this, but Seltiss liked to remind him from time to time. Besides, she really did enjoy fighting, even if Clondique might not have been her first choice for an opponent.

The alien swung her tail at Seltiss and for a split-second, Seltiss thought she had successfully avoided the strike. Then she sensed the ki energy welling up in Clondique's body, and Seltiss had to dodge again, barely escaping a volley of ki blasts from Clondique's hands. Then the tail swiped at her again, and Seltiss found herself regretting that most of her combat training had been with humanoid sparring partners.

After a few minutes, Seltiss decided she had enough of Clondique's measure to risk striking back, only to find that she had miscalculated. Clondique could block with two hands, fight with two more, and use the tail either way. This would only be a minor challenge if the two of them were evenly matched, but Seltiss was beginning to notice that Clondique's power level had been steadily rising as they fought. The alien had been holding back, or perhaps she just needed time to warm up.

Seltiss resorted to an explosive wave, more out of a growing sense of desperation than any calculated plan. She preferred to stick to a script, and while she had planned to look vulnerable against Clondique, she was turning out to be more vulnerable than she had expected. Pink ki energy blasted out from the young Saiyan's body in all directions, just as Clondique tried to catch her between her fists and her serpentine tail. Seltiss didn't expect it to stop Clondique, but it would at least guarantee some breathing room for--

And then Clondique grabbed her anyway.

"Cute trick," Clondique said. Using one pair of arms, she locked Seltiss in a full nelson, and she used her lower arms to grab hold of Seltiss' ankles. Seltiss wondered why Clondique hadn't used her tail instead, and then Clondique curled it forward until the tip of her tail was aimed at Seltiss' head, and it began to glow.

"You bit off more than you could chew, kiddo," Clondique said. "Happens to everybody, sooner or later."

Seltiss struggled against Clondique's grip, but it was no use. It was only now, at this close range, that she could sense just how strong the alien really was. She wasn't entirely sure if even Xibuyas could win.

Clondique's tail glowed brighter. "This won't kill you," the alien explained, "although when you wake up, you'll probably wish it had. Energy venom packs a hell of a hangover, but I can't risk you trying something stupid while I tackle your boyfriend down there."

Suddenly, Seltiss' morale brightened considerably. "It'll take more than your puny attack to kill a Saiyan!" she shouted defiantly.

"Didn't you hear me?" Clondique asked. "I just said I'm not going to kill you."

Seltiss struggled against Clondique's grip, though she knew it was pointless. "Even if you could destroy me, Xibuyas would avenge me!" she shouted.

"What is your damage, kid?" Clondique asked. "The fight's over. You think that yokel down there can save you? I can tell he's no match for--"

Without warning, Xibuyas transformed. Seltiss didn't really know what to call it. His aura glowed bright yellow, and his hair stood up. His eyes glowed solid white, and his muscles seemed to expand a little. Seltiss had never seen the Legendary Super Saiyan in action before, but from what she had heard, Xibuyas' power increase bore some resemblance to Luffa's other form...

Suddenly, it dawned on Seltiss. It had been right in front of her the whole time.

But before she could give the matter any thought, Xibuyas had already launched himself at Clondique, and severed all four of the alien's arms, freeing Seltiss immediately.

Clondique barely had time to register what was happening. Her energy venom attack was still charging, and when her arms were injured, she instinctively fired, though Xibuyas swatted this bolt of ki aside with a wave of his hand. With his other hand, he fired a ki blast of his own, which tore through Clondique's torso, killing her instantly.

Seltiss found that Clondique's severed hands still had a powerful grip, but without any ki to amplify it, it took only a moment's exertion for Seltiss to shake them off her arms and legs. When she looked up, she saw that the battle was already over.

Only Xibuyas wasn't finished.

With a loud roar, he released all his pent-up aggression and directed it at Clondique's body. The barrage of ki blasts was as relentless as it was pointless. Clondique was already dead. Within three seconds, the body was damaged beyond recognition. Within five seconds, the remains of Clondique had been completely reduced to ash and vapor. Xibuyas kept firing for another fifteen seconds after that. Fortunately for everyone on Planet Shenia, he had angled his fire away from the planet, so that his blasts would head for outer space instead of damaging the planet, though Seltiss couldn't tell if that was a conscious decision or if it was just from the habits drilled into him from his combat training.

When he finally calmed down, Seltiss approached him. She was cautious, but cheerful nonetheless. Her plan had nearly backfired, but it had all worked out in the end.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"That filthy thing was going to kill you!" Xibuyas shouted. He turned to face her, and as he reverted to his normal appearance, she could see tears in his eyes.

"I had the situation under control, babe."

"I never should have let you fight her alone!" he said. "I almost got you killed, and then--!"

He didn't finish the thought, but she could guess the rest. Whatever he was keeping from her, however heavy the burden, at least he had the option to share it with her. But if she were killed, the he would have no choice but to carry that weight alone, for whom else could he tell?

"Luffa," he finally said after a long pause.

"What's she got to do with anything?" Seltiss asked innocently. She had a pretty good idea by now, but she needed him to say it.

"She said... she said that she was my mother," Xibuyas replied.

Seltiss pretended to be shocked, though in truth she had suspected this ever since the battle on Pflaume. Xibuyas was born around the same time Luffa became a Super Saiyan, and his powers had a certain similarity. Besides, it made no sense for Luffa to have defeated Xibuyas without killing him. She knew little about Luffa, but Seltiss couldn't believe that Luffa would show mercy to such an implacable enemy.

"Your mother?" she asked with a gasp.

"I couldn't believe it at first," Xibuyas said. "I still don't, but... What if it's true? What if she truly is an alien? That would make me..."

It would make him unworthy of her father's breeding plans. That was the missing piece. Seltiss had known from the beginning that King Rehval never would have bothered with Xibuyas as an heir without first confirming his bloodline. But Xibuyas didn't know how thorough her father was about these things, and being an orphan probably caused him to question his self-esteem from time to time.

Well, that was easy enough to fix. Seltiss could explain it to him. If Luffa really was his mother, it only proved that Luffa was a genuine Saiyan herself. Her father must have known all this.

And that could work to her advantage. If Rehval's goal was to marry Luffa's bloodline with his own, then he needed Xibuyas even more than she had ever imagined. By comparison, Seltiss was somewhat expendable--one of her sisters would do in a pinch--but Xibuyas... he was irreplaceable.

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately before he could push her away. To her surprise, he returned her embrace. It made sense. Before, he had been worried that he wasn't worthy to of her intimacy, but now that he had told her...

"It doesn't matter," she said when she finally pulled away from his lips. "You and I, what we have, it's more important than family or pedigrees."

She could have told him why it didn't matter, that it really was a non-issue, but she needed him to believe that she was being gracious instead of practical. If Xibuyas really was indispensable to her father, then she needed to make herself indispensable to him.

"Seltiss--!" was all he could say.

"We'll figure something out," Seltiss said. "If it turns out to be true, then we might be able to use it to our advantage, but it doesn't change what's between us. Got it?"

"Of... of course, my lady," he stammered. "You... you are the brains of this outfit, as you put it."

She smiled and kissed him again. "Smart boy," she said. "Now, let's go get some dinner, and then I want to go shopping one more time."

"Don't you have enough clothes already?" Xibuyas asked.

"Not for me, for you," Seltiss said. "We're meeting the Prime Minister tomorrow to go over our ransom inventory, and I want you to look your best..."

*******

[17 June, 234 Before Age.. Planet Shenia.]

"You're welcome to check the manifest yourself, of course," the minister said.

The Prime Minister of Shenia had a rather spacious office, primarily to accommodate press events and conferences. He rarely hosted diplomatic envoys, due to Shenia’s isolation from the rest of the galaxy, though there was enough furniture for about two dozen ambassadors. In spite of this, Seltiss took a seat on the corner of his desk, while Xibuyas stood behind his chair, looming over him with a menacing glower.

"No need for that," Seltiss said. She slapped the paperwork with the back of her hand and made a satisfied nod. "This all looks to be in order. You could forge a lot of these documents, but not the tonnage of the shipments themselves, and the ones Xibuyas and I spot-checked looked to be in order. Besides, none of it's leaving Shenia anyway."

"I don't... what?" the minister asked.

"Xibuyas and I will just bury it in the desert. Later on, we'll parcel it out to you and the other ministers as a reward for your compliance."

"Madam Saiyan, I don't understand," the minister said, trying to contain his growing panic. "You said you would leave Shenia once we paid this ransom."

"That's what I want the rest of the galaxy to think," she explained. "If anyone visits Shenia and sees the aftermath of our invasion, I want them to think it was a couple of Saiyan raiders who took off once they got their plunder. That way, no one will know we're still here, ruling the planet in secret."

"But why?" the minister asked.

"Because I need a base of operations," Seltiss said. "And if I conquered a planet outright, certain parties might come along to try to stop me. If my father knew I was here, doing this, he'd probably kill me. Well maybe not kill me, but he'd totally flip out."

"This isn't what we agreed," the minister protested.

"Oh, it's close enough," Seltiss insisted. "Xibuyas and I will keep a low profile. Your government will still control the planet, but you'll be taking orders from us. Don't worry, we'll try to stay out of your way. I'd suggest a special task force to handle our needs, but if you'd rather meet with me directly, that's no problem."

The minister was sweating now. "You can't just renege on our agreement!" he said. "Our army can still fight--!"

"Oh, please," Seltiss said. "Do you think I picked this place at random? Your warriors gave us a good workout, but you Shenians are practical enough to know when you're beaten. Xibuyas could have destroyed your entire military, but we need it to maintain this ruse of mine. Your ancestors were realistic enough to cooperate with the Camelians, and you're sensible enough to cooperate with me."

"Then why didn't you just tell us all this when we asked for terms of surrender?" he asked. "If you were so sure we'd capitulate, why bother having us assemble a ransom at all?"

"That's easy," Seltiss explained. "I asked for the ransom to see if you'd actually follow my instructions." She held up the manifest and waved it at him. "This right here proves you're willing to play along, and that you're not foolish enough to try to call for help or rat me out to my father. You know Xibuyas can destroy this planet, and it's worth putting up with us for a while to make sure that doesn't happen."

The minister lowered his head and groaned. "What are you kids going to do with our planet?" he asked.

"Oh, not much, minister," Seltiss said. "You've been gracious hosts to Xibuyas and me, so I thought we might invite over some friends..."

NEXT: The Adventure of Bred

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #shenia #xibuyas #seltiss #clondique

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