#I think it's because they have factions that all suck so far and my equal opportunity murder elf is killing everyone.

[jesawyer]

Potentially controversial question, though I don't mean it in that sort of way: One thing I noticed in Deadfire's writing was that there was a far greater likelihood for male characters to be portrayed as the more incompetent or less sympathetic half in most dynamics, whether it was debtor/debtee (Radora/Zamar), boss/subordinate (Furrante/Aeldys), enemies (Rinco/Mokeha) and so on. That's not to say misandry, since the goal is obviously equal representation, but I did notice this enough that I assumed wasn't just me seeing things or wanting to see them to justify a bias, especially also considering that if my observations were accurate, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest considering I would have chalked it down to an understandable difference in context regarding the way genders act based on historical norms and power dynamics (ie. There is possibly more historical weight in a man abusing a woman vs the reverse of that, so it is important to understand that history before portraying something that may or may not be a false equivalency). Essentially I ask this more as a curiosity than anything else: What was the writing team's approach to portraying gender dynamics in Deadfire?

I think the first thing is that we did make a conscious effort to numerically represent women as much as men among NPCs (note: there are not many non-binary characters in Deadfire, so in this answer I'll just be talking about male/female dynamics). We also put more women in authority positions where we felt it made sense in this fictional world that we created. For those who think that's bad, well okay.

That said, I don't really agree that the women consistently come across as more competent or sympathetic. In cases where they do, it's usually a difference of degree, not kind. I think a lot of the female characters are kind of shitty people and/or bad leaders, as many of the male characters are kind of shitty people and/or bad leaders.

If you prefer Aeldys to Furrante, that's understandable, but also Aeldys... sucks? Director Castol and Lueva Alvari are also both bad in different ways. Queen Onekaza II is a sympathetic figure but installed herself as a monarch over the other tribes of the Deadfire and has caused a lot of collateral damage to the Huana in her ongoing defense of the region - literally a gatekeeping girlboss. Prince Aruihi is a flawed character but I don't think he comes across as particularly incompetent or malicious compared to his sister.

Rinco is annoying and pathetic but Mokeha comes across as excessively belligerent even if she was in the right. Radora did get jumped by pirates, which is easy to sympathize with, but I don't think she does much to endear herself to the Watcher. Hazanui Karū is highly effective but she would be perfectly content seeing the RDC effectively steamroll Huana culture. Atsura is below her in rank, but he easily as competent as she is in different areas, but repellent for other, weirder reasons.

And as far as the companions go, Xoti is approaching Permanent Dark Mode, Maia assassinates people with no questions asked, Pallegina is a ultranationalist zealot... I don't know - I just don't think these characters feel "better" or more sympathetic than the male characters.

I think the main difference really is just that there are about as many female characters as male characters and they are more represented in key positions of power. But they often suck ass in those positions of power because they are difficult jobs and inherently corrupting. For better or worse, one of the recurring comments about Deadfire's factions is that they all seem kind of shitty. Even in cases where you can shift the faction head, they still feel a different type of shitty. That's both because of the vibes of the faction overall as well as their leadership. You do not, in fact, "gotta hand it" to the Royal Deadfire Company or Aeldys' nightmare anarcho pirate flotilla with the Ukaizo storm engines permanently set to Max Power.

[marta-bee]

I finally got to the end of “Wednesday,” the first present-day section of Good Omens. It just keeps going and going and going, and I for one still wasn’t ready for it to be over. It’s also the end of what I’d previously read years ago, so everything coming up book-specific is new to me. How exciting is that?

No deep thoughts, I’m afraid, except as someone who was just on the cusp of political awareness around the time it was published  .... this section is truly hilarious.

A man threw himself through the window, a knife between his teeth, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in one hand, a grenade in the other.

"I glaim gis oteg id der gaing og der-" he paused. He took the knife out of his mouth and began again. "I claim this hotel in the name of the pro-Turkish Liberation Faction!"

The last two holidaymakers remaining on the island [Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Threlfall, of 9, The Elms, Paignton. They always maintained that one of the nice things about going on holiday was not having to read the newspapers or listen to the news, just getting away from it all really. And due to a tummy bug contracted by Mr. Threlfall, and Mrs. Threlfall rather overdoing it in the sun their first day, this was their first time out of their hotel room for a week and a half.] climbed underneath their table. Red unconcernedly withdrew the maraschino cherry from her drink, put it to her scarlet lips, and sucked it slowly off its stick in a way that made several men in the room break into a cold sweat.

The pianist stood up, reached into his piano, and pulled out a vintage sub-machine gun. "This hotel has already been claimed by the pro-Greek Territorial Brigade!" he screamed. "Make one false move, and I shoot out your living daylight!"

There was a motion at the door. A huge, black-bearded individual with a golden smile and a genuine antique Gatling gun stood there, with a cohort of equally huge although less impressively armed men behind him.

"This strategically important hotel, for years a symbol of the fascist imperialist Turko-Greek running dog tourist trade, is now the property of the Italo-Maltese Freedom Fighters!" he boomed affably. "Now we kill everybody!"

"Rubbish!" said the pianist. "Is not strategically important. Just has extremely well-stocked wine cellar!"

"He's right, Pedro," said the man with the Kalashnikov, "That's why my lot wanted it. 11 General Ernesto de Montoya said to me, he said, Fernando, the war'll be over by Saturday, and the lads'll be wanting a good time. Pop down to the Hotel de Palomar del Sol and claim it as booty, will you?"

The bearded man turned red. "Is bloddy important strategically, Fernando Chianti! I drew big map of the island and is right in the middle, which makes it pretty bloddy strategically important, I can tell you."

"Ha!" said Fernando. "You might as well say that just because Little Diego's house has a view of the decadent capitalist topless private beach, that it's strategically important!"

The pianist blushed a deep red. "Our lot got that this morning," he admitted. There was silence.

In the silence was a faint, silken rasping. Red had uncrossed her legs.

The pianist's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. "Well, it's pretty strategically important," he managed, trying to ignore the woman on the bar stool. "I mean, if someone landed a submarine on it, you'd want to be somewhere you could see it all."

Silence.

"Well, it's a lot more strategically important than this hotel anyway," he finished.

Pedro coughed, ominously. "The next person who says anything. Anything at all. Is dead." He grinned. Hefted his gun. "Right. Now everyone against far wall."

I don’t know if this was the standard experience of the tail-end of the Cold War, from someone who was just shy of 10 at the time. My family was first-generation America and still very European in a lot of ways, and not all of us living west of the Iron Curtain; so we probably talked more about the splintering of communism than a lot of Americans did. I think I was the only kid in 2nd grade who knew what the Polish Solidarity movement was, let alone had a definite opinion on it. Still: I still can’t help but smile at references to the Italo-Maltese Freedom Fighters.

Maybe you just had to be there. Or be me. Or something. But this is peak humor, I’m telling you.

I’m also really fascinated by this description of the sword War will carry as one of the Four Riders:

It was a very straightforward sword, long and sharp; it looked both old and unused; and it had nothing ornamental or impressive about it. This was no magical sword, no mystic weapon of power and might. It was very obviously a sword created to slice, chop, cut, preferably kill, but, failing that, irreparably maim, a very large number of people indeed. It had an indefinable aura of hatred and menace.

So not Excalibur, or Anduril; not steeped in metaphor and symbolism, but a sword ready to get shit done. And for all that there’s no real detail beyond its efficacy at causing destruction. And that it’s not been used. It is storied; it’s relevant here because of its role in a story, and it’s symbolic of the moment somehow. It’s not been used; it’s been waiting for this. But it’s also distinctly real.

I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m explaining it very well. But it’s still fascinating to me.

Finally, I got curious about Carmine Zuigiber, the identity War is using around the time of this incident. It’s such an odd one. Some baby name sites connect Carmine to an Aramaic word for “crimson,” others to “garden” or “vine-dresser” which has some lovely Garden of Eden connections. But for the last name, I stumbled across this gem on Twitter:

That’s a real-life Carmine Zuigiber (named after the character) saying the name in the name originated with a typo. But because of the way Twitter loaded the page, it looked like Mr. Gaiman’s response to another tweet (this one of Carmine sharing a very red Coraline doll) was actually commenting on the below bits. Not affirming it, not saying they’re factually correct, but just that he thought the idea was wonderful. And all of it hinging on my not getting Twitter. Shades of members of a certain chattering order winking at each other, that. I love it.

You know what else I love? I googled some more, and it turns out Zingiber is the plants whose roots are turned into ginger. That’s right; Red’s chosen name is Crimson Ginger. Shades of Legolas Greenleaf. I do believe I’m in love.

[mistwalkers-menagerie]

I don't think you're being negative. Having valid criticism for something you otherwise love doesn't equal hating or being needlessly negative.

As I'm playing, doing certain side quests centered around Solas lore, I can't help but feel a bit hollow myself. On one hand it's really enjoyable, on the other I feel like The Veilguard should've broken tradition to be a more direct sequal to Inquisition (despite loving my Rook to bits). Obviously I'm extremely biased as that's my favorite game of all time and I'm very attached to my Inquisitor and his journey.

Anyway, if not a direct sequal, maybe a subdivision under the Inquisition. It being disbanded or not could've affected the story. Because back then I thought that decision would carry weight, that the Well of Sorrows carried weight.

It should've had more of the past companions as NPCs; people who knew Solas, for us to witness exposition and the new revelations from their perspective. Yeah, we had Varric, as an afterthought almost. But because the devs decided they want a clean slate, all the insane exposition is rushed and as you've said, there's not enough nuance to it.

Everyone just accepts that the Evanuris are rampaging. No one tries to make sense of it. The controversy around the Inquisitor's title as Herald have been a constant debate throughout the game. So was Corypheus, everyone dreaded Corypheus and what he represented, the questions his existence raised. There were a ton of codex and conversation about the world's opinions.

The Veilguard on the other hand feels utterly isolated from Thedas.

What do you mean the Elves are just like "well, my gods are evil, that sucks". Why isn't there a quest - hell, an arc - centered around the Elves coming to terms? And the Chantry is not in this at all so far? I'm not a Chantry fan or anything, but what do you mean none of the human political factions and the biggest human religious organization have anything to say about the situation?

We don't know how the world reacted. We don't know shit.

I know DATV went through a rough development, that's not new to BioWare sadly. But it should've handled the past games - especially DAI - with more care and respect. Because despite being compelling and enjoyable, the story still doesn't feel quite right.

Ok, as much as I have been hyping and playing 12 hours a day since it got out (still in Act 1 though, bc I'm a slowass player and completionist), I feel like I have to say something that is getting hard to ignore at this point... and I wanna preface this by saying that I am loving a lot of aspects of the game and I adore the writing when it comes to the companions, who I am obsessed with.

And maybe this will get better yet, as I generally heard the writing picks up once the story progresses beyond picking up all companions..

But I'm starting to get quite upset at the way the writing just does NOT care about the established lore and the politics of Thedas like at all, when to me - and many others - that richness, nuance and depth of the world is what makes the games so special.

(Spoilers below)

I looked past the way the elves in Arlathan just seemed to know that their gods are evil and Solas is "kind of a dick" but was right about that. When, you know, that made him basically the Satan of their pantheon up to now.. It was after all the tutorial stage of the game and I understand that you wanna ease newcomers into the lore. I could also handwave it in-universe with Morrigan being there - she could have filled the Veiljumpers in on the discoveries of the Inquisition or even what the Well told her.

It felt a bit weird that our contacts in every other faction just accepted this huge revelation without a blink, but again it was the early stages and I also get that having a discussion about it 6 times with different faction leaders would have been incredibly tedious. So I ignored that. And yeah, at least the First Warden found it hard to swallow.

The fact that they brushed aside the gods finding elven subjects - many of whom after all still worship them - with one sentence from Solas was disappointing though. Instead they chose to ally them with the Venatori and the Antaam who are the pure evil factions with no nuance or motive to side with them besides a comic book level of hunger for power. They didn't even throw in a sentence about the gods maybe speaking to the Venatori through the Archdemons to get them on their side or how it's very ironic that the Venatori, who want to make Tevinter great again, stoop to working with the pantheon of the people they oppress because they see them as lesser and other. No political exploration of the massive lore implications at all.

It really hit me when I picked up Davrin and he commented how Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain blighting the world would really endear us (elves) to the rest of Thedas - this was the first time anyone actually mentioned the political impact of the elven gods being real, freed, evil and blighted on modern day elves at all, when this should be HUGE. It should be ugly. It should be complex. It should be explored in as many examples as bloodmagic and the oppression of mages was in DA2. It should be a central point of Act 1. (This btw made me love Davrin so much in that moment because this was the first time in the game for me when I actually felt like talking to a Dragon Age elf and even just that one line felt like home.)

And now I just did Taash's first companion quest and it seems Qunari lore is also being ignored (except for the gender aspect of it, which I look forward to). Taash's mum was a scholar and had a baby and the only problem about that was that it could breathe fire and was special but otherwise all would have been dandy? Like she would have just been allowed to keep Taash long enough to find that out about her baby if she was living under the Qun? That directly contradicts everything we know about how the Qunari's culture around reproduction and childcare works.

Sorry to be negative and talking myself into a rage - I know it's not something people want to see rn. But like, I realise you have to brush over some lore intricacies for brevity and to make it digestible for new players. But this is a world initially inspired by Wheel of Time and ASOIAF, both of which are interesting because of the depth of ficitional cultures, lore and politics, and hence it's also what gives Dragon Age its appeal. And now they take us to the most politcally interesting areas on the world map and just get rid of all of political depth?

That's really disappointing. Imagine if Winds of Winter dropped all political themes just because there's several previous books and it's been some a lot of years.

Also, I managed to play DA2 before I ever played Origins and they could introduce me to a vast established background of lore just fine back then.

Sorry. Rant over. But I had to get that out of my system.

[prismbearer]

The fact that I keep thinking of DA while playing DOS2...

Anyway. I'm in Act 3 now and this whole nameless temple isle is such a mess.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 07 part two

(Masterpost)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Lantern Lighting

Now we have the famous lantern scene, where everybody gets to express their character and have dates, ranging from disastrous to delightful, with the objects of their affection. 

Wei Wuxian continues to be ridiculously good at drawing. 

We’ve all seen Lan Wangji’s lovely first smile in the show a million times, so...let’s look at it again!

This scene is important not just because of the smile, but because there’s a distinct shift in the way they talk about their growing relationship. In the pond, it was “come visit me” and “never!” “I want to be your friend” “No need.” Basically Lan Wangji firmly saying no to Wei Wuxian’s offers of friendship.

This time, Wei Wuxian says “let’s do this together” and Lan Wangji says “I’m used to being alone,” which is not actually a No, just an explanation. And WWX says, you can change that. And then Lan Wangji DOES change it, sharing the lantern and the promise with Wei Wuxian.

Whoever painted this flower is even better than Wei Wuxian at plein air painting. 

(more after the cut!)

Everybody’s wishes

Nie Huasang makes a practical wish. Wen Qing prays for her brother and Jiang Cheng notices how she’s like Yanli. Jiang Cheng isn’t very intense about Wen Qing, which could be a sign of his shyness but could also be a sign of his gayness or aceness. After all, later in life he’s an apparently wealthy clan leader who is hot as fuck, and needs an heir, since his nephew is a Jin. But he’s still not married, 16 years after breaking up with and uh, helping to kill and cremate, the girl he liked in summer school.

The Promise We Made Together

Wei Wuxian makes an ultra-idealistic wish/promise while Lan Wangji watches and falls the rest of the way in love with him, and silently makes the same pledge inside his head. Later they will each refer to this as a promise they made together, which is a really super high level of face-reading by Wei Wuxian, to understand that he really is speaking for both of them here.  While making this promise, Lan Wangji brings out his Yin Iron Magic Bag and waves it around in front of everyone, but nobody notices. 

Let’s take a moment to consider *why* this moment is so powerful for Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji is a boy whose emotions are always on the boil. He’s 100% upset all the time, at this age, and he keeps it clamped down all the time. His cultivation level is probably as high as it is partly because of all the work he does in emotion regulation. (note: if you haven’t read all the meta at @howpeacefulislwj​ , go read it; it’s awesome and hilarious)

Wei Wuxian doesn’t GAF about emotion regulation; he just expresses what he feels, all the damn time. 

He is openly bored, lusty, playful, hungry, whiny. He straight up tells Lan Wangji “you’re boring and you have a stick up your ass” as part of saying he wants to be friends; no deference and also no falseness.  

And he can see right through Lan Wangji’s reserve, barging into his loneliness and isolation without any regard for all of his wards. Wards are made to be broken.

(Unrelated note: Young Lan Wangji's rare moments of contentment seem to come from looking at something beautiful--the moon, falling petals, these lanterns, his mirror.)

But Wei Wuxian is also good. Lan Wangji desperately wants to be good. And here’s Wei Wuxian embodying this awful, amazing, tempting alternative path, in which all the interesting things in life get explored thoroughly, all the sweetness and beauty gets consumed unreservedly, all the pain and ugliness gets confronted and endured without hesitation. 

In this moment, Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji “you can change,” and then offers up this prayer/promise that is just pure chivarly, speaking straight to Lan Wangji’s heart. Very simply, I want to spend my life doing right. Not 3500 rules; just one.

This infuriating boy, who breaks rules and who flirts indiscriminately and who pushes and pushes and pushes, reveals himself in this moment to be a hero at the beginning of his journey, and Lan Wangji sees it, and his heart goes right over the cliff.

The Girls’ Room

The girl cultivators all rush over to Yanli to get in her business about her betrothal, inspiring Jin Zixuan to act like a jerk to her and get even further onto Wei Wuxian’s bad side. 

Talk Shit, Get Hit

Yanli’s wish was that Wei Wuxian would grow up and be good. He promptly launches his own personal Sunshot campaign, punching her fiancee so hard that the sun falls out of the sky and the previously well-lit scene transitions to full night.

So, in English, “don’t mention it again” is really mild, akin to “I don’t want to talk about it.” Wei Wuxian’s reaction makes it seem like Jin Zixuan said something really shitty, like “don’t you dare mention that woman to me!” So I’m assuming something is being lost in translation. 

Lan Wangji tries to calm him down. He grabs Wei Wuxian’s sexy arm muscle and basically holds it until the Jiangs exit the scene. 

Nie Huaisang has placed himself between the opposing factions, which is unusually direct of him. In the future he’ll stick to being an unindicted co-conspirator when Wei Wuxian starts trouble. 

Ants in my Pants

Lan Wangji thinks kneeling can make Wei Wuxian cry, which is adorable of him. 

He really relishes this opportunity to be a pedantic tool to his new boyfriend that annoying boy he hardly ever touches, and it really doesn’t work out for him, poor lamb.

Jiang Fengmian stops by to show exactly how deep his affection for Wei Wuxian runs, and to give him whiplash from constantly changing parental expectations. In a couple of hours he’ll be laughing over WWX & JC’s hijinks.

Wei Wuxian takes this opportunity to fantasize about bad things happening to the other boy in the fight, which is in no way foreshadowing of anything.

Douche Dads Conference

We now convene this meeting of the douchebag council. Jiang Cheng is also invited even though he’s a prick, not a douche. <--important distinction

This is our first time meeting Clan Leader Jin Guangshan. He's actually the most sensible and best parent in this scene, but his smug self-satisfaction hints at his true nature. This actor, Shen Xiaohai, has been active in cdramas for a long while now. I wonder what he looked like 15 years ago?

...Holy mother of god.

Jiang Fengmian is the worst dad and the worst husband here. His clan believes in letting children do what they want - uhh YOUR child wants to marry Jin Zixuan. “I wrote a letter to her mother, who arranged this marriage.” Uhhh she arranged for her sickly, low-cultivation-level, sweet and vulnerable child to marry the heir of a rich and powerful clan, with a powerful mother-in-law who’s looking forward to loving and protecting her. Basically she’s guaranteed her daughter’s safety and comfort, and even potential happiness, since her husband may learn to appreciate her (and in fact, does, thanks to soup and repeated beatings from WWX).

Mom worked hard and probably spent a fair amount of social capital to achieve this. And you’re going to toss that aside because the boy thinks he’s too good for her? What the everloving fuck, how are you a clan leader in the first place? 

You can see that Jiang Cheng understands all of this and what a terrible choice his father is making here. 

So do the other adults in the room.

Jin Guangshen: our wives are going to kill us

Lan Qiren: I'm looking at a couple of dead men

Jiang Fengmian pointedly won’t listen to Jiang Cheng or let him speak, showing that all his talk about being free is actually bullshit, that only applies to other people’s children.

Jiang Chang vaults off of the deck to tell Wei Wuxian about it. Hottt

Sorry Sis

Wei Wuxian goes to Jiang Yanli to sorta-apologize and sorta ask to be let off the hook for fucking up her engagement, which he absolutely did. He knows it, which is presumably why he bows to her in paperman form while hiding outside.

At no time has Jiang Yanli indicated to anyone that she doesn’t want to marry Jin Zixuan, as far as I can see, or said she wanted to be defended from insults with punching. Look how good SHE is at defending a person from insults, for comparison.

Yin Iron Blah Blah Blah

The senior Lans meet with Jiang Fengmian  to talk about the Yawn Yin Iron. Yawn. 

Jiang Fengmian addresses Lan Xichen as Lan Gongzi, which is adorable, since he is a big boy to everyone else. His family calls him Xichen and other people call him Zewu-Jun.

Farewell and Fuck You

The three Jiang kids come to say goodbye.

Lan Quiren says goodbye with a heap of criticism for Wei Wuxian and the horse he rode in on, and Jiang Fengmian basically says, yep, that’s what he’s like, all right.  

Good thing Wei Ying gets so much verbal abuse at home he doesn’t take it very hard when he finds it in the field. 

Wangji doesn’t say goodbye properly, which will be a recurring theme for the two of them.

I don’t know if this is because he has a problem with goodbyes, or is just being a jerk, or because he’s so bad at lying he doesn’t dare talk to Wei Wuxian lest he reveal his travel plans. 

Indulgent Dad Continues to be the Worst

Jiang Cheng complains at Wei Wuxian for wanting to say goodbye to Lan Wangji, and WWX says he likes him because he is equal to WWX in fighting, whereas JC sucks. JC hits him tries to hit him--gosh, he DOES suck, comparatively. 

Yanli, who has been keeping these boys in line all summer, sighs deeply at her Dad’s tolerance for their hijinks. OP has five brothers and this sibling-hijinks behavior is 100% accurate, except for the part where it is happening at someone else’s house in front of the hosts. 

WWX pretending to be Lan Qiren where Lan Wangji can see him doing it, in front of Lan Qiren’s colleague and supposed friend, and just earning a laugh from the patriarch? Good lord.  Dad Jiang tolerating this is shocking, particularly in the in-show culture where corporal punishment is as common as tea. 

We’ve tried Nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!

Uggghh why are you like this?

Here in the real world, OP uses “positive discipline” with her child, and encourages other parents to consider it, particularly if your child is neuroatypical or asynchronous.  That said, JF should be punishing the crap out of both boys for this behavior every time it happens, or should quit being a clan leader.  He’s relying on Jiang Yanli to keep them in line while he gets to just be amused by them. And he’s letting Lan Qiren discipline Wei Wuxian instead of doing it himself. He suuuuuuucks. 

Lan Wangji watches all of this. Lan Xichen reminds Lan Wangji that without Wei Wuxian, he’s completely fucking miserable. Lan Wangji still doesn’t plan to bring him along on his trip, though.

Time to return to our lives of crushing loneliness

Rabbits

At this same moment when Lan Wangji is staring down the barrel of future loneliness, Wei Wuxian is already deciding to leave the (forbidden) rabbits in Cloud Recesses “In case Lan Zhan gets lonely.”  This small decision by Wei Wuxian - breaking the rules of Cloud Recesses for the millionth time - is kinder than he knows. Because what is the job of these rabbits? Let’s have a desaturated flashback. 

Lan Zhan spent 3 years in the ice cave. The rabbits kept Lan Yi company in the ice cave. So...did the rabbits sneak in to keep Lan Wangji company in the ice cave as well? I’m going to say yes. By ep 43 they are following him to the gate of Cloud Recesses so they are very attached to him.  Well done, Wei Ying.

Where my bitches at? Seriously, our warren needs bitches

(Is Watership Down still a thing people read? If not, just go ahead and assume all of OP’s rabbit jokes are about Watership Down because OP ain’t going to stop making them)

While Wei Wuxian annoys the bunny he has a flashback to the scene that happened 4 minutes earlier. The Untamed editors assume the viewership has the attention span of a goldfish, and I personally appreciate that they understand me so well.

Wei Wuxian figures out that Lan Wangji is going on the road alone, and tells the bunny immediately. The bunny is very concerned.

Writing Prompt: What do next-generation cultivators Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi wish for at lantern-lighting time?

[underworldobsessed]

You’re Not in Charge, I’m Free! ll Bo-Katan Week Day 7: Free Day

Title: You’re Not in Charge, I’m Free! Rating: E Ship: Bo-Katan Kryze/Original Female Character Characters: Bo-Katan Kryze, Original female Character Series: This Life is Mine (Bo-Katan Week 2021), Path From Isolation Summary:  Ever since Delia had joined the Nite Owls, Bo-Katan has found that she has been unable to keep her eyes off her, especially as she gets fitted for Beskar'gam and begins to practice hand to hand combat with the other Nite Owls. Now, Bo is finding more and more excuses to watch the newest recruit as she spars, until she gets the chance to get up close and personal with her. ll Bo-Katan Week Day 7: Free Day! Author’s note: Yeah... this is just self indulgent smut. Two of my friends gave me this idea when we were discussing which Star Wars characters could make a girl come, and then we started discussing how Bo-Katan would make someone beg for it first. And then this idea was born.

Tagging: @bokatanweek

Read here or under the cut

Bo knew that she should be focused on the mess of things she had to do as leader of the Nite Owls. Oh, she had rationalized, there is no reason to stay cooped up somewhere to go over mission plans when she could sit out where sparring matches are held to try and keep skills sharp. Of course, this had nothing to do with the former jedi who had joined their ranks and was currently practicing her hand to hand combat in her new Beskar’gam.The same woman who Bo could barely keep her eyes off of when she was training.

Definitely not.

But in truth, there was something so arousing about seeing Delia fighting in Mandalorian armor. It had been a very long time since she had feelings for another woman as strong as these. She knew now wasn’t the time for it, though. Now wasn’t the time for her to allow these feelings to run rampant. They had a mission to complete. Only once Mandalore was in their grasps could she allow herself to think about that.

“Wanna spar?” Bo hadn’t even processed that Delia was standing over her, until she was. Thankfully, she had the ability to hide the flush from her cheeks as she looked up at Delia. “Come on, boss, you’ve been sitting there with your nose buried in that tablet for hours, you look like you could use a fight.”

There was only a moment’s hesitation before Bo smirked and stood up, picking up her helmet and slipping it on. “Come on, let’s go.” Delia smirked back before her helmet was on too and they were on the floor opposite of one other.

Blow for blow was matched, Bo finding herself surprised by how good Delia had gotten. Then again, the Jedi had fought in the Clone Wars, they were often relying on hand to hand combat if something happened with their lightsabers. Yet, there was little advantage against a Mandalorian with seasoned training and one who ran her own faction of warriors against the Empire. It wasn’t long before Bo had gotten the edge on Delia. Sometime in the middle of it, they had lost their helmets and were just sparring face to face without any care. Bo saw an opening and took it, swinging her leg out and knocking Delia to the ground, pinning her there. Both women were sweaty and panting, but grinning at one another as Bo was on top of her.

“Seems like I mmph-,” Before Bo could finish her statement, she had felt Delia tug her down by her armor and press their lips together in a possessive and passionate kiss. Bo stiffened for a moment before she kissed back, moving to pull her up and run her fingers through Delia’s cropped hair. They separated for a moment before Deilia pulled them both up.

“Come on.” She tugged on her hand and Bo knew exactly where the two of them were going before she could think. She was no longer concerned with any other thoughts, instead her focus was trying to get to the bedroom as quickly as possible.

They had barely gotten the door closed before Bo was all over Delia again, pressing her up against the door with a knee between her legs. There was a muffled groan from the former jedi as she felt Bo pin her hands above her head as her lips made a trail down her neck, her teeth dragging against the soft skin.

Bo could feel just how pliant Delia was getting under her and smirked. “Sensitive right there, are we?” Without a chance for her to answer, Bo started to suck a mark into the skin of Delia’s neck and she felt it vibrate with a moan. “I love it when you make those sounds.”

She pulled back and moved to pull off Delia’s armor, stopping briefly before she did so. “Are you okay with this?” She didn’t want to misinterpret where they were going, but she could feel the way her clit throbbed and she wanted this so bad. She just didn’t… want to worry about forcing this upon her. If Delia didn’t want this… well it would suck but she could deal with it on her own. It wouldn’t be the first time she had gotten all hot and bothered with no reprieve but her own fingers.

She felt Delia’s fingers brush through her hair, briefly noting that her headband had vanished, probably somewhere with her helmet, before she looked up. “Bo-Katan, please, fuck me.”

Not needing to be told twice, she went back to removing the pieces of Delia’s armor, leaving her only in her undergarments. Upon seeing her try to remove those herself, she stopped her hand and scowled at her. “Bad girl.” She felt Delia stiffen before she let out another moan. “You’re being such a bad girl, not letting me undress you.”

“I-I,” Delia couldn’t seem to get a sentence out before Bo pushed her onto the bed so she was laying flat on her back. The older woman’s eyes gleamed at the sight and she removed her armor, being sure to be slow. She wanted to tease and taunt her, and it seemed to be working. Delia’s breathing grew labored as her pupils dilated. Finally Bo had stripped herself down to the same level of undress that Delia was at, as she moved to pin her down to the bed.

“If this becomes too much and you need me to stop,” Bo spoke, her tone far more gentle than it had been too much. “Say ‘Mandalore’ and I will stop what I’m doing. I have plans for what I want to do to you.”

Delia nodded, but that wasn’t enough. Bo didn’t move, didn’t continue to do anything or finish undressing her. It took a minute to get it through her aroused brain to realize that she was waiting on Delia to vocalize and verbally agree to it. “Mandalore, and you will stop. I understand. I’m ready.”

That seemed to be the magic word, and Bo’s expression changed. She pinned her hands back so they were above her head. “You are so beautiful underneath me like this.” Bo moved to kiss Delia’s lips gently before she continued their trail back down her neck, making sure to pay special attention to it now that she knew it was a sensitive spot for her. She felt Delia arch up a little bit under the attention, and tilt her head so Bo had better access.

She sucked a hickey into her skin, making sure to mark her so others knew that Delia was hers. From there, she moved to kiss her breasts, being sure to notice what caused her to react in specific ways. She felt her breath hitch as she rolled the nipple in between her teeth, pulling at it gently. Delia cried out at the slight pain as it quickly morphed to pleasure, and Bo used that as a sign to continue to do just what she was doing. She paid equal attention to her other breast, and then continued the trail down her stomach.

There was a scar there that Bo had never seen before, then again, she hadn’t seen Delia naked before. She had no idea how many scars she had, or where they came from. She smiled to herself as she pressed a kiss to the mark on her skin. “You are so beautiful,” Bo hummed “Every scar and every mark on your skin is so beautiful.”

“Ngh, Bo-Katan.” Hearing her full name being moaned out like that caused a shiver run up her spine. She had never heard her name said in that particular way before, and it caused herself to grow even wetter. Stars, she would never be able to hear her name come from Delia’s lips again without imagining her like this, pliant and wanting underneath her. It would definitely make working with her a lot more difficult if she would just see this over and over again in her mind.

“Shh,” She continued her trail down her stomach and in between her legs. She looked up at Delia and smirked, nipping at her thighs to another outcry. “So sensitive… so beautiful.”

She started to suck at Delia’s clit, making sure to listen to the sounds of pleasure coming from the woman she held feelings for. She moved to slip one finger in between her folds. She curled her finger and continued to suck at her clit until she felt Delia’s walls clench her finger and she immediately stopped what she was doing and looked up at Delia expectantly.

“W-What?” Delia was very clearly struggling to form words, struggling to focus her mind on what was going on around her. She didn’t understand why Bo had just stopped. “I don’t want you to come, not yet anyway. I’m not ready for you to. You have to show me that you deserve it.” She watched Delia’s eyes widen at Bo’s words. How could she expect her to do that when she was already so close. So needy for Bo’s mouth on her and her fingers inside her.

“I want to come, please Bo, please allow me to.” Bo moaned softly at the words being spoken towards her. Hearing her beg to her was so pleasurable and she didn’t know what to do, because she wanted her terribly but also she wanted her like this too. She liked seeing her partners so pliant underneath her, begging for her to bring her to an orgasm, only to bring her back to the cusp again and again before she would finally let her reach her climax.

“You know what to say if you want me to stop, if it’s too much, just say the word.”

After a few moments of listening to Delia beg but not give the safe word, she finally went back at it again. Her mouth found her clit, and this time sliding two fingers deep inside her. She grinned at the outcry she heard from Delia, this time her free hand went down to circle her own clit in the way she knew she liked. Bo let out a soft moan, which she could see send chills through Delia. If she had known the effect she had on Delia, perhaps she would have done this sooner. She thought, especially because Delia was a former jedi, she wouldn’t be interested in Bo-Katan.

Yet, the compromising position they found themselves in was proof enough that Bo was just letting her nerves get the best of her.

“Yes, that’s it,” Bo removed her lips, and fingers again as she felt how close Delia got to an orgasm once again. “I like seeing you begging for me to fuck you with my mouth.” Bo was thankful for her position, because with her shoulders where they were, she could prevent Delia’s legs from closing to try and alleviate pressure. She wanted it to build. She wanted to see how long she could draw this out. “You’re so needy, cyar’ika, you need to be fucked, don’t you.”

She honestly didn’t know where this came from. She had never been like this before, but there was just something too tantalizing about Delia and perhaps she had been alone for so long that she couldn’t control herself. This was something that she needed desperately.

And from the noises Delia was making, she could tell she needed it too.

Once again, Bo went in to bring Delia to the brink, but this time, instead of sliding her fingers into her waiting heat, she used her tongue running it up her slit before sliding in. Delia’s heels started to dig into Bo’s back, which only added to the pleasure. The smell of Delia just all around her just overwhelmed her. Sliding her hands underneath Delia’s toned ass, she squeezed and lifted so she was getting a different angle to put her mouth, a different angle for her tongue.

She could feel Delia start to grow close to her orgasm, but she was so lost in eating her out that she didn’t want to wait any longer. “Go ahead, cyar’ika. You’ve been such a good girl, you can go ahead and come. I want to taste you.”

It seemed like that was all Delia needed as Bo felt her come apart around her mouth. She eagerly continued to lick at her, until she felt Delia’s legs go slack from around her and slightly muffled she heard “Mandalore.”

Bo immediately pulled back, licking the last of the wet off her lips. Her eyes were wide, trying to figure out if she went too far. Her clit was pounding, needing release, but if she did, in fact, go too far, she didn’t want Delia to have to worry about it. She would take care of her own needs. She was lost in her thoughts, until she felt a hand comb through her hair and pull her into another kiss.

“That was amazing, Bo-Katan.” Delia mumbled against her lips “But now I believe it’s your turn.”

Bo felt herself fall back onto the mattress and now she was staring up at Delia, pupils wide and unsure what she should be doing. “I can’t do the same thing you just did, I don’t have that much practice, but I do believe I have some experience in bringing a beautiful woman to orgasm.”

Following a similar trail, Delia kissed down Bo’s body like Bo did to her, but she was far rougher than Bo had been, much to Bo’s pleasure. Her back arched off the bed as she felt Delia’s teeth sink into her neck, leaving a bright red mark. She continued that trend, kissing for a bit before biting. Unlike Bo, however, she bypassed Bo’s breasts completely, and just continued down her body.

“Ngh,” Bo wanted her to put some attention to her breasts, knowing just how sensitive they were. However, she thought at the same time that if the right amount of attention was paid to them, there would be little to stop her from coming apart rather quickly. She was already hyper sensitive to Delia’s touch, every kiss feeling like electricity on her skin.

“You smell so good, Bo,” Bo didn’t even realize how low Delia had gotten, lost in the pleasure, until she heard her voice. The next thing Bo knew, she felt Delia’s lips on her pulsing clit and three fingers immediately slipping into her. A strangled cry left Bo’s lips as she bucked her hips up to Delia’s mouth. Fuck, she was so good with her mouth.

The way she sucked and nipped at the bundle of nerves sent pleasure ripping through her. She reached down to tangle her hand in Delia’s hair. She wanted to pull on her hair, but also didn’t want to do anything that would cause her to stop. She didn’t want her to stop.

“Don’t stop, please don’t stop.” Bo begged, feeling her heart beating wildly in her chest. She was close, feeling herself coming up to her orgasm. Part of her wanted Delia to try and stop, to do the same thing that she had done to her before, but there was a louder part of her that didn’t want her pleasure to be delayed. Her vision went white as she cried out, back arching off the bed as she came, harder than she could recall having ever done before.

Delia continued to lick and suck, drawing out Bo’s pleasure as much as she could before. Bo’s body went slack, a dazed grin on her face. She had been with many women, but none of them had that level of skill with their mouths. And the few men she’d been with? Forget it. None of them would do that to her. She felt the bed shift as Delia moved to climb out of it and go to her room.

“Where are you going?” Bo could barely recognize the tone in her own voice, but thought nothing of it as she grabbed Delia’s arm and tugged her into bed, letting her head rest on her chest. “Stay… I want you to.”

“Are you sure?” She felt Delia relax on top of her, and Bo’s fingers combed through her hair.

“Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t just invite anyone to bed… I want you here, Delia.”

Delia hummed, listening to Bo’s heartbeat now that she had been given permission to stay. She closed her eyes slowly. “Why me?”

“When we first met,” Bo’s voice was soft despite her normal commanding tone. “I was startled by your kindness to a woman you had never met, and then you were willing to join up with my team despite it all… I have to admit, I fell harder than I’d like to admit. And then I saw you in Beskar’gam and I… well… you’re beautiful in armor.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.” Delia laughed when Bo lightly tugged on her hair “I’m glad… I wasn't just imagining things between us. Being raised in the Order… I didn’t know what to do about feelings like this. But, if you’ll be patient with me, I would like to see where this… where we lead.”

Did Bo want to see where this went? Did she want to potentially start up a relationship in the middle of this conflict? There was no guarantee that either of them would make it, but… could she do it? She… had to admit, she was tired of being alone. She would like to have someone to share her time with when she wasn’t on missions, and she couldn’t deny her feelings for Delia.

In lieu of saying anything, Bo moved to tilt Delia’s face up so she could press a kiss to her lips, putting passion behind it to hopefully show that she was willing to try and be with her. However, when they separated, she saw Delia looking expectantly at her, wanting a verbal confirmation much like Bo had during their sexual encounter.

“I would like to see where this goes as well.” She saw the way Delia’s face brightened and she pulled her into another kiss, trying to ignore the voice in her mind that reminded her of the last time a Kryze fell in love with a Jedi.

It was a concern for another day.

[bloody-fists-beating-hearts]

It’s a Fallout76/Bethesda rant

Bethesda just released Fallout 1st, a horseshit pay-to-win subscription system for their absolute cum-bubble of a game, and while it’s getting the flack it deserves there are people already putting on their kneepads so they can gobble down Todd Howards entire turgid cock, and as someone who likes rpg’s way too much this irked me, so have a massive and barely coherent rant i took off the discord because why not.

I want to start off with this:  Every good thing about current fallout comes from the fanbase. The stories people tell, the headcanons, the fanfics, the art, everything fans do for it is made with more love, and more thought, than anything Bethesda’s writing and games design team has done in the last 10 years

Now first of all, I haven’t bought or played 76. People are gonna stop me right there and go ”well you haven’t bought it how would you know its bad!!” yeah, I’ve never eaten dog shit either but I can pretty well guess that I ain’t gonna fucking like it.

I knew the second he said "there are no npcs" with actual enthusiasm that this game was gonna be shit. And if you give me 2 seconds to gloat, I never bought the game and I knew this was gonna happen and I was RIGHT so suck my fat hairy nuts all those fanboys who pre-order things mindlessly just because there's a brand name attached to it. If there is anything you take from this its DO NOT PREORDER. BRAND LOYALTY IS FOR BOOMERS AND BOOTLICKERS. FOR FUCKS SAKE BE SMART WITH YOUR MONEY.

Games like this are fucking 80-90 dollars or more in Australia so I actually have to think about whether this momentary distraction is worth almost an entire days paycheck, and I’m still looking for employment which means I actually haven’t bought shit in a while (side note, anyone wants to commission me for 10 dollars I’ll draw damn near anything. God I need to make rent)

Every executive at Bethesda seems to be playing catch-up to EA's monetisation scheme. Beth has abandoned their model of single-player rpg's in favour of a "games as a service" model. Fallout 76 seems to me like its a weird experiment for just how far they can stretch this and still make money. It actually makes me wonder if they are 

 a) just completely unaware of fanbase response [no idea HOW]

b) are running into financial problems and are doing this out of desperation

 c) todd howard is still mad that obsidian made a better fallout than he ever could and he's doing this out of spite 

  Games as a whole has become much like the movie industry where publishers will throw big buckets of cash around to development teams, and those teams have CEO's and higher ups that throw lavish meet n greets and have nice fancy suits and cars and then treat their development teams like shit, overworking them to the point of exhaustion, because the product has to be on time for release dates that are scheduled to be the most profitable (christmas is a notable one). 

And those products are consistently bland, shitty, shallow experiences. Narrative cum-dumpsters that are purposefully made to toe the line as safely as possible, to be open to as wide as an audience as possible so they can make the most money, and Bethesda is a huge offender. Skyrim was fun, sure, but it was watered down to fuck, it had shitty dialogue, it had bland one-note characters, it had a simplified skill system. It was impossible to lose. Seriously, try and fail a fucking quest in skyrim, other than one or two, it's a hand-holder of an rpg, but it has a huge community of fans that put in monumental effort, for free, because they like the Elder Scrolls, and they like the world bethesda made. 

  Then Bethesda goes "hey, that watered down thing we made got huge! lets release it about 12 more fucking times, with some of the SAME bugs, with the SAME content, with the SAME limitations and Yes, we absolutely expect you to pay for it, again. Then they release the remastered edition which, to their credit, is free to anyone who already bought the legendary edition (on PC), and does actually have updated 64bit capability and some graphical enhancements (that aren't anywhere near what some goober in his basement cooked up in his spare time, but whatever). Then, seeing that Skyrim was so popular, with kids especially, and made money, they turn their sights to fallout 4, a game that was so anticipated that someone made a fake countdown and caused a small meltdown on tumblr/social media when it was revealed to be fake (i was part of that fiasco, i remember the hype, i was there goddamnit)

So Fallout, a franchise that literally has its theme as its FUCKING TAGLINE, an ADULT game that is equal parts crude, gory and humorous. A game that satirises the cold war era of american my-country-tis-of-thee blind loyalty and openly mocks the way war was idealised, and shows that not even the literal end of the world could either stop humanity's lust for blood or its desire for conquest. Games that showed you the growth of the world - from shady sands to the NCR, from the vault dweller to arroyo, shit actually happened in the games, the world didn't just stop turning when the bombs dropped. A game where you you become a porn star for fucks sake, and it's funny. 

So Bethesda sees that, makes something like it (fallout 3) which is good, but a little rough around the edges when you look at it too hard. But the way they suck you into the vault, the way they build a relationship with your dad and your way of life is immersive as fuck, so when you leave the place you actually feel like you're leaving something important, not just finishing the tutorial

then they outsource a Fallout game to obsidian, because hey, we saved your franchise by buying it off you, but if you can make an entire game in one year and get a metacritic score of 85 we'll even throw in a bonus. And fuck me sideways and in the ear, if the obsidian devs didn't work themselves harder than a 4-armed hooker. And they made a game that on release was a clusterfuck of bugs, because they were given an unrealistic time limit and missed the metacritic score by ONE POINT so bethesda goes "nhey heh sucks to suck" and fucks them off the franchise forever. EXCEPT (and I admit I'm biased here) the game is good. The game is actually really good when you remove those bugs, and people start forming attachments to it, and mentioning how bad fallout 3's writing is by extension. 

  So Todd and Co. in his infinite wisdom, decide that the only thing a fallout rpg needs is 50s aesthetic and fuck all else, and he releases a game so watered down it can't even be called an rpg. And its not. There are no skills. There are barely any dialogue checks. Instead of dialogue, Nate/Nora is a flat, samrish individual that is either "yes sir right away sir may i have another", "yes but i'm gonna make an unfunny quip about it" "this option pretends to say no but its gonna give you the quest marker anyway". 

The game drops any pretence of difficulty by giving you a deathclaw, a minigun and some power armour in the first 10 minutes, allowing you to effectively reach late-game power levels with some minor scavenging for ammo or cores. Then the game ropes you into some inter-faction war that realistically you wouldn't give a shit about, because some spud in a cowboy hat fucking deputizes you into a military general because you shot like 4 raiders from a rooftop (with a minigun. in power armour. making you nigh-invulnerable to bullets). You're sad about your son about 3 times the whole game and then you're on your merry way to mowing down humans left right and center without a care in the world. God fallout 4's writing is so stupid it gives me an aneurysm.

 Remember the part about resources wars and america only having the veneer of a strong country while riots, inflation, and resource shortages tore it apart from within? Bethesda doesn't, have an eerily stepford pastel coloured glimpse at a world that was totally fine, nothing wrong here, shame it got nuked oh well moving on

Your spouse? yeah you love them, they're said 2 whole sentences to you then they died, be sad because you totally loved them and it is totally sad that they are dead. Your weird play-dough son shaun, you love him so much, you even tickled him on the chin once, okay he's gone off you go to chase him - woah now, don't chase him too hard we have all these side quests for you to do! What would be the narrative reasoning for a supposedly distraught parent to fuck around boston instead of finding their goddamn child? fuck knows! just go pick up some goddamn wood and get to base building sonny-jim! 

Companions? yeah, they're fun, we gave them a romance questline and it's thus: if you pick enough locks and pass a minor charisma check maccready will be ready and willing to tell you about his sick child, and then he'll ride you like a stallion. Talk to him like, 4 times, and he will be your bosom buddy for life in about 3-5 days if you just pick locks like a fucking madman, because character growth is hard and counting beans is easy.

 Also your son is a part of the faction we were talking about! something about synths, remember that one questline from rivet city that barely anyone actually remembers and was an interesting time waster at best? Well get ready to do that same quest but about! 15! more! times! because we could not think of anything else to write about synthetically produced humans that assume peoples identities other than having them as a hamfisted metaphor for slavery. Why do they take over people's identies? Well because the institute needs them to aasdkfjdh kshshshsh t9oe of course. 

Speaking of hamfisted metaphors, here's the underground railroad, named after the underground railroad that actually mattered, except this time its the same thing but synths. They are so top secret that the only way to find them is to follow the only bright red line in a street that is exclusively green-brown otherwise, and then enter their super secret password, which is "password"

They are then, like every other faction, absolutely willing to trust you, at face value, no questions asked, because have to actually do something or require a skill check might make this hard for people under the age of 12 to play. Then you go do whatever fuckin shit you do, I stopped playing at this point, and then you find out your son is actually 60, you guys have a tearful, 10 sentence reunion, then he diesthe whole reason you were out here in the first place dies, and you react appropriately, which is to say you say his name really sadly, and then go back to mowing down raiders with reckless abandon

And then 76 gets released, bethesda drops all pretense of fallout still being an rpg. You want a story? Fuck you, pay up. Its retro future and thats all that makes falloutSatirizing war mongering? You can nuke things in this game and its totally fine, its actually the goal, because fallout has nukes in it right? Pay us 10 dollars and you get army olive drab spraypaint because hurrgh war is fun and great, wasnt that the tagline from the first game?The more i rant the more angry i am because people put their heart and soul into writing this. The lore and dialogue is actual work that someone researched and loved and felt proud of and now  it's becoming a hilariously meta parody of itself. 

Honestly FUCK bethesda and and fuck todd howard for his pisspoor cash grab. Not even worth calling it a video game anymore

[hyperbolicpurple]

collected tros thoughts

I assume everyone who still wants to avoid spoilers has the appropriate tags filtered...

Several parts of the movie, especially toward the beginning, are very much a jumble in terms of tone and pace especially. You can definitely tell the movie went through a bunch of different versions/scripts/directors AND that they were trying to please a lot of different contingents in the audience: Force-sensitive Finn, R/eylo, Bendemption, Bendeath, big trio presence, ending with Rey Skywalker. Say what you will about TLJ, but I do think it felt like one person’s singular and coherent vision. I do think TROS smoothed out toward the climax, where you have the two main conflicts (Rey vs. Palpatine and the Resistance vs. the FO fleet) connect in both setting and theme.

The plot of most of the movie was essentially finding a bunch of different heretofore unknown significant objects, which is kind of a terrible plot for such a climactic movie, honestly. Especially when those significant objects are just maps to other places! Infinity War had plots about collecting macguffins too, but A) they were powerful objects that were intrinsically connected to the main plot and B) they were set up to be important well in advance. (I am not saying IW was actually good, to be clear.) Some of the macguffins in TROS COULD have been actually significant, especially that Sith knife that posed an opportunity for Rey to be tempted by the Dark Side, but that didn’t happen.

In a bunch of ways this movie can be compared to ROTJ (it has several direct callbacks), and it comes up short in almost all of them. ROTJ had a sense of urgency, direction, and high stakes that TROS just lacks. The only “death” is the fakeout about Chewbacca, which was unnecessary and ultimately meaningless. It was supposed to be a moment for Rey to contemplate her potential for the Dark Side, but it was handled all wrong for that. For one thing, once Chewbacca is found to be alive, Rey grins, angst forgotten, and that’s the end of that, I guess. Who cares if there were other innocents aboard that transport she destroyed? Not Rey and not TROS!

Speaking of Rey and Dark Rey, I don’t think Rey Palpatine is an intrinsically bad idea, but after the first two movies it didn’t make sense, and the way they did it was really frustrating. Rey had plenty of angst and Dark Side temptation from being abandoned by her parents--making her parents heroic and her struggle with the Dark Side basically genetic really sucked as a writing choice. I hate that mechanistic approach to people being good and evil, it’s so lazy and reductive. I was reminded of when, in The Raven Cycle books, the driving desire of the main character Blue to leave Henrietta and see the world is eventually attributed to................ her dad being a tree spirit, because trees reach for the sky. OK. Maybe instead characters could be kind of like people with relatable human psychology?

Relatedly, Finn’s discovery of other FO defectors was a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s cool that Finn wasn’t the only one. On the other, it’s never really explained why some defected and others didn’t, except the “feeling” of the Force. I was struck by how weirdly Calvinistic this was. I think a lot of people misunderstand and thus misuse the term “Calvinistic” (mostly to describe stories in which characters are essentially good or evil, which is definitely not a Calvinistic approach to character at all, and also to refer to predestination, which is related to Calvinism but doesn’t really encompass it fully)--but the way the Force was portrayed for Finn and other defectors was weirdly real-deal Calvinistic, minus the actual Christian elements. In a Calvinistic worldview, everyone is equally, hopelessly tainted by sin, but God in his infinite wisdom has elected some for salvation and others for damnation not according to their own characters but to play out a cosmic drama in which he ultimately wins in order to further his glory. So some defectors being chosen to be saved (and unnamed and innumerable other brainwashed child soldiers, I guess, not to be so touched) by the Force in order for the Light Side to win is just bizarre and even disturbing. Force sensitivity doesn’t really explain that. Also, as a side note, it seemed like at some point someone was going to address the fact that they were fighting a brainwashed child soldier army and then they just... didn’t.

I know a big portion of the Finn fandom was upset with TLJ but TROS was far worse and sidelined him way more. Who cares about Force sensitivity? Couldn’t they have done something with his actual character? And Rose, poor Rose....

I know that a big part of R/eylo fandom is upset (along with ALL the other factions of the fandom, lol) but honestly this movie was THE R/eyloest. More Force bond visions, her running him through and then saving him, that charming scene where Ben’s running to her and Palpatine all Han-like, the moment where she transfers one of the lightsabers to Ben (clearly meant to be delightful and it was!), when Palpatine drew a new life force from their bond and it was ~as strong as life itself~ or whatever he actually said, the kiss obviously, Ben bringing her back to life.... I can’t believe I’m going to have R/eylo feelings in 2020 but here we are!

I went in pretty spoiled, but even if I hadn’t I was fully expecting Ben to die, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s not that I’m not bored and frustrated by Redemption Equals Death, I just didn’t expect anything different.

I will say I was generally not emotionally affected at all by TROS--not sure how much that is related to having been spoiled, to the quality of the movie itself (though I did cry at the live-action Power Rangers a few years ago--twice!), or to having cried my eyes out at Little Women yesterday. (I’ve become a horrible movie-crier the last couple of years. I even cried during that ad where the kids are using a tablet to present a tribute to their dead grandma. It’s so bad it’s humiliating to see movies with other people.)

I was glad we got a callback to Ben and Han’s scene in TFA and that it was tender and full of forgiveness. Also that we did get Leia reaching out to Ben before passing.

The final scene on Tattoine was pretty bizarre. The choice to take the Skywalker name was weird and distasteful, and Ben should have appeared as a Force Ghost for sure.

[scrapsofsky]

I have once more (and a very long time ago) been challenged by Ian Sales to join him in our un-named war to come up with the best arbitrary list of films within an equally arbitrarily selected category. You can find previous iterations of this absurdity here, here, here, here, and here. We have, alas, not done this in a long while, which we can both blame on being busy with many other things.

But in the interest of rekindling silliness, I have been loosely challenged by Ian to come up with a list of 10 underrated SF/F films from the last 20 years, which is a direct response to this ScreenRant list. Since this list is in response to a link with a remarkably open prompt, I’ve opted to stick to the 10 item list format. Future challenges will go back to our favorite number:  5.

Ian, of course, has already dropped his list. Go check it out!

With that in mind, the following list of 10 films represent my attempt to put together films that I consider to be overrated. My criteria is fairly simple:

It must be a SF/F film released since 1999.

It must be underrated in the sense that it is underappreciated by the SF/F community or has largely been forgotten. Box office numbers may be part of the equation, but mostly I will go on my own interactions with the SF/F community and sadly arbitrary interpretations of what has been “lost” to everyday discourse.

I literally don’t care if the movies I pick are considered “good” by other people, and so I’ve picked films that I think are interesting for some reason or another. This inevitably means that you will hate my list and wish me to fall into a pit of endless fire.

So, without further adieu, here’s my list:

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)(dir. Makoto Shinkai)

One of my first academic essay publications focused on this film, which should tell you how much I enjoy it. Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho is, in my opinion, Makoto Shinkai’s magnum opus. A story of friendship, betrayal, and love. A story of the Cold War, imperial control, and out of control technology. Shinkai’s method of storytelling is remarkable:  low key and vibrant, emotionally tense and freeing. In a world where Hayao Miyazaki is considered the King of Japanese Animation, Shinkai’s work has sadly not received the appreciation it deserves — Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho especially.

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)(dir. David Twohy)

I strongly considered putting 2000’s Pitch Black here instead, but I think that film, while perhaps a bit underrated today, has received considerable praise. Its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, however, has often been derided for one reason or another. Unfairly, in my opinion. From its Gothic (with a side of emo) aesthetic to its expansion of the Riddick universe into a sprawling space opera to its total commitment to the gritty, morally ambiguous treasure trove of dirty, grungy themes, places, and characters, The Chronicles of Riddick is easily one of my favorite science fiction films of the last 20-ish years. Plus, the cast is fantastic. This is a hill I’m willing to die on. (Also:  I look forward to checking out Furya and Merc City in the near future!)

Night Watch and Day Watch (2004 and 2006)(dir. Timur Bekmambetov)

I’m counting these as one because it’s my list and I can do what I want. This Russian duology is based on Sergey Lukyanenko urban fantasy novels about the conflict between two supernatural factions who monitor the actions of one another as part of an uneasy truce. Part detective thriller and part dark fantasy, the films pack quite a punch. However, outside of the circuit of foreign film lovers within SF/F, they’ve largely flown under the radar, this despite starring well known Russian actor Konstantin Khabensky. If you’ve never seen these films, you owe it to yourself to watch them, even if for no other reason than to watch someone drive a sports car across the face of an apartment complex!

Sunshine (2007)(dir. Danny Boyle)

I considered putting Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later here instead, but I don’t think that film is actually all that underrated even if it doesn’t get as much play today as it did a decade ago. Sunshine, however, has spent most of its existence floating between general praise for its visuals and premise and general dislike for its second act. And, yes, it is a spectacularly gorgeous film, but that second act is, in my opinion, far more interesting than most people are willing to admit. Turning a space thriller into a horror film as a commentary on the paradoxical frailty and strength of the human spirit is, in my opinion, a gutsy move. For me, that move pays off, and it’s one of the reasons I think this film has remained underrated. It doesn’t follow the pattern these stories usually follow. It’s basically Armageddon if that film took itself seriously and Rockhound actually went insane. And that makes it an infinitely more interesting film.

Upgrade (2018)(dir. Leigh Whannell)

If you didn’t get a chance to see Upgrade, you’re missing out. This sleeper scifi action thriller had some of the most compelling fight choreography and shot compositions of 2018, and yet it flew under the radar. I had the good fortune to see the film in theaters; the experience did not disappoint. Much of the fight choreography relied on some impressive camera trickery to follow the lead actor’s movements, giving the entire film a robotic and wonky feel. It’s truly exciting to watch, and I wish more people had had the opportunity to do so in an actual theater. Because it’s gorgeous on the big screen!

Push (2009)(dir. Paul McGuigan)

I will watch almost anything with Djimon Hounsou in it. Push is one of those forgotten little films that takes a less in-your-face approach to the whole super powers concept. In this world, people with powers are test subjects or hidden in plain sight, monitored by a nefarious organization with equally nefarious intents. By comparison to the typical superhero film we have today, Push is quite restrained, relishing in the quirks and trickery of its list of powers and giving actors like Dakota Fanning the space to place (watching her drunkenly stumble around is kinda fun). It’s an imperfect film to be sure, but one that I still love.

Hulk (2003)(dir. Ang Lee)

I’m going to catch hell for this, but Ang Lee’s Hulk is one of my favorite superhero movies to date. I even prefer it to that other Hulk film by a long mile. Lee does give us some of the stuff you expect from a superhero film (big fight scenes and visual spectacle), but I particularly love the softer focus on Banner and his mental state. It feels more like a film that is trying to say something about human nature than a film stuck in an endless action sequence or caught up in villainy for the sake of villainy. For me, that means the film takes more chances with its performance and themes. And I’m always more compelled by the film that tries to do something interesting and failed than I am by the alternative.

Another Earth (2011)(dir. Mike Cahill)

Independent cinema has a tendency to produce some truly introspective and powerful films. Another Earth is no exception. A film about loss, guilty, love, and second chances, Another Earth‘s science fiction premise (a mirror Earth) is really just background, offering an opportunity in the conclusion and lending weight to the central thematic of loss and guilt as the romance between the protagonists comes head-to-head with a secret that threatens to tear them apart. The narrative is at times quite haunting, but it also commands us to think more deeply about what it means to seek forgiveness, to seek second chances, to live with loss, and so on. And if you like this one, Sound of My Voice (2011) is a far creepier film about cults that also stars Brit Marling!

Dredd (2012)(dir. Pete Travis)

We will never get an adaptation of Judge Dredd that is as good as 2012’s Dredd. A vicious, unrelenting and dark film, Dredd is one of those films that desperately deserves more credit than it has thus far received. Karl Urban’s performance is textbook perfection, and Travis’ direction gives this a brutally honest tone. And unlike its predecessor adaptation, Dredd isn’t endlessly mockable; instead, it is a visually arresting satire that makes most action thrillers look tame. There are few films on this list that I would say are perfect. Dredd is one of them.

The Cat Returns (2002)(dir. Hiroyuki Morita)

Studio Ghibli gets a lot of well-deserved love for its many Hayao Miyazaki films (my favorite Miyazaki is actually Mononoke Hime / Princess Mononoke). But one film the studio doesn’t get enough credit for is the utterly delightful Neko no Ongaeshi / The Cat Returns (or The Cat’s Repayment). It’s an Alice in Wonderland type tale (or tail, heh) about a young girl who gets sucked into the secret world of cats. Calling this film delightful is an understatement. It is downright adorable, and it has been sadly overshadowed by Ghibli’s many other exceptional productions. But if you’re looking for a cute (and sometimes hilarious) fantasy adventure involving talking cats, The Cat Returns is the film for you.

And that’s it. That’s my list. I could add many other films here, but I’ve limited myself to ten.

Now for a challenge to Ian and anyone else who wants to take it:  pick your five favorite films featuring talking animals! Go!

It's time for another #FilmChallenge. @ian_sales challenged me to come up with 10 underrated SF/F films released between 1999 and 2019. So here's my list! :D I have once more (and a very long time ago) been challenged by Ian Sales to join him in our un-named war to come up with the best arbitrary list of films within an equally arbitrarily selected category.

[tediousreviews]

Lord of Chaos

My last Wheel of Time review was over a year ago. I really shouldn't be dragging my feet so much with this series, but it's just so painful. I complained that time that despite the deaths of several nominally important characters and the conquest of several nations, nothing meaningful happened to change the course of the story. This book has a different problem.

Things happen here. Notably, Egwene turns from being a worthless tag-along who is always wrong about everything to one of the most influential people in the setting. Rand meets his still-to-be-retconned evil rival Demandred* and hires him to recruit, train, and lead an army of overpowered sorcerers. And, most importantly, Rand's own stupidity finally gets him his first resounding defeat.

And yet the book still sucks. Why? Because every single meaningful development is driven by sheer mind-boggling idiocy. If I took a drink every time something happened that was so stupid I wanted to shove the book down the garbage disposal I’d be on my third liver by now.

Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve all agree that with Moiraine dead Rand needs good advice from someone he can trust and respect. So when Egwene has a chance to share information with Rand and lay the foundation for an actual working relationship based on mutual trust, what does she do? Instead of trying to build trust she tries to cash in on it instead and burns the only bridge she had left with him.

The rebel Aes Sedai need a leader, but can't agree on one because they have too many competing factions with roughly equal power and influence. So what do they do? Select Egwene as their leader on the premise that she'll be easy to manipulate... which might have been helpful if there weren't so many competing factions with roughly equal power and influence. Despite still being a complete idiot, Egwene gets handed near absolute power by a bunch of idiots too stupid to realize that if they are divided and ineffective, then by default since she isn't part of their deadlock she's the only person around with any meaningful power.

Rand has the voice of his former self speaking to him in his head. The first time he meets Taim, that voice all but flat out tells him "That's Demandred! We need to kill him now!". And what does he do? Gives Taim nearly absolute authority to raise an army and no oversight whatsoever. And he sticks with that decision despite flagrantly shady behavior on Taim’s part that’s so overt that absolutely no one fails to notice it.

Groups of Aes Sedai from both the rebels and the White Tower are trying to meet Rand. He knows that enough of them can easily overwhelm him. He's gets ambushed by one group, and then fails to even consider taking the most basic precautions to keep from being ambushed again by the other, more hostile, group.

I'm not even going to get into the mess between Mat and Elayne and Nynaeve. That's going to get so much worse before it gets better that I don't even want to think about it yet.

Just remember, every single one of our heroes is too stupid to breathe and walk at the same time, and the only reason they aren't dead yet is that their enemies are only just smart enough to breathe if they sit still and concentrate very hard.

So what did I really think of the book as a whole? Let’s just say it’s my sixth favorite book in the series so far.

*-Demandred’s real identity is so pointless that I refuse to believe Jordan actually planned things that way.

[sweettoothshipperrotg]

Arranged Marriage... SweetTooth AU?? :3

Well, this is what happens when I allow the plot bunnies (pun fully intended) to hold me hostage: y’all end up with a thirteen page fic. (sorry?)

Kinda long disclaimer: My brain setted this during victorian times in England, more specifically in the 1840′s London. Bunny is an army lieutenant that had been assigned to the British colonies of New South Wales (aka Australia), Toothiana is a princess from one of the many Indian states that were under indirect british rule (she still held her title as maharani but could not kick the dudes out of her region). Although I did as much research as I could to inform myself and provide argument for the fic, I apologize if you feel that I was disrespectful/misinformed in the way I depicted the characters and circumstances here. It was not my intention and I would appreciate if you can offer constructive criticism so I can improve. What I DID do is try to keep it as ambiguous as possible so although it does not directly mention anyone in particular, the idea still remains (don’t go around colonizing countries an being an asshat to people) 

A/N: Whenever you see boldened and cursive text it’s because the characters are speaking a different language apart from regular English.

Ok, I’m done, I promise. ^^;

Hope you like it!

“I have been eagerly awaiting the day I could finallymeet you…and I am not disappointed. You are beautiful.”

The words that came from her fiancé’s mouth would havesent any other young girl’s heart aflutter. To Toothiana…they felt completelyhollow.

Every fiber of her soul was begging her to turn back,ran to the closest port, and sneak onto a ship that would take her far awayfrom here and closer to her beloved country. Yet she remained rooted on herspot.

The atmosphere was charged with tension, silence stretchingand making everything worse.

All eyes were on both of them, sizing, judging, and losingno detail of the interaction among the betrothed couple.

Their dark clothes and pretentious faces wereunnerving to say the least.

They thought themselves above her and her people.Fools, the lot of them.

Toothiana kept her head held high. The people who hadaccompanied her and her younger sister had instructed her on how she wassupposed to curtsy and handle herself when she met her fiancé. She refused togrant him said honor.

She was the heir to the throne of Punjam Hy Loo,daughter of Haroom and Queen Rashmi. She bowed to those worthy of it.

Her disruption of protocol sent tongues wagging; awave of poorly concealed whispers filled the room.

The man in front of her seemed to tower above most ofthe attendees. His bright red uniform and medals pinned to his chest, proof ofhis prowess in battle, seemed obnoxiously loud and reminded her of howdifferent and apart they truly were. Of how men sporting the same uniform hadinvaded her country and taken by force what didn’t belong to them.

To look at him, to think of why she had to do this wasmaking her sick.

She had been taken away from her home with courteoussmiles and polite words that did nothing to hide how the invaders held all thecards and they had no quarrel with twisting her arm into submitting to theirwishes.

So they had shipped off across the ocean, away fromthe deep colors of the green jungles she loved so much, from the colorful lifeof her city, and from the comfort of being among her people.

She dearly missed the sun kissed bedroom she had grownup in, the morning chants and prayers of the devotees inside the temples, theair full of spices and the perfume of the flowers in bloom.

The trip had been horrific. Storms and rough seas madeher fear that she would die in the middle of the vast ocean without theappropriate rites, her soul becoming chained to the sea and not be allowed totranscend to the beyond and see her parents.

On those nights where it almost seemed that the shipwould capsize at any moment, she held tight to her baby sister (a merelythirteen year old girl who had tragically been roped into this voyage due tosharing the same lineage) and allowed a few rogue tears to trickle down her face.

The only comfort had been the kind young man thatstationed himself outside her cabin to make the sisters feel more secure,promising to keep them safe at all costs.

Jackson Overland Frost had been a true blessing duringher long journey, joining her at the port before they departed and using hiswits and charm to win her over. He had offered his services to accompany her,serve as her interpreter, and to help her navigate this new culture full ofstrange and different aspects.

He had proven a good, amicable companion. Since he wasthe only one who spoke to her in her language, it had initiated an almostinstant bond between them.

He treated her and her sister with the upmost respectand saw them as equals.

Although he did not share the same nationality as herfiancé, he had provided as a diplomatic envoy between countries and had quicklybecome friends with him.

In fact, Jack had provided her with far moreinformation about her intended than any member of her escorts.

Toothiana did not know much of Lord Bunnymund. He wasthe sole heir of his family’s titles at his 26 years of age, had ascended tothe rank of lieutenant during his military service but had been eventuallydischarged from the army (the reason of said discharge had not been explainedto her).

“How is he? Tell me about his real colors”,she had asked him while gazing at the miniature with the rendition of the manshe was to marry.

“Bunny? Well, he’s real annoying, realgrumpy, and really full of himself!” He said with a playful smile thathad made her little sister burst into laughter. “But in all seriousness, I havenever met a stronger, more honorable man than the likes of him. Truly, the lastof his kind.”

She was not able to get any more meaningfulinformation out of him. Any other pertinent details, he proclaimed, she wouldhave to ask the man himself.

Right now, Toothiana wished she had extricated moreinformation from Jack.

The small painting had not made him justice, of thatshe was certain.

Despite belonging to the upper class, his face did nothave the softness or paleness of noblemen his age. His features knew themerciless lash of the wind and the unforgiving rays of the sun, making himstand out from the sea of faces that seemed to quake at the mention of notbeing as white as snow.

His hands looked rougher than those of the pamperednoblemen.

The voice that had greeted her had sent a shiver downher spine: deep, calming, kind, instead of the monotonous plummy ones she hadheard since the beginning of her journey. It was the type of voice that shewouldn’t mind hearing for the rest of her days.

However, his eyes were the most striking of his attributes,two orbs of vivid green that sucked the air out of her lungs when she firstlooked at them.

Despite how pleasing he was on the eyes, she wasdetermined to not budge an inch.

They wanted to make her dance to their tune? Fine.

But she would be the one to mark the tempo.

“And I hope that you do not prove asconceited and vain as the rest of your countrymen”, she retorted with asweet smirk. Even if no one but Jack and her sister could understand her, shewas content with her words.

Jack snorted at her comment, barely covering hislaughter and trying to pass it as a fit of cough.

Although it was only for a moment, she could swear shesaw her fiancé smiling at her display of spirit.

His fiancé was nothing like he had expected.

The ones that had arranged their union had granted himlittle information about her.

Whatever he received should be taken with a grain ofsalt, anyways.

Their derisive remarks and snide commentaries againsther being a foreigner and from a different culture got on his nerves.

He hated this place.

Aster was certain of this once he had been forced toleave his post at the army and practically dragged back to his country to sitdown and submit to orders like a good puppet.

He had been received with a scowl by the ones sittingatop of the political playfield.

And, stars above, the almost unending procession fromone minister’s office to another just to receive the same lecture from stuffyold men with no idea of how real life was beyond their very noses, almost droveBunnymund mad.

They had no qualm of gloating about how lucky he was to not have been executedfor his seditious actions against the crown.

What did they knew of his motives? Absolutely nothing.

They had never gone hungry a day of their lives. Theyknew not of sore muscles and tired bodies after strenuous hours of labor underthe sun. They feared not the crack of the whip, nor the unkind treatment of strangersthat had no roots to their lands.

While stationed as an officer, he had tried to breakpeace between the locals and his countrymen. But the latter refused to give anyquarter to what they considered belonged to them.

The moment that he was demanded to comply withatrocities like the ones they had ordered of him had been the straw that brokethe camel’s back.

Bunnymund had taken action against those who commandedhim. Slowly and discreetly, he had aided local insurgent factions, providingresources, information and even shelter to those who were on the run.

Unfortunately, he was caught without any means ofescape.

The first month that he stayed in prison had beentesting.

His once fellow officers now treated him like thelowliest of criminals, spitting insults whenever they passed him by.

The beatings and punishments were administered withardent fervor.

When the infection had settled in, he truly thought hewould die in that filthy cell and not even be given a proper grave.

Those days spent at the camp’s infirmary – confined tohis bed not only by the fever but by the manacles to prevent any chance ofescape, and being look down by the doctors and nurses that kept him alive – hadcrawled by agonizing slow.

Illness decided not to kill him, and back to the cellhe went.

He was careless enough to lose track of the time hespent there, only when he was released he found out that his confinement had lasteda year and 3 months.

Out of nowhere, he was presented to the commander ofthe camp and informed that his family had pulled enough strings for him to besent back to his country to be dealt with by higher authorities. He was givenhonorable discharge of the army and was forbidden to return, the disdain in theofficer oozing from every word.

And throughout this horrid experience, Bunnymund hadnever uttered a word. He had not complained, nor begged, nor retracted from hisactions. It was a waste of time to try to convince them.

He was placed on the next ship back to his countryunder heavy scrutiny of two officers who had been assigned to police him thewhole trip. They did not engage with him, but the surly looks they gave himwere a dead giveaway of their opinion of him.

When the ship finally docked, he was not greeted byany better circumstances.

He had only seen his parents once. His father had donewhat he did best and berated and screamed at him, telling him what adisappointment he was to the family name.

His mother had stayed behind her husband, a silentlook of disapproval battling with the sorrow of seeing her only son in such aregretful state.

They had not allowed him to see his sister.

Days flew by. Although it was nothing compared to hisprevious accommodations, the room he was confined in told him that his ordealwas far from over.

He had been escorted to a fancy chamber, where theminister of foreign affairs was waiting for him with a reproving look and a litpipe that wafted its acrid smell all over the room.

That’s when his future purpose was laid in front ofhim.

He was to marry a princess from a small region of acountry he had never had the opportunity to see for himself.

She was the heir to the throne and her influenceweighted a lot on the hold his country had over hers.

There had been several rebel uprisings on neighboringregions and, if the princess allied herself with said insurgents, his countrywould lose an important trade point and area of influence.

They simply could not let it happen. And since theprincess and her sister were both too valuable to kill and yet too dangerous toallow to act freely, they had decided to extract her and ship her away so shecould not play her hand against them.

The diplomats had found the perfect excuse, too. Arebel war lord had threatened her throne, fully intending to kill her and takeover the region. Under a poorly disguised attempt to “guarantee her security”,they had taken her and her sister away and were on their way here.

In order to bind her to his country, they were forcingher to marry a complete stranger.

Since he had fallen from grace, he would pay his dueby playing said role. And the minister made it quite clear that Bunnymund hadno say on the matter.

He had dreaded their meeting since the man informedhim on their imposed betrothal.

What did she look like? Any description of women fromher country had not been favorable – the opinion of men who claimed to haveseen them not proper for polite society –, but Aster knew better than to trustthose pompous bigots.

What would she think of him? Arranged marriages werenot uncommon in their times but it felt like there was an ocean between themwith how different they were.

Would they get along? It almost seemed impossible thatthey would be able to find common ground.

But to his surprise, princess Toothiana had turned outto be quite a remarkable personality (at least to his standards).

Their first encounter was full of tension and statelyprotocol. The latter she broke with a confident smile on her face, clearlyletting all those haughty toffs she would not be intimidated by them.

Although he couldn’t understand her, judging by what ahard time Jack had had to try to conceal his laughter Aster knew the womanstanding before him had more fire within her than any other.

She had refused the dresses they had provided her with–thankfully, because Aster thought her own clothes made her absolutelybreathtaking, any intention of putting her into something more restraining andstifling a disservice to her person–, as well as stubbornly stuck to speakingin her own language . He liked how her rich voice traveled through the room,the unknown words twisting and wrapping around him in a pleasant sensation.

Although she had never made any acknowledgement of thefact, Bunnymund knew princess Toothiana could understand his language. Thespark of understanding gave her away, despite how everyone else considered herand her sister as uncivilized and inferior creatures.

She couldn’t have easily traversed among the wolvesthat surrounded her had she not been a bright and confident woman.

Even though they had not spent much time together, hedid find himself thinking of her: her warm smile when talking or watching overher sister –which reminded him so much of his own–, her bubbly and melodiclaugh when she and Jack shared a secret joke, even the grace she carriedherself with.

Her entrancing eyes followed him around and he couldnot deny the effect her beauty had on him.

But it was more than just that. Her strength anddetermination had quickly casted a deep sense of admiration within him.

She had left everything behind and was facing thisabysmal uncertainty head on.

He truly felt grateful to be by her side, especiallywhen she managed to irritate diplomats and nobles the way she did. And despiteenjoying what an interesting woman she was, he knew there was a whole lot moreto find out.

His fiancé definitely was a mystery, but one he didn’tmind to unravel.

Their wedding came sooner than expected.

Suddenly, Bunnymund found his garments a tadconstricting around his throat. His reflection stared back at him paler than hewished.

He was not ready for this.

Meanwhile, Jack was leaning back against his chair andhaving the time of his life. He had a smirk hanging from his lips and a glassof strong liquor on one hand, claiming that just because Bunny was going towaste such a fine kind of liquid courage didn’t mean he had to.

The young man had always liked to crack jests at hisexpense, which got them into extensive verbal banter. His carefree naturelacked the discipline and method the military service had instilled into Bunnymund.

Bunny found it rather amusing that despite not likingeach other in the beginning they had ended up friends.

It was good to have him around, a friendly face amongthe sea of pampered halfwits who were attending.

Several diplomats and ministers were there to gloat atwhat a good idea had been to match two of the empire’s greatest headaches.

Aster’s family was nowhere to be present. His fatherand mother had been outraged at the news he was marrying a foreigner theyconsidered beneath their status.

His only regret is that he hadn’t been able toproperly talk to his sister. Not even his letters had been answered, probablyintercepted by his father and now serving as tinder for the study’s chimney.

Luckily, Jack had stayed by his side, refusing todepart until his friend was in more stable grounds.

Aster could only imagine how his fiancé might bedealing with the situation from her end.

The wide open windows didn’t feel like they wereletting any air in. The walls were starting to close in on him.

He needed to leave the room, he needed to move.

Without any further explanation he was out the doorand into the corridor before it all became too overwhelming.

A sliver of light from a door slightly ajar caught hisattention.

Peering in, he was surprised when he saw his futurewife and sister in law sitting by the window sill.

The princess was no longer using her colorful clothes.She had been forced into a white wedding dress that constricted her movementsand truly did not complement her dark skin the way her usual garments did.

Although she did look beautiful and any woman from hiscountry would have been raving at the soft satin fabric and the delicate pearlsand crystals embroidered into the dress, it was clear to see that this was notwhat she wanted.

She had had no say in any of the wedding arrangementsand no one had been sympathetic enough to try to make her more comfortable.

His fingers brushed something small that had beenburning the inside of his pocket since Jack had handed it to him (his quips atbeing tired with being an errand boy due to Aster’s house arrest ignored) andwatched the two sisters, wishing he knew what they were saying.

“Our parents would be proud of what a strongwoman you are”, the younger girl commented while trying to put a bravefront for her sister.

“I think they would be proud of the both ofus”, Toothiana cupped her face and stroke her cheek with her thumb. “Youhave been through so much because of me, but I’m glad I have you with me.”

These words filled the young princess’s eyes withtears. She had been doing her best not to cry, to try to be strong and carryher family’s name with dignity. But everything had been possible thanks toToothiana.

A deep sense of fear took over her at the idea ofbeing sent away from her or that her sister’s husband would not allow them tostay together.

“I won’t feel brave if they take you awayfrom me. I don’t want to be alone.” She couldn’t keep her voice fromquivering; tears threatening to break lose in any moment.

Toothiana pulled her close to her chest and squeezedtight, almost to make sure that what remained of her family was truly there.Tears started to form in her eyes. “Do not worry, little sister. I will notallow anyone to separate us.”

They remained like that for a few moments, wishingthat the clock would stop counting down the seconds.

Eventually they separate.

“Why don’t you go with Jack for a while andask him to tell you about sledding through the snow again?”, Toothianasuggested, knowing the young man always managed to cheer her little sister up.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I want some time on my own before I have togo.”

The girl smiled and nodded, quickly exiting the roomin search for the fair haired boy that had swiftly had become their friend duringthese testing times.

Toothiana would have to thank him for being so kindand staying until everything had settled down – although she was certain thathe was also hoping to catch a particular black-haired girl’s attention before allwedding celebrations were over. She didn’t know much about Emily JanePitchiner, but knew that her friend would never fall for a shallow woman andthe girl seemed to have a sensible head on her shoulders.

If Jack had chosen her, she was bound to be special.

The memory of the pair made Toothiana focus on theview before her, thinking at the same time of her own parents and how in lovethey had been.

Nothing of these was related to love. Not even asingle aspect of her wedding was truly hers.

In her home her engagement and wedding would have beenone of the greatest events of the region.

Suitable men would have been called from far and wideto attend the ceremony where she would choose her own husband. There would havebeen exchange of gifts, prayers at the temples, celebrations.

She would have used a beautiful red dress and adorned herselfwith jewelry and flowers, like other brides from her culture.

She would have her family and friends join her groomand her in the joyful yet solemn occasion, clapping and cheering when thenewlyweds exchanged garland as a symbol of acceptance.

There would have been demure side glances, nervouslaughter at being caught watching, a rush of excitement while holding hands.

Toothiana forced herself to cast away those images,looking down at her hand and tracing the delicate and intricate traces of hennathat her sister had painstakingly drawn onto her hands.

It had been the only aspect of her culture they hadmanaged to have, mainly because the sister had done it at night when everyonewas asleep and then it was too late to do anything about it. The princessesrelished on how the maids and instructors assigned to them fussed on howuntoward it was.

A choked sob escaped from her throat and tears rolleddown her cheeks before Toothiana could hold them back. She made no movement towipe them away.

She had been hiding her emotions to both not givethose bastards the satisfaction and to not worry her little sister. But now shewas alone, she could allow herself to cry a little.

The door slowly creaked open and she turned aroundexpecting her sister or even one of the annoying ladies that had done nothingbut pester and nag at her.

She quietly gasped when she saw Bunnymund lingering atthe door, as if considering if he should pursue this course of action.

Turning around, Toothiana wiped away her tears and triedto swallow down the feeling of embarrassment at someone seeing her crying.

“I’m sorry.” He uttered courteously, sounding a tadashamed. “I didn’t mean to walk in on you, princess.”

She gave him no answer.

“I know that you wished not for this union.” Bunnymundcleared his throat. “And I would not do you a disservice by saying that this isthe way I wanted my marriage to unfold.”

Well, at least they were being honest.

“But…”, he paused to gather strength. “Despite thecircumstances, we find ourselves together in uncharted territory. I know nothow to be a good husband and I’m sure that Jack has made you aware of my manyflaws.”

Toothiana smiled, wanting to turn around and poke funat him about the fact that no matter how much they bickered, Jack had a trueappreciation of him as a friend. Yet she remained quiet.

“We may not know much about each other. But in whatlittle time we have had, I have realized that I’ve never met a braver, more strong-willed,and kinder woman I would wish to marry.” He slowly and carefully approachedher, letting her know he meant her no threat or harm.

Her heartbeat accelerated the way it always did whenhe looked at her with those green eyes of his.

Despite her cautiousness around him but she hadmanaged to see that he was nothing like the noblemen from this country.

He had always been gentleman towards her and hersister, his presence making her feel safer. Whenever they sat with Jack andinteracted he showed true interest in what she had to say, curiously askingquestions and wanting to know more about her and her country.

And, through enough persuasion, she had found out ofwhy he had been discharged from the army and forced to come back to hishomeland.

Jack had only explained the general details, insistingthat it was better for her to hear it from Bunnymund himself, but she wasgrateful that now she knew what an outstanding man her future husband was.

Toothiana had found something she never imagined shewould find in him: kindred of spirit. Despite the differences, they shared alot in common. Their passions and ideals did not clash with the other’s, butthey burned brightly with the same intensity.

She was starting to want to know more about him.

“What I’m trying to say is…you’re not alone,princess.” He stared at her with meaningful intensity. “I promise I will carefor you and protect you to the best of my ability, til death do we part.”

Aster kneeled down while pulling a small box from hispocket and offering it to her.

Uncertain, she took it and cautiously opened.

Tears prickled at her eyes and a wave of emotion swepther as she stared at a delicate necklace with black beads on the chain and agolden pendant.

A tradition among her people was that the groom wassupposed to tie it around her neck, recognizing her as a married woman.

“Jack told me that it was customary in your countryfor the groom to gift these to the bride.”

Silence stretched as Toothiana took the necklace toadmire it in its full splendor.

Noticing the lack of verbal response and the way hisfiancé was crying, an instant feeling of panic gripped at him. Had he offendedher? Had he ruined an important custom from her country? Had Jack lead himalong just to make him look like a fool?

“I… I apologize if I have offended you, princess. It wasnot my intention to…” His face started to feel redder by the second as hespluttered.

She chuckled and shook her head to let him know hisfears were unfounded, a couple of tears still trailing down her face due tobeing moved by such a sweet gesture.

He took that as a good sign. Standing up he extendedhis hand towards the piece of jewelry. “May I?”

Her beautiful smile when she nodded made his heartskip a beat, while he inched closer so he could put the necklace on her.

It felt strangely intimate (yet not unwelcomingly so).They had never been so close, and thus never felt the heat radiating from theother’s body.

Toothiana could finally appreciate the finer detailsof his features, while Aster was finally able to let her perfume tickle theback of his nose.

Once he was satisfied with how it looked he slightlystepped to fully gaze at the enchanting woman, now looking even lovelier withthe smile that graced her lips.

He was as bold as to take her hands in his, but wasrelieved when she didn’t pull away.

“From now on, you are my path, and I choose you.”

Toothiana couldn’t be happier that they agreed.

*****

THE END, my lovelies!

Also, three cheers for Jack being such a good bro

I hope you liked it and that my writing did justice to the topics that were depicted here. See you soon and don’t hesitate to send me prompts! :D

P.S.:

I add bellow the links that I used as reference/inspiration to write this piece:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian-Mutiny

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/indian_rebellion_01.shtml

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/empire/g2/cs2/background.htm

https://australianstogether.org.au/discover/australian-history/colonisation/

http://cbhsyearfivehistory.weebly.com/aboriginal-lifestyle-after-british-colonisation.html

http://www.britishempire.me.uk/page102.html

https://museumsvictoria.com.au/longform/journeys-to-australia/

https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2016/12/01/10-things-you-should-know-about-slavery-australia

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/australia-has-a-history-of-aboriginal-slavery

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/australia-needs-to-own-up-to-its-slave-history-20150427-1muhg3.html

https://www.quora.com/In-Ancient-India-a-woman-chose-her-husband-in-Swayamvar-true-or-false

https://www.manhattanbride.com/insights/indian/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swayamvara

https://www.kuberbox.com/blog/mangalsutra-different-states-india/

[tomasorban]

THE ZODIAC: CANCER THE CRAB

Date of Rulership: 22nd June-23rd July; Polarity: Negative, female; Quality: Cardinal; Ruling planet: Moon; Element: Water; Body part: Heart, Lungs, and stomach; Colour: Silvery Grey; Gemstone: Pearl; Metal: Silver.

In the signs thus far examined, we have seen the formative energies of life achieve expression through different mediums: initially through the spontaneity and impulsive carnal drives of Aries; then through the aesthetic kaleidoscope of meandering Taurus; and finally the subdivision of vital force under the command of Gemini which enabled an innovative, evolutionary leap of consciousness. The latter’s propensity to concurrently exist in material and ethereal worlds also made sentient an intermediary realm in which the physical and spiritual mingled. Many would understand this intermediary plane to be the unrestrained world of imagination, intuition, thinking, memory, and emotion. It binds spirit to the body, and the emancipating dialogue that ensues between the two as a result engenders far-reaching repercussions for both. It invariably shapes the bundle of psychological habits and impulses that each of us calls self. It is the god Proteus and the nymph Thetis; a primordial ocean of acute shape-shifting awareness. Sometimes one might find themselves trapped in a kaleidoscopic labyrinth of geometrical contours or in shapeless clouds. At other times, one might see a sequence of rhythms or sounds, hear colourful objects, and taste backward or previously unseen locomotion. At other times still, one can be overwhelmed or possessed by anxiety, fear, titillation, love, or relaxation one minute, and riddled by a complete absence of emotion the next. At some point it might be apparent that everything in existence comprises the skin of a gargantuan cosmic animal and at other points all created matter might appear to be discarnate and autonomous entities that simply inhabit the same cosmic space. Polarities can coalesce under a singular experience and thinking processes are transposed to concentrated levels that elude comprehension on the physical plane. Nothing is ever controlled or mediated; there is just a perpetual waxing and waning of thoughts and ideas that explode onto the sands of consciousness one minute and dry up the next. Time becomes a helium balloon, expanding as to spur the perception that a plethora of daylong activities have been squeezed into the space of a few minutes and then shrinking as to flush out the space of a day in two seconds. In this realm, the personal can become impersonal very quickly and barriers deemed impenetrable in the physical world are breached at will.

Gemini’s severe allergies to the emotional faucet rendered it somewhat superficial, insensitive, and impotent to the depth of experience, an anomaly which is corrected with the inauguration of the Cancerian archetype. Because the formative energies of Cancer originate from this intermediary realm of being which connects the physical and spiritual, it acquaints humans with their individual souls but also with the anima mundi, the cosmic soul of Mother Nature which unites all creatures irrespective of size or complexity. A newborn inclination to look inward for nirvana underpins the fundamental Gnostic adage of this archetype, namely that the external environment, the mechanical world into which we are born, appears to be an exotic synthesis of indifferent and insensitive elements that cannot offer inner harmony or fulfilment to spiritually-orientated humanity. The only hope for the human condition, according to Cancer, is to turn on the emotional faucets of the psychic plane and let the cold and hot water form a sensitive current that incite a sense of meaning and purpose and drive the impersonal spirit or life force through the tumultuous waters of life until it is again time to reunite with the paradisal state of perfection in maternal unconsciousness.

“Folks, life’s all about being feelings,” says Cancer. “Feelings and sandcastles, my friends! I like to build mine with all sorts of implements, usually down by the seashore. If I don’t use sand and water its paint and pastels, and sometimes I even use pen and writing paper. I create them with my vivid imagination and decide who or what is going to be living inside. I decide upon fates and lifespans and transcribe the romantic events that will unravel within its high walls. Sadly, there comes a time when the incoming tide levels and sucks them back into the pit of the ocean’s stomach. I understand the tides, the coming and going of primordial energies, and the cycles of the cosmos like no other which is why I build my houses strong. Strength equals domestic stability and tranquillity, something everyone wants! I use the sturdiest things available–sticks, stones, metals, bits of detritus from the seabed–to insulate my soft and squishy parts from Mother Nature’s wrath and Man’s acidic and unbecoming temperament. As a humanitarian, I’m always willing to share my space with an appropriate other, especially if that other is a poor, helpless soul in need of smothering or mothering.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m tactile and love affection. I’ll also admit that I do have too much of the moon and the sea in me; my moods can go from black, to low, to white, to high, and to crescent shape in the space of about a microsecond. I can be volatile that way, but I more than make up for it with my talent for story-telling, my attention to detail, and my emotional rapport. I can also be timid and shy, but once you’ve gained my trust and extricated me from my crabby shell you’ll feel like you’ve known me for years! Once I’m out you’ll have to be rather gentle with me; I’m not particularly fond of prying eyes or confrontation, verbal or otherwise, so I will often sidestep around these. If this is not possible or plausible I’ll just thrust my big old pincers out and threaten to dice the adversary up into little pieces. You should also know that I’m a fiercely faithful friend, and my concern for the welfare of others can often be mistaken for clinginess and co-dependence. My soul is dark like rocks of obsidian, and deeper than the Mariana trench in the Pacific Ocean. Just like these qualities strike night terrors in those individuals not quite attuned to their inner selves, so too does it nurture my own worst nightmare–the fear that I might be deserted to my own devices and have to face life alone.”

Cancer is undoubtedly the first sign to actively work through the mimetic bank of the collective unconscious, drawing upon cosmic archetypes like the tribal brother or sister, love, the heroic journey, utopian societies like the legendary Atlantis, and the struggle between seemingly disembodied forces of good and evil to create its own narratives, real or imagined. Souls incarnating through the stars of this zodiacal constellation more often than not exhibit melancholia, sentimentalist romanticism, and a longing to recapture the locus classicus of Golden Ages bygone. The latter is most likely due to the fact that Cancerians retain prenatal memories of the paradisal perfection within the womb, and hence looking backward into the past is also examining a longwinded path that meanders further and further from union with the divine.  Their deep connection to the supranormal and creative powers of the greater subconscious mind and its intuitive faction, as well as a heartfelt obsession with the subtler and intimate details of our psychological makeup makes them the true hub of the arts. It is no coincidence that souls born under the aegis of Cancer tend to be artists, writers, musicians, and poets. The unconscious willpower or drive of a Cancerian soul is second to none.

Lamentably, Cancer’s derivation from an imaginative plane experienced through the electrical power of primordial ebbs and flows without the aid of a transistor isn’t all milk and honey. Cancerians are notorious for letting the intellectual throne of their personal kingdoms be usurped by emotion, and we all know what happens when unchecked emotions are given prominence over wisdom and intellect: problems and worries multiply and quickly distort our perceptions of the outside world so that everyone appears dishonest, deceptive, potentially threatening, and narcissistic. Emotionally disturbed Cancerians usually repress their feelings for prolonged periods, letting grievances and resentments simmer and become pressurised deep in the confines of their unconscious until these can no longer be contained. When the tempestuous eruption finally comes to pass, the rock-melting intensity of the sonic blast can be so potent as to incinerate, alter, or disfigure relationships permanently. This is one of just many reasons why Cancerians are introverts, choosing to traffic in relationships that are highly unlikely to balloon into melodramatic love affairs or force them into encounters with their own shadows.  

Like Aries, Taurus and Gemini, there are also two symbols associated with Cancer the Crab. The first of these, the animal totem, evokes the primary psychic composition of all beings born under this zodiacal sign; deriving from and dwelling in the element of water, crabs are tranquil, expressive and passive in their habits. The existence of a shell denotes a self-absorbed proclivity towards domestication, introversion, emotional vulnerability, and cultivation of the soul’s imaginative realm. In embarking in a cross-cultural and historical examination, we find that the ubiquitous expression of this archetype has altered in time. For some of the prehistoric cultures, Cancer was represented as a crayfish. Moving into historic times, the ancient Egyptians imagined the constellation as an embodiment of the morning sun–Khephera –whose totemic animal was the scarab beetle. The modern image associated with this archetype was inherited from Babylonian or Chaldean astrology, the latter also influencing the iconography used by the Persian and Hellenistic peoples. The fixed stars associated with this constellation were deemed of utmost importance given that they delineated the seat of an ethereal Great Mother Goddess from which all life in the cosmos had sprung forth. Two ancient calendars, the Egyptian and the Mayan, further illuminate Cancer’s importance as an archetypal indicator of cosmic beginnings and endings: the ancient Egyptians, ascribed prominence to it as the home in which almighty Sirius, the mediating star of the wheel of heaven, rose heliacally to herald the New Year; and the Mayans prophesized that an alignment of the planets within Cancer would spur an act of un-creation and spell the end of the universe. In Roman myth, the goddess Juno fashioned Cancer and placed her in the starry heavens to serve as a cosmic chronometer and reverse the forward-moving cycle of creation when she finally felt that the process of becoming would be of no further benefit to mortals and immortals alike.

The second symbol, an astrological shorthand for the zodiacal sign, shows two identical figures whose arrangement discloses polar opposition. In Gemini this image of duality symbolizes a conunctionis or marriage of opposites, but in Cancer it draws attention to the insuperable psychic tides that are inherent in the nature of this archetype and demonstrated by the gravitational forces and see-saw interfaces imposed upon the earth by its mediating planet, the moon. The two spirals pertaining to each figure may be interpreted in a variety of ways; either as a pair of breasts, symbols of fecundity and divine providence, or as two spermatozoa whose conjunction generates the miracle of life. Both are connected to creation and both recall the feminine element of water as the great cosmic womb through which evolutionary life processes take root. Naturally this sign is intimately connected to physical conception and birth, as well as the psychological dependence of the developing ego on the uroboric Self. Hence, the symbol also serves as a memory cue for those primordial moments of happiness, fundamental unity, oneness, and paradisal perfection experienced in the womb before birth, along with the sadness and loss that comes from being separated from the maternal realm of unconsciousness.

[laurelsofhighever]

The Falcon and the Rose Ch. 18 - Divisions

It is the spring of 9:32 Dragon, and Ferelden is gripped in the midst of a bloody civil war. Driven by fear of an old enemy, the traitorous Loghain Mac Tir has stirred the people against the king, and every day new factions vie for power, waiting to take advantage of the chaos now that it is certain a new peace can only be won with swords.

In the north, Arl Howe of Amaranthine has seized control of Highever, and only Rosslyn Cousland, last scion of a slaughtered noble house, stands in the way of his greed. Aided by King Cailan’s uncle and his bastard half-brother, Alistair, she is determined to seek justice for her family’s murder and right the wrongs done to her people.

But politics is a complicated game. War has a cost; nobility comes with obligation; and beneath the machinations on both sides of the conflict, an even deeper threat stirs, biding its time to come into the light and bring Ferelden to its knees.

Words: 4208

Chapter summary: Rosslyn tries to escape her new title, just for a little while, and Alistair faces a decision as the king's plan becomes clear.

Chapter 1 on AO3 This chapter on AO3 Masterpost here

The main road through the village bustled with soldiers and camp followers as well as the local population, with impromptu stalls set up in the gaps between houses selling everything from good luck charms to seed potatoes and cured pelts. It was rowdy, but not disorderly, and it seemed so far that the army was sticking to Cailan's injunction to leave the villagers in peace. Rosslyn, relieved now that the effects of the guelder tea were finally taking hold, allowed herself to be borne along by the current of people, enjoying the rare chance to absorb the ambience of a market day without the presence of guards to set her apart from the rest of the crowd.

One middle-aged woman she passed hollered out deals for her fruit stall, vaunting the quality of her produce at such a volume her voice could be clearly heard over the general hubbub of everyone around her.

“These apples look very well for the season,” Rosslyn commented, stepping out of the flow with Cuno at her heels. The fruit was stacked in neat pyramids, glossy, stippled yellow, and looking as crisp as if they hadn’t spent several months stored in a cellar.

“Oh, thankee very much, Ma’am,” the woman chirped, after a moment of stunned silence. “I grow ‘em meself – and these hazelnuts, and them dried pears ye see owa there, on’y those don’ keep so well in the winter months. Would ye mebbee like to try one?”

Rosslyn chuckled and reached for the small purse of coin she carried with her. “No need, Messere. I think some of those apples would do nicely, if you’d fill one of those small bags for me.”

The woman grinned toothily. “Aye, right away, Ma’am.” She reached for one of the reed-net pouches hanging from a nail hammered into the post that held up the awning.

“How much for them?”

“Oh no, Ma’am, I couldn’. Ye’ve already done me a good by coming here an’ ev’ryone seein’ ye. They’ll be clamourin’ now.”

“And what if they also see you refuse to take payment?” Rosslyn asked, leaning closer. “They might get ideas.” She watched the fruit seller suck on her bottom lip, undecided, and added, “It’s only a few coppers. Take it with my gratitude.”

“You’ve a reet canny tongue in your head, Ma’am,” the woman said, handing over the bag and holding up three fingers to indicate her price. “It’d be bad luck to refuse such a thing. Maker keep ye –” She glanced around warily for eavesdroppers and muttered, “And the Lady, too.”

“The same to you, Messere,” Rosslyn replied, smiling as the woman turned away to address the queue already forming at the other end of the stall. She could imagine how the boasts would go now, and took a small sort of pleasure in knowing she had done something, even if did nothing to lessen the mountain of her other worries.

On the other side of the road, a messenger guided her weary-looking horse against the flow of traffic. Her leathers were stained with dirt, the colours faded so her allegiance was hard to discern, but from the grit of her scowl, her mission was both urgent and serious. Rosslyn let her go. Given the probably sensitive nature of the news, it would be madness to try and waylay the messenger in the middle of a crowded street – and whatever had happened, she would likely hear about it soon enough anyway.

She stepped off the road and onto the muddy path that led along a low ridge above the lists, towards the stables, absently tucking in to one of the apples. The crunch took her away to the crisp autumns spent in Highever’s orchards, chasing through the groves with Fergus and the labourers’ children, playing Heroes and Werewolves until the afternoon shadows grew long and they were called back to the croft, where her father would have his sleeves rolled up to take his annual, ceremonial turn at the cider press. The would be her duty now, along with a thousand others. If the croft still stood. If she lived long enough to ever see home again.

Unconcerned with the future, Cuno trotted at her side. He glanced pitifully between her and the net bag in her hand, as if he hadn’t already devoured an entire haunch of goat that morning, and wagged his stubby end of a tail when he saw her watching.

“You won’t like it,” she promised. “These are for Lasan.”

He whined.

Below them, the day-to-day routine of battle training ground on, with the smart tramp of soldiers marching in formation punctuated here and there by the dull ring of a sword on wood, or the bark of one of the arms masters correcting a stance. Gideon was busy in the riding ring, giving a lecture to a line of fidgeting cavalry officers who one by one were called forward to ride through a slalom of tall poles, guiding their horses only with their knees. The results were… mixed.

Alistair was nowhere to be seen. She didn’t realise she had been searching for him until his absence sent a swoop of disappointment coursing through her stomach. She cursed herself for even looking. What would she do if she did see him? Should she expect him to drop everything to greet her on familiar terms, or to smile tolerantly while she stumbled through a conversation just because she found herself the victim of some unwelcome, childish fantasy? And then there was the other matter, the truth she had tried so hard to avoid since the night after the battle, the one she feared would blurt out at the first opportunity.

He had lied to her. Every stripe of blood she had cleaned away from his face as they sat there together in the infirmary had confirmed it, the resemblance between him and the king so uncanny despite the age difference that there could be no doubt of who he truly was. The pieces of the puzzle fit so perfectly now she knew the final design – his resentment of nobility, the reason he always tried so hard to deflect attention away from himself, why the subject of his childhood was never discussed. Imagining what he must have suffered growing up as an unacknowledged bastard made her heart clench every time she thought of it, but so did the insidious voice that never failed to remind her it was a truth she had not been trusted with, either. He hadn’t wanted her to know – and that was before, when she wasn’t yet the Teyrna of Highever, one step down from the king and what must surely be the seat of his resentment. How wide that gap yawned between them now. People like me tend to avoid the ones sitting at the top end of the table.

And what was she to do? How could she look him in the eye, knowing she held a secret she was never meant to keep? Better that they not meet, better not to see his repulsion when he found out that she knew.

But what if he were acknowledged? a querulous voice asked in the back of her mind. She had dared to think it, on the nights she woke up after dreaming of him, entire conversations carried out in her head as she tried to work out the best way to rid herself of her unease. But to draw him out, to force the issue of his parentage when he so clearly didn’t want it just to satisfy her own selfish wants would only prove right every rotten opinion he had about the nobility, and that was a painful thought.

She had no right to pry. She had already promised herself not to impose upon him. She would keep her knowledge of his secret, even from him.

Lasan was grazing in the paddock as she walked up, completely at ease with a couple of geldings she didn’t recognise, his tail swishing idly at flies, and she put her own worries out of her mind. At a distance, she checked her horse’s condition, noting how he bore weight easily on his injured hoof, and how patches of thick winter fur were starting to give way to the sleek roan marble of his summer coat. When she whistled, his proud head arced up with a whinny, and she watched as he started towards her. He walked solidly, with equal weight on both sides, and when one of the geldings tried to overtake him he squealed and bucked, breaking into an airy trot in order to reach her ahead of the others.

His head bobbed as he smelled the apple she held out for him as a greeting gift. Velvet lips plucked the offering from her palm with a soft blow of welcome, leaving her free to slip between the bars of the fence as he crunched it down. The other horses kept a respectful distance but she watched them all the same. As laidback as Lasan was for a stallion, he was often jealous of human attention, especially around food, and getting caught in the middle of a dispute between two animals that alone could easily kill her would not help with her pile of paperwork.

She cleaned his foot as best she could without a pick and checked it for signs of bruising. His new iron shoes still had their shine, so he must have only been out loose recently, but the poultices the horsemaster used seemed to have worked.

“A few more days, and you can get back to showing off for everyone,” she informed him with a clap on the neck.

Lasan snorted turned to regard her with one warm brown eye, then promptly scraped his head against her side with such force she staggered backwards. Apparently his nose itched.

“Oi!” She pushed back against him, but chuckled and moved her hands to the familiar spot on his withers that made his lip twitch with pleasure. Years ago, she would spend afternoons in the stables with Fergus, breathing in the musty scent of horse and helping the grooms so they could avoid the gatherings of uptight nobles who flocked to the castle almost every other week. And then Fergus had met Oriana and the hours in the stables became hers alone, a way to hide from her mother’s friends and the seemingly endless supply of unmarried sons they paraded before her.

But something always drew her away from those brief interludes of peace, and even now, as she found a twist of grass to work over Lasan’s back in place of a curry comb, she spotted a scout in Redcliffe colours jogging towards her from the direction of the village.

“Teyrna Rosslyn!” the boy puffed, saluting.

“Get your breath back first,” she advised, giving her horse one final pat before slipping back between the fence slats.

“Yes, Your Ladyship – thank you.” He breathed deep and started again. “Arl Eamon sent me to find you. We have news – a messenger has just arrived from South Reach with news from Arl Leonas. He says forces from Gwaren have taken Denerim.”

Her eyes widened. “But our last reports put him in Gwaren. How could he slip past South Reach undetected?”

“I don’t know, Your Ladyship,” the scout replied. “Only that I was sent to fetch you.”

“I’ll come at once. Was there something else?” she asked, when he hesitated.

“I’m sorry, your Ladyship, only Arl Eamon bid me find King Cailan as well – there was a private letter for him, from the queen, I think – but I don’t know where he is. I asked some of the royal guard, but all they said was His Majesty didn’t want to be disturbed.” The scout wrung his hands in front of him, his gaze fixed on her feet, already flinching from the expected reprimand.

Rosslyn shook her head. “Cuno can sniff out His Majesty.” If nothing else, it would give a her a few more minutes out in the sun, free to imagine a life not embroiled in politics. “I’ll see he gets the message. Go about your duties.”

“Yes, Your Ladyship – thank you!”

Alistair’s hands were clasped behind his back, his brows furrowed in concentration as he listened to Cailan talk and tried to work out where best to punctuate the speech with affirmative nods. It had been his attitude for the better part of an hour now, as the pair of them wandered through the rows of orchard trees mantled with blossom and alive with the humming of bees. Inwardly, he was doing his best not to panic.

The king’s hands were expressive, his face open and smiling in an almost infantile manner, but his blue eyes were lively and intelligent, and from the first moment they met Alistair felt like a bull in a show ring, appraised and judged for purpose. He had tried to hide his resentment, though it turned out Cailan bore little resemblance to the spoiled child in his memory. He was courteous, if stilted at first, as if he were uncertain of protocol, but once the most awkward enquiries were out of the way, his smile widened and his shoulders relaxed, and Alistair found himself completely wrong-footed.

“Of course, your current wardrobe just will not do,” the king was saying now. “It’s a shame I had to leave my tailor behind in Denerim, but time was of the essence and the old fuddy never did do well on horseback – we’ll just ask Bann Ferrenly nicely if he’ll spare his man for a suit or two.”

“Your Majesty, I –”

Cailan stopped him with a hand on his arm, his smile shrinking into more sympathetic lines. Alistair had been prepared for a scolding, or an order to keep his head down. This was something he could never have foreseen.

“It’s a habit, I know,” the king said, “but you must start using my name. We are brothers, aren’t we? You must admit, our likeness is uncanny! Why, I could almost be looking into a mirror back in time.” His grip pressed harder in what he must have thought was a reassuring squeeze. “Our father never told me the reason he hid you away, but fate has brought us together nonetheless and I wish to make redress for past mistakes. It’s time to claim the birthright that should always have been yours. What say you, brother?”

Alistair swallowed. The king’s eyes were too bright. How many years had he spent hoping for words just like these? When his mother died, he had dreamed that Maric would spur through Redcliffe’s gates on a great white charger to claim him as a second son and carry him away from the life of drudgery expected from the bastard orphan of a kitchen maid. Even when Teagan had taken him to Rainesfere to be a knight, there had been a faint hope at the back of his mind that it was his chance to prove worthy of the father who had never noticed him, the man whose shadow had fallen across him all his life.

It was the past. What he was now, he had earned through hard work and merit, not because of Maric’s name.

“You Majesty,” he said again. “I’m just an ordinary soldier, nothing more. I’m not even sure I have matching socks on today. With due respect, are you entirely serious about this? I mean, what does an heir to the throne even do?”

Cailan threw his head back and laughed. “That’s your worry? Come, we are not Orlesians to sneer at one who does not have a conventional background. The people will love you – you understand them, and you have fought for them, and won a rousing victory to boot! And as for the rest, well –” he waved his hand vaguely and wrinkled his nose – “We can see to that. Will you at least think on it?” he asked, when Alistair still looked uncertain. “Most people would jump at the chance to be royalty, or so I’m told.”

With a sinking sense of premonition, Alistair straightened his shoulders and nodded. “As you say, Your – oompf!”

Something heavy slammed into his waist, nearly doubling him over. When he managed to get his wind back, he looked down to see a slobbery, tongue-lolling smile and an absurdly wiggling rump trying to press itself against his breeches. Panic seized his limbs. After a week, an entire week of hoping and having those hopes dashed, of all the places she could have turned up, why did it have to be here, now?

“Ho, now that’s a familiar face!” Cailan laughed. “And if I’m not mistaken, when this one appears, the other isn’t far behind – and yes, here she is!”

Alistair followed the point of the king’s finger as Rosslyn strode into sight along the path ahead. Heat leapt up the back of his neck. There were bruised circles under her eyes, her boots were muddy, and the quilted, slate-grey cotton of her shirt was dusted by a fine covering of reddish hair, but if anything that lack of polish just emphasised the grace of her walk, and the economy with which her warrior’s muscles moved under the form-fitting lines of her clothes. And her hair – it gleamed like a raven’s wing in the sunlight, braided back from her face but long and loose down her back, just as it had been in his dream. Cuno stretched up to lick his chin, his full weight against Alistair’s legs. He gladly took the distraction and bent over to fuss the dog, the better to hide his flaming cheeks while he tried to rein in the wandering line of his thoughts.

“Teyrna Rosslyn!” Cailan cried, with genuine delight. “Of all the blossoms out on this fine morning, you are surely the most beautiful, if not the most expected.”

Alistair’s ears burned. He remembered what she had said in the barracks room, about the king and his charm and how they grew up together.

“Ever the flatterer, Your Majesty,” she replied easily. With his eyes fixed resolutely on the grass, Alistair imagined the way she held her hand out for the king to take, the way the king took it and brought it to his lips. “Tell me, has a large, excitable dog wandered across your path recently?”

“Why, yes. I believe he’s just making himself acquainted with…” He trailed off when he noticed Rosslyn’s start of surprise, and Alistair sheepishly looking up to return her gaze. “You know each other?”

“Ser Alistair was the one who found me and my troopers at Wythenshawe,” she explained. “He was kind enough to take care of me.”

Alistair bowed, his hands still trailing through Cuno’s fur, and searched her face for any sign of partiality as he made his greeting. “Your Ladyship.”

Her expression remained neutral, though he thought maybe her gaze lingered on him a beat longer than strictly necessary before turning back to the king.

“Oh I will have to hear all about this, I’m sure,” Cailan was saying. “But tell me first, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

Her voice lowered as she explained her errand, her head bowed respectfully, but every so often her eyes flickered to him and back, as if uncertain whether to include him in the conversation or not.

Cailan’s easy smile collapsed in a frown. “I must see to this. But first I must apologise for having disturbed your walk, my lady,” he said, tilting her a winning smile. “Since the two of you are acquainted, would you mind terribly if I left you here together?”

Alistair saw his panic mirrored in her eyes. To be alone with her – after so long spent thinking about it – but with so much between them now, what could he say?

“If Her Ladyship doesn’t object?”

“I don’t – unless I would be intruding?”

He smiled at their stumbling clash of words. “Of course not.”

“Excellent.” The king pressed a light kiss to Rosslyn’s knuckles that managed to be charming rather than pompous, already moving towards the village. “I will see you soon, my lady, and we’ll see what this business is about. And you also, Ser Alistair,” he added. “Remember you’ve promised me you’ll think about my offer.”

When he left, the easy atmosphere left with him, and for a tense moment neither of them spoke. The only sound apart from the spring birds was the contented panting of the dog as he rolled all the way over onto his back to allow Alistair better access to his softest parts. The sight made Rosslyn fold her arms across her chest and frown, but she had to bite her lips to keep from smiling.

“Absolutely pathetic.”

Alistair gasped in mock outrage. “Don’t listen to the nasty lady, boy. You’re a good dog.”

Cuno righted himself and tried to boof him on the chin.

“You’re looking well,” she offered, after another lengthy pause.

“Oh it’s a miracle,” he replied, giving her a distracted wave. “For a while, I was afraid I wouldn’t pull through, and that I would depart this life without having accomplished my dream of growing a really fancy moustache.” He ducked his head and ran a nervous hand through his hair, heart pounding. “I was, uh, lucky I had such a good nurse.”

“Mhm, that mage – Amell, is it? – is rather pretty, isn’t she?” came the easy reply.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” He pouted, to cover his mortification. How could he expect anything but a deflection from such a clumsy compliment? “I don’t remember picking on you when you were still an invalid.”

“You wouldn’t have dared,” she told him, but the smug tilt of her lips faded, her fingers going to fidget with a ring he hadn’t seen her wear before. “I’m sorry for not coming to see you.”

You sleep like a bear. I was worried.

It was a dream, not real; he shrugged it away. “You’ve been busy. And I hear you’re officially Teyrna now,” he added brightly. “Is there a special curtsey I should be aware of, or anything? I heard somewhere it’s a custom for knights to lay their coats over puddles for noble ladies to step through.”

She frowned. “Wouldn’t the water just seep through the fabric, or overflow at the edges?”

“See, that’s what I thought,” he replied, glad to get at least a small reaction from her, but unsure what to do with it. He wanted to ask how she was, if she needed anything, what she would do now the army was moving south, but he didn’t dare.

“Either way, I wish you wouldn’t.” the lop-sided smirk flashed briefly at him. “I trip over enough protocol these days without having to contend with somebody’s coat. Besides,” she added, “I’m not the one lofty enough to have private meetings with the king.”

He dropped his gaze, rubbing at the sudden itch on the back of his neck. He needed to tell her, even if nothing came of it. The words bunched in his chest, struggling for order, a way to bring it up without just blurting out that he’d been lying by omission since their first meeting. And maybe, he realised, if she knew, she might have advice about Cailan’s offer to acknowledge his claim to the throne.

But when he looked back at her, his confession ready on his tongue, he found she had turned her attention to the branches of a nearby tree, and was running her fingertips along the dainty white blossoms, the pink buds yet to open. When she bent her head to inhale the scent, her features set in wistful lines, it was an image he wanted seared in his brain forever.

“But that’s none of my business,” she told him quietly. “Forgive me. To be honest, I came out here to get away from politics for a while.”

His mouth snapped shut.

“I should head back. No doubt whatever is in that message for His Majesty will involve me soon enough.”

“Of course,” he replied. “I ought to return to my duties as well, if you wouldn’t mind the company? We could talk about things that have nothing to do with politics.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Well, I heard that the Avvar make a particularly fine cheese from the milk of dwarven battle nugs, and I would like your opinion on the matter.”

He was a coward. As he fell into step beside her, the dog a barrier between them, he felt the moment pass, and mourned it. What good would it do her to know who he really was anyway? The secret had never caused him anything but trouble, and giving it to her would just be another burden to add to shoulders already strained with responsibility. No, far better to keep his father’s name to himself and not risk her pulling away from him completely – or worse, treating him with a deference                 that was never meant to be his. Making her smile was enough. Besides, who was to say that this idea to make him a prince wasn’t just some passing fancy of the king’s, a way to create intrigue among the nobility for some as-yet undiscovered reason?

Even in his own head the argument was less than convincing, but he kept his silence nonetheless.

[historyofartdaily]

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974, photography, Guggenheim Museum

Marina Abramović is one of the pioneers of performance as an art form. In her performance Rhythm 0 (1974), she invited spectators to do whatever they wanted to her using 72 objects: a rose, perfume, a pair of scissors, chains, an axe, a pistol... According to Abramović, the piece’s aim was to see how far the public would go. The performance lasted 6 hours, until an end was put to it because the audience put the artist’s life in danger.

According to critic Thomas McEvilley, “It began tamely”, but “in the third hour all her clothes were cut from her with razor blades. In the fourth hour the same blades began to explore her skin. Her throat was slashed so someone could suck her blood. Various [...] sexual assaults were carried out on her body... When a loaded gun was thrust to Marina’s head and her own finger was being worked around the trigger, a fight broke out between the audience factions.”

Although the artist has never identified herself as a feminist, many critics have argued that Abramović’s work carries strong feminist themes. In fact, her performances deal with submission, violence, sexuality, beauty standards, and the female body. That being said, Marina Abramović stated “I am not a feminist artist. I am a woman, but I am not a woman artist. I’m just an artist. I am sorry. But, I have to explain that I come from a completely different culture than [the one you come from]. I come from Ex-Yougoslavia, with my mother and father being Partisans, my mother being major of the Army. I’ve been taught we were equal. [...] We never heard about feminism until I left Yougoslavia. So you can’t blame me for this, that I made my work in these conditions.”

As a feminist / someone who believes women’s rights are human rights / a fervent feminazi / whatever-you-want-to-call-it, I was initially disappointed by this statement. How could the “grandmother of performance art”, queen Marina Abramović herself, reject feminism? As I came to realize - in what you could call a desperate attempt to save Marina Abramović’s spot in my personal pantheon of feminist icons - she isn’t disavowing feminism. She’s merely saying that, as she was unaware of it as a concept and political movement, feminism couldn’t be a driving force in her creative process. Furthermore, although she’s aware of it now, she doesn’t want to limit her body of work to feminism. And that’s okay. 

Every female artist doesn’t have an obligation towards her public to label herself a “feminist artist”, the same way every male artist doesn’t have an obligation to label himself... well, anything, really. As a person, Marina Abramović believes in the core value of feminism: that women and men are equal. As an artist, though, she doesn’t care to call her work “feminist”. And the feminist in me can’t blame her: if feminism means letting women express themselves... it also means letting women question the term “feminist”. The fact alone that Marina Abramović became an established name in her field makes her feminist enough to me. Add on to that she used her art to explore the female body and sexuality, and that she paved the way for many female artists, and I think I’ll keep seeing Marina Abramović as my personal feminist hero, thank you very much.

(Sources: Nancy Spector, Guggenheim Museum ; Chris Johnston, Disobedient Theatre: Alternative Ways to Inspire, Animate and Play, p. 67 ; Samantha Henman, “Reading Marina Abramović’s Performance Art as a Feminist Act” ; Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy, The Guardian ; The Feminist Future: Marina Abramovic, January 26, 2007)

[keywestlou]

DEATH ROW MURDERERS WILL GET STIMULUS CHECKS

This morning a first. I am back to doing a normal blog. My first Greece trip has ended.

I enjoyed sharing the trip with you. Hopefully you enjoyed reading it. I received many favorable comments, except for one. A snowbird good friend. He was unhappy. He had followed it day by day 9 years ago and was bored with the repetition.

I returned to Greece the next year. I plan later this year in doing that trip. If any of you think you would not enjoy it, speak now or forever hold your peace.

I took about 600 photos of the trip. Never posted them. Sloan and I have been working on how to set them up, etc. In a week or two I will begin posting. Once a week. Eight to ten pics with some brief identifying information below. And not all 600. Not even close.

The reason I opted to run the first Greece trip again was because there was little to write about. Before coronavirus, I was out and about most evenings. There was much to report.

However, the virus has kept me self quarantined for more than a year now. Key West residents and visitors not available to me. Nor the Chart Room or any other bar.

Prior to the virus, I rarely wrote about politics and world happenings. Without Key West available, I was forced to write about those 2 areas.

An interesting observation. My readers have doubled with the changeover primarily to politics. I plan on mixing Key West and politics as soon as I am out again. I hope the new readers stay with me.

My second shot is March 27. I am told I should remain in self quarantine for another 2-3 weeks. Then ok to go out. However must wear a mask.

I can live with it.

An article in Newsmax 3/7 reported death row murderers would receive stimulus checks. Doesn’t sound right. However politics being what it is, you never know.

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) was interviewed by Newsmax and shared the information.

Before my sharing it with you, let me make one thing clear. I fear Cotton and those of his breed. He is a far righter. Even worse a favorite of the moneyed Republicans we never hear about. He and his friends want him to run for Presidnet in 2024.

He is of the same ilk of Senator Hawley. Birds of a feather.

One thing that has been bothering me the past couple of years is that many of the new Republican faces are Harvard or Yale law graduates. These people receive the finest legal educations which for some reason I cannot fathom sets them off on a path even beyond Trump.

Cotton provided the following examples of death row murderers to receive stimulus checks.

Dylan Roof murdered 9 people. He is on federal death row.

The Boston Bomber Dzhokhor Tsarnaev who murdered 3 people and terrorized a city.

Aaron Shamo was sentenced to life for selling 1 million fentanyl-laced fake oxycodone pills to unsuspecting buyers.

What is the justification for providing death row murderers and those sentenced to life with the stimulus? For commissary use buying cigarettes, soda pop, and candy?

Florida COVID-19 vaccine shots chaos. Distribution still sucks in Florida.

A woman in Florida City stood in line for 5 hours with her 6 month baby and when reached was turned away on some technical reason. That same day, the Florida City sites were allowing people without appointments to be vaccinated.

Eligibility requirements were screwed up. Those providing the shots were not aware who could get a shot. Eligibility practiced in an uncertain fashion, and not properly so in most instances.

The Washington Post 3/4 reported living in Texas right now feels like an exercise in survival. Citizens are caught between the power failure and Governor Abbott opening Texas 100 percent beginning wednesday.

My adult life has been governed by the philosophy that every one must have a seat at the economic table. Not just the rich. Rich, middle class, and poor alike. Each must receive the benefits of the American economy. Not however must each earn an equal amount of money.

People must be able to afford to buy things like food, clothing, and shelter.

The U.S. minimum wage for years has been $7.25 an hour. Whether rich or poor, an insufficient amount to live on. I wonder what Senators and Representatives would do if they and their families had to live on $7.25 an hour.

NBC News recently said: “The world has changed.”

In addition to every one having a seat at the table, I have also believed that if not all are and some struggle, there will be revolt in order for people to survive economically. It is the story of history.

Today is International Woman’s Day. Biden will be signing an Executive Order establishing a Gender Policy Council within the White House. Its purpose to support gender equity and Title XI policies.

Equality wise women have risen dramatically over the years. What I have observed in my lifetime alone supports the premise.

The birth control pill had something to do with it. Gave women a sense of equality and protection. The feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s likewise.

Recall around 1970, the new cigarette Virginia Slims came out directed primarily at female purchasers. Its advertising slogan: You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!

While I was in law school in the late 1950s, there were only 2 women in my class. Today ladies make up more than half. The same is applicable to medical school graduates.

Female judges abound. Women gradually becoming CEOs of major corporations.

They may have come a long way, the ladies are going to go even further. It’s a new world!

International Woman’s day is not a new event. It was established by Clara Zetkio at an International Woman’s Conference in 1910 in Copenhagen.

My thought process has reached the point where I believe women should basically run the world. Men have for centuries and screwed it up. Let the ladies have a chance. They could not do worse and probably do better.

On this day in 1917, the Russian Revolution began.

International Woman’s Day had something to do with it.

The “February Revolution” as it is called, began over protests celebrating International Woman’s Day and riots in St. Petersburg over food rations and Russia’s involvement in World War I.

I have always found Russian history prior to, during and since 1917 interesting and exciting. Russian movies and novels have contributed to that interest and excitement.

I was fortunate while in college in the mid 1950s to take 2 courses taught by Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky was there in Russia as a prominent figure during the Russian Revolution.

At the beginning, there were 2 Russian factions. The Whites and Reds. The Whites first controlled the government. Not for long. Several months at the most.

Kerensky was the President of the White Bolsheviks. Lenin was a leader of the Red Bolsheviks. Lenin toppled Kerensky. Kerensky had to escape to save his life. He eventually ended up in the U.S.

The contrast between Lenin and Kerensky is interesting also. Probably why Lenin succeeded where Kerensky failed. Lenin came to power promising “peace, land and bread.” At a time Kerensky’s people were selling more efficient government and continued participation in World War I.

What a time in world history!

I live and learn. I seem to make that statement more frequently in recent years.

We all have heard the word misogynist. Represents men strongly prejudicial against women.

How many have heard the word misandrist. Represents hatred of men by women. The word rare. Its meaning I suspect prevalent.

Enjoy your day!

DEATH ROW MURDERERS WILL GET STIMULUS CHECKS was originally published on Key West Lou

[amandaj718]

Fandom Sucks?

Fandom sucks…a lot out of a fan. Got your attention? Good. Read on.

As I shoot through my Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram feed, I get a good idea of where people stand on a different character, storylines and television shows in general. Sometimes I’m with the crowd, and sometimes it becomes a battlefield out there. That is when you stay and fight for your favorite character, storyline or show or you just turn off the computer and enjoy it for what it is, a piece of entertainment.

It got me thinking though. How we all have our favorites. We all see things our way. When we take those ideas and beliefs and put them out there among other ideas, how do they fair?  Does fandom help enforce and celebrate them, or do they tear them apart? Does fandom change the way we see our favorite characters, storylines, and shows?

Does fandom have that much power? Does fandom SUCK the fun out of a show? Why do we allow this to happen?

Using my own experiences in the Emmerdale fandom (so far) here is what I think happens.

How We See Our Favorites Through a Lens

I found Emmerdale through Tumblr. I’ve told this story before, but I can tell a truncated version.  I saw a picture of Robert and Aaron in the forest during that very emotional scene in SSW 2016.  I was drawn to the picture and wanted to know more. After some very sweet anons gave me some links to their story, I jumped in feet first. After a couple of months, I was caught up and in love with the ‘Robron story.' Then I started watching the full episodes. Writing my thoughts and the rest is history.

Now, after getting the full picture of the Emmerdale and how everyone fits into the picture, I started developing favorites. For the sake of this entry, I will focus on Robert and Aaron. (If you want to know my favorites outside of these two, send over a message. We can talk).  I love both Ryan and Danny. They are amazing actors on their own, and together they are electric. However, like anyone I grew to have a favorite between the two of them. It's no secret that I am a big fan of Robert. I find his story and his history in Emmerdale intriguing and epic in a way. Lots of ties, love, hurt feelings and confusion. Robert has so much going on I fell in love.

I fell in love with how far he has come as a character. I fell for his rough spots. When he is an asshole. When he is trying to do the right thing for the people he loves. I see that. I understand that. I relate to that on so many levels. I understand how Aaron fans feel. They are drawn to Aaron just like I'm drawn to Robert. We are the same that way.

Everyone does this. We all have our favorites. We all see our favorite characters one way. He all relate to them for different reasons. We see characters as we want to see them. We are in this bubble with them. Sooner or later the bubble must burst.

Collective Fandom’s Opinions

The collective fandom is stretched across multiple platforms, and that fandom has a tendency (like every fandom) to fall into group think, cliques and even warring factions. This is the same for the ‘Robron’ fandom. Over time I found certain people I like reading thoughts, retweeting, talking to personally and reblogging from in the fandom. I used to be all over the place, but that proved to be a bad thing. Why?

After leaving my bubble and entering the collective fandom, I expected people to not agree with me.  As the storyline got more dramatic and sad, the fandom had certain viewpoints of Robert as a character versus Aaron as a character. Certain sections of fandom only think of Aaron and how much this affects him. Other sections think of Robert and the journey he is going on as the storyline unfolds. Then the people in the middle who love both equally.

It is obvious (to me) that this storyline we are in is about Robert and his journey. Aaron got his journey last year with the Gordon storyline. Now, we are on Roberts journey. His own story. This is where things get sticky. After each episode, we all have our opinions. Going on and expecting my opinions about Robert to match the collective fandom…never happens.  Sometimes people continue focusing on Aaron even if he isn’t in an episode. People mocking Robert and hoping he dies (Twitter is an interesting place these days) or people acting like Robert/Aaron deserve better than Robert/Aaron. Sometimes I think people aren’t watching the same show. Sometimes when I let my real feelings out that is when the attacks happen. The bubble bursts.

I start questioning things. I start rolling my eyes at certain responses. I block people who go out of their way to harass and silence others and attack characters.  I let people’s opinions effect how I see certain characters. For instance, I started low key hating Aaron because certain people I followed would blame Robert for all of Aarons problems.  Then praise Aaron for throwing a wrench at Roberts' head. How he should have hit him. I started to see how those fans saw Aaron as this fragile human being who always needs to be babied. Which made me start to look at Aaron differently. Resent how that image of Aaron didn’t fit what I saw. I love Aaron for how strong he is as a character. How he has his problems too. However, those opinions of those fans get stuck in my head, and I start hating him. I let his fans question how I see him and even start to hate him. I don’t hate him though. I think I hate his fandom self.  

Then I will read a Danny interview or watch Aaron in an episode, and all that goes away. I remember why this character is great on his own and how I see him, and I love him. Then I feel stupid for letting people like that affect me.

Collective Fandom Sucks?

I always feel stupid when I let fandom opinion affect how I see a character. Mostly because I shouldn’t be giving fandom that much power. Why does fandom have this power over us? Is it because of the old psychological factors come into play? Wanting to be like everyone else. Afraid to speak up and be part of the group. Be one of the cool fandom kids?

Maybe. Sometimes I hold back giving my opinion to keep fandom peace. Sometimes I get into a mood and make sure everyone knows how I feel about something. It depends on what is happening and how upset/happy I am about a plot point.  Sometimes I want to be able to enjoy an episode, but since so many people are upset, I hold back. Sometimes I hate an episode, but everyone seems excited, so I hold back. Silly but it might be old learned behavior. Come in and stay low and try to enjoy the fandom.  

I keep asking this question because fandom can be a fun place. Collectively fandom can bond over a sad or happy storyline without invalidating how each other feels. I’ve seen it happen in the Emmerdale fandom. However, lately, there are a lot of people sucking the fun out of theorizing. People looking down on others for being happy about something. Deciding to passively mock others for trying to find enjoyment in a sad story.  Personally, I’ve seen it happen a lot, and it makes fandom an unbearable place to be. I call those people the wet blankets or fandom police. If we don’t follow how they feel and voice an opposing opinion on their post, we are branded annoying and pushed out or ignored. Making the collective fandom cold. Why do we do this to each other? Why do we let that group think suck the fun out of enjoying a show?

I keep asking this and babbling on because I don’t have an answer. I don’t. I hate that I got sucked into a fandom that was very sweet and got me through a sad plot point just to see people start turning on each other for voicing an opposing opinion or not feeling the same way about their favorite character. It sucks the fun out of the show. Especially since we know, things are going to get better soon. No one seems to want to believe it which is a downer seeing day in and day out.

While I don’t have an answer, I do know there are ways to combat the ‘suckage of fandom.' Finding your circles. Finding the people who are willing to look beyond their lens and analyze the show. Finding people to open your eyes to new ideas without looking down at your current ones. Finding your bubble when things get bad. Finding a fellow ‘bitch buddy’ to vent to when fandom gets too crazy. Taking time away and coming back with a clearer head. There are ways to combat the suckage of fandom. It just takes time to learn how to do this. It is something I am learning how to do as of this writing.

What do you think? Do you think fandom can suck the fun out of a show or do you think that fandom is what we make it? Sometimes we need to learn to walk away and not let it affect our thoughts about our favorites or current storylines. Tell me below. I’m very interested in how fandom feels about this. Especially the ‘Robron’ fandom since we are all going through a very polarizing storyline. Leave me a comment below or tweet me @AmandaJ718. Until my next babble, you can find me in Emmerdale.

Additional editing by Justine (@BeautifulHusbands)