#Masthead castle of nations

[caminthemoshpitatweezer]

I let my neice give castle of nations characters new names which ones your favourite

[violinist-rachel]

It's the mast boyo

[that-one-guy-l]

I kinda gave up making this midway through

[bonbon51691]

Some LoT doodles ~

[quinnlarrabee]

Do you work?

“Do you work?”

I looked to my right at the person who asked me this question, which sounded like a typo. He was around 28, tall with a messy head of brown hair and blue eyes, and he was wearing a perfectly fitted dark blue suit with a faintly pink shirt barely buttoned to his navel, a thin decorative scarf, a gold pinky ring, and a watch that could fund the average midwestern couple’s retirement. He was looking askance at me – peering, really – and seemed bored.

Given the context, his question was reasonable.

For a stretch in the mid-aughts I accidentally ran around New York City almost exclusively with fashion editors, Upper East Side trust fund kids and European nobility. During this brief, surreal window into an alternate universe I received fuckoff-sized paper invitations to museum galas, found myself on the guest lists of the most exclusive clubs (Beatrice, Double 7, and Bungalow 8), and humored a lot of fraught conversations in Spring and Fall about where people were summering and wintering, which were new verbs in my plebeian vocabulary. I never had to break stride to walk through any door preceded by a line or velvet ropes, because I was walking in behind people who had names that were preceded by hereditary titles, immortalized in social registers, and printed on the mastheads of then important but now irrelevant publications. I don’t quite know how it happened, but suddenly no one in my entire social circle really did anything but attend.

These were people who don’t work (PWDW, pronounced pee-dub-dee-dub).

The bored toff and I were seated next to one another at a dinner in the subterranean wine cellar of a very buzzy, flash-in-the-pan restaurant on the Lower East Side, which at the time was chic and favored by the jetset because it was still an overlooked, underdeveloped home to other jetsetters pretending to be poor artists. Among the dozen or so people around the table were a few leggy, bright-young-thing Vogue editors who lived off of bottomless expense accounts, but most of the guests were Counts and Barons and Ladies from Europe and the UK. It was like the United Nations for landed gentry. They were of the variety of restless, angsty rich children who in their mid-twenties leave behind their medals and sashes and ride into New York City on the magnetic strips of their parents’ debit cards to befriend DJs, abuse drugs, and have a lot of sex until their family sends a prim attaché to quietly fetch them from rehab or, worse, extract them from an inappropriate relationship. Funded by heaps of ill-begotten aristocratic wealth and powered by nouveau socialite influence, the dinner was a perfectly balanced sycophantic ecosystem.

I felt sorely out of place. My inseam is barely 32 inches after yoga, my family doesn’t have a coat of arms or a castle, and back then, the only thing I attended with regularity was an office where I worked.

This brings me back to the essential question, which sounded like, d’jooWEHK?

In the only two and a half syllables that he uttered at me, I could hear in his accent where he sat in the House of Windsor’s extended family tree: a branch far enough from duty to be making small talk with me at 10pm on a Tuesday night in NYC, but close enough to be wary of who he was seated next to. I decided there was only one direction to take this conversation.

“God, no,” I said, looking slightly away from him, furrowing my brow just a bit and lacing my two-word response with a touch of disgust. I took care not to expend more energy answering the question than he had expended asking it. People whose generational wealth and privilege have spared them the drudgery of working for a living ironically speak as if they are perpetually exhausted—as if every word that emerges from their pouted mouths requires Herculean effort. (Watch Prince – sorry, King Charles speak. You’ll see what I mean.)

“I have no living family who have ever worked,” I pronounced flatly, meeting his gaze, entirely committed to wearing his birthright as a costume. He laughed, very pleased by this.

“I thought all the money in America was only a generation or two old,” he said, sneering a bit. “Barely even a patina on it.” I imagined how annoying he must have been at Eaton. I bet he’d been a flamboyant fencer and a closeted bisexual.

“The proper families in New York sorted themselves out in the late 1800s,” I said, “not long after we sent your lot bleeding back to King George.” He raised his eyebrows and laughed. How is it that even the most handsome Brits look like horses when they laugh? The young woman to his right leaned in and addressed us in a very thick Italian accent imbued with plummy British.

“What are you two laughing about?” She was arrestingly beautiful. She probably would have been a model if her family hadn’t forbidden her from working.

“This American is explaining how peerage works in his country,” he said, his sneer-laugh reduced to a fatigued chuckle and a lazy smirk. I couldn’t tell if I was now in on the joke or the joke itself.

“Do you work?” I asked her. She smiled very sweetly and slightly shook her pretty head. 

“Not yet, maybe I will not work – at a job,” she said. “I like reading and studying. I like learning about Italian art and history.” EEE-storee.

“Contessa Constantina’s family owns most of southern Italy,” announced the disdainful Brit. “Her studying art and history is just sort of reading the diaries of her ancestors.” He laughed at his joke. Constantina playfully slapped his arm and bared her perfect teeth at him. I realized right then and there that if I didn’t stop RSVPing to cursive invitations and gliding around with bored aristocrats and laughing at jokes about being bored aristocrats, I’d lose my drive, my self-respect, and certainly my savings.

I never saw the Brit or his Italian heiress again. They probably now have two kids in boarding school, split their time between Soho, Southampton, Surry and Sardinia, and both keep thinly concealed boyfriends on the Upper East Side or in Portugal. I distanced myself from PWDW and found friends who wanted to do things and build things (DTBT). I did things and built things.   

Today, I am again surrounded by people who do not work.

But it’s a different kind of idleness. It isn’t rarified or earned over generations. These PWDW are not confined to secret dining rooms and donor circles and the fashion shows of young people bankrolled by ancestral conquests depicted in oil paintings displayed on the walls of their families’ crumbling villas. They’re everywhere.

No one really works anymore.

We check our many inboxes. We toggle between our employers’ email account, Instagram DMs and iMessage. We affirm things, rearrange things, and every once in a while, emphatically disagree with things to show that we’re paying attention. Like toddlers pretending to eat peas to appease their parents, we just move things around on our plates and occasionally throw fits. White collar digital work apes social media: everything has been reduced to likes and the shrug emoji.

Many of the PWDW I know these days have had an exit, and they are no longer required to even performatively work. An exit is when you build something that someone else perceives to be valuable or threatening, and they give you an eye-watering sum of money to allow what you’ve built to be digested into a larger business, where it will eventually wither, or to be extinguished immediately out of competitive spite. Post-exit people are a funny lot. They work insanely hard for three to twelve years, usually in relative poverty, and then a single event rockets them into the socioeconomic stratosphere, where they meet other people who don’t work—often the gilded European and posh Brit types from whom I extracted myself back in 2006. Together, they attend thought leadership conferences where they exchange tips about places to summer and winter that working people have never heard of.

The only people I know who actually work are people who do things with their hands, and this does not include typing. I’m talking about the kind of work performed by surgeons and landscapers and carpenters. People whose vocations have proper names still work. Florist, butcher, fishmonger. If you are something, you work. If you work in something, you don’t actually work. If your money comes from something, you definitely don’t work.

So, I ask you -

Do you work?

[regularragdoll]

*slaps this fandom awake* hey *slap* HEY i got mcdonnelds. here you go if ye want it

[insertcharacternamehere]

a take.

~~

characters belong to UnknownPerson!~

[tanpoyo]

I can actually see all of these

hi i made a mistake

[ivyespeonfriends]

My first My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Oc. White Bright is not just a MLP character. She’s a crossover pony and I like crossovers. She’s a crossover of Gravity Falls and Castle of Nations from Unknown Person. She can stand on two legs like a human and she’s a blank flank. I created her a very long time ago in 2013. I’m very surprised that was five years ago. Here’s her backstory:

White Bright was born in the hospital, but she was born sick. The Doctors tried to figure out why or how she got sick, but no luck. White Bright stayed in the hospital, but her parents left. They didn’t abandon her, they wanted the doctors to cure her. Later on, something happened to White Bright’s parents. They were gone, but didn’t leave anything behind. So White Bright stayed in the hospital and she was all alone. She was sad and lonely. The doctor took care of her and trying their best to cure White Bright. One day, White Bright was feeling sleepy for some reason. She fell into a deep sleep. She’s not dead, she just fell into a deep sleep. Years later during her deep sleep, she grown into a full grown mare. When she finally woke up, she was in an Amusement Park called the Castle of Nations. From there, she met Karl, Rachel, Climber, Clarice, Mr. Jack, T.G., Masthead, and Red. White Bright told them about her sad past and how she got no friends. She was sad again, but everyone decided to help her and becomes her new friends. Then, White Bright realized that she doesn’t have her cutiemark because she grew up without one. She’s able to leave the park, but she didn’t want to be alone. White Bright goes on adventures and meets new friends on the way. She met the Pine twins, the mane six, and Spike the Dragon. Sometimes, White Bright thinks about her past, but try not to think about it too much. From there, White Bright has plans and goals: to find her parents and her special talent.

Of course, I drew her with her cutiemark, but I’m not going to tell the story about how she got it. That will be later on in the future. Hope you guys like her.

[elym13]

Queen’s Gambit

Part 3 of the femslash fun that is FitzElsa.

CHAPTER ONE

Aboard the HRM Idunn

The eighteen gun, ship-rigged, sloop-of-war HRM Idunn plowed through the waves of the cold North Sea. It was a glorious late September day, all bright sun and brisk ocean breeze, and she was headed home. It had been a brief patrol, a just a short week, and an uneventful one. Still her crew was impatient to return to land and their loved ones. Even her Captain was happy to be on the return, and not only because she was currently stuck in her cabin finishing up log entries. For as much as Captain Fitzwilliam loved the sea and loved her ship, she had finally found something — someone — to love more, and that someone was waiting for her -- would be waiting for her after she finished with the business of being Queen. Further, with Anna and Kristoff’s extended honeymoon tour of continental Europe scheduled to end soon,  Fitz wanted to get in as much private time as she could with Elsa.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate Anna and Kristoff, too. It was just that time with Elsa when her sister was around was often not particularly private. Anna was a brilliant whirlwind of energy, who acted with limited forethought and never backed down from a challenge, qualities Fitz recognized and appreciated in herself. Kristoff was as stalwart and steadfast a man as Fitz had ever met, someone who would make a tremendous First Officer, or in Anna’s case a patient husband. However no matter what their charms, having Elsa to herself  — well, sharing her only with the small rather sleepy kingdom that was Arendelle — had been a treat, and one Fitz intended to savor for every last moment.

That lovely thought was interrupted by a knock at her cabin door.

“Enter.” Fitzwilliam was seated behind her desk in her rather spartan cabin, which lacked the ornate teak furniture and thick oriental rugs she had enjoyed on her last ship, The Vigilant.  She didn’t look up from the illegible scrawl that was her logbook, but she did hear her door open and close smartly.

“Captain.”

Now she looked up. Midshipman Anker, their newest recruit, was standing rigidly braced at attention.

“Mr. Anker?”

Anker was on his first assignment in Arendelle’s navy although nearly a man at sixteen. Arendelle started its officers at an older age than Fitz was used to and kept them longer too, if the graying cadre of other Captains was any indication. He was a capable lad, reasonably strong, reasonably smart, but he was shy. Most new midshipman were, but Anker suffered the triple threat of being shy, being a young man just starting to appreciate that women came in flavors other than his mother, and being a Midshipman aboard a sloop-of-war whose captain was a woman.

It wasn’t as if most people would correctly guess Fitz’s gender even on the second meeting, hidden as it was under layers of linen, silk and wool. She looked like most officers of her station, tanned, broad-shouldered, tall, with an air of competence and surety that bordered on arrogance. But Anker knew that she was a woman, a mysterious and vaguely notorious woman, one whom several ladies of his acquaintance tittered over, and that accentuated his shyness. And so, he was always on the losing end of a battle to keep his eyes and mind fixed where they needed to be on board ship.

“Mr. Anker.”

The boy jumped at edge in her voice and pulled his gaze up from where he was staring at the small miniature of the queen that the Captain kept on her desk.  Fitz reached out and snapped shut the waterproof case that enclosed it.

“If you please, Midshipman.”

Anker began in a nervous rush, “Captain, Mr. Meilde reports that we’ve sighted the fjord’s mouth, sir. He estimates an hour to the harbor at our current speed.”

Fitz raised an eyebrow at the young man.  In Avalon respects would be tendered with any message to a captain or there would be hell to pay. More specifically this Captain preferred not to be called “sir,” a point she had already made more than once to this particular midshipman.

Indeed she was the first woman in Arendelle’s navy. She had also been the first woman in Avalon’s, and she remembered well the struggles she had faced over everything from proper uniforms to the proper manner of address. It hadn’t been until she had a command of her own that she had managed to be addressed consistently in accordance with her gender, but once she had that command, she had prevailed. Now that she had her own command here, she had no intention of losing that hard earned ground.

“Send Mr. Meilde my compliments and tell him I'll be joining him momentarily.” Then more sternly she continued, “And I’ll thank you to please remember the form of address I prefer.”

“Aye, aye ...” Mr. Anker hesitated a moment, blushed, and Fitz mouthed the word 'ma'am' ... “Ma'am.”

Small victories were still a step in the right direction. “Good man. Rightly done. We'll make an officer of you yet, Mr. Anker.”

The boy nodded again and flung himself out the door to make his escape. Fitz waited to chuckle until the door shut behind him and his boots sounded heavy on the ladder to the deck. She could remember being that boy, although in a very different Navy. Then she stood and began to pack up her log book in its heavy oilskin.

The differences between Avalon and Arendelle were stark. Avalon was constantly at war, Arendelle had been at peace for hundreds of years. Arendelle replaced inedible salted beef with inedible pickled fish as the shipboard meal of choice. But most notably Avalon was a nation with a society that relished formality, with rigid class structures that were equally in place on land or sea. In Arendelle, relationships between the crew and the officers, and junior officers with their superiors were much less formal. There were, Fitz realized, many reasons for this. Arendelle had almost no aristocracy to draw its officers from. There was a baron or two and one foreign born count, but most of the naval officers came from the merchant class, as did much of the crew. Further Arendelle was very small, and so everyone knew everyone. There was a certain informality that came when everyone knew the name of the first girl you'd kissed, and whether or not you were her first.  Arendelle’s size and history had left it with egalitarian attitudes, although nothing so extreme as the Americans or — Fitz held back the urge to spit on her cabin floor at the thought of Avalon’s traditional enemy — the Gauls.

Add to this fact, all of Arendelle’s crew were volunteers unlike Avalon where more than one man had been snatched from his peaceful life ashore and thrust unwillingly onto a ship and into a war. Knowing that more than half your crew were essentially prisoners did make for a more tense relationship with them. Lastly there was the example of Arendelle’s own royalty. Rigid formality had no place in a kingdom where the Princess was known for her pig catching, pie destroying, unintentional fjord swimming ways, as well as being always eager to help the townsfolk, and the Queen held skating parties in her courtyard and did her own decorating. With her own magic.

Fitz reopened the miniature case, looked at the image of her beloved, and mused that the events that led her into treason and exile were a blessing in disguise. The little painting itself had been its own tiny battle, but one that Fitz had finally won. It wasn’t that Elsa wasn’t used to having her portrait painted. Portraits were almost a weekly obligation for the queen. But this wasn’t like her other portraits, her official portraits.

True, she was standing in a three quarters pose as was traditional, hands demurely clasped at her waist, and the queen was always beautiful, no matter who the artist. However instead of bulky robes of state, in this portrait Elsa was wearing the ice dress that she wore everyday, a dress that always figured prominently in Fitz’s thoughts of her. Her expression was not the solemn look she affected for official portraits, gaze fixed at some nether distance, face carefully neutral and serious. No, what made this image one of Fitz’s most treasured possessions was that here Elsa was relaxed and happy, the woman Fitz felt blessed to have come to know. This Elsa had a sure, almost sly smile, and eyes that sparkled with intelligence and more than a little mischief. It was the look that reminded Fitz she was the lucky one to find someone this strong, this adventurous. And, it was the look that Fitz saw at night in the flickering candle light.

“Captain! Captain!”  This time the door to her cabin slammed open, and Midshipman Anker was gasping as he flung himself through. “Mr. Meilde says you must come immediately, sir.”

Something in Anker’s tone told Fitz this was not the time for niceties, and she charged out of her cabin and up the main ladder with a speed that matched the urgency in Anker’s voice.

Her head had only just emerged from the hatch when she saw it.  A swirl of ominous black clouds ahead of them to the east, right where the main port of Arendelle would be. Right where the castle would be. Right where Elsa would be.

As Fitz took her place on the quarterdeck the temperature fell and the wind gusted. She reflexively looked to the Idunn’s sails. They billowed, and then a freezing wind began swirling snow flakes in a frenzied spiral around the mastheads. It was late September; much to early for snow, even in Arendelle. The crew were all staring wide-eyed up at the sky, some frightened, some just amazed, but all unnerved. They had seen this before.

Fitz made a quick calculation and then a prayer that her faith in the ship was well placed. The safe thing to do was to take down some sail in the face of the rising storm, but she was in a hurry.

“Commander Meilde!” She bellowed over the shriek of the wind at her first officer.  “T’gallants, if you please, then raise the royals. Best speed possible for home!”

Castille, the last stop on the honeymoon tour (two weeks earlier)

“Anna. You're dragging me away from a ball to visit,” Kristoff looked to his wife, Princess Anna of Arendelle, in disbelief, “the stable?”

The Castillian summer night was quite warm, but it was cooler here in the gardens than in the stuffy ballroom. Lively music wafted from the castle. Isabella, the young queen of Castille, knew how to throw a party, and it was packed with nobility from the entire realm. Everyone had wanted to see the newly-wedded Prince and Princess of Arendelle, whose sister just also happened to magically control ice and snow. In fact, Kristoff and Anna had caused a stir wherever they had gone in continental Europe.

“You're the one who thinks reindeer are better than people.” Anna replied tucking her arm through Kristoff's as they walked. “And horses are sort of like reindeer. So, I thought they might make good company, too. And after tonight, I'm really up for some ‘not people’ company. I mean except for you.”

“So it was the Castillian royalty who finally did you in,” Kristoff chuckled. When they had started their honeymoon grand tour, a gift from Elsa, Anna had been excited to meet everyone, see everything, do everything. But after three months of balls and formal dinners and receiving lines even Anna seemed ready to go home. Kristoff himself had already been ready, ready before Castille, ready before Allmany, possibly ready before even the first stop in Stockholm.

“Especially that awful man, the queen's cousin.  Or is he an uncle? Carlos. Ugh. You know, when they told me I would meet the Infante Carlos, I figured he was a baby. And I would have enjoyed hanging out with a baby. Who knew it meant that ‘annoying stuck up full of himself scheming royal person who will never get near the throne because no one trusts him’?”

Kristoff laughed heartily, “And here I thought you were sad because you only got one dance with him.”

“Hmph!” Anna snorted. “Fortunately I learned all I needed to know about driving away dance partners from the Duke of Weaseltown. I'm a master of the trodden toe.”

Kristoff pulled her to him and wrapped her in his arms. “A little stepping on my toes wouldn't keep me away. Not from a beautiful woman like you.”

“Oh, you smooth talker.”

“I am getting better at that, aren't I?” Kristoff pointed at himself with a cocky flip of his wrist.

“You are getting better at everything,” Anna sighed with a fond smile. Then she realized what she had said. “Not that you were bad, you know, at everything. Or anything. Really you were quite good. Are good. I mean really good. Gooder than I expected.”

“Even at,” Kristoff lowered his head to whisper softly in her ear, “diplomacy.”

Anna gave his arm a playful smack. “Yes, diplomacy, too.” Then she raised her head high. “I think we've both been good. Elsa will be so pleased when we get back. I can't wait to tell her about all the markets we've found for timber and fish.”

“And ice,” Kristoff added. How could she forget ice?

“Of course ice. That was a given. Especially since I have the “ice master” at my side.”

“Ice master? Is that what I am?”

“Yes. Prince Kristoff of Arendelle, the Master of Ice.”

“Kinda hard to be THE master of ice in a kingdom with your sister.”

“Pshaw! She's the queen of ice and snow. There's a huge difference.”

“There is?”

Anna thought. “Well, for one she never scratches me with her beard when she kisses me.”

“That's the best you can do? We're talking about my finer points and all you can think of is my scratchy face,” Kristoff pouted.

“I didn't say I didn't like it,” Anna explained.  “I mean it's all manly and stuff, and every prince I've seen has been jealous of you, well except for Edmund and he was jealous of me, you know 'cause you're all hairy and tall and strong and manly,  and that's certainly one thing Elsa isn't is manly — or hairy, I mean except on her head -- and -- and how did we get on this subject again?”

“I dunno,” Kristoff shrugged. He was quite used to Anna’s stream of consciousness conversations, “but I think we should test this manly beard scratching during kissing thing. See if still holds.”

Anna batted her eyelashes and leaned in closer. “Why, Your Highness. What a delightful ...”  she stopped when she heard the rustle of straw, and sighed. “I thought a stable would be deserted,” Anna grumbled at the retreating silhouette of a what was probably a groom.

“Hey, you picked the stable. Not me.”

“I guess we can walk out to the --”

Suddenly a voice rang out. “Princess Anna?”

“Nuts,” Anna groused. “They found us.”

A man in the livery of the castle appeared at the other side of the barn. “Princess Anna? You’re being requested at the castle.”

“Just stay here.” Anna winked at Kristoff.  “I’ll be right back, and we can find an even more secluded spot in the garden. Old Infante was talking about a gazebo that was very romantic in the moonlight.”

“Sure thing,” Kristoff nodded.

Once Anna had left with the servant, Kristoff walked slowly to the nearest stall and gently stroked the nose of the horse tied there. Anna was right, it was nice to be back around the relative sanity of horses. Sure they could be skittish and delicate, but compared to your average royal courtier they were the very soul of stolid sanity.

But he also had to admit this trip had been magnificent. Neither he nor Anna had been outside of Arendelle before, well he had gone briefly to Sweden with Fitz, but he had been in fear for his life most of the time and so didn’t count that. The world outside of Arendelle was amazing. Beautiful, frantic, imposing, often the same, and sometimes so very different. Sure he knew they only saw the best of what each Kingdom had to offer, but then he also knew what poverty looked like, and he suspected it was the same everywhere. No need to repeat that experience.

And best of all he was with Anna. He had always cherished her as a friend. She was fun and crazy and unbelievably loyal and loving. But as a wife, she was all this and more. Every morning he woke up and thought how lucky he was. He had the beautiful brilliant fun princess by day, and the beautiful brilliant oh, so alluring princess at night. The snoring, messy hair, and tendency to drool when sleeping were just bonuses on top of that.

Speaking of which, he thought, where was Anna? It had been more than the few minutes she had promised.

Kristoff started back up the dark path to the castle. She had probably gotten trapped into another dance with someone. There were all these confusing rules about having to dance with strange people or you couldn't dance at all, and while Kristoff had decided not knowing the rules was to his advantage since then he didn’t have to follow them, apparently someone “born as a Princess” couldn't claim ignorance.

Kristoff could see the castle in the distance but the light shining in the windows fell far short of illuminating the path here. In the dark he kicked something. He picked it up.  It was a fan. It was Anna’s fan. That was odd, he thought.

Arendelle Harbor – Navy Dock

Fitz jumped off the Idunn as soon as it touched the quay. She had tendered her salute to the colors even before that. She started for the castle at a sprint as the snowfall began to intensify. On the way she could hear the townsfolk confused and concerned, mostly they were saying “the queen, is she alright?” That drove Fitz faster.

When she got inside, where apparently most of the staff had not noticed the unusual weather, she found out that the Queen was holding an audience with a messenger that had come and insisted that his missive could be delivered only to the Queen and no one else. The messenger was from Avalon. Spurred on by that news, Fitz took the stairs up the main stair case two at a time headed for the throne room.

Castle Courtyard, Castille (two weeks earlier)

“Anna?” Kristoff called out as he walked swiftly back to the castle, holding her fan. “Are you OK?”

“She's fine, my friend.”

Kristoff whipped around to find himself face to point with a very sharp sword inches from  his right eye. The man who wielded it was in the livery of the castle but partially masked, a wide brimmed hat obscuring his eyes.

“Who the hell are you? Where's Anna?”

“Never mind who I am.” The man answered tersely. “But unless you wish to die right here, you will cooperate with us. You and your beautiful princess will be safe as long as you both behave."

Kristoff heard the sound of grunting and a struggle. Both he and the other man were surprised when Anna appeared, a ruffian unsuccessfully trying to subdue her. She grabbed at the hands that were wrapped around her waist, pulled and twisted hard. Kristoff heard a sick crackle and then a howl as the ruffian dropped to his knees. Anna then turned and kicked him so hard that he  fell backward into a heap. His companions moved backwards away from her, each exhorting the other to step in.

“Run Kristoff! Run!” She shouted.

The man with the sword stepped half a pace forward.

“I wouldn't do that if I were you.” He held his gaze on Kristoff as he called out more loudly. “Princess, unless you want your man without an eye, or perhaps without a head, you'll calm down and stop fighting. We really only need you. Our pay’s the same if he dies.”

“What?” Anna stopped, still ready to flee down the path to the castle. But after one exchanged glance with Kristoff, she sagged and raised her hands.  Another ruffian roughly pulled her back into the shadows. As Kristoff was pulled after her,  he thought. 'I knew we should have returned to Arendelle after the last ball.'

Arendelle Castle, the Throne Room

“What is the meaning of this?” Elsa’s voice was a taut crystalline whisper, every word forced through tight lips, barely audible over the frigid wind that swirled in her throne room.  Part of her still couldn’t believe it. Anna and Kristoff kidnapped while on their honeymoon? This man delivering the demand that she arrest Fitz and send her back to Avalon in exchange for her sister’s safe return? But the other part of Elsa heard and believed him entirely. It was everything she had feared and expected, all of her worries come to pass. And the fury that came with this realization threatened to overwhelm her. She didn’t even try to fight her magic.

Elsa clenched her fist and then the messenger in front of her was covered in ice to his knees. The ice slowly expanded upward.

“Wha – wha – what the message says, Your Majesty,” the young man stuttered both from fear and the rising cold. “I – I am a diplomatic messenger from His Grace Allan, the Duke of Ledsham. And he begs you to right a grievous wrong you have perpetrated on his family by harboring that criminal Fitzwilliam.”

“Diplo --” Now Elsa stuttered in rage. “Diplomatic! What kind of diplomacy involves kidnapping my sister and her husband. Holding them hostage? Threatening their lives?”

“If you turn over Fitzwilliam,  no harm will come to the Princess.”

“Oh, she had better not be harmed, or you and the blackguard who sent you will be digging yourselves, your lands — the entire kingdom of Avalon out of the snow for the next hundred years.”

“If you turn over Fitzwilliam --”

The ice crackled as it spread across the messenger's chest and up his neck. “Please, please,” he begged. “You can't --”

“Oh, can't I?” Elsa started forward, her magic demanding to end this, to end the man himself. It would be so easy.

“Your Majesty!” The doors burst open and Captain Fitzwilliam herself burst through, dragging two guards behind as they tried to stop her. “Elsa!”  Fitz took a look at the tableau in front of her. “Elsa, stop! This isn't you!”

Elsa swung her icy gaze around at Fitz, and stared at her for a long moment. She flicked her fingers and the messenger dropped to the floor as the ice holding him disappeared.

“Seize Captain Fitzwilliam and take her to the dungeons,” she ordered.

[harryandmeghan0-blog]

Prince George Is Living His Best Life: Inside His Precious Royal World

New Post has been published on http://harryandmeghan.xyz/prince-george-is-living-his-best-life-inside-his-precious-royal-world/

Prince George Is Living His Best Life: Inside His Precious Royal World

Getty Images; Melissa Herwitt/E! Illustration

From the moment he was born, on July 22, 2013, at 4:24 p.m. local time, normalcy was lacking in the life of Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge.

As Queen Elizabeth II herself said after hearing the news (before anybody else, of course): “The first born is very special.”

A swarm of media had been camped outside St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington for weeks, during a heat wave, waiting for the happy announcement that Kate Middleton had been “safely delivered of a son”—which is what they post on the gates of Buckingham Palace by way of formal announcement—as well as what, these days, they tweet.

DadPrince Williamwas in the delivery room, a tradition that went back one whole generation, to Prince Charleswho unlike his own father, Prince Philip, witnessed the birth of both of his sons, William and Prince Harry. The next day, a Tuesday, Prince George’s maternal grandparents, Carole and Michael Middleton, were the first visitors at the hospital, with Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, following a few hours later, having been a ways out of town.

President Barack Obama was the first international head of state to send his family’s regards. The Sun, which has an infamously tetchy relationship with the royal family, changed its masthead for a day to “The Son.” Thousands of well-wishers lined up outside the palace to see the official birth notice.

And at the center of it all was a bouncing baby boy, who was first introduced to the world outside St. Mary’s on the evening of July 23.

“Wait and see, wait and see…” a smiling William, who had already changed his first diaper, told a reporter who asked if the baby’s name would be George.

Acknowledging that his son had arrived a few days late, William joked, “and I’ll remind him of his tardiness when he’s a bit older because I know how long you’ve all been sat out here. Hopefully the hospital and you guys can all go back to normal now and we’re going to look after him.”

“It’s very emotional,” Kate added. “It’s such a special time. I think any parent will know what this feeling feels like.”

“He’s got her looks, fortunately,” her husband cracked, to which Kate replied, “No, no, I’m not sure about that.”

Tim Rooke/Rex / Rex USA

Today that baby boy, Prince George, is 5 years old and starting Year One—the United Kingdom’s equivalent of kindergarten in the United States—at Thomas’s Battersea in London. All won’t be too unfamiliar for the little lad, who also attended Reception (pre-K) at the $23,000-a-year prep school, and will again be wearing the standard uniform of navy shorts and a red-trimmed navy sweater with the school’s crest stitched on the front, over a button-down shirt. 

Reception year provided a solid introduction to the humanities with a curriculum featuring art, dance, drama, French and computers, but now comes the math, history, P.E. and science, as well as nightly homework, including 10 minutes of reading.

Thomas’s Battersea is about a 20-minute drive from Kensington Palace, where George lives with his parents, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge; his 3-year-old sister, Princess Charlotte; and 4-month-old brother, Prince Louis, in a four-story, 20-room “apartment” that used to be Princess Margaret‘s home. While their slice of the 400-year-old palace was being renovated, George spent the first few weeks of his life with his mum and dad at the Middletons’ new estate in Berkshire and then they moved to Anglesey, where William finished his three-year stint with the Royal Air Force.

They also have a newly renovated country estate, Anmer Hall, in Norfolk, where George went to preschool—and where Kate can actually do her own grocery shopping (which she does responsibly with reusable bags and a store loyalty card). 

“I want George to grow up in a real, living environment,” William told British GQ last year. “I don’t want him growing up behind palace walls, he has to be out there. The media makes it harder, but I will fight for them to have a normal life.”

Well, they’re trying.

“We now have three generations of working royals, four altogether,” William also said, “and having that movement through the generations allows for the monarchy to stay relevant and keep up with modern times. You are only as good as your last gig and it is really important you look forward, plan, have a vision.”

Matt Holyoak/Camera Press

There is only so much that William and Kate can do about the whole “normal life” thing, what with George being third in line to the British throne behind his father and grandfather, his great-grandma’s face is on all the currency and there was a commemorative coin issued in honor of his fifth birthday in July. But the Cambridges are indeed modern parents.

Being full-time employees of the Firm (aka the royal family) doesn’t allow for too much stepping out of line in the behavioral department, but it does allow for the sort of schedule that’s conducive to taking your kids to school, eating dinner together at night and being there to tuck them in. The duke and duchess were also both at a getting-ready-for-Year-One orientation meeting at Thomas’s Battersea earlier this year.

“They were there just chatting with the other parents,” a source told E! News about the royal couple. “They seemed very sweet and normal. George was there as well. He met his new teacher.”

Speaking in June at the unveiling of the brand new Defense and National Rehabilitation Centre in Nottinghamshire, William recalled bringing George to watch the construction crew break ground on the project.

“George was at an age at the time that he loved seeing the digger in action, so it did my street cred as a father a world of good,” the prince quipped.

During George’s birthday in July, the family was vacationing on the isle of Mustique in the West Indies, a favorite spot for Kate and Will, who brought their eldest son there for the first time when he was 16 months old.

In contrast with parents being chided for not spending enough time doing everyday activities with their kids, Will and Kate still get dinged in the court of public opinion for not making as many official appearances as the 92-year-old queen, who in an effort to pare back her commitments relinquished 25 of her patronages in 2016 but continued to out-hustle the younger members of the family.

William and Kate do employ one devoted nanny (in addition to various other household staffers), Maria Borrallo of Spain, who’s been with them since George was 8 months old and accompanied the family of three on a tour of Australia and New Zealand in 2014. The young woman in sensible flats holding the plush kangaroo backpack in photos is a graduate of Norland, where the three-year curriculum for future child care professionals includes an array of domestic and in-case-of-emergency skills, such as CPR, self-defense and defensive driving. While George has learned some French at school, he and Charlotte understand some basic Spanish as well, thanks to Borrallo.

“Maria loves the children dearly,” a source told People this summer. “She can be firm and strict, but she is very loving and soft with them too.”

Moreover, while Will and Kate know that at least some access to their children is unofficially required of them—part of the traditional give-and-take between the royal family and their alternatingly voracious and dismissive public—they have limited George, Charlotte and Louis’ exposure to the media, offering up photos mainly to commemorate milestones such as christenings, birthdays and first days of school.

Alas, Hello! reported that the press was not invited to document George’s first day this year, unlike when he started nursery school at Westacre Montessori School in Norfolk, wearing a royal-blue quilted jacket with plaid lining and elbow patches and toting a light blue backpack, or when he first started at Thomas’s Battersea a year ago. It sounds as though this year the sweet pics will start off on mom and dad’s iPhones, perhaps making the rounds between royals on WhatsApp.

But George can’t help it that he’s impossibly adorable, and there are simply never enough photos of him available for public consumption to satisfy royal watchers.

The next big photo op is likely to be Princess Eugenie‘s wedding at Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel on Oct. 12. George and Charlotte are rumored to be in the wedding as a pageboy and flower girl, as they were at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s nuptials in May.

Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images

Of course, there are bonus shots sometimes, such as when George joined his mum on the sidelines while his dad played in a charity polo match and Kate was raked over the coals for letting him play with a toy gun and toy knife. 

“The royals have either served in the armed forces or are married to someone who has served,” Kelly Lynch, managing editor of Dailybreak and an expert on the royals, told Yahoo Lifestyle in June in response to the uproar. “They’ve learned to respect firearms as deadly weapons, and hopefully teach their children about gun safety from a young age.” (George’s father served in the Royal Air Force and Navy, and then worked part-time as an air ambulance pilot until last year; uncle Prince Harry saw two tours of duty in Afghanistan with the Army. It’s more than likely that one day George will follow in their footsteps and undergo military training.)

Kate was criticized again just weeks ago when she brought George to watch William on the royal family’s annual grouse hunt at the queen’s Balmoral estate in Scotland. Prince Harry, in fact, missed this outing, and the family’s annual Boxing Day hunt last December—reportedly at the behest of Meghan, who rescued her beagle, Guy, from a shelter and won’t be wearing fur anytime soon.

“Harry loves it and has always been out there on Boxing Day. But if it means breaking with long-standing royal traditions to avoid upsetting Meghan, so be it,” a source told the Express in August.

George can say yea or nay to actually hunting (he was just along for the ride this time) when he’s older.

In the meantime, the youngster does like cars, trucks, planes and helicopters. He’s already riding a two-wheeler. The Lion King is one of his favorite films. He enjoys the occasional piece of candy. He’s an amiable world traveler, having gone with his family to Mustique, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the French Alps, Poland and Germany, as well as all around England and Scotland.

He also takes after his mother in the style influence department—practically everything he’s ever worn, from his Everyday shoes and personalized “George” sweater to the GH Hurt & Son blanket his parents swaddled him in when they took him home from the hospital and the blue cardigan he wore when Charlotte was born, sold out instantly. 

“Even some foreign leaders are looking ahead, anticipating my departure,” President Obama joked in his final White House Correspondents Dinner address in 2016. “Last week, Prince George showed up to our meeting in his bathrobe. That was a slap in the face, a clear breach of protocol.”

Surely other 3-year-olds’ sartorial choices get shout-outs from world leaders all the time. (And My 1st Years said sales of that robe shot up 750 percent, thanks to the Prince George Effect.)

Real estate agents even reported an uptick in interest in property in the Battersea Park neighborhood when it was reported last year that George was going to attend school there.

Matt Porteous/Kensington Palace/Twitter

A few years ago, George’s dad indicated that the toddler was a handful, calling him “a little monkey” while baby Charlotte was “a little joy from heaven.” But nowadays George just seems focused on enjoying 5-year-old-boy pursuits, not bothering to play to the cameras the way his little sister does already. (She’s got the queen wave down pat.)

Meanwhile, now that he’s 5, George is expected to bow when he greets the queen (and only the queen). Charlotte, in turn, has a couple of years until she’s required to curtsy.

“Just because he reacts more cautiously than Charlotte when there is a camera around isn’t an indication of what he is like behind closed doors,” a friend of Will and Kate’s told the Express recently. A lot of thought was put into where George was going to go to school, the source added, noting that Thomas’s Battersea “focuses as much on helping develop the character of pupils, as what they learn. William and Kate are keen to allow George to spread his wings and make friends at this stage.

“They know there will come a time when they will have to sit down and talk to him about the implications of his royal status and why so many people are interested in him. He is becoming more aware of the cameras.”

Suffice it to say, the cameras love him.

Source: https://www.eonline.com/news/965693/prince-george-is-living-his-best-life-inside-his-precious-royal-world

[caminthemoshpitatweezer]

I let my other neice and my nephew name them as well

I let my neice give castle of nations characters new names which ones your favourite

[alonnss]

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