#Rupert Neate

[trexalicious]

"The business, which Jones founded with a single “house” on Soho’s Greek Street 29 years ago, has never turned a profit – and pre-tax losses this year are expected to come in at about $73m" 🤯 Is that why they're talking about taking it private again?WOW

[xtruss]

Cost of the Crown: Windsors v Borbones: Comparing the Public Pay of European Filthy Royal Families

Stipends, palace maintenance, staff costs and taxes all differ, but the British royals are given the most taxpayer money

King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort; Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II; Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia; and Belgium’s King Philippe and Queen Mathilde. Composite: Guardian Design/AFP/Getty Images/ SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock/PA

— By Rupert Neate, Henry Dyer and Ashifa Kassam | Wednesday 5 April 2023

Comparing the cost of Europe’s royal dynasties is akin to comparisons between apples and oranges. Each family is unique, and each government has a different way of paying for them. Some royal budgets cover the cost of maintaining palaces, staff and security; others are limited to annual stipends to individual kings or queens.

Tax is paid by some European royals but not others. Some countries are highly transparent, providing detailed breakdowns of how public money is spent on individual royals. Others are more opaque, with royals supplementing an official government lump sum with other quasi-private sources of income. One thing, at least, is clear: European royal families come with vastly different price tags.

United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Members of the British royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the trooping the colour ceremony in June 2018.

Members of the British royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the trooping the colour ceremony in June 2018. Photograph: Shutterstock

Family name/House: The Windsors

Monarch: King Charles III

Approximate Public Funding: £86m-£127m

The most famous of Europe’s grand hereditary families, and probably the richest and most powerful too. Many Britons wrongly assume their monarch fulfils purely ceremonial roles, and has no real power. However, an archaic procedure known as “consent” allows the monarch, or heir, to secretly vet laws before they are approved by the elected members of parliament.

It was once used by Queen Elizabeth II to persuade ministers to change the law to conceal her “embarrassing” private wealth from the public.

There is no breakdown of how much individual members of the royal family receive for their official duties. The monarch does receive a lump sum – the sovereign grant –which has risen dramatically over the last decade. The UK taxpayer gave £86.3m towards the cost of the British royal family last year. Of that, £34.5m was spent on refurbishing Buckingham Palace as part of a 10-year restoration programme. The core cost to the taxpayer, for the royal household’s operating costs, travel and maintenance on other residences, was £51.8m.

Controversially, the new king and his heir, Prince William, also receive income from two hereditary estates – the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall – which pay no corporation tax or capital gains tax. There has been a centuries-old debate over whether that money – currently more than £40m a year – should really go to the public. Buckingham Palace insists the revenue is “private income” buts says part of it goes towards official duties.

From 1993, the monarch agreed to pay “voluntary” income tax, although they are exempt from inheritance tax, meaning the late queen passed her fortune to the king without any deductions for the public good.

Spain 🇪🇸

Clockwise from top left: King Felipe, Queen Letizia, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia pose for their 2021 Christmas card. Photograph: Zuma/Alamy

Family name/House: The Borbones (or Bourbons)

Monarch: King Felipe VI

Approximate Public Funding: £7.4m

Spain’s royal family ranks among the most beleaguered on the continent. Marred by accusations of corruption, extramarital affairs and a precipitous fall from grace, the former king Juan Carlos I abdicated in 2014 and eventually left the country.

Investigations into his financial dealings were eventually shelved and the former king’s lawyers noted he had been cleared of “any illicit conduct susceptible to criminal reproach”. However, the scandals led to an intense debate among Spaniards about their royal family, who this year will receive €8,431,150 (£7.4m) from the state budget.

Seeking to present a new era of transparency, Juan Carlos’ son, King Felipe VI, made public his personal assets of €2.6m (£2.28m). He renounced his personal inheritance from his father in 2020 and removed him from the royal family’s payroll.

From the public grant, Felipe receives €269,296 (£236,214.10) in an annual personal allowance, while his wife, Queen Letizia, gets €148,105 (£129,911). His mother, Juan Carlos’s estranged wife, Sofía, receives an annual stipend of €121,186 (£106,299). Spanish royals pay tax on their income.

Sweden 🇸🇪

L-R: King Carl XVI Gustaf, Prince Daniel, Queen Silvia and Crown Princess Victoria attend the Nobel prize ceremony in Stockholm in December 2022. Photograph: Christine Olsson/TT News Agency/AFP/Getty Images

Family name/House: The Bernadottes

Monarch: King Carl XVI Gustaf

Approximate Public Funding: £11.5m

Sweden was the first monarchy to change its rules on succession from agnatic primogeniture (the eldest male son) to absolute cognatic primogeniture (the eldest child). The change was passed by the Swedish parliament in 1980, and led to Crown Princess Victoria becoming heir apparent instead of her brother Prince Carl Philip.

The Swedish royal court received a total grant of 147.9m Swedish krona (£11.5m) in 2021 (the latest figure available). Of this, 73.9m kr (£5.8m) covered the cost of the king’s official duties, travel, staff and stables. Within this, 13.6m kr (£1m) was allocated to the king and other titled royals who carry out official duties to cover costs of a “non-official nature which are connected with, or caused by, the royal position”, according to the court’s annual report.

Individually, Carl Gustaf and his wife, Silvia, get 8m kr (£625,423) between them, while Victoria and her husband collect 4.5m kr (£351,800), and Carl Philip and his wife get 1.1m kr (£85,995). In 2019, the king stripped five of his grandchildren of their royal titles in order to reduce the total cost of “appendages” to serving royals.

Belgium 🇧🇪

King Philippe and Queen Mathilde with their children (L-R) Princess Eléonore, Prince Gabriel, Crown Princess Elisabeth and Prince Emmanuel at 2022 National Day celebrations in front of the Royal Palace in Brussels. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Family name/House: Van België, De Belgique, or Von Belgien (or “of Belgium”)

Monarch: King Philippe

Approximate Public Funding: £12.5m

Like the British royals, the Belgian monarchy ditched its previous surname, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in 1920 in response to fierce anti-German sentiment after the first world war. The new name – van België (Dutch), de Belgique (French) or von Belgien (German) – means “of Belgium” in the country’s three official languages.

The Belgian monarch has had no direct power since 1951, although the king has kept the right “to be consulted by his ministers, to encourage them, and to caution them”.

King Philippe, or Filip, is granted an annual civil list to cover the cost of performing official duties. The amount is established at the start of each reign. Philippe, who acceded to the throne in 2013, received €12.5m (£11m) in 2021, according to the Belgian government’s latest report. The amount is set to increase with the consumer prices index measure of inflation. As well as the £11m paid to Philippe, other members of the royal family receive yearly “emoluments”. Philippe’s father, King Albert II, who abdicated in 2013, receives €980,000 (£862,635); Albert’s eldest child, Princess Astrid, receives €341,000 (£300,161), slightly more than her younger brother, Prince Laurent, who gets €327,000 (£287,838). Their half-sister, Princess Delphine, who had Albert’s paternity recognised by the court in 2020, does not receive any royal funding. The payments are subject to income tax.

Denmark 🇩🇰

Queen Margrethe II (centre) with Crown Prince Frederik, his wife, Mary and their children (L-R) Vincent, Isabella, Josephine and Christian at Fredensborg in April 2022. Photograph: Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Images

Family name/House: The Glücksburgs

Monarch: Margrethe II

Approximate apublic Funding: £14m

On average, each Dane cycles 1.4km a day, according to the Denmark tourist board, and those cyclists include the royal family. Frederik, the crown prince and heir apparent, competed in the Tour de Storebælt cycle race near Copenhagen; he and his wife, Mary, ferry their children around town on a cargo bike.

Queen Margrethe II, 82, Europe’s longest-serving monarch, receives about 91.1m kroner a year (£10.7m) in civil list payments. The government says this covers expenses “relating to staff, operation of the royal household, administration and properties as well as the queen’s expenses of a more private nature”.

Separately, Frederik receives 22,434,876 kroner (£2.64m) a year, 10% of which goes to his wife. Frederik’s younger brother, Prince Joachim, the sixth in line to the throne, gets 3,965,400 kroner (£467,045) a year. All the money is received tax-free.

Queen Margrethe has stripped Joachim’s four children – Nikolai, Felix, Henrik and Athena – of their royal titles in a move designed to slim down the size of the family. The palace said the queen wanted to “create a framework for the four grandchildren, to a much greater degree, to be able to shape their own existence without being limited by the special considerations and obligations that a formal affiliation with the royal house as an institution implies”.

Luxembourg 🇱🇺

L-R: Crown Prince Guillaume, Princess Stephanie, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, Grand Duke Henri, Princess Alexandra, Prince Louis and Prince Gabriel outside Luxembourg Cathedral in June 2022. Photograph: Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images

Family name/House: Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg

Monarch: Grand Duke Henri

Approximate Public Funding: £16.9m

The Windsors are not the only royals to deliver a Christmas speech. The grand duke’s message is broadcast from the yellow room in the Grand-Ducal Palace every Christmas Eve.

The latest government budget for 2023 shows payments to the Maison du Grand-Duc (House of the Grand Duke) totalled €19,257,155 (£16.9m). Of that, €15.9m (£13.9m) was spent on day-to-day expenses, and €3.3m (£2.9m) on capital projects, such as renovations.

In addition to the civil list payments for staffing costs, the grand duke and his heir receive endowments for personal expenditure: in 2022, Henri received €523,103 (£460,381) and Crown Prince Guilluame received €217,985 (£191,848).

From July, legislation drafted by the prime minister, Xavier Bettel, will peg future changes to the personal allowances to the public sector. Bettel has said the centralisation of royal funding will provide more transparency, after anger at the blurring of public and private budgets. “Now we have a monarchy that moves out of the 19th century and into the 21st century,” he said.

Norway 🇳🇴

Princess Ingrid Alexandra (C) stands between her grandparents King Harald and Queen Sonja for a family photo to mark her Covid-delayed 18th birthday celebrations in Oslo in June 2022. Photograph: Lise Åserud/AP

Family name/House: The Glücksburgs

Monarch: King Harald V

Approximate Public Funding: £24m

The Norwegian monarchy dates back more than 1,000 years. Harald Fairhair is regarded as the first Norwegian king, who united several “petty kingships” into a single realm in about 885. The current king belongs to the House of Glücksburg, which has held the Norwegian throne since 1905.

The royal court’s latest annual accounts say the Norwegian royal family received 312m Norwegian kroner (£24m) in 2022 in the civil list. It is unclear how this is distributed. A previous report from 2015 states that “the king and queen and the crown prince and crown princess all receive an allowance” to cover “the management, operation, maintenance and development of the private properties and households, as well as appropriations for private expenses and official attire”.

The Netherlands 🇳🇱

(L-R): Queen Maxima, Princess Amalia, King Willem-Alexander, Princess Alexia and Princess Ariane pose at the New Church in Amsterdam in November 2022. Photograph: Koen van Weel/ANP/AFP/Getty Images

Family name/House: Van Orange-Nassau

Monarch: King Willem-Alexander

Approximate Public Funding: £44.2m

The Dutch royals are among the monarchies exempt from paying income tax. This year, the prime minister, Mark Rutte, rejected opposition demands to scrap the exemption. His government proposed an annual royal budget of €50.2m (£44.2m) for 2023.

That includes €1,035,000 (£911,162) for King Willem-Alexander, and a further €5.37m (£4.7m) to pay for his staff and other expenses. His wife, Máxima, collects €411,000 (£361,823), and an additional €700,000 (£616,245) for staff and expenses. The king’s mother, Beatrix, who abdicated in 2013, receives €1.73m (£1.52m).

Princess Amalia, the 19-year-old heir to the throne, has been granted €1.72m (£1.51m), of which €307,000 (£270,235) is salary and the rest is for staff and expenses. However, she has waived her right to the allowance, saying it would make her feel “uncomfortable” to accept it “until I incur high costs in my role as Princess of Orange”.

[baenakinskywalker]

hungry like the wolf

chapter one: straddle the line

"That was Prime Minister Thatcher. Personally.” “What could she possibly need?” If the rude interruption during his bath wasn’t enough to ruin his night, what Gerald shares with him next certainly is: “She wants to dine at Penscombe. In a week’s time.” or, Rupert hires Taggie to cater a very important dinner for the PM. She'll need plenty of time to prepare — so how does a week at his estate sound?

rating: t (eventual E)

words: 2,749

a/n: a HUGE thank-you to @popjunkie42 and @berd-nerd for beta reading, and to everyone in the @rutagdiscord for hyping me up. you all rock. <3

read under the cut or on ao3!

Rupert-Campbell Black is in the bathtub when he gets the call from the PM’s office. Or rather, when Gerald, who had been finishing up paperwork for tomorrow’s morning in London, gets the call. He barges into the bathroom, and Rupert greets him with narrow eyes and a deep frown.

“You can tell I’m in the middle of something,” he says, gesturing to himself with the one hand not coated in bubbles. Unlike some men in Rutshire, Rupert is serious about his baths. He doesn’t just stew in hot water — he lazes in bubbles, salts, and potions. Of course for the benefits to his skin and hair — and to soothe the aching muscles his career in show jumping so blessed him with. 

Gerald has never been part of this particular ritual. 

“I’m so sorry, sir, but it’s urgent.”

Rupert stands immediately. “What? Is someone hurt? The kids?” He reaches for a towel, but Gerald’s eyes are already wide as saucers. “Is it Taggie?”

“Erm, no, sir, it’s not that sort of urgent.” His eyes find a spot on the floor as Rupert steps over the lip of the clawfoot tub, bringing suds with him onto the checkered marble floor. “But it’s important. That was Prime Minister Thatcher. Personally.”

“What could she possibly need?”

If the rude interruption during his bath wasn’t enough to ruin his night, what Gerald shares with him next certainly is: “She wants to dine at Penscombe. In a week’s time.”

The groan Rupert lets out will surely be heard all the way in Yorkshire. “Why in God’s name does she want to come all the way to Rutshire?” He’s already hunting for the reason she would have to fire him. It would have to be bad for her to do it in person, to embarrass him on his own turf. But Venturer has kept him largely out of mischief as of late — so what could it be?

“Apparently the bid is a concern. So she wants the local MPs and lords to convene — here, obviously — and assure her that everybody will be on their best behavior during the parliamentary session, whether they’re with Corinium or Venturer.”

“Right. And that has to be here because…?”

“She said she was interested in the grounds,” Gerald answers, the lilt to his voice turning it into a question.

“No,” Rupert says slowly, “she just wants to make my life a living hell.” He scrubs a hand down his face, stubble rough against his fingers. Definitely time for a shave.  “Fine,” he concedes. “We’ll play her game  — but I’m inviting people, too, if I’m hosting”

“Venturer people, sir?” 

Rupert nods. “And if this is going to put a thorn in my side, I’d at least like the food to be good.”

“Which caterer shall I call?”

“Nobody,” Rupert says. “I’ll handle it.”

—

Since Tony’s accident — which is what the papers have been calling it at the behest of the Baddingham estate, no doubt to attempt to keep his affair out of the news — things have been…different. There’s Tony’s renewed lease on life, and his narrow escape from divorce, though word around town is that Monica still wants to leave (and the gossip mill of Rutshire would certainly support her if she did). Neither of these developments have encouraged him to let the franchise go, though. If anything, his contempt for Venturer is at an all-time high. 

So it’s a wonder that the papers have left them out of it. The story simply goes: Thank God Cameron Cook happened to be in the office that late and had the good sense to check on her former boss before heading home for the night.

The whole thing has Cameron spooked, which is why she’s currently wooing investors and producers in New York City. It’s a cowardly thing to do, but Rupert’s been using the situation — and the Atlantic Ocean — to let things fizzle. They haven’t seen each other in a month, and while phone calls used to happen a few times a week, it’s been a fortnight since they last spoke. Declan is her main point of contact for all things Venturer now. 

And then there’s Taggie. With the accident, and Cameron, and the franchise, they haven’t had the time to talk about…well, anything non-Venturer related. He thinks she might still be seeing Seb. He thinks she thinks he’s still seeing Cameron. 

That doesn’t mean she’s not the first thing he thinks about in the morning (waking up hard, remembering that kiss, and that dance on New Year’s Eve, and all of the moments in between that haven’t quite been platonic) and last thing he thinks about at night (looking out across the Bluebell Wood, hoping to catch a glimpse of her light on in the Priory, thinking about how she looks tucked into bed). 

They gravitate toward each other during Venturer meetings. Through the yelling, the late nights crowded around the O’Hara dining table, the moments when they’re celebrating a win, Rupert’s eyes and body are drawn to her. When dinners with Freddie and team end, it’s Rupert in the kitchen helping with the washing up. He can only hope the rest of the team doesn’t notice, that they don’t pick up on the something between them like Lizzie and Bas have.

Remarkably, he hasn’t kissed her since the night they got the green light for the franchise bid. 

With that in mind, Rupert has no idea if Taggie will accept. It’s a fantastic opportunity, and he’ll see to it that it’s a well-paying one at that. If nothing else, she deserves the acclaim and networking that will surely come from catering for the PM. This could be a step toward getting out of her family’s shadow. Toward living life for herself, instead of waiting on Declan and the Venturer crew hand and foot.

But it’s a huge ask, especially when he couples it with the infinitely more selfish piece, the piece that came to him in the middle of the night when one of the snoring dogs woke him up: He wants her at Penscombe for the week. The whole week. Just the two of them, just this once.

He wants her, and, like they say, opportunity never knocks twice.

—

Despite Taggie and Declan being the only O’Haras in residence at the Priory, it’s almost foreign to see the estate empty these days. Sure, Caitlin’s back at school, Patrick’s off trying his hand at being a not-quite-starving artist, and Maud is — for better or worse — still in London; but the Venturer crew is always around. Whether it’s Declan, Rupert, and Freddie debating about the purpose and importance of television, Bas and Wesley working out which sporting events get prime-time slots, or Dame Enid toiling away at the piano with ideas for the station’s musical package, there’s always a lot going on. So it’s still shocking to walk through the doors and be met with nobody. Not even Gertrude.

It’s not until he rounds the corner into the living room that he sees why. Taggie’s curled up with Gertrude on the couch while reruns of Four Men Went to Mow play low on the telly. 

This is a rare treat and his favorite way to start the day: catching Taggie before she’s had a chance to jump into the kitchen, before she’s so much as put on a pot of tea. She’s in a white terry cloth bathrobe and slouchy, fuzzy socks — the picture of comfort. “Good morning, angel. Daddy lets you watch that rubbish?” 

“Oh, shit!” Her head whips around, and Gertrude stands at attention, ready to sound the alarm. “You scared me,” Taggie says. Her cheeks turn a beautiful flushed pink, and while frightening her is the last thing he’d ever do on purpose, he can’t deny the effects are a vision. “Gertrude might have taken your head off.”

He comes around the couch and gives the little beast a scratch behind the ears. “No, this one loves me.” 

Taggie stands, and where her robe parts, he sees the same red nightie that’s haunted his dreams for months now. She pulls him into a hug and says a quiet, “Good morning,” that has Rupert thinking about this same scenario happening in an estate across the wood, with a few more dogs in the room. “Can I get you some tea?”

He clears his throat, stepping back. The backs of his knees bump the couch. “No, actually, I just came here to ask a favor.”

She cocks her head to this side and tightens the sash on her robe. “From me?” “How would you like,” Rupert starts, “to cook for the Prime Minister?”

It’s silent for a beat. And then: “Margaret Thatcher?”

“Only PM I know of at the moment,” Rupert answers. He shifts from one foot to the other and adds, “It’s a week from tomorrow, and I thought — if you’re up for it — that you could stay at Penscombe — which is where dinner will be — until then to get your bearings and have uninterrupted time to prepare. And Gertrude, too, of course,” he adds, giving the pup a quick smile.

She stares at him like he’s grown another head. “For the Prime Minister.” Rupert nods.

“To eat my cooking.” 

“And Paul Stratton, and Tony, and some of ours, too — Freddie, Lord and Lady Hampshire, and your father.”

It’s then that Declan makes an appearance from his study. Hair going in every direction. Yesterday’s button-down stained. Eyes bloodshot. Another late night working through his book draft and franchise work. “What the fuck is this?” he asks, looking between the two of them. 

Before Declan has the chance to raise his voice, Taggie shocks him. She nods. “Yes, of course I’ll go.” Wringing her hands, she smiles slowly. “It would be my p-p—p…privilege.”

Rupert’s shit-eating grin is enough to make Declan drag him into the study, the sound of the door thudding behind him all that knocks him out of his Taggie-induced stupor. 

—

“I’m just offering her a job,” Rupert says, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

Declan scoffs. “What, to warm your bed? I don’t fucking think so.”

“You really think that little of Taggie?” It’s clear that Declan’s mind is made up about him, no matter how closely they’ve been working together over the past months, nor how well Venturer’s bid is going. Rupert would call them friends, though not close enough to keep a woman — daughter — from coming between them. He expects his business partner to have qualms about his interest in Taggie. But to assume that Taggie would allow herself to be bought? 

Even if there’s a kernel of truth to Rupert’s motives, even if he does want to steal her away from the Priory forever and keep her in every sort of comfort a man can offer, this isn’t how he’d do it. This is temporary.

(There would be roses. There would be candles. A family heirloom ring that he never offered Helen. Perhaps a violin player. A four-course meal cooked by a complete stranger, dishes and kitchen scrubbed clean completely out of sight. An announcement in The Times.)

“I thought we agreed that you were going to stay the hell away from her,” Declan says. His voice cuts through the heavy air in his office, stale from days of taking meals at his desk to keep up with deadlines. Taggie says she hardly sees her father on days when there are no meetings, unless she catches him sneaking into the kitchen for a top-up of his whiskey glass.

“And I thought we were fucking past this.” Rupert exhales. He’d love to open the windows and tidy the papers littered across every horizontal surface. “I only need her for a week.”

They both know he’s lying.

“A week for one bloody dinner party?”

“Maggie making the trip makes it a special occasion, wouldn’t you say? Everything has to be perfect, which means Taggie needs time to plan the menu, do the prep, coordinate with the staff — not to mention getting acquainted with the kitchen.”

“And you couldn’t host here?” 

Rupert shoots him a sympathetic look. “Frankly, a week wouldn’t be nearly enough time to get the Priory in shape for the PM.”

“Why don’t you hire a real caterer?” Declan prods. “One with a full team, one that can handle this sort of event.” 

There’s now a throbbing in Rupert’s temple. If only he could find paracetamol in this mess of an office. Certainly, Declan has some in here. “Taggie’s the best cook in Rutshire. Cotchester, too. And,” he adds, feeling his headache grow, “she’s the only person I trust to handle such a sensitive event.” 

For a long moment, the two men stare at each other. This is how arguments about Venturer go, too. Shouting, debating, and, finally, silence — until the loser concedes, and they both move on. But Rupert is short on time and patience. 

“I didn’t come here asking for your permission, Declan. Tag’s already agreed, and I shouldn’t have to remind you that she’s grown enough to make her own decisions.” 

Declan’s face settles into a deep frown. 

“Well,” Rupert says, “I’m off, then.”

Before the heavy door shuts completely behind him, Declan’s voice booms. “Imagine it were your daughter — what would you do?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Through the living room and into the kitchen, Rupert spies his angel sitting at the table, changed from her robe into her typical jeans and jumper, methodically writing on a legal pad. “I didn’t hear him throw you through a wall,” she says, putting the pencil down and looking up through her lashes. “So that must have gone okay.” “Your father’s a reasonable man.” But he says it with a laugh that has Taggie rolling her eyes and smiling up at him. 

Imagine it were your daughter. 

All but impossible, given the glow of her smile, the way her eyes sparkle. The memory of kissing her mere meters from where they are right now. 

Though they haven’t had time for a repeat performance, there’s an encore in his mind most nights before he falls asleep: The curtain rises, and there’s Taggie in that fucking milkmaid dress, pressed so close to him he can feel her tits against his chest. If he’d had the time, he would have slid a knee between her legs, would’ve let her ride him right there until she —

“Did you hear me?” Taggie asks. The memory of that night evaporates, and Rupert clears his throat.

“Sorry, angel. I was just — erm — thinking about something your father said.”

“Oh,” she says, mouth forming a perfect circle. It makes him want to reach down and trace the outline of her lips with his thumb. “Well, I was mentioning that maybe a smoked salmon mousse after the prawn cocktail would be good? Unless that’s too cliche.” Her brow furrows, and she erases something on the pad. 

To tell the truth, he doesn’t give a damn if it’s cliche. As long as it’s Taggie cooking, it’ll be a smash hit. “Working out the menu already?” 

“I thought getting a head start would be a–a–” — she pauses, takes a breath — “appropriate.” 

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Smart girl.” Already, Rupert feels his headache receding. He thinks of her writing out a menu at Penscombe, working through each word on the page slowly and methodically. How easily he’d be able to slip behind her and press a kiss to her cheek. Or neck. Or lower. 

She would be a vision at Penscombe. Will be. 

“I have a little work to do in London today,” Rupert says. “Some things for our dear friend Maggie, and a few Venturer items. But I’ll be back to pick you up around 8 o’clock. Sounds good?”

Taggie nods. “I’ll pack my bag. And Gertrude’s,” she adds with a smile. “She won’t know what to do with herself when she meets your brood.”

“I’ll tell the chaps to be on their best behavior.” Then, without thinking about his daughter or Declan, he kisses the crown of her head. She sighs in a satisfied answer, and Rupert imagines how a simple kiss could become a habit so ingrained in their day-to-day life that it’d become like breathing. 

She’s already like breathing.

From the office, there’s a rustle of paper and a shout. “Tag! D’you know where my Yeats draft went?” More than enough of a cue to leave. So, with a wink and wave, Rupert’s gone. 

Just until tonight.

[duckwnoeyes]

Having thoughts about the effects of Merrick’s ‘not-quite’ existence on Buffy and Giles’ relationship again:

Part of me believes that one of the reasons Buffy is able to get on with Giles when she meets him, and doesn’t blame him all that much for the whole ‘forced to fight vampires and die young’ thing, is because she’s already placed all that blame on Merrick.

I think Giles gets away with so much, in regards to how he treats Buffy (ie: the cruciamentum), because Giles wasn’t the one to introduce Buffy to the world of evil. Giles wasn’t the one to turn up one day and completely turn Buffy’s life upside down, he wasn’t the one to teach how her to stake a vampire, he wasn’t the one who had to do the actual heavy lifting in making Buffy start slaying. That was all Merrick.

When Giles meets Buffy she’s already capable, already aware of the risks and all the baggage that comes with the job. This makes Giles’ job (and conscience) a hell of a lot easier bc Buffy’s essentially a pre-made slayer. But it also means that Giles doesn’t have to be the one to tell Buffy she’s inevitably going to die soon. Bc I just can’t see Buffy getting as close to Giles as she does in canon if he was the one the break that news to her.

I think Giles can only fill the role of surrogate father because Buffy already had a watcher. Merrick is the scapegoat in their relationship, the person Buffy internally blames for all the horrible things the council does to her so that she doesn’t have to blame Giles. Merrick who she never mentions, who died to save her, who (according to the comics) treated her in a very similar manner to Giles in season 1.

Merrick haunts Buffy and Giles’ relationship, and here it’s that Buffy and Giles are only able to have a relationship because Merrick is haunting it.

[warmglowofsurvival]

[partywithponies]

Rupert Galvin is so. He talks about being too old for this and his monster fighting days being nearly over and how he won't be around forever. My guy you are like 45 not 80. I think Rupert has just already accepted that he's not going to die of old age and that he's only survived this far on sheer luck. His wife and his best friend/fighting partner both died in their 20s. Technically Mina died in her 20s too, she's just been undead for 125 years. From Rupert's perspective, he's already been living on borrowed time for the past two decades.

Rupert Galvin :( :( :(

[phosph-ate]

I was thinking

what if our dear Dr. Phosphorus was dating a reader who was once his right-hand man when he was the boss of Rupert Thorne's old gang?

me eating this idea:

OKAY, SO!

You got a lot of perks while he was the boss. I mean, literally anything you could ever want.

We'll just say you were already part of the gang, and he acquired you when he took over.

You're super smart and competent and not afraid of him, so he immediately liked you.

After a little bit, and lots of tension, you end up dating.

He is always so careful with you and also keeps you near/on him at all times.

IMAGINE SITTING IN HIS LAP??? RAAHHHH

if you are not immune to his radiation/flames, better get that RadAway because he CANNOT control himself... He does, but he would prefer to not.

If you are immune, well... 😈

Once Batman stops him, obviously things change. He gets sent away and even if you are lucky and get away, you fear you will never see him again.

Him convincing Rick and Waller to get you, whether you were put away too, or got away and are hiding. He says he'll be on extra good behavior (not a complete lie actually). Rick is curious...

You seem like you'll be able to help!! I mean, Dr. Phosphorus doesn't say too much but everything he says is such high praise.

if they rescue you from jail, or find you hiding in some undisclosed location, you are shocked.

Dr. Phosphorus is immediately naughty once you are even in his peripheral vision. He's been locked away; he can't help it... He needs you!!

Rick there like 🧍‍♂️"why did I agree to this???" he didn't know you were dating him, that's why.

You are so shocked to see him you do not believe he's real at first. he can't be.

You two are absolutely inseparable, Dr. Phosphorus kind of refuses to let you go once you're in his grasp. Not that you mind. You don't ever want to be without him again.

I NEED HIM. YOUR HONOR, I NEED HIM! I just think he's neat🧎

I kind of just went everywhere with these headcanons i may elaborate better eventually!! i have sooooo many thoughts!!

[jam3sacaster]

rupert campbell-black

NS/FW Alphabet

trying something a lil different! 🫶🏽 18+ HEADCANONS. super smutty. reader character aged at 21.

A - Aftercare:

Rupert is an absolute sucker for aftercare. For the rest of the night, he’ll be stroking your hair & giving you gentle kisses on your forehead. And, of course, he’ll run you a hot, soapy bath afterwards to relax your muscles.

B - Body part:

His favourite body part of yours is most definitely your legs. He’s constantly caressing them or nestling in between your thighs for warmth. There isn’t a single night that goes by where he isn’t biting at your legs before you have sex.

C - Cum:

Rupert never pulls out. Unless you absolutely beg him to let you swallow it (on occasion), he will fill you up every single time.

D - Dirty secret:

His, and your, dirtiest secret is that you both popped upstairs at The Priory during one of Venturer’s boozy parties and fucked over the windowsill in Declan and Maud’s bedroom. Both incredibly drunk and relishing in the idea of being caught.

E - Experience:

We all know… he has it. Enough said.

F - Favourite position:

It would be very hard for him to pick a favourite, but if he absolutely had to, he’d pick the straddle position. He loves the way you whimper when it’s so deep inside you, and he loves to see your beautiful face as you cum.

G - Goofy (How serious is he during the act?):

Whilst Rupert loves a laugh, he takes your love-making very seriously. Almost as if it’s an act at the theatre, his performance of how much he loves you and your body.

H - Hair (How well groomed is he, and how does he prefer you?):

Rupert has the most fantastic bush, a mound of hair that holds the world’s best, and biggest, treat. You keep yours trimmed and neat, although he wouldn’t really care either way.

I - Intimacy:

Rupert is surprisingly intimate. The nights you spend in bed — candles lit, wine consumed & slowly making love to each other — are his favourite.

J - Jerking off:

Before he met you, nothing was stopping him from wanking two or three times a day. Now, he has no need. You’re there every time he needs you.

K - Kinks:

Rupert most definitely has a breeding kink. He loves to see his hot cum dripping out of your reddened cunt after a good session. Although, it just immediately turns him on again and he’s ready for Round 2.

L - Location:

He’s not particularly fussed where you do it when he’s in the mood, but his favourite place is the Bluebell Woods in Spring, when the floor is awash with that beautiful pale purple. The sight of you bent over on the crisp floor is a dream.

M- Motivation (What turns him on?):

When it comes to you, anything will turn him on. The way your arse looks when you’re in the shower, the way you flutter your wispy eyelashes at him, even the way you scrape your hair into a ponytail. But if he had to pick something that completely took him over the edge, it’s when you suck his dick with that scarlet red lipstick of yours, and it leaves prints over him. Guaranteed to make him cum.

N - No (Something he wouldn’t do):

There’s not much that Rupert wouldn’t do, but he draws the line at submission. He loves to be the dominant one, and has to be in control. There’s nothing that will make him go soft quicker than you trying to take the reigns, and that’s saying something.

O - Oral (Does he prefer giving or receiving?):

Whilst he will never turn down a blowjob, Rupert is a full-time MUNCH. You only have to take your pants off and he’ll be kneeling in front of you, licking at your clit like it was his last meal.

P - Pace

It depends on his mood, honestly. There’s some nights when you look so fucking good in that dress that he takes you home and fucks you hard enough to give you a migraine. But, there’s also some nights that start off slowly with passionate kissing and lead to a slow, intense session where every thrust is entwined with love.

Q - Quickie:

Of COURSE! He’s fucked in a toilet of the Concorde, don’t you know?

R - Risk:

True to his usual character, Rupert is a massive risk-taker. If he gets hard, it doesn’t matter where you are, he’s having you somewhere. Your list includes The Priory, the storeroom of the Bar Sinister, his Porsche and the Bluebell Woods.

S - Stamina:

He could keep going forever. Every time you have sex, you have to prepare yourself to be bent into numerous positions for at least 20 minutes at a time. You never leave the bed without having an orgasm.

T - Toys (Does he use them?):

Rupert has an aversion to any toy, except a vibrator. He wholeheartedly thinks that nothing else should be inside you except him, so best not to mention it.

U - Unfair (Does he tease you?):

He’s a huge tease! There’s nothing he loves more than handcuffing you to the bed and making you whimper with a vibrator, or rubbing himself against your entrance and making you beg for it mercifully.

V - Volume (How loud is he?):

Rupert doesn’t actually make too much noise — just a few grunts and the occasional moan when he’s climaxing. Other than that, he likes to keep quiet so he can hear you squeal frantically under his touch.

W - Wild card (Random!):

Rupert’s guilty pleasure is buying you incredibly expensive lingerie that he finds in your catalogue. It turns him on immensely to see you try them on for him, and it always ends in breaking the set in.

X - X-ray (How big is he?):

It comes as a surprise to nobody that Rupert has a particularly large appendage, that he’s very proud of. It’s thick, veiny & manages to hit the right spot. Every. Single. Time.

Y - Yearning

He has the most fervent sex drive imaginable. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, if you’re down for it, Rupert will give it to you. You only have to do so much as brush past his leg and he will be rock hard.

Z - Zzz (How quickly does he fall asleep afterwards?)

As soon as he’s finished his aftercare, he is straight to sleep. Snoring & drooling, the whole lot. It takes you a little while longer, you always have to wait for your legs to stop shaking. But you can guarantee Rupert will be asleep the moment his head touches the pillow.

[sunny374940]

I will be waiting with open arms

Do you remember when I said I made myself sad with a story about Emmrich dying? Guess what I've finished? I made myself cry and now I am making this fic everyone's problem.

Emmrich dies at the age of ninety seven and Rook, who is seventy two now, receives one last letter from his love.

Cw: major character death (offscreen, not described)

Hello, @mercars-musings I am here to deal emotional damage

(Next up is Pining 2.0 Emmrich's POV, starring Davrin and Assan as wingmen, because I need the sad to go away)

Here on ao3

Edit: here is part 2

And here are my other stories

There was a knock on the door and Rook dragged himself out of his armchair with a sigh. The chair next to his own was glaringly empty and he felt his eyes sting with more tears, so he wiped them away and went to see just who had decided to bother him right after the funeral.

“GREETINGS, ROOK,” Vorgoth said as the door opened.

“Hi, Vorgoth. Is everything alright?”

They’d met at the service, so why would he come to visit him at home?

“THIS IS FOR YOU.”

Vorgoth was handing him an envelope and the neat handwriting on it was unmistakably Emmrich’s. Rook stared at it, at a loss for words, and when he looked up, Vorgoth was gone. There was a single word on the envelope - Rook. He opened it and took out the letter, noticing that the paper was crinkled in a few places, letters smudged as if waterstained. His legs were suddenly very weak and he felt that he should sit back down before he read it, so he settled back into the armchair.

9th of Parvulis, 9:94 Dragon

My darling Rook,

I have entrusted this letter into Vorgoth’s care, to be delivered to you after my funeral. I hope you can forgive an old man's wish to have one last goodbye.

I can feel the span of my days drawing to a close at last. I have lived a long life, longer than most, and even though a better half of it was spent waiting for you to come into it, I wouldn’t exchange the time we had together for anything.

I have made peace with my demise, as should you, my dear. I'm sure you are frowning right now, disagreeing with me, but it is true. Those fears that plagued me are long buried in the past, overshadowed by the joy of having lived my life to the fullest. With you. For what would eternity be without you there? Death seems a small price to pay for what you've given me.

As I look out the window at the yellowing leaves of our cherry tree, I find myself thinking back to the day you married me. You looked so beautiful with the flowers in your hair and I was the happiest man in the world. As I am even now. I am honored beyond words that you chose to take me as your husband and stay with me for all those years, even as I grew old (I can see you bristling at the word, but ninety seven years is hardly young, by my count).

I’d never expected such happiness to find its way to me, yet here I am, blessed with a family that has grown so much since the time it was just the two of us and Manfred. First little Elanora, and what a wonderful woman she has grown into!

And I still cannot believe that I got to have not just children, but a grandchild as well. Rupert (do you remember how I cried, when Ellie chose the name?) has grown so much. It feels impossible that he is already fifteen and well on his way to becoming a man. I am actually waiting for him to come visit as I write this and I hope to hide away the tears before the boy arrives. I don't need to ask you to take care of them, for I know you will.

I love you, Rook. I love you, I love you, I love you. I have told you every day and yet it doesn't feel like enough.

Please, do not spend too long mourning me. Live out your days, take joy in our family and know that you were the brightest light of my life.

Goodbye, darling, may we meet again in the afterlife. I will be waiting for you with open arms. And do visit the Memorial Gardens in the meantime, I will be there in spirit.

Forever yours,

Emmrich

Rook's hands were shaking, making the paper flutter in his grip. The tears started falling, landing on the letter and he quickly set it down on the side table, terrified of destroying Emmrich’s last words to him.

He was crying, ugly heaving sobs were tearing their way out of him and he couldn't stop himself. He buried his face in his hands. He hadn't cried like this at the funeral, couldn't allow himself to, but now the weight of it all was coming down on him. After what felt like hours the tears dried up and he was staring numbly ahead. Distantly, he heard footsteps coming closer.

“Dad?”

Ellie's hand was on his back, the gesture so similar to how Emmrich used to touch him that he choked back another sob.

“Hi, bug,” he whispered, and this once she didn't reprimand him for using her childhood nickname.

There were tears streaming down her face as well and he opened his arms for her. She climbed into his lap, draping her arms around his neck and he was young again and she was five years old, crying over a skinned knee. But this time the wound ran deeper and they held each other through the tears.

“I miss him so much,” she sobbed against his shoulder. “It felt like he would be here forever and now he's gone. I hate it!”

“I know, El. I hate it too,” he said, stroking her back in soothing circles, much like he had seen Emmrich do so many times before and why did everything have to remind him of Emmrich when he was gone!

But weren't the memories just the thing? He knew that Emmrich would say that they should take comfort in the memories they had of him, of the life they shared, instead of mourning what they could no longer have. He sighed and even Ellie's sobs were finally quieting down.

“Hey, bug?”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna come with me to the Memorial Gardens? I could tell you again about how me and you daddy met.”

“I'd love that, dad.”

She smiled at him and the world slowly began setting itself right again.

[mynameismad]

I'm finally finished with my conventions for the year, but I've still got plenty of SAKANA books left over! Whether you're a new reader, or you'd like to complete your collection, now's a great time to pick up Volumes 1-3! Each book comes signed by yours truly, with a little sketch of whoever's on the cover (or whichever character you'd like, by special request!)

✨Check it out here!✨

I've also got copies of my new minicomic, WIZARD BARN PARTY, for sale, along with other zines, stickers, and various webcomic sundries.

[vee-lociraptor]

something i find very fun about the tmagp cases is how they tend to make a more subtle shift into the more visceral horror. it happened in episode two, with the shift from daria altering the painting to altering herself. it happened again this episode when they made it suddenly clear that, for rupert, "eating" and "feeding" are two separate things. i don't know it's interesting and one of the details in the writing i really like. it kind of fits the format of protocol better than it would have fit archives which is neat.

[sanguis-de-luna]

So I’ve been obsessed with The Two Princes since the first season dropped on Spotify and I just noticed something:

[The cover art for season one]

In the art, you can see that Amir’s (The one on the right) sword is being held like a right-handed batter would hold a bat, right hand over the left.

Rupert (Not the one on the right) isn’t holding his sword, but the way that it’s on his belt is designed for him to draw it with his left hand.

So either Rupert really is an idiot (not likely since he spent all of the first seventeen years of his life reading) or he’s a lefty.

[Not all that important to the story but I just thought it was ✨neat✨]

Also what even are those socks Rupert cmon man 😭

[forsaken-headcanons]

Koolkiller hcs because they're criminally underrated and overhated (I haven't tried kool aid before is it good?? I'm from the UK so I'm not 100% it's allowed over here 😔)

Owns a comically large cork so he doesn't spill himself everywhere. Uses it when he sleeps. He sleeps with his eyes open and it's honestly kinda freaky,,

When he was "Born" he had a birth defect that caused one of his arms to not be able to gain as much muscle mass/is slightly smaller than his other one. He feels things less in this smaller arm, but there's a constant numbness/tingling.

His Staff and Chainsaw are his pride and joy. He spends HOURSSS cleaning them if he's not off making survivors into "Kool Aid"

If all of the liquid inside of him is poured out he acts really weird, and he constantly feels nauseous and has vertigo. (I kinda based this off of that time when Test Tube II had all of her green stuff poured out)

His glass has the strength of a Prince Rupert's drop, but there's a spot near his handle that's really weak and he will shatter apon contact with it. He will come back eventually, it'll just take a few hours or so. (It actually took way longer but the spectre is impatient so it made it take quicker.

He has pica, but he doesn't know what that is. He has eaten one of Chance's bullets that was just on the ground. One time Shedletsky tried to stun him and Koolkiller bit his sword. He's got really strong teeth, so it took forever for Shedletsky to pry his sword out.

C00LKIDD idolizes him. To KIDD, Koolkiller is everything he wants to be when he grows up. Koolkiller thinks it's neat, but he has to steer KIDD away from doing things that he does that he doesn't want KIDD doing. (Like eating things off the ground,,)

Lifts.. I mean.. Look at him.. He could probably lift most of the other killers (that are smaller than him) over his body.

Makes puns, especially when killing the survivors. He thinks he's soooo funny. (He did it in the original Dane Bow vid, so he probably does it in Forsaken too grahagh)

I have way more but like,,, I don't wanna ramble too much,,,,

- Koolkiller's #1 fan anon /j (If that isn't taken lalal)

I did not know that creature had fans. You scare me. /j

[gems1g]

Finally started playing Gold and Gears (too late into the game, I know, but I only really play Divergent Universe), and from the lore...some things make sense now with what's happening with Amphoreus.

I've been thinking about Amphoreus being a research world/outpost gone dark (and somehow events there ended up very, very wrong) but now I'm thinking what if they're like an advanced civilization that had robots taking over the admin part of the planet? Sort of like Belobog, but even more enlightened/advanced. Nikador looks like a mecha, most of the enemies too, and for a supposedly just a little backwards civilization, they have technology. They have phones, internet, they even freaking know the galactic language. And the Hand of Zagreus is a robot/mechanical hand. So it got me thinking...what if the Black Tide is Rupert's anti-organic equation/virus??? And that the planet "died" during that machine vs organic war (the Mechanical Emperor's War), because it's guardians succumbed to the virus and tried to kill the citizens? It was mentioned there's this system (or was it a galaxy, need to check again it is a galaxy) that was wiped out during the machine-organic war and it's the Laurel Wreath galaxy and well. Laurel wreaths are very Greco-Roman. So if the Black Tide is the anti-organic equation/virus, that would make sense as to why the "Titans" went mad, if the Titans were mecha. Their Coreflames are actually the virus, being taken out/extracted from the Titans???

So Nous definitely is one of the Aeons that is involved, because he did predict what was gonna happen with Rupert. Fuli we know was the other due to the events in-game. Who is the third one? At first I was thinking it could be Aha as Sparkle did mention in Cosmodyssey that she was directing a play in Amphoreus and I feel like Aha would find it amusing, that the people of Amphoreus are stuck in a tragic timeloop, and they're using their powers for their own entertainment. But...the moment Dan Heng and Caelus land on Amphoreus they're immediately inundated with details about a prophecy, and the local legend. Legends are myths. And I assume, myths are under the authority of Mythus, The Enigmata.

Ok so like, bear with me.

I'm not that far into Gold and Gears yet but I did start reading some stuff in the wiki and it was mentioned that Mythus arose from Fuli or The Remembrance or from Memoria. And that they dislike Nous and their calculations of certainty. What if, just what if, Mythus tampered with all the memories in Amphoreus at the moment the planet was supposed to meet its end, fabricated a fictional history (they have a faction dedicated to them called The History Fictionologists) and a classic hero's journey story to stick it to Nous and say that not everything can be calculated to a certain extent? And in the process, got the people of Amphoreus stuck in basically a paradox? And also at the same time gave them a chance to actually defy their own fate (of destruction)??? Would be neat if someone or a couple of other people in Amphoreus was actively working with Mythus on this one too (I think it would make more sense if someone was working with Mythus, or maybe with Fuli, and is the "bearer / knower of Truth", like Gallagher was for Penacony, in a way).

I could be wrong though. But this theory explains some things that's going on in Amphoreus. And well, if any part of this theory is true, man, the Aeons are assholes. But at the same time, thanks cosmic beings for giving civilizations a tiny chance at survival but at the cost of almost eternal suffering. I'm with Luocha and his God Slaying plans on this one.😂

[coraniaid]

top five buffy characters?

In order (today, anyway):

Buffy

Willow

Faith

Giles

Anya

Can't really put my thoughts on Buffy Summers better than I did last year. As I said then, she's one of my favorite fictional characters in any medium. I just think she's neat.

Big fan of Willow, too, although a little bit less so than I was when I first watched the show as a teenager. As well as the slight derailing of her arc with the whole magic-addiction stuff in Season 6 and the show struggling to find anything for her to do in Season 7, I think on reflection, despite the whole "occasionally I'm callous and strange" line, the Buffy writers sometimes don't actually realize when they've made Willow do something interesting and a little fucked-up. They're just a bit too sympathetic to her. So we never get the pay-off those moments deserved, and maybe we were never going to, because -- like Willow herself -- the writers simply don't think Willow did anything wrong.

Faith is the other character who is an easy fit into my top three. (Yes, not shocking, I know.) It seems a bit silly to claim that a character who appears in less than one full season's worth of episodes is one of my favorite characters, but ... I guess I'm a bit silly. She's a main character in my heart (and in my fanfiction), even if the show writers never quite realized it.

A bit below those three, but above anyone else, is Rupert Giles. I think Giles is a fascinating character, but -- more than almost anyone else in the fandom -- he tends to get flattened into this role of "Buffy's good dad" which simply doesn't reflect his role in the narrative at all. (I think it's telling that the fandom's big take-away from Helpless is "Giles has a father's love for Buffy, which we know for a fact because an evil British man said it", combined with a general indifference about ... the objectively awful things we literally just saw him do.) But canon!Giles is (mostly) much better than the fandom caricature. He kind of sucks. I like him.

That fifth spot is the tricky one and the one that's most liable to change. I don't think there's any character in the show who is consistently as sympathetic and interesting and multi-layered as those other four. Tara is nice and has a surprisingly deep relationship with Buffy, but doesn't really get much in the way of an arc. Dawn only appears in three seasons (and the writers seem to just run out of ideas for things for her to do in the third of them). While I will defend the importance of Joyce to Buffy forever -- I think Buffy's relationship with her mother is one of the key things that makes her who she is, and I think the show would be far less interesting without Joyce Summers in -- Joyce herself isn't ever given enough to do and basically doesn't exist outside of her relationship with Buffy. Xander is kind of like Giles in some ways - a deliberately flawed image of (a certain kind of) masculinity who cares about Buffy enormously but isn't always able to act accordingly because of his own self-loathing and because he has a slightly idealized image of her in his mind -- but he's also a little less interesting and a lot more irritating (and, like Willow, sometimes the writers just don't seem to realize when he's in the wrong). I think most of the Xander detractors on this site are misreading the text, but I don't really want to be a Xander defender either.

There are a whole host of other minor characters I wish the show had done more with or cared about at all: Amy, Jenny, Drusilla, Oz, Kendra, Robin are some names that come to mind. But the truth is that, as they appear on screen, I just can't pretend they were ever more than cyphers. (Even if Oz appeared in far more episodes than Faith ever did; at least Faith had some sort of agency and was central to most of the episodes she appeared in.)

So, who's left?

I think Anya is badly underused in the show throughout her time on it (she's just almost never taken seriously at all, either by the writing or the characters), her backstory has all the consistency of wet papier-mâché and to be honest I don't like Selfless quite as much as most people either. But, well, at least she's reliably funny, and there's definitely the idea of an intriguing character in there. Her death makes me furious too, more so than any other character on the show. So, almost by process of elimation, there she is.

[iloveschiaparelli]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: My Love Letter Part 1

Okay okay okay SO Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes longpost time just my whole opinion/analysis/love letter for the whole film beginning with my Wes Ball backstory so skip to the Ruin screencap if you want to skim past all that.

I haven't talked about it on tumblr yet but I'm actually like a huge fat fan of the Maze Runner cinematic series directed by Wes Ball. Really I'm just a fan of Wes Ball. It not only singlehandedly got me through my first year of high school but also became the reason I ended up entering the film industry. I've watched all 3 movies at least 4-5 times each. Probably like 20-30 for Scorch Trials at this point because it's my favorite. I can quote probably at least half of it from memory. I've watched all of the BTS content that was on the DVDs + the bloopers on youtube like i was obsessed ok.

2019 was like the second worst year of my life so imagine my distress in january 2019 when I found out about Wes Ball's next movie, Mouse Guard, got Super Hyped Up for the multimillion dollar mice-with-swords movie (I eventually read some of the comics btw it's insanely good) And then within the same week found out Disney pulled the plug on the project after acquiring 20th Century Fox. TWO weeks before production was scheduled to begin. I was livid. I'm still bitter about it. Wes Ball then released the demo reel for the film to the public which iirc also had temp music.

So anyway yeah that was awful but then! I think it was later in 2020 that it was announced that Wes Ball was going to be directing the 4th POTA movie. This kicked off me seeing the original 1968 film and then the trilogy and wow did doing so increase my excitement. In my opinion Rupert Wyatt/Matt Reeves' directing styles and Wes Ball's were/are very compatible. I also took the time to get caught up on as much of Wes Ball's old projects as I could get my hands on at the time, including his animated short Ruin (screencap below). Which is fantastic BTW and apparently was purchased by Fox for a feature film that was never made (???) I swear, filmmakers have their past works splattered all over the internet like body parts after a landmine explosion: Good luck finding everything.

Now, Finally Finally FINALLY!!!!!!!! Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is out. I meant to see it on the premier night but my boyfriend broke up with me 2 days before so I forgot. I saw it tonight instead! So now with the backstory out of the way I can finally talk about the actual movie.

First of all, the beginning of the film absolutely WOWed me!!!! It honestly feels like a callback to Ruin, the way that the buildings are overgrown and the post-apocalyptic setting is super evident and feels so delightfully reclaimed by nature. It's also really neat to see how far VFX has come since Ruin was released if you compare the opening shots of the movie with the wide shots in Ruin. Wes Ball himself is also a VFX artist, so it's really neat to see how that affects his work especially since Planet of the Apes is by nature a very vfx-heavy franchise. This movie absoutely popped off in that area but we'll get to that.

Secondly, I forgot how much I missed Ball's directing! Oh my goodness, the performances he gets out of the actors are always so authentic. I still have yet to see a performance by Dylan O'Brien that was as raw and believable as in the Maze Runner movies, and I'm like halfway through Teen Wolf already. In the action scenes especially, I love how characters in Ball's movies, you can really feel their pain. Since pain and physical discomfort aren't communicated directly through film, we often forget just how hard it is to get back up again after getting kicked down, but with Wes Ball you never forget. Ugh, when Noa was getting beat up on top of the bunker at the end of the movie, I caught myself catching my own breath when he coughed up blood. Like, yeowch!

Additionally, everything this man makes is just, like, a masterpiece? On a technical level at least. That's really the mark of a good director, whose job is not only to evoke a performance from the actors, but also to tie together the whole crew. And KOTPOTA really showed off how well the team worked together. Just the establishing shots alone in a lot of these scenes! Oh. My. Word. You can clearly see the fruits of labor of not only the concept artists, but also the VFX artists and production designers, and how they worked with the DP and actors to get the shot. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

There are more that I'm thinking of, but unfortunately without a digital release available yet there's a limit to the screencaps that I'm able to obtain. The shot where Noa is walking up the escalator following Raka and you see the plane in the background indicating that Raka lives in an airport is one of them. There's also one or two establishing shots in nature that just show off the setting. The opening shots, of course. And then the shot where it pans up and you see Eagle Village for the first time. There's also an aerial of Proximus Caesar's camp, but I'm unable to find that one as well. The main one I want to look at is the telescope.

Just, like, Hello???? It looks like an art piece. This screencap is a little closer in than I'd like, but in the full frame you can see the absolute mastery of composition that it is, you can totally imagine it as a painting. Which in my experiences usually means there's a painting behind it somewhere in the process, lol. Let's go concept artists!!! But then you see how the colors are just, perfectly balanced, the plant growth is realistic and accentuating the set, and so on and so forth. It was just absolutely breathtaking to see for the first time. I'm pretty sure I audibly gasped. I did a lot of stimming during this movie just to stay quiet and not start babbling about the film pipeline to my father in theater auditorium.

Even more magic happens when Noa steps onto the set, and starts messing with the telescope. Suddenly it's real, it's tangible, it's touchable. Transforming what was likely a matte painting at one point into a set that the actors can interact with, and then into a shot where almost everything is overlaid with VFX, and having it look so real like that is truly magic.

The ship also had me dumbstruck, but slightly less so because we saw a similar setting in The Maze Runner: The Death Cure in 2018. Although it was slightly different for sure. What had me going even more in this movie was how much the characters interacted with the ship, moving in and around it, and trading glances with one another from on the ground and up inside. In TMR:DTC, you really only see the decrepit ships in the background, and one is referenced as a plot point but the characters never actually physically interact with any of them. So it's much easier for our brains to categorize the ships as gimmicks to help us believe the scene.

It's when props like these are woven into the scene as tangible objects that our brains start to shut up about the CGI and really start to believe what's happening onscreen! and KOTPOTA did an amazing job at this. Please bear in mind like, I literally have zero specialization in VFX, it's not my field and although I draw, I've never done concept art for film. I honestly believe that I'm simply in an appropriate level of awe for what this film accomplished.

The other thing that amazed me was how stylized the setting was. The greenery was so green, the ocean felt like a painting, the ship was red, the telescope shot is very, very blue. Several of the shapes used in the ape's costume design are simplified. And yet, despite the stylization, it never feels cartoony or polygonal, it still feels completely grounded in reality, and I could really believe I'd see it in real life. I think this owes partly to the fact that we rarely inspect any of these simplified items at a close distance, aside from Raka's necklace which appears to be made of either bone or whittled wood. It also owes to absolute geniuses in color grading that kept the stylized colors realistic enough for our brains to believe. Overall I'd take the visual style of the film to be Impressionist. I love impressionism.

My main interest in filmmaking is writing/directing. However, most of my experience lies in costume design (Student films rarely need costume "design" so its usually coordination) and production design. As a result I spent a good deal of my time watching KOTPOTA zeroed in on the production design.

I love post-apocalyptic science-fiction/fantasy worlds like this partly precisely because of how much you can learn from the production design alone. When Mae enters Trevathan's room for the first time I swear I was eating it up. Every single prop in this movie was carefully thought out by the PD, which is why his room absolutely stood out from the rest of the setting that we had seen up to that point. It was distinctly "human-centric" as opposed to the rest of the movie. I remember seeing it in the theater earlier today, laying eyes first on the bed by the door, thinking that it must be something they set up for Mae, but then wondering why or how the apes would know or want to set up a human-style bed for Mae when we're so many generations removed from human-dominated society.

Next it was on many miscellaneous table objects, thinking to myself "That looks like how a human would treat a space. Apes are generally too big to decorate at that scale." and then my eyes roved on to the furniture, seeing a human-sized table, human-sized chair, human-sized junk everywhere! Slowly, by observing the room, I gained a stronger and stronger sense of "there is another human here," which upon observing the rows and rows of books became "a smart human like Mae, who unlike her can read" (Remember at this point we still believed that Mae and her mother were the only smart humans that Mae had known growing up, and that she had been pursuing the opportunity to meet other smart humans and join them).

It was only upon the instant of realizing that this was a smart human that Trevathan spoke and appeared on the stairs. It was absolutely perfect timing. THIS, guys, is exceptional production design. It was honestly my absolute favorite piece of production design in the entire film, especially because of how much it contrasted what we've become used to seeing in the series as humans have diminished in population and apes and nature have taken over the space instead.

That exact sense of change or "otherness", that noticeability of contrast upon seeing what is honestly a pretty "normal" human space if you look at it in the context of our existing society, is only present because of how well PD treats the rest of the movie. In order to make a completely normal space feel strange, you have to change literally every other space to something alien but consistent with itself. And KOTPOTA does just that. The job was begun in the original trilogy, with the decline of humanity depicted across decades, nature taking over the gas station and the dam and even the city. But this movie had the biggest challenge because of simply how many years had passed before the story even began. Society as we know it today is completely and totally obliviated in KOTPOTA's setting. In every set that the characters interacted with in any way, PD had to fabricate a space where humans had been but the virus, decades of decay and post-apocalyptic living, and ape encroachment had transformed it.

This also brings me into the subject of the rich culture we see emerging in the world of the apes through this movie. The original trilogy, especially the first and second film, was all about the ape's identity. In the first film Caesar wonders whether he is human or ape, and whether apes are pets or equals to humans. He eventually comes to the realization that humans are never going to look out for apes the way that apes will and decides to become that person. In the second film, Caesar and the other characters involved have to figure out what being an ape means. Does it mean strength is power? That humans are always an enemy to defeated? Or a similar species to live alongside? It's about establishing what the ape race's relationship is to the human race. The third film I didn't get to rewatch before seeing KOTPOTA, but iirc it was about whether humans and apes could ever coexist, which is a theme we see continued in this movie, albeit in a slightly different way. Either that or more likely it was about whether apes will repeat the same mistakes as humans.

Anyway, I digress. In the script we already see a rich culture emerging in hints, right from the start of the movie. It's in the hunt for the eagle eggs at the beginning with mentions of some kind of coming-of-age ceremony, followed by Noa reminding Anaya and Soona that they must "leave one egg always. It is the law." Already in the first five minutes we've established that this particular ape civilization not only has cultural traditions surrounding youth and coming-of-age, but also rituals and laws surrounding their relationship with and the conservation of nature. And through dialogue we extrapolate that these apes have bonded animals (eagles). It honestly felt like a crossover between Native American Indian hunting practices and How To Train Your Dragon, which is wild I know. (Also can we talk about how the eagles in this movie actually made eagle sounds???? And not falcon sounds! Finally we're breaking the bad habit of making up animal noises to sound cooler when the original already sounded super cool by itself.)

So in just a few minutes guys!! We already have so much. Then the trio heads back to the village and has their first encounter with the Echoes (Ekos? If anyone could get spelling on that for me that would be fantastic) but are too afraid (or law-bound) to get too close to or cross through the tunnel "into the valley below". So through these we establish that there is a taboo around not just humans but also around leaving the village. The clan has taken an isolationist approach wherein they not only forbid their young clan members from leaving but also withhold information about the outsiders from them until they've come of age. Guys the cultural system arising here is absolutely wild. Like sorry not sorry but I eat this stuff up. (Screenwriters-- this is prime example material of "show don't tell")

There's also all of the ape social communication rules that we've already gotten used to, mainly a variation of the palm-up/palm-down gesture as a means of showing respect (submission) and asking for permission/approval.

In this movie however the hands are mostly closed and the palms are down for the sub as well as the ape they're seeking approval from, as opposed to the trilogy in which the submitting ape always had their palm up. At first I chalked this up to cultural differences among clans since we learned that this clan is not the clan descended from Caesar's apes in the trilogy, but then Caesar's descendants were doing it this way too? So I don't really know what to make of it but I'm going to decide that it's just global cultural evolution (at least, as global as the real-world evolution of Old English into modern English).

Through the production design of the beginning sequence in Eagle Village, we see that the eagles catch fish and then the vast quantities of fish and the smokehouse indicate that fish caught by the eagles are the main source of food for the Eagle Clan. We also see feathers as a motif throughout, worn especially by the parents and the elders as a sign of social status (we know it's social status bc Sylva rips it off of one of the elders as an intimidation tactic and everyone audibly gasps, indicating it worked). That last bit is honestly more costume design, they popped off too but one thing at a time or I'm going to become incomprehensible. I will repeat myself. It is inevitable.

Then throughout the film we learn that not only do they adhere strictly to the "law", but that that law is set by the elders alone. We also learn that they primarily relate to their eagles by singing to them which!!! is just!!!! so!!! metal!!! I love it. The way it plays into the end scene with Proximus just AGHRGHJHRHGR GROWL BARK BARK FERAL NOISES>

ahem

Also we see them building nests at home for their eagles and they've figured out falconry tools for the aerie and everything on their own like??

Then in contrast we see what's left of Caesar's clan, it's descendants. Proximus Caesar, we learn later from Trevathan, has gone completely fangirl over the ancient roman empire and decided to emulate it because "he likes it" and it makes him "feel good" (yeah he's probably the most textbook tyrant I've ever seen in media), choosing to morph Caesar's teachings into his own new worldview rather than adhering to them properly.

So the culture of Caesar's clan is very heavily roman-influenced, often copying practices outright such as the insitution of slavery, a lot of the fashion choices and even the way that banners are put up around the camp and the way that Proximus dines at a low-set table filled with an overabundance of food. And he has a throne and crown, and there are roman numerals inscribed on both his and Sylva's necklaces. But we still see influences of Caesar's original society, most noticeably the persistence of the window symbol and the architecture of the dam. The architecture wouldn't be significant at all, instead being noted as a stylistic choice for the whole series, if it weren't for the fact that it's different from Eagle Clan's architecture.

If Eagle Village resembles those spaghetti bridges that engineers build for class, with thatched roofs, then the dam at Caesar Clan's camp is much more brutalist by comparison. Eagle Clan was very spindly and focused on height and lightness of building materials: many of the logs were thinner and longer, more spaced out, and sometimes rounded at the ends. By contrast, Caesar Clan's dam is built with stumpier logs, closer together, and spiked at the top. The dam is also shored up with soil and other materials. Which yeah, is typical of beaver dams but is also typical of the structures in the original Caesar's village in the trilogy.

Unfortunately, there's only one image currently available of Eagle Village and it's after it was burned down. But you can still see how it differs from Caesar's village, instead of being chaotic it's more organized, allowing for a more lightweight structure.

This (below) is the closest I could get to having a picture of the dam's architecture, but you can still tell how it's more similar to OG Caesar's architecture than it is to Eagle Clan's, even though it's using a completely different building material (scrap metal instead of hewn trees).

Eagle Clan's architecture is also a further effect of how their society revolves around making a life bond with eagles, which are flying creatures. So of course they would be inclined to taller structures, especially ones that are more lightweight and have structural patterns, imitating the way that birds are built (see above).

I'll continue in part 2 as a reblog because it's 1 am and I'm running out of steam but YALL I need you to understand: It's been 6 years since the last time I had a Wes Ball film to overanalyze and rave about. I have SO MUCH to say about this film.