#Tell England: A Study in a Generation

[philosophermalcolmtucker]

Very helpful guidance when trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about at second chapter in TC

[elodieunderglass]

I can’t let you guys continue this conversation without pointing out that they’re different meals with different recipes. Boston baked beans (USA) have a molasses/brown sugar/bacon/onion profile and when properly prepared are closer to a thick cassoulet - not so much a soup-type dish as a sort of solid preparation that you can pretty much shape into a mound, like in the thumbnail of that video. They’re thick, sticky and dark brown.

UK beans, as in beans-on-toast, are in a loose tomato sauce. They do not mound; they spread. The tomato sauce is rather like a more sophisticated spaghettiO sauce in texture, and in taste is pleasant but with a strong tomato profile, much like ketchup.

Sure they have shared roots but this is like starting off your post by saying “ketchup is the same thing as barbecue sauce.” Well, yes, if you zoom out enough, sure! But also, on the more conventional plane, no.

Yes, UK haricot beans in tomato sauce are adapted entirely from indigenous American plant engineering (haricot beans and tomatoes.) no, they did not invent the concept.

No, most Americans will not recognise what is being served when handed a portion of Branston’s. Yes, British people are startled and excited when I produce actual baked beans, which they perceive to be more aligned with a sort of chilli con carne. They are deeply related dishes that exist in conversation with each other and are both influenced by colonialism, but as a dish you might serve someone, they are pretty different in texture, taste, colour, intention, ingredients, and all the sort of things that we look for when describing a food.

Anyway here’s a recipe for my evil UK fusion gluten free huevos rancheros, which will be violently disclaimed as an abomination by every culture involved in the violence of its creation :

Have on hand:

- leftover cooked chicken or pork, chopped or shredded by hand. I usually do this with leftover roast chicken carcass.

- tin of branston beans. I strongly dislike Heinz for not letting you stack the tins. Fuck them.

- enough Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce (gluten free, available at Tesco/asda/Sainsbury’s in the world food section)

- a lot of whatever fajita seasoning you use to taste

-old El Paso GF tortilla wraps found in the GF section. You can do this with the gluten version, but it will do you good to have to have a recipe written the other way ‘round.

-eggs

-avocado

-shredded cheese

-sour cream, or use up crème fraiche or Greek yogurt if that’s what you have left

-pesto or basil leaves lmao

Shred meat and mix with beans. Heat the meat within the beans with the spices and bbq sauce.

Fry the tortillas on both sides until Activated. (Pronounce them tor-TEE-ya, not turtle-a, thanks). Set aside. You may rub with pesto.

Use that pan to fry eggs UK style. Runny yolks but cooked on top.

Order of assembly: tortilla, beans, fried egg on top. Decorate egg with cheese, sour cream, chopped avocado. Sprinkle basil leaves or coriander if people like coriander.

Surprisingly successful with children, high protein, gluten free, cheap and easy, uses up leftover meat and stuff you probably have around, not too difficult, will cause people on the internet to shout at you. You’re welcome.

Baked beans are an American dish adapted from a similar dish first made by native Americans and baked beans were first canned in the US and then brought to Britain where the British decided to start putting them on toast and calling them a British food. And I’ve started to realize that some British people think that we think beans on toast is strange because we don’t have baked beans. When in fact we’ve had baked beans this whole time. We brought the baked beans over there. We just think it’s mildly confusing that Brits put them on toast.

[housepartyprotocol]

Mystery man

Logan Sargeant x Piastri!Reader

summary: Oscar's sister has a mystery man

(a/n: its short and sweet, its not my favourite but I'm getting back in)

Masterlist / TipJar

ynpiastri

liked by oscarpiastri, hattiepiastri, yourbsf and 3,758 others

ynpiastri Alexa play a generic song about loving your hometown

view all 492 comments

oscarpiastri omg you went back home, why did you tell me

ynpiastri why would I tell you, you don’t live here … hattiepiastri She told me ynpiastri Yeah because you live here! oscarpiastri woww hattiepiastri move home , England doesn’t love you like we love you

yourbsf I ask you one question about mystery man and you fly across the world away from me

ynpiastri the motherland was calling me yourbsf you ran hattiepiastri myster man ?? ynpiastri oops sorry on a plane home again

oscarpiastri

liked by logansargent, ynpiastri, landonorris and 1,745,096 others

oscarpiastri To monaco thank you for a P2. To my sister thank you for spending the entire weekend showing my crew my baby photos. That was hugely appreciated (I hate you)

view all 29,926 comments

user omg which sister

user I think YN user Which on is YN I get confused?! user YN is the oldest of his 4 younger sisters user thank you ! <3

ynpiastri You’re welcome mr ‘I’m a car’

oscarpiastri I despise you ynpiastri I love you too big brother x

logansargeant they get better each time I see them

oscarpiastri you saW THEM TOO? logansargeant yn showed me the whole album oscarpiastri I’m dead

user I want to see baby Oscar!,

ynpiastri hold on I’ll post them soon oscarpiastri waIT

ynpiastri

liked by yourbsf, oscarpiastri, logansargeant and 3,922 others

ynpiastri Me FT baby older brother and logie

view all 459 comments

oscarpiastri take this down

ynpiastri why oscar, you’re so cute logansargeant why oscar, you’re so cute oscarpiastri no take it down i’ll tell mum ynpiastri mum is in my likes, she’s not going to do anything oscarpiastri bully

yourbsf you look angelic

ynpiastri why thank you lovely yourbsf so who is mystery man hattiepiastri who is mystery man sis ynpiastri nope no man

user you look amazing

user how does she know logan?

user she met him through oscar

yourbsf

liked by ynpiastri, hattiepiastri, and 369 others

yourbsf On and off the grind. Waiting for YN to stop giggling at her phone

view all 29 comments

ynpiastri i was not giggling

yourbsf no sorry, you weren't yourbsf you were heavily flustered ynpiastri objection your honor

hattiepiastri who is he sis

ynpiastri there is no one yourbsf hattie, please help

logansargeant

liked by ynpiastri, oscarpiastri, yourbsf and 878,362 others

logansargeant A classic Piastri-Sargent mess around

view all 41,002 comments

user not the new girl reference!

user they are such a cute couple user i dont think they are dating, they are just friends user they would be cute oscarpiastri no

ynpiastri we slay

logansargeant i draw the line at slay ynpiastri not a slay

oscarpiastri wow replacing me

logansargeant always ynpiastri always, the better piastri hattiepiastri hey! ynpiastri sorry sorry, but oscar sucks

user logan and the pUPPY

ynpiastri

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris, yourbsf and 4,250 others

ynpiastri Grind, Pose, Logan

view all 249 comments

logansargeant this is horrific why

ynpiastri its cute user i love yn using her feed for just intermittent mugshots of oscar and logan ynpiastri isn't it just amazing

user what is she studying?

user fashion marketing i think user oh thats so cool user she must be so creative and smart liked by logansargeant

yourbsf friday 9pm. you & me. talk

ynpiastri omg why am i scared ynpiastri mum? help? yourbsf we are talking about mystery man oscarpiastri hmm hattiepiastri facetime me in

oscarpiastri

liked by ynpiastri, landonorris, logansargeant and 1,993,520 others

oscarpiastri Madien win with celebrations. Not celebrating when I accidently found out news I did not want to hear

view all 76,242 comments

user aww thats so cute is that him and lily

user noo lily wasnt there user yn, his sister, was....

ynpiastri take that down before hattie sees

hattiepiastri YN!!! oscarpiastri too late ynpiastri heyyy hattiepiastri Oscar, you know who mystery man is?? oscarpiastri Yup, how much is this information worth to you

logansargeant Oscar not you exposing your sister

oscarpiastri I have exposed no relationship. Just threatened user this is the best sibiling interaction user i live for this

yourbsf you lied!

ynpiastri no i just spun the truth yourbsf ynnnnnnnn oscarpiastri talk to me

ynpiastri

liked by oscarpiastri, yourbsf, hattiepiastri, and 5,259 others

ynpiastri Siblings amirite. oh and a hot man

view all 202 comments

yourbsf this is one unhinged caption and soft launch

ynpiastri so i succeeded yourbsf i love that you are soft-launching a relationship that I know, that Oscar knows and also your entire family ynpiastri is it a soft launch when you consider how long I've been planning this oscarpiastri wait, How LONG?!

hattiepiastri no because congrats

hattiepiastri it makes sense yourbsf it does

user is that logan?

user you are so crazy for that (i think it is) user piastri-logan taken to a new level liked by logansargeant

yourbsf

liked by ynpiastri, hattiepiastri, and 401 others

yourbsf fashion school photo dump

view all 30 comments

ynpiastri its a love hate relationship

yourbsf it is a tough relationship ynpiastri we love the pain

hattiepiastri i need you see you guys

ynpiastri we'll see you soon hattiepiastri hows your mans ynpiastri ill debrief you outside of a comment section

logansargeant

liked by ynpiastri, oscarpiastri, and 1,420,553 others

logansargeant Piastri-Sargent mess around, but its revealed I'm mystery man and i love this piastri variant

view all 40,250 comments

ynpiastri not you spoiling my soft launch plan

ynpiastri I had a whole photo album for it logansargeant I am so sorry sweetheart ynpiastri you are forgiven lovely oscarpiastri gag, get it off my feed user omg hard launch of the century user it is perfect

oscarpiastri actutally thank you for just getting your silly slow reveal over with because i would not have kept that secret for long

ynpiastri have some self control user oscar is so relatable logansargeant you are welcome, brother-in-law oscarpiastri nope absolutely not logansargeant you are welcome, soon to be brother-in-law

hattiepiastri awww so cute

ynpiastri ikrrr oscarpiastri hmm i’m feeling protective ynpiastri there’s a lot you don’t wanna know oscarpiastri ew hattiepiastri ew logansargeant ew ynpiastri logie? logansargeant i just wanted to fit in

ynpiastri

liked by logansargent, hattiepiastri, yourbsf and 5,001 others

ynpiastri finally i can post my man. 1 year baby

view all 982 comments

yourbsf a YEAR?

yourbsf betrayal ynpiastri nooo don't leave me yourbsf next starbucks is on you ynpiastri deal

oscarpiastri logan. 1 year. you've been dating my sister for a year

logansargeant doing more than dating ynpiastri LOGAN oscarpiastri dead man hattiepiastri dead man

user aww they are so perfect

user piastri-sargent, the perfect pair

logansargeant i love you pookie

ynpiastri poooookie!! user omg oscarpiastri i am deactivating my account

[f1amour]

i’ll be watching you (every step you take) — carlos sainz

pairing | carlos sainz x leclerc!reader

word count | 3.1k words

content warnings | forbidden romance, age gap (reader is 24, carlos is 30), lots of crying (on both ends), charles is not the best brother to reader, brief mentions of anxiety & depression, ANGST

authors note | this in no way is to put any negative light towards charles, it is merely fiction and no way depicts the friendship he has with carlos or his personality in general. so sad seeing carlos leave and writing this just made me even more sad so…beware if you can’t handle angst rn </3

navigation. | requests — open | main masterlist.

─────────────────────────

THE FINAL RACE of the 2024 season was going to begin in just a few hours but all Carlos could think about was you. Only a few hours left to be around you and then you’d no longer be in his sight like you usually were every race week. He wasn’t thinking much of his last race with Ferrari, yes he was sad about it but it was you who was invading his thoughts.

You’d no longer be there to offer some words of wisdom when he had a bad week. You’d no longer be there with a cup of coffee and baked goodies to debrief with each other. Carlos would tell you all about the race and what was going on from his end and you’d tell him any gossip you heard around the paddock. The secret handshakes you had no longer would be there as he’d be in the Williams motorhome and you’d be in the Ferrari motorhome way up front; supporting your brother.

“Charlie, please just hear me out. I could make this work with him and it won’t interfere with—.”

“No! Absolutely not we agreed you’d never date any of my friends especially those on the grid. I don’t want you with him. Why are you telling me all this now?!” Your older brother Charles paces back and forth in your hotel room.

“I-I…I love him. Why can’t you be happy that I found someone who treats me right and will love me too? Don’t you want me to be happy?” Charles knew you loved Carlos he could see it since day one. You had stayed away from the limelight as he entered Formula one and went to study abroad in England until you quit school in 2020. You no longer wanted to be a doctor but decided to open your own cafe.

Your dream to be a doctor was to somehow level up on your siblings who were successful. But you didn’t want to spend your life in a career you didn’t love. Baking was your passion despite your brother thinking it was a silly hobby. Your Maman was happy with whatever you wanted and your twin Arthur supported you. So did Lorenzo, but it was Charles who never showed interest in your dreams despite being his biggest fan growing up. Once he got into Formula One the bond you had with him drifted away.

You didn’t attend his first race in Formula One and ever since then you only visited for Christmas in which Charles mostly ignored you. You never understood why he was so mean to you when he’d vowed to protect you when you lost your Father a few years ago. You were daddy’s girl and losing him caused you to close yourself off to ever let someone into your heart that wasn’t family.

After quitting school you took up an internship with Charles in managing his social media. He used this to his advantage to try and convince you opening your own cafe would be a mistake and you could do greater things. He begged for a year and you ended listening to him and taking up a full time position for the Ferrari social media team.

You wanted your brother to be happy, but when would it be your turn?

As you were involved setting up videos with the two teammates you began growing a close friendship with Carlos. A close friend to your brother and teammate but they definitely had their fair share of moments on the track that left you picking up the pieces. Carlos never showed the frustration or anger towards you. Instead he would invite you out to golf (better yet teach you since you were terrible golfer) or even invite you to Spain during the breaks so you could spend time together and with his family.

“Be happy with someone else. You can find anyone why my teammate?”

“He won’t be your teammate next—.”

“No! Don’t use that to somehow justify you two could work out. It won’t work out…not if you want to lose me.” His words hit you and snaps you out of any thoughts of Carlos you had going on.

“Qu'est-ce que tu veux dire par là? (what do you mean by that?)” You question, your chest feeling heavy at what his response may be. Lose him? You can’t live without your brother in your life despite the distance you’ve had in the last few years. But getting a job in Ferrari has helped build that bond again.

With an unready expression from Charles he stares into your eyes almost trying to intimidate you, “Qu'est-ce qui compte le plus pour vous ? Amour ou famille? (What matters to you more? Love or Family?)” The question destroys any poker face you had and your lips tremble trying to keep calm.

“Ce n'est pas juste, Charles. La famille, c'est l'amour ! J'aime ma famille. (That's not fair, Charles. Family is love! I love my family.)” You try defending yourself from the question, or more so the threat he was making.

“D'accord, tu as raison, alors... Carlos ou moi? (Okay you are right so...Carlos or me?” The question was mean, Charles knew that becuase he knew what you would decide. You were a ride or die for your family even if they didn’t always do the same for you. You could never imagine choosing someone else other than your family but Carlos…you really love Carlos.

“Please, Charlie that’s not fair. Don’t do this to me please, please, please…Je l'aime. Il me rend heureux. Il est tout ce que j'ai toujours voulu. (I love him. He makes me happy. He's all I ever wanted.)” You were close to begging on your knees, hands pleading with your brother but he stands there with a stoic face despite his heart breaking to pieces he’s causing this pain to you.

“We can make you happy. Family can be enough. You choose us and we’ll make more of an effort…quit the social media job and open your cafe. I’ll help you open it up anything to make you happy. Carlos won’t be a stable person to be in a relationship with look at our schedules we have all year? Don’t you want something stable?” His words spit out so easily, like he’s had it rehearsed. He felt so conflicted saying all this because he respected Carlos, he loved him as a close friend. But he couldn’t risk losing his sister to anyone.

He had to protect her and being in a relationship with someone as busy as Carlos wouldn’t work. His relationships barely worked out so he knew firsthand. He was going to protect you like he had promised you when your Father had passed. He promised his father he’d step up and watch over you.

You sit on your bed staring down at the comforter in silence as Charles gives you a kiss on the head, “I’ll see you at the race tomorrow and you can tell me then what you decided. I love you, cherie.” He walks out of your room without another word.

See you tomorrow morning, hermosa. Everything will be okay. Te amo.

You read Carlos’ text and send a quick heart reaction before shutting your phone off and laying in your bed to deal with the decision you had to make. It was made already. The thing was how were you going to say it out loud? How do you tell someone you don’t choose them?

─────────────────────────

Morning comes around you’ve barely slept at all throughout the night tossing and turning. Carlos is walking into your room with coffee and croissants ready to go over the day with each other. A routine you’ve had for two years now ever since this…relationship formed. You give your best smile as you let him talk about his final day with Ferrari whle you listen he could see something is off. As he nears the end of the conversation he sees you fiddle with your thumbs a force of habit you did when you were anxious.

As he finishes you both sit in comfortable silence and as the time goes by you bite your lip suppressing a sob aching to cry out. Carlos breaks the silence with a deflated sigh, “It’s Charles, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” You whisper before letting out a choked sob and he quickly pulls you onto his lap holding you as tight as possible. You tangle your arms around his neck letting yourself cry in his arms for what may be the last time. This would be the last time you feel him this close to you. This may be the last time you ever talk to each other.

As your breathing calms down your face lays on his chest listening to his heartbeat…each beat registering in your mind. His heart that he says beats for you now breaks with each beat, he knew it wouldn’t be him if you had to choose.

Carlos didn’t blame you, he knew you were a family girl. He knew you had a heart that bled for your family even if they didn’t appreciate you. You would do anything for your family especially Charles even if it meant costing your own happiness in the process. You were close to your twin Arthur but he’d been so busy with his own stuff and Lorenzo was older so you didn’t get to bond as much since he lived further away.

It was Charles who you held a close bond with, you looked up to him. He reminded you so much of your Father after he passed you were lost in your grief. Charles pulled you out of a dark hole you didn’t want to get out of but he made you fight. Your father made Charles promise to protect his younger siblings but especially you. You were tough and could protect yourself but you were also a sensitive girl who was losing her father. Her father who she was attached to the hip to until his final breath. You would give up your own happiness for your family and Carlos would do the same.

Carlos wipes your tears off your face kissing your cheek softly, “I love you,” His voice breaking as you nod your head and get off his lap after those words.

You had to create some distance or else this would hurt more than it already does, “It’ll pass.” You smile sadly at him, his big brown eyes welling up with tears as you remove the necklace he had given you as a birthday present the first year he joined ferrari. You had barely spoken to each other but he remembered your birthday fell during a race weekend and wanted to make you feel appreciated.

A necklace with a sun charm that had his initial on the back something you added after you started dating two years ago. He shakes his head and hands it back to you, “No, no please at least keep that. I want to keep mine so you keep that one.” His voice pleads and you nod your head putting it in your purse.

“I…I don’t know what to say, Carlos. I’m so sorry—.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s okay I know why and I don’t blame you. We love each other I know that but we also love our families and I…I probably would have done the same.” He gives a tight lipped smile, he was wrong. He would never do that because family would never give an ultimatum of choosing who you love or them. They would do it if they knew you were a bad person but you weren’t and neither was he. So why would Charles not let his sister be happy?

You grab your purse and walk towards the door, “I love you too. Always.” And without another word you walk out of his hotel room, and from his life.

─────────────────────────

Celebrations begin all around you as Lando crosses the checkered flag and wins the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but also winning the constructors championship. You try your best cheering for the Mclaren driver you’ve grown close to but seeing Carlos cross the checkered flag along your brother right behind him was enough to have you walking off to the nearest restroom to wipe your tears away.

You walk back out once they’re out on the podium and as you look up you lock eyes with Carlos who had already been watching your every move. His pained expression watching you clutch your necklace as the british national anthem surrounds the track.

You feel a hand intertwine with yours and to your surprise it’s Reyes, Carlos’ mom. Her gentle smile was more than enough to tell you she knew what went on earlier with her on and despite breaking his heart she was there consoling you silently in the crowd. “He’s going to be a world champion one day. And i won’t be there to see it.” You whisper softly enough for her to hear.

“He’s not winning anything without having you there with him. He loves you too much to not have you there to celebrate his biggest victories. He’ll wait for you. Go do what you have to do, querida. I know you’ll see each other again.” She encourages you, you look up one more time to Carlos who was spraying Lando and Charles. His eyes meet yours one more time and with a simple nod he gives you a quick nod back.

You’d be there for each other; from afar. Every step you take you’d be watching each other.

You watch him give a speech to the entire ferrari team including your brother who was watching you like a hawk. Your eyes remained on Carlos wherever he moved as he hugged everyone and tears started filling almost everyone’s eyes. Except your brothers.

Carlos reaches you after giving everyone hugs and to the rest it may seem like a simple interaction but if only they knew as Carlos arms wrap around your waist and your arms snake around his neck you held onto each other like you never wanted to let go. Silence fills the room as a few members walk out to pack up and only Carlos’ team and family wait for him.

Charles walking up to break the hug, “Sœur. Nous devons y aller maintenant (Sister. We have to go now)” He refuses to make eye contact with either of you, guilt filling his chest. Before you could look back up at Carlos your brother has already dragged you out of there.

Every step you took you felt further and further away from him. You have to live with that.

─────────────────────────

“Yes, I’ll be there in about 20 minutes. Sounds good.” Carlos hangs up the call, walking the streets of London he enjoyed the cool air hitting against him. He’s going into his second year with Williams and he could see the improvement the team has made and think he’s got a good shot at the wdc this season which starts in just a few weeks.

A year without you had been the slowest year he has lived. He was so used to never keeping track of the time or days when he was with you. Now without you he was mostly filled with silence on days he wasn’t with the team or family.

His friendship with Charles grew stronger after he left the team despite knowing he was the reason you weren’t together. Charles thought he got closer to keep tabs on you but it was quite the opposite. Since that night you hadn’t heard from each other at all, the only thing keeping you connected was the necklaces you kept.

His star chain hanging on his neck was worn at all times and questions were asked if there was a significance to it which he would reply with it was a cool chain. The meaning would always be between the two of you, it’s the one thing you could both keep as yours.

Charles lived with the guilt every single day despite him being a better brother to you and supporting what you wanted (except your relationship with Carlos). He still had his days but he’s been one of your biggest supporters when you had opened your cafe. You still felt betrayed he made you choose but in the end he was your brother, you could never be mad at him. He was your best friend.

“Have a great day!” You smile at your regular customer who has picked up their order just now. Your cafe had been gaining popularity after a few months of being open and you couldn’t be anymore grateful. It was noon and that is when you get the most busy so as you help ring up customers you don’t feel the eyes on you staring from across the street.

Carlos stands across the street from where your cafe is, seeing you through the display window a smile adorned on your face he couldn’t help but cross the street. His heart beat picking up as he got closer to you and standing at the window he looks up at the name.

Café Étoilé

“You’re my sunshine. You brighten my whole day just looking at you.” Carlos sighs contently as you lay your head on his chest. You giggle at the nickname and smile up at him, “Well you’re a star so that makes you my star. My starry eyed man,”

“Starry eyed?”

“Yeah. Your brown eyes are my favorite feature of yours, they’re starry eyed.” You tell him, staring the obvious.

“I love it.”

You named the cafe after him, in a way that Charles couldn’t say no because he didn’t know the nicknames you shared together. This was yours. No one else’s.

His smile meets his eyes watching you do what you loved, it was enough for him to realize that despite not communicating in over a year you’d always have a special place in each other’s hearts. For now you’d watch each other from afar and celebrate your accomplishments in that way.

You finish ringing the last customer up apart of the rush and you feel the need to look out your window feeling a pair of eyes on you but as you look up you find nobody except stranger walking along the street. Instinctively your hand grips your necklace and trace over the engraving of Carlos’ name.

Your love for each other did indeed not pass.

[elodieunderglass]

You never clearly state it, but its obvious Killie missed his brother. Charlies absence is seen in all the cracks Killie has. But did Charlie miss Killie? Its easy to say: "of course he did! Thats his twin! He must have missed him!" But did he? Did he allow himself the time to grieve? Did he tell his partners there is a carbon copy of himself walking around somewhere? Or did he lock up this part of himself as secure as he was able to not look back and live his life? Do Charlie and Killie ever talk about this? They dont seem to be like people, who talk about feelings. eww feelings

(in reference to Killie to jockey OC, who was estranged for a long time from his twin brother Charlie)

Charlie was the one who left. and when he left, he went scorched-earth. By leaving, he cut himself off from not just his immediate family, but his career path, extended family, horses, horse racing, his friends, horses, his native country, his magical-realism-psychic connection to his twin, horses, the family's religion (probably a plus side but definitely a framework); and, when you remove the load-bearing explanatory bit about "being a generational jockey", quite a strange relationship with his body/exercise/nutrition/self-care/pain tolerance/masculinity. Charlie went to England, sheltered with his horrible English family and took their last name for a bit, played along to get them to pay for his uni, went to uni in a panic, took up weird jobs, sheltered with his friend Ken and lived on his boat, and pursued an absurd career trajectory, largely in a panic at the thought of Ken going to graduate school without him. At the time of reuniting with Killie, Charlie had a rich life full of partners, kids, friends, career, hobbies, and therapy. He was Winning at Life and Mental Health! and sang with his friends and did healthy things like KNITTING! and was a PRESENT AND INVOLVED FATHER and had TWO! WHOLE! SPOUSES! which looks like a perfect life. it looks like Charlie did very well for himself. it looks like he Won. And he did! He's a good father and a good husband (husband²?) and has a job and everything. But, if you squint, and think about how what society deems "winning" is milestone-based; and how a lost person who is viscerally, addictively competitive might view "bagging life milestones" as an excellent replacement for "bagging horse-shaped golden trophies"; and remember that Charlie is off his hinge in a way that LOOKS healthy but is, nonetheless, off his bloody hinge, then you go: hmmm! Charlie you are POWERFULLY and OBVIOUSLY off your bloody rocker, and you only get away with it because it's all in ways that are charming and/or marketable.

this implies that Charlie needed to find about 25 people to replace Killie; that he needed to study, out of nowhere, astrophysics at the doctoral level as a way to keep himself from thinking about other things; that he tried on a lot of different masks in order to find one that fitted; that he snatched up as much light and colour and noise as possible to fill his head; and that he was, in general, Extremely Bad at being alone. He did not function alone. without family, structure, direction, ambition - cut completely loose - he is very lucky that he actually had a workable plan, that he found good people, and that he bounced into pockets of uncannily good luck. he's lucky that Ken picked him up and put him in his pocket. he's lucky that he was a good singer. he's lucky that he somehow managed to stay on the straight and narrow and build an entire life. it definitely looks like a life! a life that a Real Person would have! why would anyone grieve that! don't be silly!!! Charlie's mirror-book to Killie's would be On The Straight and Narrow. Ken's The Straight, and the narrowboat (and charlie) are the narrow.

and he would not talk about his family. and he would lie to everyone. I think his partners and closest friends would probably know, eventually, where he came from, and that he'd had siblings. but the light and colour and noise in between (the husband in front of you) and (whatever his childhood was) would be its own distraction and barrier.

Don't be silly! he was raised by pirates! he was raised by wolves! charlie made himself out of junk. charlie was born fully formed in a duck's nest. charlie is actually Ken's ginger brother (he takes after Mr MacKenzie, you see it, right?) Charlie's birth name was definitely and legally Charles Dragonfly. why would you not believe that

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for breaking up with my boyfriend suddenly and lying about why?

I (21M) broke up with my boyfriend (18M) a few days ago. It was a painful decision that I already somewhat regret.

We met in uni and have been dating for about 3 months, and our relationship had been going extremely well, but I started to worry about our age gap. I was concerned about it when we first started flirting, but when he confessed to me I was so happy he felt the same way that I forgot about my worries for a little.

I'm VERY chronically online so I'm familiar with age gap discourse, and 18 and 21 seems to be a very grey area. The more I thought about our age gap, the more I looked into peoples' opinions on it online, and these opinions often didn't seem very positive. It made me super nervous about how people might view our relationship and also made me worry that I might be doing something predatory despite my intentions being pure. People in particular seemed to have issues when the girl was older (which I think is fucking weird, but anyway!) I'm a guy, but I'm FTM, only out to my boyfriend, and everyone around me knows me as a girl, so this was pretty worrying.

Our relationship wasn't a public thing - we're both private people and we wanted to date for a few months before going around parading it. But my boyfriend was getting more eager to show us off, which I was happy about before, but all my doomscrolling online had made me worry.

The breaking point for me was a youtuber from my country saying in a video that he found 18 and 21 creepy. Prior to that I'd tried to reassure myself with the idea that while people from like, the USA, might find the age gap weird, people from my own country (England) wouldn't care. But that video destroyed that safety blanket.

I became disgusted with myself and started to see myself as a bad person. I was also worried that when our relationship became more public, people would hate me. I've never had many friends, university is the happiest I've been by a mile in regards to my social life - I didn't want to lose that. Plus, I live at university and can't really move out right now, so I didn't want to be trapped with people who thought I was a creep.

So, after a particularly bad breakdown, I broke up with my boyfriend. I told him that I was struggling to juggle the relationship with my studies and was starting to become tired, and felt it was best for the both of us to end things. It was a believable reason because in general I have very little energy, so he completely bought it - but he was devastated. He kept apologising for not seeing the signs and kept saying he thought things were going so well, and he was right, because they were! I felt awful.

I feel really guilty about what I did, but I was in a state of panic. I don't know whether I did it more to 'cleanse' myself or for the sake of my reputation, I don't even know if the age gap is wrong, I don't even know if people would have reacted badly! I was just scared, but now I feel like a shitty person for what I did. I don't know if the reasoning behind my actions can justify completely blindsiding and lying to my ex like that. I thought I loved him, but maybe I don't if I was willing to do that!

So, tell me honestly, AITA?

[mrsparrasblog]

STRIPCLUB GHOST

I think he wouldn't go to a Stripclub in the Canon but my brain was working again lel. You can find more on my A03: Mrsparras

Moving to England to study abroad has always been your biggest dream since you were a child, so when you graduated and were old enough, you did it. You blessed Erasmus that you wouldn't have so much debt—well, at least you thought so, but in the end, you couldn't make ends meet.

So you decided to search for a job that you could do while studying that also fit with your busy schedule, so you started to work in a strip club in Soho under the promise that you would only be a waitress and nothing more.

You stood behind the bar counter wearing the skimpiest clothes you had and prepared drinks, and to your surprise, it was fun. Even watching the stripper from far away gave you straight-up BI panic; they were also beautiful and mature.

Surprisingly, you even got a lot of tips despite not dancing half-naked around the pole. The customers all called you Angel; being the youngest and most unattainable had its perks.

One day there was a new customer who wore a Ghost mask and was a brick house of a man. He was nice to you despite looking scary.

"Come on, Bunny, tell me why you are doing this," he asked while you served him a glass of his favorite Bourbon. He was nice, always left you a good tip, and was generous. So you didn't feel the urge to lie to him; why should you?

"I need to pay bills; food and rent are expensive in Manchester."

"I see," he said, leaving this time a 60-pound tip on his 18-pound Bourbon.

"Sir, it's too much."

"It isn't Bunny; buy yourself something nice with it, okay?"

And you did buy yourself a proper meal after a long time of only eating pasta with pesto, and it was delicious.

The next day, when you went to work, you got an offer from your boss: 500 pounds for a private striptease, 120 pounds more if it turns into a lapdance. You never wanted to do this; you couldn't dance, and you were insecure about your body. But it was easy money, and you could always bottom out if it was too much for you.

"The man left this costume for you behind." Your bodyguard gave you a bunny costume with bunny ears, white soft lingerie, and a bunny tail. Oh god, what a freak. Problem No. 2: It was at least 2 sizes too small, making your tits almost fall out.

You were curious to find out who specifically requested you, and when you walked into the private room, you saw Ghost. You were smiling; you knew you could trust him, and you would lie if you said you didn't develop a crush on him the last few weeks when he slowly became your regular.

"Ghost"

"Bunny"

"So, um, do you want me to dance?"

"I want you to be comfortable, but yes, I would love watching you dance."

So you began to dance awkwardly at first, but then you enjoyed it, dancing around provocatively, shaking your ass a bit in his reaction, and he enjoyed it. The half-hour stopped, and you were a bit sad.

"It was fun, Ghost."

"It was Bunny."

You thought it would be the last time you did this, but when your bodyguard told you Ghost requested you for the rest of the week, every day your vagina made this weird butterfly-clenching thing. You would dance for him every day.

So you began to dance with him every day, even being bolder and giving him a lap dance. You touched his strong abs while circling your hips around him. You were afraid that the fabric wasn't thick enough to hide your throbbing cunt.

"Love, please don't move," he whimpered.

You looked at him in confusion and asked, "Did I do something wrong?"

"Bunny, no, just don't move."

You felt his massive erection under you, and you grinded against him again. "Do you mean because of this?"

"Stop it. I don't want to use your poverty for my gain."

"Did you call me a prostitute?" You asked him, feeling completely furious, and you would have fucked him even despite the money.

"No Bunny I'm just saying you're too good for me, okay? Im a dirty man; men like me aren't made for little sweet girls like you," he said before leaving you in utter confusion, horny, and alone.

You didn't think he would return the next day, but he did, and you refused his cash this time before going to the private suite with him.

"Why do you refuse my money? You need it, and I have enough of it."

"I don't want you to see me as a prostitute."

"I could never see you as less than an angel."

This time you didn't strip for him; you just sat on his lap and talked. He told you that he works as a police officer, even though you thought this was a lie, and you told him all about your native country, how you moved here, and how you loved it.

"All I'm saying is I don't think sex is good enough to pay for it," you claimed while laughing. The erection pressing against your thighs was something you already got used to.

"Then you were with the wrong men before Bunny; sex is great."

"It's okay"

He laughed, "You never had an orgasm before ?" his fingers trailed down on the thin fabric of your pants.

You blushed immediately and shook your head, grinding against his fingers for the smallest friction.

"That explains why you are so desperate, Bunny," he chuckled and left.

The next day, one day before your day off, you went to work again, instinctively walking to the private room where he already sat, this time shirtless. He was the picture of a perfect man with strong abs, and a blonde happy trail down to his thick erection that was only covered by his briefs.

"Sit down and give me a lapdance, please, Bunny."

You sat down on him, but this time he grinded against you, not you against him. You would love that sudden change, but you were a bit mad that he left you yesterday after calling you desperate.

"Tell me you want me, and I'm all yours."

"I don't want you," you lied to him.

"I think you want this, bunny. Don't lie to yourself." He leans in close, his hot breath tickling your ear. "I can see it in your eyes. You want me to fuck you hard and make you scream."

"No"

"Yes, you do," he insists, pulling down your costume to expose your bare ass. His hand traces the crack in your ass before dipping between your cheeks, pressing against your entrance. "Admit it, bunny. You want me inside you."

"No, I don't want you," but your body betrayed your stubborn act. You were soaking wet and a moaning mess for him. He was so hot and big, and all you wanted was to let him take care of you. Let him show you what a real man is.

"Lie to me again, and I'll make sure you regret it." His fingers begin to probe, seeking entry into your tight little hole. "Tell me, bunny. Have you ever been taken like this before? Fucked raw by a real man." He laughed at you, his voice sounding mean and dominant to his usual nice behavior. Maybe he had a stressful day, but did you care about what made you so lucky today?

"Good," he growls, finally pushing past your resistance and forcing his middle finger inside you. "Because I'm going to make sure you scream for me." His other hand moves up to grope one of your breasts through the costume, pinching the nipple hard.

"Oh fuck, Ghost."

"That's it, bunny. Let me hear you," he demands, adding a second finger to stretch you wider. His thumb rubs over your hardened nipple as his fingers thrust deeper, searching for that sweet spot inside you. "You like that?"

"No," you moaned.

"Lie to me again, and I'll gag you," he warns, pulling his fingers free with a wet pop. "Now tell me the truth." He grabs your chin, forcing you to look him in the eyes. "Do you want my cock inside you?"

You were thinking of lying again only so that he could gag you, but you needed him right now more than you needed anything in your life before. "Yes"

"Good girl," he praises, lowering his mouth to capture one of your nipples in a hot, sucking kiss. His other hand slides down between your legs, rubbing against your pleading clit.

"You've never felt anything like this, bunny?" He purrs against your skin, "You just want me to shove my cock inside you and claim you as mine, don't you?" He already knew the answer, and he was determined to give you your real first orgasm.

"I never felt like this before, Ghost."

"That's right," he agrees, standing up and pushing your legs apart. His hot breath is fanning across your wet folds as he stares down at his prize. "You're going to feel even better when I'm buried balls deep inside you."

Your pussy clenched and throbbed, and now he saw the evidence of your lust.

"You see, bunny," he says with a chuckle, "your body knows what it wants." His thick cock is at your entrance now, slowly pushing inside. The head teased the tight ring of muscles before finally breaking through with a small groan from both of them.

"Oh god, it's too big." It was bigger than the dildo that you had at home, but you liked the burn and to be filled.

"That's because you've never had a real man inside you before," he growls, starting to thrust deeper. Each movement hits your sweet spot and makes your insides clench around him. "You like that, don't you? Feeling my cock stretching you out?"

"Ghost, im going to cum," you whined as he started to stroke your hard nub while he fucked you restlessly.

"Good," he says, picking up the pace. His hips slam against yours as he takes you hard and fast. The chair creaked under their combined weight. "You're mine now, bunny," he pants out between moans. "Say it."

"Im yours, Ghost," you moaned. He continued the abuse on your pleading clit, leaving soft hits on it before starting to circle it again how you liked it. He read you like a novel that needs to be analyzed. He tried to interpret every movement of yours and intesed his flicks against your clit until you finally came, screaming and crying. Your head fell against his neck, and you bit it like a feral animal. Fuck you thought what has gotten into you.

"There's my good girl," he murmurs, he leaned down to kiss you roughly. His free hand squeezes one of your breasts as his cock continues to pound into you. "This is how a real man fucks." Simon picks up the pace even more, grinding against you as his hips smack against your perfect ass.

The head of his cock hits that sweet spot inside you, again and again, sending waves of pleasure through your body. "Fuck,"

"Ghost, please." You started to whimper, being completely cock drunk.

"Please, what, bunny?" he asks between moans. His thrusts become even more erratic as he loses control. "Do you want me to cum inside you?" he asked while his eyes turned darker at the thought of claiming you as his, his little innocent bunny.

"Yes"

"Yes, bunny?" he asks teasingly. His free hand left your breast to snake down between your legs, teasing at your clit. His cock is throbbing inside you as he takes you harder than ever before.

"Yes, yes, please." You started to beg, and you felt a bit pathetic.

"Yes, what, bunny?" he asks, his voice rough with desire.

"Cum inside of me, Ghost."

"You want me to cum inside you, bunny?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. His thrusts become even more erratic as he nears his climax. "Tell me how much you want it."

"So much, Ghost," you whined.

"Tell me you're mine," he demands, his voice laced with need. His cock is throbbing inside you as he reaches his peak, filling you with his hot cum. "Say it, bunny." You were in orgasmic bliss, clenching around him as he erupted inside of your willing womb. You took everything of his big cock and cum so eagerly, almost greedy, afraid someone would steal it from you. I'm yours."

"Tomorrow at 8 p.m., I will pick you up; we are getting dinner."

You looked at him confused, and he only chuckled, "Did you think I fucked my perfect girl and let you leave then? No, we are going out; well, only if you want to go on a date with this old perverted dog."

"It depends on whether you are ugly behind the mask."

"Quite the opposite, love."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Berkeley Lovelace Jr. at NBC News:

The Food and Drug Administration is planning major changes for how Covid vaccines are rolled out and who will be able to get the updated shots this fall. In a paper published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s new vaccine chief, wrote that any new Covid vaccine now must undergo placebo-controlled clinical trials — meaning, some people would get the actual vaccine while others get an inactive substance like a saline shot, to compare results. At a planned FDA vaccine panel meeting on Thursday, agency advisor are expected to advise the vaccine makers which strains to target for new shots. The new clinical trial requirement isn't expected to affect the fall rollout for older adults and other people at high risk for severe illness because drugmakers are exempt from additional testing for those groups. Makary and Prasad said in a question and answer session later Tuesday that annual shots for healthy children and adults would no longer be routinely approved. They also suggested that the vaccines may not be updated each year. ”Instead of having a Covid strategy that’s year to year, why don’t we let the science tell us when we should change?” Prasad said. “The virus doesn’t have a calendar.” Previously, updated Covid vaccines had been cleared by the FDA similar to flu vaccines.

The original Covid shots, from Pfizer and Moderna, approved in late 2020, went through placebo-controlled trials. Then, the drugmakers transitioned to smaller studies to test how well the updated shots triggered an immune response against the current variants circulating in the U.S. In the journal article, Makary and Prasad cast doubt on the flu vaccine model, noting that only a quarter of people in the U.S. get the updated shots each year, including less than a third of health care workers. In comparison, about 75% of health care workers get seasonal flu shots, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Covid shot policy, the officials wrote, “has sometimes been justified by arguing that the American people are not sophisticated enough to understand age- and risk-based recommendations.” “We reject this view,” they added. Dr. Jesse Goodman, a professor of medicine and infectious disease at Georgetown University and a former chief scientist at the FDA, agreed that people can understand their own health risks, but was skeptical of the agency’s new approach, saying it limits people’s “freedom to choose.” “What about people with elderly or high risk relatives/housemates?,” he wrote in an email. “What about people who are not at increased risk of severe disease who want to reduce their risk of infection or time off from work?,” Goodman asked.

[...]

Who will be able to get the Covid shots?

Under the FDA’s new guidance, the drugmakers will need to run new trials that track participants for at least six months. The main goal of the trials should be showing that the shots help prevent symptomatic Covid, the officials wrote, with data showing at least 30% effectiveness. People who’ve had Covid in the past should still be included in the trial to better reflect the general population, they said. Drugmakers can still use smaller studies, known as immunogenicity studies, to get approval for adults 65 and up, as well as children and adults with at least one medical condition that puts them at higher risk for Covid. The FDA said many people are considered at high risk, including pregnant women and those with obesity or who have mental health conditions such as depression. Other conditions linked to severe Covid illness include diabetes, heart disease and asthma. “Ultimately, these studies alone can provide reassurance that the American repeat-boosters-in-perpetuity strategy is evidence-based,” the officials wrote. Estimates, they said, suggest that 100 million to 200 million Americans will have access to the updated vaccines.

[...]

Kennedy's influence on vaccine rules

A change to the way Covid vaccines are updated was expected. Earlier this month, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mandated that all new vaccines must undergo placebo-controlled clinical trials. Until Tuesday, it wasn’t clear whether HHS considered Pfizer’s and Moderna’s updated shots “new vaccines,” requiring new clinical trials. Former government health officials feared that the FDA, under Kennedy, was moving to slow-walk vaccine approvals. Over the weekend, the FDA approved Novovax’s vaccine after weeks of delay. In an unexpected turn, however, the agency limited the use of the shot to people 65 and up and teens and adults with at least one medical condition that puts them at risk of severe illness. Typically, it’s the CDC that makes recommendations about who should get the vaccines.

Coming this fall, thanks to the FDA and the Trump Regime’s pandering to the anti-vaxxer crazies: the COVID vaccine eligibility criteria has been significantly tightened to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one high-risk health problem.

See Also:

Reuters: FDA tightens requirements for COVID vaccine, adding trials for healthy adults

AP, via HuffPost: Annual COVID-19 Shots For Healthy Younger Adults, Children Will No Longer Be Routinely Approved

Finding Gravity (Jamison Foser): Anti-science Trump regime moves to ban vaccines

[fiuworks]

tell us about ALL your tma OCs. ALL of them

(you don’t have to do all of them. i for one am most interested in the slaughter and hunt kiddos)

HAHA if I talked about them all i’d be here all day….thus I will focus on the two!

Isabella is just a normal schoolgirl. She’s busy studying for her exams and practising for her extracurriculars, and what have you. A frequent visitor of her local rivers, Isabella likes to go searching for shiny trinkets and old shells, and the like. However, when she gets scraped by a frighteningly well-preserved musket barrel lodged in the river, something compels her to take it home. Something also compels her to melt down her flute into bullets. Something also compels her to go back to the river and find all the other weapons buried there. Something also compels her to break in to the nearby war bunker, in which she returns the weapons to the hands of the soldiers who have business unfinished. They welcome her as their new General. The slaughter is fond of her mindless obedience and her blind anger and her competence in military leadership. Veterans all over England find themselves endangered- though, nobody would suspect a little girl, right?

Isa is way more personal to me than all the rest of my ocs because . Well. He’s me! He’s my self insert, but like most self inserts, he’s become his own detached oc…but he’s still with me in my soul as my me…

Isfahan is a young man who just wanted to finish his animation degree. However, when he starts noticing homeless people going missing off of the tube, he starts to get suspicious. One day, he follows a classmate from a lecture to a date after she asks him to in order to check the guy isn’t a creep. But after realising the date hasn’t actually said any words at all, and after they get up and leave the restaurant without checking in with Isa, Isa follows them and watches as his classmate is devoured by a creature with no throat and far too many teeth. Ever since he has abandoned his studies to hunt down vampires and rid them of the earth, even going so far as to join forces with a friend, Scarlett, (my bff’s self insert) touched by another dread power (the eye) to run away to Romania in order to continue this fruitless pursuit.

He also has more art and stuff under his tag! I also have written out a full statement of his in Google docs :3

Offers them up to you in my hands like candy…

[sane-human]

I've been trying to find a civilization to look at most to tell the story of the Bronze age , and after some thinking I decided to put Ancient Egypt as a protagonis, since it is one of the civilizations that survived the Bronze Age collapse (others that survive are the Assyria , Elam and Phoenicians city states) and would connects to the Iron Age well in my opinion...

I want to have a "protagonist" or history for each era , based on who did the most change on the known world or fits better (like Egypt surviving) , but of course still taking into account the entire world too since it wasn't as connected as later modern times!

I also do like Mycenaean Greece and Sumer tho aaa ;v;

Anyways here's some rambles!

// I'll put Egypt as protagonist of the Bronze age, as in the two kingdoms and the the unified Egypt!

(3300-1200 BC)

//For the Iron Age I think the Greeks would fit better to tell!

(1200-500 BC) togheter in later stages with:

//The Romans for Classical Antiquity.

(700 BC - 400 AC (476) )

//Later Christianity for the middle ages (best)

(400 (476) - 1000 //first part//)

( 1000- 1450ish //second part)

//For the Renaissance I think it would be "Italy" (Maybe Florence??) following around the France Kingdom ,kindom of Englad, Portugual and the Spainsh empire learning the old ways and sailing around, or just going around Europe and stuff...

(1400ish- 1500ish)

//After comes the Age of Reason (or Enlightenment) (+ "Golden Age of piracy" + "Age of Dyscovery") and I think this would fit best for the duo of the France kingdom/ later France Repubblic/ empire and the Kingdom of England/ later the United Kindom + Spain and Portugual maybe as a second duo? A lot of things happen in here so I shall think it better...Like there is also the colonies, maybe that can be devided as two main points of view and then sub divisions depending on the colonial power at play.

(Also what the heck was going on in Asia during this period I have no clue...China domination?? I need some good books about that...)

(1685- 1815)

//For the Romanticism era I think would fit France most!

On the same level there would be the Industrial revolution , and that I think would fit the UK more!

(19th century- 1914)

Then there is the Great war and the modern things that I'll just do in my other blog as it is more detailed and recent!

Anyways I'm studying the Mionian Civilization now so... yeah a long way to go! But very fun! :D

When I have a pretty good understanding of the Bronze age and Iron age I'll start the asks again , I know some classical antiquity already and the middle ages too so I just need to study these two well to connect better later!!

I may alter these views after as I study more but for now this is a general plan!

Also I'll work on the languages and details about family links with cultures/people/kingdoms/Nations ect ((Languages connections are hard! ;v; but there is more to language to a nation like culture and history (I know wow), also there is difference between a nation and a state! So I'll try to work on that too))

[qqueenofhades]

For the history questions, what historical period has given you the most inspiration for your writing/muses?

I feel like it's a cop-out if I say "hmm, all of them," and this will end up just being a long recap of all my various projects over the years, but a) fuck it, this is my blog, I can talk about my own stuff if I want to, and b) there have indeed been Many, both fic and original. I usually pick settings for historical/historical fantasy AUs that I already know and want to write about, so:

The Lightbearers (Once Upon a Time) and Starlight & Strange Magic (Timeless) are both 19th-century Victorian England/Europe/steampunk, one in the 1850s and the other in the 1880s, with lots of magic and misadventure and so forth. You can tell that I was really into steampunk around 10 years ago (it was Formative, okay) and there were plenty of opportunities to do fun things with the historical setting and real-life personalities (the scene of Flynn breaking into Buckingham Palace to spy on Queen Victoria and William Gladstone remains a favorite). There is also my massive The Swan and Crossbones series (OUAT/Black Sails, two fics, 800k words), which is set in the 18th-century Caribbean, Golden Age of Piracy, and pre-Revolutionary America and is a retelling of Treasure Island + family saga + multi-generational/multi-character/multi-source material historical fiction, wherein I both wrote 800k words and did a shitton of extra research in the middle of getting a PhD. Don't ask me why I did this either, but I still re-read them, especially The Rose and Thorn (the second installment in the series) for my own pleasure.

My All Souls Timeless trilogy, following the source material, involved general historian/academia shenanigans and time travel to Elizabethan England, which was lots of fun to research and write about, even if I otherwise tend to think that the Tudors are often overdone. One of my most popular fics and best shorter-form (only 65k words...) historical/period pieces is deo volente (lux aeterna) for The Old Guard, which takes the crusades as its general starting point and thematic thread to explore religion, faith, immortality, power, war, violence, love, queerness, and other such things. Another popular fic of mine that spanned 600 years of history (starting in the 14th century) and explored various periods in detail is my Sandman fic and in the waking world we wait and want, with a particular emphasis on queer history. (You will find that crops up often in my stuff, regardless of the setting.) We also have why draw me to that promised land (Shadow and Bone), set in the 1980s Soviet Union (my boast for the accuracy of this fic, based on my previous studies in Russian/Soviet history, is that someone told me they learned more from this fic than an entire semester of a university class, which is not entirely good because I then had many questions about their professor, but there you have it).

When it comes to original novels, I started off also 10+ years ago with medieval England, with the The Lion and the Rose series and others. I am fond of this one because it was what got me into medieval history in the first place and because even now, it still sells fairly steadily and gives me a couple bucks in royalties every month. My newest book, The Empire of Bones, is based (loosely) on my fic The Key of Solomon and basically has everything I possibly wanted to cram into a fantasy historical setting, from anywhere and any time at all. Thus we have the Christian-era Roman Empire, an Islamic Carthage, the Byzantines, Imperial China, Russian Jews and Ukrainian Cossacks, the Mali Empire, Celtic Britain, so forth and etcetera, etcetera. So as noted, if it looks interesting, I will find a way to throw it and the kitchen sink in somewhere, and I have the issue that whenever I read a book about a new place or period, I go "hmm, I should figure out how to write something gay about this." Alas.

[bookmuseum]

[REVIEW] Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

5/5 stars (★★★★★)

"Come, I think hell's a fable." (II.i.128)

Aside from surface-level knowledge of Faustian contracts and an admittedly fervid appreciation for Yana Toboso's Black Butler manga (:3), I didn't know a lot about the myth of Faust and the history behind its many retellings, -- nor have I read the Thomas Mann version(s) or the Goethe plays -- so I did a lot of preliminary research before I actually dove right into it. The 1604 play ended up being one of the funniest things I've ever read in a long time. For that reason, this review is extremely short, unserious, and mostly just me reviewing the Broadview second edition edited by Michael Keefer that I used as a copy.

Basically, I regret reading Doctor Faustus for the first time with Broadview because, while it was informative and incredibly detailed (I'm a little concerned for Keefer's scholastic sanity), I wish I just read the play on its own with few to little annotations and context. I liked reading about Christopher Marlowe in the introduction. I had zero idea that homeboy was a spy and got murdered for it at only 29 years of age. I wish we knew more about him, I would've loved to read more about what crazy shit he got into as a political dissident in Elizabethan England. That sounds so kickass.

The story of DF itself is really short (shorter than most Shakespeare plays). Keefer's annotations and footnotes took up 70% of the space on the pages, so I'd read about 20ish lines then spend the next 5-10 minutes reading over what he had to say about them in painstaking detail. I read every annotation! Broadview prides itself on being exhaustive for the sake of maximized education, which I commend, but I think I underestimated myself when I thought I needed this much context to "understand" this classic play. If you know the basics of Greek/Roman mythology, post-Lutheran Christian doctrine, and Elizabethan English society + playwrights in general, (so essentially what they teach you about Shakespeare in high school) I'd say you're solid and don't really need the Broadview text (unless you want to really get into it).

For me, I just wanted to read the play casually so I didn't pay too much attention to the footnotes and forced myself not to go too deep down the research rabbit hole. I unfortunately forgot an important rule with literature in that a text's reputation is never as solemnly serious as it ever is in popular culture, so don't let it "scare" you into thinking you don't know anything going into it. I'm not an Elizabethan scholar nor do I really like Early Modern English literature all that much, so I thought I needed to know more than what I already did. I was wrong! I could've read DF when I was just starting to get into classic lit in Grade 9 and I still would've enjoyed it as is. It's not this impregnable, impossible to fathom text. It's so silly!

I get that this play is a tragedy and everything, but it genuinely did make me laugh out loud a handful of times. I was a graduate student too and, while I don't have my PhD in divinity, I kinda get how Faustus ended up summoning the devil in his college dorm/study one day for the fuck of it. Like yeah, what the hell, sure. When the iconic Mephistopheles shows up, Faust basically tells him he looks too ugly for his eyes so he has to change into a more palatable form -- and Mephi does it! That was so funny. I ship Faustus and Mephi, I don't care. I don't wanna go into it too much, but just know I'm not alone in my delusion and have spent a significant amount of time going back and forth between reading what people had to say about #Faustupheles on the internet and actually reading the play. I had a grand old time, I'll have you know.

Anyway, I opted out of reading Appendix C and D because they seemed boring to me so I can't judge them or their merit here. Appendix A and B, I did read though. I really enjoyed Keefer's inclusion of excerpts from The Historie of the damnable life, and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus (1592) (or The English Faust Book AKA TEFB) edited by John Henry Jones in 1994. I read it immediately after finishing the main play and was delighted the second time around looking back on the plot (although there were some changes in the TEFB that didn't hit as well).

[angelofthemornings]

Thing that's been nagging me: why do Americans think of ourselves as not being a literary or artistic culture? (Compared to, say, the popular image of the French.) We put a lot of ENTIRE MEDIUMS on the map (hip-hop, sequential art) and we've made incredible contributions to everything short of really culturally specific stuff like kabuki theatre. (Even among really culturally specific stuff, sometimes: I used to be in a taiko drum group and modern taiko drumming was influenced by jazz.) (Man, the Japanese are crazy about jazz. You're welcome.)

Aside from the fact that most of what I mentioned is considered either "low art" (thank you to comic book content laws for ruining THE ENTIRE FUCKING MEDIUM and condemning it to the "stuff for kids and immature adults" ghetto in the popular imagination) (this is changing) (slowly) or associated with the world's least favorite race (God forbid we take anything Black people do seriously), we've always had heavy hitters who work in a more prestigious medium, like playwrights, Criterion Collection-worthy film directors, and authors. (We will argue over whether this is because of America's unnerving cultural reach or genuine quality at a later date.)

There's probably some more subtle historical reason (if you have a degree in this topic, reblog and tell me) like America not being a stop on the Grand Tour or whatever - I bet the old-timey European conception of which countries are artistic and which are colonies to plunder has more to do with it than I think - but I think it has something to do with how little we respect artists. I volunteer with Ukrainian refugees and the fact that I've published some writing is a Big Deal to the people I've mentioned it to. Like, genuine admiration and "ooh I've never met a whole writer before", I'm not missing some form of sarcasm here. (I think.) I lightheartedly said to one that I don't mention writing poetry often because it makes me look like a pretentious asshole and she couldn't wrap her head around it. (Meanwhile, I don't think I've ever once mentioned my work on Reddit without someone making fun of me in the replies. Demographics of that site are about half American, so presumably at least half of the people making fun of me are Yanks.) We can't even tolerate people playing guitars at parties without people going "Look at that pretentious prick showing off" and yes, not being able to stand party guitarists *is* culturally specific. Get a bunch of Slavs together and *somebody* is pulling out a guitar.

And now I'm wondering why that is, and I'm gonna look towards the couple of semesters during which I studied for an archaeology/anthropology degree for an answer.

In anthropology, there's a general idea that the easier an environment is to live in, the more time people have to develop a complex cosmology and make advances in their art. There's an argument to be had here over what counts as complexity or "advanced" art, but you're going to have to bear with me here for a minute. I think America is just a tougher place to live than most of the "artistic" countries, historically and up to the present - not because of harsh natural environments, although white people's stubborn insistence on doing stuff like farming the European way sure *made* them harsh according to a settler POV, but it's largely due to pressures from religion and capitalism - so we developed values that helped us under conditions like the industrial revolution, forming dust bowls in our agrarian regions, and being surrounded by fucking Calvinists.

(It was not exactly fun to be like an English guy during the industrial revolution either, to the extent that the north of that country is STILL underrepresented in the arts, but England had a strong enough gentry that there were always people there to sit around writing poetry. America's gentry, in the sense of people who are wealthy from sitting around as part of a rich family, is a way more recent thing. Andrew Carnegie started out a dirt poor Scottish immigrant, Rockefeller himself began his career as a bookkeeper's assistant, Sam Walton grew up on a failing farm...etc.) (Ukraine's always been a little rough too, but there a lot of reasons behind why they value artistic expression to a greater degree that I won't go into just now, especially because I'm not tooooo familiar with Ukraine's artistic culture. Suffice it to say that much of it's because it's been a firm part of asserting and preserving a uniquely Ukrainian identity, to the extent that there's a famous writer whose pen name translates into "Lesya the Ukrainian." I imagine Soviet influence is a factor there too - art was taken deathly seriously in the USSR as a tool for either social advancement or social discord and "writer" was like a wholeass job. They literally had a union. The US didn't have pressures like that to make up for the "harsh environment.")

So, it's interesting to think about and I want to hear what other people have to say.

[usafphantom2]

This job is killing me, literally .

Army-Air Force Reconnaissance Study of 1977

T-R1 and the U-2

In the fall of 1977, Kelly Johnson, leader of the world famous “Skunk Works,” came to the Pentagon and briefed the Air Force Chief on a proposal to put side-looking radar on U-2’s and feed the data to a ground station. They idea was to map the battlefield for the Army and tell them where the tanks were and what they were doing.

The Chief tasked General Slay, Chief of AF Research and Development (R&D), to look into the idea. General Al Slay tasked his M/G Dick Henry and AF XO tasked my boss, B/G Creadon to do a study with the Army.

The study was to be an “all sources” study, which means; all intelligence platforms and collection devices, to include all future satellites, aircraft and ground stations had to be included in the study

The only place in the Pentagon that could do an all source study like this was my office.( Butch’s office was in the basement with a large vault) The study started in September and lasted three months. They worked every day, weekends included and I was the host so I worked every day too.

We had some persons from the; Army, SAC, NSA, DIA, OSD and Air Staff living in our office space. My Lt. Col. Rick Wheeler was the team leader and did a great job.

There was no place in the Pentagon to eat on the weekends so I would go to Ollie’s Trolley and bring back hamburgers for them.

One weekend the motor pool, which was right above my office, turned off the fan that kept carbon monoxide out of the area. Around noon, everyone was acting listless and something didn’t smell right. I called in the firemen and they tested the air, said we would all be dead in a few hours. I sent everyone home.

Rick and I went all over town briefing the study and the concept. We briefed everyone who had the proper clearances to include the CIA, Intelligence Community Staff, DIA, NSA, White House persons and Congress. I BELIEVE THAT WE WERE IN EVERY CLASSIFIED LOCATION IN Washington while briefing this new concept.

This study opened the U-2 line at the Skunk Works. Because the mission was to be tactical support to the Army they were to be called, the TR-1. The U-2 & TR-1 were almost identical, only some wiring was different.

The sad fact of this study was that Congress took funds from the Army (Guardrail) to fund this Air Force Program. The Army never again wanted to do a study with the Air Force.

I big fight began between Tactical Air Command (TAC) and Strategic Air Command (SAC) over who would own and fly them. My boss decided that I should referee the fight.

Each Command sent in a Brigadier General and me, a Colonel, sat between them in our conference room. One of the Generals, the one from TAC later became Chief of the Air Force.( Larry Welch?)

Written by Colonel Richard, Butch Sheffield, in his unpublished book

Some history I looked up. The one major difference between the U-2R and TR-1 was in the electrical system, but when all U-2R and TR-1's got new wiring they all got to be called U-2R. TR-Tactical Reconnaissance. TR-1 was designed to use the ASARS system A tactical reconnaissance version, the TR-1A, first flew in August 1981 and was delivered to the Air Force the next month. Designed for stand-off tactical reconnaissance in Europe, the TR-1 was structurally identical to the U-2R. Operational TR-1A's were used by the 17th Reconnaissance Wing, Royal Air Force Station Alconbury, England, starting in February 1983. The last U-2 and TR-1 aircraft were delivered to the Air Force in October 1989. In 1992 all TR-1s and U-2s were redesignated U-2R.

I am working on a deal right now to get my dad’s book published ~Linda Sheffield

@Habubrats71 via X

[tsibeyantiger]

How to write European characters for Americans (and for everyone else, but especially for Americans):

Rule number one: Europe is a continent, not a country. No, European countries are not like American states. They are all totally autonomous and may be massively different even when they are neighbours. So everything I tell you might not be the case in every country in Europe or not in all parts of all countries!

-not everyone owns a car and many people prefer public transport or bicycles over driving, especially in north western Europe. Places that cannot be reached by foot exist, but are rare.

- Euros are the currency in most countries, but not in all. Im countries poorer than the EU average, Euros might be accepted, too, in richer countries they will not be. Cents and 1€ & 2€ are coins, the rest are notes. The notes don't all have the same sizes! Cash payment is favored in some parts of Europe, card in others. Debit cards are way more common than credit cards!

- Eastern European countries are way poorer than Western European ones. You see a lot of people moving west for work. People from Western Europe hardly ever move to an Eastern European country.

- In Northern and Central Europe, pretty much everyone younger than let's say 70 speaks at least a decent English. Millennials and Zoomers often also speak French or Spanish. In Southern Europe, the younger generations usually speak English, but elderly people are usually monolingual. In Eastern Europe, German and Russian are common second languages, often even more common than English.

- in an elevator, people usually lean against the walls and look into the middle. Standing in the middle and facing the door is uncommon. Unlike in America, you keep your fork always in the same hand and do not move it to the other hand during the meal.

- Northern and Western European countries have got a lot of foreign citizens. South Asians, Africans, Caribbeans and other Europeans are typical in the UK, Arabs and Africans in France, Arabs and Latinos in Spain, Africans in Italy, Turks, Poles, Arabs and Russians in Germany, Arabs and South Asians in the Nordics. Eastern European countries are way whiter and their foreign population mostly consists of people from neighbouring countries.

- some countries prefer their local cuisine, others prefer international food. If a country has got a world-famous cuisine, it probably belongs in the first category, if not in the second.

- With the exception of a few countries (Ireland, Finland and the Baltics), football is the number one sport. Every country has got a national professional league, but especially people from smaller countries often support a team from another country, usually from England or Spain. Women's football is way smaller than in the US and is often ignored or forgotten. Even though each of these has got at least a small fan base in Europe, you cannot expect people to know anything about NBA, NFL, NHL or MLB. Other notable team sports are handball, basketball, ice hockey and rugby, but this depends very much on the country.

- in most countries, sports clubs play a huge role, and school and especially university sports teams hardly exist.

- colleges don't really exist in most countries. If you're going for an academic degree, you'll go to a university, for other careers you'll usually get trained by your company and acquire some kind of diploma. I actually never really understood the difference between a college and a university and so do probably most people here. Studying is not free in every country, but public universities are usually very cheap and under 1000€ per year. Applications for universities are way easier than in the US and usually free. Many people go to university in their hometown. It is not common to move out from home before your early twenties, especially in Southern and Eastern Europe, unless you go studying in a different city. Students live with their parents, in a flat share, with their partner, very rarely alone or in a student's residence. They do NOT share their bedroom with anyone and fraternities or soririties in an American sense do not exist in any country I know.

- Windows can and will be opened frequently. Air conditioning is common only in the Mediterranean and is used to cool down the room, not to let fresh air in. For that purpose, we open the window.

- for distances of a few hours, Europeans either take the car or the train. You can reach every major European city by train, but this doesn't mean the train service is always good. For longer distances, flights are common.

- Germany is always less modern and the Baltics are always more modern than you expect.

- Europeans are just as political as Americans, but every country has got a great variety of different political parties, even though usually 1-3 of them dominate the political landscape. "Liberal" means "center-right" in Europe. Leftists would define themselves as socialists, social-democrats, communists or anarchists. Most countries have at least one conservative AND one extreme right party.

- You can't just fire someone for no reason in most European countries. You'll often have to pay them at least a few monthly salaries as compensation. Every country has got universal health care, though it isn't always good or accessible, and it does NOT depend on your employment. The number of sick days is not limited and even though some countries work even more hours than America, people usually can't be contacted by their employer in their free time.

- the EU is often criticised, but mostly viewed as positive. National laws may not break European law and you see EU flags on many public buildings.

- if someone owns a gun, they are a hunter, a cop, a soldier or a gangster.

- parties start and end way later than in the US. In most countries, no club will close before 3am and you don't arrive at the club before midnight. Sometimes you can party until 8 or even 10 am.

- it is common to cross an international border for shopping if products are cheaper in the other country.

- people are less religious than in America. Even in the most hardcore Catholic or Orthodox regions, you don't see shit like in the US. People there might be frantically kissing some Saint's painting, but they don't believe Jesus died for their right to own a gun or stuff.

Feel free to add some!

[orangecatsmissingbraincell]

Introducing my YJ OC- Olivia Caroline Moore

Portrayed by Sophia Lillis in the teen timeline

The patrician winger with a burning need to win at any cost

First Moments

Olivia Caroline Moore entered the world on the 29th day of May, 1979. 5 months later she was baptized at St. Francis of Assisi's Episcopal Cathredal, the same church her great-grandfather's great-grandfather was baptized in. It was an important tradition for a child of the Moores to be baptized in their ancestral church. Their family was a bit of an anarchronism, perhaps more suited to the prior century than modernity. Even her two names were antiquated. Olivia came from her mother's favorite play- Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Caroline was a hereditary name. Every generation there was a Charles or Caroline which, at least according to familial tradition, was meant to honor their descent from King Charles of England, though the exact geneology was never proven

Growing Up

The Moores may not have been the richest people of Wiskayok, but they were definitely high on the social ladder. Her dad was one of the best cardiologists in the region. Liv, although unintentionally, wore her class on her sleeve. She always had the nicest clothes and spoke with an accent that bordered on Transatlantic, which prompted teasing from her teammates. Van in particular loved to asked her where she "pahked her cah” and, when they first met, Natalie would ask her “why do you talk like those old movies” She tended to add Y to words in something of an English manner such as chyewse instead of choose, and the way she pronounced the T in the middle of a word often sounded clippy to her peers. Though she often spoke fast, syllable was pronounced precisely since her father would always tell her to “speak with a purpose”

Her father, in typical fashion for the upper class intelligentsia, was determined to mold the young Olivia into something in the vein of the polymaths of old. When she was a small child, her dad enrolled her in both piano and violin lessons, and when she was 11 he had her study Latin. Though she never understood why she did it, she could flawlessly play the works of Mozart and Liszt and read Cicero and Virgil in their original tongue. She would have extra math just to make sure she stayed ahead of her classmates and her dad would handpick the books she read, favoring the writings of Melville and Tolstoy. Liv skipped the 7th grade as a result of the high standards. This style of parenting would be the origin of her anxiety

Her life was not all melancholy however. In return for her efforts, her father would always reward her with nearly anything she wanted. Her room was full of paraphernalia of all her favorite movies and her closet was stuffed full of new clothes. Summer trips to the Caribbean or Europe were commonplace. In the summer of '94, she visted the beaches of Aruba, toured the castles of England, and ran a shopping spree across Tokyo

Soccer

Addiction and obsession were the only two words that fit her drive in soccer. It was the only activity she got to choose herself. She embraced the pressure cooker that was varsity soccer and ever since her first goal she was an unstoppable force on the field. She would work herself to exhaustion every game just for the chance to score. Practice was treated with the same diligence a soldier would treat boot camp before the war. A game that didn’t fit her standards, even if to most people it would’ve been good, could cause her mood to crash for days straight. The standards she holds herself to are often so extreme that others, especially Van, repeatedly have to tell her to cut back

Although she was a year younger than many of her teammates, she refused to let that get the best of her. Her main source of success was her cardio, which let her run circles around the other team. She proved to be a dynamic winger, and operated with the rest of the team with near mechanic precision. Her and Jackie in particular formed a tight relationship on the field, with the two often setting up each other's shots.

Despite the huge differences between the two, Liv and Van would soon become close friends. It started when Liv asked her if she would help practice goals, which always ended with them just hanging around and chatting about whatever movies they had just rented. Though Liv would never publicly admit it, she did idolize Van to some degree and respected her playing the most out of anyone on the team

Flight 2525

The excitement and anxiety was palpable on the plane to nationals. The flight felt so optimistic for a short window of time. That peace was soon interrupted by the demonic groaning of the plane, the worst sound she ever heard. She blacked out shortly after. When she woke up she was laying on the dirt as all the girls gazed upon the carcass of their plane, trying to figure out what the hell happened and what came next. When she tried to sit up, a searing pain shot through her side

"Woah, woah, easy there" Natalie said as she eased Liv back down

Liv grabbed her side and felt the warm wetness of a running wound. Despite the fear of what had happened, she lifted her shift to the sight of several lacerations. With Misty's help, they turned her jacket into a makeshift bandage. Those cuts never truly went away even into adulthood

In the time following the crash, she took her chores with a stoic diligence. Her main contribution was sewing and maintaining their clothes. When winter began approaching, she helped fashion warmer items from what little animal skins they could scrounge up. She ended up being a decent forager too, and would often buddy up with one of the other girls to find any sort of fruits or nuts they could get their hands on

Post-crash

When she got home, she had a huge identity crisis when she tried to rationalize the wilderness cult with her Episcopalian identity. This drove her to academia where she would dedicate her life studying philosophy and the history of ideas. When she got out of an intensive therapy, she enrolled in Rutgers, but halfway through her second semester she had another nervous breakdown. Concluding that the issue was staying in New Jersey, she transered to Amherst. She would stay in academia, eventually receiving her doctorate in philosophy. Her dissertation was a dialogue over Kierkegaard's theory of anxiety. Her book shelf in her office contains various books by great philosophers such as Sartre, Kierkegaard, Camus, Seneca (in Latin of course), and dozens others. It’s also full of various religious texts, including the Bhagavad Gita, a Quran, a KJV Bible, the Avesta, and Metamorphoses, and she claims to practice all religions at once

For the next decade she lived fairly unbothered as a professor at a small liberal arts university in Vermont with her wife and adopted her daughter. Just when she finally thought she had fled the past, she found a letter in her office. When she opened it, she saw what seemed to be nothing more than a postcard. When she flipped it over she dropped the picture in shock. Someone had drawn the symbol that followed them in the wilderness on the back and below wrote "it's back"

@puppybutcher @baked-potatoes-rule since you wanted to be tagged