#a play on ivan the terrible if you cannot tell

[sniixnn]

dutch the terrible and his unruly son

[madamefeu]

Hi! Here’s what your favorite Miraculous Ladybug character says about you!:

Marinette: You’re a child. You’re a member of the target audience for this show, and you don’t know why all of these teens and adults are raging so much about the ladybug show, but you’re content to watch the show and beg your parents for the toys and the cereals. Do they taste good? Probably not. But they have Ladybug on the box so you don’t care

Adrien: You don’t have an ideal relationship with your father. You’re a chronic people pleaser and you have no sense of boundaries, and you need to learn how to say no. Also break up with your girlfriend, she’s not in love with you, she’s obsessed with you, there’s a difference. You are not a person to her, you are a trophy

Nino: You’re really nice and a great friend, but that’s kind of all there is to you. You’re like vanilla ice cream, you’re sweet, and you’re dependable, and you’re so inoffensive that no one could possibly hate you

Alya: Some people are destined for greatness. You are destined to forever be a sidekick, and you’re surprisingly ok with that. You like supporting others from behind the scenes, and you don’t want the spotlight

Mylene: 2010s alt fashion has you in a chokehold, and you never want it to let go. You will be wearing shorts over tights and owl necklaces until your dying days

Ivan: Shy people who have the most hardcore music on their Spotify playlists. You listen to Insane Clown Posse and Suicide Silence while doing laundry or walking your dog

Rose: You’re an uwu pastel girly with the cutest fashion sense, also you’re definitely not straight

Juleka: Goth lesbian. You have a crush on your best friend, and I know that she likes you too, so just tell her how you feel already

Nathanael: Stop trying to make your best friend come out, he might not even be gay. Ok, he might be, but he’ll come out in his own time, you can’t rush him

Marc: *Holds up non-binary flag as the French national anthem plays*

Chloe: We know, Chloe was done dirty by the show. Everyone knows it by now, so keep writing your fix-it fics, or shut up and find a better fandom to join

Sabrina: Stop having crushes on your bullies, they are terrible people, you cannot change them

Kagami: Mommy issues. Probably not heterosexual. Probably needs a lifetime of therapy

Felix: You have daddy issues and you date girls with mommy issues, also I would bet my life savings on you not being neurotypical

Lila: Yet another brilliant character who was completely done dirty by the show. Go join the Chloe fans and write fix-it fics together

Toxinelle: You have a type, and that type is emo girls. You unironically love listening to them ramble about their latest edgy wolf OC or what they bought at Hot Topic

Griffe Noir: You’re in the same boat as the Adrien fans, but you also have a huge crush on an emo girl. If you wanna impress her, learn to play her favorite songs on guitar or write a poem for her. She’ll go nuts for that

[llendrinall]

Literacy in OFMD

One of the things I like most about OFMD is how they manage to discuss the ugliness of inequalities and class relations while still being a comedy. Episode 5 opened the windows of my house to let in clean air and light. There is a lot to play with and analyze in the show: race relations, gender relations… and education, specifically literacy.

 So who reads and writes in OFMD?

At The Revenge, Lucius states that only Stede and him can read and write. This is confirmed when the crew postpones the mutiny because no one else can read the stories. They are all illiterate… but not to the same degree.

No, I don’t mean Jim. Actually, I posit hat Jim doesn’t write, only Boni does. I will elaborate later.

More interestingly, Frenchie doesn’t read or write but he fakes writing twice (the journal, the pyramid receipts). I theorize that he has some basic literacy skills. He might not be able to read words, but he can tell from context cues what a document should say even if he can’t read the message. i.e.: this is an invitation, this is road sign, this is a notice, this is likely a wanted poster, etc.

At Queen Anne’s Revenge (the canonical name of Blackbeard’s ship, not stated in the show, omg) there is no definite information one way or the other. Nothing about Ivan and Fang. Izzy is seen holding books, but he focuses on the pictures. Later he tears one off and shows it to Ed, rather than read a description of the fearsome Blackbeard. Mmh...

In episode 9, in a terribly vulnerable moment Blackbeard signs his name with an X (and Stede notices!). He also recognizes that the tricky information is on the small font, “that’s how they get you” he says. This is a devastating line. It shows that Blackbeard knows how written documents can and have been used to take advantage of people. It tells a lot about his background. That’s how they get you, by writing things you cannot read.

At The Republic of Pirates there are wanted posters for Bonifacia Jimenez which points at the idea that some people must be able to read them. Later we learn it was a taunt for Boni, so it’s possible that Spanish’s Jackie expectations of a reading public were small. But, in any case, this points that someone out there can write and had access to a printing press. There are some small signs here and there pointing at shops. This location works as a hinge between the ships, where the majority is illiterate, and…

The society at Barbados where we see newspapers, books and leaflets all around. This is a society where the expectation is that everybody is literate and that important information is passed in written form.  

Finally, the imperial ships be they British, Spanish or French, function as an extension of the land and thus put a lot of stock into writing.

 Why is writing important?

Because verba volant scripta manent. That is, the spoken word is made of air and carried just as easily, but the written word stays. Even now, today, we put a lot of symbolic power in the act of writing. We still use weird scribbles as proof of identity even though they are ridiculously easy to forge because the action of writing one’s name is a ceremony on itself. Writing is a promise of permanence.

The difference between speech and writing is underlined in the scene in which we are told about the Act of Grace. King George speaks and his word is law. I, the king, hereby promise and declare… his speech is unnatural and careful but then he stops, amends, changes his mind, and finally tells the scribe to put “act of grace” that’s the best name yes. This shows that, even with a king, the spoken word isn’t as important as the written one. Writing has the power of changing reality in a way speech doesn’t.

(Although sometimes it does. Sometimes the spoken word has magic powers. This is called a perfomative utterance inside the illocutionary acts, the mere fact of saying something makes it so).

 And what are they writing?

That’s the thing, dear reader. Themselves. They are writing themselves.

 Bonifacia writes to remind herself that she is an orphaned girl masquerading as a pirate and that she has to complete her quest of revenge. There is this line, me sudan hasta los cojones que no tengo (I’m sweating up to the balls I don’t have) that serves to remind her that she is not Jim. But once Jim opens up to the crew and develops that identity, the writing stops. Honestly, good for you, Jim. While Bonifacia has to keep a diary so she won’t stray from the revenge path, Jim doesn’t need to commit their identity to paper.

Mary presents herself to society as the The Widow Bonnet. I don’t know what else I can tell you. This is not a name, it’s a marital status and a man’s last name and it is also freedom and Mary grabs it with both hands. This is what she wants to be, even if she has to renounce her name.

Stede writes (or has Lucius write) his life as a pirate. Even though it is a highly let’s say, decorated, version, the fact that it is written makes it real. Lucius immediately realizes the diary can and will condemn Stede. And it does! Badminton refuses to believe the account, but it is there and it’s is damning. This is what Stede wanted to be, what he wrote himself to be, and what he has to pay the consequences of being. Blessedly, the diary also saves Stede’s life. And that’s such a beautiful chain of language acts! The king speaks, the scribe writes the Act of Grace, Stede verbally invokes it, the diary supports it and the whole thing is closed with a drawing and a written signature.

And maybe, maybe, Blackbeard does know how to read (we see him opening books) but he signs with that painful, heart-rending X because he doesn’t know what name to use.

[tinytinybumblebee]

Could you do some baby Izzy headcanons?

!! Absolutely, Izzy is lowkey my favourite character (next to Jim n' Ed xD)

• Constantly needs to be reminded to "use gentle hands" when playing with others because Izzy will get very involved in whatever he's doing and sometimes (98% of the time) gets frustrated or doesn't want to use his words and just, throws hands or grabs things away from others (It's something Stede is working on but, unsurprisingly, teaching gentle manners to a pirate in his terrible 2s isn't a walk in the park😂)

• He's verry reluctant to share his regression with others, he has that constantly mean voice in the back of his mind that makes him sure others would be mean to him about it ;^;

But! Little does he know that Stede would never ever judge or ridicule him for regressing, he'd want Izzy to feel safe enough to freely be small! (But, for the most part, Izzy would just be small on his own-)

• Grumpy! Dear gosh he needs a nap but, he's constantly at the "too tired to sleep" stage so, you have a fussy lil Izzy. He pouts and crosses his arms over his chest when things aren't going exactly his way, he just has a lot of frustration and big emotions that are hard for him to explain or express so, he'll have fits and sometimes just start crying at what seems incredibly mundane for another (like, Stede picking the yellow book instead of thr blue one)

• He knows the Ed regresses- and he genuinely wants nothing more than to be tiny along side Ed, have a playdate. But, he can't even bring himself to admit that to himself ;0;

That is, until Stede sorta caught on- he'd catch a glimpse of Izzy seeminly longingly staring as Stede is coddling a tiny Ed. And then one day, Stede and Ed catch up with Izzy in Stede's quarters and bring it up the idea of a playdate ;w;

• Being sick (especially seasick) makes Izzy feel very small! He doesn't like feeling yucky, not having control over how his tummy is feeling is scary to him and he just wants to have someone rubbing his back and taking care of him or to reasure him that this will pass and he'll be able to play again soon♡

• Fang and Ivan definitely know about Izzy's regression and, they've definitely tried to help Izzy out or talk to him about it in a supportive way

• Surprisingly, when tiny, he likes being called Israel the most. But, any nickname given to him he likes (Busy Izzy, Tizzy Izzy etc.)

• Loves playing pretend, mostly it's where he is some king but a really badass one that sword fights and stuff! (Which, Stede indulges him because god, it's kinda cute hearing what Izzy assumes is fancy person talk)

• Cannot have his peas touching his potatoes, don't know why, he just won't eat it if that's the case (and he has been known to throw it on the floor, if he's particularly cranky- but, Stede stopped that habit and explained how that might hurt Roach's feelings because he cooked that up and guided Izzy to instead tell him that having those touch upsets him☆)

• When tiny, he sucks his thumb or in general chews on things especially his sleeves ;u;

• Like previously said, he's definitely in his "Terrible Twos" when tiny, which just means he needs more guidance with his emotions and how to move those feelings into something creative or expressive that isn't hitting or biting

Aaaaa that's all i have right now but I might have more soon!!♡

[joachimnapoleon]

“You can never know how attached to you I am”

Today (25 March) is the shared birthday of Joachim & Caroline Murat (in 1767 & 1782, respectively), so I've put together a little something to provide some insight into their relationship. There's one period in particular during which an abundance of letters exists from Caroline to Joachim: their long separation(s) during most of 1810. 

Joachim and Caroline arrived in Paris in December of 1809; Joachim returned to Naples at the end of January 1810, but Caroline remained in Paris. When arrangements began to be made for Napoleon's wedding to Marie-Louise of Austria, the Emperor chose Caroline to go out to meet the new Empress and accompany her back to France. Joachim briefly (and reluctantly) returned to Paris for the wedding, and then left again for Naples, where he was preparing to lead an expedition to capture Sicily and unite it to the throne of Naples. Caroline did not return to Naples until August, and it was another two months until she was reunited with Joachim.

The Murats' relationship had not been harmonious since Napoleon had put them on the throne of Naples in 1808. Joachim feared being relegated into a humiliating background role like the husbands of Caroline's sisters, and did all he could to minimize his wife's role in managing the kingdom's affairs. But the Neapolitan court soon divided into pro-Italian and pro-French factions, with Joachim as the figurehead of the former, and Caroline, the latter. As Joachim found himself increasingly out of favor with Napoleon, Caroline (and her faction) gained more influence, which further strained their relationship.

During their brief stay in Paris together for Napoleon's second wedding, however, a reconciliation occurred. Shortly after Joachim's departure, Caroline began to (correctly) suspect that she was pregnant. Her letters to Joachim during this period are full of affection, but also anxiety over his Sicilian expedition, and gently-worded advice/guidance on various political matters.

There are over sixty of these letters in Volume 8 of Murat's published correspondence (it’s a one-way affair; Caroline apparently was in the habit of destroying most of her received correspondence, so unfortunately very few of Murat’s letters to her remain, and none from this period). This post is a compilation of choice excerpts from some of these letters. I wanted to showcase a little of everything here--not just the affection and sweetness, but also the politics, Caroline's anxieties, Napoleon's stubbornness (note how long it takes Caroline to actually get permission to leave Paris and return to Naples later on), the references to their children, and a touch of Caroline sniping at Joachim for his "unfairness". And also, Caroline's voice isn't heard nearly enough in narratives about her life, which tend to revolve around her betrayal of her brother. These excerpts show a side to her with which most people are totally unfamiliar.

***

Source: Lettres et documents pour servir à l'histoire de Joachim Murat, Vol 8.

***

Paris, 3 February 1810

My sorrow is very deep and I am very sad over your departure. I await your news with impatience and I hope that you will give it to me soon.... I am with the Emperor in order to not cry at finding myself far away from my children. Embrace them for me and think that there is someone at the Pavillon de Flore who is very attached to you and thinks of you often.

***

Paris, 5 February 1810

I am very impatient to receive your news, it seems to me that you don't hurry to give it to me.... I am still very sad at finding myself all alone and I envy your happiness at being with our children. Embrace them tenderly for me. The Emperor is always very good to me, he spoils me, he speaks to me often of you and seems surprised that we still don't have your news. Write me very quickly.

***

Paris, 6 February 1810

I very much regret not being with you. I weep from sadness, you can never know how attached to you I am and all the happiness that I wish for you. If you go to the provinces, watch out for those wicked Calabrians.

***

Paris, (7 or 8?) February 1810

We went to the ball at Princess Pauline's yesterday and today to the hunt, the weather was very wet and the Emperor told me: "Ah well! The Lazarone forgets you, he no longer thinks of you, he is going to be very upset, because I'm marrying an Austrian." But all this while laughing. I believe that since he is marrying an Austrian, you should not show any repugnance, because as it is neither you nor I who can decide it, that it is apparently his policy which gives him this counsel.... I hope that you will come back for the wedding and that you will bring me back to Naples to leave you no more. Embrace our children for me, don't spoil Letitia and Achille too much, consider that children are not born for our pleasure but to make them happy. Do like me, I've often deprived myself of the pleasure of seeing them, for fear of spoiling them.

Adieu, Naples; Naples, I miss you, as well as the beautiful terrace.

***

Paris, 12 February 1810

I am very sad. There is talk that I will make a great voyage. The Emperor desires that I go to Braunau to find the new Empress.... When everything is decided, I will send you an auditor to tell you the day of my departure and the time of my absence.... I write to Achille often, I hope that he makes a collection of my letters. Don't take Letitia out too much, it will hurt Achille and Lucien.

***

Paris, 24 February 1810

The evening before yesterday, I had an accident that might have become a disaster, but was nothing more than a fright.

We were playing blind man’s buff in the Emperor’s apartments, when the hard and pointy forehead of Mme Duchatel came so unfortunately against my eye that the blow tripped me over. The Emperor supported me in his arms and prevented me from falling. The pain had been so bad that I gave a sharp cry and believed my eye was out of its socket. The Emperor, full of kindness, frightened for my situation, immediately called Ivan, who bathed my eye, put a poultice and a black blindfold on it, and soon I had the air of an invalid in the midst of the salon. The Emperor has showered me with attention, he came to see me, he has been anxious. Today, I have a great contusion, my eye is very black from extravasated blood, but I don’t have any pain. I am aggrieved to have to tell it to you, since you like Mme Duchatel, you find her to your tastes, but she has terribly pointy bones that hurt a lot. Indeed, the poor woman has been desolate to see me in this state by her fault.

Don’t be too worried about my accident. By the time you receive this letter, it won’t be visible anymore.

***

Paris, 27 February 1810

I strongly urge you to come for the wedding. Jérôme, the Viceroy [Eugène], Elisa, all the family will be reunited, your absence will have a bad effect and will greatly upset the Emperor. You know that I will be very glad to see you, but I assure you that it is your interest alone which makes me press you to come, because the Emperor will be very discontent. If, however, you have strong oppositions which will prevent you from making this journey, write to me secretly and if this occurs, write a charming letter to the Emperor to excuse yourself. But I repeat to you, I regard your arrival for the wedding as a very useful thing to our interests. The Emperor is excessively occupied with his future, he speaks of it all the time and is almost in love with it. Everyone who was opposed to the marriage is now in joy. You know my good and my constant friendship for you; listen to the counsels of a friend who only desires your happiness. Show no more opposition which will turn to your detriment; your inclination for the Russian alliance will become suspect in the eyes of the Emperor, who wants us to think like him.... I am charged by the Emperor with the formation of the household of the new Empress. I work from morning to evening and my apartments are always full of visits from solicitors. I cannot express to you all the sorrows I had from the fear of being named superintendent of the Empress's House, but I could not decide on it, because I would have needed to stay absent from Naples for two years and been deprived of the pleasure of seeing you as well as my children. The Emperor made me the most beautiful and kindest propositions and his intention was to elevate this position so much that it would not have been beneath the title of Queen.... You see that the Emperor wanted to do a very kind thing for me, but the separation I would've had from my family caused me too much pain, and without offending the Emperor, who always has a perfect kindness for me, I managed to see him forget this plan, because he perceived that it hurt me too much. The intention of the Emperor in fixing me with the new Empress for two years was to have her led as he desired and to prevent a crowd of people who think badly from surrounding her and showing her their bad feelings.

***

Paris, 28 February 1810

I do not want to complain of you, but I hope that on my return you will spoil me so much that I won't want to come back to Paris. Don't be upset by this little jest and read the charming letter from Joseph that I'm sending you, and give to Achille and Letitia the letters their uncle wrote them. Embrace them for me. I am very happy at the idea of seeing you again soon.

***

Munich, 18 March 1810

I sighed at the description you gave me of your dinner with our dear children, and I am quite sure that you thought of me; my entire heart and soul go continually with and amidst you. I am charmed that Achille is satisfied with his electric machine; it seems that our dear Louise will still read before Lucien, but this is not astonishing: this poor little one is still too slow in his studies by some indisposition.

***

Vitry-sur-Marne, 26 March 1810

Princess Pauline just wrote to me that you complain about me not writing you often; so you will never stop being unfair. I arrive very fatigued, very overwhelmed with matters and I often take away from my sleep in order to write you and yet you complain! I write you more letters than I receive from you. Adieu, I will be happy when you still stop being unfair, because your unfairness has always hurt me very much. I embrace you and love you very tenderly.

***

Compiègne, 18 April 1810

You have left, my dear friend, and I am very sad here. I hope that you will write me a little word before your departure from Paris and that you will promise to give me your news often along the road. Don't leave me for a long time without your letters like on the first journey, and consider that when we are separated, we are happy to receive the news of those we love very tenderly. You know if you are dear to me and if I can part in thought for even a moment with the father of my children. You are going to see them, those dear children, speak to them of their mother and embrace them for me. At the moment of your departure I still wanted to tell you many things for them, but those moments are always cruel and make you lose everything you had in mind. Adieu, my dear friend, believe that I will write you often and that we will still have in common the displeasures as well as the happiness of life.

***

Compiègne, 22 April 1810

I'm very afraid that you will not take Sicily, do not undertake this expedition if you are not sure to succeed.... The Emperor seems to me very well disposed towards you and he spoke to me about you a lot yesterday.... I am going to tell you also that I was penetrated with sorrow seeing you leave and especially penetrated by the kindness you had for me; you have never been like that and I admit that it filled me with tenderness, and it gave me the courage to ask you for what I want, without having the fear of you getting angry as you always did, which made me want to ask you for nothing nor to owe you anything.... [the end of the letter is missing]

***

Compiègne, 26 April 1810

My very dear friend, I spoke to the Emperor about the licenses and he told me he was going to send them to you, which, I am sure, will give you great pleasure. I am leaving at five o'clock in the morning to go to Saint-Quentin; will not be on the great voyage [with the Emperor and Empress], because my health is not too good, having always the same hopes, I would be afraid of fatiguing myself.

***

Paris, 4 May 1810

Yesterday, I was at Neuilly to dine with Paulette, I cannot tell you how sad I was to see once more the places which painfully reminded me of our children and you and our walks; it's a very beautiful place and the weather was superb.... Adieu, my dear friend, my health is still faltering and I am anxious about your expedition, give me your news as quickly as possible and believe in a tenderness unbounded. Adieu, my friend.

***

Paris, 6 May 1810

I will confess to you that I believe more than ever that I am pregnant, and my very sufferings prove it to me, I'm taking care of myself and I don't want to expose myself to any fatigue which might do me harm.... Write to me soon and tell me exactly if you believe you will make the Sicily expedition. This Sicily [expedition] worries me very much and I tremble at the idea of all the fatigues you are going to suffer.

***

Paris, 8 May 1810

I received your letter from the 27th which tells me of your arrival in Naples. I cannot tell you how much good and bad it did me. My poor children! To see them in your arms asking you for their mother is an image that brings me to tears. My God! When we are once again reunited, we must not be separated anymore. You have found them so grown, charming, judge what they will appear to me after a longer absence. Embrace them for me, repeat to them that their mother will never be perfectly happy far from them, far from you.

***

Paris, 11 May 1810

My dear friend, this latest separation seems more unbearable for me than the others. You were so good, so perfect to me in your last moments, that those proceedings touched me to tears and still penetrate me with tenderness. I confess to you that when you do justice to all my feelings for you, I am the happiest of women. Believe that my happiness, the happiness of my whole life, consists only of the happiness of the father of my children, of the one who I regard as my best friend.

***

Morfontaine, 16 May 1810

My dear friend, I am here since yesterday and I confess to you that these places have given me a very agreeable sensation; it is here where we were united, this is where I began to have for you the feelings that I still retain, plus those added by esteem, habit, and good friendship. I would like to see you here with me, and I believe that my happiness would lack nothing, if we could join our dear children here.

***

Paris, 19 May 1810

I am very sensitive to all the care you are taking for my apartments; the idea that you are occupying yourself with them makes these cares all the more pleasant. You've been so good to me for some time that I cannot express to you how sensitive I am to it. It is very sweet for me to take all the pleasures of my life and my happiness from you who I love very tenderly. You are right, we will be very happy, when we will be reunited, take care of your health.... Adieu, my friend, I embrace you from the bottom of my heart.

***

Paris, 31 May 1810

I desire so much to see you, to embrace you, I think unceasingly of all your fatigues, I fear also that your health might not sustain itself with this great heat, I fear so many things that I am always in a continual state of anxiety. Write to me at least as often as you are able and reflect how unhappy I am every time the estafette arrives without bringing me your letters.

***

Paris, 1 June 1810

My pregnancy advances, however I am not getting too fat and it is not very apparent, but I often have sicknesses that tire me greatly; I am of an unequaled impatience to return to Naples, it seems to me that I will be closer to you and that at least I will share in part your fatigues, your disagreements, your dangers and that I will have your news at each instant. The Emperor arrives today and I will ask him to leave in eight days, I can no longer remain here, I am bored, I am anxious, it is not living to exist like this. And my poor children! I have so great a need to embrace them!

***

Saint-Cloud, 6 June 1810

My dear friend, I hope to depart on the 30th, the fêtes will finish on the 25th, but the Emperor will not hear of me leaving before all the fêtes are finished; he fills me with kindness and is very good for you... I embrace you as I love you, which is to say, very tenderly.

***

Saint-Cloud, 16 June 1810

I have already sounded out the Emperor two or three times about my departure, but he always responds with an angry air: "To put yourself en route with this heat!" I haven't dared to insist and I'm waiting for the fêtes to be terminated to beg him to permit me to go rejoin my children and to put myself closer to you. I hope he will grant it to me, because he is very good for both of us. I receive every day news of our children and it is a great compensation for such a cruel absence. I believed I would only be separated from them for one month and here are seven months elapsed.

***

Rambouillet, 9 July 1810

My very dear friend, you are kindness itself to profit from all your free moments to give me your news and to calm my vivid worries; at last, you are able to cross, I make wishes for it to be with full success, but I still recommend prudence; reflect that your existence belongs to your wife and to your children....

***

Rambouillet, 18 July 1810

I was a little indisposed yesterday, I am better today, I count on taking leave of the Emperor tomorrow, and, if he grants it to me, I will depart the day after tomorrow. Adieu, my dear friend, I have an extreme desire to embrace you, I feel that I will only be happy and calm when I see you near me again; absence is too cruel a thing for two beings who truly love each other, and reunited to our children, what happiness could we envy?

***

23 July 1810, 1 o'clock in the morning

My dear friend, I'm leaving in one hour. In twelve days I will embrace my children. I will arrive in Naples unannounced, because I want neither fêtes nor pleasures in your absence.

***

Caserta [Naples], 3 August 1810

I only have the time to tell you, my dear friend, that I have arrived in good health, that I am the happiest of mothers, that my happiness was not complete, not having you with me, but that I am already happier by the idea that I am nearer to you and that I will have your news more often. I found our children grown, beautified; in truth, we have nothing to complain of, we are at the height of happiness by possessing such a treasure. I don't speak to you of their cries of joy, or of their tears, you can guess all of that. Oh! My friend! What a delicious moment! I will have the same when I see you again and then we will not have to complain about anything, since we will all be reunited.

***

Unfortunately, the immediate aftermath to this series of hopeful and loving letters, was not a happy one. Caroline's fifth (and final) pregnancy ended in a miscarriage in September. At that same time, Murat's Sicilian expedition took a frustrating turn; Murat's authority over the French troops participating in the expedition was undermined by orders from Napoleon to his generals, leading to their refusal to take part in the attempted (and ultimately abortive) crossing to Sicily. The expedition ended in failure and Murat returned to Naples deeply embittered. Over the next year, his relationship with Napoleon reached its lowest point--one could argue the lowest point it would reach up until its total rupture in 1814--and Caroline would find herself returning to Paris in 1811 to try to bridge the gap between her husband and her brother (again).

[thepeachgreentea]

this got Real Long Real Quick...

I wanna know more about Luka's soul song gift - like how much do emotions or personality play into it? ((I’m going with a lot)) Does it only work in person?? Or can he get like snippets from videos or vibes from pictures? Like it would make sense if it was only in person...... But where's the fun I'm that? Realistically it wouldn't be as strong as in person but I could see him getting some stuff. Pictures it probably wouldn't be a lot, or even much of anything, unless the soul song really didn't match the picture...

Which means Luka is one of the first people to realize something is Up with Adrien (and the Agrestes in general)

The ads around the city never felt right, never matched up with the snippets/vibes he was able to get - unless Adrien was supposed to be sad or melancholy. Which is... yikes...

Then the Adrien The Fragrance commercial happens. And that's an additional big Fucking Yikes

Like I can only imagine that Adrien isn't particularly big on modelling in general from what we've seen (with the Marinette-exception) so the filming of that could have only been Worse than normal. How many times did it take to get the emotions at the ‘right’ level? How long did it take to get the angles and all the action done?

Anyway: after the first time Luka literally cannot stomach watching it or even listening to it because it is so Wrong. The soul song snippets from the video are longer and more intense and it is just so discordant that Luka can't deal

Adrien is most certainly NOT feeling carefree. Or radiant. Or remotely dreamy. He's goddamn exhausted, frustrated, resigned, depressed, sweaty, anxious, awkward, stressed. It is a whole stew of (teen) angst offset with that upbeat music and the bright blue sky & all that w h i t e and the jumping for joy

It is such a strong dichotomy Luka has a visceral reaction every time and has to either leave the room or mute it and look away,

All of that means that after he meets Adrien in person, and gets to hear his soul song in a couple different situations and can see his emotions matching internally and externally he basically tells him they will always have space for him on the Liberty. (Also the first time he saw the LB + CN movie and heard Adrien's voice acting he only picked up some nerves - easily attributed to a new situation rather than a secret identity - but he was clearly enjoying himself even if it was a terrible script)

Therefore, Luka doesn't have particularly good feelings towards Gabriel, even before seeing any videos of him.

Style Queen was a Time. He was happy for Adrien but the bits he was getting from Gabriel were so rigid and tight... And rather selfish to boot. Which was weird given the situation

He has to try very very hard to not sneer or snarl at the tablet he first "meets" him on - probably at a Kitty Section practice or concert or at some class + family event.

I can also v easily picture him meeting him in person and being super uncomfortable at the sheer amount of manipulation and self-aggrandizing, selfishness, etc that rolls off of Gabriel, basically choking out his soul song. Either Lula barely refrains from punching Gabriel and manages to shake his hand but then desperately needs to clean his hands. Orrrr he does punch him and then basically coats his hands in sanitizer (either way he is Nino’s absolute favorite person for this alone)

Also, this would not be the first time Luka has figured out an abusive situation. It has happened with both his own and Juleka's friends & classmates. He is v much a protective older brother at heart

And because I damn well can have some Lila salt, some of which has been touched on before, unlike with Gabriel:

He had heard about her from Juleka and Kitty Section and was a bit confused about it but it wasn't until Rose was over and the girls were telling him about some of Lila's stories that he saw a picture of her.

And that was The Strongest he had ever reacted to a picture before: instant chills up his spine and an actual hiss escaped him

All 3 of them are shocked. Luka then has to explain that reaction as best as he can. Which is hard when you aren't great at words and while the soul song fragments are rather clear he would never make his guitar suffer trying to recreate them.

He manages tho and Julerose are at least wary of her afterwards. They start observing her more and a lot of her behavior and the way she talks can be very off-putting. They start noticing some of the digs that she makes at others, that she contradicts herself 5 different ways, and how she is constantly bringing the attention back to herself.

During all this they start noticing how both Marinette and Adrien react to her and it is Not Good. Mari gets defensive and will often try to bring up those contradictions that they started noticing. But jealousy is only a minor factor, at most. In certain situations it is possible that it could be involved... except those only happen when Adrien is looking very uncomfortable and Marinette notices or they make eye contact and then Marinette creates an opportunity for him to escape

Which is something that no one else is noticing which is really terrible and unhealthy...

Around this time is when Ivan has started to figure out something is up. and then he definitely knows when Julerose show Luka a video at a private band practice.

Because video and in person interactions make the BadBadBAD feelings worse and Ivan, while he often struggles with understanding & expressing emotions, has definitely noticed Lila - even though she is not actually there - causes a lot of stress and anxiety to Luka and he has gotten really good at methods of lessening those.

So, Luka sees the video with/of Lila and has an even stronger reaction than the picture before. His eyes get huge, and his face pales (gets slightly sickly?), and he hisses even stronger than the first time

He refuses to try to play her soul song because something like that is nearly impossible to recreate but also doesn’t need to be put out into the world but does his best to try and describe it

Possible: her soul song feels like it is drowning in toxic sludge - there is just so much negativeness that it is barely intelligible. It is being smothered by self-satisfaction and importance, narcissism, aggressive manipulation, pettiness, vile maliciousness, etc

In person interactions are awful. Luka avoids physical interaction as much as possible. Even more than he would with Gabriel, and he wants as little to do with that man as possible, ideally none. But Lila is worse...

There have been multiple times that he has had to step out/away to be able to get some fresh air and breathe again. At least once where he has been or almost has been sick - usually following a hug that he did not consent to or something similar

Ivan is definitely in the fold now, and Julerose share what they have noticed from taking their step back. He realizes he has noticed a lot of those same things but he wasn’t analyzing them and didn’t have the same context for them at the time that Luka, Juleka, and Rose did. But afterwards he picks up on them more clearly, and some other things they hadn’t - benefits of being one of the quiet kids (and a lesser target of Lila’s focus). He is part of the driving force in bringing Marinette and Adrien in first before going to others.

Marinette breaks down because more people believe her?? and support her and Adrien? it is a huge relief of tension. And she didn’t even have to convince them herself!! what a concept... but it is definitely a safe space for her and she can share her own experiences and that certainly is nice

they had all suspected Something was Up but weren’t expecting that so there are lots of hugs and tears and support and mutters of payback 

Adrien eventually cries because Kitty Section + Marinette give him a TedTalk about consent and personal autonomy. And now he has so many people (!!!) telling him he can say no and make his own choices, mistakes, and decisions. (Marinette’s part is largely “I told you so / do you believe us now?” because the Dupain-Chengs have probably already given this same talk as a family but that is just A family’s opinion, others probably think differently) And this is the first time he really truly believes it and... oooof there are a lot of emotions and interactions to unpack and reconsider

but now he knows he really needs to and that he can and should which is new, but so is having an actual support system...

Thus, Luka is ready to fight a bitch the first time he sees Lila and Adrien interacting. There is so much clinging and touching, and Adrien is panicking and no one is doing anything or is being waved off. And (unfortunately) this is one of the things that causes some people to start questioning things about Lila. Because most of them know of Luka as a really chill, laid-back guy who is open and accepting of people. and besides he has no reason to be jealous (((👀👀👀👀 too much to think about and unpack t h e r e))) so why would he be upset about Lila leaning on Adrien and holding his arm??

So, the questioning of Lila and what she says spreads out from Kitty Section and Adrinette to the rest of the class. They take a different approach. They slowly, carefully approach their classmates and take them aside when possible to talk about the situation

This allows them to be able to get their undivided attention and lay out what they have found out in a logical and cohesive manner, rather than attempting something rash or in the heat of the moment. Marinette grumbled about this method initially but when there were actual results and the burden was shared it was a huge relief for her.

In fact, others start coming to them about Lila.

because of the work of Kitty Section and Adrinette Lila’s audience has been steadily decreasing and it is getting easier to notice things. With a smaller audience the focus doesn’t get split as much and there are less questions for her to build off of or go on tangents from and the contradictions start standing out more, or she’s making more to try and keep them around her by holding their interest with different details

Plus, the comments about those outside Her Circle are getting meaner and more frequent. Usually they are still sneaky or underhanded but nowhere near as subtle as they were originally (were they ever, really?) and it is raising suspicions and hackles.

Eventually, Lila is left without an audience because the class has all been brought out of the cloud of manipulation and are working on trust and listening to each other more/better. and on how to not disregard other’s feelings (which is esp important with the high butterfly population in Paris, but is a v good life lesson in general). they are young and will make mistakes and will have to learn from them. but trials, growth, and change are all part of life so it is good for them.

But it essentially all stems from Luka and his ability to hear soul songs and reacting to those songs, or the lack thereof when they are being choked by evil intentions/emotions/actions/what have you

[sanktagenyas]

ok so i finally watched those last three episodes. i said buckle up it’s time to suffer and by the saints did i ever suffer. i just knew the darklina scenes were gonna be rough to watch. it was already rough reading the scenes as they were written in book one. i mean the darkling just shines with his intelligence in that chapter, doesn’t he? threaten the man she loves? well the other man she loves? check! tell her she betrayed you when the reality is you’ve been telling half truths all along and didn’t trust her to make her choices? check! 

buddy this isn’t how you apologize. in the show itself it’s pretty much the same back and forth that leads nowhere. you lied to me! you ran off because my mother told you i’m not who i say i am without giving me a chance to explain! you’ve been lying or bending the truth since we met! YOU TURNED YOUR BACK ON YOUR COUNTRY!

by that point i was just like chill the fuck out man you’re about to decimate many many countrymen and you know it. i loved that the stop they made was all about him getting revenge on the man who attempted on alina’s life, that was very unhinged of him and i was HERE for that shit but everyone else in that port? every other woman and child and man on that port? not all of them played a hand and he just went ahead and had them slaughtered without batting an eye. and it’s not like he has some kind of safeguard for grishas does he? how does he know there’s no grisha wherever he’s expanding the fold? some could be in hiding because they fled, because they didn’t want to serve the king. oh well he doesn’t really care about those people does he? we all saw how he spoke about those deserters to arken.

also he could NOT handle alina’s harsh truths about how his own actions are harming grisha close to him even though he claims that every choice he’s made was to protect them and empower them. when she brought up genya i was like yes you better look down you motherfucker! you did this to her, you delivered to her abuser over and over. 

we saw his backstory, some of it and he acted out of grief and rage. he toyed with magic he did not understand and of course he didn’t intend this but his reaction to the fold once it was all said and done was definitely foreshadowing what he was to become. i created something he said defiantly. you created something you don’t have control over. and now he’s done it again somehow, he’s got brand new creatures following him at the end.

i actually felt for young aleksander for losing the woman he loved but the arrogance and the recklessness he showed there is still the same arrogance he has now. he thinks he has thought his plan through but that’s just working off the assumption that no one opposes him ever otherwise he went ahead and put a target on grisha’s backs. he definitely put a target on alina’s back although i know that was never the plan. the fact that when he has a perfectly good remedy to the fold, a chance to actually fix his mistakes once and for all he turns its back and decides to make it ten times worse, chooses ruling via fear over hope is jusr a sign of how far he’s gone. and he didn’t waver once not even when alina was pleading with him that he could have made her his equal, that they could have stayed together and made ravka safe together if only he gave her a choice, he was still manipulative and lied to her face.

at this point i just don’t think his love for her outweighs his belief that he knows what’s best for ravka, what’s the best way to protect grisha. because he doesn’t care about anyone who isn’t grisha at all. he was persecuted like so many others. he won a war for a king centuries and that king turned on him. i’m sure he’s looking at the current one knowing that once grisha have exhausted their uses that king will turn on him too. the fold is just a different kind of war and if he wins that one for the king the darkling already knows what the outcome will be. 

so to summarize this whole darkling commentary here i understand where he is coming from, i understand the fear and the rage and the desperation. it’s not working out for him though. he’s feared but he’s alone. for every ivan there’s a zoya. for every man who’s blindly loyal to him there’ll be someone rising up to oppose him eventually. and if it’s not his own people it’ll be non grisha folks. he has the second army working for him still, but he is alone. and that’s no one’s fault but his own because alina was willing to work with him. 

speaking of alina i loved every second of her rising up to oppose him telling him she never needed him. she may have fallen in love with him but she never actually needed him to be powerful, she only needed to free herself of the restraints she’d put on her powers out of fear. i also thought that the way she freed herself of his control made more sense than it did in the books. 

i have hope for darklina still despite all that’s happened despite how positively full of rage ans resentment she is because she still loves him, she still listened when he pleaded with her that they needed each other if they wanted to deal with the fold. of course there’s the slight issue of him lying directly and manipulating her to do his bidding and of course the fact that he took her power from her. the only thing that was her and he perverted it for his own gain. i think it just might take more than a year for her to forgive him i’m afraid. i don’t necessarily see a path to redemption right now but reconciliation? alina can be merciful, she can be forgiving. i think all it would really take is just one selfless act, one show of good faith. if he keeps pursuing her and mal and keep trying to rob her of her agency however i don’t see them ever having any kind of closure.

i don’t think i need to expand much more on my thoughts on malina. i’m not feeling what the show wants me to feel. i’m not seeing them as these soulmates that belong together. to me they’d be better of as best friends. the darkling didn’t make her strong he tried to steal her strength for his own use but mal doesn’t make her strong either, she relies too much on him. mal actually was pretty damn resourceful when left on his own. i unfortunately couldn’t say the same for alina. co-dependant love is not better than toxic love and darklina’s toxicity (most of it) comes from the lies and from the darkling repeatedly choosing for alina. he’s not brave enough to just tell her what he intends to do and let her decide whether to align herself with him so he lies and he deceives instead. not much he can do to undo it now but he could help actually destroy the fold if he wanted to. i don’t know if he’ll ever come around to it though.

the darkling visiting mal with the sole purpose to rub it in his face that alina and he are immortal and so eventually mal will die and then he could just swoop in was just peak comedy. the way he delivered that line too you’d think he was talking to an insect not another human being. it was brilliant. mal echoing that same line but ending it with “the past will do it for me” was pretty good, nice quip i’ll give mal that but also terribly ironic when you see the ending.

team crows remains the highlight for me. kaz and inej and their unspoken love for each other is just killing me. i can tell there are personal traumas there that i don’t know about (gotta read those damn books and quick) what with kaz not being able to help tend to her wounds and the fact that there were moments were i could see there was maybe a kiss about to happen or an embrace (at the end when kaz let alina go free and made a deal not to rat her out) and it just didn’t happen. there’s a story there about kaz and his distaste for being touched/touching others. jesper is just here to look pretty, shoot shit and be the most charming person in any crowd. i’m in love. also someone give him his goat back for the love of god.

nina and mathias were entertaining for sure. with all that banter and all these jabs i should have really seen them falling for one another coming. i felt like it was perhaps a bit rushed but i guess there’s nothing like almost freezing to death together to make you reconsider your views. you know the whole saving of lives thing can really bond you. the waffle date was adorable. was not expecting nina to just brand herself a traitor for him and she’s damn lucky fyedor came on that mission because i’m pretty sure ivan wouldn’t even have offered to keep her name out of the report. she and mathias ended their story both heartbroken and separated. i really hate that he thinks this was all intentional. really hope she’ll join the crows on their next con job. and i also cannot wait to see the look on heleen’s face when kaz buys inej’s freedom.

i was not at all expecting zoya to turn against the darkling. that’s what happens when you turned down one of your fuck buddies, aleksander they get bitter and then they leave you to be eaten alive by volcras. ok but in all seriousness she did the right thing and i hope she finds her family even if they’re not alive so she can say her goodbyes. 

oh and completely unrelated but since i talked about heights of comedy before i really need more sassy! darkling in my life. he is everything. that quip about his speech. the way he said adorable like he was gagging on the word. him just letting david be his dorkiest self and raise his hand before speaking, that little put upon sigh. i love sassy! darkling almost as much as jealous and petty darkling which is saying a lot. just more of that. it humanizes him, i’m tired of villains who are forever stoic and stone face. 

i think i about covered everyone and everything that happened in those remaining episodes. all in all shadow and bone is an amazing adaptation, really faithful to the first book. they made some changes to the characters which in turn changed some dynamics (alina actually admitted she wanted to be with the darkling. out loud. to his face. book!alina would never and book!darkling would never cry in front of her.) but it made for surprising viewing. it also made me become even more attached to some characters (the darkling let’s be real) which made me care more which is why i was livid when they started making a lot of terrible no good choices.

i was just really blown away by this show and the way the grishaverse was brought to life and above all major props to the actors who all just seemed to be born to play their respective roles. 

[butterfliesandsadness]

Okay, this scene has been bothering me from the moment I saw it so I rewrote the whole thing. I’m not a great writer but this is kind of the essence of how I think it should’ve gone. I think it makes more sense this way and would just in general make a better scene.

Natasha and Clint hear nothing but the crunch of gravel under their feet as they approach the top of the mountain. That, and their own hearts beating in their ears. They know it can’t be this easy; decades of espionage will teach you that. So they approach carefully, waiting for an attack from some unseen force. So when they hear the greeting of the shrouded figure they are hardly surprised even if their hearts leap into their throats. They have carried out scarier missions but none with the stakes quite so high. Clint knows he isn’t leaving Vormir without that stone.

“Welcome Natasha, daughter of Ivan. Clint, son of Edith.”

Natasha freezes in her tracks, how does he known her? How does he known that? But she roll the unfamiliar name around in her head before filing it away. It is all she has, but she wonders if he is alive. If she will ever meet him. Clint is unfazed by the troubling familiarity of the stonekeeper, he rarely cares how or why things happen, just that they do. He grips his bow tighter and his fingers tingle with the anticipated action of pulling an arrow. “We’ve come for the stone.”

“You should know... it extracts a terrible price.”

“None more terrible than—“ Clint falters, but in his head he finishes “never seeing my family again.”

The Black Widow has had Hawkeye’s back for years and she won’t stop now. She places her hand firmly on his shoulder and replies when he can’t.

“We are prepared to pay your price. We didn’t come all this way to be cheapskates.” She grins that signature grin— cocky and sarcastic but somehow also sincere and disarming.

“We all think that at first.” The shrouded man glides from the shadows revealing blood red skin that clings to his skull in a most grotesque way. “We are all wrong.” He gestures for them to follow as he approaches the summit. “I, too, once sought the stones. I even held one in my hand. But it cast me out, banished me here. Guiding others to a treasure I cannot possess. A fate worse than the Hell waiting for me in death.” He points off the edge of the cliff to a circular engraving far below. “What you seek lies before you. As does what you fear.”

Clint immediately begins assessing the stone around them for the best place to fasten a harness but Natasha’s mind begins puzzling at the pieces. What could she fear more than failure? What could Clint fear more than never seeing his family again? What price is too high for an infinity stone?

“What is this?”

“The price. Soul holds a special place among the Infinity Stones. You might say it has a certain wisdom.”

Seventy years alive grants one a certain seventh sense, Natasha feels. She finds it so difficult to be truly surprised anymore. And now she felt her stomach drop. Whatever was coming, she knows the stonekeeper is not exaggerating. Every sense tells her to grab Clint and run as far and as fast as she can. Clint meanwhile, finds himself humming his daughter’s favorite nursery rhyme as he carefully fastens a rope around a stable boulder. He feels hopeful for the first time in a long time. In his mind he can picture seeing his family again, he pushes away the thought of how he will look his wife in the eye again after what he’s done. It will work out. They will be a family again, and any price is worth that.

“To ensure that whoever possesses it... understands its power.... The stone demands a sacrifice. In order to take the stone you must lose that which you love most. A soul... for a soul.”

Clint stops. The ropes he grips in his hands trembling as he absorbs the pain of the cost. And Clint has a thought he wishes he could tear from his mind and bury, he wants to live, to see his family again. Which means he wants his best friend to die. The dream of meeting his kids again seems thinner even as he grabs at it ever more desperately. He knows he could never ask that of her, but he hopes just a little, and he hates himself for it, that she will volunteer.

Natasha Romanoff’s thoughts take significantly less time to form. She has lived a long life, and Clint was her only family. She would do anything for him to smile again. Even if she wouldn’t be there to see it.

“I see, so I just jump? Is there a ceremony or something? Do I get a last meal?”

“One must simply die at the base of this cliff.”

She shakes her arms out.

“No, you can’t. I can’t ask that of you.” Clint grabs her wrist to pull her away from the cliff’s edge but Natasha can see the pain in his eyes, and she can see the little spark of hope.

“You aren’t asking. Buy Nathaniel a BB gun from me.” She pulls him in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He was the light that had guided her from the dark, and maybe now she can finally wipe clean her debt to him. She walks to the cliff’s edge but is stopped mid-step by the interjection of the stonekeeper.

“I would not if I were you. The stone demands the the sacrifice of the one you love most. And you are not that to him.”

The other boot drops.

“Of course I am,” she argues with the immortal keeper of the Soul Stone. “Who else could it be? His family is” She trails off so Clint won’t hear her say it.

“But she is not dead to him. He holds her ever so tightly even from the grave. You are not a suitable cost. But him? You would do anything for him. You /love/ him more than anything.” The keeper drags out the word love as if he knows it is gutting both heroes. Natasha crumbles to the ground and Clint simply leans back against the stone he had been so sure would help him save his family. He will never see them again. The man raises his face to the sky but cannot even summon the strength to curse God. Natasha watches as the light in her best friend is extinguished. She would do anything for this man. She would do anything to save him, and to save his family. But because of that, she simply can’t. Natasha realizes that she will carry around her debt for the rest of her very long life.

Clint suddenly straightens and walks to the edge of the cliff. He does not look at his friend, hunched over in the sand, weighed down by her failure. For the first time, Natasha really believes that they could move on without undoing the snap. She grabs at Clint’s legs and holds on fast. “Please—“ Her words choke in her throat and she can’t even beg. She knows she is being selfish. But Clint Barton has been the only consistent good in her life and she doesn’t know who she is without him. Or rather, she thinks she does and she doesn’t like it. But even as she holds him, she knows that she can’t do that to him. She cannot force him to live in pain for her own peace of mind. He has to do this for his family, and for everyone’s families. She slowly lets him go as she finds a small stone that she focuses all her energy on. She picks it up and squeezes it in her hand, she memorizes every facet of that pebble before suddenly Clint is in her face, kneeling on her level.

“Listen, I need you to do this. No matter what, you have to bring them back. You have to make sure they’re safe.” He sounds desperate, as if he’s running out of air, instead of being given all the time in the world. “I trust you. If I had to die, I’m glad that I can leave my family with you.”

Natasha strains to process every word he is saying but she feels numb, crouched there on the mountain-top. Her mind is racing so fast she is stuck playing catch up. “You are going to save everyone, and that’s what makes you a hero. Not SHIELD, or even the Avengers. I believe in you.” He is the only one who always had. In almost perfect imitation of their earlier goodbye he pulls her close and kisses her on the cheek. And then he is gone. Clint barely registers the biological panic that he is experiencing. He is consumed by the only thought he has been having since the keeper’s last words. He will never see his family again. And so he will never leave Vormir. He barely flinches when the earth rises to meet him.

Natasha wails as he hits the ground. Partially in agony and partially so she doesn’t have to hear the sickening crunch she knows is coming. Suddenly unable to breathe she bolts up. The Black Widow has found herself sitting in shallow water; far from the cliff’s edge and what she might see at the bottom. She feels the small rock she had been fiddling with in her hand. She holds it up to see that it is no longer the stone she had become so oddly familiar with, but an orange gem, glowing faintly in the twilight. She clenches her fist around the treasure and hangs her head. And she cries for a long time.

Anyway, I think that makes more sense than the way they played it.

[occultruby]

i did this a while ago but heres my imscared white face gender transing theory diagram. putting explanation under the cut for... courtesy? the amount ive thought about this is kind of embarrassing

ok first off i think wf is genderless because its not human or even corporeal, its just a terrible little computer curse. if anything i honestly think its more aligned with the feminine. idk its weird to me that most people gender wf as a man when ivan zanotti (hello sir if youre reading this im sorry) at least from the perspective of an english speaker, has pretty much done everything to avoid gendering wf at all (only ever having used “it” pronouns for wf! hello!), besides the only other appearances of humanoid forms (also wf) being coded as women/images of womanhood/concept of womanhood/whatever

down to business. maybe it isnt as specific as this but a potential idea is the entity being made and intended to be female or at least read as female. since it clearly is sentient and keeping in line with the knowledge that wf is not human and isnt the ghost of the deceased, i dont think its hard to believe wf would not only not understand gender, but also feel constrained by it. if the question is “why would it give a shit” my answer is 1. throughout the game its pretty clear that wf doesnt like being constrained, literally or metaphorically and 2. the same reason any actual person would feel trapped and uncomfortable with their assigned gender or any gender. it comes with expectations for how you should act, look, talk, where you should go, and what you should do there.

the sketch labeled “original” isnt really literal, more of an idea of “someone made a computer virus and its a girl i guess”. HER i think is what white face perceives itself to be, and therefore becomes, as its world is essentially made of its own imagination

everything about HER screams “caricature of womanhood” just straight up This Is How Dysphoria Makes You Think You Look. her huge [REDACTED] and hips/thighs, cinched waist, exaggerated limp wrist, and absurdly long hair. her name is literally “HER”. HER is white faces experience of feeling “this is all i am”, an embodiment of unwanted expectations.

what in general we know to be “white face” is the same entity, named for its appearance as a floating head. i read this as wf hiding its body (something that could be done by editing its own code to make it invisible) but i visually represent it as a black cloak. i also thought a neat but kind of odd idea would be wrapping itself up in its own long dark hair?

on the events of the game. the important part lies in the transition from the first part into BURY HER, in which wf changes into HER, making its body visible and adopting somewhat different behaviors (which seem to communicate a more depressed demeanor and an instinct to self isolate/hide). wf if pretty clear with the player that it makes this change to keep the players interest. personally i have known other trans people who, despite knowing they were trans and going through some levels of social transition, will go back to performing their assigned gender in an attempt to please someone whose approval they desire. and like in real life, wfs practice isnt sustainable. wfs monologue before shooting HER has SO much to dig into. of course it established that it made this change for You. but then, the rain turns to blood as it bitterly remarks that it hates what it became (knowing that wf feels like the mask of HER takes the players interest away from itself, meaning that even if HER and wf are the same entity, wf does not identify as HER. in the end its just an act to impress you). the part that gets me the most about the grave level is that she specifically tells You to “bury [HER] in front of [HER] birthplace”. she was already dead and buried. wf dug her up for You. even though You are the one playing the game, wf is the one seen with the gun. in the end, it was about wf once again burying this past version of itself that it cannot stand any longer.

i dont think it hits as hard as the main events of BURY HER, but im going to come back around to the concept of all figures in the game being coded as women. in the labyrinth we see the various portions of womens bodies (which some people use to theorize that wf is a serial killer but this is nothing to me because. it wasnt a human person lol) that lead into/are portals to a “dark world” (the whole thing with having to reconstruct shards of a broken mirror also kind of screams dysphoria, the whole dress thing! idek how to put this into words im just feeling it), the portrait of a girl in the house (maybe an “original vision” for what wf was intended to be? wfs one source for what a “woman” is?). you could argue that the weird little things with the long arms when youre trying to break the gramophones arent female but 1. literally whatever and 2. theyre essentially extensions of HER made to be mini jumpscares and 3. i think they parallel the “you shouldnt be here” area where HER is seen hanging from the sky by weird distended limbs.

we know wf is entirely unreliable and likely s completely lying on occasion. but i think lies, especially in a game like this, can be dissected to discover something truthful in the narrative. something so specific is the story wf tells about having a brother that it had horrible thoughts about getting hurt in an appliance store, only to reveal that it never had a brother. this is in one of the more vulnerable text files in the game. im gonna go on a limb here and say the story isnt literal, but also does hold significance. no one is reading at this point and its 2:30 so im going to word this more abstractly because thinking is getting harder and i have a 9am class. brother/not real brother is about an imagined person, who wf wants to be or how it perceives itself to be. like it is metaphorically the brother that it doesnt have because it WANTS to be that. honestly if you wanted to you could argue this point works towards the idea that wf is a trans man because of the idea that it wants to be a man but doesnt perceive itself to be a real man so it tells the story of a brother it does/doesnt/is/isnt/wants to be. the whole thing about being injured in the appliance store probably means something about the fragility of the concept or identity or whateverless complicated idea came to me like two paragraphs ago. and its that imscared is about coping with the loss of a sibling by trying to recreate their identity as a program but that its inherently impossible (program saying “i never had a brother” because the brother MADE u to be his sibling but you ARENT because you are just a little game file) but like i got too invested in white face transgender ANYWAYS SO IMSCARED IS OFFICIALLY ABOUT GENDER DYSPHORIAAAAAAA

[jereviendrai]

||| ooc; does every character on this blog have bpd symptoms? is this problematic, considering they’re all villains or would-be villains? is there a way to give a villain a mental health disorder without stigmatizing the disorder? well--

OH AND BIG TRIGGER WARNING FOR A WIDE RANGE OF MENTAL HEALTH TOPICS SUCH AS: eating disorders, mental illness, stigmatization of mental illness, self harm, suicidal tendencies, and a fuckload more. I don’t go into detail. There are just mentions. I’m not gonna say a bunch of graphic shit, I promise! If I went into graphic detail, this would turn into a PhD thesis proposal, and that’d be WAY too long to be worth writing. Also I have BPD, but I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert on the subject. I’m not. My word is not law, but it’d be nice if my word was taken into consideration.

this post got so fucking long and disorganized jesus christ

The answers are: yes, not inherently, and absolutely.

I want to get into the mental health of all three characters in a second, but I think it’s important to talk a little about the other two points first. That said, though -- yes, they’re all borderline. All three of them! And they all experience it differently! I will come back to that. Anyway--

I feel like it’s important to talk about villains, mental illness and stigma. There’s a really common (and insanely lazy) tendency for writers to explain a villain’s villainy by simply saying, “oh, well they’re a psychopath,” or, “they’re just crazy.” This is not only lazy and offensive, but it contributes to an unfair stigma against the mentally ill.

Mental illness might, say, compel someone to steal a chocolate bar or snap at someone out of anger. It might make a person’s emotions volatile. It might make someone unreasonable. They might suffer delusions of abandonment, of some plot against them, of people’s secret intent to humiliate them, etc. They might suffer and handle their suffering poorly. They may cause harm. But that doesn’t make them... evil. It makes them complex. And how they react to and handle their negative actions says more about them than any diagnosis could.

When you have a villain with a mental illness, you need to examine how the illness is hurting them. Write about how it hinders their progress. Write about how isolating it can be for them. Write about the impact and struggle. Not how the illness makes them so evil or so irredeemably awful. The illness should be what humanizes them and helps to make them relatable. No matter how untouchable and powerful your villain is, they have some personal struggle that is independent of their villainy. When done correctly, it can go a long way in fleshing out your villain and adding interesting inner conflict!

I know, I know. You might be asking, “yeah, but don’t people with mental health issues sometimes cause harm directly related to their symptoms?” To which I say: yeah, duh, of course. Just like a depressed person might say something mean when they’re having a bad day. Just like someone with ADHD might make someone feel like they aren’t being listened to. Just like someone who has social anxiety might make a friend feel unloved. Just like mentally healthy people also occasionally cause harm.

I’m not saying mental health issues don’t cause problems and maladaptive behaviors. I’m just saying it doesn’t... make someone inherently bad -- real or fictional. And I need people to internalize that.

ANYWAY ON TO THE CHARACTERS AND THEIR BPD

(i know, you’re probably like, “dude oh my god shut up and get on with it” sakjlfdkjsa)

I’m going to be referring to the four subtypes. I know these are controversial to some people. Some really don’t like these labels, others feel comforted by them, etc. They’re just to make it easier to talk about this whole thing. No one fits neatly into any one subtype! Some people don’t resemble any particular one! Everyone is different! Don’t box people into these subtypes if you haven’t been given consent, thanks!

Mr. A / Clark Donovan Mr. A is a classic example of the Quiet Borderline. Someone with quiet BPD mostly directs their symptoms inward. It’s harder to detect than other types, as the symptoms that are most prevalent are mostly expressed, well, inwardly. Self-esteem issues, self-blame, insecurity, withdrawing emotionally, pretending you’re not angry when you are, self harming tendencies, suicidal thoughts, etc. He’s also kind of clingy. Mr. A is an extremely loyal person to a fault. He is a people pleaser and will go to the ends of the Earth to make his loved ones happy, even if it hurts him. This is of detriment to him, as he often finds himself getting hurt on behalf of people who might not care as much as he does. He’s let a lot of bad people into his life solely because they made him feel loved, wanted and useful. He views everyone he loves through rose-tinted glasses and only takes them off long after he’s been laid to waste by them. He has terrible issues with self-image and has thus developed an eating disorder. He also has severe depersonalization/derealization disorder, which is a result of how his mental health interacts with his reality-warping powers. It creates a lot of anxiety with him, watching himself phase through things and bend the world around him on a whim. His motivations in life are connected to this, but his motivation to do evil things is not. He wants to bring other superpowered people together as a united front against humanity, as he feels that humanity is a threat to their continued existence. This has nothing to do with his mental health issues. The part of it that does tie in is that he’s painfully lonely and has chronic feelings of boredom, so being surrounded with a shit ton of different people mitigates that. It’s a motive for him bringing people closer to him, but it is not a motive for him to launch an attack on all humanity. He’d be really offended if you tried to accuse him of doing this on the basis that he’s just a bit ill. His illness literally just makes him crave contact with other living beings just like him. He sometimes does bad or stupid things because of this, but it literally has nothing to do with his motives as a villain. As an addendum of sorts, Mr. A’s alias and reluctance to use his given name (Clark Donovan) are a result of identity issues he suffers due to his BPD. He finds it hard to maintain a stable sense of identity, so he just... doesn’t.

Ivan Chanteur Ivan closely resembles what we like to call an Impulsive Borderline, comorbid with ADHD. He is an impulsive person, as the name of the subtype suggests. He’s a thrill-seeker who suffers from extreme levels of chronic boredom, which he desperately tries to combat by any means necessary. Staying still and doing repetitive tasks is literal torture for him. If he cannot get up and move and do whatever it takes to keep himself feeling fulfilled and occupied, he is probably going to fucking lose it. When he is actively vocalizing his boredom on a regular basis, this means the chronic feelings of boredom have reached critical mass. It’s not just boredom. It’s anxiety, it’s agitation, it’s existential dread, it’s an inability to focus, it’s pent-up energy that needs to go somewhere and can’t just stay in him anymore. If he can’t get it out in healthy ways, he usually resorts to self-harm or less-than-healthy pursuits. He’s been known to dabble in drugs, self-harm, occasional promiscuity on a bad night. While therapy’s helped him get a handle on it, there’ve been a lot of stressful and traumatic things going on in his life have have made it a lot harder to keep himself in check. Ivan is pretty charismatic, able to cast a wide net and catch all sorts of people in his social web. He has a sort of natural magnetism that, on a superficial level, should make him quite popular. But underneath it all, he has difficulty trusting people long enough to actually let them into his life. He’ll act like an open book, only to slam himself shut and reshelve himself before anyone can get anywhere near the end. He’s easy to befriend, but difficult to get close to. This has caused him to feel lonely and frustrated. He wishes he could easily form deep connections, but it’s hard and it hurts him. In addition to all of this, he engages in a wide variety of attention-seeking and risk-taking behaviors. He often spends time with people who are not good to him, simply for the thrill of it. This has often gotten him hurt, but he finds it hard to cut this habit in spite of everything. This leads to a lot of frustration and self-hatred, as it makes it hard for him to protect himself. Every time someone hurts or betrays him, he beats himself up over it and tells himself he should know better by now. All that said, though, he’s come a long way in therapy. He’s not quite able to keep a handle on all of it all the time, but he’s managed to secure one or two decently stable friendships along the way.

Eve Laurier Eve is particularly difficult to talk about, but I’m going to try my best. Eve is what happens when you make a conscious decision to be bad. He knows beyond a shadow of doubt that what he’s doing is wrong, but he feels so wronged by the world that he just cannot seem to motivate himself to care. This... again... has nothing to do with his BPD. If anything, it’s his struggles with this disorder that keep him at least somewhat... grounded in reality. Eve suffered a personal tragedy -- the loss of his twin sister in a housefire. Though ruled an accident, he cried foul play. Consumed with grief at the loss of the only person he felt could truly understand him, he vowed to find the culprit and make them pay. This set him down a path of vengeance that would make John Wick blush. Eve grew up as the heir to his family’s criminal enterprise. This put him in a position of power the very moment he was born. This also left him exposed to a lot of terrible, violent crimes from a very young age. Because this was normalized by his family, he internalized and compartmentalized any misgivings he had about violence. By the time he was ready for university, he had been thoroughly trained to carry out hitjobs on behalf of the family. He was a weapon from the moment he left the womb. He was groomed to do terrible things, and it’s because of this ongoing and continuous trauma that he developed his particular cocktail of mental health issues. He mostly fits in with the label of Petulant BPD. Repeated and violent trauma did a number on him, leaving him angry and hurt over what his parents let him fall victim to. He also experiences feelings of self-loathing over the part he feels he played in his own trauma, despite the fact that it started in early childhood. He is self-defeating and self-blaming. He has a difficult time expressing his feelings and has angry outbursts fairly regularly, often resulting in self-harm and suicidal ideation. He’s been known to reach for the nearest mind-altering substance just to get out of his head for a bit. His mood swings are intense and leave him feeling fatigued and anxious. He has severe social anxiety that sometimes manifests as cold indifference. He also has issues with control, has paranoid delusions about the people in his life and doesn’t often believe it when people say that they care for him. He will find any and every piece of evidence that points to the contrary, even if he has to make it up himself. This usually ensures that he’ll end up alone again. He doesn’t have very many close relationships, if any at all. His BPD is not the reason he hurts people. Any hurt caused by his BPD is directed at himself, not at others. His BPD is a direct result of what actually has primed him to hurt people. It’s a direct result of trauma. He’s traumatized. And no, trauma is no excuse for what he’s done -- but his BPD didn’t make him kidnap and torture Ivan while he waited for Ivan’s parents to send in the ransom. That was all Eve. That was his conscious decision to make, in spite of everything in his head telling him how awful and wrong he would be to do such a thing. He knew it was wrong and ignored it, as he was under the impression that Ivan’s family had a hand in his sister’s death. If anything, his BPD aggravates his feelings of shame and self-loathing when he does precisely what his parents had been training him to do his whole life.

Anyway-- I hope this was helpful or at least interesting.

The point I’m trying to make here is that mental illness isn’t some kind of ultimate litmus test of good and evil. A disorder doesn’t make you good or bad. It’s just another facet of who you are.

So... to that end... please for the love of fuck stop using personality disorders as the reason for someone’s villainy. Please. I am begging.

I wrote a bunch of BPD villains in various stages of villainhood because I have BPD and this disorder often makes you feel like you’re evil, a monster, etc. Honestly, on good days I feel like an inherently bad person who consciously chooses to do good. That’s very flawed and I know that logically I’m not inherently bad, but that’s kind of what stigma does. It makes you feel like you’re inherently bad. And that feeling influenced how I write all three of these characters.

This is an incoherent mess but today’s the day I find out if I have coronavirus and I’m so fucking stressed out and hopped up on DayQuil. Thanks for reading any of this, I guess?

[monabela]

aaaand one more for eeweek, because the more I think about this pairing, the more I think it’s really cute & good! don’t let that whole bunch of characters scare you, they’re all just mentioned, and this is just a fun little thought process I had.

rules of engagement

characters/pairings: Estonia (Eduard)/Monaco (Olympe), and a bunch of mentioned characters - Hungary (Erzsébet), Romania (Dragos), Finland (Tuomi), France (Francis), Switzerland (Basch), Seychelles (Angélique), Lithuania (Tolys), Belarus (Nadzeya), Russia (Ivan), Romano (Lovino), Portugal (Simão), Greece (Herakles)

word count: 2277 summary: Eduard was prepared for many things while organizing his wedding to Olympe. He had not counted on seating arrangements being the most difficult part.

Really, Eduard had been prepared for many things when he proposed to Olympe. Up to and including a rejection, because you never know, with her. Olympe always seems to have a plan ready, and it wasn’t unthinkable that marriage just wasn’t in that plan, or wasn’t yet. He took the chance anyway, and she said yes, which is amazing.

So, he was prepared to have a stressful time organizing the wedding, because both he and Olympe are perfectionists, and Olympe’s family is… Something. Old money that they are, he expected a million traditions he’d need to adhere to, expected to need to learn how to actually dance a waltz instead of just hoping not to step on any feet during their first dance, expected meddling from all sides.

What he had not prepared for, was seating arrangements. Because he has a small family, and most of their gatherings are informal, even the weddings, and he also didn’t think the friends he wanted to invite would cause trouble.

Apparently, he thought wrong.

“We absolutely cannot seat them near each other,” Olympe is saying, tiredly, sliding the name cards for his sister and her umpteenth distant cousin to opposite ends of the table. “They shouldn’t even be in each other’s sight if we can help it. They have this feud.”

“Why don’t I know about this?” Eduard asks, scrunching his nose enough that he dislodges his glasses. He takes them off to rub the bridge of his nose.

“Because Erzsébet possesses some semblance of common sense, which my terrible cousin unfortunately lacks, so he’s very proud of having an enemy.” She gently picks up his glasses and pushes them back on his face. “I need your brain for this, love.”

“How about we just don’t invite this—” he looks at the card— “Dragos?”

“Oh, no. I’d love to, but I’m not convinced he won’t show up and curse my firstborn.”

“That’s…” He blinks. It never ceases to amaze him how odd her mother’s side of the family is. Olympe quirks a small smile, lips glittering in the sunlight streaming into their kitchen, the table of which they’ve temporarily transformed into a seating chart.

Or, well, temporarily. It has been there for two days now, being shuffled occasionally between work and the other things they have to take care of.

“Don’t worry about him,” Olympe is saying. “He’s alright, just… A little strange.”

“You said that about your brother as well.”

“So did you, about yours, and he asked me if I wanted to see his rifle collection the first time we met. Which reminds me…” She hovers an elegant hand over the table until she spots the card she’s looking for. “If we put Tuomi near Basch, we will have a shootout on our hands by the end of dinner.”

Eduard frowns. “Who even is—”

“He’s not related to me, strictly speaking, that’s my stepfather’s side of the family, but he loves weddings, so he’ll be there.” She considers this, tapping the name card against her chin. “He loves free food, and Francis loves weddings, so he told him about it. There hasn’t been one for a while.”

With that big of an extended family, that seems unlikely, but then, Eduard wouldn’t know the first thing about that. It’s always just been him and his siblings at home, and any cousins he has are so far removed, either in relation or age, that he barely knows them.

“Well, there was Angélique,” she continues in an absent tone of voice, “but she, of course, eloped.”

“Can’t we do that?” he asks, only mostly joking, and she smiles up at him, eyebrows furrowing. On the table, she puts one of her small hand over one of his, tucking her fingers between his knuckles. Her engagement ring catches the light and glitters at him. Eduard hadn’t planned on getting her one—it’s, again, not something his family has ever done—but her half-brother Francis caught wind of his plan to propose somehow, and strong-armed him into using a family heirloom to do so.

Olympe immediately recognized her brother’s hand in it, of course, but she’d been charmed by it, even if she did have to have the beautiful ring sized down to have it fit on her dainty fingers. Every time Eduard catches sight of it, his heart skips a beat. He can’t even imagine what it will be like when she is wearing a wedding ring. He foresees a lot of flubbed keystrokes whenever they play the piano quatre-mains. Olympe probably won’t have that problem. She is always more composed than he is.

“Well, no eloping then,” he sighs, and she laughs softly, tucking a strand of blond hair behind her ear and tapping the side of her glasses in thought.

“I still don’t have an RSVP from Angélique, actually. They’re still traveling, trying to save an endangered shark species or whatnot. I do hope she comes. She’s a delight to have around.”

Having met Angélique, the cousin in question, once, Eduard thinks he might agree. She seemed nice and upbeat. This was a bit of a problem, since they did meet at a funeral, but it would be appreciated at a wedding.

“Oh, wait, there’s another problem,” he remembers.

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah. Tolys is afraid of Nadzeya.”

Now, it’s her turn to blink owlishly up at him.

“Tolys is— Your best friend is afraid of my maid of honor?” She taps her fingers on the back of his hand. “Well, I suppose she can be intimidating when you first meet her, but…”

“He tried to ask her out. Twice. She said no.”

“Well, surely that isn’t so bad—”

“He also said she had a knife?”

“Oh. Oh, Nadzeya, no…” Olympe clasps a hand over her mouth, expression caught between amused and horrified. “She does have… A fondness.”

“Keep both Tolys and Tuomi away from her, then. Erzsébet should love her.”

“Good. They can still be at the same table, then, so long as we don’t put Nadz across from Tolys…” She begins shuffling the name cards around, leaving only their parents in the same place. “How is this?”

“Yes, that… Hold on, no. Your brother’s husband can’t be next to Tuomi.” He shudders. His brother had tried to fight Ivan Braginsky-Bonnefoy the first and only time they met. Eduard has never asked why and has no intention of ever doing so, certain that he is better off left in the dark about this.

Quickly, he switches Tuomi’s card with his mother’s. It’s the best option, he thinks, even if it does mean Tuomi is now between their sets of parents. Maybe they can keep an eye on him. Olympe hums, then moves him again, switching her mother out this time.

“There we go. Unless he’s tried to fight your sister too.”

Eduard laughs. “Tried, and succeeded, but it’ll be okay.”

Although Tuomi is now very close to Nadzeya, only Erzsébet separating them, he thinks that’s a risk he’s willing to take. Erzsébet can talk a lot. Finally, it’s beginning to look acceptable…

“No! Fuck, Olympe, we forgot ourselves!”

She throws her hands up helplessly. “Give me strength. Do you want to be next to your parents or not?” She scribbles their names on extra pieces of paper, writing Eduard Mets-Castil on his and Olympe Castil-Mets on her own. It makes Eduard smile. She isn’t the sort of woman who is very affectionate most of the time, or very obvious about her feelings in other ways—nor is he that sort of man—but it’s little things like this that make it clear every time how much this means to her.

How much he means to her.

Shuffling the cards until they finally make sense, she smiles down at their completed work. Well, completed table. The only table that makes sense.

“The rest of this is literally all your family.” Eduard squints at several names he has never heard before.

“I know,” Olympe says, long-suffering.

“Don’t tell me there’s more feuds.”

“Well, Lovino doesn’t like Francis, but that is already taken care of this way, so he should be happy… I don’t think anyone actually likes Dragos, not since they all had that fight about how he doesn’t like garlic—oh, I just remembered, he and Nadzeya tried to summon a demon at my birthday once, so we mustn’t have any candles.”

“I think I see why no one likes him.”

“Right, and then Simão mustn’t be near Angélique, should she come, because he saw fit to marry her foster father…”

“Excuse me?”

“They are close in age, should it help, but it has made everything rather awkward.”

“Is that why she eloped?” he asks faintly.

Biting her lip, Olympe shrugs at him in that measured way that she has.

“Right, of course. Simão and his husband can go with Dragos.”

“Oh, no, they actually aren’t married anymore.” She shakes her head when he pulls a face at her, a hint of amusement peeking through in the twitching corner of her lips. “It didn’t help the awkwardness. But Simão can certainly sit with Dragos, that will be fine.”

Eduard shuffles the cards, trying to keep that table out of his sister’s line of sight. It’s a good thing he likes puzzles. Next to him, Olympe sighs, ruffling the cards already in position.

“I’m sorry my family is such a burden. I hardly know many of them, but if I don’t invite them…”

“They’ll curse us and our hypothetical children?”

She shrugs again, uncharacteristically, and Eduard turns to her in his chair, reaching for her hands. He folds them both between his own, the ring on her finger warm against his palm. Olympe looks up at him, dark blue eyes still apologetic behind her gold-rimmed glasses. There is a small smudge of mascara on her eyelid. She wouldn’t go out with that, perfectionist that she is, and he is somehow honored that he can look at it.

For a quiet moment, he searches for the right words for what he wants to say. Olympe waits patiently, steadily holding his gaze like she’s so good at. He used to find it unnerving.

“You know why I want to marry you?” he asks, after a long moment.

“Certainly not because of my family.”

“Well, I do like Herakles. He’s very nice, and smart.”

“Not the other side of the family, then.” She draws her eyebrows together, smiling ruefully.

“No, of course. I want to marry you because I think… You understand me.” He strokes his fingers over the outside of her slender wrist, where her skin is slightly paler because she’s usually wearing her watch, busy as she is. “Because, somehow, we managed to find a reason not to work ourselves to exhaustion every day in each other, and that is a tall order. We both know that.”

She laughs a little, shaking her head so that her long hair tumbles over her shoulders. That is another one of these things that Eduard is aware she rarely shows to anyone else. Her hair out of its usual stylish but practical braids and updos. He lets go of her hands to lean forward, resting one hand on her thigh and using the other to touch her jaw softly, pushing her hair away.

“And, you know, maybe I’m a romantic deep down,” he continues, “so I want to make that official.”

“Eduard, I know you’re a romantic. You’ve composed no less than five songs for me.”

He grins, and she smiles in return. He is still working on the piece for their opening dance—it has to be perfect. More than perfect.

“What I’m saying is, I want to marry you for you, and you’re worth putting up with your cousins… Summoning a demon, or having a shootout with my brother, or whatever they come up with. All that matters is I walk out of there able to call you my wife, and they can’t ruin that.”

“I don’t know how you do this, sometimes,” Olympe says, wonderingly, briefly touching the hand lingering on her jaw.

“What?”

She puts her hand on top of his on her thigh, long nails tapping a brief rhythm on his wrist.

“Know what to say to me.”

“Practice,” he replies. “I’m sure you remember how often I put my foot in my mouth when we’d just met. I was very intimidated by you. Tuomi will bring it up at the wedding.”

At that, she laughs a light, happy laugh, then leans up and gently presses her glossy lips to the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you, then, for sticking with me. I know it isn’t my strongest suit to say things… Things like this, at least, but for what it’s worth, of course I feel the same.” Now, she puts a hand on his chest briefly, a small warm point mirroring the sunlight on his back. There are flecks of gold in her eyes in this light, and Eduard thinks about how those colors might sound on a piano.

“That’s worth a lot, Olympe.”

Because she’s a woman of action first and foremost—and sometimes that action is diplomatic speech, but there is a world of difference between that and this—so he knows she sometimes forgets to say things.

“Good.” She swipes some hair away from his forehead, tutting. He laughs, captures her hand, and kisses the inside of her wrist before letting go.

Olympe nods, and they both turn back to the table, because if there is anything they’re good at, it’s getting work done, and they have a hell of a task to finish.

[foxruz]

I’m completely convinced the miracuclass would get caught up in a prank war, they’re just that chaotic

- It all starts with a dare Kim initiated that went awry, and gradually, one by one, the classmates get pulled into this constantly snowballing mess of chaos

- Friendships? Disbanded! Relationships? Nonexistent! That partnership you have for Mlle Bustier’s class project? Gone! IT’S WAR

- Kim’s pranks are mostly the classics: a bucket of water being dumped in a doorway, placing clear tape in the doorway to catch anyone who comes in a little too fast, tying shoe laces together, and trying to give out creme-fillled cookies with toothpaste instead of creme

- Most of Alix’s pranks are aimed at Kim

- Her favorite thing to do is getting Kim caught in his own pranks

- She’ll act like she took something of his so that he’ll follow her, and she leads him into his own water-dumping trap

- Chloè tries to avoid the war, but is so sure that someone’s going to go after her eventually, that she enters it herself

- Sabrina also uses the classics, except the more “noticeably a prank” kind

- She’ll offer you a piece of gum that’s obviously the shock chewing gum

- Marinette is REALLY clever and the class knows this; she’s also really good at avoiding any topics regarding the prank war, so nobody has any clue of what she’s planning and when/how she’s going to execute it (not that they’re all telling eachother about their plans)

- Overall, the class is terrified of her pranking prowess

- Adrien’s pranks, frankly, are terrible; Plagg tries to assist with his wisdom

- “pLAGG NO THAT’S ILLEGAL-”

- Nobody has the heart to prank Mylene or Rose

- Rose cannot prank to save her life

- Her pranks consist mainly of buying you something that comes in your favorite color and getting a different color instead

- Mylene, although a better pranker than Rose, doesn’t really enjoy it; she mostly helps the others with their pranks as long as it’s not too harsh

- Juleka is extremely hard to prank

- Her pranks are also undoubtedly going to spook, so everybody’s cautious of her

- Nobody has the will to prank Rose already, but the class knows if somebody did, they’d be the next victim of Juleka’s pranks

- Alya is the physical embodiment of the prank war catching on fire

- Her pranks are sporadic, rapid, and so scattered on the board that she’s practically unpredictable

- She’s also just as clever as Marinette, so she knows who, how, and when she should strike; her cleverness is only amplified by the mischievous tricks Trixx taught her

- Nino is a good boi and doesn’t want to prank anyone too badly

- One of his most notable pranks was when he used his admin status on the Ladyblog to insert Chat Noir memes into every article

- He’s also somewhat hard to prank, considering how laidback he is; really the only pranks that get him are Juleka’s

- Max’s pranks are all technology-based

- The class is a little worried he’s going to hack into somebody’s account and relay secrets or something, but Max is a respectful boy

- He basically hacks into his classmates’ music libraries and inserts a bunch of nerdy podcasts and documentaries

- He also repeatedly calls one of his classmates from a throw-away phone every hour

- Ivan isn’t really into the pranking game, so his pranks are pretty mellow

- Mylene helps him the most during the duration of the prank war

- He basically does the same prank over and over: hiding behind doorways and startling whoever comes in with a confetti canon

- Nathaniel tried to do some spooky pranks also by leaving vague and eerie drawings in his classmates lockers

- Nothing too scary and nowhere near grosteque; they’re basically just pictures with messy scrawl for extra spookiness

- Unfortunately, everybody knows the drawings are from him, so they don’t really work

- Marinette noticed one of Alix’s pranks (a nerf gun that would fire once the door was opened) and dodged; she about had a heart attack when the foam bullet hit Adrien square in the chest

- Mlle Bustier once came to class only to find all her students standing outside, some chuckling others completely deadpan, and looked inside only to find Nino, in his seat, surrounded by cardboard cutouts of himself in everybody elses’ places

- Juleka got Nino back by hiding under a table and grabbing his ankle when he walked by

- Max hacked into the sound system and Rick Rolled his whole class

- He also played a variety of sound effects whenever anything happened

- The prank on Chloè, considering she’s so sure they’re going to go after her, is that nobody ends up pranking her at all

[joachimnapoleon]

“She has terribly pointy bones”

Excerpt from a letter from Caroline Murat to her husband on 24 February 1810:

The evening before yesterday, I had an accident that might have become a disaster, but was nothing more than a fright. We were playing blind man's buff in the Emperor's apartments, when the hard and pointy forehead of Mme Duchatel came so unfortunately against my eye that the blow tripped me over. The Emperor supported me in his arms and prevented me from falling. The pain had been so bad that I gave a sharp cry and believed my eye was out of its socket. The Emperor, full of kindness, frightened for my situation, immediately called Ivan, who bathed my eye, put a poultice and a black blindfold on it, and soon I had the air of an invalid in the midst of the salon. The Emperor has showered me with attention, he came to see me, he has been anxious. Today, I have a great contusion, my eye is very black from extravasated blood, but I don't have any pain. I am aggrieved to have to tell it to you, since you like Mme Duchatel, you find her to your tastes, but she has terribly pointy bones that hurt a lot. Indeed, the poor woman has been desolate to see me in this state by her fault. Don't be too worried about my accident. By the time you receive this letter, it won't be visible anymore. I share with you sincerely the desire you have to see see me again and I hope that it will be soon. The Emperor speaks to me of you always with kindness and often asks me if you still make verses, he counts on seeing you here at the time of the wedding. I cannot repeat enough how kind he has been to me. Embrace our children very tenderly, how fortunate you are to see them night and day! Caroline

Source: Lettres et Documents Pour Servir à l’Histoire de Joachim Murat, Vol 8

[firexfate]

the black sparrow || reign

♔ one ~  the french court ♔  

The pitter-patter of rain echoed throughout the castle of Moscow. It amplified ever so slightly, hitting the windows before it came pouring down harder. The atmosphere was quite gloomy in the throne room because of the weather, yet, oddly enough, it calmed Tsaritsa Alisa Ivanova as she stared out the window aimlessly. It was always cold in Moscow, and the rain was not that unusual. She was accustomed to it, it would be strange to not feel the chilly weather, as she would walk outside, the cold nipping at her skin. She would be leaving all of this behind, as she would travel to France, where she would be for a while—at least until she would find a suitable alliance. Alisa wanted to marry for love. That would be an ideal case scenario, but that was impossible. That was a luxury queens cannot afford. Absorbed in her own thoughts, she did not notice how a set of familiar footsteps was heard from behind. She managed to come to her senses when a hand pressed on her shoulder. She turned around, finding the familiar face of her cousin, Dimitriy, standing before her. He smiled thinly.

“Your Majesty, it is time.” He informed her, causing her to smile when he addressed her formally. Alisa sighed heavily, tucking the cloak around her tighter, before looking over towards one of the guards stationed at the door. 

“Has my carriage been prepared with all of my luggage inside?” She asked quietly. The guard bowed his head. 

“Yes, Your Grace.” He answered. 

“Very well, and where are my ladies?” 

“Just outside the door, Your Majesty.” Alisa nodded her head once more, before turning to her cousin and smiling at him. 

“This is a goodbye then.” She spoke softly. Dimitriy took her hand once gently and squeezed it. 

“But not for long. Soon, you will be back, and not just alone, I hope. It will get a chance for Russia to adjust because of the recent events.” Alisa sighed heavily, knowing fully well what he meant. Russia has been unstable, ever since the death of her father, Tsar Ivan Vasilievich, also known as Ivan the Terrible. He ruled with an iron hand; anyone who would oppose him, he would kill in the most brutal way possible. Alisa proved to be more tolerant, but she was too young and needed a husband. She shook all of her thoughts away, before looking up at Dimitriy and smiling. 

��I will. In the meantime, I wish you the best of luck as regent. It will be no easy task, ruling such a large empire as this, but I know you can do it.” Dimitriy chuckled softly at that, before pulling her into a warm embrace, before pulling back. 

“I will make you proud, I promise.” He assured her. 

“I know, and if you find yourself in trouble, you know where I am. Da vstrechi.” (Until next time.) Alisa turned around and left him alone, sweeping from the room, before finding her ladies, Aaliyah, Natasha, and Katya, dressed in their finest dresses and warmest cloaks. 

“You look lovely, all of you.” Alisa complimented them with a small smile. “Shall we get going?” Katya nodded feverishly. She was excited, all of them were. She has never been so far from home before and had heard wonderful stories about France. 

“Yes, of course!” Natasha chuckled at her friend’s excitement taking the lead, heading towards the front entrance. 

“We are taking two carriages, Natasha and Katya will go in one, Aaliyah, you are with me.” Aaliyah nodded with a smile, as she headed towards the grand carriage, while the rain pelted down furiously on their cloaks. Whenever they would travel somewhere, if at all, Alysa would always sit next to Aaliyah. They were best friends, almost like sisters, which Alysa did not have - she was an only child. As soon as everyone was seated comfortably in the carriages, Alisa gave the order to the driver to take them to France, and they were off. Alisa stared outside, watching her glorious castle in Moscow fade into nothingness. A hand pressed over hers gently, and she looked up to see the gentle face of Aaliyah looking up at her. 

“This is it.” She whispered. “We are headed to France.” Alisa smiled a little, trying to act excited and confident for the sake of her friend. 

“Indeed we are. It will be a new adventure.” Aaliyah frowned ever so slightly, at the uneasiness of her tone. 

“Is there something wrong?” 

“Not at all.” Alisa shook her head, too quickly for Aaliyah’s taste. 

“Are you sure? You look anxious, my Queen.” Alisa did not say anything to that, and Aaliyah’s body seemed to relax with realization. 

“That’s what this is, isn’t it?” Aaliyah sighed softly. “Alisa, you have nothing to be worried about. You are going to be wonderful in French Court.” Alisa bit her lip. 

“What if the Queen and King of France don’t like me? What if their children will despise me? And what about the people, too?” Aaliyah moved to sit to her side, chuckling a little. 

“Alisa, they don’t know you, not like we do. All they know is that you are the Empress of a huge country. They will see you as one of the most powerful rulers in the world. They will get to know the real you, once they spend time with you.” 

“Perhaps, it is best that they don’t know anything about me.” Alisa resolved, looking over at Aaliyah, who nodded solemnly knowing exactly what she talked about. It was known to her that the Russian Tsaritsa carried a dark secret. If anyone found it out, she could be possibly removed from the throne, and even, executed. 

“No one knows, Alisa,” Aaliyah promised, taking her hand and squeezing it tightly, “This is an opportunity for you to get a fresh start. Besides, we will be there with you the whole time. You don’t need to be nervous.” Alisa let a genuine smile light her features again. 

“Thank you, Aaliyah.” She told her, before leaning back and looking out the window again. She was truly grateful to have someone like Aaliyah in her life. She remembered how they met - a poor, scared Indian girl standing before her, shaking. She did not know Russian and was scared at the prospect at what the nobles would do to her. It all changed when Alisa walked out from beside her father and reached a hand to her in friendship. The rest was history. Aaliyah was trained to become the future Tsaritsa’s lady in waiting, learned the language and culture of the Russians. As children, Alisa and Aaliyah would play for hours on end, and they only grew closer as the two grew older. Alisa would tell Aaliyah all her troubles, while Aaliyah would give her advice. The two were inseparable. 

A soft snore came from Alisa’s left side, disrupting her thoughts. The young Tsaritsa turned, startled, before smiling seeing the sleeping form of Aaliyah. She pulled off her cloak and draped it over her sleeping friend. The bitter cold never had much effect on her. Alisa sighed heavily and turned to gaze out the window once more. France, here I come. 

♖♖♖

The journey lasted a few weeks, Aaliyah and Alisa would spend the time either talking, eating, laughing, or telling stories. When they would get tired, the two would fall asleep, the same way they did when they were children; Alisa’s head would be resting on Aaliyah’s shoulder, their hands entwined, Aaliyah’s head resting on top of hers. It was a very peaceful road to France. As they moved closer, it became warmer, just as Alisa had predicted, which did not matter to her. Aaliyah, on the other hand, was extremely relieved that she was back in the warmth again. India was hot, or so Alisa had heard. 

Alisa managed to doze off, just before they were about to arrive. The journey had exhausted her greatly, and she needed to be shaken awake. 

“Alisa, wake up.” Aaliyah’s voice commanded. Alisa let out a groan in response, causing her friend to giggle. “Alisa, we are nearly here.” Alisa let out a sigh, sitting up and letting out a yawn, stretching. She blinked a few times, after her rubbing her eyes. Aaliyah grinned at her briefly, nodding to the window. Alisa looked over at it and her eyes widened. They were indeed here - The Palace of Fontainebleau. It looked grander than she had imagined it, almost as large as her own back in Moscow. The architectural design was beautiful and the palace itself was surrounded by gardens. Excitement and thrill fueled Alisa before she nervously tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. Aaliyah took her hand and squeezed it. 

“You are going to be great.” She assured her before the carriage abruptly stopped. 

“Your Majesty, we have arrived in Fontainebleau.” The driver proclaimed. 

“Thank you, Pavel.” Alisa nodded before stepped out of the carriage. She was greeted by a few servants, who bowed to her, before hastily gathering her things to take to her bedroom chambers. Katya and Natasha joined them within a minute. 

“How was your ride?” Natasha asked the two of them, smiling at Aaliyah and Alisa. 

“We slept most of it though.” Aaliyah shrugged, winking at Alisa’s direction. 

“Isn’t it warm here?” Katya gushed, her green eyes gleaming with excitement, “This is so much more different than Moscow.” Alisa laughed quietly and nodded. She turned to find two guards headed towards her direction. They bowed low once they have reached her. 

“Your Majesty, the King, and Queen of France would like us to escort you and your ladies to the throne room.” Alisa nodded at once. 

“Lead the way.” She spoke, and she followed them into the castle. It was even grander inside, the halls were spacious and each room seemed to have a chandelier. The walls were done up in silver and gold, it was impossible to look away and not marvel at them. Alisa kept her head high, as they entered the throne room. 

“Her Majesty, Tsaritsa Alisa Ivanova with Lady Aaliyah, Katya, and Natasha.” Alisa inhaled deeply, as she let her arms fall at her sides, moving closer towards the King and Queen. Many were gathered in the throne room, nobles, royals, and servants alike, eager to see the young Russian Empress. Behind Alisa, she could hear whispers of Aaliyah, Natasha, and Katya, excitedly conversing, though she did not pay attention. She paused before the royal family, taking off the hood of her cloak, revealing her golden crown submerged in her dark curls. She smiled and curtsied before King Henry and Queen Catherine. 

“Your Majesties,” She spoke French fluently, even as her Russian accent seeped through, “I thank you most sincerely for your generous invitation for allowing me and my ladies to stay here, while I secure an alliance. Russia thanks you.” There was dead silence in the room before she heard a joint movement. Everyone in the room, excluding the King and Queen, bowed to her. Aaliyah nudged her with a smile. 

“Way to go, my Queen. You have their respect.” Alisa smiled faintly but did not respond, as King Henry moved forward. He bowed his head, smiling at the young Queen warmly. 

“Tsaritsa, we are honored to have you in our home. Please, stay as long as you need to.” He spoke taking her hand. Alisa smiled. 

“Please, call me Alisa, and the honor is all mine. I hope to be better acquainted with all of you soon.” King Henry nodded. 

“Of course. We will host a celebration in your honor. It will be for the first time in history we will have a Russian Queen in Fontainebleau.” He gestured for two young men standing behind him forward. “May I introduce you to my sons, Sebastian and Francis?” Sebastian had messy brown hair and icy green eyes that seemed to glow in the sunlight. He took the inial movement, taking her hand and pressing a kiss on the back of it, while Catherine de Medici watched in distaste. 

“Your Grace.” He greeted her, his eyes flickering to look over at her ladies, as he stepped back. He seemed to be looking at Aaliyah, who took a little soft breath. Alisa did not think to much of it, as she turned to Henry’s other son, Francis, who was staring at her the whole while she arrived. Her heart fluttered at the sight of him. He was gorgeous - blonde, playfully curls fell right near his shoulders, his sky blue eyes seemed to reflect both kindness and gentleness. He recovered himself soon after, stepping forward and bowing. 

“Your Majesty.” He greeted all to formally, with a small trace of a smile, as he took her hand gently. 

“Alisa, I insist.” The young Queen replied with a smile of her own. 

“Francis, then.” He introduced himself, pressing a kiss on the back of her hand tenderly, before moving back, his eyes never leaving hers. Henry did not see pay attention, moving to introduce her to others. 

“This is Queen Mary of Scotland and her ladies. She and my son, Francis, are engaged to be married.” Alisa’s eyes flooded with recognition and she nodded, smiling at the young Queen. 

“A pleasure to meet you, Queen Mary.” Mary walked up to her with a smile and took her hand. She seemed to be kind and nice enough. 

“And you, Alisa. I am sure we are going to be great friends. These are my ladies, Kenna, Aylee, Greer, and Lola.” Alisa smiled back at her, nodding. 

“Likewise. It is a pleasure to meet all of you,” Her eyes skimmed Mary’s ladies, who bowed at her and smiled. She gestured to the women behind her. “These are mine, Aaliyah, Katya, and Natasha.” The three ladies also curtsied before Mary. Henry smiled, glad that everything was going per plan. 

“I assume you are tired from the long journey. You are free to rest until the feast.” Alisa curtsied before him in gratitude. 

“Spasibo.” (Thank you) Alisa reverted to her tongue before she left the throne room, her ladies flocking her and disappearing from the room behind her. After they had left, Catherine de Medici sat down in her throne, as Henry did so and they continued speaking with the nobles regarding the state of France. She heard a shaky breath, from behind and turned to find Nostradamus’s, the Castle’s healer and seer, face scrunched up before it relaxed. Lately, he had been having many visions regarding Mary’s and Francis’s doomed fate. She wanted to marry him off anyone other than Mary, break the alliance, but has not found any suitable match. She was worried about her son. Impatient as she was, she waited until the meetings with the noblemen will be over, before approaching her friend. 

“What is it? What did you see?” She demanded, skimming Nostradamus’s face. Her eyes burned with anticipation and impatience. “If it is about my son, I have the right to know.” 

“I had a vision.” Nostradamus began, before being interrupted by Catherine again. 

“Was it about Francis?” She pressed. 

“Not just him, the Tsaritsa,” Nostradamus paused for a moment, “I see a bright future.” Catherine froze her tracks, pursing her lips. 

“A future? With the Empress of Russia?” Nostradamus nodded once. 

“If Francis marries Queen Alisa, they will be happy together, in love, with many children. Their reign would be long and prosperous, even with a few obstacles.” 

“So, if he marries Alisa, he will not die?” Nostradamus nodded again. 

“Yes.” Catherine’s brain was swimming with ideas. 

“I must get them together, so he would fall in love with her, not Mary.” She muttered to herself before she heard Nostradamus chuckle quietly. 

“I don’t think that would be necessary.” Catherine’s head snapped up in confusion. 

“What? Why not?” 

“Look at him.” Catherine turned to look at her son. He was not paying attention to Mary speaking, only half-listening, his eyes were staring aimlessly to the exit of the throne room, where Alisa left. “If you ask me,” Nostradamus continued in the quiet manner of speaking as the two watched Francis, “It won’t be long until you will have an alliance with one of the most powerful countries in the world. Nature will take its course. Your son will live.” 

A/N: Hey everyone! Welcome to the first chapter of my reign fanfic, it is gonna be a fun ride, I’ll tell you that. As you can already tell, this is absolutely not historically accurate and I will mix up the episodes as we go along, cause screw storylines! XD Lemme know what all of y’all think and I hope to update as soon as I can. xx

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

If Alexandra's personality was ill-suited for being the Russian Empress, what personality would have been well-suited?

Was she really? Okay I’m going to play the devil’s advocate.The context and the hazards of life played a key role in shaping Alexandra. You are going to say “like any other” and of course you are right but in Alix’s case to say the odds were against her is an understatement.

I’m not a big fan of what if in history but surely without the illness of Alexei a lot would have been different. Yes Alexandra would still be a very private person and would have sought the same cocooning lifestyle that she actually led. However perhaps her character would have been less neurotic, less worrisome and her health a bit better. I don’t want to go on the psychological path either but to see her son so sick because of “her” it must have been terrible for her emotionally. She became even more withdraw. Yet, I don’t think it’s fair to call her a recluse because she made a hell of a lot of efforts. Such as during the Spala crisis in 1912 where Alexei’s nearly died. I’m sure I already quoted Gilliard in a previous ask but I’m going to quote him again:

“I could see the Tsaritsa in the front row, smiling and talking gaily to her neighbors. When the play was over, I went out by the service door and found myself in the corridor opposite Alexis Nicolaievich’s room from which a moaning sound came distinctly to my ears. Suddenly I noticed the Tsaritsa running up holding her long, awkward train in her two hands. I shrank back against the wall and she passed me without observing my presence. There was a distracted and terror-stricken look on her face. I returned to the dining room. There were all happy. Footmen in livery were handing around refreshments and everyone was laughing and exchanging jokes… A few minutes later the Tsaritsa came back. She had resumed the mask. She smiled pleasantly at the guests who crowded around her. But I noticed that the Tsar, even while engaged in conversation, had taken up a position from which he would watch the door, and I caught the despairing glance which the Tsaritsa threw him as she came in. The scene… suddenly brought home to me the tragedy of a double life.”

She was also present during the visit of Poincarré in Russia in 1914. Maurice Paléologue write how ill at ease she appeared during the never ending official dinner. Yet she was there (and for the rest of the visit) very conscious of her role as consort. I would like to add on that note that public duties were quite different from what we expect today from the royals (they better work hard or it’s the guillotine). All joke aside, the public role was far smaller. If we look into British history Queen Alexandra nor Queen Mary, before WWI, had tremendous public engagements. In that respect they lived the same pattern of the aristocracy.

Now if you look into history what qualities were expected, traditionally, from an Empress?

Noble character  ✔️ She was a good person, very devoted to her family and adopted country. 

Good moral ✔️Alexandra received the traditional and conservative aristocratic upbringing of her time. 

Charming/Sociable   ❌✔️Well this was her biggest problem and probably why so many people think she was ill suited for the job. She was awkward in society especially with people from the Court which jeopardize the equilibrum between the sovereign and the nobility. But here is why I think it wouldn’t have been THAT bad if circumstances had been different. Alexandra is always compared to her mother-in-law. It’s true Maria was a wonderful hostess and liked society very much. But the lavish lifestyle of Maria and the Court was coming to an end. So in that regard, Alexandra’s lack of enthusiasm for balls or other court ceremonies might not have been such a huge problem. She could have found her niche if she had played the card of the modest Empress who helped the poorer. However she didn’t like to promote her good deeds to the public. So her poor public image wascaused by circumstances outside her control AND her unwillingness to step into a role that she would have created. 

Dignified ✔️ She knew the protocol and the decorum that comes with it. Can we talk about how she went full regalia for the opening of the State Duma in 1906. She literally used the largest tiara she owned which screamed AUTOCRACY. (tbh we could talk for hours about this event which is so interesting & sad *one foot in the future and the other in the past*).

Charitable work✔️ Very devoted in that aspect, financed several hospitals… 

Humble ✔️Once she was in Yalta in a shop someone asked her to take her umbrella outside in case it scratchs the floor. She did as she was told without as much as batting an eyelid. She was far from being arrogant however there is this paradoxical and annoying aspect of Alexandra’s personnality: she was humble yet very conscious of her position aannd she bought the whole great Russian myth of the distant Tsar who knew better than anyone.

Wife and mother ✔️ Devoted to her family to the core.  

Religious✔️ Deeply religious woman. Perhaps too much with every years that passed but who can blame her when you know how ill Alexei was. 

No political inclination ❌ Well you can’t really ask from someone not to have opinions. In Alexandra’s case it miiiiiight had got out of hand at the end of the reign. She wasout of touch with national life. She clunge to the unrealistic vision of Russia. It is very apparent in this letter that she wrote to Nicholas in 1916 : “ Be Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Emperor Paul - crush them all under you. […] I really cannot understand. I am but a woman, but my soul and brain tell me it would be the saving of Russia. […] Remember even M. Philippe said one dare not give constitution, as it would be your Russia’s ruin, and all true Russians say the same.” It is chilling how much out of touched she was. 

Don’t get me wrong I’m not giving her excuses. Certain aspects of her personality were quite conservative and traditional. What her aunt Victoria, German empress, wrote about her is pretty spot on: “Alix is very imperious and will always insist on having her own way ; she will never yield one iota of the power she will imagine she wields ; I use the word ’ imagine ’ advisedly, because my niece is given to very exaggerated ideas as to her own cleverness and importance.” What I would like to add is the context that I mentioned earlier. Contrary to Maria who had more than a decade before becoming Empress, Alexandra was only 22 when she married AND became Empress. All eyes were on her, expecting from her to hold her role and lead society. 

++ Maria might have had most of high society in her pocket but it didn’t mean she was wiser than Alexandra. For instance she was against Nicholas’ solding crown land to the government, which the later would sold to peasants. 

I think with this question of who would have been better, we are looking for some kind of savior. My 21th century self who knows what happened would tell you that Nicholas needed someone more lucid, grounded and perceptive. Someone who could have encouraged him to let go of the nonsense that was autocracy. Not someone who would have encouraged him like Alix did. But is it really realistic to expect this clairvoyance from a young woman who surely would have been brought up with the values of her time ? Not sure. Of course there is always a counterexample, for instance Alix’s aunt, Victoria. She is an anomaly in the landscape of princesses of the 19th century. She was lucky (or unlucky we could talk about it) to have received from her father a liberal education AND she married someone, Friedrich *aka thebestmanwhoeverlived* who shared most of her views. And even with the best will in the world they struggle so much and faced a wall of rejection. Of course Prussia was not Russia. It was just to underline that everyone can rise above its own education Fritz is the perfect exemple of that. But it is so rare and the political context of Russia was such a mess that it is not as if the whole Russian Revolution wouldn’t have happened if Nicholas had married a wisest woman. There is no question ask that Alexandra played a part in the whole debacle of the fall of the Empire but it is a small part.  

The crux of the issue wasn’t Alexandra’s personnality. The real issue was the outdated, unfair and backward system of autocracy. Nicholas and Alexandra inherited a time bomb. Yet I don’t believe in fatality and Nicholas had numerous occasion to change things but he didn’t. On top of that you add their personnal tragedies such as Alexei’s illness and you get the tragic events that unfolded.

[imagine-loki]

Across the Divide

TITLE: Across The Divide CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter Twenty-Nine AUTHOR: wolfpawn ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki sneaking out of the palace as a youth to see the city and countryside, while out one day, he accidentally gets in trouble for something, but a young girl deals with the situation, allowing him to be left alone and his true identity be kept secret. She is a poor girl who is only in the city to sell goods with her father, so she does not realise it is Loki, even though she sees his face. They form a friendship as she shows him around the city, and tells him the date she comes to the city every month for a particular market. RATING: Teen and Up

Frigga walked into the private chambers she shared with her husband and paused, seeing him sitting on his favourite chair, his armour off and only his comfortable tunic on. ‘Husband.’ She gave a small acknowledgement to him.

‘Dear wife.’ He smiled smugly back. ‘Would you be so good as to use your seidr when working the right shoulder, I had a terrible kink in it today as I held Gungnir.’

‘Did you, now?’ She rolled her eyes as she walked over to him and beginning her work. ‘Out of curiosity…’ Her answer came when one of his ravens flew back into the room, joining its twin. ‘You have been spying on them?’

‘And Thor and Lady Sif.’ She paused. ‘I want my sons happily married. This way I do not have to force either of them into an unhappy marriage.’

‘And how are matters with Thor and the Lady Sif?’

‘They are coming along nicely, though they did not waste time beating about the bush like those other two, honestly, I thought I would go bald from them. Though I may need to reiterate to our boys the manner in which children before marriage are frowned upon.’

‘I do not need to think of my little boys doing such things.’ Frigga groaned.

‘They are men now.’ Odin corrected her. ‘I would have thought you would enjoy grandchildren?’

‘I will, when the time is right, it does not mean I wish to think of my little boys that used to suck their thumbs or curl into me to fall asleep when they were babies as men in the act that causes such things.’

Odin chuckled. ‘Fair enough. But in seriousness, whatever playing around they do, illegitimate heirs to the throne would probably by the final straw for the court. I foresee trouble with Ullr’s daughter, he is only a smaller Lord and his daughter has the attention of the future king, and Norns know how they will react to the confirmation of Ariella as a courted suitor.’

‘They will very much be against her.’

‘Yes, but she is able for them. If you saw her today, she stood so stoically against Ivan, she even reprimanded him for the behaviour of that rancid boy of his.’ Odin grinned.

‘You have a terrible fondness for her.’ Frigga smiled.

‘And you do not?’

‘I do, but you, you see her like a daughter.’

‘When she weds Loki, she will be our daughter. And I could not ask for a better one. I admit, I am too fond of her, she is an incredible little creature. All she has done for the people, done for our son. I thought for years he would do himself harm, he was so morose and angry, now look at him, he is the brightest and most driven young man. I seldom get to ask him, but I think him happy too; when he is not trying to destroy his happiness.’

‘What happened on the balcony may I ask?’ Odin said nothing. ‘I saw Thor fly up to you two.’

‘A minor moment of madness on Loki’s behalf, some people saying things to hurt him and I was the first person he met after so he unleashed his anger in my presence, Thor just made sure that Loki did not harm himself.’ Odin dismissed.

‘Is this regarding poor Ariella being the whore of the house?’ Odin looked at his wife. ‘You think my maids do not talk?’

‘Yes, so the child she will bear when the time comes, be warned, it may very well be mine or Thor’s if they are to be believed.’ Odin scoffed.

‘Those narrow-minded malicious fools.’ Frigga sighed. ‘Speaking of which, I need you to invite the Lord and Lady Johan and Mya back to court for a private meal soon.’

‘Whatever for?’ Odin stared at his wife in concern, knowing she disliked that couple immensely.

‘I want to rub it in their faces that my sons are happy, regardless of their rumours and comments.’

‘So they started it.’

‘All because they wanted Anja to be chosen for Thor.’

Odin thought of the girl in question, she was beautiful, yes, tall, blonde, very talented, especially in song, and well liked by others though she tended to see them all as below her. She had a terrible vicious streak that could not be ignored. He shuddered. ‘Never. Could you imagine her with power?’

‘Exactly, but they beg to differ.’

‘Let them beg all they like. Little harder there, my dear.’

Frigga shook her head as she smiled, using her elbow to get into the muscles of her husband’s shoulder. ‘Norns but you are stiff.’

‘Behave.’ Odin grinned playfully, earning him a small slap on the shoulder from his wife, causing him to chuckle and her to laugh with him. He took her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it gently. ‘I have the greatest love for you, you know that?’

‘You are getting sentimental now, you old fool.’ Frigga placed her arms around him, effectively hugging him from behind. ‘I have it for you also.’

‘I only wish I had not be thrown at you like I was, I would have very much preferred a more natural way of winning your affections, even if I am an old fart in comparison to you.’

‘Life has so many moments, so many twists and turns that can alter our lives so greatly. There are many I would change, but you are not one of them.’ she kissed his cheek. ‘I am very much happy to be your wife, you are a true companion as well as husband, I am incredibly grateful I was given such fortunes. I only wish for our sons to be so lucky.’

*

Loki groaned as he pulled his lips from Ariella’s after what felt like both an eternity and mere seconds simultaneously. Looking into her startled eyes, he realised that she felt as he did regarding the cessation of their actions. ‘We...we cannot do this here.’

She bit her lips together, wincing slightly. ‘Why are they sore?’

Loki grinned. ‘Because they are not used to that.’

‘Yours are deep red.’

‘So are yours.’ he took her hand. ‘The healers should have been here by now. Are you feeling alright?’

‘Never better.’ Ariella smiled. She looked at her bruised arm. ‘Has it stopped?’

‘I think so.’ Loki inspected it. ‘Yes, I think it has.’

‘So long as I eat liver and heart, it will strengthen me more and it should not occur again.’ She looked to Loki, who was staring at her. ‘What?’

‘I am not kissing you after that.’

‘You spoiled palace brat, those foods are highly nutritious.’

‘I do not care, still not kissing you.’

Ariella tilted her chin up. ‘Maybe I do not wish for you to kiss me, what say you to that?’

‘I would say, that going by the way that you kissed me, I would think that you were speaking falsely. What say you to that?’

‘I think you to be overconfident.’ Ariella stated with a coy smile on her face.

‘I would disagree.’ Loki smirked back. ‘If you are feeling better and considering there is no sign of a healer,  I think it best if we leave these rooms and continue this discussion over something to eat.’

‘I think that to be the best idea.’ Ariella used his hand that was holding hers to help her to her feet and with their fingers intertwined, the pair left the healing rooms and made their way back to Ariella’s quarters, requesting her maid to retrieve some food from the kitchens for them to eat.

During their meal Loki informed Ariella of all that occurred while he was on Alfheim, he told her of those who had gathered to aid the Light Elves and of the issue they had had to resolve. Ariella told him of everything that she knew of what had happened on Asgard, and of her studies and work. She did not tell him what it was exactly that she was doing on request from Odin but she promised that he will be the first to see the finished work. Loki knew what it was that his father had asked her to do in general but the specifics were not something he had been privy to considering Ariella told no one of what she had planned, insisting that it would be a better surprise when it was revealed to everyone. Loki, of course, would be the exception to this, but he would not be shown until she was ready to reveal it. Her proud smile and the passion of she spoke with told Loki that's whatever it was that she was working on meant and a great deal to her and then it wouldn't be giving her utmost attention and dedication.

Somehow, though how neither of them could tell, it was past midnight when they finally ceased to speak to one another of merely anything that came to mind from their time apart. Loki was disappointed and Ariella was unhappy when finally it was made clear through yawning and bleary eyes that their speaking would have to cease for the evening. Loki would be incredibly busy catching up with everything that he had missed while he had been on Alfheim for a time, meaning that for the next couple of days, he would not be able to spend as much time with Ariella as he wished would wish to, though he openly admitted it this time, insisting that he was not trying to avoid her, quite the opposite. Though part of her mind made Ariella sceptical and scared that he would lie to her again, she dismissed it because it was only logical that after such time away there would indeed be such a backlog of issues for Loki to deal with. She told him of her schedule and where to find her when not keeping to it hoping that should he finds himself with some spare time that they could agree to meet up somewhere, or perhaps, if this time came without prior knowledge, Loki would know where to find her. With this in mind, Loki decided that he would actively seek out her company for breakfast and lunch and perhaps dinner too should he finds himself free in time, so that they could continue to spend time with one another even with their busy schedules. He wanted to know how her reading was advancing considering she mentioned that she had begun to read several pieces of literature that one either simplistic nor light reading by many people standards. He felt himself swell with pride for her at the immense work that she was doing to better herself and to allow herself the ability to study the things that she loved so greatly in the future. With their promises made, he stole one more kiss for the evening and begrudgingly bade his farewells. Ariella, excited by everything that has happened and by the revelation that Loki felt for her as she did him smiled and waved sadly as he left her room and made his way back to his own.

Loki, on a high from everything that has happened that evening, bumped into his brother in the hallway between the rooms.

‘You seem to be in exceptional spirits.’ Thor noted as he looked at his brother's beaming smile with one similar on his own face. ‘I take it you've spoken to Ariella?’ He then noted Loki's reddened lips. ‘Or perhaps it is that you did more than just speak.’ He chuckled knowingly.

‘You are one to talk, you look like you've tried to skin your own lips. I take it you were with the Lady Sif.’

‘Aye, but I would not deny such things.’ Thor shrugged unashamedly before his face became serious. ‘Do you think that Mother and Father will be angered that their sons will be seen to be a disappointment to the station, their realm and their titles by so many?’

‘To be frank, I do not think that Mother, or indeed Father, ever cared too greatly about the opinions of those who think themselves important considering they are not who was important. They have always stated they have wanted us to be happy and considering both of our mannerisms being learnt of theirs, I think them to enjoy the idea of annoying such people.’ Loki shrugged, grinning at the idea of annoying so many inconsequential and irritating Lords in one fell swoop,  with Odin sitting on his throne daring anyone to question what he was permitting as King and Allfather.

‘I often find myself worried as the how much pleasure you take from such actions.’ Thor admitted.

‘How can any not enjoy the idea of those pompous idiots being given a dressing down to or indeed crushing any ideas of advancement and grandeur they may have at yours, or indeed my expense. Think about it Thor, they do not care if you are happy in life or in a partner all they care about is their personal advancement and if your happiness is what they have to pay for that then they do not care they will pay it gladly for his not their happiness they have to pay.’

‘I often forget that you were the younger of us, as much as is often killed me to say so you are right, they do not care they will never care unless it affects them. The issue is that this will affect them and we know that they will fight and argue this. Sif and Ullr are not of such power that they are their allies, and now with Fathers backing, Ullr will not able to be bullied into doing as they wish, meaning that a Lord that they think below them getting above his station, that will cause consternation. I feel somewhat guilty thinking that I am the reason for unrest, but my feelings for Sif cause me also to not care what they think to an extent that I will happily be the one to take them down should they fight it too greatly.’

‘You do not know Sif as long or as well as I Know Ariella, that is not me dismissing your love for her, I am merely stating that mine is longer and deeper by age, they will fight against her even more ardently considering she is of no considerable family.  She is a commoner,  an orphan and a pauper; her family cannot be bought with riches and promises, and she cannot be bullied nor can she be dismissed. already they have tried to thwart our courtship, and I have little doubt that they will try again and who knows perhaps more veracity and with more damaging comments.’

‘You made a deal with Fandral before regarding her, did you not?’

‘Yes, and?’

‘We make a pact now as brothers, kin and allies. We protect each other and the women we care so deeply for against them all as a team. Do we have an accord?’

‘I will say to you what I said to Fandral, I have made deals and packs with people that you would never even consider. I am willing if you are. I will make any who mention Sif in a negative manner, even just a whisper, suffer for doing so, but in return, you do the same if any say such of Ariella and if Norns forbid, you become King whilst I am still courting her,  you will never stand in our way.’

‘You seem certain that you will marry her.’ Thor smiled.

‘It is her or none, there are no other options, not for me. I love her, I love her with every part of my being. We are told we have one true other half I believe the day I met her in that market, that was the Norns bringing her to me, showing me who I am to have my life with. The very same as when I held that little show to out those lying two faced Lords, when I chose Ullr’s daughter, that was the Norns bringing her to you through me.’ Loki smirked. ‘Come to think of it, I am the reason you have her now, you owe me so much. In fact, I think I might state of my fee here now for such a great boon for you.’

‘Dare I ask?’  Thor winced, terrified as to what his brother could possibly ask for.

‘Your first child, considering you have to have children as King.’

‘Loki I am not giving you one of my children. Firstly, because well, it would be my child and as such the future ruler of your realm, but also secondly, considering there are two parents to every child, I do not think it's fair to actively agree to give one of our children away without Consulting what would be its mother, and thirdly, no, just no.’

‘ I do not want your child you idiot, with you for a father, it would frustrate me without end to try and explain to it the most basic of magic, considering you do not have a working spell in your body. But also, why would I want to look at your ugly mug every day in your brat when I can have my own smarter, quicker and by far better-looking children should I choose to want such?’

‘Then why mention such a thing as my hypothetical child, then?’

‘Simple, I would ask to be its godparent, the poor creature would need some intelligent male influence in its life to make up for its poor excuse for a Father.’

‘I feel you have only requested this, not out of care for a child but as a means to insult me in as   placid a way as possible considering the alliance we have just made.’

‘ I think you are finally catching on Brother, that only took you over half a millennia.’

‘Your humour knows no bounds still I see.’ Thor stated in bemusement.

‘No, thank the Norns, but I find myself continually trying to test it to see just how far it will reach,  that is why I have been anything but disappointed, I hope it continues in such a manner.’

‘As do I, but I warn you, not all will be as accommodating with your comments as I.’ Thor warned.

‘That is why to go with my vicious tongue I have an incredible ability to keep myself out of harm's way. But you know this because of course, on occasion you have had to use such yourself.’ Loki grinned. ‘Goodnight, Brother.’