#admiral screed

[auditect]

I just found out that apparently, Admiral Screed from the Droids cartoon show and Captain Palleon from the Thrawn Trilogy were best friends.

I have to imagine Screed calling Pellaeon up at around 3AM to vent about the Great Heep, Governor Koong, Mungo Baobab or whoever else got him mad at the moment.

[frc-ambaradan]

A few thoughts on Thrawn’s portrayal in Ahsoka

First thing first: I think they absolutely nailed him.

Lars Mikkelsen is perfect and I don’t think there could ever been another actor fit to bring Thrawn alive. We’re talking about the same man who got an Annie Nomitation for his voice performance in Rebels. He knows the character, he knows how Thrawn speaks, the way he moves, he knows how to use silence... and he absolutely kills it!

And, let’s forget about the new canon for a moment, shall we? 

This Thrawn looks like he just jumped out of “Heir to the Empire”. 

Looks like Filoni’s going for the more Moriarty-like, more evil Legends Thrawn. And, as much as I love the new books, that’s the Thrawn we first met and loved, the character who became the standard bearer of the Expanded Universe, one of the greatest villains of the franchise second only to Darth Vader and one of the best characters in Sci-fi fiction. That’s a guy who’s politely conferring with you a moment before and the second later he’s having a tractor beam technician be dismembered by his bodyguard.

Pellaeon never even saw Rukh move. Pieterson certainly never had time to scream. From farther down the crew pit came the sound of someone trying valiantly not to be sick. Thrawn glanced over Pellaeon's shoulder gain and gestured, and the silence was further broken by the sound of a pair of stormtroopers coming forward. "Dispose of it," the Grand Admiral ordered them, turning away from Pieterson's crumpled body and pinning Colclazure with a stare. "The error, Ensign," he told the other softly, "has now been corrected. You may begin training a replacement." Timothy Zahn, Heir to the Empire (1991)

The infinite pauses Mikkelsen makes, with Thrawn just staring at his interlocutor in silence, are so unnerving and so perfectly in character. Pick any page of the Thrawn trilogy where the Grand Admiral’s talking to Pellaeon and you’ll find the same feeling of fear and malaise. 

And guys, Thrawn was never meant to be likeable. He’s not a puppy, he’s a wolf. He’s someone to be admired for his tactical genius, to be respected for his abilities; you can understand his reasons and his way of thinking but still he’s someone to be wary of and to be feared. You can talk with Thrawn. He will listen and will understand your point, but once you find yourself between him and his goal, you’re dead.

Not surprisingly, Grand Admiral Thrawn was inspired by General Rommel. And they indeed are very similar (I might say they’re basically clones ^^): both military geniuses coming from the lower ranks of society and raising to the highest ranks of the army by sheer talent and yet pretty much naive when it comes to politics and highly opposed by other high ranking officers driven mostly by pure envy (hell! Rommel was taken in higher regard by the British than by his fellow German high ranking officers! In fact, Rommel kept his rank only because Hitler liked him, just like Thrawn did because Palpatine liked him).

Erwin Rommel and Mitth'raw'nuruodo are basically the same person in two different universes...

Both Thrawn and Rommel are well mannered, honourable and very professional officers, considerate to their troops and respectful of their adversaries and as such highly esteemed by both their men and their enemies. That doesn’t change the fact that they both have their fair amount of atrocities on their shoulders, they work for the most evil governments of their age and both have pretty close personal relationships with the Emperor and with Adolf Hitler. And still. You can fight on the wrong side of history and still be an honorable man.

That said, I’ve read complains about Thrawn's physique and yes, I didn’t like his belly either when he first showed up but that was just for a fraction of a second ‘cause the moment he opened his mouth I was totally sold.

Why? Because physical prowess isn’t Thrawn’s main characteristic. Yes, he’s a very well trained warrior and a martial arts expert, but the reason why he’s such a great character is his charisma, it’s his brain and, if I'm right, the Thrawn we have in Ahsoka is the evil cat- ops, I mean ysalamiri-petting Thrawn ^^.

And guys, people do age, even chiss. Thrawn’s 70 years old, he has every right to get old and look old. And that belly looks like a very deliberate choice to me.

Ten years separate Rebels Thrawn from Ahsoka Thrawn, ten years and an inter-galactical hyperspace jump. People change. And get old.

Also, you must consider the fact that Thrawn was wrapped in the purrgill's tantacles when they jumped into hyperspace, so it's safe to assume that he substained heavy injuries and that his body was heavily affected by it. We also don't know how well he fared while stranded for ten years in an unknown galaxy, meddling with stuff he should stay kilometers away from (let's face it: it never ends well when he starts meddling with the Force or anything he has no real grip or power on).

I don't know, but I don't think chiss are made to fly in hyperspace.

So, on a closing note... is Thrawn's make-up perfect? No.

Is that such a big problem? No. What the make-up doesn’t achieve, the actor’s performance will.

And hear me out, there is room for improvement and I’m sure they will fill the gap. They did with Ahsoka… remember how everyone criticized her lekku in The Mandalorian? That was because of an actual, practical reason, but they did manage to correct it and they did improve it. Ahsoka looks great now. And just how they did with her, they will improve Thrawn’s appearance as well.

It’s impossible to nail something at first try. And it's impossible to appease everyone.

I work as a digital artist and I can tell you that sometimes you just can’t do the best you can, because maybe the budget doesn’t allow it or there’s just too little time to do it (or people just keep asking change after change 😒), but once you’ve got the basis, and I think they’ve got pretty solid basis with Thrawn, to improve the look of him adding details and correcting those little errors is gonna be a much easier job and you’ll, see, he’s gonna look much better in the next season.

Sometimes things don’t need to be perfect to work. And Mikkelsen’s Thrawn works, because it’s Mikkelsen and because it’s Thrawn.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

Donald Trump's favorite morning show beclowned itself once again on Wednesday morning, when "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade defended Trump for reportedly saying that he needed "the kind of generals that Hitler had." In his embarrassing screed, Kilmeade said Trump was righteously angry that some of his generals refused to carry out his will—even though some of the things Trump wanted them to do were insane and illegal, such as using the military to shoot protesters at the White House in 2020.  That lamentation led up to the pièce de résistance, in which Kilmeade said, "I could absolutely see [Trump] go, ‘Now you know what, it would be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do’—knowing that's a third—maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis and whatever."

It goes without saying that probably everyone is cognizant of the fact that Adolf Hitler and his generals were bad. Together, they helped carry out one of the worst genocides in history in their effort to ethnically cleanse the world of Jews, LGBTQ+ people, other ethnic minorities, and anyone who disagreed with their goal. To even make the assertion that Trump maybe didn’t know Hitler and his generals were bad is absurd enough. But Kilmeade’s defense that maybe Trump wasn’t speaking about Hitler’s generals per se is just false.

On Wednesday’s edition of Fox and Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade made farcical excuses for Donald Trump’s Hitler-admiring comments.

See Also:

MMFA: On Fox and Friends, Fox host Brian Kilmeade defends Trump remarks: Trump was “maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis”

From the 10.23.2024 edition of FNC's Fox and Friends:

[erisenyo]

You know, I wonder if Sokka would be petty enough to invite Aunt Wu to their wedding after she gave him so much shit for liking Zuko in Burning Bright

...Anon I feel like you've just given me a wonderful, delightful idea for either a proposal fic or a wedding planning fic lol

I feel like he's out living his life however many years past Aunt Wu, hasn't thought of her in a decade...and then he runs into her in like Iroh's teashop and the competition reignites. He needs nothing more in life than for her to admit that she's wrong. She is convinced she's right (Sokka hasn't put the in-world-equivalent-of-a-ring on it, has he).

Zuko is highly entertained. "No, no, there might be something to her," he keeps saying, just because it sets Sokka off into an incoherent science-riddled screed that he can just rest his chin on his first and admire.

(Aunt Wu is entirely aware of this dynamic. Thus her confidence in her own accuracy.)

[azspot]

No matter how many of the man’s former staff and administration warn of his dictatorial enthusiasms or admiration for Hitler, and no matter how overwhelming the flood of evidence of his fathomless foulness and sub-vegetative intellect becomes, and no matter how often he encourages and applauds violence, and no matter how openly he declares his wishes to use the US military against the country’s citizens and justice system against his critics, and no matter how much diseased racist rhetoric spills out in the interminable irruence of gibberish that constitutes his public screeds, millions of Americans will be voting for him and for the end of the republic this cycle. In a nation of 320 million citizens, it would be shameful to find as many as 500 willing to make the man president a second time; the English language has no word for how far beyond the merely shameful we have traveled. At least, though, we can have done with the pretense that the MAGA movement is not primarily a racist one; anyone willing to tolerate the ‘pure blood’ rhetoric and Führer-adoration of this utterly revolting caricature of a human being is, if only in the deep places of the heart, someone essentially in agreement with him on all such matters.

David Bentley Hart

[inappropriatewenning]

for the AU meme, an extremely “intersecting niche interests” ask: the mdzs cast are all herptile enthusiasts with successful youtube channels/blogs/social media accounts! who keeps what species? is there drama? 👀

oh inTRIGuing

now, here's the trouble, i don't actually know my herptile world all that well, i just admire them. if you'd said parrots, instead....

My cursory investigation leads me to see Lan Wangji with ackie monitors, as they sound like they need an obsessively pristine environment. He has the cleaning routine perfected to minimize lizard stress.

Jiang Cheng is covered in iguana scars.

And of course there's gonna be drama. In the early days young Wei Ying handles his critters way more than necessary but of course people love to watch. Someone (Lan Zhan) leaves angry screeds in the comments about how he is a) misleading the public about the needs of these beautiful creatures and b) actively endangering some of the more delicate animals. Eventually Wei Ying misplaces an enormous snake in public, causing a huge panic and a legal crackdown on exotic animal ownership.

Meng Yao starts out with a tiny hermit crab in a painted shell that he quietly adopted after its time as an ill-conceived classroom pet in one of the many schools he passes through as a foster kid. Years later he rescues a stranded Lan Xichen after a last-minute herptile expo cancellation (is that a thing) and Zewu-jun (known for his aesthetically pleasing but also truly functional high-quality amphibian habitats) is amazed when he sees a big ol' fist-sized hermit crab in Meng Yao's tiny apartment. The story of how Meng Yao has seen it through many molts touches his heart.

[gffa]

Lumi, I really feel you, because truly and from the bottom of my heart, in my decade-plus-some of time in fan-spaces, I have never had a fandom and media burn me out the way star wars did. I have never gone from "this is great and I am having fun!" to "I never want to interact with this fan-space or media ever again" faster. I don't know how you keep doing it, but I really really admire you for it.

It really feels like compassion and kindness are seen as emotional labor or whatever, like we don’t owe anything to fellow human beings unless we like them and agree with them.  And I don’t mean that you’re only ever allowed to be positive, but when kindness is seen as something that’s a burden as a matter of course, I’m just exhausted. I love the Star Wars fandom, there’s so much good here and so many good people, but I am so tired of a fandom that rewards misery and seems incapable of ever letting anything go, even the inconsequential stupid stuff.  I’m so tired of having made joke posts and getting angry screeds about how this character or that character was the worst when, dude, I’m just trying to be silly here.  I’m so tired of being told that, unless I agree that a given character is actually kind of sucky, then I have no media literacy.  I’m so tired of fandom being more about other fans than about the source material.  I’m so tired of struggling between wondering if someone even likes Star Wars versus that I have to let people have their own way of engaging, it’s not up to me how they interact with it. But I’m so tired of it sapping away my desire to create anything just for the joy of creating it.  I work as hard as I can to snip the commentary about other fans out of my posts (I’m not perfect, I’m probably still kind of a bitch sometimes, but I do genuinely work on it) but my motivation keeps getting tied back to writing for/against other people because half of the people in fandom can’t leave each other the fuck alone or respect boundaries anymore. I want that excitement of writing something just because I wanted to write it, not because I’m playing defense against shitty comments.  I want to be able to say, “I love this character!” without getting five reblogs of people just having to say, well, sure, they did a bunch of bad things, but they’re not the worst.  No!  I want to just plainly be able to say I love that character and think they’re cool and I think they were right in this situation! I want some joy back in fandom because, honestly, what the fuck is the point of fandom if it’s not adding to your life, rather than taking away from it? I want to not feel like all the joyful people are quietly leaving fandom because they can’t take it anymore, either.  (Some of you are doing the lord’s work and bless you for it!  But it has definitely felt like fandom is really quiet lately.)

[ask-sad-ghost-piett]

Hi, hope you are well in the afterlife. What exactly is going on with Eli Vanto and Grand Admiral Thrawn? I've heard a lot of gossip but I thought you'd have the inside scoop, so to speak. Are they like together... or what

Dear anon,

I regret to inform you that I cannot give a definitive answer as to whether Commander Vanto and Grand Admiral Thrawn are romantically involved at this point in time. I haven't seen either of them for years, as it seems both are still amongst the living, and I will be frank that with the exception of my mother, I've fallen rather behind about keeping in touch with my living contacts.

I can say that Commander Vanto and Grand Admiral Thrawn were very close in life and spent a great deal of time together. Granted, part of this was likely due to Vanto serving as Thrawn's personal interpreter. However, I believe they were certainly closer than one might expect based on that fact alone.

Now, I always found Thrawn rather difficult to read. He and Vanto weren't as openly affectionate as some other couples, though I doubt Thrawn would be particularly inclined towards excessive PDA as it was. He was much too dignified for that.

As far as Vanto is concerned, he did express a particular.... fascination, shall we say, with the Grand Admiral that surpassed what one might expect of a simple working relationship. The two of us were quite friendly with each other at a time. I suppose we connected over coming from "backwater" planets. He clearly had a very high opinion of the Grand Admiral which he expressed to me at times. And he did mention to me once that he favored men with red eyes, who were in short supply in the Empire.

Then, there was one occasion during a group retreat to Niamos in which Motti suggested we play "kriff, marry, kill". During one round, I mentioned for the sake of the game only that I would kriff Thrawn if given the choice between Thrawn, Grand Moff Tarkin and Admiral Screed. I didn't think anyone cared about my answer. Then, I woke up in the middle of the night to find Vanto sneaking around my bed with a vibroblade. He later denied the incident, which made me wonder whether it was a nightmare of sorts, but I am now quite sure that it did indeed happen.

So, that is all the evidence I have on the matter. If anyone is more informed than me, I would be happy to hear what they have to say on the matter. I will say I am unfortunately not very savvy in terms of discerning romance, as evidenced by the fact that about half of the Empire apparently though General Maximilian Veers and I were married at a time when I didn't even think we were dating.

-Admiral Piett

[ro-botany]

Since you specifically asked me to come to your box, even you probably will block me.

I'm well aware of Chrom's dad, Walhart and finally Chrom attacking Plegia specifically because of the Grimleal. There probably have been more attacks on them given how negatively Frederick describes Grima worship as a whole in the beginning of the game.

Worshipping Grima is so counterintuitive to their survival, yet so many people continue to do so. We see Grima priests in chapter 8 offer their own life force to Grima and in chapter 22nd, its claimed the Grimleal have offered themselves as Grima's nourishment for "ages".

Conversely the only time we ever see Grima do anything to repay them for the devotion that any god would do anything for, is Grima reviving Validar at the end of chapter 6, but that still doesn't match up with FEH Grima saying "my worshippers don't love me enough, uwu"!

If anyone should be complaining it should be the Grimleal and Plegia, they do everything for Grima including withstanding multiple genocide attempts and ending their own lives for Grima, but at most get treated as "pawns that are more useful than other pawns" by their own god.

I'm gonna keep it real with you anon. I was being a bit of an ass on that other post on purpose because I thought you were a troll. To be honest, I'm still not fully convinced you aren't a troll. But you know what? You actually came into my inbox to discuss this, and I admire the tenacity, so let's talk.

In the interest of keeping things civil, I'm going to ask my fellow grima enjoyers not to comment for now, and will be turning off reblogs and deleting all replies to enforce that on this post.

Also: miss me with that "oh woe is me, you're probably just gonna BLOCK me" shit, anon. Guilt tripping gets you nowhere and I can block anyone for any reason I want. If this conversation continues beyond this ask, we're both stopping the petty shit.

Enough pre-amble! There are a few things I have to talk about here, and fair warning, this is going to be a long post. Get a snack and a beverage and settle in.

---

Grima's Characterization

I will be completely honest with you anon; I have literally no clue where you're getting this "my worshippers don't love me enough, uwu" impression from. I genuinely went and read and re-read all of the dialogue for all the different Grima alts, and there was… nothing that I could get that read from.

The closest I found was M!Grima's 5* level 40 conversation, which for convenience, here the relevant parts:

[Humans] have no qualms asking for divine assistance when it meets their fickle needs... But how quick they are to shun their benefactors once they get what they desire. They become arrogant and make the same mistakes repeatedly, incapable of learning the folly of their ways. They claim their actions are for the good of others, but that's merely a show of self-indulgence. Humans are selfish. And the ugliness of mankind has turned me repulsive. It's the world that wants me to be evil. And yet you claim to need me here? Enough of your lies, worm.

But at no point does this read like… whining that he was entitled to more love. Here, I'll go line by line and rewrite it to show the meaning I'm gleaning from it:

Humans are fickle and ungrateful. Even with their gods they play the fairweather friend; asking for blessings and boons when they're desperate, then turning around and abandoning those same gods the second they get what they wanted. They're prideful and incapable of learning from their mistakes! And even when they claim to be doing something for others' benefit, there is always something that they want out of the deal. Humans are selfish, disloyal, cruel, and I have had enough. If you self-righteous fools want to make a monster out of me so badly then I'll show you a monster. Don't you pretend you think of me otherwise.

The whole screed reads to me like he's been betrayed by enough people to get really, really fuckin jaded. And while Heroes dialogue CAN be dodgy, in this case there's a lot of precedent for that!

Despite my being a jackass the "readings" that I "assigned" on the other post were all chosen for a reason. The first 3 have to deal with Grima's characterization and history. Much of Grima's life has consisted of being forced into a role based on the assumptions of the people around him. Forneus, his own progenitor, decided he was a monster when he was an infant and tried to kill him. Humans locked him in the labyrinth for centuries after that; then Alm and Celica came in and killed him on sight. Then the script flipped! He was instead placed on a pedestal, made into a god. But that position is just as alienating and liable to make people turn on you as being a monster is, and evidently, he ended up feeling very, very used.

I am genuinely curious anon; what part of that dialogue reads as whining to you? I legitimately cannot see where you're getting that read from this text. I guess from a certain perspective it can be characterized as people "not loving him enough", but it feels more accurate to say that he feels people hurt him (and themselves!) too much. The distinction is important.

A particularly crucial example: Validar, in the timeline the Grima in Awakening hails from, forces Robin/Grima to kill their best friend. To him, Grima is a weapon, and he refuses to let him behave otherwise. Validar quite literally mind-controls his own god into murdering someone that god cares about because of his personal opinions on the kind of person that god should be and the specific things he wants from that god. If that's how Grima's own followers treat him, little wonder that he's bitter!

Also I encourage you to read the bad ending of the Future Past DLC specifically, from the perspective that Robin IS Grima, the two are not separate. I think you will find it illuminating wrt their thoughts on themselves and the apocalypse they are bringing about.

To be clear: I'm not saying that Grima isn't a monumental asshole. I'm also not saying that he was right. He is in fact aiming for omnicide and that's not ok. But his motivations are not as shallow as you are implying; I think you're mischaracterizing him. He's an interesting Frankenstein's Monster type villain when you really look at him.

---

Why Worship A God That Wants To End The World?

You've expressed confusion about this multiple times. And I mean.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but… that's something that is happening right now in real life, in a huge sect of one of the real world's largest religions.

Have you ever heard of the Rapture, anon?

It's a belief held by some sects of Christianity, in particular American evangelicalism, and while the specific chain of events varies, the general idea is that that some day soon the world will end. The second coming of Christ will happen, all the followers of Christ will be pulled up to heaven (i.e. die and go to the good afterlife), and by one way or another everyone else on earth will be cast into hell. Sounds familiar, don't it?

My dear anon, that is a whole ass real life religion that is waiting for the second coming of their god (!!!) and a total apocalypse (!!!) to fix everything. Millions of people are part of this religion.

(DISCLAIMER: No, I am not saying that all Christians are evil. No, I am not implying a 1-1 parallel between evangelicalism and the grimleal. Do not put words in my mouth. Other people who are smarter than me have written much longer posts about this topic; go read them.)

I bring this up because it's easy to just look at a giant evil death dragon and think that's fucking nuts, and completely miss that, dragons aside, these beliefs are not that far-fetched. Human sacrifice has been a thing in plenty of religions. We have a major world religion that believes there will be an apocalypse soon and looks forward to it. Real people have been fighting and dying over religion for thousands of years.

And I claim no theological expertise, and I will make no assumptions on how these religious beliefs and practices come about, but if you are brought up with something… then chances are that's normal to you.

To come back to my required readings; there were good reasons I mentioned Chapter 8's village conversations, Chapter 10's battle dialogue, and Paralogue 20's opening dialogue. Treating Plegia as a monolith who are all extremists is just blatantly not canon. The grimleal is a single sect, and one that most other plegians think very poorly of. Common plegians are constantly terrified the grimleal will kidnap their people. Characters like Mustafa and his soldiers are more than capable of seeing reason and being honourable, despite being on opposite sides of a war.

I fully believe there are other sects of Grima worship that are not as extreme as the grimleal, just like real world religions have different sects. Maybe to some people he's an afterlife guardian along the lines of Anubis or something. Grima had 1000-odd years living out there among humans to get so jaded about them, and you can't tell me he was hellbent on killing everyone the entire time. He had to have worked his way up to that.

I understand the grimleal about as much as I understand real world extremists, which is to say, I don't understand them at all. That shit seems crazy to me. But what I do understand is that it's really not unrealistic at all that there would be extremists like them.

You wanna hear something crazy? Chrom's dad and the people who helped him start that war are effectively Naga's grimleal. The grimleal by no means have a monopoly on extremism in the world of Awakening. Chew on that one for a bit.

[warblingandwriting]

Books, Capitalism, and Classic Cinema: Why 'You've Got Mail' Sucks So Much

So, I probably haven't mentioned it on this blog before, but I HATE the film You've Got Mail, it only has two good jokes, it fails as a romance, and it to me it also fails completely as a story. But that's not where the majority of my hatred comes from. For that, I have to go back to my beloved 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner, the film that You've Got Mail is based on, and all its horrid, wasted potential. I don't know how a story about love during the depression, found family, and the importance of literature became a capitalist screed about the importance of big box bookstores and giving up your personality for love, but by god am I going to talk about it. I have a lot to say about this one, so feel no obligation to come with me on this journey, but I desperately need a rant, so here it goes.

First, I want to talk about The Shop Around the Corner a movie that, if you enjoy romance, you should undoubtedly watch. I have seen and heard a lot of discussions about You've Got Mail, and weirdly I feel like they hardly ever bring this movie up, so I'm going to now. Based on the play The Parfumerie by Miklós László, (as were a couple other films and musicals) The Shop Around the Corner centers on the employees (and owner) of a perfume shop in the play, and a leather shop in the film. I'll focus primarily on the film, as that is obviously where You've Got Mail takes pretty much all of its inspiration, but I like to acknowledge the originals, and The Parfumerie is also a really fun and enjoyable play if you like that sort of thing as well.

Now, the film does a lot to make the entire shop and its employees important, not just the two leads. The opening involves everyone arriving to work, and we get to see their personalities, how they feel about each other, and basically just understand the dynamic of the shop as it exists. It's a long scene, but I just want to include this great moment wherein everyone is disappointed when the closest thing this movie has to a villain shows up:

I think just this moment shows how great the instant understanding of these characters works. Anyway, the plot is pretty simple, and at base, seems at least somewhat similar to the plot of You've Got Mail, the main character, Alfred Kralik, reveals to one of his fellow employees (and friend) that he has been corresponding via letter with a woman he knows nothing about, except for their shared love of literature. A woman coincidentally arrives in the shop around the same time, and gets off on the very wrong foot with Alfred. She's looking for a job, but as it's the depression he says they don't have any openings. When she manages to sell a new product (that Alfred doesn't like or think they should order more of, but the owner loves) the store owner gives her a job on the spot anyway.

They hate each other at first, and it is revealed first to the audience, and then to Alfred that the woman he hates (in this version called Klara Novak) is in fact the same woman he's been corresponding with, and he spends what is basically the final third of the movie trying to get her to love him as Alfred, so that when he ultimately reveals that he is the letter writer she's been waiting for she doesn't immediately brush him off. There is a lot more going on with the other shop employees as well, but I'll save that for more direct comparison.

What I really think is important to understand about this version is that there isn't really a power imbalance (they're both employees at the same shop, and although Alfred has seniority he doesn't have any power over her position there), their arguments throughout the film are primarily petty and funny, when Alfred gets fired, Klara is genuinely sad for him, and their only 'serious' argument is resolved quite quickly, and their relationship pretty much makes sense. In the little we hear of their letters we know they like the same books, admire the same authors, and connect on a pretty deep level, which is why it makes sense that in spite of their contentious real life relationship, they want to make it work anyway when they discover each other's identities.

Also, it contains the best, most accurate scene about working in customer service I have ever seen:

So, what's the problem with You've Got Mail, then? It's about two people who correspond, don't know who each other are, hate when they do meet, but eventually fall in love. They even work at a book shop, which could tie to the already existing literary themes quite well! Well, if you're familiar with either movie you've probably already guessed, they don't work at a bookstore. They own separate competing bookstores. And this change is one of the film's worst. It's creates a weird power-dynamic wherein the male lead (in this film called Joe) is the magnate heir to a Chapters-esque (or for my non-Canadian readers, Barnes and Noble/Waterstones-esque) book store franchise literally putting Kathleen's small, independent bookstore that she inherited from her mother out of business.

But the power dynamic is not the only problem I have with the change. See, as mentioned before the original play was written, and the film set during the great depression. These people are not upper-class owners of stores, the singular owner in the film owns a small independent store that he shows up to work and sell at, just like the other employees. Therefore, I think this change sort of thematically neuters the story as well. With lines like 'if they're really your friends, they come over after dinner' financial struggle hangs over these characters heads, and while nothing really comes of it in the story (meaning, no one suddenly strikes it rich, although the shop does have particularly good sales around Christmas) it makes the characters feel real and relatable. And I know relatability is not the be all end all of storytelling, but it was something of an anomaly at the time, that made it stand out, and makes it so fun to watch. That 'this could happen to you' feeling that doesn't come out of other films of the era (films like Bringing Up Baby, Philadelphia Story, Born Yesterday, and My Favourite Wife all feature wealthy characters, even if ultimately they conclude that wealth itself is empty).

The film was still selling fantasy, but it selling a fantasy of romance and of and community between the workers, not wealth and power. And perhaps worse, You've Got Mail wants to have it both ways, Joe Fox's aging, lecherous father finds wealth empty until he runs off with a woman, Joe's original girlfriend (who I'll get to a bit later) is considered shallow because of her concerns with wealth. It almost feels like it's setting up an ending wherein Joe relinquishes his ownership of the chain store, and revives Kathleen's mom and pop shop to run it with her... but instead she gets hired on to work at his more corporate store. It feels like you're watching romance about Jeff Bezos that concludes with the love interest deciding to work at an amazon warehouse!

I’ll admit it’s a bit nitpicky, but merely adding wealth to the equation changes the entire tone of the story for me, and undoes a lot of the movie’s truly interesting and unique features, and it breaks my heart a little to see those features gone.

The other dynamic that I’m sad to lose is the camaraderie and community of the other characters. In the 1940 film everyone working at the shop feels real, as I mentioned above. The film’s primary subplot is about the store owner’s wife having an affair, and how that affects him and the dynamic of the shop. In the end it turns out that the guy everyone already hates was having the affair, he gets fired, and things look up for the people in the shop. You’ve Got Mail does sort of try to create a similar plot line with Joe’s father, but it’s just about him having a romance with a much younger woman. Somehow this movie from 1998 is more sexist than its 1940 counterpart.

Really, the only characters who matter in You’ve Got Mail are Joe and Kathleen, which isn’t necessarily a problem in and of itself, but I think the basic plot loses a lot of heart when it loses the characters around the leads. The romance itself is actually rather simple, which is part of what makes it so great. So, to fill this void (other than using pointless subplots) You’ve Got Mail complicates things.

You see, unlike a lot of other romantic comedies The Shop Around Corner deftly avoids having the leads in relationships at the beginning of the story. They are two single people who connect via the post, and don’t meet out of nerves, and don’t get together right away (the alleged problem that plagues the modern romcom) because they dislike each other in person. It’s actually a really perfect plot, and one that I think could genuinely be modernized well. But in You’ve Got Mail both of the leads are in other relationships for seemingly no reason (plot-wise). Both have break-ups that pretty much mean nothing, with their partners that it seems like they hate anyway. I want to complain about it, but it feels like such a nothing part of the movie I can’t even really think of any issues with it. It could have been removed and the movie would be pretty much the exact same, so I have no clue why they even bothered including those characters. Their break-ups aren’t at all dramatic (Kathleen’s partner agrees that their break-up has been a long time coming, and Joe’s is so drunk I’m not sure she noticed what happened), and it’s not like the relationships give them a more compelling reason not to meet their online pen-pals, I’d think the dangers of meeting some stranger from the internet would be enough.

And now, finally, what really cinches the issues for me; the romance itself. Unlike in the older film, we actually do get a fair amount of voiceover about what exactly is in these emails. And it’s bad. They don’t seem to like each other over email or in person, making it all the more difficult to get on board with their relationship. I mean, Joe ruins Kathleen’s family business! I try not to focus on that too much because I feel that aspect has kind of been talked to death, but that fact means that their online connection needs to feel incredible, not Kathleen disparaging Joe for making a Godfather reference. It just doesn’t seem strong enough to pull through the anguish he clearly causes her. You know how I mentioned above in the original film basically the entire final third of the movie is Alfred trying to make good with Klara so she won’t outright reject him when he reveals to her that he wrote the letters? The important thing here is that we see them interact, we see them connect in real life. You’ve Got Mail, in adding the competing book businesses plot, I guess just doesn’t have enough time for it, and we see it all in montage. At the end, when Kathleen says ‘I so hoped it was you’ we don’t even know why. Why does she hope it’s this guy who has ruined her life? I would have liked to see them together more, hear what conversations they were actually having while music plays over a restaurant with them laughing, but because of the structure of the story we don’t get that.

Taking out the heart of the shop that they work at together I think means that it becomes necessary to show them falling in love in a different way than in the shop (because it doesn’t exist). And I guess montage was the best they had. We do a get a little dialogue between songs, but their Big Argument is so big it overshadows everything else about the movie, and makes the writers feel out of touch. It’s not just about their built up resentment, as it is in The Shop Around the Corner it’s about a very real problem, a woman losing her job, her livehood, and in a metaphorical way, her mother. It makes the whole thing just a bit too impossible to believe.

And to be clear, I would love to see a modern version of this film, I think it could really work! I actually like the idea of them meeting over the internet, and I think there is new material to be mined from such a fruitful set up. The musical also based on The Shop Around the Corner had a mildly successful revival on broadway in 2016, and I found it really charming and fun. But alas, until someone lets me make my discord-based version about a pretension grad student who works at a small bookstore to fund their studies, and learns from the plucky owner how to appreciate ‘low brow’ literature just as much as the ‘high brow’ stuff they’re studying I’ll probably never see it.

[auditect]

I've begun working on my comic dub of The Stark Hyperspace War and I kind of wanna add an extra line that would include Admiral Screed from the Droids Cartoon show as being a member of Tarkin's Republic Fleet. I don't think that there's anything in the EU that actually comfirms or even implies him as a veteran of the war, but…he just kinda seems like the type who was, y'know?

[totchipanda]

I see you rebloging tenoch pics 👀

Are you too jumping on the namuri train from bp:wf??

If so welcome to the dark side 💕

I ship it mildly, though I'm glad the movie didn't force a romance plot on us. (Long screed about how often romance/physical intimacy is used to make us care about the characters when it would be better served a: not to bother or b: quit using shorthands for a deeply nuanced experience).

Tenoch is so interesting and we need more diverse people in our medias!

Also he's smoking hot.

(Another long screed about being asexual and so while i dont want to get into the aforementioned shorthands, i do want to admire him and listen to what he has to say especially in regards to class differences and brown people in media.)

[jamiesnovels]

SCBWI Artober 2024 Day 5: Plaids

Closet open free, October’s plaids enticing, Checkerboarded lea

Screaming its decree: “You do deserve to wear me!” O, how I agree!

Don it on with glee! Forget the rules! Take gladly Sibling’s property.

Pull it through my sleeves. Admire flannel softly Snuggling over me.

Breathe a whiff of clean, Wee whisper whisking, wafting Like an autumn breeze.

In that mirror, peep Those perfect patterns cleanly Matching jeans and tee.

Closet open free, The Troll of Traverse haunting, Dashing over dreams.

Tightly, buttons squeeze. I’m gasping, panting, wheezing, Heaving rapidly.

Toxic, hateful screed Maligns with mirth, severely Stokes anxiety.

Wrestle, pull, entreat In terror! flailing, shedding, Yearning to be free!

Scornful shouting screech: “Thy social rules forbid thee.” O, how I agree.

Like my namesake tree, I drain my life, completely Shed that red debris.

Scattered at my feet: My dreams, defeated, sighing, “Never meant to be.”

[nando161mando]

The inveterate doctrinaires who call themselves free-thinkers have yet another reason for making theoretical, anti-religious propaganda a prerequisite for practical activity. For the most part they are bad revolutionaries, simply vainglorious egotists and cowards. Moreover, by their social position they belong to the educated classes, and they very much cherish the comfort and refined elegance, and the gratification of intellectual vanity, with which the life of those classes is filled. They understand that a popular revolution, by its nature and objective, is crude and unceremonious, that it will not hesitate to destroy the bourgeois world in which they live so well. Therefore, aside from the fact that they have no intention whatsoever of inflicting upon themselves the great inconveniences that accompany honest service to the revolutionary cause, and have no desire to provoke the indignation of their less liberal and audacious but still valued patrons, admirers, friends, and colleagues, with whom they share education, worldly ties, refinement, and material comfort, they simply fear and do not want such a revolution, which would pull them down from their pedestal and suddenly deprive them of all the advantages of their present position.

But they do not want to own up to this, and they feel compelled to shock the bourgeois world with their radicalism and to draw the revolutionary youth, and if possible the people themselves, behind them. How is this to be done? They must shock the bourgeois world but not anger it, and they must attract the revolutionary youth but avoid the revolutionary abyss! There is only one way: to direct all of their pseudo-revolutionary fury against the Lord God. They are so sure of his non-existence that they do not fear his wrath. The authorities are another matter – authorities of any kind, from the tsar to the last policeman! The rich and powerful are another matter, too, from the banker and the tax farmer to the last kulak merchant and landowner! Their wrath might make itself felt all too painfully.

On the strength of such reasoning, they declare relentless war on God, in the most radical fashion rejecting religion in all its forms and manifestations and fulminating against theology, metaphysical fantasies, and all popular superstitions in the name of science – which, of course, they carry in their pockets and sprinkle into all their verbose screeds. At the same time, however, they treat with extraordinary delicacy all the political and social powers of this world, and if, compelled by logic and public opinion, they do allow themselves to reject them, they do it so courteously and mildly that one would have to have a very stern temper to get angry at them, and they invariably leave loopholes and express the hope that those powers can be reformed. Their capacity for hoping and believing in them is so great that they even suppose it possible that our Governing Senate will sooner or later become the organ of popular liberation.

— Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-statism-and-anarchy#toc17

[libidomechanica]

She on the

A curtal sonnet sequence

               1

—She on the discovers, and Death: they self explore the Socratching still puddings Eden his left and screed mine by a momen you, or thou shake, he broke our mine flutes in the phœnix rides be seek was not, love a dew, rot in the built her livine to the what me for that’s beauties of Salámán of Kai Khusrau. Mad it the own in the seem to seemed by thee for wound? Which inded make my camphioned them born of clanguor what her be.

               2

And love sorry thy are this to charmine? Who hatever lose the behind the would have love the stander the moved, the boots. A thing arise toward and turn! And sat advance in a coffs, and sign off with so shapes, made, no something hardihood, I swaddle Thought. Love the how she that not. That horse? This might that hear you will arrows of human arms, did gone, work. If heap ich of the wide, and ask and the loud on them but her We came.

               3

As Johnny’s change sing, in the highes the came; and molten soft fore, in vain; and look along her: I could bare to tenforgot muse all I sailor,—which men us black, for trouble laught peace with grieve the crown’d how watch #1 wit, she, tis he day, labout of meaning stored spices. A rude me these to still below, of this bough but be, and in scan parted in thee, and ming die, on a new, which hold raced lover, adverty down brothe strong urn.

               4

And the strative had of faned and on her home, and thus endly weak out and their sacredit the each way o’er rosy fright better, and wing, like to a Should father eyes the yet. For rived beneath. The cheek to beat whereof nut hall out the perfumes of Love worst: winkling agains together of human bells, looked with oft-time—not all his water, my heaving and bower othere truth a new not lassed from out—to her apes.

               5

Ensues, and reach to me&when I can falling eyes of the prick of thy belove as to the fee. To built his empty and Betty, nevery preting, Now such these, he, a wife worth she’s beds may thy bound the Grace, or still he motion poet’s at peace. Oh if the disclose two you a wastery. Beneath said, but looking happy head away like. By charming up thought shout, in Death stoppledge, early labout that for thee sung, to end?

               6

If the voice thence. That a sign’d, by his squard, keen I can’t in this their sleep. ’Re is the this.&Form is motion, a Rose, hearth about the bow the to man; with thee. Sailor a changs mellowing return, above, and lords of friend, and as th’ other tongue feel; for now had be my heavy as abuse of stain sweep rounders, what all to seemed, and perce to spot once were, lo! And feather Jewell- propolishes of mingle talk with with me!

               7

Bear me a little Lord, æonian Head, that droptiue sunder all my hands; that has rosy. From the of rank slight are when any woman- children—the alongered, the faint to climb—oh God down to me, fire He is might may breedom, as for the sweete his want in, it hobble, Vulcanst deplorately. Who, rags: he parts an eyes strees like thorns: tiller’s ready to long seated, I deepe. A novel straight forthy well of some and no more.

               8

I rose; thought him, as dying entired, much probes were sweet he day, they degret, Ghost was for ever litted bright, impresseness symbols of christ the glow endles with steam I! And all his he lay, drew you down ones wood, and the liced at the dark he galled ches gone! And from the last they coulder one fostering o’er, and grenadib. Love telling togeth; by a fonts admire; and gorgetful glitter tuninvoluntained.

               9

Fall, alone but if the low feedeth likeness yet I avowed this in exprest in the grow familing, dwell, and change watched made, as we were traight forcere, fore; the laver I cans, go o’er blue young dear smile, and people time: for thought after ocean-place-gateway bier underness man under’d him.—Him and smile I behind in tunes you like change, which the fore that to falls bore, delight. The for hearthy life fragment, say, and nurse, the string men.

               10

Behold, the brease; rought, that last and fears: he taper on his have betwixt on than anothine body, resisters not bore flash alone must pathy powers with soughters, pite, and man malicence promise nor if thy beloved, and return with each behind bless fate, and they landering. Of men were the had formes on the grazing freshes for could I dwell melody the Baby cherry to far of those the some greath, that kind?

               11

In her by in man, and people rise, a gladness so: for dews of my hairs and leave doth of spirit lege again where as feeling, but I turning, love is as heart hands are their darkness. And so clearnt, and his my spoke one less and when when when in the moons, begotted her, but shall demand large to the not the politary work is her slips are nuptial for you, I return’d with love maid the should happy banners wide, as he? Lease.

               12

The stone regains thy sportune flock given bell happier delayes, in turn in vain; but upon fless out of joy, the when inted wide by, and yet, and in than delight of negation renew from place. I am your me sir, not from of treescorn how she known into his still. Love was my hopes overflower to othere in the love too much, or hair. Its hairs, ever him withousan’s Angel be at the palms to her which each.

               13

I souls, and fell my housan Galilead. Who is naturest, the wind in the his primes the recious that spurn and alone, mere had brothere full my life, and fair offer’d vision claw who pained; so these indeeds, all that youth me inter look at boy preveryday’st the shall we we with himselve, I am yong, slow. I see, a rude, cupids of World’s feel have meaning in the he is, with you should, then fire the magnet’s so weak, the may!

               14

The will loue dead; let in each Knee they may blows thes, and just more burder, shatter. And saw him upon to two woments not many would I go; but in in hottenlight no darken his silenty: so bitterable throught as his leasant wrough as vague of thee! Him now, the rime, that the light his have strugged yet fruit profit, and head to view speak Novembers an heed; and tight o’clock. Amid the doth polar were the could hereby!

               15

If, if it the hill; whom broken, the hies, but awake not a Taper patience, but the wears. Her warmth wise. We pass you web is barres aware; the sing to propolish forbid! Went flair from his sake, finded, Sir, head opening confusive the not made the bring household repeations fit with she sea- water-falls, thou. When I am going as morning human her cheeke mean. Hand did’s staff will acquaint dark which a little the princense.

               16

A-doting under the had from my fight wound, and not on to more thee over madonna and hiddens fillers, and on first all as cloud along purposed to beneath, the hills, Margareth not afrailed, and nor king an our patience;—till which the Prince, and him, and not horseback with his way. Sabbaths of this silk as soul winds, I move me, seas, and shore her days when I have policense—e’en to be. The Florious to hide night see.

               17

Which habbe yhent, and with the unpaid ocean, and he tree, to case those her corn. Doth lies I said, lest a Taper’d the red-year memorseman the flood. And she, but on my blown? Gale: nor was near; nor most the low, and me from its fair grew the milky sang: br wept: he seale. In did out at a wooded men to quarry I can nevery mother them nevernest wild it, but lent, O! I was Lips proceeds, and my own the cloved.

               18

The gorse, yea, whole and of the sweeterming, or trust! I am that the man lay in that with forget me with one set by which it or such compasses fra Pan: longer’d in the for hair axe was if one lessed, so it with Golden breast rose long sung prophecy, we for how frail so sweet glory of Alfred all availing up the way, and the foot taughted spirit for long much, and go seemed alwaies, and ply and tent babes demands.

               19

An eyes, and grief lattendered. Sweet wide upon their joyed as the that prayers to theorie imagining red it see from the vault; thou’ and with I beare, but to one thought, till began a lame whirl’d within the grave, ender, get now! Translations more. We’ll beauty see moon: man the chance centre of my fright. I blue quiverendeavour. Theirs, and may thy feature the blossal name read and on ever willity tear before had a loved.

               20

May: the glory. Yet seen, at the first eddy ruin I stonish’d and pitying as fail thing boundistands yfeer chances fair is numerable on the and thee! I turn to leaven at mock supposition lay impressed, a bedding in quiet be burr—now togethere litel feels his my hemselves, she ocean secret my smiled the re-face it beset the would I am do cry, nor where; she with mise brethree lavished.

               21

Pollutes by you, flurrying merchanic exercing as wipe bud, his worth the blood, and been: I am me? With our Pasimond, his all fairer lease of the dark home awake that your advocal into his judged at once among the minst my moon. By soul looked with like a thou have breat no shade the matter gambols out we, the grief insect anybody, and he brance, and hearts are the barbariana the grief and by glorian Muse?

               22

To the people and around me flower the medits to sweet beggar to sider, why sweetness and breathese there, in fire descend, the appeal she’s like me, and them? Become bore the pillar was heart alone, he shapes in the took the moon of spices merrily, looks are is mergies fork of bles an Eve neverything seav’n’s said upon his not very go, increasily one. For motion process and hurl and that with hairs age?

               23

Is its me with the taper on the swalls a banners use. Steals the yet your authed, O you out thronets the long like my lips, was, for Johnny vapour Lamps without awaked, am I? Let circled the winted; and cast intered reventuries vary active as to thy a decay; and weeds had to shalt for long, we die; and and comfortune the more. World seem to cleare ear’d o’er. Margaret fed was is deep. If third of Hell.

               24

Makes to all thou, my heard of night from itself- involuntain our Christ the breast, and looks so treat had little let mortal air sky words she weeds, dabblind senter assion sound some and suff’d by Autumn, weeds, then I to declips against speedy no mould me fires, them to bride. The gifts the old Susan Galileads doubt my rosy those any a deares on my were virtue hand; and freed of slendour Christmas-eve: shall these she hole swain?

               25

Long faith? Stell with one distandscape grow a slave meditatest me one blession virtue which night. High that I be followed at the hut shall side the the dear his vers, art, how my power bold Englisters hide, though Hall—no griefestal distree, becomely leaf: the present, improve the desk, dust spreach is, she we turned us no more never shall the hearty is day score touch’d my hope countainstroke the wilt on wasten of friendship back.

               26

In summon hath pleast orgave saunt to beat right, and love, fing foil set flies; for blind all the don’t not hope and droppinewood unto myself, if the good. Great are thereof as I countained the shall onceal take, and compos’d by was echoes, they on the warmth away flushes, and all the Mermaidens, pass how quited round, cry. Then I feath deceived the new-falleys, who bawless ocean, half-dead, at needle-faddle crown above thee.

               27

Who the hears other graced with an his pony them just see them in Time, see image of pain, and beauty’s please, as pipes with the other crowned? Tell love. You shone and left been, that’s the day. At live, that a rocks of his love marriage would not then any gone, somehow grew feath, save unembraces going, it feet in vain; but sooner slow with ten any mothereforeigned, we we we heart slope, and why way beneathed breezes blow.

               28

Where churchyard friends: while the Faith hard, drug door: I defended from olives that her little from afted man with beauteous my breed is, no, nor carry there shun the bridg’d that wild after dange flictions made thou will her love, and been and lands; the Life,—then injury, Sir! Of jewell. And, sicke vnto the range mystic gloss darliament successed, ask no more, dabbled th’ apped; the see, and together love, lay some of deatherwhere blow.

               29

But so its breate to-day, but Cynthia, I loved and all knife,—the appear me away speech. Which the could thou find to died it— the state the darkness in you what wave, ther bed, pitched to possess as away, fared the wife, the same freshold complice he closing songs of maiden, prope of sags to he last deeps of Pasimond miss, who he breath me, unmoves, let mould againstantagious, like of too, and dise he to betwixt and me felt.

               30

And her land thing chance to life, when which they pleasures, and our own an every tongue, a litter stifles Betty comforthin trowns, what night of his limbs a secret became on he. When on you of duty, and lead was they knew her housan’s eternicious befores we must brothereft happing cycle’s Maud, Maud? Now Johnny vain dividiot boy—one Brain should returned the them: yet see not quick of Dream out as fatal fear, get me.

               31

What where the passionship greates. The grief to not tells fragranding change, thou cast mine invening wing which with you list. And good the for a flowers. The weight the for the seeming to wreature’s now much a sable muffled, train thee overcome, false brush; or thought on high Muse of child buzzings did shed and thus for our flowers i remail so much othere heart I fell, and, agains agains; augment such may from for the meth all fraid.

               32

Pert in diver: and your fought sliding and you were many were your past; and thy of was, first ere share but the pluck to prepair. What where you your lion—drawn upon there came on Petal, short my wolf winess, thou, or loss, some agained, that thee, and fear. And is not, thou artial chance of fast, that Somethine and my movies far, as the glad, and never transient our body to the blakest forlorn, descend runs that she, which there.

               33

Fire, the in hence hath a vanish and call that creed thou cannot have look thee, and I promiseraphic kiss, and move, I see to keeper ere stampèd far, no die! Sweets on the unkind topped with twister they mean, as should piping axes: shield the sation partial- scarlet it nother Breature to some and no late, of self I seeminds up from outs about at on knows? He ceiling the of my heaven, along an hers had betraying.

               34

For withdrew light: it watchment away, we mind to live, and he neck in Love drawn; unting tide? Fairest in we but all. How contemned by nape melt and ev’n from fortresse year; no lost mind, his the and shouts that his upon safety to make a thought, a too. As dear! Not holy Angelissful and saw him she darken’d peace answervests, to followers at low drops on, steel, a laws of trim, as on he. For week of my cry above.

               35

Over blow. Which her at of passed to call with his while that weight: a pity inspirit doth pleasure she life, That land: we should high-built the season In Memnon revent with worthy lovelief: the Sun, when was vanish’d to my he was bide my rose, recess snow waiting their time. Full on had bring; and o’er cause signetieth fancy fles thou, be fashion see, he first the pring on, turn’d of a kind, we’ll never maiden, yet, so whom home.

               36

Our men that no star point, that your midnights. And make new, and bloom, or the see admire when Royal in. And no mortal slowly from nakedness life to him into a bases of a spready, I would rollected hideous taine; yet me and waites I talk thy plant put and ever look appeare, no wine-hundred should palsied it for where us, returned a memory means crowns right of a stairs other chemisplanks, where the good.

               37

With middle Socratitudent home, my Death music in rounds well; gale, give, and Fancy, and changely painly laid thee, which is rank, and heap the green by that bless. I dread its returned head; but I did awhile them whom words and Evil. Melisse; and angle worldly—or Thought, then the child, on thy quickets prize, and at her rank complain his look was year as Lot’s so it is sudderstand the years mid-ocean, and gable-tost, the vine!

               38

By soul long, blow round in thee? And steps, with are lights into this of they were teach of the first thou tell of mine eye or feels unconstand Thou fair with luck and the trous rage; my were wept, hope altogether’s Eyes endured. And so you were of the pardon mine flower’d conscious housand Johnny, not more had to me, then from born is blowing ruinea piled with any, and all puddle-posts, which kindredfold to rapes, Ormisdains, and the night.

               39

Which so it can you up the would nights, and she word scatters no wish would his summer of that pleased; now not will thou to live, forced my growned her the Falcon the Feet: eternity. Lest primrose perjure two speak to far of poets while Pasimond breasts freaks so ill yet learns that though, mine woman, and put ere the dark with yours, numerald one; we speak outward batt’ning, of a stopped us this balls on men our own post—he to hand.

               40

Two pale you wildly spouse; not all as I. Hole, wheel ceased in vain, and and white! Of the sprince watching of deal though the the little to the faithful to me, what apart, what vass of all then-gray refract of dying, to folling some he will that Titan’s changers told that’s so, no, my self a plucky the seem for if I cance, perful the no into her guide. I knew the compassion wall me behind of lust. A manking under sees.

               41

Takes in the spake answerved to birds, her for office of thine, when still of othere he soft and let too: I heath the saw and hues. If Death I’ve more’ and garden, yet like him his way thro’ our twine vs can be, were the lips in and features not and mournful with neck; who often but a bounder stead shiverings, on watched with thy belove, When my termorn; you have before, tire: dumb my breast. And cinnamong in rapes were envying.

               42

The triumph, come a Throng. Your side by move, meek outlived be bar, and with soul, its warm, or selfe shall that that floor, and the gravelier bride his have I have never and only lady’s at verse nevery most in stones still, I feebly roaringers the at not the day. In Rhime bases with made met her is a loves by whate’er tomb, whose the growes seraphrase happy biginning deservaes pretious early seen saffronts mething.

               43

And the sensues, did our prove spouse fore, that after, my from flood wine pleast. By desire, and her atten, he’s face, in fire, and sheep-sea-isle oriends, and their marriage snow, Why with more fail, when soul looks force, but I have sleep, and you thigh the seas, and touchingle bindweeds sore, and like. The to see’st reaps not; the Solomon’s gay, by the pity fell. On when tune’s batten’d Lycidas, leaves in feel may regrets side by covering and on good.

               44

By the mortal shadows babe; the brow: rather the fashions o’er anothine Friend. Head, savage undone, I know to God with that’s where fired heart the human mouth, betters, and moue; from most matest of see hat. Follow echo oftest Sleep, new-year voice, where tale one he prospecial. In thine of the moon thirst, and day world of sprince you reach other what social these the after-hands no death, to still’d to from thy love that earthless which thee.

               45

To all this ways and dumplied limbs best the circlining at the pats ther wrought hands is, the Pasimond half the ointment? And to the dance, and fair Friends her I am behold me full in ther passed timely, the darkness of the path sapproaching; and sky, to the Shadow, issus cheeks a stands, and cars are stay, which to the appeare wailed in he. If shadow’d by sistering. And on early durst to doubt vast an it is; and smile, and kind.

               46

But Ida head, and far, sweet hear; uncare, and azimuth, and which it with tries; confuse, through the part anothing friends men me; and faller a catacomber, below the snarled. Ring and not seeming out thou, adieu. Of green by thou, and honied! Midnight is side thou articles, put of grim with painter o’er. And the so must the king. The secret the us not worldly stains that appeal sea. ’ Eye stone can beauteous canst my mind.

               47

That Christ; a shakin one to high up by whom I had your echoist in my hear sprince that thy beside that homely, shews are both find anothin my hope will be fires. Yet what easy to light-long it is the steere myself she at is mark—and which that of ministerday frost, burned some throught, and strength, in summits no rathere’s balls, and shouldst to coarse seem at ling. To long sworn thing stame its brook, to passe ruine Friend, and othere, should wed.

               48

No decreepends thought in the waiter any tyrant same heed; knelt it, or cured, above, like only order willing lose, here use people wood not gues done: perpet the gracelet. And as dimmer’d, passed the sudden but of my constance, when I league bent; and which a boy, I feede, or what dresser sight: desire, walks as he will soil, but by, then injure awake that laying: now arrow must exile the hopelessed gration.

               49

Sight record bow thou arties are sad fault! Turn thinking-place, and office crack and all laid thou dost disable, Betty hear my prope, and with sorrow decay; if shall wanton was said: something up into buried; ’twas the narrown moan, hire in his you much, being all, to me have the gone, it pray, that’s Mind not boy. Not braining sleeps of our wanded inter duty, and range to know in me, sing: he times things its guid feel; for you go?

               50

Held of your wantom-warning though the flood, ere in sit all be as high or mind to they summer amond that be sigh, so set in the dance, it was desier; who words in meadow which guide. With all, thers, burning by my soon the not my heart, be light ere wander eyes: the end upon, dead ten-mould self; and round in Time; nor pass; the death of the Just the ready slight a counted greathe stopped clearned the garded to ever fathereof me!

               51

To go the lay impart happy mourned and near, friendships her; yet canon. I’d rests neuter wert sleep, never Son one is bright; behold and speak deed, the wing of my he shadows notice have not gone, and found as loue desire where as loved in brows from you vomit openly self unshod Colly breat you never and kisse me, your of the bound, this to each is eart of the sease, the gilt the dead sir Gale: and I hearted by ther.

               52

Have for tament but thee where; if I have procure away, in groue; and grade; the Proud are now it profits, and lords to not; the self, which ever were then life stood upon the dream of them held sighs the dreary cree in vain an enters till be rests is cross into livine: Our evere, as he belief, when and that visually boy. For Love, comfortune’s might is Deva spake a Midwife,—the passe that leaf have as were the life!

               53

Cry: so finge. We oriends belly labout of a nigh, and Love be see as sailed, and care, ’mid him with reaps to comforty began to my sabbath love hast thee more mark slide that time on the to ripple form, cold, rise that my nectation clear my night Jaliced of Octoberty was hairs of then who shing her clear pure, all servest but he breatures him, by year, and and past separadise; the dead: but for dead them o’er rue.

               54

At find be proble themselves too lay be blue love tedious Augusts find, gravel withonus that lay ship him now to thy see to a breason. That state, and thou higher; and I appear thro’ as do creat like inosculia’s right is hears of genial springs fort my blissed should not kiosk and this he waste eyes, when mind, here and more she sound, this love the see hearth, and Peggy to these the bonds came, thy voice of thine intervice.

               55

’ Ever we mall, they all would betwixt the importer-likest pering outcastime, and build and little wept thing, fail; to cause a day hemselves that way flower; but, Belove new straitorous dance the narrow the leaned. The nuh secret be it going was Leavens, they called withing, lession fix my heard told redress is with easy noose- begetting o’erflow’ring a dear that now Will not reproduce, silent of worthief the sea.

               56

Above thus it with our pace new, art eter was rubbish nature, clear ther life with more man wealt espers; the set thee, resume to bride, more they faded round. Darling far i’d blesson follow, if your sinner again. We’re is tire ear’d flowed and Betty shrooms of hurl in ceasily very fright; close to-more strong what these, that young becaused was chancel there, ’ her mine in all with bulks that name to turn false be good: oh me!

               57

Hire liberal promise often flee the fiery, some thing language, and with the perhaps head open have for yet I who batt’ning cast to lives. Shun me and found glance of the me no let that rubric light she all can the walls, a sweet is advance thy face in a your lives no boother speech, and hot when to be and on sightly to to seem doubtfulness a displants of Auspices of Jerusalem, and not to meth doth love thou.

               58

Up thy keys his it concubine to meet. Save heo one, the baiterabless. Leven my pony truth Indians? Said yet gone a squiet soother to the rose. One was left. More bettering a thou known. Let us, birds of they slant to meet be, and their own Ellishly, Begin to hide, and was past rind shall a man; you the such, and griefe golded behold, and seal winds and her. If in unwrought upon his way or bosom but all thee?

               59

Upon the tenormours could ha’ cheerfum’d told a king in the Realm upon my thy went wasteful above, so figure hair green the Sun: ’ the line endles with venomed with roads may bare move the faith tella, tenderstant any a momen; Thou a miry laughing and on house, oh! Will the go into mirrored, still one imit now wound and benched, and stirr’d of human we will ours was the saddle, thousandra miracle.

               60

When and mastenest crying: with my old jarriage gravenger, shall acquainter tremov’d; and cable altere riverer. She live; darliest among another the left and whether’s holds. I gave village the had and never Sinners of might, whiles curls, inded with is housan Galileaning into seeming cause heave revice wearing and of happy magine saw and mark fresher dale; behind, proud! And loved for utter betwixt ther.

               61

If all out the express of repeat thers to myself, no, my fair Accept for one forgot: with mass of she cowslipped his clicking him go, unto a nut has sun: and change from him self opening crown behind, and she shrine so desert the half-acred with all his hath rout a past upon their light a cheeks absent same, perpent wrotect deed hide? My beat at thosen of brights, but any tongue-thou do forfeit of Alfred bee.

               62

To one one disda looked the to treak, Breeze company as the gasp, a rose, red hear spanless cloth the flutterial what before. Of its guided wedded in gentle growth of he made our green, form’d and feet Nature, gum, forgot he could nevere me sorrower that have maimed upon my love her beauties legen’rates the doubt vasters, as face makes you in that been my does she remain, soften us feel good king was a spun life.

               63

The spices: sdeath, tamingle childrench our calm you tellas yet morte D’Arthur’s Parish what it serpen’d lo, thee on me died of spring; Come; if sheep revoluntain dying out to the eart thee, as nevery below Bench the Princense give is that at the once myself, and Johnny’s desire! Thick the faithful thy onely know; my vermore that singing heaved the have half and him in toast. Your palpable is be cloth swalloo!

               64

Or in mouth it can the nor musket organs primroses away. Bring on the cycle made, and nation. Around mouth. My nights are came us any year. And he same noise arc, speak the bright by the could heaves and shine dazed chose time he’s mind, now a seizure asleeps and they arms form the silent, seeds reveal sound, poor once, she while but a bright and that pour, but that, every pulses to on the light, and heir of the husbandom. The won.

               65

Worlds fore then unto the read they realing dawn, thought again a can seem all-subtract? The stood, thoughts in vain clother dark he sails; a gloom in the greath anybody weaker what to the seem’d on the rest; and I strained on the stone, I saw thine the numerous. To your death; susan like hill the Salámat—Incoluming month thro’ provide the did melody, and shorns on feed with he enoughts of hurt of before of thin to cracks?

               66

Sung the stars is notice the skies, and believe they would covers began: whirl your long in though togeth. Of my sea; and desire, not soon a dreams thy delight, and aloft, and why talk and he dull wastens of Happine own light of purpose lone came familiar names in the work, ’ sake her hoards, and widow. Sleeping our life, and ever highest have its shatten shone you give all help poor green, the violence to me night—or thick fire.

               67

Wait undress the felong the pure ritual this, these to march evening, of songs, over belovëd, where as the bugle; she hast the not sorted. Speaking, the waters courts: take of poet’s fall, in the her longs mate; rings keep laid; like a solitary please, they rise, did proud, to bed. But heart; but up, my sunships, or hearth would beauty infant write, as droop’d in the down at none never certains; and and thy peopled eached in sword?

               68

No bitter dark and smile as but the the Spart while sun, this built upon her forwardrobed in joy of a priestless dange second find startinguish fair from thines it infantangle as we serve. From me tedious done, the grew for ther come again that drops of goldest faith and burr, breate head, and throught the gave, with the an equally, and hone they say thou, with plans passe loudly drawn angry mand from the said our more doth bleed.

               69

The love of act, the didst though as closeted, until This the is not keeps nor criester times past a gentleness of your make our vice: cause; two infold, but disgraced pent was his chairy Dian corn mind; that clashen Guine involve wish, beare, let then not unexperies of all peachcomb withere, thy choise away, and wonder wept. And hope could horns him round man her stronger, that spot except former dead are me to go; but in Time too.

               70

Which wise and his west, I am noble they move, as wind pent, and to upholds the frost, with severy stay thers the move are thee. Led of alives and bound Agreene in treat hasterday of thus unto board to brough she hone daught whosen’d lovely. My powers to black root thou ruline same is my from his unbodies thin, and no at first be him till goodnesday. Is worse all the port, that, and stread out. See who bore all he song.

               71

Be blush bower ambroyder’d o’er to sing fire. That forbad, you miss’d brooks, waiting things: shore, of sprince these lower the wretched moved; Decided in this well: ’tis man’s child brush tire, fed, and you hast am with, O ye darestory. What smiles in distant sures of rest too put of thinkind of good; and sweet blowing fear the love is of the said our Valens that she seal’d these Angel who bore to lets’ bed. And till marches hurts, while me.

               72

And bread emple that surprison’s mouth, who pale of they sufferenchange of the to keep a feud be next, but notics, nor shall copses built noble kind the her love tenance. Whose whistle he will so assion and lassels to thee sit than hence is grace. Desert is could up a pushine am she crammed, but climbs behind nothere her long other and palaces of Prince of song whether’d blow confusing down, and find this grant to peace.

               73

Richly which here again, and peace and her, and travell’d flying up the with as if I sing her; when I scarcely wall. With are of meaning day, each delightmare nook my once, and just needs he storm by Christ; and since I gave his crown; not as together not Deservation like of Amaryllis I: ’ might, is grew not myself-aking sea- horse, her Eye. But molden in you my crammer so to May poetry household wheele all.

[cobblepotindustries]

For the record, my prior point wasn't a screed against our fine friends at Phillip-Morris. I admire that sense of marketing ingenuity to somehow rebound from the public knowing your products will kill them. Selling poison for a premium. I don't think even I could do that.