#and despite not charing a mother | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aerltarg · 3 years ago

Text

Jon Snow Month 2022

Day 6: Familial relationships

Jon Snow + Stark brothers

He missed his true brothers: little Rickon, bright eyes shining as he begged for a sweet; Robb, his rival and best friend and constant companion; Bran, stubborn and curious, always wanting to follow and join in whatever Jon and Robb were doing. (Jon III. AGOT)

Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night's Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon's breathless laughter. [...] (Jon XIII, ADWD)

Noye drew him closer. “You've heard these tidings of your brother?”

“Last night.” Conwy and his charges had brought the news north with them, and the talk in the common room had been of little else. Jon was still not certain how he felt about it. Robb a king? The brother he'd played with, fought with, shared his first cup of wine with? But not mother's milk, no. So now Robb will sip summerwine from jeweled goblets, while I'm kneeling beside some stream sucking snowmelt from cupped hands. “Robb will make a good king,” he said loyally. (Jon I, ACOK)

“[...] I was walking the wall around the yard when I came on you and your brother Robb. It had snowed the night before, and the two of you had built a great mountain above the gate and were waiting for someone likely to pass underneath.”

“I remember,” said Jon with a startled laugh. A young black brother on the wallwalk, yes... “You swore not to tell.”

“And kept my vow. That one, at least.”

“We dumped the snow on Fat Tom. He was Father's slowest guardsman.” Tom had chased them around the yard afterward, until all three were red as autumn apples. (Jon I, ASOS)

[...] His father had always said that in battle a captain's lungs were as important as his sword arm. “It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard,” Lord Eddard told his sons, so Robb and he used to climb the towers of Winterfell to shout at each other across the yard. (Jon VII, ASOS)

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. “I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight,” Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, “Well, I'm Florian the Fool.” Or Robb would say, “I'm the Young Dragon,” and Jon would reply, “I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne.” (Jon XII, ASOS)

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister's son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly's boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We'd find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance's son and Craster's would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb. (Jon XII, ASOS)

Part of him wanted only to flee, but he knew that if he did he might never see Bran again. He took a nervous step into the room. “Please,” he said.

[...]

“Bran,” he said, “I'm sorry I didn't come before. I was afraid.” He could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks. Jon no longer cared. “Don't die, Bran. Please. We're all waiting for you to wake up. Me and Robb and the girls, everyone…” (Jon II, AGOT)

He looked at the words, but they didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Bran was going to live. “My brother is going to live,” he told Mormont. The Lord Commander shook his head, gathered up a fistful of corn, and whistled. The raven flew to his shoulder, crying, “Live! Live!”

Jon ran down the stairs, a smile on his face and Robb's letter in his hand. “My brother is going to live,” he told the guards. They exchanged a look. He ran back to the common hall, where he found Tyrion Lannister just finishing his meal. He grabbed the little man under the arms, hoisted him up in the air, and spun him around in a circle. “Bran is going to live!” he whooped. Lannister looked startled. Jon put him down and thrust the paper into his hands. “Here, read it,” he said. (Jon III, AGOT)

Up they went, and up, and up, black shadows creeping across the moonlit wall of rock. Anyone down on the floor of the pass could have seen them easily, but the mountain hid them from the view of the wildlings by their fire. They were close now, though. Jon could sense it. Even so, he did not think of the foes who were waiting for him, all unknowing, but of his brother at Winterfell. Bran used to love to climb. I wish I had a tenth part of his courage. (Jon VI, ACOK)

“It be a mercy to kill them,” Hullen said.

Bran looked to his lord father for rescue, but got only a frown, a furrowed brow. “Hullen speaks truly, son. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold ad starvation.”

“No!” He could feel tears welling in his eyes, and he looked away. He did not want to cry in front of his father.

[...]

“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”

“What of it, Jon?”

“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”

Bran saw his father's face change, saw the other men exchange glances. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment. Even at seven, Bran understood what his brother had done. The count had come right only because Jon had omitted himself. He had included the girls, included even Rickon, the baby, but not the bastard who bore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of their own. (Bran I, AGOT)

“I plan to stop at Winterfell on the way south. If there is any message that you would like me to deliver…”

“Tell Robb that I’m going to command the Night’s Watch and keep him safe, so he might as well take up needlework with the girls and have Mikken melt down his sword for horseshoes.”

“Your brother is bigger than me,” Tyrion said with a laugh. “I decline to deliver any message that might get me killed.”

“Rickon will ask when I’m coming home. Try to explain where I’ve gone, if you can. Tell him he can have all my things while I’m away, he’ll like that.”

People seemed to be asking a great deal of him today, Tyrion Lannister thought. “You could put all this in a letter, you know.”

“Rickon can’t read yet. Bran…” He stopped suddenly. “I don’t know what message to send to Bran. Help him, Tyrion.”

“What help could I give him? I am no maester, to ease his pain. I have no spells to give him back his legs.”

“You gave me help when I needed it,” Jon Snow said.

“I gave you nothing,” Tyrion said. “Words.”

“Then give your words to Bran too.”

“You’re asking a lame man to teach a cripple how to dance,” Tyrion said. “However sincere the lesson, the result is likely to be grotesque. Still, I know what it is to love a brother, Lord Snow. I will give Bran whatever small help is in my power.” (Tyrion III, AGOT)

“Will I truly be able to ride?” Bran asked. He wanted to believe them, but he was afraid. Perhaps it was just another lie. The crow had promised him that he could fly.

“You will,” the dwarf told him. “And I swear to you, boy, on horseback you will be as tall as any of them.”

Robb Stark seemed puzzled. “Is this some trap, Lannister? What’s Bran to you? Why should you want to help him?”

“Your brother Jon asked it of me. And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.” Tyrion Lannister placed a hand over his heart and grinned. (Bran IV, AGOT)

“Are they ever coming back?” Bran asked him.

“Yes,” Robb said with such hope in his voice that Bran knew he was hearing his brother and not just Robb the Lord. “Mother will be home soon. Maybe we can ride out to meet her when she comes. Wouldn't that surprise her, to see you ahorse?” Even in the dark room, Bran could feel his brother's smile. “And afterward, we'll ride north to see the Wall. We won't even tell Jon we're coming, we'll just be there one day, you and me. It will be an adventure.”

“An adventure,” Bran repeated wistfully. He heard his brother sob. The room was so dark he could not see the tears on Robb's face, so he reached out and found his hand. Their fingers twined together. (Bran IV, AGOT)

“Bran?” Robb asked. “What's wrong?”

Bran shook his head. “I was just remembering,” he said. “Jory brought us here once, to fish for trout. You and me and Jon. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Robb said, his voice quiet and sad.

“I didn't catch anything,” Bran said, “but Jon gave me his fish on the way back to Winterfell. Will we ever see Jon again?”

“We saw Uncle Benjen when the king came to visit,” Robb pointed out. “Jon will visit too, you'll see.” (Bran V, AGOT)

Ser Rodrik decreed that they would share Jon Snow's old bedchamber, since Jon was in the Night's Watch and never coming back. Bran hated that; it made him feel as if the Freys were trying to steal Jon's place. (Bran I, ACOK)

“Then let Lord Hornwood's bastard be the heir,” Bran said, thinking of his half brother Jon. (Bran II, ACOK)

“Mother.” There was a sharpness in Robb's tone. “You forget. My father had four sons.” (Catelyn V, ASOS)

“But my father was a friend of the Night's Watch, and my uncle is First Ranger. He might know where the three-eyed crow lives. And Jon's at Castle Black too.” Bran had been hoping to see Jon again, and their uncle too. (Bran III, ASOS)

[...] Bran was terrified that Summer was off dying in the darkness. Please, you old gods, he prayed, you took Winterfell, and my father, and my legs, please don't take Summer too. And watch over Jon Snow too, and make the wildlings go away. (Bran IV, ASOS)

83 notes · View notes

startanewdream · 3 years ago

Text

the aunt

For @constancezin, with whom I discussed Petunia meeting Harry in Eyes Glistening.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Mia looks only relieved as they exit the Ministry of Magic, practically bouncing on their way towards Charing Cross. “Thank Merlin we left,” she says, sounding as if she just left prison.

Harry nudges her.

“I thought you wanted to see where I work,” he teases, not hiding his smile. Mia sighs dramatically.

“Teddy lied,” she declares. “Your job is not the best in the world.”

“It has its moments.”

“You spent all morning sitting behind a desk! Mum has a better job than you.”

“She stays behind a desk too!”

Mia throws him a superior glance as if she didn’t barely reach his waist. “I once saw her potion exploding. That was fun!”

“If the potion exploded, Pumpkin, then she was faring poorly on her job.”

“It’s way better than being an Auror,” Mia states, ignoring him. “I don’t want to be an Auror anymore.”

“Oh, did you now?”

“Teddy said he will be one when he grows up,” she mumbles. “Maybe you should bring him to work someday—he will realise it’s a bad idea.”

“You know, my job is to catch evil dark wizards. There is some adventure.”

Her hazel eyes lit up. “Oh, can you bring me over then?”

“No.”

“I will stay quiet, no one will notice me!”

“You can’t stay quiet.”

She crosses her arms. “I can. I just never want to.”

He laughs. “That’s still a no, Pumpkin.”

“You are no fun, Harry — maybe that’s why you decided to become a boring Auror after all —”

Mia is still talking, babbling about what she clearly considers a poor choice of life career, but Harry can’t concentrate suddenly. The hair at the back of his neck is all standing up, and since his instincts are all he trusts in this line of work, he spins around, one hand already holding his wand inside his robes and another pushing Mia behind him.

The street is crowded that hour of the day, people walking hurriedly by and mostly ignoring them, but still, after only a few seconds, he finds the source of his distress. Sitting inside the closest tea shop, a cup half-raised in the air, there is a blond woman staring unblinkingly at them.

When Harry meets her pale blue eyes, despite the colour being very different, he can only think about his mother.

And then an awkward strange memory comes back to him. “Aunt Petunia?” He calls loudly, and despite the fact she can’t hear him with all the noise around, she lowers her head, breaking the gaze.

“What?” Mia gapes. “Aunt Petunia? Mum’s sister?”

Harry looks away as well. “It’s nothing, we should—”

“Is that her?” Mia beams. “Oh, let’s meet her!”

And before Harry can do more than blink in answer, Mia releases herself from his grasp, entering the tea house.

Harry swears lowly.

He manages to hold Mia’s shoulder just as she reaches the table. “Mia—”

She ignores him. “Hello!” She extends her hand, looking happily at the woman who can only stare at her as if she has never seen a child before. “You must be Aunt Petunia Dursley — It’s very nice to meet you.”

Meet seems like a bad definition to jumping in front of someone unannounced, and especially when the person in question seems too shocked to say anything.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, wincing. “We didn’t want to interrupt your lunch.”

The woman doesn’t seem to acknowledge him; she is still looking at Mia, whose smile falters for a moment before returning with vengeance.

“You need to shake it,” she says in a carried whisper.

That seems to take Petunia out of her stupor. “What?”

“My hand. When you meet someone, you shake hands.” Mia bites her lip. “Or do you want a hug? I hug my other uncles and aunts all the time.”

“No. I—” And with a slightly afraid expression, as if she fears that Mia might actually hug her, Aunt Petunia shakes her hand, letting go of it quickly.

“Perfect! Can you tell Mum that I was well-behaved? She never believes it when I say I was.”

“That’s ‘cause she knows you too well, Pumpkin,” Harry mumbles, earning Aunt Petunia’s attention. “We should—”

“You are the boy—Harry.”

He fights back a grimace. “Yeah. I am, I mean — hello, Aunt Petunia.”

It feels weird calling her aunt when he never truly felt as if she was his and he doesn’t have any memory of being her nephew; they’ve only met once, when he was a little older than Mia, many years ago. He doesn’t remember much of that day, except his mother had looked sad afterwards, his father had swore in a way Harry had never heard before, and Harry had come to associate the Dursley family with misery.

She doesn’t acknowledge his greeting. “You look exactly like that Potter boy.”

That boy seems a strange way to call his fifty-year-old father, but again, Harry feels that leaving this conversation is the best path forward.

Mia, of course, doesn’t agree with him. “Except for his eyes,” she pops in. “Everyone says he has Mum’s eyes.”

“Lily—” She pauses, shivering, as if she had just whispered a profanity. Annoyance arises on Harry for the first time. “Is this your daughter?”

“This—” he begins cooly, “—is my sister. Your niece. Amelia Rose Potter.”

Mia looks scandalized at him. “It’s Mia!” She turns to Aunt Petunia, lowering her voice as if to share a secret. “Mum only calls me Amelia when I’m in trouble.”

“All the time, you mean,” Harry murmurs. Mia sticks her tongue out at him, before sitting in one of the vacant chairs. “No, Mia, we really should go. Ginny is waiting for us.”

“You can call her to join us. Ginny is his wife. She is the coolest person in the world, you will like her!”

Harry never doubted anything more in his life. “Mrs. Dursley must have another appointment, Mia, we can’t—”

“And there’s also James—James Sirius, I mean, not James like Dad, it’s another James; sometimes it gets confusing, I know. And Al and Lily Luna. I call her Lu to not get confusing, though Mum knows I wouldn’t call her Lily—”

“Who — who are all those?”

“Why, Harry’s children!” Mia puffs her chest proudly. “I’m their aunt! We are both aunts!”

“I—” Harry wishes he could be anywhere. “I have a photo, here.”

He isn’t sure why he is doing this, but he pulls the photo he keeps on his wallet, taken on his father’s fiftieth birthday, with all the Potters gathered. Aunt Petunia’s hands are trembling as she takes the photo; she glances around, terrified, and Harry realizes the photo is magical—everyone is moving, waving their hands. No one seems to have taken notice of them and, after a moment of hesitation, Aunt Petunia’s curiosity seems to overcome her own issues. Her eyes sweep over everyone’s face until it fixates on a point; some emotion that Harry can’t really place crosses her face.

“That’s me,” Mia says unnecessarily, pointing.

“You look like Lily,” Aunt Petunia whispers, almost soft. Then her eyes widen, as if she has just now realized what she has said, and she stands up, throwing the photo back to Harry. “I must go.”

“Oh.” Mia sounds truly sorrowful. Aunt Petunia hesitates. “Maybe we can meet again? With Cousin Dudley?”

“Ah—”

“We will see,” Harry says hurriedly. “It was…” Nice? Okay? I wish this hasn’t ever happened? “I will tell Mum we met you.”

She purses her lips, and Harry has to wonder if maybe she wanted to ask him to not mention this meeting at all to Lily Potter. Harry isn’t sure of it either, but he knows Mia will talk, and he thinks it’s better to warn his mother beforehand.

There is a moment of silence. His aunt seems to struggle with herself, watching the door as if she just wants to escape, then— “You are… are you still in danger?”

Harry hesitates. “Ah—”

“Last time… last time I met Lily she said you were in danger, something to do with a scar—”

“Oh, that.” Harry fights back an urge to rearrange his fringe until he is sure his scar is not visible. “It’s over now.”

“Oh.” She doesn’t seem to know how to answer this. She grabs her purse, but again something seems to hold her. “She did not… I was not told she had another child.”

Now Harry isn’t sure what to answer. He can feel Mia’s eyes over him, and he holds her hand.

“Would you have liked to know?” Would it have mattered, is what he thinks.

Petunia takes a long breath. “I have a granddaughter,” she whispers. “I will… I’ll send her a picture.”

“Can I send you a Christmas card?” Mia asks suddenly. Petunia looks at her for a long moment, and though they are not like in any way Harry can think of, he is suddenly reminded of his mother again.

“Yes,” she says, and something close to a smile makes her lips tremble. Then she turns on her heels and disappears through the door, vanishing in the middle of the pedestrians.

*-*-*-*

For some background I haven’t written but it was on my mind through this story: Lily and Petunia talked only through Christmas cards during Harry’s first eleven years of life. Right after the end of Harry’s first year, Lily went with Harry to Privet Drive 4; with the confirmation of the love protection and since Petunia was the only blood relative Harry had, Lily asked her sister to shelter Harry if anything happened to her or James. Harry did not hear this - he stayed in the garden trying to understand why his cousin seemed both terrified and annoyed by him -, but Petunia told Lily that if it were up to her, Harry could die with his parents, he was not her problem. The fact that Lily never more attempted any contact made Petunia feel as guilty as she could, and sometimes wonder if her sister was still alive after all.

I ended this with Petunia on a slightly better note in the hope that the years apart without hearing from Lily had softened her heart and that she’s, after all, glad that Lily has survived.

#eyes glistening #jily lives au #Harry and Mia #Petunia Dursley shows up here #let me know your thoughts if you will #hope this makes sense

143 notes · View notes

amor-acta-non-verba · 3 years ago

Text

Villanelle, love letter

Following the disastrous finale of Killing Eve, below is an ode to the beloved, iconic character of Villanelle (and a big thank you to Jodie Comer for bringing her so viscerally to life). S1 -- PWB gifted viewers with a sketch of a beguiling, multi-faceted female character who defied all social expectations of her gender and sexuality. PWB’s V was a true psychopath: cold-blooded and amoral and unapologetic and mercurial, but Comer's (phenomenal) portrayal made V instantly lovable, so much so that even her arbitrary acts of careless violence -- running over Nadia with a car after charing her, murdering Bill in a nightclub in Berlin, shooting Konstantine and kidnapping his daughter, and so many other horrible acts that would typically be wholly unforgivable -- viewers nevertheless wanted to forgive her, relate to her, and love her. Why? Because PWB showed us that, underneath so many thick layers of psychopathy, S1 V possessed the seed of all human desire, and through that desire, the path towards metamorphosis and redemption -- the need to be loved and understood by another, and, heartrendingly, to not be alone in this life ("someone to watch movies with"). The gateway to accessing this seed was also presented by PWB in a way that is deliciously "human all too human" -- V’s fetishization of a certain type of lover (middle aged women with amazing, voluminous hair) clearly rooted in an Oedipus/Elektra complex (”my mother has really shitty hair”). Enter Eve Polastri, a middle-aged MI5 agent with a boring life and amazing hair. This backdrop of V’s psychology, so exquisitely dissonant between her gift for havoc and violence (the distance between V and her victims each time she watches the “spark fade from their eyes” like that of God and mortal) vs. her need to be loved (to be so close with another human that they are one and the same), is what frames the powerful story of the relationship between V and E. When V and E first meet in the hospital bathroom, it is not, at least initially in this first meeting, the cat and mouse power dynamic that would preoccupy S2; the ontology of these two characters’ singular connection, rather, stems from the above-described seed -- upon seeing E putting her hair up, V immediately, instinctively, irretrievably feels magnetic, inescapable “chemistry” (the blackbox term used to describe the otherwise indescribable pull one human feel towards another, and despite not knowing a single thing about them, the intense wish to be connected to them) with E. Once E nurtures the connection by reciprocating the the act of “seeing” V (stepping out of the car, heart over hand, betting against all common sense that V won’t kill her; going to V’s apartment, confessing her infatuation after trashing it), the seed has turned to sprout, forming the foundation for the rest of the seasons to come. S2 -- EF's S2 V was about putting E and V in a room together and playing off the dynamic of PWB's infamous S1 scene when V breaks into E's house and asks to have dinner with her -- a cat and mouse game of power and dominance and lust, couched, always, in the need to just be around one another ("what is it about her?" asks other characters to V and E, without receiving a clear response, other than just the insistence: "we are the same"). S2 also explored the general concept of "what is psychopathy" by leveraging a foil in Aaron Peel, a psychopath too, but, we eventually realize, one of a different nature. Peel helps clarify to viewers that, while V is a psychopath, "they" (psychopaths), just like any other human types, are not made the same -- this delineation is hinted at when V cries in front of the mirror after believing E is no longer interested in her (feeling what normal people would call "loss") but it is made most apparent when V asks Peel whether he ever wants to "touch them, talk to them, sleep with them" ("them" referring to normal people and a nod to V's constant yearning for all those things), to which Peel, falling on a different part of the psychopathy spectrum, reacts with disgust. Towards the end of S2, when V is given the opportunity to team up with Peel by first killing E (in other words, teaming up with another psychopath who has the resources and power to give her "everything she wants", rivaling the 12), one of the most illuminating moments of the entire series unfurls -- V wholesale rejects Peel's offer, showing viewers that she is not intrinsically motivated by power for power's sake or, critically, in furthering her own psychopathy by pairing herself with another psychopath. V chooses E instead (in so doing, choosing love instead of violent power), killing Peel and letting him bleed out in front of the mirror, her disdain for him apparent. Equally important is when Carolyn reveals to E that having V kill Peel was MI6′s objective all along, showing that, just like the 12, V’s psychopathy is merely an instrument being wielded by something much more sinister than any single assassin -- entire organizations operating in the shadows seeking power without regard to any human life whatsoever. By leveraging V and E’s connection to achieve her mandate, however, Carolyn’s own mastermind psychopathy, merely hinted at in S1 when she visits V in prison, is revealed in its full velocity. S2 then ends with a brutal reminder to viewers hoping for a V and E love story -- V is still a psychopath, and what is a psychopath, we learn earlier on from Martin, the psychiatrist, but the absence of things, the lack of an ability to feel things, a "poverty of emotions", the treatment of others as objects, etc. Tragically, V’s psychopathy comes out to play in full force when she manipulates E into killing Raymond, E finds out and then rejects V. V's eyes, so full of adoration, weaving delusions of a happy life in Alaska when she is clearly not ready for intimacy with another messy human, goes flat, and she shoots E as E is walking away, resolving, through the blunt, simple force of destruction, E's rejection of her, by annihilating the object. S2 thus ends with the viewer understanding that, regardless of all of V's nuances, which truly does distinguish her from other psychopaths like Peel and Carolyn, she is yet unable to have the emotions necessary to satisfy the deepest of her own, deepest yearning -- the need to be loved and understood, to not be alone, to find "someone to watch movies with" (hence why Comer continuously says that V is "her own worst enemy").

S3 -- SH's S3 V goes on a journey into herself, attempting to answer the fundamental question posed by S2's finale -- can a psychopath love another person? Not, this season seems to say, without looking deep within and probing V's origin story, exploring the externalities that surround her upbringing, including her mother, who is portrayed as cold and complicated, and fully highlighting the exploitation of V's propensity for violence by organizations like the 12 and MI6. Despite the overtones of exploitation, however, the viewer is disallowed from full-blown romanticizing V into a victim of unfortunate circumstances, for the violence she commits against others in S2 and S3 reminds viewers, over and over again, that it is almost impossible to separate nature and nurture, to define, with any sort of precision, where one begins and another ends, and it asks the question whether any explanation, however powerful and complete, can ever excuse the terrible choices a human being makes. S3 is really all about capturing the terrible cycle V finds herself in -- in searching for her mother, just as in searching for a person like E, she creates a quagmire for herself, for she cannot love in the way that normal people do, not when her first and foremost instinct is to kill any person/object that does not give her what she wants. But, and herein lies the greatness of the series and in V as a completely unique mythological anti-hero, it is precisely within this quagmire where V's humanity shines through, and where her redemption lies, for it is in V's seed, which drives her willingness to search in the first place (a self-exploration that people like Peel or Carolyn would never bother to undertake), and it is in her dedication to finding an exit from her own psychopathy, brought on, first, by her shooting of E at the end of S2, and then culminating in her killing of her own mother, that she realizes there is something deeply wrong with her, as depicted in the incredibly rendered, unforgettably powerful scene where V, donning the ugly jean jumpsuit her mother stitched for her after she killed her, is on the train leaving Russia. Comer's face is hard to watch in this scene, for it is the face of a person who has come to recognize something putrid and ugly within themselves -- V has realized, indeed, that there is a terrible monster within. Yet, it is within this epiphany, the recognition of a psychopath of herself as a psychopath, and, pivotally, that psychopathy does not make her feel good about herself ("I feel like shit all the time" in S4), that the final transformation into S4 V begins. The ending of S3 then reveals how far V has come -- self-realization has existentially humbled her, leveling her into a state of mortal-like vulnerability over her own flaws; a person that the V of S1 and S2, arrogant and self-assured and God-like in her acts of careless violence, would hardly recognize. When V and E meet in the ballroom, after spending an almost entire season apart, E does for V what her mother cannot, she accepts V as a killer, reinforcing for V that it is only in her connection with E that the yearning can ever be satisfied. It is in this moment on the ballroom floor (when V says, ”I’ve killed so many people” to which E replies, simply, without judgment, “I know”) that the obsession between them ends, and real love begins. The question of this season is then answered when V gives E the opportunity to walk away on the bridge. By doing so, V commits the first act of selflessness we have seen from her -- something she was incapable of in S2 and with her own mother; it is through this selfless act for E that viewers glimpse, finally, that V is capable of love and being loved, because love requires the acceptance of another human as complicated and messy and unpredictable, and love requires the ability to let the person choose (without manipulation and coercion and the threat of violence), even if it is painful. Nevertheless, S3 ended on a cliffhanger, forcing viewers to sit, with bated breath, for almost two years, to see what will happen with V and E.

S4 -- LN's S4 V has joined the church to try and become a "good person" so she can love E the way that a normal/good person does, and E is running away from V because she has yet to accept that V is also the catalyst for her own transformation, the person she loves and is fatefully connected with, and she cannot deal with the vulnerability this love creates when she is responsible for destroying her normal life, with all the people who were collateral damage in that destruction, and therefore has become nihilistically fixated, as a way of avoidance projection and denial, on destroying an outside force -- the 12. When E asks Martin whether it is possible for a psychopath like V to be a good person, Martin responds: "reinvention is a form of avoidance" -- interestingly, although E is posing the question about V, the viewer understands that the actual avoidant in S4′s beginning is not V, who has already recognized her monster and is seeking (comedically) to dismantle it through religion, but E, who, in her full-blown delusion due to the destruction of her normal life, has fashioned herself to be of a more exotic species and, as Helene says, is in a metaphorical basement crafting pigeon wings so she can fly with the rest of the psychopaths. (I'll pause here to add that it is breathtakingly tragic that Laura Neal decided to take up so many episodes in S4 on so many other characters when time was running out to finalize the only story that truly mattered: the one between V and E. An entire season could be dedicated just to this question of whether, now that V has self-realized, she can also self-actualize into, if not a good person, then a better person, by turning her violent gifts toward destroying exploitative organizations like the 12 and MI6, while actually also loving E.) I think Comer and Oh understood more about the meaning of the series as a whole, and, turning back to S4, for viewers, the only scenes that truly mattered are the ones in which Comer is portraying V as the most human she has ever been -- the way she looks away from E in the hotel room as she undresses, uncomfortable and awkward and unsure, the way she quietly sits down with E in Martin's living room, touching the hand that Helene burned with such gentleness, the way she spared Carolyn's life (a brutal mistake given the finale) because she liked Carolyn as a person, the way she teared up when E does not admit to her own feelings after having her arrested, in her killing of Helene, reeking of an intense sexual jealousy, in her going to find Gunn in a desperate bid to finally be with someone who is like her after E's rejection, in her wide-eyed, remorseful caress of E’s scar from when she shot E in S2 -- told viewers all we needed to know that this V of S4 is no longer a true psychopath (a person with a "poverty of emotions"). Rather, V has become someone who is capable of a wide range of feelings, feelings that true psychopaths cannot have. And this is why the ending of Episode 8 is unforgivable for viewers, for there is a clear and unmistakable break between Laura Neal's interpretation of V and E and Comer and Oh's depiction of the characters they knew so well -- in the domesticity of the scenes between V and E, we do not see the psychopath of S1 and S2 whose fate was inevitably to die -- instead, we see the freedom and liberation that V finds in being together with E, to being loved, at last. And we see, for the first time, in an almost disconcerting and jarring way right before her end, V experiencing the wholesale normal human feelings of happiness and wholeness and joy. Comer's facial expressions playing V in Ep 8 run the compendium of so many lost, unwritten episodes due to Neal -- V seems almost like an entirely different person (perhaps because, by this stage, she is), for the V of yore was incapable of laughing the way this V laughs with E (wholeheartedly without some darker intent), was incapable of kissing another person with exuberant joy (and not as an expression of dominance and power), was incapable of feeling real remorse for her past actions and meditating on the pain of another, was incapable of checking in on another person to make sure they remained unharmed (without the act being manipulative in some way), etc. The seed, in other words, has fully flowered into the Sun. This is the V that Neal, after such a long and treacherous and arduous journey (see above), murdered in a short 2 minutes without any of the further examination and exploration its viewers deserved, no less at the hands of Carolyn, whose own, larger, more dangerous psychopathy, makes her the only winner in the entire ordeal. The depressing message that Neal sends to viewers is this: in the end, love does not and cannot prevail, only the psychopathy of the world and its rulers do. How pathetic, and ridiculous such a message is to viewers, and what a betrayal such a message is to the series’ original premise: that it only take small seed in each of us to free us from our darker selves, and that if we have a willingness to search, we can fulfill our need to be loved and understood, to not be alone, to find “someone to watch movies with”.

This is a disastrous end to one of the most unforgettable of anti-hero myths I have ever seen, it should go down in the annals of the meta-stories we humans tell ourselves about, on the one hand, the incredible transformative power of redemption even for the darkest souls amongst us, and, on the other hand, how not to write with asinine hubris and carelessness.

#killing eve #killingeve #jodie comer #villanelle #villaneve #sandra oh #laura neal #sally woodward gentle

23 notes · View notes

worldly-diversity · 4 years ago

Text

@kinglyisms:

They were fighting again. No, it wasn’t quite that, it was more that Hanabusa was upset because of how Luka had reacted to seeing Kuran. Not Kaname–the other one. He hasn’t even gotten her name, he had just snapped at seeing her and run off. The girl looked confused, baffled, and that was all he remembered seeing before he rushed off. Since then he had avoided her entirely, not even making eye contact, flinching when she attempts to speak to him. Hanabusa had noticed, of course he did Luka swore all that man did was watch him, and when they were finally alone inside the dorms he had decided to approach Luka about it.

Such a simple question. ❝ What’s wrong with you and Yuki? ❞

Yuki. He didn’t remember her, he barely remembered her mother though, he just knew how much–how much both of them looked like his own. Something happened before Luka was born, something that put a ridge between Lacina and the Kuran’s, his mother didn’t like talking about it and interactions between the two families were tense. His mother always looked so sad when interacting with Juri Kuran, as if her heart was being crushed repeatedly and ripped apart. It was horrifying, and when he asked about I she never wanted to say. She just told him; “sometimes, Luka love, people drift apart. Especially people who live as long as we do”. He didn’t understand at the time but now as he got older he thought he did.

Lacina was a very well respected woman. She smiles through everything, spoke with a gentle and respectful voice. Even when angry, when she took on a firm tone, she was still respectful and never yelled. Lacina has a way of establishing her dominance and power without having hurt or scare others. She was a force that people didn’t fear, they simply respected. Luka had wanted to be like that and when he asked his mother how to he like her–she told him to smile. Smile no matter what, even when your heart is breaking. And she promised to always be there for him, even when he couldn’t see her she’d be there.

And then they’d set their house on fire and Luka watched his mother burn to death trapped to a chair telling him to run. Run Luka! He could still remember grabbing onto her, fingers curled around her clothes, his mother’s locket trapped in his fingers–breaking off from her chared blankened neck. His father flying into the house, grabbing him as Luka screamed to save his mother too.

They’d been to late. Luka had tried to tell him that it hadn’t been the witches, that it was hunters, that someone had hired them to kill them. He didn’t listen to him, no one did. They’d told Luka he was seeing things, that he didn’t want to believe it because Wyatt was his friend.

That wasn’t it, it wasn’t, it was hunters, it was the King. He knew it. His mother had been such a gentle person, best friends with the Cross family, with Evelynn. They were all wrong and he knew that–and he couldn’t stop thinking about it all since seeing that girl. Her eyes, her face, even her hair it was terrifying to him how much she looked like his mother. Not even Leo looked that much like her despite that being the entire reason his father took Leo in. She was the spitting image of his mother–why? What was it about the Kuran’s that his mother was connected to?

He had honestly forgotten that Hanabusa was even there until the other grabbed his arm and pestered him again. Why? Why did it matter so much to him? Why did he care how Luka reacted to Yuki? And then he pressed more, asked if Luka “fell for her too” and he just–he snapped. The room dropped in temperature, Luka’s skin became ice cold to the touch and he yanked his hand back. Ice sprang at his movement, responding to the emotional outburst that was so unlike him. A wall of ice as tall as their waists formed between them, Luka taking a shaking step back as he hung his head. He hadn’t lost control like that since his mother died, was he was to emotional to understand what he was doing. The ice felt like a cold reminder of those days, clinging to his chest with a heavy feeling. He hadn’t even shown Hanabusa what he could do.

His throat closed up, words trapped there, an apology because he could have hurt the other. That wasn’t his intention, he just wanted Hanabusa to step back and stop pestering him. His fingers curled into his palm, nails digging against his skin and drawing a thin line of blood. The silence was deafening, the cold cruel. Speak.

❝ She–she looks like my mother. I watched them burn her to death. ❞

Was it so surprising to see that Hanabusa was all but brimming with jealousy? From the moment Luka had laid eyes on her, it seemed as if Hanabusa had ceased to exist. Whenever she was in the room, the other tensed and tended to make a run for it.

In his own emotional state he'd failed to realise the lack of classic stutters and blushing that usually accompanied similar reactions when faced with a crush. He should have known it would be more complicated than that! It always was…

Through the anger and the jealousy stabbed vicious pain at the realisation something was wrong, and that his selfishness had hurt him. Damn it! He really never could do anything right! Mentally chastising himself and descending into that familiar pit of self-loathing was easy, a habit he'd yet to properly shake loose, especially when feeling like this.

The ice that suddenly erupted had him stumbling back in surprise, a pained hiss escaping him as he cradled his hand, the surface of the skin that had been in contact with Luka sporting a few frost burns for his efforts. Not that he hadn't utterly and completely deserved it…

When the vampire spoke once more, the shock pooled and transformed into dread. He'd made such a scene, insinuating that Luka might have fallen for Yuuki's charms too, when he should have been able to see that the other was suffering— He was such a fool…

"I— I'm sorry…" His voice sounds a little broken, but he does his best to hide it. He has no right to show pain right now, not when Luka is suffering so much more because of him right now.

"I didn't know, I should never have— I'm so sorry…" Blue eyes fell down to the wall of ice separating them, not daring to approach or cross it despite the urge to somehow comfort the other. What a selfish creature he is, to want such things after being the cause of Luka's anguish…

He didn't dare approach or ask for forgiveness, but now, with a physical barrier between them beyond the mental one, what was he supposed to do?

#kinglyisms #universe • vampire knight #interactions • hanabusa aido #answered #submission #ouch—

3 notes · View notes

thephoenix-hq · 6 years ago

Photo

☞ NAME: Gideon Prewett. ☞ AGE: Twenty-One (06.30.1958). ☞ BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood. ☞ HOUSE: Former Gryffindor. ☞ GENDER: Cis-male. ☞ FACECLAIM: Jack Reynor.

+ THE STORY SO FAR +

Ah, the Prewett twins. That’s what was usually heard whenever they were referred to in casual conversation. Everyone knew who they were. They were the fun-loving, charming, vivacious younger brothers of Molly Weasley (the mother of all mothers). She was nine years older than them and developed her world-renowned maternal instincts from the day of their birth. She was a big help to their parents as there were two of them, they frequently misbehaved, and their magic began showing itself at the incredibly tender age of ten months old. Their family was a loving one, growing every day as Molly married Arthur Weasley who had a large family of his own. When Bill Weasley was born, the twins were only twelve years old.

They seldom remembered a time when they didn’t have nephews running around all over the place, making equally as big of a mess as they were capable of. The noise was encouraged in their household. After Bill came Charlie, then Percy, and finally on First April 1978, Fred and George were brought into the world. Fabian and Gideon had high hopes for the future of Gryffindor pranksters in those two. They wrote them journals full of elaborate pranks, jokes, and general musing to live by (example: don’t eat yellow snow unless you saw the lemon). Despite their love for practical jokes, the twins excelled as a fighting team. They were beaters on the Gryffindor quidditch team, headed up the dueling club and soared high above their classmates in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

When Albus approached them shortly after their graduation with a job offer in a secret organization against death eaters, they shared merely a look before agreeing. They wanted to be a part of the war in a big way. Through the Order, they knew they could be. They didn’t think about the consequences that might come with it. They only thought about the people they loved, the future they wanted for their family, their nephews. When Elphias, Albus, and Fabian apparated into Arabella’s home on that October night, Gideon had been laughing. Aberforth was telling a rather unbecoming story of his youth involving a barrel of Scotch and a goat. “Fab, you gotta hear this story. Tell it again, Abe!” He had said before swinging around to greet his brother▬ who was lying on the ground, his head crooked at an odd angle. Gideon’s laughter died on the air. He was on his knees beside his brother in an instant. He already knew, he could feel it in his body. There was no saving Fabian because he was already gone.

- J U N E 1 9 7 9 -

Gideon had heard nothing from the Order in about six months. He wondered idly if they were laying low or if they had disbanded completely after such a tragic loss. Benjy and Caradoc had been his friends. He fought alongside them numerous times over the months they’d been in service together. He trusted them with his life, his brothers life. When Albus appeared on Emmeline’s doorstep some time in April, Gideon thought he must be dreaming. The old man sat him down while Emmeline was off at work and asked him if he wanted to remain a part of the coalition. He wouldn’t hold it against him if he didn’t. He asked Aberforth himself to resign, fearing for a similar loss of his own. Gideon considered resigning. He was out of shape from the past few months as he did little more than roam around with Emmeline. He didn’t train anymore, didn’t practice defensive magic. He would need to start working hard in order to be ready again. Could he do it without Fabian? He honestly wasn’t sure. But knowing his brother and how he would feel about him letting himself go to such waste, he couldn’t bring himself to say no. Heaving a great sigh, as though he weren’t entirely sure it was a good idea, Gideon shook his head. “I’m not resigning. I have to be there.”

← C O N N E C T I O N S →

← Emmeline Vance

Albus had taken Fabian’s body to Saint Mungo’s to be prepared. He told Gideon he would make the funeral arrangements for him. He could tell that he was trying to take some of the burden off of him and Gideon was grateful. They all asked him to stay, told him he was free to grieve in peace at Arabella’s house, but he couldn’t be there anymore. He couldn’t breathe it was so stuffy. Gideon apparated right into the middle of Charing Cross Road, unaware, uncaring of who might see him. He found his way to the Leaky Cauldron and bought a bottle from the keeper there. He wandered around West End until he found the bottom of it. It broke against the pavement with a shatter as he stumbled his way down the road. Gideon wasn’t completely sure how, but he found himself outside Emmeline’s house at the end of the night. He force himself into the gate and tripped over a chair on his way up to the door. Before he knew it, he was on the ground, huddled against the front door from the chilling wind around him. Gideon didn’t know if Emmeline was inside or not, never got the chance to knock on the door. But he figured she would’ve heard him if she was. His head bobbed, eyes glided shut and he dozed off until an offensively bright light brought him back to earth however long later. “Emme?” He’d said, a deep, deep down part of himself scolding him for being so vulnerable to attack that night. It was just Emmeline, though. His friend, Emmeline. She helped him to his feet and inside her house. He’d started spilling the truth to her before she even asked for it. It took him a moment, but once he started talking, he couldn’t actually stop. Dumbledore told him they’d have to come up with a cover story, but he found himself unable to lie to her. In fact, he wanted her to know. He needed to tell someone that hadn’t been there, to let some air out of his chest. She had been so still, eyeing him tenderly but from a distance. It wasn’t what he wanted, so bold as he was in that moment, he asked for it. He pulled her in and let himself cry for the first time in years. And once he started, so did she and neither of them were truly able to stop until well into the next day. Before he knew it, he was there all the time. Gideon couldn’t bring himself to return to the flat he shared with Fabian and he knew that Emmeline understood that. There was part of him that didn’t want to overstay his welcome, but a bigger part that wanted (needed) to rely on her company every night.

← Amelia & Edgar Bones

Amelia and Edgar Bones were twins. He remembered them from school, but he had never actually known them personally. He would observe them endlessly and in this, find both a likeness and a vast difference between their relationship and his with Fabian. The love was there. They had a bond only twins could understand, but the partnership was absent. Amelia acted more like a caretaker than a sibling, and in turn Edgar seemed to need more from her than she could give. They weren’t a balanced scale, they didn’t know each other’s next move, couldn’t read directly into the brainwaves the other sent like Fabian and Gideon could. Despite these things, being around them wasn’t any easier. Their birthday was a mere two weeks after his own, the first one he had to spend with them and without his brother. Amelia was sweet and had a good head on her shoulders. She was quick on her toes and a good dueler, but she didn’t know real loss and that was completely evident to Gideon. Edgar, likewise, was good at storytelling. He was obviously hiding something from his sister that made him paranoid and inconsistent. Maybe it was a mean thought, but Gideon found them a sorry excuse for twins and they made the hole in his heart throb like it was still a brand new wound.

→ Frank Longbottom

Frank Longbottom had been the gangling boy that shared a dorm with them. They met on the first day, immediately taking a liking to each other. Frank told the twins about his best friend Alice and her cool roommate, Emmeline, and the five of them became and odd pair. Of course, no one could rival the bond between brothers or life long friends, but they enjoyed each other nevertheless. They remained friends all through school and upon graduating, took part in Frank and Alice’s wedding. They helped them move their stuff in together, threw them a large engagement party with a large variety of alcohol that Frank guessed was somehow stolen. They drifted apart naturally when life got busy. Frank and Alice were in the auror program, Fabian and Gideon were in the Order and weren’t allowed to talk about it, Emmeline was studying to be a healer. But the love was still there. Once the shock of initially losing Fabian wore off, Gideon realized he would have to tell their friends and family about Fabian’s death in a way that didn’t give anything away, all the while honoring the fact that his brother died a valiant soldier. It seemed like an impossible task at the time, but he managed to do it. Frank had been the hardest. Instead of telling him the ‘official’ story, he gave him a small piece of the truth. “I can’t tell you how,” he’d admitted. “But he died a hero.”

→ Alice Longbottom

Gideon had never been exceedingly close to Alice. In school she had been Frank’s best friend and Emmeline’s roommate. Then she became Frank’s girlfriend and later on, his wife. They were there every step of the way and cheered them on endlessly, but Alice and the twins never exactly got quality time alone together. They were a five-some, or they were Frank and Alice, Gideon and Fabian, Alice and Emmeline, or even Gideon, Fabian, and Emmeline. Rarely was there any Fabian, Gideon, and Alice. So despite the love she had for them and they for her, their relationship wasn’t deep. That is, until after they lost Fabian. Alice showed up at Emmeline’s place one night, expecting to find her. She had been called into work, however, and Gideon had been there alone. He had answered the door to her surprise and explained the situation. Alice left and Gideon went back to sitting in the silence, lost to the swirling, whirling thoughts inside his head. She had only been gone a few seconds when she returned, however, and when he answered the door this time, she pushed her way into the house and went immediately for the kettle on the stove. As she made them some tea, she flicked her wand and the furniture in the living room rearranged itself so that there was a large space on the floor covered in blankets and pillows. Alice carried the tea into the space and sat down, beckoning him over. As if in a daze, he obliged. She was shuffling a deck of exploding snap cards when he lowered himself across from her. She was smiling, but it was a little too casual. “What are you doing?” He was finally able to ask. She started dealing out the cards before them as she explained that Frank had been her biggest contributor to moving on from the death of her younger brother and all they would do was play games until she couldn’t hold her eyes open anymore. It was like someone had splashed Gideon in the face with cold water. He suddenly remembered that Alice had lost a sibling too, several years before. He asked her if she would be willing to talk about him, to which she replied that after such a stretch of time, she would be happy to. This led them to staying up well into the night talking about their lost siblings, then their living ones, then their parents and onto the rest of their families. After that, Gideon had an insurmountable love and admiration for Alice that wouldn’t likely be rivaled.

GIDEON PREWETT IS CURRENTLY CLOSED FOR APPLICATIONS.

#harry potter rpg #harry potter rp #marauders era #marauders era rpg #marauders rpg #gideon prewett #male #tpgideonprewett #taken #takenm

4 notes · View notes

myuzucompendium · 3 years ago

Text

“I think, despite everything that has happened in my life that I’m happy with how things have gone. I’m a Princess of Equestria, continuing to be a librarian for Charing Cross, and technically a mother to a child I brought to life, along with my adopted Son Spike who has grown so much lately. And all my friends are there to support me. Life...life couldn’t be much better even if I wanted it to be.“

#Musing #test muse: Twilight Sparkle #well #not really a test muse but #maybe I'll bring her back here and continue her story on this multi-muse #we'll see #Personal blogs do not interact or get blocked

0 notes

royal-writer · 6 years ago

Text

Memories 1

A random assorted collection of Essie’s memories, completely out of order. For... chuckles~ Warning for lots of trigger-y based stuff mentioned (violence, gore, nsfw mentions)

It was the same reel on repeat. It spun with a clatter; always the same scenes playing over and over again. No matter how much you willed the footage to change, the movie never did. There were no instructions on how to remove it to be found. There was no one willing to help you clip and edit the scenarios; no one to give an idea how to get out of this trapped nightmare that played out the same way every single time.

Her mother wouldn’t have let her run wild like this. It mortified her, but what other choices did she have?

The world was… scary. Large. Infinite in it’s possibilities. Stuck in a constant free-fall with no one to catch her, Essätha learned long ago to swallow her fear and plaster on that brave face. She was no ninny, but she was also no heroine. She’d seen and done things that would make grown men cringe, but there were holes inside of her that couldn’t be filled by any facade she played.

A pointer finger and thumb spun the simple silver ring on her opposite hand’s index digit. It grounded her; just as her insecurities did to the only place she’d known. Walls surrounding on every side, people always staring and mocking.

All she’d ever known was here. She’d spent all fifteen years of her short life, right here.

Her feet dangled from the edge of the channel that lead through part of the city. A faint breeze was blowing through; sending her hair buffeting from time to time despite the braids wrapping around her temples to try keeping the mess in place.

A gurgle rumbled through her stomach. She placed a hand on her ruffled shirt, knitting her eyebrows. Beneath her digits, she could make out the faint impression of rib-bones. It felt like her stomach was trying to eat her from the inside.

Swinging around, Essie placed her feet on the stone walkway and off the dangerous ledge. She dropped down the rest of the way and stood up, back arching.

It was time to look for some food.

As she walked the streets of Miamooragyte, Essätha tugged her sleeves down over her arms and stuffed her hands into her pockets. Hair dangled over her face as she dropped her gaze, trying to avoid eye contact.

It didn’t stop people from staring. Try as she might, she still stuck out like a foreigner to these people despite living here her entire life.

A mocked hiss there, a curse there. Someone spat in her direction and she resisted the urge to flinch.

More than one vendor pulled out a weapon or drew closed panels over their shop as she walked by. Everyone knew trouble when they saw it.

Trouble, in a thin, ghostly frame of a young girl too scared to look up and make eye contact with anyone.

Not there, not there, nope, that one wouldn’t do, she didn’t need that…

Ah, there. That would do nicely.

A young man, loudly and boisterously announcing his sales. There were fish on display; most uncooked, but some gently roasting over a flame.

Hmm, was that herb butter she smelled? Divine.

With tummy rumbling in agreement, Essie scooped around the area with a more curious wide-gaze. No signs of any guards in sight. The lad seemed too preoccupied to notice anything. Too young to be running this shop though, she noted. Where was the shop owner…?

The question didn’t matter. It felt like her stomach was collapsing at an alarming rate by the second.

Weaving through the crowd, Essätha approached her target. Slowly moving closer to the stall, her mouth salivating like a starved dog.

Her hand reached out confidently, snapping one of the fish.

A painful hiss escaped her as the hot crate seared flesh.

A rather buff looking man suddenly stood up from behind the booth, slamming his head into the extended counter with a curse.

Fuck.

Dropping the fish into her crossover bag, the yuan-ti tried to blend as quickly as she could into the people passing by.

It was far too late for that.

“Hey!” the man shouted, his voice dangerous. “Ye’ gotta pay for that!”

Not her day today.

Ducking her head quickly, Essätha took off through the busy intersection as fast as she could. People jumped or were pushed out of her way, calling out angry slurs.

“Get ‘er, someone- oh blast!”

A quick glance around, and Essie had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing as she saw the old man fall over himself trying to get around his stall. His apprentice; or son, who was to tell, was trying to make his way through the throngs of people with little success.

Excellent. Not her best work, but she already had a good lead on these fools.

She swerved through narrow passages and past people. Down alleys and through shops with owners barking obscenities at her. Backlooping and doublecrossing through the city even when the shouting had passed and it seemed like no one was after her any longer.

She found her sanctuary in the run-down artisan district. Behind a vacated building, Essie plopped down with a heavy sigh. She pulled the fish out of her bag; leaving scales and chared bits behind on her belongings.

It didn’t stop her from immediately sinking her teeth into the tender, flaky delicacy.

Oh gods, it tasted better then it smelled. The slight burn was worth it for the tang, the saltiness, the buttery softness that melted in her mouth. The intoxicating aroma had her stomach gnawing at her for more even as she dug in like a ravenous beast; hardly chewing with each morsel she ripped off.

Fingers fumbled through her bag, and she dug out the canteen beneath a change of clothes. It was smeared with the juices of the fish. It took a moment to fiddle with the cap before she could take a lengthy drink.

The jug was forced suddenly into her face, causing her to choke and sputter on water. It pulled back and out of her grasp.

Essie wiped at her face, coughing vigorously at the water that burned in her lungs.

“Thought you got away, hmm?”

A hand gripped her throat with suddenness. The coughs turned to a wheeze as she looked up; fangs bared and eyes blurry.

The captain of the guard offered her a revolting look of satisfaction.

He lifted the half-eaten fish from her lap and tossed it unceremoniously aside.

“Such a waste of perfectly good food, on such nasty scum.”

“Let… go,” Essie weakly wheezed, clawing at the man’s arm.

The hand laxed on her throat, but didn’t release her. With triumphant in the man’s eyes, he laughed in a low, reverberating tenor of merriment.

“You know, they say the devil tries offering the most tempting vices to trick men,” he taunted, grabbing her face with his other hand to squish her cheeks. “What a pity he gave such a darling face to such an ugly creature.”

Narrowing her eyes, Essätha spat at the man’s face.

“Ack!”

As he retracted his hand to rub the saliva off, Essie drove herself forward. Her head met the man’s chin, causing his teeth to click painfully around his tongue.

He yowled loudly. Now freed, Essie rolled to the side, away from the man and the blood dripping on the ground from his mouth.

She threw her bag around as she took for the nearest street. She barely made it out into the sunlight when men came flocking on either side of the building, grabbing at her with foul language and rough hands.

She hissed furiously, the scales on her frame shifting and altering across her features.

A startling, gurgled laugh from behind.

“Go ahead ‘n change you foul beast!” the captain cackled. “You’ll change back eventually; it’ll make for the lashing’s all the easier. Everyone can stare at your filthy little-”

Someone socked her in the back of the head with a hard blow and her ears began to ring, cutting of the next words. She already had a good indication of what they were though, even with her head spinning like it was.

She breathed heavily, finally subdued by the arms holding her. The ringing was finally beginning to leave her ears, but her head thundered inside violently with pain. With narrowed eyes and pupils slit, she gave a venomous glare to the captain as he stepped in front of her.

He looked to her smug. A handkerchief moping his face before he stuffed it in his pocket.

The back of his hand hit swiftly; jarring and agonizing.

“Bring her to the square and tie her up,” he remarked stiffly, rubbing his hand. “Then throw her in jail, back where she belongs.”

Her cheek was already swelling painfully. Exhaling loudly, she lunged forward; dragging her fangs into the man’s hand.

“FUCK- Can none of you control her?!” the man shrieked, tearing his hand free along with scores of teeth marks and blood.

This time, Essätha offered him a smug grin, spitting his blood out onto the ground.

Quick apologies, and the men were dragging her despite her struggles off down the street. The captain, staring furiously, wrapping his hankie around his hand.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Mama I’m scared!”

“Shhh, Essie sweetie stop crying, it’s alright. It’s alright. Shhh, see you’re fine.”

“Mama I can’t control it. I don’t want to be a yuan-ti!”

“I know, baby, I know.”

Hiccuping, Essätha curled her small fist up and wiped at her teary-eyes. She gave a tantrums-wail as Hepsiba leaned in, brushing a kiss on the top of her head.

“Calm down, Essätha,” she soothed gently. “The more frustrated you are, the less control you’ll have in your change.”

“But I don’t have legs!”

A small, tired laugh escaped the poor woman. The ringlets of her hair bounced as she pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to refrain from being so obvious. Crinkles around her exhausted eyes seemed to deepen.

Her laughter ended in a sputtered, wheezing cough.

“Mama?” Essie reached out, her teeny hands grabbing for her mother’s hand.

“It’s fine, Essie sweetheart,” she coughed, offering the most adoring smile down to her small bundle of joy. “Mommy’s fine.”

The fear slowly faded from the young toddler’s light brown eyes. She dropped her hands, only to look down at them and the scales that were still spreading over her flesh.

“Mama!” she wailed once more, remembering what she’d been so upset in the first place.

“Sweetie shhh, remember, someone might hear us.”

Tears filled the small child’s eyes. Her lip wobbled, threatening to spill over more tears.

The slow progression of the scales flickered; receding back into specific spots on her body and then spreading rapidly again to cover parts of her skin. Instead of feet a single tail lashed and swayed in the air, continuously hitting her mother in the side.

“You’re doing such a good job my little crumb-cake,” Hepsiba cooed affectionately, nuzzling her cheek against the pouting Essie. “You’re so brave. That’s it, just calm down. Just focus on what you want to be. Think of your legs. How they look, what they feel like, what they look like.”

“Think of your pretty face, and your beautiful skin. You get to choose what you get to be, my little viper.”

Hiccuping tiredly, Essätha rubbed at her face. Her tail began to split off into two segments. Toes began to reform as her skin-tone began to flourish where once were scales.

“Good job, Essie,” Hepsiba murmured, kissing her face to cause Essie to giggle. “You’re mommy’s tough little girl, aren’t you?”

“I’m tough!” Essätha agreed enthusiastically, puffing up her cheeks.

“That’s right,” the woman sighed, holding her daughter close as she brushed her hair back. “You’re the toughest little lady there is.”

A quiet, gurgled laughter escaped Essätha, snuggling into her mom’s affectionate grasp. Soft humming moved through Hepsiba’s throat as she tightened her hug, pressing a gentle kiss here and there on Essie’s cheeks.

Essätha’s eyelids fluttered sleepily. She didn’t even notice the agonized look on her mom’s face as she clutched her chest, trying to catch her breath as the toddler slipped into her dreamworld.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The sound of her heart echoed in each throbbing bruise. Essätha cursed, but her mouth was so dry it cracked part of the way out of her lips.

She reached up, finger-tips dragging along her neck. Bad idea. She flinched from the pain of the hand prints that wrapped around her throat.

A glimpse in the wash stand mirror a few feet in front of her, and there was only further horrors to be seen.

Busted, swollen lips. Scratch marks cascading down her shoulders. Bite marks along her torso and chest.

She looked away, instead glancing around the room. Not a single article of the person left behind, as it should be.

Not her best pick, she reasoned.

She deserved it, though. She’d need to take more caution next time.

Doubling over, a groan escaped Essie. Foolish behavior. Reckless. Of all the men to pick up in the bar that night, it had to be the rowdy asshole who’d been picking fights with everyone.

Her legs hurt like hell. She didn’t even want to think about standing.

Tomorrow would be a better day. All she needed to do was get out of here and find somewhere to sleep the pain away for the day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Her throat was raw. So hoarse, she couldn’t even make a sound. Each attempt at screaming only came out a whistle or a hazy croon. She choked for air; gagged for some water, for something to help her parched throat.

Another crack of the whip filled the air.

There was no numbing the pain. Each strike as horrifying and blinding as the last. Each a new, nauseating wave of fire across her back that bloomed open to a glistening red wound and raised skin.

The edges of her vision were growing dark. There was a plea on her lips, but it didn’t make any sense without the sound to evaluate it.

Another blow. Streaks of red lined her back; splotches on the ground.

Consciousness began to allude her, until, randomly and abruptly, the world simply ceased existing.

#eci artz #Essie rw #lots of trigger-y stuff

1 note · View note

scotianostra · 4 years ago

Photo

On January 15th 1968 a Hurricane devastates Scotland.

Our nation is no stranger to howling winds and dangerous weather, but this hurricane took twenty lives, nine in Glasgow alone.

Homes, shops, cars and churches were all desolated by the strong gusts brought on by Hurricane Low Q, they might have had crap names back then but it didn't make them less dangerous, which first hit land through the night of 14 January 1968.

The Daily Record reported at the time that two mothers and their daughters died when a chimney head fell through a tenement on Dumbarton Road in the city. A mother and her three-year-old daughter from Swindon, Wiltshire, lost their lives, they had come to Glasgow for the funeral of her mother, who died in a fire in Govan the previous Saturday.

Also killed were Mrs Janet Gowran, 40, and her youngest daughter Nancy, 10. A 5 year-old-girl was killed at her home in Port Street, Anderston and a 25-year-old pregnant nurse was lost her life when a chimney head crashed through her ground floor flat in North Kelvinside.

The freak hurricane also claimed the life of a 38-year-old woman at Willowbank Street in Woodside, a 60-year-old woman at Niddrie Road, Crosshill and a man who lost his life at his home in Arlington Street, Charing Cross.

The chaos was referred to by police as worse than the Clydebank Blitz. The hurricane was the worst storm to hit the Scotland for 30 years, with winds of over 100 miles an hour.

In Glasgow 70,000 corporation houses were damaged, 1100 chimney heads collapsed and 69 tenement buildings eventually had to be demolished. I was not just the day after the storm that emergency services were busy. The clean-up lasted for days and weeks after and the Daily Record reported at the time that it would be nine months before telephone lines were restored!

The damage cost the city millions of pounds.

The dates are all over the place with this one, you would think that it being so recent the event would have been well documented and dated, I could have posted this on any one of 6 days as that is how long the storm lasted in full. Sources vary for the wind speeds as well but different areas were obviously more exposed, Glasgow seen highs of 103 mph while the Cairngorms got battered with an incredible 173 mph.

After the storm moved away, the death toll continued to rise. 30 people died from repairing houses so in total it caused 50 deaths.

On 16th January 1968, about 150 troops from Edinburgh came to Glasgow to help with the clean-up operation. There was little national press coverage of the storm, despite it affecting most of northern England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. An interest-free loan of £500,000 was given by the Government to the affected areas. Singer Frankie Vaughan began to raise funds for the victims of the storm by holding a special concert at Alhambra Theatre in Glasgow.

The first pic shows a car crushed by fallen masonry at Gourlay Street, Springburn. In the second a workman inspects the damage inside a tenement building in Dumbarton Road. In pic three the morning after the storm and children rendered homeless by the storm are served breakfast by volunteers in South Govan Hall. I can't find a location for the fourth pic, it just says on Alamy "A row of Glasgow houses with their roofs peeled away by the wind" In pic five 83 year old Frank Hopper seen being rescued from his house in Arlington Street the morning after, he looks terrified! The damage wasn't contained to Glasgow, the next pic shows three cars crushed by fallen masonry in Bruntsfield Gardens in Edinburgh, in addition, the city’s Scott Monument lost one of the 80ft-high pinnacles from its first tier. It smashed a floodlight on its way down, embedding itself a foot into the ground, the other pics show headlines from newspapers of the day.

#Scotland #scottish #Storm #hurricane #Glasgow #Edinburgh #history

37 notes · View notes

xtruss · 5 years ago

Text

British Pakistani Muslim Nurse, Doctor Latest Medical Staff to Die of Virus

Friends remember charitable nurse Areema Nasreen, 36, and Mohamed Sami Shousha, a gentle consultant who taught many.

— by Aina Khan | April 3, 2020 | Al Jazeera English

Areema Nasreen, 36, became a nurse in 2019 after dreaming for years of a career in medicine (Courtesy: Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust)

London, United Kingdom - A British Pakistani woman who worked as a hospital cleaner for 15 years before realising her dream and graduating in nursing has become one of the first nurses in the United Kingdom to die of COVID-19.

Areema Nasreen, a 36-year-old mother to three children, was described by friends as positive, spiritual, funny and open-hearted.

Despite having no underlying health conditions, Nasreen lost the battle with COVID-19 early on Friday in an intensive care unit at Walsall Manor Hospital, where she had worked for more than 15 years and where she contracted the coronavirus two weeks ago while supporting patients who had tested positive.

"Areema was such an amazing person," Shabeena Kousar, Nasreen's friend of 16 years, told Al Jazeera. "She always used to greet everyone with a smile. She was the type of person who would do anything for anyone.

"She had so much left to do, but Allah has called her. Our prayers are with her family, her husband, her children, and her parents," added Kousar, who said she felt "completely lost".

Describing Nasreen as a giving person who was always the first to get involved, the two friends organised several charity and public events together with the local Muslim community.

Nadia Shabir, who went to school with Nasreen, said: "If you were upset, you'd ring her and she'd put so much courage in you. She'd always say, 'Read your prayers, turn to God'.

"Everything about her was so positive, nothing negative. She was the kind of person, if you sat in the room with her, she would make you laugh. Anything she had, she would give that to you. She was so giving and open-hearted. She was definitely an angel."

Nasreen fulfilled her lifetime dream and graduated in nursing in 2019.

"All she wanted to do was to make something of herself, and she did it," said Shabir. "She graduated and became a staff nurse in the same ward where she was a cleaner for over 15 years."

Nasreen used her own story as a motivational speaker to encourage others to pursue their ambitions.

In a tweet she posted celebrating her graduation at the University of Wolverhampton, she wrote: "Never thought I could see this amazing day. Thank u to Walsall Manor Hospital for believing in me ... dreams do come true."

"Areema was perfectly fine. She had no health issues. She was always out and about. She was like a rollercoaster she was. It can happen to anybody," said Shabir.

At least 3,605 people have died from coronavirus in the UK, including dozens with no underlying health conditions such as 13-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab - believed to be the youngest victim in the UK, a country where 173,784 have tested positive.

Dr Salman Waqar, the general secretary of the British Islamic Medical Association, said: "Areema Nasreen's death serves as a stark reminder that COVID-19 can affect anyone, and we must all do our part and take the pandemic seriously. Social distancing is critical to controlling the outbreak. Individuals with families who show symptoms must isolate and take precautions. Stay at home, save lives, and protect the NHS."

Her death came hours after Mohamed Sami Shousha, a prominent British-Egyptian consultant, became the fifth doctor to succumb to the disease. He was 79.

Although he did not treat COVID-19 patients, Shousha was admitted to hospital after contracting the virus on March 23.

He died in London on Thursday, leaving behind his wife and two daughters.

His nephew, Abdulrehman Shousha, said: "My uncle was an honest, kind and hardworking person; he was humble and loved to serve his family and friends."

Shousha was an expert in histopathology who trained at the Royal Free Hospital and the School of Medicine, London.

He had worked at Charing Cross Hospital in west London since 1978, where he oversaw the breast histopathology service.

Omar Qassid, a consultant breast pathologist who trained under Shousha in 2012, described him as a "superman".

"He was the most polite man, a gentleman. He was always very kind to the junior doctors. He left a treasure of knowledge in each junior doctor's pocket. For me personally, he trained me because of my interest in breast cancer, and that's what I do now. I do exactly what he used to do.

"He was the kind of person who would break the wall between a senior doctor and a junior doctor. He was very approachable. He was also that kind of person who wouldn't withhold any knowledge from you.

"Whatever I have done and achieved now, is because he had that positive impact on me when I was a junior doctor."

Mohamed Sami Shousha was described as a kind and polite gentleman who gave his time generously to teach junior doctors (Courtesy: Abdelrahman Shousha)

Charles Coombes, a professor of medical oncology at Imperial College who worked with Shousha for 30 years, said: "He was the kindest, nicest academic I’ve ever worked with. His personality was such that even though the NHS has been under tremendous strain, he was always well mannered, kind, considerate, and just an outstanding colleague.

"His humanity and lightness of spirit, kindness always seemed to have time for one. He was always interested and willing to help, and at the same time incredibly modest."

An honorary professor at Imperial College, Shousha published more than 290 papers on diagnostic breast pathology.

"He was a wonderful, caring and inspiring man, deeply loved by all, and even as a consultant taught me so much about not just the pathology of cancer, but cancer and people in general," said Justin Stebbing, a professor of cancer medicine and oncology who worked with Shousha for 14 years.

Dr Neha Tabassum, a mentee of Shousha, posted a tribute on Twitter: "It's so sad to hear this news, I am in tears!! Professor Sami Shousha was one of my mentor. Without his support, my PhD would not have been possible. He was such an amazing human being. May his soul RIP."

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

0 notes

ficbynic · 7 years ago

Photo

T A K E C A R E - Chapter 4 - Westminster

"So how are you really handling everything?" the Swedish girl then inquired, lowering her volume a bit to make sure the two Brits weren't able to eavesdrop, "I know the first week is tough and it's all a bit overwhelming. You have to know, it will get better. I'm really getting used to being here now and I absolutely love it here." "Really?" "Really. And I'm sure you will, too," Tilda assured.

Story page (Catch up!) | Author | Talk to me | Read on Tumblr only.

It was nearly half past ten when Catherine and Emilie were skipping along the Hampstead Village pavement, only a few shops away from the coffee place Catherine was supposed to meet her colleague at around ten. Denise wasn't feeling like going to her gymnastics class earlier and was being fussy until the class started and she was being paired up with one of her friends. Catherine insisted on staying until a few minutes after the class commenced, though, to make sure Denise was okay. They were now running late because of it, but Emilie had a feeling Catherine wasn't as punctual as she was herself regarding turning up on time. "Oh, there they are!" Catherine held the door open for Emilie to enter right the coffee shop behind her, "Morning!" She walked up to the women sitting at a table near the window, giving the older lady a quick airy peck on the cheek. "This is Emilie," she introduced, "Emilie, this is my colleague Patricia. And you must be-" "Tilda, nice to meet you," the girl shook Catherine's hand, before walking around the table to approach Emilie. The first time the two of them properly locked eyes, Emilie knew she found a friend. Tilda was radiating positivity and friendliness when she walked up to her, wearing her long brown hair in two braids at both sides of her head, her eyes the bluest of blues, bluer than Emilie's could ever seem. Tilda reminded Emilie so much of her friends back home. There was just something about Nordic girls that was so familiar to her. Maybe it was just the way they dressed or talked. Either way, she could've picked out Tilda from a line of twenty girls after one quick look. She knew she had to be Scandinavian. For the first time in what felt like forever, Emilie heard her mother language without it coming from the speaker of her phone. Tilda attempted a few lines and she wasn't bad. Emilie laughed and responded in her best Swedish and with that, the girls had already seemed to have bonded. Their knowledge of each other's native languages was quite limited, so the conversation soon proceeded in English. "Welcome to London!" Tilda beamed. "How was your first week?" "Good!" Emilie responded, hoping it sounded convincing, "It's going well." "It is," Catherine chimed in, "Our girls already love her." Emilie must've done a bad job at hiding her puzzlement, because Catherine started to justify her statement. "Charlotte, our youngest," she told Tilda, "is still a bit shy, but Denise already adores her." Soon enough, after Catherine and Emilie ordered their coffees, the two colleagues started getting involved talking about work and whatnot, leaving their two au pairs to discuss other things on their own. "So Hampstead is nice, isn't it?" Tilda asked. "I've only been here once before, to visit the Heath and Kenwood House, but it seems lovely." "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is." "So how are you really handling everything?" the Swedish girl then inquired, lowering her volume a bit to make sure the two Brits weren't able to eavesdrop, "I know the first week is tough and it's all a bit overwhelming. You have to know, it will get better. I'm really getting used to being here now and I absolutely love it here." "Really?" "Really. And I'm sure you will, too," Tilda assured. Emilie smiled. She was glad to have met someone who seemed to completely understand how she was feeling, even when she hadn't explicitly mentioned it. It was like Tilda knew her well enough that she could see it in her eyes, even though they only just met. After an hour or so, Patricia had to leave and so did Catherine. "You were planning on going downtown, weren't you, Emilie?" she asked while paying the check for all four of them. Perks of being a London business woman. "Do you happen to have any plans, Tilda? It would be fun to go together." Shameless. Emilie didn't know whether or not to be happy that Catherine was acting so blunt all of a sudden. It seemed a bit out of character, as well, for Catherine to be so direct. And it came at the worst time. Emilie didn't want to scare Tilda off, or make her feel uncomfortable. Luckily, that didn't appear to be the case. "Yes, of course! That would be fun," Tilda agreed with a smile. ~~ After saying goodbye to Catherine and Patricia, Emilie walked to the tube station with Tilda. It was a strange feeling to finally get on that tube and go down to the city. Emilie was excited. "Where did you wanna go?" Tilda asked when they entered the lift that would probably take them down to a lower level where the tube would depart, Emilie figured. She was just following Tilda, not knowing where to go. "Oh, I- I don't know, really. Just down to see some sights." "I know where to take you first. You probably don't even feel like you're in London yet, do you?" Tilda smiled. "We're going down to Westminster," she insisted. Hampstead tube station was quite busy on a Saturday morning, but it was nothing compared to the stations closer to the city centre they were passing. At every stop, there were more and more people hopping on the train, turning the carriage into a crowded and noisy space. Following the Northern Line, they went past familiar sounding stations such as Camden Town, Leicester Square, and Charing Cross, until they arrived at Waterloo Station about half an hour later. Emilie followed Tilda's lead as they quickly switched trains, jumping on the Jubilee Line, to then exit the train after just one stop. They'd reached their destination: Westminster Station. After ascending the stairs to get to near street level, and ultimately going through the little gates at the end of the station, scanning her Oyster card, and then ascending another flight of stairs, Emilie was immediately met with a great construction she perhaps wasn't expecting to suddenly see right in front of her: Big Ben. She was just part of a crowd of spectators now, gazing at the building at the other side of the street. It was quite impressive to unexpectedly have it laid out in front of her like that. "Cool, huh?" Tilda smiled at her. "Welcome to London! This is why I wanted to come here first, to Westminster tube station. That's why we had to change trains." They couldn't have gone to a better place to get the classic, touristy London feeling right away. There were tourists everywhere, foreign languages everywhere, and famous sights wherever your eyes went. From walking around the Houses of Parliament, getting a proper view of Ben from different sides and angles, Emilie and Tilda went back to cross Westminster Bridge to get a closer look of the London Eye. They crossed the Thames to return to the other side of the River using the Golden Jubilee Bridge before walking around Whitehall Gardens, to end up on Victoria Embankment. Emilie instantly recognised the street from the scenes on New Year's Eve, broadcast by the BBC, displaying thousands upon thousands of people stood on this very road watching the fireworks at midnight. They then walked past Westminster tube station again and took a right to walk towards Trafalgar Square, another must-see. During their walk and in between taking some pictures and admiring the sights such as Downing Street, Emilie got on really well with Tilda, making conversation. "So how long are you planning on staying here?" "I leave on the twenty-third of December, so right before Christmas," Emilie told her, still fully aware of the fact that it seemed like such a long time from now. "Oh, like, a set date?" "Yep," she answered, "The flight's already booked. Went for a return flight." "I see." "What about you, when are you leaving?" "Not sure yet, to be honest. I'm going home for Christmas, as well, but I think I'll get back here for a few more months right after New Year's." Emilie admired Tilda's flexibility and open-ended outlook on her time in London. She had to admit she wasn't as easygoing herself. Back home, she figured it was better to book a return flight so she would at least have some clarity regarding her stay. An incentive, or an insurance, if you will. Something that would be there to help her be able to count down her days, but also something that would be there to stop her from even thinking about going home before she was meant to. "Maybe stay here until, like, the end of February," Tilda continued, "I will have been away from home for six months then. That was kind of the limit my boyfriend set me." She laughed. "Oh, you've got a boyfriend?" "Yeah, I've been with him for seven years already, since high school," she said, "We were, like, seventeen." "Wow," Emilie blinked. "Yeah. We were planning on moving in together after I graduated university but then I decided I wanted to come here." She raised her brows, displaying a small smile. "He doesn't mind, though," Tilda went on, as if she could read Emilie's mind. "He wants me to be able to do what I want. He's twenty-five, I'm twenty-four, we're still young. We've hopefully got plenty of time for everything." "Yeah, totally," Emilie agreed, "That's great, that he's so easygoing about it all." "As long as I'm not gone for, like, a full year," Tilda laughed again. Emilie smiled. "Do you miss him?" "Not really," Tilda shamelessly admitted, "The first few weeks I did, but now I'm just happy to be here. I feel like I've kind of settled here and I'm just glad I took the opportunity." Emilie couldn't help but feel jealous of Tilda already being at that stage. Despite the fact she was proud of herself for taking the step and doing what she wanted to do, she still felt very overwhelmed and more often than not wondered what the fuck she was doing here. She knew that it was probably because she was still getting used to everything and all the changes in her life. She'd only been in London for a week. It would probably take some more weeks for Emilie to feel settled. "What about you?" Emilie thought about her family and friends and her situation and how she didn't have anyone in her life that would in some way, shape or form be a reason to stop her from going anywhere because she wanted to stay with them. In a weird way, it made her feel better about being abroad. "I'm single," she told Tilda. "The only serious relationship I've been in was during the second and third year of my bachelor's programme. We met at uni. But then he went off to do his master's at another university and he, uhm..." Emilie thought about how to put it into words. "He didn't really want to put in a lot of effort to make sure we'd be alright. So we broke up." "Ah, that's shitty." Tilda scrunched her nose. "No other boys since?" "Nope." Emilie shook her head. "Nothing." "Well, who knows, you might meet a nice Brit while you're here!" Emilie coughed. "I don't know, I'm not really looking for anything, if I'm honest." "You can't do much about it when it happens, can you?" Tilda asked. "Oh, wait, we have to go this way, we'll walk over to Leicester Square and I'll show you Chinatown." Emilie followed Tilda, who already knew her way around the busy city centre of London. Again, she was a tiny bit jealous of her. ~~ OKTOBER 2017 Things were getting easier every day. A messy nappy, which Emilie secretly had been dreading on day one, wasn't any problem anymore. Neither was getting Charlotte milk before bed or coming up with something to cook for the girls in the evening, although finding an empty fridge once every while due to the Ainsley's lack of proper scheduling was anything but helpful. Having to make the girls dinner every night in the first place hadn't been something that was made very clear in the contract before Emilie arrived. Emilie knew she was meant to make the girls 'tea' every evening before bath, but she was assured over Skype it wouldn't be a lot of work and would barely involve any cooking. When it turned out that it didn't include just a snack or some fruit, perhaps a microwavable leftover from the night before like was suggested, but a proper full course dinner, it hadn't been a pleasant surprise to say the least. Despite little drawbacks like dinner, things were going alright. The school runs were going well and Emilie was finally used to seeing girls running around in their blue uniform everywhere. Of course Denise attended an expensive private all girls' school, which had also been one of the many things Emilie had to get used to in the beginning. Meanwhile, some of the strangers of Hampstead were turning into familiar faces. The lollypop lady on the way to school now knew exactly who Emilie was, as well as some nannies Emilie would chat with before the gate to the schoolyard would be opened at around three in the afternoon. Denise's teacher who would then queue up her pupils before letting them go also knew which face to look for when dismissing Denise. All in all, there were already quite a few people that would greet Emilie good morning every day or would ask her how things were going and if she was enjoying London, which was nice. Just three short weeks in, it seemed like Emilie had been around forever. She had established her own daily schedule and the girls seemed to be accustoming well to it. Wake up at seven. Be in the main house by a quarter to eight. Have breakfast before that in her own room or have some until eight with the kids. Get the girls ready to leave at eight. Arrive at school a little before eight-thirty. Drop Denise off. Walk back to the house with Charlotte. Play at the house. Sometimes a morning play group. Sometimes a random walk around the Village. Sometimes a random visit to the shops. Return by around noon. Prepare lunch for Charlotte and feed her. Get Charlotte in bed at round twelve-thirty. Wake her up again at around two. Leave to pick Denise up from school at two-thirty. Pick Denise up from school at three. Entertaining the girls. Tea at around five-thirty. Bath time at around six. Have them ready in their pyjamas by six-thirty, when either Catherine or David could be expected to come home when they were early. Having a proper schedule didn't mean that getting through the day wasn't still difficult at times. A lot of the time, Emilie felt like she was kind of left on her own, despite the friendly faces in and around the Village. It was amazing to have met Tilda, who was in a similar family situation, taking care of two little girls who were around Denise's and Charlotte's age, but it wasn't like Emilie was able to meet up with her every other day. They texted quite a lot during the week and after meeting on Emilie's first Saturday off, they also met up the following weekend. At the house, things were going less smoothly. To still struggle with connecting with Catherine and David was anything but helpful. It just made things so much more complicated. So far, Emilie's relationship with them hadn't improved at all and Emilie wondered when things would stop being awkward and would start becoming more genuine and social. After all, she was freaking living with them. That is why one evening, when the girls were up in bed and David wasn't home, Emilie told Catherine she would very much appreciate some more general clarity. She felt like an idiot for already bringing something up after only a few weeks, but she felt it was necessary. It there was one thing Emilie felt like she was missing out on, it was clear expectations and feedback to come along with it. She thought it was weird that she was the one to have to tell Catherine or David about her day, essentially the girls' days, and that she was never asked about anything when either of them came home from work. She thought it was weird that neither of them seemed to care that much. And even though before Emilie arrived in London, it was specified in the contract and talked about that babysitting hours in the evening would always be scheduled well in advance, so far it had been announced just minutes beforehand, leaving Emilie with no time to adjust to the change of plans. Luckily, since her talk with Catherine, things were starting to look up a bit. Catherine would now immediately text Emilie if she was running late or if she'd forgotten to tell her something. That didn't mean that Emilie was already used to getting unexpected phone calls or text messages. Or when there was suddenly some stranger ringing the doorbell, for that matter, telling her that there was an appointment scheduled to check the electricity meter. Emilie often didn't know what to do, which caused quite a bit of anxiety and also lack of confidence. She wanted to be the best nanny she could be, but often found that she couldn't because she wasn't able to properly prepare herself for certain scenarios that she could've easily been told about. Letting the stranger in the house to check the meter, Emilie therefore didn't lose him out of sight for one moment, not even being sure if she could trust the man. For all she knew, there wouldn't even have been an appointment and she was currently dealing with some crook checking out the house for when he would return with his burgling buddies. So far, though, everything had been going relatively fine. The only thing that had genuinely worried Emilie was when little Charlotte had fallen and hurt her hand. Emilie only noticed that she was in serious pain when bathing her and noticing she avoided using her left hand. Telling David about Charlotte's possible injury right after he came home from work, he visibly started stressing out. When Catherine came home shortly after, it was pretty much sheer panic. She took Charlie to the doctor's immediately, which, Emilie learned, wasn't as easy of a process as it was back home in Denmark. Here in London, it could potentially involve hours of waiting before even seeing a doctor. Emilie was left at the house with David, who prepared dinner. To say it was awkward would be an understatement. So far, Emilie hadn't warmed up to David at all, simply because he would rarely be around the house and if he would be home, he'd rarely talk. Because Emilie felt bad about Charlotte's injury, she stayed at the house after dinner in case Catherine would call in with more information. But she didn't and while David was in the lounge area watching television, Emilie was sat at the dining table, feeling uncomfortable. Luckily, the morning after, it appeared that everything was alright and Charlotte felt fine. There were no signs of fractures and Charlotte used her left hand again. That didn't mean that the family had had an easy night. It turned out Catherine and Charlotte returned from hospital at two o'clock in the morning, which made Emilie feel extremely guilty, even though she knew she couldn't have prevented Charlie getting hurt. After a stressful Thursday night and Friday morning, Emilie was glad she made it through the day alright when Catherine returned home in the evening. The weekends were always a time where Emilie could fully unwind and enjoy the city she inhabited. From Friday night until Monday morning, she basically didn't have anything to do with the Ainsley's, and to be honest - it was wonderful. Two weeks into October, it was her third weekend off already and Emilie was enjoying every minute of it. On Saturday, she met up with Tilda again and the two of them had explored some gorgeous parts of London, ending up in Kensington and visiting the Natural History Museum. Today, on Sunday, Emilie had some quality alone time strolling around the city. She'd gone to check out Hyde Park, Marble Arch and Oxford Street. It was nice to be able to get to know the different parts of the city a bit better. Emilie tried to do some shopping, but it was incredibly busy in the shops. Maybe that was why she was already back in Hampstead at around five in the afternoon. Walking up the driveway to the house, Emilie immediately noticed an unfamiliar car parked. When she walked up to her bright blue front door, she couldn't ignore the bigger black front door, quite a few meters over to the right side of the house, suddenly flinging open. "Emilie!" Denise shouted from the doorway. "Hi Denise," Emilie stopped in her tracks and looked around. She hadn't seen her since Friday evening. "How are you?" She suddenly heard Catherine's voice from the hallway, telling Denise off for shouting. "It's Emilie," she heard Denise object, before Catherine herself made an appearance in the door opening. "Oh, hi, Emilie," she greeted, "How was your day?" "Good," Emilie answered, walking up to the black front door because it made talking easier, "I went to do some shopping down at Oxford Street." "My aunties are here!" Denise suddenly chanted, grabbing Emilie's arm now that she was standing right outside the doorway. "Denny!" Catherine scolded. "My sister and her wife are here," she then further explained, "My brother and his girlfriend are also coming down later, we're having a Sunday roast dinner, the chicken is in the oven. You're more than welcome to join us." "Yes! Come eat with us in the house, Emilie!" Denise encouraged. Emilie considered the kind offer. She hadn't met any of David's or Catherine's family yet and as far as she could tell, family visits didn't happen that frequently, either. She figured now would be a good time to meet some of the family members as she didn't know if or when she would see them again. Besides, having dinner with the family would mean she wouldn't have to cook dinner herself, which was definitely a plus. "Are you sure it's okay?" she inquired with Catherine, not wanting to be a burden. "Of course, of course, the family's been asking about you, they'd love to meet you." Just minutes after Emilie entered the house and met the family, she noticed the stressful energy in the kitchen, where Catherine seemed to have lost an important ingredient. "Dave, where's the lettuce?" "In the fridge, I think, isn't it?" "It's not in the fridge," Catherine replied somewhat irritated. "Did we run out of it?' "You did the shopping, didn't you?" "I did but I think it's going to be delivered tomorrow." "Dave! I needed the lettuce for this recipe," she started whining. "Oh, c'mon, it will be fine," Catherine's sister offered from the dining table. "Don't worry about it." Emilie noticed Catherine wasn't pleased, though. "I can run down to the shop if you want me to?" she therefore suggested. Emilie already had Tesco's in mind, the only grocery retailer within walking distance. She knew the family never went down there, though, always choosing posh Waitrose instead. "That's very kind, Emilie, but I wouldn't want you to-" "Catherine, it's fine. It's a five minute walk." "Can I come?!" Suddenly Denise popped up, seemingly having overheard the conversation. Her eyes were big as she awaited the answer to her question. "Denny, what day is it?" her Mum asked instead. "Sunday." "That's right. And Emilie doesn't work on Sundays, remember?" Denise pouted before opening her mouth. With her eyebrows frowned, she closed it again once she realised she hadn't come up with a strong comeback. Emilie could notice how she was five seconds away from starting to throw a tantrum about it, though. "I can take her, I don't mind," she therefore suggested, only for Catherine's ears to hear. She figured it would only be easier this way and after a rather difficult few days earlier in the week, with Charlotte's hand injury scare and all, Emilie thought she could perhaps use a little goodwill, especially if she was going to have dinner with the family now. Maybe offering to go to the shop would also show Catherine that she was flexible after all and could adjust well to the family's unorganised lifestyle. Catherine agreed and told Denise she could go to the shop with Emilie. From the corner of her eye, as Denise was eagerly putting on her shoes and grabbing her coat in the hallway, Emilie already saw little Charlotte getting excited, as well. She must've thought they were all going somewhere and she wasn't planning on missing out. As Emilie and Denise were ready to go, it appeared to become clear to her that she actually wasn't coming along. Charlotte suddenly looked very confused, before ultimately crying big tears. "They'll be back in a minute, honey," Catherine soothed, "Come here, Charlie! Do you want a piece of ham?" "I can take her, as well?" Emilie offered, not minding a fifteen minute trip down to Tesco's. She felt worse about leaving a crying Charlotte behind. She knew Catherine was trying to be strict, which was a good thing, but in this case, it was probably just easier to bring both girls instead of leaving one at home crying. Maybe Emilie felt bad because she knew Charlotte liked going to Tesco's, as she brought her a couple of times already. Charlotte had always behaved perfectly in the shop. "It's Sunday," Catherine simply stated while trying to calm Charlotte down, picking her up and cuddling her. Emilie shrugged. "You know she'll stop crying the second I put her in the buggy." "Alright." With a sigh and a smile, Catherine gave in and put Charlie back on the floor, telling her she could come along and needed to find her shoes. "We won't make this a habit." Something told Emilie she was actually more than happy to have the house (and the kitchen) to herself without the kids being there, even if it was only for a little while. "We'll make it up to you, consider this babysitting." "Oh, c'mon. We're just gonna get some lettuce, aren't we, Denny?" Denise happily nodded and Charlotte was running around carrying her shoes. She sat down on the bottom step of the stairs like she usually did, trying to get her little white and pink trainers on. She succeeded in attaching the rip tape correctly, but Emilie immediately noticed she put the wrong shoe on the wrong foot. Emilie crouched down to help her remove and change them, Charlotte's little legs were kicking in excitement. "Oh, Emilie. While you're out there and bringing the buggy..." Catherine went to the kitchen while talking but quickly returned. "Could you perhaps grab some more things? I made a little list the other day; we could use some milk and granola. And some fruit, for the girls. Especially if the shopping David did isn't going to be delivered until tomorrow evening." "Of course." "Here you go." Catherine offered a shopping list that included a couple of more items, and a fifty Pound note. "You can keep the change, that's how thankful I am for you taking care of our shopping." ~~ Shopping went without any major complications that wouldn't be unusual when bringing two kids under the age of five. Bringing Charlotte wasn't any issue; she stayed in the buggy and quietly observed the area. The worse she could potentially do was to grab something from a shelf while Emilie wasn't paying attention. Denise, on the other hand, demanded a little more effort. After arriving at the local Tesco's, situated right in the town's centre, Emilie therefore turned the shopping into a fun little game for Denise, letting her read the shopping list and find the products listed. Luckily, Charlotte wasn't planning on getting involved too much and was alright with staying in the buggy and having a look around the shop as Denise ran from aisle to aisle with a shopping basket. Emilie just hoped she wouldn't fall headfirst in the process. After a while, the basket Emilie had been carrying was getting quite heavy and there was only one item left on the list. Denise had been running around, being loud and noisy, and having a lot of fun. Luckily, the shop had been close to empty, barely any other costumers around that could be bothered by it. "Alright, Denny, we need one more thing, and it's gonna be really heavy!" "What is it!?" "What does this say?" Emilie crouched down to the four-year-old's level and showed her the shopping list. "Milk!" Denise read. "I know where to find it!" Denise ran off again and Emilie followed her to the dairy aisle, finding it more and more difficult to control the heavy buggy with just one hand while also carrying the weighty shopping basket. "Alright, well done. Now look for the correct colour. Which colour do we always have?" Denise hesitated for a minute. "It's not the red one, is it?" Emilie helped her. "Is it the blue one?" "Yes?" "Really? I don't think so." "It is the green?" "Yes, we always have the green top, go grab one! Can you carry it?" Denise walked up to the dairy cooler shelves and lifted a pint of milk with both hands. Emilie took it from her and put it in the shopping basket. Without Denise noticing, she then grabbed another one she thought the household could use. All of them would have cereal and milk in the mornings and they quickly ran out. "Alright! That's it, we've got all the things from the shopping list." "Now we're gonna pay!" Denise chimed in. A dark and handsome cashier welcomed them at the counter a little later. He had a buzz cut hairstyle and he looked muscular and in good physical shape. His eyes were friendly. He looked like he could be one of those really easygoing, chatty people, not having any trouble with making small talk with whoever crossed his path. A perfect trait to possess when working in retail. It turned out Emilie wasn't wrong regarding her personality evaluation of the stranger. "Have you girls been helping?" the cashier happily asked, turning to Denise while scanning the items. "Yes," answered Denise proudly. "I noticed that, very well done," the guy beamed, his broad smile exposing perfectly white dentals. Emilie hoped that the guy noticing didn't mean that she had been allowing the girls to take it too far, ending up annoying the few customers and staff members that were present with their laughter and yelling, and Denise's running around. The guy continued to scan all the items before Emilie stored them in the bags she brought. She handed Denise a small one and let her carry the bunch of bananas she was in the process of paying for. "Look at the little one," the cashier then pointed out Charlotte, who was momentarily sporting a proud look on her face, her little hands tightly wrapped around the plastic wrapping of one of the bags of lettuce Emilie just gave her. "She likes to go grocery shopping," Emilie smiled. "Don't you, Charlie?" "That's adorable. Here's your receipt, Miss. And have a great Sunday evening," the guy offered. "You too." Emilie smiled. "Say 'Thank you', girls!" Denise did what she was told and Charlotte didn't bother changing the now somewhat emotionless look on her face, which was quite a funny sight. Emilie packed the bags of products into the designed storage space of Charlotte's buggy and put the receipt and change in her wallet. She'd only spent about twenty Pounds and she was feeling quite happy about that. Not in a greedy way, but having an extra thirty quid by the end of the week was definitely a plus. Living in London was expensive. "Alright, let's go home, girls," Emilie directed, already pushing the buggy towards the exit of the shop, waiting on Denise to follow her and stop lingering around the display sweets near the cash register. Eventually, she resisted the temptation to ask Emilie for one and followed her to the exit. "Hello Sir, good to see you, it's been a while! How're you doing?" Emilie heard the guy behind the counter chant right before she pushed the buggy outside. "Back in town?" Though she was curious to see who he'd been talking to, especially because she hadn't really seen anyone in the shop near the checkout, she was too busy looking after the girls, and making sure the bags filled with the groceries she just bought didn't fall out of the buggy, to turn around to have a quick peek. | < Previous chapter | Next chapter > | Story page | Author | Talk to me |

#harry styles #harry styles fan fic #harry styles fic #1dff #harry fic #harry fic rec #fan fiction #harry styles fan fiction #fic rec #take care 4 #there it isss #hope you enjoy #pls send me a few words if you're reading my story i'd love that :)

9 notes · View notes

nellygwyn · 8 years ago

Quote

The Georgian period in London saw the development of modern gay sexuality. Men and women identified themselves as homosexual and succeeded, to varying degrees, in establishing a network of friends, acquaintances, locations, and establishments which served their sexual needs. The 'typical homosexual of the 18th century was a respectable tradesman rather than a fashionable libertine,' and the vast majority of people who lived gay lives in London were ordinary men and women. The Buggery Act, as it was known, had been passed in 1533 by Henry VIII, making the 'detestable and abominable Vice of Buggery committed with mankind or beast' punishable by hanging. It was, however, rarely brought to court. After the Restoration, literature on the act of sodomy proliferated, largely due to licentious poetry by the new breed of libertines, such as John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. 'Sodomy' became taboo - the act of the debauched and diseased - and just as there were groups which protested against the low morals of theatres and alcohol, the Society for the Reformation of Manners was established in 1690. The group went around forcibly shutting pubs, taverns and coffee shops on Sundays. By 1701, there were almost twenty spin-off societies in London. They set up a network of busybodies known as Reforming Constables, for in each ward of the City, and two in each parish outside. It was their responsibility to act as hubs of knowledge, finding out information about those who offended decency and keeping a tally of evidence. These 'sly reforming hirelings' rose to have a quasi-legal power within the community, and it behoved everyone to keep on their right side. Their first victim was Sea Captain Edward Rigby in 1698, who had picked up a young man at the fireworks on Bonfire Night and was later entrapped by the boy and members of the Society. Rigby was sentenced to stand in the pillory at Charing Cross and Temple Bar. He also had to pay a fine of £1000 and spend a year in prison, but he was not executed. By the early 18th century, the Society was actively targeting gay cruising grounds. In 1707, in a ten-day campaign, they succeeded in arresting over forty men suspected of being active sodomites. The fear of accusation created a brisk trade of blackmailers, who ingratiated themselves with their targets before informing them that they would report them to the Society if they did not pay up. At the same time, molly houses at become a fixture of the London male gay scene. They were essentially pubs or taverns catering for gay clientele, rather than gay brothels, though sex often took place on the premises. During the 1720s, there were at least twenty active molly houses in London. In February 1726, on a Sunday evening, the constables gathered for a raid on the molly house of one Margaret, or 'Mother Clap,' in Field Lane, Holborn. Margaret Clap was married to John Clap, who ran a nearby pub but rarely visited her coffee house. In many rooms of the coffee house were beds for the use of the clientele, at a price, although they all made use of the large central room for drinking and dancing to fiddle music. There was also a 'marrying room' where men could be 'blessed' before having sex. In the early hours of the Monday morning, forty homosexual men were arrested, taken to Newgate and held for trial. Significantly, none were discovered having sex, although some were found in a state of undress. For those arrested, there were fines imprisonments, time to be spent in the pillory and three hangings. The raid on Mother Clap's house was prompted by a customer-turned-informer, Mark Partridge, who had fallen out with his lover and who decided to take the Society on a tour of London's molly houses. The prosecutions themselves were facilitated by a thirty-year old prostitute named Thomas Newton. Newton decided to visit Mother Clap in gaol to pay her bail. There he was apprehended by two constables who coerced him into becoming an informer. It appears there were few corners of gay London Newton was not familiar with, and he was very effective for the society, particularly when used as a familiar face to entrap men cruising in Moorfields, along 'Sodomites' Walk:' 'I was no stranger to the Methods they used in picking one another up. So I takes a Turn that way, and leans over the wall. In a little time, a Gentleman passes by, and looks hard at me, and at a small distance from me, stands up against the Wall as if he was going to make Water. Then by Degrees, he sidles nearer and nearer to where I stood, till at last he comes close to me - "T'is a very fine night," says he. "Aye" says I, "and so it is." Then he takes me by the Hand, and after squeezing and playing with it a little (to which I showed no dislike), he conveys it to his Breeches, and puts his Privities into it. I took fast hold, and call'd out to Willis and Stevenson, who coming up to by Assistance, we carried him to the Watch house' William Brown, the married man apprehended by his penis, was indignant at being arrested and responded to questioning with 'I did it because I thought I knew him, and I think there is no Crime in making what use I please with my own body!' His defence echoed the words of the philosopher John Locke, who posited that: 'Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man had a property in his own person: this no body has right to but himself.' Despite Brown's high-minded assertion of his right to use his own body as he wished, he was sentenced to stand in the pillory where he was pelted with rotten eggs, dead cats and turnip tops.

Georgian London: Into the Streets // Lucy Inglis

on “gay London” (mostly situated in Holborn) in the early 18th century, and the moral societies that attempted to, unsuccessfully, quash it.

#I know it's a long quote but it's sooooo interesting and dispels so many myths that get circulated on this hellsite #I love this book so much #it's my bible #18th century #georgian london #lgbt history #gay history #homophobia

404 notes · View notes

randomrichards · 8 years ago

Link

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT: – ENNEMIS INTERIURS (ENEMIES WITHIN) What starts out as a straight forward interview becomes an intense interrogation in this scathing, political thriller. Set in the 90’s, the film also looks at France’s turbulent relationship with Algiers. As the film begins, An Algerian teacher (Hassan Ghancy) applies for French Citizenship. He answers a series of basic questions of France’s Culture to an officer (Najib Oudghiri). But as the interview progresses, questions start to lean toward a terrorist attack by two Algerians. The officer suspects those two were at the same mosque meeting the teacher was at. The interrogation grows more hostile as the officer tries to get the teacher to name names. The premise probably has the simplest delivery of the films in this category. Most of the film is just these two character in a single room, talking. And yet it’s the most gripping short in this category. Starting with a simple Q & A, writer/director Selim Azzazi builds a slow burn of suspense coming out of each information revealed. The teacher also reveals himself to be a complex protagonist. Though born in the Algiers, he considers himself first and foremost a French man. He argues that since Algiers was part of the French Empire when he was born, he is therefore a Frenchman. But his fate lies in the hands of a man who could deport him with just the click of his pen. And no one will let him leave without two names. You don’t know much about him, but thanks to Ghancy’s performance, you care for him and don’t believe he had anything to do with this. This film takes a simple premise and keeps you in suspense. When it’s over, you’ll have a lot to talk about with your friends. – LA FEMME ET LE TGV The most romantic short in this category, this adorable little gem from Switzerland follows the developing relationship of two people who never meet. Every day, the TGV passes a little house of Elise (Jane Birkin), whose always there to wave her Swiss Flag. This seems to be the only high point of her day. Once a successful business, Elise’s bakery now struggles with competition from the All Deal retail store. Not helping is this ballet blaring techno tunes right next door. Her son Pierre (Mathieu Bisson) has grown up and moved out. Her only companion is Balthazar the budgie. So, the only excitement of her day is the coming of the TGV. Then one day, a letter comes flying onto out of the train and onto her lawn. So, begins a loving correspondence between Elise and the mysterious train conductor named Bruno. Elise would send letters and her treats to Bruno, who throws his letters out the window, along with some cheese. But their romantic correspondence comes under threat when the train takes a different route. La Femme Et Le TGV reminds me a lot of 84 Charing Cross Road, a biopic about two bookdealers (Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins) who formed a bond through business correspondence. Both films are romances centered around two people who never meet. You’d think this would be the kiss of death for romance films, and yet both films seem to make it work. Romance live and die by the chemistry between the two leads. How can you have chemistry when the two leads never have a scene together? With great writing, that’s how. Elise and Bruno bring out their most romantic sides in their letters, often turning to each other to vent their personal problems. Though it begs the question; are they falling for each other’s true selves or just idealized versions of each other? What also makes it work is Birkin’s performance. She creates such a quirky character in Elise that she brings joy in every minute she’s on screen. When she waves her swiss flag, she brings out her character’s genuine happiness. Plus, she faces the task of selling the questionable decision of falling for a person she hasn’t met. Her romance feels so genuine that you can’t help but root for her to get together with Bruno. She also as good in her low points, especially when Pierre gives his mom a degrading birthday present. The film is also very funny. Elsie cherishes Bruno’s gifts of cheese. There’s just one problem; she hates cheese. So, we are treated to the hilarious image of a fridge full of cheese. La Femme et Le Tiv will leave audiences swooning over this romance. – SILENT NIGHTS All the way from Denmark comes a love story about two people fallen on hard times. Kwame (Prince Yaw Appliah) immigrated from Ghana in hopes of providing more for his wife and kids. Instead, He finds himself on living on the street, making a living by collecting bottles. Meanwhile, Social worker Inger (Malene Beltoft) cares for her deadbeat, drunken mother Solveig (Vibeke Hastrup), who makes her life a living hell. These two lost souls come into each other lives when Kwame’s beaten by some racist thugs and Inger comes to his aid. After nursing him to health, they sleep with each other. They seem like a great couple, if it weren’t for a few problems. First, Solveig is gets very racist when she’s drunk, which leads to an awkward first meeting. Second, there’s both living in states of extreme poverty. Oh, and there’s the matter of Kwame’s wife and kids in Ghana. The film seems to draw inspiration from Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s romantic masterpiece Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Both films focus on the relationship between a lonely woman and an immigrant and the prejudices inflicted upon them. While not as frequent as in the later film, Silent Nights still has Kwame dealing with racial hostility, as previous beatings indicate. In an interesting spin, the hostility doesn’t only come from Caucasians. In fact, the thugs are of Danish born Arabs. I assume writer/director Aske Bang’s trying to prove whites aren’t the only ones’ hostile towards refugees. The film is clearly a commentary on the Syrian refugee crisis. What is surprising is how complicated the film portrays Kwame. The man came to Denmark thinking it would give him a better chance to provide for his family, only to find himself under a tunnel in the freezing cold, at least when the shelter’s not full. Fearing shame, Kwame can’t bring himself to return home without anything to show for it. On one hand, we can sympathize with his circumstances. But then Bang tests our sympathies by having him commit criminal activities. Kwame’s need for funds becomes urgent when his daughter contracts malaria. In his desperation, he commits a horrible act that’s not only criminal, but also nearly destroys his relationship with Inger. Sure, you understand why he did it, but it’s still a horrible thing to do. And then there’s the fact he’s cheating on his wife and doesn’t even have the decency to tell Inger, which may prove unforgivable for some audience members. We probably wouldn’t feel any sympathy if it weren’t for Appliah, who brings a lot of heart into his performance. The film has a lot of ups and downs. The films’ highpoint is the opening scene, which intertwines Kwame’s and Inger’s troubled lives with a church choir’s beautiful rendition of “Silent Night.” The low point is the ending. The message it sends is just…confusing. Whether the high points outweigh the low points is up to the audience. – SING (MINDEKI) Not to be confused with Illumination’s recent animated film, Sing is a Hungarian import. Moving to a new school is never easy for a kid. Despite the butterflies in her stomach, Zsofi (Dorka Gasparfalvi) fits right into her new environment, even joining her new best friend Liza (Dorka Hais) in the schools’ award winning choir class. After the first rehearsal, Zsofi comes to see why choir director Ms. Erika (Zsofia Szamosi) is her favorite teacher. But then Ms. Erika pulls her aside and insists Zsofi lip synch for the rest of rehearsals, which drains the poor girl of her enthusiasm. Soon, the girls come to realize how unfair adults can be. While a lesser actress would have hammed it up as Ms. Erika, Szamosi delivers a more nuanced realism to the character. When we first meet this teacher, she seems like a nice, encouraging teacher. When she does put down Psofi’s singing, she twists her insults under a polite guise; “You can sing in your head.” Szamosi maintains her polite manner as Ms. Erika tries to rationalize her questionable treatment of some students. It takes a hard push for her to show her true colours, but even then, she tries to mind her manners. Through Ms. Erika, the girls can see how adults make excuses for bad behavior, always believing themselves to be in the right. Matching her performance as the girls. Whenever they are together, Gasparfalvi and Hais make the interactions between Zsofi and Liza feel like real life conversations between two girls. Gasparfalvi is so joyful in the early scenes that when Zsofi’s spirit is broken, it’s upsetting. These little actresses further the depth of their character’s relationships when Zsofi won’t tell the concerned Liza why she’s upset. When they gather the choir team to get back at Ms. Erika, their hilarious revenge is glorious. SPOILER ALERT: These elements come together thanks to Director/Co-writer Kristof Deak. But one scene proves he has excellent storytelling skills. During one choir rehearsal, Liza starts to grow suspicious. She looks to student after student, and comes to realize Zsofi isn’t the only one who’s lip synching. The irony is the choir’s song is about singing in defiance. The fact he pulls this off without any spoken dialogue takes a master storyteller. – TIMECODE We conclude with the Palme D’or winning at the Cannes Film Festival. Today seemed like any other day for security guard Luna (Lali Ayguade) until she got a call from her boss. Apparently, a client’s tail lights were knocked out and the boss wants her to check the video. After typing in the timecode, the video reveals fellow guard Diego (Nicolas Ricchini) was dancing across the parking lot and accidently kicked out the light. Instead of ratting him out, Luna decides to try her hand at it. On her shift, she awkwardly dances in front of the security cameras and leaves a note of the times for Diego to watch it. Diego plays along, leaving notes for her to watch his dancing. This exchange starts a funny bond between these two. This is the third short film in this category centred around a blooming romance. The question is does this even count as a romance or just two friend enjoying a common activity? Either way, this short film is very funny, especially in the way it ends. Who Will Win? The odds are in favour of Ennemis Interieurs. This film is probably the best written and best acted film on the list, bringing a complex discussion of immigration and terrorism under a deceptively simple guise of a political thriller.

1 note · View note

himanshuela-blog · 6 years ago

Video

tumblr

Prepare Yourself for Surrogacy

Step by step instructions to Prepare Yourself for Surrogacy

As a surrogate really taking shape, a considerable measure of obligation lays on your shoulders. You aren't simply conveying an infant, you're conveying a child for another person. From now until conveyance, you need to consider every choice you make as one that may affect the life of another. While the way might be cleared with interesting obstructions and difficulties, the reward of beginning a family makes everything beneficial. The achievement of your surrogacy relies upon the decisions you make.

Underneath, we've plotted a few stages you can take to ensure your surrogate pregnancy is an effective one.

Read the official Conceive Abilities blog

Our blog is reliably refreshed with the most recent news in the business, interviews with gestational transporters, and accommodating aides for parents and surrogates. You'll additionally remain progressive on any organization declarations. For surrogates, these assets and direction can help answer any inquiries you may have previously, amid, and after your excursion.

Check the necessities to guarantee you're qualified

Not every person can be a surrogate. Indeed, we just pick the best, most advantageous, and most excited surrogates. You may likewise need to check the required surrogate prescriptions rundown to instruct yourself on the impacts of each medication.

Get a surrogate's point of view

In case you're extremely inquisitive about what occurs amid a surrogacy travel, read the accounts of some genuine surrogates. We as of late talked with Leslie Mattern, a surrogate, and essayist for my pea, their pod, a blog about a surrogate's voyage. We additionally have a visitor blog from Charee, another Conceive Abilities surrogate, as she experiences every day of the procedure.

Read different sources on the web

Teaching yourself by Googling "how to wind up a surrogate" isn't sufficient. On the off chance that you truly need to comprehend the surrogacy procedure, you have to encircle yourself with an assortment of assets accessible on the web. Path2Parenthood is an asset for parenthood of various sorts. ASRM, or the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, gives actualities and news on everything multiplication. Craftsmanship Risk Solutions is an incredible place to begin for any protection questions identified with helped proliferation. The more you think about the choice you make, the less on edge and unverifiable you'll feel.

Counsel your specialist

You ought to never settle on any essential medicinal choice without first counseling your specialist. A portion of the medicine you take may have some genuine symptoms, so a brisk registration is obligatory. We'll likewise require your OB's endorsement.

Converse with your loved ones

Despite the fact that surrogacy is your decision, having the help of your loved ones is critical. Comprehend that to numerous individuals, surrogacy is as yet a new practice, so be quiet. The duty to illuminate and instruct may lay on you. Get a duplicate of Dianne Whitfield's Surrogacy: An Essential Guide to the Surrogacy Process, Surrogacy Costs, and Finding a Surrogate Mother for a thorough investigation the surrogacy travel. For disclosing surrogacy to your youngsters, The Kangaroo Pouch (additionally by Whitfield) is an incredible book.

Keep up an adjusted and sound eating regimen

A surrogacy pregnancy resembles some other conventional pregnancy: it expects you to care for your body. This is a subject we've secured previously, so we urge you to peruse a portion of the past pieces we've composed, for example, Staying fit as a fiddle During Pregnancy, Healthy Lifestyle Diet Suggestions For Surrogate Mothers, and Staying Safe With food While Pregnant.

Expel wellsprings of stress

At last, as a surrogate mother, you have the obligation to make a loose and tranquil condition for the tyke you are conveying. Truth be told, explore demonstrates that pressure influences the tyke's mental health later on, so endeavor to dispense with it however much as could be expected. Contingent upon where you live and work, you might be qualified for 12 weeks maternity leave under government law. Check with your HR division to check whether you are qualified.

Surrogacy can be an excellent adventure. For some, first-time surrogates, the vulnerability of the procedure is a typical wellspring of concern. ConceiveAbilities is here to guarantee you are completely educated before your enrollment. To discover more, investigate the ConceiveAbilities site today. To reach us, round out this concise contact shape.

Surrogacy is an extremely fulfilling, sacrificial act. Surrogates are deliberately giving their body and experiencing the procedure of pregnancy to give another person, who is in all probability an outsider, with the endowment of turning into a parent.

Settling on the choice to wind up a surrogate is just the initial phase simultaneously. The potential surrogate should then experience different strides to verify that you are met all requirements to end up a surrogate.

The initial step is to pick which surrogacy office to leave on this excursion with. This is an important choice. The surrogate must settle on the decision of which organization they'd jump at the chance to work with that'll enable them to impart the endowment of parenthood to a family who any expectations of having their very own offspring. Simply in the wake of choosing their organization, will they start the screening procedure and after that be coordinated with the Intended Parents. In the wake of experiencing distinctive kinds of testing to guarantee that they can securely proceed with the procedure of surrogacy, they will be acknowledged as a surrogate.

Subsequent to being acknowledged as a surrogate, the procedure genuinely starts. Following the marking of the agreements and the surrogate coordinating procedure, it is presently time for the surrogate to start setting herself up for the methodology. This includes the surrogate being painstakingly analyzed for any physical informalities and additionally emotional well-being issues to guarantee a fruitful pregnancy. The physical and mental readiness segment of surrogacy is a vast piece of the surrogacy procedure.

After the Procedure

Once the strategy has been finished the surrogate must go to nonstop medical checkups, take the required pre-birth mind vitamins, and get blood tests. Customary checkups and care are fundamental to the surrogacy procedure, similar to any pregnancy, to guarantee both the transporter and infant are solid. The surrogate will likewise keep on taking estrogen and progesterone all through the pregnancy.

The surrogate will be in steady correspondence with the Intended Parents for the rest of the pregnancy. After this, the level of correspondence will be left to the choice of both the surrogate and the Intended Parents.

Get Our App : Ela App

#elawoman #surrogacy #ivf

0 notes

londontheatre · 7 years ago

Link

The company of YANK! at Charing Cross Theatre, credit Claire Bilyard

50 years ago, in 1967, homosexuality was partially decriminalised in England. In 2000 it became legal to be gay and a member of the UK armed forces. In the USA, the ban on gay folk serving wasn’t fully lifted until 2011. Why do I tell you this, you may ask. Well, the reason is that during WWII it was illegal to be gay in the armed forces and, despite the desperate need for men and women to serve, LGB personnel were persecuted by the military police for being who they were. Yet, when general conscription has been announced and the military machine is desperate for manpower, it’s inconceivable that the odd gayer didn’t slip past and serve their country. Their stories were never told until now as Joseph and David Zellnik’s musical Yank! opens at the Charing Cross Theatre.

It’s 1942 and the USA has finally noticed that Europe is at war. A young man called Stu (Scott Hunter) has been called up. As he leaves, his mother (Sarah-Louise Young) presents him with a journal to record his time in the service. Stu goes off to basic training and joins his squad – ‘Charlie’ Company. As with all such groups of conscripts, the squad is made up of various types from all over the USA and very quickly, names are dispensed with and nicknames become the norm. There is redneck ‘Tennessee” (Lee Dillon-Stuart), Czechowski (Kris Marc-Joseph) from Poland, the ‘Professor’ (Benjamin Cupit), Sicilian-born, Rotelli (Bradley Judge), Seattle-born Cohen (Tom Pepper) and ‘Hollywood’ Mitch Adams (Andy Coxon). As ‘C’ company’s long-suffering training Sergeant (Waylon Jacobs) discovers quite quickly, Stu is pretty useless as a soldier. He drops his rifle and is doing badly during basic training, much to the annoyance of the rest of the squad except Mitch, who helps him. Ah yes, that brings me to another point, Stu is gay and has fallen in love with Mitch – both wrong on so many levels – except that it seems Mitch feels the same way. After basic training, Stu meets up with Artie (Chris Kiely) a photographer on army magazine ‘Yank’. The two of them hit it off immediately, particularly as Artie is, like Stu, ‘light in the loafers’. He is looking for a writer to join him getting stories for the magazine, and so the two of them form a partnership, traveling the war writing positive pieces for the consumption of other ‘real’ soldiers, leaving ‘C’ Company and Mitch behind.

So, here we go then. Let’s talk about the issues with Yank!. Well, for a pedant like me, the uniforms were slightly wrong at times. And that’s it. My one criticism because Yank! was absolutely awesome from start to finish. I’m not sure exactly where to start with praising the show, to be honest. Let’s start with the book. David Zellnik has obviously done a lot of research about the consequences of being a gay man in the US armed forces during the war, and that really comes across with the utterly compelling story of Stu and Mitch. Yank! could easily have been left as a, pardon the pun ‘straight’ play but making it into a musical is a stroke of genius. David and Joseph have made a fabulously authentic sounding 1940s musical with some really memorable songs – such as ‘Click’ and ‘Light on Your Feet’ that evoke the era perfectly.

The company of YANK! at Charing Cross Theatre, credit Clair Bilyard

So, we have a great book and music, what’s next? Well you need a fabulous cast and Yank! really does have a superb one. Mention has to go to Sarah-Louise Young who plays virtually all the women in the show. Everyone from a closeted lesbian soldier, to a series of sweethearts saying goodbye to their man, to radio performers and even a melodramatic film soprano. Sarah-Louise does some fast costume and personality changes and gives every character she performs a life of their own. The rest of the talented cast play multiple roles and dance a wide variety of styles brilliantly and really create a solid and impressive ensemble behind our two leads. Andy Coxon is lovely as the confused, tormented Mitch. His good looks and affable style make him an instant friend of everyone onstage and in the audience and even at his most negative, he makes Mitch human so that it’s easy to understand what motivates Mitch. The chemistry with Scott Hunter’s Stu is palpable and the two of them make a lovely couple. Finally, Scott Hunter is an absolute dream as Stu. He is vulnerable and instantly loveable as the young man trying to come to terms with his homosexuality in the worst place possible. Scott looks and sounds great in the musical numbers but also is an intense serious actor – as we see during the scenes in Act II – who managed to get a strong emotional reaction out of many of us in the audience as we went through Stu’s journey with him.

James Baker’s direction makes fantastic use of the Charing Cross stage which, while not being the biggest in the world never seemed crowded even with the entire twelve-strong cast on it performing Chris Cumming’s choreography. Victoria Hinton’s set is quite minuscule – a few scenery flats and some packing crates – but brilliantly conveys every place required for the story, especially when combined with Aaron J Dootson’s lighting and Chris Bogg’s atmospheric sound design. Finally a mention for Musical Director James Cleeve and the seven-piece band that has the perfect 1940s sound to accompany the songs and provides nice incidental music.

Yank! is a pretty perfect musical as it stands. The story is compelling, the music never puts a foot wrong – guess what I’m listening to on Spotify as I write this – and the production is just amazing on all levels. The show varies from extreme highs to horrific lows but everything fits together perfectly and, at the end, there was a real poignancy in the glimmer of hopeful light that the story ended with. It was quite poignant that I saw the show a couple of days after Pride when so many LGBT+ people were able to celebrate the freedom to be themselves in a way that Stu and Mitch were never able to. Like so many others I was on my feet at the end cheering and wiping away a tear knowing that I had just experienced something really special.

Review by Terry Eastham

Based on the Off-Broadway hit production, and transferring to London following a highly acclaimed run at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester earlier this year, YANK! is a poignant love story based on the true, hidden history of gay soldiers during World War Two.

In 1943, young Mid-Westerner Stu is called up to serve in the forces and becomes a reporter for Yank Magazine, the journal ‘for and by the servicemen’. Following the men in Charlie Company, this acclaimed musical explores what it means to be a man and fall in love…

Scott Hunter (Grease, The Kissing Dance) will reprise his role as Stu and joining the company are Andy Coxon (Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, Les Misérables) as Mitch, Waylon Jacobs (Chicago, Memphis) as Sarge/Scarlet and Bradley Judge (Don’t Run, Sister Act) as Rotelli.

The rest of the company is completed by Benjamin Cupit, Scott Davies, Lee Dillon-Stuart, Chris Kiely, Kris Marc-Joseph, Mark Paterson, Tom Pepper and Sarah-Louise Young.

This production is directed by James Baker, with musical direction by James Cleeve and choreography by Chris Cuming. Completing the creative team are designer Victoria Hinton, lighting designer Aaron J. Dootson, sound designer Chris Bogg and casting director Benjamin Newsome.

Featuring a compelling story and original music by American brothers David and Joseph Zellnik, Yank! pays homage to the timeless music of the 1940s and shows the struggle to survive in a time and place where the odds are stacked against you.

Orchestrations: Joseph Zellnik Additional Orchestrations: Matt Aument The musical is directed by James Baker, and is produced by Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment, Hope Mill Theatre, Ben Millerman with Jim Kierstead and Guy James.

Yank! Charing Cross Theatre The Arches Villiers Street London, WC2N 6NL http://ift.tt/HQ6NWc

http://ift.tt/2v71MU9 LondonTheatre1.com

#IFTTT #LondonTheatre1.com

0 notes