#and other you AKA her before she purged forgotten from herself

[hexedmaniacs]

i’ve been fucking around with funny designs and stuff lately and kind of made this little weird universe about dreams and places you shouldn’t be in

[mountphoenixrp]

We have a new citizen in Mount Phoenix:

                          Meng Po, the Goddess of Forgetfulness,                            whose origins stem from Ancient China.                     She is now a night janitor at Asclepius General.

FC NAME/GROUP: Lu Keran (THE9/ Fanxy Red) GOD NAME: Meng Po PANTHEON: Chinese OCCUPATION: Night Janitor at Asclepius General HEIGHT: 176 cm (5’9″) WEIGHT: 52 kg (114 lbs) DEFINING FEATURES: –Short hair often dyed black and tinted in bright streaks. –(Tattoos) ♦Shrivatsa on both Carpus ♦Dharmachakra on the Spine ♦ Myosotis Flowers on both Feet

PERSONALITY: You would think that a goddess who is fated to be forever forgotten all of their days by any who’ve met her, would be for better or worse a bitter goddess as cold, severe, and morose as sleet covered snow. A reclusive witch, even, robbed of all shine and spirit. However, the Lady Meng is quite the opposite.

A tremendously vital albeit stubborn being, she is cheerful, kind, and eccentrically lives each day out loud and off the rails, as if it is the very last one she will ever have with anyone she meets (which for most is truer than can ever be understood). The Underworld Goddess of Forgetfulness and Amnesia is basically the single serve manic fairy BFF you never knew you needed, and won’t remember you had. Dawn til dusk, Lady Meng has no tomorrows with anyone so she exists as everyone’s extremely fleeting but none the less doting Laolao and Nienie.

HISTORY: Her myth (too long so see link) [X]

Unable to cast her from the underworld nor let her reincarnate, Yanluo Wang made the former human Meng Jiang Nü, a goddess in her own right. As the crone goddess of forgetfulness, Meng Po, she made sure crossing souls did not remember their previous lives so none would ever share her fate, and they could reincarnate into a new life. She did so by offering them a tea or soup made from a variety of herbs called ‘the five flavors of forgetfulness.’ This is intended as a way to purge a soul of all the memories from its previous life so it may be ready to make a fresh start.

However, the times changed, as they always do. Eventually, less souls came to the little lone soup stall on Nai He Bridge. The humans and found new gods, and ways to sin. No one needed her warmth to forget life’s past pains anymore. Boredom set in for Old Lady Meng and with no memories of her own any longer to brood over, she grew restless. Seeing no reason to serve soup to herself, the goddess returned to an Earth that had much changed. Even she herself was changed. She was young, vital and vigorous again. As a goddess among the mortals, she could look anyway she liked, be what ever she wanted.

☙ Or so she thought…

It wasn’t long on before Meng realized freedom came with a price and no one can escape the sins of their own cursed karma. She was a part of this new world and yet she wasn’t. Friends, lovers, even those she’d only just met would no longer know her as soon as she left their sight. She went unnoticed by peers, forgotten each day over and over. A whisper of existence that remained absent from times infinite loop to all but her own mind. She was now literally written out of the story of living memory completely.

☙ If she had been less stubborn as a human and a slightly less willful goddess perhaps the tale would ave ended right here.

Instead, she learned to live in the moment, savor every now and make the present be a lifetime. With no tomorrows, and no forevers, Meng flit through the world of human concerns as careless and detached as a caffeinated kid turned loose in a toy store: brightly, cheerfully and with all the grace of a herd of buffalo stampeding over broken glass. It was between the pockets of her own superposition that she learned of Mount Phoenix. She is not even certain it is a place for her, but. after all that’s said and done . .

☙ One who is easily forgotten wont easily forget.

POWERS:

♦ Is able to completely erase the memories of others, ranging from a certain memory to erasing an entire personality and personal history from memory, causing instant and permanent amnesia.

♦ Causes others to lose memory of her after choosing to look away. If she is not directly within view of an individual, all memories of her and her presence and characteristics completely disappears from the mind of the individual.

♦ Meng’s abilities also interfere with the targeting telemetry of mechanical devices. Scopes, lens, cameras, computers, cellphones and recording devices may catch a distortion but nothing can capture a define image of her features or body.

STRENGTHS:

♦ Absolutely Fearless (I mean she use to park her soup stall at the gates of Diyu (aka Realm of the Dead containing all the Chinese Hells), so nothing much shocks or scares her.

♦ Great listener and advisor despite the fact she knows no one will ever even remember her or the advice she has given them once they walk away.

♦ She practically invented the concept of stealth and stealth maneuvers, being both existent and non-existent at same time to most individuals. There’s really nowhere she can’t sneak in and out of (nor any lock she’s not above picking).

♦ The Deus Ex Machina of goddesses frankly.

♦ An amazing cook, her signature Lanzhou Lamian (beef noodle soup) and Five-Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness are especially mind numblingly tasty, the only problem is you likely won’t even remember your own name (nor much else) after having a sip of either one.

WEAKNESSES:

♦ An individual has to drink or eat something she has cooked or given them in order to have all their memories totally erased.

♦ Meng has no control over the imperceptibility cloaks her, and lives in a near constant state of existential superposition.

♦ As she does still really actually exist, Meng Po’s actions on tangible things can still be perceived even after she herself has been forgotten, like her use of supplies and consumption of food, allowing people to logically conclude that she could exist.

♦ Animals are unaffected by Meng Po’s abilities, and remember her despite the imperceptibility that surrounds her.

♦ Still cannot swim.

♦ Extremely Stubborn.

♦ Can be rigidly unforgiving.

[londonlanded]

Week 58

And all of a sudden, I’ve got less than a week left. The goodbyes are hitting harder and more frequently, they’re going from being weekly to multiple times daily, as is the nature of parting. 

Monday, started my morning off the way I have been all summer, with a cup of coffee and the St. James Church groundskeeper, Kostas, for company. He imparted a few extra doses of wisdom since he knew he’d only get 5 more chances to, and I really, really tried to enjoy the view. 

Tuesday, a last meal at the restaurant Penny introduced me to, with the angel herself. Farmstand has sustained me this year nearly as much as the girl in my company, I’m going to try and not think about the months of rent I could have paid had I not been shown the beauty of their gluten free, 85% vegan, 100% feel-good menu. 

More importantly though, it was my last moments with my stellar company. Penny and I have had such a funny saga of a friendship, it’s waxed and waned over the years but the takeaway of the whole thing is that she’s been a piece of home this year, both when I knew I needed it and when I didn’t. She’s the reason I’m here actually – I was visiting her in New York when I caught my early flight home and met Plane Lady who turned my world on its head. I proudly announced that to the rest of my guests at my goodbye fiasco last week, too, and realized only there that I was introducing the girl who’d made my whole life with the rest of them possible. At Leicester Square station, we said our goodbyes, but ours was one that weighed a bit less than some of the others I’ve had recently. Not for lack of love for the girl, quite the opposite, if anything. Probably because I see our home town in her eyes in the years to come, and I find it hard to doubt nearly twenty years of having her around. That’s right, first grade through 2018, I have bridges whose strength I’ve questioned on occasion, but the one between us isn’t one of them.

Wednesday, I popped out to attempt a trip to the bank (hot tip don’t go at lunch time you’ll never get seen since money moves quickly everywhere outside bank walls apparently), and on my way back to the office, swung into the Banksy exhibit that’s opened literally across the road from work. It’s a small exhibition, but a good one, and I actually think I preferred these pieces to those I’d seen in Amsterdam last time I saw his work. I know he’s anonymous, but I only say him since there are rumours he’s the lead singer of the band Massive Attack, which means he’s tentatively been identified though not to the point of being forced into admission, which is something I genuinely hope never happens. Some things are best left a mystery.

Wednesday night though, that’s when the day got good. I set off from work to meet a friends’ sister who’d just moved to London herself, and was struck with the hardcore Canadian accent I’d forgotten about. Fresh off the plane, Lindsay sounded just like home. While I spend a lot of time with Penny, she’s spent so much time in the states (read, the past 5 years), that her accent has softened on top of not being too strong to start with. I don’t really come across Canadians much in my little London life, so hearing this Oakville girl tell me about her last moments in Canada, punctuated by Tim Horton’s and a tattoo of mountains she keeps getting told look like a British Columbia skyline, really brought me home.

But that’s not the highlight, though the highlight was just as homey as Lindsay had made me feel. We met Anatholie and Jack, my replacement at the Worldwide Sales Office (who I recruited, thank you very much) and her boyfriend, at Covent Garden station before finding our way to the very same Canadian bar Penny and I had stumbled across the week before. The Maple Leaf sports bar is as tacky as you can imagine, and looks a lot like some of the less classy locations we’ve got at home. Still, we weren’t there for the sports, we were there so that Lindsay and I could show off one of our national treasures to my non-Canadian kids. I had decided to indoctrinate my foreign friends one last way, by convincing them of the infinite beauty of my nation using chips, gravy, and cheese curds, at one of the only poutine-selling outlets in the city.

Rosie, Sophia and Nicki were already waiting, and had decided on their food before we’d even stepped in the door. Before we even ordered, the first Canadian epiphany of the evening came to pass when Rosie realized that there’s more than one kind of hockey in the world, and that when a Canadian is talking about hockey, they’re probably not referring to the type that’s played on a field. I want you to imagine the look on someone’s face who has just realized that they’ve had a number of conversations with people that may or may not have been about the topic they thought they were discussing. Rosie’s born and raised London, and not the sporty type so I forgive her, but I definitely won’t forget the tears of laughter that sprung from her once she realized how ridiculous she sounded after having said the sentence, “oh my gosh, there’s hockey on ice!”

Anyway, back to the real purpose of the evening, Lindsay and I went for the weird, bastardized British version of the stuff (aka peas were served on top, no thank you), but we made sure the rest of our crew stuck with the classics. I went for a Bulwark cider, made from Nova Scotia apples that I haven’t had since Uni, and the rest of the table gave Sleeman a go. Two orders of the classic stuff, one of triple pork, and one with burnt ends (aka charred short rib ends), chicken wings and mac and cheese, we were one carb-and-oil-loaded table, but damn were we ever happy about it.

Verdict after first bites? Lindsay shouted, ‘yes, squeaky cheeeeeeeeese’ and I laughed in agreement, since, before that moment, I hadn’t realized that was the quality-control method that was required in order to determine cheese curd authenticity, but once she said it I realized she was bang on. Canadian verdict; cheese was on, fries were on, gravy was a bit on the sweet and British side but hey, no one really thinks about the gravy quality as much as they consider the rest of the equation, so I’ll forgive them. The rest of the kids were thrilled at their choices, and most importantly of all, our resident Belgian approved of both her pint and her plate. I’ll take the win, thank you.

Thursday, a day dense with exit interviews at work, where I was offered the chance to come back to the company by three different people. While I don’t know how likely it is that my career in hospitality extends beyond this week, it’s nice to know that my performance has earned me the chance to open the door again if I choose to. I popped out at lunch to say bye to Anette who’d come back to London briefly, and before the day ended, one of my colleagues dropped this on my desk and made my day a bit brighter than it had already gotten.

One of the directors had bought me a little goodbye gift since I’d gotten her a thank-you one, and on the envelope it came in, she’d written a little note to the person I’m hoping to be. Just FYI, in the show Suits, Jessica Pearson is the phenomenally dressed, confident, level, rockstar boss of Harvey Spector. Her badass character was part of my initial inspiration to pursue this little legal adventure I’ve decided to embark on. I’d be pretty satisfied if I wound up being half the lawyer she is in the show, I guess we’ll see. More importantly, and in the same subject line, I got my first list of readings on Thursday, too, all to be done in time for Monday. Looks like the fun has begun. 

Thursday was also the day I’d dedicated to packing up everything I own, and stuffing my musty, London clothes into a suitcase in preparation for the purge I do once I get back home and have access to a washing machine that doesn’t imbue my entire closet with the smell of the building it’s standing in. Turns out I own just as little as I thought, and I might not even have needed Brooke’s help a few weeks ago when she brought a bag back for me. 

Regardless, I filled the extra space with bonus stuff I wasn’t counting on getting to keep, and took the dozens of decorations down off my walls, realizing only after I’d done so that my room was brighter, and far less fun without them. I also realized that my room’s definitely better suited to a single bed, note to the future tenant if they feel like acting on that one (though the tenant happens to be a friend of mine, so I’m going to bet on them keeping it as they knew it). By 1:00AM, I was packed and spent, and was finally letting my weary head hit the pillow for the second last time.

Friday, my last day at work, another hefty round of goodbyes, this time with a slightly deeper dose of finality. I spent my last morning, for now, sitting in my favourite spot on the grounds of St. James Church Piccadilly, waved goodbye to Kostas the groundskeeper, got my final free coffees from my friends at Pret (two, plus lunch on the house, my budget is really going to miss those folks, almost as much as I will!). It was a beautiful morning to say goodbye to the place that has seen me through so much.

The office was quiet, the day passed more quickly than almost any other I’ve had, and with a quick phone call from the VP who was working from home but who ‘wanted to hear [my] voice one last time before I embark on my next journey,’ my career at the London Worldwide Sales Office came to a quiet close. Anatholie and I were the last two in the office, tying up some loose ends in her training and on a project we’d been tasked with, and with a final thank you, she left me in the place I’ve called mine for the past 6 months. Another desk cleared out, another page turned, I walked out into the light rain with a slightly heavy heart, but a much more satisfied soul.

By the time the light was fading, I walked into Paris’ flat for the last time, turns out last week wasn’t it after all. Some endings, well, aren’t. And thank god it wasn’t, because that room was filled with more love than I’ve ever seen it, comparable only perhaps to last Saturday’s crowd. Though the party was technically for Paris’ departure, there wasn’t a single person in that room that wasn’t losing me, too. I didn’t hit until just then, when the first few friends walked over to hand me tokens of their individual sadness, letters and pictures and small gifts to keep them in my mind long after they’ve left my day-to-day life. The sadness didn’t hit as hard as I thought it would, but the denial seemed to supersede any capacity of mine that existed for any outright demonstration of feeling.

It also seemed that was only true for me though, as the rest of the evening was peppered with more tears than I’ve ever had shed for me at any other time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much sadness, and known outright that I’m a big part of the cause, but known at the same time that it stems only from love. I’ve never had friends like this before, nothing to do with the lives I’ve built before this one, but it’s entirely to do with the nature of the environment I’ve found myself in. It’s non-academic, professional, and fundamentally built on people who have no one but the friends they make and the connections they foster.

We’re a bunch of kids, alone and building our lives in London. No one’s got their parents, no one has anywhere else to go, there’s nothing immediate beyond the people you surround yourself with. We found love in each other because we needed it to survive. And now, when we lose one of the pillars around which our safety net has been intricately woven, we notice. We don’t fall apart, we have many, many, strong and tall beams that hold the rest of it together, but we feel it. The world as we know it shudders and shakes and gives way to the new reality where there’s a piece of it that’s missing, and before the healing can begin, the acute feeling of loss is the only one anyone notices. And when you’re the beam that’s being freed from the tethers you chose to tie yourself down with, you’re left with a feeling of loss that, if you’re anything like me, your body will deny you until it’s ready to stop plowing blindly forward through life. If you’re anything like me, you look back only once you’re able to do so fondly, and without longing for what you’ve left behind.

I do not know when my new reality will set in, when I’ll finally register that I’ve lost this old one, but I know when I do, I’ll really fucking feel it. I am not looking forward to that moment, those moments, as they’ll fall together with increasing frequency if I know myself at all, until finally they, as a whole, become true. Don’t get me wrong, I am entirely the agent of this change, but that hasn’t remotely mitigated the consequences of electing to go through with it. At the end of the night, it was Paris, Veronique and I on his couch, talking about their plans and laughing at the uncertainty that plagued them. The fact that my next three years are relatively prescribed are the reason that I’ve got the most consistent and predictable future of anyone in attendance on Friday night; this is the hotel business, and part of the reason it’s not for me.

You need to move upward, and if not, you need to move on. I’m as keen as the next person to ascend in rank and responsibility, but my passion for hospitality isn’t quite as intense as my desire to face the inherent volatility of the industry. I’ll leave it to the professionals, one of whom I’m done pretending to be. That said, this industry has taught me more than any other I’ve worked in, and it’s done so without also bringing me the professional success that I’d initially associated with personal growth. This company, these people, this line of work has changed me in ways I never imagined were possible. There’s a time and a place for directed ambition, much like there’s one for fleshing out the corners of who you are. This year in London has been the latter.

Vero and I hugged tightly in the back of our Uber, she stepped into the flat I remember walking into for the very first time, knowing I was going to find a friend on the other side of her front door. I remember the day we met, too, I was sitting in the PBX office, bouncing childishly on the exercise ball I’d claimed as my seat for the day, and wondering who this immaculately-dressed intern was. One day of crossover, one day spent training her on what my job entailed before she moved onto another department to ensure she got full exposure of the hotel’s 5 departments and 40+ roles within them. We got on so well that we broke into peals of laughter enough times to earn a telling-off by one of the other agents on duty at the time. But by then, it was too late, we were already friends. There was no doubt or hesitation, only the immediate and mutual understanding that we had less that morning than we had when we left work that day.

Saturday morning was slower than I’d wanted, but the weight of my week was starting to set in, and so was the exhaustion associated with preparing for a new life while packing up an old one. Armed with printouts of my readings for Monday, and covered in the dust swept off the few things in my room that hadn’t been taken from their resting places already, I packed up the last of my things just as I heard the doorbell go. Giulia had turned up, a little later than her initial plan which was to show up at our send-off the night before, better late than never holds true, even for my Swiss German, clockwork girl. 

She shone a little last-minute light on my life before Paris turned up and helped me carry the last of my donation items to the Oxfam box down the road. We had a little photoshoot on my street and G and her sister went off on their London adventure before Murat and Mandekh showed up to help me finish mine.

Murat and Paris took to trying to defy the laws of physics in the boot of Murat’s car, trying to fit my bodybag-esque duffel around my other bag, which was made a touch more challenging since I had to fit a hard-shell carry-on into a bag that looks like it should be soft. After a quick stop at Tesco for British nibbles for the people at home, we were on our way, and my little entourage disembarked with me at the Queen’s Terminal, and helped me heft everything I owned through check-in and bag drop.

And then, it was time to go. The tears I’d been doing a decent job at holding off found their way onto Paris’ shoulder, as his found their way onto mine. He told me he couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to be seeing me later, that this was really it, for now. I couldn’t feel it either, the finality of my turning around and walking away was too far from the realm of realistic for me to have imagined it before that moment, even at that moment. I don’t remember the last time I clung to someone, and I don’t remember the last time someone clung to me. I also don’t know that I’ve ever cried so much in public and simply not cared. One last time, I was experiencing the gift that only airports, train stations, and bus bays can afford. The beauty of transience is that it holds no expectation, we were as ourselves as we allowed ourselves to be. And that afternoon, we set our sadness free.

I had a thought while walking down the stairs to my gate that day, carrying my guitar and my backpack, trusting the staff that I’d handed my bags to that the rest of my material world would make it home, too. Well, I had many thoughts, but one of them stood out above all else. That my life will never again be the same, but that there is nothing more powerful than the moments you realize you’re never going to have again. I know I have a few more of those coming in my life, that every monumental change is accompanied by its own series of palpable shifts in the day-to-day. but I’m not sure that the rest of my shifts will be quite so acutely different as this one will be to the world I’ll be entering on Monday. I am trying to think of this transience as a gift, that the stark contrasts are there to show us how lucky we are to be human, and capable of such a diverse array of experience. The optimism will come, but for now, there’s a bit more denial than there is acceptance. But there is far more love than there is loss, and as it is, life not yet given me a greater gift than it did when I landed here. We cannot lose anything without having first gained, and the question now is not whether I did, but just how much.

I also learned a lot about goodbyes, and I think I managed to verbalize the single most important thing about them, or rather, the most important thing about the absence of them. Goodbye implies, at least for me, that there’s nothing more to say. I think the majority of the people in my world know that when it comes to the way I see them, that will never be the case.

And with that said, I think I’ll put this one to bed, but only until we all meet again. Here’s to all of our adventures between now and then, and it seems that, at least for me, the next one has already begun.  

Thanks for giving me a reason to keep writing. It’s just my life, but I’ve always believed that it’s better shared. 

e

[minervacasterly]

Reign’s Final Season:

"There can only be one Queen and I intend that to be me." -Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland (played by Rachel Skarsten).

Reign’s fourth and last season started less than a month ago and rather than write a scathing review of it, I am going to change my tune (only slightly) because unlike the previous seasons, this season has taken a darker -and more serious- turn. Much like their real-life counterparts, women have gone on to take active roles, whereas before they were merely seen as noble and royal spouses, daughters, sisters, working on behalf of their male relatives.

Catherine de Medici still performs an auxiliary role, just as her eldest daughter, Elizabeth Valois (aka Leeza for those who are fans of the show), Queen Consort of Philip II of Spain, but unlike before, they are no longer as dependent on their husbands or, in the case of Catherine, their offspring.

Catherine’s role as Regent and Governor is not one of Reign’s many inaccuracies. This all happened. Catherine was appointed Regent for her son and was forced to share power with the dreaded Guise faction and yes, they often went head to head with one another -and it often had to do with religion! However, Catherine’s eldest daughter wasn’t adamantly working to undermine her mother’s cause as shown on season four premiere. She fulfilled the role of dutiful wife and mother, but when it came to her loyalties, her ties to France won.*

Furthermore, Catherine was a pragmatist. She didn’t want to be put in the middle of a religious conflict -as she tells her son and younger daughter on the show- because it weakens France. And despite everything that people accused her of, she had come to love her adoptive country as if she’s born there. When Henri of Navarre became King of France, he said that Catherine did what she had to do to ensure her family’s safety, something that was echoed in last week’s episode when Catherine as at patience’s end as she sees tensions between Huguenots and Catholics rising.

Then there is the situation in the British Isles. Elizabeth I of England and Ireland comes off as the most pragmatic and realist of the two. Mary Stuart, the First of Scotland, wants peace but she also thinks that she rules by divine right. Her half-brother thinks this as well, although he remains indecisive, playing on both sides until he finds the one that will benefit him the most. He tells Evangelical preacher John Knox, head of the Protestant movement in Scotland, that he will never understands how things are done because he is a commoner and therefore close to nothing next to him and Mary who possess royal blood. Mary’s arrogance and -to paraphrase Linda Porter in “Tudors vs Stewarts: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary, Queen of Scots”- the way she was raised, as a consort rather than as a queen, made her believe that queenship was something that was her right, not something that she had to earn. She should be liked simply because she is her father’s legal heir, the true Queen of Scots and due to her Tudor ancestry (through her paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England), the true Queen of England. She can’t get it through her head that things don’t work that way and unlike her, Elizabeth -and her sister before her- had to plot, cheat, and almost battle for their crowns and to stay in power. The Tudor sisters were born to a life of privileged but after their father annulled his union to their mothers, they were treated as bastards because that is in fact what they had become, bastards. Royal bastards but bastards nonetheless. In spite of Henry VIII restoring them to the line of succession, to the eyes of their religious enemies, they were still bastards and as a result, they faced a lot of dangers (Elizabeth I especially). Mary, Queen of Scots finally caves in and tells her half-brother, the Earl of Moray that she can’t do this alone and if she wants to win against her royal cousin, and keep her throne (in light of Catherine de Medici being pressured by Spain and the papacy to purge her adoptive country of all Protestants) she has to marry a strong Catholic candidate, one who has strong ties to the English throne as she does. That candidate is none other than “Lady Lennox” eldest son, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. In real life, Lady Lennox was everything that Elizabeth I described and suspected her as. Like Mary, Queen of Scots, she descended from the first Tudor monarch through his eldest daughter, Margaret Tudor. But unlike the Queen of Scots who descended from Margaret’s first marriage, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, descended from her second. She was the product of Margaret Tudor’s union with the ambitious Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. Margaret like her namesake, Margaret Beaufort was ambitious, cunning and also highly protective of her young. While no one is sure how she looked like, and Reign’s past season have shown that they are not very good at creating nuance, this season gives history enthusiasts some hope, as Margaret is shown as being an astute player in the game of thrones, who isn’t intimidated by anyone, including her royal cousin, Elizabeth I. We will just have to see what more is in store for Mary Stuart and other powerful women this season, but one thing is clear, this season has to end with Mary, Queen of Scots’ end, and they have to do it in a way that shows that her life was anything but idyllic (even though it started that way), otherwise, there was not much use in this journey.

*I am referring to a plot that Philip II of Spain and the papacy had in store for Jean d’ Albret, otherwise known as Jeanne III, Queen of Navarre. The plot consisted of her being kidnapped and tried by the Spanish Inquisition where she would be declared guilty and imprisoned, or if she proved herself as stubborn as she had been with the French crown, sentenced to die at the stake. Elizabeth Valois, his wife, caught wind of this and communicated it to her mother who immediately informed Jeanne, forcing her to become Catherine’s ally once again and concede to some of her demands. (You can read more about it in this post I did in Tudor Nerds with Glasses: https://www.facebook.com/592377904263929/photos/a.592380994263620.1073741828.592377904263929/732714613563590/?type=3&theater )

More curiosities: Carlos, or Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias sick infatuation with “Leeza” is based on fact. Unlike how he was portrayed in previous seasons, Carlos was anything but the handsome, smart prince. He was devious and due to his parents being first cousins, he was mad. He mistreated people and animals. Originally Elizabeth Valois was intended for him but his father changed his mind and married her instead. Catherine de Medici, worried that her daughter might have competition and that she wouldn’t be able to put up with the Queen of Scots (given that the two had been best friends growing up), foiled the Guise’s plans to marry Mary Stuart to Don Carlos. Don Carlos died in 1568, Elizabeth died months later. The cause was puerperal fever, also known as childbed fever, after delivering a stillborn daughter. Due to her quarrel with the Guise faction, Catherine de Medici often sided with Elizabeth I of England. English ambassadors, following their queen’s orders, would empower the Huguenot forces and side with Jeanne III of Navarre; while assuring the Queen Mother of her fellow queen’s friendship. This wasn’t entirely hypocritical. Elizabeth I often supported Catherine de Medici and in turn, Catherine would do her best to appease all religious factions in her country to keep England’s favor.

If you want to learn about the history behind Reign, I recommend the following books: “The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas” by Alison Weir, “Tudors vs Stewarts: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary, Queen of Scots” by Linda Porter, “Imprudent King: A New life of Philip II” by Geoffrey Parker, “Philip of Spain” by Henry Kamen, “Game of Queens” by Sarah Gristwood, “Tudor Treasury” & “Boleyn Women” by Elizabeth Norton, “Elizabeth: the struggle for the throne” by David Starkey, “Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years” & “Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart” by John Guy, “The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain’s Greatest Dynasty” by Tracy Borman, “Tudor” by Leanda de Lisle”, “Elizabeth: The Renaissance Prince” by Lisa Hilton, and “Catherine de Medici” by Leonie Frieda.