#but we can at least aspire to be mary ann

[dungeonclown]

jor-juj . . . grap nip?

[jomiddlemarch]

Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense

“I’m worried about Matthew,” Mary said, having set down the coffee-pot, every Wedgewood cup filled. The meal might have ended with port or brandy for the men in a household aspiring to be fashionable, but to Jed’s eternal amusement, Mary held fast to her New Hampshirewoman’s disapproval of anything she thought was more for show than purpose and though she was not deeply involved with the temperance movement, she saw limited appeal in spirits, which unlike coffee or even tea, never enlivened the enervated nor hastened industry. Jed spent a good deal of his time trying to impress upon her the value of leisure, but admitted it was a Sisyphean task. She applied her considerable efforts, fussing he called it, to the well-being of those she called friends, so he could not be surprised at her declaration.

“I’m sure you needn’t,” Emma said. This only caused Mary to purse her lips in a manner Jed found adorably kissable, but which indicated she felt Emma was not taking seriously what she deemed a serious matter indeed.

“Why are you worried?” Henry asked. “He’s not written often since he went to New York. At least not to me. Perhaps you’ve heard more from him?”

“If she hasn’t, it’s not for lack of trying,” Jed remarked. “At this rate, we may send Daniel out West to earn his Harvard tuition as his mother’s spent it on postage—”

“It won’t work, Jed, Emma and Henry already know you for a fabulist. You ought to confine your exaggeration to your waistcoats,” Mary replied, sounding very much as she had when they’d first met in Alexandria, all asperity and wit. She turned to face Henry, whose earnestness still matched her own. “It’s not so much what he says as what he omits and there are times I almost feel he’s written me a sermon instead of a letter to a friend.”

“I thought it would be easy enough for him, in New York. They’re not known for their propriety as Boston is,” Emma said. She had found it more difficult than she expected to gain acceptance, even as Mrs. Reverend Hopkins, her soft drawl a lesser issue than the myriad small faux pas she made, which she discovered only through a raised eyebrow or a short, barely audible sniff. When Mary’s efforts at consolation had proven ineffective, she’d brought Emma to Margaret Brook and then to the Bhaers’ exercise in utopia. She’d left with a hand-printed program of “The Pirate’s Fearsome Revenge and Also, His Parrot Makes a Freind” as a talisman against disappointment. “No Lowells, no Cabots, it might as well be a children’s garden party at Plumfield.”

“Evidently the von Rhijns and the Astors would make the Cabots and Lowells quail,” Mary said. “There’s a brazenness in New York society that’s frowned upon in Boston and Matthew mentioned that some of the newer families, the Russells in particular, are rather given to excess, even though that is reflected in their charitable giving as well as their millinery.”

“You are concerned Matthew will be caught up in the battles between old and new money?” Henry asked. “That he may be diverted from his ministry and his neediest parishioners?”

“The man survived five holiday bazaars, including the one the former Miss Hastings attended,” Jed said. “Have some faith—”

“He was at home then,” Mary said. “He knew the players and he knew who he might call upon as allies, should he need them.”

“You make it all sound quite cut-throat,” Jed said. “Not that I don’t think Anne brought a Bowie knife to that sewing bee you hosted. I expect she spiked the punch from her trusty flask as well.”

“No one serves punch at a sewing bee,” Emma said.

“I’m afraid Matthew’s affections are becoming improperly engaged,” Mary interrupted. Henry frowned but Jed let out a low whistle, one his sons had all learned to replicate. He was teaching the girls in secret.

“Improperly engaged! Given the source of such an assessment, I can only assume our esteemed Reverend Forte is enamored of a circus performer or perhaps his inamorata is a lady aeronaut,” Jed said, making little effort to restrain himself. He was, after all, among friends.

“Do be serious,” Emma said, an exhortation Mary knew better than to ever bother with. Henry, uxuoriousness undimmed by nearly twenty years of marriage, patted his wife’s hand. Mary rolled her eyes, but Jed could tell she was equally amused by his playfulness and Emma’s exasperation. There was little latitude granted to a minister’s wife in Massachusetts and Emma’s thirsts for gossip and the latest fashion were generally unquenched. 

“Not a widow of means, then?” Henry said.

“He writes almost effusively about a Miss Brook and no, Jedediah, there is little chance she’s any relation to Mrs. John Brook, the surname is common enough,” Mary said.

“What makes an engagement an improper one then, Molly?” Jed asked.

“As her title suggests, she is unmarried, but not fresh from the schoolroom. She is a lady of some years—”

“An elderly spinster,” Jed remarked. “Probably poor as a church mouse, though I’d defer to Henry to explain why all the mice who make churches their residence are doomed to being impoverished. Not much opportunity for cheese, I suppose—"

“Hush!” Mary exclaimed. “She is of middle years and unmarried but what makes the engagement risky—”

“Not risqué,” Jed muttered under his breath, low enough Henry could claim he hadn’t heard but loud enough he’d grinned.

“Is her connection to the van Rhijn family,” Mary went on.

“Is she a second cousin? A cadet branch? A companion?” Emma asked, speaking the word companion as she might say harlot.

“She is Mrs. van Rhijn’s only sister,” Mary said. “He was invited to luncheon at the van Rhijn house. They had New England clam chowder. Miss Brook admitted amidst the guests that she’d had it specially prepared to remind him of home.”

Emma looked aghast.

Henry looked as surprised as he had when his eldest daughter Lydia had announced her intention of studying Ancient Greek at Wellesley College the day after the school’s charter was announced. She had been five at the time and was already halfway through Cicero.

Mary looked concerned and also divinely self-satisfied, largely due to the expressions on the faces of both Hopkins and the near-absolute silence that had descended on the sitting room. Jed could only barely make out the sound of the boys arguing, Rebecca wheedling cakes from Mrs. Hudson for Beatrice and the Hopkins girls. They were dear to him, these three, and though he could not share in the apprehension over Matthew Forte’s affections and reputation, he was fond of the minister in his own way.

“As it’s evident the three of you believe Reverend Forte shortly to be torn limb from limb, either figuratively or literally, with the likelihood of a new iteration of New England chowder featuring a man of God, his frock coat, and quantity of diced potatoes doused in cream soon to be presented at the van Rhijn table, I would suggest a course of action,” Jed said, allowing himself to wax, if not rhapsodic, then comedically melodramatic. Mary might take him to task later, but they were all so earnest and Emma, in particular, needed to be reminded there was life outside the parlor and parish hall, life she had once lived, most threatening with her swinging hoopskirt. It was always fraught, to refer to the War, each of them carrying their own burdens, each of them managing in the best way they knew how, but they had once attended or performed in the dramas of the Mansion House Players and given the clear desire to make a tragedy out of a few lines in Matthew’s letter, their previous experience would be well to be evoked.

“Well, out with it,” Mary said. “You’re overdoing the dramatic pause, Jedediah. If Timothy and John were with us, you wouldn’t escape so lightly—”

He nodded. The two younger boys had his same taste for mockery and were only slightly reined in by Daniel’s steadiness, so like his mother’s, and Bea’s innocence. Rebecca would only egg them on. Mary could quell them all with a glance but only if she chose. 

“Matthew needs an ally. Reinforcements. The introduction of an unexpected character from the wings, kitted out with a shield and sword. And flask,” Jed said. Henry and Emma still had blank expressions but a light came into Mary’s dark eyes as he spoke and he loved her for it. “Mrs. Frederick Morris—”

“Nurse Hastings?” 

“Anne?”

“I may quibble with your approach, but I must admit, this is a pretty solution. A surgeon’s intervention,” Mary said. “No one can deny Anne has the acuity and aim of a scalpel. She’s impervious to shame, while being well-aware of its impact on those around her. And she has the resources to allow her to make a splash in New York society, though her money’s old enough she will merit some respect. I shall write her in the morning.”

“And if she does not succeed?” Emma said.

“I suppose Dr. Foster may find it necessary to visit Mrs. Manson Mingott and make sure she has been taking her tonics as prescribed,” Mary said, smiling. “Or then, Newport is lovely in the summer and we’d be happy to have you and the girls come to stay for a few weeks, Emma. Henry, if you can’t get away, you needn’t fret. We shall have it all well in hand and Mrs. Brook and Mrs. Laurence will make sure you don’t expire while living as a bachelor.”

“I notice you don’t leave Henry to Jo Bhaer’s tender mercies,” Jed remarked.

“I shouldn’t think he’d survive the theatricals at Plumfield,” Mary said. “And she has quite a heavy hand with caraway, which I know makes Henry dyspeptic.”

“Shouldn’t we just send you to Matthew’s side? Within a week, you’d have wedding bells rung for the lovesick couple and Mrs. van Rhijn ringing them herself as well as all the receipts for Delmonico’s menu for Mrs. Hudson to improve upon,” Jed said. 

Henry nodded. 

Emma smiled.

“I’m far too busy here at the moment,” Mary said. “And Anne is likely in need of some diversion.”

“Heaven help Mrs. van Rhijn,” Jed said.

“I believe Matthew must be trying his best in that regard,” Henry said. 

“Unless she has already dispatched him for chowder,” Emma added, making them all laugh.

[lifes-little-pin-pricks]

Can Do Attitude

Before we get to my ramblings... This quote kinda hits my hard.. Because I'm still trying to understand my mind.

--------------------

I've been trying to assess what it is about the actresses that I like.

The ones that I wish I could be like.

June/Anne Lockhart in Trolls (1986)

Michelle Rodriguez in

Resident Evil

Fast and Furious

Jane Seymour in Dr. Quinn

Jessica Biel in Blade 2

Jennifer Lopez in Enough

Mary Stuart Masterson in Fried Green Tomatoes (Idgie Threadgood)

Lori Petty in In the Army Now

I don't know.. I'm sure theres more - But.. These are the ones I thought of currently. What trend do you see in these characters?

I think …. I THINK… I might have figured out part of it…. They didn’t seem afraid.

The 'CAN DO' attitude with the ability to ACTUALLY 'DO'

There is a Presence to them. When they talk, people listen. When they walk in the room, they draw eyes (even if its just to notice them and nothing more). They could kick your ass in some way be it with knowledge wit or fists. Nothing gullible about them. Always had some kind of strategy for situations they knew were going to be ugly.

Well Hell! - I'm in the middle of work and this thought crossed my mind and I started writing and now it's going down a damn rabbit whole with water dripping from my face.  Hell of a way to start the day. I notice my head feels like a lot went through it, but looking back, I've barely said a thing. It feels like a lot to me.

Anyways… These People… Characters, that I aspire to be like… They were SEEN.  They didn't have to be mean about anything, but they could still make a very sound point. They were the ones that would catch the fist that wanted to punch them, or someone else and spin it around, Capable.

I don't know what that says to me though.

This  reminds me of how invisible I felt most of my life.

I considered maybe it was because these characters were strong, could whoop some ass. But I don't think that is it at all. It never felt quite right, and I didn’t have any reaction to that thought. But this one… Has me feeling very broken.

I noticed recently  how I promote this invisibility.  I'm working very hard at not feeling like if someone thought of me, that I have been an inconvenience to them. Accepting Compliments and the want to hang out with me instead of feeling like all interactions with me are more out of pity than actual enjoyment.

I can already hear my friends clamoring to say that is so far from the truth. And While I think a part of me knows this, its super ingrained in me.

"Oh! Don't fuss over me, I'll be fine" - Physically. I always look at Physically I will be fine. Never really considered Mental health.

"Oh! You didn't have to go through the trouble for me!" - Please - don’t put effort into making me feel like I exist. And yet - here I am yearning for that.

Effort.

I also I go for things that are "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" Gigs.  I wall flower or over share or feel like I suck the oxygen out of the room. For a JOB - I like the behind the scenes stuff, I even like being the agent level. But there is seldom recognition when you are the man behind the curtain. Seldom seen/noticed to be anyone.

You  don't make much money in those gigs. I hate being a Supervisor with required coachings and things like that. Its not natural. I will teach those who WANT to learn, I'm not going to force an uninterested party to pay attention just because its their job.  I'm Rambling and being very tangenty.

I had a conversation with my partner the a little while back about how I put so much into what I give. The thought.. Making sure whatever IT is, is carefully planned out to ensure that what ever I give is useful.  Ugh - I'm not explaining this well at all. At least this part. So were skipping it. You still get the mess of it though. Because - this is my blog. And yeah - it might be a diary/journal, but… Why do these have to be secret? Isn't seeing in other peoples heads sometimes helpful? To know you aren't alone? That you can find solace that you aren't the variant (so to speak)  or maybe you want to be the variant.  Or maybe you don't compare yourself to others because you have finally broke through this lack of self esteem and whatever else is the issue with us. Yeah. US.

You are part of this club whether you like it or not.

So on of the dawning realizations about these women.

They walk into a room with a plan and can execute that plan, They are determined, They Follow Through, Strong, Can use your help or do without it. They are what I would call "Bad Ass" - though I have learned in my years that not everyone defines things the same way.

Bad Ass: (My Definition): Strong, No Bull Shit, Catches Lip and Gives Lip back, Not Naïve, Action, Can hold their own in battle of wits, fists or otherwise. Skills that surprise others.  So I guess…. Well rounded? 

Ugh -- Inspiration to write has faded… Going back to work now LOL

[dwellordream]

“Henry's marriage to Catherine had long since grown cold. Though his wife remained, and would remain, loyal and devoted, Henry was in very different case. The raptures of the early days had faded and the consequent demands upon him for self-discipline and generosity had found him wanting. Catherine was five years his senior. In I527 he was still in his prime, in his mid-thirties, she over forty. As king he could satisfy desire all too easily, for who would refuse a king easily, especially a king such as he? Fidelity was rare among monarchs and the temptation besetting him, in particular, strong.

At first Henry had been a gallant husband. Catherine had accompanied him to every feast and triumph, he had worn her initials on his sleeve in the jousts and called himself 'Sir Loyal Heart'. He had shown her off to visitors, confided in her, run to her with news. Though there had been talk of a lady to whom he showed favour while campaigning in France, he had slipped home ahead of his army and galloped to Catherine at Richmond in order to lay the keys of the two cities he had captured at her feet.

We cannot know when he first succumbed to the temptation of adultery, but it must have been within five years of his marriage, when there appeared on the scene one Elizabeth Blount, a lady-in-waiting of Queen Catherine and a cousin of Lord Mountjoy - and she may not have been the first. She caught the king's eye during the New Year festivities in I5I4, that is, shortly after he had returned from the first campaign in France. Bessie Blount eventually bore him a son, in I519. Subsequently she married into a gentle family, the Talboys of Lancashire, with a dower of lands in that county and Yorkshire assigned by act ofParliament. Hers, then, was a fate less than death; and her son, the duke of Richmond, was occasionally to acquire considerable political and diplomatic significance.

Next there was Mary Boleyn, since 1521 wife of William Carey, daughter of a royal councillor and diplomat, and sister of Anne. That Mary was at one time Henry's mistress, and this presumably after her marriage, is beyond doubt. Years later there was a strong rumour that she too had born Henry a son, but we cannot be sure. Anyway we may guess that the liaison was over by l526, and when her younger sister climbed on to the English throne, with perhaps pardonable pique, she dismissed Mary from the court. The latter was to do well enough, with her family at the centre of affairs during the reign of her niece, Elizabeth I - which was more than could be said of Bessie Blount. And finally there was Anne, Thomas Boleyn's younger daughter.

Following in the wake of her sister, who had been in the entourage that accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514, Anne had crossed the Channel about 1519 to enter the household of Queen Claude, wife of Francis I, an amiable lady who had several young girls in her care and supervised their education. The newcomer to the royal school must have been about twelve years old. She stayed in France until the out- break of war in 1522 and then came home, by which time she was on the way to becoming an accomplished and mature girl. She does not seem to have been remarkably beautiful, but she had wonderful dark hair in abundance and fine eyes, the legacy of Irish ancestors, together with a firm mouth and a head well set on a long neck that gave her authority and grace.

On her return, if not before, her future had apparently been settled, ironically by Henry and Wolsey. She would marry Sir James Butler, an Irish chieftain and claimant to the earldom of Ormond, to which the Boleyns, rivals of the Butlers, had long aspired. Anne was therefore to mend the feud by uniting families and claims. Had this familiar kind of device been executed, and had this been the sum total ofher experience ofhow marriage and politics could interweave, things might have been very different for England, if not for Ireland. But Butler's price was too high and Anne remained in England.

Her father, aided perhaps by her grandfather, the second duke of Norfolk, had meanwhile brought her to Court, as he had her sister before her. There she eventually attracted attention, first from Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, a cousin of hers; then from Henry Percy, son of the earl of Northumberland and one of the large number of young men of quality resident in Wolsey's household. Alas, Percy was already betrothed. At the king's behest, Wolsey refused to allow him to break his engagement and, summoning him to his presence, rated him for falling for a foolish girl at Court. When words failed, the cardinal told the father to remove his son and knock some sense into him. Percy was carried off forthwith- and thus began that antipathy for Wolsey that Anne never lost.

But it may well be that, when Henry ordered Wolsey to stamp on Percy's suit, it was because he was already an interested party himself and a rival for the girl's affection of perhaps several gay courtiers, including Thomas Wyatt. The latter's grandson later told a story ofhow Wyatt, while flirting once with Anne, snatched a locket hanging from her pocket which he refused to return. At the same time, Henry had been paying her attention and taken a ring from her which he thereafter wore on his little finger. A few days later, Henry was playing bowls with the duke of Suffolk, Francis Bryan and Wyatt, when a dispute arose about who had won the last throw.

Pointing with the finger which bore the pilfered ring, Henry cried out that it was his point, saying to Wyatt with a smile, 'I tell thee it is mine.' Wyatt saw the ring and understood the king's meaning. But he could return the point. 'And if it may like your majesty,' he replied, 'to give me leave that I may measure it, I hope it will be mine.' Whereupon he took out the locket which hung about his neck and started measuring the distance between the bowls and the jack. Henry recognized the trophy and, muttering something about being deceived, strode away.

But the chronology ofAnne's rise is impossible to discover exactly. All that can be said is that by I525-6 what had probably hitherto been light dalliance with an eighteen or nineteen year-old girl had begun to grow into something deeper and more dangerous. In the normal course of events, Anne would have mattered only to Henry's conscience, not to the history of England. She would have been used and discarded - along with those others whom Henry may have taken and who are now forgotten. But, either because of virtue or ambition, Anne refused to become his mistress and thus follow the conventional, inconspicuous path of her sister; and the more she resisted, the more, apparently, did Henry prize her.

Had Catherine's position been more secure she would doubtless have ridden this threat. Indeed, had it been so, Anne might never have dared to raise it. But Catherine had still produced no heir to the throne. The royal marriage had failed in its first duty, namely, to secure the succession. Instead, it had yielded several miscarriages, three infants who were either still-born or died immediately after birth (two of them males), two infants who had died within a few weeks ofbirth (one ofthem a boy) and one girl, Princess Mary, now some ten years old. His failure to produce a son was a disappointment to Henry, and as the years went by and no heir appeared, ambassadors and foreign princes began to remark the fact, and English diplomacy eventually to accommodate it, provisionally at least, in its reckoning.

Had Henry been able to glimpse into the second halfofthe century he would have had to change his mind on queens regnant, for his two daughters were to show quality that equalled or outmeasured their father's; and even during his reign, across the Channel, there were two women who rendered the Habsburgs admirable service as regents ofthe Netherlands. Indeed, the sixteenth century would perhaps produce more remarkable women in Church and State than any predecessor - more than enough to account for John Knox's celebrated anti-feminism and more than enough to make Henry's patriarchal convictions look misplaced. But English experience of the queen regnant was remote and unhappy, and Henry's conventional mind, which no doubt accorded with his subjects', demanded a son as a political necessity.

When his only surviving legitimate child, Mary, was born in February 1516, Henry declared buoyantly to the Venetian ambassador, 'We are both young; if it was a daughter this time, by the grace of God sons will follow.' But they did not. Catherine seems to have miscarried in the autumn of 1517 and in the November of the following year was delivered of another still-born. This was her last pregnancy, despite the efforts of physicians brought from Spain; and by 1525 she was almost past child-bearing age. There was, therefore, a real fear of a dynastic failure, of another bout of civil war, perhaps, or, if Mary were paired off as the treaty of 1525 provided, of England's union with a continental power.

Catherine, for the blame was always attached to her and not to Henry, was a dynastic misfortune. She was also a diplomatic one. Charles's blunt refusal to exploit the astonishing opportunity provided by his victory at Pavia and to leap into the saddle to invade and partition France had been an inexplicable disappointment. Of course, had Henry really been cast in the heroic mould he would have invaded single- handed. But established strategy required a continental ally. Eleven years before, in 1514., Ferdinand of Spain had treated him with contempt and Henry had cast around for means of revenge, and there had been a rumour then that he wanted to get rid of his Spanish wife and marry a French princess.

Whether Henry really contemplated a divorce then has been the subject of controversy, which surely went in favour of the contention that he did not - especially when a document listed in an eighteenth-century catalogue of the Vatican Archives, and thought to relate to the dissolution of the king's marriage - a document which has since disappeared - was convincingly pushed aside with the suggestion that it was concerned with Mary Tudor's matrimonial affairs, not Henry's. Undoubtedly, this must dispose of the matter even more decisively than does the objection that, in the summer of 1514, Catherine was pregnant. In 1525, however, the situation was different. Charles had rebuffed Henry's military plans and, by rejecting Mary's hand, had thrown plans for the succession into disarray.

For a moment the king evidently thought of advancing his illegitimate son - who, in June 1525, was created duke of Richmond. But this solution was to be overtaken by another which Henry may have been contemplating for some time, namely, to disown his Spanish wife. Catherine, therefore, was soon in an extremely embarrassing position. Tyndale asserted, on first-hand evidence, that \Volsey had placed informants in her entourage and told of one 'that departed the Court for no other reason than that she would no longer betray her mistress'.' When Mendoza arrived in England in December 1526, he was prevented for months from seeing the queen and, when he did, had to endure the presence of Wolsey who made it virtually impossible to communicate with her. It was the ambassador's opinion that 'the principal cause of [her] misfortune is that she identifies herselfentirely with the emperor's interests'; an exaggeration, but only an exaggeration.

The king, then, had tired of his wife and fallen in love with one who would give herself entirely to him only if he would give himself entirely to her; his wife had not borne the heir for which he and the nation longed, and it was now getting too late to hope; he had been disappointed by Catherine's nephew, Charles V, and now sought vengeance in a diplomatic revolution which would make the position of a Spanish queen awkward to say the least. Any one of these facts would not have seriously endangered the marriage, but their coincidence was fatal. If Henry's relations with Catherine momentarily improved in the autumn of 1525 so that they read a book together and appeared to be very friendly, soon after, probably, Henry never slept with her again.

The divorce, which came into the open in early 1527 was therefore due to more than a man's lust for a woman. It was diplomatically expedient and, so some judged, dynastically urgent. As well as this, it was soon to be publicly asserted, it was theologically necessary, for two famous texts from the book of Leviticus apparently forbade the very marriage that Henry had entered. His marriage, therefore, was not and never had been, lawful. The miscarriages, the still-births, the denial of a son were clearly divine punishment for, and proof of, transgression of divine law. Henry had married Catherine by virtue of a papal dispensation of the impediment of affinity which her former marriage to Arthur had set up between them.

But Leviticus proclaimed such a marriage to be against divine law - which no pope can dispense. So he will begin to say. And thus what will become a complicated argument took shape. Henry had laid his hand on a crucial weapon - the only weapon, it seemed, with which he could have hoped to achieve legitimately what he now desired above all else. How sincere he was is impossible to determine. More than most, he found it difficult to distinguish between what was right and what he desired. Certainly, before long he had talked, thought and read himself into a faith in the justice of his cause so firm that it would tolerate no counter-argument and no opposition, and convinced himself that it was not only his right to throw aside his alleged wife, but also his duty - to himself, to Catherine, to his people, to God.

At the time, and later, others would be accused of planting the great scruple, the levitical scruple, in Henry's mind. Tyndale, Polydore Vergil and Nicholas Harpsfield (in his life of Sir Thomas More) charged Wolsey with having used John Longland, bishop of Lincoln and royal confessor, to perform the deed. But this was contradicted by Henry, Longland and Wolsey. In 1529, when the divorce case was being heard before the legatine court at Blackfriars, Wolsey publicly asked Henry to declare before the court 'whether I have been the chiefinventor or first mover of this matter unto your Majesty; for I am greatly suspected of all men herein'; to which Henry replied, 'My lord cardinal, I can well excuse you herein. Marry, you have been rather against me in attempt- ing or setting forth thereof' - an explicit statement for which no obvious motive for misrepresentation can be found and which is corroborated by later suggestions that Wolsey had been sluggish in pushing the divorce forwards.

Longland too spoke on the subject, saying that it was the king who first broached the subject to him 'and never left urging him until he had won him to give his consent'. On another occasion Henry put out a different story: that his conscience had first been 'pricked upon divers words that were spoken at a certain time by the bishop of Tarbes, the French king's ambassador, who had been here long upon the debating for the conclusion of the marriage between the princess our daughter, Mary, and the duke of Orleans, the French king's second son'. It is incredible that an ambassador would have dared to trespass upon so delicate a subject as a monarch's marriage, least of all when he had come to negotiate a treaty with that monarch.

Nor was it likely that he should have sug- gested that Mary was illegitimate when her hand would have been very useful to French diplomacy. Besides, the bishop of Tarbes only arrived in England in April 1527, that is, a few weeks before Henry's marriage was being tried by a secret court at Westminster. The bishop could not have precipitated events as swiftly as that. No less significantly, another account ofthe beginnings of the story, given by Henry in 1528, says that doubts about Mary's legitimacy were first put by the French to English ambassadors in France - not by the bishop of Tarbes to his English hosts.

He and his compatriots may have been told about the scruple or deliberately encouraged by someone to allude to it in the course of negotiations, but did not invent it; nor, probably, did Anne Boleyn - as Pole asserted. It is very likely that Henry himselfwas the author ofhis doubts. After all, he would not have needed telling about Leviticus. Though he might not have read them, the two texts would probably have been familiar to him if he had ever explored the reasons for the papal dispensation for his marriage, and he was enough of a theologian to be able to turn to them now, to brood over them and erect upon them at least the beginnings of the argument that they forbade absolutely the marriage which he had entered.

Wolsey said later that Henry’s doubts had sprung partly from his own study and partly from discussion with 'many theologians'; but since it is difficult to imagine that anyone would have dared to question the validity of the royal marriage without being prompted by the king, this must mean that the latter's own 'assiduous study and erudition' first gave birth to the 'great scruple' and that subsequent conference with others encouraged it. Moreover, Henry may have begun to entertain serious doubts about his marriage as early as 1522 or 1523, and have broached his ideas to Longland then - for, in 1532, the latter was said to have heard the first mutterings of the divorce 'nine or ten years ago'.'

By the time that Anne Boleyn captured the king, therefore, the scruple may already have acquired firm roots, though probably not until early 1527 was it mentioned to Wolsey who, so he said, when he heard about it, knelt before the king 'in his Privy Chamber the space of an hour or two, to persuade him from his will and appetite; but I could never bring to pass to dissuade him therefrom'. What had begun as a perhaps hesitant doubt had by now matured into aggressive conviction.”

- J.J. Scarisbrick, “The Repudiation of the Hapsburgs.” in Henry VIII

[rosesnink]

The Viscountess, Chapter 3: Top of The Noble Game

Author’s Notes: 

*English is not my first language, so please pardon any typos/ grammar mistakes 

*All the characters minus my three OCs, Nicole, Anne and Isabelle, belong to Pixelberry studios. 

*If this is the first time you stumble upon the series and are intrigued about this AU, feel free to check out the fic’s masterlist and my general masterlist 

Summary: Nicole receives a call that determines a new change on hers and Anne’s life, and her comeback to a privileged life. 

Rating: PG-13 

It was early in Monday when Nicole’s phone rang, making her wake up from her morning routine of preparing Anne for school. 

“Don’t worry, Mama,” Anne said “I can adjust the skirt by myself. It looks important.” 

She ruffled her hair before getting the phone “Yes?” 

“Ah, Nicole, darling, so glad to hear from you!” 

“Dad!” She whispered to Anne who was the caller and she beamed “something happened at Edgewater?” 

“No, but it might,” he said, a teasing tone on his lips “remember the Fair Season for aspiring heiresses when you were young?” 

“I do, though they weren’t my favorite events, if I may confess.” 

He chuckled “Neither they were mine. You’re wondering why I bring this up, don’t you?” 

She realized it before he could finish the sentence and hushed “Isn’t she too young for a debut? I made mine at 11 and she’s eight, Father. Eight!” 

“I know, but we’re a bit tight right now and debuts means charities, which leads to money. I presume you have chosen her other five names?” 

“I wanted to do so when she was born, but my husband died before I could even think about it.” She spitted, now her cheeks growing red. She could feel her father wince. He knew she was right. It was too soon and these nobles weren’t dumb. “It’s too much and I haven’t prepared her! You know it takes years to prepare her!” 

“I know, and I am sorry, but we’re short of time. You’re intelligent, Nic, you’ll figure it out.” 

“How much do I have?” 

“…Five weeks.” 

During those five weeks, Nicole kind of drifted apart from what seemed her new life, preparing her daughter for her debut. She taught her history, English, French, math, and religion. She called her brothers to stay over to teach her biology and other subjects she wasn’t good as them. After the lessons, she’d teach her the antics of the First Debut: How to walk, the basics of ballet, to the sing-a thing that Anne exceeded due to sing in the shower- to have a polite conversation and to maintain her balance. They also went shopping, though they needed company for London was now different, so Hamid stooped in gladly. They walked now over the streets as Hamid tried to talk to her without flirting with her in front of Anne, for it’d be uncomfortable to her. Though some glances and smiles were stolen. He dared not mention yet the other night. It wasn’t the time, Nicole had too much on her plate to think of what to make of a one-night-stand. 

“So, what else should buy?” 

“Her debutante dress. Though I adore my Summer Queen’s dress, I do not think Anne appreciates the 90s fashion.” 

“Hm, I much prefer the 80s, indeed.” He teased, both chuckling. 

“I do not want a dress, Mama!” Anne complained. 

“No? But everyone will be wearing a dress. What is wrong with dresses?” She asked, genuinely curious. Of course, she’d respect her decision and support her, but it’d cause quite a stir on the debut “Would you like perhaps a skirt?” 

“No. I mean, they are pretty and I like them, but they’re not made for me. I don’t have your marvelous legs.” She pouted “I have chicken’s legs!”

Hamid knelt “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Anne! Your legs are great, chicken’s shape or not. I, too, had chicken legs, until I grew up, and look at me now!” He posed, making Anne giggle “Absolutely flawless. Besides, dresses are for everybody, not just girls.” 

“Really?” She asked, curious. 

“Indeed! In my culture, some men wear a kind of dress and they’re just as manly as the ones in a suit. We call them kaftans.” 

“How cool!” She beamed “But I still don’t want a dress. Grandpa wants me to look perfect and I want to make Grandpa happy. He always looks so distant and sad…” 

Nicole looked at Hamid, who winked at her and she smiled “Well, it is your debut… and your body, so… what do you want to wear?” 

They snooped over shops until she heard Anne gasp with delight. She looked at a Victorian model of a suit, with the seal of the crown carefully sewed and made of navy blue and bits of red and a Russian winter hat. Nicole looked for her size and the price, but when she saw it… she frowned. 

Hamid, who wasn’t trailing too far behind her, looked at her and asked “Something wrong?” 

She showed him the price and he did seem surprised, but not as her “It’ll break her heart when I tell her that—.” 

“No need to, I will take it and you can pay me later.” 

Her eyes went wide at him and gasped “I could never ask that of you…” 

“I’m offering. Anything to make her smile…” he whispered at her ear, really low “and to please you, perhaps win you. But especially to make that beautiful girl smile.” 

She chuckled with surprise before giving in, insisting that she’d pay him back. He beamed before buying it. When Anne started talking and talking, without barely noticing them, he kissed her knuckles and smiled at her. 

“Are you trying to win me over for a second date? Because it’s working.” 

He smiled “Good.” 

After more shopping –Anne’s first make-up tools (just some mascara and lipstick for little girls and a small nude palette—they went back to Nicole’s house. 

“You go in, kid, I have to talk to Hamid.” 

She nodded, too happy to pay attention to her mother’s gaze and she turned to Hamid. 

“So… how about if we hang out after the debut and you stay over for dinner at my secret flat back in the village?” 

“You have a secret flat?” 

“To invite over guys like you without calling too much attention, especially in the night.” She whispered a mischievous tone in her voice, making Hamid lean and smirk. 

“Oooh, your special flat for rendezvous. I like it.” 

“You see, being a single, widowed mum can be difficult. Especially when your grandmother wants you to remarry so your daughter doesn’t miss out ‘a father’s love’.” 

“…What time do you want us to meet?” 

“Let’s say 02 am when even the maids are asleep? Those crones are easy to lull to sleep, especially when my sister-in-law Theresa starts talking and talking and talking…” 

They both chuckled before they said goodbye. 

The night before the debut, at Ernest Sinclaire’s townhouse. 

“I think she should wear pink. I wore pink at my debut!” Roselyn mused as Isabelle tried not to roll her eyes. Ernest was aware that Isabelle wasn’t at all fond of these events, but she was his only child and everyone was pressuring him, even his ex, to get her out of society—he had neglected her for too long now, and Richards’s snide remarks weren’t helping. 

“Roselyn, while I appreciate the idea, all of the girls will be wearing their house’s color. It is only fair she wears sapphire blue, red, and gold. It’s what the tradition says, remember?”

“She could wear all of them in different accessories! I can picture it now: red dress, golden earrings, blue make-up…” 

“Dad, can you neglect my debut, like, when I’m eighteen?” 

“Tempting, but no,” He lowered his voice as Roselyn kept musing and wondering “besides, I wouldn’t let you out in society until you were at least thirty.” 

She whispered back “Make it sixty when I’m all old and grey.” 

He chuckled “I highly doubt I’ll be alive by then but that can be arranged.” 

“I hope you both aren’t trying to escape yet again for the debut!” Roselyn said, her voice raised and rather annoyed. 

They both cleared their throat and Ernest said “We were not! I was telling her that she should wear a blue dress, red earrings, and golden heels.” 

“Dad, please!” She begged with her puppy eyes dog, but Roselyn kicked him out of the room before he could even breathe. 

“That’s it, I’m planning it on my own!” 

“But—.” 

Too late, for his ex-wife slammed the door shut in front of his face.

At Edgewater, that night. 

“Look, Grandpa!” Anne beamed. 

Vincent looked up with his attentive eyes to widen when he saw his granddaughter in her attire. 

“Sweetheart, you look positively regal, but—.”

“No buts, I like it and that’s what I’m wearing!” 

Dominique stormed into the room carrying too many dresses to drop them out of surprise. Anne smiled and twirled around “Look, Granny!” 

“My goodness, what do you have on?” She asked, horrified. 

“The debut’s attire!” She beamed. 

“I…I…I… NICOLE MARIANNE EMMA ELIZABETH FOREDALE, COME HERE!” She called, now clearly angry. 

“Yes, Grandmother?” 

“What the hell is my great-granddaughter wearing?!” 

“A suit.” She said, unbothered. 

“Says who?” She crossed her arms. 

“Let me see… Ah, yes, Armani’s British Royalty collection.” 

“Don’t you sass me now, young woman! This is serious! It’s her debut and she—.”

“…Is comfortable and looking glamorous, that with the fact that the one who should have the last saying in my daughter, who I gave birth to eight years ago, is wearing. That and Dad approves and it’s all approbation I need and seek.” 

“But…but…” 

“You can help me choose the dress for the debut as long as you leave my daughter alone.” 

“…Very well. Seems like I won’t change anyone’s mind about it, will I? Thank goodness we have hope next year with Harry and Theresa’s boy, Laurence, not to mention in two years with Edmund’s girl.” 

At the debut 

“May I present Lady Anne Elizabeth Matilda Florence Foredale, Lady and heiress of Edgewater and her mother, Nicole Marianne Emma Elizabeth Foredale, escorted by our esteemed Earl of Edgewater, Vincent Fitzwilliam Edward Rupert Foredale and the Dowager Countess, Dominique Mary Elizabeth Katerina Foredale?” Arthur announced as everyone clapped. 

Nicole heard too many gasps at Anne’s attire, not paying attention at her off-shoulder and teasing low-cut burgundy dress she wore. She could see Annabelle, Sinclaire, Hamid, and Luke clapping, beaming at Anne and with pride in their eyes. 

She finally saw Ernest’s girl, with a beautiful blue sapphire dress, beautiful and rather expensive red earrings, and golden heels that seemed to be killing her feet. Ah, to be her age again…  

She greeted every single family and each member “Mr. Sinclaire, Mrs. Richards, Miss Sinclaire.” 

They all shook hands “So you’re the famous Nicole Donovan!” Mrs. Richards “Pleasure to meet you, I’m Roselyn, Isabelle’s mother.” 

They greeted each other before her attention drew to Isabelle, who she smiled “My, you look just like your father.” 

She smiled “I’ll take that as a compliment.” 

Ernest smiled, looking proud of his girl, rubbing her shoulders “We are proud of the woman she is becoming, indeed.” He said. 

“Aren’t you overwhelmed by being surrounded by so many women?” Nicole teased and he chuckled. 

“Not at all. My darling girl is a blessing.” 

“Besides,” Roselyn said “I do not live with them anymore. I live in London with my husband Tristan and our son, Percival.” 

“Oh! How old is he?” 

As Roselyn showed off her rather old husband –he wasn’t older than her father—Ernest and Isabelle both looked uncomfortable as Nicole gawked at how adorable that baby boy was. She congratulated her on such a beautiful boy and wished her all the best in her marriage, ever the polite and proper woman. 

“By the way, I trust Isabelle will be dancing The Nutcracker with my Anne?” Nicole asked. 

“Yep!” Isabelle replied “I’m so excited! I’ve talked some times with Anne and she looks just like you and she is very kind to me.” 

“Then I’m looking forward to a good friendship between our houses.” 

Ernest didn’t seem to complain “Our families go way back, and from what I’ve seen, your girl sounds like a delightful kid.” 

She smiled widely “Thank you, sir. I do my best for her to reach her potential in everything.” 

He looked at her, now with genuine interest and was about to say something when a piece of waltz music started playing and Roselyn excused herself to go find her husband and Isabelle promised her nephew Laurence a dance and she was about to do the same when she caught the sight of Anne and her father dancing, giggling and enjoying themselves. 

“May I have this dance, Mrs. Donovan?” Ernest asked. 

She spun around abruptly, shocked by his request. 

“Of course.” She took his hand and they both went to the center where his steps were graceful and elegant like he has done this a thousand times before. 

His touch was warm, almost welcoming as they spun and moved around the dancefloor, his piercing blue eyes on her dark brown, unwavering, and almost intense. She gulped, suddenly nervous and a bit sweaty, feeling his warmth and his rather big hands moving her with superb elegance around the floor, his eyes never wavering from her. At the end of the song, he dipped her low, his eyes now on her collarbone and her eyes closed. She swore she heard him inhale sharply. 

Everyone clapped and she took that as a hint to say goodbye. He nodded her goodbye before disappearing into the rather big ballroom. 

“May I have the honor of having this dance?” She spun around again to find the familiar bright smile of Hamid. 

She smiled back and nodded, both starting to dance the famous Russian waltz. Though Hamid’s movements were graceful and with impressive flourishing, it wasn’t just the same. She took that thought off her head and enjoyed the waltz anyways. 

“…and then, just like that, the Marquess just threw his bourbon to his face, just because he made a wee comment about the shape of the dress’s cleavage! Everyone left afterward, simply scandalized by the jealous displays of the Marquess to the Marquis!” Theresa kept talking, much to Nicole’s chagrin. 

The children were already in bed and her father and grandmother retired to bed, their old age showing. Nicole faked a flawless yawn, one of her acquired accomplishments she got long ago. 

“I don’t know about you ladies, but with all the champagne and dancing, I’m just beat. See you tomorrow at tea, though?” 

They all nodded and between air kisses exchanged and goodbyes, she went to her bedroom and turned off the light and took off her party clothes… to then skilfully change into the same-color lingerie and tight pants and an elegant shirt that had a teasing low cleavage and took off the sleeping doll that she bought when she was just 18 to sneak off to spend some hours with Alaric to return half an hour before the staff woke up. Of course, Briar sometimes caught her sneaking off, but so did she so they kind of saved the other’s secret. 

It was past midnight and she opened the secret door that existed ever since the Renaissance and caught her way downstairs, to the backyard and caught her discreet, large black coat and her anti-paparazzi sunglasses that would put in question who was marching towards the village at this hour of the night. She walked as she did, not making any noise so she wouldn’t be noticed. 

She grabbed the keys behind the pot and opened the door to then lock it and awaited by the window to see Hamid, who she sneaked a discreet note of where they’d see each other. 

She waited for fifteen minutes before she heard three sharp knocks. She got up and asked, “Who’s calling?” 

“It’s me, Nic.” It was the code she asked him to use. 

She opened the door and hurried him in and he observed the small flat: rustic, with romantic flowers and aphrodisiac food, scented candles that were confirmed it could feelings and then, behind a closed door, there was a room only illuminated by an old-fashioned lamp, probably by the early 1900s. 

There was no signal of modern technology: it’s as if he traveled to a 19th-century small house. There was a small cabinet with curious diaries, old tomes no one could miss, and even a phonograph. All the desks were wooden and there was a small bathroom beside the bedroom. Nicole took care that everything would be unregistered and there was no trace of this whatsoever like they came here to disappear from a few hours. Like he traveled to another reality that she invented for them both. There were an ancient tea set and a small couch for two people only. 

“It’s beautiful here, Nicole.” 

His eyes widened with surprise when she grabbed the lapels of his shirt and kissed him while driving him to the bedroom to then throw him to the bed “If you want to frequent this, there are some rules: one, you do not speak of this room. Second, no photos or videos here. Third: no one leaves until both of us are satisfied. And fourth: you never leave this house after 10 am, for the staff is already awake and they could recognize any of us, is that clear?” 

He nodded, eager to have her all to himself in such a beautiful place. She kissed him and he let himself melt into the scene and the beautiful woman in his arms, enjoying himself for a few hours. 

The night after the debut, Nicole heard a sharp knock on the main parlor, where she was teaching Anne how to take her tea when she was older enough to interact with the Queen. They all looked up to see Roselyn and an eager Isabelle, who greeted Anne and made a polite bow to Nicole. 

“I’m not saying I’m not pleased, but what brings you here today?” Nicole asked. 

“We were wondering if we could stay to persuade you on one thing.” Roselyn smiled. 

“And what thing is that?” Anne asked, just as curious as to her mother or more. 

“For Anne to stay over our humble house in London next weekend!” Isabelle beamed. 

“We could be talked into it,” Anne said, trying to tame the talent to keep people on their toes. 

“Very well. Come in, make yourselves comfortable.” Nicole said. 

They chatted for a bit, laughing at their jokes and Isabelle played the piano as Anne sang, her melodic voice leaving Mrs. Richards in awe, her eyes wide, and a delighted smile on her face. This time, Nicole observed her better: she was really beautiful; deep light blue eyes, golden hair with rich locks, a nice body, and shiny skin, and her lips were quite small but tempting. She seemed petite, but beautiful nevertheless. She was indeed a beautiful woman. She couldn’t blame Ernest for falling for her long ago. 

“Bravo, ma chérie! Marvelous!” She turned her attention to Nicole “Your daughter is a prodigy, Nicole. You must be proud,” 

“I am. Every day of my life.” She smiled. 

“Maman, may I show Anne my collection on my iPad?” Isabelle asked politely to her mother. 

“Of course, mon trésor. Go ahead,” She smiled at her. Then, she turned around and smiled at her “You see, Ernest has been talking about you for some time and I just had to meet you! All he does is sing praises of you,” 

“Does he now?” 

“Not everyone intrigues my hus—my ex-husband that way and in short notice.” 

“I am… nothing out of this world.” 

“Are you quite sure? Beautiful widow of an even more beautiful daughter who drifted away from nobility and then coming back after the death of your husband? You can’t blame us for being intrigued.” 

Nicole felt her ears hot and cleared her throat “So, um, tell me more about you! I’m not the kind of woman who talks about herself all the time,” 

“Modest! I like it. Well, I am thirty years old, and my children are Isabelle and Percival, as you know. I married five years ago my dear husband Tristan Richards after realizing that… while my marriage with Ernest wasn’t unhappy, it didn’t just work, and then Richards appeared and he thankfully understood that we weren’t meant for each other. I am French but England has been my home for fifteen years now. I got married young, like you, though my wedding didn’t have much fuss as yours. It was cute while it lasted. And now my Percival just turned six! Already a big boy!” 

“An adorable one, I’m sure,” Nicole said, as polite and proper as always. 

“But why are we talking about this poor old woman’s romantic woes! We came here to persuade you to let our girls sleepover together!” 

Nicole mulled over the thought before she pulled Anne aside and asked her “Do you feel comfortable around Isabelle?” She nodded “And do you think you can trust her?” She nodded again “Do you feel ready for a sleepover with someone outside of the family?” She nodded for the third time “If you are… my darling girl, growing up so quickly. Your father would be proud of you and how brave you are pushing past horizons,” 

“You think so?” 

Nicole smiled at her daughter, kissing her head gently “I do. With all my heart.” She turned around the expectant women “Very well. We buy it. Give me your number and we will talk it over if you’d like.” 

Roselyn beamed as Isabelle smiled contentedly and said “This will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!” 

“I hope so.” 

[funigami-games]

A dream come true! The Prince's Heart is getting a Voice Over

When we started The Prince's Heart, we never thought we'd find so many wonderful persons willing to collaborate on our project.  Here we are now, a month later, with an entire crew of professional and aspiring Voice Actors willing to help us realize our Visual Novel!

Special thanks to our amazing Casting Director, Jacob Wilson, who directed the whole Voice Over process.

Let's meet the entire cast (in order of appearance in the game)!

Nick Chang as Edward (Protagonist)

I was born in Manhattan, but raised in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where I currently reside. I also proudly identify as a 2nd generation Asian American (half Hong Kong via my mother, half Taiwanese via my father) and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community (gay and demisexual). Since childhood, I have had a distinct love of music and performance. Having played violin from 4th to 12th grade and sung for even longer, I used music as a primary means to express myself growing up. As I progressed from high school to college, I discovered online voice acting, but it was not until my time in graduate school that I formally decided to become an actor. My interest initially stemmed from a desire to help out in localization projects, but over the time I have spent voice acting, I have come to not only develop a great appreciation of the craft of acting, but also further deepen my love of music and rekindle my love of performance. With my singing experience as a basis to my unique perspectives, I hope to bring sensitivity, curiosity, and innovation to every project I work on!

Jacob Wilson as Adam

I’m a voice actor, Casting and voice director based in Dallas Texas. I’ve been working in this field for almost four years Now. It’s a journey that has taken me literally around the world and I’m so thankful for all I’m able to do and have accomplished. Being a part of amazing projects like this one are what fuel me to pursue my passions. I realized I was bisexual when I was 18. It’s a group in the LGBT+ community that continues to get flak from seemingly all over. But my faith in it and myself has always been unshaken. Outside of VO I am a drag artist in the making under the name “Twilight Stunning”, who I’m going to show more properly in the coming months! I’m so thankful I’m in the position I am, and I can’t wait to see what we have in store for y’all!

Bradley Gareth as Michael (Main Character)

Bradley was raised in Western Pennsylvania, learning piano from age 5 and taking up local community theater at age 10. He pursued the performing arts throughout high school, consistently participating in high school musicals and chorus festivals during his tenure there. At the end of high school, he also took multiple classes in musical composition and began doing online voiceover work.

During his time in college, Bradley participated in numerous professional and amateur voiceover productions both online and at the University of Pittsburgh's student radio station, WPTS Radio. While at WPTS, Bradley also began writing advertisements and online content for websites.

Now out of school, Bradley continues to lend his voice to multiple productions, dabble in musical composition, and provide content writing for WrightlySo.com.

Jared Prize as David (Main Character)

Singing provides me with some of the greatest joy in life. Outside of that, I love voice acting, hiking, and hanging with friends. My day job involves working with computers, so I like to find a bit of an escape into the creative-realm during my free time. My sexuality has always been a struggle, but I find comfort in not putting a label on it (at least for now). Mostly, I am very excited to be a part of an ambition team of lovely people. Working within a project like this brings excitement during the process, and even more-so while waiting for the final piece! I hope you enjoy what's to come xo

Marisa Duran as Lady Marie

Hey there, I’m Marisa Duran. I’m an actress working and living in Dallas, Texas.

I caught the "theatre bug" at a young age. My parents will tell you that it started when I was two years-old, dancing around to the Barney theme song. I agree wholeheartedly.

I grew up in a suburb on the east side of Dallas and was fortunate to have the opportunity to explore a city known for its rich culture and artistic influence. My passion for theatre was fueled by the many musicals that toured through town and I quickly decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life as a professional actor.

In 2016 I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas with my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre, emphasis in Acting. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of working with multiple professional theatre companies in the DFW area. I’ve also expanded my career into the worlds of film and voiceover, landing roles in short films, webseries, and commercials, and lending my voice to over a dozen anime titles at FUNimation.

Art has the power to heal, to change, and to empower. As an artist, I believe that my purpose on this earth is to tell stories, and through these stories I hope to make a positive impact and leave people better than I found them. I consider it an honor to be able to use my talents in such a profound way.

Whenever I’m not rehearsing or recording, you can usually find me at my day-time marketing job, playing video-games, or drinking coffee at a local coffeeshop.

Kiba Walker as Zachariah

Born Arthur Lee Walker III in Tacoma, Washington, Kiba Walker is an American actor, musician, director, writer, and performer based out of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.

Kiba trained under the likes of various industry professionals such as Shane Sparks, Donyelle Jones, Tony Oliver, Betty "Waters" Kennedy, Chuck Huber, Sonny Strait, Chris Rager, Justine Reyes, Lorette Spicer, Bill Quinby, Angie Irons, Dan Lorge, Holly Clark Lorge, Spencer Christian, and many others. With 16 years of collective industry knowledge, Kiba has performed with the likes of Alice Underground, The Stereo Killers, Frankly Fictitious, CRVSH, Grant Davis, Ashley Ann Farley, Steve "Warky" Nunez, BASH!, Ryland Lynch, Ross Lynch, Will Jay, and more.

Voice over came to Kiba in his later years, around the age of 18, when he found his love doing an ask blog for Tumblr. From there, he took the craft seriously and networked profusely with various actors and companies in the voice over realm. His first roles were as Boku Temagawa in "Love Games" and Mike Connelly in "Zoolaplex".

Since 2014, he's been cast in various other projects including MY HERO ACADEMIA, HORIMIYA, GENSHIN IMPACT, FRUITS BASKET, ONE PIECE, SAINT SEIYA (2019 Sentai Dub), BLACK CLOVER, BOFURI! I DON'T WANNA GET HURT SO I'LL MAX OUT MY DEFENSE, CAUTIOUS HERO: THE HERO IS OVERPOWERED BUT OVERLY CAUTIOUS, CASE FILE NO.221 KABUKICHO, CAMP BUDDY, FULL SERVICE, TO TRUST AN INCUBUS, TO LOVE RU, O MAIDENS IN YOUR SAVAGE SEASON, EARTHLOCK, POPUP DUNGEON, SOMETHING IN THE DARK, RADIANT, and many more!

He's also directed such titles as FULL SERVICE, IDUEL: BATTLE  FOR STARDOM, ISHIDA & ASAKURA, THE TITAN'S BRIDE, and CAMP BUDDY.

As a musician now, Kiba currently has one album out, titled "XO", that released in May 2016. He runs a music channel called "KibaKovers", adapting anime and video game openings into English for a broader audience, as well as regular Top 40 covers. He is also one of the champions of the hit Fort Worth Drag Competition, The 3, as Salem Moon!

Mike Young as Sir Tiphis

Hello, I’m Mike Young. A dynamic, versatile and different British VP voice actor with gravitas, who can turn on various shades of Bristol, and run the spectrum of silky smooth, to warm and friendly.

Under the brilliant tutelage of Tanya Rich, my road to a professional voice acting career begin in 2018, having produced a wide variety of stories and audiobooks.

I lend my talent to a range of different projects:

Hard sell and soft sell commercial and corporate scripts

IVR for telephone systems and mobile apps

Instructional e-learning courses

Promotional adverts and trailers

Public service announcements

Character narration for video games, film, audio dramas and books

…and more!

I love it all, I do it all! And if you like what you hear, contact me! I’ll be sure to make your project gurt lush.

[shirbertshitposts]

What are your thoughts on the fact that, while Gilbert goes to UoT, Anne goes to UoT? Even if the books underdeveloped their relationship (if it weren't for the internal monologue in Anne of the Island you wouldn't know how close they are, as they interact 10 times at most) its great to see both of them as academic equals in Redmond. I feel like miss Stacey would have pushed Anne towards a scholarship/research just as she did with Gilbert. I'm actually surprised this isn't more of a debate!

I want to start by saying that I do enjoy the show but this will probably become a rant about how the education plot was handled.

To sum it up I don’t like it, and there is a lot of reasons behind it.

I have a lot of questions about it.

1) Is Queens a four year undergraduate college in AWAE and not a teaching school? Because those are two different types of educational institutions...

In the books Anne does at accelerated program at Queens College to get her teaching degree in one year. A lot of her other classmates also go there and get their teaching degrees. Gilbert does the accelerated program as well and they remain academic rivals. The two years that they are teachers, both saving up money to be able to afford to go to Redmond (also with the help of scholarships) for a 4 year undergraduate program seem like important parts of their character growth. They are poor ambitious students from a small rural town. Not everyone from Avonlea goes to Redmond with them or saved up for it on their own, so it is something that sets them apart from the rest of the people they grew up with. It makes sense that they would have to struggle and save money for a bit before they can pursue their educational dreams.

In AWAE this seemingly would still be relevant. Green Gables has fallen on hard times before and Gilbert expresses to Miss Stacy that he doesn’t think he could afford a nice university. How is Gilbert able to afford to attend U of T? He sent in his application late, I doubt he got any scholarship money. Also what is the plan for Anne is she still going to become a teacher in one year and immediately start working because it’s not necessary for her to get a B.A. to teach and AWAE Anne still seems like the type of character who would want to help support her family and work as soon as possible.

2) Why is Gilbert concerned about medical school before he has even finished their equivalent of high school? And what does he have against Queens?

I am not going to pretend that I know the history of medical education perfectly. But I’ve tried to look into it and as far as I can tell in 1899 medical schools required that you have a undergraduate degree first. So he is definitely going to U of T for undergrad. Yes, you can be involved in medical research as an undergrad, but it’s not imperative to the path to becoming a doctor. Back then and still today people often get undergrad degrees in other non-medical related subjects and then go onto medical school. What doesn’t he like about Queen? Does it have poor science curriculum? No medical research opportunities at all? We literally have no idea why he thinks it doesn’t suit his educational goals. If Queens is still a teachers college, which we also don’t know for sure, then it would make sense if he was like actually I dont have plans to be a teacher why should I go here first, BUT WE LITRALLY KNOW NOTHING In the books Gilbert got his B.A. in classics, wouldn’t that be interesting to dive into the AWAE. Imagine him having an interest outside of medicine for once. I think this is also just me being salty that they made so much of Gilbert’s personality “i want to be a doctor” and that influences like all of his interactions at school. People, especially people so young, are not typically so defined by their career choices. (Also mini-rant: Gilbert’s had a revelation that western medicine doesn’t have all the answers and his solution to that was to then to aspire to go to the peak of western medical practice in Paris...okay).

3) Also was anyone else a little surprised that even with his amount of ambition Gilbert would be so quick to go somewhere so far away?

Season 2 ends with him saying he wants to be close to his family. At the end of season 3 I think his family still could use his support. Mary died less than 6 months before college starts. Yeah, Hazel lives them but Bash’s relationship with her is fraught. Plus I guessing Gilbert will still have to help with harvesting each season. Wouldn’t it have made more sense that he would want to only be like a short train ride away for the time being. Bash is his brother... is he not at all concerned about leaving him in an emotionally vulnerable time for large extended periods.

4) To respond to the initial question why wouldn’t Miss Stacy encourage Anne to look at other universities:

This doesn’t bother me as much because Miss Stacy doesn’t say anything to Gilbert until he mentions it. I think if Anne expressed any interest to going somewhere beyond Queens Miss Stacy would have gladly directed her but she didn’t. Miss Stacy seemingly only offers help when the students ask specifically for it rather than encouraging them to strive beyond what they already know they want. It makes sense that Anne would be content to go to Queens. She just found a home at Green Gables, she is not going to want to move far from it at this point no matter how smart or ambitious she is. Her biggest dream growing up was to find a family that loves and accepts her. She is not going to walk away from that easily. Right before she leaves for Queens we see her tell Marilla that she wants to stay and do chores at Green Gables. The thought of leaving, even for something exciting that she worked for is scary to her. She has only had a home for 3 years. Also becoming a teacher is one of her ambitions but it seems her bigger dream is to effect change in her community wherever that may be, and she has already begun to do that in Avonlea. I think Anne is mature enough to know that she can be a force of change wherever she is, whereas Gilbert is still trying to find himself. When they talk at Miss Stacy’s house Anne says she knows what she wants to be, but Gilbert just says what he knows he doesn’t want to be.

To sum it up I would have liked to seem them both become teachers and save for college to set them apart from their classmates and have them bond over being equally ambitious like in the books. And I agree I loved them being academic equals in college together. Also Gilbert looking down on Queens College without explanation was in poor taste.

Oh and I think it’s important to look at this from the lense of the time period if possible because how people chose to go to college and who got to go was different from now. In the books Anne was the FIRST woman from Avonlea to get a B.A. and none of her school friends get that degree although many get teaching degrees. I don’t think that holds up to AWAE because if Queens is now a 4 yr college at least Prissy will have a B.A. before her. But still if we look as education as only serving the purpose of getting the characters the careers they aim for, Anne is looking at 1-2 years where as Gilbert has 7-8 years before him. Anything after 1-2 yrs for Anne would be purely for self fulfillment, which she does do in the books but idk if AWAE wanted to go that route or if they were going to have her aim for another career move after a while or what. So that would also inform choices they make about school.

This is more or less a brain dump of all my thoughts of how AWAE handled the characters education storyline or i guess began it really.

[pluviophile-bookworm]

AWAE 1x6 rewatch: thoughts and reactions

It’s been literal months since my last rewatch, and you guys were obviously not satisfied with my randomly dug-up first impression of the show that I posted a couple of days ago to make up for the lack of reviews, so here I am with another one. Today we’re delving into the penultimate episode of the first season. I have completely forgotten what to expect, so this will be almost like a first time watching. Here we go:

Oh, that’s right. I remember now. This is one of the parts that I loved most from the original book, and it’s a really important moment in the show as well, one of the parts that were satisfyingly closely adapted. It’s the time when Minnie May is ill and Anne is the only one who can help. A very dramatic scene, and a crucial one for DiAnne’s friendship after they were forbidden to fraternise in the previous episode. 

Wait, Aunt Josephine was there? This is the situation in which she appears first? I had forgotten and I honestly thought it would have been something different. Apparently I’ve forgotten that at first she didn’t act like the cool old lady we’ve since come to love.

I’ve always thought it was incredibly impressive how Anne immediately knew what was happening to Minnie May from just a vague description of the symptoms. Her difficult childhood experience comes in handy sometimes, I guess. That’s at least a slight silver lining to it. 

I love how fiery, passionate Anne transforms into a sound, sane, level-headed nurse when Minnie May needs to be taken care of. It just popped into my mind - does Gilbert know about this? And how come it was never brought up in later seasons?

In my commentaries on the third season, I've said more than once that Minnie May was like God - she often fixed whatever trouble and misunderstandings the older characters would get in. Now I see she’s doing it again, in a way - her illness and Anne helping her get over it is what convinced Diana’s parents that Anne is a very good person and a suitable friend for their daughter after all. I wonder where everyone would have been without this little one. 

“It’s a big world, son.” It is indeed, and Gilbert will see at least some of it - but at what cost, really, at what cost? Having never lost a parent, nor a loved one of another kind, I can’t possibly imagine the pain this boy would go through later in the series. Now, seeing John Blythe on his deathbed breaks my heart. 

It’s amazing how much some people need to forgive. Accidentally get her daughter drunk, and you’re the devil. Save her other daughter’s life, and you’re suddenly a saint. I was never a big fan of Eliza Barry, and, well, this case is not helping. I mean, it took so much for her to forgive Anne’s minor innocent mistake. I can’t help but wonder - how much would Jerry have had to do to get her approval, had things not turned out the way they did (I’m referring to both his eventual falling out with Diana and the unjust cancellation of the series here #renewannewithane)? How many favours would he have to do her family before she would have been able to forget his origin? I guess we’ll never find out now. Unless... #renewannewithane

Anne seemingly equating herself and Diana to Josephine and her “companion” makes me suddenly see why people ship them romantically, although I personally don’t. I mean, neither Anne nor Diana knew at the time what exactly Josephine’s relationship with her partner was like, but still, for me as a second-time viewer, the subtext is certainly there. 

Diana’s prospective future as the wife of some “wealthy, handsome gentleman” could very well have been foreshadowing to her eventual marriage to Fred Wright in the books, but it is a bit of an ironic statement in the series where she first went for Jerry, who, to quote Aunt Jo from earlier, is “one, but not the other”. But I’m getting carried away here. 

Listen, I dislike Mr. Philips as much as the next person, but he’s sort of (unwittingly?) acting as a matchmaker for Anne and Gilbert, like teachers sometimes do. By making none other than Anne go give him his school materials every day, he is making them interact even when Anne might otherwise have chosen not to. So that is one good thing he’s ever done. I’m keeping score from now on. 

Anne’s sudden realisation that when Gilbert comes back to school, he will likely be an orphan, reminds me of her reaction later when it happened. And it’s not so much later either. Having been an orphan all her life, she seems not to realise quite how much he’s going through. Gilbert has been forced to become an adult all of a sudden by his father’s death, but Anne still has a lot of growing up to do.

John Blythe’s funeral is an odd contrast to Mary’s Easter which would come later - both are people Gilbert loves dearly, both deaths make him grow as a person, both die of an illness - but while his father’s funeral and the days before it are gloomy, dark and achromatic, Mary goes with a smile on her face, surrounded by her big family, in the middle of a colourful festivity. I don’t know why I’m commenting on this right now, I just suddenly became aware of the parallel and simply had to point it out. 

The snowflake that thaws on Gilbert’s palm and slowly rolls down reminded me of a tear - a tear that didn’t roll from his eyes. It might as well have been meant to symbolise that precisely. If that’s the case, job well done.

The blue ribbon that Anne wears now - John Blythe gave it to Marilla... I wonder if Anne was ever made fully aware of what exactly went on between her adoptive mother and Gilbert’s father when they were young. I mean off-screen, of course. 

Much better off than you were? I don’t think so, Anne. I mean, of course she might be right to a degree, but right now Gilbert’s pain is something she can’t comprehend. She shouldn’t try to. She shouldn’t assume she does. Being an orphan is not something to pass on “extensive knowledge” about. It’s an experience that everyone goes through differently. Saying Gilbert is lucky was definitely not the right thing to do. Not right now at least. But I should stop saying how I think Anne should have reacted, or I might come off as hypocritical. I’ve never experienced what either of them has, after all. Moving on.

It seems Aunt Jo has become the cool old lady we know and love. Her conversation with Anne in the clubhouse reminds me so much of the one they had at the end of season 3. I think that one was, in a way, meant to parallel this one. Of course, I’m not going to try and reinvent the wheel here, I just think it’s beautiful how subtle this show is when it comes to foreshadowing and callbacks, even to a viewer who goes into it having read the books first. I’m glad I get to rediscover this now when I’m rewatching it, and my reactions get to be a mix of re-encountering forgotten details, judging earlier episodes with regard to what happens in later ones, and just overall basking in the magic of AWAE once again. 

Anne wanting to be a bride but not a wife is so novel yet so relatable all at once. I mean, don’t get me wrong - I don’t want to be a wife, nor a bride myself, but I can definitely see why a girl, especially in Anne’s time, but even today as well, would want to walk down the aisle wearing a white dress without being burdened with the conservative version of a wife’s duty. 

Anne’s first encounter with Aunt Jo happens in such a different way from the book, but it’s even better, the way I see it. 

Anne is so unapologetically feminist and I’m all in for it. This character is so important even today, and it was so horrific to see her story cut short over trivial issues. #renewannewithane

As both Anne and Ruby are rambling away and Diana is trying her best to say the proper things, I figure Gilbert must think, at least for a moment, about how weird and incomprehensible girls are. And with Anne’s especially apropos mention of the word “wife”... I can just see his eyebrows doing the confusion dance - you know, despite the pain he must be in. 

I just love how Gilbert never even remotely hides his great respect and admiration of Anne. And even though there are underlying feelings of a different kind here, I’m quite sure he would respect and admire just as much any other intelligent, independent young woman deserving of it. Meanwhile, Billy has shown that he’s just a misogynist of the worst kind, no matter if the girl is an “ugly” orphan or a conventionally attractive girl with both parents alive and a substantial wealth. I don’t mean to deem anyone incorrigibly bad, but I do think Billy might as well be. 

What about “Gilbert’s father just died and you’re still acting like the petty little misogynist you are” doesn’t Billy get? I know what Gilbert did was sinking to his level, but I believe he deserved every bit of it. 

I wonder - I might have forgotten - if Gilbert knew before this conversation with Marilla, about the kind of relationship she and his father had. I wonder how much of it he found out from this conversation.

Ah, here we go, the Shirbert written communication begins. And it doesn’t begin very smoothly - as if to foreshadow how many bumps on the road its future holds. 

See, Josephine would have liked very much to be married to Gertrude - only the times she lives in wouldn’t allow it. She is of the marrying kind - just not of the conventional wife kind. And that’s beautiful, and exactly what Anne aspires to be - and will be one day, of course. She has done a good, nay, brilliant job choosing a role model.

To sum up this episode: Minnie May’s illness brings DiAnne back together; Aunt Jo’s first appearance is a meaningful one, as expected; John Blythe’s last days and the aftermath of his death; an important detail of Marilla’s past; thoughts on what it is to be a wife; Shirbert’s written communication begins, very clumsily, of course. 

[tenaciouscupcaketaco]

1989-2020 Poetic Work Of Mario William Vitale

1989-2020 Poetic Work Of Mario William Vitale (Manuscript of Poet Mario William Vitale) From 1993-1997 - Attended State University in Connecticut,Attempted plays : Tartuffe, Miracle Of St. Anthony and Balm in Gieade,( His poetic aspirations had in 1989 from submitting his first poem entitled, "Remembrance Of A Loved One"- (Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum)Next from 1989-1997 ( Wrote primarily for Poetry.com and The International Library Of Poetry),* Received editors choice award in 1997 for poem, " A Beacon Of Light ",(1998) Sent poetic manuscript to N.Y. Time Magazine and Chief Editor " John Hyland".Back with rave reviews !* ( From 1999-2008:Had adapted a real keen sense of style for writing poetry: ( 1999- Sent Editorial to:New Man Magazine for the Passion of Christ Movie;Sent followup letter to company with poetry platform information attached,* 2000-2007 : Magazine : ( Catholic) Maries Rose Ferron Magazine submitted poem" Beacon Of Light", which had excellent editorial reviews as the outset !2008- Wrote poem entitled: ( The Heavy Cross) to Poetry.com* Achieved Poetry status of work of Excellence in writing from the Academy Of American Poetry in which still having received rank and status as a member of Academy;* ( The Connecticut Poetry Society)* Short story submitted entitled, "China Dog Ray" submitted to Virginia WritersQuarterly, West Virginia, Also having member status on their board of Poetry.* ( Attribute Poetry to an ever increasing love of God and his unconditional love that he has for us in return,Thankfulness toward family and friends.( To our past ancestors who fought to uphold freedom that far too many of us take for granted ?One needs a pure heart that's fixed on truth,This is in order to withstand the true great test of time !Life is way too short,Press toward the goal or mark of our high calling that is in Christ Jesus The Lord !~My contempoarry artists include that of ellan Bryant Voight, Kay Ryan and carl Phillips.Which all three are Participants in the Academy Of American Poetry.* Having been a member since 2006,My work reflects the likes of past poets such as C.S.Lewis, Hawthorne and edgar Allen Poe.Most of my work reflects with the values of religious beliefs intact,( In my personal view it is essential in demonstrating a real heart of creativepassion !The reader I believe will benefit by my artistic style of development in a verypositive light.)To further the need for poetry to become more main stream, Mario Vitale was born in Bristol , Ct Has developed a skill for writing poetry in the free verse form. has been featured on Hubpages.com, Starlitecafe.com & Poetry soup. Vitale lives with his elderly mother Ann Soulier in Wolcott, Ct. Currently has written well over 1,000 poems & 2 short story's toward credit platform. Vitale has taken the poetic world by storm being featured on Google, Yahoo & MSN. Looks up to contemporaries in the poetry industry such as John Ashbery & Major Jackson. Has been a favorite featured poet reader at Barnes & Noble in Waterbury, Ct. Also featured on such sites as Poetry soup, Writer's café & Neo Poet. Mario William Vitale 1 Winfield Drive Wolcott, ct 06716 A Beacon Of Light Written by: Mario Vitale A beacon of light to a much hurting world in need ! Can't help but to claim.., Some sense of identity, Stregnth and encouragement only come from above ! Amidst in the distance, the trapped seagull.., Lieth frightened but still yet adrift ! In a most vengeful fashion striking the passing fish, A true source of hope, Yet a most triumphal beam ! This beacon of light shineth forth, Passerby's can err' escape the helping hand.., To the most sparkling of radiance ! (2)Thanksgiving Dinner by Mario Vitale Home for the holiday from New Orleans, with Mother and Father at the tiny drop leaf, brown rosewood, mahogany table with the gold, grinning claw feet; Father, choler- red-in the-face, short- sleeved white shirt and cane, says the blessing as Mother brings in the turkey and cranberry. Then Mother asks, “Won’t you have more?” and father : “Do you think Moll Flanders was a *****?” (I have suffered and bleached my hair blond.) I am silent before their replies. Mother sighs. “I can scarce speak to her.” And Father, too, quotes Shakespeare. (I am thin as paper and the rose- colored bowl of blown glass sitting on the silver stand, half- filled with water.) “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless daughter” (3) Song of Spring Today I heard a robin sing heralding the coming spring A song of exultation to the sky an ode to earth's awakening I saw a willow on the hill It's branches greening in the sun and all the earth seemed hushed & still sleeping streams began to run I heard a softly rising breeze whispering through the grass singing through the still bare trees waiting winter's chill to pass I saw the sun, so bright and warm warming the earth after the rain the buds and leaves, no frost to harm at least, at last, it's spring again. (4) The Ancients It's my last day with the old giants In mourning I hike the lost trails, sniffing the aroma of the bark, that cinnamon of the forest Under tepees of wood in a membrane of shadows, I stalk the earth, its mammal traces, its elusive tracks, to sit on a fallen log where spiders macramé, moss sloping to my knees unaware of invisibles within, grubbing in their tunnels A lizard taps my foot, responding, I muse to its touch, my thoughts like Indian visions, And when daylight mushrooms into night, and an owl hoots from cedar, I still sit with a lizard on my shoe Huddled with the ancients of the woods (5) Epiphany Written by: Mario Vitale It clings to the cliffed shore, to the wintered face of the thistle path, to the fingers of the old man's glove as he waves his memory homeward In that breath between come and go she moves up from the bay; gold turns her stride, the line of her dress, the soft sea pulling at her feet When he reaches out and the frail birds fly and the sun and the sky have married deep into the sea, it clings Even as his shadow threads retreat, it clings, even now as it dissolves to mist (6) A Return Home, Only Time Will Tell Written by: Mario Vitale Oh blessed hope ! Both hardly a believable dream, Sweltering heat with bloodshed in the street... Send the troops home ! There is no clear reason for them to roam.., These are desolate times ! For we have chosen ill faded rhymes.., The casualties are enormous ? For a stated cause that clearly atrocious.., A mother's cry as the door chime rings, A vanishing salute to freedom as the church choir sings ! Let us look above to all the heavenly love.., Merciful one, take this chip off my shoulder.., Stop the senseless fighting before our dear nation grows a bit colder, Suddenly, seeds were dropped out of a farmers bag, In time roots spring up fresh out of the fertile soil... As the sun heats up, Time will tell when this harvest will soon boil... In the vast game of life, One's time is so very brief ! The soul yearns for its' heavenly relief.., Share with others who may want to turn over a brand new leaf.., Time will tell of the true importance of helping one another, To never give into the finish line.., Nor harsh criticism that our society puts out ! Like a famous fighter in his final bout ! Time will tell of the return home, To the open arms of a loved one ! (7) A Valiant Knight Written by: Mario Vitale A Valiant Knight Death springs a new day basking in the breeze In solemn moments lets pause to think of a place A far off castle in the mountains away from it all A valiant knight lived in the structure of it's dwelling Those days of old where mere men had a noble demise A beautiful maiden was in waiting for her knight He would often fight for the cause of stregnth and dignity The draw bridge where the castle stood had a very unique aura A mystery of sort sought up in the vast array of crowned nobility For the king on his thrown was humble yet greedy Always would take care of himself caring nothing for the needy A valiant knight was concerned about the kings trust Often they would disagree on who it was to serve A joker came in front of the king one day with a magic wand Waving the wand in the air then there floated ivy everywhere For the court jester was a fool in the making of his legacy The maiden would often come forth and see For she treasured a red rose that was plucked sometime before Cherished the calling of her stature to the glory of the throne A valiant knight would often sing sweet songs in the night Had a following of village people that would sit before his feet Having a way of words that he would often share The castle was filled with dragons and warlocks searching for love A cause to be brave amidst uncertainty of the kingdom The legacy of golden capulets filled ardent vestibules Let us toast to the valiant knight who keeps a watch on all that is good (8) Hampton Beach The smell of fresh fry doe Time had elapsed playing at the casino Fresh lobster with a side order of fries Those spacious wonderful sky's Down at the shell the continental were playing A walk by the lady of a statue in waiting Flip flops and the sound of laughter A playground for kids in the middle The boardwalk with seagulls flocking over head Fire works in the midnight air with a cheer (9) God's World It is raining again. Summer will be over before it ever gets here Thunder rolls far away, drops hit the windshield, the sky turns gray The Sunflower, the blue Delpinium, the white Stinkwood drink the moisture greedily. The green and silver leaves of the Aspens sparkle as the rain hits them, and the wind turns them round and round The creek flows on, oblivious to the change in the weather. A break in the clouds allows a bit of sun to hit the side of a towering mountain Three cows slowly wend their way homeward. It is dusk. The gray clouds lift and the sun bursts through, before sliding behind the hills for the night It is God's World. He gives it to us to enjoy and to share with each other (10) Jake's House There was a man whose name was Jake Who had a house upon the lake Every morning he would wake And for breakfast have a piece of cake He had a private fishing hole; He always used a long cane pole He fried his fish on red hot coal And served it in a great big bowl For a pet, he had a cat (11) In The Zone Written by: Mario Vitale In The Zone whispers... through the dark deranged portals you evoke fear filled with angelic fervor on it's textual base yet we dig much deep then ever before cries in the dark will light the spark of what we need to know still we stand idle as the average novice introduces its spell along again then the sadness evokes a newer feeling dwindling through the vain extraction of the never world we visually see a flash then a new day approaches on the lawn two lovers having passionate *** the screams of vile extreme explodes throughout perhaps this is the place where Nero tread yet again I sit alone in my house now huddled in the corner the twilight sun has tainted my inner vision the howls of Satanic laughter gives a piercing shriek through a candle was lit by the edge of my bed One can remain lax in the quietness of the moment yet again the setting of the sun a new day has begun as we embark on the moment Does death hurt you the most or is it fear You can equate logic through a firm grasp of the hand whispers again... then a faint cry, we construct living pyramids to honor the dead A stroke of luck an the impulse ensues onto so much more but for what are we grasping for straws what are we searching for ? quietness again this time I'm in the zone as if zombie creatures with viscous long fangs that bite dripping blood off side we run away to hide no one questions anymore no one has a voice alone one last time yet feelings of grandeur awake to the message of hope that spills from the sky a challenge to be free is a question of time eyes with spots digging holes in a pool of blood Satan laughing again spreads his wings Suddenly I awake but to what ? (12) An End Of The Age Of Innocence Part III Written by: Mario Vitale In our fast paced twentieth century world.., We oft' have neglected to stop to smell the roses, Oft' we used to bow our heads silently to pray, As we reflect back to the sixties is had launched a pad to rebellion ! With a vast amount of liberal bias and thinking, No wonder why our nation is sinking.., Sinking amidst a cuss pool of mere morality.., For now it is a quite different time, A very unique but different type of day.., An end of the age of innocence, One hath been enlightened.., From seeking truth, Some fresh out of a garbage can.., Yet for Gods' sake, He hath such an amazing plan ! Hence, to shun the broad road, Yet to seek to venture in the narrow.., Such as a distant bird in flight ! You might see this creature venture out at night ? Of the Eagle nor the Sparrow.., It used to mean something to have a sense of common courteous.., To hold open the door for your neighbor ? Yet for the time being we relent and waiver.., Would you prefer another taste of a certain ice cream flavor ? To ponder we must be content with who we are in the inside.., Nor, a mere fancy suit or blazing sport's car, Life is a roller coaster.., In what you do while busy making other plans.., Finding solace among the height of nature., Such to think at what is quite simple, As a young child reflects on his or her poster board, Playing with their magic crayons.., For in eternity it is such a very long time ! Take heed in what you do, Now is the expectant hour ! What will one choose to do ? There can be no place nor need for any compromise, Within it's vast perpetual spectrum ! One just can't put a price tag on a genuine but unique heart ! Hence, with honest integrity.., The time for change is today ! (13) He Was There by Mario William Vitale From the inner silence of the lamb he was there In welcoming to the world to share Within the multiple of words the mouth speaks As a heart beats through the passage of time To every poem that was ever written To every burden ever lifted To rivers crossing where people living Sometimes loving other moments giving In storms that were outside brewing What is the significance of this love In painted pictures from above To every soldier in a battle To every cow amidst the cattle Not a second glance at any real romance A field of dreams throughout our head From both fire and ice will make you think twice Perhaps another chance at a roll of the dice When every kingdom comes thy will be done Shadows in the shining morn if there's a rose it bears a thorn, He was there in every circumstance When they tried to throw stones at her He was there drawing a line with his finger in the sand It is my hope that some day all will understand A glance at the past will tell us of our future Amidst the inner pain & uncertainty Through shadows in a field of dreams In moments of solace amidst the pain A light moved out upon the street outside A day that wasn't meant to be Thorn crown was pulled upon his head Those shouts of intense anger from the mob There was only one who would help him back on his feet, A light that brought only a few to greet Let us not run away & hide Each one of our sins was placed on that cross To lose the battle now would end in tragic loss Father please forgive them for they know not what they do He said the prayer now the rest is up to you That cross that broke a sinful world apart With his blood-soaked crown with spear in side To show the whole world he had nothing to hide The summoned cry brought about healing in the sky Watch the free angelic dove fly! (14) Momma Of Pearls by Mario William Vitale Since there's nothing I could find That was worth giving you, I sat down to think a while And write a line or two If I had a magic wand I'd wave it just for you, And give you anything you'd like No matter how many or few If I could give you back the years You so willingly gave to me I'm sure that you spend them over again The same as they used to be Remember when those days and nights Instead of going to the fair I'd always say tell me again The story of the three little bears I tried to get a strawberry pie But they were out of season Then I thought of gold Mario William Vitale Written by Mario William Vitale 48/M/Wolcott, Ct 310 Please log in to view and add comments on poems

[battlestar-royco]

updated faq

Round 2! I tried to shorten the answers so as not to be repetitive, and I also added new FAQs for your convenience. My past self who wrote my first FAQ annoys me, and this one is more thorough anyway, so here you go. I still can’t believe you all actually interact with me enough that I have to make one of these.

Questions up here, answers under the cut.

anti sjm basics

1. why are you an anti?

2. why are you specifically anti SJM?

3. do you like anything about SJM’s books?

4. terminology and practices

5. why do you hold SJM to a higher standard than other authors?/why do you focus on criticizing this one woman more harshly than you do men?

6. did you see what xyz stan did?

7. are you an anti for non-SJM stuff?

best of (in my humble opinion)

diversity and sensitivity

8. I have a question about writing and/or how to portray xyz identity...

9. can you please tag...?

10. is it okay if I like [x author]/[y series] even if I know they’re problematic?

11. what are your suggestions for aspiring authors who want to write diversely?

personal

12. is it okay if I message you?

13. why don’t you post about books/shows/movies you actually like?

14. favorites?

15. book suggestions?

16. are you a writer/what are you writing/do you plan on publishing?

17. is it okay if I follow you on other social media?

18. fandom research

19. when did you start your blog?

20. how did you decide your url?

anti SJM basics

1. why are you an anti?

I love thinking critically about the media I consume. Though I wouldn’t say I’m particularly “anti” any text or author, some people classify any criticism as “anti.” To respect people in the main tags, I post in anti tags so they don’t have to see critical posts. Otherwise, I love talking about positive, neutral, and negative aspects of books.

2. why are you specifically anti SJM?

The Anti SJM Manifesto

What made you turn into an anti? x x

Rowan/Rowaelin: x x x

The fandom: x x x x x x

3. do you like anything about SJM’s books?

Yes. I like a lot of SJM’s ideas, but I don’t like how they’re executed at all. I highly enjoyed TAB, TOG-HOF, and the witch storyline of QOS. My favorite TOG characters are Manon, Chaol, Nehemia, and Sorscha. Honorable mention for Lysandra, Kaltain, and Asterin. My favorite ACOTAR characters are Nesta, Lucien, and Tarquin. Additional links: x x x x

If you want my positive thoughts on certain SJM characters, look up: “anti sjm: [character name]” and you’ll find them.

4. terminology and practices:

Anti SJM Glossary. Seeing as many of us have had bad experiences with stans and in one case, authors, we censor names so our posts stay in our own tags.

What is soap dick? From August 2018 x x.

Manongate? when KOA came out, Charlie Bowater’s promotional art (x) depicted Manon as Asian. Here’s more on why that’s a problematic and lazy decision on SJM and Bloomsbury’s part: x x.

5. why do you hold SJM to a higher standard than other authors?/why do you focus on criticizing this one woman more harshly than you do men?

SJM alone out of all the biggest YA authors has yet to make craft improvements or display a social awareness similar to what I’ve seen from her colleagues. I give all authors an equal chance, but SJM’s writing and behavior has significantly decreased in quality compared to other fantasy authors despite her books being lauded as complex and feminist works. However, I’m not perfect, so do feel welcome to send me an ask if you think I’m being unfair.

The anti SJM community is focused on women because we all mainly read women. Critiquing women doesn’t mean we are unaware, dismissive of, or silent about the issues in men’s work. The “anti” movements for the likes of GRRM do exist, but under a different name than “anti”–there are thousands of critical meta blogs, book/TV critics and reviewers, Youtubers, etc out there who discuss his flaws in depth. I also have lengthy anti GRRM, anti GOT, and anti ASOIAF tags. Finally, I personally find critiquing and discussing women’s work a lot more interesting, productive, and empowering than doing the same for men, especially because my blog’s focus is on the YA author/transformative fan community at large.

About Leigh Bardugo: x x x x x x x

About GRRM (and GOT): x x x x x x x

About Tolkien: I've only read The Hobbit and a third of Fellowship of the Ring, and I’ve only watched FotR, so I don’t say much about him at all.

6. did you see what xyz stan did?

Probably not, especially if what they did was off Tumblr. I don’t look at stan accounts unless someone informs me that my posts or I have come up in conversation on their blog. Any specific stan urls in asks will be redacted both for their privacy and my own well-being. Stans have doxxed, harassed, and discriminated against antis, including myself, so I’d rather save us all the trouble.

7. are you an anti for non-SJM stuff?

I most often talk about SJM’s books, but I’ve also been very critical of GOT/ASOIAF. Following GRRM, several other YA authors have appeared in positive, neutral, and critical lights. On the more critical side we have Cassandra Clare and JK Rowling, and a very little bit about Victoria Aveyard, John Green, Maggie Stiefvater, Stephenie Meyer, and Veronica Roth. Otherwise, I’ve talked about Susan Dennard, Rick Riordan, Leigh Bardugo, and Marie Rutkoski. Check out my YA critical tag for more. I’m also down to discuss franchises like Star Wars, Fantastic Beasts, MCU, etc, as well as TV shows. Basically anything big in genre fiction media, there’s a good chance I’ve read/watched it and I have opinions!

best of

anti SJM

Are the Illyrians MOC?

Moral Ambiguity Series

Anti Nessian

Lucien or Rhysand?

Chaol or Rowan?

misc.

why are period dramas like... that

White Feminism

a beginner’s guide to fandom racism

diversity and sensitivity

8. I have a question about writing and/or how to portray xyz identity...

First and foremost, check my “writing advice” and “writing advice: poc” tags to see if the question has already been answered.

I am black cis girl with a dual degree in women’s/gender studies and creative writing. I will best be able to answer questions regarding black characters, women, racial oppression and identity as a whole, and most questions about queer characters. There’s a chance I can provide a basic answer to questions about demographics outside of these, but I’ll most likely advise you to ask another blogger or seek out sensitivity readers.

9. can you please tag...?

Yes. Just send an ask and I’ll tag anything. I’ve turned off all Tumblr notifications for this account so I probably won’t see tag requests in comments unless you comment within a day or so of the post.

10. is it okay if I like [x author]/[y series] even if I know they’re problematic?

Absolutely. I’m not the liking-things police and I can’t control whether you like something or not. There’s no such thing as an unproblematic author or unproblematic series, so you just have to like what you like at your own discretion and with a critical eye. As long as you’re aware of the issues and not denying or ignoring them, maybe even seeking out other people whose opinions add to the conversation, you’re good. It’s exhausting to be 100% critical but harmful to be 100% uncritical, so you have to seek out critics you like and figure out how to maintain a dialogue with the text and/or the author. The balance is different for everyone but once you find it, it gets easier to keep up!

11. what are your suggestions for aspiring authors who want to write diversely?

Concepts to be aware of and tropes to avoid: male gaze, the Bechdel test, the Mako Mori test, the sexy lamp test, fridging, Orientalism, xenoface (called “the Gamora Phenomenon” on my blog), black best friend, Spicy Latina, Dragon Lady, bury your gays, disability narratives, queerbaiting.

What not to do when creating a culture.

My advice about writing POC.

Check out these blogs if you like: x x x.

Follow as diversely as possible. Follow multiple blogs, especially writing- or fandom-themed blogs, run by POC (especially women and LGBTQ+), bloggers from religiously marginalized groups, bloggers with disabilities, older bloggers, younger bloggers, international bloggers, plus size bloggers, etc. Everyone has different perspectives and opinions, so it’s best to read from multiple sources.

Magnify marginalized voices in conversations about diversity, and LISTEN to what they are telling you.

Read diversely! Read genre fiction written by marginalized people. Maybe even read some gender, queer, race, or disability theory if you like. I’m personally a fan of Audre Lorde, Anne McClintock, and Sara Ahmed, but I like a lot more.

Seek out multiple sensitivity readers for the specific identity you are trying to represent (ie if you are trying to write a Muslim woman, ask a Muslim woman to sensitivity read for you. Experiences are not interchangeable so don’t treat them as such).

Don’t let the research stop here. This is just the beginning. There are plenty of awesome and accessible resources out there if you want to know more. I started learning about this stuff on sites like Tumblr, Goodreads, and Youtube. The Goodreads review sections, especially for YA books, are so entertaining and full of commentators coming at texts with feminist, queer, and POC lenses if you look in the right spots. There are also podcasts and Youtube videos about feminism, history of queerbaiting, and such. Happy reading/listening/writing!

personal

12. is it okay if I message you?

If we’ve been mutuals and/or we’ve interacted for a while (at least a few weeks or so), absolutely. When it comes to questions about writing or diversity advice in WIPs, I prefer asks (off or on anon is fine; if you’d like to be off anon but answered privately, you can indicate that in the ask). That way, other people with similar questions can join the discussion and I’m less likely to repeat myself. That said, I’m not opposed to messages; I just get shy around people I don’t know :). Regardless of ask or message, please try to ask the full question as clearly as possible so I can answer it to my best ability. Generally, you can expect an answer to your message or ask within a few days to a week of sending.

If you’re looking for a fight and/or if you start using condescending, rude, or discriminatory language, you will be ignored.

13. why don’t you post about books/shows/movies you actually like?

I do! :)

14. favorites?

books: Harry Potter; The Hunger Games; Six of Crows; Percy Jackson; The Winner’s Trilogy; Angelfall; The Secret History; Othello; Jane Eyre; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe/The Magician’s Nephew; A Storm of Swords.

movies: Alien, Blade Runner 2049, Harry Potter, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Annihilation, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Terminator 2, The Breakfast Club, The Lion King, Moonlight dir. Barry Jenkins, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan, Tangled.

tv series: Sense8, Battlestar Galactica (2004-2008), Black Mirror, The X Files, The 100, Westworld (season 1 only), Watchmen, Homeland (seasons 1-4 only), Orphan Black, Breaking Bad, The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, Fleabag.

15. book suggestions?

Book recs!

Maxine, did you read/watch...?

16. are you a writer/what are you writing/do you plan on publishing?

I hope to publish, yes! I write mostly YA fantasy, but I also love sci fi, crime drama, and certain elements of horror so I have works in or influenced by all of those genres. I want to get my foot in the YA fantasy door first and foremost :). Check out “polysorscha writes things” if you want to know more specifics.

17. is it okay if I follow you on other social media?

As of now I keep my blog disconnected from my personal life, so I don’t share my other socials but feel free to follow me over on my main blog @ripley-stark if you like! It’s just pretty gifs and photos of my favorite movies and shows, social justice, meta reblogs here and there, and rambling in the tags. Don’t feel like you have to follow if you don’t want to; I say a lot more on here.

That being said, I have given my Goodreads to a handful of people who ask, so if you want to track what I’m reading, private message me and I’ll send you the link. In the case that I share the link with you, please respect my privacy and do not repost or share the link anywhere else unless you see me share it on my blog publicly.

18. fandom research:

In March to May 2019, I conducted a survey on my blog in an attempt to gather information about fandom through a social justice–specifically, intersectional feminist–lens. Here are the results and my analysis of the survey x. The purpose for this data collection was to write my final undergraduate research paper in one of my two majors, women’s and gender studies (the other is creative writing!), which focused on diversity and inclusion in genre fiction media and fandom. The final paper is about 11k words. I haven’t publicly published it, but message me if you’re interested in reading it! I also plan on doing more similar surveys to gather information about what audiences want to see in future media, so if anyone is interested, please send messages, asks, comments etc about what YOU want to see and/or ideas about how we can spread the info to creators. This is much bigger than just me and I can’t do it without your help. I love hearing from diverse voices and amplifying them as much as I can. Everyone’s perspective is meaningful!

19. when did you start your blog?

No earlier than the end of April or beginning of May 2018.

20. how did you decide your url?

I wish the Celaena/Dorian/Chaol love triangle resolved in a polyamorous relationship, and that Nehemia and Sorscha were thriving. Seeing as I am black, Sorscha is one of two characters in T0G who represents me. Thus, polyamorous + Sorscha. :)

[phroyd]

Doris Day, the freckle-faced movie actress whose irrepressible personality and golden voice made her America’s top box-office star in the early 1960s, died on Monday at her home in Carmel Valley, Calif. She was 97.

The Doris Day Animal Foundation announced her death.

Ms. Day began her career as a big-band vocalist, and she was successful almost from the start: One of her first records, “Sentimental Journey,” released in 1945, sold more than a million copies, and she went on to have numerous other hits. The bandleader Les Brown, with whom she sang for several years, once said, “As a singer Doris belongs in the company of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.”

But it was the movies that made her a star.

Between “Romance on the High Seas” in 1948 and “With Six You Get Eggroll” in 1968, she starred in nearly 40 movies. On the screen she turned from the perky girl next door in the 1950s to the woman next door in a series of 1960s sex comedies that brought her four first-place rankings in the yearly popularity poll of theater owners, an accomplishment equaled by no other actress except Shirley Temple.

In the 1950s she starred, and most often sang, in comedies (“Teacher’s Pet,” “The Tunnel of Love”), musicals (“Calamity Jane,” “April in Paris,” “The Pajama Game”) and melodramas (“Young Man With a Horn,” the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Love Me or Leave Me”).

James Cagney, her co-star in “Love Me or Leave Me,” said Ms. Day had “the ability to project the simple, direct statement of a simple, direct idea without cluttering it.” He compared her performance to Laurette Taylor’s in “The Glass Menagerie” on Broadway in 1945, widely hailed as one of the greatest performances ever given by an American actor.

She went on to appear in “Pillow Talk” (1959), “Lover Come Back” (1961) and “That Touch of Mink” (1962), fast-paced comedies in which she fended off the advances of Rock Hudson (in the first two films) and Cary Grant (in the third). Those movies, often derided today as examples of the repressed sexuality of the ’50s, were considered daring at the time.

“I suppose she was so clean-cut, with perfect uncapped teeth, freckles and turned-up nose, that people just thought she fitted the concept of a virgin,” Mr. Hudson once said of Ms. Day. “But when we began ‘Pillow Talk’ we thought we’d ruin our careers because the script was pretty daring stuff.” The movie’s plot, he said, “involved nothing more than me trying to seduce Doris for eight reels.”

Following “Pillow Talk,” which won Ms. Day her sole Academy Award nomination, she was called on to defend her virtue for the rest of her career in similar but lesser movies, while Hollywood turned to more honest and graphic screen sex to keep up with the revolution sweeping the world after the introduction of the birth control pill.

Ms. Day turned down the part of Mrs. Robinson, the middle-aged temptress who seduces Dustin Hoffman, in the groundbreaking 1967 film “The Graduate,” because, she said, the notion of an older woman seducing a young man “offended my sense of values.” The part went to Anne Bancroft, who was nominated for an Academy Award.

By the time she retired in 1973, after starring for five years on the hit CBS comedy “The Doris Day Show,” Ms. Day had been dismissed as a goody-two-shoes, the leader of Hollywood’s chastity brigade, and, in the words of the film critic Pauline Kael, ”the all-American middle-aged girl.” The critic Dwight Macdonald wrote of “the Doris Day Syndrome” and defined her as “wholesome as a bowl of cornflakes and at least as sexy.”

But the passing decades have brought a reappraisal, especially by some feminists, of Ms. Day’s screen personality and her achievements. In her book “Holding My Own in No Man’s Land” (1997), the critic Molly Haskell described Ms. Day as “challenging, in her working-woman roles, the limited destiny of women to marry, live happily ever after and never be heard from again.”

Ms. Day in fact was one of the few actresses of the 1950s and ’60s to play women who had a real profession, and her characters were often more passionate about their career than about their co-stars.

“My public image is unshakably that of America’s wholesome virgin, the girl next door, carefree and brimming with happiness,” she said in “Doris Day: Her Own Story,” a 1976 book by A. E. Hotchner based on a series of interviews he conducted with Ms. Day. “An image, I can assure you, more make-believe than any film part I ever played. But I am Miss Chastity Belt, and that’s all there is to it.”

An Aspiring Dancer

Doris Day was born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff in Cincinnati on April 3, 1922. (For years most sources gave her birth year as 1924, and so did she. But shortly before her birthday in 2017, The Associated Press obtained a copy of her birth certificate from the Ohio Office of Vital Statistics and established that she had been born two years earlier. After Ms. Day was shown the evidence, she said in a statement, “I’ve always said that age is just a number and I have never paid much attention to birthdays, but it’s great to finally know how old I really am.”) She was the second child of Frederick William von Kappelhoff, a choral master and piano teacher who later managed restaurants and taverns in Cincinnati, and Alma Sophia (Welz) Kappelhoff. Her parents separated when she was a child.

Ms. Day never wanted to be a movie star. At 15 she was a good enough dancer to win the $500 first prize in an amateur contest. Her mother and the parents of her 12-year-old partner used the money to take them both to Los Angeles for professional dancing lessons. The families intended to move west permanently, but Doris’s right leg was shattered when the automobile in which she was riding was hit by a train.

To distract Doris during the year it took the leg to mend, her mother — who had named her after a movie star, Doris Kenyon — paid for singing lessons. She was a natural.

Ms. Day told Mr. Hotchner that another important thing happened during her year of recuperation: She was given a small dog. “It was the start of what was, for me, a lifelong love affair with the dog,” she said.

That first dog, Tiny, was killed by a car when Ms. Day, still on crutches, took him for a walk without a leash. Nearly 40 years later she spoke of how she had betrayed him. During the last decades of her life, through her foundation, Ms. Day spent much of her time rescuing and finding homes for stray dogs, even personally checking out the backyards and fencing of people who wanted to adopt, and she worked to end the use of animals in cosmetic and household-products research.

After the accident, Ms. Day never went back to school. At 17, having traded her crutches for a cane, she sang in a local club where the owner changed her name because Kappelhoff wouldn’t fit on the marquee. After a few months as a singer with Bob Crosby and His Bobcats in Chicago, she joined Les Brown and His Blue Devils.

Singing was just something to do until she married. ”From the time I was a little girl,” she told Mr. Hotchner, “my only true ambition in life was to get married and tend house and have a family.”

But while Ms. Day was instantly successful as a singer and a movie actress, she was fated always to marry the wrong men. By the time she made her first movie she had been married and divorced twice.

Her first husband, Al Jorden, a trombone player, was violently jealous and had an uncontrollable temper. He hit her on the second day of their marriage and continued to beat her when she became pregnant and refused to have an abortion. She was married at 19, divorced and a mother at 20.

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But she was undaunted. “All my life,” she told Mr. Hotchner, “I have known that I could work at whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.”

Her second husband, George Weidler, a saxophonist, was a gentle man. She was happily living with him in a trailer park in Los Angeles when he left, after telling her that he thought she was going to become a big star and that he didn’t want to be Mr. Doris Day.

She was approached at a Hollywood party by the songwriters Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, who had written the score for “Romance on the High Seas,” a movie planned for Judy Garland. But Garland had turned the role down and Betty Hutton, her replacement, was withdrawing because she was pregnant. Warner Bros. was desperate, and the songwriters insisted that Ms. Day audition for the part.

“Acting in films had never so much as crossed my mind,” she later said.

As candid in real life as her perky screen characters, Ms. Day admitted to the movie’s director, Michael Curtiz, that she had never acted before. But “from the first take onward, I never had any trepidation about what I was called on to do,” she said. “Movie acting came to me with greater ease and naturalness than anything else I had ever done.”

Reviewing “Romance on the High Seas” in The New York Herald Tribune, Howard Barnes wrote, “She has much to learn about acting, but she has personality enough to take her time about it.”

Playing the Wholesome Girl

Under personal contract to Mr. Curtiz, Ms. Day followed “Romance on the High Seas” with a series of musical comedies in which she played the pert and wholesome girl with hair and personality the color of sunlight. But even in the early 1950s she was nobody’s fool, and her characters had an unusual resilience, cockiness and competence.

In “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” (1953), about the trials of a small-town family, Ms. Day is first seen repairing her boyfriend’s car. If her fearless sharpshooting title character in “Calamity Jane” (1953) is finally induced to exchange her buckskins for a dress to wed Howard Keel’s Wild Bill Hickock, she still slips her six-shooter into her pocket to take along on the honeymoon.

And when Ms. Day opened her mouth to sing, the effect was magical. She had a perfectly controlled voice that brimmed with emotion. “It’s Magic,” which she sang in “Romance on the High Seas,” and “I’ll Never Stop Loving You,” which she sang in ”Love Me or Leave Me,” were nominated for Academy Awards for best song. The two with which she is especially identified, “Secret Love,” from “Calamity Jane,” and “Que Sera, Sera,” from “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” won Oscars.

“Doris Day was the most underrated film musical performer of all time,” said Miles Kreuger, president of the Institute of the American Musical. “If only she had been at MGM instead of Warner Bros., they’d have given her challenging roles.”

When Ms. Day did get a chance to stretch as an actress, she could be memorable. In “Love Me or Leave Me” (1955), she gave a stirring performance as the singer Ruth Etting, whose life and career were dominated by a violent manager-husband who had ties to gangsters. She held her own against James Cagney’s powerful performance as the husband and flawlessly sang Etting classics like “Ten Cents a Dance” and “Chasing the Blues Away.”

Ms. Day married for a third time in 1951. Although that marriage, to Martin Melcher, her manager, seemed happy, she discovered after Mr. Melcher’s death in 1968 that he and his lawyer had embezzled or frittered away the $20 million she had earned and had left her $500,000 in debt. She agreed to star in a situation comedy to earn the money to pay off her debts.

That proved to be a wise move financially; “The Doris Day Show” had an extremely successful five-year run. (It underwent a number of changes in that time. Ms. Day’s character, a widow who lived on a ranch with her two children, got a job at a magazine in San Francisco in the show’s second season, and by the fourth season her children had been written out of the show.)

James Garner, who co-starred with Ms. Day in two 1963 films, “The Thrill of It All” and “Move Over, Darling,” told Mr. Hotchner, “Marty was a hustler, a shallow, insecure hustler who always ripped off $50,000 on every one of Doris’s films as the price for making the deal.”

Ms. Day sued the lawyer, Jerome Rosenthal, and eventually won a judgment for more than $22 million in 1974. In a 1986 interview Terry Melcher, her son by Al Jorden, said that she eventually got some of the money from an insurance company but “nothing like that amount.”

In 1976 Ms. Day married Barry Comden, a sometime restaurant manager 11 years her junior. They were divorced in 1981. During her marriage to Mr. Comden, she moved from Los Angeles to Carmel, the picture-postcard town along the California coast where she and her son became part owners of the pet-friendly Cypress Inn. For the rest of her life she lived on a seven-acre estate with many more dogs than the zoning laws allowed. In the 1985-86 television season she was the host of “Doris Day’s Best Friends,” on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which focused on animal welfare.

Terry Melcher, her only child, who became a successful record producer, died in 2004.

In 2011, three years after she received a lifetime achievement Grammy Award, Ms. Day surprised a lot of people by releasing her first album in almost 20 years, “My Heart,” which consisted mostly of songs she had recorded for “Doris Day’s Best Friends” but never released commercially.

Ms. Day, who summed up her fatalistic philosophy in the words of one of her biggest hits, “Que Sera, Sera” (“What will be, will be”), never liked unhappy endings. She told one interviewer: “It upsets me when the hero or heroine dies. I would like them to live happily ever after.”

But, except in movies, nobody lives happily ever after. Ms. Day told Mr. Hotchner: “During the painful and bleak periods I’ve suffered through these past years, my animal family has been a source of joy and strength to me. I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent, devoted companionship of your pets that you can get from no other source.”

“I have never found in a human being,” she added, “loyalty comparable to that of any pet.”

Phroyd

[probabltbry]

Carole & Tuesday [Rants/My Opinion/Controversy]

THIS TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE, PLEASE SKIM IT AT LEAST (T.T).

This is very different than what I usually post and I want to begin by saying that I may not have all of the facts! I am basing this on what I’ve seen other people say on this site (and others) and fact checking. I am open to learning and understanding more, and I will read any and all comments (if this post gets any lol). If this changes anything, I am making this post through the lense of a black bisexual female, so my view on things may be different. :)

I try to keep this spoiler free in general, but since I’m going to talk about characters and episodes that have released that’s a little impossible, so I will warn you if there are any spoilers in the section I discuss. I want people who haven’t seen the anime to get a taste of what it is! 

In this long post I will touch on the following; LGBT+ representation, POC representation, exposure of the anime(streaming and where to find it), the community/fandom of C&T, Cybelle????!!, and other characters. Remember- this is my opinion and that is always subject to change.

For those of you who don’t know about Carole & Tuesday, it’s a Spring 2019 anime directed by Shinichiro Watanbe in association with the popular Bones studio. Shinichiro is well known for his other successful series such as Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloos and Space Dandy and Bones studio has produced many popular animes like Noragami, Soul Eater and Ouran High School Host Club, etc. [Fun fact, Cowboy Bebop and Carole & Tuesday are said to be set in the same universe and I died when I heard this.]

The plot of Carole & Tuesday, as provided by wiki is:

Set in the future on a partially terraformed Mars, teenager Tuesday Simmons runs away from her posh lifestyle as the daughter of a politician and makes her way to the populous Alba City to pursue her dream of being a musician with just a suitcase and her Gibsonacoustic guitar. On her first day in the city, she crosses paths with Carole Stanley, another aspiring musician who plays the piano, and the two decide to team up as a singer-songwriter duo under the name Carole & Tuesday.

Where can I find this? Why haven’t I heard of it?

I actually discovered Carole & Tuesday through google since I was looking at new and upcoming animes for the Spring and Summer of 2019. Sadly, the website I used show that Carole & Tuesday was an anime many people weren’t looking forward too- but that was only a handful of votes. Personally, I had been super ecstatic since, just from the promo poster, I assumed Carole and Tuesday would possibly be a couple, there’s a person of color as a main protaganist, and they’re both SUPER CUTE. This all made me happy beyond words. 

As of now, Carole & Tuesday should only be available on Japan Netflix. Japanese viewers tend to prefer weekly released episodes whereas Americans prefer to binge shows. I am assuming that once the show has completed airing in Japan (there are going to be 24 episodes) it will appear on other Netflixs around the world. 

I believe that’s why the promo for it has been severely lacking and the fanbase appears non-existant. The fandom is there, if you squint (which is why I’m surprised there’s already controversy). The fact that I had to look through a list on an unknown website and scroll to the bottom to find this anime is very showing of how unknown this anime is.

I also saw a post comparing Yuri!!! On Ice to Carole & Tuesday and I personally believe that OP took the wrong approach. I forgot the posters name (I will edit and tag if I find it again) but the post said something along theses lines; YOI is so popular because it’s a mlm show whereas C&T isn’t nearly as popular because it’s a wlw relationship with poc. 

While this can prove to be true in the future, there are some major differences that were overlooked. I was into the YOI hype when it was first released but it didn’t truly become popular until Yuri and Viktor were canon and everyone was speculating whether it was a kiss or a hug, etc. Yuri!!! On Ice is also a relationship with a person of color, Yuri, and the anime was also supported by Crunchyroll, a major streaming service for Americans/others. It has had two years to become popular, grow and this is one of the very few animes that had positive lgbt+ representation since the relationship grew just as normally as any other type of relationship. It also wasn’t labeled a yaoi/shounen ai (though this sadly didn’t stop the fetishization of the characters and No.6 did it first but let’s move on-). It felt like a big step in the anime lgbt+ community and it won’t be forgotten! 

Carole & Tuesday has just started off! Not much promotion is being shown in other countries outside of Japan and the first episode premiered in early April this year. I believe it’s harsh to compare C&T to such a popular anime when it’s literally just begun. It’s also exclusively on Netflix (besides pirating sites) so there is a little foreseeable loss since it won’t be available on Crunchyroll. But despite that I know there’s hope! Though mlm couples tend to be more popularly viewed, and any pairing that doesn’t have completely white/asian/white-presenting people in the relationship they tend to not garner much interests, but I don’t think C&T will fall into that pit. There’s simply not much promotion of it yet but it still has defied odds and has a fanbase with people from many different countries already!

Though I do see the OP’s point and concerns and they have facts on their side (look at fandometrics popular characters/couples, they’re mostly male) I think it’s too soon to point fingers.

Just imagine how large it’ll get when it has proper streaming (because many people do choose not to pirate in order to directly support the anime and it’s creators!). I think this is where our patience comes into play because if you have seen Carole & Tuesday already, you are most likely not using the most legal means. We are all early to the party.

LGBT+ and POC Representation (spoilers in part of this section, read first line):

I will say this, and this will only be the only spoiler free line, I think it has decent lgbt+ representation and that there’s more to unfold. If you’re going to watch exclusively for lgbt+ representation then I don’t think you will be too disappointed but the anime has a ways to go before it’s finished so my opinion can change.

But the most recent episodes and commentary has caused a ripple in viewers beliefs.

Anne and Marie 

I literally adored when Marie kissed Anne whilst Carole and Tuesday sat there blushing. Then, Marie was careful to ask if either of them had a boyfriend or girlfriend not assuming C or T’s sexualities at all. This happened on in an early episode so this left me to believe that more casual representation was on the way!

Cybelle

This was where it began to become uncomfortable for me and a few others. I actually couldn’t figure out whether Cybelle was a female, male or left to be ambiguous intentional (I just concluded she was non-binary until they used she/her pronouns). But many people concluded that since it was clear Cybelle was a female with an infatuation (not a crush, an infatuation) on Tuesday people simply labeled her as lesbian. A few are labeling her interactions with Tuesday and Carole as a harmful and negative commonly used trope when involving wlw characters.

Cybelle was being creepy and aggressive towards Tuesday, constantly touching her abruptly and without consent and going as far as biting Tuesday’s neck and leaving a mark. Actions like these feed into the trope that is commonly used in anime/television shows and it actually demeans real lesbian couples. It’s like a scapegoat; saying ‘here’s your rep’ but it’s very, very, very bad rep.

The controversy comes in since there are people defending Cybelle’s actions because she’s a girl, and people are literally calling others ‘homophobic’ because they choose not to ship Cybelle and Tuesday despite their ‘canon interactions’ but they still want Carole and Tuesday to become a couple.

My personal stance is that none of Cybelle’s actions were consensual and I will never want her and Tuesday to become a couple. I think the creators fed into a bad trope (I’m not sure if intentionally or not), and the real only development we got from this was Tuesday learning to stick up for herself. I also think that Cybelle is simply a crazed fan who is not in a sound mental state and that her gender may not necessarily play into this; maybe she was meant to just be an aggressive fan that overstepped boundaries and made people uncomfortable and just happened to be female. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be representation and should not be labeled as such.

But these are just thoughts!

Mermaid Sisters - Galatic Mermaid  

I was personally pleased that the Mermaid Sisters blatantly said they weren’t male or female, just like mermaids aren’t fish or human. Non-binary representation is my fucking jam!

But there are worries that this group was used as a comedic affect due to the way the characters were dressed and how they presented themselves, and the fact that they were POC who were interrupted, immediately lost and were shown to be aggressive directly after. 

When I first viewed this I was more focused on the fact that they were non-binary, had amazing voices and had sang a song that was clearly not the most appropriate for Mars Brightest. Now I understand that how there were presented can be damaging and as a person of color, I am disappointed but I’m still conflicted. This scene caused people to ‘cancel’ the show and they’re trying to discourage others to not view it but I want to watch until the very end.

Overall I am super happy with the POC representation in the show! Especially since various races and skin tones are show quite frequently.

Dahlia

The same can be said about Dahlia. People feared the a negative trope of transgender females was being displayed though it’s stated that Dahlia is currently male but their sex varies from time to time, on the official website!

The Community/Fandom

Honestly besides the few odd balls who stir the pot and clearly use harsh words when not needed, the fandom is chill. The artworks are sooo cute and a little scarce but you can find Carole and Tuesday content here, on twitter, on YouTube, Deviantart- literally where you would find any other fanbase! Most people are friendly and (NEED) are willing to talk with you! If you’re still hesitant to watch just message someone who constantly tags Carole & Tuesday because I assure, they’re dying to rant to someone about what goes on lol.

Here’s my last little tid bit on whether or not to watch!

You should watch this show because you want to. Don’t do it because someone else keeps saying you have to because it has representation, or because they think Pyotr is hot or whatever. Of course I am the biggest hoe for Carole & Tuesday and if someone wants a new anime to watch I will suggest this one!! But!! Watching a show just because you feel you have to and you have no genuine interests will dull the experience! You should watch and support the show if it makes you laugh, feel love and genuine enjoyment. That’s the point of anime and that is definitely the point of Carole & Tuesday. 

I have already seen so many people drop the show because they were forced into it and promised things that weren’t delivered (it’s still early on) and then they bad mouth the anime. If you want to start watching when there’s more hype and a fandom, then wait!! If you’re unsure and want more convincing, message me!! If this doesn’t seem like this anime suits your tastes and, then why did you read this far (kidding)?!!! Regardless, I just want everyone to have a good experience when watching so we can have more good vibes all around.

I would definitely give this anime a shot if you love music, beautiful voices, dancing, poc/lgbt+ rep, suspense and just amazing animation all around, though! It’s has a baby fandom but it’s surely going to grow and I can’t wait to see the outcome of the anime and what becomes of our lovely Carole and Tuesday! <3 

I’m also in love with Roddy, just look at him~ | I’m still not super fond of Angela but I am wishing her the best to achieve happiness in the end!

[crayolacrayonhalloweenpacks]

Lo Stesso Tempo

Summary: Logan Berry and Roman Gold are equally ambitious and skilled pianists. Unfortunately, those ambitions are not necessarily compatible. Competition ensues.

Words: 6045

Notes: Alrighty! This is my first Sanders Sides fic, and the first fic I've ever posted in a public space, so please don't murder me if they're super out-of-character or some parts are super rushed or whatever. (Which they are, lmao.) But I really enjoyed writing this, so I decided to post it anyway, because that's the only way to ~grow~ and whatnot. Have a nice day! :)

Read on: Archive of Our Own, Wattpad

Ms. Anne Berry had always wanted to be a musician, and when she grew up without achieving her aspirations, turned to trying to raise one. In her childhood daydreams, she entered a shining hall, hung with crystal chandeliers and gold sconces. A stage was set before a sea of black velvet chairs, upon which hundreds of elegant aristocrats sat on the edge of their seats in anticipation. On the stage was a sleek black grand piano. She walked out to ear-splitting applause and cheering, but the audience hushed immediately, eager to watch the virtuoso at work, when she placed her hands upon the keys. Those dreams turned to dust as she aged. She attended law school, became an attorney, worked so tirelessly she never had time for music. In her new dreams, the baby in her womb grew up to play sold-out shows in those beautiful halls to hordes of admirers in her stead, so that she could at least be at peace with her former ambitions.

In that spirit, she had selected a wonderful name to encourage her future child’s musical inclination. It that of many great composers, graceful, and refined. Clunky, awkward, unexceptional Logan was not the name she would have chosen for her child, but her husband insisted on it. The Berrys had been bickering over this since they found out she was pregnant. It was practically routine.

Ms. Berry would list off notable musicians who bore her chosen name. (“All I’m saying is that it has a fantastic musical significance.”)

Mr. Berry would argue for his family’s honor. (“And Logan has a wonderful familial significance. My grandfather was a--”)

She would dismiss this argument every time but the first. (“Yes, yes,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You’ve given me your little spiel already.)

He would point out what an absurd name it was. (“We cannot name our son Johann.”

“And why not?”

“Are you kidding? You’re going to get him bullied!”

“Johann is an excellent name. No one in their right mind would mock it.” “They’re kids!” Mr. Berry threw up his hands. “None of them are in their right minds!”)

Then the two would stalk off to their respective ends of the house and not speak to each other until dinner, upon which they would smile and nod politely as if nothing had happened.

~

The Golds went grocery shopping every week, just a walk to the store with a list of items they had to buy. Roman was in charge of keeping track of what they had in the cart. Tomatoes, check, chicken, check. He pointed out that it would be much easier to lug the bags back home if they took the car and didn’t have to carry all the bags, but his mama insisted it was barely half a mile, and besides, they had to get their steps in somehow.

It was a path they’d tread many times before, but this time, there was something unfamiliar in the way. Well, not in the way. Even though it was on the sidewalk, it was pushed near the entrance of the nearest shop, leaving a wide berth for pedestrians to pass by. It was new, nonetheless. Roman jabbed his mama’s arm. “Look!”

She glanced down, amused. “Yes?”

“Why is there a piano on the road?” He had only ever seen them in movies. They were huge, glossy black, and, according to his moms, expensive, so even though this one was brown wood and hardly in mint condition, he couldn’t fathom why it would be left out in the elements.

“It’s a public piano, darling,” explained his other mom. “There’s a music shop right here,” she said, pointing to a sign reading SANDERS MUSIC. “They’re probably the ones who put it out here. People just put them out in the open so anyone can play them.”

“Anyone?”

"Yes, anyone. Do you want to play?”

Roman’s eyes lit up. “Yeah!” He plopped down on the bench and pressed down on a key. Roman’s breath hitched. He pressed it again, just to listen to that sound. It sang out over the street like sunlight, bright and brassy and warm. He looked up at his moms.

His mama smiled. “Go on.”

He plunked the key below it, and then the one below that. His head shot up, and he replayed the keys, stuttering his way through “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. “Look, mom!”

“Lovely, Ro,” his mom said, ruffling his hair. He beamed.

"Hey, that was pretty neat!” A brunet man with multiple black cases strapped to his back and dangling off his arms jogged up to them. “You’re a natural.”

Roman rolled the word over in his head in delight. He was a natural. “Thank you!”

“Of course!” He held out a hand to his moms. “I’m Thomas. I own the shop.” His mom shook his hand. “The piano was a new idea my friend pitched, and I wasn’t sure about it at first, but it’s really been a hit so far!”

Roman jumped up from the bench. “You own the store?”

“Yep! Family business.”

“Mama, can we get a piano?”

She chuckled softly. “Honey, those are expensive.”

“How expensive? I have a lot of money saved.”

His mom smiled sadly. “A lot more than what’s in your piggy bank.”

"But I wanna learn!”

His mom flushed red and turned away from Thomas. “Those are expensive too, darling,” she explained.

Roman’s eyes stung. “How much--”

“A lot more than we can afford.”

Thomas cleared his throat. “Your moms are right,” he said when they looked over. “Lessons and pianos cost a lot of money. It’s not a decision to be made lightly. But,” he continued quickly when Roman’s face fell, “I teach group piano lessons at most schools in this area. If you want to go to our school for details, they can give you a registration form. Most are held after school hours, but it’s completely free.”

“Can I go?” Roman pleaded. “Please?”

“I don’t know--” his mom began.

His mama shushed her. “I think we’ll be doing that soon,” she said brightly. “Thank you so much for the information, Mr. Sanders.”

“Of course. Always happy to help.”

“Thank you.” His mom nodded after a moment, then took Roman with one hand and her wife with the other. “Let’s go get some bread, huh?”

Roman skipped all the way to the supermarket and back. He couldn’t wait for school to start.

~

There was a specific story his mom particularly enjoyed telling, and would to anyone who would listen, from relatives at dinner to total strangers in the audience. As she told it, while pregnant, she had purchased a CD of classical music off a website that proclaimed the amazing effects of prenatal musical immersion on later intelligence and academic performance. She played it daily against her belly. A few months later, Logan Johann Berry was born, and at the ripe young age of six, he began playing the piano, beginning his transformation into the gifted musician he was today.

His mom liked to leave out the part when every major news source in the country debunked the website’s claim and she was delivered a ten-dollar refund alongside a note of apology. Once, Logan had chimed in with this fact while his mother told the story to an audience member at one of his recitals and received nervous laughter and a death glare in return. He never attempted it again after the incident. He supposed it somewhat diminished the dramatic effect of the story.

Regardless, it was at this age, during the lesson, that he met Roman. His mother had enrolled him in the after-school program’s piano lessons as soon as she heard. The teacher, Mr. Sanders, had left briefly for the restroom. Before he left, he instructed them to practice playing a C scale using the method they learned--tucking under their thumbs to play F. Logan had already mastered this technique, but supposed a bit of practice couldn’t hurt.

Out of curiosity, he glanced over to the child seated in the middle of the bench and frowned. He had decided to play the first five notes with his left hand and the last three with his right, going against Mr. Sanders’s explicit instructions. “Hey,” he said, “You’re doing it wrong.”

The boy glanced over at him, shrugged, and played the scale again.

"No, like this,” he supplied helpfully, giving a short demonstration. C, D, E, tuck, F.

The other shrugged again.

Irritation growing, he pointed out, “You can’t do it like that, it makes no sense.”

“Yeah it does.”

“No, it doesn’t. What if you wanted to play two different things? You’d need one hand for both.”

“Maybe I have four hands,” he contested.

“Hey, guys, maybe--” the boy on the other end of the bench interrupted.

“No, you don’t.”

“Don’t be mean--”

“How do you know? You’ve never seen them.”

“Because you can’t have four hands, that’s not how people work!”

“Please, can we--”

“Maybe I’m not a person, then! Ooooooooh!” he said, wiggling his fingers.“Maybe I’m an alien!”

“That’s not what aliens say, that’s ghosts--”

“Whoa, whoa, okay!” Mr. Sanders stood between them, holding out his hands cautiously. “Let’s break it up, alright?”

Logan looked down, picking at the keys. “Sorry,” he muttered, but his gut was still boiling. He was just trying to help.

“Mr. Sanders?”

“Yes, Roman?”

“Is this right?” And he proceeded to play the scale in his completely, totally, utterly, infuriatingly wrong way, topped off with a triumphant sneer at Logan when he finished it. That halfwit. Logan dug his nails into the bench.

Mr. Sanders’s face twisted. “Well. That was certainly…”

The two boys looked at him expectantly.

“Well. Hm. And how are you doing?” He turned his attention to the child on the other end of the bench.

Logan grumbled. He was right! And he was just trying to help! Why wouldn’t Roman, or Dolan, or Rolan, or whatever his name was just take his advice when he was clearly the correct one?

The lesson ended, and the three children filed out to be picked up by their parents. On the drive home, his mom asked, “So how was it?”

"Good--”

“How were the other kids? Did you do well?”

“Better than the other boy. He wasn’t doing it right, and he didn’t even listen when I tried to help him!”

“Oh, really?” His mom was more than happy to commiserate, seeming positively ecstatic at the news of his classmate’s failure.

~

Roman practically floated off the stage as the next act was announced, unable to keep the triumphant beam off his face. He had killed his rendition of the Moonlight Sonata, chosen specifically to outdo Logan, who was always being praised for the beauty of his pieces. Well, see him try to beat a piece so lovely it reminded a critic of “moonlight on Lake Lucerne”. His moms and Mr. Sanders had thought it was pretty, too--they were all smiles while he practiced it on the piano in the music shop. And the whole audience applauded a little more enthusiastically after his performance, too. Certainly more than they had for the parrot trainer and that kid who had just hula-hooped for ten minutes straight. So, admittedly, the bar was low. But that meant he had just set it higher--so high that Logan couldn’t even dream of touching it with the barest brush of his hands. Actually, maybe he’d gotten some of the notes wrong--he hadn’t had lessons since a few years ago, before the after-school program was discontinued--but no one would be able to tell unless they’d memorized the whole piece. He was satisfied. That talent show trophy was his.

The act was dismissed to dim applause--some kid with an instrument that looked like a giant violin? How weird--and Logan started heading to the stage. Roman clapped slowly, not bothering to stifle a sneer when Logan passed by his chair. What was going to upstage the Moonlight Sonata? His precious scales couldn’t help him now. The announcer told the audience the name of the piece he was playing, and Roman’s smirk widened. What on Earth was “Shoe-bert” and his impromptus? More like Snooze-bert.

Logan began playing and the audience fell silent. He laughed quietly, earning himself a jab in the ribs from his neighbor. This was Logan’s piece? It barely had anything beyond a basic melody! And there was so much repetition--had he learned anything beyond a couple lines? Anyone could play that. He leaned back in his chair. And here he’d thought he’d get more of a fight. Then, his eyes widened and he nearly fell off his seat.

What-- How was-- It couldn’t be. Was Logan playing a two-against-three rhythm? It was so difficult! Whenever Roman tried to do that, his right hand kept trying to catch up to his left and he would end up with a mess of ugly, clashing notes. Roman could never get that right. Never. But apparently Logan could. He ground his teeth. Before he knew it, Logan’s performance was over. He smirked back at Roman as he walked past.

Roman’s heart dropped even lower when the winner was announced. Hint: he got a participation award.

~

Roman was a high-school heartbreaker, although not in the traditional sense. At his last performance, he got the entire audience bawling into their neighbors’ shoulders. He played with incredible expression, drawing tears of joy and sorrow alike from his listeners, filling them with every emotion possible, from anger to flights of fanciful passion.When Logan played, people just clapped. He hated Roman for it, but there was a sliver of him--which he shoved safely into the back of his brain, because Mom always said he couldn’t afford distractions--that admired it. Logan’s strength was in technique. He had spent countless hours studying Czerny and Hanon, scribbling reminders on all of his pieces, drilling even the shortest measures ruthlessly if he felt there was the tiniest imperfection. It would have to be enough. It had to. There was only one pianist spot in the entire orchestra, and Logan was determined to claim it as his own. His mom had done nothing but encourage his hard work, and the look in her eyes when he told her he wanted to play for the orchestra was so bright he feared his whole world might go dark if it disappeared.

He happened to be directly after Roman in the audition order. Roman eyed him up and down as he approached. “What are you doing here, oper-awful?”

He rolled his eyes. “That makes no sense. I don’t even sing.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Auditioning, like you. Although, on second thought, hopefully nothing like you. I don’t want to play remotely like the guy who’s probably going to try to “Moonlight Sonata” the judges to death again.”

“Is that so, Moz-fart?”

“How juvenile.”

The doors swung open. The student who had just auditioned was smiling broadly until he saw the two death-glaring at each other. “Um. How are we?”

Roman sniffed haughtily. “Well, I’d better get in. Don’t want to be late.”

“Good luck!” the boy called. He turned to Logan as he walked down the hallway. “And to you too!”

Roman disappeared behind the double doors of the audition room, but not before Logan caught a glimpse of his piece. “Papillons.” A common nickname for one of Chopin’s etudes--a rather easy one, at that. Sure, choosing Chopin was playing to his strengths, but Logan thought he’d play something more difficult. Not that he was complaining.

He peered in through the window, and it was only then he realized that what Roman was playing looked nothing like the etude. His stomach twisted and he ducked away from the window. Of course it was the other Papillons--the notoriously difficult piece by Schumann, so difficult that some parts as short as a few measures were learned as separate pieces. Roman came out two minutes later. “How’s that for juvenile?” He brushed off his shoulder. Logan didn’t respond. “Good luck. You might need it.”

Logan lied to his mom for the rest of the year.

~

The New York State Musician’s Association’s annual charity recital was about the great cause they were fundraising for--bringing music education to more schools. And of course Roman cared about that! How could he not? Having a proper music education certainly would have helped in his endeavors as a pianist. However, it was undeniably also about victory, and glory, and basking in the light of the aforementioned. He, like every other reasonable musician in the room, was vying for the Junior Musician Recognition Award, the most prestigious music award for high school students in the tri-state area. The orchestra position was fantastic, as was passing the audition and performing at the recital, period and he was wholly glad he’d earned those opportunities. But this was something to finally prove his talent, the central gem in his crown of achievements. And the fact that he could lord it over Logan didn’t hurt, either.

Logan was the current performer, playing something Roman didn’t recognize. The audience whispered to each other in hushed, pointing out a particularly good bit. He rolled his eyes. Wasn’t speaking during a performance supposed to be rude? He poked the contestant--excuse him, performer--next to him, a Victor or something who went to his high school. Roman distantly recalled him playing cello in the back of the orchestra. “What do you think of that guy?”

Victor jumped. “W-what?”

“What do you think?”

“I--who are you?”

“Roman? The orchestra pianist?” he said impatiently.

“Oh. Yeah.” He glanced at the stage. “He’s good. Is that Bach?”

“Yeah,” he snapped.

Victor raised his eyebrows. “Whoa, dude, chill. I was just asking.”

Roman closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. I’m in my happy place. I’m in my happy place… “Right. Sorry,” he muttered and turned back to the performance.

“Well, what about you?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you think he’s good?”

Roman looked back to the stage. Logan’s posture was perfectly straight, elbows perfectly out, every note perfectly hit. The longer he watched, the more impressed he was. Ugh. His playing was technically flawless. His fingers flowed over the keys as easily as water. Every movement was deliberate but delicate, gliding like a figure skater. He made everything he played look elegant and effortless. Maybe, Roman realized, that was why he had always underestimated him. What had really gone into making the masterpiece before him? How devoted was Logan to his craft that he had this kind of skill?

“Well?” Victor prompted.

"He’s fine,” Roman spat, a bit louder than he intended.

Victor cringed when the people sitting behind them glared. “Sorry,” he whispered.

“He’s fine,” he said, lowering his voice. “Just. Fine.”

The piece concluded with a final chord and he bowed, catching Roman’s gaze across the room. Roman suddenly became very invested in adjusting the buttons of his shirt.

Logan was not fine. He was good. He was a good musician. Really good. Great, even. And also… He swallowed, biting the inside of his cheek. He’d studied his piece for so long. Even if he wasn’t as talented as Logan, at least he could fake it with his hard work. His effort had to mean something. It couldn’t be for naught.

His turn was approaching. He adjusted his buttons shakily, hands damp and clammy, and made his way up to the stage. The crowd applauded politely. The announcer was calling his name and piece. The stage was empty, the keys  alien on his fingertips, unwelcoming and cold as ice. He shook his head, trying to focus. Focus. It would not be for naught.

Well.

He admitted it to himself.

And also, Logan was better than him.

~

Logan was still swooning from the adrenaline. He was certain he’d messed up the trills--his hands kept slipping off the keys, and his heart thundered faster just thinking of it. But there was no use worrying about that now. He took a deep breath and glanced over at his parents. His mom was grinning broadly,  nudging the person next to her, mouthing “That was my son!” He exhaled. It was done. Finally.

The boy next to him seemed even more anxious, bouncing his leg and fidgeting with the edges of his blazer and his tie. “Are you alright?” he asked.

The boy looked over and gave a nervous chuckle, wiping his forehead. “I’m going next so… Whoo. Stage jitters.” His eyes lit up with recognition. “Hey, don’t we go to the same school?” He stuck out his hand. “Patton Baker.”

He shook it. Patton’s hand was damp, and Logan tried to wipe it on his pants discreetly after he let go. “Logan Berry.” He frowned. They were supposed to perform in alphabetical order. “Shouldn’t you have gone already?”

“Oh, no. I’m doing a duet, and my partner’s all the way over there.” He pointed down the aisle.

“Neat. What are you playing?”

“Oh, just a little--hey! Isn’t that the orchestra pianist?”

Roman was onstage. Logan’s gut clenched. “Yeah.”

“Is that Chopin?”

Yes, it was. One of his waltzes--A-flat major, if he wasn’t mistaken. Roman evoked joy perfectly, of course. But he didn’t look the part--actually, he looked rather downcast. Logan always thought he just played what he felt, but that couldn’t possibly be what was happening here. Now he realized how well thought-out his interpretations were, down to the most minute detail. Roman played with skillful subtlety. The tactful shift between staccato and legato, delicately plucked highs and elongated lows evoked grand, golden, glowing joy perfectly. Even when he was miserable, Roman was happier than Logan had ever been. Logan never stood a chance next to someone like him.

~

All the musicians had performed, but Roman hadn’t paid attention to any of them. He’d been too busy wrestling with the thought. Logan was better than him. He imagined Logan snickering with the other orchestra kids after tricking Roman into thinking he had even an ounce of talent, watching him parade around and brag while knowing the whole time what an absolute moron he was. His eyes stung. His heart sank.

"Folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for!”

Roman glanced up.

“All of the young musicians here tonight are extraordinarily talented, and we celebrate that with the Junior Musician Recognition Award!”

Applause.

The announcer cleared his throat. “This award is given annually to one student or performing group to celebrate those who have shown themselves to be valuable members of their musical communities as well as exceptional artists.”

Roman tried to hone in on what the announcer was saying but just slumped back into his seat. Come on, Roman! Isn’t this what you’ve been working for? This was what he wanted. A chance to prove he belonged here with everyone else, that his relentless dedication had paid off somehow. But he couldn’t bring himself to feel like he had before.

~

Valuable members of their communities. Logan would have laughed if he wasn’t afraid of disturbing the anticipating hush that had fallen over the crowd. All his music was just him, holed up in his room, ignoring everyone else so he could...what? So he could keep his mom happy? So he could have a reason to feel superior to everyone else? He didn’t think he qualified as a team player.

~

And what if he got the award? How would that feel? He wanted to get out of the room and never have to know the answer. He was afraid the award would make him feel exactly what he had wanted it to.

~

How much of this was because he enjoyed it? There was a time when he loved music, right? Wasn’t there?

~

He was also afraid of feeling nothing. That everything really would have been for naught.

~

“Would Patton Baker and Virgil Grayson please come to the stage?”

He clapped as Patton, a surprised but ecstatic grin on his face, joined Virgil on the stage to accept their certificates. The audience applauded, and then they were dismissed.

When he got home, he took a step back to examine himself. He felt...fine. He wasn’t upset about the award. He was worried about his mom, though. The car ride home had been spent in silence. He tried to glimpse how she was doing, but each facial feature had been carefully schooled to stony neutrality the whole way. Other than that, he felt oddly calm. Relieved, even. He collapsed on the bed, trying to bury himself in the mattress.

He thought about the piano against the wall of his bedroom. His mom had bought it when he was ten and proved that it would be worth the investment. The piano, new sheet music, lessons, audition fees--it all felt like she was giving a gift to herself. He had always wanted to put a bookshelf there.

What he had thought earlier. That there was a time when he had loved the piano. If he dug deep inside himself, he could find what something that resembled it--the satisfaction of a perfect run-through, the intense concentration that overtook him while learning a piece, the relief that came with the end of a recital or the ecstatic look on his mom’s face after he played. Piano was just another part of his routine. He couldn’t find so much as an ounce of himself that played just for playing’s sake.

~

The most talking they got to was arguing during an audition. They never had a proper, civil conversation until a few days after the recital. A knock came at the door while Roman was wrapping up his practice. He got up from the bench and opened it. “Oh. Hi.”

Logan nodded. “Hello. Um, can I come in?”

“Uh--”

“I-if you don’t, I understand completely. I wouldn’t like for my practice to be interrupted either, I just didn’t know where to find you, but the sign on the door outside said this room was reserved for you, so I figured I may as well take my chances.”

“I was going to say sure.”

“Oh.”

A moment passed before Roman stepped to the side. “Come on in.”

Logan closed the door and seated himself at a desk near the piano. Roman faced him. “What’s up?”

“I…” Roman saw his throat move as he swallowed. “We’ve never spoken.”

“Yeah…”

“And I just wanted to say. You were really good. You are really good, actually. Duets aside, you were the best person there.”

Roman scanned him for any sign of snark, but he seemed genuine. “Oh.”

“No, w-wait.” He took a deep breath. “Your technique is good. But your dedication and love for your music really shines through. You just...blow life into everything you play. I can’t imagine how meticulous you are.”

“I… Oh.”

“Actually, how did you go about learning the Papillons a couple years ago? That was very impressive. I’ve never tried to learn them, but I’ve been meaning to.”

Roman straightened. He could talk music. This was much more familiar territory. “I just picked a couple pages to learn,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Seriously? That’s it? No other tricks or methods?”

“If there are such things, I don’t know them.”

“Really? None of that? Your teacher didn’t teach you how to drill a piece?”

“I don’t have an instructor.”

His jaw dropped. “You’re self-taught?”

“The last lesson I took was that program in elementary school.”

“Wow.” He stared at Roman, wide-eyed and quiet.

“I just practice a lot, I guess.”

“Do you usually do that here?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. When the room isn’t available, I usually go down to this music shop. The owner lets me use the piano there.”

“That’s incredible, Roman,” he said softly. “Sincerely.”

Roman’s face flushed with heat, and he looked away, chuckling. “Well, you’re not bad yourself.”

“Thank you.”

“No problemo.” He stuck out a hand.

He raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to give you a handshake.”

“Why?”

“You seem like the handshake type. Now. C’mon.”

He rolled his eyes but shook his hand. “Anyway, I’m glad that Patton and Virgil got the award. I’ve seen them perform together before the recital. They’re quite a duo.”

He braced himself, but the mention of the recital didn't hurt him like he expected it to. His loss wasn't nearly as harrowing as he'd expected. After giving up on being better than Logan, it ceased to matter to him, but even now that he was feeling better, it didn't affect him. A part of him was even glad to have avoided the potential conflict after Patton and Victor-- He gasped. “Virgil!”

“What?”

“I just remembered, I’ve been calling him Victor for a year!”

Logan snorted. “And he never noticed?”

“I guess not? I should apologize!”

“Yes, you should,” Logan snorted.

Roman grinned. “You know, we could be quite a duo as well. With your talent and my dashing good looks, we’d be unstoppable.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, you’re talented--” he began.

Roman had already stood up, striking a dramatic pose that sent Logan into another laughing fit. “Maybe that’s why the universe made us rivals. Our combined gifts would be too powerful.”

“Rivals? I wouldn’t go as far as that, there are tons of pianists at this school.”

“But how many are on par with you and I? The brightest of our age?” Roman tucked his sheet music under his arm.

“I--I can’t say I know,” he stuttered as he was tugged to his feet. “Quite a pair we’d make,” he mused.

“Dynamic!” Roman punched a fist in the air.

“Vivace,” he suggested.

“That doesn’t alliterate.”

Logan laughed, and Roman along with him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. And he could use someone to talk music with.

~

It became a regular occurrence for Logan to visit after school while Roman was practicing. However, Roman didn’t always practice in the same location. After walking a few blocks, they entered Sanders Music, the bell on the door dinging brightly. Logan glanced around. It would have been small to begin with, but the instruments and accessories adorning the walls furthered that effect. He watched his surroundings warily and stepped gingerly, hoping with all of his pounding heart he didn’t knock something over. His mother would not be happy if she had to pay a damage fine. Despite the worry-inducing surroundings, Roman strode in, spun around, and, with a flourish of his hand, announced “Welcome to the birthplace of my musical career.” What a place to begin. “It’s…” He hesitated, trying to pick through his words carefully.

Roman rolled his eyes fondly, clapping him on the back. “I know it’s cramped. And a bit stuffy. And probably not as fancy as what most musicians are used to, but this is really a place of magic. The kind of magic that turns a clueless little boy with nothing but fantasies of being extraordinary”--he placed a hand over his heart--“into a man with ambition and skill. Plus, Mr. Sanders is super chill.”

“Wait.” The name sounded familiar. Logan scoured his memory for it. “Mr. Sanders from elementary school?”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, no.”

He frowned. “What? Did I say--”

“No, no, it’s not you. I was just...absolutely insufferable as a child.”

"Technically, you’re still a child.”

"I suppose I could still be insufferable now and not know it. Am I?”

“A little.”

“Thanks."

“No problemo, andanti-nerd.”

“That wasn’t one of your better ones.”

“It certainly wasn’t,” he agreed. Roman pulled out the piano bench, sat, and rummaged through his bookbag, presumably for his sheet music. “So, what’re you learning now?”

“Me?” Logan said.

“I don’t see anyone else here.”

“Well, I haven’t really decided on a piece,” he admitted. “I think my mom’s still really upset after I didn’t...you know. With the award. So I’m trying to find something she’ll think more impressive and appropriate for a performance of that magnitude.”

“What do you want to play?”

His stomach twisted. “What do you mean?”

Roman looked at him, deadpan, and stopped rustling his papers. “As in, what have you heard lately and thought, ‘Hey, that’s cool, I want to play it’?”

He looked away and shrugged, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

He raised an eyebrow. “Alright,” he said, and resumed, shuffling his sheet music and placing it on the stand. “Okay. You’re really into technical stuff, right? You seem like the type.”

“I guess?”

“So what’s your practice situation like?” He barely disguised a chuckle, turning his head away to face the piano. “Do you have, like, a schedule? A timer so you can make sure you do exactly an hour, or whatever? I bet you don’t move around as much as I do.”

“I guess not,” he muttered, picking at a loose string on his shirt. “My piano is in my room, so I stay pretty stationary.”

Roman’s jaw dropped. “You have a piano in your bedroom?”

“Yeah. Against one of the walls.”

His jaw dropped even further and gasped, reeling back. “You what? Nobody puts a grand piano in the corner!”

“Baby grand.”

“Regardless! I can’t believe you have an actual piano and you just...shove it in a spot like that.” His voice was tinged with bitterness. “Totally ruins the acoustics.”

“I...suppose.” Logan knew the physics of sound, but to be honest, ruining the acoustics had never really crossed his mind. Maybe he just didn’t care enough to realize that would be an effect. He took a deep breath, leaning against the wall for support. “Can I tell you something?” he said quietly.

“Sure.” His irritation softened.

“I don’t...I don’t believe I want to continue playing.”

“Whoa, what? Is this because of that stupid recital?” Roman stood up, his sheets swept off the stand in his wake. “Because you should know, they totally got that wrong. You were by far the best person there. I don’t see how--”

“No, it’s not--it’s not that. I just...I don’t know.” He sighed, glaring at the floor. “I don’t really...like. It. That much.”

“Then why would you do it for so long?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Roman gave him a knowing look.

“I--I guess. My mom. She really wanted me to…” He trailed off. He hated stuttering, how unsure he was of his words.

“Seriously, is it the award? Because you have serious talent, and it would be so wasteful to just throw it away like that--”

“No!” It came out louder than he intended. Roman flinched. He took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m--sorry. I just… I don’t know. Why do you play?”

“What?”

“Why do you play?” he repeated.

Roman blew out a long exhale. “I guess...I love it, but it’s not just that. It’s like a part of my identity. If someone took that away from me, I don’t know what I would be.”

Logan stared at the ceiling. “I don’t feel that way. I don’t think I ever have.”

“Oh,” he said softly.

He nodded.

“What’s your mom going to say?”

“I don’t know.” He hadn’t thought that far. “I don’t think I’m going to break it to her yet. What with the recital having happened so recently, it wouldn’t be an ideal situation.”

“Well. Whatever you decide, I...support you.” He leaned over awkwardly and patted Logan on the shoulder. “You’re actually pretty cool when you’re not, you know, roasting my taste in music--”

“Gee, thanks.”

“--and you’ll continue being really cool without the piano. It’s not a part of you. You don’t need it to be anything. You’re just...really good on your own.”

Logan swallowed thickly. His eyes stung, and he willed himself to hold back tears. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Roman smiled warmly. Logan's lips curved in response.

It was impossible for Logan to know what would come next. How his mother would react, whether or not he and Roman could be friends given their history. But for now, it was nice to be here, enjoying the company of someone who was willing to move at his same pace.

[tipsycad147]

A Broom Spell for work prosperity and financial growth

By The Alchemist

A Witch’s Broom is not just one more tool for our Magic Craft. It is THE tool, the archetype of witchery, what we see in every popular depiction of a witch. This is not a coincidence. It is an indispensable “weapon” that should be always found in the “armory” of a witch and a mage.

In our “seminal” article Tools of the Craft: Besom, the Witch’s Broom we presented instructions for manufacturing your own magic broom. Additionally, the article provided information about the magic function of this powerful tool.

So after having read the article and being a wise Witch, let’s put our knowledge into practice.

A broom is not (only) for flying! Back on the soil, it also delineates boundaries. Just think how we may clean the pavement outside our home entrance. In so doing, we “claim” our space within the world. This is not egoism, we all need our “safe space”, our privacy and we also should make clear what we can tolerate and what we cannot.

And of course, it is all about cleansing. While a “regular” broom removes the dust out of the house, our magic besom purifies our personal place and space.

A broom spell for prosperity

Using a besom to remove negative energy is a magic activity that can be enhanced by calling upon the powers of two elements, namely of Air and Earth.

The little spell we present you here is inspired by a book we adore and we strongly recommend: The Spells Bible by Ann-Marie Gallagher. We have slightly modified the ritual but the spell comes from this book (pages 130 – 131).

What you will need

Before you get started, fetch yourself the following:

i. Your magic Broom. Preferably, make your own one in the way we described in our article. If this is not possible, you can obtain one by a garden center. Be sure that there the broomstick is made exclusively by natural material, so no plastic should be upon it. If you purchase it, you should go through the ceremony in order to activate its magic powers. Once again, consult our previous article.

ii. Two taper candles: a green and a yellow one. Green color stands for Earth, yellow for Air.

iii. A large bunch of fresh rosemary

iv. A charcoal disk put in a fireproof dish

v. Benzoin granules and fresh basil

vi. Essential mint oil

The Spell

Once you have gathered what is needed, proceed in the following steps on a Wednesday (the day ruled by Mercure, God of Commerce) when the moon is in waxing phase:  

Light the charcoal disk and sprinkle on the benzoin and the basil

Light the green candle reciting:

“Earth, witness this spell”

Light the yellow candle reciting:

“Air, carry it well”

Tie the rosemary bunch at the broomstick around the handle of the brush in a stable way. When done, go around your home or your work space, chanting:

“Born of Earth / Carried in Air

Increase Worth / Away with Care”

Make sure you have cleaned the corners of your rooms where you do business and your workplace is situated.

Anoint the handle of your broom with the mint oil and then pass the broomstick over the incense smoke three times reciting each time one of the following verses respectively:

“Once I invest thee /

Twice I impress thee/

Thrice I then bless thee”

Hang the broom over a doorway. If this is not possible keep it at a corner for at least 10 days.

Bring the candles on a table and while they are still burning write down your working goals and aspirations. Keep the sheet of paper close to the candles until these are extinguished (be careful that the sheet will be out of the reach of the flame of course!). Then keep the sheet to your working room for 10 days as well.

More magic with a Broom?

If you want to practice more magic with a broom, we suggest Deborah Blake’s lovely book The Witch’s Broom: The Craft, Lore & Magick of Broomsticks. Check it out!

Phaethon

See also:

The Armenian Eternity Sign Spell for Prosperity and Longevity

7 Very Simple Magic Tricks for Prosperity

A Simple Prosperity Ritual

https://www.magicalrecipesonline.com/2018/10/a-broom-spell-for-work-prosperity.html

[rosesnink]

The Cursed Heiress, Chapter 5: About Journeys and Middle Truths

A/N: I know I pubish a chapter every 1932 years but it’s because, unlike PB, I appreciate quality over quantity. This is the most complex story I have ever written and it consumes a lot of my time, but the result is worth. That said, I’ll leave you with the reading. 

Summary: Joanna meets the lastest of the people in her cards and arrives in London. 

Rating: T, although I am not explicit on this and make it sound poetic, it is my duty to rate it. There’s a sex scene, but with vague descriptions and easy to skip. 

Word Count: 7947

Catch Up Here 

Vincent Foredale closed some things as he awaited the hour where he’d bid his goodbye to his dear Joanna. Every day, he was sicker and Joanna now needed some healthy environment after dealing with her fiancé’s death. Her year of grief hasn’t ended yet, but it was the only way that he’d ensure that his dear estate fell to his bloodline’s hands and not the scheming ones of Henrietta. He signed the last paper when a familiar presence came to him. Nene Mills, Mary’s aunt. She was less skeptical and conservative than Nya, but she lived fearing her own twin sister. He curtsied to the elder witch and offered a seat, but politely declined.

“My lady. What brings you to my estate?” He asked curious.

“Oh! Nya sends me to check on Joanna and bid her goodbye and good luck on the London season and hunting down her asassain, which can be frightening—”.

“What? Someone’s put a price on Joanna’s head?” He was now, really scared about his daughter’s future “That’s why she left of all sudden of the garden party”. 

“Yes, my lord. It is a shock for all of the supernatural factions, because her death would mean breaking the agreement of all the royalty of each faction”.

“I… Am not sure I follow”.

“Your daughter was supposed to be born. Her birth was planned and Mary was the one who’d conceive her with some special traits that no other witch ever had”.

“What? But… What is she, then?”.

“My lord… You may want to sit down. This is a long tale”.

As Joanna woke up, she noticed her hands more black, all her fingers with the color of the ink. She sighed heavily and got dressed. She went to the parlor, where her grandmother found her. She smiled brightly at her. 

“I knew he’d stick the estate to our bloodline. I knew he wouldn’t let Edgewater fall to Mr. Marlcaster”.

“But at what cost, Lady Grandmother? I know we talked about men of rank, but one thing is innocent flirtation and other big line is marriage” She bit her lip, concerned.

“Well, yes, you certainly can’t hold the estate without support against the countess?”.

Joanna scoffed as she pressed her lips together and tried not to bicker if it was truly necessary to be a man’s propriety. She had heard how men minimalize their wives once they’ve inherited their money and spend it on cheating on them with mistresses and stupid things like cigarettes and being drunk most of the time. If that was marriage, she’d certainly make every man hate her and leave the Earth to be a glorious warrior back to the Circle.

“Joanna, dear, I know that the idea of marriage doesn’t appeal to you, you may even despise it, but I promise you, there are fine men who will grow to respect you and your times”.

“That’s the thing, Lady Grandmother! I don’t want to be forced to respect a scoundrel with useless titles and meaningless money! I want ardent passion, pure respect that is not forced, adventure and pure admiration from the other, but of course, who needs that when the dear money is there? I’m telling you, that fortune will be nothing but ashes one day and you selling me to someone who is not worthy of me will be for nothing!” She snapped.

Her grandmother took a few steps back as she processed all she said.

“How could you say that, Joanna? We must marry of rank so when your sons grow up, they ought to sacrifice themselves much less because they’ll live better! And so will your grandsons and your great-grandsons!”.

“What kind of mother and example would I be, Lady Grandmother, to teach them that is normal to bed a stranger and give him heirs and obey like a ‘good girl’? That’s all I am to you? A maiden who is in need of a man and then will depend on her sons? Is it what all women are? Just reproductive tools? And then what? Do we really have to lower ourselves to a man just not to damage his superiority and fragile ego? I just… kneel down to a worthless scoundrel? Is that my duty? Is that what I’m worth of? Not just me, but all girls and women? Well, shame on you all. Women are just more than tools. Women, they are ambitious, clever, smart, resolutive, tender and much more. They have dreams, they have goals, they can be great, like Cleopatra was once, like Anne Boleyn was once, like Margaret of Anjou. They can also be brave and courageous like Joan of Arc! They shouldn’t be less women just because they decided to have a title that makes them superior to a man. We, too, should have a saying on our lives and what we should be, more than aspiring to marriage and motherhood. What if I want pure glory and eternal greatness? Why I can’t have that? Because I am a woman, because I port a womanhood? Tell me, Lady Grandmother, do we deserve all of this?”.

Her grandmother’s mouth was agape as she processed all she just said. She maintained her stare, not giving up.

“I’m sorry, Lady Grandmother, but I will not tolerate being a courtly toy for those men” She left the parlor, trying to hold back all she had. All the frustration, the anger, the disappointment. She just wanted her father with her and nothing else but bathing herself in love, but instead she’d play courtesan games! She called for Elias.

Maybe some training to stretch her legs would help.

A few days’ later

While Briar helped her with the journey, Joanna’s mind wandered back to the letter, which was clutching in her hands so hard Briar yelped when she saw blood in her hands and Joanna looked at her hand. Some claws were there and she was also biting her lip. She wiped the blood off her mouth as miraculously her claws were in again, her regular nails back. Briar sputtered something before shrugging

“I guess so much blood triggered my view. There’s no way you’d had such monstruous hands! You have a flawless hand”

She nodded as she dropped the letter

“Scares aside, I can’t believe we’re going to London!” She beamed, her hands together, dreamily.

“I thought that you’d chicken out because you didn’t want to leave your, oh so dear Mr. Woods”.

Briar smacked her lightly but laughed.

“Can you blame me? You’d be sobbing in a corner, or writing him letters of a questionable length” She teased, a smirk on her corners.

She showed her the ink-stained fingers.

“I may have left him a letter to find once we’re gone”.

She shook her head but patted affectionely her shoulder. Briar has always been a big flirt and had all the boys long for her. She envied her. She was quite beautiful, her tan skin and blue eyes, her black hair made an acre cascade. Her beauty was simple, yet elegant. If you added her sweetness and iron will and fierce loyalty, she swore her beauty duplicated. Mr. Woods was indeed a lucky man to fancy such a wonderful woman.

“Ha! I knew you did!”.

“But I won’t let a man miss the opportunity to go to London. Let the man miss me a little”.

She smirked at her.

“I taught you well”.

Joanna looked at the clock and frowned as she bit her lip.

“I better get dressed or I’ll appear in London on my nightgown”.

“I have already loaded your trunk with dresses, but you must pick something to wear on the journey!”.

“I… guess some special sleeping gown to sleep and pass out all those hours? I just want to sleep and forget about the bigots I’m supposed to endure though the season”.

“But—Joanna, think about meeting fellow travelers riding there! What if you meet your husband during the journey?”.

Joanna arched an eyebrow and kept herself silent. Briar raised both her arms and sighed.

“You can’t be like this forever! Marriage can’t be as bad. I’m sure you can find in a man the holy trinity: wealth, rank and love. And you’ll let it go just because you have that poor idea of marriage”.

She rolled her eyes and Briar slapped lightly both of her cheeks, startling Joanna. Not that it hurt her, but Briar wasn’t the kind of woman who recurred to violence.

“Alright, madam, you are going to dress and try be positive for, at least, a pair of hours! No more negativity” She leans over the wardrobe and snatches a rather dashing dress.

“I found the most darling dress to ride! Anyone who sees you on it will be eager to get to know you!”.

But what if I don’t want to and I just want to sleep it off? But she just kept her mouth shut or Briar would do something about it.

The dress is a military-style riding jacket in Edgewater’s colors navy blue and gold. Joanna decides to try it on and Briar adds a necklace. She looks at herself in the mirror as she nods to herself. Maybe mortals do have taste.

“You look perfect! Your father and your grandmother await you in the porch”

She nodded as she hid some daggers and her golden staff. Just in case. Elias had all the rest of her equipment with him. She heard of all sudden a sound and in a minute she was outside the barrier spell. With flying knife in hand, she glared with her view and saw… Kamilah Sayeed, alone. She looked at her and started to speak.

“I’m not here to attack you, Joanna. I’m here for an invitation, in fact”.

Joanna glared at her “Why would I trust you?”.

“You can always put a truth spell on me. I’m not here to cause harm, I’m here to invite you to an invitation. Gaius wants a truce”.

“How do I know that I will keep my head attached to my neck?”.

“Because Gaius wants me to… watch over you. There’s a secret he wants to tell you. Let us know if you’ll come before midnight. Until then, Lady Joanna” And with that, she was gone.

She approached her father and grandmother outside, concerned looks on their faces.

“Who was that, dear?” Her father asked.

“She… was an old acquaintance. Nothing to worry about”.

He nodded, relieved and took her hands in his.

“Joanna, you don’t know how pleased I am to have you representing our family in London” He beamed and she rubbed her thumbs in his hands “You look every inch of the sophisticated young heiress you are. No doubt every gentleman will want to meet you”.

Her grandmother beamed at her “Meet her, nothing. If she keeps dressing like that, she’ll have a dozen men asking for her hand!”.

“I loathe every word of that sentence you just said” Joanna grimaced. Last thing she wanted was lustful mortal men preying over her hand and money.

However, the earl’s face fell “I wish I could come with you”.

Joanna’s heart skipped a beat “You’re not coming to London?” No, no, no, no, no! She couldn’t be there alone with a lot of men and her permissive grandmother. Not him.

“Not right away. I’ve got a lot to handle back at the estate at the moment…”.

“Father… I can’t do this without you” She placed her hand in his cheek… and saw it. A familiar voice, a death curse, blood, pain, helplessness… She got livid as she understood what was holding him back “She came to visit you, didn’t she?” She asked, breathless “She… she found you”.

“Joanna… what do you mean? You’ve gone livid!” Her grandmother gasped. She tried to reach her but she raised a hand and glared at her.

“I want a moment alone with my father. Alone”.

Her grandmother sighed and nodded, leaving both of them alone. Joanna grabbed gently both of her father’s forearm as she examinated him. Thin, hard stomach, low blood pressure, cold flesh, tiredness, fever, sore throat and heavy lungs. She punched the carriage hard, making a big dent on it!

“Joanna… why do you seem of all sudden… on edge?”.

“My grandmother… she has cursed you, Father. These symptoms are primarial to a slow death curse” She tried to fight back tears “All because I prefer your love over hers”.

She looked around and took off one of her gloves and her father’s eyes went wide, caressing her black fingers. Joanna bit her lip and he kissed them, putting them on his cheek.

“Why haven’t you shown me this before? And why would your grandmother want me dead?”.

A tear helplessly rolled down her cheek “Because Mother and I loved you over her and it’s illegal to love a mortal, man or woman. She broke the vow and my grandmother cursed her and now you, as a lesson to me to not get too attached to humans or they’ll all… suffer while I keep living, their blood in my hands”.

“But… that’s cruel! Loving someone superior or inferior shouldn’t be forbidden! Love should be beautiful, not tragic…”.

“That’s why I can’t marry a mortal man of rank, father. The Circle will find out and will kill yet another innocent man. I…I have enough blood in my hands. I don’t think I could handle another corpse”.

Vincent hugged his daughter tight, making ghosts on her back, kissing her head, holding her. Joanna hugged him back, sobbing lightly, affording herself to be weak among mortals.

July 1814, Grovershire

“Come on, this way!” The boy yanked his fianceé’s hand as they both giggled, the dawn barely there as they approached an abandoned barn “Hurry up, Jo!” He beamed, giggling.

Joanna giggled before he pulled her in a secluded corner. He kissed her with a sly smile on his face. He took her across the barn to a field no one in Grovershire seemed to talk about. He sat in the grass, patting a seat beside him. She arched an eyebrow but sat beside him. He kissed her again, caressing her hair lovingly, letting her being atop him. He looked at her, biting his lip and his hands were doing that nervous movements.

“What is it, Tommy?”.

“I just… I want to try something with you, away of prying eyes. Do you trust me enough to… close your eyes?” A pink blush came from his ears and she nodded. She had a good view even with her eyes closed “Just… tell me… when I should… stop”.

His fingers brushed past her ankles and pantalettes shyly, gazing if she was comfortable. She caressed his shoulder as an encouragement and when she thought he might throw her like a prank, she felt a jolt on her whole body and she gasped, surprised but delighted. She looked at Thomas and nodded. She had read about these activities, but witnessing them was… another whole world. She bit her lip as the sweet tickle and pleasurable nerves surrounded her, her hands on his back, his name dancing on her lips, little gasps escaping.

“Do you like it?” He asked. She nodded “Are you comfortable?”.

“Thomas… never stop”.

And with that, they kissed.

Joanna sighed as she remembered the last of her conversation with her father while she was in the carriage.

“I would not ask you to bid to someone who doesn’t please you” His face fell “A marriage of advantage can be… bleak”.

“You say it because of that nightmare made of curls and weak bones of Henrietta?” Joanna arched an eyebrow, her blood boiling.

He was about to say something when the countess herself appeared without looking at her eyes, speaking to her father over her shoulder.

“Edmund and his fianceé have already left to London. I am confident that they will make more valuable connections” And with that, she slammed close the door, and Joanna wished to hurl the damn door to her back, but again, she contained herself.

“Alright, why on the Seven Hells will Mr. Marlcaster and Miss Sutton be with me at London? They have nothing to do there” She scowled.

Her annoyed grandmother said “She has sent them to turn people against you, clearly” Then, she composed herself and looked at her, considering her words “Although… they’re not as loyal as you think they are. If you treat them with kindness, you might be able to turn them against her, with one or both”.

“Why befriend someone who thinks of me so low? The only thing they deserve from me, is my cold shoulder” Joanna scoffed.

“I understand why that might not be pleasing, but Edmund is a sweet boy and his abilities have never matched his mother’s ambitions”.

She hummed as she considered if she shall do it or she’d just leave them be.

Now, she saw how the carriage was now getting away of Edgewater, Clover trailing not too far and Briar talking to her. She looked at Briar and took her hand in hers.

“Hey, I don’t mean to offend, I love talking to you but… I could use some air for some hours if you don’t mind”.

“Of course, I was just trying to take you away of bad thoughts”.

“And I appreciate the effort. Truly”.

The carriage stopped and she asked Mr. Harper to hand her Clover. The horse neighed and she mounted her, patting her head. She salutes Miss Parsons and Briar from the window as she rides slowly the horse, feeling a strong connection to her. She patted her head as she gazed to the English land, a pinch of nostalgia in her heart. She remembered visiting the Court of the Circle and dance during three straight days and do magic freely, not worrying about if someone would rat on her. She took in the breeze and exhaled, a bit of her own air grazing the carriage. She smirks for a moment before whipping the reins, the wind in her blazing hair. Mr. Harper laughs as she takes the lead, a determinate smile on her lips. For a moment, she feels alive and connected to this enthralling world.

Several hours, the carriage puts a halt for a snack and rein Clover as Mr. Harper tries to help her out, but she jumps and lands expertly on her feet, an amusing smirk on her face. He laughs at the sight and she approaches the ladies.

“This place looks like a perfect spot for luncheon” He comments.

Moments later, the luncheon is served with mortal delicacies and Joanna tries out the apples and nods approving at the mortals.

“This tastes rather delicious, indeed”.

Clover dips her head as she tries to nip at one of the apples but she raises an authoritary hand.

“Don’t”.

She halts and neighs. Mr. Harper is again impressed about her antics. Clover begs her for a bite and she hands her one special apple.

“Here, dear. This one helps you to heal faster and will strengthen you when we get on the road again”.

She neighs happily as she eats the apple and Mr. Harper quirks an eyebrow. She shrugs.

“The dowager countess sent lemonade!” Mr. Harper beamed.

“My favorite!” Miss Parsons exclaimed.

They all ravened on the food as Joanna observed the whole thing. After it, Miss Daly spoke up.

“So… how does this… marriage market… consist of? I hope Joanna is not to be auctioned”.

Joanna rolled her eyes as she shook her head.

“Oh, you know, the girls from the best families compete to catch the eye of a man of an even better family and men try not to be caught at all”.

Joanna quirked an eyebrow, now interested in what they had to say about that.

“Why ever not?” Briar wondered.

“I assume they like their independence. If I had a man’s freedom, I’d never want to be tied down to a wife” Joanna commented.

“It’s a game” Mr. Harper said “They do it because they’re bored”.

“Well, I don’t think giving little women hopes and then dropping them is an amusing game” Joanna huffed “If they’re bored, they should play chess or whatever mortal men do to unbore themselves. Back in my land, that is a big shame of a man to do such an awful thing to a young lady”.

“I hereby agree with you, Joanna. Though I wonder… is it the same among gentry?”.

“Aye” Mr. Harper replied “When we marry, we’re looking for someone who’ll make our work brighter and bring us happiness. If you’ve no money to gain, you might as well have the joy to enjoy it”.

“Now that’s a little fairer”.

“Well, when it’s not the bride expecting as well…”.

Everyone laughs, but Joanna keeps being stoic and the laughter fades. Joanna stands up and stretches like a cat.

“If you all excuse me, I’d like to walk for a while alone while I can”.

They all nodded as she started walking when she sniffed the smell of something evil… another shadow who wanted her dead. She quickly casted a barrier spell towards the group of mortals and prepared her staff.

“Come on… I know you’re in there!”.

A horrible howl ripped the silence and a demonized bear charged against her. She mirrored his actions and jumped high, twirling her head to the sky and landing on the other side as she shot him a spell and prepared her hands when she felt bleeding on her lips... fangs. She hissed and ran towards him and snapped the bear’s arm in two. She felt the claws again and she was in awe. A vampire’s fangs and werewolf’s claws? What the hell was going on? She had no time for this! She lunged and hit the bear right in the ribs and scratched the shoulder with her claws. She closed her eyes for a moment and summoned the ancient forces and a portal appeared! Only faeries could do that… She kicked hard the monster and sent it right to its hell dimension and the portal closed and her strengthened barrier spell faded away. She dropped her hands to her knees and panted before starting the auto-healing. When Mr. Harper and Miss Parsons approached, she was as flawless as always.

“My lady! I heard screams and howls! Are you hurt?” Mr. Harper asked, concerned.

She nodded and walked to the carriage.

“I’m fine. I have to”.

Several hours later, Joanna rested her legs as she played with her own gloved fingers, gazing at the landscape as she wondered what happened at luncheon. She had the claws of a wolf and a vampire’s fangs, along their speed and strength but not their bloodlust. She could also create fae magic and summon what they summoned. She knew she had to write a message to her aunt at once. How was this possible?

“You awake, ladies?” Mr. Harper asks, breaking the silence “We’re almost in London”.

“Hmm? Already?”.

She looked at the window to find fine townhouses and its architecture. She had to admit, mortals knew how to build a city.

“It’s so huge!” Briar commented, her mouth agape.

“Hmm, it’s a nice view”.

“There’s near a million people living here” Miss Parsons commented.

“It must be the grandest city in the world!”.

Joanna chuckled ironically, not believing she just said that. She has transported herself to New York, Prussia, Russia, Spain… There were bigger cities than London.

Suddenly, the carriage slows down and Mr. Harper calls someone down.

“Was someone supposed to meet us here…?”.

Joanna looks at the streets. No one is awaiting them on Edgewater’s name nor looking at them at all… Joanna uses her supervision to look further from her safe spot and sees nothing.

“Please tell me that someone knows how to get to the townhouse from here” Poor of them if they didn’t.

The carriage falls silent as Joanna climbs down, determined to find a spot to cast a location spell.

“Joanna, what are you—”.

“We’re lost, Briar. But do not fret, I shall find a way there before this gets ugly”.

Miss Parsons’s worried face looks out of the carriage window.

“I’m confident that is near somewhere Grosvenor Square, but I… cannot find an exact way to get there”.

“Then I shall find it myself!” Joanna said confidently.

Joanna takes a few steps away of the carriage, determined to go home, no matter what. She just had to find out how without drawing suspicions. She looked around as she observed the walking, hurried people and the carriages going and coming. She closed her eyes as she tried to locate Elias, but the connection was shattered… corrupted. She opened her eyes, gasping and getting on her knees-thing that was unusual of her- and her breath got ragged. The world shakes as she sees a familiar figure afar from all that mess. Thomas. Her Tommy. But there’s something wrong… his eyes are all back and his shape is all gray, something evil about him. She tries to reach him, but he sees something, smiles devilishly and disappears. She turns her head to Thomas’s direction as Mr. Harper cries out her name.

“My lady! Look out!”

 A gold-decked coach barrells straight to her! She closes her eyes as her hands open as she cries out, helplessly

“NO!”

 The horses neighs as some energy makes the coach bolts lightly and the driver reins the horses, both obeying the woman before them. As she raises, clutching her gloved hands together, she glimpses through the window how the shocked man offers his hands to steady her.

 “I’m good, thank you” She manages to say

 “Gracious lady, I offer you a thousand apologies and the head of my driver should you demand it!” He says, completely embarrassed to almost trample the lady.

 “Do not fret, my lord. No heads shall roll for now, and I accept your apology. You don’t seem like the kind of maggot that would do that on purpose” Joanna comments

 “That was a mere joke. I do apologize. I don’t ever expect a lovely lady walking unescorted in London”

 “I just arrived. My carriage is right there. Do not fear for me, my lord”

 The man bows flourish as Joanna asks herself if all this fuss is truly necessary. Something tells Joanna she has seen this man before.

 That attire, his foreign features and his hair… he was The Sunkissed!

 “I know it is bad from here not to wait to be introduced, but I am a foreigner and I may take some liberties, no? I am Imperial Prince Hamid, envoy to England from my cousin the sultan”

 “The sultan of the Ottoman Empire, you say?”

 “Yes, His Imperial Majesty Mahmoud the Second, Caliph of Islam, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. As his ambassador, I am pleased to make your acquaintance”

 “Pleased to meet you, Your Highness. I may confess that you are quite the charmer, despite the fact that you almost trampled me” She teased him as she bows slightly, careful with the skirts.

 Prince Hamid catches her hand and tries to lift her to her feet, but she lifts herself with a cat’s agility.

 “Careful of your skirts, I wouldn’t wish to damage such a lovely attire”.

 “My name is Lady Joanna Mills of Edgewater”.

 Prince Hamid’s face lights up with recognition.

 “Then you are the Earl of Edgewater’s daughter”.

 “Equilicuá”.

 “I should have recognized the Earl’s clothes in your dress” He admitted “I have worked for your father in the Parliament! He is a great man. Perhaps I could offer you a ride back to his townhouse?”.

 “Well…” She thought about it, maybe she could bond with him, convince him to see each other again “I’d love to, really, but my carriage is—”.

 “Your man can follow me, but tell me you would not deny the opportunity to spend these few minutes with you, to apologize for the injury I nearly caused?”.

 She teased him, pretending to think before shrugging. She looks at Mr. Harper, who nods and she looks at the prince “Hm, how could I say no to a man apologizing for being careless? Much more when I can torture you with that excuse”.

 Prince Hamid’s coach was comfortable, with plump cushions and well sprung wheels that she could toy with that hardly jolt on the rutted streets. She nods to herself before looking at the man “I have been posted in London for the better part of two years. It is my greatest pleasure to serve my sultan by travelling the world” Prince Hamid beamed.

 “Sounds enthralling. Where else have you been?” She crossed her legs as she looked quizzically at the man.

 “Before coming to London, I spent three years in Athens and one year at the court of the Tsar Alexander. It is my aim to see as much as I can of the world”.

 “I, too, have travelled in my training quests” She smiled proudly “I’ve been in Portugal, the Kingdom of Spain, China, India, South America, the Caribbean, Italy, Siberia and Japan”.

 Prince Hamid seemed in awe with her and broke into a smile “Truly? That sounds incredible! How many languages can you speak?” He asked.

 “As many as my brain allows me to” She winked.

 “Can you speak in one of them?”.

 “Hmm” She thought of one and then broke into a smirk “Tvoya kozha napominayet mne boga apollona” Your skin reminds me of the god Apollo.

 The Prince chuckled “Thank you, though I have never been compared to a God before”.

 “First time for everything. What brings you to London though?”.

 “I am asked to negotiate a treaty with the Parliament. Trade and borders most of the part” He said, sounding sad… and done. Men could be real exhausting.

 “Englishmen won’t leave the other countries’ borders alone and mind their businesses instead of acting like they were like ancient conquerors, will they?” She asked, knowing better about the supremacy of those morons “Can’t say I’m impressed or surprised. They like getting what they want like the Prince Regent to drink even the water from the vases”.

 Prince Hamid laughed out loud with her witty remind as he nodded “Yes, the Prince Regent has a true liking for drinking, indeed”.

 “Sounds importantly dull though. Listening to grown men in cigars and clothes from 1656 while they talk about how important is to please their king while they’re all half-drunk? Pass”.

 Prince Hamid laughed again as he shook his head at her remarks “You are quite unusual, my lady” He looked at her, like some fascinating thing to study “I am quite fortunate that Parliament moves with all the speed of a glacier, so I have vast amounts of time to fill myself”.

 “See? The drunk men drowned in cigars and supremacy makes it that slow. That’s why they never last that long in life”.

 Prince Hamid chuckled “I guess their habits are a bit excessive and prejudicial for their health”.

 “That and how they get mad at everything and behave like they can do everything. Whereas us women have to endure the fact to give birth to the children of those useless twats” She scoffed.

 Prince Hamid crooked his head to the side “You seem to have made up your mind about men”.

 “I might be young, but I’m not blind or deaf. I have vowed in fact to never attach to a man that is not my equal in romance, but friendship, complicity and the promise of great adventures. Also, motherhood…” She grimaced “I don’t think I’d be up to the task. My lifestyle would be… too much for such a young, small thing”.

 “I… don’t think a noblewoman’s lifestyle is too much for a baby”.

 Oh, dear, if you only knew. Witches are infertile. And vampires. The process could kill me.

 She shook her head “Anyways… does your lifestyle in London running down young ladies in the streets as one of your hobbies by any chance?” She changed the subject rapidly.

 “Only today. But perhaps it is something I should try more often, should it always introduce me to someone so lovely” He smiled.

 She scoffed amusingly, shaking her head “Ay, por favor”

 The carriage pulled up in front of a stately townhouse. Prince Hamid opened the door and tried to help her out, but she jumped expertly on her feet and smirked at him, He chuckled at her action.

 “I suppose I must bid you farewell now. This is your father’s house, and you will be wishing to see it” He commented, looking sad.

 The truth, she itched to get to know the man a little bit more. The house could wait.

 “Thank you for the ride, Your Highness”.

 The prince bowed with an exaggerated frown “Lady Joanna, I am heartsore that our time together ends so soon. Now that we are here, I wish I had led you through half of the city before we stopped here” he whined.

 Joanna chuckled, shaking her head “If you wish more of my precious time, quit the riddles and say it already”.

 “I won’t deny that it would bring me great joy to have more of your time… I find you fascinating, Lady Joanna of Edgewater. I have met so few English ladies and none are like you” He admitted “I must get to know you better”.

 “What is holding you back again?”.

 “Walk with me now, Lady Joanna. We are both outsiders to London. Let me show you the city, and have a moment longer to bask in your fiery beauty” He proposed.

 “I was wondering when you would request it”.

 “I’m doing it now” He beamed.

 Prince Hamid tucked her hand firmly on her shoulder as they walked down the street of three-history, white-washed houses. Joanna studied the architecture as she wondered if these houses were made by the time the House of York ruled, representing the white rose of the said family.

 “The lords of Edgewater have always maintained their townhouses year round, but most of them are rented. When Parliament ends, they sit empty”.

 “Can’t say I’m surprised” She remarked.

 “You seem to know a bit of these lords even if you have grown up in the countryside”.

 “People like to talk and many lords have lands in Grovershire. One just listens and I happen to have unpleasantly met those lords, trying to… well, you know it, but they always failed or ended up giving them a piece of my mind” She shrugged “And you? Are you in London a year-round? Or you eventually return home?”.

 “I was fortunate to be invited by the Prince Regent last year to winter with him in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton” The prince shrugged, the colorful silks of his shirt rippling and catching light “This year… it will depend if my lord, His Imperial Majesty, calls me home to Constantinople”.

 Joanna tilted her head to the side “I will never get the devotion to the mortals to one man just because of a God-given title. Last time I checked, death, sickness, we’re all the same in those and yet we are ought to obey. Worst of it, they never talk about the great Queens or Empresses! They’re as worthy of appearing in the books as men” She said, determined.

 “I guess we’re taught to obey and oblige to them. But you’re right, I hardly hear a word about the Queens or the Sultanesses of the countries”.

 “Because men themselves toss them to a corner because, in the end, we are more powerful on our own than with a man and I stand by that”.

 Prince Hamid seemed impressed by her “What makes you think that?”.

 “Let’s start with Cleopatra. She was a fine queen until Marc Antony and Caesar appeared and ruined her with their stupid wars that she ended up killing herself beside a man who wasn’t worthy of such an exquisite woman like her. Catherine of Aragon was also a great queen, but the men had to win. Elizabeth Tudor, need I to keep going or you get now my point?”.

 Prince Hamid smiled widely, highly impressed by her knowledge “I do and you’ve got impressive points. There is truth in those women’s lives”.

 She smirked with sufficiency and looked at him “Your Highness… tell me about Constantinople. I never had the chance to visit the town inside, but I saw the walls of it”.

 “For me, it is home, which never holds the interest for me of travelling from afar. But it is the city that will always hold my heart”.

 “I know the feeling. I’ve seen great wonders, but none of them hold my heart so dearly as my humble Grovershire” She smiled fondly at the memory of the fields and the green “What is it like?”.

 “Ah, you ask more than you know. When Saxon tribes were still fighting Vikings in the mud of London, Constantinople was the capital of the East. It is hard not to feel our history there. Especially one of my family”.

 “I know your sentiments very well…”.

 Prince Hamid gave her a rueful smile “But we are not in Constantinople now. We are in London, and you have seen little of it either”.

 As they turned a corner, they suddenly drew into view of an immerse castle of soot-coated white stone “I take that’s the, oh so feared Tower of London?”

 “Even across the world, we have heard of all the executions which took place there”.

 Big minute of silence to Anne Boleyn and the witches that were burnt there, indeed.

 “I know how you must feel. A man’s fear and closed mind and power-driven mind can be very dangerous, monarch or not. I have witnessed many horrors, but none of them compare to the ones who think they can play God’s advocate”.

 “Which horrors?” If she could tell him… Minotaurs raping young women, massive slaying, the Order trying to purify the world, wars between elves and humans that ended in horrible bloodshed, but she always shuddered when she heard a wife has been killed or raped by a man because he thought he had the right or she ‘was asking for it’. Men were more dangerous when in many states of mind than the Gods gave them credit for, and all following that lecher of Zeus.

 “That is an unpleasant tale for other day” She shrugged it off.

 “It is a pity that such a beautiful building has such a grim story”.

 “It could be worse. When it comes to show authority, men won’t hold back to show who has the power, especially the ones who are under his command. But women are far more merciless, we just don’t need bloodshed to show our power and fury. In fact, my mother herself has shown men how to make them fear and obey her without killing or torture anyone. We are smarter in that upfront”.

 “Your mother sounds like the kind of woman that no one would like to cross indeed”.

 “She taught me well about it”.

 “Which is why I live by the philosophy that we must make every effort to grab for happiness” He smiled.

 “Oh really? What makes you happy?”.

 Prince Hamid gave her a slow smile “A walk with a woman of rare beauty and insight”.

 She scoffed amused as she rolled her eyes “Flatterer”.

 “It’s true though. So many of the girls here are loathe to share their opinions with a man. Especially a foreigner”.

 “I don’t. I like to think that our opinion does matter and we should all be heard and we should hear everyone. Free speech should be a human right. Also, that bad is to share an opinion with such an outrageous flirt?” She teased.

 Prince Hamid laughed, startling a nestling pigeon. Joanna bit the inside of her mouth to not laugh “Perhaps that as well. I admit I see little appeal in modesty”.

 A few well-dressed men stopped and were watching the couple with disdain. She heard them perfectly saying ‘These foreigners are invading our home’ ‘They should’ve stayed at home’. She glared at them and growled at them “Come and say that to my face, maggot, and let’s see how many teeth you conserve” She started to walk towards them, but Prince Hamid stopped her on her tracks, a frown on his face.

 “They’re not worth the effort”.

 “But—I have heard what they said! They have no right to call us that just because they were born and raised here! Maybe if they removed their stick wedged between their—”.

 “It doesn’t matter, really. I know I am still novelty to some Londoners”.

 “What you are is a human being worthy of respect, no matter the color of your skin and place where you were born, as me and everyone!” She gave them a dirty look and challenged them with the look, intimidating most of them “I know this because my mother and I were treated the same way in my former home, but that never stopped us to stand up to ourselves. We were different, but as worthy of their respect as all of them. We were still human. Our hearts beat the same, we bleed when hurt and we die in similar consequences, isn’t that enough?”.

 “And yet, I hear you are to be the heir of Edgewater” He smiled.

 “Thing that displeases many people, but I know my value and it’s not worth to try to please people who I don’t tolerate myself to be accepted. I rather be alone that with company that will backstab me soon” She lifted her chin.

 “Perhaps it is in the hands of those like you and I to… broaden the people’s worlds” If you only knew what I know…

She lifted her chin, showing that she was still worthy and respectable young lady and showing pride in who she was, walking past the scowling men, not letting them win as Prince Hamid swept them a low bow “A good day to you all”.

 “Those men will remember you with kindness. Those small gestures are always remembered”.

 Prince Hamid smiled and took her arm “Kindness is a gift that you can offer everyone. And the more you give, the more you have left”.

 “A beautiful philosophy, indeed”.

 “My cousin the sultan says it is why I am a good diplomat. Always, I ask the question ‘what can make everyone happy’?”.

 Joanna’s face fell “You cannot make everyone happy always. People will get hurt soon. They will leave. They will fade. We cannot make anything to stop it. Not even the own creators” She gushed.

 Before he could speak, down the road the church bells suddenly chimed. Prince Hamid took a guilty step back “I have enjoyed our walk, Lady Joanna, but your father would not thank me for keeping you away longer”.

 “My father is in Edgewater”.

 “He let you come to London alone?” He asked, surprised.

 “Well, my friends are—”.

 “Waiting, of course. I will return you to them now”.

 He walked her back to the townhouse, where she found Briar and Miss Parsons just coming outside, looking for her friend. Prince Hamid kissed her hand and Briar clasped her hands in her mouth in excitement.

 “I have enjoyed our walk. I hope most ardently to see you at some other balls and parties this season. I should be greatly obliged if you save me your first dance”.

 “First I’d have to be eager to dance or attend a ball at all”.

 She rolled her eyes as the prince laughed “I shall be sure of having an excuse to make you come, then, if that means I can see you more often”.

 “I shall see, indeed”.

 “Farewell, Lady Joanna. I trust your staying in London is… pleasing”.

 “We’ll see”.

 Briar and Miss Parsons looked at her with burning curiosity as the prince remounted his carriage and drove off “Who was that tall, dark Adonis?”.  

 “Shh, Miss Daly! I believe that was Prince Hamid from the Ottoman Empire”.

 She gave her a sly grin and Joanna arched an eyebrow “I know where this is going, just don’t”.

 “He seems to have quite taken a fancy to you”.

 “Well, I didn’t” She composed herself “We were just talking and being friendly, nothing else. Not everything is about romance” She scoffed.

 Before they could say anything, she stormed off to the stairs and into the house.

 The air was cold, so cold it felt like a thousand glasses were cutting your skin. The figure steps in front of the man in the throne, his white hair, signal of his elderly power looked at the boy.

 “So… did she saw you?”.

 “Yes, my lord”.

 “And did you get to hurt her?”.

 “No, my lord. But a carriage almost trampled on her. She sensed black magic.”

 His lips curled in a devious smile as he laughed, caressing the woman’s silhouette, her ghostly shape huffing “You see that, Mary? Soon, your child will be mine and I shall reign as their only and beloved sovereign”.

Two shadows bring in the old woman, who is grunting and struggling. They throw her in front of the man, who snaps his fingers and gives her back her Sight.

 “You! Traitor…”.

 “Shh, Nya, dear. I don’t want to hurt you… I just want to merely chat”.

 “How dare you… after what we did for you after your wife’s passing—”.

 He slammed his fists into the stinky throne made of skulls… human and supernatural skulls.

 “Don’t you dare to mention my beloved Cirilla!” His eyes were pure rage, now turned red. The boy shuddered, but never moved a single inch.

 “What shall I do with the girl, my King?”.

 “Corrupt her. Drive her crazy. Make her feel powerless, useless, utterly useless. Get in the bottom of her darkness and destroy her from the inside. I will do the rest. Joanna Mills won’t touch a single golden inch of my rightful throne. I’ll kill her before she discovers anything”.

 “You complete ass” Mary snapped, her chains sounding “That will be breaking the peace treaty you agreed to sign. Chaos, war and bloodshed will spread around this universe soon we will know nothing, all because of your ambition”

 He looked down to her as he curled his fingers, making her scream in pain, grabbing her throat tightly, gasping.

“That is where you are wrong. The world will be ruled by the one and only superior race: the witches and warlocks. We will be the only ones in this galaxy, to hell with the mortals! They are useless and despicable, I shall erase them forever! I will not sleep until everyone of them is dead, and when they are, I will be the one and only rightful king. No more hiding, no more fear, just us and our magic. And Joanna will be dealt with, trust me. No other sixbrid will ever step on my plans. But before kill her, I will ruin her. By next year, I will be the purest, holiest, most powerful man alive!” He extended his hands, laughing as a storm took place. Nya shivered in fear as Mary looked in horror at the boy.

 “How could you? She loved you! She loves you!”.

 “I am not her Thomas anymore. I am her destructor” He curled a smile on his face as the image of Joanna glaring to Mr. Marlcaster appeared on the screen.

[aion-rsa]

Upcoming Movies in December 2020: Streaming, VOD, and Theaters

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As we recover from whatever Thanksgiving celebration we were able to safely put together in these strange times, there is something reassuring about the fact that December is here and 2020–a challenging year on every level–is almost over.

While December is normally packed with theatrical releases that range from buzzy awards contenders to end-of-the-year blockbusters and holiday-themed comfort films, this year is not business as usual. Sure, Oscar hopefuls abound, such as Mank, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Nomadland, but two of those three will be on Netflix. As for the tentpole contingent, well, only Wonder Woman 1984 is still opening in theaters–and you can also watch that on HBO Max right after opening your presents on Christmas morning.

In other words, there are plenty of new movies coming out this month, and more than one way to watch them. That’s not the worst thing in the world even when a pandemic isn’t raging, and perhaps an unintended gift for cinema lovers–one that may keep giving well into 2021.

Mank

December 4 on Netflix

Director David Fincher’s film is either a masterful ode to old Hollywood or a dull vanity project, depending on your point of view. Many critics, including our own David Crow, love its devoted recreation of both the era in which Citizen Kane was created and the style of that and other films of the period; others asked aloud why we should be so invested in a dissolute writer and the long-forgotten gubernatorial race that dominates a large portion of the film?

There’s no doubt, however, that Mank is beautifully crafted (right down to the “cigarette burns” indicating film reel changes) and is anchored by a typically immersive Gary Oldman performance. Oldman plays the enigmatic Herman J. Mankiewicz, whose authorship of Orson Welles’ masterpiece has been a source of contention for many reasons. After a limited theatrical run, it now comes to Netflix as one of the streamer’s major awards contenders.

Nomadland

December 4 in U.S. Theaters, February 19 in the UK

Pegged as the film to beat for all the Oscar love this year, Nomadland tells the story of Fern (Frances McDormand), a woman in her 60s who lives an itinerant existence–as a literal nomad–out in the American West after losing everything to the Great Recession. The narratively sparse film explores both the liberation of living off the grid as well as the despair that comes with the feeling that the world has forgotten about you.

Our review from the Toronto International Film Festival called the movie a “modern day Grapes of Wrath” and in addition to utilizing real American nomads in the film, both director Chloe Zhao and McDormand lived and traveled in vans during the shoot (which took place while Zhao was prepping for Marvel’s Eternals, a project which seems like it couldn’t be more the opposite of this).

The Prom  

December 11 on Netflix and in Select Theaters

Based on a Tony-winning Broadway musical, The Prom stars Meryl Streep and James Corden as New York City stage stars whose careers go down the tubes after their expensive new Broadway show becomes a major flop. But they soon plot a way to revive their flagging fortunes by heading with two other actors to small-town Indiana. There high school student Emma Nolan (newcomer Jo Ellen Pellman) has been banned from attending the prom with her girlfriend Alyssa (Ariana DeBose).

Directed by Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story), the film’s sparkling cast also includes Nicole Kidman, Keegan-Michael Key, Kerry Washington, Andrew Rannells, Tracy Ullman, Mary Kay Place and more. We’re not familiar with the stage show, but Murphy’s first huge mainstream success was Glee, so this kind of brings him back to his high school musical days. But wait, no role for Sarah Paulson?

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

December 18 on Netflix

There’s no avoiding the heartbreaking reality that Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom contains the final screen performance of Chadwick Boseman, who died last August from cancer. And seeing him on screen again makes one realize just what an incredible talent we lost. As the ambitious yet hot-headed trumpet player Levee, Boseman is stupendous: he has two scenes in this movie in which all the rage and pain of being a Black man in America pours out of him, and he simply sears the screen.

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As does Viola Davis in the title role of the blues singer who assembles her band on a fateful day in 1927 to record her songs–for a white-owned record label, of course. Based on August Wilson’s Tony-winning play and directed by George C. Wolfe, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is certainly about the exploitation of Black musicians by white businessmen. But it’s also about the blues themselves, as well as race, religion, sex, and African American culture, all stirred up in gripping fashion. One of the year’s best.

The Father

December 18 in U.S. Theaters, January 8 in the UK

The Father is simply one of the best films we’ve seen this year. Director/screenwriter Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his own play stars Anthony Hopkins as Anthony, an elderly English man suffering from the onset of dementia. Olivia Colman is his daughter Anne, who is apparently planning a move to Paris to live with her partner and trying to find a new caregiver for her father after he scared off the last one.

Or is she? As the film goes on, the viewer begins to wonder what is actually happening. People drift in and out of the narrative under different names, Anthony’s spacious apartment seems to change around him, and time itself seems to bend. As a result, what could have been a conventional drama about illness and memory becomes something brilliant and utterly heartbreaking.

The Midnight Sky

December 23 on Netflix

George Clooney’s seventh film as a director (and his first acting gig in four years) finds him back in the same sci-fi territory he’s traversed as an actor in movies like Solaris and Gravity. Here he plays Augustine Lofthouse, a lonely scientist who (along with a little girl) may be the last person left alive on Earth after a global catastrophe. He races to contact the crew of a spacecraft that has been sent to explore a potential new home for humankind, in order to warn them away from Earth and give themselves a chance to survive.

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Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 21st Century

By Don Kaye

Based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton, The Midnight Sky looks like it will be a beautifully shot and designed film at the very least. The premise is engaging, but Clooney has been hit and miss as a director (his last good directorial effort was 2011’s The Ides of March). We’ll see if sci-fi adventure is a genre at which he can excel again.

Wonder Woman 1984

December 16 in the UK, December 25 in U.S. Theaters and on HBO Max

Patty Jenkins’ long-awaited follow-up to her culture-shifting 2017 origin story of the Princess of Themyscira has bounced all over the 2020 release map, with Warner Bros. not giving up hope of getting Wonder Woman 1984 into theaters at some point. Now the studio has split the difference, resolving to open it in theaters on Christmas Day while also giving nervous fans the chance to watch it at home (and give the struggling HBO Max platform a needed boost).

Gal Gadot returns as Diana in a standalone adventure that takes place in the 1980s and features her squaring off against both the diabolical Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and the grievance-fueled Barbara Ann Minerva, who evolves into arch-villain Cheetah (Kristin Wiig). Plot details are under wraps–including how the supposedly dead yet still youthful Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) ends up back in Diana’s life–but we hope that this second Wonder Woman adventure channels the sheer exhilaration that its predecessor brought to the table.

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Movies

Wonder Woman 1984: Does HBO Max Premiere End Theatrical Releases as We Know Them?

By David Crow

Movies

Diana and Steve’s Relationship in Wonder Woman 1984 is “More Intimate”

By Kayti Burt

Soul

December 25 on Disney+

Director Pete Docter follows up his brilliant Inside Out with another animated exploration of the metaphysical and existential. In this case, aspiring jazz pianist Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) accidentally finds himself headed for the Great Beyond, but manages to change course and land instead in the Great Before, where souls prepare to join life on Earth. Can Joe and a cynical soul named 22 (Tina Fey), who has no desire to become a human being, find a way to get Joe’s soul back to his body in time for the biggest gig of his life?

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Movies

Soul: How Nine Inch Nails Scored the New Pixar Movie

By Don Kaye

Movies

Inside Pixar’s Soul and the Secrets of Life Before Death

By Don Kaye

Docter (and co-writer Kemp Powers) tackle some of the Big Questions this time around, and the answers will no doubt prove as thoughtful as any of Docter’s previous work. The visuals are of course up to the usual jaw-dropping Pixar standard, and the striking score is a mix of jazz by Jon Batiste and electronics by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross–that’s right, Nine Inch Nails have scored a Disney release.

Promising Young Woman

December 25 in U.S. Theaters, February 12 in the UK

Originally slated to come out last April, Promising Young Woman stars Carey Mulligan as Cassie, whose one-time dreams of completing medical school were derailed by an unspeakable tragedy that has gone unpunished. Now the smart yet single-minded Cassie is obsessed with righting that wrong–and will stop at nothing to seek justice.

Killing Eve showrunner Emerald Fennell makes her directorial debut with this mix of thriller and black comedy (which she also wrote) that is certainly part and parcel of this particular moment in history. The always compelling Mulligan is joined in the film by Alison Brie, Laverne Cox, Bo Burnham, Jennifer Coolidge, and Connie Britton.

One Night in Miami

December 25 in Select U.S. Theaters, January 15 on Amazon Prime Video

You can read a comprehensive review of Watchmen star Regina King’s directorial debut here. Adapted by Soul co-writer Kemp Powers from his play, the film envisions what happened on the night in February 1964 that Cassius Clay (El Goree), Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and football star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) all assembled in a motel room after Clay–later known as Muhammad Ali–defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship.

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Movies

New Christmas Movies to Stream: A Holiday 2020 Streaming Guide

By David Crow

Movies

Toronto International Film Festival 2020 Movie Round-Up

By David Crow

King may not fully escape the movie’s origins as a play, but she projects confidence behind the camera and gets distinctive performances out of her four stars. Goree and Hodge are the strongest, but Ben-Adir’s doomed civil rights leader and Odom Jr.’s introverted singer are the heart of this timely story, which builds to a powerful and inspiring finish.

News of the World

December 25 in U.S. Theaters, January 1 in the UK

Director Paul Greengrass’ first feature since 2018’s grim 22 July stars Tom Hanks as a widowed Civil War veteran and traveling storyteller who agrees to deliver a girl to her aunt and uncle against her will, years after she was taken by the Kiowa people. They travel hundreds of miles and face grave dangers as they search for a place that either can call home.

Based on a 2016 novel by Paulette Jiles, News of the World was originally set up at Fox three years ago, but was sold to Universal following the Disney/Fox merger. It marks the second time Hanks and Greengrass have collaborated, following 2013’s excellent Captain Phillips, and its vast natural scope and period setting are new territory for the director.

Monster Hunter

December 25 in U.S. Theaters, 2021 TBC in the UK

Based on the globally popular video game series, Monster Hunter stars Milla Jovovich as Captain Artemis, who is inexplicably transported along with her military unit (via sandstorm) to a different world where dangerous, powerful monsters reign supreme. Their only hope to survive and stop the creatures from destroying our world is to team up with another band of warriors for the ultimate battle.

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Movies

As Wonder Woman Heads To HBO Max, Will Black Widow Make A Move To Streaming Next?

By Don Kaye

Games

Mortal Kombat: The Definitive Video Game Movie of the ’90s

By Matthew Byrd

Monster Hunter finds Jovovich working once again with her creative and real-life partner, director Paul W.S. Anderson, on yet another video game adaptation–although doing all those Resident Evil movies together certainly didn’t seem to hurt their bank account. Nevertheless, video game movies are notoriously hit and miss (mostly miss), so we’ll see if Milla and Paul work their magic again.

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