#did solar actually speak Italian??

[meemo32]

At least we know where’s Lunar

[merelygifted]

1st image: A view of Jupiter's south temperate belt and Great Red Spot, as captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on December 30, 2020.

2nd image: Jupiter as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope on June 27, 2019 (left). An illustration by the French artist and astronomer Étienne Léopold Trouvelot of Jupiter as observed on November 1, 1880 (right).

How Did Jupiter Get Its Great Red Spot? | Scientific American

...  This giant storm—the largest known in the solar system—is made up of two regions. One is an oval made up of reddish gases, and the other is a surrounding whiter, thinner band of gas (called the Hollow). The GRS lives in Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt, one of the many bands across the planet’s face that give it a striped appearance. These bands are latitudinal wind patterns akin to the jet stream on Earth, but they are more complicated because of Jupiter’s lack of surface, the enormous convective currents of gases rising and falling through the atmosphere and immense air-bending forces from the giant planet’s rapid nine-hour-and-55-minute rotation.

Unlike Earth’s hurricanes that can wander across sizable swaths of our planet, storms on Jupiter tend to stay in their latitudinal lane, confined by powerful jet streams. That confinement also sustains the GRS, making the storm extremely long-lived, but its actual age has been an ongoing astronomical enigma.

In 1665 Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini spotted—so to speak—a dark oval on Jupiter’s face. It was seen on and off again until 1713, and the recorded location of this “permanent spot” was the same as that of the current GRS. Cassini is credited with discovering it, though it may have been seen by another astronomer in 1632; if that is true, it lasted at least 80 years.

Despite astronomers’ ongoing monitoring of Jupiter, however, after 1713 this spot seems to have disappeared. The next known sighting of a storm at that latitude dates to 1831, well over a century later, when astronomers reported a dark spot there. (It wasn’t described as red until the 1870s!) This spot—our familiar, beloved GRS—has been continuously observed ever since, making it nearly 200 years old.  ...

[fedtothenight]

this competition asked to write a short story in the dystopian genre and my entry's below - don't rb!

the sweetest fruit

The boy gasped, straining against the padded frame of the jeep just as the vehicle slowly came to a halt. ‘Look!’ he shouted, pointing at a spot about a hundred feet from the group. ‘Look, Mum! That’s so cool!’

Half-instinctively, his mother had already grabbed a fistful of his tank-top, ready to yank him back. She had spent the entirety of the trip sitting as still as possible, facing forward, eyes stubbornly fixed on the self-cooling top of the car in a pointless effort to fight her motion sickness: her patience was already wearing very thin without her eight-year-old personal safety hazard trying to get himself killed.

‘Ethan, for the love of God,’ she snapped. ‘I already told you to stop leaning over the frame! Do you realise how dangerous that is?’

‘No, Mum, you’ve got to look!’

‘Emma, darling,’ her husband whispered, a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘You should really look at this. It’s magnificent.’

Whatever it was, even her fifteen-year-old daughter - who had spent the last thirty minutes texting her friends back home without so much as a glance at the scenery - was jaw-slacked, so she slowly got up on her wobbly knees and peered over her shoulders.

In the shadow of a tree, protected from the sweltering heat, two lions were feasting on a zebra. Perhaps belatedly, as it’d taken her a second to drink the sight in, she realised that the poor thing was still alive: writhing as blood, red and hot and pulsing, gushed out from where the bigger lion - the male - had bitten into its back.

The smaller one, the female, soundlessly sank its teeth into the dying animal’s neck, and the latter gave one last weak kick, finally falling limp. When the lioness stood again, it was almost impossible, from this distance, to see her eyes amidst the bloodied mess on her face.

‘Oh, my God, Matt,’ Emma said. ‘This is beautiful. Nature truly is beautiful.’

‘You don’t really get to see this kind of show anywhere else today,’ their guide said from the driver’s seat. He sounded proud, as if he’d hunted and fed the zebra to the lions himself.

Alberto wasn’t wrong, Emma reasoned. Given that they were parked in the middle of the privately-owned biggest North American savanna, he - or rather, his employer - was the one effectively feeding the lions. Like feeding mice to cats. She glanced at her children, glad they could have a window on a reality that was long gone. To think it would have taken a trip around the world to watch this spectacle - imagine the motion sickness then! If only, she considered wistfully, there could be a way of replicating glaciers just as accurately.

‘Honestly, it seems a bit unfair that they get to eat real meat,’ Ethan said at the dinner table a few hours later. He was picking at his plate, moving the fried grasshoppers they’d been served for dinner around, but not really eating any. ‘While we are stuck with insects and microprotein or whatever.’

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. She was tired and sunburnt, her sensitive pale skin suffering under the blistering sun of the region, so different from the temperate weather back home North. She had a splitting headache, too. She was, yet again, at the so-called end of her tether. ‘Ethan…’

‘You should be glad you get to eat at all,’ her daughter said at the same time. ‘There’s a reason it’s illegal to eat meat. These animals are here for show, anyway. They were originally from Africa.’

‘Shut up, Becca,’ Ethan mumbled. ‘Everybody knows there are no animals in Africa. There’s nothing there.’

Becca’s cheeks were tinted pink, eyebrows furrowed. ‘Of course there were animals. There were animals everywhere before the Climate Crunch.’

‘Both of you, stop it,’ Matt interjected. ‘Ethan, your sister is right. You should be grateful that we are here in the first place. That said…’ He leant forward, voice down to a whisper: ‘I have a surprise for you. Or, well, Richard has a surprise for us. When he arrives tomorrow, he’ll bring us real meat. Bovine meat.’

‘But it’s illegal,’ said Becca.

‘It’s technically illegal,’ Matt acknowledged. ‘It’s not if you know how to get some and no one from Animal Conservation finds out. Do you think our president only eats insects? Please, Becca. Use that big brain of yours.’

‘Yes,’ Ethan snickered. ‘Use your brain, Becca.’

‘That is too generous,’ Emma said. ‘Inviting us here in the first place was, when even he hasn’t gotten here yet. Now this. I wouldn’t know how to repay him.’

Truly, all she felt was jealousy. Her guts twisted with the sheer force of it. Yes, she had known that Richard was comfortable. The gated, heavily guarded estate spanned for thousands of acres, comprised the 5000sqt villa they were staying at (five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a cinema, marble floors and solar panels on the rooftop), an indoor swimming pool inspired by vintage photos of Amalfi, two indoor tennis courts, and the savanna they’d explored earlier in the day. ‘The biggest conservation area in North America since they repurposed the Midwest,’ he’d bragged in a video call, two weeks before. ‘You will love it. The holiday you deserve. Make yourselves at home.’

But meat? He could get meat?

Matt’s family had designed DeNuketify, which was basically the only effective way of purifying ocean water from whatever nuclear waste Japan kept spewing so that it could be used and, most importantly, drunk. They had managed to flee the continent with the last handful of greencards about the time her family did, too, taking their precious Queen’s accent with them to found Nova London. She was the governor of Nova London now, for God’s sake. The bloody queen herself was long dead but she was alive, and yet, yet - they had never had meat.

‘We don’t have to, Emma,’ Matt said. ‘We just need to remember how lucky we are to enjoy this meal, this house, this holiday. Look at that,’ and he nodded towards the TV screen again. ‘Actually, Alexa!, volume up!, I think the Italians have finally surrendered.’

The war correspondent’s voice grew louder. She - they, Emma reminded herself: Becca always told her not to assume anyone’s gender - was wearing a dust mask and reading from a bundle of documents. ‘The last military hospital in the island of Palermo was destroyed four days ago by a Canadian airstrike,’ they were saying. ‘The rebels surrendered soon after, followed by the group of extremists in the Nebrodi island. Etna had already surrendered last year.’

‘It’s important to remember that these actions were necessary to finally put a rest on the instability of the region,’ they added. ‘Canada will fund a complete restoration of the Southern archipelago. The remaining civilians will be provided with a shelter and then, when the time comes, a suitable job. Nova Italia will be the sixteenth Canadian state, the fourth offshore. There are also hopes to extract petroleum from the seabed of the sunken city of Gela.’

‘Watch them make it into a holiday hotspot,’ Matt commented. ‘The weather is still nice there.’

‘Ooh, I heard about this.’ Becca picked her phone back up and started furiously typing away. ‘There’s this journal entry soldiers found over there, under the rubble, that’s gone viral. It was translated into English. Wait, I’ll pull it up. Alexa, volume down.’

‘I’m not sure I want to hear it,’ Emma said, uneasy. ‘We’re on holiday. Should we not watch a movie? Something funny?’

Becca waved her away, as if she was an annoying fly. ‘It’ll be good practice for my drama class.’

Matt didn’t help—he simply shrugged, half-apologetic, as if to say: Let her do her thing.

Becca made a show of clearing her throat, too, before she started reading from her phone—her high voice now grave, studied, as if she were speaking to a larger audience: ‘I wonder what peas taste like.’

Right then, the scene on screen changed to footage of what looked like a destroyed village, something out of an apocalyptic movie. Emma found herself unable to look away.

‘Nonna used to say that her own great-grandmother grew them in her garden. Figs, too,’ Becca read. ‘They say they were the sweetest fruit.’

Emma wondered if this journal was actually written by a child or a teenager. It didn’t sound like an adult at all. She couldn’t help but picture a girl, a brunette, not much older than Becca, perhaps a rebel, or a trainee nurse on the sweet cusp of adulthood, holding this journal of hers, or perhaps a gun. It violently reminded her that her own daughter, too, would have to serve her time in the Forces in three years.

On screen, the Canadian soldiers walked among the ruins, zigzagging between torn up clothes and discarded weapons, surely looking for surviving rebels under the rubbles.

‘Isn’t it silly that we can hear the fighters overhead and that all I can do is think about food?’ said Becca. ‘I wish we could also eat figs and be happy.’

On screen, the camera zoomed in on a long-forgotten man's shoe, some crumpled photographs, on a pile of bodies in black bin bags.

‘Grandma - I miss her - left me a poetry book, too, from T.S. Eliot. I hope the book is with me when I die, so I can give it back to her when we meet again, afterwards. So I can tell her that T.S. Eliot was wrong.’

On screen, one of the soldiers approached and showed a little trinket to the camera: a bloody, heart-shaped locket that must’ve once been golden, hiding the miniature pictures of two brunette children that would never have a name.

‘That’s enough,’ Emma said. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. ‘Stop reading.’

‘The world may have not ended with a bang, but it didn’t end with a whimper, either: the world didn’t end at all. Sometimes,’ Becca finished reading, ‘I wish it had.’

‘What a load of rubbish,’ Matt scoffed. ‘Everyone should feel lucky to be alive. I bet this journal is a fake. Alexa, turn the TV off.’

As the screen faded to black, Ethan finally popped a grasshopper in his mouth. ‘I can’t wait to have meat tomorrow.’

[sailorheadcanons]

The Silver Millenium had a common language, and almost all of its citizens spoke it exclusively. The planets did have individual dialects and accents though.

Mercury: A short, clipped accent, similar to a modern upscale-english with dashes of classical latin thrown in. They don’t do well with ‘w’ sounds.

Venus: A flowing, lilting accent. Think french and romanian. They do have a native venusian tongue which might be the mother language of the ‘romance’ languages on earth. They tend to roll their arms and can get carried away on their hard consonants.

Earth: Famous for the most variety of accents, as Earth got a lot of interplanetary visitors. It did have a upper-class accent that was considered the ‘true’ earth accent by people who had never been there. It’s hard to describe in modern terms, but it was something like a cross between an egyptian and italian accent with long vowels, rolling consonants and confusing jumbles of guttural sounds for their slang words. The other planets would often joke their accents were impenetrable, although most agreed they were quite nice to listen to- especially when sung.

Moon: Unhurried, tend to hold their vowels. Their native language was a bit like hawaiian, a bit like french, and a bit like spanish. Their native language was a lot of vowels and had sparing use of hard ‘k’ or ‘c’ sounds. To the taciturn Martians their language sounded like ‘a lot of effort to say little’. Most Lunarians were bilingual, speaking mostly ‘moon-speak’ to each other and the common tongue to others.

Mars: Another melting pot of accents- although unlike Earth the native Martian accent tends to heavily influence it’s newer arrivals. The ancient Martian Accent is somewhat similar to a german/russian/northern european accent. They tend to be very to the point and short in their speech, which leads to a lot of ‘slang’ words that can give an entire paragraph in a few syllables. Martian sayings are very popular with the rest of the solar system.

Jupiter: ‘A Jovian shouting is indistinguishable from a storm’- a popular martian saying. Jovian’s roll their ‘r’s like their in a contest. Shockingly similar to a Scottish accent, the Jovian’s have two volumes- loud and louder. Their accent (and lungs) developed due to a need to scream at each other over approaching super-storms. The Amazons, the other major civilization on the giant planet, tended to have a more greecian accent. A popular comedy skit in the Silver Millennium was a Terran and Jovian trying to have a conversation.

Saturn: Chronian accents are similar to the ukrainian or slavic accents of today. They like their hard sounds and tend to hold on to their ‘s’. Like the Lunarians, Chronians are bilingual, although their tongue is near impossible to learn. Chronian children even have a hard time picking it up and typically don’t talk much until they’re about 5.

Uranus: More guttural than most other tongues. Almost no nasal sounds can be heard from a Uranian, and they have issues with ‘v’ sounds. Almost as spartan in their speech as Martians on their home planet, get an Uranian into a planet without killer winds and they’ll happily talk your ear off. Actually the inventors of the ancient form of sign-language, as opening your mouth during an Uranus sandstorm was a great way to choke on sand.

Neptune: Neptunian accents were considered the height of culture at the time, due to their domination of music and arts in the old world. Like ancient terran, it’s a bit hard to translate into modern terms, but the most similar accent would be a mix between caribbean and australian accents.

Pluto/Charon: The Plutonian and Charon accents are most similar to a modern-day pan-indian accent. It’s not 1-1, but it’s close enough that Setsuna sometimes listens to people from that area when she’s feeling home-sick. The native Plutonian language was a hodge-podge of hundreds of different tongues and was incredibly frustrating to learn.

[sunshineandfangs]

Klarosummer - Tent || Viaggio

@klarosummerbingo

“‘Go camping,’ he said. ‘It will be good training,’ he said.”

Caroline harshly blew a piece of hair out of her face as she continued to grumble to herself.

“Yeah, okay Dad, I get it! Surviving the wilderness is useful experience or whatever. Except hello? It’s totally not! Nothing in the woods is anywhere near as douchey and slimey as the fanged frat boys you always send me after! Ugh!”

Stomping a bit more loudly than was perhaps wise, Caroline continued her trek through the woods. The weather had been fairly cold for north Georgia, even if it was winter, only barely pushing above freezing.

So of course she realized something was very, very wrong when it went from cold and frosty to humid and hot. And, not that she knew enough about dendrology to intelligently comment, but she was pretty sure the trees were different too.

Friggin’ great! We’re not in Kansas anymore here comes vampires, werewolves, and portals, oh my! God, there should have been some ominous glowing or something! I would have steered clear then. But noooo! Of course not! That would be helpful! Can’t have that!

Even Caroline could run out of steam eventually, and as she failed to come across much of anything she started to channel some of her frantic energy toward something more useful.

Planning.

Obviously she had no clue where she was, so survival first. Food, water, shelter. 

That saying should be in reverse order really, she absently thought as she checked off what she had and what she needed. The whole camping thing was actually helpful right now. She had a portable tent, sleeping bag, several packages of nonperishable food (jerky, granola bars, trail mix, etc.), two large water bottles, a water filter and some water purifying tablets, a basic first aid kit, a hunting knife, some matches, her trusty multi-tool pocket knife, her cell phone, a few changes of clothes, and a stake. All perfectly organized in her pack which just so happened to have a solar panel powered charger. 

...

She liked to be prepared, okay?

Preparedness really worked in Caroline’s favor as several days past with no change in her circumstances. She realized quickly there was no damn cell service. And with that easy solution out the window her frustration went into hunting and cooking a few rabbits to supplement her food supply. 

However, more troubling was the lack of GPS. She knew several ways to access it even without cell service, but there was nothing.

Of course things really came to a head when she realized it wasn’t just a question of where she was.

---

Caroline startled when she heard a voice call out and sat up in a flash. It felt wonderful to finally hear another person. Talking to trees, some birds, and herself really got tiring after a while.

“Hey! Excuse me? Could you tell me where I am? I’m afraid I got a bit lost.”

She heard whoever it was come closer, but they didn’t say anything back. Caroline frowned a bit, shifting to put her feet under her as she traced the hilt of her hunting knife. The blade was conveniently out of sight beneath part of her sleeping bag.

Finally, a man stepped through the foliage. 

Caroline blinked, wide eyed.

Well, that’s not good.

He was on the dirtier side, and while Caroline internally scrunched her nose a little, that wasn’t the main concern. No, it was his clothes. 

A tunic and leggings. Both seemingly made of plain, coarse fabric. Some odd looking boots and a weird hat-cape-mini shawl thing to complete the look. Not exactly 21st century wear.

Maybe he’s a very dedicated LARPer? Caroline offered up to herself with dwindling hope and rapidly increasing alarm.

While she had been taking her time observing him, she realized he had been doing much the same, with a similar stunned look. His face rapidly reddened and he hurried to look elsewhere.

“What - adorns - improper - a mockery - dastardly?”

Caroline’s brow furrowed as she worked to try to understand what the man was saying. It was Italian. Sort of. But some weird (old?) dialect. Frankly, she was thankful she could understand any of it, and, for the first time, she thanked her lucky stars that her Dad took her with him when he divorced her Mom and threw her head first into Buffy the Vampire Slayer lessons Bill Forbes Style™. The world traveling to meet her Dad’s various esoteric mentors was really paying off right now.

With slow, halting speech she attempted to reply. 

“I no mean to mock. I lost. Apologies, speak small Italian.”

The man’s expression softened, although he still looked more to some place beside her than directly at her.

“Encountered trouble - beset by brigands? Where - guardians? Your family or husband?”

Caroline took a deep breath, straining to try to understand better.

“I traveling with Father, but were separated. Could you please tell me where am?”

“...Tuscany.”

---

Caroline nervously fiddled with the red fabric of her dress, warily eyeing the large castle before her. It had been several weeks since she had been all but hit over the head with the fact she had been displaced so severely in both space and time.

Rizardo, the man who found her, was actually quite the sweetheart. He and his wife had recently lost a few children and were quite happy to dote on her. In return for the kindness, Caroline helped them with their small farm and took the time to improve her ye olde Italian.

So, it was only recently she was able to understand some of the rumors in town. Apparently, the ruling family of their province were collectors of the strange and fantastic. Which to Caroline’s trained ears meant involvement with the supernatural. If she was lucky they might be witches or warlocks and able to get her home or at least provide some more information.

Staring up at the castle, an odd shiver running down her spine, Caroline felt she may have used all her good fortune on finding Rizardo.

---

When Caroline finally had her audience she knew her good fortune was definitely all used up.

They, or at least one of them was a vampire.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! Caroline internally screeched, though thankfully stifled most of her reaction. Seriously though, was her luck really so terrible?

Caroline felt a displacement of air behind her, and she tensed realizing she may not have hid her reaction well enough.

“This is rather curious, brother. Did you hear that little spike in her heart rate? That flash of nervous sweat? Do you, perchance, think this one knows?”

The man in front of her looked up with a frown.

“That seems a bit hasty to conclude, Niklaus.”

She couldn’t help the way her heart sped up in reaction.

An arm encircled her waist, twirling her around to face the uncomfortably close visage of one Niklaus. Klaus. The Klaus, knowing her current luck.

He smirked down at her even as his eyes remained dark with wary curiosity.

“Now, how is it you know to react to my name, sweetheart?” He traced a line down her jaw with his knuckle, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “And I would advise against lying if I were you.”

Fuck.

---

Author’s Note: Today’s title is “Journey” in Italian. How did I get from tent to here? Who knows. Not me.

Edit: Reposted because tumblr was being annoying

[protezioni]

6, 7, 10, 17, 18, 21, 23, 31, 36, 38, 45, 55, 62, 72 & 92 for the sunshine, Yarohe ☀️ ~Solar

Of course!! Thank you for sending her in !! ♡♡ Love you!

Yarohe Yara

6. What would they give her life for?

Anyone in the Protezioni! That's her family right there! She would give her life for them. She could also give her life for another chance to change something in the past, but she knows too much would change if she did so she wouldn't.

7. Are they in a romantic relationship? With who? How did they meet?

No, so I can't answer any of this! But if you ship her with someone, that's fine!

10. What are some of their talents/skills?

Her good memory, her great instinct, her quick senses are some natural skills she inherits. However, she has great talent in sports, especially tennis! Swordfighting is already a given, but actually, any close combats with blades.

17. Where were they born?

She was born in the city where the Protezioni House in Japan is!! It is known as "Sakujinsei", but like it is an original city I made! I might make some info about it later on!

18. What languages can they speak? Where did they learn these languages?

She can speak in Japanese, English and Italian! Japanese was her original language so that's a given, and English and Italian was mostly taught by Hiyaro! She also knows tints and bits of multiple languages, but it is what she picks up from allies.

21. What is their favorite thing about their personality?

The fact that she can easily bond with people since she has social yet understanding personality!

23. What is their least favorite thing about their personality?

The fact she's a bit hyper sometimes or "too-friendly" in other people's eyes. She thinks she can get annoying or too clingy, and that's actually one of her worries.

31. Does this character ever put somebody else's needs before their own? Who do they do this for? How often do they do it?

Yes, she does. As stated before, for the whole Protezioni famiglia. She probably does it way too often, but she doesn't realize the possible risks and consequences.

36. What is their sense of humor like? Give an example of a joke they would find humorous.

This girl laughs a lot, and she WOULD laugh a lot on jokes. She laughs the easiest among the capos. She will literally laugh at "This bitch empty. YEET" or any kind of familiar vine.

38. What do they admire most about their personality?

The fact she can be kind to so much people! She really loves the nice side of hers and thinks not a lot of people are nice these days.

45. How would they describe their own appearance?

Average! She knows she isn't the cutest, prettiest or handsome- but she likes it the way she is. She also has her gender mixed up a lot by people in the comic and she actually likes it that way! She really doesn't mind the pronouns you use for her and she wouldn't correct you. (Fortunato does the correcting)

55. What is their alcohol tolerance like? What kind of drunk are they? How bad are their hangovers?

Her tolerance is HIGH. People are somewhat shocked my this, but she explains her foster family (you'll see them :)) has been telling her to be strong in MULTIPLE areas, and well, drinking is one of them. What people don't know is that her biological dad is also actually really good with alcohol. She's the drunk that REVEALS EVERYTHING. You might see it at one point. Also not too bad, just a headache and no memory, but it won't stop her from her morning jogs.

62. Have they been betrayed? How did it affect their ability to trust others?

No, not really! So I can't answer the second question either.

72. Would they rather have stability or comfort?

Comfort, she wouldn't want to have a stable life without any comfort because that's what she needs more. Plus, when was her life ever stable after the incident?

92. Describe them as a John Mulaney gif.

Yes. This is her. 100% her.

[scope-dogg]

Invincible Robot Tryder G7: Final Thoughts

This was one of the series in the SRW T still-to-watch list that I wasn’t especially looking forward to. A lot of these old super robot shows tend to be really dated both in terms of plot and presentation, and this one in particular only has one fansub available with that being of dubious quality. However, while the subs aren’t good and the show does stick to a very formulaic episode structure like a lot of similar shows, I actually thought it had a lot of things going for it, including surprisingly strong art and animation by the standards of its time and a charming cast of characters, and above all else themes and ideas that were ahead of their time in many ways.

The plot setup is that mankind has entered a true space age and has expanded its industries into the solar system - however, a threat to this age of plenty has revealed itself in the form of the Robot Empire, a race of androids from beyond the stars who now seek to enslave the Earth. The first and last effective line of defence against their incursion is the fighting robot Tryder G7, owned by the Takeo General Company, who take on contracts from the Earth’s space forces to fight off the Megarobots sent to destroy mankind’s vulnerable installations. The catch is that the Takeo General Company is a small family company that’s now run by 11-year-old Watta Takeo, who has taken up the reigns as CEO and Tryder’s pilot following the death of his father. Watta’s daily struggles as a young man and Takeo General’s struggle to keep afloat are challenges just as great as any that an alien war robot can bring.

The entire aspect of the namesake robot being a corporate asset that needed to budgeted and accounted for was something I thought was more or less unique to 1997′s Dai-Guard, but this did it a lot earlier. In addition to that, this is a series with a child protagonist that was really well realised, with realistic little-kid problems, like butting heads with his rich asshole classmate, trying to avoid the ire of strict teachers, helping out his mother and two siblings, and still trying to find time to have a nice time with his friends between everything else. With that said, while he could occasionally be a bit of a brat he still has a strong sense of duty to his friends and family, to the company he now technically runs, and to the people he’s charged with protecting, and he ended up being a protagonist you want to root for, not only in battle but in his private life. In fact, that’s almost the chief focus of the series, with the threat of the Robot Empire almost playing out entirely in the background. While the viewer gets shown what they’re up to and gets to understand the scope of their plans, to Watta they’re just a job to do and a contract to fulfil. The battles that take place are arguably more important as life lessons, with the things he learns in them often being applicable to whatever personal struggle he’s dealing in that episode (although, sometimes the reverse is true.) Both this slice-of-life aspect and the practical take on piloting a super robot would have been something I would have expected from a more modern series, not a vintage super robot series from 1980.

The supporting cast are another great aspect of the show. Each of the characters that Watta interacts with on a daily basis are all really distinct characters, whether it’s his friends, teachers, or Takeo General’s staff - the standout was probably Kakikoji, the company director, a mustachioed 65-year old with 14 kids, who always comes charging in on his bicycle to fetch the boss whenever a new contract comes in and starts sweating bullets whenever anything happens on a mission that might cut into the already tight profit margins. On the other side of the coin, the villains from the Robot Empire are a colourful and dysfunctional bunch as well, with each new commander brought in to try and save their failing campaign being more ridiculous than the last. Their fighting robots were really distinctive and imaginatively designed as well, and it was fun to watch Tryder smash them up. The chief mechanical designer on this show was Kunio Okawara, who’s known for designing a ton of famous mecha like the original Gundam, the Scopedog, Gaogaigar and many more besides, and I think his work here stands up with some of those, both for Tryder and its adversaries. The animation work is also pretty solid as well, at least by the standards of its time - I thought it easily surpassed the animation work of contemporary Sunrise mecha shows like Gundam and Zambot 3 by quite a way, though that’s tempered by the use of a lot of stock footage - they use the same animation for Tryder launching and its Bird Attack finisher in virtually every episode, probably killing a good two or three minutes of episode run time each time.

With all that said, I have to address the elephant in the room, those being the subs. They’re not that bad... but they’re certainly not good either. It looks like they worked from the Italian sub of the show, adding another layer of translation, and in other places they just guessed. They’re never so far off the mark that you can’t tell what’s going on, but it’s not strange for you to hear a line of dialogue, look at the subs, and conclude “whatever they just said, it definitely wasn’t that,” even if your knowledge of Japanese is the very rudimentary sort that you pick up by just watching lots of subbed anime. I can’t complain too loudly, because at the end of the day it was a fansub and it beats having no subs at all, but it definitely makes it tougher for me to recommend people watch this, unless you’re fluent in Japanese. The subs aren’t even particularly good in English either, with a lot of odd language and screwed up grammar, though it never really reached the point of incomprehensibility.

With all that said, I still do think this is a recommendation from me, even with the bad subs. Again, I burned through 50 episodes in about a week, and not just because I’m trying to work through a list of shows to watch, it was a genuinely enjoyable time. If I had to recommend an old super robot show, it’s probably still be this one rather than Zambot 3 or Combattler V. Maybe one day I’ll get round to Daitarn, Voltes or another one that trumps this one, but for now, this is my favourite.

As for how this show will play out in SRW T, I think it’s a good addition that makes sense and adds some variety in the cast, and Watta and Tryder are already SRW veterans anyway so I’m sure they’ll be implemented well. It’s a little disconcerting that the Robot Empire and their Megarobots have been absent from the trailers so far, as I think it’d be a shame not to include some of the more distinctive designs as enemies to fight. However, even if they’re absent from the final game, I think Watta and the Takeo General staff will be colourful additions to the roster by themselves - not to mention that there are parallels with the Tiranade, this game’s original, and the VTX corporation that owns it.

Anyway, speaking of corporate robots and crabstick subs, it’s time to move down the line to the next show. This one’s been one I’ve been wating to give the green signal to for a long time, and I’m hoping I can work through it at the same express pace.

[thecynicalm]

Gerard Nolst Trenité - The Chaos (1922)

This poem is great for training your pronunciation if you’re not a native speaker of english and I love it. Dearest creature in creation Studying English pronunciation,   I will teach you in my verse   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy;   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!   Just compare heart, hear and heard,   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain (Mind the latter how it's written).   Made has not the sound of bade,   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague,   But be careful how you speak,   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;   Woven, oven, how and low,   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery: Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing, Same, examining, but mining,   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire", Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather, Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.   This phonetic labyrinth   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured To pronounce revered and severed,   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet; Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.   Blood and flood are not like food,   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet, Which exactly rhymes with khaki.   Discount, viscount, load and broad,   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet? Right! Your pronunciation's OK.   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher? Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision, Now: position and transition;   Would it tally with my rhyme   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy, But cease, crease, grease and greasy?   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous, Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,   You'll envelop lists, I hope,   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it! Affidavit, David, davit.   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.   We say hallowed, but allowed,   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover, Between mover, plover, Dover.   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.   Petal, penal, and canal,   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",   But it is not hard to tell   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron, Timber, climber, bullion, lion,   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour Has the a of drachm and hammer.   Pussy, hussy and possess,   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker", Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",   Making, it is sad but true,   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour.   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic, Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle, Make the latter rhyme with eagle.   Mind! Meandering but mean,   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny, You say mani-(fold) like many,   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring Rhyme with herring or with stirring?   Prison, bison, treasure trove,   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it, And distinguish buffet, buffet;   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.   Evil, devil, mezzotint,   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention To such sounds as I don't mention,   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included, Though I often heard, as you did,   Funny rhymes to unicorn,   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely, I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.   No. Yet Froude compared with proud   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial, Tripod, menial, denial,   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,   But you're not supposed to say   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid Worthless documents? How pallid,   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite, Paramour, enamoured, flighty,   Episodes, antipodes,   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser, Don't peel 'taters with my razor,   Rather say in accents pure:   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly, Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you More than r, ch or w.   Say then these phonetic gems:   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham, There are more but I forget 'em-   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;   With and forthwith, one has voice,   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger; Then say: singer, ginger, linger.   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very, Parry, tarry fury, bury,   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,   Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners, Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little, We say actual, but victual,   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer, Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific, Science, conscience, scientific;   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit, Next omit, which differs from it   Bona fide, alibi   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria.   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion with battalion,   Rally with ally; yea, ye,   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.   Never guess-it is not safe,   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary, Crevice, but device, and eyrie,   Face, but preface, then grimace,   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging, Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often Which may be pronounced as orphan,   With the sound of saw and sauce;   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting? Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.   Respite, spite, consent, resent.   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,   Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour, S of news (compare newspaper),   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers, Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.   Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!- Is a paling, stout and spiky.   Won't it make you lose your wits   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,   Islington, and Isle of Wight,   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather, Saying lather, bather, father?   Finally, which rhymes with enough,   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup... My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

[bluebeards-wife]

The Seven Wives of Bluebeard & Other Marvelous Tales

Written by Anatole France (1920)

Distributed via Project Gutenberg

Produced by David Widger

Edited By James Lewis May And Bernard Miall

Translated by D. B. Stewart

John Lane Company MCMXX

CHAPTER I

THE strangest, the most varied, the most erroneous opinions have been expressed with regard to the famous individual commonly known as Bluebeard. None, perhaps, was less tenable than that which made of this gentleman a personification of the Sun. For this is what a certain school of comparative mythology set itself to do, some forty years ago. It informed the world that the seven wives of Bluebeard were the Dawns, and that his two brothers-in-law were the morning and the evening Twilight, identifying them with the Dioscuri, who delivered Helena when she was rapt away by Theseus. We must remind those readers who may feel tempted to believe this that in 1817 a learned librarian of Agen, Jean-Baptiste Pérés, demonstrated, in a highly plausible manner, that Napoleon had never existed, and that the story of this supposed great captain was nothing but a solar myth. Despite the most ingenious diversions of the wits, we cannot possibly doubt that Bluebeard and Napoleon did both actually exist.

An hypothesis no better founded is that which Consists in identifying Bluebeard with the Marshal de Rais, who was strangled by the arm of the Law above the bridges of Nantes on 26th of October, 1440. Without inquiring, with M. Salomon Reinach, whether the Marshal committed the crimes for which he was condemned, or whether his wealth, coveted by a greedy prince, did not in some degree contribute to his undoing, there is nothing in his life that resembles what we find in Bluebeard’s; this alone is enough to prevent our confusing them or merging the two individuals into one.

Charles Perrault, who, about 1660, had the merit of composing the first biography of this _seigneur_, justly remarkable for having married seven wives, made him an accomplished villain, and the most perfect model of cruelty that ever trod the earth. But it is permissible to doubt, if not his sincerity, at least the correctness of his information. He may, perhaps, have been prejudiced against his hero. He would not have been the first example of a poet or historian who liked to darken the colours of his pictures. If we have what seems a flattering portrait of Titus, it would seem, on the other hand, that Tacitus has painted Tiberius much blacker than the reality. Macbeth, whom legend and Shakespeare accuse of crimes, was in reality a just and a wise king. He never treacherously murdered the old king, Duncan. Duncan, while yet young, was defeated in a great battle, and was found dead on the morrow at a spot called the Armourer’s Shop. He had slain several of the kinsfolk of Gruchno, the wife of Macbeth. The latter made Scotland prosperous; he encouraged trade, and was regarded as the defender of the middle classes, the true King of the townsmen. The nobles of the clans never forgave him for defeating Duncan, nor for protecting the artisans. They destroyed him, and dishonoured his memory. Once he was dead the good King Macbeth was known only by the statements of his enemies. The genius of Shakespeare imposed these lies upon the human consciousness. I had long suspected that Bluebeard was the victim of a similar fatality. All the circumstances of his life, as I found them related, were far from satisfying my mind, and from gratifying that craving for logic and lucidity by which I am incessantly consumed. On reflection, I perceived that they involved insurmountable difficulties. There was so great a desire to make me believe in the man’s cruelty that it could not fail to make me doubt it.

These presentiments did not mislead me. My intuitions, which had their origin in a certain knowledge of human nature, were soon to be changed into certainty, based upon irrefutable proofs.

In the house of a stone-cutter in St. Jean-des-Bois, I found several papers relating to Bluebeard; amongst others his defence, and an anonymous complaint against his murderers, which was not proceeded with, for what reasons I know not. These papers confirmed me in the belief that he was good and unfortunate, and that his memory has been overwhelmed by unworthy slanders. From that time forth, I regarded it as my duty to write his true history, without permitting myself any illusion as to the success of such an undertaking. I am well aware that this attempt at rehabilitation is destined to fall into silence and oblivion. How can the cold, naked Truth fight against the glittering enchantments of Falsehood?

CHAPTER II

SOMEWHERE about 1650 there lived on his estate, between Compiègne and Pierrefonds, a wealthy noble, by name Bernard de Montragoux, whose ancestors had held the most important posts in the kingdom. But he dwelt far from the Court, in that peaceful obscurity which then veiled all save that on which the king bestowed his glance. His castle of Guillettes abounded in valuable furniture, gold and silver ware, tapestry and embroideries, which he kept in coffers; not that he hid his treasures for fear of damaging them by use; he was, on the contrary, generous and magnificent. But in those days, in the country, the nobles willingly led a very simple life, feeding their people at their own table, and dancing on Sundays with the girls of the village.

On certain occasions, however, they gave splendid entertainments, which contrasted with the dullness of everyday life. So it was necessary that they should hold a good deal of handsome furniture and beautiful tapestries in reserve. This was the case with Monsieur de Montragoux.

His castle, built in the Gothic period, had all its rudeness. From without it looked wild and gloomy enough, with the stumps of its great towers, which had been thrown down at the time of the monarchy’s troubles, in the reign of the late King Louis. Within it offered a much pleasanter prospect. The rooms were decorated in the Italian taste, as was the great gallery on the ground floor, loaded with embossed decorations in high relief, pictures and gilding.

At one end of this gallery there was a closet usually known as “the little cabinet.” This is the only name by which Charles Perrault refers to it. It is as well to note that it was also called the “Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses,” because a Florentine painter had portrayed on the walls the tragic stories of Dirce, daughter of the Sun, bound by the sons of Antiope to the horns of a bull, Niobe weeping on Mount Sipylus for her children, pierced by the divine arrows, and Procris inviting to her bosom the javelin of Cephalus. These figures had a look of life about them, and the porphyry tiles with which the floor was covered seemed dyed in the blood of these unhappy women. One of the doors of the Cabinet gave upon the moat, which had no water in it.

The stables formed a sumptuous building, situated at some distance from the castle. They contained stalls for sixty horses, and coach-houses for twelve gilded coaches. But what made Guillettes so bewitching a residence were the woods and canals surrounding it, in which one could devote oneself to the pleasures of angling and the chase.

Many of the dwellers in that country-side knew Monsieur de Montragoux only by the name of Bluebeard, for this was the only name that the common people gave him. And in truth his beard was blue, but it was blue only because it was black, and it was because it was so black that it was blue. Monsieur de Montragoux must not be imagined as having the monstrous aspect of the threefold Typhon whom one sees in Athens, laughing in his triple indigo-blue beard. We shall get much nearer the reality by comparing the _seigneur_ of Guillettes to those actors or priests whose freshly shaven cheeks have a bluish gloss.

Monsieur de Montragouz did not wear a pointed beard like his grandfather at the Court of King Henry II; nor did he wear it like a fan, as did his great-grandfather who was killed at the battle of Marignan. Like Monsieur de Turenne, he had only a slight moustache, and a chin-tuft; his cheeks had a bluish look; but whatever may have been said of him, this good gentleman was by no means disfigured thereby, nor did he inspire any fear on that account. He only looked the more virile, and if it made him look a little fierce, it had not the effect of making the women dislike him. Bernard de Montragoux was a very fine man, tall, broad across the shoulders, moderately stout, and well favoured; albeit of a rustic habit, smacking of the woods rather than of drawing-rooms and assemblies. Still, it is true that he did not please the ladies as much as he should have pleased them, built as he was, and wealthy. Shyness was the reason; shyness, not his beard. Women exercised an invincible attraction for him, and at the same time inspired him with an insuperable fear. He feared them as much as he loved them. This was the origin and initial cause of all his misfortunes. Seeing a lady for the first time, he would have died rather than speak to her, and however much attracted he may have been, he stood before her in gloomy silence. His feelings revealed themselves only through his eyes, which he rolled in a terrible manner. This timidity exposed him to every kind of misfortune, and, above all, it prevented his forming a becoming connection with modest and reserved women; and betrayed him, defenceless, to the attempts of the most impudent and audacious. This was his life’s misfortune.

Left an orphan from his early youth, and having rejected, owing to this sort of bashfulness and fear, which he was unable to overcome, the very advantageous and honourable alliances which had presented themselves, he married a Mademoiselle Colette Passage, who had recently settled down in that part of the country, after amassing a little money by making a bear dance through the towns and villages of the kingdom. He loved her with all his soul. And to do her justice, there was something pleasing about her, though she was what she was a fine woman with an ample bosom, and a complexion that was still sufficiently fresh, although a little sunburnt by the open air. Great were her joy and surprise on first becoming a lady of quality. Her heart, which was not bad, was touched by the kindness of a husband in such a high position, and with such a stout, powerful body, who was to her the most obedient of servants and devoted of lovers. But after a few months she grew weary because she could no longer go to and fro on the face of the earth. In the midst of wealth, overwhelmed with love and care, she could find no greater pleasure than that of going to see the companion of her wandering life, in the cellar where he languished with a chain round his neck and a ring through his nose, and kissing him on the eyes and weeping. Seeing her full of care, Monsieur de Montragouz himself became careworn, and this only added to his companion’s melancholy. The consideration and forethought which he lavished on her turned the poor woman’s head. One morning, when he awoke, Monsieur de Montragoux found Colette no longer at his side. In vain he searched for her throughout the castle.

The door of the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses was open. It was through this door that she had gone to reach the open country with her bear. The sorrow of Bluebeard was painful to behold. In spite of the innumerable messengers sent forth in search of her, no news was ever received of Colette Passage.

Monsieur de Montragoux was still mourning her when he happened to dance, at the fair of Guillettes, with Jeanne de La Cloche, daughter of the Police Lieutenant of Compiègne, who inspired him with love. He asked her in marriage, and obtained her forthwith. She loved wine, and drank it to excess. So much did this taste increase that after a few months she looked like a leather bottle with a round red face atop of it. The worst of it was that this leather bottle would run mad, incessantly rolling about the reception-rooms and the staircases, crying, swearing, and hiccoughing; vomiting wine and insults at everything that got in her way. Monsieur de Montragoux was dazed with disgust and horror. But he quite suddenly recovered his courage, and set himself, with as much firmness as patience, to cure his wife of so disgusting a vice, Prayers, remonstrances, supplications, and threats: he employed every possible means. All was useless. He forbade her wine from his cellar: she got it from outside, and was more abominably drunk than ever.

To deprive her of her taste for a beverage that she loved too well, he put valerian in the bottles. She thought he was trying to poison her, sprang upon him, and drove three inches of kitchen knife into his belly. He expected to die of it, but he did not abandon his habitual kindness.

“She is more to be pitied than blamed,” he said.

One day, when he had forgotten to close the door of the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, Jeanne de La Cloche entered by it, quite out of her mind, as usual, and seeing the figures on the walls in postures of affliction, ready to give up the ghost, she mistook them for living women, and fled terror-stricken into the country, screaming murder. Hearing Bluebeard calling her and running after her, she threw herself, mad with terror, into a pond, and was there drowned. It is difficult to believe, yet certain, that her husband, so compassionate was his soul, was much afflicted by her death.

Six weeks after the accident he quietly married Gigonne, the daughter of his steward, Traignel. She wore wooden shoes, and smelt of onions. She was a fine-looking girl enough, except that she squinted with one eye, and limped with one foot. As soon as she was married, this goose-girl, bitten by foolish ambition, dreamed of nothing but further greatness and splendour. She was not satisfied that her brocade dresses were rich enough, her pearl necklaces beautiful enough, her rubies big enough, her coaches sufficiently gilded, her lakes, woods, and lands sufficiently vast. Bluebeard, who had never had any leaning toward ambition, trembled at the haughty humour of his spouse. Unaware, in his straightforward simplicity, whether the mistake lay in thinking magnificently like his wife, or modestly as he himself did, he accused himself of a mediocrity of mind which was thwarting the noble desires of his consort, and, full of uncertainty, he would sometimes exhort her to taste with moderation the good things of this world, while at others he roused himself to pursue fortune along the verge of precipitous heights. He was prudent, but conjugal affection bore him beyond the reach of prudence. Gigonne thought of nothing but cutting a figure in the world, being received at Court, and becoming the King’s mistress. Unable to gain her point, she pined away with vexation, contracting a jaundice, of which she died. Bluebeard, full of lamentation, built her a magnificent tomb.

This worthy _seigneur_ overwhelmed by constant domestic adversity, would not perhaps have chosen another wife: but he was himself chosen for a husband by Mademoiselle Blanche de Gibeaumex, the daughter of a cavalry officer, who had but one ear; he used to relate that he had lost the other in the King’s service. She was full of intelligence, which she employed in deceiving her husband. She betrayed him with every man of quality in the neighbourhood. She was so dexterous that she deceived him in his own castle, almost under his very eyes, without his perceiving it. Poor Bluebeard assuredly suspected something, but he could not say what. Unfortunately for her, while she gave her whole mind to tricking her husband, she was not sufficiently careful in deceiving her lovers; by which I mean that she betrayed them, one for another. One day she was surprised in the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, in the company of a gentleman whom she loved, by a gentleman whom she had loved, and the latter, in a transport of jealousy, ran her through with his sword. A few hours later the unfortunate lady was there found dead by one of the castle servants, and the fear inspired by the room increased.

Poor Bluebeard, learning at one blow of his ample dishonour, and the tragic death of his wife, did not console himself for the latter misfortune by any consideration of the former. He had loved Blanche de Gibeaumez with a strange ardour, more dearly than he had loved Jeanne de La Cloche, Gigonne Traignel, or even Colette Passage. On learning that she had consistently betrayed him, and that now she would never betray him again, he experienced a grief and a mental perturbation which, far from being appeased, daily increased in violence. So intolerable were his sufferings that he contracted a malady which caused his life to be despaired of.

The physicians, having employed various medicines without effect, advised him that the only remedy proper to his complaint was to take a young wife. He then thought of his young cousin, Angèle de La Garandine, whom he believed would be willingly bestowed upon him, as she had no property. What encouraged him to take her to wife was the fact that she was reputed to be simple and ignorant of the world. Having been deceived by a woman of intelligence, he felt more comfortable with a fool. He married Mademoiselle de La Garandine, and quickly perceived the falsity of his calculations. Angèle was kind, Angèle was good, and Angèle loved him; she had not, in herself, any leanings toward evil, but the least astute person could quickly lead her astray at any moment. It was enough to tell her: “Do this for fear of bogies; comes in here or the were-wolf will eat you;” or “Shut your eyes, and take this drop of medicine,” and the innocent girl would straightway do so, at the will of the rascals who wanted of her that which it was very natural to want of her, for she was pretty. Monsieur de Montragouz, injured and betrayed by this innocent girl, as much as and more than he had been by Blanche de Gibeaumex, had the additional pain of knowing it, for Angèle was too candid to conceal anything from him. She used to tell him: “Sir, some one told me this; some one did that to me; some one took so and so away from me; I saw that; I felt so and so.” And by her ingenuousness she caused her lord to suffer torments beyond imagination. He endured them like a Stoic. Still he finally had to tell the simple creature that she was a goose, and to box her ears. This, for him, was the beginning of a reputation for cruelty, which was not fated to be diminished. A mendicant monk, who was passing Gulllettes while Monsieur de Montragouz was out shooting woodcock, found Madame Angèle sewing a doll’s petticoat. This worthy friar, discovering that she was as foolish as she was beautiful, took her away on his donkey, having persuaded her that the Angel Gabriel was waiting in a wood, to give her a pair of pearl garters. It is believed that she must have been eaten by a wolf, for she was never seen again.

After such a disastrous experience, how was it that Bluebeard could make up his mind to contract yet another union? It would be impossible to understand it, were we not well aware of the power which a fine pair of eyes exerts over a generous heart.

The honest gentleman met, at a neighbouring château which he was in the habit of frequenting, a young orphan of quality, by name Alix de Pontalcin, who, having been robbed of all her property by a greedy trustee, thought only of entering a convent. Officious friends intervened to alter her determination and persuade her to accept the hand of Monsieur de Montragoux. Her beauty was perfect. Bluebeard, who was promising himself the enjoyment of an infinite happiness in her arms, was once more deluded in his hopes, and this time experienced a disappointment, which, owing to his disposition, was bound to make an even greater impression upon him than all the afflictions which he had suffered in his previous marriages. Alix de Pontalcin obstinately refused to give actuality to the union to which she had nevertheless consented.

In vain did Monsieur de Montragoux press her to become his wife; she resisted prayers, tears, and objurgations, she refused her husband’s lightest caresses, and rushed off to shut herself into the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, where she remained, alone and intractable, for whole nights at a time.

The cause of a resistance so contrary to laws both human and divine was never known; it was attributed to Monsieur de Montragoux’s blue beard, but our previous remarks on the subject of his beard render such a supposition far from probable. In any case, it is a difficult subject to discuss. The unhappy husband underwent the cruellest sufferings. In order to forget them, he hunted with desperation, exhausting horses, hounds, and huntsmen. But when he returned home, foundered and overtired, the mere sight of Mademoiselle de Pontalcin was enough to revive his energies and his torments. Finally, unable to endure the situation any longer, he applied to Rome for the annulment of a marriage which was nothing better than a trap; and in consideration of a handsome present to the Holy Father he obtained it in accordance with canon law. If Monsieur de Montragoux discarded Mademoiselle de Pontalcin with all the marks of respect due to a woman, and without breaking his cane across her back, it was because he had a valiant soul, a great heart, and was master of himself as well as of Guillettes. But he swore that, for the future, no female should enter his apartments. Happy had he been if he had held to his oath to the end!

CHAPTER III

SOME years had elapsed since Monsieur de Montragoux had rid himself of his sixth wife, and only a confused recollection remained in the country-side of the domestic calamities which had fallen upon this worthy _seigneur’s_ house. Nobody knew what had become of his wives, and hair-raising tales were told in the village at night; some believed them, others did not. About this time, a widow, past the prime of life, Dame Sidonie de Lespoisse, came to settle with her children in the manor of La Motte-Giron, about two leagues, as the crow flies, from the castle of Guillettes. Whence she came, or who her husband had been, not a soul knew. Some believed, because they had heard it said, that he had held certain posts in Savoy or Spain; others said that he had died in the Indies; many had the idea that the widow was possessed of immense estates, while others doubted it strongly. However, she lived in a notable style, and invited all the nobility of the country-side to La Motte-Giron. She had two daughters, of whom the elder, Anne, on the verge of becoming an old maid, was a very astute person: Jeanne, the younger, ripe for marriage, concealed a precocious knowledge of the world under an appearance of simplicity. The Dame de Lespoisse had also two sons, of twenty and twenty-two years of age; very fine well-made young fellows, of whom one was a Dragoon, and the other a Musketeer. I may add, having seen his commission, that he was a Black Musketeer. When on foot, this was not apparent, for the Black Musketeers were distinguished from the Grey not by the colour of their uniform, but by the hides of their horses. All alike wore blue surcoats laced with gold. As for the Dragoons, they were to be recognized by a kind of fur bonnet, of which the tail fell gallantly over the ear. The Dragoons had the reputation of being scamps, a scapegrace crowd, witness the song:

    “Mama, here the dragoons come,     Let us haste away.”

But you might have searched in vain through His Majesty’s two regiments of Dragoons for a bigger rake, a more accomplished sponger, or a viler rogue than Cosme de Lespoisset. Compared with him, his brother was an honest lad. Drunkard and gambler, Pierre de Lespoisse pleased the ladies, and won at cards; these were the only ways of gaining a living known to him.

Their mother, Dame de Lespoisse, was making a splash at Motte-Giron only in order to catch gulls. As a matter of fact, she had not a penny, and owed for everything, even to her false teeth. Her clothes and furniture, her coach, her horses, and her servants had all been lent by Parisian moneylenders, who threatened to withdraw them all if she did not presently marry one of her daughters to some rich nobleman, and the respectable Sidonie was expecting to find herself at any moment naked in an empty house. In a hurry to find a son-in-law, she had at once cast her eye upon Monsieur de Montragoux, whom she summed up as being simple-minded, easy to deceive, extremely mild, and quick to fall in love under his rude and bashful exterior. Her two daughters entered into her plans, and every time they met him, riddled poor Bluebeard with glances which pierced him to the depths of his heart. He soon fell a victim to the potent charms of the two Demoiselles de Lespoisse. Forgetting his oath, he thought of nothing but marrying one of them, finding them equally beautiful. After some delay, caused less by hesitation than timidity, he went to Motte-Giron in great state, and made his petition to the Dame de Lespoisse, leaving to her the choice of which daughter she would give him. Madame Sidonie obligingly replied that she held him in high esteem, and that she authorized him to pay his court to whichever of the ladies he should prefer.

“Learn to please, monsieur,” she said. “I shall be the first to applaud your success.”

In order to make their better acquaintance, Bluebeard invited Anne and Jeanne de Lespoisse, with their mother, brothers, and a multitude of ladies and gentlemen to pass a fortnight at the castle of Guillettes. There was a succession of walking, hunting, and fishing parties, dances and festivities, dinners and entertainments of every sort. A young _seigneur_, the Chevalier de Merlus, whom the ladies Lespoisse had brought with them, organized the beats. Bluebeard had the best packs of hounds and the largest turnout in the countryside. The ladies rivalled the ardour of the gentlemen in hunting the deer. They did not always hunt the animal down, but the hunters and their ladies wandered away in couples, found one another, and again wandered off into the woods. For choice, the Chevalier de la Merlus would lose himself with Jeanne de Lespoisse, and both would return to the castle at night, full of their adventures, and pleased with their day’s sport.

After a few days’ observation, the good _seigneur_ of Montragoux felt a decided preference for Jeanne, the younger sister, rather than the elder, as she was fresher, which is not saying that she was less experienced. He allowed his preference to appear; there was no reason why he should conceal it, for it was a befitting preference; moreover, he was a plain dealer. He paid court to the young lady as best he could, speaking little, for want of practice; but he gazed at her, rolling his rolling eyes, and emitting from the depths of his bowels sighs which might have overthrown an oak tree. Sometimes he would burst out laughing, whereupon the crockery trembled, and the windows rattled. Alone of all the party, he failed to remark the assiduous attentions of the Chevalier de la Merlus to Madame de Lespoisse’s younger daughter, or if he did remark them he saw no harm in them. His experience of women was not sufficient to make him suspicious, and he trusted when he loved. My grandmother used to say that in life experience is worthless, and that one remains the same as when one begins. I believe she was right, and the true story that I am now unfolding is not of a nature to prove her wrong.

Bluebeard displayed an unusual magnificence in these festivities. When night arrived the lawns before the castle were lit by a thousand torches, and tables served by men-servants and maids dressed as fauns and dryads groaned under all the tastiest things which the country-side and the forest produced. Musicians provided a continual succession of beautiful symphonies. Towards the end of the meal the schoolmaster and schoolmistress, followed by the boys and girls of the village, appeared before the guests, and read a complimentary address to the _seigneur_ of Montragoux and his friends. An astrologer in a pointed cap approached the ladies, and foretold their future love-affairs from the lines of their hands, Bluebeard ordered drink to be given for all his vassals, and he himself distributed bread and meat to the poor families.

At ten o’clock, for fear of the evening dew, the company retired to the apartments, lit by a multitude of candles, and there tables were prepared for every sort of game: lansquenet, billiards, reversi, bagatelle, pigeon-holes, turnstile, porch, beast, hoca, brelan, draughts, backgammon, dice, basset, and calbas. Bluebeard was uniformly unfortunate in these various games, at which he lost large sums every night. He could console himself for his continuous run of bad luck by watching the three Lespoisse ladies win a great deal of money. Jeanne, the younger, who often backed the game of the Chevalier de la Merlus, heaped up mountains of gold. Madame de Lespoisse’s two sons also did very well at reversi and basset; their luck was invariably best at the more hazardous games. The play went on until late into the night. No one slept during these marvellous festivities, and as the earliest biographer of Bluebeard has said: “They spent the whole night in playing tricks on one another.” These hours were the most delightful of the whole twenty-four; for then, under cover of jesting, and taking advantage of the darkness, those who felt drawn toward one another would hide together in the depths of some alcove. The Chevelier de la Merlus would disguise himself at one time as a devil, at another as a ghost or a were-wolf in order to frighten the sleepers, but he always ended by slipping into the room of Mademoiselle Jeanne de Lespoisse. The good _seigneur_ of Montragoux was not overlooked in these games. The two sons of Madame de Lespoisse put irritant powder in his bed, and burnt in his room substances which emitted a disgusting smell. Or they would arrange a jug of water over his door so that the worthy _seigneur_ could not open the door without the whole of the water being upset upon his head. In short, they played on him all sorts of practical jokes, to the diversion of the whole company, and Bluebeard bore them with his natural good humour.

He made his request, to which Madame de Lespoisse acceded, although, as she said, it wrung her heart to think of giving her girls in marriage.

The marriage was celebrated at Motte-Giron with extraordinary magnificence. The Demoiselle Jeanne, amazingly beautiful, was dressed entirely in _point de France_, her head covered with a thousand ringlets. Her sister Anne wore a dress of green velvet, embroidered with gold. Their mother’s dress was of golden tissue, trimmed with black chenille, with a _parure_ of pearls and diamonds. Monsieur de Montragoux wore all his great diamonds on a suit of black velvet; he made a very fine appearance; his expression of timidity and innocence contrasting strongly with his blue chin and his massive build. The bride’s brothers were of course handsomely arrayed, but the Chevalier de la Merlus, in a suit of rose velvet trimmed with pearls, shone with unparalleled splendour.

Immediately after the ceremony, the Jews who had hired out to the bride’s family and her lover all these fine clothes and rich jewels resumed possession of them and posted back to Paris with them.

CHAPTER IV

FOR a month Monsieur de Montragoux was the happiest of men. He adored his wife, and regarded her as an angel of purity. She was something quite different, but far shrewder men than poor Bluebeard might have been deceived as he was, for she was a person of great cunning and astuteness, and allowed herself submissively to be ruled by her mother, who was the cleverest jade in the whole kingdom of France. She established herself at Guillettes with her eldest daughter Anne, her two sons, Pierre and Cosme, and the Chevalier de la Merlus, who kept as close to Madame de Montragoux as if he had been her shadow. Her good husband was a little annoyed at this; he would have liked to keep his wife always to himself, but he did not take exception to the affection which she felt for this young gentleman, as she had told him that he was her foster-brother.

Charles Perrault relates that a month after having contracted this union, Bluebeard was compelled to make a journey of six weeks’ duration on some important business. He does not seem to be aware of the reasons for this journey, and it has been suspected that it was an artifice, which the jealous husband resorted to, according to custom, in order to surprise his wife. The truth is quite otherwise. Monsieur de Montragouz went to Le Perche to receive the heritage of his cousin of Outarde, who had been killed gloriously by a cannon-ball at the battle of the Dunes, while casting dice upon a drum.

Before leaving, Monsieur de Montragoux begged his wife to indulge in every possible distraction during his absence.

“Invite all your friends, madame,” he said, “go riding with them, amuse yourselves, and have a pleasant time.”

He handed over to her all the keys of the house, thus indicating that in his absence she was the sole and sovereign mistress of all the _seigneurie_ of Guillettes.

“This,” he said, “is the key of the two great wardrobes; this of the gold and silver not in daily use; this of the strong-boxes which contain my gold and silver; this of the caskets where my jewels are kept; and this is a pass-key into all the rooms. As for this little key, it is that of the Cabinet, at the end of the Gallery, on the ground floor; open everything, and go where you will.”

Charles Perrault claims that Monsieur de Montragoux added:

“But as for the little Cabinet, I forbid you to enter that; and I forbid you so expressly that if you do enter it, I cannot say to what lengths my anger will not go.”

The historian of Bluebeard in placing these words on record, has fallen into the error of adopting, without, verification, the version concocted after the event by the ladies Lespoisse. Monsieur de Montragoux expressed himself very differently. When he handed to his wife the key of the little Cabinet, which was none other than the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, to which we have already frequently alluded, he expressed the desire that his beloved Jeanne should not enter that part of the house which he regarded as fatal to his domestic happiness. It was through this room, indeed, that his first wife, and the best of all of them, had fled, when she ran away with her bear; here Blanche de Gibeaumex had repeatedly betrayed him with various gentlemen; and lastly, the porphyry pavement was stained by the blood of a beloved criminal. Was not this enough to make Monsieur de Montragoux connect the idea of this room with cruel memories and fateful forebodings?

The words which he addressed to Jeanne de Lespoisse convey the desires and impressions which were troubling his mind. They were actually as follows:

“For you, madame, nothing of mine is hidden, and I should feel that I was doing you an injury did I fail to hand over to you all the keys of a dwelling which belongs to you. You may therefore enter this little cabinet, as you may enter all the other rooms of the house; but if you will take my advice you will do nothing of the kind, to oblige me, and in consideration of the painful ideas which, for me, are connected with this room, and the forebodings of evil which these ideas, despite myself, call up into my mind. I should be inconsolable were any mischance to befall you, or were I to bring misfortune upon you. You will, madame, forgive these fears, which are happily unfounded, as being only the outcome of my anxious affection and my watchful love.”

With these words the good _seigneur_ embraced his wife and posted off to Le Perche.

“The friends and neighbours,” says Charles Perrault, “did not wait to be asked to visit the young bride; so full were they of impatience to see all the wealth of her house. They proceeded at once to inspect all the rooms, cabinets, and wardrobes, each of which was richer and more beautiful than the last; and there was no end to their envy and their praises of their friend’s good fortune.”

All the historians who have dealt with this subject have added that Madame de Montsagoux took no pleasure in the sight of all these riches, by reason of her impatience to open the little Cabinet. This is perfectly correct, and as Perrault has said: “So urgent was her curiosity that, without considering that it was unmannerly to leave her guests, she went down to it by a little secret staircase, and in such a hurry that two or three times she thought she would break her neck.” The fact is beyond question. But what no one has told us is that the reason why she was so anxious to reach this apartment was that the Chevalier de la Merlus was awaiting her there.

Since she had come to make her home in the castle of Guillettes she had met this young gentleman in the Cabinet every day, and oftener twice a day than once, without wearying of an intercourse so unseemly in a young married woman. It is Impossible to hesitate, as to the nature of the ties connecting Jeanne with the Chevalier: they were anything but respectable, anything but chaste, Alas, had Madame de Montragoux merely betrayed her husband’s honour, she would no doubt have incurred the blame of posterity; but the most austere of moralists might have found excuses for her. He might allege, in favour of so young a woman, the laxity of the morals of the period; the examples of the city and the Court; the too certain effects of a bad training, and the advice of an immoral mother, for Madame Sidonie de Lespoisse countenanced her daughter’s intrigues. The wise might have forgiven her a fault too amiable to merit their severity; her errors would have seemed too common to be crimes, and the world would simply have considered that she was behaving like other people. But Jeanne de Lespoisse, not content with betraying her husband’s honour, did not hesitate to attempt his life.

It was in the little Cabinet, otherwise known as the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, that Jeanne de Lespoisse, Dame de Montragoux, in concert with the Chevalier de la Merlus, plotted the death of a kind and faithful husband. She declared later that, on entering the room, she saw hanging there the bodies of six murdered women, whose congealed blood covered the tiles, and that recognizing in these unhappy women the first six wives of Bluebeard, she foresaw the fate which awaited herself. She must, in this case, have mistaken the paintings on the walls for mutilated corpses, and her hallucinations must be compared with those of Lady Macbeth. But it is extremely probable that Jeanne imagined this horrible sight in order to relate it afterwards, justifying her husband’s murderers by slandering their victim.

The death of Monsieur de Montragouz was determined upon. Certain letters which lie before me compel the belief that Madame Sidonie Lespoisse had her part in the plot. As for her elder daughter, she may be described as the soul of the conspiracy. Anne de Lespoisse was the wickedest of the whole family. She was a stranger to sensual weakness, remaining chaste in the midst of the profligacy of the house; it was not a case of refusing pleasures which she thought unworthy of her; the truth was that she took pleasure only in cruelty. She engaged her two brothers, Cosme and Pierre, in the enterprise by promising them the command of a regiment.

CHAPTER V

IT now rests with us to trace, with the aid of authentic documents, and reliable evidence, the most atrocious, treacherous, and cowardly domestic crime of which the record has come down to us. The murder whose circumstances we are about to relate can only be compared to that committed on the night of the 9th March, 1449, on the person of Guillaume de Flavy, by his wife Blanche d’Overbreuc, a young and slender woman, the bastard d’Orbandas, and the barber Jean Bocquillon.

They stifled Guillaume with a pillow, battered him pitilessly with a club, and bled him at the throat like a calf. Blanche d’Overbreuc proved that her husband had determined to have her drowned, while Jeanne de Lespoisse betrayed a loving husband to a gang of unspeakable scoundrels. We will record the facts with all possible restraint. Bluebeard returned rather earlier than expected. This it was gave rise to the quite mistaken idea that, a prey to the blackest jealousy, he was wishful to surprise his wife. Full of joy and confidence, if he thought of giving her a surprise it was an agreeable one. His kindness and tenderness, and his joyous, peaceable air would have softened the most savage hearts. The Chevalier de la Merlus, and the whole execrable brood of Lespoisse saw therein nothing but an additional facility for taking his life, and possessing themselves of his wealth, still further increased by his new inheritance.

His young wife met him with a smiling face, allowing herself to be embraced and led to the conjugal chamber, where she did everything to please the good man. The following morning she returned him the bunch of keys which had been confided to her care. But there was missing that of the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, commonly called the little Cabinet. Bluebeard gently demanded its delivery, and after putting him off for a time on various pretexts Jeanne returned it to him.

There now arises a question which cannot be solved without leaving the limited domain of history to enter the indeterminate regions of philosophy.

Charles Perrault specifically states that the key of the little Cabinet was a fairy key, that is to say, it was magical, enchanted, endowed with properties contrary to the laws of nature, at all events, as we conceive them. We have no proof to the contrary. This is a fitting moment to recall the precept of my illustrious master, Monsieur du Clos des Lunes, a member of the Institute: “When the supernatural makes its appearance, it must not be rejected by the historian.” I shall therefore content myself with recalling as regards this key, the unanimous opinion of all the old biographers of Bluebeard; they all affirm that it was a fairy key. This is a point of great importance. Moreover, this key is not the only object created by human industry which has proved to be endowed with marvellous properties. Tradition abounds with examples of enchanted swords. Arthur’s was a magic sword. And so was that of Joan of Arc, on the undeniable authority of Jean Chartier; and the proof afforded by that illustrious chronicler is that when the blade was broken the two pieces refused to be welded together again despite all the efforts of the most competent armourers. Victor Hugo speaks in one of his poems of those “magic stairways still obscured below.” Many authors even admit that there are men-magicians who can turn themselves into wolves. We shall not undertake to combat such a firm and constant belief, and we shall not pretend to decide whether the key of the little Cabinet was or was not enchanted, for our reserve does not imply that we are in any uncertainty, and therein resides its merit. But where we find ourselves in our proper domain, or to be more precise within our own jurisdiction, where we once more become judges of facts, and writers of circumstances, is where we read that the key was flecked with blood. The authority of the texts does not so far impress us as to compel us to believe this. It was not flecked with blood. Blood had flowed in the little cabinet, but at a time already remote. Whether the key had been washed or whether it had dried, it was impossible that it should be so stained, and what, in her agitation, the criminal wife mistook for a blood-stain on the iron, was the reflection of the sky still empurpled by the roses of dawn.

Monsieur de Montragoux, on seeing the key, perceived none the less that his wife had entered the little cabinet. He noticed that it now appeared cleaner and brighter than when he had given it to her, and was of opinion that this polish could only come from use.

This produced a painful impression upon him, and he said to his wife, with a mournful smile:

“My darling, you have been into the little cabinet. May there result no grievous outcome for either of us! From that room emanates a malign influence from which I would have protected you. If you, in your turn should become subjected to it, I should never get over it. Forgive me; when we love we are superstitious.”

On these words, although Bluebeard cannot have frightened her, for his words and demeanour expressed only love and melancholy, the young lady of Montragoux began shrieking at the top of her voice: “Help! Help! he’s killing me!” This was the signal agreed upon. On hearing it, the Chevalier de la Merlus and the two sons of Madame de Lespoisse were to have thrown themselves upon Bluebeard and run him through with their swords.

But the Chevalier, whom Jeanne had hidden in a cupboard in the room, appeared alone. Monsieur de Montragoux, seeing him leap forth sword in hand, placed himself on guard. Jeanne fled terror-stricken, and met her sister Anne in the gallery. She was not, as has been related, on a tower; for all the towers had been thrown down by order of Cardinal Richelieu. Anne was striving to put heart into her two brothers, who, pale and quaking, dared not risk so great a stake. Jeanne hastily implored them: “Quick, quick, brothers, save my lover!” Pierre and Cosme then rushed at Bluebeard. They found him, having disarmed the Chevalier de la Merlus, holding him down with his knee; they treacherously ran their swords through his body from behind, and continued to strike at him long after he had breathed his last.

Bluebeard had no heirs. His wife remained mistress of his property. She used a part of it to provide a dowry for her sister Anne, another part to buy captains’ commissions for her two brothers, and the rest to marry the Chevalier de la Merlus, who became a very respectable man as soon as he was wealthy.

[yogurtbattle]

Because English pronunciation is random

Gerard Nolst Trenité - The Chaos (1922)

Dearest creature in creation Studying English pronunciation,   I will teach you in my verse   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy;   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!   Just compare heart, hear and heard,   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain (Mind the latter how it's written).   Made has not the sound of bade,   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague,   But be careful how you speak,   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;   Woven, oven, how and low,   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery: Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing, Same, examining, but mining,   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire", Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather, Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.   This phonetic labyrinth   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured To pronounce revered and severed,   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet; Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.   Blood and flood are not like food,   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet, Which exactly rhymes with khaki.   Discount, viscount, load and broad,   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet? Right! Your pronunciation's OK.   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher? Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision, Now: position and transition;   Would it tally with my rhyme   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy, But cease, crease, grease and greasy?   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous, Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,   You'll envelop lists, I hope,   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it! Affidavit, David, davit.   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.   We say hallowed, but allowed,   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover, Between mover, plover, Dover.   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.   Petal, penal, and canal,   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",   But it is not hard to tell   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron, Timber, climber, bullion, lion,   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour Has the a of drachm and hammer.   Pussy, hussy and possess,   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker", Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",   Making, it is sad but true,   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour.   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic, Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle, Make the latter rhyme with eagle.   Mind! Meandering but mean,   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny, You say mani-(fold) like many,   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring Rhyme with herring or with stirring?   Prison, bison, treasure trove,   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it, And distinguish buffet, buffet;   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.   Evil, devil, mezzotint,   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention To such sounds as I don't mention,   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included, Though I often heard, as you did,   Funny rhymes to unicorn,   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely, I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.   No. Yet Froude compared with proud   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial, Tripod, menial, denial,   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,   But you're not supposed to say   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid Worthless documents? How pallid,   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite, Paramour, enamoured, flighty,   Episodes, antipodes,   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser, Don't peel 'taters with my razor,   Rather say in accents pure:   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly, Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you More than r, ch or w.   Say then these phonetic gems:   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham, There are more but I forget 'em-   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;   With and forthwith, one has voice,   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger; Then say: singer, ginger, linger.   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very, Parry, tarry fury, bury,   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,   Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners, Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little, We say actual, but victual,   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer, Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific, Science, conscience, scientific;   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit, Next omit, which differs from it   Bona fide, alibi   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria.   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion with battalion,   Rally with ally; yea, ye,   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.   Never guess-it is not safe,   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary, Crevice, but device, and eyrie,   Face, but preface, then grimace,   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging, Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often Which may be pronounced as orphan,   With the sound of saw and sauce;   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting? Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.   Respite, spite, consent, resent.   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,   Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour, S of news (compare newspaper),   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers, Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.   Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!- Is a paling, stout and spiky.   Won't it make you lose your wits   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,   Islington, and Isle of Wight,   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather, Saying lather, bather, father?   Finally, which rhymes with enough,   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup... My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

[meridianae]

I was tagged by @eatmy-diction <3

Rules: answer these questions then tag 20 blogs you’d like to know better

Nickname: Adeline

Zodiac: Capricorn

Height: 175 cm

Time: 5:33 pm

Favorite Band/Artist: how could I pick one? But I’m listening a lot of Cage The Elephant lately so there’s that

Song Stuck in My Head: Just Say When by Capital Cities

Last Movie I Saw: Princess Arete (2001)

Last Thing I Googled: "cultural contradictions of capitalism”

Other Blogs: fandomatics for fandom stuff, nigiiri for basically memes, and doodeline for art!

Do I Get Asks: sometimes + I get tagged in stuff fairly often!

Why did I Choose this Username: “Meridianae” is the feminine plural for “meridiana”, which is a Latin adjective for “midday” (as in “hora meridiana”, which means “twelve o’clock”). It can also mean “she who comes from the South”, and you can also use it for the wind (in his masculine form “meridianus”). In Italian, a “meridiana” is also a solar clock: there is one in the main square of my native village.

Following: 274

Average Amount of Sleep: 7 hrs

Lucky number: ???

What I Am Wearing: a soft light white dress that’s actually my pj’s

Dream Job: hokage

Dream Trip: Japan

Favorite Food: sushi oh crap now I’m hungry for that

Play any Instruments: sadly, I don’t

Eye color: boring brown™

Hair color: a month ago I dyed it with henna so now it’s a slightly less boring brown™

Describe yourself using aesthetic things: long walks near the sea, that 2am existential crisis, light coming from the laptop screen late at night, headaches, eating ice cream directly from the tub and complaining that I’m fat (notice how I tried to do this seriously and then trailed off)

Languages you speak: Fluent in English, can read Spanish and French (and should for academic reasons), very very basic German and Japanese which I hope someday I’ll improve.

Most Iconic Song: I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers

Random Fact: pluto might be a planet again?

My tags:

@elletz-g @lovegoodlavatory @gracedandelioninkmind @lapixlazuli @eterna-metamorfose @daredevlings @he11ebore @michiemish @stillachickenbitch

[eru-na]

Gerard Nolst Trenité - The Chaos (1922)

Dearest creature in creation Studying English pronunciation,   I will teach you in my verse   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy;   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet, Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!   Just compare heart, hear and heard,   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain (Mind the latter how it's written).   Made has not the sound of bade,   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you With such words as vague and ague,   But be careful how you speak,   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;   Woven, oven, how and low,   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery: Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing, Same, examining, but mining,   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire", Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather, Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.   This phonetic labyrinth   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured To pronounce revered and severed,   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet; Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.   Blood and flood are not like food,   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet, Which exactly rhymes with khaki.   Discount, viscount, load and broad,   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet? Right! Your pronunciation's OK.   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher? Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision, Now: position and transition;   Would it tally with my rhyme   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy, But cease, crease, grease and greasy?   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous, Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,   You'll envelop lists, I hope,   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it! Affidavit, David, davit.   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.   We say hallowed, but allowed,   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover, Between mover, plover, Dover.   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.   Petal, penal, and canal,   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",   But it is not hard to tell   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron, Timber, climber, bullion, lion,   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour Has the a of drachm and hammer.   Pussy, hussy and possess,   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker", Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",   Making, it is sad but true,   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour.   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic, Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle, Make the latter rhyme with eagle.   Mind! Meandering but mean,   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny, You say mani-(fold) like many,   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring Rhyme with herring or with stirring?   Prison, bison, treasure trove,   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it, And distinguish buffet, buffet;   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.   Evil, devil, mezzotint,   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention To such sounds as I don't mention,   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included, Though I often heard, as you did,   Funny rhymes to unicorn,   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely, I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.   No. Yet Froude compared with proud   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial, Tripod, menial, denial,   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,   But you're not supposed to say   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid Worthless documents? How pallid,   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite, Paramour, enamoured, flighty,   Episodes, antipodes,   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser, Don't peel 'taters with my razor,   Rather say in accents pure:   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly, Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you More than r, ch or w.   Say then these phonetic gems:   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham, There are more but I forget 'em-   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;   With and forthwith, one has voice,   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger; Then say: singer, ginger, linger.   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very, Parry, tarry fury, bury,   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,   Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners, Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little, We say actual, but victual,   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer, Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific, Science, conscience, scientific;   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit, Next omit, which differs from it   Bona fide, alibi   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria.   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion with battalion,   Rally with ally; yea, ye,   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.   Never guess-it is not safe,   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary, Crevice, but device, and eyrie,   Face, but preface, then grimace,   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging, Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often Which may be pronounced as orphan,   With the sound of saw and sauce;   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting? Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.   Respite, spite, consent, resent.   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,   Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour, S of news (compare newspaper),   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers, Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.   Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!- Is a paling, stout and spiky.   Won't it make you lose your wits   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,   Islington, and Isle of Wight,   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather, Saying lather, bather, father?   Finally, which rhymes with enough,   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup... My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

[fragments-of-a-hologram-dystopia]

Review: Blade Runner 2049

Genre: sci-fi

Year: 2017

Directed by: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, Dave Bautista, Sylvia Hoeks, Ana de Armas, Jared Leto, etc.

Notes: sequel of the famous Blade Runner movie inspired by the work of Philip K. Dick. Read this review in Italian here.

K is a replicant working for the LAPD as a blade runner. Meaning, he hunts and terminates old models of androids that are not in production anymore… much has changed since the times of the first movie, and so has android production. Wallace Industries had acquired what was left of Tyrell Corp and created a new line of “unproblematic” androids. It is up to people like K to track down and deal with the old models (whose lifespan is way longer than that of the Blade Runner androids). After having retired a rogue replicant called Sapper Morton, he finds something. A box buried in his yard, a box that contains the remains of a woman. Those remains, when analyzed, reveal that the impossible has happened. And now many people want to deal with that impossible, including Mr. Wallace himself, who sends his enforcer Luv on K’s tracks. I really don’t want to say anything else, because I want you to enjoy every little detail.

Do you remember the opening of Blade Runner? How it featured Deckard’s car flying over a series of flame-erupting industrial complexes? Well, in a stunning parallel here K’s car flies over a series of fields of solar panels. And this already speaks volumes.

Because guys, Villeneuve did it. He directed a sequel that actually works, and since good sci-fi is all about the fears and hopes of the present, he shows us a world that has to deal with the need to generate energy, to produce food for everyone, to abandon an old, impossible lifestyle. It shows us that to produce that nice tech people use, and to produce the ships to bring people offworld, someone has to suffer. This isn’t even excessively sci-fi either, we do know that many people, especially kids, suffer to mine or assemble essential parts of our daily tech. The first Blade Runner movie gave us a futuristic tech, Blade Runner 2049 shows us how expensive that is in terms of human lives and resources. No, don’t worry, it doesn’t shy away from giving us magnificent cityscapes. But the comparison with those who live harvesting the waste or farming insects for protein makes this universe incredibly real. The giant holograms around the skyscrapers are much more effective now, and make the Ghost in The Shell city look bland and well, fake. Visually, this is a truly stunning movie, and even the music is effective, mixing the original Blade Runner vibes with that epic solemnity of Arrival’s soundtrack.

And the plot? Well, if you accept the main premise, it works. It has themes that Dick might have liked (like the search for an identity and the need to understand if who we are and what we lived is real or not), and a plot twist that might surprise you.

It works really nicely, you guys. I wasn’t expecting too much, in fact, I was afraid that it might have ended up as a shitty “grab the cash” sequel. And mr. Villeneuve fooled us all. Because yes, there are references to the original movie, but they’re essential to the plot, and even visual or conceptual similarities do not feel like stale copies put in there to cash into the 80s nostalgia which is rampant now. This is truly the Blade Runner of our times. If Villeneuve is really directing a Dune remake, as it has been .announced, I’m more than ready for it: if he keeps working like this, he’s going to do an amazing job.

[pinkpuffballdude]

Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sound like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury.

Does, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, aye, eye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a pailing stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats but saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwhale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup My advice is to give up!

~~~

I did it. I messed up like three words either because they’re Greek, French, or literal nonsense but I did it. text copied and read from [here]

I would also like to state that a lot of these words have multiple pronunciations, and I would go either with the one that rhymed or the one that I personally use. this poem was not written for my accent.

[chamiryokuroi]

Desmond Fic Masterlist

Ok so after 4 days of going through the whole AO3 tag for Desmond, ignoring all shipping fics and reading so much... so so much... I have finally come up with a list of Desmond centered fics. First of all, these are not all of them, just the ones I liked, and that are completed, feel free to suffer through the tag like I did to find the rest.

Warnings: Before reading any of them I suggest you to check the fics tags, some have suicide mention, gore, mental health issues etc.

There might be some slightly hinted ship, but not enough to worry if you don’t like it.

Also shame on you Asscreed fandom, these are not nearly enough fics.

Lurking Madness by orphan_account 

All that time Desmond's been spending in the animus is starting to affect him, he's talking to people who aren't there, and he isn't sure he cares anymore.

Corrosion. by tiromu

They hadn't told him this could happen. They never said he would forget himself, that he would lose everything he was to the bleeding effect.

Haunted by SmudgedPrints 

It's not easy, being on the losing side of a war.

Full Synchronization by idesofmay 

Desmond, and becoming Altair

Crysalis by devera 

There's something wrong about Desmond

Loading by Fey_Nikola 

Desmond has a lot of shit he's had to deal with since Abstergo kidnapped him.

It Never Rains (But When it Pours, I Feel it in My Soul) by traitorhero 

After it's over, he promised his son that they'd go home. He only wishes he wasn't bringing him back in a casket.

Burns by Blacklyra 

Desmond resorts back to his old habits but soon finds that the world will move on without him. And not always in the best of ways.

Dreams of Our Fathers by lemongrenades (redcherrychocolate)

There is a moment in every Assassin's life when he truly realizes what he sacrifices.

Free Meal by Blacklyra 

A worker at the local burger joint comes across an odd sight during her lunch break.

Am I Dreaming? by AnnAisu 

Altair awakens in a room he did not know existed in Masyaf. He has 5 fingers and - Ezio awakens, in the ruins of his home. He is there with several foreign Assassin's. What was he thinking when he came here without someone who could speak both English and Italian? ...When did he come here, anyways? Desmond...can't wake up.

mirrors by partlysunny 

mirrors, water, glass, and the smooth, unblemished metal of his blade--or, things Desmond tries to avoid whilst in the Animus.

runner by partlysunny 

"Tell me about the beginning. You need to remember the start."

Thank You, Desmond by ajackdaw 

Following the Solar Maxum, thousands of granite plaques appear in numerous cities around the world, all bearing the same statement: “Thank you, Desmond”. The rest of the world is baffled on who this is and why they should be thanked, but the Brotherhood will not let his sacrifice go unrecognized.

in your eyes, sanctuaries by vaec (aosc) 

"Actually, I'd love a bar down here -- and a scotch. Preferably from Islay, but I don't suppose you would find that hereabout."

Five times where this is Desmond's life, and him and Shaun split the title of Grand Master Asshole.

Breathing Anew by ResidentOwl 

Desmond spun into action, blade ready in his hand with a deft flick of his wrist. His arm pulled back and fell in a swift strike, metal feasting on the delicate flesh of the guard's neck, the blade sating its thirst on his blood —warmth, burning, pride—.

A smirk pulled at the corner of Desmond's mouth, a feeling of satisfaction not yet his own.

He wasn't done yet.

Three Days by orangeCrates 

The men working at Abstergo are very scientific minded. Ghosts and curses and magic were things of the past (even if the Pieces of Eden came close they were still based in science). But still, after Subject 17 dies in captivity and his corpse was used to unlock the memories of his ancestors, strange things began happening that no one could explain.

Like, how come the only memories they could interact with were the last three days leading up to Subject 17 (Miles, Desmond)'s death?

Modern Day Assassin by QuillMind 

Takes place during AC3, but no real story spoilers. Desmond is in the city searching for a power cell, and needs to make a Leap of Faith from a building. But what do Assassins land in in contemporary times as opposed to hay bales?

ghost in the machine by traitorhero 

It was just supposed to be a glitch in the Helix modules...

Acclimatization by insanityrenaissance 

by the time you've actually killed someone for the first time, you've slain a few lifetimes worth of people. 

[keyismykitty]

Tell me more about Vladimir Komorov.

now you’ve gone and done it

back in ye olden days (read: soviet russia, circa space race), the soviets were doing everything they could to be the first this or the first that in space. they already had the first man, yuri gagarin, and he was a national treasure, but everyone knows yuri. it’s also speculated that yuri wasn’t the first man in space, but actually just the first person to go up and back and survive, and given the soviets’ propensity to erase people, 1984-style, when things could potentially be embarrassing for them, i fully believe it. there’s a pair of italian brothers who also picked up a radio signal during this time they claimed was from space, and in it you can hear a russian woman saying (and i’m paraphrasing, this is just what i’m pulling from memory) “hello? can anyone hear us? we’re drifting away…history will forget us” (there’s a whole lot more on the lost cosmonauts but i’m getting off-track)

so back to komorov. the soviets were getting desperate and wanted a really snazzy rocket launch in honor of the anniversary of communism taking hold in russia, thinking that would make them a solid contender in the space race again (because things were not looking good for them), so they built the soyuz 1 rocket in one hell of a hurry (we’re talking e.t. for the atari level rush job here). they wanted komorov to pilot it because he was an outstanding pilot, like, incredibly skilled, defying being declared medically unfit TWICE because he was just that good. however, when he and gagarin went to check out the rocket, they both counted something like 200 mechanical problems and both came right out and said the rocket would not survive re-entry. both of them were told to gtfo.

so the day of the flight, gagarin and komorov both showed up and gagarin had to be physically restrained to keep him from getting in the rocket, he demanded that he be sent instead but komorov said no, he had to stay; i believe he said to someone that “someone has to take care of yuri”.

anyway, shit hit the fan pretty quickly, the soyuz 1 was supposed to rendezvous with the soyuz 2 and do a bunch of complicated stuff before coming back but it didn’t even make it that far, one of it’s solar panels didn’t unfold properly, which kept the electrical from working right, etc etc. and eventually it came back to earth, but, again, nothing worked right. komorov did everything he could but it still didn’t change the fact that he was essentually piloting a toilet the soviets chucked at the moon and hoped for the best.

so on re-entry, the parachutes wouldn’t deploy and the whole thing went to hell, the whole thing started to burn up and you can listen to his final transmission on youtube, i don’t speak russian and i’ve read that there’s some dispute about whether or not this is true (although i don’t know how you can dispute a recording but i guess this is why i should learn russian) but he started shouting that he resents the communist party and curses the men responsible for sending him and tells them his blood is on their hands. the capsule burned completely on re-entry, along with komorov. the only thing that was recovered that wasn’t charred completely was a small piece of his heel bone. everything else was completely unrecognizable

tl;dr, vladimir komorov was a fantastic pilot, an even better friend, braver than anyone and died for his friend and for his country, even though his country betrayed and murdered him and i will always take any opportunity to go on about him