#however i like the idea of john only having some of his attributes since he's a fragment originally

[da-cti]

My attempt at a John design :]c

[justenjoythegossip]

A LOT OF CHRIS’ RECENT PR ISSUES ACTUALLY FALLS ON HIM…

I won’t go as far as some plants from Team Middle/Real who have defended the unfamous talent agency as CAA has proved to be as shady as it gets and that’s putting it mildly but a lot of Chris’ current issues PR wise can be attributed to his own doing and likely input. And I am not even talking about the fact that Chris has signed off on all of this PR rebranding and the tactics used to achieve it since he is the client and actually pays for their expertise and services.

The cringe and alienating content they shoved down our throats…

Some people have drawn the parallel between Chris and Alba’s shitshow with Seb’s former shitshow with Ale, and rightfully so. As clearly, CAA’s stamp is all over some of the content they shoved down our throats. Here are a few examples of pictures that show all the similarities.

However I would argue that the scare videos were very probably Chris and Scott’s idea. And it sure was a good idea originally. During Covid, so many celebrities were desperate to stay in the public eye and their scare videos were a cute way to get some good attention as this banter between two siblings living together during hard times was quite entertaining. At least it was for a while until it felt quite forced. It is still puzzling to me that anyone (Chris?) thought it would be a good idea to have him do the same thing with Alba. As if the dynamic between 2 romantic partners resembled the dynamic existing between two siblings? How didn’t anyone say that the optics of an immature middle aged man play silly games with his teenage looking girlfriend were not only atrocious but humiliating for both participants? And the general public deserved a lot better than this horrifying & badly acted spectacle that turned a lot of people against them right from the start.

The duplicity of playing the victim card to feed the discourse/save face with his fans

I have already talked about this aspect profusely in several posts including these:

Chris has been more than complicit in the little games that has been played at the expense of his fans. He might genuinely dislike her or be depressed but obviously he is an actor and he CAN act. And he did manage to do a much better job at selling their relationship at the Vanity Fair party for their debut when he wanted to for example. So of course, it’s safe to assume he has not only tried to feed the discourse but also tried to gain sympathy from his fans as he has looked purposefully miserable to the point where it was over the top. Do people remember the first pap pictures that were released when he was on the set of The Materialists? He looked so down, sour and miserable but it was short-lived as he then looked ridiculously happy and was smiling from ear to ear and laughing on the barrage of onset pictures we got afterwards. Ad nauseum I should add, which also shows how curated and manufactured it all was.

Side note: I believe that the backlash would not have been this extensive if Chris and Alba had both tried to sell the puppy love better but I suspect the relationship between them was always designed and meant to be controversial to give Chris some much needed edge. I might develop this aspect in another post. 

The crisis of the signing of the inert object and the disastrous PR response

The crisis that resulted from John Cusack posting the picture of Chris signing an inert object was poorly handled to say the least and I suspect it falls exclusively on Chris, for the sole reason that a PR firm would have never handled that crisis in the way that it was done. 

PR 101 tells us the steps you need to take when it comes to handling a PR crisis: acknowledge the issue, own it, apologize for it and then promise a better future. There was none of that here and I suspect it was because Chris didn’t want to apologize as he felt he had done nothing wrong. I won’t discuss his merits as it’s totally irrelevant but I will say that he should have kept quiet if he truly felt that way. 

Because in the PR world, lame-ass apologies are worse than no apology. When the wife of a senate candidate rebuffs antisemitic claims by saying that one of their attorneys is a Jew… well, how can I put it? Not helpful! Drew Barrymore’s crying video after crossing the picket line? Not helpful and deleted! Ashton and Mila Kunis’ apology after defending convicted rapist and scientologist Masterson? Not helpful! However she is about to make a comeback in Knives Out 3 because this is Hollywood and nobody cares if you are a monster or a monster apologist.

To go back to Chris, he should have kept quiet about this issue because he not only drew more attention to the controversy but he also put even more emphasis on what he didn’t apologize for: his silence after being so vocal politically speaking and the backlash he received for associating with Nazis. Not a smart move.

And I suspect CAA did their best to help him by creating a much needed distraction as they basically sacrificed the movie The Materialists for good PR for Chris and Dakota, by releasing an unheard and unseen amount of onset pictures. 

[bethanydelleman]

Northanger Abbey Readthrough Ch 16

Catherine’s expectations of pleasure from her visit in Milsom Street were so very high that disappointment was inevitable

Jane Austen is killing it with opening lines. And such a universal truth! Also, General Tilney turns his children into different people and that is a CRIME. He stops Henry Tilney from talking! Jail for the General, jail for 1000 years!

Isabella is not a very focused con artist, which is a big reason why I find it difficult to hate her. Up until this chapter, she's happily encouraged Catherine to pursue Henry Tilney, but now she's on the attack. Either it was too much work to do both her and her brother's schemes or she was trusting John's ability to seduce Catherine, but Lucy Steele or Lady Susan would not have dropped the ball on this! Her sudden attacks on the Tilney family become so much less effective because they are too much, too late.

Of all things in the world inconstancy is my aversion. - Oh Isabella, you could not be more ridiculous! Also, does she really buy her brother's BS? It sounds like it: "John thinks very well of him, and John’s judgment—”

Captain Tilney has finally arrived and Catherine is like, "Meh." She guesses that other people might find him handsome, most likely, but he's clearly not as awesome as Henry. He also is against dancing! Nothing to like here (except the career in the military, his massive future wealth, his looks...)

This line, my heart:

listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself.

The two people who have protested against dancing end up dancing together, THIS IS A CLUE CATHERINE! But no

right over her head once more.

Catherine does some very Isabella-esq time measuring: Her suspense was of full five minutes’ duration; and she was beginning to think it a very long quarter of an hour but since she is experiencing real anxiety, I won't judge her for it.

Oh man this line is pure gold:

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

Again, we can see clearly why Henry likes Catherine

“Well, then, I only meant that your attributing my brother’s wish of dancing with Miss Thorpe to good nature alone convinced me of your being superior in good nature yourself to all the rest of the world.”

Now we get down the money, James is promised a living of £400/year and an estate of near equal value upon his father's death. This would total about £800/year and is a good income! Of course, the first few years on only £400 might be a little tight, but you don't have children yet at that point. However, this is clearly far below what Isabella Thorpe expected!

We also learn, Catherine really had no idea how wealthy she was:

Catherine, whose expectations had been as unfixed as her ideas of her father’s income, and whose judgment was now entirely led by her brother, felt equally well satisfied, and heartily congratulated Isabella on having everything so pleasantly settled.

It is interesting, Catherine is kind of in the dark about herself, in addition to most other things. James it seems had a more clear idea, the Thorpes erroneously thought James and Catherine were rich, while the Tilney children seem to have accurately assessed Catherine's wealth and status, enough at least to be surprised by their father's interest in her!

It's interesting how Austen sometimes writes very similar lines but the sentiment comes off very differently. Here is a section from Persuasion where Charles wishes his father gave them more money:

They were always perfectly agreed in the want of more money, and a strong inclination for a handsome present from his father; but here, as on most topics, he had the superiority, for while Mary thought it a great shame that such a present was not made, he always contended for his father’s having many other uses for his money, and a right to spend it as he liked.

And Mrs. Thorpe/Isabella speaking with very similar words, but almost opposite sentiments:

"Mr. Morland has behaved so very handsome, you know. I always heard he was a most excellent man; and you know, my dear, we are not to suppose but what, if you had had a suitable fortune, he would have come down with something more, for I am sure he must be a most liberal-minded man.” “Nobody can think better of Mr. Morland than I do, I am sure. But everybody has their failing, you know, and everybody has a right to do what they like with their own money.”

Charles does actually believe that his father has a right to his own money, the Thorpes not so much! They also are implying that Mr. Morland is specifically withholding money from his son because Isabella is poor and is therefore a greedy, calculating person himself. But no, this is a very good deal for James, which the narrator has taken pains to point out, especially since Mr. Morland has 10 children to provide for!

Isabella Thorpe lying through her teeth:

I hate money; and if our union could take place now upon only fifty pounds a year, I should not have a wish unsatisfied.

As John Mullen says, those who claim to hate money in Austen love it the most!

I think it's worth pointing out, Catherine is getting very close to the truth about Isabella in this chapter and she feels very uncomfortable in her suspicions, but now Isabella is engaged to James. Just like Catherine is persuaded to find John Thorpe better than he is because of peer pressure, she now is being encouraged to think better of Isabella as James's choice of a wife. Maintaining family unity does seem to be a very high value in this era and an engagement is almost as good as a marriage now that Mr. Morland has approved. So despite her uncomfortable feelings, Catherine has motive to believe the secondary explanation for Isabella's reaction to the wedding settlement.

[mamelukeraza]

My relations with the Duke of Reichstadt (1/?)

Hey, guys! First of all, happy Murat day! I know it's a bit contradictory that I'm posting King of Rome content on Murat's birthday, but I can't let go that the King of Rome's bday was the 20th! I wanted to draw something to celebrate it, but instead, I'll leave you with these memories of his best friend; Count Anton Prokesch-Osten about him. Please, forgive some misspelling you could find, since nor german, french or english are my native language! This text was translated from the german to the french, and so, I translate this to the english for you! Hope you enjoy it! For some context, the King of Rome/Napoleon II is living in Vienna (he started living there at the age of three) at the time this takes place. They refer to him by his title (Duke of Reichstadt) or by "Franz".

The Duke of Reichstadt was then for me, as well as for all circles of Viennese society, one of those appearances that were as attractive as they were endearing. However, I hadn't had a chance to get close to him until then. Now, precisely around this time, my destiny took me to Trieste, then in the midst of the battles where Greece shed its blood in floods on the mainland and on the islands, finally to Constantinople, in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and Nubia. After six years of absence, I returned to my native land, where I found a welcome full of kindness and consideration. At that time, when no steamboat had yet sailed the seas of the Levant, voyages to such distant lands, participation in events which, like the struggles of the Greeks against the Turks, had the privilege of exciting minds to the point of higher, they were considered almost as a merit, and reflected a certain brilliance in whoever had achieved them. My native city, Gratz, gave me a particularly flattering reception, when in June 1830, I went there for a few weeks to see relatives and friends, as well as to find these places still filled with the sweetest memories and that had been the theater of my early youth.

At the same time the court also came to reside at Gratz, and on the 22nd of the same month, I had the honor of being invited to the imperial table; placed in front of the Empress, I had the Duke of Reichstadt next to me, seated in front of the Emperor. This handsome and noble young man with deep blue eyes, a masculine forehead, abundant blond hair, silence on his lips, calm and self-possessed in all respects of him, made a truly extraordinary impression on me. I had a feeling similar to the one that comes over a teenager who first meets the young woman to whom he will give his heart. I only exchanged a few shy words with him the whole time we sat at the table; because the Empress and my former protector, Archduke John, were never tired of me telling them what I had seen and learned in foreign countries that we then considered so distant. Much better, after dinner they held me back for several more hours, and when I was finally allowed to retire, the Duke of Reichstadt barely had time to throw these few words at me:

"You've known me for a long time," and he squeezed my hand as if we were old friends.

This handshake was, in fact, a promise for the future. It could only have been given in this sense, and I did not attribute any other idea to it.

The next morning Count Maurice Dietrichstein, to whom the Duke's education was entrusted, came to my house. The count had shown me kindness from the moment that the favor of the princely house of Schwarzenberg had supported me. He reiterated the reproach already formulated the day before, namely, that, although he had been in the same city for a week, he had neglected the duke. The count offered to take me to the young prince at the same moment. I followed him with pleasure. At my entrance, the duke, whose attitude was not at all like that of the day before, rushed towards me with all the petulance of youth, his look animated and full of confidence. Repeating the words of the previous day, he exclaimed:

"You have known me and I have loved you for a long time. You defended my father's honor at a time when everyone was slandering him at will. I have read his memoirs on the Battle of Waterloo and, to better understand each line, I have translated them twice, first in French and then in Italian.”

I responded in terms inspired by the desire to bond closely with this handsome young man so neglected in this world.

Count Dietrichstein took the conversation to Greece. Expressing the most ardent wishes for prosperity for this people, who are now called to live their own lives again, already the day before, after having dinner with the imperial family, I supported the opinion that, despite the unfavorable conditions resulting from war, anarchy, factions, mismanagement, Greece, if given a prince of a European dynasty as king, and if its organization were not the work of diplomatic insufficiency, would move very rapidly towards a flourishing future. In the presence of Archduke Jean, Count Maurice, Colonel de Werklein, intendant of the Archduchess Maria Luisa, I, taking advantage of a moment when the Duke of Reichstadt was busy elsewhere, slipped into the course of the conversation the idea that the throne of Greece, devoid of claimants since the refusal of the Prince of Coburg, could not be handed over to a more worthy than the son of Napoleon: This proposal had received, to my surprise, general approval, The Empress herself, who, during this conversation had approached us, did not seem to oppose it. She had expressed this idea without yet knowing that they were the views of the Prince of Metternich; however, as early as 1825, I became aware of the statement made by this diplomat in St. Petersburg:

"One of two things: either the Greeks will again be subjected to Bonaparte, and given administrative autonomy; or an independent Greece will be constituted in such a way that it will not necessarily be Bonaparte's enemy."

However, Count Maurice had given me the chance to talk about Greece once more that morning, the duke soon guessed my thoughts and caught fire with my words. We were interrupted at that moment by the General Prince of (...). He wanted to say goodbye; however the duke insisted:

"The general," he told me, "he'll only stop for a moment, and I'd be very upset if I lost you soon."

I stayed. The Prince of (...) soon left, rebuffed by the duke's laconicism. So Count Dietrichstein brought up the conversation about Napoleon. The duke spoke with high spirits. We could feel in each of his words the warmest admiration, the deepest attachment for his father; however, he preferred to rely on his military talents. To take him as a model and thus become a great captain, at this point he was all fire, all flame. We discussed several of the Emperor's maneuvers, including Austerlitz. I was surprised by the prince's strategic judgment and the precision of his expressions. Of all the officers and generals then at Gratz, there was, of course, not one who had the keenest military eye and was endowed with the most pronounced aptitude for command-in-chief. He returned not only to my published account of the Battle of Waterloo, but also to "the memorable events in the life of Field Marshal Prince Charles of Schwarzenberg. The duke appreciated them with a sagacity that astonished me. Then he complained of his isolation, and poured out his soul in these words:

"Stay with me; sacrifice your future for me, stay with me! We are made to understand each other!"

He expressed himself with such warmth that he touched me to the bottom of my heart. Then he continued:

"If I am called to be another Prince Eugene for Austria, the question I ask myself is this: how will it be possible for me to prepare myself for this role? I feel indecisive in choosing a man capable of introducing me to the high demands and noble duties of the military career. I do not have and do not see any man of this merit in my entourage."

Count Dietrichstein witnessed this departure, and seemed to find it natural and fair. I reproached the duke, cordially shaking his hand, for judging too hastily. He accepted my guilt without taking offense and listened deferentially when I expressed the doubt he felt about my ability. Our interview was interrupted by the General Count of Leiningen, whom I could not refuse to receive. But, once again, he did not let me go, and as soon as the count left, he resumed the conversation about his father's feats of arms. As it was necessary to pay my respects to his mother, the Archduchess Maria Luisa, I could hardly delay any longer; I warned him about it and said goodbye to him. I had been at the archduchess's for barely half an hour when the duke went there in the same manner. His mother received him tenderly; he kissed her with a rather serious air. The conversation focused on his childhood. He wanted her to give him more precise information about Colonel Sèves, who had accompanied him from Paris to Blois in March 1814, and whom he had met in April 1828 in Modon, at Ibrahim-Pasha's house. I had to tell him what the colonel had taught me about this fatal escape.

We perceived each other as two men who were convinced that nothing could separate them.

Source: Mes relations avec le duc de Reichstadt : mémoire posthume / par le comte de Prokesch-Osten,. . . ; traduit de l’allemand [par A. de Prokesch-Osten fils]. Gallica. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6536278r/f38.item.zoom

[georgedpr]

Online shopping sites have revolutionized the retail market. It could be argued that sites like Amazon.com changed the way Americans and the world consume. Rather than traveling to the store and browsing consumers can browse a virtual warehouse and order from the comfort of their armchairs. However, lost amid the development of these sites is the value of browsing. These sites are perfect for those situations where the consumer understands what they are looking for or has a product in mind. Though currently, most shopping sites do a mediocre if the not terrible job of helping people find things they aren’t looking for.

A perfect example of this phenomenon is Amazon.com. While Amazon sells everything from action figures to appliances I mostly shop there for books. I tend to read mostly within the fantasy and science fiction genre which Amazon carries a decent selection. Now Amazon does do some interesting things to attempt to help users find similar material. They show which percentage of people who bought item X also bought items Y and Z. Or they allow users to tag different entries with keywords that reflect that user’s perceptions of the item.[1] However, these are all quantitative efforts that churn out results based on a secret sauce algorithm that lurks on a server buried somewhere deep below Amazon HQ. The site’s qualitative attempts to match users with new material or items are not particularly thought-provoking.

I recently found myself staring at the entry on Amazon for Hardwired.

A science/fiction novel from Walter Jon Williams about a cybernetically enhanced warrior battling it out in a future earth. I found the book through a roundabout method that has only been available since the internet crept out of its servers in a DARPA mainframe to extend throughout the world.

I had been searching for books that were similar to Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. I stumbled onto the book about a year ago by way of a friend of a friend and quickly gobbled up the entire series and Mr. Scalzi’s other works. Finding books similar to Scalzi’s work in both quality and genre has been a difficult task (save for Heinlein’s Starship Troopers which I had already read). Thankfully, Mr. Scalzi provides a venue on his site for new authors to display their work he calls the “Big Idea” and I have found that an excellent place to find recommendations. There I ran across a recommendation for Forever War which in turn gave me the link to Hardwired.

Scrolling down the page I came across the subject headings for the title. For any non-librarian types essentially the subject headings are the categories (mystery, fiction, etc.) that the book falls into that give clues about the book’s content.

The folks at Amazon described the book with eight different subject headings that basically said the same thing or attributed certain formats (graphic novels) that don’t apply to the work. Clearly, anyone looking at the subject headings would not get the best idea about what the book was about other than science fiction.[2] I don’t blame the cataloger or whoever decided to ascribe these traits to the novel. Even the best craftsman can only do so much with substandard tools. There Since Amazon.com sells/catalogs so many items their system for categorization has to cover so many subjects the granularity for the system is blunted. Rather than simply science fiction why not create a further level in the taxonomy to include military science fiction, near-future science fiction, etc?

Rather than having a single large taxonomy that tries to cover everything at the expense of the granular concepts it would be better to have several smaller more specific taxonomies that can then be mapped together if need be. Right now keyword searches work cause the amount of information online is manageable. However, anyone who looks past the first two pages of results from any popular search engine will see that the results vary. Customized and specialized taxonomies will help users find the resources, but also the best resources for their needs.

1 If you are looking for a better example of tagging see LibraryThing. Though “better” is simply my opinion and in the interest of full disclosure I have met the LibraryThing Librarian, and the company is headquartered not far from where I grew up. Therefore, a bias on my part should be assumed.  ↩

2 Some might answer that the only people to look at subject headings/categorization are librarians. While I would tend to agree with that assessment I would also argue that if subject headings/categorization gave more information or were more relevant then maybe more non-librarian users might employ them.  ↩

[ficsnroses]

Weekend Away - John Wick x Reader

prompt  : “I think we were a little too loud last night...”

warnings : smut, fluff! x f! reader. 2.8k.

summary : john and you are away for the weekend with friends, and end up getting intimate one evening. however, the next morning, you fear someone may have heard you two getting freaky hehehaheha

notes : this is something I wrote a while ago, but didn’t think it would ever see the light of day. last night I pulled it out of my drafts and did a little editing, and here it is! please leave feedback if you enjoy. I really do miss being around here. hope everyone's doing well today xx 

I really wanted to post something for keke’s birthday<33:) happy birthday to the most excellent man I know, ilysm. I've been itching to post something, but haven't been able to bring myself to write anything new yet. I have a couple more stories like this that I wrote but never posted, I might release those while going through this writing/creative break. Thank you for sticking around, it means so so much :)

“You have no idea how hard it was to not rip your bikini bottoms to the side and fuck you right then and there, in the lake.” An aroused John whispers, deep baritoned voice rasped with thick need. Today, John and you had ventured out on a trip with some friends to a Cabin by your favourite lake; woody outdoors and crystal waters to bliss.

Soft, plump breasts and perfectly dewy skin, glistening under the moonlight. John sighs, remembering that this, you, in all your entirety, were his. All his, for the taking. Groaning into the silk of your pink stained lips, his tongue brushes delicately over yours, his lips leaving peppered kisses along your cheeks, your jaw, eliciting soft moans from you that only warmed him further.

In the woods, the breeze was different; beautifully élite; whisked winds laced with something that hungered John- the gorgeous views of you, his girl, enjoying yourself. Lately, John and you had been majorly occupied, busy schedules and endless work days leaving little to leisure.

This trip was with friends, yet more, for you and your John to be together; at last.

Now, in the midst of the midnight eve, John and you lay low in your shared bedroom for the stay; a beautifully wooden cabin room with expensive faux furred carpets, a breathtaking view of the pearly moon gazed out your window. John’s callous, sturdy palms worship each inch of your silky skin, kneading, massaging your feminine hips, meaty cock throbbed to a bulging poke; tender on your bare thigh.

Attributed to tiresome nights, complied with conflicting schedules; it’d been a while since John and you had sex.

Real, rough, pleasurable, critically needed sex.

And now, finally, he’s far too in love, far too intoxicated by your touch to stop, your own thoughts far too hazed to halt now. Underneath his nude body, you lay, completely wanton & exposed for his taking. Slow, tender, your petite hand strokes his rock hard cock, gently tugging him in preparation for what would come next. Synchronized, John’s breath sputters hot against your skin, full lips kissing delicately down the column of your neck. Mindlessly, he leaves faintly violet marks, marking your body as his own, personal paradise.

A place only he was allowed to pleasure.

“I’ve missed you so much.” You whisper, kissing a delicate bruise to his shoulder. Gentle, sensitive, your soft hand toys with his balls, massaging his cock. “I missed this,” Smirking, you smear tiny dew drops of his pre cum, bringing up a finger to lick clean, tasting the sap of his seed to your lips.

Salty, decadent; sinfully sweet. All yours.

“Yeah, kitten?” John softly, deeply whispers. “I missed your pretty pussy.” Sighing when you pull him closer, your eyes close to the feel of him kissing your neck, so mindlessly in love with all of you in this moment. “My pretty pussy.” He grins, a wet kiss stippling to your lips.

Slow, present, John’s stocky fingers move between your entwined bodies to rub soft circles to your slick entrance; your clit in order to ease himself in, preparing your cunt. With a sharp breath sucked in, and a glutteral moan enticed off his needy lips, John sighs heavily, your own gasp laced with anticipation when you feel him sink inside in one hard thrust. His thickness splits you inch by inch, your delicate walls barely able to accommodate him whole.

Being with John, has always been a treat. The way he loves you, offers your needs first; he fucks so good, makes love so well.

Arms loomed to his neck, you draw his body closer with a bite to your lip, his own bearded jaw tightening to the feel of your warm, deliciously wet haven swallowing him whole. The pace he sets proves imperative, rough, stumbling profanities and whispers of love fleeing both your lips. Your cunt burns deliciously to his thrusts, the feel of his thick, heavy balls slamming relentlessly to your seared core pushing you further over the edge. John’s chest is quick to heave, quick to daub a rosy hue with peppered pink patches from the heat; delectably satisfying relief, at last.

“Feel good, baby?” John moans, voice confident with sure; he was quite literally fucking you into oblivion. Eyes clasped shut to a tight hold, your mouth falls slightly a gape; genuine tears threatening to scorch when you feel the absolute bliss he’s channeling into you. Hard, fast, deep, so fucking deep he hits your end each time, your G spot grinding to his touch. Whimpering, you allow small, tiny gasps to plead out, hands placing to John’s ass to urge him in further, practically melting within his touch as he ventures to the valley of your breasts.

John adores your breasts, so full, so plump, so soft for his taking. Wet and warm, you groan to the feel of his mouth delighting your nipples, hands squeezing, kneading gently to the soft flesh of your modesty. To each jolt of his hips, your breasts bounce rhythmically, soft fingers of your hands pulling a tug to his coffee hued, lengthy strands. Massaging his scalp, you allow his head to take refuge in the soft curve of your neck, and he kisses the skin, sucking, nipping, appreciating the silk as his hips never falter; fingers moving to your cunt to rub, swirl, massaging two digits to your creamy released mixed together.

“It’s…it’s so good-” Yelped out your lips, a particularly loud moan shudders through the surround air, repetitive praises of his name reciting as if a prayer you so desperately needed to live by flows off your tongue; the syllables drenched with need. “So tight, sweetheart, you’re so fucking tight.” John moans, a feverish kiss to your mauve stained lips. “You look the most beautiful when you’re taking me the way you do, baby.” He whispers, wet marks doused into your skin. He pumps hastily, pounding your walls, and the slight curve of his massive length pulses; thick shafted veins and gorgeous bumps, ridges all felt deep, deep inside.

John’s cock is a piece of art. A masterpiece, you’d forever pride in.

Within a few particularly harsh thrusts, you yelp in pleasure as your orgasm washes over you, searing your nerves with blissful tingles as he fucks, pounding into your delicate, gently bruising skin, still chasing his own.

“Gonna cum,” John groans, and you clench your cunt tight for him, tight; just how he liked it. His hips roll selfishly almost, breathy moans appreciating your body immense. “You feel so good, honey, so fucking good.” He drills, and slams, and batters, into your sore pussy, your nails desperately digging bruises into his biceps as you encourage. “Cum for me John, inside, baby, let me feel you.” You soak, back arching, body jerking as you feel him burst inside; habitually pulling your body close as he cums. John’s cock stills deep, deep inside, spurts of his hot, delectably creamy seed slicking inside you as you sigh,

sigh in complete,

and utter, bliss. Bliss with your love close, nestled on top with your skin sticking together; your arms providing a safe haven for his sex gratified body to rest, coming down both your highs.

“I love you,” He barely manages, foreheads connecting as you hold each other close, lips twisting into warm smiles and tender giggles to the thought of being able to do exactly this, all over again, the next day.

Morning comes in warm, yellow waves of nothing, but beautiful warmth all around. You’d waken to the bed next to you empty, John’s vacant spot casting a gentle frown to your lips when you’d come to know of his absence. Sleep thickened eyes had barely fluttered open, tired arms searching, longing to nestle into his broad, beautifully comforting chest. Voices can be perceived downstairs, the bedside clock illuminating the time of 8:30 AM, aromas of floral dark and freshly watered pine exuding all around.

With a small yawn and a stretch of limbs, you’d climbed out a sea of rippling, silky duvet seams, opting to drape John’s long forgotten shirt from the night prior off the floor and onto your exposed breasts. In the heat of the moment, sleep had long pirouetted through your veins, and you’d only managed to slip back on a pair of lacy underwear before the bulk of John’s arms had drawn your body close, burying his bearded face into your neck with his own form tangling with yours, succumbing to a deep slumber, holding each other close.

The cabin was big, yet intimate. All of yours and John’s dearest friends had accompanied; you’d long know you’d be leaving this weekend with a suitcase full of memories and wishful remembrances, spent with people who meant to you.

Through a gentle smile and rub of drooping eyelids, you venture out your shared room, a bigger smile enveloping when the sight of your dream catches your glimpse from above the wooden stairs. John sits below, at the wooden dining table, a coffee in hand as his brown littered eyes gloss the morning paper. He looks beautiful this way, unbelievably handsome. You’d long come to appreciate morning John, ruffled hair a mess from the night’s sleep, with that special, raspy morning velvet voice that still sent butterflies rippling within you. Gently thudding down the steps, he smiles wide catching sight of you towards him, adorned in his white Henley shirt.

“Morning.” Smiling, your hands thread into the wisps of his chocolate hair, sinking into the depths of his lap as his arms come around your frame. His eyes seem warmer than normal, a glittering shine casting over each his features.

“Hi, baby.” John warmly grins, stippling a gentle kiss to your temple with the pads of his fingers grazing over your skin through a pull of your body closer. “Did you sleep okay?” He wonders, thumb smoothing over your cheek as a stray hair tucks behind your ear.

Still smiling a warm symphony, you sigh. “I did. Didn’t like waking up without you there, though.”

John’s lips frown, and a heaviness falls to his tone. “I’m sorry, I got a call earlier. Didn’t wanna wake you too early.” Explaining, his hand falls to cover yours that lays flat on his chest, softly grazing over the supple skin. “You haven’t been able to sleep in lately. I wanted you to have that this weekend.”

Moments like this with John prove to be your favourite; simple, mundane, enveloped in love. Moments where the laughter rolls up from his chest, and his smile shines a glow to each part of you that loves seeing him this way. Moments where you anticipate, dream of a future together, where you’d wake to him this way every day,

Smiling, and smiling, with perhaps your favourite book in hand and his head in your lap; full pots of earl grey brewing,

as you lounge on a Sunday morning. Smiling, and smiling,

        because of him.

Love drunk, you lean in closer, catching his lips in a warm kiss, smiling and smiling, into his lips. He tastes of espresso, light and mellow, and that something unique held on his tongue; something only he’d had, something sweet.

Lost in each other’s touch, you sigh as you pull away, moving to sit behind him on the chair adjacent, helping yourself to a sip of his ceramic mug. His hand plants to your thigh, gently soothing the skin while his eyes scan through the sea of words resumed on his morning paper read. You’d just gotten comfortable, sinking into the chair with John’s coffee coupled in your grip for another sip, as the voice of your best friend channels your ears.

“Morning, love birds.” She grins, walking through the wooden kitchen corridors. With a smirk daubed to her lips and a knowing simper your way, you’d immediately caught onto something shifty in her tone.

“Hey, Amy.” John greets, chuckling. With another sip of his coffee, that you’d devoured a good portion of, he kindly asks. “How was your night? Did you sleep okay?”

Amy’s lips curl with a knowing smirk, something you’d become immensely familier with over the course of your friendship. Knowing each other since the first grade, Amy and you were quite possibly as close as they come. John may have not been able to pick up on her alteration, but you’d been quick.

“I did.” Amy returns, shuffling through the cabinets for a glass mug of her own. “There was a little...commotion around midnight, but it wasn’t too bad.” She adds, eyes drifting to yours, a goofy smile on her lips. With your eyes narrowing and stare scrunching, your alertness raises, and you let go of John’s hand that had mindlessly been holding yours, removing it off your thigh. Peering up at your lips as you raise off the seat, John’s fingers tug your forearm, asking for a small kiss before you’d walk away. Embedding your lips to his briefly, you feel him let go of your skin as your eyes suspiciously cast over Amy, mindlessly shuffling through the kitchen space as she prepares herself a cup of coffee. You stay cautious, ambled up beside her as you check the fridge.

Something is off.

“We have cream, right?” She asks, offering you half her blueberry muffin, taking out a carton of eggs from the fridge.

“Should be in there.” You return, still thoughtful, attempting to study her whole. The longer you stare, the more normalcy returns, and you wonder if maybe your tired brain had merely thought there had been something off with her tenor. Easing yourself, you opt to give it the benefit of the doubt, opening the carton of eggs to aid her in making breakfast for all the others.

Still asleep, her husband James would probably be down soon; him and John got along pretty well, and double date nights were quite frequent between you all.

“How many should we do?” She squints her eyes your way, sighing. “Half the carton?”

“Sure.” You reply, relaxing into a more normal state of mind. “Make me a cup of coffee too please, I accidentally drank half of John’s when I got down.” You giggle, taking the carton from her hands. She chuckles an approval in response, gathering all the utensils and gadgets you’d need for preparation. Finally, as you lean over the cabin sink, washing your hands with the lavender scented soap, you hear Amy just behind your ear as she reaches beside you, pumping some soap into her own hand. 

“By the way, you totally have porn star moans.”

And your eyes widen. Shock and realization courses your veins, a horrified expression washes over your features as you allow her comment to absorb. Amy only giggles, chuckling, with her sarcastically suggestive voice teasing you further. “Sounds like Jonathan is real good in bed.” Just below a whisper, so only you’d hear, she titters, amused by your baffled expression.

“Oh my god, Amy!” You cease, slapping the back of your hand over her arm. “You should have texted me! Or knocked! What if someone else heard?” You whisper angrily, still slightly embarrassed. “Oh my gosh, did James hear?” You swallow thickly, rubbing a hand to your ached temple.

“Oh sweetheart, if he wasn’t snoring away I’m sure he would have heard too.” She laughs to your dismay. “Relax, our room was right beside yours. I’m sure no one else heard.” She assures, trying to provide some sort of comfort, but ultimately reverting to a deep, hearty fit of chuckles when she catches your nervous gaze once again. With a deep sigh, you escape her tease, leaving the kitchen with a few quick steps as you find your way back to John who sits by the window, still flipping through his newspaper. Slipping beside him, you sigh deep, before biting your lip.

“John,” You quietly alert, gazing around to make sure no one else would hear. His expression thickens, and his eyes fall heavier, sensing the unease to your features.

“Everything okay, sweetheart?”

Groaning, you bite your lip again, sighing with a timid realization. “John, I think…” With your eyes focused to the ground, you bask, contemplating, sighing. It wasn’t the end of the world; Amy is your best friend; you both know practically every secret there is to know about each other in the history of ever. Yet, there still was a lingering mortification, a blush that crept to your cheeks when she’d spoke of the night prior.

John’s heavier hand strokes over yours, comforting. “What’s wrong, babe?” And with a final bite to your lip, you whisper, grasping his arm.

“I think we were a little too loud last night.” 

John’s cheeks flush pink, and a goofy smile casts his darker features. He smiles a timid grin, eyes downcast as he lightly chuckles a couple huffs, thinking back to the night prior. “Amy heard.” You whisper, barely groaning.

John’s eyes scan the room, before he takes hold of your arms again, drawing your body in closer. With a sultry voice, and that beautifully deep, crisp gravel of his tone you’d come to adore, he whispers into your ear, smiling. “Well, guess we’ll have to be quieter tonight.” He channels, as you bury your head into his chest, embarrassed, yet smiling to the sheer wit of the situation. “I do love a challenge.” John quietly adds, bringing his muscled arms around your figure, whispering a few chuckles into your hair.

And as you gaze up, catching his silly grin and pink cheeks blushed to a peachy hue, you smile,

and smile,

feeling the warmth of his stocky hand slip into the seams of your shirt, gently soothing over your back, as his lips pepper a gentle kiss to your hair, still smiling. “Darling, it’s nearly impossible for me to be quiet, 

when I’m with you.”

➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴

My taglist will be posted in reblogs, let me know if you want to be added or removed! :)

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Shielded. Chapter One

ANON: Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway. [John Wayne]

Since the beginning of lockdown here in the UK, I’ve been making little notes here and there and I’ve finally put something together that is hopefully interesting. It’s set from the start of our isolation back on Friday 20th March and will work its way forwards in time <3 enjoy! Mod MBD.

-- --- --

The Daily Briefing:

She left under the cover of darkness, the atmospheric sheet rain appearing out of nowhere to conceal her as she hid the doorway of a boarded up shop. The ‘closed’ signs that littered the windows of each and every shop on the highstreet illuminated as the lights flickered on, the daylight fading as night enveloped the south of England. It should have been a regular Friday evening, but it wasn’t. And despite the shock of the rest of the nation, she was more than happy for the lockdown to take immediate effect.

A couple of the pubs were still open, the last of their punters being ushered out by groups of policemen and women as the 9pm curfew approached, and though there was still some footfall through the small village, it wasn’t enough to worry her greatly.

She remembered reading YA fiction that started in a similar way and the idea that the whole population might be reduced to some dystopian teen nightmare seemed more than plausible. But at least she’d be far away from society by the time it did. Wondering whether Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth were somewhere together, raising a glass to their literary insight into such things, she pulled her jacket tighter around her neck to stop the droplets of water running down her chest.

The honk of a horn brought her out of her thoughts as she grabbed her meagre belongings and hid her face from the rain. Getting herself settled in the back of the blacked out van, there was a part of her that scoffed at the idea of danger lurking within as the plain-clothed officers escorting her smiled softly, passing her a towel to wipe the stray drips of moisture from her face. As a child she had, of course, been warned about strangers in vehicles. Now though there were more monsters lurking in her own home than there were anywhere else in the country.

“You might want to get some sleep, if you can, miss.” One of the younger officers said, breaking the silence even with his moderately quiet statement. “It’s a long drive, we’re aiming for eight hours if we can, but it will all depend on the roads.”

Nodding, she pulled a woolen blanket from one of her bags, removed her coat and curled herself against the window. Though she thought sleep impossible, she did manage to doze a little as the car made its way towards the motorway. Her mind went blank as they sped up, she’d spent weeks agonising over this choice, the solid notion of it taking root in her subconscious as the country seemed to spin towards chaos and confusion.

The virus, however, had not been her primary concern. Only her mental and physical survival had taken precedent. It was the prime minister's announcement yesterday that schools and pubs would close the following week that spurred her onwards, and she’d (rather rapidly) responded to the offer she had been levelled with.

If she wanted to disappear, now was her chance.

“John wants you to know that he’s processed the documents you’re going to need and included a shielding letter with that. This should take you until the end of June as well as the furlough payments. He also says you did the right thing.”

Making incomplete thumps against her chest, her heart stopped for a moment as the police officer spoke. She’d been warring with herself for weeks, uncertain of the best course of action. She had, of course, lived with the increasing threat for years before it had finally erupted. John had seen the outcome and had begged her to reconsider his previous offer of assistance having watched her descend into a less than perfect relationship. But she had been convinced that she’d be able to manage.

She hadn’t. An obvious change had taken hold of her husband. He wasn’t the man she married, not by a long shot, and as 2019 came to a close, so did any of his positive attributes. He was a professor, a professional man with many books to his name and he refused to believe his actions had become that of a less than ideal partner.

The first stay in hospital, however, stated otherwise.

“Will I be able to speak to him?”

The officer shook his head sadly. “No, if this is to work, you have to sever all contact with anyone you previously knew, even John. Anything that puts you at risk or could enlighten the wrong people into knowing your whereabouts would jeopardize all of the work we’ve all put in to assure your safety.”

Having had the mood suitably dulled, she lay her head against the window and let several hundred miles pass her by.  

As they crossed the border around midnight, the rain finally began to ease and she smiled at the irony. She hadn’t spent much time in Scotland, but she knew it wasn’t famous for its notoriously glorious weather. Part of her was desperate for some coffee but the further they travelled up the country, the less likely it was that the service stations were 24 hours - nor did she think her drivers would be willing to stop until they’d reached their destination.

Once off the motorway and onto the single track roads that led them further into the highlands, she started to guess at where their final destination might be. When the proposition had first been offered to her, John had given her a number of options of a safe haven - one being a flight away (by that point he had started to take her safety quite seriously). As the grey scenery passed them by, a slight pinking of the sky signalling that dawn was close, she was trying to recall the names of the places he’d suggested though her mind was as much of a blur as the greenery whooshing by the back window.

“I don’t suppose you have anything caffeinated to drink?” She asked. 

Reaching forward, she took the unopened bottle of coke from one of her escorts and relaxed back into her seat.

“Not far away now. There aren't any toilets, though.”

Fatigue was running deep, she could tell by the tiredness in his voice as he spoke and she nodded as she took a sip. The warning was clear; drink it all quickly and there would be no stopping for a break. But she was too thirsty to worry too much.

“Can I ask where we’re going?”

“Just north-west of Inverness. It’s a farm so it’s as remote as they come. It’s single occupancy, the guy who lives there runs his family business. He’s an old contact of John’s, so although there is to be no contact between you, he trusts you’re in safe hands. All shopping is pre organised and will be delivered once every two weeks to ensure neither of you are put at risk leaving the property for supplies.”

“Should I leave the house at all?” At this point she couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or not but there was an honesty to her question that made the officers answer her quickly.

“No. You have your letter, not that there is anyone around to ask for it, but for the next 12 weeks you should remain inside at all times. No matter how far we take you away from civilization there is always the risk - even during a national pandemic and lockdown - of someone being around, seeing you and passing it on. Where we’re taking you, the owner hasn’t had another friend or family on the property for a number of years. Small communities talk so you should stay inside and out of the view of any members of the local village.”

“Noted.” Replying sadly, she replaced the cap on the half finished bottle of cola and ran her fingers along the inside of her leg. The scar there was still fresh, the heat of it making the hairs on her arms stand on end. She knew that if she wanted this to work, if she wanted to remain hidden, then she would have to obey the rules set.

They drove through Inverness just as 5am hit and the sun rose across the extensive lochs and mountains.

“It might seem far-fetched, the idea that you’ll be located, but we can’t take the risk. We did look through your file, though, and found a name we hope has some resonance to you.” *but nobody else* he thought, but did not say.

“Thank you, I really appreciate it. Please pass that on to John, I didn’t even get the chance to tell him how grateful I am. For everything.” Her intrigue had been piqued about her new identity but once she knew who she was going to be for the next few weeks, it would all become real. Whilst they still hadn’t arrived, she could sit and pretend to be existing in an in between - half way between fantasy and reality.

As they pulled off one side-road and onto another her driver passed her an envelope. She could see a small smile lift the side of his mouth as an archway came into view in front of them. “Of course I will, Claire.”

“Claire?”

“Yes,” he returned, bringing his arm up and pointing his finger at the brown packet in her hands, “it’s all in there...the rest of it. Read it, keep the ID documentation and then burn anything you don’t need to use later.”

“Claire.” She whispered to herself.

And in one breath, as a rather large white brick farm house appeared beneath the now large ivy coated arch, Elizabeth Randall died and she instantly became Claire Beauchamp.

[wildesfancyfrock]

John Graves Simcoe

For those who don't know much about John Graves Simcoe, I am going to be posting some fun things, as a Canadian who has lived his entire life in towns/places impacted by Simcoe himself. These are from his time in Canada, since I assume those who have seen TURN have a very vague idea of what he did in the Revolutionary War (even though it's very inaccurate).

John Graves Simcoe (25 February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was a British Army general and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 until 1796 in southern Ontario and the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. He founded York (now Toronto) and was instrumental in introducing institutions such as courts of law, trial by jury, English common law, and freehold land tenure, and also in the abolition of slavery in Canada.

His long-term goal was the development of Upper Canada (Ontario) as a model community built on aristocratic and conservative principles, designed to demonstrate the superiority of those principles to the republicanism and democracy of the United States. His energetic efforts were only partially successful in establishing a local gentry, a thriving Church of England, and an anti-American coalition with select Indigenous nations. He is seen by many Canadians as a founding figure in Canadian history, especially by those in Southern Ontario.[3] He is commemorated in Toronto with Simcoe Day.

First Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada (known today as; Ontario.)

The Constitutional Act 1791 divided Canada into the Provinces of Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec). The Act established separate governments and legislative assemblies for each province. Lower Canada was the French-speaking eastern portion, which retained the French civil law and protections for the Roman Catholic Church established when Britain took over the area after its defeat of the French in the Seven Years' War. Upper Canada was the western area, newly settled after the American Revolutionary War. The settlers were mostly English speakers, including Loyalists from the Thirteen Colonies, and also the Six Nations of the Iroquois, who had been British allies during the war. The Crown had purchased land from the Mississauga and other First Nations to give the Loyalists land grants in partial compensation for property lost in the United States, and to help them set up new communities and develop this territory.[18]

Simcoe was appointed Lieutenant-Governor on 12 September 1791, and left for Canada with his wife Elizabeth and daughter Sophia, leaving three daughters behind in England with their aunt. They left England in September and arrived in Canada on 11 November. Due to severe weather, the Simcoes spent the winter in Quebec City. Simcoe finally reached Kingston, Upper Canada on 24 June 1792.[17]

In a proclamation on 16 July 1792, he renamed several islands at the mouth of the archipelago at the head of the St. Lawrence river for the victorious Generals at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Amherst Island, Gage Island, Wolfe Island, and Howe Island).[19]

Under the Constitutional Act, the provincial government consisted of the Lieutenant-Governor, an appointed Executive Council and Legislative Council, and an elected Legislative Assembly. The first meeting of the nine-member Legislative Council and sixteen-member Legislative Assembly took place at Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) on 17 September 1792.

Following Simcoe's work precipitated by the Chloe Cooley incident, the Assembly passed the first Act Against Slavery in the British Empire in 1793, and the English colonists of Upper Canada took pride in this distinction with respect to the French-Canadian populace of Lower Canada. The Upper Canadians valued their common law legal system, as opposed to the civil law of Quebec, which had chafed them ever since 1763. This was one of the primary reasons for the partition of 1791. Simcoe collaborated extensively with his Attorney-General John White on the file.

The principles of the British Constitution do not admit of that slavery which Christianity condemns. The moment I assume the Government of Upper Canada under no modification will I assent to a law that discriminates by dishonest policy between natives of Africa, America, or Europe.

— John Graves Simcoe, Address to the Legislative Assembly[20]

Slavery was thus ended in Upper Canada long before it was abolished in the British Empire as a whole. By 1810, there were no slaves in Upper Canada, but the Crown did not abolish slavery throughout the Empire until 1834.

Simcoe's first priority was the Northwest Indian War between the United States and the "Western Confederacy" of Native Americans west of the Appalachian Mountains and south of the Great Lakes (the Shawnee, Miami, Wyandot, and other tribes). This conflict had begun in 1785, and was still raging when Simcoe arrived in 1792. Simcoe had hoped to form an Indian buffer state between the two countries, even though he distrusted Joseph Brant, the main Indian leader. Simcoe rejected the section of the Treaty of Paris (1783) which awarded that area to the US, on the grounds that American actions had nullified the treaty.[21] However, the French Revolutionary Wars broke out in 1793. The government in London decided to seek good terms with the United States. Simcoe was instructed to avoid giving the US reason to mistrust Britain but, at the same time, to keep the Natives on both sides of the border friendly to Britain. The Indians asked for British military support, which was initially refused, but in 1794 Britain supplied the Indians with rifles and ammunition.[22]

In February 1794, the governor general, Lord Dorchester, expecting the US to ally with France, said that war was likely to break out between the US and Britain before the year was out. This encouraged the Indians in their war. Dorchester ordered Simcoe to rally the Indians and arm British vessels on the Great Lakes. He also built Fort Miami (present-day Maumee, Ohio) to supply the Indians. Simcoe expelled Americans from a settlement on the southern shore of Lake Erie which had threatened British control of the lake. US President Washington denounced the "irregular and high-handed proceeding of Mr. Simcoe."[23] While Dorchester planned for a defensive war, Simcoe urged London to declare war: "Upper Canada is not to be defended by remaining within the boundary line."[24] Dorchester was officially reprimanded by the Crown for his strong speech against the Americans in 1794.

Simcoe realised that Newark made an unsuitable capital because it was on the Canada–US border and subject to attack. He proposed moving the capital to a more defensible position, in the middle of Upper Canada's southwestern peninsula between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. He named the new location London, and renamed the river there the Thames in anticipation of the change. Dorchester rejected this proposal, but accepted Simcoe's second choice, the present site of Toronto. Simcoe moved the capital there in 1793, and renamed the settlement York after Frederick, Duke of York, King George III's second son. The town was severely underdeveloped at the time of its founding so he brought with him politicians, builders, Nova Scotia timber men, and Englishmen skilled in whipsawing and cutting joists and rafters.[25]

Simcoe began construction of two roads through Upper Canada, for defence and to encourage settlement and trade. Yonge Street (named after British Minister of War Sir George Yonge) ran north–south from York to Lake Simcoe. Soldiers of the Queen's Rangers began cutting the road in August 1793, reaching Holland Landing in 1796. Dundas Street (named for Colonial Secretary Henry Dundas) ran east–west, between York and London.

The Northwest Indian War ended after the United States defeated the Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. They made peace under the Treaty of Greenville. While still at war with France, Britain could not afford to antagonise the US in the Jay Treaty of 1794, and agreed to withdraw north of the Great Lakes, as agreed in the Treaty of Paris (1783). Simcoe evacuated the frontier forts.

Legacy

In the winter of 1779, the first known Valentine's Day letter in America was given by then Lieutenant Colonel John Simcoe to Sarah 'Sally' Townsend.[31]

Simcoe Street in Oyster Bay, New York is named after him for his destruction of a vast apple orchard and reconstruction of a hill fort on the site.[32]

Act Against Slavery passed in 1793, leading to the abolition of slavery in Upper Canada by 1810. It was superseded by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 that abolished slavery across the British Empire.

Simcoe named London, Ontario and the River Thames in Upper Canada.

He named Lake Simcoe and Simcoe County to the west and north of Lake Simcoe in honour of his father.

Simcoe named his summer home Castle Frank for his first son Francis Gwillim, who was preceded by eight daughters. (It is in what is now named Cabbagetown, a neighbourhood in downtown Toronto.)[33]

The Ontario Heritage Foundation placed a plaque in Exeter's cathedral precinct to commemorate his life.

Simcoe's regiment is still called the Queen's York Rangers, now an armoured reconnaissance regiment of the Canadian Forces reserves.

Many places in Canada were named in honour of Simcoe:

The town of Simcoe in southwestern Ontario

The Simcoe Fairgrounds in Simcoe.

Civic Holiday, a statutory holiday celebrated throughout Canada under a variety of names by region,[34] was established in honour of Simcoe by the Toronto City Council in 1869.[35] Other Ontario municipalities and then other provinces soon took up the holiday as well, leading to its Canada-wide status, but without any attribution to Simcoe. In 1965, the Toronto City Council declared the holiday would henceforth be known as Simcoe Day within Toronto.[35] Attempts have been made to have the official provincial name—still Civic Holiday[34]—amended, but none have succeeded.

Governor Simcoe Secondary School in St. Catharines, Ontario

Governor Simcoe Public School. Grades K – 8, in London, Ontario. The now closed and demolished school was located at the corner of Simcoe and Clarence Streets.

Three parallel streets in downtown Toronto, John Street, Graves Street, and Simcoe Street, are all located near the fort where Simcoe lived during his early years in York and were named for him. Graves Street was later renamed Duncan Street.

Simcoe Street, Simcoe Street United Church, and Simcoe Hall Settlement House in Oshawa.

Simcoe Street in New Westminster and Simcoe Park was named by Colonel Moody in reference to the surveying of the area after the city of Toronto.

Simcoe Street, Simcoe Street School and the Simcoe Street School Tigers Bantam Baseball Team of Niagara Falls

Simcoe Island, located near Kingston, Ontario

Simcoe Hall, located on the St. George campus of the University of Toronto

John Graves Simcoe Armoury, located on Industrial Parkway in Aurora, Ontario

There are two places named for Simcoe with the title Lord, but Simcoe was not made a Lord in his lifetime. They are the following:

Lord Simcoe Drive in Brampton, Ontario

Lord Simcoe Hotel, which operated from 1956 to 1981

Captain John Kennaway Simcoe, the last member of the Simcoe family, died without issue in 1891 and was survived by his widow beyond 1911

In Popular Culture

A fictionalised version of John Graves Simcoe is a primary antagonist in the 2014–2017 AMC drama Turn: Washington's Spies, portrayed by Samuel Roukin.[37] He is portrayed in the series as a cruel and ruthless sociopath.

Despite the strong fictionalisation of the namesake TV-show character, several biographical aspects of the latter's historical counterpart appear to have been adapted for and transferred onto the fictional character Edmund Hewlett. For instance, Hewlett's romantic ambitions regarding Anna Strong in the series resemble Simcoe's courtship of Sarah Townsend, sister of Culper Ring spy Robert Townsend, for whom he wrote a poem that is thought to be the first verifiable valentine on the North American continent.[38] It is presumed that Townsend, much like the fictionalised portrayal of Anna Strong on Turn, may have gathered and passed on intelligence gleaned from her unsuspecting suitor to the Culper Ring.

Similarly, Hewlett's close bond with his horse Bucephalus (presumably named after Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander the Great) which overarches all four seasons, appears to have been inspired by history: in 1783, John Graves Simcoe sent a series of letters to New York in order to find the horse he had ridden on campaign, Salem. Salem was located and Simcoe subsequently paid the considerable sum of £40 to have him shipped to England and thus returned to him.[39] Shortly before his departure to Upper Canada almost a decade later, it is reported he was greatly concerned for Salem's welfare in his absence, therefore making arrangements for the latter's care and upkeep.[40]

source; Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Graves_Simcoe)

Now for some images, taken by me in Chatham, as well as Queen's Park in Toronto.

Now, some fun facts about me, related to Simcoe:

I was born in Chatham/Chatham-Kent

I go to high school in Simcoe County

I'm debating going to college in Toronto (to become a history teacher)

I've been to the Simcoe County Museum, where they have a bust of Simcoe and a whole wall of information about him (from what I could see- I was there on a WWI field trip and didn't really get to explore)

Every where I've lived/been to school, has been impacted by John Graves Simcoe.

In reality, he was not that bad a dude. TURN just TURNed (ha, get it) into the psychopathic antagonist they wanted. Alright, this has been fun but I need to go study Canadian law, piece homies.

[woman-loving]

A History of US Bear Subculture

Selection from “A Concise History of Self-Identifying Bears,” by Les Wright, published in The Bear Book: Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture, edited by Les Wright, 1997.

Roots In his 1991 introduction to The Bear Cult: Photography by Chris Nelson,[1] Edward Lucie-Smith attributes iconographic sources of bears to the 1950s gladiator movies starring bodybuilder Steve Reeves. Gay “physique studios” of the time reflected the predominant fashion of closely shaven faces and bodies. “Old Reliable,” a Los Angeles-based photographer of homoerotic wrestling, specialized in “natural” men, soliciting hustlers, punks, ex-cons, and other truly “rough trade” types off the streets (from the 1950s-1990s) to pose for his camera. Old Reliable’s models were street-smart scrappers, perhaps shabby, perhaps defiant, unquestionably blue-collar, or lower, class. A fat cigar in one hand and the middle finger of the other hand thrust into the camera’s face is the signature pose for Old Reliable’s models. John Rechy’s novels, especially 1963 best-seller City of the Night, serve as a record of gay male engenderment of this particular type in the urban subcultures of the late 1950s and 1960s.

Another informant, living in the Miami, Florida area during the 1970s, reports that when he first started coming out into the bar scene in his mid-twenties he encountered a cluster of “bears” that congregated in the Tool Room, a back bar area of Warehouse VIII, a “disco place.”

“[i]n the meantime, some counter-culture tabloid I read occasionally ran a cryptic personal ad for a Bears party, which would gather at a men’s bar called The Ramrod on a particular evening and time, so I bit. Not knowing the bar’s whereabouts, then learning the address and trying to find the unmarked place in the downtown darkness, I was late but not too late. A dozen of so men with beards, most of them husky, were piling out of the bar door as I was walking in. Two of them grabbed me by each arm, and one said “Great! You’re the even number!” Now I was just in the first stages of coming out, even to myself, but I let myself get swept away (with an alarmed smile on my face). I thought I was headed for my first orgy (gay or straight), but it turned out to be a real party at a home on one of the causeway islands between Miami and Miami Beach. Real men having a hell of a good time without a woman in sight. Imagine!! We watched the second half of the Dolphins game, played some cards, then sat outside under the moonlight, slowly pairing off and disappearing back indoors or off into tropical hiding places behind the patio.

I was out. I started hanging out regularly at the Ramrod, where any bearded local was greeted as “Hey, Brother Bear!” I checked out The Rack, a leather saloon, but the bear camaraderie was not present. A few Rack regulars were good-looking, beefy, bearded guys, but their bikes and image were their focus, not the bears among them. The bears continued to patronize the Ramrod and the Tool Room, or a larger bar in Fort Lauderdale called Tacky’s, but could be found in lots of neighborhood bars, too, like The Hamlet and The Everglades. Not only did we refer to ourselves as bears, but the term caught on among non-bears too.

It was too early in beardom, I guess, to have a Bears club or organization of any kind. Nobody thought of it. There were spontaneous parties arranged by word-of-mouth, picnics, beach volleyball. We even loaded three vans full of bears and invaded Key West.

You might think of Florida as an unlikely place to find bears, but bearded men were very common there in the 60s and 70s. When the disco era streamrollered fashion for straight and queer alike, it became less common. Many bears kept our beards, many left only a moustache. The Ramrod faltered and closed, 13 Buttons and The Copa flourished, as did all the big discos of the day. I became more private whit three bear affairs over five years, then finally met a cowboy in New Orleans on Mardi Gras and left Florida forever. We moved to Colorado in 1981 and had five great years together. I've been in Denver since 1986 and was later a founding member of one of the oldest bear clubs in the country, Front Range Bears.

But that’s another story.”[2]

Larry Reams has unearthed the first documented apparent uses of “bear” in the current sense. He has found among records of the Los Angeles-based Satyrs’ MC club the formation of a “bear” club mentioned in two entries from 1966.[3] Another source cites anecdotally a group of lovers of a “Papa Bear” in Dallas, Texas, as the start of the “bear community” “well before 1975.”[4] Several undocumented sources have related similar anecdotes of private circle or bar circles of self-identifying bears.

The first published description of gay “bears” appeared in a whimsical article called “Who’s Who in the Zoo: A Glossary of Gay Animals,” penned by George Mazzei in the Advocate, July 26, 1979. Larry Reams reports that he and his friend, the author,

“were standing in Griffs’, a Los Angeles leather bar, one evening discussing the types of men we were and those to whom we were attracted. We decided we were Bears and continued on to formulate what we thought constitutes a Bear. Once we had described Bears it was an easy step to look around the bar and create the rest of the article.”[5]

Because the type so strongly suggests aspects of both bear attitude and bear image, it is worth quoting in its entirety:

“Bears are usually hunky, chunky types reminiscent of railroad engineers and former football greats. They have larger chests and bellies than average, and notably muscular legs. Some Italian-American Bears, however, are leaner and smaller; it’s attitude that makes a Bear.

General Characteristics: Hair. Their tangled bears often present no discernible place to insert a comb. Laughter. Bears laugh a lot and are generally good natured. They make wonderful companions since they are prone to reach for the check, buy the next round and keep abreast of when the Trocadero is dancing this season. Their good humor can turn threatening if you attempt to cruise their trick and you will hear about if for weeks afterward. [...]”

Jack Fritscher was creating and documenting a similar impulse in San Francisco contemporaneous to this Los Angeles subculture. Those pre-AIDS years in the Castro and South-of-Market subculture are documented in the roman à clef Some Dance to Remember. Recorded in the novel is an account of Fritscher’s short-lived underground magazine called Man2Man, a direct precursor to the first incarnation of BEAR magazine. The “homomasculinity” of Fritscher’s philosophical quest was summed up in the magazine’s subtitle: “What you’re looking for is looking for you!”

First-Wave Bears of the Zeitgeist, 1986-1989

The energy that called itself “bear” appeared as one of the signs of reemerging gay communal life following the arrival of AIDS in the 1980s. After several years in a state of shock, emotional devastation, eating more, perhaps exercising less, continuing to age, and ready for a somewhat slower and more compassionate pace of gay sex and gay social life, “hibernating” clones, leathermen, and many other self-identifying types came back to gay public spheres as “bears.” AIDS led many of us to put on extra padding and to eroticize (or publicly admit to our erotic desire for) male bulk. Feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin and Mary Daly, had articulated the mechanisms of patriarchal/capitalist subjugation through the “beauty myth.” The tyranny of the “Castro (or Christopher) Street clone” had been breached.

Since the late 1970s, in counterpoint to the “endless party” spirit of gay life, increasing numbers of gay men were burning out on the alcohol and recreational drugs. Alcoholism has been, and remains, a serious problem in the gay community. The drug experimentation of the “love generation” had turned into a nightmare before AIDS arrived. Now, for the first time, many were experiencing another sense of self, a “sober self,” a discovery of self-respect, which allowed them to bring to a halt these self-destructive behaviors. Across the country sobriety became not only fashionable, but even “politically correct.” Discussion of the uses and misuses of the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous belongs elsewhere. Relevant to bears is the rise of self-esteem among gays--whether through sexual “liberation” or adoption of cultural norms of the moment.

The self-empowerment movements of the 1970s, the nurturance and “safe space” strategies of 1970s feminism, the ever greener alternative impulses of rural gays, Radical Faeries, and nongay-identifing men-loving men (as disseminated, for example, through RFD magazine), and the fundamental strategy of Stonewall politics--coming out--prepared the way. For gay men, who had come out as gay, as sober, as HIV positive, as leathermen, it would seem “natural” to come out--yet again--as a bear. On the one hand, Stonewall-era identity politics shaped the Zeitgeist. On the other hand, for many men-loving men who did not identify with any of the images of gay men in the gay press or with (usually) urban gay men they had encountered on trips to a city, their first encounter with the idea or an embodiment of a “bear” would strike pay dirt. Many have reported immediate identification, sometimes after years or decade of not “fitting in.” Twelve-stepping and two-stepping were new venues for socializing, for being in community without an explicit exhortation to sex. It gave us another chance, a utopian moment, in which to reinvent ourselves and our community.

“Bears” have been emerging as successor to the “clone” and as transmutated variant of “leatherman,” as an integration into gay mainstream social life of “girth-and-mirthers.” In many ways, it was a humanizing response to what clones had been. Martin P. Levine, in his study “The Life and Death of Gay Clones,” focuses on the urban enclave of West Village clones (Manhattan), noting that “AIDS, gay liberation, male gender roles, and the ethics of self-fulfillment, constraint, and commitment”[7] were the sociocultural shapers, creating and destroying this gay male subculture. Bears, during the 1980s, represented a break with the competitive and objectifying tendencies which had alienated so many Stonewall-era gay men. Bears continued the tradition of masculine identification, the social identity politics of gay liberation, and basic Enlightenment values of equality, self-determination, and self-fulfillment. Bears sought to ameliorate between socially isolating cliques and creating safe social spaces, comingling social and sexual spheres, merging rough, unkempt masculine iconography with the emotional nurturing lacking in the clone subculture and the caretaking many gay men felt called to as a direct result of the AIDS epidemic.

The point of titration came in 1987. The “Bear Hugs” parties, the advent of BEAR magazine, and developments in electronic communications were the catalysts that sparked the concept of the self-aware, self-identifying bear across communities. First, computer bulletin boards and then listservres and moderated mailing lists made communications instantaneous and were collectively dubbed “cybearspace.” All three significant events took place or are tracable back to San Fransisco, independent each other but with an unexpectedly synergistic effect all together. All three represented, each in its own way, a “safe space” for bears.

Play Parties A group of friends began organizing private “play parties” in Berkeley and San Francisco in 1987, as safe and warm gatherings--social and sexual for their friends and friends of friends. Private, invitation-only “jack-off circles” became popular during the AIDS sexual freeze, but these were an alternative social and sexual space for gay men who felt “left out”--out because they did not fit, or felt like they did not fit, the gay media images of “beauty”--young, tanned, smooth-skinned, blond LA surfer boy “twinks.” Their “difference” was both physical and perceptual, and was expressed through a social and sexual inclusiveness--men in their thirties, forties, and fifties, ranging from slender to stocky to chubby (though generally on the heavier side), usually with beards and perhaps body hair, and from a range of social classes. The common mold was a warm, nurturing, affectionate attitude toward each other. The intimacy of the early days changed, however, when the gatherings grew to over 100. By 1989, a larger space and a more formalized “guest list” became necessary.

This San Francisco group was the spawning ground for several later developments. Among them were Bear Fax Enterprises, a business privately owned by Ben Bruner and Bill Martin. The International Bear Expo, which ran for three years in San Francisco (1992, 1993, and 1994), the effort of dozens of local bears, was overseen by a steering committee, many of whom later founded the Bears of San Francisco and the International Bear Rendezvous. The “International Mr. Bear” competition and title were introduced at Expo ‘92; John Caldera, the first title holder, eventually acquired ownership of the tile, and the contest has been held annually ever since.

“Bear soup” became a widely adopted idea. In many places it refers specially to hot tub parties, though often with the implication of an orgy or private sexual pairings later in the evening. Sometimes “bear soup” seems to refer merely to a crowded space full of bears. The Bear Hugs group in Great Britain is a strictly social organization.

Similar groups, such as the OzBears of Sydney, Australia, and the Bear Cave parties in Manhattan, had started up for purposes of private socializing, and formed the basis of new groups that developed into bear clubs dedicated to social activities or even community work. As organized bear clubs have arisen and sex clubs started advertising a weekly “bear night,” these play parties have all but disappeared.

BEAR Magazine At about the same time, Bart Thomas began putting together a small, photocopied underground magazine he called BEAR . The magazine was, at first, local to San Francisco. It consisted of jack-off photos and personal ads. The reader could send in appropriate photos of himself or stop by the BEAR office and pose for the magazine. In some ways, BEAR may be seen as the direct successor of Jack Fritscher’s Man2Man underground magazine of nearly a decade before. Before he could actually launch the magazine, Thomas succumbed to complications form AIDS, but not before passing the torch to his friend Richard Bulger.

Bulger’s vision of a lifestyle magazine, articulating this masculinity, with a leftist sexual political slant, and embedded anthropological underpinnings, not to wax abstractly, but to act, to embody the principles through practice and a level of discourse clear to any blue-collar man. In a few years’ time the magazine expanded in size and status, and from word-of-mouth circulation to international commercial distribution, with a full line of videotapes, photo sets, and accessories.

In this 1993 study of BEAR magazine, Joe Policarpio describes the dual aspects of image and attitude stressed by publisher Richard Bulger through his choice of models and editorial content. The general profile of a “bear” includes at least some facial hair and some body hair (”usually the more the better”), a “musky animality,” a blend of traditionally masculine aggressiveness and (feminine) desire to cuddle, muscles by Nautilus or physical labor, and a tendency to be older than the models found in most other gay male porn magazines. “The most important point is these men are presented as fitting an ideological pattern the magazine espouses. This is one of freewheeling, playful and positive attitude toward sexuality between men. He is comfortable in his body and exudes a sense of self-assurance.”[8]

Because of personal ties, BEAR magazine was from the start intimately connected with the South-of-Market bar scene. The original Lone Star Saloon was the first “bear bar,” and followed the tradition of the Ambush and the Balcony, both of which had gone out of business early in the AIDS epidemic. These “sleaze bars” all developed an international reputation. They all offered a free-spirited, anarchic, anything-goes ambience, drawing in blue-collar types who disdained the middle-class pretensions of mainstream gay culture, those who sensibility combined social rough edges with the loyalty ethic of the American lower classes, and misfits, eccentrics, and other “rugged individual” types historically drawn to frontier towns and their saloons.

“Cybearspace” Direct electronic communications over the Internet developed and proliferated during the 1980s and 1990s. Word-of-mouth knowledge of bears spread very rapidly across the Internet. The preponderance of bears on-line or in computer fields is traceable back, in part, to this. One of the most often used private or personal uses of the Internet, regardless of sexual orientation, is for communications of a sexual nature. The lines of communication are numerous and diverse: live chat lines (IRC), BBS (electronic bulletin boards), unmoderated (echoed) an moderated mailing lists, websites, CU See ME (live video transmission), and e-mail. Altogether an individual can transmit or receive text, images (such as gif or jpeg), sound, and video images (nearly) instantaneously. The Internet allows for establishing and maintaining contact anonymously, for uncensored communication, for the exchange of visual images (yourself, your friends, your favorite sexual icon), and for echoed messages (broadcasting to all subscribers of a mailing list of a global mailing to everyone in your e-mail address book). Certain mediums (such as the IRC) can guarantee anonymity (no clues as to personal identity or physical appearance). The question of subverting prejudgment on the basis of appearance becomes moot, however, when we consider the proliferation of visual mediums, such as webpages, archived gif and jpegs, or CU SeeMe, which permit blatant self-advertising based on one’s appearance without revealing one’s name or location.

Early on, circa 1985-1988, there were several bear-dedicated bulletin boards, such as the PC Bear’s Lair (sysop Les Kooyman). The bearcave chat room on the IRC has been a very popular site in cybearspace for live conversation. While the option of remaining anonymous is always available (everyone uses a “handle,” or pseudonym), cyber-communities have evolved over time. This may range from sexual encounters to personal friendships to life partners.

By far the most popular cybearspace is the Bears Mailing List, or BML. Founded by Steve Dyer and Brian Gollum in 1988, it grew from a small, friendly, safe-feeling cybergathering of several dozen bears to a heavily subscribed, largely anonymous, and often fractious, moderated exchange of over 3,000 subscribers. Since 1995 Henry Mensch and Roger Klorese have been moderating the BML and introducing changes to accommodate the dramatic shift in tenor and purpose of the list. Subscribers are drawn from all fifty states and several dozen nations worldwide. English is the lingua franca although everything, including whether to have and who should determine a common language (and how), has been brought up for discussion. Bob Donahue’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek rough guide to “bear codes,” which was accessible from the BML archives, is the source of subspecies terminology within the bear community, such a cub, otter, behr, and the like. Numerous individuals have taken the code in all seriousness and this has become a source of contention, quoted by both sides in disputes over what is a “real” bear. [...]

Although not the only cybear group to do so, the BML has staged several informal, in-person gatherings of its subscribers  During Stonewall 25 in New York City, for example, some sixty to seventy BMLers gathered at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park on the day before the parade. Consensus determined the group should form a spontaneous contingent and march in the parade. And thus on Sunday, Stonewall 25 included a sizable contingent of mostly bearded, bearish-appearing gay men from all across the country and from abroad.

Second Wave: formalizing, 1989-1994

Bear Clubs As the concept of bear circulated between gay communities across the country and “news of recent developments in the gay capital” was drawing more comers to San Francisco, localized efforts to promote and organize bears appeared everywhere. The Bear Paws of Iowa, co-founded by Dave Annis and Larry Toothman in 1989, was the first bear club. By 1992, Bear Expo organizers were aware of four such clubs. Two years later, there were forty. According to the International Directory of Bear Organizations, maintained by The Tidewater Bears (Virginia), as of January 1996, there were 137 bear clubs or explicitly bear-friendly (girth-and-mirth and leather) clubs worldwide.

Bear clubs have generally followed along the lines of their older cousins, the lather motorcycle clubs. In some places this means an informal club that schedules periodic social events. In other places, this has translated into a great deal of fundraising and gay community civic activities. As the club model has gained wider acceptance, it has drawn long-standing problems endemic throughout the gay community into its sphere.

A formal club membership structures creates automatically an insider/outsider division, even if membership is “open to all” (usually defined as “bears and their admires”). Having a club also invites quibbling over definitions of who is a “real” bear. (This is borne out by regional differences, whether emphasis has been placed on body hair, on body weight, or on “attitude,” though a beard or moustache seems to be universally required). Clubs and organizers of events, such as the OctoBearFest (Denver), Orlando Bear Bust, Bear Pride (Chicago), European Big Men’s Conference, or the International Bear Rendezvous (San Francisco) have created bear contests, which engenders the very hierarchical system the earlier bear impulse had been resisting.

Finally, the disjunctive ideals of bears as working-class masculinity and bears as an increasingly distinct subculture within mainstream gay culture bring into sharp relief the larger issues of gay community. If bears began in a spirit of inclusiveness and egalitarian-mindedness, sex positive and relatively “anti-looks-ist,” then what is to be made of the increasingly conformist, consumerist, competitiveness that has take over? As the idea of bears has spread, the opportunities to travel far and wide, to purchase ever more and ever more costly bearphernalia, to update an expand one’s computer sources are generating another, unanticipated dividing line-between bear haves and bear have-nots. to what extent does having money now calculate into the formulas of who is a “real” bear?

Expanded Print Media As BEAR magazine rapidly grew in format, production values, and circulation, reception among gay mainstream media remained very lower. The first published serious essay on bears was a piece I wrote in 1989. It appeared in its entirety in Seattle Gay News, an abbreviated version in the San Francisco Sentinel, and Drummer magazine carried the “Sociology of the Urban Bear” as the first bear cover story in 1990. (It was reprinted in Classic Bear, February 1996.)

What became known as bear types had been featured, in one way or another, in RFD (rural), in Chiron Rising (”mature”), in leather/SM-oriented, and girth-and-mirth publications. Numerous niche-crossover magazines sprang up in the early 1990s--Bulk Male, The Big Ad, Husky, Daddy, Daddybear, GRUF. Bearish models began staring back at the reader from the pages of Advocate Men, Honcho, In Touch, and other gay mainstream glossies. BEAR magazine’s direct competitor American Bear, published by Tim Martin (Louisville, KY) took advantage of a lacuna left by BEAR magazine’s retreat from Bulger’s philosophical lifestyle magazine publishing. With the establishment of the bear icon in the gay community and the world of mainstream-gay print advertising, gay bears had become a local presence everywhere (not just in San Fransisco). And with interests, at least sometimes, beyond immediate sexual gratification, this translated into new niche markets. While American Bear Features a regular column on dissonant (HIV-positive/negative) couples (Bulger adamantly refused to mention AIDS in his magazine), a how-to column on accessing the Internet, and other features, none of the bear magazines have attained Playboy-calibre intellectual content.

In the early 1990s “bear war” broke out when Bulger, then owner-publisher of BEAR, sought to gain sole ownership of the word “bear” as his company’s trademark. Needless to say, this led to a lot of bad feelings and was widely followed and criticized in cybearspace. The Advocate even mentioned it in print. At the time, the Bear Hug group’s informal newsletter the Bear Fax had been expanded into a full-fledged magazine by Bill Martin. The lingering legacy of this “war” was a schism, based on a difference in basic body types typically portrayed in each magazine, between “fat bears” and “skinny bears.” Since this time, personals ads have proven far more profitable, and the bulk of the magazine currently consisted of personals ads, photo spreads, and commercial advertising.[9] The magazine was sold to Bear-Dog Hoffman in 1994 and is currently under Joseph Bean’s editorship. It is not clear which direction the magazine will go. It is clear that BEAR is the voice of authority in matters of bear community and sensibility.

Print media as gone a long way in generating a prototypical bear icon--full-bearded, fairly to very hairy, beefy to chunky GWM baby-boomer, probably of Irish, Jewish, Italian, Scandinavian, or Armenian heritage. In reality, the question of race, presence or absence of body hair, body build, social class, or outlook on life is anything but so neatly compartmentalized. BEAR magazine introduced the serious photographic work of Chris Nelson (as Brahman Studio) and Steve Sutton (who succumbed to complications from AIDS in 1994). Lynn Ludwig has established himself as the documenter of the San Francisco bear community. And, perhaps, the most gifted photographer of bears is Los Angeles-based John Rand, whose work is included in this book.

Bear Contests The bear calendar includes many regional gatherings, as mentioned above, as well as annual bear contests as the local club level. The highlight of such events is often the bear content. As Lurch, a popular bear icon, stand-up comic, TV actor, and psychiatric nurse, has put it, “I prefer to say ‘titleholder.’ ‘Winner’ implies ‘losers,’ and none of us are losers.”[10] Successful bear contest titleholders may be expected to organize or work a number of fund-raisers, go on public speaking engagements and represent their hometown or club on the road. In other places, the local bear club may be one of the few, or even the only social outlet, and merely being a known presence in the local community is the extent of the titleholder’s “duties.”

The emergence of bear contents has tended to straddle the fence between two sides--parodying traditional gay ideals of beauty while striving to establish a new, legitimate bear ideal. The International Mr. Bear contest, a component part of the San Francisco-based International Bear Expo, evolved in its first three year from poking somewhat self-conscious fun at traditional gay values to striving in an increasingly serious manner to project an image of a self-confident bear ideal, a new icon assuming its place among the archetypes of male beauty. From the beginning there has been an emphasis on personal warmth, a compassionate nature, civic-mindedness in the gay community, and spiritual playfulness. Titleholders John Caldera (IMB ‘92) and Steve Heyl (IMB ‘93) worked hard during their “reign,” and have remained genuinely and deeply committed to the bear community. Yet, in the progression of titleholders and the proliferation of bear contests in recent years, here has been an increasing tendency toward consolidating a bear image, and away from qualities intangible or at least invisible to the camera.

[lailoken]

“The Pwca, or Pooka is but another name for the Ellylldan, as our Puck is another name for the Will-o'-wisp; but in both cases the shorter term has a more poetic flavour and a wider latitude. The name Puck was originally applied to the whole race of English fairies, and there still be few of the realm who enjoy a wider popularity than Puck, in spite of his mischievous attributes. Part of this popularity is due to the poets, especially to Shakspeare. I have alluded to the bard's accurate knowledge of Welsh folk-lore; the subject is really one of unique interest, in view of the inaccuracy charged upon him as to the English fairyland . There is a Welsh tradition to the effect that Shakspeare received his knowledge of the Cambrian fairies from his friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price, of the priory of Brecon. It is even claimed that Cwm Pwca, or Puck Valley, a part of the romantic glen of the Clydach, in Breconshire, is the original scene of the Midsummer Night's Dream '—a fancy as light and airy as Puck himself. Anyhow, there Cwm Pwca is, and in the sylvan days, before Frere and Powell's ironworks were set up there, it is said to have been as full of goblins as a Methodist's head is of piety. And there are in Wales other places bearing like names, where Pwca's pranks are well remembered by old inhabitants. The range given to the popular fancy in Wales is expressed with fidelity by Shakspeare's words in the mouth of Puck:

‘I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier, Sometime a horse l'll be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.’

The various stories I have encountered bear out these details almost without an omission. In his own proper character, however, Pwca has a sufficiently grotesque elfish aspect. It is stated that a Welsh peasant who was asked to give an idea of the appearance of Pwca, drew the above figure with a bit of coal.

A servant girl who attended to the cattle on the Trwyn farm, near Abergwyddon, used to take food to ‘Master Pwca ,’ as she called the elf. A bowl of fresh milk and a slice of white bread were the component parts of the goblin's repast, and were placed on a certain spot where he got them. One night the girl, moved by the spirit of mischief, drank the milk and ate most of the bread, leaving for Master Pwca only water and crusts. Next morning she found that the fastidious fairy had left the food untouched. Not long after, as the girl was passing the lonely spot, where she had hitherto left Pwca his food, she was seized under the arm pits by fleshly hands (which, however, she could not see ) and subjected to a castigation of a most mortifying character. Simultaneously there fell upon her ear, in good set Welsh, a warning not to repeat her offence on peril of still worse treatment. This story is ‘thoroughly believed in there to this day.’ I visited the scene of the story, a farm near Abergwyddon (now called Abercarne), and heard a great deal more of the exploits of that particular Pwca, to which I will refer again. The most singular fact of the matter is that although at least a century has elapsed, and some say several centuries, since the exploits in question, you cannot find a Welsh peasant in the parish but knows all about Pwca'r Trwyn.

The most familiar form of the Pwca story is one which I have encountered in several localities, varying so little in its details that each account would be interchangeable with another by the alteration of local names.This form presents a peasant who is returning home from his work, or from a fair, when he sees a light travelling before him. Looking closer he perceives that it is carried by a dusky little figure, holding a lantern or candle at arm's length over its head. He follows it for several miles, and suddenly finds himself on the brink of a frightful precipice. From far down below there rises to his ears the sound of a foaming torrent. At the same moment the little goblin with the lantern springs across the chasm, alighting on the opposite side; raises the light again high over its head, utters a loud and malicious laugh, blows out its candle and disappears up the opposite hill, leaving the awestruck peasant to get home as best he can.”

—

British Goblins,

Wirt Sikes, 1880

[twitchesandstitches]

(commission of Rose going through some feederism-induced transformation on behalf of John.)

-------

The Land of Wind and Shade was actually very pretty, Rose thought as she and John walked along a path lit by the luminous fungi and trees. She’d never had much opportunity to really appreciate the visual aesthetics of their worlds when they had played the Game (as they thought of it now), back before they had become gods.

It felt like a long time ago, Rose reflected as she reached into a pocket and palmed a few tiny tablets that resembled a feminine figure in profile, with a massive belly. She considered it a divide in her lifetime.

Oh, yes. It was hard, sometimes, to really recall what it was like before they had given life to a new world and all of them (her friends, Roxy and her friends, the trolls, and all who had perished in the playing of the Game) ascended to true godhood, entering the Medium as their own divine realm and free to engage with the mortal world they made, if they wished.

It had been… who knew how long? Centuries? Perhaps millennia. Rose knew it had been a while since the Mayor and his carapacian cohorts had turned up again, presumably after the end of their mortal bodies, so perhaps it had been even longer. Eventually it might be worth it to check on the mortal world and see how it was doing without their direct involvement, but for the present, it was fine enough to simply experiment.

Reality was somewhat fluid for the new gods in their divine realm. They had different ways of expressing it, and ways to experiment with it.  For some, Rose included (and again, she thought of the transformatives in her hand), that meant tweaking their bodies.

She and John walked onwards, on the surface of his world, for the noble purpose of stuffing her with as much food as possible, and Rose was rather preceded by her own stomach, which bore a lot of testament success in this field. And perhaps a lot of worship towards her in the mortal world; she wasn’t sure if that had an effect or not.

Her belly hung out in front of her. It felt good, like that, and Rose contemplated taking another one of the transformatives she’d made specifically for this task.

Now she was waddling awkwardly, still not used to a body reshaped by those specific transformatives, and for a moment she thought that she resented this being the only word choice available to her.

She didn’t hate that she was waddling, exactly. She hated that it was an awkward word; she was pedantic, and insisted on picking the most applicable terms, and unfortunately she only had something so… inelegant, to work with.

She was waddling, even so. John was even slowing down his usual frenetic pace so she wouldn’t have to hurry, which made her smile even as being outwardly happy completely went against the persona she wore.

John was… tricky, that way.

Rose, like Dave and Terezi, had a whole headful of personas she put on around other people. She tailored herself to match their expectations, or to confound them, or because it was just really funny to do. But John saw through them. Somehow he had a knack for knowing exactly when Rose was putting up a front or not.

It was exasperating, sometimes. It was fascinating, too. It felt good to have a match that just rolled right through clever wordplay and saw what she actually meant, even if her actual wordplay falling on deaf ears was disappointing.

Now Rose fell into an easy stride, John still walking at her side, and striding was easy ernough for Rose with the physical transformation she had begun to explore lately. For instance, she noticed in a distant way, her hips were getting… wider. Much, much wider, and it helped that John enjoyed feeding her as much as she liked, and it was interacting with her transformations in some very unexpected ways; she suspected that his aspect was flooding into them, influencing the tasty treats with his very particular essence of… enthusiasm, and development.

He’d kept them moving onwards, and she wondered what that kind of attribute had towards food. Certainly it encouraged the body to pile on the pounds.

Her pelvis, she was sure, had also changed shape just as her hips had grown, her hip joints modified to swivel and roll with greater ease, and with the weight piling onto her body, it made her hips nearly three feet across. And she felt the delightful weight of every step, her hips rolling and rocking as a natural counterbalance.

Her butt was a heavy weight, beneath her robes. It pushed out and flexed in as her thighs moved, and there was a smack every time her thighs came together; they were wider than John’s entire body, wider than some of the trolls even, and the clapping of her thighs was a steady rhythm behind them.

She was starting to enjoy it, actually.

Her stomach, however, was the primary focus of her growth. The transformative pills she had made had involved little capsules and pictures of progressively bigger stomachs, and alchemized in such a way so that the pills created by it would have the attributes of bellies getting bigger, with all the resonance that implied; of good food, excellent digestion, and hedonistic satisfaction.

Or so she hoped. She no longer had SBURB to experiment with, but there was a whole reality for her to mess about with and see what happened, or maybe learn its rules.

The results of her experiments so far were plain to see: Rose’s gut was hugely distended, a round marvel projecting outwards, the itch to fill it up growing stronger even with a few recent meals gurgling away in there.

Her belly hung out from the rest of her body like a medallion, gently swaying to and fro as she moved, distending the rest of her clothes to a degree exceeding her breasts. That was no small feat; her bustline extended out several feet, lower slopes hanging above her navel and her cleavage was, all the same, pushed apart by the steadily expanding mound of a belly that was getting large enough, and often stuffed enough, to make her look moderately pregnant. Her god-tier robes had been subtly altered and now her stomach slung out of a spade-shaped opening at her front, a soft globe that was very visibly churning her most recent meals.

Her gut had changed; the way it worked was still changing. Rose was intellectually aware of that, just as she also knew that something in her power was affecting her digestive tract. To truly know something was to consume it, to totally make it part of you and grasp it, with your very being, and it seemed that her body had seized the idea.

It was quite another thing, feeling the muscles of her digestive tract seize and flex like a very mobile garbage disposal unit, or enormously powerful acids sink deep into everything she ate to dissolve it into something very much like the grist they used in crafting the things of the heavens. She could feel her meals from only a few hours ago dissolving like that, and she felt…

The essence of them, she supposed, merging with her. It felt… good. The slither of essence left a lovely shiver through her entire body.

Well, she supposed, if it felt this good already, why not give it a nudge? She took the rest of her sample of transformatives and slipped them into her mouth. She moistened them up with her tongue, and then swallowed them.

They slid down without issue. She fancied she heard a faint splash as they made it into her stomach. There was no immediate result, but she didn’t expect one. You needed food to use as fuel for a big stomach; she’d made it like that on purpose. Perhaps she didn’t have to, but there was such a thing as doing it right. ‘What,’ Rose had rhetorically written down in the cosmic journals that had largely replaced the game guides she used to expound upon. ‘Is the point of making your stomach larger if you don’t even do it by getting crammed with digestibles, I do mean, REALLY.’

The pills did have a minor effect; they bubbled and forthed ferociously in her gut, interacting interestingly with the more complex digestive processes her stomach had developed on its own since she started taking them. Her belly swelled slightly with internal pressure, and it was all she could do to stifle a small burp with her free hand.

She and John kept going; he glanced at her briefly, and left her to it. Like most of the others, he took a blaise attitude towards the current trend of mixing up their bodies, even if he currently didn’t seem inclined to do it himself.

Soon the illuminated forests and walkways gave way to an entrance arch with a suitably gnarled and strange-looking sigil upon it to indicate that this had something to do with Rose.

Beyond it, lay a small complex squatting on the ground like a lost turtle. It glowed with a faint, pleasant pattern of blue light: John had somehow taken a number of the luminous trees growing on his land and broken them down, reshaping them into a living house. As they entered, Rose saw that the general layout had not changed much since last she had visited some time ago. Then it had been, and it still was, a many-chambered and sprawling estate extending into the ground and also to the sky, producing new rooms as it expanded.

It wasn’t very well organized and it would probably be hard to find where everything was situated soon enough, but Rose honestly did not mind. It was a dinner place; those chambers were filled with very extensive and experimental cooking utilities, spawned from alchemiters from photos of ovens and handwritten lists of useful attributes for ovens, shaped the outline of massive kitchens that extended for miles, down into the depths of John’s world. They always were baking something, John’s own experiments mainly laying in the fairly mundane art of baking. Granted, where his powers were concerned, even something as straightforward as baking could get very complex.

Rose wasn’t sure if the food he made might interact strangely with her own concoctions. She thought it best to see for herself!

She looked up as they traveled into the complex, where John surely had lots of food waiting to sate Rose’s appetite; her belly rumbled loudly at the thought, so loud that John visibly jumped a bit. Rose acknowledged this with a faint shrug, but she was more interested in the smells of cooking up ahead.

They came into the complex, and John was glancing at her as they eventually arrived at a splendidly decorated chamber. He glanced up at her, specifically; Rose was fairly tall among their friends, at least the human ones, and John was probably the shortest of them all; his face generally hovered (and wasn’t THAT just the best possible word) somewhere around elbow level. The word that came to mind describing him, Rose mused, was ‘plush’; yes, she thought. Just like a plushy. He was thickly build and broad all around, but he was quite short and didn’t look terribly muscular. The effect was that of someone apparently designed for huggability.

Absently, she did just that, looping an arm around a compact but very strong shoulder and leaned slightly into him. The sudden motion tilted one of her massive hips against him, the swell of a huge butt check pressing on his waist.

He put an arm around her waist, in unconscious and perfect synchrony with her. She felt his pulse quicken, and at the periphery of awareness that her powers influenced, she felt the vague notion of thoughts blur across his mind. Not mind-reading, as such; she saw the potential that those thoughts embodied, or at least knew of them. They revealed themselves to her, like a sun rising overhead.

Such was the nature of Light.

Her belly rumbled again and Rose’s face shifted. It was genuinely pleasuable

John misinterpreted it. He looked up at her, around the curve of one huge breast, his expression adorably helpful. “Is your belly thing going okay?”

Rose smirked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She sniffed the air, and her belly rumbled demandingly as the mass of her meal was transmuted into physical flesh, and her belly protruded a few inches outward.

The sudden growth made her steps falter.

John took a hard step to the side, and Rose found their trail meandering away. “Hey!” She started to say, and John just kept going, and despite being so much taller than him, despite being a lot heavier than him, she was helpless to control their momentum.

John gently brought her to a chair. “Do you want me to rub your belly?” He asked as he helped her down, the chair transforming to take in her exceptionally broad backside.

Rose’s immediate response was to simply deny any discomfort. This was thwarted by the greater urge, more powerful in recent days, to enjoy being pampered. Her mouth was still forming around the words as she said, “Actually, that sounds quite nice.”

She let herself flatten back, her broad thighs spreading wider as if lounging in some sort of overlord’s throne. Her belly hung out. For a moment she wondered if her sense of her own body was feeling askew or not, as her belly felt even bigger than it had a few moments ago. Surely that was just an illusion, spawned from her still adjusting to a new tweak to her body?

The outer curve of her stomach kept going, sliding against the cool air. She thought she felt it brushing against the tops of her legs, short of her knees, all while the sensation of growth made the whole of her belly a pleasant warmth.

She felt her belly growing, more and more. Doubtfully, she supposed she might have oversizing or undersizing its actual dimensions, and supposed it didn’t much matter. She really liked the idea of her belly being particularly big, and supposed a bit of guesswork on her part would throw anything off much.

Further speculation was halted as John pressed his hands against her stomach. It might have been the power of Breath within his body, or the intimacy of such an action, but his hands felt so warm and soft, moving against her bare skin with a wild thrill that felt so good, she had to resist the urge to force his hands still, or to squeeze against her body just so she could relish the sensation.

For a moment her eyes, and much of her body, glowed like a solar furnace, light pulsing out of her body, and then she mastered it, so that John only saw her glow like a whole body blush. “You get embarrassed easy!” he said, teasingly.

“Oh, you can think that if you want,” Rose said lightly, and gasped as he slowly moved his hands across the outer surface of her stomach, fingers kneading so deeply that it stirred against the transforming walls of her gut.

He didn’t say anything, but she could feel him smiling. Teasing smugness radiated off him, and she gave him points for deserving it there, at least.

Rose still sat up then, mastering the urge to simply lay back and let him rub her stomach, but oh, it was a powerful urge. Briefly, she imagined herself as an immensely bloated figure, without visible limbs, with nothing but an enormous belly that needed to be filled, and a great mouth ringed in huge lips for more food to be slipped down, and John a little fairy filling her up.

It ought to have been frightening. But at the thought of laying back, of food constantly sliding down her throat and making her belly constantly bigger and bigger and BIGGER, all while John orbited about to tend to her every need and whim…

Oh, yes. It was an attractive thought, at the root.

Slowly, without realizing it, she lay back, until she was lounging properly. If she were honest with herself (and honesty was not often a trait associated with those who awoke within Derse), she really didn’t care that much about keeping up appearances. At this point, it was just another habit she was gradually starting to shed.

John’s fingers slid up and around her belly, his strong fingers making intricate patterns on her just above her navel, his Breath power pulsing out into her stomach and accelerating the digestive process. Rose breathed in, and when she exhaled, the noise she made was a languorous and very satisfied sound, flush with the reality patterns of her meals fully melting into her as John’s powers sped up the whole process, mixing together in a very pleasant way.

But of course, adept fingers alone do not make for a completely ideal belly rub. His palms pressed in, deeply, his wrists flexing his hands to sink deeper into the meat of her gut, pressing against the inner walls in just the right way to really stimulate them, and Rose absently patted her own stomach, feeling a warm and fuzzy feeling.

It was hard to keep her hands off her stomach. It felt nicer to have someone else’s hands… admiring her handiwork.

John’s hands made their way down, in steady and experienced movements. Rose’s belly got bigger every time he did this, but he knew her belly all the same. It got bigger, yeah, but he knew it. The places to slide his palms to please her, the areas near her sides where she was almost ticklish, the spots near there that were just perfect for stimulating her digestion and relieved a belly ache, or a recalcitrant bit of quintessence that just would not dissolve properly.

His hounds came to those places, and he was so intent that he didn’t really notice her stomach slowly growing outwards. His hands sank deep into the ticklish spots, just enough to almost bother her, and deftly moving away to safer grounds.

Her stomach swelled a few steps outwards, closer to John, almost pressing directly against him. Absently, too focused to realize it, he stepped aside and rotated his hands against a sweet spot or two, and Rose rewarded him with a happy little noise that put a huge smile on his face.

Then, he tended to the source of the rumbling; with Rose’s pleasure still occupying important spots in his mind, he grew more attuned to her needs and the intricacies of her body, and was in a position to realize that her wobbling belly was growing faster than he was used to at this point.

He placed his hands down in a spot where he would normally rub deep and make little circles in, and he laid them down well enough. Before he could actually do anything more with that, though, her expanding flesh carried his hands apart as her belly widened.

Now John stepped back, completely on instinct, reflexes wired for just this sort of thing, and Rose’s belly still kept coming, sliding right into him and pushing him back even further.

It flowed over her legs. Her breasts, though still quite big, looked improbably small compared to the teeming flesh rising in front of him with a keen sense of demanding need. It rose up, so high and curved that it seemed to be trying to inflate itself.

John stepped back again as her belly kept steadily expanding outwards.

For Rose, the sense of pleasure faded. She felt a curious swelling, though, throughout her entire stomach, and a sense of personal space extending outwards. For some reason, John’s hands felt smaller, before he moved away.

“Um, Rose?” John’s voice called out.

Rose closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling without pondering on it too much.

“Your belly just got super big.”

The sensation continued, so pleasantly that it was a struggle for Rose to open her eyes. She glanced down, unaware of her back gradually sliding backwards against her seat until she was truly laying back, and felt, rather than saw, her stomach growing.

It was not an abrupt thing, as was often the case with these things; that was a later thought, of course. In the moment, her sharp mind faltered and stared out as her stomach slowly expanded outwards, its outer curves rising upwards as well. Her belly glowed, radiating the power of Light and shining like a star in its own right, the same faint orange as the robes hanging off her pin-up body.

Her stomach kept sliding outwards. It’s growing girth moved over her thighs and dipped out past her chair, warm air sliding across her new flesh. It wobbled faintly as she breathed in hard, trying to find words to express alarm and curiosity at this, but… it felt good. It felt really, really good. Rose squirmed in unexpected pleasure, the thrill of digestion gradually fading in favor of the new sensation of her stomach growing so rapidly that, yes, it was rising upwards, right into her field of view, and was starting to interfere with what she could actually see.

It occurred to her that John’s hands had moved back to her belly, even as it was reaching to the floor. Her stomach was quickly starting to get bigger than her, and John was standing up and slowly scooting back, but his hands were still firmly sunk into her stomach. Rose felt a surge of pleasure from the slight adjustments in him moving against her, and made a decision.

“Well?” She said archly, and stifled another swelling belch rising up from deep in her. “I didn’t ask you to stop.”

“Is this supposed to be happening?” John asked. He didn’t sound alarmed, now, that Rose wasn’t either; possibly he felt that as far as he knew, stuff like this happened all the time and he hadn’t seen it yet.

“I don’t know about ‘supposed’,” Rose said, deciding to try to play it off. “We’ve never bothered with that sort of thing. But I would like it if you kept doing what you were doing.” She leaned to the side, just enough that John could see her face where her huge breasts and the person-sized, massive gut sprawling across the floor wouldn’t obstruct it. She smiled at him, softly, eyes half-lidded and thick lips quirked at both corners. “So, would you get back to it?”

John swallowed audibly. “Well, if you say so!” His palms sank in deeply again, and Rose groaned in pleasure as they found new regions to roam across her belly, sliding downwards, nearly to the floor where they rested. The traveling motion of his hands stirred other motions across her stomach, the copious fat rippling as he moved, and it did so with so much force that it traveled up and down her new expanded gut.

Just like a ripple. The push of his hands, the lovely ways he rubbed against her gut, was amplified by the rippling, all over her belly, and she made more low noises in unthinking response, her stomach glowing faintly in response. Oh, but that felt perfect.

John kept rubbing; either her stomach was structured in a way to apply the force evenly, his Breath powers were making his rubbing continue onwards past the point he was actually touching, or perhaps a blend of the two. But as he scooted to one side where there was still a fair bit of rumbling for him to knead at, her stomach kept sliding outwards. It kept growing upwards, with ever more capacity to slide in more of his delicious food.

Rose leaned back, barely aware of losing hold of the ideas of relentless self-control that had kept her in an uncomfortable position on the chair until her belly had gotten bigger. This felt better, as far as she was concerned. She felt her stomach sliding outwards, so that it was rapidly getting close to somewhere around her own size in overall length and width, and it felt so nice that she honestly was not concerned. It did, however, feel rather empty.

Her eyes slowly opened as pangs of hunger started to grow, outweighing even the pleasures of John tending to her belly. “You had some food cooking, yes?” She said, dreamily.

John paused, his hands sunk into her belly nearly to the elbow. “Um, yeah?”

“Go get me some, would you? As much as you can carry.”

John floated up, made a little mock bow, and flitted away, a zephyr in human form.

He came back shortly afterwards. Plates of food hovered around him; not carried in each hand, but levitating about him, and without the restrictions of just two arms to carry it, he was able to bring several dozen in, loaded with all the tastiest treats he’d experimented with at the time.

“I wasn’t sure what you, specifically, might have wanted,” John said. “So I got a little bit of everything!”

Rose’s belly was no longer growing. She barely noticed. The air was thick with sweet smells and sugary tastes, warm smells laden with the distinctive after-tastes of frosting and chocolates, and undertones of milkshakes, fruits coated with impossible layers sculpted into genuine statues via the medium of chocolate and caramel, edible works of art…

“Oh, that smells interesting,” She said aloud, intrigued by what he’d worked up this time. “I must see for myself. Well, not see, but taste is a much more forensic sort of examination than just giving it a smack with your eyes.”

“That’s a horrible mental image. I like it!” John came over, with his many sweets, and sat in mid-air next to Rose, the scent maddening and she knew that he was perfectly aware of it, and just teasing her by sitting there and not giving him a single thing. What a brilliant move, on his part!

(It was entirely possible that John had no idea that Rose expected everyone else to make their every social move as brilliantly calculated as her own, and was not deliberately teasing her. It was also possibly that he knew damn well that she would think he was, and did so accordingly. It was hard to tell, with him!)

Gurgles and rumbles from deep within the expanded regions of her gut, the considerably reworked complexities of her digestive tract, and a more prosaic desire for tasty treats all got the better of Rose. She held herself back as long as possible, playing the part of a refined opponent, and finally she could take no more, and wildly reached out for the nearest piece of cake. John floated just out of reach. Normally, she would have been fine to keep it going for a while, enjoying the game of competition, clashing wits and personalities like a chess game (though not actual chess; having known carapacians, chess was now an uncomfortable exercise), but the thought of getting stuff through her throat and down her belly was too tempting.

“Very well, I give in!” She blurted out, and that was quite the surrender, coming from her.

John was still floating away. There was a terrible look of mischief about him. “What’s the magic word~?” He teased, floating almost close enough for her to pull him towards her.

“Please, and do please hurry with the treats already!” She almost begged.

“Aww. Okay…!” John floated in now, gently taking a seat in the air right next to her, just high enough that his hands could transfer things from plates to her mouth with ease. He admitted he was a little intimidated, and he tried not to look directly at the teeming massives of her breasts, or the gigantic sphere of her belly. Some part of him kept thinking ‘did I do that?’ and he was trying not to think about how nice it would be to lay down on her belly, listening to her digest.

He noticed Rose looking directly at him. Her expression shifted a little; the look of raw need and frustration had just a hint of wickedness in there. Her lips had changed, he realized; they’d grown immensely thick, puffing out into the kind of thick forms you normally associated with balloons. She raised an eyebrow, in that special Rose way of communicating a lot just with a little quirk.

“No mind reading or you won’t get any candy apples!” He said, with an adorable scowl.

Rose chuckled. “One, I don’t read minds, and two, I really don’t have to. You’re easy to figure out.”

“Hmph.” He picked up the plate, which did in fact have candy apples, and he selected one at complete random, holding it by the uncoated stem he used for handles. Gently he maneuvered it to Rose’s face, just above purple-painted lips three inches thick.

He expected her to take a bite; he did not expect her to gently put her lips against it and suck in. Whatever had changed her stomach had also altered the pressure that went into her lips, not to mention the flexibility of her jaw. Her lips flowed around the apple, saliva coating it as they slid completely around it in one smooth movement, her jaws stretching to fit the whole thing into her mouth at once, and then she slurped it into her mouth, plucking it right out of John’s hands.

“Eep!” John squeaked. Rose silently crunched the apple in her mouth, cheeks bulging but showing no sign of discomfort. She kept her eyes locked on him the whole time, her expression worryingly intent. A few hints of saliva oozed against her lips in the heat of her confectionary pleasure, and were slurped back in. Her eyes fluttered as she took in the delicious flavors of the candied apple, the way caramel and fruit blended together in ways amplified by John’s power to make a true taste sensation that a mortal simply couldn’t hope to imitate.

“Mm,” she murmured, after gulping the whole thing down at once, her belly wobbling slightly as it took it all in. “More.”

John nervously gave her another apple. Rose tilted her mouth up and sucked it in more slowly, but also sucked in his fingers too; her lips engulfed them, and pinned them there. John found that Rose’s mouth was very warm, and incredibly moist; as the apple traveled down her throat to never be seen again, the entirety of her lips pressed warmly against his fingers and then the rest of his hand as she drew it into her mouth, holding it there for a moment, and then let it go with a sound suspiciously like a kiss.

“Mm, you still have sugar on your fingers,” Rose said, eyes half-lidded. John was not quite blushing, but he was having a hard time meeting her eyes. She smiled a bit broader at that; it was nice to get one over on him.

“Well, at least you like it, right?” He said, giving her another apple. She ate it without complaint, and the next one he did, and still another went between her teeth, and soon she had polished off the entire plate. The apples were gurgling away in her belly, and she still needed more.

“Go on,” she said warmly. “Fill my stomach up, why don’t you? I’ve more than enough capacity for everything you have?”

“Challenge accepted!” John brought down more plates, picking up a slice of pie and placing it into Rose’s open mouth, and watching with fascination as she slowly chewed it, each flex of her jaw so slow that she plainly was savoring each bite.

She ate slowly, like someone taking a very long time to read a book; all in order to properly appreciate each and every detail, digesting full awareness of it to the last detail. It was the most intense way he’d ever seen someone eat his food; as if with the food in her mouth, there was nothing in all the world but his food. Her eyes closed when she swallowed, throat swelling up in huge gulps, and she radiated such satisfied pleasure that he briefly felt a surge of grand accomplishment.

And then, silently, with her expression alone, she asked for more.

The plates were emptied, one at a time; despite their number, Rose’s appetite grew so ferocious that she devoured everything on them without any sign of growing full despite the massive portions. It was gluttonous, like Terezi or Nepeta during the occasional communal dinner they had (usually corresponding to feast days in their honor, on the mortal world), but it was not ferocious; Rose did not wolf down her food or gorge on it, or try to force entire plates down all at once, as if her belly being emptied was an offense to her and all she had worked for.

No; Rose worked to occupy her belly. One slice of pie at a time, or a fraction of cake, as if taking in residents to a newly opened luxury home complex that required as many people as possible without being too much in a rush. She ate slowly and calmly, savoring every moment of it, and when she swallowed, it was loud. John had heard bells that were quieter, and like a bell, it signaled something. In this case, that she was very pleased with his offering.

He could have sworn he heard a faint, muffled echo after she swallowed. As if he heard the mouthful splashing into place in her belly.

Gulp after gulp, time went by, and both of them were scarcely aware of time passing as it did. Rose was lost in the pleasures of sweetness, tasing every metaphysical connection that went into the sweets, and each mouthful lost her in a world of deceptively calm-looking joy. John found his own satisfaction in feeding her; she loved what he was feeding her, so much, and he felt… proud of it.

And he was noticing that as they worked through the plates, her belly was getting even bigger. It gurgled loudly, of a different character than before. Then, it had wanted more to fill itself with, but now, it seemed to him that these were happy noises; the sounds of a satisfied gut, and that was something that made him feel even more proud of his handiwork.

His nature as a god of Breath felt a sense of imminence coming from her belly, though; something was going on that neither of them were quite aware of, and John felt it coming. He figured that Rose had it handled, though. She always knew what to do.

Her belly swelled larger, and emptied plates (devoid even of crumbs) lay in a neat tower near them both. The tower rose higher and higher, but even once they were all totally cleaned off, they weren’t as high up as Rose’s stomach. It had grown even bigger, sprawling out further as the feeding had progressed; each mouthful adding to its girth. It wasn’t even particularly smooth anymore, flexing and squashing in random directly as tremendously powerful muscle action crunched its contents into a fine grist to be dissolved ever more efficiently, and the power of Light flooded from her body, so that radiant pulses fluxed through.

“Mm-mmm,” Rose said softly as her breasts, now growing large enough to outsize her own torso, towering upwards. They were still small compared to her belly. Even with all the frenetic movement, it was still growing, though more slowly now. The pace of it was a pleasure all its own, a sweet friction from inside her own body and reshaping it to more efficiently be an absolutely ideal glutton.

Food dissolved alarmingly fast, mixing in with fluids and enzymes entirely unique to Rose’s divine body. It dissolved so quickly that it was building up quite a lot of gas, making her belly swell up once more. The skin of it grew firm, the pressure pushing against the inside of her stomach so much that the tightly packed shapes of her food was obscured, her gut turning almost completely round. It was hard to say how much internal gas that was; it was certainly enough to power a small, person-sized hot air balloon at the least, and in a distant way, that was precisely how Rose felt.

Rose’s eyes widened. Propriety that she unthinkingly complied with demanded that she stifle it, right now, before she did something embarrassing, while at the same time a part of her that really did enjoy not caring so much about image demanded to know ‘for what purpose?’. She tried to find a compromise, placing her hand over her mouth to muffle what she was certain would be a truly memorable belch.

Up it went, ascending like the jetpacks John had once used. Her throat swelled up with the weight of it; her breasts rose and fell as it went up her body, and her cheeks bulged when she clamped her mouth shut, realizing too late that this would be loud-

Her lips, though enormous and powerful enough to turn a milk carton inside out with a single sucking swig, were not strong enough to hold the belch back.

It roared out of her like more a force than an actual sound, wet and dripping as it left her mouth and existed in the world for a long moment. It was a shame John didn’t have any windows in that complex, because then they could have rattled in a way that could satisfy Rose’s sense for drama; it wouldn’t have actually helped the situation, but it would have sounded cool. Stone trembled as the noise went on, so loudly that it silenced every other noise around it, and her gut visibly deflated slightly as the pressure abated. Various chairs actually fell over from the force of it.

And, finally, it faded away, leaving a warm sensation in Rose’s body.

“Excuse me,” she said, daubing at her mouth in the midst of the ensuing silence.

John started to learn forward to say something, and then Rose sighed softly. “Oh,” she said, not exactly wincing but looking fairly alarmed all the same. “That’s an unusual feeling.” She put her hands to the closest bits of rolls and chub that anchored her belly to her body, and squeezed tightly, shutting her eyes.

There was something else coming; another grand change, fueled by the consumption, by her desires, and set off by the burp. Things happened in little steps and then came all at once with the right things to trigger them; she knew this.

And she thought; it was very nice to lean back in this chair. It would be nicer still to not require the chair, for maximum hedonism.

This thought went on its way, and perhaps it gave the surge of sudden physical transformation a specific route to use, a keyword to direct it. She might have already been about to take on the incoming form anyway, and the thought was just a reflection of underlying impulses that heralded it. She didn’t know for sure, and later, it was maddening.

Rose lurched forwards, her legs moving sluggishly beneath her robes and belly. The latter obscured them more effectively as Rose actually managed to get off her chair, floating upwards and then landing with a crash onto the ground. Her stomach softened her landing, and she slid backwards off it onto the ground. The back of her robes flared up, wobbling and shifting alarmingly.

“Uh, should I be looking away-” John started to say, the dimples and outlines of Rose’s butt against her robes growing much more outlined.

The growth interrupted him. Her backside, probably responding to her happiness with reclining so much, grew. Not quite as slowly as her backside, either, swelling out in a great explosion of flesh. Her legs grew shorter as her butt expanded, but it didn’t actually change anything in her height. She just wobbled back and forth, trying to maintain her balance as her butt fluxed outwards, projecting out from her body like a living bustle from Victorian fashion, and kept growing bigger.

It rose up to her waist, and a little bit higher than that, and flared outwards; so big that the sides were as broad as the rest of her body, not confined entirely by her hips. Her butt kept growing, expanding so that it was almost bigger than the rest of her body. It smacked against the ground, taller now than John himself, and Rose leaned back into it, her face almost as shocked as John’s.

Her gut dwarfed it, even so. It didn’t seem to grow larger, apart from the constant state of perpetual expansion it had been showing for some time now, but that was an academic point, given how big it actually was now. Her breasts hung high upon it, and Rose leaned into it, suspended between butt and belly for a perfect balance.

Her legs trembled, and it was hard to see them. Rose frowned, as if puzzled, at a curious cool sensation of her legs. Soon it faded, and she found that she couldn’t feel anything to do with her legs at all. She expanded her perceptions, and gasped aloud. Her legs had fused together, joined in the middle and flowing into a single piece of extended body. While useless for walking, that soon became an irrelevant point: the bones of her legs dissolved, her legs becoming a shapeless mass that hung beneath her.

Any sense of horror was cut off by a pleasurable feeling, like warm nudges coming from inside her. It felt like a sense of pressure too, not unlike that preceding the massive belch that had set off this transformation. The length where her legs had been expanded and swelled out, growing even larger than her upper body and almost as big as her butt, widening out into a sort of living base for her entire body. It was invitingly round, a living sofa for her body to recline into, and it kept expanding until it was twice as broad around as her body. Still dwarfed by her belly, but as she wobbled in place with a few more minor alterations to her stature, she remained stable, and lounged into it.

Rose shifted in place, blinking furiously. She glanced down, her robes exposing quite a lot of flesh below her. Her backside felt very well aired, and her new… base? Podium? Stand? Whatever she might call it, it was certainly supporting her.

Any bewilderment or horror at the transformation was numbed; she was more curious than alarmed. She wiggled in place. Yes; there was something almost liquid within her there, bearing her weight like a living mattress, adjusting itself to her body to avoid any cramps or feelings of discomfort.

She kept wobbling herself, in fact. It felt fun.

Her whole body felt very nice, actually. “Well, that was interesting!” Rose said, feeling herself for any traces of more genuinely inhuman transformation. Well, besides the obvious, of course. She examined herself; massive belly and butt, that puffy lower body base… she looked like a person built of orbs, and she thought it looked very nice on her.

“Rose!?” John floated around her, with the frantic energy normally associated with a hummingbird realizing too late that a diet had been a poor decision. “What happened to you!? Are you okay!?”

“I would say so, yes!” Rose adjusted herself. She turned very easily, her belly dragging on the ground and knocking several chairs and display desks over, folding them into its squishy depths. Feeling those solid objects deep in her belly-skin felt great; so much hard rigidity, shifting against her in all the right ways… oh, that was an interesting sensation.

John slowly floated to the ground. “My food makes people puffy and bloated,” He said, in tones of grave horror. “Why did no one warn me that could happen!?”

“No, no, it wasn’t any quality of your cooking,” Rose said absently, leaning into her massive belly. She was going to need some other means of getting around, but somehow, staying put seemed very attractive. Just enjoying John’s company, and the possibilities offered by her new, lovely body.

She still couldn’t keep her hands off her stomach. It felt so nice to touch, like a massive erogenous zone.

“It was me,” she said, still feeling shockingly calm. She turned towards John, smirking faintly. He looked a little lower on the ground; her new puffy base must have given her a few extra feet in height.

He blinked. His eyes had the glazed look of one trying to process something big, and fit the new Rose into his understanding of the world.

Eventually he said, in patient tones, “Uh. Okay, but. Uh. But, but why, though.”

Rose shrugged, and put her hands right back on her belly where she felt they belonged. “But why not?”

John raised a finger to make a point. He thought about it. He frowned. He lowered the finger. “Fair enough, I guess?”

[shalebridge-cradle]

Historical References in What Are You Going to Do With Your Life - Chapters 10-12

Chapter 10

Boleyn mumbles something about a priest. W. S. Pakenham-Walsh (1868 - 1960), Vicar of Sulgrave, Northhamptonshire, had a strong interest in Anne Boleyn. He claimed to have a series of spiritual experiences after praying at Boleyn’s burial site, and contacted clairvoyants to channel her spirit in the hopes she might become his guardian angel. He also claimed in his diary that he had contact with Henry VIII and other notable members of the Tudor court.

While witchcraft was often punished via the death penalty, Henry VIII made the law explicit in 1542 (though it was later repealed no later than 1547, under Edward VI). Several witchcraft laws were made in the UK over the years, in 1563, 1604, 1649 and 1735. These were all repealed and replaced with more general consumer protection laws, and the last person to be indicted for witchcraft (under the 1735 act) was imprisoned in 1944.

Tarot was a regular set of cards for most of its history, used in various, but similar, trick-taking card card games. It became associated with ancient wisdom in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote an essay claiming (with no evidence) that ancient Egyptian priests had distilled the mystical Book of Thoth into the cards.

“Psychic is Greek, and clairvoyant is French. One is about thinking, and the other is about seeing.” Psychic comes from the Greek word psychikos (‘of the mind’) and clairvoyance is a combination of two French words (‘clear’ and ‘vision’). Catherine of Aragon was known to speak both French and Greek, as well as Latin, her native Spanish, and English.

Cunning man (or woman) was another word for folk healers.

In 1532, Catherine Parr’s brother-in-law from her second marriage, William Neville, was accused of treason for allegedly predicting the king’s death and his own ascension as Earl of Warwick (a title made extinct during the Wars of the Roses, but would be recreated in 1547 and twice after that). He went to at least three magicians to confirm this prediction, all of which agreed that it was meant to be true (it wasn’t). One of these magicians was Richard Jones of Oxford, who was imprisoned and questioned on the matter. He did his best to exonerate himself of responsibility. I have found five references confirming his existence – but many of them claim he had a sceptre he used to ‘summon the four king devils’, which he used for divination purposes.

Chapter 11

Jones of Oxford was taken in for questioning as part of the Neville affair, and he did his best in his confession to exonerate himself. Neville’s claims of a prophetic dream showing himself as Earl of Warwick were now a “fair castle” which Neville assumed must be the castle of Warwick, and a shield with “sundry arms I could not rehearse”. He did admit to writing “a foolish letter or two according to [Neville’s] foolish desire, to make pastime to laugh at”. No treason, just jokes, please don’t execute me Thomas Cromwell. Jones claimed to take his alchemy seriously, however, and wrote that “To make the philosopher’s stone I will jeopard my life, so to do it,” if the king so wished. He would require twelve months “upon silver” and twelve and a half “upon gold”, and was willing to be imprisoned while he worked. Jones made a similar offer to Cromwell, but there is no evidence either man accepted. Jones was released in exchange for revealing incriminating evidence against another figure of interest. The other magicians caught up in this incident, William Wade and a man known only as ‘Nashe’, had perfected their disappearing act and were not sent to the Tower.

There is a story that Elizabeth I attributed the destruction of the Spanish armada in 1588 to John Dee’s wizardry. Given that, as mentioned, Dee was out of favour with Elizabeth at the time, this is likely untrue.

Elizabeth I’s death was in March of 1603, after she became sick and remained in a “settled and unmovable melancholy”, sitting on a cushion and staring at nothing. The death of a close friend in February of that year came as a particular blow – that of her second cousin and First Lady of the Bedchamber, Catherine Howard.

James I (or James VI, depending on where you’re from)… James I of England was also James VI of Scotland. His mother was Mary Queen of Scots, who was executed by Elizabeth I, and his great-grandmother was Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister.

“Anna, born Duchess of Jülich, Cleves and Berg.” This was how Anna signed hers’ and Henry’s marriage treaty, known as the ‘Beer Pot Documents’, because someone drew a stein at the bottom.

Bowling, as a game, can trace its origins back to ancient Egypt, and has been quite popular the world over throughout history. Henry VIII was an avid bowler himself (when Hampton Court was remodelled, bowling alleys were included with tennis courts and tiltyards), but banned the sport for the lower classes. The law against workers bowling (unless it was Christmas and in their master’s presence) was repealed in 1845.

We return to the ground, because from it we were taken. Paraphrasing of Genesis 3:19.

The (possible) first appearance of the word ‘alligator’ in the English language is from Romeo and Juliet. The description of The Apothecary’s shop mentions “a tortoise hung, an alligator stuff’d, and other skins of ill-shaped fishes”. Traditionally, medieval apothecaries and astrologers kept skeletons, fossils, and/or taxidermied pieces on display to demonstrate their worldliness.

The anger over calling the alligator ‘William’ could come from Parr, or from Anna. Her brother’s name, Wilhelm, is often anglicised as William.

Midsomer county does not exist and never has. It’s the setting for the long-running mystery TV show Midsomer Murders. Incidentally, Catherine Parr’s native county of Westmorland existed at one point, but no longer does (the area is now in the county of Cumbria). She is not the only English-born queen who this applies to; Jane Seymour’s Wiltshire and Anne Boleyn’s Norfolk still exist (and have since antiquity), but Katherine Howard was most likely born in Lambeth, which would have been in the county of Middlesex at the time. The area is now under the ceremonial county of Greater London.

“Honestly? Margaret Pole’s was worse.” Margaret Pole, Countess of Sailsbury and the last of the House of York, was kept in the Tower of London for two and a half years for her supposed support of Catholicism’s attempts to overthrow the king, before being informed of her death ‘within the hour’ on the 27th of May, 1541. She answered that she did not know the crime of which she was accused (and had carved a poem into the wall of her cell to that effect), but went to the block anyway. It allegedly took eleven blows from the inexperienced axeman to separate her head from her body. There is another story that she tried to run from the executioner and was killed in the attempt, but this is likely a fabrication. Regardless, pretty much everyone thought this was not only a bad idea on Henry’s part (killing Margaret removed any leverage the king had on her rebellious son, Cardinal Reginald Pole), it was also pointlessly cruel and a painfully undignified end.

(She was also Catherine of Aragon’s lady-in-waiting, and governess to Mary at several points.)

That everyone around her, bar a few visitors, would actively benefit from her death… Yet another quote of Elizabeth Tyrwhitt’s testimony: Parr, on her deathbed, claimed she was “not well-handled” by those around her; “for those that be about me careth not for me, but standeth laughing at my grief, and the more good I will to them, the less good they will to me”.

Chapter 12

According to a lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn claimed she would rather see Catherine of Aragon hanged “than have to confess that she was her queen and mistress”. This incident is probably the origin of the lyric “somebody hang you!” from Don’t Lose Ur Head.

Catalina uses a few Spanish phrases in this chapter, which don’t get directly translated. The first, No se hizo la miel para la boca del asno, directly translates to ‘Honey is not made for the donkey’s mouth’, and essentially means ‘Good things shouldn’t be wasted on those who won’t appreciate them’. Lavar cerdos con jabón es perder tiempo y jabón is ‘Washing pigs with soap is a waste of time and soap’, and is meant to indicate some things aren’t worth the energy.

…like that dream she has where she is cut up by a servant… An autopsy was done on Catherine of Aragon as part of the embalming process, which revealed the growth on her heart. This was done by the castle chandler (a dealer or trader) as part of his official duties.

Jane Seymour got rid of most of the hallmarks of Anne Boleyn’s tenure during her own queenship. The extravagance and lavish entertainments were banned, along with the French fashions Boleyn had introduced – including French hoods, which Boleyn is wearing in the portrait we have of her. Jane, as mentioned, wore a gable hood in her portraits.

“I don’t know why I’m so surprised that people care about what I say.” In the words of nineteenth century proto-feminist Agnes Strickland, Jane “passed eighteen months of regal life without uttering a sentence significant enough to warrant preservation”, which is kind of a mean thing to say. Seymour certainly said things during this time, we know this from reports, but there aren’t any direct quotes from her during her time as queen.

Here’s the painting mentioned, from 1545, during Catherine Parr’s tenure. Jane is on Henry’s left.

It was only after her death that Henry ‘loved’ her, but she is certain that he mourned for only for his own loss. There are reports that, during Jane’s labour, doctors advised Henry he might lose either Jane or Edward. Henry is claimed to have replied, “If you cannot save both, at least let the child live, for other wives are easily found.”

Countdown is a British television game show that revolves around word and number puzzles. It has been going for almost forty years, and is one of the longest-running game shows in the world, with over 7000 episodes.

“I saw a ghost bear kill someone, once.” Anne isn’t making this up. Supposedly, the incident occurred in 1816, when a Yeoman Warder saw a ghostly bear somewhere in the Tower of London. Terrified, he tried to stab it with his bayonet, only for the weapon to go through the image and strike the door behind it. The guard died of shock later on. A similar event happened in 1864, where two guards witnessed “a whitish, female figure” gliding towards one of the soldiers. The soldier in question charged this figure, only to go straight through it, upon which he fainted.

Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a little over two months in 1554, as a result of Wyatt’s Rebellion against Queen Mary. The rebellion was also the likely reason for the execution of Lady Jane Grey – both she and Elizabeth were Protestants in line for the throne, and therefore ‘more suitable’ as ruler. Both Elizabeth and Jane Grey denied any involvement, but the latter’s father and brother (also executed) were direct contributors.

“… you did die, Elizabeth was really upset about it…” Elizabeth took the news of Parr’s death badly. She refused to leave her bed, and was unable to go a mile from her residence, for five months following Parr’s passing.

Not because she liked that bearded potato man, God no… I found this deeply cursed engraving (first produced in 1544) in one of my books on the six wives, and now I want you all to suffer with me.

Anne of Cleves reacted poorly to being told her marriage would be annulled – some accounts say she fainted, others says she cried and screamed. Both could be true. The reasons given were threefold – One, the marriage was unconsummated (From testimony given by two servants, Anne thought a kiss goodnight counted as consummation – likely untrue, but this is the only reason that actually has merit). Two, Anne was precontracted to Francis of Lorraine (Untrue – the betrothal would only take effect if Anne’s father paid the dowry, and he didn’t). Three, Anne was not a virgin as claimed, based on the description of her ‘breasts and belly’, a Tudor way of saying Anne had previously given birth (untrue, and conflicts with the testimony for reason one). The annulment went through without Anne’s involvement, but (probably looking at the examples of her three predecessors) she accepted the ruling and kept herself from being banished, beheaded or otherwise.

(Other fact that has no bearing on reality – while researching Anne of Cleves, one of the pages that came up was The Simpsons Wiki. Apparently she’s the only wife who can claim the honour of having been in two episodes. :/)

Dogs don’t need to answer for their sins, they don’t have any. Katherine Howard was reportedly fond of animals in general, but had a particular soft spot for dogs.

She did the right thing. She told the truth. She died for it. Katherine Howard insisted, to the end, that she had no pre-contract of marriage to Francis Dereham. Would she have survived if she said she did?

[haruatori]

Common list of misconceptions

Had great fun learning about these, maybe now I will remember it better:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

Fortune cookies, despite being associated with Chinese cuisine in the United States, were invented in Japan and introduced to the US by the Japanese.[11] The cookies are extremely rare in China, where they are seen as symbols of American cuisine.[12]

The United States does not require police officers to identify themselves as police in the case of a sting or other undercover work, and police officers may lie when engaged in such work.[25] Claiming entrapment as a defense instead focuses on whether the defendant was induced by undue pressure (such as threats) or deception from law enforcement to commit crimes they would not have otherwise committed.[26]

Parody singer "Weird Al" Yankovic did not write or perform most of the songs and comedy sketches attributed to him or "Weird Al Yankovich" on the Internet.[48]

The forbidden fruit mentioned in the Book of Genesis is never identified as an apple,[51] a misconception widely depicted in Western art.The original Hebrew texts mention only tree and fruit. Early Latin translations use the word mali, which can mean either "evil" or "apple" depending on if the A is short or long respectively, although the difference in vowel length had already vanished from speech in Latin at the time. In early Germanic languages the word "apple" and its cognates usually simply meant "fruit". German and French artists commonly depict the fruit as an apple from the 12th century onwards, and John Milton's Areopagitica from 1644 explicitly mentions the fruit as an apple.[52] Jewish scholars have suggested that the fruit could have been a grape, a fig, an apricot, or an etrog.[53]

The Bible does not say that exactly three magi came to visit the baby Jesus, nor that they were kings, or rode on camels, or that their names were Casper, Melchior, and Balthazar, nor what color their skin was. Three magi are inferred because three gifts are described, but we only know that they were plural (at least 2); there could have been many more and probably an entourage accompanied them on their journey. The artistic depictions of the nativity have almost always depicted three magi since the 3rd century.[57] The Bible only specifies an upper limit of 2 years for the interval between the birth and the visit (Matthew 2:16), and artistic depictions and the closeness of the traditional dates of December 25 and January 6 encourage the popular assumption that the visit took place in the same season as the birth, but later traditions varied, with the visit taken as occurring up to two years later. The association of magi with kings comes from efforts to tie the visit to prophecies in the Book of Isaiah.[58]

No Biblical or historical evidence supports Mary Magdalene having been a prostitute.[59]

The idea that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute before she met Jesus is not found in the Bible or in any of the other earliest Christian writings. The misconception likely arose due to a conflation between Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany (who anoints Jesus's feet in John 11:1–12), and the unnamed "sinful woman" who anoints Jesus's feet in Luke 7:36–50.[59]

The Quran does not promise martyrs 72 virgins in heaven. It does mention companions, houri, to all people—martyr or not—in heaven, but no number is specified. The source for the 72 virgins is a hadith in Sunan al-Tirmidhi by Imam Tirmidhi.[74][75] Hadiths are sayings and acts of the prophet Muhammad as reported by others, and as such they are not part of the Quran itself. Muslims are not meant to necessarily believe all hadiths, and that applies particularly to those hadiths that are weakly sourced, such as this one.[76] Furthermore, the correct translation of this particular hadith is a matter of debate.[74] In the same collection of Sunni hadiths, however, the following is judged strong (hasan sahih): "There are six things with Allah for the martyr. He is forgiven with the first flow of blood (he suffers), he is shown his place in Paradise, he is protected from punishment in the grave, secured from the greatest terror, the crown of dignity is placed upon his head—and its gems are better than the world and what is in it—he is married to seventy two wives among wide-eyed houris (Al-Huril-'Ayn) of Paradise, and he may intercede for seventy of his close relatives."[77]

Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were originally painted bright colors; they only appear white today because the original pigments have deteriorated. Some well-preserved statues still bear traces of their original coloration.[127][128]

The accused at the Salem witch trials in North America were not burned at the stake; about 15 died in prison, 19 were hanged and one was pressed to death.[172]

Marie Antoinette did not say "let them eat cake" when she heard that the French peasantry were starving due to a shortage of bread. The phrase was first published in Rousseau's Confessions when Marie was only nine years old and most scholars believe that Rousseau coined it himself, or that it was said by Maria Theresa, the wife of Louis XIV. Even Rousseau (or Maria Theresa) did not use the exact words but actually Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, meaning "Let them eat brioche" (a rich type of bread). Marie Antoinette was a target of attacks from radical jacobins; therefore, political activists attributed the phrase "let them eat cake" to her, to promulgate an image of her as disconnected from her subjects.[173]

Napoleon Bonaparte was not short. He was actually slightly taller than the average Frenchman of his time.[180] After his death in 1821, the French emperor's height was recorded as 5 feet 2 inches in French feet, which in English measurements is 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m).[181] He was actually nicknamed le Petit Caporal (The Little Corporal) as a term of endearment.[182] Napoleon was often accompanied by his imperial guard, who were selected for their height[183]—this may have contributed to a perception that he was comparatively short.

There was no widespread outbreak of panic across the United States in response to Orson Welles's 1938 radio adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. Only a very small share of the radio audience was even listening to it, and isolated reports of scattered incidents and increased call volume to emergency services were played up the next day by newspapers, eager to discredit radio as a competitor for advertising. Both Welles and CBS, which had initially reacted apologetically, later came to realize that the myth benefited them and actively embraced it in later years.[200]

Rosa Parks was not sitting in the front ("white") section of the bus during the event that made her famous and incited the Montgomery bus boycott. Rather, she was sitting in the front of the back ("colored") section of the bus, where African Americans were expected to sit, but refused to give up her seat to a white man who asked for it (which was also the expected action of African Americans at the time).

Although popularly known as the "red telephone", the Moscow–Washington hotline was never a telephone line, nor were red phones used. The first implementation of the hotline used teletype equipment, which was replaced by facsimile (fax) machines in 1988. Since 2008, the hotline has been a secure computer link over which the two countries exchange emails.[220] Moreover, the hotline links the Kremlin to the Pentagon, not the White House.[221]

Bulls are not enraged by the color red, used in capes by professional matadors. Cattle are dichromats, so red does not stand out as a bright color. It is not the color of the cape, but the perceived threat by the matador that incites it to charge.[238]

Dogs do not sweat by salivating[239] Dogs actually do have sweat glands and not only on their tongues; they sweat mainly through their footpads. However, dogs do primarily regulate their body temperature through panting.[240] (See also: Dog anatomy).

Bats are not blind. While about 70 percent of bat species, mainly in the microbat family, use echolocation to navigate, all bat species have eyes and are capable of sight. In addition, almost all bats in the megabat or fruit bat family cannot echolocate and have excellent night vision.[244]

The notion that goldfish have a memory span of just a few seconds is false.[250][251] It is much longer, counted in months.

There is no such thing as an "alpha" in a wolf pack. An early study that coined the term "alpha wolf" had only observed unrelated adult wolves living in captivity. In the wild, wolf packs operate more like human families: there is no defined sense of rank, parents are in charge until the young grow up and start their own families, younger wolves do not overthrow an "alpha" to become the new leader, and social dominance fights are situational.[254][255]

Mice do not have a special appetite for cheese, and will eat it only for lack of better options. Mice actually favor sweet, sugary foods. It is unclear where the myth came from.[260]

Sunflowers do not always point to the sun. Flowering sunflowers face a fixed direction (often east) all day long, but not necessarily the sun.[287] However, in an earlier developmental stage, before the appearance of flower heads, the immature buds do track the sun (a phenomenon called phototropism) and the fixed alignment of the mature flowers toward a certain direction is often the result.[288]

Petroleum does not originate from dinosaurs but rather bacteria and algae.[308]

No human genome (nor any mammalian genome for that matter) has ever been completely sequenced. As of 2017, by some estimates, between 4% to 9% of the human genome had not been sequenced.[311]

Trickle-down theory of economics does not work.[325]

Waking sleepwalkers does not harm them. While it is true that a person may be confused or disoriented for a short time after awakening, this does not cause them further harm. In contrast, sleepwalkers may injure themselves if they trip over objects or lose their balance while sleepwalking.[332]

Stretching before or after exercise does not reduce muscle soreness.[338]

Exercise-induced muscle soreness is not caused by lactic acid buildup.[339] Muscular lactic acid levels during and after exercise do not correlate with soreness;[340] exercise-induced muscle soreness is thought to be due to microtrauma from an unaccustomed or strenuous exercise, against which the body adapts with repeated bouts of the same exercise.[341]

Shaving does not cause terminal hair to grow back thicker (more dense) or darker. This belief is due to hair that has never been cut having a tapered end, whereas, after cutting, the edge is blunt and therefore thicker than the tapered ends; the sharper, unworn edges make the cut hair appear thicker and feel coarser. That short hairs are less flexible than longer hairs also contributes to this effect.[355]

A person's hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after death. Rather, the skin dries and shrinks away from the bases of hairs and nails, giving the appearance of growth.[356]

Acne is mostly caused by genetics, rather than lack of hygiene, eating fatty food, or other personal habits.[360]

The order in which different types of alcoholic beverages are consumed ("Grape or grain but never the twain" and "Beer before liquor never sicker; liquor before beer in the clear") does not affect intoxication or create adverse side effects.[381]

Hand size does not predict human penis size,[385] but finger length ratio may.[386]

There is no physiological basis for the belief that having sex in the days leading up to a sporting event or contest is detrimental to performance.[390] In fact it has been suggested that sex prior to sports activity can elevate male testosterone level, which could potentially enhance performance.[391]

Glass does not flow at room temperature as a high-viscosity liquid.[442] Although glass shares some molecular properties found in liquids, glass at room temperature is an amorphous solid that only begins to flow above the glass transition temperature,[443] though the exact nature of the glass transition is not considered settled among scientists.[444] Panes of stained glass windows are often thicker at the bottom than at the top, and this has been cited as an example of the slow flow of glass over centuries. However, this unevenness is due to the window manufacturing processes used at the time.[443][444] No such distortion is observed in other glass objects, such as sculptures or optical instruments, that are of similar or even greater age.[443][444][445]

Most diamonds are not formed from highly compressed coal. More than 99 percent of diamonds ever mined have formed in the conditions of extreme heat and pressure about 140 kilometers (87 mi) below the earth's surface. Coal is formed from prehistoric plants buried much closer to the surface, and is unlikely to migrate below 3.2 kilometers (2.0 mi) through common geological processes. Most diamonds that have been dated are older than the first land plants, and are therefore older than coal. It is possible that diamonds can form from coal in subduction zones and in meteoroid impacts, but diamonds formed in this way are rare and the carbon source is more likely carbonate rocks and organic carbon in sediments, rather than coal.[446]

Although the Greek philosopher Pythagoras is most famous today for his alleged mathematical discoveries,[452][453] classical historians dispute whether he himself ever actually made any significant contributions to the field.[450][451] He cannot have been the first to discover his famous theorem, because it was known and used by the Babylonians and Indians centuries before Pythagoras,[454][455][456][457] but it is possible that he may have been the first one to introduce it to the Greeks.[458][456]

There is no scientific evidence for the existence of "photographic" memory in adults (the ability to remember images with so high a precision as to mimic a camera),[478] but some young children have eidetic memory.[479] Many people have claimed to have a photographic memory, but those people have been shown to have good memories as a result of mnemonic devices rather than a natural capacity for detailed memory encoding.[480] There are rare cases of individuals with exceptional memory, but none of them has a memory that mimics that of a camera.

[oh-boleyn]

catherine / infamy

words: 5733, one shot, language: english

anne / jane /  katherine / catherine

this was posted on ao3 some days ago and I have been since debating to post it here or not. except for this series I will stop posting here probably, and just move to my ao3

TW: I think this one only has as tw Catherine's story (kidnapping, dying in childbirth, etc) plus self deprication... if anyone thinks this one needs more tw please tell me 

the commentary between scenes are things I got from internet about Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr will always be known as the queen who got away.

(…)

Her breath is heavy, the air denser than it should be.

But it slowly gets better, to the point she opens her eyes and the light doesn’t hurt. Sitting, she can recognize Katherine Howard, the girl for who she was a lady-in-waiting. Anna of Cleves is also sitting, a lost expression on her face. A woman with blonde hair that makes her think of the various portraits she saw in the palace. Just by counting the people in the room, she can easily assume who the rest of them are.

After all, she was the last of them.

(…)

Catherine’s father died when she was five years old and so her education was left to her mother, who educated Catherine to a high standard. 

(…)

Catherine never loved moving.

Usually she got too attached to a place, and changes were definitely not her favourite thing.

(Moving centuries felt like a torture – not that she would ever admit it out loud.)

Their new house was small, smaller than any castle she ever lived in. She had to share a bedroom with her godmother with whom she never had a relationship, and the third queen, mother of the kid she saw getting the crown.

Sometimes at night the house made her think of Snape Castle. Of nights fearing for her life. Being the survivor didn’t mean her life was any easier. Those nights she preferred to avoid sleeping in case the faces of John and Margaret might appear in her dreams.

Instead she would just scroll through articles and articles on her phone, trying to understand any actual device that was out to the public, or what did spot on meant. At least being productive made her feel less useless. After years of new information missed, she could really use new research.

(…)

Sometimes alternatively spelled Katherine, Katheryn, Kateryn or Katharine.

(…)

Catherine can’t help but feel powerless when thinking about Katherine Howard.

She was just a child. A teen, who Catherine couldn’t save. Her mind didn’t work fast enough to help the girl, who died such a tragic, grotesque death, leaving Parr her place as queen. Maybe if Parr was smart enough, she could’ve done something else.

But she wasn’t.

She loved to lie, to make everyone believe her, but deep down she knew nothing more than that, a lie. An elaborated act that took years to construct. A character, a fake line, an improvised scene that went day after day. Because Catherine didn’t think of herself as intelligent, just a very good actress, fooling everyone into thinking she was smart.

She wished it was true.

Instead she had to live with the guilt of knowing what she did. She was not the hero, not the survivor, not the scholar queen.

Catherine Parr was a fool who couldn’t save Howard, nor Margaret, nor Elizabeth, nor Lady Jane Grey. Her hands were filled with the blood and tears of all the girls at her care; she never had the chance to rescue, instead just assisting to their downfall. And her mind won’t stop her from repeating the names time and time again.

(…)

Catherine was known for her love of learning and for her fluency in languages such as Latin, French and Italian.

(…)

“What do you want to know?” The last queen questions.

Her godmother had been moving the whole night, buzzing around her. It was almost becoming annoying, except that there was a warmness, an incapability of getting mad knowing how close her mother and the woman once were.

“What makes you think I want to know something?” Aragon retorts.

“You seem nervous, if you want to know something just ask ahead. I won’t get mad.”

She internally prays for Aragon not to ask her something about Spanish, or worse, Latin or Italian. Languages felt more complicated and overwhelming in the twenty-first century, featuring strange mixes between them.

(Apparently, Spanglish was a thing.)

She is not sure if any other question would be good, at all. Catherine is supposed to know all the answers, to be educated, to distinguish, to be useful. Since arriving in this century her mind has been confused, mixing up languages and dates. Blocked, broken.

“Curiosity is not such a good trait.” The older woman speaks, almost robotically, just repeating words she probably heard time and time again.

Catherine would be lying if she said that was the first time she heard those words. Her curiosity was not exactly an attribute in her past life, but she maintained it through the end of her days, always looking forward to learning. A craving for intelligence heavier than the one for safety.

“It’s alright, really.”

“What happened when I died?”

The question comes out quickly, making Parr hold a breath.

“When you died…” She starts, trying to remember only important details. “Anne and Henry were still married, but she lost the pregnancy. She had three miscarriages. You can imagine how Henry reacted.”

Catherine nods, aware of Anne’s thick scar.

“Jane went next. I can’t remember a lot from her reign, for it was short and I wasn’t at court at the time,” she winces, trying not to show her stiffness when talking about it, “Henry asked for her to be painted in every family portrait, even after she died. He really tried to secure the line of succession for Edward, what a shame he died so young. In his attempts to have another son, Henry married Anna. She wasn’t bad, just probably a lot for him to handle.”

“She seems like a lot.” Catherine speaks, judging tone in her voice.

“Don’t say that, she is actually sweet. Henry couldn’t kill her, politics involved, so they settled for an annulment. Then Katherine came. She was naïve, a child. I was a lady-in-waiting for her, and it is true she might have been childish, but she was –is, I suppose– a good person.”

“I feel like all of them know more than me,” Aragon explains, “but I don’t want to read about them, it’s like invading their privacy.”

“I did. Most sources are from after we died, none of them completely true.” Catherine admits. “We should be able to tell our story.”

“We should.”

(…)

Catherine is known for reuniting Henry’s children with their father and bringing them back to court. 

(…)

The opening night for the show is nerve-wracking to say the least.

Anna almost cursed at Catherine because, after all, it was her idea. Parr stays silent, knowing that the fourth queen is nervous to her very core. She also knows that the show has to be done.

They could only live off doing interviews for some time. She learnt that the internet worked in mysterious ways, and nothing stayed new for too long. People grew tired, and interviews were less and less often.

But after the play, it feels right. Even her godmother is smiling, her own reluctance to create the play long forgotten. People cheer around them, the band still firm on their spots but clapping their hands.

For a moment it feels good to be in the spotlight.

(…)

Catherine was an attractive and intelligent woman, who combined the intelligence and wit of Anne Boleyn with the prudence and diplomacy of Catherine of Aragon.

(…)

“Anne, wake up.”

Boleyn opens her eyes. Her hands were still holding her phone. That little technological device that holds so much information about everything. Catherine wonders what she was doing, what could have been so important that she didn’t go to bed.

“You should go to your room, Kat and Anna might be waiting for you.” She says with a soft voice, trying not to wake anyone else in the house.

The second queen has big, bright green eyes. There is a sparkle of wit that Catherine can’t shake her head off. She looks like Elizabeth, the same curiosity shining through. The way she carries herself, as if she still was the queen. The secrecy, how every word holds another meaning.

Anne stood up, going to her bedroom.

“Goodnight Anne.”

“Night, Parr.”

Elizabeth is dead, and they aren’t. Catherine never had a chance to amend their problems, instead she died. Never getting to see Elizabeth as queen was going to be something she would always regret.

The internet said she was a great queen, and it didn’t surprise Parr at all.

(…)

Elizabeth was won over by Catherine’s warmth and intelligence.

(…)

Catherine Parr was never a protagonist, and she prided herself on it. Being a writer was more important to her. Narrators lived long enough to tell the heroes stories. She was observant. Silent, but good at knowing all the gossip. Being invisible was an advantage, it could keep you alive.

(That is if you didn’t die because of childbirth, obviously.)

Even in the play, she made it known. Her make-up in earthly tones, and she wears a blue costume. Blue was serene, trying not to be noticed. She didn’t talk as much as the other queens, relegating her story just to her last verses.

Catherine Parr was a narrator, not a protagonist, and she was aware of it.

That was why, when watching the queens, she felt so inclined to give them as much attention as she could. Catherine wouldn’t write their stories, that would be not okay if she tried to keep the fake peace that reigned the house, but she could surely find striking inspiration at any moment.

She discovered that none of them were having the best time in their new lives. They didn’t treat it as a brand-new chance to be happy, instead they were bonded to the past, to their own time. It felt like whatever brought them back just did it so they could act as robots half of the time, not trusting each other to talk seriously for more than a couple of minutes.

Catherine wonders if the other queens also notice how much she is struggling.

(…)

However, the quick-thinking Catherine Parr managed to save her head by pleading with Henry and persuading him that she had only argued with him in an attempt to help him forget about the pain caused by his leg ulcer and to learn from him.

Henry forgave her.

(…)

They move. Again. She knows it’s for the better, but she can’t help feeling weirded out by the new house. At least it allows them each to have a room of their own, a privacy she certainly craved.

She takes the basement, which is the colder room in the house. It feels comfortable, after all the years of living in palaces makes you feel that way about cold, big rooms. Her bed, even if it is double size, doesn’t fill more than a quarter of the room, leaving her space for a big desk and a bookshelf.

Catherine counts all the books once before starting packing, twice after saving them and another time as soon as she arrives. The feeling that she probably lost one doesn’t disappear, even if she doesn’t know what book she lost.

(Maybe because most of her books are destroyed after five hundred years of not caring for them.

Not like those books are useful anymore.)

(…)

According to Foxe, she began “frankly to debate with the king touching religion, and therein flatly to discover herself; oftentimes wishing, exhorting, and persuading the king.”

(…)

Doing research is exhausting to say the least.

The bright white screen makes her eyes ache after watching it for a while, and her hands don’t work quickly on the keyboard. She can’t even write as fast as she could in her old life, her letters clumsy and often having problems with gripping the new pens.

What makes it the worst, is that she feels so stupid when trying to do it. Languages vary when time progresses, that much she always knew, but trying to read an article sometimes becomes impossible, with words such as quantum entanglement or Newtonian physics. It infuriates her, not being able to understand.

Once upon a time she knew it all, about God, history, languages. But now it felt as if her brain just stopped working. Everything went faster than she could, leaving her behind, useless to a new world into which she never asked to be brought.

Sometimes she hates modernism and its complexity.

Still, Catherine puts on an act every day, talking about penicillin and ibuprofen, explaining history to Anna and focusing on appearing smart. Because, after all, that was all she ever knew. All she ever had was owned for being smart, to know how to play a King’s game, and getting away with it.

If she wasn’t smart, she was nothing.

(…)

Catherine certainly believed herself to be in danger and, had she not acted decisively, it is likely that Henry would have allowed her to be arrested and, perhaps, executed.

(…)

“Cathy, por favor, ayúdame con esto.” Her godmother asks, while going through some files. “I know you were good at Spanish.”

Parr holds a breath. She once could speak it fluently, but lately it’s pained her into having problems with it.

“I was reading this book, and wondered if della and del were still being used? Or is it old Spanish?”

Catherine didn’t know the answer at all. How was she supposed to? If she could barely understand it. She wanted to scream, to explain that she had no actual clue. She wanted to pull away her façade of being smart and just admitting that it was too hard for her.

“I think it’s safer to use de la instead of a contracción.” Cathy says, praying to be right.

“Gracias querida.” Aragon winks at her.

Parr was really hoping she was right.

(…)

Catherine Parr - The Scholar Queen.

(…)

Catherine was a writer, she even went as far as publishing books under her name, the name of a queen, in a patriarchal society.

Catherine Parr was a writer because it was all she had ever done. Every reason why she wanted to be remembered was because she was a writer. She didn’t care about her husbands, not even Thomas who she truly thought she loved. She didn’t want to be remembered as a queen, only as a writer.

(She sometimes thought that if being a writer was enough for her, in that case, she would’ve lived longer, but of course she needed to have a man in her life.)

Talking about her past as a writer gave her the peace of mind she didn’t have for standing behind men her whole life.

Behind a great man, there is always a great woman.

Except that she was behind John Neville, a distant catholic cousin who’s actions ended up with her being kidnapped; Henry the VIII, an egomaniac poor excuse of king who got as far as killing two of his wives (almost her killed too); and last but not least, Thomas Seymour, a power starved moron.

Was she just like them? Was she the only one guilty of her past life? An egomaniac who couldn’t save Katherine Howard? A power-starved former queen who let harm come to her most loved stepdaughter? Or just a moron who couldn’t protect anyone, not even herself?

Catherine was a writer, because thinking about her own mistakes was harder than just doing what she always did, telling other people’s ones.

(…)

Catherine Parr was in fact the cleverest and most passionate of Henry VIII's six wives, says Derek Wilson.

(…)

Catherine wasn’t a big fan of the rain.

She didn’t mind it, and enjoyed the sounds of the water drops when she was writing, but being in closed spaces sometimes became too much, too claustrophobic. She loved walking just a little every day, going to the theatre in the afternoon or to the grocery shop, but with the weather it wasn’t possible.

Usually on days like that she would just get herself isolated from the queens, her anxiety building up as she tried to behave and not explode. Try to pass as if she doesn’t even exist, guarding her feelings and nerves to herself.

She told the queens she would be writing in her room, and to just call her when it was time to eat. No one checked up on her. No one gave her tea, or coffee. Even when the clock hit the time for dinner –she had been staring at it for the last five minutes, hyper aware of the time being–, they called her up three minutes and fifty-two seconds later than what she would have liked.

(…)

In her will, dated 23 March 1545, Margaret stated that she was unable to render Catherine sufficient thanks 'for the godly education and tender love and bountiful goodness which I have evermore found in her Highness'.

(…)

It feels harder on her than the rest of the queens. The feeling of not belonging, of not understanding. Even with Jane their relationship is not close — not that it can be, the third queen always storming off or barely talking.

She feels like an outsider, not knowing where she is standing.

Catherine has always been cordial, but there’s a thought in the back of her mind that says that it is only out of duty. Of an old debt to her mother, and not real love. Even after long talks over tea, and trips to the mall, Cathy feels that their relationship is still empty. Out of place, fake.

Parr can’t help but dream about feeling loved again, truly loved, something that she has not known for a long time. But it scares her, Margaret ended up dying young, Elizabeth had to suffer, Jane Grey had a horrible death.

Maybe she didn’t need their love, because each time someone loved her, they ended up dead.

(…)

Catherine enjoyed a close relationship with Henry's three children and was personally involved in the education of Elizabeth I and Edward VI.

(…)

She enters the kitchen, just to see Anne and Anna with an apple pie in the middle of the table.

“I want pie.” She states.

“Magic word?” Anne teases her, a smirk on her lips.

“Je t'aime beau cul.”

Boleyn laughs, in a way that it makes her stomach turn. It’s mocking, clearly not laughing with Catherine, but rather at her.

“What? What did I say wrong?”

“You pronounced the last part wrong, it’s beaucoup, no beau cul.”

Catherine can feel her face turning red, almost burning. Of course, she was going to mess up pronunciation after years without trying. Now Anne was mocking her, and she felt ridiculed, uncomfortable.

“Why is it so funny?” Anna interrupts, maybe picking up the humiliating situation, “she just messed up pronunciation, it’s not that bad.”

“Instead of saying ‘I love you so much’ she said “I love you, nice ass’.”

Parr chuckles painfully, dreading Anna’s giggling.

“Don’t worry, mon petit chou.” Anne grabs a plate and settles a slice of the pie. “A sweet, for a sweetheart.”

She winks an eye to Parr, easing the air around the writer.

(…)

The dowager queen promised to provide education for her.

(…)

Catherine tries to get it out, to calm herself down after a nightmare.

She takes some paper and a pen, even though it feels uncomfortable in her hand, and tries to write about it. Catherine forces the memories on her brain. Attempts to remember every detail, the face of fear Margaret held, frustrating not to confuse it with the face of the girl dying. Parr thinks of John, of the aggressive men he became.

And she writes messy and clumsy letters, focusing only on what she has to say and not how she says it. Working hard distracts her for almost the whole night, finishing with a good amount of paper in possession, and her hand smeared with ink.

Catherine considers reading it, but ultimately decides against it, walking to the kitchen as fast as she can.

She lets it burn, page by page, word by word. Parr lets it burn as if she never cared for it, something so personal that it won’t be good for even her to read. She knows that the queens will ask the next day, but she can’t help herself to care. She lets it burn.

(…)

She loved fine clothes, jewels and intelligent company.

(…)

Catherine wishes she had a real idea of when to stop, but apparently, she wasn’t born with it.

Most of the time, the queens won’t shush her, instead acting as if they hear what she has to say. Acting being the key word. Once Cathy was so into her monologue, she would discover how uninterested her eyes looked, wandering around the room and just humming in response instead of talking actual real words. In that moment she would try to cut herself short, wrap the idea quicker than expected.

Anna would try to keep up, being amicable enough, but the inadequacy was something the survivor couldn’t shake off. Even when the fourth queen tries to talk, Cathy will already anticipate the truth. She pitied her, knowing how her life was and ended, and it was just a way to show it. She pushed Anna away, not telling her any weird facts. She didn’t want to be a poor fool.

(…)

In 1543, she published her first book, Psalms or Prayers, anonymously.

(…)

“I’m just… so afraid to talk sometimes.”

Catherine thought that, but the words didn’t come out of her mouth, but rather from Boleyn’s.

“I got killed for that, and I can’t help it. I feel like I need to control everything.”

“But you don’t.” Parr confirms. “Also, you can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can control yourself, with whom you hang out, you can control things such as the tone of your words, but if someone wants to hate you, they will. You can’t control nature, not yours, nor from others.” Catherine ponders.

She wishes that she could follow her own advice, but it’s hard. That doesn’t mean that Catherine is not hoping for Anne to do so, to be happier than she is. Maybe that if she can help the woman, Parr can redeem herself.

“Thank you, I think I needed to hear it.” The green-eyed talks.

“Don’t worry, I’m here for you.”

She brushes off the guilt of being egoistic that tries to settle on her mind.

 (…)

According to biographer Linda Porter, the story that as a child, Catherine could not tolerate sewing and often said to her mother "my hands are ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, not spindles and needles" is almost certainly apocryphal.

(…)

Catherine wants to give up writing, knowing that it doesn’t feel the same anymore. Everything is too personal, too old, too weird. Old languages long forgotten mixing with new ones, words that haven’t existed before now complicated to use.

Apparently, Shakespeare by himself invented around a thousand seven hundred words. Just by one person.

The idea of the new vocabulary overwhelms her mind. So much she doesn’t know and is not sure if she ever will. But a part of her longs for it, for the feeling of release that writing could sometimes bring. Catherine has faith about being able to be valuable, to tell stories, to do good, to give something to the world.

Parr decides to just take her time, to write as best as she can. She can’t do more than her best.

(…)

Between October 1536 and April 1537, Catherine lived alone in fear with her step-children, struggling to survive.

(…)

“Are you okay, Catherine?” Kat asks.

It was her third attempt at it. Nothing she wrote felt right. There was just so much missed, so much to do. She couldn’t focus on the paragraphs.

“Yes, just can’t seem to get this done.” She straightens her spine.

Did always sitting hurt as much?

“What is it about?” The teenager wonders.

“Just about Spain history, and the colonies.”

“Can I read?”

“Yes. I will make tea.” Parr handles the computer to the girl.

She stretches her spine and goes around preparing the drink.

Catherine is not sure if she would let any other queen read what she wrote. Katherine is different, had always been. Even in her time as queen, even when it all happened. She was smart, but not outspoken. Polite yet truthful.

“It is good, really.” Howard says.

“I can sense a “but”.” Catherine laughs anxiously, dreading the critic.

“You are only taking one side; you should know how Spain sent a lot of people from the church on missions to re-educate the natives. Las misiones Jesuitas. Politics and religion were more connected than what this made it look like.”

“That’s… Very true.” She feels bad about not emphasising it as much but brushes it off for the sake of the conversation. “I didn’t know you were interested in history. It’s great,” she insists when Katherine looks at her with big eyes, “if you ever want to work together, you know where to find me.”

(…)

Her second book was a success and widely praised.

(…)

Organizing was never her favourite thing to do. She loved to be messy, scattered paper all around her. Pens out, in the most unexpected places, just in case creativity strikes unexpectedly. The way her manuscripts could look so good, better now that she gave herself time to practice her letters surprised when people saw the chaos in the one she wrote.

Jane was the opposite, neat, having high expectations of finding whatever she left in the place she left it. She was exigent, hard on herself to be organized, in places where Catherine couldn’t care less. That was until everything became way too much and she had to just clean a little. Parr admired Jane, appreciated how much she did, how smart and balanced she had learned to become.

With her papers settled, her pens saved, she gives a look at her room. It feels quiet, harmonized.

(…)

The popular myth that Catherine Parr acted more as her husband's nurse than his wife was born in the 19th century from the work of Victorian moralist and proto-feminist, Agnes Strickland.

(…)

Someone knocks the door to her room twice, and Catherine gets surprised. Almost nobody came to her room, it being almost the farthest one from the rest of the queens. She also never gave any indication of having nightmares like Katherine, so no one would check on her.

“Come in!” She says, despite her wonder.

“Hey there.” Aragon greets. “I just got Kat to sleep.”

“Another nightmare?”

“Yes, but those are getting better, I think. Therapy is helping.” She explains. “But I wanted to check on you.”

Catherine makes room for her in the bed, which she quickly understands. The divorcee sits in the bed, and the survivor wraps herself, getting comfortable in the hug. It’s familiar, an old memory from court in a past life, but a good one. A peaceful, tranquil moment before knowing better.

“Oh, hermosa.” The first queen squeezes her goddaughter. “What’s going on?”

“I’m just… so tired.” She confesses.

She doesn’t precisely know of what she is tired. The intrusive thoughts of hundreds of years, Thomas and how she was a fool. Of hiding her silliness, trying to be better, always better, but never reaching an end. She is tired of feeling bad, of feeling locked into her own expectations. She feels tired of trying to be happier, to be smarter, to be liked.

And there are so many feelings that she just breaks, sobbing into her namesake’s arms.

“Even geniuses need sleep, amor.”

“Don’t call me that.” Cathy bickers.

“Call you what?”

“A genius. I’m not.” She cries. “I want to be dumb; I want to stop overthinking for a second. I’m not smart, I promise you I’m not but please stop expecting things from me I can’t be a disappointment.”

“Mi vida.”

Aragon makes a pattern on her back, trying to soothe her. It doesn’t precisely work, instead she just continues sobbing, letting lots of tears that she has saved for such a long time flow freely. She sniffles out of pure frustration, of having so many thoughts that she can’t even process them.

“I love you, so much.” She affirms. “You have literally blown me away. I know I might not say a lot, but you were always special, since you were little.”

“Don’t say that, I don’t want to be.”

“But you are, and you have surpassed all my expectations, always. You can breathe now; you get to take a break.” She kisses her forehead. “I love you, and would still love you if you are the smartest person in the world or the stupidest. You are so smart, you don’t have to always stick out, or be good at everything. You deserve to just fool around sometimes, and that won’t change who you are.”

When Cathy collects the courage to look her in the eyes, she can swear that there’s a sparkle of pure love and affection in the eyes of her godmother. A sparkle directed at her.

(…)

Biographers have described her as strong-willed and outspoken, physically desirable, susceptible (like Queen Elizabeth) to roguish charm and even willing to resort to obscene language if the occasion suited.

(…)

She doesn’t know how, but something in the air feels lighter, it feels better. Life becomes easier, the house now slowly becoming a home, with the six queens slowly getting better. Catherine can notice how much cooler it turns out to be once they started learning more about each other, understanding something no one else would.

(After all, nobody else was a five hundred years old reincarnated Tudor queen.)

Parr wishes for it to mean that she could live her life relaxed, joyful. But instead she cries every time she notices how lucky she was, the guilt of knowing that she hurt so many people she cared for. A heavy backpack she won’t ever be able to get out.

She doesn’t think that she deserves forgiveness for her acts. And it pains her, hoping for a reality where she was good, for one where she was just the survivor, to one not full with the tragedy her life was.

Each time she says gold star for Cathy Parr, she feels numb. With a bit of luck, she convinced the audience she merits it.

(…)

Catherine's good sense, moral rectitude, compassion, firm religious commitment and strong sense of loyalty and devotion have earned her many admirers among historians.

(…)

There is a silence, and for a moment they stay like that. But the survivor speaks up: “Did you love him?”

“Yes.” Anne states easily. “Or no. I probably didn’t, and he most certainly didn’t either, but I think we both believed we did.”

“Do you love him?”

“No, do you?”

“Never did.”

“Be careful, your neck is quite delicate… I don’t think it would be hard to cut with a sword.”

Catherine tries to mask her thoughts, releasing a faint “Funny.”

Anne probably doesn’t know; she is aware of it. With all the fake comments about the second queen that were a lie, she had decided to not look for much information about her fellow queens, and Catherine was not willing to tell her about how her life nearly ended. It felt selfish, it was just a close call, not a real one like Anne’s or Katherine’s. Still, the idea of her head being amputated from her body followed her, like the ghost of a broken promise. The thought of her life in danger of ending still at the back of her mind.

“Did she love me?” Anne asks, surprising Parr.

“I think she did.” Catherine waits for a moment, before continuing. “I’m sorry for what I did to her.”

With those words she breaks down, trying to hide her tears. She has no right to cry for her own wicked acts, to be comforted by Anne, but that’s what is happening now.

“It’s fine.” Boleyn says, her voice just above a whisper. “I forgive you. She forgave you. We were different people back then.”

“But I did it. No matter what you say, I did it.”

“And I wasn’t an angel either. I acted the wrong way because of my fears. To gain and maintain power. I’m not proud of it,” her eyes, that until that moment were lost, now staring intensely Catherine, “but if you keep living in the past you can’t become a better person in the future.”

(…)

Parr is usually portrayed in cinema and television by actresses who are much older than the queen, who was in her early 30s when she was Henry's wife and was about 36 years old at the time of her death.

(…)

Catherine wished her story was better, for it to have a happy ending. To say that she married Thomas after Henry, and that it was like a dream, that they had children and grandchildren, grew old together and she was loved until the end of her days. She longed to say that she could remember her baby's face, or her first steps or words. Desires to tell everyone that she taught her everything she knew. But in reality, it was not true.

Catherine Parr never had her happily ever after like a queen from a children’s book.

The survivor indeed never had her happy ending, not even when coming back to the modern times. She still put more pressure on herself than what she should've. Tried to always be trusted, to always be useful and to help her everyone. Pushed herself to the edge, trying to be the best version of herself. Got more stressed than necessary, stayed up sometimes too late for her liking, drank more tea and coffee than she should’ve.

Her life became a bittersweet one, a balance found between her tragic story, the guilt she would always feel, and the chance of a new beginning.

Some days were happier than others, some talks were lighter. Freedom and restriction battling over, but giving her enough cheerfulness to go back when things got harder. Working with Katherine over the history they both knew and missed, discussing the newest scientific discoveries with Anna and Jane, grabbing lunch with Anne and tea with Aragon.

Her life was not happy, but it was relaxed. It gave her the chance to just let herself feel emotions, the good, the bad. To write without deadlines. To be calm, to live this new opportunity fully. To learn about herself, to be the protagonist of her own story.

To be loved.

[rushingheadlong]

A review of Queen: The Early Years

Well I have finally finished reading Queen: The Early Years, and now that I have read all 198 pages of this book I feel very confident in saying:

Yall I don’t think this is a good book. Like I really, really do not think this is a good book.

I’ve talked about some of this once or twice before, but I wanted to get all my thoughts about this in one place so, here we go. Brace yourselves, this is going to get wordy (as all my posts invariably do).

The Sources (or lack thereof)

The author wrote this book based on interviews with “over 60 friends and colleagues” of the band. Contrary to an earlier post of mine, he does provide a full list of the people he spoke with, however a lot of these connections are... dubious at best.

He does interview former band members of the groups they were each with before Queen, which might be the only good bits of this book. But a lot of the people he talked to fall under “friends of friends” or “casual acquaintances” or “knew them for a few months decades ago” and not really people who had deep insights into Queen as people, which is fine but he’s presenting their information as if they did.

He also doesn’t give any qualifiers for the information presented - and unless it’s a direct quote from someone, he doesn’t even tell you where he’s getting 90% of the “facts” in his book from. There are no in-text citations, apart from those sporadic quotes, and no bibliography list anywhere in this book.

Instead, he just presents everything he’s writing as the absolute truth with next to nothing to back up what he’s saying, apart from cherry-picked quotes from people who have their own biases in these conversations to begin with. He writes about how many of these people fell out of touch with Queen for 30+ years, and there are several moments during reading where I was wondering whether these stories that were being quoted were true or if it’s the sort of thing that these people made up for the purpose of getting their name in print (especially stories about Freddie).

In the interest of fairness, he does admit in the two-page epilogue that he knows the people he talks to will have their own slant to their stories but he claims that all biographies are “a random assembly of thoughts and recollections” as if to absolve himself of the work of verifying anything being told to him, or at least putting in the effort to let the reader know that things cannot be verified rather than simply presenting everything as pure objective fact.

Authorial Bias and Band Portrayal

The author very much comes across as writing about the band to fit his preconceived ideas of who they are. There are definitely points in the book where he presents images of the band that almost seem like caricatures - Freddie made out to be the deeply self-loathing gay who everyone knew wasn’t actually straight, Brian to be the aloof controlling perfectionist - with little to no nuance given to their actions or stories.

But there are also a lot of moments when it seems like the author doesn’t like the band at all and that he’s writing this book in an attempt to tarnish their image?

Like I wrote in one of my earlier posts, he literally says that Freddie and Brian had the power in the band and that Roger and John had “token” roles. He also implies that Queen only started attributing songwriting credit to the band as a whole beginning with The Miracle to prevent singles royalties from going to Freddie’s estate when he died. The author also often feels the need to put the blame for failed friendships solely on the band, and on several occasions implies that they “betrayed” the people who helped them out in their early career.

Because of this, and because he conveniently doesn’t provide sources for anything he says, it makes me call into question basically everything he writes in this book. Are these stories and facts all accurate, or is he spinning the truth to fit the story he wants to tell?

It’s worth noting also that he apparently asked Brian, Roger, and John for their input, and they and all their official representatives declined. It’s always a red flag for me when someone writes about Queen without the band’s involvement, but the author presents this situation as if he had been deeply wronged by this and implies that any bias in the book was because he didn’t have “their” side of the story - and not because he simply failed to do any work to validate what 60+ strangers were telling him.

I also want to give a warning that how he writes about Freddie’s sexuality is painful in a lot of places. It’s a combination of ideas that don’t hold up well in the 25 years since publication (for example, he says in one place that since Freddie went to an all-boys boarding school it was obvious that he would end up being queer) as well as loose anecdotes shared by people who didn’t know him well, but all felt that they had to give input about his sexuality.

It feels like every time this author interviewed someone about Freddie, he felt obligated to include their “opinion” on whether it was obvious that Freddie was gay in the early 70s or not. It’s a heavy and strange focus that gets really uncomfortable to read about after a while, and one that I don’t think is really appropriate to have been included to the degree that it was.

Misinformation

The author flat-out puts wrong information into this book. I will admit that most of what I picked up on during my read is trivial, but it’s the sort of trivial that makes me question his authority to write anything accurately and also (I believe) has led to misinformation being spread in other Queen writings.

He says that Brian’s parents could have afforded to buy him a guitar, and that the building of the Red Special was essentially an act of ego. This is directly contrary to everything that Brian has ever said on the topic, which is that his family was too poor to afford to buy him a guitar and that the Red Special was built out of an act of necessity. (This also ties into the author’s biased writing of Brian as a controlling perfectionist.)

He gives incorrect dates for concerts and tour information, as can be proven by other first-hand sources like ticket stubs and tour posters. (For example, he says that Queen played six shows in New York’s Uris Theatre in 1974, when we know they only played five.) Again, this is a minor thing but if he’s getting details like this wrong why should I trust his broader stories or conclusions that have no other verifying sources to be correct?

I also think his book is the origination for the story about Brian getting gangrene due to a dirty vaccine needle in 1974. I have a problem with this claim in that I don’t think it’s actually true, but this book is now the earliest source of the story that I’ve seen by over a decade. However since the author doesn’t cite anything in this book, I have no idea how he found this information (or whether he made it up himself).

I also suspect that this is the book that Mick Rock copied information from when compiling the timeline in his book Classic Queen, which was published 12 years later in 2007. Mick Rock not only copies the gangrene story (again, with no further information or citations given) but also includes a very specific reference to Brian complaining about not feeling well while on tour on April 21st, 1974 - a date which is also specifically referenced in The Early Years, again without any citation for where this information came from.

No one takes Mick Rock seriously as a good source for Queen information (beyond info about the photo sessions themselves, which is about the only thing within his scope of expertise). Now it seems like he might have copied those “facts” from this book, which means we might very well have a situation of one questionable book being copied by another until misinformation and lies get assumed to be true just because they’re in more than one place now, never mind that none of this is getting backed up by anything concrete.

Tiny details because I’m big mad about this book just in general

Maybe this is just my copy (which is a physical book, not a digital copy) but there are a lot of typos in this book. Mike Grose becomes Mike Crouse from one paragraph to the next. Words are misspelled, punctuation is missing... It’s a little jarring to see in a book that was actually physically printed up, and makes me wonder if this went through any sort of editing process whatsoever.

Conclusions, or something of the sort?

I need to admit here that I am very angry about this book, because particularly in the later chapters I think the author starts speculating about band dynamics and things from later in their career in a way that is entirely wrong and inappropriate.

However, for the most part, I did enjoy the first part of this book. Roger’s and John’s early chapters seemed to be fine (and from what I’ve been told, the information in Roger’s chapters is backed up in other, better researched, sources). The book started falling apart for me around Brian’s and Freddie’s chapters, though, and as it progressed it just kept going off the rails.

I’m actually really frustrated and disappointed by this, because there’s a lot in this book that reads like it could be true. There’s a lot here that sounds very believable, that seems to align with what others have said about the band, and that I didn’t blink twice at until the cracks started showing up and everything got called into question.

There’s nothing exactly wrong with writing a “biography” based solely on loose anecdotes, especially given that this was written in 1995 shortly after Freddie’s death and before a lot of the more contemporary sources had come out (like Brian’s books and the things him and Roger have said in more recent years).

But I do think that the author has a responsibility for doing some vetting of these stories, either by trying to verify what’s been said or making it apparent to the reader that some of the information is hearsay or has to be taken with a grain of salt. The Early Years doesn’t do that, though. This book is presenting itself as a labor of love from a tired, dedicated author who has toiled over tracking down these stories while being rebuffed by the band itself, and at no point does anything come with a caveat about what’s being said.

The author wants you read this book and assume everything in it is true. The author wants you to feel sorry for him that he couldn’t interview Queen directly, and frankly it seems like he wants you to side-eye the official Queen story (or at least question their morals and motives) in favor of agreeing with the narrative that he presents.

And that’s the big issue that I have with this book. Most of the information in here could very well be true - but as a reader, you aren’t given the tools you need to judge that for yourself and instead are encouraged to sympathize with the author and his work, and to take what he says as objective fact and not look at any of it too deeply.

And because of that, the entire book falls apart for me. If I know that the author is printing small details of misinformation, and I don’t have any way of verifying what is being printed here, and the author starts presenting conclusions and narratives that run counter to everything else that has been said about Queen... how can I trust that anything in this book is accurate on it’s own?

[charliejrogers]

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) - Review & Analysis

What a weird, wonderful movie. Miracle on 34th Street is quite possibly the oddest Christmas movie I’ve ever seen. In part this is due to the fact that some stuff just doesn’t age well. How many old, strange men are you willing to let your seven-year-old daughter hang out alone with, Ms. Doris Walker?! But also it’s weird because because despite its typical Christmas-movie themes of faith/belief, true love, family, etc… it’s a wholly unique film that doubles as a legal drama!

This was my first viewing of the perennial classic, a film which started as a story by Valentine Davies and was adapted for the screen and then subsequently directed by George Seaton. Though baptized a Roman Catholic, Seaton himself grew up in a Jewish neighborhood of Detroit. He even had a bar mitzvah. I wonder how much of Seaton’s upbringing affected the final product we see. The central theme of holding faith in something that doesn’t make sense to those around you probably resonated strongly for the director who as a kid who became interested in a religion that was foreign to both of his Swedish immigrant parents.

From a direction standpoint, it’s fairly by the books and of its time, with a few notable exceptions, one being the opening credits sequence which shows a lone man walking slowly about the NYC streets from behind. He’s dressed in all black and we have no idea who he could be. He could literally be anyone in the world. Then all of a sudden, like magic, his face is revealed: the man we’re following is Santa Claus! Or, at least it looks a whole lot like him. What is Santa Claus doing in New York? Is this even Santa Claus?

These are questions that end up being central to the movie and just straight up never get answered. I loved that writing choice. The writing is the first of the film’s three big stars. This film won the Oscar for both best story and best adapted screenplay and it deserves every ounce of those awards. The story is so sublimely clever. Put shortly, the movie is about a man who claims to be Santa Claus and due to his uncanny resemblance to the jolly holiday figure, his natural aptitude for talking to children, and his almost savant-like knowledge of toy stores in Manhattan, he gets hired to be the mall Santa for Macy’s flagship Manhattan store. However, not everyone is as convinced that he is the real Kris Kringle. Certainly the Macy’s company psychologist does not. An uptight and unpleasant man, he (like others) thinks Kringle is utterly delusional but (unlike others) he also thinks these delusions presage future violence whenever inevitably others may challenge Kringle on this delusion. The psychologist thus schemes to get Mr. Kringle committed to *cue thunderclaps* Bellevue!

What ensues is a legal battle. I can’t imagine any other Christmas movie whose climax ends in a courtroom but it’s an incredibly satisfying thing to watch. We have the idealistic lawyer, Mr. Fred Gailey, who believes that Kringle, while clearly delusional, poses no actual threat to the community and actually does the community a great service in spreading kindness. Nevertheless, has to prove that Mr. Kringle is legally THE Mr. Kringle lest Kringle spend the rest of his life in the looney bin. Note… I have a very healthy and “modern” view of mental health, and would never use the term “looney bin” to describe today’s mental health hospital… but I use the term here because the images we get in the film of Bellevue’s inpatient psych ward are of sedated men in all-white clothing… in other words the movie certainly thinks of being in a psych ward as a looney bin, which adds a bit of dramatic tension to the story.

There’s certainly some not-so-subtle condemnation of psychology going on this movie (at least of the kind practiced by the Macy’s psychologist, Mr. Sawyer (a snivelling Porter Hall)). This was coming at a time when increasingly science was taking the place of religion, so it makes sense that psychology would be an enemy in a movie about faith and clinging to things that don’t make sense. The trial over the existence of Santa Claus almost serves as an inverse Scopes Monkey trial; Kringle even ironically compares his lawyer to Clarence Darrow, the lawyer on behalf of science.

What this movie nails so absolutely perfectly is that honestly… I don’t know if Kringle really isn’t Santa Claus. I’m not claiming that Santa exists in the real world, but in the world of this film, it’s really not obvious whether the film leans one way or another. That’s an ambiguity that tends to make art shine when it’s present. We see through Gailey’ legal maneuvering that the legal defense for Santa Claus’ existence is tenuous at best. At one point he calls the prosecutor’s child to the witness stand to argue that Santa Claus must be real since that is what his Dad (the prosecutor) has always told him. Therefore it seems like the film’s psychological explanations are probably the most likely. Yet at the same time… when a little Dutch girl comes to see Santa at Macy’s because she can “just tell” he’s the real Santa… why else would Kringle know Dutch songs about Santa off the top of his head? Why does an old man who lives in an old folk’s home on Long Island know so much about Manhattan’s toy stores?

And then there’s the more practical questions about Santa lore. Why is Santa in New York? He says he was born in the North Pole… so why did he leave? If he’s real, then why does he need to direct parents on where to buy the best toys? Is it merely that the world has outgrown him?

There’s also a whole economic piece of the script that I won’t even fully touch on. But basically Kringle in attempt to do right by parents, doesn’t merely recommend toys from the Macy’s toy department, but lets them know about better deals on toys that are located in stores elsewhere in Manhattan, including those that are rivals of Macy’s! This policy is such a hit with customers, it ushers in a revolution in department store policy, with department stores across the nation vying to extend more goodwill to customers. As I said, there’s something in there about the power of the free market and how capitalism doesn’t have to be evil... but I’ll leave it there and return to the central questions of the film. Like... does Santa Claus exist?

I don’t know! But the film raises really interesting questions and just leaves them there for us to sit with. Everything that the film tells us points us to the common sense conclusion that this man is NOT the genuine Jolly fellow… yet we want to believe there’s something more and that’s what makes this film so special. We literally as the audience go through the same mental charades as the characters in the film.

Thus far, I’ve attributed this brilliance to the plot, but there’s another absolutely vital element: the performance by Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle. This guy deserves every ounce of his Oscar for his performance. There’s not a second that he’s on screen that he doesn’t ooze charisma and charm. This whole movie would fall apart were it not for him, good plotting be damned, since we need to believe, even for mere fits and flitters, that this man is Santa Claus.

Never is he more convincing than when he interacts with children. There’s the absolutely magical scene with the little Dutch girl I mentioned above, but it’s when Kringle chats with little Susan Walker (played to heart-melting perfection by nine-year-old actor Natalie Wood whose got a stink face that never ceased to make me chuckle) that this movie achieves greatness. Though the trial scenes put the theme of faith vs. psychology at the forefront, the real heart of this movie is the conflict of faith vs. practicality. Little Susan is raised by her mother (and her Black nanny/house-caretaker who gets depressingly little credit… or screentime), and her mother Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara) is a thoroughly practical women. She’s a high-up exec at Macy’s, and seemingly one of the only women to be in such a position. As such, she’s a unique character for her time. Rigidly pragmatic, she eschews any and all attempts at fun and imagination for her daughter (as well as for herself). We get the sense that a different film, a different story, might dive deep into Walker’s struggles as a single mother in the 1940’s trying to be taken seriously in the business world. In a sense, she’s a forerunner to Faye Dunaway’s character in Network. She was clearly hurt by romance in the past (she and her husband divorced, which I imagine was rather scandalous at the time), and this fear of getting hurt by romance is what compels her to teach her daughter to avoid the stuff completely.

Clearly, there’s some cool gendered stuff going on here. Imagination, romance, faith: these are all things that are stereotypically more female-coded, while business, pragmatism are more male-coded. You inherit your father’s name but your mother’s religion as the old tradition went. And in our society at least, the latter (pragmatism/business) is supposed to make you successful and get you places… the former (faith/romance) does not. Yet in this movie, we have idealism and romance of our male lawyer Fred Gailey (John Payne) and the pragmatism of our female businesswoman Doris Walker. It’s a fun play on typical gender norms, but more interesting is to see how this duality plays out in the development of little Susan under the dual influences of her mother and the combination of Misters Gailey & Kringle.

Natalie Wood goes down in the pantheon of all-time great child actors, up there with the kid from Kramer vs. Kramer. She’s precocious but not in a way that’s off-putting. The way she evaluates the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in such a matter-of-fact way is hilarious, and as I mentioned the stink eye she gives Kringle when he tries to tell her that he’s Santa is nothing short of perfect. Over the course of the film, we see her more harsh nature melt away and she becomes a kid. It’s a beautiful reminder of that childhood only comes once in a lifetime. If this movie shows us nothing, it’s how hard it is to maintain a sense of levity once one becomes an adult. We have to start worrying about what our bosses might think, what the press/public might think, what voters(!) might think. Never again will it be fully OK to have your heads in the clouds and believe in nonsense, so why take that away from children.

As much as this is a perfect film, I could have done without the romance plot. Mostly because it seems unnecessary. Doris seems to change in her attitudes towards Kringle and towards raising her daughter that constitute enough character growth thata having her all of a sudden fall head over heels for Gailey just seems forced. For that matter… Gailey’s a weird dude. This movie romanticizes a weird, creepy type of romance where Gailey spends time with a small girl just to get time with that girl’s mother. Walker and Gailey are such opposites and share no on-screen chemistry, that I just didn’t buy the plot.

But that’s OK. It’s a small blemish on an otherwise wonderful film. It hits different emotions than, say, It’s A Wonderful Life, but it’s magical all that same, and one that I can actually imagine children wanting to watch. It’s unceasingly clever plot, matched by a once-in-a-lifetime performance by Edmund Gween as Kris Kringle and a great child actor performance from Wood make this a must-see movie for any holiday movie fan.

***/ (Three and a half out of four stars)