#i'm pretty sure these are old enough to be in public domain

[davidmariottecomics]

It's Weird Being Between Two Jobs

Hi there and happy new year! 

Title kinda says it all in this week's blog, but the strangeness of this time in my life is really settling in. 

Just because of how things worked out with leaving IDW and starting the new job, I ended up with a little under a month of free time. And the first week and some change of that was the end of the year holiday season. But the past week has been me sort of watching from the outside as people started going back to work. I did finish up some additional new hire paperwork, but that took maybe an hour total and I'm still over a week from starting the new gig. It's an odd space to be in. I'm not working for anyone--I'm not getting a paycheck (and am currently sort of living this month off of my last IDW paycheck plus paid out time-off)--but I'm also not so far removed from a gig as to be strictly freelance. 

And to be totally honest, I don't know that I really like it. I am not great at having free time. I like the idea of free time. I like the idea of having time to write for myself or relax with my hobbies. But I am not great at the latter and the former betrays the fact that even with my free time, I'm often trying to switch into work mode. Heck, at the end of the day, my starting this blog and crossposting it as a newsletter/Tumblr/Patreon is all influenced by my not being good at not at least trying to be productive with my free time. 

If you're also someone who has been working from home and especially if you've been working from home freelance, I'm sure you know all the complications of the domestic and recreational life against your job and probably are familiar with how helpful routine and scheduling is with all that. Right now, I'm freeform. I don't want to just use my old habits--the advantage of time off is specifically that I can break a 9-5 M-F format--but I feel like I don't have enough time to start building new routines. So, it's been a challenging couple of weeks. I have not done nearly as much as I think I'd like to have at this point, but I also keep needing to remind myself that I have done a number of things that were on my to-do list and that it's okay to have time off for myself. 

As such, instead of a really specific blog on something of late, let me share a couple quick bits that've been on my mind. 

The Anti-EGOT I recently finished a big relisten of season 2 of Dungeons & Daddies and in the intro to the show of one episode, Anthony Burch introduced the idea of an Anti-EGOT. I think he retroactively changed it in a later episode, but the general idea was to be a writer in four of the least respected mediums and not win an award for any of it. I believe, in the initial mention, the idea was the four mediums of choice would be video games, comic books, podcasts, and pornography (with wrestling being retroactively either added or replacing one of these, but I don't think I'm much of one to write for wrestling). Honestly, that kinda sounds like a dream to me. As I was listening to this stuff in the run-up to the new year, there was a part of me thinking "is going for the Anti-EGOT my resolution"? And I ultimately decided, no. I don't think that's a good resolution, but it is sort of my stretch goal for the year. If I can write in all those fields, get paid for it, and not win any awards (or, y'know... do) in my lifetime, I'll be pretty stoked. 

What my actual goal for the year would be is I want to try to release 6 comics. Different lengths and varieties. I'm not currently anticipating having that be like a single mini-series or whatever, but I want to try to do more in comics with what I am producing. And if I can maybe branch out into one of those other areas this year, even if it doesn't have a release for another year or more, I'd be cool with that too. 

Steamboat Willie Last year, you may've read my four part explainer about copyright! One thing that is repeatedly touched on there is the public domain and what all that means. Obviously, this year, Steamboat Willie and two other Mickey Mouse shorts entered the public domain. And it's been really interesting to watch that play out a little. It seemed like--and I know it's only been a week--most everyone got it out of their systems within the first 2-3 days of the year. A lot of that probably goes to Steamboat Willie and those early shorts not actually being all that interesting (fun, but very story-light). A lot of it goes to so much of what people would want to do with "Steamboat Willie" is either already legal because it falls under parody, is not actually meant to be sellable in any way, or was knocked out in a day. A lot of it too probably goes to how unclear what counts as public domain remains. For a character like Mickey, people have been pointing out are you using elements that were added after 1928 or treading on issues of trademark that are not copyright and are not as available. I am very curious to watch how this continues to play out this year (if it does), how things develop next year, and in the next couple of years, watch how things fall in preparation for about a decade from now when more of the early Disney catalog will be public domain (including Snow White) and other major companies start having some of their big hits become PD (like, say, Superman). 

I'm also kinda bummed to have not seen any immediate announcements/releases of new comic versions of Lady Chatterly's Lover like there were of The Great Gatsby or anything. That's the other really interesting/wild thing about this year--to me, it seems like the majority of the fuss was around the Mouse and the things that've remained popular in part due to the mouse, Peter Pan and Tigger. I have not seen nearly enough talk about One Million Cats or any of the film or music. 

Post-Twitter

The other day, Diana Sousa was asking on Bluesky (and Twitter, I guess), if Twitter is still the major non-convention way that comics editors discover new talent. And I responded as someone who is NO LONGER ON TWITTER but who is still needing to have discoverability of comics artists. I said, part of it is I am on other socials. I see new folks on Bluesky or Instagram or whatever. I also keep an eye on various databases--you don't have to be on Twitter to have access to #VisibleWomen or the Cartoonist Cooperative database or Cartoonists of Color or the Queer Cartoonist Database or the Disabled Cartoonist Database or any of these many sorts of resources. Something I didn't mention there, but will mention here is when you've got a company email address, you've often got agents of various sorts emailing you about talent, internal talent databases and/or recruiter-type folks, sharing info with other editors (and, y'know, I've in the past shared talent who I didn't have a gig for with editor friends at other companies because I thought they'd be a good fit). 

As I've mentioned before, the lack of access to talent was why I did wait so long to delete my Twitter (and also wanting to make sure I had ways of keeping up with world events and following non-comics people). But, genuinely, I am not stressing over continuing to find new people now that I've been without it for a little bit and know I've got a system.  Check Yourself for Midjourney Training Hey, speaking of my explainer on copyright and the lengths of time therein I talk about how "AI" is a tool of theft and companies trying to avoid paying artists for the use of their copyrighted works, the lawsuit against Midjourney's resulted in a list of names of "artists" they've scraped. Now, I only put "artists" in quotes because the list was made by incompetent tech bros and/or their clueless lawyers, and so there are a number of writers listed who do not particularly do art but where you can extrapolate that the artists they work with were scraped as well as companies, systems, game platforms, etc. While I understand that of course lawsuits are expensive, I do know a number of artists have been reaching out to the lawfirm of the existing suit and seeking to join the case as plaintiffs. If you're a visual artist, probably worth the time to double-check and, if you can, do something about it. 

Okay, I think that's it for this week! See ya next time! 

What I enjoyed this week: Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Nancy (Comic), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Baldur's Gate III (Video Game), Blank Check (Podcast), Spy x Family (Manga), How to Read Nancy (Book), Hitman 2 (Video Game), Pokemon Conceirge (Cartoon), Ted Lasso (TV show, finally started season 3), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Movie--can you tell I'm in a D&D mood?), The Floor (TV show), my new discord (friends can ask for access!), sending out some feeler emails for new projects and getting to do at least a little bit of writing for myself.  

New Releases this week (1/3/2024): Sonic the Hedgehog #68 (Editor)

Announcements: The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza and at least 500 people have shown their proof of donation. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists. 

You can also give more directly. Things are obviously still very bad in Gaza as we've hit 3 full months of them being under siege. Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, including plenty of women and children. Israel has killed more journalists than any single conflict in my lifetime. They are attacking not just Gaza and the West Bank, but other neighboring countries. I hope the Internatioal Court of Justice can help bring this to an end, but in the meantime, the US has significant influence over the situation (between internatioal political power and the weapons and money we're sending as both a nation and that are being sent my many corporations in the US). You can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives to demand a ceasefire or to protest their inaction so far or to throw eggs at the president for participating in and encouraging a genocide. You should keep aware of actions, demonstrations, protests, and celebrations in your community too. Given the nature of the things, they often come together fairly quickly, so do exercise your due diligence. Also, of course, being informed and just giving your time to Palestinian journalists and writers is incredibly valuable. I don't tend to be a big TikTok fan, but it has proven to be one of the most reliable resources for firsthand accounts of what's happening on the ground. 

Meanwhile, Becca's got their first show of the year next weekend, 1/13 at Alesmith for a mini-con with BizBaz! Come pick up some new for 2024 stuff! Also, they've still got a little room in their schedule for this year, so get them for your comic project before it's too late! 

Finally, calling out my Patreon again as well as my webstore (final stock on basically everything there except Jimmy Squarefoot), my Kofi, and my eBay account as I am between paychecks for a while and those are other ways you can support me! 

Pic of the Week: We went to one of our favorite local restaurants, Rakitori in Hillcrest. They had a spicy cheesy tonkatsu ramen and I'm not a food picture guy usually, but I did quite like this photo and I'm actually very fortunate we ate there at the tail end of 2023, otherwise I'd have already eaten the best meal of 2024. 

[damn-stark]

Part 4 The offer

Part 4 of The Lion and The Dragon

A/N- ;) enjoy, I liked writing this part

Pairing- Aemond Targaryen x Lannister!fem-reader

Warning- Angst! language, forced marriage, slow burn, mentions of injuries and blood, VIOLENCE, grimy men.

Episode- takes place before 1x08

(Let me know if you want to be tagged)

————

“You know what I’m thinking that this may not be a great idea,” Nyra murmurs and gets closer to you the more you continue to walk down the Street of Steel.

You scoff and brush off your friend. “Do not worry, Nyra nothing will happen, we will be quick.” You come to a stop in front of a steel shop to look at the armor on display.

Nyra clings onto your arm and keeps a lookout as you gaze around. “You should’ve brought Ser Erwin,” she hisses. “Or your uncle. Or Prince Aemond!”

You roll your eyes and move deeper into the shop. “I told you hundreds of times already he didn’t want to come, so I came myself. They won’t even notice that we’re gone…at least he won’t. Besides, ser Erwin and my uncle would have told on us. No fun in that.”

“No fun in getting kidnapped or assulated,” she remarks.

You sigh and pat her arm and walk further inside, catching the attention of the owner this time.

“What are you ladies browsing for? Something for your husbands?”

You huff and stop by an eye catching shiny thin silver sword. “Not quite,” you retort. “More for a warrior.”

“Warrior?” Nyra mutters to herself.

The owner comes close but keeps his distance. “Have you got measurements? What are you in for? I got long swords, short swords, and daggers. Even nice pretty ones for the ladies if that’s what you are into.”

You tilt your head and hum. “How much would it cost to get a golden lion pommel?”

The man shifts his feet and puts his hand on his hip. “Gold?”

“Hm.”

“How much do you have?”

You sigh. “I am not looking to get swindled, sir, so please be honest or I am happy to move along.”

The man lets out a deep breath and falls at your side to look at the same sword you’re fixated on. “It all depends on the size and design. Is this for you?” He tries to glance at your face but you make sure to tilt your head away. “I am the best shop on the Street of Steel, so it won’t come cheap.”

“Really?” You scoff and smirk. “That is what every shop has told me. What differs you from them?”

“First quality, this is the finest metal you will see in all of Westeros,” he tries to sell his material, but you’re not interested anymore. “I don’t collect my silver from just any mountain top, I collect…”

You tune him out and slowly begin to turn away to head out without a thing. “Right,” you cut him off. “Well what a lovely sword you have, I will return if I cannot find another.”

The man chases you out to keep trying to sway you. “You will not find any better than mine!”

You wave. “Good day sir!” You guide Nyra further down the street and this time she tries to pull back.

“No, we are far enough we are drifting to unknown streets—”

“Would the lovely ladies want to see their future?” An old woman offers and actually sparks your attention.

Yet Nyra pulls you away. “She will just steal our money. My mother said all the real witches don’t work in such public domains.”

You look over and see her smile smugly before she goes serious again when you turn to a more ominous street.

“Stop, let's turn back, you have got your weapons, some very pretty silks and dresses, we need to head back.” She urges in fear.

You stop and turn to face her and grab her hands. “Nyra, this is just a shortcut to the Street of Flour.” You offer her a gentle smile and squeeze her hands. “I want to get your strawberry pastries for accompanying me today. That is it and we can leave.”

Nyra licks her lips and averts her gaze to think about your suggestion for a moment. “You do not even know your way through the castle halls,” she snips. “But,” she sighs. “Fine. But if we get caught, I'm blaming you. You are the one who will get fed to the dragon.”

You grin and let go of her to turn and continue down the ominous street. “Why is it that you always think I will get fed to the Prince’s dragon?” You remark.

Nyra gasps. “Because he owns a beast, and I have heard that the last woman he bed he fed to his dragon. That’s why he did not take a wife until you came along.”

You giggle and shake your head. “That is absurd. Who said such a thing?”

Nyra goes quiet and smiles mischievously. “I heard from a bird or two.” She shrugs.

You look at her quite confused for a second since she was not really one to keep the sources of her gossip a secret, but you’re quick to brush off your curisoty the futher you walk down the street and see too many curious eyes and malicious smiles.

Meanwhile, Aemond from the castle wasn’t easy to brush off your attitude after he turned down your offer to go to the markets. He hardly knew you to suspect if you would actually leave without permission or not, but he just needed to make sure considering you had already obviously lied to him.

Yet when he finally reached the outside of your room, the Golden Knight was standing at his post outside your door. When the Knight saw Aemond approach he stood up straight by the door and didn’t say a thing, he let Aemond knock.

However, there was no response so he knocked again. And once again there was silence from your side.

“Where is my wife Ser?” Aemond asks and only partially acknowledges the Knight.

Ser Erwin keeps his eyes ahead and answers all he knows. “The Lady’s handmaiden entered early in the morning, neither have left since, my Prince.”

Aemond hums and knocks a third time but doesn’t announce himself, he just waits for a second before he opens the door and walks in himself.

When he walks in though he instantly takes notice of your neatly done bed. There’s no smell of lavender, roses and apple essence like when you were usually inside your room. There weren't any breakfast plates, or a chatty handmaiden. Your room was empty.

“Knight!” Aemond calls, and the Knight quickly rushes in. “Where is she?” Aemond demands to know and swiftly turns on his heels to face the Knight with fury. “Where is my wife?!”

Ser Erwin glances around the room and just looks confused. “I swear I do not know my prince, the Lady has not walked out of her room.”

Aemond glares at the Knight and begins to approach him. “There is only one door in this bloody room, either you stop lying for her, or I will cut out your tongue.”

Ser Erwin clenches his jaw and holds the Prince's gaze. “I swear to the gods I do not know where the Lady went. She must have gone out the window.”

Aemond sighs deeply and turns to storm towards your balcony, but doesn’t notice anything by the walls, or any rope. Not like he needed to know now, he’d get the information out of you, as of now all he cared about was finding you. And he had an idea where you had gone.

“Come,” he orders the Knight as he turns to stride out of the room. “We are going to find my missing wife.”

——

“See,” you nudge Nyra as you walk out of the bakery. “We’re all done, we’re going home now.”

Nyra clenches her jaw and huffs out of her nose. “We still have to make it to the castle.” She keeps her eyes peeled and doesn’t stray too far from your side.

You sigh and try to make her feel more comfortable on your walk back to the castle. “I thought you’d be happy about this adventure given that my dear husband might catch me and have to scold me. Meaning we’ll be close.”

Nyra shakes her head. “Nope, you thought wrong because it’s my career on the line. And you as well.”

“Don’t worry about your career,” you assure her. “If anything happens I will blame myself. And besides he can’t fire you, nor can anyone else, you’re my handmaiden, the decision falls to me. You’re my responsibility.”

Nyra grabs your arm as you both turn into a more ominous street and counters you. “Except if the Prince or the Queen think I am a bad influence on you. And let's not forget your uncle too!”

You shake your head and ignore the people catcalling you both. “My uncle may carry the Lannister name but he will not force you home, not if I have anything to say about it. And,” you smirk. “I’ve always been his favorite, I’m his sweet spot.”

“Not like he has much of a choice.” Nyra retorts sassily. “Between you and the five nightmares back home.”

You exhale deeply and come up with another response to try and comfort her worries, but then some one creeping from behind interrupts you.

“The respectful courtesy after a compliment is a thank you.”

Nyra claws her nails into your skin, but you just pat her hand and walk faster to try and get out of the street quicker.

“Where are you two beauties off to in such a hurry? The lad was just trying to be nice.” Someone new adds in a menacing tone.

Regardless of how they sound, or the fact that they keep following you, you continue to ignore them and keep walking.

“Please stay, we will show you a great time,” a third man says.

You draw in a deep breath, and clench your jaw as you sigh. You’re about to turn to a more public and louder street but then one of the three men grab your hand and pull you back, causing Nyra’s grip to slip off you.

“I said stay,” the first man says and bores his deep brown eyes in your face.

You scoff and yank your hand away from his grip and snap back. “You will not want to touch me again, sir.”

“Why?” The second man taunts you. “Are we not pretty enough?” He steps closer to Nyra and licks his lips as he smirks.

You step towards her and grab her wrist to pull her behind you. “If you know what is best for you, you will go on about your day.” You narrow your gaze and slowly begin to hide your other hand behind you to begin reaching for a dagger Nyra was pulling out of one of the bags she carries.

“Says who?” The third man laughs. “You? Oh I am shaking in fear.” He scoffs. “Come on now I said let’s have a good time and that’s what we will do.” He lunges towards you to try and take you by force, but you already have your dagger in hand and swing, managing to gash him across his dirty face and causing him to stop and stumble back.

“You fucking cunt!” The man curses as he grabs onto his bleeding face.

You smirk at him and in that moment, to try and catch you off guard, a fourth man jumps out from a closed door and grabs Nyra, but you quickly drop your bags and pull your second hidden dagger hidden within your bracelet and throw it at his hand, causing his grip on Nyra to falter, and letting you use a second dragger to storm over to him and stab his eye.

When he lets go to cry out and reach for his eye, Nyra slips away and steps back as the other three try to surround you.

“Funny thing about men,” you begin to taunt them cockily as you pull out your last dagger and slowly turn to face them. “They never can get their own heads out of their ass to think women are far more capable than they are.” Your smirk deepens as you notice the look of burning anger in their faces as you spoke.

Without a word, the second man screams and charges at you with his long sword, but you are quick to catch what way his swing is going and parry the other way, catching the first man try to startle you, but you quickly raise your daggers and cross them to block the man’s attack.

He gasps. “What the—”

You snicker. “Don’t cream your pants now,” you banter and use your leg to kick him back, and slide under his arm to then grab the side of his face and slam his head into the wall so he can fall unconscious.

“You’ll pay for that!” The second man yells at you before he tries to swing at you again. This time you only block his move before pushing him back and swinging your dagger up to stab his chin. Yet he grabs your wrist and quickly spins you around to press your back against him, and press the edge of his sword against your throat.

“Now that’s a good girl,” he whispers in your ear, blowing in hot and rancid breath against your face.

You clench your jaw and draw in a deep breath you let unfurl out of your nose.

“You’ll be coming with me now,” he continues and suddenly presses the blade closer to your throat, actually managing to cut a bit of your skin. “Come any closer now girl,” he says and turns you both around to face Nyra holding a bloody dagger. “And I will kill her here now.”

Nyra drops the dagger and puts her hands out. “Please,” she pretends to beg. “Please.” She sheds a few tears and begins to kneel. “Take me instead, do not take my Lady.”

The man tilts his head and snickers as he falls for her trick, unknowingly letting his grip on his sword and on you falter. You catch it however and throw your head back, managing to hit his nose and causing him to yell out and let you go.

You then proceed to snatch his own sword and threaten him with it, catching the third man standing idly by still grabbing his face.

“Yield,” you warn the second man. “Or I’ll end your life with your own sword.”

The man lifts his head proudly and doesn’t stand down. “You won’t dare, woman. I am not afriad of you, you weak cunt.” He smirks.

You narrow your eyes on him and snicker. “Don’t worry I won’t take offense, you expect me to act on rage right? I’ve been taught better than to give into a man’s weeping ego.” You twist your hand and the sword. “Yield man.”

The man scowls but he doesn’t give up, instead he stays quiet and just simply gives his answer that way.

“Fine,” you exhale. “I suppose it’s your end.” You pretend to go for his throat but instead you stab the sword into his crotch just so you know he won’t die.

“YOU!” He bellows and falls on his knees as he writhes in pain. “Y—YOU BITCH.”

You raise your head and glare at the third man, but he quickly gets on his knees and just raises his hands so you wouldn't do the same to him.

“You have about let’s say,” you taunt and sheath your daggers. “Maybe ten or five minutes to get that little guy stitched back up.” You walk over to Nyra to make sure she’s okay first. “Then again I doubt it will lift ever again.” You peer back and see him glare at you.

“Are you okay?” You ask Nyra as you face her.

Nyra nods and musters a relieved smile, she parts his lips to speak, but she then catches something behind you and freezes as her eyes widen as if she's just seen a ghost.

“What?” You ask and turn around. That’s when you see Aemond, and Ser Erwin at his side.

Neither man says a thing, Aemond just looks at the man holding onto his bleeding crotch, the other running away, the one unconscious, and the last one lying limp on the ground behind Nyra. A faint and quick smirk does tug on his lips, but he doesn’t let that show when he meets your gaze. No, he looks enraged and even more terrifying.

Yet you don’t fall to your knees or cry, you pick up your things as you hold his gaze and slowly smirk at him with confidence before turning and grabbing Nyra to continue walking home. Now albeit Aemond and Ser Erwin followed.

And surprisingly enough the way to the castle was silent. Sure Ser Erwin wouldn’t say a thing, but Aemond, you defied him, you expect some sort of argument. Instead he stays quiet, he doesn't let his gaze drift to you, he just follows Nyra and you home.

It was making you uneasy.

“If you have something you want to say,” you blurt as you make it in the Red Keep without fuss. “Say it.”

Nyra glances at you nervously, but doesn’t say anything over the way you were abrupt with your comment.

Aemond doesn’t bother to look at you, he just responds dryly. “Not here. You wouldn’t want to cause a scene would you?”

You swallow and clench your jaw, falling silent once again after that, but this time feeling a knot in your stomach as you begin to anticipate the conversation he was willing to save for later.

It was so bad that with each step you took towards your chambers, the worse you felt, to the point it felt like you were going to throw up.

Luckily it didn't happen, but once you did reach your door, Aemond set himself in front of it to block your way in. He looked at Nyra and then at Ser Erwin behind you.

“Ser take the handmaiden to get checked for any wounds.”

You keep your eyes on Aemond and sigh, but you feel Ser Erwin hesitate as did Nyra.

“It’s okay,” you assure them both. “Go.”

Nyra slips her arm away from yours and puts down a bag to curtsy at Aemond before leaving with Ser Erwin, leaving you alone with Aemond now.

“I hope,” he begins to say without animosity as he reaches down for the bags Nyra had set down. “You enjoyed your time at the markets.” He opens the door and lets you walk in first before he follows and closes the door behind him.

“I quite did,” you answer slowly since you anticipate what he wanted to say. “It was nice exploring the streets of Kings Landing. It’s a lot different than home.”

Aemond hums and walks over to the table you walk to and sets the things down at the same time you do. He continues to stay quiet and just watches you. He follows your figure as you walk to a mirror and finally speaks on the matter you’ve been waiting to hear.

“Tell me did you choose to ignore my demand, or is it that you simply forgot?”

You damp a cloth in the bowl of water to begin wiping off the blood that spilled from the thin gash on your throat. “I choose to ignore it,” you admit and feel as if your heart is going to jump out of your chest.

Aemond hums and nods slowly. “Right,” he says under his breath. “In doing so you got assaulted by delinquents, got hurt and got your handmaiden in danger.”

You shrug and brush him off. “I had it under control.”

Aemond scoffs and begins to get annoyed by your attitude. “Is that why you’re cleaning yet another wound?” He says with more frustration. “Because you had it under control?”

You nod and still continue to stay nonchalant, even if in the inside you were completely freaking out. “Yes. I did.”

Aemond huffs out in anger and snaps back at you. “I gave you one simple order. Stay inside! And you completely disobeyed my command!”

Now though, you grow angry too. “<I am not your prisoner!>” You counter in high Valyrian as you throw your cloth down and turn to face him. “<I may be your wife but I am not a prisoner for you to treat me as such!>”

Aemond’s anger falters at the sound of your High Valyrian, and can’t help but stand in disbelief as he looks at you between anger and surprise.

Yet he doesn’t express such feelings, he continues in his anger instead. This time he argues back in High Valyrian as well.

“<I may have to start treating you as one.>���

You blink rapidly and can’t find what to stay as you get caught off guard by his response. Aemond notices and begins to approach you with this menacing and narrowed glare.

“<Do it,” you spat. “I dare you. But just know I will find a way to defy you.” You swallow thickly and stand your ground as he stops inches away from you. “Again and again.>”

Aemond lips curl to a deep set smirk and rebuttals. “Who do you think you are? You are my wife, mine! You will listen to me whether you like it or not.”

You raise your head and lean in closer, causing him to look down at your lips before he holds your gaze.

“Or what?” You spat.

Aemond scoffs and begins to smirk. “You think you’re so mighty you can’t even have a fight without getting hurt. You’re weak.”

“Am I?” You say smugly. “Those four men I just took down don’t think so. Nor does any other man I’ve beat in tourneys.”

“Tourneys?” Aemond scoffs. “Tourneys are only filled with pampered Knights with no real battle experience. And you are nothing more but a spoiled girl pampered by her old Knight.”

You clench your jaw and continue to hold his gaze. “If you think me so weak then teach me. Are you not such a great swordsman, huh? Unless..” you lick your lips and slowly smirk at him. “You’re nothing but a pampered Prince yourself.”

Aemond slightly tilts his head and presses his lips together as he keeps the corner of his lips turned to a sly smirk.

However, he just smirks, he doesn’t say anything in that regard. He hums and steps back before he points to your cut. “You might want to take care of that before it gets infected, or my mother sees later at dinner.” His eyes linger on you a bit longer before he turns and just walks out with nothing said.

He just leaves you with your heart racing, your jaw slightly ajar, and your body ablaze.

——

There was too much left unspoken with Aemond. He left too abruptly, left you thinking too much about him.

It’s not something you liked.

You didn’t enjoy thinking about how close he was when he was angry. How his blue eye pierced into your very soul, or how his smirk made you feel like you wanted nothing more to wipe it off by kissing him.

It was tortoure thinking about him, knowing that he was as menacing as people said, yet not the monster people murmured solely for his appearance and mysterious persona. Then again there is still so much you need to know about him.

“All done,” Nyra tells you and steps to the side, causing you to look up and take a better look at the red and black dress that had recently been made to go more with the Targaryen house colors now that you were married to one of them.

“You look very sexy in black,” Nyra compliments you smugly.

You raise your head and straighten out the single gold Lion pendant that holds elegant and soft low cut black material over your chest. “There’s hardly any gold,” you point out, and carefully feel the soft black long sleeves that felt like soft dragon scales under your fingertips.

Nyra lets out a deep sigh and walks back to you to grab your shoulders and give them a gentle squeeze. “You’re a Targaryen now. You may still have your fathers name, but you’re a Targaryen.”

You drop your gaze and huff. “Still I don’t quite understand why these colors. I mean I like them, but have you not noticed that Aemond and his family wear a lot of green? They all wear different shades, but it’s green nonetheless.”

Nyra leaves your side and adds something to your comment. “Except for Princess Helaena. I haven’t seen her wear green. And your husband wears a lot of black.”

You laugh softly and turn to walk to your vanity and put on your golden rings. “It suits him well with his brooding nature.”

Nyra snickers and nods. “That is right.”

You smile and pick up your lion head ring to put it on with pride. Yet as you see Nyra walk over to help you with your jewelry you frown and change the subject. “Are you sure you’re okay after today's events?”

Nyra meets your gaze and offers you a soft smile as she nods. “I am. I didn’t get hurt at all thanks to you,” she assures you in the Meereenese accent she’s tried hard to hide over the years. “I was just surprised, that's all.”

You sigh with relief and hear a knock rap on your door that makes Nyra rush to it and leave you to talk louder. “And you doubted my skill!”

Nyra scoffs as she opens the door, revealing a single servant girl who stays outside the door.

“I’ve been sent to tell you that dinner will be shortly.” The servant announces.

You offer the servant a gentle smile and nod comprehension. “Thank you…uh…what’s your name, love?”

The servant looks up quite confused, but says her name nonetheless. “Alyssa, my Lady.”

“Thank you, Alyssa. I’ll be there,” you let her know.

Alyssa offers you a genuine smile and bows her head before turning and scurrying off.

Nyra shifts around and faces you with an exaggerated frown. “It’s too bad I cannot go with you to dinner.” She whines.

You smirk at her and don’t wait to begin walking to the door to head out. “Oh I will remember every bit of it just for you my dear.”

When you reach the door Nyra clings onto your arm and walks out with you, letting Ser Erwin close the door. “Oh please do, I want to know everything that was said. I want to know it all even if all there was was awkward silence.”

You turn your head and assure her with a nod.

Nyra sighs and pulls away as you cross the hallway intersection. “Do enjoy yourself my dear, and smile.”

You feign a grin and bow your head. “I will!” You wave at her as she begins to walk backwards to a different hall. “See you later.”

Nyra waves, and when she’s no longer in view your smile slowly begins to fall and your nerves begin to rise.

At least it was noticeable until Ser Erwin began to distract you as he began to walk at your side to address you. “I hope you’re well, my lady? After what happened today I mean.”

You glance over at him and scoff softly before nodding and speaking. “I’m good, I just got a scratch, but that’s nothing compared to how those men were left.”

The corner of Ser Erwin’s lips lift slightly before he picks at your comment. “Was it you that took those men down?”

You hesitate knowing how most men feel over women holding swords, but nod in agreement nonetheless. “Yes, I did.”

His smile falters but he looks at you with slight shock. “That’s…I’ve never met a highborn Lady who wields a weapon.”

You chuckle and nod slowly. “We are a rare finding, but you mustn’t tell. It stays between just you, me and the known party, alright?”

Without hesitation Ser Erwin nods. “Of course,” he assures you with a slight smirk. “But if I may add one last thing. I was quite impressed. Three men down all by yourself, and one so frightened he ran away.”

You meet his gaze and feel your face begin to burn before you smile shyly. “Thank you, Ser.” You swallow thickly and pay attention to the stairs you begin to climb down. “I do hope,” you add in a more serious tone, “that my husband wasn’t too harsh when he found out I wasn’t in my chambers.”

Ser Erwin sighs. “It’s quite alright, the Prince wasn’t as upset with me as I anticipated.”

“Good,” you say as you reach the bottom of the stairs and finally head to the intended hall. “I would have hated to have lost such a good and nice protector.”

Ser Erwin smiles softly and gets quite bold. “And I would have hated having the dishonor to leave your side.”

You blink in disbelief and feel your breath catch in your throat.

It’s just…it was unexpected. His response.

“Uh, thank you,” you say softly and hide your smile as you reach the doors of the hall. Ser Erwin lets his eyes linger on you before the doors are opened, ending up having to leave him behind now to walk in the hall where the Queen, and Helaena already waited.

“Queen. Princess.” You curtsy.

“Please,” Queen Alicent interjects as you stand up straight and walk to your seat. “You don’t need to curtsy everytime you see me now. We’re familiars, it’s quite alright.”

A servant pulls your chair back, letting you slide on your seat, and get pushed in whilst you respond. “Sorry, it’s instinct for me to do so. It will take a while to get used to.”

The Queen offers you a gentle smile. “I understand more than you know. This all must be different. I mean the change.”

You nod in agreement and feel relieved that she understands. “Yes, it quite is. I mean it’s not so drastic but…” you pause as the door opens and Prince Aegon and Prince Aemond walk in.

All eyes shift to them, but Aegon notices the silence. “Please, my Lady, continue with what you were saying. Let our presence not stop you.”

You nod stiffly and shift your eyes to Aemond as he walks to this seat across from you.

“…life here at the Red Keep is different compared to my life at Casterly Rock,” you finish saying.

Queen Alicent keeps her smile offered to you and seems to want to add something, but Aegon interjects first. “Is it?” He asks as he gets wine served. “How so?”

You glance over at him and answer a bit quieter. “It’s louder. The Red Keep is a lot busier. Everywhere I go there’s people. Home was a bit quieter even with all my siblings. And it’s bigger here, I’ve gotten lost more times than I like to admit.” You grab your cup of wine and shift your eyes down.

“And…” you continue in a quieter voice. “It’s lonelier it seems.”

At the sound of your comment the Queen swallows thickly and lets her eyes linger on you until Aegon interrupts in the same cocky tone. “Well I do hope it gets easier. And perhaps my dear brother helps ease your estrangement.”

Aemond ignores his brother but just briefly glances at you as you place your cup down, and then focuses on his mother as she speaks whilst dinner gets served.

“Let us share a prayer.”

Everyone goes quiet and she gives a short and sweet prayer before continuing with what was going on.

“Returning to our previous conversation, I imagine it will take time, Aegon. It’s not quite easy forgetting a home you have lived in your whole life. You have lived here your whole life, she has not.”

You smile softly at the Queen, and she notices your gesture, but also notices the cut on your throat and grows visibly concerned. “Are you alright? What happened to your neck, dear?” She asks.

You quickly look at Aemond, and he looks at you to share a knowing look. You half expect him to blurt the truth since he knows, but he stays quiet and lets you answer.

“Oh, I took a nap earlier today and slept with a necklace on, and it cut my skin.” You lie without giving anything away.

Helaena looks over at you with a pitiful frown and interjects. “You must be more careful.”

You grab your fork and look at her to share a sweet smile. “I should, yet I can’t seem to learn my lesson.”

At the sound of your comment Aemond scoffs, but doesn’t raise any suspicion, he just earns a quick glance from you before Helaena continues.

“You must accompany me for a walk in the garden tomorrow.” She smiles with enthusiasm.

You grin at her and nod. “Of course,” you assure her. “I was planning to go already. You read my mind.”

Helaena giggles and then lets everyone, including you, eat the dinner served with only the sound of the musician's melody to fill the room. And only stares to be passed as Aemond kept stealing glances at you when you weren’t looking; stares of curiosity and interest after today's events and your quarrel. It’s like he couldn’t get enough of you, he felt magnetized, and only Alicent noticed her son's interest.

“Tell me, Lady Lannister,” Aegon speaks up after a while of silence. “Is it true you know how to speak High Valyrian?”

You set your fork down and nod as you look over at him. “Yes, I do. I’m still learning anyway.” You smile faintly as your interest over how he knows gets piqued; has Aemond told him already?

“How is it you know?” You ask.

Aegon raises his cup and shrugs. “A bird or two told me.”

You hum and look back at your food before the Queen proceeds to chime in. “Why is it that you’re learning?”

“Uh, well, one, I enjoy learning new things, languages especially. More so after getting told that I can’t. Two,” you smile shyly. “When I learned I was going to marry Prince Aemond, I made it my job to learn.” You avoid Aemond’s stare even as you feel him looking at you.

“That’s very sweet,” Helaena says sweetly. “Don’t you think so, Aemond?”

Said man just hums as his brother stifles his laugh.

“Who’s teaching you?” Helaena asks out of curiosity.

You smile at your plate. “My handmaiden,” you answer. “She’s from Meereen.”

“Is that so?” The Queen probes.

You meet her gaze and nod. “Yes. Her family was one of few from there that spoke High Valyrian.”

“That’s quite impressive,” Aegon interjects with a sly smile. “I may just have to meet this handmaiden of yours.”

The Queen sighs and you just feign a smile.

“And,” Aegon continues. “Just so you know, whenever you wish to learn more, you can always come to me, sweet goodsister.”

Your eyes slightly widen in surprise and you fall speechless since you can’t find a way to decline his offer.

Thankfully Aemond interrupts before you have to say something. “Now how is it that she’ll learn from someone who hardly knows how to speak it himself?”

You smirk at his response and wait for Aegon to counter.

“Well I do know some, so I still can be of some help.” He smirks at his brother and then raises his cup at you.

You raise yours back and add a snarky comment back. “<We can teach other then, goodbrother.>” You smirk.

Aegon sets his cup down with a frown, making you think he’d be upset, but he chuckles instead out of genuine amusement and leaves it at that.

Actually not much else is said after, dinner ends soon thereafter and you have nothing else to do but return to your room with just Ser Erwin following behind you.

Aemond doesn’t bother to speak to you, nor does he have even the nobility to walk you to your room. You’re alone until you reach your room, and even if Nyra welcomes you back, she doesn’t ask about dinner, she just quickly prepares your bath before she leaves your room in a hurry.

You know her, you know she hasn’t made many friends or if any at all, so that can’t be an excuse. It was something else, or one person.

Hm.

Interesting that she hasn’t told you about a thing, she’s always quick to share news that is hers and that isn’t...

Unless it’s someone she shouldn’t be seeing.

You sigh deeply and sink deeper in the water to think more profoundly and avoid thinking about Aemond and what he’s been stirring in you.

“What are you hiding?” You ask yourself and close your eyes to rest them.

However, only seconds later after a second of peace, the door suddenly flies open and someone barges in completely startling you. When you peek back you notice Aemond in front of the door looking somewhat baffled.

“Oh,” you breathe out in relief. “By the gods it’s just you.” You sink back in the water and feel your heart still pounding at the thought of having him see you nude; even if has already, just twice.

“Pardon,” he says after he clears his throat and shuts the door. “I didn’t know you were in the bath.”

You hum and reach over your cup of wine. “Doesn’t matter,” you dismiss him. “I thought you were someone else if I'm honest.”

You hear Aemond swallow thickly before he takes a step further inside. “Really?” He scoffs. “Perhaps a Golden Knight?”

You chuckle and shake your head as you sip from the cup. “No,” you correct him. “More so a dark haired, sharp tongued friend. She left in quite a hurry tonight, I thought she had returned. Nevertheless, you’re here so may you pass me the small golden flask behind me?”

There’s a bit of hesitation before you hear approaching footsteps, and then see the flask from the corner of your eye.

When you reach back for it, the moment you take it in your hand Aemond makes sure to quickly pull back as if he’s frightened. It makes you feel a bit smug that you can cause such a reaction, but also quite confused that you did cause him to behave in such a manner.

“So,” you begin to probe as you make more bubbles in your bath, creating a stronger scent of lavender and a sweetness that begins to entrance Aemond. “Do you need something or are you just here for a visit? Because if so I’d appreciate it if I could see you.”

Once again there’s a bit of silence before he pulls a chair to the front of your bath so you can finally be face to face, noticing he still looked quite taken back.

“So,” you continue to press, this time with a more cocky smile as you play with your bubbles.

“Do I need a reason to visit you, wife?” He retorts.

You scoff softly. “Considering since we’ve been married you have never bothered to visit me, yes. Is that so wild for me to assume?”

Aemond lowers his gaze and hums.

You proceed to lift your leg to cross it over the other, making sure he saw the entire time.

“I hope you enjoyed dinner,” he interjects, making your cockiness falter.

You slowly avert your gaze and nod softly. “Yes, I did. Your mother was very lovely,” you admit. “If I am honest, she quite scared me before.” You smile softly.

Aemond scoffs as if it’s the most absurd thing. “My mother?”

You nod. “Yes, she’s a very intimidating woman, but now,” you say and slowly lift your eyes to meet his gaze. “Now that I have talked to her, she’s very sweet.”

Aemond stays quiet but the corner his lips slightly tug upward. Just slightly.

The silence lingers, and it’s not awkward and uncomfortable, but there is tension neither of you can seem to shake, or know how to break.

Yet it’s a silence that lets you finally study his scar; how deep it is against his flesh, how long it is on his pale face. He’s averting your gaze so he doesn’t notice your stolen glance, or how tempted you looked to feel it under the tip of your fingers.

Honestly it’s a scar that suits him and his persona. Some men have scars and it’s quite ugly, but his, it’s as if he was meant to have it. It looked good on him.

And his eye, he had such a pretty blue eye. Still you had to wonder why he was here….

Nevertheless, the bath was getting cold.

“Aemond,” you call, and he quickly looks up without a fault. “Could you help me with my towel?”

Aemond’s eye lingers on your gaze for a second before he gets out of his seat and grabs your towel off the chair beside the bath.

As you slowly begin to stand up he keeps his eye averted, but he’s so compelled by you, by the water dripping off your body, that he can’t help but look at you as you begin to climb out of the tub. And before you can swing your other leg out, he stretches his hand out and offers it to you.

It’s quite surprising, but you quickly take it and feel your breath catch in your throat, and your heart flutter as you feel the warm and soft flesh of his hand. Albeit he then carefully wraps the towel around your shoulders and lets you wrap it around your body all by yourself. Making sure to stay close to you the entire time.

“I am sorry for the way I acted earlier today,” Aemond interjects, making your eyes quickly shift over to him. “I could have handled myself better.”

Oh. That’s…Hm.

He’s just making you feel a whole lot more….well…a lot. He’s making you feel a lot of feelings.

“Well,” you clear your throat and walk to your vanity. “I…am sorry too. I was too harsh.” You sit down and pick up a small flask of oil and slowly meet his gaze as he turns to watch you. “Still….I don’t appreciate being treated like a prisoner.”

Aemond nods. “I understand.”

You smile softly and nod slowly. “Good,” you mumble and begin to apply the oil on your arms.

“And,” he continues and holds your gaze as he clasps his hands behind him. “Maybe…you would find pleasure in joining me in a training session tomorrow.” He offers.

Your smile widens but you’re in disbelief, afraid this is a joke to get back at you for the way you yelled at him earlier. “Are…are you serious?” You ask.

Aemond nods. “I don’t jester.”

You scoff. “Obviously—” you pause and grin. “I would really love it.”

The corner of his lips twitch to a smile. “Good…I will come by to walk there together.”

You beam at him and nod. “Okay, thank you.”

Aemond nods and turns to begin heading out, but you quickly stop him. “Aemond.”

Said man stops to look back and wait.

“Would you like to spend the night?” You ask and stop what you’re doing to completely focus on him. “It’s been some time since we have been together.” You suggest.

Aemond smirks faintly and nods.

.

.

.

.

Tagged: @winter-soldier-101 @whateverooooooo @xcharlottemikaelsonx @blue-serendipity

[priestessofspiders]

Howl's well that ends well

(A very special thank you to @arsonsara for feedback and guidance with writing this story) While it may seem surprising in the age of internet storefronts and online auctions, sometimes you do, in fact, need to physically go somewhere in order to purchase things. There are several auction houses which only host their auctions in person, and sometimes millionaires are just too busy to take time out of their hectic schedules of plastic surgeries and cocaine fueled orgies in order to buy some overpriced trinket themselves. That's where I come in.

My name is Mae, I'm a buyer's agent, think of me as a professional bidder. Something will go up for auction, my client will give me a budget, and I'll go try my very best to acquire the item of their desire and keep it in a secure location for a while until it can be safely shipped off to their McMansion. It's not honest work, but it pays the bills, and I've had a lot of opportunities to see some genuinely weird crap in my line of work.

I received a call from a regular of mine, an A-list actress with a passion for old cartoons. She wanted me to get her an original cel from a short by the name of Howl's well that ends well. Evidently she was away on a cruise trip at the time the auction was being held, and thus needed me to purchase it by proxy. I accepted of course, and like I always do I sat down and did a little bit of research on the item I was to acquire.

The cartoon was made right at the end of the era of black and white cartoons, just before that slightly eerie rubberhose aesthetic fell out of style in favor of the technicolor wonderlands of the 40s and 50s. It was a simple story, as such animations usually are, depicting a wolf attempting to catch and eat a rabbit by any means necessary, with increasingly silly results. The cartoon was animated by the rather short lived Crescent Moon Studios, and was one of only two shorts known to have survived the company's collapse in 1939. The other was a mythological themed cartoon known by the title The Shepherd and the Satyr. Both had fallen into the public domain, but nobody had bothered putting up copies on the internet anywhere, after all, they were pretty obscure.

I was given a maximum budget of fifty grand to purchase the cel, which I honestly thought was a little excessive. Sure, it was a rare find, but in the context of an auction, rarity only matters when it is combined with desirability. Technically every toddler's doodle is a one-of-a-kind original work of art, but nobody is going to shell out a million bucks to put it in the Louvre. Unless there was some massive revival in public interest surrounding failed animation studios from the late 30s, I wasn't anticipating needing to spend the full amount my client had authorized.

The auction house was typical of its kind; an opulent temple to the idle rich who have nothing better to do than spend their hoarded wealth on useless garbage. I've never felt comfortable in those sorts of places. While the cut I get is fairly good, it's not enough for me to feel at home rubbing shoulders with CEOs and movie stars. I have this theory that there is a certain stench exuded by those who only own one house, and I can see the pompous plutocrats wrinkle their noses at me whenever I pass by in my cheaply tailored suit.

I settled into my seat alongside the other auction attendees, fiddling nervously with the ends of my sleeves. The rows of comfortable chairs sat before the stage reminded me of vague memories of attending church as a young girl, not comprehending a single word the man in the funny robe was saying when he read out his sermon. Eventually the auctioneer made her way out onto the stage and the song and dance of acquisition began.

It took a while to get to the cel. There seemed to be no end to the parade of antique junk that was available for purchase by my more financially fortunate companions. Jewelry that would never be worn, paintings that would be used to take up space in otherwise artfully minimalist living rooms, and antique weapons to be drooled over by those who view the statistics of mass murder as fun trivia all graced the auction block, happily snatched up by the horde of the idiot rich.

It was by the time I had almost dozed off following a bidding war over some decrepit old tea set that the auctioneer announced the starting bid for an animation cel from Howl's well that ends well at one thousand dollars. Surprisingly, someone immediately offered to pay the opening bid. I was startled to learn that one of these p-zombie nepo babies even knew what a cel was, much less willing to blow a thousand bucks on it. I raised a counter bid, doubling the offer just to see how badly this other bidder wanted it. In turn, they raised the bid to four thousand dollars.

Thus began one of the most baffling bidding experiences I've ever had. This wasn't supposed to be a difficult item to obtain, it should have been a cakewalk, but this other bidder was fighting tooth and nail to acquire it. It was just a bit of cellulose with eighty year old doodles on it for goodness sake! And it's not like we're talking about Steamboat Willy here, I'd never even heard of Howl's well that ends well before I'd gotten the call from my client. Nevertheless, I had been given quite the budget, and it wasn't like it was my money anyway, so I stuck at it until the bitter end. I didn't get a look at the competing bidder at the time, just heard his voice from somewhere behind me. It was a strange voice, there was something wrong about it, something I couldn't quite place.

Forty seven thousand dollars. That's how much of my client's money I wound up paying for the damned thing. That's more money than some folks make in a year, and here I was blowing it on some picture of a cartoon wolf. I was frankly baffled.

I arranged for the payment with one of the clerks and, after everything went through, picked up the cel and started walking to my car. I planned to drive immediately down the storage unit where I keep the items I am paid to acquire until their rightful owners come calling. Holding the cel in my hands gave me a weird feeling, even though it was protected in a rather fancy looking glass case. The older something is, the creepier it gets. You'll never read a haunted house story about some luxury penthouse suite, for example, they'll always be set somewhere ancient and dilapidated. I don't think we like when things get too old for their own good, it reminds us that there was a time before we existed.

The cel itself depicted just the wolf, walking on comically exaggerated tip-toe. There was no backdrop, obviously, the cel would be overlaid on top of the background in order to save time during the animation process, to keep the overworked artists from needing to render every tree and bush over and over ad nauseum. The wolf itself was a typical example of a cartoon character from that era; impossibly flexible limbs, a somewhat lanky appearance, and large eyes with slices taken out of the pupils. It wouldn't have looked out of place in a Fleischer or Disney short.

I found myself staring into those eyes. There was an odd quality to them that I didn't quite like, a kind of intelligence that felt out of place on the exaggerated features of a cartoon. Normally when one stares at something for long enough, you stop being able to properly process it as a coherent image, like when you say a word too many times and it sounds like gibberish. With the wolf though, it felt as though the longer I stared, the more clarity it possessed, the more defined the edges became, the more-

"Excuse me miss, may I have a word?"

The voice caught me off guard, and I nearly dropped the glass case to the floor. I looked up, finding myself in the indoor parking garage where I'd parked my car. In my distracted state, I had nearly gotten all the way to my car without noticing how far I'd walked. Standing before me was a man dressed all in black, with a long overcoat, a thick scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face, large dark sunglasses, and a wide brimmed fedora. His hands were firmly tucked in his pockets.

"Um, sure, can I help you?" I responded, a tad nervous. Did he follow me here? I found myself wondering.

"My apologies, first allow me to introduce myself, my name is Arnold Harrison, how do you do?" His voice was faintly muffled from his scarf, but even then I could make out that there was something wrong. There was something artificial about it, fake, like the voice a clown puts on when performing for children. Despite all the cordiality he was expressing, I felt almost as though he were mocking me.

It took me a moment, but I did recognize the name Arnold Harrison. He was a collector, a cartoon enthusiast, I'd never been employed by him myself but I'd heard a bit about him. Unlike the horde of hedonistic cretins spending their time wasting daddy's money on expensive toys, I actually had a certain level of respect for Harrison. I was dimly aware that he'd written a book at some point on the history of the early animation industry, and in an instant I knew who I had been competing against in the auction house.

"I'm Mae, a pleasure to meet you Mr. Harrison," I said, extending my arm out for a handshake. Harrison looked down at it for a moment, his hand still pressed firmly in his pockets. He didn't move to accept my handshake, keeping some distance away from me, and so I lowered my arm awkwardly.

After an uncomfortable pause, Harrison broke the silence, stating, "I would like very much to offer you a deal, Mae. As you probably noticed during the auction, I am very interested in getting my hands on that cel of yours. It is of great personal importance to me, you understand. I've been led to believe that you are, in fact, working for a client, are you not?"

I nodded my assent, cocking an eyebrow slightly as I wondered where he was going with this.

"In that case, I would like to present you with a counter offer; if you give me that cel, I shall, within the week, be able to present you with a virtually identical cel, a near exact copy. For all intents and purposes, it would be a perfect duplicate, and your employer need never know the difference. In order to ensure your silence on the matter, I would be more than willing to pay you a sum of forty six thousand dollars, cash, up front."

I blinked. Forty six thousand dollars, and all I had to do was hand this stranger some antique squiggles on a highly flammable bit of transparent plastic. It felt too good to be true. There was a lot I could do with that kind of money. My gut was telling me to say yes.

But it was something about that voice. I didn't trust it, it didn't sound like the voice of someone sincerely telling the truth. It sounded like someone telling the setup to a joke. We put so much value into way words are spoken, rather than the actual words themselves. One would never be able to take a politician seriously if they went on stage having just inhaled a balloon full of helium for example. I felt like I was going to be made a victim of some ridiculous prank.

"'I'm terribly sorry," I said, "but I'm afraid I can't do that. Good day Mr. Harrison." I turned to leave, heading towards my car.

A hand gripped my shoulder abruptly.

I wheeled around, yelping slightly from shock, and the hand was off my shoulder in a flash. Harrison was still standing some distance away from me, much too far away to have grabbed me like that. His arm would have had to have stretched like a rubber band. I caught a glimpse of his hand being stuffed into his coat pocket abruptly as soon as he saw me staring. I could have sworn it only had four fingers.

"I'm sorry, I just-" I heard him start to say, but I was already running full sprint towards my car. I made it there in a flash, slamming the door behind me as I carelessly tossed the cel in the front seat. I fiddled with my keys and turned on the engine, reversing out of the parking space and moving to leave as soon as possible.

As I drove towards the exit, I faintly heard Harrison's voice over the echoing engine, shouting out "Please! You don't know what you're dealing with!"

- - -

I made it to the storage facility right at the end of sunset, the sky a bloody red as night came to silently murder the daylight. I'd spent the entire drive trying to rationalize away what I'd seen. Perhaps Harrison had some birth defect, or had suffered an accident. He was probably much closer than I thought, or maybe he jumped back a little when I turned around. Maybe it all really was some elaborate practical joke. There must be a logical explanation.

By the time I was typing in the combination to the storage unit, I'd mostly convinced myself that everything was fine. The door swung open, and I fully intended to set down the cel within the sealed room and lock it all up again so I could go about the rest of my evening in peace. Instead, I found myself staring at the image of that cartoon wolf again, looking into those drawn-on eyes, gazing steadily into those pupils with the slices taken out of them.

I felt an intense compulsion to take the cel out of its case and hold it. It's not quite so unreasonable a desire as one might think. While I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit it, I'd occasionally carefully taken some of the antiques I'd gotten for my clients "out of the box" so to speak, just so I could touch something someone would spend so much money on. There was no logical reason for me to believe this wasn't just me acting on my own desires.

I clicked open the case gently, sliding open the lid. The faint camphor smell of old film wafted out, and I reached my hand inside, gently running a single finger over the smooth, transparent celluloid. As soon as I did so, a faint chill seemed to trickle down my spine, and I quickly stopped what I was doing and hurriedly put the lid back in place. I set the glass case and the cel within onto the floor and closed the door to the storage unit in a hurry, briskly walking back to my car.

Urban parking being what it is, it was something of a walk to get back to where I had left my car. Night had fully fallen by now, and while the streetlamps still shone their uncomfortably bright glow in a pathetic attempt to keep the shadows at bay, the blackness outside their radiance seemed darker than usual. There was a disturbing feeling of anticipation in the air, and I felt a knot in my stomach like that of an actor who has abruptly realized they were never given a script.

The streets were unusually empty. It is common knowledge that when a city gets large enough, the notion that nighttime is meant for sleep is revealed as a woeful misconception. Drunkards, workers on the graveyard shift, and petty criminals abound as soon as the sun recedes, and yet I found the streets utterly devoid of human life aside from myself. Despite my seeming isolation, it wasn't long before the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, and I knew that I was not alone.

It took me a while to notice it, a faint echo to my own footsteps that shouldn't be there. Something was keeping exact pace with me. I altered the rhythm of my stride, abruptly doing a slight skip to switch which leg was coming down, and there was a moment briefly where I heard the sound of someone's own footsteps faltering to try and keep up.

I turned around, shouting out "Alright, come on out Harrison. I know it's you."

I was wrong though. It wasn't Arnold Harrison who was following me.

It stepped into the light of the streetlamp almost sheepishly, hands up in a "you got me" gesture. It stood about six feet tall from head to toe. It was staring at me hungrily with those inky black pupils. Pupils with slices taken out of them.

There's no point in beating around the bush any further, no point in trying to play coy. It was the wolf from the cel. It was a black and white cartoon wolf, standing up on two legs, walking towards me with clearly malicious intent. It wasn't some uncanny abomination, the humorous proportions of the animated world translated with horrific effect upon being brought into this three dimensional existence. It just looked like a goddamn cartoon character had somehow magically stepped out of the screen, and somehow that was more existentially horrifying than if it were some bulging-eyed misbegotten atrocity.

Confronted with this violation of all natural law, this impossible, inherently contradictory being, do you know what I did? I pulled out my pepper spray from my pocket and aimed for its stupid, drooling face.

The damn thing just opened its mouth and stuck out its tongue, tasting the spurt of liquid capsaicin as though I had discharged a can of whipped cream at it. As soon as the spray died down to a dribble, the wolf licked its lips before belching out a burst of monochromatic flame, dabbing its lips with a handkerchief it pulled out from nowhere in particular.

I ran of course. I ran for my goddamn life. I felt myself laughing as I did, a fit of giggles bursting involuntarily from my throat because this whole situation was so stupid. The wolf followed close at my heels, snapping its jaws inches away from me with a sound like a mouse trap closing each time it tried to take a bite.

I took a wrong turn in my haste to escape from my animated pursuer, finding myself in an alleyway blocked off by a chain link fence at the end. I turned around to see the wolf smugly stalking its way towards me, legs like rubber hoses strutting confidently forward. I thought I was going to die an utterly pointless, totally absurd death. I backed up against the fence, looking around for anything that could save me. That's when I spotted it.

A banana peel stuck slightly out of a nearby trash can. It was a stupid idea, it shouldn't have worked, but I grabbed it and tossed it on the ground in front of the rapidly approaching wolf. The instant one of its ink-black feet stepped on the peel, the wolf's legs began spinning like blurry bicycle wheels, its arms stretched out to balance itself as a comical "ooOoOohoohoOOO!" emitted from its slavering jaws. I took my opportunity and ran past the demented cartoon, sprinting as fast as I could towards my car.

Fortunately the alley was quite close to where I had parked, and I managed to hop into the driver's seat and start the ignition fast enough to get out of there. Looking in my rear view mirror, I spotted the wolf hold out its thumb for a taxi cab, but the streets remained empty as ever, and I was luckily saved from the embarrassment of having to indulge in some kind of wacky car chase sequence with my nonsensical pursuer.

I wish that was the end of this story. That my client picked up the cel, I got a good shrink to prescribe me some happy pills, and I got out of this situation with nothing more unpleasant than a lifelong distaste for old cartoons. Unfortunately, the universe is not, despite what some desperate idiots may insist, a kind place. Three things ensured that my life would be far more complicated than I would have otherwise preferred.

Firstly, my client refused to answer my calls. Her voice mail message informed me she was "taking a break from the screens to focus on the important things in life". Good for her I suppose, though I imagine it's rather easy to turn off the screens when you're enjoying a multi-week cruise on a mega yacht the size of Alcatraz.

Secondly, the wolf didn't stop after just one night. No sirree, this was one persistent bastard, and it didn't take long for the canine caricature to figure out where I lived. As for how it discovered my address, I have no idea. Perhaps it checked the yellow pages, that seems to be an appropriately stupid method. Regardless, I rapidly found myself spending each sleepless night fending off the attacks of a cartoon wolf.

The wolf's nocturnal visits were equal parts ridiculous and terrifying. It didn't operate on the same fundamental logic as the universe the rest of us live in, it belonged to a world of falling anvils and comically oversized wooden hammers, a world where the rules of slapstick have more meaning than the laws of physics. The first time it got into the house it hopped down the chimney in a black and white Santa Claus outfit and gestured for me to jump into a similarly colorless leather sack that it held open for me oh-so politely. I fired a taser at it, and I saw its skeleton flash through its unconvincing disguise as the monochromatic menace jolted about spasmodically. Eventually it fell to the ground, inky lines of smoke drifting up from its contorted body, and I ran out the door, hopped into my car, and drove straight down to the police station. I didn't have time to grab my cell phone to dial 911, I didn't want to spend another instant in the house with that stupid wolf.

I didn't tell the police that my home invader was a cartoon character of course, because I'm not a moron and would prefer not to spend the rest of my days in a nice padded room wearing a comfortable straitjacket, thank you very much. Instead I just said there was someone in my house, I thought I had incapacitated them, and I wanted an officer to check it out.

They didn't find the wolf of course, and while they couldn't confirm if anyone had broken into the house, they were at least able to confirm the presence of an intruder by the marks they had left getting out; a cartoon wolf shaped hole in the wall.

I spent two weeks dealing with this wolf. Two. Weeks. Two weeks of desperately trying to contact my client about the cel. Two weeks of fitfully sleeping only during the day. Two weeks of spending my nights in paranoid vigilance against an impossible intruder. I began taking to renting various cheap motels for a single night at a time, out of a desperate hope that maybe it wouldn't be able to find me there. It was a pipe dream of course, it always found me, and I'd always have to find some new ridiculous way to stop it.

The only thing that would even temporarily stop the damn thing was playing by its own rules. Whacking it over the skull with a frying pan would cause it to collapse to the ground with an egg-sized lump on its forehead, chirping birds circling its head as spirals formed in its eyes. Stomping on its toe would make it yowl in exaggerated pain as it hopped up and down on one foot. I once managed to get away from it one night by ducking into a public restroom and pointing at the "Women's" sign on the door, at which the wolf got embarrassed and waited politely for me to finish my business. I stayed there until the sun rose. It never stuck around during the day.

I did say three things changed my life for the worse, and the third is easily the one that has been the most profoundly upsetting. I began to notice... changes. Subtle ones at first. I've always had a faint West Coast accent, but as my encounters with the wolf continued, I found my voice dipping into the tones of stereotypical valley girl more often than not. The pitch changed too, raising from the sightly gravelly vocal fry I was used to into a high pitched squeak.

I used to smoke on occasion, not anything major, maybe a single cigarette a day at the most, but now I was finding myself with one constantly stuck in my mouth. It wasn't a situation of my addiction increasing due to stress, no, I never bought any fresh packs. They would literally seem to appear, already lit, when I wasn't paying attention. My skin began to turn paler too, my hair darker, the dark brown transforming into an inky black.

It was when I looked in the mirror one day and saw my pupils had slices taken out of them that I knew I had to do something drastic. I didn't care if it cost me my damn career, I didn't care if I spent the whole rest of my life flipping burgers on minimum wage, living out of my car; I refused to let myself turn into a goddamn cartoon.

I drove myself down to the storage facility. By this point I had been hopping from hotel to hotel so much that it took me until nightfall to reach it, which meant that the wolf would have a chance to try and stop me. I didn't care, I had a job to do. I wasn't going to let my humanity get stolen just because I was scared of some atrociously abnormal animated asshole.

I parked right in front of the facility next to a red painted curb. They could tow my car away and melt it down for all I cared. All that mattered was getting to that cel. As soon as I began marching towards the front gates, I heard a sharp whistle blow through the nighttime silence, and I turned to see the wolf, dressed in an old fashioned police uniform, writing what looked to be a parking ticket in a notepad. I flipped it the finger and began to run for my storage unit, looking back just in time to see the wolf speeding towards me, the uniform left behind still floating in the air from how quickly it leapt out of it.

But I was faster now, I felt lighter. My every step was bouncier and more energetic, and I found a wild grin growing across my face, perhaps an inch or so wider than it may have been before, a cigarette clenched tight between my pearly white, perfectly straight teeth. I used to have quite the crooked set of chompers, and my dentist always got onto me about how little I flossed, but right now supernaturally enhanced dental hygiene was hardly my biggest concern.

I managed to skid to a stop (with the appropriate sound effect of course) right in front of the storage unit, and rapidly entered the combination. I knew that the wolf was close behind me, because the wolf would always be close behind me. It was in his very nature, as was mine to escape in the very nick of time. Hunter and fox, cat and mouse, wolf and rabbit.

I swung open the heavy steel door and stomped the glass case at my feet to fragments, grabbing the cel with a flourish as the wolf tripped over my extended leg and slid to a stop on the metal floor. Pulling the lit cigarette from my mouth, I touched it to the cellulose image and winked. "That's all folks" I muttered as the translucent image caught fire in an instant.

As soon as the cel began to burn, so too did the wolf, engulfed in white hot flames as it howled in apparent agony. It didn't take long before the howls faded away, and all that was left was a wolf-shaped outline of ash on the floor of the storage unit.

"I'll be honest with ya, I wasn't sure that was going to work!" I said to nobody in particular as I shut the door to the unit once again. I clapped my hands together, partially to clean off the ashes, but more to signify the conclusion of a job well done.

I drove home and collapsed on the couch, exhausted.

And if we lived in a kind and loving universe that is where the story would have ended. But, of course, we do not.

I turned on the TV, desperate to drink in some mindless garbage to distract my brain from the question of how I would explain away the destruction of the cel to my client. Flipping to a random channel, I was greeted with the image of a cartoon wolf sneaking along to a jaunty tune.

Obviously it wasn't the wolf from Howl's well that ends well, that would be ridiculous. No TV channel is broadcasting obscure cartoon shorts from the 30s, not even at that hour. The wolf was in color, the art style was different, it must have been an adaptation of Three Little Pigs or something. But it didn't matter. It reminded me of my wolf, and I felt rage bubble up in my chest. My eyes narrowed, and I felt as though steam was blowing out of my ears. Who knows, maybe it did.

I pulled out a baseball bat and began smashing it into the TV set over and over again, gibbering incoherently and laughing as I did so, sparks flying from the ruined mess of plastic and glass. By the time I finished swinging, the mass of steaming debris was barely recognizable as a television.

As I stood there, hunched over, catching my breath, I looked down at the baseball bat I had used to destroy the TV. I don't own a baseball bat. I never have. Even if I did have one, how could I have gotten it so quickly? It's not like there is room for it in my pockets, and I didn't run off to some closet to grab it, it wasn't leaning against the couch when I came in.

Walking into the bathroom, I confirmed what I already knew.

My skin was still deathly pale, nearly white now, my hair was still black. When I reached up to touch my face, I found that my hand had only four fingers.

As I gazed upon my caricatured reflection in the mirror, a thought clawed at the synapses of my brain, a shock to the system like a firm handshake with a hand-buzzer; I still didn't feel alone. Ever since that freakishly fiendish fleaball had turned my life upside down, I'd felt as though I was being watched, being followed everywhere I went. I just assumed it was the horror of pursuit, the terror of being prey. But I think it's more than that.

The thing about humor is that it's all relative isn't it? If you tell a joke and nobody is around to hear it, well, chances are you aren't going to get any laughs, are you? The whole purpose of a cartoon is to entertain an audience, to make us laugh at the zany antics of those larger than life characters as they go about their impossible, ridiculous existence. Without anyone watching them, they have no purpose, no reason to exist. All of their power comes from the laughs they give their audience.

So I'm asking you now, dear reader; who is watching me, and how do I get them to stop?

[the-golden-ghost]

What, if any, were the formative books of your childhood? (once you were old enough to be reading independently ie not picture books, but before high school)

My book of Illustrated Fairy Tales that pretty much included any public domain kid's work at the time (it also had stuff like Peter Pan and the Velveteen Rabbit which aren't really fairy tales). I think I still have it but I'm not 100% sure of the publisher

My abridged 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea copy. Read when I was 7, LOVED that thing. Reading as an adult is extremely funny though. Aronnax buddy why so many exclamation points. Why does Nemo have a gun etc.

A Series Of Unfortunate Events: Yeah Bay Bee but no seriously it was good and shaped my childhood and my writing

Warrior cats: Another formative series but this one was NOT good. Entertaining though? Absolutely. Do I have Opinions on it still? Hell yes

Calvin and Hobbes collections (i.e. There's Treasure Everywhere, Yukon Ho, Something Under the Bed Is Drooling, Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons et al. I don't think I had EVERY one but I did have a lot of them and they were masterful)

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane: Filed under Kid's Books That Went Really Fucking Hard (emotionally) For No Good Reason (but we're happy they did)

Bailey School Kids: Books about kids and their teachers are like. folklore monsters and they just have to put up with that. Kinda Scooby-Doo but it was fun and got me started on cryptids as a young'un. Source of a Mandela Effect for me cause I remember one of the covers scaring the everloving shit out of me but when I look for it now it's not remotely how I remember.

Goosebumps: I liked children's horror a lot when I was young and Goosebumps was THE series for it.

The Underneath: Another one of the Emotionally Fucked Up But Dear God Did it Hit extraction, highkey recommended

[captainclervals]

NO FOR REAL the way the people on here talk about disabled people and characters is straight up EVIL. I cannot fathom the horrible way they'll talk about things like Frankenstein like the takes aren't already bad enough. The things they say are so destructive toward us even if they think they're just heehawing at a character, the second ableism comes up it stops being funny and they don't even get it

YOU'RE SO SO RIGHT ... you get it 😭 I'm so sorry you're also affected by what a prevalent issue it is but I'm also glad to know I'm not just being overly critical or pedantic HAHA I don't want to be mistaken as just trying to gatekeep a bajillion-year-old public domain book from new readers because that's not at ALL what I'd like, it'd be nice to have new artists and enjoyers and friends to meet! but while it should be fun and accessible and not feel like another high school class full of rules and guidelines on what to write, we also need to speak out on offensive humor and portrayals... not on behalf of a character but because, like you said, it's destructive to the real people right alongside us!!

I have a ball with comedy and jokes! I don't feel like classic literature is a sacred thing only to be approached with academic sobriety, BUT everyone has that responsibility to have fun in a way that isnt going to implicate real world people. a lot of folks hate Victor, I get it, and despite him being my favorite character I'm unfazed by just general dislike because if it's just a matter of taste/opinion, that's fine! I don't like everyone else's favorites!

but unfortunately from what I've seen it's rarely as respectful as that... it's very easy to list the reasons for hating him such as, he's useless, he's pathetic, he's annoying, he takes advantage of/is a burden on his friends and family... and typically they won't go all the way down to why but it's still there: because he's chronically ill? because he's disabled? not going into the moral aspects or whatever, we're just apparently cracking on him because he's prone to fainting and wild emotional spells and spends long periods being bedridden and requiring care, and because he can't/doesn't do something of equal magnitude in return, he's a bad friend and a burden and should have been left to suffer alone? and it's just funny because it's weak and effeminate to have bad health I GUESS? and he made bad choices so he deserved it or something? (the classic "if you're disabled you brought it on yourself somehow") I've literally seen people say he manipulated clerval and walton into caring for him and that they should have left him to die alone??

😩 I really don't believe the jokes are made in bad faith but there should just be more awareness of the fact that disabled people are so apt to see others, even their friends, subtly (or not so subtly?) say "it's joke material to be that sick! people who require care are bad friends/family members and your able-bodied loved ones also think you're a parasite!" it's just so ingrained in people that I'm pretty sure the majority don't even realize at all the implications of what they're using as a punchline. like do y'all think I should be abandoned by my friends and family and should die alone so I'll stop wasting their time and resources? I really doubt anyone does (ufgsj at least I hope not) but that's how I FEEL seeing some of these posts!

this is literally what made me so much more reserved and afraid of my own disability and how it looks to other people! seeing people make that exact kind of joke about frankenstein was a negative turning point in my perception of myself! I honestly somehow didn't fully recognize until seeing people laugh, right in front of me, about how weak and pathetic the chronically ill character is FOR being chronically ill and that he didn't deserve the love of his friends in caring for him when he wasn't able to take care of himself and it hit me that THIS is how people see me!! weak for being disabled, useless, and a parasite for needing assistance in simple tasks while contributing very little to the world! I've become even more hesitant about sharing details of my experience with chronic illness and far more reluctant to ask for help even when I desperately need it—

I very rarely discuss details of my disability, so most people don't even know that it's such a deeply personal struggle, but I don't feel like you should HAVE to disclose your medical history just to keep those around you aware enough to not use disability as an insult or punchline. I really don't think it should be necessary for someone to just rein in ableism politely just while someone disabled is in the company. you never know who is listening or how they feel! so out of kindness and respect it's just the decent thing to focus the victor malice towards, y'know, things like his moral failings and NOT towards his mental or physical health (and even then some of what I see typically classified as his moral failings actually are tied at least in part to his health but that's another discussion LMAO)

and not even really touching on the mental health aspect because I feel like USUALLY people are more inclined to treat that with sensitivity (even though I have seen PUBLISHED BOOKS talk about the whole "victor was delusional and imagined the monster to shield himself from the fact that HE killed his friends and family" thing. which i despise as a psychotic person with paranoid delusions. gotta love the constant reminder that generally people assume that if you experience psychoses you must be violent and always one thread away from a killing spree...). but stuff like having bouts of illness after strong emotion or needing friends to help ground you during paranoid spells or addiction resulting from a coping mechanism ARE ALSO not something to laugh at and call a weakness!

[godesssiri]

I'm seriously considering setting up a Society6 shop with public domain images. I've seen quite a few with 10 images (which is as many as you're allowed with a free account) so it's obvious that these people have grabbed 10 public domain images, set up a shop with a free account and are sitting back collecting commissions.

That's not exactly what I want to do. I think I'm going to try a basic paid account ($5 a month) for 6 months, if it doesn't work out I've sunk 30 bucks and a chunk of my time. The reason it would be a chunk of time is: I collect antique books. They have gorgeous illustrations and I often feel sad that those pretty pictures are trapped in the pages of a book and not adorning random things around my home. I took photos of some of the pictures in a set of natural history books and went to one of those sites where you can get your photos printed on stuff like coasters. I love my antique natural history coasters to bits. I'm happy every time I grab one to use. I'm sure other people would want coasters, or makeup bags, or throw pillows, or coffee mugs, or socks with those images - and all the other images in my gorgeous old books. The reason I want to go with a paid account is because it would be SO HARD to chose just 10 images and with paid I can have up to 100. I would take high quality photos from my books (I don't want to risk the spines of my books trying to scan them) and upload them, and of course credit the artist where that info is available or the book when the artist is not listed. If it does well enough I could invest in one of those portable document scanners that don't require me to flatten the fragile spines of my 100 + year old books. I could even use the money to buy more books and call it a business expense.

Has anyone had any experience with Print of Demand sites? I'm leaning towards Society6 because I've heard some not so great stuff about Redbubble.

[roadhogsbigbelly]

i'm going to be completely honest with you but the i kind of completely disagree with absolutely everything you said like for one, i think labels like "kids media" and "adult media" are like incredibly unhelpful terms that only really make sense in terms of literally discourse because age ratings are generally based on reading level, but in terms of like movies/tv shows/video games age ratings aren't based on maturity or reading comprehension but rather on very subjective ideas of what "kids are allowed to see without being traumatized" like how PG used to mean "this guy face melts off and explodes" and now it means "there's minor cuss words and adult innuendo so you don't feel embarrassed for watching inside out as an adult"

like one of my favorite childhood films is "Mary and Max" a claymation film about a little Australian girl who becomes pen pals with an autistic middle aged new yorker, and i'm pretty sure the only reason our mom let me watch it was become it was animated and on netflix but in contained alot of subject matters that one would consider "inappropriate for children" like attempted suicide or sexual themes, but as a kid it never occurred to me that the film wasn't FOR me, because plenty of the books i read at school talked about suicide and sex and out of curiosity i looked up the age rating for the film to see the intended demographic and from what i can tell it's still "not rated" probably because it was made for film festivals and than sent to netflix.

but like. i think in general one of my issues is that i don't consider the classic books we read in school to be "books for adults" like to me Catcher in the rye or Of Mice or Men or The Great Gatsby aren't books for adults, they're books for everyone? for general audiences? like pixar films or miyazaki movies, because i read those books when i was a child, and if they WERE for adults i wouldn't be allowed to read em, in the same way that like most "children's songs" are just like sea shanties that are in the public domain, which is noone REALLY CARES that they "have dark themes"

like i don't disagree that "that enjoying literature or movies that have more complex, and mature themes makes you a richer person" what i disagree with is that, that's something you only get from reading books "for adults" and WON"T get from reading books "for kids", because i think those are mostly akin-ed to genre's at some point, like they're generally helpful for finding stuff you already like, but it's not gonna be like an objective marker of quality.

like i think the reason i think people get pissed when adults say their favorite book is "percy jackson" instead of "jane eyre" isn't actually because percy jackson is a book for middle schoolers, it's because well. it's very recent? like they're plenty of booktok books that are very clearly made FOR adults that it would be embarrassing to say are "your favorite book" because they clearly more for enjoyment that intellectual enlightenment.

like part of the reason it's so hard for like. video games to be taken seriously as an artform compared to movies or tv or literature, is because as an art form it's still extremely so their isn't any movie that's old enough to be considered a "classic" like yeah there's like. ocarina of time, or goldeneye 64 or shadow of the colossus, but video games are still generally seen as entertainment first than anything else.

like i feel like i would understand this discourse more if it was less "people who consume media for kid's need to watch media for adults" and more "people need to watch more foreign media" or "people need to watch more media made from before the last 40 years" because i do think people would find more enriching stories if they didn't just watch mainstream american films from very recently. but like alot of really good classic films and foreign films ARE kid's movies, like what's even considered a "kid's movie" is again EXTREMELY subjective. my sister is dead set on her belief that "total drama island" is a show for adults, in the same way my grandma is convinced "spongbob squarepants" is a show for adults, because total drama island is a canadian show that has different stands for what's appropriate for kids.

but like the larger point is that if you do open yourself up to trying more media outside of your comfort zone, you're not going to stop consuming kids media and start consuming adult media, you're going to just. like. start watching more movies. and more books.

i know i've said this before, but i truly can not believe y'all when you say that you're not shaming people for their interests and that you just want people to have a more varied media diet, when you stuff like "people won't even LIE about their favorite book anymore" cause like. is it actually better if people lie and say their favorite book is a classic book they are told is good but have no interest rather than like. animorphs

[drev-the-ambassador]

It's sometime in the 1200’s. Men have come from the west, and they speak the language some - not you necessarily, but some -of the people on this small strip of sparsely populated land recognize, even if they don’t understand it. You’ve traded with the western men before, been attacked by them as well, just like a while ago, when they came. You and your people struck back, but nonetheless. Someone tells you that you must pay taxes now. You have a king now. You are handed a cross. You have a king now. A Swedish king.

It’s 1809. You are in Porvoo. The war is still ongoing, but yet, here you are, to swear an oath to your new king. No, this is no king, this man is an emperor. Alexander the First. He promises you that you can keep your religion, your old Swedish laws and your rights. The estates swear their oaths of allegiance. At the end of the ceremony, the tsar tells you that you and your people have now been heightened to a nation among nations. You are not sure what that means - there is no nation, no country, just nine provinces, the Åland islands and some land from the north, where Tornio- river marks the border between two countries - the one you belonged to yesterday and the one you’ll belong to from this day on.  Next autumn, the Treaty of Fredrikshamn is signed by the representatives of both, the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire. Sweden gave up the nine läns, the islands and the strip of land from the north forever, and they would be forever a part of Russia.  You wonder what you should do. Russians have given the citizens three years to decide where they wish to live; Sweden or Russia. You don’t particularly like either option, but there is no third option. There is no land between east and west.

It’s 1899. The tsar, Nicholas the Second, did not agree to meet with the men bringing him the Great Petition to end the February manifesto. The Grand Duchy of Finland does not have its own postal service anymore. The diet can no longer decide the laws; Russians decide them now. You don’t understand how the emperor could do this to his loyal citizens. They’re telling rumours that there are people in Russia who want to take the autonomy away once and for all. You hope those are only rumors.

It’s 1917. Everything is chaos.The Great War is raging. There was a second revolution in Russia; the bolsheviks have the power now. You are at a loss of what to do. The Finnish Parliament declares that it now holds the greatest legislative power in the Grand Duchy. The working class and the middle class are not getting along, haven’t been since the years of oppression. Everything is changing -  you can feel it.

It’s 6th of December, 1917. The Parliament has just approved the declaration of independence made only two days earlier. Now, for the first time ever, you all have to stand on your own two feet - there is no motherland to take care of you if you mess up. You wonder if you’ll survive a decade here, in this sparsely populated land between east and west. You swear to do everything it takes.

It’s 2017. Some teenage girl is writing this pretentious text at 3:15 AM in November. In the independent Republic of Finland.

Finland’s 100 years of Independence 6.12.1917-6.12.2017

Finland is both very old and very young. The ancestors of the people living in Finland today - and of the Sami people especially -  are among the first humans to have settled down in Europe, and the bedrock on which Finland rests is among the oldest in the world. However, the Finnish written language was developed only in the 1500’s by Mikael Agricola and the first books written in Finnish were published in 1870. In the 1700’s, the concept of “Finnish” being separate from “Swedish” regarding the language and some cultural aspects was born, but really being Finnish like we are Finnish today wasn’t born until the latter half of the 19th century.

Parts of the area known as Finland today were annexed by the Kingdom of Sweden at different times. Some areas of Finland were a part of Sweden for around 600 years, some less than 60. As a part of Sweden Finland wasn’t really… Finland. It consisted of the provinces, or läns, though one of them was called Varsinais-Suomi, Proper Finland, or Egentliga Finland in Swedish. Only in 1809, when Sweden lost the Finnish War to the Russian Empire and gave up its eastern areas, did Aleksanteri I, Alexander I, unify the läns under the name “Suomen suurruhtinaskunta”, “the Grand Duchy of Finland” and make the Grand Duchy an autonomous region within the empire.

As a part of Russia Finland was doing quite well, better than as a part of Sweden. It’s impossible to say if Finland would’ve been better off as a part of Sweden all along, but it can be said with certainty that as a part of Sweden Finland most likely wouldn’t have become an independent country. The Diet of Finland wasn’t called until 1863 even though Alexander promised to do so in like 1812, but Finnish people either didn’t mind or didn’t care. Finland was also one of the most peaceful parts of the Russian Empire; the Finnish people were either very loyal to the czar OR, again, they didn’t really care. Nonetheless, Finland gained its own postal service, currency and eventually the Diet was called as well. The Finnish language was to become equal to Swedish in 20 years, and the national awakening was bringing with it the Golden Age of Finnish Art.

A product of the Golden Age, Raatajat rahanalaiset (Kaski) (1893) by Eero Järnefelt, English translation being “Under the Yoke (Burning the Brushwood) ; Wage Slaves / Burn-Beating”. 

In 1899, just as Finland had started to embrace its Finnishness, the Russification of Finland, known in Finland as Sortokaudet, the Years of Oppression, began with the February Manifesto by Nikolai II, Nicholas II. The postal service had been shut down earlier, but now all the power from the Finnish politicians in the Diet was given over to the Russians. The use of Finnish was no longer encouraged, now everyone was forced to learn Russian. Finnish people tried to appeal to the czar, students collecting half a million names (about ¼ of the population) into the Suuri adressi, the Great Petition, by skiing from village to village, only for the czar to decline the delegation. Finnish politicians started to be replaced by Russians. Finland was slowly losing its autonomy.

A famous painting, Hyökkäys (1899) by Edvard Isto. The name of the painting means “An attack”. It depicts the Russian double-headed eagle trying to rip the lawbook from the hands of the Finnish Maiden, the national personification of Finland. It became a symbol of the resistance towards the Russification of Finland.

 In 1905 the revolution ended the Russification, and the Finnish Parliament was formed - it has barely changed since, by the way. With this reform of the Finnish political system, Finland also became the 2nd country in the world to give women the right to vote, and the first country in the world to give everyone, regardless of gender, equal political rights. The first women in the world elected as Members of Parliament were Finnish. After this brief period of time Russification was put into action again. It was only ended by the October Revolution in 1917. Which brings us to our next topic...

End of the Year 1917

In 1917 the two Russian revolutions took place, at the beginning and at the end of the year.This unrest made the working class and middle class, who were not on very good terms with each other otherwise, to agree on one thing: They wanted independence.

On November 15th the Finnish Parliament declared itself to hold the highest legislative power in Finland.

A newspaper article from Viipurin Sanomat from 10.11.1917, telling about the decision the Parliament made to transfer the power (in Finland) that earlier was held by the czar to 3 people chosen by the Parliament.

The suggestion, voting and the final result of the plenary session where the Parliament ended up deciding to ditch their previous idea of electing those 3 people and just having the legislative power to itself.

On 4th of December the government - or P.E. Svinhufvud’s Independence Senate (P.E. Svinhufvudin itsenäisyyssenaatti) - gave the Declaration of Independence.

A picture of Svinhufvud’s Senate and the original Finnish Declaration of Independence. A link to the English translation of the text.

On the 5th, the Declaration was published for all the people of Finland to see - however, the rising tensions between the working class and the middle class, as well as the famine closing in kind of distracted the people.

On December 6th the Parliament voted in favor of Independence. The votes were 100-88, those 88 being the Social Democrats who’d wanted to negotiate with the bolsheviks before independence. This day was chosen as the national day of Finland, the Finnish Independence Day. However, on 6th of December in the year 1917, the newly gained independence did not stir much positive emotions. According to the memoirs of a Finnish author, Lauri Arra, that year, “everyone waited for or sensed that some terrible disaster was going to happen”. This terrible disaster was waiting for the newly born nation in the January of 1918, only a few weeks later.

To be a real country, other countries must recognize the independence first. Right away Finland asked Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Norway and Great Britain to recognize the new country’s independence. You might have noticed that a key player in this becoming-a-country-independent-from-Russia-and-asking-others-to-recognize-our-breaking-away-from-Russia-process is missing: Russia.

No, Finland did not ask Russia to recognize our independence at first. However, all the other countries refused to recognize Finland as independent before the country Finland was trying to break free from approved of said breaking free first, and so Finland had to turn eastward with an apologetic smile and go: “...Please?” I mean, I assume that’s how it went, I dunno, I wasn’t there.

The first ones to make a move were the Social Democrats: they asked their eastern comrades to recognize Finland as a proper nation. Lenin agreed to do so if someone came and asked. On 29th of December Svinhufvud himself, with the other negotiators, traveled to St. Petersburg. The Finnish delegation was forced to wait for hours in some room outside the room where all the important stuff was happening.

Then, just before midnight, literally minutes before the year 1917 came to a close, the Finns were handed a note, a piece of paper, with which Soviet Russia recognized Finland as an independent nation.

Said piece of paper.

Recognition

Soviet Russia was the first country to recognize Finland’s independence on December 31st, 1917. The confirmation for the recognition was given on January 4th, 1918. The next countries to recognize Finland as a country were France, Sweden and Germany, on January 4th as well. Other countries followed, even though countries like USA and Great Britain recognized Finland only after WWI, to make sure Finland wouldn’t go and join the bad guy Germany, so to say. (Krhm.)

A screencap of the Wikipedia article on the Finnish Declaration of Independence because it had the handy list here. On top of these countries, Romania, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Mexico and Hungary recognized Finland in 1920. Paraguay and Luxembourg followed in 1921, Serbia in 1922, and finally Afghanistan and Albania in 1928.

Map of Finland in 1917.

Here’s the end of part 1 of the Finnish Independence post. This focused on the history, but the next part, which I will hopefully publish soon, will focus on how we celebrate our independence. I hope you enjoyed. 

Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää!

[ddarker-dreams]

hi lock! you said you've been reading classics so i was wondering if you have any recs for someone who's just about to start as well? and where do you get your copies? i've been afraid of reading classics cos i feel like my poor reading comprehension won't be enough for the metaphors and vocabulary it has T^T

hello hello!! aaa i hope i'm able to be of some assistance... i'm not sure how useful my advice will be since i'm pretty new to reading the classics myself. i'll level with you. i'm in the same boat myself, i often have to reread paragraphs and look up fancy old words in the dictionary for even a modicum of understanding about what's going on . thee thine thou art and all that makes my head spin.

some things i generally feel help though:

doing some rough research about the author/the time period the story was written to get some background context.

looking up any and all terms you don't understand (if you're reading online, merriam-webster has a useful chrome extension where you right click a word and it'll give the option to automatically search it in their dictionary).

mentally preparing yourself for the amount of outdated worldviews you'll probably be encountering at some point or another. (i think there's still value to be gained from reading older works that definitely feel dated, it just takes some more willpower to get through... i'm looking at you no longer human...)

UHH as for works i’d recommend, whew that feels difficult. my scope is still somewhat limited since i’m still reading through things myself. what came to mind first though would be,

jane eyre by charlotte brontë (a bit of a lengthier undertaking and maybe not for everyone if prose isn’t your thing but i personally loved it)

animal farm by george orwell (i enjoyed this more than 1984 actually, it’s around 30,000 words or so, making it a good length to start out with)

notes from underground by fyodor dostoevsky (a personal favorite of mine and imo the best way to get a taste for dostoevsky’s writing before you delve into his lengthier works...) 

as for where i’ve gotten my copies, it’s been a few ways! i’ve borrowed from the library, bought paperbacks since they’re cheaper than hardcover, and for some of the stories that are over 100 years old and are now in the public domain, i read them online. 

[frogsandfries]

I think I'm managing my projects pretty well. For this interim project that I'm planning on the event I ever finish my current graphic novel, I wanted to use existing text from an existing book. So I better pick a book (or two) that are in public domain.

I was thinking a junk journal as my project bible--y'know, design characters and monsters and creatures, and figure out the story. But then I was thinking, why just the project bible, why not the whole project as a junk journal? So I'm starting with material gathering and organization, collecting the books that I want to use, creating the "stickers" I want to put into my digital junk journal. I'll probably need to create like, sticky notes to put over pages that I want to write on, and other such paraphernalia.

In a previous post, I was complaining that it feels like I don't have time for a second project, but if I don't want people wondering if I just fell off the face of the planet, I need to have a really solid idea of the next story that I want to do, at least a really solid script, if not some thumbnails.

At easily ten to twelve hours a day on my current graphic novel, I really am working at full steam, balancing my time between compiling my notes as neatly as possible, working ahead on lineworks, and coloring. I can definitely make time to goof around with something else on the occasional evening. Right now feels like the making of the junk journal, tearing up the old books, collecting my stickers and tapes and other ephemera. I'm getting ready to make the raw sketchbook. It's kinda fun in a goofoff kinda way. I don't even know how big the sketchbook needs to be yet, but luckily, it would be easy to expand it. I'm not even positive how I'm going to tell the story. It's such a completely different flavor and style than my current project.

Speaking of the current project, I think for the sake of publishing and purchasing, I think I need to figure out a new layout. But I obviously don't want to do it right now. I'm thinking about whether I want to do it for issue zero or if I can just do it from here on. I'm not even positive what kind of new layout I should use, I just think I could potentially fit more art into fewer pages.

Should I maybe skip this narrative? It bothers me that I don't have any of the original writing that I did, so all I have is my memory about the story. It bothers me that all I can remember is the rather juvenile premise of a child being allowed to explore relatively unexplored caves by herself, or with her younger friend; and the crazy old guardian, and somehow coming out in the future and getting shuttled off to another planet and somehow they get back to this planet.

I like the idea that I pulled out of this tangle, but I'm just not sure it's my style, necessarily. I can't think of how to........ express enough details for an audience.

Maybe I should just skip straight to the next part of Kitty's story. It would be a natural next step in my portfolio. I can always figure out another use for the junk journal idea.....

Besides, the only reason I would tell this other story is literally for the story that it gives rise to, and that wasn't enough of a story to make anything out of either. Maybe these childish stories should stay in my childhood......

[pugugly001-misc]

I may have miscommunicated part of my clever plan. When I said average lifetime, I did in fact mean from date of publication/creation/negotiatable. If you publish your novel at age 20, then it's still going to be covered by copyright until your 98 years old (average us life expectancy 77.23 years). I just think in principle a kid born that day should have at least a 50% of seeing it enter the public domain before he dies.

That said, I feel like your attempting to use copyright to immunize the artists family from what literally everyone else faces, and if we're going to do that (and I'm all for it) I would prefer to immunize everyone's family from that. Retail workers don't get any physical items left other than what they buy with their paycheck, it seems strange that an artist that you're assuming has been unable to monetize his art in a human lifetime is inherently more important to you than someone who helped fix your food at a diner or talked you through fixing your computer over the phone.

Know I think you have a valid counterargument to bring to the table - Those customer service people got paid up front whereas art is a lottery. I have a book on Amazon, and I'm pretty sure in the years since I've published it I've made $50. I also got one positive review in that time. Help desk work is still going to let me work until I die destitute and alone, but I do get a paycheck every 14 days so I'll die destitute, alone, and I won't have died of of either starvation or exposure.

And because of the nature of throwing out an artistic endeavor that will sink or swim, I am absolutely agree on a long copyright term to give it every chance to swim.

But an average human lifetime is long enough. No one is going to care about my writing after I die, the additional time is not going to change that. If you are a Neil Gaiman or Diane Duane, then guaranteed income from your art for one average human lifetime rather than 2-3 before it goes into the public domain seems to me to also be enough.

So one thing about the AI art controversy I don't see get talked about on one side of the conversation as much is that there is a nonzero percentage of the AI folks that feel that we should abolish copyright altogether

And no, this is a terrible idea

Many of them clearly seem to think that this would destroy big companies like Disney

It would not remotely hurt Disney's bottom line

They'd be a bit pissy about loss of control over their properties, yes

Then they'd turn around and steal blatantly from indie creators of all walks without any monetary compensation

We know they would do this because they tried to claim that they bought the rights to Star Wars and not the responsibilities of Star Wars (paying royalties to the writers who've worked on it for decades, some of whom are genuinely in need of that money)

Copyright is certainly too easy for big companies to exploit but it's also the only protection indie creators HAVE

Of course these are among the same people who think you're "elite" for being pathologically incapable of putting a pencil down.

Because it's so "easy" to make a living as an artist or something (what the actual fuck world are you living in if you think this)

[lushscreamqueen]

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966)

OPENING: Good evening and welcome to the SCHLOCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. I am your host Nigel Honeybone. Pause for laugh. Sorry I shouldn't have read that stage direction. Darn the cue cards! Tonight's Public domain nugget is a little film classic called JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKSTEINS DAUGHTER. Yes you heard right. I'm running a western, make no bones about it. So strap on the stirrups, and pull out your six shooter and get ready to ride with me as we watch JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKSTEINS DAUGHTER.

Break: Hello again. How are you enjoying the film? If you think this is bad wait til you see this spine tingling, terror inducing vomit able, sweat filled fear fest. And then after the break more of JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKESTEINS DAUGHTER.

MIDDLE: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand welcome back to JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKSTEINS DAUGHTER. Produced in 1966 as part of a double feature with BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA, and boy can you think of a worse premise for a low-budget western horror hybrid films, it must have been a very slow year for director William Beaudine. He was between Dog shows at the time having finished with Rin Tin Tin in 1959 and taking a break from "Lassie" to make this, a fictionalized version of the real-life western outlaw Jesse James encounters who the fictional granddaughter the movie's title notwithstanding of the famous Dr. Frankenstein.

John Lupton, who plays the part of Jesse James, is actually a bit too old for the role. When the film was made, Lupton was already 38 years old. The real-life Jesse James died before his 35th birthday, and is probably still rolling in his grave after this piece of schlock, although John Lupton does have a star on Hollywood Boulevard which is more than Jesse James can say. I guess it's for his work on Broken Arrow in 1956. Or his bit parts in Kung fu, Ironside, Days of Our Lives or Time Tunnel. Or any of the other 137 TV shows he made. And although he went on to do volunteer work with the Multiple Sclerosis Association and the Special Olympics, he died of unreported causes on November 3, 1993, at age 65. I guess he never got over the embarrassment of this film. Nard Onyx plays Dr Maria Frankenstein and I guess being an Estonian born German speaker living in Sweden before fleeing to England and then Canada made her accent just right for the role. This was her last movie and that is probably for the best. I'm not sure she could have ever have topped this. And it's probably a good thing she didn't try. Although I would have like to see her mud wrestle Dr Quinn Medicine woman, but that's just me.

Estelita Rodgregiuz aka the Cuban spitfire plays her final role as well as the Mexican servant Juanita. And that is a pity. She died under "Mysterious" circumstances just a few months after filming while preparing to play Lupe Valez the Mexican spitfire who also dies in mysterious circumstances. Co-incidence? I think so. Steven Geray is a passable Dr Frankenstein but in those days just having a European accent was enough for most horror films. And after working on the Donna Reed show and Dick Van Dyke a few times I'm sure he appreciated the challenging new role. Naturally enough even with the shootin' rootin' and tootin' and I don't even know what that means this is a Frankenstein Movie so go on…guess the plotline! No hints now. At some point without giving away the spoilers we KNOW Jesse James is going to bring his wounded muscle-bound partner to the doctor although he soon wishes that he had picked a different physician. There is a very good reason this received a "Golden Turkey" nominee

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKSTEINS DAUGHTER was shot in 8 days using lab equipment provided by Ken Strickfaden, who used the same gadgets in the Frankenstein films made by Universal, as well as 'Mel Brooks '' Young Frankenstein in 1974. Ken was an electrician; film set designer, and electrical special effects creator. He created the science fiction apparatus in more than 100 motion picture films and television programs, from 1931's Frankenstein to The Wizard of Oz and The Mask of Fu Manchu to television's The Munsters. In fact this is one of the few times this equipment was ever filmed in colour. And on that shocking revelation we take you back to the 1966 Classic schlocky Horror Film, JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEINS DAUGHTER.

CLOSING: So, contrary to the film's title, it should actually be JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEINS GRAND DAUGHTER. The movie combines cowboys, Indians, old west robbers, old east European, a sheriff, Mexican villagers, Jesse James and his muscle bound partner, a European brother and sister mad scientist team, and a monster. All it needs is an alien transvestite, and with all that, you should have an exciting although strange movie. That's what I was expecting, a lot of action. That's not what I got. Surprisingly, there isn't that much excitement. The movie moves slowly and is pretty tame. The so called monster is also a bit of a dud. I've seen scarier things on Rove. Not that scary and could have been done so much better. Although this film was actually quite bland, I'm still glad I watched it. It's all in the title. I just had to see what this movie was all about. For any fan of the older monster movies, this should be on your list, maybe quite far down on the list, way way way down on the list, just under the wedding video's with drunken auntie Maude but never the less on the list all the same. And on that note until we meet again in the Public Domain, or the repeats…Toodles!!

by Lushscreamqueen Dec 24, 2008

[iamstartraveller776]

Tumblr is trying to say that fanfic is okay to monetize because it falls under "fair use." IT. DOES. NOT. IT DOES NOT.

Countless court battles over DECADES, and the BEST outcome we writers have ever gotten is the ability to write fanfic FOR FREE without being sued.

Yes, if the original content is in the public domain (meaning the copyright has expired), you can make money off of a derivitive work (which is what fanfic is). But if the original content is under copyright, monetizing fanfic is copyright infringement. It's ILLEGAL. The person or company that holds the copyright has the right to sue you. They can take you to court and they will WIN 999,999 out out of a million. The odds are not in your favor. (And that 1 in a million? That's because the derivitive work is so dramatically changed that it's virtually unrecognizable from the original or a full parody, but even then, it's incredibly difficult to win.)

Do you have the kind of discretionary funds to pay a decent attorney to protect you? Probably not. Do you think Tumblr is going to lend you their attorneys to stand up for you when you get threats? I'm pretty sure the answer is "Hell, no." Just like YouTube, they'll be able to say that they aren't legally culpable in how we use their monetizing system. Your account is more likely get deleted, and they will wash their hands of this whole uncomfortable business.

And those who make fanvids, edits, and gif-sets (or even post a photograph you didn't personally take) are also liable if you monetize. Because unless you have a license, you cannot use someone else's intellectual property and make money off of it. You can't. It's not fair use. It's illegal.

Take it from a fandom old. It's been nigh on impossible to prove that fanfiction, as a derivitive work, is changed enough from the original to meet the threshold of not being copyright infringement. Please, for the love, do some serious research into copyright law before you put your fanfic behind a paywall. And have a savings for attorney fees if you do.