#ill add a direct link later promise

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Lyrics under cut

What's the point of living without dying for an ego?

So we validate our fantasies to feel like we are special inside

You know we love to lie

We like grabbing onto anything to feel like we're important

Not a moment that is shorter than a hiccup or a blink of an eye

You know we're scared of time

But we're all gonna die

Decompose into daffodils and dandelions

The bees will use our flowers for whatever they like

Make the honey that our grandkids will put inside their morning tea

It's the thing of life

We're all eating each other

The thing of life

Nobody lives forever

The thing of life

We don't know how to accept we're just a product of a chance

And less like gods but more like plants

Who can't stop making up reasons we're alive

(We're alive, we're alive, we're alive)

You know we love to deny

(To deny, to deny, to deny)

So we paint our face with intellect

Pretending we're not curious

Too busy, super serious

Don't have the time to do what we like

(What we like, what we like, what we like)

Baby look at the sky

'Cause we're all gonna die

Decompose into daffodils and dandelions

The bees will use our flowers for whatever they like

Make the honey that our grandkids will put inside their morning tea

It's the thing of life

We're all just eating each other

The thing of life

Nobody lives forever

The thing of life

We're all just eating each other

The thing of life

Nobody lives forever

The thing of life

[spoilmesweetieforficssake]

Between The Lines

Not exactly filling one of the asks some of you lovely people have left in my inbox - but it the idea was sparked from one! (The one via the link below if I've managed it correctly - and if I haven't I would dearly love if one of you kind folk could educate me!). The other asks in my inbox are currently all WIPs and will be on their way (please just be patient!)

Melissa put a gentle hand on Barbara’s arm, halting her mid-sentence.  “Hold that thought.”

Barb watches as her friend pushes herself out of her chair and crosses over to where you’re sat on the sofa, staring dumbly at your phone.

“What happened?” she asks, perching on the low table in front of you. 

Without saying anything, you turn your phone around, allowing her to see the screen.

“Oh sweetheart,” she gasps, pulling you into a hug. 

You hide your face against her shoulder, feeling tears start to fall.  You abruptly pull back on hearing some of your colleagues voices approaching the break room.  It’s an almost automatic habit now.

“Come on,” says Melissa, getting to her feet and tugging you up with her.  She slips an arm around your waist, pausing only to briefly place a hand on Barb’s shoulder, telling her she’ll catch up with her later.

She leads you in the direction of your classroom, closing the door behind the two of you and gathering you in her arms.  She doesn’t say anything, just holds you as you cry.  You’re not a pretty crier, and it’s hardly a delicate sniffle, but still, she doesn’t say anything.  She just offers you tissues and strokes your hair.

Once the initial shock of the news has washed over you, you find yourself calmer.  You rub your hands over your face, sure you look a mess, but manage a small smile as she presses a kiss to your forehead.

“You feel like you want to call your parents?” she asks.  “I could give you some space?  Go see Ava about us getting some time off?”

Out of all of her words, there’s one you latch on to.  “Us?”

Melissa opens her mouth to speak, only to snap it closed again, apparently debating her next words carefully.  “Well, I, Um, you…I mean…”  She sighs, frustrated at her inability to get her words out.  She gently rubs her hands up and down your arms.  “I don’t like the thought of you alone and hurting.  I just thought…I could come with you?  If you wanted me to?”

You feel tears gathering in your eyes once more, overwhelmed at the gesture.  “You’d really come with me?”

She replies with a soft smile. 

“A funeral isn’t exactly how I wanted you to meet my family but I’d really like it if you were there.”

*

Barb is on her way to get some craft supplies for her students when she sees Melissa coming out of your classroom.  “Is she okay?”

Melissa sighs.  “Not really.  Her Grandma died.  She’d been ill for a while, but she’d rallied so it’s a bit unexpected.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” offers Barb.  “I’ll add her into my prayers tonight.” 

“That’s good of you, Barb,” nods Melissa, casting an anxious glance back towards your classroom door.

“Can I ask something?” asks the kindergarten teacher.  She waits for the red head to meet her gaze and nod.  “How long?”

At this, Melissa frowns.

“You and her,” clarifies the older woman.  “She didn’t make a sound in the breakroom.  Had barely moved and yet you knew something had happened.”

The red head’s first instinct is to lie, but this is Barb.  She’s not even sure how she’s hidden it from her this long.  She’s hardly wanted to.  “A few months?” she offers sheepishly. 

“Months?” repeats Barbara, the shock evident in her voice. 

“I was gonna tell you.  I really was!  It’s just been…it’s all so new,” she lets out a huff of breath, dropping her head.  “Look I promise I’ll tell you the whole story but I need to go and see Ava about getting’ some time off.”  She looks up, that sheepish look back on her face.  “I’m going with her to the funeral.”

This time Barb’s shock is clear in the way her eyebrows shoot up her forehead.  

“I know, I know,” says Melissa, raising her hands in a placating gesture.  “And I promise, we can do brunch and I’ll tell you everything, But I need to go grab Ava.”

And with that, Barb is left watching Melissa’s retreating form, her gaze pivoting from your closed classroom door to her friend as she lets what she’s just learned sink in. 

*

Ava offers to find cover that day but you’re stubborn about it.  There’s nothing you can do at home today.  Nothing is going to undo what has happened and you moping around at home isn’t going to make it any better.  You stay till the end of the day, trying not to cry every time one of your students does something sweet, or Melissa pokes her head round the door or brings you a cup of tea. 

By the time the kids are gone there are four half finished cups littering your desk, but the sight of them makes you smile.  Each one of them an excuse for Melissa to spend a moment with you and check in with you.  Pushing them to one side, you take a deep breath, determined to try and get a start on some lesson plans to leave for the substitute who will be covering your classes the next week. 

“Hey.”

You look up to find a familiar sight; Melissa leaning against the doorframe to your classroom.   “Hey,” you offer back, though it’s more of a sigh than a greeting. 

“You ready to head or?”

“I want a get a start of a couple of things for next week,” you say.  “If that’s okay with you?”

She approaches your desk with a smile, moving to press a kiss to the top of your head.  “Course.  Whatever you need to do.  You want me to stay?”

You look up at her, finding that you’re able to offer a smile of your own.  “You know how much of a distraction you are, right?”

“I try my best,” she grins, leaning down to kiss you once more, this time pressing a sweet kiss to your lips.  “I’m gonna go see Barb, then.  Fill her in?”

“You okay with her knowing?”

Another kiss is pressed to your lips.  “You kidding?  You know I love a chance to show off.”  She gently cups your cheek, her face suddenly serious.  “Are you okay with her knowing?”

You nod.  You’ve only been waiting for Melissa’s go ahead to tell your colleagues.  It’s not the same for you as it is for her, here.  She has history here.  She’s had her life torn apart while still working here.  Had her personal life become the stuff of gossip.  You’ve always told her it’s her card to play when it comes to telling your colleagues.  “Means I can finally sit with you at lunch.”

*

Hovering in the doorway of Barbara’s classroom, Melissa feels distinctly like a naughty school kid.  “Hey.”

Barb looks up from the worksheets she’s been marking, trying to save herself from taking them home to do. 

“I just wanted to let you know I’m gonna be away for a few days next week.”

“So you’re really going?”

Melissa nods, moving to perch on the edge of one of the small student desks.  “I am.  Flights are booked.  Substitutes all arranged.”

Barb sits back in her chair.  “That’s big.”

“Yeah,” nods the red head.  “Kinda shitting myself if I’m honest.”

Smiling fondly, the kindergarten leans forward on her elbows.  “That means you care.”

“I know,” agrees Melissa shakily.  “I care too damn much here.  It terrifies me.”

You don’t want to interrupt, but you don’t want to hover and hear more than you’re meant to.  Knocking on the open door, you poke your head into Barbara’s classroom.

Melissa is immediately on her feet and moving towards you.  No longer having to hide what’s between you, she slips an arm around your waist, smiling as you lean into her. 

Barb approaches the pair of you with a gentle smile.  “I hear it’s not the easiest time for you just now.  If there’s anything I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you,” you say.  And you really mean it.  You know it can’t have been easy for the older woman to learn that her best friend has been keeping a secret from her for weeks, but it appears that she’s accepted it as graciously as she seems to accept many things.  “That’s really kind of you, Mrs Howard.  Melissa’s taking good care of me.”

“It’s Barbara, dear,” she replies, placing a hand on your arm.  “And you couldn’t find anyone better to take care of you.”

[thedreadpiratejames]

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

March 19: Trump declares drug a 'game changer'

As parts of the country start shutting down in an effort to curb virus spread, Trump announces the FDA will fast-track approval of unproven coronavirus treatments, including chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.

"The nice part is, it's been around for a long time, so we know that if it -- if things don't go as planned, it's not going to kill anybody," Trump says at a task force briefing.

March 20: Trump banks on 'a feeling' as Fauci calls evidence 'anecdotal'

Director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci says, "the answer is no" when asked at a task force briefing if hydroxychloroquine is an effective coronavirus treatment, explaining signs of the drug's promise were purely "anecdotal evidence."

"But I'm a big fan, and we'll see what happens," Trump steps forward to add. "I feel good about it. That's all it is, just a feeling, you know."

March 21: Trump cites success of small French study, publisher later says data 'did not meet its standards'

Trump tweets to his roughly 84 million followers that hydroxychloroquine taken with the antibiotic azithromycin could be "one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine" and should "be put in use immediately."

March 24: Arizona man dies after ingesting non-medication chloroquine

A man in Arizona dies after ingesting a form of chloroquine used to clean fish tanks in an apparent attempt to self-medicate for the coronavirus, according to hospital system Banner Health.

The man's wife, who says they learned of chloroquine's connection to coronavirus during one of Trump's press conferences, tells NBC News they took it because they "were afraid of getting sick."

March 28: CDC distributes a Health Alert Network warning against using chloroquine phosphate

CDC distributes a Health Alert Network (HAN) warning against using chloroquine phosphate without the recommendation of a doctor or pharmacy after one person is made seriously ill and a second dies from ingesting non-pharmaceutical chloroquine phosphate (a chemical aquariums use that is commercially available for purchase at stores or online) to prevent or treat COVID-19.

April 5: Trump on hydroxychloroquine: 'What really do we have to lose?'

"If it works, that would be great," he adds. "But it doesn't kill people."

April 9: NIH begins clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine

April 13: Study in Brazil linking hydroxychloroquine to fatal heart problems makes headlines

April 22: Vaccine chief ousted

The head of the federal agency charged with overseeing the rapid production of a coronavirus vaccine says he's removed from his post after trying to push back on problems he saw infecting the federal response, including being handed "misguided directives" to push the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.

[crafengoverse]

PI NNED POST AUGHG

I will clean this up better later but HELLO YES this is a blog by @nnugatoryextravagance dedicated to my insane OC ramblings

All characters unless specified otherwise exist in the same coalesced mass of the work in progress @crafengoverse-journals but this will be updated much more often and make way less sense I promise

Usual blanket "darker themes" warning here because none of my characters are doing ok in the head or in life lets be real, ill tag things though dontchu worry

If you wanna ask me things or flip on the roleplay oc ask blog switch in my brain my inbox is open wider than your mom please ask me about my ocs please p

Link to my toyhouse if you wanna go snooping too its a complete ass mess right now but yeauh

Ive got some artistic requests for how I want my work to be treated too under the cut as a bonus too I suppose, have fun im gonna go get a drink

- I'm 100% okay with people shipping my characters together, in fact I actively encourage it, so long as you're not erasing their canon identities (since almost everyone is queer) or making shit thats straight up illegal/dangerously towing the line then go ham I love gay people

- Im also more than okay with fanart ofc, no need to ask first, I will die for you point blank

- Please god behave yourselves, I don't mind too much if I get tags about my oc's boobs or something- but I STRONGLY draw the line at strangers making and posting sexually explicit content with them under ANY circumstance... even if saying this has never worked for any artist ever, egh

- Not to sound like a pissy little baby but each one of my characters are very very dear to me so please go easy on me with any negative feedback I beg god bless (I assure you I already know how ugly they are that was on purpose and part of why I love them)

- Please do NOT commission other artists to draw my characters unless you have my direct say-so, I absolutely love art of my boys and im flattered, but I really dont want the risk of... certain people I used to know getting their grubby hands back on my stuff, if this makes any sense

- If you cishet-ify or white-ify any of my characters who are obviously depicted as/stated as/heavily implied as not that I'm killing us both

might add more later if i feel the need to but i think this is good 4 now

[the-bjd-community-confess]

More Divaz confos

Mod: Round two of these, previously: link. There’s some interesting customer reviews in this batch (5 and 8) which may be useful to readers.

1.Vic3mage "the secret bjdivaz vip group is just pictures of boxes coming in and going out". Yeah, between the bitching about d0llshe, asking people to post on doa for them, dunking on ex-customers, posting pics of random doll parts that they can't identify which doll they're supposed to go with, whining about how little money they make, whining when ppl e-mail them, whining. Yeah, other than that it's just boxes, and alpacas u can buy off amazon anyway lol.

~Anonymous

2.The butthurt users crying and guilttripping under every Divaz confession who have never been seen before elsewhere on this blog are extremely unsuspicious and unproblematic and definitely unconnected to Divaz and unbiased in every possible way

/s

~Anonymous

3.idk shit abt bjd1vas but v1cemage i can absolutely tell you the shit about ch0o is 100% accurate, fucker's got a long, long history of being an awful little man that stretches well beyond his involvement in the doll community. between the two i'd still trust bjd1vas over ch00 ch00 the fool any day!

~Anonymous

4.The Z3st and Div4s thing is really silly and both entities were being shady but did they really have to take the DZ waiting room down with them? :( He had even made a separate thread about it......

~Anonymous 

5. RE: BJD Divaz

I’ve been a customer of BJD Divaz since they first started, when it was only run by Chart3rline. I even contacted other BJD companies trying to persuade them to work with Divaz as their US representative. Most declined because they didnt like D's commission fee, but I was able to persuade a few of them.

I asked them to purchase a doll off DOA because I couldnt afford the asking price, and while they did, I found out later that instead of agreeing to purchase the seller's price, they negotiated the price to be lower. This significantly cheaper price was not passed down to me. I paid the full price +the commission fee based on that full price. I am disappointed I was not told this. This is when I stopped viewing them as a "friend" and instead, as a business. I dont hold this against them, it’s context to what Im going to say later.

I’ve stopped purchasing from D after my recent order from them. This company usually takes 3 or less months to make a doll. I’ve ordered the doll from D and it took 11 months. They let me know it arrived to them in March and that it will be shipped soon, except it only shipped on July, and only after I sent them several "reminder" emails. Before people in the comments try to put the blame on me for not sending a reminder soon, please keep in mind that I acknowledged the email in March and confirmed everything and they keep stressing to not send them emails because they are busy, I’ve emailed once every month since. I’ve since switched to ACBJD and Ive been happy with communication and the dolls ordered. I imagine ACBJD gets the same amount of emails, but they dont berate their customers if they email more than once.

I regret when people wanted a D0llshe, but not deal with him, I always recommended D. I would warn people of ordering directly and instead go through D. They assured buyers they would be handling communication and all the efforts so they wouldnt worry, except they didn’t. A person that I’ve recommended D to, who surpassed 2 years, keeps messaging me for help because D wouldnt reply to their emails. She is respectful, sweet and a timid person, not a Karen. This person, emailed D without a reply so would email a week later, only to be told that their email would be pushed down to the bottom if emailed again. No response, so she goes to FB and IG, who both tell her to email because they arent the person running orders. Finally got a response that they would get their refund, after D0llshe sends D's payment, but minus the PP fees. 3 months later and theres no refund, only a promise of them getting it later. Why is the customer missing out on fees when they have no doll? Customer emails d0llshe and he says he cant offer refund, because they didn’t order through them, which is understandable, but when all options are out for a customer, do you blame them for chargebacks?

If anyone files a chargeback, D will be blacklisting them from every company they rep, as in blacklisting you from buying direct from those companies. I urge everyone who has negative experiences with D to email the companies they rep instead of venting on confession blogs, and writing your experiences on social media. Make it count and send letters to the companies they represent, and please provide proof because they will try to make you out to be a liar.

Speaking of, they made vague posts on cl0ver singing for charging paypal fees, and that they offer guarantees as an official dealer, except when offering refunds, to non delivered products I might add, they are keeping the fees, and offered no help with d0llshe, even before they ended their dealership with them. Someone on DOA was told to not email them unless the wait time surpassed 1.5 years. They are even so petty that they post screenshots with the full name and address (dox) of the customer on purpose and then delete it out a day later as if they just realized their "mistake".

Before you try to make excuses for them about the fires, keep in mind, I am dealing with a business. The lower price negotiation with the DOA sale, I am in no way obligated to give them a pass or treat them as a friend when they made it clear that our relationship is strictly business. Their issues, are not my issues. D0lk got dragged for not shipping in time, others, including artisans, got dragged for being so late with communication and sending back refunds for cancelled orders. Why does D get to be exempt?

The supporters are the worst part of this, because of instead of being honest so D can improve, they support them for being "real". For example, look how micemage words it, to make it seem like this criticism is from one person, when there are people on addicts who didn’t have good experience. Check the bjd dealers tag here, you will see the supporters in the comments going off on any and all criticism of D. Some have sane comments, but the majority are cult like and try to identify the person venting as if it’s one person. Addicts deletes threads with criticism asking people to instead direct it to their feedback group; which lets be honest, no one is going to do because its "not that bad", and most dont want to join a new group, which is mostly dead.

This is my first and last confession on D, I’ve emailed each company they rep and told them my experience as well as contacting the 3 month wait company, with screenshots of my order, how they handled it, and the excuse they used to put blame on the company for being so late (package arrived march to D, 4 months to be shipped is on D, not the company). I’m not using company or order details because I know they are petty enough to try to identify me and publicly shame me like they have to others. This and the threat of suing is why not many people like to go public with their experience. They just keep feedback neutral, move on and never deal with again.

~Anonymous

6. Listen, I can't take you seriously in regards to BJD!vas because you're posting on a confession blog. If you were serious, you would have posted in buyer beware groups, DoA reviews or the board to get things resolved, or you would have made a complaint to the BBB. And your language makes you come off more as someone with an agenda rather than someone who is trying to warn people. If shipping is the issue, stop buying with standard shipping and pay the extra price for express shipping. I saw one of you complain that it sat with them for 20 days; that's probably because you're not the only one and they more than likely have a queue to check and then ship out. Do mistakes happen? Yes, because we're human. I've been in this hobby for a few years now and it seems like most people know you're going to have to wait, sometimes even outside the expected wait time. And shipping something as big as a doll is a timely endeavor. I shouldn't have to say that.

My point is simply to stop complaining on an confession board and either take it to the places previously mentioned. Posting here behind the anonymous mask makes you sound like a petulant child who didn't get their way right away.

~Anonymous

7.My only issue with BJD Divaz is how I never get any updates. Every email, they tell me to join their facebook page for status updates. I dont have a FB and I dont want to create one. I bought my doll through their website, updates should be posted on their website, or they could send me an email. That isnt asking much.

~Anonymous

8. Since there seems to be a lot of either "completely negative everything sucks" or "everything was sunshine and rainbows" confessions about bjd!vaz I thought I'd chime in with a neutral review.

PROS

-They were always polite and professional in their emails, and gave me very detailed answers to my questions.

-I got exactly what I ordered, so no mix ups or missing parts or anything like that.

-I think them being forthcoming about personal issues (only one person on staff, illness, the flooding isue etc.) on social media is good, since it keeps customers updated as to why there might be delays.

-If you live in the US their shipping is very reasonable.

CONS

-Reply times were varied. Sometimes it could take over a week, sometimes a couple hours.

-My order took about 10mo which, when comparing to other people who ordered through the same company around the same time, was about 3x as long as if I bought it direct and 2x as long if I had gone through a different dealer. I get some of the waiting time is out of their control, but it was kind of ridiculous.

-They dont necessarily ship the same day they send you a tracking number. I wish they said something like, "Here's your tracking number, our pickup is Xday so it should start moving after that" just so I could be aware.

All in all no major complaints. I got my doll and all that. Their lone employee is clearly overwhelmed. I hope they hire another person, if only to give the one a break.

Truthfully, I most likely won't buy through them again. I'd rather pay the international shipping and go direct, than deal with the extensive wait time. I'd still recommend them to someone looking for a very long layaway, though. I paid in full, but if I had a 12mo layaway I would've never known they weren't ready to ship my doll until month 10.

~Anonymous

[ducavalentinos]

Why do you think that Cesare helped Della Rovere become Pope? It's seems uncharacteristically...stupid? Perhaps illness and grief had made him desperate?

(Also I can't get that scene of Della Rovere hitting on Cesare in Borgia out of my head help lol)

Oh, thank you anon, for giving me the chance to vent my thoughts about the most frustrating event in Borgian history! This is long-ish, and tumblr is being weird(!!!!!!!) with the read-more link, so I'm not sure where/if it will show up below or not. Before answering your question, there is a question to be made first, I think: Why was Della Rovere still breathing in the year of 1503? If we follow the Borgias’ historical literature, the vast majority paints Rodrigo and Cesare, in particular Cesare, as unscrupulous, utterly ruthelss, vindictive men. They were the terror of Italy, and they meticulously eliminated all of their enemies. Yet, most of their enemies and their families, important to add, lived. Including Della Rovere, the most dangerous and bitterest rival of their family. What are we supposed to make of this? It's another one of those common situations in Borgian bios where what it is said is demonstrably at odds with the historical material, and it's something to ponder, I mean, Cesare only found himself in his predicament in 1503 because he and his father failed to strike down Della Rovere during those long eleven years they were in power. Their inability and/or unwillingness to do so was a graver political mistake than Cesare helping Della Rovere win the papacy in the end. And answering your question now, yes, I think the initial impression is that it does seem uncharacteristically stupid for Cesare to support Della Rovere, and help him win. But then again, I don't think Cesare's biographers are very good in showing the complexity of papal Conclaves, and the whole political landscape Cesare was in, and all the possible factors that came into play in his decision. Maybe it's a decision made not to overwhelm or bore the reader, but it usually has only one or two chapters covering both Conclaves, with a lot being left out or ignored, or simplified. The two most popular opinions are that: 1. Cesare had no choice, but to support Della Rovere. Some claim he was no longer in a powerful position, or felt lost without his father's guidance, and/or Della Rovere was the only and strongest candidate for that Conclave from the start, and his election was an impossible thing to avoid. It was already settled, and Cesare had to roll with it the best he could, and try not to make the future Pope even more hostile towards him. 2. He had other choices, namely he had cardinal Rouen, but in the end it didn't worked out, and Della Rovere stood unopposed as a candidate for the papacy, which forced Cesare to support him, and/or he apparently believed Della Rovere's promises, and thought they could reach an understanding. Opinion #1 is the most messy, and it makes zero sense to me today, given there is actual historical info reporting the contrary. The idea that Cesare's power and influence died out or diminished after his father died, or that he was lost without his guidance, are false. Prior to Della Rovere's election as Pope Giulio II, Cesare's power and influence remained strong. He still had large sums of money with his bankers in Genoa and other places of Italy, he continued to be visited daily by cardinals and orators, and indeed it even seems he was thought to be the decisive factor for any papal election. There isn't much criticism to be made either, when looking at his actions right after Rodrigo died, esp. considering at the same time he was dangerously ill himself, and it wasn't something he had prepared for, being it impossible to predict such a thing, he played all of his cards wise and correctly. He was able to secure Piccolomini as Pope, who if not a Borgia partisan, at least was not antagonistic towards him and his family. About the second Conclave, there is a report from Machiavelli in which he says cardinal Pallavicini was the only one being regarded as a possible rival to Della Rovere. And Burchard, whose info seems to have been correct in this instance, writes of a meeting that took place between Della Rovere and Cesare with the Spaniard cardinals at the Vatican, a variant of this info is of Della Rovere meeting Cesare and the Spaniard cardinals at the Castel Sant' Angelo, where they were able to reach an agreement. Opinion #2 makes a little more sense, and it matches a little bit more with the info there is, but it's still messy. Cardinal Pallavicini is almost never mentioned (only Woodward mentions him iirc), and it has to be said that even if Della Rovere succeeded in making himself an unopposed candidate, nevertheless, the Spanish vote could decide an election. So Cesare still had choices, and the reason why he didn't went with those choices, in my view, is not because he believed Della Rovere's promises, it's not the case of Della Rovere winning in the game of deception, I believe both men were aware that agreement was only temporary, and Cesare's decision there was composed by other factors. And between these two opinions, here's what I think is more plausible to have happened: Cesare, knowing his beloved tutor Giovanni Vera was as impossible a choice in that second Conclave as he had been in the first, thought about supporting the French cardinal Rouen. He was far from the ideal choice, but he was a workable choice for him. However, although his influence with the Spaniard cardinals was strong, he must have been aware his influence with them had limitations. The cardinals would never vote for a French candidate, because they were also obliged to King Ferdinand II of Spain, who also had his influence with them, and whose interests they were there in Rome to protect and represent. So much like Vera, Rouen quickly became an impossible choice for him. After this, it's reasonable to think he turned his efforts towards any candidate who stood a chance against Della Rovere, which turned out to be cardinal Pallavicini. Pallavicini is interesting, because like Della Rovere, he was also from the Liguria region (Genoa), but unlike Della Rovere, he maintained a friendly relationship with the Borgia family during Alexander VI's papacy. Rodrigo Borgia was able to secure his support during his own battle to win the papacy in the Conclave of 1492. He also counted on this cardinal's efforts when trying to nominate Cesare for the cardinalate. And he appointed him Bishop of Pamplona, a title previously held by Cesare himself. There is nothing, that I've found anyways, suggesting he and Cesare had direct interactions, but it's possible Cesare cultivated a relationship with him much in the same way he did with cardinal Piccolomini (later Pope Pius III). So by all accounts, Pallavicini was Cesare's best choice then, and it is intriguing there isn't much about this, or why Pallavicini failed to make himself Pope. In theory at least, with Cesare's support, he would have won the papacy. The Italian cardinals were not supporting Della Rovere because they wanted him, many disliked him, some still remembered the papacy of his uncle, but he seemed like a better choice than another Spaniard, or a French, or god forbid a Colonna or an Orsini, but with cardinal Pallavicini, they had a good choice there, and the only reason I can think of as to why they didn't elect him comes down to money and benefices. At some point, Pallavicini, even with Cesare's support, couldn't keep up with the resources Della Rovere made sure of having, and just like Rouen, he fell behind. From this point forward, things get more complicated for Cesare, but Della Rovere's election was still not a concluded reality. A question that follows when reading the info about him meeting with Cesare is: Would he have reached out to Cesare, the son of a man he hated to the core, from a family he despised, if his election was such a sure thing? I think the answer here is no. Della Rovere entering into an agreement with Cesare highly implies, if not proves it, he did not had the necessary votes to win. He needed the Spanish vote, 11 votes to be precise, which were under the influence of Cesare. Without the 11 votes, every single voting would end up nowhere, and a thought I believe was on Della Rovere's mind at the time was that: the longer it took for an election, the more difficult it became for him to stay as strong and unopposed. The support he had could shift in one week or two. New rivals could emerge, unexpected things could happen, because papal Conclaves were mostly unpredictable. It depended a lot on money, influence, the political situation on a daily basis, esp. in Rome, where as it was the norm without a Pope, was a city under total chaos. Della Rovere could only control so much for so long, and I think he knew that very well, hence why he swallowed his hatred, and went to negociate with the son of his archenemy, and get the 11 votes he needed to win as soon as possible.

Another question that follows after reading all this is: Ok, so why didn't Cesare used that for his advantage? better yet, why didn't he use the chaos in Rome, for example, to subtly force the cardinals to stop supporting Della Rovere and find a more favourable candidate for him? Or why didn't he simply stalled the election until a more favourable candidate appeared? These are all things he was in a position of doing, and the reason why he didn't do it, and instead went with helping Della Rovere can be better explained when considering the following factors: 1. You mentioned his grief, and his illness, which might have made him desperate, and while I don't think it was that exactly that made him desperate, I do think it counts as a factor into understanding his state of mind at that moment, and why he made that final decision. Cesare had gone through a rollercoster of events, and dare I say, emotions in less than 3 months. He lost his father, the constant and closest male presence in his life, as far as we know. He didn't had time to grieve him nor make sure he had a decent and respectful burial (it's possible he heard later what was said about his death and burial, and I have no idea how that made him feel) because he was also fighting for his life then. First against illness, then against his enemies in Rome. Not only that, other people and things depended on him. He was the head of the house then, and it fell to him the responsibility, among all that chaos, to keep the women and children of his family safe, as well as to make sure to get all the valuable possessions left in the Vatican and in his palace, before they were sacked completely by servants and others. This was an important step to ensure their survival in the coming months. Gioffre was there to help him, and he did helped, but you know, everyone looked at Cesare for leadership and protection, and he could barely leave his bed, so that surely must have added an extra layer of stress for him. But then, he succeeded in making Piccolomini pope, and it looked like the worst was over, things looked hopeful for him and the Borgia family. And then, suddenly Pius dies, only after 26 days of papacy. Again, if it was truly a natural death, there is no way Cesare could have predicted that, and just like that he was right back where he started. Having to navigate the messy political affairs of a papal conclave and its outcome, of which he and his family’s lives and future depended on. Cesare was resilient. Rodrigo raised his children to be resilient, and to not crumble at the face of adversity, to persist. But I guess we can agree this a lot for a person to process in such a short amount of time. So by the time the second Conclave happened, it would be reasonable to think Cesare might have been feeling overwhelmed, tired, in pain (he had gone through awful treatments), and overall just a bit shaken up mentally and emotionally, although he always tried to look strong and positive —it's interesting to notice it didn't seemed to have been in his nature to be a pessimist, only much later he is recorded as feeling more despondent, and saying Fortuna has left him *gets sad in spanish* — which made him more open to consider options he wouldn't have had under normal circumstances, I think. 2. As said above, Cesare seems to have had this trait in his personality of being resilient, it's one of the reasons why I think he survived for as long as he did (same with Lucrezia, I suppose), he had an instinct to not give up no matter how impossible the situation looked, of not being afraid to face adversities that came his way. He seems to have welcomed challenges, and it was when he felt most encouraged to fight and to thrive. When he was the prisoner of Della Rovere in the Vatican, then pope Giulio II, one of Giulio's men said to him: "signor duca, you have always been spirited." to which he is recorded as having said that: "quando più sono in adversità tanto più mi fortifico di anima. // the more I am in adversity, the more I strengthen my soul." So this is another factor to consider. It's possible he saw the situation with Della Rovere as just another adversity he had to face, and with his tenacity, intelligence, and most importantly, with time, he could overcome it. 3. Another possible factor, but this one is only my personal assessment after reading Alvisi and some of the documents he exposes there, is that both Rodrigo and Cesare display a difficulty in understanding not everyone was as cold-headed and pragmatic as they were. It's evident in their actions, they never had much, if any, trouble putting their personal dislikes aside, and working with their enemies, if it meant they would reach a certain goal they wanted, and/or if it avoided needless conflict or bloodshed. However, not everyone is capable of rising above their feelings, and in this case prejudices, and work like that with people they see as enemies. It was the case of Florence and Venice, for example. Every single conversation the Borgia men had with these two city-States made it painfully clear no agreement would ever happened between them. They would much rather damned themselves and their cities than to genuinely try to work with men they suspected of being marranos and who they saw as being beneath them. It was personal, deeply personal, and to a point just irrational, too. But Rodrigo and Cesare did not seemed to grasp that, like the idea of acting against one's own interest simply out of personal dislike or prejudice didn't register inside their minds, it was just preposterous to them (I agree! dsdjsdjsj). With the right terms, surely an agreement can be reached, no matter how they feel about us, that's what they seem to think, and it's a bit funny, and sad to observe. And if I'm correct here, then Cesare helping Della Rovere might have carried some of this mentality, too. Him thinking: yes, of course, Della Rovere hates me and my family, but not to his own detriment, right? (wrong, just as like in the cases of Venice and Florence, but he later learned that the hard way) and this thinking made him conclude they could work together, despite of any hatred. 4. And finally, the last factor, which I see it as the final nail the coffin, sort-to-speak: His impatience. In the middle of all this papal business, and him fighting for his life, Cesare was also receiving daily news from the Romagna, and after Pope Pius's death, the situation went from bad to worse, his dukedom was being attacked by the men he had ousted from those cities (instead of having had them executed, as it was the norm of his times) with the full support of Venice and Florence in doing so, and only a few cities, like Cesena, were able to withstand these attacks. This is what I think made him desperate. We have to keep in mind Cesare was a man of action. Sitting idle watching his project, one that seems to have been dear to him beyond just mere ambition, wasn't how he did things, and it had to be pure agony for him to be in a position where he couldn't do much. He was still ill, he couldn't organize his men well, he was pretty much trapped at the Castel Sant'Angelo since the one time he tried to leave Rome, the Orsinis almost caught him, and if they caught him, he was a dead man, him and everyone with him. And he didn't had papal authority, only with that would the attack of these cities stop and only with that could he leave Castel Sant'Angelo and finally do something, so he needed a Pope elected as soon as possible, too, even one like Della Rovere. This hurry, this agony, combined with the other factors mentioned above, very likely might have made him overlook some details about his particular situation, misunderstanding Della Rovere’s nature, and underestimating this man’s hatred for him and his family.

Personally, I believe he should have stalled the Conclave for as long as possible, and waited a more favourable papal outcome for him. Sure, it involved other risks. The main one losing all of the Romagna, but here's the thing: the Romagna was basically lost to him anyways. That region belonged to the Church and to papal rule, and Cesare's control over it came from his position as Gonfaloniere of the Church, but imo, that wasn't a position he could have kept. Popes tended to appoint this position to men close to them, family members preferably, because it was an important and influential position, and they needed someone they could trust, and whose interestes would be aligned with them and their papacy. Maybe there is a precedent of a Pope letting the son of the previous Pope in this position, instead of changing it for someone inside their own circle, and nothing bad happened either lol, but no example comes to my mind right now. And in any case, I don't think they were quite in the same situation as Cesare. Cesare's situation was kind of unique, too. He was a beloved and popular ruler, and this little fact, whether he realized it or not, made him even more of a threat to any Pope who wanted to have full control over the Papal States. It created a conflict of power where the Gonfaloniere's influence in the Romagna would have been stronger than that of the Pope himself, which could lead to dangerous situations. With a decent amount of money, the right partisans, and the people's support (who always had anti-papal feelings to being with) Cesare, if he wanted to, could very easily strike up a rebellion against papal authority. No clever Pope, surely not Della Rovere, would have wanted to have that hanging over their heads. That's way too much power for a person to have over them and their papacy. So the Romagna wasn't something possible for him to keep, unless we consider other possbilities, but that's another topic, the point is: at least with a favourable Pope, one like Pius, Cesare could have tried to secure some cities, as well as some fortresses in the lines of the Romagna, Umbria and Tuscany regions. I think that's something he could have achieved with a favourable Pope, creating a new duchy for him and his family, not as Gonfaloniere, but as the Pope's vassal perhaps. But, maybe he didn't considered that, or maybe he had info that didn't came down to us which made this scenario not an option, or info which made him feel confident with his decision with Della Rovere, as usual, this is another theme where there's many things we will never know for sure, but I hope this helped a bit into shedding a light on this confusing, frustrating event in Cesare's life. (And I don't remember that scene, anon??? lol is that the one where Della Rovere is already pope, and he wants to humiliate Cesare further so he brings him naked and in chains to his rooms? and then proceeds to take advantage of the situation, forcing Cesare to kiss him? that one? that's the only scene that comes to my mind, and I have to say I felt pretty disgusted watching it. I guess it's another example of the poor taste of much of Fontana's writing, he really seems to like taking things to an extreme and always enter this sadistic, twisted territory with his characters that really is not my thing. On the other hand, it made me appreciate Mark as an actor even more, because it's not every actor who could have put that scene off, among so many others tbh, without looking utterly ridiculous, and failing to convey any emotions to the viewer. I felt very sad for Cesare there, in Fontana's world, Cesare was a victim of rape in the past, and in that scene with Della Rovere, he was again at a vulnerable position, without any power, and being force to kiss this man who had his life and his future on his hands. It's again, a extreme and sadistic take of the real psychological torture Della Rovere seems to have had enjoyed inflicting on irl!Cesare once he was pope Giulio II.)

[sciencespies]

This Molecule Could Be the Key to Understanding Why Concussions Have Such Long-Term Effects

https://sciencespies.com/nature/this-molecule-could-be-the-key-to-understanding-why-concussions-have-such-long-term-effects/

This Molecule Could Be the Key to Understanding Why Concussions Have Such Long-Term Effects

Denver Bronco player David Bruton grabs his head on the field after a reported concussion. Many patients with such head injuries suffer symptoms months after their diagnosis, even though their brains look healthy on CT scans. Doug Pensinger / Getty Images

Imagine you fall down the stairs in your house and bang your head. Or perhaps you hit your noggin during a car accident. Or maybe you are football player who has just taken yet another blow to the head. You are diagnosed with a mild or a severe concussion, and you end up in a hospital and even an ICU.

Eventually your injury heals weeks later, or so it seems, because your CT scans look clear, and you go on with your life. But in a few years, strange things start to happen. Bright lights and loud noises begin to bother you. You have trouble sleeping. You can’t concentrate, can’t keep up with your daily routine and your work performance plummets. That’s because deep within your brain, in the areas where the imaging technology can’t see, that old injury never healed. Instead, it became a chronic inflammatory process that will eventually damage your brain tissues, explains a study published this month in Science.

According to a 2018 study in the Journal of Neurosurgery, about 69 million individuals around the world suffer from traumatic brain injury every year. Geoffrey T. Manley, a trauma neurosurgeon at San Francisco General Hospital and professor of neurosurgery at the University of California San Francisco who wasn’t involved in the study, sees patients every week who seem to recover, only to suffer from debilitating symptoms later that develop as a consequence of the initial injury. Over time, this slow-brewing process can trigger cognitive impairments, sleep disturbances from abnormal neuron firing and even epileptic spikes—short “electrical explosions” that don’t happen in healthy people. Manley says this process is very prominent in brain injury patients and is severely disabling. The inability to have a normal, healthy sleep is particularly detrimental. “Sleep disorders affect all aspects of your life,” he says.

Neuroscientists had known for years that brain injuries can linger, but the underlying molecular mechanisms weren’t fully clear. They don’t have any therapies to stop these secondary injuries from occurring. “I have no treatment for traumatic brain injury other than symptomatic relief, or medication for seizures once patients develop them,” Manley says. However, epilepsy drugs often have such profound side effects that people don’t want to take them. “So we are really, really desperate for anything,” he says.

Now, the new study sheds some light into the brain areas where CT scans can’t see and where the inflammatory process takes hold. Led by Jeanne Paz, who studies neurological diseases at Gladstone Institutes, the study identifies that a specific molecule, named C1q, is present in certain brain areas at unusually high levels for months after the initial trauma. The study also describes the team’s efforts—so far only done in mice—to show that a drug prevents the inflammation from setting in.

Most brain traumas affect the cerebral cortex, which sits right underneath the skull, absorbing the impact. But Paz’s team found that the ill effects can propagate to the thalamus—a small area located near the brain’s center responsible for processing sensory input. The constant communication between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex is what enables us to make intelligent decisions—the thalamus processes the input and the cortex decides what to do. For example, if you’re talking on the phone and your toddler suddenly lets out a loud scream, you know you must stop the conversation and attend to the child. The thalamus processes the sounds from the conversation and the toddler, the cortex decides what’s important.

As part of the study, scientists examined human brain tissues obtained from autopsies of patients who ultimately died from their head trauma. The team found that the C1q molecules were present in the diseased patients’ thalamus for over a week after they were originally hurt. “We were surprised to see such high levels of this molecule in the brain region that wasn’t even affected by the initial injury,” says Paz. “Our hypothesis is—it’s because the thalamus is very closely connected to the cortex and the two constantly talk to each other.” This constant talk and coordination generates a certain rhythmic activity in the brain that is important for attention, consciousness and sleep. So when the cerebral cortex is hurt, the communication between the two is disrupted, and some neurons within the thalamus die. As a result, the brain’s cellular cleanup crew shows up.

Called microglia, these cleanup cells remove damaged neurons and fight infections. To do this, they release the C1q molecules, which, overall, play a very important role in brain health. C1q trims synapses—the points of junction between neurons—to avoid having too many of the connectors. C1q promotes brain development and helps humans forget memories, which is necessary for storing new memories. When things go as normal, C1q trims synapses as it should. When injuries happen and neurons die, C1q helps clean them, but instead of stopping, it continues to trim what it shouldn’t trim anymore. “So C1q can be both good and bad,” Paz says.

Normally, in the adult person’s thalamus, no C1q is present, she says. Researchers believe that in some cases, the microglia cells just keep releasing the molecule within the thalamus, making the process chronic. “We wanted to know what makes the process chronic and how we can interrupt it,” Paz says. So her team tried treating brain-injured mice with a potential therapeutic, shortly after the trauma and before long-term symptoms appear.

Paz worked with collaborators at Annexon Biosciences, a pharmaceutical company that is developing and testing an antibody therapeutic that can block the activity of the C1q molecule. The antibody was initially designed to treat Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which is also linked to the aberrant activity of overzealous C1q. Paz wanted to see if the drug would have beneficial effects in brain injury cases in mice.

The team treated brain-injured mice with antibody cocktails within 24 hours after injury and then did twice-weekly treatments for three weeks. That brought down the amount of the C1q molecule and prevented chronic inflammation and the loss of neurons in the critters’ thalamus. It also prevented the development of the epileptic spikes and restored their sleep. But when the researchers studied how mice genetically engineered to not have the C1q molecule dealt with trauma, their initial brain injury was much worse—they suffered much greater neuronal death in the cerebral cortex, where the blow struck. So ultimately, the C1q indeed lived up to its “good and bad” reputation.

The C1q molecule shouldn’t be blocked at the time of injury, because it seems to protect the brain and prevent cell death, Paz explains. But blocking the C1q shortly after the initial injury may reduce inflammation.

Manley describes the study as an important milestone in the brain trauma treatment paradigm. “It demonstrated that after the initial injury to the cortex, there is the secondary injury to the thalamus—you can see pathology evolving,” says Manley. But what’s really promising, he adds, is that an antibody drug can help remediate that secondary injury. Antibodies are drugs that do exactly what their name suggests—they work against the body’s proteins or molecules that have somehow gone rogue and are now causing harm rather than performing normal functions. Designed to bind to rogue molecules and disable them, antibodies have revolutionized how medics treat many diseases—neurological, autoimmune, cancer and most recently, Covid-19.

So far the C1q antibody has been tried only in mice, which means it is still at least a few years away from arriving to the brain trauma wards. The therapeutic would have to be tested in human trials and approved by the FDA first. But this is an important step in right direction, Manley says, because the currently available meds can’t prevent the injury from progressing. “So when I see a paper that not only explains the mechanism that generates the pathology I see in my patients every day, but says that here is a monoclonal antibody that apparently suppresses this pathology, I find it very exciting,” Manley says. “We need better ways to treat people.”

Biology

Brain

Health

Medicine

Mice

#Nature

[ollifree]

1. What are things they both find funny?

Pet antics. They share a morbid sense of humor about the plague that anyone else who lived in Vesuvia at the time would find abhorrent. They have different limits on it and know where each other’s is.

2. If they could each describe each other in one sentence, what would it be?

You’re gonna limit Lucio to one sentence? Lucio? He’s gotta talk about how smart Skylar is, how good he looks, his talent in magic, his thoughtfulness. Lucio’s favorite words for Skylar are, in order, “Pretty, precious, perfect.”

I’m taking Skylar’s from a prompt from last year.

“Should I start with his eccentricities or…? He’s loud, brash. More cunning than people give him credit for. He’ll have an absolute meltdown if he can’t get his makeup right and have himself convinced two seconds later he always gets it perfect. He wears white because he’s always covered in dog hair. He makes sure everyone knows what his opinion on something is, and will do everything within his power to fix something he deems wrong.”

3. If they complimented each other, what would they say?

Lucio makes a point of complimenting however Skylar looks, but it’s a rare day Lucio doesn’t praise Skylar’s intellect and dedication to his work.

Skylar’s go-to descriptor for Lucio is “handsome”. His favorite (non-extensive) list of things to compliment Lucio on are: how hard he tries, how brave he is, his confidence, how passionate he is when it comes to the things he cares about.

They each compliment each other’s ass at least ten times per day.

4. What would be their ship name?

Either "grind against your bones until our marrows mix", or "the awful edges where you end and i begin", both of which are lyrics from Ludo's The Horror of Our Love.

5. What activities do they enjoy together?

Favorite activities are lounging on each other, doting on the pets, and people watching. Skylar gets coaxed into doing magic (however mundane) so Lucio can compliment him. In modern verse they binge watch bad reality tv. Lucio will put up with being outside when it snows only because Skylar likes outdoor winter activities and only because Lucio knows he’s gonna get some hardcore snuggle time at the end of it.

6. What is/are their love language(s)?

Lucio’s are gift giving (showing) and words of affirmation (receiving). Skylar’s is quality time. Physical touch is mandatory for both of them.

7. Write a ~300 word love scene for them.

This question is arophobic.

8. What were their first impressions of each other?

I’m always down for some self-fic plugging [link].

Skylar couldn’t have had a better introduction to Lucio: Julian had brought Skylar to Vesuvia for the menagerie, and Skylar and Lucio immediately clicked over their shared love of animals. Lucio truly has a unique personality and Skylar was excited to meet a new kind of person. Add on Julian’s endorsement of the Count and it’s no small wonder Skylar wound up staying in Vesuvia long past when he would have left anywhere else.

9. Have they made each other cry?

Yes. Mostly via mutual vulnerability and happiness. Then the plague happened.

10. Write a ~300 word argument scene for them.

This is a direct call out for me not writing my fic yet.

11. What causes them to fight?

Lucio’s Lucio-isms getting out of hand, or Salsa destroying something of Lucio’s. He can’t get mad at his fur babies so Skylar gets to take the brunt of it. Their biggest arguments happened over the coliseum and how to deal with the outbreak of the plague.

12. Do they have differing political opinions?

Before Lucio’s death Skylar didn’t invest himself enough in Vesuvian politics to give a concrete answer in that area. Insofar as Lucio’s views of being in a position of power? Yes they absolutely have different opinions.

13. Name something they would never do for the other person.

I was originally going to say “nothing”, then I remembered Lucio has one. So Skylar’s currently sitting at a “nothing” with an asterisk of “unless I remember something”.

Lucio’s is being around Skylar when Skylar’s sick. Lucio has a phobia of catching whatever’s going around after the plague and has to nope out of situations where he’s around illness. That being said he is hyper aware of Skylar’s health, as after leaving Vesuvia Skylar becomes more prone to colds and flues.

14. What would be a dealbreaker?

Skylar's dealbreaker almost happened, which is someone's wants getting in the way of / actively opposing another's needs. Lucio's would be unfaithfulness.

15. What are traits they dislike in one another?

Nothing they outright dislike, but they do recognize the faults the other perceives in themselves and help them improve in that regard. For Skylar it’s his non-confrontational nature getting his needs and wants ignored. For Lucio it’s empathizing with others and taking responsibility for, and dealing with, the consequences of his actions.

16. If they broke up, what would be their opinions of each other?

How dare you.

17. What senses (sights, smells, feelings, etc). remind them of each other?

Never in anyone’s life would Lucio have expected to get an attachment to the smell of books yet here he is. The same goes for hot chocolate. Skylar walks into the makeup department and it’s just like walking past Lucio’s collection.

18. What would be their love motto?

19. If they could each write a single line in their marriage vows, what would they be?

This isn’t in the marriage vows because they have the awareness to go “if we say half the things we feel in front of anybody, concerns we are not equipped to address in an acceptable way will be raised.” After the ceremony, when they’re on their own, this exchange happens:

Lucio: “Love me. Until we’ve been dead so long our bones are dust.” Skylar: “Not good enough. It’ll have to be until the world is ash.”

20. What is a promise they have made to each other?

Similar ones to what’s above. Trauma-induced codependency reinforced by magic ritual body trading meta sure is something.

21. How have they changed each other for the better/for the worse?

For the better: by helping one another with the issues listed in question fifteen. For the worse: they gain a lot of codependence for stated meta reasons, along with a very deep-seated fear of losing each other again.

In the end they do leave Vesuvia. Ultimately they are going the route of “this is a very important lesson we’ve learned about responsibility and the consequences of our actions. Now let’s get the fuck out of the city we’re responsible for and one of us nearly ruined with his actions.” They acknowledge the hypocrisy of this, and while in the end they’re better off outside Vesuvia it is there.

22. If their lives were what was originally intended at birth, would they have still fallen in love?

Because I’m a sucker for them the answer’s yes. They only hit the love stage to begin with because Lucio was able to put the work into unlearning and breaking the cycle of the worst parts of his tribe’s culture. I will say though that Lucio staying with the tribe would make it vastly more difficult for them to meet. Skylar still does his traveling, as his parents didn’t have any major expectations beyond “well-functioning adult” when raising him, but considering how infamous the warring tribes of the south are I don’t see travel into the steppes being easy or recommended.

23. Write a ~300 scene between them with no dialogue, only body language.

I honestly may come back to these but 300 words is a lot for my amount of spoons rn.

24. What is something they have each had to forgive the other for?

“Skylar has never done anything wrong in his life.” - Lucio Arcanagame

Salsa’s definitely destroyed a few things Lucio’s particular towards, and as it’s impossible for Lucio to be mad at any of his fur babies Skylar gets the brunt of it.

Along with Lucio getting snippy with him for Salsa mauling his good shirts, Skylar’s had to forgive Lucio for a lot. Mostly it’s Lucio-isms that make things get blown out of proportion. Then there’s the Coliseum. And Lucio’s deals. And the plague.

25. What moves do they know work on the other?

“Want to have sex?” / “Yes.”

If all else fails, Lucio knows he can get Skylar out of a book and back to real life by smoochin’ behind Skylar’s ears.

26. What are their favorite parts about physical affection/sex?

Sex is a cathartic extension of their shared love language, physical affection. The orgasms are an added bonus.

27. Do they have any kinks/fetishes that they share?

All of them. Like I say it as a joke but it’s just easier writing-wise to have them on the same level. Realistically it’s like 80-90%. Both of them want to please their partner and have a good time doing so. Their communication on that front is solid.

28. Write a ~300 fantasy one of them has about the other.

This question is acephobic.

29. What are each of their signature foreplay moves?

“Want to have sex?” / “Yes.”

30. Write a short exchange of dirty talk between them.

What up I’m Olli I’m almost 27 and I still haven’t learned how to write porn.

Lucio:

“Does puppy want me to fill him up?” “So precious���” “Look. Look at what I’m doing to you.” “Beg for it.” “Not yet. You piss when I tell you to.” “Do you like the taste of your cum that much?” “Good boy.”

Skylar:

“How you feeling, handsome?” “Are you ready to behave?” “What a mess you are.” “Fuck me so full I can’t move.” “You want to be good, don’t you?” “Master.” “Fuck fuck fuck fuck! Fuck me, fuck me.”

31. What do they love to do after sex?

Shared baths.

32. Do they enjoy morning or night sex?

Why are we limiting when the sex happens? The time of day doesn’t affect their enjoyment of it. They’re exhibitionists with impunity there is literally no limit on when the sex can happen.

[if-only-angels-could-prevail]

“American Things” by Tony Kushner

Summer is the season for celebrating freedom, summer is the time when we can almost believe it is possible to be free. American education conditions us for this expectation; school's out! The climate shift seductively whispers emancipation. Warmth opens up the body and envelops it. The body in summer is most easily at home in the world. This is true even when the summer is torrid. I have lived half my life in Louisiana and half in New York City. I know from torrid summers.

On my seventh birthday, midsummer 1968, my mother decorated my cake with sparklers she'd saved from the Fourth of July. This, I thought, was extraordinary, fantastic, sparklers spitting and smoking, dangerous and beautiful atop my birthday cake. In one indelible, ecstatic instant my mother completed a circuit of identification for me, melding two iconographies, of self and of liberty: of birthday cake, delicious confectionery emblem of maternal enthusiasm about my existence, which enthusiasm I shared; and of the nighttime fireworks of pyro-romantic Americana, fireworks-liberty-light which slashed across the evening sky, light which thrilled the heart, light which exclaimed loudly in the thick summer air, light which occasionally tore off fingers and burned houses, the fiery fierce explosive risky light of Independence, of Freedom.

Stonewall, the festival day of lesbian and gay liberation, is followed closely by the Fourth of July; they are exactly one summer week apart. The contiguity of these two festivals of freedom is important, at least to me. Each adds piquancy and meaning to the other. In the years following my 7th birthday I had lost some of my enthusiasm for my own existence, as most queer kids growing up in a hostile world will do. I'd certainly begun to realize how unenthusiastic others, even my parents, would be if they knew I was gay. Such joy in being alive as I can now lay claim to has been returned to me largely because of the successes of the political movement which began, more or less officially, 25 years ago on that June night in the Village. I've learned how absolutely essential to life freedom is.

Lesbian and gay freedom is the same freedom celebrated annually on the Fourth of July. Of this I have no doubt; my mother told me so, back in 1963, by putting sparklers on that cake. She couldn't have made her point more powerfully if she'd planted them on my head. Hers was a gesture we both understood, though at the time neither could have articulated it; "This fantastic fire is yours." Mothers and fathers should do that for their kids: give them fire, and link them proudly and durably to the world in which they live.

One of the paths down which my political instruction came was our family seder. Passover, too, is a celebration of Freedom in sultry, intoxicating heat (Passover actually comes in the spring but in Louisiana the distinction between spring and summer was never clear). Our family read from Haggadahs written by a New Deal Reform rabbinate which was unafraid to draw connections between Pharaonic and modern capitalist exploitations; between the exodus of Jews from Goshen and the journey toward civil rights for African-Americans; unafraid to make the yearning which Jews have repeated for thousands of years a democratic dream of freedom for all peoples. It was impressed upon us, as we sang "America the Beautiful" at the seder's conclusion, that the dream of millennia was due to find its ultimate realization not in Jerusalem but in this country.

The American political tradition to which my parents made me an heir is mostly an immigrant appropriation of certain features and promises of our Constitution, and of the idea of democracy and federalism. This appropriation marries morally and ideologically indeterminate freedom to the more strenuous specific mandates of justice. It is the aggressive, unapologetic, progressive liberalism of the 30s and 40s, a liberalism strongly spiced with socialism, trade unionism and the ethos of internationalism and solidarity.

This liberalism at its best held that citizenship was bestowable on everyone, and sooner or later it would be bestowed. Based first and foremost on reason, and then secondarily on protecting certain articles of faith such as the Bill of Rights, democratic process would eventually shift power from the mighty to the many, in whose hands, democratically and morally speaking, it belongs. Over the course of 200 years, brave, visionary activists and ordinary, moral people had carved out a space, a large sheltering room from which many were now excluded, but which was clearly intended to be capable of multitudes. Within the space of American Freedom there was room for any possibility. American Freedom would become the birthplace of social and economic Justice.

Jews who came to America had gained entrance into this grand salon, as had other immigrant groups: Italians, Irish. Black people, Chicanos and Latinos, Asian-Americans would soon make their own ways, I was told, as would women, as would the working class and the poor -- it could only be a matter of time and struggle.

People who desired sex with people of their own gender, trans-gender people, drag kings and drag queens, deviants from heterosexual normality were not discussed. There was identity, and then there was illness.

I am nearly 38, and anyone who's lived 38 years should have made generational improvements on the politics of his or her parents. For any gay man or lesbian since Stonewall, the politics of homosexual enfranchisement is part of what is to be added to the fund of human experience and understanding that we pass on to the next generation-upon which we hope improvements will be made.

The true motion of freedom is to expand outward. To say that lesbian and gay freedom is the same freedom celebrated annually on the Fourth of July is simply to say that queer and other American freedoms have changed historically, generally in a healthy direction (with allowances for some costly periods of faltering, including recently), and must continue to change if they are to remain meaningful. No freedom that fails to grow will last.

Lesbians and gay men of this generation have added homophobia to the consensus list of social evils: poverty, racism, sexism, exploitation, the ravaging of the environment, censorship, imperialism, war. To be a progressive person is to believe that there are ways to actively intervene against these evils. To be a progressive person is to resist Balkanization, tribalism, separatism; to be progressive is to seek out connection. I am homosexual, and this ought to make me consider how my experience of the world, as someone who is not always welcome, resembles that of others, however unlike me, who have had similar experiences. I demand to be accorded my rights by others; and so I must be prepared to accord to others their rights. The truest characteristic of freedom is generosity, the basic gesture of freedom is to include, not to exclude.

That there would be a reasonably successful movement for lesbian and gay civil rights was scarcely conceivable a generation ago. In spite of these gains, much of the social progress which to my parents seemed a foregone conclusion has not yet been made, and much ground has been lost. Will racism prove to be more intractable, finally, than homophobia? Will the hatred of women, gay and straight, continue to find new and more violent forms of expression, and will gay men and women of color remain doubly, or triply oppressed, while white gay men find greater measures of acceptance, simply because they are white men?

The tensions which have defined American history and American political consciousness have most often been those existing between the margin and the center, the many and the few, the individual and society, the dispossessed and the possessors. It is a peculiar feature of our political life that some of these tensions are frequently discussed and easily grasped, such as those existing between the states and the federal government, or between the rights of individuals and society's claims upon them; while others' tensions, especially those which are occasioned by the claims of marginalized peoples, are regarded with suspicion and fear. Listing the full catalog of these claims is sure to raise howls decrying "political correctness" from those who need desperately to believe that democracy is a simple thing.

Democracy isn't simple and it doesn't mean that majorities tyrannize minorities. We learned this a long time ago, from, among others, the Moses of that Jewish American Book of Exodus, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, or, in more recent times, from Thurgood Marshall. In these days of demographic shifts, when majorities are disappearing, this knowledge is particularly useful, and it needs to be expanded. There are in this country political traditions congenial to the idea that democracy is multicolored and multicultural and also multigendered, that democracy is about returning to individuals the fullest range of their freedoms, but also about the sharing of power, about the rediscovery of collective responsibility. There are in this country political traditions, from organized labor, from the civil-rights and black-power movements, from feminist and homosexual liberation movements, from movements for economic reform, which postulate democracy as a dynamic process. These traditions exist in opposition to those which make fixed fetishes of democracy and freedom, talismans for reaction.

These traditions, which constitute the history of progressive and radical America, have been shunted to the side in an attempt at revisionism that began during the McCarthy era. Over the course of American history since World War II, the terms of the national debate have subtly, insidiously shifted. What used to be called liberal is now called radical, what used to be called radical is now called insane. What used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what used to be called insane is now called solid conservative thinking.

The recovery of antecedents is immensely important work. Historians are reconstructing the lost history of homosexual America, along with all the other lost histories. Freedom, I think, is finally being at home in the world, it is a returning -- to the best particulars of the home you came from, or the arrival, after a lengthy and arduous journey, at the home you never had, which your dreams and desires have described for you.

I have a guilty confession to make. When I am depressed, when nerve or inspiration or energy flag, I put on Dvorak's Ninth Symphony, "From the New World"; I get teary listening to the Largo. It's become one of the alltime most shopworn musical cliches, which is regrettable. My father, who is a symphony conductor, told me that Dvorak wrote it in America and then contributed all the money from the New World Symphony's premiere to a school that accepted former slaves. But as the story goes, his daughter fell in love with a Native American and Dvorak took the whole family back to Bohemia.

Like many Americans I'm looking for home. Home is an absence, it is a loss that impels us. I want this home to be like the Largo from the New World Symphony. But life most frequently resembles something by Schoenberg, the last quartet, the one he wrote after his first heart attack. Life these days is played out to the tune of that soundtrack. Or something atonal, anyway, something derivative of Schoenberg, some piece written by one of his less talented pupils.

The only politics that can survive an encounter with this world, and still speak convincingly of freedom and justice and democracy, is a politics that can encompass both the harmonics and the dissonance. The frazzle, the rubbed-raw, the unresolved, the fragile and the fiery and the dangerous: these are American things. This jangle is our movement forward, if we are to move forward; it is our survival, if we are to survive.

[dragonprincefan]

It’s one week until The Dragon Prince will be available for everyone on Netflix.

Haven’t heard of it yet? You’re in for a treat.

The Dragon Prince is a new animated series created by Aaron Ehasz (Avatar: The Last Airbender) and Justin Richmond (Uncharted) as the debut creation of their new story and play studio, Wonderstorm Inc. Adding to that prestigious team, we have Giancarlo Volpe (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Green Lantern: The Animated Series) as the Executive Producer for the animated series, and his experience in telling nuanced stories with complex characters is already shining through in the three episode preview.

Don’t worry. No spoilers here.

Let’s start out with the trailer if you haven’t already seen it.

I’ve seen a few people worried about the animation style, but having seen it in action, I can safely say there’s not much to worry about. An article over at Polygon did a good commentary on it, but it bears repeating. While there are a couple of moments where small details can seem a bit stuttering, they really are small moments (flags flapping in the wind in a wide shot, or a nod here and there) and easily overlooked or a matter of stylistic choice. The action, and there is so much action, flows smoothly and keeps you on the edge of your seat watching the interplay. (I could do an entire post on the creative weapon designs and will later.) The changing frame rate used in some scenes over others is put to good use, punching up some moments for extra effect.

The first three episodes introduce us to a world on the brink of war. There were originally six types of magic (Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, Sky, and Ocean), but 1,000 years ago, a Human mage discovered Dark Magic. The horror of the newly invented magic caused the Elves and Dragons of Xadia to banish the Humans to the West, setting up a border guarded by the Dragon King, Thunder. In more recent history, the humans killed Thunder and destroyed the egg containing his sole heir, The Dragon Prince. This is what has brought Xadia and the Human kingdoms to the edge of war.

That’s the simple explanation. The one that makes the Humans out to be the unquestionable and unrepentant villains of our tale. However, life, and this story, are not such simple matters of black and white, and we quickly start to see that in the show as it presents the things that have happened thus far as shades of grey and a result of complex choices with wrongs committed on both sides. A lot of time is spent reinforcing that choices are rarely simple nor purely acts of good or evil and how violence can quickly become an unending cycle. It addresses honor and loyalty and how quickly it can become a mess when you start seeing the other side of a conflict as full people. The story is setting up complex and nuanced morality and views of history that I’m really excited to see where it goes.

It looks like family of various types is going to be a major over-arching theme of the story with step-siblings Callum and Ezran, the contrast of a more antagonistic but playful relationship between siblings Soren and Claudia, Callum’s complicated relationship with his stepfather, King Harrow, and Soren and Claudia’s relationship with their father. This is also set against Rayla’s relationship with Runaan and the other Moonshadow Elves and what is sure to be her burgeoning friendship with the two Human princes. I expect found family and other relationships not forged by birth to become increasingly important as the story continues.

Additionally, we have a beautifully diverse cast. King Harrow (Luc Roderique) is clearly a black man while his step son Callum (Jack DeSena) appears to be white and crown prince Ezran (Sasha Rojen) appears to be mixed. Despite initial screenshots of Rayla (Paula Burrows) and Runaan (Johnathan Holmes), not all of the Elves are pale skinned and white-haired. The crownguard is specifically stated to be comprised of men and woman, and we see a variety of skin tones and hair types of multiple genders. We even see a primary character with a visible limp who requires a cane much of the time. There was a lot of set up and introductions to get through in the first three episodes, and as we see our three leads (Callum, Ezran, and Rayla) traverse the world of Xadia, I expect to see even more visible diversity come in since it was stated as a specific goal of the crew during the San Diego Comic Con 2018 panel.

The writing itself walks a nice balance between those heavy themes of moral greys and smatterings of humor. The characters are quirky and believable. It would have been so easy to set up Claudia (Racquel Belmonte), Soren (Jesse Inocalla), and Viren (Jason Simpson) as purely antagonistic characters, but instead they aren’t. Viren’s motivations and loyalties are complex and you are left uncertain of what to make of him. Soren varies between clever and foolish, and while he teases, doesn’t seem to be genuinely ill-intentioned, helping as often as he jokes. Claudia too walks a fine line between airhead and genius with a fierce sense of caring and loyalty. Ezran and Callum are both young, and far more aware of the complexities of their world and position than they’re generally given credit for while still being kids who want to have fun and want the world to be simple. They’re all complex characters and seeing how they will grow and mature over the course of the story is exciting.

In just the first three episodes, The Dragon Prince has introduced multiple plot threads that promise a lot of potential and all threads that I’m fascinated to see not only how they end up, but how hey get to that ending. 

If there’s one criticism to be had from the first three episodes, it is just how much happened. There’s a lot going on, a lot of nuanced motivations and relationships introduced, and a lot of world-building set-up. It could easily be overwhelming. I think they overall did a good job of parceling it out in small pieces at a time to prevent it feeling like you’re getting huge info dumps, and leaving you fascinated to learn more at the end of each episode.

Side note: Watch the credits for every episode, the illustrations change each time, and I feel like they show even more of a glimpse into the characters and cultures of Xadia.

I really believe this is going to be the new show to watch. A complex world full of nuance, adventure, magic, dragons, and elves that doesn’t let the fantasy elements overwhelm creating strong characters that I think everyone is going to be able to find one or more that they can personally identify with on some level. 

All this is done while showing that the wider events of the world don’t leave children untouched no matter how much you try to protect them. With the themes that loyalty and honor, right and wrong, differ based on your position and perspective on the course of events while asking the questions of whether or not the ends justify the means and how you can end a cycle of violence makes it look like we’re in for some truly poignant story telling.

Remember how I mentioned that Wonderstorm is a “story and play studio”? That means this animated series is just the beginning of our introduction into a deeper world. While the wonderful team at Bardel Entertainment animated the series, the storytelling and direction comes from Wonderstorm which is also actively developing a connected video game. We don’t know yet what platform or play style to expect from the game, but we can probably safely expect it to be fully integrated with the story and world presented in the animated series, and the animation style of the show will translate very well into the 3D models of a game. Those seven different kinds of magic and various creatures and races create a lot of room for exploration in a game, and the history provided at the beginning of the first episode means games could be set at various places or times within Xadia, adding even more depth to the world-building.

I look forward to jumping into the truly immersive franchise the Wonderstorm team appears to be building, and I hope you all will too.

Remember to watch all nine episodes of the The Dragon Prince when they’re released Friday, September 14th. (Go ahead and add it to your Netflix list here.)

Join us on twitter to make #TheDragonPrince trend on September 14th. Starting at 2pm PDT, and going for at least an hour, make and RT posts with #TheDragonPrince in them. (Get your local time: link)

[a-memory-of]

Ellere Valahan did as she promised, and helped him pack as well as sweep the broken mug. She apologized many times for falling asleep on him as she had. She seemed a bit more herself, tired, but herself on their trip to the ferry and to her home later that night. Perhaps, the reminder that he was alive, and somewhat well, had been enough for now.

She had made a simple dinner, excusing herself and apologizing once more for a lack of something better. Ellere made sure to promise a breakfast in the morning to make up for it. After supper, she had let him settle a bit in the guest room he had occupied many times before.

A bell or so later, Ellere gave three soft raps against the door before opening it. "I thought of something that might help you, dear, if you'd like to try? If anything, perhaps it will at least give you peace enough to get some sleep tonight." With every apology that Ellere spoke, Ruran Vas would be quick to assure that all was well. He politely dismissed the need to ‘make up’ for supper, but it was the usual cordiality shared between the two of them. Both would go the extra mile regardless of how the other refused to pressure.

Even though the rest did not stop his occasional twitching, it did bring him comfort. He didn’t need to be alone for this. He had settled in quickly to the now-familiar bedroom, choosing to stay near his bed in case a spasm slipped him off balance. There was little he could do in this state—certainly nothing that involved any sort of motor skills. He settled for reading a novel off the bookcase, even if his wandering thoughts meant he read the same line five times before it clicked.

He looked up as Ellere entered. His hair had dried and taken some fluff, and he had managed to put on simple lounge-wear, the runes still glowing beneath the fabric. A thin hand scritched his shoulder, and his head tilted. “C-certainly,” he replied, sitting up straighter. His hand twitched. “What do you have in mind?” Ellere herself had changed, wearing a housecoat. She had taken a bath after dinner, and her hair was tied back again, though loose and lay over one shoulder. Offering him a smile, she took a seat on the edge of the bed beside him. She did not appear to have anything in her hand, no potions or tools.

"It is something I taught myself to do in an attempt to help my mother when she was ill," she started to explain. "You are familiar with my technique wherein I use my own aether to connect with another in battle? In a similar vein, I do so to use the connection in an attempt to calm and... work through aetheric anomalies."

Perhaps understanding that it was an odd explanation, she hummed, "Think of it like... a massage. Though not for your body, but for what dwells in it." “Will it hurt you?” Ruran was quick to ask out of concern. “My aether is...volatile, it burns.” He closed the book and set it on a nearby shelf, giving his full attention toward Ellere. “We have...both been through much, I would not wish to put you at further risk.” "It should not," Ellere assured, her smile gentle and encouraging. "I am aware you are a very special case, but so long as Ari'doram does not fight me, I see no risk. It will... be far less invasive than what happened when we dealt with the artifact and I have never felt pain when I have connected with you before."

She reached over and gave his hand a squeeze, the scooted a bit further back, pulling the pillow into her lap. Giving it a pat, she offered for him to lay back, "Relax. It will help me if you do. Just take deep breaths and get comfortable." Ruran nodded and obeyed, shifting so that he could lay back with his head on her lap. “Ari’doram will not fight,” he assured. “Our helplessness is shared, in this...”

With @weepingknight

He did his best to relax, taking in a deep, muffled breath. Tension had become a regular part of his posture, and it took quite a bit of effort to fully ease. The flinching still occurred, some just minor twitches, while others caused a noticeable spasm. He grimaced apologetically for those. Helping him settle, Ellere gave a small smile as she looked down on him. Her hands rose up, gently touching each of his temples. It had been some time since she had done this. Such extreme cases of aethersickness were not something that was commonplace, even in her clinic. She did not say anything about the spasms, only quietly hoped she could actually ease them some.

She let her eyes close, and opened the connection of her own aether, forming a link as she had done in battles before. That part was easy. Everything was done with aether alone, she couldn't see it, or touch it, but it was still a strange feeling he could likely sense too.

It was true, his aether was different. Strong and vibrant. But so long as she did not bring any into herself, she doubted she would feel the pain Ruran worried of. Instead, she used her aether and worked it around his, searching for areas where the flow was abnormal. If she found it, she would work to direct it more evenly, and aid the trauma of being thrust back all at once. The flow of his aether was abnormal everywhere, at first. It was chaotic, not knowing where to go, and running rampant through the runes on his skin. The soulstone, despite its efforts, could not control the amount that spread.

Nudging the excess toward the stone would lessen the flood, as well as slow the amount racing through his back. It would take time, of course. The thought may also occur that more runes could better secure the power...but who knew if the doctor was willing to carve more.

Eventually, through nudging, Ruran’s spasms would become less extreme, just a few twitches here and there. Time would tell if things would remain that way.

Ruran, meanwhile, had fallen into almost a meditative state. He was not asleep, but he was also not wholly present. His eyes had closed, and his breathing rose and fell in rhythm. As time passed, Ellere began to realize the severity of it all. She had always known the aether in his body was not his own, nor was it a normal, healthy amount to carry. If Ruran had been a average person, not bound as he was to this entity, she knew he likely would not be here. She could feel the way the runes on his back contained the force, but it was if they were struggling.

Perhaps, one way to have prevented all this was to strengthen them, add more. But it was not an option she liked to consider. Urging the aether back toward the source seemed to ease much, for now. Ideally, Ellere would have liked most of it to be gone entirely but, perhaps that would not be necessary.

It was like attempting to alter the course of a river, directing flow back where it was comfortable. And about a bell later, Ellere deemed it enough for now. She had promised not to exert herself on his behalf, after all. When she opened her eyes again, and began retracting her aether back, she gave a deep sigh. Petting back Ruran's hair she honestly thought he'd fallen asleep, and seemed hesitant to move.

Ruran’s eyes slowly opened, though he was very tempted to actually fall asleep, with the strokes to his head. His pain and stiffness had lessened; Ellere’s abilities were a godsend.

“...I think it helped...” Ruran murmured. The carved runes had dimmed considerably and were less warm, even though they still had a soft glow. “Thank you, once again...” "Ah, haven't lost you to dreams, just yet then," Ellere smiled, voice quiet but relieved. In truth, she had not known if there would be anything she could have done in Ruran's unique circumstance. But she was glad of it. She continued to pet his head, above the mask for a moment more. "Perhaps another session tomorrow will have you feeling even more like yourself..."

Carefully, she shifted and made an attempt to move out from under him, to let him rest. "But for now, you could probably do with some sleep, hm? Want me to fetch you anything?" “You need not over exert yourself,” he gently advised, shifting as well so that she could move more easily. The soulstone flickered against him in its usual pulses. “W-whatever you did, Ari’doram feels more in control.” He took in a deep breath, able to do so without fear of a pang catching his lungs.

He rubbed the side of his neck. “I do not...need anything.” The thought of her company lingered in his head, but he rarely voiced such selfish wishes. “Y-you are undoubtedly in need of rest yourself. I shall see you in the morning, yes?” Ellere gave an amused sigh, looking downward a moment as she slid to sit on the edge of the bed. He was right, and for once she was inclined to listen. She would wait to see how they both felt tomorrow, then. "I am glad for it," she replied, honestly, watching the stone flicker for a bit.

Standing, Ellere pulled up the blanket from the end of the bed, laying it over him. "That you will. With the breakfast promised," her hand moved down, finding his through the blanket and giving it a slight squeeze. "Wake me if you need anything, dear. Or, even if you just want something." She smiled, bringing her fingers up in the practiced touch to her lips and then down to his mask. "Good night, Ruran." He squeezed her hand in return, and the look in his eyes was fond as she touched his mask. “Good night,” Ruran softly returned, settling beneath the covers. With even the small relief provided, he felt he could properly rest. “P-please, sleep well.”

[xx-ingie-xx]

A Summary of All Changes in the Fortitude Revision So Far (Chapters 1-35)

Rather than submit individual posts each time I update the Fortitude revision (aka Epic Edit), I’ve decided to outline all the changes in one continuous summary post, and I will reblog this same post with updates until the revision is complete. 

Every chapter has received a thorough editing to improve style and flow, and many have been almost completely rewritten. This summary outlines changes to the story or characters. Details after the break:

Chapter 1

- Trimmed down and/or improved background info and general descriptions. Some sections have been placed in other chapters for better, more gradual pacing through the background story (I hope – this was very difficult!). - Removed the Council member Lord Pierson, simply because I couldn’t remember his purpose, lol. He seemed redundant to Lord Timothus. - Gave the ministers all last names. - Briefly explained the Alliance and made Impa Hyrule’s representative.

Chapter 2

- Introduced Lady Ariella and made her the Chamberlain, which is basically the castle housekeeper. - Edited more background info - Described the throne room (which is called the Audience Chamber) - Changed the conversation with Zelda’s ladies-in-waiting

Chapter 3

- Edited the conversations between Link and Zelda to sound more natural - Removed scene between Vasilis and the necromancer (too short to be important and no longer fit timeline, removing it also adds to the mystery) - More background info changes

Chapter 4

- Edited the conversation between Link and Zelda - Trimmed down the journey to the rendezvous site - Impa accompanies Zelda at the rendezvous - Improved the conversation between Zelda and Ashton

Chapter 5

- Basically unchanged, just lots of rewording and general polishing

Chapter 6

- Edited the scene between Link and Zelda

Chapter 7

- Placed a section from Ch 8 at the end

Chapter 8

- Added a new section during the journey to the camp - Ian accompanies Zelda (and Adam and two other guards) - I dropped subtle hints regarding Zelda’s pregnancy, so her miscarriage seems less random (and so her loss of magic is consistent throughout the story)

Chapter 9

- Basically unchanged, just lots of rewording and general polishing

Chapter 10

- Gave the Alliance city a name: Antheia - Removed Adam Carlen’s hearing scene – summarized instead (distracts from the main plotline, not important enough for a whole scene) - Impa leaves sooner - goes to Antheia to inform the Alliance of Ashton’s use of dark magic - Ashton does not have his second staff when he storms the castle (this will be important in coming chapters)

Chapter 11

- New scene added with a conversation between Ashton and Vasilis hours after Ashton conquers Hyrule. I felt I needed to set the tone of Ashton settling into Hyrule Castle. I also wanted to explain a few things that were previously left unmentioned. - Zelda’s conversation with Siena has been changed:      - Siena tells her the Hylian soldiers are being kept in a Vandelian prison (I was pretty vague about what happened to them last time, so I changed it to make more sense)      - Zelda does not promise to have Clef released (she doesn’t have that kind of influence this time)      - Siena tells her an awful rumor about Link is spreading, and some people are angry or fearful enough to believe it - middle class and nobles alike.

Chapter 12

- The background story of Link’s narrow escape from death during the Retribution War has been altered to make more sense (realistically Link could not have been delivered to Hyrule Castle on horseback due to his distant location and the seriousness of his injuries). - Zelda does not plead for Clef’s release to Ashton but instead demands to know the awful rumor about Link. Ashton tells her in front of the court, and she pleads with them not to believe his lies. - Ashton also tells her the Alliance came and went while she was ill, they apparently bought his lies and chose to watch him from afar (as Zelda feared they would).

Chapter 13

- Zelda plans to meet with the other tribe leaders of Hyrule and search for the Triforce of Courage. - A section from the old version was removed – when she overheard some grounds people talking about Shade. In reality they would be too afraid to say such things within earshot of the Vandelian guards. This time she hears about him from Siena and at court – which makes more sense anyway. - Zelda does not seek out Shade; he interferes with her attack in the alley by chance.

Chapter 14

- The scene with Ashton and Vasilis has been changed – Vasilis is concerned about the Alliance discovering the second staff and about Link escaping the necromancer’s lair. - Most of the dialog between Link and Zelda has been rewritten and some changes have been made: - Link plans to go rescue the Hylian soldiers. - Link does not tell Zelda to stay at the castle. I realized he absolutely would not send her back to Ashton >.> Face palm moment there. Instead Zelda chooses to stay to keep the Vandelians off his back while he organizes the Resistance. - Zelda convinces Link to take the Ocarina (I realized she would not take no for an answer after everything that’s happened >.>), and he promises to return it.

Chapter 15

- Removed Siena’s third visit - redundant, unnecessary - Removed Great Fairy scene - that was a weak attempt to start the gradual downward spiral Hyrule faces with Ashton on the throne, but in retrospect it felt like random filler - Took one of Zelda’s visions from 16 and placed it at the end

Chapter 16

- Added a little more background info on Link’s and Zelda’s past - Added a small part where Zelda gets the Ocarina back

Chapter 17

- Nabooru talks about the rescue mission Link mentions in 14 - The necromancer’s lair is located in a place called Gerudo Chasm - More Gerudo accompany Zelda and Nabooru to the lair - Zelda finds Link’s wedding ring in the lair

Chapter 18

- Improved the dialogue/interaction between Link and Zelda to feel more natural - Link talks about the first time his scar spread. (There is now a specific trigger/pattern that will become evident in future chapters.) - The book they find in the necromancer’s lair has been changed a bit – it’s now a journal containing an account of the Imprisoning War (the torn page they find still contains the prophesy they can’t read) - Zelda returns Link’s wedding ring - I moved some conversation around to better work with the flow of the chapter

Chapter 19

- Improved the dialogue/interaction between Link and Zelda to feel more natural - Link asks her not to return to the castle, but Zelda is too terrified to do it (for multiple reasons, primarily Link’s safety) - Zelda doesn’t freak out about the necromancer telling Ashton about Link – I figure that would have already occurred to her (it still comes up but differently) - Zelda asks Nabooru to help keep her informed about Link’s scar - Link tells her there may be a second staff

Chapter 20

- Changed some details about the funeral as well as Zelda’s thoughts (some parts felt digressive or repetitive) - Ian is present - Renae and Kinsley speak (though I wrote a bit of dialogue for Kinsley only; the rest is summarized) - This chapter concentrates more on the public and how they react to the funeral. - Zelda’s interaction with Ashton has changed – Alicia is not present (I felt it was too similar to a scene in 12). Her treasonous comments will happen in a later chapter. - Zelda decides to find the staff, not destroy it (since they need it as evidence against Ashton).

Chapters 21 & 22

- Zelda still uses Ashton to get into his bedroom and find the staff. She does find it, but she fails to obtain it. - The necromancer makes another “deal” with Ashton regarding Link. - Link does not reveal himself, and Ashton keeps his survival quiet by locking Zelda in the dungeon. - There is no annulment, since Link is still declared dead. - Heather visits Zelda in the prison (under Ashton’s orders). - Zelda asks Heather to sneak her the Ocarina, which she uses to escape and find Link. - Zelda finds Saria in the Sacred Forest Meadow, and Saria brings her to the Resistance camp for the first time. (Link is not there.)

Chapter 23-25

- Zelda is brought to Goron City after she loses consciousness. There she speaks with Darunia for the first time in the story, so I pulled some text from Ch. 29 and posted it here instead. Darunia tells Zelda where Link is. - Those obnoxious Resistance members that mistreat Zelda in Ch. 23 have been deleted, mainly because I don’t think such amateurs would have direct access to Link. He’s too important. Only people he really trusts would work with him directly (outside the camp), and he would be better protected for the sake of secrecy. - The Resistance hideout in Kakariko Village is in Cleia’s cellar, not Impa’s house. Vandelians have claimed Impa’s house for their own amusements. - Since the annulment hasn’t happened, Link and Zelda’s conversation has been altered (Link is not so cold this time around). Their conversations in Ch. 24 and 25 have also been edited accordingly. - Zelda (willingly) tells Link she’ll stay with him in Ch. 23 but she still ends up surrendering to the Vandelians to create a diversion, so she’s unable to keep her word (for now).

Chapter 26

– Zelda’s visions in the very beginning are new. – Zelda fights back and tries to flee the castle before she passes out – The scene where Maddox treats Heather has been altered to flow better. – One of the biggest changes to the story overall: Zelda does NOT agree to sign the annulment. I was never happy with that part of the story, but at the time I thought Zelda didn’t really have a choice. After all the changes I’ve made, I felt it no longer made sense for Zelda to bend to Ashton’s wishes. To start, she has every intention of leaving the castle as soon as possible, so why break her vows to Link when Kaepora might turn up with the Ocarina at any moment? Second, Ashton has publicly declared Link dead, so he risks Zelda publicizing the annulment if he forces it on her – which would reflect pretty badly on him, since he lied about Link’s death. The last thing he needs is people doubting his word. Zelda knows this, so she uses it to her advantage. Also, Ashton doesn’t want to keep Zelda in a cell. He wants to parade her about and marry her before the entire kingdom – putting her in prison isn’t nearly as fun for him. Zelda knows this as well, so she calls his bluff. This scene is meant to show how Zelda and Ashton are playing a twisted game of sorts, each seeing how far they can push each other. Ashton may have sole rule over Hyrule, but Zelda knows too many of his secrets.

Chapter 27

– No one, not even Heather, knows about Zelda’s pregnancy. Zelda fears that telling anyone would endanger not only the baby, but the person sharing her secret. – Only those two women suspect Zelda’s pregnancy, and Zelda quickly fabricates another explanation. These women represent the fact that not everyone supports Ashton and that some do fear for Zelda. It also shows how increasingly difficult it will be for Zelda to keep her secret, which emphasizes her desperate need for the Ocarina. – The scene where Zelda treats Heather’s wounds has been significantly expanded to build Heather’s character and develop her bond with Zelda. Heather’s and Adam’s background has also been edited slightly – Adam now excels at carpentry instead of cooking (so that will be changed in 29 as well). I felt this change better suited Adam’s character as well as the OoT universe, since there are actually carpenters in Kakariko in OoT. Another bigger change is that Zelda does not tell Heather that Link is alive. – The scene where Ashton presents Zelda’s gown for the engagement gala has been altered. Zelda is still troubled by the gown, but I chose to dwell on it only briefly. Zelda acknowledges her humiliation, but she has much bigger concerns on her mind. Zelda also reacts to Ashton’s advance and instinctively twists his wrist. This demonstrates the growing tension between them – Ashton knows she’s not helpless, and Zelda knows she can’t lash out like that. All she can do is cause as little damage as possible until the Ocarina arrives. – I also moved the engagement gala to the beginning of Ch. 28.

Chapter 28

– The scene where Zelda is dressed for the gala has been removed – it felt utterly pointless in retrospect and didn’t demonstrate any tension that hasn’t already been established. – The gala is significantly altered. Zelda’s brief flashback to her engagement party with Link is has been removed because I didn’t think she would daydream about something like that, given her current circumstances. All she can think about is the present and her immediate concerns. As the night progresses, however, she does start to feel as though she’s been thrust into the past, and it haunts her. During her walk she sees one of Ashton’s lovers (something she dealt with back during their first engagement) and remembers how Link convinced her to defend her own happiness. Ashton then appears to reestablish his control over her. The private “exchange” between Zelda and Ashton shows how unpredictable and possessive Ashton has become, but it also shows that beneath his horrid exterior he is a damaged, misguided person, desperately trying to reclaim the past. – Zelda’s conversation with Alicia is new, but it did replace a similar conversation I removed from an earlier chapter (and gives Zelda reason to later ban Alicia from the court for treasonous behavior). Zelda is also dancing with Ashton when she faints instead of some random lord. – Maddox doesn’t have the chance to figure out that Zelda is pregnant, since her escape is completely changed. I wanted to create a stronger sense of urgency compared to her previous escape. That she left Ashton in the middle of his gala made it all the more satisfying, I think. :D – The scene where Zelda and Heather take refuge in the Temple has been removed because Zelda loses consciousness. I had to cut it for the sake of pacing, but I might reinsert it somewhere else in the story if I see an opportunity. – Zelda’s reunion with Link has been completely rewritten. I felt the chapter flowed better without the scene where Link finds her and Heather in the Sacred Forest Meadow. I wanted to focus on the strong sense of relief shared by Link and Zelda, but I also emphasized the difference between Link and Ashton. This is symbolized in the way Link removes the uncomfortable gown and accessories that Ashton forced Zelda to wear.

Chapter 29

– The first scene with Ashton has been altered to make sense with the changes to Zelda’s escape. He also questions Kinsley instead of Maddox. I wanted to emphasize Ashton’s growing paranoia/irrationality in this scene. I also hinted at his plan to hire Jedrek Khar, so it doesn’t feel so random later on. – Originally there were two scenes between Link and Zelda–one where she wakes in the middle of the night and one where she has breakfast with Link. Those two have been replaced by one new scene taking place in the morning. I don’t remember why I did two in the first place, but it was unnecessary, and I really wanted to improve the conversation/banter between Link and Zelda. – Link is more aware of Zelda’s nervousness about the people of the camp distrusting or even resenting her (as well as her fears about the baby). – When Link and Zelda meet with the other Resistance leaders, Zelda addresses them herself. Having Link speak for her in the original was just dumb. *facepalm* – Link still asks Cleia to come and care for Zelda, but it is (and will be) much more fleshed out. It was so “oh by the way” in the original, which was dumb. – Zelda still promises to stay in the camp, but that scene is completely rewritten, and this time Link takes the Ocarina with him.

Chapters 30 & 31

- Zelda frets more about her reputation - A Resistance fighter from Aboda defies orders and rides to the Resistance camp to tell Zelda about the situation in Aboda, he also begs Zelda to come and help the victims of the Black Sleep, despite the obvious danger - Link and Zelda’s argument is not resolved as it was in the original and they don’t discuss Zelda’s insecurities regarding the baby. That comes in a later chapter. - Link and Zelda do not have active roles in the funeral; that is reserved for the people of Aboda. They are attending simply to pay their respects. - I created more tension when Link urges the people of Aboda to evacuate. They are proud and more reluctant to flee their beloved village.

Chapter 32

- Zelda goes to the Chamber of Sages to summon Ruto, Nabooru, Rauru, and Impa so she can alert them that a cleansing might be Link’s only hope of survival.

Chapter 33

- Zelda takes a much more dominant role in trying to wake Link or treat his wound. This includes climbing Death Mountain (through the crater) to speak with with the Great Fairy.  - The scene where Cleia assures Zelda her chances of a miscarriage have lessened has been removed. In a situation like this I see Zelda being very single minded and focused solely on saving Link. I removed her conversation with Heather for the same reason. Both scenes felt like digressive fluff that disrupted the flow of the chapter.  - Another major change to improve the poor pacing in this section of the story: Impa does not return at this point. She is still in Tar Alem and possibly in trouble. Because of this, the Black Echo curse is not yet revealed.  - Zelda visits the Great Fairy in the desert like she did in the original, but Nabooru escorts her there. Zelda does not collect a fairy as she did in the original, but the Great Fairy arranges for one to guide her in the Lost Woods. This is an example of taking some artistic license when minor and somewhat cumbersome gameplay details don’t translate well into storytelling. - Darunia, Saria, and Zelda take Link to the fountain (without Impa). - "Cutting the fat” allowed me to move some content from Ch. 34 into this chapter, ending it where Link finally wakes. This improves the pacing and gives me more freedom to focus on Link’s and Zelda’s confrontation/discussion in the next chapter.

Chapter 34

- Link still wakes in the fountain, basically the same scene but without Impa

- Their conversation in the Lost Woods has been altered, but it’s more or less the same concern as before = Link’s safety and well being

- In revising this story I’ve noticed I had a tendency to address too many personal conflicts at once or resolve them too quickly. In the old version of Ch. 34, Link and Zelda talked about a number of things when they were alone in the forest, but this time I wanted a straightforward conversation about one immediate issue = Link taking a less active role in the Resistance until they better understand what the curse is doing to him. The conversation ends before any agreement is made. 

- Clef isn’t the only one to be hanged this time -- Kinsley has also been declared a traitor. Zelda finds out telepathically from Darunia. I felt a need to streamline that last transition in 34, and I figured Darunia would try to inform Link and Zelda asap, since the hanging is at dawn.

Chapter 35

- I really cut back on the scenes leading up to the  execution. The first time I wrote this chapter I felt pressured to explain a believable rescue plan and then have it play out from Ashton’s perspective. In other words I made it more difficult than it had to be. This time I gave just enough information for the reader to trust that there’s a solid plan, but I keep the details a mystery. Ashton’s scene--when the rescue actually happens--is more effective that way. In this case there was too much redundancy in explaining the rescue and then showing it. The reader doesn’t know exactly what happened, but they know enough to trust the Resistance succeeded without being overloaded with details. That was my goal, at least. In short, I think this approach improved the delivery and the pacing of this chapter.

- I added a scene with Vasilis and Ashton. It introduces Jedrek Khar (though he’s not actually in the scene) and highlights the growing tension between Vasilis and Ashton. Vasilis dislikes Ashton, and he fears what Ashton might do next, but he tells himself that everything would work itself out if Zelda returned to the castle. He’s in denial at this point; he can’t face the gravity of his error just yet. 

- One big change is that Link participates in the rescue mission, when in the previous version he stayed behind. He frees Clef and Kinsley from the gallows and in that act he reveals to the public that he is still alive. It’s a brief moment with a big impact.

- Link and Zelda argue about Link doing stupid dangerous things (again). As much as Link regrets what Zelda has endured since Ashton brought him to the necromancer, and as much as he wants to live, he still can’t bring himself to play it safe. 

- Zelda suspects that Link is struggling with some underlying issue -- that the lack of concern for his own safety stems not only from being Hyrule’s Champion but from a subconscious, incessant need to prove his worth.

[earthnashes]

OKAY! So while I wind down from all the excitement I’m gonna go ahead and deliver some of that RariTwi headcanons I promised the other night. I actually took a gander at one of those OTP question list thingy ‘cus I thought it would be fun. I changed the questions around a bit tho, so here it be! PS I’m goin’ anthro because why not mans

- Favorite form of affection from one another:

Aside from kisses, Rarity’s favorite form of affection from Twilight are her hugs. They are all-encompassing, something that results from the combination of Twi’s height and using her wings in the hugs. Twi’s hugs engulf her, hiding her from the world, but they never feel trapping or imprisoning: they make her feel safe and shielded, especially when she’s faced with scathing words and ill-willed rumors being spread about her, and it never fails to lift Rarity’s spirits to receive a hug from Twi.

On Twi’s end, it’s the kisses. Rarity is very sweet with her kisses: it’s often accompanied by a caress of Twi’s cheek or Rares tilting Twi’s head up while she’s working to give her nose a gentle peck: it never, ever fails to make Twi feel warmth all over her entire body. Her favorite form of affection aside from kissing? Rarity intertwining their fingers: Twi sometimes feels lost, unsure of her place in the world and failing everyone around her, but Rarity holding Twi’s hand feels like a stabilizer. It feels like Rarity anchoring her before she loses herself in self-doubt and anxiety, sometimes leading her in the right direction, or simply being an ever-present source of loving support. Twi feels empowered by it and she kisses Rarity’s knuckles when they hold hands.

-Something they intentionally do to turn the other on

Something I very rarely touch base on with any ship... the naughty. o.o Just kidding, but for the more PG-13 stuff: how they like to fluster one another.

Rarity’s turn on often deals with touch and Twilight knows how to get her red and stuttering quick. How? With magic. Twi accomplishes this with what’s essentially ghost-touching Rarity with her magic, and it’s nothing like physical touch. Magic (particularly telekinesis) feels like pressure without anything to cause that pressure, as if air suddenly had weight to it, combined with the a gentle shock of energy and warmth from the area the magic contacts. And Twilight does this without lifting a finger and maybe that casual mastery of magic drives Rarity mad.

Meanwhile Twilight’s turn on is linked with sound, better yet, words. And if there’s somethin’ Rarity has complete control over, it’s words, and she plays Twi like a fiddle with them. Innuendo, dirty talk, sweet talk, she can do it all, but it’s how she tones her words and the actions that accompany them: a smile, a flutter of her eyelashes, a head tilt, a tail-flick, subtle things with subtle meanings that only Twi can decipher, those are the things that sets Twi’s fur to a bristle and she floofs like an embarrassed owl. Twi also has an incredible weakness for when Rarity says the entirety of her name; it works every time.

-Favorite activity together

Twilight and Rarity read together often or work on their own projects together, and some of their favorite moments involve them simply quietly enjoying each other’s company. That said, I think a fun activity for them would be.... stargazing! Twilight has a deep love for stargazing and took Rarity out for their first date on a picnic under a starry sky. Twi likes to rattle off about the constellations and point at them, but Rarity just makes it all the more fun by making up constellations and painting an image in the stars for Twi to see. I’d like to think they keep record of these personal constellations too, maybe make each other gifts based off of them. c:

In light of the most recent headcanon of Twi being an avid gamer... they play games together! Well... Twi plays while Rarity watches. To her surprise, Rarity actually enjoys this quite a bit, and while she herself doesn’t really like playing the games she enjoys the stories they tell. Her favorites are when Twi plays horror: Rarity loves horror: not so much for the blood and guts but moreso for the mysterious and fun stories many can hold beneath a scary exterior. It’s also an excuse to cuddle up so bonus points.

-Favorite anniversary gift

Banking off of the constellation thing above, that wasn’t always a hobby they did at first. Before that... it started with a gift. Twi’s so enamored with the sky and the stars, I can imagine Rarity working so, so hard in actually coming up with a constellation that represented her and Twilight’s relationship, hell maybe even working up the nerve to ask Luna to help with it by rearranging stray stars into the made up constellation. 

Twilight, meanwhile, could have perhaps written Rarity a song! I can see Rarity being deeply appreciative to music, specifically vocal talents, and she admits that she adores Twilight’s singing, but Twi doesn’t really like to sing in front of anyone. I can’t decide if she sings just herself, or if she plays something? Hmm.

-Who hogs the covers

The covers often just get kicked off. Like pegasi in general, Twilight is essentially a living furnace: her body temperature is higher than the normal pony’s. As such it’s usually Rarity with the covers, but she’ll eventually forget about them: Twi makes for a much better source of warmth anyway, and blankets can’t give you wing snuggles. uwu

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand those are a few of mine so far! Might add more later uwuw

[verdiprati]

Upcoming performances by Dame Sarah Connolly

[NOTE: this post is now out of date. Check the schedule tag on my blog for the most recent version of this list.]

After the jump: an unofficial schedule of Dame Sarah Connolly’s future performances. Those of you in Britain may catch a performance in London, Nottingham, Oxford, Gloucester, Lewes, Cheltenham, or Painswick, or possibly a public masterclass in Aldeburgh. Those on the Continent may see her in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or Vilabertran (Catalunya). And finally, those of us in North America have engagements in New York��and Philadelphia to look forward to! Plus, Dame Sarah's agency has mentioned future performances in Paris and Madrid, though no details are available yet. Don’t live near one of these places? Take in a concert from afar: I am adding online broadcast and livestream details as they become available.

This is not an authoritative list. These are the upcoming performances by Dame Sarah Connolly that I have been able to learn about from Dame Sarah's website (not currently being updated), her agent's website (Askonas Holt), Operabase, Bachtrack, Dame Sarah's Twitter, and generally ferreting around the web.

I sometimes list concerts that are not yet officially confirmed; you should of course check official sources before making plans and be aware that cast changes and cancellations can happen at any time.

I have added links to venue, ticketing, and broadcast information where available. Tips on new information are always welcome! Please contact me via email (verdiprati [at] selveamene [dot] com), Tumblr messaging, or ask box (plain prose only in the ask box; anything with links or an email address will get eaten by Tumblr filters) with corrections or additions.

Handel, Ariodante (title role) at the Wiener Staatsoper, February 24 and 26 and March 1, 4, and 8, 2018. With Chen Reiss (Ginevra), Hila Fahima (Dalinda), Christphe Dumaux (Polinesso), Rainer Trost (Lurcanio), and Wilhelm Schwinghammer (Il Re di Scozia). In a new production directed by David McVicar with music is supplied by Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie. Note: although Christie, LAF, and many of the soloists from this Ariodante will be performing the opera in a concert tour following its staging in Vienna, Dame Sarah is not scheduled to join them; Kate Lindsey has been announced to take over the title role for the tour.

[Broadcast] The opening night performance, February 24, is scheduled for live radio broadcast on OE1. It will also be carried live by Radio Clásica in Spain and possibly other European radio stations that I have not run across yet.

[Livestream] The opera is scheduled for video livestreaming on Sunday, March 4. There is a fee of €14 to watch the livestream.

Schubert, “Zögernd leise” in a Mothering Sunday concert at Gloucester Cathedral, March 11, 2018. With the Girl Choristers of Gloucester Cathedral; conducted by Nia Llewelyn Jones. This concert is just an hour long altogether and the one song Dame Sarah is scheduled to sing runs about five or six minutes, but it’s one of my favorite pieces I’ve heard her sing live—she’s like a storyteller in this song—and the £16 ticket price a) is pretty affordable and b) includes “a glass of pink fizz.”

Mahler, Symphony No. 8 “Symphony of a Thousand” at de Doelen, Rotterdam, March 23 and 25, 2018. With the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The other soloists are Angela Meade, Erin Wall, Erin Morley, Mihoko Fujimura, Michael Schade, Markus Werba, and Christof Fischesser. On choral duty are the Groot Omroep Koor, Rotterdam Symphony Chorus, Orfeon Donostiarra, and Nationaal Kinderkoor. UPDATE: Dame Sarah, citing illness in a tweet, withdrew from all three performances with the Rotterdam Phil and was replaced by Michelle DeYoung.

[New! Broadcast] The March 23 performance will be broadcast in live video by Medici.tv. My understanding is that the video will be available for “limited replay” to those with free accounts on the service and “unlimited replay” to those with paid accounts.

Mahler, Symphony No. 8 “Symphony of a Thousand” at BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, March 24, 2018. With the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra; same details as the Rotterdam performances listed above. UPDATE: Dame Sarah, citing illness in a tweet, withdrew from all three performances with the Rotterdam Phil and was replaced by Michelle DeYoung.

[Broadcast] I found a web page saying that all concerts at the 2018 Klarafestival can be followed live on the Klara radio station (“Tot slot zijn ook dit jaar alle concerten van Klarafestival live te volgen op radiozender Klara”); I should be able to confirm the Klara broadcast schedule closer to the time. UPDATING just slightly to add: although I can’t find a page specifically for the Mahler 8 broadcast, I can confirm that “Klara Live - Klarafestival” is appearing in the relevant slot of the program grid for March 24.

[Masterclasses] Public masterclasses for the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme at Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh, England, March 26, 27, 28, and 30. Part of a course on Handel’s Theodora to be co-taught with conductor Christian Curnyn. Although this doesn’t really count as a performance by Sarah Connolly, I am adding it to my “unofficial schedule” of her work with the thought that fans who live in the area might want to attend some of the public masterclasses Sarah Connolly will be co-teaching or the culminating performance on March 31 by young artists she will have coached.

Verdi, Requiem at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham, April 28, 2018. With Elizabeth Llewellyn, Gywn Hughes Jones, Wojtek Gierlach, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The chorus will be supplied by Nottingham Trent University, where Dame Sarah was awarded an honorary doctorate of music in July of 2017. 

Recital at St Mary’s Church, Painswick, Glos., May 12, 2018. With Joseph Middleton; sponsored by the Painswick Music Society. Works to include songs by Vaughan Williams, Gurney, Parry, Howells, Holst, Britten, Tippett, “and others,” as well as the premiere of a new song cycle by Sally Beamish.

Handel, Giulio Cesare (title role) at Glyndebourne, June 10 through July 28, 2018. In a revival of the legendary 2005 production by David McVicar, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by William Christie. With Joélle Harvey as Cleopatra, plus Christophe Dumaux and Patricia Bardon reprising the roles of Tolomeo and Cornelia respectively; also starring Anna Stéphany (Sesto), John Moore (Achilla), and Kangmin Justin Kim (Nireno).

Bach, cantata selections in a concert with Mahan Esfahani at the Cheltenham Music Festival, July 1, 2018. Specifically, Dame Sarah is scheduled to sing “arias from Bach’s cantatas Widerstehe doch der Sünde and Ich habe genug and a complete performance of Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust,” according to the festival website.

[New!] Recital for the Cheltenham Music Festival at the Pittville Pump Room, July 4, 2018. With Joseph Middleton. They will be performing “a survey of composers from the Royal College of Music,” including songs by Stanford, Parry, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Gurney, Howells, Bridge, Britten, and Tippett. Tickets go on sale to the public April 4. 

[New details!] Recital at the Schubertíada Vilabertran, August 18, 2018. With pianist Malcolm Martineau and viola player Jonathan Brown. Repertoire includes songs by Brahms, Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, and a selection of traditional English songs. 

Wagner, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre (Fricka in both) at the Royal Opera, London, September 24 through October 28, 2018. A revival of Keith Warner’s Ring Cycle, with Antonio Pappano conducting. For cast and date details, see the ROH web pages linked above. As of this writing, the ROH is only allowing customers to purchase tickets for an entire cycle of the four operas; I’m not sure whether they’ll allow separate booking later. Curiously, two performances of Die Walküre—but none of Das Rheingold (nor of the other two operas)—are marked “Filming” on the ROH website. Do we have a Walküre webcast or DVD to look forward to? Or is Pappano gathering clips for a future documentary? I do not know.

Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde at the Royal Festival Hall, London, September 29, 2018. With Stuart Skelton and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. In a concert with Mitsiko Uchida playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27.

Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde at the Philharmonie Berlin [PDF], October 14, 2018. With Torsten Kerl and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

[New! Broadcast] The concert listing on the RSB website includes a notation “Konzert mit Deutschlandfunk Kultur,” implying (I believe) that it will be broadcast on said radio station.

[New! Details TBA] Appearance with the Oxford Lieder Festival, sometime in the range October 12-27, 2018. I can’t find any details on the OLF website as of this writing, but a story published by The Ocelot and presumably based on an OLF press release promises that Dame Sarah will be among the artists involved with the 2018 festival. 

Concert with the Tenebrae Consort at Wigmore Hall, London, October 24, 2018. Part of Dame Sarah’s yearlong residency at the Wigmore. Repertoire TBA. Listed in the season preview brochure [PDF].

[New!] Blow, Venus and Adonis and Purcell, Dido and Aeneas in concert at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, November 3, 2018. With the Early Opera Company conducted by Christian Curnyn. Dame Sarah’s co-stars are Jonathan McGovern, Lucy Crowe, Susan Bickley, and Rowan Pierce. Tickets go on sale June 1. 

[New!] Tippett, A Child of our Time at the Paris Philharmonie, November 7 and 8, 2018. With Michelle Bradley, Mark Padmore, John Relyea, and the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Thomas Adès in a concert also featuring symphonic works by Berlioz and Adès.

Ravel song recital at Wigmore Hall, London, November 16, 2018. With James Newby and Joseph Middleton. Part of a Ravel song series being presented by the Wigmore over the course of the year. Listed in the season preview brochure [PDF].

[New!] Recital with Julius Drake at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, March 5, 2019. Works by R. Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, A. Mahler, and Zemlinsky. 

Recital with Julius Drake at Wigmore Hall, London, March 15, 2019. Part of Dame Sarah’s yearlong residency at the Wigmore. Repertoire TBA, but may have some works in common with those programmed for Connolly and Drake’s other recitals in the same month. Listed in the season preview brochure [PDF].

[New!] Recital with Julius Drake at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, March 22, 2019. Sponsored by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Repertoire includes works by Brahms, Wolf, Roussel, Debussy, and Zemlinksy. 

[New!] Wagner, Götterdämmerung (Waltraute) at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, April 27, May 4, and May 11, 2019. In a revival of Robert Lepage’s production of the Ring cycle, with all shows to be conducted by Philippe Jordan. Dame Sarah’s co-stars in Götterdämmerung include Christine Goerke (Brünnhilde), Stefan Vinke / Andreas Schager (sharing the role of Siegfried), Edith Haller (Gutrune), Eric Owens (Hagen), Evgeny Nitikin (Gunther), and Tomasz Konieczny (Alberich).

Recital with Malcolm Martineau at Wigmore Hall, London, July 23, 2019. Part of Dame Sarah’s yearlong residency at the Wigmore. Repertoire TBA. Listed in the season preview brochure [PDF].

[Details TBA] Future appearances at the Opéra national de Paris and the Teatro Réal in Madrid are mentioned in the current bio that can be downloaded from Dame Sarah’s page on the Askonas Holt website (click “Publicity Pack”). 

Previous versions of this list can be found under the schedule tag on this blog. This version published on February 10, 2018. Edited February 15 to add the Scubertíada Vilabertran, the Met Götterdämmerung, and the Elgar concert at the Barbican. Edited February 16 to delete the Elgar concert at the Barbican after clarifying with Dame Sarah’s agent that the listing was erroneous. Edited February 27 to add the Concertgebouw double header of English baroque operas in concert. Edited February 28 to add the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society link. Edited March 1 to add the Concertgebouw recital with Julius Drake and fill in more details on the Philadelphia recital. Edited March 8 to add details to the Vilabertran recital and to add the Tippett piece with the Orchestre de Paris. Edited March 10 to confirm the appearance of the Klara Festival on the Klara program schedule for March 24. Edited March 17 to add the recital with Joseph Middleton at the Cheltenham Music Festival, the broadcast note on the Berlin Das Lied, and the Medici.tv livestream of Mahler 8. Edited March 26 to correct a typo in one of the Cheltenham Music Festival entries (I had mistakenly placed both concerts on the same day, July 1) and to belatedly reflect Dame Sarah’s withdrawal from the Rotterdam Philharmonic Mahler 8 concerts. Edited April 4 to add the Oxford Lieder Festival. I may continue to edit this list as I receive new information.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Countless Roads - Chapter 14

Fic: Countless Roads - Chapter 14 - Direct Link to Ao3

Fandom: Flash, Legends Pairing: Gen, Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, others

Summary: Due to a family curse (which some call a gift), Leonard Snart has more life than he knows what to do with – and that gives him the ability to see, speak to, and even share with the various ghosts that are always surrounding him.

Sure, said curse also means he’s going to die sooner rather than later, just like his mother, but in the meantime Len has no intention of letting superheroes, time travelers, a surprisingly charming pyromaniac, and a lot of ghosts get in the way of him having a nice, successful career as a professional thief.

———————————————————————————

Lewis Snart.

Father, abuser, terror of Len’s childhood.

Len’s mind blanks out, knowing only that he needs to get out, get away, and he instinctively reaches out to the ghosts for help.

Nothing.

It’s quiet.

“Oh,” Lewis says. “I don’t think your little ghostie friends are going to help you now.”

How does he know?

Len never told him, not once, never –

The ghosts.

Why can’t he hear the ghosts?

“I’ve taken certain precautions against your misbehaving,” Lewis says, with a smile. “Wouldn’t want you getting distracted when we have work to be attending to.” The smile broadens. “Seems like your old man still has a few lessons to teach you after all.”

Len closes his eyes and stops asking questions.

They only ever make it worse.

“Now get out and walk.”

At least Len manages to stop shaking by the time they get to their destination, Lewis prodding Len along any time he even thinks Len is slowing down, Lewis’ fingers managing to perfectly find the bruises he’s already left behind from manhandling Len into the van earlier. Len forces himself to be as calm and cold as possible – he has to be. If there's work ahead, other people maybe, he'll expect Len to behave. Lewis always hated it when Len showed weakness in front of people.

He might become angry.

Len’s long since learned to fear Lewis Snart’s anger.

And if his dad has figure out a way to stop the ghosts -

He can't think about that right now, or he'll freak out, and then Lewis will definitely be angry.

Len studies the building they’re walking towards. A Santini property, but old school – very old. A wretched old bed and breakfast, vulgar and garish, where the inside men used to bring their mistresses; it’s been abandoned by the Family for years, ten at least, though the hotel itself has chugged on, catering to the local prostitutes and the like.

Neither Len nor Mick would ever have bothered to check it out.

Santini -

The assassins.

“You had them shoot at me?” Len asks through numb lips. He hadn’t thought…he never suspected…sure, they hadn't exactly gotten on in recent years by any stretch of the imagination, but to have people try to kill him...

Lewis snorts. “You’re as over-dramatic as always,” he says. “No, it wasn't me. The young Santini idiot was the one who tried to have you killed, slipping money under the table to people so corrupt or stupid that they wouldn’t recognize you because he couldn’t admit that his official attempt to get back at you – through that lout you call your partner – failed without losing face. He had to play it off like he didn’t think it was a big deal, but he brooded over it long enough to want revenge anyway. I was brought in when they realized it was in their best interest to acquire your services instead.”

“My…services? You want me to run a heist for you?”

“If I wanted a heist done, I could have planned it myself,” Lewis scoffs, which is a lie. Len’s a far better thief than Lewis ever was – though Lewis’ approach is always far more brutal. Probably why the Families like him so much, and why Len refuses to work for them. “That isn’t to say we won’t be doing some thieving along the way. But the goal’s a little different, m’boy. Just wait until you meet my employer.”

“Your employer,” Len echoes, only scarcely paying attention. He’s been reaching out this entire time, calling to the ghosts, the dead, even the unquiet dead if it would get him a response, but there’s nothing, nothing at all; it’s so quiet. No ghosts, the background patter he’s always heard, his whole life – gone mute.

What has he done to me?

“Pay attention, boy,” Lewis snaps, and his fingers dig painfully into Len’s side.

They go inside the bed and breakfast.

Inside the lobby, there's a young man standing there with a nervous look, twitchy fingers like a drug addict, so unmemorable it takes Len a moment to place him. Nicolas Santini, of all people! The small fish, the useless Don, the one who'd barely been able to splutter out a denial because he'd been sweating too hard.

He doesn't look good.

No, little Nicholas looks paranoid, rich clothing and cheap jewelry, a short beard grown to add respectability but unable to disguise the way his eyes keep darting around the room like a drug addict with a looming deadline. “Is it done?” he asks Lewis, ignoring Len yet unable to keep from staring out of the corner of his eye at him, like Len’s a bomb about to go off. “Is he…?”

“I assure you my son will be causing us no difficulties, Don Santini,” Lewis says, ingratiating and fawning the way he always is around the Families. He simpered to their faces and cursed them behind their backs. “Shall we go upstairs? Your grandfather’s awaiting us, I believe.”

“Grandfather?” Len says, thrown for a moment. But no, that doesn't make sense; Len knows his Family bloodlines as well as any other criminal in Central. Nicholas Santini is the son of the daughter of - “Don Tomio, you mean? But he’s…” The words fall away from his mouth as the realization crashes down on him.

No.

“I think you, my boy, are the last one to complain about someone being dead,” Lewis crows. “Now why don’t you come inside?”

Len follows mutely.

He’s half expecting to see the ghostly form of old Don Tomio, sitting regally in his chair like the asshole he was, but – no. It’s another man, instead; his clothing is rich and elegant, but ill-fitting, like it was made for a much taller man. There’s a box of cigars next to him and an empty plate, resting on a side table.

The man looks squirrelly.

Sick.

There are rings under his bloodshot eyes and thick lines around his mouth and eyes; he’s far too thin and his hands shake as he drinks a slug of what smells like cheap whiskey from a flask. His nails are filthy and bitten to the quick.

“Where’s my grandfather?” Nicolas barks.

“Soon,” the man croaks, his voice a harsh rasp like a man dying. “I cannot – is this him? Is this the necromancer?”

“I’m not a –”

Lewis’ hand falls heavy on Len’s shoulder. Len shuts his mouth.

“Now, son,” Lewis says. “Don’t be shy. Mr. Cabrera here is a great admirer of your work.”

Cabrera grins. His teeth are yellow and his breath is foul; Len can smell it from across the room. “Wanted to see what all the fuss was about, I did,” he says. “He don’t look like much, to be causing all this trouble.”

“Trouble?” Len can’t help but ask, even though Lewis’ hand tightens in warning.

“Oh, yes,” Cabrera laughs, picking up a cigar and snipping it down to a stub. “Little Nico here’s been having ghost trouble; s’why he called me. I’m a specialist, y’see – nothing on your caliber, no, nothing like that; this whole bloody city’s positively rotting with ghosts, all swarming here to see you and beg for a little of your time and attention, aren’t they?”

“Get to the point,” Nicolas snaps. “I want that damn ghost gone.”

“Now, now,” Lewis says, and his voice is syrupy sweet. “We’ll take care of that soon enough. But first, I think we want to speak with the Don, isn’t that right?”

Len’s own eyes dart around the room, looking for the ghost, but he sees nothing. Hears nothing.

It’s so goddamn quiet.

Cabrera lights the cigar that he cut down to a stub and settles himself down in the chair. Fluffs himself up, straightens his back, pushes his legs together in a way that’s clearly not his natural way of sitting. It’s like he’s playing a terrible charade.

"To this place, to this time, I call upon thee, restless spirit of the dead,” he says in a grand tone. “Thou who wish't to come to this place, I call upon thee by name.”

Len swallows. This is bad. This is a summoning - not that he's ever seen one, but he can put two and two together easily enough. This man is no Santini flunky. He’s a medium, a real medium, not like those two-bit hacks who pretend at it for money. What the hell is going on?

“I call upon thee –” There is the smallest of hesitations, the slightest hint of reluctance, before Cabrera goes on. “Thomas Antonio Salvatore Santini."

He inhales from the cigar.

And then it happens.

Len sees it.

Filth, black filth, crawling up Cabrera’s face from under his jacket, like a thousand little bugs, streaming upwards towards his eyes and mouth, streaming down from his sleeves, covering every inch of skin, and Len takes an involuntary step backwards, face twisting in disgust and –

They’re gone.

Cabrera’s face is clean, or at least no more dirty than it was before.

But something’s changed.

The straight back is natural, now; the hand holds the cigar casually, not clutching at it like Cabrera was. The legs are held at ready, the real thing to Cabrera’s fake.

This thing might wear Cabrera’s face, but he’s not him.

“Don Tomio Santini,” Lewis says respectfully. “Welcome back.”

Don Tomio’s lips curl up. “Indeed,” he says. “I am pleased to see that you were able to live up to your promises and deliver that son of yours, Snart – no unnecessary failures. This time.”

His voice is curled in a sneer, rich in disdain. It’s clearly aimed at Nicolas, who flinches.

“I’m the one who brought you back, Grandfather,” Nicolas argues, clearly not for the first time. “The rest of the Family, they forgot about you, but not me, no, I found Cabrera for you, I did –”

“And for that you have been richly rewarded,” Tomio’s voice is hard, carelessly cruel. “I have guided your steps to rise in power within the Family, and you have received all the benefits thereof.”

“I still need to get rid of the damned ghost –”

“That, too, will be done,” Tomio says, holding up a hand, causing Nicolas to fall silent. He turns to Lewis. “You have bound him?”

“Oh, yes,” Lewis says. “He won’t touch a ghostie ever again, not without my say-so – and he’ll do anything to have that arsonist at his side again. I guarantee it.”

Len swallows, hard. “What have you done to Mick?” he asks.

Lewis shakes him.

Len shuts up.

“Nothing yet,” Tomio says, though he’s clearly disinterested. “But there are always options. I am informed that it is possible to bind a ghost with rituals, bloody ones. Cabrera has made a study of them over the years, in addition to his natural talent for serving as a medium. Though he is not as useful as he thinks he is.”

“You’re unquiet dead,” Len says, understanding, unable to look away even though he wishes he could. He’s never met another cursed one like him, but he’s had a perfectly reasonable interest in any sort of business involving the spirits of the dead. Mediums – Len remembers his mother telling him about them, how she always said they were incredibly creepy, how he always got a feeling of disgust deep in his belly any time someone tried to compare him to one. Looks like she was right. They're creepy as fuck. “That’s why he looks so sick. You’ve been feeding off of him, stealing his life away even as he lets you use his body.”

“It’s amazing what people will do for money,” Tomio says dismissively; it’s clear he doesn’t care that he’s talking about a man’s life being wrenched out of him, drip by painful drab. Tomio puts the cigar down carefully on the plate, though he doesn’t put it out. He looks Len up and down. “You really aren’t much. I would have expected more.”

“Don Santini –” Lewis starts.

“Do you know,” Tomio says, his eyes fixed on Len, “how long I had to rest to recollect the energy that I was forced to spend? The precious life energy that keeps me here, all wasted on shepherding children?”

Children? Why would an unquiet –

Ah.

“The black hole,” Len says.

“You ordered,” Tomio says, sneering. “And I obeyed. And my dear young Mr. Snart – I don’t like taking orders.”

“It wasn’t aimed at you,” Len says, though he knows something like that is worthless to a man like Tomio.

“Irrelevant,” Tomio confirms.

“Why didn’t I see you when I first came in?” Len asks, changing the subject. “How did you take away – why can’t I see you, ‘cept through Cabrera?”

“Only your father knows the secret to that,” Tomio says. “I, however, know another of your secrets.”

“And what secret is that?” Len asks, even though he knows it’s a bad idea, even with Lewis jabbing painfully at his ribs to get him to shut up.

Tomio smiles, twisting Cabrera’s cheeks into a distended grimace as muscles contort into a smile that’s not quite the right shape for the mouth. “I know about the black book.”

Len goes still.

“I was receiving treatment for the early stages of the cancer that would kill me,” Tomio says, “in a hospital long ago. You were in the room next door, speaking to the air like a madman – except when you walked out, there was a boy with you, a boy that hadn’t been there before. And I started to wonder, just enough – enough to start doing some research of my own – but then you decided you didn’t work with the Families and disappeared off the face of the earth just when I needed you.” His hands clench on the chair, his face purples a little. Rage. Entitlement - like Len had wronged him by going his own way.

His eyes flicker to the cigar stub, which is starting to burn out, and he straights himself again, mastering himself with an effort. “But although I was not able to have you save me before my death, I have learned enough after it. You will repair the error that has occurred. You will fetch the necessary ingredients,” Tomio says. “Nicolas and your father will supervise. If you disobey, Cabrera will bind you to his will and force you to do it.”

Len’s mouth goes ashy in horror. He doesn’t know what Cabrera is capable of, but the idea of binding another person like that…stripping them of all free will...

“You will then raise me up,” Tomio says, and his eyes glow with fervor and barely leashed fury. “And then I will return to the Santini Family to take my rightful place at its head, and I will show them my displeasure at how they have wasted the empire that I built.”

“Grandfather,” Nicolas says. “The ghost girl –”

“Yes, yes,” Tomio snaps. “That will be done as well.” His eyes flicker to the cigar again. “Enough. I must rest.”

The cigar burns out.

Tomio abruptly exhales, expelling foul smoke from his mouth like he’d been holding it in the entire time. Then he starts hacking, his body loose again – Cabrera returned.

“Come on, then,” Lewis says, and forces Len away. "We have work to do."

[beatricethecat2]

out of place, out of mind - 1

Sequel to “one step forward, two steps back (v.2.0)” part 1+ part 2.

“These chapters are short,” she said to herself, “you can knock them out in no time!” But brevity does not equate with simplicity, nor is simplicity easy to accomplish, especially where writing is concerned (for me). So more time has passed before posting than I promised, but thankfully the upcoming holiday break will give me time to focus on future chapters. 

This story is meant to replace “Instinct,” so the timeline starts after 4.14 and moves forward with it’s own trajectory. It does cull hints of plots from episodes afterwards (for instance, Claudia becomes caretaker, you’ll glean the rest) but then spins off in it’s own direction. It is a fix it on many levels and requires some knowledge of the show (as well as "part 1," linked above). 

TV RULES APPLY to this whacky thing, so it moves pretty fast and loose, and hopefully works as a whole. I’m sure there are typos, I’ll fix them later. I hope you enjoy it!

///////////////

"What the hell, H.G.?“

Helena blinks awake and tries to focus on the faces above her, their identities hazy at best.

"Pete, she just woke up!”

“But Myka didn’t."

"Seriously bro, give her a sec.”

The name Myka prompts other names, such as Steve and Claudia, to pop into Helena's head.

“What happened to Myka,” Pete says, stressing each word.

“Mrs. Frederic sent me to help,” Helena says as if it were the answer to everything, unsure of what everything entails.

“A lotta good that did."

“Her vitals are dropping,” a woman’s voice says from across the room.

Pete turns to face the adjacent bed.

“Second’s over, H.G. Come on, think!"

Helena looks at Claudia, yes, Claudia is her name, then at the unconscious woman lying in front of Pete. “No!” she yelps and hops off of the bed, memories flooding back all at once. She dashes toward Myka, but Pete steps in front and holds her at arm's length.

“She’s been shot,” Helena says, glaring at Pete.

“With this?” Steve asks, holding up a static bag containing a pistol.

“Yes, that."

“Where? I don’t see a wound,” Dr. Calder says.

Helena pushes Pete aside and points to Myka’s chest just as a blood stain begins to appear.

“How?” Pete grunts, grabbing Helena's arm.

“A ‘gunfight.’ Duel gone awry.”

“Like in a western?” Claudia whips out her laptop and clicks on keys.  

“We were digging through props on a soundstage,” Steve adds.

“Vitals still dropping,” Dr. Calder announces, now pressing gauze to the wound.

“I must go back,” Helena says, jerking free from Pete’s grip and striding towards Steve.

“Uh-uh. I’ll go,” Pete says, elbowing Helena aside and swiping the bag from Steve’s hand.

“You can’t. It won’t work.”

“You’ll screw it up again.”

“It has to be me,” Helena says, lunging at the bag, but Pete holds out of her reach.

“Why?”

“Give me the bloody artifact!” Helena jumps up, but Pete dips down low. “Only I know how to fix this.”

“Then tell me.”

“Dude, let her go,” Claudia says, pointing with her eyes at Myka.

Pete looks at Myka, and his mouth falls open, the artifact slipping from his hand.

“Helena, go. Quickly,” Dr. Calder says, swabbing a jellied wand over Myka’s swollen, exposed belly.

Helena crouches down and swipes the bag off the floor. “It’s mine, by the way,” she says to Pete, then marches towards the bathroom and slams the door.

----------

“No!” Myka yelps, lurching upright, eyes darting around the room. “Helena!” She jumps off the bed and rushes toward Helena, but a hand holds her back.

“Mykes, whoa," Pete says but Myka yanks her arm free and steps forward. “Is she ok?” she says to Dr. Calder, her eyes wild and round.

"She's stable,' Dr. Calder answers.

“Suave move getting yourself shot H.G.,” Claudia quips.

“Shot? Where?” Myka asks Dr. Calder.

“Nothing yet, but if our last encounter is any indication—”

“Last encounter?” Myka says.

“This was you last time. You don't remember?"

"No."

"She went back to save you.“

“All I remember is a shot,” Myka says and laces her fingers through Helena's as the heart monitor bleeps erratically.

“There’s the blood,” Dr. Calder says, then checks the wound. "No bullet. It went straight through.”

“We need the bullet the neutralize the artifact,” Claudia says.

Myka searches the faces in the room.

“It’s here somewhere,” Pete says.

"Maybe in the dirt by the gunfight. Wherever that was," Steve adds.

"She might bleed out by then," Claudia says, eyes glued to her laptop. "According to this, the actor died. Just like Myka's did last time."

Myka spies the static bagged pistol in on a table. She lunges to grab it, but Pete holds her back.

"I have to go back,” Myka says.

“We'll figure something out,” Pete says.

“I’m not losing her again!”

“Mykes--”

“Pete, don’t.” Myka glares, and Pete's eyes soften, in a "please give it a chance" kind of way. But Myka's resolve remains steady, his plea falling on deaf ears.

Claudia steps in and commanders the bag. “There’s stuff you should know before you go,” she says to Myka. She gives a quick rundown of her research and Myka fills in the blanks with what little she recalls from the artifact's world.

“I’ll be back,” Myka says, striding toward the bathroom.

“Wait!” Claudia yelps. "How did the gun go off in the first place? Pete pulled the trigger to hop in and save you, but nothing happened.”

“I dropped it, and it went off,” Myka answers without stopping.  

“But both of you were whammied. How?"

“Best guess?” Myka pauses and looks over her shoulder. "We were kissing when it happened."

Claudia snaps her fingers and points at Pete. “Love's the secret ingredient!”

“Love. Great,” Myka says and pulls the door closed.

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

Myka faints upon arrival and is swept up by two women, who strip her down to her petticoats and lower onto a daybed. She's relieved to be lying down but disconcerted by her bulging stomach; Claudia explained the hows and whys, but the reality of being pregnant is beyond anything she could have imagined.  

She tries to stand up, but queasiness doubles her over, and the women scoop her up and settle her back onto the bed. This time she stays horizontal and examines her surroundings; probably a parlor of sorts, with resplendent furniture for entertaining. The women must be servants of the house by the way the women dart about straighten every chair and doily. Her handmaids, she guesses, as they’re not wearing aprons, which, unfortunately, means they’ll constantly be by her side.

Her maids scurry towards the windows, and she feels compelled to follow, trailing sluggishly, unaccustomed to the extra weight. She peers into the backyard and sees men with guns and dogs walking in packs, not unlike manhunts in the Secret Service. Out of nowhere, a wave of queasiness returns, and she leans against the window. She focuses on searching for the artifact and Helena as well as she's hasn't a clue where to find her.

Claudia had pinpointed where they’d been sent, but the movie was never finished, so the finer points of the plot remain a mystery. “Ye olde railroad times,” she said, “on ye olde western ‘frontier,'” in air quotes, the exact time and place left open to interpretation.

There’s shouting in the distance and the men shift to the right, just as her maids notice Myka’s no longer in bed.

“Miss Mary, come away from the window!” one pleads, and yanks on her arm.

“You’re not safe, Miss Mary,” the other adds, scrambling to her side.

This “Miss Mary” business grates at Myka's nerves, but there’s no getting around it, she must stay in character for this to work.

“Stop fussing,” Myka snips, shooing them both away, the words rolling off her tongue without thought.

“But they’ll see you,” a maid pleads.

“I don’t care. I know he’s out there and I want to see him,” Myka replies, surprised by her petulant tone, that of the debutante she's meant to portray. She chuckles at the “him," but when her maids look at her oddly, she sees she needs to hone in any improv.

A shot is fired, and as the men surge to the left, Myka moves to the right and scours the yard for Helena. She startles when in a figure dressed in black shoots out from behind the barn, zipping behind a thicket of trees. They zig-zag forward, then scurry behind an outbuilding, close enough for Myka to make out their features.

It’s Helena for sure, clothed head to toe in cowboy finery, looking ruggedly and roguishly dust covered. As their gazes meet, Myka's heartbeat surges and Helena's eyes fill with love and longing. Both are scripted emotions, overacted for the camera, but Myka's caught off guard at their realness. Helena then lifts her stetson and runs a hand through her hair, looking every bit the handsome, misunderstood loner she's meant to be.

A shot sounds in the distance, and Helena turns back to the yard.  

“Miss Mary,” a maid says, tugging on Myka’s arm, but Myka pays her no mind. The men circle back, and Helena draws her pistol, eyes scanning the horizon for an escape route. She glances at Myka, and touches the brim of her hat, nodding goodbye before disappearing behind the main building.

“Miss Mary, your father—“

“Tell him I’m ill, and I don’t want to see him. Tell him—“

“Mary!” a male voice booms from behind.

Myka's shoulders pinch together, and she turns slowly, reluctantly, not looking forward how this scene will play out.

--------

A whole day passes without further signs of Helena, though she’s heard whispers a larger search is underway. “The cowboy," she’s learned, has a bounty on his head, having sabotaged something, or robbed a bank, or killed man, depending on who you ask. Who exactly is out hunting for him is a genuine question, as the main characters all seem present in the house. Tonight is Mary's engagement party, and since her father is the mayor, the celebration includes nearly the whole town.

She hasn’t met him yet, but her betrothed is Jamison McAllister the Third, the son of a railroad magnate from New York. He was sent out to the sticks to oversee his father’s advancing empire, and from what she’s gathered, won little fondness within the town. He took a shine to Mary immediately, but Mary shunned his advances until Mary's father strongarmed them together.

It was a not very well-kept secret that Mary was stepping out with “the cowboy,”  a man with a checkered past but a heart of gold. Then when Mary fell pregnant, her father forbade her from seeing “that bastard,” threatening to kill both of them if she ran. He forced her to marry Jamison, seeing dollar signs in their union, desperate to acquire the wealth and power Jamison's family possessed.

“Hey!” Myka cries, as her maid shuffles her down the hall, her nausea returning full force as they go.

“We must prepare for the ball!” the maid declares and deposits her in the middle of the room, but there’s a pause before anyone tends to her. Time is playing out chronologically, but when the action's happening elsewhere, Mary's thoughts shift back into her own.

After an unbearable amount of fussing, she’s strapped into a florid, lacy gown, then escorted by her maids to the mayoral ballroom. To complicate matters, it’s a costume themed ball, leaving her at a loss to know who's who as she greets them. Hefty men guard the exits, many of them in uniform, including her father, dressed in his Civil War officer’s regalia. He talks with a man in a severe brown suit, his mask slightly askew. Her eyes widen at the gun slung high on his hips, the very one she's been searching for. Her stomach knots as he approaches and she looks down at her feet, bracing herself for what happens next.

He kisses her awkwardly, then hooks their arms together and tugs her towards her father on the sidelines. As her father gives a speech, she thinks to steal the gun now, but there’s no way she can escape the room unnoticed. Plus she needs to find Helena, or is she looking for the man in black? Her character’s thoughts keep interrupting her own. Get a grip, she tells herself and tries to yank free from Jamison, but he tightens his hold.

When the speech ends, the band begins to play, and Jamison leads her to the dance floor. As they sway to a waltz, he grumbles in her ear that he’ll torture and kill “the cowboy” if she tries to escape. Her expression reflects Mary’s fear, but her hands have other plans, balling into fists where they sit on his shoulders.

As the next song begins, the floor fills with guests, and a figure in black mask taps Jamison on the shoulder.

“May I?” they say, in an American twang, but the voice is familiar to Myka.

“Huh?” Jamison grunts, but by then Myka's gone, swept up by the uniformed person in question.

Helena is light on her feet, which is a welcome change from Jamison, but does Helena know she’s Helena and not "the cowboy"? And if Helena does know she’s…he’s...Helena, does she know that she, Mary, is Myka? She nearly says something, but worries she'll mess up the scene. The last thing they need is to be stuck here until the movie ends.

“Your curls are magnificent, Miss Mary,” Helena says, her accent now back to English.

Myka nearly breaks out into a laugh, as way the line sounded is as circumspect as the ringlets her hair’s been forced into.

“Why thank you, sir,” Myka replies, emphasizing "sir" for effect.

“We’ve precious little time, my love,” Helena says, glancing at the band. “Two songs from now, near the far door, you must faint and insist only your maids may accompany you.”

Myka’s stomach flutters at being called ‘my love,’ drawn to Helena as both protector and lover, knowing in her heart “the cowboy" will save her from her horrible fate.

“They’ll be a ruckus out front, but we’ll escape out back.”

“By whom?” Myka asks but doesn't push for an answer as the way Helena looks at her tells her she’s gone off script.

They twirl to the left and Helena passes Myka off, taking the lead with another woman.

Can she faint convincingly? Pete says she’s a bad actress, though tonight she's dancing like a pro so allowing the movie to take over must be key. But she needs to be careful and monitor it's influence, at least until she and Helena manage to be alone.

-TBC-