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welcometothejianghu · 4 months ago

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 大理寺少卿游/White Cat Legend.

White Cat Legend is the 2024 live-action adaptation of a funny historical manhua about a country bumpkin who winds up working with a bunch of mystery-solving officials led by a beautiful boss whose tragic past means no one can know he's also a kitty.

This is one of those cases where television comes in to adapt something that has both unfilmable elements and a very non-cinematic storyline that hasn't even been finished yet, and as such mostly just takes the characters and the basic conceit, then creates an entire vaguely nonsensical 36-episode AU fanfic of it. To call this show tonally inconsistent would be an insult to shows that are only merely tonally inconsistent. It is full-on tonal whiplash, the kind you should go see a doctor about. This shit is all over the place. It has arcs and situations that are genuinely emotionally moving, and then smash cut! to wacky nonsense happening with the B-plot. It does not know if it wants to tell a Serious Story or just have bonkers antics, and it will deal with this indecision by doing both at once.

So if you're in the mood for something fun with charming characters that won't tax your brain parts, let me give you five reasons this could be exactly the junk food you're looking for.

1. Just a family of all boys

If you're looking for a show rife with female characters, go watch Legend of Fei or Story of Yanxi Palace. Over here, it's Boys' Night Out.

The show is set in the Court of Judicial Review, which solves crimes. The boy in charge of all of them is Li Bing, who is secretly also a cat for reasons he doesn't understand. He picks up naive yokel and total sweeheart Chen Shi and brings him back to work with the Court's current occupants: a sad-eyed scribe with catastrophically bad luck, a former soldier who wishes he'd been born recently enough to be into Crossfit, a generic "foreigner" whose superpowers are spending his parents' money and pronouncing things badly, and the 8th-century Chinese equivalent of a mediocre white man.

And I'm going to tell you right now, up front, above the cut, that these boys' character interactions are the #1 reason to watch this show. You watch it because you like to see them bounce off one another like the unsupervised toddlers they are. They all love and care for one another in the best ways they know how, which sometimes aren't very effective, but darn it, they're trying!

What's especially cute is how they're so touchy with one another -- and not in any kind of sexual or creepy way, but in a sincerely affectionate bro way. There's lots of hugging and supportive arms around waists. Sometimes when they get scared, they hold hands. They grip one another when walking across unsteady ground or climbing over walls to break into yet another house. There's never any gay panic or no-homo reassurances. It hits that sweet spot right between brothers and boyfriends, where you can read their interactions as fraternal and/or romantic as you like (see below).

I mean, who needs a plot when you have half a dozen charming boys canonically working, eating, and sleeping side by side? That, my friends, is quality television.

2. Jam-packed with goofball nonsense

White Cat Legend is a show that will make you laugh out loud, and mostly even on purpose.

About 2/3 of this show is silly, and the other 1/3 is trying so hard to be emotionally resonant. But you know what? Screw emotional resonance for the moment -- let's embrace the antics!

There's a lot of silliness happening even at the production level. The show also starts out doing some very cute visual things, like breaking shots into multiple "panels" that give everything a real comic feel. It's especially effective during fight scenes and other visually confusing setups. ...And then about 1/4 of the way in, it forgets about this gimmick and stops almost completely. This is a shame, because I liked it! I liked that VFX tomfoolery that paid homage to the story's webcomic roots! (Also, someone behind the camera clearly got told that the way to make a scene more visually interesting is to slowly pan in during every shot. Once you notice it, you can't unsee it.)

The main villain is ... well, he's a lot. He's just a whole lot. I'd call him Evil Garfield, except Garfield is already kind of Evil Garfield, so this guy's Eviler Garfield. He's not chewing the scenery, but is instead treating it like a cat with a vendetta against some drapes. He's just hilariously over the top at all times. It starts out vaguely entertaining, then gets annoying, then wraps right back around to entertaining again.

Also, his wig is terrible -- and it's not even the worst wig in the show! White Cat Legend has decided that the way you style foreigner NPCs is just to jam unbrushed women's wigs on extras' heads and call it a day. There are indeed a lot of foreigners in the show, and the show has chosen to handle them by assuming everything beyond the borders of 6th-century Chinese territory is a great undifferentiated vaguely Persian-flavored mass. Who's that shady-looking guy? Oh, he's Foreign. What country is he from? A Foreign one. What language does he speak? You know, Foreign.

You are not ready for the score. This is a show that spent its entire musical budget on a handful of middling pop songs, realized it still needed ~40 minutes of music to put in each episode, and decided that it could just pull things at semi-random from whatever the Chinese television equivalent of the YouTube royalty-free sound library is. The result is some laugh-out-loud hilarious soundtracking. Do you know why they usually pay people to do things like score television shows? It's because when you don't, it sounds like this.

True story: During one antics-filled scene, I frowned, listened a second, and asked my wife, "Is that ... 'Deck the Halls'?" It was!

The mysteries are -- and I'm quoting myself here -- the celery that gets the cute boy peanut butter to your mouth. Not only can you, the viewer, not solve them, I don't actually remember what most of the resolutions were. Hell, I barely remember what most of the actual setups were. The individual storylines are mostly unimportant pieces of fluff that kinda sorta tie into the big mystery of the show: Why is that boy a kitty? ...And if you think you're going to be satisfied by the resolution to that one, honestly, you haven't been paying attention to what I've been saying in this post.

Basing this on absolutely nothing but vibes, here is my guess: The original vision for this series was as an ongoing thing, something that might hew a little closer to the comic storyline in later seasons. At some point in the production, the decision got made that there would be no further seasons made. The resulting drama is something that's technically self-contained, sure, but has a lot of little lingering weirdnesses that look like foreshadowing.

As just one example, the way they frame and shoot the empress is bizarre, and she might as well have a big SHE'S GOING TO TURN OUT TO BE EVIL neon sign above her head. ...Except that, no, she's fine! Perfectly fine, mostly normal empress, mostly normal levels of evil, nothing to see here. She is, however, evil as heck in the source material (and that's not a spoiler, she's a little pink thing who's clearly sinister all the way from the get-go), and I have to wonder if the showrunners weren't planning some future heel-turn villain arc for her. Well, we'll never know now, so whatever you choose to believe, the show won't contradict you on it!

Your reaction to all of this will 100% depend on how charitable you are feeling toward staring down a firehose of (mostly) intentionally slapdash shenanigans. If you go into this demanding coherence and substance, you will wind up disappointed. If you go into it expecting nothing more than a fluffy good time, you'll probably enjoy yourself tremendously -- and you'll maybe even be moved by the rare times it does work out to being something of substance! Such as...

3. We are never ever getting back together

The first thing you can tell about Qiu Qingzhi and Li Bing is that they are as divorced as two dudes in a c-drama can be. They aren't just a little divorced. They are nuclear divorced.

Except -- and this is the juicy part -- they obviously still work really well together. If it's just the two of them head-to-head, they will be assholes to one another with no mercy. If circumstances change and they have a shared target, God help that shared target.

The unspoilery version of their backstory goes like this: They were adorable little tween besties who grew up into adorable little teen besties, until Qiu Qingzhi went off to join the army and came back a real cold bitch, and Li Bing has no idea why. Now the two of them control state agencies that should work together but actually wind up competing more often than not (think the FBI and the CIA), a competition not helped by how the Jinwu Guards (Qiu Qingzhi's group) are actual professional soldiers in very nice armor, while the Court of Judicial Review is, well, [gestures to points 1 and 2].

And yeah, baby, this right here is The Ship.

I spent a nonzero amount of time while watching this series laughing out loud because Wei Zheming's face is just too beautiful to be believed. With his sculpted jaw and his perfectly practiced looks of disdain, his Qiu Qingzhi looks like a damn Disney prince. His face could not be more perfect if you'd assigned a team of animators to draw it. This actor is the reason I found this show in the first place -- he was so beautiful in Word of Honor that I found myself wondering what else he might be getting up to. Turns out, he is again being a smug bitch and capturing the heart of a doe-eyed younger man.

Don't let me oversell how much these two are together in the show, because they're not. Qiu Qingzhi is not part of the main crew, so he's not in most of the episodes. Most of his screentime comes in flashbacks during the last story arc, to a time in his past when Li Bing wasn't even around. But when they're together, oh, the sparks do fly.

I think it helps that the actors seem to have understood the ship, even if in that video, Ding Yuxi (Li Bing's actor) is trying so hard to do the Please Do Not Cancel Us dance of plausible deniability. I honestly don't even think this is the show's doing; after all, the source material (see the section near the end) is not BL in the slightest. I'd believe the show meant to create a normal platonic bro-relationship between these two. I'd even believe that it thinks it succeeded.

Still, if you're not the biggest fan of Lovers To Enemies? That's fine! Here's the relationship that's the real core of the show:

4. Here comes a special boy

All the boys of the family of all boys are special and wonderful, but truly, Chen Shi is the specialest and wonderfulest of them all.

He is your everyman character, the little country bumpkin overwhelmed by all the big-city dealings he's stumbled into. With his cute little twang and his natural inclination to trust everyone he meets, he's the perfect cinnamon roll, too good, too pure. I want to pinch his angelic little cheeks.

Fun fact: I have been informed by someone who speaks with the same dialect he does that said dialect is very sweary, which brings to mind the wonderful image of Chen Shi just casually and sweetly dropping f-bombs while everyone else stares in shock.

In a show where the characters are way more important than the plot, having a good POV character is key. Your audience lives or dies entirely on how much they want to see that POV character put into situations. To me, Chen Shi is a rousing success at this. He's not stupid! He's just extremely sheltered and on his own for the first time in his ife. He's the bravest little toaster, the goodest boy who's not going to let the little things stop him -- like, say, illiteracy, or a lack of familiarity with city living, or an inability to give any substantial details about the brother he's looking for beyond 'he looks just like me.' That's why he's got his friends help him out!

You better believe that when it comes time to save the day, Chen Shi will do it through the power of how everyone loves him.

And he and the kitty are ... romance? Kind of romance? Romance-adjacent? I could burn even more wordcount explaining the dynamic, but @uovoc has already said it best:

cdrama Li Bing is like: I've taken an inexplicable liking to this simple country boy so I'm going to entrust him with my life's greatest secret because I'm whimsical like that. And cdrama Chen Shi is like: this man is the most beautiful cat I've ever seen.

No matter how romantically you slice it, it's a dynamic I absolutely love: where a guy weighed down by his own past meets another guy who could not care less about that. Chen Shi is Li Bing's chance to figure out who Li Bing is, without the burdens of his family history, connections to the court, job, status, or any of the other things everyone else sees when they look at him. Chen Shi looks at Li Bing and sees Li Bing, whiskers and all.

I mean, Chen Shi makes Li Bing an entire office full of human-sized cat toys. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

And if you're not into besties-to-worsties or the pure and purrfect love between a man and his cat who is also a man? That's okay! I've helpfully made a chart to demonstrate the many flavors of exciting relationship dynamics White Cat Legend makes available to you:

Imagine the possibilities! Make your own fun! And then get over to AO3 and share it with the rest of the class! The White Cat Legend tag is sparsely populated and mostly not in English, and that's a shame, because there's so much smooching potential.

5. Not as dumb as it looks

Wow, that's kind of a backhanded compliment, isn't it? Well, no, not actually. You saw my earlier points about what a bag of goofs this show is. What's easy to miss, though, is how unexpectedly clever a whole lot of its dumbassery is.

A lot of this, I'm going to chalk up to the actors, who on the whole turn in some comedic performances way better than they have any right to be. That's the thing about comedy: to do stupid well, you have to be smart. They're all very funny, and they've got some great chemistry in combinations and permutations. It's a testament to their abilities that you can take any two of them, give them a scene together, and get something worth watching out of it.

Of course most of this is the main boys, but the major supporting characters largely have the same clever sense of comedic timing. Their actors know they're not performing some great work of literature, so they've decided to have some fun with it. I'm not going to praise anyone's performance here as particularly great, but by and large, the recurring cast members are doing solid work.

The aforementioned goofball nonsense also does a fair job of distracting from how creative the show can be. For example, the fact that many of the fights and chases are comedic makes it easy to miss how the fight choreography is often really tight. I don't think the show is trying to hide its moments of cleverness, so much as it's just grabbing them where it can without drawing attention to them.

I know a lot of people gave up on this show only a few episodes in, and I suspect I know why. It's not even that it just takes a while to find its footing -- it never quite finds its footing, on account of being such a patchwork creation. It's an adaptation of an incomplete story, forced to make changes because of budgetary limitations, promising things it's not allowed to deliver on, and further cut down between filming and release. That's what you call having the deck stacked against you. The fact that the final product is not only watchable but downright enjoyable is a testament to how the production got some critical fundamentals right.

In short, it's not just dumb fun -- though it is a lot of dumb fun. But it's dumb fun with just enough to sink your teeth into that it eventually becomes a compelling ratio. I don't blame the people who bailed, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

bonus: It comes in other flavors!

If you like the series and you want more, you're in luck! There's a whole ongoing comic and animated series!

The comic is the original version of the story: a tall vertical webcomic with a cute, distinctive style. It's still being published, and it's very different from the drama. There's a great ongoing translation project at @whitecatlegend, so if your Mandarin skills are as bad as mine (or worse!), you can follow along in English as well!

The donghua is a pretty close adaptation of several parts of the comic. You can find the whole first season at this YouTube playlist, though please note that the playlist is out of order, so you don't accidentally start with episode 8. The translation is ... eh, it's a little rough in places, to put it charitably, but it also makes some charming localization decisions, so I'm all for it. Oh, and here's the second season! It's even prettier and better-translated than the first!

Also, hey, furries? Li Bing's a perma-kitty in both of those versions of the story, so have fun with that.

The drama's casting is spot-on. Whoever picked these boys went out of their way to keep the original artistic vibe as much as possible, to the point where if you'd told me the drama had come first and then someone had drawn a comic starting from the actors' likenesses, I would've believed you.

(And yes, if you've read it, Qiu Qingzhi and Lai Zhongshu aren't technically Qiu Shenji and Lai Junchen, but I'm declaring them close enough for the purposes of this demonstration.)

I have heard that some fans of the comic are unhappy about the live-action adaptation, and I get that, I do -- they are not the same thing. There are plenty of things the drama leaves out where, okay, I understand why that person/event/factor got cut, but at the same time, dammit. In the end, I like them both as very different stories featuring the same(-ish) characters. Still, the drama is definitely not one of those situations where you get to tune in to watch the same things you loved on the page, just in a different medium. The delightfully accurate casting is about where the similarities end. Everything beyond that is its own legend.

Kitty.

Here, kitty, kitty?

The drama's an iQiyi exclusive, so that's where you'll get it.

It's a fun show, not a perfect show. It has some captivating elements and lots of promising nonsense worth thinking about. And like I said, it's a tiny-ass fandom -- a paltry 277 works on AO3, a mere 44 of which are in English. Somebody get in there and make some combination of those boys kiss!

Also, it is criminal that Kitty Li Bing has fabulous red eyeliner that Person Li Bing does not get to wear. Call makeup and fix that.

#white cat legend #all cats are boyfriends #大理寺日志 #大理寺少卿游 #rec post #i made this

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ask-hws-america · 2 months ago

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Got any favorite cartoons? (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)

You bet I do!

Batman the Animated Series:

This show has the best Batman, the best Joker, it INTRODUCED Harley Quinn to the world, reinvented several characters for the better, wasn't afraid to get dark, and inspired a lot of elements of the live-action movies!

Looney Tunes:

Classic American cartoon, iconic characters, super chaotic, super quotable...

Kim Possible:

Another super fun show with a great rogues gallery! Also, I was told by one of my citizens that I sound like Ron Stoppable and honestly, they're kinda right. We also just have similar energy in general!

Hercules:

HERC IS THE HERO!! 💪💪 How could I not watch Disney's Hercules TV spinoff?? Herc is so me-coded. 😁 Shame Meg (one of the hottest Disney ladies, just sayin') doesn't get much screentime since the show mainly takes place before the movie, but it did give us Cassandra, whose friendship with Herc reminds me of me and Belarus!

The Legend of Tarzan:

Another Disney spinoff show! It's just so cool watching Tarzan fight, and the jungle setting's awesome! They get real creative with it. They also introduce lots of new antagonists, like there's this one blond green-eyed thick-browed English double agent dude who ends up betraying England. HAHAHA!

House of Mouse:

UNDERRATED SHOW. It has a bunch of Disney characters (even obscure ones) all interacting with each other at a cartoon dinner theater. Lots of references and funny moments!

Johnny Bravo:

HUH! 💪 HUH! 💪 MAN, I'M PRETTY! Sometimes I just wanna watch a goofy muscle dude who talks like Elvis. What else can I say?

Garfield:

Another classic. Garfield reminds me of my own cat, who is also big, loves food, and likes to lie around a lot. Although mine is more hyper! And not orange. He's white with brown fluff around his neck and weird face markings that look like glasses!

ATLA:

An awesome story with awesome characters! Sokka especially! He's a funny guy who's not taken seriously but is actually super smart in his own way.

#alfred answers #hws america #aph america #hws #hetalia #hetalia roleplay blog #hetalia ask blog #aph #hetalia rp blog

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sensitiveuser · 15 days ago

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Tribute to Louise Michel

I - Louise Michel's journey from her birth (May 29, 1905) to the assassination and funerals of Victor Noir (January 1870)

120 years ago to the day, Louise Michel passed away at the age of 75, in Marseille, taken by pneumonia. So I can't help but pay tribute to her. In this first post dedicated to the life of Louise Michel (yes, I'm annoying, I love telling the stories of the historical figures I love...), I will simply retrace her journey from her birth in Vroncourt to her situation in Paris in early 1870. Then, in future posts, I will tell you about her commitment to the Club de la Patrie en danger, to the Comité républicain de vigilance des citoyennes du XVIIIe arrondissement, to the demonstration of January 22, 1871, and during the Paris Commune, of course. Not to mention her trial, her deportation to Kanaky, and all her actions from 1880 to 1905 !

“I am what is called a bastard; but those who gave me the bad gift of life were free, they loved each other” (Memoirs). Louise Michel was born on May 29, 1830 at the Château de Vroncourt in Haute-Marne. We know her mother very well, named Marianne Michel, a servant at the Château de Vroncourt in the service of the Demahis family (belonging to the minor nobility). To tell the truth, the father is unknown to us. However, it is very likely that her father's name was Laurent Demahis (she confirms this in her Memoirs), rather than Etienne-Charles Demahis, whom she always considered her grandfather.

"The nest of my childhood had four square towers, the same height as the main building, with bell-shaped roofs. The south side, absolutely without windows, and the loopholes in the towers gave it the air of a mausoleum or a fortress, depending on the point of view. Formerly it was called the Strong House; when we lived there I often heard it called the Tomb. This vast ruin, where the wind blew like in a ship, had, to the east, the coast of the vines and the village, from which it was separated by a grassy road as wide as a meadow" (Memoirs).

Louise Michel therefore grew up at the Château de Vroncourt, alongside her grandparents Etienne-Charles and Charlotte Demahis. In her Memoirs, she launches into a description of her native village : "To the west, the coast and the Suzerin wood, from where the wolves, at the time of the great snows, entering through the breaches of the wall, came to howl in the courtyard. The dogs answered them, furious, and this concert lasted until morning it went well with the ruin and I loved those nights. I loved them especially, when the north wind blew hard, and we read very late, the family gathered in the great hall, the staging of winter and the high cold rooms. The white shroud snow, the choirs of the wind, wolves, dogs, would have been enough to make me a bit of a poet, even if we had not all been poets from the cradle; it was a legacy that has its legend. It was freezing cold in these enormous rooms; we would gather around the fire, my grandfather in his armchair, between his bed and a pile of rifles of all ages; he was dressed in a large white flannel greatcoat, shod in clogs trimmed with sheepskin slippers. On these clogs, I would often sit, almost huddling in the ashes with the dogs and cats. There was a large Spanish female dog, with long yellow hair, and two others of the breed of shepherd dogs, all three answering to the name of Presta, a black and white dog that we called Médor, and a very young one, that we had named the Biche in memory of an old mare that had just died. We had mourned the Biche, my grandfather and I had wrapped her head in a white cloth so that the earth would not touch it, at the bottom of the big hole where she was buried near the acacia of the bastion. The cats were all called Galta, the tabby and the red ones".

In truth, her grandparents gave her a liberal education. It should be known that Etienne-Charles Demahis was part of the minor nobility acquired to the republican ideal.

As a child, Louise was very interested in nature, animals, and the peasants of the region. She loves walking in the Haute-Marne countryside, climbing trees with her cousin Jules; she loves horses. Louise does everything that is forbidden to young girls of her time ! "The female cats were all called Galta, the tabby ones and the red ones. The cats were all called Lion or Raton, there were legions of them" (…) "In the summer, the ruin filled with birds, entering through the windows. The swallows came to take back their nests, the sparrows knocked on the windows and private larks bravely shouted with us (falling silent when we switched to minor mode). Birds were not the only companions of dogs and cats; There were partridges, a tortoise, a deer, wild boars, a wolf, owls, bats, broods of orphaned hares, raised with a spoon, a whole menagerie, not forgetting the foal Zephyr and his grandmother Brouska, whose age was no longer countable, and who would come straight into the rooms to take bread or sugar from the hands she liked, and to show people who did not suit her her big yellow teeth, as if she were laughing in their face. Old Biche had a rather funny habit: if I held a bouquet, she would offer it to herself, and run her tongue over my face. And the cows? the big Blanche Bioné, the two young Bella and Nera, with whom I would go and talk in the stable, and who would answer me in their own way by looking at me with their dreamy eyes. All these animals lived in harmony; the cats lying in a circle followed the birds, the partridges, the quails trotting on the ground with their eyes. Behind the green tapestry, all holes, which covered the walls, mice were moving around, with little cries, quick but not frightened; I never saw a cat disturb them in their peregrinations. Besides, the mice behaved perfectly, never gnawing the notebooks or the books, never having set their teeth on the violins, guitars, cellos which were lying around everywhere. What peace in this house and in my life at that time !" (Memoirs (p.11-12).

Thanks to her grandparents, Louise received a good education. She thus becomes a brilliant young girl, revolted against all injustice !

A great reader (she also read the great philosophers, notably Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot), and became a great admirer of Victor Hugo. If there is another book that has left its mark on her, so to speak, it was Lamennais’s Words of a Believer, “I was perhaps six or seven years old when Lamennais’ book, Words of a Believer, was soaked with our tears. From that day on, I belonged to the crowd; from that day on, I climbed step by step through all the transformations of thought, from Lamennais to anarchy.” (Memoirs).

One of the aspects of Louise Michel’s personality: Her attachment to Christian mysticism. One of her key words: compassion and justice for every human being. [Well, I keep repeating it, but you don’t need to believe in God (and even less to be a Christian) to show a capacity for empathy… In fact, I will tell you about Louise Michel's relationship with religion.]

Some historians (including Xavière Gautier) dare to say that Louise had a certain “fascination” with death… indeed, she liked going to the cemetery. Later, in her Letters to Victor Hugo, she would mention people who told her “Go sleep in the cemetery, little one, because you’re a bastard!” (another reference to the conditions of her birth, really!). Xavière Gautier specifies that people who didn’t know her rejected her death, an idea that she took up for her own, and she always thought that she was going to die wonderfully, to the point of wanting to die a martyr for her fights that were dear to them ("Kill me if you are not cowards (...)" - Yes, you get the idea; I’ll tell you about it in another post^^). I take this opportunity to quote a poem written by her grandmother Charlotte after Etienne-Charles' death :

DEATH

Mourning has descended into my sad home :

Pale Death sits at the hearth and I weep.

All is silence and night in the house of the dead.

No more songs, no more joy, where chords vibrated.

We murmur quietly, and as if with mystery.

It is that we do not come back when we sleep underground.

Forever his absence has made the songs cease.

What happened next ? In 1844, her grandfather Etienne-Charles Demahis died. Laurent Demahis died in turn in 1847, as did his grandmother Charlotte Demahis in 1850. Louise and her mother left the Château de Vroncourt. She refused several marriage proposals. Furthermore, her mother would have wanted her to "take orders"; Luckily she didn't listen to him ! That's how she decided to become a teacher !

For the first time, she corresponded with Victor Hugo, for whom she had great admiration. From 1850 to 1862, she sent him eight poems. "From Audeloncourt, I sent verses to Victor Hugo; my mother and I had seen him in Paris in the autumn of 1851, - and he answered me from exile as he had formerly answered me from Paris, to my nest in Vroncourt and to my pension in Chaumont. I also sent a few feuilletons to the newspapers in Chaumont."(Mémoires)

In 1851, with her mother, she spent a few months with her uncle in Lagny. Her uncle, who "didn't like to see me write and always imagined that I would leave the schoolteacher exams for poetry", placed her at Mme Duval's boarding school in Lagny, "where his daughter had been brought up; I was a boarder there for about three months".

She prepared for her schoolteacher's certificate, but she failed her first attempt.

In 1852, in Chaumont, she tried a second time to pass her teacher's certificate, this time she succeeded. "In this house, as in Chaumont, we lived books; the real world stopped on the threshold and we were passionate about the bits of science that crumble in front of the teachers: just enough to make you thirst for the rest; we never have time to deal with that rest." "The lack of time was before 71, the torture of any teacher's life. We were struggling before the diploma, with a program that we inflate beyond measure, and, afterwards, with the same deflated program, letting you see that you know nothing !"

Refusing to "swear an oath to the Empire" (which was obligatory for all civil servants under the Second Empire), she set up a free school in Audeloncourt.

She teaches in the name of republican and democratic principles. For her, the role of a teacher is to transmit to children the taste for knowledge, to learn to think for oneself in order to ensure one's emancipation. She is categorically opposed to any punishment. She writes plays staged by schoolgirls. She establishes what can be called "nature classes", by teaching them about plants and animals. She did not hesitate to bring certain plants and animals (birds, snakes) into the classroom, asking the students to treat them with greatest possible respect.

In addition to her brilliant work as a teacher, Louise Michel began her literary career as a poet. In her early writings, she sought to express values such as compassion and solidarity, hinting at her desire for emancipation. These first poems, published in newspapers such as L'Écho de Haute Marne and signed "Louise Demahis" bear witness to her first socialist commitments.

As a good teacher and a good republican, Louise was summoned by Rector Fayet, who ended up sympathizing with her and supporting her.

In 1854, Louise Michel established free schools in Clefmont and Millières.

"I was summoned to the prefect who told me: You have insulted His Majesty the Emperor by comparing him to Domitian and if you were not so young, we would have the right to send you to Cayenne. I replied that those who recognized Mr. Bonaparte in the portrait of Domitian insulted him just as much, but that in fact it was him that I had in mind. Adding that, as for Cayenne, it would have been pleasant for me to establish a house of education there, and not being able to pay the cost of the trip myself, that on the contrary it would give me great pleasure. The matter ended there! Some time later, a man who wanted to ask some favor of the prefecture came to find me, saying: "It seems that you have been to the prefect, you will ask me to come there." I objected in vain that it was to judge me and threaten me with Cayenne that I had been called to the prefecture, and that my recommendation was not capable of making him come, but on the contrary, the man would not budge."

Faced with the accusations of the prefect of Haute-Marne (who had closed the school of Auloncourt), Fayet did not hesitate to defend him. In his letter addressed to the prefect, he emphasized his intelligence and his capacity for imagination, and he pleaded in favor of the reopening of his independent school.

Louise Michel demonstrated a deep commitment to the living conditions of the most deprived. Her correspondence with the prefect of Haute-Marne between 1853 and 1855 reflects her concern for the misery of workers and peasants. By advocating for the creation of a welfare office and public workshops, she sought to meet the urgent needs of the local population, particularly in terms of employment and food support.

In 1855, she decided to live in Paris, in the Montmartre district. In her Memoirs, she states that once established in Paris, she hoped to finally be able to fight the Second Empire. Indeed, the Montmartre district is to be considered a "landmark of revolutionaries", republicans, socialists, opponents of Napoleon III. She was hired as an assistant teacher at Madame Vollier's school, "rue du Château d'Eau". Now a socialist, she dreamed of training a young generation of individuals in the class struggle. She also attended popular education classes on rue Hautefeuille, alongside radical republicans and socialists. "Fortunately, elementary education was there. Since the classes on Rue Hautefeuille mostly took place at ten o'clock in the evening, we could often escape there and the bookstores were closed on the way back. Fortunately, elementary education was there. Since the classes on Rue Hautefeuille mostly took place at ten o'clock in the evening, we could often escape there and the bookstores were closed on the way back."

She also taught at a school on Rue Thevenot. The Women's Rights group also met at this school. From then on, Louise Michel became close to two important figures in the history of "feminism", Maria Desraimes and André Léo. She later opened a new school on Rue Oudot. In this way, she provided a "libertarian" education.

In 1861, she published the pamphlet "Lueurs dans l'ombre, plus d'idiots, plus de fous", then the Book of Hermann. In 1867, she founded a consumer cooperative with Marguerite Tinayre, Etienne Delamarche and Fortuné Henry, named Société des Equitables de Paris.

As a good socialist activist, she began to frequent Blanquist circles. This allowed her to meet Théophile Ferré, with whom she fell in love! She also became friends with Emile Eudes, Emile Duval, Raoul Rigault, and the brilliant collectivist Eugène Varlin. In 1869, Louise Michel's name was mentioned in the newspaper La Marseillaise (Henri Rochefort, Arthur Arnould, Gustave Flourens, Jean-Baptiste Millière and Victor Noir worked in this newspaper); she was mentioned as "secretary of the Société démocratique de moralisation, whose main objective was to help women workers live through work in duty or to return to it".

"The year 70 opens tragically with the assassination of Victor Noir by Pierre Bonaparte at his house in Auteuil where he had gone with Ulrich de Fonvielle as a witness for Paschal Grousset. This coldly accomplished crime put the finishing touch to the horror inspired by the Bonapartes. Like the bull in the circus shaking its skin pierced with darts, the crowd shuddered. Victor Noir's funeral seemed indicated to bring the solution. The murder was one of those fateful events that bring down the most strongly supported tyranny. Almost all those who went to the funeral thought they would return home or to the republic or not return at all" ("The burial of Victor Noir, the affair recounted by Rochefort" - La Commune, Histoires et souvenirs, 1898). On January 12, 1870, Louise Michel attended the funeral of Victor Noir, a journalist at La Marseillaise. As a result, she took part in the demonstration among the 15,000 Parisians; she is "dressed as a man" and armed with a dagger.

Sources :

Edith Thomas

Xavière Gautier

#louise michel #history #biography #socialism #19th century #feminism #women in history

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unforth · 1 year ago

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Chinese BL novels that I know of that have been adapted into animated or live actions shows

I just wrote this up in Discord, might as well post it here.

by priest:

Tian Ya Ke (Faraway Wanderers) (live action adaptation: Word of Honor - on Netflix)

Zhenhun (Guardian) (live action adaptation, same name)

Can Ci Pin (The Defective) (animated adaptation, same name) (I haven't read or seen it yet)

Lie Huo Jiao Chou (Drowning Sorrows in Raging Fire) (animated adaptation, same name) (I haven't read or seen it yet)

Mo Du (Silent Reading) (live action adaptation: Justice in the Dark, was pulled after 8 episodes aired due to censorship, I only managed to see one episode before it disappeared)

Sha Po Lang (Stars of Chaos) (live action adaptation: Winner is King, filmed but never aired due to censorship) (I haven't read it yet)

by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) (animated adaptation, same name; live action adaptation: The Untamed - LA is on Netflix)

Tian Guan Ci Fu (Heaven Official's Blessing) (animated adaptation, same name - on Netflix; live action adaptation: Eternal Faith, filmed but never aired due to censorship)

Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong (Scum Villain's Self-Saving System) (animated adaptation: Scum System)

by Meng Xi Shi

Chenghua Shisi Nian (The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua) (live action adaptation: The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty)

Qian Qiu (Thousand Autumns) (animated adaptation: Shanhe Jian Xin)

by Fei Tian Ye Xiang

Tianbao Fuyao Lu (Legend of Exorcism) (animated adaptation, same name - s1 out of 2 is on Netflix) (I haven't read the book yet, but I've read the manhua)

Dinghai Fusheng Lu (Dinghai Fusheng Records (animated adaptation, same name) (I haven't watched it yet)

by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat

Erha he Ta de Baimao Shizun (The Husky and His White Cat Shizun) (live action adaptation: Hao Yi Xing, filmed but never aired due to censorship)

That's everything I can think of right now.

#unforth rambles #priest #mo xiang tong xiu #meng xi shi #fei tian ye xiang #meatbun #idk how to tag this #danmei #or something

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miloscat · 8 months ago

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[Review] Legend of Kay Anniversary (Wii U)

An unremarkable PS2 action-adventure.

After immersing myself in Avatar media for so long I looked around for any other games set in Asia-inspired fantasy worlds but made by Westerners. This let me knock one off my Wii U backlog, the 2015 remaster of the 2005 PS2 game Legend of Kay. Neon Software, the German studio behind the original game, are known to me for their Amiga Sonic clone Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad, and it's somewhat fitting that their final game before closure was this other furry platformer. Some of the Neon cofounders went on to form Keen Games, which seems to have morphed into a new Kaiko... the original Kaiko being the company that the Mr. Nutz Hoppin' Mad team left to form Neon in the first place! Who knows how long they'll survive now under the aegis of the troubled and layoff-happy Embracer, but it's been four years since their last remaster...

Anyway, this game is a sort of 3D Zelda-like-slash-3D platformer filled with anthropomorphic animal characters, which as a Rare fan sounds up my alley. Comparing it to Starfox Adventures may be a little generous though: this is very much a B-tier PS2 action game, and a graphical revamp for new generation consoles can't magically fix the mediocrity.

To get the plot out of the way: it's extremely Normal. Kay is a "plucky" (read: obnoxious) protagonist, using his martial arts training to fight back against the occupation of his cat village by evil gorillas and rats. He travels his island to settlements of rabbits, frogs, and pandas to free them from oppression. I think it's telling that there are no credits given for story or writing; anything story-related is constantly undermined by overly shallow characterisations, completely functional video game progression (go here to get key to open door to go there etc.), and the most brain-dead "banter". For example, Kay thinks the height of action hero quips is to call a rat "cheese-breath" about a hundred times.

The latter issue is not helped by some misguided voice acting choices. It's a fully voiced game but you'll wish it wasn't with Kay's bland sarcastic schtick and almost every other character uncomfortably presenting as a borderline racist caricature. Mostly it's white people doing faux-"Asian" accents, although apparently crocodiles are Eastern European and frogs are... Jamaican, for some reason? I was glad to find a setting that let me skip any dialogue scene with a quick tap of X, because there's no other way to speed up the tedious exposition and pointless back-and-forth when you meet enemy groups.

There's only a handful of what you might call "puzzles", and the platforming ranges from "not bad" to "OK", serviceable but doesn't excel. The biggest strength and biggest weakness of the game is its combat, which is pretty involved. You can swap between three weapons which have different attributes, you often have to get around enemy blocks so there's a Wind Waker-style roll around move to hit their back, but you can also zip between targets during a combo, or use rolling, crouching, or jump attacks. You can carry up to 5 usable items which sometimes are used to explore but you have to rely on them for combat encounters late in the game when they start throwing waves at you with hordes of armoured enemies. When the difficulty spikes like this, it all just becomes too much and goes from an exercise in creatively using moves to keep your combo up to a struggle to survive (and if you die, you lose any consumables you used in your last attempt, also there's a lives system for some reason??).

I said combat might be the game's strength and it was clearly a focus of the project, but I had the most fun exploring the little worlds. There's lots of goodies to collect, mostly in the form of chests and pots containing money. You quickly end up with more than you'll ever spend but I still liked finding it. The point multiplier mechanic may seem superfluous but when you get accustomed to the flow of the platforming sections, grabbing coloured crystals to keep this combo going to make your fights and coins worth more points becomes addictive. The level design may be nothing special but the zones you traverse have some character to them.

It should be noted that this is a semi-linear game, in that the levels are mostly open to explore with events and sub-dungeons within them, but you progress from one field to the next with no way to go back. This bit me on more than one occasion when I blundered into the story trigger to move on before turning in one of the rare sidequests or going down a side path to find a health extension, making it permanently missable. This frustration prompted me to occasionally consult a Gamefaqs guide with maps during each subsequent chapter. The game does give you a minimap in the corner of the screen but it can't be expanded to a full map so it's less useful than it could be.

Legend of Kay would have felt middling even at release but rereleasing it just makes its deficiencies even more obvious. It's still got some charm for being "of that era" (I was often reminded of The Hobbit's action-adventure game from the same generation, but with fewer instant death pits), so I got some enjoyment from it. And it has some ideas that work, like the acrobatic combat and combo system. While some of the environments look nice there were just as many drab areas, and the repeated character model reuse got old. Oh, and sometimes you ride an animal and it's not fun. On the whole, I can't recommend this one... even if you ignore the cringey cultural stereotypes!!

#legend of kay #legend of kay anniversary #neon software #kaiko #wii u #review

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muninnhuginn · 10 months ago

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Hi Mun!!! I wanted to ask if you have any other kdramas or cdramas you would want to recommend? :0 I still need to catch up with Stranger/Secret Forest, but I’m curious if there are any others I should check out too!

That I do.

Okay so I'm trying to decide how much to factor in enjoyment vs quality here because I have a few shows I really enjoyed but are, um, well, you have to let some stuff pass.

I will mention that my tastes in terms of romancey stuff tends to lean towards non-existent or subtle and so that's largely reflected in my recs. The only exception to this on the list is Flower of Evil. (I didn't intend it but this list doesn't actually have any main BLs/GLs either. A lot of people ship various combos of the main three in MLC and WCL though.)

Shows below cut in no particular order:

Flower of Evil

(modern kdrama)

I wasn't sure how to start with this one so I'll just nab the description from Wikipedia as it's actually fairly accurate here:

Baek Hee-sung is a man who hides his identity and past from his wife Cha Ji-won, a detective. On the surface, they appear to be the perfect family: A loving couple with a beautiful six-year-old daughter who adores her parents. Cha Ji-won and her colleagues begin investigating a series of unexplained murders and she is confronted with the reality that her seemingly perfect husband may be hiding something from her.

I don't want to spoil much about this, but it's very cat-and-mousey. It's evil with the cliffhangers. At one point, it briefly becomes a buddy comedy between a guy and another guy he kept in his basement. And there is one scene where people just sit in a car crying for two minutes. So, like, it has the range? I think of it as a guilty pleasure kinda show personally, but it's probably the closest to Beyond Evil of the shows on this list.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook

(historical cdrama)

Full disclosure: I have only recently finished this and it has somewhat taken over my brain so I can't claim to be in any way unbiased here. Li Lianhua is a lying liar who lies who may or may not be the fallen hero Li Xiangyi (he is). He wants to get by pretending to be a doctor and minding his own business, but unfortunately, the plot is out to get him. And so he, along with Fang Duobing, end up investigating various crimes as Li Lianhua tries to find the body of his former senior to lay him to rest before his own body gives out on him.

My favourite thing about this show is a) Li Lianhua, and b) the dynamic between the main trio. The levels of trolling and identity porn at any one time are through the roof. It's a comedy until it isn't.

Reset

(modern cdrama)

This is the incredibly rare type of show known as a decent *modern* cdrama. It's a timeloop show and is fairly short at 15 episodes. It's about two strangers who are trapped on a bus that keeps exploding and their attempts to uncover why and how it keeps happening. Being a modern cdrama, some of the police stuff can be fairly... heavy-handed, but I think the writers do what they can despite that, and it does use the different bus passengers to explore different societal issues, which is neat.

Overall, it's a bit of a mystery show, a bit of a character drama, and a teensy bit of romance which is for the most part nicely underplayed.

White Cat Legend

(historical cdrama)

This is waaaaaay more down the enjoyment end than quality but I'm having such a good time here. This is originally based off a manhua (I've only read pieces of it myself) but mainly just takes the characters and some story beats and does its own thing. I watched the donghua first and tonally that was an interesting experience in how it raced between funny cat shenanigans and reckoning with the nature of war crimes (though the donghua stuck much closer to the og source overall). But the live action so far is staying firmly silly (I'm midway through so it will shift at some point, I'm sure, just can't see the tonal whiplash being as bad as in the donghua).

Anyway! To explain what the show actually *is*, it follows a guy who has been cursed to become a cat (in the manhua/donghua this means he's like a walking furry but the live action has it more of a werecat/shapeshifter deal which is good because I could not handle that cg 24/7) and his attempts at running investigations as part of the local court. This is not helped by being the only competent guy in the entire place. Still, at least his underlings are *incredibly* entertaining in their failures. So, most of the show is investigating crimes against a backdrop of Li Bing (catto dude) trying to uncover the origins of the curse and why the old court and his father died. There's also a purple dude with whom he has History and an italian vampire. And vice president shangguan, who is one of those rare female characters you get in historical cdramas where the show is actually normal about her existence *without* just entirely brushing over the implications of her being in her position as a woman.

Move to Heaven

(modern kdrama)

This is a genuine rec where I'm not going to say you have to let quality pass or whatever because it's objectively good and doesn't have a high entry barrier. It may be good to watch an episode at a time depending on your mood though rather than trying to marathon it or anything.

This show basically follows the 'move to heaven' team, who are summoned to clear out the belongings of the deceased. Each deceased person has a story associated with them and as part of tidying the belongings away, there's an element of investigating to find out what their story was. It can be a tearjerker at times, but it can also be incredibly sweet. Also, it has a canon autistic character where it actually strikes a really good balance in terms of not infantilising him whilst still having it make sense why he wants help with certain things.

Nirvana in Fire

(historical cdrama)

This is my beloved. My favourite cdrama of all time. But I suspect it may not fit for you if Secret Forest doesn't. Still, I'll mention it and say to look up the diagrams to keep track of all the characters in the early episodes (...yeah, it's that type of show).

Anyway, this show is about a terminally ill man who takes on a secret identity or two as he plots to take revenge/bring justice (depending on who you ask) for the crimes of the past. This is part of the 'lying liar who lies' subgenre. It's much more serious and complicated overall than Mysterious Lotus Casebook despite the superficial similarities, but it does have its lighthearted moments.

Misc. shows that didn't make the list

I'll mention Signal (kdrama) and Kairos (kdrama) because they both have neat time travel mechanics, but with huge stipulations here. Signal is the objectively better one of these two and the male mc in Kairos is unbearable at times but at the same time Kairos has enough good points to keep me watching. The friend trio of female mc (they're just besties frfr) and the villain romance subplot especially. Signal had potential to be amazing, but for me, some of the time travel mechanics fell through and it was almost BBC Sherlockian at times with some of the 'profiling' deductions.

Signal's premise is that there's a walkie talkie that links the past and the present between a current day consultant profiler (with a distrust of the police despite now working for them) and a past police officer who is dead in the present day. It follows various cases between the past and the present that are interlocking with each other, with the overarching mysteries being present day profiler's backstory and past cop's death. I feel like this started out decently, went hit-and-miss, had a few episodes where it was absolutely amazing, and then lost steam somewhat, though the ending hit the main points.

Kairos' premise centres around a mobile phone. When a phone is disconnected, the number ends up being assigned to someone else. So, the two main characters, living a month apart in time, have the same number and thus can communicate with each other. The male mc in the future has recently found out that his wife and daughter have both died and the female mc's mother has gone missing. So they've both got a scenario they need the other person to help them with and as they change things, more new problems keep cropping up. It's a show where the premise is super interesting, but I personally found it a very frustrating watch, not least because of characters making decisions that were in-character, but incredibly stupid and *not* in the entertaining way.

Also, as I didn't include any BLs/GLs, I'll mention that I cannot in good conscience recommend Guardian (cdrama), but it's such fun trash and it has Shen Wei. It's a bit like shows like Torchwood and Buffy in that it's ostensibly modern era but there's magic (sorry, 'aliens') and a team that's meant to be keeping on top of it all led by Zhao Yunlan. He meets Shen Wei and then proceeds to *keep meeting him* at various crime scenes because Shen Wei sucks at this whole low-key deal.

On a similar note, Couple of Mirrors (cdrama) is a republican era GL. The two leads are well-written, but it's basically like two different shows mushed together (a soap and an assassin/cat-and-mouse chase). It has Yan Wei though! It's about a popular writer meeting a photographer (who is also an assassin) and them both discovering that the writer's husband really and truly sucks.

#sorry for taking so long!#asks #roseofcards90 #in b4 I entirely forgot a really obvious show here #if there are any specific shows you want to know about just say. I tried to keep things relatively spoiler-free so may have erred too vague #cdrama recs #kdrama recs

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killerandhealerqueen · 9 months ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 大理寺少卿游 | White Cat Legend (Live Action TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Qiu Qingzhi/Li Bing Characters: Qiu Qingzhi, Li Bing Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Stabbing, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, Comfort, Fainting Series: Part 6 of 大理寺少卿游 | White Cat Legend Summary:

Li Bing knew that this was a bad idea, slipping into the Jinwu Guard’s camp with so many Jinwu guards around, but he had nowhere else to go. Well, he did, but he didn’t exactly want to go back to his men at the Court of Judicial Review…he wanted Qiu Qingzhi. Because he always went to Qiu Qingzhi for comfort whenever he felt sick or was hurt.

@randomingoftherandomness

#sass writes #white cat legend

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nvd94 · 3 months ago

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Can’t help I love their chemistry so much 😭💌🩵🩷🐱

#大理寺少卿游 #white cat legend #white cat legend live action #li bing #qiu qingzhi #qiubing #ryan ding #miles wei #wei zheming #ding yuxi #邱饼 #李饼 #邱庆之 #丁禹兮 #魏哲鸣 #dali si shao qing you #fanart

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thedreamerstoryteller · 8 months ago

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FROM THE STORY:

Li Bing's eyes were bright, Qiu Qing Zhi saw him lower his gaze embarrassed and smiled fondly. Their hair were scattered all over the pillows, it was impossible to say where one finished and the other started. Their hair were entangled, united as they own had been just a few moments before.

Li Bing was looking at him, the arm he had raised to his face before now lying on his stomach upon the blanket. The General saw him closing his hand into a fist in discomfort.

Qiu Qing Zhi smiled again reassuringly then gestured to him to come closer. When they were kids, Li Bing ran towards him and he took him upon his shoulder. He hadn't needed any word, Li Bing had got it immediately. Similarly in that moment, Li Bing moved on the mattress and came closer. Qiu Qing Zhi opened his arms and the human white cat crouched at his side. He wrapped an arm around him, Li Bing's loose hair tickled his forearm.

The Vice-Minister adjusted his position on the General's chest and seemed to relax a bit. They were hot, sweaty and sticky but it didn't matter.

<<You've been acting strange for the past few days. You should have told it to me at least>> Qiu Qing Zhi said, breaking the silence.

IN OTHER WORDS:

Li Bing finds himself in a particular and awkward condition that makes him act strangely. His friends get worried and calls for the only person who can help him. General Qiu would do anything to help his beloved little white cat.

LINK:

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snippychicke · 1 year ago

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Cats & Ships part seven

Title: Cats & Ships

Overall Rating: Teen for now, will go into mature at a future date

Trigger warnings: Nothing beyond what's in the live-action series. I mean, Kuro's still manipulative and paranoid. It gets better tho? Slowly?

Pairings: Captain Kuro (Klahadore)/Reader; hints of Kaya/Usopp

Summary: It started out as a means to get information as Khaladore. Who would be better to provide information regarding the high seas than Syrup Village’s Harbormaster? Except, for the first time in a very long time, Kuro found himself trusting, and even liking, the young woman he shared tea with every week.

And then the Straw Hat Pirates arrived and ruined his plans. Except fate decided his story wasn’t done there.

Nor was yours.

Masterlist here! | Read on Ao3!

Maple town was a far different town several hours later. The survivors of the Jones Crew had been set out to sea in dinghy with just enough food and water to reach the next isle (at the insistence of the townspeople, Kuro personally wanted to simply execute them all.)

The loot the Jones had was split between the Black Cat crew and the village. And the kegs of liquor and crates of food opened for a town-wide celebration. Once more Kuro's men filled the tavern, though this time the villagers had little qualms intermixing. Vibrant music was playing, and Jango was happily leading a dancing troupe.

From a small corner booth, Kuro watched with very mild interest, fingers tapping on the table as he waited. He should have followed you. You were already wavering between your drinks and the letdown of the fight.

Finally, just when he was about to give into the little insistent voice in his head, you breezed through the open doors of the tavern, holding a very annoyed black and white cat above your head. "Tada !"

No one understood what you were doing with the cat, but applauded anyway with cheers. Kuro-the-cat looked about as pleased with the ruckus as the pirate captain himself. (Granted, he hadn't exactly stopped you when you had the bright idea to fetch the cat from your home.)

"If he kills you in your sleep, I will not be surprised," Kuro stated as you approached, and accepted the cat as soon as you offered it.

"As long as you promise to take care of the little shit, that's all I care about," You smiled as the tuxedo-colored cat purred and rubbed against the harsh pirate captain, obviously very happy to be reunited considering a second ago he had been ready to dart away.

And to be completely fair, Kuro was happy as well, in his own way. After all, being the feared captain of the Black Cats meant that it was rare for anything to be happy to see him.

Yet even as he ran his hands along the cat's black silky coat, Kuro's eyes drifted towards you, sitting on the same rounded bench seat, but fair distance between you, with a warm expression as you sipped your drink. He couldn't deny the odd sensation that grew in his chest seeing you… happy. Relaxed.

Even if you had a handful of dressed injuries.

You had terrified him when he had first caught sight of you swinging that old sword with absolutely no skill. As undeniably beautiful it had been, you had been in danger , likely moments from death.

As much as he hated having to be cautious in a fight, much preferring to losing himself in the craze of battle, the urge to protect you was stronger.

Kuro still wasn't sure what compelled him to confess everything to you, or why he was so irritated by the idea you thought you weren't special . All those weeks of being slowly driven insane by the craving to see you, and you thought he cared nothing for you?

Did you understand what it meant for him to admit he trusted you? You and you alone?

"Is it silly that I still have a hard time believing I named him after you," You interrupted his inner reflection as you leaned into his personal space to scratch the cat between the ears. "I mean, back then Captain Kuro was some mythical figure to me. A legend with a rather handsome face. And I mean, you look every bit as handsome as your poster but you're also… you."

He found it amusing as you frowned, face turning faintly pink as you realized what you had admitted out loud. Oh, he was aware you had found him attractive; had known since he found out about his namesake. But it soothed some part of him to hear you still thought that.

"I don't find it 'silly', per se," He blamed the alcohol he had for giving into the impulse to lean over slightly, catching your eye with a rather devious smile. He truly felt like a cat that had caught a canary as he rested one arm along the back of the bench behind you. "But I do find it rather flattering."

There was that blush he enjoyed so much. He could watch it bloom down your neck, across the small bit of your chest peeking from beneath your top.

And watching you look away, covering your face, was even more adorable. "Is it hot in here?" You muttered rubbing your face.

"You do look rather red," He couldn't help but tease, leaning close to faux whisper in your ear. "You wouldn't happen to be blushing would you?"

Your eyes widened, before you pushed him playfully. "Oh shut it. I've just had too much to drink." You huffed as you crossed your arms "Such a meanie. Teasing me after I dragged Kuro from my house. He does not like going to new places, you know."

Kuro hummed thoughtfully, looking back down at the cat. "Yet another thing we have in common." He paused for a moment before shooting you a glance. "As well as our tolerance for you, I suppose."

Despite your earlier insistence that you had too much, you took another sip of your drink. Though Kuro wondered if it was to give you courage as you leaned into his side, resting your head on his shoulder. "You're both lucky I'm so fond of you."

The soft show of affection was not something the pirate captain was used to. His heart squeezed in his chest as he slowly moved his arm to wrap around your shoulders.

Last time he was able to enjoy a moment like this, it had been a fortuitous accident. This time… was purposeful, showing your trust in him.

He failed spectacularly , Kuro realized with a sigh as he pulled you closer. There was no way he was going to dispel his feelings for you. Not in the foreseeable future, at least.

Which meant he was going to have to adjust his plans.

***

You… had fallen asleep.

You had fallen asleep against him.

Kuro wasn't sure what to do, which was novelty in and of itself. His arm was still wrapped around you, even as you snuggled deeper into his side.

Most of the tavern had settled down, and he could feel the siren lure of bed himself. But… to wake you? Leave you? Neither sounded ideal.

The young apprentice chef from before seemed to notice his predicament. "I can help her home, sir" They offered. "I know where she lives."

Kuro was not about to leave you in someone else's hands. However….

Nudging his namesake from his lap, Kuro managed to stand and then pick you up without causing you to wake. You nestled closer to his chest with a soft sigh, but otherwise continued to sleep. "Lead the way."

Thankfully your home wasn't too far, lights on and door unlocked from when you had fetched Kuro.

He made a note to inform you your coworker seemed to have no qualms letting a stranger help you home, far too trusting.

Not that he had any ill intent. Other than taking off your shoes, he left you dressed as he set you down in your bed. Granted, the temptation to settle next to you was strong as he stroked your face, indulging himself in a moment to enjoy your beauty.

"You've completely ruined my plans," He confessed, caressing your face softly. "And yet, I'm only mildly annoyed."

Forgetting you would be impossible, yet staying with you would only put a target on your back. He needed to figure out a way to keep you safe, but one where he didn't abandon you completely… despite the fact it made the most logical sense.

After all, staying away from you felt as wrong as not having the cat claws by his side.

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