#lord alva

[portrait-paintings]

James Erskine, Lord Alva (1722 - 1796) and his Family

Artist: David Allan (Scottish, 1744-1796)

Date: 1780

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland

Description

In 1780 Lord Alva, a Judge of the Court of Session, became one of Allan’s first clients for a group portrait in the ‘conversational manner’ which the artist developed on his return to Scotland. During the early 1760’s the patronage of James Erskine had helped to launch Allan’s career as a portrait and figure painter. At the same time Erskine became a founder-subscriber to the building of St Cecilia’s Hall as the new premises for the Musical Society of Edinburgh. Lord Alva evidently wished to commission from Allan a musical conversation piece of the type rendered fashionable in London by Johann Zoffany. In the foreground the younger Erskines are shown performing one of the Scottish ballads which featured regularly in the weekly concerts of the Musical Society.

[nahokura]

I REFUSE to believe that Angus MacFadyen is turning 61.

HE DOESN'T EVEN LOOK 50.

[miysobaka]

"Королі Догтауна" / " Lords of Dogtown"

США, Німеччина, 2005

Реж. Кетрін Гардвік

[caerleoncrow]

I've been losing my mind over that Lawson collab art. Him specifically.

[that-one-kiddo-in-the-back]

Well, this was an odd thing to get on Christmas

I hate that I'm posting on Christmas.

I would like to point out that I don't run this blog as a hobby, nor do I really like posting about someone in the LGBTQ community being a freak of nature who likes jerking to kids and dogs.

But I'm not gonna keep quiet about it.

I don't know who Patricia taxxon is, nor do I really give shit. Everything I've heard was from people who had supported her for a while. But I have to ask transwoman who supports Patricia or Lily orchard. Why? Why are you okay with someone who has plenty of evidence against them that supports that they are freaks of nature? Why continue to support them? Do you realize how bad it looks to defend zoophiles, pedophiles, serial abusers, or anyone who has a trail of blood behind them? All the victims you are silencing from speaking out more about this and for what?

What is the point of defending monsters?

What is the point of shutting up people who have been hurt by the ones you are defending?

You all sound like conservatives defending their lord and savor Donald Trump when Alva Johnson, Summer Zervos, E. Jean Carroll, Katie Johnson, Ivana Trump, and Jill Harth came out about their own experiences with that rotten orange.

Do you all hate victims of abuse that much?

Merry Christmas, you filthy animals, and a happy new year.

[according2thelore]

I think in es/ls verse that ls!sam would absolutely refuse to tell either of the younger ones about the future for WormHole Reasons but also because he knows they mentally cannot handle the idea of hell/the cage/purgatory/mom coming back/meeting god/the like.

and that's the Old Winchesters party line so obviously ls!dean is like 👌 sounds good sam whatever you say 👌 and then drops tantalizing hints in front of es!dean to fuck with him. just enough to drive him crazy, not enough to actually give him knowledge.

but. es sam is a goddamn bloodhound. he does not believe that any version of dean has the Right to keep any secret from him, ever, actually, and he's so so curious, and grizzled old dean is so WHIPPED by this entitled baby sam that he ends up spilling wayyyy too much. HE CAN'T HELP IT. plus he's jealous that his sam is spending time with es!dean, so.....

anyway, cue es!sam yelling at es!dean because how dare he sell his soul for him, months before he actually does it. es!dean overhearing es!sam ask his older self if they actually go to hell and what's it like, and dean loses his mind. etcetera.

"hitler's scared of me." dean says. the younger version of him slows down chewing, but doesn't stop. sam and...well, sam have gotten up to go look at the state map on the far wall of the diner, trying to see where alva, oklahoma is.

"yeah, okay." younger dean says--little dick, dean wants to dub him, but that weirdly feels like a self-burn, so dean goes back to brainstorming--but he must see something in dean's eyes, because his own get huge. like, cartoon-character huge.

then he starts choking. dean's sam--sammy, they've started calling him--comes over and smacks the kid on the back, then glares at dean like dean just purposefully and cruelly antagonized a wet kitten in a dumpster. or baby jesus.

"no fucking way. guy's been dead for like--seventy years!"

"elliot ness or hitler?" sammy asks dean through gritted teeth, still glaring holes into his face.

"i meet elliot ness?" little dick--fuck it, kid's annoying--cries, and sammy slaps a hand to his forehead.

"shit."

~~~

“lord palpatine has a granddaughter and she's hot." dean calls into the shower room as he passes, and he hears a loud crash.

"i'm going to FUCKING kill you!" little dean screeches--again, weirdly demoralizing--and dean cackles the whole way to the kitchen.

~~~

"you should get really good a sword-fighting." dean suggests. younger dean just slumps forward.

"why?" he asks, like dean just suggested he stick a grenade pin up his dick or chew off sam's toenails.

"dunno. seems destined." dean says, and his world gets rocked as sammy hits him on the back of the head with a book thicker than his arm--as hard as he can.

~~~

"am i happy?" sam asks--baby sam, even though they've established that he's just 'sam,' with flashing eyes and a curled lip--because he's a manipulative piece of shit. dean can feel his shoulders tense.

they're sitting on the couch in the dean cave and re-watching some old hits, like the original clash of the titans. sam has strategically placed himself so his skinny thigh is pressed against dean's bigger one.

dean has very carefully not looked down to catalogue the difference because he knows he's going to do something stupid like pop a boner over it. dean knows that the closeness is strategic. but god, sammy--sam--smells like his old aftershave and summer. his eyes are bright and unlined. and he's playing dean's strings with deft fingers as he rolls his neck and looks at dean with eyes bigger than the damn sky.

they've been spending so much time together lately now that sam--adult sam--has found his new favourite in dean's younger self. sammy told the tiny asshole--what the hell is he going to call this kid--that he did a good job the other day, and the kid damn near pissed himself in delight like an excited puppy. dean's not speaking to either of them at the moment.

sam's been gently plying him with questions over the past few days. did i ever finish my degree? do i have my own car? was this from our last hunt? why do you and sammy look at us like that? what's our favorite place to eat?

some of them are innocuous but most are not, and this most recent question has knocked dean flat on his ass. he can't help but picture sammy--older sammy, his sammy--and his hollow eyes. his smiles. his eyes rolling in pain and pleasure and exasperation.

"yes. fuck. i hope so." dean admits, too damn easily, and he sounds like he's begging. he searches sam's face, prying his eyes apart for the answer. he's a kid. too damn young. he's dean's baby. dean feels like it's a promise, and it feels inadequate, an i'm taking care of you, i guess, so dean tries to cast the words in iron.

"i'd do anything to keep you safe, sammy. sam." dean corrects himself quickly, even though sam melts into his side like a cat. "to keep you happy. alive."

and sam kind of freezes, pulls back a little.

"what did you do?" the words are hard.

dean's stomach sinks. "what?"

"what did you do, dean?"

and dean tries to demur, like oh come on, it's just an expression. but dean knows that sam saw the depth there, heard the weight of it. he knows that there are decades underneath those words. lives under those words.

he sinks his teeth into dean, into the very marrow of him, and doesn't let up. dean tries to fight off his insistence, fielding questions for almost ten minutes before sam grabs him, hard, and shakes him.

"did i kill you--did you let me kill you?" sam begs, hands tight fists in dean's shirt and of all the things dean was expecting, it's not this.

"what?" he asks. "what are you talking about?"

and sam lets him go, falls back against the couch, hand over his mouth and dean's afraid he's going to throw up. dean knows--in a way he didn't know when he was young and stupid and twenty-seven--that sam needs time to think, so he lets sam stew.

"that's the worst thing i can imagine." sam says, finally. "i have dreams where yellow eyes kills you. i have dreams where dad does. and i...and i have dreams where i do it. because of what i'm becoming. and i...i don't know what's a nightmare and what's a--a vision--and i--"

and dean tucks this little kid under his chin, wraps arms around him that could suffocate him if he tried hard enough, and holds sam to him like sam will fly apart if he doesn't.

"nothing like that, baby." dean murmurs into his hair, and lets sam quietly wail into his shirt. he doesn't say, i'd let you kill me, because sam knows. he knows. it would be one of dean's gentler deaths, any death at the hands of his brother, but how could dean even start to say that?

"tell me dean. we protect each other, right?" sam begs, wet against his neck, and dean shushes him, feeling inadequate.

"of course. you're my baby brother. i'll always look out for you."

~~~

"promise me."

"i'm not gonna do that, sammy."

"it's--never mind. look at me."

"what--what? we gonna sit here and talk about our feelings? what do you want from me?"

"something's happened to them. don't tell me you haven't noticed. your sam is barely holding it together."

"hold on, he's not my--"

"i don't know, okay? bad feeling. just promise me you're not going to do something dumb. or let me...i don't know."

"now sam, when have i ever done something stupid?" a smile in his voice.

"you're impossible." fond. sad. warm. lonely. acknowledging. dean backs away from the doorway.

~~~

"i'd do it." dean--fuck it, dean's run out of nicknames for the little fucker. "whatever we do. in the future. i'll do anything for him."

he's standing in dean's doorway. that's the first time really that he's said we--an implied understanding that they are technically one person, the same person. dean doesn't look up from the gun he's cleaning. i know, he should say. or good. or it's not going to be enough.

but he just looks up into his younger face, and for the first time since this whole fuck-show started, feels something like pity. like camaraderie.

"c'mere." he says. "lemme show you how to load a mag in six seconds."

~~~

this RAN AWAY FROM ME!!!!! i LOVE this idea anon!!! your brain is brilliant!!!

i personally don't see LS!Dean telling ES!Sam about hell, for the same reason LS!Sam can't tell ES!Dean about the cage. it's too close, too personal, too real. inevitably.

ES!Sam would go mad with it, i think. hell, we SEE him unhinged in the show, actively or passively killing people to get dean back. LS!Dean would never want to put that on him, couldn't bear it. but i think he'd get pretty close.

anyway! sorry for the length, lol! i'm actually pretty proud of this one, and i had a lot of fun thinking about it! thank you for the ask anon! you are so correct!

-lizzy <3

[lucatielenjoyer]

Further Elaboration upon the Four

so recently, someone gave a damn near poetic response to my post asking if I should speak of my boys, and so I shall answer some of the questions about them that weren't super elaborated on in the original two posts.

Lysandre tends to wear the Elite Knight armor, due to his trying to pass himself off as an Astoran knight. He still uses his knife, but also has the Rapier of the Undead Prince Ricard in order to keep appearances. Patches would tell you the man was a schemer- a dishonest and opportunistic creature. Let not his words deceive you, for he still becomes cross with those who would agree. Lysandre cared a great deal for Rhea of Thorolund- to the point of murdering Petrus for what he did- and mourned her loss to the paledrake as though she were his whole world. Given how he learned all the miracles she knew despite having no aptitude for them, perhaps she was.

Mardus wore the armor of the Darkwraiths, as well as the Warlock's helm. Their darker nature appealed to him, made him feel more adept in his practices. Despite his inclination to darker magics, he held Lucatiel and Lenigrast close to his heart, as dear friends. Possibly more, in the Knightess' case, although he doesn't talk about it much. He was a boisterous man, even before his learning of Hexes, and was not very humble, even by the standards of sorcerers. After Lucatiel's death, however, he became much more subdued. It is said that in his travels after abandoning the Throne of Want, he wears the armor of a traveling Mirran knight and carries an odd mask with him. Despite clearly being a Gentleman's dueling mask, he says it belonged to someone named Lucatiel, imploring all who hear such things to remember her name.

Genguchi, being unabashedly blind in his faith in the ways of old. wears the gauntlets of the famed Dragonslayer Ornstein. His chestplate having belonged to the Holy Knight Hodrick, his greaves those of the great Paladin Alva. The only thing not belonging to a great holy warrior is his helmet, that of an unremarkable knight. His shield is not unlike those you would find in the sunless realms, and his sword one that despite appearances, carries a great deal of holy power. He cares greatly for all who he has met, but demonstrates a particular fondness for any who were once prisoners, namely the Witch Karla, the saintess Irina, and the thief Greirat.

Argus, for the most part, retains his loyalties and attitudes from the time before Tarnished were even a concept. His admiration for Radahn is seen in the fact that he wears the Demigod's Armor, or at least a very finely made replica. His respect for Godfrey is seen in the fact that every so often, one can find portraits of the former Elden Lord on the moonlit plateau, painted by a shaky hand and steadily getting closer and closer to the true likeness of the First Tarnished. Once in a while, those who dare to explore the Haligtree find bouquets of flowers in a secluded spot, near a body that seems to have been there for a relatively short amount of time. Letters of apology are always there, too, addressed from someone named "A" to the woman, calling her "The Daughter he Never had". And sometimes, at stormveil castle, cold gusts of wind will work their way to the throne room, reminding the Lady of the Castle of a great Warrior and the conquests in which they shared.

I'll talk more about them later as well, obviously, but this is like a part one of the extended lore

[doragonlw]

New character alert, meet Overlord!

He's an old robot from a time long forgotten in my world Old But New. He's arrogant, self important and loves to use intimidation to get people to do what he wants. (He runs on biofuel so if you piss him off he will eat you as an example to everyone else.)

He's a crime lord and is "friends" with my other character Alva.

He was accidentally reactivated by some tomb raiders 80 years ago, but instead of selling him they kept him around thinking he could be useful. Over time members came and went but Overlord was always there, until eventually he became the leader of the group and broadened its horizons.

[lost-and-cursed]

Autobiography, epeolatry, and book-bosomed for the book ask!

Autobiography: Who is the protagonist you most relate to?

That's very funny question to answer because to be completely honest it's a character from the book that weren't translated from Russian into like... any language. It's a fantasy where he, Roque Alva, is both highest marshall and a duke, ridiculously competent and depressed, effectively immortal (because of the curse) and also everyone around him die or betray him (because of the curse) and he thinks that the curse is he sold his soul to devil or smth (it's not). He also bisexual disaster, proponent of make problems bestowed on him other people's problem and a war criminal(also a bit OP). He was my role model since I was sixteen, helped to circumvent certain mental health patterns (i really didn't want to end up like him lmao) and was the first and only character I can claim to "kin" in popular understanding of the word. We are just on the same wavelength. And he also was a breath of fresh air in occasionally hair-tearing passages of book

The hero of the Night.

Speaking from the books someone realistically might read... Idk. I found myself really relating to Hamlet.

(maybe the secret is i feel kinship with characters that are just Haunted by their life)

Epeolatry: What is your favorite book quote?

Oh. All the questions are out to get me. For the record, I have exceptionally bad memory. Like I barely can remember words you said to me 30 seconds ago. I won't remember quote if I didn't reread it fairly recently. I constantly awed by different quotes in the books, but unfortunately I don't keep track of them. That said

'But look, you found the notice, didn't you? ' 'Yes,' said Arthur, 'yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.

From the Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy. I both remember it (noticeable quality) and enjoy it tremendously.

Book-bosomed: what is a book you feel everyone should read?  

Depends on how you pose a question. If I had ability to force everyone read one book

... because it's amazing?

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell. Very thoughtful, multiple perspectives, interesting wordbuilding, plays around with language, combines few different genres and eras

... because how do you stil don't know it how how I'll start chewing your shoes ?

Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. Both The Staple and The Cradle of Fantasy. If you absolutely must read only one fantasy book. Let it be Tolkien. It has everything. Is pretty amazing. Wordbuilding out for my heart.

(but I was lately informed that a lot of people don't enjoy reading it because it's epos, and I am not really cruel and also don't really believe that anyone Must read something)

(if I was unusually cruel Silmarillion would be so funny for the book to force people to read, most of them won't even read LOTR, comedy gold)

If I was to recommend a book keeping in mind that not all people like dense books?

Probably aforementioned Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy. It's easy. It's fun. It has puns. 42.

Or wait hmmmmmmmmmmm

It's my chance to propagate amazing unpopularish stuff.

So everyone goes to read Myth Adventures cycle by Robert Asprin (first few books are really cool and then read as much as you feel like).

It has very good dialogue, and sniping and sarcasm. It's a comedy and slight parody on the genre with backwater mage student that dreams of becoming a Thief and reluctant teacher who lost his magic just now as he was summoned to this backwater town and now they need to flee from the assassins and learn magic on the road. Also teacher big and green and has sharp teeth hope this helps

[matthew-s-j]

Dynasties in the Kingdom of Talig

The People of Honor are dynasties, descended from the High Houses of Galtara. Initially, there were Four Houses, which included the Head of the High House - the Lord of the Elements, and four of his blood vassals, who were subordinate only to the Head of the House, who in turn swore allegiance to King Rakan. After the collapse of the Golden Empire, in order to distinguish themselves from the titled nobility, who aren't blood relatives of the Lords, they began to call themselves People of Honor.

At the time of the fall of the Rakan dynasty, eleven of the twenty surnames survived – Épinay, Oakdell, Prydd, Savignac, Dorak, Carlyon, Tristram, Roxley, Berheim, Fok Varzov, Gaunt.

Alva and Arigo, formally consider to People of Honor, but treat them as half-bloods.

The Oakdells

Title: Lord Oakdell, Lord of the Rocks Motto: Firm and unshakable Head of the family: Richard Oakdell Main possessions: Duchy of Nador

According to legend, the Oakdells are descended from the son of Lit - Littion, the first ruler of Nadorea — one of the four kingdoms united under the scepter of the Rakans in the Golden Anaxia. Starting with Lucian Nadorea and ending with Alan Oakdell, the Lords of the Rocks were famous for their personal courage and boundless devotion to the Rakans.

When Francis Ollar captures Taligoya because of the treason of Lord Alva, and Alan Oakdell sneaks into the palace and kills Ramiro Alva Sr., for which the new king orders his execution.

His descendant, Egmont Oakdell, raises a rebellion against the power of the Ollars, but it's suppressed by Roque Alva. Egmont dies in a duel with the Lord of the Wind. The title passes to his son Richard Oakdell.

The Alvas

Title: Lord of the Wind, Lord of Canalloa and Marechiara, Soberano Motto: Against the wind Head of the family: Roque Alva Main possessions: Duchy of Canalloa and Marechiara

They own vast lands in the south of Talig. The residence is located in the city of Alvasete.

The Alva family began with Albin Borraska, the eldest son of the Lord of Wind, who fled to the Crimson Lands with his twin sister Albina and her lover.

Officially deprived of the title of Lord of the Winds and the family name Borraska, Albin was adopted by the ruler of the Crimson Lands - nar-shad Zallah, renounced his parents, embraced to the Moriscan faith, took the name Alva-ar-Zallah.

He landed in Canalloa with a small army, overthrew the ruler and proclaimed himself nar-shad of Canalloa, founding the Alva dynasty.

Later, his descendant, nar-shad Diego Alva, has a new title, proclaiming himself Soberano (lord) of Canalloa.

When the line of the Borraska family ended, and the title of Lord of the Winds passed to the Alva family. Soberano Rodrigo Alva agreed to recognize himself as a vassal of King of Taligoya and accept the ducal title, stipulating the complete non-interference of the crown in the affairs of Canalloa.

They also strongly opposed Agaris' interference in their affairs, earning the fame of heretics, but the strategic position, connections with the Morisk's shads and Marechiara's corsairs and considerable military force forced Agaris to abandon the idea of forcibly preaching esperatism on the peninsula.

At the call of King Hernani XI, Lord Ramiro Alva and his army came to the besieged capital and successfully defended the city for several months, but then he killed King Hernani and Lord Hector Prydd, who led the defense of the capital, and let the army of the Maragon's Bastard into Kabitela. Mortally wounded by Alan Oakdell, declared the First Marshal of the Talig on his deathbed.

He was married to a rootless orphan Octavia. This marriage caused great indignation among People of Honor. After the death of her husband, Octavia became the wife of King Francis Ollar and the first Queen of Talig.

The Épinays

Title: Lord of Épinay, Lord of Lightning Motto: Portends victory Head of the family: Robert Épinay Main possessions: Old Épinay and Arigo

It is known for certain that the Lords Épinay are the direct heirs of the Golden Anaxian Great House of Marechiare, whose head bore the title of Lord of Lightning.

The Marechiare family traditionally led the "military party", challenging the primacy of the courtiers, whose leaders were most often representatives of the Peña family. The representatives of the family despised politics and politicians and were famous for their fervor, open temperament and love affairs. Many strategists and legendary warrior have emerged from their ranks.

The decree on the name change Marechiare was perceived in their own style. They took the name Épinay in honor of the river where the Lord of the Lightning - Cesare Marechiare defeated the combined separatist army.

The Prydds

Title: Lord Prydd, the Lord of the Waves Motto: From the Depths Head of the family: Valentine-Otto Prydd Main possessions: Duchy of Prydda

The Lords Prydd bear the title of Lords of the Waves. It is known for sure that they're direct descendants of the last Head of the House Peña.

Representatives of the Peña family traditionally held high court positions, despised the military class and disapproved of the "steel" Anaks. The Peñas were known for their endurance, secrecy and the ability to use others to pull chestnuts out of the fire.

The House of Waves accepted religious reforms outwardly calmly, but many saw the Peña family's hand in a series of conspiracies and rebellions. The decree on changing the name of Peña was accepted calmly, taking the name of the city of Prydda, near which their ancestral castle was located.

One of the chronicles claims that Maximilian Pridd's third son - Justinian, heard a song in his journey about how the young man caught a huge purple octopus with a golden mark, in whose tentacles a small octopus was hiding, which managed to escape. When the young man brought his booty home, his mother was horrified and begged him never to go to sea again, but the young man laughed. He became one of the most daring and successful captains, then married a beautiful girl. They had eight sons. During the wedding of the eldest of them, the whole family went out to sea on nine ships to bring gifts to the spirits of the waves and wind. When this was done, a giant octopus rose from the depths and dragged the captain's wife and all his sons to the bottom.

Upon returning home, Justinian learned that the Lord Maximilian and his two eldest sons had died unexpectedly. The entourage hinted to the new duke that they had been poisoned as a result of the intrigues of the king's inner circle, who feared the excessive strengthening of the Prydd family. Justinian didn't react in any way to the news he received, but submitted a petition to change the coat of arms to an octopus raised by a wave and the motto "From the depths" (previously, the symbol of the Peña-Prydd family was an azure wave raising a sparkling silver heart).

There were rumors about the involvement of Justinian Prydd in the murder of the king, the canciller and the cardinal. Their deaths were caused by injections of poisoned needles inserted into the locks of caskets, which were opened by the deceased. However, these caskets were not found later, and it was not possible to prove involvement in the murder.

The Lords of the Waves are formally loyal to the Ollars. However, they are often involved in plots against the crown, but each time they manage to get away with it. For this reason, their reliability and loyalty are in doubt among both supporters and opponents of the Royal Family.

[soulstagger]

"A thousand years ago the rift came, and in that moment the ocean hero tossed the monstrosities back into the depths. A thousand years before the same, calamity after calamity."

"After the rift, terrors every few centuries and yet those who carried her mantle were always ready. Prepared to welcome a hero, and time after time the hero prevailed."

"When Alva's unstable ground sunk into the earth and from its gaping wound a horde of lost corrupted spirits plunged us all into a desperate struggle for life. A hero appeared, soothing the Alva Wastes, leaving them buy a mysterious maze today.

"When the Faro-shev Sea dried up, when Mikadzuki and Can Yue broke into a thousand pieces, when peace couldn't be attained but through war. Once more, a hero appeared."

"Even when the sky tore up, a red paradise enticing those who witnessed to attempt to overthrow their lieges and lords, devoted to this paradise. A hero would be welcomed by the mantle carriers."

"Yet now I sit in this dark room. The current era of disaster looms, and I cannot move. I can hear the voices scream out, the system is breaking down and I am trapped in these palace walls. There is no hero... we're scrambling for pieces and I am in this dark room. We, She, Us. The inability to leave, it is law... Not to see others, not to be seen."

"So why is it I see you.. like those who saw paradise. A perfect smile...a smile hidden away behind a thousand walls. Like myself..."

"Maybe we've been wrong the whole time."

"I feel you..."

"I need you."

"Is it love?"

[aronarchy]

That’s when, somehow, the proprietary logic of our emotion, what Alva Gotby calls our “emotional reproduction” of one another and ourselves, along these propertarian lines, is weakened and loosened. Instead we see outbreaks of Red Love, as Alexandra Kollontai called it. Red Plenty, was Mark Fisher’s term. (I’m not sure Mark Fisher was down for our family abolition at all.) I think the emotional level of “red plenty” is the feeling that we are secure in the very contingency of our caring and cared for-ness. Where we don’t need containers like the family, like marriage, like private property, to reassure us that we will be held tomorrow, as well as today.

Indeed, those containers that I just mentioned, family, and all the mechanisms that come along with it (like inheritance and marriage and so on): they are already quite fallible. They do fulfill certain social reproductive functions adequately from capitalism’s point of view. But everyone knows a husband can walk out on you (or worse, maybe, not walk out on you, in some cases?). It is us that the family is not serving. It’s serving the market and the state pretty well.

I keep noticing that the conversation about the crisis of white masculinity in America doesn’t really refer to the ample evidence, the sociology, that shows that men benefit massively from heterosexual marriage. Even with all their complaints, like: “there’s no male breadwinner household anymore” and “women aren’t respecting men anymore.” Whatever narrative is being peddled by Jordan Peterson, basically. The hard evidence is basically that marriage is a great deal for men. It’s a great labor deal for heterosexual men. That’s why they don’t leave marriages. They cheat, but they don’t leave (unless their wife has a life-threatening disease).

TFSR: One of the things that you said that’s really important that comes in feminist and Gay Liberation texts from the ’70s is this idea that the family gives to the worker this mini hierarchy. You get yelled at by your boss at work, but you come home and you get to lord over your wife and children. And then there’s a chain of hierarchy there too, where the husband has power over the wife, or the wife maybe has power over the children. It’s the little laboratory in learning your place. And then also the violent pleasures of having power over someone, too.

I think that’s really an important thing to pull out. That’s how I tried to explain to myself this current movement of, in a moment of devastation and economic precarity for so many people, why there’s a parental rights movement. Why is that the thing? That’s one place where these people are naturalized into having power over someone where they have no power in any other situation perhaps?

SL: Yeah, yeah. That’s fascinating.

Gosh, there’s something I literally thought just a minute before getting on this podcast with you, Scott. Someone shared a snippet of Hannah Arendt, who is a philosopher I’ve always disliked. She’s very, very conservative, in my opinion, anyway. But there was a section of an essay by her that I’d never read, which was her essay opposing desegregation! I didn’t even know this existed! Anyway, she argues that it is too great of an infringement on parental rights, basically, to demand that children go to desegregated schools if their parents don’t want to create a desegregated family culture. She has this fantastically clear and strong statement in favor of the primacy of family: the supremacy of parental authority over the realm of the public. I don’t know if this is actually useful, you may want to cut this from the recording. But I was just thinking about the social crisis that she was writing from within. The tumult of that moment. She’s writing from this moment of racial justice, upheaval, and movement and she’s saying, “The Family is threatened by this, and I choose to uphold the Family.”

I think we need to get braver. I think we need to be able to say, against the right-wing assault against Critical Race Theory: yeah, fine, this does threaten the family. I think there are so many similarities between that “integration” fight and this moment of organized assault on trans children and trans life more generally. Do people have the guts to understand the structure? The way in which the far right is sometimes onto something when it accuses anticapitalists, feminists, leftists of seeking to undermine the sanctity of the Family? Against Arendt, for example, can we insist that that parental rights can go get fucked, when appropriate?

I think the missing part of left discourse is the willingness to say, “Yeah, we do oppose the Family on x and y fronts.” Or even the willingness to merely criticize the family. I’d like us to be able to say: “We do not consider parental rights a supreme value on this terrain.” But we have to be very clear that at the same we oppose the devaluation, dispossession, expropriation and dehumanization of Black parents. There are many groups whose “parental rights” are always already pretty much null and void within the Child Protective Services industry.

Dorothy Roberts has important scholarship on family policing and the very, very white supremacist structure of parenthood as it is defined in settler-colonial law, and in child protection generally. We can, according to her, and I agree, seek to abolish family policing (and to that extent, basically argue almost for the voices of Black parents to count more), while at the same time fighting for family abolition, as a longer term anticapitalist goal. We can defend disenfranchised parents and at the same time struggle for parental rights to be limited or balanced out (relative to the rights of children).

But family abolitionism is full of these slightly tricky-to-think-through contradictions. Because we live in a world in which family is always already a racially bifurcated technology. Which is not to say that Black, or racialized, or immigrant, or queer, or proletarian working class families aren’t part of the privatization of care into private households. As I said, that privatization is the main thing about the family, so, even these alternative forms of household and social reproduction and kinship (which in many ways have skills and experiences that are going to be super useful for family abolitionism) are part of the family regime. It makes no sense to make exceptions for these sorts of marginalized and underserved and underbenefited families. People who benefit the least from the edifice of family values and the regime of familism (as an economic system) should not be used as a reason to shore up the family!

Saying like, “Oh, we don’t mean those families, we just mean, like, the white bourgeois family!” is much safer. People always want me to say that. They want me to specify that, when I say family abolition, I mean the white bourgeois family. But I think if you define the family—as I think it is correct to do—as a mechanism that really affects everybody and is reproduced, wittingly or not, by everyone, then then you really have to be talking about the privatization of care. It is non-bourgeois, non-white, non-settler people who are going to benefit the most from family abolition. In that sense, they deserve it the most. They should not be exceptionalized, or for that matter, romanticized. Because the private nuclear household is not somehow a wonderful thing, just because it happens to be situated in a racialized, proletarianized community. Unfortunately!

TFSR: Yeah, I want to get to the trans stuff, but where you’re leading me is thinking about the selling out of the radical liberationist movements of the women’s movement and gay movement by taking family abolition off the table. Is that another moment of white supremacist consolidation? I’m thinking about gender abolition, for example, or the word gender itself already includes the power structure. I think family maybe does, too, by thinking that family is related to blood and naturalized relationships, it erases other forms of relating to people that happening, but get called the family maybe, wrongly, and reproduces a kind of racialized logic that our belonging is based on blood.

So, what I’m thinking about here, and what I want to ask you about is on the one hand, why was it taken off the table? Do you think it has to do with this racialized logic? On the positive end of this question, how do we relate family abolition to these other kinds of abolitionist movements? Connecting it back to the abolition of slavery, but also police and prison abolition, which is explicitly Black liberationist and fighting against an anti-Black world? Do you have thought on why that was sacrificed in the vision of the movement and how we can make those connections now?

SL: Yeah, it’s really interesting. The collapse of that imaginary at the height of the struggles that proliferated around 1970 is definitely linked to, simply, our material defeat. It’s literally just the epistemic consequences (epistemicide) of the murder, frankly, and repression, that the state successfully carried out. Our people were stomped into the dust. We can’t really state that enough.

You can look at the beginning of the ’70s and the end of the ’70s and simply compare the texts! I found two things that struck me that were amazingly different. From the early ’70s and, then, in contrast, the early ’80s. A text by Pat Parker, who is a Oakland-based Black liberationist radical nurse and “third world” feminist, who has a speech that she gave at an anti-imperialist convergence, and it is all about how white women on the left need to get with the program of family abolition and stop being scared, because capitalism and the state will not fall until women and children explode the cell of the family (i.e. the private nuclear household).

That text [of Pat Parker’s] is amazing, because it puts Black women really squarely at the forefront of that politics [of family abolition], which I personally kind of imagined, like everybody else imagines, until I looked in the archive, was probably most forcefully articulated by the white, Jewish feminist Shulamith Firestone. It’s just not the case. Actually, Black women were saying it way harder, I discovered.

But then 10 years later (and, again, we have to think of all the successful State repression of Black liberationist struggle in the interim), we have Hazel Carby’s very famous and also very well articulated open letter, White Woman Listen!. I think that’s from 1984. And it’s basically about why white feminists’ excessive emphasis on the family as an oppressive structure is harmful to Black women. And she says, “Black feminists do not deny that the family can be a source of oppression, but it’s also, for us, an important site of survival and resistance to the state.” That’s the text that everybody knows. What people don’t know is the previous one, the one 10 years before that. Because as I said, the memory has been erased.

I find it so interesting that essentially, we’re talking about the defeat of Black feminist abolitionism in the widest sense. The abolitionism of the present state of things in its entirety: family, capital, state, criminal justice system, all of it. That intensity was actually voiced by the Black feminist imaginary. Which makes sense given, for example, Hortense Spillers’ analysis of how it is the Black woman who falls out of the symbolic logics of gendered humaneness in the grammar of American life. And it is the Black female social subject who needs to be made a place for. We don’t know what that place would be. She says she doesn’t know whether that place would be called a family anymore. That’s possible.

Tiffany Lethabo King reads Hortense Spillers’ epochal text, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe,” as potentially family-abolitionist. Tiffany Lethabo King is one of the Black family abolitionist theorists thinking and working today. And she’s not the only one. I quote in my book from Lola Olufemi and Annie Olaloku-Teriba, who are working on “patriarchal motherhood” from a Black radical perspective in the UK right now. I do think maybe it is the defeat of Black power that we must point to, if we want to explain why family abolitionism was no longer thinkable by the end of the ’70s.

[dear-indies]

Hey there hope you’re well! I was just wondering if you could help me with an fc, I need a white female between 21-32 that gives off those dark academia vibes with an elegance and beauty, please? Thank you so much!! Hope you have a very nice Spring weekend!! 🖤

Emma Watson (1990) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Elizabeth Debicki (1990)

Conor Leslie (1991)

Eve Hewson (1991)

Hari Nef (1992) Ashkenazi Jewish - is a trans woman - has spoken up for Palestine!

Joana Ribeiro (1992) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Cassandra Naud (1992)

Kaya Scodelario (1992)

Maia Mitchell (1993) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Olivia Cooke (1993)

Adèle Exarchopoulos (1993)

Jesse James Keitel (1993) - is a trans woman.

Lucy Boynton (1994)

Taissa Farmiga (1994)

Dylan Gelula (1994) Ashkenazi Jewish / Unspecified.

Benedetta Gargari (1995)

Daniela Melchior (1996)

Josefine Frida Pettersen (1996) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Lilli Kay (1996)

Lorde (1996) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Alva Bratt (1998)

Benedetta Porcaroli (1998) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Daisy Edgar-Jones (1998)

Jessica Alexander (1999) - is bisexual - has spoken up for Palestine!

Sophie Thatcher (2000)

Ruby Sear (2000)

I'm not really familiar with that genre but I hope this helps!

[vyragosa]

ugh dying dying too bad luca calling alva by his name but it was only "Lorenz" when spiting him in his messy diaries, the way he calls him a hyena, but the closest and the farthest he can be from him as a person at the same time is calling him "Alva", "Professor" as the marker of lost affection that can't be used anymore

"It's ironic. I should thank my teacher for instilling me with these principles."

as luca said in a deduction star quote BEFORE release, the fact that if luca didn't get it we would probably have more quotes about alva is just good lord.

[airlock]

CYL8 Nerding - Internal Bottom 10

y'know, last year, the least voted character in CYL had just 2 votes to his name, so I thought this might be the first year we ever see a character get 0 votes!

this did not happen -- our least voted character this year has 1 vote. fucking incredible. anyway, shall we go all-in on this year's biggest losers?

AKANEIA #1: Dice, also Roberto (3 votes) #3: Reiden (6 votes) #4: we all still think of Luke as a small fry (11 votes) #5: Frost (13 votes) #6: Malledus (16 votes) #7: Boah (17 votes) #8: Roderick, also Belf, also Ymir (18 votes)

VALENTIA #1: Tatarrah, also Garth (3 votes) #3: Dolth (4 votes) #4: Barth, also Jerome (6 votes) #6: Grieth (7 votes) #7: Halcyon (11 votes) #8: Slayde, also Blake (15 votes) #10: Marla (16 votes)

JUGDRAL #1: Danann (3 votes) #2: Scipio (4 votes) #3: Hilda, also Halvan (8 votes) #5: Sandima, also Alva, also Perne (10 votes) #8: Munnir (11 votes) #9: Tristan, also Deimne, also Safy (12 votes)

ELIBE #1: Lundgren (6 votes) #2: Zelot, also FE7!Murdock (8 votes) #4: FE6!Merlinus (10 votes) #5: Desmond, also FE6!Murdock (11 votes) #6: Hellene (14 votes) #7: Barthe (18 votes) #8: Saul (19 votes) #9: Fargus, also Durban (20 votes)

MAGVEL #1: Riev (8 votes) #2: Hayden (11 votes) #3: Rennac, also Vigarde (13 votes) #5: Dozla (26 votes) #6: Fado (28 votes) #7: Caellach (33 votes) #8: Orson (41 votes) #9: Natasha (42 votes) #10: Tethys (43 votes)

TELLIUS #1: Muston (1 vote) #2: Bertram (3 votes) #3: Daniel and Jorge twinning it the FUCK up (4 votes) #5: Hetzel (6 votes) #6: Kasatai (8 votes) #7: Bastian (10 votes) (I'M ONE OF THEM. YOU ABSOLUTE DASTARDS--) #8: Ludveck (12 votes) #9: Izuka (13 votes) #10: Numida (14 votes)

YLISSE #1: Cervantes (14 mustache hairs) #2: Validar (16 votes) #3: Phila (17 votes) #4: Kjelle (24 votes) #5: Flavia and Basilio sitting under a tree, F-I-G-H-T-I-N-G (25 votes) #7: Mustafa, also Excellus (31 votes) #9: Brady (33 votes) #10: Yen'fay (37 votes)

TMS#FE #1: Teru & Garrick (8 votes) #2: Kuen & Excellus (11 votes) #3: Chikaomi & Lon'qu (12 votes) #4: Chouten & Pheros (13 votes) #5: Nobu & Gangrel (19 votes)

HOSHIDO/NOHR #1: Tarba (7 votes) #2: Zhara, also Lloyd (8 votes) #4: Fuga (9 votes) #5: Llewelyn (11 votes) #6: Funke (12 votes) #7: Senno (15 votes) #8: Hans (17 votes) #9: Daichi (24 votes) #10: Arete, also Kumagera (30 votes)

FÓDLAN #1: Tomas, also Gwendal (4 votes) #3: Lonato (5 votes) #4: Pallardó (6 votes) #5: Aelfric (8 votes) #6: Ludwig aka Duke Aegir (9 votes) #7: Solon (11 votes) #8: Kostas (12 votes) #9: Volkhard aka Lord Arundel (13 votes) #10: Grégoire aka Count Varley (16 votes)

ELYOS #1: Hyacinth (38 votes) #2: Seforia (68 votes) (god dammit I knew I should have voted for her--) #3: Saphir (74 votes) (I DID VOTE FOR HER THOUGH YOU ABSOLUTE--) #4: Lindon (97 votes) #5: Morion (142 votes) #6: Bunet, also Zephia (158 votes) #8: Marni (187 votes) #9: not Marni (201 votes) (ie Madeline btw) #10: Vander (215 votes)

ZENITH #1: Ganglöt (50 votes) #2: Hel (69 votes) (nice) #3: Ótr (77 votes) #4: Nótt (88 votes) #5: Freyr (91 votes) #6: Ylgr (94 votes) #7: Múspell (116 votes) #8: Reginn (121 votes) #9: Letizia (122 votes) #10: Gustav (148 votes)

[scifrey]

NINE-TENTHS

Part Nine

"So what do I call you?" I ask when he gets back. I'm trying to offer an olive branch, or whatever it is when you've been an ass to the regular who has accompanied you to the hospital, even though he didn't have to.

Part of my question is because I don't know his name. But part of it is me realizing he's a dragon—I mean, I knew he was a dragon this whole time, the eyes give it away—which means he's probably got a fancy title. Duke McSootyClaws or something. 

They're always dukes in books.

"Oh." He freezes. "Dav, I suppose."

"You suppose?" I slouch, trying to find a position where my arm doesn't throb. I’m not having any luck.

"Alva-draig Tudor." This is the first time I've heard him actually sound miffed. 

He looks out of sorts for the first time, too. His pants are creased and smeared with ash, and his waistcoat is hanging open like a regency rake. His hair, normally straight out of an Errol Flynn flick, with a severe part and careful swoops on top, is a sort of frizzy orange flop across his forehead. He pushes it back irritably. He's rolled up the ragged ends of his sleeves so his shirt looks less like he stuck his hands in fire—which he absolutely did—and more like it's a sartorial choice. And wow, forearms. Trim, and muscley, and flecked with more of those intriguing gold-dust freckles and spun-copper hair and, yeah. 

It makes something in my middle flippy. Or maybe that’s the pain meds? One or the other. I’m too hot, and too cold, and sticky with pain-sweat, and kind of nauseous, and I want to close my eyes and lean against his shoulder and sleeeep. Ugh.

"Dav it is," I concede. "Middle name for a middle name, then. Colin Fergus Levesque."

I'm blinking dumbly, my eyelids heavy in a way that sucks because there's no way I a) could actually fall asleep here, and b) should fall asleep here, and c) will probably not be able to sleep later when the shock of being lightly-stabbed in the middle of my first (and hopefully last) industrial fire has worn off.

"A pleasure," Dav says as he sits. His whole face twists up when he realizes what he's said. "Well, not the part where I hurt you—and set fire to the—it's not actually been a pleasure—"

"No, I get what you mean," I say, cutting off his increasingly-desperate word-deluge.

I shimmy, looking for some moment of relief because this is awful. I just want to cry and I’m not going to, I’m not. The fingers of my right hand have started to tingle. Maybe something’s wrong with my arm. I could be paralyzed, or disfigured for life.

Shit.

"Though, draig is not my middle name," he adds softly. His voice sounds like it's coming through a tunnel. "It simply means dragon. We often append that to our given names. Rather like saying, ah, Joe and Not-Human Joe."

"Huh?"

"Dear lord." His voice is now deep in the cave, his face suddenly blocking my eye-line to the scuffed linoleum floor. One slender hand cradles first the back of my neck, then my cheek, then is laid against my forehead, then is gone. Gosh, he's warm. A miserable full-body shiver crawls over me. I wish he'd put his hand back on my nape. "You've gone dead pale. Colin?"

I wiggle my fingers, to prove to myself that I can, and the pain it stirs up is excruciating. 

Am I about to vomit? 

I might be about to vomit.

That wouldn't be even remotely cool and sexy.

"Hold still," he says, and then he's gone. 

Ha, like I have anywhere to go. Or the ability to get there.

The flip in my stomach is starting to feel more like a flop.

"He's coming out of shock," a new voice says over my head. A blanket whumps onto my lap. "Keep him warm. The painkillers have started to wear off."

"Then give him more," Dav says, and this is the first time I've heard him leader-ly. "He should be lying down."

I bet he's a duke. Maybe a baron. Do I address him as 'Lord' or…? Boy, he sounds authoritative. Why is he never bossy around me? It’s sexy.

"There's no beds," the nurse (the voice must be a nurse) says. "We'll push him up the queue."

"I'll get you some water," Dav says, and the nurse tells him not to. No food, either. He tucks the blanket around me, aggravated, and I swat him away.

"Hurts," I tell him when he yanks. "Knock it off." He steps back, lets out a frustrated sort of hissing noise that I had no idea dragons made, and is absolutely not adorable. "Go for a walk or something."

"I don't—"

"There's a Timmie's in the lobby."

"Their coffee is wretched."

"It's hot."

"It's not yours."

At some point my eyes closed, because I need to pry them open to squint at Dav. 

"Say what?"

"It's not…" he starts, but my head is swimming and I don't catch the rest. "...-lin? Colin?"

"Don't drink it then. It's just an excuse to get you to stop fussing."

"Do you want me to go away?"

His stupid wounded expression hooks into me, tugs at the squishy bit behind my breastbone where my heart is working overtime. A part of me wants to, so badly, say No, please stay, hold me. I'm actually scared. I want my Mum. Instead I say: "I’m fine on my own."

"I don't think you are," Dav says quietly. He crouches down in front of me again, slacks pulling tight across his thighs. "The nurse said no food or water. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

I open my mouth to say shush and let me sleep, but what comes out is: "My sister used to read to me."

Fuck. 

I did not mean to say that.

Now he knows I have a sister, and maybe he thinks I'm some sort of lame pansy for reading romances, and I'm not ashamed, but what if he thinks it's something shameful, and how could I ever like someone who thinks having a nice relationship with his sister is shameful and— I'm panicking, I realize belatedly.

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