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systlinsideblog · 3 years ago

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Part 7

The fall of the great walled city of Turia came on a day shimmering with heat, but with storm clouds building on the horizion, looming heavy as they built into great mounds over the prairies. The air smelled of the promise of rain; that was good, Systlin thought. A good heavy rain later would wash the blood off the streets.

Turia’s towers glittered white in the sun. The walls were high and proud and in excellent repair; the warriors manning the top of it were said to be skilled. Everyone she’d spoken to had told her the same; Turia was home to a million and a half people. Turia was the jewel of the prairies, the Ar of the South. Turia was home to marvelous markets and one could find any luxury one wished there. The people of Turia were grand and wealthy and proud, and though they loved luxury their fighting men were excellent.

Its walls were high and thick. Its wells were deep and never ran dry. There were food stores to outlast the greatest of sieges. The nine gates were thick and strong and guarded zealously; while attackers died at the walls, the people of Turia would relax in their bath houses and dine on delicacies and laugh.

Turia was splendid. Turia was rich. Turia had been sieged many times, but never once had Turia fallen.

Systlin rolled her neck and shoulders, cracking any tension out.

She remembered Myr. Turia reminded her strongly of it. Myr too had been rich, and strong, and undefeated. Myr as well had thought itself safe behind tall, thick walls and strong gates, guarded by skilled fighters. Myr as well had laughed at the army camped on the plains before it. The walls of Myr had famously been bound in Power, power laid so deeply and thickly by generation after generation of Myrish earth witches that there had been more power than stone to the walls. Breakers before her, born to the desert, had tested those walls. Breakers before her had exhausted themselves against them and failed and died.

She had tried herself against them anyway. She had not failed. There was a hundred foot gap in the walls of Myr now, named for her. “The Mitraka’s Gate,” they called it. The legend of how she’d brought down the famously unbreakable walls of Myr had spread north to the Skyfire reaches and south to Sielauk before she’d even left the deserts.

Turia’s walls were not as high or thick as Myr’s, and they were not spelled for protection. Against a Breaker of the least power they’d be useless, and Systlin was the strongest Breaker ever to live. She eyed the warriors on top of them, still out of bowshot, and for a moment felt a flash of pity for them.

It was gone quickly. She wondered how many of those proud men had women chained to their beds. A million and a half people, but that number did not, she knew, count slaves. Counting slaves, it was said that the number was at least twice that, and likely higher.

Foicatch was watching her. He had not been at Myr when it fell, but he had been there since. He’d ridden through the Mitraka’s Gate. He knew, of course, that she was remembering.

“Been a bit,” He said at last, as they waited for Myr to send out its famous tharlarion cavalry, and honestly though she found herself growing fond of the kaiila the Wagon Peoples rode and could admit that the vicious reptilian tharlarion were impressive, she wished she had a good, normal horse. “Since we had a real battle before us.”

“Hmmm.” She agreed. The last time, indeed, they’d been fighting a mad god and his creatures. She’d killed a god, in that battle. Killed one god and threatened another. “Do try not to die. I’d hate to have to find a new royal consort.”

A snort. “I’ve no intention of dying today. I want to see you on the throne of that city.” A pause. “I’ve always had rather a fantasy, actually, of you on the throne of freshly conquered city, and me on my knees…”

Oh. Well. That did sound interesting. She gave him an appraising look. “Have you? You could have said something.”

“Well. It’s always been so busy when we’re breaching a stronghold, and things were all happening so fast at the time. You were so intent; I wasn’t sure you’d take it well.” A shrug. “Early days of us and all. By the time I knew better, you had the North in line again, and when we fought the Fallen One there weren’t many strongholds to breach or thrones to make use of.”

That was fair. “I’m going to hold you to that.” She said thoughtfully, even as the great gates ground slowly open and ranks of fighting men on those two-legged sharp-toothed reptilian beasts began to file out. She eyed the gleaming lances they carried disapprovingly; those were, of course, going to be the first thing she did away with once things got going.

Using her power in pitched battles was risky; she did not like doing it to kill. Not more than needed. But shattering some lances was no issue at all.

He grinned, that familiar and beloved flash of white teeth against that dark beard. “Oh, excellent.” He shot the enemy cavalry a look, and then looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. She nodded once. He leaned over, and she leaned to meet him; they exchanged a kiss, brief but sweet, and he peeled his kaiila away and headed to take command of the left flank.

She looked back over the prairie. There were several thousand riders now, forming ranks. A few men wearing particularly gleaming armor with extra gold leaf seemed to be conferring in a huddle; she waited.

“Ubara?” Dina said softly, from her side. “Ubara, should we…” There was nervousness in her voice.

“Not yet.” Systlin was the veteran of many battles of this scale; Myr was much larger than Turia, and that had been only the first city she’d taken. Dina was not. Even in a seasoned warrior, nerves before battle were normal, but Dina had taken up a spear only a year and a half past. She’d fought and killed, but the other tribes and towns and cities they’d taken were nothing on the scale of Turia. “They’ll send someone to talk, like all the others have. I’ll either kill him or send him back, like all the other times. I’ll break their lances; that will be the signal to charge.”

She looked to her side. Dina’s face was drawn tight. Systlin remembered that Dina, before slave chains, had once been a free woman, and had been born in Turia.

“You have a father, don’t you?” Systlin said, more softly.

“I do.” She whispered. “He never took a slave. He loved my mother, a Free Companion, and never took a slave; he has mourned her since her death. He is of the baker’s caste, as was my mother. He makes sweet rolls and gives them to children, and the best bread and pastries. I do not brag; he was famous in the city, and rich women and men came to buy from us. He and my brothers and I worked hard and were proud of our work.” She paused a moment. “I do not know if my brothers have taken slaves. And if they have…” Another, longer pause, and she looked away. “If they have, I will not beg mercy for them, but I will mourn what they might have been had their minds not been poisoned.”

Systlin thought of her own brother, dead so young. Of laughing and competing and playing with him, of the friendly fighting between close siblings. Of his smile and his laugh, and his sharp wit. She wondered, if her place and Dina’s had been switched, if she could have watched him killed for slaving and rape.

She probably could have. She knew it in the deepest place in her heart, where she worried sometimes at her own coldness. She probably would have done it with her own hands, at that. She’d executed her uncle and aunt with her own hands, in that battle to bring the warring lords tearing the North to bloody scraps to heel. But she was a famously hard and coldhearted bitch when it came to matters of justice, as any noble in the North of Ellinon would tell. “The Iron Bitch”, she knew they called her behind her back. “The Iron Bitch with the frozen heart.”

She’d have done it, yes. But she’d have mourned intensely after, for what might have been.

Dina was loyal and dear to her, a good friend. But if her brothers were rapists and slavers, Systlin knew that even if Dina begged, she would not grant mercy unless the offended girls asked it. It ran counter to everything in her to do so.

Goddess of Justice. The Lady’s voice whispered in her head.

Fuck off, she thought in return. I’ve shit to do.

“We can hope,” she said. “That they take after your father. And we’re not here to loot; if your father is in his shop and not with the fighting men, he’s quite safe.”

That seemed to ease Dina slightly. The woman was still used to the Gorean idea of war, where taking a city meant sacking it utterly, looting and burning and slaving. No army under Systlin’s command would ever fight so, though. She’d kill the soldiers responsible with her bare hands.

“Baker’s caste,” Dina said. “Do not fight, not unless they must. They will not be on the walls. Those on the walls and on the field here are warrior caste.”

Systlin would have to investigate this caste system more thoroughly. She did not like the idea on principle, but it seemed a force of social stability that most Goreans were very attached to. From what she’d gathered there were provisions for moving through castes if one wished. However, she’d heard that some, such as weavers and spinners, were considered ‘low caste’.

Systlin had attempted such tasks before; her mother was fond of spinning and weaving, though she was Queen Mother and needed never touch a spindle if she didn’t wish. After fifteen minutes spent at it, Systlin had come to the conclusion that the work that went into cloth was absurdly complicated and skilled, and had never touched a spindle since. She did, however, have a reputation for never haggling when it came to buying cloth or paying her seamstresses.

Low caste her arse. The idea of any of the most essential tasks…potters, farmers, fishermen, herders…being lower than any others raised her hackles. Perhaps the idea of low or high caste could go…

Across the grassland, a small party of men, led by one of the men in gleaming gold-chased armor began to ride towards them. Systlin put aside other concerns and nodded once to Dina, who nodded back and went to lead the right flank.

Her kaiila could sense that battle was coming, and shifted under her, tossing her head in eagerness. Systlin held her steady, and waited.

They headed, of course, for Foicatch. Systlin sighed and rolled her eyes, and nudged her kaiila forward. The creature sprang forward in that long, loping predator stride, and she headed them off in moments. They glared at her, all hostile intent. She regarded them in what was probably a dismissive manner, but so far as she was concerned these men were already dead. They were nothing that she had not seen on this world already, in the smaller towns that lay outside Turia. She’d killed a thousand like them since coming here.

“You know full well that I lead this army.” She said bluntly. “You’ve heard the stories.” She sighed. “It makes me curious…”

“Stories of trickery and nonsense about sorcery.” The man with the glittering armor said loftily. “A few villages might fall to some unnatural woman, but this is Turia. We will not be afraid of a tribe of women who think themselves the equals of men.”

“…As I was saying,” Systlin raised her voice slightly. “It makes me curious as to the full degree which you, meaning men on this world, are capable of deluding yourselves. I’ve been halfway through conquering towns and tribes and the men would still be telling me that I couldn’t hope to carry through, because I was but a woman.” She shook her head. “Almost sad, really. I’ve an army of twenty five thousand camped before your gates. I know you have heard the stories of how I’ve conquered cities across the prairies and brought all the tribes of the Wagon People under my rule. I am Ubara-Sana of the plains, by my own hand, and I’ve crushed every force sent against me. And yet here you are, still claiming the same old tired thing.”

She looked him in the eyes. “This is the part where, if you are smart, you will confer with your people and you will open the gates, lay down your arms, and have a chance to survive this.”

He scoffed. Entirely predictably. “This is Turia, woman. The plainsfolk may not have been able to humble you, but Turia will. We’ve ten thousand cavalry, and that is not counting the fighting men on foot. You and your slave girls with swords can batter yourselves to ribbons against us, and we’ll put collars on those of you not killed.” A slow, lewd smile, because apparently he felt he hadn’t dug his own grave deep enough. “Maybe I’ll put mine on you, woman, and teach you to obey a master’s word.”

“Well.” Systlin shrugged. “I did give you a chance.”

She’d learned knife throwing from Stellead, but the Arms Master of the Bloodguard had been dubious of its effectiveness and the instruction had only been basic. It was at the Iron Mountain, under the tutelage of the master assassins of the Master of Knives, that she’d learned how to properly throw a knife.

She’d killed the Master of Knives, of course. He’d taken the contract on her father, and sent out one of his Shadow Hands to kill a king. She’d killed the Brother of Shadow who’d wielded the knife, as well, and many others besides. The Iron Mountain stood empty now, the bones of those she’d killed gathering dust in the halls.

Her knife took the golden-armored warrior through the eye. He looked quite shocked as he slid from the saddle and fell. His men started in rage, and went for their lances.

Systlin smiled at them. Her power rose, a cold sweep through her bones, tingling under her skin. She raised her hand, and flicked her fingers negligently at them, mostly for show.

Their lances shattered into splinters. So did at least five thousand other lances of the leading ranks of the famed thalarion cavalry of Turia.

A great confused sound went up, and thalarion shied at the strange scent of Power in the air, sharp as ozone. And as fighting men scrambled for their secondary weapons, Systlin’s forces charged.

Ice took the first man before her just under the chin. She didn’t quite behead him as her coal-black kaiila shot past, but slashed the big artery on his neck open. Blood pumped, and the sound he made as he fell was a terrible gurgle.

She wheeled her mount and ducked the frantic sweep of a sword. The riders were startled, off balance, and that was death when facing a warrior of her caliber. Her kaiila darted in and took the throat of one of the slower High Thalarions, tearing it open. The beast went down, and its rider with it. Systlin kneed the sides of her kaiila and it leapt; the final warrior managed to parry her first blow, a slicing cut at his neck.

She twisted her wrist, reversed the grip on Ice’s hilt with a little twist and clever movement of her fingers that Stellead had made her practice ten thousand times, and drove it into his chest under his ribs. Drew it back with a sharp jerk as she wheeled her kaiila again, and flipped it back around in her hand. She did not have to think about the motion; she had not missed the catch on the twist since she had been a child training under Arms Master Stellead.

Then her kaiila was running, and she pushed it hard for a few paces until she regained her place leading the center. Lances glittered to either side of her, and she felt a fierce pride in the women she’d trained.

She eyed the gates of Turia, behind the regrouping lines of thalarion cavalry. Arrows arched from behind, as her mounted archers began picking off the front ranks of the Turian forces as they came into range.

Arrows returned, from on top of the walls, and one bounced off of her wraithen-scale armor. She lashed out with her power, still simmering under her skin, and five hundred bows shattered. Cries of dismay went up a second time.

She eyed the great gates of Turia, even as her kaiila gathered itself to leap and the first of her lance-fighters neared the front lines of the Turian cavalry. She eyed them for a half a second before she hit the front lines of the Turians, and she Broke them.

The great gates of Turia, and fifty feet of the wall to either side, crumbled into splinters and sand. There was a great cry of horror and dismay from the city, and cries of “UBARA! UBARA!” from her own warriors, delighted.

And then her front line was smashing into the Turian cavalry, and there was no more time for thought.

The Turians were skilled, but they were off balance, had lost the advantage of their long lances, and had not truly been expecting a proper fight. Systlin and her best lancers hit them like a hammer, and pierced deep into the ranks before the Turians quite knew it was happening. The Turians were down to swords now, and only a few of the rear ranks still had lances. Systlin’s riders had long lances with reach, and their kaiila were faster and more nimble than the high thalarion the Turians rode.

And, of course, they had her.

Systlin was no stranger to mounted combat. She’d ridden with the tribes of the desert at Sura’s side for years, and was as deft a hand at mounted combat as any Rider. She’d never have been accepted, otherwise.

It felt, she had to admit, as she turned a sword aside with Ice and flicked the sword around, down, and up, taking off the man’s sword hand at the wrist, very good to be at it again. The man screamed, but she was past him. A lance glanced off of her armor, and she wheeled her kaiila. The beast snapped, catching a leg, and tore the man off of his mount. His thalarion turned and went for her mount, but her kaiila shook its head and was leaping away before it could do any damage.

Systlin fought with all the skill and speed and cunning she had. She fought viciously, the whole time willing that her army would not fail now, would not quail because this battle was larger and closer-fought than any before. She willed it, imagining that she could throw wide her arms and take under her shadow all of her proud free mounted warriors, and through sheer will alone keep them fighting.

And she did what she had always done, in battle. She led on the front line, and fought like nothing the Turians had ever seen before. Men rose before her and men fell; she was past Power now, and killed with pure hard-won skill and naked steel. She cut faces, necks, torsos, limbs. Ice’s blue-tinged blade was purple with blood, and blood spattered her all over. She killed, and killed, with all the skill of those long hours of training and decades more of fighting for her life. She fought, and killed, her blood sang with it.

You were never made for peace. The Lady’s words. It was true; she knew it was true. She loved battle, though she knew it spoke of her basically coldhearted and vicious nature that she did. She was a warrior born and trained and blooded, and she was at home on the killing field.

She’d fought three wars, leading from the front. She’d won each, and the sight of her at the forefront of her warriors, in her element, bloody and screaming and bringing death with her, was absolute horror to the men of Gor.

The sight that horrified the men of Turia stiffened the spines of her warriors, and to the endless horror of the men of Turia, the former slave girls, now screaming warriors with lances and swords, cut into them with a fury they’d never seen.

With her at their front, her mounted warriors smashed the Turian lines apart, just as the left flank led by Foicatch drove hard at the gap left at the rear, pushing the cavalry of Turia away from the broken gates and cutting them off from retreat into the city. Foicatch himself set himself in the middle of the smashed gate, and Systlin caught glimpses of him engaged in fierce close fighting now and then as foot soldiers pressed forward from the city to try and relieve the cavalry she was driving like a herd of sheep across the prairies before Turia.

But the fighting men of Turia were skilled, and proud, and they began to regroup. Men were shouting orders, and the remaining lances managed to form up defensive lines. The fighting grew vicious, even after Systlin Broke more lances, and their advance ground to a crawl. Their armies were nearly matched; Systlin’s warrior women had better armor and better reach, but the Turian fighting men had more experience, and it began to show as they got their feet under them. Systlin’s troops fought like mad wildcats, and she was so proud; they were still winning forward, inch by inch, but she was not about to spend more lives than she had to.

The Turians began to press back, and her advance ground to a halt. Systlin smiled, because she heard the galloping of the kaiila, and knew.

Dina’s mounted archers swept past, and the women turned on their kaiilas with those short but powerful recurve bows of wood and bosk horn. Strings slid from thumb rings, and three thousand arrows hammered home through that light leather armor that the men of this world favored. The kaiilas wheeled, and the women turned again, as they’d practiced a thousand times, sitting backwards on their mounts. Strings sang again, and arrows flew as thick as rain.

Turians died. Systlin yelled and plunged forward again, and to shouts of “UBARA! UBARA! WHIP-BURNER! CHAIN-STRIKER!” her warriors followed.

The Turians had nowhere to retreat from Dina’s archers, except back onto the lances of Systlin’s mounted spear-women. No rescue came from Turia; Foicatch was stacking the bodies of fighting men four deep in the ruin of the shattered gates.

The fighting outside the city drug out a big longer; it took time to slaughter ten thousand cavalry and their mounts. But caught between Dina’s wheeling mounted archers and their storm of arrows and the lances of Systlin’s cavalry and Systlin’s own sword, they were cut to bits.

It was then that Systlin regrouped her lancers and led them to the shattered gates, where the foot soldiers of Turia were approaching more cautiously than before. The shattered gates themselves were a charnel house; fighting men and women both lay dead alongside wounded and dead and shrieking kaiila, and blood was red over the stones of the road and the rubble of the gates and walls. Foicatch and his warriors held, and the fighting men of Turia seemed reluctant to approach within reach of Foicatch’s sword.

They parted to let Systlin through, and her lancers flowed around to guard the sides of the ranks of warriors.

Systlin joined Foicatch at the front lines. She must look a terrible sight; she was head to toe blood and mud, the colors of her wraithen armor dulled under the coating. Foicatch’s own set of wraithen scale armor was similarly filthy. There was a cut high on his temple, a glancing blow that was not serious but bleeding freely. Even as she joined him she felt a trickle of Power as he flicked droplets of blood away from his eyes.

A lull in the fighting; the soldiers of Turia drew back, appalled at the sight. Foicatch eyed her, gaze flicking head to toe to check her for injuries. She gave him a slight reassuring shake of her head, doing the same to him. The cut on his temple seemed to be the worst of it. She turned to eye the soldiers before them.

“Your cavalry,” Systlin informed the fighting men before them. “Are dead. My throat slitters are making short work of any survivors this very moment. You did not hear the offer I made before, I think, so I will make it one more time. Lay your weapons down now, and you may find mercy. I will not give you another chance.”

Not one fighting man moved, save for the one who yelled in defiance, pulled a knife from his boot, and hurled it at her head.

It was a good throw, she thought, as she twisted her head to the side even as his hand swept up with the blade. It was a good throw. Had she not been taught by Stellead and the Shadow Hands of the Iron Mountain, it might have struck home. As it was, it simply scraped her cheekbone in passing; a shallow cut that would heal quickly and cleanly.

Answer enough, she supposed. Foicatch was already moving, and fell on the knife-thrower with a single-minded viciousness that was poetry to see. Systlin was moving almost as quickly, and that was where the battle in the city began.

It was nasty work. Street by street, driving the fighting men before them. Many of the freed slaves in Systlin’s forces had been from Turia, and as planned they now took the lead. As Systlin had suspected, their knowledge of the city was invaluable; meeting places and baths where warriors gathered were found out. Attacks from small alleys were anticipated. Cobbles went slick with blood. A nasty dagger opened a long cut into Systlin’s left forearm, and some of the slick blood under their boots and the kaiila’s paws was her own. She bound it with a strip torn from her own shirt, cinching the knot tight with her teeth, and pressed on.

Turia was a city of millions; it took hours to work their way through, even with the size of her army. It was late afternoon when at last she realized that any warriors found out were fleeing rather than fighting, and being quickly ridden down by archers. Systlin stopped, at last, sitting high on her kaiila, and knew that she was Ubara of Turia, and by extension all of the plains in truth, by right of conquest.

Dina was staying close now, guiding them through the streets. She saw the same realization dawn on Dina’s face; Foicatch was already smiling that grim satisfied smile she remembered well.

“Take me to the throne of Turia.” Systlin said, and Dina did.

The first drops of the storm hit the bloody dust and thunder growled low when the reached the great palace of Turia. It was in a vast central building, half law chambers and half a throne hall. It was all in the same white stone that the city seemed to favor, with a great dome over the hall where the Thrones of Turia sat. They were very fine; there was, Systlin was sure, wood somewhere under the silver and inlaid semiprecious stones, but it was difficult to make out. She left footprints of blood and mud across the spotless tiled floors.

She’d made instructions clear before the first spear was lifted; her warriors knew what to do. One part of being a leader, her father had said long ago. Is finding competent people that you trust, and then trusting them to do their jobs without your having to hang over their shoulder.

He’d been right. Her people were competent, and she did trust them. So while she waited for her warriors to ferret out the various guild and caste leaders and other important persons, Systlin ascended the nine steps to the dais…it was gorgeously carpeted, and inlaid with ivory and gold…and sat herself down in the larger throne, the throne of the Ubar of Turia.

Foicatch eyed her. There was an answering warm pulse that went down her spine and pooled insistently between her legs; there was nothing like battle to get the blood up. But…She raised her eyebrows back at him. “Not yet.” She said, somewhat reluctantly, and motioned with her chin at the smaller throne, the throne where traditionally the Ubara sat. “Not quite yet. It’s not properly conquered until I explain things to the important people, is it?”

“I suppose not.” But his eyes were lingering on her lips, and slid down over the length of her legs and the curve of her hip even so. She could feel the heat of it, and dearly wished to answer it.

But it was about at that point that people…some of them bedraggled, some begging and pleading, some silent and apparently numbly shocked into silence, all led by her fierce and triumphant warrior women, began to file into the great throne chamber. All were drenched; Systlin could hear rain rattling against the roof now, and thunder rumbling quite often.

They stared. Systlin knew what she must look like. She sat, and waited. Her shoulder ached; she’d been slammed into a wall at one point, and probably had a spectacular bruise. Her arm where she’d been cut stung. Her muscles burned from exertion; she’d been fighting on and off for hours. The cut on her cheek had scabbed, and pulled when she moved or spoke.

None of it mattered. Victory was pounding in her veins along the adrenaline. Even now, she knew, her warriors were removing chains from slaves; she could taste it on the air, and it was as sweet as honeyed wine.

Goddess of justice and war.

She ignored the voice of the Lady whispering.

Dina was conferring with the other women native to Turia. They looked fearsome; all were armored and armed and bloody. Most of the blood, to Systlin’s immense pride, was not their own. They had wounds, true, but most were not serious, and every warrior will earn scars. They were standing and moving and speaking with a new edge of confidence that had not been there even this morning, and Systlin knew why.

Stories would be told of this, she knew. Stories would be told, and the warriors who’d fought with her to take Turia would be legend in their own right. And they knew it as well; had proved something to themselves that could never be taken away.

Yes, these warrior women would say, years from now. Yes, of course I know of the Fall of Turia. I was there. I fought at the Ubara’s side. There would be looks then, as awed as any Systlin herself had ever received, and she knew in her bones how the legends would be told in decades to come.

Dina of Turia, who led the Ubara’s archers and broke the Turian cavalry with the Ubara.

Sabra of Turia, the first of all who had her chains struck off, who rode with her lance at the Ubara’s side, in her honor guard, and who fought so fiercely that none could stand before her. Never in the battle for the city did she leave the Ubara’s side, and she walked through blood ankle-deep that day.

Hula of Turia, Doreen of Turia, Hireena of the Tuchuks. Tamra of Ar…

The list went on and on, and pride was a bright warmth in her chest.

Dina said something to Sabra, who nodded and turned to cross the hall and climb the steps. Systlin remembered that first day; Sabra clutching, terrified, at her sleeve. There was little trace of the frightened and beaten slave girl now; Sabra was one of her best with a spear, and she wore thick bosk-hide armor sewn with metal plates. Her arms and shoulders were strong, and her blonde hair braided tightly back. There was blood and mud crusted in it, and a vicious bruise showing around one eye. Her nose had been broken at some point, and hastily reset,. The dried blood from it was still on her chin. She was smiling a smile of victory.

“Ubara sana.” She said. “The guild leaders, councilors, and other important leaders of the city are assembled.”

“Thank you, Sabra.” Systlin smiled back, just as fierce. “And well fought. Fierce as a she-panther.”

The grin widened. “Thank you, Ubara-sana!”

“I told you,” Systlin said, still smiling. “You doubted me, but here you stand. When I secure the treasury, you are to take as much as you can carry, as a mark of my esteem. I name you now to my personal guard, for as long as you desire the post, but you must promise to tell me if you ever wish to leave. You were the first to have her chains thrown off, and I’ve no wish to ever bind you with others.”

Sabra blinked rapidly, and Systlin realized that she was blinking back tears. “I will, Ubara sana.” She said. “But I do not think that day will come.”

“Well. If it does, let me know. And I’ve another duty for you; you were the first to take up weapons, even before Dina. If you will, once things settle more in a few days, go among the women of Turia and tell them your story. And if any of them wish it, bring them to me, and help me train them as warriors, as you trained yourself.”

A light like fever lit in Sabra’s eyes. “Ubara sana,” she whispered. “You honor me, and I will do this.”

“You won your honor yourself, with your own hands and by your own actions.” Systlin said. “I merely handed you the tools to do so. Bring them all forward, then.”

Foicatch, she realized, was staring at her with an intensity that was scorching.

“You will never have any idea,” he breathed, very quietly, as her warriors herded the frightened rich and powerful of the city to the base of the raised dais the thrones sat upon, “the effect you have on people. What it’s like to see, from the outside.”

“Hush.” She murmured back, just as softly. “You’re biased.”

“I am. But I’m also right. Every woman in your forces would have followed you to the death this morning, but after this they’d follow you past it as well.”

“Hmm.” She allowed, but it was a pleased sound. “I try only to be what they deserve.”

“Yes.” He said. “Yes, and that’s why.”

She eyed the small crowd at the foot of the dais. They were frightened and soaked from the storm, bedraggled and sullen.

“Foicatch, darling.” She said. “Our guests appear to be soaked. Could you give them a hand?”

He made an agreeable sound and lifted a hand. She tasted Power on the back of her tounge, ozone and burnt cinnamon.

There were gasps and screams as the water streamed and spiraled off of the huddled leaders of Turia. Foicatch pulled it into a hovering globe above his hand, and then rather negligently flicked it aside. It splashed to the tiles, leaving the people in the crowd quite dry.

Dina clicked her tounge against her teeth. “Are you all sorcerers, on your world?” A year and a half of following Systlin, one of the strongest fire witches and the strongest Breaker ever to live, had rubbed the novelty off of seeing Power worked.

“Not all of us.” Systlin lifted a shoulder. “But a good many.”

“My mother’s a stronger water witch than me,” Foicatch said absently. “I’ve only half her gift.”

“Wait until you see him really angry,” Systlin said. “And see him tear the water from a man’s blood.”

“I have.” That was Hireena, herding the Turians forward. Her voice was low, and she looked at Foicatch with deep respect. “At the gates, as we fought.”

“Did you?” She said, with interest. Systlin had seen it done before. It had been….compelling. Hmmmm.

Later. Later. More important things first.

“Turia.” She said, her voice clear. “I greet you.”

Furious, frightened faces looked up at her. Mutters went around. Systlin remembered well what she’d been told.

“I greet you,” she said. “As Ubara Sana of the plains, won by my own hand. But of course, you are Turian, and the power in Turia lies with the merchants.”

“It is so.” One veiled woman said. She was looking up curiously; her robes were of exquisitely fine silks, and embroidered with gold. Pearls hung from the edges of her sleeves, and crystal beads glittered across her gown.

“That,” said Systlin. “May change. I understand, of course, that you’ve already well established trade routes, and I’ve no wish to interfere with them. But I am Ubara Sana now, and the old laws will change. You may have heard that, on the plains, slave chains have been outlawed, and all slaves freed. It is true, and as of this moment by my decree every slave in Turia is freed.”

There was a roar of arguments and shouting and disapproving noises.

“…cannot simply…”

“…My business is slaves! How am I to…”

“…an outrage!...”

Systlin waited them out, patient. As she did, another of the Turian women jogged in through the great door; the rain had washed away most of the mud and blood, but she was limping, a strip of cloth bound around one thigh. She murmured something to Dina, who nodded once and took the nine steps up to the dais two at a time.

“There is a problem.” Dina said. “Saphrar, a wealthy merchant, one of the leaders of the Merchant’s Caste in the city. He’s a fortified compound, and has walled himself up with his mercenary forces.”

“Tell everyone to pull back.” Systlin said at once. “Keep an eye on the compound; let no one escape. After I finish here, I’ll come and tend to his gates myself.”

Dina smiled thinly, and went back down, murmured this to the other woman. The other woman grinned like a wolf, and hurried out, swift despite her wounded leg.

“Have you all finished?” Systlin raised her voice above the crowd.

“I will contract with the Guild of Assassins for this!” A man with thick dark hair and wearing gold and white robes said furiously. He had a hand raised and was shaking a finger at the sky. “I’ll have your head in my vault. I swear it on the Priest-Kings! “

“I take it that you deal in slaves,” Systlin said dryly.

“I do! It is an honorable trade, and I have been dealing in slave meat for…”

Systlin nodded at Dina, who moved quickly. Her knife gleamed, and the man’s throat opened ear to ear. A gurgle, and a red rush of blood, and utter shocked silence.

“Slavery,” Systlin said mildly. “Is one of the greatest crimes, and slavers are condemned to death. Those who procure and deal in slaves for their own wealth are doubly damned. Throw his body to the kaiila; they must be hungry after the fight. What was his name?”

Silence.

“I asked,” Systlin said, voice going cold. “For his name. I expect an answer.”

Another moment of silence dragged out, and then…“Kazrak.” The veiled woman who’d spoken before said. “Kazrak of the Merchant Caste. His mansion is next to mine, and his warehouse is in the low streets, near the slave market.”

“Did he have a Free Companion, any children?”

“Both.”

“Then half of his estate shall go to them, and they shall maintain their home. The other half of his assets are forfeit, and will be redistributed between his slaves, who are now free.” Systlin raised an eyebrow. “Might I have your name?”

“Aphris.” Said the woman. “Of the Merchant Caste. I deal in silks and wine, not people.” She shot a somewhat vicious look at the dead Kazrak, as he was dragged off, leaving a smear of red on the tiles. “And he was cruel, and it does my heart good to see justice done him. I take it then that we, the free women of Turia, are not to be put in slave chains?”

“Bloody pits, no.” Systlin said, repulsed.

“I did not think so.” Aphris said, cool and collected, a point of calm in the angry and terrified crowd. “But many freewomen feared the worst. It is, after all, how war has been done on Gor for a very long time. You can understand the worry.”

It was a reasonable worry, Systlin supposed. “Of course. But have no fear, no hand will be raised against you. You are free, and will remain free. Aside from that, by my laws it will be punishable by death if anyone, from anywhere, ever attempted to enslave you, and I would hunt that man down and kill him for daring to put chains on one of my subjects.”

There were many free women in the crowd, and at the words there was sort of a sigh that ran through them, and a sense of some great tension lifted. The men looked startled. Systlin gestured, taking in the concealing robes all of the free women wore.

“It is no longer required,” she continued. “That you wear full Robes of Concealment in public. A free woman may dress as she likes and go where she likes. If you feel more comfortable in your robes, of course, then you are welcome to wear them, but it is not required. If you choose to set them aside and experience difficulty from anyone, you may make a formal complaint and the matter will be dealt with. I will make people and resources available to deal with such matters.”

A murmur. More looks of outrage from the men.

“Many,” Aphris said. “Will welcome this. But for myself, Ubara, I think I will choose to wear the robes, at least for some time longer.”

“Of course.” Systlin inclined her head. “And I am afraid, of course, that Turia will be judged.”

“Judged?” One man snapped. “Like you judged Kazrak?”

“Yes. Precisely how I judged Kazrak.” Systlin smiled unpleasantly. “There are three great crimes; the murder of an innocent who has done no harm, the rape of another, and enslaving another. The penalty for all three is death.”

Silence. Dead, horrified silence. And then,

“You cannot mean,” another man said, carefully. “That every man who held a slave will be killed.”

“No.” Systlin shook her head. Sighs of relief, but she continued. “Because some slaves, for whatever reason, beg mercy for those who held them. It will be up to any slaves you hold what your fate is. But,” and she grinned again, more horribly. “If a single slave you’ve held and raped chooses death for you, I will put a knife in her hand and hold you down myself for the sentence.”

“What.”

“You cannot mean…”

“Not all…”

“All.” Systlin said, merciless. “Every man in Turia. If a freewoman held male slaves…I’m told it happens…then her life is forfeit as well. I will not abide it. Have no fear; I will establish many courts to see to it. It will take us months to work through the city, but it will be done. And those of you who are guilty, I will hang your bones from the white walls as a warning.”

“You,” Said one man, who had until then been silent, staring angry daggers at her from the front of the crowd. His robes, she noted, were the finest in the room, and edged in purple. “Are mad.”

“Not the first time I’ve been called that.” Systlin said easily. She looked him over, matching up features with descriptions. “Phanius Turmus, I presume?”

“Ubar of Turia.” He confirmed, chin high. “You are defiling my throne, woman.”

“You were.” She shook her head. “But you lost. You’re simply Phanius now, and you’ll be judged with the rest.”

“I think that perhaps I shall contract with the Assassin’s Caste for your head.” He didn’t flinch or break eye contact. “Your head would look well in my vaults, I agree with Kazrak.”

“Oh, please do. I ought to make their acquaintance. It’s been some time since I trained with the assassins of my own world, and tore their master’s throat out with my knife. So yes please, do. It would be an exciting challenge.”

Foicatch sighed resignedly. “Really, love?”

Phanius was giving her a stare of pure and utter horror. “What are you?” He almost whispered. “What terrible hell did you crawl from, to plague us? Have you no respect for those of high caste?”

“My mother would be terribly offended by calling her a ‘terrible hell’.” She made steady eye contact with each person in her horrified and enraptured audience. “The terrible hell is her sister, who taught me to fight. And no. Every caste. From low to high. All will be judged the same. If any have offended in these ways, I will see justice done upon them. No one is exempt.”

“You’ll kill thousands!” One man cried. “Tens of thousands!”

“Oh,” Systlin said, cold as steel in winter. “Hundreds of thousands, I expect.”

“You cannot…”

“Poor choice of words.” Foicatch sighed again. “I could have warned you; there’s no better way to get her to do something than to tell her, earnestly, that she can’t.”

Systlin stood, and let Power rise. Not the terrible cold of Breaking, but her other gift, hot and furious and wild. Fire bloomed around her for a moment, and was gone too quickly to set fire to her clothes. But it had the desired effect. Silence fell. Horrified silence.

“I am not bargaining with you.” She said softly. “I am not suggesting. I am not your old Ubar. I stand here by right of conquest. I breached your walls and killed my way to this throne, and I am going to kill a great deal many more before I am through. The merchants and caste-masters are not ruling Turia any longer; I am.”

She moved a step down, drawing closer to them. “To put this in terms you understand, which I gathered from women you had kidnapped from a world not yours and forced into slavery; you had best get used to this new way, or you will die. I am telling you how things now are. You can flee the city, if you wish, but I will not stop here and I will find you. Be it when I take Ar, or Ko-Ro-Ba, or any other city, I will come. I am going to end slavery on this world, and I fully expect to do it at the point of a sword. I am Ubara Sana of the plains. I rule this city now. These are the great crimes that will be punished, and how they will be punished. This matter is not open for negotiation. If you dislike these words, you are free to take them up with any of the twenty thousand of my soldiers in your city. They’ll be thrilled to discuss them, I am sure.” She descended another step. “Until the courts are established and judging begins, no one is to leave the city. I control the entirety of the plains and other bands of my warriors have seized trade routes. I have the wealth of Turia at my disposal; you will not go hungry. And now, you are free to return to your homes; I have things yet to do tonight. One of you has decided to fight tooth and nail; I’m off to crack him out of his nutshell. Dismissed.”

She swept past, not looking back, and felt their eyes on her back as she went.

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 4 years ago

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Opinions on Molly Weasley????

You know, I actually don’t think I’m too far out in left field for her. Well, I might be strange in that we tend to see very polarized opinions on Molly: either she’s the greatest mother who ever mothered and the Weasleys are a perfect family or she’s an overbearing manipulative matriarch who’s secretly poisoning Harry with love potions into marrying her daughter.

Sort of like Ron, I wouldn’t say Molly’s a saint, but she’s also not one of the truly nasty characters (she’s not eating babies or feeding Harry love potions or anything). That said, she is far from the warm, generous, matriarch JKR presented her as.

First, she is overbearing . There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s just how her and Arthur’s dynamic works, but at the same time if Arthur ever did have a spine it’s been completely conditioned out of him. It’s also very telling that Ron marries the overbearing equivalent of his mother in Hermione Granger. I suspect Ron’s spine has also completely disappeared by the time we hit that delightful epilogue from canon.

As for the Weasleys, JKR sets them up to be the perfect family we can possibly (realistically) imagine. It’s huge, they all love each other and are fiercely loyal (except for Percy, the swine, we’ll get into this), they give Harry a sweater, it’s the family he wants so desperately that he marries the only available and socially acceptable option: Ginny (I could go on a rant about this for days, but guys, Harry shows way more interest in men than in women and I think 90% or Ginny’s attraction to him is that she’s a Weasley).

That said the Weasleys, and Molly herself, have major issues.

One, the money. I think JKR makes them poor to give contrast to the Malfoys. The Weasleys are nobly impoverished, they’re a wizarding family but understand more important things than money. The snobby Malfoys on the other hand have peacocks in their yard because rich people are inherently evil.

That said, most of this is because Arthur and Molly completely mismanage finances. There’s nothing wrong with having seven children, but the Weasleys clearly cannot afford to have seven children. More, we see them spend money instantly when they have it. Ron is left without a wand for a year but the second Arthur wins the lottery, rather than save the money, WE’RE GOING TO EGYPT. Even the year before, money that might have gone towards emergency situations such as: my son’s wand broke is used to take Molly, Arthur, and Ginny to Egypt. They buy tickets to the Quidditch World Cup. The Weasleys don’t have that kind of money and then they go and are extremely bitter that Lucius Malfoy does have that kind of money. Yes, I’m sure the Malfoys were always wealthier than the Weasleys, but at the same time the Weasleys are the type to buy iphones for their kids when they’re on food stamps.

I’m getting a little distracted though, back to Molly.

I’d say Molly is far more traditional than JKR ever intended for her to be. She’s progressive enough that she supports muggleborns (they should get to go to Hogwarts and be very appreciative) but she also doesn’t think they should get too far ahead of themselves (we’ll get into this). She’s a raging misogynist (we’ll get into this). She is extremely judgmental and can flip on you at the drop of a hat with the barest of evidence. She never really does anything about Harry’s situation despite having very good evidence of its realities. And despite her family’s extreme poverty, even when all the kids are in boarding school, we don’t see her try to take up a job or even take up some etsy equivalent where she can enchant shit and sell it. There’s nothing wrong with staying home to raise the kids, but at the same time, I think for Molly it’s because “this is what the wife does”.

Right, well, that actually was a lot.

Let’s start with Harry. Molly is witness to seven years of Harry’s childhood abuse and seems to take no action regarding it. Now, Fred and George are dubious sources, so them telling Molly that “hey Harry’s house had bars on his window” might not be taken seriously. Harry also is generally very private and embarrassed about his home life. That said, there are many many signs, and while Hermione practically lives at the Burrow ever since third or fourth year Harry has to spend every single summer with the Dursleys even before Voldemort’s return.

Granted, I have gone over that I don’t think child protection or even a good understanding of abuse exists in the Wizarding World. I think to wizards you’re stuck with the family you’ve got, and if your pureblood grandfather is raping you then it sucks to be you. That said, the Weasleys are such a central part of Harry’s life that I would expected them to do *something*. Instead it’s like Harry’s situation is... vaguely acknowledged but mostly ignored.

Now, the Weasleys don’t have the money for an eighth kid (though Harry’s so absurdly wealthy he could help lighten the load were he to live with them) so I don’t hold this too much against them but... I would hope that a truly good family would have noticed Harry’s situation and tried to do something about it.

Right, the judgement part. The Weasley family’s unofficial disowning of Percy was horrible. This is going to be controversial, but Percy actually made some excellent points. Dumbledore and Harry’s story about Voldemort’s resurrection does sound nuts, the guy’s been dead ten years, he isn’t Jesus. More, it comes from Harry Potter who is young, traumatized, and has generally been erratic throughout the time Percy’s known him. And parts of what he says aren’t wrong. Why do the Weasley’s worship Dumbledore and listen to everything this man says? Dumbledore does do things like recruit child soldiers from the boarding school he runs. Dumbledore’s a shady guy.

Mostly though, while Percy not believing Harry and Dumbledore is bad, I always got the feeling that a lot of the resentment and disowning was that Percy dared to do better than his father. Percy rises through the ranks quickly in the ministry, he’s extremely competent, where his father has been stuck in the same dead end joke of a job for years. Arthur even accuses Percy of having his position because Fudge is spying on Arthur. Which... no, Arthur, no. And the family just loathes him for it. They loathe him and it’s terrible.

And I’m sure Dumbledore meanwhile is just dying that they’ve forced Percy out when Percy was in the perfect position to be a spy in the Ministry. I can just picture him drinking with Snape after Molly’s told him, tears in her eyes, that Percy is cut off because he betrayed the family, wondering what kind of morons are in the Order.

Beyond Percy there’s what Molly does to Hermione in 4th year. And good god, this is also where the misogyny comes in. Rita Skeeter writes that Hermione, a fourteen-year-old girl, is a harlot and Molly not only a) believes it but b) becomes extremely judgmental of Hermione and essentially calls her a jezebel to her face. Molly, what the hell? Hermione’s life has been ruined by the tabloids for something that didn’t happen, and even if it did is nothing she should be slandered for, and Molly’s going “THAT WHORE”.

This is after Skeeter had slandered Arthur just that summer over the Quidditch World Cup incident and Molly hadn’t believed any of it for a second. So, either Hermione’s being a girl or her being an uppity muggleborn or both somehow makes this believable...

Molly’s very similar with Fleur. She doesn’t approve and I always got the feeling it was in part because Fleur is not the traditional sort of woman she’d want Bill to marry (Fleur is a working woman at Gringotts and more is elegant refined beauty rather than a girl next door who’d make a great housewife) but also because Fleur’s foreign. Bill should marry a nice, English, woman and instead he ends up with this French quarter-veela.

Had Harry done anything to offend Molly, or even if Dumbledore had simply gone “You know what, Harry’s awful, we hate him”, then I would expect he too would have been completely cut off and thrown back into the gutter where he belongs.

So, Molly sucks and is not nearly as progressive as JKR intended, but is she feeding Harry love potions to marry Ginny and make the family wealthy? No.

#ask #anon #harry potter #headcanons #molly weasley #molly's progressive up until one of her sons marries a scarlet woman

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a-libra-writes · 4 years ago

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Hi! Could you do #41 for Jory Cassel?

Jory <3<3<3<3<3

#41 was forbidden kiss, I believe!!

The sun beat down hard on his brow, and he looked up, grimacing at the bright, endless sky. Jory thought the clarity was beautiful months ago, and it still was, but… gods, did it have to be so hot? He never sweated so much in all his years than he did in this short span of time in the South. Eager to be back inside the Red Keep and it's cold halls, he hurried his pace. It really was a pit of vipers, like all the rumors said, but for now it was better than being cooked in his armor.

He nodded in greeting to the four gate guards, the same men who ignored him every time he came and went. Honored as Jory was to accompany Lord Stark as head of his guard, he worried. He wasn’t the only person who felt out of place, like a wolf moved from it’s natural place to somewhere foreign.

That made Jory remember Lady and Nymeria. He frowned and pushed the thoughts aside.

Jory navigated through the stone halls, careful of the turns he took in case he needed to backtrack. So far, that only happened twice. Calling the castle vast was an understatement. He passed some guards and servants, only the latter bothering to look up and acknowledge him. There were so many, hundreds or more. He couldn’t remember all the names and faces like in Winterfell.

He was sure he was alone as he headed for the Tower of the Hand, but something was off. His shoulders tensed, and Jory slowed his gait just slightly. He made a point to turn the next corner slowly, and turned his head just so. In the corner of his vision, he spotted something bright, and it fluttered away.

Jory sighed. “I know you’re there.”

No answer. He turned around completely, gazing down the empty hall. He glanced to the large, open windows that looked down into the gardens. Jory walked over to them, looking down at the rows and rows of flowers and trees. Only a few ladies were out walking, their gowns trailing behind them.

Fingertips touched his hair, and he instantly jumped back. Jory’s hand was on his sword for a fraction of a second before he sighed deeply.

“Y/N,” He shook his head and tried to look perfectly calm, though his heart was racing.

The lady smiled before him, not the slightest bit sorry. “Oh, I almost had you that time. I tried to be so careful.”

“I spotted you earlier.”

“You had, and then you went to the window, for some silly reason. If I were an assassin I could have pushed you, good Ser... or sliced your neck whilst your back was turned.”

“I’m not a knight, and you aren’t an assassin, my lady.” Jory said. He didn’t know why she talked about such morbid things. Those lips he liked were still curled into a mischievous smile.

She stepped closer, and his heart was beating fast again, but for a different reason. He thought she was going to touch him -- he was hoping. Her long chiffon skirt made a soft noise as it crossed the stone. She circled him, and his dark eyes followed.

“Did the falcon’s knight enlighten you?” Y/N asked. “The one I told you about?”

He didn’t expect that question. “That man gave me words, but little was useful. I did what I could.” Jory frowned at the memory of the arrogant knight, then a thought intruded. “How did you know he would have information?”

A sigh left her painted lips. This time she really did come closer, and she held his face in her soft hands. Jory’s stomach leaped. He could smell the perfume on her skin, the herbs in her hair, and the bright dress hugging her body. It reminded him of the colorful birds that frequented the gardens.

“What will I do with you, Jory?” She said. “You’re in a dangerous place, you know. You ought to pay attention.”

“I do,” He replied instantly. From here, the light shined on Y/N’s face in the most wonderful way. He could see flecks of color in her eyes that he hadn’t noticed before.

Y/N shook her head. “You think the warmth, women and wine make us Southerners weak.” Her fingertips ran along his jaw to his hair, her fingertips lightly scraping him, and Jory shuddered. “You don’t think about how it melts you.”

The kiss was painfully fleeting. His whole chest hurt with want, and right when he held to her, she pulled away. Her smell remained, but the warmth was gone too soon. Jory reached for Y/N, wanting that warmth back as soon as it was gone.

He couldn’t look away from her eyes, or yearn for her lips. In this empty hall, he forgot she was a Lady of a wealthy Kingslander house, and he was the captain of the Hand’s guard. It was easy to forget when she began to speak and touch.

“I told you to listen, and to watch. To be careful.” She said.

Jory blinked. “What do you--”

Y/N moved as swiftly as a cat, and for a panicked moment, Jory thought she saw someone at the garden windows… even if they were far below. Instead, she looked to the hall, where Lord Stark had just turned the corner.

“Lord Stark,” Y/N instantly turned that mischievous smile into one of polite respect. She bowed, and he nodded his head in return. It was clear he couldn’t remember her name, if he ever knew it to begin with. So instead, he gave a polite “My lady”, then turned to Jory.

“I need to speak with you at once. Come.”

“Yes, my lord.” Jory prided himself in how steady he kept his voice, though he was damned sure there was a flush on his cheeks. Thankfully, Lord Stark said nothing. If anything, he seemed distracted, and he was carrying an absurdly heavy book. Jory gave one fleeting look to Y/N, then followed at his heels.

Y/N watched them go, disappearing up the stairs to the tower. She sighed, wondering how the Hand and his wolves would fare in this dirty, deceptive city. It was mean to tease so much, and it was especially stupid to stick her neck out so far when it came to this business with Jon Arryn… But perhaps sweet, loyal men with big, kind eyes were her weakness. Perhaps he’d do better than the last one.

#jory cassel x reader #got x reader #game of thrones x reader #libra minis

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twistedtummies2 · 3 years ago

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Count-Down: Number 20

Welcome to Count-Down! All throughout the month of October, I’m counting down my Top 31 favorite portrayals and reimaginings of the King of the Vampires, Count Dracula! “Shall we dance?” Number 20 is…Zhang Wei-Qiang.

Or is it “Wei-Qiang Zhang”? I’ve seen him addressed both ways, and being an ignorant American oaf, I’m not sure which is the proper method…I’m sticking with the way it was written in the credits. :P Zhang Wei-Qiang is not a name I expect ANY of you have heard; as far as I can tell, his appearance as Dracula is his only screen credit of note. Wei-Qiang played the Count in a particularly bizarre adaptation I only found out about earlier this year: “Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary.” Yes, that title is ridiculous, and it really doesn’t seem to have much (if anything) to do with the movie itself. Thankfully, the film is much more interesting. “Pages From a Virgin’s Diary” is a peculiar blend of dance film and arthouse/experimental flick. This production was directed by Canadian arthouse director Guy Maddin; it was a commissioned work from a local TV producer, who wanted Maddin to create an adaptation of a ballet version of the story. The problem was that Maddin had no interest in ballet, and really didn’t know what to do with it. As a result, the film DOES utilize dance and ballet, but only as ONE method of telling the story; the dance itself is not the focus. In fact, the picture has apparently been criticized by some as “the most inept dance movie in history.” Having said that, the majority of critics and even audiences seem to find this to be a very solid, albeit offbeat, interpretation. Again, the dance is one part of this picture, but not the WHOLE picture. The TV movie uses a mixture of surrealist editing tactics and Expressionist-inspired lighting, shots, and sets, styling the film in the vein of a 1920s silent picture – sort of a blend between “Nosferatu” and something by Dali. Most of the feature is in black and white, but splashes of color – primarily vibrant red and sickly green – are used to either highlight certain motifs in the story, or simply to shock and startle the audience. The feature attempts to explore some of the underlying themes and concepts people have gleamed from the original novel over the years…how many of them were intentional when Stoker wrote his story is up to debate. There are several themes involved, but the chief ones are xenophobia/racism, which was quite prevalent in Victorian society (because, you know, it’s totally NOT relevant NOWADAYS, naturally not, no…ahem…), and also various sexual themes. Now, the latter is nothing new, BUT the way the film DEALS with those ideas IS. I could go on for PAGES about the many ways this movie explores its concepts, but I want to keep this fairly brief, so I’ll focus on Dracula himself as much as I can. A friend of mine accurately described this picture, in short, as “a picture PRIMARILY about the domineering nature of man and how superficial and callous man can be.” Basically ALL of the men in this movie are…well…essentially creeps. And Dracula is no exception, himself. Maddin purposefully wanted to portray this Dracula as “The Perfect Lover,” and in a way, he is. All of the other men in this story envy and fear him: one because he’s an exotic foreigner, one because he seems young and virile, one because he’s so absurdly wealthy, etc. Either by sheer brute force or else force of will, he can and will have any woman he wants; he is able charm the stars into their eyes, offering them eternal life and excitement of more than one kind. BUT, while Dracula is the “perfect lover,” he is NOT the perfect PERSON. While the men all hate him for rather shallow, petty, and sometimes utterly repugnant reasons…perhaps because we’re seeing him through that veil, so to speak, he IS, in fact, a terrible creature. He is basically the worst nightmare a Victorian Man can face: someone who will take all the things you cherish or covet, and will emaciate you through them. He’ll take your women, he’ll take your money, and he won’t give a darn about any of it. When he turns Lucy into a vampire, it isn’t just a case of the men misunderstanding or anything; he turns Lucy – beforehand a childlike innocent and pure soul – into a vicious, animalistic, treacherous, conniving creature of the night like himself. He alternates between seducing his victims and then just taking them without any pretense. No amount of money, power, or pleasurable companionship is enough to satisfy him. I really love this take on Dracula and how it plays into the movie’s themes: we know the so-called “heroes” in this version aren’t very heroic, so…what does that make our villain, when he is still so villainous? Dracula is the centerpiece all these unsettling and disturbingly relevant ideas turn on: he is the rich man to desire, the foreigner to fear, the manipulator to mistrust. He is all of us, and none of us…and that is what makes him so fascinating in this interpretation. Well. That, and this performer sure can dance. Tomorrow, the countdown continues! Hint: He has Universal appeal.

#count-down #top 31 draculas #dracula #count dracula #halloween advent calendar #october special #number 20 #pages from a virgin's diary #ballet #zhang wei-qiang #dance

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thistlecatfics · 3 years ago

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How do you feel about James threatening to take off Snape's underwear in front of a group of fellow students? And using that to try and coerce Lily into a date with him? I've seen different takes which included sexual assault (which isn't wrong by our standards, per se, including showing underwear in the first place) to teenage antics. Basically, how do you feel this action reflects on who James is as a person - ignoring the arguments of Marauders vs Snape being "justified" or not. 1/2

2. An aside, where does it say in book text that Mulciber used Levicorpus against Mary Macdonald? (I think I saw that in a discussion on meta here.) I can't find any part of the book that confirms what was actually done to her. For what it's worth, I tend to think of the characters all fighting a small war during the marauder era, and find "who bullied who" discussions pointless, especially in the later years.

First off - I cannot be entirely sure I did not send this ask to myself in a fevered state because this is exactly what has been bubbling around in my head for the past week. (so, uh, that is to say, thank you for the ask, anon.)

Second - everything we get about the marauder’s era is through 2+ unreliable narrators which is why it’s so fun! I just reread SWM and am going to offer a few potential interpretations. I’m very much open to more.

Rereading “Snape’s Worst Memory” right now, the first thing that stands out to me is that it is Snape’s memory but the details around James Potter and co are almost absurdly clear given that Snape is “as deeply immersed in the OWL paper as ever, which left Harry free to sit down on the grass between the beech and the bushes and watch the foursome under the tree.” It’s a little difficult for me to understand how everyone is situated but why are the details of MWPP’s conversation intelligible to him?

A few questions right from the start:

To what degree is Snape’s pensieve memory reliable?

To what degree should we see this as a school-based proxy war vs bullying?

To what degree is this moment an aberration vs typical?

“Snape reacted so fast it was as though he had been expecting an attack.” (hyper-vigilance, trauma-response, training, situational awareness, been listening in - lots of ways to read this)

“Students all around had turned to watch… some looked apprehensive, other entertained.” (everyone assumes something is about to happen)

The initial dialogue (grease marks on the parchment) feels super schoolyard bullying.

Scourgify - choking him, seen described as “waterboarding” very cogently though I’m still iffy on that, but we do know it’s very much the lizard brain not the thinking brain that reacts to that - you’re terrified of drowning like that, wizarding or not. It's quite a cruel thing to do.

“Leave him alone.”

“I will if you go out with me, Evans,” said James quickly. “Go on… go out with me and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.”

“Quickly!” is such a useless adverb! There are still so many ways of interpreting that! Quickly as in - he’s said this so many times he doesn’t have to think about it? Quickly as in - he’s not thinking and he says a stupid 16 year old thing which he regrets soon after? Quickly as in - this is fun, almost mutual banter? (doubtful as her earlier statement was said “coldly.”) But also like... what the fuck, James? What the actual fuck?

Ok then Sirius says “bad luck, Prongs” briskly, and Snape reaches his wand. Snape curses James with a spell that leaves a gash across his face “spattering his robes with blood.”

(to be fair to Snape, faces bleed super easily, and a shallow cut on the face will bleed just horribly as any rugby player will tell you.)

Then James sends him upside down. Everyone laughs, and even Lily’s “furious expression” “twitches.”

Then we get the Lily/Snape/James interaction bits - they’re fighting, James undoes the Levicorpus and then the Patrificus Totalus at Lily’s insistence, and then, famously, Snape says, “I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”

Sirius gently mocks James “who looked furious now.”

And the scene concludes with:

“There was another flash of light, and Snape was one again hanging upside-down in the air.

‘Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?’”

Honestly rereading the chapter I was hoping for some clear insight, and my main reaction is that I have a renewed understanding for why there’s so much debate about this memory!

Without any context, the concluding moment, that James feels humiliated over a rejection by a girl, and he then physically restrains another man, shows off his underwear and threatens to take them off in front of a crowd, feels like standard issue sexual violence (in the sort of hazing/bullying type.)

In context, given that we know Snape and his friends are about to be (or already have been) inducted as Death Eaters, a process that involves murder, this feels like a school-based proxy war in a larger fight and while it might be sexualized violence, it’s not so outside the pale as it would be in our own high school context.

Alright now that I have thoroughly confused myself and gotten nowhere, let me focus on the actual questions given.

"Basically, how do you feel this action reflects on who James is as a person"

Badly! It reflects badly!

To me, I see him as your typical Social Justice Bro - he’ll say the right words, fight against the Baddies with genuine fervor, but he still very much sees women as prizes to be won in exchange for his good behavior.

This is SUCH a common type of person and the idea that Quidditch star, wealthy only child, brilliant Jame Potter falls into that trap is not surprising.

I see there being three options fans can take here:

This memory is accurate and representative: James Potter, like many men, fights on the good side but harbors misogynistic views and treats the women in his life like objects and is willing to use sexualized violence against others as a means of asserting his own masculinity.

This memory is accurate but not representative: This is the worst James Potter ever acted. He never behaved this way again. He apologized to Lily. He did his feminist reading. He worked on his own shit. (I think this is the one JKR wants us to take? But who knows and who cares with her.)

This memory is not accurate: Snape, being very smart and very highly motivated, like many people like him, has slowly and steadily edited his own memories to better fit into a narrative he feels comfortable with. (This explains why his recollections of the MWPP conversations are so accurate and unflattering and also why he seems to have done zero healing or maturing in the past 10 years and bullies children. He has been stewing in his own edited memories rather than healing and moving on.)

I can vibe with all of them, depending on what kind of story I want to write/read/imagine.

where does it say in book text that Mulciber used Levicorpus against Mary Macdonald?

It doesn’t. I think I remember the meta you’re referencing (I remember it being very good and interesting!)

“Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?”

…

“It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny-”

It’s super vague in canon. I interpret it as an act of sexual violence, because that’s where my brain always goes, but it’s incredibly vague!

Anon, I hope you don’t think the fact I managed to write 1,000 words and weasel my way out of answering your questions means I don’t deeply appreciate them! I hope you have a stupendous evening <3 <3

#hp ///////#hp meta #snape's worst memory #james potter

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route22ny · 4 years ago

Link

By Timothy Snyder

Published Jan. 9, 2021 - Updated Jan. 10, 2021, 10:12 a.m. ET

Even when he won, in 2016, he insisted that the election was fraudulent — that millions of false votes were cast for his opponent. In 2020, in the knowledge that he was trailing Joseph R. Biden in the polls, he spent months claiming that the presidential election would be rigged and signaling that he would not accept the results if they did not favor him. He wrongly claimed on Election Day that he had won and then steadily hardened his rhetoric: With time, his victory became a historic landslide and the various conspiracies that denied it ever more sophisticated and implausible.

People believed him, which is not at all surprising. It takes a tremendous amount of work to educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make sense of their own previous choices. Plato noted a particular risk for tyrants: that they would be surrounded in the end by yes-men and enablers. Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace. Aware of these risks and others, the framers of the Constitution instituted a system of checks and balances. The point was not simply to ensure that no one branch of government dominated the others but also to anchor in institutions different points of view.

In this sense, the responsibility for Trump’s push to overturn an election must be shared by a very large number of Republican members of Congress. Rather than contradict Trump from the beginning, they allowed his electoral fiction to flourish. They had different reasons for doing so. One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a minority of motivated voters. They have no interest in the collapse of the peculiar form of representation that allows their minority party disproportionate control of government. The most important among them, Mitch McConnell, indulged Trump’s lie while making no comment on its consequences.

Yet other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually break the system and have power without democracy. The split between these two groups, the gamers and the breakers, became sharply visible on Dec. 30, when Senator Josh Hawley announced that he would support Trump’s challenge by questioning the validity of the electoral votes on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz then promised his own support, joined by about 10 other senators. More than a hundred Republican representatives took the same position. For many, this seemed like nothing more than a show: challenges to states’ electoral votes would force delays and floor votes but would not affect the outcome.

Yet for Congress to traduce its basic functions had a price. An elected institution that opposes elections is inviting its own overthrow. Members of Congress who sustained the president’s lie, despite the available and unambiguous evidence, betrayed their constitutional mission. Making his fictions the basis of congressional action gave them flesh. Now Trump could demand that senators and congressmen bow to his will. He could place personal responsibility upon Mike Pence, in charge of the formal proceedings, to pervert them. And on Jan. 6, he directed his followers to exert pressure on these elected representatives, which they proceeded to do: storming the Capitol building, searching for people to punish, ransacking the place.

Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.

Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. These last four years, scholars have discussed the legitimacy and value of invoking fascism in reference to Trumpian propaganda. One comfortable position has been to label any such effort as a direct comparison and then to treat such comparisons as taboo. More productively, the philosopher Jason Stanley has treated fascism as a phenomenon, as a series of patterns that can be observed not only in interwar Europe but beyond it.

Like historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies of the people.” Like Adolf Hitler, he came to power at a moment when the conventional press had taken a beating; the financial crisis of 2008 did to American newspapers what the Great Depression did to German ones. The Nazis thought that they could use radio to replace the old pluralism of the newspaper; Trump tried to do the same with Twitter.

Thanks to technological capacity and personal talent, Donald Trump lied at a pace perhaps unmatched by any other leader in history. For the most part these were small lies, and their main effect was cumulative. To believe in all of them was to accept the authority of a single man, because to believe in all of them was to disbelieve everything else. Once such personal authority was established, the president could treat everyone else as the liars; he even had the power to turn someone from a trusted adviser into a dishonest scoundrel with a single tweet. Yet so long as he was unable to enforce some truly big lie, some fantasy that created an alternative reality where people could live and die, his pre-fascism fell short of the thing itself.

Some of his lies were, admittedly, medium-size: that he was a successful businessman; that Russia did not support him in 2016; that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Such medium-size lies were the standard fare of aspiring authoritarians in the 21st century. In Poland the right-wing party built a martyrdom cult around assigning blame to political rivals for an airplane crash that killed the nation’s president. Hungary’s Viktor Orban blames a vanishingly small number of Muslim refugees for his country’s problems. But such claims were not quite big lies; they stretched but did not rend what Hannah Arendt called “the fabric of factuality.”

One historical big lie discussed by Arendt is Joseph Stalin’s explanation of starvation in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33. The state had collectivized agriculture, then applied a series of punitive measures to Ukraine that ensured millions would die. Yet the official line was that the starving were provocateurs, agents of Western powers who hated socialism so much they were killing themselves. A still grander fiction, in Arendt’s account, is Hitlerian anti-Semitism: the claims that Jews ran the world, Jews were responsible for ideas that poisoned German minds, Jews stabbed Germany in the back during the First World War. Intriguingly, Arendt thought big lies work only in lonely minds; their coherence substitutes for experience and companionship.

In November 2020, reaching millions of lonely minds through social media, Trump told a lie that was dangerously ambitious: that he had won an election that in fact he had lost. This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run the world,” but big enough. The significance of the matter at hand was great: the right to rule the most powerful country in the world and the efficacy and trustworthiness of its succession procedures. The level of mendacity was profound. The claim was not only wrong, but it was also made in bad faith, amid unreliable sources. It challenged not just evidence but logic: Just how could (and why would) an election have been rigged against a Republican president but not against Republican senators and representatives? Trump had to speak, absurdly, of a “Rigged (for President) Election.”

Trump’s electoral fiction floats free of verifiable reality. It is defended not so much by facts as by claims that someone else has made some claims. The sensibility is that something must be wrong because I feel it to be wrong, and I know others feel the same way. When political leaders such as Ted Cruz or Jim Jordan spoke like this, what they meant was: You believe my lies, which compels me to repeat them. Social media provides an infinity of apparent evidence for any conviction, especially one seemingly held by a president.

It’s not just that electoral fraud by African-Americans against Donald Trump never happened. It is that it is the very opposite of what happened, in 2020 and in every American election. As always, Black people waited longer than others to vote and were more likely to have their votes challenged. They were more likely to be suffering or dying from Covid-19, and less likely to be able to take time away from work. The historical protection of their right to vote has been removed by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, and states have rushed to pass measures of a kind that historically reduce voting by the poor and communities of color.

The claim that Trump was denied a win by fraud is a big lie not just because it mauls logic, misdescribes the present and demands belief in a conspiracy. It is a big lie, fundamentally, because it reverses the moral field of American politics and the basic structure of American history.

When Senator Ted Cruz announced his intention to challenge the Electoral College vote, he invoked the Compromise of 1877, which resolved the presidential election of 1876. Commentators pointed out that this was no relevant precedent, since back then there really were serious voter irregularities and there really was a stalemate in Congress. For African-Americans, however, the seemingly gratuitous reference led somewhere else. The Compromise of 1877 — in which Rutherford B. Hayes would have the presidency, provided that he withdrew federal power from the South — was the very arrangement whereby African-Americans were driven from voting booths for the better part of a century. It was effectively the end of Reconstruction, the beginning of segregation, legal discrimination and Jim Crow. It is the original sin of American history in the post-slavery era, our closest brush with fascism so far.

If the reference seemed distant when Ted Cruz and 10 senatorial colleagues released their statement on Jan. 2, it was brought very close four days later, when Confederate flags were paraded through the Capitol.

Some things have changed since 1877, of course. Back then, it was the Republicans, or many of them, who supported racial equality; it was the Democrats, the party of the South, who wanted apartheid. It was the Democrats, back then, who called African-Americans’ votes fraudulent, and the Republicans who wanted them counted. This is now reversed. In the past half century, since the Civil Rights Act, Republicans have become a predominantly white party interested — as Trump openly declared — in keeping the number of voters, and particularly the number of Black voters, as low as possible. Yet the common thread remains. Watching white supremacists among the people storming the Capitol, it was easy to yield to the feeling that something pure had been violated. It might be better to see the episode as part of a long American argument about who deserves representation.

In the four decades since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have overcome the tension between the gamers and the breakers by governing in opposition to government, or by calling elections a revolution (the Tea Party), or by claiming to oppose elites. The breakers, in this arrangement, provide cover for the gamers, putting forth an ideology that distracts from the basic reality that government under Republicans is not made smaller but simply diverted to serve a handful of interests.

At first, Trump seemed like a threat to this balance. His lack of experience in politics and his open racism made him a very uncomfortable figure for the party; his habit of continually telling lies was initially found by prominent Republicans to be uncouth. Yet after he won the presidency, his particular skills as a breaker seemed to create a tremendous opportunity for the gamers. Led by the gamer in chief, McConnell, they secured hundreds of federal judges and tax cuts for the rich.

Trump was unlike other breakers in that he seemed to have no ideology. His objection to institutions was that they might constrain him personally. He intended to break the system to serve himself — and this is partly why he has failed. Trump is a charismatic politician and inspires devotion not only among voters but among a surprising number of lawmakers, but he has no vision that is greater than himself or what his admirers project upon him. In this respect his pre-fascism fell short of fascism: His vision never went further than a mirror. He arrived at a truly big lie not from any view of the world but from the reality that he might lose something.

Yet Trump never prepared a decisive blow. He lacked the support of the military, some of whose leaders he had alienated. (No true fascist would have made the mistake he did there, which was to openly love foreign dictators; supporters convinced that the enemy was at home might not mind, but those sworn to protect from enemies abroad did.) Trump’s secret police force, the men carrying out snatch operations in Portland, was violent but also small and ludicrous. Social media proved to be a blunt weapon: Trump could announce his intentions on Twitter, and white supremacists could plan their invasion of the Capitol on Facebook or Gab. But the president, for all his lawsuits and entreaties and threats to public officials, could not engineer a situation that ended with the right people doing the wrong thing. Trump could make some voters believe that he had won the 2020 election, but he was unable to bring institutions along with his big lie. And he could bring his supporters to Washington and send them on a rampage in the Capitol, but none appeared to have any very clear idea of how this was to work or what their presence would accomplish. It is hard to think of a comparable insurrectionary moment, when a building of great significance was seized, that involved so much milling around.

The lie outlasts the liar. The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of a Jewish “stab in the back” was 15 years old when Hitler came to power. How will Trump’s myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?

On Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for which people had sacrificed. Trump’s imagined stab in the back will live on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big lie only grew bigger.

Trump is, for now, the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie. He is the leader of the breakers, at least in the minds of his supporters. By now, the gamers do not want Trump around. Discredited in his last weeks, he is useless; shorn of the obligations of the presidency, he will become embarrassing again, much as he was in 2015. Unable to provide cover for their gamesmanship, he will be irrelevant to their daily purposes. But the breakers have an even stronger reason to see Trump disappear: It is impossible to inherit from someone who is still around. Seizing Trump’s big lie might appear to be a gesture of support. In fact it expresses a wish for his political death. Transforming the myth from one about Trump to one about the nation will be easier when he is out of the way.

The big lie requires commitment. When Republican gamers do not exhibit enough of that, Republican breakers call them “RINOs”: Republicans in name only. This term once suggested a lack of ideological commitment. It now means an unwillingness to throw away an election. The gamers, in response, close ranks around the Constitution and speak of principles and traditions. The breakers must all know (with the possible exception of the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville) that they are participating in a sham, but they will have an audience of tens of millions who do not.

Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.

Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.

Our big lie is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four years courts terrorism and assassination.

To be sure, this moment is also a chance. It is possible that a divided Republican Party might better serve American democracy; that the gamers, separated from the breakers, might start to think of policy as a way to win elections. It is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration will have an easier first few months than expected; perhaps obstructionism will give way, at least among a few Republicans and for a short time, to a moment of self-questioning. Politicians who want Trumpism to end have a simple way forward: Tell the truth about the election.

America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

Timothy Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University and the author of histories of political atrocity including “Bloodlands” and “Black Earth,” as well as the book “On Tyranny,” on America’s turn toward authoritarianism. His most recent book is “Our Malady,” a memoir of his own near-fatal illness reflecting on the relationship between health and freedom.

***

Essay copied & pasted here in its entirety for the benefit of those stuck behind the paywall. Follow the link for the accompanying photos and captions.

#trump coup #american abyss #timothy snyder #fascism in america

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years ago

Link

Timothy Snyder [don't miss a word]

When Donald Trump stood before his followers on Jan. 6 and urged them to march on the United States Capitol, he was doing what he had always done. He never took electoral democracy seriously nor accepted the legitimacy of its American version. Even when he won, in 2016, he insisted that the election was fraudulent — that millions of false votes were cast for his opponent. In 2020, in the knowledge that he was trailing Joseph R. Biden in the polls, he spent months claiming that the presidential election would be rigged and signaling that he would not accept the results if they did not favor him. He wrongly claimed on Election Day that he had won and then steadily hardened his rhetoric: With time, his victory became a historic landslide and the various conspiracies that denied it ever more sophisticated and implausible.

Of course this did make a kind of sense: If the election really had been stolen, as senators and congressmen were themselves suggesting, then how could Congress be allowed to move forward? For some Republicans, the invasion of the Capitol must have been a shock, or even a lesson. For the breakers, however, it may have been a taste of the future. Afterward, eight senators and more than 100 representatives voted for the lie that had forced them to flee their chambers.Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions.

Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. These last four years, scholars have discussed the legitimacy and value of invoking fascism in reference to Trumpian propaganda. One comfortable position has been to label any such effort as a direct comparison and then to treat such comparisons as taboo. More productively, the philosopher Jason Stanley has treated fascism as a phenomenon, as a series of patterns that can be observed not only in interwar Europe but beyond it.

My own view is that greater knowledge of the past, fascist or otherwise, allows us to notice and conceptualize elements of the present that we might otherwise disregard and to think more broadly about future possibilities. It was clear to me in October that Trump’s behavior presaged a coup, and I said so in print; this is not because the present repeats the past, but because the past enlightens the present.Like historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies of the people.” Like Adolf Hitler, he came to power at a moment when the conventional press had taken a beating; the financial crisis of 2008 did to American newspapers what the Great Depression did to German ones. The Nazis thought that they could use radio to replace the old pluralism of the newspaper; Trump tried to do the same with Twitter.

This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run the world,” but big enough. The significance of the matter at hand was great: the right to rule the most powerful country in the world and the efficacy and trustworthiness of its succession procedures. The level of mendacity was profound. The claim was not only wrong, but it was also made in bad faith, amid unreliable sources. It challenged not just evidence but logic: Just how could (and why would) an election have been rigged against a Republican president but not against Republican senators and representatives? Trump had to speak, absurdly, of a “Rigged (for President) Election.”

The force of a big lie resides in its demand that many other things must be believed or disbelieved. To make sense of a world in which the 2020 presidential election was stolen requires distrust not only of reporters and of experts but also of local, state and federal government institutions, from poll workers to elected officials, Homeland Security and all the way to the Supreme Court. It brings with it, of necessity, a conspiracy theory: Imagine all the people who must have been in on such a plot and all the people who would have had to work on the cover-up.Trump’s electoral fiction floats free of verifiable reality. It is defended not so much by facts as by claims that someone else has made some claims. The sensibility is that something must be wrong because I feel it to be wrong, and I know others feel the same way. When political leaders such as Ted Cruz or Jim Jordan spoke like this, what they meant was: You believe my lies, which compels me to repeat them. Social media provides an infinity of apparent evidence for any conviction, especially one seemingly held by a president.

On the surface, a conspiracy theory makes its victim look strong: It sees Trump as resisting the Democrats, the Republicans, the Deep State, the pedophiles, the Satanists. More profoundly, however, it inverts the position of the strong and the weak. Trump’s focus on alleged “irregularities” and “contested states” comes down to cities where Black people live and vote. At bottom, the fantasy of fraud is that of a crime committed by Black people against white people.It’s not just that electoral fraud by African-Americans against Donald Trump never happened. It is that it is the very opposite of what happened, in 2020 and in every American election. As always, Black people waited longer than others to vote and were more likely to have their votes challenged. They were more likely to be suffering or dying from Covid-19, and less likely to be able to take time away from work. The historical protection of their right to vote has been removed by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, and states have rushed to pass measures of a kind that historically reduce voting by the poor and communities of color.

The Democrats, today, have become a coalition, one that does better than Republicans with female and nonwhite voters and collects votes from both labor unions and the college-educated. Yet it’s not quite right to contrast this coalition with a monolithic Republican Party. Right now, the Republican Party is a coalition of two types of people: those who would game the system (most of the politicians, some of the voters) and those who dream of breaking it (a few of the politicians, many of the voters). In January 2021, this was visible as the difference between those Republicans who defended the present system on the grounds that it favored them and those who tried to upend it.In the four decades since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have overcome the tension between the gamers and the breakers by governing in opposition to government, or by calling elections a revolution (the Tea Party), or by claiming to oppose elites. The breakers, in this arrangement, provide cover for the gamers, putting forth an ideology that distracts from the basic reality that government under Republicans is not made smaller but simply diverted to serve a handful of interests.

But the president, for all his lawsuits and entreaties and threats to public officials, could not engineer a situation that ended with the right people doing the wrong thing. Trump could make some voters believe that he had won the 2020 election, but he was unable to bring institutions along with his big lie. And he could bring his supporters to Washington and send them on a rampage in the Capitol, but none appeared to have any very clear idea of how this was to work or what their presence would accomplish. It is hard to think of a comparable insurrectionary moment, when a building of great significance was seized, that involved so much milling around.

The breakers and the gamers then saw a different world ahead, where the big lie was either a treasure to be had or a danger to be avoided. The breakers had no choice but to rush to be first to claim to believe in it. Because the breakers Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz must compete to claim the brimstone and bile, the gamers were forced to reveal their own hand, and the division within the Republican coalition became visible on Jan. 6. The invasion of the Capitol only reinforced this division. To be sure, a few senators withdrew their objections, but Cruz and Hawley moved forward anyway, along with six other senators. More than 100 representatives doubled down on the big lie. Some, like Matt Gaetz, even added their own flourishes, such as the claim that the mob was led not by Trump’s supporters but by his opponents.Trump is, for now, the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie. He is the leader of the breakers, at least in the minds of his supporters. By now, the gamers do not want Trump around. Discredited in his last weeks, he is useless; shorn of the obligations of the presidency, he will become embarrassing again, much as he was in 2015. Unable to provide cover for their gamesmanship, he will be irrelevant to their daily purposes. But the breakers have an even stronger reason to see Trump disappear: It is impossible to inherit from someone who is still around. Seizing Trump’s big lie might appear to be a gesture of support. In fact it expresses a wish for his political death. Transforming the myth from one about Trump to one about the nation will be easier when he is out of the way.

As Cruz and Hawley may learn, to tell the big lie is to be owned by it. Just because you have sold your soul does not mean that you have driven a hard bargain. Hawley shies from no level of hypocrisy; the son of a banker, educated at Stanford University and Yale Law School, he denounces elites. Insofar as Cruz was thought to have a principle, it was that of states’ rights, which Trump’s calls to action brazenly violated. A joint statement Cruz issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down.The big lie requires commitment. When Republican gamers do not exhibit enough of that, Republican breakers call them “RINOs”: Republicans in name only. This term once suggested a lack of ideological commitment. It now means an unwillingness to throw away an election. The gamers, in response, close ranks around the Constitution and speak of principles and traditions. The breakers must all know (with the possible exception of the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville) that they are participating in a sham, but they will have an audience of tens of millions who do not.

If Trump remains present in American political life, he will surely repeat his big lie incessantly. Hawley and Cruz and the other breakers share responsibility for where this leads. Cruz and Hawley seem to be running for president. Yet what does it mean to be a candidate for office and denounce voting? If you claim that the other side has cheated, and your supporters believe you, they will expect you to cheat yourself. By defending Trump’s big lie on Jan. 6, they set a precedent: A Republican presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed anyway by Congress. Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B, to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by faith.Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States.

Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.Our big lie is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four years courts terrorism and assassination.

When that violence comes, the breakers will have to react. If they embrace it, they become the fascist faction. The Republican Party will be divided, at least for a time. One can of course imagine a dismal reunification: A breaker candidate loses a narrow presidential election in November 2024 and cries fraud, the Republicans win both houses of Congress and rioters in the street, educated by four years of the big lie, demand what they see as justice. Would the gamers stand on principle if those were the circumstances of Jan. 6, 2025?To be sure, this moment is also a chance. It is possible that a divided Republican Party might better serve American democracy; that the gamers, separated from the breakers, might start to think of policy as a way to win elections. It is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration will have an easier first few months than expected; perhaps obstructionism will give way, at least among a few Republicans and for a short time, to a moment of self-questioning.

Politicians who want Trumpism to end have a simple way forward: Tell the truth about the election.America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small.Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

#trump #donald j #political #NYTimes #insurrection #January 6 2020 #corrupt GOP #Criminal GOP #analysis #sedition

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psychosistr · 3 years ago

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Green-Eyed Monsters- Chapter 2

Summary: Dominic and Steelbeak successfully sneak into the soiree and identify their target, but personal feelings and a pair of lovely ladies from SHUSH might throw a wrench into their plans.

Notes: Behold, the first OC’s outside of Domino to be featured in this series- @starlightmoth ‘s SHUSH OC Xaviera, and my double-agent OC Maravilla! These two are very sweet together and I was super excited to include them, so I hope you guys will enjoy them too x3 Also, I slipped a few references to my previous stories in this chapter- see if you can guess them before reaching the end ;3

-First Chapter-

Steelbeak’s flashy gold-painted Lincoln Continental drove up the winding driveway leading to the duo’s destination for the evening. In any other situation, the car would stand out like a purebred show-dog at a junkyard. For tonight, however, it was just another gaudy and over-decorated transport lining the absurdly long path to a building larger and more brightly lit than any skyscraper in Saint Canard could ever HOPE to be.

Choosing to park his car rather than leave it in the hands of the valet (no one touched that car without his permission- forget about actually driving it), Steelbeak pulled into a parking space further away from the main driveway but closer to the back entrance. The location would make it easier to sneak in and out unnoticed, though it would also be a more suspicious location if security noticed the vehicle; they’d have to get in and out as quickly as possible.

When they exited the vehicle, the chief officer and his partner were dressed in outfits far different from their usual attire: Dominic had left behind his iconic coat and hat, instead donning a simple white button up shirt with a turn down collar beneath a more elaborate black tailcoat with thin vertical white stripes, black buttons, and bright red lapels with a matching red boater flat top hat that had a white hat band with a black buckle, giving it the vague semblance of a domino- the whole outfit accessorized simply with a dark red tie, a domino-shaped tie pin, and a black diamond-studded Crowlex hidden beneath the cuff of his sleeve. Never one to be outdone by his partner, Steelbeak had also left his usual white suit behind in favor of a far more expensive tuxedo featuring a white pleated button up shirt with a turn down collar and clear gemstone-style button studs, a black tuxedo jacket with a shimmering silver shawl collar and another pair of clear gemstone-style buttons, matching black pants, black pleated cummerbund, and a pair of freshly shined black patent leather cap toe shoes- all accessorized with the equally flashy additions of a black pointed-style bowtie, diamond cufflinks, a four-peak folded white silk pocket square, and a shiny silver watch emblazoned with diamonds. While a far cry from their usual style, the high-class suits would do a better job of camouflaging them with the high-society crowd mingling within the walls of their target’s billion dollar mansion.

Their target for the night was the owner of the lavish mansion before them, Emelia Malton- more specifically, they were after a pair of very valuable items that she had on her. According to FOWL’s intel, Emelia’s family was repeatedly ranked as the richest family in the world due to their cumulative net-worth amassed after years of running one of the most successful chain-stores on the planet. Despite her parents passing away a few months ago, the company had flourished under the young heiress and was now celebrating its ranking as the top-grossing chain-store in the world by hosting an extravagant party at her family’s home. Everyone on the guest list was considered the richest and/or most influential in their respective fields of business, so it was the perfect way for the wealthy woman to flaunt her affluence over her peers.

And what better way to do so than to show off her family’s prized possessions- the “Goddess’ Eyes”.

These “eyes” were the deadly duo’s target: A pair of nearly-impossible to acquire naturally green diamonds that could easily be priced at thirty-million dollars each. In addition to being ludicrously valuable, the gemstones were also the perfect conductors for FOWL’s newest thermonuclear based weapon for mass larceny and extortion on a global scale. They needed at least one of the incredibly rare diamonds for the device to function properly- preferably both so they could construct a second if the tests proved fruitful.

The only obstacle to obtaining the jewels was the mansion’s high-ranking security that was efficient enough to give the secret service a run for their money. Most of the time, the mansion’s security was so tight that even an army couldn’t breach their defenses. The only time the security was marginally lowered was for grand events- hence the required presence of the chief officer and his partner at the evening’s soiree.

Tonight would be the only chance for quite some time for FOWL to get their hands on the “Goddess’ Eyes” and they could NOT let it slip away.

With this goal in mind, Dominic and Steelbeak carefully made their way around the house to the garden and back-patio that had been converted into a slightly less-crowded outdoor lounge area for those seeking a reprieve from the bright lights and loud music indoors. Avoiding the cameras and creeping under the windows to avoid detection, the pair of fowls managed to sneak unnoticed into the outdoor crowd before seamlessly slipping through the wide open back doors to join the larger crowd within the mansion’s main ballroom.

Steelbeak gave a low, impressed whistle once they were inside, looking around at the myriad of (likely over-priced) paintings, statues, and crystal adorned light fixtures. “Wow, this is some shindig, eh, Dom?”

“More like an excuse for people who’ve never known a hard day’s work in their lives to show off how much money they have in an attempt to feel superior to everyone else in the room.” The (truthful) observation was accompanied by a slight scowl when an older woman in a satin dress wearing more jewelry than her plastic-surgery altered body should have been able to support without falling over passed by the two less ostentatiously dressed fowls.

Steelbeak gave a quiet snicker at his partner’s cynical view as they weaved their way through the crowd in an attempt to find a less heavily clustered spot with a better view of their surroundings. “Can’t argue with ya there, short fuse. I’m fightin’ my instincts REAL’ hard right now- I used t’ swipe rocks an’ cash offa chumps like these all the time when I was a kid…pick a few pockets here an’ we’d be set for life…”

“Focus on the rocks we’re after first, then you can have your fun on the way out.” Reaching one of the multiple full bars setup along the sides of the room, Dominic took a moment to properly observe his surroundings. It was hard to pick out any particular faces in such a large crowd, but, as red eyes caught sight of the grand bifurcated marble staircase draped in red carpet and ornate black handrails, a thought occurred to him: What better place to lord your wealth over a room full of billionaires than the highest point where they’d all have to literally look up to you? “Up there.”

Grey eyes soon followed the darker fowl’s gaze up the split stairs to where they met again on the next floor to form a small balcony overlooking the ballroom before branching out to the rest of the upper level. Leaning against the railing to look down on the party below was a tall, statuesque pearl white marble fox with long silver hair that fell past her shoulders in elegant waves. She was dressed in a classy black strapless evening gown with a beaded sweetheart-cut top in a snug mermaid cut that left very little to the imagination about her rather curvy figure and long legs, even with the gown reaching the floor beneath her. Like many other women attending the grand gala, she was bedecked with an arrangement of jewels such as a silver cocktail ring with a sizeable emerald at its center surrounded by much smaller white diamonds, a set of bangles encrusted with green garnets, a three-strand choker necklace of shimmering green stones with silver chains and white diamond accents, and, most noticeably of all, the pair of very large and very flashy drop-pendant earrings hanging from the base of each of her black-spotted ears with a plethora of small white diamonds around both the connecting points on her ears and around the sizeable brilliant-cut green diamonds in the center that perfectly matched the fox’s own sparkling green eyes. Everything about the woman screamed elegance and superiority compared to nearly everyone else in attendance.

Even without seeing her picture during High Command’s earlier briefing, the woman would be unmistakable as the party’s hostess, Emelia Malton. While Dominic knew she would be showing off her family’s most valuable possessions, he hadn’t expected her to have the “Goddess’ Eyes” turned into such readily visible trinkets. Then again, he mused, having them fashioned into a pair of earrings certainly made a statement that was impossible to ignore and, admittedly, would be harder to swipe than something like a necklace or ring. The woman was also no fool, it seemed, for while her security had been lowered enough for two uninvited guests to sneak in, Emelia herself (and likely most of the other valuables on the upper floor), were being diligently guarded by several large men in basic black suits spread out across the length of the staircase. Keen red eyes noted that each man was carrying at least one concealed firearm, and that there were a few more guards scattered about the lower floor near all of the doorways.

This definitely ruled out the chance of sneaking up on the fox since the security would see them coming from a mile away. A simple swiping was off the table as well, even if they could get close to her, as there was no way they’d be able to remove the earrings undetected. And, to top it all off, even if they DID somehow manage to get the diamonds off of her person, they’d be forced to fight their way through a small battalion of heavily armed guards and a crowd of frightened party-goers. Somehow, they needed to not only get on the same level as Emelia, but also draw her away from her security detail if they were to have any chance of-

“Dang, now that’s what I call a sweet pair.”

Dominic could swear he heard the bones in his neck pop from the speed and intensity with which he turned his head to stare incredulously at his partner. The expression soon hardened into a stern glare as the loon crossed his arms over his chest. “You are talking about the earrings, RIGHT?”

Steelbeak seemed completely unphased by the chilling amount of ice that the darker bird addressed him with- he seemed far too preoccupied examining the heiress with a look that was far too appreciative for the aquatic avian’s liking. “I’m talkin’ ‘bout alotta things, red eyes…” He gave another impressed whistle before (finally) tearing his eyes away from the woman on the upper floor to look down at his (clearly agitated) partner. “Why didn’t ya warn me she was such a knockout?”

“I wouldn’t know, she’s not exactly my type.” The loon huffed and rolled his eyes with a displeased scowl. “Now, if you’re done drooling over her, can we please get back to figuring out a way to get what we came here for?”

Steelbeak was either too distracted looking at the foxy woman above him or was just plain feigning ignorance of the other man’s soured mood, and, honestly, Dominic wasn’t sure which would have angered him more at this point. “Oh, don’t think for a sec’ that I can’t do both- I’m a pretty good multitasker.” Dark grey eyes drifted back up to admire the lady of the manor while the gleaming beak below them had a smirk that spoke volumes’ worth of its owner’s intentions.

Before Dominic could decide between hitting the taller fowl in the back of the head to forcefully change his focus or the equally tempting option of grabbing an unattended drink from the nearby bar-top and dumping it on the rooster to help him cool his head off, a female voice surprised them both.

“Well, well…if it isn’t Chief Officer Steelbeak. Long time no see~” The deadly duo turned their heads just in time to see a lady in a sleeveless red gown with a semi-sweetheart neckline, an asymmetrical cut that ended at one knee before diagonally ending an inch below the other, and a rather provocative slit cut into the shorter side above her black-stocking covered legs was holding a half-full glass of red wine in her purple hand while regarding them with an amused expression. The woman appeared to be a purplish jay, judging by the plumage on her exposed arms and her purple beak accentuated with black lipstick that matched her eyeliner (which was only a few shades darker than the black feathers of her face). Her black hair was tied back in a simple but elegant bun with a few stray locks left out to frame her face, the bun itself held in place with a decorative golden hair-comb that made it look like she had several gleaming marigolds holding her hair back. Marigolds, Dominic quickly noted, seemed to be a theme among the woman’s accessories, as she also had one made of black onyx on a golden chain around her neck, a matching stone on her golden cocktail ring, and the pair of spiraled golden bracelets styled like leaf vines that covered her wrists and forearms with small golden marigolds placed sporadically across the intricate golden loops; even her shoes, which at first glance appeared to be a simple pair of black suede t-strap shoes with a tall, thick golden heel, secretly contained a small red marigold locked away in their see-through midsection.

Steelbeak, who seemed unphased by the woman’s knowledge of his name, simply smirked down at the jaybird knowingly. “Well, look what the cat dragged in…ain’t seen you in a while, Mara- was beginnin’ t’ think ya ditched us for a cushy desk job under ol’ grizzle-face.”

The marigold-bedecked lady gave a dry chuckle as she swirled the wine in her glass. “And miss out on the chance to see you make a fool of yourself for thinking you actually know how to talk to a woman? Not on your life~”

Rather than looking offended, Steelbeak just laughed his usual nasally, clipped laughter and shook his head. “Hey, I know how t’ talk t’ women- just not women like you.”

“Of course not.” The purpled fowl said before taking a sip of her wine. “After all, you never were very good at handling women you had no chance with.” Looking up from the depths of her drink, she found a pair of eyes in an even more intense shade of red boring into her. “I don’t believe we’ve met. You are…?”

“I’m his partner- agent Domino.” Dominic gave the brightly dressed jay a once over, but still couldn’t shake the sense of unease and agitation this woman’s presence seemed to bring him. The feeling bothered him so much that he completely missed the slightly disappointed look in the chief officer’s eyes before he buried whatever feeling had surfaced in the back of his mind again. “High Command didn’t say anything about dispatching any other agents for this mission…”

Black lipstick curled upwards ever so slightly as the purple beak gained a small smirk to it. “That’s because I’m not here with FOWL……I’m here with SHUSH.”

Steelbeak must have anticipated his partner’s reaction, because no sooner had Dominic started reaching for his concealed weapons than the lighter fowl’s hand had positioned itself in front of the loon’s chest to stop any potential altercations. “Agent Maravilla here’s one of the best double agents we’ve got: She’s been spyin’ on SHUSH for years now an’ helps us take ‘em down from the inside.”

Dominic’s stance relaxed just enough that he no longer looked like he was going to shoot the double agent…for now… “Why is SHUSH here?”

“Oh, there’s a few targets of interest here.” Maravilla’s dark eyes glanced up towards the party’s hostess, a knowing look clear behind the playful smirk on her face. “SHUSH may have also gotten a tip that FOWL would be making a move tonight…though I have no idea who they would have heard that from~”

Red eyes narrowed suspiciously at the purplish jay. “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t…”

Steelbeak, once again sensing his partner’s growing tension and ire, chose to redirect the conversation while keeping his attention on the femme fatale. “If ya know why we’re here, then ya wanna lend a hand? We could use a distraction for the guards t’ shoot at.”

“That does sound like a good time…” The jay’s dark eyes went back to Steelbeak, looking seriously like she was contemplating the offer, but ultimately decided against it. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline this time.” With a sigh, she tilted the remnants of her wine within its glass at a sharp angle, the movement indicating something behind her. “Gryzlikoff doesn’t trust me on my own in the field anymore, so he’s started giving me babysitters..”

The pair of fiendish fowls followed the angle of the red liquid with their eyes to one of the other bars set up across the room on the other side of the dance floor. While there were several people crowded around the high-dollar booze, there was one person in particular who seemed to be purposefully avoiding looking in their direction…or rather, avoiding looking directly at them- they were subtly keeping an eye on the FOWL trio’s exchange using the reflection of their half-full glass on the bar-top (it looked like a simple shirley temple, judging by the clear soda and cherries, a far cry from the champagne and various hard liquors of the other barflies). A sneaky little trick that only someone as cunning and secretive as a spy or special agent would think to utilize.

The person in question appeared to be a vulture with feathers in a multitude of shades ranging from white on her head, to slightly darker shades of grey, yellow, brown, and even black the lower down one looked on the exposed parts of her plumage, with the feathers on her hand and the ends of her tail feathers both being the darkest points. Her hair was…interesting, to say the least- it appeared to have been shaved away along the sides to a peak in the center before being allowed to grow freely and flow down to the middle of her back, almost like a long Mohawk but without the necessary and excessive amounts of hair gel. A pair of rectangular-rimmed glasses rested on her beak as she kept a vigilant eye on her fellow SHUSH agent, the makeup around them kept simple with black wingtip eyeliner and a modest amount of golden eyeshadow. The eye shadow matched both the sheer golden shawl draped over her shoulders that kept her right arm hidden from view, the golden goddess-style sandals that peeked out from the hem of her dress whenever she moved her long legs, and the glittering golden pattern of vertical lines along the bottom of her green sleeveless floor-length halter-top gown.

Steelbeak gave the agent a subtle once-over before looking back down at Maravilla. “She don’t look that tough…want us t’ help ya get a little more breathin’ room without your nanny there watchin’ ya like a hawk?”

The double agent was quick to shake her head, but kept her expression calm and impassive. “It would be best not to. If anything happens to her, you’ll have more SHUSH agents swarming this party than you’d care to deal with- the only reason she hasn’t called them in already is because I told her you’d probably escape in the chaos.” The corner of her purple beak quirked up in an amused smirk. “Besides…this one’s fun, I think I’ll keep her around for a while~”

The larger bird shrugged his shoulders. “If ya say so, Mara.” Dark grey eyes went back up to the party’s hostess. “Guess we’ve just got one more obstacle between us an’ that pretty little thing up there.”

Maravilla looked up towards the balcony as well, her expression briefly mirroring Steelbeak’s earlier appreciative glances before she looked back to the man in question with a mischievous gleam in her dark eyes. “You know…we could do what we did back in Rio…”

Steelbeak let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “Ya mean when ya left ME holdin’ the bomb? No thanks, doll- a little fun with you ain’t worth THAT much trouble.”

A giggle born of dark amusement was barely covered up by the jaybird’s purple fingertips. “Aw, it wasn’t that bad, was it? It did work, after all~” She leaned in closer to the metal mouthed fowl, two fingers from her free hand slowly walking up his chest as she spoke. “Besides…you know you enjoyed it…even if I did come out on top in the end~”

Dominic could feel the already frayed thread holding his last bit of patience beginning to snap. A much darker hand blocked the purple one’s path and, once the multicolored bird stepped away just enough, he placed himself solidly between his partner and the infuriating femme fatale- red eyes glaring down with more venom than even his heavily-laced voice could muster. “I think we’ll be just fine thinking of a plan without you.”

The lady in red seemed momentarily taken aback by the loon’s defensiveness, but it didn’t last more than a second before her face had resumed its seemingly natural state of amusement. “Very well, if you insist.” She turned to leave, but not before looking at the chief officer over her shoulder with a wink that was either flirty, conspiratorial, or both. “If you change your mind, you know what to do~” And with that, she vanished into the vibrant crowd.

Dominic glared after her with a rather noticeable scowl on his face, even after she was long gone from his sight. If she tried that sort of thing again, he’d-

“Wow, didn’t know you were the jealous type, short fuse.” An amused voice teased him from behind.

“I am not jealous.” Looking over his shoulder, Dominic was not at all surprised to see the taller man smirking down at him. “I just don’t trust agents like her..” Moles, infiltrators, spies, double agents- whatever name they went by, Dominic had a VERY negative outlook on them in general after the fall of his base up north.

“Uh huh.” One of the lighter fowl’s eyebrows was quirked in a way that matched his sarcastic tone perfectly. “An’ I’m sure Mara puttin’ her hands on me had nothin’ t’ do with it, right?”

The loon felt his face heat up, but kept his stern scowl firmly in place. “I was just making sure she didn’t try anything. She IS working for SHUSH right now- they could order her to attack at any moment, and I don’t believe for a second she’d have a problem following that command. Looking out for your safety is part of my job- I’m your partner.” If called out for it, he would have vehemently denied any accusations regarding the possessive tone that had slipped into his voice on that last statement.

Dark grey eyes rolled slightly as the rooster huffed. “Yeah, so ya keep sayin’…”

That…actually gave the darker fowl pause. Steelbeak sounded almost…offended? Disappointed? Frustrated? “What d-”

Before he could get his question out- or even figure out what it was going to be- Steelbeak had slipped out from behind him and was venturing into the crowd in a different direction than Maravilla had gone. “Forget it- I’m takin’ Mara up on her offer. Just stand by an’ watch my back, partner.”

Dominic was so taken aback by his partner’s attitude that he just stood there- frustrated, confused, and wondering what else could possibly go wrong tonight…

____________________________________________________________

Across the room, Maravilla had returned to the vacant seat next to her fellow SHUSH agent- said agent looking less than thrilled with her antics. “Have you lost your mind? Do you know who that is?!” While she tried to look stern, it was clear that the taller bird was more worried than angry.

Maravilla took her seat and looked up at the vulture with a calm expression. “Yes, I know who he is. More importantly, he knows me from work.” She set her now-empty glass down on the bar-top. “If he saw me and I didn’t say anything to him first, it would look suspicious- I have to maintain my cover, Xaviera.”

Xaviera’s previous look lost its façade of sternness, leaving just the concern. “I…suppose you have a point there…” She quickly shook her head, giving the purplish jay a pleading look. “But you have to be more careful from now on. If Steelbeak or that other one find out you’re here with SHUSH, things could get dangerous.”

Instead of looking scared or worried by her fellow agent’s (very accurate and completely valid) warning, an almost daydreamy smile found its way to Maravilla’s face. “Oooh, I hope it does~” A purple fingertip began idly tracing the rim of her empty glass as she stared off into space, apparently fantasizing over the possibilities. “His partner looked like he wanted to shoot me- do you think he would? He certainly seems the type~ Maybe they’ll try using me as a living shield so they can escape~ I wonder if they have a helicopter waiting to pick them up- do you think they’d throw me out of-?”

“Mari, please.” The blond bird placed her hand over one of Maravilla’s with a sincere, worried look easily visible in her eyes. “I know this is all fun and games to you, but it worries me when you put yourself in danger like that. Please promise me- no getting shot at, no drinking poison, no crashing through windows, and no jumping out of helicopters. Please…for me…?”

Maravilla looked up into the taller woman’s eyes and, after a moment, gave a soft sigh. “Fine…for you, mi cielo.” She then turned her hand over so that their fingers were now entwined before lifting both of their hands up so she could place a light kiss to the darker fingers laced between her own. “You’re lucky I can’t say ‘no’ to such a lovely lady~”

Xaviera’s face instantly flushed red all the way down to her neck, her demeanor changing instantly from concerned to flustered. “I-I..uh..that is..I-I just..!” Her attempts to find the proper words were completely dashed when the jaybird winked at her, causing the vulture to (somehow) turn even redder. The only thing that came out of her beak after that was a chirp before she gave up and pressed her overheated forehead against the cool bar-top in front of her.

In doing so, the golden shawl that had been draped around her shoulders came loose, revealing the rest of her previously hidden right arm. The arm ended just before the area where her elbow should have been, the feathers a bit darker around the end of the limb and some scar tissue visible within her plumage at the very bottom of the stump. A few of the more nosy and gossip-loving individuals nearby took notice and started to whisper amongst themselves.

When a stern, almost threatening pair of purple eyeshadow rimmed eyes looked at each of them, however, they suddenly found better things to entertain themselves with and either walked away or simply averted their attention before the vulture even lifted her head to notice their presence. “Getting back to the matter at hand,” Maravilla said while gently readjusting the taller woman’s shawl back to its previous position. “I think I have a way for us to get access to Ms.Malton’s personal files.”

That seemed to snap the bespectacled bird out of her embarrassment. Quickly sitting back up, she looked down at the darker fowl with intrigue. “Really? How?” When the double agent’s eyes flicked briefly in the direction she’d come from earlier, Xaviera instantly shook her head. “You just said-”

“I won’t do anything dangerous, I promise.” Maravilla gave the darker hand still held in hers a reassuring squeeze before continuing. “Those two are after the ‘Goddess’ Eyes’ on Ms.Malton’s earrings, so they’ll try to get her alone. If our data is right, the best place to do that will be in her room. We’ll use them as bait to lure her away from the party, then I can slip in behind them and get my hands on the information Gryzlikoff and Hooter asked for. I’ll be in and out before those two figure out I’ve played them.”

“And if they do figure it out?” Xaviera asked with a mix of skepticism and concern.

Maravilla just smiled coyly up at the taller woman. “Then I’ll have you nearby to bail me out, mi cielo~” While her companion clearly had more to say on the matter, a change in the style of music the band was playing caught the purple fowl’s attention. “Ah, looks like Steelbeak’s taking me up on my offer.” She stood up, removed her flowery hair-comb, and placed it in the vulture’s hand with a wink. “Hold onto this for me, Xavi~” And with that she shook her hair out, allowing the natural waves to cascade down to her lower back and reveal the vibrant purple undertone that had previously been hidden while it was pinned, and made her way towards the dance floor- leaving behind a very confused (and flustered) Xaviera.

<--Previous Chapter Next Chapter-->

End Notes: Okay, so, here are all of the references I packed into this chapter-

Steelbeak’s suit is brand new because he followed through on his promise to himself to burn the suit he wore on his first failed dinner-date with Domino.

Domino is wearing the watch that Steelbeak gifted him way back in the first chapter of the series x3

Steelbeak’s cuff-links are the same as the ones he gave Domino as a gift during their first failed dinner-date.

Also, not related to the rest of the series, but I based Emelia’s family off of the Walton’s- the absurdly wealthy family that founded Wal~Mart.

#darkwing duck #dwd #steelbeak #Dominic Domino #steeldomino #xaviera #double agent maravilla #not my oc #and #my OC #darkwing duck oc #dwd oc #green-eyed monsters

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stingslikeabee · 4 years ago

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❝ i was going to ask you to leave with me…to go somewhere out in the sun where no shadow could reach us. ❞ ( from priest !!!! )

Horizon Zero Dawn starters . accepting

Priest’s words got a good-humored laugh out from Melissa – and she made a show of it. His comment hadn’t been exactly whispered, so she took the opportunity of using that line to let her head fall back with her reaction, dark hair flowing glamorously and giving the other men at the bar a good glimpse of just how generous was her backless dress when she moved.

“Ah, come on, Mr. Delevigne – no, my apologies. Mason, wasn’t it?” she interrupted herself with a foxy grin, sipping her mimosa before inching closer and placing a well-manicured hand on his nearest arm, “Mason. I am sure that you can do better than a trip to Costa del Sol. A self-made man like you with so many industries to your name could at least afford a very long weekend at the Gold Saucer.”

Priest’s reaction was an arched eyebrow at her – and an appreciative smile to go with what looked like some sort of admiration for his date. For all bystanders, it was pretty obvious what it was about – a rich businessman scoring a hot girl for a night, only her price tag was sounding higher than he had expected.

Well – it was the panoramic bar of The Levelle, one of Midgar’s most luxurious hotels. Beautifully dressed women only came there for a couple of reasons, and looking for wealthy clients was rather common practice. The other guests (and the bartender) appeared to ignore their exchange, but both Melissa and Priest knew they were making a good spectacle with their little roleplay.

Perfect.

“Jacqueline – Jackie,” Priest said with a charming smile, his free hand letting go of his drink to touch Melissa in a slightly more possessive fashion than she had done, “I see you have done your homework. This was no casual encounter, was it?”

“Oh, Mason. A girl has her sources,” she replied coyly, crossing her legs over the bar stool in what she hoped was enough to keep their audience interested. Now came the big part – to make sure everyone within hearing range left the room knowing just how powerful Priest – or rather the role he was playing – was supposed to be, “I couldn’t just miss the chance of meeting the heir to the Delevigne empire when rumor has it that he was also very good-looking. The rumors,” she paused, obviously making some suspense before proceeding, “Are quite true in that regard.”

It was Priest’s turn to chuckle – more controlled than her, but not afraid of displaying his designer watch on the wrist or the absurdly expensive cufflinks on his shirt. One of his digits ran over her arm then, an inviting motion which she did not stop him from doing, and then allowed her hand to be picked up when he motioned for her to follow.

“Well, what can I say? I like my next wives to be well-informed about my best attributes and to be stunning like yourself,” a kiss was planted over her knuckles, and Melissa had to hand it to Priest – he was doing an amazing job. It was hard keeping in the urge to laugh, but it was working well. She could feel the glances on her back, so she smiled once more.

“It feels like we should take this conversation somewhere a bit more… Private, Mason. Wouldn’t you agree?” finishing her drink, Melissa then eased herself off the stool, accepting his hand while doing so. Standing, her emerald dress was even more ridiculously tight, and it looked pretty damn nice in contrast to his grey suit.

“I agree – my suite is on the floor below. There is quite the view, also some chilled champagne. Would you care for something to eat?” he then proceeded to walk towards the exit, Melissa clinging to his arm like she was a dog and Priest was the most delicious bone ever offered to her.

They maintained character until they were, indeed, inside the suite Shinra had booked under Priest’s fake identity – and only then, they broke into open laughter. Melissa found herself leaning against the door for support, out of breath given the hilarious absurdity of what they had just done – but her heart was pounding inside her body and the adrenaline rush felt just too good.

“Okay, so… Is the suite for real, though?” she asked while Priest got rid of his jacket and Melissa kicked her heels off, “I know Tseng booked it to give us credibility, but can we actually use it?”

“It will be even better for the story if we only leave by tomorrow morning,” Priest added with a smirk that told her everything – oh, by Shiva. Fuck yes. She always wanted to order breakfast in bed at a good, bona-fide hotel.

“Bubble bath, now – and then we can order the most expensive champagne bottle we can find and some food,” she offered, turning around so he could help with the dress – that thing was impossible to get off alone! – and her next move would have been to pull Priest along to the bathroom, but he picked her up instead without any warning (earning himself a short scream which muffled into pleased giggles) and carried her over.

“Absolutely. No more working for you tonight, let others do the serving for a change, Mel.”

Oh yes – she was absolutely on board with that idea for the night.

#Priest #iamtheswarm #horizon zero dawn starters #replied #so REMEMBER THAT AU #where she was bait alongside Priest #to create a distraction for Reno?#I dug their aliases back and used it XD #man I want to write that thread now sdjkfhgds

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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Best Jane Austen Adaptations on Screen So Far

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With Emma and Sanditon making waves (seaside resort pun!), we're listing up the best screen adaptations of Jane Austen's work.

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that every Jane Austen novel must be adapted an infinite amount of times and we will be grateful for all of them. (Yes, even the Pride & Prejudice & Zombies film, the best part of which was not the movie itself but a supercut of Matt Smith as Mr. Collins eating scones.)

There have been a lot of adaptations of Jane Austen's six major novels and some of her other works, including the recently-released Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy. These are the ones we recommend watching.

Best Pride and Prejudice Adaptations

Easily the most adapted of Jane Austen's works, Pride and Prejudice is a foundational work in the broader romantic comedy genre and in so much of our mainstream storytelling. People tend to have opinions about which of the P&P adaptations are the best. (Who is the best Elizabeth? Who is the best Darcy? Which is the most faithful? Does it matter?) Here are the ones we think are worth checking out...

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

There’s nothing more iconic Austen than BBC/A&E’s 1995 miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Jennifer Ehle as proud Elizabeth Bennet and Colin Firth as prejudiced Mr. Darcy. The six-part serial was adapted by Andrew Davies, who would go on to pen many more Austen adaptations, and was the project that shot Firth to stardom. The scene of Firth’s Mr. Darcy coming out of the lake, long shirt soaked through, has been riffed on countless times (a personal favorite? St. Trinian’s), and for good reason. Mr. Darcy has never been so begrudgingly sexy.

Bridget Jones' Diary (2001)

An adaptation of the book of the same name which is a contemporary reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones’ Diary has Colin Firth reprising the Mr. Darcy role (here, Mark Darcy) alongside Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones, a 32-year-old woman looking to stop smoking, lose weight, and find Mr. Right—who most definitely is not snooty barrister Mr. Darcy.

Written by Richard Curtis (Love Actually), Andrew Davies (screenwriter of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice), and source material author Helen Fielding, this script has it all: romance, comedy, and plenty of heart. The film spawned two sequels—neither of which are as good as the original, but neither of which is terrible either.

Bride & Prejudice (2004)

This Bollywood-style contemporary adaptation from Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) stars Aiswarya Rai as Lalita Bakshi, a young Indian woman who lives in Amritsar with her parents and three sisters. When Lalita and her sister meet British-Indian lawyer Balraj (Naveen Andrews) and well-off American Will Darcy (Martin Henderson) at a wedding, strong feelings ensue. A great cast and a fresh cultural setting make this adaptation a must-watch.

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Basically a masterpiece, Joe Wright’s first feature film has a great cast (Kiera Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan, Jena Malone, Judy Dench, Talulah Riley, and Donald Sutherland), but it’s the director’s interest in getting the setting right that makes this adaptation special. Using his trademark long shot, Wright invites viewers into the world of the Bennets: from the homey, organic mess of the Bennet house to the cheerful chaos of a dance hall, Pride and Prejudice has never felt so lived-in.

Lost in Austen (2008)

If you like your Austen with a speculative fiction twist, might I recommend Lost in Austen? This 2008 ITV miniseries stars Jemima Rooper as Amanda Price, a huge Jane Austen fan who gets pulled into the world of her favorite Austen novel and must make choices accordingly. This four-part story doesn't totally stick the landing, but it's well worth the quick watch for its humor, creativity, and meta fun, as well as to see Gemma Arteron as Elizabeth Bennet.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012)

Who knew Austen was so well-suited for the vlog style? Hank Green and Bernie Su, apparently, who were the creators behind this Emmy-winning adaptation, which reimagines Elizabeth Bennet as a mass communications grad student still living at home with her parents and two sisters.

The story is told chiefly through a series of vlogs (as well as through supplementary social media accounts for the world’s characters, making this a transmedia storytelling experience). In universe, Lizzie (Ashley Clements) begins a vlog series chronicling her life as a thesis project, an event that just happens to coincide with the moving in of a wealthy medical student Bing Lee (Christopher Sean) and his even wealthier friend, William Darcy (Daniel Vincent Gordh), next door. Told in real-time over the span of year, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries was a truly special storytelling experience, and is still well-worth watching even without the real-time aspect.

Best Emma Adaptations

While slightly less well-known than Pride and Prejudice, Emma has had its fair share of on-screen adaptations. The story of the spoiled 21-year-old Emma Woodhouse, Emma follows Emma on her matchmaking adventures, which are more the ego-driven meddling of a bored, rich girl with too much time on her hands than anything else. With Emma, Austen set out to tell the story of an unlikable protagonist, but Austen never intends for us to root against her, making Emma’s realistic journey of self-growth that much more cathartic.

Clueless (1995)

If you’ve seen one Emma adaptation, it’s probably this one. A contemporary retelling of Emma Woodhouse’s story, Clueless’ reimagining of Emma as bratty Beverly Hills teen Cher is downright genius. Starring Alicia Silverstone in the main role and Paul Rudd as ex-step brother and unassuming love interest Josh, Clueless is more than just one of the best Austen adaptations out there—it’s one of the best teen comedies of all time.

Emma (2009)

If you’re looking for a faithful miniseries adaptation of Emma, we recommend this 2009 version. Starring Romola Garai as Emma, Jonny Lee Miller as Knightley, and Michael Gabon as Mr. Woodhouse, and written by Sandy Welch (who also gave us the glorious North & South adaptation), this four-part serial will give you more bang for your buck than any of the feature film adaptations.

Emma Approved (2013)

From the web series company that brought you The Lizzie Bennet Diaries comes this similarly-structured Emma adaptation. Recontextualizing Emma Woodhouse as a young lifestyle coach and matchmaking entrepreneur, Emma Approved comments on YouTube/influence culture in insightful, empathetic ways. While not as good as its predecessor, Emma Approved is still a delightful adaptation worth the watch if you're into this form of storytelling.

Emma. (2020)

Bright, colorful, and at times absurdly pretty, this highly-stylized adaptation of Emma highlights the comedy of Austen’s classic tale without sacrificing any of the drama or romance. Anya Taylor-Joy delivers a masterful performance, as we watch Emma go from the rigidly-controlled noble to a more empathetic, thoughtful version of herself, but it’s Bill Nighy and Miranda Hart in supporting roles who really get to chew the scenery.

Other Best Jane Austen Adaptations

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Emma Thompson. Kate Winslet. Hugh Grant. Alan Rickman. Need I say more? Written by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee (his first English-language feature film), this faithful adaptation of Austen's Sense and Sensibility is a classic. Whether you're a fan of the film or simply a cinephile, I highly recommend checking out Thompson's "screenplay and diary" chronicling the making of this film.

Persuasion (1995)

If you're going to go for an adaptation of Austen's final novel (published after her death), try to find this 1995 made-for-TV film. Starring Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds as Anne and Captain Wentworth respectively (not to mention Killing Eve's Fiona Shaw as Mrs. Croft!), Persuasion is not the story of two people coming together for the first time, but two people reuniting after eight years apart. We mentioned 1995 was a good year for Austen fans, yeah?

Mansfield Park (1999)

Mansfield Park doesn't get a lot of love when it comes to the adaptation, but this 1999 film starring Frances O'Connor and Jonny Lee Miller is one of the best Jane Austen-inspired films out there. A looser adaptation of the novel that also incorporates elements of Jane Austen's life into the story, Mansfield Park has all of the swoon-worthy romance, sharp social commentary, and relatable female protagonist you could want from an Austen adaptation.

Northanger Abbey (2007)

Andrew Davies is back at it again with this 2007 television movie, starring Felicity Jones as protagonist Catherine Morland (Carey Mulligan also pops up as friend Isabella Thorpe). One of the OG stories about fandom, Northanger Abbey follows young, naive Catherine as she visits Bath, becomes the object of two men's affections, and begins to confuse real life with the kind of things that might happen in the Gothic romance novels she obsessively reads. If you've never engaged with this most meta of Austen's works, we recommend checking out this adaptation.

From Mansfield With Love (2014)

If you're a fan of the vlog diaries adaptation format (if you can't tell by now, I am), then I also recommend this endearing adaptation of Mansfield Park. Created by Foot in the Door Theatre, what this production lacks in budget, it makes up for in heart. From Mansfield With Love reimagines the story of 19th-century protagonist Fanny Price to modern-day Britain where Frankie Price is working as a housekeeper at a hotel owned by the Bertrams. In an effort to keep in touch with her brother Will, she begins to send video diaries chronicling her life at Mansfield and with the Bertram family, in particularly with friend Edmund. Austen has never felt so real.

Love and Friendship (2016)

Austen in the style of Armando Iannucci (this film is actually written and directed by indie filmmaker Whit Stillman), Love and Friendship is an adaptation of Austen's epistolary novel Lady Susan, which follows the recently-widowed Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale, having so much fun) in her efforts to secure advantageous marriages for both herself and her daughter.

Sanditon (2019)

The new kid on the block, Sanditon just wrapped up its first (and hopefully not only) season on PBS. Based on the unfinished Austen novel, it follows country gentlewoman Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) into the relatively more exciting world of Sanditon, a fishing village with aspirations of being a seaside resort.

While Sanditon isn't without its indulgent plotting, it is beautiful to look at, and includes some memorable performances from Theo James, Charlotte Spencer, and a massively underutilized Crystal Clarke, playing a rare character of color in Austen adaptations. More than anything, it's interesting to see Andrew Davies (yep, he's back) extrapolating out Austen's unfinished novel. Perhaps, fittingly, we most likely will never find out what happens next in this on-screen adaptation.

What is you favorite Austen adaptation? Let us know in the comments below...

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.

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The Lists Kayti Burt

Books

Feb 26, 2020

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#aion-rsa #Books

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spacymuses · 5 years ago

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@talonness [starter call]

The climate in Mithir was not especially agreeable to her, she would confess. Anything much hotter than a good English summer left her drenched in sweat and miserable, and if she didn’t take great care with her sunscreen, she was likely to find herself resembling a lobster in a Chanel suit come the evening. Not a look she particularly favored.

Still, business was business, and the Isherwoods’ business had roots stretching far and wide across the globe. With their hands in so many pies, it was inevitable that they’d find something nipping at their fingers from time to time. Such was the nature of the business, and such had been their current--challenges in getting their downtown club opened. And it was about the third attack on their construction site that she had decided, finally, that she ought to charter a flight over to Mithir and get herself involved.

Kira had done this enough times to know how it worked. Meet on their turf. Trust in the understanding that they would know killing her would spark a war with a very large and very ruthless and absurdly wealthy criminal enterprise. Position her men throughout the city in such a way that they would know, that they would know she wanted them to know. Nonetheless, always have contingency plans. Always have an exit strategy. As she made her way through the club to the meeting spot, she took a mental map of the area. Considered her options if this went south.

This wasn’t without risk. But that was the way of things too. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She’d long had plans for succession in place, in the event of her untimely demise. The family would keep moving forward, and that was her chief obligation as the head of the household.

“Right then.” She settled into the booth. “Miss Laila... or perhaps is it Miss Claw? A pleasure to finally meet you in person. I’m certain we can hash this out like respectable young women of industry.”

“If not, I’ve no objection to a good row, of course. Though that will entail an awful lot of bloodshed. Messy business.”

#i know i said short but uh oops!#talonness #rp #m: kira

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bywandandsword · 5 years ago

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Ok so, just now for that last post the generator shot out ‘Simple Country Protagonist of Noble Birth’, and that’s essentially one of my OCs so here’s her story if your interested

The takes place in the 1880-90s. When the story starts, Simon’s been on the run for almost five years, dressed as a boy, and half the time she forgets that she’s not one. She spent six months riding up and down the river on the steamboat and got off in Missouri to find other work, hopping from job to job, always reading the papers for any news from New Orleans, and has gotten very good at pretending to be just another young man looking for work. She spent a few months riding the rails, with the vague notion of California or Canada or where ever, just always on the move. Margaritte’s family down south has gotten very powerful, and even more so when she married again, this time to an oil baron turned senator. Simon doesn’t know if Marg is still hunting for her, but isn’t about to risk being found. At the start of the story, she finds herself in Kansas, following a river she was told would lead her to a road, which she could follow to a railway, but either she’s lost or it’s way father than she anticipated, she’s almost out of food, and it’s late September, so it’s getting cooler than is comfortable for someone without a jacket at night. That’s when she sees a farm, miles away from anything, and all the residents are having their lunch outside, enjoying the some of the last few pleasant sunny days of the year. Well, this is too easy, Simon thinks, she’ll just take a bit of bread, a bit of meat and cheese, maybe a better knife, and be on her way with none the wiser, just like she’d done a dozen times in the last few years, she’s long gotten over any moral debate about stealing. Only this time after she grabs what she wants, an incident involving an insistent horse leads to her being discovered. The oldest son Michael (who has two younger twin sibs), wants to take her into town right then and hand this thieving boy over to the law. The father, an older man named Mr. Elias Blez, sees how travel worn and ragged the youth is, how he didn’t take anything but food, and knows that winter is almost upon them, and thinking they’ve been needing a bit of help around the farm anyway, makes Simon a deal. If Simon agrees to work for them as a farm hand until May, they’ll let him leave with as much food and supplies as they can spare and won’t turn him into the law. Mr. Belz also makes it clear that if Simon does try to run, he wouldn’t make it out of the county. It’s black mail, but Mr. Belz think’s its ultimately going to prevent Simon dying of exposure or worse somewhere. Simon, who doesn’t feel like she has much of a choice, agrees. Almost immediately, Mrs. Johanna Belz figures out that Simon isn’t a man, but Simon is like, “We already have an agreement, I won’t be treated any different because of this realization” (cause guess who doesn’t ID as a woman anymore but who doesn’t have the vocabulary to say she’s genderqueer!) and the family hesitantly agrees to let this weird half-feral runaway be. So, she helps them do the last of the harvest and the culling and the rest of the winter preparations. Michael expects Simon to rob them blind and run away any moment now. Simon is secretly glad to have a place to stay for the winter and actually grows to care a great deal for this family, though she still puts up the distanced grumpy front she started with. They go into town sometimes and Simon always presents as male. As winter goes on, Simon gets the first taste in a long time of what it’s like to be in a family again and all the feelings she’s suppressed start bubbling up. Once, after a long day, a family friend and his kids brings over some food, booze, and instruments and the two groups have an impromptu party. Simon gets shnockered and when she gets pressured and dared to sing something, she grabs the fiddle and preforms an old diddy her father used to play in French, then a piece by Bach, then a waltz. And once she’s felt the shape of French in her mouth, her first language, she doesn’t release it easily, the more she drinks the more French she speaks and the more the Belzs wonder how the hell a ragged vagabond they found stealing from them acquired training in classical violin and learned French.

Flashback: Her full name is Marie Simone Madeline Lereau de Saint-Maxent, but everyone just called her Maggie. She got this absurdly long name cause she happens to be the eldest child of the wealthy merchant Saint-Maxent family, living in New Orleans. Her father is gone a lot for business and she’s an only child but she has her mother and tutors for company and spends most of her childhood receiving a strict, classical education, even spending a few summers at a boarding school in Paris. When she’s 14, her mother gives birth to her younger brother, Jean René, but she dies shortly after. Obviously everyone is devastated, but Father decides his children need a mother and, as was commonly done at the time, he marries a recently widowed woman with three children of her own, Margaritte. It starts out pleasant as it could be, but as Maggie ages, and Father refuses to change his will to prefer Margaritte’s children over Maggie and Jean, Marg gets manipulative and controlling of Maggie, though never towards baby Jean. The years roll on in this tense way until, when Maggie is 17, Father, Maggie, and two of Marg’s children catch the Fever. Father dies, but Maggie and the other youths recover. Marg uses this as an opportunity to force Maggie to sign paperwork denouncing her claim to the inheritance, and produces a forged will to back it up. She’s paid off the police and the lawyers to make it stick and threatens that if Maggie turned up dead, no one would know that she didn’t die from fever too. Maggie refuses and that night, men sent by Marg break into her room and try to drag her out, but she manages to get free of them, grab one of their guns, and kills one of the assailants. The others flee. She grabs as much clothes, money, and just, stuff that she can fit into a bag and runs. She catches a train that night to Baton Rouge. She’s still got the gun and the whole train ride, she’s processing wtf just happened and cleaning the blood off her hands and worrying about her brother and wondering if it was really fever that killed her father or poison, but by the time she gets to Baton Rouge, she’s together enough to think. She uses her mother’s maiden name, gets in contact with a friend, the son of a family servant, and rents a room in a low-key b&b and waits for the newspapers. Sure enough, they report that all members of the Saint-Maxent family had died, except the youngest, and that Marg find herself a fortunate and exceedinglyy wealthy new heiress. Her contact reports that Marg’s men are still looking for Maggie and offers to help her disappear. They sell what valuables Maggie brought with her, except the gun, she cuts her hair, starts going by Simon. She buys some of men’s clothes clothes, using enough money to bribe her way onto temporary employment on a steam boat headed north.

Simon doesn’t say anything more about it until almost February. By this point, she’s grown to love and trust the Belzes and their community and vice versa, Michael has grown to trust her too (especially after Plot and Hijinks), and when he stopped being a dick to her, she befriended him and has feelings for him but like hell is she going to admit it to herself much less anyone else. She’s starting to think this might be someplace she can stay, actually build a life, a home. Then Marg’s name shows up in the paper. I haven’t figured it out but for business reasons Marg has bought a house in the closest big city, maybe Kansas City or Dodge City? and is using it as a base of operations for a branch of her business. But that means she and many of her people are less than a stones throw away, practically breathing down he neck, and Simon just fucking has a panic attack. What if her step mother comes to their town? Are they still looking for her? What if someone identifies her? What if one of her men recognizes her? And what’s happened to her brother, who’d be about ten? Well, Mrs. Belz finds Simon clutching the newspaper, hyperventilating, and after that, the truth comes pouring out. Everyone is shocked. I haven’t actually thought much past this scene, where Simon tells her story to the very shocked Belzes, but Stuff will happen. The Belzes talk her out of just bolting for Canada, Simon will eventually encounter Marg again face to face after she rogues into the house for some reason. Marg has a delicate little pistol, but Simon still has that old blood stained revolver. Way after this, Michael will fistfight one of the goons, and the story will eventually be brought to light, but I have no idea how that will all play out or the consequences.

#Sword speaks #READ IT!

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