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lady-plantagenet · 4 years ago

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What are your top ten novels about the Wars of the Roses? And why?

I think it’s obvious by the length how enthusiastic I was to answer this ask xx thank you for asking me and giving me also an opportunity to make a masterlist of some sorts of all my reviews xx. But you know? I speak like quite the expert but in reality I’ve read very little histfic about TWOTR because I just newly got back into this hobby (about a year ago) and have little time in general so tbh the last three books on this list I do not personally care for but since I’ve read so little novels of this kind they are here nonetheless hhh (so please people, give me no angry asks asking me why I am endorsing PG, I’m not).

1. The Last of the Barons by Lord Edward Lytton-Bulwer

This is quite possibly the best book I’ve ever read in my life. The gap between these books and the rest is a chasm the size of the world and I wpuld genuinely reccomend this book as an actual piece of literature to anyone, not just TWOTR fanatics. It is written in 1840, in quite old timey lingo and it centres around Richard Neville 16th Earl of Warwick, but in the true tradition of a real classic it is more than just a character drama, it astutely showcases the purpose of Warwick and what he did in the context of his wider world and doesn’t just chalk it up to personal greed. There is also this fascinating subplot about courtship, science and such. Hell, you even get this eccentric ‘natural philosopher’ guy called Adam Warner who tries to make something like a steam engine and gets employed as an alchemist by Jacquetta and Edward IV.

From a historical standpoint it is quite biased as the author himself was a politician (and an actual baron) and tbh I don’t completely agree with his interpretation of history and I can see some of the Victorian inluences slip in, but some of his takes are very refreshing and he clearly consulted the primary sources. I am much interested in his philosophy and life outlook though and while I don’t think his Warwick is the Warwick, I think he (Lytton-Bulwer) understood him like no other novelist could. As for the writing style... here’s an excerpt of a good reads review that I agree with and tells you all you need to know:

“Of course, such a style of writing no longer exists. The language used is essentially foreign to us. But the nobility, the pride of this story work their ways into your bones, your heart. You will yearn for honor once you have left it.“

Basically, go type it into google and see what I mean. You don’t even need to purchase this book it’s all online at the first click on Gutenberg.

Nevertheless, I’ve posted excerpts of it here, here and here =)

2. The King’s Grey Mare by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

This book (unlike the latter) has zero actual historical value. Actually, it sort of does in the way that it hilights certain real events that most people are unaware of when it comes to its protagonist: Elizabeth Woodville, eg the whole Cooke tapestry affair and the whole Desmond affair. Both things which I still stand on the fence about (if you don’t know what I’m talking about send em another ask or pm me). But like, it isn’t political, philosophical or such in any way like the first book, yet you still feel like you are *there* in the 15th century - by the time I finished reading it my heart was wrung dry and I kind of fell into a down for a couple of days because I just wanted to feel the magic again. If anyone would ask me I would give this 5 stars because it perfectly achieved what it set out to do (I can’t expect all books to go above and beyond like #1), it made me feel for the characters who were super complex, was accurate historically and even when it wasn’t it made sense, it got very creative with its themes (which I like to see because I am not interested in reading the exact same story over and over again) and the prose was absolutely magical and brought all the depth to this novel. I’ve read classics with less flowing and poignant prose, yes actual classics!

This book also switches POVs quite a lot (basically it headhops because it’s written in omniscient- but whatever, rules are meant to be broken), so you’ll get to see many of your faves in there, Edward IV, Margaret of Anjou and Grace Plantagenet feature quite heavily. One thing that disappointed me is that it wasn’t really Edward IV/Elizabeth Woodville (at the time I bought it for that), she never really likes him and his love for her kind of wanes towards the end. If you’re not too bothered about that then I say go buy it.

3. The Daisy and the Bear by K L Clark

I put this here because we are already going into shakier territory when it comes to this list. This is kind of the last *really* good, truly five star one. It is a long spoof about TWOTR but god it’s smart! Yet, It does not take itself seriously and has Margaret of Anjou/Warwick the Kingmaker as a crackship and centrepiece and had me in stitches the whole time. I’ve written a long detailed review for it here.

4. Death be Pardoner to Me by Dorothy Davies

This is a novel about George Duke of Clarence. Quite possibly the only novel ever written about him in existence and boy is it a trip - the author claims to have channelled him (she’s a medium). I’ve written a detailed review for it here. I read this last spring and my views have unfortunately changed, the thing is, I’ve come to find out through my research that this was quite possibly a hoax as there are some indisputable inaccuracies (Ankarette Twynyho’s age, the details of Isabel’s death - we *know* she did not die from childbirth, Isabel did not reunite with him after Tewksbury 1471, but right before Christmas 1470). It’s also quite Richardian (the author admitted) and she could have *had* me had she not chose to divulge it in the foreword. Nevertheless, I still like this book because it did get to me at certain points and it’s good quality as a novel, I remember shedding a tear at one point even which is extremely rare for me but I think that says more about my sentiment for the subject matter than the book itself.

5. We Speak no Treason by Rosemary Hawley Jarman (not yet finished, so ranking may vary)

I haven’t finished it yet, so I’ll leave it here for now. This book is a Richardian book about Richard III, but I can’t get enough of this author, I haven’t found anyone to replace her with. The prose is magnificent as usual and I must confess that I’m happy that this book is told through the POVs of three OCs and not Richard, he remains rather elusive and tbf I find the three OCs very interesting and at this point I’m more interested in their stories than anything else. Of course, Richard III is still a fairly prominent part of this novel (even when he doesn’t appear) and it has led to me getting annoyed quite a bit. Given who I am I fumed massively at that one aside that Clarence and Edward have bastards whereas Richard isn’t like that... like are you serious?? At one point the author reassociated the Games and Playes Chesse book to Richard when it was in reality dedicated to Clarence and I got even more annoyed. Leave the poor figure something ma’am? Whatever, as a book about three medieval commoners it’s fantastic and that’s what I pretend it is.

6. Wife to the Kingmaker by Sandra Wilson

Nothing more to add than what I wrote in my (super-long) detailed review on here. This is the case because I read it very recently. This is a novel about Anne Beauchamp 16th Countess of Warwick, it’s ranked higher than Sunne because though it’s less accurate it’s got panache.

7. The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon K Penman

I feel very strongly about this Richard III book and what it represents. I wrote a long detailed review about it on here and a follow-up post on the discussion is here ft my awesome mutual @beardofkamenev ‘s insights also thrown into the mix. Xx

8. The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

This is a step higher than the other two because this book pretty much changed my life. The thing is, I read it translated into my own language by an extremely talented translator and I was also only about 11/12 years old so it was all very impressive to me then. This book about Elizabeth Woodville effectively introduced me to the TWOTR; an interest that has never really left me these past ten years (though at one point (ages 14-19) it was quite wane). It’s not a good book by any standard (I was quite shocked when picking it up at a bookstore, I had found that when read in the original language it lost all its magic), but I owe a lot to it and some people who now endlessly discourse about how bad PG is need to recognise their debt of gratitude and be a bit more respectful, I think. That is of course unless you came into this era via different media, but you got to admit that a massive part of us got to this place through TWQ, though we outgrew it.

10. The Red Queen and The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory

Exact same commentary as above, just objectively not good books. Flat characterisation, misunderstanding of the era, historical innacuracies which don’t add anything, lack of nuance in prose which often dances too close to *gasp* YA prose *shudders*. But these are lower because I don’t owe them a debt of gratitude as I do TWQ. Funnily enough, they are still better than the series.

#look at rb for tags

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auroras-blend · 4 years ago

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Don't Talk to Strangers

Summary: Alessia POV where she tracks down Marilyn and Patience.

The summer wind was a nice refresher as the breeze caressed Alessia’s face. The small town of Summerfield was as pleasant as a place can be with the friendly neighborly waves that she, a stranger, received while strolling on the sidewalk. It was the type of place where everyone knew everyone and everything about everyone. Thankfully the friendliness of the people and their need to gossip suited her task just fine. For a former P.I., she would’ve thought that Patience Winslow would’ve been harder to find, especially if she knew the bounty on her head.

But Alessia wasn’t here to kill anyone, not that she wasn’t capable, mind you but her task was much more important. To find Borghese’s daughter. Though someone will probably end up dead by the end of it, she thought. Her heels clicked loudly as she walked along the sidewalk of the park and playground. The bright colors of the playground, the laughing children, gossiping mothers, and the grating sounds of the swingsets squeaking proved that this was a place of community. And Patience didn’t fit in one bit.

Whereas the other mothers convened on a picnic table or sat with each other on the other benches, Miss Winslow was completely and utterly alone. Winslow was reading some book that Alessia couldn’t be bothered to see or ask what it was about, with a frown etched on her face. The frown lines around her mouth had set from years of turmoil, but Alessia hated to admit it, the woman still had a beauty to her. Not a youthfulness or brightness mind you, but she was nothing to scoff at. Freckles sat like snowflakes on her round English featured face that concentratedly read the pages.

Alessia bit her cheek and wondered what it was about this woman that had Leonardo so obsessed. Her whole demeanor reeked of bitterness as she sat tautly on the bench alone in her bland-looking brown pantsuit. You owe me eight hundred favors Leonardo, she thought and rolled her eyes. With pep in her step and an air of confidence, she walked over to the bench and without asking sat down next to the woman who ruined so many lives. As she sat down on the hard cool metal, she politely said, “I hope you don’t mind. I’ll only be here for a moment.”

“It’s fine,” Winslow said, not tearing her eyes off of her book.

Winslow’s posture was tenser, not that Alessia minded. She just chalked it up to the woman’s personality. Alessia slid her shoulder bag onto the space beside her, not that there was a lot of room to begin with. I hope the chipping paint doesn’t ruin the bottom. Alessia’s hazel eyes roamed the playground looking for the little girl with blonde curls and green eyes, which was all the information she could gather on her appearance from the women who had quite a bit to comment about the little family.

“Such a sweet and polite girl. A little shy, doesn’t have a lot of friends,” one of the women said.

“Her mother’s fault. Patience makes no effort whatsoever on behalf of herself or her daughter to be a part of the community,” another one added.

“Such a shame,” another woman added in a syrupy tone, “A beautiful child like her needs friends. I fear she’ll make a spinster of her own daughter.”

“The girl is beautiful?” Alessia asked.

The first woman gasped, “Oh yes. Little Marilyn is just a doll, more beautiful than one too! Beautiful blonde curls that my stylist can’t even match.”

The women laughed at the first woman’s joke. “I suspect she looks quite a bit like her father, whoever he is,” the woman added the last part nastily, “She has very little of her mother in her, with the exception of her eyes and nose.”

Really, Alessia had to ask very few questions because the women were happy to give their opinion on Patience who seemed to be rather unlikeable in the community. There were a couple of girls who matched the description, though Alessia was too far away to see their eyes to make out the color. Ugh, I have to talk to her then. Alessia smiled softly and did her best to make her eyes gaze off whimsically, “Children really are a blessing, huh?”

Patience bristled but didn’t tear her eyes off of her book. “Yeah,” she said stiffly.

It was a response with no honesty behind it, but then again what else are you supposed to say in a town and world like this? This is her mother? Poor dear. Those women really were honest about her coldness. “Which one is yours?” she asked.

Patience finally looked up, tearing her eyes off of her book to get a proper look at Alessia. Alessia had noticed Patience peeking up at her while she was “reading”, but she pretended to ignore that. “What?” she asked with a gaping mouth.

The woman looked surprised that Alessia was talking to her. The little woman seemed genuinely intimidated by her, whether it was her beauty or glamor she didn’t know. Maybe both, she thought smugly. Alessia laughed, “Which child is yours?”

Patience’s mouth set back into a firm line and looked out, her eyes settling on the girl on the swingsets. “That one,” she said quickly.

Alessia looked out at Marilyn. All alone, like her mother. Her heart ached as she saw the beautiful little girl look longingly at the other children playing with each other, but she still swung contentedly. Poor baby. Marilyn was the spitting image of her father. He’ll be pleased. “She’s beautiful,” Alessia complimented meaning every word, “Just like her mother.”

Patience didn’t say thank you, but looked over at Marilyn before eyeing Alessia, “Where are your kids?”

Her tone was distrustful, as were her eyes. Smart. “I have none, but my sister does. A boy and girl, and the three of them are supposed,” she stressed the last word, “to meet me here right about now.”

She pretended to read the time off of her watch. Patience looked like she couldn’t decide where to keep her eyes; on her daughter or Alessia. Alessia sighed in pretend annoyance before smiling at little Marilyn. “What’s your sister’s name?” Patience asked.

“Paula,” Alessia answered swiftly.

Given what she heard about the woman’s community involvement or lack thereof, she was sure Patience could never figure out whether what she was saying was true. “What’s your niece and nephew’s names?” she asked.

The small woman’s tone had changed. An interrogation? “Mark and Dorothy,” she answered, making sure her expression seemed unbothered and uninterested.

“How old are they?” Patience asked quickly, giving Alessia no time to ask the name of her daughter.

Alessia smirked and raised her eyebrows. “Twelve and six…” she responded before changing her tone to lace it with suspicion, “Why do you ask?”

She wanted to turn it on Patience, make it seem that she was the one asking questions that were not her place to ask. And it worked. Patience blushed in embarrassment, the color looking odd on her pale freckled cheeks, probably believing she had overstepped herself. “Sorry,” she said as she tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear, but recovered her tone, “I was just wondering if they were my daughter’s age and in her grade.”

“Oh…” Alessia said thoughtfully, “How old is your daughter?”

Alessia could see Patience bite the inside of her cheek, realizing she had opened herself up to an invasive question. She saw her look thoughtfully over at her daughter, probably wondering if she could get away with lying about her age, “She’s...seven.”

Lie. Alessia knew the girl had just turned six. “What a great age,” Alessia said, “Dorothy’s still so sweet. Mark is getting to be a bit of a handful.”

She laughed, “Lucky I’m the aunt though.”

Patience didn’t respond and trained her eyes on her daughter as if her gaze was the only thing that kept Marilyn from being snatched away. Alessia pretended to check her watch again, before she heard the distrustful voice, “What’s your name?”

“Margaret, but everybody calls me Maggie,” she said familiarly, “What’s yours?”

Patience paused. I thought she was supposed to be a professional. “Sue,” she lied.

“Well Sue,” she said the woman’s fake name sweetly, “How about I ask Dorothy if she knows your daughter? What’s her name?”

Alessia refocused her eyes on Marilyn, watching the wind blow her father's blonde curls out of her face. She could feel Patience’s eyes, searing and distrustful. The woman clearly didn’t want to give out her daughter’s name, but she was in a corner. After several moments she answered. “Abby,” she lied with a firm tone.

“Abby...cute name,” Alessia smiled, “And your last? I’m sure there are a lot of Abby’s”

“I can always talk to her mom to arrange something,” she said swiftly, “When’s your sister getting here again?”

Patience was calling her bluff. There’s no way a woman like her would openly engage with another mother, nor did she have the skills to. “Well, she’s supposed to be here right about now,” she said, frowning, “I wonder if I have the wrong park. Is there another one around?”

Alessia knew there was. “Four blocks down then you take a left on Seel Street, then two more blocks, you’ll take a right on Baker,” Patience replied tersely, “There’s a payphone over there. You should call her.”

Patience snapped her book closed and pulled her purse towards her, opening it just enough to make Alessia see a flash of a gun. It was a warning. Stay the fuck away from me and my kid. Patience clasped her purse and harshly swung it over her shoulder, as she stood up from the park bench and marched towards the swingsets. “Nice to meet you, Sue,” she said pleasantly, giving Patience a wave.

Patience didn’t respond, but her posture was stiff as she felt Alessia’s eyes on her. Alessia left the bench and went near the payphone and parking lot. If she was lucky, she could get a photo of the girl. From there she watched the woman and the little girl argue before she saw Patience roughly grab Marilyn’s arm and pull her along. Alessia frowned as she watched the little girl’s lip wobble and tears form in pain. She’ll be better off.

As Patience dragged her daughter towards the car, she looked back at the bench and her eyes scanned the playground for Alessia who had already hidden herself. Alessia trained her camera on the mother-daughter duo and snapped several pictures until she was satisfied she had one good enough to give to Leonardo. Even from the distance, she heard the rough slam of the car door and the screeching of the tires as Patience violently drove out of the parking lot. Her resolve hardened. Don’t worry Marilyn, your father will be with you soon.

#alessia sagesse #marilyn winslow #patience winslow #once upon a dream #flashback #bonus chapter

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margo-richards · 4 years ago

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Margo's full bio can be found here

Name: Margaret (Margo) Amelia Richards

Gender/pronouns: she/her

Date of birth: October 18th, 1995

Age: 25

Hometown: Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Length of time in crescent harbor: Roughly one week

Neighborhood: sunstone beach

Occupation: Daisy Chains Flower Shop

Faceclaim: Kristine Froseth

ABOUT.

Margo is loosely based on a mix of Rachel Green from Friends and Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls. She is a bit of Rachel in the sense that she grew up privileged and has never had to work a day in her life. On the flip side, she is somewhat of a Loreali because although she has never had to work it doesn’t necessarily mean that she doesn’t want to or that she wants that kind of life for herself.

At the age of twenty-five, Margo is still unsure of what she wants for her life. She never really dreamt of being anything when she was growing up. It’s almost as if she didn’t know that people actually had dreams and went off to chase them. She attended college, as part of her parents plan, and got a degree in Business Administration. Her father had advised her that getting a degree in BA was not only smart, but also a safe move for Margo and something she could fall back on throughout the rest of her life. Again with her being loosely based on Loreali Gilmore, she has recently (within the past few years) grown fond of the idea of opening her own Inn. Right now, Margo has her first real job at Daisy Chains Flower Shop, along with her first real sense of responsibility and being an adult. She plans to do well at Daisy Chains, while also trying to figure out what exactly she will do with the rest of her life.

Her move to Crescent Harbor was a bit of a spur of the moment decision, but it was also something that was a long time coming. Being in Crescent Harbor is the first time that Margo has been on her own. From living on her own to making her own money, it is all brand new for her. She got a job at Daisy Chains Flower Shop because of her love for being outdoors and the beauty of all things floral. Back home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Margo spend the majority of her time outdoors. She loves to hike, swim, bask in the sun and explore the beauty around her.

Margo is very easy going and loves to have a good time. However, she has been fairly sheltered for the majority of her life, so being out in the real world is unsettling but also exciting and something unlike Margo has ever experienced before. She is a sweet girl who genuinely wants to make good friends, however she can appear to be reserved and closed off until she gets to know someone a little bit better. Margo is very intentional about who she spends her time with, and does not give away her time very easily. She might almost be a little too naive about the real world, but she is determined to make it on her own and not let the fear of the unknown or brand new stop her.

Margo is a huge fan of a good fling. Something short and casual is all she really wants for the time being. She tries her best to never fall for anyone or start to develop any kind of feelings, because she knows nothing good ever lasts. She has been in one serious relationship that ended poorly on both sides. In addition to Margo’s commitment issues, she couldn’t say the L word to him and he ended up self sabotaging the relationship and cheated on her. That relationship has negatively impacted her and her romantic interests moving forward. It was a devastating situation for Margo and has been the cause of a lot of issues in her life. Not only that relationship but also from the marriage of her parents that she had been a witness to her whole life. Margo had an awful feeling that her parents never really were in love with each other, but they got married because that’s what was expected from them. She knew that no matter what she never wanted that to be her.

Let me know if you want to have a connection with Margo! I am open to just about anything and she for sure needs some pals

#about

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

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another kind of green (8/10)

Emma Swan spends her days in pretty white dresses and heavy layers of makeup. Day after day and dress after dress, she poses for pictures and acts like she’s in love and having the happiest day of her life with the man standing next to her.

It’s not. This is all a gig, and at the end of the day, she’s no longer the girl in the pretty dress who’s faking getting married for a magazine cover or a wedding convention. Instead, she’s the girl who probably never wants to get married.

Little does she know, she already is.

Rating: Mature

a/n: as always, this is for @xemmaloveskillianx as part of my fic giveaway, and this chapter is also for @carpedzem because I accidentally made her think I’d written some more of Indirect Deposit yesterday 🙈

ao3: beginning | current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

-/-

“I am so bloody exhausted that nothing could keep me awake.”

“Have you tried caffeine?”

“Three cups of coffee.”

“Ah,” Ariel sighs, “you need a nap. If three cups of coffee aren’t working, you’re beyond the point of caffeine helping.”

“Can’t nap,” Killian yawns, his eyes watering. “I’ve got to study these laws for my practical tomorrow and then head over to Emma’s.”

Ariel clicks her tongue.

“What, A?”

“Nothing, nothing.” She pauses, and unlike Ariel, Killian holds his tongue. She’s obviously about to tease the hell out of him. He knows that without even having to see her face. “It’s just that you’ve been spending a lot of time with Emma lately, and you’re going over to her apartment for her birthday. That seems like kind of a big deal.”

“Aren’t you also going over to her apartment for her birthday?”

“I am.”

“Well, you don’t see me making it a thing with you going.”

“That’s because I don’t have a thing for Emma.”

“I do not have a thing for Emma.”

“I wish you could see my face right now. I’m majorly rolling my eyes.”

“I can imagine it. I’ve seen it enough times.” Killian sighs and leans back on the couch, closing his eyes and pinching his nose with his free hand. “Emma and I are friends, and she mentioned the thing tonight that Mary Margaret and Ruby are having at her place. I was supposed to take her out for dinner anyways, so this kills two birds with one stone.”

“Wow. You’re such a romantic,” she jokes. “You should take her out for dinner anyway. She’d love that.”

“I will see you tonight, love,” Killian tells her as another yawn takes over. “Try not to be an asshole while we’re there.”

“No promises. You should bring her flowers. I can ask Mary Margaret what her favorites are for you.”

Ariel hangs up before he can protest, and he’s left sitting in the silence of his apartment. Will is at the bar working a double today, and it’s quieter than usual without his nagging and curses under his breath about every little thing. Killian’s thirty years old. He really shouldn’t still be living with a roommate, especially when he can afford his own place, but living on his own has always been few and far between.

After Liam died, his apartment felt barren and like it could never be full again. Everything was full of Liam from the items in the fridge to the novels on the shelf. When Milah moved in shortly afterward, the place had been full of Milah and her clothes and the smell of her perfume on every pillow in the place. He thought maybe, just maybe, having her around more would make the emptiness better. But then she’d left, and the only trace of her was the ring she left on the kitchen countertop.

Maybe he needs his own place where everything is his and his alone. That might be nice for a change.

Emma Swan: Did you know Boston is named after Boston, England? I feel like that’s a sign or something for you being here.

Killian snickers and drops his phone to his chest before picking it up.

Killian Jones: Why do you know that?

Emma Swan: I got a pamphlet listing fun facts about Boston with my lunch takeout.

Killian Jones: Fancy.

Emma Swan: I know. You still coming tonight?

Killian Jones: Aye.

Emma Swan: I’ll have to regale you with more facts about Boston.

Killian Jones: I look forward to it.

-/-

He brought her flowers like an idiot.

They’re lilies with a few other flowers and stems mixed in. Killian’s always enjoyed flowers, but he’s never taken the time to know anything more than the most basic of brands. He didn’t know what Emma liked, didn’t want to ask someone despite Ariel’s offer, but the damn thing was what put the idea in his head. Emma specifically said no gifts, but he showed up with a gift card to their smoothie place and flowers.

What the hell is this woman doing to him that he actually wants to do things like that again?

Possibly making him crazy while also driving him crazy with how she looks tonight.

Emma’s wearing a white sweater that dips down her back, showing the curve of her spine and the freckles on her back until it stops right over the curve off her ass that’s shown off by a pair of sinfully tight jeans. He’s not sure how the damn sweater is staying on or how she even managed to get those bloody jeans on. All he knows is she looks absolutely stunning, and if he stays in this apartment for much longer, he won’t be able to handle himself.

As if he’s fifteen and not thirty.

And there’s not a lot of places for him to look around. Emma lives in a studio apartment, and as spacious and open as it is, it is still one big room with what he assumes is a bathroom in the back.

What has he gotten himself into with this woman?

If he asks himself that question enough, maybe he’ll figure out an answer.

“If it isn’t the husband,” Ruby exclaims when she sees him, and Emma quickly turns around so he can see her face. It’s no less distracting than the view of her from behind. “Fancy you coming to your wife’s birthday party.”

“Is this going to be the joke we all make all night long?”

“You two got drunk and got married in Vegas. I have to make fun of it every single day. It’s the greatest thing.”

“For the record,” David starts, “I don’t think it’s the greatest thing.”

“David, right?”

“Yes.”

Killian sticks his hand out to shake David’s, but the man doesn’t take it. Instead he crosses his arms over his chest and stares Killian down. Well, this is certainly going great. His wife is obviously the nicer one.

“Oh my God,” Emma grumbles, walking over toward them and slapping the back of David’s head, “don’t be a dumbass. I’m an adult, you’re not my guardian, and every person in this room knows my history with Killian. We fucked, we drunkenly got married, and now I kick his ass on our morning runs. Does anyone have anything else they’d like to say?”

“I mean, I’d say that we made love, not – ” Emma turns to slap him this time, and he deserves it. He was fully expecting her to do that. In response, he dips down and brushes his lips over her cheek. “Happy birthday, Swan.”

“Thank you, asshole.”

“The flowers are for you.”

She takes them out of his hand and examines them, a small smile still pressed to her lips. “They’re beautiful and definitely against the no gift policy.”

“Cut the man some slack,” Ruby huffs. “He’s just trying to woo his wife with flowers.”

“Oh my God,” Emma mumbles.

“Emma?” Mary Margaret interrupts, “do you not have any plates?”

“Of course I have plates. They’re…shit. I don’t have enough plates. Someone text Ariel and ask her to pick some up before she gets here.”

“How do you not have enough plates for eight people?”

“I live by myself and don’t have much company. I don’t need eight plates.”

“You knew we were coming over.”

“I was also told that you would take care of everything since I didn’t want to do anything big to celebrate.”

“And I am, but pregnancy brain is a very real thing.”

“Your wife is pregnant, mate?” Killian asks David, not wanting to intrude on Mary Margaret’s conversation with Emma. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful!”

David is still studying him, and Killian might as well have committed some unspeakable crime. Eventually, though, the corners of his lips turn up. It’s very obviously got little to do with Killian, though, and everything to do with his love for his wife. “Thank you. We’re excited.”

“Alright, lover boy,” Ruby sighs as she wraps her arm around his shoulder, “I’m going to save you from David. Mulan wants to talk to you about how you’ve been keeping Emma out of her gym.”

“I feel like that’s not a safer conversation.”

“Oh, it’s definitely not. You were not smart for showing up here.”

He’s definitely in over his depth when it comes to all of Emma’s friends, and while David should terrify him the most, he thinks Ruby might take that crown.

“I’m starting to pick up on that.”

His life gets significantly easier when Ariel and Eric show up, especially since they come with a small bag of paper plates so everyone can start eating, and with more people there, less attention is on him. He rarely shies away from it, can usually handle it, but he doesn’t know Emma’s friends enough to be truly comfortable with it all.

That is until everyone – except Mary Margaret of course – gets a drink or two into them and is full of lasagna and overly sweet cake. They all settle in Emma’s living room area, Ariel and Eric on two barstools from the kitchen, Ruby and Mulan sitting on the bed, Mary Margaret and David sharing an oversized chair, and he and Emma sitting on her couch. Emma’s got her feet curled underneath her and her head propped up in her hand. She looks relaxed, comfortable even, and it’s a wonderful thing to see after the last time he saw her.

They haven’t managed to go on their runs in the past week. He’s been too tired from training and she’s had shoots in New York and in Connecticut, and the last time he physically saw her he’d taken his teasing too far and tried to get her to share information she wasn’t ready to share. They seemed to have mended things over their texts, but he could never be sure until now.

Three months ago when he knocked on this front door and had it slammed in his face, he never could have imagined he’d be so willingly let inside.

That he’d be invited inside.

It’s easy to get swept up in the way that everyone here is comfortable with each other. Even with Ariel and Eric here, he’s the odd man out, but that doesn’t matter as he gets to hear stories of Emma and her adventures with tequila, a pair of heels that were one size too small, and she, Ruby, and Mary Margaret having to hide under a table in a bar from a man who was not too happy with Mary Margaret losing her dinner over his shoes.

“That doesn’t sound like you at all, Mary Margaret,” Ariel snickers.

Mary Margaret shrugs. “Give me some tequila, and you can see that side of me.”

“After the baby is born, we’re going out then.”

It’s fun and relaxing, and Killian likes learning more about this woman who slowly but surely is allowing him to know and understand her layers. He doesn’t know much about her past, but he knows how she is now: funny and graceful and fiercely protective of the people she loves.

As well as a badass runner who likes hazelnut in her coffee and smoothies and spends far too much time trying to decide what to watch on TV until she ends up not watching anything at all.

How did they get so lucky to have to work together at that convention? It could have been any two people who work in this insane industry, but all of the bumps and stops and goddamn roadblocks enabled him to meet her.

He’s so damn screwed when it comes to her.

Killian looks down to see Emma’s fingers ghosting over his wrist and moving up and down his forearm until she’s messing with the rolled up cuffs of his flannel shirt. He doesn’t even think she knows she’s doing it. She’s been slowly inching closer to him all night, and he can feel every single breath that he’s taking.

He’s got training in the morning, so while he’s only had two beers, he might as well be drunk on Emma.

And really, he should get up and leave. Everyone else has left, giving their excuses and saying their goodbyes over an hour ago, but he’s stayed and kept watching episode after episode of Friday Night Lights. Mary Margaret had put it on. It’s older, but it’s apparently what she’s been watching while working lately.

“I know I didn’t attend high school in America, but is this what it was like?”

“I was a foster kid. I didn’t exactly have the quintessential high school experience. I don’t know, maybe if you’re athletic and look like you’re thirty when you’re sixteen.”

“Those are actors, love.”

Emma scoffs and squeezes her nails into his arm. “You know what I mean.”

“Aye, I do. So this wasn’t what it was like for you?”

“No,” she laughs, shaking her head from side to side. “God no. I – ” She stops, turning to look at him, before looking away and moving her hand down his arm again. She’s going to mark him with her nails if she keeps this up. “It’s nothing.”

“What? You can tell me? You were secretly prom queen, weren’t you? Did you play a preppy sport? Or were you on the debate team? You’re damn good at arguing. I mean – ”

“I slept with an older guy who apparently had a thing for girls much too young for him and got arrested for his dumbass crimes that he fucking framed me for, so I didn’t get the high school experience like these obviously too old actors.”

Wait. Where the hell did that come from?

“Swan – ”

“I think it’s so ironic that one of the only jobs I’ve been able to get because of Neal is modeling wedding dresses. He made me not want to ever get married, and yet here I am having to pretend I believe in some kind of happily ever after. What if I’d wanted to go to college? What if I’d wanted to be a cop or a teacher or something? What if I didn’t have to check the box on job applications that says I’ve got a felony to my name? But it’s fine. It’s normal. It happened, and I don’t care.”

She likely doesn’t even hear how contradictory she’s being.

He’d like to punch that asshole and break his nose so badly it can never be repaired. Of all of the shitty things that have happened to him in his life, at least no one ever ruined his life for work. Any troubles he’s had have all been his own doing. He can be as fucked up as possible emotionally, but at least he can work wherever he wants.

At least he can follow his dreams.

At least he can be a regular human being without restrictions.

“What that bastard did to you isn’t normal, Emma.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”

Emma stands from the couch and walks to the other side of the room, arms crossed over her chest as her feet keep moving back and forth. He has a feeling she’s going to be like this all night. He may not have been in the foster system, but he had a rubbish father who left him after he’d had to move countries to be with him and a mum and brother who both died. Birthdays haven’t been happy days for a long time, and if Emma is anything like him, her emotions are running a little higher than they would normally be.

Birthdays aren’t truly the same when you haven’t lived your entire life having someone to celebrate them with.

The two large glasses of wine swirling around in Emma’s stomach likely won’t help. At least she hasn’t had any tequila.

“You know,” Killian starts, figuring he might as well just go for it. He’s nowhere near buzzed, alcohol not giving him any liquid courage, but Emma makes him want to let her know him. Something about her makes him want to share, and he’s never been able to pinpoint what it is. “I was with someone for a long time.”

She stops pacing and turns to look at him. “Yeah?”

“Aye. She was brilliant and beautiful, and without getting too much into it, I proposed to her. For months she wore the ring on her finger. She had been with me before Liam died and when Liam died, she was the only thing that kept me from…she kept me from lashing out at the world, and then one day she left the ring on the kitchen counter with a note telling me she was going back to her husband and her child. I didn’t know they existed, but looking back, I should have seen the signs. So, the not wanting to get married part, I get that.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“People are such assholes.”

“You’re speaking a lot of damn truths tonight.”

Emma huffs and then walks back toward him until she plops down onto the couch and shifts. “I’m sorry about your fiancée.”

“I’m sorry that bastard did what he did to you.”

“It’s okay.”

Killian knows that it’s not and that Emma knows it’s not, but if this is the way she wants to deal with things, he can’t change that. Just because he wants to channel his anger and his disappointment over life into some kind of action doesn’t mean Emma wants to. And the way that she’s biting her lip and tapping her leg makes him think maybe she doesn’t want to talk at all right now.

That’s fine. He can be the one to fill the silence, not that they really need that. So he tells her of his mum and her kindness and the way she would sing him lullabies even as he grew older. He tells her of his father and the way he left and how Liam was basically his father despite only being five years older than him. He tells her the simplified version of most everything, at least the big moments, but as easily as it was to fall into spilling his heart, it’s even easier to fall back into talking about the simple things: favorites movies and hobbies and telling stories about their friends or the weird things that have happened to them on the job. Neither of them have made their livings in a conventional way, and it will never not be nice to talk about how insane the industry could be.

“So what do you want to do, Swan? If you could do anything.”

It’s verging into dangerous territory, and he fully expects Emma to tell him to shove the leftover birthday cake he’s eating up his ass.

She shrugs. “That’s kind of a loaded question.”

“Try me.”

Emma hums as she scoops up a glob of yellow icing and licks her fork clean. Killian shifts to adjust his jeans. She’s eating cake. He should not in any way be thinking about how her lips wrap around the fork.

It’s two in the morning. His thoughts are not his own.

He’s really getting old if two in the morning feels this late to him, but it’s that time of the night where the world is muted in a way. Either every noise is cause for alarm or nothing quite seems real, a place between sleep and awake where there could be something new at every turn.

Where there could be a new set of green eyes that aren’t actually new and a silhouette he hasn’t yet learned to trace and where things might actually work out for him for once.

If only, if only.

“I don’t know,” Emma sighs after about a minute of silence. “Maybe I’d want to work with foster kids, tell them that it gets better even when it doesn’t. Maybe I’d like to be a cop like you or David or Graham. I always say I would never, but I think it could be interesting. Maybe I could do something a little less emotional and be a freaking party planner or be an Instagram Influencer and promote, like, charities instead of one-hundred-dollar lipstick. I don’t know. I don’t…I’ve never thought about it because nothing has ever felt like a possibility.”

“You know, some people will see how young you were on this record and see that it’s non-violent, and they will give you an opportunity because it’s been a decade. You could try to get your record expunged or even sealed since I’m assuming it’s not. And then when you decide that you want to quit modeling for every wedding dress designer and boutique in New England, you can find something else you love.”

“Can I be a professional birthday cake eater?”

Killian leans his head back with laughter. “I’ll look into that for you. I’m sure there’s something like that.”

“That would be the dream.” Emma huffs and turns her head to hide her smile. “Are you scared the same thing is going to happen to you? That happened to Liam?”

He swallows as his heart races that little bit quicker. He wasn’t expecting that. He’s never expected that despite thinking the question himself almost daily. “Aye. I know the risks. I know the possibility. But if there’s one thing you need to know about me, Swan, it’s that I’m a survivor.”

“Good.”

They both end up eating two more slices of cake, something he regrets no later than fifteen minutes after putting his plate down, but he soon forgets it all as they sleepily watch a movie, the flickering of the television lights now the only thing illuminating the room and casting Emma in a subtle glow. He should get up and go home. It wouldn’t take much, no longer than ten minutes, but with the heat of Emma’s body radiating toward him and little strands of her hair tickling his skin, he can’t find the motivation to be anywhere but here.

Bloody hell.

They’ve spent the night together once before, but he got up and left before she could wake up. That feels like a lifetime ago, and he doesn’t think he’d make the mistake of walking away again.

“Killian?”

“Yeah, love?”

Emma leans forward so he gets a glance of her bare back, her sweater having shifted even more. “Do you think you’d ever change your mind about not wanting to get married?”

Tonight is full of all of the questions, he guesses. All he hopes is that she doesn’t regret this in the morning.

“I imagine if I met the right person, maybe. I’ve never been completely opposed to marriage or falling in love again. I think, maybe, I simply needed reminding that I could.”

If he fell in love again.

If he trusted again.

If he felt the way he’s feeling right now where his stomach can’t seem to settle and his mind is pretty much the same.

She blinks at him, her mouth parted and the smallest bit of yellow icing on the corner of her lips. Without thinking, he reaches forward and thumbs it away as little sparks of electricity move from his fingertip up his arm and eventually down his spine, joining in on his unsettled stomach and the nerves that can’t seem to settle. It would be so easy to lean forward and kiss her. How many times has he thought that? Tonight and this week and over the past few months. The night they met they couldn’t keep their hands – or their mouths to be honest – off each other, but now, every touch burns him alive.

There’s so much at stake, so much to lose, and he never thought this woman would be anything more than one night.

He never thought she might be the one to remind him that not everything about love is terrible. He’s not there yet, but he could be.

It’s all in the possibility.

“Yeah,” Emma sighs, falling back to the couch so her shoulder hits his and the outside of her thigh brushes his thigh. He can feel the heat of her skin through his jeans even more now, and he’s thankful that she was the one to move first and stop their staring contest. “I guess I can understand that.”

-/-

There’s a bang of a door and Killian startles awake.

He blinks, looking around at the blurred furniture only to realize this is Emma’s apartment. Shit. He fell asleep.

Shit. He’s got to be at training in…he looks down at his phone on the coffee table.

Fuck.

He’s got to be at training for his exams in twenty minutes.

Quickly, he grabs his phone, sticking it in the pocket of his jeans, hitting there to make sure he has his wallet and his keys, and his mind is in such a panic that he doesn’t notice that Emma hasn’t moved from her spot by the door until he’s standing in front of her trying to walk out.

His breath has got to be horrible right now.

“Emma, sweetheart, I’ve got to – wait, what’s wrong?”

She blinks up at him, her green eyes bright even with the smudged and flecked mascara underneath her eyes, and he’s so entranced by her that all he wants, even now, is to lean down and softly brush her lips over and feel the gloriousness of her mouth once more. That feeling has only been in dreams for so long, but it was real once, even if the circumstances were different.

“N-nothing,” she stutters, backing up to the door. “It’s just that, um, I went and got my mail because I hadn’t in a few days, and our annulment papers came in. We’re officially no longer married.”

-/-

@xemmaloveskillianx @therealstartraveller776 @stahlop @shardminds @carpedzem @captainsjedi @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @xellewoods @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @shireness-says @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @ultimiflos @jamif @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @spartanguard @snowbellewells @onepunintendid @bluewildcatfanatic

#another kind of green #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfic #captain swan

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mamthew · 4 years ago

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My full review of Persona 5: Scramble. Some mostly minor spoilers scattered throughout, though I try to flag them in advance.

When Persona 5: Scramble was announced, my expectations were fairly low. As it was yet another Warriors spinoff of a better-known series, I expected Hyrule Warriors but with Persona characters. I thought we’d get the P5 crew, maybe even a few from P3 or P4, maybe a villain or two, mindlessly tearing through thousands of enemies in essentially interchangeable levels, justified by a threadbare, 6-hour story. The demo, then, blew me away. It was just…the beginning of a sequel to Persona 5, maintaining the locations, presentation, and characters of the original game, but with a beat ‘em up battle system. I began thinking of Scramble as a direct sequel to literally my favorite game of all time, including everything a sequel might entail.

Having played through almost all of Persona 5: Strikers (I have started but not bothered seriously attempting New Game+ in Merciless difficulty), the game we ended up getting was halfway between those, I think. They managed to recreate the presentation of P5 impeccably, with gorgeous menus, beautiful battle effects, entertaining scene transitions, etc. However, the half of the game that isn’t dungeon-crawling is deceptively scant. The story centers around a road trip across Japan, but each city isn’t nearly as realized as P5’s Tokyo, with only about 3 rooms apiece, and some of the later ones not even getting a hub at all. The hubs really only exist to have shops, with none of the time management, minigames, or relationship building in a mainline Persona game. Still, it’s the only Persona spinoff I’ve played that has a real-life component at all, so I found it refreshing to get to wander Sendai, Okinawa, Osaka, and other towns in a game I’d initially not expected to have any towns at all.

The dungeons are where this game shines, though. They’re actual Persona 5-style dungeons, made occasionally even more dynamic with the addition of platforming and sidescrolling sections reminiscent of Nier Automata. The battle system uses the bones of the system in every warriors game, but slowly builds on it with more and more complexity until it’s not only a unique system, but is honestly one of the more engaging action battle systems I’ve played in a minute, in which you’re constantly trying to time dodges just right for extra hits, which can then open the option to either get in an extra hit with your character, which heals some SP, or switch to another character for an extra hit with them, which increases the rate at which the special gauge increases. As Joker, you have an array of Personas you can switch between on the fly, shifting your moveset, your stats, and your strategy as you go. Each of the other characters has their own gimmick that makes them unique and fun to play and sets them apart from Joker, who otherwise would have access to all their elemental attacks and stat spreads. Strategically placed objects around dungeons can be used to pull off special moves in battles, as well, letting you jump up to chandeliers and drop them on enemies or dive off of walls and tackle enemies. The battle system takes a little too long to actually become complex, but once it actually reaches that point it’s really rewarding. The bosses, too, are fun, with designs deserving of the Persona name and strategies that make full use of the environments. You can even replay them at different difficulty levels as the game goes on. I’ve never played a Koei Tecmo game with this much polish, and the battle system makes me hope the Warriors team goes to try an actual Platinum-style character action game. I think they’d knock it out of the park.

I’m a little split on the story of this game. The bones of the story are good. The characters are all written perfectly, and seeing them interact again was enough that I actually teared up a bit when I first booted up the game. I enjoy the new characters, and they work well with the party. The pacing is solid and it has a good emotional core. The villains are decent for the most part, and the ending is pretty satisfying. Several of the villains directly correlate to specific party members, too, which gives us further insight into those party members, and lets us watch as they see themselves in someone else and recognize where that other person broke off from their path. The game is in part about trauma and the ways it drives individuals to lash out at a world they’ve always believed to be cold and unforgiving, which could be a powerful message if done well. In this game, though, it’s not done very well at all. The ultimate message – if this game could be said to have one – is that individuals without support networks are driven by trauma to make bad decisions. That’s not…necessarily untrue, but it’s not…necessarily true, either. This message is probably at its worst when the game gets into inadvertently ableist territory with a character near the end, who -spoilers until the end of the paragraph- tries to essentially enslave mankind because her dissociation due to trauma convinces her that she has no emotions and therefore the species as a whole should have no emotions either. It’s…frankly a really gross bookend on a game that, until that point, had managed to avoid most of the issues with male gaze and homophobia that the original game had.

Every message in this game, though, is too individual-focused to function as a real message or social commentary. It even undercuts the sharp themes in the original by showing people in similar positions of power as the original villains just…choosing not to fall to corruption and consequently avoiding all of the problems that would arise from their power discrepancy. For a spoilery example until the end of the paragraph, the villain in Persona 5 who’s a CEO is a villain because his need to make profit drives him to exploit his workers, paying them less and working them more. The villain in Strikers who’s a CEO is a villain because his father was abusive and that led him to think people must be controlled. One is a real-world problem applicable to any CEO. The other is a story that exists only in the fictional realm.

This wouldn’t be such a glaring issue if Persona games – and especially Persona 5 – weren’t known for their social commentary. That’s not limited to the main games, either. Persona 4 Dancing was a rhythm game with a story about parasocial relationships and the pressures they place on public figures. Strikers ostensibly touches on parasocial relationships, but doesn’t…really have anything to say about them.

The game does try to make a statement sometimes, but everything it tries to say is disjointed, at odds with the previous game, or inapplicable to real life. The villains’ deeds don’t really have much similarity to each other, either, unlike in 5, and it’s stated outright that several of them would not hold any power at all without the supernatural world, which both prevents their stories from saying anything about the real world, and flies in the face of the purpose of Persona as a series. The supernatural worlds in Persona games are the collective unconscious, which means that the worlds are used to give the characters and the player visual representations of abstract concepts. The Palaces in Persona 5 are not the sources of the villains’ power; that comes from regular old societal hierarchies. The characters in Persona 4 were experiencing their inner turmoil before they were sucked into the TV world, and the midnight channel only made manifest what was already there and unseen. Conversely, the first two villains in Strikers are only in the public eye because they use supernatural means to make people like them. That the supernatural means involve smart phones doesn’t say anything about technology, because that’s not how technology actually works. In a follow-up to a game that was as furious at the world and desperate for change as Persona 5 was, it’s a glaring departure for the characters to just…befriend “the good cop,” or -spoilers again- push the mayor who’s based on Margaret Fucking Thatcher to run again but do things the “right way” this time.

That being said, I’m not actually that upset with this game. I have a lot to say about its missteps because I have a lot to say about Persona 5, but the gameplay is legitimately fun, and I do really love seeing the characters again. I’m more bemused than upset with the game’s fumbling of…the thing that made me fall in love with Persona 5 to begin with. Part of that is because the game is still so solid and fun, and the characters are written so well that I can overlook the issues. Even deeper, though, is that the last few years has radicalized so many people that the statements made in Persona 5 are simply…more visible in the mainstream than they were when it released. Late show hosts rage about the exploitation of waged workers. Video game streamers remark on the cruel arbitrariness of the current system. Shows about cops are being pushed to justify their existence to an increasingly disillusioned public. I think if Persona 5 released today, it wouldn’t have the same impact it did in 2017. To my mind, the game no longer carries the responsibility it once did. So this game is fun and doesn’t really matter, and that’s actually okay.

But if Persona 6 isn’t a return to form, I’ll take it back.

#persona 5 strikers #persona 5 #persona 5 scramble

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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MMT in the NYT

Happy book birthday to Stephanie Kelton on the publication of her long-awaited "The Deficit Myth," a book that could NOT be more timely in this moment of massive structural unemployment and trillions of free money for the wealthiest among us.

https://stephaniekelton.com/book/

Kelton is one of the leading proponents of Modern Monetary Theory, which describes how money actually works, as a series of accounting flows, and makes some profound observations about the implications of understanding how government spending actually works.

I've written about Kelton's work before:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/14/everybody-poops/#deficit-myth

But here's the shortest possible summary I can give:

Money ISSUERS (sovereign states) have a different relationship to money and debt than money USERS (everyone else: people, companies, local governments).

Governments don't spend our taxes. Governments spend new money into existence and tax some of it back out of existence. Governments get new money from the same place Starbucks gets new gift-card codes: by typing entries into spreadsheets.

Governments aren't "monetarily constrained." If something is for sale in a currency the government prints, it can buy it. Governments are constrained by resources - that is, which things are for sale in its currency: labor, resources, manufacturing capacity.

Government "debts" aren't like household debts. If governments owe debts in their own currency, they can pay by creating more currency (it's different when the debts are in another currency: Venezuela can't pay US dollar debts by printing Venezuelan bolivars).

Government debts are where our money comes from. Governments spend money into existence: if they "balance their budgets" then they tax all that money back out again. That's why austerity ALWAYS leads to economic contraction - governments are taxing away too much money.

There's one other source of money, of course: bank loans. Banks have governments charters to loan money that they don't actually have on hand (contrary to what you've been taught, banks don't loan out their deposits).

When there's not enough government money in circulation, people seek bank loans to fill the gap. Unlike federal debts, bank loans turn a profit for bank investors. The more austerity, the more bank loans, the more profits for the finance sector (at everyone else's expense).

So talk of "fiscal responsibility" from business groups is just a pretence for creating the conditions in which they earn interest every time someone needs money that the government has withdrawn from the economy and has to pay financiers for it instead.

You can tell that business leaders don't really care about deficits: that's why they cheered the 2008 bailout, the 2018 tax bill, and the trillions that Congress has gifted to America's largest corporations since the crisis.

As Kelton pointed out in her recent interview with Marketplace, these firms know that deficits aren't necessarily inflationary - inflation is when there's more money than there are things for sale in that currency.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart-with-kai-and-molly/maybe-modern-monetary-theory-is-an-answer-to-the-covid-19-economic-crisis/

The pro-oligarch squad opposes government spending that makes everyday people better off because it makes it harder to coerce them into predatory loans and unfair working conditions - not because of inflation.

After all, today, 25-35% of our workers have no market for their labor - the private sector doesn't want that work. The feds could spend the money into existence to give each one of those workers meaningful employment doing care work and environmental remediation.

Forget the (laudable) goals of #FightFor15: the true US "minimum wage" is $0/hour, which is what the people who can't find work earn for their labor. A federal jobs guarantee would put a true floor under the price of labor in America.

Kelton writes superbly about this, with a flair that is rare among economists. To celebrate her book's publication, she's published an op-ed in the New York Times: "Why I’m Not Worried About America’s Trillion-Dollar Deficits."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/opinion/us-deficit-coronavirus.html

Like many of us, Kelton initially agreed with Margaret Thatcher's 1983 speech: "the state has no source of money other than the money people earn themselves. If the state wishes to spend more, it can only do so by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more."

But after Kelton read Warren Mosler's "Soft Currency Economics," and discussed it with him in person, she had a profound realization about the true nature of money - and the needless cruelty and waste of austerity.

Her first published paper, 2016's "Do Taxes and Bonds Finance Government Spending?," was a landmark attempt to bring Mosler's ideas to academic economics.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00213624.2000.11506296

Four years later, we're living in an MMT world, with Congress engaged in multitrillion dollar spending without any Pelosian "payfors" in sight.

Kelton: "Every economy faces a speed limit, regulated by the availability of its real productive resources — the state of technology and the quantity and quality of its land, workers, factories, machines and other materials. If any government tries to spend too much into an economy that’s running at full speed, inflation will accelerate. So there are limits. However, the limits are not in our government’s ability to spend money or to sustain large deficits. What MMT does is distinguish the real limits from wrongheaded, self-imposed constraints."

#pluralistic

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rosesnink · 4 years ago

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The Cursed Heiress, Chapter 5: About Journeys and Middle Truths

A/N: I know I pubish a chapter every 1932 years but it’s because, unlike PB, I appreciate quality over quantity. This is the most complex story I have ever written and it consumes a lot of my time, but the result is worth. That said, I’ll leave you with the reading.

Summary: Joanna meets the lastest of the people in her cards and arrives in London.

Rating: T, although I am not explicit on this and make it sound poetic, it is my duty to rate it. There’s a sex scene, but with vague descriptions and easy to skip.

Word Count: 7947

Catch Up Here

Vincent Foredale closed some things as he awaited the hour where he’d bid his goodbye to his dear Joanna. Every day, he was sicker and Joanna now needed some healthy environment after dealing with her fiancé’s death. Her year of grief hasn’t ended yet, but it was the only way that he’d ensure that his dear estate fell to his bloodline’s hands and not the scheming ones of Henrietta. He signed the last paper when a familiar presence came to him. Nene Mills, Mary’s aunt. She was less skeptical and conservative than Nya, but she lived fearing her own twin sister. He curtsied to the elder witch and offered a seat, but politely declined.

“My lady. What brings you to my estate?” He asked curious.

“Oh! Nya sends me to check on Joanna and bid her goodbye and good luck on the London season and hunting down her asassain, which can be frightening—”.

“What? Someone’s put a price on Joanna’s head?” He was now, really scared about his daughter’s future “That’s why she left of all sudden of the garden party”.

“Yes, my lord. It is a shock for all of the supernatural factions, because her death would mean breaking the agreement of all the royalty of each faction”.

“I… Am not sure I follow”.

“Your daughter was supposed to be born. Her birth was planned and Mary was the one who’d conceive her with some special traits that no other witch ever had”.

“What? But… What is she, then?”.

“My lord… You may want to sit down. This is a long tale”.

As Joanna woke up, she noticed her hands more black, all her fingers with the color of the ink. She sighed heavily and got dressed. She went to the parlor, where her grandmother found her. She smiled brightly at her.

“I knew he’d stick the estate to our bloodline. I knew he wouldn’t let Edgewater fall to Mr. Marlcaster”.

“But at what cost, Lady Grandmother? I know we talked about men of rank, but one thing is innocent flirtation and other big line is marriage” She bit her lip, concerned.

“Well, yes, you certainly can’t hold the estate without support against the countess?”.

Joanna scoffed as she pressed her lips together and tried not to bicker if it was truly necessary to be a man’s propriety. She had heard how men minimalize their wives once they’ve inherited their money and spend it on cheating on them with mistresses and stupid things like cigarettes and being drunk most of the time. If that was marriage, she’d certainly make every man hate her and leave the Earth to be a glorious warrior back to the Circle.

“Joanna, dear, I know that the idea of marriage doesn’t appeal to you, you may even despise it, but I promise you, there are fine men who will grow to respect you and your times”.

“That’s the thing, Lady Grandmother! I don’t want to be forced to respect a scoundrel with useless titles and meaningless money! I want ardent passion, pure respect that is not forced, adventure and pure admiration from the other, but of course, who needs that when the dear money is there? I’m telling you, that fortune will be nothing but ashes one day and you selling me to someone who is not worthy of me will be for nothing!” She snapped.

Her grandmother took a few steps back as she processed all she said.

“How could you say that, Joanna? We must marry of rank so when your sons grow up, they ought to sacrifice themselves much less because they’ll live better! And so will your grandsons and your great-grandsons!”.

“What kind of mother and example would I be, Lady Grandmother, to teach them that is normal to bed a stranger and give him heirs and obey like a ‘good girl’? That’s all I am to you? A maiden who is in need of a man and then will depend on her sons? Is it what all women are? Just reproductive tools? And then what? Do we really have to lower ourselves to a man just not to damage his superiority and fragile ego? I just… kneel down to a worthless scoundrel? Is that my duty? Is that what I’m worth of? Not just me, but all girls and women? Well, shame on you all. Women are just more than tools. Women, they are ambitious, clever, smart, resolutive, tender and much more. They have dreams, they have goals, they can be great, like Cleopatra was once, like Anne Boleyn was once, like Margaret of Anjou. They can also be brave and courageous like Joan of Arc! They shouldn’t be less women just because they decided to have a title that makes them superior to a man. We, too, should have a saying on our lives and what we should be, more than aspiring to marriage and motherhood. What if I want pure glory and eternal greatness? Why I can’t have that? Because I am a woman, because I port a womanhood? Tell me, Lady Grandmother, do we deserve all of this?”.

Her grandmother’s mouth was agape as she processed all she just said. She maintained her stare, not giving up.

“I’m sorry, Lady Grandmother, but I will not tolerate being a courtly toy for those men” She left the parlor, trying to hold back all she had. All the frustration, the anger, the disappointment. She just wanted her father with her and nothing else but bathing herself in love, but instead she’d play courtesan games! She called for Elias.

Maybe some training to stretch her legs would help.

A few days’ later

While Briar helped her with the journey, Joanna’s mind wandered back to the letter, which was clutching in her hands so hard Briar yelped when she saw blood in her hands and Joanna looked at her hand. Some claws were there and she was also biting her lip. She wiped the blood off her mouth as miraculously her claws were in again, her regular nails back. Briar sputtered something before shrugging

“I guess so much blood triggered my view. There’s no way you’d had such monstruous hands! You have a flawless hand”

She nodded as she dropped the letter

“Scares aside, I can’t believe we’re going to London!” She beamed, her hands together, dreamily.

“I thought that you’d chicken out because you didn’t want to leave your, oh so dear Mr. Woods”.

Briar smacked her lightly but laughed.

“Can you blame me? You’d be sobbing in a corner, or writing him letters of a questionable length” She teased, a smirk on her corners.

She showed her the ink-stained fingers.

“I may have left him a letter to find once we’re gone”.

She shook her head but patted affectionely her shoulder. Briar has always been a big flirt and had all the boys long for her. She envied her. She was quite beautiful, her tan skin and blue eyes, her black hair made an acre cascade. Her beauty was simple, yet elegant. If you added her sweetness and iron will and fierce loyalty, she swore her beauty duplicated. Mr. Woods was indeed a lucky man to fancy such a wonderful woman.

“Ha! I knew you did!”.

“But I won’t let a man miss the opportunity to go to London. Let the man miss me a little”.

She smirked at her.

“I taught you well”.

Joanna looked at the clock and frowned as she bit her lip.

“I better get dressed or I’ll appear in London on my nightgown”.

“I have already loaded your trunk with dresses, but you must pick something to wear on the journey!”.

“I… guess some special sleeping gown to sleep and pass out all those hours? I just want to sleep and forget about the bigots I’m supposed to endure though the season”.

“But—Joanna, think about meeting fellow travelers riding there! What if you meet your husband during the journey?”.

Joanna arched an eyebrow and kept herself silent. Briar raised both her arms and sighed.

“You can’t be like this forever! Marriage can’t be as bad. I’m sure you can find in a man the holy trinity: wealth, rank and love. And you’ll let it go just because you have that poor idea of marriage”.

She rolled her eyes and Briar slapped lightly both of her cheeks, startling Joanna. Not that it hurt her, but Briar wasn’t the kind of woman who recurred to violence.

“Alright, madam, you are going to dress and try be positive for, at least, a pair of hours! No more negativity” She leans over the wardrobe and snatches a rather dashing dress.

“I found the most darling dress to ride! Anyone who sees you on it will be eager to get to know you!”.

But what if I don’t want to and I just want to sleep it off? But she just kept her mouth shut or Briar would do something about it.

The dress is a military-style riding jacket in Edgewater’s colors navy blue and gold. Joanna decides to try it on and Briar adds a necklace. She looks at herself in the mirror as she nods to herself. Maybe mortals do have taste.

“You look perfect! Your father and your grandmother await you in the porch”

She nodded as she hid some daggers and her golden staff. Just in case. Elias had all the rest of her equipment with him. She heard of all sudden a sound and in a minute she was outside the barrier spell. With flying knife in hand, she glared with her view and saw… Kamilah Sayeed, alone. She looked at her and started to speak.

“I’m not here to attack you, Joanna. I’m here for an invitation, in fact”.

Joanna glared at her “Why would I trust you?”.

“You can always put a truth spell on me. I’m not here to cause harm, I’m here to invite you to an invitation. Gaius wants a truce”.

“How do I know that I will keep my head attached to my neck?”.

“Because Gaius wants me to… watch over you. There’s a secret he wants to tell you. Let us know if you’ll come before midnight. Until then, Lady Joanna” And with that, she was gone.

She approached her father and grandmother outside, concerned looks on their faces.

“Who was that, dear?” Her father asked.

“She… was an old acquaintance. Nothing to worry about”.

He nodded, relieved and took her hands in his.

“Joanna, you don’t know how pleased I am to have you representing our family in London” He beamed and she rubbed her thumbs in his hands “You look every inch of the sophisticated young heiress you are. No doubt every gentleman will want to meet you”.

Her grandmother beamed at her “Meet her, nothing. If she keeps dressing like that, she’ll have a dozen men asking for her hand!”.

“I loathe every word of that sentence you just said” Joanna grimaced. Last thing she wanted was lustful mortal men preying over her hand and money.

However, the earl’s face fell “I wish I could come with you”.

Joanna’s heart skipped a beat “You’re not coming to London?” No, no, no, no, no! She couldn’t be there alone with a lot of men and her permissive grandmother. Not him.

“Not right away. I’ve got a lot to handle back at the estate at the moment…”.

“Father… I can’t do this without you” She placed her hand in his cheek… and saw it. A familiar voice, a death curse, blood, pain, helplessness… She got livid as she understood what was holding him back “She came to visit you, didn’t she?” She asked, breathless “She… she found you”.

“Joanna… what do you mean? You’ve gone livid!” Her grandmother gasped. She tried to reach her but she raised a hand and glared at her.

“I want a moment alone with my father. Alone”.

Her grandmother sighed and nodded, leaving both of them alone. Joanna grabbed gently both of her father’s forearm as she examinated him. Thin, hard stomach, low blood pressure, cold flesh, tiredness, fever, sore throat and heavy lungs. She punched the carriage hard, making a big dent on it!

“Joanna… why do you seem of all sudden… on edge?”.

“My grandmother… she has cursed you, Father. These symptoms are primarial to a slow death curse” She tried to fight back tears “All because I prefer your love over hers”.

She looked around and took off one of her gloves and her father’s eyes went wide, caressing her black fingers. Joanna bit her lip and he kissed them, putting them on his cheek.

“Why haven’t you shown me this before? And why would your grandmother want me dead?”.

A tear helplessly rolled down her cheek “Because Mother and I loved you over her and it’s illegal to love a mortal, man or woman. She broke the vow and my grandmother cursed her and now you, as a lesson to me to not get too attached to humans or they’ll all… suffer while I keep living, their blood in my hands”.

“But… that’s cruel! Loving someone superior or inferior shouldn’t be forbidden! Love should be beautiful, not tragic…”.

“That’s why I can’t marry a mortal man of rank, father. The Circle will find out and will kill yet another innocent man. I…I have enough blood in my hands. I don’t think I could handle another corpse”.

Vincent hugged his daughter tight, making ghosts on her back, kissing her head, holding her. Joanna hugged him back, sobbing lightly, affording herself to be weak among mortals.

July 1814, Grovershire

“Come on, this way!” The boy yanked his fianceé’s hand as they both giggled, the dawn barely there as they approached an abandoned barn “Hurry up, Jo!” He beamed, giggling.

Joanna giggled before he pulled her in a secluded corner. He kissed her with a sly smile on his face. He took her across the barn to a field no one in Grovershire seemed to talk about. He sat in the grass, patting a seat beside him. She arched an eyebrow but sat beside him. He kissed her again, caressing her hair lovingly, letting her being atop him. He looked at her, biting his lip and his hands were doing that nervous movements.

“What is it, Tommy?”.

“I just… I want to try something with you, away of prying eyes. Do you trust me enough to… close your eyes?” A pink blush came from his ears and she nodded. She had a good view even with her eyes closed “Just… tell me… when I should… stop”.

His fingers brushed past her ankles and pantalettes shyly, gazing if she was comfortable. She caressed his shoulder as an encouragement and when she thought he might throw her like a prank, she felt a jolt on her whole body and she gasped, surprised but delighted. She looked at Thomas and nodded. She had read about these activities, but witnessing them was… another whole world. She bit her lip as the sweet tickle and pleasurable nerves surrounded her, her hands on his back, his name dancing on her lips, little gasps escaping.

“Do you like it?” He asked. She nodded “Are you comfortable?”.

“Thomas… never stop”.

And with that, they kissed.

Joanna sighed as she remembered the last of her conversation with her father while she was in the carriage.

“I would not ask you to bid to someone who doesn’t please you” His face fell “A marriage of advantage can be�� bleak”.

“You say it because of that nightmare made of curls and weak bones of Henrietta?” Joanna arched an eyebrow, her blood boiling.

He was about to say something when the countess herself appeared without looking at her eyes, speaking to her father over her shoulder.

“Edmund and his fianceé have already left to London. I am confident that they will make more valuable connections” And with that, she slammed close the door, and Joanna wished to hurl the damn door to her back, but again, she contained herself.

“Alright, why on the Seven Hells will Mr. Marlcaster and Miss Sutton be with me at London? They have nothing to do there” She scowled.

Her annoyed grandmother said “She has sent them to turn people against you, clearly” Then, she composed herself and looked at her, considering her words “Although… they’re not as loyal as you think they are. If you treat them with kindness, you might be able to turn them against her, with one or both”.

“Why befriend someone who thinks of me so low? The only thing they deserve from me, is my cold shoulder” Joanna scoffed.

“I understand why that might not be pleasing, but Edmund is a sweet boy and his abilities have never matched his mother’s ambitions”.

She hummed as she considered if she shall do it or she’d just leave them be.

Now, she saw how the carriage was now getting away of Edgewater, Clover trailing not too far and Briar talking to her. She looked at Briar and took her hand in hers.

“Hey, I don’t mean to offend, I love talking to you but… I could use some air for some hours if you don’t mind”.

“Of course, I was just trying to take you away of bad thoughts”.

“And I appreciate the effort. Truly”.

The carriage stopped and she asked Mr. Harper to hand her Clover. The horse neighed and she mounted her, patting her head. She salutes Miss Parsons and Briar from the window as she rides slowly the horse, feeling a strong connection to her. She patted her head as she gazed to the English land, a pinch of nostalgia in her heart. She remembered visiting the Court of the Circle and dance during three straight days and do magic freely, not worrying about if someone would rat on her. She took in the breeze and exhaled, a bit of her own air grazing the carriage. She smirks for a moment before whipping the reins, the wind in her blazing hair. Mr. Harper laughs as she takes the lead, a determinate smile on her lips. For a moment, she feels alive and connected to this enthralling world.

Several hours, the carriage puts a halt for a snack and rein Clover as Mr. Harper tries to help her out, but she jumps and lands expertly on her feet, an amusing smirk on her face. He laughs at the sight and she approaches the ladies.

“This place looks like a perfect spot for luncheon” He comments.

Moments later, the luncheon is served with mortal delicacies and Joanna tries out the apples and nods approving at the mortals.

“This tastes rather delicious, indeed”.

Clover dips her head as she tries to nip at one of the apples but she raises an authoritary hand.

“Don’t”.

She halts and neighs. Mr. Harper is again impressed about her antics. Clover begs her for a bite and she hands her one special apple.

“Here, dear. This one helps you to heal faster and will strengthen you when we get on the road again”.

She neighs happily as she eats the apple and Mr. Harper quirks an eyebrow. She shrugs.

“The dowager countess sent lemonade!” Mr. Harper beamed.

“My favorite!” Miss Parsons exclaimed.

They all ravened on the food as Joanna observed the whole thing. After it, Miss Daly spoke up.

“So… how does this… marriage market… consist of? I hope Joanna is not to be auctioned”.

Joanna rolled her eyes as she shook her head.

“Oh, you know, the girls from the best families compete to catch the eye of a man of an even better family and men try not to be caught at all”.

Joanna quirked an eyebrow, now interested in what they had to say about that.

“Why ever not?” Briar wondered.

“I assume they like their independence. If I had a man’s freedom, I’d never want to be tied down to a wife” Joanna commented.

“It’s a game” Mr. Harper said “They do it because they’re bored”.

“Well, I don’t think giving little women hopes and then dropping them is an amusing game” Joanna huffed “If they’re bored, they should play chess or whatever mortal men do to unbore themselves. Back in my land, that is a big shame of a man to do such an awful thing to a young lady”.

“I hereby agree with you, Joanna. Though I wonder… is it the same among gentry?”.

“Aye” Mr. Harper replied “When we marry, we’re looking for someone who’ll make our work brighter and bring us happiness. If you’ve no money to gain, you might as well have the joy to enjoy it”.

“Now that’s a little fairer”.

“Well, when it’s not the bride expecting as well…”.

Everyone laughs, but Joanna keeps being stoic and the laughter fades. Joanna stands up and stretches like a cat.

“If you all excuse me, I’d like to walk for a while alone while I can”.

They all nodded as she started walking when she sniffed the smell of something evil… another shadow who wanted her dead. She quickly casted a barrier spell towards the group of mortals and prepared her staff.

“Come on… I know you’re in there!”.

A horrible howl ripped the silence and a demonized bear charged against her. She mirrored his actions and jumped high, twirling her head to the sky and landing on the other side as she shot him a spell and prepared her hands when she felt bleeding on her lips... fangs. She hissed and ran towards him and snapped the bear’s arm in two. She felt the claws again and she was in awe. A vampire’s fangs and werewolf’s claws? What the hell was going on? She had no time for this! She lunged and hit the bear right in the ribs and scratched the shoulder with her claws. She closed her eyes for a moment and summoned the ancient forces and a portal appeared! Only faeries could do that… She kicked hard the monster and sent it right to its hell dimension and the portal closed and her strengthened barrier spell faded away. She dropped her hands to her knees and panted before starting the auto-healing. When Mr. Harper and Miss Parsons approached, she was as flawless as always.

“My lady! I heard screams and howls! Are you hurt?” Mr. Harper asked, concerned.

She nodded and walked to the carriage.

“I’m fine. I have to”.

Several hours later, Joanna rested her legs as she played with her own gloved fingers, gazing at the landscape as she wondered what happened at luncheon. She had the claws of a wolf and a vampire’s fangs, along their speed and strength but not their bloodlust. She could also create fae magic and summon what they summoned. She knew she had to write a message to her aunt at once. How was this possible?

“You awake, ladies?” Mr. Harper asks, breaking the silence “We’re almost in London”.

“Hmm? Already?”.

She looked at the window to find fine townhouses and its architecture. She had to admit, mortals knew how to build a city.

“It’s so huge!” Briar commented, her mouth agape.

“Hmm, it’s a nice view”.

“There’s near a million people living here” Miss Parsons commented.

“It must be the grandest city in the world!”.

Joanna chuckled ironically, not believing she just said that. She has transported herself to New York, Prussia, Russia, Spain… There were bigger cities than London.

Suddenly, the carriage slows down and Mr. Harper calls someone down.

“Was someone supposed to meet us here…?”.

Joanna looks at the streets. No one is awaiting them on Edgewater’s name nor looking at them at all… Joanna uses her supervision to look further from her safe spot and sees nothing.

“Please tell me that someone knows how to get to the townhouse from here” Poor of them if they didn’t.

The carriage falls silent as Joanna climbs down, determined to find a spot to cast a location spell.

“Joanna, what are you—”.

“We’re lost, Briar. But do not fret, I shall find a way there before this gets ugly”.

Miss Parsons’s worried face looks out of the carriage window.

“I’m confident that is near somewhere Grosvenor Square, but I… cannot find an exact way to get there”.

“Then I shall find it myself!” Joanna said confidently.

Joanna takes a few steps away of the carriage, determined to go home, no matter what. She just had to find out how without drawing suspicions. She looked around as she observed the walking, hurried people and the carriages going and coming. She closed her eyes as she tried to locate Elias, but the connection was shattered… corrupted. She opened her eyes, gasping and getting on her knees-thing that was unusual of her- and her breath got ragged. The world shakes as she sees a familiar figure afar from all that mess. Thomas. Her Tommy. But there’s something wrong… his eyes are all back and his shape is all gray, something evil about him. She tries to reach him, but he sees something, smiles devilishly and disappears. She turns her head to Thomas’s direction as Mr. Harper cries out her name.

“My lady! Look out!”

A gold-decked coach barrells straight to her! She closes her eyes as her hands open as she cries out, helplessly

“NO!”

The horses neighs as some energy makes the coach bolts lightly and the driver reins the horses, both obeying the woman before them. As she raises, clutching her gloved hands together, she glimpses through the window how the shocked man offers his hands to steady her.

“I’m good, thank you” She manages to say

“Gracious lady, I offer you a thousand apologies and the head of my driver should you demand it!” He says, completely embarrassed to almost trample the lady.

“Do not fret, my lord. No heads shall roll for now, and I accept your apology. You don’t seem like the kind of maggot that would do that on purpose” Joanna comments

“That was a mere joke. I do apologize. I don’t ever expect a lovely lady walking unescorted in London”

“I just arrived. My carriage is right there. Do not fear for me, my lord”

The man bows flourish as Joanna asks herself if all this fuss is truly necessary. Something tells Joanna she has seen this man before.

That attire, his foreign features and his hair… he was The Sunkissed!

“I know it is bad from here not to wait to be introduced, but I am a foreigner and I may take some liberties, no? I am Imperial Prince Hamid, envoy to England from my cousin the sultan”

“The sultan of the Ottoman Empire, you say?”

“Yes, His Imperial Majesty Mahmoud the Second, Caliph of Islam, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. As his ambassador, I am pleased to make your acquaintance”

“Pleased to meet you, Your Highness. I may confess that you are quite the charmer, despite the fact that you almost trampled me” She teased him as she bows slightly, careful with the skirts.

Prince Hamid catches her hand and tries to lift her to her feet, but she lifts herself with a cat’s agility.

“Careful of your skirts, I wouldn’t wish to damage such a lovely attire”.

“My name is Lady Joanna Mills of Edgewater”.

Prince Hamid’s face lights up with recognition.

“Then you are the Earl of Edgewater’s daughter”.

“Equilicuá”.

“I should have recognized the Earl’s clothes in your dress” He admitted “I have worked for your father in the Parliament! He is a great man. Perhaps I could offer you a ride back to his townhouse?”.

“Well…” She thought about it, maybe she could bond with him, convince him to see each other again “I’d love to, really, but my carriage is—”.

“Your man can follow me, but tell me you would not deny the opportunity to spend these few minutes with you, to apologize for the injury I nearly caused?”.

She teased him, pretending to think before shrugging. She looks at Mr. Harper, who nods and she looks at the prince “Hm, how could I say no to a man apologizing for being careless? Much more when I can torture you with that excuse”.

Prince Hamid’s coach was comfortable, with plump cushions and well sprung wheels that she could toy with that hardly jolt on the rutted streets. She nods to herself before looking at the man “I have been posted in London for the better part of two years. It is my greatest pleasure to serve my sultan by travelling the world” Prince Hamid beamed.

“Sounds enthralling. Where else have you been?” She crossed her legs as she looked quizzically at the man.

“Before coming to London, I spent three years in Athens and one year at the court of the Tsar Alexander. It is my aim to see as much as I can of the world”.

“I, too, have travelled in my training quests” She smiled proudly “I’ve been in Portugal, the Kingdom of Spain, China, India, South America, the Caribbean, Italy, Siberia and Japan”.

Prince Hamid seemed in awe with her and broke into a smile “Truly? That sounds incredible! How many languages can you speak?” He asked.

“As many as my brain allows me to” She winked.

“Can you speak in one of them?”.

“Hmm” She thought of one and then broke into a smirk “Tvoya kozha napominayet mne boga apollona” Your skin reminds me of the god Apollo.

The Prince chuckled “Thank you, though I have never been compared to a God before”.

“First time for everything. What brings you to London though?”.

“I am asked to negotiate a treaty with the Parliament. Trade and borders most of the part” He said, sounding sad… and done. Men could be real exhausting.

“Englishmen won’t leave the other countries’ borders alone and mind their businesses instead of acting like they were like ancient conquerors, will they?” She asked, knowing better about the supremacy of those morons “Can’t say I’m impressed or surprised. They like getting what they want like the Prince Regent to drink even the water from the vases”.

Prince Hamid laughed out loud with her witty remind as he nodded “Yes, the Prince Regent has a true liking for drinking, indeed”.

“Sounds importantly dull though. Listening to grown men in cigars and clothes from 1656 while they talk about how important is to please their king while they’re all half-drunk? Pass”.

Prince Hamid laughed again as he shook his head at her remarks “You are quite unusual, my lady” He looked at her, like some fascinating thing to study “I am quite fortunate that Parliament moves with all the speed of a glacier, so I have vast amounts of time to fill myself”.

“See? The drunk men drowned in cigars and supremacy makes it that slow. That’s why they never last that long in life”.

Prince Hamid chuckled “I guess their habits are a bit excessive and prejudicial for their health”.

“That and how they get mad at everything and behave like they can do everything. Whereas us women have to endure the fact to give birth to the children of those useless twats” She scoffed.

Prince Hamid crooked his head to the side “You seem to have made up your mind about men”.

“I might be young, but I’m not blind or deaf. I have vowed in fact to never attach to a man that is not my equal in romance, but friendship, complicity and the promise of great adventures. Also, motherhood…” She grimaced “I don’t think I’d be up to the task. My lifestyle would be… too much for such a young, small thing”.

“I… don’t think a noblewoman’s lifestyle is too much for a baby”.

Oh, dear, if you only knew. Witches are infertile. And vampires. The process could kill me.

She shook her head “Anyways… does your lifestyle in London running down young ladies in the streets as one of your hobbies by any chance?” She changed the subject rapidly.

“Only today. But perhaps it is something I should try more often, should it always introduce me to someone so lovely” He smiled.

She scoffed amusingly, shaking her head “Ay, por favor”

The carriage pulled up in front of a stately townhouse. Prince Hamid opened the door and tried to help her out, but she jumped expertly on her feet and smirked at him, He chuckled at her action.

“I suppose I must bid you farewell now. This is your father’s house, and you will be wishing to see it” He commented, looking sad.

The truth, she itched to get to know the man a little bit more. The house could wait.

“Thank you for the ride, Your Highness”.

The prince bowed with an exaggerated frown “Lady Joanna, I am heartsore that our time together ends so soon. Now that we are here, I wish I had led you through half of the city before we stopped here” he whined.

Joanna chuckled, shaking her head “If you wish more of my precious time, quit the riddles and say it already”.

“I won’t deny that it would bring me great joy to have more of your time… I find you fascinating, Lady Joanna of Edgewater. I have met so few English ladies and none are like you” He admitted “I must get to know you better”.

“What is holding you back again?”.

“Walk with me now, Lady Joanna. We are both outsiders to London. Let me show you the city, and have a moment longer to bask in your fiery beauty” He proposed.

“I was wondering when you would request it”.

“I’m doing it now” He beamed.

Prince Hamid tucked her hand firmly on her shoulder as they walked down the street of three-history, white-washed houses. Joanna studied the architecture as she wondered if these houses were made by the time the House of York ruled, representing the white rose of the said family.

“The lords of Edgewater have always maintained their townhouses year round, but most of them are rented. When Parliament ends, they sit empty”.

“Can’t say I’m surprised” She remarked.

“You seem to know a bit of these lords even if you have grown up in the countryside”.

“People like to talk and many lords have lands in Grovershire. One just listens and I happen to have unpleasantly met those lords, trying to… well, you know it, but they always failed or ended up giving them a piece of my mind” She shrugged “And you? Are you in London a year-round? Or you eventually return home?”.

“I was fortunate to be invited by the Prince Regent last year to winter with him in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton” The prince shrugged, the colorful silks of his shirt rippling and catching light “This year… it will depend if my lord, His Imperial Majesty, calls me home to Constantinople”.

Joanna tilted her head to the side “I will never get the devotion to the mortals to one man just because of a God-given title. Last time I checked, death, sickness, we’re all the same in those and yet we are ought to obey. Worst of it, they never talk about the great Queens or Empresses! They’re as worthy of appearing in the books as men” She said, determined.

“I guess we’re taught to obey and oblige to them. But you’re right, I hardly hear a word about the Queens or the Sultanesses of the countries”.

“Because men themselves toss them to a corner because, in the end, we are more powerful on our own than with a man and I stand by that”.

Prince Hamid seemed impressed by her “What makes you think that?”.

“Let’s start with Cleopatra. She was a fine queen until Marc Antony and Caesar appeared and ruined her with their stupid wars that she ended up killing herself beside a man who wasn’t worthy of such an exquisite woman like her. Catherine of Aragon was also a great queen, but the men had to win. Elizabeth Tudor, need I to keep going or you get now my point?”.

Prince Hamid smiled widely, highly impressed by her knowledge “I do and you’ve got impressive points. There is truth in those women’s lives”.

She smirked with sufficiency and looked at him “Your Highness… tell me about Constantinople. I never had the chance to visit the town inside, but I saw the walls of it”.

“For me, it is home, which never holds the interest for me of travelling from afar. But it is the city that will always hold my heart”.

“I know the feeling. I’ve seen great wonders, but none of them hold my heart so dearly as my humble Grovershire” She smiled fondly at the memory of the fields and the green “What is it like?”.

“Ah, you ask more than you know. When Saxon tribes were still fighting Vikings in the mud of London, Constantinople was the capital of the East. It is hard not to feel our history there. Especially one of my family”.

“I know your sentiments very well…”.

Prince Hamid gave her a rueful smile “But we are not in Constantinople now. We are in London, and you have seen little of it either”.

As they turned a corner, they suddenly drew into view of an immerse castle of soot-coated white stone “I take that’s the, oh so feared Tower of London?”

“Even across the world, we have heard of all the executions which took place there”.

Big minute of silence to Anne Boleyn and the witches that were burnt there, indeed.

“I know how you must feel. A man’s fear and closed mind and power-driven mind can be very dangerous, monarch or not. I have witnessed many horrors, but none of them compare to the ones who think they can play God’s advocate”.

“Which horrors?” If she could tell him… Minotaurs raping young women, massive slaying, the Order trying to purify the world, wars between elves and humans that ended in horrible bloodshed, but she always shuddered when she heard a wife has been killed or raped by a man because he thought he had the right or she ‘was asking for it’. Men were more dangerous when in many states of mind than the Gods gave them credit for, and all following that lecher of Zeus.

“That is an unpleasant tale for other day” She shrugged it off.

“It is a pity that such a beautiful building has such a grim story”.

“It could be worse. When it comes to show authority, men won’t hold back to show who has the power, especially the ones who are under his command. But women are far more merciless, we just don’t need bloodshed to show our power and fury. In fact, my mother herself has shown men how to make them fear and obey her without killing or torture anyone. We are smarter in that upfront”.

“Your mother sounds like the kind of woman that no one would like to cross indeed”.

“She taught me well about it”.

“Which is why I live by the philosophy that we must make every effort to grab for happiness” He smiled.

“Oh really? What makes you happy?”.

Prince Hamid gave her a slow smile “A walk with a woman of rare beauty and insight”.

She scoffed amused as she rolled her eyes “Flatterer”.

“It’s true though. So many of the girls here are loathe to share their opinions with a man. Especially a foreigner”.

“I don’t. I like to think that our opinion does matter and we should all be heard and we should hear everyone. Free speech should be a human right. Also, that bad is to share an opinion with such an outrageous flirt?” She teased.

Prince Hamid laughed, startling a nestling pigeon. Joanna bit the inside of her mouth to not laugh “Perhaps that as well. I admit I see little appeal in modesty”.

A few well-dressed men stopped and were watching the couple with disdain. She heard them perfectly saying ‘These foreigners are invading our home’ ‘They should’ve stayed at home’. She glared at them and growled at them “Come and say that to my face, maggot, and let’s see how many teeth you conserve” She started to walk towards them, but Prince Hamid stopped her on her tracks, a frown on his face.

“They’re not worth the effort”.

“But—I have heard what they said! They have no right to call us that just because they were born and raised here! Maybe if they removed their stick wedged between their—”.

“It doesn’t matter, really. I know I am still novelty to some Londoners”.

“What you are is a human being worthy of respect, no matter the color of your skin and place where you were born, as me and everyone!” She gave them a dirty look and challenged them with the look, intimidating most of them “I know this because my mother and I were treated the same way in my former home, but that never stopped us to stand up to ourselves. We were different, but as worthy of their respect as all of them. We were still human. Our hearts beat the same, we bleed when hurt and we die in similar consequences, isn’t that enough?”.

“And yet, I hear you are to be the heir of Edgewater” He smiled.

“Thing that displeases many people, but I know my value and it’s not worth to try to please people who I don’t tolerate myself to be accepted. I rather be alone that with company that will backstab me soon” She lifted her chin.

“Perhaps it is in the hands of those like you and I to… broaden the people’s worlds” If you only knew what I know…

She lifted her chin, showing that she was still worthy and respectable young lady and showing pride in who she was, walking past the scowling men, not letting them win as Prince Hamid swept them a low bow “A good day to you all”.

“Those men will remember you with kindness. Those small gestures are always remembered”.

Prince Hamid smiled and took her arm “Kindness is a gift that you can offer everyone. And the more you give, the more you have left”.

“A beautiful philosophy, indeed”.

“My cousin the sultan says it is why I am a good diplomat. Always, I ask the question ‘what can make everyone happy’?”.

Joanna’s face fell “You cannot make everyone happy always. People will get hurt soon. They will leave. They will fade. We cannot make anything to stop it. Not even the own creators” She gushed.

Before he could speak, down the road the church bells suddenly chimed. Prince Hamid took a guilty step back “I have enjoyed our walk, Lady Joanna, but your father would not thank me for keeping you away longer”.

“My father is in Edgewater”.

“He let you come to London alone?” He asked, surprised.

“Well, my friends are—”.

“Waiting, of course. I will return you to them now”.

He walked her back to the townhouse, where she found Briar and Miss Parsons just coming outside, looking for her friend. Prince Hamid kissed her hand and Briar clasped her hands in her mouth in excitement.

“I have enjoyed our walk. I hope most ardently to see you at some other balls and parties this season. I should be greatly obliged if you save me your first dance”.

“First I’d have to be eager to dance or attend a ball at all”.

She rolled her eyes as the prince laughed “I shall be sure of having an excuse to make you come, then, if that means I can see you more often”.

“I shall see, indeed”.

“Farewell, Lady Joanna. I trust your staying in London is… pleasing”.

“We’ll see”.

Briar and Miss Parsons looked at her with burning curiosity as the prince remounted his carriage and drove off “Who was that tall, dark Adonis?”.

“Shh, Miss Daly! I believe that was Prince Hamid from the Ottoman Empire”.

She gave her a sly grin and Joanna arched an eyebrow “I know where this is going, just don’t”.

“He seems to have quite taken a fancy to you”.

“Well, I didn’t” She composed herself “We were just talking and being friendly, nothing else. Not everything is about romance” She scoffed.

Before they could say anything, she stormed off to the stairs and into the house.

The air was cold, so cold it felt like a thousand glasses were cutting your skin. The figure steps in front of the man in the throne, his white hair, signal of his elderly power looked at the boy.

“So… did she saw you?”.

“Yes, my lord”.

“And did you get to hurt her?”.

“No, my lord. But a carriage almost trampled on her. She sensed black magic.”

His lips curled in a devious smile as he laughed, caressing the woman’s silhouette, her ghostly shape huffing “You see that, Mary? Soon, your child will be mine and I shall reign as their only and beloved sovereign”.

Two shadows bring in the old woman, who is grunting and struggling. They throw her in front of the man, who snaps his fingers and gives her back her Sight.

“You! Traitor…”.

“Shh, Nya, dear. I don’t want to hurt you… I just want to merely chat”.

“How dare you… after what we did for you after your wife’s passing—”.

He slammed his fists into the stinky throne made of skulls… human and supernatural skulls.

“Don’t you dare to mention my beloved Cirilla!” His eyes were pure rage, now turned red. The boy shuddered, but never moved a single inch.

“What shall I do with the girl, my King?”.

“Corrupt her. Drive her crazy. Make her feel powerless, useless, utterly useless. Get in the bottom of her darkness and destroy her from the inside. I will do the rest. Joanna Mills won’t touch a single golden inch of my rightful throne. I’ll kill her before she discovers anything”.

“You complete ass” Mary snapped, her chains sounding “That will be breaking the peace treaty you agreed to sign. Chaos, war and bloodshed will spread around this universe soon we will know nothing, all because of your ambition”

He looked down to her as he curled his fingers, making her scream in pain, grabbing her throat tightly, gasping.

“That is where you are wrong. The world will be ruled by the one and only superior race: the witches and warlocks. We will be the only ones in this galaxy, to hell with the mortals! They are useless and despicable, I shall erase them forever! I will not sleep until everyone of them is dead, and when they are, I will be the one and only rightful king. No more hiding, no more fear, just us and our magic. And Joanna will be dealt with, trust me. No other sixbrid will ever step on my plans. But before kill her, I will ruin her. By next year, I will be the purest, holiest, most powerful man alive!” He extended his hands, laughing as a storm took place. Nya shivered in fear as Mary looked in horror at the boy.

“How could you? She loved you! She loves you!”.

“I am not her Thomas anymore. I am her destructor” He curled a smile on his face as the image of Joanna glaring to Mr. Marlcaster appeared on the screen.

#playchoices fanfiction #desire and decorum #desire and decorum au #the cursed heiress #oc: joanna mills #prince hamid #prince hamid x joanna #briar daly #annabelle parsons #luke harper #luke harper x joanna #vincent foredale

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stahlop · 4 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 3x07 “Dark Hollow” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14 2x15 2x16 2x17 2x18 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22 3x01 3x02 3x03 3x04 3x05 3x06

Well, we officially have a love triangle going on, although Emma seems to want no part of it. Ariel and Belle make quite the plucky duo. And who would have guessed that Peter Pan was keeping John and Michael Darling alive for his own nefarious plan? On the plus side, Rumple now has ammo to capture Pan, thus ensuring he can come home to Belle.

Summary: Neal tells the group how he used the coconut to get off of Neverland the first time, which leads himself, Hook, and Emma into Dark Hollow to capture a shadow. Ariel and Belle search for Pandora’s Box for Ariel to bring back to Neverland, but are held up by an unlikely pair.

Opening: Clock Tower

New Characters:

John and Michael Darling: We really don’t find out too much about them. Basically, Pan has kidnapped their sister, Wendy, presumably allowed them to grow up enough to be able to do things for him, and now they need to get and destroy Pandora’s Box in order to get Wendy back. They are obviously very loyal to Wendy, and blame themselves for her predicament. Fortunately, Belle convinces them (after setting a coal cart on them), that they are the winning side and they can beat Pan with Pandora’s Box.

Character Observations:

Henry: He is convinced that Pan is hiding his family from him. Henry wants to know where Pan goes when he disappears from camp if it’s not to see his family hidden somewhere. Henry tells Pan he’s going to find out what it is. Oh, Henry. The first rule of trying to find out if someone’s hiding something, is not to tell them that you think they’re hiding something. Pan sends Felix to get ‘supplies’ and so Henry follows him, in the least stealthy way possible. He’s practically breathing down Felix’s neck he’s so close. He even does the classic step on a twig and hide move so Felix doesn’t catch him. Henry eventually finds the tree house(?) that Pan has put Wendy into (Felix drops a bag of apples in front of the ladder). He wonders why she’s so far away from camp and she tells him that she’s sick and Pan doesn’t want anyone else to catch it. Wendy also tells him she’s sick because the magic of Neverland is fading. Then she tells him how much he looks like his father, and that she knew him when he was a boy. Wendy then tells him he needs to leave so he doesn’t get sick and he promises to come back for her. He ‘runs’ into Pan on the way back to camp and confronts him about Wendy. Pan pretends he hid Wendy from him because he didn’t want Henry to know that because magic is dying, so is a young girl. Henry buys this hook, line, and sinker, and now wants to know how he can help save magic. Pan tells him it’s not how but where and leads him to Skull Rock, where the heart of the truest believer will be their salvation. Pan feeds into Henry’s wannabe hero complex by telling him saving magic will require heroism and sacrifice, and if Henry doesn’t realize that by sacrifice that means him, then I don’t know if he’s worth saving.

Belle: She’s obviously upset about Rumple leaving and going to sacrifice himself, even if it is for his grandson. Archie, the Blue Fairy, and the dwarfs see that she is upset and discover that Rumple left her with a cloaking spell to protect the spell. It’s the first spell she’s ever cast so she’s nervous. Blue Fairy tells her she needs to believe in herself (do spells not work if you don’t believe in them?), and it looks like it won’t work for a hot second, but then it does, and a huge cloaking dome encapsulates Storybrooke. Five days and four rejected cheeseburgers later, Archie is trying to psychoanalyze Belle in Granny’s (with his first question being ‘You miss him, don’t you?’ Well, duh!) Belle is upset because Rumple has gone off to his death and she feels like she can’t do anything to help him. Archie reminds her that she helped put up the cloaking spell, but pouring a potion over rocks apparently isn’t that big of a deal in her eyes. Archie tells her that she’s protecting the town from outsiders, but she thinks that was just a distraction because he doesn’t really need her. Which is when Leroy brings Ariel over with the news that Rumple needs her. Ariel hands her the sand dollar Rumple gave her and Belle is confused about what she’s supposed to do with it. She finally figures out that it holds a message from Rumple that gives clues as to how to find Pandora’s Box. Belle’s just excited that Rumple wants her help. I have to roll my eyes over this whole thing. The Belle that we saw in the Enchanted Forest knew her worth. She used books and her smarts to find the Yaoguai and figure out that he was the enchanted Prince Phillip in The Outsider. Yet here she has self-doubt because the man she loves didn’t take him with her to find his grandson? And she only gets her mojo back because he needs her? Ugh! Belle finally figures out that placing the chipped tea cup in it’s normal place in the cupboard activates a secret panel on the floor which is where he keeps Pandora’s Box. Which is, of course, when John and Michael come in with their guns, tie up Belle and Ariel , and take the box. Belle tries to convince them that they don’t know who they’re working for, but they are quite aware that Pan is their boss and that Greg and Tamara were patsies for their plan, which confuses her even more. They leave with the box. Belle laments about how every time she tries to be a hero she fails (I’m sure Prince Phillip would disagree). Belle figures out that they can get out of the ropes if Ariel gets her fins back, and somehow this words (not sure how considering they were mainly tied up around their chests, but okay). Belle figures out the men went to the mines to destroy the box with one of the dwarfs' pick axes. Belle tries to play on their sympathies by telling them that people they care about will die if they destroy the box, but they tell her they have the same issue if they don’t destroy the box. At least Belle is smart enough to send a coal cart careening their way to stop them from destroying the box. Belle finally convinces them that Rumple will be able to stop Pan, thus freeing their sister, and that’s when we find out, officially, that they are John and Michael Darling. Belle says goodbye to Ariel at the shore and is happy that Rumple will be able to defeat Pan and come home to her.

Neal/Emma/Hook: Oh look, the love triangle no one asked for. Anyway, Neal informs them that he escaped with Pan’s Shadow, but Emma doesn’t think they’ll be able to get it because they can’t get near Pan. Hook informs her his shadow is an entity unto itself, so they don’t actually need to get anywhere near Pan. Neal is actually thankful that Hook is going with them to find the shadow, since he knows the island just as well as Neal. Emma asks Mary Margaret when she’s going to forgive David since she’s still giving him the cold shoulder. Emma understands where David is coming from, not wanting to jeopardize the mission with his problems. Mary Margaret tells her to be careful with Neal and Hook since they both have feelings for her. Emma doesn’t want to deal with that. All she cares about is Henry. The trio head back to Neal’s cave to find the coconut. Emma goes to find where it’s hidden and Hook has a really awkward conversation with Neal about his and Emma’s kiss, assuming that Emma had told him. Neal tries to play it off as Emma being too focused on getting their son back (and also throwing in his face the fact that they have a son together), but you can see the hurt in his eyes that Emma kissed Hook and didn’t tell him, especially after he told her he’d fight for them. Emma brings the coconut to them and Neal says it’s not a star map but a way to trap Pan’s Shadow. Neal tells them they have to go to Dark Hollow. Hook looks frightened, Emma wonders why it couldn’t have a happier name. Hook tells her that it’s basically where the Shadows live and all light is snuffed out. They get to a particularly dense piece of jungle and Emma takes out Neal’s cutlass that Hook gave her in The Heart of the Truest Believer, almost slicing Hook who is behind her. Neal thinks she found it in the cave, but she tells him Hook gave it to her. Hook says he thought Emma might want something to remember him by, but Neal reminds him that he’s there now and goes off to hack the jungle brush. Emma wants to know what that was all about and he tells her he accidentally told Neal about their kiss. Emma wants to know why he would assume she’d told him, and Hook thought that maybe it meant something to her. Poor Hook. He’s really looking for some validation that it wasn’t a one time thing. She tells him that it meant a lot that he told them Neal was alive. He tells her it was a test from Pan, to see if he’d choose an old friend over the woman they both wanted. She’s impressed because he’s a pirate. For the first time, Hook looks upset over being called a pirate, or that Emma only sees him as one. He tells her that when he wins her heart, and he will win her heart, it won’t involve any trickery. It will be because she wants him. And I’m just going to cry in the corner now, because that is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. Emma takes a minute to catch her breath over that confession, and tells him that it’s not a contest. Hook tells her she’ll have to choose and she says she only has to choose how to save her son. Hook tells her she’ll get him back because he’s never seen her fail, and Emma is just glowing from all the faith he has in her, because, let’s face it, no one, especially Neal, has ever had this much faith in her. Neal interrupts their little moment when he’s finally found Dark Hollow. Neal explains that they’ll light the candle in the coconut and the Shadows will be drawn to it. Once in the coconut, they put the lid on and they have a trapped Shadow. Neal tries to light the candle with a Zippo, but it’s too windy. Hook gets impatient and tries to steal the lighter, and then he and Neal start fighting over it like children. Yep, that’s definitely the way to impress Emma. Even Emma calls them out over it. They lose the lighter in the scuffle and then the Shadows come and take the men and try to rip out their shadows. Emma is hunched in a corner of some logs freaking the eff out. Eventually she remembers that she has magic, and after a few false starts, manages to light the candle and catch Pan’s Shadow. She is very impressed with herself. Neal wants to know how she managed to do it and is not happy that Regina is teaching Emma magic. Emma has now gone from impressed to stunned. I find it pretty ironic that Neal left the Enchanted Forest to get away from magic, and now the girl he’s fighting for has it. Emma is pissed off at both Neal and Hook for their behavior. Hook feels the need to tell her that it wasn’t the lighter they were fighting over and she just looks at him like he’s the biggest idiot in the world. She tells them the only person she is choosing is Henry (this always reminds me of the 90210 moment where Kelly chooses herself, rather than choose between Brandon or Dylan). At least both Hook and Neal look properly chagrined. When they get to Tink’s place, Neal comes in like the conquering hero, like he did all the work when all he did was almost get himself killed. Neal and Tink have a lot of chemistry going on there. Maybe he can forget Emma and get with Tink instead. Problem solved. Anyway, Hook angrily states that they did it, and wonders if Tink will now help them (you can tell he’s angry because he’s popping all the letters when he speaks). Tink finally agrees to work with them now that they have an exit plan. Neal apologizes again to Emma and agrees that they need to put Henry first.

Mary Margaret/David: Mary Margaret is not speaking to David and he’s not happy about it, but he knows he’s in the dog house, so he doesn’t push it. While the love triangle goes off to find Pan’s Shadow, Mary Margaret and David head to Tink’s tree house to let her know about the plan. David tried to get her to talk to him, but she’s not ready. He tries to defend his decision not to tell her, but she just keeps heading to Tink’s. David changes tactics by pointing out the nice places in the jungle that he could build a hut. Mary Margaret just gets annoyed by that. She just continues on. David actually calls her Snow to get her attention, and eventually tells her that she needs to say something, anything. That gets Mary Margaret going. She wants to know why she needs to say something when he didn’t say a word to her about his being poisoned. He wanted to find a cure and then he wouldn’t have to say anything and worry anyone. Mary Margaret points out that he was cured and he still didn’t say anything. David finally tells her he was scared. Mary Margaret thinks he was scared that she wouldn’t stay with him, but David was actually scared that she would. He didn’t want to force her to stay with him. Mary Margaret says love means staying together, but David says it also means sacrifice. Mary Margaret says she’ll happily stay and dodge poison arrows and Lost Boys with him, as long as they’re together. She tells him he didn’t believe in them, and he needs to believe. David apologizes. And this is a really sweet scene between these two. It’s no wonder they’re married in real life. They pull off being a married couple so well. It seems these two lovebirds have finally made up.

Regina/Rumple: Rumple has drawn some kind of map to get Ariel to Storybrooke. She says she would have to cross several realms, but she can do it. He enchants a sand dollar for her to give to Belle with instructions. Ariel asks Regina where she’ll find Eric, but Regina tells her she needs to bring the box first, and then she’ll tell her that information. She tells Ariel incentives are important. Ugh! She’s a grown mermaid, not a kid Henry’s age. That was very condescending. Ariel wonders how she’ll know Regina will uphold her end of the bargain, and Regina says she’ll just have to trust her. Considering what Regina did to her last time, I’m surprised Ariel took the deal. Regina and Rumple discuss whether Rumple truly believes Belle will come through for them. Regina realizes Rumple truly loves Belle. She seems shocked that he could love someone. Rumple takes her tone to mean she’s jealous. Regina scoffs at being jealous of Belle, but Rumple accuses her of being jealous that he has someone and she doesn’t. Luckily, Ariel arrives before Regina can either ruminate on her feelings or send a fireball at him. Rumple seems shocked that they actually managed to get the box to him. Regina magicks Ariel’s bracelet so she can have legs whenever she wants. Ariel tells them about Wendy and the Darlings and that Belle wants them to try and rescue Wendy. Regina doesn’t want to stray from the mission to save Henry, but Ariel reminds her that without her and Belle, they wouldn’t have the box to save Henry. Rumple says they’ll do their best and Regina isn’t happy about another side mission interfering with her trying to save her son. Rumple tells Ariel to tell Belle he loves her and will see her again. Regina looks like she isn’t too sure about that last part.

Pan/Wendy: Pan basically manipulates Henry into believing magic is dying and he’s the only one who can save it by making Wendy lie about being sick because of magic dying. Wendy doesn’t like lying to Henry (especially since he’s Bae’s son). Pan finally has Henry right where he wants him.

Questions:

Did Rumple give Belle a spell or a potion? Or was it instructions as to what to do with the potion? Because a spell usually involves some chanting or saying of instructions, and all Belle did was pour the potion into the vein of fairy dust.

Is Rumple drawing a portal map to Storybrooke? How would he know how the mermaid portals work?

Does Ariel normally live in Neverland waters? How does Pan know when she leaves? Is it because she was sitting on the rock?

Ok, seriously, how does Pan communicate with people not in Neverland?

When did Rumple ‘record’ the sand dollar message for Belle? Or is it just a magic message?

When did Rumple have time to set up the hiding of Pandora’s Box and the teacup to activate it? Did he think that Belle would be the only person to have access to it, or was it just a sweet reminder for himself?

Why is it so light in Dark Hollow? When the lanterns went out it didn’t change the lighting level at all.

Why is the Shadow attracted to light? In Second Star to the Right Bae used a match to scare the Shadow into dropping him in the water.

What are the holes for in the coconut? To let the shadow breathe?

How the hell does Belle walk in the mines in 6 inch stiletto heels? I get that they didn’t have a lot of time, but she couldn’t have found a pair of flats or some boots?

Why is Belle always so confused when villains have personal stakes in the game? She had no idea about Milah’s true death in The Outsider with Hook, and now she’s completely stunned that Pan is forcing the Darlings to help him because he has their sister.

How has Pan kept the Darling boys alive all this time? Were they in Neverland until the time was right for them to ‘grow up’?

Why did Pan take Wendy? What purpose does she serve him? He obviously doesn’t care for her like in the books and movies.

Does Wendy really think Henry looks like Bae, or did she just tell him that to help believe?

Observations:

It has been five days since Emma and crew went to Neverland.

I don’t know why, but Belle’s blue nailpolish bugs me. It doesn’t seem in character for her to have blue nailpoilsh.

There’s a teddy bear keychain hanging from the dash of the Darling’s car.

What luck that the Darlings just happened to be trying to get into Storybrooke at the exact time that Belle was casting the cloaking spell.

The Darling’s license plate is from Minnesota.

Ariel’s bracelet is only enchanted for 24 hours.

Pan senses when Ariel leaves Neverland.

There’s a No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service policy at Granny’s.

Emma and crew rescued Neal from the Echo Caves the day before according to David.

Pandora’s Box contains the World’s Greatest Evil.

Emma only yells Hook’s name when the Shadows take him and Neal.

I’m going to assume that it took longer to rip Hook and Neal’s shadows from their bodies because they’re from the Enchanted Forest, whereas when they just ripped Greg’s from his body in a few seconds, it was because he was from The Land Without Magic.

John uses Happy’s axe when he attempts to destroy Pandora’s Box.

Wendy looks pretty good considering she’s been in a box for over a century.

It looks like Pan finally has his plan moving into place, now that he has Henry believing, Emma is not playing into the love triangle at the moment, and both David and Mary Margaret will be staying in Neverland once this is all over. Rumple now has Pandora’s Box, so let’s hope he is able to use it and actually defeat Pan.

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

@searchingwardrobes @thisonesatellite @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @laschatzi @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81 @lfh1226-linda

#once upon a time #once upon a time review #once upon a time rewatch #once upon a time 3x07 #once upon a time dark hollow

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thestraggletag · 5 years ago

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Public Affairs, a Starbucks Series Fic

Summary: Nick and Belle’s relationship is still fresh and new and they both agree the best course of action is keep it private, at least for a while. And Nick is completely fine with that. Totally.

Set a few months after Addiction.

Anon prompted: starbucks prompt: gold sees a colleague of belle taking light office flirting too far

Rating: PG (brief mentions of sex)

Nick hadn’t much minded that Belle was dedicating a lot of her waking hours to her new role as Mallory Ficent’s PA. It was a position to die for (as well as a possible cause of death according to the rumour mill) and Belle had worked hard during her internship to get it. In the interest of avoiding any future misunderstanding she’d disclosed their relationship with her employer. To her credit Mal was of the strong opinion that Belle was her own woman and that who she dated mattered not as long as she was capable of separating business from pleasure. The few times they’d seen each other in public she’d given him a passing withering stare, but nothing more.

Even so he always more than welcomed whatever time alone they could squirrel away for themselves, and it so happened that Belle had texted him about one such opening. A whole weekend to themselves starting Friday afternoon after a business event at Uni Global, one he was also attending. They would discreetly leave together and head to his penthouse for a weekend of old movies, decadent food and drink and unrealistic amounts of sex.

He had made all the necessary preparations. He’d purchased some gelatto from Grom- Gianduia and Fiordilatte, Belle’s favourites, and Tiramisú for him- had added a few promising movies to his Netflix list, had stocked up on eggs and smoked salmon for their breakfast and had acquired a vast array of undergarments and nightgowns from La Perla for when he inevitably lost his patience with Belle’s underthings in the heat of the moment.

The event itself was more of a networking affair than anything else, and it required little of his attention. He was at a stage in life where people wanted to make his acquaintance and not the other way around. His job was to stand and seem approachable or not depending on who was trying to have a word with him. It wasn’t a complete waste of time; hands were shook, vague promises were made and interesting information was exchanged, but nothing that required all of his attention. Which meant, of course, that every now and then his eyes could scan the room and rest upon Mal’s hard-working PA, demurely dressed in a grey Valentino fit-and-flare dress she’d found on sale at Bergdorf Goodman. It was plain but it fit her well and she’d paired it with a red belt and shoes for a little bit of flair. As a PA a lot of her clothes were supposed to be understated, but Mal did not mind if she spiced it up a bit. Nick wagered she liked it. Belle’s backbone was, without a doubt, one of the most attractive parts of her.

She was flitting about the room, making sure everything went as seamlessly as possible, and checking in on Mal every now and then, no doubt ready to estrincate her from mediocre company the moment the older woman gave her some sort of prearranged sign. He often did the same himself. Fidgeting with his pocket square brought Mary Margaret running over with a vague reference to “something that required his immediate attention” every time. Woman had the eyes of a hawk, never missed the signal, which is probably one of the main reasons why he kept her around and paid her so well.

He kept his distance, content with admiring her from afar as she checked in with the catering staff. Every now and then she’d smile his way and that was enough for him. They had agreed that they wouldn’t seek each other out. They weren’t about to hide their relationship but there was no need to advertise it either. A smooth, slow transition into the public eye seemed best.

He frowned when he got a glimpse of Keith Nott, Mal’s Junior VP of Accounting, leaning over a little too much in front of Belle, pointing at the pomegranate pin above her left breast before actually extending a meaty hand to touch it. He had gifted it to her, a souvenir from his two-day trip to Granada. He had bought a lot of things as a way to cope with missing her, and though she hadn’t accepted some of his more extravagant purchases she’d fallen in love with the pomegranate pin at first sight. It irked him to see the buck’s meaty, uncoordinated hands touching it almost as much as it infuriated him to see any parts of Mr Nott anywhere near Belle.

He’d seen him circling her before, like an ungainly vulture. But he’d let it slide because the idiot had at least minded his manners. But as the event had progressed that had become less and less the case. Mr Nott was a new legacy hire, as it were, the firstborn son of one of the big shareholders under Mal. His title was just that, and his main function was to network and schmooze, because the Dragonlady had made it clear there would be no growth opportunities for him within the company. But being young and new it seemed he had gotten carried away with the complimentary champagne going around, a rookie mistake. He would almost feel sorry for him is his new lack of inhibitions hadn’t led him to corner Mal’s PA near the sweets table, using his ridiculously tall stature to loom over her in an almost threatening manner.

They had agreed to keep a low profile, he reminded himself as he strolled over, his grip on the gold handle of his cane tightening when he saw fucking Keith curl a lock of Belle’s hair around his fingers and pull, the gesture likely meant to be playful and suggesting but looking rather painful as he pulled a little hard when Belle tried to take a step back. He bet the lad was not drunk enough to have missed the fact that his would-be conquest was unlikely to wish to call attention to herself, lest she risk the event, so she could hardly tell him off or raise a fuss. Neither could she leave the premises before Mal gave her the okay to do so. Captured prey, as it were. The preference of pampered, spoiled predators. Lucky for Nick he was the big cat around, and no one messed with him or his.

“Everything looks wonderful, sweetheart.”

There was no need to raise his voice, or make a spectacle. He kept his tone soft, an accented burr that usually meant people bent over backwards to try and catch everything he said, lest they inconvenience him. He slipped his free arm around Belle’s waist and kissed the side of her head, catching the faint orange blossom smell of her perfume. She was wearing the scent he liked best on her, the demi-bespoke Fleur Narcotique they had picked together last fall.

“Thanks darling.”

She relaxed against him, warm and soft and completely at ease and he breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a gamble, to be so open without having discussed it, but he’d read her unease well. And, after all, it was all inevitable. Might as well get people used to it sooner rather than later. And it was amusing, really, to see the welp lose all his ill-deserved cockiness and turn white as a sheet. Nick didn’t need to glance towards were Nott Senior was to know the old man was mimicking his son in complexion. Funny how the man hadn’t even batted an eye when it looked like all his young progeny was doing was harassing a woman who could not tell him loudly to go fuck himself.

Keith seemed to pull himself together as much as he possibly could, straightening up and offering his hand.

“Keith Nott, Mr Gold, it’s a pleasure.”

Nick took a step forward, letting the tip of his cane dig deep into one of the man’s Oxfords. He took the offered hand, squeezing hard and smiling sharply.

“I’m sure it is. And I see you’ve met my girlfriend.”

He thought saying the term out loud would make him feel foolish or old, but it didn’t. Though it felt like it wasn’t enough to encompass all that Belle meant to him it filled him with pride nevertheless.

“Yeah, I-”

“And you’ve been following her around. Cornering her in places. Leaning menacingly into her space and the like. Hardly appropriate behaviour in polite society.”

The idiot was starting to sweat, and he was sure he had the eyes and ears of everyone in the room. The threat had been delivered, the message received. No need to prolong the encounter. He snapped his fingers in the general direction of one of Mal’s other VPs, this one a dark-haired Englishman that has been hand picked by the dragon herself. Smart as a whip, and Belle often spoke well of him. Came from humble origins, if his unrefined accent was anything to go by.

“Mr Ravenwood, I believe our friend here has drunk rather a little too much and finds himself indisposed. It would be better for everyone involved if he was escorted out as discreetly as possible.”

There was no way to do anything discreetly, not with everyone staring at them, but it was certainly possible for the company to save a bit of face. Dylan, to his credit, handled the situation with aplomb and, dare he say it, a little bit of relish, taking the taller man firmly by both arms and making it seem like they were engaged in lighthearted conversation as he dragged him away. No wonder he was Mal’s little pet. Kid had potential. No doubt he’d be able to use the incident and a few others to unseat the young Nott in no time. Perhaps he could lend a bit of a helping hand in there.

“Belle, dear, everything’s gone splendidly. I think you’ve more than earned a bit of a head start on your weekend plans. Leave any last-minute instructions with Dylan and then you and I presume Nick can go enjoy yourselves.”

Mal had appeared out of nowhere and he wondered for a moment how it was possible for a 5’9’’ woman wearing ten inch heels to appear without making a sound or being seen. The smile she directed at Belle seemed genuine and reassuring, which put the younger woman at ease. It wasn’t until she was out of their view that she dropped it.

“What the fuck, Nick?”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“I mean the macho posturing that’s gonna be the fucking talk of the town for a week, instead of the project I just unveiled.”

He bristled at her affronted tone.

“Well, I couldn’t very well let a fucking boy green between the ears manhandle Belle. It’s not my fault that you let it go on for as long as it did.” When he saw she was about to defend herself he cut her off. “Oh, I can imagine what this was about. You wanting to get rid of the little idiot, and him causing a scene when Belle was finally forced to slap him or otherwise put him in his place would’ve given you a nice bit of ammo. And Belle, bless her soul, wouldn’t have batted an eye at being used like that. Doesn’t mean I have to like it or tolerate it.”

She scoffed, but she looked like she grudgingly agreed with him. She snatched a vodka Martini from a passing waiter, not ready to give up the fight.

“We need to meet and hash this out properly. Go and enjoy your little weekend of sin as much as your old age allows you to but come Monday we’ll sit down and come up with an arrangement. Do’s and don’ts of sharing Belle’s time and attention.”

“A contract? What an ingenious thought.”

He tried not to let his glee show. Contracts were his purview, his stock and trade. There was no way he’d ever negotiate a bad contract. Mal was going to regret ever coming up with the idea.

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #Thestraggletag fanfiction #starbucks series #public affairs

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ablogthatishenceforthmine · 5 years ago

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My Top 10 Favorite Boardwalk Empire Characters in Order

1. Jimmy Darmody

My baby boy... who I immediately fell in love with in the pilot. The emotional kid, who’s looking to prove himself. I always like young, emotional hotheads. And Jimmy has so many interesting things about him; his relationship to Gilian, to Nucky, to Angela, to Al, to Richard, to the war. He is such a tragic character, and has a fittingly tragic ending. He was just lost and had no idea what he was doing. A perfect, smart, and strategic secondhand man, but didn’t have what it takes to be a boss.

2. Arnold Rothstein

Every scene he is in is a delight. He is badass, smart, and (almost) always in control. He is both eccentric and terrifying. He is electric when he is on screen, commanding attention. He has amazing quotes, saying some of the smartest things in the whole series. Just what a joy to watch.

3. Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano

oh man.... what to say about Charlie. I love every iteration of him. The hot-headed, arrogant man we first meet. Who is never content, always trying to do more and be more, branching off from his bosses, constantly disobeying them. Until he gets fed up with being kicked around, and he learns to see the flaws of his father figures and the other bosses. And he learns from them; their strengths, their weaknesses, their achievements, and their mistakes. And then he becomes cold, and calculating, and highly intelligent in the 5th season. And improves on everyone who came before him, looking forward and coming up with a new way to do things. Everyone underestimated him, and as Nucky says that makes them “dumber than [they] knew” (absolutely in love with that line.) He brought people together, and tore down ideas about who were “his people.” He wasn’t about that tribalism. He was also one of the snarkiest motherfuckers ever. And I love his smart mouth and complete irreverence, especially in the earlier seasons. Also he is pretttttty easy on the eyes, and looks so god damn good in deep blue suits, and he has no right to.

4. Richard Harrow

My heart literally aches everytime he’s on screen. Somehow, even though he probably has the highest body count, he is the most sympathetic character in the show. He is so openly vulnerable, which is such a great contrast to the other characters. I just always wanted him to be happy. Also, he is one of the only (if not the only) character who does not get into the mob for money and status. He get involved because of love and friendship. He is empty and lonely and he is good at killing people so the mob is a natural fit. Even though he doesn’t really have a place there; he just had a place with Jimmy.

5. Eli Thompson

I know this is an unpopular/unusual choice, but I love Eli. He is a fascinating character. I love his inferiority complex. He resents, and is envious of Nucky, but he can’t do what Nucky does. There is a reason for his inferiority complex. Nucky is smarter and more talented than him. Eli hates being in Nucky’s shadow, but doesn’t have what it takes to leave it. Eli is not that smart or that brave. He is not really anything special. And this juxtaposition of an inferiority complex, and actually being inferior is fascinating to me. However, there are many ways, that Eli is superior to Nucky; namely, in his family. Eli is much better at personal relationships than Nucky. Until season 5, he had a good relationship with his wife and family, and never cheated on his wife, in juxtaposition to almost every other male character, until season 5 that is. And his trajectory is both tragic and inevitable. In the end, his punishment, unlike Nucky, is not death, but the loss of the one thing he ever had over Nucky: his family.

6. Chalky White

Heartache and Sass. That is what Chalky brings. He is also a refutation to people who says “you can’t have black people in period films/ shows that aren’t service people or slaves and be realistic.” Despite it being the 20s, Chalky is in a position of power. At the same time, the show does not erase the racism of the time, and Chalky’s blackness and America’s racism are central to his character. In the pilot, after Jimmy tells Nucky that he wants to make something of himself, Nucky replies, “This is America, ain’t it... Who the fucks stopping you.” But as Chalky character shows, for many Americans, there are a lot stopping them. Chalky is not afforded the mobility that Nucky ascribes to America. He is a gangster, but the show illustrates how his mobility and ability to rise to power is severely restricted because of his race. Thus showing, that all black people in period films/shows don’t have to either be absent or servants for the text to be realistic, and can in fact, even be in positions that popular culture don’t believe they could have ever been in. In fact, there were black gangsters during this time period. It is fascinating and enjoyable seeing Chalky try to operate in this world, taking power when he can. Whenever he has leverage (i.e. Nucky desperately needed help), he used it. And he was allowed to be morally complex like the other characters, killing people, and being driven by greed and status (and often putting himself and his own advancement over the advancement of his community).

7. Al Capone

I did not expect the Capone we got... in the best possible way. Similar to Charlie, it was amazing to see his evolution, and how he grew into the person he became. I don’t know if it’s accurate, but I love how he starts as one of the most loyal, and respectful of the right-hand men on the show. Surprisingly, his rise of power was non-violent, and he just took over when his boss retired. Then, he becomes the person that today’s public sees him as: powerful, erratic, violent, and unpredictable. Stephen Graham’s performance is just amazing: one of the best, if not, the best in the show. He perfectly plays all parts and iterations of Capone, and make them all seamlessly and coherently blend into each other. He nails the humor and fun aspects of the character, and absolutely kills the emotional moments, such as him talking to his son before going to jail in the series finale. He was always such a joy to watch, I especially enjoyed the scenes between him and Van Alden. Their dynamic was just gold.

8. Meyer Lanksy

It took me a while for my affection to grow for him. I overlooked him in the earlier seasons, but in the later seasons, and after I finished the show, and couldn’t stop thinking about it, I began to like his character more than I had. He is smart and carefully considers his moves. He is patient and great at reading a situation and discerning the role he should play in it. He, like Charlie, was underestimated by everyone around him. He can be unassuming and quiet, and that's one of the things that makes him dangerous. Meyer often feels like the one adult in a world full of kids, and that’s amazing. His friendship and partnership with Charlie is a highlight of the show. In a show filled with doublecrossing and people fucking each other over, it’s nice to have two people who can completely trust each other, and generally care for the other.

9. Billie Kent

Sweet summer child. She has the best smile and brightens up every scene she is in. Extremely charismatic and likeable. And the show never makes the mistake of making her too pure. She knows who Nucky is and doesn’t care. I wish we saw more of her. I wish she wasn’t fridged.

10. Margaret Schroeder

She quite a while to grow on me. I especially grew fond of her in the later seasons, which unfortunately is when they started to use her wayyyy les. She is smart and witty. And even if I didn’t always like her overall storylines, she has some great moments.

#boardwalk empire #jimmy darmody #charlie luciano #arnold rothstein #richard harrow #eli thompson #chalky white #meyer lansky #Al Capone #billie kent #margaret schroeder #my posts #ablogthatishenceforthmine #he's more than just lucky

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gunmaestro · 6 years ago

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My Problems with Bungou Stray Dogs.

I want to preface this by saying that Bungou Stray Dogs is my favorite animanga. I’m not trying to tell Asagiri how to write the story and I’m not saying these things make it a bad concept--I just wanted to share my criticisms about the show and manga. These things absolutely don’t ruin it for me, and most of them are about the anime only anyway. Note that this list will NOT include the Tanizaki siblings although I do have a problem with their relationship because I’m focusing mostly on storytelling and character analysis. But without further ado, I’ll get into my first criticism. This one, my biggest problem with the series, will be above the cut, but the rest will be under it for length.

Dazai Osamu.

Given that Dazai as an author is a very significant presence in Japan, it’s understandable that he would play a large role in a series based largely upon Japanese authors. The fact that he has a large role is not the reason I dislike him--in fact, he’s been getting a lot less screentime in the manga recently. The reason I view Dazai as a problem with Bungou Stray Dogs is because of his mental prowess which borders on omnipotence.

It shouldn’t come to a surprise that Dazai would play a role in every major arc, given that he’s a main character and all. However, it’s very frustrating and almost boring to have arc after arc resolved because of Dazai. It’s even more frustrating when it’s implied that everything our protagonists do has already been specifically calculated by Dazai, as if their actions are not their own. Having an overpowered character like him makes the narrative seem boring.

At the time of this being written, the manga is in the middle of its arc with the Hunting Dogs and the Decay of Angels. I’m not sure if this is just me, but because of the characters (Ango, Atsushi, Dazai himself) admitting that Dazai had planned for certain events all along, I feel almost no stakes for the arc as a whole. It’s very hard to feel suspense whilst getting constant reminders that everything bad happening is all according to Dazai’s plan. I won’t even bother going into the dick measuring contest between him and Fyodor, either, because I’m sure we all know how that sort of thing can get annoying very quickly in stories.

Dazai being the super genius he is also weakens other characters around him. A striking example of this is Edogawa Ranpo, a character whom I have no problems with at all, speaking in terms of characterization. Ranpo’s entire character hinges on the fact that he is a brilliant detective and the smartest person in the agency--and to people like gifted kids, he’s a very relatable character. It greatly diminishes the quality of Ranpo’s character to introduce the idea that there are characters who know more than him; though Dazai has admitted to not being as smart as Ranpo, the narrative does not reflect this statement. Ranpo as a character works because there is grounds to his bragging--take away his status as the smartest in the series and he becomes nothing.

Similarly, Dazai negatively impacts the characters of Atsushi and Akutagawa. They’re two very interesting characters, but part of the reason they seem to fall flat to me is that they only ever act together when forced into it by Dazai. In fact, it feels like every single character on the side of good in this story would be helpless without Dazai there to guide them--and that makes them far less impactful characters.

Unresolved Plotlines and Bad Math.

Maybe I’m being nitpicky, and I didn’t mind this at first, but there are a lot of cliffhangers and inconsistencies throughout the story. Examples of the latter are easy to come by--Kunikida was initially stated to be a math teacher before joining the ADA, despite being only 22 at the present time in canon. Fitzgerald’s daughter would have been at most 14 at present assuming she was born when Fitzgerald was 18, which is hardly old enough for her to be sent to a boarding school in ANOTHER COUNTRY. These are small, but they somewhat decrease the quality of the story when questioned.

The unresolved plotlines and cliffhangers have a much bigger impact on the story during a time where it is still being released one chapter a month. John Steinbeck’s return has not yet come after two full arcs, despite it being teased by his appearance during Fitzgerald’s return. Going back further, we’ve seen astonishingly little of Agatha Christie--even though she was introduced around the same time as Fyodor.

In smaller cases, there’s the fact that we didn’t get to see what happened with Yosano, we don’t know where Akutagawa is at this point in the narrative, and we weren’t told what happened with the truck containing Margaret. These are small things that won’t be as annoying to read back on once they’re resolved, but having a story set up where everything is left open after every chapter is very disengaging for readers who just want to know what’s going on.

The Anime.

I know what I said at the beginning. The truth is, though, that there’s so much about the anime adaptation that bothers me that I have to summarize it by just saying the anime as a whole bothers me. I’m also aware that it’s very uncommon for mangas to get a perfect, spot-on anime adaptation.. but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a problem with it.

Here’s a speedround of things I don’t enjoy about the anime.

The art style. I’m sure we’re all very tired of the fish-eye lenses, and the weird smiles they’ve incorporated from Dead Apple. This being said, there are times when it looks good, but that doesn’t help the fact that I actually physically cringe whenever there’s a character who’s afraid or overly cocky making a facial expression that reflects this emotion.

The focus on certain characters (Dazai). I’m among the group of people that wanted untold stories to be animated this season instead of Fifteen, because it would have fit better with the plot of the season. The fact that the anime chose Fifteen was a good decision for drawing more attention to the show, since the fans of Chuuya and Dazai are in the majority, but it fits very poorly with the rest of the season. In fact, sorry for the spoiler, but Dazai and Chuuya aren’t even shown interacting in the main season, whereas Fukuzawa plays a major role in the cannibalism arc and Ranpo was visibly shown to have an important connection with him.

The tone. There’s not much to say, here. The anime takes everything very seriously, and one of my favorite parts of the manga are its humorous lines.

The humor. Speaking of humorous lines, they’re always said in a very obnovious way in the anime that makes it seem like they’re trying too hard. This is an opinion rather than an analysis.

The left-out details. Though the conversation between Fyodor and Agatha was not very important to the plot and nor was Steinbeck’s removed appearance in season 3, they both served as teasers for future arcs, and removing them shouldn’t have been completely necessary.

The changes to characters. The Guild is a particular victim of this particular point. Whereas the characters in this organization don’t come off as a completely serious group of people in the manga, they sure do in the anime. Logically, I can understand why this would be done--they’re the arc’s antagonists, and they’re more intimidating if they aren’t funny. But it completely changes some of their characters if you remove certain aspects of their personality.

The Fandom.

It goes without saying that no fandom is perfect, and a lot of them aren’t even good. The Bungou Stray Dogs fandom comprises mostly of s/skk fans, which is unsurprising, but what makes me compelled to put the fandom on a list of my problems with the show itself is how much they completely warp the characters of Dazai and Chuuya.

I know I have a whole section explaining why I think Dazai is a major flaw of the series, but despite that I actually do find his character interesting, if a bit annoying with how big his presence is. I dislike the fandom’s interpretation of him, specifically the way he interacts with Chuuya. Did he not blow up Chuuya’s car? Did he not let Chuuya suffer for a few more seconds just because he thought it was funny? Did he not make Chuuya embarrass himself for no reason other than his own enjoyment? It’s very disheartening to see him portrayed as someone who would never betray Chuuya’s trust and who is completely devoted to Chuuya.

Speaking of Chuuya, he’s probably the fandom’s biggest offense in terms of making a character unlikable. In my particular case, the way the fandom treats him has driven me away from his character, which I actually do like. Because of how often I’ve seen the fandom treat him like nothing more than a blushing tsundere whose feelings for Dazai are soooo obvious, I’m impacted by these interpretations when I read the manga.

To Conclude + A List of Things I Don’t Mind

No, I don’t think the series is bad and I don’t think these listed things make it bad, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t bother me. But since I’ve been nothing but negative, here’s a few things that bother most people but don’t bother me at all.

Mori Ougai. I don’t condone his behavior or “preferences”, but I do not believe he is a problem for the show. He is not supposed to be a good character and, as we see with his behavior towards Yosano, his actions are not portrayed as good. There is nothing wrong with the villain of a series being a p*dophile as long as it is not treated as something positive, which it is not.

Tachihara + The Hunting Dogs. This is a spoiler for the more recent chapters of the manga, but despite the lack of foreshadowing I am not bothered by Tachihara’s reveal as the fifth hunting dog. I also don’t care that the dogs are hunting the agency, because it makes sense, story-wise. The agency are technically international terrorists because of what was written in the book.

Lucy and her supposed crush. Romance is not the focus of the show and, likewise, Lucy’s “crush” on Atsushi is not put at the forefront of the plot. However, I have seen fans get annoyed by the fact that she seems to like him.

I’d like to thank everyone who read this for taking the time to do so. I’m not the most coherent with my thoughts and I’m bad at putting said thoughts into words, but I hope you liked the things I had to say.

#bungou stray dogs #anti dazai #bungo stray dogs #bsd analysis

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