#mari has an 'ill leave first' attitude

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Bound, Part 9

Previous part

It’s funny, in a morbid sort of way, how fast life can go wrong.

A matter of minutes completely ruined him.

And he didn’t even have the warning he usually did. Sure, his phone had chimed about a half-hour prior to warn him that an akuma had been spotted. Bruce had given him that Look he always did when Tim ‘forgot’ to turn his ringer off of silent while they were on patrol, and he gave a falsely sheepish smile as he pulled his phone from a hidden pocket and quickly turned it off.

But he hadn’t known that Ladybug had found the akuma, much less that she had started fighting it.

Usually, there was a quiet buildup of anxiety and fear and tension that gave him a sort of warning. A passing blow that would tell him to brace himself.

But no. He was just lucky that he had been on a rooftop at the time, trailing just behind Bruce as the pair of them grappled from place to place in search of crime to stop, because if he hadn’t then he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from falling three stories.

Not that he would have realized that he had done so until long after the fact.

The pain was blinding. Thorough training kept him from crying out, but he still found himself on his hands and knees, tears pressing against the inside of his mask in a desperate attempt to escape. He could vaguely recognize a voice, someone he knew was trying to speak to him, but it was impossible to make anything out over the ringing in his ears. It was pain unlike anything he had ever felt before, even worse than that night at the dinner table where he had thought his veins had been filled with liquid magma, because now it was centralized. It had chosen a spot to eat away at, instead of evenly distributing it, and he was forced to deal with the fact that he felt as if someone had just stabbed him in the face with a hot knife and then started twisting. He curled his fingers into his skin, gloves scrabbling against his cheek as if he could physically drag the pain away from himself, trying to tear it out from the source.

And then it was over. He slumped against the concrete, scratching up his chin in the process but that was nothing compared to what he had just endured.

“Robin?” A gravelly voice started carefully.

He tried to blink the water from his eyes so he could see who was leaning over him – not that it mattered, friend or foe, it wasn’t like he would be able to do much to get himself out of the situation if someone wanted to fight him – but quickly gave up on that. He, instead, focused on who in his life might have sounded like that. He mulled over the tone a couple of times in his head.

“Robin,” the person said, more insistent this time.

His breath caught in his throat.

It was with mounting horror that he realized who was leaning over him. Because if Bruce saw him here, could see the remaining scars of whatever stupid magic thing had accosted his soulmate – because Tim, out of some twisted sense of nostalgia, hadn’t been able to convince himself to opt for something that wasn’t the classic domino mask to hide his identity – then that meant…

“Do you have something to tell me?”

Tim breathed a shaky sigh. “Can’t we do this when I feel better?” He tried, weakly. He still couldn’t bring himself to sit up, his body felt dead (maybe his soulmate had actually died again… with an injury like that he wouldn’t be surprised) and all of the anxious energy he had expected to have in this inevitable moment didn’t come to be. He wanted to go back to Wayne Manor and curl up by the fire and drink Alfred’s hot cocoa and listen to Dick’s stupid puns and tease Bruce for being socially awkward and…

He wanted to experience all that one last time.

He wanted to have a home, if only for just one more day.

A careful finger poked his cheek and Tim hissed, his hands curling against the concrete roof.

The finger dragged along his cheek before it was pulled back so Bruce could inspect it. His lips pressed into a thin line when he found nothing had rubbed off. The inky, crackling blackness that had opted to wind its way over the side of Tim’s face was underneath the skin.

“You have a soulmate,” Bruce said. It wasn’t a question.

It was quiet. Tim wondered if he could get away without ever having to confirm it. The silence was damning in itself, surely, so Bruce should have known. But the man had always been one to aim for straightforward answers and confessions whenever possible, and Bruce was patient in a way that Tim couldn’t bring himself to be after the ordeal that still sent aftershocks rippling under his skin.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Bruce was quiet again. Maybe he wanted an explanation. Maybe he was just gathering his thoughts.

Tim used the moment to force himself up into a slightly more dignified sitting position, even if he still opted to hunch in on himself with his cape pulled tight around him.

“You’re putting someone else in danger,” Bruce accused.

“She does it too,” he mumbled, but it wasn’t an argument that Bruce would listen to or care about. “Hence the…” He waved vaguely to whatever it was that had marred his face.

Bruce didn’t seem moved. “Did you ever get her verbal consent?”

Tim couldn’t say a word. He’d been given ‘Permission’ when Ladybug had gone out on the streets and started getting injured in ways that Tim couldn’t even dream of replicating, but that was after Tim had become Robin, so the argument wouldn’t hold up. Hell, Bruce would probably argue that she had become Ladybug as revenge, so she could even the playing field bond-wise, so that would be considered his fault too.

He gritted his teeth. “No. We’ve never talked.”

Bruce gave a shaky exhale. “You lied to me for months. Endangered not only your own life, but someone else’s – someone who never even consented to it – and both of you are children.”

“You needed a Robin,” Tim said, glowering at him.

“No amount of me needing a Robin should have justified this in my mind, especially not for as long as it did,” sighed Bruce, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But I’ll make up for it now: Tim, go home.”

And Tim wanted to tell him that this was the closest he had ever gotten to a home.

But it wasn’t like Tim had ever really learned how to argue with those he loved. He was never listened to whenever he tried to defend himself. And he had been expecting something like this for years now, had always known that the family provided by the Bats was temporary, had always kept his soulmate quiet because he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to continue the moment he was found out.

So, really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone when he pressed his lips into a thin line and turned away, heading back towards the place he had grown up.

~

Marinette wasn’t quite sure while the pain had stopped, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She didn’t know when it would come back, being productive while she could was the key.

And, yes, she found herself suddenly unable to get out of bed in the morning for reasons that she was almost completely sure weren’t due to her, but she was a being of pure spite at this point, especially when her soulmate was involved, and she was going to finish this or so help her god she was going to march over to her soulmate and deck them.

Actually, she thought as she forced herself to roll onto the floor. It was always the hardest part, forcing herself to move that first bit and get out of the safety of her bed when all she wanted was to burrow and hide until she withered away into nothing. Maybe I should do that anyway. Not like it’ll be hard to find them with this stupid string following me around.

The thought pulled a wry smile to her lips, however shortly. Her facial muscles pulled strangely. When was the last time she smiled outside of when she talked to victims?

A minute chill ran through her at the thought. She quickly moved on, pushing herself up and towards the dresser.

And she went about her day. She had started helping Chat on patrols now that she was physically able to do so without (too much) worrying about whether her soulmate was going to suddenly get stabbed.

Now, patrols weren’t exactly necessary, not really. Their phones would notify them the moment an akuma appeared regardless of whether they stepped outside, but they weren’t actually looking for akumas. No, they were looking for the butterflies that came just before.

As they started to narrow in on a location, she noticed Chat getting antsier and antsier. If she was even marginally more paranoid, she might have thought he was a traitor, but the rational part of her brain still worked sometimes. She had died before, and if he really was a traitor she wouldn’t have been brought back, much less given her her miraculous back when he had.

That didn’t change the fact that she knew he was keeping something from her, and that it was putting her on edge. He had never bothered with secrets before, exempting their secret identities, so whatever it was was big. On par with the secret identity stuff, at least, and he had the same amount of skittishness when talking about it that he did when they talked about their personal lives.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he lived somewhere nearby and didn’t like the fact that Hawkmoth was so close.

She never got to find out, though.

Because they traced Hawkmoth to the Agreste household (she was pretty sure they were models or something, she had seen Adrien Agreste’s billboards all over town). Apparently, the place had a secret basement that Gabriel Agreste used to farm his butterflies and generally act evil in. It even had a coffin, complete with the man’s wife laying prone inside.

Marinette tried to make a joke about how the place was a stereotypical evil lair, but Chat had seemed… absent.

Not so absent that he couldn’t fight. Hawkmoth, for some dumb reason, clearly hadn’t expected them to find him, and he hadn’t been prepared. In the end, the fight only took about ten minutes. A large amount of the akumas were harder to fight, and she thought it felt strangely anticlimactic. Of course, it was better this way, but…

She sighed, leaning against a railing, twirling the brooch in her hands. It looked so simple, and yet it had caused more destruction than most of the supervillains she could name. It was relieving to find it in good hands – her hands – once and for all. When the kwamis were done getting their revenge, she would hand it off to them, and they would be officially free to do whatever they wanted.

She was exhausted, and the completeness of the situation had done nothing to help with that. She knew she should be happy, or, at the very least, relieved, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to even pretend to smile.

She cast her eyes over the edge of the railing, to the abyss below. She couldn’t see the bottom. She wondered, idly, how far down it went. And then how much it would hurt to hit the ground – or if it would even hurt at all.

Marinette straightened and forced herself to walk to the middle of the platform.

That… was just her soulmate’s newfound depression bleeding into her, right? Like, sure, she was losing what had pretty much been her sole purpose in life for the past few years, but she shouldn’t be so upset that she was wondering about that. She liked being alive. There was no other way to be.

At least there was plenty to distract her here.

The kwamis were… not pleased with Gabriel Agreste, not in the slightest, and she grimaced when a wet crunch met her ears.

Her gaze flicked away. Both her and Chat Noir were detransformed, but she couldn’t seem to look directly at his face. Every time she did, it was like her eyes slid right off. She took in aspects of his clothes, like the fact that his outfit was expensive or that she was pretty sure she had seen it somewhere before, but only briefly before those thoughts slipped away like water spilling between her fingers.

Still, she registered that his shoulders were shaking just fine.

Maybe the kwamis’ brutality was throwing him off?

She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Uh, guys, I think he’s dead,” she piped up.

There was one more sound that reminded her a bit of tearing wet paper, and a minute shiver ran through her, but then it was over.

“He will not harm us anymore,” Tikki said, their voice strangely low in comparison to the almost ear-splitting high tones they usually spoke in.

Marinette flashed an awkward thumbs up, nodding. “So… are we done here?”

“Nope,” the new kwami (Nooroo, she was pretty sure they were called) piped up.

Her shoulders went tense. “Sorry?”

The kwami chuckled. “It’s nothing bad. I’d just like to reward you before you go. Give me a wish, and I will do my best to grant it.”

Marinette stared, blankly. A wish? How could he ask someone like her for a wish? Could she get her soulmate severed from her? But then what would that leave her with? She had never particularly been able to care for much else. Terrible as it was, the anger she felt over her soulmate and the injustices surrounding that was the only emotion she could really feel nowadays.

Chat Noir pushed himself to his feet, and even if she couldn’t really see him, she recognized the determined set of his shoulders as he closed the distance between himself and the kwamis.

“I want the entire world to forget everything about Hawkmoth and us. Including me.”

Marinette went very still. She looked at Chat Noir with wide eyes, but he didn’t look back at her. There was a set to his jaw.

The kwami pursed their lips thoughtfully. “I can’t completely make them forget, but I can remove the emotions from the equation, which should make everyone struggle to recognize it as real. Like a dream, or the mandela effect.”

“I don’t care how you do it,” Chat said, his voice shockingly cold as he shoved his ring at Plagg. “I just need it done.”

“Then it will be done,” the kwami said. It turned to Marinette, now. “And you? Would you like to forget, too?”

She slowly reached up and pulled the earrings from her ears. “No,” she said. Because, as much as it pained her to know that her friend was leaving her, and no matter how much she wanted to avoid that pain like the plague… she also recognized that it was better. For her. She had no clue why Chat felt the need to do this, but it served as a great reminder. Getting attached to people never ended well for her. They would always leave her, so why bother with the heartache? Why not just leave first?

Unless…

She eyed the earrings in her palm. She had control over Tikki, sort of, and if she wanted to she could make it so the kwami would never leave her.

And then her eyes found the lump that had once been a person.

Not worth it, she decided.

She steeled herself and looked at the kwami. “I want to continue being able to see and interact with magic.”

The kwami gave her a mildly confused look, but she pointed to the string spooled at her feet and it seemed to understand as much as an immortal, invincible being could.

“It will be done,” it said again.

She nodded and handed the earrings and brooch over.

The kwamis disappeared in a flash of light.

The pair of ex-heroes watched where they had gone for a moment, silent.

Marinette was the first to break out of the quiet stupor that they had been put into. She headed towards the elevator that would bring her back to the surface. Soon, it would be nothing but a bad dream for Chat, and a bitter memory for her. Chat didn’t snap out of it in time to get in the elevator with her, and thanks to the magic cloaking their identities she couldn’t make out the devastation on her face.

She stalked the halls of the Agreste mansion. If she couldn’t find a door then she was going out the window, just to spite a dead man.

But, disappointingly, she found her way to the door. She hated intuitive layouts. She forced her way through it, but a hand managed to catch the door before she could slam it shut behind herself.

Chat was in the door, panting slightly, looking like he had run from the elevator.

“Coccinelle, I –,” he tried.

She dodged the hand that reached for her, but threw up a lazy hand to wave behind herself as she continued back towards home.

“See you never, Chat Noir.”

~

Tim turned over in bed when his phone got a notification, squinting at the light permeating the relative darkness of the room.

He considered, for a moment, whether he should just let it be.

And then he sighed to himself and picked it up. Wondering if it was his parents. Or the bats. Bad habits die hard, he supposed.

… why did he have duolingo?

He opened the app and found that he had an over hundred day streak. His eyebrows furrowed. Why had he done that? And why was he continuing it after Batman had stopped making him learn other languages?

(Had stopped making him do anything at all, really.)

He shook his head to himself. He knew he had to have had a reason, there was no way he had just suddenly gotten a passing interest in learning French, especially since he could no longer really remember doing it… but whatever.

The streak was over a hundred days long at this point, he might as well continue, if only for the sake of having something to do. At least he didn’t have to get out of bed to do it.

~~~

Next part

@laurcad123

[cimness]

New[-to-me] type of Pretending to be Married trope just dropped

Source: the British film Young Wives' Tale (1951), a romantic comedy (misogyny warning), based on a 1949 play of the same name by Ronald Jeans.

Premise: due to the post-war housing shortage, a young married couple are renting out rooms in the house they own, one of them to another young married couple who have a toddler close in age to their daughter. Even though the renters are home all day (a writer and an actress-turned-homemaker), they can't manage between them to watch their own toddler, and the homeowners' nanny quits in a huff over being asked to watch a second kid "as a favor". (I gather they don't bring up sharing the salary because the writer doesn't make enough money to afford it.) The house is thrown into disorder and homeowner Mary hits on a solution: pretend the toddlers are siblings so that the next nanny won't see anything wrong in watching them both. She gets an old-fashioned retired lady and due to Comedy Circumstances, the new nanny gets the idea that the two couples are married the other way around, and they have to continue to pretend after lying to her the first time to keep her from quitting.

While Homeowner Mary is combing the park for nannies to poach, renter Rodney has been reacting to the chaos (his wife is very ADHD), rather than helping, by being angry and going on sexist rants at his wife because she can't cook, clean, and care for both toddlers in the house with him without making noise. He's made her so unhappy that she ends up crying and homeowner Bruce walks in and is trying to comfort her; he's just got done telling her that he thinks her inability to cook is charming because her ADHDness is "womanly", and the fact that she's terrible at housework and is doing it anyway when she was quite a succesful actress shows a touching desire to Be A Good Wife (in contrast to his wife, who is too organized and efficient and not emotional enough) and she kisses him right as the new nanny walks into the room.

At this point I really thought the movie was going to end with the couples switching, because they seemed so obvioiusly ill-suited. Homeowner Bruce resents his wife for not wanting to quit her job and stay home and finds her too cold and unemotional. He admires renter Sabina's absent-mindedness and mood swings (and desire to stay home) as "womanly". Homeowner Mary is exasperated with his attitude. Renter Rodney is intolerant of his wife's absent-mindedness (and harangues her for everything, including a bunch of stuff that is his fault), but admires homeowner Mary's efficiency and ability to remain cool and handle things. Renter Sabina is made miserable by her husband's intolerance of her anbsent-mindedness and moods. They SHOULD have switched. In fact, I think if a movie like this came out in the 1980s or later they probably would have.

Instead they end up apologizing to each other. The homeowner man who was making such a babyish fuss that his wife kept her job only needed to be told that she really does have emotions but she finds it hard to express them, and as soon as he sees her cry he is magically transformed. The renter guy has a fit of jealousy (not about the homeowner guy - there's an old boyfriend who remains her friend) and after he gets over it she's like "I really do TRY to cook and do housework" and he is suddenly like "Oh I know it's okay". Not a very good ending. The comedy pace only survives because of a couple of scenes where the nanny catches people kissing their spouses and declares it's a house of infamy and quits.

Of course it's pretty much impossible to set this any later in time than that, at least in any setting I know of. I keep trying to think of any way to adapt it, but the setup where something bad will happen if an outside observer finds out the real couples is so hard to duplicate now - especially one positioned to see what bedrooms people enter and leave and potentially present at any meal.

[cheerfullycatholic]

Angelus, February 4th 2024

Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!

The Gospel of today’s Liturgy shows us Jesus on the move: indeed, He has just finished preaching and, after leaving the synagogue, He goes to Simon Peter’s house, where He heals his mother-in-law; then, towards the evening, He goes out again towards the city gates, where He meets many sick and possessed people and heals them; the morning after, He gets up early and goes out to withdraw in prayer; and finally, He sets out again across Galilee (cf. Mk 1:29-39). Jesus on the move.

Let us look at this continual movement of Jesus, which tells us something important about God and, at the same time, challenges us with some questions on our faith.

Jesus goes towards wounded humanity and shows us the face of the Father. It may be that within us there is still the idea of a distant, cold God, indifferent to our fate. On the contrary, the Gospel lets us see that Jesus, after teaching in the synagogue, goes out, so that the Word He has preached may reach, touch and heal people. By doing this, He reveals to us that God is not a detached master who speaks to us from on high; on the contrary, He is a Father filled with love who makes Himself close to us, who visits our homes, who wants to save and liberate, heal from every ill of the body and spirit. God is always close to us. God’s attitude can be expressed in three words: closeness, compassion and tenderness. God makes Himself close to accompany us, tenderly, and to forgive us. Do not forget this: closeness, compassion and tenderness. This is God’s attitude.

Jesus’ incessant walking challenges us. We might ask ourselves: have we discovered the face of God as the Father of mercy, or do we believe and proclaim a cold God, a distant God? Does faith instil in us the restlessness of journeying or is it an intimist consolation for us, that calms us? Do we pray just to feel at peace, or does the Word we listen to and preach make us go out, like Jesus, towards others, to spread God’s consolation? It will be good for us to ask ourselves these questions.

Let us look, then, at Jesus’ journeying and remind ourselves that our first spiritual task is this: to abandon the God we think we know, and to convert every day to the God Jesus presents to us in the Gospel, who is the Father of love and the Father of compassion. The Father who is close, compassionate and tender. And when we discover the true face of the Father, our faith matures: we no longer remain “sacristy Christians”, or “parlour Christians”, but rather we feel called to become bearers of God's hope and healing.

May Mary Most Holy, Woman on the way, help us to proclaim ourselves the witness of the Lord who is close, compassionate and tender.

[islestea]

Part 7. The hockey players and the madonna complex.

Hi, I'm back for another week and today I'm not going to talk about wags, but I'd like to tell you something that I've been thinking about for several days, it's related to the topic of women, I came up with a theory talking to a friend, I still have many doubts and of course I would like to know your opinions on the subject. Before I start I want to tell you that this is just out of curiosity, in part I am basing myself on many things that have been said here on tumblr so take everything I say with a grain of salt, I am just a psychology student who Many doubts arise and many theories arise, at no time do I have the intention of offending anyone or insulting or speaking ill of anyone, I only seek to share the things that suddenly come to my mind.

Basically I want to talk to you about how I have the theory that hockey players (or well, many men in general) have the Madonna complex, don't worry if you don't know it, I'll explain it to you later.

How did this thought arise?

Putting a little context of why I relate this theory, a few days ago as I mentioned I was talking to a friend who also likes hockey, her favorite player is Mat Barzal and she has clearly seen all the rumors that circulate here about his reputation with women, the islanders I think they had just arrived in Boston and fans went to meet them at the hotel, one of the fans had the opportunity to meet Barzal and told her experience on twitter and mentioned something like it had been very nice, he takes his time to talk with the fans, they talked for about 10 minutes, one of the friendliest of the team, he usually remembers you if you run into him on more than one occasion, basically she said that she had a very pleasant experience meeting him, and previously i have heard before very similar experiences from fans where they say that Mat is a very nice person and gets along very well with the fans.

Today while we were watching the game of the NY Islanders against the NJ Devils my friend sent me a link that I will leave you below in case you are interested in reading it so that you understand more what I am talking about, where someone who work for the isles organization says that after doing the media interviews, in the last game of the Isles which I think was against Columbus if I'm not mistaken, Barzal was the last to leave since one of the girls who worked within the organization had commented that it was her last day working for the team, to which he wanted to stay until after finishing to say goodbye to her and thank her for all the work and effort she had done for the team.

After seeing all this, my friend wondered how a person with a "bad reputation" could be like that, and the truth is that I also kept thinking. This is not limited to just talking about Mat Barzal, but hockey players in general, since they have more or less the same reputation. My friend and I also wondered how they can have certain attitudes towards certain women and certain attitudes towards others, and the truth is that at first I didn't understand it either until I remembered this information I saw a while ago, about the madonna complex.

Now what is the Madonna complex?

And to be clear, when we talk about the Madonna-whore complex, we're not talking about that Madonna…The Madonna Whore Complex shows us a dichotomy, designed under the assumption that those women who deserve respect, wives or mothers, the Madonnas or "Saints", are not seen as sexual beings. While those who are sexually desired are promiscuous, embarrassing and sinful, the "Whores". These concepts under the understanding that a woman cannot present herself with both qualities, she must be classified in one or another box because it does not show the possibility of conceptualizing a woman beyond these two categories. In Italian "Madonna" refers to the Virgin Mary, that holy, maternal, pure and beloved woman.

This idea was theorized by Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, in the early 1900s through psychological studies of sexuality. Freud puts forward the idea that many men had difficulty respecting a woman in whom they could see their sexual desires reflected, while they were not attracted to one they loved or respected.

“Freud argued that the Madonna–whore complex is caused by oedipalcastration fears which arise when a man experiences the affection he once felt for his mother with women he now sexually desires. In order to manage this anxiety, the man categorizes women into two groups. Women he can admire and women he finds sexually attractive. Whereas the man loves women in the former category, he dismisses and devalues ​​the latter group.”

I am not going to go into many details regarding the development of the theory but if you are interested in knowing more about it I will leave you with different sources at the end where you can read a little more about it, and understand a little more about the point I want to get to and if I get there to find some study I will also leave them at the end.

Basically the madonna complex says that the man categorizes the woman into two sections she is pure or she is a whore, he cannot see the pure woman with sexual desires but he cannot respect the woman who openly expresses her sexual desires. and you will wonder how all this is related, this is where my theory comes from, I started thinking about the concept of this complex and personally it made me logical, we could say that in this case the fans are "Madonna" I don't mean that they literally see them as pure and chaste, what i'm trying to say is that representatively they would be giving them this role by putting them as that stereotype of "purity", adding that in the end they are the ones who consume the sport and who contribute to them being paid and blah blah blah which reflected their "good" attitude towards them being friendly and very good people, compared to the women with whom they express their sexual desires, being women who share these desires are not seen with respect in the eyes of them, which in the same way represents the attitudes that they express towards them after satisfying those needs, which leads to the bad experiences recounted by the women themselves.

And that is what my theory consists of and for me it makes sense, I don't know for you tell me what you think, you agree, you don't, maybe none of this is true and I only see things where there are none, you tell me, I hope you like this post and make you think, again I'm not looking to offend anyone just open our minds a little more and the panorama of what we know, and I know many will tell me, girl, freud's theories have already been disqualified by many experts, believe me I know, as I told you, I am a student of psychology, but they are theories that are still present in society and although they are disqualified, I think it is not bad to know them either just to know the different theories that at some point have constituted this science.

And beware, this is not only applicable to hockey players, but I think it can help us to reflect on how society is working today, I use the players as an example because otherwise we will never finish talking about the subject with the infinity of examples where we could apply it, I believe that we all have positive and negative aspects and our environment is the one that decides which to focus on, my recommendation is always to question everything you see, do not believe everything you see on the internet, and then give us respect among all, above all. Next week I will be back with Wags I still have some things that I would like to talk about them, maybe I will put this on the list of wags I still have not decided.

I repeat as I said above I leave here the post that I mentioned that I read about Barzal in case you are interested in going into more context about that, and I also leave you some sources that speak in detail about the Madonna Complex.

Mathew Barzal showing on-, off-ice maturity late in Islanders’ trying season — Kevin Kurz, The Athletic

Definition of the Madonna complex according to APA

The "Madonna-Whore complex" and retroactive jealousy

The Madonna whore complex puts women un danger

Madonna whore complex- PennState

[kajaono]

Persuasion trailer analysis

This analysis. Of course contains SPOILERS!

Careful LONG post!

1. The opening:

In the scene Wentworth already wears his Captain uniform. So we can assume this is actually the finale scene where they came back together. Also including Annes wish to return to Lime. Maybe the movie even starts with this scene? So going full circle in the end

2. A further proof this isn’t past but actually the ending of the movie. Is this moment below:

I am not a 100% sure but we see Sir Elliots back here and Wentworth doesn’t wear a captains uniform yet... so this could actually be the past. I am just wondeirng why he looks completly similar to his 8-years-later look... but anyway

3. Sir Elliot

They replaced the amount of mirrors he had in the book, leaving only one, with a huge amount of pictures of himself. He even looks at a picture of himself, when he says: “exquisite jawline.” The director probably thought the audience is too dumb to understand that he has a lot of mirrors to always see himself, and made it more obvious with a lot of pictures. You would be surprised but sometimes the audience like to think a tiny bit and not get EVERYTHING explained and being super obvious...

3. Little Charles

Little Charles heals extremly fast in this adaptation. He is already well again when Anne meets Wentworth for the first time after 8 years. This also explains this picture:

I guess the paper hat Charles wears is a reference to the 1995 movie (if the directors made an effort to watch that movie), which means the captain probably showed him how to make that hat. Even though we still do not have any news IF the captain and his wife will be in the adaptation.

But this also means... we will again not get the scene where Wentworth saves Anne from the children being all over her...

4. Charles

I think Charles is a cutie and i will not accept any critique on that point. BUT remeber the guy in the BTS pics having a walking cane? It is Charles. See below:

And this is Harville.

So my boy Harville is in the movie!

5. Mary:

I know they tried to capture Marys: “I only care for myself”-attitude with that scene. But instead of being always ill and wanting all attention, this comes off bitchy imo. Which she was... but not like that. More like the scene in the 1995 adaptaion where everyone is happy to go to the beach and she whispers: I hate the beach”

6. Too early, part 1

This scenes all belong together. They just meet, at this point Anne shouldn’t be able to look at Wentworth... or leave alone talk with him

7. Too early, part 2

When Anne screams Wentworths name he is the Great House, i think? Why is she screaming his name?! Again, Anne shouldn’t be able to do that

8. I think those scenes belong all together or “too early, part 3″

This is definitly in Lime. So we have Anne standing dramatic on the beach without a blanket. Wentworth bringing her a blanket. Them having a heartful conversation. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again”. Here you can see the blanket on her should while Wentworth is standing by her side. Connection the different pictures with eachother. Wentworth leaves. Looking sadly at her. Anne having they - CENSORED - line and looking away, not noticing Wentworth looks at her.

But why do they have such a deep conversation? is that supposed be them accidently ending in the “friendzone” by being honest with eachother? But why? WHY? This is not how any of this works

9. Elliot/Wentworth face off

This is honetly a scene I am excited for. Jealous Wentworth who directly confronts Mr. Elliot while the others are still around.

The conversation goes: “Can I help you with something?” “Considering what I’d like help with, probably not” Already giving his evil nature away, right away. The dircetors really thought their audience is dumb and need everything explained right away. Subtext? We do not know her

10. Wentworth will write the letter. We already see it in the trailer

If the guy next to Anne is Harville, they are having their “who forgets faster?”-talk and Wentworth writes his letter. Consering how sad Anne looks, they probably had a fight to justify why Wentworth writers a letter in an adaptation where they talk so much with eachother. And that is the dress Johnson wears in the BTS pictures where she is kissing the actor of Wentworth

11. P&P reference

Yeah, we got it.

12. Bunny

Just why?!

[drosera-nepenthes]

A Royal Recluse: Princess Clotilde

Just at the time when, in consequence of the weakness and folly of the republican government, certain French Monarchists are looking to Prince Victor Napoleon Bonaparte as the possible savior of their country, the Prince, whose marriage to Princess Clementina of Belgium recently brought him before the public, was watching by the deathbed of his mother, Princess Clotilde of Savoy, who breathed her last on June 25. The story of this royal lady is a pathetic one and, apart from the interest that is attached to her as the mother of the imperial candidate to the French throne, her personal character was one of rare beauty.

She was the daughter of Victor Emmanuel II, first King of Italy, and of Adelaide, Archduchess of Austria, and was born at Turin on March 2, 1843. Her mother died in 1855, leaving five young children, of whom Clotilde was the eldest, the others being Humbert, the future King of Italy ; Amadeo, Duke of Aosta ; Maria Pia, the queen dowager of Portugal, and a son who died in childhood. The Queen of Sardinia (Victor Emmanuel had not at that time laid violent hands on the independent states of Italy) was an exemplary wife and mother, and her orphan daughters were carefully educated by the attendants whom she had placed about them.

Never was a princess more ruthlessly sacrificed to political interests than the eldest princess of Savoy. When a mere child of sixteen, Clotilde was chosen to cement the alliance between France and Sardinia, and was promised in marriage to Prince Napoleon Jerome, nephew of Napoleon I and first cousin Napoleon III, the reigning sovereign. Princess Clotilde was connected with the Bourbons, her very name was French and was given to her in memory of the French Princess Marie Clotilde, sister of Louis XVI, who married a King of Sardinia ; but allied as she was by close ties of blood to the Bourbons, she had nothing in common with the Bonapartes who occupied their place, and a more ill-assorted couple never existed than the middle-aged, violent, cynical and free-thinking Prince Napoleon and the daughter of the most ancient royal house in Europe, who traditions and surroundings were strictly conservative and religious. Their marriage took place at Turin on January 30, 1859. The bride was sixteen and the bridegroom thirty-seven. He had a handsome presence and was intelligent and well informed and well informed, but neither his private life nor his freely expressed opinions on public matters made him estimable or lovable. His attitude with regard to his cousin, the Emperor, was one of constant opposition, and it was reported that his anti-religious views led him to take part in the banquets organized by a group of free thinkers on Good Friday. Under the Second Empire the French Government was officially Catholic, and Prince Napoleon's hostile and aggressive attitude was pronounced ill-bred, if not worse. Throughout France he was distinctly unpopular.

The young bride, married to this unsympathetic nephew of the great Napoleon, probably had few illusions as to the sum of happiness that awaited her in her new home. There are still some old men living who remember her when she took possession of the Palais Royal, Prince Napoleon's Paris house.: a slight, pale girl, with fluffy, fair hair and bright eyes, not pretty but singularly attractive. Her high breeding stood her in good stead in the somewhat parvenu atmosphere of the Court of the Tuileries, she had a royal dignity all her own, and her simplicity of heart was combined with much quiet firmness. From the first she ordered her life according to the principles in which she had been educated. An early riser, even at the Palais Royal, she gave much time to prayer and to works of mercy, but her piety, says M. Emile Ollivier, a former minister of Napoleon II, “never made her tiresome or intolerant. She believed that the most useful sermon was the practice of the virtues that are taught by faith.” Her husband, although so widely apart from her, acknowledged her goodness. “Clotilde is a saint,” he sometimes said ; “if there were many like her, I believe I myself should end by becoming devout.”

When the disastrous war of 1870 brought terror and shame upon France, the Princess was in Paris. During that fatal month of August every day came news of a fresh defeat, and the revolution that was to break out on the 4th of September was already distinctly perceptible; the infuriated and terrified people made the imperial government responsible for the reverses that so keenly wounded their patriotic pride.

Princess Clotilde was alone at the Palais Royal ; her husband was with the army, her three children she sent to Switzerland, where Prince Napoleon had an estate; but she steadily refused to leave Paris while the Empress Eugénie remained at the Tuileries. There was not much personal sympathy between the two; it was Princess Clotilde's feeling of loyalty that chained her to the post danger as long as there was a semblance of imperial government in Paris.

In vain her husband wrote imperious messages bidding her join her children at Prangins; in vain her father sent the Marquis Spinela to Paris to escort her ; the Princess so yielding in everyday life, was unbending in her decision to remain at the palace as long as the lonely woman at the Tuileries was the nominal ruler of France ; she had shared the splendors of the Empire, and it went against her noble spirit to desert the Empress.

The letter this young woman, a stranger in a strange land, wrote to her father on August 25, 1870, has been quoted by the French papers. It is a right royal letter worthy of the daughter of kings:

“I am a French woman,” she says. “I cannot desert my country. When I married although so young, I knew what I was doing and if I did it, it was because I wished to do so. The interest of my husband, of my children and of my country require that I should remain here. The honor of my name, your honor, my dear father, and that of my country also demand it. Nothing will make me fail in what I believe to be my duty to the end... You know that the house of Savoy and fear have never gone together, and you would not wish that they should meet in my person.”

At last, when the Empress was driven from her palace by the mob, the Princess considered that she was free to follow, but how different was the departure of the two women!

The brilliant and beautiful sovereign, closely disguised, was only able to leave Paris owing to the assistance of her American dentist, Dr. Evans; her young cousin made her exit as a princess. In an open carriage, accompanied by her lady in waiting, she drove to the railway station in broad daylight. The excited people, awed by her courage and dignity, saluted her as she passed out of their sight, a truly royal and saintly figure.

Princess Clotilde lived for some years at Prangins, near Geneva, where she devoted herself to the education of her three children; then, when her husband was allowed to return to France, the difficulties of her married life were such that by mutual consent she retired to the Castle of Moncalieri, near Turin, with her young daughter. Here, in the home of her childhood, she spent nearly forty years. They were years of peace, largely marked by sorrow. Four times only did she emerge from her retreat, once in January 1878, when she heard that her father lay dangerously ill in Rome. She had suffered cruelly from the spoliation of the Holy See by the house of Savoy, and the remembrance of her father's part in the matter prompted her to fly to his bedside. On the way she heard that he was dead, and she sadly returned to Moncalieri. In 1891, she again started for Rome, this time to visit her husband, who lay dying at the Hotel de Russie. Those who saw the Princess during those solemn days can never forget her sweetness, earnestness and gentle patience. What passed between her and Prince Napoleon none can tell, but Cardinal Mermillod a frequent visitor to the sick room, professed himself satisfied, after two private interviews, that the dying man was fully conscious. The Princess, whose married life, it is well known, had been a via crucis, remained near him to the end, praying incessantly for the soul that probably owes its salvation to her intercession. Again in 1903 and in 1904, she left Moncalieri to visit her sister-in-law, Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, whose deathbed she attended.

Her life, as it neared the end became more and more that of a recluse. Her sons lived their own lives in Brussels and in Russia; her daughter, having married a Prince of Savoy, was near to her, and their visits, occasionally brought an element of joy into the silent castle. Last autumn, Prince Victor Napoleon's marriage to the Princess Clémentine of Belgium gladdened his mother's heart. It was celebrated at Moncalieri, and to those who attended the ceremony the most striking figure present was the slight, gray-haired lady, plainly dressed in black, whose eyes had the far-away look of those who are nearing the eternal shore. Even in the days of her youth Princess Clotilde's spirituality struck M. Emile Ollivier. It gave her, he says a singular insight into all questions that touch on right and wrong; she possessed the gifts of the true mystics, “who judge human affairs with a clearness and rectitude born of detachment.” Her chief link with the outer world during the long, silent years of old age was her love for the poor, to whom she gave royally, with a loving kindness that made her gifts more precious. Their grief was great when they heard of her death, and their prayers will follow her remains to the royal mausoleum of La Superga, near Turin, where the daughter of the Sardinian Kings sleeps with her ancestors.

America. United States, America Press, 1911.

[curious-wildflower]

Silent Hill 2- 1993

We play as James Sunderland who has just arrived in Silent Hill after reviving a letter from his wife who had died 3 years prior of a chronic disease

The letter claims that Mary is waiting for James in their "special place", which confuses James, as the whole town of Silent Hill was their "special place". He does note that the letter is written in Mary's handwriting and is aware James of a promise he made to only her promise to return to Silent Hill with her, but he never fulfilled.

After leaving the town's observation deck where he parked overlooking Silent Hill and walking to Silent Hill, James enters a graveyard and meets Angela Orosco, a nervous young woman who came to the town to search for her missing mother.

She warns him that there's something "wrong" with the town and that it could be dangerous, but he ignores her warnings, saying he doesn't care if it's dangerous and that he plans on finding his missing someone too.

When James reaches Silent Hill, he discovers that it is not the same, beautiful town it was a few years ago. In addition to the bizarre, omnipresent fog, the whole town seems to be rotting away and abandoned. Macabre, vaguely humanoid creatures are roaming the streets and attempting to attack James whenever possible. When he discovers that the path to his first destination, the lakeside Rosewater Park, is blocked, James needs to pass through an apartment complex to reach what he believes could be the "special place" Mary mentioned in her letter.

Outside the apartments, James briefly encounters a little girl, who steps on his hand before running away.  

Soon after that in the building he finds Pyramid Head, he hides in a closet as Pyramid Head abuses and slaughters two monsters known as Mannequins.  

James starts shooting from his hiding spot which makes Pyramid Head leave but is encountered again in the apartment building next door, where it proceeded to attack him, he’s unbeatable and only leaves after a siren starts to sound.  

Eddie Dombrowski is vomiting into one of the apartment toilets when James meets him.  

Eddie defensively responds to questions regarding a corpse in the refrigerator of the apartment room. James soon finds Angela again laying front of a large mirror, contemplating suicide with a knife in her hand. James persuades her to hand him the knife for her own safety, and she flees in an unusual panic to resume her search for her mother.

After James leaves the apartment building, he finds the girl he previously met humming to herself on a wall. He confronts her in frustration, and she reveals to James that she knows Mary and that "he never loved her anyway" before jumping off the other side of the wall before James can respond.

When James finally reaches Rosewater Park, he meets a woman named Maria, who he first mistakes as Mary due to her nearly identical looks, but showing off more skin and possessing more of an arrogant attitude.  

She decides to follow James in his attempt to reach his second suspected spot Mary alluded too as their special place due to it not being safe all alone, while traveling with her she reveals insight into matters that only he or Mary would know and acts in a very seductively towards James.  

They arrive at the Lakeview Hotel that he and Mary once stayed at.

James enters Pete's Bowl-O-Rama, where he meets Eddie again. He also spots the little girl who is verbally abusing Eddie but runs away upon seeing James. Eddie then reveals that her name is Laura. Outside, Maria claims to have seen Laura and, out of concern for her, has James try to pursue the girl.

After passing through Heaven's Night, James and Maria see Laura enter Brookhaven Hospital and follow.  

While exploring the hospital, Maria becomes sick and insists on resting in a room while James goes on, he finds Laura further on, but loses his temper with her when she claims to have known Mary for the past year as she has been dead for the past three. Laura lures him into a room under the pretense of looking for a letter from Mary and locks him in with the monsters known as Flesh Lip.

After they are defeated, the hospital undergoes a sudden dramatic change to the Otherworld, where James returns to the hospital room to find Maria missing. James later finds Maria in the hospital's basement; however, Maria becomes incensed, claiming that James had abandoned her and that he doesn't seem to care to see that she's alive after presumably dying. After she calms down, they continue to search for Laura. Pyramid Head appears and chases them through the hospital's basement, slaughtering Maria while they attempt to make their escape via an elevator. Alone again James decides to refocus on his original task of finding Mary. He leaves the hospital and finds a key buried beneath a statue in Rosewater Park, which leads him to the Silent Hill Historical Society.

The Historical Society has two levels: Toluca Prison and a labyrinth, in which Pyramid Head resides. In this area, James finds Maria, somehow alive and locked in a prison cell, who talks about memories of Mary.  

Maria claims that they were simply separated in the hospital basement and that she had not been killed. James tells her that he will free her, but upon reaching the other side of the cell, he discovers that she has been mysteriously murdered. From a newspaper article, James discovers that Angela killed her father, who sexually and physically abused her under the complicity of her mother. James saves her Angela from a monstrous representation of her father known as Abstract Daddy, after which she becomes hostile.  

Angela expresses her distrust in James and men in general, as from her experience they were "only after one thing". She also calls James a liar who "didn't want Mary around anymore" before leaving.

Near the end of the labyrinth in a walk-in meat locker James finds Eddie, who has snapped after a life of bullying and verbal abuse by his peers due to his physical appearance and weight. Eddie reveals he killed the dog of a bullying football player and then shot the dog's owner in the leg. It’s clear he’s snapped and says he’ll kill the next one to laugh at him. James, the idiot, asks Eddie if he's "gone nuts", prompting a fight, leading to James killing Eddie in self-defense.  

James now having a breakdown from having taken someone’s life starts to question his perception of the events leading him here to Silent Hill, the letter that he supposedly received from Mary goes blank, indicating that it never actually existed. James exits the labyrinth and rows a boat through dense fog to the Lakeview Hotel in hopes of finding Mary.

In the hotel's restaurant, James finds Laura, and she gives him the letter she claimed to be seeking earlier, which reveals that Mary and Laura know each other from the hospital and how Mary wanted to adopt her but due to her illness couldn’t also confirming Laura's claims of knowing Mary for the past year.  

In Room 312, James watches a video tape he apparently left at the hotel three years ago, which shows that he killed his terminally ill wife by smothering her with a pillow. For a few moments, James silently sits in face of the truth and his guilt. Laura, ready to leave the town, finds James, and he chooses to reveal the truth to her. Laura is furious at him for killing Mary and screams she hates him, then she runs away. The radio James has comes to life with a message from Mary, asking him to find her.

James explores the rest of the hotel, discovering that it is decrepit and rotting and is now nothing more than the remains of a building that has experienced a fire. James then finds Angela on a burning staircase, vacantly standing between two Abstract Daddies (symbolic of her dead father and brother.)  

Angela asks him to return her knife so that she can end her life, James refuses. As Angela ascends the burning staircase, James states that the room is "hot as hell", to which she replies, "For me, it's always like this", meaning that her life was always a living hell. Angela disappears upstairs beyond the flames, presumably to kill herself.

In the hotel lobby, James finds Maria resurrected again, bound and screaming for James's help, but she is immediately killed by two Pyramid Heads.  

The whole point of Pyramid Head is that he’s there to remove the visions from James’ mind to make him face the truth of what happened to Mary, they have been created to punish him for his sins. James fights them and when they are sufficiently weakened, they impale themselves with their own spears, as to indicate that their purpose had been fulfilled.

James is led to a hallway, where he listens to a previous interaction that Mary and he had while she was still alive. In the situation, James had brought Mary flowers, but she refused them, yelling that she's too disgusting to deserve flowers. By the end of the conversation, Mary desperately pleads for James to be with her. The memory ends, and James then enters a large metallic complex with a long staircase. At the top of this staircase, on the roof, he finds ‘Mary’ who transforms into a monster after becoming angered by James.  

Upon defeating her the game ends.

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

What do you think Elizabeth leaving the room in such an abrupt way in her final scene in "The Tudors" mean? I think it could be something like "your last words to me are just to look after Ed? Nothing about us? Really? I've got no time for your shit, you mom-killer, egotistical bastard, I'm leaving". But what do you think? It's quite ambiguous. I'd dare to say Laoise Murray played a very ambiguous Elizabeth...

Yes, Laoise Murray’s Elizabeth is a very interesting character, and I must say I’m very attached to her because this show and Elizabeth’s portrayal in it was the first thing that drew my attention to and evoked my interest in the historical figure herself (honestly, it’s possible that without The Tudors and Laoise’s Elizabeth my personal studies of Elizabeth would never have started).

On the one hand, she seems an underdeveloped character because the showmakers didn’t give her much to do but on the other hand...I think in that little screentime that was given to her character it can be seen that the show portrayed her guarding her feelings and keeping a lot of important things to herself as the real Elizabeth did.

Take for example the scene with Mary after the execution of Katherine Howard where Mary comes to Elizabeth and tells her that Henry has restored them to the succession. Mary is excited but we can tell by Elizabeth’s reaction that she is not. She is neither impressed nor happy which provokes Mary’s question aren’t you pleased and Elizabeth instead of telling Mary what bothers her after a little pause raises her head and smilingly gives Mary a diplomatic answer - yes, Mary if you are pleased then so am I. Mary thinks that the act of their father means that he loves them both and she says it to Elizabeth, but Elizabeth doesn’t answer to it instead she immediately notes the possibility of Mary becoming queen some day. It’s evident to me that Elizabeth doesn’t believe as Mary does that their restoration to the succession proves that Henry loves them, and it’s only when Mary again notices her downcast eyes and asks what’s wrong we finally learn that Elizabeth is troubled by the execution of Katherine Howard and even then she doesn’t state it openly to Mary but through her announcement that because of what happened to Katherine Howard she will never marry (which in reality she said to Robert Dudley but whatever). Henry may have restored them to the succession and made an opportunity for her to become queen someday but he has also killed Katherine like her mother before - and it matters to Elizabeth a lot, the former doesn’t erase the latter and she won’t forget it. This scene is so Elizabeth.

Another interesting scene is Henry’s interaction with Elizabeth at Anne of Cleves’s house. Her speech of how she is grateful to Henry feels really performative, as if she has learned the lines what a dutiful daughter should say to her father and now is simply reciting them hoping that she gets them right. And she is hiding behind the book! And she gets applause as the actress performing on the stage. I have seen people commenting on that scene that Laoise is wooden, stiff, nervous, unconvincing, and a bad actress but I think they miss the point entirely. I think the scene contrasting Elizabeth’s words with her posture and the manner of uttering them is meant to show Elizabeth’s distance from her father and her lack of real warmth towards him. She honours him as a father and king because it’s her duty but that’s about it. Which her final scene confirms, in my opinion.

I think her final scene is meant to show her real attitude towards Henry. Like, the spectacle is over, father, you are done and I remember everything. The deaths of her mother and Katherine Howard, everything Elizabeth has witnessed, the suffering he inflicted on her and others - nothing is forgotten, nothing is forgiven. And because of that she can’t be sorry for him, he has done too much and so she goes on to live her life. That’s how I understand this scene.

That, of course, doesn’t mean that the show Elizabeth is some little Machiavelli who lurks behind the shadows and fools everyone. No, she is genuinely friendly with Mary, she constantly accompanies and cares a lot for Edward which we can see when he falls ill, she enjoys dancing and learning. And it feels accurate.

Also, I love Laoise’s different facial expressions (see here and here)!

[keyders]

PHQTASK 001: ROOTS

damla keyder / mother, 68.

damla anday was 21 when she followed her boyfriend to america and eloped there. she hadn’t been in touch with her family since she took his last name. it didn’t matter, though, because she was in love and was ready to start a family with him. his dreams were now hers.

damla is not very open about her emotions and rarely ever shows them. she’s quiet and reserved and very stoic but those who know her would describe her as kind and generous and nurturing. they are not wrong. 

she is now a retired elementary school teacher, still moonlighting as a music tutor every now and then. with her husband’s recent passing, she needs all the distraction and time away from the house that she can get. 

hasad keyder / father, 72. deceased.

born to a turkish-albanian family, hasad came to america when he was only 25 to, like most immigrants, pursue the american dream. hasad loved all things america: he watched all the movies, followed all the sports (his favorite was american football, which is probably the most american you’re ever going to get) in hopes that it would make it easier for him to acclimate to the culture.

he and his then-girlfriend turned future wife and future widow got married in cincinatti and had their first child there before moving to a small nearby town called pleasance. hasad put up a general store called ‘keyder’s’ and was the main source of income for his family for several years before george alby would buy out the building and establish what is now known as the pleasance general store under new management and staff. 

dismayed but never discouraged, hasad looked for other means to make a living. he turned to carpentry for a while but was mostly a truck driver who delivered produce from cincinatti to pleasance. 

for those who knew him before a mysterious illness had him bed-ridden for a better part of a year, hasad was a very lively and optimistic man. he was friends with virtually everybody, liked to make people laugh, and never turned down a neighbor in need.

he passed away in january 2021.

wayne gürel keyder / eldest child, 40.

named after john wayne. wayne is an in-house electrician at the nouveau hotel and resort. he gets his workaholic tendencies from his father and his stoic demeanor from his mother. he’s definitely got the ‘big brother tough love’ thing down and is very protective of his siblings. he will openly express disappointment and anger towards his siblings but not so much affection. he will do anything for his family, though.

he is married and has three children: gamze, moses, and jason.

montana kivanç keyder / middle child, 30.

named after joe montana. a sad clown meme.

marilyn safiye keyder / youngest child, 25.

named after marilyn monroe. being the only girl and the youngest child are already special feats in themselves. needless to say, mari has always been spoiled. unlike montana, who received all of his brother’s hand-me-downs, whether they be clothes or toys or school textbooks, everything that marilyn owned was brand new. she never let it get to her pretty little head, though. she was a very giving child, probably to a fault. while she loves both of her brothers dearly, she’s admittedly much closer to montana than she is to wayne. they both shared similar interests and had the same attitudes and behaviors. being closer in age probably helped, too.

like montana, she had plans of leaving pleasance to pursue her studies. she’s always dreamt of becoming a nurse. she received the full support of her family (and probably only about half form wayne, who was very much a Man of Pleasance), but those plans quickly became spoiled when she got pregnant at the mere age of 20. knowing that she would not be able to support a child on her own, her mother married her off to the father of the child, who happened to be a businessman from toledo. they got married in court and moved in together, found an apartment they could share in toledo. a few weeks later, she lost the baby.

mari remains married to her husband and is sending herself through nursing school as an occupational therapy aide. she often visits her family in pleasance and has plans of divorcing her vanilla ass husband soon.

[shy-magpie]

RQG 156

live blog under the cut

Heads up about half way through I realized I go a bit further into analysis on where Zolf & the Kobolds are mentally than some people might be comfortable with. Just as they trust us to back off if the episode gets to real, I am trusting you to close the tab if my little live blog is hitting you wrong. If it makes a difference I have years between me and the reason I relate to this stuff.

"In Memorium" they are trying to kill us Ah they lampshaded the speed intros Yes Alex it is rather Paris Right to Azu & Zolf. Oh he's jumping right in. And there's my first pause of the episode. No “better” isn't a magic finish line you pass then never find yourself in that place again. No, knowing that doesn't mean you don't wonder if your back at square one every time you realize You Are In A Bad Place and Not Handling it Well. Gosh Azu is good at this. Yeah learning to walk away is hard. Learning to ignore the part of yourself that says "and never come back for their sake" is harder. Symbolic much Alex (Zolf is too small for the room, Azu is too large) Yeah it would be easier to not blame Zolf for last episode if I related to him a bit less. Okay they are talking about Hamid and their concerns for him directly. Yeah Hamid's relationship with power & privilege is an arc; and without the Doylist level of trusting Bryn & Alex, I can see where even if you trust/like him you'd be worried about it. With the best of intentions people misuse power. Azu quoted Grizzop at Zolf. Didn't name him, wonder if Zolf is ever going ask directly about his replacement in canon or if its best left to fic. Its easy to dismiss one's own successes. Okay fair and OW, Zolf isn't up to talking about Sasha; which is the part of this I was most prepared for. Hell yeah! He is coming down but not going to be attempting to lead so as to relieve pressure on himself. Maybe if he can let Hamid step up without making a Kew Garden thing he'll see how much he's grown. Hopefully without that setting off a "Hamid does better without me" thing. Yeah intellectual knowledge and it feeling real on an emotional level are very different things. Alex, why does it matter what order they are in? ALEX? The necklace? The Heart of Aphrodite shaped necklace? Azu got a Sign from Aphrodite approving of her reaching out to Zolf as an act of love. Yes! Blue Black no take backs! Yeah those two (players) know exactly what they are doing: breaking my heart in the best ways and not skipping over the actual work those two (characters) need to put into their relationship with OOC "its all fine now"s. Ok that settles the timeline, Azu went up same night, the device isn't made yet. Yeah Zolf wouldn't, probably best to back off while things are tender while being present enough to assure he isn't planning on leaving. Seriously bless Azu, this has to be at least as hard on her as Helen but she is letting the boys have room to work it out for themselves instead of "trying to help". The last thing either of them need right now is pressure especially on this point. Aw the Kobolds teach Cel draconic. Oh smart kid, not only is it just logical for the Kobolds to work with Cel directly, it might help them get over the "looking to see if the boss approves of how you breathe" stage. Especially if he is clear about not being threatened by them having advantage over him in this area. Heck of a relief this isn't hitting my rank issues. Ooh all the Kobolds are amazing engineers, wonder if its a Kobold thing or if Skraak recruited people with similar interests. Nice rework of the "Kobolds build traps" thing from pathfinder. I genuinely love how instead of pitching the original description of Kobolds out the window, Alex has backwards engineered it. Reputation for traps isn't a dishonorable approach to fighting, its a sign of their skill. They aren't minions, their trauma is interacting with a cultural attitude about rank in weird ways. Oh Cel! Cel is amazing. Under Shoin's orders they: made Magic Steroids, did maintenance (more towards the end as Shoin wasn't taking care of things), built the place initially, sourced ingredients, other Kobolds built the Mechkraken. Damn Shoin, they can't even be proud of all they were able to do in adverse circumstances because he tainted it. If they weren't forced to do it and have it used for ill ends, building the kraken would be impressive. A lot of that sounds like difficult work. Hamid stuff: yeah it is from a place of fear; and they would be hypersensitive and need to try to "defend him" so he doesn't react. Terrified of his anger? Handle anything that even annoys him to cut it off at the pass. And being a good person who doesn't like scaring them, Hamid is going to over do the very "Mary Sunshine" routine that makes Zolf think he doesn't appreciate the gravity of the situation. You'd think Mr "do a grief later" would get that Hamid doesn't have to walk the halls wailing to be aware of the end of the world. Not that the kid can win, if he cried and threw up it would be proof he hasn't grown from season one. Hopefully by taking a back seat Zolf will have a chance to see Hamid's actions and realize being chipper & wholesome doesn't mean stupid. Oh Alex has thought this through, one of these days I'll quit being surprised he actually gets this stuff. Not being able to read the person whose emotions feel like life & death is a Bad Thing. Thank Alex for Skraak. Weird seeing this stuff from this side, of course learning to focus on my end instead of being preoccupied with what was going on in the heads of people who were on Hamid's end of it was rather the point. Perfect balance, Hamid gives them enough space to realize he isn’t going to explode, Skraak "translates" into something clear enough not to stress them out. Like when Zolf snapped at Skraak when he pledged to Hamid; might not be pretty but not knowing what The Powers That Be want? Very bad place. Rank and clear orders are very important when appeasing those who outrank you is everything. Cel has dealt with a lot of young and unsure apprentices!?! Yeah well Cel isn't in their chain of command and gears don't get offended if you have an opinion on the right way to configure them. Cel is great Azu & Hamid talking about Zolf! Helen is wonderful! I thought this was going to be drawn out and indirect, instead they are actually facing things head on and dealing with them. Aw these two are so good for each other. Azu would set aside her own emotions. Hot damn Azu, getting right to it! Hamid can be amazingly open about his self awareness and it surprises me every time. It fits him and is a very good thing, but going from answering "how are you?" with "the Kobolds are doing well" to "I never knew how to help him" without it being jarring made me do quite the double take. Guess I was expecting more deflection. Yeah well you two are redefining your boundaries, entire relationship, and rank in specific, while being the perhaps the only people with enough of the picture to figure out how to save the world. Working out the balance between conflicting views on that, when neither of you knows what the end will look like was never going to be smooth. Oh yes and none of you have directly addressed that half of Zolf's rank & dick measuring stuff is because he doesn't know if he even has a role if he isn't The Boss or The Healer.* Oh the grin in Alex's voice as he tells them there is something else before the brorb interview. Whisky tumblers for each? Quite a sigh there Ben News? Big news? While they were in the institute? They ought to sit down. Wilde get to it. Ah Azu & Hamid are holding hands. Poor kid with his prop. Letter? Ancient Rome? Sasha? Are all the fics coming true? Their founder "Askingus"!?! Oh Sasha, oh Zolf! Lydia! Oh the kids! She named the kids after the party. She even found her faith. A break? How the hell are we only half way through the episode. Also hell yeah Lydia deserves all the awards, that was an amazing letter. XD Ben! Oh Hamid, we reacted that way to the epilogue that way too. It really is okay, it was a good end. Yeah he could use a drink. Poor Zolf. Hamid gives Wilde a hug. "technically I think that makes Sasha my boss". XP be cryptic Alex, The RSB will have it figured out by Friday. Ok Zolf got to read the letter on his own. Azu lit 3 candles, because Helen wants me to cry. Hamid is at Zolf's door with a bottle and two glasses. Lydia this is a compliment to your skill. More direct than I expected from Hamid. Oh these two! Okay he is drunk enough to go there (angry at Zolf for leaving but he gets it). About time someone told Zolf directly he's grown. Aw Zolf puts him to bed. Thank you Alex! Ben! (okay fair, if any of Hamid was left he'd cuddle). Sorry Cel! Lydia wanted to break/heal our hearts more than she wanted the plot to move forward ;) Good plan: take the orb to the anti magic field, only those who have already talked to it can talk directly. Info control. Hive mind/telepathy directly addressed. Finally what Shoin eats is addressed. Ok Cel has some teeth on them. Hasn't fed it, is using the vibration to threaten to explode his brain, (no English doesn't have enough pronouns we are working on it)... Oh good point better feed it. Aw Zolf is possessive of the kitchen. Shoin is still Shoin. Cel is not happy about not being recognized. Nice to hear the boys working together. The Infection might block him from being directly aware of  being infected. Bullsh$% he backed himself up. Good point Zolf even if he does, they are separate lives, this instance can still fear death. Oh all the party have teeth, nice they don't have the "good guys have to be sweet & gentle with the baddies" thing Yeah Cel isn't stupid, the brorbs arm isn't a threat. Oh auto painting that will make the people theorizing on the bio side of how the Brorb works happy. A circulatory diagram, and am ocean of faces. Paints like a printer. A creepy charcoal sketch of London staring at the artist. *I swear on Rusty Tower if they let him hurt himself any worse because he thinks his new role is "a brick wall on wheels" I am joining the line to fight Ben in a Whetherspoons parking lot. Yes it would be in character but so would healing. There are other hills. Although seriously its been great having a character that shows so many of the aspects of depression that usually get left out. That Zolf is also a three dimensional character with a full personality beyond just "the one with mental health issues" while not making it look like those issues are tacked on or easy to handle? Stunning work.  

[lizzy-tudor]

“Maria de Salinas was lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon, and one of her closest confidantes. Although we know little of her origins, she was the daughter of Juan de Salinas, secretary to Katherine’s eldest sister, Isabella, and Josepha Gonzales de Salas. Despite the fact that she was not on the original list of ladies, drawn up in 1500, chosen to accompany Katherine of Aragon to England for her marriage to Prince Arthur, it seems likely that she, and her sister Inez, did come to England with the Spanish princess. She may have been added to the princess’s staff when her mother, Isabella of Castile, increased the size of Katherine’s entourage in March 1501.

Maria was one of the ladies who stayed with Katherine after her household was reduced and many returned to Spain, following the death of Katherine’s young husband, Arthur, Prince of Wales, in 1502. She stayed with the Spanish princess throughout the years of penury and uncertainty, when Katherine was used as a pawn by both her father, Ferdinand, and father-in-law, Henry VII, in negotiations for her marriage to Prince Henry, the future Henry VIII; a marriage which was one of Henry’s first acts on his accession to the throne. Maria is included in the list of Katherine’s attendants who were given an allowance of black cloth for mantles and kerchiefs, following the death of Henry VII in 1509; she was then given a new gown for Katherine’s coronation, which was held jointly with King Henry in June of the same year.

In 1511 Maria stood as godmother to Mary Brandon, daughter of Charles Brandon – one of the new king, Henry VIII’s closest companions and her future son-in-law – and his first wife, Ann Browne. Katherine of Aragon and Maria were very close; in fact, by 1514 Ambassador Caroz de Villagarut, appointed by Katherine’s father, Ferdinand of Aragon, was complaining of Maria’s influence over the queen. He accused Maria of conspiring with her kinsman, Juan Adursa – a merchant in Flanders with hopes of becoming treasurer to Philip, prince of Castile –  to persuade Katherine not to cooperate with the ambassador. The ambassador complained: ‘The few Spaniards who are still  in her household prefer to be friends of the English, and neglect their duties as subjects of the King of Spain. The worst influence on the queen is exercised by Dona Maria de Salinas, whom she loves more than any other mortal.’¹

Maria was naturalised on 29th May, 1516, and just a week later, on 5th June she married the largest landowner in Lincolnshire, William Willoughby, 11th Baron Willoughby de Eresby. William Willoughby was the son of Sir Christopher Willoughby, who had died c.1498, and Margaret, or Marjery, Jenney of Knodishall in Suffolk. He had been married previously, to Mary Hussey, daughter of Sir William Hussey, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. The King and Queen paid for the wedding, which took place at Greenwich, the Queen even provided Maria with a dowry of 1100 marks. They were given Grimsthorpe Castle, and other Lincolnshire manors which had formerly belonged to Francis Lovel (friend of Richard III), as a wedding gift. Henry VIII even named one of his new ships the Mary Willoughby in Maria’s honour.

Maria remained at court for some years after her wedding, and attended Katherine at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. Henry VIII was godfather to Maria and William’s oldest son, Henry, who died in infancy. Another son, Francis, also died young and their daughter Katherine, born in 1519, would be the only surviving child of the marriage. Lord Willoughby died in 1526, and for several years afterwards Maria was embroiled in a legal dispute with her brother-in-law, Sir Christopher Willoughby, over the inheritance of the Willoughby lands. Sir Christopher claimed that William had settled some lands on Maria which were entailed to Sir Christopher. The dispute went to the Star Chamber and caused Sir Thomas More, the king’s chancellor and a prominent lawyer, to make an initial redistribution of some of the disputed lands.

This must have been a hard fight for the newly widowed Maria, and the dispute threatened the stability of Lincolnshire itself, given the extensive lands involved. However, Maria attracted a powerful ally in Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and brother-in-law of the King, who called on the assistance of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry’s first minister at the time, in the hope of resolving the situation. Suffolk had managed to obtain the wardship of Katherine Willoughby in 1528, intending her to marry his eldest son and heir Henry, Earl of Lincoln, and so had a vested interest in a favourable settlement for Maria. This interest became even greater following the death of Mary Tudor, Suffolk’s wife, in September 1533, when only three months later the fifty-year-old Duke of Suffolk married fourteen-year-old Katherine, himself.

Although Suffolk pursued the legal case with more vigour after the wedding, a final settlement was not reached until the reign of Elizabeth I. Suffolk eventually became the greatest landowner in Lincolnshire and, despite the age difference, the marriage does appear to have been successful. Katherine served at court, in the household of Henry VIII’s sixth and last queen, Katherine Parr. She was widowed in 1545 and lost her two sons – and heirs – by the Duke, Henry and Charles, to the sweating sickness, within hours of each other in 1551. Katherine was a stalwart of the Protestant learning and even invited Hugh Latimer to preach at Grimsthorpe Castle. It was she and Sir William Cecil who persuaded Katherine Parr to publish her book, The Lamentacion of a Sinner in 1547, demonstrating her continuing links with the court despite her first husband’s death. Following the death of her sons by Suffolk, Katherine no longer had a financial interest in the Suffolk estates, and in order to safeguard her Willoughby estates, Katherine married her gentleman usher, Richard Bertie.

The couple had a difficult time navigating the religious tensions of the age and even went into exile on the Continent during the reign of the Catholic Queen, Mary I, only returning on Elizabeth’s accession. Katherine resumed her position in Tudor society; her relations with the court, however, were strained by her tendency towards Puritan learning. The records of Katherine’s Lincolnshire household show that she employed Miles Coverdale – a prominent critic of the Elizabethan church – as tutor to her two children by Bertie, Susan and Peregrine. Unfortunately, Katherine died after a long illness, on 19th September 1580 and was buried in her native Lincolnshire, in Spilsby Church.

A widow since 1526, Maria de Salinas, Lady Willoughby, kept a tight rein on the Willoughby lands,proving to be an efficient landlady. Unfortunately, the fact she took advantage of the dissolution of the monasteries in order to lease monastic land; a business arrangement, rather than political or religious, but it still made her a target of discontent during the Lincolnshire Rising.

Maria had remained as a Lady-in-Waiting to Katherine. She was known to dislike Anne Boleyn and, as Henry’s attitude towards Katherine hardened during his attempts to divorce her, in 1532 Maria was ordered to leave Katehrine’s household and not contact her again. By 1534, as Emperor Charles V’s ambassador, Chapuys, described it; Katherine was ‘more a prisoner than before, for not only is she deprived of her goods, but even a Spanish lady who has remained with her all her life, and has served her at her own expense, is forbidden to see her.’²

When Katherine was reported to be dying at Kimbolton Castle, in December 1535, Maria applied for a license to visit her ailing mistress. She wrote to  Sir Thomas Cromwell, the King’s chief minister at the time, saying ‘for I heard that my mistress is very sore sick again. I pray you remember me, for you promised to labour with the king to get me licence to go to her before God send for her, as there is no  other likelihood.’² Permission was refused, but despite this setback, Maria set out from London to visit Katherine at Kimbolton Castle, arriving on the evening of New Years’ Day, 1536 and contrived to get herself admitted by Sir Edmund Bedingfield by claiming a fall from her horse meant she could travel no further. According to Sarah Morris and Nathalie Grueninger, Katherine and Maria spent hours talking in their native Castilian; the former queen died in Maria’s arms on 7th January 1536.³ Katherine of Aragon was buried in Peterborough Cathedral on 29th January, with Maria and her daughter, Katherine, in attendance.

Maria herself died in May 1539, keeping control of her estates to the very last. She signed a copy of the court roll around 7th May, but was dead by the 20th, when Suffolk was negotiating for livery of her lands. Her extensive Lincolnshire estates, including Grimsthorpe and Eresby, passed to her only surviving child, Katherine and her husband, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Maria’s burial-place is unknown, though there is a legend that she was buried in Peterborough Cathedral, close to her beloved Queen Katherine.”

[feymaid]

can i get a shitpost of ur DA2 fam? i am bummed out that no one is critical of characters anymore n i need a pick-me-up... :(

OF COURSE!!!! Thank u for asking ;o; (These got a bit longer than the last oop)

1) Luanna Hawke (Uli’s Aeducan’s world-state) ~

She was my first Hawke! She has a primarily purple/blue personality. 

. She worked as a mercenary during her first year in Kirkwall! Luanna gets a whole lot stronger and develops a thicker skin when working with him since she is a very emotional person. Her emotions don’t go away, but she learns how to better mask her emotions with humor to cope. She was extremely close with Bethany, much more so than Carver. Since both her and Bethany were mages, they often trained together, and Luanna was prone to leaving Carver out of her life. She still loved him dearly but it wasn’t until Bethany died and Luanna realized that Carver’s anger towards her felt justified. This was devastating to her and she tried everything she could to get the two of them to be closer, including taking him to the Deep Roads. Carver became a Grey Warden thankfully, but it was very hard for her to see him go. She romanced Fenris! She was drawn to him because Luanna’s self-confidence and will to better herself was extremely low when they met. She found his drive and passion to just get things done extremely admirable and found herself trying to mimic his strength.  She fought the Arishock for Isabela. Isabela is her best friend next to Varric and there was no way she’d let her be taken away. She faced death in that fight when she was stabbed through the stomach. Anders was able to save her but she was permanently scarred. She supported the mages! But did not support Ander’s decision to blow up the Chantry. Despite being a mage, Luanna is Andrastian and was very good friends with Sebastian. However, due to the fact that she and Anders were good friends throughout the game, she couldn’t find it in her heart to kill him. She survives the fade and goes on to have two kiddos.

2) Alphonsa Hawke (Dakila’s Word-State) ~

- Primarily Red but occasionally diplomatic personality.

Alphonsa is my weirdo meanie Hawke who has a bit of an awkward streak but through all of the bullshit, truly means well. She also doesn’t look as clean as she does in the drawing above, often resorting to a terrible hand-cut bowl she does with a pocket knife. She’s pretty quiet and introverted, not ever wanting to grand-stand or stand out. She’s a blood mage too so she wants to fly under the radar as much and hates the attention being champion gives her. With her companions, she has a slower start to forming bonds with them, but eventually considers most of them her friends. She actually ends up marrying Sebastian. So. It’s no secret that the Sebastian romance in DA2 is lacking in content in comparison to the other companions, so a lot of this is my own interpretation of events sprinkled with the canon in-game stuff. Alfie loves Sebastian because he is literally just a good-hearted, kind person. Alfie was never seriously religious. She’s one of those who believe that IF there is a Maker, he has “abandoned his creation la dee da.” She has never really allowed herself to be taken care of. And despite Alfie’s naturally pessimistic attitude, she does try. She wants to be a good person but her anger often times envelopes her when she sees a simple solution to a problem. She’s impatient and needlessly cruel at times. But she is self-aware in her anger, which makes her resent herself a bit. With Sebastian, she actively avoids him at first because the sort of compassion he offers is so alien to her, and how open he is about his heartbreak with his family’s deaths gets under her skin. Long story short, (I have like an essay tucked away about their relationship in general) The two bond over the mutual feeling of the deaths of their families. And they fall in love and get married!!  Alfie isn’t all that upset that the marriage is chaste since she is just so dumb-struck that someone loves her! Act 3 Al is sooo much happier and softer. She grows her hair out and starts taking better care of herself. THEN the chantry explosion happens and her whole world falls apart again. The Chantry represented so much for her. It was her place of healing and peace when she felt alone. It was even more so for Sebastian. In my canon too, Sebastian wasn’t with her when the Chantry exploded. So for one awful moment, she thinks he’s dead. Alfie doesn’t even give Anders a chance to speak. She just beats the absolute SHIT out of him fully intending to beat him to death. And she doesn’t stop until Sebastian literally pulls her off of him. She kills Anders despite supporting the mages. Sebastian drags her off to Starkhaven soon after and she’s glad to go. She has three boys parallel to Sebastian and his brothers for fun.  

Ezekiel Hawke (Marie’s World-state) ~ 

- Red personality. 

Ez is my rouge red Hawke and was a character I made to see how evil I could be in a game since I personally find it really hard to be mean to even video game characters. Ez was a very sickly child and was often bedridden. Throughout his life, his family never knew what exactly was causing him so much pain so the illness remained. When Malcolm died, Ez felt like he hadn’t even known his father, he had spent most of his time training with Bethany and Carver while he had been left to lie in agony. Being the oldest boy in the family, he was pleased to be the head of it and would work tirelessly to improve his strength so that he could walk without fainting. When Ez turned eighteen, he decided to do something about the sickness. He confronted a blood mage and forced him to cure him. The blood mage warned him that a price would need to be paid but Ez didn’t care and would do whatever it took to heal himself. The reverse spell cured Ez, but left him incredibly scarred. At the beginning of DA2, Ez realizes that the spell in itself was a curse, and took away the effects of his invisible illness that would eventually kill him, and instead replaced it with a painless grotesque life. His skin starts rotting off. To cover up the damage done to himself, he covers his face/hair in heavy makeup and powder. (Ez is a secret redhead I know it’s shocking lol) Ez is extremely vain and particular about how he looks and will not allow anyone to touch him out of fear of seeing under his painted mask. His resentment of mages causes him to lash out at Bethany. Carver’s death was even less meaningful to him than his father’s. For a majority of their relationship, Ez pressures Bethany to find a cure for his deformities. Bethany dies in the deep roads and Leandra’s death was almost therapeutic. A desire to erase his family and start over overcame him. The name “Hawke” belonged to him and only him. Power became very interesting to Ez, as he was powerless his entire life and he was willing to appeal to anyone who might give it to him. This includes the Arishock who he happily gave Isabela to. He worked as a smuggler for the first year in Kirkwall. Ez for the most part was never interested in romance or even friendship, just political alliances. But he ended up getting in a very unhealthy rivalmance with Anders. He never really cared for Anders in a romantic sense but enjoyed the attention he gave him. He and Anders never go beyond a few kisses since Ez just can’t stand to have anyone touch him. (Again I could write an essay on this relationship) Ez supported the Templars and ruled as Viscount. He had Anders executed (ya extra tragic for Anders again sorry lol). In my own canon, Ez gets corrupted with red lyrium in the final fight against the mages and is a brutal and ruthless ruler, so much so that a rebellion happens against him and he is driven out of Kirkwall. He immediately starts looking for the next source of power to appeal to. He eventually works for Corypheus and spies for him in Inquisition. My Inquisitor in that universe finds out he’s a traitor and leaves him in the fade. 

[creepingsharia]

“The Priest Died Like a Dog!” Muslim Persecution of Christians, September 2020

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of September, 2020:

by Raymond Ibrahim

The Slaughter of Christians

Italy: On September 15, an illegal Muslim migrant repeatedly stabbed a Catholic priest with a butcher’s knife, finally killing him with a stab to the neck.  “The priest died like a dog, that was right,” Tunisian citizen Mahmoudi Ridha, 53, later boasted after slaughtering Fr. Roberto Malgesini, 51.  According to the Church Militant report, the priest “knew his murderer and had helped him out on a number of occasions … but the Muslim still considered the priest his enemy,” and may have killed him due to suspicions that the clergyman was “part of a plot to deport him.”  Although the diocese of Como, where the crime occurred, and the nation’s mainstream media initially reported that the murderer had a long history of mental illness, a series of tests later confirmed that no “certified psychological problems” were evident.   Responding to this, Silvana De Mari, an outspoken pro-life doctor, openly condemned Pope Francis’s “exhortation to build bridges, not walls” as “absolute idiocy,” adding,  “If a European kills a non-European he’s a murderous pig, a Nazi and above all, always responsible for his actions. If the opposite happens, he’s just a bit touched in the head.”  The murder sparked tension between locals and migrants—including a fistfight between an Italian woman and a young African male.  Discussing the North African homeland of the murderer, an independent consultant on the global persecution of Christians said: “Despite Tunisia being a resort visited by many Western tourists, under the surface there is a darker side where Christians are often despised and abused by Muslims. It can take a considerable amount of Christian love and compassion to dislodge such attitudes that have often become deeply ingrained.”  This incident is not singular.  According to the report,

In 2016, 65-year-old Belgian priest Fr. Jos Vanderlee was stabbed by a Muslim asylum-seeker in his vicarage after he offered a shower and hospitality to the migrant.  The incident took place six days after elderly Fr. Jacques Hamel had his throat cut by Islamic terrorists in the rural French town of St-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, in Normandy. In 1999, a North African Muslim immigrant killed Fr. Renzo Beretta, parish priest of Ponte Chiasso, after turning to him for help.

Uganda: A Muslim ��witch doctor” ritually slaughtered the 11-year-old son and sexually enslaved the 13-year-old daughter of a convert to Christianity.  The story came out on September 16, when the slain boy’s sister was found and rescued by police.   Both children were abducted and sold to the shamanist by a Muslim woman opposed to their father’s conversion to Christianity.   “We are mourning for our son who is alleged to have been sacrificed,” Sulaiman Pulisi, a former imam who embraced Christ three years ago, said. “We are mourning with my daughter, who has been used as a sex object by the Muslim shaman.”  Joseph Sodo, a Christian shopkeeper instrumental in the girl’s rescue, offered more details:

A radical Muslim woman called Sania Muhammad who had connections with Muslim men used to look for children of converts from Islam and sell them to this particular Muslim witchdoctor … named Isifu Abdullah, who makes use of amulets and charms inscribed with verses of the Koran in warding off evil forces.

Democratic Republic of Congo:   A total of at least 58 people were slaughtered and 17 kidnapped during a suspected Islamic terror attack on two Christian majority villages, one on September 8, another on September 10.  Countless others were displaced into the heavily forested area. “People were killed with every sort of weapon, knives, guns,” a local explained, adding that the army and volunteers were “still looking for victims in the forest.”  According to another report,

Members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist militant group active in the region for more than two decades, are thought to have carried out the atrocity….  In May, at least 57 people from two villages in Ituri were murdered by the jihadists in attacks on consecutive days. More than 700 people have been killed in Ituri province since 2017…

Nigeria:  Minutes before another Fulani Muslim herdsmen raid was launched on a Christian village, Alubara Audu, a pastor who was earlier wounded in a similar attack, sacrificed his life to save those of his community.  On Sunday, September 6, around 2 a.m., he heard the jihadists creeping towards his village and instantly raised the alarm, prompting several Christians to escape.  He, however, was shot by the angered terrorists.  While wounded and bleeding on the floor he continued sounding the alarm for more villagers to flee, prompting the Muslims to shoot him multiple times, till he was permanently silenced.  The pastor leaves behind a wife and four children.   Two other Christians were killed during the raid, and two more abducted.

Among the dozens of other Christians to be killed by Muslim Fulani herdsmen in September were two young Christian girls and a 6-year-old boy (September 28); a 64-year-old Christian community leader and seven other Christians (September 21); a Christian woman and her son as they were working on their farm (September 23); and five other Christians (September 24).

Discussing the plight of Nigerian Christians in a September 16 statement, the Catholic bishops of Kaduna Province said that “dark clouds of violence have enveloped our land. Our country is in the firm grip of the grim reaper.”  For over a decade, Nigeria’s main challenge was the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram, the statement said, though the military had largely degraded two years ago:

But our joy was short lived as the story has progressively gotten far worse. Today, almost the entire northern states are in the grip of these purveyors of violence and death.  In the last three years, we have witnessed the relentless attacks and ransacking of entire communities… Thousands of lives have been lost to these bandits who have operated with relentless abandon….  The ravages of Boko Haram, the [Muslim Fulani] herdsmen, kidnappers and the bandits have turned everyone into a victim.

Fr. Sam Ebute, who serves one of the persecuted communities, gave a more personalized take:

For four years, since I became a priest in 2016, I have been burying my parishioners. In 2017, I had to bury a woman who had been killed along with her four children at night, in Tachira. In 2018, in Tsonje, the parish had to also bury four people who were killed. In 2019, in Zunruk, seven youths were killed in broad day light while playing soccer.

More recently, in late July of this year, Fr. Sam buried 21 other Christians from his flock, most of them young girls:

So, for the past seven weeks, we have been burying our parishioners with no end in sight. These last attacks have left us all in fear and especially the fear of the unknown because we do not know when the next round of attacks will happen and what will trigger it. We cannot worship in peace….  Our movements are limited, our faithful cannot freely go about their activities. It is farming season now, but they dare not go to their farms for fear of being attacked there. They have left their crops to perish. It is like we have been left to perish because of our faith.

Pakistan: A Lahore court sentenced a Christian man who had already served seven years in prison to death on a “blasphemy” conviction.  Asif Pervaiz, a 37-year-old father of four, was originally arrested in 2013, when his Muslim supervisor at the garment factory he worked for first accused Pervaiz of sending offensive remarks about Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, in a text message.  During his September 8 hearing, the judge ruled that Pervaiz must pay an additional fine of 50,000 Pakistani rupees (USD $305) and serve a three-year prison term for “misusing” his phone.  Afterwards, and according to the ruling, the Christian blasphemer “shall be hanged by his neck till his death.”  The condemned, however, denies all charges.  “In his statement to the court, Pervaiz had categorically said that the complainant used to pressure him to renounce his Christian faith and convert to Islam,” Saiful Malook, the Christian’s lawyer, explained: “Pervaiz said that due to the complainant’s constant harassment, he was forced to leave his job at the factory, but the latter continued to hound him at his new workplace.”  The lawyer, who is appealing the verdict in the Lahore High Court  also cited a number of irregularities that should have rendered evidence against his client inadmissible:

This case should have been thrown out by the judge….  Although I’m greatly disappointed by the ruling in this case, one cannot ignore the fact that it has become a norm of trial court judges hearing blasphemy cases to convict the accused no matter how weak the prosecution’s case is….  It’s tragic that Pervaiz has already spent seven years in prison during the trial, and God knows how many more years he will have to remain incarcerated till the high court takes up his appeal. The worst thing in blasphemy cases is that the accused are left to rot in jail for years till their innocence is finally proved.

According to a separate report discussing Pervaiz’s case,

Human rights groups say blasphemy laws are often misused to persecute minorities… Such accusations can end up in lynchings or street vigilantism. Up to 80 people are known to be imprisoned in the country on such charges — half of whom face life in prison or the death penalty…  In July, a US citizen of Pakistani origin on trial over blasphemy allegations in Peshawar was shot dead in a courtroom by a teenager who told bystanders he killed him for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Since his arrest, the alleged shooter has been glorified as a “holy warrior” by supporters and thousands of people have rallied to demand his release.

Attacks on Churches

Turkey:  On September 2, Turkish authorities razed to the ground the St. Georgios Christian church, a historic and iconic structure built in 1896 and known as the “Hagia Sophia of Bursa.”  In 2006, after the municipality had spent two million Turkish liras (USD 252,000) on renovations, the dilapidated building was restored and transformed into a cultural center.  But then, in 2013, an Islamic foundation filed a lawsuit against and eventually appropriated the church.  Then, according to the report,

The historical building, whose door was locked after passing to the [Islamic] foundation, was not maintained for years, and cracks began to appear in the building. Noting the situation … and drawing attention to the danger of demolition, Nilüfer Municipality attempted again in 2016 to control the church and demanded that the building be allocated to the municipality for renovation. However, it was stated that the building cannot be used for any purpose other than a place of worship and that this place was a mosque.

The building continued to deteriorate until September 2, when it was demolished as a public hazard.  Commenting on this development, Nilüfer Mayor Turgay Erdem said:

We have done our part to pass on a cultural heritage to future generations. However, the [Islamic] Foundations have taken away the historical structure in a meaningless way. And left [it] to rot. For 7 years, nobody claimed this structure. Public money was wasted because of this negligence. Who will account for this?

In a separate incident, a wall sealing off both entrances of a Greek Orthodox Church in Tralleis was illegally erected by unknown persons, although there are suspicions that the Didima Municipality erected it as a way to justify issuing alcohol licenses to local restaurants.   The current law states that alcohol cannot be sold within 328 feet of a religious building.  As this law was made with mosques in mind, some resent that a mere church is preventing their sales of alcohol.

 Attacks on Crosses

Sweden:  A little Swedish boy was called a “pig bastard” and beaten by a Muslim migrant gang for wearing a crucifix.   The incident occurred in Malmö, which has a large Muslim population and is known as the “rape capital” of Sweden.   According to the September 1 report, an “unknown number of boys” approached the 11-year-old child, who was playing soccer during lunch break, and asked if he was wearing the cross “due to his religion.”  After he responded in the affirmative, the gang asked if he also “ate pig”—before immediately calling him a “pig bastard” and knocking him over, injuring the boy’s arm.  He managed to run away but not before they stole his ball and shoes. “Police had not yet arrested any perpetrator. Hate crime motives are suspected,” the report adds.

Greece/Turkey: Because it is visible in Turkey’s city of Edirne, a 50-foot high cross recently erected at Greece’s Holy Monastery of Agia Skepivis provoked President Erdoğan enough to complain about it to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he was scheduled to meet later that week, according to a September 21 report.   Discussing this same incident, a separate report states that,

Erdoğan’s reaction to the establishment of a cross within Greek territory sets the foundation for increased religious persecution within Turkey. He is growing hostility towards Christian symbols. Christianity is already greatly struggling to exist within Turkey, and this kind of hostility reinforces the idea that Christianity is not welcome within its borders.

Pakistan: Muslims ransacked a Christian barbershop for displaying a cross and other Christian symbols.   According to a September 2 report, a group of Muslims entered the store and began to abuse the owners for hanging a cross on the front wall as well as having the biblical verse “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:19). The Muslims “told us to remove the Christian symbols from the shop because Muslim customers did not feel comfortable,” the owners explained.  “However, we ignored this demand.”  On the next day, more than a dozen men wielding iron rods pulverized the store, damaging its glass door, mirrors, shelves, cupboards, and other equipment.  “They also beat staff and looted cash and other expensive stuff from the shop,” the owners said.  Then, before they could report the incident to police, police arrested one of the owners on the accusation that he was evangelizing to Muslims.  Although he was released on the following day, “Our business is stopped and we are worried for our daily bread,” the owners said. “This is a very intolerant society. Christians are not accepted when running successful businesses and enjoying leading positions. This discrimination has to be ended.”

General Discrimination against Christians

Iran: On September 22, a Christian couple, both former Muslims who were earlier persecuted and imprisoned by authorities of the Islamic Republic, lost their appeal to retain custody of their one-year-old adopted daughter—“and for one reason” only, says the report: “they are Christian converts, and Lydia, though her parentage is not known, is considered a Muslim, and as such by law ought only to be cared for by Muslim parents.”  The ruling was made despite the fact that the judge himself acknowledged the child’s “intense emotional attachment” to her adoptive parents and that there was “zero chance” another adoptive family would be found for her, including because the 1-year-old suffers from heart disease.

Pakistan: In an interview, a Christian man who was rounded up with dozens of other Christians and imprisoned after two Muslim men were killed in riots surrounding the suicide bombing of two churches and killing of 20 Christians in 2015, explained the deciding factor over who was imprisoned and who was not.  According to Amjar Arif,

Police said, if we didn’t convert to Islam we’d face prison….  At the police station, officers abused, slapped and tortured us with batons, charging us with burning Muslims….  They snatched rosaries from three of us and threw them on the floor. We were forced to accept either Islam or guilt in the murder of two men….  A 25-year-old Christian, also arrested for alleged lynching, converted to Islam and was released three hours later. We kept our faith in the living God… we used to pray in a circle for an hour. In the evening we had dedicated 8pm personal prayers…Two of us died in that prison.

Amjar Arif was released five years later.

 Sexual and Psychological Abuse of Christian Women

Egypt:  Once again, a court involved in the case of the unconscionable abuse of an elderly Christian woman recused itself.  “The case had been postponed several times and was closed in 2017 due to insufficient evidence,” says the September 3, 2020 report. “However, the woman’s legal representatives filed a grievance reopening it again.  Then, in March 2019, the Minya felony court decided to withdraw from hearing the case due to embarrassment.”   After that, in October 2019, the case was postponed again, because a court member was reportedly absent; and now this.  The case concerns Soa‘d Thabet, a Christian grandmother in her 70s. On May 20, 2016, a mob of some 300 Muslim men, accusing her son of dating a Muslim woman, descended on her home, stripped her completely naked, beat, spit on, and paraded her in the streets of al-Karm village (in Minya governorate) to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of “Allahu Akbar.”  Commenting on these ongoing delays, Adel Guindy, founding president of Coptic Solidarity, told Gatestone,

The judiciary system in Egypt, as well as the rest of the pillars of the state (often referred to as the “deep state”) have become impregnated with fundamentalist Islamic ideology, and are thus decidedly biased against Copts. The political leadership of the country takes no concrete corrective measures and, worse still, lets this ideology shape and dominate the society, through education and media.

Separately, according to a September 10 Coptic Solidarity report, the kidnapping, sexual abuse, and forced conversion of Christian women and girls in Egypt—a “particularly vulnerable group to exploitation” that is quietly living an “unimaginable nightmare”—is rampant with no signs of abatement.  The 15-page report documents “the widespread practice of abduction and trafficking” and estimates that there have been “about 500 cases within the last decade, where elements of coercion were used that amount to trafficking.”  It adds that:

The capture and disappearance of Coptic women and minor girls is a bane of the Coptic community in Egypt, yet little has been done to address this scourge by the Egyptian or foreign governments, NGOs, or international bodies. According to a priest in the Minya Governorate, at least 15 girls go missing every year in his area alone. His own daughter was nearly kidnapped had he not been able to intervene in time….  The large majority of these women are never reunited with their families or friends because police response in Egypt is dismissive and corrupt. There are countless families who report that police have either been complicit in the kidnapping or at the very least bribed into silence. If there is any hope for Coptic women in Egypt to have a merely ‘primitive’ level of equality, these incidents of trafficking must cease, and the perpetrators must be held accountable by the judiciary.

Pakistan:  A 6-year-old Christian girl was “beaten and raped after being forcibly taken to the home of a Muslim rapist in broad daylight,” says a September 16 report.  Moreover, and “in a sickening twist,”

the local Muslim community are threatening the Christian parents with violence, the rape of their other daughters and financial ruin if they proceed with a legal case against paedophile Muhammad Waqas (18 yrs)… Tabitha [the raped child] had been verbally abused, shouted at, slapped and beaten and forced to do a number of sex acts with Waqas. She had been stripped of her clothes and had described her terror that she would be killed by Waqas…

Although various societal elements pressured her family to drop the case against the Muslim rapist and accept a financial settlement, her parents refused, demanding justice. As a result, two imams from local mosques warned Munir Masih, the girl’s father, that “we shall burn your house and take away your other daughters too, if you fail to comply.” He responded by gathering his family and fleeing to an undisclosed location in the middle of the night.  Although evidence for the case “was strong with eye witnesses” and included “a medical examiner who found evidence of rape and brutality and a positive match on DNA tracing with that of Waqas” — and despite the family’s perseverance for justice — the court granted the rapist bail. “Tears rolled from the eyes of Munir while I hugged him in the yard of Lahore High Courts,” a legal representative of the family explained.  “The paedophile rapist who had sexually assaulted his daughter on many counts was granted bail and it caused him intense pain. It was excruciating for him to see the rapist of his tender-aged daughter released—I felt broken myself.”

In a separate incident, on September 8, Mehwish Hidayat, a 22-year-old Christian girl, managed to escape from her Muslim abductor/rapist, Khurram Shehzad, and reach her parents’ home.  According to the girl, she was kidnapped on June 3:

It was around 7:30 in the morning when I left for the garment factory.  I was waiting for my bus along with six to eight girls. Suddenly, two armed men appeared from a white car. They showed their guns and warned everyone not to interfere.  The kidnappers then dragged me into the car.  All the other girls started shouting, but none of them was in a position to save me as the kidnappers threatened them with their guns…   For three months Shehzad [her “owner”] kept shifting from one city to another and sexually assaulted me.  He often tortured me for refusing to sign the conversion and marriage certificate. He forced me to recite Islamic proclamations and verses. However, I remained committed to my Christian faith.

Although she has rejoined her family, “our lives will always be in danger,” she said. “My family is continuously receiving threats from Shehzad.”

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again and Sword and Scimitar, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic.  Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1)          To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2)          To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam;  theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.

Previous Reports: at link below

[papermoonloveslucy]

MARILYN MONROE

June 1, 1926 - August 4, 1962

Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson) was an actress, model, and singer. Famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s and was emblematic of the era's changing attitudes towards sexuality. She was a top-billed actress for only a decade, but her films grossed $200 million by the time of her death in 1962. More than half a century later, she continues to be a major popular culture icon.

"When I was five I think, that's when I started wanting to be an actress. I didn't like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. When I heard that this was acting, I said that's what I want to be. Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I'd sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it.” ~ Marilyn Monroe,1962

Lucille Ball never worked with Marilyn Monroe, but meet her in 1953 at Ciro’s Nightclub on Sunset Strip, along with Betty Grable, and Red Skelton. Monroe’s immense popularity permeated Ball’s work none-the-less. 

At the start of “Changing the Boys’ Wardrobe” (ILL S3;E10) the gang is heading to the movies to see “That picture we’ve been trying to get to for weeks with Marilyn Monroe.” The movie is likely Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which premiered in New York City in July 1953. On November 5, 1953, the same day the episode was filmed, Monroe’s new film How to Marry a Millionaire was released in the US. 

The November 1953 cover of TV and Movie Screen Magazine saw Lucy (in “The Camping Trip”) and Marilyn wearing the dress she wore on the May 1953 cover of Life Magazine promoting Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. 

Also on November 5, 1953, the town of Monroe, New York (60 miles from New York City) was temporarily renamed Marilyn Monroe.

The film later inspired much of the plot of “Second Honeymoon” (S5;E14), Lucy’s failed attempt to make their transatlantic crossing to Europe more than just a working vacation.    

Monroe’s dinner companion turns out to be a seven year-old boy, just like Lucy’s ping pong partner turns out to be young Kenneth Hamilton (Harvey Grant). 

Lucy gets stuck in a porthole just as Monroe did, also draping a blanket around her shoulders so passersby wouldn’t know what was really going on.

The idea for the burlap potato sack dresses in “Lucy Wants A Paris Gown” (ILL S5;E20) comes from Monroe’s real life. 

In 1951 Marilyn Monroe took a series of high fashion photographs wearing a potato sack as a response to a journalist who said that she might look sexier in a burlap sack than her usual fashion choices. 

Lucy first wore burlap at the end of “Mr. and Mrs. TV Show” (ILL S4;E24) as her scary version of a Phipps make-over.

In “Ricky’s Movie Offer” (ILL S4;E5) Lucy and Ethel argue about who looks more like Marilyn Monroe. 

While Lucy has the facial features, Ethel has the blonde hair. 

Fred (hilariously) settles the argument!  

In “Ricky’s Screen Test” (ILL S4;E7) a long list of Hollywood names are dropped in anticipation of hobnobbing with celebrities, including Marilyn Monroe. 

In “Lucy and Harpo Marx” (ILL S4;E28) Lucy wonders if Ethel might pass for Monroe to a near-sighted Carolyn Appleby. After Ethel tries to walk like Marilyn Monroe, Lucy decides that “nobody is that near-sighted!” Fred says that he looks more like Marilyn than either of them! 

In “Lucy and Superman” (ILL S6;E13), the Appleby’s come over for a social evening that Ethel calls “the bore war” because the couples only talk about their children. As the scene opens, Caroline is in mid-sentence talking about a Marilyn Monroe film.

CAROLINE: “...and he picked up Marilyn Monroe, slung her over his shoulder and carried her off!”

Although the title is never mentioned, the film they are discussing is Bus Stop, starring Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray. It was released in August 1956, two and a half months before this episode was filmed.

When “Lucy Does the Tango” (ILL S6;E20), she stuffs eggs down her blouse and Ethel stashes a some in her back pockets. Lucy tells her, “Whatever you do don’t try to walk like Marilyn Monroe,” but the ‘yolk’ is on Ethel when Fred suddenly enters through the kitchen door! 

In “Lucy the Gun Moll” (TLS S4;E25), Lucy plays Lucy Carmichael and Rusty Martin. The name Rusty Martin was probably derived from Lucy’s hair color and the surname of Mary Martin, who introduced the song “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” (music and lyrics by Cole Porter) in the 1938 Broadway musical Leave It to Me. Marilyn Monroe sang it in the 1960 film Let’s Make Love.  In that same film, Harry Cheshire, who played Sam Johnson in “Oil Wells” (ILL S3;E18), played Monroe’s father. Jerry Hausner (Jerry, Ricky’s Agent) and Joan Banks (Reporter Eleanor Harris in “Fan Magazine Interview”) played uncredited supporting roles. 

Lucy and Marilyn shared a leading man in handsome Keith Andes. Andes was Lucy’s male lead in Wildcat on Broadway, and later played was featured on three episodes of “The Lucy Show.”  

In 1952, he played opposite Marilyn in Clash By Night, an RKO picture. 

In “Lucy Gets Ricky on the Radio” (1952), the June 3, 1952 of Look Magazine actually had Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe on the cover!  Monroe was promoting Clash by Night, and Desi had written a feature on his wife for the magazine. So Marilyn actually did appear on “I Love Lucy” - if only in a still photo. 

Some Like It Hot (1959) is arguably one of Marilyn Monroe’s most popular films. What does it have in common with Lucille Ball? In 1958, both Lucy and Monroe were depicted at San Diego’s famous Del Coronado Hotel. It is the hotel that the Ricardo’s and Mertzes stay at in “Lucy Goes to Mexico” (LDCH S2;E1) as well as the backdrop for much of the film. Although Desilu filmed establishing footage of the hotel, the cast stayed in Hollywood, while Monroe went on location (as seen above). In “Lucy Goes to a Hollywood Premiere” (TLS S4;E20), Mr. Mooney says he wouldn’t buy a second hand nightie if it had been worn by Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot.

The Irving Berlin song “There’s No Business Like Show Business” was sung on “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy Show.”  Although it was originally from the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun (1946), it also served as the title and was performed (by Merman) in the Marilyn Monroe film There’s No Business Like Show Business in 1955. 

In 1952, Marilyn co-starred by Richard Widmark (”The Tour” ILL S4;E30) in the film noir drama Don’t Bother To Knock. The film also featured “Lucy” players Lurene Tuttle (Fine Arts League President), Verna Felton (Mrs. Porter), Gloria Blondell (Grace Foster), as well as Harry Bartell, Olan Soule, Robert Foulke, and Bess Flowers.

That same year, Monroe starred in We’re Not Married! opposite Lucy’s friend and former co-star Ginger Rogers, as well as Eve Arden (”Hollywood at Last!”), Paul Douglas (”Lucy Wants a Career”) and Eddie Bracken (Too Many Girls). 

One of Monroe’s most iconic moments came in March 1962 when she sang “Happy Birthday” as a birthday present to President John F. Kennedy in a public birthday celebration also attended by Lucy’s friends and co-stars Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Henry Fonda, Danny Kaye, Shirley MacLaine and Elliott Reid. A year later, Lucy Carmichael also gave Kennedy a present, a sugar cube replica of the White House on “The Lucy Show” with Elliott Reid doing Kennedy’s offstage voice as well as playing a small on-camera role! 

"I never quite understood it, this sex symbol. I always thought symbols were those things you clash together! That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something I'd rather have it sex than some other things they've got symbols of." ~ Marilyn Monroe, 1962

Monroe was married (and divorced) three times: 

James Dougherty, Merchant Marine & Policeman (1942-46) 

Joe DiMaggio, Baseball Player (1954-55)

Arthur Miller, Playwright (1956-61)

In “Lucy is Enceinte” (ILL S2;E10), Fred gives Lucy a signed baseball for his future 'godson’. When he asks Lucy to read out the signature, she at first says “Spalding,” the ball’s brand name, but then finds it is signed by Joe DiMaggio.

In “Ragtime Band” (ILL S6;E21), Little Ricky asks his Uncle Fred: 

LITTLE RICKY: “Who’s Joe 'Maggio?” FRED: “'Who’s Joe 'Maggio?’ You talk more like your father everyday.”

In “Sales Resistance” (ILL S2;E17), Lucy compares herself to Willy Loman, the title character in Death of a Salesman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Arthur Miller first produced on Broadway in 1949 and made into an Oscar-nominated film in 1951.  

Speaking of husbands, Desi Arnaz has something in common with Marilyn Monroe, too. Both of their souses were accused of being Communists by the House Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950s. Both Lucille and Arthur Miller were cleared of charges and their careers continued, although that was not true for many celebrities of the time. 

Monroe died on August 4, 1962. The toxicology report showed that the cause of death was acute barbiturate poisoning. Empty medicine bottles were found next to her bed. The possibility that Monroe had accidentally overdosed was ruled out because the dosages found in her body were several times over the lethal limit.

The character of Ginger, the movie star castaway on “Gilligan’s Island” (1964-67) was described during casting as a combination of Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe. Tina Louise had Lucy’s red (ginger) hair and Monroe’s shapely physique. The series also featured Natalie Schafer (Phoebe Emerson) as Mrs. Howell, and Alan Hale Jr. as the Skipper. Hale performed on “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy”. Series creator Sherwood Schwartz was a Lucy fan. His brother Elroy Schwartz actually wrote scripts for Lucille Ball. 

In the 2013 web-series “Ryan & Ruby” both Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe are given special thanks for their inspiration. The last name of star and creator Ryan Burton's character is "Carmichael", the same as Ball's character on the "The Lucy Show". In Ryan’s kitchen there are fridge magnets with photos of both Lucy and Marilyn.  

Lucy and Marilyn are street characters at Universal Studios theme parks, their iconic hair and costumes making them instantly recognizable.

The same day Marilyn Monroe was born in 1926, another Hollywood icon with connections to Lucille Ball was also born, Andy Griffith.  To read his birthday blog, click here! 

[yourdeepestfathoms]

when you’re gone i’ll still be Bloody Mary

oof everything but the fight isn’t my best and you can tell i got bored and started rushing at the end BUT!! here is today’s fic! i hope it makes you mad!

Title from Bloody Mary by Lady Gaga

Word count: 5024

TW: Violence, blood, asphyxiation

———————

For better or for worse, the kids were alive and well again, and ever since then, the queens have changed. Everyone has noticed it- the sudden shift in behavior and attitude caught a lot of attention. Suddenly, they lost all their personality and just became a slave to the maternal mentality that awakens in their brains at the sight of their children.

First, there was Anne and Elizabeth. They didn’t look alike at all- Anne with her chocolate brown hair done in spacebuns and Elizabeth looking as if she was Merida from Brave- but they shared a similar gremlin-like gene. Anne was probably the least overbearing with her motherly attitude- she was still very much caring and loving, but she gave her daughter space and let her do whatever she wanted...which wasn’t exactly a good thing. Elizabeth had way too much freedom, especially towards Maggie, who would always get very quiet when the girl came around her. But Maggie tried, tried to be happy to see the girl again, and tried to be happy for her best friend, but her smile was very tight and forced, and pain would always flicker in her eyes whenever she saw the two together. She was dreading the worst- waiting for the sword hanging over Anne’s head to finally fall again.

Then there was Jane and Edward. Unlike her predecessor, Jane was extremely overbearing with the whole mum thing. She was always checking on her son, making sure he was happy and that everything was okay, and she pampered him constantly. Somehow, Edward didn’t seem to mind at all. He was basically living in the lap of luxury. Not even Kitty was bothered by this! She was just happy to finally get to be the big sibling in the family.

Thirdly, and most surprising, there was Cathy and Mae. The toddler actually appearing was a huge shocker to everyone, especially Cathy, but she took up responsibility for her daughter very quickly. She was very patient with the little girl, unlike Bessie, who had to leave the room whenever Mae would cry or even simply just giggle. Every time this happened, Cathy’s rage built up a little higher. It wouldn’t be long until she finally blew her top.

Finally, there was Aragon and Mary. It was easy to know that they were related; Mary seemed to get everything from her mouth when it came to looks- skin tone, eyes, hair, height, jawline, nose. However, there was one thing Mary inherited from her father: his bloodlust. Aragon, of course, didn’t acknowledge what her daughter had done at all. She was sheltering her mind from the crime, pretending it doesn’t exist because, to her, it didn’t if nobody brought it up. So nobody did.

Seeing all the kids was weird again, but Mary was by far the strangest, or at least to Joan. Mary appeared to be sixteen, maybe fifteen, so it was odd seeing her younger than Joan, but Joan pushed that aside and just tried to befriend the girl. After all, they had a common interest- having Aragon as a mother. Or, well, mother figure in Joan’s case. It wasn’t official yet.

“Hey, Mary!”

After everything was settled with the kid’s arrival was when Joan decided to make her move. She didn’t want to hold out much longer or it may seem impolite of her.

Mary turned to Joan, and Joan got a sudden bad feeling as she approached her further, like she was a sheep walking right into the den of a hungry hyena.

And now that it was mentioned, Mary kinda did look like a hyena. If Joan concentrated enough, she could almost smell the pungent, rank scent of death that clung to the girl as it did to the scavengers.

“Uhh. Hey.” Mary said. She was looking at Joan as if she were a dirty peasant clambering into her throne room. “And you are...?”

“Joan.” Joan said. “I’m the music director and pianist. Aragon and I are friends!”

Mary squinted at Joan. “Are you sure? Mother doesn’t mention you.”

“Well- maybe not as a friend, per se.” Joan scuffed her foot against the ground, trying her best not to do a giddy little happy dance as she said, “She- well, she sees me as a daughter!”

Mary blinked.

And then she started laughing.

The image of a hyena floated back to the surface as she did so- her laugh is barking and shrill. It grates Joan’s ears like barbed claws or scorpion stingers.

“You?” Mary asked for confirmation.

Now slightly flustered, Joan nodded.

Mary laughed again.

“Oh, that is adorable!” She wiped her eyes with a slim finger that seemed more like a talon. “Seriously, that is just too cute! My mother! Being yours!” Another chortle.

“It’s true!” Joan squeaked. Her voice is pitching and wavering slightly, which doesn’t help her case at all.

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” Mary said. “In your dreams, maybe. Why would Mother ever want you as her daughter? What makes you so special?” She tilted her head at Joan, and Joan just managed by the skin of her teeth to not squirm under her gaze. It felt like the ex-princess was sizing her up....estimating how big the wooden stakes would need to be when she set her ablaze.

“I-”

“Actually,” Mary cut her off. “don’t answer that! No offense, but I don’t care.”

She swung around to leave, not giving Joan a chance to defend herself.

“Thanks for the laugh, June!”

She walked off, disappearing further into the theater and leaving Joan alone.

“...My name is Joan.”

———

It’s been five months since that first interaction, and Joan swore Mary had something against her. She always saw the girl glaring at her from a distance, like she was imagining how good her head would look on the end of a flaming torch.

It gave Joan the creeps, to say the least.

But it didn’t end there. Mary began to torment and taunt Joan constantly- whether it being teasing or purposely making her fuck up somehow, Mary tried to make Joan’s life a living hell. And when she tried to tell Aragon, the queen got mad. Like, really pissed off. Joan doesn’t tell her about the harassment anymore. Especially when she got terribly ill the next day.

The thought that Mary somehow poisoned her for snitching scares her even more.

What’s worse: Aragon was starting to spend a lot less time with Joan. That was natural, of course, but Joan’s jealousy just couldn’t handle it. Especially when it was Mary getting all the queen’s attention.

But what could she do? Aragon would never choose Mary over her.

———

The sound of her dressing room door shutting and the lock clicking snapped Joan out of her workaholic reverie. She snapped around and was startled to find Mary standing there, her hands pressed together and folded neatly against her stomach.

(Joan remembers something about the princess having several pregnancy issues. She wonders if those still exist within her after reincarnation, and if they’re the reason she’s so bitchy.)

“Can I help you?” Joan said impatiently. She didn’t have time or the coffee to deal with this right now- she had work to do.

“Yes, actually,” Mary said. She crossed the room in just a few quick strides; her movements were poised and confident- she knew what she was doing. “I just wanted to talk to you about Mother.”

“What about her?” Joan asked cautiously. Red flags are already going off in her head, if the fact that the ex-princess locked the door wasn’t enough to tell her that this situation seemed sketchy.

“Back off.”

“What?”

“Back off of Mother.” Mary said. Her voice is still languid and smooth, but there’s now an underlying firmness to it- a drop of poison in the honeyed words.

Joan didn’t know why she thought for even a split second that this was going to be a truce or an opportunity to finally make friends with the princess. She should have known she was walking right into Mary’s flaming claws.

“You know she never actually loved you, right?” Mary went on. “You didn’t believe it, did you? Be honest.”

Joan bit her tongue until she could taste blood. Her fingers clenched into fists, which Mary glanced at. The princess smirked.

“Of course you did.” She said. “I can’t blame you. You have nothing. Someone as meaningless and worthless as you has to cling to whatever they can get their hands on. It’s quite entertaining. Like dangling a carrot on a stick in front of you!”

“You’re lying,” Joan growled. She drove her fingernails into her palms even deeper until she felt the skin break open. “Aragon— She didn’t say that. She wouldn’t.”

“I’m not.” Mary said smoothly. “Why would I lie to you, Joan? You know I don’t care enough about you to do that. God, just standing here and talking to you makes me worry that I’m gonna get some of your desperation and neediness rubbed off on me!” She laughed like a hyena. It hurts Joan’s ears.

Joan can’t reply. She can’t do anything but sit there and take the insults hurled at her. She does, however, flinch back in her chair when Mary walks right up to her and gently cupped her cheek.

Her touch feels like fire.

“I have to thank you, though,” Mary crooned in a way a mother would when talking to their child, her voice like sickly sweet venom. “For taking care of my mother. But there’s no need anymore.” She pats Joan’s cheek. “There’s no use for you any longer. So why don’t you do us all a favor and just go crawl into the hole you came out of and die.”

Joan’s breath hitched slightly. She lowered her head so Mary couldn’t see the glisten in her eyes, but she knew she did from the sneer above her.

And that’s what made the rage bubble up.

Joan’s anger was not a hot, volcanic thing, but rather a cold, resentful feeling that ran in her blood for a long time. Her chest would turn icy and she suddenly couldn’t care about anyone else. Only justice for her broken self esteem.

She grabbed Mary by the wrist and yanked her hand off of her cheek. This startles the princess, who staggers back for a moment, then narrows her eyes. Her other hand comes around fast and slaps Joan hard across the face.

Like that, something in Joan’s brain sparked to life. An instinct she didn’t even know she had in her. It told her to fight.

( “We may be thieves, but we aren’t killers,” Her brother had once said. Ironically, he was sharpening an iron pick at the time. “But if you feel your life's on the line, Joan, you fight back. Whether you like it or not, to you, your life is the most important thing in this world. Not mine, not any of your friend’s, your own. You should protect it.”

“Where should I hit someone?” Joan had asked. She remembered shifting anxiously after asking it.

Her brother thought for a moment, tapping the pointy pick against his chin. Then, he smiled.

“The knees or stomach. Then get them in the jaw to incapacitate them. Your nails and teeth are also your greatest allies.” His eyes went dark for a moment. “But...if you fear they’re trying to kill you, then go for the throat and don’t let go.”)

Mary didn’t see Joan coming, even when glowering right at her. She hadn’t been expecting her prey to spring out of the chair and barrel into her at full speed, but here she was, being driven back against the nearby makeup table, watching tabletop items scatter and clatter in various directions in slow motion, before senses returned to her in a flash and she felt the sparks that shot up her and alerted her brain of the threat.

Joan had her hands on Mary’s shoulders and one knee wedged between her legs, the plated bone pressing uncomfortably against the sensitive bundle of nerves her thighs would usually shield from harm. She pushed backwards, causing Mary’s back to bend against the table edge in a way that made it feel like her spine would snap if she didn’t get away quickly.

The princess squirmed, then finally got her arms free. She shoved against Joan’s chest, which caused her to stumble back slightly. It was enough of a chance for Mary, as she took her turn to do the ramming.

Both girls collapsed to the floor in a wondrous heap, where they tousled like angry cats. It was an awkward, but deadly dance they did on the floor until they ripped away and scuttled away for air. Scratches gleamed red and pink on their sweaty faces, like they just got into a fight with a sentient knife and lost. Bits of blood and flecks of skin cling beneath their nails.

“So you do have some fight in you,” Mary panted. If she was trying to make Joan angrier, it was definitely working. “I’m impressed.”

“I don’t quite appreciate compliments from murderers.” Joan grit.

Something flashed in Mary’s eyes- guilt? Terror? Trauma? For a split second, she almost looked like she felt bad for what she had done and what she was doing now. Joan could almost see a girl in there who felt guilty about everything, and who maybe understood why it had been wrong.

But that girl was never going to be the one anyone saw.

“I am not!” Mary shrilled. “I was saving my people from those—those leeches!”

“Saving them?” Joan scoffed. She struggles to her feet, feeling the scratches scattered across her body lighting up with fresh pain. “Is that what you call burning their friends to death?”

Mary bared her teeth. Joan flashes her own right back.

“Shut up!” Mary snapped. “You weren’t there, so you have no idea what I had to do or why I had to do it!”

“Why are you acting like this?” Joan said. “You have another chance! You can redeem yourself! Why are you wasting it by acting like such a bitch?!”

Mary lunged at Joan. Joan sidestepped just in time to avoid being rammed, but Mary moved again, too. She whipped around and drove her fist into Joan’s stomach.

All the breath in Joan’s lungs left her in a whoosh and a spray of saliva droplets that splattered onto Mary’s yellow-and-violet striped shirt. She staggered backwards, snaking her arms around her aching stomach tightly, and her knees buckled underneath her.

She’s had the wind knocked out of her more than once and she knew that in a few moments, she’d be fine again—or as fine as someone who’d just been socked in the gut could possibly be—but this wasn’t exactly the kind of situation where she had moments to spare for breath-catching.

And on top of that, the human body had a tendency to freak out when it couldn’t breathe. Like, a lot.

She choked and spluttered, mouthing like a fish out of water as she tried to pull air into lungs that just weren’t ready to get back on their feet yet. Through the oxygen-deprived haze that was covering her vision, she saw Mary’s bloodthirsty expression return to confidence, like Joan’s struggle for air sated her hunger for suffering for now. But it would be back.

It was only really then that Joan realized what she had gotten herself into.

Joan knew that she wasn’t going to get away from this bitch if she relied completely on pure strength. Mary was taller and stronger than she was, plus she was fueled by insanity, which seemed to supply her with an endless stream of energy. She wasn’t knowledgeable in combat by any means, but if Lara Croft has taught her anything, it’s that you need to use tactics.

That thought of a possible plan was cut short, however, when Mary knocked her to the ground.

Pain rattled up Joan’s spine when she hit the floor. Fingers close around her throat; Mary was on her. Her hips are straddled and she’s pinned to the floor. She was being choked. She could feel the princess’ thumbs press down on her airways.

“Stop struggling!” Mary growled. “Just let it take you.”

Joan gags helplessly, clawing at the fingers around her throat. Even when she scratches Mary’s hands to bloodied shreds, she still doesn’t let go. She tries to gouge the princess’ eyes out, but her eyelids prove to be a strong barrier above the sockets, which she so desperately wanted to sink her nails into. Mary wrings her neck when she doesn’t stop and Joan choked, feeling pops and crackles shooting down her spinal cord.

“There we go...” Mary cooed when she saw Joan’s head flop to the side. She was still gasping like a fish out of water, but it wouldn’t be long, now. “Good girl.” She spoke to the music director as if she were a dog or one of her dead babies. “Such a good girl...”

Joan made a pathetic squeaking wheeze, which made Mary croon down at her alarmingly blue face pitifully.

“I would stroke your hair to help you along if I could,” Mary said. “But I can’t. I have to say, though, you are very obedient. Well trained. You make it too easy!”

Joan’s eyes were starting to roll back into her skull. Her tongue lolls out of her mouth, suddenly feeling like a block of heavy lead. The ice in her veins is smothered by Mary’s fire. It lights in her chest and incinerates her lungs to smoldering ashes. Her throat is being burned open from the princess’ burning touch.

This was it. She was about to die. In just a few moments, Joan’s strength would deplete, her neck would snap, and she would be just another body on Mary’s growing pile.

Then, it would all be over.

Cinders are stoked through all of Joan’s nerves, numbing them in a terrible, blistering way and rendering them useless. Her arms now lie outstretched, sprawled aimlessly across the floor. There, her fingers twitch against something.

Mary began to twist Joan’s neck back in a sickening, horrible way. She keeps her victim’s throat wrenched and was just about to snap it like she would a little bird when something sharp and pointy is stabbed into her lower stomach.

Mary shouts as zigzags of pain shot through her abdomen. She ripped her hands back to instinctively shield her stomach, as if she thought there may be a baby in her womb that she needed to protect. Instead, she just found a large thumbtack sticking out of her belly.

“You bitch!!” Mary shrieked at Joan, who was struggling to catch her breath.

She pulled the thumbtack out with a small squeak and her eyes widened at the sight of the glistening red blood that coated the tip.

Like before, a very guilty person appears in her eyes, and even on her face this time. She watched her blood slide down the length of the needle and drip off in thick droplets.

Drip, drip, drip...

Joan reared up like a furious ram, horns gleaming in the fluorescent lights, and slammed her entire body into Mary.

They both go down, but there’s a lot less scratching this time. Mary is jarred out of her trance and is momentarily stunned because of it. Joan lands sprawled on top of her, out of breath from that small effort alone. Her lungs and trachea just weren’t ready for that much action yet.

Still. She didn’t have any time to wait around, even as black spots fluttered across her vision each time she simply took a breath.

So, the one little part of her brain that was smarter than the rest of it was, the part that only seemed to awaken when she was in immediate danger or dying, spontaneously came back to life and drifted in over the panicked alarm bells in her head like the calm voice of the pilot’s intercom over the clamor of a falling plane full of hysterical passengers.

It was her brother’s voice.

“Joan. Do you know how much bacteria is in a human bite?”

She blinked her eyes.

Well. He wasn’t wrong.

“OWWW!!!” Mary howled as Joan clamped her teeth down on her ear. She could feel the incisors grinding against the earlobe and her golden hoop earring shifting uncomfortably. “What the FUCK?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

Even in her pained and oxygen deprived daze, even when she couldn’t take in any air as she bites down, even as someone else’s blood seeped into her mouth, Joan still managed a small smirk.

Bet you've never got your ear bitten before, She thought. Bitch.

Mary keened in pain, smothering her face against the tile floor. She couldn’t do anything but writhe with Joan on top of her. But it’s clear Joan was getting a little cocky and that she seemed to forget how clever psychopaths really were.

Not that a tabletop mirror lying nearby made Mary clever.

The entire right side of Joan’s head exploded into bright, colorful bursts of pain as the mirror smashed against it. The glass shattered and shards are driven into her scalp. Joan swayed and then slumped over, and Mary gave her the shove she needed to fully topple to the ground.

Mary scampered backwards and then gingerly felt her ear. It was bloody and already starting to swell up. Her earring was missing, too, leaving her earlobe split in two.

Silence filled the ransacked room- aside from Joan’s moans and raspy breathing, of course.

Then, Mary laughed.

“So what if I killed a few people?” She said as she shakily rose up to her feet. “Some people have to die for others to thrive! I was just…trimming out the fat! Culling the weak! It’s what you have to do to survive in this world.”

Joan just barely managed to look up at her. There’s twin streams of blood running down one side of her face. One crosses over her eye.

“Let me put it like this,” Mary said, sensing her disbelief. “Say you and the other ladies in waiting and queens were in...the apocalypse. Alright? And there’s a group of people who want to take this food supply you found. They’re innocent, but they’re not backing down and you and your group are starving. So...” She twirled her wrist. “You do what you need to do to survive and keep those of greater value alive.”

Joan shook her head as she braced herself on her arms. Her elbows shake treacherously, barely holding her up.

“You don’t...” She wheezed out. Consciousness wavered away from her for a moment. She thought she heard the doorknob wiggle, but it was just nothing. “You can’t...think...like that.” She finally said, each word punctuated with a wince, moan, or heavy gasp. “It’s not...right...”

“If you haven’t noticed, dear, nothing is right in this world. Not anymore.” Mary said.

“No thanks...to you,” Joan grit, and then was delivered a teeth-shattering blow to her jaw.

Mary stood over the girl. She lifts the leg she used to kick Joan with and stepped on her stomach. Bending the knee, the princess applied all her pressure onto Joan’s midriff, weighing her to the ground.

“Joey, this hurts me as much as it hurts you.” She said in that crooning, hyena voice of hers. “But you have to make sacrifices sometimes. You’re just dragging everyone here down. Nobody even looks at you anymore. I’m doing you a favor by putting you down.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Joan spat.

She lifted her head and Mary struck as fast as a bullwhip, pressing it back down to the ground.

“Don’t talk over me!” Mary snapped, her pitch raising slightly. She cleared her throat. “Everything will be fine. You’re just a little blind right now. I’m helping you!”

“That’s what they all say,” Joan gurgled. “But you’ll probably get all wrapped up in killing all over again and burn the whole theater to the ground, you fucking pyro. You’d love to watch this place go up in flames and then you’ll dance on the ashes while listening to the screams of-”

“I said to not talk over me!” Mary yelled, reaching down and digging her fingernails into the red hot crevices on the back of Joan’s head. She watches in amusement as blood comes frothing out of Joan’s mouth, which is hanging open in a silent scream.

Some of that blood sprays out slightly when her lips move to form words.

“I know...your reign...smelled like...burned flesh.” She hissed out.

Mary’s mouth pulled back in a snarl.

“You don’t know anything!”

She drops Joan’s head and steps back, letting her writhe on the floor like a stabbed snake. Then, she pulls a lighter out of her pocket and runs her thumb over the smooth sides as if she thought doing such an action would calm her.

“You barely even know me.” She growled. “Nobody does! People look at me like I’m some sort of demon! Do you know what that is like?”

“It’s what you deserve,” Joan croaked. “Because you are one.”

Mary’s eyes flash. Something in her head has cracked open and every bad thing in her twisted brain is now spilling out like thousands of spiders.

“You know, I was just messing with you before. I wasn’t actually going to let you choke to death.” She said. “But now? Now I’m going to fucking kill you.” She flicked the lighter open and watched the small flame burst to life. “And when I’m done, nobody is ever going to find you.”

Mary leaned down, holding the flame dangerously close to one of Joan’s cloudy eyes.

“Any last words?”

Joan’s last words aren’t really words, per se, rather a mouthful of blood she spits in Mary’s eyes.

The princess reared back in surprise and claws her face as if she thought she had been sprayed with acid. That’s enough for Joan to gather all her strength, draw her legs back, and then drive her foot right into Mary’s knees.

Watching the princess crumple and fall like a broken doll was the highlight of Joan’s entire day. She couldn’t celebrate, though, because she knew Mary would be getting up soon, so she scrambled over to the broken tabletop mirror, raised it over her head, and—

The door flew open.

A scream.

Several screams.

There’s a whizz of gold- Aragon is rushing in. But not towards Joan, who is substantially the more injured one of the two. No, instead, she’s shoved roughly to the side and that’s finally what her conscious needed to cut out.

———

Joan awoke to blinding pain. She was moaning before she could even get her eyes open, which were much heavier than they normally were. She tried to pry them open, but that effort alone nearly made her pass out again. A muddled voice speaks to her...she thinks it’s telling her to calm down.

Something stings against Joan’s head. She whimpers sharply and tries to squirm away, but she can’t move.

“Hey. Sit still.”

Joan moaned again. She can taste copper on her tongue. It makes her stomach churn.

“Joan. Please sit still.”

Her eyes open. Light stabs into them, but she manages to make out the figure of Anne sitting beside her. She blinks dazedly at the woman.

“A...Anne...?” She croaked. Her throat hurt so much. Every word seemed to make it cave in on itself until she felt like she was choking on the syllables and enunciation.

“Hush.” Anne said. There wasn’t even a flicker of goofiness in her at that moment- her face was completely stoney and serious. “Don’t speak.”

“Wh...what...” Joan spoke anyway.

“I said, don’t talk, Joan. You’re hurt.” Anne said. “I shouldn’t even be doing this after what you did, but—”

Her voice cut off. Joan blinked up at her and saw that she’s staring at her neck.

Anne gagged. Joan’s eyes widen in alarm as the woman sprints out of the room with one hand over her mouth. She waits, but Anne does not come back.

Joan rolled off of the couch she’s lying on, recognizing the room she’s in as the shared dressing room between Cathy, Jane, and Kitty. She staggered over to the mirror, feeling like her head was about to explode with every step she took, and looked at what exactly made Anne feel so sick:

The dark, near-black bruise that encircled the entirety of her neck in the horrifying shape of hands.

—

Joan didn’t know how long she laid on that couch, feeling like her brain was oozing out through every orifice. In reality, it was probably only thirty minutes, but it was like an eternity to her before Aragon walked in.

Joan tensed, flinched, and waited to be hit or arrested by a swarm of cops that had been called, but Aragon just sits beside her head. She’s only glanced at for a moment.

“Elizabeth told me everything.” Aragon said grimly. “What Mary said...and did.”

So Joan had heard someone outside the door.

“I...I’m sorry, Joan.” Aragon whispered. “I’m so sorry... I thought she would be good this time. If I just raised her right, then she wouldn’t be the same and everyone could forget about what she did, but...”

She looked down at Joan- at the horrible bruise around her throat. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Oh my god...” She whispered. It’s obvious she didn’t think the wounds were that bad. “Oh, Joan... Oh, my sweet baby girl...”

She covered her face with her hands and began to cry, but didn’t dare touch Joan. It’s like she was scared of hurting her, too.

Joan watched her mother figure weep before gathering her strength and crawling forward so she could rest her head in Aragon’s lap. The queen gasps softly in surprise and then wraps Joan in her arms, sort of forgetting to be gentle.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Aragon sobbed. “I’m so sorry! I-I didn’t know— I didn’t—”

Joan can’t speak, so she just nuzzles Aragon as best as she could.

“We’ll get you help, baby.” Aragon told her. “I’m going to call the police. Mary will never lay a finger on you again, I promise.”

“Mama...” Joan choked out, head spinning.

“I’m right here, sweet girl.” Aragon said as she dialed the emergency line.

“999, what’s your emergency?” The operator answered.

“Please, I need an ambulance.” Aragon begged. “My daughter was attacked.”

[fictionadventurer]

Persuasion is definitely Austen’s most romantic book, but my favorite thing is that it’s a romance about romance--what makes a good couple, what makes a good marriage, what are obstacles that confront married couples. This book has more romances and more married couples than any other Austen book, and all of them serve as examples or warnings to Anne and Wentworth. They show what might have happened had they chose differently or what they could still become, and these help Austen explore the nuances of courtship and marriage much more thoroughly than she could have with only one central romance.

Let’s look at the examples.

Anne’s mother married handsome Sir Walter for love and lived to regret it, because he turned out to be a self-centered spendthrift whose irresponsible ways drove the family to poverty. The text tells us that Wentworth is handsome, extremely confident, and has wasted his money before; he’s not as silly as Sir Walter, but if his character hadn’t altered, or if Anne had married him after he first proposed, she could well have wound up in a similar situation to her mother.

Charles Musgrove proposed to Anne, and when she rejected him, he married Mary instead, because she seemed like the best option available. Rather than elevating each other’s characters, they amplify each others’ faults--Mary fakes illness because she wants attention, and Charles doesn’t want to deal with it, so he neglects his family and spends most of his time hunting. Either Anne or Wentworth could have done something similar--they could have settled for a “second best” option who would fail to help them become their best self--and this shows what a tragedy it could have been. 

Benwick loved Fanny Harville, but postponed the wedding until he made more money and became captain, and she died before they could wed. A similar thing could have happened to Anne and Wentworth--romance with a naval man is full of uncertainty--this relationship muses on the dangerous balance between love and practicality. Even the sensible choice can backfire; even the strongest of love can be torn apart by the random tragedies of life.

Henrietta and Charles Hayter love each other, but the relationship is strained by misunderstandings. Only after they get over their pride and actually talk to each other can they clear everything up and get married. Which is exactly what Anne and Wentworth have to do at the end of the book.

Captain Harville has a wife and children who stayed in port while he traveled at sea. He has to worry about supporting them, and it was painful to leave them behind, but he also has the support of their love. He winds up losing his leg and having to leave the navy, but they’re together as they weather the difficulties. This shows both positive and negative possibilities for Anne and Wentworth’s future together--they can have a good life, but there’s also the potential for troubles. It can be worth the risk--but you have to be aware of the risks.

Mrs. Smith marries a rich man she loves and lives a life of prosperous frivolity, only to be left a poor widow after his death. Her story serves as a warning--money and even love aren’t as important as strength of character and a good attitude, because when things go wrong (and widowhood is a definite possibility for the wife of a sea captain), that’s what’s going to get you through the difficulties.

Mr. Elliot is a poor man, marries his wife for money, and tramples over everyone in his quest for more money. He’s the anti-Wentworth; Wentworth has a similar flawed desperation for money, but he rose through his own efforts and kept a good character. When William Elliot pursues Anne, he seems to offer the perfect partnership--he’s charming, appreciates her good qualities, and has money and a title. But that perfect exterior hides the rotten soul of a grasping, greedy, ruthless man. Wentworth has his flaws, but they’re obvious flaws atop a noble core, rather than the dangerous, pleasant duplicity of William Elliot. Mr. Elliot serves as a warning to be wary of perfect exteriors, and to value a good character over a charming manner or a high social status.

Admiral and Mrs. Croft are rightfully held up as the ideal of what Anne and Wentworth could become. Two people with compatible personalities and strong moral characters who are deeply in love with each other and balance out each others’ faults. Rather than being left behind, Mrs. Croft gets to be fully part of her husband’s life at sea, staying by his side through his travels. Perfectly matched partners who find prosperity and happiness. Essentially the best of all possible outcomes for Anne and Wentworth.

The one thing Admiral and Mrs. Croft don’t have is children. But that’s the one thing we know about Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove’s marriage--it resulted in lots of happy children. They show that one of the important functions of a good marriage is being good parents. They like having their children around, they let them pursue their interests, and they’re generous in letting the young Harville children stay with them. And most importantly, they support their daughters marrying good men that they love, even if they’re not the richest or highest-ranking of men; they value their children’s happiness over their own social standing. That’s the support that Anne lacked in her relationship with Wentworth; both her father and Lady Russell let their appreciation for rank and wealth blind them to Wentworth’s good qualities, but fortunately, the Musgroves provide Anne a better example of how to behave toward her own children. 

And then there’s Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove, the relationship that made no sense to all outsiders. Yet they’re essentially a gender-flipped version of Anne and Wentworth. Benwick is quiet, cautious and sensitive--naturally he’s drawn to Anne’s similar personality. Wentworth is outgoing, confident, active--much like Louisa. But Louisa’s reckless confidence leads to tragedy, and brings the correct pairs of opposites together. Wentworth realizes he doesn’t need a woman like himself, because they just magnify each others’ flaws; he needs Anne, whose strengths complement his own. Louisa’s injury slows her down and makes her appreciate the quiet strengths of Captain Benwick; her personality’s much more subdued after her accident, but her underlying confident nature, if it ever returns, would be a good balance to Benwick’s sensitivity and caution.

This book examines marriage from nearly every possible angle. There’s no one perfect path, no one perfect choice, because there are risks and rewards to everything. Anne and Wentworth’s story could have gone wrong in so many ways; it could still go wrong. But the examples of the marriages around them show them what qualities to value, what pitfalls to avoid. And that thorough examination of marriage--through all the book’s many relationships--are what make the romance in Persuasion a true masterpiece.