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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“...Throughout her reign Elizabeth continued a number of rituals of medieval kings that demonstrated the continuing power of the aspect of sacred monarchy. We can see, however, the gendered nature of the way she approached these ceremonies. Throughout her reign Elizabeth used the royal touch to cure people of the disease, scrofula, known as the king's evil. Being able to cure through touch suggests the power Elizabeth had as a religious figure, a sacred monarch, and the value of her self-presentation as Virgin Queen. …Lancastrians claimed that Edward IV could not touch since he was not the rightful king. Wrote Fortescue, he "wrongly claims to enjoy this wonderful privilege. Wrongly ... [since] this unction is powerless because Edward had no right to receive it."

Sir John went on to argue by analogy, and scornfully asked: "Would a woman who received ordination thereby become a priest?" Clearly not. Continuing this line of argument, Fortescue added that a usurper would not be the only one unable to cure by touch. Many duties likewise are incumbent on the kings of England in virtue of the kingly office, which are inconsistent with a woman's nature, and kings of England are endowed with certain powers by special grace from heaven, wherewith queens in the same country are not endowed. The kings of England by touch of their annointed hands they cleanse and cure those inflected with a certain disease, that is commonly called the King's Evil, though they be pronounced otherwise incurable. This gift is not bestowed on Queens.

Yet less than a century later, both Mary and Elizabeth were touching for the king's evil, and following other practices including blessing metal for cramp rings (also used for healing) and conducting other religious services attached to Easter, such as washing the feet of the poor on Maundy Thursday. It is worth considering how practices described as inappropriate and unworkable in one century could be accomplished the next, and the implications for understanding the nature of Elizabeth's role as queen and the function of monarchy and its religious aspects in the sixteenth century. It is useful to look as well at Mary's reign to see the similarities and differences in religious practices of a queen regnant, one Catholic who marries; the other a Protestant Virgin Queen. We should not assume that Elizabeth appropriated these functions for purely political reasons as a means of encouraging loyalty, though that was a strong element.

As Max Weber has noted, the use of religious conventions are helpful in establishing the legitimacy of rule. Further, some sociologists, of the Durkheim school, argue in a positive theory of ritual that "religious beliefs and practices not only create and sustain the fundamental social structure of a society, but maintain the members' sense of reality." But religious feelings probably also infused Elizabeth's gestures. Historians have traditionally described Elizabeth as a politique who was very knowledgeable about Christianity but had little religious conviction. But the work of such scholars as William Haugaard and Margaret Aston suggests far otherwise. Scarisbrick is correct that Elizabeth was no zealot, which was a difficult issue for the Protestant zealots of her time to come to terms. But because Elizabeth did not agree with their version of Christianity does not mean that she was not devout. It was serious enough for Elizabeth to organize worship in her chapel as she wanted it.

The little silver cross she had in her private chapel infuriated reformers, but was important enough to her that she refused to remove it. John Jewel's letters to Peter Martyr are filled with the despair this caused him. Jewel wrote him November 16, 1559, "The doctrine is every where most pure; but as to the ceremonies and maskings, there is a little too much foolery. That little silver cross, of ill-omened origin, still maintains its place in the queen's chapel. Wretched me! This thing will soon be drawn into a precedent. There was at one time some hope of it being removed .... But as far as I can perceive, it is now a hopeless case. Such is the obstinacy of some minds." Elizabeth had originally wanted the cross and candlesticks set up throughout her kingdom, but had finally agreed with church leaders to ban them, and in the central place of the proscribed crucifixion, the royal arms were displayed, thus conflating even more monarchy and worship.

Elizabeth refused, however, to take the cross and candlesticks out of her own chapel. Iconoclasts were so distressed that in both 1562 and 1567 they made attempts to destroy them. In 1562 an unknown reformer managed to do so. Bishop John Parkhurst wrote gleefully to Bullinger (August 20, 1562), "The crucifix and candlesticks in the queen's chapel are broken into pieces, and, as some has brought word, reduced to ashes. A good riddance of such a cross as that!" Elizabeth, however, replaced them and they were a target again five years later, as de Silva explained in a letter to Philip II (1 November, 1567). "On the 25th whilst they were performing what they call the service in the Queen's chapel an Englishman went up to the altar and cast down the cross and candlesticks upon which he stamped, and at the same time shouted heretical and shameful words."

Elizabeth was inclined at first to treat this leniently. She told de Silva "that the man was mad and did not know what he was doing, recounting to me some of his follies, amongst others that he thought our Lady and St. John, who were on either side of the cross, were Jews who wanted to crucify Christ again." De Silva was far from convinced, calling the man "an evil-minded rogue." In December the man tried to destroy the sacred objects in the chapel again, and this time "he was at once arrested and taken to a private prison whence he was transferred to the Tower." Given the conflicts over Elizabeth's private worship, we might wonder what Elizabeth's true religious feelings were. De Feria reported to Philip in 1559 that she had told him "she differed very little from us as she believed God was in the sacrament of the Eucharist and only dissented from three or four things in the Mass."

She went on to say that "she did not wish to argue about religious matters," something she tried to avoid whenever she could. Five years later she told de Silva, referring to the beginning of her reign, that "she had had to conceal her real feelings to prevail with her subjects in matter of religion, but that God knew her heart, which was true to His service." Of course, we do not know how sincere Elizabeth was in her discussions with either of the Spanish ambassadors, or if she was concealing her real feelings here as well. Bacon said of Elizabeth that she did not want to make windows into men's souls, and neither did she want a window made into her soul. She was content to believe that God knew what was in her heart, about her faith as in so many other matters, and to let it be.

Yet her behavior in both the Maundy ceremony and the touch ceremony certainly give us hints as to her religious attitudes. In performing these ceremonies Elizabeth not only continued kingly practices but also the practices of medieval women saints; though Catholics did not allow women to be priests, they had not excluded women from the miraculous, particularly miraculous cures, and this power seemed closely connected with the saints' purity and virginity. The many revered female saints, as Scarisbrick points out, "tempered male authority and ... asserted the dignity of womanhood." But these saints had been swept away, and many reformers had no use for virgins. Yet Elizabeth presented herself as a Virgin Queen, echoing the cult not only of the Virgin Mary, but also perhaps those of such saints as Frideswide and Uncumber, both of whose shrines had been destroyed in 1538, both of whom were said to be daughters of kings, and both of whose power came from their determined virginity.

Uncumber, daughter of a pagan father, prayed to God for aid when her father attempted to force her to marry. She immediately grew a dense, curly beard, which was sufficiently off-putting for her suitor to leave her at the altar. Her father, in his fury, had her crucified. In England, especially from the fourteenth century onward, Uncumber was the saint to whom unhappy wives prayed for succor, to be "disencumbered" of their husbands as Thomas More scornfully put it. There were images of Uncumber in Norwich, Bristol, and Somerset as well as Westminster itself. But Lord Mayor of London Sir Richard Gresham had the Westminster statue taken down in August 1538. If Uncumber's beard might suggest a parallel with the male, kingly aspect of Elizabeth's self-representation, St. Frideswide, patron saint of Oxford, is a more direct comparison as a healer.

Frideswide supposedly lived in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. The daughter of Didanus, an under-king, she was piously educated and early had a calling for a religious life. Despite her vows King Algar wished to make her his wife because of her beauty and wealth. He threatened to burn down Oxford if Frideswide was not delivered up to him. Frideswide managed to escape. When Algar caught her she prayed to St. Catherine and St. Cecilia, and he was immediately struck blind. It was Frideswide's own prayerful intervention, once he repented, that restored his sight. Frideswide founded a monastery and was known for her healing, possibly learned from her abbess/ aunt. Her shrine was decorated with delicately carved plants, all of which were known for their healing properties, to demonstrate Frideswide's great gift as a healer.

Her most remarkable healing was when a leper conjured her in the name of Christ to kiss him. Despite what was described as his "loathsome condition" and her "fear of infection," Frideswide made the sign of the cross and gave the leper a kiss. "Immediately the scales fell from him, and his flesh came again like that of a child." She was able to cure a fisherman who was subject to violent fits, perhaps by casting the devils out of him. In some versions she also healed a blind girl, perhaps echoing the blindness and recovery of sight of Algar. The relics of St. Frideswide were preserved in a beautiful shrine at Oxford in a chapel dedicated to her. During Lent and again on Ascension Day, the Chancellor of Oxford, and principal members of the University, along with the scholars, came to the shrine in solemn procession proffering gifts. Especially during the twelfth century there were numerous instances of the faithful being miraculously cured after a pilgrimage to her shrine.

Of those who came to be cured, women outnumbered men two to one, and many of these diseases had to do with specifically female maladies, including madness or severe pain caused by intercourse. Prayers at St. Frideswide's shrine also cured one knight's daughter of scofula, which makes the identitification of Frideswide with Elizabeth even more powerful. In the later Middle Ages St. Frideswide's shrine was Oxford's richest church, and St. Frideswide's fair, sanctioned by a charter from Henry I, was the most important one in Oxford. The fair received particular attention in 1382 and 1384 because of a dispute between the University and St. Frideswide's Priory over jurisdiction. St. Frideswide must have been a well-known saint in the medieval England. In "The Miller's Tale" Chaucer has the carpenter call out "Help us, seinte Frydeswyde!"

...We have no direct evidence that Elizabeth saw herself as a continuation of such saints as Uncumber and Frideswide. Nor that those who thronged for her touch were consciously making such a connection. But surely the tradition of the virgin saint as healer would resonate as well for a Virgin Queen who healed by touch. Throughout medieval and early modem England there was a strong belief in magical healers, and the king was the most magical of all. Kings had touched to cure the afflicted in England since the time of the saintly Edward the Confessor. After the Norman Conquest it seems that English kings saw the effect of the French people spontaneously going to their king to be cured and copied the measure as an effective means to gain religious-political support.

Yet the practice seems to have waxed and waned in England in the Middle Ages. Despite Fortescue's concerns, there appears to have been relatively little touching for the king's evil by English kings in the fifteenth century, and we have no records of either Edward IV or Richard III touching, though Edward did have cramp rings made to distribute, another form of magical healing. Henry VII, after a century or more of comparative neglect, restored the ceremony of the touch to all its dignity and established a full ceremonial, with a set office of service. Henry, whose claim to the throne by the right of primogeniture was weak, used a number of techniques to assure his prestige, including claiming his descent from the mythological King Arthur and producing a round table repainted in the Tudor colors of white and green which he claimed was the original round table. In the same way he named his eldest son Arthur.

Touching for the king's evil, which could only be accomplished by the Lord's anointed, and which suggested the work of Christ himself, would be another means to assure his position. The touching became highly ritualized, and Henry VII gave each of the affiicted a gold angel as well as the king's healing touch. Just as touching increased the monarch's prestige, so too did maintaining the practice of washing the feet of the poor on Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday and a time of year heavy with religious portent. By the Tudor period the monarch had become clearly associated with the Maundy ceremony. The ceremony of washing the feet of the poor, done in imitation of Christ washing the feet of his disciples at the end of the Last Supper, was a part of the Easter vigil and had been included in the church service for many centuries.

In the Bible Christ told his disciples, "If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet I For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done unto you." The Mandatum, or rite of the Washing of the Feet, was thus originally a simple act of charity very common in the Church. It became a liturgical rite sometime between the fifth and the seventh century. By the eleventh century the practice was being carried out in Rome. The Pope washed the feet of twelve subdeacons at the end of the evening Mass on Holy Thursday. When the other Holy Thursday rites were moved to the morning hours during the fourteenth century, the Mandatum remained a separate service to be held in the afternoon. The ceremony of the Maundy was known in Britain by at least 600.

…When Mary became queen in 1553, she continued these ceremonies, investing them with great dignity as well as obvious personal feelings of piety. Elizabeth continued them as well. One reason that these ceremonies became so ritualized is that these functions were part of a larger theatricalization of royalty intended to achieve and demonstrate power. By the sixteenth century, the monarch had become even more important symbolically; the image of the monarch, idealized as God's representative on earth, was a means to secure the people's allegiance. The Tudors, who ruled without a standing army or an extensive police force, had their power "constituted in theatrical celebrations of royal glory," in Stephen Greenblatt's words. For queens ruling instead of kings, this aspect of power through ritual and spectacle could be particularly important, though Elizabeth took much more advantage of it than Mary.

…Elizabeth was far more aware of how to use spectacle to enhance the prestige of the monarchy, which she did from the very beginning of her reign in her coronation ceremony and procession through London the day before her coronation. Thus we know even more about Elizabeth's practices, and have a number of accounts of both her Maundy ceremonies and her touching for the king's evil. For Mary as a woman to continue these practices was already an unusual situation, but as a Catholic Mary wanted to re-establish practices that were not only royal but Roman. For Elizabeth, the situation was more difficult and complex. She was a woman ruler, a "female-king" who had also to balance the variety of demands on her for religious reform.

Looking at what ceremonial she retained and what she let go gives us an insight not only into Elizabeth's religious sensibilities, but also a glimpse into the cultural attitudes of the English Renaissance toward religion and queenship. The use of these religious ceremonies fit well with Elizabeth's self-presentation as the Virgin Queen, an image she presented to her people as a means to replace the Virgin Mary and help heal the rupture created by the break with the Catholic Church. Elizabeth and her Councillors deliberately appropriated the symbolism and prestige of the suppressed Marian cult in order to foster the cult of the Virgin Queen. This proved a powerful resource for Elizabeth in dealing with the political problems of her regime. The identification of Elizabeth with the Virgin Mary, which developed in the mid-1570s, was very effective in encouraging loyalty to the queen.

The worship of the Virgin Mary had been especially popular in England in the late Middle Ages, and well into the early sixteenth century. Simply denying her power and prestige, as Protestant reformers did, did not lessen the tremendous appeal the Virgin had for the popular imagination; it simply left a void. The image of Elizabeth as a Virgin Queen helped to fill this void and at the same time was politically valuable since many English Protestants came to love and revere Elizabeth as they had previously loved and revered the virgin. People began to suggest that one ought to say, "Long live Eliza!" instead of "Hail Mary!" John Buxton describes the famous picture of Elizabeth being carried to Blackfriars as "like the Virgin Mary in a religious procession: a comparison her subjects did not hesitate to draw."

We can see this identification in many other contexts. A number of the symbols used to represent Elizabeth as Virgin Queen-the Rose, the Star, the Moon, the Phoenix, the Ermine, and the Pearl-were also symbols that had been used previously to represent the Virgin Mary. Roy Strong suggests that, although Protestant England banned religious images as idolatrous, images of the monarch were accorded the kind of ceremonial deference reserved for religious icons. In time, many of her subjects did accept Elizabeth as an acceptable substitute for the Virgin Mary, and their adulation assumed a religious coloring. For example, many of the members of Elizabeth's court believed that having the queen visit on progress was tantamount to having their house blessed.

Lord Burghley wrote about Elizabeth's visit to Theobalds as "consecrating" it; Burghley treated her so splendidly there that she visited a number of times, which was a great if costly honor. Elizabeth's progresses were critical in systematically promoting the cult of the Virgin Queen for people of all classes all over the country. Sir Robert Burton suggested the very sight of the monarch could "refresh the soul of man." Magnificent, idealized portraits of Elizabeth also functioned to legitimate her power and gain loyalty. The celebration of Elizabeth's accession day, November 17, took on religious significance and the trappings of a religious festival, in part, suggests David Cressy, "to compensate for the reduction in holy days" in the calendar. In fact, this day was sometimes known as "the queen's holy day." The festivities included public thanksgiving for her safety, sermons, and the ringing of bells, in addition to the more expected and secular contests such as tournaments and signs of rejoicing and triumph.

After the abortive rebellion in the north in 1569 and the bull of excommunication of 1570, public celebrations marking Elizabeth's accession began spontaneously. The first was in Oxford in 1570. They soon spread through the kingdom and were established officially. Elizabeth's government felt a need for a public display of celebration that demonstrated that all the threatening dangers had been overcome. The day "attracted much of the festive and liturgical energy that had formerly been reserved for saints' days." Her accession was formally introduced as a church holiday in 1576, with a specific service and liturgy. …From then onward November 17 was kept as a day of patriotic rejoicing, "in the forme of a Holy Day," as Thomas Holland said in a sermon in 1599 to answer those that "uncharitably traduced the honour of the realm."

In at least some years, two days after the accession day festivities, on November 19, there were further sports to celebrate St. Elizabeth's day, the queen's namesake. "Then the nineteenth day, being St. Elizabeth's day, the Earl of Cumberland, the Earl of Essex, and my Lord Burgh, did challenge all comers six courses apiece; which was very honourably performed." Another day of organized public celebration was September 7, Elizabeth's birthday. There were prayers in church, ringing of bells, bonfires, and parties. One prayer asked God to bless Elizabeth and curse her enenues, to fight against those that fight against her .... Bless them that blesse her. Curse them that curse her .... Lett her rise. Lett them fall. Lett her flourish. Lett them perish.

…The celebration of Elizabeth's birthday was particularly offensive to English Catholics because September 7 was, coincidentally, the eve of the feast of the nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Catholics such as Edward Rishton complained that the English Protestants were ignoring this holy day, "and to show the greater contempt for our Blessed lady, they keep the birthday of queen Elizabeth in the most solemn way on the 7th day of September, which is the eve of the feast of the Mother of God, whose nativity they mark in their calendar in small and black letters, while that of Elizabeth is marked in letters both large and red. And what is hardly credible, in the church of St Paul, the chief church of London ... the praises of Elizabeth are said to be sung at the end of the public prayers, as the Antiphon of our lady was sung former days."

But many of her loyal subjects regarded the fact that Elizabeth should share the nativity of the Virgin Mary as more than simply coincidence; they considered it a divine omen. It proved to them that Elizabeth and the Anglican Church were sustained and sanctified by divine providence. This belief was further intensified by the date of Elizabeth's death, March 24, which was the eve of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. Soon after the queen died one anonymous Latin elegy asked, "do you wish to know why it was on the Eve of the Lady that the holy Eliza ascended into heaven?" The answer emphasizes the direct parallels commonly perceived between Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary: Being on the point of death she chose that day for herself because in their lives these two were as one. Mary was a Virgin, she, Elizabeth, was also; Mary was blessed; Elizabeth was blessed among the race of women .... Mary bore God in her womb, but Elizabeth bore God in her heart. Although in all other respects they are like twins, it is in this latter respect alone that there are not of equal rank.

And touching for the king's evil became even more popular in her reign. Both her chaplain, William Tooker (1597), and her surgeon, William Clowes (1602), wrote books about scrofula and Elizabeth's remarkable talent for healing it through touch. It seems clear that Elizabeth chose to keep the ceremonies that were most public and had greatest value as spectacle and allow the less public ones to fall into disuse. Elizabeth expressed herself eager to cure by touching throughout her reign. During her reign, instead of a fixed season for touching as had been done previously, occasions were arranged according to Elizabeth's inclinations, particularly when she felt a divine directive or when she was strongly importuned by the applicants or their patrons. Sufferers would give their names to the royal Surgeons, who would examine each patient carefully to be sure the disease was really the Evil and there were no impostures.

They would then submit a list to the queen who would appoint a day, usually a Friday, Sunday, or feast day. The ceremony often took place at St. Stephen's Chapel in the ancient palace of Westminster, though Elizabeth also touched to heal while on progress, thus not only presenting the ceremony through the mediating filter of her Court, but also demonstrating this prestige through the theatricalization of ritual in other parts of her kingdom. Her chaplain William Tooker described how intensely she prayed to be able to transmit the healing touch. "How often have I seen her most serene Majesty, prostrate on her knees, body and soul rapt in prayer . . . how often have I seen her with her exquisite hands, whiter than whitest snow, boldly and without disgust, pressing their sores and ulcers, and handling them to health ... how often have I seen her worn with fatigue, as when in one single day, she healed eight and thirty persons of the struma."

…Though clearly aware of the value of the theatricalization of holy ritual, we may assume that Elizabeth did not touch simply for the propaganda value it afforded her. She apparently took the ceremony very seriously, and at times did not feel that at that specific moment she had the inspiration to cure by touching. At Gloucester, when throngs of the afflicted came to her for her aid, she had to deny them, telling them, "Would, would that I could give you help and succour. God, God is the best and greatest physician of all-you must pray to him." It is possible that Elizabeth may have refused to touch because she was menstruating, which would have made her touch polluting. This may also be why Elizabeth did not touch in a fixed season, since this sometimes might have coincided with her periods, which were irregular. Popular culture in medieval and early modern England believed the touch of a menstruating woman could have disastrous effects on men, cows, gardens, bees, milk, wine, and much more, even if medical authorities of the time denied it.

The effectiveness of the queen's touch was a potent political force for her, and a weapon against the ire of the pope. Indeed, the Protestant English feared the pope, whom Sir Walter Mildmay, for one, described as England's "most mortal and capital enemy." They believed that each Maundy Thursday he pronounced a solemn anathema against all heretics and enemies. There was particular concern after the pope issued a bull of excommunication against Elizabeth in 1570. English Protestants publicly discounted the papal bull on the grounds that Elizabeth still had the God-given ability of a true monarch to cure by touch, and even English Catholics as well as Protestants continued to go to Elizabeth to be healed by her touch.

…Writing at the end of her reign, her surgeon William Clowes prayed for Elizabeth, whose long life, much happines, peace and tranquility, let us all (according to our bounden dutyes) continually pray unto the Almighty God, that he will blesse, keepe and defend her Sacred person, from the malice of all her knowne and unknowne enemies, so that shee may forever raigne over us, (if it please the Lord God) even unto the ende of the world, still to cure and heale many thousands moe, then ever she hath yet done. Clowe's prayer, that Elizabeth might live and rule and cure until the end of the world, projects her not only into the sacred but beyond human into the divine. But we do need to take care how seriously we accept this prayer.

In fact, Elizabeth in 1602 was a woman close to seventy years old, who was, in some people's eyes, especially after the Essex rebellion and its attack on both her person and her monarchy, clearly failing. And while imagery of the sacred was part of the way her people viewed Elizabeth, it was only one aspect of a multi-sided presentation; her gender and questions around her sexuality were also important and possibly troubling aspects of the way the English viewed their queen. Yet for at least some of her subjects the discomfort they may have felt in seeing a woman rule and perform such actions had been lost in appreciation for all Elizabeth had done as a sacred monarch, one who both blessed and cured with a queen's touch.”

- Carole Levin, “Elizabeth as Sacred Monarch.” in The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power

#the heart and stomach of a king #elizabeth i of england #elizabethan #history #renaissance #carole levin

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myrinthinks · 2 years ago

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Hier ist übrigens eine deutschsprachige Teil-Zusammenfassung mit einem etwas mehr akademisch-administrativen Blickwinkel. (Bester Satz daraus: “Doch Führung und Rechenschaftspflicht [...] sind im Bereich der akademischen Selbstverwaltung noch immer weitgehend ein Fremdwort.”)

NICHE DRAMA LOVERS! you all have GOT to plug into the scandal unfolding on medievalist twitter, which starts at simple plagiarism and escalates into company website populated by fake people. go here to get started and then progress through the subsequent posts (a five part series can i get a HELL YEAH) on the blog, & plug in #receptiogate on twitter to check out shenanigans like almost definitely someone related to the plagiarist making a very transparent troll account to harass an extremely polite seeming medievalist and also the funniest use of a breaking bad meme i have ever seen (god i LOVE when academics get riled up). as you may not be surprised to learn when it comes to inappropriate sourcing the manuscript scholars do NOT come to play. i’m not gonna spoil the twist about the sotheby’s catalogue but when you GET to the twist about the sotheby’s catalogue, in blog series post part IV, CHEF’S KISS! I’M THRIVING!

#raise your hands if you've also mostly worked on 'unsexy' projects during your academic career #medieval #medieval foolery #academia #research #myrin thinks in german

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catalists · 4 years ago

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fjorclay fic recs, vol. 1

If the influx of people into the Fjorclay server is any indication, a number of people have been boarding this good good ship lately, and I wanted to put together a little rec list of (some of) my favorite Fjorclay fics for anyone who might be looking.

Your disclaimer: this is not a full literature review, and although I crowd-sourced a little, this is definitely mostly my personal favorites. Caveat lector!

* = fic is rated M or E

Ideation by starkraving

Fjord admires Caduceus, you know, in a totally normal and not at all weird way. Beauregard notices.

An earlier Fjorclay fic and not any less powerful for it. The language here is incredibly precise and the take on Fjord is incredible.

through the trance* by starstrung

Once he’s communed with the Wildmother, Fjord keeps wanting to do it again.

This fic. This fic. One of my favorites, not just for the absolute pitch-perfect Fjord and Caduceus, but for nailing every last one of the Mighty Nein’s voices. Not to mention it manages to be hilarious and heartrending sometimes in the same line.

for I will hold them for you by constanted

Wanting is difficult, like Caduceus had said, and Fjord is used to wanting, but he’s not used to wanting things that are… like Caduceus. Soft and like-sunsets. Things that are bleeding out before him. Etcetera.

(or: The party's split, and a difficult battle leaves Melora's boys fresh out of magic and Caduceus severely damaged. Fjord tries his best to take care of him. Blood loss makes clerics say the darnedest things.)

This is my personal favorite of Bee’s fics, because, well, it’s hurt/comfort and it’s amazing hurt/comfort with a side of perfect dialogue. But she has many other excellent fics as well and they’re very worth reading too.

the morning calls your name by MithrilWren

It’s not so much that Fjord stops sleeping. It’s more that it’s begun to taper down: the number of hours he spends with his eyes closed.

Fjord wages a losing war against insomnia. Caduceus notices.

You may have noticed a theme to these recs: excellent, thoughtful characterization, dialogue where you can really hear their voices, and hurt/comfort. This checks all the boxes and is beautifully written besides.

no man is an island (but we sure are on one) by kaeda

Fjord takes advantage of the Mighty Nein's island getaway to romance Caduceus. It takes Caduceus some time to notice.

Speaking of pitch-perfect Mighty Nein: this fic has it. Also, excellent blend of emotion and plot, the perfect getting-together fic in a way that feels believable for the show.

gardens full of aching trees by galacticdrift

Just...kicking around some ideas about how little Cad heals himself, mainly, and why that might be, and how Fjord might react upon finding out (spoilers: they kiss). I meant for this to get spicy with the Lay On Hands but Fjord really just had his heart set on yearning instead.

Title from Murder By Death's "Solitary One."

It’s all about that yearning! And lovely prose, and the sort of care I long to see the Mighty Nein exhibit towards Caduceus a little more often in canon. It’s soft. This fic is soft.

you’re scared to die alone, i know by moonbeatblues

Caduceus Clay is a strange one.

He could say that— has, actually, said that— about everyone else here, but with Caduceus he really means it. He says he’s from somewhere up north, out of Empire territory, and he flies like it, too.

That is to say, Caduceus Clay kinda flies like shit.

(expanding the mech au on a request)

Now we take a step into AU territory! This little mech au is so vivid and my only complaint is that there isn’t more of it. The mythology created in such a short piece is incredible.

gonna build you up, gonna help you believe by patchworkgirlofoz

Listen. Have you ever looked at the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, maybe at a tender and impressionable young age and deeply imprinted on it, but wanted so badly to change 95% of what happens in that story? Cool, me too.

An AU based on an old medieval poem--this description does it zero justice. If you like the story Gawain and the Green Knight, read this immediately. If you don’t know it but like fairytales, read this immediately. If that doesn’t apply to you, still read this immediately, it’s an incredibly clever adaptation that gets right into the heart of Fjord as a character and it’s beautiful.

your dust from mine by MithrilWren

Fjord was born to more than a servant’s life, but doesn’t know it. Prince Caduceus is betrothed to a man, but the wrong one.

A tale of mistaken identities, fairytale foolery, and the power of true love’s kiss.

(Or. a loose retelling of ‘The Goose Girl’, with some decidedly CR twists.)

A still ongoing fairy tale AU! Updates every week or two and kicks my ass every time. Absolutely incredible. (I made a rule that each author could only go on this list once, but for MithrilWren I have broken it.)

***

And, if you’re still looking for fic, I have a few, but most recently:

guide me to where we restart by Chrome

Grief in general is a difficult thing for Fjord to wrap his head around. He hasn’t truly grieved a terrible loss before; never had anything he couldn’t bear losing before. Now—he can’t imagine losing Caduceus. Can hardly imagine a day without him. “Do you think it gets easier?”

“Oh,” Caduceus says, “Everything gets easier, I think.”

---

After everything, Caduceus and Fjord find a little house on a cliff by the sea, and a life follows.

#fjorclay #teahaw #caduceus clay #fjord #critical role #cr fic #cr fic recs

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allofthefreedoms · 3 years ago

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Whenever I talk about Zog I immediately feel like a mad medieval heretic passionately professing his beliefs as everyone else in the village square minds their business and is at best mildly entertained by this madman's ramblings. Eventually the guards will decide that it is enough foolery and try to arrest me. But jokes on them 1) This is not foolery. 2) You'll never take me alive.

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minervacasterly · 4 years ago

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"Unsex Me."

When Cersei finally got her heart's desire, she also came closer, besides all the historical women she was based on for this moment, to one of Shakespeare's most infamous characters' desires: Lady Macbeth. Unlike Lady Macbeth though, she finally got her wish. She was 'unsexed' and it has largely to due to the frustrations she has of being a woman. She doesn't hate the fact she is treated horribly because she is a woman. Neither does she think 'women are people too, they must be treated equally'. It is because she views herself as a Lannister, a member of a powerful family and daughter of a powerful, ruthless man. And ruthless behavior was a sign of masculinity in medieval times so in her view, anyone who is ruthless, is a true man and therefore worthy of respect. She thinks to herself, to paraphrase from one character's point of view, 'why did the gods play a cruel joke on me?' In her view, men are better because they have the power. She often mocks women and even laughed when one of the ladies at court got raped, and sees them as the weaker sex, yet she can't help but see herself as better because in her view, she has all the qualities that men possess. When she took the Iron Throne, she was not only a Queen, in her view she might have seen herself rather as a female King, or better yet, a monarch. Neither man nor woman. She was what Lady Macbeth always wanted, she no longer wear bright colors or jewels, she was now 'unsexed'. There is a scene when she learns that her husband has been named the King's heir, and she prays to the dark spirits to "unsex me" and then urges her husband to commit regicide. In the books this is more evident. The series showed a brief glimpse of this when she tells King Robert: "I took you for a King. Maybe I should wear the mail and you the skirts". In Clash of Kings, Cersei's contempt for her late husband remains but there is also admiration. She thinks to herself that in spite of all his foolery and whoring, he was a true warrior and she was always in love with the late Prince Rhaegar because he was also one of the best warriors in Westeros. Another ongoing theme in the books is how she and Jaime are mirror images of each other. She finds it disgusting that they are treated differently simply because Jaime was born a man and she was born a woman, and echoes this sentiment in season 2 when she confesses to Sansa that she would have given everything to be in his place. While there are other women in the series also resent their treatment, they don't regret being born into their sex. Cersei on other hand does. She doesn't see herself as someone who should be treated with respect because she is a woman and women are people too, rather, because she is a Lannister and the daughter of a powerful Lord. When she sits on the Iron Throne, she doesn't look like she did at the beginning of the series. Her hair has been cut as a consequence of the slut shaming she got in season 5 and a Feast For Crowns, and she is no longer dressed in the colorful clothes or wearing the bright jewelry she wore in past season. She looks asexual, the version Lady Macbeth was praying to become when she asked the spirits to unsex her.

As rushed as season 8, it did show a vulnerable side to her that Lady Macbeth showed near the end of the play, where her madness began to manifest in the form of infinite sadness. In Cersei’s case, this madness was manifest since her husband’s murder. Her breaking point was the walk of shame followed by the dire news that her daughter had been poisoned by Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes. When Tommen dies, she shows little emotion. Then she takes the throne, and her arrogance increases tenfold. Like the Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare’s tragedy play, Cersei always believed that she deserves the best because of nature and the gods’ unfairness to make her a woman. And this disdain for her own sex is more evident in the books where she can’t stand women who conform to their gender roles.

#Cersei Lannister #Lady Macbeth #Game of Thrones #Shakespeare

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therefractory · 4 years ago

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The clown king: how Boris Johnson made it by playing the fool | Boris Johnson | The Guardian The Guardian · by Edward Docx The long-running German satirical show Extra 3 recently featured a sketch with the following voiceover: “From the people who brought you The Crown – the epic saga of the Queen – now comes the ridiculous story of this guy, a notorious buffoon at the head of a country … The Clown.” The word “clown” has often been used in a flippant or dismissive way with regard to Boris Johnson. But the underlying paradox is that it is only as a clown – a fool in the oldest and deepest sense of the word – that his character can truly be understood. What happens when you make the clown king is what we in the UK have been witnessing in real time. With the success of the vaccine, though, a new question emerges: can one archetype transform into the other? Can Johnson creep away from his clownish past altogether? Clowns, of course, are very serious and important people. At their simplest, they remind us of the silliness of things: that the world we have created is ridiculous. They reassure us in this observation by appealing to our innate understanding of the absurd. They relieve the endless tension and trauma of reality. At a deeper level, the clown is the mirror image of the priest. Both represent two ancient sides of our nature. Both elucidate what it means to be human. The priest summons, celebrates and interrogates the sacred; the clown does the same with the profane. The one is concerned with the eschatological, the other with the scatological. The priest propounds abstinence and fasting; the clown gluttony and indulgence. The one solemnifies sex, the other carnalises. As David Bridel, founder of the Clown School in Los Angeles, says, clowns are often roundly welcomed because they “remind us that we are as practised in falling over, shitting and humping, as we are in prayer and purification”. Would-be biographers of Johnson might do worse than to read Paul Bouissac, the leading scholar on the semiotics of clowning. Clowns are “transgressors”, he writes, cultural subversives who enact rituals and dramatic tableaux that “ignore the tacit rules of social games to indulge in symbolic actions that … toy with these norms as if they were arbitrary, dispensable convention.” Clowns “undermine the ground upon which our language and our society rest by revealing their fragility”. They “foreground the tension” between “instinct” and “constraint”. Bouissac could be writing directly of Johnson when he adds: “Their performing identities transcend the rules of propriety.” They are, he says, “improper by essence”. Observe classic Johnson closely as he arrives at an event. See how his entire being and bearing is bent towards satire, subversion, mockery. The hair is his clown’s disguise. Just as the makeup and the red nose bestow upon the circus clown a form of anonymity and thus freedom to overturn conventions, so Johnson’s candy-floss mop announces his licence. His clothes are often baggy – ill-fitting; a reminder of the clothes of the clown. He walks towards us quizzically, as if to mock the affected “power walking” of other leaders. Absurdity seems to be wrestling with solemnity in every expression and limb. Notice how he sometimes feigns to lose his way as if to suggest the ridiculousness of the event, the ridiculousness of his presence there, the ridiculousness of any human being going in any direction at all. His weight, meanwhile, invites us to consider that the trouble with the world (if only we’d admit it) is that it’s really all about appetite and greed. (His convoluted affairs and uncountable children whisper the same about sex.) Before he says a word, he has transmitted his core message – that the human conventions of styling hair, fitting clothes and curbing desires are all … ludicrous. And we are encouraged – laughingly – to agree. And, of course, we do. Because, in a sense, they are ludicrous. He goes further, though – pushing the clown’s confetti-stuffed envelope: isn’t pretending you don’t want to eat great trolleys of cake and squire an endless carousel of medieval barmaids … dishonest? Oh, come on, it’s so tiresome trying to be slim, groomed or monogamous – when what you really want is more cake and more sex. Right? I know it. You know it. We all know it. Why lie? Forget the subject under discussion – Europe, social care, Ireland – am I not telling it like it is, deep down? Am I not the most honest politician you’ve ever come across? Herein the clown’s perverse appeal to reason. Next, witness how, in the company of a journalist, Johnson’s whole demeanour transmits the sense of him saying: “Aha! An interview! How absurd! This is no way to find anything out! But, yes, if you want, I will play ‘prime minister’ and you can reprise my old role – if that’s what the audience is here for.” Notice how often he asks (knowingly) “Are you sure our viewers wouldn’t want to hear … ?” or “You really want to know this?” This is because the clown is always in a deeper relationship with the audience than with his ostensible subject. See how he rocks on his feet as if to lampoon a politician emphasising his words. Hear how his speech is not – in truth – eloquent, but rather a caricature of eloquence. The dominant mode is not fluency, but a kind of stop-start oratio interruptus; hesitancy followed by sudden spasms of effusion. The hesitancy is designed to involve us in the confected drama of his choosing the next word. The sudden effusion that follows can then be marketed as clinching evidence of his oratorical elan. You do not have to be a dramatist to recognise the clown archetype immediately. Johnson’s impulsiveness. The self-summoned crises. His attitude to truth, to authority, to every construct of law and art and politics, to power and to pleasure. His personal relationships and his relationship to the public. The self-conscious ungainliness. His blithe conjuring of fantasy and fairytale. The way he toys with norms – inverts, switches, tricks, reverses. The collusive warmth oddly symbiotic with a distancing coldness. Anything for a laugh. Everything preposterous. All of it richly articulate of the antic spirit that animates his being. Indeed, Johnson is an apex-clown – capable of the most sophisticated existential mockery while simultaneously maintaining the low moment-by-moment physical comedy of the buffoon. Recall general election Johnson of 2019. Think of the famous moment where he drove a JCB through a polystyrene wall on which was written the word “Gridlock”. His union jack-painted digger burst through the polystyrene with the legend “Get Brexit Done” written on its loader. His subsequent speech even mentioned custard: “I think it is time,” he said, smirking, “for the whole country – symbolically – to get in the cab of a JCB – of a custard colossus – and remove the current blockage that we have in our parliamentary system.” This scene must surely be as close to the actual circus as politics in the UK has ever come. Boris Johnson at the JCB headquarters in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, December 2019. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Consider what is actually going on here. The wall is a wall that he helped create. Now he wants everyone to join him demolishing it. And he’s the man to lead the charge. Why? Because he’s the only one who can smash through the nonsense that is … the wall. Yet, he built the wall. Most of this nonsense is his doing – figuratively, literally, in the studio, in the country. And why are the hazard lights on? Because, of course, this is an emergency, for the clown must forever be concocting drama. An emergency that he has conjured and staged – to place himself in the cab of the rescue vehicle. Which is not a rescue vehicle. But a JCB. (Paradox inside paradox; is he destroying or rescuing?) A JCB painted as a union jack. Why? To celebrate the flag? Not quite. To mock it, then? Also, not quite. But in order to toy with it – to clown with it – to move back and forth across the borders of the serious and the comic. “Time for the whole country,” he says, “symbolically – to get in the cab of the JCB.” Symbolically? Was ever a word deployed with so many layers of foolery? What – we thought he might mean we all get in the JCB? Of course, we didn’t. So who is he mocking with that word? He’s mocking everything – the stunt, us, himself – even in the moment of performance, he mocks his own performance. We cannot take him seriously and yet we must take him seriously. And note how that word “symbolically” steps up from the backstage of Johnson’s consciousness when talking of Brexit – which, as he well knows, is an act of symbolism at the expense of everything else. The JCBs, the polystyrene walls, the stuck-on-a-zipwire-with-two-mini-union-jacks, the hiding in fridges, the waving of fish, the thumbs up, the pants down, this is the realm of the mock heroic – to which Johnson returns again and again. This is where he’s most at home. This is where he’s world-king. And he urges us to join him there. Nudges our elbows. Offers us a drink. Beckons us in. Smirks. Winks. Johnson’s novel Seventy-Two Virgins is one long tour of the territory. The book is beyond merely bad and into some hitherto unvisited hinterland of anti-art. More or less everything about it is ersatz. Commentators who fall for his self-conjured comparisons to Waugh and Wodehouse miss the point entirely and do both writers an oafish ill-service. Because here again: Johnson is not seriously interested in writing novels at all. It’s not that he’s a fraud. Rather, as ever, he is a jester-dilettante peddling parody and pastiche. In truth, the attentive reader is not invited to take anything seriously about the novel – not its title; not its handling of character, dialogue, plot or point of view; not its dramatic construction, nor its stylistic impersonations. And certainly not its thematic dabbling. In fact, for more than 300 ingenious pages, Johnson manages to commit to nothing in the art of writing a novel so much as the attempt to be entertaining in the act of mocking a commitment to the art of writing of a novel. There is no heroic; it’s all mock. “To a man like Roger Barlow,” Johnson writes of his clownishly named hero in the book, “the whole world just seemed to be a complicated joke … everything was always up for grabs, capable of dispute; and religion, laws, principle, custom – these were nothing but sticks from the wayside to support our faltering steps.” Clowns have been with us through history. They turn up in Greek drama as sklêro-paiktês – childlike figures. During the Roman festival of Saturnalia, a clown-king was chosen and all commerce was suspended in favour of a wild cavort. (“Fuck business.”) In Norse mythology, the archetype is the figure of Loki – silver-tongued trickster and shape-shifter who turns himself into horse, seal, fly, and fish. (Note the echo of the reference by a close ally of Joe Biden to Johnson as a “shape-shifting creep”.) In the Italian commedia dell’arte, there is the character of Pierrot. There is Badin in France, Bobo in Spain, Hanswurst in Germany. And here in Britain: Shakespeare’s many famous fools. We need our clever fools, of course. Too much solemnity is sickly. We need the carnival. We need reminders of our absurdity. The culture should be subverted. The sacred should be disparaged. Institutions should be derided when they become sclerotic. We live in an age of posturing and zealotry and never needed our satirists and our clowns more. But the transgressor is licensed precisely because they are not in power. The satirist ridicules the government – fairly, unfairly – and we smile because (ordinarily) they are not in charge of the hospitals, the schools, our livelihoods or the borders. We laugh and clap at the circus, the theatre and the cinema because we can go home at the end of the evening, confident that the performers are not in charge of the reality in which we must live. Boris Johnson stuck on a zipline in Victoria Park, London, August 2012. Photograph: Getty Images Previously, of course, this was Johnson’s relationship to power. He was the clown-journalist tilting idly at straight bananas, Tony Blair, political correctness gone mad. When he was made mayor of London, he was in effect elevated to quasi-official court jester. There he was stranded on the zipwire (the buffoon parodies the circus trapeze act) but real power still remained elsewhere. Even during the referendum campaign, David Cameron and George Osborne were the government … whereas Johnson was continuing to perform the role of fool – holding up a kipper here, draped in sausages there, arriving in town squares with his red circus bus and a farrago of misdirection and fallacy. He was stoutly devoid of any real idea or concern for what might replace the structures he disparaged. His humour, his glee, his energy, his campaigning brilliance – it delighted and sparkled because he was free of responsibility, free to be himself, free to throw the biggest custard pies yet dreamed of in the UK. Vanishingly few people had any serious idea of what was involved in leaving the EU; and resoundingly not Johnson. But those who simply wanted to leave because their gut instinct told them it was right to do so would have failed and failed miserably without him. These men and women – the likes of Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis, Steve Baker, Nigel Farage, Mark Francois, John Redwood, Gisela Stuart, Kate Hoey et al – were never more than a dim congregation of rude mechanicals. And what they required to win was someone who instinctively understood how to conduct a form of protracted public masque. Someone who could distract, charm, rouse and delight with mischief and inversion and a thousand airy nothings. (The clown was ever the perfect ambassador of meaninglessness.) But even Puck sends the audience home with an apology and the reassurance that all we have witnessed was but a dream. We, however, have made our clown a real-world king. And from that moment on, we became a country in which there was only the mock heroic – a “world beating” country that would “strain every sinew” and give “cast-iron guarantees” while bungling its plans and breaking its promises. A country “ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles” and act “as the supercharged champion” of X, Y, Z. A country on stilts – pretending that we had a test and trace system that was head and shoulders above the rest of the world. A country performing U-turns on the teetering unicycle of Johnsonian buffoonery – A-levels, school meals, foreign health workers and more. A country of tumbling catastrophes. Trampolining absurdities. Go to work. Don’t go to work. A country proroguing parliament illegally here, trying to break international law there. Paying its citizens to “eat out to help out” in the midst of a lethal pandemic. A country testing its eyesight in lockdown by driving to distant castles with infant and spouse during a travel ban. A country whose leadership stitched up the NHS in the morning and then clapped for them at night. A country opening schools for a single day, threatening to sue schools, shutting schools. A country on holiday during its own emergency meetings. A country locking down too late; opening up too early. A country sending its elderly to die in care homes. A country unwilling to feed its own children. A country spaffing £37bn up the wall one moment and refusing to pay its own nurses a decent salary the next. A country doing pretend magic tricks with the existence of its own borders – no, there won’t be a border in the sea; oh yes there will; oh no there won’t; it’s behind you …. A country of gimmicks and slapstick and hollow, honking horns. This is Eastcheap Britain and Falstaff is in charge. It is in the two Henry IV plays that Shakespeare most clearly illuminates the gulf between his great, theatre-filling clown, Falstaff, and the young Prince Hal who will go on to become the archetype of the king – Henry V. At the mock-court of Falstaff’s tavern, we are invited to laugh and drink more ale, pinch barmaid’s bottoms, dance with dead cats and put bedpans on our heads while Falstaff entertains us with stories of his bravery and heroism that we all know are flagrant lies. Says Prince Hal to the portly purveyor of falsehoods: “These lies are like their father that begets them, gross as a mountain, open, palpable.” Meanwhile, the realm falls apart. Since we have no Hal and have crowned the clown instead, the play we are now watching in the UK asks an ever more pressing question: can Falstaff become Henry V and lead his country with true seriousness and purpose? Or is the vaccine-cloaked transformation now being enacted merely superficial – a shifting of the scenery? The lies themselves are the problem. The kingly archetype embodies at least the ambition of sincerity, meaning and good purpose at the heart of the state. Whereas deceit continues to be the default setting on Johnson’s hard drive. Rory Stewart calls Johnson “the best liar ever to serve as prime minister” but writes that “what makes him unusual in a politician is that his dishonesty has no clear political intent”. But Stewart does not quite see that Johnson is the purest form of clown there is – “improper by essence” – and that truth and lies are like two sides of the argument to him: equally tedious, equally interesting, equally absurd, both a distant second in their service of tricks, drama, distraction, invention, manipulation. He will write you two columns, four, 10, 100 – pro-Marmite, anti-Marmite; pro-EU, anti-EU. And then he’ll tell you all about them. All about how he couldn’t decide. Because not deciding is where all the drama is to be found and who cares about the arguments anyway? No, what the trickster wants is neither your agreement nor your disagreement. (For he himself agrees and disagrees.) What the trickster wants most of all … is for you to admire his trickery. Heinrich Böll, the German Nobel-prize winner and author of the truly great novel The Clown, answers Stewart’s question when he says: “You go too far in order to know how far you can go.”

The clown king: how Boris Johnson made it by playing the fool | Boris Johnson | The Guardian

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arbitrarylau · 5 years ago

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terry & michael- "How Not To Be Seen”

@keithmoonie requested a story of Terry Jones and Michael Palin’s friendship. here it is! sorry it’s a little lengthy, but I hope that it’s quality enough to compensate. it takes place in their university days, in an ambiguously sixties setting. enjoy!!

(and sorry in advance for any typos or errors)

-------------------------------

Terry could hear the distant music of adolescence lingering in the air of the hallway– a sensation he often comprehended but seldom experienced. The path to the dormitory felt like a rite of passage, transferring him from the world of medieval solace to the normal world of university students. By the time he reached his destination, quite evident from the students loitering recreationally in the hallway, it was far too late to question his decision. Overstepping a dazed girl on the floor and pushing cautiously on the slightly opened passage to a Bacchic ritual, he was exposed to every contemporary method of intoxication. Marijuana, alcohol, LSD, and indirectly, yet seemingly utilized by many partiers, the intoxicating desire to gain sexual gratification by the end of the evening. It was at this point Terry fought the urge to run back to his room and continue reading about European history.

Yet he dominated his subconscious and positioned himself inanimately near the wall.

“Hey there,” he heard, shifting his observant quietness into interactivity. Terry saw a girl standing before him, smoking a cigarette. She had long blonde hair, and bangs concealing her forehead, and clothes that soothingly draped over her body, turning her into a personification of the decade’s culture.

“Oh, hello there,” Terry chuckled nervously.

“Don’t see you around these things, really. What’s your name?”

“Terry. Terry Jones,” he introduced, his eyes flickering momentarily to the side in a failed attempt to maintain composure. “What’s your–”

“Nancy. What brings a chap like you here on a Saturday night?”

Terry hesitated, trying to decide upon the most valid response. Time was limited, so he spoke honestly.

“I’ve been spending too many weekends studying. I thought that I’d maybe, well, try it out, you know?”

“Oh, so you’re pretty inexperienced then, eh?”

She took a step closer to him, lifting her hand to his arm, letting it gently slide down with unclear suggestion. Terry felt as if the wall had closed in slightly. He tried to hide the flustering red glow of his cheeks.

“I’m, oh, well, I don’t know. It depends on which way that you, mean.”

She raised an eyebrow, seemingly intending to play upon his nervous ramble.

“What sort of things do you know?” With this, she tilted her head slightly, with an innocent quality about the way her hair flowingly followed.

“I know… medieval history. Some of it, anyways. I’m learning it now,” he answered humorously in his own mind, although ambiguously in reality. Nancy smiled widely, inhaling more smoke.

“One second,” she said gleefully, yet with a slight twinge of suspect. Terry watched the glowing enigma walk away into the dimly lit activity of the party. He wished Michael could have come. But he didn’t want his friend’s absence to excuse this much-needed social stimulation. This was the right choice, he told himself. Partway into his unnerved contemplation, Nancy returned with two other girls.

“Medieval history, eh?” a brunette said, slumping onto her left leg. Another brunette on Nancy’s other side intently observed Terry, in an effort unescaped from his awareness.

“Oh, yes. I’m taking several courses on it right now.” He let the corner of his mouth rise, warming to her interest. The pressure was alleviating.

“Are you looking to be a historian?” she said, her ponytail swaying with her exuberant behaviour, comparatively to that of Nancy.

“Yes! That’s the goal!”

Terry felt a rush of excitement through his chest. He had entered an unknown world and discovered familiarity and empathy.

“You know, Linda has a thing for historians,” she added, referring likely to the third girl. The other one grinned in response.

“There’s nothing sexier than a historian,” she sighed, her eyes jaded with pleasure.

Nancy let the cigarette wedged between her long fingers slide out between her lips, puffing a cloud of smoke right into Terry’s face.

“Why don’t you teach us something?”

He looked between the three, simultaneously perceiving them as students and potential tormentors.

“Well, there were pretty distinct social classes around the time, with the monarchy–” (he saw Linda conceal her face momentarily, exposing a raised eyebrow and parted lips once she regained composure) “at the peak of importance…”

“Oh, go on,” Nancy prompted, trying to break his hesitant lecture.

“…anyway, they were important.” Terry felt increasingly congested. The weight of his clothing felt multiplied; his skin vigorously tempted to compensate for the heat. He pulled at the collar of his dress shirt, which greatly advertised his innocent individuality. “Are you actually interested in all of this?”

With a sudden shift to seriousness, they all nodded apprehensively.

“Please, go on–” the nameless girl urged, only to then break into a restricted laugh. She slapped her hand to her mouth in a sorry attempt to conceal it.

“Jane!” Nancy shouted accusingly at her, gaining Terry’s momentary affection. Her connotation crumbled as she continued, “you ruined it.”

With that, Terry felt the crushing confirmation of his foolery. He cleared his throat to seem unaffected, desperately avoiding a vengeful desire to hit his shoulder against Jane. He entered into the centre of the spacious dorm room, ironically an escape of clearer exposure. He heard the other two girls giggling harmoniously. He came face to face with a taller male student, his hair ruffled, and his shirt ambitiously unbuttoned. The student looked Terry up and down, grinning slyly.

“Did you forget your paperwork?”

Every unbearable and dreadful emotion hit Terry like a vehicle– embarrassment, exclusion, regret, frustration. He turned to the door, in which he vigorously intended to utilize, seeing Michael standing in the frame as if he were an appropriately-timed theophany of salvation. Terry approached and passed his friend, leaving his incomplete sympathies behind.

“Terry!” he heard Michael call out in concern. Terry stepped over the same girl from before, emerging himself in the collective of people on the path back to his room.

“Hey!”

This shout was more aggressive and concise, drawing his attention. Terry turned around in a similar fashion to the others in the compacted hallway. He met eyes with Michael, who paused, and then grabbed a cup from the floor.

“Hey look, everyone. I can do a handstand! I’m going to do one, so move out of the way.”

He lifted the cup to his face, tilting it back too strongly, the substance pouring all over his chin and neck. A few chuckles could be heard throughout the slightly-passive audience, from those students who believed they were better than the supposed drunkard on display. Michael placed the cup down and rolled up his sleeves. He squatted, positioned his arms to support his knees, and abruptly threw the bottom-half of his body up. Like an inverted pendulum, his legs powerfully fell forward, throwing him onto his back. Everyone laughed (the intoxicated: hysterically). A smile of realization fought the scowl on Terry’s face. Michael groaned, sitting up, looking at his best friend. This meeting of minds was pure and meaningful.

“Fuck all of this,” Michael stated as he slowly limped down the hall toward Terry. “Let’s go.”

Without any notice from the bacchants, Terry threw his arm around Michael as they left the adolescent air behind them.

“I thought you had your drama club meeting,” Terry pondered as they reached the stairwell.

“It ended early. I figured you’d want company.” Michael winced and grabbed the fabric against his tailbone. They continued walking, the eerie silence of the university echoing.

“…You didn’t have to do that. I know what you were doing. But you seem hurt now.”

Michael shook his head, smiling softly at Terry.

“…You’re right. That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I’ll never be able to handstand again.”

“Your career is at its end,” Terry continued tonally.

“Hey, why don’t you tell me about that lecture. You were really excited about it.”

“Oh! So, we learned about social classes…” Terry began, blushing shyly, blissfully pronouncing what was, to him, something far more relevant than the forces of intoxication.

(The End)

#monty python #terry jones #michael palin #I DIDN'T REALIZE HOW LONG THIS TRULY WAS #sorry it's taking up so much of your dash innocent bystander

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