#not me looking up medieval funeral wear

[thethreehostsystem]

I’m working on my Day 6 whumptober (fsa) and oops

My hand slipped

(when I post the link I’ll add a warning lmao, also I’ll post my day 5 first)

[acommonloon]

Earlier today I met up with friends to drink a beer that reminded me of earlier days. Earlier good days and today was a good day. Later I stopped for groceries and as I got out of the truck I saw a woman walking towards me.

She was wearing a loose dress and her hair was covered with a scarf. Her brows were dark her skin tanned, I thought she might be mid to late twenties. She held a piece of cardboard low against her chest. Based on world events, I thought she might be collecting support for Palestinians. I waited. “Excuse me sir” her voice was soft and I detected no accent. She unfolded the cardboard.

I glanced at it but only saw the words mother, hungry, children before I looked back at her eyes.

I was transported instantly to Strasbourg France, 2018. We were at the Christmas market there, it was near dusk and raining and one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever beheld. The medieval town square filled with lighted booths the towering church looming over it. We were cueing to get into the church when my son said, “Oh dad, there will be gypsy beggars up here. Don’t give them anything. It’s a scam.”

When the gnarled old woman shuffled up to me and handed me what I thought at first was a brochure, but was a tattered written plea for alms, I smiled and gave her whatever loose Euros I had in my pocket. My son snorted but I didn’t care. Didn’t care if it was a scam. It was small change.

In Chicago once I was approached by a young black woman who asked if she could have $5.65. I was surprised and asked why she asked for that specific amount. She pointed at the McDonalds I’d not noticed and said she could get a certain meal for that amount. I’d no idea if she was sincere but I laughed and gave her the cash I had on me which wasn’t enough. I shrugged and she thanked me in a perfunctory manner. It still makes me smile.

Anyway, I grew up just shy of really poor. My mom brandished a form of pride I recognize now as her shield to ward off shame. She was ashamed by her…our financial circumstance and she returned the near constant assistance she got from my dad’s mom with as much resentment as appreciation. She never failed to criticize welfare families even though we would have been them too without the help of my grandmother and others.

Some of that shame couldn’t help but rub off on me yet I was far more influenced by my grandmother than my mother. Seeing the grace with which she shared her own minimal resources with us, made me want to be like her. lol one last sidetrack.

I was 12 when my paternal grandfather died. By all accounts, he was a mean old man. Decades later a stranger said to me, upon finding out who my grandmother was, “There was never a finer woman than your grandmother.” Then he said, “She never deserved Alec.” Referring to my grandfather. Alec was a nasty man with rarely a good word to say about anyone. Except me. He called me little shitass and I knew he loved me.

When he died, he had a healthy bank account but also $4000 cash was found in a roll in the tackle box he kept in his truck. I heard my parents talk about this. One evening a few days after his funeral, my parents, my two sisters, both younger than me, and I were up at grandma’s. I’d been staying there anyway so she wasn’t alone.

My grandmother said, I want you to go into the dining room and in the drawer of the sideboard you’ll find where Alec kept all the wallets he got for Christmas presents and he never used.

I said I didn’t want a wallet. She said, “Go on, he would have wanted you to have one.”

I spent so much time in that little house on the Blue River, I knew where the wallets were. I pulled open the drawer and picked up the first wallet from the pile. It fell open in my hands and it was full of cash! A lot of cash.

I carried it into the living room to my grandma’s chair and held it out to her. She took it and looked up at me and said, “Where did you find this?”

“It was on top.” I said.

She said, “That can’t be. All your uncles and even cousins have been in there to get a wallet.”

She burst into tears. Her hand shook as she handed me a fifty. She pulled out more money and gave it to my parents who were also in a state of shock. Then still crying she said, I can take that trip to the Holy Land!

Her tears were of joy and though all I did was carry the wallet to her, I felt like I had done something for my grandma to make her happy. That feeling was a heady drug.

So. I fully recognize when I give someone something, I’m doing it for me.

It isn’t transactional. If they don’t appreciate it I don’t mind. Also, I recognize a gift can cause distress. I’m mindful not everyone feels gratitude at being given a gift. I learned that lesson…anyway

Today, in the Meijer parking lot, I looked down at the woman and smiled. “I’m going to give you some money.” I said as I reached into my pocket. “Where are you from?”

Romania

I laughed at that. Thinking of my son and Strasbourg.

I said, “Okay, I wonder if you are scamming me.”

Sorry, I don’t speak good English.

Right. I handed her a five and said, “Have a good day.”

I didn’t wait to see her reaction. On the way into the store my phone chimed with a text.

It was my son.

I typed, Hey guess whatI just did!

[ja-mi-sa]

Manjiro and Shinichiro. Clothing comparison between Mikey and Shin

The cover of volume 30 of the manga is finally out and I can compare these two images with peace of mind.

There are common features on their costumes, namely the image of Nue and gentians. But Shin has dragon and orchid images on his clothes.

Nue.

Nue (鵺) is a mythical creature seen in the ancient chronicles of medieval Japan. It has the head of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the legs of a tiger, and a snake instead of a tail. Nue can turn into a black cloud and fly. Because of its appearance, it is sometimes referred to as the Japanese Chimera. She is not a predator, but feeds on human fears.

Nue is described in the historical Japanese chronicle dating back to the 12th century. The chapter "Nue" describes the following: "In the era of Nimpyo, during the reign of sovereign Konoe, the emperor suffered every night from an incomprehensible illness, and he was tormented by nightmares, from which he even lost consciousness. They turned to the highest priests. They read incantations and the most holy prayers, but it did not help. Every night at the hour of the Ox, the sovereign had a seizure. At this hour, a black swirling cloud hung over the palace and made the emperor suffer."

Nue is an allegory for the Black Impulse of the Sano brothers.

Nue makes the emperor suffer. The Black Impulse causes Mikey and Shin to suffer.

Nue can turn into a black cloud. A black impulse literally swirls around a person and makes him lose control of himself.

Nue is a chimera made up of parts from different animals. We all know how Mikey tends to take on the looks of people he cares about.

Nue can be said to be a being that mirrors the Sano brothers. (It only partially applies to Shinichiro, because the other half of the costume depicts a dragon. This refers to the duality of Shin. He can be both a majestic dragon and Nue).

The Dragon.

The golden dragon is located on the left side of Shin's cape, right next to the heart.

Gold is the official color of Shinichiro. The dragon refers us to his gang "Black Dragons".

The golden dragon is a symbol of power and strength. Both Chinese and Japanese emperors were given the epithet "dragon-faced". Moreover, it was believed that some emperors had a dragon's tail. Previously, only members of the imperial family were allowed to wear robes with gold elements / gold color.

Also, the dragon repeatedly acts as a protector of the buddhas and a generous giver of happiness and wealth.

Manjiro is the Buddha. There is a golden statue of Manjiro that replicates the golden statue of the reclining Buddha. In addition, the Manji sign is a symbol of the footprints of the Buddha.

The dragon protects the Buddha. Shinichiro protects Manjiro.

In Western folklore, dragons are tough creatures that have a penchant for collecting various treasures. Often they spend time in their lair and guard the jewels.

Shin is like a dragon majestic and excellent. It has been repeatedly said that he was an outstanding man.

Shin, with special devotion and love, protects his precious little brother as the main treasure in life.

Covers of volumes 24 and 30.

In fact, I think these covers are similar.

Their pants feature swirls that look like a black impulse. The main colors for the backgrounds are gold and red. Gold is the color of Shinichiro, red is the color of Manjiro.

Gentian.

Gentian is a beautiful autumn flower that means “sincere love”.

Orchid.

Orchid, the queen of flowers, means "pure love, tender memories."

Both of these flowers were used for Manjiro's funeral to express the love of the Sano brothers.

BUT these two flowers are often used in manga. This worries me a little.

Their names are in Japanese.

Gentian - 竜胆 (Rindo), Orchid - 蘭 (Ran). These flowers are literally the names of the Haitani brothers. The kanji in Rindo's name also have separate meanings 竜 (ryuu) - dragon, 胆 (kimo) - courage, spirit.

His name may mean "Dragon Spirit". The dragon is bonded by Shinichiro, Draken, and Mitsuya. With the closest people in Mikey's life who protect him from others.

Could the Haitani brothers have a connection to the Sano brothers or time traveler?

Even the clothes show a deep connection between Shinichiro and Manjiro. It has similarities as well as differences that show that they are very similar, but each one is unique in its own way. They both have great charisma, know how to change people and cannot live without each other. But also their methods, behavior, abilities are opposite. Even their characteristics are different. Shin is a crybaby who always lost. Manjiro is the "Invincible Mikey" who holds back tears.

They are like yin and yang, opposites making up a single whole.

They are the Sano brothers.

[sweeterweatherson]

Some runway looks I like in the colors essential to my wardrobe because I’m bored.

Blue. Blue. Blue. I do have a soft spot for this color, from dusty blue to navy. It used to be my favorite color growing up. I can’t put my eyes away from the unbuttoned shirt. This photo makes me want to hit secondhand retail sites to get a silk button down, and you bet I’m styling it exactly as this. (Very tempting, but I haven’t yet gathered all the essential pieces for the wardrobe I’m building, which is my priority. I am taking it slow.)

(Tom Ford SS 24)

Beige. Not an exciting color, but I can’t escape this color. It’s essential to my summer wardrobe, and it just looks good with my skintone. I don’t like how stark white clothing looks on me so beige has been the alternate neutral. The first thought that came to my mind when I came across this is “oh, quiet luxury.” I could be wrong, but it’s still giving luxury, and for me, luxury is still luxury. Again, the unbuttoned shirt from Tom Ford. (Also oversized sunnies, long necklace, small bag, and slim shoes if that means anything.)

(Tom Ford AW 24)

Burgundy. I avoid reds, especially bright red. However, I got into makeup as one does eventually and had to figure out my shade of red lipstick. I found out I like a warm red on my lips, but I look the best in deep, wine red clothing. Looking at this, I finally grasped the vibes I want dressing up in the colder seasons—mysterious and unapproachable.

(Saint Laurent SS 24)

Green. I’ve owned a lot of items, not just clothes, in different shade of green: moss, mint, sage, or olive. I’ve filled each corner of my home in green things before I could even realize that green is my favorite color. Listen, I am not into the western style and I would never be caught in cowboy boots, but I am serious right now when I say I want everything she’s wearing. Even the boots. They could have added a green cowboy hat and you would hear me in the background screaming, “Yeehaw!”

(Elie Saab AW 24)

Brown. It’s another boring color you’d see everywhere in the season that everyone (not me) starts chugging pumpkin spice latte and singing their hearts to “All Too Well” (me), but I actually like brown. I like dying my hair to a shade of dark brown that it’s almost black. I like using brown eyeliner instead of black. The outfit is simple, but it works and it reminds me I need to add a brown coat to my closet.

(Vince )

Black. This is my must have color all year round. It works with everything and versatile. You get it. I really dig this look for some reason and the reason might be the fact that I was raised Catholic. Everyone agrees this is a medieval inspired dress, which it is, but it just reminds me one of those small religious figurines in their intricate dresses. I’m pretty sure my grandmother has one in her Jesus shrine, and I could have the proper name for it if I have not just lost interest in the religion. The pattern. The length. The shoes. They just work so well together. I would really like to wear this dress at my funeral. (Please, universe, let me be rich.)

(Antonio Marras AW 24)

[f0xd13-blog]

I didn't even wanted to contest the goth thing but honestly that article that was trying to gaslight me with the "goth is for everyone" just made me laugh my ass of taking info account we were the first oppressed group in europe and the circus can be goth just look at killer clowns and all the horror movies about us including the pumpink think on halloween that is a tribute to us and the witch thing that was created because you've persecuted us in medieval times for being pagan or not christina enough don't forget we are the only identity from asia/middle east that stayed in europe and "assimilated" since we were in contact with catholicism way before y'all lol so it was easy for us.. kali is also a gothic symbol... cartomantes are a symbol of black magic and dark make up was brought by us from india even dudes wear it over there to this day you know the typical britneh eye shadow... also our funeral rituals that take for days? The inception of the vampire myth that it is a tale from our spirituality? The first silent movie in europe depicted one of those funeral rituals what else... theres so much... the black outfits that you see in old portuguese rural pics are our mourning outfits and newflash visigoths end in goth so everything is from asia... goth is for everyone? Yeah but my traditions are also for everyone not just to spain WITH RULES or do you want me to turn goth and start legit sucking off the blood from your necks? Which btw it was just an asfixiation method done with those stripes you use on your waist or with our turbans that is why you've stayed with two lik holes on your neck sometime from the pin that secures the turban.. you want to mess with first world people and ancient societies and then think you own stuff just coz limp shitzkit gave you a stage to sing terribly btw ... please don even... have you ever been to a real flamenco show done by gypsies without the over satured hippie aesthetic that make them wear our dresses? It's in black with the black sombrero or black dresses. Eve watches zambra? Couldn't be more goth. Stay with your goth but don think for a second you are "sharing" it with us... we always owned it as well payos

[woodchoc-magnum]

L*ne St*r Hate Watch 3x10

Disclaimer: If you love the show, don't read this, just keep scrolling and have a great day

Eddie Diaz because I need HIM RIGHT NOW:

Warning - this gets progressively more unhinged the longer it goes on due to my frustration with how terrible this show is and how much I hate it

We pick up with the couple from last week – the lady who ran over her husband, and what's shocking is that I remember that storyline and I recognised who they were

This lady is very deeply traumatised about this incident, I can't believe she's even able to drive again

And now she's run over a guy dressed as an old timey medieval knight in shining armour

Grace is back! (spoiler alert - for this one scene and then NOTHING)

Turns out they're from a theme restaurant and they all have carbon monoxide poisoning

I was a little worried they were going to do a storyline where this guy was convinced he was a time traveller and Owen believed him, but thankfully we're not going down that road

Paul is out of hospital after a week and they are all surprising him at his loft uninvited

Owen brought him a brussels sprout salad and let me tell you I'd throw him the fuck out for that

Judd is going to "straighten out" Marjan?? Because she and Paul aren't talking

So Mateo's former captain is drunk at a bar and called Mateo to come rescue him

Am I supposed to care about this because I absolutely do not

Yeah so a firefighter died and the captain is taking it really badly

Judd is complimenting Marjan on her bedmaking skills

I'm so bored

Marjan and Paul are fighting

We're at a funeral for this firefighter who died

Honestly I could fast forward this and really not miss anything

I'm only 14 minutes in???

Guys I'm going to fast forward this shit

I literally fast forwarded the whole funeral

Now Mateo is talking to Marjan

Oh wait I actually missed something so I have rewound to figure out what that was

OKAY so Mateo's old captain just gave a eulogy and then asked Mateo who died, which means he has some kind of memory problems – BUT he also has a concussion so I'm guessing it has something to do with that

And Mateo's trying to ask Marjan for help and she mistook it to mean that he was having a go at her about Paul and blew up at him

Now the other Captain is with Owen and Mateo

He's asking Mateo to come work for him and get promoted to Lieutenant

Honestly I'm going to be real here you guys – this episode is SO FUCKING BORING AND LITERALLY NOTHING EXCITING OR INTERESTING HAS HAPPENED

Mateo has taken the job offer woo go Mateo this is awesome

Owen is very upset about it, as usual, let's make it all about Owen right

Wait Owen had a SECOND WIFE? Who the hell was that

Owen was so wrapped up in himself at the Paul party that he hasn't realised that Paul is spiralling

These people just keep turning up on Paul's doorstep UNANNOUNCED AND UNINVITED

They would not remain my friends for very long let me tell you

You TEXT FIRST and I decide if lie and tell you whether I’m free or not (I am free, but most of the time I don't want to socialise)

They're going to bully him out of his depression but at least it's Judd and not TK

Now Marjan is pissed at Mateo for leaving the 126

And she's wearing a pink felt hat???? Girl

UGH THIS IS SOOOO BORING they're all just arguing and fighting and threatening to leave and wearing pink felt hats?????

A PINK FELT HAT YOU GUYS

I'm going to take a very shitty screen cap so you know what the FUCK we're dealing with here

SORRY I KNOW IT'S BAD QUALITY BUT LOOK AT THAT FUCKING HATTTTTTT

Marjan is REALLY pissed

If I was wearing that hat I'd be pissed too ngl

Mateo's at his new job and the Captain definitely has some kind of memory loss thing going on

Oh BIG PREDICTION – the captain dies at the end of this

Or he gets someone killed

Or something like that

Now they're making Paul do some kind of fitness test

I'm only 27 fucking minutes in jesus fucking Christ this is the worst most boring episode ever

There hasn't even been an emergency???? There was one at the start and nothing since

How can a guy who has only been off work for a week at this point be so out of shape? He literally had heart surgery a week ago – and they have said "a week" in the show so we know how long it is – and they're already forcing him to do this firefighter fitness test?

Oh it's LS why am I even bother to fucking complain about how it's dumb and annoying

And how they've used music from T-Rex in this scene and I'm mad about it because T-Rex deserved better

Is nobody at this station annoyed that Mateo has waltzed in and been promoted to Lieutenant when he was only a probie like last year

I really think Mateo NEEDS TO TELL SOMEONE THAT THIS CAPTAIN IS LOSING HIS MARBLES?????

Why hasn't he told anyone? WHERE'S BILLY???

Oh my god we're going to an emergency what the fuck I thought the show forgot they did these

Okay will my big prediction come true?

Yo so I'm betting that the Captain is going to get someone killed at this big fire

Okay so here's the sitch – the fire is at a salsa plant (I did not know that was a thing before today but I guess it makes sense that they would need a factory to put salsa in bottles), and there's a building where they store all the spices, and spices are very flammable, and they're worried about an explosion

So the first thing Crazy Captain does is tell Owen and the 126 to go up there and now he and Mateo are at odds BECAUSE MATEO HAS NOT TOLD ANYONE THAT HE IS HAVING MEMORY PROBLEMS FOR SOME FUCKING INEXPLICABLE REASON????

Okay it exploded

Proving Mateo right

But no one died

Proving me WRONG

Which is annoying

Owen's first question to Mateo should be, "Why didn't you fucking tell someone that the Captain was losing his marbles?" but no they're just drinking tequila in the dark

Owen says, "Yeah I knew something wasn't right on the call" like he didn't almost get blown to smithereens

I cannot believe that Mateo is only now fucking talking about it?

He could've gotten someone killed

Now Mateo is back at the 126

So now Paul is doing the fitness test again literally less than a month after having heart surgery

I love that he is having a PTSD arc that is being resolved in literally one entire episode and Eddie's has been ongoing for a whole season

HOLY SHIT MARJAN IS THERE AND SHE'S WEARING THE PINK FELT HAT AGAIN

WHO TOLD HER TO WEAR THAT FUCKING HAT? IT'S AWFUL

I hate this show

I'm so mad about the hat

It's so ugly

It looks like something out of a mid-2000s teen movie that the head mean girl would wear unironically

Let me guess, Paul's going to pass the fitness test

How do I still have four fucking minutes to go and I have to watch the whole fucking fitness test again

Oh he collapsed?

He literally had HEART SURGERY A WEEK AGO

A FUCKING WEEK AGO

He's still going

The fuck

Fuck I hate this show

I hate this show

I hate this fucking show

I hate Marjan's hat

Now Mateo is at the bar with the crazy captain

Mateo feels bad about turning in the captain but the captain is grateful, because he kept him from killing anyone

And so what I would like to say is that if he had just DONE THAT FROM THE START, IT WOULD'VE BEEN FINE

So this whole episode is a fucking waste of time and boring as fuck and I hate this show so much

It is the dumbest fucking show in the whole world

Everyone (except Grace and Judd) sucks and I hate it more than anything

Thank god the OG is back this week THANK GOD YOU GUYS

Oh it's finished thank fuck

I mean if we're looking for the positives here, TK was barely in it.

Eddie Diaz to cleanse because I REALLY NEED HIS BEAUTIFUL FACE RIGHT NOW:

[a-jumped-up-pantry-boy]

Wrote a thing about Lily and Remus falling apart during the first war. Includes lots of cigarettes (cw for death and dark conversations).

Anno Domini

Cigarette propped between her lips, her fingers - stained yellow like she's suffering from neonatal jaundice again - pulling it away from her mouth for a few seconds before she shoves it back in, a moon or comet orbiting a planet of shaky fingers, gasping breaths, and tobacco cravings; or, just an addict. This is her third cigarette of the morning, but she can't be blamed. Times are hard, and now that she's forfeited a regular pulse due to her smoking breaks - she darts out of a room and fishes a pack out her jacket every time conversation turns to war...within a year she'll be unable to breathe without a cloud of smoke constantly coming out, like she's a bloody dragon or something - she feels like she has nothing to lose.

Another drag of the cigarette, another person she realises she can't lose. Her mother. Remus. The lady who serves her at Tesco in the summer. James. Marlene, Dorcas, Mary, Emmeline, Alice. Herself - though it's too fucking late for that.

How do you know whether you've lost yourself because you got older and that's what happens, or because the world tore your soul from your heart? How do you know if you'll ever find that piece that's gone?

Remus slinks up next to her and nicks the cig from her mouth, takes a deep breath, and another, then a third, and finally hands it back.

"We're anno domini," she says, as if it were the start of a sentence, and not a finalised point all on its own.

"Larceny of self. Do we even count as people? We're broken shells, and it's all due to coincidence - we could leave, you know. Fuck off back home and never look back, save our lives, even if we can't save BC Remus and Lily." He took the cigarette from her and finished it, and now she can't decide whether to play go fish in her 5 inch pockets and see if she can find her pack, or whether she should save herself the lung damage.

"We couldn't leave, though. You know we couldn't." She likes how he understands her, understands her references to medieval methods of classifying time and her desperation to understand herself. She likes how they know each other, and hates how it's the war that forced them into each others minds.

"Everyday I wonder, would I miss it? Would I even give a shit? Do I have the capacity to mourn a life that left me half dead? Should I ask whether you're okay?" It takes her a while to realise the last question was a separate conversation - an invisible paragraph break in his head.

"I don't know. Fuck, Remus, I don't know. Should I ask whether you're okay?"

"No." He has the look on his face, like he's going to say more, so Lily occupies herself with the lighting of another cigarette. Fourth of the morning. "My ma's dead."

"Fuck, Remus, I-"

"What do I do with the body? Can't afford a funeral. Can't afford the embalming, or whatever it is they do. Can't afford a fucking gravestone. What do I do, float her out to sea?" She offers him the cigarette, and he holds it like a pen, fire flickering not quite close enough to his fingers to cause a shadow, not quite enough for him to burn. "Stuff her body full of cigarettes and set her on fire."

Remus doesn't laugh, doesn't not laugh, doesn't cry, just stands there debating the efficacy of burning someone with cigarettes inside them. Doesn't get mad when a twisted laugh wafts out of Lily's mouth, bonded to the carbon dioxide molecules in the smoke that she's breathing out.

"You're underestimating the cost of enough cigarettes to burn a body."

"Death is classist."

"Yeah." There's nothing else she can say. He's right, and he knows it, and she knows it, and the classist funeral directors know it too.

"Death is shite."

"Yeah." Everyone knows this.

"It's - death's coming for us, isn't it? I can feel it. Dying young club."

"Stuff my body full of cigarettes when I go, yeah? Steal them if you have to, I don't give a shit." What else can she say? She can feel it too, the brush of longing from cold fingers on her shoulders some mornings, as if a ghost is trying to drag her backwards into Whatever-Comes-Next.

Four years later, Remus nicks a pack of cigarettes from the Tesco where Lily used to go during the summer, and shoves it into the five inch pocket on the left hand side of her jacket, the one she always insisted on wearing, even in summer. He can't fill her body with cigarettes - it was a crass request, and impossible to fulfill - but a single pack of cigarettes isn't going to hurt anyone. Not him, not her.

"Anno domini, Lily."

[thelittlesttimelord]

The Littlest Timelord: The New Doctor Chapter 8

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: The New Doctor Chapter 8 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 8/? SUMMARY: With the Doctor newly regenerated, he and Elise must now navigate their new relationship. The Doctor is an old man and Elise is a headstrong young woman. She is no longer the scared little girl the Doctor saved all those years ago. Will Clara be able to keep them from killing each other?

“Take a punt,” the Doctor told Clara. He was doing some sort of math on one of his chalkboards while Clara sat down near the console.

“Right,” Clara said.

“Your choice. Wherever, whenever, anywhere in time and space.”

“Well, there is something, someone that I've always wanted to meet. But I know what you'll say.”

“Try me.”

“You'll say he's made up, that there is no such thing.”

“Go on.”

“It's…it's Robin Hood.”

“Robin Hood.”

Clara walked up the steps towards the Doctor. “Yeah. I love that story. I've always loved it, ever since I was little.”

“Robin Hood, the heroic outlaw, who robs from the rich and gives to the poor.”

“Yeah.”

“He's made up. There's no such thing.”

“Ah, you see?”

The Doctor pulled a book off his bookcase. “Old-fashioned heroes only exist in old-fashioned story books, Clara.” He thumbed through a few of the pages before setting the book back in its place.

“And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. You stop bad things happening every minute of every day. That sounds pretty heroic to me.”

“Just passing the time. Hey, what about Mars?”

“What?!”

“The Ice Warrior Hives.”

“After what happened on that submarine? I don’t think so,” Elise told him. She wanted to forget that adventure. She still had nightmares.

“You said it was my choice,” Clara argued.

“Or the Tumescent Arrows of the Half-Light. Those girls can hold their drink,” the Doctor rambled.

“Doctor.”

“And fracture fifteen different levels of reality simultaneously. I think I've got a Polaroid somewhere.” The Doctor came down the stairs towards the console with Clara following him.

“Doctor! My choice. Robin Hood. Show me.”

“Very well.” He put in coordinates and set the TARDIS in flight. “Earth. England. Sherwood Forest. 1190AD. Ish. But you'll only be disappointed.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“You can’t wear a black dress! You’re not going to a funeral!” Clara told Elise. Clara wanted to look the part and dragged Elise along with her. Clara looked through the dresses and pulled out a green one.

“It’s perfect! It’ll go great with your hair.” She shoved the dress into Elise’s arms. “Well go on, get dressed.”

Elise changed into the medieval style dress. It felt wrong not to be in her leather jacket and boots, but she had to admit that she looked rather good.

“Might have to cover that though,” Clara said pointing at the roses winding down Elise’s neck. She’d still yet to understand why she had the tattoo in the first place.

Clara managed to cover it up with some heavy concealer.

The two women stepped out of the TARDIS.

“Might be a little bit much, but what do you reckon, Doctor?” Clara asked. She stopped when she saw him. Robin Hood.

“By all the saints. Are there any more in there?” Robin Hood asked.

The Doctor noticed how Robin’s eyes lingered on Elise and he moved slightly in front of her.

Clara patted the Doctor’s chest in disbelief. “Is that…?” Clara asked.

“No,” the Doctor told her.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God! It is, isn't it? You found him. You actually found Robin Hood.”

“That is not Robin Hood.”

“Well then, who, sir, is about to relieve you of your magic box?” Robin asked, pulling out his long sword.

Elise nearly rushed forward, but the Doctor pushed her back. He stepped onto the bridge, facing Robin. “Nobody, sir. Not in this universe or the next.”

“Well then, draw your sword and prove your words.”

“I have no sword. I don't need a sword.” The Doctor opened his coat and twirled around to show Robin. “Because I am the Doctor.” Instead, he donned a gauntlet and pulled out a spoon. “And this is my spoon. En garde!”

They started sparring and Clara and Elise watched on in excitement.

The Doctor got the upper hand and hit Robin on the back of the neck with his spoon.

“You're amazing,” Clara praised the Doctor.

Even Elise had to admit the Doctor was rather dashing.

“I've had some experience. Richard the Lionheart. Cyrano de Bergerac. Errol Flynn. He had the most enormous…”

Clara cleared her throat, cutting off the inappropriate comment.

“…Ego.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Robin lunged forward and sliced a button off the Doctor’s coat. The Doctor held his arms out and Robin got ready to strike the killing blow. The Doctor dodged this attack and spun around so he and Robin were back to back. He bumped Robin and Robin fell into the river below.

“Doctor!” Clara said, rushing to his side.

The Doctor polished his spoon on his coat. “Like I said. My box.”

“Doctor?”

Robin was nowhere to be seen in the water below. He popped up behind the Doctor and pushed him into the water.

Clara and Robin laughed.

Elise rolled her eyes and waded into the water. She helped the Doctor up and asked, “Are you okay?”

“More of a bruised ego than anything.”

“I’ll fix your coat later.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Robin led them to a small encampment. “Let me introduce you to my men. This is Will Scarlet. He is a cheeky rogue with a good sword arm and a slippery tongue.”

“My ladies…”

Clara giggled and looked at Elise, who had no reaction.

To this day, the only man to ever make Elise blush was the man in the café after they met Clara the second time.

The Doctor pulled out some of his hair as he bowed and scanned it with his sonic screwdriver.

Will cried out and grabbed at his head. “What do you want with my hair?”

“Well, it's realistic, I'll give you that,” the Doctor told him.

“And this is Friar Tuck. Aptly named for the amount of grub he tucks into,” Robin introduced.

“You skinny blaggard.”

The men around them laughed.

Friar Tuck stepped forward and nearly fell.

The Doctor was on the ground behind him.

“What are you doing?” Tuck asked him.

The Doctor stood up, holding one of his sandals. “This isn't a real sandal.”

“Yes, it is.”

The Doctor sniffed the sandal. “Oh. Yes, it is.”

Robin turned to introduce another one of his men. “This, er, is Alan-a-Dale. He's a master of the lute, whose music brightens up these dark days.”

“Stranger you are welcome here, in Sherwood's bonny glade,” Alan sang. He suddenly cried out as the Doctor stuck him with a needle.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. Blood analysis. Oh. All those diseases. If you were real, you'd be dead in six months,” the Doctor told him.

“I am real,” Alan insisted.

“Bye.”

The last of Robin’s men was huge.

“And this is John Little. Called Little John. He's my loyal companion in many an adventure.”

The large man stepped aside and a smaller man jumped out at them. The men laughed.

“Works every time,” Will said.

“Oh, I cannot believe this. You, you really are Robin Hood and his Merry Men!” Clara giggled.

“Aye! That is an apt description. What say you, lads?” Robin asked.

His men laughed in response. “Stop laughing. Why are you always doing that? Are you all simple or something?”

Elise was beginning to become annoyed as well, while Clara looked to be enjoying herself.

The Doctor picked up a goblet and poured out the liquid before walking up to Robin. “I’m going to need a sample.”

“Of what?” Robin asked.

Clara quickly pulled the Doctor away from them. “What are you doing?”

“Well, they're not holograms, that much is obvious. Could be a theme park from the future. Or we might be inside a miniscope,” the Doctor told her.

“Oh, shut up.”

“A miniscope. Yes, of course. Why not?”

The Doctor ran over to the encampment, leaving Clara and Elise.

Robin walked to them. “Your friend seems not quite of the real world,” Robin observed.

“No. No, he's not really. Not most of the time.” Clara looked at Robin. “Dark days?”

“My lady?”

“You said that these were dark days. What did you mean?”

“King Richard is away on crusade, my lady. His tyrant of a brother rules instead,” Will explained.

“And the Sheriff. Cos there is a sheriff, right?”

“Aye. It is indeed this jackal of the princes who seeks to oppress us forever more,” Alan said.

“Or six months in your case,” the Doctor quipped.

Robin spoke in a soft voice. “It is a shame to dwell on murky thoughts when there is such beauty here,” Robin said.

Elise felt like she was intruding, so she simply squeezed Clara’s hand and joined her father instead. She glanced back at Clara and Robin talking softly with each other and she felt a pang in her hearts.

The Doctor saw the look on Elise’s face and walked over to Robin. “What time is it, Mister Hood?”

“Somewhat after noon.”

“No, no. Time of year? What season?”

“Oh, Dame Autumn has draped her mellow skirts about the forest, Doctor. The time of mists and harvest approaches.”

Elise frowned. That didn’t seem right.

“Yeah, yeah. All very poetic. But it's very green hereabouts, though, isn't it? Like I said, very sunny.”

“So?” Clara asked.

“Have you been to Nottingham?”

“Climate change?”

“It's 1190.”

“You must excuse me. The Sheriff has issued a proclamation and tomorrow there is to be a contest to find the best archer in the land. And the bounty, it's an arrow made of pure gold,” Robin said.

“No! Don't, don't go. It's a trap,” Clara begged him.

“Well, of course it is! But a contest to find the best archer in the land? There is no contest.”

The men laughed.

“Right, that isn't even funny. That was bantering. I am totally against bantering,” the Doctor snapped.

“How can you be so sure he is not the real thing?” Clara asked.

“Because he can't be.”

“When did you stop believing in everything?”

“When did you start believing in impossible heroes?”

“Don't you know? In a way, it's rather sweet.” Clara joined Robin and his men, while Elise stood next to him.

He looked into her green eyes and saw…was it hope? He was going to show her he could be the Doctor again. That he could be the heroic man she knew him to be.

[alistonjdrake]

Adapting Historical Fashion for the Fantasy Eye

I’m back. Why? Because we’ve seen a resurgence of people talking about corsets and whether they were the death traps some would like you to believe (they weren’t and we’re not here to discuss that but I beg you to do some research), people not knowing that there is a vibrant and active historical fashion community who either engage in history bounding (dressing up in period accurate clothing) or add elements of it to their daily lives, and just as always people not knowing the difference between stays and corsets. 

But, June, you say. You’re a fantasy writer. What does historically accurate clothing have to do with anything? Historical accuracy is for losers. And to that I say, you are correct. But if you’re using something that has a heavy historical context (like clothing, technology, etc) you might as well know a thing or two about the subject before looking a fool. If only because readers like me notice the small things and cry OR because the aesthetics are cool but knowing where they come from and how they can be changed to fit your world is even cooler. 

Fashion defines a society. Fashion defines a culture. What garments are important? What garments are the same among the upper and lower class? Do their roles as garments change depending on class? (ex: stays were often wore “out” for working class women while upper class women would see them strictly as undergarments) How do fashion trends define the eras? It’s not hard to notice that throughout history nearly every decade as a definite silhouette. It’s not hard to tell the difference from a regency era gown from an early Victorian gown to a late Victorian one. They all look vastly different. 

I’m not asking anyone to know the ins and out of historical clothing but it doesn’t hurt to read up on it or look at some existing examples. To know the anatomy and construction of what would make a complete outfit (or to read about what people might wear for a given situation if no artwork or garment exists). It all feeds into how your characters hold themselves, how they might be able to move. It’s not so much that people were just “Shaped Differently” back then. Their clothes were constructed with a certain poise or look in mind. And y’know. I just want to stop seeing modern underwear in fantasy underneath historical clothing while we all pretend the undergarments don’t contribute greatly to the finished overall look. 

But again, you’re right. We’re not writing historical fiction here. We don’t need to have every mention of clothing in our fantasy novels be completely in line with the point in time we might be basing our setting off of. This is about adaptation. 

Adapting Historical Fashion for Non-Historical Purposes. 

I’ve said it a bunch by now I’m sure. My books take place in a world based off the late 18th century. Why? I dig it. As such, when I first started putting together the aesthetics of the world that period was also my go to. I know I already did a whole thing on culture and society but really this is more or less just about how fashion can amplify those two things. I mentioned setting and what fabrics might be commonly used or found. And what might make sense to use (lighter, breathy fabrics for hot climates vs thicker fabrics and furs for cold ones) vs ones considered high class and enviable or with trends that might be coming from other countries that have stronger influence. 

When I take real life fashion and shove it into my world (give or take a few changes) I usually ask myself a few things first. 

1. Who controls the fashion trends?

The younger generation, the monarchs, a group of travelers who just look super stellar? Who is the rest of the community following when it comes to the newest look and what elements of it are they trying to steal/adapt? What element is the thing that really catches on? 

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge fan of waistcoats and breeches and stockings, tailed coats with flaps (although anyone who reads my book will also know I axed powdered wigs. Because I could.) But to just copy wouldn’t say much about the opulent and flamboyant Escana. To increase the idea of the vanity and the peacock attitude of the younger, partying courtiers I have young men who usually dye their stockings to match their waistcoats (because colored socks > white or black socks) and forgo the coat to show off sleeve details as well as lose some of that “seriousness”. It says a lot about them while still remaining in a circle that gives readers a clue as to where my inspiration came from. 

2. Who disagrees with the fashion trends?

And how does their disagreement influence the perception of certain garments or the people who wear them? Just read one thing about how evil corsets are and how crinolines are literally cages for women and how many of us go around thinking Victorian ladies fainted every time they opened a window and understand these perceptions can be long-lasting and completely change an outsider’s opinion on how people lived. Granted for world-building or story purposes hopefully these will be happening currently instead of being a huge misunderstanding of history.

Over and over again I say things like cultures not being monoliths but neither are generations and there’s nothing that makes a world feel more lived in and full than people who don’t all wear a uniform based vaguely on what the author thinks a medieval gown looked like. It’s just also sometimes nice to get tidbits like a character wearing a scandalous or pricey color just to look good even if they can’t afford it. Is it usually super vital to the plot and story? No. If used sparingly can it be fun background information to how the society your character lives in works or views things? Sure. 

3. Colors and fabrics and spares, oh my

Okay. That’s not a question. But it’s an umbrella for me to put my thoughts under. Because I live in the 21st century I don’t often think about things like dyes or luxury fabrics but this would be front of mind for most of my characters. Not everyone can afford to wear certain colors, or certain colors come with a context that means they shouldn’t be worn for certain situations or for certain people and the same could be said for fabric. We live with these fashion rules now (although I’m not so strict in my memory of them because my current life doesn’t depend on it, but I do write about princes and courts so it’s more important for a courtier to not wear a happy color to a funeral than for me. Or things like no white after labor day).

Hand-me-downs. I grew up wearing them. They were common in history and should be more common in fantasy. If a family was not wealthy they could only afford so much fabric or to follow fashion trends for their eldest. It wouldn’t be unheard of for a family to still be wearing clothes considered “outdated” and it’s not like we all just throw our clothes out when they get old. While a trend might have moved onto a new silhouette or something, someone with less means might still be wearing decades-old clothing that have held up well (these clothes were built to last. Fast fashion could never) or could have chosen not to jump on the trend at all. In my book, the opulent courtiers and royals of Graza Palace dress completely different than some traditionalists who wear garments more native to Escan before it was an empire that are completely different from the suits and 18th century gowns I’ve borrowed. They’re timeless and probably see a lot more turnover from one family member to the next than a gown that could be out of style in a year. 

4. And lastly, making sure I’m not turning it into a costume

This becomes important when taking garments that have a cultural context in the real world and using something similar to it or basing another garment off of it. I would start with this for the purposes of using culture clues to ease someone into what actual culture the fantasy one is taking inspiration from to give them a taste of what certain things might look like without going into full detail but it’s key to then know what makes these garments...these garments so you’re not bastardizing them. Why do people wear them? (especially if a form is still worn in modern times) What are they usually made out of? What are the occasions they are worn for? A respectful nod to something will just add to your world building, a costume rendition with 0 understanding of how certain garments will work will just make it seem like all your characters are in cosplay. 

So in conclusion: No, I’m not advocating you be historically accurate for your already not historically accurate but it pays to look into why your basing clothing off a certain period and what goes into making that piece of clothing...that piece of clothing. Why it looks that way, how someone wearing it would look/hold themselves, and what it means in the context of your setting as well as things you might change and take extra liberties with for the purpose of storytelling. Clothing can add character and it could be just as useful a tool in world building (in my biased opinion) as language given that fashion can have such a huge impact on people but it can also fall flat. 

[thecrownnet]

weekendmagsocial  The Diana we’re desperate to meet. The return of The Crown [...]

*Spoilers Alert*

*Spoilers Alert*

The Diana we’re desperate to meet. The return of The Crown will feature assassinations, avalanches and the tension between the Queen and Mrs T. But the most anticipated entrance has to be Diana’s. Today Weekend tells how they’ve captured her charisma

[...] The upcoming fourth season will take Diana from her early days as a shy kindergarten teaching assistant to a fairytale princess and an iconic global figure, as well as explore the early days of her disastrous marriage to Prince Charles.Her entrance comes when it returns to our screens in November or December, almost exactly 40 years after Nigel Dempster revealed in the Daily Mail in 1980 that Charles had found his ‘future bride’, having transferred his attention to Diana Spencer from her older sister Sarah.

Like Diana at the time, the actress playing her in The Crown is also a young unknown. Emma Corrin, 24, is a privately educated Cambridge graduate, who didn’t go to drama school.

By coincidence she’s originally from Sevenoaks in Kent, where Diana went to West Heath School from the age of 12 to 16.

Aware of how challenging the role would be for any actress, the producers started their search with a desperate call for ‘a mesmerising new young star with extraordinary range.’

The brief added, ominously: ‘She has to play charming comedy, flirt and social exhibitionist on the world stage, desperate and lonely self-harmer at her lowest ebb and the kind of psychological intensity of Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby.’

It would obviously be helpful too if she resembled Diana, and in some of the new scenes, as the kindergarten teaching assistant, and wearing a pink polka-dot dress on her 1983 tour of Australia, the likeness is uncanny.

Emma’s co-star Josh O’Connor, who plays Prince Charles, agrees, saying it was ‘spooky’ how much of a ‘breathtaking spitting image’ of Diana she was.

But Emma says she has never been told she looks like Princess Diana before – although strangely her mother, who works as a speech therapist, has been! ‘I have never had that,’ she adds. ‘I get told I look like a young Jodie Foster.’

Emma spent more than two hours a day in the make-up chair to achieve the Diana look, accentuating her doe eyes, and with several wigs re-creating the journey from ingénue to one of the most stylish women in the world.

Amazingly, she was still working hard for her final exams at Cambridge when she went through the auditions for The Crown.

‘They actually offered me the part in person,’ she says of her last audition. ‘It felt like I’d just been proposed to; it was the best moment of my life. There’s a lot of pressure, but I’ve been glued to the show since the first episode and to think I’m now joining this incredibly talented acting family is just surreal.’

Peter Morgan, the creator, writer and producer of The Crown, has complete confidence in her. ‘Emma is a brilliant talent who immediately captivated us when she came in for the part.

'As well as having the innocence and beauty of a young Diana, she also has, in abundance, the range and complexity to portray an extraordinary woman who went from an anonymous teenager to the most iconic woman of her generation.’

Like all the cast in this heavily researched production, she was given a large bundle of written material and documentaries to watch, and she spent hours on perfecting the princess’s distinctive high voice with a vocal coach and learning how to re-create her particular habit of glancing up from under her fringe, as well as her graceful way of moving.

It’s not an impression, I’m going for essence - Emma Corrin, who plays Diana ‘Something they have been making clear from the  start is that this is not an impression,’ says Emma.

‘I am going for essence. Any movement and voice work we have done has been figuring out why she talks the way she does, and how she was a massive departure from the Royal Family, a bit like Meghan is now I guess, by bringing something different in the way she talks.’

Season four brings back memories of naive young Diana, with a re-creation of that first photo, at the Pimlico nursery school where she worked, which showed her holding two of her charges while the sun shone through her skirt, revealing her shapely legs.

And it follows how she becomes hardened into a mature but troubled woman who is the toast of America.

The retelling of the royal romance starts with a traumatic event: the assassination of Charles’s beloved great uncle Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance) who was killed, along with a grandson, a local boy and his son-in-law’s mother, by an IRA bomb hidden on his boat in Ireland in 1979.

Diana recalled how she’d watched Charles at the funeral on TV and when she saw him ten months later – the families were friends – she told him: ‘You must be so lonely? You know, it’s ghastly. You need someone beside you.’ He quickly decided he was in love.

Diana was turning 19 when she got together with Charles. He was 31. After 13 dates they were engaged. The rehearsal of their 1981 wedding at St Paul’s has been filmed in Winchester Cathedral with Emma wearing a replica of the blue floral dress Diana sported before the big day.

A later scene shows the joyful day when Diana, pregnant with Harry – with Emma sporting a fake baby bump – enjoyed an Easter Egg hunt at Buckingham Palace, chasing toddler William in the gardens.

The new episodes also focus on key moments – and key looks – from 1989, three years after Charles is thought to have resumed his affair with Camilla.  

In one scene Emma is seen outside The Savoy hotel in London, re-creating Diana’s appearance at the Barnardo’s Champion Awards.

Emma wears a floral one-shoulder dress, reflecting one of Diana’s favourite silhouettes – a style which suited her immensely but which the Establishment is said to have hated, deeming it ‘not royal’.

Having played Charles so sensitively in season three, Josh O’Connor, 30, says the heir to the throne will be portrayed in a harsher light this time. ‘Well, it’s the Diana years,’ he says.

‘If series three was to make people feel empathy for him, I guess we’re going to pull the rug from under him. We all have a set position on the dynamic between Diana and Charles. It’s been great to have the ability to either fight against that or, at times, acknowledge it and to challenge any question of, “Did he ever love her?” Personally, I think he must have done.

'There’s a wealth of layers to Charles and Diana, and I have loved seeking that out.

'I think Diana wasn’t completely innocent – I’m talking fictionally, in our story – so there are ups and downs. There’s the difficulty with Camilla and the whole family, so it’s going to be, hopefully, an interesting arc.’

Josh says they all enjoyed delving into an era which is so crucial to the modern Royal Family. ‘Everything changed when Diana came onto the scene,’ he says.

‘I think she changed the game, and modernised them, and made them relevant again.’

Also returning are Emerald Fennell as Camilla and Erin Doherty as feisty Princess Anne.

The real Anne revealed recently that she’d watched early episodes of the show, which she found ‘quite interesting’.

Peter Morgan says, ‘So many people asked me, after she first appeared, to put more of her in there.

Anne’s often overlooked. But Erin’s portrayal means that everybody has fallen in love with her. I read that searches about her on Google went through the roof, she’s now one of the most popular royals.’

Prince Andrew’s romantic life is set to come under the spotlight too. His most famous affair was with actress Koo Stark, who is said to have threatened to sue producers if the portrayal of her is negative, while the period covered in this series also sees him marry Sarah Ferguson.

Meanwhile, Edward is seen growing up and going to university.

There was a rush to finish filming before lockdown was announced.

It meant one key scene of an avalanche had to be moved from the Pyrenees to Ben Nevis.

The incident is likely to be a re-creation of the fatal moments in 1988 when a skiing party including Charles was caught in an avalanche in Klosters.

Major Hugh Lindsay, a former equerry to the Queen, was killed and Charles was seen weeping as he was helicoptered off the slopes.

The bizarre affair when Michael Fagan broke into the Queen’s bedroom in Buckingham Palace in 1982 will also feature in this run, but the 1987 It’s A Royal Knockout embarrassment, when the lesser royals dressed in medieval garb to play games for charity, is mercifully absent.

Once this series is over, an older cast are preparing to take the lead roles, with Imelda Staunton as the Queen and Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret.

They are due to start filming next year, and die-hard fans will be cheered by Peter Morgan’s recent change of heart, when he announced in July that there will be a sixth series to come.

The Crown will return to Netflix later this year.    

- Source: Daily Mail August 14, 2020

*It has just been announced that Jonathan Pryce will portray Prince Philip in season 5 and 6.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Dragon Dancer III: The Kabuki

Nono flipped her hair over her shoulder, applied her lipstick, and put on the final touch of her ensemble, a half face mask. She looked every bit like a medieval lady, save for the shortened skirt at the front of her dress that showed off how shapely her legs were in her dark red pumps. 

She looked over at the exhausted and distraught Carli who’d scarcely been able to perform at Takamagahara and ended up dropping clients out of anxiety. Those boys were really putting her through the wringer.

She smiled at the irony of it.

“Where are you going?” Carli asked her.

“I’ve actually got a date.”

Carli sat up in confusion. “Oh... have... I met him?”

“Yes, and no... anyway. Don’t wait up for me. I’ll be gone all night.” She grabbed her purse, ignoring Carli’s open mouthed expression.

Okay, maybe she liked messing with people just a little bit. The girl’s imagination was probably running wild. The recently bereaved Nono already moved on to the point of spending the night with a man in Tokyo?

The answer to that question, of course, was yes. But Carli could never imagine what the reality was. Things were never what they appeared when it came to her. She stepped into the back of the taxi to be driven to the historic Kabuki Theater.

Kabuki was usually the relic of the previous generations and the occasional tourist or school field trip. But not tonight. Tonight the audience was mostly women though some men were in attendance. The common denominator was that they were all under thirty like her.

When she presented her ticket and card to the doorman, he held up a hand. “Please wait here, Miss.” And then dialed a number. Another man came, wearing a black suit and a pin displaying the Chinese character for ‘ghost’ invited her inside.

Together, they walked up to a special box seat right next to the stage. There were refreshments and wine. She took her seat.

The ticket had come with an envelope and a calling card. It was made of heavy embossed cardstock and smelled of chrysanthemum. Black flowing inked lines sketched out a simple, yet beautiful drawing of a chrysanthemum on the front and on the back were written the characters ‘Ruri Kazama.’ It bore all the hallmarks of something personal and handmade.

The ticket provided the remainder of the invitation. There was no number, no other message.

She smiled. How different he was from Caesar.

The lights went down over the audience who immediately hushed. The title of the play was “An Ancient Tale, Retold.”

She’d never seen a Kabuki. She’d been to an opera so she had some idea about the old arts. She didn’t have anything against them. The music, the costumes and the stories were all very compelling. It was the atmosphere she found stifling. People spent hundreds of dollars to sit around and say they went to the opera. Most wouldn’t be able to even tell you who was on stage, what the songs were about, or their lyrics. Nono had no patience for such pretentiousness.

That’s why she was a little apprehensive. She wouldn’t be able to understand the Japanese and no matter how expert the performance, she wouldn’t be able to appreciate it.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. “Miss.”

One of the black suited Ghost Waiters handed her a small tablet. “As the lyrics are sung, the translation will appear here as well as any cultural references.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh! Thank you!”

He walked away and she sat up and looked over her shoulder. That man spoke perfect English! She leaned back in her chair, smiling and chuckling. “Okay, Mr. Kazama. You have my attention.”

A sound of a drum broke the silence. The curtain rose and a woman in white face make up stood head bowed, center stage.

She looked down at the lyrics

All happiness in the world is a flash in the shadow of the moon;

Loneliness and pain are often the only companions in the depths of hell.

The woman sang and slowly raised her head. She opened eyes that were painted red at the corners.

Much to Nono’s surprise, the information on the tablet said that this woman was actually Ruri Kazama. The performance was the tale of Izanagi and Izanami, a brother and sister who got married and created the Japanese pantheon of gods..

But Izanami would perish giving birth to the god of Volcanos and the heartbroken Izanagi would journey to the underworld to save her. She could return with him, but only if he promised not to look upon her underworld form. Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep that promise and lit a torch. He saw that she was a living corpse, eaten up by maggots.

The man fled without his wife. Ever since then, Izanami was an evil vengeful goddess who killed a thousand people every day, but Izanagi made sure that 1,500 babies were conceived every day.

Nono raised an eyebrow to that.

The next scene, Izanagi appeared to sing the praises of his three children: Amaterasu, Susano-O and Tsukiyomi. He ordered them to rule over the Kingdom of the Gods, Takamagahara.

While Izanagi sang and danced with his children, Izanami was behind a thin curtain on the stage, wailing in loneliness and abandonment, remembering how beautiful her life used to be and how her and her former husband first met and how beautiful things could have been.

“Okay...” Nono didn’t remember that being part of the tale. She leaned forward.

Ruri, as Izanami, danced and sang surrounded by the corpses of the dead while wearing a kimono typical of dead person at a funeral, according to the tablet. He was a tragic figure and sure enough, some of the people in the audience were openly weeping.

There was an intermission but no one got up and left the theater. They were all discussing what they had seen. This tale was old, and yet few had tried to perform it from the point of view of the dead Izanami.

The second half was the lively story of Susano-O in killing the 8-headed serpent Yamata-no-Orochi. A family of 8 daughters was left with only one after the snake had eaten one of their daughters every year. So Susano-O offered to kill it in exchange for their last remaining daught-.

Nono sighed. “Well, ... okay.”

So he turns her into a comb for safekeeping in his hair. He makes eight barrels of sake which the serpent drinks. After it’s drunk and asleep, he cuts off all the snake’s heads.

But Ruri doesn’t play the hero in this scene, either, he plays the eight headed dragon, resplendent in a scaly looking sequined robe. “If only Carli were here.”

Carli didn’t realize it, but Nono was at the performance of her ballet the night of her recruitment. She would love this.

But Nono was the only one enjoying this part of the performance. A strange murmuring had broken out in the crowd. The Battle was supposed to be epic and loud, but all the audience saw were women and children on stage.

Susano-O did his hero thing and dramatically cut into the ‘dragon’, red dye illustrating the flow of blood. In the end, Ruri Kazama fell to center stage as the dragon died.

It seemed that this would be the end of the tale, but it wasn’t. Susano-O knelt next to the fallen serpent and after a moment of silence, what appeared to be bright wings with sharpened feathers lifted from Ruri’s back and pierced the hero through the heart!

The audience gasped as fireworks sparked up from the stage! Susano-O tore off the robe of Ruri Kazama revealing a new blood red outfit underneath. as he quietly lay in the center stage.

Off stage a voice was singing.

“Weary, oh... Weary, oh

King of Ghostly Bone

The path ahead is indistinct

Looking back is useless

Broken, drenched in a sea of mercury

Face each other over the lonely city wall

As if to remember the heavy debt of gratitude of years past.

The hairs rose on Nono’s arms and her eyes widened. “Ruri... what is this?”

The audience was in ecstasy. The interpretation read out on the tablet. Turned out that the eight headed serpent was the goddess Izanami, returned from the underworld to exact her revenge for being abandoned by her husband. 

The whole play was sympathetic to her plight, so that when, in the end, the dragon kills the ‘hero of the story’ everyone is happy. The audience bought it, hook-line-and-sinker. Flowers were being thrown up on stage. People were congratulating him on his performance.

Nono put the tablet down.

“Ma’am?”

On a platter offered by the waiter was an envelope. Inside was an invitation to meet him backstage.

[ghoste-catte]

⭐️ for You Love A Stone please? About anything!! :D

Aaah yay!! You Love a Stone is probably my favorite or 2nd favorite thing I’ve ever written, so I’m super excited to have a chance to gush about it. 

My original framework for the story was always 3 parts, based on the Okkervil River song, “A Stone”.  I originally stumbled across Okkervil River in a record shop in my hometown. I picked up the album Black Sheep Boy out of the pre-owned CD rack because of the cover art and the lyrics booklet, despite knowing nothing about how the band sounded, because something about the art just ... spoke to me and who I was at the time. A Stone quickly became a favorite of mine, because, while on the surface it’s about loving a girl who’s still in love with her dead boyfriend, in many ways it’s about loving someone who’s out of reach, or incapable of love. Maybe TMI, but especially as a high schooler, that was a notion that was really evocative to me ... I remember a lot of late nights, driving home in the rain, taking the corners on the rural back roads way too fast, scream-crying along with these lyrics, because I didn’t think I was someone who was capable of love. (I’m okay now. Therapy is a good thing.)

But anyway, I’ve been obsessed with that song for like ... well over a decade at this point, and it always seemed to me like something that could be spun into an AU, even back then. I just didn’t have the mental space to do the idea justice at the time. My original idea honestly was something to do with Sakura or Hinata, because of the whole “princess who turns away all her suitors in favor of a vagabond who left her one rose” thing, but then I sort of hit my fanfic niche and the ultimate concept became GaaLee. 

The first draft of the fic included the characters having magic abilities in each setting, something that I’m glad I left out, because I like them better as just ... ordinary people, going about their lives, and the only aspect of magic being the reincarnation cycle. For example, in an early draft of chapter 2, Lee met Gaara because he was showing off with magic sand as part of a courtship ritual. Likewise, in the final chapter, Gaara pulled Naruto’s chair out from under him with sand, rather than his foot. The mundane magic idea ended up spun into Heliotrope, another fic I wrote around the same time. 

The original conceit also was a lot more Western-centric. The middle chapter, which ended up set in the Edo period, was much more a kings/queens/castles Western medieval fantasy-type deal, but I had been reading a lot of meta about the ... Americanization (?) of anime canons in modern AUs, and so I ended up deciding to stick with a Japanese setting. I’m glad I did, and I think the fic is stronger and more unique for it, but oh my god did I end up having to do so much research. I did not know really anything at all about Edo Period Japan outside of like ‘samurai were A Thing’ prior to sitting down to write, so every time I had a thought about a sentence, I then had to think through: Okay, but is that something that feasibly would have happened? Is this breaking some major cultural mores I don’t know about? There’s probably still some of that in the fic, but hopefully there’s less. For example, in the original draft, Lee was a Buddhist monk instead of a Shinto priest, but monks have a lot fewer things they’re allowed to do and I didn’t want to go the whole ... religious figure breaks his vows for gay sex angle, because that felt kinda disrespectful. Finding information about Shinto funeral rites was especially challenging, because in modern-day Japan funerals are completely Buddhist in nature (Shinto priests aren’t supposed to deal with death because it’s unclean), so I ended up going deeeep into the literature to find historical accounts of Shinto funerals pre-Meiji Restoration. Thank god for Google Scholar. 

Likewise with the last chapter, my original thought for a modern AU was that they would both have grown up in foster care, and I intended to have them meet at something like a disciplinary/behavioral ed school. I thought this would be much quicker and easier for me to write, because I’m very familiar with the American foster care and educational system. Turns out, after a bit of research, that there really isn’t anything like the American foster care system in Japan, there’s mostly state institutions and kinship care. So I ended up having to scrap basically my whole first draft of the third chapter and rewrite it from the ground up to fit an institutional setting. Fortunately this wasn’t quite as much of a jump as from Western medieval setting to Edo-period Japan, but it was still a lot of revision. I ended up watching a very interesting short documentary and reading a ... 200-something page Human Rights Watch report about state institutional care in Japan (You can read it here, warnings obviously for child abuse and neglect) before I felt comfortable proceeding. Little things that bring a story to life, like what kind of flowers bloom at a certain time of year, what the temperature is like and how the air smells, what people eat and what they wear, are really important to get accurate or close to accurate, so I’m always looking for little things like that, and first-hand narratives and video are a great way to get those little details. I also read and watched a lot of material about homelessness in Japan, runaways, and emancipation. It was surprisingly hard to find information about people who don’t follow a typical path of high school -> college -> working a white-collar job, and I had to flex my (very rusty) Japanese skills to turn up some of the material. 

Lee in the final chapter was really an interesting challenge to write, because he was so much more wounded than Lee is in canon. A big part of my decision to write Lee this way was based on research into Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and resiliency. In canon, Lee goes through a lot of hardship, but he has a mentor--Gai-sensei--who insulates him from a lot of his trauma. Research shows that children who have just one “safe” adult figure in their lives are much less likely to suffer the adverse effects of childhood trauma or to grow up to have PTSD. In the modern AU, Lee doesn’t have this, and he’s grown up without a single stable adult caregiver, just a rotating cast of paid adults.This is why he calls Naruto and Sasuke by their last names, because it doesn’t feel safe to him to become their friends, despite ostensibly knowing them for years. Gaara, on the other hand, is the more open one in the final chapter--after all, he grew up in a relatively intact home until recently, despite the abuse--and that’s why he befriends them and calls them by their first names, because he doesn’t have the same walls up.

Lee also has symptoms of ADHD and dyslexia in chapter 3. I often write modern AU Lee with dyslexia, because it seems a good allegory for his canon disabilities, in that it means he has to work much harder to do the things that his peers take for granted, and some of them he can’t do at all, which makes people think he’s not as smart as he actually is.

Thanks for the opportunity to talk about this fic! Like I said, it’s probably one that I hold closest to my heart. Sorry about the length!!

Ask me for the Director’s Cut of a specific story/scene/set of lines or send me a star to have me give a behind-the-scenes peek into a story of my choice!

[bettycooperoutfitwatch]

3x20 Chapter Fifty-Five: Prom Night

I shall now attempt to get a decent screenshot of Betty’s prom attire. 

But first—as we so often seem to—we pick up not long after we left off, with Betty still in the black windowpane check sweater and the snug tan-colored pants; now topped with her funeral gloves and that black check trench-coat. Windowpane on windowpane. 

A nice look at the texture on this coat! And a clearer glimpse at the rear-pleats—so pleatiful. 

I’m almost certain that by this point in the show’s run, Ms. Reinhart is wearing hair extensions. As a person who also has endured artificially blonde hair that’s been damaged by heat, I feel honestly soothed on her behalf. Anyway—it’s perhaps more noticeable during the prom scenes, but you can sort of tell by her ponytail here, too. I love behind-the-scenes stuff. 

I absolutely wore a long-sleeve shirt with this print in, like, 2003. This is a sweater, though, with slightly fluttery cuffs and hem, paired with some very dark-wash jeans. These might even be black, but I feel like there’s the subtlest hint of indigo still in them. Suitable for a girl whose dad just died (ostensibly). 

Fuck off this is cute. 

(Note the hem, cuffs.)

The silhouette is very Betty but there’s a...velour vibe to it that I don’t even know what to do with. It’s got some tartan, and she is working closely with Jughead here, so... It remains an oddity to me. Maybe she’s off-balance. I wouldn’t blame her, given the events of the episode. 

Even Jug can tell something is off. I mean, ostensibly her dad did just die. Ostensibly. 

Additionally—completely forgot about this new Serpent hangout space the gang slapped together out of a former Gargoyle den (214). I was thinking this was the Jones-formerly-Cooper basement. 

This varsity jacket is new to us, more on it later. 

Look at the conviction in her eyes, I love when Betty is convinced she’s got it figured out.  

Not the first time we’ve seen Betty in something ever-so-abstractly animal print, and also not the last. Notably, these are both moments in which her...conviction, shall we say, is tested.

A l e w k. The tartan of the mini is very Betty-&-Jug, but the scallops are Ms. B Cooper. The coloring is Betty-but-darker, if you will. She’s not Miss Baby Pink Betty Cooper, and she hasn’t been that for a long time. 

Backpack 2.0. 

The palette is also a gesture forwards to her prom gown. 

(Faces.)

Your Prom Queen. Vote Betty Cooper. 

There’s a vibe, alright? 

I’m not even going to engage with the question as to how the denizens of Riverdale have such plentiful ren faire attire so close at hand (Edit: You know what, let’s call it the Stars Hollow Principle). It’s all very generically ‘medieval’ or ‘renaissance,’ but this prom—and Gryphons & Gargoyles—is not about historical accuracy. This is Eldervair. 

Let’s just role the outfit footage, Jimmy, and appresh the hard work of the wardrobe department. 

Echoes of 111. 

There are also some very intentional callbacks to young Alice and the Midnight Club’s Fizzle Rock-fueled revelry throughout this set piece, some subtle (a Tears for Fears soundtrack), some less-so (actual footage of Ms. Reinhart as Alice Smith from 304):

She s t i l l has Ms. Grundy’s gun.

She superrrr wisely kicks off her shoes early on in this chase, pls see bottom right. 

This feels like a very Canadian blanket. Am I crazy? Hudson Bay vibes? Canada, come thru. 

Riverdale. 

I have NO idea what to even think about this sequin dinosaur t-shirt. This is fckn wild. Betty finally acquiesces to coming under the protection of the Farm, now that Black Hood Hal is afoot again, so perhaps this goes to explain whatever is going on here outfit-wise. 

I’ve been watching so much Succession recently that I want to say she’s finally ‘coming in,’ a la Shiv Roy. 

Note the “Coach” embroidery on her left breast. This bomber is reversible, we’ll see it again in season 4. 

Whew. That’s a resigned face. 

Summary: Seven outfits (not including the 304 flashback)

That backpack?: Backpack 2.0 still around

Best outfit: Let’s say scalloped crop-top and tartan mini

[tangodancerxxxmumu]

meet... adira selwyn 

age: 25

pronouns: she / her

birthplace: somerset, england, united kingdom

species: vampire ( former “hunter” )

sexuality: bisexual

occupation: museum curator & pianist

faceclaim: skyler samuels

&. “she holds herself like someone braced for tragedy.” --carol goodman, “the lake of dead languages”

under the cut contains multiple triggers, including ( tw infertility, tw emotional neglect, tw parental abuse, tw body horror, tw anxiety, tw panic attack, tw death, tw alcohol, tw alcoholism, tw self harm, tw depression, tw murder ). if i seem to have missed anything, please let me know.

adira iris selwyn was born at the end of summer, the first child and daughter to odessa and augustus, famed hunters. augustus himself came from a long line of hunters--it was the family business. they were old money, politically savvy, deeply influential. while the thought of a daughter had initially not been too upsetting, within the first few months, as they tried to conceive again, it became apparent that their luck had run dry with one. secondary infertility.

augustus selwyn had been fine with having a daughter, but once he learned she was all he would get, he began to despise the girl. the selwyn name was a proud one, one that had been passed down through generations of men, only to die with this brat in his house. he told his wife that the girl would be her responsibility and her’s alone. odessa, being a busy politician, was hardly at home.

adira had a rather lonely childhood. her father refused to even look at her, dine with her, take her out in public. her mother was hardly around, and when she was, it was to prime adira to be the “perfect child” for magazines and papers. and she was... on paper. in photos. at home, she was more a ghost than a child, flitting from room to room and keeping to herself.

her mother set her up to be an impressive child--home tutors from a young age, language specialists to help teach her multiple languages, a top-notch piano instructor. adira’s favorite, though, was the extensive selwyn library, carrying rare copies of classics and books on almost every moment of history within the past two hundred years. Journals, too, from past Selwyn hunters, which she devoured easily.

the only time she saw her father was when he decided that it was time for adira to learn how to hunt. it was the family business, and while he’d rather a son, he’d settle for a daughter with a good eye who could shoot. while adira had decent aim, good posture, and a steely expression when she wanted to, she knew she wasn’t a killer. she could shoot a target with ease, but the idea of shooting a living creature made her skin crawl. despite how the supernatural were described in the selwyn family journals, she couldn’t just eliminate them. over time, and with each new weapon she learned, the feeling only grew--this wasn’t her.

the selwyns were good friends with the rosenfelds. both were good hunter families, and, as such, they allowed their children to see each other. evan rosenfeld was perhaps the one person adira was able to see alone, and he became someone she trusted deeply. their contact with each other would ebb and flow over the years, but he was perhaps the only person adira considered truly family.

at the age of sixteen, adira learned of a selwyn tradition all of the selwyn hunter had refused to write about--the branding. on her sixteenth birthday, she was dragged from her bed at two in the morning by two trusted housekeepers, crying and screaming. she was terrified, shaking, and by the time she saw her father with the poker in his hand... she screamed when it hit her skin. the smell of burning flesh became too all familiar to her. as she was finally let go, she backed up, looking down at the red flesh on her left forearm. it was her family crest, and with it, her father gave her a ring, but not without telling her he’d always wished he’d been gifting it to a son instead of a daughter. he left her alone, crying from the pain and the shock.

in the years that followed, adira did her best to get out of every hunting trip she could. she’d fall suddenly ill, have a broken leg, anything to get out of it. for the most part, it worked, and the hunting trips she had to go on weren’t successful. luck, for the first time in a long time, seemed to be on her side. 

until she was eighteen. on her birthday, her father managed to drag her on a hunting trip. they were searching for a werewolf pack in eastern germany. just as things were looking unsuccessful, they stumbled upon a smaller wolf. adira fumbled, but her father took the shot, and she watched as the wolf shifted back into a girl as she fell. she couldn’t have been more than fifteen. while her father went to finish the job, adira threw up in a bush. she didn’t quite recover, and while her father went to bed that night, she locked herself in the bathroom. looking down at the branded mark on her arm, she felt her blood boil, and, not knowing whether she wanted to die or whether she just wanted out of the family business, she began to claw at the mark with her own nails. she only stopped when she was too weak to, and, realizing what she’d done, she began to have a panic attack. she felt as if she was dying... but she didn’t. as soon as she calmed herself, she quickly bandaged it up and went to bed. her father didn’t notice.

she managed to hide her deformed branding for another three years, always wearing long sleeves, always being careful. when she was twenty-one, she went on another fated hunting trip. her father brought her and some family friends, and they were tracking down a group of elves. it was a fucking massacre when they found them, and adira stayed behind, unable and unwilling to shoot. her father noticed and grabbed one of the elves, holding it out for her. he commanded her to do it, and, instead, she shot her father in the leg. the elf got away, and adira ran.

her mother found her in a villa in porto a week later, leaving with her a bag of clothes, some books, and a rare edition of satie compositions. odessa couldn’t look at her daughter, and told her that she was never allowed back in selwyn manor again. odessa then wrote her a check for five million and told her to stay out of england, or her father would kill her. it was the last kindness she would do.

adira spent the next two years finishing history degree while traveling, not taking a single semester off. she did all of her work online, immersed herself in small cities and towns throughout england. she had a lot to work through, years of guilt for not standing up to her father sooner, but she was free. that freedom brought with her a sort of bliss, and she began planning a life for herself. she felt hopeful for the future.

romania changed everything. adira had been excited to visit a few of the preserved medieval towns there, having just finished her degree. however, while walking back to her hotel one night, she felt the strong arms of a man pull her into an alleyway. she was a strong woman, but as she tried to pull away, she realized just how helpless the situation was--the man had superhuman strength. he was a vampire, an original, she found out. he knew who she was, and he turned her pretty unceremoniously. perhaps he’d wanted to hurt her family, not knowing they cared little for her anymore. cain, his name was. she was left with a ring and not much else.

she ditched her family ring for a daylight one, a vampire now. her first night, she killed three men without much hesitation, her thirst for blood strong. by the time she was sated, she was fully disgusted with herself and fled the city. she’d become the killer her father had always dreamed she’d be. she kept to herself for months in the romanian forests, feeding only from animals and trying to figure herself out. by the time she left romania, her parents had somehow gotten word of her death. she saw a news article about her funeral.

she spent the next two years still traveling, but mostly keeping to herself. she learned that blood was easier downed with wine, and her control could be mastered if she focused hard on it. her newfound vampirism was becoming easier to cope with, and while she didn’t let anyone too close to her, she found herself shying less and less from people. in northern italy, after four years, she was able to rent a piano and play again. she nearly cried. 

but she was tired of traveling. she wanted a place to settle down and make connections. she wanted the community and friends she never had before, and only one place really came to mind--evan’s hometown, bellport. perhaps her old friend would be able to see past her newfound monstrosity and help her feel at home in the world. so she went. she bought a small house outright, furnished it to her liking, and suddenly found herself in a place she’d only been to a few times ( and not allowed outside of evan’s house, either ). 

adira knows six languages: english, italian, french, portuguese, german, and arabic. she’d been attempting russian when she was turned into a vampire, and has been looking for the spare time to get back to it.

while adira is mostly alright, she still struggles with control from time to time. she’s friendly, but quiet. her moral code is... questionable at times, depending on her love.

[qqueenofhades]

Ahem. As discussed, a prompt my good lady...Lucy and Flynn + fake married in Dubrovnik + the inevitable shenanigans...

Okay SO. On the plane over, there was something in the magazine about a website where tourists can go to Amsterdam and fake-marry a local for a day, so their new “spouse” can take them around the non-tourist parts of the city, and then they go their separate ways at dusk and it’s fun etc. I immediately decided that this needed a Garcy AU, for obvious reasons.

Lucy Preston wasn’t really planning on going to Croatia. In fact, she wasn’t exactly planning to go anywhere. But it’s been a rough few months to say the least – tenure meeting cancelled at Stanford, breaking up with Noah, Mom has to go back to the hospital for more tests and it isn’t looking good – and in a fit of late-night frustration, she decided to just fly somewhere over Thanksgiving break and forget about the clusterfuck that was her life for a bit. Somewhere warm, she wasn’t picky. She suggested that Amy go with her, but Amy had work and couldn’t get away, and by then, Lucy had already booked a ticket. She’s heard that Dubrovnik is beautiful, there is a university and a state archive there so she can theoretically disguise it as a research trip, and when she was running through the apparently deeply cursed Frankfurt airport to catch her connecting flight, a text popped up from Amy. Something that she thinks Lucy should try, just for shits and giggles. Some kind of app called Untourist.

Lucy took a look at it and decided that it was basically Tinder for tourists, even if the premise tried to be more classy than that. In short, you can pick a European city from the list (More Locations Coming Soon!, promises the popup), fill in some brief preference Q&As, and be matched with a local, who will fake-marry you in a ceremony complete with photos and then take you on a “honeymoon” for a day in the city. The idea is that you get to have a personal guide, explore places off the main drag – and presumably, if you hook up at the end, that’s a nice bonus, but not one that the app strictly advertises. It sees itself as promoting intercultural connections and lived experiences, rather than anything so ignominious as arranging casual sex with a hot foreigner. Apparently it got its start in Amsterdam, though, so this would not be surprising.

The split with Noah is still raw, and Lucy isn’t planning to use the app for that purpose – or indeed, at all. But after she has landed at the surprisingly tiny airport and has boarded the bus for the drive along the coast road to the city, she downloads it on a whim that she shouldn’t think through and decides it might be fun to have someone to travel with, even briefly. After she’s signed up, created a profile, and filled in her details, she is given two options to match with, and ends up going for the latter: Garcia from Dubrovnik. She thought about Marko from Zagreb, but his profile says that he’s a Dinamo Ultra, and she decided that she didn’t want to spend the day getting a crash course in the finer points of Croatian football hooliganism. Garcia it is, apparently.

Dubrovnik is insanely beautiful, with crystalline turquoise water lapping at towering medieval city walls (souvenir shops every few streets will proudly remind you that they filmed Game of Thrones here), palm trees, red-tiled roofs, old golden-stone buildings, winding side alleys, and sunlight that pours down as rich as olive oil. Since it’s November, it’s not quite as hot as in high summer, and the tourist rush is somewhat dimmed. Lucy sleeps late at her Airbnb high on a very steep side street, as the city is spread out over several hills on the side of the tall blue mountains that rise out of the water, and almost forgets that her fake wedding is today. She jumps out of bed, puts on some makeup (just because she’s not actually marrying the guy doesn’t mean she has to look completely trollish), grabs her bag, and heads down into town, following a winding alley of staircases that are probably going to be a pain to climb back up. She hopes this was a good idea. It was mostly to appease Amy, anyway. Can she cancel, or would that count as leaving Garcia at the (fake) altar?

What the hell, she’s here now, and maybe if she shows that she’s receptive to new experiences, the universe will give her a break. Lucy trots along the palm-treed square above the city walls, finds the door with the Untourist logo by the bell, and steps inside. “Dobro jutro,” she says, which is about all the Croatian she speaks, and most people have been happy to use English anyway. “I’m Lucy Preston, I have an appointment today?”

The slick Unreceptionist greets her, gives her a waiver to sign (bad experiences and/or unsatisfactory spouses are not their fault, any meeting beyond the day is done on personal terms, etc) and they await the arrival of her dashing groom-to-be. It is twelve minutes past their scheduled start time, and the Unreceptionist is making apologetic noises, when the door opens with a bit of a crash and a man who must be Garcia ducks in. He’s tall, dark, and craggy-handsome, probably in his forties, wearing aviator sunglasses, and clutching a takeaway coffee. He addresses the Unreceptionist in rapid Croatian, looks up, sees Lucy, and nods shortly. “Ah,” he says, switching to English. “Right, you’re here. Let’s go.”

“Sir,” the Unreceptionist says, looking as if he’s wondering if Garcia himself read the details and/or the release forms before signing up. “You’re supposed to…?”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to have the wedding ceremony first?”

“I’m supposed to have the what?”

At that, Lucy winces. Feeling as if this might be an opportune moment to interrupt the conversation, and wondering if it’s too late to switch to Marko from Zagreb and risk dying at an Eternal Derby game, she stands up. “Hi,” she says. “I’m Lucy Preston?”

“I know.” Garcia glances at her briefly, up and down, and then away. “What’s this about a wedding?”

“That’s the whole point of the app,” Lucy says pointedly. “Fake-married, take me to places that aren’t touristy, then at the end of the day, go our separate ways?”

Garcia looks briefly pole-axed, then seems to decide that right, well, this is on him for failing to read the terms and conditions. “Fine,” he says impatiently. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Lucy’s cheeks sting. Making a mental note to give him a zero of five stars on any feedback form that she might have to fill in to rate her experience today, she follows him into the back, where they are joined in a very non-legally-binding ceremony, have their photo taken (Garcia looks like this is a real funeral rather than a fake wedding) and finally are released into the wild, as Garcia (who is a good foot taller than her) strides ahead without waiting. When Lucy runs to catch up, he says, “Nobody told me there was a wedding involved.”

“Did you even read what they wanted?” Lucy’s tone is slightly waspish, but then, he isn’t exactly showering her in that supposedly famous Slavic hospitality. The sweet lady at the Airbnb was much nicer than this. “It was right there in the entire premise. If you don’t want to spend a day taking me around the city, fine, but maybe next time, try to actually – ”

“No,” Garcia says abruptly. “You’re here now. Let’s go.”

With that, he strides off toward the gate in the towering walls, down into the Stari Grad. Lucy thinks the view from up there must be spectacular, but she’s not actually going to get a chance to find out, because Garcia derides them as too touristy and refuses to pay 200 kuna to go up them. (This is something like $30, so it clearly is a lot, but the city sees no reason not to profit off all the Game of Thrones fans.) Nor does he think much of the main drag, the cathedral square, the rector’s palace, or any of the other usual sights. He says that Lucy can call him Flynn, but doesn’t explain why. She thinks it’s his last name, but honestly, she can’t be sure. He has the social skills of a broken-down dump truck.

Finally, since there isn’t much of Dubrovnik, at least the old town, that isn’t touristy, Lucy persuades Flynn to let them go up the walls, though by the face he makes at the cashier as he pays for their tickets, the poor man might be found floating face-down in the ocean later. They climb up to the winding ramparts, gazing out over the Adriatic to one side and the crowded, tiled roofs on the other, and on one steep section, Lucy loses her footing and nearly falls. She wouldn’t have gone over the edge, there are plenty of barriers, but Flynn flashes out a hand and steadies her. It’s the first remotely human or non-dickish thing he’s done, and she raises an eyebrow. “Thanks.”

Perhaps sensing by her acerbic tone that he has not been the world’s most satisfactory fake husband to date, Flynn has the grace to blush, or at least look somewhat chagrined. “I’d definitely get in trouble if you died.”

“Thanks,” Lucy says again, even more tartly. “Guess it’s a good thing for you that you have good reflexes?”

“I fought in the Homeland War.” Flynn glances away. It’s the first personal thing he’s shared about himself, in a casual, offhand way that makes it sound no more remarkable than getting milk from the store. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

Lucy glances at him. He’s made it clear that he’s not here for the fake marriage, let alone small talk, but she paid a decent amount of money to be here with this tall idiot and he can just suffer it. “Are you from Dubrovnik?”

“I was born in Šibenik.” Flynn doesn’t break stride, obliging Lucy to trot to keep up with him. “Lived a few places around the country. It was Yugoslavia back then, though. War started in 1991.”

“I know,” Lucy says. “I mean, I’m a historian, so I was recently doing some work on 1989 and the U.S. response to the dissolution of the Iron Curtain. Technically, Yugoslavia wasn’t Soviet, right?”

“No,” Flynn says, with a sort of grim pride. “Tito and Stalin hated each other. It was…. sort of an in-between place, I suppose. We didn’t need exit visas, there was a certain amount of social freedom, and Tito liked to market it as neutral, a third country between East and West, combining the best of both and the worst of neither. Of course, he was a dictator, but supposedly a benevolent one. Most people liked him. My childhood was – ” He stops. “Well, my mother was American, anyway. Maybe that was what drew her here. Running away.”

Lucy glances up at him. She has a sense that Flynn doesn’t often talk much about his past, and decides that since they are, after all, only fake-married, she doesn’t need to pry. However, since the subject of his mother has arisen, she holds back as best she can, not wanting to dump the fraught subject of Carol Preston on a strange man who has only just met her and treated her one step above gum stuck to his shoe, but finally needs to talk about it with someone who isn’t Amy. She still isn’t sure Flynn gives a damn, but too bad for him. She mentions that it’s been hard, with the Stanford legacy and the cancer and the expectations that she would accept Noah’s proposal, and she just – well, she doesn’t know. Maybe Lucy understands a bit of Flynn’s mother, whoever she was, whyever she came here. Maybe she too was, or is, running away. Even if she has to fly all the way back to San Francisco at the end of this week, some part of her would be more than happy to fling all her responsibilities to the wind, move into some picturesque old flat in one of those tiny streets, and stay.

They descend the walls after completing their circuit, and Flynn deigns to buy her lunch at a small cafe where the menu is only in Croatian and a sign informs customers that they don’t take euros, only kuna. Lucy allows him to order something for her, and they sit there eating in semi-awkward silence. Then Flynn says, apropos of nothing, “Maria.”

“What?”

“My mother’s name.” He shrugs. “It was Maria Tompkins. She was from Houston. She moved to Yugoslavia in 1970, after the death of her first husband and son. She was traveling through Europe, I don’t know that she intended to stay here, but she met my father, so she did.”

“Oh.” Lucy wonders what it would have been like here in the seventies. Probably still beautiful, though much less developed. So Maria Tompkins fell in love, that was what made a young American woman go Red, a move that must have been regarded dimly by her friends and family back in Texas. With that sort of tragedy shadowing her past, maybe it was easier to cut all ties, to get a new passport, to learn a new language, and never look back. Lucy feels a sudden pang of sympathy with this other woman, this unknown fellow traveler, who too found herself in this corner of the world wanting to leave it all behind. Lucy has responsibilities at home, not least her job (even if they didn’t give her tenure, or at least it’s very much in academic bureaucracy limbo), her sister, her sick mother, all the encumbrances and trappings of real life. She can’t do what Maria did, no matter how much she wants to. And for some reason completely unknown to her – it certainly isn’t the pleasure of Flynn’s company – she does.

They finish lunch and head out. It’s warm enough for November that Flynn suggests they can go for a dip, though he gives her a no-clearly-not look when Lucy naively thinks this will be at Banje Beach, the main spot just south of the walls. He leads her up to the street, where they find his car and get in. It’s an Audi, and she wonders what exactly he does for a living. He has a habit of scanning their surroudings, casually flicking his gaze at passersby, in a way that she doesn’t think stems from his military service alone. In fact, she’s starting to wonder if he joined the Untourist app to case the city and/or scope out people without it being too suspicious. Maybe it’s better for everyone if she doesn’t ask about his job. He might have to suffocate her and bundle her up in a black plastic garbage bag in the boot.

Flynn, it transpires, drives like a bit of a maniac, a habit he shares with most of the other road users (especially the scooters and motorcycles). Lucy has already noticed that Croatians seem to have a rather laissez-faire attitude toward personal safety, as evidenced by their tendency to stand outside guardrails overlooking steep drops, walk the wrong way along busy highways, dart across roads in front of oncoming traffic, and jury-rig anything that isn’t actively falling apart. When she mentions this to Flynn, he shrugs. “Slavs are like that,” he says matter-of-factly. “Especially Croatians. Though if you think we’re bad, you should meet the Poles.”

Lucy laughs despite herself, since that’s the first time Flynn has loosened up to flash any bit of actual humor. Well, that’s not quite true; he is remarkably sassy, has a sarcastic comment for most occasions and especially anything involving a tourist making a fool of themselves, but this is the first time that his humor has seemed gentler, more like he’s actually enjoying himself and poking a bit of self-deprecating fun rather than lashing out at the world. They drive along the cliff road for several miles in silence, until Lucy asks, “When did you move to Dubrovnik?”

“About…” Flynn hesitates, and she senses that there’s more riding on the answer to that question than he wants to let on. “Well, I lived in Zagreb until 2014.”

“And you moved here after that?”

“More or less.” Flynn adjusts the rearview mirror, which doesn’t really need it. After a long pause he says, “My wife and daughter died in 2014. I came here for – well, I didn’t want to stay there anymore.”

“I’m….” Lucy feels taken aback, almost guilty that she’s been so derisive of his inability to read app terms and conditions, his clear aversion to the whole fake-married part. Not that they’ve really been acting like it, anyway, but still. She can imagine it wouldn’t be easy for her, if that ever happened, to stand up and play-act some stupid charade for an American tourist hiring you like a beast of burden, not when you’d had the real thing, not when it was gone. “Garcia,” she says, the first time she’s used that since he told her to call him Flynn. She has a sense that he prefers that, that Garcia is some place too personal where he doesn’t let people go, not any longer. “I’m sorry.”

He glances at her, and for a moment she thinks he’ll snap at her, but he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes on the road, navigating the tight turns with ease, until at last he says, “I’m sorry I haven’t been very much fun.”

Lucy opens her mouth by polite reflex to say that he has, and settles for a noncommital hum. Flynn seems to sense that while he might have worked his way up from zero stars, he’s still a way off from five, and parks the Audi in a pullout. They descend a narrow cliff path to the sea, he reaches out to catch her arm when her feet skid again on the pebbles, and Lucy decides she should probably warn him that she’s clumsy before she really does accidentally kill herself. But if she fell into the sea from here, she has an unaccountable sense that he’d dive in after her, no matter how odd and brusque and grumpy he is. It’s less clear whether this is because he’s starting to like her a little, or because it would be an insult to his professional competence. Maybe he’s in the Mafia.

They reach a small quay where a catamaran is tied up, Flynn strides to it and produces two life jackets, and once Lucy has climbed aboard, he swings on, undoes the ropes, and angles the sails out into the wide blue water, endless as a reflected sky. It must be a busy harbor in summer, and there’s still a decent boat traffic now: ferries, jet-skis, a few sailboats and pleasure yachts. Lucy holds on tight as Flynn carves an expert white wake. “Is this your boat, then?”

“No,” Flynn says. “But I borrow it from time to time.”

“Did you – ” Lucy gives him a very narrow stare. “Did you steal this boat?”

“No!” Flynn looks miffed that she would ask. “I know the owner, he lets me use it when I want to. What kind of man do you think I am?”

Lucy opens her mouth, starts to answer, and stops. Truth is, she isn’t sure. An hour ago she would have said a raging, self-absorbed dick with no social skills and possibly black-market employment, and parts of that are still true, but the rest, well… she can’t say exactly. He keeps letting slip these odd, vulnerable parts of him, almost in spite of himself. His past in the war, his mother running away from her old life, his dead wife and daughter, everything else. She isn’t certain what she thinks of him, exactly, but she isn’t wishing that she picked Marko from Zagreb anymore. If nothing else, Flynn is complicated, and challenging, and oddly easy to talk to, and he hasn’t told her to shut up about the family/work/life drama that she occasionally returns to venting about. Lucy thinks she’ll take that, at least. 

She looks at his hands, large and sun-brown and expertly pulling and tying the knots to trim the sail, as he pulls them to a bobbing halt in the sparkling water and asks if she wants to swim. Lucy didn’t put on her bathing suit under her clothes, but she doesn’t want to go to the bother of making him drive all the way back to the Airbnb. So she strips off her shirt and jeans, and, in just her bra and underpants (hey, they’re married, even fakely), she dives in.

The water is chillier than she expected – this is the southern Mediterranean, it’s never cold no matter the season, but it is November, and she splutters and gasps as she bobs to the surface. Flynn, observing from the high-and-dry comfort of the catamaran, smirks at her, and Lucy gives him the finger. “You dick,” she shouts. “You could have warned me.”

Flynn shrugs, apparently utterly untroubled either by this accusation or by her attitude; indeed, he grins as if he appreciates this feistiness, her willingness to talk back at him and tell it like it is. Lucy spends so much time biting her tongue around absolutely everyone else that this reaction is both unexpected and deeply liberating, and once she’s swum around the catamaran a few times and adjusted to the water temperature, she takes a deep breath and dives down under the pontoons. Then she surfaces on the far side, reaches up, and just as Flynn senses danger and whips around, she grabs him by the back of the shirt and jerks him backward.

He’s wearing a life jacket, of course, so he doesn’t go too far under, but the expression on his face is worth every penny that she paid to the stupid app. He shakes his wet hair like a dog as he surfaces, and she has to say, he looks really good while doing it. “Excuse me,” he says, in a tone of deep umbrage. “Who told you that it was a good idea to start a marriage off by throwing your husband in the drink?”

“Maybe if I’m drowning you for the life insurance,” Lucy shoots back, before she can stop herself. She has no idea who this woman is, who has gone from being exasperated and shut off with Flynn to – well, she did in fact just throw him in the ocean, but there’s definitely something different about their dynamic now. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call it flirty, whether or not this is listed in Untourist’s terms and conditions (and as well established, Flynn did not read them anyway). “After all, I think we can say that you deserve it. Tragic boating accident?”

Too late, she wonders if this is a bad idea to joke about, since she doesn’t actually know how his wife and daughter died (she hopes it wasn’t that, anyway) but Flynn actually laughs, and it transforms his whole face. They spend a very enjoyable forty minutes swimming around, splashing each other, and hanging onto the side of the catamaran and letting their legs sway in the current. They’re close alongside each other as they do, Lucy is conscious of only being in her wet underwear (it’s not like he can see anything while she’s submerged, but still), and something passes between them as their eyes meet. His throat moves as he swallows, and after a moment too long, he looks away.

They climb back on the boat, Flynn looses the sail and steers them back toward land, and they disembark, Lucy once more watching for investigative purposes as he ties up. They dry off and she pulls on her damp clothes, as Flynn decorously turns his back and waits until she is done. Then they tramp up the bluff to the car (Lucy was thinking about retiring here, since it’s warm and sunny and beautiful and all that, but if she is elderly, all the climbing might be too much) and drive back toward the town center. The sun is getting low, her paid-for day is almost done, and despite the total disaster that was it starting out, Lucy is oddly reluctant for it to do so. As Flynn pulls up in front of the Untourist office, she says convulsively, “Maybe we should… I don’t know. I think they’re closed, anyway. You don’t have to drop me off here.”

Flynn glances at her, then considers it. He could offer to just take her back to her Airbnb (those streets really were not designed for sane drivers, and Lucy can see why tiny Smart cars are popular around here, but Flynn would absolutely not fit into one) and he still might. Then he says, “Well, technically, the day isn’t over. Do you suppose I could take you out for dinner?”

“You….” Lucy coughs. “I suppose you could.”

They find parking, and walk down into the old town, as the moon is rising over the walls, the towers are floodlit, the city gleams in the cooling dusk like its nickname, the “Pearl of the Adriatic,” and they find another cafe where the clientele is mostly local. They linger late over dinner, and Flynn says that he will in fact drive her back when they’re finally done, and as she’s about to undo her seatbelt and get out, Lucy hesitates. Then she screws up her courage, leans over, and kisses him very fast on the cheek. “Thank you,” she says. “I had – I really did have a great time.”

Flynn looks as surprised as her to hear it, but somehow and shyly gratifeid as well. A fugitive smile plays at the corner of his mouth, tentative, tender. For a moment, she thinks he might be about to kiss her back for real, but he clears his throat and holds out his hand instead. “Er,” he says. “Thank you, Dr. Preston.”

Lucy hesitates, fighting her disappointment, and shakes it back. Then she steps out of the car and unlocks the door of the apartment, as he waits to see that she gets inside without random Ragusan fiends materializing from the shrubbery. Even when she does step in, the car idles a few more moments, and she glances back, wondering – or perhaps it’s only hoping – that he’s chastising himself for letting her walk away. Then the car starts again, she can see his dark figure sitting too stiff and straight at the wheel, and she watches until the taillights vanish around a steep turn, and fade into the night.

[onionjulius]

Hello Onion! I hope you’re having a splendid day and a happy holiday if you celebrate Thanksgiving! I’ve come back to ask you some more questions regarding Ned and Cat. I really admired your idea about them exchanging gifts. I would also love to know if you have any favorite ideas or fashion inspiration for their wedding clothes? I love the idea of Ned wearing his house colors (but mostly white) and Cat in her house colors, but thought I’d see what your ideas were!-Sunfyre

Hello Sunfyre! Please pardon my tardiness, final exams are giving me pains!!!

If you celebrate, hope you had a fun and reflective Thanksgiving as well :D Mine was delicious.

FASHION INSPIRATION AHHHH. So, I’m torn here because my head says that Cat would want to fit in with her married house and be a `;*bride of winter*;` but my heart says THIS IS THE LAST TIME SHE’LL BE A RIVERLANDER LET HER GO OUT LIKE ONE. It’d also make for a nice visual contrast if she looks warmer and livelier next to somber, wintery Ned.

A winter look would focus on silver, I think, since that’s on the Tully sigil and is close to grey, whereas for a more autumnal look I could see like a cream or pale yellow/gold base with touches of a autumnal Tully red.

I’m actually also in love with this rusty rose pink color and think pink is an underused color for Cat, although maybe her complexion is already too pinkish. But a dark and warm pink would sit in between her skin tone and her hair color and I think that would, as the kids say, slap:

Even a peach color could be fun?

OKAY SO WHAT ABOUT THIS.

What if the color of the dress becomes cooler as you go down. Like, maybe there’s an overlay on the skirt that has solid dags of silver or white that kind of intrude on the warmer color as you go up the dress. Or maybe not dags but, like, some way in which the winter color travels up the skirt of the dress and looks like it’s CLAIMING it because winter is coming D: Perhaps a sheer overlay with some white beadwork or sashes curving upward or IDK!! Or just embroidered snow flurries that swoosh upward from the bottom. Or more simply, a feminine kinda surcoat might accomplish the same thing? This is totally not accurate to medieval fashion, I am sure, but tbh I don’t think GRRM is either because his descriptions seem more romantic than medieval and it’s fantasy anyway and I’m kind of down with riffing on semi-historic design. (TBH I don’t even know if they had pink in medieval European clothes? Maybe that’s just what you get with an incomplete wash of a red color. IDK!)

Or maybe that’s too detailed XD I don’t wanna stifle your creativity!!!! If I had one takeaway I guess it’s that I’m not really seeing her in blue, I think I “reserve” blue for Lysa in my head for that day because of the Arryn thing.

I do rather love the idea of something once alive in Cat’s hair, obviously flowers are a possibility but …… OK what do you think of, like stalks of wheat or some other grain? Or rather than big blooms, what about a flower more like amaranth?

(Imma be straight with you, I had burgundy amaranths at my wedding and am this close to projecting here. Not prescribing the color above BTW, fantasy plants FTW.)

If there was a way to have autumn leaves in one’s hair without them crumbling apart, that’d be so cool …. I mean, godswood leaves are red though??!! But would it be perceived as disrespectful to use them in a decorative way like that? IDK IDK. 

OR, maybe a white flower would be better in the hair just because it’s better contrast and ties in with Ned’s white. YEAH YOU KNOW WHAT … that makes sense, doesn’t it? 

As for hair style, part of me really likes the big thick braid on the shoulder look, a la Audrey’s piece here. But part of me also has never gotten over the Eowyn funeral updo and I think Cat could rock some variation of that.

If we’re being really “accurate” or at least spiritually in tune, I guess she’d cover her hair with a caul or hennin or something but not sure GRRM ever mentions those.

I don’t honestly see her wearing a lot of jewelry, but a single silver pendant might be nice? IDK if it can be, like, silver worked in the shape of a wolf and fish going all yin yang about each other. But that’s a small detail XD

As for Ned, I know GRRM had him wear a doublet in AGOT and doublets are western European things … but maybe it could be inspired by some Slavic looks? Like the asymmetrical collar perhaps, with old god runes on the hems. TBH haven’t mapped out the different regions of Westeros to different real-world regional fashions, there’s so many options and I get overloaded D: I think it’d be a heavy fabric like velvet FWIW, to stay warm. Not sure how that affects the look!

I think more in my head I just see the ~vibe~ rather than the specifics, so for Ned, something really straight and strong, proper without the fussiness, but not just leather and furs as in the TV show we do not name. Not floofy. But still a little blingy, like maybe wolf head clasps made out of IDK agate or something. 

This is all I have for now, I’ve got to get back to studying, but if I think of more I will add!