#or HOMME rather

[nobigneil]

Neil Newbon aka BUST magazine's "boy du jour"!

[walkman-cat]

detective noir au kath part two :D

or: Katherine Pulitzer, heiress, dame with a case, probably has better places to be than davey jacobs’ office

she’s wearing 1927 daywear + the iconic cloche hat, because she’s fashionable wbwbw

her clothes here, while on the more practical side of fashionable daywear, are not as suited to the kind of work she does as a reporter

her shoes are absolutely not the kind one wears when walking a lot

she’d also have an overcoat but my wrist hurts so i decided not to draw it. it would probably have fur on it

references below the cut

[boise-chypre]

Pour Homme by Versace

[theanxiousbookdevourer]

Disco Elysium spoilers ahead.

One of the best things about Disco Elysium is the way in which it talks about having community, love, and support—or, perhaps more importantly, about not having it.

But you don't have to be alone. Not forever. Even we learn this, somewhere along the way. Take this interaction with The Pigs.

And then? What do we, a sad, lonely man, say to that?

I find myself thinking of our interaction with Tommy Le Homme…

… or even Idiot Doom Spiral.

What if you don’t have anyone, though? What if, rather than finding your way through your troubles, or making a family out of the people you have, you instead decide to turn away from the world?

That’s what happens with René.

It’s what happens with The Deserter too.

We see how that loneliness affected them. How it killed them, day by day. And how it doesn't have to be that way. How you can change.

This is a game about lonely people. Maybe one for lonely people too. And because of it, because of its community, we don't have to feel alone anymore.

[lightningant]

I am 100% team Tomarry and don't really like Tomione, but if somehow Harry is not in the picture and you have to ship Tom with a Golden Trio member, it's gotta be the brightest witch of her age.

Harry's got the narrative mirror, Parseltongue, magic power and of course his cute look going for him when it comes to Tom.

Hermione cleans up rather well (why do you think jock extraordinaire Victor Krum wanted to date her) and is very intelligent and has 10 OWLs

Ron is very unremarkable. He is a an every man. Nothing special to look at, not very bright, no great power. Just a good guy.

A guy we see at pubs complaining about his bitchy boss, receding hair lines, problems with the missus.

Hard to imagine a guy like that with a very powerful, very pretty homme fatale like Tom.

Who are you people. Have you not ever been in a relationship

Hermione isn't "smart" - she has an absolutely prodigious memory. "Brightest witch of her age" means this is a precocious skill. This also has absolutely nothing to do with Tom's values. Tom is a creative maelstrom; pretty much all we hear about Voldemort magic-wise is how he keeps inventing crazy spells. The person who's closest to him, Snape, shares this trait (hence my fervent belief they had some doomed daddy issues mentorship situation). What do we know about Hermione? That she HAAAAATES magical creativity. That she's terrible at applying her knowledge - the evil coin she made is an expression of an advance in her understanding of the subject (she's learning and evolving!), but also a straightforward use. She brings her school textbooks with her to self-soothe.

Personality-wise, you could not find a worse pair. Hermione has a strong justice drive (not moral fibre, I mean that insane substrate of stubbornness where you embody a holy war on your beliefs even if you're objectively and obviously wrong) and detests creativity, so Tom's villainy is irrelevant; she's going to be annoyed and horrified by his genius and have strong opinions on it. She is going to complain constantly. She is going to backseat drive his innovations.

Do you think Tom would enjoy a posh muggleborn who obviously comes from money going "UM, ACTUALLY" over his shoulder? Do you think he will enjoy her starting squabbles to vent her own frustrations? Do you think he would appreciate her aimless moral crisis of "oh, look at how everyone treats that elf - shouldn't we do something?" Where she doesn't even bother to listen to the elves on their abuse. If she heard about Tom's background, she is likely to find him pitiful! Do you think he'd appreciate a little rich girl who goes home to her muggles expressing simpering pity? Who buys into his self-mythology and thus believes his mask? Who has to personally bear the burden of him accruing social capital by expressing his desire to hatecrime her. Who's true feelings would probably be to cut her off from her muggle family entirely.

Why do people date to you? To stand next to each other attractively? This isn't even a dangerous toxic couple because Hermione's only power in this relationship is being a nag. I want to attend a women's march just thinking about it.

I would say "go Snamione like a normal person at least their incompatibility is grounds for an opposites attract relationship" but you people think he is ugly and try to squeeze thrill like blood from a rock with teacher/student regardless, which makes them less compelling and again puts Hermione in a position of a demeaned and devalued woman...what must be done to save this woman?

Speaking of opposites attract, is it not obvious a homme fatale like Tom might worry at normality like a loose tooth?

First, Ron's not a balding pubcrawler. He is a househusband. His primarily occupation at all times is being somebody's favourite. He spent so long with Lavender despite being in love with Hermione for a reason. He gets mad at Harry for "putting his name in the Goblet" because this is a conspiracy he could have roped Ron in on, and to not rope him in on it implies he is devalued in comparison to fame and popularity, which separated him from his brothers.

Speaking of brothers, Ron has spent his entire life with the brightest wizards of not just their age but their era; the only wizards we hear as prodigious as Bill, successful as Charlie, as academic as Percy, or as creative as Fred&George are famous, James & Sirius, or Tom Riddle. Tom's genius and good looks are very familiar territory to Ron, and this time he's not even a competitor for his mum's love. Being an accomplished homme fatale is going to hit different on someone like Ron, who is only impressed by quidditch. (This is why Ronarry is real btw)

And as a couple: Ron is also a big picture thinker and strategist. One of his unusual skills is in wizard chess, but he applies that way of thinking to relationships. He's the Heart. Ron tends to scale down the obsessive tendencies of both Harry and Hermione, and even acts as a pillow for Hermione to punch with her petty complaints as it helps her decompress her obsessive focus - Harry finds Hermione exhausting without Ron there.

What would Tom see in a man who doesn't see his godhood as natural yet intuitively understands how impressive he is? Who knows what it means to budget and go without? Who has a big family which, in an AU circumstance, could absorb Tom, appreciate him, find him like-minded? (The screaming row when Tom first starts stealing his whole family would be legendary. Regardless.) Who could pull Tom away from his tendency to obsess over things, who could look at Tom's narrow-minded plotting with a broader viewpoint, and most importantly, who could see every layer of who he truly is and find it worthwhile - something Tom spent his entire lifetime chasing - and ask only that Tom treasured him above all else? Who is simple, loyal, and easily pleased enough that he is someone who can be trusted, accommodated, and included on misadventures without any friction whatsoever? Who gives him a little kissy after a bad day and gets mad and doubles down when questioned on his values?

He has seen his heart and it is his! And honestly? Likewise with Ron!

Tom's next ship down from Harry is Bella and the next ship sideways is Ron and you can show me all the dark academia Pinterest boards you want, you are never going to convince me otherwise.

[fiamat12]

Why do I have this strange feeling that A or people close to her might have bribed certain Luke and Nicola shipping content creators at some point which resulted in a complete 180 from them. Just like Tif, the loudest and most active one at this point, or a few more creators that suddenly started making content with L and A and then disappeared completely afterwards. Idk, it was so strange to witness back then. Even those who started shipping J and N started going that way gradually, not within a specific period of time.

It is rather strange, isn't it? However, so many are trying to make a career on sm, so they post whatever gets the most engagement, which is whatever causes the most speculation/ drama/ keeps the fires stoked. They are basically no better than DM.

I was just remembering Mia - who is now trying to start a podcast (and lost most of her following) - was one of the 1st to say that Lukola was in a relationship last April, and N was getting d*cked down by L (excuse my french) and that it was no mistake his "Homme" shoot was in Hackney. She met L, SHE KNOWS and still flip-flopped. 🤦‍♀️ But not everyone stands on principle, and quite a few are willing to sell their souls to social media.

They know this is real... ⏬️

[greedandenby]

Transcript of all the French dialogue in Interview with the Vampire S2 E03 "No Pain".

You asked, yours Frenchly delivered. Bonne lecture ! (long-ass post incoming)

(did not use timestamps as these may vary, but rather scene descriptions)

Armand’s Children of Darkness:

Coven vampire: La mort punira toute infraction de la première et de la cinquième des grandes lois.

Armand sees Lestat at the theatre (performing Marivaux’s Le Triomphe de l’amour):

Lestat (as Arlequin): Ah ! Vous êtes donc des femmes !… (vous êtes deux) friponnes !… et par-dessus le marché, un honnête homme !...

Armand: Tu es le bâtard de Magnus. Je sais que tu peux m’entendre, mon enfant.

Lestat: Qui m’appelle « enfant » ?

Armand: Il est mort, n’est-ce pas ? Je peux prendre soin de toi. Je peux t’apprendre ce qu’il ne t’a pas appris. Viens à moi.

Lestat (as Arlequin): Mais de quoi s’agit-il, mes libérales dames ?

Armand: Viens à moi.

Lestat (as Arlequin): Encore plus honnête.

Armand confronts Lestat and Nicolas:

Armand (to the coven vampires): À la maison.

Coven vampires: Oui, maître. Désolés, maître.

Lestat (to Nicolas): Tu es si distrayant dans la fosse que je ne me rappelle plus du texte.

Nicolas: Je ne peux pas lire mes notes quand j’entends tes pieds sur le plancher… Nous allons nous faire attraper.

Lestat: Je l’espère… Entends-tu cela ?

Nicolas: Par-dessus tes incessantes divagations ? Comment pourrais-je entendre quoi que ce soit ?... Qu’est-ce ?

Lestat: Là… Quelqu’un me regarde.

Nicolas: Tu es toujours au centre de l’attention.

Lestat: Il pense que je ne sais pas qu’il est là.

Nicolas: Est-ce encore de la poésie ?... Viens plus près de mon oreille. Je peux seulement comprendre quand tu t’approches.

Lestat: En pardessus.

Armand: Gardes-tu ce garçon comme aide-mémoire ?

Nicolas: Lestat, connais-tu ce gitan ?

Armand: La solitude que tu ressens, il ne l’atteindra jamais. Sois avec les tiens.

[Side note: they translated « the loneliness you feel, he will not reach it » for « atteindra », but i think Armand is actually saying « il ne l’éteindra jamais », in the sense of « he will not extinguish it ». It makes a LOT more sense.]

Lestat: Et abandonner mon gilet à carreaux ? Mon col jabot ? Vivre comme une larve ?

Nicolas: Lestat, que se passe-t-il ?

Lestat: Rien. Il n’est rien… Bonne nuit, homme étrange !

Armand: Lestat ! Là !

Nicolas: Lestat ?

Lestat: Nicki !

Armand: Tu ne lui as pas révélé ta vraie nature, n’est-ce pas ?

Lestat: Quel est ce pouvoir ?... Je n’ai pas ce pouvoir !

Armand: Mais tu l’auras. Tu as le sang de Magnus. Tu gâches ton potentiel en menant cette vie-là.

Lestat: Relâche-le ! Relâche-le !!!

Armand: Et voici un buveur de sang !

Lestat: Qui es-tu ?

Armand: Je suis Armand. Je suis le chef de ton clan.

Lestat: Nicki !

Armand: Ramène ton gilet chez les larves, veux-tu ?

Lestat confronts the Children of Darkness:

Armand: Je suis heureux que tu sois venu. Il est sain et sauf.

Lestat: Il est saigné. Il ne se réveille pas… Est-ce si amusant de vivre dans une telle saleté et la puanteur ?

Coven vampire: Nous devons servir Dieu au travers de Satan et au travers d’Armand.

Lestat: Ah… Une trinité crottée.

Coven vampire: Tu vas attirer la colère de Dieu sur nous avec tes péchés !

Lestat: Qui sont ?

Coven vampire: Tu vis parmi les mortels ! Tu marches dans le temple de Dieu !

Lestat: Il parle de l’homme triste avec les mains clouées ? Ah… Bien. C’est un arbre tombé. Raboté simplement pour les simples d’esprit. Du même arbre, on fit le pied d’une table et, là, une flûte ! Rampez hors de cette prison qu’il bâtit pour vous… Dieu… Satan… Armand… Est-ce vrai ? Hm ? Nous sommes les Dieux. Vous êtes les Dieux !

Lestat visits Armand:

Lestat: Que s’est-il passé ?

Armand: Je pourrais parler jusqu’à la fin du monde sans jamais te dire tout ce que tu as détruit ici.

Lestat: Nous sommes seuls. Satan ne nous écoute pas… Comment transformes-tu l’air en feu ? Comment bouges-tu des objets par la simple force de ton esprit ?

Armand: Demande-t-il, tout en dansant dans les cendres… Tu as fait de ton Nicolas l’un des nôtres ? Est-ce que le garçon a accepté le don ?... Trop fragile. J’aurais pu te prévenir.

Lestat: Il s’en remettra.

Armand: Certainement pas.

Lestat: J’ai une idée.

Lestat performs for Armand at the theatre (again, Le Triomphe de l’amour) :

Lestat (as Arlequin): Oh ! Mes mignonnes, avant que de vous en aller, il faudra bien, s’il vous plaît, que nous…

(As Lestat) Ils viennent accompagnés, séduits dans un élan collectif. Ils rient ensemble, pleurent ensemble.

Armand: Qu’est-ce, pour un vampire ?

Lestat: Une opportunité. Hamlet est mort sous les coups d’une lame empoisonnée, mais l’acteur qui gît sous leurs yeux respire encore. Dans ce temple, croire protège. Annonce que tu es un vampire. Bois le sang à la vue de tous. Mets en scène les rituels de ton clan, pas depuis les égouts mais depuis le premier balcon.

Armand: Je n’ai pas de clan. Tu m’en as privé.

Lestat: Au contraire, maître.

(as Arlequin): Je n’ai encore qu’un commencement d’envie de n’en plus faire.

Outside the theatre:

… assouvir vos cruelles envies au théâtre des vampires !

At the theatre performance:

Victim: J’ai tant d’années ! Tant d’années !

Theatre vampire: Des années ? La mort ne respecte pas l’âge !

Armand: Regarde comme ils sont immobiles. Ils croient vraiment que c’est une pièce de théâtre. Des clous sur une porte à Wittenberg. Tu as mené une réforme, Lestat.

Lestat: Nous l’avons fait ensemble.

Armand: Tu fais une meilleure Mort.

Lestat: La faux fait tout le travail.

Armand: Après une centaine de nuits ici, tu t’ennuies déjà ?

Lestat: Seulement avec le jeu d’acteur… Allons-y.

Armand: Ici ? Maintenant ?

Lestat: C’est une loge spacieuse.

Armand: Il nous observe.

Lestat: Il devrait regarder sa partition.

Armand: Lestat… Je t’aime.

Lestat: Oui… Je t’aime aussi.

Aaaand that's it (for now), folks! Will do subsequent episodes if there's more French in them (more likely than not!). Bisous !

Episode 2 here

Episode 4 here

Tagging the peeps who requested: @nalyra-dreaming @indelicateink @chicalepidoptera @zailafaneez

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

The tale of Alex Turner's girlfriend's jumper, Josh Homme, and the making of Humbug

(Extracts from Mojo Magazine, September 2009)

The jumper sealed the deal: the cable-knit jumper, belonging to his girlfriend. Alex Turner just happened upon it early one evening in the different late summer of 2008, as he waited for the telephone to ring. It wasn't so much the fact of it being a girl's jumper. He could get away with wearing a size skinny, after all. And besides, it would be dark at the gig he planned to go to later on. No, it was the cable-knit which gave him pause. Was he, Alex wondered, really a cable-knit guy?

His reverie was interrupted by the call he'd been expecting. Alex had spoken to Josh Homme before: the Queens Of The Stone Age leader declared himself a fan by marching into the Arctic Monkeys dressing room at a Belgian festival the previous year; later in 2007 the Monkeys supported the Queens in Houston. Compliments were exchanged, though Alex did wonder about the precise mutuality of this appreciation. Maybe 70-30? Obviously, the Monkeys were big fans of QOTSA: the Queens' sensual dirt-rock had been a key benchmark for their album Favourite Worst Nightmare. And Josh Homme? He had at least heard of Alex's band, and that was good enough. But now here he was, on the phone, accepting the invitation to produce the next Arctic Monkeys album. Alex deferred taking the conversation down to brass tracks. Airily, he mentioned his knitwear dilemma.

Homme was firm on the matter.

"Go for it, man."

But I'm not sure. I mean, it belongs to me girlfriend, and it fits, and it looks all right, but...

"Just throw caution to the wind," said Homme, as if issuing an imperial edit. "Let go of those inhibitions you've got there and just wear your cable-knit."

Sound, said Alex. So, about this record...?

"I listened to the demo," said Homme. "I heard 30 seconds of it and thought, You're coming to the desert." Then, to himself, he added with relish. "And little do you know what's about to happen..."

That evening, Alex Turner wore his girlfriend's cable-knit jumper. A month or so later, he and his three bandmates were picked up from a Los Angeles hotel by Josh Homme and driven out to the small Mojave Desert town of Joshua Tree, where they began recording the new Arctic Monkeys album. One phone abut cable-knitwear later, Arctic Monkeys were off to southern California for a hot date.

....

Presiding throughout this transformative process [of recording Humbug], during the warm autumn days or late into the chilly desert nights, would be Alex Turner's girlfriend's cable-knit jumper.

"Josh likes to speak in analogies, in terms of how things should sound," says the Arctic Monkeys' songwriter with a chuckle, as he reflects upon the six-month gestation of his band's new album. "Cable-knits got mentioned a lot during recording. He was like, if you can wear a cable-knit you can put a glockenspiel on a tune. It became a metaphor: you can wear a cable-knit and then sonically we can try something different. We went off on a little adventure. Because we were conscious that if this were really going to work, we would have to open up a little more than we have in the past. Joshua Tree really feels far away. You felt..." He frowns, reaching for the right word. "Unpoliced."

Which all rather begs the question: does that six and a half foot ginger hunk of abiding rockness Josh Homme wear cable-knitwear? A small smile plays around the corners of Alex Turner's mouth.

"He assured me he did."

....

The previous evening Alex finally spoke to Josh Homme for the first time since Humbug's completion. After expressing his delight with the end results of their combat crawl through the Mojave badlands, Homme enquired whether Turner was going out later. Alex informed that he was. "Cable-knits?" asked Homme. "Cable-knits," said Alex, the Arctic Monkey, comfortable in the embrace of the strange.

....

[charlesslut16]

-only him-

summary : charles ignored you, so you went to your ex´s party.

PAIRING : charles leclerc x fem!reader

WARNINGS : bad translated french, a bit toxish behavior from charles, a bit of spice in th end.

note : i'm so sorry that it took me so long to write this imagine. If you want a second part just ask me :)

masterlist 

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

Your boyfriend, charles leclerc, was so obsessive over you. He was the sweetest with you, but with other men, that were looking at you, he was the meanest. He was possessive over you. 

That he was protective over you wasn't a problem. You found it rather cute. He was looking out for you and protected you from all the danger in the paddock and the world.

You knew that he loved you deeply and that he would do everything for you. He was the best boyfriend you could have ever asked for, but the possessive behavior was just too much.

It was like he had a switch. A switch you would never see coming. Just like tonight.

"Charles, stop being an asshole and talk to me." You groaned out from behind him, as he was ignoring you while he typed on his laptop, before he pushed his glasses up.

He was ignoring you because of an argument you had last night. You told him that he was too possessive and protective of you, and he exploded, and since then he has been ignoring you. 

"C’est tellement enfantin, charles. Tellement putain, puéril. Vous n’êtes plus un enfant. Charles, tu es un homme adulte." This is so childish, charles. So fucking childish. You are not a kid anymore. Charles, you are a grown man. 

You stared down at him before you snatched his car keys to his Ferrari. Furthermore, you glanced back to see his reaction to still see his eyes parked on his computer screen.

You huffed out and closed the door behind you. You knew what could break him... 

Attending your ex-boyfriends birthday party, that attended many men. Some of them you knew from the past relationship with your ex, but the others were total strangers to you.

He would not like that, would he?

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

As you swayed your hips to the music, large veiny hands tightly wrapped around your waist, slightly startling you just by feeling the tight grip on your waist. You knew exactly who it was...

Charles.

"Qu’est-ce que tu fais ici à sa fête, mi amore?" He gritted in your ear possessively, as the grip on your waist tightened. What are you doing here at his party, my love?

You smirked at him and spun around as you showed him your dress. It was black with a slit and spaghetti straps. Fitted tightly so that it showed of your curves. 

"Love my dress, baby?" You changed the subject as he slowly scanned your body up and down. 

Just as you wanted to spin again, charles grabbed your hips tightly and pulled you into him, so you couldn't escape his grip and show off your dress to anyone else than him.

Your beauty was only for him. Only Him.  Your body, face, and everything else about you only belonged to him. Only to him. You were his. His Girlfriend. His woman. And his Everything.

This was the party of your ex-boyfriend. Ex. You were no longer his girlfriend, you were charles girl now. So why would you go to his party instead of staying at home with him, your boyfriend.

"Ne me rendez pas jaloux parce qu’à la fin de cette fête... Qui peut l’arracher à votre jolie silhouette? Moi. Seulement moi." He spat possessively as his eyes turned dark. Don't make me jealous because at the end of this party... who gets to rip it off your pretty figure? Me. Only me.

"Ce corps a été fait pour moi. Seulement moi. Alors pourquoi le montrez-vous à des hommes stupides qui ne peuvent pas vous donner ce dont vous avez besoin. Je suis le seul à pouvoir vous donner ce dont vous avez besoin. Moi." This body was made for me. Only me. So why do you show it to stupid men who can't give you what you need. I am the only one who can give you what you need. Me.

You gulped, knowing that your plan wasn't working... It just gave you a punishment when you got home.

"Vous avez 5 secondes pour sortir par la porte d’entrée et asseoir votre cul sur le siège passager de notre Ferrari ou il y aura-" you have 5 seconds to get out the front door and sit your ass in the passenger seat to our Ferrari or there will be-

He didn't even have to finish his sentence for you to get moving, making him chuckle deeply at how obedient you were.

[hermesserpent-stuff]

Look. i love creed. but he is messy to write. he never knows what he wants exactly.

logan and him are AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Remy opens the door the the brotherhood house and makes it three steps in before he is tackled to the ground. Remy yelps and is slammed with a wall of aggression, worry and… possessiveness.? Is that even an emotion?? His brain spins as he hears sniffing and growling beside his ear.

Oh.

Sabretooth. Who… apparently doesn't like the smell of Logan. 

“Why do you stink of the runt?”

Sabretooth growls and before Remy can form a reply to the fangs that are near his ears, Logan is growling.

“Maybe because I drove him home, Creed.”

Remy feels anxiety and rage leaking from Logan and his brain feels very assaulted by the large waves of emotions that crash against him. 

“Maybe we all calm down, non?”

Remy tries to get out, squirming a bit. Sabretooth pins him a little more firmly and Remy goes still. He is not wiggling prey. He is not being strapped to a table. He is pinned by Sabretooth, who he sort of knows, and not by mental powers from a vile scientist. He takes a deep shuddering breath while the two ferals keep growling deep. he needs to achieve calm or he's gonna spark again.

Remy begins to hum, long and low. He fills his mind with his brother's singing and piano playing. He lets his body relax, letting go of all his tension. Sabretooth makes a snuffling noise. 

“Sabretooth, I'm fine. I had a bad day at school and Logan found me in the aftermath of my powers gettin’ loose. He brought me home. Don't claw him up for bringin’ me back.”

Remy says carefully and calmly. Sabretooth meets his eyes and sniffs again. Sabretooth slowly shifts back. 

“Fine.”

Remy sits up but stays sitting, looking at Logan. Logan is still tensed, ready to fight.

“Logan, do you gotta be growlin’? You stepped into his territory. Invited by me, mais he wouldn't know that.”

The teen starts swiping at the dirt clinging to his clothing. He feels a flash of confusion from both but they both back down a bit. Remy nods to himself.

“Fine.”

Logan huffs.

“Perfect.”

Remy chirps back and slowly rises up. His back hurts a bit from hitting the ground so hard.

“Did you have to tackle me so hard homme?”

Remy asks, rubbing his back. Sabretooth looks a little contrite in his eyes but gives a huffy snort. 

“Don't come home smelling like an enemy then.”

“Fair enough. You catch anythin’ today?”

Remy starts to walk towards the house. 

Logan interrupts before Sabretooth can speak. 

“Kid… Are you okay? Really?”

Remy scrunches up his nose and turns, one hand on a hip. He can see Logan looking over the old house that is a bit battered. A bit in disrepair. Remy can feel judgment rolling off of Logan. Sabretooth puffs up a bit.

“I'm fine Logan. You don't gotta be askin’ that every time you see me. Im fine. Mon petits are fine. Everythin’ is fine and I need to take a nap.”

He gently puts a hand on Sabretooth’s arm. He hopes the man will not snap at him. Sabretooth shifts a bit so that Remy is now safely behind him. Remy blinks at this. What? 

“Leave runt.”

Logan looks at Sabretooth and steps back just a small bit. Enough to be a concession but not a submission. 

“We need to talk Creed.”

Sabretooth snarls. Remy crosses his arms. 

“I'd rather fight.”

Sabretooth shifts forwards and Remy makes a noise.

“Don't you dare be fightin’ near the house!! We got a hard enough time with accidental powers goin’ off!”

Remy says, letting his irritation be heard loudly. 

“Victor.”

Logan says head bending slightly. 

Sabretooth huffs and bends his head slightly. 

“Fine. We’re just gonna talk, pup. Go inside.”

Sabretooth steps towards Logan and Remy isn't sure what is swirling off of both of them.

“Sabre’ooth?”

He asks, hesitating a little. He is not going to leave the person helping him feed the household alone with a potential enemy. Sabretooth turns his head and chuffs at him. 

“I caught some rabbits and left them in the kitchen. I'll come help you after I talk to Jimmy here.”

Remy slowly nods.

“I'm trustin’ you. Yell if it comes to blows. I’ll fight with you.”

He says, touching Sabretooth’s arm and then walking inside. 

--

Creed is a little pleased with the last thing Remy says and finds himself surprised at that. Huh. Seems like he has a pack now. One of the main reasons for his panic and rage when smelling Logan’s scent mixed with Remy’s was worry that something had happened to the pup that had taken pretty good care of him. Creed finds that he likes being looked after and having someone eat his hunts and appreciate them. And Creed knows that he hates sharing. So Logan daring to be around Creed’s newly forming pack is annoying. 

“What do you want runt?”

He growls. Logan huffs but gestures away from the house.

“Show me your territory boundaries. You are planning to stay long-term, arent you?”

The words are clipped and tense. 

[communist-manifesto-daily]

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Part 23

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II - Dialectics

In the meantime, along with and after the French philosophy of the 18th century, had arisen the new German philosophy, culminating in Hegel.

Its greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought. The newer philosophy, on the other hand, although in it also dialectics had brilliant exponents (e.g. Descartes and Spinoza), had, especially through English influence, become more and more rigidly fixed in the so-called metaphysical mode of reasoning, by which also the French of the 18th century were almost wholly dominated, at all events in their special philosophical work. Outside philosophy in the restricted sense, the French nevertheless produced masterpieces of dialectic. We need only call to mind Diderot's Le Neveu de Rameau, and Rousseau's Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes. We give here, in brief, the essential character of these two modes of thought.

When we consider and reflect upon Nature at large, or the history of mankind, or our own intellectual activity, at first we see the picture of an endless entanglement of relations and reactions, permutations and combinations, in which nothing remains what, where and as it was, but everything moves, changes, comes into being and passes away. We see, therefore, at first the picture as a whole, with its individual parts still more or less kept in the background; we observe the movements, transitions, connections, rather than the things that move, combine, and are connected. This primitive, naive but intrinsically correct conception of the world is that of ancient Greek philosophy, and was first clearly formulated by Heraclitus: everything is and is not, for everything is fluid, is constantly changing, constantly coming into being and passing away. [A]

But this conception, correctly as it expresses the general character of the picture of appearances as a whole, does not suffice to explain the details of which this picture is made up, and so long as we do not understand these, we have not a clear idea of the whole picture. In order to understand these details, we must detach them from their natural, special causes, effects, etc. This is, primarily, the task of natural science and historical research: branches of science which the Greek of classical times, on very good grounds, relegated to a subordinate position, because they had first of all to collect materials for these sciences to work upon. A certain amount of natural and historical material must be collected before there can be any critical analysis, comparison, and arrangement in classes, orders, and species. The foundations of the exact natural sciences were, therefore, first worked out by the Greeks of the Alexandrian period [B], and later on, in the Middle Ages, by the Arabs. Real natural science dates from the second half of the 15th century, and thence onward it had advanced with constantly increasing rapidity. The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organized bodies in their manifold forms — these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature that have been made during the last 400 years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, apart from their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constraints, not as essentially variables; in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the last century.

[A] Unknown to the Western world until the 20th-century, the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu was a predecessor of or possibly contemporary to Heraclitus. Lao Tzu wrote the renowned Tao Te Ching in which he also espouses the fundamental principles of dialectics.

[B] The Alexandrian period of the development of science comprises the period extending from the 3rd century B.C. to the 17th century A.D. It derives its name from the town of Alexandria in Egypt, which was one of the most important centres of international economic intercourses at that time. In the Alexandrian period, mathematics (Euclid and Archimedes), geography, astronomy, anatomy, physiology, etc., attained considerable development.

China also been began development in natural sciences in the third century B.C.E.

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[wpwcpod]

New gay as fuck heist show!

We’re still in the process of liking and following so we don’t show up as a bot, but part of that is making posts so: hey! Podcast summary!

‘Wrong Place, Wrong Crime’ is a supernatural heist podcast about a trio of thieves: hacker Isaac, con-artist Drystan, and strategist Bea.

Once prolific thieves in order to pay their way through university, Isaac and Drystan took two years out of the game for Drystan to have “just a small mental breakdown.” Now they’re back at it with a very casual heist on one of North America’s most secure museums. For jewels? Weapons? Art? Nope. For puppets. Obviously.

But, as with all their heists, there’s something a little… creepy about the loot they end up with. It’s a race against the clock to find out what - or who - they’ve actually stolen. Unfortunately, they don’t know the clock is ticking…

Isaac is an anxious, insular disaster who couldn’t identify an emotion if you showed him a kid’s cartoon, but can harbour a crush for 12+ years.

Drystan is a gorgeous and competent homme fatale who can kick ass, pick locks, and throw knives, but who cannot make pasta, regulate his own emotions, or input his own TikTok password.

Bea could be an international drug dealer or could work for Doctors Without Borders. Or neither. Or both. They’ve master the mystique Isaac wishes he had, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re any more on top of things.

Season 1 will be very short (4 eps!) which means you can expect it sooner rather than later (preferably this side of the summer solstice!), with the intention of S2 following closely behind.

[fy-wonwoo]

240715 wonwoo arena homme+ interview excerpt

wonwoo said, “when i look at seventeen albums, i often feel like it’s a photo album. we put every moment that we’ve endured in our music. there are songs with a heavy vibe because it was made during really tough times. a powerful song came out from our desire to break through that rather difficult period,” and that “seventeen’s music is seventeen’s life."

wonwoo, who participated in the lyrics and composition of his solo song “leftover” as well as consistently working on seventeen albums, also shared, “i’m a very ordinary person. i think my work has sympathized with a lot more people thanks to that."

when asked what the most important thing is to him, he replied, “i hope i don’t forget to enjoy." famous for his remarkable photo and video skills, he added, “i enjoy music and [taking] photos these days. though it cuts my sleep short, i enjoy going to the studio to make songs and bringing my camera around to take photos. i hope i don’t forget the fun of now.”

trans

wonwoo also shared about what he thinks his own strengths are. “i’ve never considered myself as incredibly special or remarkable. there are points to every person that are considered ‘ordinary’. i’m a very ordinary person. i think my work has sympathized with a lot more people thanks to that. may it be what’s written in my lyrics, my words, or the photos i take. i think the ordinariness infused within that is my greatest strength.”

trans

the hobby that wonwoo is focusing on most right now is photography. he was very serious about photography even during this shoot, even thinking, “which brand is that light from?" wonwoo said that it is his dream to open a studio someday. when asked “who is the first person you want to capture in the studio?”, he said, “my father. looking back, it’s been so long since our family last went to a photo studio. after debuting, i haven’t once gone to take a photo in a photo studio with my family all together. i think it’d be nice to take a family photo as my first picture.”

trans

[callipraxia]

On Gideon and Archetypes, As Seen Through Lenses of 16th Century Theater and A TTRPG.

Hi, it’s me, I aten’t dead yet. Nor have I even given up all hope of regaining the ability to relatively easily engage in the writing of fiction! But I am out of practice, and an attempt to accommodate for that is why I sat down two days ago and worked out a TTRPG character sheet for Gideon Gleeful based on Pulp Cthulhu, and that’s also why I now know a bit about commedia dell’arte and want to expand on thoughts I’ve expressed previously about archetypal characters and storytelling.

Although the characters in Gravity Falls have enough potential depth to write books about [1], I concluded several years ago that one of the things that makes the franchise successful is its ability to write in ‘bold strokes.’ When Mr. Hirsch planned an episode, he knew what he was saying and just said it, without any effort to provide nuanced counter-arguments or even nuanced initial arguments. Mr. Hirsch did not give two flips about the extended implications of things; he told the stories he wanted to tell and occasionally seems a bit baffled that some of us are so adept at drawing so many other things out of them. Part of the charm of GF is in the way these complicated characters navigate through classic film-school story arcs – how the characters serve in archetypal roles (the Weirdmageddon trilogy essentially puts Dipper through the steps of the Hero’s Journey pretty close to in order and on 5x speed) while not coming across as generic themselves. That’s where my experiment from the other day comes in.

So, Gideon and Call of Cthulhu. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide how intuitive that pairing seems, but the first step in hero creation in the Pulp Cthulhu rulebook is picking a pulp archetype for your player character. Since I was working with an established character, I ended up doing this rather backward – instead of building a character around an archetype, I was looking for an archetype that fit a character. This renders everything that followed definitely academically invalid, but I ended up debating between two archetypes: the femme fatale and the harlequin.

The femme fatale is described in the rulebook as

“a deadly woman or man whose outward beauty usually masks a self-centered approach to life; one who is ever vigilant. By constructing an alluring and glamorous persona the femme fatale is akin to a spider. She draws others to her web in order to possess what she desires or destroy her target. Brave and cunning, the femme fatale is not shy of getting her hands dirty and is a capable foe. Neither is she foolhardy, and she will wait until her web is constructed before dealing out a sudden and well-timed assault (be it mental or physical). A classic pulp archetype, the femme fatale could as easily be termed homme fatale if so desired. Core characteristic: choose either [appearance] or [intelligence]. Add 100 bonus points divided among any of the following skills: Art/Craft (Acting), Appraise, Charm, Disguise, Drive Auto, Fast Talk, Fighting (Brawl), Firearms (Handgun), Listen, Psychology, Sleight of Hand, Stealth. Suggested occupations: Actor, Agency Detective, Author, Cat Burglar, Confidence Trickster, Dilettante, Elected Official, Entertainer, Federal Agent, Gangster, Gun Moll, Hit Man, Hooker, Investigative Journalist, Musician, Nurse, Private Investigator, Reporter, Spy, Zealot. Talents: any two (Smooth Talker recommended). Suggested traits: alluring, glamorous, wicked, deceitful, cunning, focused, fraudulent” (Mason et al, 18-19).

Quite a lot of this stacks excellently with Gideon; he even, to one extent or another, engages in a surprising number of the suggested occupations simultaneously, especially in season one, where he acts as part of his role as an Entertainer, is a confidence trickster, and attempts to be a cat burglar at least once. To put a cherry on top, he even tries, indirectly, to become an elected official in Season Two. He also arguably is a gangster of sorts at the end of the series, both as the leader of a prison gang and as a collaborator with Bill. As for the traits – he attempts to be a sort of folksy-glamorous, at least, and is close enough to at least temporarily draw Mabel in; he’s unambiguously wicked, deceitful, and fraudulent for the vast majority of his time on screen; he is cunning enough to occasionally get the better of Stan; and he is definitely focused on his goals: acquiring the Mystery Shack, acquiring the remaining Journals, and acquiring Mabel’s affections. I suppose one could even argue that he Drives Auto, if we count the Gideon-Bot.

Nevertheless, the image doesn’t fit him perfectly. Perhaps it’s merely a function of his age, but he isn’t especially subtle: he lures Dipper into a trap once in his first appearance, but his total lack of subtlety with regards to his crush on Mabel ultimately backfires on him, and he makes no effort at all to engage in subtle or sophisticated manipulations with his parents. He perhaps comes closest to it in his dealings with Stan, but even then, his aims are always overt and he takes delight in Evil Gloating when he thinks he is close to success, and in the end, the methods that work best for him are dynamite, a mecha suit, and a prison gang of violent enforcers. Even more critical, however is how flat he falls in one area in particular: allure. People who don’t know what a nasty little piece of work he is can find him adorable, if they have a taste for the super-saccharine, but half of his story happens because he’s not alluring. He’s short, fat, has a piggish aspect due to his upturned nose, and wears a hairdo that would have been absurd in the seventies, never mind the 2010s. His wardrobe is partially attributable to the character he plays in the public eye, but we see from his playdate with Mabel in Season One and the rhinestones all over his suit in Season Two that he genuinely does seem to like looks that remind me of a famous Dolly Parton quote – “it takes a lot of time and money to look this cheap, honey.” Perhaps it is something along those lines, combined with his live shows taking place in what looks like a circus tent and the way his cover is blown before his roles in the series are resolved, that drew my attention also to a second archetype.

“While similar to the femme fatale, the harlequin does not like to get their hands dirty (if they can help it). Usually possessing a magnetic personality, although not necessarily classically beautiful, such types find enjoyment in manipulating others to do their bidding, and often hide their own agendas behind outright lies or subtle deceptions. Sometimes they are committed to a cause (personal or otherwise), or act like agents of chaos, delighting in watching how people react to the situations they construe” (Mason et al., 19).

Sounds more like Bill than Gideon at first glance, but bear with me here and look at some of the adjustments made for that character type in the game:

“Adjustments…[include] the following skills: Art/Craft (Acting), Charm, Climb, Disguise, Fast Talk, Jump, Language Other (any), Listen, Persuade, Psychology, Sleight of Hand, Stealth. Suggested occupations: Actor, Agency Detective, Artist, Bartender/Waitress, Confidence Trickster, Cult Leader, Dilettante, Elected Official, Entertainer, Gambler, Gentleman/Lady, Musician, Reporter, Secretary, Union Activist, Zealot…suggested traits: calculating, cunning, two-faced, manipulative, chaotic, wild, flamboyant” (ibid).

Several points that describe him well were already described in the paragraphs about the femme fatale: he’s a cunning, manipulative actor/entertainer, confidence trickster, and would-be (sort of) elected official. Here, though, we have the additional occupation of Cult Leader and traits of being calculating, two-faced, and flamboyant. His domination of the Discount Auto Warriors (who might not worship him as a prophet, but certainly follow him as devotedly as any cult leader could wish) indicates at least a degree of natural magnetism, despite his lack of conventional physical beauty. And, of course, although Pulp Cthulhu itself makes no mention of this, the word ‘harlequin’ has unavoidable associations with flamboyantly bad taste in clothes: the Fool in motley [2], the participant in the Carnival, the puppet in a Punch and Judy show, the Joker’s and/or Poison Ivy’s garishly-clad girlfriend.

The Harlequin is definitely a highly recognizable character, but it had never occurred to me to think of it as an archetypal one before I stumbled across this entry in the rulebook. That sent me off down the Google rabbit hole, searching for whether or not that’s an actual archetype outside of the game, and that’s where we come to commedia dell’arte, the early form of Italian theater which I mentioned back in the introduction. In the Encyclopedia Brittanica, Harlequin is described as

“one of the principal stock characters of the Italian commedia dell’arte; often a facile and witty gentleman’s valet and a capricious swain of the serving maid…in the early years of the commedia (mid-16th century), the Harlequin was a zanni (a wily and covetous comic servant).”

Britannica describes how the character developed a more respectable side as the three-century span during which the commedia occurred went on, but he is still noted as “amoral” even in later portrayals where he doesn’t hold grudges or seek revenge the way early Harlequins would. The article on commedia dell’arte itself also adds additional nuance, noting that the zanni “had already been differentiated as comic rustic and witty fool.” The character generally fits Stan better than Gideon, right down to using a bat as a weapon, but Gideon’s “folksiness” is played up from the beginning; we know from “Blendin’s Game” that Gideon was born in Oregon, but he and his father sound more like McGucket than they do like other townspeople, which both potentially uses viewer bias, both in-universe and out, to aid in him being 'cast' in certain 'roles' and which adds a hint of the Other to him, in keeping with the early reveal that he is a villain [3]. Gideon leans into looking even more rural than he is (which, as a resident of a place like Gravity Falls, is already pretty darn rural) and uses this to disarm his audiences, partially through seeming more naïve than he is and also occasionally through light deliberate comedy. Sources admittedly less scholarly than the Encyclopedia Britannica [4] also cast Harlequin in a somewhat different light:

“while most clowns live for the pleasure of seeing others laugh, Italy’s harlequin has a slightly more sinister side. Originally created as a stage character as part of the late 16th century’s commedia dell’arte, the nimble harlequin has gone on to become a modern archetype – the cunning clown…while employed as a servant, harlequin is often seen plotting against his master and undermining him to comic effect. The character has a long-standing rivalry with Pierrot, the melancholy clown, as they both court the love of Colombina.”

The idea of a long-standing rivalry with the sad clown cannot fail to make any Gravity Falls fan think of Gideon’s long grudge match with Stan, who he also clashes with over a girl, albeit not in a romantic sense: after “The Hand That Rocks the Mabel,” Gideon seems to see Mabel’s affection as something which can only either belong to her family members (Stan and Dipper) or to him, and he raves in occasionally unhinged fashion about how they turned Mabel against him.

Photographer Steven Townshend also created a series of pictures of a harlequin figure as part of his work as a fine art photographer, and he writes about how he conflated the roles of the Fool, the Clown, and the Harlequin for the photos, although “they are distinct things…both wear what we often think of as jester’s motley, though Harlequin’s origins are more shadowy and diabolic.” This article goes on to cite Wikipedia’s assertion that the harlequin figure originated partially in French passion plays as a “masked, club-wielding giant…depicted as a black-faced emissary of the devil, roaming the countryside with a group of demons chasing the damned souls of evil people to Hell. The physical appearance of Hellequin offers an explanation for the traditional colors of Harlequin’s red-and-black mask.” Townshend then resumes writing, noting that the passage

“serves to somewhat justify what seems to be a widespread fear of clowns beyond the terrors of Stephen King’s novel It. The idea that the character of Harlequin came from an encounter with black-and-red demons – and that theses are the colors of Harlequin[5] – contextualizes that fear. It also invites some deeper thought into devilish trickster/fool characters like DC Comics’ Harley Quinn (who was originally depicted in black and red) and the psychotic clown Joker.”

Mr. Townshend’s conclusions suffer from issues other than being backed only by Wikipedia; he overlooks here, for instance, the role of the uncanny valley phenomenon in coulrophobia, where the revulsion and sense of unease are created by how a clown in full regalia and make-up looks only almost human. This is more likely to have inspired King to write It than It is to have inspired an uneasiness in people about clowns. Mr. Townshend’s biography asserts that he has “a background in theater, written narrative, and award-winning game design” and that he toured the United States and Canada as a Shakespeare actor when he was younger, but does not refer to any specific credentials he might have, much less credentials which would qualify him as an authority on commedia dell’arte. The Tuscan cigars have even fewer credentials, as no name is attached to the piece of text I selected for inclusion here, and both of these sources run counter to the Britannica’s much ‘softer’ depiction of the Harlequin character. They do, however, fit well enough with Pulp Cthulhu’s Harlequin archetype, and provide interesting lenses to look at Gideon through, because they both emphasize the character’s role as an untrustworthy servant motivated by self-interest. Gideon wishes to dominate (perhaps one reason why he might have had the idea for an enormous, mobile, weaponizable statue of himself on gigantic scale) as a rule, and is enough of a leader that his (admittedly…quirky) gang members fall in behind him without question, but his role in the climax of the story hinges on how he has gone from attempting to command Bill (“Dreamscaperers”) to attempting to partner with Bill (end of “Stanchurian Candidate”) to outright acting as Bill’s servant during Weirdmageddon and then turning against his master once he is convinced that doing so will get him at least closer to a goal he finally seems to accept he will never fully achieve, at least not while alive.

Why is any of this relevant? No reason, really, except that I started the exercise as an attempt to develop Gideon as a potential protagonist for a future work. That made it interesting to realize that his most lasting impact on the series occurred while he was instead cast in the role of the servant who turns against his master, with this move of his contributing significantly to both the elimination of a major threat (Bill) and dramatic changes in his own situation, when, after being pardoned and released from prison, he at least partially drops the mask of Lil’ Gideon, mini-televangelist and person constantly concerned more with how he is perceived than with what he really is, in favor of at least attempting to be a normal kid for a while [6]. This role is one he only momentarily engages in on screen [7], but it is the one thing he does in the entire series which isn’t undone by the end of the episode it happens in, which arguably makes it his true purpose/function in the story. This has interesting implications for trying to write him as a main character, since it implies I’m to some extent trying to stick an archetype into a situation where the structure that archetype relies on doesn’t exist, which must be either

not a viable plan, or

What would actually make the experiment interesting.

No idea which one it is at the moment, of course. I’m also very, very confident that Mr. Hirsch did not do…whatever I just constructed on purpose; Gideon’s not deliberately cast as or even inspired by an archetypal or stock Harlequin of any kind, likely including Harley Quinn, and I doubt it would have ever occurred to me to regard him that way if I had been building a conclusion from evidence instead of fitting evidence to a preestablished conclusion. Still, it was an amusing exercise; the document I typed this in took up six pages, including a couple of extra footnotes I cut from the final product here. Do with the results as you will.

Notes

[1] Maybe it’s not a proper book, but I’ll stand by the assertion that this thing is at least long and involved enough to call a monograph.

[2] An interesting basis for comparison could exist between him and Clopin, the harlequin-like character/narrator of the Disney animated film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, who puts on a dramatic, cheery circus act in public…and then continues the ‘magic show’, for the most part with full manic energy, even when exulting over how “the dead don’t talk/so you won’t be around to reveal what you found” during the pitch-black comedy that makes up most of the ‘Court of Miracles’ scene. With Clopin, however, the character gains some depth for reasons similar to GF’s own Stan: he’s committed to a mission (protecting the Court, his ‘family’ which may also include literal family), and he's a social underdog whose ruthlessness is at least in part an understandable response to the harsh conditions of the world he lives in (some of Chopin’s glee at the thought of executing Frollo’s henchmen is…at least understandable if one assumes he knows anything about what happens when Frollo lays hands on one of the Roma, which seems like a safe enough assumption, all things considered).

[3] Are rural Oregonians also stereotyped in part with a particular accent? Bud has been living in Gravity Falls for quite a while, long enough to have a reasonably prosperous business before Gideon was born, but everything about him and Gideon reads as strongly Southern-coded to me: in the end, before his momentary redemption, Gideon is practically a caricature of Boss Hogg. My default assumption is that Bud is a transplant to the region and that Gideon partially picked up the accent from his parents and partially exaggerated it to go with his show despite being a lifelong northerner himself. It is, however, worth noting that I’ve never yet had the opportunity to meet anyone from rural Oregon, so for all I know they do sound like that as well. Again, academic rigor is not being granted much ground in this one.

[4] The first description used after this comes from a website apparently about cigars from Tuscany (ftp.toscanocigars.com), and the second from an article apparently written by a photographer who specializes in old-fashioned-looking pictures (traveller.distantera.com/the-people-of-light-and-shadow-the-harlequin/)

[5] Notably, these are also Stan’s colors: although he has a surprising amount of variety in his wardrobe, his most common public appearance involves a red fez, a red tie, and a black suit,** and that’s aside from the incident allegedly taken out of context which involved Stan for some reason literally dressing up as a demon. Gideon, on the other hand, is mainly, at least in season one, associated with blue and white – colors historically associated less with demons than with the Virgin Mary, who falls at rather the opposite end of the moral spectrum. This may perhaps be a nod to the main alignments of the characters; Stan, who ends up as a heroic figure, is remarkably honest, for a career liar and identity thief, about what he’s like when he’s not actively on the clock, but Gideon usually only drops his ‘mask’ in the most private of settings, when he feels confident that behaving awfully will not have consequences for him and can be hidden from anyone whose opinion he actually cares about. Neither is exactly a moral exemplar, but Stan, who doesn’t try to look especially innocent even when it would be to his advantage, is ultimately a better person than the elaborately-self-presenting Gideon in the vast majority of the show, and arguably even after Gideon’s rushed last-act redemption.

**another interesting thing to consider here is how the adult Ford is also associated with the color red, both in his most frequent outfit and the covers of his distinctive journals. His first non-flashback appearance also has him dressed entirely in black, but he never mixes the two colors the way his brother does. If I had better sources, I might add a bit to the Essay and use this to support my assertion in chapter 2 that Ford’s friendship with Fiddleford in college may have involved Ford deliberately, to some extent, replacing himself with Fiddleford rather than replacing Stan with Fiddleford; since I don’t have better sources, though, and academic rigor is out to lunch on this one anyway, I’ll leave it here as merely a curiosity.  

[6] Admittedly, a ‘normal kid’ who is still apparently in complete command of at least a couple of violent criminals who evidently have nothing better to do with their regained freedom than guard Gideon from bullies, but…it’s a start, anyway.

[7] Given the weirdness of Weirdmageddon and our only extremely vague understanding of how Gideon came to make a second deal with Bill, it’s impossible to say exactly how long Gideon actually acted as Bill’s vassal and even more impossible to ascertain how long that period of time might have seemed from Gideon’s point of view after the death of time and meaning, but unfortunately, the show didn’t have enough room at the end to really explore this subplot fully.

[nadia-el-mansours]

I see lots of people calling Sergei a malewife, and it bugs me because this show already has the perfect malewife representation. You think Wayne would lie to Molly for over a decade? No, he'd rather kill himself. Sergei, a fugitive and the ex director of the Soviet Space Program, who has left multiple wives because he's in love with the most unattainable woman on the planet, is a boyboss and an homme fatal.

[titleleaf]

I can’t remember if I’ve asked you this before but: what do you think Joshua Adeyemi’s scent profile is and what his favorite colognes are? Ideas on what his special pope cologne would have been as Benedict?

Ngl I was thinking about that ALL novel -- I feel like my impression of his cologne prefs is influenced by the way they describe his voice, which is unfortunately also very sexy. Deep, booming, unmistakable and also masc as hell.

I went through an era of being absolutely obsessed with massive 1980s colognes and YSL Kouros is THE king for me. (Also a good reminder that I should give in and get a full bottle of it, because I still love that.) Big leathery civety aromatic -- I find the animalic side of it really appealing but it's super love-it-or-hate-it and the Fragrantica reviews are full of macho dickheads talking up its ostensible sigma male allure.

Azzaro Pour Homme Intense also sounds rtmi but I haven't checked out the Intense personally.

(I tried to find a similar MaxAroma graphic for Kouros but uhhhh that one has too many notes.)

For special poperfumery purposes I feel like there would be perfumers absolutely throwing elbows to work with this guy but I don't know enough about that whole sector of fragrance-making to fill out the picture there. Working with notes that aren't in the stereotypical Smells Like A Church wheelhouse and probably stuff that has a personal significance for him rather than the liturgical incense vibes of Filippo Sorcinelli Lavs.

...also while trying to track down the name of that perfume I found yet another Conclave perfume round-up -- glad to know the intersection of these interests (perfume + arcane old man drama) is alive and well.