#paramours

[ask-court-of-darkness]

Vamum dear

What was your favorite memory you had with Vane

I would often lay with my head in her lap amongst the flowers… and she sang to me.

They were the most beautiful melodies, both striking and calming at the same time.

I loved my dear Vane….

[aidenelsa]

now they’re screaming that they hate me. never wanted you to hate me

[milkywayscap-blog]

Ghastly paramour

"Those four are unbearable. Every time they show up, they act as if they own the place," a figure draped in maroon said while taking a puff from their smoking pipe. "You only say that because they are the favorites of the bosses. Don't be angry, Chisuke," Ichor said, chuckling softly as he looked at Chisuke. Chisuke snorted and shook their head. "That's not true. I'm saying that because they are irresponsible," Chisuke replied with a hint of annoyance. When the four subordinates in question walked past, the group looked at Chisuke in confusion as the person they were talking to was no longer there. The group of teenagers whispered amongst themselves as they passed by.

Chisuke glared at the teens, frowning. They then turned to Ichor, "Why did you choose that silly mission? Out of everything, why did you pick that one?" Chisuke asked with a worried expression. "I did it to impress you. I wanted to show you that I could handle the big leagues," Ichor replied, cupping Chisuke's face and smiling softly. He then vanished into a thin mist. "Ignorant fool... there was no need to demonstrate anything," Chisuke muttered as they took another puff of their smoking pipe. They exhaled the smoke which took the form of a heart before someone swatted it away, apparently trying to get Chisuke's attention. "Chi, snap out of it!" Alice said, looking into Chisuke's eyes. "Ichor is gone, Chisuke. Stop acting like he's still here, you know he isn't coming back." Alice wafted the red smoke away from her face and looked disappointed in Chisuke for holding onto Ichor. "He... He isn't gone, Alice. I know he isn't," Chisuke replied. "He is! Just please forget him," Alice pleaded.

Chisuke's life was completely turned upside down when Ichor's mission partner returned and announced that he had died. The news shattered Chisuke's world and made them feel as if nothing would ever be the same again. Despite this, every time Chisuke closed their eyes to sleep, they would see Ichor's face. Ichor would talk and spend time with them as if nothing had truly happened. Chisuke hated waking up to find that everything was just a dream.

For ieatredditors

[ghostieking]

silly little doodling page featuring the always inspiring hayley williams

[horizon-verizon]

Why would Alys send Aemond to his death when it doesn't benefit her at all? She is better off being the mistress of the prince regent than some woman with a bastard she claims is his true born son. This idea that she sends him to his death to avenge her family is a funny one to me. They were distantly related at best and she was their servant. The dance itself is about a family killing each other for power so family has limited meaning for some, more so if you're a bastard.

EDIT: (link) I think Alys sent Aemond to his death to protect herself or at least didn't stop him because there was no world where she wasn't in constant danger beside him, even if he took her to KL. The people around the greens or a part of them (especially Alicent, this conservative woman who, like her show counterpart, thinks about appearances), would try to remove or use her.

I don't think she was as attached to him as he was to her, even if there was some sort of reluctant affection from her (not quite full-fledged Stockholm syndrome, since I think she always maintained her eye on the prize: self-preservation).

................................................................................

A)

Alys could send Aemond to his death because he made her his war prize and immediately began having sex with her after destroying her means of living (look at point “B”, there’s more).

Alys is referred to many times as Aemond’s “bedmate”. Her purpose is sexual.

No trueborn Strong was spared, nor any bastard save...oddly...Alys Rivers. Though the wet nurse was twice his age (thrice, if we put our trust in Mushroom), Prince Aemond had taken her into his bed as a prize of war.

(”Rhaenyra Triumphant”)

So here is this guy who has literally made a pile of heads out of the children and adults you have seen or interacted with, even causally, for years. It's still traumatic to see them die violently in front of your very eyes, or know how they died. Even if you didn't love them, you knew them. Plus, if we believe that Aemond even killed kids, that would induce a lot of fear and panic in those left behind, even if they didn't like kids. Women and girls get raped by occupying soldiers often in all sorts and periods of war, too. But otherwise, it's usually a heartbreaking thing to know/witness: the violent murders of children. No one good or sane approves or ignores to see the most vulnerable people get killed or abused.

She also seems to show some compassion for that messenger that Aemond was going to beat up. So I imagine she would have been horrified by the live-extermination before. I see little reason why Alys would not be affected similarly as that is the usual response to such, and if you argue otherwise you need very good evidence in the text/context.

Again, Aemond murders these male Strongs -- man and child-- openly. For everyone left to witness...

Do you actually think that Alys would have seen this and thought, "hmmm this guy will take good care of me (specifically in the moment and right after when he chooses her out of others to keep) and respect me or care of my feelings beyond his own"? You’d have to present a good reason and evidence to suggest how she’d know of his coming, which admittedly reveals how little we know of Alys and her true abilities or even if she was a witch or if she was just Aemond’s “type”.

Here is another, earlier example of what war prizes actually were, as opposed to a legitimate paramour or mistress:

Bold Jon Roxton became enamored of the beautiful Lady Sharis Footly, the wife of the Lord of Tumbleton, and claimed her as a “prize of war.”. When her lord husband protested, Ser Jon cut him nigh in two with Orphan Maker, saying, “She can make widows too,” as he tore the gown from the weeping Lady Sharis.

(”Rhaenyra Triumphant”)

And Ian Plate writes this in his article:

The treatment of women as objects, used to mark male prestige, appears in our earliest extant Greek literature, Homer's Iliad. Here, women are valued as prizes in competition between men, awarded to acknowledge relative male prowess.

There is no consent here, at all. None. And little guarantee of safety.

B)

Never said or claimed that she DEFINITELY sent Aemond to his death for her family. Never even said she cared or loved them.

I said she materially depended on the Strongs for her own living. 

She may not have loved them per se but it’s possible that she would still feel like she lost some sort of "home" as well as her means for living and economic support -- as she lived with them all her life, had memories, and grew up with them in her formative years. To have that gone in such violence RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER FACE will still discombobulate your sense of security as I already said, so that's another motivation against Aemond.

Though breastfeeding was not always a respected job and she would not have been as respected as the bastard closer in relation, she did relatively better as their wetnurse than if she married outside and became a “serf”’s wife. Which is probably why she even stayed for so long, as we see by her age (not old, but she never chose to marry and have kids elsewhere and she was estimated to be in her late 30s to mid 40s...which is old to not have a family to these medieval persons).

Aemond, destroying her means to live, thus made her much more vulnerable, giving her a less stable life. War prizes depend on their captor and their captor alone. (I go into Alys’ vulnerability if she had gone with him to King’s Landing or if Alicent knew about her below). That is enough for a person to hate him even without the war prize event. 

But add the war prize to it, with her history of losing children (wet-nurses were women who weaned their child too early or lost their infants very early...hence their ability to breastfeed), forcing her to get pregnant again and scrounging up her past miscarriages or stillbirths...Alys sees Aemond murders this Strong kids (even if she weren't close to them), and remembers her own loss....trauma reborn.

There’s a lot to hate and fear Aemond for.

C)

Official, "true" paramours and other mistresses historically are not usually war prizes. War prizes are those who were captured and taken as reward for an individual’ military prowess and conquest, as I’ve already stated.

While paramours, mistresses, and war prizes all occupy this strange space of “lover of a lord/warrior under his sociopolitical authority and dependent on him”, because war prizes literally have no choice in the face of harm or violence after being captured, they are not like other mistresses or paramours. They are not “free”. Their lives don’t really matter as much to anyone but their captors, who can decide when they live and when they die. Mistresses and paramours like Samantha Tarly, Ellaria Sand, Barbra Bracken, Bellegere Otherys, etc. have a lot more freedom since they weren’t taken as prizes during/after the captor’s victory and usually have some backing from families and even husbands. Some money independent from their lovers to fall back on, even if they received some moneys from said lover. They are protected by customs and/or self-allocated resources and connections.

Thus, they would very likely and often not be treated as well as the average paramour/mistress, who weren't bonded to the lord in a war/violence/reward context. 

Of course, having a child would make Alys and other war prizes’ prospects a bit more politically “better”, since lords are still expected to take care of their bastards or look out for their well being in some capacity. However, realistically, this puts both Alys and her kid in more danger, with that kid now traced back to Aemond. 

What would the others (Otto, Aegon, Alicent) have thought and done about this child to maintain their images and royal image even if it’s a man/Aemond and not Helaena having a bastard? By how they neglect Aegon’s bastards, I’d imagine they’d try to get rid of Alys’ child. Maybe not violently, but...it's just not in Alys' interests to be perceived as a nuisance or even as a "thing" that creates a flaw in the greens' image or nettle Aemond's mother. Viserys II forced Aegon IV's mistress, Megette, to leave even after birthing Aegon's first set of kids, 3 daughters. Megette was eventually beaten to death by her husband. Daeron is one of those who supposedly looks at Jon Roxton in “horror” when he rapes the Lady of Tumbleton and kills her husband. Which happens presumably before Aemond takes Alys. Which means that this image of Hightower religious and moral purity is tainted by Aemond’s action. What if the Hightowers had won, Aemond came back with Alys to court? Especially with the rumors of Alys being a witch and Alicent/the Hightowers being so religious or seeming so....

You see the issue here, for Alys? It’s actually best if Aemond dies and she gets to run off, even if she didn't know what the other greens were like.

And that's the issue in her perspective as a war prize: the future is a lot more unpredictable and likelier to be dangerous than it was before. And we still don't know how Alys's probable visions work...does she just get them out of the blue, or can she focus and see events yet to happen? Both? Can she ever really trust those visions?

[deicidedruid]

I’m like damn I hate life and then I listen to a song and I’m like hehehe no.

[artern]

a soul opening

i could not find the exact words to describe this process, for it’s beauty lies within the uniqueness of the individuals and the union, either sacred, wholesome or in-between. perhaps it’s about a flower asking us to meet in the middle, with sunlight and rain. perhaps it’s about the star’s collapse for a better reunion, a greater celestial body. perhaps it’s the universe’s gentle fingers under our chins, encouraging us to welcome like and unlike gravitational pulls, magnetic fields growing closer.

(fini of a set of fragments).

[wickedzeevyln]

Trail

I see tomorrow in different shades,One full of warmth is that tint of dead pale,With today’s disposition tattooed in grim,A deed unpunished hoist its sail,The deadly lore of paramours whispered by the wise had left our wings impaled,Now, if we gild sorrow with fool’s gold,All that ever is have already failed,The truth that sleeps within our lies,With the laws imposed by Newton, has gravity…

[namespara]

If Cazador ever commented on Astarions companions (instead of just ignoring them which ultimately leads to his downfall) he'd be pretty flabbergasted to see the durge he definitly has heard of innit

[purusims]

hoping i will slowly drift away

[a-bloom-to-remember]

Thinking about how in sophomore year Ayda and Fig were each wondering if the other loved them for themselves and all the while there were fossils at Mordred Manor and a scroll kept by an order of knights for 1500 years just for Ayda to tell Fig HOW MUCH she loved her.

[heart-select]

The King, The Paramour

Mafia AU but the idea is people underestimate bilbo but it's the queen that moves most in a game of chess. Mildly inspired by "Marked Man" by TenTomatoes

[azurem]

it posted itself wronggg so im gonna post ittt againnnn tumblr why are you so full of hatred

[anemonet]

this bad boy can fit so much sick symbolisms

[earlycuntsets]

"DEATH COMES RIPPING" - SPOOKY ISSUE

'THE BLACK PARADE, THE TRIUMPHANT NEW ALBUM BY MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE MAY HAVE A TRAGIC STORYLINE, BUT IT'S NOTHING COMPARED WITH WHAT THE BANDMATES ENDURED TO BRING THE DISC TO LIGHT

PHOTOS BY JON WIEDERHORN PHOTOS BY JUSTIN BORUCKI

STANDING ON A BALCONY nine floors above the teeming streets of New York, Gerard Way overlooks the city in which My Chemical Romance began assembling their ambitious new album, The Black Parade. The newly peroxide- blond frontman takes a deep drag from a cigarette and exhales with a sigh. He knows he shouldn't smoke, but it's his only remaining vice.

"If I hadn't been sober, I think The Black Parade surely would have killed me," says Gerard, who climbed on the wagon in 2004. "We were going insane the whole time, and I had to cling to my sobriety to stay even a little lucid. The album became like this beast that was consuming us."

Following up a release as successful as 2004's Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, which sold 1.4 million copies in the U.S. alone, is never an easy task. And the various scares the band experienced as they worked on the new record-drummer Bob Bryar had a near-fatal staph infection, Gerard seriously injured his foot, and some restless spirits at the studio where they recorded kept them all on edge-did not help matters. And neither

did MCR's decision to make The Black Parade (Reprise) a concept disc. Together, Gerard and his bandmates-Bryar, guitarists Frank lero and Ray Toro, and bassist Mikey Way (Gerard's younger brother)-decided to craft a record about a dying young man who is visited by a cast of strange characters that help him examine his short life.

But diving into the conceptual deep end proved well worth the hassle. The Black Parade is not only MCR's most realized offering; it's also one of the most eclectic, enjoyable rock records of the year. One listen to tracks

like "House of Wolves," "The Sharpest Lives," and "Dead!" makes it clear that My Chemical Romance can still rip a good metallic punk tune. But the bandmates are now equally influenced by epic albums like Pink Floyd's The Wall, David Bowie's The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and Queen's A Night at the Opera.

"A lot of bands from the scene we came from try to strip down their music to 'keep it real," Gerard notes. "But the real you is what you've always had inside you and what you strive to be. So when we started compiling the material we had written, we were like, You know what? This has to be a huge, theatrical record."

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE started working on ideas for The Black Parade in the back of the bus while on 2005's Warped Tour, after which they flew to New York and rented a rehearsal space for two months. And that's when things started to get weird.

"I was living in Queens, and I had to commute on the subway every day," Gerard says. "I was suddenly very scared and paranoid. I felt more like an outsider than I ever had, and I had no confidence, which is bad when you're trying to work on a record. And I had no anonymity because there were a lot of teenagers on the train." In reaction to the young fans he encountered on the underground,

Gerard wrote "Teenagers," a T. Rex-style romp with the chorus line, "Teenagers scare the living shit out of me." "The song came directly from commuting when school let out and being so terrified of them," the singer says. "I was like, Wait a minute. These are the same people that listen to our band. Why am I scared? And I realized it was because they're scared, too. Teenagers are made to feel like they can only solve their problems with violence. They lash out at each other in a really volatile way." After several months experiencing the joys of mass transit, MCR had completed only a handful of songs and felt like a change of scenery (and climate) might do them some good. "I couldn't keep working in New York," says Gerard. "We wanted isolation."

id: Gerard leads the way to what will likely be the band's second platinum record

So the group relocated to Paramour Mansion, outside of L.A. Nestled high in the hills, the deluxe estate overlooks the trendy Silver Lake area and boasts spacious rooms, a gorgeous pool, lush gardens, a state-of-the-art recording facility-and a few special guests.

"The place is definitely haunted," Gerard says. "Doors would slam, and the faucets would turn on. You'd get a bath drawn for you of freezing-cold water in your room, and you wouldn't know why." As unnerving as its mischievous spirits could be, the Paramour was also inspiring, and contributed to the haunting vibe of songs like "The End" and "This Is How I Disappear." More important, it led Gerard to come up with the bleak, surreal concept for the record. "I would have these night terrors, where it would feel like someone was choking me, and my heart would stop and I would stop breathing," he says. "I would wake up in the middle of the night and write these notes to myself, and one of them read, 'We are all just a black parade.' So I started thinking about how this band is kind of a black parade, like a funeral-procession rock thing. And I used that idea to piece together this story about the idea that when you die, death comes for you however you want." Gerard molded his concept into a narrative about a character he dubbed the Patient, whose strongest memory from childhood is of his father taking him to the city to see a parade. Two songs into the album, he dies, and the black parade comes for him.

"During the rest of the story, he meets this entity of death and all these characters, like Mama, who represents anyone who's ever lost their son in a war," Gerard explains. "It's almost like these Canterbury Tales, where he goes along on this journey, and at the end he decides whether he wants to live or die." With the concept in place, My Chem made the songs as sweeping and theatrical as Gerard's lyrics. They accomplished this, in part, by combing through their own eclectic record collections and pulling choice elements that would set them even further apart from other melodic punk bands.

The first two minutes of "Welcome to the Black Parade" stemmed from Gerard's love for Broadway musicals, the horns in "Dead!" came from Mikey's interest in Blur and Britpop, and the jaunty feel of "Mama" was informed by Tom Waits and Nick Cave. But the most poignant moment on the record, "Cancer," was (unlike its morbid moniker) something of a pleasant surprise. "I was very upset about something in my personal life, and that's when that song came out," Gerard says. "It was really spontaneous, and it was recorded pretty much live with Rob [Cavallo, the record's producer] on the piano and me in the vocal booth. Then we added layers of drums, which gave it a certain urgency. It's the song I'm most proud of because it was the most pure emotion we've ever captured, and it gets such an immediate response. You can't shake what the song is about."

As the CD approached completion, some members of the band began to show signs of nervous exhaustion. The group was scheduled to fly to England to play the Reading Festival, and as the date grew near, Toro, who has a fear of flying, got noticeably agitated. Then, after the band tracked "Welcome to the Black Parade," which was originally called "The Five of Us Are Dying," the guitarist lost it.

"I thought I had this premonition," Toro explains. "I was flipping through the TV channels, and on the news. there would be something about a plane crash, and every time I woke up in the morning, the clock would say 9:11. I was playing Tomb Raider the night before the flight, and on the level I ended up at, there was this whole flashback to a plane crash. So right before the flight I was like, 'That's it. I'm not flying."

Despite his misgivings, Toro boarded the plane, and when My Chemical Romance returned to L.A. (all of them still very much alive, thank you very much), The Black Parade was completed without further incident. Listening back to the record, the band members were in awe of what they had achieved and eager to share it with their fans. "There was a real confidence that came to us," Gerard explains. "Having survived it, we felt like we were changed forever. I feel different as a performer now, and I think we really finally discovered who we were as a band." But just because MCR were done with the record didn't mean that it was done with them. About a month later, the band was shooting a video for "Famous Last Words" with director Samuel Bayer (Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins) on a set featuring walls of flame, when-seized by the moment-lero grabbed Gerard's throat from behind and wrestled him to the ground. The singer rolled one way; his foot went the other. "It bent completely backwards, and I heard a crack and felt this agonizing pain," Gerard recalls. "I tore all the ligaments in my foot, but I got up and continued to perform." "I didn't know what I was doing," says lero, shaking his head. "I wasn't trying to hurt him. I felt awful. I still do." Gerard's injury was serious, and he still walks with a cane, but it paled in comparison to what happened to Bryar. At the end of the shoot, the pyro was so intense, the drummer could feel his leg burning, but he stuck it out for the rest of the song. By then, he had a nasty third-degree burn. And the misfortune didn't stop there. Bryar didn't take his antibiotics regularly, and he failed to keep the wound clean. By the time the band got back from a brief tour of Japan, the burn was severely infected. Then Bryar's face swelled up and, after doing the MTV Video Music Awards preshow telecast and a special club show, stumbled into a hospital emergency room in intense pain. "I thought I'd be there for 10 minutes, but as soon as they saw me, they got all serious and gave me an IV and said they had to do a CAT scan," recalls Bryar."They did all these blood tests and kept me there for 14 hours." Doctors discovered that Bryar's leg infection had spread to his blood and caused an abscess in his face that was creeping dangerously close to his brain. If it had been left untreated for another two days, he could have died. "The whole thing was such a nightmare," Bryar says. "This doctor stuck my cheek with a needle about six inches long and the width of an IV tube. Then he went in and out of the inside of my mouth with the needle about 10 times. Fortunately, the treatment worked, and Bryar left the hospital three days later. With tragedy averted, My Chem are now focusing on touring for The Black Parade. They'll be in Europe for most of November, and when they get back at the end of year, they'll start rehearsing for a U.S. arena tour that starts in February. "We want to put on a full show with props and staging like The Wall," Gerard says. And MCR plan to keep the Patient alive long after they're done touring for the CD. "I would love to see the story turned into a play or a musical, and it could easily be a movie," enthuses Gerard. "Making this record, we cut ourselves open every day, pulled out every organ, and lay them on a table so it would be something we're completely happy with. We want The Black Parade to exist for a long time." "The whole hole thing nightmare. This doctor stuck my cheek with a needle about six inches long and the width of an IV tube." -BOB BRYAR

"I felt more like an outsider than I ever had, and I had no confidence, which is bad when you're trying work on a record."

-GERARD WAY

12/2006 revolver - mcrhollywood on flickr

[idlenight-art]

Bi alistair... you will always be real to me.