#phelim

[hazelgoat13]

silly guy

[misterparadigm]

The first official cover splash art for the Mallory Bash screenplay I'm currently writing.

[aspocko]

queen's play is so fucking funny because when it starts you think lymond is in disguise as this ridiculous irish prince. you eventually find out that he's actually in disguise as the ridiculous irish prince's fat drunk loser servant, which is already a funny twist. but once that revelation is made, the real kicker is when you realize that the ridiculous irish prince, whose ridiculous behavior you had previously written off as weird mannerisms that lymond is playing up to improve his disguise... is just LIKE THAT. He's JUST an extremely lame weird guy! he's not doing a bit! he's not playing a part! THAT'S JUST WHAT HE'S LIKE!

[thecrenellations]

if any more Lymond people are considering signing up for Rare Pair Exchange this year, there's still a day and a bit to do so (deadline is 11:59pm EDT on May 11), it's one that accepts fic (1000+ words) AND art, AND there are 17 whole ships nominated. Look at this beautiful (?) list....

Adam Blacklock/Francis Crawford*

Adam Blacklock/Kate Somerville

Catherine d’Albon/Marthe*

Catherine d’Albon/Philippa Somerville

Danny Hislop/Mikal*

Francis Crawford/Philippa Somerville

Francis Crawford/Robin Stewart*

Francis Crawford/Will Scott

Graham Reid Malett/Ivan the Terrible*

Guzel/Marthe

Guzel/Oonagh O’Dwyer*

Jenny Fleming/Piero Strozzi*

Margaret Erskine/Kate Somerville*

Mariotta Crawford/Molly*

Oonagh O’Dwyer/Phelim O’LiamRoe

Oonagh O’Dwyer/Christian Stewart*

Richard Chancellor/Francis Crawford/Philippa Somerville*

*= so rare it had not yet been seen on ao3 (or possibly anywhere) 😱 unless I'm forgetting something because it's 2am

full list of nominated ships here, including two that are terrifying crossovers with Elizabeth Wein's Lion Hunters series! (which I and others highly recommend, they're wonderful and resonant and probably up your alley, and each is like 1/3 the length of a Lymond book)

The crossover ships are Gabriel/Morgause and Abreha/Guzel <3

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1641 – Sir Phelim O'Neill of Kinard, the leader of the Irish Rebellion, issues his Proclamation of Dungannon justifying the uprising and declaring continued loyalty of Charles I.

Elected a member of the Irish Parliament in 1641, O’Neill appeared to be a supporter of King Charles I. Nevertheless, on 22 Oct 1641, he seized the strategically important Charlemont Castle, Ulster, and then created confusion by claiming that Charles had authorised this act. O’Neill’s followers proceeded to massacre hundreds of England’s colonists in Ulster, but after besieging Drogheda, Co…

[transthadymacdermot]

Working on ffas lore working working...

[venndaai]

sure, buddy

[a-reading-journal]

The Hours is a new opera with music by Kevin Puts and a libretto by Greg Pierce. Based on the novel of the same name by Michael Cunningham and its film adaptation, the production was chosen by star soprano Renée Fleming for her return to the Met stage. During the intermission interview, Puts and Pierce share that the piece was written almost entirely during lockdown, and shared their material and questions for each other via texts, calls, and emails. Fleming is joined onstage by mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and soprano Kelli O’Hara.

Act one starts strong with scenes featuring DiDonato as Virginia Woolf in 1923 working on her novel Mrs Dalloway; Fleming as Clarissa in the 1990s, preparing a dinner for her friend Richard, dying of AIDS; and the Metropolitan Opera chorus. Costumes by Tom Pye for the chorus have a startling dye job that, under the correct lighting, give the effect of the entire production being set underwater. However, the lighting changes from scene to scene, and the chorus never changes costume, leaving only a few further scenes in the remainder of the opera where the effect is again employed.

Puts’ score is most effective in its slower, lyrical sections, showcasing the Met Opera’s full orchestra. While not having heard any other work by Puts, the driving sections that propel the plot are typical of any other contemporary composer, i.e. Nico Muhly and John Adams, and not evocative of any personal style. Wind and string sections play highly rhythmic patterns that have slow harmonic changes, surely a nod to Philip Glass who scored the film version. The prelude to the first scene featuring Woolf is unfortunately scored for solo piano. It is both ineffective and jarring, barely able to accompany DiDonato’s rich voice by itself. The piano is brought back several times, and used for effect alongside the orchestra, to the detriment of the score as a whole.

It is in this scene when we are first introduced to Leonard Woolf played by the entirely miscast Sean Panikkar. Next to DiDonato, Panikkar looks like a hulking 7-foot-tall Adonis thirty years too young to play her husband. He had a pleasant tenor voice, but weak diction. Having to always share the stage with DiDonato also made it seem that his acting abilities were lacking, but I come up with a short list of other singers that could hold their own next to her.

Following this we are taken back to the 90s and treated to one of the two most striking scenes in the entire opera - the second is also in the 90s timeline, which is indicative. Clarissa is shopping for flowers and flirting with the owner, Barbara, played by Kathleen Kim. Kim has a fantastic coloratura voice and stage presence, put to great use by Puts who quotes several Mozart arias, a la Corgliano’s Ghosts of Versailles: the high Fs of the Queen of the Night enticing Clarissa to buy Ha-ha-ha-hydrangeas, and the final Pa-pa-pa-pa’s of Papagena for peonies. The entire chorus encircles them, bunches of flowers in both hands, the tableau bursting with colour and texture, reminding me of the framing of Mother Mary in the The Cell (2000) as well as the final shots of Midsommar (2019). My only complaint is that the bouquets could have been bigger and even more vibrant.

We are finally introduced to Kelli O’Hara’s Laura Brown in the 1950s, reading Mrs Dalloway in her bed, dreading to get up and greet her family on her husband’s birthday. This section came across as the weak link as the character had nonexistent motivations for her actions and a clichéd plot. How many stories in film and television have we already seen about a repressed housewife in the 1950s ready to buckle under the pressure of keeping the surface of her life glossy and clean? Brown feels no connection to her child and leaves him with a neighbour - also played by Kim - as she runs to a motel to kill herself with a bottle of pills. Her husband has done the irredeemable deed of buying her flowers and letting her sleep in on his birthday, and constantly showering their son with affection.

Kelly O’Hara’s acting was always visible, in the sense that it was constantly distracting to watch her and see her, for lack of a better term, go through the motions. Fleming and DiDonato in comparison seemed completely authentic. They were characters plucked from their lives and put on the stage, reacting to everything around them, and making choices and decisions moment to moment. There is something inexplicably off-putting about O’Hara’s performance, not even getting into the fact that the part is out of her grasp. The notes were there, of course, but the timbre of her voice was frequently strained, and not pleasant to listen to. Beside her co-stars there is a clearly audible gulf of technical proficiency between her and them.

Supporting the three leads is an ensemble of singers of mixed quality. Clarissa’s dying friend Richard is sung to perfection by bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen. His rich voice could project at every dynamic, convey every emotion, and delivered every word with clear diction. His acting was also far better than most opera singers and met Fleming beat for beat, especially in the best scene of the entire opera where Clarissa visits Richard for one last time in his New York apartment. Clarissa’s partner Sally was played by Denyce Graves, whom I loved in Marnie, but sounded less than stellar in this live broadcast, every note uttered with a grating squawk.

In the 1950s Laura Brown’s husband delivered his lines serviceably, but not memorably. Her son was a a scene-stealer, and had a voice that projected loudly and clearly over the entire orchestra and chorus in the finale of Act 1. Back in the 20s, DiDonato is joined by another mezzo-soprano, Eve Gigliotti, playing the maid Nelly. From register to register Gigliotti’s voice was resonant and clear and I could only think of other parts I would love to hear her perform.

Finally, in another double-role, Sylvia D’Eramo plays Kitty in the 50s, and Woolf’s sister Vanessa in 1923. D’Eramo's voice seemed to belong to another singer, sounding more mature and full than her youthful looks would have you expect. She never took the focus away from O’Hara or DiDonato, but maybe should have been given the role of Brown instead. Next to O’Hara, D’Eramo was much more interesting to listen to and watch, and was able to play the young woman sharing a fleeting kiss with Brown, and mother to three as Vanessa.

There are two choices in this production that served no readily apparent purpose, and therefore failed in execution. First, a lone countertenor from the chorus singing wordlessly at the three leads throughout, the symbolism unclear if it had intention in the first place. Additionally, there is a dance cohort onstage for nearly the entirety of the production that serves no purpose other than to fill space, clutter the scenes with extra bodies, and brandish empty symbols of books, flowers, and kitchen appliances in the corresponding time periods. The oddest choice of all, to have one male dancer among the dozen or so women.

The set was disappointing and did not make use at all of the space and funds that the Met surely has at its disposal. Yet, in the second act there is one wow-element where a large silk screen comes billowing down from the ceiling and stretches right to the bottom of the stage to catch a set of black-and-white projections, a flashback with Clarissa and a young Richard on the beach, after which it is released and cascades to pool on the floor behind the singers. Again, it seems as the most care and attention is made for Fleming’s 1990s scenes.

Throughout the opera there is a reference to Richard’s book being great, but suffering from a ‘tacked-on’ ending. Ironically, this opera also suffers from the same fate. The finale is a chance for the leading women to shed their characters - none does so faster than O’Hara - adjusting their body language, and gazing directly into the audience, to address us in a trio containing only a handful of sentences, repeated ad nauseum with nearly no melodic variation, ‘Here is the world and you live in it. All alone. You try.’ I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be sentimental, uplifting, melancholy, or what, but ultimately it comes across as smarmy. Richard Strauss this is not, despite Fleming and co. giving it their all.

[ulrichgebert]

Ganz große Oper live aus der Met: An einem Tag in den 20ern ringt Virginia Woolf (rechts) um einen Anfangssatz für Mrs. Dalloway (sie organisiert eine Party und besorgt die Blumen selber) und ist mit ihrem Leben unzufrieden, an einem Tag in dem 50ern liest die amerikanische Hausfrau und Mutter Laura (links) Mrs Dalloway, obwohl sie eine Geburtstagsparty für ihren liebenden, aber unaufmerksamen Mann organisieren sollte und ist mit ihrem Leben unzufrieden und an einem Tag um das Jahr 2000 organisiert Clarissa (mitte) eine Party für Richard, ihre hoffnungslose und an AIDS erkrankte große Liebe. Er nennt sie Mrs. Dalloway und soll einen Literaturpreis bekommen, weil er stirbt, ist aber überhaupt nicht in der Verfassung für eine Party. Clarissa ist auch nicht richtig zufrieden mit ihrem Leben. Wo wir es gerade von berühmten Romanen haben, die an einem einzigen Tag spielen. Michael Cunninghams vielgepriesenen The Hours haben wir leider immer als So-ein-Frauenbuch abgetan und Stephen Daldrys Verfilmung in reflexhafter Nicole-Kidman-Vermeidung geschmäht, aber als monumentales Bühnenspektakel mit herrlichster Musik für drei grandiose, überlebensgroße Operndiven funktioniert es für uns natürlich ganz fabelhaft. Wir freuen uns halt immer, wenn jemand singt.... (Wir nehmen uns jetzt trotzdem mal vor, diesen Film anzuschauen. Der hat Musik von Philip Glass, so fügt sich doch alles wieder schön zusammen.)

[joaquimblog]

MET 2022/2023: THE HOURS (FLEMING-O'HARA-DiDONATO-KETELSEN;NÉZET-SÉGUIN, McDERMOTT)

MET 2022/2023: THE HOURS (FLEMING-O’HARA-DiDONATO-KETELSEN;NÉZET-SÉGUIN, McDERMOTT)

El MET de New York, fidel al seu projecte artístic d’oferir cada temporada títols contemporanis de compositors nord-americans estrena aquesta temporada The Hours, una òpera en dos actes amb música de Kevin Puts (1972, Saint Louis, Missouri) i llibret de Greg Pierce, basat en la novel·la del mateix títol de Michael Cunningham i de la que posteriorment es va fer una notable adaptació…

[unhelpfulfemme]

So I mentioned on another post that this Lymond reread I was paying explicit attention to who Francis touches and how often because of Jerott's Checkmate claim that he's surprised by Francis's hug because he usually never touches people.

I am now at the end of DK and that's just not true.

A somewhat tangential thing I'd like to mention is how generally more open to people Francis is at the beginning of the series - especially QP and DK when everything is more or less right in his personal life - compared to the later books. He's often friendly or teasing or flirty and perhaps even gets into people's personal space more than many of the other characters. And I mean earnestly friendly, like openly happy to see people or plainly talking about what he thinks or feels with them, not in a sarcastic, guarded, half-ironic way.

SPOILERS UNDER CUT

The people he casually touches, like puts his hand on their arm or takes their hand or puts his hands on their shoulder(s) are Sybilla, Richard, Tom Erskine, Will Scott, Christian Stewart, Phelim O'Liamroe, Thompson the pirate and most importantly Jerott himself, REPEATEDLY, during his time on Malta. In fact, there's a scene where he takes Jerott to show him something by looping his arm through Jerott's own for absolutely no reason except that he feels like it. (I also very distinctly remember that he touches Philippa casually several times in PiF but I'm not at that part yet)

Similarly to this, my mostly PiF-based statements about Lymond not flirting with Jerott don't hold true for this part of the series: he actually flirts with Jerott as much if not more than he does with Will Scott in the early parts of DK, I'd just forgotten about it because PiF overwrote that part of my brain.

It appears that at some point he gets the message that Jerott isn't engaging in Lymond's favourite game of "you mouth off at me and then I give you a tongue lashing and then I give you the fuck of a lifetime and in this way convince you to agree with me and become sweeter and more obedient" but that he genuinely disapproves of Lymond and is genuinely religious, so he stops with the flirty statements.

However, then this happens:

Which is where I think Jerott gets the idea from - he expects a farewell hug from Lymond alongside the warm words but doesn't get it.

But he DOES get something much rarer, though I'm not sure he realizes!

A blush. Which is really fucking something, because Francis almost never blushes.

This is an unrelated thing I've been paying attention to for several reasons (I have an eye on drawing the characters and also I wanted to better sort out my Kuzum/Khaireddin parentage thoughts), and Francis a) doesn't have skin that's prone to a lot of flushing or blushing or reddening (actually he tans easily while Gabriel, for example, burns under the same conditions, and also rarely flushes under exertion, unlike, again, Gabriel who does so easily) b) he literally only flushes once again before he falls for Philippa: it's in a post-coital scene with Güzel and his face is actually red from laughter (at his own joke lol) and not emotion. And then he blushes with surprising frequency and all of it is Philippa-related: he blushes when Philippa lowkey hurts his ego with her banter or points out his womanizing, he blushes when he finds her in his bedroom to give him a piece of her mind after the party he throws in Paris, he blushes when John Dee reads his mind and implies that he now knows that he wants Philippa, he blushes at the end of Checkmate when Sybilla gives him a once-over while he's standing in front of her half-naked after clearly having spent two days fucking Philippa.

So I think he's into Jerott quite a lot, actually? He's just backed off because Jerott is such a cunt to him. So probably he stops touching him because he feels disgustingly lecherous about it, as he does with Philippa later. And when does he start touching him again, to Jerott's marked surprise? Once he falls for Philippa and presumably doesn't care for Jerott that way anymore.

Actually, except for Philippa, this is actually the most evidence we get of Lymond being into someone, I think. Like we get WAY less for Oonagh, for example.

I've always headcanoned him as probably having had a crush on Jerott as a teen, just based on how he reminisces about him, but I think he actually likes him a lot as an adult too? And it's really been clicking into place for me during this DK reread where perhaps earlier I found DK!Jerott too obnoxious to notice hah.

[rqs-arcade]

🕹️ ⸻ c!techno/cc!techno mixtive name suggestion

ft; russian and irish names with animal and warrior themes

borisyuk / bori (wolf or snow leopard) medvedev (bear) volkov (wolf) renata (born again) rodion (hero's song) rostislav (usurper of glory) sergei (protector)

aiden (little fire) aodh (flame) cahir (soilder) cathal (ruler of battle) conchobhar (lover of dogs) devlin (fierce courage) fallon (leader) farrell (hero) fearghal / fergal (brave) garvan (rough little one) phelan (wolf) phelim (like a wolf) reamon (protecting hands)

[misterparadigm]

Happy New Year, from Mallory Bash!

I'm gonna be too busy celebrating at the hour of observation, so enjoy this year's postcard on this, the eve of the Day Of Recovery. Decided to get the adults all in on this one, since I don't get to draw them as much--especially Mal's parents there on the far right. Just for fun, they're all drawn with the favorite drinks: Odran: Scotch, neat (via his family's distillery at Glen Bash) Olivia: Wine, Shiraz Cyrus: Wine, Pinot Noir Miss Eve Parker: Dry Martini, olive and lemon garnish Phelim: Bourbon, neat Mary: Sazarac (Rye Whiskey, Absinthe, Peychaud's Bitters, Sugar, but with an orange garnish rather than lemon)

[aspocko]

phelim o'liamroe, prince of barrow and the slieve bloom: *mistakenly accuses lymond of being a drunk and spills alcohol all over him*

lymond, not drunk but actively dying of poison:

[thecrenellations]

"How many souls on this earth call you Francis?"

In 60 years of the Lymond Chronicles, I'd bet that many others have compiled this exact thing, but here is a list of who calls Lymond by his first name! Marthe draws our attention to the question near the end of Pawn in Frankincense, but it's clear throughout the series how deliberately Dunnett chooses what to call the characters in narration and dialogue - the choice can reflect who Francis Crawford (for example) is to others as well as to himself, at any moment. I love it, and Meaningful Naming is a feature of most of my favorite stories.

Characters are listed with the book in which they first call him Francis in dialogue. Italics indicate they call him that when he isn't present. If they directly Francis him later, they’ve been added to the list for that book, too.

I've also noted to whom he's just Francis in the narration - it's always someone who thinks of him like that, and it always makes me feel a lot.

If you notice something I left out, or if you know where to find similar analysis, let me know! Let us all be scholars of Francis.

Lists below! Plus some thoughts and quantitative stuff. (many, many spoilers)

The Game of Kings

Sybilla Semple (see, I have to decide what to call all of these characters, too!)

Margaret Lennox

Christian Stewart (to Sybilla, and I'm sure she called him Francis in their childhood)

Richard Crawford 

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard

Queens’ Play

Tom Erskine

Jenny Fleming

Margaret Erskine

Martine

Oonagh O’Dwyer

Phelim O’LiamRoe

George Douglas

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard, Margaret Erskine

The Disorderly Knights

Will Scott

Kate Somerville 

Graham Reid Malett

Adam Blacklock

Janet Beaton

Jerott Blyth (I'm also sure Jerott called him Francis in the old days, but he doesn't return to it until the scene with Evangelista Donati at Midculter)

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard, Tom, Kate, Sybilla

Pawn in Frankincense

Jerott Blyth

Dame de Doubtance 

Marthe

Francis in narration from the POV of: Jerott

The Ringed Castle

Alec Guthrie

the Abbess/Sybilla's sister

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard

Checkmate

Philippa Somerville

Marguerite de St. Andre

Catherine d’Albon (to Philippa)

Nicholas Applegarth (also to Philippa)

Danny Hislop

Fergie Hoddim

Piero Strozzi

Francis in narration from the POV of: Jerott, Philippa, Richard, Sybilla, Adam

Observations

Aaaaah!

Richard's monopoly on the narration Francises in the first two books kills me, I love it. The first, of course, is "God, Francis had screamed."

As a reader, I started calling him Francis, sometimes, somewhere in the middle of Queen's Play and stopped overthinking it by the beginning of the next book.

I didn't count, but I'd bet that Jerott says and thinks it the most. He's there more than probable runners-up Gabriel (shut up, Gabriel) and Richard (ily Richard) are, and Philippa goes on her own ... journey before thinking of him that way and allowing herself to think of him that way.

Adam is unique for making the list in his first book, specifically not calling Lymond Francis in The Ringed Castle, and then putting himself back on the list through address and narration in Checkmate. But that's The Ringed Castle for you 😬. And their entire relationship - there's a chapter or so in which Adam's narration calls him de Sevigny.

Who even calls him Francis in RC? Just Alec, Richard, and Margaret, I think. ("Do you call her Slata or Baba?" Thank you, Philippa.)

I would teach myself tarocco and play for at least a few hours to learn when Will started calling him Francis. Also the Erskines! They're all so genuinely close in the years after Game of Kings.

Notable Absences

Güzel - well, that feels meaningful. They were together for years. If she did, we didn't see, and I would also believe that she didn't.

Archie - will he ever? Who can say. Either way, he's the best. Also, see here.

Mariotta - I bet she does, after the first book, we just haven't been there.

Fergie, probably?

Piero Strozzi - Francesco? My petit François? I don't remember any Francises, though!

Ivan (and others?) - I'm not counting Frangike, either

Robin Stewart - I mean, I'm sure he would have if he'd known his boyfriend's real name before ... all of that went down.

Diccon Chancellor - probably not? I'd also put this down to the Ringed Castle state of mind. As meaningful as their friendship was, it makes sense for the book to continue to distance the reader, at the very least, in that way.

Does Francis call himself Francis?

No.

He doesn't, really! He's never that from his own point of view, but we do see him sign a few letters with his first name. These are to:

Kate (Pawn in Frankincense)

Catherine d'Albon (Checkmate)

Philippa (Checkmate)

All of this is not to say that “Francis” represents who he truly is; it certainly shows intimacy and usually vulnerability, but I feel that Lymond and Francis Crawford can be just as definitive when deployed, and that Lymond has a certain neutrality. There's also something really interesting that happens when the characters are stripped of names and become just "he" or "she," from their own perspective or others.

And then we get things like "Mistress Philippa's decorative husband," which really deserve their own list.

"How many souls on this earth call you Francis? Three? Or perhaps four?"

18 of the 25 Francis-ers on my list are living at the end of the series, and when Marthe, who is not one of them, asks that question at the end of PiF, it's 12 (out of 18 total).

18 out of 25 is a 72% survival rate! Great!

2 of the 18 are pretty awful (Margaret Lennox and the Abbess)

4 of the 18 live in France, which he's currently exiled from

1 of the 18 lives in Ireland, but I think they should still hang out!

2 of the 18 may be departing for Malta, apparently

7 of the 18 are people he probably sees or keeps in touch with regularly, 9 if I count Janet Beaton and Margaret Erskine, because I like them and they're not very far away.

As much as I wish that many of the others hadn't died, I think he's doing pretty well.

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1968 – An Aer Lingus plane, the St Phelim, crashed into the sea near Tuskar Rock, Co Wexford, killing all 61 passengers and crew.

The plane, a Vickers Viscount, was on a flight from Cork to London Heathrow when it crashed into the sea near Tuskar Rock without warning. There were no survivors. St Phelim was an 11-year old Viscount with the Vickers aircraft very popular with Aer Lingus for short and medium haul flights. A total of 20 were in service over almost two decades with the carrier. The passengers and crew were from…