#the danish scene was so married of them

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

I'm All In Rewatch - Episode 4x19

Yeah, I enjoyed that scene. That was that was great Kirk stuff, great Luke and Lorelai stuff... But I think he's really just done and he's over it and he's processed it in his lukey way, and he's moved on and he just wants it done...Okay, So then this is when Jason calls and she's got the two cell phones and he feeds her the pastry. [That was so adorable and intimate without even trying like it was like such a nice gesture.]  That's relationshippy. That's like they're they're in the relationship, they just don't know it yet. -Scott

[nolita-fairytale]

burn your life down | chef luca x fem!reader | chapter thirteen

summary: luca visits his mom, while you deal with the aftermath of aiko's funeral.

warnings: fluff, angst, grief, death, conversations about divorce, second person pov, swearing, danish inaccuracies, very little connection to the storyline of the bear.

word count: 4.5k

listen to: the official 'burn your life down' playlist

a/n: well folks, this is the final chapter of 'burn your life down.' what a beautiful journey we've all been on together. i swear, this was only supposed to be a headcanon, then a few chapters maybe, and then 46.5k words later... thank you again and again if you read, commented, reblogged, or screamed at me in gifs because this story quite literally took over my life. i will be releasing a 'behind the scenes'/director's cut post, a few headcanons about the kimuras and the mikkelson twins, and want to write more for these two. so... what do you want to see them do next?

in the meantime, let's go get carmy married in "don't want to walk alone."

part twelve | masterlist

The clang of spoons against chipped mugs that date back to his primary school days feels comforting and familiar. Luca smiles to himself, dropping another sugar cube into his tea, using his teaspoon to mix it in as he listens to his mother make a sharp pivot away from her previous subject. 

“Anyways, it’s not that I don’t love a spontaneous visit home, but we can’t ignore the elephant in the room, love,” his mother prompts him, finally done with dancing around the small talk her son’s have engaged in for the last thirty minutes.

“This girl, Luca,” she continues, sending him a look that says ‘you’re not getting out this one.’ “You haven’t brought a girl home in… god knows how long.”

“I-,” Luca begins, a smile on his lips that’s contagious. “It’s-, it’s not like that mom.”

He’s not sure what he’s supposed to say: that he’s hopelessly in love and that he hasn’t said anything yet because even though he wants nothing more than to shout it from the rooftops, that you’re here in London for a funeral and not to meet him mum?

“Well, darling. Then what is it like?” his mother asks him with a quirk of an eyebrow. 

Luca hesitates, wanting to be strategic with how he explains this because the love he feels for you really is extraordinary. But he doesn’t want to jump the gun either. Because what if it all falls apart and he’s spoken too soon? You did just lose your mother-in-law, and he’d rather introduce you to his mum when you both are ready. 

Finally, Luca decides what he’d like to say, returning his attention to his mother before replying with:

“She’s special… She's really special to me.”

His mother laughs, because although her son seems to be cautiously tiptoeing around some kind of imaginary fine line, the truth is written all over his face. 

It’s in the way the corners of his lips turn up when she’s mentioned you. It’s in his shy nature and eagerness to avoid the subject. It’s in the way her son’s undeniable coyness, as she bridges the subject, that tells her that he’s found his heart. 

“Oh I know that look. You’re in love,” Luca’s mother declares, reminding Luca that she really does see right through him. 

“Do you think she’s the one?’ 

Luca sighs, turning the idea over in his head. It’s almost as if he hasn’t let himself feel it, hasn’t let himself think too hard about it, but the blush that runs across his cheeks gives him away. 

“I sure hope so, mum,” Luca answers, honestly. 

“Well,” his mother replies, smugly, as if to remind her son that she’s always right when it comes to him. “I’d like to meet her,”

“Mum, I-,” Luca begins, before pausing once more, suddenly overcome with the desire to fulfill her wishes. “It’s just… we’re here for a funeral is all.”

“And that means the two of you can’t stop by for a cup of tea?” his mother asks, haphazardly. 

“I’ll ask,” Luca promises, firmly. 

“I mean, what’s the hold up, my love?” she asks again, and it’s almost as if Luca knows she isn’t expecting an answer. 

“Right,” he mumbles in agreement, something distant in his voice. 

And while Luca wants nothing more than to be patient with you, for the both of you to make this decision together, the irrefutable pressure he feels from his mother’s question seems to create a sense of urgency that takes root.  As it begins to spiral out of control, his mind filled with thoughts of doubt, his mother’s question echoes in his head: 

What’s the hold up?

Surely you could manage just one visit before returning to Copenhagen, right?

Luca watches his mother take a sip from her teacup, his mind beginning to wander to earlier today, as she goes on about a recent neighborhood happening. As brave of a face as he’s been putting on, it was odd, seeing the family you used to belong to. And it’s not as if, with the divorce, that all just went away. He knows you’re still close with Astrid and the fact that you and Joe aren’t mortal enemies, seeing the two of you together earlier today, was harder to stomach than he imagined. 

He can’t help but be filled with feelings of jealousy – jealous of how close you still are to the Kimurs, irrationally nervous that you and Joe seem to still have such a positive relationship, envious that he got to love you first. His reaction to his mother’s question is just a reflection back to him of his own worries, his own impatience, his own insecurities.

And Luca can’t help but wonder:

What would it mean if you weren’t ready to meet his mum?

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

“I hope it’s not too late to set my demons straight. I know i made you wait, but how much can you take?” – kendrick lamar, ‘die hard’

You decide to take the long way home, walking off the afternoon, surprised to find how deep of sadness that still remains buried in your belly. Of course you expected to be sad, to be filled with grief over the loss of your former mother-in-law, but it’s something else, the bittersweetness of closure that’s left you feeling so heavy. 

It’s not that you’ve missed Joe – not in that way at least. 

But as you sat next to him at the neighborhood pub you’ve been to with him more times than you can count, it became more and more evident that he is no longer your Joe – and hasn’t been for a long time now. 

You recall just a few of the things you remember about him that reminded you of this: the way his dark curls seemed wilder, messier, than you’d seen them in a long time, that his five o’ clock shadow that used to feel so rough against your lips looked unfamiliar now and how much you’ve forgotten the way the rough texture laid against the soft skin of his face, how his shoulders slumped with a burden you know is too heavy to bear. 

When he’d told you all about his new job, it’s as if the elaborate portrait of his life that he’d painted for you began to unfold right in front of you. Only this time, as you listen, you come to realize that it’s been painted with brush strokes that weren’t yours, with colors you don't recognize, making your revelation clearer and clearer:

Joe has built a life without you – one that you don’t fit into anymore, at least not in the same way – and you’ve done the same. 

Even though you left on a high note, at peace with Joe, reconnected with the Kimuras, and free to begin your next chapter, it feels like your heart is in pieces, reeling from the emotional whiplash of endings and beginnings. 

And you can’t seem to stop crying, letting the tears run down your face with every step you take towards your temporary residence. 

As you approach the hotel, riding the elevator up to you and Luca’s room, you’re surprised to find him more jovial than you expected. It’s not like you expected him to be sad – this isn’t his loss to grieve after all, and you’re glad that it seems like he’d had a good visit with his mum – but it feels jarring, like you’re not sure how to meet him there as you continue to sort through your thoughts and feelings from today. 

“Hi,” you say, cautiously. 

He hums in response, pulling you into a huge, sweeping kiss as he smiles against your lips. 

“Hello, my love,” he grins, as he pulls away from the kiss. 

You can’t help it, and you wish it were different, but there’s a pit in your stomach as you begin to notice how different of spirits you’re in. 

“How was your visit with your mum?” you ask him, as if you’re trying to solve a mystery, trying to figure out where all of this energy is coming from. 

Luca, driven to boldness by his mother’s question, seems to have thrown all caution to the wind as he answers with:

“It was great! Listen, I know it’s not the best of timing but, she really wants to meet you. Before we go home. What do you think?” he pitches to you, charging through his sentence like a confident and emboldened CEO. 

“Oh,” is all you manage to get out. 

No longer as patient as you’ve come to know him, his sudden change makes you nervous, and for the first time in a long time, you panic; you feel like running. 

“Luca, I-,” you stammer, searching for the right words to just fall out of your mouth. 

But they don’t. 

So you pause, licking your lips before adding, “I’ve had a long day and… I just-, I don’t know if I’m in the right headspace for that?” 

You don’t mean for it to sound like a question, but it comes out as one. Expecting for him to be just as understanding as he’s been the last few months, you’re more than surprised when Luca seems disappointed, cross even, at your response as you’re met with silence. You watch as he presses his lips together in a thin line, swallowing as he focuses on the floor. 

You feel like you just told him that Santa Claus wasn’t real, taking a breath as you take a few steps towards him. 

You’re not sure how, under the circumstances, he could expect you to be as enthusiastic as he is, but you’re almost too afraid to ask questions – a pit in your stomach about where this could all go. 

“Honey, I-,” you sigh, taking his hands in yours as you’re quick to reassure him. You want nothing more than to remedy this, to tell him yes, but you can’t seem to get those words out of your mouth so instead you choose to explain yourself. 

“Today has been… totally fucking crazy and… I think I just want to take a nap. I-, just because-.” You pause once more, trying your best to address the situation at hand. “It doesn’t mean anything that I don’t-, that I’m maybe not ready to-.”

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?” he asks you, pulling his hands back and taking a few steps away. You’re silent as you watch him pace back and forth, your heart sinking as he pulls away from you. 

“Wh-, what do you mean?” you stumble through, nervously. 

Luca pauses his movements, really looking at you this time as he asks, “You say it doesn’t mean anything. But it does. To me.”

“Baby, what’re you talking about?” you ask him, taking another step towards him. 

“That you’re not ready,” he snaps at you. 

Perhaps it could be different, he could react with much more grace and compassion, but between seeing a piece of your old life, and the doubts swimming in his head, he’s not sure he can wait any longer. 

“Luca, that’s not fair,” you whisper softly. 

“I-, I know. But-,” Luca tries his best to explain, becoming increasingly frustrated with himself as he continues to talk. “I just-, it’s hard not to think it means something. That you wouldn’t want to meet her.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to meet her!” you insist, trying your best to reassure your boyfriend. “It’s just that I just said goodbye to my mother-in-law and it-, it kind of feels like… well, I can’t just replace her!” 

“I’m not-, I’m not trying to replace her!” Luca can’t help but exhale frustratedly. 

“That’s not what I meant,” you’re quick to interject, the air between the two of you suddenly feeling tenuous. 

Luca takes a breath, his jaw clenching in response to his deep feelings of jealousy. He knows it’s not fair but he reminds himself that he’s only human as his mind is filled with questions he wants to ask you like: 

Why can’t you just let go of them? and, Do you miss them more than you love me? and lastly, this one in his mother’s voice, What’s the bloody hold up?

“I know,” is what he says instead, choosing to be the better man he knows he can be. He pauses, taking a seat on the hotel bed, his eyes fixed to the floor once again. 

“Luca, I don’t understand,” you start, taking another few steps toward him so that you’re now standing in front of him. “Why are we fighting right now?”

Instead of answering right away, you search his face as he avoids your gaze, giving you more and more pause for concern. 

“I just… are you having doubts… about us? After today?” he drags out, his voice strained. 

“No, what-, where would you have gotten-, what do you mean?” you ask him, suddenly questioning if you’ve given him any reason to think otherwise. 

“I just don’t understand why you don’t want to meet her!” he exclaims with a shake of his head. 

“I never said I didn’t want to!” you’re quick to object. 

As Luca leans forward, his forearms resting on his knees, you cross your arms over your chest as it becomes more and more evident that this conversation is getting heated. 

“Luca, where is this coming from?” you ask softly, in an attempt to de-escalate the situation. 

“Well, you didn’t say yes,” he throws back at you, and it hurts more than you thought it would. 

“Yes, because-. I told you that I don't think I’m in the right mindset,” you struggle to explain. “Wouldn’t you rather I meet her when we’re both ready?”

“When you’re ready?” he points out. 

“Luca, where is this all coming from?” you repeat your question, this time more sure, a deep concern in your eyes as you drop your arms to your side. You sit down on the bed next to him this time, wanting him to know that you’re on his side. 

“It’s-,” he starts, before letting out another frustrated sigh. “I know that you’ve needed us to take things slow… but it’s been months and I just don’t understand how you’re still not ready.”

His insistence that you’re not ready only continues to frustrate you

“I’m not! That’s not what’s happening here,” you defend yourself. “Luca, please. I am ready. But meeting your mom is a whole different thing especially when, shit, babe. Especially when I’m navigating this loss and… and when you’re pressuring me like this!” 

He scoffs, “You’re just scared.”

“I-. That’s not-. Yes, I am, and so far I’ve pushed through my fears because I want to be with you. Because I love being with you, Luca,” you insist, angling your body towards him this time. 

“But right now this all feels pretty unfair and I just don’t know why, suddenly, you need me to do this. I mean, if it was this important to you we should’ve talked about it before we came.”

You pause once more, because really, you’d just like to understand why you’re fighting in the first place. 

“Why is this suddenly so important for you?”

“Because I need to know-,” he snaps, finally turning to you. “I need to know that you feel the same way that I-. Because I-.”

You know what he’s about to say so you cut him off, knowing that, regardless of whatever’s got him so tied up into knots, it’s not the right time for either of you. 

“Don’t,” you beg him, reaching out to grab his hand with yours. Luca looks up at you, returning your gaze this time and the disappointment in his eyes breaks your heart for a third time today. 

“Please, don’t say it. Not right now. Not while we’re fighting. I don’t want the first time we say it to be when we’re fighting.”

There are so many things Luca wants to say, but instead, he doesn’t, too afraid the words will tumble out of his mouth because he knows it’s not the right time either. So instead, he sits there, wondering how he got himself caught up in this mess. 

“I think I should go for a walk,” you say, breaking the thick silence between you. “Think we need to take a break… from this conversation. Before either of us say anything we don’t mean.”

“I promise. I’ll come back. I promise,” you reassure him. 

“Okay,” he finally says, agreeing with you that maybe you both need a time out from this conversation. 

“Okay.” 

You can’t help it, but you can’t get out of there fast enough. With your jacket wrapped tightly around you, you wander the city for as long as you need to, especially since the tears have come back. 

You can only imagine that it’s not been easy for Luca to have accompanied you to the funeral today, but you can’t seem to figure out what would’ve set him off like this – what could’ve filled him with so much doubt and so much urgency. You wonder what his mother must’ve said to him, wonder if something she said got into his head about your relationship. You know you’re not a walk in the park, but doesn’t everyone come with their own set of baggage? 

The answer is simple. You take a time out, then you and Luca talk this all out when you get back to the hotel. You have no intention of running away, as much as the lesser parts of you would like to do nothing but, because you’re in this. 

You know you’re in this, and even though it doesn’t seem like it, you know that Luca can feel it too. 

Your mind wanders over to what he almost said. 

I love you. 

And you love him too. 

The words have felt more and more prominent as of late, lingering in every goodbye, hanging heavy in the air as he’s held your hand through your grief, on the cusp of being said every time you make love. 

Suddenly, overcome with the urge to tell him, you turn around, power-walking towards the hotel. He said it earlier, that he just needed to know that you felt the same way, and while there is so much more you need to talk out, this feels like a good place to start. 

And more than anything, it feels like the thing that you need to do. 

You come bursting through the doors to the hotel room, finding Luca there, still pacing. His jacket is thrown on the bed in a different place, and you gather that he must’ve gone out for his own walk as well. 

“Hi,” he greets you, almost as if he’s surprised that you came back. 

“I came back,” is all you say. 

He nods slowly, before taking a seat on the bed once more, “Yeah.”

You walk towards him so that you’re now standing in front of him again.

“We have… so much to talk about… but… my walk made one thing clear,” you begin, cradling his head in your hands and lifting it to your gaze as you kneel down. “There’s something I-. I have to tell you that….”

His eyes meet yours as you finally say it: 

“I love you, Luca.” 

Overcome with a swell of emotions, Luca pulls you in, kissing you as you crawl onto his lap. You press your lips to his in a passionate kiss, and while he entertains you for a few more moments, he finally pulls away with a chuckle. 

“What?”

“It’s just that-. Well, I wanted to say it first,” Luca chuckles, earning a laugh from you as well. 

“Well sometimes things happen unexpectedly. Like meeting you,” you say, pressing your forehead against his as you whisper the words against his lips. “And I need you to know… that that was the very best thing. You are the very best thing.”

“I’m sorry about earlier. I should’ve been more considerate. It’s not like we’re here for a holiday or anything-,” Luca begins to apologize, now that he’s come down from whatever had possessed him earlier. 

“You’re right. I wasn’t being fair to you, my love.”

“No it’s-, you needed to hear how I felt. And I get it now. This… whole trip has been… weird, I know,” you catch up to him, wanting him to know that you understand. “But I so appreciate you owning your part in it too.”

“My mum just, I don’t know. She got in my head. Had me overthinkin’... About us. Made me realize that I’ve got a lot more on the line here to lose,” Luca tries to explain as you leave soft kisses across his face. 

“And what does that mean?” you ask him playfully, knowing exactly where this could go. 

“It means that,” he starts, a cheeky smile on his face, before Luca leans in for another kiss. This time, he whispers the words against your lips. 

“That I love you too. So, so much.”

 -------------------------------

You’ve asked, requested, demanded really, time and time again to see photos, but as you sit in Luca’s mum’s home, staring at a photo of a young, rebellious, teenage Luca, it’s better than you could’ve ever imagined. 

“And that was his ‘I just want to be normal like the riff raff that he was runnin’ around with’ phase,'' his mother, Elaine, explains over your fit of giggles. 

“Oh mum. Can we not, please?” Luca groans, shooting his mother a playful glare. 

“He insisted that ‘Luca’ was too strange of a name. Not a proper English name either. Insisted I call him ‘Lucas’ so, yes, this is Lucas,” Elaine continues to share, against her son’s wishes. 

“God, that’s so embarrassing. I don’t know why I wanted this to happen in the first place,” Luca sighs, looking from you to his mother.

“Oh honey, I think I just fell in love with you all over again,” you giggle, giving his knee a squeeze under the table. “And yes, Elaine. I will be taking this photo with me. Think we should hang it on the fridge.”

Luca groans again, while Elaine exchanges a glance with her son, an entire conversation being had with just a shared look. 

As Elaine continues to share another photo of ‘Lucas,’ pouring over old family photos and memories, you’re sure that this man is the love of your life. 

You’ve had first love, the naive kind that breaks your heart because it’s the first time that you’ve ever felt this way before – the good and the bad. And then there was Joe, who somehow encompassed the feeling of being forever young, while being the love that grew you up too. But this? Loving Luca makes you feel safe and wild at the same time – like at any moment you could take a risk, knowing that you’ll always have a safe place to land. 

And as you look to Luca, watching him beg his mum not to embarass him any further, you smile knowingly, because you can feel that this is it. 

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

It’s the night you launch your Winter menu, and while you recognize that if any of your signature dishes came off the menu, there would be riots in the streets, you’re more than excited (yes, and definitely a little nervous) about the cozy additions you and Mathilde have dreamed up. 

At your pre-shift standup, your wait staff take turns practicing how to talk about some of the new dishes on the menu, and while you trust them to handle this one with care, you feel it’s important for you to speak on this one. 

“And this is the final dish that we’ve added to our winter menu,” you begin, pausing before you share. 

“As most of you know, I lost my former mother-in-law almost two months ago and um. Well, she taught me everything I know about Japanese cooking. So this is a dish for her: a red miso ramen with white miso-glazed kabocha squash, enoki mushrooms, ajitama and pickled green onions. It’s um. It’s a very personal dish to me, so I hope you enjoy.”

You watch as your staff, front and back of house, dive into the ramen bowls, trying the last dish you have to go over as a team, their faces lighting up with pure glee and sheer delight in response to the dish. 

Your phone buzzes in your apron pocket, and as you pull it out, you see a few texts from your group message with the Kimuras, in response to the photos you sent of your finished dish. 

Astrid: OMG it’s beautiful! 

Lina: I’m hungry now. Save us some!!

Joe: She would’ve loved it. :)

“Looks like I’m right on time,” you hear a familiar voice say, pulling your focus from your phone to the front door. 

“Luca! What’re you doing here?” you ask him, as you shove your phone back into your pocket, moving towards him. 

“I know it’s a big night for you. Thought I’d come in a bit later but Mathilde invited me to the standup. Thought you may need a little additional support,” Luca shrugs, as you give him a soft ‘hello’ peck on the lips. 

“Yeah, no I-. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I just introduced the ramen, actually. Aiko’s dish,” you reply, the smile on your face undeniable as you're filled with nothing but joy and love for the man that stands in front of you. “But let me make you up a bowl.”

“I’d love that,” Luca nods in agreement. 

You make your way back to the open kitchen, watching as Jesper pulls up a chair for Luca, right next to yours. Mathilde is quick to offer him a smaller plate, welcoming him in with open arms. As you plate your dish, you can’t take your eyes off of him, and you have to remind yourself that you do need to make up this bowl of ramen at some point. 

But seeing Luca here with your team – here to support you on your big night, on a night that you’re sharing your whole heart in one bowl of noodles – you’re overcome with a deep sense of gratitude that you get to be the one who loves him. You think back to the day you met, so glad that that evening was slow, that he chose to leave the box of pastries, that he asked you to come to AOC, because if he hadn’t, who knows where you’d be? 

You walk the ramen bowl back to the table, setting it down in front of Luca with a kiss to his cheek as a bonus, as you sit down in the chair next to him. He smiles at you, a glimmer in his eyes that says, ‘thank you, my love.’

You smile back, thinking about what he said earlier, when he first walked in this evening because the double meaning isn’t lost on you. 

And because he’s right. 

Maybe, he’s always been right on time.

[mossygirl333]

Bakery List ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

@bunnys-kisses gave me this wonderful idea and I really wanted to do this!

How can I take your order today?

We usually serve, X-men, Call of Duty, Supernatural, Baldurs Gate 3, and my own oc Cameron Sinclair <3 (Join our Cam club, he has a nice mom :D)

if you’d like me to add anything onto the bakery list, I’d love to know!

Feel free to add anything you don't find on this list in your order <3

(I DO NOT WRITE NONCON- graphic rape scenes make me feel extremally uncomfortable. I don't do scat, piss, ageplay, underage characters, torture, necrophilia, ext).

The inbox is currently ~ OPEN!

Main Course~

Coffee ice cream- "I've never done this before."

Marble cake- “Pose for the camera.”

Red Velvet Cake - "Swallow.”

Lemon Meringue Pie- "Wanna wear my cum as lipgloss?"

Tiramisu- "Oh you're a drunk stupid thing arent you?"

Infused Chocolate Cake- "C'mon, take a few more hits. Getting high huh?"

Banana Split - "Oh don't worry, I'll make it fit."

Oatmeal Cookie - "You're a virgin? Don't worry your pretty little head about it, I'll teach you."

Crême Brûlée- “shhh, wouldn’t want them to hear would you?”

Upside-down cake- “don’t play coy, you know exactly what you’re doing.”

Pineapple Pound Cake- “you wanted me to be rough with you, so I’m being rough with you.”

Strawberry Sweet Roll- “Feels so good you’re crying?”

Blueberry Cheesecake- “this night ends with you pregnant.”

Carrot Cake- "You're such a pretty girl. C'mon, say it. You're a pretty girl.

Caramel Brownies- "Mark. Me."

Chocolate Croissants- "Trying to make me jealous?"

Cream Cheese Danish- "Your daddy would hate to see you here with me"

Strudel- "Good luck hiding these Hickies."

Eclair- "Let me finish inside."

Ice Cream Cake- "Please...just tonight."

Chocolate Mousse- "You look pretty fucked dumb."

French Toast- "No one has to know..."

Strawberry shortcake - “You can't expect me to keep my hands off you.”

Sundae - “Don't you need the money?”

Pudding - “Well, well, well, look at what we have here.”

Black forest cake - “You were asking for it.”

Chocolate Custard - “Harder…I said HARDER.”

Flourless cake - “A promise is a promise.”

Drink~

Hot Chocolate- Gentle Sex

Monster Energy- Masochism

Matcha- Size Kink

Hawaiian Cocktail- Bondage

New York Lemonade- Choking

Jitterbug- Praise

Strawberry Milk- Public Sex

Lavender Tea- Somnophilia

Vanilla Milkshake- Aphrodisiacs/sex pollen

Gin and Tonic- One night stand

Bloody Marry- Vampire Au/ Blood sucking

Scotch Sour- Degration

Mocktail- Pregnancy

Daiquiri- Breeding Kink

Jello Shots- Aftercare

Tea- Sub reader

Tequila- Dom reader

Kool-Aid- Virgin/inexperienced reader

Coca-cola- virgin/inexperienced character

Strawberry Daiquiri- Bimbo Reader

Screwdriver - spanking

Boba Tea - body worship

Cappuccino - overstimulation

Sippin' Cream - threesome

Martini - Mafia AU

[kayr0ss]

Waters of March (ch. 1 of 2)

[Dungeon Meshi / Delicious in Dungeon, Farcille, Fluff & Humor, Established Relationship, Married Farcille, Falin is doing her best, Marcille is stressed] AO3 Link

Summary: The misadventures of Falin Touden as she gathers gifts to woo her wife.

-

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

They said that she was something fearsome to behold: with sharp, draconic eyes and a glorious cover of feathers. They said that she had the strength of a dragon, tempered by justice and kindness—a figure of legend—as terrifying as she was fair. And yet...

The baker fidgeted with his hands, swallowed, stuttered: “...Your Highness?”

And yet it was hard to think of her like that when she was hunched over a tray of raspberry tarts and croissants, visibly distressed by the burden of making the right pastry choice.

She was so normal that he could feel his mind slip into cognitive dissonance, refusing to believe that the Duchess of Melini was pacing around his pastry shop in a crumpled cloak. Her hair was disheveled, her expression forlorn. She pulled her collar further up her neck, a miserable attempt at hiding her tufts of feathers, offering a small yet weary smile to the townsfolk beginning to gawk into his shop window.

“Oh, please don’t call me that,” she asked kindly. “I didn’t mean to cause a scene at your workplace.”

Yes. Of course. Nothing to see here, just Falin Touden—Falin Touden!—sighing despondently at a box of chocolate treats. The baker was a bit lost for words, hovering awkwardly behind the counter while she scanned the shelves. Sure, okay, they were right about the feathers—but where he had expected mystery, or perhaps authority, he instead found a soft and gentle kindness. Even a little bit of awkwardness, if the way she fidgeted with her fingers was any indication.

She caught sight of his more peculiar treats: hardened chocolates shaped in the form of coin bugs. Was that awestruck wonder shining in her dragon's eyes?

"My apologies." He bowed, struggling to drop the honorific. She gave him a lighthearted wave.

Falin Touden circled the bakery for another while yet, her attention constantly pulled this way and that—there she fawned over caramel crickets, here she stared at a tray of macarons with studious intensity. The king's sister had tastes as peculiar as the Devourer himself, it seems, with the way she kept gravitating back towards his more.... monstrous design choices. He was about to tell her all about them, too—about how the molding chocolate was made from cacao beans found further east than Izganda, or how he'd spent years practicing his tempering technique—but she beat him to the punch with a question.

“Are you married?”

A very peculiar question too!

“For nearly two decades now, my lady.” He watched as she looked through the pie display a third time over. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I know how that feels,” Falin smiled wistfully. She toyed with the golden band at her left hand absentmindedly. He wondered if she even realized she did that. “Maybe you can offer me a bit of advice?”

“Advice?”

"You see," her smile turned sheepish, “my wife is furious with me.”

-

They had minimized the choices to 'puff pastry' and 'raspberry'—which didn't really make it that much easier. Helping clients figure out the perfect gift for a loved one was second nature to the baker by now, but dissuading someone from buying their spouse an eight-pound hydra statue was definitely... a first.

He had a few samples to show her, laid out on a spread on the counter. There were tarts, turnovers, pies, danishes—and while they weren't all filled with raspberries, he assured her that it would be of minimal effort to have a custom order made.

She regarded them with delight, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the display of perfect, golden, flaky dough.

"Oh," she sighed dreamily. "They look wonderful. I could eat them all!"

"We could also make strudels," the baker offered, suddenly excited. Did the Royal Sorceress enjoy strudels? Perhaps something more dignified like: "Twists! Although palmiers are good option as well—drizzled with syrup, dusted off with fine sugar—"

The barrage of choices seems to have overwhelmed the poor woman, now blinking wide-eyed at the baker who very quickly schooled his demeanor. "My apologies, Your Highness!" He squawked, wincing at the way the title made her jump. "My excitement got the better of me."

"It's alright," she said with a laugh.

The baker hummed for a thoughtful minute. "What about mille-feuille?"

"Mill—um, what?"

"They're little rectangles of puff pastry, folded over and over again until each layer is so thin that they're almost like the pages of a book!" He smiled. "We could use raspberry cream, layered in between."

Her small, charmed gasp let him know he hit the nail on the head. "Like the tomes she pores over day-by-day!"

He ran behind the counter, reaching into his display where he had samples. "These are layered with simple buttercream—" he placed the tray in front of her "—but it would look something like this." This batch had come out handsomely: a dozen little rectangles, cut to perfection. There were three layers of puff pastry, each of their pages so thin he feared a stray breath of air might chip away the corners. A generous spread of cream lay between them, finished off with a dusting of fine sugar. While some of his clients liked things a little messy-looking, opting for the casual shapelessness of goopy drop cookies and uneven brownies, others liked symmetric perfection. Lady Donato seemed to be the latter, if his impression of her was sound: a stern, intelligent, and practical presence above the King's shoulder. Yes. It was settled. Mille-feuille would do.

She was in a much better mood by the time they had ironed out the details of her order—her shoulders relaxed, feathers almost settled in relief.

"I'm glad this place hasn't changed that much," she commented off-handedly while counting her coins. (He offered the pastries for free—she vehemently refused.)

"Have you been here before?"

"Mhm," she nods. "When Melini was still just an island, my brother and I would come here after particularly rewarding dungeon runs."

He paled. Her brother? The—"The King?"

"We probably seemed so different back then."

It's a bit of a blur—but he has faint memories of a scraggly pair of siblings with ash-blonde hair. They were too thin for the weapons they carried—the young man had barely filled out enough to fit his jerkin. Both had innocent, amber eyes—too hopeful and naive for this world.

It couldn't be...

"Well, I've got someone to meet." Falin Touden said, climbing out his back window. Why was she climbing out his back window? "I'll pick them up later this afternoon!"

She waved, threw her legs over the ledge, and was off.

-

"I'm still mad at you!" Marcille grumbled.

She looked so very vexed—an interesting contrast to how gently she was straightening out Falin's collar, smoothing out her feathers until they lay flat and presentable.

"But!" Marcille punctuated with an accusatory finger to Falin's chest. "You shouldn't miss lunch, you know that your metabolism is different now."

Lunch. The whole affair of finding the perfect pastry had caused Falin to miss it.

Marcille was right—her appetite was different now. It ran deep, as though it was more than just the physical sensation of needing to eat. Falin's hunger had grown with her strength. Marcille (and Laios!) had sat her down and forced her to endure lecture upon lecture on the intricacies of tall-man and dragon physiology—it almost felt like academy lessons! Stronger muscles, sharper eyes, deeper mana—all of that meant she needed more energy, and a regular tall-man's stomach could only digest so much. She'd just have to eat more. A lot more. It was a bit troublesome on her travels, but her days back home have become a joyful assortment of extra brunches, second dinners, and justified treats in-between.

How wonderful it was—the fact that the two people she loved the most had the perfect intersection of knowledge to help her.

Although today was not the day to be skipping her all-important meals: she'd planned to spend an hour or two foraging for magical plants with Senshi in the nearby woods. When she arrived at their meeting place outside the castle, Marcille was already there—glowering at her with one hand on her hip, a bag of packed lunch and travel snacks in the other. She had shoved it into Falin's hands before fussing over the disheveled state of her clothing.

"Sorry," Falin said earnestly, hoping to soothe Marcille's sharp temper. It was a hot, overbearing day. The humidity probably wasn't helping her mood. A sheen of sweat covered Marcille's forehead, and she had grown flushed from the heat. So beautiful—even while she huffed and puffed and pouted. Falin felt a wave of affection as overbearing as the heat of the sun on their backs.

She really, really needed to make it up to her today.

"Don't be late for dinner," Marcille mumbled, crossing her arms.

"Of course." Falin promised.

"Keep her alive for me?" Marcille said towards Senshi, who had been here the whole time but was very good at pretending he was somewhere else completely.

He held a thumbs up. "She'll probably be keeping me alive for you, lass."

That made her laugh a little, and Falin was going to have to thank him for that later. Marcille leaned over to give him a small hug. Falin followed, hoping to get one too, leaning forward to place her hands on Marcille's waist, but—

No such luck—Marcille swatted her away. "Uh-uh!" she tutted. "You're not off the hook!"

She pulled back, holding her hands up in resignation. She wasn't trying to pout—really, she wasn't—but there was a small crack in Marcille's resolve when she did and Falin was willing to take her chances. Marcille was stubborn, though. A stubborn (and wonderful) woman who simply would not give in just yet.

With a final round of goodbyes and reminders, Marcille finally walked (stomped?) back into the castle, seemingly in a better mood than she was before.

"What did you do?" Senshi stood beside her as they watched her disappear into the double doors of the gate.

"Well, my mother-in-law is arriving this weekend." Falin fiddled with her sleeve. "And I forgot."

Senshi sighed. Then he brought up a hand to give Falin a firm pat on the back in solidarity.

-

A pollux mushroom can be used as an enchanting reagent, she could almost hear Marcille's voice in her head. You can tell them apart from others by their double-layered caps and bright colors. But they're not edible, even if they look like candy!

They really did look like candy. There was a multicolored bundle of vivid colors that sat nestled by the roots of an aged, mossy willow tree. Falin wanted to eat them. They had gathered a good amount of plants by now, but having these would make their trip worth it twice over. It was the perfect gift to give Marcille—

—if only there wasn't a giant boar between them and the mushrooms.

"Quiet now," Senshi whispered, crouched behind a thicket of bushes they'd been hiding in. She nodded, carefully parting the leaves, her nose twitching at the scent of prey. It was a mean-looking fellow with menacing, curved tusks that jutted out of its lip. It stomped its hooves on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust, looking around as though it could feel their eyes on its back—already on alert.

"Oh, that's a wonderful looking creature right there." There was something in Senshi's voice... some sort of anticipation. Not concern though, there was hardly anything to worry about between the two of them and a boar. But he was tense. Almost as if he was... excited?

"You know what we should do to help with Marcille?"

"What?" she whispered back, her hands tightening around the grip of her mace.

He had sparkles in his eyes—mushrooms forgotten. "Cook her favorite meal."

Their eyes connected.

Falin did her best to fight down a grin. Yes, of course, yes! What a wonderful thought—glazed cutlets of pork layered over pasta, a bit of cabbage, garlic, bean sprouts, egg! She trained her eyes back to the boar—the promise of a wonderful meal—and sank low. She felt for the knife sheathed by her boot. If they did this right, there wouldn't be much of a fight or a mess, and—

Her stomach grumbled so loudly that blood rushed up her neck.

Senshi dropped his face into his palms.

Falin chucked nervously.

The boar had whipped its head towards them.

It let out a monstrous squeal—pounding its hooves against the dirt. There was a minute of sweet, tense, silence before it bolted right towards them.

Falin swung on instinct—knife forgotten—her arm throwing her mace in arc effortlessly while Senshi rolled out of the way in an expert maneuver—

"Don't ruin it!" Senshi scolded. She blinked in surprise, changing the trajectory of her mace in the last minute before hitting dirt. "We need it intact around the shoulders—" he dodged a hoof "—and the legs for some ham, and—" Falin jumped back, eyes wide, nearly getting impaled by a tusk "—even the head, for stew!"

"That's the whole boar!" Falin whined. "Where else am I supposed to hit it?!"

"Knife it in the neck!" He deflected another kick with his axe. "Wait—no—the jowl is wonderful for—"

"Sorry Senshi," she growled, rolling over, steadying herself and gripping her mace with both hands. She really hoped she wouldn't have to walk back to the castle covered in blood with a boar slung over her shoulder. "I'm going to bash its head in."

-

She showed up to the castle covered in blood with a boar slung over her shoulders.

While the staff and been gracefully quiet about her ridiculous appearance on the way in, Chilchuck—on his way out from a labor meeting with the council sans Falin—had screeched at the sight of her, shivering hard enough that she swore the hairs on his arms stood on end.

"Falin!"

"Hey, Chilchuck." Falin looked around. "Marcille—"

"—is in a terrible mood!" Chilchuck growled, already pushing her (and the boar by proxy) towards the kitchens. "Negotiations were close to falling out this afternoon," he rattled on, "she's already terrorizing Kabru and your brother—if she sees you looking like you just murdered someone she's going to be an even bigger pain in our asses!"

"Well, I sort of did?"

"Unhelpful!" He whipped his head towards Senshi, who was whistling innocently behind them. "And you! Did you put her up to this?"

"I just made a suggestion."

Chilchuck pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course you did."

"He was just trying to help," Falin pouted. She muttered a small thanks to the kitchen staff that had unloaded the boar from her back. "I've been trying to put together a few things to give to Marcille, since she's upset with me at the moment."

Chilchuck scratched at the back of his neck, scowling. "She did seem unusually ornery at the meeting today."

"Yeah," Falin sighed. "Senshi suggested we put together her favorite meal, something like the one he prepared for her back in the dungeon. I've already ordered some pastries for dessert."

They lingered in the back of the kitchen, watching as Senshi climbed onto a stool to look over the fresh boar carcass, butcher's knife in hand. He instructed the rest of the staff well, happy to have their help butchering it. She'd spent enough time under his tutelage to understand his process: He'd make pulled pork and sausages from the shoulder and cure some of the belly for bacon. The rest of the belly he would stuff with herbs and lemongrass and aromatics, rolling it up with twine and roasting in an oven before crackling the skin with scalding oil. He called that one pork belly lechon roll—and just the thought of it made her mouth water: the crackle of the skin, offering slight resistance before it gave in to tender, juicy meat covered in a delectable layer of fat that melted in your mouth.

There were the usual cuts of meat, too: ham out of its haunches, short ribs pulled apart for sour soup. He got to the head and—well, she was very good at clubbing things to their death so probably no stew this time, sadly.

Chilchuck considered her plans. "That's a good call, actually."

She beamed.

"She's probably irritable ‘cause she hasn't been able to catch a break for a good meal today." He rubbed at his chin. "What did you even do?"

Falin didn't really fancy being asked the second time in the same day, so she was glad when Senshi looked over his shoulder and answered for her. Though her relief was immediately replaced with concern at how pale Chilchuck had gone.

"Falin." He covered his face with his hands. "You done fucked up."

"Is it—" she blinked. "Is it really so bad?"

"In-laws are the most complicated part of marriage!" He grabbed her by the arms, as though shaken by some long-buried anxiety. "You need to buy her flowers! And—" he gave her a once-over from head to toe, shaking his head in disappointment. "We can go to the markets later to get some, but first you have to clean up, we're not walking around the city with you covered in blood!"

"I can’t cook with you two stirring so much of a fuss!" Senshi grumbled from his perch atop the stool. "You two go take care of finding Marcille's flowers, and I'll make sure dinner is ready by the time you get back."

Next thing she knew she was being pulled out of the kitchens, Chilchuck's hand around her wrist while he stomped back into the castle's main hall in a way that reminded her of her father.

"Um," she looked up at the elaborate clock on the far side of the hall, having to bend downwards so that Chilchuck could comfortably pull her along. It was three and a half hours past noon, which meant Marcille might be back in their quarters to rest. She'd need to figure out how to get changed without being spotted. She thumbed her chin, aimlessly following Chilchuck while he led her through the castle, wondering if maybe she'd left a shirt or two in Laios' chambers—or maybe borrow one of his? Surely it was better than this—stained deep with blood still fresh from the animal. Yes. Okay. Laios' chambers it is. They reached the hallway that led to the royal wing and Chilchuck finally let go. "I'll wait over here," he sank into one of the visiting couches.

She realized that she'd have to pass by the entrance to her and Marcille's chambers on the way to Laois. Not wanting to risk any premature meetings, she looked around, and found the appropriate detour.

She pointed at a window.

"I'm going to go this way."

"That's a window."

"I know."

"You know what," Chilchuck threw his hands up. "Whatever."

-

So, maybe the detour wasn't entirely necessary—but it was fun! From out here, she had a good hypothetical view of the town below: how the city sprawled outwards and then thinned before turning into golden fields that rolled on and on. Hypothetical because, well, it was hard to sight-see with your front pressed against the wall, holding on by the edges of your fingers and the lip of your boots.

The royal wing was, in reality, a random tower in the corner of the castle that had sections converted to separate apartments with rooms, kitchens, and living areas. The former royal wing was too much for any of them: Laios decided there were better uses for such grand, extravagant spaces.

She dropped lower when she passed by several windows that she knew opened up to her and Marcille's chambers—the first was their bedroom window, the second was their living area, and last was a small little square that let a breeze into their kitchen. She knew the way fairly well by now and was familiar with which of the bricks jutted out of the walls just right enough to be a hand hold. Overall, she was thrilled by the height and air that whipped around her.

It wasn't long before she spotted it: Laios' window on the opposite side of the tower. She bit her lip and scaled the few dozen feet that remained.

-

Laios—who was bored out of his mind after that god-awful meeting—had found reprieve from said boredom in the form of a bloodied hand coming up to claw at his windowsill.

He gasped and startled up to his feet, grasping reflexively towards where Kensuke rested on his hip before realizing that he'd left Kensuke out in a dungeon. (Nevermind that he was wearing lounge wear instead of armor.) There was some shuffling and then another hand came up, dirtied and smudged with blood under its fingernails. Laios couldn't help the panic and morbid excitement that filled him. Could it have been a zombie? A ghoul? He'd never heard of them having the inclination to scale walls—much less several stories up! Massive changes in its ecosystem often pushed deviations in monster behavior, though. Perhaps it was cornered into finding a new habitat?

But most importantly (and it made his breath shudder oh so sweetly to think of it), if it was near him—a monster—did it mean—could the curse have possibly been—?!

A mop of ash blonde hair bobbed into view, followed by a pair of amber eyes identical to his.

He sunk back into the couch. "Oh. It's just you, Falin."

Falin knitted her eyebrows. "Good to see you too?"

Whatever complaints he had were snuffed out when she pulled herself up and over his windowsill. She looked terrible—covered in blood from what looked to be a shoulder wound. "Falin?" He was quick on his feet, setting a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder with a scowl on his face. The surge of mana to his hand was almost instinctive—seeking to mend together whatever flesh might have still been undone—but she softly pushed him away.

"I'm okay," she reassured. "That's animal blood. I hunted."

"Oh!" What a relief. "Good," he looked out his window curiously. "Why did you come in through the window?"

"Hiding from Marcille," she admitted sheepishly. "Did I leave any spare clothes here by chance? Or could I borrow a shirt? I just need to—" she gestured vaguely towards herself.

There was a knock on his door. The siblings fell silent.

"Laois?"

Their heads whipped towards each other, a panicked stare between them. "That's Marcille," he whispered, grabbing onto her arm. She had grabbed it back.

"I know!"

He looked down at her shirt. "Oh, you've got to hide."

"I'm trying!"

There was another knock, more insistent this time. "Hello, Laios?"

"I know!" He whispered, already pushing her back out the way she came in. "You gotta—" he grunted, giving her a half-hearted shove.

"Brother!” She whined, grabbing onto the edges of the window frame. "Careful!"

"I thought you were good at climbing!"

"Well, I’m bad at falling!”

"Hurry!" He glanced back towards the door. If he didn't answer, Marcille might leave. "I'll keep her here. You can scale the wall to your chambers and get changed."

Falin's eyes widened in understanding, her mouth rounding off into an ‘oh!’. She leaned back out the window and pulled her knees up to her chest. She gave him an apologetic smile. "Thank you!" And then she dropped from view, already back out to scale the castle walls.

Laios cleared his throat. Alright. Time to be brother of the year. And maybe brother-in-law of the year, too. He could tell that Marcille was having a rough day of it. Falin's got something planned, he's sure, but there must be something he could do to help other than just stall. Maybe he'll ask for another magic lesson over some tea—teaching always seemed to relax her. He wondered if—if things were different, would Marcille be an instructor by now? Academia suited her quite well.

He walked to meet her at the doorway. "It's open, Marcille. Come in!"

But then, he supposed this suited her just fine as well. Actually doing magic. Inventing all new kinds of it. Using it to help people firsthand. She'd left behind the books and scrolls to chase magic into the depths of the dungeon, after all. Just like he and Falin did.

Laios could hear the knob turn and click open, followed by the creak of his heavy, oak door.

"Hey, Laois." Her voice was tired and a little defeated. As she looked into the room, slow and tentative, Laios noticed how worn out she was: her ears were low and her shoulders heavy. Between Falin upsetting her that morning, and the meeting they'd had to sit through with the labor party—well. He'd probably be better off not bringing any of it up.

"Did you hear if Falin got back yet?"

Laios gulped. "I—uh—"

"I feel bad." She was still holding onto the door knob. "I've been short with her all day. And with you as well.” She paused, chewing at her lip. “I'm sorry. I know she didn't mean to forget our plans, but it's more than just that, it's like… everything's testing me today."

"Why don't you take a break?" He suggested. "I could make some tea." At Marcille's concerned expression, he hastily added—"the normal kind! I promise."

She smiled, even laughed a bit. "Thanks. That... that would be nice."

"I'm sure she'll be back before you know it," he reassured. "Come on in. She's with Senshi, they'll be fine. You know, I asked them to keep track of any changeling circles while they were out there. I've been thinking about how changeling transformations could actually help us understand monster genetics." She followed as he walked to his sitting room. "It seems like they only transform creatures into adjacent types of species—like humanoids to other humanoids, or the gargoyles to statues. Isn't that so interesting? Nightmares look like little clams that we'd never think of as dragons—and yet, there they are! What else? What if kelpies were actually closer to hippogriffs than horses?"

"Isn't that a little... ethically questionable?" Marcille raised an eyebrow.

Laios blinked in genuine surprise. "I hardly expected pushback from you on the grounds of ethics—"

"Hey!"

"I mean it!"

"I suppose there are merits," she admitted, her shoulders already relaxing.  "Aside from the fever, it seemed relatively painless. The only facts we know so far are that the changes are temporary, that the transformations draw from related flora and fauna, and that mass isn’t conserved. So I guess there goes physics? It isn’t quite as straightforward as reshaping the matter we’re made of.”

"Right! Having a regularly accessible patch of them would be great. It would do much for us in terms of animal and monster husbandry," His voice began to swell in excitement. “I mean, imagine being able to transform oversized livestock into something smaller whenever farmers needed to transport them. Temporary resizing!” There was an undeniable twinkle of interest in Marcille's eye while he talked her ear off. Laios allowed himself a self-satisfied smile—Marcille looked to be effectively distracted from her woes!

But just as he thought things were going well, she froze, her eyes glued to his hand. Damn! He tried to hide it behind his back, but it was too late. "Laois?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?" She was rushing forward towards him with a scowl. "Your hand, it's—"

Covered in blood, yes. Likely from Falin's shirt.

He stepped back suspiciously. "It's okay."

"What do you mean?" Marcille was still frowning, but at least she had stopped. She narrowed her eyes. “What did you do?”

"Uhm." Laios stared at the ceiling. "There was... a being." Technically true.

"A being."

"A little guy, yeah." He nodded, swallowed thickly. "It was in trouble."

"So it was bleeding." She paused to consider this. "I'm guessing it was injured?"

Laois looked sideways, beginning to feel sweat under his collar. "Kind of? I helped it."

"You healed it?"

"With my hand." He held it up. She backed away. "Yes."

They stared at each other for another moment still. She finally broke the stretching silence. "Where is it?"

He could feel the prickling heat of panic at the back of his neck. He needed to think of something. Fast. Maybe it escaped out the window? Maybe he could say it was hiding around the room? No, no—Marcille would turn the whole place over just to discover that there wasn't even really an 'it'. Laios tried not to curse, racking his brain for some reasonable explanation that Marcille would believe.

"Laios?"

Something! Anything! Do it for Falin! Marcille was starting to walk towards him, a furrow in her brow. He set his jaw, looked her straight in the eye, and tried his best to keep his voice from cracking while he said:

"I ate it."

It all happened so fast. He didn't even register that the rounded end of Ambrosia was thrust violently into his gut until he heard Marcille's panicked shriek.

"Laios!" She was inching ever closer to a heart-attack every second that passed. Hopefully she wouldn't actually get one—his sister's wrath was rare but formidable!

"Ouch!"

"Spit it out!" she growled, shaking his shoulders. He could feel her fussing over him, her palms buzzing with mana in what he assumed was an attempt to magically detect toxins.

"No!"

Marcille was kicking up a small storm, but that was okay. This was killing time as intended. She rubbed at her temples, already beginning a litany of consequences they'd have to manage if he turned up with food poisoning—again. Something about a dignitary meeting tomorrow, and a public appearance the following day. He didn't worry too much, knowing that there weren't really any gastrointestinal calamities to mitigate, but he was disappointed that her progress towards relaxation had all but come undone—and guilty to have worried her so much.

"I'm fine!" He insisted, holding up his hands (bloody and all) to assuage her.

She was unconvinced. He jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding another jab of Ambrosia's rounded end, and only hoped that Falin's plans were going better than his.

-

"Uhm." The new castle guard nudged at his partner. "Are we getting robbed?"

"Huh?"

"Over there," he pointed to the tower that held the royal family's quarters.

His partner squinted his eyes, lifting a gloved hand to cover the sun's glare. He could see... blue? A fluttering blue coat, scuttling around the walls and—ah. "No, we're not. That's Lady Touden."

The new guy whipped his head back. "What?"

"Yeah, she kind of just… does that."

They watched as she leaped upwards in what looked like an impossible feat of strength, her arm outstretched and hanging on a hand hold. They both whistled. She made it look effortless—easy!

"That's pretty awesome."

"I know, right?!"

-

to be continued

-

A/N:

I promise that the second chapter will be a majority of Marcille and Falin interacting fluff! This is meant to be a one-shot, but it kept winding on and on and was generally fun to write, so it's been split into two chapters. I'm a huge fan of some fluffy slice of life goodness so - here's my attempt at making some! The title is inspired by the song "Águas de março" by Antonio Carlos Jobim & Elise Regina (I'm a big bossa fan!). I really encourage y'all to look up the song and have a minute to yourself with a nice beverage to just relax and chill! The song encapsulates how I feel a Farcille marriage would be: a little bit of everything, ups and downs and little hiccups and stretches of bliss - always circling back to the joy in their hearts ^_^ Many, many thank yous to @saltypyrotato who beta-read this chapter. Your feedback is always so insightful! Ur the best! Some notes: In this fic I refer to Falin as a 'Duchess' - I'm not actually sure if I used it correctly buuuuuut it sounds cool soooo yeah!

[plan-3-tmars]

Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart.

Hey I think the framing of this scene is really fucking cool and I wanna talk about it because I haven't seen anybody do that. yet so. yahooo!! let's get into it

BUT FIRST. Symbolism:

an empty chair can symbolise the absence or memory of someone dear who has passed away. This is very obviously meant to represent Hinako in this scenario

In my interpretation, this scene is Kazui saying goodbye to Hinako and apologising for the circumstances of her death.

The lyrics that play are:

"I’m sure nothing will change and we’ll laugh together and call each other stupid names, so many things I wish i hadn't known, I'm just a coward."

The first part of this verse sounds like he's wishfully thinking about what could've happened after he told her the truth - if anything a bit naively.

Kazui wanted (and still wants) to get the weight of his lies off his chest, but he wasn't ready to face the consequences of that confession, most likely making Hinako's death hit even harder.

Here, he bows to the chair before turning around leaving, a silent goodbye.

~

But what about what's going on in the background of this scene? Well!

As Kazui leaves, these two scenes flash in the background. On the table in the first shot is our good friend the green apple, and Background Kazui picks it up, analyses it, before biting it.

So let's go for another symbolism refresher!!

Green apples can sometimes represent platonic relationships, like friendship, but in Kazui's case this takes the form of a sin - as not loving Hinako romantically is what he's lying about - making it a reference to the Garden of Eden story.

Going from that, biting into an apple can represent feeding into temptation.

My interpretation of this scene is Pre-Marriage Kazui indulging in his 'sin', which in my opinion is the fact he's gay.

Let's go back to that lyric shall we:

"I’m sure nothing will change and we’ll laugh together and call each other stupid names, so many things I wish i hadn't known, I'm just a coward."

So many things you wish you hadn't known huh.. Not knowing you were gay would sure make lying to your wife a whole lot easier wouldn't it?

"What I gave up a long time ago, why is it questioning me now? So many things that I should now have known, I'm just a coward"

Woohoo evidence for Background Kazui being Pre-Marriage Kazui!!!

I think this scene is the last time Kazui let himself be free before marrying Hinako. This could possibly have been when he noticed she had a crush on him at their work.

He's indulging one last time. Embracing his sin instead of hiding it away one. last. time. before giving it up for good, almost like a. goodbye.

~

So. I think this scene is framed this way in order to show the parallel of Kazui giving up his sin, and Kazui mourning Hinako's death.

As established, they both have a "goodbye, I'm sorry things turned out this way" atmosphere to them. Kazui is apologetic, in a way, that he has to give up on being his true self and he is apologetic of his lies murdering Hinako, so Milgram conveys this by showing the two scenes posed the same way in front of one another.

This framing also gives the scene a Beginning Vs End feeling that I think is really cool, and the use of Dark Vs Light colours only heightens that! (Though that's slightly off topic rip)

Conclusion? I love this scene it's awesome and amazing and super cool

[amazing-spiderlad]

I'm obsessed with Silas Holst (Danish kevin price) and his husband's wedding photo btw

Like this is the most gay guy image I've ever seen... Beer in one hand, husband's ass in the other, all is as it should be.

Also like low key this is so mcpriceley coded- Picture them getting married a few years after they leave the church, you can't tell me Kevin wouldn't be a heavy drinker lmao look at the coffee scene-

[period-dramallama]

Becoming Elizabeth: the autopsy

I just realised I never did a review of episode 8. Lol. Lmao even. This isn't an episode review but rather a discussion of the show upon rewatch.

Basically this is a show where the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts.

When I talk about the problems with the writing, I generally mean the narrative choices. The literal writing itself is good. Particularly for Tommy S, because those funny and witty/endearing lines explain his charm and why he is able to win over people and make them think he's a nice guy he's a funny guy he's a lovable rogue he's an adventurer. Tommy S does need to have some charm/charisma in order to be an effective villain. He can't go around being obviously evil.

There are still too many F words, but i was pleasantly surprised that there weren't as many as I remembered. And some F words I couldn't bear to part with: "The fuck is that?" And "what the fuck is wrong with you?!" In episode 5 for example.

I've seen some people say that the quality of the writing dropped in the episodes that aren't Anya Reiss but.... I think the quality of the writing was consistent. The iconic "I wish to take my c***ing bath" was not in an Anya episode, and neither was one of my favourite scenes in the whole show (yes it's the Dudley swordfighting training scene but it's an objectively good scene and not just because it's cute boys in fencing gear).

I initially thought episode 7 was my least favourite episode, but looking back there isn't really a good episode or a bad episode. Every episode has something I like and a bunch of stuff I'd change. If I had to pick 2 favourite episodes I'd pick 1 and 6. But because the problems are with narrative choices they're spread across the series. Even in episode 1, we have Elizabeth "I said at 9 i didn't want to marry so a lot would need to happen to change my mind" Tudor suddenly deciding she wants to marry a man she barely knows because hormones and they had a nice conversation one time. The rot set in quickly.

After the first four episodes I started skipping Mary and Tommy S scenes. I won't say any more on Katherine Parr because I've already said all I have to say on her characterisation. I did do some soul searching because I wondered if my dislike of her was subconscious internalised misogyny, given my affection for morally ambiguous male characters. But no, she really does lack both charm and depth.

So why is Becoming Elizabeth so narratively unsatisfying? Aside from Elizabeth being OOC, I think it's that the story feels like it's going around in circles.

Jane and Elizabeth clash. They make up. Then in episode 7 they fall out again. Mary and Edward fight, make up, fight, make up, fight again. Elizabeth realises Tommy S is dangerous, then she forgets, then she realises again. Mary scolds this character and they don't listen and then this character and they don't listen.

Yes character development isn't linear but it isn't circular either. It GOES somewhere. Setup and payoff are mutually reinforcing. It's fun to watch the setup because you know what's coming as a result of it. Payoff is fun because you saw how we got here. But it isn't satisfying to watch something that you know won't result in anything permanent. I don't feel anything watching Jane be tactless to Elizabeth in episode 1 because I know she'll be even MORE tactless in episode 7. And I don't feel anything seeing Elizabeth reach out the hand of friendship to Jane after the recital fiasco because I know in episode 7 they'll just fall out again. Whereas with Mary and Elizabeth they at least end the series with their relationship in a different place (hell).

And I have every sympathy with the writers because I'm up to my eyeballs at editing and I know what it's like to take historical events and try and make a plot and character arcs out of them. But the letter subplot and the Danish marriage subplot were largely fictional anyway. And they kinda went nowhere.

I understand that the showrunners wanted a complex villain in Tommy S. I get it. My favourite characters in this show are people capable of great love and also great harm. But to humanise him you only really needed that conversation with Elizabeth in episode 1 establishing his uncertainty and confusion, and the excellent "goshawk hatching out of a goose egg" scene with Jane. That establishes that he has the ability to be good he just chooses to be awful. So yes, the show really did give him too much screen time. He's not the main character, Elizabeth is! He should not have screen time comparable with her and her siblings! This wasn't supposed to be the Tommy S show! Nobody asked for that!

Gardiner is another problem IMHO. Setting aside the fact he's way too young to be the real Gardiner. He really shouldn't be here. He spent Edward's reign in the Tower. I know he shows up as a result of the fictional plots... so why write those fictional plots to the point you have to bring him in?? Cranmer IS important. You could have had Cranmer pushing Edward to be radical, Ed pushing him to be more lenient, and Daddy Dudley balancing the two. Voila, a dynamic!

And I get that Elizabeth wasn't doing much politically 1550-3 but you could still show her reacting and learning from events around her rather than warping Edward's reign completely out of shape AND making her a side character in her own story.

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK #206:

9 MORE POST-DOGMA DANISH FILMS:

🍿 I probably seen RIDERS OF JUSTICE 12-15 times already, and I just can't get enough of Anders Thomas Jensen's 2020 brilliant thrill ride. It's an absolutely perfect movie, perfectly-told. The level of nuanced cinematic story-telling here is as good as any movie I've seen. It's about fate and chance, the power of coincidences and healing, about grief and mental health, and a fraught relationship between a father and daughter...

Watching it around now is even better, because it's actually a Christmas fairy tale (although a tale that include PTSD, sodomy, death of a mother, sale of a child (alleged), and intense bloodshed and gang violence.) 10/10 re-watch ♻️.

🍿 The new FAMILIES LIKE OURS which just premiered on Danish TV, is my 6th by Thomas Vinterberg, and his first miniseries. It has a terrific premise: Because of rising sea level, flatland Denmark [whose highest hilltop is 186 meter] is about to be completely flooded, and all its citizens must evacuate to other countries. So the nice, middle-class society which was used to life of civility and leisure, become climate refugees among other European countries, who may or may not be interested to have a new flood of immigrants among them.

Instead of creating over-dramatic situations, Vinterberg concentrates on the interpersonal travails of the members of one extended family, some more interesting than others. Eventually, the 7 hour-long saga becomes a bit too lengthy and kind of stodgy - a condensed 2 hour version would have been so much more effective. 4/10.

🍿 LAST ROUND (1993) was Vinterberg's film school graduation short. Young Thomas Bo Larsen has terminal leukemia, so he parties hard in his last night in town. But it's an unconvincing, nervous, childish effort.

🍿 THE IDIOTS WHO STARTED THE PARTY is a celebration of the Dogma 95 movement, on its 25th anniversary in 2020. Exciting recollections by members of the collective, as well as interviews with my old film professor from the University, Peter Schepelern! (Photos Above).

The 10 "Rules of Chastity" which they defined and enforced were gimmicky and off-putting, and out of the 35 movies made in this style, only a few are worth watching today. But it definitely built a highly-successful 'New Wave', it energised a whole generation of local filmmakers, and it re-established the Danish film-scene into an international powerhouse.

🍿 WHEN DANISH FILM CROSSES THE LINE (2020) is another Denmark Radio documentary about the most controversial Danish films, From Benjamin Christensen's 'Häxan' (which I haven't seen yet) and Asta Nielsen's 'The Abyss', to 'A stranger knocks' and Lars von Trier. Denmark was the first country to legalize pornography in 1969, so there's plenty of sex involved, but also violence, animal abuse, profanity and atheism, sometimes all at once. Among the talking heads, Peter Schepelern again puts things in prospective! [*Female Director*]

🍿 ØDELAND (WASTELAND) (2015), an unusual film school short - not from Copenhagen, but from the the town of Odense on Fyn . A live action doomsday dystopia, similar to 'The Road', very low-budget but fully accomplished. A father and his teenage daughter, among the last survivors, must use extreme caution when they run across a deaf, traumatized boy. Found at random on YouTube, and surprised that the director never broke through.

🍿 Susanne Bier directed 6 of Anders Thomas Jensen's manuscripts (including my all-time favorite 'After the wedding'). OPEN HEARTS (2002) is the only one I haven't seen until now. It's different from his usual fare, being a straight love melodrama with a strong, domestic plot; A driving mother causes an accident that paralyses a young man who's preparing to get married. Mixed-up doctor Mads Mikkelsen, the driver's husband, falls in love with the fiancé of the paralyzed man, and eventually leaves his family for her. It's a small mess.

There's a lot of fawning online, both gay and hetero, over sexy Mads Mikkelsen. This film surely created much of this fawning: he is playing here an ordinary guy, not a hero, who's just deliciously lovable. [*Female Director*]

🍿 Also, two of Mads Mikkelsen's earliest films: In his very first film, CAFÉ HECTOR, Mads has a small cameo, while the main character is played by his real-life brother, actor Lars Mikkelsen. An affected little make-believe story about a social outcast pretending to be Travis Bickle who actually gets to stop and kill a real psychopath with a gun. Surprisingly, this is also one of Anders Thomas Jensen's first works as a writer. 1/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿 THE CARETAKER (1997), a little nightmarish Noir about a man watching a woman with binoculars, sees a murder, maybe not. Some surrealist touches, cockroaches crawling in the ceiling, bloody hand - M'eh.

🍿 The "romantic" comedy ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS (2000), my second by Lone Scherfig. But while 'An Education' was wonderful, this one was unpleasant all the way through. Not only the low-cost, indie, badly lit and noisy vibes, but none of the clumsy, meek and fumbling characters were endearing. There are two abusive parents (who fortunately and separately, die), and especially the main dude, Hal-Finn, is a real asshole but whom everybody tolerate. And they all want to learn Italian, for some reason. Pass! [*Female Director*]

🍿

ROSE HOBART was a 1936 experimental collage film, an early re-purposing of found footage. It comprised mostly from snippets of Rose Hobart, the main actress of 'East of Borneo' which Joseph Cornell, the shy avant-garde artist who made it was obsessed with, making it also an early 'fan-edit'. Salvador Dali disrupted in rage during the premier of this film which he attended, claiming that Cornell stole the idea "from Dali subconscious". Selected for the 'National Film Registry' in 2001.

🍿

4 SHORTS BY GERMAN ANIMATOR VOLKER SCHLECHT:

🍿 THE WAITING: "Ecologist Karen Lips lived for several years in a tiny little shack in Costa Rica to observe frogs. When she left the cloud forest for a short time and returned, all the frogs were gone. She set out to find out what happened to them – and encountered a horrible truth. Mysterious deaths occur all over the planet and have a similar pattern. Why have so many species vanished? And what does it all have to do with us?"

This outstanding 2023 science animation of a real-life crime mystery won a bunch of awards at film festivals. 9/10.

🍿 In KAPUTT (2016), two women who were political prisoners in East Germany describe the horrific conditions of forced labor and abuse in the notorious central prison at Hoheneck. Hard watch. 10/10.

🍿 GERMANIA WURST (2008) is a semi-humorous rundown of Germanic history, from the Holy Roman Empire to the present day. He serves it sliced with bouts of sausage making and lively military march music. Terrific! 8/10.

🍿 NOTHING ELSE (2001), Schlecht's second film, more of a mood piece about tiny gestures on a train ride.

🍿

MORE FROM FREAK OF NATURE RICHARD CONDIE:

🍿 Re-watch♻️: Isn't his 1985 THE BIG SNIT the best Canadian movie ever made? Yes, it is. And why is there a giant Goodyear Tire in one of the rooms? 10/10.

🍿 "Moments ago I had everything - Now there's a cow in my nose - Because I opened the stupid door!"

In LA SALLA (1996) a wacky Italian inventor literally loses his head. So much drugs were used during the creations of this film!

🍿 OH, SURE (1977), a very short short about how to make a fool of yourself, even at your old age. Perfect for me.

🍿 In PIGBIRD (1981), a man smuggles a hybrid animal into the country, only to discover too late that it is covered with some nasty ticks. It was actually a PSA for Canadian Customs. 9/10.

🍿 THE APPRENTICE (1991) is another weird, incomprehensible story set in medieval times. Wordless, it's told only through guttural, cacophonous sound effects.

🍿

THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ORCHESTRA is a new documentary about the first woman whom Leonard Bernstein allowed to play with the all-male New York Philarmonic in 1966, and her illustrious career as a double-bass musician. It features some beautiful music, but the old-time sexist theme is told in the typically pedestrian Netflix style, devoid of air and life. [*Female Director*]

🍿

2 WITH ELEANORA PIENTA:

In PLAISIR (2021) she's a young American seeker who doesn't speak French, but nevertheless comes to the south of France to stay in an art/work commune. It's about the inability to communicate, and not being exactly sure what you know and what you want. Female-focused with a distinct female gaze. [*Female Director*]

🍿 LITTLE CABBAGE is a Southern Gothic of a kind. In 1959 Alabama, a young female composer falls for a black man and goes insane. 1/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿

A BUNCH OF SHORTS:

🍿 My first Popeye cartoon, the 1934 A DREAM WALKING. What a terrific piece of art! Popeye and Bluto fight each other to see who will get to save the sleepwalking Olive from the beams of a high-rise construction site. Absolutely thrilling - 10/10.

🍿 "Shag me kindly...?"

LADY PARTS (2018) is the pilot for the series about this all-girl Muslim punk band in Camden. The musicians are one Halal butcher, one Uber driver, one illustrator who sells her art at the open market, and their Niqāb-clad manager working at cheap ladies' lingerie booth. [*Female Director*]

🍿 "Give the kid a bagel!"

A miracle in Brooklyn, and a holiday classic: In 2007 Ken Russell's was challenged to make a film so offensive that even he would want it banned, so he made the absurdist A KITTEN FOR HITLER, with an Oompa-Lumpa playing a little Jewish boy with a swastika tattoo. As much as I hated 'Jo Jo Rabbit'...

🍿 MERMAID (1997), my 5th Pagan/Christian Russian fairy-tale by animator Aleksandr Petrov, done in his recognized style: Pastel oils applied by hand unto glass plates, like moving paintings, making his films seem like blurred dreams.

🍿 When I lived in Norway in 1974, there was a little toddler in the farm, and her favorite TV-characters were the classic KARIUS OG BAKTUS. These two puppets were tooth bacteria that lived in some boy's mouth, and destroyed his teeth. I can see how traumatic was this 1955 horror cartoon for little kids.

🍿 I only watched the Israeli love story SASSI KESHET NEVER EATS FALAFEL (2013) because it had 'Falafel' in its title. It's a stupid reason - just like this film. 1/10.

🍿 "Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty details." Don Herzfeldt's WORLD OF TOMORROW, my second favorite movie of all times. I should start watching it every week... 11/10.

🍿

When I saw the first episode of STONER CATS, I wrote: "I like cats and I like 'stones, so (this) was exactly for me. 5 cats gets stoned when their old lady shares her medicinal delivery stuff with them." But now that I saw the whole first season, I say: Screw that! It was a one joke stretched into an unwatchable lame, thin slop soup. 1/10.  

🍿

(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

[minetteskvareninova]

You're missing the point of that post. It's not about slut shaming and it's not some weird double standard against Rhaenyra & Targaryens. Its the fact that politically, Rhaenyra could've avoided everything very easily but chose not too. Her making really poor choices bc of her entitlement that being Royal, Targaryen, and knowing the prophecy is a big part of her character. It's the fact that Targaryen Exceptionalism, Feudalism & Succession Crisises are really stupid ways of governance and only ruins those around them. This whole system is a house of cards that can be so easily broken simply over hair color. It's almost willful misreading to say it's about slut shaming.

But of course, and that uppity German Struensee would've gotten away with his reforms if only he could keep it in his pants innit Juliana

*sigh* For all of you who still didn't get it:

I used Carolina Mathilda as an example, because unlike book!Rhaenyra (jury's still out on show!Rhaenyra, I honestly get SOME of the reasons why people don't like her, even if my ultimate judgement of her is way more positive) for one reason, and one reason only: she is, both in history and in the movie, unquestionably sympathetic.

For those of you who don't know, En kongelig affaere, or A Royal Affair, is a Danish film that adapts the story of queen Carolina Mathilda of Denmark, whose affair with her mentally ill husband's doctor Johann Friedrich Struensee was used by Struensee's enemies to boosts his charges of treason. The real issue was, of course, court power politics - the king's detachment of reality was so intense he was almost completely incapable of doing his job, and Struensee used that to basically rule in his stead, which of course earned him many enemies. Even worse, his pro-enlightenment policies (although think less Robespierre and more emperor Joseph II.) sparked outrage among the nobility; Joseph II. is an apt comparison here, although he didn't have the added baggage of being a lowborn man seizing power behind the scenes and (allegedly) having an affair with the queen. Jury's still out on whether that particular charge is based on truth, but it's certainly possible, and the movie went with "yes", just because it makes for a better story. In any case, Struensee ended up being executed, while Carolina Mathilda survived, but was torn away from her children and sent into exile. The movie is relatively faithful retelling of a certain quite plausible version of the story, also it has a superb script, great costumes and cast packed to the gills with amazing actors (Mads Mikkelsen, Alicia Vikander, for those in the know also Mikkel Boe Fosgard and Tryne Dyrnholm) - basically, if you can find it, go watch it, after surviving Hot D y'all deserve some real cinema.

Now, in the movie, it's heartbreakingly easy to sympathize with Carolina Mathilda. When she is just a teenager, she is married off to her severely mentally ill cousin, who constantly mistreats her and seems to kinda hate her, plus her affair with Struensee is motivated by genuine romantic feelings. Noone in their right mind would call Carolina Mathilda "entitled" for it (I HOPE). And sure, Rhaenyra is much less miserable than her, but her emotional life is in a similarly hopeless spot, where she can only find actual romance outside of marriage. Plus, unlike Carolina Mathilda, there is no deception involved, at least with her husband - she still has to gaslight the rest of the country, but them's the breaks, what would you have her do, NOT give birth to the prince of my heart Jacaerys Targaryen?! Like, people, you are calling a woman entitled, because she is in a loving monogamous relationship with someone who isn't her (gay) husband. I don't know if it's slut-shaming, but it most certainly isn't FAIR.

What I think confuses people about this comparison is that both book and show!Rhaenyra can be called spoiled and entitled (keyword is CAN; I personally don't agree with this assessment of her either, but let's say for the sake of the argument) for a lot of other things. She has certainly done her fair share of mistakes and I get the general dislike of her - I myself dislike show!Alicent in much the same way, it really depends what actions and character flaws personally irritate you more. But again, having a loving monogamous relationship, with the consent of her husband no less, is just not the kind of mistake I can imagine anyone hating her for. Yes, yes, it is hypocritical to subscribe to a feudal order that abhors bastards while having bastards yourself, but crucially, it's the kind of hypocrisy that many noblemen parttake in with no reprecussions whatsoever, from Corlys to Bobby B. And, again, Rhaenyra's affair with Harwin actually MORE excusable, because unlike Corlys' relationship with Marilda, it doesn't get in the way of an otherwise loving marriage (unless it happened before his marriage to Rhaenys in the show - it didn't in the books, but also in the books the Hull boys might be Laenor's, it's complicated), and unlike Bobby B, she is far from a hedonist serial philanderer. We can debate whether any of that would be WRONG per se, but it certainly would be LESS UNDERSTANDABLE.

It is not entitled to want a fulfilling romantic relationship even in a situation that isn't exactly conductive to it. How is that a hard concept to grasp, I really don't know. Maybe y'all should just read or watch more things dealing with romantic relationships under these circumstances - I highly recommend starting with A Royal Affair, seriously, you guys, it is so good.

[tackypies]

Tacky i NEED to hear more about your opinions on Andersen and his stories. Your post on the Snow Queen got me HOOKED

god forgive me for what i'm about to unleash <audhd

hc andersen has been pigeonholed into being a children-only author by english speakers because of poor translations and european attitudes towards fairy tales. if we're to understand the complexity of his stories, we need to understand a bit about hca as a man, because every single story he's written is autobiographical in some shape, way, or form. he cannot be removed from his stories, because his stories ARE him

hc andersen was born in the provincial danish town of odense in 1805, which lagged behind the "modern" world. it was a unique city because it retained the rural traditions and superstitions of the local folk while also serving as a gathering place for cosmopolitan nobles and rich merchants. this was crucial to hca's development bc he was exposed to one of the few theaters in all of denmark, was able to mingle with the upper classes, and was able to learn his folk roots through stories and practices

his father was a cobbler who harbored dreams of going to school, but never made it. his mother was an illiterate washerwoman, pious and superstitious. hca was a single child - very rare for the time! - and as a result his parents pampered him the best they could despite living in the slums. his father often read stories to him and created puppet theaters out of scrap, while his mother exposed him to folk traditions. there's so much more i could say about his parents, but needless to say his upbringing had such a huge impact on him that you can see them again and again as characters in his stories

andersen was not a typical child. he was dreamy, he was gawky and large, he wove flower garlands and sewed clothes for dolls instead of playing with other boys, and he harbored delusions of grandeur which were encouraged by his family, that he was destined for Greater Things. he was heavily bullied by all the other kids and from an early age on, he sought the company of middle and upper class families by performing (i.e. singing, putting on a show) for them. he IS the ugly duckling. i'm skipping a great deal of things, but long story short is, from an early age hca learned to perform for others in order to be seen as Special and Wanted. he left for copenhagen at the age of 14 to make his "debut" as an actor - despite knowing no one - and had to beg and perform his way into upper class homes once again to garner their pity and financial support

this couldn't have worked out for him in another time. when andersen arrived in copenhagen, the romantic movement was burgeoning. there was the belief that talent could be nurtured and grown if a student was Properly Civilized, and hca happened to be an excellent charity case. he eventually caught the eye of the collins family, who funded his schooling

there's so so many events i'm skipping over once again for the sake of brevity, but the long and short of it is that hca's success as an author - and his financial stability - depended on the collins' patronage for a very long time, to the point where he gained an obsession/crush on edvard collins, the man charged with helping andersen's career. i'm talking about "sending homoerotically charged letters to the guy when he's about to be married and being denied an invitation to said wedding bc the family's afraid you'll cause a scene and make an embarrassment, and also bc you wrote your first draft of the little mermaid based on your conversations with said guy" levels of crush.

as a queer, neurodivergent writer, andersen resonates with me so much. he's very much a writer for those on the outskirts of society. he expressed disapproval over the united states forcing native americans out of their territories and sympathized heavily with jews, at a time when religious tolerance wasn't high. he struggled with his attraction to men and women (he once wrote to edvard collins he desired to kiss him as if edvard were a woman and had an affair with a male dancer in his later years) and his own expression of masculinity, per the gender roles of 19th century europe. he frequently referred to himself as having a "feminine nature" - though this shouldn't be taken as him identifying as a woman (more on that later maybe?)

his stories are heavily christian in their message and symbolism, but you have to remember that this was the cultural language at the time. his relationship with faith can also be seen as his attempt to find faith in humanity - and he has SUCH a rocky relationship with faith throughout his lifetime. his stories are social commentaries as much as entertainment for children - and his later tales illustrate his more metaphorical, cynical side. just look at this chilling summary of "the most incredible thing":

this is commentary that stands true even to this day! holy shit!

hca is a fascinating author who, unfortunately, suffered gravely from poor translations and preconceived notions of what fairy tales are. when you read his stories, you have to read them understanding that 1) how andersen portrays his characters is often reflective of his OWN childhood experiences and 2) what andersen writes is an excising of his internal struggles and questions - questions of faith, of his sexuality, of his views on society, of feeling like an outsider who must always perform up until the very end of his life. his struggles are human - and that's why his stories have such power even to this day

all in all:

(from wullschlager's intro to nunnally's translation:)

if you want to read more about hca, i highly recommend the following books:

biographies

hans christian andersen: european witness - paul binding

hans christian andersen: the life of a storyteller - jackie wullschlager

hans christian andersen: a new life - jen andersen

translations

hans christian andersen: fairy tales - tiina nunnally

the annotated hans christian andersen - maria tatar

[scoutisnthome]

whats the lindworm???

Jay of jayberd fame you have no idea what you have done (unleashed my autism)

The lindworm is a creature (and my favorite little guy) originating in the Danish folktale of the prince lindworm, theoretically arriving in Denmark somewhere around the 1700s.

(read more for people who don't care about my prince lindworm synopsis)

What a lindworm is, is a basically a snake dragon thing? It's hard to describe because reports and descriptions vary in terms of how humanoid it is (my depictions of him air on the more monstrous naga side of things) but the common factor is "insanely huge snake".

The story for this specific lindworm goes that there was a childless king and queen in Denmark, the queen went on a walk in the forest one day and was approached by a witch.

The witch asked her what was wrong and when she said it was because she couldn't concieve the witch gave her a solution. She said to turn over two handled jugs in her garden and leave them over night. In the morning they will have a white rose and a red rose respectively. She should eat the red rose for a boy and a white rose for a girl, but never both.

The queen goes home not expecting much, but when she wakes in the morning she finds the promise roses! She goes back and forth but eventually decides on the white rose, eating it. But apparently said rose is so tasty that she eats the red rose too. Which as stated, is not a good idea .

The queen falls pregnant as promised, and gives birth while the king is at war. And instead of a baby boy or girl, her first child is a baby lindworm, which promptly skitters away into the darkness. The queen thinks she's hallucinating and moves on, giving birth to her second child, a son.

Years later, when the human son is older and ready to be married, he sets off which a horse and carriage to find a bride. The fully grown lindworm blocks his way saying "a bride for me before a bride for you". The younger prince promptly goes home and the queen goes "shit man I thought he was like a vision or something. He is technically the older son tho so I guess we gotta help him get married."

So they do that and they bring a princess from a foreign kingdom too marry the lindworm, which he promptly eats and demands a second bride because apparently it doesn't count. So the entire thing happens a second time with the same result. The king running out of disposable alliances approaches his shepherd, who has one daughter, asking the shepherd to allow his daughter to marry the lindworm. The shepherd refuses but the king doesn't take no for an answer.

So the shepherds daughter goes on a forest walk lamenting her death a little bit and is met by the same witch who talked with the queen. And the queen instructs her that if she is too survive her wedding night she should wear every shift she owns (presumed to be 10 or 9) and when the lindworm tells her to shed a shift (in order to eat her) she should respond by telling him to shed a skin and they go back and forth taking off layers for a while, and then when the shepherds girl is on her final shift she needs to hit him with the whips, throw the liquids at him, and hug him. If only for a moment. She agrees and starts preparations.

The wedding day comes and she is married to the lindworm. And after they are led to the wedding chamber the plan goes off basically without a hitch until the lindworm is a writhing mass on the ground (the body horror makes me insane). She whips him and throws the buckets and VERY NOTABLY IN MY MIND (I'm Ill about it) instead of just hugging him for a moment she picks him up, lays him on the bed and promptly falls asleep cuddling with him. That was NOT in the instructions that was a DELIBERATE act of kindness.

And then he wakes up as a prince and it's happily ever after I guess. But yeah I'm consistently Ill about the skin scene specifically because as stated 1. There were deliberate asks of kindness there on the shepherds girls part that were not required of her, 2. The lindworm isn't stupid at a certain point he HAD to realize what was happening, the fact that he didn't attack her then and there was a show of both immense vulnerability and trust, and 3. The intimacy of it all drives me nuts it's so good. Also something comedy about it is that when asked to remove a skin he says "no one has ever asked me too do that before" which makes him seem almost flustered by the request it's cute.

I think about them constantly and I'm insane about the nuances and symbolism of this story. Also the body horror and my trans lindworm theory (I can go into immense detail). There is both immense comedy, horror, and emotional turmoil in the details of this story and I'm insane about it.

[cctinsleybaxter]

Misc f4rgo thoughts, typed up a few days before the finale and then edited accordingly in italics

Dot going from a morally dubious protagonist* to a truly heroic one is such a great play; blair @/commiegoth had pointed out that the first episode plays as a gendered inversion of the original '96 movie, and taking the series as a whole it also plays as as gendered inversion of Lester's character arc in s1. Juno Temple deserves a billion awards for that performance

The hangup I have re: Dot's escape is that it's inherently tied to finding the 'right' husband, the 'right' family, the 'right' take on Christianity. I wasn't expecting anything radical from Hawley here (the way he both films and talks about abuse is, for the most part, really progressive by TV standards and it's not like we were going to get family abolition), but at least give her more to do than vague allusions to volunteering. she needs hobbies!

(I'd prefer a scenario where she married Wayne solely for social and financial stability and fell in love after the fact. tbh I'd probably still be irritated and calling it half-baked, but I like it better)

(Knowing about Jon Hamm's personal history of racism and abuse also made this kind of an insane watch. It's a good performance but like.)

Ole Munch villain of ALL TIME are you kidding me?? I love the way he talks I love the way he's filmed to look bigger than he already is I love the 'fits, I... have extremely mixed feelings about the way his story ends (why did it turn into the fanfic where they were doing land acknowledgements!!! and not even for area-specific tribes!) Whatever. '500 years ago' smashcut you will always be famous.

I actually really, really liked Joe Keery as Gator as well. Hate seeing him all over the tag, but amazing job at portraying someone who's both a violent menace and a pathetic little boy. Could very easily see Hawley going the route of 'school shooters are insecure babies and deserve our pity uwu' and that's explored but then pity denied- it rules NEVER FUCKING MIND LMAO

Lorraine!!!! Jennifer Jason Leigh's performance grew on me over the course of the season, like, everyone is being very grounded and she is being a 40s actress; she's on another plane of reality and it's so, so good. Her first conversation with Roy is easily my favorite scene in the show and her last conversation with Roy my least favorite; I want Noah Hawley dead for this I'm not kidding

Danish. was there (jk he was also a favorite; great job imbuing what could've been a nothing henchman character with protagonist-of-his-own-story energy, Hawley and the actors he picks out are quite good at that)

(Speaking of, Indira and Witt had much more story in them since they were functionally in roles that had gone to main characters in past seasons. idk how to feel about it, I kind of wanted more of them but was also glad to see the guys on the sidelines getting a chance to shine) Edit: 😒

Mixed feelings about the music- heavy percussion as Munch's theme but then reused for the siege? The pop music? 'Whipping Post' and the cover of 'Toxic' felt especially egregious, but I liked more needle drops than not, and the overall themes were gorgeous

Hated the constant references to Trump. Not because it's out of left field for the show to be doing that, I remember Reagan fondly, but because it's so clear that this entire season is a direct reaction to the Trump presidency. We don't need to see him- let him loom silently in the background

Minneapolis doesn't have a zoo btw. if you even care.

[signalwatch]

Norse Watch: The Northman (2022)

Watched:  04/30/2023

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Eggers

Well.

So, I just finished listening to the audiobook of the translated Völsunga Saga, and then some pals asked if I'd yet seen The Northman (2022), and while those events were unrelated, they did dovetail.  I hadn't quite gotten to the movie despite liking the prior Eggers film I had seen and a general interest in the content.  I was aware of middling opinions of folks on the street (it's got a 64% audience reaction on RT) - with some folks also camping out in the deep like and dislike camps.  But it was a bit of a critical darling.  So, it seemed it was probably doing *something* of interest, even if it wasn't for me.

The movie does it's best to recreate a world that seems almost impossible in its brutality and viciousness, that believes in fates, and the best fate is to die (valiantly) in battle and be swept off to Valhalla by a Valkyrie.  It's a culture that sees sacking and pillaging as a vocation, and vengeance as a noble right.  And everyone is kind of aware that being a king also means being a target.  Kind of hard to believe these same people a few hundred years later would be living in countries now deemed to be some of the chillest places you can go.

But every scene in the film is cold, wet, or both.  This is the Northern European sea-faring people eking out a living in inhospitable climates kept at bay with stone houses and fires.

I will say - I am glad I had some actual Old Norse poetry under my belt.  The narrative is not pulled from anything in the Saga, I don't believe.  But given what the characters in the poems value and how they see the world deeply informed my understanding of what unspooled on screen - so, good timing, me.  

Eggers and writer Sjón were working to tell an ur-Hamlet (which really only hit me across the face when Nicole Kidman, playing the lead's mother calls him "Amleth" and the particular way she hit the name).  But, yes, it's a story about a prince whose father is killed by his uncle who then marries his mother and claims the kingdom and that prince being told by a phantom to finally deal with his need for vengeance, though it will doom everyone.  And this is not the Volsungs, but this is a different saga and based on an actual person in some way.

In this case, a 13-ish Amleth heads out to sea and allies himself with berserkers, becoming a fierce warrior (in the imposing form of a jacked Alexander Skarsgård).  He has not followed up on his plans for vengeance, but learning his mother and uncle have taken to Iceland after losing their kingdom to an invader (this stuff is like every five pages in the saga) he boards a slave ship headed to Iceland, posing as a slave. 

Oh, and did I mention he's given a vision by a witch in the form of a very spooky ghost-Norn-witch Björk?  Because that shit absolutely happens and I think all movies could use Björk showing up and doling out fates.  Heck, I wish Björk would show up and tell me what to do with myself.

Along the way he meets a fellow slave, this one a Slav in the form of Anya Taylor-Joy, who is clearly a wee bit witchy herself, and unnerving to her captors who can't quite their finger on why this woman sets them off.  

As mentioned, Kidman plays Amleth's mother, Queen Gudrún, and at first I thought "this is some odd casting.  Always happy to see Kidman, but...  why would she take this?."  And then she got her big scene, an equivalent of the Hamlet/ Gertrude scene, but fit for killer-take-all world of kings and chieftans living in stone houses in the shadow of a living volcano.  

Willem Defoe pops up as a Yorick-like character from Amleth's youth, but as much shaman as anything.  Ethan Hawke appears as the father who falls beneath his brother's sword, and Danish actor Claes Bang plays the uncle (very well, indeed, and I would hope this gets him more high profile roles in English-language film, although you may have seen him as Dracula in the Netflix limited series).  

I imagine the film is not for everyone.  This isn't a clear story of heroes and villains.  It's not clear Amleth is just or right, and an eye-for-an-eye truly leaves the whole world blind by the film's end.  He's a "hero" in the pre-20th Century version of the word - a challenged man capable of great and terrible deeds as he deals with fates doled out by gods larger than himself.  He's a near mindless, brutal killer when we catch up with him as an adult, murdering and destroying for want of any better way to work through the rage that defines him.  Life and death are fairly cheap commodities, and the virtues of this world barely align with our own.  The world of the film is cruel and literally barbaric.  

There's certainly CGI, color-grading, etc... employed here, but it's not a movie about the FX.  It relies on performance and story to move it along, and hats off to the DP who managed to light the thing in abysmal conditions and make it work.  So, it's  beautifully shot, well-performed and - if you give it room - moving.  But not in a "the real Northman was the friends we made along the way" sort of way.  It's much more of the hollowed out feeling you may have had at the end of Branagh's Hamlet.  

Anyway - I am not sure I recommend the film broadly, but I'm in the camp of "this is an  interesting movie, I liked it, and I'm glad it exists".  And I would be surprised if I didn't watch it again.

https://ift.tt/b0l3V2E

from The Signal Watch https://ift.tt/Qztc4wU

[freydheim]

1899, 1.01- "The Ship"

I'll be honest, I didn't really know what to expect when I first started this show. I'd only seen one trailer for it, and I knew it was recent, and I knew it starred Lucas Lynggard Tønnesen. From the trailer, I could definitely tell that this was going to be something that was maybe a bit scary, definitely a mystery, and likely the sort of thing I'd get hooked on- even if it did turn out to be a bit of a horror show.

Has it? So far, not really from what I can tell. It's definitely eerie, and suspenseful- something meant to get your heart pumping and set you on edge. Maura's "visions"- or memories, more accurately- flash on screen almost as if between the frames of what we're meant to see, giving an ethereal and unsettling quality to them. As for what happened to her, I do have a theory.

We're shown scenes of her in what is clearly a mental institution, as well as a brief scene of what appears to be Maura with a lover, as well as learning through her interaction with the little Danish girl that she could not have children. Now, I'll be honest- I have no idea if this was still happening in 1899, though I feel like I recall this being a thing in the Victorian era, but at some point in history women were often put in mental facilities for taking a lover, as it was seen as the woman having "too much" sexual interest, and something that could only be a mental illness. I know 1899 is just at the very tail end of the Victorian era, and the Edwardian begins in just two years, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's something like this, and perhaps she was sterilized as a result? Quite dark, but I am expecting dark things from this show so I won't be terribly surprised.

To break up the intensity for a moment, I'll switch to discussing Krester, who quickly stole my heart this episode. He seems super sweet, like a caring brother and someone who's just good. I don't know what's happened to his face, but I do know I'll be very curious to find out. I really like how protective of his sister he was, how he barged into upper class's space to find a doctor for her, and I felt so bad for him when he got tossed down the stairs and seemed afraid of Maura when she came to help his sister. He's definitely my favorite character so far, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing more of him!

Another set of characters I'm quite interested in is Clémence and Lucien. Whatever happened between them for them to end up married, I get the feeling it was by her design. Don't get me wrong, Lucien doesn't strike me at all as a great guy- though that may change as the story progresses- but that little smirk on Clémence's face seemed to indicate she definitely knew more than she was letting on about something. If we add to that how Lucien appeared to be coming to terms with the fact she doesn't love him after their failed attempt at sex, it begins to look like she's married him for some purpose. I know I've seen some speculation that he might be gay, but I actually propose the opposite- I think Clémence may be. It's either that, or a revenge plot of some sort. Both? Unsure, but I really want to find out why she's married him when she seems to really dislike him quite strongly.

But enough of this- I'll give more thoughts on other characters as more is revealed about them, but as of right now I want to move on to the elephant in the room: the ship, and the mystery itself.

One of the most interesting things I've noticed is all the triangles all over the place. The one in Maura's eye when she woke, the ones in the carpet, on that door number, the things are everywhere- not to mention the pyramid! I wonder if maybe this has something to do with the Bermuda Triangle? Then there's also that one bit where they all drink the tea at the same time, and... maybe there's some sort of alternate reality thing going on? It would be interesting if, I think, the passengers on the Prometheus have somehow all ended up in some alternate world where they're on this ship? I don't know! But it'll definitely be super fun to follow this story and see where it's going!

As always, I'd love to know what you think! Drop your thoughts in the replies below, or feel free to reblog with your own commentary :) You know I always want to hear from you, and I hope I will! Until next the next one- skål!

[theyhavetakenovermylife]

I have been looking high and low, trying to find a place where people can watch full episodes of Matador with English subtitles, and nope. Not a single place. Only small clips on their own. It's the biggest TV show in Denmark, so I'm surprised there's nothing about it outside of Denmark, and it's frustrating, because it is really, really good. I am this close to just write a translation for it myself.

Honestly, I recommend this series to anybody that can get their hands on it. Especially in these times, where so many of Matador's themes are back in the mainstream and politics. Women's rights, the clashes between the old and the new, the rising Right Wing, the happenings of the WWII, religion, and later on in the series, a little bit of LGBTQ+. I rewatch this series almost very Christmas, and continue it up until January. It's truly amazing.

I hereby show you a scene from episode 5, which does in fact have English subtitles. This is one of the first "shake ups", the Varnæs family experience in the series, and as you can hear, Maude is not very happy about it, as Maude is married to Hans Christian (the head banker of Korsbæk bank) who is the brother of Jørgen Varnæs (lawyer in Korsbæk bank, part of the leading circle of the bank, and head of the conservative party).

One many themes of Matador is women's rights. The conservative housewives, believing in the old way of doing things, and their young and much more liberal daughters, who wants to decide for themselves. Though Minna used to be a conservative woman, her anger at what Jørgen has done to her, puts her in a position where she doesn't care what the world thinks of her - she wants revenge and she wants him to hurt.

As mentioned before, another theme is the clashes between the old and the new. In this scene from episode 9, Mrs. Fernando Møhge (Hans Christian and Jørgen's aunt), along with her daughter Misse Møhge, has gone to the bank in order to reatrive a paper. They have just vietnessed a building project on a fabric factory, funded by Mads Skjern, in order to expand his clothing store. But this build may not in fact be totally legal, and you are about to hear why. And, well, with Mads Skjern and his new buisness turning out to threaten the status of the old Varnæs family, the new banker Skjold-Hansen, suddenly sees a place where he can prove himself, and protect his money and the old bank.

But one argument that Mads Skjern brings up again and again through out the series is; what is best for the city? A park for Mrs. Møhge's dead husband, or a factory that will bring buisness and job opportunities? Is the old and dead more important then the living and working?

We then jump forward to episode 11, where Ellen Skjern (Mads' adopted daughter from his wife's - Ingeborg - first marriage) is getting a horse (an Icelandic horse) due to her good grades in school, when though that has always been Daniel's (Mads' son from his first marriage, with his first wife who died when Daniel was still a baby) dream. It is here that we learn, that even though Mads believe in bringing something new to the city of Korsbæk, he is still very conservative in his beliefs and oppinions, to the point where he's almost more curl than caring towards his family, though he believes he's doing what is best, to protect them against the old families of Korsbæk, not seeing how he is slowly tearing it apart himself.

Here, in episode 18, taking place in the second world war, we have probably one of the most famous moments from pig dealer Larsen's dog Kvik.

And finally, in episode 19, where the bike dealer's sons once again throw rocks at Skjold-Hansen's home, because he has leaned out his large parking house to the Germans.

Matador is to this day, one of the most watched shows in Denmark, and often recommended as one of the most important things to watch when moving to Denmark, or trying to learn the Danish language. My grandmother and both of my grandfathers, who would have turned 94 this year, was all born in 1931, and would there have remembered the time Matador takes place in. This was truly fun to watch with my grandmother, as to her it was nostalgia, but to me it was history.

History, story lines, character development, well thought out plot points. Truly amazing, and so much more deserving of praise from a larger audience.

[alicent-vi-britannia]

The parallels between Code Geass and Hamlet

In the first episode of R1, when Lelouch and Rivalz go back to Ashford Academy after the former defeated a noble in a game of chess, Lelouch reads a book. For a fraction of a second, we see that this book is Hamlet, a tragedy written by William Shakespeare between 1599 and 1601 and it is his most recognized work (some would define it as the quintessential Shakespearean and I personally call it the epitome of Baroque). This is a detail that called my attention because it wasn’t necessary to give the book a title. They could perfectly invent one or leave it empty. Instead, the creators of Code Geass opted to choose a real and distinguished work of English and world literature. I read Hamlet a few years ago and it's fresh in my mind, at least I remember it more than other books I've read, and I drew parallels between the two as I reminisced and came up with some interesting results that I'd love to share with you.

To do this, I have to gut the play of Hamlet. Therefore, if you are one of those who don’t like spoilers, or stop wasting time and go read Hamlet, which is on the internet, or, if you are lazy, go see the Kenneth Branagh film, which is Hamlet word for word (hence it is an even longer movie than Avengers Endgame) or continue reading my comparative analysis and I will convince you to give this great work a chance.

Hamlet is the story of a Danish prince who has just returned home to attend the funeral of his father, the king, who recently passed away. But then he hears that a ghost with a striking resemblance to the late king appears in the castle at night; so Hamlet is encouraged to investigate and manages to meet with the ghost that, in effect, is real and it is about his father who has crossed the threshold of the afterlife to entrust him with a mission: to kill his uncle Claudio; for it turns out that he killed his own brother to ascend the throne and marry Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. This is the first act of the play and constitutes the premise of it; as well as establishing its two main themes: revenge and madness.

Immediately, we distinguish several parallels between Lelouch and Hamlet: both are princes who decide to take revenge for their deceased parents against a member of their family, who is precisely the monarch of their kingdom, after receiving a supernatural summons (the ghost of their father, for Hamlet; the Geass, for Lelouch); however, none of them imagine that on this journey they will lose themselves and the beings they love. Throughout the plot, Lelouch and Hamlet will be assisted by C.C. and Horace respectively. Horatio is Hamlet's friend and, like C.C., is the voice of reason and is Hamlet's greatest confidant. He is present in most of the scenes in the play, always accompanying Hamlet and conversing with him. Even in his soliloquies, which are the moments when Hamlet bares his thoughts, he is there; as well as C.C. who remains on Lelouch's side. Neither Horacio nor C.C. take actions in the plot, they limit themselves to being simple spectators and both, additionally, wanted to kill themselves, but they were stopped by Hamlet and Lelouch who wanted them to continue living, for different reasons that I won’t go into details.

Both Hamlet and Lelouch are gray characters that critics and fans of their respective works like to argue about by raising the classic debate: is Hamlet/Lelouch a hero or a villain? In any case, the conclusion is the same for both: they are two of the most human characters both in Shakespeare's work, in the case of Hamlet, and in the anime industry, in the case of Lelouch (if you want an answer , don't think too much about it: both are undoubtedly tragic heroes).

As someone who loves Shakespeare and Code Geass equally, I think Lelouch is a hybrid of Hamlet and Macbeth (another great Shakespearean character). This is because Lelouch and Macbeth live tormented by their crimes, however, they continue to justify themselves that the blood spilled would be in vain if they stop. On the contrary, Hamlet is a bit more pusillanimous and very indecisive (he's not an action guy, he's more contemplative and thoughtful).

Although Hamlet has sworn an oath of vengeance in the first act, he doesn't take action right away because he doesn't fully believe the ghost's accusation or so he says (in my opinion, it's because he's afraid to act); so Hamlet decides to check if his uncle is the murderer of his father and find out who are his allies and his enemies by faking his madness (yes, like Lelouch, Hamlet has acting skills) . Of course, his alienated attitude causes strangeness at court, especially it baffles Polonius, who is the king's adviser and an impertinent bootlicker for Claudio, and that motivates him to investigate. At a certain point in the play, Gertrudis, worried about her son, confronts him alone in her room, while Polonius, who is a gossip, hides behind the curtains to spy on them. Hamlet spots Polonius's feet and, believing that he is his uncle, savagely stabs him, only to discover that he wasn’t who he thought he was. This stupid mistake will affect the children of Polonius, which will lead to the great tragic ending of the work.

On the one hand, there is Ofelia, the sweet and innocent youngest daughter of Polonius (well, I presume that she is younger). She is in love with Hamlet and has had affairs with him, they have even consummated sexual relations; but ever since he assumed the role of his madman, Hamlet has been cold and somewhat cruel to her, on the grounds that he believes she is part of plot. Returning to Ofelia, the pain caused by the murder of her father at the hands of the man she loved drives her crazy and leads her to commit suicide. In a sense, her tragic fate brings me back to Shirley.

Like Ofelia, Shirley is in love with Lelouch, due to which she suffers from the barriers he imposes and she is left disoriented, while being curious about his strange behavior (Hamlet's feigned madness, on the one hand, and the Lelouch's efforts to hide his double life, on the other). Her feelings are conflicted when she finds out that her lover is the murderer of her father. It’s worth noting that neither Hamlet nor Lelouch had the intention of killing the father of their respective love interests. It was all a unfortunate accident. From here on, Shirley and Ofelia's paths diverge, but they end at exactly the same point: dead and Lelouch/Hamlet are indirectly guilty, or at least that's how they both feel, because, despite everything, they did love Shirley/ Ophelia.

On the other hand, there is Laertes, the impulsive and bellicose eldest son of Polonius. Laertes has a brief but forceful introduction that is, at the same time, a prelude. Laertes warns his sister that she should be careful around Hamlet because he fears that his love for her is insincere and he is only taking advantage of her. And he adds something like this: "if I find out that Hamlet hurt you, I'll kill him" (of course, Shakespeare says it in a more sophisticated and beautiful way than me; that gentleman did know how to use language properly). Saying that, Laertes leaves for France. When the news of the terrible deaths of his father and his sister reaches his ears, he returns to Denmark to take revenge on Hamlet and I’m inevitably thinking of Suzaku.

Like Laertes, Suzaku was immersed solely in his own business, but when Lelouch kills Euphemia, Suzaku turns to revenge by vowing to kill him (Shakespeare is known for his love of building narrative parallels between two characters, and Code Geass is rife with this kind of parallelism, the most obvious being that of Suzaku and Lelouch: one way or another, they end up becoming the other in the second season). Needless to say, Euphemia's death was an irremediable event as a result of boasting to cover up his wounded pride, like Polonius's death that was a mistake. Two tragic accidents. (By the way, coincidence that Suzaku went crazy over Shirley's death afterwards? I don't think so). Suzaku and Laertes are blinded by pain and anger and, although Lelouch and Hamlet try to reach a middle ground, both flatly refuse to listen to reason; which pushes them into a confrontation that, to a certain extent, is sponsored by the enemies of the respective protagonists. Claudio, who already knows that his niece has discovered his crime and intends to end his life, manipulates Laertes to get rid of Hamlet. Charles never deliberately uses Suzaku's anger for his benefit, but Suzaku serves him and his empire, which works to their advantage in a certain way.

In the end, the poison of hatred corrodes Laertes in a literal and metaphorical sense, since he ends up perishing in the duel against Hamlet, being wounded by his own poisoned sword, although he doesn’t leave without first revealing the conspiracy he was hatching with Claudio and make peace with Hamlet, as he understands that his judgment was clouded.

And, to all these, what happens with Hamlet?

Well, he is killed by Laertes in said duel of swords (yes, they kill each other). As is Lelouch dies impaled by the sword wielded by Zero (Suzaku) in the Zero Requiem. Just like Laertes and Hamlet at the end, Lelouch and Suzaku also manage to settle their differences and make peace for the good of the world. And, just as Lelouch kills Charles, Hamlet gets revenge on him by murdering his Uncle Claudius.

See that Hamlet and Lelouch have in common that, though driven by a desire for justice, both are both victims and responsible agents of the misfortunes that befall them, their loved ones, and their nation, as Denmark falls into the hands of of a foreign king and I’m not going to dwell on the consequences of each battle of the Black Knights and the Zero Requiem, I trust that you remember in broad strokes how many losses and how much havoc there was in the world. 

Also see that both characters are haunted by death. In addition to the deaths that I mentioned and that are attributed to Hamlet, we must add those of his mother and his two childhood friends who succumb to the hatred and pain that Hamlet feels since his friends obeyed orders from his enemy and he believed that his mother was in cahoots or, in any case, that she didn't love her father because her mother got married quickly because she got married quickly, which, in his eyes, was a betrayal (yes, a lot of people die in this play and, in fact, I think it is the play that honors that Shakespeare meme that wanders Facebook saying that he has no idea how to finish his play, so he kills to all the characters; although it isn’t quite like that either, Horacio survives, a few characters who don’t appear again and Fortinbrás, who is the foreign king. Basically, it's like in Code Geass, all the important characters die except for C.C., the UNF members and the background characters). 

I must say that in a certain way it reminds me of Lelouch because he blamed all of his family, not only his father, for the misfortune that fell on him, his mother and his sister (this is because they didn’t respond for them). Lelouch hates his siblings as well and was equally responsible for the death of his mother. Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, dies by mistake, but he was indirectly to blame.

Oh, I almost forgot! Horace tries to commit suicide, but Hamlet stops him because he needs him to tell his story. 

Hamlet and Lelouch suffer more from the consequences of their own actions than those of others, that includes their enemies. Their vendettas consume them and make them lose themselves in madness; for until the damage is done, Hamlet and Lelouch are unable to see the destruction they leave behind. 

We could say that Hamlet and Code Geass address the stories of two great men who fight to keep their sanity, if not they have already lost it. 

I dare say that Hamlet is the most prominent tragedy in general culture (I think if I asked you to talk about tragedy you would think of Shakespeare and this play specifically) and I think it's great that they introduced this detail in the first episode of Code Geass because it's a subtle statement of intent: none of us knew what we were going to find in this series, so it ended up surprising us. Code Geass is properly a beautiful tragedy and no one better than Shakespeare to present it to us. I don’t rule out at all that Hamlet has been inspirational material for Code Geass. I perfectly imagine Okouchi in his house thinking: “hey! What if Laertes and Hamlet had been childhood best friends? That duel would have been more intense! Oh yes!”

Joking apart…

Maybe Shakespeare influenced the good reception that Code Geass had in me. I love tragedies. I love tragic characters. I love Shakespeare. I consider myself an admirer of his work and I recognize his influence on my writing. Hamlet isn’t my favorite work by the English playwright, although I enjoy the story and how things are handled, I find it hard to connect with Hamlet; unlike Lelouch, to whom I already professed eternal love. Anyway, I still have a lot of Shakespeare plays to read and fall in love with.

I hope you liked this analysis. I loved writing it, even though it took me longer than I had calculated. You should turn it into a video so that it lasts forever and ever. Let me know in comments the opinions of him. We will be reading soon.

PS: no, it's no coincidence that the Lelouch from my fanfic, Code Geass: Bloodlines, is a Shakespearean fanboy. I must even say that to build the dynamics of my Lelouch and C.C. I was inspired by Macbeth and his wife; just as I was inspired by the character of Brutus, from the tragedy of Julius Caesar, for my Suzaku.