#there are literally 14 french men here

[animentality]

not to be racist against the French or anything but why has every French man I've ever met been allergic to getting off his ass and helping his wife do literally anything at all at big family events

[yeoldenews]

hello! i was wondering if you (or any blogs you think might know?) had any resources for edwardian fashion, more precisely edwardian teen fashion? i'm writing a story centering on two edwardian ghosts and would like help on their style of speech as well if you can't help on the fashion aspects. thank you!

In my opinion, if you want to be able to portray the authentic feel of a time period, there is nothing better than diving head first into primary sources.

Whenever I start any large research/writing project that’s centered on a particular year, I usually spend at least a couple of days just immersing myself in the era.

We live in an extraordinary age when it comes to primary source research (especially for the early 20th century) - there are literally millions of period newspapers/books/magazines/films/recordings floating around online.

Find out what books were popular and check them out! Read the newspaper! Listen to popular music! Watch silent movies or newsreels!

For teenagers, school yearbooks are a particularly great source to get an idea of how young people spoke, their senses of humor, common slang, casual fashion, as well as the daily routines and general vibes of the time period. Most universities have their yearbooks digitized and available online and can be pretty easily found on google (try searching: [year] [location if desired] yearbook digital collections).

As for fashion - there are so many great fashion history tumblrs, that it’s pretty hard to go wrong if you just explore the “Edwardian” or “1900s” tag a bit. One thing to keep in mind though - most dresses that end up in museums were owned by very, very rich individuals. So, though a great place to start, scrolling through blogs full of museum pieces to learn about fashion history is roughly the equivalent of learning about modern fashion by only watching Chanel runway shows.

By the Edwardian era most young people were wearing pretty much the same thing as adults by the age of 14/15. You were, however, starting to see the very beginning of what would become the modern “juniors’ section” - usually termed “Misses’” for girls and “young men’s” or “collegiate” for boys. Here are a few examples of this can be seen in period catalogs from 1912, 1911 (starting on page 21) and 1908. 

It’s also important to keep in mind that fashion changed much, much more quickly than it does now. A woman in 1906 and a woman in 1911 would have noticeably different styles and silhouettes. I'd recommend scrolling through some fashion plates (going to shout out chic-a-gigot here who has a great collection of French fashion plates organized by decade and year) to get a basic handle on how the silhouette changed year by year.

In my past life I was fashion history specialist for high-end auctions, so I could go on in A LOT more detail about this subject, but I'm going to end it here before this gets too long.

[hard--headed--woman]

I know I spent two days without posting any lesbian pride post lol but I swear I'm gonna post two posts per day in the following days to make up for it. I am again going to talk about an artist, but from a different period this time.

Rosa Bohneur !

(I love her name by the way... Bohneur means happiness in french and that's such a pretty name to have)

Marie-Rosalie Bonheur, known as Rosa Bonheur, was born in 1822 in Bordeaux and died in 1899 in Thomery. She was a French painter and sculptor specialising in representations of animals.

She has kind of an interesting family story (mother adopted by a rich guy who found out later who was her real father, siblings all artists, father who met a lot of interesting people, links with many famous people...) but it would be too long to talk about it and I want to focus on Rosa herself. Do check it up if you're interested!

During her youth, Rosa Bonheur had a reputation for being a tomboy, a reputation that followed her throughout her life and which she made no attempt to deny, wearing her hair short and later smoking cigarettes and cigars. Her emancipated lifestyle never caused a scandal, even though she lived in an era that was very concerned with convention. Like all women of her time, Rosa Bonheur had to apply to the Prefecture of Paris for a cross-dressing permit, renewable every six months, in order to wear trousers, in particular to attend livestock fairs, travel or ride horses.

Here's one of her permits, from 1857 :

And though many historians tried to deny the fact that she was a lesbian, she always refused to marry a man, has only ever had relationships with women and literally wrote that she never felt any sort of love, attraction or tenderness for men, "besides a frank and good friendship for those who had all my esteem". After the death of the woman she loved, she also wrote "If I'd been a man, I'd have married her, and they wouldn't have made up all those silly stories..." You got it : even if she didn't shout it from the rooftops, Rosa was very probaby a homosexual woman.

Rosa Bohneur grew up in a fairly wealthy family, thanks to the financial support of her mother's adoptive father. But when her mother's father died, the family was left without any such support, and fell into dire poverty. When Rosa was 11, her mother died, which deeply traumatised her. She kept a lifelong admiration for her mother.

In 1836, at the age of 14, she met Nathalie Micas, who became her lover. Only Nathalie's death 53 years later separated them.

Her father remarried in 1842 to Marguerite Peyrol, with whom he had a last son, Germain, who would also become a painter. Rosa Bonheur did not get on well with her stepmother and when her father died in 1849, she left the family home to live with the Micas.

After her mother's death, Rosa Bonheur went to primary schools, was apprenticed as a dressmaker and then went to boarding school. Eventually her father took her into his workshop, where her artistic talents were revealed. He was her one and only teacher. Gradually, she developed a passion for animal art, which became her speciality.

She exhibited for the first time, at the age of 19, at the Salon of 1841. She won a 3rd class medal at the Salon of 1845, and a 1st class medal (gold) at the Salon of 1848. This award enabled her, at the age of 26, to obtain a commission from the State to produce an agrarian painting (paid 3,000 francs). The painting resulting from this state commission, "Labourage nivernais" was supposed to go to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. But it was so successful at the 1849 Salon that the Beaux-Arts department decided to keep it in Paris, at the Musée du Luxembourg. After Rosa Bonheur's death, the work went to the Louvre, before being transferred to the Musée d'Orsay in 1986.

When her father died in March 1849, Rosa Bonheur replaced him as director of the École impériale gratuite de dessin pour demoiselles (or École gratuite de dessin pour jeunes filles). She remained in this position until 1860: ‘Follow my advice and I'll turn you into Leonardo da Vinci in skirts’, she often told her pupils.

In 1860, she moved to a huge house in By, where she had a huge workshop built, and ample space for her animals. One of her relatives wrote: “She had a complete menagerie in her house: a lion and a lioness, a deer, a wild sheep, a gazelle, horses, etc. One of her pets was a young lion she let run around. My mind was freer when this leonine animal died".

In June 1864, Rosa was visited by Empress Eugenie, who invited her to lunch at the Château de Fontainebleau with her husband. The following year, Eugenie returned to see her, to present her with the Legion d'honneur herself. Rosa is the ninth woman and the first artist to receive this distinction. About this, The Empress said :

“At last, you've been knighted. I am delighted to be the godmother of the first woman artist to receive this high distinction. I wanted the last act of my regency to be devoted to showing that, in my eyes, genius has no sex."

She was also the first woman to be made an officer in this order, in April 1894 (first female officer of the Legion d'honneur).

Rosa traveled extensively with her lover Nathalie, herself a painter and mechanical enthusiast (she invented and patented a railway braking system), and painted many pictures inspired by her travels.

In 1889, Nathalie died after some 50 years together. It was then that Rosa expressed her regret at not having been able to marry her.

After Nathalie's death, Rosa met Anna Klumpe, a talented American painter. The two women moved in together some time later.

Rosa Bohneur died of pulmonary congestion in 1899, without having completed her last painting, “La foulaison du blé en Camargue”, a monumental canvas she had planned to exhibit at the 1900 Universal Exhibition.

She is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery, alongside Nathalie, her parents and Anna (who died years after her). She left her entire fortune to Anna, who, in 1908, published a biography of Rosa Bonheur and created a Rosa-Bonheur prize at the Société des artistes français. The Société des Artistes français posthumously awarded her the Medal of Honor shortly after her death.

Rosa could have had military honors at her funeral, but she specified in her will that she did not wish this.

There's a lot of interesting things to say about Rosa, her art and her history, so I suggest you do some research on her! She was a very talented and strong-willed woman who had a huge impact on French art and left a considerable cultural legacy.

Here are some of her paintings :

I personally love them ! I am not a painting expert, I just find them sooo pretty.

See you tomorrow :)

[hamletthedane]

Hamlet’s Age

Not to bring up an age-old debate that doesn’t even matter, but I have been thinking recently how interesting Hamlet’s age is both in-text and as meta-text.

To summarize a whole lot of discussion, we basically only have the following clues as to Hamlet’s age:

Hamlet and Horatio are both college students at Wittenberg. In Early Modern/Late Renaissance Europe, noble boys typically began their university education at 14 and usually completed at their Bachelor’s degree by 18 or 19. However, they may have been studying for their Master’s degrees, which was typically awarded by age 25 at the latest. For reference, contemporary Kit Marlowe was a pretty late bloomer who received a bachelor’s degree at 20 and a master’s degree at 23.

Hamlet is AGGRESSIVELY described as a “youth” by many different characters - I believe more than any other male shakespeare character (other than 16yo Romeo). While usage could vary, Shakespeare tended to use “youth” to mean a man in his late teens/very early 20s (actually, he mostly uses it to describe beardless ‘men’ who are actually crossdressing women - likely literally played by young men in their late teens)

King Hamlet is old enough to be grey-haired, but Queen Gertrude is young enough to have additional children (or so Hamlet strongly implies)

Hamlet talks about plucking out the hairs of his beard, so he is old enough to at least theoretically have a beard

In the folio version, the gravedigger says he became a gravedigger the day of Hamlet’s birth, and that he’s be “sixteene here, man and boy, thirty years.” However, it’s unclear if “sixteene” means “sixteen” or “sexton” (ie has he worked here for 16 years but is 30 years old, or has he been sexton there for thirty years?)

Hamlet knew Yorick as a young child, and the gravedigger says Yorick was buried 23 years ago. However, the first quarto version version of Hamlet says “dozen years” instead of “three and twenty.” This suggests the line changed over time. (Or that the bad quarto sucks - I really need to make that post about it, huh…)

Yorick is a skull, and according to the gravedigger’s expertise, he has thus been dead for at least 7-8 years - implying Hamlet is at least ~15yo if he remembers Yorick from his childhood

One important thing sometimes overlooked - Claudius takes the throne at King Hamlet’s death, not Prince Hamlet. That is mostly a commentary on English and French monarchist politics at the time, but it is strange within the internal text. A thirty year old Hamlet presumably would have become the new monarch, not the married-in uncle (unless Gertrude is the vehicle through which the crown passes a la Mary I/Phillip II - certainly food for thought)

Honestly, Hamlet is SO aggressively described as being very young that I’m fairly confident the in-text intention is to have him be around 18-23yo. Placing his age at 30yo simply does not make much sense in the context of his descriptors, his narrative role, and his status as a university student.

However, it doesn’t really matter what the “right” answer is, because the confusion itself is what makes the gravedigger scene so interesting and metatextual. We can basically assume one of the following, given the folio text:

Hamlet really is meant to be 30yo, and that was supposed to surprise or imply something to the contemporary audience that is now lost to us

Older actors were playing Hamlet by the time the folio was written down, and the gravedigger’s description was an in-text justification of the seeming disconnect between age of actor and description of “youth”

Older actors were playing Hamlet by the time the folio was set down, and the gravedigger’s description was an in-text JOKE making fun of the fact that a 30-something year old is playing a high-school aged boy. This makes sense, as the gravedigger is a clown and Hamlet is a play that constantly pokes fun at its own tropes and breaks the fourth wall for its audience

The gravedigger cannot count or remember how old he is, and that’s the joke (this is the most common modern interpretation whenever the line isn’t otherwise played straight). If the clown was, for example, particularly old, those lines would be very funny

Any way you look at it, I believe something is echoing there. It seems like this is one of the many moments in Hamlet where you catch a glimpse of some contemporary in-joke about theater and theater culture* that we can only try to parse out from limited context 430 years later. And honestly, that’s so interesting and cool.

*(My other favorite example of this is when Hamlet asks Polonius about what it was like to play Julius Caesar in an exchange that pokes fun of Polonius’ actor a little. This is clearly an inside-joke directed at Globe regulars - the actor who played Polonius must have also played Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play, and been very well reviewed. Hamlet’s joke about Brutus also implies the actor who played Brutus is one of the main cast in Hamlet - possibly even the prince himself, depending on how the line is read).

[merlin6kingdomcome]

Hey, there, Merlin fans!

We did promise, so here's your heads-up: book 1 of our dark fantasy novel series will be published on Amazon and Barnes and Noble this September 14, 2024!

SYNOPSIS:

Dorian Sinclair would rather gulp down poison than become king... literally. In just three years the cowardly half-king has inadvertently killed four siblings, several cousins, and three wives trying to fill a crown he’s too scared to wear. Exhausted by a life of death, he resolves to end it all – until he realizes that’s exactly what the gods want. When his decision to live challenges the will of the divine, he provokes the God of Fate to bombard him with temptations of suicide.

It's the 1700s in Ravensdale, a kingdom of such extravagance as to rival the French. This fantastical and darkly humorous drama witnesses a troubled royal go from plotting his death to fighting for his life, inciting a battle of gods and men.

Fans of George R. R. Martin and Leigh Bardugo would love this story of political intrigue and strong friendships, set in a vibrant world full of history and mythology, whose plot is carried by a large cast of morally gray characters. It explores topics like suicide, sacrifice, and the value of suffering, balanced by gallows humor reminiscent of the film Amadeus.

"No man can escape his fate" – this much history makes clear. But perhaps they just weren’t running fast enough.

---

For more info, follow us at instagram.com/theoccasionalking! xx

[lunarnillinia]

The magnus protocol theory - greek mythology themes

@torkhin @amelie-isnt-french @field-cryptobotanist & I have been picking up on some greek mythology associations (more specifically the odyssey) in protocol. We might be onto something or it might just be the craziest red herring ever.

There are definitely connections between alchemy and greek mythology, so who knows at this point, am i right??

Here's an overview of connections i made, along with connections @torkhin made previously

*disclaimer* i am well aware i am REACHING with a lot of these, but i need to get my thoughts out nonetheless, let me nerd about greek mythology...

TMAGP 1: Orpheus & Euridice

Going to the place of the dead to find your lover that you just can't let go

TMAGP 2: Pygmalion & Galatea

Artist's desire to create the perfect image of a woman (sculpting). Falls in love with the art & causes it to become a reality

TMAGP 3: : Daphne & Apollo

Toxic 'lovers' where one of them turns into a fucking tree

TMAGP 4: Sirens

Music that leads to your death

(Sirens are also often depicted with instruments, to lure their victims with)

TMAGP 5: Eros & Psyche

This one is especially far fetched but: being urged to reveal and *actually see* this thing that everyone keeps on saying is horrific

(Myth explanation: Psyche gets banished to an island alone. She gets told by her sisters that her lover that comes to her in the night, which she is never allowed to see, is a terrific monster. Eventually they urge her to light a candle to see and kill the monster.)

TMAGP 6: Charybdis

Monster that wants to completely draw you in and 'embrace' you

(Charybdis is sometimes depicted as a sea monster with a lot of sharp teeth or as a giant whirpool)

TMAGP 7: Penelope's suitors

These people that you didn't invite just keep coming into your place, enjoying themselves, making the place unliveable and you just can't get them to leave

TMAGP 8: Lotus eaters (/Laestrygonians)

Strange place with these people that just seem 'off' want you to eat there and 'stay awhile'

(Laestrygonians were cannibalistic giants that killed many of Odysseus' men)

TMAGP 9: Palamedes (& Tyche)

The whole thing with dice & luck

Dude who's supposed to be your friend/ally tricks you into doing something you don't want. You then play into it and get your revenge on him later

(Myth explanation: Palamedes was a greek ally but also an enemy of Odysseus. He tricked Odysseus, who was trying to get out of joining the trojan war by acting insane, into revealing himself when Odysseus' baby was threatened. Odysseus never forgave him and framed him for being a traitor and then had him killed by the rest of the greeks or killed Palamedes himself in some accounts.

Now get this: Palamedes is the inventor of dice gave the first dice to Tyche, the goddess of good and bad luck.)

TMAGP 10: Hermes & Poseidon

Again far fetched: Gwen playing a fucked up little messenger & an unknown enemy emerging from the waters

TMAGP 11: Poseidon

(Tattoo of) a ship in the middle of the ocean, being chased by something in the water

TMAGP 12: Polyphemus

Big monster with googly eye(s) crashes a party and starts brutally ripping people apart and eating them. His teeth are not soft.

TMAGP 13: Hermes

Far fetched: Hermes is a trickster god of trade and commerce, but also thieves

Same-ish theme of cheating the system for wealth

TMAGP 14: Circe

Snakes & people being transformed into animals?

TMAGP 15: Scylla

Noble lady is actually a monster with dogs (literally) by her hips and eats human flesh

TMAGP 16: no idea honestly

+ bonus thoughts on Lena: i think she might be an Athena type character:

stern authority figure, highly practical, scheming and placing her pawns just right, sees most people as tools/assets, but!! still cares about her people in some way too, protects them and helps them to succeed

Definitely add on your own thoughts :)

[acheronist]

can you make sparknotes for the Red Wings players they are all the same person to me (sorry)

dw my darling i got you 🫡 here's the regular 23 man roster we've been skating this szn

forwards (+ this is going to be the number they wear on their jerseys, not their age)

jt compher (37) - won a cup whilst he was on the colorado avalanche (red wings long time beloathed nemesis rivals team), attended umich hockey with larkin and copp. deadpan dry asf tenderhearted weirdo. very good at hockey i like him

andrew copp (18) - 🎶get up and g-get down, 911 is a joke in your town🎶, local michigander boy playing for his hometown team, attended umich with compher and larkin, kind of fuck ugly but he's gritty and has a lot of love in his heart so we like him

alex debrincat (93) - another local michigander boy playing for his hometown team, really good at hockey, we rescued him from the ottawa senators (red wings short term/very recent beloathed nemesis rival team) and he likes it here more, haha lol lmao even. good at hockey!! kind of a sniper. also kind of fighty which is hilarious because he's about 9 inches shorter than the average nhl player. new dad and really loves it, brings his family to games all of the time. and he was our all star games representative this year !

robby fabbri (14) - how are you going to be a short italian-canadian kind of bisexual professional hockey player who mixes metals and has a standing eyebrow appointment. please pick a struggle. won the stanley cup w/ st louis and then got abandoned for being 'injury prone' and was sent to detroit in a 1 for 1 trade (the most humiliating of all nhl player trades imo). he and larkin and rasmussen are the only men left standing from the red wing's historic worst-ever season in 2019 where every game they looked like they were going to kill themselves.

christian fischer (36) - new bestie alert! huge locker room guy. okay at hockey (more of a playmaker than a goalscorer) but he's so fucking sillygoofy and funny i love to see this guy on my team. spent most of his career in arizona iirc, and basically he and gostisbehere came from the coyotes directly to the red wings as a buy one get one free deal.

patrick kane (88) - narcissict. arrogant. flop. old man who can't score anymore. history of assault and violent misdemeanors he never was punished for because he was the nhl's boytoy a decade ago. i hope he contracts sepsis from an unforeseen complication with his hip surgery and takes a long walk off of the rencen's roof and lands in the detroit river where he is frozen and then chopped up by an industrial ship's propeller. fuck this guy.

klim kostin (24) - beloved enforcer. used to skate for the edmonton oilers. his entire game is based around slotting in on the third/fourth line when necessary and whenever someone gets hurt he comes out swinging to establish the fact that the red wings are not to be fucked with. he doesn't start fights but he does finish them. notoriously big hearted and silly with his teammates. coincidentally wearing the same number as the red wings most famous enforcer from the 1980s, bob probert. my guard dog boy i love u

dylan larkin (71) - michigan native, umich grad, was the previous captain's rookie, the beating heart and soul of the team, carrying the weight of a century year old hockey team's legacy and all the ghosts that come along with that, never been to playoffs and hasn't won the cup yet. literally the miserable boyking of metro detroit. he's had to suffer a lot for absolutely no reason, but still manages to come and be our best and most important player every single night.

david perron (57) - he's old by nhl standards i.e. he's in his late thirties and has been playing for like a decade, so he knows his way around an nhl rink. french canadian enough that he's got an accent. big heart and soul guy, which i really wasn't expecting tbh! he's always standing up for teammates and has gotten in a few noteworthy fights (dylan got hurt so badly this szn that dp went rage-blind and ended up getting suspended for six games after fighting the opponents who hurt dylan)

michael rasmussen (27) - big fuck off scary intimidating canadian hockey lad. kind of awkward and bizarre. also kind of a doll if i can b honest. he's very shy and quiet in interviews but always has an insane serial killer look in his eyes whenever he's on the ice. was drafted high and then i suspect he had a lot of mental struggles about not being the player he was advertised/told to be? but the last few years he's stepped away from that role he thought he should be and started being himself and playing in a way that was obviously more comfortable, and he's taken huge huge productive strides and improved a lot. moose ily

lucas raymond (23) - our youngest babiest player!! he was our highest draft pick in a looooooooong time, and immediately went from prospect training camp -> regular nhl player, which is fucking crazy. he's exceptionally good at hockey, and has a reputation for coming in clutch with goals we need to win games. besties with moritz seider + jake walman + joe veleno.

daniel sprong (17) - i had no idea what to think of this guy at first but now i can't believe he's only been here for one season. it feels like he's been a wing for ages. he's one of our sniper goalscorers, except he shoots the puck with a lil too much sauce + with a feral desperation of a man afraid he was never going to score a goal again, every single time, which i love. also he stalks twitter and runs a team GC to forward memes that the fandom makes to the guys

joe veleno (90) - if bambi was a closeted italian canadian hockey player. wears an evil eye bracelet and also a crucifix? very meek and easy to bully, tbh, not our most productive goalscorer but also somehow he's very crucial to the emotional well being of the younger half of the roster? hes sillygoofy and a sweetheart and does his best every night which is all we can ask tbh. besties with lucas raymond + moritz seider + jake walman.

defensemen

ben chiarot (8) - resident manwhore dilf fashionista who knows he's sexy and loves to be a bitch on the ice. loves to be annoying and distracting @ the opponents during plays so the red wings can have space to move.

shayne gostisbehere (41) - escaped florida man turned into an nhler, sleeper agent defensive weapon that people tend to forget about. always busting his ass up and down the blue line. always looks sopping wet and really sad though? loves to shoot the puck and sometimes it even makes it to the net!

justin holl (3) - i'm hesistant to describe him as "good at hockey" but the boys seem to love him + he's silly enough to engage in the locker room antics + i've noticed him dealing out more hits lately which is always good.

olli maatta (2) - very very very steady in the most boring way possible. does his job and not an ounce more than necessary LOL but it's fine because he's good at what he does? a classic defensive defenseman.

jeff petry (46) - not… good? at hockey? but he is also a michigan native playing for the hometown team, and he's a veteran nhler, and he's a gritty sort of guy, so i like having him. he grew up in detroit proper, as well, because his dad played on the detroit tigers baseball team, so there's a lot of michigan sports lore going on in that household. also his kids are silly + love to come to games

moritz seider (53) - my sweet perfect darling defenseman prodigy. won the calder trophy because he was the most special and talented rookie in his first year in the nhl. breaking team records for defensemen at an alarming rate. was dylan's rookie, and is also frequently mentored by red wings defense legends. he's not a rookie anymore but you can still see how much responsibility he's shouldering and how much he takes after dylan's role modeled behavior/team legacy standards. good at handling tough responsibility vs staying silly anyways. hes my shining star and i luv him. generally he's paired up with jake walman on defense and they're a little bit married because of it. besties with lucas raymond + jake walman + joe veleno.

jake walman (96) - another guy who st louis abandoned and then ended up on the red wings and said "i want to spend my entire life and career in this city" . extremely silly. known for hitting the griddy whenever he scores important goals. big on video games + making tiktoks. tremendous locker room vibes guy, and very emotional and serious about proving his place on detroit's blue line. generally he's paired up with moritz seider on defense and they're a little bit married because of it. besties with moritz seider + lucas raymond + joe veleno.

goalies

ville husso (35) - looks like a haunted little porcelain doll. always sopping wet for some reason. very softspoken and european. mid-good level goalie, kind of needs to prove himself a bit now that alex lyon's gone completely off the shits and taken over starter goalie privileges, but i feel like there's no sense of animosity or competition between them? ville just strikes me as genuinely someone who's delighted and proud of his tandem partners for their successes, even if it comes at his expense / losing some of his chances to get ahead

james reimer (47) - idc about this man lol. he's either a very good goalie or an atrociously horrible goalie and you dont know what it'll be until the games already happening. passively homophobic christian behavior as well which i do not like to see. but he's also a veteran nhl player so in the beginning of the szn he was getting more opportunity than alex or ville.

alex lyon (34) - spent his entire career in the minor league/being traded between franchises where there wasn't really a space or need for him. got on the radar after keeping the florida panthers in their playoff race before losing, and then FL traded him to us. we've had goaltending agonies for years and then he's rolled up to detroit with something to fucking PROVE because he thought his hockey career was about to be over so he's skating every night like its do or die. after reimer and husso both were injured tho he finally got his chance to shine and oh baby he's been shining. unbelievably good at goaltending. big heart, very genuine, very funny, basically a male model as well, been to therapy and actually got something out of it, i would go to war for this man if he needed me to

[yourlocalsonia2]

My shitty headcanons for Nicktoons unite

Drumroll please 🥁🥁🥁🥁

Jimmy Neutron

When the group first met, he was 13

His is currently 16 and the second youngest

he's also 5'7

He was kind of a bitch for most of their first adventure, but eventually became nicer to the group

His full name is James issac Neutron

there was a time when he convinced the group into thinking his last name was Newton but someone misspelled his name on his birth certificate

when he was 14 he gave himself cybernetic implants just in case he was ever in an emergency +he didn't tell anyone (this is inspired by choraa)

sometimes when he is alone he'll use the arms/implants doc ock style

the longest time he slept was 1 hour, 58 minutes and 26 seconds

he basically lives off of energy drinks and shit

he also is anemic (iron deficient) and he doesn't know

there are a lot of times when he doesn't have his ice cream looking hairstyle bc he doesn't have time to do it, or he'll just forget

after becoming friends with Nicktoons, he became a better person and treated Carl decently and people were scared (including Carl)

his main weapon is his inventions (think of whatever)

he knows 10+ languages (English. French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, Greek, Latin, Italian, Swedish and Dutch) and a few alien languages

he's gay and he thought he liked Cindy

even though he did date Cindy for a while, he did break up with her bc their relationship was falling apart (they were literally never meant to be. THEIR RELATIONSHIP WAS GOING TO FAIL AT SOME POINT. THE BOAT WILL SINK)

Timmy Turner

Watch out y'all, I don't know shit about the Fairly Oddparents lore

His full name is Timothy Thomas Turner (haha t.t.t)

he is the shortest and the youngest of the group

he met the group when he was 12

he is currently 15 and 5'6 and a 1/2

he kinda thinks of Cosmo and Wanda as his parents and not just God parents

he is poof's older brother

he has a normal sleep schedule but he is also narcoleptic

he has ADHD and doesn't take his meds out of spite (no one knows why lmao)

he is trans (ftm)

he is bisexual with a preference for men

he may or may not have had a crush on all the members (he got over all of them except for Jimmy)

his main weapon is gun(s) both Wanda and cosmo are guns (DUEL GUNS)

his other weapon would be a bat with nails

he has a hard time with schoolwork and is really stressed about school

he has a few scars on his body from Vicky

he LOVES sugar

he enjoys using pet names on people (specifically Jimmy) to get them annoyed or embarrassed

Daniel Fenton / Danny Phantom

He is the second oldest and second tallest

he is currently 17 and 5'7

he was 14 when they first met

when the group first got together, he tried to hide Phantom's identity from them until SpongeBob told him that he knows

he can be very nice then very threatening in a snap

he tries not to sleep bc he has a lot of nightmares from his adventures

he is probably the most powerful in the group

him and SpongeBob have the ideal friendship

he makes a lot of puns and stupid references

he has anxiety

he has panic attacks not that often and it's kinda alarming for the rest of the group

he is a bit self sacrificial bc he is already half-dead

ON THE TOPIC OF HALF DEAD- he is not affected by stab wounds

his blood is green

he is planning for a day when Jimmy and Tucker meet up and they can be "science-y" together

he didn't tell anyone in his universe about his time with Nicktoons, one day they did come to see him and everyone was confused

he is very protective over the people he loves

there will be times where he'll throw up or have green goo leak from his eyes (tgs Henry Jekyll style)

his family is his parents, Jazz, Daniel (future him) and Dani (younger female clone)

SpongeBob / Bob

He is the oldest at 25

he first met them when he was 19

aroace king over here

He is a shapeshifter.

His main two forms are his normal self (sponge) and his human form

he first met the group as a sponge and didn't tell them about his abilities and they found out bc one day he accidentally turned into a human in front of them and their reactions went like this

Jimmy: *shocked, wide eyed*

Timmy: *gaw dropped, flabbergasted*

Danny: oh my god....YOU GREW, SPONGEBOB!!

After that he would spend more time as a human

he is 5'9 as a human and 4'5 as a sponge

he has the fucking hammer as his weapon bc why not

he is "glue" of the group and kinda the mom too

he is strongest in the physical strength category (he's the type of guy to hug you but then pick you up and spin you like a parent would to a baby"

he is actually a good therapist and helping the others

he'll help Danny after or during his panic attacks, he will make Jimmy sleep for once and sometimes hide his energy drinks, he'll try his best to help Timmy with his schoolwork

he is a great cook and will make for the gang

he is overworked and underpaid (I love Mr. Krabs but please pay your workers the money they deserve)

he has ADHD and autism

he pays really good attention to the others and knows there's something worth in a snap (like if Danny had a nightmare the night before, SpongeBob will know the next morning bc of how Danny acts)

Shared

They've all seen the horrors

found family found family found family found family

they've all had a crush on at least one other member (not spongebob tho)

during meals someone will tell stories of what happened in their world

they all split up after volcano island (they got back together bc of the third and fourth game) also it was still the main four during the other games (no extra side characters)

they had a split for a few years but SB brought them back together

they have this set of rules for their house

the house is in Jimmy's universe btw

Danny and Timmy both unironically got "shoo whap shoo whap ain't no lovin' my man" stuck in their heads

Jimmy's parents adore the group (not even knowing they are from other universes)

Timmy unironically calls Shirley his son and Jimmy caught on (SB and Danny are honorary uncles)

[moonystoes]

Hey guys I want to talk to you about something that may not be that serious but it still bothered me and I'm pretty sure it will annoy some of the mascs (this is a big rant about elisa I'm sorry lol)

This all started when i found this fanpage (ireignx) on Instagram. She posted a screenshot of Elisa from the new DAZN video. Elisa was smiling and looking straight at the camera and she made a caption saying, 'why does Elisa look so different in this video compared to her matches'. Now I do understand that Elisa does sometimes look different, that's because the camera is right at her face. It's not a video from a 'football angle', elisa isn't focused or aggressive in these videos, and this is how Elisa is when she's relaxed. So I didn't think much of what she said.

But then she posted a video of elisa dancing in her story (if you've seen the dazn video, it's when she got a point and celebrated) and then made a caption saying 'ew I just got an ick'. I get that people like different things and sometimes get icked out at certain things, but for this? Really? After I saw this I just knew why she got the 'ick'. And that's because elisa danced like a girl. I don't care if I sound reaching because NOTHING was weird about that video. It's not like that one video where she was dancing like a drunk dad to no music (iykyk 😭😭😭 it still haunts me).

She also made a comment saying 'now we know why elisa is single'... lmfaooo I'll talk about this in a different paragraph. My point here is that mascs are still girls, they act like girls, they love like girls, the laugh like girls, they ARE girls. Don't look at masc women and expect them to behave like something they aren't. They just like to dress 'manly'. I bet this bitch closed her eyes when she saw Elisa wearing a bikini lolll.

This was one of the main issues when it came to Elisa. When you look at edits of her on tiktok, so many comments were straight women feeling confused and questioning themselves. Like 'omg I like men but she's so hot' or 'wait why am i feeling this way I'm straight'. To all the straight women that are attracted to Elisa and are questioning themselves, please don't feel guilty for your attraction. It's okay. Like I don't even know what my sexuality is and all my life I thought I was straight except the Kristen Stewart phase I had when I was 14 😭 and a ruby rose one when I was 11. I just hope you know that she is a girl no matter how much you try to make her look 'masculine' in your head. She's not some 'alpha male aggressive' guy you're thinking she is, even when her playing style is quite aggressive.

I think what finalized everything is when she posted this:

... yeah, exactly what I expected.

Okay...now about the whole 'elisa is single situation'. THIS BITCH IS SOO RUDE. ugh the way I was texting her and the way she was responding was actually making me fight my fight or flight tendencies.

Basically when she posted the 'now we know why elisa is single', I was confused because like...she literally said she's not what are yall on about 💀💀. So I decided to respond to that message by saying. (This is the screenshots of the convo btw)

"You must be new here" 👆🤓🤓🤓 you annoying dumb ass bitch 😭

"Oh dear" ✋️😮‍💨 LMFAOO BRO WHATTT

"Elisa out here liking big ass big tatty half naked girls"... and then she sends a reel from Nourhene....one of the biggest French infleunecers and YouTubers that has been on the public for YEARS. If you can't remember nourhene, this is her:

(The one on the left)

She was literally invited by PSG to meet the women players, and elisa gifted her a free ticket to the champions league match, they're literally friends 😭. And also... that reel she sent had no tits or ass in it LMFAO, like what are we talking about, girl was acting like its some porn blog or something. And even if elisa liked a naked porn video, that doesn't make elisa single, it just makes her a shitty girlfriend loll.

Also btw... do you really think elisa would have to LIE just to not kiss a fan?? She literally could've just said 'no sorry' but you really think she felt so bad about offending her to the point where she decides to lie about dating someone?? Babe no offense but your feelings are not that important and I don't think she would care that much about rejecting you. Also, Elisa is getting fangirls obsessing over her left and right nowadays, do you think she'd lie like that knowing the fangirls are gonna go fucking crazy and lose it? (Shh... I did too😔)

I honestly don't even know what else to add other than just... please idk use your brain or something? Like I'm so sorry this has been bothering me for two days ngl and I really needed to rant it out.

[mirdaniaa]

Thank you @lord-aldhelm for the tag! 💜

How many works do you have on AO3?

132!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

Apparently it's 1,585,653.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently just TLK, but every now and then HotD or whatever period drama I'm currently watching will catch my fancy.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

gonna be honest, every time this question comes up on an ask meme it makes me cringe a bit, because 3 of them i don't feel are remotely worthy of the honor and I think I just posted at the right time. anyway they're all GoT/asoiaf fics.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to, unless the comment is like, idk, annoying or completely incomprehensible.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh man. I've written a lot of angsty endings...I think I'm just going to go with the most recent, which is The House That Godwin Built.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

also going with the most recent here since there are too many to choose from, too tempting not to touch

8. Do you get hate on fics?

yeah 🥲

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

All kinds babeyyyyyy

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have written exactly one crossover as a dumb joke and it was where Steve Harrington was Jean-Ralphio and Mona-Lisa Saperstein's biological father

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

It used to happen a lot but not so much anymore

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A few times! It's a really nice feeling :)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

@itslaurenmae and I co-wrote Stolen Sweets together!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

eadith x eardwulf aka flowers in mercia i am so deeply unwell about this ship i made up in my head but also it's real I'm so Pepe Silvia about it

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I started this Barkskins fic literal years ago that went into the loup-garou thing that is CONSTANTLY coming up in the narrative but tbh i had no idea where to take it after "yeah they're werewolves" so I feel like. I shall never finish it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I say, perhaps overconfidently. I attribute it to my theatre background but I'm always reading and, for that matter, writing dialogue with a voice in mind. I also speak a lot of the dialogue out loud to myself to make sure it sounds right, which is why I now live alone. I also know my basic editing (spelling, grammar, punctuation, tenses, etc) is almost always in good shape.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am SO BAD at writing descriptions, it's something I'm actively working on. Action scenes are also something I struggle with, my eyes glaze over those scenes in books and television, and if you've ever read my fics, you'll notice I like to pull a GRRM and knock out my characters whenever possible.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If it's not necessary to the plot, why confuse the reader when you can just as easily say, "He said to the woman in sunglasses, this time in Russian..." or, "He didn't understand the two men, who sounded as though they were speaking in French..." Unless that dialogue is relevant to the plot, I guess I just don't see the need.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I'm pretty sure it was Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

The House That Godwin Built will always have a special place in my heart 💜

tagging @ivarthebadbitch, @stannisfactions, @wildwren, @wexpyke, @abnerkrill, @skatingthinandice, and anyone else who wants to play!

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Witches and Wizards Job 20-21-22

The bad news is that I missed yesterday's update. I apologize! I have no excuse except that wrestling Tumblr's queue into compliance tries my patience unto violence.

The good news is that the story is finished! So now, instead of once a week, you'll get updates once a day until everything's posted.

AO3 Link

Buy me a Ko-fi?

Remember: Tumblr has no algorithm. Reblogs give me life.

1-2 + 3-4 + 5-6 + 7-8 + 9-10-11 + 12-13-14 + 15-16 + 17-18-19 + 20-21-22 + 23-24-25 + 26-27-28 + 29-30 + 31-32-33 + 34-35-36 + 37-38 + 39-40-41-42

TWENTY

Hitter and wizard headed back to the loft, Mouse on a leash that Eliot doubted very much would give the young dog a pause if he decided to challenge it. He took the time to examine Harry out of the corner of his eye.

The wizard was, in many ways, an open book. His emotions burned close to the surface, in his eyes, the tight line of his mouth, the way he walked and carried himself. The hitter had never met someone who was both so aware and unaware of his surroundings; Harry was always expecting an attack, he just didn't seem to know he was doing so. His anger at the situation with the selkies still burned in his eyes, distracting him, blinding him. He couldn't compartmentalize, like Leverage did. He'd seen something unfair, and he was mad about it, and he would do his damnedest to fix it.

He was, in sum, a good person.

"Harry,"

"Hm."

"When she said they smelled you -"

"They didn't. A friend did." The wizard seemed to think on those words for a moment before he nodded tinily to himself. "And it's literal. It's the smell of my magic. It's a new smell to the area, and without the lake to ground me it's probably very obvious. I told Sophie, I figured she'd passed it on: they'll know I'm here. Everything on this side of the river can -"

Mouse growled a quiet warning and both their heads came up. At the same time, a young man pacing in front of the loft entrance looked up. He had the kind of perfect looks, flawlessly tousled hair and incredibly expensive clothing that you only see on a billboard, advertising fancy watches or men's cologne. He had sunglasses on, and for a moment Eliot thought something looked wrong with the face behind them, but he was more focused on the man making any sort of sudden move.

Harry's face was made of stone. Eliot didn't need to see anything else to recognize bad magic.

"Oh, good," the man breathed when he saw us. He had a faint French accent. "You are wizard Harry Dresden, are you not?"

"Nope." Harry kept on walking.

The man frowned, trotting and planting himself directly in the wizard's path. "But -"

"I am. The answer's no."

That instantly started to ring alarm bells in Eliot's mind. With the women, Harry had been polite, uncertain but kind. This man was getting nothing but blanked.

"Please." The man pleaded, managing to get in Harry's way once again. "Please, I need your help."

"I'm on a job already." Harry pointed at Eliot. "For him."

The man glanced at Eliot. Before the hitter could so much as say a word, or even think it, the stranger's eyes flicked away; he'd been dismissed without a thought, without a care. That was a very personal pet peeve, though for the moment Eliot was willing to count it an advantage. When you didn't think someone was a threat you never watched them very closely.

"I won't take much of your time, I will pay for it -"

"I'm on retainer," the wizard snapped, forced to stop once again. "That means I do the work he wants, nothing else, nothing more."

That brought the stranger up short. He looked, really looked, at Eliot. In return, the hitter made himself look at the man, truly look at him, even though some primeval part of his brain kept telling him not to do so. This time, he saw the blink of far too many eyes behind the sunglasses, and when the man spoke again, he saw the odd way parts of his mouth didn't move.

The stranger spoke in a tone that managed to be both embarrassed and coy. "I am not sure I am comfortable speaking freely in front of… food."

Harry beamed at him. The wizard might have no poker face to speak of, but when he did sarcasm it came out like a masterpiece. "Then you don't really need my help, do you?"

"But -"

Moused growled.

The stranger bared perfect teeth, hissed low and stepped back. Two men and one dog moved past him.

"It's my wife -"

"Then I absolutely don't want to help you."

"No, wizard, my real wife!" When that still didn't stop them, he cried out. "She might be cheating on me!"

Several people stared, slowing down minutely before they moved on. Next to Eliot, Harry stopped.

Sighed.

Dropped his head.

What power those words may hold over the wizard, Eliot didn't know. But he did know that Harry couldn't, wouldn't walk away any more, and he didn't want him to believe he had no options. A lot of what powered the wizard's actions was so… lonely. In him Eliot was seeing echoes and ghosts of the man he'd once been, before he'd fallen from all grace. He knew being alone had been a very contributing factor to that fall. And he'd be damned if it happened to anyone else on his watch. "Harry?" he asked very quietly.

The wizard flicked him a quick, surprised glance. That, Eliot knew, was another odd quality of the man; he wasn't keeping secrets or holding back information or going off on his own out of a sense of greed or mistrust; it wasn't a con for him, he wasn't running a job. He was just so used to being alone that it didn't occur to him to act otherwise.

With one word, Eliot had reminded him he wasn't alone. And with one startled look, Harry had got the message. The hitter saw muscles work restlessly along the wizard's jaw before he turned to face the stranger. "And if she is?"

The stranger shrugged. "I want to live, wizard."

Harry's mouth went to a thin line. That, apparently, was the right answer. Unfortunately, it was as obvious to the hitter as it was to the stranger, who took a half step forward. "I will leave," he hurried to add. "I will go as far away as you wish me to go if you bring me proof."

The wizard's breath puffed out of him in a tiny, angry sound, and he pointed sharply. "Go sit in the pub, I'll deal with you when I can." He whipped around to walk into the building, whirled once more, hurried down the steps and added, very tightly, "And don't eat anyone!"

That was the opposite of reassuring, wasn't it? And still Eliot couldn't help but be amused. He kept his questions to himself until they were going up the stairs. "So what was that all about? I take it the crack about food was for me?"

"Yeah."

"What is he?"

"Uh, spider, sort of."

"He's… what, he's a spider, he's made of spiders, he's got spider magic, what? Information, Harry. And while you're at it, why don't you want to help him? You were much nicer to the selkie ladies."

"They get a raw enough deal," the wizard muttered.

Harry opened the door to the loft. "Hardison, wizard in the house!"

"Couch's free!" the hacker called out from before the bank of screens.

"I've got a job for you too."

"Uh, excuse me?" Hardison turned to stare after the hitter in insulted disbelief as the wizard and his dog dutifully took their spots as far away from the computers as possible. "I've spent all morning trying to create a profile out of fairy tales. Fairy tales, Eliot! I've been translating so much Russian I think I've learned the language by, by infection. I -"

"Is this a new fridge?" Eliot asked, in the process of grabbing a beer.

Hardison gave him the most pointed of looks. "No, it is not."

Eliot said nothing, he merely nodded minutely. "Harry, you want anything?" The coffeemaker chirped something that didn't sound nice and the hitter gave it a wary squint. "That isn't coffee?"

"Beer's nice."

Eliot provided, and then moved over to Hardison's work area. "This shouldn't take you long. Just need a look into this guy's affairs."

"Eliot! Does it look like I have time -!" Hardison was already taking the printed piece of paper. "Who even is this dude?"

"Scumbag."

"Yes, thank you, that answers absolutely nothing."

"Fourteen years ago he stole a selkie's skin. A seal-woman, a shapeshifter." Harry pitched his voice to carry; he'd had plenty of practice with Eliot earlier. "The magic in the skin bound her to him," he pointed the bottle at the piece of paper.

"Bound her, bound her how, because I'm not liking what you're telling me, Harry."

"Married. Has a kid. Guess whose skin's gone missing now." Eliot grinned, thin and feral. "Like I said, scumbag."

Hardison sighed in resigned exasperation and moved over to his keyboard. "Is this going to fry my systems, Dresden?"

"It shouldn't."

"So what sort of criminal is he, then?"

"Uh… none?" the wizard ventured.

Hardison stopped typing and turned. "Harry, what's wrong with the man, is what I'm asking."

"Literally, nothing." It was Eliot who replied. "This isn't one of our cases, Hardison, it's his."

The hacker visibly stuttered to a halt. He looked at the printed page, at the wizard with his horse-sized dog half-asleep on his lap. He looked at Eliot and at the screens. "Alright." He went back to typing. "Meet William Wellington Wattsford, what a name. Lawyer."

"Figures," Harry muttered.

"Harry, how far can he stash the skins, is there a range on the magic?" Eliot stared at the man on the screen, as perfectly nondescript a creature as one could be found, slightly balding, a little on the lanky side, fit by virtue of his gym membership.

"Yes, actually. They should be within the city limits. The further away, the more likely the link between selkie and skin will snap."

"What happens then?" Hardison asked warily.

"She goes insane and kills him. And dies. Or she just dies, and the curse on the skin ricochets and kills him horribly. I mean, it'd be a great solution," the wizard agreed thoughtfully, "except for her dying."

"Jesus, Harry, is there anything about magic that doesn't kill, explode, set things on fire or create general mayhem?" Eliot demanded.

Harry shrugged and pointed at himself. "Ta-da?" Mouse's tail wagged once, as if he'd said something funny.

"Well, there's his house." The hacker pulled up a map, typed again and little flags appeared all over it. "And there's anywhere else his name pops up. Man, it feels weird looking up someone so… normal. Job, kid's school, gym, therapy - yeah, that surely helped not make you into a skin-kidnapping psycho, didn't it," he muttered. "Log cabin."

"Bank." Harry pointed out.

Hitter and hacker looked at him, then the screens. "It can't be that easy," Hardison protested.

"Why not?" the wizard countered. "Who's gonna believe a tale about a selkie-wife?"

Hardison had to accept the rationale of that after a moment. "Is this really what your work is like?"

"Yeah. Only I can't do that," the wizard waved at the computers, "so there's a lot of legwork involved, a lot of people-watching. She's a stay-at-home mom, so it can't be in any of the places where they spend time as a family. It can't be near the kid, she's on mom's side. He'd get weird looks at work trying to stash a full-sized seal pelt, let alone two. It's at a bank. Safe deposit box."

"Harry, I feel like I ought to ask, what happens if she gets her skin back?" Eliot's tone said he had hopes and dreams about the answer.

"She'll leave him."

"Th- that's it?" So much for the hitter's hopes and dreams.

"That's all she wants. She wants to go home, to her family, to her people. She -" Harry tried to explain. "You're thinking of her in human terms. She's not human. She just looks like it because it's good camouflage. Even if you're starving and seal's all there is to eat, you're not gonna shoot a person if you can help it, are you?" He shrugged. "The lawyer, he's not even an afterthought."

"Somehow, I think that would hurt his ego even more." Hardison looked deeply pleased. "Is there a reason we, us, can't give her the skins back?"

"No." Harry looked deeply amused, and suddenly very interested. "If it was me, once I figured out where they were stashed I'd just tell her. The friend who sniffed me out? If he's what I think he is, he'd get them back for her in no time flat. Me, I'm just not the sort that goes around breaking into banks, like you people."

"No, no, excuse me, I do not break into banks." Hardison picked up his phone. "I have a Parker for that."

"What about the dude down in the pub?" Eliot asked.

"What dude down in the pub?"

"Oh, you know. The one Harry specifically warned not to eat anyone."

"Excus- I'm s- What did you - There is a man down in the pub and you specifically had to warn him not to eat anyone?" Hardison had forgotten to dial.

"Spider." Harry mumbled.

"What?"

"Oh, yeah, he's not a man, he's a spider." Eliot beamed.

"WHAT?!"

"Kin. He's spider-kin."

"That's freaky. You do realize that, right? That is freaky."

"Just - just put the pub cameras up, Hardison," Eliot huffed. "You still haven't told me why you didn't want to help him." He directed that at the wizard.

"I try not to help bad guys," Harry admitted tightly. "Spiders are predatory. And assholes."

"He changed your mind, though. When he told you about his wife, his real wife."

Harry rubbed at his face wearily. "She'd eat him."

Eliot drew in a deep breath. "I'm guessing you mean literally."

"Yeah. Spiders keep groupies, tons of them, so they can pick and choose their food -"

"Please do not speak of people as 'food'. I am people," Hardison requested indignantly.

"Not to him. To him you're a burger. Many keep wives or husbands, they make for good cover."

"But that's not cheating, because you can't cheat on a burger," Eliot followed the train of information and ran ahead of it.

"Exactly. The only actual cheating is between their own kind. And he has to do everything he can to keep his wife happy. If he doesn't, like with some spiders -"

"He goes on the menu," Hardison finished. "That's why he's so desperate that he came looking for you - is this what you do back home?"

"No, not for him. Back home he'd know better than to show his face at my doorstep. But yes, otherwise. Cheating spouses is a big part of what I do. I'm actually cheaper than a PI. Faster, too."

"How?" Eliot asked, and both hacker and hitter turned to look at the wizard, openly curious.

"Uh, spell to see if they're actually cheating. Nine out of ten times they are. Tracking spell to follow them until I can get pictures."

"You can use a camera?"

"An old one, but yeah. And those cheap disposables, if I'm quick getting them developed."

Eliot and Hardison looked at one another, and Hardison grinned. "Alright. And having seen me work," he pointed a thumb at the screens behind him, "how would you go about it?"

Harry frowned, his focus suddenly and completely on the screens. "I'd get a picture of his wife."

"Reasonable," Hardison crossed his arms and waited. "Why?"

"Because if she's cheating, it'll be with someone who looks like part of her circle of groupies. And he will have his own circle as well." Harry lifted a hand and gestured. "Circle to circle to circle, I'd follow the faces, the ones that repeat." He grinned ruefully. "I just can't do picture searches on a computer.'

"I get the feeling the only thing holding you and your magic back is, um. Your magic, man," Eliot said, then pointed. "There, upper corner, that's him."

Hardison brought the camera in closer. And stared. "Him?"

"Yup."

"That's your man?"

"Yes."

"Uh, spider?"

"Yes, Hardison, that's him." Eliot's voice was turning into a growl.

"The one playing with a smartphone?"

All three men crossed a startled look. On the screen, the stranger looked up when a drink was brought to him, then returned his attention to his phone, tapping rapidly.

All three of them launched themselves down the stairs, leaving Mouse to hold the fort. As they hurried to the pub, Eliot asked one last question. "You'd let the guy get eaten, wouldn't you?"

Harry grimaced. "I wouldn't throw him a rope if he were drowning, but -"

"But he asked for help."

"No, he agreed to leave. That's one less heavy-duty predator in Boston, among people who can't see him coming. I'll take that win all the way to the bank."

Eliot grinned, then fell back as both Harry and Hardison moved forward. Something crackled in one of the hacker's pockets and, grimacing, he handed his phone over to Eliot, whispering something to the hitter before he hurried to catch up to the wizard. Eliot made a call as the other two walked away.

Harry slid into of the booth's benches, opposite the spider, who looked up in surprise before relief flooded his expression. "Good afternoon. Harry Dresden, wizard. This is my employer, Mister Hardison. Nothing happens if he doesn't allow it."

Hardison had too good a poker face to betray the surprise he felt in hearing the hard, stony tone Harry was suddenly using. He was also, like the rest of the team, quite good at picking up cues on the fly, particularly when they were so blatant. "Mister Dresden is doing some very important, time-sensitive work," he told the predator across the table, putting just enough Sophie in his voice to make the spider sit up and take notice of the, ah, talking burger. "He has pleaded with us to hear your case. Please, convince us." It was both invitation and challenge.

The spider fumbled his phone to one side. "Ah, yes, you see -"

"I understood magic made the use of modern technology impossible," Hardison pointed out casually.

"What? … Oh, the phone. No, no, it's not technology, it is magic." When Hardison gave him a mildly disbelieving look, the spider surrendered the phone readily. "No, you see, we don't use the human connection. We use ours. We use our magic to weave our devices directly into the electronic web the humans have wrapped around the world."

Hardison was flicking through screens, listening with half an ear until the meaning of the words actually sank in. "You w… You wove your way into the systems. Because it's a web. They're all webs."

The man spread his hands. "It's a family talent. It makes for a very profitable business."

"That's how you found him, isn't it," Hardison nodded in Harry's direction.

"Yes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you, wizard Dresden, you warp the very lines of Boston's web. For us, you are far too obvious when, ah. Well, when existing nearby."

Harry shrugged awkwardly.

"How profitable?" the hacker asked. "If I wanted you to wire my phone the same way, how much would it be?"

The spider smiled, very much a business smile, hollow and professional. He gestured for his phone, and when it was handed back to him he dug out a stylus from one side and wrote something before passing it over to Hardison.

Who nearly choked on the six-digit figure. "For one phone?"

"As I said, very profitable. Of course, if you were willing to loan me the services of the wizard for just this one small bit of business -"

"I'll do it," Harry said before Hardison could protest. "But I'll need a picture of your wife."

"Yes, of course!"

"And access to her social media," Hardison added.

"I, uh, I only have some of her passwords."

"Whatever you have." Hardison found a business card and handed it over. "Send all the information here. We'll use your contact information to communicate any findings."

"With the understanding," Harry stepped in, his voice dead cold, "that I expect you to do exactly as you said you would if you get your proof."

The spider spread his hands. "Mas oui! My word, wizard. I will leave. I like being alive. You need only name the destination."

Harry chewed on his lip. "What's the biggest Red Court site you know of across the pond?"

"Uh, Brussels?"

"There, then." A flinty little smile on the wizard's face suddenly put Hardison in mind of Nate at his most lethal. "And once there I suggest you rarefy your palate."

The spider nodded, threw two twenties on the table, and slipped away hurriedly. Wizard and hacker watched him go. "You know it's gonna take like, ten minutes for me to find out if she's cheating, right?"

"Yup."

"You know Eliot's right, right?"

Harry started laughing.

"I mean it, man." Hardison gave him a very level look, then remembered he wasn't supposed to, and looked away. "You're sharp, Dresden. You're good at what you do. It's a weird, hinky, explode-y kind of skill, but you're just as good at it as we're at ours. The only problem is that it is explode-y." He stared at the spider's business card. "Why couldn't we do this here in Boston? Why couldn't we help you do it, back in Chicago?"

"Because they won't come to us." Eliot slipped into the booth with them, pushing aside the glass and the twenties so they'd be easier for the waitress to pick up. "Because we're humans. Tactical nuke."

Harry nodded wryly. "I'm a wizard." He gestured lightly. "I'm half in, half out. But humans? Humans don't like things to get weird. Humans get twitchy when things get weird."

Hardison understood just as swiftly as Eliot had. "They don't trust we won't call the cops. Or worse."

"I called Parker. She's on it." He gave them both a quick look. "She's not having a good day."

Hardison immediately roused, frowning in concern.

TWENTY ONE

Parker was not having a good day.

Jessamine Lochlin, apparently, had not known about a secret art auction that might or not include the priceless Sokolov portrait. She had not appreciated Parker knowing about it and refusing to provide her, or the authorities, with the information needed to find said auction and recover the portrait. Things had been said. Tempers had flared.

Why was friendship so complicated? It wasn't like that with Hardison, or Eliot, or even Sophie. It was a little strange with Nate, but he did try. Was it just because Jess was not a criminal?

She got herself a coffee and stalked angrily down to the T. She liked the T. She liked trains. There were so many people, so many stories. She could take a dozen phones, a double handful of wallets, and put them back with no one the wiser, skimming over the lives and the stories of the people who carried them, finding out their little sins and their hidden graces. Like the sour old man who didn't like people but kept pictures of all the foster dogs he'd adopted out. Or the scowling, scary lady that kept a laminated little card in her wallet to remind her not to be afraid of the outside world. Or the nice man with all those fake gold chains and tattoos who kept a journal full of baking recipes in one pocket and two butterfly knives in the others.

People weren't always what they seemed, but when Parker turned out not to be what she seemed, then they got angry and shouty and and and -

Her phone rang with Hardison's number. "What."

"Hey." Eliot's greeting got immediately derailed by concern. "You OK?"

"Jess is mad at me," she admitted at once to one of the few people she trusted implicitly. "Why do you have Hardison's phone?"

"He's with Harry. What happened?" The sounds of the pub dulled, replaced by the faint echoing quality that said Eliot had stepped out and was going up the stairs.

"She didn't know about the auction. And she's mad I won't tell her about it."

"Ah." A pause. "You want something fun to do?"

"There's nothing fun to do," she grumbled at him.

"How about getting into a safe deposit box and walking out with the contents?"

Oh. Ok, that was fun. She stopped walking. "Where?"

"Two banks. Two boxes. I'm texting you the info. Hardison said you have an alias in one, and you can probably wing Sophie's alias for the other."

She took the phone away from her ear and looked at the information coming up on the screen. She was less than a block from one of the banks. She began to walk again. "What am I looking for?"

"Um."

She frowned minutely. Eliot only got um-y with info when it was weird info, but his definition of weird was… Well, weird. "What?"

"Fur coats."

Parker's mind began to fly through some swift calculations. "Full size? Half size? Scarf size?"

"F… Full size. Maybe a little bigger. And there'll be two of them."

"So just the coats? We don't want money or documents or anything?"

"You know, I'm not sure. This is Dresden's case, not ours. So use your judgment. The guy's human, but he's a scumbag."

Oh, there was magic involved. Suddenly Parker's day was looking infinitely better, even if the sour tang of her parting with Jess still hurt. "Alright. I'll need you to come get me at the Shawmut Bank location in two hours."

"Alright."

Parker pocketed the phone and stopped, looking up the street at the Fleet Bank dead center of the block. It was a sham, she knew. There were a dozen names for what was, essentially, one bank in Boston metro, in most of New England. But Bank of America kept some of the names to preserve an illusion of choice. Fleet was the one with her alias, and she couldn't remember what she'd stuffed in the safety deposit box. It was either a spare costume and a lockpick kit, or a lockpick kit and a rig. Or maybe a rig and a copy of Eliot's chili recipe. Or a lockpick kit and a change of clothes?

She was pretty sure about the lockpick kit.

She tousled her hair, took off her jacket. She got a pair of sunglasses from a woman arguing about the price of newspapers with the newspaper seller. She bumped into a man with a grin, a blush and an apology, and took his keys and his belt, moving his wallet from one pocket to another as a decoy. She plucked a phone from another man's pocket and a silk scarf from a woman's purse. She 'found' the phone of a man that was loading shopping into his trunk and handed it over, to many thanks, while she acquired one of the empty reusable shopping bags off to one side of the trunk. She untucked her shirt and settled the belt loosely around her waist, changing the character of the clothing with nothing but a hat, a belt and her posture. The scarf went around her neck while she typed into the phone.

She walked into Fleet with a smile to the guard and a quiet little, "Hi, Frank" in Boston's unmistakable purr, a privileged daughter of that august, eclectic city. He flushed minutely and returned the greeting with uncertain courtesy, trying not to show that he didn't know who she was.

The manager was equally disarmed, all the more when he was shown the confirmation text for an appointment to check the young lady's safe deposit box. He was nothing if not apologetic after checking her information against their accounts, though he kept his eyes from bugging out at the amount of money involved, if only just. He got even more flustered when his own phone began to buzz insistently, hanging up just as he got to it. Twice. Then three times.

A few minutes later, a supervisor was escorting Parker to the side vault where the safe deposit boxes were kept. The manager, upstairs, was not getting anywhere trying to return those pesky calls. The stolen phone was in one pocket of the supervisor's smart blue business suit. The battery was in the other.

Parker picked the lock to her own box. Damned if she knew where the key to it might be, or if she even had one. But it was a dinky little lock, and she had no trouble using the few seconds between the supervisor finding and using her own key for it to do the deed, the stolen keys hanging from her hand and jangling reassuringly, like a good little decoy, the lockpicks tucked between her fingers, invisible. The supervisor left. Parker looked around and nodded to herself. It had been quick, dirty, there were a dozen holes in it, but it had got her what she wanted. Out of curiousity she peeked into the box and frowned minutely, pulling out a box of Girl Scout cookies and a rig. She'd been so sure of the lockpicking kit!

… She opened the box of cookies. Inside it there was a single sleeve of cookies, and a spare lockpicking kit.

"Ah-ha!"

She got the other safe deposit box out and frowned. The entire box, the largest the bank could offer, was full of a white, gravelly substance. There was a little black book on top. She picked up one pebble and rolled it between her fingers. Sniffed it. The smell was startlingly familiar, and she licked it.

Salt.

She pocketed the book. Little black books were usually very, very valuable in one fashion or another. Then she stared at a box full of salt, which did nothing but sit there quietly.

No one kept a box of just salt in the bank.

Parker rolled up her sleeve and began to worm her hand into the salt. She had to be careful; salt spilling everywhere wasn't going to be easy to explain, and she didn't want to burn the alias unless she had to. Her fingers brushed something lavishly soft a few inches under the surface, and she huffed. This wasn't going to be easy.

Seven minutes later she was out and on her phone. "Eliot."

"No, it's me," Hardison replied. "You alright?"

"Yes, just annoyed. Two banks, two fur coats."

"Well, that's smarter than I expected of the man, honestly. But are you alright?"

She blew out a long, exasperated breath. "Friends are hard," she muttered.

"They are," Hardison had to admit. "It's one fight, Parker. People argue. People disagree. Doesn't mean she doesn't wanna be your friend, just that she's mad at you right now. That might change tomorrow."

"What if it doesn't?"

"Well… Sometimes friendships are like that. They just don't work. You move on, you find another friend."

"I don't want another friend," she growled. "I gotta go, I found my car."

The car key in the stolen keyring belonged to a very plain, dark brown sedan. She drove to the Shawmut Bank; here, at least, she could streamline the process: she actually did have an appointment to open Sophie's safe deposit box, and Hardison had apparently had the time to create an electronic ID for her. She was escorted in with little fuss, though the lock to the box was a little trickier to pick. She was left alone once again.

She found another box full of salt, a few folders on top of it, and sighed in exasperation. "Magic's beginning to look like just a lot of trouble," she muttered, once again working as carefully as she could to get the fur coat out. On a whim, she replaced the box in its nook and laid the coats out side by side on the empty table.

They were beautiful. Parker's understanding of what was appealing was limited to what she liked, but it would have been impossible not to see the glory of the furs before her. One, the larger, was a dark dappled silver, nearly black on one half, the dappling fading until it was the palest gray on the other side. The smaller one was true silver, its pile much thicker, with black spattered at random here and there. There were no clasps, no buttons, no hems, no seams of any kind. Just two flawless pieces of fur softer than anything Parker had ever touched. They looked more vivid, more alive than any piece of fur or leather clothing she'd ever seen or worn or touched or stolen in her lifetime.

She couldn't get over a deep sense of wrongness to see them there, on that table, surrounded by the cold, hard lines of the safe deposit boxes, pinned under the harsh halogen lights.

Parker pocketed the folders, rolled up the furs and shoved them back into the shopping bag. Eliot was waiting for her just outside, and she threw the keys of her stolen car into said stolen car through an open window, hopping into the hitter's truck. "Go," she instructed, waiting until they were on Storrow Drive to ask, "What did I just steal?"

"Pair of selkie coats."

"Cool. What's a selkie coat?"

Eliot grinned and began to explain.

By the time they got back to the loft, the thief was seething. "HARRY!" she shouted as she charged in. Nate and Sophie, who'd just walked in, winced.

"Parker, what's wrong?" Sophie asked placatingly.

"Nothing," the thief declared tartly as she put her shopping bag down. "As long as Harry can put a curse on someone. A really bad one. Like, full of warts and, and clowns and -"

"Oh-kay." Nate put aside their dry-cleaning and moved over. "From the beginning, please?"

"He's not here, he's back at the safehouse," Hardison came out of the back with a shallow box fresh from the 3D-printer.

"Fine," Parker whirled around and stalked off.

Nate looked at the rest of his team. They gave him back the most guileless looks. He believed none of them, and that included Sophie's, who'd been with him all afternoon. But those same innocent looks also told him this was a fight that he was not likely to win. "Part of the case?"

Eliot shrugged. Hardison looked mildly confused.

"Right. I'm gonna go get a shower, get ready for dinner."

They all watched him pick up one of the dry-cleaner bags and disappear up the stairwell. Sophie turned and cocked a single brow at both men.

"Some people found Harry," Eliot admitted quietly.

"Found him, found him how?" She was immediately alarmed.

"One said she smelled him," the hitter explained.

"And the other found him through the web," the hacker added.

"Through the internet?" The grifter was puzzled.

"No, the web. It's -" Hardison suddenly realized why the wizard always looked so pained when he had to explain something. "Look, it's complicated, but it checks out. We dealt with them."

"Dealt with them?"

"They weren't looking to make trouble," Eliot said mildly. "They needed his help."

"So you freelanced with the wizard." She gave them both a very stern look.

Hardison shrugged. "One was a cheating wife. That took like fifteen minutes once Dresden told us what to look for."

"The other was this one." Eliot picked up the shopping back and showed the contents to Sophie.

She gasped just to see the beauty of the rolled-up fur on top, reaching out to run admiring fingertips over the dappled pattern, the unmistakably fine fur. They watched her go from admiration, to confusion, to understanding and horror and cold, cold fury in just a couple of seconds. "Eliot, tell me this isn't what I think it is," she breathed.

"It is." Calmly, he added, "And her daughter's."

Sophie stiffened. "A daughter," she murmured. "Is he even the sort that's going to be sorry when they vanish?" she demanded tightly.

"Sorry, probably not," Hardison admitted. "Embarrassed and socially destroyed? Oh, yeah."

"Parker also snagged these." Eliot offered the hacker the folders, and the grifter the little black book. "We kinda strong-armed Harry into taking the job, seems only right to follow through to the end."

"Good," was all Sophie said after leafing through the book and handing it back, picking up her own bag of dry-cleaning and stalking rigidly off. "Shatter him."

TWENTY TWO

While everyone else in the team gleefully engaged in further levels of what Hardison called 'hardware mode' and Nate called 'wanton destruction of property', the mastermind took Sophie to meet Vanya Fedorov.

"You rarely doubt your assessment of a client," Sophie said as he helped her off the car Fedorov had sent for them.

His face went through a dozen different emotions. To be fair, a good part of it was that the grifter had been taking his breath away and shutting down his brain since she'd come out dressed in an absolutely gorgeous violet silk dress that draped in waves over her like blessings from on high. Nate hadn't been able to string more than two automatic thoughts together every time he looked at her. She was wearing cascade earrings and a matching necklace, and her hair was up in an artfully disarrayed bun. The graceful line of her neck would have toppled empires.

Then she laced her hand through his arm, and Nate remembered he was the lucky one.

He settled on honesty as they walked up to the frosted glass doors of a gracious Greek restaurant. What he'd told Dresden back in Chicago still stood. "I'm biased," he admitted to her. "I saw it, I felt it. I'm still biased. I keep catching myself looking for explanations. Looking for, for…" His free hand groped for words. "Comfortable lies."

"It's kind of a critical change in thinking, Nate. I thought I believed, until I had to."

"Yes, but I don't have time to indulge myself. If we're right, and things are coming to a head at this private auction, we need to deal with what we have. With what is. And I don't know if my bias judged Fedorov fairly."

"You want to know if he was lying to you."

"Among other things." When she cocked her head at him he flailed a little. "Just, you know. Just try to get a good read on the man." She was grinning at him and he scoffed at himself.

"Alright, alright, I'll do my best," she reassured him, brushing lightly at the lapels of his black jacket, where a 'I<3Boston' pin was mostly hidden out of sigh, a gift from Dresden, who was 'getting sick and tired of having everyone's heads scrambled'; her own pin was a cute little Duck Tours boat, pinned under one of the folds of her gown. "But I trust your judgment, even if you don't."

The restaurant was half-empty, it being the middle of the week. A flowering wisteria, a magnificent work of stained glass, sprawled over the ceiling, lights burning in the blossoms as accents. Music, a fine strumming guitar, filled the air with warmth. Somewhere, a woman was laughing in the throaty undertone usually reserved for lovers. Closer at hand three older men were arguing over a bottle of ouzo and the remains of their dinner, their body language one of deep camaraderie for all their angry gesturing. Farther to the back, Sophie could hear what sounded like a family, their voices full of contented enthusiasm.

All this information came to her as it always did, to be soaked up and filed away for future use, the human element that did most of her work. It meant the one jarring element caught her attention instantly, even as she surrendered her delicate white jacket to Nate.

Vanya Fedorov was already there, waiting for them. He'd taken a table that put his back to a wall and gave him a line of sight to most of the restaurant, the entrance, the bar and the kitchen door. He had a glass and a shot in front of him, both half-full. He was wearing a dress shirt in deep burgundy under a dress jacket as black as his hair. Sophie's impression was the same as she'd had back at the museum: of a wolf, tongue lolling, content to lounge while waiting for a chance to rip someone's throat out.

Ah, she did so love Russians.

She frowned minutely: Fedorov was not alone. More, his mood was definitely suffering for it.

She examined the second man. He was standing next to the table, speaking quietly. He was older, built just as powerfully as the Russian enforcer, dressed neatly. Unlike Fedorov, he made no effort to hide the presence of his gun, though his gray suit was so exquisitely tailored that it was barely noticeable. The tattoos over his knuckles had been rendered all but illegible by old scars. His gray hair was cut and sternly combed back, and he had brown eyes as hard as the lines of his face.

"Ready?" Nate asked.

"Wait," she murmured, and felt him go perfectly still behind her.

The older man was trying to hold onto his rising temper, and failing. Vanya was being far more successful, though he was no less irritated. He was also adding a lot less to the conversation; it made it easy to identify the clipped 'Nyet' that was all he offered to the older man's latest tirade.

"Do you actually want dinner?" Nate asked mildly.

Sophie knew he was right; the mood at the Russian's table was growing dangerous quickly. "Alright." She let Nate take point, using him as cover to keep watching. The older man offered an envelope to Fedorov; Vanya took it and promptly threw it carelessly across his table. "I'm still not interested," she heard him say in Russian.

"Vanya, you need these people!" The older man's voice was a snap.

"I'm sorry, are we interrupting?" Nate asked pleasantly. Both Russians turned their temper on him.

Both of them drew themselves up sharply straight as Sophie took a half-step forward and laced her arm with Nate's. Fedorov automatically rose from his seat. "You are not," he assured them both, his tone forcibly pleasant. "My uncle was just leaving."

"Ah, Mikhail Sagorov." Sophie offered her hand. "No finer mind for business and secure transport along the East Coast," she added in Russian, her voice a purr.

The older man flushed, instantly thrown off-guard. He took Sophie's hand and barely squeezed, though she could feel the strength dormant in that grip. "One does not expect beautiful women to find such things interesting," he admitted.

"There is much no one ever expects I will find interesting." She let her hand linger.

Mikhail Sagorov gave her a measuring look. Gave his nephew a puzzled look. Glared impotently at Nate. No one offered answers to the wealth of questions Sophie had thrown at him with a few measured words and an enormity of the unspoken. "I will leave you to your dinner," he said in English. "We will speak later, Vanya."

Vanya started laughing almost before his uncle was out of the door. "You are terrifying," he told Sophie.

"Me? Never," she beamed at the compliment as Nate helped her into her seat.

"My associate, Sophie Deveraux, mister Fedorov."

"Ah." His handshake was firm and friendly, his expression full of amusement. "So not an art curator?"

"I can be, if you need one," she flirted shamelessly before her expression grew serious. "Is everything alright, have there been more… situations?"

"No, no, it's not that. It's been quiet since the museum, thankfully." He looked relieved. "No one died then. As far as I'm concerned, that's a win."

The waiter came to tender their menus. Fedorov ordered them vodka. Nate, with a profoundly resigned sigh, spoke in the silence that followed. "You were right."

"I will never be believed if I tell anyone you offered me those words," Vanya replied mildly after a brief pause. "But you are going to have to be more specific, Ford."

Sophie could see Nate struggling to accept that he had to say the words out loud, that he had to send them out into the world. "About your grandmother," she said very gently.

Fedorov, about to reach for his glass of water, froze. He picked up instead the shot of vodka and downed it smoothly. When he put it down the blue of his eyes was hard and uncompromising. "I see."

"She's not the problem," Nate added.

"She is - Grandmother is not the problem?" Vanya stared at him in disbelief.

"No. She's one of the targets."

Before, the Russian had simply been shocked into stillness. But his sudden motionless at those words filled the space around the table with deadly menace. "Who?" he asked, and the one word was a dark, lethal promise.

"I guess that depends on how deeply you believe," Nate replied casually, picking up the abandoned envelope, examining it idly. "What's this for?" He handed it over to Sophie.

She found a different sigil embossed in the heavy vellum under her fingers, but she didn't take her eyes off Fedorov, even though she couldn't readily identify it.

"Who?" the Russian repeated.

"Well- "

"Who, Ford?" That black menace was looking for a target, and if it couldn't find the right one it was liable to settle for the nearest one.

"Khan Koshan," Sophie said very quietly.

They both saw understanding come to the Russian enforcer almost immediately. His mouth opened, but he snapped it shut with the same motion. "It would be him," he muttered tightly after a long moment. When the waiter returned he was instructed to leave the bottle, and Vanya poured himself another shot that he merely played distractedly with before he leaned back with a nod. "I will wire your payment."

"We're not off the job," Sophie told him.

"This is not for you. I'm not even sure who -"

"Fedorov, you don't understand," Nate worked on organizing his thoughts. He picked up his shot of vodka and took a moment to organize his words as well. "He already knows we're involved. We can't be off the case." He downed the vodka with a grimace.

"Ah." Vanya stared thoughtfully at his drink. "It was not my intention to put you in the line of fire, you and your people."

"I know." Nate shrugged minutely. "I took the job to prove you wrong."

The Russian snorted laughter at that. "Well."

"What can you tell us about him?" Sophie asked delicately.

"About the Raven?" Vanya sighed. "The old stories are full of him. He's a meddler, a manipulator. He will come to you when you need help, and make promises. He will offer what you want, disguising it as what you need. He does not betray, understand that. He merely uses your own desires against you. Tricks of words and gifts."

"He's a grifter." Sophie smiled wryly.

"Not a very good one, but yes."

"What about his heart?" Nate asked.

"The stories or the jewel?" Fedorov asked, confused.

"See, he knows about the jewel."

Nate rubbed his forehead. "You know what, let's get the easy one out of the way. The jewel."

Fedorov shot Sophie an amused looked. "The Emerald Heart of Koschei the Deathless. It's supposed to be an African emerald the size of a man's fist, set in platinum and diamonds. A myth, a fairy tale, if it weren't because the story doesn't fade, because the descriptions always match. Everyone knows about the Heart, but no one has ever seen it."

"I told you," she declared smugly.

Nate chose to move onto a fight he had a moderate hope of winning. "And the other half?"

"We've been told," Sophie offered, "that he took out his heart to give to a woman, as proof of his love. That her rejection poisoned it, and him." She sipped at her water. "Our source thinks that last bit is bull."

"Your source is well-informed," the Russian grinned, "and smart. You have the bare measure of a truth. He did cut out his heart. He did mean to give it to a woman - to his mentor, the one who taught him everything. As proof of her love for him, he wanted her to take on the burden of keeping it safe."

"Ah," Nate breathed.

"Well, of course she would refuse," Sophie declared, toying with the envelope.

"She did not refuse," Fedorov corrected her. "But there was a trap in the heart, a means for him to steal her power, if she had agreed. So she simply did not take it. That limbo is what cursed the heart. She wouldn't take it with the trap, he wouldn't surrender it without her agreement. It bound them together."

"He's just greedy, isn't he?" Sophie declared.

"My milk-mother used to say he is lost to what he sees but cannot hold. A hungry man at a banquet that does not realize he cannot possibly eat all the food there, wants to hoard it all for himself because hunger tells him so. So it is with him and magic."

"Your what?" Nate blinked at the archaism.

"I think the closest English word is nursemaid. The one who took over when my mother died." He grinned thinly. "The one I did not grow up with, of course."

"Mm. In those vast, wild Vladivostok forests," Nate added mildly.

"Just so."

Sophie held up the envelope. Fedorov scowled and took it. "My uncle wants me to go to some sort of art auction. A private affair. He wants me to meet the people there, people who will help with our business, he says."

"You should go," Nate said mildly.

Vanya blew out an irritated breath. "Ford -"

"You should take Ekaterina with you."

The Russian ran out of words mid-sentence.

"It is an art auction," Ekaterina's pleasant Russian burr pointed out. "It is sensible to bring a curator if you mean to bid, no?"

He stared at her in shock, unable to see Sophie past Ekaterina. "How -?!" He threw his hands up, rejecting that line of questioning, laced them before him on the table, and stared levelly at both of them. "Why?"

"Bunch of reasons, really," Nate admitted readily. "I suspect it might be the site of the next 'incident'. I think your Raven's going to be there."

"Will Grandmother be there?"

"I'm not sure yet, but odds say yes."

"And you're sure she's the target?"

"As sure as I can be of anything at this point," the mastermind admitted wryly.

Fedorov seemed to think deeply on all of this. Nate refilled his vodka shot. Sophie picked up her water.

It nearly ended up all over her lap when someone bumped her chair. "Excuse me!" she exclaimed, turning around. It was their waiter. He was walking by, sedately, slowly. His shoulders were twitching minutely. The air smelled of the sea. A flute was trilling quietly.

Sophie frowned.

Where was the guitar?

Where were the three arguing men?

Why did the sea smell wrong?

"Nate," she said. Just the one word. Her tone was all the warning he needed to immediately abandon whatever conversation he'd been having with Fedorov and look around.

"Where is everyone." It wasn't even a question from Vanya; his hand was already under his coat.

"They left." Nate reached out a hand and put it on the enforcer's arms. "Maybe we should do the same."

Sophie was already on her feet. Automatically, responding to all she'd seen on the last few days, she grabbed the salt shaker from the table. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the mastermind put a hand over the lapel of his coat and twitch, fighting the urge to jerk it away, but just barely.

The waiter met the manager before the front door. They each opened one half of it, moving with the jerky, uncertain motions of puppets at a show. A delicate breeze swept in.

"Thank you, thank you, so kind, so sweet," the trill of the flute sang in Russian, a woman's voice of such utter beauty that it hardly seemed real. "Such kind children, such sweet children, you should sleep, yes. Sleep, sleep, sleep." The heads of both men lolled down, boneless, and they fell obediently asleep on their feet

Sophie smelled burning silk. Without looking, she knew the cheap tin pin had just burned a hole in her dress.

Something as large as a horse slipped carefully past the open door. The wisteria blossoms began to sizzle and burn out.

Sophie backed away a step.

"Kitchen," Nate whispered.

The thing at the door immediately whipped around, long neck twisting like a snake. A woman's face, flat and unearthly, cocked at them.

Fedorov caught Nate's shoulder. The gesture was so quick that it drew the attention of both mastermind and grifter. The Russian put two fingers to his mouth.

The thing at the door trilled, the flute's song rising in an inquisitive note. "Are there little ones here?" The creature hummed to itself, its voice a singsong. "In here, but there's out there. In here, but there's games to play. In here, but there's fun to have. Out, out, little children, out to play." It stepped forward and the last of the lights burned out.

Sophie stepped carefully out of her shoes. Silence, Fedorov had gestured. Did that mean the thing was blind? That it needed sound to find them? She picked up a piece of silverware from the table and flung it across the restaurant. The sound of it clattering was frighteningly loud in the quiet.

The thing was suddenly immense, five times its original size, hissing like a teakettle. "Silver. Knife." The flute turned into an angry, plucking violin. "No. Not the little ones."

Nate and Sophie crossed a look, then glanced at Fedorov. The three of them were backing away to one end of the bar. The Russian enforcer bumped a chair and they all froze.

The thing jumped onto a table. In the dim light from the streetlights outside, struggling through the frosted windows, Sophie saw immense talons, like an owl's, sprawled on the pristine tablecloth. Glass went tumbling down to shatter on the floor. The thing's neck swung this way and that in a way that was inhuman, but still maddeningly familiar. A vast train of some sort followed it.

Then it unfolded its wings in response to the breaking glass, and Sophie had to bite back a little sound of disbelief. It was a bird. A bird with a woman's face and a woman's voice attached to a serpentine neck, a raptor's body, with a peacock's tail, with talons that could all too readily go through one of them and poke out the other side, with a voice that could charm people into doing whatever it wanted them to do.

A bird, that ruthless part of her mind that never slept pointed out, that had shepherded everyone out, that was still trying to shepherd everyone out.

Why?

She peeked quickly at Fedorov. He looked tense and keenly focused. She and Nate had an excuse; why was Fedorov unaffected?

She lifted a hand, catching both men's attentions. The grifter pointed at the creature, and then at Vanya. His expression ran through surprise, fury, resignation, and then stone-cold defiance.

The creature laughed, and the flute came back, lilting and merry. "Silly silly silly bird, broke the cup, broke the bed," it sang, almost to itself. "Now where where where is the little one, the little prince. Where does he play, where does he hide? Come out to play, little prince, come out to sing, come out to dance, come out, come out, it's time for bed, it's time to go."

It crouched down and leapt at the table where the three of them had been sitting, talons leading. It cut it to pieces effortlessly, slid past, crashed into a chair. Everything went flying in an almighty cacophony of broken wood and torn fabric, breaking glass and tinkling silverware. It flapped immense wings to catch itself and whipped around. "Caught you!" she sang triumphantly.

The three of them were already around the bar and hurrying along in the dark as much as they could, freezing when the sounds of mayhem died on the other side of the counter. Nate peeked over it briefly.

The bird-creature was crouched over the table, neck arched. She was sniffing at the mess she'd made. A low, disconcerted little sound came out of her and her head came up, cocked this way and that. In the gloom her eyes shone dull and white, like a snake's when it's ready to shed. "Not here? Yes here. Not here but yes here, where here?"

Without warning she leapt to the bar counter. Nate dropped down hastily. Fedorov dropped to a crouch.

Sophie opened the salt shaker and poured the contents out in a shaky circle around her bare feet. She then picked up two glasses, found the bottle she needed on the shelf and straightened up. "Sorry," she said calmly in Russian. "You just missed him."

The bird-woman launched herself directly at Sophie, and crashed to a skidding halt on the counter before the grifter, wings half-mantled, head bobbing. "Are you dangerous? Are you mean?" the violin shrilled. "I will gut you, I will flay you, I will eat your -"

"Stop," Sophie said, sounding bored. She put down the two glasses and grabbed the bottle, pouring two generous portions of vodka. "We're both here for the same reason."

"We are not!" the creature drew up straight, then sniffed. Hesitated. "Are we?"

"We're both here to protect Fedorov." Sophie picked up her glass, paused. "Unless you're not. In which case we do have a problem. You are here to keep him safe?"

"I am," the bird agreed at once. "Not safe out here. Too many eyes and ears and tongues." The long neck twisted around. "How to know you're not one of them? Dancing dancing dancing on the strings. Perhaps I should gut you and find out from your entrails after all."

"Fat lot of good my entrails would do you right now." Sophie slid the bottle aside. "Look, we both have the same job, we both bungled it. He had an argument with his uncle -" She kicked at Nate, who was too aghast to start moving when he should've, and finally the two idiots underfoot started creeping away. "- and you know how men get when they're upset. So. I'm thinking I should go to all the places I know of that he likes or something. Start all over again."

The bird drew herself up stiffly, insulted. "All entrails are useful if you know how to read them," she declared haughtily.

"I'm sure the entrails have a lot to say. I wasn't talking about them," Sophie shot back sharply.

The bird huffed, then ducked her head. "I should not have come," she admitted mournfully, her voice a haunting, low woodwind. "Not right now. Two days, maybe three, it would have been fine. Oh, I should not have come."

"But you did," Sophie held up the glass and tapped her nail lightly against it. "Taste of home?"

"Oh, I shouldn't."

"Who's going to tell?"

The creature licked her lips. An immense taloned foot came up and caught the glass, and she sipped at the vodka. "Oh, like home, like home," she hummed.

"Right?" Sophie tapped her glass against the bird's, and they both drank. "Well, I might go check his home, maybe his office -"

"I went to his worky-work nest. He was not there."

"Eh, men are strange like that. They like to put their nose to the grindstone when something upsets them, he might go back if his mood's black enough."

"Too true, too true," the bird agreed. Nate and Fedorov were already disappearing past the kitchen doors. "Who are you? What are you? All I smell is silk and flowers." She paused, finished her drink. "And vodka."

"Wouldn't you like to know," Sophie said, letting just a touch of smugness seep into her tone. "Well, I'm off if you don't have anything useful to add. Can't let him get too far ahead of me."

"Pah. Groundbound thing."

Sophie recoiled and shot right back. "Blind old hen."

"I will get my eyes back," the bird countered with angry dignity. "You'll not grow wings if you don't have them already!"

"I haven't needed them yet."

The creature shrilled at Sophie, an angry teakettle whistle, and hopped down from the counter. "No groundbound thing will beat me to my charge!" She flapped her way to the door and charged out into the night, airborne and away in a second, taking with her the sound of flutes and the scent of the Balkan Sea.

Sophie slithered down to the floor behind the counter, shaking like a leaf. She was still there when Nate came back looking for her, clinging to the glass of vodka as if it were a life-raft, but she threw it away and clung desperately to the mastermind instead with a strangled little sound.

"What were you thinking?!" he demanded.

She gave him a shaky little grin. "I'm a grifter," was all she said.

[kradogsrats]

Hello, I had a question for you about the Katolis army.. do you think it is meant to be a standing army? If Opeli says they could take on all the other human kingdoms (and Aanya was worried about losing a million?) that would be a very large army to maintain on a permanent basis? But they seem to just.. be there.. ready to go.. and food, housing, equipment - this would be super expensive, especially if there’s been ten years of relative peace? I don’t really understand why they would have it set it up this way.. surely magma Titan could have been averted if some of these soldiers were farming…

OKAY SO uh ha ha well I am not actually a historian, much less a military historian, but I will do my best to convey my largely-unsupported thoughts

Basically, this would be a much, much easier question to answer if we didn't have Queen Aanya's line about a million men and women being sent to war against Xadia. That's just like... a staggering number of people, even if she's referring to the combined total forces of the Pentarchy and not solely Duren's contribution or the expected casualties.

If we take the size and population of Xadia according to the old reddit post that put it at roughly the size of Mongolia and 40 million, just so we have some kind of ballpark numbers to attach to this, a force of one million from the 20 million humans would be 50 people per 1000 being in the military.

Like, just grabbing some random numbers from the internet, around 200 CE the Roman military was about 450,000 strong for a population of something like 70 million. Only men could enlist, so we’ll knock that population number down to 35 million, which puts us at only 12 men per 1000 being in the military. Just for fun, if we estimate 20% of the Roman population as citizens (free men, essentially) and eligible to be legionaries (rather than auxiliaries), we still get a comparable 13 citizens per 1000 in the military.

(Side note: here in the modern world, only North Korea has an estimated 50 people per 1000 in active military duty. Israel, with compulsive military service, has about 33 per 1000. Just to give a bit more insight into those proportions.)

So we’re already looking at an army more than twice the size and composed of  quadruple the percentage of the populace as Rome, literally notable for it's crazy huge standing army and the society-wide logistics that went into supporting it. Flash forward to a more medieval conflict like the Hundred Years' War, where you get numbers like the Battle of Agincourt having somewhere around 6,000-9,000 English defeating probably 14,000-15,000 French. (For reference, France had a population of about 14 million at the time.) That French number varies depending on whether you're counting an armed, armored military servant to a knight as a combatant, which the 14-15k estimate does not but like... idk, man. Including those dudes, it's more like 24,000... but even if you imagined each of the five kingdoms of the Pentarchy fielding an army that size, you wouldn't even break 100,000.

Now Aanya, bright, forward-thinking young queen that she is, is probably actually estimating based on the assumption of a campaign against Xadia being potentially years-long (if she’s not being entirely figurative). I'm way too lazy to pore over battles of the Hundred Years' War, but we can look at something like the Crusades, instead: the notably "successful" (in that it captured Jerusalem and established a kingdom there, after which everyone went home because their pilgrimage was complete) First Crusade was fought over three years with total crusader forces of 160,000-180,000. The significantly less successful Second and Third Crusade (and we're ignoring like four unnumbered ones in-between) were four years with 35,000-ish and three years at 36,000-74,000 (yeah that's a big estimate range, blame Wikipedia).

Getting into some much... vaguer... numbers, military casualties of the Hundred Years' War (including wartime disease, starvation, etc.) are estimated at 2.3 million-3.3 million. Over the course of *checks watch* 116 years of on-and-off fighting. You just couldn't kill people all that efficiently, back then. Now, granted, a war with Xadia would have a) magic, and b) FUCKING DRAGONS, but... Opeli estimates the casualties of an immediate war between Katolis and the Neolandia/Evenere/Del Bar forces to have an upper end of “tens of thousands,” which really, really suggests that we are not talking about a combined million people, even if Duren was included.

ANYWAY that was a lot of fuzzy math to kick this off, so let's talk about Katolis and realistic-ish possibilities for its military.

First of all, a standing military is not really unheard of even in the actual real-world medieval Europe, it just looked a bit different. Professional soldiers did exist, perpetually equipped and ready to fight, and they made up a large portion of most military campaigns. However, they were broadly dispersed among the nobility, so if you wanted to have a war, you had to wait for everyone to show up. Because of the nature of the feudal society, you kind of had a trickle-down (trickle-up?) standing military--the king could call on his vassals to fight, who would call on their vassals, etc. etc. down the chain until you had an acceptable force of dudes who came with their own armor and could kill each other with a decent amount of skill. (There were also non-professional peasant militia infantry forces, but generally they were not worth the logistical burden of fielding them.)

You also could have mercenary forces, which fell in and out of favor over the medieval-renaissance eras. On the one hand, you then didn't have to be paying the salaries of a whole-ass army during peacetime, but on the other hand... once you stop paying the mercenaries, nothing stops them from getting frisky with all your nice, safe cities to take a bit extra off the top, because they know you don't have an army to stop them. It was found to be more cost-effective to just have your own dudes with some degree of loyalty to king and country, and then pay them on the regular.

But right, Katolis. With the slant that this is a faux-medieval setting with heavy emphasis on the faux, because everyone is wildly over-fed, over-healthy, over-cleaned, and over-educated, I'm willing to fudge things like period-accurate agriculture techniques to allow for feeding a decent-sized group of people being paid to stand around and train for war. Maybe wandering dark mage hedge wizards routinely zing up everyone's fields, or they're all using fertilizer from fancy Xadian livestock with Earth primal poop. Whatever. At some point (which to be fair is probably post-industrial), having more people working the land doesn't actually produce any more. Same kind of deal for housing, we’re just gonna assume much more advanced understanding of and techniques for sanitation and waste removal than would be “realistic,” which removes a lot of the problems with having a bunch of people all living close together. Because let’s be real, none of us really want to think about how much literal shit is just sitting around in the open at any given moment or running into the water supply to give everyone dysentery. (I’m pretty sure it’s only in the post-antibiotics era that you stop having at least as many of your casualties be from disease as from battle.) I personally haven’t decided whether I think the setting has running water and sewage systems for the sake of my own fic purposes, but I kind of lean toward “yes,” because it’s the kind of thing that honestly isn’t that far out of place with all the other modernized incongruities going on. My main problem is how you run indoor pipes through a stone castle, but I also don’t know anything about plumbing.

Katolis also shares the vast majority of the border with Xadia, and controls the Breach--the one place you can march an army through from either side. It makes sense that they have an entire subsection of their military (the Standing Battalion) devoted to guarding that one point, but I would definitely expect there to be at least small fortified outposts along the entire border. I mean, dragons can fly. The only other kingdom that shares any part of the Xadian border is Duren, and it's a pretty small slice north of the Breach. So since Katolis is everyone's primary defense against the persistent threat of Xadia, I would bet they regularly collect some kind of support from the other kingdoms that goes toward maintaining the forces necessary to keep up that security. Whether that's food, other war materiel, straight-up money (it can be exchanged for goods or services), whatever. In a sense, Katolis is acting as a mercenary army for the rest of the Pentarchy. (Though they also have a non-mercenary stake in not fucking around, since Katolis is also the most threatened by Xadia due to proximity.)

We also see that towns in Katolis seem to have fortifications and military presence based on proximity to the border, so in addition to general border surveillance/security, you'd also have forces dispersed for that. It's likely that even the more interior towns have small forces of military ("guards") for general security and law enforcement, since there doesn't really seem to be anything else filling that role. So my general assumption would be that there are some large concentrations of military forces in places like Katolis City, and/or maybe there's some other military-centric location for large-scale training and mustering that isn't on the map or mentioned anywhere, and then you've got a spread-out force across the other population centers, maintaining the security of the major roads, keeping an eye on the borders shared with the other kingdoms, etc.

An alternative could be having a complex rotation of reserve forces in effect, where Katolis has the capacity to muster a large number of troops but only a portion of them are on active duty at any time and the rest go home and maintain the general labor force. That does make things a little more complicated in the “making sure everyone is actually armed when you call them up for war” area and having to suddenly increase your supply logistics by however many times over, but it’s something you can at least plan for. I would assume that in addition to the higher level of discipline and training the Katolian army has (according to Opeli), it also has a more coordinated and robust supply infrastructure. Like I’m sure it’s there somewhere in the force Viren marches with. Way at the back. Out of sight.

We’ll leave what exactly Viren’s plan for an extended campaign in Xadia beyond “reach the Storm Spire, eat the dragon prince” was as an exercise for a later time. Like good lord, dude, if Aaravos hadn’t thrown the Sunfire elves as a whole into complete disarray as a casual side effect of chowing down on the Sunforge, was he like... going to lay siege to Lux Aurea? Did he imagine that once the dragon throne was empty everyone would just capitulate?

Basically I do think it’s possible if you fudge a lot of setting stuff that is honestly already fudged, so I’m willing to allow it. However I will remain almost as salty about the “million” thing as I do about Star Wars claiming that a three-year, galactic-scale war was fought by fewer than half as many soldiers as the US alone served in WWII.

[papirouge]

Purge French scrotes, wtf is wrong with them? I just read this article “French husband drugged wife, invited 80+ men to rape her while unconscious for 10 years” and it made me cry for this poor woman. I read that these scrotes didn’t even consider it rape and was shocked being arrested because they believed “the husband can dispose and use his wife’s body however they want”

I seriously want to stay single forever

Don't even look into the story of the man who killed his wife and spread her body parts at the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont 💀 (literally one of the most visited parc of Paris)

And you know what? Since both the victim and his husband where Muslim, far right scrotes made it about themselves and said how dangerous immigration was 🤡 OF COURSE they won't say the problem is male violence against WOMEN nooo they had to shove their immigration obsessive agenda onto this story. Immigration isn't responsible for killing that woman - they were both "immigrants".

Rightoids scrotes HATE being reminder that the common denominator in crimes perpetrator is their SEX. If immigration alone was the issue, there would be as many women offender. But that's not the case. It's MEN terrorizing women, whether they're locals or immigrants.

Chemsex fan Pierre Palmade killing a baby in the womb, and cause a whole family to be hospitalized (for life long injuries for the father and son) after taking the wheel while high on coke was a pure White french scrote. Btw he got fred and got recently spotted recently in a night club high as a kite. French people got mad and since he realized this was bad for his image (his trial has yet to come) he asked to get back to hospital. Lmao this idiot thinks he's sleek. He doesn't regret anything. He just knows that him partying while waiting for his trial will hurt his defense so his lawyer advised him to get back to the hospital to pretend he actually cared.

I wonder what happened to the p*do content that's been found in his laptop? .... not much will ever come out of it imo bc french elites are all pedophile protecting each other. The Première Dame is a trans and a pedophile who groomed Macron when he was 14. France is de facto cursed for having such person in the government highest sphere. Look : the magistrate who offered his underage daughter in a swinging porn website didn't even go to prison.. that's how bad it is here.

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Tuesday, March 21

RACK: Killing a Slayer, that's big business for a kid. WARREN: I'm not a kid. RACK: Okay. WARREN: I had my own guys. The Trio, yeah, you've heard of us. RACK: Right. What were you, a band or something? WARREN: I thought word traveled in the underworld. You know, we were evil. Robots were my thing. You didn't hear about the freeze ray? RACK: Sorry. So why aren't your guys helping you? WARREN: Look, I thought this was a cash for service gig, not an interview process, all right? I need protection. I've got the Slayer after me.

~~Buffy Season 6 Episode #120: "Villains"~~

The Sunnydale Herald is looking for at least one new editor! Contributing to the Herald is a great way to get your Buffy on! Find out more here. If you saw the phrase "HTML template" in our previous calls for editors and that was what made you decide that Herald duties aren't for you, you may be glad to hear that we've set up an alternative posting process!

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

L'odeur du sang sur un tableau (Ensemble, G, French) by AngelicaR2

Unchained (Buffy/Spike, G) by HollyDB

Full Moons, Wishes and Magic (Buffy/Angel, T) by angelus2hot

Two Incredibly Strange Nights in LA (Xander/Cordelia, T) by LJ94 (wastedperfume)

Bargain Ch. 36/? (Spike/Xander, E) by immortal_katharina99

Untitled (Willow, Tara, unrated) by norakovacs

Under The Rubble, Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, M) by Geliot99

Willing Slave, Chapter 34 (Buffy/Spike, E) by Sigyn

[Chaptered Fiction]

The Call of the Ashes Ch 1/4 (Xander/Spike, M) by Missicitty

One Girl in All the World Ch. 9 (Ensemble, T) by BrennaLynn

Backstage 46 - Zulu Time CH. 1-2/3 (Andrew, T) by Aadler

Complicated Destiny Chapter 29/30 (Buffy/Faith, T) by RavenclawSlayer

Sculpture of Dance Ch. 6/? (Ensemble, T) by desicat

Xander, Agent of Chaos! Ch. 3 (Xander, multiple pairings, M) by Khatix

So One of Us is Living Ch. 21/30 (Buffy/Spike, T) by violettathepiratequeen

Shipping Up To Boston Ch. 17 (Buffy/Faith, E) by Alwaysandforevermylove

Price of a Soul Ch 5/13 (Ensemble, T) by RavenTyrs

Not One But Two Ch. 5/? (Ensemble, unrated (see notes)) by oops_darling (aresvera)

ever waiting airports (full of the love that you deserve), Chapter 8 (Buffy/Spike, E) by MixSaysRawr

Unclaimed Property, Chapter 21 (Buffy/Spike, T) by PuckRobin

Chosen One, Chapter 34 (Buffy/Spike, M) by all_choseny

The Butcher, Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, E) by Grief Counseling

I Violently Dislike You, Chapter 14 (Buffy/Spike, E) by scratchmeout

Seeing Red (Rewritten), Chapter 37-44 (Buffy/Spike, M) by ynnej2198

The Longest Day, Chapter 21 (Buffy/Spike, T) by ashcrashed

Threshold Ch. 3 (Buffy, T, X-Men xover) by Aelynthi

[Images, Audio & Video]

Manip:Cover art by aadler

Artwork:Masquerade Cordy by madimpossibledreamer

Artwork:ATS 206. Guise Will Be Guise by tmcarlee

Screencaps:ANGEL 2.01-2.11 SCREENCAPS ADDED by buffyversefans

Artwork:The #1 watcher by afterhourskreations

Artwork:babygirl jeans (Buffy/Spike) by sundayroadkill

Artwork:idk man spike on a leash by sundayroadkill

Artwork:Buffy & Spike by sundayroadkill

[Community Announcements]

WIP Big Bang 2023 Round Starting April 1st! by wipbigbang

[Fandom Discussions]

Send me an ask with a title that intrigues you from my list of wip’s by audelia-bly

kind of giggling at early seasons angel again by bloodcoveredgf

Seasons 5 and 6 of Buffy are just so visceral. /a> by stakeswandsandcoffee

B. Summers They/Them by audelia-bly

i love that giles thinks it is possible to just messily carve your own emotions out of your chest by norakovacs

by norakovacs

also i just feel so insane about the notion of giles metaphorically picking jenny over buffy in season seven

literally every single season giles is in love with jenny. by norakovacs

Giles in LMPTM isnt 'listening to the victim' by fightorflightoffancy and norakovacs

top 5 favorite characters of all time by linkspooky

that one time a stray sunbeam inside actually effects spike/a> by silvermars

there are few things more delightful than watching the former villain suddenly be absolutely desperate for the hero to like them by disco-tea

by disco-tea and desicat-ao3

today’s recommendation is The Great Advantage of Being Alive by enigmaticblue by avatarskywalker78

Is it time to kill Buffy and Faith by Multiple Authors

Is it me, or was Xander done dirty? by Bishop Cruz

Confession: I love "I Robot You Jane" it's so much fun by jdpm1991

What do Buffy's vampires mean? by arlius

You're Welcome is one of the most beautiful Buffyverse episodes EVER by jdpm1991

Harmony is such an Icon by TheCellarImp

Something I Noticed In 'Flooded' (Possible Spoilers For Season 5) by Mr_Wind-Up_Burt

Season 2, episode 1: opening scene with Willow and Xander by Elly-sparks

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[ilovemybarricadebabies]

I posted 477 times in 2022

20 posts created (4%)

457 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@nasnyys

@/cages-boxes-hunters-foxes

@gene-forrester

@just-french-me-up

@leascno

I tagged 477 of my posts in 2022

#enjoltaire - 209 posts

#fanart - 200 posts

#enjolras - 116 posts

#grantaire - 59 posts

#barricade day 2022 - 48 posts

#barricade day - 47 posts

#aaron tveit - 36 posts

#taylor swift - 25 posts

#star wars - 14 posts

#anakin skywalker - 13 posts

Longest Tag: 124 characters

#😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Here’s my take on the Les Mis official posts about the queen’s death

WHY ARE YOU ALL SURPRISED??? They posted when the UK celebrated the Jubilee. They posted about the wedding of Harry and Meghan. They literally performed a concert at Windsor Castle for the Queen years ago!!!! They’ve posted, and done things, in support of the monarchy many times.

Like WTF were you expecting when the show is produced by grumpy, white, old, monarchy-loving British men???? Those men DO NOT CARE that the whole point of Les Mis was being anti-monarchist. Because at the end of the day, they only care about the MONEY that will line their pockets, which is exactly what the Jubilee and the wedding brought them. Money from the thousands of tourists and UK natives who were in the city those two weekends.

These people DO NOT CARE about Victor Hugo’s message when he wrote the book. They do not care about the people that died 190 years ago in attempt to make their country a better place. Just like they don’t care about the thousands of people who have suffered under the British Monarchy’s rule. These people DO NOT CARE because they are greedy MFers, who just want to have more money.

I mean, are we forgetting that this same producer literally called casting trans people in shows a fucking gimmick??? Or closed the original production in favor of the 25th because it would save him money??? Like it’s been proven time and time again that Cam Mack is an asshole, who doesn’t care about anyone other than himself and is more concerned about how he can earn himself more money.

Like yes, call them out on the posts. Remind them what the show is about. But if you don’t think it won’t happen again during Charles’s coronation or even after that, think again because it will.

67 notes - Posted September 9, 2022

#4

“Happy” Barricade Day, everyone!!! 🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩

See the full post

84 notes - Posted June 5, 2022

#3

Since we are a little less than a month out from Barricade Day, and I know that lots of people are already working on their fics, fanart, fan edits, and everything in between.

I just wanted to send out this little reminder to the people who aren’t necessarily interested or don’t really have time to create something. Please do not feel pressured into creating fanfic, fanart, fan edits, whatever for Barricade Day. If you feel most comfortable just liking, reblogging/reposting other people’s posts, that’s okay. You can participate in this fandom on those days anyway that you want to.

89 notes - Posted May 9, 2022

#2

I knew it was coming, especially since they started teasing a big cast change in January/February, and I tried to prepare myself for it, but no preparation was enough for how sad and painful this was/is going to be. 😭😭😭😭😭😭

98 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

It’s that time again…

It’s June 1st (where I live) meaning General Lamarque died on this day and there’s only four days to go until we all hold hands (😉😉) and cry together over our beloved boys! Can’t wait to join in the sadness!

🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩🇫🇷🚩

135 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[project1939]

Day 54- Film: What Price Glory? 

Release date: August 22nd, 1952. 

Studio: 20th Century Fox 

Genre: War 

Director: John Ford 

Producer: Sol C. Siegel 

Actors: James Cagney, Corinne Calvet, Dan Dailey 

Plot Summary: During the later part of WWI, American Troops in France are getting younger and less experienced. Captain Flagg requests help training the green young men, but when that help arrives, it is his old nemesis, Sergeant Quirt. The rivalry between them heats up even more when they both fall for the same French girl. 

My Rating (out of five stars): ** ½ 

This may not have been the worst film on my list so far, but it was without question the hardest to sit though. It wasn’t fortuitous for this film to line up as the one to watch directly after The Quiet Man- both are John Ford comedy dramas with an excessive running time and lots of macho men bonding while drinking and fighting. I find all of that a bore, honestly. I didn’t really care about the characters, and the film seemed torn over whether or not to question war or glorify it. 

The Good: 

I liked the fact that there was a lot of French spoken in the film, and it wasn’t subtitled or cut down too much. 

There was some sentiment that popped up occasionally about the futility of war or the cost of sending very young men to fight, but it often got undercut by other parts of the film. This was not a film that glamorized war, however, which I appreciated.

The Bad: 

It’s ridiculous for a stunningly beautiful young French girl to be torn between a funny looking short pudgy guy of about 50, and a 40-ish guy who isn’t much more attractive. Looks and age are not everything, I know, but this just felt unbelievable. 

All the macho bullshit that I’ve discussed already today and yesterday. 

Like The Quiet Man, this was too long.  

Like The Quiet Man, the characters were not developed well at all. 

The French girl Charmaine could literally have been a mannequin. I can’t think of one single personality trait or interest she had, except for her love of soldiers. I guess she sang a couple of songs, so I’d infer she likes music? 

The other French girl character- she is supposed to be a schoolgirl of 17 who starts seeing a 22-year-old American soldier. They gave the actress pigtails and put minimal make up on her, and I swear she looked about 14 years old. It was creepy. 

Normally I like James Cagney a lot, but I didn’t like him in this. He just kind of swung from being blandly gruff to gratingly gruff. At times it gave the impression that he was just phoning it in. 

I didn’t really understand or get invested in the rivalry between Cagney and Dailey, even after they fell for the same woman.

Dailey is also an actor that can be very appealing, but I found him hard to like here. 

This was supposed to be a comedy/drama, but I did not find much funny in it at all.