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Most popular Sonnets of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare’s sonnets are timeless works of poetry that continue to captivate readers and evoke powerful emotions. Let’s explore ten of his most popular sonnets, along with their themes, detailed summaries, and notable figures of speech. Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”)Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing…
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#important sonnets for uptgt english exam#most popular sonnets of shakespeare#shakespeare&039;s important sonnets#top 10 sonnets of shakespeare
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"When every private widow well may keep By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind", — William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 9".
Cassia Helena Jackson was 10 years old when little old Mrs. Palmer, who lives on the floor above her mother's apartment, read this verse to her on a cool Friday night when Sally was forced to take another night shift.
Smelly Gabe lost the money he had set aside to pay off the bills again in poker and kicked her out of the apartment.
girl with the sea-green eyes did not understand the meaning at all, stupidly scratched her head and Quietly asked the elderly woman to clarify the meaning to her.
Кэсси плакала о чистом невинном ребенке, которым она была.
Mrs. Palmer chuckled softly and gently gave her a cup of hot chocolate. She was very kind, almost as good as her mom.
"Sonnet 9 means that a man must leave a child to his beloved woman before he dies" Mrs. Palmer Looked out the window, her brown eyes shining transparently "so that she could comfort herself, remember him and find a new meaning to life after such grief."
Cassia Helena sipped some cocoa, paused, thought about it and said:
"this is strange, I would not want to lose my lover and stay alone with the child."
Mrs. Palmer turned her face to her, Cassia felt traces of salt on her face and said in a soft voice.
"you are too young to understand such things, Cassie, when you grow up you will understand that this is a blessing."
Cassia Helena Jackson is under 19, sweaty and tired, lying on the bloody sheets of a beach house in Montauk and her sweet devoted Annabeth gently hands her a softly whimpering lump.
Cassia greedily hugs the baby to her, admires his feathery black curls on his head, the funny tip of his nose.
He looks like her, it's bittersweet.
the baby wraps her mother's finger in her tiny fist and turns her eyes to her.
They are impenetrably black and deep as the darkest and moonless night.
Ethan Nakamura's eyes are looking at her and Cassia Helena Jackson understands...
A blessing indeed.
and a curse.
She bumps her forehead against his tiny one and vows to protect him.
Cassia lies about the father being a mortal.
No one who knew Ethan would fully believe her but lucky for her nearly every one who knew Ethan well enough to know his warm dark brown, nearly black eyes by sight alone was long gone.
All except one.
Cassia and her daughter Momoko take a 2 week long trip to Alaska twice a year.
They drive all the way to west coast and sail up to Alaska. To a small costal town and hike about an hour to a small cabin shielded in mist and magic protection spells.
Momoko loves it because she gets to see uncle Al.
Cassia and Alabaster sleep a bed in Alabaster’s small cabin. Telling each other stories about Ethan. They both fall asleep crying.
They’re woken up by Momoko jumping on the bed. Breakfast is always the same the first morning. Blue pancakes and Ethan’s favorite breakfast. Leftover fried rice drowned sriracha with fried eggs on top.
Cassia always burns the first portion while Alabaster held momoko and held cassia’s hand.
Momoko doesn’t understand why her mommy always cries when they visit uncle Al until she’s 10 and visits camp half blood. She see an old photo of the Hermes cabin and sees her own eyes in the 12 year old boy who has their arm around her uncle’s shoulder.
#pjo#percy jackson#pjo fandom#pjo hoo toa#pjo ask#ask anon#anon ask#percy jackon and the olympians#percy jackson series#percy jackson and the olympians#ethan nakamura#ethercy#perethan#alabaster torrington
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Ten Most Read Authors
I was tagged by the lovely @dauen! Thank you!
What are your ten most most read authors? And how many books have you read by them? Also tag someone who you would like to do this!
Instructions: scroll to the bottom of your goodreads shelves and most read authors is listed underneath.
Note: my Goodreads is woefully neglected and hasn't accurately represented what I've read for years. As such, I've had to look back through YEARS of journals and my bookshelves, so this might be a bit incorrect due to human error.
Terry Pratchett (36)
Pratchett is the author I expected, I've ALMOST finished Discworld (I'm saving the rest for miserable days) and Pratchett almost warrants his own bookcase never mind shelf!
William Shakespeare (26)
Much like Pratchett I'm not surprised. This includes a lot of the plays, plus the sonnets, The Phoenix and the Turtle, Rape of Lucrece, and A Lover's Complaint. I need to restart my monthly reading of Shakespeare but I fell off because the next one on my list was Merry Wives of Windsor and I LOATHE Falstaff with every fiber of my being...
Brandon Sanderson (19 or 21 depending if you count Wheel of Time)
I'm half in disbelief and half not surprised in the slightest. The worst part of this is that I don't really like Sanderson outside of Stormlight! I NEED to sort out my priorities!
Gail Carriger (18)
I'm surprised I've read so many but Carriger is a FANTASTIC comfort read/fluffy fun author.
Robin Hobb (16)
Another given as I've read the entire Realm of the Elderling, including the novella, except Assassin's Fate because I hated Fitz and the Fool. Still bitter about the last trilogy.
Robert Jordan (14 or 11, depends if you count the Jordan & Sanderson)
I have no explanation for how I finished Wheel of Time but I did and that almost guaranteed Jordan a place on this list.
J.R.R. Tolkien/Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien (14)
If we counted rereads I think Tolkien would win by a mile 😅 however, this counts the 5 main works, the 3 great tales, unfinished tales, and a handful of his other works.
Euripides (11 plays and a lot of fragments)
I'm in shock however I did read A LOT of Euripides for an ancient Greek module in my 3rd year at undergrad.
Rick Riordan (11)
Percy Jackson as a teenager 🤷♀️
George R.R. Martin (7 or 9)
This slot could've been filled by SO MANY authors, particularly classic authors, I've read 7 books by... Austen, Dickens, Trollope, Wilde, etc. However, I chose Martin because of how many times I've reread his books and we can technically split A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms into 3 novellas to say I've read 9 books instead of 7.
This was very interesting! And surprising how this list compares to my top 10 authors. There's not THAT much cross over! Some of that is because those authors just haven't written as much but for others it's just my own reading habits.
I'm tagging @oneardentstudybuddy, @dooareyastudy, and anyone else who feels like doing this.
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Year in Review
I’m feeling nostalgic, so I thought I’d reflect on the past year. To be honest, 2022 has left me with a bit of whiplash. I had some high highs, and some low lows. I lost my job, went broke, moved back home, and spent a lot of time struggling with my mental health. But I also did some of my best writing ever this year. I traveled to parts of the country I’ve never seen before. I started working with the Boys and Girls Club, and learned what it feels like to love my job. I made new memories with my friends and family. And for the first time, I committed to making changes for the sake of my mental health.
I am looking forward to the fresh start that 2023 brings. I will try to carry the good parts of 2022 with me, and try to leave the bad parts behind. But enough about my personal life! Let’s talk about my obsessive media consumption habits!
~ Books Read in 2022 ~
1. One Hundred Years of Solitude 2. Howl’s Moving Castle 3. Giovanni’s Room 4. A Marvelous Light 5. Less 6. Little Women 7. Cloud Cuckoo Land 8. The Sonnets of William Shakespeare 9- 28. Fruits Basket Volumes 1- 20 (I still have three volumes left).
~ Games Played in 2022 ~
I didn’t have time to play any video games this year, but I did start my first long-term Dungeons and Dragons campaign!
~ Music Listened to in 2022 ~
Obviously I can’t list all the music I listened to this year, but here are my top five artists according to Spotify wrapped.
1. Encanto 2. The Beatles 3. Queen 4. The Adventure Zone 5. Today’s Top Hits
~ Movies Watched in 2022 ~
Again, I can’t list all the movies I watched this year, but here are some of my favorites.
1. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 2. Glass Onion 3. The Batman 4. Tons of Studio Ghibli films 5. Tons of Wes Anderson films
~ TV Shows Watched in 2022 ~
1. Thirty Rock (seasons 1-7) 2. Arcane (season 1) 3. The Legend of Vox Machina (season 1) 4. Abbott Elementary (season 1) 5. Our Flag Means Death (season 1) 6. The Handmaid’s Tale (seasons 1-3) 7. This is Us (season 6) 8. Heartstopper (season 1) 9. Stranger Things (season 4) 10. The Umbrella Academy (season 3) 11. What We Do in the Shadows (season 4) 12. The Bear (season 1) 13. Obi Wan (season 1) 14. Moon Knight (season 1) 15. Only Murders in the Building (seasons 1-2) 16. Derry Girls (seasons 1-3) 17. Freaks and Geeks (season 1)
2022 was filled with wonderful stories, some in books, some in movies, some in real life. I can’t wait to see what stories 2023 will bring! Happy new year!
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AOT Boys & What They’d Do For Valentines
Ft. Jean, Eren, Armin, Connie, Levi, Erwin, Kenny (so random but these are the ones that came to me so … here we are.)
Disclaimer: this is stupid as hell but I wanted to contribute something for Valentine’s. Don’t judge me. 😅 Kenny and Connie are, unsurprisingly, NSFW.
Jean
Mr romantic number one. Spends months planning it. Presents you with a sketch of you that he’s been working on in secret, a dozen red roses and then proceeds to cook and serve you a candlelit dinner. 10/10 would recommend.
Erwin
Mr romantic number two. Gifts you a leather-bound edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets, complete with handwritten annotations on each poem explaining how certain lines apply to your relationship.
‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds …’
Also takes you out to a very upmarket restaurant with beautiful views. 10/10, marriage material.
Levi
Cleans the house from top to bottom. Runs you a bath with a shit load of bubbles and decadent smelling bath salts. (Does not use rose petals because they are a bitch to clean.) gifts you a set of Yankee Candles and a new mop. (Because yours is apparently on it’s last legs and he refuses to clean with it.) eh, we’ll forgive him for the mop. Can’t win them all. 9/10, someone house-husband this man!
Eren
Forgets it’s Valentine’s Day. Has arranged to go to a game with the lads. Shits himself when Armin reminds him. Ditches them for you though. Buys a card and flowers on his way over, and tells you he’s arranged a romantic meal for you both. The romantic meal is take-out food. 6/10. At least he’s pretty.
Armin
Takes you for a picnic at the beach, complete with wine, fancy sandwiches and strawberries, which he shyly offers to feed you. After you’ve watched the sunset, he spreads out a blanket for you both to lie on, and spends the rest of the evening pointing out the constellations to you in between making out. 10/10, sweet, thoughtful boy.
Kenny
Arrives home half cut already, but announces that he had a big win at the guys’ poker game last week and he’s gifting all the cash to you. “Go and buy yerself somethin’ pretty sweetheart. We’re heading’ out on the town.” When you both arrive home after one too many shots, he tells you he’s going to “worship yer body like the goddess ya are.” 10/10 because the sex is, in fact, mind blowing.
Connie
Like Jean, has been planning this for months. Thinks he’s smooth AF. You come home to find him sprawled naked across your bed, with a bow on his dick. He tells you to “come and get your V day present, baby.” What ensues is several rounds of adventurous sex, punctuated with watching obscure Netflix documentaries and eating junk food. 8/10. Extra marks because he’s been practicing tying the perfect bow for a LONG time in prep for this moment.
#aot boys#valentines day#silly headcanons#hope everyone had/is having a good one!#I also want to marry Erwin in this#maybe Armin too#(and low-key Kenny and Connie) 🥴
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“I still dream about her”
is a TOP 10 saddest quotes of all time. Shakespeare writing a thousand sonnets a day for a thousand years would never come close to something so tragic in so few words.
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The top 10 classic fears in literature
By Prof. Marianna Torgovnik on TedBlog
Fear #1: Death, death, death—did I mention death?
An almost universal fear, death recurs in literature more than any other fear, all the way from canonical works through fantasies like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I list the fear of death three times since it occurs in many forms: fear of our own deaths, fear of family members or close friends dying, fear of children preceding parents, the death of an entire culture.
Some examples: Shakespeare’s Sonnets (“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore”; Hamlet (“To be or not to be”); John Keats (“When I have fears”); Virginia Woolf, The Waves; Pat Barker, The Ghost Road. This list could go on and on, because the fear does.
Fear #2: Avoiding death for the wrong reasons.
Literature loves paradox and so, paradoxically, the second greatest fear is avoiding death for the wrong reasons: when death will inevitably follow a noble or moral act or out of cowardice, especially in war. For understandable reasons, this fear is less common than more general fear of death, but it is out there and memorable nonetheless.
Some examples: Sophocles, Antigone (to bury her dead brother, Antigone famously courts death); Shakespeare several times — Hamlet again (“There is a providence in the fall of a sparrow”) and Antony and Cleopatra (to avoid capture by Octavius); Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (“It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done”); Harry Potter in his pursuit of Voldemort.
Fear #3: Hunger or other severe physical deprivation.
Survival tends to trump the finer emotions when it comes to fear. Sometimes time specific, the fear of hunger nonetheless reminds us of basic things. In romantic novels or poems, it can be and often is a symbol for more abstract needs, like love. In Holocaust literature, it portrays humanity strained to the core.
Some examples: Dante, The Divine Comedy (Count Ugolino and his children); Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (“Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink”); Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre; Elie Wiesel, Night; Susanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.
Fear #4: Killing or causing the death of someone you love.
Whether by murder, negligence or a set of circumstances beyond our control, the fear of causing the death of someone we love is a big one. It’s a stock feature of numerous spy and crime dramas, where we tend to brush it off since the hero (think James Bond) or (more rarely) heroine’s beloved is almost always a goner. Numerous operas by Verdi, including Rigoletto and Un Ballo in Maschera use this theme, sometimes more than once; in fact, opera thrives on this fear, as in Bizet’s Carmen. It usually takes serious and even majestic forms in literature.
Some examples: Patroclus dying for Achilles in Homer’s The Iliad; Othello killing Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello; Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (“Done because we are too menny”); D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love (Gerald choosing to die rather than kill Gudrun); Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.
Fear #5: Being rejected and/or being loved by the wrong person.
At last we come to a fear that can have a lighter side and, sometimes — though not always — a happy ending. In literature, characters fear being rejected, being loved, and being loved by the wrong person in almost equal proportions. Once again, the examples span the ancient classics all the way up to the present.
Some examples: Woman loves step-son madly in three versions of the same story, none with a happy ending (Euripides, Hippolytus; Racine, Phaedra; Mary Renault, The Bull from the Sea); mixed up couples set right in Shakespeare’s As You Like It; love triumphs by the end in Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; two different kinds of love lead to tragedy in Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles; mixed results in Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot.
Fear #6: Illness, disease and aging.
Closely allied to the fear of death — but not identical to it — the fear of illness is another constant though, as we’d expect, the disease most feared changes over time. The bubonic plague used to be the leading contender; TB enjoyed a long dominance until cures were found. Nowadays, cancer and, more often, dementia are far greater fears. There is at least one stunning example in this category of embracing the fear being absolutely the right thing to do: Flaubert’s St Julien, L’Hospitalier, in which the saint embraces a leper and achieves transcendence.
Some examples: Giovanni Boccacio’s Decameron; Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year; Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Dorian Gray; Albert Camus, La Peste (The Plague); Ian McEwan, Atonement; Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections.
Fear #7: Lost reputation, divorce or scandal.
People used to fear this one more than they do today, when our motto seems to be that no publicity is really bad publicity and unseemly revelations are the order of the day. Still, this is a significant fear, and one that even recent books revisit in original ways.
Some examples: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex; Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina; D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Thomas Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities; Phillip Roth, The Human Stain.
Fear #8: War, shipwrecks and other disasters.
The fear of shipwrecks can seem archaic — but they were the airplane crashes of yesteryear. Shipwrecks can be mere episodes or the core of the plot; in early literature, they are closely allied with war, a more global disaster. While other disasters arouse fear — earthquakes, volcanos — war and shipwrecks lead the field. Both change characters’ lives, with variable results.
Some examples: Homer, The Odyssey; Defoe, Robinson Crusoe; Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels; Tolstoy, War and Peace; Yann Martel, Life of Pi.
Fear #9: The law and, more specifically, lawyers.
Fear of the law is a surprisingly classic fear, weighing in at number nine. But what’s meant by the law changes over time. While fear of God’s judgment remains plausible in literature, it is far less common today than fear of society’s laws — and specifically the rapacity of lawyers and the law’s ability, in Dickens’ words, “to make business for itself.” In some modern books, the law becomes a metaphor for the meaning of life.
Some examples: The Bible; Aeschylus, The Oresteia; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter; Dickens, Bleak House; Franz Kafka, The Trial; Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
Fear #10: That real life won’t resemble literature.
While this might seem the most trivial of fears, in fact it drives a lot of great literature. Some characters want life to be elevated, inflated, like epic or romantic literature. Deprived of that illusion, they die or take their own lives—looping us back to fear #1. Other characters favor codes of renunciation that have been called by literary critics “the Great Tradition,” fearing that they will gain something by immoral or amoral actions; a variation on this fear is the fear, as George Eliot’s Dorothea puts it, “I try not to have desires merely for myself.” Not at all light for avid readers, this fear usefully reminds us that life is not really like a Henry James novel.
Some examples: Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote; Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary; George Eliot, Middlemarch; Henry James, The Ambassadors; Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending.
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@dailydestieldose and @casismymrdarcy have got me on a roll with Shakespeare destiel parallels so here's another one:
Beatrice & Benedick and Dean & Cas
In Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice and Benedick spend 99% of their time bantering and bickering and generally pulling each other's pigtails but with an undercurrent of real hurt. They have a lot of mutual friends, they move in the same circle, and despite having just spent some time apart (the men were all off at war) they immediately go right back to bickering. And they seem to know exactly what to say to push each others buttons - they know each other reeeaaally well.
And that's the thing!! They're exes!! They have history!! Something romantic happened between them in the past, and then something went wrong. The divorce arc parallels! But they have to be around each other because they have all these mutual friends - mutual friends who decide they're going to trick them into falling in love with each other. Their friend group splits in half, and they stage conversations for Beatrice and Benedick to overhear in which they loudly proclaim that the other is in love with them (side note: these are some of the funniest scenes in the play, I highly recommend David Tennant as Benedick, it goes on and off youtube but if it's up he's top notch in that scene. Equally, Kenny Leon's 2016 production of the play for Shakespeare in the Park is fucking stellar. It used to be on PBS but if you can find it anywhere it is Thee Much Ado).
And both Beatrice and Benedick, the moment they hear the other is in love with them, go "oh they love me! well guess I'd better love them back! I'm gonna love them back with my whole fucking soul."
"Love me! Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; tis so, i cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married."
"My friends think if I find out she loves me I'll lord it over her", "she would rather die than give any sign she loves me" (literally Cas), "I've never expected I'd get married", the fucking LIST of "beautiful and good and wise, except for falling in love with me cuz I'm not good enough for her", "I already love her back so much", "I'm gonna get a lot of shit when my friends see me in love buuuut it's worth it for her" - try and tell me these aren't Dean about Cas.
Benedick never really shuts up - he's a talkative guy (much like Dean), and once he gets started about how great Beatrice is he is really on a roll. He loves so strongly and completely (and he doesn't have Dean's self worth issues) so he jumps right to being all in.
Beatrice's reaction is, in fact, an incomplete sonnet (sonnets are Thee language of love in Shakespeare; they're 14 line poems with a specific rhyme scheme that are in iambic pentameter, which we think of as Shakespeare's signature style - 10 syllables in a line, divided into sets of 2, the first unstressed and the second stressed). It is also one of the only times she speaks in verse (poetry) rather than prose (like a novel) during the play - this is important because people in Shakespeare's plays speak in verse during significant moments or very emotional moments.
What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band;
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.
"The idea he's in love with me too has shocked me to my core", "I will never again be too proud or petty to admit I love him", "please please keep loving me, because I love you too", "I have been a wild untameable thing, but for you I'll be happy to stay at home and live a simple life", "we aren't even together yet but please marry me", "you're the best man I know" - hi this is Thee Castiel about Dean Winchester.
Beatrice is a very independent woman; especially for the time the play is written, she's still single at an age when most women were already married, and she refuses to marry because she loves her independence and doesn't want just anyone to tie her down. Until she learns Benedick loves her, she never expects to find anyone who will make her want to settle down. Benedick is much the same - he plans to live and die a bachelor.
Aaaand then they learn they're both head over heels for each other, and suddenly there's a whole lot more they want out of life. Suddenly all the stuff in their past, all the things that drove them apart, it all doesn't matter in the face of their love for each other.
In conclusion:
Banter as expressions of affection and also to cover up hurt over something that happened to drive them apart
The love for each other didn't go away though they're both just feeling unloved and lashing out
They always come back to each other, even if it takes a little outside interference
This has been another Shakespeare destiel parallel, thank you and goodnight
#please ask me about sonnets ill explain more in detail if this didnt make sense#thank you to amirah and may for being interested and inspiring me to talk about this more#shakespeare destiel parallels#much ado about nothing#deancas#shakespeare#long post
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Epilogue: Underwater (SC Titanic, Zetta x Adele Series)
As promised, here the epilogue of the Zetta x Adele Series, folks.
This is the very end of a project that meant me quite a lot to me and got me through the last terrible year. Thanks to all those who supported it: hope you enjoyed it and will enjoy this ending.
In case you were wondering, this song inspired the whole series, particularly the last chapters:
youtube
I will skip the tag list for once since it’s pointless anyway.
➡️ Ch. 1, Ch. 2/1, Ch. 2/2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8/1, Ch. 8/2, Ch. 9, Ch. 10/1, Ch. 10/2, Ch. 11/1, Ch. 11/2, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14, Ch. 15 , Ch. 16, Ch. 17
_________________________
Almost a century after the sinking of the RMS Titanic and to celebrate Canada becoming the first country outside Europe to legalise same-sex marriage, the Canadian Film Institute decided to work side by side with several LGBTQ+ organisations across the world to put together an exhibition focused on the early queer cinema and the many queer stars who were forced to hide their true selves in the Golden Age of cinematography, spanning from 1890s till the aftermath of Second World War. "A testament to the role the LGBTQ+ community played in the history of cinema and that we have always been here, even if people hardly saw us" as a journalist wrote on a queer magazine. After the recent discovery of some private documents, the curators were overjoyed to include an icon of the 1900s - 1910s cinema like Zetta Serda into the retrospective and cast a new light on her extraordinary career sadly soon forgotten after the advent of the sound era. Yet, the silent picture star was mentioned as a model and 'endless source of inspiration" by many queer movie stars like Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Greta Garbo all part of the retrospective. Rumor has it that as soon as she landed in America, Marlene Dietrich demanded his agent a meeting with Mrs King.
A curator drove all the way to Montreal to meet the last known heir, a certain Mrs. Julia Nowak, who greeted him on the threshold of a cosy downtown apartment. She offered him a coffee and a slice of a Polish sweet bread: the recipe was a family heirloom, she explained, beaming. She was in her late fifties, a therapist, she said. Her hazel eyes gleamed when she added, in a pleasantly soothing voice that betrayed a hint of excitement: "I must confess I am so incredibly happy that you contacted me about the retrospective. I adore the idea and I will make sure to attend it. Also" she nodded to a wedding picture hung to the wall "did you know that my wife is in politics? She campaigned for the legalisation...yes, Madeleine Fournier: see, you know her! We got married right after the law passed. If anything, your call and project made me twice as happy". She took a pause, smiling over her coffee in remembrance. "Anyway, back to the matter of your visit...yes, as far as I know, I am Zetta's last heir. As you probably know, my family wasn't officially related to her but she stated otherwise in her will". She moved to the couch and gestured the curator to follow her as she opened up one of the boxes and chests piled into the living room and picked out an old album, the leather cover worn at the edges. Dust waltzed in the air as she opened it with caution and gentle care. She showed him a slightly discoloured black and white picture of a young couple kissing for the camera in front of a church. Another wedding picture, from a different era. "Nana Hileni and Papa Maciej's wedding picture. I still remember them even if they both died when I was barely a teen...as if one couldn't bear to live without the other. Or so I like to think. She would help me with the homework, mathematics particularly, and he baked this bread for me till he was too weak to do so. He always claimed that he won Nana's heart with his pastries but she always denied it laughing". She passed another picture of the same couple proudly standing in front of the Nowak family bakery in Hoboken. "Frankly, I believe that Papa's broad shoulders and Marlon Brando smile are more likely to blame for this coup de foudre" she laughed. "And he knew how to deal with her no-nonsense attitude and vice versa. They...balanced each other, if you wish". She picked another picture and handed it to him. A woman was looking down in tender adoration and awe to a baby nestled in her arms looking up at her, outstretching a tiny arm in an attempt to touch her face. "There! This is Dad" she pointed at the baby before turning the picture where someone wrote 'Alex meets Auntie Adele'. Turning it again, she pointed at the woman. "This is Adele Carrem. Or Auntie Adele as I've always heard calling her. Nana's sister and Zetta's publicist and companion" Putting it back into the album, she carefully picked a bunch of other old pictures. "You surely know who this one is" she smiled, handing out the one on top. The photo was rather grainy but you could still recognise the same kid, slightly older, around two, sucking his thumb, cuddled up in Zetta's lap. The actress had aged a little but her features were unmistakable and it was endearing to see her sitting by the fireplace to read that kid with the sleepy face a bedtime story. "Sadly, I have never met them. I wish I did, oh you have no idea...but stories of them lived through in our family" Julia continued. "My Dad loved his Aunties - as he called them - dearly and by what I've heard and read, they loved him in manner as if he was their own. He knew little of them or Zetta's career back then...to him they were just the sweet ladies who would buy him ice-cream in Central Park or take him to see his favourite pictures over and over again at the movie theater. He said he will never forget the afternoons he used to spend with them in a Manhattan cafe that no longer exists around Christmas: Nana and Papa worked like crazy as the festive season approached and the glorious cup of hot chocolate with an elegant puff of cream on top with the Aunties became a tradition to him. He kept it alive somehow as he did the same with me". She handed the curator a bunch of other pictures: Zetta cleaning up Alex's face smeared with jam, the both of them laughing; Zetta posing with Maciej and her Dad at a table in the Hoboken bakery. He eventually mirrored her smile seeing a five years old Alex at the beach all engrossed in building a sandcastle with Hileni and Adele, and he standing at the water edge hand in hand with Miss Carrem, looking out into the distance. "These are family pictures. I'll show you the Zetta's private memorabilia we cherished". Julia searched a little, opening an old chest and handling every item inside with tender care. When she found what she was looking for, she showed the curator an elegant set of smaller boxes containing letters, dried flowers and photos. "I have already received an offer to get these published. I'm still pondering it. Before agreeing, I want to consider throughly if this is a thing they would have wanted, even if they're no longer here" The curator nodded as she kept searching. He skimmed a few letters and smiled as his eyes fall on the photos hidden away in those boxes: the two women sitting together and chatting at Hileni's wedding, Zetta's reading a script, lazily sprawled on a chaise long in her apartment. Some had short lines handwritten on the back, like a promotional picture with "Missing you" written by Zetta herself. The curator showed another to Mrs Nowak: a visibly excited Miss Carrem proudly showing to the camera a document announcing her voter registration. On the back, in Zetta's penmanship: "On the way to vote...my sweet Adele won!". "Oh you didn't know? Auntie Adele was a suffragette! I couldn't believe it when I first heard it! Nana told me that she was in and out jail when they lived in London because of protests. You know, like those suffragettes you read about in history books but less famous. Yet she fought for women's rights and kept fighting for them even in America. She was quite disappointed though by some major decisions of some feminist movements and eventually joined a socialist Union 'more rightfully welcoming working class individuals, immigrants and black brothers and sisters'. It's all in those letters but yeah, you couldn't possibly know. So little is known about her outside family". A little smile drew on her face as she put back the photo. "That photo was taken the day of the first election open to women. I checked the date. I suppose Zetta wanted to immortalise the moment...it was sweet of her, huh? Auntie Adele must have been so proud and overjoyed that day! You know, my Dad was born in 1920 when women's right to vote was legalised nationally and Nana once told me that Auntie commented the lucky coincidence saying she was incredibly happy her nephew would get to live in a fairer world. She was a true force of nature...she never talked much of the sinking of the Titanic just like Zetta and Nana actually but when one day Dad asked...he was barely a child and probably found an old article about the tragedy...Auntie Adele minimised but Nana assured him that her sister saved her life that night, risking her own to go down to the belly of the sinking ship to bring her to safety. Auntie simply shrugged, saying that it was what sisters do and that they made it to the lifeboats only thanks to Zetta, who shouted protests to stubborn officers and eventually found them a spot on a boat. I cannot even bring myself to imagine how scary that must have been: I cried so much when Madeleine took me to see Leo and Kate...to think they were there and it was all real!" She picked a few other objects out the box: a Shakespeare Sonnets book in a leather cover with golden engravings, with a little handwritten dedication 'To Adele, my sonnet 116. Happy birthday! With all my love, Zetta'; old scripts with annotations, a framed photograph of Adele and Zetta slow dancing barefoot in the living room of a gorgeous Long Island mansion. "These have a sentimental value" Mrs Nowak noted, her voice betraying the flicker of emotions as she picked it up. She took a deep sigh and continued. "I remember the day I told Dad I was gay as it was yesterday. We had always been quite close so it came natural to tell him first. We were in his car, he had come straight from college to pick me up at ice-skating practice. I..I dropped it in the middle of a conversation, bracing myself for the worst. I heard so many bad stories about coming out to your parents I was terrified of the consequences but I couldn't hide it anymore. I mean, yes, in public: bullies get even nastier if they know and I didn't want people shouting me "dyke" at school. But I needed to get it out of my chest...with someone at least. He kept quiet for a moment and I felt like drowning in shame. But then he spoke". A nostalgic tender smile formed Julia's lips. "He said he had two amazing Aunties that contributed to make his life a wondrous adventure. It was thanks to them that he, the son of a baker, could attend a prestigious college, for instance: they offered to pay for it without asking a penny back. They also helped him write his first romantic letter to his childhood sweetheart and consoled him when the little girl turned him down. But his Aunties had a secret, he added. He said: to my kid eyes they were no less a couple than Mom and Dad and at home we all treated them in manner but one day Mom made me promise to behave differently when we were in public. In public I would refer to her sister as 'Auntie Adele' but call Zetta by her name. He didn't get it and it took some getting used to. He soon noticed that even the Aunties behaved a bit differently out in the sun: they wouldn't hold hands or use endearing words in the street or when other people were around. They simply behaved like good friends did. He understood it later when he, as stubborn as a mule, asked them directly". Julia gently grazed her fingers on the glass of the framed photograph, caressing it. "And they told me everything, he said. That they were in love, just like mom and dad were, but people out there could be uncomfortable and extremely rude to women loving other women and men loving other men. That they kept their companionship a secret in public because those people had no problems with women being friends and they didn't want to have bad words or worse happening to them. I remember asking him what he thought about it. He smiled. 'I cried. Since Auntie Zetta mentioned people claiming that women like them were sick and would burn in hell, I actually started crying. I sobbed desperately in her arms, crying that I didn't want them to burn in hell, I loved my Aunties and I was happy they loved each other. Eventually they explained me it was just a vile lie spread my malignant people. But I got quite a scare and kept staring at them with puffy red eyes and my face wet with tears for a while. It required lots of cuddling to bring a smile back on my face'. He shook his head, laughing of his endearing naivety. Then he pulled over and looked at me. He continued: 'I still don't get why people keep spreading those mean lies but I know for sure that my Aunties weren't sick and didn't end up in hell and so won't you. Don't believe bullshits like that for a split second, okay? And I also want you to remember that it doesn't change a thing for me and mom too. You will always be my little girl, our little girl and we love you'. We shared a long hug before driving back home. On the way back he insisted to buy my favourite chicken and waffles for dinner, saying mom's veggie soup could wait. For my birthday, a month later or so, he asked me to follow him to the attic and showed me this chest. To meet the Aunties that 'would have surely been there for me'". She tipped away a tear. "I told you I married Madeleine right after the legalisation of same-sex marriages. My wedding was also the last public event Mom and Dad attended together before his health worsened irremediably. He passed away last year". For a moment she looked on the verge of tears but she recovered quickly. "Sorry...anyway, that day Dad insisted on walking me down the aisle even if he was getting weak. He beamed with pride when a friend fixed a rainbow ribbon to his jacket. Later at the lunch he read a speech he had written for the day, his hand shaking. He shared the story of his Aunties. He said that despite the hardships their situation forced upon them, they had quite a happy life together, a happiness carefully hidden from the world. He wished us to find something similar to what they shared without needing to hide anymore. He said Adele and Zetta would have been so happy and proud to celebrate with all of us that day" Mrs. Nowak picked the Shakespeare Sonnet book and gave him a fond look. "He brought this to the wedding. And he read for us the sonnet 116, the one Zetta mentioned in her dedication. You know, the one that starts with 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments..." ----------------------- A few months later the exhibition on old Hollywood queer cinema and artists opened. Each artist had a room that soon filled with a crowd of enthusiastic visitors. In the first half, in a room arranged as a turn of the century nickelodeon with velvet chairs, all the memorabilia of Zetta Serda's public life: panels explaining the various stages of her career and the birth of her myth, promotional pictures of her performances, articles about her and a copy of a gazette announcing her wedding with the director Richard King. On the wall, on a screen her entire filmography rolled up in loop, bewitching spectators after a century. In display cases: the gorgeous sapphire necklace she wore on her last night on the Ship of Dreams and at the movie party of Surviving the Titanic, and a replica of her Cleopatra costume. The aging Queen of Egypt with a tragic love and destiny immortalised by Shakespeare was her last role back on the theater stage before retiring from the scenes. Old scripts with her personal annotation were displayed with photographs taken on sets and mundane events. The wall hosting the motion-picture screen cut the room in half. On the other side, the hidden half of her life. Her life with Adele no one suspected back then. A life kept secret that now unveiled in front of the eyes of the visitors. The curators discovered that finding public pictures of Miss Carrem was nearly impossible, true to the nickname she acquired as time went by: The Shadow. She stayed at Zetta's side until and even after she stopped acting, showing rare loyalty and devotion, but ever surrounded by this mystery allure. No one, even the most stubborn reporters managed to know anything about her and she was soon dismissed as a Titanic survivor, possibly a fan, who worked as Zetta's secretary and somehow gained her respect. Little they knew about the depth of their relationship and what stacks of secret letters and family memories revealed of the life of Miss Carrem. A panel finally told her story and her secret achievements: Adele, or better Adal, kept fighting for a fairer world and society her whole life and marched for women's right to vote on the famous parade in 1915. She also passed the teaching of Edith Garrud to her American sisters. The only pictures of her came from the Nowak family, except for one. The only photograph of a public appearance of Miss Carrem as well as the only known public appearance of Zetta and Adele. An old grainy photo accurately framed showed Adele shaking hands with The Unsinkable Molly Brown on a podium. In her free hand a shiny medal and a few steps behind the mayor of New York. According to the panel, the survivors' committee founded by Mrs. Brown decided to award Miss Carrem a medal for bravery and a generous check "to help her and her sister starting a new life in America". With great surprise, Miss Carrem received the medal and the check, thanked the board but refused the honors. Instead, she asked to deliver them both to the family of a certain Charlie Stoke, a stewart that lost his life in the sinking to save her life and those of many passengers. She added that her friend expressed the desire to study naval engineering one day and she wished that the money kindly offered to her would be enough to establish a scholarship for boys like him across the ocean. In another picture, Miss Carrem and her sister chatted with Moll Brown in company of Zetta. Eventually, other philanthropists and wealthy socialites signed checks for her cause so that the Stoke family received a generous contribution too. And today, as another picture confirmed, the faculty of naval engineering of the University of Newcastle hosts a marble engraving of Charlie Stoke: to his memory a scholarship had been instituted one year after on the anniversary of the sinking. Since 1913 it has been helping students of poor background to get an education and improve their life. Zetta herself became a philanthropist during her Renaissance and ever since. The first act of her new phase of her life was joining the Moll Brown survivors committee to provide help to the second and third class passengers families and survivors. Some said that the tragedy she witnessed touched her heart, other claimed that it was to be attributed to the influence of her publicist. Jokingly, she used to say that after all, she had too much money yet all she could have wished for in her life, so why not doing some good with it? A considerable donation under her and Mr King was received by the main hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic; she was particularly active in providing financial help to struggling neighbourhoods and female education institutions. In the middle of the room, a long glass display hosted the Shakespeare Sonnets opened at sonnet 116 and a selection of the private correspondence between Zetta and Adele. My darling, You will receive this letter tomorrow morning when I'll be already off to Chicago. The suitcases are ready and packed, this is a goodnight note scribbled the night before leaving you to remind you how much I love you and care about you. How much I'm going to miss you even if - thank God! - we won't be parted for long... Do not forget you promised me to write every day! Write to me, Adele, write to me whatever thought crosses that gorgeous mind of you: you know I could you rambling for hours without getting tired of the sound of your voice, of your sparkling wisdom. I wanna know everything. So don't be shy: I'll be waiting your letters with tender impatience. Can't wait to be in your arms once more. Adoringly yours, Zetta - Dear, dearest Zetta, I went to Central Park today with Hileni. It was a gorgeous spring day, sunny, a gentle breeze blowing: 'simply too beautiful to be wasted inside' as my sister put it. Did I tell you that she's still exchanging letters with the delivery boy from the hat shop? I thought they were over but apparently he invited her to the nickelodeon next week. Anyway, walking in the park with her I suddenly realised how I wanted to share that spring wonder with you. When are you coming back to New York? Tell me soon, please. And even 'soon' won't be soon enough: you're always on my mind since you left. But yes, tell me soon so I can make you promise we will go for a walk before the weather becomes too hot. Do you think I can wrap my arm with yours? Is it professional enough for a publicist? Even just for a few steps: oh you have no idea how I would love that! Or maybe you have? I hope so: it'd mean you miss me as much as I miss you when we are apart. Oh, I almost forgot: all settled with that magazine you mentioned before your departure! I negotiated a two pages long interview, plus pictures. And a cover mention. Hope I did well: you have already fired me as your secretary, I must prove you I am just what you're looking for in a publicist... Can't wait to see you again! Loving you always, Adele Only one letter was copied on a panel of its own on the main wall side by side with a blow-up of the picture of Adele and Zetta slow-dancing barefoot and free, for a blessed moment immortalised in a discreet shot. Adele pressing a tender kiss on Zetta's forehead, drawing a soft smile on the acrtress' lips. Many visitors commented it was heartwarming to see such a photograph that conveyed the intimacy and the warmth of affection radiating from the dancing couple. Some said that Zetta was even more beautiful like that: free, hair slightly askew and genuinely happy, loved. What stole their hearts away though was the letter attached to it. It was no surprise that the curators decided to name the retrospective Underwater. Dearest Adele, Forgive me for the tone of this letter. I am writing it down in bed while I cannot sleep and my mind runs back to you as if we could meet halfway between the miles separating us, in a world of fantasy of our own. It's ridiculous how much I miss you! I want you near, I need you near all the time. Take tonight: if you were here with me, I would be heavenly sleeping in your loving embrace. Most unfortunately, you are not and I'm lying here, insomniac, thinking of you. And about my life. No, don't frown. I am not getting all sad again. It's...bittersweet. And - I'll spoil you the ending so you will stop worrying, hopefully - it gets better the more you proceed. Have you ever felt trapped underwater? I did, my whole life. Always hiding, always measuring words, gestures, gazes not to let them see, not to let them know...so little time to go up and break the surface. Drop the mask and breathe. In, out. Once, twice. In my lowest moments I repeated to my myself: how are you gonna survive? One day an acquaintance with a remarkable passion for the sea explained me and the other bored commensals that you can keep someone alive by breathing oxygen into their mouth underwater. Pretty much like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation helps an unconscious person to regain consciousness. I found it interesting but doubted his words. Then I met you, Adele. My dearest, wondrous Adele. And I learnt that yes, you can't breathe if you're constantly underwater...but you won't drown if you have the right person swimming by your side in those deep waters. Put your lips on me, Adele. Touch me, hold me in your arms. And I can live underwater. With your love, I can live underwater. We can live underwater. I love you. I want to cover a full page of these three simple words: I love you. I want to cry them out and entrust them to the winds, to the night. But what for? Who cares if the world knows or not? I'll whisper them over your lips when we will be reunited. So you can breathe underwater. Counting down the hours separating us, my love. Eternally yours, Zetta
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I just came across the Brian & Ellen live AU and am obsessed. Can you write another update?
anonymous asked: Brian and Ellen AU prompt: Did Ned Gowan manage to get Jamie that pardon? Imagine Jamie being able to live with his family openly again.
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Brian and Ellen AU / Tell Me About Your Family
Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 || Chapter 10 || Chapter 11 || Chapter 12|| Chapter 13 || Chapter 14 || Chapter 15
———-
“The way I see it - of course I can’t say that you didn’t fight, because you did. However, the reason you fought - that was based on a lie.”
Jamie sighed, rubbing his face with his hands, sinking even deeper into one of the chairs at his father’s desk. “My name is on that letter, Ned. Pledging my loyalty to Charles Stuart.”
Ned looked up from his hastily scribbled notes, eyes almost comically huge as they blinked behind his spectacles. “But you didn’t sign the original version of the letter. All we know is that your name appears in the final, published version.”
“And how do you think you’ll find the original?” Brian Fraser slumped in his own chair, mirroring his son’s posture. “You cannae exactly write to the prince and ask for the original copy.”
Ned smiled. “No - but I can find out the name of the printer who originally published it. He had to have been given something to work from.”
“You mean, the original version of the letter?” Jamie thumped his head back against the chair. “It cannae hurt to ask, I suppose. But even if you were to find the printer, there’s no guarantee he’d still have the original letter. Or that whatever he has, includes signatures.”
Calmly Ned lay the palms of his hands flat against the time-polished wood of Brian’s desk. “Are you saying you do not want me to try?”
Brian reached out to squeeze Jamie’s shoulder. “No. Let’s try. We have to.”
---
“Wait - hold on. And what’s in that crate?”
Rab Fraser huffed and shifted his burden to his free shoulder. Ellen Fraser squinted first at the side of the crate, and then at the inventory clutched in her hand.
“Box 14...more ledgers. Bring that to Da’s study, please, a bhailach.”
Rab disappeared down the hallway, just as Fergus and Young Jamie appeared, carrying another crate between them.
Ellen sighed. “I knew the library at Leoch was grand - but I had no idea that Colum had added so much!”
At her side, Claire looked down at her own copy of the inventory. “Box 27...books in Greek and Latin. Would you mind if that one goes to my and Jamie’s bedroom, for now? He’ll know how best to sort them.”
“Aye. Away ye go, lads!”
And they did, breathing heavily as they navigated the crate upstairs.
“I don’t know if I ever told you about my audiences with Colum, when I first came to Leoch.” Claire adjusted the fabric wrapped around her shoulder and middle, and ten-month-old William Fraser blinked from his cocoon like a wee owl. “He didn’t know what to make of me. And he would only see me in his library.”
“I would sit in there for hours and hours on end.” Ellen sank into a spare chair, carefully laying the paper inventory on the dining room table. “It was my escape. Colum and I - we would pass many a cold winter afternoon there. Especially after the trouble with his legs started...he would lay on Father’s couch, and I’d read to him.”
Claire smiled sadly. “What would you read?”
“Greek odes. Shakespeare’s sonnets. Father’s library had so much to offer.” She smiled tightly. “I didnae have much of a formal education - apart from the basics, that is. I forced my way in to Colum and Dougal’s lessons wi’ their tutors. Even if I had to press myself up against the door, to listen.”
Brian appeared through the door. “They’re still unpacking?”
“Ian should be back any moment with the last wagonload.” Claire craned her neck, looking through the window and into the dooryard. “I still can’t believe how much Ned was able to save.”
“I still cannae believe he found the printer in Edinburgh who published Charles Stuart’s letter.” Brian eased into the chair beside his wife, and gently took her hand as she sighed.
“He’s always had a knack for that sort of thing.” Ellen squeezed Brian’s work-roughened hand. “Creative ideas. It’s kept him alive. And now, it keeps him young.”
“Jamie once told me something he had overheard Dougal say to Colum.” Carefully, Claire pulled William from his wrap, and settled his solid wee legs onto her lap, kissing the curls at his crown. “That they had only one brain and one cock between them.”
Ellen’s laugh rang clear through the house.
“Oh, Claire - I havenae heard anything so funny in years.”
“Humor is best when it rings true,” Claire agreed.
“And it will take me precisely two seconds to guess which brother had which.” Brian shook his head. “I was right to take ye away from them, mo nighean ruaidh.”
Ellen turned to face her husband. “Can ye blame me for jumping at the first chance I got?”
Faith, Brianna, Maggie, and Kitty scampered by in the hallway, giggling. On their heels, Jamie poked his head through the doorway - smiling broadly at his son, who squealed in delight.
“Here ye all are. Ian just returned wi’ the final wagon.” He crossed the room and picked up his squirming son, tossing him up in the air.
Claire, Brian, and Ellen rose, just in time for Rab and Fergus and Young Jamie and Jenny and Ian to descend on the dining room once moor, huffing under the weight of the crates representing all that was left of Castle Leoch, and Colum MacKenzie.
---
The Fraser/Murrays were still unpacking the crates six days later, when Fergus darted into the house to announce that a visitor was approaching.
Ned Gowan rolled into the dooryard looking a little worse for wear, and for the tenth time Ellen was grateful that two of Grannie MacNab’s grandsons had accompanied him on the journey to Edinburgh. Ellen wrapped a kind arm around his back as soon as he alighted from the wagon, welcoming him home and promising a restorative meal and drink within minutes.
So it was that Brian and Ellen and Jamie and Claire and Ian and Jenny and Rab all gathered around the dining room table - Ned sitting at the head, tucking into an enormous portion of neeps and tatties. Regaling those assembled with tales of what he had seen on the road - the empty villages, the beggars, the highwaymen, the despair.
Edinburgh, fortunately, was largely unchanged - just featuring more redcoated soldiers than he had ever seen. Fortunately with the help of the MacNab lads, they had secured lodging and begun their interviews of every printer on the Royal Mile.
“We finally found him on the fifth day. Abraham Bell. He barely escaped the noose himself, after the Rising. He didn’t want to speak at first, but when I told him that I am formerly of Castle Leoch...”
Beneath the table, Jamie threaded his fingers through Claire’s, squeezing impatiently.
“...only after much cajoling that he furnished the copy of the letter that a member of Charles Stuart’s retinue had provided to him.”
“And?” Jamie’s voice was desperately calm.
Ned chewed on a potato, then swallowed. “It included the printed names of the signatories, and included a blank space where the signatures where meant to be. Your signature, Jamie - it decidedly was not there.”
“That doesna mean anything.” Jamie clenched his free hand into a fist on top of the table. “This Mr. Bell could have just been furnished a list of names to print.”
Ned set down his spoon. “Yours was the only signature not on the page, Jamie. All others were written, in ink.”
Claire let out a shaky breath, desperately squeezing Jamie’s hand.
“And the printer added Jamie’s,” Brian interjected, “because his was the only one not there.”
Ned nodded, beaming. “Precisely.”
“With respect,” Jenny piped up, “isn’t it only your word against this Mr. Bell’s? How can ye convince anyone of this?”
Ned’s smile widened even further, and he patted his breast pocket. “Because I have the letter here.”
He turned to Jamie. “We have evidence to support the petition. Do you still want to move forward?”
“Yes,” Jamie breathed, without hesitation. “Yes. Definitely.”
Ned picked up his spoon and dove back into his food. “Then tomorrow, lad - we begin.”
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Vividly | Lee Felix
Genre: fluff, comedy, college au, poetry au(?)
Pairing: Lee Felix x fem!reader
Word Count: ~1.1k
A/n: Masterlist → in bio!!! | I hope you enjoy 🎔
~ ❀❀❀~
[오후 6:10]
“Shall I compare thee to a warm summer’s day? Or, perhaps, to...uh…”
He tapped the tip of his pen against his chin. On the floor somewhere diagonally behind him, Han divided up the pizza while Minho begrudgingly rose to pay, seeing as Han “accidentally” tripped and dropped the bill on his lap.
“...Oh!” He smiled, scribbling as fast as his hand would allow. “...to...a...flower…uh...of Spring! Done!”
Gathering his day’s work atop his desk, Felix beamed proudly at the words he’d managed to weave together. Tapping them twice to file, he spun his chair around, waiting for everyone’s attention.
“Minho’ll be back in a sec,” Han said between a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni. “He’s paying the delivery guy downstairs.”
Miffed footsteps could be heard rising up along the walls before, lo and behold, the devil himself arrived. He focused vexed eyes on Han. “This is the last time I’m paying for you. You owe me twenty bucks.”
“Okay.”
“On top of the two-hundred and seventy-five you already owe me.”
“...O-Oh...haha…” He smiled cheesily. “I see you’ve been keeping track.”
Minho deadpanned. “And I can see you’ll be needing floss after this.” He turned to Felix, tucking himself comfortably down into a beanbag chair Felix normally used for gaming nights. “Go ahead, Felix.”
He nodded; this was it. The words he’d spent all day putting together. They had to work, just had to. If they didn’t, well…
Han and Minho thought he’d just be failing English 101. But, really, he’d be failing himself; his chance of winning over the heart of someone very dear to him...an enigma named Y/n L/n.
“Ahem,” He started, mentally preparing himself. He had to treat this moment like the real thing. He had to channel his inner charisma and be as witty and charming as possible, but also rugged and manly...because that’s what girls liked, right? Yet, also, it was important that he was still true to himself...since that was hopefully the person you’d be falling in love with…
“...Is...that it?” Han asked, brows raised. He turned to Minho curiously. “Yo, this reminds me of that one SpongeBob episode where--”
“Quiet, loud mouth,” Minho rolled his eyes. “He just got spacey again, give him a chance.”
“...Ahem,” Felix began again. His eyes scanned the papers before him nervously, palms starting to sweat, words slightly blurring.
“A-And summer’s lease hath all too short a date,
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Shall I compare thee to a...warm...summer’s day?
Or perhaps to a flower of spring?”
Lowering the pages, he took a deep breath before smiling as big and...what he was hoping would be happy and gentlemanly as possible.
On the other side of the room, Minho and Han both blinked. Han coughed. “...That...was… ...you wanna take this one, Minho?”
Minho sighed. “Felix…” He tried to smile politely, Felix could tell. But it just wasn’t...there. “Felix, I know you’ve been working on that all day, and you’ve been at this project for three days now. So I’m sure you’re exhausted, and I don’t want you to be too disappointed when I tell you that was just Shakespeare’s Sonnet Eighteen read backwards...and then, something you added to the end. Hey,” He suddenly brightened, giving him an air-nudge. “That last part was original! You can start again with that after, eh…” He listed his head. “...Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. You’re gonna make yourself sick like Hyunjin trying to pull off Mrs. Kang’s finale.”
Han paused halfway to starting his third slice. “...Since when do you know anything about English and...nice...words?”
Minho scoffed. “It’s called poetry, genius,” he rebuked, pouring himself a soda from the liters hidden in Felix’s closet. “I just got finished with her class last semester. I had to study so hard that it all just...stuck with me, I guess. Hyunjin and I would have failed if not for Seungmin and Chan’s help.” He cast his gaze back to Felix with a genuine smile. “Don’t worry too much about it. It’s not you, it’s her.”
Han rolled his eyes. “How many girls have you told that t-- oof!”
Minho held another pillow at the ready. “I’m talking about Mrs. Kang, and the assignment!” he hissed, dropping the weapon. “Anyway...here.” he said, handing his untouched plate to the homeowner. “Take a break. Eat a lot.”
“I’ve got a poem for you,” Han piped, recovered. Minho rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time, shaking his head. “Are you ready?”
Felix nodded.
“Okay! Roses are red, violets are blue--”
Minho snorted, glaring over his slice of food. “You’re a moron, and we hate you?”
“NO,” Han blurted, “...” He turned precariously to Felix. “You should have taken Home Ec with me, I told you to.”
Minho groaned. Felix, on the other hand, bowed his head, taking the last slice. The smallest. His first.
“...Perhaps you’re right.”
~ ❀❀❀~
That night, Felix dreamed of a girl who loved poetry, books, words, and the unfathomable. He dreamed of a girl whose dying wish it was to obtain a molecular understanding of the world, one who was not of the world, but was in it. He dreamed of beautiful things, of cherry blossoms dancing in the April breeze along a mountain stream, of a colorful forest in late fall, of a warm cottage home in Winter. Many seasons passed him by, all of which came converging to a single point…
And the possibilities manifested in themselves. They combined together, forming you. A girl with (h/c) hair and sweet (e/c) eyes.
Felix awoke from his dream with a jolt. He was warm, skin humming, thoughts circling round and around and around…
The clock on the wall read two a.m.. Normally, he’d be up gaming at this hour, not jolting awake from a melodiously, affable, jovial-embedded--
...Gasp. Did he just...were those words...from him? Did he think of them all on his own? They just seemed to...come to him. They came to him when he thought about you; your smile, your laugh, how the birds seemed to sing and the flowers swayed to and fro, as if euphorically spinning and twirling to the rhythm of his pining, beating heart…
Yes, he thought. It’s so...inelegant, and tasteless, but…
It was definitely a gift from you. A gift he would not let go to waste.
At 2:03 a.m., Felix sat down at his desk, pen and paper at the ready.
#stray kids#lee felix#skzwriters#sk-writersnet#skz#lee felix imagines#lee felix scenarios#lee felix oneshots#lee felix blurbs#lee felix fanfic#lee felix fanfiction#stray kids imagines#stray kids scenarios#stray kids oneshots#stray kids blurbs#stray kids fanfic#stray kids fanfiction#kpop#kpop imagines#kpop scenarios#kpop oneshots#kpop blurbs#kpop fanfic#kpop fanfiction#college au#poetry au#poeticallyspaghetti
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William Shakespeare✍🏼
William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)[a] was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet.In his work including collaborations consists of 39 plays,154 sonnet's, two long narrative poems and few other verses.
Shakespeare was born and raised in ,Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems on sexual themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. In Venus and Adonis, an innocent Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus; while in The Rape of Lucrece, the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin.[179] Influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses,[180] the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust.[181] Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects. The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chester's 1601��Love's Martyr, mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In 1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare's name but without his permission.
Sonnets
Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership.
Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for example; and the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted.
However, Shakespeare soon began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, Richard's vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays.[197][198] No single play marks a change from the traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles.[199] By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself.
Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of monotony.Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and Hamlet.
After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies.
Shakespeare combined poetic genius with a practical sense of the theatre
He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and to show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama.As Shakespeare's mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in the later plays, however. In Shakespeare's late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre.
TOP 15 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS
1 Hamlet
2 King Lear
3A Midsummer Night’s Dream
4The Winter’s Tale
5Twelfth Night
6The Tempest
7Othello
8 The Merchant of Venice
9As you like it
10 Henry IV part 1
11All’s Well That Ends Well
12 Much Ado about nothing
13 Romeo and Juliet
14 Measure for Measure
15King Richard
So these are informations ablut William Shakespeare.I love so much his poems and his plays.I do my research to find the informations.
#poetry#feel yourself#feel proud#make them feel#positive#feelings#follow your dreams#positivity#poem#William Shakespeare
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First Lines Tag
Tagged by @slightlyintimidating
Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag 10 authors!
As all my mutuals have been tagged already, I’ll just tag a couple of people, @tara-stofse and @rapidashpatronus
I’m also going to cheat and give you a favourite line from each one, simply because the first line is rarely the best and why not be a big fat show off where your writing is concerned? Didn’t link because I am a lazy cow but my AO3 profile is at the top of my page.
1. (The Worst Witch 2017) A friend like you – 'Get in loser, we're going shopping!'
Sometimes I come up with good titles and sometimes I desperately flail around and this was the best I could do. Most people should know what the opening line is a reference to and it was the first thing I thought of when the idea of this fic materialised.
· 'I know you think you're hot stuff, but Dimity can run rings around you. You have the acting skills of a potato' she icily informed a miffed Arabella.’
2. (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) An education - 'I confess, I fail to understand the point of most of them.'
Again, another crappy title but for some reason, no song lyric or poem came to me on the subject of policemen raiding a Chinese brothel in the 1920s and confiscating vibrators because they look like suspicious instruments. I did lift the first line from the script because that is partly what I based the fic on. 0/10 for originality there.
· ‘The benefit of having so many deities, Lin reflected, was that there was always someone in, should you knock on the door of their shrines.’
3. (The Worst Witch 2017) Poker – ‘Miss Bat scuttled along to the staffroom after her date and walked in, only to halt in surprise.’
Good Lord, I’m really not selling it to you with these boring titles am I? I’ve done the strip poker storyline with the hairpins in another fandom and couldn’t think up a clever title for that either.
· ‘Clothes were strewn everywhere but in front of Hecate, there was a small pile of hairpins and nothing else.’
4. (The Worst Witch 2017) Which witch is which? – ‘Wychwood forest was a mysterious place, full of wrackspurts and helipoaths and blibbering humdingers. Sometimes you'd even see a crumple horned snorcack galloping along.’
Yes, alright I borrowed something off the world of Harry Potter. A fic based off a post off of a popular post on Tumblr and title borrowed off Dianna Wynne Jones I think.
· 'Watch out for the blibbering humdingers!' she shouted vengefully after the troublesome tourists.’
5. (The Worst Witch 2017) They do it with mirrors - 'I've missed you.'
Very general, basic bitch kind of starter. Dial up the smut o’metre because witches are having the equivalent of webcam sex. Written for the Hackle Lemonade Challenge, prompt kink. Wasn’t one of my favourites to write but it does have one of my favourite paragraphs in a smutty fic. Beats the first line anyway.
· ‘She groaned and panted as her climax finally overtook her, glad of the extra support from the solid oak furniture. None of this modern rubbish that couldn't withstand a good hard fuck. There was a time and a place for IKEA but this was not it.’
6. (The Worst Witch 2017) Every inch of you – ‘Ada loved it when Hecate lightly raked her nails down her back.’
Diving straight into the smut for this other Hackle Lemonade Challenge, prompt kink fic. Title entirely appropriate.
· ‘While many people over the years could make it happen, it was a secret delight to know that nobody did it better than her.’
7. (The Worst Witch 2017) The hum of your desire – ‘Ada woke up to an empty bed.’
At least it’s promising. The story can go anywhere when you start off with an empty bed. The bed is irrelevant anyway. They end up on the sofa.
· ‘Hecate Hardbroom was nothing but a meticulous over achiever.’
8. (The Worst Witch 2017) You’re the night sky, trying to make me see your stars – ‘Hecate had been afraid to touch.’
Throws you right into the scene and lets you know there’s going to be a bit of angst in there. I love the song I took the title from (night sky – Leonell Cassio & Julia Mihevc) and I waited for a fic idea to materialise so I could use it.
· ‘Ada could feel her breathing, steady and true, vibrating through to her heart.’
9. (Ghosts) Hide & seek – ‘Giggling madly, she galloped up the stairs to seek out the best hiding place ever.’
With several of the ghosts with backstories we have yet to uncover, the possibilities are endless. Poor Kitty had to die young so I gave her a death loosely based on an English ghost story, using all the unsavoury incidents involving her sister. Title needs no explanation.
· ‘And shimmering obliquely in the corner of the landing, was the answer. The wooden chest. The one from the latest sailing ship that had brought back all that sugar and tea and rum.’
10. (The Worst Witch 2017) When breathing sounds like your song – ‘She hadn't let herself enjoy it at first.’
Luckily the only way from there is forward. For the Hackle Lemonade Challenge 2021, prompt firsts. Not sure where I got the title from, it’s possible I melded a couple of song lyrics together for it.
· ‘I always feel thirsty after a pleasurable experience' she said cheerfully.’
11. (Holby City) There is no goat that foolish – ‘Serena patted down her wide brimmed hat and set off for a walk.’
It’s an ok start to the fic. The title is terrible but honestly, its just hard to find references to goats in general.
· ‘She only just realised that they were conversing in English, not French. The other woman had a London accent. Good. She could shout at her more expressively in English.’
12. (The Worst Witch 2017) Sugar mouse – ‘What is it?’
So many possibilities here. The title does give it away, but still.
· ‘In her nightmares, her grandfather had chased her around with an eyeball on a fork.’
13. (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) Stitch up - ‘I’d like to see you operate my sewing machine, Hugh Collins.’
Another shameless ripping off from the script. But nothing else can sum up this fic so perfectly. Title self-explanatory.
· ‘Were sewing machines like dogs? He wondered. Did they take on the personalities of their owners?’
14. (Pushing Daisies) Girls don’t want boys, girls want damn respect – ‘Her boy always had an eye for the ladies.’
What a ridiculously clunky title. But apparently I couldn’t think of anything better. The opening line is much better.
· ‘Calista was reminded of the principal at school that Emerson had crushed on so hard that he'd broken every fire alarm in the school over the course of several months just to get her attention. Some things never changed.’
15. (Holby City) Tell us the tale of a goat – ‘Did I ever tell you about how Serena and I met?’
A solid opening there, full of potential. The title is a bit crap. No, I have no idea why or how Serena would be working on the Italian railway either.
· ‘You dressed one up in a poncho and called it aunt Gertrude?’ Fleur asked eventually. She really couldn’t think of anything better to say.’
16. (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) In the gracious light – ‘Jack tried not to let their questioning stares get to him.’
Based partly on the MFMM books, I’m happy with the opening line, it sets the tone. The title comes from Shakespeare’s Sonnet VII. ‘Lo! in the orient when the gracious light.’ With that, it ties in Jack and Lin quite nicely.
· ‘After all, grandmama had warned him enough about the distraction of white girls. She had said nothing about white boys.’
17. (Holby City) Not yet – ‘Bernie wouldn't describe herself as an avid reader these days.’
Title taken from a line in the book Wicked. Opening line is pretty generic. I basically wrote this fic because Elphaba reminds me of Bernie in some respects. Also, premonition, sorry about that.
· ‘In her mind, it was Serena in that cell, stretching out her hand to Bernie and chiding her affectionately for her delay.’
18. (Ghosts) Filth – ‘The Captain paid no attention to Lady Button's shrewish tone two rooms away.’
Simple title, simple opening line. Very direct. It’s the ‘why didn’t the Captain and Lady Button bond over the hot gardener in Lady Chatterly’s Lover together’ fic.
· ‘The Captain sighed. That husband of hers had a lot to answer for. Bastard. He couldn't have killed her by poison or anything, no, he had to push her out of the damn window.’
19. (Ghosts & Holby City crossover) Over the top we go – ‘He couldn't believe it.’
So many things one couldn’t believe, a pretty generic opening. The title is a WW1 reference so not the correct war for the Captain but I used it anyway. Bernie is Haver’s niece.
· ‘The Captain looked pleased but there was an expression in his eyes that Alison thought hid a sob in his heart.’
20. (Holby City) Boobs – ‘Arthur Digby was having a terrible day.’
Title, utterly crap, I know you’ll agree. Opening line, sums it up really. I like it.
· 'Well, call me Da Vinci and I'll paint you like one of those French girls.'
Art wasn't Fleur's strong point.’
So what did I learn about my opening lines? It does reflect my writing style, snappy and concise. I rarely ramble for long. Are they thrilling opening lines? Not usually. Do they set the scene or the tone? Much of the time. They are certainly not the best ones I’ve ever written. Considering that I don’t love most of these last lot of opening lines, I’m going to go with which witch is which? It’s the best one of the bunch, I think.
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Eve!!!! Need your thoughts about Taylor's album!!!! 💓💓💓💓💓💓
i love getting asked :”(((((( :”))))))) thank uuuuuuuu. let’s get to it. as usual, it’s an almost-first impression (normally i write my basic thoughts during the first listen – yeah i’d started doing it before getting this, you know, just in case – and then i review them w a second one, where i also select my favourite passage). sooo, let’s go
♡♡♡♡
the 1 — such sweet yet heartbreaking lyrics... very soft sound, if it sets the mood for the album im 100 per cent in! This one didn’t stick w me after one listen, but after the second i was like wooow! I love how she says waking up alone ughhh. 8
fave lyrics: persist and resist the temptation to ask you / if one thing had been different / would everything be different today?
cardigan — !!!!!!! the sound has that bittersweet something that gets under your skin and makes you nostalgic for something you can’t even pinpoint. it reminds me of the softest lana, especially in nfr (eg bartender!!). i’m in awe. instant obsession!!!! the ending takes you to another plane of existence – ‘cause i knew everything when i was young... i knew you’d miss me... you’d come back to me. also i’m crying. 10+
[it’s hard to choose bc the whole song reads like poetry but i’m especially obsessed w] giving me your weekends; once in twenty lifetimes; tried to change the ending / peter losing wendy; you drew stars around my scars
the last great american dynasty — storytelling on pointttt and sound, too! telling the story of someone she bought her house from?? the genius jumped out. she paints it like a romantic portrait, mad woman pacing on the shore, but then also gatsbian, the crazy parties, dali... and then takes it back to today w the key lime green dog, idk, iconic. i want to know this woman. this song truly takes you somewhere else, i thought it was a bit repetitive but then the bridge came in and the final vocals plus i had a marvelous time ruining everything, i have to stan! 8+
there goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen / she had a marvelous time ruining everything
exile — ok wow, bon iver’s voice is something else!!!! i was kind of ignorant when it came to him, i admit. his depth and rasp paired with how angelic she sounds... heavenly. sound-wise, but also thematically, this vaguely reminds me of tomorrow never came w lana and sean ono lennon. (one of my fave songs of all time maybe?). the way they enunciate i think i’ve seen this film before is literally a work of art all in itself, not to mention – well i’m mentioning it bc it’s worth it! – the you never gave a warning sign vs the way she goes over it w i gave so many signs. god this makes me feel sooooo sad and like, involved. it’s so beautiful. 10
you’re not my homeland anymore / so what am i defending now?
my tears ricochet — ok wtfffff??? everything about this speaks to my soul. the airy voice, the way she sets the scene... sunlit room, the funeral metaphor, you turned into your worst fears. i didn’t have it in myself to go with grace speaks to me more than anything, but just, everything about the lyrics. truly something else, cursing my name / wishing i stayed gives me chills everytime she says it. the beat that gets more insistent towards the end, with the bridge....... the high notes that then fade..... just wow. 10
and i can go anywhere i want / anywhere i want, just not home / and you can aim for my heart, go for blood / but you would still miss me in your bones / and i still talk to you when i’m screaming at the sky / and when you can’t sleep at night you hear my stolen lullabies
mirrorball — love the lyrics, maybe a bit less the sound? i mean i do love the sound, so far i’m loving how softly produced and coherent this album is, but this one i wouldn’t listen to on repeat and maybe there’s something a bit whiny that i don’t love. powerful meaning tho, and who’d use a mirrorball as a metaphor for feeling like you’re fragile, trying too hard to be a people-pleaser and no one sees the real you? 7
i’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me
seven — ah........ i started crying as soon as this one started, pleeease picture me in the trees, i hit my peak at seven....... like ok there’s no need to go that hard??? it’s so dreamy and like... naïf? in a perfect way. the way she says i still got love for you...... and everything else... she mentions folk songs... the purest love described in the purest way. i don’t think i have enough words to descrive the way this song moves me. like i want to listen to it again and again, to be able to feel like that again, but also i’m almost scared to listen bc it touches me too deeply. i still will tho hehe. 10+ (also just realised this is track 7 ok makes sense but my mind is blown. 100)
[this is literally deeper than a shakespeare sonnet so everything literally is my fave but, having to choose] and i’ve been meaning to tell you / i think your house is haunted / your dad is always mad and that must be why / and i think you should come live with me / and we can be pirates / then you won’t have to cry / or hide in the closet / and just like a folk song / our love will be passed on
august — i love the contrast between the lighthearted, happy singing and guitars and the sad lyrics. the story it tells is so simple and yet there’s so much poetry in that... plus it reminds me of fearless or even speak now?? which are like. the taylor that gets to my heart, tbh. the bridge and the outro made the song for me. 8,5
for me, it was enough / to live for the hope of it all / canceled plans just in case you’d call
this is me trying — oh god... lyrically this song is so raw and honest, it gives me chills! i do have to say, i don’t love how she says i just wanted to know (like metrically?? idk, im weird) but these are really just small comments on amazing songs, bc i feel like all i’m saying is wow this is great, lyrics and sound, but it truly is a complete and consistent work of art, easily listened to top to bottom each time. 8-
they told me all of my cages were mental / so got wasted like all my potential / and my words shoot to kill when i’m mad / i have a lot of regrets about that
illicit affairs — ok this goes without saying but i love storyteller taylor, it’s the taylor i grew up loving and singing to in my room. the thing about most of these songs, this one included, is that they probably grow on you after a few listens, bc they’re not made to be catchy, the production and backgrounds are always very soft and some i love more than others. this one musically maybe isn’t my fave but the narration is on point, and the bridge?? the fuckkkk. plus it has one of mt favourite themes ever which is so rarely spoken about, which is the fact that language you only speak w a particular someone you love, makes you miss them even more when they’re gone. or well not exactly this but i can’t put it into words, she did tho. 8+
you taught me a secret language i can’t speak with anyone else / and you know damn well / for you, i would ruin myself / a million little times
invisible string — the color theme!!! the guitar strumming!!! and the idea of an invisible tie w someone special... i do think she outdid herself w this album. again, not my fave soundwise, maybe slightly whiny when she goes meEeeEee? but, lyrically adorable and moving. 7,5
one single thread of gold / tied me to you
mad woman — maam...... this is iconic shit........ how could she say stuff like this w such a dreamy, breathy voice. musically i get huuuge lana’a nfr vibes again (which i mean. goals) but i also adore that lyrically it’s so taylor, no one would say this shit the way she does. adore how she sings to wrap your news around and bonus for women like hunting witches too, i do love me a nod to the fact that some women are so deeply filled w machism that they’re basically men in disguise. 8,5
every time you call me crazy, i get more crazy / what about that? / and when you say i seem angry, i get more angry [isn’t this just womanhood condensed in a few lines]
epiphany — aw! it sounds like a lullaby, maybe it’s slightly ‘boring’ for my taste? meaning i get distracted which is surely a shame bc the words seem beautiful, but it’s so soft i just drift off? but reading the lyrics – for focus hehe – i’m moved. 7+
only twenty minutes to sleep / but you dream of some epiphany / just one single glimpse of relief / to make some sense of what you’ve seen
betty — okay byeeeeeeeeee. this is taylor at her finest! countryyyyyyyy, storytelling, lesbian jdjdfk no yeah I know I knowww, romance went sour. gut wrenching and beautiful, this feels like... watching a sad teen movie but w a sepia filter, idk. i dreamt of you all summer long oh my......... it’s like og taylor from her iconic first couple of albums came back but w all her baggage and growth and experience and better than ever. also why does taylor sing so wel about being in love w a woman????? well. 10+
betty, right now is the last time / i can dream about what happens when / you see my face again
peace — ..........yes yes yes. the high notes, the honesty, the syncopated parts where she says so much so quick and yet it still hits you. it’s not even a short song but it ends too soon, it goes by like that..... a poem. omg it just hit me this has flo vibes! especially from high as hope, for example grace or south london forever?? i mean... taylor doing alt folk country pop...... queen. give you my wild, give you a child?? ok ok. 10
all these people think love’s for show / but i would die for you in secret
hoax — weeeell the lana inspo jumped out w that piano!!!!! and like. mood. and lyrics...... this reminds me of wuthering heights or of lana’s tormented love stories (shades of blue.....). a powerful closer. poetry. 9
i am ash from your fire
♡♡♡♡
okkkkk this was a flattering review, very well deserved imo since the review is mine gjgjhkhk i agree w myself. thank you again and as i always say, feel free to come back w your comments! and have a great dayyyyy! much love
#taylor swift#folklore#also bonus points for the title#fave ever from her#10#should i tag my reviews#(i think this has now become the tag)
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Fic Titles Meme
I was tagged by the excellent @findswoman and am thrilled to be so!
Look at the most recent 20 fanwork titles on your AO3 account and answer the questions below.
The Dancing-Place Rain From A Clear Sky Beyond the Curve of the World Unexpected: The Captain America Papers Little Secret What Happened At The Wine Mother Bonesplitter’s Children A Trip Down Paradise Alley Necropolis Goodnight Sometimes Box of Frogs Asif the Stony-Hearted The Heartstone A Burial At Sea A Scent of Lavender Winter’s Lease Heart Of The Wood Un fil de soie, une chaine de fer Where the Road Leads Six of Bones
First of all, I have 20 titles! How did that happen?
1. How many are you happy with?
First to say, Little Secret is a translation so I can’t claim credit for that title. But I’m happy with all but one of them: I work quite hard at titles.
2. How many are…not great?
The only one I’m hesitant about is A Scent of Lavender: the fic started out under a different name and I shifted to ASoL as a working title thinking that I’d probably change it again before the end, then events overtook me and it had to stay as it was. I think I could have found a better title for it in the end.
3. How many did you scramble for at the last minute?
Only two: Where the Road Leads was very last-minute, and it is perhaps slightly bland because of that; and Unexpected: The Captain America Papers took me a long time to come up with because it was a remix and I was trying to match the title to the original fic.
4. How many did you know before you started writing/creating, or near the beginning?
Most of them took shape pretty early on: Rain From A Clear Sky takes the prize as the title came to me at the same time as the idea. And Six of Bones was another one that I wrote at the top of the first page of notes.
5. How many are quotes from songs or poems?
None of them! Though the very next one I post is going to be a quotation from a song (This Ain’t A Party). Un fil de soie... stands out here, though, as I wanted to make the title a quotation from a poem in French but I couldn’t find anything that matched the idea I wanted, so I had to resort to writing a fragment of poem myself to put in the fic and then quoting it for the title.
6. How many are other quotes?
Winter’s Lease isn’t a quotation, but it is a pun on the Shakespeare sonnet (Summer’s lease hath all too short a date), and Goodnight Sometimes is a straight copy of the title of the book from which the plot is taken, Charlotte Sometimes.
7. Which best reflects the plot of the story/content of the fanwork?
What Happened at the Wine is probably the most direct, and The Heartstone, though in general I like to make titles thematic rather than descriptive. A Burial At Sea reflects the plot, but not in the way that you’d think, and likewise Box of Frogs.
8. Which best reflects the theme of the story?
I hope they all do - I aim for a title to talk about what the story is trying to do. So Winter’s Lease, for instance, is about Goodnight and Billy staying in town over the autumn and winter, literally leasing a cabin, but also about their going through a period of frozen stasis before coming back to proper life again; and A Trip Down Paradise Alley is both a literal description of what happens at the start of the story, and an expression of the trippy nature of the events in it. There are literal boxes of frogs in BoF, but obviously the fic is so silly that it’s as mad as a box of frogs.
9. Which best reflects the character voice of the story/pov of the fanwork?
I don’t know that I do this very much - Beyond the Curve of the World is something the POV character says, but it’s not very distinctive, and likewise Asif the Stony-Hearted.
10. Which is your favourite title?
Hands-down Mother Bonesplitter’s Children! It took me a while to get to the right name for Mother Bonesplitter, but when I did it was just the image and feel I was looking for for the story.
I will tag @dancinbutterfly, @hanajimasama, @northstarfan, @poemsingreenink, @villa-kulla, @inkformyblood, @tramstrams, @hellolittleogre and @onyxmoonstone, and anyone else who wants to to join in!
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Almost a books worth of love quotes
I love love quotes. They are so romantic and soul crushing when you don’t believe in the concept of love. It’s such bittersweet bliss. I have so many. Without further ado, lets dive in!
01.) “True love it like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen” ~ Francois De Le Rochefoucauld
02.) “You call my name, I come to you in pieces, So you can make me whole” ~Red, Pieces
03.) “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you” ~ Winnie The Pooh, A. A. Milne
04.) “Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.” ~The Princess Bride
05.) “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depths and breath and height my soul can reach, When feeling out of sight for the ends of being and idea grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with a passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life! and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death” ~Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
06.) “We have three kinds of family. Those we are born to, those who are born to us, and those we let into our hearts” ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, Bad Moon Rising
07.) “To get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with” ~Mark Twain
08.) “I was hiding under your porch because I love you” ~Doug, Up
09.) “The sun may set and the moon may wane, but my love for you remains ever constant. I am, and always will be yours... Forever.” ~Fairy Fencer F
10.) “Deep in my soul I know that I’m your destiny” ~Mulan
11.) “To face the future with another who means more than any other is to be loved” ~The Rescuers
12.) “I have found my star. She is beauty and grace. Elegance and goodness. My laughter in winter. She is courageous and strong. Bold and tempting. Unlike any other in all the universe” ~Sherrylin Kenyon, Dance With The Devil
13.) “My dream wouldn’t be complete without you in it” ~The princess and the frog
14.) “If I had a brush right now, I’d paint you all around me” ~Single File, Laura
15.) “When I look at you, I can feel it. I look at you and I’m home” ~Dory, Finding Nemo
16.) “You are my greatest adventure” ~The Incredibles
17.) “Love is... Putting someone else’s dreams before your own” ~Olaf, Frozen
18.) “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)
19.) “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.” ~Roald Dahl, The Witches
20.) “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream” ~Sleeping Beauty
21.) “We are most alive when we’re in love” ~John Updike
22.) “True love stories never have an ending” ~Richard Bach
23.) “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies” ~Aristotle
24.) “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other” ~Audrey Hepburn
25.) “Love always cures people, both the ones who give it, and the ones who receive it” ~Karl Menninger
26.) “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet” ~Plato
27.) “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person” ~ Mighon McLaughlin
28.) “To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship” ~Domenico Cieri Estrada
29.) “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction” ~Antoine De Saint-Exupĕcy
30.) “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” ~ Victor Hugo
31.) “If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.” ~Michel de Montaigne
32.) “We loved with a love that was more than love.” ~Edgar Allan Poe
33.) “Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” ~Victor Hugo
34.) “To say ‘I love you’ one must first be able to say the ‘I’.” ~Ayn Rand
35.) “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” ~Victor Hugo
36.) “If I were a zombie, I’d never eat your brain. I’d just want your heart, yeah want your heart, just want your heart” ~Stephanie Mabey, The Zombie Song
37.) “When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!” ~ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
38.) “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” ~Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
39.) “You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.” ~The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle
40.) “ Just like nicotine, Heroine, Morphine, Suddenly, I'm a fiend and you're all I need, All I need, yeah, you're all I need” ~Never Be the Same, Camila Cabello
41.) “ You've already won me over in spite of me, And don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet, And don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are” ~Head Over Feet, Alanis Morissette
42.) “ Just for a second with you, the highest mountain I'd climb, every time that I see you, each moment feels so sublime “ ~xXVVSOSVVXx
43.) “ Oh just to be with you is having the best day of my life “ ~Thank You, Dido
44.) “We’ve loved each other so long I’ve never been a man and not loved her.” ~The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry
45.) “You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed. My darling.” ~The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton
46.) “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.” ~Hamlet, William Shakespeare
47.) “I would love to say that you make me weak in the knees but to be quite upfront and completely truthful you make my body forget it has knees at all.” ~Love Language, Chasers of the Light, Tyler Knott Gregson
48.) “Love starts as a feeling, but to continue is a choice. And I find myself choosing you, more and more every day.” ~Bending The Universe, Justin Wetch
49.) “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” ~Oscar Wilde
50.) "Baby it's you. You're the one I love, You're the one I need, You're the only one I see." ~Love On Top, Beyoncé
51.) "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." ~Princess Bride
52.) “I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world.” ~Arwen, Lord of the Rings
53.) “…love is not a constantly stable factor, it’s a decision you’ll have to make again and again.” ~Black Panther
54.) “My love for you is a puzzle…for which I have no answers.” ~Padmé, Star Wars
55.) “We’re like changing electric and magnetic fields; you can’t have one, without the other.” ~Howard Wolowitz, Big Bang Theory
56.) “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” ~Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (interesting enough this is also Matthew 6:21)
57.) “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” ~Dr. Seuss
58.) “Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel.” ~Neil Gaiman, Stardust
59.) “Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.” ~Albert Einstein
60.) “No matter what has happened. No matter what you’ve done. No matter what you will do. I will always love you. I swear it.” ~ Defiance, C.J. Redwine
61.) “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ~Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
62.) “Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.” ~Nicholas Sparks
63.) “Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.” ~Ray Bradbury
64.) Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” ~James Baldwin
65.) Who, being loved, is poor?” ~Oscar Wilde
66.) “I love you the way a drowning man loves air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.” ~The Crown of Embers, Rae Carson
67.) “Sometimes I can’t see myself when I’m with you. I can only just see you” ~Tiger Lily, Jodi Lynn Anderson
68.) “I knew the second I met you that there was something about you I needed. Turns out it wasn’t something about you at all. It was just you." ~Beautiful Disaster, Jamie McGuire
69.) “I want everyone to meet you. You’re my favorite person of all time.” ~Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
70.) “If my love were an ocean, there would be no more land. If my love were a desert, you would see only sand. If my love were a star–late at night, only light. And if my love could grow wings, I’d be soaring in flight.” ~Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher
71.) “There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” ~The Truth About Forever, Sarah Dessen
72.) “And I’ve realized that the Beatles got it wrong. Love isn’t all we need—love is all there is.” ~Second Chance Summer, Morgan Matson
73.) “ You are the morning sun, shining on my face, when I am with you my life falls into place, you are the glittering stars, beaming so bright, you cuddle me always, all through the night, you are the wind blowing by, brushing my hair, No matter where you go, I'll always be there “ ~xXVVSOSVVXx
74.) “ You're always in my heart, From early in the mornin' til it's dark, I gotta see your sweet, sweet smile everyday” ~Sweet Sweet Smile, Carpenters
75.) “No matter where I went, I always knew my way back to you. You are my compass star.” ~For Darkness Shows the Stars, Diana Peterfreund
76.) “We accept the love we think we deserve.” ~Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
77.) “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
78.) “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.” ~Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
79.) “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
80.) “You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect—you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break—her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.” ~Bob Marley
81.) “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” ~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
82.) “You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.” ~Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
83.) “We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” ~Robert Fulghum, True Love
84.) “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.” ~Alfred Tennyson
85.) “When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.” ~Jess C. Scott, The Intern
86.) “ But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.” ~John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
87.) “And now I’m looking at you,and you’re asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before – bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it – but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me.” ~Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
88.) “A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other...Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever” ~Dave Matthews Band
89.) “They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” ~Tom Bodett
90.) “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.” ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
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