#very brief appearance from Northern Ireland

[koolkat9]

GerEng Week 2022: Day 7

@gereng-week

Prompt: Baking/Bakery || Family

Pairing: GerEng

Rating: T

Word Count: 1020

Something Sweet

Ludwig never thought he’d see Arthur again. The two had gone to high school together, but Arthur had been two years older. Though age separated them, that hadn’t stopped Ludwig from falling for him in his second year while Arthur was in his final.

Ludwig had written it off as a childhood crush. Arthur was older, cooler, could sing, and was quite the charmer when he wanted to be. It was only natural Ludwig’s young heart fell for him. But after Arthur graduated, Ludwig never saw him again. He thought about him from time to time, but by the time Ludwig was graduating, Arthur was but a memory.

But here he was, behind the counter of a bakery of all places. His hair had long lost its green colour, showing the natural blond that had been underneath, but his eyes were still as bright and striking as the day Ludwig last saw him. His features had become sharp since then, and, in a moment, Ludwig fell hard for him again.

“Ludwig? Is that you?” Arthur asked when he spotted him.

“Y-Yes.”

A smile grew on Arthur's face. “How the hell are ya? You out of high school yet?”

“I just graduated last year.”

Arthur shook his head. “Good lord, time sure flies.”

Ludwig nodded along. His throat was dry, and he didn’t trust his voice right now.”

“So what can I get for you?”

“J-Just a coffee,” Ludwig stuttered out.

“Could I interest you in a pastry or cookie?” Arthur gestured to the array of baked goods on display.

Ludwig grimaced. Arthur was notorious for his poor cooking skills, burning everything he ever tried to make. But the baked goods looked edible. Good even. “Uh…I-I guess.”

“Okay.” Arthur threw him a grin. “And don’t worry about paying, it’s on the house.”

“Arthur I couldn’t–”

“For an old friend.”

Ludwig’s heart skipped a beat. Friend. He’d hardly call them that, but it was touching. “O-Okay.”

With his coffee and pastry in hand, he took a seat near the window. Arthur kept stealing glances at him but looked away whenever Ludwig met his eyes. It made Ludwig’s face heat up.

He cut off a piece of what looked like an apple crumble. Arthur was staring at him again, eyes shining. Cautiously, Ludwig took a bite. His eyes shot open. It was delicious. Warm, just the right amount of cinnamon, it was the closest crumble he’d called perfect. He turned back to Arthur and gave him a thumbs up.

Arthur quickly looked away, blushing and scowling. One of Arthur’s brothers had joined him. The youngest, if his stature and unruly red curls were anything to go by. He must have said something since Arthur shoved him back into the kitchen.

Ludwig snickered before going back to enjoy his coffee and crumble.

---

It wasn’t long before Ludwig became a regular at Arthur’s bakery and cafe. It wasn’t far from his university, so it was the perfect place to hang out between classes and get something to eat. And the company was even better.

Arthur and Ludwig were never friends, but the way Arthur always seemed to stop and chat made it seem like they had always been close. It was…nice actually. Arthur was just as awkward as him so they clicked. It also helped that they shared a lot of interests such as music and baking. Arthur had even invited him to come in one evening and he’d teach him a few recipes.

Everything was going well. Except for one thing. Whenever he and Arthur would be chatting, someone was always watching.

Dylan, the eldest of the Kirkland siblings and the only one Arthur seemed to get along with. He was also the cheeriest and kindest, not having the rough edges like the rest. But something just as troubling seemed to be lurking underneath that soft smile.

Whenever Ludwig caught him staring, a chill went up his spine as soon as their eyes met. It came to a head one day when Arthur had to excuse himself to receive a delivery. Dylan had come to join him at the table.

“You like him, don’t you?” Dylan asked, voice cool and low. Nothing like the warm gentleness he was known for.

“W-What?”

“You like Arthur.” Ludwig felt his face burn.

“S-So what if I do?”

“He likes you too.”

“Yeah right.”

Dylan smiled, though something was clearly bubbling behind it. “He does. I’ve never seen him smile that much with anyone. Or eagerly talk like he does. He won’t shut up about you, but he doesn’t want to lose you.” He leaned in closer. “So…If you choose to pursue him, don’t you even think about hurting him because if you do–”

“Shut your trap Dylan,” Arthur hissed, smacking his brother on the back of the head. “Stop scaring my potential boyfriends.”

Dylan pouted up at his brother. But when Arthur glared at him, he trudged into the back, head hung low in shame.

Arthur turned back to Ludwig. “Don’t mind him. He likes to baby me.” Ludwig gave him a strained smile.

“It’s fine. My brother is the same way. Still…It’s a bit of a shock, I always saw him as the nicest out of you.”

“Rude,” Arthur scoffed.

“Ah…I-I’m sor–”

“I’m just teasing. I know Dylan is the nicest out of us, but he’s also the most overprotective, not just because he’s the eldest, but also because he’s not afraid to show how much he cares for us.”

“I see.” Honestly, the more Ludwig thought about the whole ordeal, the more this sounded like Gilbert whenever they discussed Ludwig’s romantic life.

“But I feel terrible,” Arthur went on, “How about I treat you to dinner for putting up with him?”

“I’d like that.”

Arthur smirked. “Then it’s a date.”

Ludwig swore he was going to die with the way his heart seized up. Luckily he was able to excuse himself for class before he combusted. But as he walked back to campus, he felt lighter, giddy and was looking forward to their date. But first, there was some planning to do.

[mouthoftheocean]

Jean Harlow: Do you have a garden? If so, what kind of plants do you have?

Humphrey Bogart: Do you travel a lot? Where have you been?

Myrna Loy: Do you like going to parties?

Spencer Tracy: What time do you wake up?

Jean: My garden is shared, and predates me (no, not that way.) The largest trees are over 40 years old; an Agonis Flexuosa and Pōhutukawa dominate the north and south sides of the house, respectively, both are in excess of 15 meters tall. In the backyard, an equally freakishly large variegated Pittosporum continues to challenge them for supremacy. A flowering eucalyptus grows on our nature strip, and together with the Agonis, and a teetering Virgilia, make seasonal threats against our overhead powerline. Closer to the ground, I have made attempts to introduce more Australian plants despite the reputation of our local soil being complete trash (spoiler: it is, our suburban block was quite literally built on a historic landfill.) The survivors, to date, include Callistemon, several varieties of Correa and Leptospermum (honorable mention to the coastal teatree* to which I have a not insignificant emotional attachment that will no doubt end in bitter disappointment), Kangaroo Paw (they’re alive but screaming for help), Banksia (alive but refusing to thrive), Eucalyptus ‘Baby Blue’ (he’s adopted), Thryptomene, Hardenbergia, and Acacia. Plants that have been here for longer than I’ve been alive include Fuschias, Pelargoniums, and an ocean self-seeding Cinerarias. My father planted a Diosma in the early 90’s that he has dotingly hedged ever since, it’s now as tall as I am, but I remember jumping over it with my sister when it, and we, were much, much smaller. Back then, we also had an enormous cherry plum tree growing on our eastern boundary – shading our driveway, and the neighbours’. Summer would arrive, the fruit would fall, and with every passing car a chorus of popping plums would foreshadow the looming familial task of scraping half-fermented plum slurry off the concrete. On the upside, our local blackbirds were very happy, and so were the Hydrangeas growing in the shade of the plum tree. And because you didn’t ask for an essay, I’ll make a list of the rest: Roses (17 at last count); Buddleja; Elderflower, Convulvulus ‘Silver Bush’; Salvia; Borage; Violets; Statice, Jasmine; Rosemary; Sunflowers; Gladioli; Petunia; Viola; Jade, Zygo Cactus, Catmint, Seaside Daisy, a dream of red Poppies (waiting to discover if the seeds are still viable), Grape Hyacinth, Foxglove, Snowdrops, and Bluebells (despite my best efforts at wholesale murder.) Humphrey: Not a lot. Internationally, I’ve been to Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England - first in 2005 (there was a brief weekend in Paris, as well), and then again in 2015. In 2010 I visited New Mexico. It was my first time traveling alone, abroad, to meet and stay with people I’d met on the internet. Accordingly, I have a vivid recollection of my sister giving me instruction on how to brutally incapacitate someone as I was packing to leave for the city to catch my plane. While my friend will tell you she still has the bruise, I can at least attest that she wasn’t trying to take me to a second location when I gave it to her… affectionately – but you know this story already. Locally, I’ve been to South Australia, New South Wales, and the Northern Territory… but in the grand scheme, I’ve seen very little of Australia. Living where I do, in a little damp corner of Victoria, the rest of the country intimidates me like the promise of third-degree burns. Myrna: Categorically get away from me if people are coming that I don’t know. I can enjoy myself, or I can make small talk with strangers… I can’t do both. Smaller scale, close friends/family is fine… but anything too peopled and I’m liable to be person-not-appearing-at-this-soiree. Spencer: Any random-ass time between 1 and 4am, and ostensibly for no reason.

*the coastal tea tree's final form. Mine is still only 8 inches tall.

[trhor]

What was your initial inspiration for your story? What idea came first, the plot or the characters?

Hi Anon, thanks for the question. I did in fact ramble and so to save everyone time, it's under a read more.

I've always been a fan of history and English history has always been a point of interest for me. It's amazing how one small island in the northern Atlantic can have such a messy history with so many twist and turns. I can see how GRRM took inspiration from the War of the Roses when he was dreaming up A Song of Ice and Fire. English history in many ways is very sanitized, a similar issue when we're trying to talk about American history. Which means further research is always needed to develop a fuller picture. So I started digging into the very tension relationship between Scotland and England and there's so much that's either not really touched upon or is just explained in a single line before moving on somewhere else. Same issue with Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall, that's without even talking about England's colonization of half the world and the nightmare that was the English imperial empire.

I'll find the point and explain it soon but a little more background. I have been actively and passively following the on goings in the royal simblr tag for about two years. I thought it was amazing that so many people were finding a new way to play the game, that I had loved such I was a little girl in the early aughts that had lost it's spark for me because of the lack of depth with the gameplay. So seeing all the amazing stories happening gave me a spark of inspiration but I didn't necessarily engage with right away. For a while, I didn't have an idea worthy of sharing and so I let the idea collect dust in my mind till something better happened.

So back to that point, I started doing more research on Scottish/English history and there was this one fact that just really stuck with me. Let's talk about St Edward's chair and the Stone of Destiny.

The Stone of Destiny is an ancient symbol of Scotland's monarchy, used for centuries in the inauguration of its kings. Seen as a sacred object, its earliest origins are now unknown. In 1296, King Edward I of England seized the stone from the Scots, and had it built into a new throne at Westminster.

It should be noted this isn't the only stolen item that has been used in ceremony and regalia of the British Monarchy, but for my purpose this is the one I'm focusing on. It's obvious or at least to me, that Edward though the stone held power beyond being a trophy that proved he had defeated the Scots. No, this wasn't any stone it was the only that had been used to inaugurate Scottish Kings for centuries. Maybe Edward seeing the power in the stone believed that by using it in his own coronation, it would prove that by the divine rights of kings he was a ruler chosen by god. That's honestly just my theory, so take it with a pinch of salt.

So the idea that snowballed this whole thing was the idea that a Scottish person really should be the one on the throne if you believe in the divine rights of kings, because that stone belongs to Scotland. Yes, I know there was the brief Stuart dynasty but Charlie I, was such a bad king he started a civil war and died. His son was the King of Partying, but left a mess behind and so I'm not using them as inspiration. Sorry Stuart fans ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I rambled, sorry back to the point of this whole thing. I really liked the idea of what if Scottish person took the English throne and never gave it back. What would that mean and all the trappings that come with it

Right, so as an American the idea of Monarchy has always been a fascinating one from an outsider's perspective. In the real-world context, it’s debatable. Monarchy as a narrative device provides so many possibilities and it’s one that I wanted to explore and so here we are. It depends, sometimes I have a really good idea and the characters pop into life to fill in the space and other times, it's the muses that appear first and I have to build a world for them to exist.

In this case, Theo showed up first. I had been tossing around the idea of starting a royal simblr but I had no plot and so I hoped into CAS and started playing around trying to create my lead. The Theo, I have now is not the original Theo I started with. That one is still in my library but as I started really thinking about the story, she didn't spark joy and so I went back to the drawing board and looked through sims I had made before. And I found her again, this particular sim to me was the prettiest randomly generated sim I had ever seen and I had used her when I was farting around with Cottage Living. There was something about her and so I used her as a jumping off point.

This is where I call myself out, I'm not really a generations player. Thanks to my ADHD, playing a legacy challenge is a real challenge because it doesn't often hold my attention for every long. And I also get overly attached to my sims and have this desire to keep them young adults forever. It's the main reason, why I think I get burned out because I get stuck in my old ways. So because of this fun fact, I had to build several generations for scratch through genetics using this new Theodora as a jumping off point. I wouldn't recommend this way of doing things because I have to rely heavily on my own imagination to create this characters instead of just playing with them. I've made a few interesting choices that I'm not sure were the smartest but we'll have to see how they pan out.

So I've rambled a lot at this point and I hope it was a thrilling read and if anyone made it to this point cool cool. The great thing about this whole royal simblr thing is that I'm just one fish in an incredible diverse lake. If my story, doesn't resonate with you that's cool there are so many great ones that deserve your attention. So if you decided to stick around that's fantastic and if not I hope you find the story that's right for you.

[lacommunarde]

Most democracies are expanding abortion access. The U.S. is retracting it -

Fifty years ago, the United States was a global leader in recognizing women’s reproductive rights. Today, however, much of the rest of the world has caught up or surpassed the U.S. in extending abortion access.

The United States’ closest legal peers — Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia — have laws that are either in line with or more generous than those here. Like the U.S., other liberal democracies including the Netherlands and Iceland, also protect the right to abortion until or near the point of viability. This is what makes the Supreme Court’s threatened reversal of Roe v. Wade not only dangerous and life-threatening, but legally indefensible.

The Texas law banning abortions at six weeks, before many women even know that they are pregnant, may be a sign of things to come. So far, the courts have allowed the law to go into effect even though it marks a dramatic regression in reproductive rights that both violates Roe and is far outside of international norms. The case is now before the Supreme Court once again, giving the court a second opportunity to uphold its own precedents and suspend these state-level restrictions.

A superficial review of abortion laws only ever tells part of the story of its actual availability. In many countries where the law on paper appears more restrictive than Roe, abortion is freely available in practice. In these countries, healthcare professionals apply the law in a way that respects the pregnant person’s view on how pregnancy would impact her health, life and existing family. This means that even where a national law lays down “grounds” for accessing abortion (like “risk to health” or “situation of distress”), women can almost always obtain the abortion care they need and want.

The anti-choice advocates also refuse to acknowledge the very clear, sustained and long-standing trend towards liberalization of abortion laws worldwide. In just the last five years in Europe, for example, enormous popular majorities chose to liberalize hyper-restrictive laws in Ireland, Gibraltar and San Marino. The laws in Northern Ireland (where abortion was completely decriminalized), Iceland, the Isle of Man and elsewhere were reformed to expand access.

A similar pattern emerges in the Americas where, apart from the United States, the clear and unequivocal trend is towards making abortion legal, accessible and safe. Mexico is only the most recent nation to liberalize its laws — following the same path as Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and Chile. The U.S. is the outlier.

International human rights institutions, including United Nations bodies, have held that access to abortion is integral to the rights to life, health, privacy and non-discrimination. An amicus brief submitted by the UN mandate holders in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, makes very clear that undoing Roe would be incompatible with established international legal standards.

There is no mystery to the worldwide trend toward liberalization. Abortion is part of healthcare, and women have abortions whether they are legal or not. When abortions are not legal, they are more likely to be unsafe — especially if people do not have the resources or information to access care from safe and reputable sources. (Not surprisingly, public health experts have found that maternal mortality drops in locations where women can safely access an abortion.)

con’t - https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/10/21/supreme-court-abortion-dobbs-texas-martha-f-davis-fiona-de-londras

[entity9silvergen]

I recently asked reddit for some LGBT history from countries other than the US. Here’s what I got:

Germany

The Weimar Republic was surprisingly accepting of "alternative lifestyles."

During the Weimar Republic, Germany had a pretty active LGBTQ scene, with some major films and songs being produced, despite it still being illegal at the time. However, there was also a push to decriminalize homosexual behavior which sadly wasn't passed as the Nazis came to power.

This was based of two factors: after WW1 the authoritarian culture of Prussia sorta received a long overdue pushback. People were kinda sick of it, especially since these losers led them into a seemingly pointless war to begin with. Second: A LOT of men died in WW1 - and the army did not exactly prefer LGBT people. So with a lot of regular folks dead, the percentages of the total populace was sorta shifted. This also pushed the women's rights movements at the time for a similar reason.

Magnus Hirschfeld was helping trans people transition, crossdressers get crossdressing 'licenses', and generally advocating for and helping the LGBT community in the early 1900s in Germany. Nazis ended up raiding and burning down his research institute.

Hirschfeld was a gay polyamorous man. He was one of the first advocates for trans and gay rights but his work was destroyed by the Nazis.

The institute he headed even did the first modern gender affirming surgeries. The institute was destroyed and many people who were there (including the first known person to undergo complete MtF surgery) were killed by the nazis and the place was little more than bombed out ruins at the end of the war.

More information on the institute

Pre Nazi interwar Germany (Weimar Republic)  was pretty open when it came to not only sexuality, but also gender identity. The Nazis put a stop to that & tried to destroy any & all research into either, but, for a brief moment, it was there.

Russia

Pretty sure all Russian LGBT history was erased before we even had a written language, but Russia almost got gay marriage legalized in the first soviet constitution (didn’t happen bc Stalin)

The early soviet period (pre-Stalin) is sometimes called “the first sexual revolution” as opposed to America’s “sexual Revolution” of the 60’s. Broad women’s suffrage, female employment and education, parental leave, advancement of GSM rights & decriminalization of abortion. This unfortunately did not stand the test of time & reactionary sentiment.

Additional Source

UK/ Britain/ England 

The lead singer of Judas Priest is gay. The commenter’s father thought it was kinda funny because it didn’t match with his biker aesthetic, but the commenter doesn’t think he considered how much leather he wears on a daily basis

Hell bent for Leather was a track off Killing Machine. It was written by lead guitarist Glenn Tipton (who is straight), but it's fun to find alternative meanings in Priest songs. A second commenter likes to pretend a lot of the lyrics Halford sings are gayer than they actually are.

A couple people mentioned how uncomfortable it was seeing Ru Paul interact with British drag queens because he barely knows anything about British culture.

Ru Paul got angry that a British drag queen hasn’t seen the Golden Girls because “it’s gay culture” and then not five minutes later someone had to explain to him who Alan Turing was.

Alan Turing, who was an incredibly noteworthy figure (He made the Enigma codebreaker machine, which broke the code that was used by Nazis during the war and basically sped up the war by a significant margin. He also set the foundations for artificial intelligence, one achievement he was named for: the Turing Test), was homosexual and prosecuted multiple times because of it

Shakespeare was probably bisexual (some of his sonnets had homoerotic subtext/were sent to a younger man). Plus, Hamlet is gay as fuck. 

Sonnet 46 was very gay. Here’s a link!

King James 1st was corrupt and used his position to promote his gay lover to higher positions than he should've gotten. 

The 13 year old king James 6th of Scotland and 1st of England fell in love with a 37 year old catholic Franco Scottish man. The king gave the older man so much free shit that other lords started getting salty and his lover ended up converting to Presbyterianism out of loyalty to his young lover. He also fell in love with a man who ''was noted for his handsome appearance as well as his limited intelligence.'' 

Clearly James was into himbos, and women too.

He had a secret tunnel connecting his bedroom to George Villiers’s bedroom.

His relationship with Villiers was basically common knowledge and a source of much amusement and mockery. He also once said that his relationship with Villiers was equivalent to the relationship that Christ had with John the Baptist

Much more recently, there's obviously JKR and the banning of puberty blockers and Margaret Thatcher opposing LGBTQ+ rights by passing a law meaning you couldn't 'promote homosexuality'. 

Prince Philip was a racist twat (and probably a huge homophobe knowing him).

Gay marriage only became legal in 2014.

The Wolfenden Report was published in 1957, and it recommended the decriminalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults. It was a huge topic of public debate, and ultimately led to the Sexual Offences act of 1967, which legalized sexual acts between consenting men aged 21 or over in England and Wales (sexual acts between women were never explicitly criminalized). Scotland decriminalized sex between men in 1980, and Northern Ireland in 1982. 

For a totally batshit real-life bit of gay history, check out the show A Very English Scandal. It's about a politician, Jeremy Thorpe, who put a hit out on his former lover who was threatening to go public with the fact they had had a relationship. 

Austria

Gay marriage was legalized in Austria about 3 years ago. The worst thing is that it'd have staid illegal if the Supreme Court wouldn't have jumped in and declare it to be unconstitutional.

Austria did have something called "partnership" which was where gay couples could officially register with the state as couples but not receive any of the benefits of married het people

They still have super backwards Transphobic laws requiring for example "real life experience" to get even diagnosed. Basically you're forced to be and live as feminine/masc as possible and a doctor them judges if you're femme or masc enough. It's torture

Australia had widespread, over 60% approval of gay marriage for well over a decade before the government legalized it. The governments were actually going against the people for a very long time by denying it.

Taiwan/ Hong Kong/ Mainland China

When Taiwan recently legalized gay marriage, their official statement was something along the lines that they were casting off Western-imposed values and returning to their own traditional values and the entire western lgbt community ridiculed them in a "if that's what you need to tell yourself" sort of way but it's actually the truth. 

Prior to western colonization, the Imperial Chinese attitude toward sexuality was not dissimilar to Greco-Roman attitudes in that a man must marry a woman to beget legitimate heirs but whatever else he does on the side is his own business. It wasn't until Victorian colonizers came along and imposed homophobic attitudes on China that China started treating gays like abominations. In Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China, as indeed most of the world, homophobia is a western value imposed by colonizers.

Bonus history: there is an actual saying in Arabic that was in widespread use across the Middle East and North Africa for thousands of years from classical antiquity until European colonization. The saying goes "Women are for babies, [young men] are for fun."

The commenter specifies that this means “college-aged twinks,” not children

Another commenter speculates about when homophobia arose in China and how. They also add that in Rome, bottoms were stigmatized. 

There’s a story of Emperor Ai of the Han dynasty & him cutting off his sleeve for his boyfriend

There is also a god worshipped in Taiwan, the Rabbit God Tu'er Shen, whose domain is managing love and sex between same-sex attracted people. He is meant to be the incarnation of a soldier from the 17th century, who fell in love with an imperial inspector and spied on him bathing, and was tortured and killed by that official because he was offended by the spying. A villager from the soldier's hometown dreamed that Tu'er Shen appeared to him and said that because his crime had been love, he had been appointed to manage the affairs of gay people. The villagers erected a secret temple to the soldier, and people have been praying to him ever since.

South Africa

South Africa became the first nation in the world to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in its constitution. It was also first country in Africa to legalize same sex marriage in 2006. What really set them back for so long was apartheid.

There is some speculation that that Shaka Zulu was gay since he never took any wives

South Africa's post Apartheid constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1996.

South Africa was also the 5th country in the world and only country in Africa to legalize same sex marriage in 2005.

Even before that the Constitutional Court ruled that sexual orientation was not relevant when deciding child custody in 2002.

Transgender folks have been allowed to change their sex in the population registry since 2003.

Conversion therapy is not illegal yet and public opinion still needs some work.

Spain

In Spain gay marriage was legalized in 2005, now they are considered one of de gay-friendliest countries in the world. The commenter is a lesbian and has never been closeted or directly experienced discrimination for being a lesbian.

In July 2005, Spain became the third country in the world to explicitly legalize gay marriage, after a thirty-year struggle following the fall of Franco's dictatorship, during which most activism was carried clandestinely (as it was illegal).

From 2007 onwards, Spanish [binary] trans people can legally correct the name and sex fields of their IDs and currently, there's a push for a law that would allow for legal recognition of non-binary Spaniards.

Despite the dictatorship in the 60s, there were cinemas that specialized in gay meet ups. Trans women also had ways to get passports so they could go to the US for surgery.

Ireland

In Northern Ireland, same sex marriage only became legal in 2020 and the leader of the most popular party is homophobic transphobic racist and sexist af. In fact, the majority of the party are but some of the quotes from the biggest party leader are depressing.

Same-sex marriage was only legalized in Ireland in 2015. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993. 

When Ireland legalized same sex marriage by popular vote in 2015, it was still something you got horribly bullied for in schools if you were out. Queer people got an apology from the Taoiseach in 2018, for the suffering and discrimination we faced from the State prior to the legalization of homosexuality.

In the case of trans rights, in 2015 the Gender Recognition Act was signed into law. It allows legal gender changes without the requirement of medical intervention or assessment by the state as long as you are over the age of 18. 

Ireland has fines and jail time for anyone found guilty of attempting conversation therapy. 

Ireland has seen a lot of progress in LGBT rights in the last 6 years but even up to the 2000s, citizens left their family members and friends to rot for being LGBT+. It still happens all over the country, especially in circles that are still fanatically Catholic. As the Catholic Church has lost the iron grip on the country, people have become more accepting of the LGBT+.

India

The Kamasutra(ancient text on sexuality etc.) has an entire chapter dedicated to homosexuality

The Arthashastra, a 2nd century BCE Indian treatise on statecraft, mentions a wide variety of sexual practices which, whether performed with a man or a woman, were sought to be punished with the lowest grade of fine. While homosexual intercourse was not sanctioned, it was treated as a very minor offence, and several kinds of heterosexual intercourse were punished more severely.

Sex between non-virgin women incurred a small fine, while homosexual intercourse between men could be made up for merely with a bath with one's clothes on, and a penance of "eating the five products of the cow and keeping a one-night fast"

Milk, curd (cheese), ghi (clarified butter), urine, and dung are the five products of a cow

The commenter adds that this is not a terrible punishment.

The Mughal Empire mandated a common set of punishments for homosexuality, which could include 50 lashes for a slave, 100 for a free infidel, or death by stoning for a Muslim

On 6 September 2018 the Supreme Court of India invalidated part of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code making homosexuality legal in India

Prior to the British colonization of India homosexuality was not all that looked down upon when compared to what happened when the British took over and instituted anti gay laws.

The Hijra (literally means third gender) were seen as normal and have been accepted since long before Christ, as evidenced by the Karma Sutra. The British took videos of them to take back to demonstrate how the Desi were “barbaric”.

Bonsia

In Bosnia, there was a one pride parade that ended with religious extremists ruining it and the police not doing anything. It was supposed to be 5 maybe 3 days long but ended in like 1 or 2.

The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe mapped out the entire night sky with only his eyes. It laid the foundations of many later scientists, such as Isaac Newton. He was a very rich nobleman, so much so that he owned 1% of Denmark's money. He had a pet dwarf that apparently could see the future, which sounds pretty gay. He was also part of the Elefant Ordning, which consisted of rich and strong Danish men.

Philippines 

Despite many attempts to legalize same-sex marriage, the Philippines still didn't budge. Being gay in itself is legal, but same-sex marriage still isn't.

Philippines ,the most Catholic Country in Southeast Asia, has held the largest Pride Parade in Southeast Asia.

Serbia

Serbia didn't have history from about 16th century to 1800's when the 1st revolt happened and failed till 1813's... Then yet another in 1830's for semi independence from Turks, and full in 1836

During the last lingering Ottoman rule over autonomous Serbia, Serbia was one of the very first few countries to have legal mostly everything... it then got removed with like 3 constitution changes and then it didn't move forward for a looong time

Switzerland

Would you have thought that small, conservative Switzerland was a center of the international gay community during the mid-20th century? The magazine "Der Kreis"- the circle - was the only queer magazine in the world that kept publishing during WWII. It was edited in Zurich and distributed internationally, which often meant illegal smuggling, even into nazi Germany. The magazine's annual ball was attended by hundreds of gay men from all over Europe each year. The whole thing was kept strictly secret from the public, though it was known and tolerated by the police.

The Kreis club disbanded in 1967, as repressions grew heavier after a number of murders in the scene had caught the public's attention. By then, other European and American groups took its place, publishing their own magazines.

They made a movie about it.

More info about Der Kreis

As of today, Switzerland doesn't allow gay marriage. A country-wide referendum will be held this fall on gay marriage.

The commenter speculates that gay marriage will be legalized.

A few people expressed surprise that Switerland is socially conservative and several people explained that women’s right to vote was only place in the 70s.

There’s a movie about it

Turkey

A Muslim Persian (born in modern day Turkey) philosopher/mysticist named Mewlana who is known for his sayings on acceptance and love for one another was gay! He had exchanged letters with his instructor Shams and wrote homoerotic poems to him! In Turkey this is ignored by many due to the country's stance on homosexuality

More information

Norway

The commenter’s hometown and the neighboring town arranged their first pride parade/event in 2017, which is a big deal for a small place and one of the local priests went livid and went straight to the newspaper and social media to condemn it. A local rapper wrote a short and to the point article in the newspaper calling him out for all kinds of things which was a great read. Then to top it off, the priest arranged for a "Jesus Parade" in protest to be held the day before the pride parade. Only like five people walked in it, not including the priest of course because he happened to be on vacation in Spain that week. The pride parade itself was a success though! It's become an annual event. Covid has put some breaks on it though, but they're making a documentary this year about the pride celebrations.

Hungary

Hungary has no same sex marriage or transition rights

Police are unkind to protestors

During “commie times,” being queer was illegal so queer people went to the gulag

Belgium

Same sex marriage was legalized in Belgium in 2003 (right after the NL who were the first in the world). The commenter says that same-sex marriage has always felt possible and she is confused about other countries’ actions.

Poland

Polish president on public assembly: 'LGBT is not people, this is ideology'.

Denmark

WHO took their sweet time declassifying being transgender as a mental illness, so Denmark got sick of waiting and became the first country to stop classifying it as an illness.

Australia

In Australia same-sex marriage wasn't legal until 2017.

Portugal

Portugal is know for having one of the most (if not THE most) peaceful revolutions in history back in the 60's, with only 4 deaths total.

Canada

Operation Soap.

Mexico

To learn more, watch Dance of the 41 on Netflix.

Netherlands

NL was one of the first countries to legalize gay marriage in 2001

Sweden

In Sweden they used to classify Homosexuality as a disease during the 20th century so in protest people would call in too gay to work.

New Zealand

When same sex marriage was legalized, the parliament broke into song.

The song

Other

Homosexuality is illegal in 73 countries, some by death or life in prison.

Only one country in Asia has legalized same-sex marriage: Taiwan

FNAF is older than same-sex marriage in the US

Condor Operation

I think this is some important stuff so please reblog so more people can see! And, if you would like to add to or correct anything here, feel free to do so!

[madamspeaker]

agir1ukn0w: I’ve found that there’s a pretty wide divide between how pretty much everyone on this site views Johnson and how my mom views him. I think she acknowledges that he’s not a perfect prime minister by any means, but because he expressed that he hated having to deal with Trump and was apparently an ok mayor of London she’s more inclined to think better of him. I wish I knew every reason why people here hate people in England, because it just seems like a more complex situation (even tho there are undoubtedly some more black and white scenarios) And like, my mom is a really intelligent woman, she’s pretty progressive for someone who grew up in the heart of Republican territory (Kansas) and is now an Independent, she believes emphatically in climate change and hates Trumps guts. It may just be that she’s an independent that makes her less inclined to see Johnson as a truly awful PM like a lot of people do. I just can’t ever argue with her about these things because she gets her info from British news sources and no one here cites any of theirs, though I believe that at least half of it must have some basis in fact otherwise people wouldn’t be dying on this Johnson-hating hill in such large numbers. I hope I don’t sound like a boot-licker or whatever, I’m just genuinely trying to get to the bottom of why everyone hates this guy.

I am predisposed to loathe Tory Prime Ministers in general, although I can say that as much as I detested his government, I didn’t really mind John Major. Perhaps because for all his faults and the general awfulness of the party he lead, you got the sense that Major appreciated the seriousness of the job, that he understood the weight of it - that it wasn’t some gig to wing your way through, and he helped secure the Good Friday Agreement for Northern Ireland. He was a serious man (ignoring that insane episode with Edwina Currie) who understood legacy. You get no sense of that at all with Johnson, no sense that he understands anything beyond the title of the briefings he is presumably given, and from the looks of things never reads. He darts from one thing to another, one whim to the next, there’s no belief system governing anything he does other than the “what benefits Boris personally” ideology. That’s why he backed Brexit. It wasn’t because he had some ideological belief that the EU was bad for the UK (hell he wrote more than a few pro-EU articles for the Torygraph before he decided his career prospects looked better by flipping sides), it was because he looked at the referendum and made a calculation as to what side of the argument would most benefit him. He’s Trump to a degree, but far, far, FAR more dangerous. Trump is an unpleasant personality - he’s oafish, poorly spoken, he’s unattractive, and has no self awareness of any of this. Johnson is far more dangerous because he is aware of it, and he plays on these aspects of himself - he’s deliberately unkempt, he babbles, he plays up the clown aspect because he knows that it disarms people, they are so distracted by the exterior - the messy hair, the disheveled suits, the bumbling word salads for speeches, that a lot of people don’t see him as being capable of true evil and corruption. Trump looked and sounded like an idiot villain, whereas to a lot of people Johnson just seems like an idiot - and he’s not. The whole exterior is a calculation to mask a maliciously ambitious man, whose only concern is himself, and who has managed to rather easily convince a great swathe of England to go with him because like Trump, he is openly all those things that middle-Englanders have always been, but until 2016 was not acceptable to admit - like being racist - but unlike Trump, Johnson wraps up the racism in much more palatable ideas like animal welfare bills, and supporting climate change policies - so everyone who votes for the Tories can pretend that they’re really doing so because they want to have green and clean energy, and not because they really hate anyone who isn’t white and has a “foreign” accent. If you want to see the real Boris Johnson, look no further than the “let the bodies pile up” comment he made (and corroborated by several sources) before the second lockdown last year. The bubbling clown that appears on television doesn’t seem the sort who would say that, but the ambitious charlatan who lied to the Queen so he could get Parliament prorogued to try and stop any attemps to prevent the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal would. That whole thing is now widely forgotten, but it goes to his ruthless nature - he lied, abused centuries of precedent and history to try and get a “no deal” that would benefit him and his friends. In the end it was the Supreme Court that stopped him in his tracks there. But just as Trump’s disregard for procedure and rule of law has had little negative effect on how his supporters see him, the same applies to Johnson, because fundamentally he gives his base what they want - a license to be racist. All these people chanting about taking back power from the EU so as to make the UK Parliament sovereign (which it always was btw) are weirdly silent when Johnson undermines that very same UK Parliament, when he tries to by-pass it, when he tries to stop elected MPs having a say. It’s almost like it has nothing to do with EU power and everything to do with them liking the guy who compares Muslim women in niqabs to postboxes, and refers to Black people as “'piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. And if there wasn’t enough reason to detest him for the racism, and the horrific attitude to Covid deaths, we have his utterly cavalier attitude to Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement. He either genuinely seems to think he can just wing his way through a situation that requires a super sensitive touch, or he just doesn’t give a fuck if people start bombing each other again, all thanks to Brexit, his grand scheme. Either is pretty unforgivable. To be so lazy as to assume things will just work out no matter what you do, or to just not care if things do go wrong. Men and women spent years getting to the point of the GFA being signed, and to be fair to every Prime Minister since Major, they all took it seriously and understood the need to protect that agreement. Johnson, I doubt he’s even read it (and it’s not that long). That is why I detest him. That is why I want him gone, and I want him tried for negligence over how he has handled Covid. He’s an insidious and corrupt asshole, whose put on clownish buffonery masks what a terrifying and evil leader he is.

[rocknvaughn]

New Colin Morgan Interview from the Sunday London Times 23 February 2020 (Typed out for those who need to translate)

Colin Morgan interview: the star of TV’s Merlin on why theatre is still his greatest love

The Northern Irish actor likes to avoid the obvious. He’s a perfect choice for Caryl Churchill’s disturbing two-hander A Number

Colin Morgan strolls out of rehearsal at the Mountview drama school, south London, with a smile on his face and a woollen cap pulled down on his black curls. He’s 34, but doesn’t look much older than the students rushing to lunch around him. Yet in the packed years since he left college — to take a leading role at the Young Vic — he has established himself as one of the best and most original actors around.

Whether on stage in acclaimed productions of Brian Friel’s Translations at the National and Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at the Old Vic, or on television in The Fall and Humans, he has a knack for finding a different aspect to a character, refocusing them in often revelatory lights. “I suppose I am interested in characters who are misfits,” he says with a grin, in his rolling Northern Irish accent. “Characters who may on the surface appear to be part of society, but actually internally, in their world, don’t feel like they are.”

He is starring opposite Roger Allam at the Bridge Theatre in Caryl Churchill’s elusive, disturbing A Number, about a father and his cloned sons. It’s a characteristically bold choice for someone whose instinct has always been to avoid the obvious. “The road I like to walk down is the one where you can’t see round the corners,” he says.

Given that, it’s a fascinating irony that Morgan is still best recognised for the role that launched him to fame: the titular Merlin in the BBC TV series, for four years from 2008. A rethinking of the Arthurian legends that put the young wizard at its centre, it started off as a children’s favourite and became something more. “It turned into a main-slot drama on Saturday night, which I hadn’t really anticipated.” He took the part because of his love of a challenge. “All I saw was the opportunity to do something that was on me, on my shoulders,” he says, with that disarmingly gentle smile. “I had only done one bit of filming, for an episode of Doctor Who, before then. It was an amazing experience.”

It did, nevertheless, change his life, making him recognised in ways that were not always easy. “You meet people who have grown up with it. You realise that you have been part of their life. Sometimes it’s hard to take that on board, because each individual has a different experience with something that essentially is not who you are. I must pale in comparison.”

Morgan is engaging company. He isn’t exactly reserved, but he does seem very private, making absolutely no comments about his domestic life, and quite shy. He stays completely away from social media — “I think if I had some platform it would be just part of my need. I have no attachment to technology, it’s not my go-to thing” — which means he is insulated to some extent from the frenzy his appearances provoke among his legions of fans. He hasn’t, for example, read any of the feverish excitement surrounding his brief appearance as a “hot journalist” in an episode of The Crown. “I know what people tell me. Which is bizarre, because it was just a few scenes in one episode of a show I was a fan of. I had that experience and I loved it. What happens afterwards is not in your control. It’s just mad.”

Looking back on the early days, when Merlin took off, he is thoughtful. “You are not really equipped to deal with these things. I was used to going into the theatre each day, doing the show and going home. I still feel like that’s my job. Then you realise that when you do other things, you have to be there for the promotion. That was the big adjustment. I don’t enjoy it.”

There is nothing in Morgan’s background in Armagh, Northern Ireland, to suggest a glittering career as an actor. But from a young age, performing with local drama groups, he knew it was what he wanted to do. “I was just fascinated by everything in school productions, watching things, being fascinated by what was behind the sets. The idea of this mysterious world behind what you could see.

“To this day, I get that childlike curiosity and excitement about being backstage — before you step on stage and everything changes. You are on your own, completely, then in a second you are in the company of hundreds. It’s an amazing transition.” He adds pensively: “I feel more comfortable on stage than I do off. That’s the weird thing.”

Morgan’s talent and determination took him to drama school in Glasgow; in his final year, he met Rufus Norris, then associate director of the Young Vic, who cast him in Vernon God Little. He was off and running in an unbroken line of work that has taken in film — he recently starred opposite Rupert Everett in The Happy Prince — TV and the stage. “I want to do that juggling act my whole life if I can. I never want to be just the one thing.”

Yet theatre holds his heart. “I will never, ever not do theatre,” he says firmly. His pleasure at rehearsing A Number under the direction of Polly Findlay is obvious. “What’s great in the room is that there is a combination of fun and seriousness. I’ve never done a two-hander before. It’s a different ball game — thankfully a good game, this one.” Predictably, it was “the impossibility of it” that attracted him to the part. “I had so many questions.” Normally, he prepares by trying to put himself in the environment of a play: for Translations, he took a trip to Donegal, where the drama is set. “Just to breathe that kind of air up there and bring that back over to London with you.”

For A Number, it’s different. “A lot of time was spent with the script as a catalyst for the imagination.” Churchill herself has been in rehearsals — but, like her plays, she doesn’t provide any easy answers. “You might ask her something specific, and she will literally say it could be that. Or it could be that. She is fantastic and liberating.” He looks cheerful. “You mustn’t put any of your inhibitions in the way. You just have to be incredibly open and disciplined to what’s there.” He might be talking about his entire career.

A Number, Bridge Theatre, London SE1, until March 14

Link here: (Behind Paywall)

[sobriquett]

Dear Trick or Treat Author

Dear Trick or Treat Author,

[WIP: 23:50 BST 19/09/21]

What a wonderful time of year! (Or is that Yuletime? Nearly there too!)

Hello! I am very easily pleased so please take this as a starting point if you need some ideas but otherwise write what makes you happy! I know horror tropes/genre are in my dislikes but if you want to write a scary trick, you do that, yes please! Just play within the canonical world (werewolves in Milton-Northern, vampires at Thornfield, ghosts at the White House) and I'll be a happy reader (but please still stay aware from my gore-related DNWs!).

My normal ramble about what I enjoy in fic isn't really relevant to a 300+ word exchange but you can find it in past letters, click the letter tag.

That said, things missing from my main signup include these:

Loves: exploration of power imbalances Likes: epistolary

My fandoms are in alphabetical order (ish), so here we go!

1.      16th Century CE RPF

Anne Boleyn Anne of Cleves Catherine of Aragon Catherine Parr Elizabeth I of England Henry VIII of England Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury Robert Dudley 1st Earl of Leicester Thomas Seymour (1508 – 1549)

I've been on a bit of a Philippa Gregory kick this summer reading the Cousins' War series out of order. I'd love more stories about these figures – with some of them (Henry VIII in particular!) it's pretty easy to lean into the trick side of things, but there's treat potential too. Add more characters if you want; I've been reading histories and historical novels on this period for many, many years so if you drop in Maria de Salinas or Stephen Fisher or Kat Ashley or Thomas Cromwell or anyone I'm up for that, but I am also a laidback reader and this is a low-stress exchange, don't tie yourself in knots over accuracy. (Although I would, and I'd definitely recommend Ruth Goodman's How to be a Tudor if you haven't read it, even if you're not normally a non-fiction reader.)

What if [any utterly disastrous thing] didn't happen, or perhaps was somehow worse? Did Elizabeth and Dudley actually have some happiness in a romance, however brief? How did Anne of Cleves feel to retire as the King's beloved sister? What was Margaret Pole thinking on the morning of her execution? Is Henry VIII haunted by the ghosts of some of those he killed: friends and lovers and family? Did anything actually happen between Elizabeth I and Thomas Seymour (There's historical room for a secret pregnancy in the country…)

2.      Downton Abbey

Mary Crawley Edith Crawley Sybil Crawley Matthew Crawley­ Tom Branson Robert Crawley Cora Crawley Violet Crawley Isobel Crawley Lavinia Swire Anna Bates Evelyn Napier Freda Dudley Ward Marigold Crawley George Crawley Ship: Tom Branson/Sybil Crawley

This is like my TV comfort blanket. I rewatched it this year and I am interested in just about every main character except, oddly, Thomas – who is the favourite fic character of most writers! Give me a missing moment, a look at the future, a glance at the past, a look from the outside – whatever. Any point in, before or after canon is cool with me, except I tend to skim a lot of S4 (ugh, that rape storyline, please don’t use that).

Do ghosts walk the halls of Downton Abbey? What is life like in Ireland for Tom and Sybil? Do any of the characters ever feel a moment of true despair? What if Matthew had died in the war? What does the future hold for these characters? How did Robert, Cora and Violet get on in the 1890s? What was Carson like with Mary/Edith/Sybil as children? Does it parallel his relationship with their children?

3.      The Good Place

Eleanor Shellstrop Chidi Anagonye Tahani Al-Jamil Jason Mendoza Michael Janet

This is another show I can watch over and over and over. I think Chidi's my favourite but it's hard to be sure. I can tell you I absolutely sobbed during the S3 finale and I was a wreck for the S4 finale. Tug my heartstrings, make me laugh, make me cry, I don't care! I've studied philosophy and despised it so I'll take or leave what you include on that score, I just love the characters. Please include any or all other characters you'd like, but I definitely ship Eleanor/Chidi over Chidi/Simone! Although I'll take angst in that direction too! I don't know, I feel like a kid in a candy store writing this letter: hyper and having trouble deciding between all the possible wonders!

Existential dread? Moments from their human lives? Moments from the good place? Please tell me more about the time knife. Does Michael return to the good place when he dies? Does he reunite with Janet and/or Tahani?

4.      Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre Edward Rochester Adele Varens Ship: Jane Eyre/Edward Rochester

This is my favourite classic novel, I reread it every couple of years, most recently in 2020 for Yuletide. My reading of it changes each time, and I increasingly believe that Rochester is more bad guy than good guy and that Jane Eyre lies as a narrator and is as prejudiced and superior as those she crititcises for the same qualities. But I still love her, and that she says she got a happy ending.

Is Rochester more of a villain? How? How does Adele find school, either the one Rochester sends her to, or the one Jane moves her to? Post-canon happiness? Post-canon unhappiness? A scene from the engagement? A missing moment between the non-wedding and Jane running away? What if the wedding wasn't interrupted? (Full disclosure: I'm writing this too.) Canon divergence for, well, anything? Is Adele separated from Sophie? How does that go, how does she manage?

5.      Memoirs of a Geisha

Nitta Sayuri Mameha Nobu Toshikazu Ship: Nitta Sayuri/Nobu Toshikazu Ship: Mameha/Matsunaga Tsuneyoshi | The Baron

6.      North and South

Margaret Hale John Thornton Hannah Thornton Bessy Higgins Ship: Margaret Hale/John Thornton

7.      Stardew Valley

Female Player Sebastian Shane Harvey Robin Elliott Leah Marlon Ship: Shane/Female Player Ship: Sebastian/Female Player Ship: Lewis/Marnie

Do Sebastian and the farmer go on any more bike rides? How did Lewis and Marnie’s relationship start? Are they ever found out? Why does Lewis want to keep it secret? Why is he such an arsehole to Marnie? Tales of the purple shorts. Tell me more about Harvey’s nerdy hobbies or fear of heights? What happened with Robin and Sebastian’s dad? The horrors of the mines, or the skull cavern? Is Leah frightened by the things that go bump in the night near her home? Is Elliott? Some angst or h/c around a wounded farmer, being found/nursed? Or how about some angst/horror in which... they’re not? Fics about the war with the Gotoro Empire?

8.      Star Trek: Voyager

Kathryn Janeway Chakotay Tuvok Kes Seven of Nine Naomi Wildman

I’ve been a J/C shipper since before I knew shipping was a thing (as a kid, I had all the two-parters, S5&6, and Resolutions on video. Pre-internet, how did I even know which episode Resolutions one? Shippy magic instinct, I guess?) So apart from that ship, or canonical relationships, I would prefer genfic please. I also don’t mind the other Voyager characters so they’re welcome to make an appearance, but these are the ones that interest me.

9.      The West Wing

CJ Cregg Josh Lyman Sam Seaborn Abbey Bartlet Charlie Young Donna Moss Jed Bartlet Leo McGarry Toby Ziegler Zoey Bartlet

Happy writing!

Sobriquett

[thewreckkelly]

ESL: Don’t Just Blame the Owners

Despite being Irish I can still name every player and their position from that game at Wembley on July thirtieth. I was six when it was played.

For nearly six months the Saturday matinees at my local cinema in Dublin included newsreel footage of the Lisbon Lions. I was seven and a fan of the Cisco Kid.

You couldn’t move in the good room of my Uncle’s house the night the Belfast boy destroyed Benfica. I was eight and not that familiar with watching football on TV.

I collected souvenir coins from petrol stations leading up to, throughout and after the World Cup finals in Mexico. I was ten and an outraged defender of the English captain.

‘Revie’s Animals’ found my undying loyalty throughout the seventies with my first live game being at Anfield in 1971. I was eleven and thought Liverpool was an incredible city and Johnny Giles the best player ever.

World performers like Cruyff, Ardiles and Muller intruded into my fandom and opened up a bigger world picture as they performed in the German and Argentinean World Cups.

Spain 1982 provided my first experience of a live stage for world football where Northern Ireland shocked the hosts and Scottish fans became my friends in Malaga.

London 1983 saw my first visit to Highbury and resulted in me becoming a proud season ticket holder.

For the best part of fourteen years I didn’t miss an Arsenal game, (including every final up to and including the 2005 FA Cup), as well as being privileged enough to attend many internationals, World Cups and European Championships.

The 1992 Barcelona, Sampdoria final at Wembley saw me experience in person a sidelined Cruyff steer his total football to the ultimate success, (not that it was that obvious in that particular game).

Euro 96 allowed me to indulge in ten memorable live matches.

There is little doubt that watching Maradona do his thing in Italy and Internationally, rates among the very special experiences of my football love affair.

Sky Sports proved a Godsend when I moved back to Ireland in 1997 and delivered me not just the Gunners experience but also allowed the wannabe coach in me to watch the technical side of the game develop and grow beyond recognition.

Then came Spain and Messi – enough said .....

All of which is a preface to my provenance and how I feel about the current state of football along with the recently abortive attempt by the big clubs of Europe to go their own way in a thing they chose to call; ‘The European Super League’.

First of all, Football doesn’t belong to anyone. Two sweaters and a ball will allow those, who want to, to live the dream for as long and as often as they want. Commercial Professional football is a whole different animal altogether.

I was born a year before Jimmy Hill changed the financial landscape of the sport and grew into the game with enough of a curiosity - from watching him as a staple pundit on TV throughout the seventies - to research and try to understand the significance of his success and how it had affected the game.

When Jean-Marc Bosman went to court and won, it caused me to again reflect long and hard as to what the knock on effect would be.

While I was a subscriber to Sky Sports for many years and tipped my cap to the way they presented the game I was forever aware Rupert Murdoch was not likely to be a fan of football and yet again wondered at where this pursuit of satellite domination would take the sport.

The USA has a had a chequered history with football, where on several occasions the Napoleon's of money tried to buy what they considered a product so it could be customised to suit the taste of viewers and advertisers with an entirely different understanding and approach to televised sport.

These businessmen had developed a successful TV sports model with their own home grown games that was based upon exploiting a herd mentality with inconceivable numbers, promoted ‘innocent’ escapism, nativism and an highly unlikely avenue for anyone to succeed in an American dream.

I remember being somewhat uncomfortable that day in 2015 when it was announced on the news the FBI had arrested several high profile FIFA officials – my discombobulation was not with regard to the corruption charges but rather the sole involvement of an internal American law agency in what was essentially a non-American criminal enterprise – where were Interpol?

Three of the biggest clubs in England are owned by Americans and the ‘Golden Boy’ of a ‘Golden’ generation of English footballers has set his tent up in Florida as the new face of the game stateside.

The financial exploitation of the game is in full swing and being led by US corporate vultures and bankers.

And therein lies the problem.

I believe European football changed when mostly egotistical owners believed it was necessary to adopt a profit and loss ethos over and above the reasonable – as set out by the management of professional sport in the US.

It could be said that this became most visible when merchandising was designed to marry itself to personal identity - a cornucopia of uniforms for the masses to openly display a sense of belonging. And all of a sudden ‘Official’ kits costing a pittance to produce in South East Asia were being hawked to fans at a mark up of ten thousand percent or so.

And the fans bought it.

Ticket prices galloped ahead of inflation by ridiculous percentages. Player wages went through the roof and transfer fees – coupled with agents’ commissions – found, to their collective delight, there was no ceiling.

Satellite companies shut out traditional terrestrial 'free to air' national broadcasters with unacccountable fees for exclusive rights.

Catering prices at stadiums became the stuff of usury practice with cognac shrimp con beurre blanc finding its way on to menus for non- football loving patrons of newly constructed corporate boxes.

Meanwhile the next World Cup is to be hosted in one of the richest non-football playing dictatorships in the world.

And the fans bought it.

Then an announcement out of the blue that the ESL was real!

And the fans didn’t buy it, (for the moment)

However it would appear fans are of a mistaken assumption they get anything in return for the excessive amount of money they pay into professional football - other than the ninety minutes promised, overpriced propaganda ridden tat, satellite service and being told little or nothing constructive by so called experts.

The brief history outlined above would, instead, indicate supporters unwavering attendance and acceptance of financial and other abuses will continue as long as fans demand a fix.

It’s an awful comparison but reality tells me street dealers don’t lower the price of heroin for the good of the addict.

So should we really blame the twelve clubs and their owners for the ESL debacle?

The number of highly paid pundits, managers, players, agents and broadcasters who have stood on a recent soapbox of straw to exclaim their abhorrence of the ESL make me laugh and cry in equal measure.

These are the same people who continue to personally milk the game with their outrageous salaries and fees – in most cases for being very average at what they do and in all cases way beyond anything approaching honest. They are not just hypocritical they are a curse on the game and absolutely guilty of legal daylight robbery.

Yet all the people of ‘standing’ in football have targeted a convenient scapegoat in owners and board members whom they believe are somehow more insidious than they are themselves. All of these horrors are most defiantly not the gatekeepers of football but they do uncaringly exploit the professional game for their own personal benefit – given the actual mediocrity of the majority of these parasites they are not just robbing the fans they’re actually robbing the owners as well.

The sport has reached a point where there are few, if any, innocents involved who are not, at least, partly responsible in the creation of the ESL and no amount of sanctimonious slobbering will convince me otherwise.

And the fans should know that by now.

Maybe not!

So, is there a solution to this problem?

No!

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome (again) to the Order of the Phoenix, Seb!

You have been accepted for the role of MADALÉINA WARREN with the faceclaim of Sirena Warren! We really enjoyed how Maddy, while being a fighter against injustice, is also still a young adult. We truly can’t wait to see how she blossoms into herself and finds out who she really is as a person. We also love that she’ll be joining the ranks as a Muggleborn witch, as this is a group fighting for people of her blood status and doesn’t actually have many of them within their organization. So excited to have her on the dash! 

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME & PRONOUNS: Seb he/him

AGE: 21+ (not getting younger, lads!)

TIMEZONE: GMT+1

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m here! Usually I’d do at least a round of replies every morning (either 1 reply per character or a full round of 1 character) but at times I’m a bit anxious about spamming people with too many of my replies at once, so I hold off. And now that I’m on a holiday until October 15th, I’ll definitely be able to keep that regularity going so what am I to do? Find another roleplay? Never!

ANYTHING ELSE: Triggers, still: under-water sequences

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Madaléina “Maddy” Warren

AGE: 18

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY:

Cis female. She/Her. Hetero.

To turn things around a bit, I like to think that Maddy is quite endeared by the idea of being bisexual, of just loving everyone and anyone regardless of their gender, and she definitely clings to the girl-crushes she had, but really, she’s just straight. She hasn’t had any serious relationships yet but I think the day she meets the right guy, she’ll realise that those feelings are very different from infatuation. For a while it’ll make her seek the same emotional depth with a woman for a while, but eventually she’ll realise that she’s fully straight. This being said, she was raised Irish-Catholic and this whole ‘I’m open-minded and bisexual!’ might ironically stem from that; a way to distance herself from the conservative world around her. So it’s less observation-based and more a head thing, where she’d just rather want to be on the side of the ostracised than the ostracis..ers. 

BLOOD STATUS: Muggleborn.

HOUSE ALUMNI: Hufflepuff.

ANY CHANGES: No, please stay the way you are!

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Maddy’s heart is big, open, and full of love. That is the first thing you must know.

She sees the good in people before anything else, and when there is no good, she dreams of planting it into their hearts, seed by seed, smile by smile. She’s the epitome of ‘kill them with kindness, giving everyone second, third and fourth chances, and truly believing that everyone can change for the better, that no one deserves death, that everyone deserves a friendly hand, helping them. The second thing you must know, is that she’s a clever little fox, and when she asks: What Would Jesus Do?, she doesn’t mean the glorified white Jesus people misuse for the prejudiced bullcrap, but the actual Jewish Jesus who yelled at the rich and kissed prostitutes regardless of their reputation. She’s got an innate sense of justice, and it can turn her into an American Honey Badger if ever she encounters someone being treated unfairly. The third thing you must know, is that she’s still very much searching for herself. She knows who she wants to be, she knows she wants to spread love and eradicate injustice in the world, but in between those goals, she’s an 18-year-old mess who’s not really good at what she’s doing. One minute she’s talking about the importance of unity amongst the Order, the next minute she’s talking about how cool it would be if they all wore the yellow-black X-Men uniform. One minute she’s angry about big corporations exploiting the poor, the next minute she’s babbling about how much she loves coca cola. One minute she’s talking feminism and how every woman should be allowed to do what she wants, the next minute she scoffs at a roommate wearing too short of a mini-skirt. She’s young, Christ-damnit – oh yes, she also truly struggles with cursing in a non blasphemous way – but she’s trying.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

Derry, 1972. The infamous key-event of The Troubles of Northern Ireland called Bloody Sunday, which caused the IRA to grow and radicalise further, makes the mother of 9 children a widow. The youngest of those 9 children has just been born in the hospital and Maddy is watching over the other younger siblings with only mild interest – after all, the Addams Family is on TV! – and she knows not to expect her mother to come home before tomorrow night. What she doesn’t know, however, is that while her mother returns, her father never does.

From that day on, the Warrens’ life is no longer the same. Were they a wild, jumbled bunch of messy but cheerful people, they are now scraping at the stone of their personal rock bottom hell. Maddy’s older siblings are off to find work, so is their mother, and Maddy is left to slowly become a second mum to her younger siblings.

Before that, she was one of many, forgotten and forced to scream and scratch for attention – now there’s not even that much left. Who she is doesn’t matter, what she wants doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the family survives, and a fun and quirky personality brings laughter but not bread to the table, so what’s it really worth?

The TV is sold, so are all of Maddy’s comic books and the cool earrings she got for Christmas. When it’s time to even sell her father’s clothes, she steals the jeans jacket he was shot in, never bothering to repair the hole on its back. A reminder, perhaps, of the injustice in the world. Of how dangerous it is, to let people know who you really are. No one notices. No one ever notices what she’s doing. Much like the big jeans jacket eats her entire frame, her father’s death overshadows everything she once was. By the age of 10, she’s lost her identity and personality, becomes ‘one of the many Warren children’, and people in the streets address her by her father’s name, not her own. And then she turns 11. It’s Dumbledore himself who appears in her living room, explaining Maddy everything, and her mother cries the whole time through. Why? That’s something Maddy learns only a few years later. And quite frankly, in that moment? She doesn’t want to know. Here is a real whole Wizard who looks like Gandalf the Wise and says she’s a Witch and says she’s special and says she has a life away from all of this. And then he says: “It’s okay to be scared,” and Maddy hears herself admit that, yes, she is a little scared. After all, she wasn’t raised to be special.

Suddenly she’s an individual, her own person, and the possibilities are endless. Who does she want to be? What’s the plan? Where will this adventure lead her to, and why is no one there to guide her? She’s lost. Alone and lost. Her dream has become a nightmare. Her first year, she is focusing on being a good Witch at Hogwarts, carrying the burden of her destiny as good as she can while keeping her head low and fearing the sound of her own name. It’s only been a bit less than a year since her father died, but a year in the life of an 11-year-old is a lot, and it scarred Maddy. Hogwarts isn’t a big school, people quickly know her, that Irish Mudblood, as they call her, and even though she hears the snarl in their voice she’s too afraid to correct them. “What is it, muddy Mudblood? Don’t know how to use your wand to defend yourself?” Then the Summer holidays come. She’s can’t wait to be back home, one of many, ‘one of the Robert Warren kids’, back in anonymity. But it’s too late. Things have changed. She’s the special one now here, too. In Derry, people know her as the girl who got a scholarship in a private school in Scotland; everyone is proud of her. Her older siblings are glad they don’t have to feed yet another hungry mouth all the time, to see at least someone get out of here unharmed. And her younger siblings have, for the first time in years, hope in their own future again. Hope that they, too, might become special at the age of 11. None of them are.

Maddy remains the only Witch of her family.

For a while, as the years pass, she tries to fit in even better. Look less catholic, speak less witchy, smell less like a Mudblood. She’s long stopped screaming and scratching for attention but now she’s actively trying to never stand out. And why would she want to? The English don’t care about the beauty of the green. The Muggles don’t understand the full scope of the marvel that the Wizarding World holds in store. And the Purebloods can’t even grasp the greatness of using a damn – sorry! – telephone. People live and exist in in- and out-groups, and the walls are high, causing cold wars in the world and amongst possible friends. She’s special, yes, but in a way no one truly understands, and she realises that there is loneliness in being different. And that’s when Maddy, fourteen years old, walks into the second-floor bathroom at Hogwarts and into a long-deceased family member: Myrtle Warren. Her father’s sister and her mother’s childhood best friend. Killed by bloodpurist ideologies. Safe, nowhere, not even in the hopeful life she’d been promised here. And Maddy understands. People die because they’re different. It’s not just lonely. It’s dangerous. But ducking one’s head and letting the un-different people rule will never undo the danger. Only being visibly different, outspoken, unashamed of one’s specialness can tear down the walls and help people familiarize themselves with the cultures on the other side. She’s special, goddamnit – sorry! – and she’d rather die teaching people how beautiful that is rather than pretending she’s not! With determination, she puts her wooden cross back around her neck. Stuffs her Wolverine T-shirt into her jeans, tosses her dad’s jeans jacket over her shoulders. Then she marches up to the Slytherin table and smashes her fist into Avery’s face. “See, the thing is, we Mudbloods don’t need a wand to defend ourselves.” So, while the war in Northern Ireland gets worse and worse, Maddy makes a name for herself at Hogwarts by selling Muggle-trinkets (sending the money home), playing on the Quidditch team, excelling in various classes and just being a good sport altogether. People listen to her ideas and even laugh at her jokes, and she makes sure to learn about everyone else’s specialness as well. After all, if everyone realised they’re worth of attention and love, maybe they’d grant the same blessing to others as well, and no one would have to fear being different anymore. 

Nowadays, cheer has returned to her family. With four children out of the house and two already capable to work, the Warrens are much more relaxed, enjoying watching everyone’s path unfold, while still waiting curiously to see if the youngest, Robert Jr., will receive a letter for his 11th birthday or not. Some resent never having received their letters, others are just happy for Maddy, and others prefer not to think about it at all. What matters is that they’re now all individuals thinking for themselves, allowing each other, at times together, to be happy. And all would be good… Only that Maddy’s no longer part of it now, is she?

OCCUPATION:

Entrepreneur (Business for Muggle-trinkets sold in the magical world).

What started as an act of desperation (bringing ballpens to Hogwarts) suddenly turned into its whole own thing, where first Muggleborns begged for more objects from home and then the other kids got interested in it, too. Seeing how Hogwarts’ magic didn’t let electronics function properly, those objects were usually of mechanical banality or just plain cultural stuff like magazines, blotting paper, alarm clocks, a special type of cereals, etc.

Maddy was more than ready to stop her business after graduating, but the fact that her clients graduated along with her and now still preferred her shop than hunting through Muggle cities for the things they never really had to buy for themselves in seven long years just had her continue the thing. And now, since she has to make money somehow, she’s looking into buying an empty shop at Diagon Alley.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

Maddy was attracted to the Order by Maurice’s radio show and his subcultural references calling out for more Muggleborns to join the war. In all honesty, up until that point, she wasn’t really aware that a war was going on..? She understood that she was being discriminated against, and that Muggleborns were fleeing the country, but, Jesus – sorry! – she’d grown up in Derry, a bit of oppression is neither a proof of war nor a reason to run away, is it? But when she learnt that there was a vigilante group trying to fix the racist bullcrap that was going on, she found herself quite interested. “I don’t really know what I bring to the table, though,” she told Maurice after meeting him before anyone else, and he replied: “You bring perspective, and that’s exactly what we need.”

She doesn’t really support the more radical notions of some Order members, and would rather see them figure out a peaceful way to end the war (the idea of seeing someone be shot in the back like they did it to her father is haunting her at all times, unfortunately) but she knows that not doing anything won’t fix things either. And at least these people understand the beauty of diversity. In fact, she’s more than proud of the Purebloods who have joined the cause, and takes it as proof that everyone can change if given the chance.

She’s still very new in the Order (therefore still full of hope) and is mostly trying to find her footing. But I think it won’t take long until she will come forth with her first pro-active, constructive suggestions: it’ll be less about killing Voldemort and more about educating those who could become potential followers. Teaching them of the Muggle World, of how fun the culture can be, how there’s not such thing as blood dilution, etc, perhaps going all the way to even dismantle the Statue of Secrecy.

SURVIVAL:

She lives in a flat with some Muggleborn and Halfblood friends in Muggle London. Gerry and Charlie started a university degree and Kathy is currently doing an internship at the Ministry of Magic. None of them really know what’s going on, what they’re doing, and how to subscribe to a newspaper, so while they do face daily discrimination in the Wizarding World (very much a reason why Gerry and Charlie went back to the Muggle World for the time being), they haven’t really paid attention to fixing it yet. And while Maddy knows it’ll be a bit difficult to keep the Order thing a secret from them, she also knows that they wouldn’t really care. In a way, that’s what’s also keeping them safe: they’re just a bunch of kids, so no one would ever suspect Maddy to be a danger to society. Right?

RELATIONSHIPS:

As you just saw above, there will definitely be a strain put on Maddy’s relationship with her friends. She knows that she’ll eventually have to leave them, if the secret becomes too much of a burden or Death Eaters could put them at danger just for being close to her, or tell them the truth and let them decide whether they want to join the Order as well or not. In a way, she already knows they won’t. After all, they chose to go back to the Muggle World for a reason. The same goes for her family – who, admittedly, are less close to her these days, but who are still very much family, and she’d never forgive herself if something happened to them. Other than that, I think joining the Order will open a lot of new relationships, seeing how Maddy will be surrounded by people who are equally as invested in wanting to make the world a better place.

The Bang Gang (Chaos Trio): Maddy went to school with them and has a complicated relationship with them. By the type of personality, she’s similar to Dorcas, her roommate, and you’d think that’s a great basis for a friendship. But that’s definitely not what happened. From the day Dorcas revealed herself to be more on the ‘I’ma fight everyone!’ type, Maddy decided to go against that and be of the ‘I’ma befriend everyone!’ type. The Bang Gang seems loud and obnoxious and not at all on the peace-path to fix discrimination with love. No wonder the Order is so radical! Sure, deep down, Maddy admires them at least a little, for being so cool and brave, but on the outside she’s mostly annoyed. After all, if Maddy had wanted to join a terrorist group, she could’ve picked the IRA.

Caradoc: Big Grumpy Man, Maddy is not a fan. While he’s surprisingly civil to her, compared to many other Order members, she doesn’t agree with his radical notions. Sure, Purebloods are the ones who started it all, but Christ – sorry! – give them a chance to change! It’s not by antagonising them that you will end up making friends. From the outside, their relationship must look like a tiny dog yapping at a benevolent old man who just smiles back with patience.

Dedalus: Funky Funny Man has a shop on Diagon Alley, and while Maddy absolutely despises Wizarding Candy, she wonders if the flamboyant (and very handsome) Wizard might want to give her a corner of his shop for her to set up her own. Just until she has enough money scraped together to buy her own shop. And if the poor Muggleborns entering this world had to suffer through ear-wax jelly beans, then it’s about time that Purebloods experience the greatness that is Muggle candy.

Maurice: Feisty Pretty Man is the one who attracted Maddy to the Order. His voice drew her in, his face made her stay. Who can blame her? When she asked him what the Order could possibly want from her, he said: “Perspective”, and it was what Maddy needed to realise that her whole thing about changing the world one kind deed at a time might’ve just found a home to grow in. Whether Maurice knows it or not, he’s become her mentor, and Maddy couldn’t look at him with any more heart-eyes if she were a cartoon.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS:

I direly need Maddy to have a crush on every boy she encounters, be they gay or racist. I don’t care how far it gets (I don’t think she really wants anything serious anyway, even if she whines about being single all the time) or how many rejections she’ll receive, I just need her to constantly be distracted by the urge to snog, thank you.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

I think by nature of who they are, how they grew up, Muggleborns are less prejudiced towards people and creatures from the Wizarding World. Because on the one hand, everything is weird and different to them, on the other, it’s just fairy tales! Werewolves are cool as hell – sorry! – why would you be mean to them?! Why not befriend them and learn everything about them! And while obviously Maddy finds herself kind of tense around Purebloods, it’s not at all an innate thing like her hate towards the English. And then there’s the whole thing where she believes in the good in everyone that just makes her actively fight any prejudices she might have. So while I’m sure she’s free of bias, I think of all my characters, she’s the most open-minded one.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? Listen.

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

For Maddy:      - have her fight for a spot on Diagon Alley while bloodpurists try to keep her from it.      - have her kill the Basilisk at Hogwarts (it’s personal, okay)      - have her get some snogs      - make up with Dorcas and Benjy? For the RP:      - telephone station at House of Bones for Maurice to actually receive responses from the Muggleborns he calls out to (Pride style)      - Generally a branch of the DTF actively recruiting Muggleborns (and it causing discussions in the Order)      - maybe a law passing at the Ministry related to her shop in Diagon Alley, taking away the right for Muggleborns to have their own shops, and the Order managing to prevent the law from passing (but before they manage, perhaps there’s a surge of refugees the DTF has to take care of?)

ANYTHING ELSE?

Maddy is Low-Level. I’d say she joined fairly recently, seeing how Maurice’s radio show plot hasn’t even been made official yet. So maybe Dedalus’ plan of that buddy-system [x (first paragraph)] for new Order members could take effect on her as a test dummy? :’ D

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS:

PAST: Born and raised as an Irish Catholic in Derry during The Troubles of Northern Ireland, young Maddy learnt from a young age that there are people who will kill you based on something you cannot control. Born and raised amongst a family of nine children, however, she also learnt that being different is a gift and not something you should hide. Being the same as everyone else, one of many, might make life easy, but it certainly doesn’t make life honest and good. This realisation came when she met the ghost of her aunt in the second-floor bathroom at Hogwarts – known as Moaning Myrtle; Maddy didn’t know why she was the only one of her siblings to have been granted magical powers, but she sure as hell – sorry for the swearing! – understood in this very moment that keeping a low profile like Myrtle had done fifty years ago would neither protect her life, nor change the world for the better. Thus, in the span of four years, she grew to be the most honest version of herself that she could possibly be: an Irish Catholic Muggleborn Witch with a love for superhero comics. Selling Muggle trinkets at Hogwarts (ranging from ballpens to comic books) she was known as the proud Hufflepuff who knew how to befriend about anyone. ‘Kill them with kindness’ became her motto, and while she still had a lot to learn regarding how to be as self-assured as she liked to present herself to be, she was, for the most part, succeeding in her mission to introduce Purebloods to Muggle culture, building bridges for those two worlds in ways she knew she’d never be able to do it for the English and the Irish at home.

 PRESENT: The cat who dragged her into the Order was Maurice Creevey and his radio show. Her “What do I possibly have to offer them, though?” was answered with a “Perspective,” and it was all she needed to hear to be convinced. Had he said ‘your wits’, ‘your optimism’, or ‘the stakes you have in this war,’, she would’ve declined and gone back home to her Muggleborn flatmates who have turned their back to the Wizarding World after graduating from Hogwarts. But he said: “Perspective”, and that was the one thing Maddy has always believed is in her range of capabilities. After all, she does have a different perspective on it all, and she is more than willing to teach people of this perspective, of her side of the story, to make them empathise and want to tear down the walls of cultural divide alongside with her. She firmly believes that everyone could be friends if they only understood each other, and she’s not afraid to grab her megaphone to have communication happen. Either way, she does not care for another war like there is at home, does not care at all for seeing more people she loves be killed by being shot in the back, the way it happened to her father in 1972. So her main focus right now (except finding an empty place in Diagon Alley to set up her Muggle shop) is to identify the more radical members of the Order and explain to them that they shouldn’t hurt anyone on behalf of the Muggleborns, or there will be direct retaliation against exactly those. And once she’s got them in her pocket, she wants to update the Hogwarts curriculum to educate Wizards about Muggles to finally end the divide – and perhaps even the Statue of Secrecy, one day. 

FC CHOICES: Sirena Warren as found here: [x], [x], [x]. Alternatively: Meta Gewald [x], [x], [x] or Faith Jaggernauth [x], [x], [x] . I must admit, none of them have very good resources, though…

[cincinnatusvirtue]

In the spotlight: Lord Byron (1788-1824): Poet, aristocrat, exile, patron of independence movements...

-George Gordon Byron was born January 22nd, 1788 in London, England to Captain John Byron, a British Army officer and his second wife Catherine Gordon, a Scottish heiress. Byron’s father routinely had debts from gambling and most accounts suggest the marriage to Gordon was for access to her family fortune.  Quickly, John Byron ran through most of his wife’s money and then ran off to France leaving his wife and young son to fend for themselves, he also a daughter Augusta from his first marriage.  John died most probably from tuberculosis or a drug overdose, though his son always suspected suicide, John was 35 years old.

-The young George was then brought up by his mother in her native Scotland in the city of Aberdeen with at best modest living conditions.

-George’s paternal grandfather was a Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy, also named John who circumnavigated the globe in his younger days.  He was the younger son of the 4th Baron Byron of Rochdale, William Byron and younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, William Byron also known as the “Wicked Lord” or the “Devil Byron”.  The 5th title holder in the family (George’s great uncle) was famed aristocrat, known for his temperamental behavior, gambling, dueling and various rumored scandals (all traits attached to the Byron family).

-The 5th Baron Byron eventually outlived his son and grandson who would have been his heirs to title and fortune, his grandson was due to inherit the title until a military life lead to his untimely death in battle.  Subsequently, young George Gordon Byron was the next of kin to receive the title.  This occurred with the 5th Baron Byron passed away in 1798. making George the 6th Baron Byron.  The title meant a membership in the British Peerage and a seat in the House of Lords in Parliament.  Ever after, George Gordon was known as Lord Byron or Byron.  As part of his inheritance he was moved to Newstead Abbey, the ancestral home in Nottinghamshire, England.

-Byron was moved to Newstead by his mother only to find the estate in disrepair and ruin.  While he was now wealthy due to the family fortune and good afford better lodgings, they decided Newstead was no place to stay and instead work continually on repairs and leased it out to other nobles as a source of income.

-Byron was educated by private tutors and also had a tempestuous relationship with his mother.  She was prone to alcoholism and mood swings and alternately berated her son and offered him unique amounts of praise.  He was especially sensitive to his appearance regarding his deformed foot, which resulted from a botched delivery during his birth and gave him a slight limp in his later years though he was always sensitive of it.  He also battled with weight issues, his mother was overweight and Byron would regularly exercise and adopt a very mixed diet over the years and the combination of dieting and exercise eventually caused him to lose weight but he would fluctuate between weight gain and loss his entire life.  He also later showed signs of bulimia.

-Byron attended the private Harrow school and later Cambridge University.  While at Cambridge Byron engaged in gambling adding up debts that would plague him for years as well as experiencing many sexual relationships with both men and women.  His relationships with men however had to be kept strictly quiet since, the death penalty for homosexuality of any form was practiced in law in England.  Byron also formed platonic friendships with friends such as John Hobhouse, his faithful best friend for the remainder of his life and companion on some of Byron’s later adventures.  While there, Byron also was exposed to Liberal politics of the day, which was mostly pro-republican and somewhat admiring of the French Revolution and in particular Napoleon Bonaparte.

-Byron’s first poetry was published at the age of 17, though he was self-critical of the results and it was badly reviewed.  Though he was to suffer many a bad review from Conservative/Tory leaning literary magazines that disapproved of Byron’s liberal political leanings and later scandalous lifestyle.  They in turn would be the target of his satirical poems. 

- Byron decided to take the Grand Tour in 1809.  This was the tour across Europe undertaken by typically wealthy British and American young men that spread from Western Europe to the east, to ostensibly study classical history and experience culture, for some though it was an extended version of modern spring break where college students party endlessly.  For Byron it would be a mix of the two.  Byron went on the trip with Hobhouse and an entourage of servants, including his valet William Fletcher.  

-The traditional Grand Tour itinerary however was altered for Byron due to the ongoing Napoleonic Wars which meant he would bypass Central Europe altogether.  Instead he went to Portugal and later the Balkans and Mediterranean islands.  Byron was influenced by tales of Islamic countries such as the Persian and Ottoman Empires from a young age and took an interest in Sufism a mystical variation of Islam.

-Byron also may have been motivated to travel to the East for their relaxed attitudes on homosexuality relative to England at the time.  Indeed he did partake in sexual activity with men and women on numerous occasions, adding to his already increasingly scandalous reputation.  His time was spent in Greece and Albania in particular where he made the acquaintance of Ali Pasha of Ioannina, an Albanian Governor-General in a region of Northern Greece, all then part of the Ottoman Empire.  Byron was greatly influenced by the culture of Albania and Greece and even fancied himself dressing in their style of clothing and riding horses in the mountainous terrain, sightseeing lands not commonly visited by Western Europeans at the time.  From Greece, Byron visited Turkey including the Ottoman capital, Constantinople where he had a brief audience with the Sultan, though Byron appeared underwhelmed and unimpressed with the Sultan in his recollections.  He also famously swam the famed Hellespont between Asia Minor and Europe near the Straits of Gallipoli.  Byron was always an excellent swimmer and boxer among other athletic endeavors.  Seen by some as a well to overcome his deformed foot.

-After two years on the tour, Byron returned to England to work on his recollections of his trip in longform narrative poems and to take his seat in Parliament.  Byron’s collection of poems, published in 1812 collectively known as Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage became a best seller of British Romantic poetry and remains an influential English language narrative poem.  It was indeed semi-autobiographical and established the literary archetype of the Byronic hero.  An extension of Byron’s ideals in literary format, his ideal man of action.  A mirror reflection though somewhat embellished of Byron himself, a man engaged in carnal and material pleasures who has become disillusioned and seeks venture for greater meaning in foreign far off lands.  Childe Harold captured a wider European cultural zeitgeist in the waning years of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, it infused Romantic lyricism, a reverence for nature and escapism in richly described foreign settlings from the harsh realities of war and indeed the oncoming malaise of the Industrial Revolution in its infancy.

-Byron became an instant literary celebrity and indeed became the early 19th century’s version on a modern day popstar with a carefully cultivated image to match the public perception of him.  Byron was almost renowned for his physical beauty and soon attracted many liaisons with women in British high society.  He also attended parties, this was at the height of the era known in British history as the Regency and Byron was its premier celebrity.  Sought after for his portrait, lockets of hair and his time, his mind and his body, he both courted and grew to reject his newfound fame.  His most famous affair during this time was with a noblewoman named Caroline Lamb, a married woman with a son.  Byron’s brief fling with Lamb lead to him calling off the affair, however their time together had been passionate for both but most especially Lamb.  She became obsessive in her thoughts of him, writing letters and staking him.  She famously described Byron as “mad, bad and dangerous to know” which became his unofficial epitaph.  

-Byron’s continued his poetry which was increasingly successful and his poems were published in other countries to growing success as well, even if the reviews by the Tory press at home was not especially noteworthy.  Byron’s image and mystique as a brooding and intense personality with a flair for dress and image added to the sales of the his poems, making him one of the few commercially successful poets in their lifetime.  His career with government was not especially noteworthy.  Other than a few speeches on improving the conditions of the poor and especially the rights of Catholics in Ireland, Byron’s time in the House of Lords was mostly a footnote in his life.  Writing and scandal were the dominant themes from here on out in his life.

-In 1815 with a sense to gain more funds, like his father due to his gambling debts, Byron sought to marry a noble heiress.  He married Anne Isabelle Milbanke who became Lady Byron.  Anne or Annabella as she was known was strict and religious woman as well as showing an interest in mathematics, very much the opposite of her worldly husband and his renown for amoral behavior.  They had a daughter Ada in late 1815 who grew up to become known as Ada Lovelace, known for her assistance in developing a precursor to the modern computer.  Ada had her mother’s mathematics education and her father’s temperament.  However, the marital bliss and family life soon gave way to Byron’s mood swings, alcoholism, sexual deviancy including charges of homosexuality, sodomy on his wife and a rumored affair with his own half-sister Augusta, with whom he had reconnected upon his return to England, he possibly was the father of one of her children though this isn’t confirmed.

-News of these accusations created a brewing scandal in London and indeed the whole of Britain.  Byron’s wife proposed a separation which he accepted given the swirling rumors.  They never divorced officially but Byron was about to depart England to go into uncertain exile to escape the attention brought onto him by his various scandals and due to his weariness of life in England and the nature of celebrity.  It seemed instead of art being inspired by life, he was now a case of life imitating art, a hedonistic life had lead to weariness and a renewed desire to travel.

-In spring 1816, separated from his wife and shortly before his departure from England.  Byron engaged in another affair with a teenage girl by the name of Claire Clairmont.  She was the stepdaughter of famed political philosopher and anarchist William Godwin who was the biological father of her future famous stepsister, Mary Godwin, known to history as Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.  That spring, Byron left England, never to see his wife, daughter, Ada, his half-sister or his home country ever again.  He made his way through France which was now at peace due to Napoleon’s final defeat the year before.  From there he ventured to Geneva Switzerland, where he rented a house on Lake Geneva with its view of the Alps.

-He was joined by his entourage of servants and private zoo of animals and his physician, the Anglo-Italian doctor and author John Polidori.  Byron was soon joined by Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley and her husband, the poet and philosopher Percy Shelley.  Percy and Byron were mutual admirers and became fast friends for the rest of their lives.  The group of five met and told ghost stories and eventually challenged one another to write a scary story contest.  In the end, neither Byron nor Percy could muster much of a tale but Mary got her ideas for Frankenstein in that contest held in June 1816.  Polidori also wrote a short story called the Vampyre which was based on Byron’s mysterious image and later influenced Dracula and the vampire genre of horror.

-Byron enjoyed Percy and Mary’s company but grew tired of the resumed affair with Claire, especially when it turned out she was pregnant with his child.  The Shelleys and Byron parted ways with him going off to Italy and them to France and back to England.  He also parted ways with Polidori who returned to England.

-Byron spent the majority of his remaining years in exile in italy which was at the time a divided country under mostly imperial control of the Austrian Empire and in part the Papal States, along with a few other Italian monarchies, all of this was at odds with Byron’s liberal sympathies.  He first spent time in Milan, visiting the famed opera and the sights before settling into Venice.  Byron continued to write and send manuscripts back to Britain for publication where they continued to sell regularly.  Byron worked on the next parts of Child Harold’s Pilgrimage and his other major work, Don Juan which further was taken from his life in exile and pushed the image of the Byronic hero.

-In Venice, Byron absorbed culture and continued to engage in affairs with multiple Italian women, including his married landlady at one point.  One of his lovers fought with Byron so much that he spent his time in a Venetian gondola to escape into the back canals of the city.  Byron in Venice also celebrated his love of swimming by completing the full length of the Grand Canal.  He also took an interest in a monastic order of monks from Armenia.  He became a regular patron of this order and in turn was taught the Armenian language and history.  Through this new found love of Armenian culture and language, Byron helped compile the influential English-Armenian dictionary, published in 1821.

-Tired of Venice, Byron visited Rome and then returned to Venice where he met and fell in love with the woman who would become the last long term relationship of his life, Teresa Guiccioli.  Teresa was a married Italian noblewoman whose family had connections with the underground Italian liberation movement which was revolutionary in its goal of Italian nationalism and overthrowing the Austrian occupation of Italy.  Byron moved to Ravenna in 1819 to be close to her, there he spent the next two years writing and interacting with Italian revolutionaries.  Activity that could put him under suspicion of the Austrian secret police.

-Byron was rejoined with Percy Shelley in 1821, the Shelleys relocated to Italy in exile due to escaping political agitation as Shelley’s atheism and anarchist beliefs along with growing debts landed him in trouble back in England.  in 1822, Byron, Shelley and friend Leigh Hunt all settled on moving to Pisa to start a literary newspaper there.  However, it was not meant to be when Percy Shelley drowned at sea in a storm, dying at age 29.  His body washed ashore but was identified only by the copy of a poem by John Keats was found on him, which he was known to have had at the time.  Shelley admired the other future great British Romantic poet Keats and invited him to Italy where Keats had gone to treat his bad health at doctors orders before he died in 1821 at age 25 of tuberculosis.  Byron was not an admirer of Keats but he was quite sad at the loss of Shelley’s whose idealism he admired.  Shelley very much tried to live up to the liberal principles he espoused whereas Byron described them and indeed was sympathetic to them but rarely demonstrated action in a self-indulgent life to back up his beliefs.  Shelley’s death left Byron with his own sense of mortality and with a desire to do something more meaningful.

-Byron and Teresa moved on from Pisa to Genoa in 1822-1823. While there Byron completed more works for Don Juan among others.  However, he had grown tired of his domestic life with Teresa over the last five years and while inspired by his contacts with Italian nationalists felt they nor he could amount to much at the time in enacting on revolutionary activities.  That’s when he made contacts with members of the philhellene societies in England about helping out with the prospect of Greek Independence.

-Greece had been under the control of the Ottoman Empire since the 15th century.  In 1821 it finally launched a widespread but dysfunctional revolt against the Turks, some portions of the country were successful and others not.  However, Greek rebels needed foreign funding from rich Greek exiles and expats as well as foreigners who had pro-Greek sympathies: philhellenes of which there were many in Western Europe including Britain and even America.  They supported the Greeks for their cultural heritage of democracy, philosophy and art, as the cradle of Western Civilization which was greatly influenced by ancient Greece.  Byron in his own studies of history and his earlier adventures to Greece shared these sympathies but he also admired the mystical aspects of Islam, even if he didn’t like the Ottoman’s political oppression of Greeks.

-Byron ultimately agreed to leave Italy for Greece to support the cause of Greek independence.  What exactly was he to do wasn’t entirely clear but it was his chance for once to use his fame and resources for a cause he deemed noble.  He sought to help in anyway he could, personally funding the procurement of supplies for the Greek rebels and possibly even leading a military command though he had no prior military experience.  Byron’s celebrity endorsement of Greece was viewed positively by the rebels.  Though problematically as Byron found out upon his arrival in late 1823, the Greeks were divided into rival factions almost inclined to fight each other while also fighting the Turks and Byron saw this disunity as a distraction to their great disadvantage.  Each faction sought to get his attention and his money.

-Byron ultimately settled into the marshy areas surrounding the city of Missolonghi in early 1824.  Here at his rented home he met with rebel leaders and devised all sorts of plans and contacts but just before a planned siege against the Turks under his personal leadership could be implemented, Byron caught a fever and ultimately after failed medical treatments died of sepsis from being bled to death, he was 36 years old.

-Byron’s death was viewed as heroic in Greece, as a man who despite his foreign birth and despite his wealth and fame sought to put his life on the line to aid in the independence of their country out of genuine interest in their cause.  His premature death in light of any concrete action other than some funding was irrelevant, it was the principle rather than anything else that mattered.  To this day, Byron is a somewhat common name in Greece as a tribute to his memory.  His death also drew attention to the cause of Greek independence and may have inspired more funds from abroad to be donated in addition to inspiring foreigners to take up arms and fight side by side with the Greeks and indeed some years later British, French and Russian military intervention against the Turks decided the guerilla war in the Greeks favor, giving birth to the modern Greek nation officially in 1830.

-Byron’s body was embalmed and sent back to England, where he was buried in Newstead Abbey, his ancestral home.  It is said that his funeral procession to Newstead Abbey happened to pass his former lover Caroline Lamb, in her carriage going the opposite direction.  Lamb who hadn’t seen him in years, when informed that it was Byron’s funeral procession, is said to have suffered another nervous breakdown, further demonstrating that even in death, Byron had great effect on the people who encountered him.  Indeed his legacy both for his writing, his celebrity and his death in the cause for Greek independence all endure today...

[oliverhqs]

✧ °˖ — ( casey deidrick. cis-male. he/him. ) looks like oliver carmichael just signed back in at the front desk. word around is, that they’re only staying at the northern star because his family took their annual family vacation to their manor and he decided this year he didn’t want to stay amongst his insufferable relatives for the duration of the trip, so he found somewhere much more relaxing to stay instead while he explores ireland by himself. apparently the twenty-seven year old can be a bit apathetic & opinionated. but their open-minded & relaxed personality usually makes up for it. i hear they like to play piano, paint, and read in their free time. it makes me think of them as a quiet mid-afternoon walk on the italian countryside, staying up throughout the entire night in a dimly lit room talking about books, philosophy, love, and the stars, & well loved sheet music sprawled all over the floor and desk.

hello potential, friends !! i’m late the to party as usual but this ball of anxiety goes by the name of rue ( she/her pronouns ) and i’ll be playing Angsty Boi™, oliver carmichael. if you would like to hit me up for plots / scream about connections all night long, please give this a big ole like and i’ll come bouncing like a happy ferret in the snow to your DMs !! under the cut, you’ll find a brief biography and stats about oli’s life. you can find all my connections here though if you want to check those out. can’t wait to start interacting !!

+ disclaimer: slight talks of cancer and mental health are mentioned below. read at your discretion.

layer one: the stats.

NAME. oliver alexander carmichael.

ALIAS. people usually just call him by oliver but sometimes oli makes an appearance.

TITLE. over time, he has proudly deemed himself an obsessive pizza addict, artistic nutcase, or one of the missing dead poets society members.

AGE. twenty-seven years old.

GENDER IDENTITY. cis-male.

PRONOUNS. he/him.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. predominately panromantic demisexual. it isn’t so much so that luca is completely disinterested in sex (he’s got a perfectly good libido, thank you very much), he just doesn’t find himself sexually attracted to people based on physical appearance or initial impressions. instead he finds personality, intellect, and existing emotional attachment considerably more compelling. the idea of intimacy with somebody he’s not close with rather repulses him.

CURRENT RESIDENCE. he currently lives in east village in new york but he travels quite often for his job, so residency usually fluctuates depending on how long he stays there. 

BIRTHPLACE. new york city, new york.

NATIONALITY. american.

RELIGION. he was raised roman catholic but converted to spiritual agnosticism when he was eighteen. he views that universal ethics and love are far more important than claims about any deity and trivialize the arguments supporting or rejecting such claims. to oliver, it doesn’t matter which religion someone might follow, nor does it matter whether or not someone believes in God. what matters is what someone does, not what they believe. he has his parents’ full support in his switch even though the rest of his family practices catholism.

SPOKEN LANGUAGES. english (fluent/main), french (fluent/2nd main), italian (still learning but can understand it quite well).

EDUCATION. graduated with a bachelors in music therapy and minor in visual arts at brown university.

PROFESSION. works as a freelancing artist in his spare time as he work full time as a music therapist.

layer two: about.

When someone hears the name Carmichael, they automatically think of words like prestigious, wealthy, and perfect. And who wouldn’t? With the father being a State’s Attorney and mother owning her own real estate business, you had to think like that. In the public eye the Carmichael family was flawless. Lilian was the always supporting wife who thrived in raising money for fundraisers and showing off her cooking skills and David was being a husband who brought home piles of money and was devoted to his family. Everyone wanted what they had. Oliver Carmichael was born into a world where perfection was of the utmost importance. The Carmichael family are one of those prestigious families that has always been full of wealthy and high-class snobs, and Oliver’s parents were no exception. He grew up learning how to be charming and handsome, and aware of his superiority over those of inferior to him. Oliver’s childhood years consisted of him sitting restless at various fancy parties and dinners, while his father kept him from all the treats so that he would grow up to be fit and strong. Oliver’s father was always cold and emotionally isolated from him; only after a perfect son to show off to the world.

He has a brother, who is three years younger than him, named Nathaniel. His relationship with his brother, however, is a bit estranged just like with their father. As much as he loves his brother and wishes they could see eye-to-eye, sometimes they tend to butt heads often. Whether that might mean your typical sibling arguments or full-on blown out fights, they just can’t seem to see get along.

As a young, restless little child, Oliver sought escape from his shallow, chilly life in the form of a friend. His friend taught him that there was such thing as warmth and friendliness, told him lots of stories of Greek mythology, and he learned that his father had been lying about “tactless individuals” being horrible people. However, when his father found out about his associations with his friend, within a week, the boy mysteriously disappeared. Since then, Oliver kept all his unapproved-of friends to himself. Unfortunately, as time went on, Oliver grew up to become a lot colder and more isolated like his father—leaving the feeling of pure joy of meeting that friend he met long ago, had vanished. With his family situation being completely dysfunctional and rottenly horrible, he never experienced what being happy was all about.

Sometimes calling someone selfish is a gross exaggeration, but in Oliver’s case its right on-point. Eventually in his early teens he became distracted, always preoccupied with his own affairs and matters of interest. Whether it was schoolwork, his multiple and usually explosive relationships, or his many existential crises, Oliver was one for waving people away and turning the conversation back on himself. This wasn’t necessary out of narcissism or some hidden agenda: Oliver genuinely doesn’t know who he is. Perpetually fidgeting and restless, it’s not uncommon to see him rapidly flicking a cigarette lighter, or playing with his hair, or bouncing on the balls of his feet. In high school he’s brilliant: it’s that simple. He is the golden boy. Prone to spilling into intellectual spiels - and labelled a know-it-all - he internalized everything, memorizing tiny details, eyes skipping here and there. His intelligence is among his most useful traits and is by far the thing he values most about himself. Much of his ego is built around the confidence that he is effortlessly smarter than almost anybody he encounters. Knowledge is power, and he weaponizes his superior intellect, using his brains more than brawn to protect himself and intimidate the people he doesn’t care for.

Although his parents were the bane of his experience 100% of the time, his mother wasn’t all that insufferable when she had her moments away from his father and not trying to be this pristine ‘perfect’ woman beside her husband. In fact, throughout his childhood she often encouraged Oliver’s belief in extraordinary things and hoped he had carried it throughout his life growing up. His mother had always made him promise to have courage and be kind to others, for—as she explained to him—kindness has power, and that she would see him through all the trials that life could offer, in life and death. Cancer/mental illness TW—when he was thirteen, his mother had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. Upon hearing the news, Oliver’s whole world clasped.

Not only was he at a pivotal stage in his life where everything was changing and becoming more stressful ( becoming a teenager, starting high school, going through puberty ), the only important person who had actually showed him any kind of love in his life had be claimed by the deadly disease altogether. So many thoughts and feelings were going through his mind at the time, that he ran himself physically sick and had experienced his first panic attack. He has since been medically diagnosed with panic disorder. Thankfully the cells on his mother’s cervix were diagnosed at precancerous stage and the doctors were able to treat it because it developed and spread. However, that didn’t and doesn’t stop Oliver from being in a constantly state of panic every time his mother so much as feels pain or coughs due to irrelevant reasons. The entire year had changed him and his family for a while.

Despite issues with his own family, Oliver has a lot of personal of his own he deals with. He is capable of enduing tremendous hardship. Though he may not handle difficulty in the healthiest or best way, often repressing emotion, he mostly like emerges on the other side. He doesn’t know how to express his emotions in a diplomatic way, but rather fumbles it all up and starts to ramble. Rarely opens up because of this. He usually distracts himself from his insufferable emotions with hobbies such as playing the piano, painting, and reading some of his favorite classics. After he moved out the house at eighteen to pursue college and became more independent, he started to come into his own style with his wardrobe. To put it simple, he’s like a hippie dippy child of the universe. No joke. No seriously, his place at home is full of sensual shit and art. It’s getting out of hand and somebody needs stop him soon. He strongly believes that art is an umbrella term that relates to expressing of oneself—not just through photography and painting—and that everyone has the freedom to express themselves however they please. Because of his beliefs, he chooses to break gender roles like bread and wears whatever the fuck he wants because yolo. His appearance pretty much represents his hippie dippy lifestyle with him wearing all sorts of hipster shit. His clothes can be very flowy like, but don’t let that fool you. He doesn’t miss the opportunity to represent his upper class within his style, so he does dress to impress, let me tell you. His hair color changes sometimes too depending on his mood but it’s generally never too eccentric.

After he graduated high school, he furthered his education at Brown University where he majored in Music Therapy and minored in Visual Arts. At the age of twenty-one he graduated and about 6 months later started working as a freelanced artist while working at children’s hospital as a music therapist.

[margridarnauds]

Okay! This just came to mind BUT...fancast for Bres/Sreng, and your favorites of the Fomorians, TDD, and Fir Bolg, also, fan cast your favorite Ulster Cycle characters! :D

GOD I’ve thought of it a lot, and I’ve never quite come up with someone who FITS. 

Sreng-

He isn’t QUITE as beefy as Sreng should be, and I’d actually rather Sreng not be conventionally attractive. (Personally, my take on Bres/Sreng is Bres doing a Fleur Delacour and being like “I AM GOOD LOOKING ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US, I THINK.” Personally, I’d LOVE to have it be more region-accurate, as far as getting actors from the relevant regions of Ireland to be them (so, someone from Munster for Sreng, possibly Northern Ireland for Bres, etc.) and I would genuinely love to see someone who’s not white as Sreng, provided it was done well. (Emphasis on ‘well.’) For centuries now, the Fir Bolg have been coded as POC, as writers used them and twisted them into a pro-colonization narrative (”The Tuatha dé were totally right to eradicate this primitive people”), and I would love to see a triumphant reclamation of that, especially since to this day, there’s this idea that Ireland is all white (Hint: It’s not.) But again. It’d have to be done well, and I’m not sure that would be MY take on it to tell because, as is well known and documented, I’m very, very white. 

But, Aidan Turner’s Black Irish, which fits some of the later descriptions of the Fir Bolg, I think he could do a really good job capturing the different dynamics of Sreng’s personality and his development. I think he could REALLY nail Sreng at the beginning, where he’s this young guy in a family that’s tearing itself apart but who is still devoted to his king as he develops into the king of a conquered people. 

Bres - 

I’ll be honest, I’ve NEVER seen anyone who quite fits into my image of Bres. Bres is just…TOO pretty. There’s no one who’s pretty enough to be him. Like, I’ll search for “Hollywood’s Prettiest Actors” and get “Hollywood’s handsomest actors” and see Chris Hemsworth’s face and I’m just like NO. DON’T YOU SEE? If you can picture him cutting wood outside a log cabin, that’s not BRES. 

Personally, I see Lee Pace MORE as Elatha (and again, I’d rather someone actually FROM Ireland play Bres), but he’s also the closest I can come to Bres. On one hand, he’s 40 while Bres is…young when everything begins, but I think he could really sell the snark factor, and come the actual time period for CMT…he would be about the right age, even though Tuatha dé…aging…it’s complicated. But still. Closest thing. And it wouldn’t be the first time we got someone playing a character half their age. 

Fomoire - 

Indech-

Look. I tried to resist it. I really did. Especially given that he looks next to nothing like the actress I’ve ALREADY cast as his daughter. But like. MADS MIKKELSEN AS INDECH. I REPEAT: MADS MIKKELSEN BEING PROBABLY THE MAJOR VILLAIN OF THE TEXT, NEXT TO BRES AND ELATHA.He was going to either HAVE to be either Balor or Indech, and Balor’s…actually not that bad a guy, all things taken into account. Indech, though? Holy SHIT. And he could be BONE-CHILLING. Imagine him saying Indech’s line about grinding the Tuatha dé’s bones to dust, while Bres kind of just looks at him like “This is what I signed up for.” Him killing Duirgen as in the Dindsenchas poem, but doing it almost casually, the same as him swatting a fly. 

Indech’s Daughter-

I will give you a hint to how MUCH I want Katie McGrath as Indech’s Daughter (who I have many, many feelings about at any time of the day despite her brief appearance): There have been times that the only reason I keep on with my WIP is JUST because I know she’s not getting any younger and I NEED to see her there. THE SNARK. THE SCHEMING. And, in my ideal adaption of CMT, we’d see more of her relationship with her brother(s), father, etc., and I think that she could sell it. Do I think her acting is always the best? …Not really, BUT at the same time…KATIE MCGRATH AS INDECH’S DAUGHTER. PLEASE. 

Ochtriallach - 

It is surprisingly hard to find a Scandinavian actor under 40. HOWEVER, I think he could do a good job, even if most of the Vikings style decisions make me want to pull my hair out. We KNOW he can play brutal characters, and Och is…brutal, though I would also want to show a softer side when it comes to his sister/Ruadan. I’m just going to have to accept that the Indechson family is one of those families where no one looks like each other (and where one of them is slightly more…Irish than the other two).

Tethra- Gerard Butler 

Tfw your sister wants to marry some random ass mortal from Ireland, aka the country that you tried to invade, like, two thousand years ago, and Bres is on his bullshit and all you want to do is go fishing. 

Balor - 

Because redheaded Balor IS a hill I’m willing to die on. Just give Kristofer Hivjuan eyepatch and we’re good to go. 

Cethlenn -  

Look, I KNOW “I think you’d do a good job playing a character named ‘Cethlenn of the Crooked Teeth’ who is also the grandmother of one of the main characters in the story” isn’t what EVERYONE would want to hear, especially when she’s not THAT much older than her prospective grandson, but…I think Myanna Buring could do it. (And anyway, aging is fucky with immortals, so)

Indusa - 

Can anyone ELSE play Bres’ only daughter? 

Ruadan - 

Because I’m almost out of young, ginger Irish actors. 

TDD - 

Eriu- 

Alyssa Sutherland. I could REALLY see her rocking it, just from what I’ve seen in Vikings. Eriu’s an interesting figure, and I don’t think she gets enough credit for being the equivalent of a single mother in a society that…while you have different types of marriage, so Bres STILL has inheritance rights with Elatha…there was definitely a stigma. Especially for raising a son who NO ONE knew the father to. (It’s left ambiguous, but my personal read on the text is that Bres was raised by all the women and that Bres was kept out of the loop as far as who his real father was, hence why he asks Eriu later on.) I also would LOVE to see her as the years go on, watching as Bres and Elatha’s relationship breaks down and being in the state of not being able to help her son, because it seems like any choice she makes just drags him closer to his doom, and I think she could really show that, and really give us an Eriu with spirit. 

Bríg-

Look, I’ll be honest here: Bríg is NOT my favorite character. It’s not that I HATE her per se, it’s just that I get rather sick of hearing about her all the time and about how she was SO OPPRESSED by her TERRIBLE ARRANGED MARRIAGE to Bres. (Note: We have NO IDEA why they married, when they married, or how long they were married. There’s a LOT of info you can fill in the blanks on. People take a lot for granted, not least being that Bríg would be the ONLY one who hated being married to someone she didn’t love and was vastly incompatible with.) Like, she has VERY LITTLE to do in terms of the actual myths, she’s not as well-documented as Bres, she doesn’t have as much of a PERSONALITY as Bres, and yet I have to hear about the self-insert version of her 24/7 while people trash my son. 

BUT MY BITTERNESS ASIDE: Bríg…we get very little on her, and so I’m not going to fill in more than needed, but she’s highly associated with the aristocracy of skill. Think of it: Doctors, poets, smiths, ALL of them are the top, top, top of the social ladder in terms of skills, and she’s patroness of all of them. It’s not said whether she dabbles in them herself or not, but she’s obviously interested, and I think Eleanor Tomlinson is very good at being upperclass when needed, even though people most know her as Demelza from Poldark. I also think that, judging from the rest of her career, she could do a very good job showing that kind of gut wrenching grief she shows at Ruadan’s death. (The way I picture that scene going down, it’s BRUTAL, with Bríg being devastated for this boy she’s never really known and furious at Bres for his role in it, furious at the Tuatha dé and the Fomoire alike for their role in bringing it about.) She wouldn’t be a passive Bríg, I think she’d play a Bríg with a little more agency and spark while hopefully not veering into anachronistic territory. 

I don’t necessarily like casting Bríg in particular with an English actress, but…well…she’s a good fit. 

Airmed - 

HELL YEAH SARAH BOLGER. Airmed is…a delicate figure. Like, think of it: She loses two brothers close together (Cian and Miach), the latter of whom she was prevented from even MOURNING because her father was still so insecure and bitter. She’s as brilliant as anyone in her family (keeping in mind that she’s the aunt of LUGH), but…realistically, you’d have to be TERRIFIED of being too smart, after seeing what happened to Miach. Like, the text itself doesn’t do much in terms of giving her a sense of interiority, but I like to imagine that, when her father says “And Airmed shall remain,” he leans over, gives her a fatherly kiss on the forehead, and she tries to repress a shudder. And Sarah Bolger is very, very good at playing aristocratic ladies with that sense of vulnerability while still being poised and elegant. 

Ogma - 

Doesn’t look QUITE as strong as Ogma needs to be, but I think he could sell it. He tends to do a really good job with the “second in command standing loyally by” type of roles, and I think that works really well with what we get of Ogma. 

Lugh - 

Look….Jamie Campbell Bower could rock it. I know, ANOTHER Brit, BUT…he could rock it. He has that kind of androgynous pretty boyness that’s kind of a main thing with Bres, Lugh, and Cú Chulainn, and I think he could portray Lugh as the bitch that he needs to be. Someone dedicated to the Tuatha dé, yes, but also brutally determined to do whatever it takes to make sure that he ends up on top. (Personally, I think he could be utterly terrifying during the scene at Carn úi Neit with Bres.) 

Nuada - 

I’ll be honest, my gut response was “Colin Farrell” but…I already called him for King Eochaid. And John Lynch is a good actor with a long filmography under his belt. And Nuada…he’s a tragic character, but there’s also a dark edge to him. A dark edge to all the TDD, really, and I think he could do it, as well as show Nuada’s vulnerabilities after losing the arm. (Though I’d also be willing to switch Nuada and Eochaid out.)

Uaithne, the Dagda’s harper- 

Look, it was only a matter of time before I cast Hozier as ONE of the immortals; I just thought it would be HILARIOUS if, after the battle, the Dagda is FREAKING OUT because his harpist has been stolen, and then we cut to fucking Hozier strumming out a song while even Bres looks to be having a good time, and then the Dagda, Ogma, and Lugh BURST in and there’s this “Oh shit” moment. I for one think Hozier would make a very good damsel in distress. 

Fir Bolg - 

On one hand, it would almost be a waste given how little he actually gets, but Colin Farrell would make a DEVASTATING King Eochaid. 

Tfw the TDD arrive out of nowhere and try to threaten you at swordpoint and you probably spent your younger days/your father DEFINITELY spent his younger days enslaved in Greece and so you’re sick to death of colonizers and their bullshit and then they kill you in a three on one battle but not before you leave the throne to your cousin whose brother you killed as part of a generations long feud and who is also disturbingly hot for the champion on the other side and OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. 

Tailtiu- 

Actually had a devil of a time, coming down to Marie Doyle Kennedy or Elena Anaya (the latter of whom had a slight leg up for actually being Spanish), and then I remembered Ruth Negga’s existence and I was like “OH.” I’m not AS familiar with her work on other things, but from what I’ve seen, I think she could do a really dignified take on Tailtiu, where she mourns, but she has to pick herself up off the ground. Tailtiu is a survivor, she’s a woman who left Spain to be with the Fir Bolg (and Eochaid), and then was left a widow, yet managed to become a fixture by being the foster mother to Lugh. (And, ultimately, by marrying Bres’ grandson, which never ceases to be hilarious to me.) I think that we could get a multi-facetted side to her, dealing with her in issues of state as well as her personal life. (I would KILL for some Tailtiu VS Sreng arguments when they’re making the decision to leave or stay.) 

Ulster Cycle:

This will be considerably quicker given I’m not as attached to it as my mythological peeps. 

Blathnat - Evanna Lynch 

My girl. My angel who deserved so much better. Personally, I think Evanna has this…kind of distant, “out there” vibe, which is probably mostly because of knowing her as Luna, and I think that really suits Blathnat. 

Emer- Tamsin Egerton

And yes, ANOTHER English actress. For an Irish/distantly Scandinavian noblewoman. know. I know. But LOOK, she looks very…Emer-ish to me.  

Aiden Gillan - Bricrui or Forgal the Wily 

The man’s made a career being devious and cunning on TV. This is perfect. 

Uathach - Freya Mavor

Aífe - Eva Green

In all fairness, THIS time I didn’t cast an Irish character with a Brit. I just…cast a Scottish character with a French actress. But look, my girl deserves JUSTICE. And I believe Eva Green could give it to her. 

[chroniclesofamber]

THE CHRONICLES OF AMBER & History Lessons

It should be obvious that writers, composers, painters and all artists respond to the time in which they live, and that this is reflected in their art.  And it should also come as no surprise that some material is more strongly influenced by the historical moment than other art.  All this is at least as true for Roger Zelazny and his idolized Chronicles of Amber — perhaps somewhat more so, given that these five books in no small way chart a complete decade.

NINE PRINCES IN AMBER (1970)

History:  Pieces of the first book saw print as early as 1967.  It appears Zelazny worked on the book here and there for three years or more until its publication in 1970.  Still looming over the political landscape of the time was the assassination of John F. Kennedy years earlier, which had led to the Johnson “great society” era and from there to Nixon’s struggles with China, the Soviet Union and the Vietnam War.  Just as influential was the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as that of Robert Kennedy.  The 1960s were dominated by these issues, the Cold War and threat of nuclear annihilation, the rise of the counter-culture and protest movements, the Beatles and Woodstock, and the first landing of men on the Moon.

As someone familiar with Jungian psychology and Frazer’s Golden Bough, Zelazny saw a way to harness the interregnum turmoil of the Sixties while incorporating the ritual of “the Killing of the King.”  (Conspiriologists left and right — politically, and otherwise — have long adhered to the notion that it was not a coincidence that this particular killing of the king had been carried out in accordance with ancient ritual.)  The King of Amber is missing or deceased. Factions have quickly aligned to jockey for the best position to take advantage of the power vacuum.  That a conspiracy to remove both the king and Corwin is uncovered, a few books later, also mirrors the deaths of the Kennedys.  Our hero, already in a state of confusion over his own identity and situation, is thrust into the midst of this power-struggle and — like Armstrong and Aldrin aboard the Eagle — soon finds himself visiting another world.

Lesson:  Corwin charges in somewhat blindly, and is literally blinded (and imprisoned) as a result.  When he miraculously regains both his sight and his freedom, he vows that patience and planning will guide him going forward and that, this time, he will prevail and take his rightful place in Amber.  He also learns that what drives you, what you want, has a lot to say about who you are.

Journey:  He starts out being held against his will in a hospital, recovering from broken legs and near-drowning from a car accident.  By the end of the book, he is recuperating from years of blindness and imprisonment under much better circumstances in a remote lighthouse while cared for by an old friend.  When he leaves the lighthouse, no one tries to thwart his departure (he is voluntarily assisted, in point of fact), he knows exactly who he is and what he wants, and has a clear idea of his objective and how to achieve it.

THE GUNS OF AVALON (1972)

History:  Two years pass, eventful ones.  No shortage of natural disasters — major cholera epidemics in Istanbul and Slovakia; avalanches in France and Peru; earthquakes in Tonghai, Gediz, Burdur, Bingöl, Peru and elsewhere destroy cities and kill thousands; Mount Etna erupts; Montreal is buried by the blizzard dubbed La Tempête du Siècle; the Odisha cyclone overtakes the Bay of Bengal and claims 10,000 lives; 50 tornadoes tear through Louisiana and Mississippi; floods put Bangladesh and eastern Bengal underwater; the Bhola cyclone wipes out half a million people.  But the real disasters turn out to be man-made, so much so that this period could easily be described by the phrase “state of emergency.”  The Apollo 13 mission fails, though the astronauts survive and the summer of 1971 sees a rover rolling across the surface of the Moon.  Oil-price instability and Nixon taking the dollar off the gold standard together signal economic and energy crises yet-to-come, but the real instability is social, political and military.  Coups and assassinations become commonplace as former colonial possessions are granted independence.

Keyword:  Napalm.  Bombs, terrorism, murder and violence, state-sanctioned and otherwise, plague the United Kingdom due to resistance to British rule in Northern Ireland.  American incursions into Laos and Cambodia fuel growing anti-war sentiment.  The publication of the Pentagon Papers and the COINTELPRO documents stolen from FBI offices in Pennsylvania, news images of the Kent State shootings, and revelations of the My Lai Massacre throw gasoline onto the fire:  150,000 protest the Vietnam War in San Francisco on the same day that half a million march on Washington, D.C.  60% of Americans oppose American troops in Southeast Asia.  Meanwhile, the ashes of Hitler, Eva Braun, and the Goebbels family are scattered in East Germany’s Biederitz River.  Echoing all this, Zelazny pulls from the Grail quest an idea which unites the chaos reflected in the natural and human worlds in a single image — the Wasteland — and gives it the form of the Black Road, which Corwin discovers runs all the way to the outskirts of his beloved Amber.

Lesson:  Corwin struggles with his commitment to his system of values as demonic beings and foreign-imposed dictatorship threaten the shadow world Lorraine and Amber herself.  With some reluctance, he risks his own neck for a place lost to him long ago, and abandons his scheme to turn his troops and guns against Amber when the kingdom seems on the brink of falling to an enemy coming in strength.  He understands the necessity to adapt to changing conditions and to remain flexible while pursuing his goals.

Journey:  Corwin intends to sail straight to Avalon but gets lost in his very own Wood of Error, so that a spontaneous choice leads him instead into the hell of Lorraine, its Goat, and the citadel at the heart of the Black Circle.  Toward the end of the book he is again diverted from his course in that his original mission, to exact vengeance on his brother Eric and seize the throne, is set aside when he comes upon the creatures of the Black Road at Amber’s gates.  Just as he set out seeking gunpowder in Avalon but found something else along the way — the knight errant he once was long ago — he marches to Amber to find that the regicide he believed he desired was not what he would ultimately want or choose to do.

Vietnam and the 1970s

The tide had definitely turned against U.S. participation in the Vietnam War by the first years of the decade.  Nixon, having seen Johnson’s presidency founder and meet an early end due to the war, initiated a draw-down of forces.  Australia and New Zealand pulled out of the war in 1971.  By the end of that same year, American ground forces had been withdrawn from the war effort, though involvement would drag on a few more years.

Britain, though victorious after World War I, had been left depleted and weary of war — brutal trench warfare had cost the nation more than a million lives.  The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964 more or less marked the beginning of the Vietnam War in the minds of Americans, when U.S. troop strength went from 23,000 to 184,000.  It had therefore gone on longer than World War I and wound up costing approximately 60,000 American lives.  In America a fatigue had taken hold which was not so different from what post-Great War Britain had known.

Zelazny may have been responding to the mood of the times when portraying the enormity and senselessness of the losses witnessed, and caused, by Corwin and other princes of Amber.

From the first book:

“…ten thousand men dead in a plains battle with centaurs, five thousand lost in an earthquake of frightening proportions, fifteen hundred dead of a whirlwind plague that swept the camps, nineteen thousand dead or missing in action as they passed through the jungles of a place I didn’t recognize, when the napalm fell upon them from the strange buzzing things that passed overhead, six thousand deserting in a place that looked like the heaven they had been promised, five hundred unaccounted for as they crossed a sand flat where a mushroom cloud burned and towered beside them, eighty-six hundred gone as they moved through a valley of suddenly militant machines that rolled forward on treads and fired fires, eight hundred sick and abandoned, two hundred dead from flash floods, fifty-four dying of duels among themselves, three hundred dead from eating poisonous native fruits, a thousand slain in a massive stampede of buffalo-like creatures, seventy-three gone when their tents caught fire, fifteen hundred carried away by the floods, two thousand slain by the winds that came down from the blue hills.”

What tends to jump out from that passage (especially to readers harkening back to the ’70s):

(1)    napalm dropped from aircraft on troops moving through jungles below results in a number of casualties far higher than deaths from any other cause;

(2)    immediately after thousands depart for paradise, their desertion is contrasted with the hell of the detonation of a nuclear weapon;

(3)    aside from deaths due to centaurs, war machines, nuclear warfare and napalm, natural disasters are responsible for the mass losses of life, yet the total taken by disaster is still dwarfed by the number slain in combat.

There is not much other commentary on war in the series.  The subject of warfare is largely confined to the first two books.  But there is this from the end of the sixth chapter of Nine Princes in Amber:

“As I stood on a hilltop and the evening began around me, it seemed as if I looked out over every camp I had ever stood within, stretching on and on over the miles and the centuries without end.  I suddenly felt tears come into my eyes, for the men who are not like the lords of Amber, living but a brief span and passing into dust, that so many of them must meet their ends upon the battlefields of the world.”

[…to be continued in a future post…]

[mizkit]

Brexit in a Nutshell, from an Irish POV

I posted this cartoon (with sincere apologies to cartoonist Sidney Harris) over on Facebook, and an American friend said they’d been trying to follow some of the Brexit news, but frankly it was all a bit confusing (and as if there’s not enough confusion to sort through in the States), so I wrote a very brief primer and answered some follow-up questions, all of which got a nod of approval from some British friends. Then the autopost from my blog got a bit of Tumblr traction, so I’m going to post the full thing here, too, for easier reading for those who are baffled but would like to try to understand a little better. :)

The Brexit Vote & Article 50 In June 1016, the United Kingdom held an advisory referendum vote on whether they as a unit should leave the EU. It narrowly passed, to the shock of absolutely everybody, especially those who voted to leave under the assumption the referendum would fail but wanted to lodge a protest against the government in general. This departure immediately got nicknamed “Brexit”.

In order to actually leave the EU, Britain had to trigger an article in the Lisbon Treaty, an EU-wide initiative, that allows a member state to leave the union. This article is known as Article 50. British Prime Minister Teresa May invoked it on 29 March 2017; the United Kingdom leaves the EU two years from that date, like it or lump it. There are, at the time of typing this, eight weeks until Brexit happens.

The UK believes that there are currently negotiations going on about how gracefully Brexit will happen. (They’re wrong. The negotiations are over, and have been for some time.) They currently have three options: the deal, which means “it will go extremely badly”; No Deal, which means “it will go mind-blowingly, incredibly, unbelieveably, staggeringly badly”; and revoke Article 50, which means “never mind, this is a terrible idea and we’re not going to do it.” No one appears to be seriously considering the final option, which means staying in the EU, although the EU has indicated repeatedly that they will pretend this All Never Happened as long as Article 50 is revoked before midnight, 29 March 2019. However, Article 50 has to be actively revoked; they cannot just let the clock run out and say “whoops, we didn’t mean it, we’re gonna stay in!”, although it appears that many British people wrongly believe that’s what will happen in case of a “no deal” Brexit.

Once the clock ticks over to March 30th, if Britain wishes to change their mind, they’ll have to reapply to join the EU, which will almost certainly and with good reason lose them every bit of the special, favored status that they’ve maintained over the past forty years (like keeping the British pound as its currency, among many, many, many other things).

There are obviously huge massive amounts more to it, economic devastation to Britain, huge economic knock-on effects across Europe, surreal levels of difficulty with customs and trade agreements and food and medical supplies and anything else you can imagine, but at the most basic level, that’s what we’re looking at.

So Why In God’s Name Is It Happening? On one level Brexit is almost identical to what’s going on in the States. The Tory political party (re: GOP) has laid all their bets on the percentage of their supporters who are actual Leavers (Wall supporters) because without that percentage, they lose power.

So they can’t back down without losing political power and they have huge amounts of personal profit retained or made by either maintaining the status quo (see: GOP Senate) or by actually leaving (tax havens, etc; again, think GOP Senate). It’s exactly the same situation. The details are different, but the situation is the same. And not sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but both scenarios are literally exactly what Russia paid for.

The Irish Border The thrust of the thing with the Irish border is that the DUP, who are the tiny, hard-right-wing, pro-United-Kingdom, Northern Irish political party currently propping up the Tory government, refuse to accept any kind of border agreement that lies outside of the physical island of Ireland, like, in the Irish Sea, for fear it will help movement toward a united Ireland.

In the meantime, the Good Friday Agreement, negotiated and supported with the help of the EU and which ended the ongoing sectarian war between Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics (“the Troubles”) here in Ireland, means that there *cannot* be a hard border (with check points, customs checks, passport control, etc) between the North of Ireland and the Republic. The backstop basically means there’s no internal border until post-Brexit trade agreements (which could take years, even decades) have been settled on.

The thing that really horrified me about the backstop was that when it was announced, it really almost literally read “So we’ll put in this backstop, and then a miracle will happen, and then it’ll all be fine.” I mean, I read the agreement several times when it was published in December 2017 and it’s really astonishing magical thinking. But the DUP hates the backstop, half of the British MPs (congresspeople) think Ireland should stop making such a fuss and just exit the EU along with them so THEY HAVE no more problems and don’t understand why Ireland is being so obstreperous because it’s not like England has ever done anything mean to Ireland(!), and the Brits keep saying “We can get a better deal on our exit” despite the EU saying in no uncertain terms that they’re really quite done negotiating.

Follow-up Questions From The Audience Is [Teresa] May [Britain’s current Prime Minister] a Leaver or a Stayer? Has she been handed a raw deal and is making the best of it?

Ironically enough, May was a Stayer, but has ended up in charge of Leaving.

I think suggesting May’s making the best of a bad deal is unnecessarily generous. She could have refused to invoke Article 50 or pointed out that the Brexit referendum was advisory, not binding, and that she was not going to lead the country into this shit show, or, indeed, simply not entered into a coalition with a bunch of Catholic-loathing misogynistic racists in the form of the DUP and therefore not become PM or had to deal with this whole question at all. But holding power was too tempting to pass up, and here we are.

What about Scotland? Do they want to stay in the EU? Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in, as units. Wales and England voted to leave, as units. Everyone assumes that if Brexit actually happens (and there’s no evidence it won’t), there will be an almost-immediate referendum held in Scotland regarding declaring their independence from the UK. There are some loopholes (they need a central bank, which they don’t currently have because they’re part of the UK, for example), but given that the LAST referendum, a handful of years ago, came very near to passing, and that the EU has made positive noises about the potential of Scotland’s application, it’s to be assumed that they will succeed in their referendum and apply for EU member state status.

I mean, this also opens the question of what happens if they declare their independence, because I can’t really imagine England sending an army up to Hadrian’s Wall, but at this point, God Alone Knows. And don’t get me started on Gibraltar.

Nobody has a clue what’ll happen in the North of Ireland, although poll last year indicated that for the first time in history there’s close to a majority willing to consider unification as an option. The romantic in me has great hopes for that result, but there are enormous numbers of emotional, historical, religious and political hurdles to clear before it happens. In the meantime, the Republic considers Northerners to be citizens of the Republic already, and over the past two years so many people from the North (and from the island containing England, Scotland and Wales) have applied for their Republic-of-Ireland passports (because having them means they’ll still be able to travel freely around the EU) that the passport people have repeatedly run out of applications.

It’s a total shitshow. It’s very exciting to be an American in Ireland who has as much emotional investment in the mess over here as the mess over there, and by “very exciting” I mean “the absolute worst”. :/

[inaheartbeat-phff]

Chapter 9

Monday, January 12th, 8:00am Princess Arabella's Suite, Huis ten Bosch Palace, The Hague

Arabella sat at the head of her dining room table, nibbling on a toast, reading the morning paper while Harry sat on her left eating his pancakes. They were both ready for the Parade that is starting at ten that morning. Prince Harry and Princess Arabella will have their first public appearance since their engagement that was announced right now.

(Author’s side note: Just imagine her skirt is longer until just before her knees.)

They both were enjoying the quiet morning eating their breakfast before there were three knocks on the door. Arabella sighed before folding her paper and wiped her lips and Harry drank his tea.

"Good Morning Your Royal Highness', these came for you this morning Ma'am. Ms Jane and Mr Fox are also here ma'am, sir." Pieter bowed his head and announced their private secretaries who came in behind him and stood by the sides. Then eleven men in suits came in the room holding a tray with tiara's sat on top of them. Harry sat there jaws open as he stared at the people in surprise. Arabella just sat there drinking her tea.

"Are these the tiaras I got for my birthday?" Arabella asked Pieter. He nodded his head before adding, "As well as tiaras you got as an engagement present ma'am."

"Please proceed." Arabella said knowing that every year for her birthday she got some jewelleries and sometimes tiaras from her godparents.

"The Blue Sapphire Flower set from His Majesty King Willem-Alexander." Pieter announced and a man on the front of the line brought forward the tray with the tiara and matching earrings.

"Ruby Star jewellery set from Her Majesty Queen Maxima."

"The Bella tiara from Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

"The Enchanted Pearl tiara from His Royal Highness The Grand Duke of Luxembourg."

"The Sapphire Teardrop jewellery set from Her Royal Highness The Grand Duchess of Luxembourg."

"The Rose Tiara from His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden."

"The Pearl and Crystal tiara from His Majesty King Phillipe of Belgium."

"The Golden Forrest tiara from Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark."

"The Blue Fairy tiara from His Serene Highness The Prince of Liechtenstein."

"The Golden Dragonfly Tiara from His Serene Highness The Sovereign Prince of Monaco."

"The Rose Bandeau Tiara from His Majesty King Herold V of Norway."

"The Elisa head piece tiara from His Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain."

"And Lastly as an engagement present from Their Majesties King Willem-Alexander and Queen Elizabeth II, The Blue Crystal Cluster tiara."

"Jane, will you please send the official thank you notes to the Kings and Queens for the tiaras and update the royal vault account about the history and from where the tiaras originated. Pieter please inform Sara and Anna about these tiaras and put them in the Vault thank you." With a nod, Arabella sipped her tea as Pieter proceeded to leave the room together with the jewelleries leaving Ed and Jane by the wall.

Harry couldn’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed.  He couldn’t remember a time where he had seen that many tiaras in one place and openly. He remembered his mother had a few collection but not that much. Arabella just got eleven new tiaras just by getting engaged and turning thirty. Harry knew that Kate had inherited his mother’s tiara through Will by default and when he and Arabella marry, she will inherit some too but Harry doesn’t think that Arabella will need them as she will have her own sets clearly from just now as well as her own family jewels.

"What just happened?" Harry thought aloud, he was still in shock of what had occurred a few minutes ago.

"It is customary that Princess Arabella receive a few jewellery or tiaras for her engagement. It was a sign of respect that every monarch in Europe especially sent some form of jewellery to mark the Princess's engagement. It is also an understanding and a sign of treaty amongst the current European monarchy with a future monarch." Jane quickly stood forward and explained to Harry simply. There was more to that of course. Arabella is close to most if not all of Europe's reigning monarch therefore most of them sent her tiara's. However, other heirs during their engagement got pieces of jewelleries such as brooches, watches, jewellery sets. Not as grand as Arabella. Then again, she calls most if not all of the reigning monarchs aunts and uncles.

"Please sit down, Jane and Ed. We have much to discuss this morning before the parade." Arabella said as a request but they knew that underneath, it was more like an order.

Ed tried to shake his head, getting briefed earlier about the etiquette towards the princess, but when he looked to his left, he saw Jane shook her head lightly before sitting down one seat below the princess on her right side. The protocols were so much different than to their British ones. He was sure that he didn’t act this way towards Prince William and even calls prince Harry, Harry sometimes. He knew that when at home, he usually don’t bother Prince Charles so he doesn’t know how to act around the heir of the throne. Ed then pulled the seat next to Jane and sat down.

"The announcement were live ten minutes ago and so far the response have been positive. Many would like to see the Prince by your side in public more often." Jane started off, she had her tablet in front of her with information open and her notes easy to access.

"That's wonderful news." Arabella said before calling the footman forward. "Call Miss Sara or Anna, whichever is not occupied with the gifts and tell her to come here please and bring my notebook with her as well. Thank you."

"Prince Harry's office staff will still reside at St. James Palace and will communicate here for the time being. They will then move to Noordeinde Palace in March after your royal tour in the UK is done." Ed said next, ticking it off the list.

"Yes, in the meantime, Harry will use my staff  while he is here to work on any projects. The staff members that he doesn’t have will have to use mine from now on until further notice." Arabella added on.

"What exactly does that mean?" Harry asked, before they could move on to the next topic. Harry knew that he can always ask questions if he was confused and doesn’t understand. Arabella is trying to ease him into this life and makes sure he understands it all.

"Staff such as press secretary, lawyer, and doctor are those you share with Will and Kate. Now that you are engaged to me, you are no longer their employer and you will use mine from now on." Arabella tried to explain.

"Today's parade will start at Binnenhof, where you will meet the Prime Minister as well as the parliament, meet the crowds and will be on an open topped car that will take you to Noordeinde Palace. There will be a soldier's march and a marching band that will lead you to Noordeinde. The parade will take a few hours as half way through, the both of you will have to walk and talk to the people. King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and former Queen Beatrix will meet you at Noordeinde for Lunch. Lunch is a public affair so there will be photographers present. After lunch, you both have meetings to discuss and pick wedding planners and things related to the wedding." Jane told the pair.

"Is that all?" Arabella asked as she finished her tea.

"Yes Ma'am. Your car is waiting for you downstairs to take you to Binnenhof." Ed said as both he and Jane stood up and bowed to Arabella and Harry before leaving the room.

"Are you ready for today?" She asked her fiancé, looking at him with loving eyes.

"I think so."

"It will be much different now that everybody knows you're my fiancé."

"I know, but I'm ready." Harry kissed her knuckles before standing up and pulling Arabella up to go downstairs and into the cars.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Harry and Arabella arrived at Binnenhof to a thundering screams. There was a lot of people present and Harry could clearly tell that Arabella is loved by her people. There was an open top vehicle ready infront for the steps of Binnenhof. The car stopped a few meters away from the car and Harry went out of the car first. With a wave, he went over to Arabella’s side and helped her down the car. When she stepped out of the car, the crowds grew wild and she waved at them making them screaming even louder.

The couple held hands before moving towards the crowds by the barricades to greet them.

“Congratulations on the Engagement princess Arabella!” An elder woman said as she handed Arabella a bouquet of roses.

“Thank you so much!” Arabella smiles at the woman, shaking her hands.

Arabella and Harry went down the barricades and shook people’s hands. All of them either wishing Arabella a happy birthday or congratulating them on their engagement. They reached the point where their car is next to them so they waved to the rest of the crowds before moving to the car. Harry climbed in first before helping Arabella up and into the car.

“You okay?” Arabella asked Harry holding his hands in hers.

“Yeah. The people clearly love you.” He said smiling at her.

“I try to be as relatable as I can even though I am a royal and is privaledged. That’s why I try to have a lot of charities to help out.” She said shrugging her shoulders.

“You are amazing, you know that right?” Harry said before leaving to kiss her cheeks lightly. The crowds saw that and cheered very loudly.

Laughing they both turned to the crowds of people waiting to see them and waved.

On their way to Noordeinde Palace, the engaged couple could see signs wishing Arabella a Happy birthday as well as some UK Flags mixed with the Netherlands Flags.

“You know this will be somewhat like our wedding but instead of a car we will be in a glass carriage my father used and in Amsterdam. There will be soldiers marching and a marching band. There’s more that will happen I just can’t remember what.” Arabella told Harry.

“As long as I get to be your husband, I’m okay.” Harry said cheekily to Arabella which earned him a slap on his arm.

“Stop abusing me woman!” Harry laughed. “I’m trying to be loving but I got slapped instead. Sheesh woman.”

Shaking her head, Arabella just laughed and laid her head on his shoulders. Unknown to the couple, this private moment was captured by the press and sold to every magazine cover in the world with headlines such as: "PRINCE HARRY AND PRINCESS ARABELLA SHOWS PDA" "PRINCE HARRY CHANGING UP THE ROYAL GAME" "PRINCESS ARABELLA PREPARES PRINCE HARRY FOR PUBLIC DO'S AND DON'TS".

Arriving at the half point mark, they got out of the car with Harry helping Arabella and waved to the crowds once more. The marching band, where students from all over the country were selected to play on the parade, started up the march with the couple walking behind them.

Harry waved at the people and mouthed hellos to them, trying to get eye-contact to some of them to show that 'yes, I noticed you'. Arabella smiled at the people and made faces at the babies that were carried on their parents shoulders.

When Harry noticed a sign that said, "Prince Harry, forget Arabella, Marry me instead."  Harry laughed at that one before nudging Arabella and pointed to the sign. Arabella read it and laughed out loud, throwing her head backwards. Harry smiled at the sight before looking at the person who's holding out the sign. He then smiled before shrugging and mouth sorry before turning back to Arabella. The girls holding the signs squealed as they got noticed and awed at the love that can be seen in Harry's eyes when he looked at Arabella.

Arabella and Harry walked towards Noordeinde Palace, sometimes going to the side to say hello to the people and play with the kids. The pair would also sometimes dance while they walked and had a lot of fun on the parade.

When they arrived at Noordeinde Palace, Arabella's parents, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima was there accompanied by Princess Beatrix, the Prime Minister as well as Arabella's three younger sisters. Stopping in front of them, Arabella gave a deep curtsy while Harry bowed his head. When Arabella stood straight again, she went forwards to kiss her father on the cheeks before moving on to Queen Maxima. Harry then followed suit and greeted the king with a handshake and a kiss to the cheeks. This gave a public stamp of approval for the royal couple and they moved inside to the dining room after giving the crowds another wave.

"Come lets go to the dining room and have lunch. I’m sure you’re both famished.” Queen Maxima said to her daughter and future son in law ushering them into the dining room where around two photographers were waiting.

Since this is considered an official event, the press are allowed in and take photos to sell to the highest bidder. It’s a give and take scenario, the press respects the royal family and in turn the royal family gives the press something so they can do their jobs.

During lunch, they all shared a few jokes and laughed a few times. With the PM asking Arabella on her plans for the year, this time more constructed and more formal than their lunch the week before, King Willem-Alexander asked about their newly engaged title and how they felt with everything. With the press taking pictures and taking note what was happening in the room, they all knew to keep the conversations light and to not reveal anything that might endanger their safety.

At the end of lunch, the press invited were very happy as they got pictures and moments where Prince Harry was being affectionate with Princess Arabella as well as the relationship between the King and the Prince. It showed very good behaviour on Harry’s part as well as a polite and dignified young man that is capable of being a future King. This was approved by the public when they saw how he was interacting with the prime minister and Princess Beatrix. He was respectful and polite, answering all the questions they had for him yet he was also being his charming and funny self.

After lunch, the group went to the balcony to watch the flyover that the airforce have dedicated for Arabella and you can tell that Harry is amazed. During Trooping of the Colour, Harry is always either beside (when he was still single) or behind William. He was never front and center and that was where Harry was for this flyover. With King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima at the center, Princess Beatrix was next to Maxima and the PM next to her while Arabella was next to King Willem-Alexander and Harry next to her. He was also not used to the minimal amount of people on the balcony looking over the crowds and the flyover. He was used to having a big family and have everyone crowded in that balcony to watch the jets.  

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry and Arabella, after the flyover, waved one final time to the crowds before going indoors and into Arabella’s offices in the East Wing of the Palace and that’s where Harry’s will be as well. Right now, they have a meeting with their team to prepare them, mostly Harry about the press conference, interview session and photo opportunity happening on Wednesday.

Adam, acting as both Arabella’s and Harry’s press secretary is leading the meeting with Arabella’s media relations team, now also acting as Harry’s.

“Good Afternoon Your Royal Highness’, this meeting will mainly be a refresher course of protocol and ways to act during the press conference on Wednesday. This is mainly for you sir.” Adam started off.

“Just be grateful that you’re not doing this alone and that it’s not an etiquette class. Gosh madam Sü is a pain in my backside.” Arabella mumbled to Harry’s ear.

“The conference will be conducted at Noordeinde Palace, as it is known as a working palace. It will be held in the east wing, where the Princess of Orange's offices are located. The doors open to press at nine in the morning so they will be able to set up their equipment's and get questions ready. Most questions are being sent over first so we can comb through it and take out unwanted questions, but there will still be questions that is difficult to answer on the day itself." Arabella's communications secretary, Aleta said. "Pieter will announce your entrance as 'Her Royal Highness The Princess of Orange and her fiance, His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales.' Princess Arabella will enter the room first. She will then be the first to sit down and everyone else will follow suit."

"It is important that Princess Arabella will open the panel and questions will start coming in. Avoid answering the questions in detail but avoid being too vague. We do want some substance for the interview that will be conducted right after the press conference." Her advisor, Gerrit mentioned.

Harry now realise what an important deal this is for them, for Arabella to be announced first, for her to open the conference and for her to end it as well. She is the future monarch after all and it has to be seen that she is in command of the whole thing.

"There are no rules of affections here so feel free to do so if you please. We want to make this conference as natural as possible. Unlike the British, we like to be as transparent with the press as much as we can afford to so they will be more respectful towards us. After the incident with Queen Maxima, there is an understanding between the press and the royal family." Jane piped up.

"As for the interview, it will be done by the BBC, as per your traditions, inside the drawing room at centre court. Your interviewer will be Mishal Husain from the BBC and it will air later that night at eight local time, seven in the UK. The photoshoot will be taken by Tatiana, Her Highness' official photographer and will take place all over the palace." Hans, the deputy communications secretary said.

"Three official engagement photographs will be released that night right after the interview by the Dutch royal family's official twitter account as well as Kensington Palace twitter account. They will be released simultaneously." Adam said before continuing, "As for the state dinner on Thursday night, Prince Harry is only required to bow to reigning monarchs now that he is engaged to Princess Arabella. It is crucial that you do not and I repeat do not bow to anyone other than Kings and Queens. Countries that are invited to attend are, Belgium, Denmark, Principality of Liechtenstein, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Principality of Monaco, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Brunei, Japan, Jordan, Lesotho, the United States and Canada. It is crucial that we remain an ally to these countries.”

“Guests and dignitaries will arrive at half past seven. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima will arrive at quarter to eight and Princess Arabella and Prince Harry will arrive last at eight sharp. The state dinner will be at Noordeinde Palace. They will introduce the Princess of Orange first before introducing Prince Henry of Wales and will enter the room together.” Gerrit said. “The King and Queen will sit down first followed by the Princess of Orange and Prince Harry and all the other guests will follow suit.”

“Okay I think we’re done for the day.” Arabella clapped her hands standing up, making the rest of the room stand up as well. “It’s been a long day and I would like go home and spend alone time with my fiancé thank you very much.” With a wave, Arabella left the room with Harry following

“Well that wasn’t so bad.” Harry said next to her walking to the entrance so they can head back to Huis ten Bosch palace.

“Actually I think that was a meeting more than a protocol lesson.” Arabella thought out loud. “Anyways, what do you want to do tonight?”

“Should we order in and watch a movie?”

“Hm, I’ll have Jane to order Chinese and maybe we can watch Suits.” Arabella smiled up to Harry.

“Yes to the Chinese and Suits? Really? That’s not a movie.” Harry laughed.

“Yes suits. I feel like watching that tonight. Just to relax.”

“Fine. Better call Jane now for the Chinese. God knows what they need to do before the food comes to you.” Harry said pulling her to the door and into the car. “Let’s go home.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~

“Okay so the Chinese food arrived ten minutes ago and its being processed right now, did you put on the tv?” Harry asked walking into the living room where Arabella is currently at.

“Yeah, it’s ready.” Arabella stood up and went to the couch where the blankets are laid out and Harry now sat. She climbed on the sofa and cuddled into Harry before pressing play on the remote, starting the episode. Halfway through, the Chinese arrived being brought out by Pieter and when the show ended the pair was hooked.

“I think if you never met me, you would be with her.” Arabella said pointing to the screen where Rachel, played by Meghan Markle froze. “Maybe even get married and have a nice small intimate wedding at St. George Chapel.

“Hm, maybe. But I’m with you and I’m having a big televised and overly glamourous wedding with you in Amsterdam. I’ll take you over her anyday.” Harry said before kissing her.

“Maybe we should take this to the bedroom?” Arabella looked up at Hary with a small smirk.

“You little..” Harry picked her up and Arabella laughed making Harry smile.

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