#well except broke this base which was joan

[liquid-luck-00]

Connections 9

Chapter 9

this is based on @thepeacetea daminette soulmate au

Masterlist *** First *** Previous *** Next

Warning ⚠️ Character death

~~~~~~~~~~

Mari always thought her soul bond was curious. She never heard or activated the bond on purpose. She doubted her soulmate did either, because of what Bruce had told her about the league of Assassins. But everything seemed just off. Apart from that one switch she never had contact again. The only thing she has to gleam of her soulmate are the abilities she learned through him. She settled into bed after biding her papa goodnight.

That might not be a bad thing. As soon as that thought crossed her mind was she pulled again, but this was different.

---

Time seemed frozen for Damian.

His mother came for him again. She brought an army and him, an older version a clone of himself. She brought his clone Heretic, who was pulling the sword from Damian's chest.

I lost, he thought as the sword fell from his hand.

Father, Batman, rushed towards him when two orbs of light circled above him, one red and one green.

The red light morphed into a girl with a high ponytail and a red mask covered her eyes, her eyes emanated a red light. She was dressed in a basic suit that resembled a cross of Nightwing and Red Robin's uniforms, just all red with black spots, gloves, and boots.

The green orb turned into a boy a short cloak covered his torso, the hood covered his head and face, two cat ears were part of the hood, his eyes were glowing green. A tail flicked around under the armor set around his waist.

The girl looked at him now in his father's arms.

"No!" she yelled everything fell silent to him as he watched about a dozen more orbs appeared each forming a figure in either red or green. All except the first two moved and quickly dispatched the clone, the army of assassins, and pushed mother back.

His vision faded to black.

He could no longer feel his father's arms under him.

---

Nightwing, Red Hood, and Red Robin were now around Batman and the fallen Robin. The past holders of the miraculous formed a ring around them, linking hands. They moved them all to the Bat-cave.

"Come back little one." Hippolyta, if she remembers what Tikki told her, cupped her face as she faded away.

"Tikki," she whispered out.

"What's wrong?" the little goddess rubbed her eyes.

"I... We... Cave... Now." She managed. She transformed and swung through Gotham unnoticed until she reached the cave under the manor.

The past holders and her cat were still there. She dropped her transformation and ran to her extended family.

"Pixie how?" Jason had taken off his helmet and hugged her.

"You were there weren't you." Tim stated, so she nodded confirming his theory.

“He is neither alive nor dead he is in a plane between the two." A cat, Hei Mao, dressed in a long sleeved black gi, armor plates on his right upper arm and a cat mask on top of his head, eyes like the other cat apparitions were glowing green a black domino mask covered his eyes.

"How is that possible?" Bruce coaxed himself to whisper, cowl down and holding back tears.

"He is your bonded. You are tethering and maintaining his soul whole." A ladybug in knightly armor, red glowing eyes like all the other ladybugs spoke, Joan of Arc.

"My bonded," Marinette breathed under her breath.

"The magic which flows through your veins flows through him. He is your..." the only male ladybug, a red feathered headdress and red cape, red warrior paint covered his eyes and stained his hands, Micazoyolin, added only to be interrupted by Dick.

"Soul mate." Dick gasped from next to her.

"It is possible to revive him." a woman in a loose black dress and a Jaguar patterned cape with green under the cape. A black Jaguar headdress with long green feathers sat on her head green warrior paint on her face and hands, Ocelome, drawled looking between Damian's lifeless body and the green soul of her cat. "By using the waters of the Lazarus."

A gasp was heard from the bats and birds in the cave, Mari flinched further into her big brother Jay. Mari began to sag from exhaustion and the visages of the past holders began to flicker.

"Perhaps this conversation is best held elsewhere," Hippolyta broke the silence. "I, Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, invite all of you to Themiscyra. Until we meet in the flesh my child."

Two by two each pair of ladybugs and their cats disappeared, all but the solitary cat, her cat, remained. Everything was still and silent within the cave. No one knowing how to proceed, so they stayed as they were.

None of them could tell you how long they stayed like that, but a new voice started.

"Bruce care to explain why my mother told me to bring all of you to Themiscyra." Wonder Woman appeared on the Bat-computer. "By Zeus. The apparition of the cat. Do you know what this means?" Bruce’s back was to the computer, Damian’s body still in his arms protected by his cape from Wonder Woman’s sight.

"Yes we do. Come by around noon everything should be sorted by then." Bruce brought himself to say, Tim ending the call after a nod from Wonder Woman.

"Come on pixie let's get you home before the sun rises." Jason put on his helmet. She nodded, transformed , and let Jason pick her up as they left the cave.

Jay-Jay stopped a few blocks away, she moved and clung on his back like a baby koala. As Red Hood swung and ran across the roof tops. He tucked in his little sister and left.

---

One moment he was dying in his father's arms. No he did die in his father's arms. But what was odd was the tug after a moment in the darkness.

The next he was standing in the Bat-cave next to his father and his body. The first girl in red was gone, but the others were here still. About 10 minutes later a red figure of a girl swings into the cave. If he could move or speak he would have. Or maybe not. The figure was engulfed in pink light and there stood Marinette Stone. She ran into a hug from Todd.

"Pixie how?"

"You were there weren't you." Drake stated, Marinette must have understood the statement as she nodded her head. It was silent until one of the green and black figures spoke.

"He is neither alive nor dead he is in a plane between the two." Hei Mao, the other voice in his mind supplied.

How am I not dead?!

He could still not move or speak so he stood and listened.

"How is that possible?" he heard his Father.

"He is your bonded. You are tethering and maintaining his soul whole." Joan of Arc, the voice again supplied.

"My bonded," Marinette, the voice supplied but now he placed it, the voice is Marinette.

"The magic which flows through your veins flows through him. He is your..." the only man in red, Micazoyolin, Marinette corrected his thought.

"Soul mate." Grayson shrieked.

"It is possible to revive him." Ocelome, she supplied and he took the intonation, without our analyzing now. "By using the waters of the Lazarus."

He heard his family suck in a breath and seem to become stone still, Marinette flinched further into Todd who was hugging and seemingly guarding her.

"Perhaps this conversation is best held elsewhere," Hippolyta broke the silence. "I, Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, invite all of you to Themiscyra. Until we meet in the flesh my child."

Two by two each pair of ladybugs and their cats disappeared, all abut him. He still could not move, he could not speak either, but his mind raced.

I am dead.

Actually I am apparently not alive or dead.

My best friend is my soulmate.

My soulmate does not hate me.

She knows. She knows me. She knows my aggravating family.

She is stuck with us, with me.

Marinette is my best friend who happens to be my soulmate.

His thoughts would have continued had it not been for the voice coming from the Bat-computer.

"Bruce care to explain why my mother told me to bring all of you to Themyscira." Wonder Woman, "By Zeus. The apparition of the cat. Do you know what this means?"

"Yes we do. Come by around noon everything should be sorted by then."Father spoke his back to the screen shielding his body from vein.

"Come on pixie let's get you home before the sun rises." Todd finally spoke taking Marinette home.

Father finally stood, for a moment he looked at him and then his body before moving to place his body in a portable cyro-chamber in the Bat-plane.

Then the darkness returned.

---

The next morning she woke up with a resolve that everything would turn out fine.

Okay sure I just found out my best friend is my soulmate. the was killed by his clone, but he is in a state of limbo. Okay this was a lot but this is not the end of the story.

So as she, her papa, and Penny were having breakfast a knock sounded at the door.

"I'll get it." Penny excused herself. "Tim what a surprise come in." Tim was promptly sat at the table a mug of coffee and pancakes were placed in front of him.

"What brings you here so early mate?" Papa chuckled after watching Tim chug the coffee.

"Well, we were planning on a family trip for the week but..." he started. "B locked himself in his office and Damian won't budge, so" he looked at Jagged. "We were hoping that we could steal little bean for the week since both of them can't say no to her." he rushed barely stopping to breathe.

"Whatcha say little rock star," Papa turned to her smiling, "want to spend the week with your brothers?"

"Yes." She jumped up and hugged her dad and ran to her room to pack. Tim-Tam joined her a minute later as he asked Diana about the climate of the island.

"Why can't we go too, Lucky Penny?" Mari heard her papa ask.

'Sigh' "You've got a full schedule, why don't we plan something for the following week, your clear then." they heard Penny compromise.

"Rock 'n hear that little star," Papa poked his head in as they finished packing. "Maybe we'll steal one of Bruce's birds next week for our trip." He semi whispered the end.

Tim seemed surprised at the comment but schooled his features quickly, he picked up the suitcase and Mari pulled her papa out of the penthouse suite, gave him a hug as she went with Tim.

Less than an hour later she was sitting in the Bat-cave having loaded the bags in the Bat-plane, with the three eldest Wayne children and Bruce, waiting for Wonder Woman.

"Hey Mari can I ask something?" Tim sat down next to her.

"What is it Tim Tam?"

"What did Jagged mean when he said one of Bruce's birds?" Everyone was now watching the two and listening to the response that was to follow.

"Oh, um papa might have figured out that Uncle Bruce is Batman." She was now fiddling with her fingers in her lap. When no one answered she continued. "Remember a couple of months ago when the Sirens crashed Papa's concert. Well when Uncle Bruce and Jay Jay moved me and Papa away and into his dressing room, B didn't make his voice gruff and gravelly as Batman's usual voice. So papa thought maybe his voice isn't usually as gruff and the new voice is actually his real voice, and once papa hears a voice, he never forgets it. I promise I never told him and I never told him he was right but he is pretty sure and I don’t think he’ll even believe you if you tell him he’s wrong." Mari scrambled to say, ending it with a small sad smile looking up through her lashes at everyone.

"Father like Daughter," Bruce was the first to speak. "Everyone is getting a permanent voice modifier installed in their suits." This resulted in every one laughing. Effectively breaking the tension previously in the room.

"Smart idea B." Jason answered making Mari smile wider.

That was when Wonder Woman decided to arrive. Ending the conversation as they boarded the Bat-plane leaving for Themyscira.

Next

~~~~~~~~~~

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[piratewithvigor]

My first thought in regard to every band that gets played on my radio station

ACDC: Every dad’s favourite band

Adams, Bryan: Every mom’s favourite singer until Michael Buble came along

Aerosmith: haha they thought Vince Neil was a lady

Alice Cooper: he’s a Game Of Thrones fanboy and I have proof

Alice In Chains: my sister doesn’t like them because she decided AC were Alice Cooper’s initials ONLY

Allman Brothers Band: good music for dropping acid to

Allman, Gregg: That’s too many Gs for one name

Animals: House Of The Rising Sun, or who even cares

Argent: Sometimes Hold Your Head Up is really catchy

Asia: Tuesdays

Autograph: one of the members went on to be a pharmacist

Bachman-Turner Overdrive: There are just so many pop culture jokes about Taking Care Of Business that whatever I say won’t be as funny

Bad Company: with their song; Bad Company, off their album; Bad Company

Benatar, Pat: Always getting her confused with Patti Smith

Black Crowes: I like them for Lickin, but it doesn’t seem to exist outside of one shoddy video on youtube and my old CD

Blackfoot: this band name feels kind of racy

Black Sabbath: Dio was not better or worse than Ozzy; just different

Blondie: I like Call Me, but Blondie confuses me stylistically

Blue Oyster Cult: MORE COWBELL

Bon Jovi: Hello, childhood trauma, I missed you

Boston: ONE GUY. ONE GUY DID IT ALL AND NO ONE KNOWS

Bowie, David: Don’t let your children watch The Man Who Fell To Earth, or David Bowie’s will end up being the third penis they see in life

Browne, Jackson: Another musician ruined by Supernatural

Buffalo Springfield: Jack Nicholson was at the riot they sing about

Burdon, Eric: no ideas, brain empty

Bush: ditto

Candlebox: ditto once more. Who are these people?

Cars: This band feels so gay and so straight at the same time, I can only assume they’re the poster children of bisexual panic

Cheap Trick: I played Dream Police on Guitar Hero so fucking much because it was the only song anyone who played with me could keep up with

Chicago: Chicago 30 exists, but they do not have 30 albums. Fucking riddle me that

Clapton, Eric: 6 discs in one Greatest Hits is too many. That’s called “re releasing your discography”

Cochrane, Tom: For some reason, everyone thinks Rascal Flats did it better

Cocker, Joe: Belushi did it right

Collective Soul: who?

Collins, Phil: If his biggest hits were done by MCR, they would be emo anthems, but because he’s 5′6″ and from the 80s, they’re not

Cream: *Vietnam flashbacks on the hippie side*

CCR: *Vietnam flashbacks on the war side*

CSNY: David Crosby; meh

Deep Purple: THEY’RE SO MUCH MORE THAN SMOKE ON THE WATER

Def Leppard: the only music for when you’re a heartbroken bitch but also a sexy one

Derek And The Dominos: Clapton and ‘Layla’ broke up

Derringer, Rick: Tom Petty if he was from the midwest

Dio: You thought it was an anime reference, but it was me, Dio

Dire Straits: You can tell how bigoted a radio station is based on how much of Money For Nothing they censor

Doobie Brothers: I have yet to smoke weed, but I listen to the Doobies, and I think that’s pretty close

Dylan, Bob: I take back everything I said about him in my youth

Eagles: Hotel California isn’t their best song, but the memes that come from it are second to none

Edgar Winter Group: @the--blackdahlia

Electric Light Orchestra: Actually an orchestra and sound a fuckton like George Harrison

ELO: I really hesitate to ask what happens with the 7 virgins and a mule

Essex, David: no prominent memories of him

Fabulous Thunderbirds: cannot spell

Faces: Who on earth thought that was a good album name?

Faith No More: I got nothing

Fixx: One Thing Leads To Another is a damn bop

Fleetwood Mac: I ain’t straight, but I’m simply not enough of a witch to enjoy them to full potential

Fogerty, John: He got sued cause he sounded like himself

Foghat: Slow Ride slowly becoming less coherent feels like a drug trip

Foo Fighters: He was just excited to buy a grill

Ford, Lita: deserved better

Foreigner: dramatically overplayed

Frampton, Peter: a masterful user of the talk box

Free: dramatically underplayed

Gabriel, Peter: leaving Genesis changed him a lot

Genesis: if someone likes Genesis, clarify the era, because yes, it does matter

Georgia Satellites: sing like you have a cactus in your ass

Golden Earring: Twilight Zone slaps, but it doesn’t slap as hard as this station thinks it does

Grand Funk Railroad: Funk

Grateful Dead: I like their aesthetic more than their music

Great White: there are so many fucking shark jokes

Greenbaum, Norman: makes me think of Subway for some reason

Green Day: the first of the emo revolution

Greg Kihn Band: RocKihnRoll is literally the most clever album name I’ve ever seen

Guns N Roses: They have more than three good songs, but radio stations never recognize that

Hagar, Sammy: I’m still trying to figure out where he lived to take 16 hours to get to LA driving 55 and how fucking fast was he driving beforehand?

Harrison, George: He went from religious to rock, and if he had continued rocking, he would have gotten too cool 

Head East: I respect people who use breakfast foods as album names

Heart: Magic Man and Barracuda are played at least once every goddamn day. They’re not even the best songs!

Hendrix, Jimi: I have both a cousin and a sibling named after Hendrix references

Henley, Don: Dirty Laundry gives me too much inspiration

Hollies: Somehow sound like they’re both from the 60s and the 80s at the same time

Idol, Billy: he’s doing well for himself

INXS: Terminator vibes

Iris, Donnie: knockoff Roy Orbison

James Gang: too many funks

Jane’s Addiction: if TMNT had a grunge band representative

Jefferson Airplane: *assorted cheers*

Jefferson Starship: *assorted boos*

Jethro Tull: The only band to make you feel not cool enough to play the flute

Jett, Joan: icon

J. Geils Band: I requested them on the radio once and it got played

Joel, Billy: he really did just air everybody’s business like that

John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band: literally wtf is that name

John, Elton: yarn Elton sits in my basement, unstaring. Please someone take him from me

Joplin, Janis: Queen

Journey: Stop overplaying Don’t Stop Believing. It takes away from the rest of the repetoire

Judas Priest: literally started the gay leather aesthetic

Kansas: another fucking band Supernatural stole

Kenny Wayne Shepherd: the man confuses me to the point where he isn’t in the right place alphabetically

Kiss: Mick Mars and I will simply have to disagree on the subject

Kravitz, Lenny: runaway vibes

Led Zeppelin: Fucking fight me if you don’t think they’re the most talented band (maybe not the most talented individually, but collectively, no one comes close)

Lennon, John: My least favourite Beatle for reasons

Live: I got nothin

Living Colour: slap a decent amount

Loverboy: do you not get TURNT the fuck up to the big Loverboy hits? Who hurt you??

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama is a Neil Young diss track

Marshall Tucker Band: no opinion

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: VERY STRONG OPINIONS THAT THEY AREN’T GOOD

McCartney, Paul/Wings: Power couple

Meatloaf: I have nothing but respect for a man who willingly named himself Meatloaf

Mellencamp, John: voted cutest lesbian of 1987

Metallica: I liked their appearance on Jimmy Fallon

Midnight Oil: I get them confused for Talking Heads a lot

Modern English: who?

Molly Hatchet: Hollies vibes, but also Georgia Satellites vibes

Money, Eddie: DAN AVIDAN, IF YOU SEE THIS, COVER TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT

Motley Crue: Stan Mick Mars and John Corabi. They’re the only ones who deserve it

Mott The Hoople: no one loves them except for David Bowie

Mountain: props for naming an album ‘Climbing’

Nazareth: I want to make a John Mulaney joke here, but I can never come up with one

Nicks, Stevie: witch queen

Night Ranger: I get them confused with Urge Overkill

Nirvana: Kurt Cobain was the ally grunge needed

Nova, Aldo: he’s Canadian, at least

Nugent, Ted: *serves a ghost as jerky*

Offspring: nothing here

Osbourne, Ozzy: this bitch crazy

Outfield: Your Love is kind of a sketchy song, but it slaps hard

Palmer, Robert: low quality Eddie Money

Pearl Jam: *grunts in Eddie Vedder*

Petty, Tom: I have so many feelings about Tom Petty and they are all good

Pink Floyd: which one is Pink?

Plant, Robert: solo career is a crapshoot, but his voice is unparalleled

Poison: I want them to write a song called ‘Alice Cooper’

Pretenders: I want to say good things, but I have nothing to say

Queen: A doctor of astrophysics, a screaming girl, a disco queen and a diva walk into a bar. It’s Queen; they’re there to play a gig

Queensryche: neutral opinion

Quiet Riot: they got big because of a song they hated. I love that

Rafferty, Gerry: the second-sexiest sax opening in all of music

Rainbow: Ritchie Blackmore created something very magnificent

Ram Jam: one good song and they didn’t even write it

Ratt: I’m sure they have more than Round And Round, but I don’t know it

RHCP: funky, but if you have paid money to hear them, you’re going to The Bad Place (I don’t make the rules)

Red Rider: basically Golden Earring

Reed, Lou: Walk On The Wild Side would be such a cool song if it wasn’t so dull

REM: American Tragically Hip

REO Speedwagon: Props for having a dad joke as an album title

Rolling Stones: Never in my life could I imagine the drummer being named anything but Charlie

Rush: How to make being uncool the coolest fucking shit

Santana: The world needs more Santana

Scandal: There’s something really funny about The Warrior being my brother’s “song” with his girlfriend

Scorpions: Was Wind Of Change written by the CIA? Only the spotify podcast I got an ad for once could say

Seger, Bob: A different variety of Eric Clapton (frankly a better variety, but that’s just me)

Simple Minds: we ALL forgot about you

Skid Row: Sebastian Bach is prettier than all of us

Soundgarden: music that makes you feel like you dunked your head underwater

Springsteen, Bruce: my arch-nemesis. Maybe someday, he’ll find out about it

Squeeze: according to my friends, the stupidest band name ever, but they’re theatre kids, so you know

Squier, Billy: If he can make it through 1984 alive, you can make it through whatever bad day you’re having

Stealers Wheel: Yet another band who I always mistake for George Harrison

Steely Dan: my house’s nickname for the Robber in Settlers Of Catan

Steppenwolf: Either makes me think of Jay & Silent Bob, Jack Nicholson, or that time I had to cut 6lbs of onions

Steve Miller Band: when you’re in the right mood, they slap hard

Stewart, Rod: my soundtrack to summer 2015

Stills, Stephen: Love The One You’re With Is Catchy, but the lyrics are questionable

Stone Temple Pilots: the only band to write a song about goo you smear on yourself

Stray Cats: an obscene amount of merch is available for them

Styx: Supernatural would have ruined them for me too if I hadn’t been into them previously. 

Supertramp: I hunted for Breakfast In America for two years and it was worth every hunt

Sweet: I will never understand my two-month obsession with Ballroom Blitz when I was 15, but it was legit all I listened to

Talking Heads: you may find yourself in a pizza hut. And you may find yourself in a taco bell. And you may find yourself at the combination pizza hut and taco bell. And you may ask yourself; ‘how did I get here?’

Temple Of The Dog: I keep confusing them for Nazareth

Ten Years After: somehow still relevant

Tesla: not the car or the dude

The Beatles: Evokes a lot of opinions from people. Mine is that I love them

The Clash: I showed my sister the ‘Lock The Taskbar’ vine ONCE and it still kills her

The Doors: evokes teenage terror from deep within my soul

The Guess Who: Canada’s answer to confusing question-themed band names

The Kinks: kinky

The Police: wrote the theme of 2020 and everyone somehow forgot it was about a teacher resisting becoming a pedophile

The Ramones: playing all of their songs in a row wouldn’t take more than 2 hours

The Romantics: you don’t think you know them, but if you’ve seen Shrek 2, you have

The Who: If someone can explain Tommy to me, I’d be glad to hear it

The Zombies: I think they happened because of the 60s

Thin Lizzy: Could the boys maybe leave town?

Thorogood, George: blues, but make it modern

Toto: the most memed song behind All Star

Townshend, Pete: just makes me think of the end of Mr. Deeds

T-Rex: Mark Bolan is an icon

Triumph: The no-name brand of Rush

Tubes: like the yogurt

Twisted Sister: they did a christmas album and my mom does NOT hate it

U2: U2 Movers; we move in mysterious ways

Van Halen: RIP Eddie

Van Morrison: honestly, who’s named Van?

Vaughn, Stevie Ray: Steamy Ray Vaughn

Walsh, Joe: The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get

War: Foghat, but even groovier

Whitesnake: the most successful band to be named after a penis

Wright, Gary: the 90s thanks him for writing the song every movie used for the “guy sees cute girl and it’s love at first sight” scene

Yes: To Be Continued

Young, Neil: The best part of CSNY

Zevon, Warren: the album cover of Excitable Boy makes me deeply uncomfortable for reasons I don’t understand

ZZ Top: has been the same three guys since 1969. Lineup unchanged. 

3 Doors Down: They feel a little modern to be on a classic rock station, but whatever

38 Special: Why 38?

[sartle-blog]

Reimaging a Renaissance Man: Leonardo da Vinci in Fate Grand/Order

(Source: Aniplex)

  In Delightworks's mobile game Fate Grand/Order, you’re challenged to save the world with the help of historical figures and legends. In most cases, those historical figures turn out to be far different than you’d expect. Sometimes a person like the famous shogunate swordsman Okita Souji is changed to a female without explanation, but more often than you’d expect, the game is surprisingly clever in how it incorporates historical facts about the characters into their design. If you go into a history class and start to argue that King Louis XIV was secretly female, you might get kicked out. Looking past the anime images on the surface though, there is some art history to be learned from Fate.

  (Source: Aniplex)

  Leonardo da Vinci in particular is a great example of this. Leonardo is genderbent to be female, with the explanation that his search of perfection and beauty led him to redesign his body into the Mona Lisa. Also, she’s a little obsessed with the painting.

  Left: Mona Lisa by Shimokoshi (image: Aniplex) Right: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre

  Fate also features a lot of art, called “craft essences” that come with effects to assist you while equipped in battle. Most of which have no historical basis except for, obviously, the Mona Lisa.

  (Source: Aniplex)

  As a mobile game, Fate rotates time-limited events and one called “Da Vinci and the Seven Counterfeit Servants” featured three craft essences inspired by famous masterpieces. They were earned by collecting Leonardo’s famous manuscripts and counterfeits of all his masterpieces and writings. 

  Left: Maiden Leading Chaldea by pako (image: Aniplex) Right: Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix in the Louvre

  Collecting Leonardo’s manuscripts rewarded you with Maiden Leading Chaldea inspired by Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. In it, Liberty has been swapped out with Joan of Arc, referred to as Jeanne D’Arc in Fate, whose flag is as inspiring to your in-game army as Liberty’s was to France. In the bottom left, you can spot Gilles De Rais, who was a close ally of Jeanne, but this is the Bluebeard version of Gilles, not the noble warrior he was prior to Jeanne’s death. In history, Gilles de Rais was a companion-in-arms who fought alongside Joan of Arc. But after retiring from the military he became known for an interest in the occult and was convicted as a child serial killer. The story of his horrible murder spree was the inspiration for the Bluebeard fairytale.

  On Jeanne’s right is Hans Christian Anderson who’s holding up papers in place of guns because words are his weapons and the pen is mightier - well you get the picture. In the back are other in-game characters, but neither have a historical counterpart, so moving on. 

  Left: The Merciless One by Aoi Tsukimoto (image: Aniplex) Right: Pietà by Michelangelo, in the Apostolic Palace

  The counterfeit manuscripts give you The Merciless One, based on the Pietà by Michelangelo who was a close friend of Leonardo (in Fate lore not so much in real life). This features Jeanne D’Arc Alter who is a dark version of Joan of Arc. In the image she’s cradling the pre-Bluebeard version of Gilles de Rais, the noble warrior who fought bravely by her side. The art mirrors Jesus being held by Mary after his crucifixion with Gilles de Rais’s fall into evil. 

  Left: The Scholars of Chaldea by Cherokee (image: Aniplex) Right: The School of Athens by Raphael in the Apostolic Palace

  The last famous art inspired craft essence of the event was The Scholars of Chaldea. You received this one by collecting fake copies of Mona Lisa, Self Portrait, and Vitruvian Man. This piece was inspired by the painting The School of Athens, but specifically just Plato and Aristotle in the back center. In it, Dr. Roman (your in-game boss essentially) and Leonardo are featured as the two great minds whose partnership will help save the world.

  Leonardo Da Vinci also has two side quests focused on her, both of which, while fictional narratives, feature a few winks and nods to lesser-known facts and paintings from the artist’s life. 

  Tobias and the Angel by Andrea del Verrocchio in the National Gallery London

  In the first, she’s traveling with you to London and casually mentions she was the model for the archangel Raphael in Verrocchio’s painting in the National Gallery. Based on that brief description it's most likely Tobias and the Angel to which she is referring. There’s no historical evidence to back her claim as a model but it's possible (the real-life) Leonardo did assist in the painting of the piece and if so it's his earliest work as a painter.

  (Source: Aniplex)

  You don’t get to visit the National Gallery to see the piece, instead you make your way to the British Museum to see Leonardo’s old friend “Mikey”. It’s the only appearance that Michelangelo makes in Fate so far, and Leonardo makes a point of saying that he’ll be unable to return in the future. She speaks of him fondly as a dear friend, calling him the other “uomo universale” but since he’s a lingering ghost and the game is mainly combat-based you do have to kill him. Rest in peace Mikey.

  In real life, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were known rivals. Their best known interaction was a pair of commissions that put them in direct competition with each other. They were hired to paint battle scenes on the same wall of a Council Hall in Florence. Long story short, neither finished their work and they parted on unfriendly terms. But, it is thought that despite their rivalry they both had a private respect and appreciation for the other’s work. 

  Drawing of Michelangelo’s David by Leonardo Da Vinci in the Windsor Castle, The Royal Collection

  At least on Leonardo’s side, we know Leonardo did a sketch of Michelangelo’s David for example. In Fate, Leonardo mentions more than once how much she admires David, but in real life Leonardo likened Michelangelo’s depiction of human musculature to a “sack of walnuts.” Maybe he meant that, maybe he was just bitter. 

  If Michelangelo ever drew any of Leonardo’s works we’ll never know since he torched most of his sketches right before he died. At the core of their interaction in Fate, Leonardo is basically saying that Michelangelo was the closest she ever had to a true equal to her level of genius, at least in the field of arts. That aspect might have held true for real-life Leonardo. 

  Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre

  Leonardo’s second side quest focuses a lot on her mother and the painting Virgin of the Rocks. It’s not known if she’s talking about the one housed in the Louvre or the one in the National Gallery. She’s referring to both but mentions she can’t remember if one was painted by her apprentice. Based on the museums’ descriptions of the two versions, they were both done by Leonardo himself. She says that while painting the Madonna she found herself longing for her mother and that’s what prompted her to bring her mother to come stay with her in Milan.

  Leonardo says this with a twinge of regret, remarking that by moving her mother to Milan she may have unknowingly shortened her life and caused her to fall ill. In actual history, there isn’t much known about Leonardo’s mother. He writes in his journal of a Caterina, who is strongly believed to be his mother, that visited him in Milan but died within a year. Her cause of death is also up for debate so the tragic narrative suggested by Fate’s Leonardo does seem to be a fictional invention. It’s been theorized by some that Mona Lisa is based off of Leonardo’s mother. When asked about this in Fate, she says no but adds she’s sure her mother had a wonderful smile.

  In the side quest, Leonardo also mentions going way past the deadline for the commission of Virgin of the Rocks and getting really annoyed when she found out how much the patron wanted to pay for the piece. This has some historical basis, the description of the version in the National Gallery says it was possibly made to replace the original since Leonardo wasn’t paid adequately for the first and sold it elsewhere. 

  (Source: Aniplex)

  Next in the side quest, you encounter Leonardo’s assistant Gian Giacomo Caprotti who she refers to as Salaì. How she describes him in the above image seems to be historically accurate. Salaì is a nickname that means “little devil” and he stole from Leonardo often. Leonardo da Vinci wrote of him frequently in his journal, mostly documenting what he broke and how much Salaì’s father would have to repay him. 

  Despite all of his antics, Salaì lived with Leonardo for thirty years and was even left half a vineyard in his mentor’s will. So when you run into his ghost in Fate, it's pretty clear Leonardo was hoping for a real reunion but since he’s an evil ghost who can’t talk you have to put him out of his misery just like with Mikey. Rest in peace little devil. 

  (Source: Aniplex)

  Lastly, Fate introduced a second Leonardo Da Vinci, called Da Vinci Lily, and she is a reference to a unfinished masterpiece of Leonardo’s. This version is also known as Gran Cavallo, the name of a horse sculpture the real-life Leonardo was unable to ever complete. 

  (video source: Aniplex)

  She’s also supposedly modeled off her childhood appearance... if Leonardo looked like the Mona Lisa as a child. 

  Design for a fighting vehicle by Leonardo da Vinci in the British Museum

  Da Vinci Lily is in command of an armored vehicle called the Shadow Border. The Shadow Border, which was built/designed in part by Da Vinci, bears some similarity to an armored tank Leonardo designed in his journals. 

Studies of Horses by Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of the Royal Library, Windsor Castle

  In real history, Gran Cavallo was to be the largest equine statue ever created, but at the time Leonardo’s attention was divided between The Last Supper and countless other projects. He created a clay model of the piece meant to be later cast in bronze, but French bowmen used it for target practice when they invaded Milan. He was never able to recreate it and the story goes he never stopped mourning the project. 

  Left: Bella Lisa by Simosi Right: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre

  Da Vinci Lily also got her own version of the Mona Lisa, called Bella Lisa.

On the other end of the spectrum of historical accuracy in Fate, Thomas Edison is a lion, for reasons having nothing to do with his life or career. So while the same can’t be said for every Fate character, the design and writing around Leonardo da Vinci feels like a loving homage to the life and work of the universal genius.

By: Danielle DeVeaux

[inkribbon796]

Forgotten Light Ch. 3 I’m All Rainbow, All the Time

Summary: Thomas is back, and no one is sure what to do about that.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

Everyone in the base was braced. None of them, not even King or Mare had dealt with or seen a demon like this. They had only heard rumors. Rumors of temperament creatures that lashed out with no warning, driven only by near animalistic emotions.

“Joan?” Thomas asked in confusion, reaching up to hold the side of his head.

“Yeah buddy, you okay?” Joan knelt down. “Took quite a bad fall, buddy.”

“Ugh,” Thomas moved to a seated position. “I feel like it.”

“You okay, can I get you anything?” Joan asked. “Your head hurt? You want me to get you something?”

“Yeah, I,” Thomas looked around in confusion, realizing that he wasn’t in his old apartment he used to share with a couple of his friends. “Where are we?”

“I know it’s super confusing but we’re safe right now, let me get you something for your head,” Joan promised, gesturing to a seat.

Down the hall, Virgil felt weird. His heart was racing with more than just apprehension over Thomas being freed. Now he felt something deeper, like he was being pulled somewhere or in like a limbo space waiting to be moved somewhere else. Virgil clutched onto Roman’s sleeve for dear life.

Joan smiled and Thomas got up on shaky legs, almost falling forward but Joan caught him and helped him into a chair. “Just sit tight, we’ve got coffee, juice, soda, water?”

“Just water’s good,” Thomas looked around, Nate tensed when he stared in his direction a touch too long. “I . . . Who’s house is this?”

Joan opened their mouth to answer — they were actually going to redirect the conversation — as they were getting a glass of water and some random painkillers they always had stashed in the common room for little aches and pains any of the heroes so often got from their line of work. Before Thomas could hear their answer a sharp shock of pain shot through his brain, it was one all the Sides felt regardless of their distance to Thomas.

The pain brought with it brief flashes of memory. Of alarm as something was dropped, and then relief of catching the object . . . followed by pain so intense and deep his body couldn’t process it.

“Thom—” Joan began, watching Thomas double over in pain before he froze because suddenly wisps of blue aura appeared before Logan and Patton materialized out of almost thin air. They had been standing down the hall with Roman and Virgil, and suddenly it felt like something had shoved them away.

Thomas still had his eyes closed for a second as the dull throbbing subsided down again, Logan realized with minute horror that Thomas would see himself and Patton and there was nothing he could do to stop that.

The world seemed to come to a tense halt as Thomas startled at their presence, and Patton spoke.

“Hey there kiddo,” Patton greeted loudly, he’d had plans to rush out before Logan could because the logical Side had been asked to make enough sacrifices lately in Patton’s mind. But this worked as well, Logan wouldn’t have to be alone.

“Who?” Thomas stared in confusion and Logan was at a complete loss of what to say.

Patton however was not, “Hello, I’m your conscience. I tell you all the good you should do, and remind you of all the good emotions you feel.”

Logan stared at Patton in alarm. Patton was a terrible liar, anyone who knew him well enough, knew that.

And the situation was precarious enough.

“Uh, okay,” Thomas told him nervously, down the hall, Virgil felt the pulling sensation again. But there was something in him that was fighting it.

“Do you remember anything?” Logan cut in, he still felt like his usual self so if he was a thrall, it was no different from how he usually conducted himself.

“No, should I?” Thomas asked, feeling anxious.

“Well Thomas, we didn’t want to rush you but you’ve been kinda having amnesia lately,” Joan lied.

Logan panicked, knowing how unsustainable the situation was, “Stop. Stop.”

Joan, Patton, and Thomas all looked at him. “We cannot start all this with lies when the instant he steps outside he’s going to figure out we deceived him.”

“What’s going on?” Thomas asked as Logan rubbed at his eyes.

“You’ve been dead for almost twenty years,” Logan admitted, adjusting his glasses. “Truthfully no one can say if you even are the original Thomas or a projection based on aura.”

Thomas stared at him in horror and alarm, “What?”

“Lo, maybe we should do this delicately?” Patton urged.

Logan looked around and saw the broken camera that had been the source of so much trouble lying on the ground and held it up for Thomas to see. “You were killed over twenty years ago and were split into multiple parts. Morality and I are two of those parts.”

“Wait, I am so confused, I don’t remember anything, I was at some party before,” Thomas’s voice was starting to pitch towards hysterics.

“Yes, we only recently discovered there was anything left in the camera and you came out,” Logan explained.

Thomas felt his heart beat faster and the sensation of needing to run away as fast and far as possible. And finally the tugging sensation inside of Virgil overcame whatever was keeping him clinging onto Roman in pure terror. He was ripped away from Roman’s arm and came to stand directly behind Thomas. Thomas immediately sensed there was something behind him and turned.

Virgil looked over at Thomas and the two of them startled before they screamed at the same time.

Thomas threw himself off the couch to get away from Virgil, and the anxious Side ducked behind Patton and Logan, nervously looking around him at Thomas, his hood tugged deep over his eyes.

“Uh, hi,” Thomas greeted nervously from the floor.

Virgil, surprising even himself, hissed at Thomas like an angry cat. His eyeshadow darkening, pupils little more than needle-thin slits.

Thomas leaned away in alarm, Joan rushing over to him. Roman rushed out of his hiding place when he heard the hissing but calmed down when he saw that Virgil was hiding behind the other two Sides.

“He’s not that keen on new people,” Joan apologized, helping Thomas up. “He just about hit me in the face when we met.”

Not offering an immediate comment, Thomas watched Virgil cautiously. Logan broke the tension by stepping in the middle.

“He’ll calm down a bit if you keep your distance,” Logan promised and Thomas nodded, looking around and seeing Roman standing down the hall. “Is the color theme normal?”

“Yes,” Logan answered. “Princey, you are doing no favors by loitering in the halls.”

“I do nothing of the sort,” Roman huffed out, strolling over. “I was merely waiting to make my grand entrance, which you so rudely spoiled.”

Logan rolled his eyes, “This is Princey, the one in purple here is Anxiety.”

“Anxiety,” Thomas repeated tensely and Virgil hid even further into Patton’s back.

“Yes, he wanted to be a little overdramatic with his name,” Logan answered. “But if you don’t harm him, he’ll leave you alone.”

“Okay, but I never did get an answer on where I am,” Thomas reminded.

“You are in the Coalition of Heroes’ base,” Logan answered. “We store all types of magical artifacts here. Some heroes live here, others like us only come in and out for patrols.”

“Heroes?” Thomas repeated.

“We’re superheroes,” Roman waved his arms and red sparks of magic spread across the air.

Thomas gasped in excitement, “Like Spiderman?”

“If that helps you internalize the idea,” Logan sighed.

“We all have superpowers,” Patton smiled.

“Cept[1] for Lo over here, he’s just a nerd,” Roman joked, jabbing finger at Logan.

“I happen to be a very crucial part of this team,” Logan huffed. The more jovial atmosphere helped calm Thomas down, which in turn was calming Virgil down. “I helped redesign all of our suits.”

With the mere idea that superheroes were real that got Patton and Roman to start recounting some of their wilder stories. Thomas was clearly excited and Virgil was starting to unglue himself from Patton’s back.

The situation was starting to de-escalate. Logan dared to get hopeful. But he wasn’t going to just accept that Thomas couldn’t turn them into his thralls. Logan needed to bridge the gap first. Consciousness wasn’t enough to thrall them. Proximity wasn’t enough. Even the knowledge of what they all were didn’t do it.

But would tactile contact—

“Come here!” Patton cheered and threw out his arms before he tackled Thomas with a hug, alarming everyone in the room except for Thomas.

“Oh, we’re, uh,” Thomas stammered in surprise but accepted the hug.

Everyone in the room stayed braced but Patton pulled away and smiled.

“See, a hug always makes things better,” Patton gave Thomas a huge smile. Both his and Thomas’s eyes were a sky, baby blue color.

“Yeah,” Thomas echoed his smile as his eyes slowly bleed back into his normal brown. “It does.”

“We should go home,” Patton suggested warmly as his eyes were slower to fade back to brown. “Been a long day, I’m hungry.”

“What do you want?” Logan tried to remain calm, trying to see if there was anything different about Patton.

“Cake!” Patton cheered, and Logan couldn’t help but smile.

“Nonsense, you will eat something of substance,” Logan told him and Patton pouted, making Logan roll his eyes and give a relenting huff. “If you eat a full, nutritious meal, then you may have cake.”

“Yay!” Patton threw his hands up.

Logan brought all of them into the little kitchen area. Distracting Thomas and the other Sides as Joan went to talk to Nate and orchestrate a way to empty the room to feed people back in bit by not.

Thomas was, at first, nervous with meeting new people. King kept his distance, and Mare didn’t even make himself visible. The young hero refused to get closer than halfway across the room. Eventually Thomas warmed up to people, irregardless of whether King’s presence made him wary.

Logan chalked it up to the presence of food and brightly colored costumes. The newcomer was enamored by the idea of being a superhero and if it kept Thomas close enough for them to watch for any hint of violence or thralling the Sides, then no one was going to fight it.

When it came time to turn in for the night, the Sides quietly decided to stay close to Thomas in case anything happened. Roman, Virgil, and especially Patton we’re so exhausted they fell right asleep.

However, Logan wasn’t so fortunate. He found himself unable to sleep. But he wasn’t tired, the farthest thing from it, in fact. He was wide awake. As if he had slept a full eight hours and was ready to restart his day.

Logan lay in bed and tried to get to sleep. But as the night passed, he found sleep was impossible, but unlike every other time he was not exhausted and fatigued come morning.

In fact as he watched Virgil check his phone, the anxious Side pressed up against him as the others were getting out of bed, Logan found he still felt rested.

And he worried if Thomas’s re-emergence had anything to do with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations:

1. Except

[perfectlymarilynmonroe]

I just saw a tiktok talking about how Marilyn had relationships with women, they mentioned Joan Crawford and Elizabeth Taylor and her acting coach, and that her therapist revealed that to the public. They even said Joe confirmed it saying that that was the reason their marriage didnt work out. I have never heard or read that before but everyone just took it as facts in those comments, could you clear it up?

Nope. All of the rumors of her dating woman have never been proven, and Joe never confirmed it. I’m really not sure where the rumors originated from, but biographers and sites continue to spread the myth.

There definitely hasn’t been anything to prove an affair with Elizabeth Taylor, as for Joan Crawford, Biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles wrote that she invited Marilyn back to her home and made a pass at her:

“Marilyn was more than ready for an affair with someone she could also admire. Her emotional life was far more complex than the public could even imagine. No sooner had she extricated herself from her entanglement with Natasha than she became involved in a serious friendship with Joan Crawford. Although Crawford’s career was again in decline, she was still a social presence of considerable importance in Hollywood. She had initiated the relationship by phoning Marilyn at the studio and inviting her to her home for Sunday brunch. Marilyn was thrilled to be taken up by one of her early idols and began dropping by Crawford’s home frequently. They found that they had a mutual interest in Christian Science. The aging film queen began to give her advice on how to dress and even offered her part of her own wardrobe, but since Crawford was petite and Marilyn was five foot six, nothing would fit. Just before Marilyn’s first date with DiMaggio, at another brunch and with the hostess slightly drunk, Crawford made a sexual pass at Marilyn and the friendship abruptly ended. Marilyn, who saw nothing wrong with lesbianism, recoiled more from shock than offense. Marilyn had a strong self-protective instinct and she must have sensed that any intimate involvement with Crawford would lead to big trouble down the road. Although she turned Crawford down, she determined to be discreet about what had happened. Within the next year and a half, her loyalty to the woman would be severely tested.”

In “My Story” Marilyn’s ghosted autobiography here is the chapter entitled: “My Joan Crawford Feud”

I met Joan Crawford at Joe Schenck's house. She was an impressive woman. I admired her during dinner. I hoped that when I was her age I would keep my looks as well as she had. Some movie stars don't seem like stars when you meet them, and some seem more like stars off the screen than on. I don't know which is better, but Miss Crawford was definitely the latter type. She was as much the movie star at Mr. Schenck's dinner table as she could have been electrifying a courtroom in a movie drama-even a little more. I was pleased to see I had made an impression on Miss Crawford. She said to me after dinner, "I think I could help you a great deal if you would let me. For instance that white knitted dress you're wearing is utterly incorrect for a dinner of this kind." It was the only good dress I owned. I wore it evenings as well as daytimes when I was going any place important, and I cleaned it myself every day. I looked at Miss Crawford's beautiful evening gown and understood what she meant. "Taste," Miss Crawford went on, "is every bit as important as looks and figure." She smiled very kindly at me and asked, "Will you let me help you, my dear?" I said I was flattered to have her offer to. We made a date to meet Sunday morning in church. It turned out that Miss Crawford and I went to the same church. After the church service, Miss Crawford said as we met coming out, "I'm so glad to see you. But you mustn't come to church in flat heels and a gray suit with black trimming. If you wear gray you must wear different gray tones, but never black." It was my only suit, but there was no sense defending it on that ground. "Would you like to come to my house with me?" Miss Crawford asked. I said I'd like to very much, and it was arranged that I should follow her car in mine. I was excited at what I thought was going to happen. Miss Crawford, I felt pretty sure, was going to offer me some of her old ball gowns and ensembles that she'd grown tired of. The house was very beautiful and elegant. We had lunch in the kitchen with Miss Crawford's four children and a beautiful white poodle. After lunch, Miss Crawford asked me to come upstairs to her room. "Brown would look very good on you," she said. "I must show you the things I've been knitting." She showed me a number of knitted dickies in different shades of brown and explained that they were to be worn under different shades of brown suits. "The main thing about dressing well," Miss Crawford explained, "is to see that everything you wear is just right- your shoes, stockings, gloves and bag all fit the suit you're wearing. Now what I would like you to do is to make a list of all the clothes in your wardrobe, and I'll make a list of all the things you need to buy and see that you buy the right things." I didn't say anything. I usually didn't mind telling people I was broke and even trying to borrow a few dollars from them to tide me over. But for some reason I couldn't tell Miss Crawford that she had seen my wardrobe in full-the incorrect white knitted dress and the wrong gray suit. "It's so easy not to look vulgar," Miss Crawford assured me, when I was ready to leave. "Do make out a list of all your things and let me guide you a bit. You'll be surprised at the results. And so will everyone else." I don't know why I called Miss Crawford up again, except that I had promised I would. Maybe I was still hoping she would present me with some of her discarded ball gowns. I think, also, I had some intention of telling her the truth about not being able to buy any fancy clothes. But when I heard Miss Crawford's voice on the phone, I had to start palavering as I'd done before. Had I made out that list of my wardrobe? No, I hadn't. That was very lazy of me. Yes, I knew. And I would make the list out in a few days and call her up again. "Good," said Miss Crawford. "I'll be expecting to hear from you." I didn't call Miss Crawford again. In fact, the next time I heard from Miss Crawford was in the newspapers. This was a year later. I'd gone to work at both Century-Fox again, and the Marilyn Monroe boom had started. I was all over the magazines and movie columns, and the fan mail at the studio was arriving in trucks. Among the honors that were now showering on me was the privilege of presenting one of the Oscars to one of the Award winners at the Academy's annual affair. I was frozen with fear the night of the Academy Award Ceremonies. I waited tremblingly for my turn to walk up to the platform and hand over the Oscar in my keeping. I prayed I wouldn't trip and fall and that my voice wouldn't disappear when I had to say my two lines. When my turn came I managed to reach the platform, say my piece, and return to my table without any mishap. Or so I thought until I read Joan Crawford's remarks in the morning papers. I haven't saved the clippings, but I have sort of remembered what she said. She said that Marilyn Monroe's vulgar performance at the Academy affair was a disgrace to all of I Hollywood. The vulgarity, she said, consisted of my wearing a dress too tight for me and wriggling my rear when I walked upholding one of the holy Oscars in my hand. I was so surprised I could hardly believe what I was reading. I called up some friends who had seen me at the ceremony and asked them if it were true. They laughed. It wasn't true, they said. They advised me to forgive a lady who had once been young and seductive herself. I have written out this accurate account of one of my "feuds" because it is typical. The feuds are all started by someone whom I have mysteriously offended-always always a woman. The truth is my tight dress and my wiggling were all in Miss Crawford's mind. She obviously had been reading too much about me. Or maybe she was just annoyed because I had never brought her a list of my wardrobe.

*From my FAQ about whether MY STORY is trustworthy:

My Story is based off of interviews that Ben Hecht conducted with Marilyn in late 1953 and early 1954 for an autobiographical work they were doing together. The project was nipped in the bud after Hecht’s assistant leaked the manuscript to a publisher in England. Marilyn lost faith in the project and the book sat away for decades after her death. It landed in the hands of the Greene family, and they published it in 1974 -  10 years after Hecht’s death. After much digging and consideration, I would not regard it as a factual autobiography. The loose information provided like her childhood, molestation, rise to stardom, relationship with Joe DiMaggio is factual, but I would not take the book word-for-word. It’s also incredibly disappointing that her name, Norma Jeane, is mis-spelled as “Norma Jean.” Marilyn’s niece, confirms this on her website as well:

MYTH: Marilyn wrote an autobiography entitled MY STORY.

FACT: No so. Ben Hecht, a Hollywood writer, concocted a half-baked manuscript based on conversations with Marilyn. The manuscript remained unpublished long after Marilyn’s death. Marilyn’s former business partner Milton Greene had it in his possession. — http://www.monaraemiracle.com/disc.html⁣⁣

In the short version, the story is a myth without factual evidence. Furthermore, there is no proof that Marilyn ever engaged in sex with a woman.

From Marilyn herself:

“A man who had kissed me once had said it was very possible I was a lesbian because I apparently had no response to males-meaning him. I didn't contradict him because I didn't know what I was. There were times even when I didn't feel human and times when all I could think of was dying. There was also the sinister fact that a well-made woman had always thrilled me to look at. Now, having fallen in love, I knew what I was. It wasn't a lesbian.” —My Story, ghost autobiography

Marilyn, however, was very supportive of gay rights, in 1960 she told W.J. Weatherby, (about Montgomery Clift): “People who aren’t fit to open the door for him sneer at his homosexuality. What do they know about it? Labels – people love putting labels on each other. Then they feel safe. People tried to make me into a lesbian. I laughed. No sex is wrong if there’s love in it.”

Following the 1953 Photoplay awards Joan Crawford made nasty comments about Marilyn to the press for her dress choice:

“Certainly her picture isn't doing business, and I'll tell you why. Sex plays a tremendously important part in every person's life. People are interested in it, intrigued with it. But they don't like to see it flaunted in their faces. Kids don't like her. Sex plays a growingly important part in their lives, too; and they don't like to see it exploited. And don't forget the women. They're the ones who pick out the movie entertainment for the family. They won't pick anything that won't be suitable for their husbands and children. The publicity has gone too far, and apparently, Miss Monroe is making the mistake of believing her publicity... She should be told that the public likes provocative feminine personalities; but it also likes to know that underneath it all the actresses are ladies.”

Marilyn’s reaction was:

"I cried all night. I've always admired Miss Crawford for being such a wonderful mother--for taking four children and giving them a fine home. Who better than I to know what that means to homeless little ones?" 

[toomanyfamdom]

Many Shades of Green

I have to say some thank yous before I post this.

Thank you to @jane-fucking-seymour , @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts , @millie1536 and @bessie-bass-on-the-bass for being inspirations to me. Without them I wouldn’t have thought of starting to write. They never got mad if I sent them random messages and goodness knows what time for them and have kindly corrected me when necessary. So thank you.

But the person I owe the most to is @the-quiet-winds . I’ve talked most closely with them and they are an incredible writer and the first person to encourage me to basically get myself together and write something for goodness sake. They’ve been incredibly kind, never minding the annoying messages I send them and giving me her permission to write my own interpretations of her stories some co-written with @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts . So for this, I thank you.

This is my first publicized work and I’m open to constructive criticism. This is based on the personal head cannon I mentioned about Anne Boleyn so I decided I would just write about it instead. Please be patient with me. This may seem a little unrealistic but bear with please.

Also, does anyone want a tag list?

Tw: none that I can think of

Word count: 1318

***

All was calm in the queens household.

Which was weird, especially because the ladies-in-waiting were over for the evening for their monthly get together.

It wasn’t the only time the ladies were in the house, they only lived two doors down the road but it was the only scheduled, constant gathering.

They were all gathered in the living room, watching a movie, eating - or in some cases throwing - popcorn when one of the phones began to ring. Catherine, being the closest got to it first.

“Hello?” she answered, face brightening as the other person spoke, “Sasha! Give me one second, I’ll put you on speaker.” Sasha was their manager so if she phoned the house, it was something for everyone.

“Hello?” Sasha’s voice came through the speaker.

“Hiya love, you have all of us here,” Jane told the woman.

“Great, makes my life easier,” they all laughed, “I have some very exciting news for you all.”

“Don’t leave us hanging babes, tell us,” Anna laughed.

“You’ve been invited for a European tour.”

Silence. Then all hell broke loose.

“Are we really going on tour?”

“It would be so nice to go back home.”

“That I agree with, Bess.”

“I’d love to back to France.”

“Same but with Spain.”

“I’d love to go where you grew up Catherine.”

“How cool, we get to travel and still perform. Awesome!”

“Agreed, Kat.”

“That’s a lot of new rigs to learn.”

“You’ll be fine Joey.”

“Where are we going, Sasha?” Jane was the only person with something sensible to say.

“You’ll be starting in Portugal and working your way through Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and ending in Sweden.”

“That’s so many places,” Kat was in awe.

“So many different languages,” Cathy noted.

“We’ll have to see about getting interpreters,” Sasha added.

“Well you have Anna, Catherine, Anne, Maggie and I who can speak German, Spanish and French respectively,” Cathy said, “And Bessie-”

“I can speak Italian,” the bassist confirmed.

“Right,” she nodded, “so it’s just Portuguese, Dutch and Swedish we’ll need help with.”

“I’ll look into interpreters but no promises,” Sasha’s voice was uncertain.

“I’ll learn them.”

Every head turned to the queen who had just spoken.

“Are you sure, Anne? That’s a lot of work,” Maria questioned her friend.

“Well I’m already learning other languages and from what I’ve heard Portugese and Spanish are kind of similar and German, Dutch and Swedish come from the same family of languages so I wouldn’t mind. If it gives us some piece of mind,” Anne scratched her neck and giggle slightly, “I’ve been looking for some new languages to learn anyway so this just made my search so much easier.”

Only if you’re sure sister,“ Maggie looked concerned.

"I’m sure,” the woman in question affirmed, pulling her sister into her arms, “I promise if it gets too much, I’ll stop. Is that okay with everyone?”

Various affirmations were made and Sasha said, “Thank you Anne, that’s one less thing to worry about. Just letting you know, your opening date is in six months. Bye.”

“Thank you Sasha, bye,” Catherine hung up the phone, “well then, let’s get back to our movie, shall we?

***

Four months later and the ladies-in-waiting were over again. Maria, Joan, Jane and Catherine were all in the kitchen making the dinner together, Anna, Kat and Bessie were playing an intense game of Mario Kart and Anne, Maggie and Cathy were in Anne’s room.

"This is incredible,” said Cathy from where she was sitting on the floor by Anne’s desk with the queens many notebooks sat surrounding her, all in different colours and languages ranging from English to German to Swedish, “How many languages did you say?”

“Nine,” Anne said, looking up from where she was lying upside down off the edge of her bed reading some Greek poetry, dangerously close to kicking Maggie in the face from where she was drawing in a random sketch book she found, “and I’m working on a tenth, although it’s a little harder, see that dark blue one behind you? I’m not fluent, that would be impossible in four months but I’ll be able to help in most situations.”

“That’s amazing,” Cathy smiled at her, “now, come help me put these away.”

Anne closed her book and set it gently on the floor putting her hands down and kicking herself off the bed and over onto her feet. She took the books from a laughing Cathy and went round the other side of the divider she had put in her room and came back around to the girls, flopping at Cathy and Maggie’s feet, back to her original position.

“You’re gonna hurt yourself one of these days,” Maggie didn’t even look up from her drawing.

“I know,” Anne winked at Cathy to have the pair laugh at her despairingly.

“You’ll have to teach me some of those languages when we get time,” Cathy said, “Its so nice to see this other side of you and I’m so happy you feel comfortable enough to show me this side.”

Anne sat up, “You two are my nearest and dearest, how could I not be comfortable around you?”

The trio smilled at each other and all of their phones buzzed.

“Did you two get this as well?” asked Maggie.

“From Sasha,” Cathy had already read the message and was looking at it with wide eyes.

“Is it bad or?” Anne’s phone was out of reach.

“The tour’s been cancelled,” Maggie told her.

Anne bolted up straight. “What?! What do you mean?” she asked increadiusly.

“Exactly what she said.”

“What on…” Anne trailed off then jumped off the bed and running downstairs, “Familly meeting in the kitchen!”

Anna jumped when she heard Anne’s shout. The German looked over at her two companions.

“If Anne’s calling a family meeting,” started Kat.

“Something is definitely wrong,” Bessie finished.

“Better not keep the hurricane waiting,” the three went to the kitchen, meeting Maggie and Cathy in the hall and were met with a pacing Anne Boleyn.

“Perfect, we’re all here now,” Anne said, “Have a seat.” She gestured towards the table.

“Anne, what’s wrong?” Jane asked as softly as she could.

“Nothing’s wrong per say, just changes, I don’t like sudden changes so yeah,” Anne muttered to her self. She stopped took a deep breath then said, “Check your phones.”

They all did - except for Maggie and Cathy who tried to calm Anne down a bit. “I have a message from Sasha,” said Kit a bit confused, “why is she messaging me?”

“I have one too,” said Maria

“I think we all do,” Jane said in a grim voice, reading the message.

“Is it bad?” Joan looked over to her former mistress, scared to read it.

Anne took a deep breath, “The tour’s been cancelled.”

“What?!” Katherine almost jumped out of her seat, “But why? All the prep was going so well and we were getting venues just fine.”

“Says here that our sponsor backed out,” Anna said, “If that’s true, there’s no way the tour could be funded babes.”

“You did all that learning for nothing,” Catherine realised the root of Anne’s distress.

Anne visibly deflated, leaning against the counter top, head in her hand. “Its not even that. Well, it is that a little but,” she sighed, “You may not know or remember this from our past lives but I thoroughly enjoy learning. Languages especially, they’re challenging. But I also love learning with a reason. I probably would’ve learnt the languages anyways but the tour gave me a reason. It gave me constancy. And that’s been torn from underneath my feet.”

Suddenly there was a Kitty sized person embracing Anne. “I think its really cool how much you’ve managed to learn Annie. Nine foreign languages? That’s incredible!”

“Well, now I have an excuse to keep learning yeah? Look on the bright side!” Anne returned her cousin’s hug, “Thanks sister.”

[megashadowdragon]

If jaune has grimm in him it will activate due to a strong desire to destroy/kill

dustypotion . tumblr . com/post/190591003007/also-not-to-continue-to-clown-but-penny-with-the#notes

also, not to continue to clown but

penny, with the maiden powers, didn’t react to the silver eyes. that means cinder’s weakness in volume 3 was absolutely to do with the METHOD of receiving the powers; the grimm beetle bonded with her and caused her to become part grimm before she got even got the grimm arm.

also, this further proves that people don’t respond to the brightness of the silver eyes, since no one but cinder did, which begs the question -

why is jaune arc the only other human to have ever reacted to the silver eye power?

and why did he shield his eyes in the exact same way cinder did this volume?

hawkeyedflame . tumblr . com/post/152581160728/on-rubys-elusive-character-development-or-why

“ jaune is a foil To Ruby. She’s a prodigy who quickly became a deadly warrior at a young age and is welcomed into Beacon two years early as a result while Jaune is a hard worker who progresses slowly and had to lie his way into Beacon because of his nonexistent combat background. Ruby is a strategist specialized on pre-defined team attacks and wields a self-made weapon capable of long range combat. Jaune is a tactician specialized in creating new team attacks according to his analysis on the battlefield and wields a family heirloom only capable of close range combat. Ruby has a rather broken family but they fully support her decision to become a huntress while Jaune’s family is large and united but they don’t support his choices nor have any faith on him. Ruby is a tomboy who dominates the battlefield but doesn’t enjoy dancing whereas Jaune tends to act girly and is initially terrible at fighting but also a great dancer. The more you look into them as a pair, the more contrasts that can be spotted in the details.”

jaune has a more “feminine way of dealing with emotions” while ruby has the more masculine way of dealing with emotions

aminoapps . com/c/rwby/page/blog/why-its-good-for-jaunes-semblance-to-be-a-support-type/xpp7_XQ4s2u6RGX2zboa6JwM2XMekWGZd68

“Joan of Arc is known for breaking gender stereotypes about what it meant to be a woman. And if you think about it in a lot of ways Jaune doesn’t fit into the stereotypical “man box.” We are don’t “men don’t cry.” He wears his emotions on his sleeve. While in the real world men (and in the world of RWBY BOTH men and women ARGUABLY) are told to be strong. And that many people superficially equate physical strength with heroism (Raven?) it is fitting that Jaune’s semblance doesn’t so much doesn’t so much empower himself, as it empowers others. (as well as himself but its more effective on others in the team since they are more skilled than him) The so called “Feminine” strength.” P.S. Hmm as a follow-up to my The Importance Of Foils Part 2 post. I think that Ruby, despite being a girl, fits into the “man box” better than anyone else including it’s UNHEALTHY WAYS OF DEALING WITH EMOTIONS. The only difference is on remnant, it’s not because a man doesn’t cry. But because “a hero doesn’t cry.”

ruby first activated her silver eyes leading to her to learn about them when she saw pyrrha jaunes partner impaled by cinder and burnt to ash failing to save pyrrha  her awakening being in reaction to her death while jaune activated his semblance and realized what it was when he saw rubys partner weiss  impaled by cinder and  was able to save her  life awakening his semblance to do so allowing him to learn what his semblance was ( which is a good example this is an example of them being foils  and how its been shown and effected their storys )

it would fit for jaune to have powers related to the god of darkness given that  ruby has powers related to the god of light (silver eyes)

Silver-Eyed Warriors have powers that are fueled by strong desires to preserve life.

According to Maria, the key to using the power of one's silver eyes is to focus on the relationship the wielder has with their loved ones and protecting them. This is consistent with the reactive uses of Ruby's eyes in the past

so it would fit for jaunes god of darkness powers to be fueled by a desire to take life if the key is to focus on the people  he hates and wants to destroy 

and while rubys powers relate to her eyes having her emit energy from her eyes ( which fits with how the god of light in his dragon form had silver eyes ) 

jaunes power to relate to his body like either his body transforming to a state like salems  or abit more like having grimm bone plating  except for jaune it will be like armor a grimm knight

megashadowdragon . tumblr . com/post/190688307462/jaune-will-be-able-to-steal-someones-magic-for-his/embed

(possibly gaining the ability  to take  the magic from those he kills which would allow him to get his hands on the maidens powers ( jaunes inspiration joan of arc

magic was the god of darknessś gift to the world and god of darkness made the grimm so it fits that cinder uses her grimm arm to take the maidens power into her so if jaune ends up having some grimm in him he will be able to steal the maidens power and gain magic for himself  ( imagine if jaune ends up taking the fall maidens powers away from her and gaining it for himself making  it reminds me of what cinder once said its not about overpowering your enemies its about taking away what power they have  imagine cinders reaction )

jaune arcs inspiration is joan of arc archive . joan-of-arc . org/joanofarc_letter_july_17_1429 . html

joan of arc was canonized by the church as the holy maiden

and joan of arc  often referred to herself as la Pucelle, which roughly translates as the Maiden

en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Name_of_Joan_of_Arc

and the four people with magic that the show talked about this season is  called the four maidens and  joan of arc was a woman took a role that many at the time believed could only be filled by a man as a military leader ( joan of arc broke the  ¨rules ¨ (the social norm)  in a sense   ,  and jaune arc would be breaking the only women can be maidens rules  

darkness consuming light ( this reminds me of an old suggestion about jaune devouring the auras/souls of people he kills and getting a power boost from that   and there is a theory that grimm grow not just due to age but due to killing people and eating them that either eating humans causes them to grow or that when they eat the body they also eat the soul to grow         ) 

dustypotion . tumblr . com/post/190253061317/so-yknow-how-grimm-eat-only-humans-and-fanus

First of all, I completely forgot that Grimm actually DO eat people, since we’ve never really seen a Grimm do it in the show. I re-watched the WOR about them and noted that scientists don’t really know why Grimm feed, and their hypothesis is that they simply choose to. That’s backed only by the fact Grimm can last long amounts of time without eating things, which shows they don’t need it to survive, and the actual insides of Grimm can’t really be studied since they evaporate, sometimes instantly if hit with enough force.

We assume Grimm like Alpha Beowolves, Ursa Majors, Giant Nevermores and Megoliaths simply grow without sustenance for a long time, simply gaining mass and more spikes as time goes on. But maybe, just maybe, feeding on the corpses of those left after village attacks might also be what helps them become giant Grimm. Megoliaths, since they’re known to avoid settlements, might bide their time by going through already destroyed villages and picking through the rubble for food there.

NOW, we have to discuss, since I’m assuming this is based on Jaune being a descendent of Salem and hypothetically having that “essence of destruction” per the theory, whether Jaune has enough hidden “Grimm physiology” in order for this to work. This also raises some questions about Salem; is she aware she could commit cannibalism to gain strength? Does she simply not, because either her magic is enough or she’s not that deranged? Has she done it? I’m gonna guess she hasn’t done it, since her being a motherfucking cannibal takes away lots of sympathy points already (but I guess if she wanted to commit genocide, which was totally a thing, this is by all accounts not as bad). Does she ever get urges to eat people, since the Grimm do it regularly for “enjoyment”?

Jaune, unlike Salem, looks entirely human. But if we’re to believe him flinching at the Silver Eyes and his rather destructive outbursts are a symptom of having some sort of Grimm physiology, that means that there is a case that if Jaune were to accidentally consume blood involuntarily, most likely through getting covered in blood and not reacting fast enough, he could gain a power boost. But how would that manifest? How would that power him up? It couldn’t possibly be through his aura or semblance. Physical strength, maybe? Possibly even adopting a more Grimm look? Him getting an even worse, or uncontrollable temper?

A lot to think about. Thanks for launching me into an essay on this because, although there’s a good chance RWBY won’t do this, it is intensely fucked up but people have also experimented with souls, experimented with Grimm, we’ve watched people die on screen and honestly, Brunswick was a thing, so maybe it’s not too fucked up for the show itself.

Also, something I’m gonna quickly add onto this; blood, particularly in the music of the show, is mentioned quite a lot despite the fact that RWBY isn’t all that gory.

“Bloody evolution” (This Will Be The Day + All Things Must Die)

“And the skies rain blood” (I May Fall)

“It’s your blood that’s red like roses” (Red Like Roses pt.2)

“Those children you mislead, you’ll watch them all bleed” (Divide)

“Maybe it’s red like roses, maybe it’s the pool of blood” (When It Falls)

“The blood’s going to stain, but it won’t be mine” (I’m The One)

“Primal, bloodshed, that’s all that’s left to do” (From Shadows)

“This is where I lay waste, and you go home bleeding” (Ignite)

“Blood for blood, it’s time to die” (One Thing)

“A mystery of blood and bone” (Lusus Naturae - this one’s interesting, because out of all people who aren’t Salem, Dr. Merlot has studied grimm more successfully more than any other; the fact he mentions blood when Grimm don’t have any might be telling)

So, it would make sense that maybe Grimm consuming people - and hence their blood - might be important.

(I  cant help but imagine grimmified jaune with the grimmbone plating shaped like actual  full body armor a grimm knight )

( the next part is something I am not serious about but just thought I would say it 

so if thats true what if when jaune  ( who is of humanity 2.0 mostly ) kills someone he does in fact absorb the soul to gain a power boost  having an ability that salem doesnt have and may be because his semblance has his own aura make contact with anothers)

( also I cant help but think of how jaune and cinder are foils and cinder tried to take ravens magic away what if jaune ends up taking the spring maidens power away raven

plus jaunes inspiration is joan of arc  who hated bandits and raven destroyed xion village which jaune used to go to with his family alot so he would have had friends there

and I have noticed that team jnprs first team fight was against a deathstalker grim and they shot its pincer off and ruby cut tyrian ( scorpion faunus tail)  and team rwbys first team fight was a nevermore  ( raven ) grimm where ruby cut off its head  so what if raven gets her head cut off by jaune absorbing her magic/soul 

(  joan of arc had a  hatred for bandits and ravens tribed destroyed a village where jaune used to visit with his family so he likely had friends there and ren would hate bandits because they attack villages causing the grimm to come and his own village got destroyed by grimm

@spoonoftar

@thehtg-therealone

[famous-aces]

Joan of Arc

Who: Jehanne Darc (often modernized as Jeanne d'Arc) (Joan of Arc is the Anglicization of her name)

What: Soldier and Saint

Where: French, active in France

When: c. 1412 - May 30, 1431

(Image Description: an engraving of Joan of Arc from 1903 by Peruvian artist Albert Lynch. It was featured in Figaro Illustre. It looks more like a painting than an engraving. It shows Joan in the center. In the background is Notre Dame. In the mid and foreground is a field of white flowers. Joan is front and center from the thighs up. She is in full plate mail but without the helmet or gloves. The armor has gold accents. She has pale skin and a round face. Her hair is black and cut into a bob with high bangs. One hand holds a flag and one hand rests on the hilt of a huge sword. She looks stoically and proudly out at the viewer. End ID.)

Joan of Arc is more legend than woman at this point, but she was very real. She is in part responsible for turning the tide of the Hundred Years War in France's favor. Now she is both French cultural heroine and canonized Catholic saint. Joan is an icon and inspiration and to millions be they French, Christian, woman, queer, or all of the above.

Joan's story is fairly well known. She was an illiterate peasant girl who, when she was 13, was visited by the visions of several saints. From that point forward she claimed to have been following God's instructions.  At the time, France and England were still locked in the heat of the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) and the English occupied swaths of France. Eventually God told Joan to topple the English occupation and save France. She convinced the Dauphin to give her command over troops and dressed in men's armor Joan lead French victory after victory.

Although there were understandably doubts about what this untrained teenager could actually do she was able to convince naysayers quickly.  She won first success at the Siege of Orléans. After the city was sieged for more than six months, Joan was able to turn away the English in only nine days.  She was involved in more than a half dozen battles, many victories, between 1429 and 1431. These included the French success at the Battle of Patay and the March to Reims. During the latter she helped siege and reclaim several French cities and ensured the coronation of King Charles VII, at which she was in attendance.

She continued her campaign despite being injured in the Siege of Paris and was ultimately captured during the Siege of Compiègne. Her troops were outnumbered and her attempted surprise attack was rebuffed by English reinforcements, at which point she was overwhelmed and pulled from her horse.

She was captured, tried for witchcraft (although crossdressing was listed among her crimes/charges), and ultimately, horrifically, burned at the stake. Because she was so well loved the English made sure her body was very publicly destroyed both to avoid rumors of her escape and to make sure no relics could be made from her remains (as was very common for holy people at the time). Although English propaganda and court proceedings claimed Joan was a witch who spoke not to God and saints but to the Devil, her executioner still "greatly feared to be damned.". She was only 19 at the time of her death.

Joan has become a larger-than-life figure.  Her story has been told and retold countless times over the centuries.  Movies, books, plays, operas, songs, pieces of visual art. Nearly every medium that exists has depicted Joan of Arc in some capacity. For example, the first celluloid movie camera was invented in 1895, the first filmed depiction of Joan of Arc was made in only 1898.  Mark Twain was very proud of his oft forgotten novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. Voltaire wrote the poem "La Pucelle d’Orléans" (link goes to English translation) and there was a dramatic rebuttal by Die Jungfrau von Orleans (German) by Friedrich Schiller. Tchaikovsky wrote an opera The Maid of Orléans. George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan is perhaps his magnum opus.  Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote the epic "Joan of Arc". She is included in Shakespeare's Henry VI Part 1. The likes of Peter Paul Rubins, Paul Gauguin, John Everett Millais, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, among others have rendered Joan. She has been used for awards and propaganda.

Joan of Arc even impacted real life fashion, the Bob hairstyle's inventor based the now iconic look off Joan's haircut. It makes sense since the Bob was originally associated with the rebellious women of the 1920s. In 1920 she was canonized and is now the patron saint of France, soldiers, women in the WAVES and WAC, prisoners, among many others.

There is now speculation that Joan of Arc may have been mentally ill or had epilepsy.

(Image Description: a drawing of Joan of Arc by Clément de Fauquembergue found in the margins of a parliamentary document from 1429. That makes this the earliest drawing of Joan we have. It is a brown ink drawing, slightly crude, very simple, of a woman drawn in profile.  It ends just below her midsection. She wears a dress and carries as sword in one hand and a banner in the other. She is scowling. Oddly she does not have the short haircut that would become her trademark look, then again I have no idea how true/untrue to life this is. End ID)

Probable Orientation: Aroace (and obviously GNC. Crossdressing was one of the many crimes for which the English tried her.)

This is already a very long entry because of Joan of Arc's extensive legacy but it is going to get even longer, because I mentioned in Mary Eliza Mahoney's entry that there was another figure I was struggling with in my speculation, here she is. My biggest issue here was more moral than anything else.

Joan was only 19 when she died, that is hardly a full life to determine what her sexual orientation was. I do not object to a teenager self-identifying as any gender/sexual orientation, but it is quite another matter to impose one on them, especially when they died before being able to live a full life.

I thought a lot about the discourse presently surrounding Anne Frank. On my personal blog I have made my opinion abundantly clear (she is not your Bicon, she is a victim of a horrific genocide). So why is Joan different to me? I did some deep soul searching on this. So before going into my evidence as to why Joan of Arc may have been aroace.

The circumstances of their deaths are different. Anne was killed because of her ethnoreligious background in a campaign to wipe out the Jewish people. Joan was brutally killed for her gender and wearing men's clothing as much as she was for being an enemy general.  Indeed, she would not have been burned alive had she been a young man doing exactly what Joan did and not a young woman. But her death is not representative of a larger narrative. There were no other Joans of Arc.

Yes, she is now a Catholic Saint, but unlike Anne Frank Joan was not killed for being Catholic and was killed by other Catholics. Also I should add Judaism is much larger than just a religion. It is an ethnicity as well. Joan was the same ethnicity (if not the same nationality) as her captors.

Anne was also a 20th century girl and 15 when she met her horrible demise. Joan's era and age are something I will expand on.

And importantly I am not the first person to ascribe queerness to Joan's story. She has been a queer figure for the better part of a century by now. Some scholars argue she was a lesbian*. Others say she was nonbinary**. Joan has long been important to the queer community, but that wouldn't necessarily make me right for adding to the debate.

But for Joan of Arc queerness is baked right in to the narrative. She wore men's clothing and broke gender norms, actions so taboo they were part of what cost her her life.  Whether or not this crossdressing had anything to do with her gender or sexual orientation or just done for ease in battle is a subject of debate and boy howdy there is a lot of it. Plus, the actual act of going to war as a woman was an act of gender nonconformity.

Anyway now I am going to tell you why I believe Joan of Arc was an aroace, because it is another piece of the queerness of her narrative that she touted.

Here is one of the most important pieces of evidence to me, her name. Joan's birth name was Jehanne Darc (or a similar spelling), that was her father's surname and it was technically hers. In life she didn't use it. She called herself Jehanne la Pucelle (Joan the Maid) as in Joan the Virgin. That was the name she rallied her troops under. That was how her (dictated) letters were often signed. I have seen the argument made that she was asserting her purity, but it also would remind her troops of her age. Just like today "virgin" held a connotation of childishness. You were not married and inexperienced. Why would a military general want to point out how young she was? She had another name, she could have just been Jehanne Darc. It also told everyone she was a woman, including the enemy, who might use that against her. If she wanted to go with a nickname based on piousness it did not have to be "la Pucelle". There are many that did not imply either gender or age.

Her age is also important. Much like Wang Zhenyi she opted to break convention and do something else when it came time to get married. She was at war at the time when she should have been getting married, French women were generally married between 18 and 25. Her chasteness was noted in that she was only interested in carrying out God's Will. Nothing kept her on the battlefield except her dedication to her cause. She could have retired at any point. Indeed in September of 1429 she was badly injured by a crossbow bolt to the thigh, she had to be dragged from the battlefield and it was only by the king's orders that she did not return to it. She had a mission and marriage did not seem to factor into it. And that, being of marriageable age and not seeking it, would be odd even given her religiousness.

(Image Description: a 1504 painting of Joan on horseback. It is a bright painting on parchment. She is wearing shining armor with a yellow feather in her helmet. She carries a red banner. The horse is white with red and gold accoutrements and is prancing. There are fields and a castle behind her. Joan looks calm. End ID)

The argument could be made that it is impossible to untangle Joan's chastity from her religiousness. But I would argue that there is a way to tell and a way that hers is unique from that of other saints.

Within Catholicism chastity is about sacrifice and self-denial, by being sexless you are giving something up. That is why you will often see saints who are hermits, giving up sex along with everything else. Even saints who die as virgin martyrs (i.e. dying defending their virginity) are generally fending off rape or a marriage that would come between them and God. Unless they are willingly giving themselves up to God Himself chasteness is not supposed to last. Indeed, you are supposed to go forth and multiply and all that.

Officially in Catholic doctrine asexuality does not exist because sexual attraction (to the "opposite sex") is one of God's Gifts.  It is impossible to not feel sexual attraction and be human in their eyes. As per an FAQ on religious life "Question: What do you call a person who is asexual? Answer: Not a person. Asexual people do not exist. Sexuality is a gift from God and thus a fundamental part of our human identity.". Or even more sinisterly as put by former Priest*** and Ugandan Ethics Minister Simon Lokodo when he said he approved of heterosexual child rape more than consentual gay sex "it is men raping girls. Which is natural" the implication being that hetero sex is the only "natural" thing, because even denial is unacceptable. Yes, Lokodo is an extreme example, but it reflects a mindset about heterosexual sex.

Chastity is only venerated in Christianity insofar as you are giving something up for God.  The Christian faith has engineered the acceptable circumstances for sex and you are expected to have it and want it within those circumstances. Joan's maidenhood is traditionally viewed much the same way a nun's is, that she was driven by her love of God and her desire to fulfill His instructions and thus neglected her own desires. It is unthinkable that maybe she just didn't care, that she would rather be a warrior than a wife. She would be far less beloved if that was the widely agreed on conclusion, I assure you.

(Image description: Jeanne D'Arc (1874) a gilded bronze statue by Emmanuel Frémiet now at the Place des Pyramides, Paris.  Commissioned by Napoleon III and standing 13 feet tall. It shows a triumphant Joan of Arc on horseback with her banner held high. Both she and her horse wear armor. End ID)

*The argument for this is actually pretty weak. The one thing I have seen used as evidence of her being definitively a lesbian is that she shared her bed with women. But this was the 15th century, bedsharing was extremely common, there weren't many beds to go around, whole peasant families might share a bed. Yes, it could mean something, but Occam's Razor, in an era when nonsexual bedsharing was common this is not proof this is was for sexual reasons, there is no reason Joan would be an exception. Without any other evidence she was a lesbian this is not enough to prove she was attracted to women.  I am not saying it isn't possible, I am just saying that is not enough to go on.

**In her being GNC. Again, a possibility, but not definitive. Of course this stuff rarely is.

***He was removed from the priesthood when he entered politics as it is against Vatican law to hold both positions, it had nothing to do with his horrific stance on Queer Rights.

(Image Description: Jeanne d'Arc écoutant ses voix by Léon François Bénouville [done before 1859]. It is a painting that shows Joan when she first was visited by Saints/Angels. It shows Joan in layered but undecorated clothing. She is clutching what appears to be part of a loom or other wool working equipment in one hand. The other holds her wrist. She is white and pale and barefoot. Her hair is dark and partially pinned back, starting to come free. She has a round face and looks shocked, her doll like mouth agape in a gasp and her light eyes wide. She is seated on a rock with a field behind her, dotted with sheep and a horse. Far beyond her in the distance is a burning city. In the air around her in an immense sky are the flying and translucent forms of angels. They have their mouths open, calling to her. One offers her a sword another carries a flag/banner. End ID.)

Quotes:

"Jehanne la Pucelle"

-How Joan signed her dictated letters and referred to herself, "Joan the Maid".

"Alas! that my body, clean and whole, never been corrupted, today must be consumed and burnt to ashes!"

-Joan of Arc after being condemned to death, quoted by Jean Toutmouille

(Image Description: a still from La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc) a silent film from 1928. It is widely regarded as a masterpiece and a landmark of early cinema. Renée Jeanne Falconetti (Joan) is still hailed for her performance. In this image we see Joan kneeling in front of the stake. She is wearing a wool robe and clutching a cross. The anguish on her face is indescribable. Behind her is an armed guard.  End ID)

[planetkookie]

And They All Fall Down

Summary-  Patton just wants to be free of this disease. Wants to stop falling in love. Wants to not wake up hating flowers. There really isn't much he can do except wait it out.

Warnings- Panic attack mention, death mention, blood

Words- 4215

Notes- Hanahaki fics have always been one of my favorites so I decided to write one!  The title isn't based on anything, I just thought it was better than the original title (Which was Petals). It's basically talking about the flower petals and how they fall? And how Patton falls for all of these people? Idk, anyways, enjoy! Also, quick thing. If you would like me to tag you whenever I post a fic, please let me know! Thanks!

Link to ao3- https://archiveofourown.org/works/17425838

This had happened to him one too many times. Six times too many, in fact. Patton was sat at the toilet, his head near the bowl as he hacked his lungs out. Small petals fluttered out of his mouth with the occasional full flower, speckled in small flecks of blood. Tears joined the flowers in the toilet bowl, his head in his hands as he cried.

-

He remembers the first time it had happened. It was during freshman year, at his very first homecoming dance. Patton had jokingly taken his friend Joan’s hand and pulled them onto the dance floor and danced with them until both of their feet hurt and they were unable to stop smiling. Afterward, he had excused himself to the bathroom where he coughed until the ache in his chest felt a little lighter and a few petals littered the stall floor. Purple lilac petals, he found out later after looking up his condition. They meant first love. In his research he found that his condition was called Hanahaki disease, where the infected person grows flowers in their lungs when they fall in love, and the three ways to get rid of them included telling said person their feelings, wait it out and hope it goes away, or to get the flowers surgically removed but forget that person in the process. Without thought, he chose to wait it out. Thankfully, the flowers went away quickly. Quick enough that he had brushed it off as a one-time thing.

-

After the coughing had stopped, Patton flushed the toilet and wiped his eyes, watching the small flowers swirl and swirl until they finally disappeared into the watery abyss. He washed his hands, and dried them, before cleaning the blood on his lips and around his mouth. He stared at himself in the mirror for a moment, taking it all in. His blue eyes were bloodshot and he had bags under them, his lips were chapped and red, and his hair was a blond bush, unlike its usual curly self. He rubbed his face with his hands and yawned. The iron-y blood was all he could taste, so he made his way to the kitchen to grab a tub of ice cream and a spoon and went to his room. The dull ache never left his chest.

-

The second time it happened had passed just as quickly as the first. Senior year of high school, Patton had watched as his close friend Talyn got into their first relationship. They were so happy, and it made him happy too, of course it did. Their bright smile made him so happy for them, he didn’t want to ruin their relationship, and so once again he chose to wait the flowers out. It wasn’t Talyn’s fault that whenever they hung out together he would excuse himself to the bathroom and have a coughing fit, his lungs burning. This time the petals were daffodils. Unrequited love. When he found out the meaning of the flowers he had winced and had another coughing fit. These lasted for a month or so, but whenever he saw Talyn, images of his bloody mouth in the mirror while petals littered the floor was all he could think of.

-

A ceramic bowl that was gifted to him by his mother sat beside him as he ate his ice cream, swaddled in blankets. Flowers were carved into it, which made it fitting for its purpose. The bowl was halfway filled with the flower petals and flower buds that he had been coughing up throughout the movies he was watching, all just as bloody as the next. Of course, his mother didn’t understand the irony of the bowl, he didn’t think he was ever going to tell her. He didn’t want to admit it, but he knew he was getting worse. He didn’t understand why the flowers weren’t going away this time. It had almost been a year since the flowers had started. All he could do was hope that the feelings wouldn’t continue. All he wanted was to be free from this curse.

-

The third time it happened was the most painful. Not painful as in physically, though the flowers coming up weren’t pleasant either. It was painful in the emotional sense. The flowers were Acacia this time. Concealed love. Patton knew exactly who these petals were for. He had met a freshman at his college who was taking the same class as he was. He was a sophomore this year and so he took the kid under his wing, helping him get to his classes, and they became fast friends. His name was Virgil Reed, an anxiety-ridden boy who liked to joke about him being Virgil’s paternal figure because of how many dad jokes were made. It made him so happy to hear that, so he prayed to whatever god was out there to help these feelings go away so he wouldn’t hurt his new friend. The petals lasted until the beginning of his junior year. These were the longest lasting flowers.

-

“Hey Pat, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m alright, Virge. It’s nothing to worry about.” Patton let out a half-hearted cough and cleared his throat painfully to try and make his sickness convincing. The flowers that had bloomed in his chest made that easy. He was still curled up on his bed, and it was late in the day. Tears stained his freckled cheeks, his eyes were puffy and red from crying as well. His circular glasses were sat on the side table, and the TV was off. There was the ice cream tub that laid on his bed, long forgotten and empty, and the bowl of flowers was almost full. Virgil had called him to get some help on a recipe that he was making for the bakery they had opened together, and he had picked up on how his friend was feeling at the moment.  

“Pat, you know you can tell me anything, right?” The worry seeped into his friend’s voice, and he gave a strangled smile to nobody, holding the cellphone to his ear.

“Of course, kiddo. I promise I’m fine.”

After he had hung up the phone, he coughed up another flower.

-

Junior year of college it happened a fourth time. This was about the time that Patton had started to get sick to his stomach if he ever was given flowers, though thankfully that happened rarely. No matter how much he hated the flowers, the feelings he didn’t mind. It felt so nice to be in love, though knowing every single time that they weren’t reciprocated broke him. And yet, he refused to get them removed. He never wanted to forget the people that he loved, both platonically and romantically. The flowers were Hyssop, pretty purple things, and they meant sacrifice. These belonged to Roman Prince, though he guessed that the reason the petals were Hyssop weren’t just because of Roman. Roman was introduced to him through Virgil, and he was one of the biggest flirts that Patton had ever met. Not only did Roman already have a nickname for him as soon as the two met, but he had such a charm that it wasn’t a surprise that feelings had appeared so quickly after meeting the actor. Patton watched as Roman and Virgil got closer, growing a new and beautiful relationship, one of the healthiest relationships he had ever seen. He understood then why the petals were Hyssop. It made it hurt all that much worse. It did make him happy to see Virgil with someone who made him feel loved, so he gave up trying, letting the flowers run their course.

-

It was a wonderful Wednesday morning as Patton got ready for work. He had decided that he was well enough to come to work today, as he hadn’t coughed up much during the night and not at all that morning. He pet Spot, her tail wagging so hard he liked to joke sometimes that it might fall off. He tied his cardigan around his neck and made his way to the bakery.

A smile came to his face as his bakery came into view. The place was his and Virgil’s pride and joy. It was painted white, and the large glass windows in the front let him get a good look of the inside. The interior was painted pastel versions of blue and purple, the two boys’ favorite colors, and the tables were white and covered in rainbow polka-dots. He could see the counter as he approached the doors, seeing Virgil standing behind the counter and talking to Roman who was sitting on it. They shut their mouths and both turned to him with a worried expression as he walked inside, the little bell jingling to announce his arrival.

“Hey kiddos, what’s with the long faces?”

Virgil took a deep breath, looking a little pained as he looked at him. “Pat, are you okay?”

Patton’s blood ran cold. He plastered a confused expression on himself as he looked at his friend. “Of course, Virgil. I told you that yesterday.”

Roman opened his mouth to start talking but a sharp look from Virgil shut his mouth. Virgil looked back at him and sighed. “Patton, if you’re fine, then why have you been out sick at least five days in the past month? And if you’re fine, then how do you explain this?”

Patton gaped as Virgil pulled out a bloodstained petal from his pocket, feeling the tears well up in his eyes. He didn’t understand. He had been so careful, so very careful, to never get any petals where anyone might find them. They couldn’t know. So how did one slip out of his grasp?

“Virgil,” he started, hoping the tears were covered by his glasses and not evident in his voice. “How do you know that flower even came from me?”

The younger deflected his question with one of his own. “How long, Patton?”

He shut his mouth as he watched his friend’s eyes well up with tears as well. Virgil’s expression, a hurt sort of pain, broke Patton’s heart. He swore to himself that no one would ever get hurt because of his condition and yet here he was, having hurt two of his closest friends.

Virgil’s pained expression broke. The words came out, quiet and sad, the tears spilling from Virgil’s eyes, making his black eyeshadow and eyeliner run as well.  “How long?”

“Since I was in my freshman year of high school.”

-

The second to last time happened right after he had graduated. Patton bought a house in a nice neighborhood after he started his bakery business with Virgil, and the occasional help from Roman as well, when he wasn’t busy. The business had boomed, and he had finally been able to move out of his apartment and get a dog as he had always dreamed. He had made friends with one of the new neighbors as he was walking his new border collie, Spot,  and it evolved from there. Thomas was his name, and he was a Gloxinia. Love at first sight. Their friendship bloomed just like the flowers in his chest, and he finally was able to accept that this cycle was never going to end. Patton was thankful that like all of the others, these flowers passed quickly.

-

By the time he finished with his explanation, they were all crying to varying degrees. Roman was sobbing loudly into Virgil’s jacket, leaving dark tearstains in the purple areas, Virgil’s breath was shaky when he breathed in and tears drip drip dripped down his face in a steady stream, and Patton was silently crying, the droplets of water dripping off of his chin and onto the ground. As soon as he had stopped talking, Roman draped himself onto Patton in a large hug. He was so tall that he basically engulfed Patton, and the words of apology gushed out of him like a waterfall.

“Roman, please. You really didn’t know. There’s no need for you to be sorry.” he smiled down at his friend who was clutching the gray cardigan that was tied around his neck.

Virgil walked over and joined the hug too after wiping his eyes with his jacket sleeve. “Pat, I really hope you know how much we love you to death. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t... I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I made sure to conceal the flowers, to wave off the questions by saying I had a cold. It wasn’t hard.”

Virgil shook his head. “You wouldn’t have hurt us, you doof. That’s what friends are for.” He stopped for a second, something crossing his mind. “Wait, why didn’t you tell anyone? The feelings, I mean.” “I knew that none of them were reciprocated. I looked up the meanings of the flowers every single time. And I was okay with that, it isn’t their fault that I’m sick. it’s easier to keep it to myself than to burden other people’s relationships with my medical issues.” He laughed half-heartedly.  

“Nobody knows, then? Just us two?”

Patton nodded in confirmation and started to walk behind the counter to set up displays and start baking before Roman stopped him.

“Woah woah woah, Padre. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Um, I’m going to set up, silly.” He turned back around to face Roman.

“Well, aren’t you going to tell us who the lucky person is that stole your heart this time? What do the petals of this flower mean?”

Virgil smacked Roman’s arm. “Roman! He’s already going through plenty, you don’t need to get him to talk about that! It probably causes him pain.”

“No, no Virgil, it’s okay, honestly.” He smiled softly, beginning the last story.

-

A few years after he had moved into his new neighborhood, someone bought the house next door. As a welcome gift, Patton had baked the person cookies, a variety because he didn’t know what his new neighbor liked. With a skip in his step and a twinkle in his eye, he knocked on the door of his new neighbor’s house, cookie plate in hand.

The door opened to reveal a professional looking man, his dark hair slicked back, rectangular frames adorning his face, and a necktie around his neck. Patton smiled brightly at him, and the man gave an uncomfortable smile back.

“Um, hello there. May I ask, who are you?” The man adjusted his necktie as he looked down at Patton with confusion.

“Hey, it’s nice to meet you! I’m Patton, Patton Foster, your next door neighbor! I brought you a plate of cookies to welcome you to the neighborhood, but I didn’t know what kind you liked so I just baked a bunch.”

“Well,” the man cleared his throat, a blush lightly coating his cheeks. He was clearly not used to kindness like this. “That is very kind of you. It is adequate to meet you, Patton Foster. I am Logan Taylor.”

Patton’s smile widened more, if possible. “Logan! That’s such a cool name. Well, don’t you want your cookies?” He held them out for Logan to take.

“Um, yes. Thank you again, Patton. I believe I will see you around.”

“Yup! Bye, Logan!” He turned around and skipped back home.

-

Virgil looked up as the bell jingled, announcing that someone had entered the bakery. He listened as Patton continued his story, the cardigan-clad man was unaware anybody had entered. Roman was just about to open his mouth to say something to Patton when Virgil put his hand up slightly, stopping him in his tracks.

Behind Patton stood the same man that Patton had described in his story. Virgil knew him from coming into the bakery somewhat often, so the two were familiar. Logan opened his mouth to say something as well when Virgil made a shushing motion with his hand and inclined his head towards Patton.

-

Their next meeting was at the bakery. Patton was working the counter, Virgil was in the back baking, and Roman had a gig out of town so he wasn’t able to be there. The ring of the bell made Patton’s head pop up from the register, and his eyes widened to see Logan. It seemed Logan was surprised to see Patton as well.

“Logan! Hey! Nice to see ya!” He smiled brightly at his neighbor, clasping his hands together. “So, what did you come in here for?” Logan scratched the back of his head, scanning their chalkboard menu, which was written in Patton’s loopy handwriting. “Hello Patton, it is adequate to see you as well. Could I please have a coffee and a chocolate chip cookie?"

“Absolutely. Coming right up!” As he busied himself with getting Logan’s coffee, he asked, “So, on your way to work?” Logan shrugged with a slight smile. “Not yet, though I most likely will be coming here often before work. I am a new teacher at the school this year and I needed to find a good place to get coffee before the year started.”

Patton nodded his head knowingly. “I bet, kids are pretty wild.”

He gave Logan his coffee and cookie, ringing him up and waving him goodbye as he left. It was then that Patton noticed the heaviness inside his chest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The flowers started coming a week after that. He was out walking his dog and chatting with Thomas when he saw Logan sitting on his porch in pajama pants and a t-shirt, reading a book with a cup of what looked to be tea sitting next to him. Having only seen Logan in formal wear, he just about tripped over his own feet.

“I’m gonna go say hi to Logan, I’ll be right back!”

Thomas chuckled and shook his head. “No, go talk as long as you’d like. I’m going out for lunch with my brother so I have to go anyways.” “Well, thanks for walking with me anyways!” They hugged and Patton watched as Thomas walked off before making his way over to Logan.

“Well, you look comfy!”

Logan jumped, his eyes going wide behind the frames of his glasses. “Goodness, you scared me. And yes, I am comfortable, though I didn’t expect to interact with anybody looking like this.” Patton smiled and winked cheekily. “Well, you look very nice either way, so don’t worry too much about it.”

The tips of Logan’s ears went red as he tapped his fingers methodically against the book. “Why thank you, though I much prefer to look nice when I have company.”  

Patton nodded. “Of course, that’s understandable.”

The two chatted for a while and Logan pet Spot (she had taken a liking to him) before he excused himself to go home. They exchanged numbers as well, and he was quite excited to hang out with Logan more and get to know him. As soon as he walked into his house and shut the door, he had a coughing fit, and a single petal sat in the entryway to his home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The petals got worse the more they hung out, though it’s nothing that he regretted. At the end of the day, he knew the flowers would eventually leave, and that he would be left with a new friend. He hadn’t even bothered to look up the meaning of the petals because of this. The two had grown quite comfortable with each other, and Patton was never afraid to ask the questions on his mind so it made it easy to get to know the other. So far he had learned that Logan was a math and science teacher, he had a pet beta fish named Sherlock, he adored reading, and his favorite color was blue. He just ignored the fluttering of his stomach and the blush that coated his cheeks and the ache of his chest when he was with Logan.

As the months passed, the flowers gave way to small flower buds, which scared Patton a little bit. This had happened before with Virgil, so he shrugged it off as well. The situation with Virgil never got any worse. It wasn’t until he coughed up a fully bloomed flower that he started to get worried. The flower that came up was beautiful, just like the petals it bore, although as he coughed up more and more of the beautiful flowers, he noticed his voice had started to get scratchy. He continued to hang out with his friends, praying they wouldn’t notice anything, and when someone finally mentioned something, he brushed it off as a small cough he had. Nobody could know, especially not Logan.

It was around this time that he started taking sick days if the flowers were too abundant or if they hurt too bad. It was usually only once or twice a month, but they added up and continued to happen. He realized that the flowers weren’t going to go away, that they were going to continue to get worse until he died. Patton had a full-on panic attack that day. Thankfully he had practice dealing with them because of Virgil but it took him a long time to come to terms with the fact that he was going to die. He continued to refuse to tell anyone about his situation though. He had to keep them safe.

-

“And now I’m here with you guys. The flowers had gotten so bad this month and I took five sick days and Virgil noticed, which lead him to call me. And apparently, you guys had found one of the petals from I don’t know where and you confronted me. That’s about it.” Patton shrugged, finishing up his story.

Virgil had his hands over his mouth, shock evident in his expression. Roman was rubbing Virgil’s back comfortingly, though he was biting his lip to the extent it looked painful. Logan was crying behind Patton’s back, his fingers digging into the palms of his hands to keep him from making a sound so Patton didn’t know he was there. It’s then that Patton realized he had just told his friends that he was dying. That he had come to terms with the fact that he was going to die.

“Guys I’m sorry I didn’t mean to freak you ou-” his sentence was cut off as he coughed painfully, convulsing. Virgil panicked and he rushed to his friend’s side, but Patton brushed him away. Through his coughing fit, he explained that this was normal. He was going to be fine. Eventually, a flower ripped its way out of Patton’s throat and onto the floor. They all stared at it except for Patton, who was rubbing his throat. A soft whisper came from behind him and he whipped around, eyes wide.

“How long have you been here?”

“Long enough.”

“What were you saying before?”

“Ambrosia. That is the flower that is sitting on the ground in front of us all. Would you care to know what it means?”

Patton shook his head. He looked at the flower then back to Logan sadly. “No, I’d rather not know. I don’t want to be disappointed again.”

“I think you will like this one.” The taller gave a small smile, taking a step towards Patton. “It means requited love.” Patton gasped, clasping his hands over his mouth. He felt lighter, and not just in the emotional way, but the physical way as well. Virgil and Roman made their way to the kitchen to actually begin getting ready for the workday but also to give the two some time alone.

“How long?”

Logan chewed on his lip, his cheeks flooding with color. “Since the day I became acquainted with your dog.”

A fond smile adorned Patton’s face as he ran up to Logan, embracing him. “My dog, huh?”

Logan rolled his eyes with a laugh. “Yes, I only reciprocate these feelings because of your dog. Of course. What logical sense.”

“Hmm, I totally can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic!” They laughed, and Patton laid his head on Logan’s chest. His heart felt like it was about to burst, though it was because he was happy. He didn’t remember the last time he was this happy.

Logan drew back from the hug a little, placing his hand on Patton’s cheek, the latter of whom leaned into the touch with a smile. Logan leaned down, placing a soft kiss atop Patton’s head. Patton looked up to Logan, eyes wide.

Logan pulled his hand away quickly. “I apologize. Was that too much?” “Not at all.” Patton then grabbed Logan’s tie, pulling him down into a kiss. It was soft and filled with emotion, and the two pulled back with the same adoring expression. It was clear they loved each other.

Logan cleared his throat, chewing on his lip again. “Um, Patton, now that we have feelings out of the way, I was wondering if you would care to accompany me on a romantic outing?” He scratched the back of his neck with his hand, averting his eyes. “I feel that instead of rushing into things, we should take it slow. If that’s okay with you.” “Of course it is, Lo! When?” Logan flushed at the nickname. “How does this Saturday sound? I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-TAG LIST-

@literally-logicality-trash

[teh-ambivalent-eccentric]

The Imitation Game: The Mathematician Hero Nobody Knew

When people think about war heroes, people think about people who have risked and sacrificed their lives for their loved ones, people, nation, and the world. Those who have gone into the front-lines, taking on the enemy head on while defending points and keeping those that matter most safe deserve a lot of credit, but there are also people behind-the-scenes which make every move in the game of war, who are tasked to do secret assignments in aiding their allies, potentially turning the tide of the war, also deserve due credit. People who partake in such obscure and secretive work may end up being unrecognized and not credited for their contributions by the masses, especially those who are shunned out by society, usually for top-secret purposes. Though eventually, they’d be revealed in history for their role and efforts, there is still one who wasn’t given the proper respect for their actions essential to how the Allied Powers defeated the Axis Powers, most especially Nazi Germany. This person was none other than English mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing.

Now, I wouldn’t be writing this if it weren’t for the fact that he has gotten himself a film based on his biography known as "The Imitation Game", nor would I have known anything about him if it weren’t for this award-winning movie. To start things off, Alan Turing, who’s played by none other than Benedict Cumberbatch himself, had a rough school life in his boarding school, being unhappy and constantly bullied for being different from the rest of the other students. This scene is all too familiar to almost everyone who’s been a victim of bullying way back in school, though luckily, he was able to develop a friendship with Christopher Morcom, who assured him that he’s no different from everybody else, told him about how smart and gifted he was, and the one who sparked Alan’s interest in cryptography. As they spent more time together and as they grew closer, Alan began to develop romantic feelings for his dear friend. Yes, Alan Turing was a homosexual.

Sadly, before Alan could confess his love to him, Christopher died due to tuberculosis during a vacation with his family. Years later, after working with certain accolades in the field of math and Britain declaring war on Germany, he travels to Bletchley Park to join the cryptography team of Hugh Alexander, John Cairncross, Peter Hilton, Kieth Furman, and Charles Richards, under the command of Alastair Denniston. They were tasked to try to deciphering the Enigma machine, which the Nazis used to send coded messages. Alan wasn’t really the best coworker, and seemed pretty arrogant and lonesome with his work. He decided to build a machine to decrypt Enigma, but he lacked the funds and resources to do so. He then turned to Deniston for help, but he refuses to give him any at all. Alan then wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill himself. Much to the surprise of everyone, Churchill puts Turing in charge and gives him funds for his machine. Turing then subsequently fired Richards and Furman, much to the dismay of everyone, while the news of a Soviet spy lurks among them as well. Afterwards, a very difficult crossword puzzle was added to the newspapers around Britain to search for replacements. A Cambridge graduate named Joan Clarke, was able to surpass his test, but her parents could not allow her to work with the male cryptographers, so Turing arranged a place for her to live and work with female clerks who intercept the messages made and sent by the Nazis. Turing would then confide to her about his plan, and with Clarke’s help, he was able to become more sociable and respectable to work with the other cryptographers.

Turing’s Machine, which he named Christopher, was finally constructed, but he could not determine the settings to find out the key of Enigma before the Nazis reset its encryption each day. After he took way too long, Denniston led a few of his men towards the area and orders them to destroy it and fire Turing afterwards. Luckily, the other cryptographers come to the rescue and threaten Denniston by leaving if he fires Turing. Fast-forward a bit and Clarke plans on leaving due to the wishes of her parents, and with Turing doing everything he could think of for her to stay due to how she helps really well, then proposes to her, which she then accepts. During the reception and the party at a bar, cue the random scenes furthering character development, Turing admits to Cairncross that he is indeed a homosexual, and tells him to keep it a secret, due to the fact that being a homosexual is punishable by law, as it is seen as gross indecency back then. He then overhears a conversation between Clarke and one of the female clerks about the messages they receive, Turing realizes something that might as well could be what they need to break Enigma. They all rush back to the machine in the middle of the night, and program the machine with words that are already present in the existing messages. After recalibrating everything and putting the machine back to work once more, it was able to decode a message, prompting a celebration amongst all of them. After almost two years, they have finally cracked the code. They have finally broken Enigma, and with that at hand, they will be able to pinpoint and anticipate Nazi attacks before they would happen. Though Turing realizes something that would sour it all up; if they acted upon every single decoded message, the Germans would realize that Enigma had been broken, which would prompt them to change the code, and ruin all that they had worked so hard for.

Cairncross reveals to Turing that he was the Soviet spy all along, but he tries to convince him that the Soviets are also working on the same goal as the British, and tells him that he would retaliate to Turing if his cover’s blown because of him by revealing to everyone that he is a homosexual. When one of the top agents of Britain, Stewart Menzies, comes around to threaten Clarke, Turing then reveals to him that Cairncross is the spy, but apparently, he already knew that, and the reason he allowed Cairncross to slip past them and join the team was to benefit the leaking of messages to the Soviets to Britain’s advantage. Turing becomes very worried for Clarke’s safety and asks her to leave, but she refuses as she’s at the prime of her work and could never leave him. He then went as far as to reveal Clarke that he was in fact gay, and lied to her that he never truly cared for her at all. This broke Clarke’s heart, obviously, because she already had suspicions about his true sexuality, but she insisted that they would still be happy together anyway.

After the war, everyone was celebrating and cheering for the end of the world war and the victory of Britain and the Allies Powers against the Nazis and the Axis Powers. Except for the rest of the team, who had it quite differently. They would have to stay quiet, burn all their work and other evidence, and never see or speak to each other again to keep the secrecy of their contributions for the meantime, by orders of Menzies. After a few more years, Turing was convicted by British authorities for indecency when it was finally revealed that he’s a homosexual. He was given a choice of either a jail sentence or chemical castration. He chooses the latter so he could at least continue his work as a mathematician and educator, despite the physical and mental problems he would develop due to his punishment. Clarke then visited his home and witnesses his deterioration and weakening. She then comforts him with the fact that the war could’ve dragged on longer and may have had a different outcome if it weren’t for his work, which also saved millions of lives.

It’s quite the tragic ending for the story of someone who had done a lot for his country. Who knows what would’ve happened if Turing didn’t do anything at all. He did all that, and what he got in return was no one who knew and thanked him for his work, followed by punishment just for being gay. Life can go from being a tad quaint, to being brutally unfair, but despite it all, he just did what he did best, and continued to do what he wanted to do. It’s truly admirable on how he continue to go on despite all that, because that’s how we should be living our life, no matter what kind of nonsense and horrible things it throws at us. All of us are capable of greatness, and all we gotta do is do whatever it takes. So next time, when you find out that someone did something very important, possibly for the greater good, give them their due credit and respect, because they truly deserve it.

"Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of, who do the things that no one can imagine."

[mistressemmedi]

Ten things to watch for in the 2018 Dakar Rally

By: Valentin Khorounzhiy, News Editor at Motorsport.com (x)        

The 40th edition of the most gruelling rally event of all, the Dakar, begins on Saturday in the Peruvian capital of Lima. Here's everything you need to know ahead of the two-week marathon event.

#1. Rain, rain, go away

The 2017 rally's route was received considerably better than that of its predecessor, with many a competitor praising the increased focus on off-roading and navigation and a lesser reliance on 'WRC-style' road stages.

The downside was that a significant chunk of that route didn't actually feature competitive running, with persistent heavy rainfall dominating the Bolivian leg, as well as sections in Argentina.

Day-to-day conditions were rough (particularly in Bolivia's Oruro bivouac, which turned into a swamp overnight), a number of stages were shortened and two – including the much-anticipated 'Super Belen' in Northern Argentina – were canned.

Rain in Bolivia is no one-off issue, and the troubles of the 2017 event left the likes of trucks frontrunner Gerard De Rooy and Hans Stacey, as well as top car-class privateer Erik van Loon, calling for a rethink of the route.

Dakar is still going to Bolivia this year – albeit for a shorter stretch – and none of the three aforementioned competitors will be with the rally this time, De Rooy in particular deciding to contest the Africa-based Eco Race instead.

This is by no means a mass exodus, but Dakar organisers will be wary of the rally becoming too much of a hassle for the European privateers that make up most of its ranks.

They could really use a smoother run in 2018 – and for the returning Peru leg that opens the route to be a success.

#2. Last hurrah for two veterans?

The news that Peugeot would be bowing out after the 2018 race was a big deal in many respects, not least because it could be the catalyst for retirement for both Stephane 'Mr. Dakar' Peterhansel and Carlos 'El Matador' Sainz.

Peterhansel, comfortably the most successful competitor in Dakar history, was inundated with retirement questions immediately after claiming his 13th event win last year.

With the 2018 race marking Dakar's 40th anniversary and Peugeot calling it quits, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see Peterhansel hang up his helmet now – but the 52-year-old is yet to commit one way or another.

He recently told Motorsport.com: “I don’t really have plans. After Peugeot’s announcement to stop the Dakar programme, we weren’t surprised because we suspected it, and there isn’t any nostalgia for the moment as it’s not over yet! But there is a bit of sadness.

“We lived four years of an exceptional adventure so now, I just feel like leaving this behind me and focusing exclusively on this next Dakar and doing the best I can.

“Then I will see what I will want to do next. But currently, I don’t even give any thought to what’s going to happen after crossing the line of the next Dakar.”

Sainz, three years older, has struck a similar note. But with no obvious new manufacturers on Dakar's horizon, both his and Peterhansel's options would be limited if they wanted to keep going – and it's not at all unlikely that one, or both, will decide this race will be as good a time as any to step aside.

#3. Loeb's moment of truth

Sebastien Loeb's successes on the 'WRC-style' sections of the 2016 Dakar were to be expected, but it was his and co-driver Daniel Elena's strong performances in off-roading and navigation last year that marked the crew as potential champions-in-waiting.

Well, about that... Peugeot's announcement that its Dakar programme would conclude with the 2018 event suggested Loeb and Elena won't get as many chances as they really ought to, and the Frenchman's subsequent blunt confirmation that this year would be his “last chance” has now driven the point home.

Loeb clearly has what it takes to win the Dakar this time. He already looked Peugeot's fastest driver last year, but ran out of time to make up for a navigational mistake in a head-to-head duel against the shrewd Stephane Peterhansel.

And despite his obvious talent, Loeb still hasn't won a cross-country rally. Most recently, he squandered a very real chance in the Silk Way Rally when he crashed out, handing the win to fellow Peugeot man Cyril Despres (who should likewise be a factor in this year's Dakar with another year of car experience under his belt).

So, it's now or never, and the pressure on Loeb will be considerably higher this time around. And while a Loeb victory would be popular, Peugeot has insisted it is not planning to stack the deck in favour the nine-time WRC champion.

“The only thing we know ahead of the race is that many things will happen – with weather, with incidents, with driver, co-driver and navigational errors,” said Peugeot's Bruno Famin.

“It is impossible to know who will win, whether it'll be Loeb or not. For us, the important thing is that one of us wins – and then we'll be satisfied.”

#4. Spoiling the farewell party

Nasser Al-Attiyah topping the opening stage of the 2017 rally for Toyota prompted Carlos Sainz to say Peugeot had been treated unfairly by changes to restrictor regulations – with the 4x4 cars allowed an increase and his two-litre buggy getting a reduction.

But that, of course, was very much a false dawn. Al-Attiyah crashed out of the rally early, and while his fellow Toyota drivers kept in touch with Peugeot over the opening stages close to sea level, their heavier, normally-aspirated cars were no match for the 3008DKR at altitude.

Come 2018, further measures have been taken to level the playing field, with the buggies made heavier while the 4x4 cars get a weight break and increased suspension travel.

That should take the Toyota camp halfway to preventing another blowout. The other half would be its chief hope, Al-Attiyah, staying out of trouble.

After his bruising 2017 exit, the two-time Dakar winner dominated the Cross-Country Rally World Cup for a third straight year, and should have a strong shot at ruining Peugeot's farewell party.

Still, even if the rapid Qatari doesn't keep the car in one piece, fellow Toyota driver and 2009 champion Giniel de Villiers almost certainly will, the South African having finished each of his 14 Dakars so far - and only once outside of the top seven.

#5. Mini's double-spec strategy

The recent unveiling of X-Raid Mini's all-new 2WD buggy means the team will play both sides in the 2018 race.

Mikko Hirvonen and Yazeed Al-Rajhi, who have spearheaded the outfit's recent efforts, will be piloting the buggy, whereas 2014 champion Nani Roma – back in the Mini fold after one year with Toyota – will stick with the 4x4.

But despite a two-fold strategy and a formidable line-up, toppling Peugeot and Toyota might be too tough an ask for now – at least according to former Dakar champion and Mini tester Jutta Kleinschmidt.

“It's difficult to say because we never saw it racing, they only did tests in Morocco,” she told Motorsport.com. “For my experience, it will have some technical problems, I'm quite sure, because it's a long race.

“I don't think it's already competitive, I would be very surprised. It could make some good results but to win is so hard. Peugeot suffered the same in its first year [in 2015] and then the second year was really good.

“I also think they put all the effort in the buggy, they hadn't developed the other car, not much at least.”

#6. KTM-Honda rivalry approaching boiling point

Last year, KTM continued a stranglehold on the Dakar’s bikes category dating back to 2001 thanks to Sam Sunderland, but the Briton's maiden triumph certainly wasn't without controversy.                            

It owed much to a one-hour penalty that was handed to all four Honda factory riders on the fourth stage for illegal refuelling – at a stroke turning Joan Barreda’s 19-minute lead into a 41-minute deficit. Barreda went on to lose by 43 minutes.

One month later, during KTM’s MotoGP launch, CEO Stefan Pierer made headlines when he accused his “most hated” rival Honda of trying to cheat its way to Dakar glory.

Honda eventually returned the compliment when Ricky Brabec accused KTM of always getting its own way with the organisers in October’s Morocco Rally, won by Mathias Walkner.

In response, KTM rally sport manager Jordi Viladoms told Motorsport.com: “[Brabec] says there is a person who speaks well with the FIM and with the organisation, it’s clear he’s referring to me.

“I appreciate the sentiment that I do my job well, but it’s not KTM’s style to talk about other teams like that. We are a little surprised, but they have their style and we have ours.”

Those comments have set the tone for what promises to be another fascinating Battle Royale between the Dakar’s pre-eminent two-wheeled brands.

#7. Barreda's year at last?

If anybody has emerged as the heir to Dakar bike legends Marc Coma and Cyril Despres in recent years, it’s Joan Barreda, winner of no fewer than 18 stages in the South American event since 2012. And yet, the Spaniard has never finished on the overall podium, let alone won the title.

Last year’s one-hour penalty was merely the latest in a long line of misfortunes for Barreda, who lost strong victory chances both in 2016 and 2015 due to mechanical trouble.

The Spaniard’s luck didn’t improve after last year’s Dakar either. He broke his collarbone in March and then broke his wrist in August, compromising his preparations for this year’s event.

Following surgery, Barreda is finally ready to return to competitive action. But the 34-year-old insists finally capturing a maiden Dakar victory is the not the be all and end all for him.

“I want to try at least to win one Dakar because it would be the prize for the work of all these years,” Barreda told Motorsport.com. “But it is not something that obsesses me or stops me sleeping. What I dreamt of, I have already achieved: to be the reference rider.”

Barreda’s opposition will be stiff, not least within his own Honda team, where impressive 2016 rookie Kevin Benavides – who was forced to skip the event last year – will also start among the favourites for victory.

At KTM, reigning champion Sunderland is joined by 2016 winner Toby Price, last year’s runner-up Walkner and former enduro star Antoine Meo, while FIM Cross Country Rallies champion Pablo Quintanilla spearheads sister brand Husqvarna’s assault.

Not to be discounted either is Yamaha, which has recruited Franco Caimi from Honda to join Adrian van Beveren and Xavier de Soultrait in its works line-up.

#8. Replacing de Rooy as Kamaz's chief headache

The two Dakars Kamaz has lost since 2009 had both gone to De Rooy, who is sitting out this year's race – so the Russian truck manufacturer should fancy its chances.

It'll have a strong line-up as usual, with champions Eduard Nikolaev and Ayrat Mardeev, rising star Dmitry Sotnikov and Anton Shibalov in an initial support role.

Sotnikov's fortunes will be of particular interest - his Kamaz is to be equipped with a new straight-six engine instead of the traditional 16-litre V8. And it is not as big a gamble as it might sound, given that Sotnikov has already headed a Kamaz Silk Way Rally podium lock-out in a similar configuration.

That's not to say Kamaz will have a clear run at victory, as the team still has to overcome the likes of regular frontrunner Ales Loprais, his fellow Tatra driver Martin Kolomy and Martin van den Brink.

And while de Rooy is absent, his IVECO team should now be spearheaded by Argentine Federico Villagra, who too can be a formidable rival.

A former WRC regular, he has finished in the top four in his first two truck-class Dakars and further proved his credentials by winning the Morocco Rally last year.

#9. Karyakin versus Casale

The quad class might lack the wide recognition and marquee names of other categories at Dakar, but it gives no quarter when it comes to drama, competition and unpredictability.

A cursory glance at this year's entry list would paint the 2018 event as a duel between the reigning champion, Russia's Sergey Karyakin, and '14 champion/'17 runner-up Ignacio Casale.

Casale, having lost by over an hour last time out, feels he was “in very poor shape” then and is approaching the event with renewed confidence, but Karyakin will be no weaker this time and is motivated to prove his maiden triumph was no “fluke”.

Of course, these usually don't work out so simple. Last year's race featured five different leaders and six different winners, and all of them are back in 2018.

Among those who could disrupt a potential Karyakin-Casale showdown are fellow past champion Rafal Sonik, Argentine riders Jeremias Gonzalez and Pablo Copetti, Bolivia's main hope Walter Nosiglia, Dutch cross-country world champion Kees Koolen and Peruvian Alexis Hernandez, who ran at the front of the race in 2016.

But most curious, perhaps, will be the speed of French duo Axel Dutrie and Simon Vitse, who both mounted a serious dark-horse challenge on their respective debuts last year.

#10. From the touchline to the cockpit

The sight of non-motorsport celebrity isn't a particularly rare occurrence for the Dakar Rally, with cameos ranging from Margaret Thatcher's son Mark's infamously disastrous 1982 outing to ski champion Luc Alphand's slow and gradual path towards a full-on Dakar win in 2006.

And this year's race will mark the latest addition to the roster in the form Andre Villas-Boas, 40-year-old Portuguese football manager who just a few years ago was seen as the next big thing in the sport.

Villas-Boas remains the youngest manager to win a European club competition, his Porto side lifting the Europa League trophy when he was just 33. But subsequent stints at English giants Chelsea and fellow London powerhouse Tottenham were ultimately inglorious, swiftly halting his rapid ascent.

Still, he is no spent force, which is what makes this cameo particularly exciting. He has just walked out of a lucrative deal with China's Shanghai SIPG and is frequently linked to various football clubs in search of managers.

He's also clearly not contesting the rally on a whim, long-known to be a motorsport fan intent with a dream of racing at the Dakar.

That, of course, is no guarantee he'll do well – but he has commendable enthusiasm, a handy co-driver in former KTM rider Ruben Faria and a solid piece of equipment in the Toyota Hilux.

If you're partial to football, or just keen on more mainstream recognition for the Dakar, Villas-Boas will be worth keeping an eye out on.

[frenchistory]

Louis XIV of Versailles

Stephanie Cipres-Gamez

Prof. Mary-Ann Lyman Hager

French 421 

Joan of Arc resembles the nationalism of France. She is not exactly the whole idea, but she represents how the French feel about their country. One another major aspect of the French culture and legacy is the Palace of Versailles. When I think about France, Versailles just comes up to mind as well as Joan of Arc, Notredame, La Tour Eiffel, etc. It is such an amazing and beautiful castle that the history behind absolutely blows me away. The making of the castle, the reason for it, who lived there, what were the activites, these are things that compel me to the castle, aside from its absolute beauty, and who is to be thanked for this? None other than Louis XIV.

Louis XIV, he embodies or represents the principle of absolute monarchy. He imposed with such force that century XVII is known like the century of Louis XIV. He is reputed to have reigned with supreme power over France. He controlled the state, but he was also the head of the Gallican church. This is called absolute royalty by divine right. It means that the ruler holds his power from God himself, and knows no rival in his kingdom. This was Louis XIV. At the same time, with this monarchical regime, the king encouraged the development of classical aesthetics in all disciplines. So, he implemented the idea of ​​absolutism with a dazzling monarch to exceptional composition, by setting up subjects and ideas of the greatness of the state and the need of a centralized government. One of the great examples of this is the Palace of Versailles. The construction of Versailles was an artistic climax and a political achievement, as its construction as a royal residence and place of government allowed to control the kingdom's greatest, the nobility and so on.

With this view, it is not surprising the court and government followed his orders.

Even the King's collaboration with Colbert and the army by his War Minister, France grew up drastically. France became rich and ended up dominating Europe on all fronts. However, the wars of Louis XIV against the Habsburgs marked the beginning of the decline of his reign.

One of the reasons why Louis XIV was lavished with glorious names is him being born after 23 years of marriage between Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria. He was given the title of “gift of God.” After his father died, he inherited the crown of a fractured, unstable and nearly insolvent France. His mother became the sole regent for him and Cardinal Jules Mazarin became her chief minister. Since Louis XIV was still a child, Anne and Mazarin ruled and introduced policies that furthered established the monchary’s power which angered the nobles and members of the aristocracy. This caused a civil war called the Frond where they royal family was forced to flee Paris and installed a fear of rebellion on the young king. Mazarin was able to suppress the revolt and negotiated a peace treaty with Hapsburg Spain. Louis, now 22 years old, married the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain, Marie-Thérèse, for obvious diplomatic reasons. Out of the six children they had, only Louis survived to adulthood.  

After Mazarin died, Louis XIV broke with tradition and decided to rule without a chief minister. He viewed himself as a direct representative of God, endowed with a divine right to rule with absolute power. One of the things he did to represent this was choosing the sun as his emblem to illustrate himself as “Roi-Soleil.” And he is remembered for his infamous statement “l’État, c’est moi.”

Louis quickly worked tirelessly to centralize and take full control of France and its overseas colonies. In 1667, he launched the war of devolution where he invaded the Spanish Netherlands as he claimed it to be his wife’s inheritance. Due to opposite forces, France has to retreat to Spain which led to the Franco Dutch war. Here, France was able to acquire ore territory in Flanders as well as the Franche-Comté. France became the dominant power on the continent and they were able to maintain the title for a several years. However, the war of the Spanish succession where he defended his grandson Philip V’s inheritance of Spain led France into a massive debt and famine turning the nation against the crown.

Part of his success was due to his finance minister, Jean Baptiste Colbert and his war minister, Marquis de Louvois, reduced the deficit and fostered the growth of industry and expanded and reorganized the French army. This was before the wars led him to his near unpopularity with the nation. Even so, before this, Louis also was able to disempower the rebellious nobles as they had caused no less than 11 civil wars in four decades. He was able to do so by utilizing one of his creations to represent his new regime, chateau de Versailles. He built several lavish chateaux in Versailles to where he moved his court and government. He tamed the nobility and impressed foreign dignitaries by using entertainment and codified system of etiquette to assert his power.

Even as an absolute ruler, he loved art, literature, music, theater and sports. He surrounded himself with the great artists and intellectual figures of the time, such as Molière, Charles le Brun, and jean Baptiste Lully.  He even appointed himself the patron of the Académie Française.

Apart from the wards, the discontentment of protestants with the king revoking the Edict of Nantes. He ordered protestant churches, schools, and clergy to be destroyed and expulsed. Due to the persecution of protestants, many fled to England, Switzerland, Germany and American colonies, and this led to a great decrease in France’s labor while angering the protestant neighbors.

The Roi Soleil died of gangrene at Versailles after a reign of 72 years, the longest yet. He greatly contributed to France’s culture and history, but most importantly destiny because the continuation of the crown would go on carrying his debts and problems as he did with his father’s. It seems that a major part of France’s history is based on Louis after Louis after Louis carrying the burden of the previous Louis.

It is hard not to see the big, gold castle as you are walking toward it, but what seems to be the “first” thing we are supposed to see is Louis XIV. There lies a statue of him, yet it’s the gold gate that really engages your eyes.

These are my French classmates 4 years ago.

You pass the gate and you continue to see gold along the castle. There is no wonder why he was called the Roi Soleil. He truly put an effort in having everything revolve around him.

However, there is also a sense of disappointment or sadness, as one admires the architecture, tu see the small windows at the very top of the castle. These small windows are windows to the very small, uncomfortable, not glamourous, rooms of the peasants who worked for the king.

The castle is absolutely enormous!

He got castles for his court and government. He had castles for his wives.

His ceilings were not regular, modest ceilings. Like he was, every last detail was extravagant.

Versaille its an absolutely amazing, beautiful, astonishing architecture.

And how was the king not to feel like a representation of God in such a small place like the Hall of Mirrors.

However, I do wonder whether it truly looked like this. It has been taken care of, remodeled. But how much to the extent that it has not absolutely changed?

I may be smiling in the next picture, but I was actually disappointed and mad that some parts of the castle were closed off to the public. What are they? What is there? I believe that there is still an imcomplete story to Louis XIV greatest creation, Versailles. People in charge of Versailles now take care of the castle, for obvious reasons. However, only the extravagant parts of the castle are shown. Why are the servants room not shown? What is there on these prohibited parts of the castle?

Perhaps random but this is me 4 years ago in Nantes buying a baguette which just of the fact that its Nantes I relate it to the Edict of Nantes.

Like any other history, there are endless details and stories that make up that history. What makes up France are endless events and stories. However, I see Louis being a domino effect on what came to be the rest of French history, and a way to reflect what Louis XIV was was through Versailles.

Sources

Vanleene, F., & Lyman-Hager, M. A. (2016). Vers l'unité du royaume de France. In Cours de civilisation française interactif (pp. 73-104). San Diego: Montezuma Publishing.

"The Edict of Nantes." History Today, www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/edict-nantes.

"Louis XIV - Facts & Summary." HISTORY.com, www.history.com/topics/louis-xiv.

[suckmycoxon]

Hi :) could you give me a little background on omd? I don't know anything of the band except for a few songs, so maybe you could say your knowledge of the band and the members?

OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW THRILLED I AM TO DO THIS

Let’s get to the band members first!

Andy McCluskey

Here’s the bossy one. As he puts it, he’s the butcherwho cuts off the raw materials of the song; the director who basically tellsPaul what to do, the one who sees the big picture, while Paul is the surgeonwho splices the details. He sings, plays bass, and writes the lyrics for mostof their songs. And he always dances madly, even in the recent years! For a58-year old guy with bad knees, he’s VERY energetic. So as you can see, he’sthe dominant one. Powerful, loud, cheerful, salty as fuck, thoroughly hatesrock ‘n’ roll, claims he hates cliché love songs but writes them anyway. I lovehim nonetheless

Paul Humphreys

THIS IS MY FAVORITE GUY OFF OMD. MY LOVE. MY HANDSOMEHAMSTER. HE’S CUTE ISN’T HE? Alright, so… he’s the keyboardist, the creativeand technical one. He’s the one who usually comes up with a melody and thenAndy directs how the song should turn out. He’s the one who does most of thesynth sounds! In the old days, he used to build his own “noise machine” bymessing with the circuits and such of old, broken radios. Don’t tell me that’snot badass. He also sings in a couple of OMD’s songs, most notably in“Electricity”, “Souvenir”, “(Forever) Live and Die”, and “Secret”.Personality-wise, he’s the complete opposite of Andy. He’s more quiet, shy,soft, and just lovely overall 

Other members are MalcolmHolmes (the long-haired one in the picture above) who was the drummer from the beginning of the band until 2013. Inthat year, he had a cardiac arrest and temporarily died so he had to retire.From 2013 onwards, Stuart Kershaw tookthe drummer position. Another member is MartinCooper (the one with the blue shirt), the saxophonist/keyboardist/occasional bassist. He’s still with theband until now! Except when OMD broke up because he and Mal went along withPaul instead of Andy, but I’ll get to that later…

They embrace the “punk” attitude in terms of music. Youknow, making music as simple as possible. They always say this joke of “We’rethe punks of electronic. Punk plays with one chord, we play with one finger!”

Now, it’s history time. Let’s go back to the 70s

Andy and Paul had always been the hipsters of that era. Theylistened to electronic bands like Kraftwerk, Neu, La Dusseldorf (Kraftwerk,mostly) while their peers listened to prog rock. Andy was in a band and Paulwas the roadie. Despite always being in the same school, that was when theynoticed how they shared the similar interest towards Kraftwerk, so Andy quitthe band and formed his own with Paul that we now know as the pretentiouslynamed Orchestral Manoeuves in the Dark

They started off as a supporting band fo Joy Division inEric’s Club in Liverpool. They didn’t expect to have a longlasting career… theyreally thought it would be their first and last gig. They just wanted to provethemselves and their mates that they dared to go on stage doing somethingdifferent; doing weird electronic music, hence the odd band name. With such apretentious name, they wanted to show the audience how they were doingsomething different

And then they were offered a second gig in Manchester.That’s where they met Tony Wilson, and he signed them up to Factory Records.Then “Electricity” was recorded, and Tony sent it to various major labels, oneof which was Virgin Records, so they moved to Virgin. It was in 1979/1980 Ithink? And with their 1980 album, Organisation (their second one. Their firstone, the self-titled one, was released in the same year) – which they claim asbeing influenced by Joy Division, so this album is basically the child of JoyDivision and Kraftwerk – which included “Enola Gay”, they became well known.They got even bigger with the Architecture and Morality album, which has“Souvenir”, “Joan of Arc”, “Maid of Orleans”…

They commercially dropped dead with Dazzle Ships (1983). Itwas an experimental album, which I personally think sounds great, but probablynot acceptable enough at that time. Despite having quite successful hits like“Telegraph” and “Genetic Engineering”, that album almost single-handedly killedtheir career. So they took a safer path in their next album, Junk Culture(1984), embracing a more pop-ish sound. It can be heard on their catchy hitsfrom Junk Culture, like “Locomotion” and “Talking Loud and Clear”

Their 1985 album, Crush, was produced by Stephen Hague, whowas also the producer for New Order and Pet Shop Boys. They finally got intoUS’ charts with that album, I guess?? Regarding that album and that year, theyoften say something like “We were trying to break America, but America broke usinstead”, so I can’t be quite sure of what happened… commercially, it waspretty successful, I think… with singles like “Secret” and “La Femme Accident”

It was also in circa 1985 where their most notable song, “IfYou Leave”, was also made. Fun fact: they only wrote it in a day, because JohnHughes changed the ending suddenly and called them and said, “Hey, the song youwrote won’t fit to the new ending, could you write a new one?” right beforethey went on tour. The track that was initially going to be used in Pretty inPink, “Goddess of Love”, was later put on The Pacific Age (1986). Speaking ofwhich, that album has “(Forever) Live and Die”, which is a BANGER and is sungby my handsome hamster, Paul

Then they broke up sometime in late 80s. 1989, I think. Theyowed the company a lot of money, so they made a Best Of album. But even thatwasn’t enough. Their choice was either to make another new album (which canmake money, quite possibly, but due to their past experiences, they barely gotany money left because the touring expenses, royalties to their manager, etcwere so expensive) or to stop and just wait for the money to come from theirprevious albums’ royalties (I’m not really sure about this one, they’ve toldthe story a couple of times during interviews but I could never 100% understandthe story). This is where Andy and Paul went their separate ways. Andy chose tocarry on while Paul chose to stop. So Andy carried the name OMD alone (underhis stubbornness). A couple of years later, Paul, Martin, and Malcolm formedThe Listening Pool. Both were obscured by the new trend in 90s that was Britpopand such (Andy often implies that he blames Britpop for the obscurity ofelectronic bands and I loathe him for that smh I’m a Britpop hoe, fuck youAndy). Andy (as OMD) released 3 albums on that decade, tho. Later on, he formedAtomic Kitten

And then they were reunited in 2006/2007, because they wereasked to perform in a German TV. Then they thought, “Oh, people still like us.Maybe we could make music again.” And so they did… they released History ofModern in 2010, English Electric in 2013, and their latest record, ThePunishment of Luxury, was released a month ago! Unlike the 80s, they are nolonger pressured by their record company, so they’re really doing this purelyfor fun. By the way, their latest single off their latest record, “What Have WeDone”, is sung by Paul and it’s fucking glorious. You should listen to it ifyou haven’t

On a more personal note, I find it weird how they’re bothvery influential and infamous. I mean… they don’t only influence other synthpopbands, but also an alternative like Radiohead. I heard that “Fitter Happier” byRadiohead was influenced by “Genetic Engineering”, and now that I think aboutit, “Fitter Happier” does sound like something out of Dazzle Ships. I’ve been aRadiohead fan since 2011/2012 and yet I literally never heard of OMD until thisyear; not until I got to New Order and was getting more cultured regarding 80ssynthpop acts

Lastly, here are some trivia you might not want to know butsounds like fun to share:

Before realizing that they could be actual musicians, Andy wanted to be an archaeologist, while Paul wanted to be an electric engineer

Atomic Kitten was basically Karl Bartos’ (Kraftwerk) idea. Andy wanted to keep writing songs, but he wasn’t confident enough to perform the songs as OMD, so he thought of just handing them to someone else. Then Karl suggested that he should create a pop group where they would sing his songs. Andy thought, “What’s the most popular group nowadays? Oh, I know, 3-piece girls!”

In the recent years, OMD often have underwears thrown at them lmao. Especially during “(Forever) Live and Die”. Poor Paul having to deal with nasty fans (but honestly… I’d do the same). But sometimes they have hazardous shits thrown at them too. One time, Paul had his head hit by a glass bottle (I’LL FUCKING MURDER ANYONE WHO DID THAT. HOW DARE THEY HURT MY BABY). And Andy almost got decapitated when someone threw a metal tray aimed to his neck. Terrifying

Somehow, when they were touring, the bus they rode on resemble a group of terrorists’ bus, so they were surrounded by guns… and luckily, “Enola Gay” was already a big hit, so Andy just waved a magazine with their faces on it and said “’Enola Gay’! Pop stars! Not terrorists!” jesus Christ

There’s actually a version of “Souvenir” where it was sung by Andy. In 2015, Paul was hospitalized in New York, but he insisted that they should do this gig in Perth, so they did, only 3 of them… “Souvenir” was on the set, and Andy sang it. It was… okay, I guess. I’m so used to Paul’s soft voice singing that, so it’s kinda weird to hear Andy’s powerful voice singing it

 …I’m sorry if you expected a shortsummary and get this re-writing of OMD’s Wikipedia page instead. I never realizedhow deep I am in their ass until I answered this message with a 1600-word essayabout OMD that was based on my memory alone. Good god

I’m awfully thrilled every time someonementions OMD-related to me, so don’t hesitate if you want to talk about them tome!!

[nemossubmarine]

GM’s reflections on KoNS

So, my first solo-GM’d campaign, and my first DnD campaign is over. It took 9 months and ranked up to 21 sessions, which is quite a lot. It was definitely definitely far from perfect, but there were things that I liked, and things that I learned. I started putting this piece together around the time the third arc kicked off. It’s mostly comments on what I think I did wrong/did not work and what may have caused these issues, and what I can do differently. There’s a lot of comparisons to the DA game I play in / run, because that is my high standard, that is what I aspire to get to, which is of course not possible, since the system is different and players are different.

Anyway, I know my players follow me here, so a quick note to you, in case you’re planning on reading this (which I do not expect (recommend?) you to do). I just want to say that this is not me saying that any player played wrong, or was a cause of something that I didn’t like. At the end of the day I am the GM and the mistakes that led me being displeased with aspects of the game are my responsibility. These are my reflections on what I expect and want my games to be. It, of course, has to do with players, because there’s no game without players. Mostly players are mentioned in me thinking how I could encourage this and that sort of behavior etc. Anything said here is not meant to be a comment against you as a player or as an individual. I recommend not reading this, if you think you might take it personally. (not that I think there would be anything too upsetting in there, just covering all my bases)

Also if anyone who happens to read this (which I don’t expect anyone to do!), wants to discuss, I’d like to hear whether you agree/disagree/have had similar experiences. GM’ing is a lonely job, and I got more than my fair share of that with this adventure, so I might be too wrapped up in my own stuff to really know if something’s just a common GM-mishap.

The rest is under the cut, because, as usual for me it is long and rambly. As in almost 4k words. It’s more than a small essay, I could return this as a homework assignment, haha.

Maybe I should do some kind of sub-titles, to make this a bit more organized. Alright. Alright.

Session building In general, I am more used to writing story-lines in bulk, because I usually have several months in-between the adventures I run on the DA game. Compared, this was very fast-paced for the most part. I do think running KoNS made me better at improvising on the spot, because there was several sessions I had to run with the barest of outlines.

What I think would have been good to have was a bit more time to set up the world. I built it on the fly, and while I enjoyed the process immensely, I think it left the PCs detached from the world, because they didn’t know if stuff fell in line with the DnD norm or was I planning on something different entirely. I’ll talk a bit more about the fast and loose gamestyle’s effect on the plot in a future segment.

Anyway, one other thing that suffered was map making. I relied some on ready-made maps, but again, I get a mental image of a place, and no map really completely captures that. And it’s not like I made every single place I imagine into a map, because making maps on the computer by yourself is sloooow. I think that’s something I want to rectify for future games, having maps of most locations, so the players have something to look at. That will probably mean having to rely on maps other people made more, which, good, they’re better at it than I am, I should totally do that.

The very first adventure I ran had a thing that I’ve never used again, but I really think should pick back up. Those were short descriptive pieces of new locations I’d written beforehand. I have no trouble describing things off the top of my head, but if I want to go for a certain mood pre-written descriptions really help. So yeah, I definitely think some more attention could have been given to describing things.

I thought I would learn the books while I ran, because that’s how I learned to play/run DA game, but I kinda underestimated the fact that there’s a ton of books, and even when I tried to limit the books I allowed on the table, I still didn’t pick things up as fast as I hoped, which kinda lost me authority as a GM. It was difficult for me to find a comfort zone with the rules of the game in terms of what to throw out and what to keep. Running DA I’m usually very experimental, basically changing stuff every adventure. I never got there with DnD, perhaps because I didn’t have time to stop and think about the rules as the pace of the story was so quick.

There’s one more thing that fits under this section. We had some canceling trouble. Of course games have to be canceled for a lot of reasons, that happens, but by the end, every other (or even more) of the sessions planned were cancelled. It bummed me out, not gonna lie. It kinda pissed me off a lot too. I don’t ever want to be the kind of GM who people are afraid to tell that they can’t come and stuff like that, so I didn’t air it out on the players too much, but yeah. It blows. Trying to arrange six people’s schedules to match with you as the main organizer fucking sucks always, but there was other effects too. It made me feel that no one wanted to play my game, that people were losing interest. It broke the momentum of the plot. It cut off my thinking process; I don’t write everything down, because I like to toy around with ideas in my head that I’m not so sure about, but if there’s a 3 week gap between sessions? I can’t do that.

It was especially bad with the final session, where I had prepared for the final battle very extensively (going as far as to have another person test it with me) only to have the session cancelled last minute and moved 3 weeks. And in that time, school had started, I was knee-deep in exam books and my other game had started, which I was also GM’ing for, I had no time nor desire to spend a lot of time going over the things I had decided three weeks prior, so a lot slipped my mind. So yeah, the finale definitely suffered for that, and that bummed me out more than anything. I’m not blaming any of the people who had to cancel, it was just, super-unfortunate in general.

I think there’s a quick fix to it though: breaking down the story in chunks (similar to our DA adventures) with breaks in between might help, so no one has to be free 21 weeks in a row. Another one is to agree that if only one player is missing (which I think in all cases except handful happened here) and especially if it’s a last-minute cancel to play something. Not main plot (unless all players are fine with it), but a side mission. I’ve understood they’re really common among RP groups, and while I didn’t get why people did that before running KoNS, I definitely get it now; it keeps the people who can attend in their characters, helps to keep the story and feel of the game in mind and most importantly doesn’t make your GM sad.

Combat Haha, battles, oh god damn.

DnD’s battle system always felt too complicated for me, too many variables. I developed an early dislike for it, which I really didn’t actively try to work around, until it came time time to actually design Yadira. There were maybe like 8 battles in the whole of KoNS, bounties non-withstanding, so I wasn’t very prepared to make a boss battle. It doesn’t help that I’m like, do everything on your own, don’t take stuff from books ever, so it was not like I could reskin something relatively similar as her. In the end, I think Yadira worked just fine, mostly thanks to the fact that I got to test run her before actual game.

Next time, well, next time I’m probably not running DnD, but I’ll actually learn the damn craft, I did it for DA, I can do it again. I’ll also want to have a discussion with the players about how much battling the players want to do. But, yeah, I’d want to actually work on that from the beginning, and not let myself get too scared to learn. I’m more of a story GM, but there’s a lot of cool stuff to be done with battles, and I want to keep that craft up.

Plot Considering the fact that when I started the necklaces had like, map-pieces to an ancient weapon or something like that, I’m surprised how well the plot actually came together. There was some stuff that got dropped that could have used more time and probably more than a few inconsistencies, but in the end, I did ok.

Although, I have a real villain problem. I am not very interested in cults or dragons or pure evil tyrants, which leaves me with unfathomable forces that don’t care about your existence. Which, fair enough. They did need some building up. For the most part our heroes were concerned with Sweepers, the pan-dimensional clean-up crew, which I made way too gnarly-looking for their super-neutral outlook, because they didn’t know that the real “villain” was Ishran the sun god and Yadira, the former Raven Queen. I think Ishran-in-Adam  and Ishran-outside-Adam needed a lot more building up than the few sesisons they got, although, considering how short the story was, I guess I did ok. But yeah. Next time, I need to work on build-up of villains a bit more.

This might be more relevant to the NPC section, but as I’m mostly going to focus there on NPC-PC relations, I’m going to put it here. I was quite sad about the fact that by the time end game rolled around none of the female characters I had established had really big roles anymore. It had to do with the fact that I had introduced them really early (such as Mairin and Joan) and as they were working with the PCs, they couldn’t have information that could help solve the puzzle, as there was no reason why they wouldn’t have given it out. Now that I know that I hopefully have a bit easier time putting out a balanced end game crew. And maybe in general building NPCs who are relevant in the story throughout.

In general, I think the story might have been a bit too fast-paced and contained way way too many NPCs (or didn’t have a clear focus on only a few, leaving the rest as backdrop). As I said, I’m more used to writing pieces of stories that last about 4 to 7 sessions. In KoNS most plot points lasted only one. Some of my players commented that they liked the fast-pacedness, which is fair enough. I wonder if perhaps I would find it easier if there wasn’t as much changing scenery, or more returning to old scenery?

There were a moment where I think I started coddling the players a bit regarding the plot information. When they didn’t ask for information from an NPC, I just gave it to them, but that just re-enforces them not asking questions, and also, they’ll be much more interested in the answers, when they are the people who actually asked. And I was very hesitant for punishing PCs for lackluster information gathering, and I shouldn’t, because it shouldn’t be me hitting them with a stick, because they didn’t play the way I wanted to, it should be a plot point and a learning moment and natural consequences. Speaking of consequences, wow, those are way harder to set up when you’re writing on the run, and don’t have to wait a year between adventures.

There was one point where I kinda slipped with the plot. I wasn’t aware enough whether it could hold a new player added in the middle. And I don’t think it did. I felt bad for the new PC a lot of the time, because the story simply didn’t bend to give him a chance to get the same stuff the others did, and I struggled to include him naturally and let him have moments as a character. For example, the necklaces; from a quick glance it would make sense to add a fifth player, because there were five necklaces, but there was no good way for me to hand the necklace over, because I needed to get to the third act and I needed to give the necklace to Alexis for that to happen. Compare this to when for example Alf was added to our DA RP. I wrote that adventure, and it was rather easy to slip him in, give him a plot relevant (for that adventure) place and make PCs work with him, and later adopt him into the party. But the difference was that, though there are some themes that carry over from adventure to adventure and some honest to god plotline in our DA RP, a main plot only lasts for the adventure, and there’s not an end goal in mind.

And yeah, maybe that tells that I’m not good enough as a storyteller and as a GM, that I have way too much pride in the story that I don’t allow the characters really to change it (more on this later), but it wasn’t a free-roam campaign, it was a story-campaign, and that’s where the trouble ended and began. I think for future, I will not allow new players to enter once the story is on the move, unless I feel that an addition is necessary for a story reason (we can talk endlessly about how (un)balanced our party was,  but that’s not my concern, tbh). And that’s a call I want to reserve an only right to make as the GM. I don’t think it’s unreasonable, I would just need to be upfront about it to players before starting.

(slightly tangential: trying to make/making strict rules as a GM really makes me feel like an asshole. I’ve never had to make that kind of calls in DA RP, except for people using cell phones. I think it’s just a matter of, I know my DA RP group’s playstyle, because we evolved it together, so it is my playstyle as well. Setting rules shouldn’t make me feel like an asshole, because it’s simply clearing up expectations that might be different from player to player? Anyway, I’ll still feel like an ass :P)

Gameplay: PCs, NPCs, Playing and Roleplaying This is a huge topic but a lot of it sorta ties together, so I’m gonna work with this title. I’ll bring up few small points first, and then move on to bigger topics.

I felt I had a lot of problem giving people things to do, moments to shine in based on their class. For example, we had a paladin in our group. I have real trouble wrapping my mind around stuff like evil alignments (see above my discussion about the way I do villains), so spells like “Detect Good and Evil” found little use. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that in DnD class defines you much more than I ever think it did in my DA group. I don’t think Cahair as rogue of the group, and not only because he is one of three, he is defined as the Dalish elf of the group, and his storylines follow accordingly. I never did that to the players based on their class. I think that’s where I really misunderstood DnD.

Speaking of underutilized parts of PC: Animals. I admit, having animals has never really worked seamlessly in any game I’ve played in (Alf has animals in DA RP and Randy has a dog, and we kinda forget them half of the time :D). Ofc it’s player’s responsibility to remember to bring their animal, but I still think I could have given some places to use them. Namely our Paladin’s horse. A lot of stuff happened indoors, most traveling was skipped and when they did travel, it was places where horses really didn’t work. Woops. I did make the ranger’s animal a plot point, maybe 1/3rd of a plot point really. I explained his origins, but it never became really too relevant. More of a time question than anything, I think.

I suck at rewarding my peeps, no ifs no buts. I gave them money, but not really anything to use money on. I threw some magic items at them, bc idk I thought that was what you are supposed to do. I don’t know how much of this has to do with how I play Cahair. I actively work on him having as little money as I possibly can (sharing the extra amount of pay he gets from being an officer with the people he works with, for example), and we are not big on throwing magic items around. Everyone got something after the Nightmare campaign, and even then I didn’t get anything that actually helped, just something that explained in game stuff he could already mechanically do (I did get climbing gloves after the pirate campaign, but that’s about it). That said, I don’t know how much it actually bothered my players, I just know that you’re supposed to fling treasure at your players in DnD, or whatever. I did like the music box Adam gave to Jeff, but like, that was bc there was an actual connection there, so it was kinda meaningful.

Maybe it’s time to talk about connections. There were several NPCs given to me by the players relating to their character. Playing them was always super-stressful, and I think I sometimes read them wrong, started taking them to unexpected direction. Of course throwing players out of the loop about people their characters are supposed to know can be a lot of fun, but if it stops matching the picture players have in their head, well. It’s a thin line to walk on (most notably, Elpidios’ plotline was very stressful, bc I wasn’t sure if it could be resolved).

In my DA game, the PCs are incredibly close. We have a lot of discussion just among those characters, and I, when I GM, try to encourage that to the best of my ability. I never really felt that the PCs here made such a strong connection. There’s several reasons: the fast-paced story that didn’t allow them to stop and get to know each other that closely, the fact that they were sort of thrust together by the plot and they didn’t choose to go on an adventure together and the fact that they were all pretty good guys with similar opinions on things, so no conflict arose.

The lack of conflict among the PCs is a curious thing. It most definitely has to do with the unfocused world-building. In our DA group, we’ve had conflicts over Humbert wanting to put Elspet and Boshara back to the Circle for their own safety. Alf and Cahair bonded over people, both PCs and NPCs, being gross about elves. No such thing existed in my universe. I consciously avoided writing in racism/sexism/homophobia as huge issues in the world, but that left the world devoid of issues. There were the drow and the elven civil war, but it touched really only one of our heroes.

There also, of course, can be personality conflict, and that is an extremely thin line to walk on. I don’t want no asshole chaotic neutrals stealing from the group, or someone bullying the lawful good guy for being, well, good. But some conflicts might have brought people together. That’s definitely a much more touchy subject though, even in our DA group, where I feel frequently displeased that I cannot bring up Cahair’s boyfriend without having a PC who hates him comment on it, or me being worried that since we all tease Humbert, our templar, that the player might feel unwanted.

I definitely definitely do not want to insert conflict where there is none. It should be natural conflict or no conflict. That would have probably come more naturally if our heroes had time to get to know each other and chatter.

Another fact that made me think that I might not have been as encouraging with roleplaying as I want to be, is the PC’s relationships with NPCs. One note on NPCs in general, again, there was way way more of them than necessary, but yeah, relationships. There were some I really enjoyed, namely Adam’s and Jeff’s and Dophina’s and Prince Floyd’s, but again there was not much time to evolve PC-NPC relationships a lot. I did offer chances, which Jeff’s player took a lot in the third act, because the player knows me and my GM’ing style.

There was that first session of the 3rd arc, where I asked PCs to pick someone to talk to. I had done a similar session with the DA crew in Antiva, and it had worked marvelously. In KoNS it didn’t work out as well. I think the biggest problem was that the conversations were different. In the Antiva campaign, each scene we played had an end goal (Humbert wanted to ask Alf for more deciding power in the ship / Boshara wanted to know why Cahair was so upset with her), while a lot of the scenes in the KoNS version were chatting with no particular goal. This leaves a huge pressure of preparation on the player, and I should have been in those cases more attentive in asking the players what they wanted out of the conversations. I’m not saying it was all horrible, but a lot of the conversations kinda sizzled out. There were two conversations that worked out really well. One was between Lir and Lutharin, but that had been a conversation I had wanted to have, to set up Lutharin’s understanding of the differences between surface elves and the drow, I was prepared for the conversation. The other one was between Jeff and Adam, but that was where Jeff’s player had prepared well with what he wanted to discuss (again, he knows me, he was present in Antiva session as well).

I also think it might be unusual and for some a bit awkward, to have a one-on-one conversation between PC and NPC (or two PCs) in front of everyone else. I’ve certainly done those things in secret, because the things I’ve shared with the PC have been plot-relevant. But I think there’s a lot of merit to having non-plot-relevant conversations in front of others. For one, it’s interesting. Second thing, those kind of conversations are gold mines for character development, and if that development happens off-screen for the others, it might be difficult to bring to the table. But maybe that’s just me.

(And I’m not saying I wasn’t awkward playing NPCs at all, mind you. NPCs relating to PCs were always a bit awkward, as were most of the gods, and basically anyone else I hadn’t a clear picture on, which just goes to show I need to limit the number of NPCs)

Anyway, maybe I just didn’t give a clear enough permission to do this sort of thing? I remember feeling very awkward about playing Cahair in the first campaign of our DA game, bc it was a highly emotional story for him, and not for the others, so I felt a little over-the-top at times. And not even a little. But, I told the GM that it might be fun to bring back Harralan, the villain of the first adventure, and Cahair’s first love. Well, she did, on the third adventure, giving my character a chance to have a conversation with him he never got to have in the first adventure. I felt it was a sort of permission for me to roleplay to my heart’s content, and it definitely helped with the awkwardness. I guess we never had a moment like that?

It of course wouldn’t have worked for everyone, and not everyone has to enjoy this kind of stuff. But I enjoy it, and would have liked more. I think Adam’s and Jeff’s third act relationship-growth was really good. I just wished relationships like that were present for everyone throughout the story. Of course, the NPCs kept changing session to session, so that would have been difficult.

Closing thoughts There are a lot of complaining in this piece, because that’s what this piece is about. At the end of the day I still really loved running the game, loved my players and I am proud of the story we build together. I think this is a good place to start working towards better games and better stories. I will take a break from DnD, but when I eventually return to it, I’ll be smarter for having run KoNS.

And that’s it for the most part. I’m gonna go snooze now forever, since I’ve been doing more than enough GM’ing for a while. Except I’m still running an adventure in DA RP, ah well. But yeah, I’m planning on partaking in NaNo, so I don’t have plans on running another long game any time soon.

[sweettoothedtrickster13]

Again? Chapter 2

Summary: In another world, when you are loved, you grow wings to show it. The bigger the love, the bigger the wings.

Notes: Based on this text post.

AO3 Portal

Joan Watson walks into the brownstone, intent on giving her new client a talking-to. She walks up to where she can hear TVs blaring and stops dead. Sherlock Holmes's wings are scraggly and weak. They're a dull black, and not very well-taken care of. Joan flutters her own white wings, and the woman turns in place, her feathers not even so much as brushing the screens she's standing less than five feet away from. She's beautiful- blue eyes, long nose, fair skin, long eyelashes, tall.

"My name is Joan Watson," she says, launching into her introduction out of pure reflex. "I've been hired by your father to be your sober companion. He told me he was going to email you about me. I'm here to make the transition from your rehab experience to the routine of your everyday life as smooth as possible, so I will be living with you for the next six weeks, which means I'll be available to you 24/7." Joan puts her bag on the table, where it promptly tips over, spilling some of its contents. Joan hastily shoves them back in, looking back up to see her client, who is still just staring at her with that icy gaze. "Did he tell you about me or not?"

"He said to expect some sort of addict-sitter. Sherlock Holmes," she extends her hand. Joan shakes it, ignoring her comment. The woman has chilly fingers. Poor circulation. But she has a firm, no-nonsense grip. Not crushing, but definitely present. 

"Would you care to explain why you broke out of rehab the day you were being released," Joan asks, following the woman as she goes to a study. Sherlock sits on a leather pouf and puts on shoes. 

"Bored."

"You broke out because you were bored?"

"No, I am bored right now. You'll get used to it, it happens quite often." Joan's wings twitch. "Regarding our friends at Hemdale, they should be thanking me for exposing just a few flaws in their overall rubbish security. It's amazing that no one had broken out before." Sherlock hops up, bouncing on her toes before she walks away. Joan follows her and watches her pick apart clothes in a laundry bag. The clothes aren't folded, so Joan takes that it's dirty. Sherlock sniffs one of the shirts. "Lovely." She puts it on.

"I saw a woman in the window as I was walking up. Did she get you high?"

"Six feet." Joan frowns at her, and Sherlock points to the ladder leaning up against her bookshelf, taking her belt down from the rung below two sets of handcuffs. Joan connects the dots. "I actually find sex repellent. All those unseemly sounds and fluids," she shakes her head. "But my brain and body require it to function at optimum capacity, and I'm of the firm belief that you should give yourself what you need. With the exception, of course, of the various illegal narcotics I found myself so regretfully addicted to. But you're a doctor, you understand."

"I'm not a doctor," Joan shakes her head, telling the truth. Well. A half-truth.

"Were a doctor, then." Joan's feathers shake slightly, whispering together. How?  "Surgeon, going by your hands." Joan actually jerks, wings spreading. Sherlock has her back to her, so she thankfully doesn't see. Sherlock turns and points at her. "Is your car parked nearby?"

"Yes, it's just down- wait, how did you know I had a car? And where are we going?"

"Parking ticket fell out of your bag," Sherlock says, obviously bored, as she types on her phone. "Can't have one without the other, can you?" She pauses. "Hmm. Scratch the car, Manhattan Bridge is down to a single lane. We'll take the Tube instead. As for where we're going," she says, grabbing her coat and sweeping out the door, barely tucking her wings. Joan hurries after her long strides. As they walk, Sherlock draws looks, and Joan can't blame them. Even for small wings, Sherlock's are on the below average side, to put it politely. They hop on a train.

"Prior to my stint in junkie jail, I worked at Scotland Yard."

"Your father mentioned that," Joan nods. "He said you were a detective?"

"Consulting detective." Sherlock sounds almost offended. "I wasn't paid for my insights, and as such I answered to no one but myself." Joan picks up that warning sign- Sherlock will be one of her more difficult clients, she can already tell. 

"What about London," Joan gently prods.

"What about it?" Joan is used to that- intentionally feigning ignorance. Even from her brief interaction with her, she knows that Sherlock is not stupid by any means. 

"He told me that's where you bottomed out. He thinks something happened to you there, he just doesn't know what." Joan's phone rings, interrupting her. She curses and fishes it out of her coat pocket- her parents. She silences it, intent on calling them back at a more opportune time.

"Handsome woman, your mother," Sherlock says, and Joan looks up at her. "Very big of her to take your father back after his affair." Joan's wings flare slightly; she's lucky the subway car is mostly empty, otherwise people would have to either move around them or get hit by them. The train stops and Sherlock walks out.

"How could you possibly," Joan hurries after her. Sherlock doesn't seem to be inclined to answer, and frankly, Joan doesn't really want to know. "You still haven't told me where we're going."

"You and Father will be quite pleased to know that I've constructed a post-rehab regimen for myself that will keep me quite busy. I've decided to resume my work as a consultant here, in New York." Joan soon sees a home milling with police. Sherlock stops, and Joan nearly plows into her, only stopped by her own wings flapping once to keep her back. Sherlock turns sharply to face her. "How do people usually introduce you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I hardly think anyone would admit they've been assigned a glorified helper monkey."

"'Helper monkey,'" Joan questions, wings rippling. "Well, you and I have something called companion-client confidentiality. You can introduce me however you like- friend, family, co-worker- and I'll play along. But to be honest, most people just call me their companion."

Sherlock accepts the information with a nod and walks right up to the crime scene tape. "Captain Gregson!" An older man with auburn wings turns.

"Ah, Holmes. How you doing," he asks, smiling and shaking her hand. 

"Ms. Watson, this is Captain Gregson. Captain Gregson, this is Ms. Watson, my personal valet." The only response Joan allows herself is to shoot her a brief look. She ruffles her feathers and straightens. 

"How do you do," the Captain says, shaking her hand. "She waits out here," he says to Sherlock.

"I'm afraid she's quite crucial to my process, Captain." Joan's eyes widen and her wings twitch outwards. She had thought that she would be left on the curb, like most civilians. And she would prefer that, instead of walking into a crime scene.

"It's ok, really," Joan says, trying to soothe the Captain, whose wings are just starting to bristle.

"Actually, it isn't," Sherlock says, turning to her. "At least, not according to my father. He explained that it's the job of a proper valet to accompany their charge to their place of business. Consider this," she pauses to gesture at the crime scene, "my place of business. Consider every wretched hive of murder and depravity in this city my place of business." Sherlock pauses. "Unless you don't think you have the stomach for what I do," she shrugs, flippant.

Joan's wings fluff up and she narrows her eyes. "I'm good," she says, keeping her voice even.

"Put these on, please," the Captain says, extending a pair of gloves. Joan takes them, putting them on with no struggle. He lifts the crime scene tape for them, and Sherlock goes first, ducking under smoothly. Joan follows, a touch more clumsy- her wings bump into the tape. After all, she's never been past the crime scene tape before. The trio walks up the steps and through a hallway.

"Dr. Richard Mantlo came home a few hours ago to find his door kicked in and his wife, Amy Dampier, missing," the Captain starts. Sherlock bends and examines the bootprint on the door with her phone. There's an attachment on it that Joan hadn't noticed before. The Captain waits until she's done before he continues. "That's Mantlo over there," the Captain says, lowering his voice and subtly pointing. Joan looks- there's a man sitting at a table with glasses and drooping, straggly brown wings. Joan has seen those sort of wings before- in the waiting room when people had lost someone. There isn't much hope for Ms. Dampier. "He's a headshrinker out of Sanbridge Hospital. Says he caught an emergency last night. After he wrapped up, just before 5 AM, his feathers started falling out. He rushed home and found the front door like that. He called 911. First officers on the scene found signs of a struggle in the kitchen and master bedroom. But no Ms. Dampier." 

They're standing in the middle of the living room now. "Ransom demand," Sherlock asks. 

"What is it," the Captain said, wings straightening. Joan frowns, looking at Sherlock- she hadn't seen any sign of distress. 

"Not sure," Sherlock mutters. "Ms. Dampier's cell phone, have you recovered it?"

He turns to the apartment at large. "We have her cell phone?" A man comes over to him and hands over a bag. "Ah, thank you, Detective." He offers the bag to Sherlock, who opens it and takes the device out of it. She hums, flicking through it and then looking up at the wall. 

"She either lost a tremendous amount of weight or underwent significant plastic surgery sometime in the last two years," Sherlock nods. The others look at the wall.

"She looks the same in all the photos," Joan says, dubious, eyes flicking between the frames on the wall.

"That's my point," Sherlock says, a tad rude. "Ovular frames are older, have been here longer. You can tell by the way the wall has faded that the square frames are newer. They're the only ones that feature Ms. Dampier." Joan looks closer- there's a faint darker area in a gentle curve above and below the center of were the square frames hang. "Coincidence? No, check her phone," she says. They huddle closer, the Captain lifting his wing to make room for Joan. Sherlock thumbs through the gallery. "No photos of her older than two years. Yet there are countless pictures of other people in her life as many as five years ago." She hands the phone to the police Captain, who bags it again. Joan steps away from him, allowing him to drop his wing. Sherlock walks off. Joan watches her get on her knees and sniff the carpet.

"I take it you two have worked together before," she says. There's a familiarity between Sherlock and him; she respects him. And for him to allow Sherlock into his crime scene means that he's seen her work.

"Ten years ago," the Captain nods. "A few months after 9/11 I was assigned to Scotland Yard to observe their counterterrorism bureau. Holmes mostly worked homicides, but our paths still crossed a few times." He opens his mouth to say more when Sherlock calls for him. "Yeah," he asks, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. There's a Hispanic Detective with short black wings in there, watching Sherlock.

"Ms. Dampier knew her attacker. She let him into the house herself."

"Captain, who- who is this chick," the man asks, almost laughing in disbelief. 

"There are two broken glasses here," Sherlock says, holding her palms out flat and gesturing at the glass on the floor. Joan looks- she only sees the bottom of one glass among the broken pieces, and says so. "You can tell from the volume of shards. Obviously, she was pouring a glass of water for her guest when he assailed her."

"Riiight," the man sneers. "Look, you're a female," he says, gesturing at her. Joan doesn't like the way he says 'female.' "Is that something you would do if some nut job comes and kicks your door in, you ask him if he's thirsty?"

"Abreu," the Captain warns him.

Sherlock gets on her belly and looks under the fridge. She hops back up with ease. "Could I," Sherlock asks, leaning forward and plucking the pen that the detective is pointing at her. She gets down again and reaches under the appliance with her new tool. The trio hear clinking and sliding until Sherlock comes out, tapping along the bottom of a glass. "Bottom of glass number two," she says, carefully picking it up and putting it on the counter. She hands the pen back to a stunned Abreu. "If you take another look at the bootprint on the front door," Sherlock says, extending her phone. Joan is the one who lifts her wing to provide room this time, and the Captain puts on reading glasses and looks at the photo Sherlock shows her. "There is an almost imperceptible spot of blood where the heel made contact." Joan can see a pinprick of blood between the treads on the blown-up picture. "Lab tests, I'm sure, will conclude that it's the victim's blood, and could only have been left there after the assault had already taken place. Ms. Dampier let the man in because he was familiar to her, and he kicked the door in on his way out to obscure this fact. Clever, when you think about it."

"That's the last thing we need, a smart maniac," Abreu grumbles. 

"Also," Sherlock says, ignoring him. "He took something from the living room." Joan and the Captain backtrack until they can turn around and allow Sherlock to pass. "Note the symmetry of the space," she says, extending her hands to either side of the fireplace. "This wall is very nearly a reflection of that one." Joan looks- it is pretty neat. But nearly symmetrical? She looks carefully. Pictures, more pictures, a table...there. On one table there's a box in front of the other various knickknacks and on the other there isn't. 

"There was something there," Joan points. Sherlock looks at her.

"Yes. Hey," she says, when Mantlo wanders over. "Something was here, what was it?"

"I'm...sorry," Mantlo asks, glancing at the Captain.

"Maybe this isn't the best time," Joan says softly, stepping into Sherlock's space.

"Please concentrate," Sherlock ignores her. "Something used to occupy that space. I need you to tell me what it was." Mantlo looks at the Captain again.

"She's our consultant, Dr. Mantlo."

"Uh, it was an old...ring box. Amy's mother gave it to her. Why?"

Sherlock turns to the Captain. "You said there were also signs of a struggle in the master bedroom?" Mantlo's wings droop even farther.

"Mm-hmm," the Captain nods. They walk towards it.

"What is it," Joan asks when they're in the hallway. "Why is it so important that the kidnapper took a ring box?"

"Kidnappers don't take trophies. Killers do," Sherlock says.

"There's no body, genius," Abreu sneers. The Captain pauses, and Sherlock turns in the tight space, pulling in her wings. 

"There's no blood on the front stoop or walk, either. It's rather difficult not to leave any when you're abducting someone who's actively bleeding, wouldn't you agree?" She looks at the Captain, who moves completely into the bedroom. "You're certain your men have been over every inch of this house?" His wings bristle. "What I mean is, there isn't some...crawlspace they might have missed?"

"Of course," he nods, soothed. "But as you can see, there was a struggle here."

Joan can see that the covers are mussed, but not 'didn't make the bed' mussed. 'Running for your life and tried to crawl across the bed' mussed. She shivers, wings curling around her. Sherlock doesn't seem fazed- she walks around the bed to the far side, examining the pillow. She pauses and bounces on her toes for a moment, then walks heel-to-toe parallel to the bed, hands lightly balanced at her sides. Joan watches her, ignoring Abreu's scoff- clearly, Sherlock is measuring something. 

"She's in the safe room," Sherlock says.

"What safe room," the Captain asks.

"The one behind that wall," she points.

The Captain looks at Abreu. "Husband didn't say anything about any safe room," Abreu covers.

"There's a slight angle to the floor in here," Sherlock says. The men look confused. Sherlock looks around and carefully removes a single decorative marble from a bowl and puts it near her feet. The marble starts to roll slowly. Sherlock moves around it and keeps talking. "The extra weight of a safe room's steel reinforcements can cause the floor around it to decline slightly, creating a slope between one and five degrees." She goes to the nightstand and feels along the back edge. The wall next to the bed slides away with a 'click,' allowing the marble entrance. The rolling sound stops, and the Captain and Sherlock look in. One of them turns on the light, and Joan gasps and looks away. Amy Dampier is lying on the floor, eyes wide open, in a pool of blood with her feathers strewn around her. "Sometimes I hate it when I'm right," Sherlock sighs. She steps back, allowing the men entrance.

The rest of the crime scene is a blur, and then Sherlock coaxes her onto the subway. Joan expects to return to the brownstone and finds herself a little disappointed. She wants to see how this plays out. "Why are we going home," she asks.

"We're not. We're beating the police back to the station. Or did you not hear me," Sherlock asks. She examines her. "Mm. Yes, your first time can be overwhelming. You'll get used to it. Well...not 'get used to it,' but definitely not be as shocked. People kill people. They always have. They most likely always will." Joan nods. They arrive at the station, and people give Joan curious looks as she follows Sherlock. They end up in a dark room facing a window, looking into an interrogation room. 

Mantlo comes in, escorted by a police officer. He sits down at the opposite end of the table and fidgets. "Why isn't he being interrogated," Joan wonders aloud.

"I believe the term that police procedurals use so often is 'letting him sweat.' Not too much longer now."

Abreu and the Captain walk in, sitting across from Mantlo. "We found Amy," the Captain starts. Mantlo's wings lift. 

"You did? Is she ok?"

"No, Doctor," Abreu says. "She's not. She's dead." Little heavy handed, Joan thinks. It looks like Mantlo's strings had been cut- he slumps, wings drooping until the ends touch the floor. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. "We found her in the safe room." Mantlo stops and looks up, frowning.

"What safe room?"

"The one she tried to run to when you were chasin' her," the Captain says. Mantlo's wings snap out. 

"For the last time, I loved my wife. I didn't hurt her, and before this moment I had no idea there was any safe room in my house."

Sherlock scoffs. "You get why that's hard for us to believe, don't you," the Captain asks.

"Look," Mantlo says. "The place was gutted before Amy and I moved in, two years ago. She's the one who oversaw all the construction."

"I'm sorry," Abreu laughs. "But are you saying that she had it installed, but never told you," Abreu asks, gesturing with his pen.

Joan looks away from the interrogation to examine her client. "How do you do it," she asks, voice soft.

"Do what," Sherlock asks, still watching.

"Guess things." Sherlock's wings ripple and she looks at her, almost glaring.

"I don't 'guess.' I observe. And once I observe, I deduce."

"You said you could tell by my hands that I used to be a surgeon."

"Hand. Singular. It was soft, no calluses. Also, it smelled faintly of beeswax."

"The cream," Joan realizes. "Old habits die hard," she mutters.

"As far as why you gave up medicine to become a companion," Sherlock says. Joan braces herself. "I'd wager that addiction claimed the life of someone close to you, and their death moved you to make drastic changes in your life. Am I close?"

Finally. No. But Joan ignores the question- this relationship is about Sherlock, not her. "What about my father? How did you know he had an affair?"

"Google." Joan's wings twitch. "Well, not everything is deducible."

Inside the interview room, both the Captain and Abreu stand up, and the women meet them in the hallway.

"I just wanted to say thanks for helping out today. You got us our guy, and we're grateful. We can take it from here," Abreu extends his hand. Even thankful to Sherlock, he's a dick.

"Respectfully, Detective, I doubt that very much. I have reason to believe that Richard Mantlo didn't kill his wife." 

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Come again," Abreu demands. Joan is just as confused, and a look at the Captain reveals that he feels the same way. 

"Dr. Mantlo has small feet. He's an American size 8 if he's an inch. The bootprint on his door was an 11."

"So he was smart. Wore bigger shoes to throw us off," Abreu defends.

"Did he also wear bigger hands when he strangled his wife," Sherlock retorts.

"Holmes." It's her that gets the warning from the Captain this time.

"Just, look," Sherlock brings up photos on her phone, showing the men. "These strangulation marks are indicative of a man much larger than Mantlo. Not just heavier, but taller as well. I'd estimate his height to be somewhere between 6'1, 6'3. Your M.E. will come to the same conclusion in a couple of hours, of course. I'm just delivering it now so we can spend those hours hunting for the real killer." Abreu doesn't look convinced; neither does the Captain. "Y-you're a doctor," Sherlock says, turning to Joan. Joan stills, wings raising, while Gregson's twitch. "Explain it to them."

"I'm not a doctor," she tells the Captain.

"Were a doctor. Surely you haven't forgotten how simple bruising works," she says, flippant. Joan glares at her, but looks at the phone. As much as she hates to admit it, Sherlock's right. The bruises are way too big for Mantlo's hands, which Sherlock had placed a picture of next to the image of Amy Dampier's neck. But she is not overstepping her bounds.

"Ok, yeah, sure, these hands do seem a little small for the bruise pattern, but I-"

"With your permission, Captain, I'd like a moment alone with Dr. Mantlo," Sherlock cuts her off.

"C-captain, this," Abreu laughs, wings fluffing. 

"You got two minutes," the Captain nods at Sherlock, ignoring his detective. Sherlock walks away and comes back with a legal pad and pen, going into the interrogation room. She comes back out after the allotted two minutes and gestures for Joan to follow her. Sherlock uses the computer on an officer's desk. 

"Come along," Sherlock says. "We're going to Sanbridge."

 The women arrive at the hospital and get directed to a Harrison Polk. "Can I help you," the man asks.

"Do you know an Amy Dampier," Sherlock asks him.

"Of course. Why?"

"I'm sorry to inform you that she's been murdered."

"My God," Mr. Polk says. His long brown wings curl around him slightly. "Please, come." They walk with him. "Amy was a good person, but if you're here because you think I had something to do with it," he shakes his head.

"Dr. Mantlo said that you'd made a pass at her at a holiday party last year," Sherlock says.

"Actually, no, I didn't," Mr. Polk bites out, wings flaring. "I asked her about all the plastic surgery she'd had." He offers his office. Sherlock and Joan take him up on it.

"Plastic surgery," Sherlock asks. No need to gloat, Joan thinks, wings rippling. 

"Ok, look. I helped plan a fundraiser for the hospital, two years ago-" Damn it. "-before the surgeries. I know I still have the pictures." Mr. Polk goes behind his desk and starts clicking at his computer. Joan spots a shoebox on the chair and reads the size. 11. She catches Sherlock's eye and points subtly with her wing. Sherlock nods, wings fluttering. Joan's own straighten. "There," Mr. Polk says, turning his computer around to show them the screen. "That's a picture of Amy and Dr. Mantlo I took that night, ok? Tell me you wouldn't want to ask her why she did it." Joan reluctantly agrees. Amy was naturally beautiful. 

"Tell me about the stalking charge brought against you two years ago," Sherlock says, looking at the hospital administrator. 

Mr. Polk crosses his arms, wings coming to gently curl around him. "I asked my neighbor out. She overreacted." Sherlock just hums.

"Mr. Polk, can you tell us where you were last night," Joan asks.

"Home. Alone. I know; not much of an alibi, but I don't care because I didn't do it."

"Goodbye, Mr. Polk," Sherlock nods, and they leave.

The women return to the brownstone- it's the end of the workday. The Captain had apparently informed Sherlock on the phone that she is not allowed to quote 'badger anyone in their own God-damned home.'

 Joan is walking around Sherlock's home- and hers, for the next six weeks- getting settled when something drops on her. She looks up, expecting to find a leak. She does, but it's a different kind to what she was expecting. She heads to the roof.

"Did you know that honey was dripping through...your ceiling," she asks, fascinated by the bee boxes.

"Yes. Happens sometimes. I really must harvest," Sherlock muses. "But I hate to do it in the cold." Joan stands beside her and they watch the bees together. It's soothing in a way- watching the bees buzz and crawl, feeling the coolness of the night, the stars above.

"I take it beekeeping is a hobby."

"I'm writing a book. 'Practical Handbook of Bee Culture with Some Observations Upon the Segregation of the Queen.'" Joan looks- Sherlock doesn't have a tablet or even a notebook up here with her. She looks at her, confused. "Up here," Sherlock touches her temple. "I've just started chapter 19. Would you like to hear the last few paragraphs?"

"Did you talk to the police about that scary administrator guy?" Sherlock had walked away when she was on the phone with the Captain.

"I have not."

"But I thought that," Joan trails off when Sherlock just shrugs.

"Mr. Polk is a prat, no doubt, but his body language said 'sub,' not 'dom.' I don't see him having the berries to take another life." There's quiet for a few moments. "Why do you suppose you hate your job so much," she asks Joan, looking at her.

"I don't hate my job," Joan says, wings curling.

"You have two alarm clocks. No one with two alarm clocks loves their job- it means that it's a chore to get up in the morning." Sherlock watches her. Joan looks back at the bees, ignoring how her wings are curling towards her body. "You don't hate what I do, though." Joan looks at her client, wings twitching. "That much was obvious when we talked to Mr. Polk." Joan's wings move to hide her, but she forces them back. "There was a look on your face. I imagine it was the same look you wore to the O.R."

"You're wrong," Joan shakes her head, wings shivering. 

"I know my father secured your services for the next...six weeks," she checks. Joan nods. "The simple truth is, I don't need you; I'm finished with drugs. I shan't be using them again. My advice? Take a six week holiday. I promise I won't tell Papa."

Joan doesn't answer and goes back inside. She sits in her room and reads, thinking over what Sherlock had said. I don't hate my job. It's just difficult sometimes. Sure, Sherlock's job is interesting. I've never even heard of a consulting detective before. And the Captain seems nice. Abreu will take some getting used to. But I'm sure at the end of six weeks, we'll all be friendly.She settles, smiling and letting her wings curl around her. But you'll miss them, that traitorous voice whispers. I miss everyone at the end of six weeks, she lies. Joan reads until she's tired, then turns off her lamp, curls her wings around herself, and goes to sleep.

 Joan wakes up, parting her feathers and taking a lazy look at her clock to see how long she has to sleep. She blinks a few times and moves her wing to make sure she's seeing what she's seeing. Her clock is blank. She looks at the wall; it's been unplugged. She bolts out of bed, picking up her backup clock on her dresser- the batteries have been taken out. "Sherlock," she hisses, wings snapping out. She fumes all the way to the precinct. She manages to politely ask the first cop she sees, a man with medium sized wings so brown they're almost gold, where Sherlock is.

"In Evidence. Down the stairs, through the first hall, first door on your left through the gate."

"Thank you." 

The guy chuckles. "Yeah, she pisses everyone off," he nods at her wings. "Don't take it personal." Joan just nods and forces a smile, following his directions. She stands at the door of the cage Sherlock's in, working at the desk.

"I'm gonna need your saliva now," Joan says, faux calm. Sherlock looks over her wing- God, they're downright puny, she didn't even have to lower it- and turns. She checks her watch.

"10:37. I take back everything I said last night. You obviously love your job; couldn't wait to get started this morning." She stands and lets Joan in.

"Open your mouth so I can swab it. If you're on anything, the strip on the cup will turn blue."

"I'm not-" Joan sticks the swab in her mouth, collecting the sample with less grace than normal. "I have a new theory about our killer. I think he may have struck once before. I- who loves what I do- woke up early this morning and couldn't stop thinking about the ring box he stole from Amy Dampier's living room."

"You said it was some sort of trophy," Joan says, watching the cup.

"And we all know what sort of killer takes trophies, don't we?"

"Serial," Joan looks up, heart thudding. Her wings fluff and move to wrap around her. We're hunting a serial killer, she thinks, brushing her feathers out of the way. 

Sherlock nods slowly. "Souvenirs help them differentiate between victims. It occurred to me that if Amy wasn't our killer's first, there may be other cases in common." She picks up a file and hands it over. Joan takes it with the hand not holding the cup. "Eileen Renfro. Savagely beaten and strangled by an intruder in her Bronx home two years ago. He took a jewelry box on his way out, but left behind a size 11 footprint." Joan admits to herself that it does sound familiar, but keeps her eye on the cup. It hasn't turned blue yet.

"Drug free. Congratulations."

"Especially striking, the physical similarities between her and Amy," Sherlock opens the file in Joan's hand while she pockets the cup to be thrown out later. "Both were curvaceous with long red hair."

"You think the killer has a type." She looks at the pictures; the women do look similar. Amy looks more like Eileen after her surgery. If she hadn't had it, maybe the killer would have left her alone.The thought saddens her.

"Most serial killers do. The one significant difference in the cases, however- Eileen Renfro survived her attack." Joan looks up. She knows exactly where they're going now. Sherlock leaves the station.

"Aren't you going to tell the Captain before we leave?"

"Not until I know for sure this is a lead." Joan drives them to the Bronx.

 Sherlock knocks on the door, and Eileen Renfro answers. She has average pale blue wings. "Yes," she asks, looking between Sherlock and Joan.

"Ms. Renfro, my name is Sherlock Holmes. I'm a consulting detective. This is Joan Watson. Some new information has come to light regarding your case. May we come in?"

"Of course," Eileen says, stepping inside. Joan lets Sherlock go first, and notes that she doesn't have to pull her wings in much to get through the narrow door and foyer. Joan, meanwhile, has to practically stick them straight off her back to fit. "Sorry for the tight squeeze, it came like that."

"It's alright, Ms. Renfro," Joan says.

They come into the living room, where Eileen sits on the couch and offers the chairs across from her. Joan politely drapes her wings over the back, but Sherlock sits with them right against her back. "Do you know this woman," Sherlock extends a photo of Amy Dampier when she was alive. 

"I'm sorry," Eileen says after a moment of studying it. "I can see why you think it might be the same guy. I just don't think I can help you. I don't know this woman." She hands the photo back. 

"We know from the police report that the man who assaulted you wore a mask. That doesn't mean you can't help us identify him. Did he say anything to you," Sherlock asks.

"No. I came in through my front door, and he was just there," she says, playing with her cross. Her wings fidget- it must be uncomfortable reliving it. 

"What color were his wings? Were they large or small?"

"They were brown, and they were...average, I guess."

"Did he have a particular scent?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so."

"Was he tall, short, somewhere in between?"

"I- I don't know. I mean, he was on top of me so quickly, his hands were around my throat."

"And what about the mask?"

"What about it?"

"W-was it ski, Mexican wrestling, paper plate?" 

Eileen's wings flare slightly at Sherlock's derisive tone. "Ski," she bites out.

"Good! Excellent! So you got a good look at his eyes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a strangler can literally not be more than an arm's length from his stranglee, can he?" Sherlock extends her arms, and Eileen flinches. "I'm about the height of an average man, that's what, two-"

"Ms. Holmes," Joan says.

"-two and a half feet?" Sherlock drops her arms. "I'm twice that distance from you now, and I can see that your eyes are a lovely brown. As you can no doubt see that my eyes are blue."

"I think I'd like you to leave now," Eileen says, wings shivering.

"Why? Because I know you're lying?"

"Ms. Holmes," Joan exclaims, wings flaring.

"No, she is," Sherlock whirls on her. Both of her wings are fluffed up, feathers nearly on end with anger. It would be almost pitiful how much Joan could see each feather if she wasn't so appalled. "You can tell by the crucifix. You fiddle with it each time I ask you a question. It's pacifying, soothing behavior. And her wings, they're shivering in nervousness. Elementary haptic communication. Just read a book, would you," she snaps. "She did see-"

"Sherlock!"

"- her attacker's face. I think she might even know who he is!"

"Get out," Eileen says.

"You realize that because you protected him two years ago, you have the blood of an innocent woman on your hands, don't you? Perhaps you'd like to go for two. Or three, or four."

"That's enough," Joan says, standing with flared wings. Sherlock looks up at her. "You're done here. Go wait in the car."

Sherlock grits her teeth but goes. Joan sits back down and looks at Eileen, who now has her wings wrapped around herself, only her head showing. "What an asshole," she mutters.

"I'm...I'm really sorry about that," Joan says. Eileen looks down. "Are you ok?"

"No. She's right."

"About what," Joan asks, wings twitching in interest. 

"I have that woman's blood on my hands."

"No, you don't. You didn't kill her."

"But Peter did," Eileen whispers.

"Who's Peter?" Eileen looks at her, shocked. She obviously hadn't meant  to say that out loud. "Who's Peter, Ms. Renfro?"

 Joan joins Sherlock outside. The woman is pacing, wings snapping out at random intervals. Thank God no one is on the street, otherwise she'd look like a crazy person. "The name of the man who attacked her is Peter Saldua," Joan says, drawing her attention. "He was her brother's best friend growing up. His father was abusive, so her parents took him in his senior year of high school. Eileen heard from her brother that he works for a florist in Chelsea." With every word, Sherlock's feathers calm. She'll have to groom them back into place, of course, but they're almost back to normal.

"I knew it," Sherlock chuckles. "I knew that if I started a row in there, you'd come to her defense, and if you came to her defense she might very well tell you the truth."

"You are so full of shit." Sherlock is already dialing her phone and ignores her. Sherlock presses her phone to her ear with her shoulder as she wraps her right wing around herself, giving herself a quick rub. The feathers fall back into place with minimal effort, much to Joan's shock. If she did that to her own wings, the feathers would barely budge. Sherlock's are just that thin. 

"Captain," Sherlock greets. "I'm calling because I believe I've uncovered the name of a strong suspect in the murder of Amy Dampier." She pauses, frowning. "How did you know?" Sherlock's feathers start to lift out of place again. "Are you saying he's in police custody?" Joan wonders how the police could have known if Sherlock hadn't told them about Eileen Renfro. Sherlock's wings snap out. "Bollocks." Sherlock listens for a moment and then hangs up. "Peter Saldua is dead. Looks like a suicide. Come." Sherlock gets in the passenger side and Joan in the driver's. Sherlock lets her phone's GPS take over while she grooms herself. Two minutes later, she's all put together. Even a quick groom should take at least twenty minutes for an average sized pair of wings.

 They arrive at the house and Sherlock immediately starts looking around. But she stays in the area to listen to the Captain. "Mailman saw the body through the window. Called 911, said he thought someone on his route had killed themself. Turns out he was right. The gun was still in Saldua's hand when we got here." Sherlock looks at him. "I know, told the M.E. to take a close look at this one. Watch the blood spatter," he says to Joan, who looks at where he's pointing- her wing is nearly touching the bloody wall. She tucks her wings in tighter. "Takes some getting used to," the Captain nods. "We found the ring box from Amy Dampier's home right here," he points to the table.

"Turns out Mantlo and his wife used the florist Saldua worked for. They order fresh flowers to the house once a week, Saldua was the guy who delivered them," Abreu chimes in. He shrugs. "Explains why she would have let him in the other night."

Sherlock looks over to the other side of the room. Joan follows her gaze and there's an overturned-and-stomped-on washing machine. "What happened over there," Sherlock asks.

"Mixed his colors with his whites? Who knows, guy was a nut bar," Abreu scoffs. Sherlock's wings twitch. 

"Did you already take his phone," Sherlock asks.

"It hasn't turned up yet. But it will." The Captain sounds confident. The men walk off, talking quietly. Joan goes up to Sherlock.

"You wanted to be the one who found him, didn't you?"

"I don't do what I do for the credit."

"Then why do you do it?"

Sherlock walks away.

 When they're home for the night, Joan watches Sherlock carefully. She's pacing and staring at her wall of evidence, feathers raised. "Sherlock, what do you need?" She ignores her. "Sherlock." Joan goes to her room and reads for a bit when it's clear that Sherlock needs some time alone. 

Joan comes out when she hears Mantlo's voice. She looks- Sherlock had been watching the news. "She had her mole removed when she changed her look," Sherlock says, and Joan's wings spread at her voice- she'd been silent for nearly four hours now. "It doesn't make any sense. She lovedthat mole- before the surgeries she turned her head to feature it whenever her picture was taken." Joan looks at the wall.

"Where'd you get those photographs," she asks. They all showcase Amy Dampier, pre plastic surgery.

"I reached out to Amy's friends and family via her Facebook page, they provided them. Harrison Polk was right. She was as beautiful before her surgeries as she was after, so why bother, what was the point," Sherlock says, gesticulating at the wall with paper in her hand. "And another thing!" She opens her hand, and Joan sees lines of numbers on the paper. "Saldua's phone records indicate that he used his cell phone constantly. Then three days ago, he just stopped. Didn't make a single call, didn't send a single text. Why?' She throws the packet down onto the table and picks up another. "His bank statements, meanwhile. There are several checks made out to a Dr. Roland Jessup, psychologist. He seems worth a talking to, no? No! Dropped dead of a coronary, 2010." She throws down the new papers in disgust and rubs her face, wings twitching.

"The Amy Dampier case is over. You helped solve it," Joan reassures her.

"No. Something's off, I can feel it." The printer starts up, and Joan crosses over to it, smiling softly. "What's that?"

"I got us tickets to the opera tonight. To celebrate! When your father hired me, he mentioned something about you liking it so I thought-" Sherlock cuts her off with a dry laugh. 

"I went to Le Grande Macabre once, when I was nine, now I'm a buff," she exclaims, walking past Joan. She starts pacing again.

"I'm worried about you," Joan admits. Her own wings twitch in sympathy as she watches Sherlock's flare and flap. "I think you're making things more complicated than they really are, and it tells me you're struggling."

"No struggle at all. Or haven't you been paying attention the last few days? I've been right about everything."

"Actually, you haven't," Joan admits, wings drooping. If this is what it takes to get her client to calm down, then so be it. "The day we met, you deduced that I gave up being a surgeon to become a companion because I lost someone close to me to addiction. The truth is-"

"The truth is that you made a mistake during a surgery that cost the patient their life." Joan is floored, and Sherlock looks at her, wings flared. "It takes years of study to become a surgeon, not to mention tremendous ego. To literally hold someone's life in your hands," she shakes her head. "They don't just leave to become addict-sitters. They're forced out. And they're only forced out if they commit the sin of malpractice." Sherlock sighs and gestures vaguely. "I knew it would be a delicate subject so I made up the bit about your friend to...spare your feelings."

Joan's wings spread slightly. Spare her feelings? She has the feeling that Sherlock doesn't do that very often. "That was very big of you." She pauses. "How do you know the patient died?" Sherlock's wings lift slowly. "How do you know I didn't just leave him paralyzed or in a coma?"

"The parking ticket!" Sherlock's wings snap out the rest of the way. "The one you had in your purse. It was," she takes a breath. "You incurred it two weeks ago near the corner of 86th and 3rd. The only thing there is Carver Cemetery. You were visiting a grave. Not a parent's grave, of course, Google indicates that they're alive and well. Siblings? No, Carver is a pauper's field. The picture you keep in your phone says that your parents are well-to-do, no sibling of yours would be interred in a place like that. Carver doesn't even have a proper parking area, hence the ticket. So! A surgeon who's no longer a surgeon, a parking violation incurred outside a poor man's cemetery, and two parents who are as moneyed as they are alive. Add it all up, and what does it say," Sherlock gestures. "You were visiting the grave of the man you let die on your operating table." 

Joan nods slowly. Her wings had been drooping slowly throughout Sherlock's speech. It's so incredible," she whispers. "The way you can solve people just by looking at them. I noticed you don't have any mirrors around here." That gets the biggest reaction out of Sherlock yet- her wings snap out so violently that she knocks half the papers to the floor.

"And what's that supposed to mean," she snarls.

"It means I think you know a lost cause when you see one. Tomorrow I'll arrange for a new companion, but tonight I've got plans." Joan takes her jacket and bag and walks out the door.

Joan has to stand outside the door for a moment, breathing in the night air. She has to calm down before she gets in the car. Once she takes a couple of deep breaths, she walks to it. 

Once she gets to the opera, she makes a stop at the designated grooming area. She uses her own tools rather than the sanitized ones provided; it gives her that extra bit of comfort, having the familiar feel of them in her hand. Twenty minutes later, she's shining. She walks into the seating area and finds her seat, draping her wings over the back and into the designated pocket. The opera starts, and Joan allows the music to wash over her. For the first time that night, she's happy.

 Halfway through the first act, she hears Sherlock whisper her name loudly. She looks down the row, shocked to see the woman leant over at the end. Sherlock gestures for her to come, but Joan shakes her head. Sherlock slides through the row to much grumbling from the other attendees. She drops into the seat next to her, and Joan regrets leaving Sherlock's ticket on the table. "Peter Saldua felt rage the night he killed Amy Dampier," Sherlock begins. "Now, he had some measure of control-"

"You're not here right now," Joan says. "I don't hear you, I don't see you-" A little childish, maybe, but at least she's not covering her ears.

"Shall I speak up," Sherlock asks loudly, even louder than normal speaking tone. In the quiet crowd, it's almost deafening. Joan shoots her a shocked look, wings fluffing. "He had some measure of control with Eileen Renfro," Sherlock continues, whispering again. "But not with Amy. Why? Tell me, what exactly does a Xanax tablet look like?"

"Small, white or yellow, ovular. Why?"

Sherlock puts her phone to her ear, and Joan stares at her. Really?

"Detective Abreu, please."

A lady in front of them turns and shushes them, wings flared.

"Shh yourself. She's not even on key." Abreu must pick up. "Sherlock Holmes." A pause while Abreu no doubt complains. "Princess Diana was Welsh. No, no! The pill vial from Saldua's home, I know it was taken into evidence. I need you to get it for me." A pause. "The pills inside should be white or yellow and ovular, but they aren't, are they? They're round and pink." Sherlock hangs up after just a moment. "I need a ride, right now."

"I'm in the middle of something."

Sherlock sighs. "You were right, the other day. About Eileen Renfro. I had no idea she would respond to you the way that she did. I just told you I did because I...I was embarrassed I lost my temper. Would I have gotten to the truth some other way? Of course, but you got me there faster. Now, please, how fast can you get me to Sanbridge Hospital?" Joan smiles privately. 

"Let's go." They leave, much to the others' relief- they move much more easily out of their way.

 Sherlock bounces her leg in her seat once they're in the car, wings fluttering. "Groom," Joan says softly. "It'll make you feel better."

"You know, the endorphins released by grooming can be stimulated by other means," Sherlock remarks.

"If you mean drugs-"

"No, not drugs, though those do the trick. I mean, you can mentally stimulate them." Sherlock goes quiet, and her leg and wings stop moving. Joan just shakes her head and keeps driving.

They arrive at Sanbridge and wait.

 Soon enough, Dr. Mantlo starts walking down the steps. The women get out.

"Stay here," Sherlock says, and Joan does, watching her. Sherlock and Mantlo have a discussion, Sherlock's wings flaring, and then they part. 

"What did he say," Joan asks.

"He said that he did it."

Joan's wings half snap out. He actually admitted it? "Well, we have to tell the police!"

"No point," Sherlock shakes her head, pacing. "We don't have any proof, and he knows it. I need your car keys."

"What, why?"

"Car keys!" Joan hands them over. Sherlock walks away, wings flared. 

Maybe she just wants to drive. Joan follows her slowly. Sherlock gets in and starts the car, peeling out. Joan watches her slam into the side of Mantlo's car and jumps, wings wrapping around her. She peeks through the feathers and sees Sherlock get out. Sherlock walks past a stunned Mantlo to sit on the hospital steps next to Joan.

"Why'd you do that," Joan demands. Sherlock is silent. Joan huffs and waits. Mantlo must have called the police, because two squad cars come.

"What happened here," a police officer who approaches them asks, as his partner goes to Mantlo.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock says. "I crashed my associate's car into Dr. Richard Mantlo's."

The cop looks at Joan. "And who are you?"

"Joan Watson," she introduces herself. 

"Did you witness it?" Joan hesitates.

"She did," Sherlock nods.

"Stand up," the cop says. Sherlock obeys, turning around and offering her wrists. The cop cuffs her.

"Do you need a lift," he asks Joan. "You can get in the other car if you do." Joan checks on Sherlock.

"You should."

"Thank you. I think I will." The cop turns to face the other squad car and makes a motion. 

"You can go," he nods to her. 

"Thank you." Joan walks to the other car and a woman gets out to open the back door for her. Joan thanks her.

"Where to," her partner asks.

"Wherever they're taking Sherlock. We need to talk."

"We need to wait for the tow truck first."

"Of course."

Joan sits there and thinks. Sherlock doesn't seem like a person who does things on a whim. There has to be a reason. That must have been a stunt to put Mantlo off, something. It couldn't have just been anger, no matter what Sherlock's wings said. Maybe she faked it, or it was excitement that made them extend. She talks with the tow truck driver, almost forgetting her words the second they leave her mouth, and then she's driven to the jail. Joan makes a call while she waits.

"Hi, this is Joan Watson," she says into the voicemail. "Your daughter got into some trouble tonight. She crashed into a car. She's fine, as far as I can tell. And before you ask, drugs weren't involved. I would like to stay on as her companion, if you don't mind. Thank you, goodbye." She hangs up.

Twenty minutes later, her phone pings with a new email. She checks it.

'Mr. Holmes would like you to know that he received your message, and he understands if you'd like to leave. But since you expressed interest in staying, he has no objections. Since his conditions were not violated, Ms. Holmes will be allowed to stay at the allotted property. But no other transgressions will be tolerated. Thank you. -Harrison Jacobson, Mr. Holmes' assistant.'

Joan nods and puts her phone away.

 Soon enough, she sees Sherlock arrive through the door on the other side of the glass. She meets her there, and they pick up their respective phones.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock starts. "Not just for your car- which I'll pay for, it really wasn't much of a loss- but for the way I spoke to you earlier. I knew that the death of your patient would be a sore spot. I just-"

"Couldn't help yourself. Yeah, I'm starting to see how that could be a thing with you." An insult about her car wrapped in an apology, for starters.

"I assume you've told my father about what happened tonight." Joan lets her silence answer that for her. Sherlock nods, wings drooping. "I'm going to miss that brownstone."

"Actually, you're not." Sherlock's wings perk right back up. "I spoke with him, and since what you did at the hospital had nothing to do with drugs, he's agreed to give you another chance."

"You've decided to stay on as my companion, haven't you," Sherlock asks, a small smile on her face. "You never would have agreed if you hadn't." Her wings flutter just slightly- so slight that Joan would have missed it if not for the stillness of the room and the stark contrast of Sherlock's black feathers against the white wall. "I'm very pleased, Watson." Joan shoots her a look. "For myself, of course, but for you as well. I happen to think there's some hope for you as an investigator."

Joan's flattered, but her? An investigator? She doesn't think so. "I want you to let me in on the rest of the plan." At Sherlock's confused look, she elaborates. "To get Mantlo. I know you wouldn't have wrecked my car unless it was part of some elaborate-" she cuts herself off when she sees Sherlock's slightly sheepish face. "Temper tantrum. Right."

"Correct. Again, I apologize."

"In that case, I want you to tell me about London."

Sherlock's wings lift. "Big place. Lots of rain."

Joan is used to these sort of evasive tactics and caution from her previous clients. "I want you to tell me what happened to you in London."

"Why is it so important to you," Sherlock tries to turn it around on her. Joan won't let her.

"Because if I'm going to stay with you, I need to know everything."

"Actually, you don't need to know anything other than the fact I'm a recovering addict. You just want to know about London because you think it'll connect us in a more meaningful way. But in case you hadn't noticed, I don't have meaningful connections," Sherlock retorts. Joan looks down and smiles. There it is. "Why are you smiling," Sherlock demands.

"Because now I know it was a woman." Joan remembers the woman she had seen getting dressed in Sherlock's window, just a couple of days ago. 

"It could be a man," Sherlock says. "I am bisexual. But what makes you think it was anyone?"

"You're trying too hard. Just like you were the other day with that tattooed woman. All that 'sex is repellent' crap. You can connect to people. It just frightens you." Joan watches Sherlock's reaction to her words. Her wings never stopped moving; here drooping, here spreading, here twitching. Now, they still after Sherlock has run the gamut of emotions.

"My bail hearing is at 9:00 tomorrow. I trust I'll see you there."

Joan goes home for the night.

 Joan wakes up at 8:00, ready to go meet Sherlock. But she takes one last look at the evidence in the room before she goes. She turns to leave, but had misjudged the distance- her wing knocks over some papers. She sighs and kneels, collecting them. She pauses when she sees handwritten capital letters. "Rice," she whispers, confused. She looks through the crime scene photos until she finds the one she's looking for. She looks between the photo and the form, frowning. "Why would he," she wonders. Her alarm beeps, and she checks- she's going to be late. She stows the evidence and goes.

 Joan meets Sherlock on the courthouse steps. "You're late, Ms. Watson. That barrister was rubbish."

"I need to show you something," Joan says, taking the photo and form out of her bag. "Look here," she points to the writing. "Weird, right?"

"No, actually," Sherlock says, wings spreading. "Not even a little." She picks up her phone and dials. "Captain," she greets. A pause. "Very funny. Now, I need you to call Mantlo in." Pause. "I'll explain when I get in. We've found something." Joan's wings straighten. We. She likes the sound of that.

 They get into the station, and Sherlock leads them right to the Captain's office, whose door is open. He's sitting at his desk, reading some papers, but looks up at their approach. "Now, what has you so excited," he asks Sherlock, whose wings are still wide. "You spent the night in jail. Explain yourself." He takes off his glasses.

"Mantlo admitted to me that he killed his wife."

The Captain sits straight up, wings flaring. "What?"

"He used hypotheticals, and I had no evidence. Until now."

Sherlock slides the paper across his desk, and he picks it up. "What exactly am I supposed to be looking at here," he asks, putting his glasses back on.

"Known allergies," Joan says.

"Ok," Gregson says slowly.

"Now look," Sherlock hands him the photo. He looks at it over his glasses and his wings twitch. 

"Ok, I admit, it's weird. But why is it important? He could've had rice for guests."

"Did Peter Saldua seem like a man who had many guests," Sherlock asks.

"No," the Captain admits.

"I believe there's a reason he purchased that bag of rice, and I might even be able to tell you when he did."

"Are you gonna make me ask?"

"I believe that if we check his bank records, he bought it three days ago." The Captain just lifts his hand in a 'so' motion. Joan doesn't get it, either. "The same day he stopped using his phone." The Captain looks blank for a second until his face lights up. What am I missing, Joan wonders.

"Let's go," he stands, leading the women out. They take his car, Joan sitting in the back. "What made you think of this," he asks.

"Ms. Watson actually spotted it."

He looks in the rearview mirror at her. "Good catch." She smiles softly.

"Thank you."

 They arrive at Peter Saldua's home. Sherlock beelines to the pantry, putting on gloves. She reaches into the rice and smiles, taking her hand out. In it is a cell phone. The Captain's wings spread, then relax. "There's no battery," he points out. Sherlock puts the phone on the counter and reaches back into the bag, coming up with it. 

"How did you know it would be in there," Joan asks.

"The pills in Saldua's pill bottle, the ones marked 'Xanax,' they were steroids."

"Steroids," the Captain questions, wings flaring. "Boy, that would have gotten him riled up if he was popping them."

"To put it mildly," Joan agrees, still waiting for how Sherlock knew the phone would be in the rice.

"And now the washer makes sense," Sherlock gestures. "He left his phone in his pocket when he threw his trousers in the wash. He realized too late and destroyed the washer." Why would he care that much, Joan wonders. Before she can open her mouth to ask, Sherlock answers. "When I read Jessup's file with you," she directs to the Captain, and Joan's wings twitch. She looks at his left hand- there's a ring there. She never pegged Sherlock as a homewrecker. "No, we're not sleeping together. Saldua was recording his sessions on his phone. Which, I believe, if we listen to," she places the battery back in and looks through it, pressing a button. 

"Her name is Amy," a voice they assume is Saldua's says on the recording. "And when I see her, I get these feelings and- you have to tell me how to stop myself from hurting her, Dr. Mantlo, I don't want to hurt her, please!" The Captain's and Joan's wings perk up when they hear the name.

"It's ok, Peter. I'm here for you. Let's try upping your meds, see where that gets us." Sherlock ends the recording. 

"Looks like I'll be calling Mantlo in to 'apologize.' Good job, Ms. Watson."

 Joan watches Sherlock explain everything to Mantlo. They have him dead to rights; she just wants to see how he reacts. He has nearly complete control over himself until they play him the tape- then, his wings slump and he bows over.

"Celebrate tonight," Joan asks as they walk out of the Captain's office, Abreu leading Mantlo out in cuffs in front of them.

"Sure."

"Dinner? But first, there's a Mets game on. You can make it up to me for last night."

"Very well."

 Joan puts on her Mets hat and sits in front of the TVs. She gets through nearly the entire game, cheering and wincing by turns, before Sherlock says anything.

"Can we please go to dinner now?"

"It's the bottom of the 9th, the Mets are within one, and no one is out." She sees the look Sherlock is giving her. "Don't look at me like that. You agreed to make it up to me."

"That was before I got hungry. Isn't paying for your car making it up to you enough?"

"Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that it's not awesome," Joan says, wings spreading.

"Actually, Watson, I'm quite familiar with the great American pastime. The other addicts at Hemdale would often gather in the common room to watch matches on the telly."

"Ok, first of all, they're 'games,' not 'matches.'"

"I also find the science of the sport quite fascinating. All of the statistical analysis, all of the strategy. So, if you'll allow me to save us both a little time," she trails off, sitting forward. She studies the screen for a second. "Pop-up to center, intentional walk, game-ending double play. Final score: Reds of Cincinnati 3, Metropolitans of New York 2."

"Yeah, right. Nice try."

"A high fly ball again," Cohen says on the TV. 

"I'll meet you at the door," Sherlock says.

The Reds centerfielder catches the ball, one out. The catcher stands and holds his glove out to the side, and the pitcher walks the batter. Joan stands and goes behind her chair, hands braced on the back of it. When the next batter hits a ground ball behind the second baseman and the Reds turn the double play, she groans and folds her wings around her head. Why am I a suffering Mets fan, she wonders. I should use Sherlock to place bets. She never would, of course. She sighs and straightens, joining Sherlock downstairs. Sherlock helps her into her jacket, and Joan tucks her wings and pops them through the slits. 

"Ready," Joan asks. Sherlock opens the door for her. Joan walks out, Sherlock following her.