#“These women were trying to secure a future for themselves and their families and also not have complete shit husbands!”

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Does anyone else imagine their favorite X-Men character yelling about literature, or is it just me?

[meyjiji]

ARKAEL JAMES CONTRIDAS — ARI (01)

"Now if we're talking body. You got a perfect one, So put it on me"

Arkael James Contridas was a man whose presence commanded attention. As the CEO of Contridas Air and Enterprises, he carried the weight of his family's legacy with a quiet confidence that few could rival. Not only was he a successful businessman, but he was also an accomplished pilot, frequently taking to the skies to oversee the operations of his family’s airline. His commanding presence, tall stature, and razor-sharp intellect made him a figure that women found themselves swooning over, though he remained indifferent to their advances.

His life was consumed by his responsibilities, and the only thing he ever truly seemed to care about was securing the future of Contridas Air. Despite being surrounded by admirers, Arkael knew the pressure of his family’s expectations.

When you first met Arkael, the idea of a marriage of convenience felt absurd. You came from a well-established family yourself, one that had no need for alliances or financial gain. Your world was already secure. You were just auditioning for fun, at least that’s what you had thought. It never crossed your mind that Arkael would pick you. But when the decision was made, it was for reasons far beyond your understanding, at least at the time.

Arkael had chosen you because, to him, you were the most suitable match. He had no interest in love or romance this was about practicality, about ensuring the continuation of his family’s legacy. His family, on the other hand, had no idea about the audition. They thought Arkael had married you out of love, the same way any normal couple would. They were pleased, convinced that the union was exactly what he needed, the perfect fit for their son. They hadn’t questioned his decision. They didn’t know the truth.

You and Arkael had tried to make it work. At first, it wasn’t easy business meetings, flights, and endless responsibilities on both sides, but you both tried. Still, the distance between you only grew. Arkael buried himself in his work, and you drowned in your own commitments. You both tried to act like it wasn’t an issue, but deep down, you knew it was. The exhaustion, the frustration, and the loneliness it was too much.

One night, after weeks of the emotional distance growing between you both, Arkael sat you down in his office. He wasn’t the type to waste time on small talk. The frustration in his eyes was evident.

"(Y/N), we need to talk," he said, leaning back in his chair, his voice unusually tense.

You crossed your arms, looking at him with a mix of curiosity and annoyance. "About what?"

He sighed, his voice softening slightly. "About us. This... arrangement."

You raised an eyebrow. "What about it? We both know this was never about love."

"Exactly," he replied, leaning forward now, his gaze unwavering. "But maybe it’s time we address how this is affecting both of us. I know you’re frustrated. And to be honest, I am too."

"Sa tingin mo ba wala akong alam, Arkael?" you shot back, your voice a mix of sarcasm and tiredness. "Hindi ko na kaya. Hindi ko na kayang magpanggap na okay lang, pero wala namang nangyayari. I’ve been trying, pero you’ve been so distant, so cold."

He nodded, acknowledging your frustration. "I know. I know I’ve been distant. But that’s why I’m proposing something."

You frowned, confused. "Ano'ng proposal?"

Arkael’s eyes darkened, his usual stoic expression now replaced by something more... vulnerable. "I think we both need to let out our frustrations. We've been holding this tension for so long, maybe... maybe it's time we confront it head-on. Together. Sexually."

You blinked, caught off guard by his bluntness. "Wait, anong ibig mong sabihin? You want... sex?"

"Not just sex," he clarified, his tone more serious now. "I’m talking about using that as a way to release all the built-up stress, the anger, the frustration... so we can move forward. Our bond... it might become stronger after this. It’s not about love. It’s about relieving the pressure. No strings attached. And we’ll agree, no kids for now."

You stared at him, processing his words. It was strange his proposal wasn’t one you expected, but in a way, it made sense. It wasn’t about affection, but rather about confronting the tension between you two in a raw, physical way.

"Huwag mo akong gawing tanga," you said, voice cold. "Hindi ko na alam kung anong gusto mong mangyari. So you want us to... release all this... by having sex?"

"Yes," Arkael replied bluntly, his voice steady. "No expectations, no emotions. Just... a way for us to clear the air, so we can stop being stuck in this marriage of convenience."

You paused, trying to grasp the implications. "And pagkatapos, what? We go back to how we were? I do my thing, you do yours?"

"Exactly," he replied without hesitation. "We can continue as we were. No promises. But maybe... maybe it’ll make things less suffocating between us."

You took a deep breath, trying to suppress the conflicting emotions that rose within you. Was it a good idea? Could it really ease the tension? You weren’t sure, but one thing was certain it wasn’t about love. It was about finding a way to survive this farce of a marriage.

"Fine," you said, the words leaving your mouth without much thought. "Let’s do it. But remember no kids, no strings."

Arkael nodded as if agreeing to a simple business transaction. "No strings. No expectations. Just... what we need."

As you both agreed to this unconventional solution, there was a strange sense of finality in the air. The marriage of convenience that had started with practical intentions had now evolved into something... more.

Only time would tell.

— TBC

[horizon-verizon]

Do you really think that the realm will support Jacaerys's claim eventually? After all the rumors about his bastardy are really strong and most TG stans claim that since Jace is a bastard he can't inherit anything, Jace needs to be legitimized first. I really like Jacaerys character and I'm new in this fandom, so this matter is so confuse to me.

Btw your post are amazing ❤️

Thanks, anon!

Answer to Question #1

1)

I have many, many posts about bastardry and the boys' illegitimacy vs legitimacy: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, & HERE. Basically, Jace is not really illegtimate bc illegtimacy must be "proven" and he was never proven to be. People have to argue/prove for it more than people having to argue whether or not one's hair is red or not. And

2)

Jace was actually respected outside of his family (A Son for a Son"):

3)

Several of those greens stans are not reading the damn text and refuse to see that Jacaerys was actually pretty admired by one of Rhaenyra's biggest supporters, Cregan Stark ("A Son for a Son"):

Also, Alicent had been, FOR YEARS, trying to get more people on her side and denounce or pressure either Viserys into removing Rhaenyra and her sons from the line of succession (both bk and show) or just get MOST of the lords at court and beyond to denounce Rhaenyra and her sons...and yet she had to resort to a usurpation, imprisoning courtiers and servants to withhold news of Viserys' death, pressured the council to crown Aegon after many lines of persuasion buttressed by Cole & Otto's input and wild accusations and assertions about Rhaenyra's sons, Daemon, and Rhaenyra not being actually the Queen...

I'd say that Alicent failed to convince anyone to really go against Rhaenyra by depending on the boys illegitimacy.

Answer to Question #2

Do you mean if Rhaenyra had ascended peacefully (no war at all, no usurpation) or had won the war with Jacaerys still alive when she did? Yes, he is her heir and the lords fought for her...they were a package deal. If you didn't want to have Jace as the next ruler, you would not fight for the person who names him as heir. Rhaenyra would have consolidated her reign and ensured her line's future better.

Now if we're talking about DURING THE WAR, Jace somehow survived but Rhaenyra did not/lost, I think there would have been a bit more difficulty without Cregan Stark, Jeyne Arryn, the Blackwoods, Vyprens, other lords who respected that their vows applying to Rhaenyra applied to her heir as well (bc again, they came as a package deal politically) and without as many dragons as the blacks had. Since most of the lords didn't swear to him but just to Rhaenyra, maybe some lords would use this as an excuse to defect or leave the war altogether because it stil costs them resources, some still will use this to justify how a male line goes before a woman's line, and/or they are just greedy AND cowardly and see this as they way to flagrantly ally themselves with the greens.

in the beginning. Bc the actual named heir/undoubtedly trueborn person is no longer there to enforce/support Jace's claim.

And once again, Cregan Stark made his Pact with Jace [2nd pictured quote above]...Cregan was a beast after the war and northerners are mad about their vow-taking, arguably more than "southern" folk. Cregan also liked Jacaerys very much from what's written about them--some fans theorize romantically, but whatever. He also had a higher emotional stake in it, which is an amplifying motive to the primary one about the Pact.

As for Jeyne Arryn, she was steadfastly loyal to Rhaenyra's cause because she was blood through Aemma, she would be helping to make sure her own position was securer from male relatives who already tried to oust her, and because Rhaenyra was a woman--like her. Women in a man's world an all that ("A Son for a Son"):

(Cregan also was interested bc he was having trouble with an uncle trying to oust him...succession things). Thus it could get easier for Jace to default back to him having been Rhaenyra's heir, he's never been "found out" to not be Laenor's , and he's a male dragonrider. again, this is if he loses most of Rhaenyra's supporters, bc it's still possible that he'd reatin the bigger and important ones.

Also, if Daemon somehow by some miracle managed to dispatch Aemond and come back...they'd likely fight with and for Jace anyway because Daemon is just loyal &--by reputation and action--brutal like that. Jace--less likely...key words--loses that many supporters of Rhaenyra's.

[quotergirl19]

Deep dive into Penelope & Eloise’s perspectives:

In many ways, Eloise and Penelope are suffering through the same thing during their fight: resentment & heartbreak. Eloise called her friendship with Theo, “one of the only good things in my life,” and she feels she gave it up because of Penelope’s self-serving behavior (keeping her Whistledown secret).

On the flipside, Penelope calls writing Whistledown, “all I have had,” because she only has one good thing in her life apart from her friendship with Eloise, and she gave it up because of Eloise’s self-serving behavior of taking every opportunity to rebel simply because the opportunities have presented themselves (which she did by visiting Theo unchaperoned often, even during her brother’s wedding which is how she was caught and presumed to be Whistledown forcing the events that followed leading up to Penelope ruining her to keep Eloise from making things worse by lying to the Queen).

Both women were pursuing their own happiness, and sense of purpose. For Eloise her happiness was spending time with Theo who had interesting ideas and new perspective, and their relationship also brought her closer to what she was tasked to do by the Queen, which gave her purpose.

If Eloise managed to discover who Whistledown was, she would be able to look back on that accomplishment for the rest of her life. Even if she’s not allowed anything else because she’s a woman. Even if she has to marry someone and conform because of the expectations of the society and family she was born into, she would have done something instead of just talking about doing something which is all most women could do at the time.

Investigating and figuring out the big mystery of who Whistledown is at the request of the monarchy itself would have been the way Eloise Bridgerton was remembered by future generations. Not just because she was mentioned in Whistledown’s columns, but because she discovered who the anonymous writer was when even the queen’s Bow Street Runners (who were men) failed.

Eloise said that she, “gave up Theo,” and while she didn’t give him up for Penelope. She gave him up because of Penelope through Whistledown. So while Eloise’s anger and resentment is directed towards Penelope, her real problem is the cage she feels society has trapped her in. Whistledown (Penelope) serves as the enforcement of the rules that Eloise finds so restrictive because Whistledown will reveal what you do that doesn’t conform which is stifling when most people are just trying to live their lives and pursue their interests and happiness.

Unlike Eloise, Penelope truly has no outlet other than her writing and her relationship with Eloise. Her family is not as big, loving, supportive, powerful, connected, respected or wealthy as the Bridgertons. Her mother and siblings have shown Pen no genuine affection or respect, Portia does not care about Penelope’s interests or education and she has even less interest in securing a good match to safeguard Penelope’s future the way Violet Bridgerton has done for her children. Penelope is not encouraged to be herself, she’s told to be quiet and put down her books, and where any other mama would be eager to use their daughter’s friendship with a popular, handsome and rich man like Colin Bridgerton as a stepping stone towards making a match between him and her daughter, Portia assumes the same position that society has which is that he would never choose Penelope. Portia won’t even entertain the notion that Colin is even truly Penelope’s friend. Pen has no one who encourages her or tries to help her find purpose or happiness. She found that for herself in secret through writing Whistledown which has been a massive success and has secured her the fortune which will ensure her future. Giving up Whistledown because of Eloise would naturally bring about feelings of resentment for Penelope but it’s a testament to how much she loves her friend that she would do that to help Eloise from doing something as dangerous as making an enemy of the Queen.

Both women are just desperate to find happiness and purpose when society doesn’t care about what women want or need or if they’re happy at all. Their fight is deeply rooted in the fact that they have tremendous love and trust for each other but have also contributed to taking from each other the joy and freedom they’ve each secretly secured for themselves. Maybe that could have been avoided if their respective secrets had not set them apart, which was exactly what Eloise didn’t want to happen and that was her reason for confiding in Penelope about Theo in the first place.

I’m eager for these two to reconcile, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about how Whistledown began and why, and I believe that is going to weigh heavily on how Peneloise move forward from this.

Jealousy also plays a huge part. Because while on the surface Eloise has everything, beauty, support, love from her family, respect from the ton, admiration from eligible gentlemen, money, and intelligence, Penelope is not considered beautiful because she plump, she is talked down to by her family, gentlemen ignore her completely, her family is known to have been in debt, and nobody cares about whether she’s intelligent or not. In the eyes of society there are the “haves,” and the, “have nots,” Eloise has and Pen does not. Yet Penelope’s success with Whistledown is something Eloise is definitely jealous of.

Penelope is jealous and resentful of the fact that she wasn’t born a Bridgerton but she’s also aware that she can’t help what family she was born into and she recognizes that neither can Eloise but that doesn’t mean that she’s not frustrated by her own more challenging circumstances. Eloise however, seems oblivious to the plight of the “have nots,” because she’s never needed to consider it. She needs a massive reality check with regard to her privileges as a Bridgerton. I like both Eloise and Penelope a lot but Eloise has a sense of entitlement to do what she pleases as she pleases which is entirely due to her privilege as a Bridgerton which makes her consistently oblivious to the feelings and perspectives of others. That will have to change if she’s going to mature.

Time apart for personal growth and gaining perspective will do these two a lot of good. The same can be said for Polin but I digress.

Thoughts?

[jordanianroyals]

Queen Rania of Jordan's Interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson on 5 November 2023 during which she stresses need for a ceasefire.

QUEEN RANIA: There has to be a collective call for a ceasefire. And I know that some who are against a ceasefire argue that it will help Hamas. However, I feel that in that argument, they are inherently dismissing the death – in fact, even endorsing and justifying the death – of thousands of civilians, and that is just morally reprehensible. It is also shortsighted and not entirely rational.

Because, as I've said before, if you manage to eliminate all of Hamas, what next? The root cause of this conflict is an illegal occupation. It is routine human rights abuses, illegal settlements, disregard to UN resolutions and international law. If we do not address these root causes, then you can kill the combatant, but you cannot kill the cause. So on the rubble of these destroyed buildings will emerge another group more determined, and more motivated to do what Hamas did.

So I think Israel needs to once and for all realize that if it wants its security, the surest route is through peace. Not the strongest military or the most capable intelligence services, or the Iron Dome, or the Separation Wall, will safeguard Israel's security as much as peace would. And I think that is the track that we need to pursue now.

BECKY ANDERSON:��US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was in Jordan over the weekend. He said that Israel has every right to defend itself within the rules of war in order to ensure what happened on October 7 never happens again…

QUEEN RANIA: If we want to make sure that we never have to be in this situation, again, we have to ask ourselves how we got there. If violence stood between Palestinians and a better future, then they themselves will fight against this violence. I just want to give you one simple fact. After the Oslo Accords in 1993, in 1996, a poll was taken and it showed that 80% of Palestinians supported the accords and support for violent resistance dropped to 20%. So if Palestinians had a political horizon, they themselves would be against any form of violence, but they need to be given that prospect.

BECKY ANDERSON: How concerned are you about the civilian death toll and worsening humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza, and what genuine intent do you see Israel taking to reduce causalities?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, look Becky, I cannot begin to describe the scale and the scope of the catastrophic humanitarian situation that we are seeing. It is absolutely unprecedented. And it's been unbearable to watch the avalanche of human suffering that we're seeing. Almost 10,000 deaths, almost half of them are children. And if you just put that in perspective, over the last four weeks in Gaza, eight times more children were killed than the 20 months of the Ukraine War. UNICEF has called Gaza the graveyard for children. And you know, these are not just numbers. Each one of these children was somebody's everything.

There's an acronym in Gaza, W.C.N.S.F.: Wounded Child with No Surviving Family. That's an acronym that should never exist, but it does exist in Gaza.

You know, I think the world is just screaming: How many more people have to die before our global conscience awakes? Or is it forever dormant when it comes to the Palestinians?

BECKY ANDERSON: The Israelis insist they are doing their best to protect citizens. Yet they say Hamas uses citizens as human shields and cites what it says are numerous examples of the terror group using human shields in this current conflict. What do you make of that?

QUEEN RANIA: Well, look, after over 10,000 people killed, 70% of whom are women and children, for the Israelis to claim that they are trying to protect citizens? Honestly, it's an insult to one's intelligence. When 1.1 million people are asked to leave their homes or risk death, that is not protection of civilians. That is forced displacement. And UN agencies and other agencies have said that there is no safe place in Gaza. And even the areas that they have asked people to seek refuge in, those so-called “safe zones,” they have been attacked as well. And never mind that evacuation orders are sent online or on television, knowing that there is no electricity in Gaza since the beginning of this war. These evacuation orders, I do not believe are for the benefit of the Gaza civilians. They are not the target audience; the rest of the world is. It is Israel's attempt to try to legitimize their actions.

And when it comes to human shields, I think we need to defer to international law. Of course, the use of human shields is criminal. But even if one side puts a civilian in harm's way, that civilian is still entitled to full protection under international humanitarian law. That is the global standard, and no nation is exempt. So, before firing any bullet, before dropping any bomb, it is the responsibility of the nation to weigh the risk to civilian life. And if that risk is disproportionate to the to the military target, then it is deemed unlawful.

And frankly, I find it really outrageous when Israeli officials audaciously dismiss Palestinian casualties as human shields. In a place like Jabaliya, which is one of the most crowded corners of Gaza – Gaza being one of the most densely populated spots on Earth – civilian death is not incidental, it is not accidental. It is a foregone conclusion, and that makes it a war crime.

BECKY ANDERSON: Queen Rania, we are seeing a significant rise in anti-Semitism in the US, particularly on college campuses. We’ve also seen a significant rise in Islamophobia and attacks on Muslim students. As hate and fear grow, how worried are you, and what can and should be done to bring that temperature down right now?

QUEEN RANIA: I want to absolutely and wholeheartedly condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia. It's never okay, it’s never justified, to attack somebody based on their beliefs. But I also want to remind everyone that Israel does not represent all the Jewish people around the world. Israel is a state, and it alone is responsible for its own crimes. Jewish people around the world, many of them are appalled by what they're seeing. And, you know, like you said, Islamophobia is the other side of the same disease. And we Muslims, we have to be the first to condemn antisemitism.

We have had a long history of peaceful coexistence. So this is not about religion. It is about politics. And what we've seen in recent years is the charge of antisemitism being weaponized in order to silence any criticism of Israel. So defenders or supporters of Israel who cannot defend Israel's actions or conduct, they revert to shutting the conversation down by equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Let me be very, very clear, being pro-Palestinian is not being antisemitic. Being pro-Palestinian does not mean you're pro-Hamas or pro-terrorism.

I think Israel deserves more from its allies than just unequivocal support. I think it deserves some uncomfortable truths, because if you are a real friend, you support your friend when they're right. But you also tell them when they've crossed the line.

[koocycle]

I saw this pretty interesting reddit post and it was asking women who were in long term relationships, whose partners prioritized their careers/money over the relationship to describe their experiences and I immediately thought of our over wine couple lol

I read thru lots of the answers and it was actually pretty consistent in that the women who's partners over-prioritized work because they were motivated to have a secure future for their families ended up just fine in the end. they were able to overcome the tough period of time because the partner eventually prioritized their work less and less as they achieved their goal.

and the women who's partners were clearly over-prioritizing their career solely for themselves and their ego ended up being not so fine/ended in divorce or break ups a lot of the times.

Its probably pretty obvious why things would end up the way they did in the women's stories, but I still found it super interesting!

anyway it had me thinking that ow jk clearly started off with the intention of building a secure future for them because he desperately wanted to be able to give y/n all the things he thought that she deserved, but at some point it started to become less about that and more about how far he could advance and move up in his career, how impressive of a position he could achieve etc. now the problem is that his motivation has changed but he's still dishing out the same excuse that doesn't apply to their situation anymore every time the issue is brought up.

it's like he can't admit to himself that the reason he works as much as he does is because he values money and prestige and the opinions of other rich people at fancy functions and dinners over his wife's feelings. because admitting that would mean having to stare in the face the fact that he hasn't been as good of a partner as he should have been.

and then he paints y/n as the bad guy for supposedly being the road block that is trying to prevent him from "giving them a good life", when a. they already have a pretty fantastic and comfortable life, and b. all she wants is a stable relationship where he's more present than he is currently. she's not even asking him to stop work completely, just work a little less.

I honestly really feel for y/n because she really isn't asking for a whole lot, all she wants is for him to meet her halfway and he's created so much emotional strife between them over that by refusing to see the reality of everything. it must be so frustrating!! I don't even know what i'd do in that situation like.. I really don't think any man or dick is worth being that unhappy and hurt for. you either meet me halfway or goodbye lmaooo

even if he's jeon mf jungkook and the loml!! though i'd argue that I wouldn't really consider someone the loml if they did me the way ow jungkook is doing y/n 😂

oh god that’s such an interesting take!! i hadn’t thought of it like that before. also cute how your first thought was the ow couple 🥹

now that i’m reading it again, it makes much sense when you tell about the men who’s initial goal was to secure a good life! not justifying anything or anyone, but it must be so easy to get sucked into a world of business when they keep you on the job for at least seven or eight hours a day. so interesting to hear they eventually prioritized their relationship over their jobs when the most likely had to go through some sort of reality check to get to that point

he did indeed start off with the fact that he wanted to build them a secure future, and now it’s obviously escalated into something more, where his status grew more and more important. so it probably makes people wonder which one of the two scenarios you read about applies to them…

[oldguy56-world]

God Save the King

First off, yes I am writing this on a Sunday which is a day early. There is a simple reason that I hope the Lord will forgive me for: Tomorrow I am fleeing the country for unspecified reasons. That is all you need to know. I wanted to impart some words of wisdom prior to leaving so here they are.

Yesterday Charles finally was crowned after almost 72 years of waiting. I chronicled this four years ago with my blog 'The Man Who would be King' May 2019. He did have to wait much longer than he had hoped although each passing year got him another Christmas gift from his mother, so there was some consolation.

I was up early and watched some of the proceedings (call me crazy) and in doing so there were numerous questions raised in my head. Some I came up with answers for, others no. Let me take you through my partial journey of enlightenment.

Since he is over 65 does old Chuck get social security? I read that to qualify you had to have worked at least 10 years in the country and I am not sure that he qualifies. Hopefully they can make ends meet.

I saw the fuzzy hat guard during the procession. Pretty sure they cannot see based on how low the hats fall. If they were to be attacked would they be able to defend themselves let alone the King? Until...

I saw the RCMP and Australians right behind them. These guys are all good in a fight and with a pub on every corner they paraded past there was plenty of fuel to get them going. Only concern would be if they started fighting each other.

I didn't see any Americans so therefore I also saw no guns. A good thing for all.

Was Camilla ever excited! How excited? Let's just say that if that gold carriage had curtains on the windows Charles would never had made it to Buckingham Palace with his trousers on.

Prince Louis started acting up so he had to be removed from the main family area. I thought they might put him in the time out section with Uncles Andy and Harry but then I realized this could be setting a bad example for him. Not so much Andy for his, let's say moral problems, but rather Uncle Harry. The last thing the royal family needs is for Harry to read excepts from his book 'Spare' to Louis. Who knows what that would lead to.

One of the announcers said of Charles 'too bad his mother isn't here to watch this. Well numbnutz, if she was still here yesterday would not have happened.

I couldn't help but wonder if Chuck was wearing Camilla's special gitch underneath his uniform. Occasionally he had a wry smile on his face like he knew something no one else did.

Finally I wondered if the royal feast would include fish and chips.

They made this old man stand and march for over four hours. Are they trying to cut his reign short or do they like doing them so much that they want another in the very near future.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: Fairy tales come true even for 70+ year old women. Never give up hope for your dreams.

[peaceisadirtyword]

Heathen (Ivar/Edlynn)

A/N: Hello♥️ as I promised, here’s the first chapter of the new series I’m writing. The idea came to me when I was rewatching Vikings and then I planned it while rewatching The Last Kingdom. So I started writing it, doing a bit of worldbuilding to introduce some original characters and here I am. It’s set on season 6B (I'm changing things, so it will not follow the show’s storyline). And I was really excited to write the mature version of Ivar, so I’m sorry if he seems a bit out of character. This chapter might be a bit boring, but it serves as an introduction. I hope you enjoy it, thank you for reading🥰 I will post a new chapter every Thursday at 21:00 (CET). 

Warnings: mentions of violence and war, talk of arranged marriage, alcohol... Well, it’s Vikings😅

Words: 4197 

Summary

gif belongs to @therealcalicali 

"I've heard the pagans are back" 

Edlynn raised her head. She sat next to the window, and had spent most of the time looking at the rain falling outside as she leant her head against the wall. It had been raining a lot those days. The beautiful cloth she was trying to practice her embroidery on was already forgotten and abandoned on her lap, a bit dirty with blood from all those times she had poked her finger with the needle.

The queen looked nervous when one of the girls in the room mentioned the northmen. Edlynn had also heard her father and even the king himself talking about it, whispering and with a frown, like men do when they talk about a very serious matter. They had already evacuated some of the towns near the coast, but no one really told her what was happening. 

"We must trust on our men and on God" she smiled at her "They will protect England, they always have" 

"I heard the king is thinking about evacuating the city too" other of the girls whined "What if they find us?" 

"They won't, my dear" the queen looked uncomfortable "I don't know about the plans my husband has, he won't discuss them with me, but I'm sure he'll do what is best for our people" 

Edlynn bit her lip. Queen Elsewith was nervous, she had seen her ordering the servants to start packing slowly, in case everyone had to leave the town. And there were whispers and an uneasiness that everyone had noticed. 

Next to her, her friend Mildrith leant in to speak softly. 

"I hope we can see the heathens from up close this time" she giggled. 

Edlynn had to hold back a smile. For some reason, Mildrith had a fascination for the northmen that called themselves vikings, even if everyone else was scared of them. She had been infatuated with a viking boy that worked on the lands King Alfred had given to the northmen some time ago. Even if neither Mildrith nor Edlynn had been allowed to visit those lands, King Alfred invited some of the settlers to dine in his own home sometimes, to secure the good relations with them. The boy and Mildrith had had a short but intense romance that Edlynn helped to hide from her family and the king, and since then she had been obsessed with learning about their culture. 

Edlynn could understand why, their ways and their traditions were different from the ones she had grown up with, and anyone with a bit of curiosity in them would want to know more. But no one let her learn about their Gods or they beliefs, for it was a sin. 

"I don't think we will" she shook her head and spoke softly "The King won't let them"

"Maybe they will be invited for a feast" Mildrith bit her lip, excited "And we can see them. They say they're are the same ones that took York" 

"We should go and pray" one of the women in the room stood up, interrupting Edlynn as she was about to answer her friend "For the safety of our country and our king, ask God to protect us"

Some of the women muttered in agreement, and soon the room filled with the noise of everyone standing and walking to the door. But before she could even stand, the queen approached. Quickly, Mildrith and her bowed their heads at Queen Elsewith respectfully. 

"Edlynn, I'd like to talk to you for a moment, if you will" 

She nodded slowly, and Mildrith excused herself after widening her eyes. 

"Yes, queen Elsewith?" 

"I just wanted to see if you were alright, Edlynn, these days I've barely seen you" 

She bit her lip again. The queen was always nice and kind to her, but it was still the queen and she couldn't act like close friends with her. And she definitely couldn't speak her mind freely. 

"Yes, I'm fine" she smiled softly "These days I wasn't feeling too well, I... Spent some time in my chambers just resting" 

"I was worried about you, you disappeared just after your engagement to Lord Edmund, and as I've also been there, I thought maybe I could help" 

The engagement. She had tried her best not to think about it the past few days. Even if Edlynn knew since she was born that she'd have to marry a stranger, it was still awkward to meet a man during a small feast that was announced as her future husband just half an hour later. 

In any case, she was still lucky, Lord Edmund was handsome, young and, as far as everyone knew, nice. Edlynn wasn't that upset about it, but it was still overwhelming, and the fact that she'd have to abandon the court, her friends -oh, what would she do without Mildrith?- and her family to go and live in a stranger's home saddened her. 

"Lord Edmund is a very good man that I can't wait to get to know better, and I feel honored and lucky that he chose me to be his wife" Edlynn repeated the words that Hilda, the nun that raised her after her mother's death, had made her learn in preparation for this moment. 

Elsewith smiled sadly at the young girl. It was a woman's duty, but she saw a lot of herself on Edlynn and she knew she must have been scared and nervous, even if she understood it. But Edlynn had always been a proper and obedient lady and, like many other women in her position, learnt to hide her true feelings. She'd never do anything that went against her father and the King's wishes.

"The king would never have let him ask for your hand in marriage if he didn't know he's a good man, a good warrior and a good Christian" the queen reassured her "He loves your family a lot and just wishes a good life for you"

"I know, my queen, and I will always be thankful to him and to you for how much kindness you've shown me and my family" 

Her smile widened. 

"I also wanted to talk to you about Mildrith" Elsewith sighed and started walking to the door "She really shouldn't go around talking about how she'd like to meet a northman, it's... Not proper"

"I know" muttered Edlynn, following her "I'll talk to her" 

She nodded, and just before exiting the room, Elsewith took her hand and squeezed it softly. In some way, she had always considered Edlynn her friend. 

"Remember you can come and talk to me any time you need" the queen smiled again "Women understand each other much better than men" 

"I will" she nodded "Thank you, my queen" Edlynn bowed her head again before Queen Elsewith turned around, walking to the nearest chapel escorted by two of the guards. 

__________________________________________

King Alfred threw a feast to celebrate the engagement. Usually, this kind of things weren't celebrated that much, but Edlynn's father, Lord Eldred, had been close to King Aethelwulf and was close to King Alfred,  becoming one of his most trusted men after his mother's death. Besides, Alfred and Edlynn grew up together and even if with time the both of them had learnt to keep their relationship purely formal, he still had a soft spot for her. 

Edlynn's sister had been married to a lord from Mercia and her brother was a proud member of King Alfred's personal guard. Now it was her turn to make the family proud by doing her duty and what she had been born to: Stand next to her soon-to-be-husband and smile politely at strangers that couldn't care less about her and her happiness but that queued to wish the both of them a happy marriage. 

Even if she knew that was what she was supposed to do, it was still boring. 

"The king has told me you enjoy reading" Lord Edmund, sitting next to her, was the one that started the conversation after talking with the king and her father about war. 

Edlynn was surprised when he spoke to her. It was the first time the two of them talked. She wasn't very talkative, at least not at the beginning, and didn't really expect more from him than the usual formalities. She had seen marriages like this many times, and didn't really expected him to acknowledge her much in public.

"I do" she smiled politely. 

"It's nice, what kind of things you like to read?" 

"Mostly, about history" she bit her lip nervously "I find the Romans particularly interesting" 

Lord Edmund nodded. 

"I will make sure that you have enough to read back in my castle" he said softly "And don't be afraid of asking for anything that you need or want to feel comfortable" 

That surprised Edlynn even more. He smiled at her confused face and his grey eyes fixed on hers. 'At least he has pretty eyes' she thought. Maybe their children would inherit his grey eyes and not her brown ones. For some reason, she didn't feel that overwhelmed by the thought of a young child with his grey eyes and her auburn hair.

"I knew you were special since I saw you, when I first arrived here to take an oath to King Alfred after my father's death, that's why I asked your father for your hand in marriage, and I'm pleased to know there's much more about you behind your beauty" 

His words were so sweet, and one lock of his bright black hair fell next to his face, giving him an attractive look that made Edlynn understand why many women had been glaring at her since the engagement was announced. 

"You flatter me, my lord" she tried your best to sound confident "I appreciate your kindness, thank you" 

From the corner of her eye, she could see her father and Hilda, the nun, watching her. Edlynn straightened her back and kept talking to Lord Edmund, feeling a strange emptiness inside her. 

____________________________________

Ivar knew taking England wouldn't be easy, but it would definitely be easier if he was leading the entire army. 

King Harald had the last word, and even if he trusted him enough to let him think about the strategies, it wasn't the same. Ivar made a flawless plan, he thought about every single detail, and he knew exactly what the english would do. It wasn't too hard. 

"So, King Alfred is evacuating the city" Harald emptied his drink, taking another piece of meat before his deep blue eyes fixed on Ivar, who ate in silence next to his brother. Hvitserk ignored them, focusing on the food on his plate "Should we take it?"

Ivar raised an eyebrow and swallowed the food before taking his cup to drink some more ale. 

"We need to defeat Alfred first, we can't do much with just the city"

Harald shrugged. 

"Defeating him in battle won't change much either, we need to gain some more ground" 

Ivar hummed, nodding. 

"I agree, and we should try and find something that gives us some kind of advantage over them, because we are outnumbered and we can't defeat them just by winning battles, they can assemble another army faster than us" 

"And? You're the strategist here, Ivar" Harald chuckled. In some way, he was happy to have the youngest Ragnarsson back on his side.

"We need to find something that makes them surrender to our terms and buys us some time" Ivar raised an eyebrow. 

"Like a hostage?" Hvitserk raised his head for the first time since the food arrived. He let Ivar do the talk, and stuck to fighting. 

Ivar smirked at his brother. 

"Exactly. A hostage, dear brother" 

"I don't think that a couple of soldiers captured in battle will make them surrender to our terms" Harald shrugged again "We'd need someone else, someone like..."

"The queen" 

The king raised an eyebrow at him, while Ivar smiled softly.

"Christian women don't go to battle, and we can't try and break into their camp, there will be too many guards"

"Exactly, so we need to find a moment in which the men are occupied with something else, something like..."

"A battle" Hvitserk chuckled. 

Ivar nodded winking at his brother.

"So you mean to kidnap the queen during the battle" Harald nodded slowly "It could work"

"The queen won't be far from the battlefield, and there won't be so many guards" Ivar shrugged, taking another bite from his plate. 

"We could go and meet them on a battlefield, I already explored some of the lands around here and I think it would be easier to attract them to the woods" Ivar nibbled one of the ribs "Then, we ambush them, and keep them distracted enough time to sneak into their camp and take the queen"

"And then?" Harald looked interested. Sometimes, he found Ivar's mind fascinating.

"Then we negotiate" he shrugged "We just want some land, right? The queen in exchange for that land, I think it's a fair exchange, then, when we have the land, some resources and a place to settle down, we can continue fighting, because we will be stronger" 

"But he could betray us after he gets his queen back" Hvitserk raised an eyebrow. 

"I know Alfred, he won't" Ivar shook his head "Not as long as he thinks we're willing to stop the raids and the invasion if we get the land" 

"So we lie to him" Harald pointed, and Ivar nodded slowly. 

"But first" he raised an eyebrow "We need the queen"

_________________________________

 The beds on the camp were uncomfortable. Edlynn didn't complain, though, knowing everyone had bigger problems than worrying about her not getting any sleep. 

Just two days after the engagement feast, king Alfred ordered to evacuate the city. The northmen were too close, and it was too dangerous, it was the only explanation she got when her father bursted into the chambers and ordered to pack only the necessary. Edlynn barely saw him since then, as he and Edward, her brother, would ride with the king when everyone was moving and didn't leave the king's tent when they camped, too busy with battle plans and strategies. Queen Elsewith was also with them, and Edlynn's betrothed, Lord Edmund, too. Betrothed... It still sounded too irreal. At least, he rode next to the carriage she traveled in. 

Mildrith was the only one that found the entire thing exciting. Edlynn often found her wandering outside the camp, and didn't mind how many times she begged her to stay in the tent, Mildrith wouldn't listen. 

Edlynn could sneak a couple of books inside of her trunk, hidden between some dresses, and it was the only entertainment she had. 

"They say tomorrow there will be a battle" Mildrith muttered as she watched some of the soldiers training. It was raining and the both of them stayed inside of the tent, just at the entrance so Edlynn could read and Mildrith could watch the people around. 

"The King and our men will be victorious" Edlynn repeated what Hilda said every time she mentioned the war "We have God on our side"

Mildrith frowned, as she always did when she heard that phrase, which was the only thing everyone seemed to say these days.

"I'm not so sure about that, Lynn" she muttered "They are smart and their Gods are fierce, they say that they're lead by the same one that took York" she lowered her tone "Ivar the Boneless" 

Her friend raised an eyebrow, the name was familiar. 

"Why do they call him boneless?" 

"Because he can't walk" Mildrith shrugged like it was obvious "They say he crawls around like a snake, and that he's fierce and vicious... Some even say he's the Devil incarnated" 

Edlynn rolled her eyes.

"Those are tales, Mildrith, he's just a man" she chuckled "A cruel one, a heathen, but just a man, he's just like you and me" 

"Some women say he's handsome too" she giggled. 

"Have they seen him?" 

"Yes, in York, they said he's cruel but beautiful, just looking at him felt like a sin" 

Edlynn closed her book. 

"You shouldn't go around saying these things, Mildrith, anyone would think you're in love with that heathen"

She laughed out loud, making some of the soldiers near them turn to look at her. 

"I'm not in love with him, I don't know him" she shrugged "But I'd like to see him, at least once" 

Edlynn rolled her eyes again, shaking her head before going back to the book.

__________________________________

Edlynn didn't know how to feel when she saw the men leaving. King Alfred said goodbye to his queen and Edlynn hugged her father and brother. Even Lord Edmund kissed the back of her hand and bowed his head with a gentle smile on his lips. She didn't know how to react, as she never had to say goodbye to the men when they left to battle. Should I cry? Smile? She tried her best to imitate queen Elsewith. 

"Pray for us" her father kissed Edlynn's forehead softly for the last time before getting on his horse "And may God be with us" 

She nodded slowly and kept silent as they left the camp. 

After a couple of minutes in silence, the queen walked towards her, making Edlynn nervous. Will she scold me for not doing this well? 

"Edlynn, I'd like you to join me in my tent to pray for the safe return of the king and his men"

She looked around. Some of the women looked at her, probably jealous of seeing she had the queen's favor and thinking that was the reason why she had been betrothed to Lord Edmund. 

"Of course" Edlynn nodded her head respectfully, ignoring them.

The queen smiled brightly at her, relieved to hear her agreeing. She had a bad feeling about this new war, and worried about her husband, but  also hoped to find some kind of peace on the tent. 

"You can go, there's food and wine, I'll go talk to the priest first, and then I'll join you"

Edlynn nodded with a small smile. Her eyes found Hilda's, who smiled proudly at the young girl she loved so much. Mildrith waited until the queen had walked away and then approached her friend. 

"What's with you and the queen?" 

Edlynn shrugged. 

"I suppose she's just trying to be nice, after all she understands what's like to be betrothed to someone you don't know" 

"Oh" Mildrith bit her lip, almost like she had forgotten Edlynn was about to marry a stranger "Yes, it makes sense... Anyway, be careful, people will start thinking you're trying to win the queen's favor" 

Edlynn glanced to a group of women from the court, who looked at the both of them and whispered. 

"I'll go to the queen's tent now" she decided to ignore it "Join me later? We could go to the river and maybe bathe" 

Anything to avoid thinking about the battle that was probably going to take place soon. 

Mildrith nodded with a smile and waved at her as she approached the tent. The guards bowed their heads respectfully and moved to let her enter. It was much bigger than the tent Edlynn shared with Hilda, and the bed looked much comfortable than the one they had given to her. The bedding was soft and warm, and made her sigh in jealousy as her eyes wandered around the tent. 

There was a table with some food and wine on it, and Edlynn's mouth watered as she realized she still hadn't eaten. In front of the bed, there was a table with a cross and a few candles, which was where she supposed both the king and the queen said their prayers. 

Edlynn glanced at the entrance to make sure no one entered and quickly grabbed a grape from one of the bronze plates and turned around to savor it. She loved grapes, and the best ones could only be found at the king's table. 

But as she glanced down to hide her face in case the queen entered, Edlynn noticed something on the rug that covered the floor of the tent. Frowning, and wondering why there was a dark spot just before her, she bended down to examine it, widening her eyes when she realized it was blood. There wasn't just one spot, but a trail that disappeared behind a curtain, and suddenly she realized something else. 

The guards didn't ask who I was before letting me in. 

Before Edlynn could even react, someone grabbed her from behind, putting their hands on her mouth to stifle the scream that left her throat. She writhed and fought, but there was two of them, too strong for her. Suddenly, she heard a whisper on a foreign language and then an intense pain on the back of her head as one of the two men hit the back of her head with the handle of his sword before there was only darkness. 

________________________________

Ivar was proud. Once again, he ensured a clear victory over the saxons with a flawless plan, and he demonstrated he still was the brilliant strategist everyone admired. Even Harald looked impressed to see that the risky plan to defeat King Alfred's army had been successful. Ivar seemed to read the young king's mind perfectly, and if everything had gone well with the other part of the plan, they'd have a queen waiting for them in the camp that would make things even easier for them. Hvitserk also looked satisfied, having missed the adrenaline of the battlefield and the satisfaction of killing too much. Harald admitted he was wary of those two, with Ivar's sharp mind and Hvitserk's skills in battle, they were nearly unbeatable. 

Thanks Odin any of them had given any signs of wanting the crown of Norway Harald had fought so hard to get. But he still didn't trust Ivar completely. 

But now they had a common cause, and he hoped that controlling some lands in England would satisfy Ivar's hunger for power. 

"So..." Ivar didn't speak until he had finished two horns of ale. The intensity of the battle, standing for so long and walking with the crutches left him exhausted "Do we have a queen or not?" 

The men that had just entered the tent, still wearing the saxon's armor, bowed their heads before speaking. 

"We do" one of them smiled victoriously "She's unconscious, but guarded, we had to hit her to bring her here" 

Hvitserk raised an eyebrow. Ivar had made very clear that he didn't want the queen harmed. Not yet at least, he had said with a chuckle the night before, Alfred won't surrender to our terms if we harm her. 

"She's fine, though" the other man glared at his companion "It was just a small blow on the head" 

Harald nodded, ignoring the stern glare Ivar sent their way. 

"Try and wake her up" the king ordered "We'll talk to her before feasting and resting" 

The men bowed again and left. Harald then turned to look at the brothers. In some way, it hurt to see them so close again, reminding him of his own brother, who had also been his most loyal friend. The Ragnarssons didn't have the best relationship, but he noticed they looked much closer since they went back to Kattegat after being with the Rus. He didn't know what had happened there between them, but now he was sure no one could get between them. He envied them for that. 

Now they seemed to be having a conversation in silence, with just some stares and grimaces. 

"Your plan worked" he said out loud, looking at Ivar. The youngest son of Ragnar shot him a cocky smile. 

"Of course it worked, saxons are predictable" he shrugged "And Alfred won't dare to attack us when we have his queen" his eyes shone with pride. 

"I wonder if she's pretty" Hvitserk muttered with a dreamy smile as he chewed on a piece of bread. Harald smirked at that, he understood the feeling of coming back from battle and feeling the need to have a woman after filling his belly with warm food and cold drinks. It helped to relax. 

Ivar rolled his eyes. He was never as interested in women as his brothers were, and the few times he actually was with women had ended in disaster. So he couldn't understand the obsession. 

"She's a christian, so probably not" he shrugged "Anyway, that's the last thing we should worry about" 

"There are beautiful christian women out there, little brother" Hvitserk chuckled, amused by his brother's annoyance. 

"They're weak" he narrowed his eyes "They are always scared, they don't fight and they don't have the spirit and the courage of viking women"

"How many christian women have you met, Ivar?" Harald laughed. 

Ivar frowned. He had had too much contact with christians for his liking.

"Anyway" he scowled, annoyed, as he stood up leaning on his crutch "Let's go, we have a queen to meet".

__________________________________

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[stxleslyds]

It’s very interesting to see your thoughts on Winnik cause personally while I like that he made jason a bit unhinged and fun in utrh his other characterizations of his were eh at best. Like why would jason not care about the world and why would he take over the drug trade of all things considering his history. I feel like Winnick had a very surface level understanding of Jason. There was a lot of his past to explore but it wasn’t explored that deeply. Plus I absolutely HATED his Bruce and talia characterization. And how he wrote Talia in both utrh and lost days was absolutely disgusting and his explanation for why he did it was that Jason loves Talia and that they were both messed up ppl??? Which is where I can’t forgive him. I feel like he was a one hit wonder because ever since utrh his Jason story started to go downhill. I also feel like it’s because DC doesn’t know how to write a character that’s from a poor background and that’s a huge disservice to Jason. I do hope that Rosenberg or another writer (hopefully female) does a good job on him. He’s been suffering under shitty writing for so long. Sorry for the long ask I really enjoy reading your posts.

Hi Anon, thank you for sending your ask!

Well, this is a great question because I love giving my opinions on Winick’s UtRH and Lost Days. I know those books (or some moments in them) are not everyone’s cup of tea and I had and have some problems with some of them but I have also come to understand them or even accept them as a writer bringing up a morally grey area in his books and doing it well (or at least I saw it that way after re-reading and researching a bit about his thoughts on those matters).

This is going to be a long post (I suppose) because there is a lot to cover and I want to let you know in a clear way why I think that what Winick wrote works beautifully for Jason. I will try to answer this as coherently as I can, so I will talk about the points you made in your ask separately so I make sure I don’t forget anything.

Let’s begin!

“Why would Jason not care about the world?”

I assume with that you meant about what happened in Bludhaven when Chemo was dropped there by the Society? That is valid but that really wasn’t Winick’s fault (I believe), that whole thing was shown in the book because back then the Bat-related books were more interconnected and that was what was happening in Dick’s Nightwing run at the time, which I think was used to explain why Dick suddenly stopped helping Bruce in Gotham.

And then I think Jason and Bruce watching that happen when they were having that conversation on that roof was very well planned out. I think Winick used that opportunity for Jason to be his peak level of little shit and make Bruce feel bad about not arriving in time to save another one of his kids. Even though Jason later revealed that he never blamed Batman for not arriving in time to save him, I believe Jason said that about Dick to make Bruce hurt more. Jason was trying to make Bruce stay in Gotham so either Bruce or him killed the Joker that night. Winick on the other hand had to finish his story, him branching out and having Batman go to Bludhaven would have benefited absolutely no one either, and it just didn’t fit the story that was being told in Under the Red Hood.

That’s why I think that Jason reacted that way to the Bludhaven and Chemo situation. If by caring about the world you meant something else let me know! (He obviously cared about Gotham in UtRH and other people in Lost Days).

“Why would he take over the drug trade of all things considering his history?”

Well, I have to be honest with you Jason wanting to control the drug trade in Gotham makes absolute sense to me, and even more when I think about Jason’s past history.

Jason and Bruce have always been (to me) clear opposites in various angles, and in UtRH, Winick talks about that a little bit too.

Batman was created to eradicate crime from Gotham after Bruce witnessed the death of his parents, that was the tragedy that set him off, and even though it was tragic and awful he had everything outside of his parents, he had a home, a support system, people that cared and gave him love, and money. He never had to be in contact with the cruel reality that was Gotham. We know through various stories that Gotham is deeply rotten and corrupted.

But Jason did know how corrupted, rotten and devoid of hope his city really was, he lived in the streets and in an abandoned apartment alone because he didn’t trust the police or social workers (he didn’t believe the system was helpful). He had seen his mother die at the hands of drugs after his father was sent to jail due to his criminal behaviour. Probably his father was a drug dealer and was the person that got his mother into drugs, (I believe that was later made canon, I might be wrong). But why did he do that? Maybe because he came from a poor and complicated background and nobody wanted to employ him so the real bad people of Gotham, like Black Mask, Cobblepot and many others, saw his vulnerability and his desperation to make money and they gave him a job as a drug dealer.

Considering that Jason was made out to have very deep problems with people selling drugs in schools and all that, I can estimate that maybe one of the big Drug Lords at the time employed Jason’s father when he was barely a teenager, that way he earned money, he stopped going to school and sold drugs to his peers so the bad people could control more people while they were vulnerable.

If all of that is true then Jason wanting to control the drug trade in Gotham, by becoming a Drug Lord himself, makes perfect sense to me. I mean let’s talk about this, what were his other options?

Kill every drug lord?

What if that set off a gang war in Gotham over who got to be the next big Drug Lord? I mean, it would be like real life, if someone dies in that sort of position there would always be someone else to take their place. Drugs are clearly (in Gotham) a great way to get money and power.

Also, if he killed all the drug lords then what happened to the people that were working for them, how could Jason help them get another job?

Explode every warehouse and facility with drugs in them?

And then what? Wait for Black Mask and the others to buy more and put a target on his back? Maybe kill some innocents so they can send a message to Red Hood that if he keeps destroying their drugs or whatever people will pay for it?

Maybe all the drug lords would come together and kill the Red Hood themselves, what could one man do against everyone else? Black Mask and the others had vulnerable people on a payroll, if they stopped working or went against what their boss said they would have been killed and then families would still be vulnerable and desperate to survive in Gotham.

Come forward as Jason Todd, the not so dead son of Bruce Wayne, and start a campaign against drugs?

Jason would have ended up dead in seconds, everywhere you look there are corrupt people. What could have been the point of that? What could have Jason be able to give families like his so they could stop living under the control of drugs and Drug Lords?

-

Jason being a Drug Lord himself was the best option because Jason KNOWS the reality of Gotham and Gotham’s people. His way of dealing with drugs could control the drug trade in the first 10 years and then eradicate it after that time. His plan was genius!

Jason knew that for people not to suffer as his family did, he had to take the slow and hard path of becoming the thing that he hated the most. He needed to attack the monster from within. So, when he made his first move he controlled the street-level dealers, he told them “I will protect you from both Black Mask and Batman if you stop dealing drugs to kids and in schoolyards if you do that, you are dead”, it is genius! By being clear about not wanting to have kids and high schoolers involved with drugs he set out a new path where those people weren’t forced into drugs and driven away from school. And that’s the way Winick made us see Jason’s not so new morals, he protects Gotham’s kids and he will kill you without hesitation if you endanger them.

From that he built, Winick made it clear, at first Jason would convince the people working for other Drug Lords to work for him if they followed his rules (and he offered them protection!). If Jason worked on the drug trade, he could have controlled who was inserted in the drug life or could have made it exclusive to the rich or club exclusive. In his intention of taking over the drug trade, he could have moved drugs away from Gotham’s most vulnerable.

And if he employed those vulnerable people, he would have made them work for him on other levels, that way those vulnerable people still had jobs and were protected from people like Black Mask. And in due time, fewer young and poor people would be involved with drugs or the drug trade.

Red Hood employs poor people and makes them not sell to other poor people or kids, he pays his employees good money so their families make a better life for themselves and their kids go to school, they are all protected by the Red Hood and his team (Jason could have trained others and make a team or gang that focused entirely on security), those people then get to retire with their families far away from drugs and maybe Gotham too.

I mean, Winick never did those things but I think that was the way he was thinking about it, he really set a golden path for future writers, his story had to finish Jason’s dilemma with Bruce and Joker but then his life as the Red Hood continued. And it could have been good if other writers used the characterization that Winick had given Jason: protector of children, killer of rapists and everyone that endangered women, children and teenagers. All of that was thrown away for a mythical fight with Ra’s al Ghul for people that were as trashy as Ra’s.

“I feel like Winick had a very surface-level understanding of Jason”.

I have to disagree. I think he understood Jason’s character before his death well and then built a grown-up version of him with those morals more developed after he suffered more and then saw how the world and Batman’s ways hadn’t changed after his murder.

We are talking about post-crisis Jason here; he was sweet and he loved being Robin but he also saw the world differently from Bruce and Batman. He lived a very different life than the one that Bruce lived when he was a kid. Jason even said that he “could fend for himself just fine” and that he had “graduated from the streets of crime alley”.

To me Winick understood this completely, he knew that Jason had had close contact with how drugs could affect people and what a criminal record could lead you to, but he also understood that Jason was a survivor of "crime alley" and all its worst people. He probably knew of things that people were doing of he saw them happening. He knew how to protect himself from those things but understood that not everyone could do it. And when Batman took him to Ma Gunn’s school Jason learned that Batman was ignorant of how awful and manipulative Gotham’s people could be. Ma Gunn wasn’t running an orphanage or cool school; she was teaching children how to steal and harm others. He hated it, he was “okay” when he was alone and now, he was locked in with older kids that beat him and Ma Gunn who was exploiting children’s vulnerability.

I assume Winick took that and maybe decided that was the moment when Jason knew that even if Batman was trying to do good, he still didn’t see Gotham (or that side of Gotham) for what it truly was.

When Jason became Robin and worked along with Batman, we could already see that Jason thought very differently about what should be done with rapists, and abusers of all kinds, Jason saw the world differently when he was a kid and a teenager and then after his death, Winick used that to build a Jason Todd that as a young adult still saw Gotham for what it truly was.

“There was a lot of his past to explore but it wasn’t explored that deeply”.

I am really confused by this (and I am very dumb), did you mean that his past before his death wasn’t explored? Because that was not the point of this book, the information was already there with Jason’s previous appearances in comics, and even then, Winick explored through flashbacks in UtRH how he saw Jason and what it was that Jason thought about crime.

If you didn’t mean that and you meant his past before the events of UtRH but after his death then, well, I would say that Winick couldn’t have fit that in UtRH but he did write a story about that time in 2010 when he wrote Red Hood: Lost Days.

“I absolutely hated his Bruce and Talia characterization”

I will only talk about the Bruce part here because you mentioned Talia later in your ask.

To me his Bruce was perfect. I really think that his characterization of him was spot on, but maybe I am biased because I don’t like Bruce at all? I suppose that you are talking about Bruce’s characterization in those last moments in "crime alley" with Jason and Joker? And how he decided that making Jason drop the weapon by throwing a batarang to his throat and saving Joker was a better option than Jason killing the Joker?

If it is that then I would love to see what you think Bruce would have done at that moment because I didn’t really see Bruce using a gun (in any way) as an in-character thing for him, and even though DC has always danced with the idea of Bruce actually killing somebody I know that they wouldn’t have him do it, and even less when it comes to killing the Joker.

I mean, Bruce brought back Joker from the dead when Dick finally killed that piece of shit so, yeah, I don’t know.

I feel like Winick was trying to show just how loyal and squared Bruce is when it comes to his own no killing rule. Jason wasn’t asking for Bruce to go on a killing spree he just wanted Bruce to kill the Joker and he didn’t. Winick even had Bruce say that about him not wanting to kill one person because he felt that if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to stop and I think that’s pretty true. Maybe it is a bit too much but I don’t think it’s a lie.

“How he wrote Talia in both UtRH and Lost Days was absolutely disgusting”

That is absolutely valid, listen, if you didn’t like how he wrote her at all I really can’t say anything against that. My first real and solid contact with Talia’s character was in that book, so when I read UtRH I really liked how he wrote Talia in that, it seemed to have that aspect of Talia’s love for Bruce being so strong that when she saw Jason was alive, she wanted to help him so Bruce could see how much he loved her. It is messed up but I believed it fitted her character, she had good intentions but her reasoning was a little bit wonky.

With Lost Days, I thought that her character was well written, she isn’t a hero and she isn’t a villain, she is just a player in the game that is the League of Assassins and that world. That obviously changed up until we had that scene happen between her and Jason, I was grossed out and I didn’t understand why that had happened which leads me to what you said next in your ask.

“His explanation for why he did it was that Jason loves Talia and that they were both messed up people”.

This is a part of the interview where Judd Winick answered a question about Jason and Talia sleeping together. The interview was done by Sara Lima in ComicVine’s podcast.

“SL: Why did you decide to write the romantic scene between Jason and Talia in Lost Days?

JW: For those playing at home, Jason Todd, at the end of Red Hood: Lost Days, and Talia slept together. I did that because it was really disturbing and to shine a light on the fact that these are not really well people. A lot of people didn’t like that, which was correct. “You weren’t supposed to like that. That was supposed to be, ‘oh God, stop that, what are you doing?’ It really was. As well as, for Talia, her reasons, being that Bruce had wound up inadvertently killing her father and she was ragingly angry with him and went from love to pure hate and still loving him at the same time. And Jason, given the opportunity to have sex with just about the only woman who Bruce has had sex with or really cares about, ‘Yeah, I’ll go there.’

SL: He’s like, ‘yeah, cause I hate that guy.’

JW: Yeah! ‘I hate that guy!’ And I think that Jason probably had the hots for Talia. She’s hot, he doesn’t exactly have a lot of relationships going on – It’s not a good thing for either of them. These are two people who murder people, two people who are screwed up, screwed up emotionally. There’s this question that why would he do that and Talia only loves Bruce. She might only love Bruce, but she does have sex with other people because that’s just sex. And we’re all grown-ups here. I think those who shake their fist and get angry at this kind of thing might be some of our older readers. I’m an older reader, but I acknowledge the fact that people aren’t that chaste and grow up: people have sex. That’s why I ended it like that; It was messed up.

Maybe it was in another interview or something but this is the only time that I have seen Winick talk about that and I don’t think he mentioned Jason loving Talia but he did say said that “These are two people who murder people, two people who are screwed up, screwed up emotionally”.

When I looked it up, I found that someone that is described as screwed up is a person that is “emotionally disturbed”. That description is one that I feel is valid for both Jason and Talia at the time, they both had a lot going on and were fighting some demons so maybe it’s not a nice thing to say but I can’t say that the statement isn’t true. Or at least that’s how I see it.

When I came across that interview for the first time, I wasn’t expecting Winick to apologise for writing that interaction but I did want an explanation so after he said, “A lot of people didn’t like that, which was correct. “You weren’t supposed to like that. That was supposed to be, ‘oh God, stop that, what are you doing?’ It really was” and “for Talia, her reasons, being that Bruce had wound up inadvertently killing her father and she was ragingly angry with him and went from love to pure hate and still loving him at the same time. And Jason, given the opportunity to have sex with just about the only woman who Bruce has had sex with or really cares about, ‘Yeah, I’ll go there.’”

I felt like that was enough, granted I didn’t like it and I still don’t like it but I don’t see it as Winick writing something disturbing with evil intentions, I just see it as him writing these two morally grey people doing some very morally grey stuff.

This is not me saying that this is how things have to be taken, I know and understand many people who absolutely don’t like this at all and that’s valid. I am not here to change your mind about that, personally when I read the why he wrote that I felt like that explanation was enough but that is just me.

“I feel like he was a one-hit-wonder because ever since UtRH his Jason story started to go downhill”

I think Winick was only meant to write Jason’s comeback to comics, around the time he was writing Outsiders and Green Arrow. And there was also the “Infinite Crisis” (Winick wasn’t involved with that one) event going on in the middle that explained some stuff like how Jason was resurrected which was explored in Batman Annual #25 in 2006 (like a year after the UtRH book had come out and it was also written by Winick). Then with the popularity of the UtRH book the animated movie was made (written by Judd Winick) and because that was coming out DC allowed Winick to write the six-issue mini of Red Hood: The Lost Days in 2010.

The UtRH story didn’t go downhill, DC simply couldn’t handle that level of mature storytelling at the time, just after that event ended DC was already planning on changing stuff and then the New 52 came years later.

Winick’s Jason even made an appearance in Outsiders #44-46, there Red Hood wanted to help the Outsiders break out a good man (Black Lightning) out of prison because he hadn’t killed anyone (it had actually been Slade). Jason/Red Hood’s characterization and story going downhill wasn't on Winick, it was on DC and their lack of interest in making their characters complex and dual.

“DC doesn’t know how to write a character that’s from a poor background and that’s a huge disservice to Jason”

Absolutely. But in my case, I do think that Winick did work with Jason’s background very well. To me, he set a path and no one could follow it but I might also be horribly wrong.

-

I also hope that Rosenberg does an amazing job! I absolutely love his work, as I have said before he is super funny and isn’t scared of writing characters who kill. I feel like he will bring back the sarcastic little shit that Jason once was but he will also bring back that sense of seriousness and dedication that Jason has for the work that he is doing. Rosenberg even showed us some of that in that prelude to Task Force Z in Detective Comics, I absolutely recommend them if you haven’t read them, issues #1041 and #1042 were the ones with that backup story.

I can see that we have very different opinions but that’s just a part of the comic world, we all perceive these comics differently and that’s valid! I am glad you enjoy reading my posts and I hope that even though we have those different opinions you were still able to enjoy my answer! If you think that I misunderstood anything that you say please let me know, sometimes my brain just doesn’t click.

Hope you have a fantastic week!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Long story short, sister thinks what's happening in Afghanistan isn't bad and the Taliban actually helps women and aren't extremists

A little help?

During an interview with The New York Times, published on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Taliban said that "music is forbidden in Islam."

Zabihullah Mujahid, who is seen as a likely contender for the new government's culture minister role, told the paper that the Taliban is hoping to "persuade people" not to perform music.

Under the previous period of rule, the Taliban banned all music, apart from some religious chants, according to The Guardian. Cassette tapes were destroyed, musical instruments were forbidden, and even captive songbirds were outlawed, the paper said.

It's not only music that the Taliban intends to crack down on. According to India Today, female voices on TV and radio channels have also been outlawed.

A threat assessment from the United Nations has warned the Taliban is intensifying a search for people who worked with United States and NATO forces and is going “door to door” to find them.

The confidential report – provided by the UN’s threat-assessment consultants and seen by a number of news media – says the group has “priority lists” of individuals it wants to arrest and is threatening to kill or arrest family members if the wanted do not give themselves up.

The new higher education minister has said women and men must be separated at universities, and the historical consequences of services promoted as “separate but equal” within a discriminatory system strongly suggest that women will be pushed out or get a lower quality education.

A labyrinthine new decree to private universities, seen by the Guardian, lays out a long list of prescriptive, and likely expensive, rules to prevent male and female students even glimpsing each other’s faces during years of study.

Women must be provided with transport in buses with covered windows and a curtain separating them from the presumably male driver. They must be confined to a “waiting room” before and between classes, and the decree even details a required clothing colour for female students and teachers (black).

All new classes must be segregated, and in current classes with under 15 women, a “sharia partition” must be erected to keep students of different gender apart. Ideally, teachers will also be separated by gender, the new rules say. “In the future, all universities should provide female teachers for women’s classes. They should also try to use older teachers with a good background,” the letter said.

The claim that restrictions on women’s lives are a temporary necessity is not new to Afghan women. The Taliban made similar claims the last time they controlled Afghanistan, said Heather Barr, the associate director of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch.

“The explanation was that the security was not good, and they were waiting for security to be better, and then women would be able to have more freedom,” she said. “But of course in those years they were in power, that moment never arrived — and I can promise you Afghan women hearing this today are thinking it will never arrive this time either.”

Brian Castner, a senior crisis adviser at Amnesty International who was in Afghanistan until last week, said that if the Taliban intended to treat women better, they would need to retrain their forces. “You can’t have a movement like the Taliban that has operated a certain way for 25 years and then just because you take over a government, all of the fighters and everyone in your organization just does something differently,” he said.

But, Mr. Castner said, there is no indication that the Taliban intend to fulfill that or any other promises of moderation. Amnesty International has received reports of fighters going door to door with lists of names, despite their leaders’ public pledges not to retaliate against Afghans who worked with the previous government.“

The rhetoric and the reality are not matching at all, and I think that the rhetoric is more than just disingenuous,” Mr. Castner said. “If a random Taliban fighter commits a human rights abuse or violation, that’s just kind of random violence, that’s one thing. But if there’s a systematic going to people’s homes and looking for people, that’s not a random fighter that’s untrained — that’s a system working. The rhetoric is a cover for what’s really happening.”

As the insurgency advanced, the first concern of the staff of Women for Afghan Women and others running similar shelters was what the Taliban might do to punish them. As the country’s rulers in the 1990s, the Taliban strenuously opposed women traveling on their own or gathering together.

Relatively recent examples of Taliban conduct have been worrying. When the Taliban briefly took over the city of Kunduz in 2015, the Women for Afghan Women shelter operators and clients all fled as threatening calls flooded in from the insurgents. The shelter director described being actively hunted, and said she was getting calls from the Taliban saying they would capture her and hang her in the village square as an example.

But it is not just fear of the Taliban that has frightened the shelter operators and their clients this time. Taliban fighters have come to some of the shelters in recent weeks. Sometimes they have vandalized the premises and taken over the buildings, but there have been no reports of their harming anyone yet, said Ms. Viswanath, the group’s co-founder.

“None of our staff has been beaten, attacked, killed, as far as I know,” she said.

Much of the concern has come from the waves of prisoners set free during the Taliban advance. Among them were men imprisoned under women’s protections laws that were enacted with Western support over the past 20 years. The former prisoners have a grudge to bear not just against the female relative who spoke out against them and humiliated them publicly, but also against all those who supported that effort — the safe house directors, counselors and lawyers.

In some areas of Afghanistan that fell to Taliban control in recent weeks, the group imposed restrictions on women. Women were banned from leaving the house without a male relative and forced to wear burqas, which cover a woman from head to toe. Some commanders demanded families hand over unmarried women to marry their fighters. In Kabul, images of women outside beauty parlors have been painted over or ripped off. Female teachers were barred from teaching to boys. Female journalists employed by state TV, now under Taliban control, were stopped from going to work.

Meanwhile, the Taliban's assurance of a "safe passage" to the Kabul airport, where thousands have thronged in a desperate bid to be taken out of the country, has also been undermined by a report and photographs by a Los Angeles Times journalist.

In one of the graphic images, a woman and a child are seen with blood on their faces, apparently unconscious.

Hundreds of people were outside the airport Wednesday, The Associated Press reported. It said the Taliban demanded to see documents before they allowed the rare passenger inside. The Taliban fired occasional warning shots to disperse them, the agency said.

Amputations, stonings and executions of criminals could return in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, the organisation has admitted.

As its fighters prepared to assume power in Kabul, the militant Islamist group insisted it would protect the rights of women, the media and diplomats.

But, asked about violent punishment of offenders – a hallmark of brutal Taliban rule in the 1990s – a spokesman said: “That is up to the religious followers and the courts. They will decide about the punishment.”

Asked specifically about the chopping off of hands and feet, stonings and state killings, Suhail Shaheen told the BBC: “I can’t say right now. It is up to the courts and the judges and the laws.”

==

Honestly, I think she's lying. Not just to you, but to herself. She's so possessed by Islamophobia-phobia (fear of being seen as "Islamophobic") that she's willing to turn a blind eye to what happens to the people over there in order to alleviate her own discomfort.

And she has the luxury of this lie because she's so far removed from the reality of it.

Force the issue by taking her at her word. Give her two options:

Fly to Afghanistan and spend a week in Kabul. She'll think you're kidding, but spin up a GoFundMe page to raise the money. I'll even link to it on my blog; or

Live for one month based on the rules and restrictions coming from the reports out of the area. She'll need a burqa (hijab is empowering, right?), she'll need to stop listening to music, and she'll need a mahram (male guardian, who must be a relative) to leave the house. Every day, review what's going on as Sharia takes hold, and she has to do it.

If she believes what she's saying - and she doesn't - then prove it. If she won't, then you're entitled to conclude she doesn't really believe it.

==

Also, they're fundamentalists. They're picking up where Muhammad left off.

[traincat]

I’ve been trying to piece together a few things from your Twitter and Tumblr posts alike and still can’t make heads or tales of things, so would you mind helping out a FF & spideytorch noob? 1) what is currently happening with Johnny in the comics? (I’ve fallen head over heels for this guy, largely all your doing) 2) when’s the last time he and Peter have interacted, canon wise? (And do you think upcoming interactions are likely?) 3) your thoughts on if they’ll have him come out in the near future? (has that ‘biggest change to the fantastic four’ teaser come to pass yet?) Love all your content, thank you!

I'd say no problem but then I started thinking about this current run again and got a headache. But yes, I can do that to save you from reading it, because it is very largely not good.

So I don't think it's unfair to just flat out say the current Fantastic Four run is not very good, largely due to writer Dan Slott's efforts. Slott was previously on Amazing Spider-Man for 10 years, to mixed opinions, but a large portion of Spider-Man fandom, myself included, blames him near singlehandedly for the decline in quality of Spider-Man books over those ten years. I will say, in the interest of fairness, that Slott as a writer has an incredible fondness for the Spider-Man/Human Torch relationship, and that a lot of the recent teamups and interactions between them have been written or co-written by him. So it's all not all negative here. But in general, I personally find Slott's more recent comics (the last seven-ish years especially) to be badly plotted out, messily characterized disasters that feature characters written with all the emotion of a cardboard cutout. That's me putting it nicely.

To explain this fully, you have to understand the position Fantastic Four comics were in from the years 2015 through 2018, both in the fictional 616 universe and in the real publishing world. Following the 2015 Secret Wars event (great if you want some Johnny angst in the background of your plot), the Fantastic Four were disbanded -- Reed, Sue, and their many biological and found family children were presumed dead but in reality were remaking the multiverse, unable, for a reason that was never clearly defined, to reach home. Ben and Johnny were left on Earth. They had an unspecified falling out, likely due to Reed and Sue's absence, and went their separate ways -- Ben joined the Guardians of the Galaxy and went to space. Johnny was featured on both Inhumans and Avengers books. What's notable about this period is that it's the first time since 1961 that there was no Fantastic Four book being published by Marvel. Now the real world reason behind this is both complicated and extremely petty: Marvel really wanted the Fantastic Four film rights. Marvel denied this explanation at the time, stating that the reason was sales motivated, but it was a thoroughly flimsy excuse and Jonathan Hickman, writer of 2015's Secret Wars and overseer of the current X-Men plot, gave an interview saying the decision was film rights motivated. This decision kept the Fantastic Four books off the shelves for three years, up until the Disney-Fox merger, which secured the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights for Disney's Marvel Studios. Marvel then announced that the Fantastic Four book would be returning. So that's a little bit of background as to the precarious place the Fantastic Four currently occupy in the Marvel universe -- it's worth noting that this year is their 60th anniversary, and Marvel has done very little for it. Compare this to the X-Men, whose film rights Marvel also obtained during the Disney-Fox merger, and whose books are currently dominating the publishing lineup. The Fantastic Four definitely occupy an unpopular position, one Marvel themselves is at least partially responsible for forcing them into.

But to move back into the actual content of the book -- the readjustment period Slott wrote reintroducing the Fantastic Four into the Marvel universe can be described as clumsy, at best. It's never fully explained why Reed, Sue, and the kids couldn't return to Earth, something that was explored in Chip Zdarsky's 2017 Marvel Two-in-One, which featured Ben, Johnny, and Doom on a multiversal roadtrip to try and find their family and which I on the whole recommend, despite it having an awkward ending due to being cut short by Slott's announced Fantastic Four main title.

(Marvel Two-in-One 2017 #4)

Instead, the Fantastic Four return to a Marvel universe a little different than how they left it, with the Baxter Building -- formerly the offices of Parker Industries, the company Doc Ock started in Peter's body during Superior Spider-Man that Peter inherited after his defeat and then lost spectacularly when he trashed his own company to fight nazis (good for him) -- occupied by a different fantastic foursome in a plot that goes nowhere and does nothing. This is somewhat emblematic of the early days of Slott's run -- he introduces ideas that fail to go anywhere, including Johnny's rekindled relationship with his other best friend and former college roommate, Wyatt Wingfoot, who he was seen being very cuddly with in the early issues.

(FF 2018 #1) A small group of Fantastic Four fans have argued for a while that if Marvel was to have Johnny come out, a relationship with Wyatt would feel very natural -- they're already close, with Wyatt being an important Fantastic Four supporting character since the '60s. I have some further analysis here on the conspiracy theory that Johnny and Wyatt were supposed to be in relationship at the beginning of this run but that that plot was, for whatever reason, nixed. I don't know that I entirely believe this theory, for the record -- but I do think the pieces line up remarkably well.

Anyway, that didn't/hasn't yet happened, obviously. Slott instead for the most part put Johnny on the back burner for the beginning of his run, up until the Spyre arc, which I have reason to believe is the main story he pitched that he credits with securing him the Fantastic Four title. The Spyre arc suggests that the Fantastic Four's failed space exploration during which they got their powers wasn't just to beat the commies to the moon, as Lee and Kirby envisioned (simpler days), but to reach a specific planet outside of our galaxy. When the team sets out to conquer this mission, they arrive at the planet, but are quickly captured. The planet, they find out, operates like a soulmate AU -- everyone has a fated person that they are matched to via a gold armband. Reed and Sue are soulmates (and Ben is confined to an underground subterranean with the other monsters, because this is a Fantastic Four comic) while it's discovered! Shocker! That Johnny is actually the soulmate of the one the planet's inhabitants, a winged woman named Sky, with the suggestion that this is both why Johnny's previous relationships have never worked and why he loves space exploration -- he was just trying to get to his Soulmate TM.

(FF 2018 #15) "What's going on here? Where are my clothes?" As you can see, this didn't start off super great, with Johnny being separated from his family, stripped naked, and put in Sky's bed with a soulmate armband slapped on him. Did I mention they're only removable if your soulmate takes it off for you? And that Sky has consistently refused despite Johnny asking her to? Yeah. It's bad. (I think it's important to note Johnny's long history as a victim of assault plays into this narrative, whether or not Slott is personally holding that in mind while writing, which I don't believe he is. cw in the linked post for discussions of sexual assault.) There's an additional issue here in that Slott has a history of problematic writing regarding women of color, featuring characters he's created to act as love interests being oversexualized, infantilized, villainized, or some mix of all three, with two examples of this phenomena being Cindy Moon and Lian Tang, both of whom he introduced in quick succession in Amazing Spider-Man. Slott certainly didn't have to write Sky as manipulative or controlling towards Johnny, but that's what he chose to do, and that factors into the bigger picture of unfortunate themes in his writing.

Sky returns to Earth with the Fantastic Four despite Johnny appearing unenthused about the idea and initially generally reluctant to interact with her. Apparently they went on a few dates after this and kind of made up. I don't know because I stopped reading for about ten issues in there but I feel confident I missed very little. It's hard to talk about the Sky plot without referencing Johnny's previous interactions with a character named Lyja, a Skrull whose relationship to Johnny I have a long breakdown of here. It's doubly hard, because Lyja actually showed back up in Fantastic Four during this plot. Lyja's modus operandi has remained consistent throughout almost all of her appearances, which I guess makes sense, because she literally has no storylines that do not involve her being obsessed with Johnny, and this recent story isn't any different: Lyja shows up, Lyja disguises herself as another woman in Johnny's life to get close to Johnny, Lyja gets caught and claims it was all fine because she did it for love. This time she disguised herself as Sky.

(FF 2018 #32) Not gonna lie, kind of proud of him for this one. That's one of my problems with Slott -- very occasionally, he busts out good moments, only to undermine them with the rest of his narrative.

In the same issue, Alicia Masters, the first woman Lyja impersonated in order to get close to Johnny, uses her supervillain stepfather's radioactive clay to control Lyja's mind and send her back to space, and I do think she utilized girl power when she did this. Johnny, left reeling after Lyja's latest attempts to trick him into a relationship, ends this issue by sleeping with Victorious, Dr. Doom's right hand woman.

I know she pegged him. I know it. This scene was a little controversial in Johnny fandom, because a lot of people viewed it as Johnny cheating on Sky and thought that that action was out of character for Johnny. I'm personally of a little different opinion, which is that regardless of whether or not you view Johnny and Sky in a committed enough relationship that Johnny's tryst would count as infidelity when all Johnny and Sky are bound by are magic plot soulmate bracelets, I think Lyja's involvement changes things significantly when it comes to Johnny's characterization. All of Johnny's "playboy" periods, if we can call them that, coincide directly with Lyja having been in and then left his life again, which I think makes a certain amount of sense -- it's Johnny trying to wrest control back after a situation where he had none. None of this is explicitly canon, I have to note, but sometimes in comics you have to do the work yourself. So I think this is a case of something being accidentally extremely in character that Slott accidentally stumbled into because he had these love triangles in mind, not because he put a lot of thought into it.

Speaking of love triangles! Johnny sleeping with Victorious gets more complicated when Dr. Doom announces his intent to marry Victorious -- not because he has any romantic interest in her (this engagement caused a lot of uproar in Fantastic Four because Victorious had been previously referred to as being like Doom's adopted daughter) but in order to install her as Latverian regent in his absence. I'm not going to lie, I love a political wedding. Victorious, for some reason, thinks Doom will be deeply upset that she slept with some closeted blond twink and the member of the Fantastic Four he views least as an enemy and more as an annoyance. Johnny, who Sky is currently not talking to because she "felt" him sleeping with Victorious through their magic plot soulmate bracelets, also feels nervous about Doom finding out about this, which I guess is slightly more valid. Anyway, for some completely ridiculous reason, Victorious decides the best time to tell Doom about this little indiscretion is when they're standing at the altar, which coincidentally the Fantastic Four are also standing at, because Doom asked Reed to be his best man in a not at all homoerotic little setup involving midnight swordfighting and Reed slipping Doom's emerald ring onto his own finger. Sorry to sidetrack into DoomReed territory here but it's just like. It's just a lot.

(FF 2018 #33) Also, Ben walked the bride down the aisle. :,) Look at his gigantic hand.

Anyway then Doom decides he's going to kill everyone in a completely reasonable and not at all overblown reaction to Johnny and Zora having what was most likely both disappointing for Zora and weepy for Johnny sex. And that brings us up to where Fantastic Four comics left us yesterday -- in answer to your "big change" question, that's most likely coming up in the next issue, so it hasn't come to pass yet.

Having gotten all that out of the way -- the last time Johnny and Peter interacted canon-wise was in the recent Empyre Fallout Fantastic Four, at the end of the Empyre event:

It was cute! Slott does right good interactions between them. This is possibly the Stockholm Syndrome talking. I don't know if more interactions are likely imminent -- the Empyre event was fairly recent. On the other hand, Slott does like writing interactions between them. So I'd give it about a 50/50 shot. I was skimming the letter page in the latest issue and someone wrote in asking if Peter was likely to appear in the pages of Fantastic Four again any time soon, so there is definitely a demand.

As for Johnny coming out -- I don't know. It's not a call I feel comfortable making at this moment, which I guess means I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd like to say yes, especially because I think Slott set up, whether that was his intention or more likely not, several good places in his run where Johnny could have come out. The beginning, when he's implied to be living with Wyatt again and where he and Wyatt are paralleled against Ben and Alicia. Ben's bachelor party, where Johnny laments not finding the right person -- specifically person and not woman -- and where Ben tells him to "be brave, Johnny Storm." And the soulmate planet plot, where I think could have had a very different and much better ending if Johnny had told Sky that she couldn't be his romantic soulmate, because he knows he wants to be with a man. But those are just places that I think would have made good opportunities for a coming out story. Instead, Johnny's been involved (dubiously) with three different women over the space of the last 10 issues, which is more heterosexuality at one time than he's been confronted with in the last 60 years. So my thoughts are still that it's going to happen eventually, but quite possibly not anytime soon.

Hope that helps! And that my incredibly long answer about what's currently going on with Johnny in comics sheds some light on things!

[retroyousei]

Female characters in retro shojo [70s edition, part 1]

Ah, the 1970s (and early 80s), where a majority of the shojo manga stories took place in a distant European country or in America, surrounding either orphan girls from the 19th or early 20th century, who remain cheerful and have adventures, trying to find out who they are, making friends and falling in love, or epic historical stories filled with war, scandals and larger than life characters. If the manga was taking place in Japan, the plot was somehow more down to earth -though most of the time it restrained the same amount of unrealism- and it was either about following the journey of a girl who pursues the career of her dreams and evolves into a notable person, or a high school story filled either with melodrama and angst or a more heartwarming romantic comedy. But in this two-part article I won’t talk about plot tropes of the shojo manga of that era -as this topic deserves an exclusive article-, but about the female characters (I will dedicate an article on male characters some other time). Those characters are very important, as they set the standards of today’s manga and anime. But it should be noted that back then the formula of their design and characteristics are different from today’s. Those are the categories that I’ve noticed, regarding the appearance and personality.

The “average” protagonists

They are the most common category. Usually, they come from middle class and they are presented either as cheerful and a little dense schoolgirls, or plain looking and unrefined, as oppose to their antagonists or rivals who are well educated, beautiful and more talented, but this may serve as a determination for them to improve. Other times they are presented as headstrong heroines, ahead of their time, who refuse to compromise and for this they are a pain to their old-fashion society. Either way, they are kind, good, well-intentioned and want to help the others, that’s why they make friends easily. The thing that really works with these characters and makes them much more interesting than they may seem, is that they are independent and built their future on their own and they never give up, no matter what happens and what someone might say about them. Even when they are not sure of themselves, they always keep trying, until they reach to their dream. They use their obstacles as strength and determination to go on, proving that they are not average at all.

Maya, the protagonist of “Glass Mask” is a great example of this. She starts as a good-for-nothing daughter of a poor family, who isn’t particularly accomplished, but has a hidden passion for acting which she hadn’t realise it herself at that point. But when she is discovered by Tsukigake, a former legendary actress, she realises how much she wants to be an actress to a point that she lied saying that her mother allowed her to study to sensei’s acting school and ran away from home. Not even when her mother told her that she doesn’t consider her as her daughter anymore, she didn’t gave up, in spite of being very hurt by this. Her path towards acting wasn’t easy. Many times she has to face many who say that she doesn’t belong to that industry, or who are jealous of her talent and means her harm, but with her faith in herself, she always overcomes those obstacles. An admirable thing about her is that she dislikes fame, being shy, as she just wants to act and that she does not gives up, no matter what and even when she does, she quickly stands up. The most interesting dynamic of the story is her worthy rivalry with Ayumi, that is clearly a case of the trope “technician vs performer”, with Maya as the performer, as her standard method to learn how to play a character is to become that character. As the story progresses, Maya evolves from a girl with a hidden talent, to a young actress who portraits an original take to classic characters, but who still had much to learn, to one of the greatest actresses of her generation.

In “Yokohama Monogatari”, Uno starts as a plain, poor, orphan girl, who is ignorant about the world, as she hasn’t even seen the sea before and she believed that westerners were vampires who could drink people’s blood, that’s why they had blonde hair and blue eyes. She starts to work as a companion in a rich family to their daughter Mariko, who is the same age as her. Besides their differences, they become quickly best friends. While Mariko is a little spoiled, Uno, despite of her ignorance of world, can be more considerate and responsible in some matters. She also has a lust for learning and soon her and Mariko pursuade her family to go to school. There, she meets many people, among them there are a few foreigners too, she makes a lot of friends, and she excels at all of her studies, being hardworking. As the years passed by, Japan changes and allows exchange of ideas from many cultures -it’s Meiji era we are taking about, that means the last quarter of the 19th century- and Uno evolves from a poor, -many would say- hopeless for her situation, clueless of the world girl, to an open minded, educated and refined woman, surrounded by many people she loves.

In “Tokimeki Tonight”, Ranze -well except of being the daughter of Dracula and warewolf and having her own vampire powers as well- is an average girl who is friendly, sweet and little quirky girl who goes to school and falls in love with Shuun. Some may say that she is pretty basic, but in fact, she knows her self worth well, so even when her parents were disappointed with her not having any power yet, at the beginning of the story, she wasn’t particularly bothered by it. Also she is very headstrong that she falls in love with a human boy, while she knows well that a creature from the demon world and a human cannot be together. But in spite of all of that, she decides to stay true to her own feelings and even though she’s not so sure about Shuun’s feelings for her either, she doesn’t give up and waits for him, because she hopes and deep down knows that he likes her too and she is right. And even when her parents want her to marry prince Aaron of the demon world and even the king- learn that she likes a human, in spite of that being against the rules, she isn’t afraid to stand up for her beliefs. Later though, we learn that Shuun is the lost prince of the demon world, so he is not a human after all, but that’s another story.

In “Aim For The Ace”, Hiromi is a typical schoolgirl who struggles to get better in tennis, when she gets selected as one of the club’s main players in school by the new coach, as he saw potential in her. Some of her seniors are jealous of her because of that and at first she thinks that she is not worth such a discrimination, but soon she improves and realises how much she loves tennis. There’s also a very similar rivalry dynamic with “glass mask” between Hiromi and Reika who grow to be worthy opponents.

In “Haikara San Ga Toru”, Benio is a headstrong young woman who studies Kendo, drinks sake and prefers reading literature and feminist ideas, rather than being interested in housework. She also likes to dress in western clothes, rather than the traditional kimono and strongly believes that women should have the right to decide for their future on their own and they should marry for love. But her world turns upside down when her father announces that he has arranged a marriage for her. The one that he indends for her is someone she knew before, very briefly and accidentally, a lieutenant named Shinobu. Of course, she refuses, being loyal to her ideals and she goes out of her way to avoid him, just to satisfy her pride, in spite of actually starting developing feelings for him. When she moves to his grandparents’ house to get prepared as his wife, she purposely fails in all of her duties as a housewife and constantly argues with his grandparents, but all of that only makes Shinobu fall for her even more. It’s only when he leaves to go to the war, when she realises her feelings for him and during at that time when everyone thought that he was dead, she matured and became even stronger, remaining loyal to him and determined to work as a journalist to support his family, but also tracking him down, hoping that he’s still alive. Of course, at the very end, they live happily ever after together. Benio’s character development is admirable; starting as a clever, but headstrong girl, to an independent and wise woman, proving that you don’t have to disagree with everyone in order to prove that you are the one who chooses how to live your own life.

The villains

Their extreme pride and vain is their common nature. Most of the times they come from a wealthy family, so they are either oujo-sans who are always dressed elegantly, are seemingly refined and they tend to have curly, blonde hair -as blonde hair seem to be associated with wealth and sophistication in Japan-, or they are just spoiled brats that demand that everyone will do as they say. They are the main antagonist of the story for different reasons. The most common one is that they are jealous of the heroine, either because they are their love rivals and they are jealous of the heroine’s relationship with the love interest of the story, or because they are just pathologically jealous of the heroine because of her looks, her happiness, her luck and her loving nature. Another reason they act the way they do is because they want power and success, or they just want to secure all of that. The worse and least complex reason of all is that they are just mean for no particular reason.

Eliza, from “Candy Candy” is the typical alpha b*tch who is pathologically jealous of Candy. At first, she along with her brother, makes her life miserable, by blaming her for the bad things they do, such as hurting the horses in the stables, provoking her and then telling to their mother that she’s wild and leaving her alone in a town she doesn’t know and locking her in dark rooms. After that, during their time in London, Eliza says to everyone that Candy is an orphan who made her life miserable, even blaming her for Antony’s death. Later, having the habit of falling in love with the one that Candy likes too, school, she falls for Terry and constantly tries to turn him against her, failing miserably. She also writes a fake letter to her that it was supposedly from Terry and to Terry too, to meet each other in the stables at night and with this, she blabs them to the teachers and Candy, having no choice, leaves school. Later, when Candy was pursuing a career as a nurse, she continues her cruel ways and her mother also threats the director of the hospital where she was working, that if they won’t fire her, the Leagan family will withdraw their funds for the hospital and she also made sure that no hospital from Chicago will hire her, leaving Candy in a difficult situation. Those are only of few of the things that Leagan family did to Candy. The worst part is that they don’t pay for what they did at the end.

Fukiko from “Oniisama e” fits well this image; She is a refined lady from a rich family, the president of the sorority and very educated, that’s why she is admired by everyone. However, in reality she is manipulative, proud and very possessive. She wants to control everyone and she’s even willing to go out of her way to achieve what she wants. For instanse, she’s jealous of Nanako because she is close to Henmi Takehito, the one that she (Fukiko) is in love with, so to control her, she chooses her to be a member of the sorority and demands that she will stay away from him, even by pulling her into the lake and attempt to drown her . She also makes Rei’s life miserable, by stepping into her weakness, refuse to accept her as a member of their family and constantly manipulating her with the cruelest of ways. Also, it’s revealed that her friends from the sorority are feeling pressured because of her. Later, with the death of Rei, along with her realisation that Henmi and Kaoru No Kimi are truly in love, surprisingly, she regrets, gives up on her cruel ways and matures, growing even more beautiful for all of that.

Yoko from “Tokimeki Tonight” is a different case. She is the love rival of the story and the have loved Shuun ever since they were little. Being the only daughter of a rich businessman, she is spoiled and when something doesn’t go as she wants, she is is angry and demands that everything will go the way she wants. She envies Ranze for her close relationship with Makabe and ever since she accidentally saw her transforming, she tried desperately to prove others that she (Ranze) is a vampire. Her character is less dramatic and more comedic, as she is often grumpy and clumsy. But she isn’t really a bad person and she doesn’t really cause an awful lot of trouble.

In “The Rose of Versailles”, Madam Du Barry, the king’s mistress, wants to sustain her place in the court and demands that Marie Antoinette, who was at that time the dauphine, will speak to her. She also have tried to poison one of the court ladies. Countess De polignag becomes the queen’s best friend, for her own benefits and manipulates her without her (Marie Antoinette) knowing, like telling her to lie about being pregnant and also persuade her to start gambling in the court, which was illegal. She’s also Rosalie’s biological mother and accidentally kills the woman which raised her daughter and she’s the reason that her other daughter suicides, because she cannot handle the marriage the she arranged for her. Besides of her daughter’s death, she doesn’t seem to regret for any of her actions as she tries to make Rosalie merry the same man. Luckily Rosalie escapes. Also, she tried to sabotage Oscar many times and all this was just for the sake of power and money.

In “Glass Mask”, Norie Otobe, befriends Maya and she is supposedly her assistant, but in reality she just waits for the right moment to strike and steal Maya’s role and career. Unfortunately, she succeeds and it costs a lot for Maya, for a while. Luckily Ayumi discovers this and punishes her with the best way ever.

The tomboys

They are either mysterious, or lively, but one thing is for sure; they are dressed in clothes that are considered to be “manly”, they are handsome and they are constantly mistaken for a boy. They are also very elegant and educated and their image is that of a prince. That’s why they are admired by both women and men. Some may say that even though they are trying to be like a man, they are still weak, but they point out that just because they dress more “tomboyish”, doesn’t mean that it makes them less of a woman. After all, when they want to, they can transform into the most feminine girl of all. They also prove that their sexuality is not associated with their looks, as a “masculine” girl has the same possibilities of being heterosexual or homosexual, with a more “feminine” one. So, they break all the stereotypes regarding women. Many times, they are portrayed as headstrong heroines who stand up for their beliefs and their friends.

The most famous character that supports this image is Oscar from “the Rose of Versailles”. Oscar is one of the daughters of the Jerjeyes household. Not having any son, her father decided to raise her as a boy so that one day she will succeed him. Oscar dresses in boys’ clothes and learns activities like fencing and archery. When she was fourteen, she was tasked to serve as Marie Antoinette’s bodyguard. The manga often pointed out how different those two were regarding appearance and character, even if they were in the same age. Oscar has a strong sense of justice and she always protects the weak and is not afraid to challenge someone that she believes that isn’t right. Of course, she is admired by men and women alike and she is also a great and loyal friend. At one point she falls in love with Fersen, who loves Marie Antoinette. But because of her respect for the queen and her love of Fersen, she helps them, despite being heartbroken. At the end, she realises that she loves her childhood friend, Andre. She loves medieval combat, drinking heavy drinks, talking about politics and playing violin. Many pointed out that being a woman she was weaker but she always proved them wrong, pointing out that women can do anything and that it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, only how skilful you are. She was hiding her femininity not because she wanted to be a man, but because that if she acted like a woman, the society might think that she was weak and she wouldn’t be able to have the access and the freedom to do what women normally wouldn’t do back then, because women were alowed to limited things. In the early 1970s, by the time this manga was ongoing, the second wave of feminism had already started and women started fighting for equal legal and social rights, so Oscar’s character was influenced by all this.

Rei from “Oniisama e”, is admired by her fellow classmates and is also called “saint Juste”, named after one of the leaders from French Revolution, due to her physical resemblance to him. She is very charismatic, excelling to sports, piano, guitar and theatre, she is very elegant and dresses often in a black suit. Unfortunately she is drug-addict, she smokes and can be suicidal, carrying always pills and a sharp object with her. She is also obsessed with Fukiko, the sorority’s president, for many reasons, causing her to be controlled and abused by her. She also lives alone in a depressing house filled with mirrors and this also causes to be depressed. Her best friend is Kaoru no Kimi, who’s also a tomboy, but they are entirely different and she befriends Nanako and her friends. In the end she suicides, taking too many sleeping pills, having everyone, especially Nanako, left devastated.

Also from “Oniisama e”, Kaoru, is a tomboy who is strong and energetic. She is athletic and excels at basketball, but she is also very cool and doesn’t seem to care that she is the best at something that she’s doing, that’s why she is admired by her fellow classmates who gave her the nickname “Kaoru no Kimi”, from a Japanese classical novel; “the tale of Genji”. She also has a great sense of justice, as when she sees classmates being bullied, she defends them and put the bullies on their place. She is also very loyal and supportive and cares deeply about her friends, helping them when they are in need, especially her best friend, Rei, for whom she is very concerned. But in spite of her energetic appearance, she suffers from breast cancer and tries to keep it a secret, pretending that she is healthy and that everything is under control. But in fact, she pushes away her beloved, Henmi Takehito, concealing her true feelings, in order for him to be happy without her and not suffer anymore, showing how selfless she is and how much she loves him to a point of sacrificing her own feelings. At the end, it pays off and they end up together, living happily.

Another honourable mention is Rei, from “Glass Mask”. Rei is the older student of Tsukikage sensei’s company and one of Maya’s best friends. She is a tomboy who wears those characteristic 70s jeans and for some reason is mistaken by a boy -much to her dislike-, despite of being obvious that she is a girl. Being an actress, she can transform into a beautiful princess in no time, but she also portraits very well a prince. In the first volumes, she portrayed Jo, from “little women” which was a role very suited for her. As a sister figure for Maya, she is loyal, friendly and the responsible one who helps the theatre company stay organised and is a very strict teacher to Maya, helping her because she knows her potential. Also from “Glass Mask”, Keiko from the “Ikkakuju group” is also mistaken as boy, but she can transform into a pretty princess in no time.

Note: At the first half of the 20th century “Little Women” were very popular in Japan, particularly Jo, who was tomboyish and outspoken and her character had inspired the first female mangakas of the 60s for their stories and characters.

[thebeebi]

Ghosts of the past pt. 2

Pairing: Jungkook x reader

Warnings:  fluff, smut in the future chapters, mentions of the murder, swearing and many more (warnings might differ by chapter)! Read only if you are okay with these topics! (18+)

Genre: historical AU (18th century) 

Word count: 3.8k+

A/n: Hello my loves ♥ Another chapter is here! I do not have much to say to this chapter as it will speak for itself hue hue hue hue c: anyways enjoyyyy and love you ♥

Taglist: @fullartisandaze  @ggukkieland​ @bri-mal @zoeshinelove @sugaslittlekookies  @missema  @nikkiordonez12  @realashlynn [If you want to be tagged, just ask ♥ Thank you]

You were happy to be in the arms of the man you loved. Happy to have people around who adored you. You were finally happy. You wished to put the past behind you, not wanting to let your loved ones know what you did. You were almost successful... until the ghosts of the past came haunting you.

Masterlist

The long summer nights turned into weeks and at the end of July, you turned 19. The town stopped talking about Hannah’s death because the search for the murderer was without any results. All of her well-known suitors had the credible alibi and this tragic occurrence fell into the pit of oblivion even though most of the women, who were walking around the night after the sunset, were being more careful than before and tried to avoid walking on the dark side of the streets and forests.

You soon found out that everything changed. You were securing your position as Jungkook’s wife and were devotedly fulfilling your marital obligations and most of the time, your face was glowing with happiness. You enjoyed sleeping on the same bed as him and longed for him if he had to be gone from you for a short while. Jungkook knew your body better than yourself and thanks to that, he increased the pleasure you felt each time. He considered making love to you to be an art and to you, he was an artist. His ways were unpredictable and refined. Sometimes he flirted with you, courted you as if you two were not married and you were just an innocent vigrin in his arms trying to find out what is the pleasure. He cooed you how beautiful you were, he was playful with you and gently caressed each part of your body until you were shaking with delight. Other time, when you did something unexpected, that turned him on, he simply ripped your dress, threw you on the bed and took you with so much force but each time it was with your consent and sometimes you even thought you liked this side of him more than the gentle one. He was playing with you, making fun of you and teasing you but you loved everything he did. He asked you not to be only his wife but also his lover, he wanted you to give yourself to him freely but also to rile up his desire but then also to satisfy him in every way possible. He was begging for your attention, touch and love. He just wanted you. “Are the other men also as romantic as you?“ you asked one night when he pressed you against the pillows. “Are other women also blessed with such loving husbands?“ Jungkook smiled and pushed the stranded hair from your face. “Are other men blessed with such seductive wives? “ He replied to your question with another. “Are other women so beautiful and so willing to satisfy their husbands’ every need?“

August welcomed you with bright hot sunlight and most of the families tried to be by the shore, wanting to refresh themselves by the breeze that was blowing there. You and your family spent a few nights at the beach house of Catherine Locke and the elder lady was more than content to tell everyone who tried to gossip about you two, that Mrs and Mr Jeon were sleeping together and were the most loveable couple she had ever seen.

Soon enough, Jungkook had to leave for the sawmill, to close up all the accounting books and McLohan family invited you to come with your husband and son to visit them for dinner. When you saw Sara McLohan, you were shocked by how much that woman changed. She looked very pretty even though she gained weight, as it only added to her beauty. The milky white skin that you thought was because she was malnourished turned into a tanned one. She looked way younger than when you met her for the first time. “She looks wonderful,“ you noted when your husband helped you walk down the carriage. “As if she were a completely different person.“

Ian McLohan walked out of the big white house and hurried to welcome you and your husband. Sara helped her youngest child to walk down the stairs as he was trying to follow his father. Mrs McLohan welcomed heartily welcomed Jungkook. She was used to his presence at the sawmill but when she saw you, she shyly smiled even though she was the one who decided to invite you. You could not help yourself but praise how good she looked. “Sara, this kind of environment helps you flourish.“ You told her happily. “You look wonderful.“ Your hostess blushed and Ian wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer gently. “I told her many times, Mrs Jeon, but she always thinks that I am just joking.“ Said Ian McLohan. “I have never felt so amazing before.“ Sara said quietly. “I almost forgot that I am expecting another baby.“ You and Jungkook smiled at the great news and congratulated them.

“It is going to take a few years for my wife to catch up with you, Sara. “ Joked Jungkook. “But I have a really good hunch that she will be able to do it. With our son, I barely touched her ... and here we are.“ Jeongsan was looking around at the unfamiliar people from the safety of his father’s embrace but did not mind being talked about. You looked at Jungkook with rosy cheeks hinting at him embarrassment but he smiled and pressed a soft kiss on your forehead. “There is no way someone would doubt who is his father, Mr Jeon.“ Sara smiled at the little boy Jungkook was holding. “He looks like your copy... even the dark brown eyes. “ Jungkook proudly smiled and quietly he was cooing his son who giggled at him. When Jungkook had his face near Jeongsan there was no doubt they were related. Now you knew that back when you decided to run away from Bangtan never wanting to meet Jungkook again, Jeongsan’s eyes would have reminded you of Jungkook for the rest of your life. “Will he come to me?“ Sara asked reaching out her arms to Jeongsan who firmly denied the invitation by turning his face to his father and placing his small head on Jungkook’s shoulder.  “Please, do not be offended, Sara. “ You apologized to an older female. “He does not want to be held by anyone other than his father. He loves him too much.“ You cocked your head to the side to look at your husband. “Looks like his face enchanted him as well.“ You smiled while your eyes glowed with love.

At your remark, everyone started laughing and the children of McLohan family started surrounding Jungkook to take a better look at the little Jeon. Soon enough, the oldest daughter won Jeongsan over and started cooing him while holding him in her embrace. Ian excused himself because he has some things to do at the sawmill and Jungkook went with him, wanting to ensure, that everything was alright. You and Sara were enjoying your time on the porch and from time to time, the older female walked away to check up on the meal that was being cooked in the kitchen. “I think I am looking forward to this baby even more than I looked forward to the others. “ Sara admitted shyly. “Before we were always worried if we would have enough money. Sometimes we had almost enough, but most of the time not. Now I feel like we are in paradise and in my prayers, I thank God for sending us your husband. He brought us up from nothing and gave us everything.“ You stopped sipping on the tea and your eyes became glossy. “It is strange, Sara, but he did that with me too. He helped me out of my horrible situation and gave me happiness. My life was worthless before he entered it.“ Sara was watching you for a while. “You really love him, don't you?“ You smiled softly. “Yes, “ You admitted and then sighed. “I love him so much that sometimes I am afraid. I think that our life is so perfect and I am afraid something might happen that would interrupt our perfection ... and if I were to lose him or his love... I would die.“ Sara smiled. “When I met your husband for the first time, Mrs Jeon, he was sitting alone in one tavern up north. From afar, some woman was watching him but he did not even look at her. He was looking into his glass absentmindedly and he looked somehow... sad. Later on, he mentioned you for a bit, telling me you were expecting a baby and his expression changed. He looked so happy talking about you and then I was sure that he loved you very much. Since then, I came to know him even better and I am sure my first impression of him was right. I have never seen any other man to love his wife as much as he loves you.“ You wiped the tear that fell down your cheek and smiled feeling sorry. “I think I am too emotional today when I am crying literally because of nothing. Forgive me, Sara. Usually, I am not like this.“ Sara smiled warmly. “Oh no, Mrs Jeon, this is the reason why I respect you even more. A woman, who cries because of love for a man, is perceptive to life itself. “

Later Sara prepared lemonade for guests, kids and workers from the sawmill and you asked her if you could be the one who brought them to the sawmill. When you were carefully carrying the tray to the sawmill, it was your first time seeing it work fully. You saw Mr McLohan in front of the building as he was talking to a few of the workers. He politely bowed to you with a welcoming smile and offered you to carry the tray for you which you rejected and poured the lemonade for workers yourself as well. They were greeting you and with awe, they were looking at you as you were slowly walking towards the smaller building where your husband was supposed to be. Ian McLohan coughed to catch their attention and asked them to close their mouths but even so, they were watching you discreetly.

You were standing in the doorframe of the small office that had only basic furniture in it and the walls were made of rough wood without any tapestry or painting. Your husband was sitting on the tall chair by the table with his back facing you. It was rather hot so Jungkook decided to take off his shirt so he could refresh himself with a soft breeze that blew in through the opened windows. You were watching the muscles on his back and thought about how wonderful it was to touch them. You moved a little which caused the wooden floor to creak. Jungkook turned around and when he saw you in the doorframe, he stood up and it was more than obvious how happy he was to see you, saving him from the boring paperwork. With a smile, he pulled you in and closed the door. He took the tray from you, placed it on the table and gulped the content of the glass you brought him. “Ahh,“ He placed the glass back on the tray and approached you. “This is what I needed while doing this boring accounting. The drink to quench my thirst,“ He pulled you in a hug. “And a beautiful woman I could look at.“ You giggled and hid your face in his chest. “I remember how angry you were with me when I interrupted you while working. Has the work become less important or do you long for me even more than before?“ You lectured him. Jungkook kissed you on the top of your head and became serious. “I apologize, little one. That day... I was just the worst. Your rejection to sleep with me made me act out on impulse and I acted like a savage.“

“My rejection?!“ You protested. “But Jungkook, I have never done anything to stop you from claiming your rights as a husband. You were the one who rejected to sleep with me on the same bed after I was sick on Bangtan. And you were the one who rejected to sleep with me at Hybe the first time we came there. I was mroe than willing to satisfy your needs but you rejected me and slept alone.“ Jungkook was listening to you carefully. “I see that our marriage was full of misunderstandings.“ He said quietly. “You thought that I wanted you less than the first time we met when I took you for the first time and... because we got married. And I thought you hated even the thought of me touching you, I was worried you might protest if I tried to do anything. It is very interesting how our overthinking turned against us. We should have acted on impulse.“ He leaned in closer to you and pressed his hot lips on your neck. “We would have found the love sooner.“ You felt heat growing inside you and you knew that as long as you live, his touch would always make you feel things. You had no will or desire to protest when he started caressing you. Your body and soul listened to his touch more than it listened to you. Thanks to Jungkook, your life seemed to be a beautiful dream that you never wanted to wake up from.

Jungkook traced your neck with his lips only to stop himself above the little dimple on your neck because a soft lace prohibited him from going lower. He played with the buttons on your dress as he was whispering you sweet nothings. He was sliding down from the first button to the second, third, seventh until the last one. A smile appeared on his lips when with a gentle tug he pulled lower the dress and the bodice you were wearing and your bust showed to him on full display. Jungkook kissed you and the bare part and you trembled at every one of his touches. “What if someone comes, Jungkook,“ you whispered trying to catch your breath. “I will kill everyone who touches the door, “ He replied calmly and did not stop kissing your bust, gently squeezing the right breast. “But what if someone barges in?“ You protested weakly not being able to resist him any longer. He slid his hands under your dress and pulled you in so close, your bust was teasing him while touching his chest. “I will need to put a lock on the door. “ He whispered hoarsely while kissing you on your forehead. “and I need to bring a bed too. These chairs are too small. “ Jungkook sighed and let go of you. “Well then, little one. Looks like I will give in to your pleads.“ Still filled with need, you tried to fix your dress and bodice but as you were trying to button up the dress, your fingers were shaking so you had to do it slowly. Jungkook returned to the table and was looking at you attentively. “My love, you would seduce even a saint. So before I take you right here and now, I will help you dress up. “

When you walked out of the office, your cheeks were still flushed with blush and you had no idea what you were doing. You almost tripped on Lucia, one of the youngest daughters of McLohan family that was kneeling on the ground, looking carefully at the mushroom. “Look Mrs Jeon what I found. “ You knelt down next to her and asked: “Do you think it belongs to some forest fairy?“ A little girl widened her eyes in happiness. “Do you think so, Mrs Jeon? Maybe they left it here. “ You nodded. “It is very likely. “ You replied and smiled at the thrill little girl felt after finding out it might be left by a magical creature. “Could we go to the forest to look for them?“

“Of course, “ You replied standing up. “Maybe we can find the whole magical land.“ Lucia held your hand pulling you towards the direction of the forest. “Let's go quick so they won't hide.“ With a smile on your lips, you followed the little girl to the forest. It was a dense forest and only a few sunbeams were able to come through the leaves. Soon enough you entered a small clearing and somewhere above you a bird was chirping happily at its mate. In the middle of the clearing was standing a huge oak and a few flowers were poking out from the tall grass. “I would live here if I was a forest fairy.“ You did not want to question the little girl, why she would pick the clearing instead of the forest. Instead, you were watching her as she spread out her arms and started twirling. “Have you been here before, Lucia?“

“Yes, Madam. Many, many times.“ You smiled. “I liked it here. It is a very beautiful place, Lucia.“ “I knew you would like it here, Mrs Jeon. “ Said Lucia happily as she stopped turning. You giggled at her innocence and pushed back the blonde hair that was falling to the little girl’s face. You started looking around yourself that caught Lucia’s attention. “I do not see any signs that forest fairies live here. Do you?“ The girl frowned. “No, madam.“ Lucia said but then again smiled. “But I feel like one is watching me. I am sure of it.“

You smiled at her innocence, liking the thought as much as Lucia. “But that is much better than knowing where they live, right? Not everyone is as lucky to be watched by the forest fairy. We should pretend that we do not know about them.“ The little blonde girl smiled brightly. “How should we do it, Mrs Jeon?“ You hummed for a while and then turned to her. “We will get some flower and pretend that we do not know about them being so close to us. Maybe they will show up.“

A little girl nodded. “Ahh, yes. Good.“ You were watching Lucia as she was trying her best to act like she was simply getting the flowers and not caring about the forest fairy, that she believed, was watching her. You did not care as much about what was invisible and what not and started gathering the flowers on the table of Sara McLohan. Lucia soon enough forgot about the forest fairy and flowers and decided to follow the butterfly. You were watching her until she disappeared in the direction of the sawmill. You stayed there and picked different kinds of wildflowers.

Even though you were focused on picking up the flowers, soon enough you also noticed a strange feeling of being watched. The soft, almost invisible, hairs on your neck bristled up and shivers went down your spine. When you started turning around, to see if your suspicion was right, you were almost expecting a forest fairy to be watching, because you were sure the little girl was right the whole time. You were looking into the forest to find the cause until you saw him. It was no forest fairy but a man on the horse standing not that far from you. His dark figure looked terrifying because even though it was a hot sunny day, he was wearing a black cloak that covered him. A tall collar covered half of his face and a tricorne created a shade on his face that made you unable to recognize who it was. Slowly, with his face hidden, he spurred the horse to move forward which caused you to froze up. You were unable to turn around and run but instead, you started backing away carefully. The man spurred the horse to hurry up and when you saw him approaching you, you screamed and with a frightened expression, you turned and ran from the clearing towards the road that led to the sawmill.

The rider on the horse was reaching for you and almost he grabbed you, but you threw the flowers you were holding on the ground and made your way through the dense forest. You were looking behind, scared that he might catch you, but you no longer saw the horse with a rider but instead a dark monster that was about to end you. Somewhere in front of you, you heard Jungkook shouting your name. The rider pulled the rein, which signalized that he also heard Jungkook. You heard the cracking of the branches and you ran there knowing it was your husband. “Jungkooook!“ You shouted knowing you were at the end of your strength. When you turned around to check on the rider, you saw the horse standing on its back legs from the sudden pull of the rein and the strange dark man turned the horse around and ran in the opposite direction than you. Before he disappeared in the darkness of the forest, for a brief while, you saw his back. Something about that men felt familiar but you weren't sure what. Jungkook ran to you and when you noticed him, you fell into his embrace sobbing. “Oh, Jungkook, he was horrible.“ You cried. “Horrible.“

“Oh Gosh, what happened? I came to call you for the dinner and then I heard your scream.“ He was hugging you tightly. “You are shaking,“ “There was a man... in the horse.“ You let out with difficulty trying to calm yourself. “He was chasing me. He almost got me.“ Jungkook pulled you away from him for a while and looked into your eyes. “Who was it, Y/N? Have you seen him before?“ You shook your head. “No. No. He had a tricorne and a cloak so I could not see him well. I was getting flowers for Mrs McLohan when I felt that somebody was watching me. When I saw him, he started approaching me, when I ran away, he chased after me.“ Shivers went down your spine yet again and the memory of a mysterious man. “He looked so terrifying, Jungkook.“ Jungkook pulled you to himself and held you close, trying to calm you down as best as he knew. “He is gone, little one.“ He whispered. “You are safe, no one is going to hurt you.“

“Who could it be, Jungkook? What did he want here?“ “I don't know, my love, but Hanna’s murderer has not been caught yet. It would be best if you did not go anywhere by yourself. We have to tell the McLohan family as well. If that man returns, I do not want any woman or children to stand in his way. We will ask men to guard different parts of the sawmill. It could help.“

“I threw the flowers I gathered because of him.“ You pouted sadly. “I had made a huge bouquet for Sara’s table but he scared me so much I let go of them.“ Jungkook chuckled. “It is alright, my love. We will go get them.“ He grabbed the hem of your skirt and wiped the tears from your cheeks. “And now stop crying otherwise you will have a red nose.“ Jungkook kissed your cheek softly. “You are not scared anymore, right?“ You leaned on him and smiled when you answered. “When you are here, Jungkook, I am not.“

Chapter 3

a/n: Who could it be? :O

[nerdygaymormon]

What will it take for the Church to accept LGBT people fully and allow gay marriage? When all the younger generation and all LGBT and pro LGBT members leave Church?

My answer to this is the Church will change when the pain of changing is less than the pain of not changing.

By this I mean that if they made a big announcement today, there'd be a lot of pain. If it were to dramatically shift positions, the Church would have to explain why past prophets and apostles were wrong, and many members would disagree.

The average member thinks of the Church as strongly anti-gay. Just 13 years ago, members in many states were being asked to donate time and money to pass constitutional amendments outlawing gay marriage. 7 years ago married gay couples are deemed apostates and disciplined. 3 years ago, Elder Oaks was still delivering a string of homophobic talks in General Conference.

If the Church leadership were to say they were wrong on queer topics, it would undermine faith in their leadership. Members would likely wonder if leaders were wrong on this, what else is the leadership wrong about?

————————————————————

The Church's usual process isn't to announce big changes, instead it works slowly, year by year, making incremental changes to the point that the "big change" doesn't seem big.

I think this is happening in regards to LGBTQ issues, but there's a frightfully long way to go considering how slowly these changes are occurring.

Some examples of changes include

it's okay for people to call themselves gay or lesbian

being gay is no longer a sin, but gay sex is still a sin

the Church coming out in support of rights for gays in many areas, such as employment and housing

the Church also finally rejecting conversion therapy

there've been talks by apostles saying there's room in the Church for differing sexual orientations

openly gay & trans students at BYU are allowed to stay and not be kicked out

the Family Search website allows gay marriages to be recorded

the November 2015 Policy of Exclusion is rescinded along with the statement that “the immoral conduct in heterosexual or homosexual relationships will be treated in the same way.”

The problem with slow, incremental change is when the views of the membership are shifting much faster than the Church is moving.

In 2014, only 27% of Mormons supported gay marriage, in 2017 that was up to 40%. Among Mormons between the ages of 18-29, the acceptance in 2017 was 52%, up from 43% percent in 2014.

In the 3 1/2 years since this poll, I can't help believe these trend lines continue and possibly a slight majority of all members support marriage equality, with a strong majority of those under age 30.

————————————————————

We have an example of a dramatic shift in 1978 when the Church restored temple & priesthood blessings to Black people of African descent.

As society changed, eventually the LDS Church was about the only church still employing such racists positions, virtually all other churches had dropped their racist teachings & traditions. A decade after the Civil Rights movement, many members were ready for a change and embarrassed when asked about the Church's racist positions. (We may be headed this way on queer topics, but a lot of members aren't yet to this point)

A lot of prep work was done by President Kimball to bring along the apostles and get this change made. I don't think any church leaders today are trying to lay the groundwork for change regarding LGBTQ acceptance.

If this example is a model, then we still have at least a decade to go as it was just last year the Supreme Court decided gay and trans employees are protected by Civil Rights, meaning we can't be fired for being gay or trans. There's still more rights & protections to secure for LGBTQ individuals in the USA.

————————————————————

A different way to think about this is, what positions does a progressive church go through in order to reach the point it accepts LGBTQ+ members as full members and is affirming in its teachings?

I can't think of any church that reached the point of being welcoming of queer people that didn't first accept women as ordained ministers. How close do you think the LDS Church is to getting women ordained?

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If you're wondering if you should hold on for the Church to change, I think putting yourself in storage and waiting for the Church to change is not a great move. The Church’s lifespan is much longer than yours. We are meant to live during our time on earth.

If you feel good about seeking romance, if you believe God doesn't want you to be lonely and wants you to live openly as LGBTQIA, if you feel like Church isn't a safe space for you and feel your mental health declining, then choose to live. If you feel called to remain in the Church, then stay and own that choice, but keep open the possibility that this is temporary and what's right for you may change in the future.

Our path is not clear, even the LDS Church isn't sure what to do with us or why we're here. You get to work out your future and your path in collaboration with God.

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Bert Williams

Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He is credited as being the first black man to have the leading role in a film: Darktown Jubilee in 1914.[2]

He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920. In 1918, the New York Dramatic Mirror called Williams "one of the great comedians of the world."

Williams was a key figure in the development of African-American entertainment. In an age when racial inequality and stereotyping were commonplace, he became the first black American to take a lead role on the Broadway stage, and did much to push back racial barriers during his three-decade-long career. Fellow vaudevillian W. C. Fields, who appeared in productions with Williams, described him as "the funniest man I ever saw—and the saddest man I ever knew."

Williams was born in Nassau, The Bahamas, on November 12, 1874, to Frederick Williams Jr. and his wife Julia. At the age of 11, Bert permanently emigrated with his parents, moving to Florida in the United States. The family soon moved to Riverside, California, where he graduated from Riverside High School in 1892. In 1893, while still a teenager, he joined different West Coast minstrel shows, including Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minstrels in San Francisco, where he first met his future professional partner, George Walker.

He and Walker performed song-and-dance numbers, comic dialogues and skits, and humorous songs. They fell into stereotypical vaudevillian roles: originally Williams portrayed a slick conniver, while Walker played the "dumb coon" victim of Williams' schemes. But they soon discovered that they got a better reaction by switching roles and subverting expectations. The sharp-featured and slender Walker eventually developed a persona as a strutting dandy, while the stocky Williams played the languorous oaf. Despite his thickset physique, Williams was a master of body language and physical "stage business." A New York Times reviewer wrote: "He holds a face for minutes at a time, seemingly, and when he alters it, bring[s] a laugh by the least movement."

In late 1896, the pair were added to The Gold Bug, a struggling musical. The show did not survive, but Williams & Walker got good reviews, and were able to secure higher profile bookings. They headlined the Koster and Bial's vaudeville house for 36 weeks in 1896–97, where their spirited version of the cakewalk helped popularize the dance. The pair performed in burnt-cork blackface, as was customary at the time, billing themselves as "Two Real Coons" to distinguish their act from the many white minstrels also performing in blackface. Williams also made his first recordings in 1896, but none are known to survive. They participated in a "Benefit for New York's Poor" held on February 9, 1897 at the Metropolitan Opera House, their only appearance at that theater.

While playing off the "coon" formula, Williams & Walker's act and demeanor subtly undermined it as well. Camille Forbes wrote, "They called into question the possible realness of blackface performers who only emphasized their artificiality by recourse to burnt cork; after all, Williams did not really need the burnt cork to be black," despite his lighter skin complexion. He would pull on a wig full of kinky hair in order to help conceal his wavy hair. Terry Waldo also noted the layered irony in their cakewalk routine, which presented them as mainstream blacks performing a dance in a way that lampooned whites who'd mocked a black dance that originally satirized plantation whites' ostentatiously fussy mannerisms. The pair also made sure to present themselves as immaculately groomed and classily dressed in their publicity photos, which were used for advertising and on the covers of sheet music promoting their songs. In this way, they drew a contrast between their real-life comportment and the comical characters they portrayed onstage. However, this aspect of their act was ambiguous enough that some black newspapers still criticized the duo for failing to uplift the dignity of their race.

In 1899, Williams surprised his partner George Walker and his family when he announced he had recently married Charlotte ("Lottie") Thompson, a singer with whom he had worked professionally, in a very private ceremony. Lottie was a widow eight years Bert's senior. Thus, the match seemed odd to some who knew the gregarious and constantly traveling Williams, but all who knew them considered them a uniquely happy couple, and the union lasted until his death. The Williamses never had children biologically, but they adopted and reared three of Lottie's nieces. They also frequently sheltered orphans and foster children in their homes.

Williams & Walker appeared in a succession of shows, including A Senegambian Carnival, A Lucky Coon, and The Policy Players. Their stars were on the ascent, but they still faced vivid reminders of the limits placed on them by white society. In August 1900, in New York City, hysterical rumors of a white detective having been shot by a black man erupted into an uncontained riot. Unaware of the street violence, Williams & Walker left their theater after a performance and parted ways. Williams headed off in a fortunate direction, but Walker was yanked from a streetcar by a white mob and was beaten.

The duo's international success established them as the most visible black performers in the world. They hoped to parlay this renown into a new, more elaborate and costly stage production, to be shown in the top-flight theaters. Williams and Walker's management team balked at the expense of this project, then sued the pair to prevent them from securing outside investors or representation. Filings in the suit revealed that each member of the team had earned approximately $120,000 from 1902 to 1904, or $3.5 million apiece in 2019 dollars. The lawsuit was unsuccessful, and Williams and Walker accepted an offer from Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre, the premiere vaudeville house in New York. A white Southern monologist objected to the integrated bill, but the show went ahead with Williams and Walker and without the objector.

In February 1906, Abyssinia, with a score co-written by Williams, premiered at the Majestic Theater. The show, which included live camels, was another smash. Aspects of the production continued the duo's cagey steps toward greater creative pride and freedom for black performers. The nation of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) was the only African nation to remain sovereign during European colonization, repelling Italy's attempts at control in 1896. The show also included inklings of a love story, something that had never been tolerated in a black stage production before. Walker played a Kansas tourist while his wife, Aida, portrayed an Abyssinian princess. A scene between the two of them, while comic, presented Walker as a nervous suitor.

While the show was praised, many white critics were uncomfortable or uncertain about its cast's ambitions. One critic declared that audiences "do not care to see their own ways copied when they can have the real thing better done by white people," while the New York Evening Post thought the score "is at times too elaborate for them and a return to the plantation melodies would be a great improvement upon the 'grand opera' type, for which they are not suited either by temperament or by education." The Chicago Tribune remarked, disapprovingly, "there is hardly a trace of negroism in the play." George Walker was unbowed, telling the Toledo Bee, "It's all rot, this slapstick bandanna handkerchief bladder in the face act, with which negro acting is associated. It ought to die out and we are trying to kill it." Though the flashier Walker rarely had qualms about opposing the racial prejudice and limitations of the day, the more introspective and brooding Williams internalized his feelings.

In 1908, while starring in the successful Broadway production Bandanna Land, Williams and Walker were asked to appear at a charity benefit by George M. Cohan. Walter C. Kelly, a prominent monologist, protested and encouraged the other acts to withdraw from the show rather than appear alongside black performers; only two of the acts joined Kelly's boycott.

Bandanna Land continued the duo's series of hits and introduced a tour de force sketch that soon Williams made famous: his pantomime poker game. In total silence, Williams acted out a hand of poker, with only his facial expressions and body language conveying the dealer's up-and-down emotions as he considered his hand, reacted to the unseen actions of his invisible opponents, and weighed the pros and cons of raising or calling the bet. It later became a standard routine in his solo stage act, and was recorded on film by Biograph Studios in 1916.

Walker was in ill health by this point due to syphilis, which was then incurable. In January 1909 he suffered a stroke onstage while singing, and was forced to drop out of Bandanna Land the following month. The famous pair never performed in public again, and Walker died less than two years later. Walker had been the businessman and public spokesman for the duo. His absence left Williams professionally adrift.

After 16 years as half of a duo, Williams needed to reestablish himself as a solo act. In May 1909 he returned to Hammerstein's Victoria Theater and the high-class vaudeville circuit. His new act consisted of several songs, comic monologues in dialect, and a concluding dance. He received top billing and a high salary, but the White Rats of America, an organization of vaudevillians opposed to encroachments from blacks and women, intimidated the theater managers into reducing Williams' billing. The brash Walker would have resisted such an insult to his star status, but the more reserved Williams did not protest. Allies were few; big-time vaudeville managers were fearful of attracting a disproportionate number of black audience members and thus allowed only one black act per bill. Due to his ethnicity, Williams typically was forced to travel, eat and lodge separately from the rest of his fellow performers, increasing his sense of isolation following the loss of Walker.

In 1910, Booker T. Washington wrote of Williams: "He has done more for our race than I have. He has smiled his way into people's hearts; I have been obliged to fight my way." Gene Buck, who had discovered W. C. Fields in vaudeville and hired him for the Follies, wrote to a friend on the occasion of Fields' death: "Next to Bert Williams, Bill [Fields] was the greatest comic that ever lived."

Williams' stage career lagged after his final Follies appearance in 1919. His name was enough to open a show, but they had shorter, less profitable runs. In December 1921, Under the Bamboo Tree opened, to middling results. Williams still got good reviews, but the show did not. Williams developed pneumonia, but did not want to miss performances, knowing that he was the only thing keeping an otherwise moribund musical alive at the box office. However, Williams also emotionally suffered from the racial politics of the era, and did not feel fully accepted. He experienced almost chronic depression in his later years, coupled with alcoholism and insomnia.

On February 27, 1922, Williams collapsed during a performance in Detroit, Michigan, which the audience initially thought was a comic bit. Helped to his dressing room, Williams quipped, "That's a nice way to die. They was laughing when I made my last exit." He returned to New York, but his health worsened. He died at his home, 2309 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, New York City on March 4, 1922 at the age of 47. Few had suspected that he was sick, and news of his death came as a public shock. More than 5,000 fans filed past his casket, and thousands more were turned away. A private service was held at the Masonic Lodge in Manhattan, where Williams broke his last barrier. He was the first black American to be so honored by the all-white Grand Lodge. When the Masons opened their doors for a public service, nearly 2,000 mourners of both races were admitted. Williams was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Williams

[speechlessxx]

Bring Him Light - iv (King!Steve Rogers x Reader)

Chapter Summary: The wedding and the consummation.

Warnings: poorly written SMUT (18+. Minors DNI), loss of virginity, mentions of character death, I forget to put this but there is an AGE GAP between Steve and the reader (the ages aren’t explicitly noted, Oral sex (fem receiving), fingering, breeding (but it’s not a kink?), Steve’s not an asshole (omg wow)

Word Count: 4k (got carried away)

Bring Him Light Masterlist

I hope you guys enjoy!

<- Last Part -=+=- Next Part ->

Two days went by quickly. It was a blur. In a blink of an eye, you weren’t standing in front of Steven in the halls of the castle, but was dawning on your wedding gown for the final time as your ladies and your mother fawned around you, trying to get you ready.

Wanda fluffed out the skirt and then fiddled with your hair, opting for a regal updo. Your mother smiled at you through the mirror as she smoothed out your shoulder. Natasha added the vail as soon as Wanda was finished.

“Don’t cry, mother,” you muttered when you noticed her teary eyes. She gave you a tight lipped smile as she laughed a bit and dabbed her eyes.

“Two weeks ago, you tried to run away because you didn’t want this day to come. Now, you’re standing before me in a wedding dress as the beautiful, blushing bride. I wonder what’s changed.” Your mother said. You detected a hint of sorrow in her voice. You deducted that it was her coming to realize that you were no longer her baby girl. You were to become a woman that night and crowned a queen soon enough.

“I’m still a virgin mother,” you lightly joked in an attempt to brighten her mood. It worked. She rolled her eyes and laughed. Natasha and Wanda giggled as they did the finishing touches.

You were trembling as you stood at the top of the staircase. You heard murmurs of excitement in the floor beneath you. Everyone eager to see the merge of House York and House Rogers. You stared at the bouquet in your shaking hands. White roses accented with tiny forget-me-nots. Wanda told you that King Steven handpicked them in the gardens.

You glanced back at Natasha who gave you an encouraging nod as the organ began to play. The crowd quickly fell into silence as you slowly descended from the top of the staircase. Each step was a weight being lifted from you. It became easier and easier – almost to the point where you felt as if you were floating as light as air.

Your father met you at the bottom of the staircase. He smiled at you as you revealed yourself to him for the very first time. He wasn’t teary-eyed like your mother. Perhaps it was because as a king – as a man – he refused to show any weakness.

“You look beautiful,” he muttered to you as he presented you his arm and you took it.

You weren’t sure where to look as you rounded the corner and made it to the open throne room doors. You felt all the stares on you at once. It made you want to shrink into yourself – disappear if you could. So, instead, you kept your own stare straight and you were glad you did.

At the end of the aisle stood King Steven. His hair had been cut and his beard was gone. He looked like his portraits. But there was something different. Perhaps it was the faint smile on his lips that quivered at the sight of you. Wait… No… it was the eyes. Portraits made his blue eyes, dark, cold, unnerving.

But in this light, the man standing, waiting for you to be at his side, had different eyes. Tearful yet joyful. Excited. He stared at you with adoration. The sunset that poured in through the massive windows made him a sight to behold.

Your father gave you a kiss on the forehead and a small nod as he pulled his arm away from you. He handed you over to the other king. The two exchanged a look. A father giving warning to his daughter’s future husband. Treat her right, your father’s look said.

You turned and handed your bouquet to Natasha before you and Steven kneeled before the bishop. The wedding contracts were brought out. Steven signed first. Your hands trembled as you took a grip on the quill. You glanced over at your parents, who smiled and nodded. There was no going back now – and perhaps, you didn’t want to. With a deep breath, you signed your name and the ceremony continued.

»————-　⚜　————-««

You fiddled with the tassels of the cloak that was wrapped around your shoulders. It was a Brooken tradition that the husband wraps his bride in a cloak, or a tapestry of some kind, to bring her under his protection. The music blared on as excited chatter flooded the hall.

You were exhausted and had just finished dancing with your husband. The entire kingdom – or at least the ones who were in the castle – saw a change in the king. They remembered his last wedding to Queen Sharon many years before and how he danced with his bride once before retiring to his seat for the entire evening.

That king was gone. They knew it from the moment he refused to let you leave the dancefloor, making you dance with him for what felt like ages. The king who rarely smiled or laughed was like a child on Christmas when he stared down at you, when he held you to him, when he kissed you gently on the lips.

The change was welcomed though whispers about your demise was still being spread. Sure, the king seemed happy now. They hoped you would make him happy for the rest of his life, but the idea that King Steven’s queens were cursed or the idea that the king kills his wives still hung in the air. But no one dared bring it up on this day. This day was to be a joyous day. Brooken has a new queen. Their king has a new wife.

As the night dwindled down, you’ve lost count of how many lords and ladies bowed before you and your husband, all wishing you blessings and fruitful lives. Many meant it. King Steven was the last of his line and without an heir, the throne would go to Brock Rumlow who others despised. They wished that you would bring the king a son. Many envious ladies bowed before you, all who wished they were the one at the king’s side. Even Lord Rumlow and Lord Pierce toasted to your health and happy marriage.

A woman came up to the royal table. She was the date of one of Steven’s distant cousins – far too distant that he had no chance of gaining support to take the throne in the event the king dies without an heir. You heard the whispers and snickers from the ladies of the court the moment the woman arrived. “Witch,” they said. Neither you nor Steven believed in magic but decided to entertain the woman out of respect for his cousin. As distant as he may have been, he was still family.

She began muttering foreign words. Gasps erupting around you. The foreign words, from a witch of all people, was perceived as a threat – was she cursing you? Was she wishing death upon you or the king? Your father stood up in outrage as did your husband. His cousin put up his hands when guards started to surround them.

“It’s a fertility spell, your majesties!” He defended. “A fertility spell for the new bride’s womb!” Steven visibly relaxed, settling back into his seat. His hand found yours underneath the table. You tried to soothe him and rubbed small circles with your thumb although you were also rattled, thinking this woman might been the cause of the “cursed wives” rumor. You clenched your jaw and thanked his cousin and the woman as soon as she finished.

“I find that mildly offensive,” your father said as soon as he left. You laughed although you subtly felt the same.

“He’s a distant cousin.” Steven reminded, slightly embarrassed that someone from his family had the audacity to bring in “magical” assistance – and here everyone in Brooken thought the Starks were a strange family.

“Of course,” you chuckled. He glanced over at you, entranced by your smile. The dress, the flowers, everything made you look angelic. Steven couldn’t help himself but lean in and capture your lips with his.

“Well, I guess it’s time, then.” Your father said with a chuckle. You pulled away from your husband’s lips and felt heat rise to your cheeks. It felt strange showing affection in front of your parents, especially since a fortnight ago you were refusing to marry the king you now called your husband.

It was announced that you and the king would retire for the consummation. The music played on as your guests continued to dance and socialize among themselves. As you both excited the hall, there were whoops and cheers from the crowd. Some whispered and hoped that you would conceive Brooken’s heir this night. Your husband gave your hand a last kiss before you were swept away by your ladies to prepare for your wedding night.

Wanda had undone your hair as soon as Natasha managed to undo all laces of the corset. You bit at your fingernails nervously as you stared at yourself in the mirror. You were pale. A fear stricken young lady stood before you. Shivering and frightened, unsure of how tonight’s events would play out.

“Will it hurt?” You asked the two though you didn’t quite know why. They were both unwed. They were still maidens. Surely, they wouldn’t have any advice.

Wanda and Natasha glanced at one another, unsure of what to say. Should they lie to their queen? Say whatever they can to ease your nerves and lure you into a false sense of security when you lay with your husband for the first time? Or should they be truthful to their friend? Tell you the stories they hear from the whispers of other married women and the courtesans that entertained the unwed lords?

They chose to prepare you for what’s to come. There was no use in lying.

“It may, but just relax and breathe through it,” Natasha offered with a nervous smile. “The ladies say the men like to do the work, so let him work.”

Wanda put the cloak back on your shoulders, covering your night slip and your body underneath the heavy fabric. “Breathing is good.” She nodded. She wasn’t quite sure what else to tell you either. Your friend wanted to tell you that if it hurt too much to tell the king to stop, but she knew the advice would be pointless. As queen – as the king’s wife – it was your duty to bear him children at whatever cost and the marriage had to be consummated.

“We should go…” Natasha muttered. She put her hands on your shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze of encouragement.

-=+=-

You were in the king’s bedchambers first. You were surprised to see that it was empty. You expected Steven to be inside already waiting for you. Your ladies bid you their farewells as they left, leaving you to sit on the giant bed and contemplate. You were shaking. Your leg started to bounce against the floor.

As you got lost in your thoughts, the chamber doors opened to reveal Steven. He wore a white night shirt with matching trousers. You gulped as you stood up, straightening out your nightgown and interlocking your fingers in front of your stomach. This was happening.

“How should you have me?” You asked. Your voice was barely above a whisper and shook as you spoke. Steven didn’t respond. The silence was deafening and you couldn’t bare sit in it for any longer.

He smiled. “Pardon?” He heard you, but he just wanted to hear you say it again. So, you repeated the words. Steven bit his lip that curled into a grin and shook his head, a laugh escaping him. Your face fell… was he not interested in you? Did you not … did you not arouse him? As if reading your mind, he rushed in front of you and took your hands in his. “I do not laugh to make fun of you, (Y/N). I simply found it amusing.”

“You find me amusing… and not arousing?” You questioned, feeling doubt and insecure.

He shook his head and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “I simply mean that I have not heard a woman ask me that before I bedded her.” He pressed another kiss to your temple, inhaling that intoxicating scent. “I want you to enjoy this… This is your first after all.” He began to kiss his way down from your temple to your cheek, to your jaw, to your neck. You relished in the feeling, a tingling sensation taking over your body as he left open-mouthed kisses on the delicate skin of your neck. “If you’re uncomfortable, if it hurts – if I hurt you, please let me know.”

You nodded. You couldn’t find the words. Maybe it was because of your nerves, or perhaps you were drowning in the feeling of his lips on your skin. You weren’t quite sure.

He removed the cloak from your shoulders and began to kiss down to your collarbones as his fingers slowly began to unravel the loose ties of your nightgown. You were shaking, still. Before he considered pulling the gown off, he leaned in, ghosting over your lips with his before planting one gentle kiss.

“Are you okay?” He asked, cupping your jaw with one hand. You nodded. “Truthfully?”

“I’m frightened.” You admitted.

“Don’t be. I’ll be careful and if you tell me to stop, I will. God willing, we will have a lifetime of conceiving heirs ahead of us. It needn’t be done this night.”

“We must consummate the marriage.”

“Not at the expense of your comfort.”

“Please…” You murmured. “Please just touch me.”

Without another word, his lips found yours again. His hands scrunched at the skirt of the slip and slowly brought it up and over your body. He took a moment to admire you as the chilly night air met your skin. Goosebumps rose on your skin although you weren’t sure if it was from the air or from Steven’s stare. You felt your face flush as your hands instinctively tried to cover yourself.

“You’re beautiful,” Steven said. Gently unwrapping your arms from your body as if you were a present. He led you to the massive bed. His eyes never left yours as he removed his nightshirt, baring himself to you.

Your eyes widened. Of course, you were aware of the king’s massive build. His fancy clothes and coats did not hide his shoulders very well. He was like one of his sculptures – absolutely breathtaking. He slowly started to pull his trousers down, so you bashfully looked away, feeling your face heat up even more.

Steven crawled over you, placing a tender kiss to your lips. His hands brushed your hair away from your face, cupping you with his massive palms. You felt something hard rub against your thigh. You weren’t naïve enough to be unsure of what it was… You knew.

He licked at your bottom lip. You weren’t sure what that meant so you paid it no mind. One of his hands abandoned your face and slowly slithered down to your slickening folds. You moaned when he stroked against a bud within the folds. He took the opportunity to push his tongue into your mouth and you didn’t hate the feeling.

You remembered Natasha’s advice – “let him work” – and decided to let him dominate the kiss and the pace. Your skin tingled as your lower region increasingly became heated underneath Steven’s ministrations.

He kissed your lips once more before slowly descending down your body, leaving open-mouthed kisses on your skin. Your eyes widened in realization and embarrassment as you tried to pull yourself from underneath him, but his hands grabbed at your thighs and held you in place.

“Steven – “

“Trust me.” He muttered, staring up at you from between your thighs. When you relaxed into his touch, he gave one broad-tongued lick to your folds. The sensation made you threw your head back into the pillows with your eyes closed.

Steven pulled apart your lower lips and focused his tongue on the same bud. You couldn’t hold in the moans that escaped you. Your hands blindly lost themselves in his golden locks. You couldn’t help imagine how this would feel if Steven hadn’t shaved his beard.

He had you gasping. Your walls were clenching around nothing until he slowly inserted a finger. You flinched, but his tongue working its way through you dulled the ache. With the single finger, he stroked against your walls, exploring your tight channel. A coil started to tighten in your stomach. He groaned against your cunt and your thighs clenched his head, holding him in place – not that he minded.

Another finger was pushed into you which caused you to squeak. A spark was sent through your body. “Steven…” you murmured, but he didn’t respond, too caught up in you. He thrusted and curled his fingers as you clenched. His tongue was relentless as if you were a fine wine that he couldn’t get enough of. “St – Steven…” You moaned your husband’s name as you felt the coil snap and you felt yourself gush around the king’s fingers. He returned your moan with his own as he lapped up your juices.

Your chest was rising and falling heavily as your thighs released their hold on the king’s head. Your eyes fluttered open to meet his smirk. His lips and chin shined in the candlelight. His tongue darted out of his mouth, lapping up what was left of you on his lips and fingers, using the back of his hand to wipe away his chin.

“You alright?” He asked you.

“Wh – What happened?”

Steven smiled at you. You were so innocent. You were a sight to behold beneath him. Naked with your exposed skin covered in a sheen of sweat and lips swollen from his kiss. “You orgasmed,” he told you. You flushed at his words. “Are you ready, my love?” You nodded.

It was only then you saw his member for the first time. Your eyes widened at the sight. You remembered your comment to one of your father’s councilmen – “men who are well endowed give their wives sons.”

If you did fall pregnant this night, you were certain that the king would breed a son within you.

Steven was kneeling between your knees. He bent your legs and widened them, giving him a better look at your dripping cunt. He pumped his member a few times and teased you with the tip.

You took a deep breath and winced as the head penetrated you. Slowly, he started to push into you, watching his cock enter you. You felt your entire body clench as you struggled to accommodate to his sizeable girth.

The pressure, the stretch it felt unbearable. You winced and groaned out in pain. Steven stopped moving.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“It… It’s fine.” You answered with a strained voice. The king shook his head and began to retreat from within you, but you shook your head as your legs unraveled to wrap around his torso, keeping him in place. His movements halted as he stared at you with concern. “Keep going…” You begged. “Please…”

Hesitantly, the king began to push into you again. After long beats of intense pressure and the feeling of being torn open, the king had finally sheathed his length into your maidenhood. He leaned over your body so that he completely entrapped you underneath him. He peppered your face – cheeks, forehead, nose, lips, anything his lips could touch – with light kisses as he whispered sweet nothings and praises into your ear.

“Can I move?” He whispered. You nodded.

Slowly, the king pulled out little by little only to gently push right in, acquainting your walls with him. On one particular thrust, you jolted as he grazed a sweet spot you didn’t even know existed. You felt a rush of pleasure despite still being in a bit of pain. Steven reveled in your reaction as your winces soon became moans.

His thrusts were gentle although he had begun a steady speed. He groaned into your ear – the sound going straight into your hot core. “You feel so good,” his voice was like a growl.

The sound of skin slapping was faint, muddled by the pleasure-riddled sounds that left yours and Steven’s lips. Sensitive from your previous orgasm, you already felt that familiar coil begin to tighten. You involuntarily clenched around the king’s cock. He groaned at the sensation, burying his head into the crook of your neck. He gently bit at the skin and kissed the bruises that formed.

“Steve – Steven!” You moaned, your back caving as the coil snapped for a second time that night. Your walls were like a vice on the king, milking him and tempting him.

He moaned out your name in kind, slamming his hips into yours which made you gasp. A warm feeling spread throughout your sex. The king stayed inside of you. His head still buried into your neck. Both of you were breathing heavily, attempting to catch your breath.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, kissing the delicate skin of your décolletage. Still breathless, you shook your head. Steven pulled away from your neck and grabbed one of the many pillows behind you. Carefully, he pulled out of you – you winced at the sudden emptiness – and placed the pillow underneath your waist, elevating your pelvis. You thought if this was another Brooken tradition, but then realized it was to keep his seed inside of you.

Steven settled to your side. An arm wrapping around your stomach as he nuzzled into your body. He pressed a kiss to your cheek, and you turned your head to stare at him.

“I … “you said but stopped yourself. You clenched your jaw, unsure of how to recover. You felt butterflies in your stomach – though, it could’ve just been the king’s seed.

Steven leaned in to kiss you gently. You smiled against his lips. Perhaps, this life could be great after all.

»————-　⚜　————-««

Your parents were quiet on their journey home. It’s been three days since your wedding. Your mother teased your father about your sudden radiance as you walked through the castles. They would miss your coronation, but they did have their own kingdom to handle.

The joys of the wedding were left at Brooken as they embarked on their journey back to York. Your mother’s teasing nature and happy smiles were gone as she stared out the carriage window. Your father had a gloomy expression to match.

“I hope she gets pregnant soon…” Your mother muttered.

“I’d rather not talk about my daughter’s sexual escapades.” Your father half-joked. His mood didn’t brighten.

“We should’ve told her.”

“If we told her, she wouldn’t have gotten married and she would’ve pushed to be brought home.” Your father sighed. He raised a fighter. An arguer. A bright young woman that was now a queen.

“She has a right to know.” Your mother reasoned.

“You were alone with her more than I was. You had the chance to tell her. Why didn’t you?” Your father snapped. His wife stayed silent. The tension in the carriage was so thick that a blade wouldn’t even cut through it.

Queen Virginia sniffled. Your father’s hard expression softened as he wrapped his arm around his queen, pulling her to his side. She curled into his chest as she began to cry.

“It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I will outlive my own son.” Your mother cried. Her voice cracked as a sob escaped her. The words broke Tony’s heart. “I brought him into this world. He was meant to be a king…”

“No one could’ve foreseen his illness,” your father soothed. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her arms to comfort her.

“He will leave us in a few months’ time… Will she even have the opportunity to say goodbye?”

“It’s better she doesn’t know. She will leave Steven’s side and he will be crushed when his queen refuses to stay by him.”

“She deserves to say goodbye to her brother, Tony.”

“I agree, my love,” your father sighed. “But when the time comes, when Harvey dies and I, god willing, long after, she will truly unite the north. The North will be one under her rule as the rightful queen of York and Brooken. Long may (Y/N) Rogers reign.”