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gratelove · 2 months

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You Know You Can’t Resist Me

Tangerine x Reader

Warnings: 18+, p in v, cursing, rough, fighting, blood

You’re set on a mission to retrieve a briefcase for your boss. Little do you know someone else is sent to do the same thing. Someone you have way too much history with. Someone that you know you can’t resist.

You push through the crowded train car, trying to find the package you were sent to retrieve. You were hired by an anonymous billionaire to take out the White Death’s son and bring back a briefcase. You were an assassin and thief for hire, so you never asked many questions. You did the jobs and got paid big. That’s all you ever cared about. The train was way more populated than you had expected, but thankfully you knew what the White Death’s son looked like. Everyone in this business does. The White Death is the most well known criminal there is.

You make it to the next train car, continuing to look through a sea of heads, hoping to spot him. You then see a guy sitting by himself in a booth with large, pink, bug eye glasses on. He is wearing a furry blue coat and looks to be asleep. The glasses are starting to fall off of his face and you see a recognizable tattoo on his right temple.

“Bingo,” you say to yourself and walk over, taking a seat in the spot next to him. You look around to make sure no one is watching. You pull out your dagger and put it to his neck. “Hey, wake up asshole.” The guy makes no movement. “Hey,” you push on his shoulder. The glasses fall off his face to reveal blood pouring down his cheeks from his eyes. “Oh, fuck. Who got to you first?” You ask yourself out loud and put the glasses back on his face. You stand and open the cabin head doors, hoping to find the case in there.

“Looking for this?” You hear a British, male voice behind you. You spin around and whip your dagger to the mysterious man’s neck. Your eyes widen in surprise. “I thought it was you, sweetheart. Almost didn’t recognize you with clothes on.” A smile appears behind that too familiar mustache. You then look to see he has a silver briefcase in his hand.

“Tangerine? What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since Spain.” You and Tangerine go way back. You’ve done multiple jobs where he just so happens to be after the same thing, but always for different people. You’re never on the same side, always at odds, and somehow you two always end up getting a little too friendly, but not this time. This time your on one missions and one mission only. You won’t let him distract you from that.

“Well, it looks like the same thing as you, love.”

“Seems like it. You still with Lemon?”

“Yeah I am. Actually, he’s in the next train car.” He nods his head in the direction of Lemon.

“Oh good, you can give me the briefcase and then go finish sucking each other’s cocks like you do. Don’t forget to tell him I said hi.” You smile at him, reaching for the item. He pulls it away slightly.

“Not gonna happen.”

“You forget I’m the one with a knife to your neck.” You remind him as you motion your eyes toward the dagger at his throat.

“You forget that we’re in a train car full of people.” Tangerine quickly reminds you.

“Well, I’m not leaving without the briefcase.”

“It looks like you are.” You quickly put your dagger in its sheath on your hip. You squint your eyes in concentration, thinking about your next move. “So, what’s it gonna be, doll?” You smirk and put your hands on his shoulders. You lean in close to his face. “We’re getting to it already, huh? I thought there’d be a little more foreplay.” You let out a small laugh at Tangerine’s words as you lean even closer. You both start tilting your heads in opposite directions, as if to kiss, and as you see his eyes flutter closed you lift your knee right into his groin, using the hands on his shoulders to push him into it. Tangerine groans in pain, falling to his knees on the train floor. You chuckle and grab the briefcase from his hand.

“Is that good enough foreplay for you, sweetheart?” You mock his nickname for you and the look on his face lets you know he is fuming. “Thanks for this by the way.” You pat the case and spin around, jogging through the aisle to reach the next car.

You know he won’t be far behind you and the next car you enter is an empty bar. You turn and look through the small window to see Tangerine is already up and heading your way. You think quickly at where to hide the case. Your eyes dart between cabinets and you decide on one right under the bar top. You slide it behind several alcohol bottles. You grab a bottle of vodka and then swiftly close the door, and just in time for Tangerine to enter the room.

“There you are. What took you so long? You need a drink, baby?” You pout your lip out at him as you pour the clear alcohol into a shot glass and hand it to him. He slaps it out of your hand and it spills on the carpet floor.

“Where is it?” His eyes burns holes through you. He is infuriated, and you find it incredibly hot.

“It’d be no fun if I just told you,” you say and take a shot. The alcohol burns as it runs down your throat and you throw the shot glass to the ground. Tangerine reaches over the bar and puts his hand around your throat, pulling your face close to his.

“Y/N, where is it? I’m not fucking around.” His grip gets tighter around your neck.

“Neither am I.” You rear your head back, and smack it right into his nose. His grip loosens and he stumbles back. He looks up at you and reaches his hand to his face. His gaze turns to his hand and he rubs the red liquid from his nose between his index finger and thumb. Tangerine laughs and wipes the back of his hand across his face, removing the small amount of blood coming from his nose. He suddenly pulls the gun from his waist and points it directly at your forehead. “There he is. I thought you went soft on me, baby.”

“Let’s dance, sweetheart.” The minute those words fall from his mouth you grab the gun and twist his wrist. You leap over the bar and your foot meet his chest. He falls back, but quickly recovers, lunging at you. He takes a swing that you barely dodge. Then another comes that you’re not prepared for. It connects with your mouth and you feel an instant sting to your bottom lip. You have the familiar taste of copper in your mouth and spit. Blood lands on the floor and your head whips toward him. “You done yet, love?” Tangerine asks. He is sweating and his curly brown hair is sticking to his forehead.

“We’re just getting started.” You lunge at him pulling out your dagger. You slice toward him cutting his shirt and exposing his chest. He grabs your arm and puts it against the bar top, hitting your hand against the edge so you’re forced to drop your dagger. He then pushes you until your back hits the train car wall. He has you pinned with his legs pressing against yours and your wrists held tight. You’re both breathing heavy and you feel his warm breath hitting your cheeks. You are flushed and wet from sweat. Tangerine makes eye contact and holds your stare. He leans in so close that your lips are almost touching.

“I love you in this position,” he whispers against your mouth. You try hard to not get hot and bothered by his words. He’s so close and you can’t help but feel the need to kiss him. You smash your lips against his in a rough and hungry kiss. He pushes his tongue into your mouth and you moan. His grip around your wrists loosen and he moves his hands up your arms, down your breasts, and finally stops at the bottom of your skirt. You feel his hands start to run up your thighs and you get the instinct to push him off. You shove his shoulders and he looks at you with confusion.

“No, not this time. This always happens, but not this time, baby. I’m here for one thing only,” you say to him, and really try to stick to the promise you made yourself when you realized he was here. He starts to laugh at your words.

“Come on, sweetheart. You know you want me.” He pushes you up against the wall by your shoulders, and once again has you pinned. You try to push your hands against his chest and it’s a short battle before he has your hands pinned above your head. “Stop resisting. You know you can’t resist me. Just like I know I can’t resist you.” Just his words make you wet and you hate yourself for that. You know he’s right. This happens every time you meet him at a job. You wish you could control yourself, but when he’s around, all you can think about is him fucking you. “Are you gonna be a good girl for me now?” He takes both your wrists in one hand as his other hands finds its way back to your thighs.

“I’m never a good girl,” you say to him and he smirks are your words. His smirk alone makes you drip.

“I know, sweetheart. That’s my favorite thing about you.” He breathes as he runs his fingers over your clit through your panties. You shutter at the feeling and a distant sensation tingles through your thighs. He pulls your underwear to the side and runs his index finger between your folds. “You’re already so wet for me. I knew you wanted me,” he breathes. He finds your entrance and slowly pushes two fingers inside you. You gasp and spread your legs open so he has better access. He starts by slowly pumping his fingers in and out of you. You throw your head back against the wall and your eyes flutter shut. He picks up the pace and you feel your legs start to get shaky. The sensation suddenly stops and you’re lifted up off the ground. He’s carrying you over to a booth. He sets you down on the edge and gets on his knees. He pushes your legs open by your knees and rips your panties down your legs. “Oh my god,” he whispers and you look at him staring between your legs in awe. He licks his lips and wraps his arms under your thighs, getting a tight grip on your body. He lowers his face in between your legs and you feel his warm tongue run down your center. You shiver at the feeling. His tongue starts to move faster up and down you. He does this several times before stopping at your clit. He pushes two fingers, roughly back into you and takes your clit between his teeth. You moan loudly as his tongue swirls around your sweet spot. Chills rush up and down your body. You can’t help but squirm as the sensation intensifies.

“Oh my fucking god,” you scream and grab handfuls of his curls. You tug on his hair and his grip tightens around your thighs in attempt to hold you still. “Tan, I’m gonna cum. Oh my fucking god, I’m gonna cum.” You throw your head against the seat as your eyes roll back in pleasure. You feel a wave of release wash over you. Tangerine laps up your juice. He lifts his head, flicking his hair back from his face.

“God, you are so fucking sexy, sweetheart.” He wipes his mouth. You lift yourself up and reach for the zipper of his pants and waist no time pulling them down. You see him bulging through his boxers, and are eager to feel him inside you. You pull those down swiftly and he grabs your wrists, pulling you up. He hoists you up onto one of the tables. His large hands wrap around your hips and he lines himself up with your entrance. You feel him slowly enter you and you can’t hold back the moan that comes out as he stretches you. You wince a little as he fully enters you. “You okay, love?” He stops moving. You bite your bottom lip.

“Mmhm,” you nod. He grabs your face, crashing his lips into yours. You being to move in sync and he slowly pulls out of you, and then shoves back in. You gasp mid kiss and Tangerine rests his forehead against your. You can feel his wet hair against your just as wet forehead. He repeats the motion again, making you moan louder. You throw your arms around his neck. He picks up pace and starts pumping into you. Your nails dig into his back and he goes deeper and harder with every thrust.

“You feel so tight.” He groans and grips your waist again, squeezing hard. Those words make you even more hungry for him, if that’s even possible. You wrap your legs tightly around his waist as he pounds into you. Your moans soon become screams of pleasure. Your whole body is numb with sensation and you dig your nails deeper into his skin. “God, you’re gonna make me cum.” He groans into your neck and starts to suck on your sensitive skin. You bite his shoulder to try to suppress the overwhelming sensation. This makes him let out a loud moan. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum.” He warns and his pumps pick up pace.

“Fuck baby, I’m gonna cum too.” You moan in his ear. His head is thrown back with one final thrust and he suddenly pulls out. He cums onto your bare thighs and groans, his upper half falling limp on top of you. You both are a mess of heavy breathing and sweat for a pause. Tangerine then lifts himself up, placing an arm on either side of you.

“That was fucking amazing,” he says and you giggle.

“Yes it fucking was.” He leans in and gives you a long kiss.

“God, I needed this.” You lean in and give him another kiss in the lips. You don’t know the next time you will see him after this, so you take in what you can.

“You know, once I catch my breath I’m gonna kick your ass. That briefcase is still mine.” You smirk at him. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear and smiles at you.

“We’ll see about that.”

#bullet train #tangerine #tangerine fanfiction #tangerine fanfic #aaron taylor johnson #Aaron Taylor Johnson fanfiction #Aaron Taylor Johnson smut #tangerine smut #bullet train fanfic

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amateurwritescm · 10 months

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Weems, a Goddess

Hello everyone, I am tentatively posting this as my first fic. It was intended to be a complete fic but it became so long. So I thought I would post it and see what people think. So, here is the first part of made it as a first part of a few that will end up NSFW.

Warnings: Right now, I don't think there are any but I am super happy for you to tell me otherwise and ill edit. I'm new to this :). The only thing I will add is that I don't really proof read, so I am so sorry in advance.

I would love some feedback if you do read it.

Summary: Your Normie self arrives in Nevermore as the Academies new therapist. Instantly you are impacted by Larissa who is like a goddess. Fluff and flirting ensue. You are a mess and completely undone by her.

P.s. Help please I don't know what I am doing. SOS

🐴 CM

Weems, A Goddess. Part 1.

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You could faintly hear the train on tracks clacking away when suddenly, your eyes snapped open. Your heart picked up its pace, beating fast as if your life was threatened. You had forgotten where you were momentarily and cursing yourself for the way your body did this sometimes. It was so unpleasant.

Internally you laughed at yourself, knowing you wouldn’t usually have fallen asleep on a freaking train, but it had been a huge trip from Australia already. Finally, you were on your last leg to Jericho, Nevermore Academy. Filled with nervous energy, you looked out at the passing autumn trees. They were beautiful, calming you as they passed by almost rhythmically in time with the train. Memories arose of your brother telling you that you were crazy to accept a job on the other side of the world, in which you kind of agreed with. You knew very little about this school’s history. From what you could tell, it was a boarding school for outcasts. It intrigued you, being a therapist and all.

The train had been pretty empty for a while now, you guessed Jericho was further out than you thought. Weirdly enough the absence of passengers didn’t alarm you, kind of filling you with curiosity instead.

An uncomfortable screech of what you assumed was the result of poor-quality sound and speakers blared overhead. It did not fail to grab your attention as it announced your stop. Jericho didn’t have a train station, however there was one only half an hour away. You’d hoped that you could find an uber or a taxi, maybe even a bus to make your way there. Picking up your bags from the luggage section between the carriages, you waited as the train slowed to a stop.

Stepping onto the platform and chuckling to yourself, you marvelled the quiet. It was empty, oh except for some random woman at the other end of the platform. Weirdly, she didn’t get on the train. You supposed you could ask the woman if she knew how to get from here to Nevermore, realising it was probably not as simple as you first thought!

You were looking down, pulling your luggage in the direction of the woman when you heard a “Hello there!” in the most beautiful British tone. Looking up, you realised that the woman at the end of the track was much closer and you began to take her features. She was much taller than you first noticed, with beautiful curves and bright white hair curled pinned in an updo. The woman strode so gracefully towards you in her sage green tightly fitted skirt suit. Wow she was beautiful.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I am Ms Weems” she introduced, holding her hand out towards you in a soft gentle way. Are you Y/n? You half nodded, half shook your head realising you were staring right at her and hadn’t replied yet. In confusion, you took her hand. “Hello?” you said more like a question, hoping your accent wasn’t too harsh in comparison to the lull of her voice. She spoke again, “I’m so sorry to surprise you. I am here to pick you up, you see I forgot to mention that it’s almost impossible to get from the station to the school without encountering lots of chaos” smiling cheekily, her white teeth white filling her mouth beautifully. Suddenly it all clicked, she was the principal of the school and was here to pick you up. Taking a second glance at her beautiful face, you were taken back by how beautiful she was. You assumed the principal would be like a much older grumpy head mistress. You had only exchanged words over email recently, as your interview had been with someone standing in for her whilst the principal was on leave.

“I hope that’s okay?” she said, after your silence. You noticed her plump red lips turn from a huge smile into a concerned pout. “Oh of course, thank you very much” you finally came out with. Your eyes met her crystal blue’s which seemed to sparkle, was that even possible? You looked away as you felt the heat rise into your cheeks, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Interrupting your inner thoughts once again, she leaned in close to grab one of the cases you were holding and sung “this way!” whilst nodding towards the exit. It’s safe to say you died for a moment, momentarily made worse as you inhaled deeply, smelling her perfume as some kind of sweet flowery mix. Still standing there, you watched her walk away with her hips swaying and heels clicking against the concrete. She turned once again, “Hey, Y/N enough staring for right now, are you coming?”. You realised in that moment you were in some serious trouble.

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“And this will be your quarters y/n” I suspect you’ll find it most suitable. Most of the staff live in quarters by the hall they oversee so we are kind of spread out, but since you aren’t a part of the teaching staff” She paused and stepped closer to you, her hips slightly more forward as if they were beckoning you themselves “I also thought it would be nice for you to be closer to me, In case you need me…”. Her voice shifted from playful to sultry and low and she looked deep into your eyes, with an unspoken question. No, it was expectation. With her face flashing darker, her head slightly tilted down to you, she bit her lip.

Oh my god.

The word… or name even had brought you back to your earlier interactions with the principal. You were just as flustered now, feeling as though you were short circuiting. On the drive, Principal Weems had initially talked about some of the students at Nevermore, however you had trouble listening as you stared at her lips moving so gracefully, occasionally catching her gaze. Usually, you weren’t so frazzled by the presence of beautiful women. It was technically your job to be confident and talk to people and seek meaning, but this woman was something else.

You were sitting in the small car, with your luggage stuck in the back and boot. Looking over, you marvelled at her stature closely resembling some kind of goddess. Although she was slim, she barely fit into her seat with her long arm resting close to yours as she drove. “The place you’ll consult with student’s Y/n is on the other side of my office. Its just a small room but you are welcome to change it around, decorate and make it your own if you like”.

You nodded, catching the last sentence as you were stirred from your thoughts by her mentioning your name. “Yes… sorry for not being so present. It’s been such a long couple of days I think my brain is just jetlagged”.

Or it is because you’re sitting next to a literal god in human form that you would let sacrifice you if it was her wish?

“Of course, you must be absolutely exhausted having come so far. Ill show you to your quarters and you can rest that pretty little head of yours” she said sweetly, glancing down at your body and then up to your face before looking back towards the road. “I was wondering though if tomorrow you might join me for lunch, seeing as it is a Sunday”.

Eeeeeee, she asked you to lunch! You squealed internally. Calm down Y/n it’s just lunch... You opened your mouth, expecting yourself to accept in a kind and professional manner. Which would have been so appropriate and normal, except you didn’t.

“I’d really love you for lunch” Fuck. “I mean I’d love you to lunch me… like… I mean… for me to have lunch with you, like you said”. Your stomach flipped violently making you push yourself back into the passenger seat, silently wishing it would swallow you whole. You took your bottom lip between your teeth and looked down at your hands.

“G God, I’m so sorry” you stammered. your eyes flicking upwards whilst your cheeks beginning to sting as you knew you had no room to move underneath her gaze.

“My name is Larissa, darling”, her eyes darkening even further as Larissa internally revelled in the feeling of having caught you like a little mouse. You on the other hand, felt terrified but electrified by the way Larissa looked at you in that moment.

The thing was with Larissa, she was so emotive with her face that all could be revealed with a fleeting look. You, being a highly trained therapist were great with reading emotions, and that included those with a suggestive nature. You stored the glimpse you saw on that drive, knowing you could bring it up again in your mind. But you didn’t have to, because you remembered that you were standing in the room with her right now and the same look was on her face.

“Has anyone told you how beautiful you are?” She picked an invisible piece of lint from your blouse before running her hand down your arm slightly. Your skin responded with little tingles. Having registered your response to her touch, she continued. “I must have missed that memo, with me having been away when you were hired. Well darling, I think I am going to quite like having you here” she said, her expression moving from the darkened gaze to a content smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetheart” she said not bothering to pose it as a question again. “Come to my quarters at noon and we can figure out a plan from there”. She was walking away slowly, turning to lean for on the door frame for a moment. “And bring those brilliant eyes, I love it when you stare at me”.

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The next day:

Larissa had felt quite taken with you the moment she saw you. Truly she had just expected to pick up the new therapist who would probably also leave shortly into the school term. The last one had left because of Wednesday Addams, of which you could understand to some degree but hiring someone else felt impossible knowing it may just happen again. However, when she saw you hop off that train, her heart felt like it simultaneously dropped into her stomach and beamed up into the sky outside of her being. She knew right then and there; you were hers and she wouldn’t let you go without a fight.

*Knock knock*

You knocked on Larissa’s door, and it she soon opened it to you dressed in a slightly more casual pair of dress pants and a soft pastel blouse tucked in to accentuate her waist. “Hello, my love. You look beautiful”.

Earlier you had tried on about 6 different outfits, making a huge mess in your new place, you went with your favourite pants and long sleeve combination. It was much colder than you had expected it to be though having come from summer in a hot climate. You walked in with a bit of a shiver, grateful to look over and see her open wood fire going.

“Oh, my love you look freezing!” With her beside you, she wrapped her arm around you and led you towards the fire. “Here, come sit with me and I will warm you up”. You thanked her quietly, just absorbing her touch as it lingered on you. You felt unprepared for her to leave, feeling her shift slightly you pressed into her a little. Larissa knowingly smiled and instead of moving further she simply asked “what would you like to do for lunch? And I mean what would you like to eat and not who” She laughed, recalling yesterdays use of your words. You tensed momentarily until Larissa squeezed your arm playfully. Relaxing you giggled “I’m so sorry, you’re just so beautiful and I guess you make me a little nervous”. Larissa, still smiling retorted “well that much, I can tell and its kind of fun” she pushed into you slightly causing you to look up into her eyes wondering what might happen next. Larissa looked down to your lips and then back to your eyes…

“And as fun as this is, I am absolutely starving and we must eat!” Larissa gracefully lifted herself from your side. You audibly whined slightly at the lost of contact, until you realised she was gone. She emerged from a door hidden in a corner you hadn’t noticed earlier, holding a warm jacket out to you. “I thought as much as I am a fantastic giant water bottle, you might need this. Let’s go to lunch at the Weathervane”.

“Oh that’s so kind of you, but my place is just down the hall …” you began to make an excuse, knowing if you wore that jacket that she would never see it again.

“Nonsense, this way it is much sweeter” Larissa boasted a big smile, although she thought something much dirtier. It’s also going to be much more satisfying when I get to take it off of you.

Larissa motioned to you to turn around as she held the jacket for you to slip your arms into one by one, making contact with your arms, neck and back as she adjusted the way it sat for no reason other than to touch you. “Let’s go, Ill drive”.

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Only 15 minutes later you were hopping out of Larissa’s personal car which was much bigger, feeling slightly tipsy as it smelt intoxicatingly like her. It had made sense when Larissa opened your door for you, that the little car she barely fit into yesterday was not hers and was a Nevermore car for school related things.

“This is the Weathervane, it’s such a nice place to get food and drink. They have really fantastic hot chocolate and cute little booths sit in” Larissa said enthusiastically with a smile charging towards the entrance. Your legs although not typically small, struggled to keep up with her. She turned around “Come on darling as much as I don’t mind you watching me walk from behind, I love having you by my side”. Fluffy comment pricked you in the chest, leaving you warm feelings. You didn’t know it then but that was just the start of the heat.

After ordering some hot fresh paninis and hot chocolate, Larissa sat down at her favourite booth in the corner. You sat across from her and began to ask her questions about Nevermore. You both talked for what seemed like hours discussing students, the history behind outcasts and education. It was all so interesting to you, and you couldn’t wait to begin with the students who needed you most. One thing that kept popping up was that you couldn’t help but wonder whether Larissa was an outcast or a normie like you. One part of you knew that she had to be, no normal human being could be so tall, so beautiful and practically perfect in every way.

“If you are wondering, which I am sure you are… I am an outcast” Larissa said, shaking you from what clearly was silence through your last thought process. Caught in a new bout of fluster, you began to ramble the thoughts you had been having. “That… doesn’t surprise me you know like you’re so beautiful and perfect kind of like some Amazonian, or goddess that fell from the sky or something. Like look at you, of course you are. No normal person looks so delicious”. None of that was supposed to come out of your mouth in the way it did. You shrunk down slightly, blushing bright red.

“Oh really? Well, that is quite the admittance” the words almost crawling out of her mouth, just like her body crawled forward, leaning over the table with little effort and maximum grace. “I just love the way your brain and body disconnect from itself and then does whatever it wants”. Tilting her head, she looked into your eyes and down to your lips, licking her own red plump ones. Suddenly you felt her leg brush past yours underneath the table. Feeling slightly brave as your core was set alight “Oh yeah?” you breathed out, hoping you didn’t look too impacted by her words and her actions. But how could you not? “Mmhmm, yes, I do. However, it would be much nicer if I were the one to undo you; mind body and soul and then put you back together again”.

You could say nothing, Larissa grabbed your hand and walked you back to her car.

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Tagged:

@weemssapphic

#larissa weems #gwendoline christie #larissa weems fanfic #gwendolineuniverse #larissa weems x reader #principal larissa weems #larissa x reader #gwen christie #weems x reader #principal weems

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greetings-humans · 2 months

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ice adolescence and russia

1 - Russia in today's world

okay look. I see you when you talk about how the political climate today means that iceado was doomed. I see you when you talk about the many many many doping scandals of Russian athletes, we saw it when the athletes didn't compete under the banner of Russia but as OAR or ROC, which I absolutely support. I see you when you rightfully mention Russia invading Ukraine. This is genuinely horrible, it's horrifying, it's inhuman, and the fact that many Russian athletes (including figure skaters) openly, unapologetically support their government's actions is disgusting.

2 - yuri on ice was just meant to be fun

now, let's also recognize that the core of yuri on ice to be silly and queer and accepting, to talk about anxiety and depression, about burnout and competition, about rediscovering your passion for your work and falling in love along the way. I see this, and these are some the reasons why I adore yuri on ice.

3 - yoi and russia

I would love to say that yoi is about escapism so we should ignore all real life events. But I'm not really that type of person, tbh.

We could all close our eyes and ignore thousands of people dying, ignore the doping scandals, ignore every bad thing Russia had done in modern history. But what about the people directly affected by this? do they deserve to see us comfortably having fun about a figure skating show ignoring the doping, and showing our main characters living and training in Russia, comfortably? with no mention of the inhumane actions of Russia, be they about the war or queer rights? really? is that something they deserve to see?

I see the people saying that maybe we can ignore the war, the way we ignored homophobia and eating disorders and bribing, but for the reasons above I really think we shouldn't.

I wish Russia had not done any of this, most of all because of all the deaths and destruction, but yes also bacause maybe that would have meant that maybe we could have had ice adolescence. However, we don't live in that world. And that still doesn't mean iceado had to be canceled.

4 - do not forgive or forget about MAPPA

I am not excusing mappa, okay? there is no way I will excuse or forgive mappa for ice adolescence. if they wanted to, they could have fixed this.

I've been thinking about this for maybe 20 minutes and I already have a solution, okay? and if I have a vague plan for how to handle this, then I am dead certain that a whole room full of people working for mappa could have figured it out. this is on the mappa execs, not the people doing the creative process. don't be fooled, the execs are probably just unwilling to try, if Russia's actions (and the actions of its athletes) are part of their reasoning.

5 - iceado could still exist even with everything russia has done

i think that the situation is rightfully delicate. but I also think that if a book like red white & royal blue (an openly gay book) could openly condemn US right wing politics and also portray the oppressive heteronormativity of the british royal family, without outright mentioning any real persons, then yoi s2 or ice ado could potray the figure skating scene in russia negatively and could have the characters leave the country.

they could show yakov as that one different coach in russian figure skating or maybe they could prove that he's your typical russian coach, which played a role in viktor's mental health getting worse and worse.

post-s1 scenes could be about viktor changing his mind and leaving russia, as a result of the doping scandal, or rising tensions internationally about Russia. the fact that we saw him and yuuri and yuri in st. petersburg didn't mean that decision was final. the pressures of a toxic environment could have made viktuuri leave, and whether or not yakov (or anyone) would follow them, or viktor would find another coach is something up for debate, yes, but there can be a debate. There can be a debate about yuri plisetsky about georgi and mila, about what this could mean for them.

iceado could condemn russian politics and the doping, the toxic community, and everything else really. in my opinion, the fact that this didn't happen speaks to mappa's unwillingness to try. im not educated in japan-russia relationships, to be frank, so I'm not sure how much backlash the show could possible face from the Japanese government for a decision like this one. Of course, this would insinuate that Japan is fine with the Ukraine invasion which is, well, not very good press to say the least (and naturally a violation of all sorts of human rights). I do however find it odd that we would never hear anything about talks debating this taking place, which means that once again mappa didn't try. And also, truthfully, just how plausible is it that Japan would go "no don't make more of that very lucrative anime because we don't want to condemn Russia's war / we don't want to condemn Russia's doping"? Because it doesn't sound that plausible to me.

6 - political yoi?

yes, this means that yoi would have become political, but when politics is about the right to live in your home without fear of death or invasion, why exactly shouldn't it get political?

and let's not forget that a world with no homophobia is already unfortunately political. because queer rights are not globally recognized, being pro or against queer rights (of which there are many so some are pro-same sex marriage but against trans rights which complicates things even more) is still a vital part of many many political parties' campaigns in a lot of countries.

yoi was already political in the sense that it showed a world of acceptance, because that's not a given.

what iceado had to do was show that acceptance does not mean ignoring inhumane, unethical actions.

this doesn't need to be the centric idea of iceado or yoi s2, either, by the way. simply showing something bad but realistic is enough. i wouldn't have needed 2 hours depicting the horrors of Russia ft. yuri on ice, but I would have loved to see 2 hours of teenage viktor trying to make it in this cutthroat world, with sporadic evidence of toxicity and too-much pressure, which are almost canon anyways. and any scenes taking place post-s1 could easily just show viktor make a number of realizations and choices that could lead to him leaving russia (to find a new coach or with yakov, with any of the russian skaters in yoi, or just with makkachin and yuuri, etc), which would show that yes they're not just ignoring russia's wrongdoings.

for being released in 2016-17, yoi was delightfully progressive in its queerness. but in 2024, asking the show to condemn doping and war on its way to show us viktor nikiforov's past is apparently too much to ask.

please give me your thoughts on this, yoi fandom, I'd love to see what everyone else thinks!

#yuri on ice #yuri!!! on ice #yoi #longpost #yoi adolescence #ice adolescence #iceado #viktor nikiforov #yakov feltsman #russia #russian figure skating #iceado rant #iceado essay #deelay words #a great many deal of words too #deelay's tbr

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athingofvikings · 10 months

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Intro Post: Who I Am And What I Write

So this is overdue, but I figure that I should finally get around to it; I have an older, half-finished version... somewhere in my drafts on here, and well... I stopped looking for it and started over, just to give you an idea of how deep in there it's gotten.

So!

Hi, I'm athingofvikings, aka Joe, aka The Evil Authorlord as dubbed by my readers. I've been in fandom for close to 20 years, and for the last seven or so, I've been primarily in the How To Train Your Dragon fandom. I was a substitute teacher in the US, and have since emigrated to Germany, as my spouse is a German national. These days, I'm studying German, trying to decide if I want to try to teach again in the German school system, and trying to get my own writing career off the ground.

As for fandom, my then-fiancee, now-spouse introduced me to the first HTTYD movie during the Parental Introduction Visit in 2016; my first comment after finishing the movie was, "Cute, but not historically accurate."

A month later, I was preparing for NaNoWriMo 2016 when the plot bunny bit down.

"But what if it was historically accurate?"

So that's the core plot concept for my eponymous fanfic, A Thing Of Vikings. I take the first HTTYD film, anachronisms and all, and drop it as a Real Life Event in our history, and proceed to write it as an Alternate History, with the movie being the point where the timelines diverge.

And boy do they diverge, because, in a time when the most advanced military tech on the planet is Greek Fire, a small Norse tribe up in the British Isles suddenly has a fire-breathing air-force.

I do my best to keep to historical accuracy, even as I also borrow judiciously from other fictional media to patch holes in the historical record and add to the narrative as I need them, and since I'm a Leftist and my primary fictional source material is a movie made for children, there's a distinct progressive bent to the story itself, and I make no apologies for that. And since I'm Jewish, I also have a Jewish subplot that has made many people very happy, and made a number of bigots absolutely furious to almost ludicrous extents, which I consider to be a positive on both ends. (There was a period where some reactionaries with a fondness for Alt-History were recommending my story to others of their ilk just to troll them, which, well...)

And, of course...

I explore what would happen if humans suddenly have access to the capabilities of dragons in the context of the medieval era--what flight, the ability to breath fire, shedding fireproof scales, and more--will do to human society... especially as one of the main characters is a certified technical and engineering genius. To say that I have fun with the Mundane Utility aspects is an understatement.

I hope that you're intrigued, and if you are, you can find the fic on AO3 here (currently on lockdown to registered users only; I don't fancy my work being scraped for AI training sets).

#a thing of vikings #httyd fanfiction

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baobhanlore-art · 1 year

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*Across The Spiderverse Spoilers*

I'm just gonna rant a bit about whitewashing Miguel O'hara and how people don't know the difference between race and ethnicity.

Disclaimer: I am not poc. I'm white passing (Jewish whiteness is complicated) and if you are poc then I'd love to hear your perspective. I'm just repeating the views and teachings of poc figures and their analyses of media and representation.

So there's been a lot of crackering towards Miggy. It's happened to most of the poc characters, don't get me wrong, but I feel like Miguel's has fallen under the radar for the most part. But Miguel is often drawn with very light skin even though the movie has portrayed him as having light brown tan-ish skin.

This is a screenshot from the train scene. As you can see he is still very much a light skinned person, not pale but a light skinned poc. And yet somehow people still make his skin way lighter than this. Practically the same colour as me and I'm Scottish and have ridiculously sensitive skin that makes me avoid harsh sunlight. Like it's not even that dark. And the train scene is bright as hell anyways, harsh sunlight and the white train exterior reflecting onto the characters, everyone's skin was lighter so I'd say his skin tone may even be a bit darker than this.

And often the excuse is that he's half Irish. But like, do you realise how terrible of a justification that is? Zendaya is half white. Barrack Obama is half white. Halle Bailey is half white. Are they perceived as white? No. Lukas Arnold is half black. Halsey is half black. Are they perceived as white? Yes. I'm not arguing Miguel doesn't have white heritage, but Miguel, at least in ATSV, is Latino passing. Just like I'm half Jewish and half British White but look more like my white mother, with the exception of my warm undertones and dark hair, meanwhile my Dad, Aunt, Grandad and Uncles are very explicitly Jewish/Middle Eastern passing. Nobody is arguing I don't have non white genes in me and according to eugenics I'll never technically be white, but I'm white passing. Similarly, Miguel has white genes in him and his Irish heritage could very well be part of his identity (I haven't read the comics so idk) but he's Mexican passing. He has Mexican phenotypes and you are erasing them by lightening his skin.

In short, if you want to know if a character or person is white or not, ask yourself how cops or airport security would profile them. That will give you your answer.

This is something Harriyanna Hook touches on in some of her videos, she's a queen, but I think the main reason why whitewashing Miguel isn't as openly critiqued as whitewashing other ethnicities, including light skinned ones, is that light skinned and white passing Latine people are overrepresented in Hollywood and the media to the point where people who aren't even Latine can be cast as Latine characters. Case in point: Ronni Hawk. It's incredibly rare to see anyone in mainstream Hollywood who doesn't pass the paper bag test unless they're a black man, which has its own history of fetishism and abuse (Watch F.D. Signifier, he talks about this in his colourism video.) Race and ethnicity are not the same thing but they influence how you're perceived.

(This is not me saying that they don't deserve to be represented, every culture deserves attention and representation, but dark skinned Hispanic and Afro-Latine people often get erased. Miles Morales is the exception, not the rule.)

So people don't tend to pick up on the erasure of Latine features and skin colours because it's so normalised.

I don't want to call out any artists in particular, that's not cool, but if you do see an artist who lightened the skin, I think it's important you let them know that it's an issue. They're more likely ignorant than intentionally harmful, but I feel like education around this issue is still very important.

Also idk if this is an ethnic thing but please stop giving him a K-popish soft boy face. This isn't an ethnic issue, it's an artist's having same face syndrome issue, but Miggy is hot enough without you erasing his sharp facial features. Istg if it weren't for his suit half of his fanart would be unrecognisable.

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fan-clan-fun · 2 months

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Hello! I love this blog and always come to it for inspiration!

Right now my current fan project takes place in a post apocalyptic future where cats are going through their own Stone Age and using tools, very simple like clay bowls, antler and stone knives, learning to control and use fire, etc.. (I wanted to get rid of humans as the idea of sentient humans owning sentient cats doesn’t sit well with me) Instead of Clans they’re called Guards, and they each protect a small place of power within their territory from outsiders, relations between guards are actually pretty good and they allow cats to move Guards when necessary and encourage friendships and rivalries between cats.

Their leadership is loosely based on British Monarchy, with a ‘King and Queen’ (called Commander and Consort) and a ‘parliament’ of skilled cats who advise the commander (usually the Commander ends up picking his mentor and his parents perhaps some friends but his choices have to be approved by the Oracle so they don’t choose untrained or unliked cats) they do have a ‘Deputy’ but they are now called ‘Second’, Seconds are usually the oldest most promising heir from the Commander and consort, or a cat the Oracle and Advisors (elders) choose.

I tried to base the culture heavily on succession and mentorship, passing knowledge down, so it’s considered an honor to be given the same or similar suffix as your mentor. Cats are also apprenticed differently, becoming apprentices at 3 moons, early into training is just going over the code, games that teach them skills, and when they reach 7 moons they choose which guild they want to join (they can change their mind whenever but it’s uncommon)

The Guards are larger than Clans in general and have unique ranks, Guardians are warriors, a focus on fighting and hunting, regularly do patrols, switch amongst the territory camps to help protect them, especially camps that may not have a lot of fighters. Next are Crafters, cooking falls into crafting, but they also make satchels, knives, rudimentary traps, toys, as well as den maintenance. Then I have Ambassadors, I condensed them with one of the healer positions, ‘Speaker’ as they essentially do the same thing, Ambassadors are outside relations and Speakers were inside relations, but now they’re basically the guard therapists that also mediates with other Guards and groups. Mentors are pretty self explanatory, while every cat should get the chance to experience the bond between mentor and apprentice, these cats spend a lot of time with the young cats before 7 moons and pick their mentors according to personality and desired skill. My personal favorite are my Keepers, they keep track of history and familial relations, they’re essentially Perma-queens with a huge role in keeping bloodlines clear and recording history, they’re rarely storytellers but often parents. Lastly I have a sort of unique rank for each guard, usually something to do with the unique dangers each territory presents, (ie Mount Guard has an ‘Avalancher’ who after mountain slides they take a count of all the cats and go out searching for those missing)

I hope this isn’t too long, I got really excited seeing you pop up on my notifications again, I might send another ask going over healers or some of the unique customs the Guard cats practice.

I'm so sorry this took me so long to answer, truth is I've been answering most of these on mobile, so the longest ones have taken me a lot longer to get to, thank you for your patience in that!

I'm always curious how people plan on going about settings with cats and tools, as it's something that could be very interesting. Ultimately it requires a liiiittle suspension of disbelief, but I find sometimes that can be more fun.

Some of these concepts I've actually used or considered using myself before, so I am perhaps a bit biased when I say I enjoy them. I'm curious, do the commander and their consort often fulfill certain roles? Is it exclusively to produce kits for the next generation of leadership? Or is it more of a partnership than that?

I do have some clarifying curiosities, are the Guards the replacements for Clans? Or are there both?

So many fun different roles, and I like that you call them guilds. Once upon a time I wanted to do something similar, with a bunch of different ranks, each with their own little group of suffixes to denote their rank/guild, and when you apprenticed, you chose which guild to join. Seems like you could make it work well with your system.

I also think apprenticing that young, as long as they aren't fighting, makes sense. The bigger kits would likely require extra effort to keep busy, as they are pretty large at that point, so adding a few moons of education in camp before going out makes perfect sense.

Thanks for sending this in! Sounds like you have thought this all out pretty well, keep working hard and having fun!

#warriorsworldbuilding #warrior cats #warriors #non-canon clans #clan culture #warriors oc #warriorsocs #warriorscats

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ammg-old2 · 10 months

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“The history of all coalitions is a tale of the reciprocal complaints of allies.” Thus said Winston Churchill, who knew whereof he spoke. This summer of discontent has been one punctuated by complaints: from Ukrainian officials desperate for weapons, and from Western diplomats and soldiers who think that the Ukrainians are ungrateful for the tanks, training, and other goods they have received.

Most of the Western sputtering occurred in and around last month’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, through anonymous leaks and public grumbles. Indeed, according to one report, the U.S. administration was so miffed by Volodymyr Zelensky’s complaint about the slowness of the NATO accession process that some advocated watering down language about NATO membership for Kyiv. Withdrawing the word invitation from the communiqué would, in their view, be a suitable punishment for a mean tweet.

One gasps at the petulance on display here, as at otherwise staunch British Defense Minister Ben Wallace’s snap about Ukraine treating its Western suppliers as a kind of Amazon of weaponry.

Peevishness about allies is a common and understandable mood that all senior diplomats and national-security officials eventually experience. A monologue sooner or later goes on in their heads that sounds something like this:

I’m lucky if I get a decent night’s sleep once a week. I leave work before my kids are up and get back after they’re asleep, six and sometimes seven days a week. I stress eat and can’t take a vacation without being called back to the office. Meanwhile, everybody thinks that the [insert ally’s name] are a bunch of victims or heroes, when they are, in fact, manipulative, ungrateful little bastards who don’t have a clue what I am doing to save them from [name a rival official, nation, or department of government]. And their American sympathizers are a bunch of nasty dupes who are just as ignorant, but with fewer excuses.

The adult thing to do in such cases is to get in a workout, complain to one’s loving spouse, or commit these thoughts to a diary for the delectation of historians who will read too much into what are, in sober hindsight, mere tantrums. To mention them to the press, or, even worse, act upon them is unfair and irresponsible.

Such eruptions occur when officials let their irritations suppress their empathy. At the moment of peak whine, they forget what it means to have a fifth of your country occupied, or to know that a far bigger country is attempting, every night, to smash your power plants, blockade your ports, and destroy your crops. They are not holding in the forefront of their minds obliterated towns and mass graves. They do not know what it is to welcome back exchanged prisoners of war who have been castrated. Or to mourn old men and women murdered, or younger men and women tortured and raped. Or to worry frantically about thousands of children kidnapped. They forget that while a Western official’s sleep may be interrupted by a phone call or an alarm clock, a Ukrainian official’s sleep is more likely (and more often) interrupted by a siren or the crash of a missile slamming into an apartment block.

Ukrainian officials are thankful. Analysis of their speeches reveals plenty of expressions of gratitude. But they are also insistent and vociferous in their cries for help. They would be both inhuman and derelict in their duty if they were to be anything else. Hopefully, after a whiskey (or two) on the plane back to Washington or London, Western officials simmer down and return to some level of maturity in understanding their beleaguered ally.

Unfortunately, the impulse behind the whining can also manifest in subtler, but no less pernicious, forms. Much of the public discussion of Ukraine reveals a tendency to patronize that country and others that escaped Russian rule. As Toomas Ilves, a former president of Estonia, acidly observed, “When I was at university in the mid-1970s, no one referred to Germany as ‘the former Third Reich.’ And yet today, more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we keep on being referred to as ‘former Soviet bloc countries.’” Tropes about Ukrainian corruption abound, not without reason—but one may also legitimately ask why so many members of Congress enter the House or Senate with modest means and leave as multimillionaires, or why the children of U.S. presidents make fortunes off foreign countries, or, for that matter, why building in New York City is so infernally expensive.

The latest, richest example of Western condescension came in a report by German military intelligence that complains that although the Ukrainians are good students in their training courses, they are not following Western doctrine and, worse, are promoting officers on the basis of combat experience rather than theoretical knowledge. Similar, if less cutting, views have leaked out of the Pentagon.

Criticism by the German military of any country’s combat performance may be taken with a grain of salt. After all, the Bundeswehr has not seen serious combat in nearly eight decades. In Afghanistan, Germany was notorious for having considerably fewer than 10 percent of its thousands of in-country troops outside the wire of its forward operating bases at any time. One might further observe that when, long ago, the German army did fight wars, it, too, tended to promote experienced and successful combat leaders, as wartime armies usually do.

American complaints about the pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and its failure to achieve rapid breakthroughs are similarly misplaced. The Ukrainians indeed received a diverse array of tanks and armored vehicles, but they have far less mine-clearing equipment than they need. They tried doing it our way—attempting to pierce dense Russian defenses and break out into open territory—and paid a price. After 10 days they decided to take a different approach, more careful and incremental, and better suited to their own capabilities (particularly their precision long-range weapons) and the challenge they faced. That is, by historical standards, fast adaptation. By contrast, the United States Army took a good four years to develop an operational approach to counterinsurgency in Iraq that yielded success in defeating the remnants of the Baathist regime and al-Qaeda-oriented terrorists.

A besetting sin of big militaries, particularly America’s, is to think that their way is either the best way or the only way. As a result of this assumption, the United States builds inferior, mirror-image militaries in smaller allies facing insurgency or external threat. These forces tend to fail because they are unsuited to their environment or simply lack the resources that the U.S. military possesses in plenty. The Vietnamese and, later, the Afghan armies are good examples of this tendency—and Washington’s postwar bad-mouthing of its slaughtered clients, rather than critical self-examination of what it set them up for, is reprehensible.

The Ukrainians are now fighting a slow, patient war in which they are dismantling Russian artillery, ammunition depots, and command posts without weapons such as American ATACMS and German Taurus missiles that would make this sensible approach faster and more effective. They know far more about fighting Russians than anyone in any Western military knows, and they are experiencing a combat environment that no Western military has encountered since World War II. Modesty, never an American strong suit, is in order.

One way to increase understanding among Ukraine’s friends would be to put substantial military legations in Kyiv. American colonels and generals do not have to go on patrols or storm tree lines, but they would benefit from continuous, in-country, face-to-face contact with their Ukrainian counterparts. They would be able to communicate realistic assessments of the fighting and of Ukrainian tactical and operational requirements. They would also convey to Ukraine a reassurance that videoconferences cannot, and perhaps bring a bit of humility to deliberations in Washington.

Such an effort entails risks, but that’s what soldiers sign up for. Maintaining a continuous physical presence in Ukraine with a high-level military mission, supplemented by frequent visits from the head of the U.S. European Command and other senior leaders, would be invaluable in making the judgments that could help Ukraine defeat Russia, regain its territory, and win this war. And winning, not whining, is what it’s all about.

#current events #politics #ukrainian politics #american politics #warfare #diplomacy #russo-ukrainian war #2022 russian invasion of ukraine #ukraine #usa

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estherdedlock · 2 years

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I admit it: I still don’t know what “Dark Academia” is. I’ve been deep into this for almost a year and I’ve watched all the video essays about it and looked at all the moodboards and read all the quotes and I still could not give you a quick, “elevator pitch” summary of what it is.

Now, I think Dark Academia is pretty easy to define when you’re talking about clothes, movies, or decor. I could probably put together a Dark Academia moodboard in five minutes, any of us could. But when it comes to books...that’s where things get cloudy. It seems to me that Dark Academia reading can pretty much be anything that gives you those DA feelings, however you define them.

So with that said, here are a couple of books I’ve read recently that could be categorized as Dark Academia. Some spoilers ahead, too.

* * * * * *

The first is Olivie Blake’s "BookTok sensation,” The Atlas Six, which is generally touted as pure, unequivocal Dark Academia. If you like DA, you’ve got to read this book, or so people say.

I’ll admit I’m only halfway through it and I went and spoiled myself on Goodreads to find out if the second half was going to be better than the first. It doesn’t appear that it will be, but I think I might slog through it anyway.

The setting is the magical Alexandria Society, where, once every decade, six potential new initiates are brought together to compete for lifetime membership.

I’ve seen TA6 compared to The Secret History here and there but there is literally no similarity at all. To me, this is not even Dark Academia. One of the characters even says to the new recruits: “This is not a school, and I am not your teacher.” And he’s right! It’s really more of a Survivor-type competition, where only five of the six will make the cut. It happens to take place in a library-ish setting, but Blake doesn’t seem interested in creating a broody, academic atmosphere. Quite the opposite, actually. Just a few chapters in, there’s a long, Jason Bourne-style action sequence in which the initiates have to fight a black ops team of trained assassins from the CIA, MI6, and Chinese intelligence. I don’t think you could get less Dark Academia than that! (It’s also a scene that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because several of these characters just shouldn’t have these kinds of combat skills, even with magic, but whatever).

Most of the rest of the book is scheming. At least, the first 170 pages or so have essentially been nothing but scheming, with the characters trying to suss out each other’s skills, strengths, and weaknesses to form alliances. There are a great many internal monologues and a lot of hinting about people’s powers...you know, a lot of If they knew what she really was, what she was capable of... That sort of thing. This gets pretty annoying after a while. Just frigging tell me already. Most of the characters are quite flat. My favorite so far is a bit player, an amoral grifter of a mermaid who can bubble up through the plumbing. But I suspect I’m not going to see much more of her.

The book does boast one of the worst sentences I’ve ever read:

“Libby’s brow remained annoyingly lost to the span of her forehead.”

What does this mean? I think the author is trying to say that Libby raised her eyebrows to express exaggerated disbelief, but I’m honestly not sure. I know this book was originally self-published, but I don’t think an editor touched it before the traditional publisher re-issued it this year. The author actually has a weird obsession with Libby’s forehead in general, specifically, her bangs (or “fringe” -- the book is full of Britishisms, even though the author is American). In fact, Libby’s bangs seem to be her primary personality trait. Anyway, that’s all I have to say about The Atlas Six.

* * * * * *

The next book is The Holy Innocents, by Gilbert Adair. This book has an odd backstory because Adair wrote two different versions of it. He published the first in 1988. In 2003, it was made into a movie starring Eva Green, The Dreamers (and yes, I discovered this movie via Dark Academia moodboards because I’m just that garbagey sort of a person). Then, Adair rewrote his own book to function as a novelization of the movie and published it as The Dreamers. The one I read was the 1988, pre-movie, original version.

About two-thirds of this book was a dark, broody, aesthetic trip. A 19-year-old Californian, Matthew, goes to France in 1968 to study film. There, he meets two passionate and pretentious movie buffs, the 17-year-old twins Guillaume and Danielle. He winds up living with them in the great gloom of the Parisian apartment owned by their father, an eccentric poet. The lodgings are so expansive that the kids have their own, isolated wing of it called le quartier des enfants. All sorts of things are going on in le quartier des enfants. So far, so Dark Academic!

The twins’ parents go out of town, leaving the enfants to their own devices. That’s when things get really freaky. Imagine this: If Richard Papen moved in with Charles and Camilla and they completely cut themselves off from the rest of the world up in that attic apartment. For a while they just sit around in front of a roaring fire, listening to old records and acting out their favorite bits of Greek tragedy. One thing leads to another and then...they all start fucking. I mean, they’re all fucking. A lot. It’s very filthy but also very atmospheric and aesthetic and dark, dark, dark.

The book gets even darker and more aesthetic when the erotic teenage trio decamps to Normandy for a stay in the decaying château owned by the twins’ clueless grandmother. This unfortunately didn’t last long enough. Upon their return to Paris, shit gets even weirder. I use the word “shit” deliberately. There is literal shit involved.

Adair invests a lot of energy in hinting, repeatedly, that these kids are going to keep descending into a hell of their own making until something truly terrible happens. What happens is that things get pretty gross. I began wondering if I was just reading some guy’s sex fantasies about polyamorous teenagers.

Then, in the last 20 pages or so, The Holy Innocents becomes a completely different book! The kids are roused from their surreal sex fugue by the student uprising of May 1968! They rush out into the streets to man the barricades Les Miz-style! It’s one of the biggest, whiplash what the fucks I’ve ever encountered in a book.

I understand that the movie (and I suppose, Adair’s novelization of the movie) diverged quite a lot from the original novel, and I can see why. This isn’t really a novel at all. It’s more like a lengthy short story with no real beginning, middle, or end. A series of atmospheric, erotic vignettes that seem to be leading to some great personal cataclysm. The last thing I expected was a sudden burst of 1960s youthquake activism.

So, Dark Academically speaking, I can recommend about the first two-thirds of The Holy Innocents, for the atmosphere, provided the sex doesn’t put you off. The last third, I’d say...proceed at your own risk. And maybe not on a full stomach.

Ugh, I apologize for the rambling length of this. I’m afraid I’m avoiding other things that I’m supposed to be doing.

#dark academia #the holy innocents #the atlas six #the secret history #olivie blake #gilbert adair #the dreamers 2003

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ceresprime · 2 years

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Hello there! I just discovered your blog and have been reading through some of your reenactment posts and figured it was worth asking about if as long as it’s not too much trouble. I am very interested in the idea of getting involved with reenacting, but as a young non-male person it’s very intimidating and I’m not sure if it’s really within my abilities, given that I am a full time student, and thus far my inquiries to a specific regiment have gone unanswered. Would you be able to give me something like an overview or a “starter guide” for this kind of thing (what the commitment is like, what knowledge and training is necessary, what the general cost is, etc)? Your blog has already been a great resource in any case—thank you!!

Hello dear fellow non-male student history nerd!

I'm so happy to answer your queries and glad my blog has given you the perspective you desire! (also remind me to post about some of my last events...)

Here, I'll break down the commitment to this joining hobby of reenacting into categories: Demographic, Knowledge, Cost, Time, What Unit?, and of course a TL;DR.

Demographic

Anyone of any race, age, and gender can join the hobby! Does anyone criticize Hamilton for its actors not conforming to the demographics of the historical figures they portray? Reenacting should be a hobby for anyone who wants to. Some overarching organizations that coordinate reenacting groups are still hesitant in letting non-males join the ranks, but there are many units out there that do. (Although I speak for the New England area, mostly Rev War.)

As for the physical demands of the hobby, it can vary. A musket weighs 10lbs (4.5kg). As part of the light infantry, we run a lot. As part of the artillery, we also run a lot. Not all artillery is like that though. Grenadiers and battalion companies move a lot slower, marching in line typically.

Though, being a full-time student does pose the difficulty of cost and time. I'll talk more about that soon.

Knowledge

We learn as we go. Reenacting groups are always looking for new recruits, so they're willing to help you out, wherever your knowledge base is. Speaking for Revolutionary War British Army/Artillery reenacting, you would want to learn the 1764 Manual of Arms (these are the commands to handle your musket, video here) and marching (these are commands to move around the battlefield or parade ground) during your first or second year. Most groups have required drills to coordinate everyone (and ensure safety) before a season.

I'll post a quick guide of stuff you'd want to know sooner than later, again, for a soldier during the Revolutionary War.

Now, another part of this is public interaction! You wear a certain uniform, after all, so you and your unit are responsible for educating folks about who you are and your time period. Two things to know:

This is not all on you! Your group has done the research to create your uniform, so listen to them answer questions (and keep the answers in mind so you can answer that same question next time). It's perfectly okay to say you don't know and refer to someone else.

As an audience member, I was way too awkward to know what to ask or how to ask it. So it's your responsibility as a reenactor to invite questions or just ramble about history. People are there to hear you. If you've learned from your unit, talk about your uniform, or talk about some stories from the time period, or (my favorite go-to) explain how your gear works. People always want to know how a flintlock musket mechanism works. This part comes with time (and maybe watch my YouTube videos... once I make them).

Cost

Reenacting is definitely a commitment. Generally, the older the time period, the more expensive. From a Rev War perspective and as a full-time student that works during the summers, it's sorta affordable.

Both of my units have yearly membership fees ($25) to keep up with our insurance, but with one of them has a student discount.

Most units have loaner gear for newcomers to be set for the first year or two, as you're getting your own stuff. Before you read any more, follow this key rule above all else, do not buy anything until you've asked your unit! This will save you money and the right reenacting gear lasts forever.

Some advice for money and stuff is best in a list:

Blanket sales! End-of-season (usually September to November) events are where you should look for second-hand gear sold by other reenactors, usually laid out on a blanket in the grass. Hence a blanket sale. You find all sorts of goodies there.

Get your mess kit first. Whatever the time period, this applies. Buy your personal bowl, spoon, and cuttoe knife. These tend to be necessities and are not included in loaner gear.

For Rev War, Townsends isn't horrible at first. It's mass-produced but it looks decent and is sometimes more affordable than other places. Ask your unit, first, of course.

Be careful with a cheap musket. Do not cheapen out here, but you don't need brandy-new. Muskets made in India or "Belgian Bombs" are often not safe, if you look out for a second-hand Miroku or Pedersoli, you'll save a lot. Also, be sure to keep it clean and it'll last you forever.

If you're curious about where I got my kit, check out this post for a collection of a ton of Revolutionary War reenactor links.

Time

Being a full-time student, you may also want to know about the time commitment to reenacting. My units are really chill and don't require me to come to a certain number of events, but we do have required drills to ensure we are all functioning safely just before each season (February to March). We offer about 20 events per season (about April to November).

Events are always on the weekends, and for me typically a 1.5 hour drive. The furthest we go yearly is about 3 hours to Fort Ticonderoga. Most events, you arrive Friday night or Saturday morning and leave by Sunday afternoon. Some events are only Saturdays. Some are special calendar events like 4th of July parades and Patriot's Day Weekend (April 19th).

As a student, I have not felt any strain on my academics personally. My instructors give me a lot of leniency on weekend homework because I'm doing something educational for the public. If you wanted, reenacting would probably count as an independent learning study.

What Unit?

Ask around. I joined the guys with the shiniest cannon around, so that's one method. Also, as a young non-male, I encourage you to look at another question I answered about being such a fellow regarding looking like a male soldier and staying safe.

I prefer talking to units in person, too. You'd get a better vibe for the people and how strict they are in terms of historical accuracy and requiring members to come to events. Some questions to ask are along the same lines of what you've already asked me, but reach out if you want more guidance here.

TL;DR

Just go for it! Reenacting is a hobby for anyone who's got an interest in history. Your unit can work with you on knowledge, expenses, time commitment, etc.

#reenacting #historical reenactment #history #ask #american revolution #advice #student #military history

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bleachbleachbleach · 2 years

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Damnit you just triggered my writers brain. The way I see it is that part of why the Shino Academy takes so long isn't just training the potential shinigami, but also covering things such as literacy. (Aizen had taught a Calligraphy class there before being made Shinji's lieutenant)

Part of that I think would be speach training and language. Think about how in the British army their officers were/are trained to carry themselves like a gentleman, including the king's English. Put simply, they are speeking in a generally agreed upon subset of language so that everyone can understand eachother. There are other languages used in rukon, as well as dialects, and shinigami use their natural language in like company. (It being tokyo Japanese is probably solely for the convenience of the one consuming the media)

[This is in response to musing from this post!]

If we’ve said something that triggered your writerly instincts, when we have carried out our life’s mission! <333333333

As someone who’s spent way too long in school, part of me is like "6 years isn’t that long given that they’re starting from 0" even as I also know that most military training is not that long by any means. One day I’d LOVE to put together a bunch of potential course curricula for the Academy, because 1) I am obsessed with Aizen’s calligraphy class to an unhealthy degree, and 2) I do think they take The History of Soul Society and Hollow Biology 103, etc. though I suspect all of this is sorely lacking in the way that all curricula are—especially because every shinigami we’ve met knows a lot of things while simultaneously knowing absolutely zero things.

Below the cut, some of my thoughts on the Academy's auxiliary curriculum:

Entrance Exam

My co-blogger pointed out that the Academy has an entrance exam, and one that’s difficult enough to fail—though it makes me wonder what the nature of the exam is. Is it rote memorization of concepts? Is it testing your logical and spatial reasoning? What else are they screening for besides reiatsu? Regardless apparently it’s a written exam, which I imagine puts you at a pretty distinct disadvantage with you’re from most of Rukongai, because first you have to go find someone who will teach you how to read and write well enough to sit the exam, before you even get to go to shinigami school.

Calligraphy Class

My headcanon for Aizen’s calligraphy class (besides it being one of the many way he cruises for new recruits) is that it has both practical and artistic components. The artistic part is self-explanatory. The practical part is basically just penmanship training, which comes from the fact that all the handwritten reports we see seem to basically be in the same handwriting, even though we see in Colorful Bleach that if they’re not writing those reports with their inkbrushes, everyone’s handwriting is different. The two pieces of this class are DEEPLY divorced from one another, because one is deeply personal and the other the exact opposite of that. But when Aizen sent his course proposal to the Faculty Executive Committee, he probably said something about how practicing artful calligraphy imbues young potential shinigami with a mindset better suited to successful kidou and zanjutsu training and he's probably not wrong. Everything is utilitarian/practical in the end.

Report Writing 101

It would make sense that everyone take Report Writing 101, but part of me feels like that might be a more on-the-fly skill, or Continuing Education, because most of these guys aren’t writing reports anyway, and the number of reports written increases with rank, and since the Captain is going to have to sign off on everything anyway, they probably ether fix anything that’s amiss or give no fucks about whether anything is amiss before sending it on. So maybe that’s beyond the purview of the Academy. I mean, if most people don’t graduate with shikai, I guess they probably don’t graduate with Report Writing either. Maybe it's one of those "if you get fancy enough, there's one more thing you'll have to learn on your own!" deals.

Language Preserves Hierarchies Class

So that’s penmanship and written language, both things that Soul Society seems very invested in. What of the spoken language? The Gotei, for all their… whole thing, really, seem perhaps more permissive about a lot of things than a company might be IRL. Crazy hair, uniform customization, pretty informal language (though there is definitely still some preservation of language register based on rank). I could definitely see the Gotei wanting their trainees to have at least like, a 1-credit practicum in keigo, just because that helps preserve the power dynamics/hierarchies the Gotei runs on. I could also see them staring imperiously at potential new shinigami until this information was magically pressed into them, LOL.

Maybe my big interest here is "what does the Academy teach" vs. "what does the Academy just expect you to just know" (regardless of how much or how little sense these expectations might make). This is in regards to life skills as well as reiatsu skills. I'm convinced that there's a lot a lo a lot of room for improvement when it comes to this curriculum, 2000+ years in the making or not!

We basically said the same thing re: language variance in Rukongai, though oh MAN now I’m curious about like, to what degree standardization within Soul Society makes it out into Rukongai. Because on some level maybe it shouldn’t at all, because the Seireitei doesn’t seem to really care what’s going on in Rukongai except sometimes when whole swatches of souls go missing, but who’s doing all this teaching? To what end, besides Academy entrance exams? Is this a linear process where the resident Literate Soul needs to train the next one, or are there souls coming in from the Living World with different versions of this knowledge all the time? GAH I LOVE IT.

Unpaid Internship Class

I also wanna know, like, how much of Academy training is in situ vs. ex situ. Like, the Advanced Class leapt up to "field trip" really fast. Are the last year or two basically just Gotei Lite, except you don’t get paid (or get paid a lot less), even though you might die? Do you get TA credits if you’re like Hisagi et al, leading first-year field trips? Honestly I feel like a lot of Academy training is probably JUST learning how to interpret, control, and manipulate your reiatsu, and JUST trying to communicate with your sword and make it a true zanpakutou. Jinzen class is probably the hardest class series. If those two things happen to come easily to you, I imagine that’s mostly what fast-tracks you through the Academy curriculum.

But I’m coming at all this from a very contemporary, more-school-than-military, pretty Westernized perspective. Part of me wants to learn about how "school" has worked across the last 2000 years and part of me just wants to make it up in accordance with my own desires and interests because IT’S MAGIC GHOST MILITARY SCHOOL.

Truly, I just want fandom’s 370 different versions of how this school works. There are so many great options. I want them all.

Anyone wanna do a "36 Views of Shinoureijutsuin" with me where we all make different potential curriculum plans lol. WHO WANTS TO DO FAKE ADMIN PAPERWORK WITH ME.

#shinoureijutsuin #shinoureijutsuin curriculum development!#bleach headcanons #shinigamiology #asks #no brain just bleach

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mariacallous · 10 months

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One gasps at the petulance on display here, as at otherwise staunch British Defense Minister Ben Wallace’s snap about Ukraine treating its Western suppliers as a kind of Amazon of weaponry.

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czigonas · 1 year

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So, I just wanna have a little rant about military ranks (because, look, I say I don't go there but I have consumed a lot of mw2 stuff over the last few weeks so yeah I guess I do). There's... a lot to unpack with the decision to switch Soap from a captain to a sergeant in the new one but I am not going to touch that at all. I'm also putting it under a cut because I will probably ramble.

(I am going to preface this by saying I have not held a military rank myself, and certainly not in the UK, so if I get something wrong please feel free to correct me [so long as you're not mean about it] but that to the best of my knowledge, the information below is factual.)

So what I am going to talk about here is the idea that someone can easily move between those two ranks. I've seen posts about Soap should just get promoted to either lieutenant or captain and, please, it's just... not feasible. Not in any small amount of time.

In most standing militaries there are two enlistment tracks: Enlisted and Officer. Soap is in the Enlistment track of the UK Army (which is the branch that oversees the SAS, despite it being the Special Air Service) with the rank of Sergeant (or Staff Sergeant at the most). This is what's called a non-commissioned officer rank (shortened to NCO).

Lieutenant and Captain are both Commissioned Officer ranks (shortened to CO, though that can also mean Commanding Officer, so...) and the difference is right there in the name: the commission. This is an actual piece of paper saying that the officer in question has and works under the authority of the sovereign power that commissioned them (in this case: the British Crown). In ye olde times you had to buy your commission, and so most Army COs were from the upper classes because, well, they had the money.

These days there a bunch of ways to get a commission (some of which are still kind of restricted by wealth, since they rely on having college degrees in various fields). However, the way Ghost probably entered the Officer track was by attending the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst or being recommended for an Officer Candidate School by someone higher in his chain of command while he was still an Enlisted soldier.

Because Soap is still in the Enlisted track, his next promotion would be Staff Sergeant (if he's just a sergeant now) or Warrant Officer Second Class (if he's a staff sergeant now). While technically Ghost ranks above him as a lieutenant, they're not at all comparable.

The Officer Candidate School absolutely opens up a path for how Soap could switch tracks! He could, in theory, be recommended for Officer Training by Price or anyone higher in the chain of command. Then he'd go back to Sandhurst for like three months of training and get himself promoted to second lieutenant. Here's the thing, though. I don't think he would want to.

There's a certain pride to be held in gaining ranks in enlisted service that is hard to translate. Especially in a body where the purchase of higher rank was allowed and encouraged for so long, the idea of gaining your rank on merit alone (as you had to, to advance in any NCO rank) holds a deeper pride and sense of accomplishment. Obviously these days you can only advance in CO ranks by merit as well, but the culture and competition between the tracks is still tainted by that history.

In addition to that, I think Soap would see promotion to lieutenant as (at least initially) a step down. Ghost's pay grade is OF-1 as a lieutenant, and Price's is OF-2 as a captain. Soap? Soap's rocking a pay grade of OR-5 or 6 as a sergeant or OR-7 as a staff sergeant. That's impressive for his age. I'm also pretty sure Soap and Gaz are being paid more than Ghost and on par (or nearly) with Price's lowest possible pay rate.

I've only seen a few fics that touch on it (possibly only two in total), but Soap's (and Gaz's) job is to be the liaison between the officers (Ghost and Price) and the regular enlisted men. They are there to support and facilitate whatever orders come down from higher up the chain, and to know which of their soldiers is best for whatever they're going to get up to. Officers are taught to listen to their Sergeants, and for good reason. It's possible that Soap and Gaz might even have more years of service under their belts than Ghost does.

Now, this falls apart a little when they're separated from the main bulk of command into a Joint Task Force under a foreign General, but not a lot! It just means that their enlisted soldiers (the privates and corporals and specialists that would make up the bulk of their actual fighting power) have to maybe double check what a rank insignia looks like and who you're supposed to salute when (because that shit is country and even branch specific).

The next big question is... who's is the ranking officer of JTF141 now that Shepherd is gone? Because while Laswell is a Station Chief, that just means that she's 'in charge' from an intelligence point of view, and she's still a civilian from a foreign government. She has no actual authority over the military members (especially the non-U.S. ones). At the very least, I would think they'd promote Price to Major, since that's the lightest rank I would expect to see in charge of a company.

I guess we'll see.

#cod mw2 #soap cod #ghost cod #I'm sorry I went on kind of a rant #but soap being sgt isn't a bad thing #he probably actually knows more about the actual functioning military than ghost #because it's a sgts job to take care of and support their officers #maybe later I'll go on a rant about how alejandro outranks price #you know what #I am going to put this in the tag #soapghost #real world military

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juliosswisslitblog · 2 months

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Reflections on a Year of Reading Swiss Literature

It is a dream of mine to travel to Switzerland, but I still have a long way to go until I reach such a dream. For now, I can content myself with traveling in Switzerland through books. In the book “Slow Train to Switzerland” by Diccon Bewes, we get to experience a little bit of the country through his writing. Geographically speaking, the book is very descriptive. He visited Mount Blanc, one of the highest mountains in Europe, and the Mer de Glace, a glacier that has been slowly defrosting over time, and he also visited the Alps, the most extensive chains of mountains in Europe.The country is also filled with lakes and beautiful scenery; you can enter Switzerland from any direction, and you are still going to be blessed with a spectacular view. I already had background knowledge about Switzerland's geography, as I planned on traveling there, but it was really interesting to see how much the country had changed from the time the book was written until now.

Switzerland has always been a country with a rich history; it is located at the heart of Europe after all, and Bewes did not disappoint when it came to teaching us of whatever part of the country he was traveling. For example, Kandersteg, a small village, had a population of only 455, but due to a new tunnel that was built, the population literally exploded to 3554 only ten years later (Swiss people also love celebrating newly built tunnels). Diccon also explains the birth of some holidays, like the one in St. Moritz, where some British guests were dared to see if they would enjoy St. Moritz in the winter all well, and if they didn't, they would get a refund of their whole travel. They did enjoy it, and in fact, they came back for more, which began the annual winter British Invasion of the Alps.

The different cultures between countries is what makes traveling so thrilling; it is like visiting a new small “planet” per se, and Switzerland is no different. Patients in the municipality of Leukerbad would sit up to 10 hours a day in Leukerbad’s hot baths to cure diseases and infirmities, and more surprisingly (or not), they did get better. Holidays in Switzerland are treated as Sundays, which are treasured as a day of rest—not really praying and going to church but more spending time with family and friends and resting. Shops are also all closed on Sundays, and most of them don’t open until 9 a.m. Swiss people really value their own time, and they have a great work-life balance compared to the rest of the countries in Europe.

Time is a weird concept; it was a way for humans to try and fit something unseen into something more manageable. It is undeniable that time is important; it uttermostly brings order, and order is the law of nature. The book Einstein's Dreams plays a lot with the concept of time and how it is important to life itself. Without time, human life would make no sense. Imagine having to live forever; there would be no reason to learn another language, to try hard at school, or to find someone you love because ultimately you would have infinity time, so it could always be done later. But since our time on this planet is counted, we always try to make the most that we can before we eventually die.

I had two major takeaways from reading Slow Train to Switzerland and Einstein’s Dreams. First, I really want to travel to Switzerland even more now. I am going to make whatever arrangements I can in the future to go there, even if I am on my deathbed. Secondly, it is to let it go; I do not have to keep it holding in my heart for longer than it needs. “Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone (Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman). This quote can be interpreted in various ways, but for me, it is to not let things hold you back longer than they need to, or you are going to end up stuck alone in past memories.

WC:698

Books: Slow Train to Switzerland by Diccon Bewes, Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman.

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culttvblog · 7 months

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Villains: Alice Sheree (Seventies TV Season)

The introduction to this series of posts about 1970s TV can be found here: https://www.tumblr.com/culttvblog/729351469162233856/seventies-tv-season-introduction

Villains (1972) is a complex and difficult show which doesn't get as much coverage as it could do. I see that I myself have only blogged about it once before, and I'll just get the reasons for the difficulty with this show out of the way before proceeding to its praise. The difficulty with this show is in the format (and pretty much every review online says this about it so unusually I'm echoing a general opinion). It is a series of thirteen 50-minute shows about a group of thieves (and others who get involved) who rob a bank, are imprisoned, and escape from the prison van on their way to an appeal. The first episode covers this chronologically but successive episodes deal with what then happens to each character individually and abandons a general chronology, so it essentially repeats the same time frame over and over again, but with different characters. What this means is that the events from Monty's persepctive in episode 2 are not mentioned again in the entire series and by the time you get to Billy Boy (episode 13) you might find yourself wondering about Monty.

In contrast to most shows which would shift between different characters and keep some sort of chronology going, this is of course completely different and the fact that it isn't that popular is reflected in the reviews I've already mentioned. I have not been able to find any contemporary documentation about what was intended, but I have chosen to apprach it as a very serious, cerebral show requiring ongoing attention from the viewer. I wonder whether it would also be best thought of as a series of independent plays inspired by the events of the first one. This effects is added to by the way each episode has a different writer, and we have some real talent in the writing department, including our very own P J Hammond.

The lengthy episodes, focus on individuals, and lengthy series means that the series takes the time to consider the implications of the theft and escape on the thieves' significant others and the show ultimately leaves their future rather in doubt. I commented before that the British audience of the time would naturally see this show in light of the Great Train Robbery of 1963 (in which £2.61 million was stolen and most of which has never been recovered) and it must be said that the complex effects of the robbery on the thieves do bear a resemblance to this show. These effects included ongoing attempts by other criminals to extort the proceeds from them, being forced to change identity and even suicide. There is, I suppose inevitably, a certain moral sense to this show because of the way it shows the effects of crime. This is, however, a moral sense which you have to watch attentively and at length to really get.

Another reason to watch this show is actually how very seventies it is. I am convinced that if you get too engrossed in it you will come to to find that your trousers have become loon pants and your room is carpeted in shag pile. It is absolutely perfect. There is a mixture of some external scenes which accurately show 1970s Britain and imaginatively done sets. I keep looking at it and thinking that my dad had a shirt just like that and thinking that those sheets would probably give you a rash. I will stop before I go into paroxysms of 1970s reminiscence! One of the other things which is very seventies is the amount they stole (from memory it works out at �300,000 each, barely enough to buy a decent family house in most places or a rabbit hutch in London) which seems so small. Although I see that this was the equivalent of �4,225,080 in 2017 so it just seems tiny. But then I suppose a sense of proportion and history is one of the things you get from classic TV.

Alice Sheree is the fifth episode and is about Alice Clough, who was given a suitcase of the stolen money by Michael Smith, one of the robbers, to keep hold of and got imprisoned for two years for possession of the money. Now she is out of prison but so is the man who was responsible for her being imprisoned and his first concern is to find her.

The episode begins effectively with Alice going in front of the parole board (I'm sure they don't have a clergyman on them nowadays) who make arrangements for her release from prison. She goes home to her parents who have been looking after her daughter while she's been in prison. The board express some concern about Alice's mother not bringing the child to see Alice.

And this is where we first hit the main thing about Alice, which is that she's one of these people you feel you can't get anything out of. She avoids the board's concerns, says that she'll help her dad in the shop, is adamant she will be alright, and it's quite plain she doesn't really get what they're saying. You get the same impression in her conversations with her family. In fact she doesn't seem to get anything, even to the extent of upsetting her own daughter even after her mother has pointed out she's upsetting her. If you asked her why she did anything, she wouldn't be able to tell you.

I'm perhaps expressing this in a way which makes it sound more irritating than the real effect, which is absolutely horrifying. While it's not clear whether she's mentally ill or has a learning disability, you really have to wonder whether she's 'all there', and it's frankly horrifying that she got pregnant, came into contact with criminals, took charge of a suitcase of stolen money and was even imprisoned. You would wonder whether she understood anything that was going on with her, and in fact even her own parents comment on it.

She says she doesn't want to see Mike again as her parents bring up the subject of his escape to her, and then of course she's out of the house seeing him for absolutely no reason whatsoever just because he's used his pet name for her. She's even had a perfectly maddening conversation with him when she's claimed not to know who he is. The blank expression on her face as she obviously lies to her parents about where she is going to is also prefectly maddening, because she obviously won't admit that she's going out to meet one of the robbers even though they know she is.

The episode highlights the effect on Alice and her family of the robbery and ultimately her family report her to the police. Honestly the full effect on the viewer of Julie's blankness, duplicity, and easily led nature, is absolutely horrifying. Just as horrifying is the way she has abandoned her child with her parents and run off to see a criminal on the run from prison in a caravan, who if he isn't old enough to be her dad isn't far off.

The whole effect of the episode is to bring up conflicting emotions in the viewer: rage at Mike, and horror mixed with irritation at Alice. And all this is mixed in with horror that anyone could use her and a wish that someone would do something about her, but of course nobody is going to.

If you particularly want a criticism of the series and the episode I would have to say that it is that its cast is a bit of a list of big names of the time. However they are all excellent actors and so not obtrusively themselves and they don't distract from the plot.

This show is well worth watching but requires attention from the viewer far beyond what most shows need.

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#70s tv #70s tv season #villains 1972

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allthemusic · 8 months

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Week ending: 15 January 1953

A bit more competition, this week. Three songs worth of competition, in fact, all from new names. Exciting stuff!

Outside of Heaven - Eddie Fisher (peaked at No. 1)

This one was a big enough hit that it did get to Number 1, and it does, to be fair, have a bit more substance to it than last week's Cowpuncher's Cantata.

It's also by none other than Eddie Fisher, father of the late great Carrie Fisher, by way of Debbie Reynolds. Quite the star-studded family. I know he was known as a bit of a ladykiller, so I expected some roguishness here, but no. This is straight up soft and romantic.

It has the same big string start that is apparently mandatory at this point in history, and it stays orchestral and sweeping throughout, barring one very exciting moment that I will get to in a bit - promise!

Before that, though, Eddie starts to sing. He's got exactly the voice I am beginning to expect, when we get a big string intro: trained, slightly operatic, pausing carefully where it will be most dramatic. And, of course, quite smooth - he's distraught, but you can't really hear it in his delivery, except in the impassioned loudness of some key lines.

The story, once it gets going, is melodramatic as heck. Eddie's love is apparently not giving him the time of day any more, and so he walks along past her house "with misty eyes", comparing it to "the gate to paradise", missing her. She doesn't miss him, since she has a new man, and Eddie is terribly stoic and brave about it all: "Good luck to him, good luck to you."

But then he's at her wedding, and "could hardly keep from crying out loud", thinking about how he used to have her as his own, and things get very angsty and overblown as he wonders, "Why was I meant to walk alone / Outside of heaven?" Which, again, very melodramatic. Very soap opera.

And then, a beautiful, unlikely thing: our first electric guitar! Or at least something that sounds electric guitar-adjacent. This feels like it should be a big deal, but also it is very much an electric guitar solo à la 1952, which means it's pretty gentle, and has a string accompaniment. Eh. You win some, you lose some.

And then the wedding section repeats, and we are on the home stretch, just in time for a classic Slow Down Into Big Note Ending. It fakes you out by getting quiet just before. But it's 1952, and so we have to go big before we go home - and Eddie and his chorus certainly deliver here!

The whole song weirdly makes me think of "Bella Notte" from Lady and the Tramp. The tune feels similar. Huh.

Britannia Rag - Winifred Atwell (5)

Winifred Atwell is an interesting individual. She was a boogie-woogie piano player from Trinidad, and as such, the first black woman to top the UK charts. She originally trained as a pharmacist, but also played the piano at an air force base, which is where she picked up her boogie-woogie style. She come to the UK to train at the Royal Academy of Music while also playing various London clubs to support herself, and basically became a household name playing this beat-up sounding pub piano that cost her husband 50 shillings.

This wasn't her first big UK hit, but it was the first to reach the Top 10, and it's an odd one. It's a rag, played deliberately a bit out of tune and jangly, bringing together various patriotic tunes, as you would expect from a song called Britannia Rag.

You could probably make some kind of post-colonial point about Winifred Atwell representing a particular 1950s vision of Britannia, and who got to belong. West Indians, apparently - if they made nice and smiled and played jolly tunes at Royal Variety performances. Certainly, there's nothing obviously West Indian about this. Instead, there's a heft dose of American jazz and ragtime, forced through a British pub/music hall filter.

That said, that's a lot of interpretation for what is essentially a piece of lightweight fluff that shows off some admittedly very impressive piano playing. Winifred Atwell sounds like she's having fun, and perhaps that is all there is to this.

A few listenings in, this rag is getting very grating. I would not care to own or re-play this. Apparently the record-buying public had no such compunctions.

The Glow-Worm - The Mills Brothers (10)

And so we wrap up with a jazzy, silly song by our first group to chart - if you don't count Johnnie Ray's backing band, which I don't.

The Mills Brothers, it turns out, were this African-American group of singers who were, it seems, actual brothers. Their harmonies are impeccable, and this tune rattles along nicely enough.

The lyrics are both quite specific and quite meaningless, as the singers implores a glow worm to shine down and lead the way to his love, before comparing the glow worm to various torches and electric lamps.

Most confusingly, it namechecks a "cute vest pocket Mazda", which apparently has nothing to do with Mazda, the Japanese car company. No, apparently a Mazda was a General Electric brand of lightbulb. Who knew?

It makes for some cute imagery, but also weirdly wordy and poetic at points, almost hymn-like in its diction: "Lead us lest too far we wander / Love's sweet voice is calling yonder". Or even worse: "Thou aeronautical boll weevil / Illuminate yon woods primeval".

It doesn't surprise me, given this, that this was taken from a 1902 German operetta, Lysistrata, by Paul Lincke, and translated for use in a 1907 Broadway musical. Which all possibly explains why it feels a bit mangled.

Like the last song, it quickly has begun to annoy me. Something about the fast pace and weird lyrics. I did enjoy the Mills Brothers' voices and style, though, so I do hope we hear more from them. Perhaps a more serious song?

It's the last of three quite different songs, and while I didn't love any of them, one of them at least did not annoy me, despite all its melodrama. So, for today, Eddie Fisher's electric guitar and epic, self-pitying sob story takes it, leaving Winifred Atwell's out of tune piano and the Mills Brothers' outdated electrical metaphors in the dust.

Favourite song of the bunch: Outside of Heaven

#uk charts #1953 #eddie fisher #winifred atwell #the mills brothers

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