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anotherhumaninthisworld · 1 year

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Hi! Out of curiosity, what was the whole drama with Charlotte and Augustin? I’ve tried reading it in several Robespierre biographies and it’s never made sense

Good question! That you couldn’t find an answer in a biography that made sense is not all that weird, I tried looking over the ones I had access to and those that touched on the fight all got it wrong in some way in my opinion. The reason for this, besides the fact that the conflict is a pretty small detail in the grand scheme of things, is probably that we have several different sources mentioning it that all put their own spin on it in some way or another. I would say these sources fit into three categories:

First off, we have contemporary letters dealing with the fight written by Augustin and Charlotte themselves. These include an undated letter from Augustin to Maximilien, as well as a letter dated July 6 1794 from Charlotte to Augustin.

Second off, we have what Charlotte had to say about the fight in Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, published in 1834 by Albert Laponneraye.

And third, there’s what contemporaries said regarding it. This mostly includes Armand Joseph Guffroy’s Secretes de Joseph Lebon et ses complices (1795) as well as the memoirs of Maurice Gaillard.

The fight, as far as we’re concerned, dates back to Augustin and Charlotte’s trip to the Army of Italy, where the former was tasked to go by the Committee of Public Safety on July 19 1793. Augustin set off a few days later together with Jean François Ricord, another representative on mission. For company, Ricord brought his wife Marguerite, while Augustin (on Charlotte’s request, if we’re to believe her memoirs) brought his sister.

We only have Charlotte’s memoirs to rely on regarding what played out between her and her brother during the trip. According to them, the group, after a time of traveling from town to town with counter-revolutionaries constantly after them, finally settled in Nice for a longer period of time. There, Augustin and Ricord made frequent outings to different divisions while Charlotte and Marguerite occupied themselves with making shirts for the soldiers during the day and went for walks and horseback rides in the countryside in the evenings. This latter activity soon proved to be troublesome, as ”several journals paid by the aristocracy” back in Paris started accusing the two women of acting like princesses with their equestrian outings. As a consequence, Augustin vetoed further horseback rides after receiving a letter from Maximilien regarding the issue, and Charlotte promised to abstain from riding from then on. But not long after, Marguerite, who according to Charlotte ”was the most frivolous and inconsiderate person in the world,” proposed they should go on yet another ride, and Charlotte, after trying in vain to remind her of what her brothers had said, hesitantly joined her.

When Augustin reproached his sister for the ride a few days later, Charlotte called on Marguerite to testify that it had been her idea. But Marguerite, instead of telling the truth, not only enforced the lie that it was Charlotte that had wanted the ride, but also added that she had taken her with her against her will. Augustin chose to believe her, much to Charlotte’s distress — ”My brother knew I was incapable of lying. Why then did he not want to believe me?” After this incident, Augustin started keeping a certain coldness in regards to Charlotte which caused her much despair, though it would not appear she tried to approach her brother to explain herself again.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came when Marguerite a while later suggested to Charlotte that they should go to Grasse together, something Charlotte agreed to do. But hardly had they arrived when Marguerite came forward with a forged letter, telling Charlotte it was from Augustin and that he urged her to return to Paris as soon as possible. A shocked Charlotte obeyed and set out for the capital the following morning, ending her journey somewhere in the fall of 1793. Marguerite in her turn went on to slander Charlotte to Augustin, saying that she didn’t care about him and that this was the reason for her brusque departure. She and her friend Madame Gesnel made him believe Charlotte had caluminated both Augustin and Madame Ricord. According to Charlotte, Marguerite was seducing her brother, who ”believed it essential to his honor and duty” to respond to her advances (it might be added that this is very similar to how Charlotte explains the relationship between her other brother and Éléonore Duplay). It evidently worked, and Augustin refused to see his sister when he too returned to Paris for a short stay (December-January), choosing instead to move in with the Ricords. He told Maximilien about both Charlotte’s brusque departure from Grasse, as well as her compromising the honor of him and Madame Ricord, causing the former to become angry with her too.

Such is the story as presented by Charlotte in her memoirs. Parts of it can and has been questioned, above all the idea of Augustin as completely innocent in the drama. Both Maximilien’s biographer J.M Thompson and Augustin’s Mary Young instead embrace the idea that there did exist a mutual liason between Augustin and Madame Ricord that Charlotte became an annoying witness to. Thompson declares himself sceptical in regards to the idea of Marguerite forging a letter from Augustin, while Young completely dismisses it and instead suggests the letter did indeed come from the pen of Augustin, eager to send his sister away so she wouldn’t be in the way of his love affair. The idea that there was something more than platonic friendship between Augustin and Marguerite also appears in the memoirs of Paul Barras, who served as a representative to Toulon at the same time as Augustin and Ricord:

Fully convinced that women constituted a powerful aid, [Bonaparte] assiduously paid court to the wife of Ricord, knowing that she exercised great influence over Robespierre the younger, her husband's colleague. […] Robespierre the younger was particulary attached to Madame Ricord.

Besides the question of Augustin’s guilt, it can also be observed that the letter where Maximilien tells his siblings about the controversy Charlotte’s horseback rides were causing has never been found. I’ve also not seen anyone point out the journals denouncing Charlotte and Madame Ricord’s outings the memoirs are alluding to…

If this first bit of drama can be boiled down to a mere personal feud, it gets harder to make the same case when we get to the second part of the conflict. This is where the first of the two contemporary letters — the one Augustin wrote to Maximilien — comes into the picture:

My sister does not have a single drop of blood that resembles ours. I have seen and learned so much about her that I regard her as our greatest enemy. She abuses our spotless reputation to lay down the law on us and threatens to take a scandalous step in order to compromise us. We must take a decisive stand against her. We must make her leave for Arras, and thus take her away from us, a woman who causes our common despair. She would like to give us the reputation of bad brothers, her calumnies spread against us aim at this goal. I would like you to see the citoyenne La Saudraie, she would give you certain information on all the masks that it is interesting to know in these circumstances. A certain Saint-Félix seems to be from the clique.

This letter is unfortunately undated, but two things has lead to all historians up until this point to place it somewhere in April-May 1794. The first is the fact that Augustin makes allusions to Guillodon La Saudraie whose first known contacts with Augustin (of whom she, according to the memoirs of Charles Nodier, was the presumed mistress) are from the first half of 1794, when she accompanied him on his second mission. Augustin had already in a letter dated March 24 also asked Maximilien to offer her an audience, and it seems likely for this to have been a follow-up to that.

The second clue is that, on May 19, a letter written by Augustin Darthé revealed that Charlotte had come back to Arras two days earlier, just like her younger brother asks for above. She had been escorted by Joseph Lebon, representative to Arras who Maximilien had recalled to Paris on May 14, saying that the Committee of Public Safety had decided to direct his energy ”in an even more useful way” and telling him to ”come back as soon as possible, to return promptly to the post where you currently are.” I have chosen to believe ”the more useful way” Maximilien suggests Lebon should use his energy for alludes to the mission of bringing Charlotte back to their hometown.

It can be observed that, if it’s true the letter to Maximilien is from April-May 1794, Augustin wouldn’t have met his sister since the fall of 1793 (assuming Charlotte is telling the truth in that he didn’t want to see her during his short break in Paris). The question is therefore evidently what exactly Charlotte had done for it both to reach the miles away Augustin and make him think this ill of her. In her memoirs, Charlotte passes in total silence on both this letter and her exile to Arras (and with that, the question of whether she gave her consent to being sent there or not). Since the accusations in Augustin’s letter are so vague, it gets hard to verify what exactly she’d done to make him so upset, other than it seems to be about her 1, slandering her brothers and 2, doing something scandalous. The first charge I suppose could tie in with Augustin falling for Madame Ricord’s claim that Charlotte was caluminating him, as the memoirs would have us believe. However, we do also have several pieces that could fill the criteria for the second charge that all date back to around the same period Augustin allegedly penned down his letter.

First off we have a letter written on April 25 1794 and sent off to Charlotte. In it, the author brings her up to speed regarding the recent repressive politics their hometown Arras for the past months has been the victim of:

What has been said of your country is true; for six weeks one hundred and fifty people have been guillotined and about three thousand imprisoned. […] I’ll spare you other details that are too atrocious to be believed, when you haven’t been an eyewitness. If I had more time, I could have given you more detailed facts; I cannot tell you what I have heard from different people without having had the time to verify it. We go into the countryside tomorrow. I forgot to tell you that the prosecutor of the revolutionary tribunal is arrested and the revolutionary commissar broken.

He also makes allusions to a commission Charlotte is part of, that appears to have as its goal to slow down the repression apparatus. This commission may be what the deputy Armand Joseph Guffroy is alluding to in the following part of his Secretes de Joseph Lebon et ses complices (1795):

I was not discouraged; Leblond’s sister, Demeulier’s (sic) daughter, Buissart’s wife, Robespierre’s sister, to whom he was also almost invisible, took every means to reach him.

Speaking of Guffroy, the second piece is a letter dated May 7 to him from the arragois lawyer Antoine Buissart, a friend of both him and the Robespierre siblings. The letter confirms Charlotte’s interest in what was going on in Arras:

We salute the citoyenne Robespierre; my wife has just received her letter; tell her as soon as possible that I will immediately give her the clarifications she requests.

Furthermore, as shown through the above cited letter, Charlotte came to see Guffroy (this was something she would herself confirm when interrogated after thermidor, adding that Madame Duplay reproached her for it). It is not impossible this relation caused dislike in Augustin, who, along with his brother, had ”a great contempt” for Guffroy if we’re to believe the memoirs of Élisabeth Lebas. Since March 3 1794 Guffroy had also become suspect in the political arena, as he on that day had been expelled from the Jacobins accused of having connections with a former marquis, forcing the Revolutionary Committee of the Picques section to release Louis XVI’s former locksmith and having English letters found among his papers. This denounciation had also forced him to resign from his functions as member of the Committee of General Security. Guffroy was himself convinced that Charlotte visiting him was the reason for her fallout with her brothers, as this is what he wrote about it a year later:

[The brothers] drove [Charlotte] out of their house because she did not think like they did, because she came to see my wife and because she saw citizens who were sincere friends of justice and truth.

Finally, there’s also a passage (1, 2) from the memoirs of Maurice Gaillard that’s of interest here. Gaillard claims to have met Charlotte somewhere in May 1794 to hear her opinion on the magistrates of Melun having been denounced for two years earlier signing an adress denouncing the demonstration of June 20, 1792. Charlotte not only expressed her disapproval when it came to this affair, but also deplored of the terror in Arras and raged against the Duplay family. She then helped arrange an interview between Gaillard and Couthon, but when the latter got threatening she holds him still in the armchair he was sitting while yelling at Gaillard to escape. Tracking him down again she tells him that ”the wretched man merely wanted to discover your inmost thoughts” but that she ”succeeded in making him ashamed of the crime which he was about to commit against one whom I had introduced to him in confidence.” She then urged Gaillard to flee the city, which he also went ahead and did. Curiously, Charlotte appears to think the conflict between her and Augustin to be old news in Gaillard’s account, talking instead about how she’s eagerly awaiting his return so he can help her get Maximilien to move away from the Duplays.

(note that these four pieces are very rarely (I might say never) used by Robespierre biographers who talk about the conflict a bit more in detail).

Whatever it was Augustin’s letter was alluding to, Charlotte ended up in Arras. We know through a letter her step-cousin wrote to Augustin that she doesn’t appear to have made their fallout known to her friends there (so again, pretty far from Augustin’s charge that Charlotte had slandered her brothers). Her stay was nevertheless short, already on July 1 we find a letter confirming she was back in the capital. Charlotte’s reason for leaving is unknown, but according to Guffroy it was to avoid arrest:

Lebon had [Charlotte] denounced to the popular society of Arras, by his cutthroats, as an aristocrat. Her apparent crime, and at least the pretext for her arrest, was to have been with Payen de Neuville la Liberté, an estimable farmer, whom Lebon had guillotined, and brother of another Payen, member of the constituent assembly who had served as father and friend to Robespierre, and whom Lebon likewise had guillotined. […] Without Florent Guyot (sic), who brought her back to Paris, she would have been imprisoned there, because Lebon's accomplices had denounced her in their infernal club which they called the popular society.

While most historians I’ve looked at have dismissed this as mere slander, it can nevertheless be observed that the dates of execution for the two Payen brothers Guffroy is talking about (June 21 and 26) matches rather well with the time Charlotte’s would have departed from Arras… On June 28 we do actually find a letter from Antoine Buissart to Maximilien, telling him that since a month back, he, his wife and Charlotte have been denounced by a certain Carlier, administrator of the department of Pas-de-Calais — ”You know that from this time on I am a conspirator in the eyes of the famous Carlier, and my wife and your sister two intriguers.” Guffroy did in his turn call the same Carlier ”Lebon’s fiercest lieutenant” so it may actually be him he accuses of having denounced Charlotte here above…

Augustin had returned to Paris just before Charlotte. In her memoirs, Charlotte describes the situation between them in the following way:

He seemed to be fleeing my presence. I admit it, I was indignant against him; what had I done to him, I said to myself, for him to treat me this way, for him to say to anyone who will listen that I am unworthy of him, that I conducted myself badly with him, that I no longer deserve his esteem? It was then that I wrote him the letter that Levasseur recorded in his Memoirs.

This is the second of the two contemporary letters regarding the fight, dated July 6. In her memoirs, Charlotte tried to declare certain phrases of it as embellishments by her brothers’ enemies, but an encounter with the fac-simile of it proves that she was actually lying there.

Charlotte begins the letter by writing that Augustin’s aversion for her has developed into the most implacable hatred, to the point that they can’t even talk to each other anymore. Because of this she will instead try to write to him. She tells Augustin how hurt she has become by his hostility — ”what does it matter to me that I am hated by those who are irrelevant to me and who I despise? Their memory will never come to trouble me, but being hated by my brothers, I, for whom it is a necessity to cherish them, this is the only thing which can render me as unhappy as I am” — a hostility she considers herself completely undeserving of. Despite this she writes that she won’t hold any grudges the day Augustin decides to come back to her, she will only feel joy over having him at her side again.

Like that of her brother, Charlotte’s letter is very emotional and very vague when it comes to the question of what the conflict is actually about. When she gets a bit more specific however, it would once again appear like her relationships is what Augustin had denounced her for:

Nonetheless, do not hope in your delirium to be able to make me lose the esteem of a few virtuous persons, which is the only good which remains to me, along with a pure conscience ; full of a just confidence in my virtue, I can defy you to detract it and I dare to tell you that, beside the good people who know me, you will lose your reputation rather than harming mine.

Charlotte ends by declaring she will move into the house of her and Augustin’s maid Madame Laporte so that she won’t be in Augustin’s way. Her interrogation held a few weeks later confirms that she went through with that plan. According to Charlotte’s memoirs she never saw her little brother again, and there was therefore never any reconciliation between the two. This is the last thing we know of it.

So the drama is no doubt not just a little confusing. What I personally consider most likely is that Augustin had found out about Charlotte political activities and contacts, felt both his own reputation and, to borrow a phrase from Charlotte’s letter, ’the public good” threatened by it, and written to Maximilien to urge him to send Charlotte away from Paris and with that her connections. While the mistrust of the sister certainly could have been fueled by what had played out between the two during the mission, I am hesitant to buy the memoirs’ story of Augustin simply having been brainwashed by Madame Ricord into hating Charlotte. The fact that Charlotte makes allusions to Augustin having a problem with her friends does also imply there was much more to it than that.

Finally, and I’m totally just speculating here, if it turns out no article regarding Charlotte and her scandalous horseback rides can be found in any contemporary journal, then I wouldn’t be all that defiant in front of the idea that the entire story could be something fabricated by Charlotte and Laponneraye to hide the former’s more controversial activities. We know through her testament as well as this letter that Charlotte, towards the end of her life, wanted to rehabilitate her brothers’ memory and be remembered as a loyal sister. Laponneraye was in his turn someone who evidently didn’t think women belong in politics. This is shown through the following sentence from the preface of the memoirs, which, given what has since been found out about Charlotte, has aged badly in more than one way:

Passionate about the private life, [Charlotte] could never bring herself to leave it, and was always careful not to imitate those women who, forgetting the role that suits their sex, throw themselves madly and ridiculously into a career that is not made for them. So she played no part in the extraordinary events that signaled the time when her older brother was in power. […] Charlotte Robespierre occupied herself with politics only as much as is necessary for her to follow her brothers with her eyes in the arena where they fight hand in hand against crime.

With all this in mind, the idea of Charlotte and Laponneraye redefining the conflict between the former and Augustin to be more appropriate to their narrative doesn’t come off as all that foreign to me. Regardless, I think the two letters line up much better with the version of the drama presented by Guffroy compared to the one presented in the memoirs.

#augustin robespierre #charlotte robespierre #bad brother bonbon #sus sis charlotte #robespierre #ask #maybe i’m paranoid #but the version of the fight presented in the memoirs just sounds like one of those stories by a bad author #where the characters must act as stupid as possible for the plot to even move forward #like why does charlotte join madame ricord instead of just being a damn adult and saying ”no”?#why does augustin choose to believe a person he’s just met rather than his own sister he’s known his entire life?#why does charlotte just accept that augustin doesn’t believe her rather than explaining herself again?#why doesn’t charlotte ask to see the letter this obviously suspect woman just claims to have?#regardless this whole family was messed up

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stuffymcstuffsworld · 7 months

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The right tune

Iruma practiced on his piano... it was difficult when he first started. You wanted to stuff cotton in your ears. But you were a good parent who could get through even Clara's strange music. Like hell, you were going to let an off-key piano beat you.

You watched as Kalego hounded your son. (Pun intended) You knew his reputation was on the line but still. He could be a little... softer when explaining, in your opinion, at least.

"Mmm, maybe he should try something different." You said casually. Both teacher and student looked at you. "He's going to be stiff and going through the motions if he keeps playing the same song over and over again."

Iruma seemed curious, and Kalego had a thoughtful look on his face. As if he was going over the pros and cons in his mind. "It can still be a song about love... but maybe something more from an adolescent point view." You suggested.

Kalego eyes you. "What do you have in mind?" You pulled out a notebook and began writing down lyrics. Kalego walks over and watches over your shoulder as you explain.

"This will be less complicated to keep track of it's a duet and the tune remains the same. The second person doesn't chime in for the first half but slowly adds building up in the empty slots of the song."

"The lyrics leave something to be desired." He says flatly. "I told you it's more adolescent besides you have to admit these lyrics are perfect for Iruma!" The brooding demon scoffs but doesn't argue.

"Baby, let's try this, ok?" You set the lyrics down in front of Irumas sheet music. "It's okay to be stiff and awkward for the first half it actually helps to drive the point of the lyrics."

You back away and slide the coffee table into the middle of the room. Standing on top of it, you got into a pose and smiled. "Go ahead, Iruma!" Iruma eyes the new page a moment before the soft and awkward plink of the keys starts.

☆What do you see~ You people gazing at me~ you see a doll on a music box that's wound by a key~☆ You kept your movements slow and awkward as you slowly spun in a circle. Iruma giggles and continues playing.

☆How can you tell~ I'm! Under a spell~ I'm! Waiting for loves~ first kiss☆ The jerking motions you made to the music worked for any mishaps Iruma had while playing. He soon found the rhythm.

☆You can not see~ how much I long to be free~ turning around on this music box that's wound by a key~☆

The music slowed down, and you smiled. ☆Yearning~ Yearning~ While! I'm! Turning around and around.☆ You slowed your spins and returned to the original position.

Kalego grumbled as he advanced towards you. Probably having already remembered the silly lines you scribbled on the page. The music started from the top.

☆What do you see~ You people gazing at me~☆ ♤Truly scrumptious, You're truly truly scrumptious♤ The way he walked about you avoiding your limbs as he moved counterclockwise to your turns was perfect.

☆You see a doll on a music box that's wound by a key☆ ♤Scrumptious as a cherry peach parfait♤ You could tell by the look in his eyes that he wanted to strangle you and you tried really hard to stay in character. The mention of food made Irumas eyes widen, though. So maybe you hit a breakthrough.

☆How can you tell~ I'm! Under a spell~ I'm! Waiting for love's~ first kiss!☆ ♤When~ You're near me, it's so delicious. Honest truly, you're the answer to my wishes.♤

He successfully managed to grab your waist as you both slowly turned in different directions. Smooth. You narrowed your eyes slightly at the pompous smirk.

☆You can not see~ How much I long to be free~☆ ♤Truly scrumptious though I may seem presumptuous♤ He started to slow down more with you as you were nearing the end.

☆Turning around on this music box, that's wound by a key~☆ ♤Never~ never~ ever~ go away~♤ He drifts a little from you and gets on one knee.

☆Yearning~☆ ♤My heart beats so unruly~♤ ☆Yearning~☆ ♤Because I love you truly~♤ Absolutely thrilling to see a prideful demon like Kalego on his knees, reaching for you with supposed longing as the music died away.

☆While! I'm! Turning around and around☆ ♤Honest truly I do.♤ You finish in your original position. Iruma stares at both of you! "I GET IT NOW!"

The fire in his eyes startles both of you as he attempts Lilliths Red Carpet again. There are fewer mistakes, and the transition is smoother. You give Kalego a smug smirk. He rolls his eyes.

#mairimashita! iruma kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #reader #iruma suzuki #kalego sensei #naberius kalego #chitty chitty bang bang #songfic

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neverlearnedtoread · 3 months

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Spinning Silver

⭐⭐⭐⭐; the staryk king and mirnatius with the word 'wife' on the board: there's only one thing more horrible than a wife.... *rips off paper* MY wife

Oh?? 👌😉😏

women are fucking amazing and wonderful and terrifying and unequivocal badasses. especially to their husbands. it's about the fantasy of a marriage you have no control over being perfectly suited to you in ways you didn't even know it could

inhuman fae creatures that actually have a separate culture and set of rules they are governed by. they're much more powerful than humans, of course, but they are bound to their laws, and if you're smart you can work with that

fairytale-esque magic system that relies heavily on (1) trickery (2) Having Audacity and (3) the rule of threes 😉. we love a soft magic system that rewards big swings and BDE!

not one, but TWO separate arranged marriages engaged in HEATED pvp AKA two people bound in hostile matrimony trying to kill each other while having 'wait, are they hot? fuck!' moments

you can be cold and practical and still be a good person. you can be strong enough to protect yourself without sacrificing others. with a good enough grasp of contracts you can force a demon to leave your kingdom AND husband unharmed in a 2-for-1 deal

No.. ❌🤢🤮

multiple POVs with no names for chapter titles so you have to figure out who it is from context clues - if you're like me and love a little puzzle to go with your reading time, you'll really enjoy it (Novik does it VERY well) but if you get confused easily or don't wanna put in the brainpower its annoying and overly complicated

if you don't like enemies-to-lovers where they actually argue and are ideologically opposed, you're not gonna enjoy the romance subplots. this is not a 'forbidden-lovers' kinda enemies-to-lovers. this is firmly in the 'my husband misses me a lot - but his aim is getting better!' zone

really quick wrap up - it gets tied up a little too fast after the final confrontation with the Big Bad. i wouldve liked at least to have irina POV at the end because her side of things just. gets left hanging

Summary: Miryem is a daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, and though her father doesn't have the hardheartedness to be a good one, she'd rather be despised for what she's owed than starve. Her knack for the trade, coupled with her sharp tongue, draws the ire of her village, and even more alarmingly, the Staryk's attentions; faerie creatures who only covet gold, they take her offhanded boast that she can turn silver into gold quite literally, and show up at her door to hold her true to her careless words - which, honestly, kind of backfires on them when she rises to the challenge and upends their realm into complete disarray, so maybe there's a lesson there for the next group of nonhumans to learn: don't bet the house against a human girl whose Had Enough Of All This Bullshit. She might win.

Concept: 💭💭💭 I don't know Rumpelstiltskin's story very well, and Ice Kingdom aesthetics aren't my favourite (you can blame it on my residual dislike of Frozen), but I DID read Uprooted before this. I wasn't as into the book blurb as I was with Uprooted, but I'm an experienced (and opinionated) enough reader to know when to trust my gut - if I find an author's writing style easy to read, and I enjoy how they handle their themes, I'm not afraid of diving into deep waters. If it's that bad, I can always DNF

Execution: 💥💥💥💥 As I've come to expect with Novik's writing, a wonderfully easy read; the storytelling voice flows smoothly and makes me want to keep on reading. No slogging through difficult to understand passages and too slow pacing for me! I instantly wanted to collect every POV character like puppies in a basket, no matter how brief their sections were. I will say the ending does forget what it wants to say and simply ends on a happy note, instead of a complete thought. It doesn't tie in the POV characters together strongly enough - I would've loved to see an epilogue scenes with the 3 main female characters supporting each other, or at least being three distinct Bad Bitches!

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤❤ Mostly because of Irina and Miryem (and Wanda)'s absolute BDE. They truly brought their stories to life and felt very dynamic, constantly driving the story forward through their actions, especially because their personalities and characteristics were so well-suited to the challenges they faced (Miryem rules-lawyering the Staryk, Irina taking to politics, Wanda keeping faith despite all the shit she's been through). Honorary shoutout to the complete hilarity of Mirnatius's POV (though ultimately it IS more indulgence than necessity, I respect Novik for it) - may he spend the rest of his life desperately drawing his wife in vain search of her bad angles!

Favourite Moment: the running gag of mirnatius losing his fucking mind trying to prove irina isn't hot. you know that post that's like 'find a blorbo to draw and your art skills will start improving so much faster'? irina is his blorbo. special mention of the scene he gets jealous realizing a random guard has a crush on his behated wife and immediately jumps to the conclusion that irina would want to fuck the guard for the sake of the kingdom. babygirl the hoops you are jumping........where is this gymnastics routine even going 😭 this man is not beating the meow meow allegations..

Favourite Character: It's really a tie between Miryem and Irina, who are both so similar yet different at the same time. Miryem's BDE was enjoyably explosive - she throws it in everyone's face, which is perfect to play off of the Staryk's otherworldly impassiveness. Irina's BDE was a lot more...steely. Quietly coming into her own as she realized how adept she was at politics, and how perfectly well-suited that made her to being tsarina - and when they finally met each other? it was so funny when were like 'hey...why dont we kill our husbands via pokemon battle??'

#spinning silver #naomi novik #books #book review #booklover #bookblr #reading #my hot take is that the staryk king is not immune to double dog dares.#staryk king: please stop asking for anything else you have already taken EVERYTHING FROM ME. STOP FUCKING ASKING!#miryem: what are you - scared??#staryk king:#my OTHER hot take is that irina and mirnatius spend the next six months to a year irradiating (pun intended) EVERYONE in their castle with #life-threatening levels of pining angst and UST.#like theyre super into each other (everyone knows. fae living on the moon would know.) but theyre both like 'what if the other person #sees it as pity sex or thinks im just using them???' and instead of talking about it they simply. Dont. for ages #in a distant realm miryem wakes up to another day happily annoying her ice fae husband in new and exciting ways and is like.#'hmmm. somehow i feel like there's a disturbance out there. oh well not my issue'

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utilitycaster · 1 year

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My head has been spinning recently just thinking about the sort of backlash that Laura and Marisha would get from fans if Imogen and Laudna didn't end up together.

For example, I can imagine them roleplaying a conversation in which one of pair reveals they have a crush on someone else in the party, and the other supports them fully in that endeavour. I can only imagine the people who would say "she looked away when she said that line so she's lying!!!" or "they're just denying their feelings for each other"

C3 is the first campaign I've managed to catch live, so I'm not sure if this sort of shipping happened in C2 or C1. I feel like Beau/Yasha would be most likely to have caused similar reactions, but even then, I don't think I've seen this amount of protectiveness over a ship that is this vague. Marisha and Ashley at least made it clear from e1 that their characters had (at the very least, one-sided) romantic interest.

Hi anon,

I've gotten a few questions to this effect and have declined to answer some because it does feel a bit like borrowing trouble, even though I will fully admit some of my private DMs look not unlike this. So I'm going to try to answer this with as much sensitivity and thoroughness as I can despite a number of frustrations (not with you, to be clear) and let this serve as my answer going forward unless anything drastically changes. I am making it non-rebloggable, under a cut, and will be blocking any clownery.

Let's rip off the bandaid right away: for some reason, and I have my theories but they are unconfirmed at in some cases, rather ungenerous, Marisha and Laura's characters have been heavily shipped in all three campaigns despite a chemistry I would call middling at best. I think the most generous way to put it is that while Ashley was working on Blindspot, they were often the only two women at the table (though one must look a bit askance at how Veth is often ignored as a female character, despite unambiguously being one). So I suspect that a lot of it comes from simply wanting an F/F romance between main cast PCs during Campaign 1 and having no good options, and then...remaining fixated on that particular cast dynamic, despite, as stated before, chemistry that has never particularly impressed me.

I did not watch Campaign 1 live, so I don't know what the discourse was at the time. I did watch Campaign 2 live and your prediction is accurate. The ship that caused similar reactions was actually Beau and Jester; you can still find people who claim it was a "mistake" to pursue Beauyasha instead and that Beauyasha "came out of nowhere" and was "for the straights." You are also entirely correct that people will grasp at the weakest of straws to support a ship, though, in all fairness, this is not remotely limited to femslash shippers but is a general shipping problem. (The worst offender during Campaign 2 for that, in my opinion, were people who shipped Caleb and Jester and who became creepily obsessed with Laura's expressions late in the game; that is also incidentally still the ship that I think has the most parallels to Imogen and Laudna in terms of canon character relationship vs. fanon perceptions.)

I do expect that if Imogen and Laudna do not get together, for whatever reason, there will be considerable denial. We've already seen some misplaced vitriol towards Ashton, and the response among shippers towards Imogen has, as I've pointed out over the past two weeks, been wildly inconsistent and deeply ungenerous in a desperate attempt to twist her actions in favor not just of the ship, but towards a highly specific idea of the ship as soft girlfriends against the cruel world, instead of a complicated codependence with the potential for becoming something more. I and others have also pointed out that the ship has gone from "they are already in love" to "a QPR would also be totally cool" which is rather unkind to QPRs.

I should also acknowledge the elephant in the room. I am well aware that I am probably public enemy number one on the Imogen/Laudna server where they come up with such bon mots as "bone-dry takes". I suspect this is because I genuinely enjoy both Imogen and Laudna as individual characters and write about them a lot, but in doing so, acknowledge the cracks and tension within their relationship. So on some level, even though the ship could absolutely still happen, they've already kind of started with some of the behaviors you mention, which is rather disappointing.

Anyway, I think this is all to say that this is a general problem in shipping across the board that is not confined to Imogen and Laudna nor F/F ships, but because that specific ship is both, as you say, vague, and yet has an extremely popular and extremely narrow fanon interpretation, it's in particular focus this campaign. I think you're correct that there will be backlash should it not happen, though I would be pleasantly surprised and deeply humbled if there is not. Fortunately I have found that Critical Role is fairly impervious to fandom backlash in terms of the decisions they make in-game, because let's face it, people will push back on anything, including such necessary parts of story as "dramatic tension" and "conflict." If you listened to them you would make the world's shittiest story, and because there are frequently multiple conflicting ships, you can't please everyone. I'm here to watch a story, and I do think ships are intrinsically part of character arcs, so if the ships serve the characters, whatever they are, I think it will be a worthwhile endeavor.

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag

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robbno · 16 days

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This is a tad private. But it makes my head spin to think about it.

My wife don't want to have kids and neither do I. It seems like that opinion is not gonna change either. Especially for her, since the Doc told her she WOULD have complications to carry. So she wanted to get fixed.

We talked about it as a couple and no arguments found between us, and off to the hospital she goes. I get it if the doctors tried to talk the patients over from doing something like this. It's a final safety feature by common sense. But we have made up our minds and she was more determent about getting fixed than I.

Then this shit hit... because she was under 30 when she tried this last time. They wanted MY permission on a paper form. I repeat. They wanted the husband's signature to "allow" his wife to get fixed! To top it all off. I would NOT need her signature if I went in her place.

"Well that sounds fair, doesn't it?" No, not really...

We dug into it and found out it's because of an outdated policy from the old times and it was, as we speak here, being corrected now.

They sure are taking their sweet time with it, though.

Personally I thought that crap was wiped away when that Victorian world ended and ladies got to vote. You know... over hundred years ago!

Our family business is our own. I don't want to have the right to tell her what to do. It makes me feel odd in a bad way. Such rules should not butt in here in the year 2024. No, sir.

I feel a bit disappointed that they even went that way. I thought our systems were better that that.

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averageartistamber · 6 months

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My Thoughts on the FNAF Movie (Will Contain Spoilers)

Managed to watch the movie last night, and I gotta say, despite being someone who's not a fan of horror movies, I really enjoyed it. Though a massive part of that enjoyment is of course being a huge FNAF fan and that I have a huge soft spot for practical effects.

Okay, so the first thing I wanna say is that I appreciate how the movies seems to be it's own separate continuity from the games and books (although it does heavily reference both), and if we get the sequels, it'll probably be the most coherent version of the story.

Honestly, I think the movie's probably a decent place for a newcomer to start (albeit if they are made aware of there being differences between it and the games). I do feel like modern FNAF is starting to get a bit overwhelming for non-fans, since there seems to be this expectation withing the fandom that everyone is up-to-date with the "lore" as it drops in real time. This is already a lot for someone coming in, and with the ever-growing reliance on the spin off books to give contextual information, things feel like they're complicated...kinda for the sake of being complicated?

So, yeah, I really appreciate that they made the movie's plot followable, while still throwing in a lot of background details for long time fans and lore nuts.

Now, I could make a whole comment on the people saying it's not "scary enough", but honestly, I think they pretty much got the right level of "scary", considering the source material. Like, people are talking about the scare factor and lack of gore as if their aren't several pretty violent deaths that are at least partially onscreen (and in my opinion, the "censorship" makes some of them more effective. The dude who gets locked in the room with Bonnie comes to mind).

I think the "scare/gore dissonance" is coming from a lot of the fan-made content that's been hanging around the internet, and people wanting the canon material to be "like that", then being disappointed when they're reminded that it isn't.

The third thing I really appreciate is how the animatronics are portrayed. Despite common criticism, I think that seeing them alternate between violent and childlike actually makes them more unnerving. Like, in all the scenes where they hang out with Abby, first, it reminds you that they're children, and probably just wanna do, like, kid stuff, and the Fort scene was great for that.

At the same time, I was kinda waiting the whole time for them to turn malicious again any second. This very much applies in hindsight when Mike realises that the kids want to kill Abby so she'll stay with them forever, which casts a lot of their "nice" scenes in a much darker light (though still a very tragic one).

Wonder what'll happen to them now they're (probably) free from Williams control. (Unless Goldie Kid usurps the leader position. Unlike the others, I feel like he's more genuinely malevolent).

Also, Vanessa was done so dirty in the games, so I'm really happy that she has a major role in the story, and I think making her subservient to William via "mundane" means rather then supernatural brainwashing is a better take on both Vanessa and Williams characterisations. Makes him way scarier in my opinion.

Also having Mr. Cupcake be an absolute menace AND the one that finishes off Willy is freaking hilarious (ironically so if you follow the theory from the games that Chica was one of his earlier victims.)

Uh, yeah, I've said quite a lot. I might come back with maybe a theory or two on what the sequels could entail. So, I'll see you all again soon, thanks for reading. :)

#fnaf #fnaf movie #five nights at freddy's #fnaf spoilers #fnaf movie spoilers #five nights at freddys movie #my FNAF autism has been resurrected like Springtrap

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voldemorts-tap-shoes · 1 year

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Wishing the bestest of birthdays to the lovely @accio-broom ! 🥳🎂❤️

I wrote a little Muggle uni drabble to celebrate, enjoy!

Strawberries 🍓

Hermione heaves a sigh of frustration that’s just a bit too loud for the library, hoping her agitation reaches its intended target. This library is her favorite of the several on campus—it’s quiet compared to the main library, it’s not far from her class buildings, and it has a coffee shop right there on the bottom floor. The downside, though, is that it has far fewer computer stations, and she’s been waiting for an open bay for nearly twenty minutes now.

She’s not the only one with work to do; she knows that. But one student in particular is the subject of her ire. While the others are hard at work, their screens displaying research, or documents, or complicated calculations, she can see over his shoulder that he’s been playing a game since she arrived. That would be annoying on its own—a gross misuse of university resources—but the fact that it is currently delaying Hermione’s own task has her seeing red.

A quick glance at her watch shows that it’s now been closer to thirty minutes, and she decides enough is enough. Hermione hauls her rucksack onto her back and marches over to the computer station to confront the redhead.

“Excuse me?”

The boy swivels his chair around, and Hermione is met with the bluest eyes she’s ever seen. “Yes?”

“You’ve been using this computer for a while now, and I was hoping that you might let me use it,” Hermione began. “You see, I have this paper to work on.”

“How do you know I’m not working?” he responds, and Hermione gawks at him. Up close, his little farming game is on full display, rows and rows of cartoon fruits and vegetables and livestock, and Hermione snorts.

“You’re very clearly not.”

He shrugs and spins his chair back around. “That’s your opinion.” Hermione opens her mouth to argue, but he points at the screen and continues, “This is a lot of hard work. See, if I don’t harvest this corn in time it will wither up and die, and then what would I feed my cows with?”

Hermione takes a deep breath and taps her foot to the rhythmic click of his mouse, trying to channel her irritation into the movement. “Fine, so when you finish harvesting your corn, can I have the computer?” She huffs as he begins another task. “What are you doing now?”

He throws a grin at her over his shoulder. “Planting strawberries. Here, I’m sorry. What’s your name? I’ll send you a sheep for your troubles.”

“What am I to do with a digital sheep?”

“Make digital blankets.”

“Look, this is really not funny,” Hermione hisses, her patience waning. “I have a paper to work on—“

“So you said.”

“—and you are—“

“A sociology major working on a research topic about students’ tolerance for inconvenience in their educational pursuits.”

Hermione narrows her eyes at him. He rattled it off so quickly that she’s not sure whether to believe him or not. “You just made that up.”

“How do they react when their favorite coffee shop is out of the blend they like? What do they do when there are no tables left in the dining hall?” He pauses and spins the chair back around to face her. “You have a higher tolerance than most. The other day, this bloke and his girlfriend were having an argument so loud even the librarian got involved, but you never looked up from your book.”

“You’re studying me?” Hermione isn’t sure whether to be creeped out or flattered.

He shrugs in reply. “I just notice things. But I’ll be sure to make a note—FarmVille on the library computer is crossing the line. Zero tolerance.” He closes the game and stands up from the chair. “All yours.”

“Thank you.” Hermione takes the empty seat and inserts her thumb drive to open her paper. She only needs to check a source before she continues, and she’s done in five minutes. Of course, by this point several of the other computers have been vacated as well. Figures, Hermione thinks as she grabs her backpack again.

As she stands, she sees the redhead sitting at the table nearby. Now that she’s done what she needed to do, her annoyance has fizzled, and she can’t deny she’s curious.

He looks up as she approaches and gives her a crooked smile. “I’m Ron, by the way.”

“Hermione.” She studies him for a moment. “Are you really a sociology major?”

“Let me buy you a coffee, and I’ll tell you,” he says with a grin. “The shop downstairs. Nothing inconvenient, of course.”

Hermione laughs, not sure what to make of this handsome stranger. “Okay. You’re on.”

#romione #ron weasley #hermione granger #ron x hermione #muggle au #meet cute

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kitkatt0430 · 4 months

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i know that you write more about the flash/ legends than arrow but what do you think about diggle and lyla? or even the suicide squad eps with them and deadshot, cupid, etc?

Overall, I really like Dig and Lyla.

Dig is an absolute favorite of mine and he has put up with sooo much of Oliver's bullshit over the seasons, but he still sees Ollie as his found family and I was glad that he got to see Oliver one last time on the final season of the Flash. I do think he got robbed by having the Green Lantern option taken away when what was going to be his spin off show got taken away. There are times when the writing for him is inconsistent, but one of the most consistent parts of the arrow verse was the inconsistent writing so... *shrug* it is what it is.

I'm less fond of Lyla than of John, but I still enjoy her character. And I do see ARGUS as being an overall better and more ethical organization under her leadership. I get why Barry and Team Flash trust ARGUS under her leadership, it's not just because Oliver vouches for her but because she does clean up a lot of Waller's worst practices like forcibly conscripting missing persons like Oliver or the suicide squads. (I know the Ghost Initiative gets reactivated later, but I haven't seen those episodes, so I don't know how Lyla handles the team there. And the Arrow wiki doesn't clarify if they're still sticking bombs in people's necks.) I do think she got screwed over somewhat in the Red Skies Crisis, but I'm of mixed opinions on how that x-over event was handled.

As for the suicide squad episodes... it's complicated. On principal, I really hate the idea of suicide squads - criminals or not, supervillains or not, it is wildly unethical and immoral to be sticking bombs in people's necks to coerce them into doing dangerous jobs and I have no doubt this practice in canon is what inspired Lewis Snart to put a bomb in Lisa's neck to coerce Leonard into working with him. It's very much something that the 'good guys' should not be party to. It's the sort of thing they should be fighting against.

Lyla continuing to work with ARGUS despite it utilizing suicide squads - her loyalty to Waller despite these and other ethical nightmares Waller treats as totally normal things for ARGUS to participate in - is probably a big part of why I'm less fond of her than Dig. She does reform things later on, but her complicity is very uncomfortable before her promotion. For Dig (and Oliver) working with ARGUS isn't really something there's much choice in. As a vigilante himself, Dig knows ARGUS could easily justify arresting him and so his work with ARGUS isn't entirely voluntary though he is also doing it out of love and respect for Lyla as well. It's a messy situation and while I don't necessarily agree with Dig's choices I do think he tries to make the best of a bad situation.

That said, I do enjoy the episodes themselves. They provide a wealth of character development for Dig and Deadshot - the almost friendship that is reluctantly forged between John and the man who thinks he killed John's brother (and John thinks killed his brother) is fantastically done. Even Floyd's death is fairly well handled by the show writers considering the circumstances under which the real world decision to remove him from the Arrow-verse came from. (Deadshot being a character tapped for the movies made him suddenly off limits for the tv verse so he got written out permanently.)

I think the Suicide Squad episodes originally worked specifically because of Diggle and Lawton. So I can't really speak to what happened with the reactivated 'Ghost Initiative' in S7 since I still haven't watched that season. I don't know if they still had the explosive implants or not - I'd hope not, that Lyla would be better than that. Especially since this is the organization Cisco leaves Team Flash to work for; after removing the explosive from Lisa, I can't imagine Cisco being okay with knowingly working for an organization that creates Suicide Squads when it's convenient for them. But I can't say I'd be surprised - disappointed, but not surprised - to learn Lyla did treat the reactivated Ghost Initiative as a Suicide Squad similar to how Waller did. And if that is the case? I just kind of have to assume Cisco had no idea.

I can't say I have strong opinions about Cupid or the other Suicide Squad members on the show. Floyd's the one that really stands out to me. Cupid was a character I mostly found annoying; her obsession with romantic love just does not click as an interesting motive to me. Likely in part because I'm aromantic, which makes Carrie feel to me like a caricature of the perils of amatonormativity. And I couldn't really name any of the other Suicide Squad members off the top of my head - I had to look them up on the Arrow wiki - so that goes to show how little impact they really had on me when I last watched those episodes.

#kitkatt0430 answers #arrow #fandom meta #arrow meta #suicide squad (arrow verse)#john diggle #lyla michaels #floyd lawton

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bronanlynch · 3 months

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for the ship meme: any dimitri fireemblem ship of your choice 👀

I'm so sorry this is like a million years later anyway. it's time for you to hear abt dimitri/dedue

What made you ship it? so in the spin-off game (three hopes, the one that I played first) you can go around and talk to each of the three house leaders and ask them abt each of the students in their class and dimitri says, when asked abt dedue, "He tends to keep to himself, but he possesses one of the kindest hearts of anyone I know. I'm proud to call him my…vassal." so of course I want instantly intrigued. and then every time they talk to or abt each other from then on they sound like gay people in a period drama so. y'know (exhibit A) (exhibit B)

What are your favorite things about the ship? well the devotion and yearning is incredibly tasty, and I am compelled by how they are capable of both encouraging & supporting each other in doomed ways (dedue helping dimitri with his self-destructive revenge quest even though he knows that it's hurting dimitri and will likely lead to both of their deaths for a complicated mix of reasons including that he believes that dimitri is doing the right thing and also that he doesn't care if dimitri is doing the right thing or not bc dimitri saved his life and was one of the few people who wasn't super shitty towards him and is one of the only people who expresses any sort of interest in helping dedue's people) (however even at his lowest point when he doesn't care abt anything or anyone except avenging his family he still cares abt dedue and wants him to survive, in routes where you fight them he has lines about wanting dedue to live) and also in ways that are not doomed and will help them both heal from all of the various horrors. like, sorry for sikenposting but they are extremely "the gentleness that comes not from the absence of violence but despite the abundance of it." also, the bit from exhibit B above (the highest level of their support with each other in three hopes) where dimitri talks longingly abt them being able to run away together to live a simpler life with each other

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? to be clear the game is Not Great abt how it handles racism wrt dedue and duscur (the country he's from) but also plenty of people do some (unfortunately predictable) shitty racist things when they write fic abt him. also, significantly less serious but I do genuinely think that the happiest ending for both of them involves dimitri not having to be king and them just. living their lives together as ordinary people. my other other unpopular opinion is that even if you don't ship them they are still canonically incredibly important to each other and I think it's kinda weird if a post-canon fic abt dimitri does not establish what dedue is up to

#aren't you proud of me i went the entire post without talking abt my trans dimitri agenda #thank you!!#omnipah #dreaming.txt #ask

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my-shields-are-down · 2 years

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That other shoe dropped.. I figured we’d pay a toll for all the great content. Now we know why they were feeding us all the Chenford content from the official account.

Lucy will spin out apparently, Tim more than likely will shut down again after this.

It’s obvious Chris lives and that Lucy will stay with him. Tim and Ashley I think will be done though soon. Question is, since Lucy stays with Chris, will Tim do something dumb to mess the Chenford dynamic up even more??

Eric did say messy and complicated, but how the hell will they get out of this mess? This seems beyond messy and complicated now in my opinion.

I’m thinking Lucy takes Sacramento to distance herself since in her mind, people are getting hurt because of her.

This is one steep hole 😬. Holy moly. Do you have any thoughts?

Hello hello. Yesterday all I was seeing a hole too deep to climb out of - I don’t know how they’ll find their way back to each other. But because the episode was so heavily Chenford - and clearly with ABC’s hype machine involved - the network will make sure that there is plenty of hope for them to move forward again throughout the season. Catnip, Eric called it at one point.

I stick by my earlier statements about seasonal story arcs. What happens in the first episode? That tells you the themes of the season. Chenford, Rosalind, Nyla being a detective, Nolan being stupid, Bailey doing the impossible, and Angela being an awesome and brilliant detective. Family, passion, danger, love and all the sex that Tim and Lucy wanted with each other. Oh and Fakeford showing up late and messing up everything. Heh heh.

I think it’s going to be brutal for a bit. Lucy needs to grow up. She needs to get promoted. She needs confidence in herself. She’s going to go through the wringer this season - much like Tim did 8n Season 1 (nice parallel eh?). She’s not yet fully formed. I’m excited to see this training I hope she takes. That’ll help. Tim will support her no matter how much it hurts - because she did for him.

But Lucy will spiral. She’ll stay with Chris out of guilt. She’ll run from Tim when she needs him the most . She’ll probably run to Nolan (gag). Big head Nolan has to be involved somehow. She won’t live in that apartment any more. Where will she and Tamara go? I expect things to get worse with her parents. Because of the vulnerable situation all of these changes will put Lucy in, if I’m Rosalind I want someone there, by her side messing with her mind. Creating doubt, fear, panic. Making her think she’s losing her mind, ghosting her, terrorizing her.

And who is sitting in a prime position to do all that? CHRIS. What if the end of that episode, was the plan all along? To ingratiate Chris more deeply into Lucy’s life? To wreak havoc on her mind and psyche? To make the most of her guilt? The longer they are together, the more he can fuck with her - ultimately making her less likely to turn to her friends and face Rosalind alone. Rosalind from a position of strength, and Lucy not.

Tim on the other hand- has fallen off the deep end for Lucy and it’s going to drive him crazy. Voldie is history thank god. And him walking into Lucy’s apartment with the intention to hook up? I mean…. That’s going to be hard for him to reconcile with his professionalism. He’ll probably be triggered by Lucy’s suffering like Isabel suffered. Maybe he’ll be triggered to reevaluate what it is to be a man with honor - and we’ll see him finally deal with his military stuff. I dunno. Obviously, he and Lucy get to a somewhat better place by episode 8 if they are riding together again. It’d be great if Tim was the one who figured out what Chris was up to and then did not blame himself for what came next.

As far as the insurmountable odds we find ourselves facing at the moment, I think we need to take a moment and be grateful for where we are and how far we’ve come.

We wouldn’t be having this conversation if someone else had been hired to play Tim and/or Lucy. EW+ MO and massive fan support of them and their performances of Tim and Lucy got us here.

Not only are we in uncharted waters, but unlike previous seasons, we now have significant support from ABC. full support of a fan created relationship. Alexi never would have done the full court press content release for Chenford. That was ABC. They are invested in that storyline and yes making as much money off of it as possible. That aside, literally anything can happen at this point. Our course has not yet been charted.

And for now, I am perfectly content to anchor here and sunbathe in the excitement created from that truly amazing episode.

I know at some point Lucy and a Tim will ride together again - so all hope is not lost. There’s a path forward, we just don’t see it yet.

Our map is incomplete.

#askandrea #chenford #tim bradford #lucy chen #tim x lucy #the rookie #i love them #uncharted waters #our path is unclear #incomplete map #boating metaphors #too soon to call it

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bookwyrm35 · 11 months

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I've seen a bunch of theories circling about what makes a person's Talents stronger so here's a compilation/my two cents on the subject.

1. The closer you've been with death, the better you can sense it. The first example that comes to mind in A. J. Lockwood himself. Orphaned at age six, his sister murdered three years later, and his uncle passing after a stroke somewhere along the way, Lockwood's life has been filled with death and maybe that's why he's able to see it so clearly. Lucy Carlyle, the greatest Listener since Marisa Fittes, has also had her fair share of nearness to violent ends. Her entire team from Jacob's was killed by that ghost and even if she doesn't dwell on it in the books, she carries their deaths with her forever.

A counter point to this theory is the fact that it implies your Talent gets stronger as you have more experiences with death, which isn't something we really see as the books go on. Lucy mentions after she (spoilers!) leaves that she feels she's getting stronger and more confident in her Listening abilities, but she hasn't had any brushes with death in that time.

If it's true though it does make me wonder what kind of life Marrisa had before the Problem that made her gifted enough to hear Ezekiel...

2. When you meet your soul mate, your Talent gets stronger. I remeber this being illustrated with Locklyle by saying that Lockwood seems surprised at the brightness of Mr. Hope's death glow in 62 Sheen Road. Despite knowing the abruptness of his end, Lockwood didn't think the death glow would be bright enough to warrant bringing his sun glasses. Lucy likewise seems to be surprised by the clarity of what she hears and the impressions that come when she connects to Annabel Ward's ghost, making me think that this is a new development.

It's a bit of a romantic spin on a gift that's only good for dealing with the dead, but in this fandom something like that is inevitable.

The counter point again stems from Lucy's resigning from Lockwood and Co. but this time it's a bit more complicated. Yes, she is physically far from Lockwood during this time, but it's only because she cares for him that she left. This is an entirely different tangent that I might get into later, but I truly believe her leaving was an ultimate symbol of love in her (subconscious) mind.

3. Talent in simply tied to your physical senses. I personally like this theory the best because I see a lot of evidence for it. Lockwood had good Sight because he's got good sight. If you read carefully you'll notice he's usually the one who tunes in to visual things first. He'll see someone coming to answer the door, detect movement from far away before the others do, and spot clues that have led them to sources many times. There's not as much on this for Lucy but I think that might just be due to the fact that she's the one narrating. The others don't hear what she does but she doesn't realize it. George, as we know from the scene when they're trying to get information from Carver before he dies, has very bad hearing. (that or he just has a hard time focusing on soft sounds when he's stressed. Which is valid, but really George? Bogeys?) While we're talking about George though, it's a good time to bring up that they never mention his Talent in Sight because, if this theory is correct, he's as blind to ghosts as he is to everything else with his glasses off. It's also worth noting I think that ghosts are best seen in the corner of your eye, an obvious blind spot to any glasses wearer.

It also explains (in my mind at least) why Touch isn't as talked about as the other senses. It's hard to gauge how physically sensitive you are, so I'd wager it'd be the same for the psychical side.

4. Strength in Talent is genetic. This one has the least going for it in my opinion. We know that some of Lucy's sisters and her mother had Talent when they were young, but it was barely enough to qualify them for Night Watch. We don't know much about the abilities of Lockwood or George's family, but I feel like we would have gotten some snippet of information if they were.

5. It's random, there's no rhyme or reason, and I spent way too much time thinking about this 🙂.

Thoughts anyone?

#save lockwood and co #bring back lockwood and co #lockwood and co #lockwood and co books #anthony lockwood #george karim #lucy carlyle #george cubbins #ParamountForLockwoodandCo.#It's very late so I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense #I would genuinely love to hear all thoughts and theories about this

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charmixpower · 2 years

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Trix and Specialist headcanons?

The specialists and Trix..... Hmmm sure

Icy -

I don't think Icy even knows half of them exist. There's the useful one that had the balls to jump off of Cloud Tower, the free hostage that was dating her mark, the one that refused to hold back anything when dealing with her and her sisters (and was deadly precise with those sting things on his hands), and the fairy one that could match Darcy illusion for illusion. That's about as far as her opinion goes

Darcy -

She's the one that cares the most about the specialists for obvious reasons. She's still a little in love with Riven....or maybe accurately angry that he was willing to jump off a tower to escape her and still feeling the need to possess him for her ego. With love thrown in. It's complicated, and Icy sometimes makes her head spin when she talks to her about feelings but she's certain she wants Riven back in a great capacity. (Maybe she wants what could of been? She doesn't know.) She knows who Sky is, and finds him a bit annoying. She appreciates Brandon's non reactive demeanor sometimes as it reminds her of Icy. She thinks Timmy is a bit annoying but kinda cute, and Helia is just kinda funny to her. A little scary, as he's the only specialist that even came close to killing them, but mostly funny at how ready to fight things out of his caliber he is. Kinda reminds her of Stormy. Nabu, however, pisses her the fuck off on principle. Both because he can see though her illusions and bc he taught Riven how to do that. In reality Darcy is a deeply sensitive person who's craves emotional connections. She does this in the very shitty way of trying to possess people, but girl does just want a romantic partner REALLY BADLY. She wants intimacy and trust, unaware that it's like impossible to trust her...also that she hurt the one person outside of her sisters that came to know when and like her. Tbh Riven jumping off of Cloud Tower is what keeps her going along with everything (even after failure after failure) bc as far as she's concerned there's nothing left for her outside of her sisters

Stormy -

Now Stormy definitely doesn't give enough fucks about the specialists to have actually opinions on the specialists. Riven is that funny emotional guy that Darcy dated once, that she's legally required to hate bc he broke Darcy's heart. The blonde one is dating Bloom, which is why Icy knows about him. She's pretty sure that the brown haired guy that has the most boring reactions to things is dating Steller...or whatever her name was. She does remember that nerd guy for being really fucking annoying, and not in the fun way, when she and her sisters attacked Red Fountain. He was just a little coward, and that makes her angry in a way she can barely explain. She thinks the girly looking guy is pretty ok, he's got a rage she can appreciate, but she hates the fairy guy on principle because he can see though Darcy's illusions

----

Sky unfortunately is very acquainted with the Trix....mostly Icy. His opinions on all of them start and end at "evil murderous bitches", slightly uncaring about the differences in their evil

Brandon usually ends up being the one that listens to Riven in the few times Riven actually talks about Darcy, and wow, he really hates the Trix. On top of that they attack Sky a lot bc Bloom, and he's reaching Helia levels enraged. He does realize he can't really do anything, at most he can get them a harder jail sentence by being a witness, so he just kinda seethes when ever he sees them

Timmy is just scared of them lol. Mostly Stormy who keeps making increasing violent and graphic threats at him

Riven... Do I even need to say it? ~Darcy trauma~ She never took compete control of his head, like I'm assuming happened in the 4kids dub idk tho, but she did use her magic to push him into doing things that he usually wouldn't. And that invasion of his mind and disregard of his autonomy left him a lot paranoid. Even without the mind control Darcy lying to get into a relationship with him, that really fucked up his sense of trust. That's a very good way to rob someone of any sense of safety in their life, good job Darcy. Nothing is ok!!! Riven also had the joy of being around Icy, very convincing Icy. Who is a fucking nightmare to deal if your close to her. Stormy was cool right up until he realized that her more destructive tendancys where honest to god sadism. Usually tries to avoid the Trix when ever possible for very obvious reasons

Helia just fucking hates them. Across the board. His only opnion is murder

Nabu thinks all of them are fucking unhinged lol. He wasn't there for the really nasty shit, and only knows them in refrence to Valtor. He finds Darcy's enraged reactions when he figures her out to be kinda funny. Eventually he realizes that, no, these girls are very dangerous and he really need to take them very seriously

#winx club #winx trix #winx specialists #winx headcanons #rus chatters #asks

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vanyalanthirielofmana · 6 months

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For the fic writers meme: 15, 17, 38, 43.

Sorry for taking long to get back to this and thank you for the ask!!! 😊😊😊

15. What’s your favorite AU that you’ve written?

That's a rather difficult question, since I usually write within canon, or at least within the original universe. But I think I'd say High School AU, since I occasionally write with that setting. Very vanilla in my opinion, but it's a comfy AU where I can just shut my brain off and have my OTP do comfy, school life things

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

I have two.

The first one is a Modern AU where Hawkeye is the vocalist of a band, and Riesz is not just modern day royalty, but also a famous opera-style singer. So I guess you could say Celebrity AU/Band AU as well. Since they're both musicians, they know about each other and admire each other's music. And then one day, Riesz sneaks out to watch one of Hawkeye's band's live shows, and by pure coincidence they bump while they're packing up backstage. He recognizes her instantly, and awkwardly asks her for her number - For a collab, of course. And things to uphill from there hehehehehehe...

The second one is rather long-winding, so buckle up it's a pretty long ride.

This one is a completely different universe where humanity has advanced far enough that magic and technology can co-exist as well as interspace travel, living in space, having Gundam-like machines and complex magic-tech weapons, etc. Think of something like Strike the Blood except with mobile suits, that kind of setting. Hawkeye comes from a poor planet, and he, with Eagle and the others formed a self-made troupe that used to steal from the corrupt rich. This changed when they were forcibly taken in by the CIA of their planet, headed by Belladonna. She takes Jessica a hostage in their deal: in exchange for their spy and thieving skills, they will give Jessica a better life. Should they back out, she dies. So of course they accept. Hawkeye's mission in particular is to infiltrate a magic-tech school, and take control of 'The Queen'. This is where Riesz comes in. She is the princess, and the only soul survivor of Laurent. Although once an ancient civilization, it was attacked by Raptures, a very powerful race of machine-lifeform aliens that only appear once every few hundred years. Belladonna, highly suspects that Riesz is actually 'The Queen', pretending to be the princess. and Hawkeye's mission is to subdue, capture, and bring her back to their planet as they believe they have advanced technologically enough to control The Queen's power. So since this is a school setting (think Witch of Mercury) they become classmates and Hawkeye and Riesz grow closer to each other. So much so that one time, Riesz is sitting alone looking sad, and Angela, who comes from a different planet, bring Hawkeye along to cheer her up since she knows that will instantly brighten her mood. At first, Hawkeye only does it in accordance to his mission (and Riesz is cute anyway) but eventually he falls for her for real. As the school year progresses, he slowly realizes that Riesz is The Queen, but actually has its powers fully under her control. As the story moves on, Belladonna becomes impatient, and starts giving him more dangerous orders. So on top of trying not to be suspicious in front of Riesz, he has to comply with her orders so as not to put Jessica at risk. I'm not sure how the plot ends, but it goes something like that haha

The reason why it's so long and complicated is because I dreamt of this, and then when I woke up I just decided to spin more scenarios into it hahaha... I ended up having quite a bit of fun thinking this up.

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?

I just decided to look at my most popular fic, and it's apparently My Teacher, my Our Secret, a.k.a. the Student x Teacher fic. I definitely am surprised! I always thought my most popular one was Doppelganger. Honestly... I'm not sure why. Besides the fact that it's adult-oriented, I can only think it's because people like that dynamic. Well, I like it too! Hahahahah!

43. If you take/write prompts: what’s your favorite prompt fic that you’ve written?

I'd say it would be heartbeat. This was made for the ホークリ大体60分創作 (Hawkeye x Riesz around 60 minute creation) project. The prompts were 悶える (To writhe) and 結婚 (Wedding). If you're interested in reading it, TW for terminal illness. I like it because it's tragic, moody, and sad. I like that kindof stuff... Yeah hahahahaha!

Thank you again for the asks, and thank you for reading if you've gotten this far! 😊😊😊

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missnight0wl · 1 year

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Hi, hope you're well! Last night my brain went on a much unnecessary tangent, and long story short I'm entertaining the idea of there being two MCs in the game, one for the main storyline and one for the Quidditch storyline and all the side quests. I don't know whether I'll do anything with this, but I still wanted to ask you: as an exercise of imagination, how would you make it work?

Hello! I’m fine, and I hope you’re well, too! And once again, sorry for the late reply!

Hm, this is a pretty interesting idea! However, I do think it’d be rather difficult to execute, for multiple reasons.

The story

First of all, I think it might be hard to incorporate it into the narrative of the story. Now, I know that some people do make two MCs work for their personal stories just fine (indigobackfire and immagrosscandy come to mind), but making it universal for every player would assumingly complicate things a bit. But of course, I’m not saying it’s impossible.

Also, personally, I’d probably make the secondary MC a rather distant relative of the main MC. That way, they could know quite a lot about the main MC, but they wouldn’t be affected by e.g. the blood connection (if it turns out to be important at any point). I think it could even be like “a foster cousin” or something. Y’know, a child of MC’s mother’s friend, so they were very close growing up, yet they’re not actually related.

The technical aspect

I admit I’m no expert in this matter, but I suspect that having two MCs would be pretty hard to execute, purely from a technical point of view. Especially if we’d like to keep the game in its mobile format. I also know about the games where you play as different characters at various points, but I don’t think they allow for much customisation of those characters. Admittedly, my knowledge about video games is not super vast, so please, correct me if anyone knows better, but I imagine we wouldn’t have as much customisation as we do now.

I mean, I guess I can kind of see it working as The Sims, for example. But again, we’d simply have to turn HPHM into a much more complex game for that.

The selection of the side quests

While I see why you proposed the division to: “the main storyline, and the Quidditch storyline and all the side quests”, I believe it should be a bit more complex. Because if you really look into it, not all side quests are equal. For example, the Patronus TLSQ has a pretty strong connection to the main story, and I think it should be done by the main MC. In other words, in my opinion, all of the side quests should be first reviewed to judge whether they're actually important for the main storyline or not. Then, the important side quests could be either incorporated into the main story entirely or maybe they could remain being side quests, just completed by the main MC.

If it was up to me, I’d assigned the secondary MC to:

the Magical Creatures Reserve content,

the Quidditch content,

the Clubs content,

the dating content,

and obviously some of the side quests which don’t have important information.

Finally, I want to mention two more reflections of mine.

The first one is about the idea of “spin-offs”. I believe I actually mentioned it somewhere on my blog in the past already. It’s basically about creating separate games which could be connected by their content but not “physically”. I think it’d help a lot in organising the stories, if done properly. On top of that, it’d make each game much lighter. HPHM is really heavy in terms of data, and more and more people complain about the lag in the game. It’s really not a good direction, but JC doesn’t seem to care about it much.

The second idea is that maybe it would be good to give people a choice whether they want to play a certain part with the main or the secondary MC. Though I’m not sure if it’d be technically doable, especially if we consider the idea of spin-offs. Still, I want to mention it because I suspect some people might complain about not being able to play certain parts with their chosen MC. On the other hand, if the distinction existed in the game since the beginning, I suppose it’d be easier to accept that you can only date with the secondary MC etc.

I hope my answer was at least somewhat satisfying! And feel free to ask if I wasn’t clear enough about anything.

#hogwarts mystery #hphm #hphm mc #jam city #ask #wannabeeliana

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