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hafanforever · 4 years

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Tyrant Terror

So I know it’s no surprise to my closest friends and fellow Disney fans on Tumblr that I have a strong, deep affinity for villains, including those by Disney. And over the last several months, the more I wrote about King Runeard in my Frozen II analyses, the more I realized what made him a tyrant, albeit a secret one, and that led me to think about other villains in the Disney animated canon who were tyrants.

The thing is, while most historical tyrants were people of royalty, you don’t necessarily have to be a monarch in order to be a tyrant. The definition of a tyrant isn’t limited to being a KING or QUEEN who is openly cruel, hostile, harsh, uncaring, oppressive, persecuting, and unjust towards the people they rule. I mean, that is one way to express tyranny, and probably the most famous way it is and has been done. But what it really means for a person to be called a tyrant is being in a position of power, authority, and/or control over other people and MISUSING, to the point of ABUSING, that position, and often for that tyrant's own selfish desires rather than in the best interest of the people being ruled by the tyrant.

So from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Frozen II, there are a handful of tyrannical antagonists who are indeed monarchs, such as the Queen of Hearts, Prince John, and Scar, but also plenty others who are not. There are tyrants who are corrupt government officials, such as Governor Ratcliffe, Frollo, and Bellwether, and even those who wield magic, such as Maleficent, Ursula, and Jafar. And like the villainous monarchs, the non-monarch villains prove themselves as tyrants all because they abuse their positions of power, magic or non-magic power, and authority that they have over other characters. In fact, there are even a couple of heroic characters who start off more as protagonist villains because they display tyrannical behavior before they become better people. On the contrary, the main antagonist enemies of these tyrant heroes serve as darker reflections of what the latter characters could have become had they not learned the error of their ways.

Below is my list of all the villains from Walt Disney Animation Studios that I perceive as tyrants, from monarchs to government officials to sorcerers, and what scenes in their respective movies depict them displaying tyrannical behavior. I even listed villains that would have become tyrants had they succeeded in their longterm goals.

Monarchs

The Evil Queen: Though we never see her actively governing her kingdom on screen, the abuse that the evil queen displays in her authority over Snow White by dressing her stepdaughter in rags and forcing her to work as a maid in an attempt to make her (Snow White) unattractive makes her a tyrant for sure. Furthermore, the way she mocks the skeletal remains of a prisoner in her dungeon suggests the queen is indeed a cruel, tyrannical ruler.

Queen of Hearts: If we want to consider the epitome of a true tyrant that is a monarch from Disney, it can be safely assumed that that role belongs to the Queen of Hearts. While every resident of Wonderland is insane in some way, the Queen is the most dangerous one of all by being the ruler of the land. An egotist extraordinaire, she loves to get her way, insisting that “All ways are MY ways!” and enjoys hearing the words “Yes, Your Majesty”. The Queen outwardly abuses her authority and power over her subjects by becoming furious over even the smallest of matters, during which she loses her literally explosive temper and flies into violent rages. She is also extremely irrational and unjust in making decisions, primarily by utilizing executions as her only and immediate solution to any problem, especially whenever she feels someone has wronged her, while also refusing to let the individuals she wants beheaded explain their sides of the stories. Enraged upon seeing her white roses painted red, when she misses a shot in croquet, and when she becomes the target of a prank caused by the Cheshire Cat, the Queen sentences those she deems responsible to death by beheading. All of this proves just how much she persecutes and oppresses the residents of Wonderland, instilling only fear and intimidation into their hearts. (A pun that is VERY much intended by me, the Queen of Puns! 😆😆😆)

Prince John: While possessing a short temper that isn’t nearly as explosive and violent as that of the Queen of Hearts, Prince John is displayed to be extremely incompetent as the ruler of England during the time that King Richard is off fighting in the Crusades. Stingy and greedy, the prince continually finds ways to rob and swindle his people in pursuit of wealth for himself. John shows absolutely no care that the harsh laws he decrees to gain more money drive the citizens of Nottingham into poverty and starvation, and he even cruelly mocks them on their poor states by saying, “Rob the poor to feed the rich!”. After the villagers start making fun of him with the song “The Phony King of England”, John punishes them by further increasing the tax payments. Soon everyone in Nottingham is stripped of their money and they are put in prison due to their inability to pay their taxes.

Horned King: Even though the Queen of Hearts projects herself as the ideal example of a royal tyrant, she is far less evil and scary than the Horned King. A skeletal creature with green, rotting flesh, the Horned King is completely frightening in appearance and in personality. Malicious, cruel, malevolent, sinister, power-hungry, megalomaniacal, ruthless, and merciless, he is the epitome of a tyrant who is nothing but purely and completely evil. His goal is to find the infamous Black Cauldron and use its powers to unleash an army of immortal warriors called the Cauldron Born in order to become immortal and conquer the world.

Scar: Denied a legitimate chance to succeed Mufasa as the King of the Pride Lands once Simba is born, Scar schemes to have both of them killed to become king. After murdering Mufasa and believing that Simba has been killed as well, Scar ascends to the throne. However, because he allows the hyenas unrestricted hunting rights in the Pride Lands, their overeating leads to a shortage of food, and a drought leads to other animal herds moving away. Ultimately, these events turn the kingdom into a barren wasteland under Scar’s reign, leaving it completely devoid of green vegetation, water, and food sources. Incredibly lazy and incompetent as a ruler, and caring about nothing except the power and authority that being king gives him, Scar refuses to accept that his allowance of the hyenas overeating is what leads to the destruction of the Pride Lands. He instead blames it on Sarabi and the other lionesses since the hyenas complained to him that they refuse to go hunt. When she suggests they leave Pride Rock to survive, Scar obstinately rejects the idea, not at all caring that he has essentially sentenced them to death. He argues that his place as king puts him in the right for whatever he decides to do: “I am the king! I can do whatever I want!”

King Runeard: In his life, Runeard openly presented himself as a peaceful, generous leader to the people of Arendelle AND the Northuldra. But Elsa discovers from his snowy manifestation in Ahtohallan that he did not trust the Northuldra just because they followed magic. Despite his kingdom having seen him as a benevolent ruler, the face the figure of Runeard makes as he sneers "of a king!" implies that only really cared about himself as well the power and authority he had in being a king. Therefore, he secretly misused and abused it whenever the opportunity came along. This is displayed perfectly when Runeard had the dam constructed in the Enchanted Forest, presenting it as a gift to the Northuldra. He claimed that it would strengthen their land, but admitted only to the second-in-command that the dam’s effects would be just the opposite. This was all part of Runeard’s subtle plan to destroy the Northuldra, as he feared they would try to usurp him and take over Arendelle using their magical ties.

Government Officials/Authority Figures

Lady Tremaine: Like the evil queen before her, Lady Tremaine has control and authority over Cinderella once the latter’s father dies, and misuses it by turning Cinderella into her servant. Day after day for ten years, Lady Tremaine orders and bosses Cinderella around, forces her to do every single bit of housework and menial task for her and the former’s daughters, and subjects the poor girl to an endless cycle of abuse and torment. When Cinderella is accused by Anastasia of putting Gus under the latter’s teacup, her stepmother refuses to let her explain the truth and unfairly punishes her with extra chores. Later, Lady Tremaine falsely promises Cinderella she may attend the ball if she finds a suitable dress and finishes her chores, but gives her chore after chore to do to keep her from working on her dress. After Cinderella appears wearing the dress her mouse and bird friends fixed up for her, Lady Tremaine subtly and cruelly manipulates Drizella and Anastasia into destroying it so that she can appear to be fair in her side of the bargain (”If you can find something suitable to wear”) while simultaneously keeping Cinderella from going to the ball in the first place. The following morning, when she realizes Cinderella was the mysterious girl who danced with the prince at the ball, Lady Tremaine follows her stepdaughter up to her room and locks her in to prevent her from trying on the glass slipper when the Duke arrives with it.

Sheriff of Nottingham: Despite not being the main antagonist of Robin Hood, the Sheriff of Nottingham is as much of a tyrant over the town as Prince John is to it and the entirety of England. This is because he is abusive, ruthless, and completely unsympathetic towards the people’s poverty and continually demands that they pay their taxes, regardless of what other problems they may have that hinders them from doing so. It is because of the Sheriff’s harsh decree of taxes, and then by that of Prince John once the latter takes up residence in Nottingham, that the town’s citizens are driven into poverty. The cruel, immoral way the Sheriff collects taxes includes forcing out the coins Otto had hidden in his leg cast, not caring that his act was causing the blacksmith pain from his broken leg, confiscating the one farthing Skippy had been given for his birthday and insincerely wishing him a happy birthday, and taking the single farthing that was in the Friar Tuck’s church's poor box and laughing as he did it.

Ratigan: A notorious crime lord, Ratigan is the leader of a gang of thugs comprised primarily of mice, but also including a bat named Fidget, who is his second-in-command. Although they willingly help their boss with his crimes, they also participate out of fear for their own lives. Ratigan is an abusive tyrant to his minions and threatens to feed them to his cat Felicia if they ever do something that angers him, even if it occurs unintentionally. This is shown after one of his drunken thugs calls him a rat during "The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind”, and Ratigan threatens his other minions with the same fate if they do not keep singing. Ratigan’s latest scheme is to take over London by murdering the Mouse Queen during her Diamond Jubilee celebration and secretly replacing her with a lifelike robot. He and his thugs (who are disguised as royal guards) infiltrate Buckingham Palace and kidnap the Queen, who is taken to be fed to Felicia by Fidget. As the Diamond Jubilee takes place, the Robot Queen names Ratigan as her new "Royal Consort", and Ratigan, dressed in an ornate robe, immediately presents himself in front of the gathered citizens of Mousedom, terrifying them. He then proceeds to read over his long list of tyrannical laws, one of which is a heavy tax policy for people he deems "parasites", including the elderly, infirm, and children.

Governor Ratcliffe: A completely unscrupulous and greedy man, Ratcliffe leads John Smith and other sailors on an expedition to Virginia to find gold, but he secretly plans to keep all discovered riches for himself. Upon their arrival to America, he forces all of the settlers to dig around their encampment, but refuses to do any manual labor himself out of his own sheer laziness. When no gold turns up in the searches, Ratcliffe becomes greedily convinced that it is because the Native Americans are hoarding it. He refuses to believe John's claim that there is no gold around the land, claiming that the Powhatans’ land is his land for the taking and that he makes the laws. After John is captured by the Powhatans, as they believed he murdered Kocoum, Ratcliffe takes it as the opportunity to take the non-existent gold from them, but claiming to his men that it is a rescue mission.

Judge Claude Frollo: Perhaps the darkest and most malevolent of all Disney Villains in animation (aside from the Horned King), Frollo uses his position as the Minister of Justice in the city of Paris to enrich himself and persecute anyone and everyone he considers inferior. He especially holds a deep-seated hatred for the gypsies and plots to eradicate them from the city. Despite his dark deeds, Frollo refuses to find any fault within himself and he truly believes he is a good person who is only trying to rid the world of sin and malice. Any time he commits a crime or is about to do one, he makes excuses to justify them, saying he is doing it in the eyes of God and that his victims are the ones who are really at fault. After chasing and murdering Quasimodo’s mother since he believed that the bundle she was carrying was stolen goods, Frollo attempts to murder Quasimodo since he believes the latter’s deformity makes him an unholy demon. Years later, after trapping Esmeralda in Notre Dame and upon discovering that she has escaped, he launches a ruthless manhunt around the city to find her, burning down the houses of anyone suspected of sheltering gypsies (including an innocent miller and his family, who survive thanks to Phoebus’s intervention) and interrogating gypsies who are captured. During the climax, Frollo makes the excuse that Esmeralda has proven herself to be a witch and will be executed by burned at the stake as her sentence.

Hades: The reluctant ruler of the Underworld and Lord of the Dead, Hades abuses his authoritative role by subjecting his lackeys Pain and Panic to harsh mistreatment whenever they fail a task assigned to them and any other time they do or say something that angers their boss. The two imps only put up with Hades’s abuse not so much out of loyalty to him, but out of deep fear for him. When he discovers that the two did not succeed in killing Hercules as a baby, Hades furiously grabs both Pain and Panic by their necks and chokes them as he demands they explain themselves. Later, after Hercules becomes a famous hero in Thebes, Pain and Panic adorn themselves with some of the hero’s merchandise, much to their boss’s complete ire.

Shan Yu: The ruthless yet respected leader of the Hun army, Shan Yu is an extremely dark, merciless, and dangerous individual determined to take control of China. His thought-to-be impossible feat of getting through the Great Wall to invade China soon makes him notorious and feared throughout the entire country. In his journey to the Imperial City, Shan Yu and his army destroy one village, then slaughter the entire Imperial Army and residents in another village at the Tung Shao Pass in the mountains. He and five of his elite soldiers are the only ones who survive a snow avalanche caused by Mulan. When the group arrives at the Imperial City and take control of the palace, Shan Yu orders the Emperor to bow to him, and decides to kill him when the latter adamantly refuses to do so.

Turbo: Initially believed to be the ruler of the game Sugar Rush, King Candy is secretly Turbo, a racer from the old game TurboTime who was believed to have died after his game was permanently unplugged. Having stolen the throne from Vanellope Von Schweetz, the true ruler, Turbo turns her into a glitch and makes himself the ruler of her kingdom. While he is viewed as eccentric and flamboyant, yet jovial and benevolent, to his subjects, Turbo is extremely obsessive and possessive of his new royal status. He continuously lusts for power and authority and goes to great lengths to secretly abuse his position, not just by allowing the other racers to ruthlessly torment Vanellope, but especially by keeping Vanellope from racing so that she cannot regain the role he had stolen from her.

Bellwether: The epitome of the famous phrase “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”, Dawn Bellwether pretends to be sweet, meek, and friendly to successfully hide her true prejudiced, ruthless, embittered nature. Initially the overworked assistant mayor of Zootopia to its mayor Leodore Lionheart, Bellwether secretly hates him and all predators, viewing them as nothing more than savage, dangerous monsters. In her scheme to overthrow him, take control of the city, and drive all predators out of Zootopia, Bellwether becomes the leader of a secret organization of sheep terrorists who create a serum from night howlers to turn predators feral. This would give the illusion that they were biologically reverting back to their "primitive savage ways" and eventually be regarded as too dangerous for society, allowing only prey animals to take up the entire population. However, in her goal to become the mayor of Zootopia, rather than subjecting Lionheart to becoming savage, Bellwether instead develops her plot to ensure that he is removed from office and his positive reputation amongst the citizens is ruined, allowing her to rise to power in his place.

Magic Users

Maleficent: Known as The Mistress of All Evil, Maleficent is a ruthless tyrant who rules her own subjects at her home, the Forbidden Mountain. Using her dark magic, she continuously abuses her power and authority over her minions, particularly whenever they display incompetence and stupidity. This is shown when Maleficent flies into a rage and attacks them with her magic upon realizing that, over the last 16 years in their search for Aurora, they were only looking for a baby, not realizing in their idiocy that Aurora would be growing up.

Ursula: Known for her dark reputation as a sea witch, Ursula was banished from Atlantica by Triton. She explains in “Poor Unfortunate Souls” that she uses her magic to help merfolk attain their deepest desires and only imprisons them if they can’t keep their side of the bargain. However, after she takes Ariel’s voice away and turns the latter into a human to try and win Eric’s heart, Ursula reveals she has no intention of letting Ariel follow through with kissing Eric to remain human. She proves herself to be a tyrant because all she really does is backstab the merpeople with whom she makes deals in order to ensure that only HER desires are met! When she bargains with Triton so he will surrender himself to her in exchange for Ariel’s freedom, Ursula steals his crown and trident, then grows to giant size, declaring herself the ruler of the entire ocean.

Jafar: Unbeknownst to the Sultan of Agrabah, his Royal Vizier Jafar plots to take control of the kingdom, and he needs the Genie of the lamp from the Cave of Wonders to pull off this feat. Once the lamp is in his possession, Jafar succeeds with his first to become sultan. But after Jasmine and her father refuse to bow to him, he wishes to become the most powerful sorcerer in the world to have an even greater amount of power. During his brief reign, Jafar proves himself to be a tyrant by turning Agrabah into a dystopian wasteland, dressing the Sultan as a living marionette and allowing him to be abused by Iago, and making Jasmine his own slave girl.

Tyrants-Turned-Heroes

The Beast: From the time he is cursed and until he finally starts to soften, the spoiled behavior the prince had before his curse remains. He is aggressive, rude, impatient, and frequently and easily loses his temper when something annoys or irritates him. Primarily due to his short temper, the Beast acts like a tyrant towards his servants because he is mean and cruel to them as he gives them orders, which makes them deeply afraid of him. Only on some occasions do they openly rebel against him or talk back to him, such as Mrs. Potts ordering the Beast to act more like a gentleman around Belle, and both her and Lumiere deciding to feed Belle despite being told that she was not allowed to eat unless she ate with the Beast.

Kuzco: In the beginning, Kuzco is very arrogant, lazy, selfish, and self-absorbed, viewing himself as superior to all simply for being the emperor. He rules his empire completely without the best interest of his people and always seeks to have his way, never showing any concern over the chances things could turn out badly for other people involved. This is shown when he sets his sights on building his summer home of Kuzcotopia on the top of the hill where Pacha, Pacha’s family, and other villagers reside. Since the plan will only benefit himself, Kuzco shows absolutely no care or concern that destroying Pacha’s village to build Kuzcotopia will render the residents homeless.

Would-Be Tyrants

Gaston: From what I described about him in “Bride and Prejudice” with his growing obsession with Belle and his low, inferior views of women, there is no doubt in my mind that, had Gaston succeeded in marrying Belle and starting a family with her, he would have run his household like a tyrant. He would be very controlling to the point of being physically abusive to his wife in order to get her to obey every single one of his commands and orders. Like many of the tyrants I listed above, Gaston would undoubtedly use fear and intimidation to keep his wife in her proper place of being beneath him, and he would instill these same feelings on to his own children.

Yzma: Her ire drawn after Kuzco remorselessly fires her, a furious Yzma decides to kill him so that she can take over the empire. While Kuzco is initially selfish, callous, and uncaring towards his staff and people living in his empire, he learns to change his ways by the end of the film. Had Yzma succeeded in her goal, she would have been far more of a selfish, ruthless tyrant than Kuzco was at first. This is evident during her introduction scene, which is one of many times she governs the empire whenever Kuzco is not present. As a peasant complains to her that he and his family are suffering from limited food sources, Yzma spitefully says his problem is of no concern to her, and that the man should have realized this ahead of time.

Hans: While taking over as temporary ruler of Arendelle in both Elsa and Anna’s absence, Hans wins the hearts of the people by acting as a kind, caring, benevolent ruler during the harsh conditions brought on by Elsa’s magical winter. Though he reveals his true, dark nature to Anna and his plot to take control of Arendelle, the fact that he earned the trust and respect of the Arendellians suggest that Hans could truly have been a very worthy ruler. However, now that we have Frozen II and it revealed that Runeard was actually a malevolent tyrant behind the same kind of benevolent facade that Hans used, there is no doubt in my mind that had he succeeded in stealing Arendelle’s throne, Hans also would have become a ruthless, power-hungry, selfish tyrant in secret.

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rosesgonerogue · 4 years

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How to be a Dad 101

Chapter Four - Villain AU

Jasonette July Day Five

Masterlist

“Marinette, Alya is here!” Sabine called up the stairs.

“Thanks Maman, I’ll see you later!” Marinette called back, launching herself down. Sure enough, her best friend was waiting for her at the bakery’s front door. “Nino isn’t with you?”

“He’s helping Chris get all of the kids settled, the sucker,” Alya said, though Marinette couldn’t tell which Lahiffe boy was being called the sucker.

“Are we sure that Chris can handle all the kids at once?” Marinette asked, admittedly nervous.

“No,” Alya said matter-of-factly. “But Nora is going to drop in on then to make sure everything is okay.”

“But are you sure? I just feel bad, you know Jules has been biting. Maybe I should—”

“If you were going to finish that sentence with ‘stay with the kids,’ I will strangle you, Marinette. I love you girl, but it has been three months since I’ve gone somewhere and not taken a diaper bag with me, and I know it’s been way longer than that for you. Give me tonight.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, Alya,” Marinette said, holding up her hands. “I will leave things in Chris’s questionable hands.”

Alya softened a bit. “Look, I get it. Next time we’ll try to plan for a day when Manon is available, she’s really good with the kids.

“Deal. So have we heard if everyone is going to make it tonight?”

“Almost everyone. Adrien and Kagami might be a little late? Rose has a fundraiser she has to be at tonight, but other than that I think we’re a go.”

“Wow, it’s been a long time since we’ve all been together like this,” Marinette said. “It’ll almost feel like old times.”

“It sounds like Max is finally letting us meet his wife. I think Kim has a running bet on whether or not she’s a robot.”

“Kim is still on that? He’s probably just jealous that Max beat him to getting married even though he hasn’t known Camille very long.”

“Hold up girl, you know Max’s wife’s name?” Alya demanded. “Spill.”

“It was nothing much, I only know her because I made her wedding dress,” Marinette said, pausing at the sidewalk corner. “Do we go left or right?”

“Right. But how did you not tell me this?” Alya demanded.

“Even though we’re school friends, I still have to maintain a certain level of professionality. I can’t go tell Paris’s most promising reporter about one of the world’s most promising computer programmers personal life. Besides, Max really wanted to surprise everyone,” Marinette said, smirking. “The dress was one of my finest creations yet.”

“Fine, I suppose I can’t compromise one of the world’s most promising young designers,” Alya huffed. “But she has good taste? This gets more mysterious by the moment.”

“So who picked the place this time? I know we’re trusting Chris with the kids, but you know how Kim gets when we go to his bar, and I don’t know if I trust Chris to watch them all night because we got a little tipsy or something.”

“Well, it is at Kim’s bar, but don’t worry, he’ll be too distracted by Max, so we won’t even be tempted by all of the free alcohol. Besides, you always seem like such a pro at resisting temptation.”

Getting to Kim’s bar didn’t take long, even on foot. Once there, a good portion of their high school class yelled greetings from the back of the bar.

“Alya, Marinette! Good to see you, but where’s Nino?” Kim asked, opening the door for them.

“He’s helping Chris get the kids situated, he’ll be here soon,” Alya said, hugging the muscular man. “Is Max here yet? I hear we get to meet the wife.”

“Yeah, she’s way out of his league,” Kim said, jabbing a thumb towards the corner of the bar.

As much as Marinette had complained, she couldn’t help but smile upon coming into the bar. Kim had fallen into the role of bartender easily, amusing his patrons with tales of akumas and the Miraculous team – although tales of King Monkey were definitely the most popular. It was a clean, warm space, decorated with murals and framed newspaper clippings about any akuma incidents involving their class.

“You must’ve been desperate if Chris is babysitting,” Adrien said, sidling up next to her. “Manon was busy?”

“She had a study group,” Marinette said, bumping his shoulder with hers. While she considered Alya her best friend, Adrien still was, and always would be her partner, the black cat to her ladybug. He knew her mind in ways that no one else ever could. “You caught me. So what do you think of Max’s wife? I think she’s absolutely adorable.”

“Marinette, you knew about Max’s wedding?” someone yelled, positively betrayed.

“I think it’s time for s to join the others, but for the record I completely agree with you.” Adrien offered her an arm to escort her to the rest of the group. “By the way, Kagami says hello.”

“How is pregnancy treating your lovely wife?”

“Oh, the normal. The cravings, the irrational anger, average pregnancy-type things. The last time I mentioned you she nearly skewered me with a fire poker and told me that if I spoke about any other woman that way she would kill me where I stood. After that she cried for a few minutes because she missed you.”

“It sounds like I need to pay her a visit,” Marinette said brightly.

“So we’re just ignoring the part where my life was in danger, typical. I should have known that you would side with her,” Adrien pouted.

“You can complain to me when you’ve been pregnant,” Marinette said, patting his cheek.

“I’d like to think I’m a fairly decent husband, so I would say I’m allowed to be a little offended by threats of homicide.”

“No, that’s just pregnancy,” Nino said, his version of a grand entrance. “The more violent they are means you’re taking good care of them.”

By this point they’d gotten to the larger group, and Max’s wife, Camille, a sweet, auburn-haired woman, brightened. “Marinette, it’s lovely to see you again!”

“Wait, you really did know about this too, Marinette?!” Kim demanded.

“Client confidentiality, Kim,” Marinette said with a wicked smile. “Rose can’t make it, so everyone is officially here, Camille.”

“Oh, perfect,” she said, clapping her hands. “Max and I have an announcement to make!”

“Don’t tell me you’re already having a kid!” Alix groaned. “All of you are making it even more sucky to be single right now.”

“We came to invite you to our wedding,” Max said, pushing up his glasses.

“Excuse me, what?” Chloe asked.

“What we did before was just a little ceremony in England for Camille’s parents. Did you guys really think I could get married without all of you?”

There were a few beats of silence before chaos erupted. Kim had Max in a headlock while at least three of the girls were asking Camille about wedding plans. Nearby Alix was still sulking about being single.

When everyone settled down, Mylene said, “We’re getting old, aren’t we?”

“I’m going to die alone,” Alix lamented.

“We’re still in our twenties,” Marinette reminded her. “We’ve got time.”

“But if you’re still single how do any of the rest of us stand a chance?” she demanded.

“Oh yeah. Sometimes I forget that Marinette is still single because of the whole…” he waved his hand, indicating things he couldn’t put words to, “… situation.”

“Exactly!” Alix spat. “She’s perfect, she makes a perfect mother, and she’s handling everything better alone than any of us can with a significant other! I’m doomed!”

“But Marinette is still looking, just like you, Alix,” Mylene pointed out. “She just did things a little out of order.”

“And I’m not perfect, I promise you,” Marinette said with the weariness that could only be a product of parenthood.

“Is Jules still in a biting phase?” Sabrina asked.

“Unfortunately yes,” Alya said with that same weariness.

“Since we’re on the topic, what was the baby daddy even like?” Kim asked. “We haven’t heard much about him, and from what little I’ve heard, I can’t help but picture him as one of those old cartoon villains twirling his mustache and preying on young girls.”

“Villain works. Although I would have called him a lying, scheming—” Adrien cut off, glancing at the young parents he was situated between, Marinette in particular was known for body-checking people if they used any sort of questionable language regardless of if there was a child present, “-scheming meanie pants,” he finished lamely.

“It’s okay, Adrien, this is a safe zone,” Alya said, patting his shoulder. “You can tell them that Jason is a bastard.”

Nathaniel inhaled sharply, choking on his drink. “Wow… I just… What would you say about him, Marinette?”

“I wouldn’t call him that,” Marinette said, ignoring Alya and Adrien’s protests. “Really, I had no misconceptions about the way things were. We never gave each other our numbers, or even our last names. Something bigger than both of us brought us together, and I don’t regret it. If I’m lucky, maybe it will bring us together once more.”

The class fell silent until Alix groaned once more, burying her head in her arms. “I’M GOING TO DIE ALONE!”

Taglist:

@jasonette-july-2k20 @ira-sairain @myazael @pawsitivelymiraculous @nik-nak-3 @dast218 @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @vixen-uchiha @momothefemur @toodaloo-kangaroo

Note:

I thought this chapter would barely meet the word limit I’ve set for myself, but that was not a problem. If you want to be tagged, or if I forgot to tag you, just leave a comment below. Also just leave a comment below regardless, I’ve been helping my family move all week and I need something to keep me sane. In all reality, though, I write like this mainly to improve my skills as well as get feedback on them, so I appreciate any comment you send my way.

This story is also really different from what I normally write. Despite the premise, it’s WAY more slice of life than I’ve ever done long-term like this, so I especially want to hear your reactions on this!

#jasonette july 2k20 #jasonette #maribat #jason x marinette #mominette

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

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TLTNL- Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump

"Oh, I want this one!" Sirius said at once.

Lily couldn't help cracking up laughing, she never would have believed Sirius would get so enthusiastic about reading a children's story, but no one protested as he began.

Of all the strange things he'd heard while here, Harry decided this one had to hit his top ten. What about a crazy rabbit now? Cackling Stump? Professor Sprout had sure never mentioned that.

Sirius began, much to no one's surprise but everyone's amusement, in a highly respectable tone as if reading a letter from the Queen of England herself. Shoulders held strait and mock pushing glasses steadily into place, he had the others shoulders shaking even as he carried on like this.

A long time ago, in a far-off land, there lived a foolish king who decided that he alone should have the power of magic.

"Right, I'm sure that worked out for him," James rolled his eyes at once.

He therefore commanded the head of his army to form a Brigade of Witch-Hunters, and issued them with a pack of ferocious black hounds.

Sirius said that with a little too much pride, and Harry honestly couldn't help but smile at the display.

At the same time, the King caused proclamations to be read in every village and town across the land:

"Wanted by the King, an Instructor in Magic."

No true witch or wizard dared volunteer for the post, for they were all in hiding from the Brigade of Witch-Hunters.

"Well that plan rather backfired on him right away," Lily chuckled.

However, a cunning charlatan with no magical power saw a chance of enriching himself, and arrived at the palace, claiming to be a wizard of enormous skill. The charlatan performed a few simple tricks, which convinced the foolish King of his magical powers, and was immediately appointed Grand Sorcerer in Chief, the King's Private Magic Master.

"That's quite a title," Remus yawned. "I feel bad for the person who had to announce his entering a room."

The charlatan bade the King give him a large sack of gold, so that he might purchase wands and other magical necessities. He also requested several large rubies, to be used in the casting of curative charms, and a silver chalice or two, for the storing and maturing of potions. All these things the foolish King supplied.

James scratched at the back of his neck as he thought about it, wondering why the Muggle thought they'd use any of that, and clearly missing the snickering line about the foolish King.

"My question is, wouldn't he already have those things, being such a skilled sorcerer and all," Remus couldn't help but mock before Sirius shushed him.

The charlatan stowed the treasure safely in his own house and returned to the palace grounds. He did not know that he was being watched by an old woman who lived in a hovel on the edge of the grounds. Her name was Babbitty, and she was the washerwoman who kept the palace linens soft, fragrant and white. Peeping from behind her drying sheets, Babbitty saw the charlatan snap two twigs from one of the King's trees and disappear into the palace.

The charlatan gave one of the twigs to the King and assured him that it was a wand of tremendous power.

Here next he actually switched, to a poorly accent of a Cockney man, reminding Harry a bit of Stan now in this roll, which Harry was sure Sirius had done on purpose.

"It will only work, however," said the charlatan, "when you are worthy of it."

Every morning the charlatan and the foolish King walked out into the palace grounds, where they waved their wands and shouted nonsense at the sky. The charlatan was careful to perform more tricks, so that the King remained convinced of his Grand Sorcerer's skill, and of the power of the wands that had cost so much gold.

One morning, as the charlatan and the foolish King were twirling their twigs, and hopping in circles, and chanting meaningless rhymes, a loud cackling reached the King's ears. Babbitty the washerwoman was watching the King and the charlatan from the window of her tiny cottage, and was laughing so hard she soon sank out of sight, too weak to stand.

"I love that feeling," James's smile grew back at once, Sirius just read this with such unrestrained enjoyment, his tone promised they should all be feeling the exact same way now.

"I must look most undignified, to make the old washerwoman laugh so!" said the King.

For this he'd actually used his own voice, still in a bit more dignified tone, causing James to snort harder than ever and Remus to mutter a few big headed comments that Sirius took no notice of.

He ceased his hopping and twig twirling, and frowned.

"I really wonder how it took him so long to realize that," Lily couldn't help but agree.

"I grow weary of practice! When shall I be ready to perform real spells in front of my subjects, Sorcerer?"

The charlatan tried to soothe his pupil, assuring him that he would soon be capable of astonishing feats of magic, but Babbitty's cackling had stung the foolish King more than the charlatan knew.

"Tomorrow," said the King, "we shall invite our court to watch their King perform magic!"

The charlatan saw that the time had come to take his treasure and flee.

"Alas, Your Majesty, it is impossible! I had forgotten to tell Your Majesty that I must set out on a long journey tomorrow."

"Oh yes, slipped the mind till this very moment and all-" Remus stated in a posh voice, clearly trying to mimic Sirius who elbowed him amid more snickering.

"If you leave this palace without my permission, Sorcerer, my Brigade of Witch-Hunters will hunt you down with their hounds! Tomorrow morning you will assist me to perform magic for the benefit of my lords and ladies, and if anybody laughs at me, I shall have you beheaded!"

The King stormed back to the palace, leaving the charlatan alone and afraid. Not all his cunning could save him now, for he could not run away, nor could he help the King with magic that neither of them knew.

Seeking a vent for his fear and his anger, the charlatan approached the window of Babbitty the washerwoman. Peering inside, he saw the little old lady sitting at her table, polishing a wand. In a corner behind her, the King's sheets were washing themselves in a wooden tub.

"How reckless," Lily raised a brow. "The King's on a manhunt and she's doing that in broad daylight, after drawing attention from laughing at them."

"Lily, you're getting as bad as Remus. Enjoy the stupid story," Sirius huffed without breaking character, and Lily had to bite her lip harder than ever to stop from falling off the couch laughing.

The charlatan understood at once that Babbitty was a true witch, and that she who had given him his awful problem could also solve it.

"Crone!" roared the charlatan. "Your cackling has cost me dear! If you fail to help me, I shall denounce you as a witch, and it will be you who is torn apart by the King's hounds!"

"I'm sure if that was actually a bother to her she wouldn't be in this situation to begin with," James took his turn poking a flaw in this, but Sirius blatantly ignored him as well.

Old Babbitty smiled at the charlatan and assured him that she would do everything in her power to help.

The charlatan instructed her to conceal herself inside a bush while the King gave his magical display, and to perform the King's spells for him, without his knowledge. Babbitty agreed to the plan but asked one question.

"What, sir, if the King attempts a spell Babbitty cannot perform?"

For this, he tried to imitate Lily, which she cottoned onto at once. "You little toerag, I am not your wash woman."

"Whatever do you mean Lily?" He batted his eyes and refused to acknowledge he was doing any such thing, or change as he continued.

Lily fingered her wand and considered, but the others were just laughing too hard, and finally she gave in to take the joke.

The charlatan scoffed.

"Your magic is more than equal to that fool's imagination," he assured her, and he retired to the castle, well pleased with his own cleverness.

"Most idiots are," she still couldn't help but mutter.

The following morning all the lords and ladies of the kingdom assembled in the palace grounds.

The King climbed on to a stage in front of them, with the charlatan by his side.

"I shall firstly make this lady's hat disappear!" cried the King, pointing his twig at a noblewoman.

From inside a bush nearby, Babbitty pointed her wand at the hat and caused it to vanish.

Great was the astonishment and admiration of the crowd, and loud their applause for the jubilant King.

"Next, I shall make that horse fly!" cried the King,

"Now that's a complicated little spell, putting wings on a horse," James grinned, "or does he mean turning it into an actual fly?"

"I'm guessing your mum used different spells this King was performing," Lily asked curiously, but Sirius cut them off by pouting, "would you lot quit interrupting! I'm giving you a show over here and you lot have no appreciation."

Remus arched a curious brow at him when he told, "Sirius, I was under the impression you've been doing that over ten years now. I'm still waiting for my first intermission to take a piss."

Sirius huffed and muttered some more about ingrates before continuing louder.

pointing his twig at his own steed.

From inside the bush, Babbitty pointed her wand at the horse and it rose high into the air.

The crowd was still more thrilled and amazed,

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump and they roared their appreciation of their magical King.

"And now," said the King, looking all around for an idea; and the Captain of his Brigade of Witch-Hunters ran forwards.

"Your Majesty," said the Captain, "this very morning, Sabre died of eating a poisonous toadstool! Bring him back to life, Your Majesty, with your wand!"

"This one was the same though," James whispered quietly to Lily, his parents first time ever telling him everything had a limit, even magic.

And the Captain heaved on to the stage the lifeless body of the largest of the witch-hunting hounds.

The foolish King brandished his twig and pointed it at the dead dog. But inside the bush, Babbitty smiled, and did not trouble to lift her wand, for no magic can raise the dead.

When the dog did not stir, the crowd began first to whisper, and then to laugh.

"This King is of poor showman ship," Sirius couldn't help but interrupt himself this time at no lack of recovery for this. "He could have made up anything, these people have no more clue than him. He hasn't gotten that far along with his magic training yet, or the truth even."

"No one can be like you Sirius," Remus happily reminded, who preened at the snide comment and kept going.

They suspected that the King's first two feats had been mere tricks after all.

"How do you make lifting a horse a trick?" James rolled his eyes, honestly, Muggles really would believe anything.

"Why doesn't it work?" the King screamed at the charlatan, who bethought himself of the only ruse left to him.

"There, Your Majesty, there!" he shouted, pointing at the bush where Babbitty sat concealed. "I see her plain, a wicked witch who is blocking your magic with her own evil spells! Seize her, somebody, seize her!"

Babbitty fled from the bush, and the Brigade of Witch-Hunters set off in pursuit, unleashing their hounds, who bayed for Babbitty's blood.

But as she reached a low hedge, the little witch vanished from sight, and when the King, the charlatan and all the courtiers gained the other side, they found the pack of witch-hunting hounds barking and scrabbling around a bent and aged tree.

"She has turned herself into a tree!" screamed the charlatan and, dreading lest Babbitty turn back into a woman and denounce him, he added, "Cut her down, Your Majesty, that is the way to treat evil witches!"

Harry couldn't help but shake his head sadly. Though he was confident that hadn't been Babbity's actions, it still saddened him this man really went through with killing some innocent person just to save himself. Making him question more every day what exactly blurred the line between those Wizards who thought themselves better when there were Muggles who would do the same.

An axe was brought at once, and the old tree was felled to loud cheers from the courtiers and the charlatan.

However, as they were making ready to return to the palace, the sound of loud cackling stopped them in their tracks.

"Fools!" cried Babbitty's voice from the stump they had left behind. "No witch or wizard can be killed by being cut in half! Take the axe, if you do not believe me, and cut the Grand Sorcerer in two!"

The Captain of the Brigade of Witch-Hunters was eager to make the experiment, but as he raised the axe the charlatan fell to his knees, screaming for mercy and confessing all his wickedness.

"At least someone got their dues," Lily chuckled for this woman's quick thinking, not nearly as sour at Sirius anymore trying to feign her voice into the story.

As he was dragged away to the dungeons, the tree stump cackled more loudly than ever.

"By cutting a witch in half, you have unleashed a dreadful curse upon your kingdom!" It told the petrified King. "Henceforth, every stroke of harm that you inflict upon my fellow witches and wizards will feel like an axe stroke in your own side, until you will wish you could die of it!"

"I always did like this story, Babbity's a great role model," James happily agreed. She was taking this opportunity to do right by everything, instead of say, just asking for those riches again like some would have.

"What about Babbity then?" Lilly couldn't help but challenge. "If we were to have a little girl."

James hummed thoughtfully but gave nothing away.

At that, the King fell to his knees too, and told the stump that he would issue a proclamation at once, protecting all the witches and wizards of the kingdom, and allowing them to practise their magic in peace.

"Very good," said the stump, "but you have not yet made amends to Babbitty!"

"Anything, anything at all!" cried the foolish King, wringing his hands before the stump.

"You will erect a statue of Babbitty upon me, in memory of your poor washerwoman, and to remind you for ever of your own foolishness!" said the stump.

"Ah, guess I don't blame her having one thing for herself though," Harry couldn't help but keep snickering away at this comeuppance.

The King agreed to it at once, and promised to engage the foremost sculptor in the land, and have the statue made of pure gold.

"Can't do anything halfway though," Remus chuckled.

Then the shamed King and all the noblemen and women returned to the palace, leaving the tree stump cackling behind them.

When the grounds were deserted once more, there wriggled from a hole between the roots of the tree stump a stout and whiskery old rabbit with a wand clamped between her teeth.

"She's an Animgaus," Lily said in surprise.

"Yep," the other three said at once, little smiles still in place.

"Such a silly little tail, but McGonagall actually referenced it in her lecture about Animagus', so we just had to look it up," James chuckled.

"Apparently it was one of the first and only times used in a children's tale, but then from there we really started digging into the subject, and," Sirius trailed off suggestively with an unneeded wave at himself.

Lily just kept smiling in surprise that such a thing would mean so much to one person, and Remus shaking his head affectionately at his friends all these years later still proved as much.

Babbitty hopped out of the grounds and far away, and ever after a golden statue of the washerwoman stood upon the tree stump, and no witch or wizard was ever persecuted in the kingdom again.

Albus Dumbledore on "Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump"

Sirius couldn't stop now, and instead adopted the phony voice of Dumbledore, honestly managing quite a good impression.

The story of "Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump" is, in many ways, the most "real" of Beedle's tales, in that the magic described in the story conforms, almost entirely, to known magical laws.

It was through this story that many of us first discovered that magic could not bring back the dead "and a great disappointment and shock it was, convinced as we had been, as young children, that our parents would be able to awaken our dead rats and cats with one wave of their wands.

Though some six centuries have elapsed since Beedle wrote this tale, and while we have devised innumerable ways of maintaining the illusion of our loved ones' continuing presence, wizards still have not found a way of reuniting body and soul once death has occurred.

Harry watched Sirius read that with a heavy burn in his throat that he'd felt every time he looked to his parents as well. He looked quickly away and adjusted his glasses, determined not to let his mind linger and dredge that up again so soon, he was going to enjoy these moments!

As the eminent wizarding philosopher Bertrand de Penses-Profondes writes in his celebrated work A Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter:

Sirius had to stop and actually take a breath after such an exquisite title, honestly going cross eyed at the idea of that being on the spine of a book, before finishing.

"Give it up. It's never going to happen."1

Then promptly started laughing like a madman, the others not resisting joining in.

The tale of Babbitty Rabbitty does, however, give us one of the earliest literary mentions of an Animagus, for Babbitty the washerwoman is possessed of the rare magical ability to transform into an animal at will.

Animagi make up a small fraction of the wizarding population. Achieving perfect, spontaneous human to animal transformation requires much study and practice, and many witches and wizards consider that their time might be better employed in other ways. Certainly, the application of such a talent is limited unless one has a great need of disguise or concealment.

"Honestly I don't think about that part too much," James shrugged. "It's not like it comes in handy when running to spontaneously burst into a deer and keep running, then you can't shoot spells back."

"I can see the convenience for smaller animals though," Sirius corrected with a curious look. "I could fit into smaller spaces as Padfoot, duck out of the way and honestly run faster."

"I still can't believe you fools convinced the whole Order of your stupid nicknames anymore than the school, it's not like you're subtle," Lily told them affectionately.

"They'll get the joke when we tell them in a few years," James waved off.

It is for this reason that the Ministry of Magic has insisted upon a register of Animagi, for there can be no doubt that this kind of magic is of greatest use to those engaged in surreptitious, covert or even criminal activity.2

James and Sirius looked highly offended their one and only way to help their friend was deemed like this, but Remus just looked sad. His friends foolish attempt to help him turned out to be the first time in his life he'd ever felt like he wasn't bearing a curse. It's not as if he'd ever ask another wizard to try the same, to help more werewolves in this way, but was it so unreasonable to realize help was out there?

Whether there was ever a washerwoman who was able to transform into a rabbit is open to doubt; however, some magical historians have suggested that Beedle modelled Babbitty on the famous French sorceress Lisette de Lapin, who was convicted of witchcraft in Paris in 1422. To the astonishment of her Muggle guards, who were later tried for helping the witch to escape, Lisette vanished from her prison cell the night before she was due to be executed. Although it has never been proven that Lisette was an Animagus who managed to squeeze through the bars of her cell window, a large white rabbit was subsequently seen crossing the English Channel in a cauldron with a sail fitted to it, and a similar rabbit later became a trusted advisor at the court of King Henry VI.

"Oh, well that's not suspicious at all," Sirius cackled, while Lily twirled a bit of hair around and wondered why that sounded vaguely familiar. Probably something she'd blocked out from a History of Magic Essay.

The King in Beedle's story is a foolish Muggle who both covets and fears magic. He believes that he can become a wizard simply by learning incantations and waving a wand. This may have contributed to that Muggle King's reputation for mental instability.

He is completely ignorant of the true nature of magic and wizards, and therefore swallows the preposterous suggestions of both the charlatan and Babbitty. This is certainly typical of a particular type of Muggle thinking: in their ignorance, they are prepared to accept all sorts of impossibilities about magic, including the proposition that Babbitty has turned herself into a tree that can still think and talk.

"Honestly, that was the most ridiculous part," Lily agreed.

(It is worth noting at this point, however, that while Beedle uses the talking-tree device to show us how ignorant the Muggle King is, he also asks us to believe that Babbitty can talk while she is a rabbit.)

"I thought she was just curled up under the stump and changed afterwards," James said in surprise.

"Details," Sirius waved off.

This might be poetic licence, but I think it more likely that Beedle had only heard about Animagi, and never met one, for this is the only liberty that he takes with magical laws in the story. Animagi do not retain the power of human speech while in their animal form, although they keep all their human thinking and reasoning powers.

"Tragically, Sirius never did recover from his first transformation though and now retains the idiocy of a puppy," Remus sighed deeply while mock wiping a tear away.

"Don't be ridiculous Moony," James said pleasantly that did nothing to make Sirius believe defense was coming. "He's always had the attention span of a pup, now he just has a better excuse."

"I hate you all," Sirius huffed.

This, as every schoolchild knows, is the fundamental difference between being an Animagus, and Transfiguring oneself into an animal. In the case of the latter, one would become the animal entirely, with the consequence that one would know no magic, be unaware that one had ever been a wizard, and would need somebody else to Transfigure one back to one's original form.

"Why did McGonagall have to change Malfoy back from a ferret again?" Harry muttered of no one.

I think it possible that in choosing to make his heroine pretend to turn into a tree, and threaten the King with pain like an axe stroke in his own side, Beedle was inspired by real magical traditions and practices. Trees with wand-quality wood have always been fiercely protected by the wandmakers who tend them, and cutting down such trees to steal them risks incurring not only the malice of the Bowtruckles3 usually nesting there, but also the ill effect of any protective curses placed around them by their owners. In Beedle's time, the Cruciatus Curse4 had not yet been made illegal by the Ministry of Magic, and could have produced precisely the sensation with which Babbitty threatens the King.

1Wizarding photographs and portraits move and (in the case of the latter) talk just like their subjects. Other rare objects, such as the Mirror of Erised, may also reveal more than a static image of a lost loved one. Ghosts are transparent, moving, talking and thinking versions of wizards and witches who wished, for whatever reason, to remain on earth.

2Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, has asked me to make clear that she became an Animagus merely as a result of her extensive researches into all fields of Transfiguration, and that she has never used the ability to turn into a tabby cat for any surreptitious purpose, setting aside legitimate business on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix where secrecy and concealment were imperative.

Sirius couldn't help but burst out laughing again, and honestly the others couldn't blame him.

"Was McGonagall reading these notes over his shoulder and told him to put in that postscript, so that any mad man reading these as well would think, oh, so sorry for thinking otherwise!" Remus tried to demand while holding his sides.

"Yes," James said at once, the lot of them hardly intelligible they were giggling so hard.

3For a full description of these curious little tree-dwellers, see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

4The Cruciatus, Imperius and Avada Kedavra Curses were first classified as Unforgivable in 1717, with the strictest penalties attached to their use.

"Hey, I actually knew that one," James muttered, trying for a proud tone, but merely shivering all over again of all those curses had done to his family.

As intensive studies in the Department of Mysteries demonstrated as far back as 1672, wizards and witches are born, not created. While the "rogue" ability to perform magic sometimes appears in those of apparent non-magical descent (though several later studies have suggested that there will have been a witch or wizard somewhere on the family tree), Muggles cannot perform magic. The best - or worst - they could hope for are random and uncontrollable effects generated by a genuine magical wand, which, as an instrument through which magic is supposed to be channelled, sometimes holds residual power that it may discharge at odd moments. See also the notes on wandlore for "The Tale of the Three Brothers".

"Well that's done." Sirius said in just a bit of disappointment as he reluctantly handed over the last story to James.

"How come you don't do those voices all the time?" Harry couldn't help but ask with amusement. "I'd like to hear you try me, or Ron and Hermione."

Sirius eyed him critically for a moment, before clearing his throat dramatically, and instead used a high nasally voice, "sorry, best I can do is more Prongs."

James whacked him upside the head.

Sirius hardly blinked and kept going in a more normal tone, "and I've never actually heard your friends voices, but I can do some guesses-"

"That's alright," Remus waved his hands pleadingly for James to go on or they'd be here all day.

James still had to pause for a moment and get his laughter under control before he could.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #HP #The Life That Never Lived #Marauders #James Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #Lily Potter

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dragonrajafanfiction · 3 years

Text

Ghosts’ Journey: (Part 4) Wedding Preparations

Thank you for Reading.

You shake the rain out of your long dark hair and step back inside the Takamagahara NightClub. Despite the dire circumstances outside, your heart is light. That army outside looked like every single Executive board member of Hydra coming out to greet your new betrothed Chime Gen even though they didn’t realize you were engaged yet. Divine confirmation of the rightness of your choices had come down like a shower of balloons and confetti.

The King General would show up to a glorious wedding, expecting to witness a beautiful slaughter of a virgin bride in white. Only to be met by the entire force of Hydra, the Ace Commissioners of Cassell. He would bang the woodblock to summon Ruri Kazama only to experience the unexpected twist of the groom turning on him. Even though the woodblock sound was strong, Chime confirmed something with his story.

The call from his brother Chisei could break its spell. When Chisei called Chime’s name, it woke him up. Now it was up to you to spend every waking moment to worm your way as deep into his heart as you could. When the woodblock sound came, he would look at you or hear your voice and wake. Then he would turn on King General.

Part of you scolded yourself, saying this was a bit manipulative. But Chime was already manipulated and you had no intention of leaving him to die or leaving him at all. This was not the most romantic of tales. It was dark, gruesome, and bloody. You had some feelings for each other but your marriage was arranged. And the arrangement was for the express purpose to kill a man. The pink and dreamy days would come later. You just had to make it through the wedding day.

As you made your way across the empty dance floor, you were approached by Whale in his typical glorious Aquamarine and one of his clients. You immediately approach him and bow deeply. “Mr. Whale!”

Mr. Whale looked at you over his round glasses. He looked nervous. Of course, he was. The full force of the Yakuza was right at his doorstep!

“I know this is a bad time, but this cannot wait! I need to rent the entire club as soon as possible!” You feel like you have stopped by to ask for the crown of the Queen of England. It was a stupid impossible request but it was what you needed. You were fully prepared to try to convince him. After all, you were the Main Character.

The whites of Whale’s eyes shook in his face. “This is the worst possible time!” His voice trembled. His whale tattoo on his bald head seemed like it was swimming in an ocean of sweat. “I don’t have time to talk about business!”

“I do.” The client walked up and immediately you see Whale cringe. This was no client. She was wearing a gray suit and black high heels, and the diamond pendant in her right ear danced in the light.

The store manager Whale stood respectfully behind her, holding her kunai bag, trench coat and rain gear. She looked over at you impatiently. “Speak up honey, I don’t have all day.”

You clear your throat. “Okay… I’m getting married and I need to rent the whole club as soon as possible.”

The woman’s eyebrows raised. “The whole club…?”

“Yes, I'm not worried about the cost. I’m only worried about the time. When is your soonest opening?” Your heart is beating. A popular and expensive club like this had to be millions of dollars to rent out for a wedding. Not to mention the fact that it was packed every single night.

“How does 24 hours sound?” The woman smiled.

“I…” She didn’t ask you any questions. There was no mention of a deposit or a cover charge. “Well, yes that would be…” You laugh breathlessly. “That would be fantastic! I should get you the preparations…”

“We have packages. In 24 hours, I’ll let you have the most luxurious royalty package. It will be a good advertisement for the business. Don’t worry about anything! Just show up with a smile!”

She leaves you speechless. “You have wedding packages? I… why wou- But-...” You scratch your head. “Okay… Are they just going to do everything?”

“Well…” She looks you up and down. “You don't look like you have any money or any connections. So… we’ll just handle everything. We already have all the contacts for the necessary vendors and your measurements.”

“We?”

“Yes, I own the place. Do you have any more questions? I kind of need to handle the situation outside.”

“Oh! You own it! I thought Whale…” You trail off as you try to look at Whale who is trying his hardest to be inconspicuous. “Very well… I’ll… leave it to you!” You give a mock salute but you’re shaking. How could it be this easy? They would handle everything?!

Without another word, she steps around you, walking quickly outside. This woman must have Yakuza ties. She was so confident going out to meet that army of violent hooligans!

You dash off to find Chime Gen, taking the stairs rather than the elevator. You open the room but he’s not inside. “Chime?!”

“Give me a few minutes.” His soft shy voice comes from the bath house.

“Oh… take your time.” You walk over to the sliding door. His shadow was behind it. He seemed to be getting dressed. He had a supple figure. Like a dancer.

“I thought maybe I should clean myself up a little before going upstairs.” His words sounded like a little ghost behind a curtain.

“Ok… There’s some trouble outside.”

“I’m sorry. This… is trouble for you.”

You lean your hands against the door. “Trouble?”

“You’re marrying me to get back at the King General. Because I was unable to kill him.”

“If you killed him, I would have married you.”

“You would have married Ruri Kazama.” came the weary voice.

“That’s true. If you had killed him, he wouldn’t have used the wood block on you.” You say sadly. “Do you think I’m a stupid girl?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid. I just don’t understand your feelings.”

“Do you think I’m stupid for choosing to marry you?”

The door opens. He was wearing a pair of suit pants and a shirt that wasn’t buttoned yet, likely one of the waiter’s shirts. Even though he said he was weaker, and he was no Caesar Gattuso in the musculature department, he was light on your eyes. He presented a soft, non-threatening figure. Like a friend. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” He said.

You smile again. “Life is full of choices. And the one I’m facing now is… Which is better? Chime with his hair up? Or down? Can you show me?”

Chime’s face grew a bit redder.

“Go on. This is important.” You try to be as serious and sincere as possible.

Chime gathered up his hair in one hand and raised it in a ponytail while you watched. You liked the slope of his shoulders. While it wasn’t the square shape of Caesar or Chance, it wasn’t bad either. “I think I like hair up.” With his hands in his hair, he wouldn’t be able to stop you from stealing a kiss, but you hold back even though his lips called you. Instead, you run your fingers up his ribs!

“Ah!” He flinches away from you, covering himself with his arms.

You burst out laughing. “You fell for that one easy.”

He laughs, a single shy breath.

“Anyway, I came down here to let you know that the wedding is tomorrow night. We have 24 hours to be loving idiots. So let’s not blow our cover with apologies for our situation, okay?” You help him button his shirt. “We’re in love. We’re excited!” You pat his cheek. “You’re really cute when you smile.”

“You mean it?”

“Yes!” You tell him with wide eyes. “Anyway, we have to inform everyone of our decision. Wait for me while I get dolled up too.”

You meet him next to the elevator. He looked like a normal waiter. He looked so exhausted. You couldn’t blame him. There really was nothing remarkable about him. It was amazing what a little makeup and pure swagger could do to a man’s appearance. But still you look him up and down and give him an okay sign with a wink. Just because he wasn’t Ruri Kazama doesn’t mean confidence couldn’t be built, right?

“So should we hold hands or not? What do you think?” You ask.

Again, that slight splash of color on his face.

“Yes or no. Either way it has to be consistent.”

“Let’s not. Since we’re not used to it.” He said.

You take out a clamshell mirror from your purse and check your face one more time. “Fair enough.” You smile up at him, snapping it shut. “Alright. Let’s do this. Screw King General. We’re in love!”

When you stepped out of the elevator on the first floor, the boys were in a discussion about the night's events. Your cover was blown. You wouldn’t be able to hide any more. You were about to approach but Chime catches your arm and shakes his head. He wants to listen quietly.

Caesar played with a ring of car keys: "Is this her way of suggesting that we should run away?"

"I think she's asking us to choose for ourselves. Either to leave here or stay and face Gen Chisei tomorrow night." Chu Zihang said, "Whoever her boss is, her job seems to be limited to sheltering us, and the decision of how to act is up to us."

Chisei is coming tomorrow? Did the invitations already go out? How did she know you were even getting married to Chime? This questions pop up in your head like bubbles but you stay quiet.

"It took tens of billions of euros of debt credit to get a 24-hour buffer, and she's leaving it up to us to decide?" Caesar said.

"Until now, what she has done has been beneficial to us, although it is not clear what her ultimate goal is." Chu Zihang said.

They must be talking about the Club owner. Chu Zihang’s question was wise. She was going to be throwing a wedding worth millions of dollars for you for free and you didn’t have to do anything. So what was she getting out of it?

"What will happen if we stay and face Chisei Gen? We don't have any conflict with him. We can forgive him for leaving us inside the Japanese Trench. Is he going to drive us to extinction?" Caesar said, "At most, he will force us to leave Japan."

"Neither of us wants the White King to be resurrected, so we are not fundamentally hostile. But in the matter of Chime Gen, we are again in conflict." Chu Zihang said, "Until now Chime Gen has been our ally, and only through him can we find the King General and figure out what he is planning. If we hand over Chime to the Hydra Clan, first of all, we can't guarantee his life, and secondly it means we lose our last bargaining chip in Japan and we are out of this war."

"Until today no one has been able to get me out, no matter which bureau." Caesar said, lifting his chin.

“If we don't want to escape and we don't want to get out, then the only way left is to convince Chisei and convince him to work with his brother against the King General. I have a feeling that the King will be even more terrifying than the White King in the Well of Bones."

"There is absolutely no trust between the brothers, and in Chime Gen’s state, he is almost like a puppet. He has been in his bedroom for almost 20 hours without eating or drinking. His fighting spirit collapsed and his whole being collapsed with it. I really don't know how do deal with the King and his clapper noise." Caesar said, "To give such a Chime to the Hydra is the same as sending him to the gallows. The Hydra will not believe that it was the King General who channeled the evil spirits in his body, and even if they did, they would kill the guy with the evil spirits hidden in his body."

"We can't hand over Chime to Hydra." Lu Mingfei suddenly said.

"What is your reason?" Chu Zihang asked.

"I always have a feeling. I can’t put my finger on it, that everything we see now is the surface, and that the real danger is still hidden behind the curtain. The King will be far more complicated than we thought, but the only one who can deal with the King will be Chime Gen. Compared to his brother, the Tortoise is a fool." Lu Mingfei hesitantly said, "He is indeed very strong, but very stupid.”

Chu Zihang pondered for a moment and nodded, "It's strange, I thought so too. I also think that King General is planning something far more than we can imagine. There is something extremely scary in it, but I can't think what that something is."

"Then it's better for me to convince my brother." Chime finally spoke up next to you. He was holding your arm but it was hard to say who was supporting whom. Chime was shaking underneath your hand and you tighten your grip slightly in case he might faint.

“Did you hear everything we said?" Caesar raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t wanted to hide anything from Chime. His eyes lower to you and you just smile and nod. He had the floor!

"With all the commotion outside, how could I not hear it?" Chime smiled without saying more, "Although I'm no different from a cripple now, I think I can still do you guys a favor. Let me go convince my brother."

"You also think that the King will have a bigger plot that has not been revealed?"

"I'm sure. The King General is the kind of man who is like an iceberg. The volume of the iceberg exposed above the water is only one tenth. The vast majority of it is hidden underwater, and so the King will be. To kill the King we will have to be ten times more prepared, taking all the possibilities into account. I did not tell you that I planned to kill the King in the air at Tokyo Tower. Not that I suspected any of you. I was just afraid of leaks. This plan only ever existed in my head, I didn’t even write it down. I don't think the King can always pry into my head." Chime said softly, peering down at you. His smile held a deep affectionate maturity for a moment before it disappeared. "But I still failed, I thought I knew the King General well enough, but I still knew only the parts of him that were exposed to the outside world."

"With a simple brain like your brother's, it's true that he's no match for the King General." Caesar massaged his forehead.

"I have a vague feeling that something dangerous is coming." Chime’s eyes were filled with trepidation, as if the evil spirits had seen him and left their mark on his body, "The whole thing is different from what my brother thought. The King will never aim for the perfect evolutionary medicine, nor is he a god. He is the kind of person who wants to eat everything, no matter how many people compete with him, no matter how many people are his enemies. He wants to become the highest level of the food chain. How does evolving into a pure-blooded dragon type make him the highest level of the food chain? You can kill a Dragon King, and you have an opportunity to kill the evolved King General."

A voice cuts through the chatter, clear and cold like a winter wind. It bites at the nape of your neck and makes you shiver and you immediately turn. "But the Hydra will not believe that. You simply have no evidence to support such speculation." The speaker was standing next to the bar, leaning on it with a bottle of vodka. The light played off her clear golden hair and sparkled in her emotionless blue eyes. But her fairy-like figure, those curves. It was like staring at a ghost from your past. Your mind rejects her appearance. It can’t be her. It just looked like her. "Just this night, they cut open the Well of Bones, and all the dragon subspecies inside entered the artificial underground lake full of a mixture of five thousand tons of mercury and water. If the embryo of the White King really hatched in the Well of Bones, then it would also have also been fatally damaged. I think by this time your brother is already celebrating for foiling the King General's plot."

The more she spoke the more she sounded like her. Your heart was starting to pound. But this person wasn’t reacting to you at all. It looked like her. Sounded like her. But she acted like she didn’t know you.

"How do you know?" Caesar was taken aback.

"I just came from over there. The so-called Well of Bones is actually an underground river called the Red Devil River, which is directly connected to the volcanic lava belt, where water and fire mix to form a crimson river of hot water." This woman said, "Izanagi blocked the sacred skeleton in that place, in fact, to provide it with enough nutrients to keep it alive. The history recorded by the eight Hydra families glorified Izanagi, and from the beginning he could not afford to destroy the sacred skeleton that claimed to help humans evolve into pure-blooded dragons, and the White King used human greed to protect itself. In the end, The Well of Bones not only did not become a prison to imprison the sacred skeleton, but also became a hotbed for the gods to hatch."

“This is the real purpose of your visit to Japan, right?" Chu Zihang asked, "Did the principal arrange it?"

"Yes, Fingel and I entered Japan in the same group. A long time ago the principal had already started to worry about Japan, and exploring the Japanese Trench also stemmed from this worry. But we didn't guess that the change would happen so quickly, so originally my job was just to collect information and count it as my internship."

"The information you gathered was top secret, wasn't it?" Caesar was dumbfounded.

"I have used various means; I have infiltrated the homes of Genji Heavy Industries, shrines, and various family heads, and sometimes I have used threats and bribes. One of the shrine's priests seems to have an extraordinary preference for young-looking women. Thanks to his twisted mind, I could use my strengths in this area to obtain a lot of information from him."

You let go of Chime’s arm and take a step forward. It wasn’t until you heard this last part that the last piece clicked in place. When you took that single step toward her, however, she turned to you and her gaze was like a sharp crack of lightning that had struck between you and her and you halt. She gives a slight shake of her head.

It was her! It was Renata! She was acting like she didn’t know you. She was acting like she was some other person on purpose. But she was Renata. It was Renata! You hold your hands behind your back to hide the fact that you were pinching your bones again to stem the white water rush of emotions.

“Oh… Zero, this is MC. MC, Zero.” Caesar’s eyes were flicking between you two.

“I… um… Nice to meet you.” You say. The thoughts pile up behind your lips. Oh God. Renata. Where were you? Why didn’t you call me? Are you alright? How did you survive? I missed you so much. There’s so much I want to tell you.

“We can save the introductions for later.” Renata was cool. You remember your training at Black Swan. Such emotional responses were serious infractions there and, for some reason, they were not right here. Renata was always so smart. She was the number two in the orphanage, surpassed only by Z. You admired her a lot. She was one of the few people who could pull the wool over your eyes thoroughly.

It took a second to go back to that old place. Let the light fade from your eyes. Lose all feelings in your mind and do not react to anything. But you do find that old track and fall into it. Without a word you take that step back to Chime.

But your hand still ached.

#Dragon Raja

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istanstens · 4 years

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I’ve been thinking a lot about John Segundus lately as I want to write a modern day AU and I came to the realization about something.

He is (if not practicing) of Jewish heritage.

Allow me to explain.

1. His last name, Segundus is Italian, not English. (In fact, in the book Strange thinks Segundus looks Italian. Why bother to mention this description at all?) It always bothered me why an English character had such a foreign name unless it was significant. Now, I know what you might be thinking; the Jewish people are not known for living in Italy. This is true, with the notable exception of Venice which had a sizable Jewish community. (And remember, it’s mentioned in the book that the invalid woman Dr and Flora Greysteel go to visit is living in the attic of a Jewish man.) Granted, Segundus is not a Jewish name, but it is highly plausible the family took it to better fit into Italian society (it is well known Jewish families in the past, especially in hostile areas changed/altered their names to better fit into society. My own family did this.)

2. He looks Jewish to me. (Yes, this is based on Edward Hogg’s appearance and definitely the weakest of my points, but indulge me.) Segundus has a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and dark curly hair kept short (before it can really curl. I’ve seen photos of Edward with longer hair and it’s wildly curly.) Curly (usually dark) hair is as stereotypical a Jewish trait as a large nose. (I’ve had people not believe that I’m Jewish simply because I have straight hair.) With the exception of my uncle (who has blond curly hair) Segundus looks exactly like every member of my Jewish family with his strong jaw, high cheekbones, and dark curly hair.

3. Him being Jewish explains his love of education/knowledge. Education is extremely important in Jewish culture. Historically, all male children (and to a lesser extent female children) were taught to read and study the Torah. Moreover, as Jews were strictly limited to the types of employment they could have, education became more important to insure they held on to those limited job opportunities. There is a long tradition of Jews being teachers/tutors/court advisors to those who who did not generally tolerate Jews in their country. If I remember correctly, after Queen Isabella expelled the Jewish population from Spain in 1492, the King of Poland made a comment about gladly welcoming them into his kingdom as their knowledge would benefit his country. Segundus would have grown up with and been instilled with the love of education. He did after all go on to become a teacher and found a school of his own.

4. Him being Jewish also explains his obsession with magic. Judaism has it’s own branch of mysticism/magic - Kabbalah. If he grew up with Kabbalat teachings - magical teachings - as being normal, of course he would become interested in English magic. (I don’t know much about Christianity, but isn’t magic/witchcraft seen as bad? Weren’t a number of women burned at the stake across Europe for it? And even within the book magic is looked down upon until Norrell restores it. What gentleman such as Segundus should have any interest in PRACTICAL magic? It is not respectable after all and Mr Segundus is as respectable a gentleman as one can be! And yet we are introduced to him wanting to know why magic is no longer preformed in England and getting ridiculed for asking it. It is a perfectly reasonable question if one has already grown up with magical teachings.)

5. Him being Jewish also explains why he was able to see the fairy magic surrounding Lady Pole and Steven (the rose at their mouths) when no one else could. He has the sight/perspective of on outsider. He can literally see things others cannot, he has a unique perspective. (And let me tell you, growing up Jewish surrounded by Christians does give you a unique, sometimes strange perspective on things.)

6. Him being Jewish also explains the secrecy surrounding him. The only thing we really know about Segundus is that before arriving in York, he was in London. The largest Jewish population in England has always been in London (being traced back to the 1630s). It is very possible Segundus came from a successful immigrant Jewish Italian merchant family based in London which had recently fallen on hard times. (During the time, not many families outside of the aristocracy had the money to send their sons to college and Segundus is obviously well educated.) His Jewishness could explain why he never mentions his family and tends to keep to himself. Given antisemitic feelings, he would not want to experience the pain of losing a friend (or worse) if the wrong person found out he was Jewish. (I’ve lost “friends” once they found out I was Jewish and it’s 2020.) Also, the book mentions that Segundus had to take various employment to support himself, but it was always thwarted by “ill-luck or other.” Could that ‘other’ be no more simple then his employer dismissing him once they found out he was Jewish? Segundus concealing his Jewish heritage/identity would take secrecy on his part, incredibly so if he was practicing; making excuses for disappearing every Friday at sundown until Saturday evening (Shabbat) and not going to church/resting on Sunday. Not to mention the long history/tradition of Jews concealing their faith and practicing in secret or still practicing their faith after forced conversions.

Now I know what some of you must be thinking. This is all great meta/theorizing, but how historically realistic is all this really? Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is after all a HISTORICALLY based novel.

May I present British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, born in London to Jewish Italian merchant parents (just two years before the start of the book).

Sounds quite a bit like our boy John Segundus doesn’t it?

#Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell #jsamn #john segundus #i just want him to be jewish okay?#he's my favorite I love him #jewish

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scribbleseas · 4 years

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The Indignant Pawn, Chapter III: The Royal Pain

Description: You are Y/n Y/l/n- formerly known as Princess Helena, the runaway princess.

You're an assassin for hire who only agrees to find the worst of London's criminals at the business end of your knife; until a mysterious woman hires you to end the likes of Ciel Phantomhive, the King of the Underworld. You find yourself trading your weapons for your abandoned family crest in order to infiltrate his home as none other than Princess Marie-Louise, your twin sister. What's to happen when you find that the young Earl is more than a callous businessman?

OVERALL STORY WARNINGS: death, detailed description of blood/gore, detailed description of murder, lying, impersonation, theft, weapons; guns and daggers, detailed panic attacks, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Author’s Note: If you have any questions or concerns about these warnings, please don’t hesitate to contact me! Please note that the warnings are subject to change by each chapter. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this part!

- Dan

⇠ PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER ⇢

. . .

JANUARY 17TH, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

“Her Highness is waiting in the study,” Sebastian said, his polite smile holding more of its predatory depth in his eyes. Ciel Phantomhive could see through the demon’s carefully crafted facade, even with one eye exposed.

“I suppose I’ve kept her waiting this long,” Ciel mused as he shouldered off his black jacket, the fallen snowflakes were beginning to permeate the material as he handed the garment off to his butler. “Bloody Italians can’t make use of a simple clock.” The last thing he needed was an offended princess spurning him for disrespecting her status and relation to the Queen.

“I’m afraid you’ve allowed her to believe the same about you, My Lord,” Sebastian smiled, allowing too much amusement to go to his face. His tone was too piqued with their situation, the fact that Ciel has to hold another individual’s wellbeing and contentedness before his own. Spoiled royalty with an oversized rock on her finger...but then again, Ciel would be a hypocrite to complain, seeing as he had his own family ring snug around his thumb. With a disgruntled glance to the side, he ignored his butler and started up the main stairwell. Sebastian didn’t deserve the satisfaction of being right.

Princess Marie of Germany under his watch, under the protection of his estate. The Queen would have Ciel’s throat if he let so much as a scratch raze the princess’s skin. It was an honor in its own right, even though he’d have to divert much of his attention to weeding out just who would dare threaten the monarchy. What was the point in coveting the head of a princess who was third in line to the German throne? Quite a bold move, it was.

“Your Highness,” Ciel started, his gaze focusing on the back of her head as she sat on the seat across from his desk. The door to his study was already open and he allowed himself to loiter in the threshold respectfully as the young woman in front of him took her time to stand and face him. Her face was neutral as she regarded him, her lips relaxed in a soft frown before the corners turned up and animated her cheeks. It reached her eyes well enough to fool anyone. The family resemblance was there, he supposed, the plethora of fronts evident in just a polite smile.

“Earl Phantomhive, I presume,” the princess responded, her words forward and curt. Her English was better than he would have guessed, a welcome juxtaposition to Ciel’s challenged German. At least his butler needed not to translate each syllable between the two of them. There was certain alertness in her shoulders, although they were down and away from her diamond drop earrings.

“Yes. My tardiness is inexcusable. I apologize,” Ciel smiled, the expression automatically uncomfortable, but the gesture seemed to have registered. The princess was more docile than she seemed in comparison to the press. Not long ago, her elated smile was all over the press as she announced her engagement to some other German fellow. Ciel couldn’t recall. She tilted her head, the slight gesture granting Ciel permission to properly enter the room as she extended her hand. Their meeting was more than awkward, but Ciel could take the blame. Being late saw to ruining a conventional greeting.

“It was unintentional. My grandmother is much too wise to...put her faith in a halfwit,” the princess responded, mocking him under a soft tone and subtle accent.

“Yes. Certainly,” Ciel humored her with a wry chuckle as he bowed, gently taking her gloved hand. She was as he predicted prior: spoiled royalty with an oversized rock around her finger. The emerald of her family ring glittered, the square-cut catching the light as Ciel pressed a tender kiss on the satin of her glove. He was bent over was his waist, making himself shorter as her skirt became the only significant object in his limited line of vision for the time being. It was sky blue (the cleverly chosen color of trust) and embroidered with white and darker blue eddies. They were so subtle, Ciel wouldn’t have noticed them from the distance he was currently retreating to. He gave the ribbon tied around her wrist a short look before completely letting her warm hand go. The princess quickly withdrew her hand the moment it was released.

Frankly, she seemed to be holding her breath as Ciel righted himself, calming as the contact between them ceased. For a moment, she was still until her gaze returned to him, almost unsure.

He had never seen royalty so uncomfortable in their own skin.

“Would you care for a tour of the estate, Your Highness?” Ciel asked, breaking the crawling silence. She was a princess, in his case, each one of her idiosyncrasies needed to be handled smoothly, although she didn’t seem to be the type to take offense as quickly as an average woman in polite society.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” the princess said, tilting her head. The gesture was supposed to seem docile, but Ciel could only assume it came from a place of boredom or perhaps, impatience. The young woman was already proving to be more trouble than Ciel would have preferred to entertain.

“It would be my privilege.”

. . .

JANUARY 19th, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

Ciel sat back in his chair as he defied every law of proper posture for a nobleman. The black bow of his monochrome ensemble was tied loosely around his neck, hanging limply around his neck. Sebastian had fastened it that morning, but Ciel had felt the need to loosen it to help him think.

The envelope from Queen Victoria sat open on Ciel’s desk, signed and delivered days ago. Along with her own depressed pleading was a translated copy of the note sent to Germany.

His uncovered eye skimmed the pristine penmanship of Queen Victoria’s, imploring him to guard her granddaughter- one out of over two dozen. A number that loitered around the mid-twenties, seeing as the Duke of Clarence, Albert Victor had recently passed. The Queen hadn’t spared a syllable in reminding Ciel of keeping Marie safe from whoever had dared to send a letter into the royal courts of Germany. A threat over the head of the princess, if she presumed with her engagement and life in Schleswig-Holstein. It was worded quite brusquely in comparison to Her Majesty’s anxiously penned words.

‘A good princess can learn to appreciate-’ he read, for what felt like the hundredth time before there was a knock on the closed door of his study. Ciel looked up from the paper, frowning as Sebastian’s polite voice spoke.

“Master, I’ve brought your afternoon tea,” he announced, entering without another moment’s hesitation. Ciel responded with an unenthusiastic hum, although he was content to have a pick-me-up in the form of a warm beverage.

‘A good princess can learn to appreciate what she has such as a-’

“East Frisian tea,” Sebastian said, interrupting both Ciel’s train of thought and his dismissive action of putting the porcelain cup to his lips for a sip. With a sigh, he put the Queen’s letters back on his desk, for the favor of further expecting the contents that he was about to carelessly ingest. “Made of Assam leaves and just a dash of Darjeeling,” the butler continued, fixing his stare on Ciel as he frowned at he black tea. The cream was pooling down the inside of the cup, mixing with the malty liquid, pushing up to create clouds within it.

“With cream,” Ciel wrinkled his nose as he took a reluctant sip, the biting taste causing him to wince until the cream and sugar combination softened the foreign brew. While he normally preferred his tea with minimal traces of sugar, the cream, in this case, was welcome.

“Yes. I do hope it’s to your liking, My Lord. Our guest seemed to appreciate the gesture.”

“East Frisian, you said,” Ciel gave his cup another look before fixing his gaze on Sebastian. “Germany,” he noted, rather unamused with his butler’s attempt at shying away from cultural appropriation. Sly bastard.

“Very good, sir. If you look closely, you’ll find a piece of rock sugar at the bottom.”

Indeed, there was a small clump of sugar that stuck out of the tea at the bottom of the cup, and particles of broken sugar swirled around it. Ciel picked up the papers again, straightening out his tense spine. He read over the same line, finally finishing it.

‘A good princess can learn to appreciate what she has- such as a beating heart and a doting family of blue blood. We know that Marie’s virtue is skin deep. Surely you know where to show her...away from gunpoint- away from her home, and away from her bridegroom.’

“The Duke of Clarence died of influenza,” Ciel stated, the fact as clear as day. It was published all over the press- shops were closed, the funeral was a country-wide grievance. Her Majesty was thrown out of sorts, seeing as she lost a grandson and very well a granddaughter. “It wasn’t staged by the author of this letter.” It was a twisted show of luck, rather than a show of strength.

“I would have to agree,” Sebastian concurred, effortlessly changing his tone from willfully discussing tea to attempting to piece together an idea of a suspect. “The monarchy is made of the entirety of Europe- there could be any number of adversaries wanting to partake in their downfall.” There was also any number of targets, considering the family as a whole was so large- the Queen had nine children, each grown and married, with children of their own. Many of whom were younger than nineteen, making them more viable for ransom, assuming that was the goal here.

“Her Majesty has survived eight assassination attempts within her reign,” Ciel said, his voice at a low timbre as he walked through his own thoughts. Sebastian knew when to interject and most importantly, when not to. Society always paints targets on the back of those who are at the top. That was why the queen herself had the steeliest of nerves and he, the head of Phantomhive, had to install human defenses against consistent assaults. “Sebastian, get me every article of which Her Highness is featured in,” he demanded, slamming the thin stationery down on the surface of the desk in front of him. His gaze was on the sly butler, catching the subtle glow of his eyes as he bowed, his hand back over his heart.

“Consider it done,” Sebastian simpered as he showed himself out of the study, abandoning the cart that he brought the tea in with. Ciel helped himself to another long sip of his tea, the excess cream gathering at the top of his upper lip before it was improperly licked off.

. . .

JANUARY 20TH, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

Perhaps the most inconvenient aspect of the princess’s arrival was breakfast. Ciel had enjoyed reading the paper in his own quarters as Sebastian brought him a simple breakfast tray and to satiate him until noon, but as a warm host to royalty, it was part of his responsibility to join her for most, if not all major meals. Mornings were Ciel’s preferred times to strategize; Sebastian gave him the paper, informing him of his meetings for the day and laid out the postage for Ciel to sift through. But instead, Ciel’s incoming letters were still sealed, closed, and abandoned as they lay piled on the surface of the vanity- only to be touched after sitting for breakfast.

“You could tell her I had an...urgent meeting that I couldn’t possibly miss,” Ciel suggested as he looked up at the ceiling to allow Sebastian to button his shirt and fasten his tie. He could feel the demon’s annoyance with him as he spoke childishly. Only his death (or the princess’s) would get him out of his new, unprecedented schedule change.

“This childish moaning is not productive, my Lord,” the demon said, tugging on the tie too tightly for Ciel’s liking. “Unless you wish to be considered a child by the young woman.”

“Watch it,” Ciel hissed, narrowing his eyes at his butler as he picked a dark blue jacket from the armoire. He wasn’t a child, nor anything like one, for that matter. Sebastian knew that better than anyone and yet, he insisted on speaking out with his appropriate conduct. Ciel shouldered the responsibilities of an earl, a successful businessman, and now, a personal guard. If the girl staying at his estate was to be considered a woman, then he was a man, even with a difference of two years between them. Age was a mentality.

“My apologies,” Sebastian sounded anything but apologetic, his diverted grin pulling at his lips as he guided Ciel’s arm through the sleeve of the jacket. Sly bastard.

“Just finish dressing me, if you can be so bold as to fulfill your duty for once.”

. . .

The princess was staring at the dainty butter knife between her fingers- again, her eyes completely fixated on the silver utensil. Her lips were pursed in her inevitable frown as Ciel entered the dining room, bowing under the threshold. “Good morning, Your Highness,” he willed himself to hold his breath until she acknowledged his presence.

“And to you, I suppose,” she responded, finally picking up her gaze to turn to the frosted window. It was snowing lightly, flakes falling in fat flurries, coating everything they landed on. The draft from the cold was light as it was refuted with the crackling fireplace at the far side of the room.

This fire was contained.

“You may sit,” she added in lieu of his hesitation. Princess Marie was in fact the most informal royal he had ever been privileged to entertain. To have to wait on her was as infuriating as it was inconvenient.

“Of course,” he took the seat to her left, pulling out the chair and sitting down. The silence that permeated between himself and the princess was formidable, growing with each second that Sebastian took to enter with the meal. Her eyes were on the knife again, although she put it back in its place on the table setting. For as absent as her expression was, the rest of her body remained quite alert- her back arched in the chair and her posture quite truculent. She could pass for a stoic war general, the only difference being the jewels that decorated her body and the burgundy gown that covered it.

Since her arrival two days ago, each torturously slow meal would play out in just this way. Not to mention, the assortment of traditional German cuisine that Sebastian unfortunately, never failed to serve with the accompaniment of countless jams and spreads that were already placed between himself and the girl. She was always disinterested until Sebastian and the other servants emerged with the main dishes, although she merely took a measly few forkfuls until she excused herself.

“Please pardon our intrusion. Breakfast is served” Sebastian’s cheeky voice chirped as he entered as he carried two silver platters, each covered. Following him were the rest of the staff; Mey-Rin’s unstable hands pushing the tea cart behind Finny and Baldroy who brought unnecessary sides to the table. After giving their plates to Sebastian, they quickly backed off. Finny seemed squeamish simply from the notion of being around royalty as he fell uncharacteristically silent- at least until he met the princess’s eyes and bowed clumsily, smiling with the boyish charm that he should’ve outgrown years ago.

“Uh- good morning, Your Highness!” He exclaimed, desperately standing back up as Baldroy gave him a pointed look, linking his arm with his and forcibly dragging him out of the room.

“C’mon, mate. Sebastian gave us one order. Not to talk to ‘er!” Baldroy whispered harshly as they left with Mey-Rin, causing both Finny and Ciel to cringe. Ciel exhaled, silently pushing out each curse that he wished to bestow on his inept house staff for embarrassing him with more of their incompetence.

“I was just tryin’ to be polite! She was-”

Sebastian cleared his throat, smiling through the anger that bristled in the forced nature of the grin. “Today we are offering lightly whisked eierkuchen, refined with sparkling water and served with quittengelee as well as an assortment of honey- such as acacia, buckwheat, and lime blossom,” he gestured to the main platters he had carried out, removing the coverings to show large, thin cakes. They were much too thick to be considered a crepe and yet, much too large to be a regular pancake. As for the so-called quittengelee, Sebastian had motioned to the orange jam with the thick texture.

“And for our sides, we have prepared a dish of senfeier- the eggs hatched organically and immersed in an Indian-inspired mustard sauce,” Sebastian continued, rambling for much too long about the products of his overestimated kitchen labor.

“I understand everything is homemade?” The princess stated although the words were posed as a question. “I find it curious that you were able to acquire fresh quince from Germany at this time of year...they’re out of season.”

Sebastian chuckled as if he expected the question while Ciel shifted in his seat, at a loss for what quince was in the first place. The two before him were speaking in English, although he had yet to comprehend was quince-jam entailed. “Most astute of you, Your Highness. We had them imported from the Crimean Peninsula in accordance with your arrival.”

For the first time, her face softened as she nodded, before turning her attention to Ciel. “Lord Phantomhive, you do have quite an able butler at your disposal,” she said her lips turning upwards in a diminutive smile. Ciel would have appreciated the polite gesture if the compliment had been aimed at himself, rather than his butler who quite literally, came from the gates of hell.

“He’s a servant, Your Highness. You mustn’t pay him any mind for establishing the Phantomhive standard of care,” Ciel dismissed, perhaps more bluntly than he would have dared, given the situation.

“Well, the workforce in my own home could never perform to the same caliber,” the princess lifted her shoulders, shrugging with the least amount of movement possible.

“Thank you, Your Highness. I’m simply one hell of a butler, no one worthy of your praise, as my master said. Although, please do enjoy your meal, on behalf of our staff,” Sebastian said, bowing as he hid the smirk on his condescending face. It was an abomination and before the princess could bother responding, he was gone, leaving one full dining table and specifically, two filled teacups that reached the table without Ciel noticing.

“He is a tricky one, isn’t he?” the princess commented, watching as the door closed behind Sebastian. Absentmindedly, her fingers curled around the warm teacup that was placed to her right- likely when Finny made a spectacle of himself.

“One could say that,” Ciel responded cautiously as he eyed that fatuous jam. “I don’t suppose you could elaborate on this...quittengelee?”

“Did you mean quittengelee?” Her eyebrows were knit as her smile made a brief reappearance. She emphasized the ‘g’ in the word as Sebastian had, as Ciel’s terrible pronunciation had evidently shown her that his German was completely lackluster.

“I-, yes,” Ciel looked away as he found himself at the position as the butt of the joke once again- a most unusual position for someone such as himself. She took a long sip of tea, the heat of the fresh pour clearly not bothering her. By touching the outside of the porcelain cup, he could feel the intense heat of the beverage.

Even her eyes were mocking him.

“Key-ten-gee-lee,” she said slowly after swallowing, deconstructing the word for him- as if he was a child and she was a tutor. If Sebastian had ever dared to attempt teaching Ciel the French language in this manner he would have had the demon tarred and feathered.

“Key-ten-gee-lee. Yes,” Ciel repeated, unable to hide his frustrated scowl. There was no tarring and feathering royalty, after all. At her dubious expression, he felt the need to defend himself, his intelligence, and likewise. “I can only claim fluency in both French and English. I’m currently studying Latin.”

“Studying a dead language, I see,” and within six words, Ciel was reminded of how vexing the princess truly was. Leisurely, she spooned a few sugared raspberries out of a porcelain bowl and piled them in the middle of the flat pastry on her plate. She picked one of the overly specific kinds of honey to drizzle over them, using a small spoon from her place setting. “Well, quittengelee is a jam made from quince.”

“...Quince is a fruit. It comes from trees all over Europe-especially Germany,” she continued, after realizing that Ciel’s silence was a bid for her to explain further. She dressed her breakfast with chocolate spread that Sebastian had only incorporated for her sake- he was nothing if not stingy when it came to sugar before noon. “Although...no one eats it off the branch, so you will only find it in this form at a table. Try it with a roll,” she suggested.

Ciel reluctantly obliged as he cut a warm roll open. At the intervention of his knife, poppy seeds fell onto the surface of his untouched eierkuchen while the princess’s pastry was in the process of being rolled into itself, as a lazy crepe would be. She seemed content to cut it into small chunks by cutting it in half and proceeding to cut them into halves. “And I understand they’re referred to as...brötchen?”

She shook her head, causing her earrings to move alongside the strands of her hair that were left out of the braided bun she sported. “Brew-chen. There’s an umlaut for a reason.” He felt his frustrated grip on the knife grow considerably as he spread a thin layer of the quittengelee over the flat side of the roll that he cut into.

“Brew-chen,” Ciel smiled thinly as he returned the knife back to the small bowl that the spread was in. At least someone was finding amusement in his rare struggle.

“Are you not familiar with the umlaut’s appearance in the Latin language?” On the subject of language, the princess’s English was perhaps too perfect. She spoke in the complicated fluency of a native speaker, her German accent subtle enough to go undetected to an obtuse ear. Ciel took a small bite out of the rye bread, the dryness of it paired well with the sweet jam. The taste resembled the median of a pear and an apple, having the pear’s sweetness and the crispness of the apple and frankly, it wasn’t half bad.

“I have to say, Your Highness, your English is quite exceptional,” Ciel said, changing the subject from his own lack of capability to the princess’s. He didn’t need to hear any more of her passive-aggressive commentary and expect himself to remain civil. “How long have you studied?”

She took her time to answer, picking up a cut of her rolled pastry and chewing it for much longer than it needed. Her eyes were contemplative as she speared another piece and put it into her mouth. “Since I was a girl,” she said, clearly considering the delivery of the rest of her answer before continuing. “My whole family speaks both German and English, it’s our heritage.” It was said that Her Majesty even preferred conversing in German when she was left with her family and private staff, shielded from the public eye. “I was not presented with spontaneous options.”

“I suppose not,” Ciel said, validating her words as a formality and let the conversation go to rest. The princess seemed content to take a final bite out of the eierkuchen, making for a grand total of three pieces missing from the vast majority that was left of her plate. She set her utensils down and despite still being hungry himself, Ciel had to do the same. Polite society dictated that when the individual of the highest rank set their utensils down at the dining table, everyone was to (annoyingly) follow in suit. With a frown, he watched as the handles of both the fork and butter knife faced the bottom right of the plate, confirming that she was indeed finished with eating.

“Excuse me,” the princess said, standing to her feet after putting her napkin back on the table. Immediately, Ciel stood and did the same because it was also disrespectful to sit while present royalty stood. Her status controlled him such as a puppeteer would control a marionette; forcing him to smile through clenched teeth and speak kindly through bitter indignation

“Of course,” he supplied, offering a shallow bow as she pushed her chair back and proceeded to leave him in the dining room- alone with a table of food that he couldn’t proceed to dig into without her permission- which was a privilege that she didn’t care to extend. Ciel watched her back as she twisted the knob of the door, her petticoats swinging as she walked. At this rate, he’d sooner starve before catching the sender of that threat...not that he could blame their threat of violence towards this frustrating girl.

. . .

JANUARY 23RD, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

“And this is every article?” Ciel frowned at the looming stacks of grey papers that lined his desk. Most of them were in German, coming from articles that mostly concerned the entirety of the royal family of Schleswig-Holstein. After all, Her Majesty was known as the Grandmother of Europe, seeing as her descendants lived in each corner of the continent- from Denmark, Russia, Romania and even Greece. The royal family held traces of her blood in each throne because of this, and it was passed to Princess Marie and her siblings through their mother- Princess Helena of the United Kingdom, the fourth child of Queen Victoria. However, Princess Helena of the United Kingdom was not to be confused with one of her daughters- Princess Helena of Schleswig-Holstein. The runaway princess that headlined most of the articles on Ciel’s desk. She was the sister and twin of Princess Marie before she was presumed dead nine years ago.

“Yes. These records are organized by timeline and to fortify your skills in German comprehension, they are left in their initial print,” Sebastian said, his hand over his heart and smile as coy as ever. Ciel scowled in response, an insult lingering in the back of his mind, although he knew that his butler (who unfortunately doubled as his tutor) had no intention to make his life easier than need be. He sat back in the opulent chair after picking up the first newspaper in the hefty stack. This was the oldest in the pile, dating back to May 3rd, 1873- the birth of the twin princesses and the most recent was from two weeks ago, covering the princess’s engagement to Prince Aribert of Anhalt.

“Fine,” Ciel responded, apathetic to the butler’s amusement. Sebastian watched him peer at the foreign words as Ciel wracked his mind to decipher them. “Go find something useful to accomplish. Busy yourself,” he ordered with a careless gesture of his hand. If he needed to, there was a German to English dictionary tucked safely in the drawer on his left.

“As you wish, my Lord,” Sebastian said, the perkiness in his posh accent as pertinent as ever. He was an overconfident demon that enjoyed bearing witness to Ciel’s struggle, which was only further proof that he was a bastard from hell.

In Sebastian’s absence, Ciel found it easier to focus, seeing as he had only just started studying German over Latin three days ago- after the princess humbling him greatly at the breakfast table. She had no qualms about speaking her mind, insinuating that Latin, his former language of study was a waste of time. The most expression he saw in her face was at the dining table as she poked fun at him and drank scalding hot tea without so much as a flinch.

The large photo on the front page of the most recent paper showed Princess Marie and the Prince beaming at the camera, the girl showing off the new diamond on her ring finger with a smile twice the size of it. Having been face to face with the princess, Ciel could only wonder what transformed her perpetually somber frown? Even that shiny engagement ring was missing when he would have suspected that it was some kind of comfort object that she would have wanted to take overseas with her. The passion in that black and white photograph was missing, not that he could truly blame her. The circumstances could cause any sheltered royal to make a full retreat- she was in a foreign country and in the care of a stranger.

After a few minutes, his long-coveted silence came to an end when there was a hurried knock on the door. It was much too loud and demanding to be from Sebastian and he highly doubted the princess would bother knocking on the chance she left her quarters outside of attending meals. Before he could put the newspaper back, fix his tie, and sit up, the oakwood door was flung open and from it, a girly yell of excitement and blur of salmon pink sprang forward.

“Ciel! How could you not tell me that Her Highness is staying here? With you?” Elizabeth Midford- Lizzie- exclaimed, pulling Ciel out of his chair and into a crushing hug. She wore a beige overcoat, the front was unbuttoned which showed off the vibrant shade of pink her gown sported, the bodice being a slightly darker shade than the top petticoat. He could feel the cold air that she brought up the stairs and into the corridor with her, likely ignoring Sebastian after he allowed her inside. The melted snow permeated into Ciel’s own clothing, making him feel a vague cold. More importantly, her thin arms enveloped his waist, her head pushing into his chest. He finally stood taller than she did.

“E-...Lizzie!” Ciel sputtered dumbly, his arms reluctantly wrapping around her thin torso to reciprocate the hug. She was his fond cousin; too comfortable with invading his personal space and naturally, showing her face unannounced. “How did you-...” there were almost too many questions to bother pushing out in one sentence. He had no desire to explain the massive pile of German newspapers that were scattered over his desk and most importantly, the whereabouts of the princess couldn’t be common knowledge. It was a danger to her safety to which Her Majesty had entrusted him with. The princess had only arrived a week ago- it would be a disgrace to have failed this crucial assignment in such haste.

“My father,” Lizzie answered, inhaling deeply before pulling away and allowing Ciel to properly look at her. Her pale complexion was colored with bits of pink from the cold, her green eyes amazed as she stared at him. Around her neck was the white velvet choker he had gifted her for her sixteenth birthday. The single pearl that hung from the middle caught the light from the lamps that merely accentuated the natural light of day that flooded through the open drapes. “Her Majesty’s knights were cautioned to watch for suspicious characters because her granddaughter is in town, staying with her loyal Watchdog. Which is you,” she explained, much to Ciel’s relief. Lizzie’s father, Alexis Leon Midford, was the head of the Order of the Garter, otherwise, the knight order that was established in 1348 by King Edward III. “Oh, allow me,” Lizzie insisted, surging forward on her tippy toes to fix Ciel’s tie. As of late, undoing it helped him focus- despite his inability to retie it.

“Uh- thank you,” Ciel cleared his throat, watching as Lizzie’s thin fingers tied a bow into the black material. She tugged one end of the string to make both of the loops even in size, her smile permanent as it parted her lips. There was an intimacy about a girl touching his clothing, making adjustments as his own mother had done frequently for his father. Surely Lizzie was aware of that sentiment, after all, she proved that she wasn’t completely airheaded years ago on Campania. She was slow to move away again.

“Where is Her Highness? Would you introduce me?” Lizzie’s words were posed as a request, but Ciel knew better. She wouldn’t leave him alone until he at least allowed her to stand in the same room as the cold princess.

“If she’ll-” he started before he was swiftly interrupted. Lizzie had indeed matured in a multitude of ways- spanning from physical to intellectual, but her tendency to speak over others had yet to be properly ironed out.

“Oh, we can take her into the city and take her to a show in the theater!” She exclaimed, impulsively latching on to the fleeting and frankly, poor idea. The point of the princess’s arrival in England was to keep her hidden from the public eye, rather than risk-taking her into the busiest city in the country for a night to wander about. “It’ll be lovely! Oscar Wilde’s new playwright, Salome, is still in the Globe Theater! I’m sure Her Highness would love to go see it tonight!” Lizzie beamed, proud of her idea as she turned to the open door of Ciel’s study. “Well? What are you waiting for? Let’s go ask her!”

“Elizabeth I don’t-” Ciel sighed, watching Lizzie’s perky blonde curls jump with each energetic step she took. A thin headband kept her hair out of her face as her hair was sectioned off into two high pigtails. She had been allowing her hair to grow out for ages, which allowed the kept curls to end just past her shoulder. He followed her in measured steps as she practically skipped down the corridor.

“Where could she be?” Lizzie mused, looking around with the curiosity a small child would have in trying to locate a cat.

“My assumption would be the library,” Ciel lied since the princess spent her time burrowing in her quarters or rarely, in the main living room, nursing a cup of East Frisian tea. Thus, it was a surprise when he and his cousin entered the expansive room to find the girl reading through a short book. The princess was sitting back on a loveseat, one leg improperly crossed over the other as she squinted at the font on the page she read. Upon hearing the door to her side open and close, she quickly put her leg down and straightened her back. The gesture was amusing in itself, watching her composed nature hesitate for once.

“Lord Phantomhive,” the princess spoke first, arching an eyebrow as he observed him and the starstruck blonde to his side. Lizzie curtsied, lowering her head to the girl. “Who is this?”

“Your Highness, this is my fianceé- Lady Elizabeth Midford,” Ciel said as Lizzie stood up once again. The princess smiled and once again, it hardly reached her eyes. She closed the book on her lap, a gesture that expressed that they had her full attention, even if her ‘full attention’ was normally diverted anyway.

“It’s simply an honor to meet you, Your Highness! I adore your dress!” Lizzie said, her gaze fixating on the deep red silk of the princess’s gown. The red was an interesting contrast to her emerald family ring that the princess wore every day, similar to the ring around Ciel’s own thumb. The circumference of the band was able to fit around his finger after years of impatient waiting.

“Thank you. It was a gift,” the princess responded, tilting her head, her smiling beginning to fade. She was only seeing the gullible exterior that Lizzie put out, covering her mastery in swordsmanship and strategy. He couldn’t blame either of them; Lizzie for succumbing to social norms and Her Highness for failing to search for depth in a starstruck girl.

“Would you perhaps...consider joining Ciel and I to the city tonight? We’re going to see a show at the Globe Theater!” Lizzie chirped, her shoulders jumping with her excited giggling. Ciel pursed his lips in response, seeing as there was no reasoning, much less arguing with the eccentric blonde. Raising his voice would be unbecoming as he introduced his cousin as his fianceé, before a member of his bloodline. Not to mention, she was a noble lady and Ciel had no desire to give the princess more of a reason to give him a snide admonishment.

“Salome?” The princess mumbled her eyebrows knitting in thought. Her hands wrapped around the book in her lap, though the book remained close to her petticoat. She sat a little taller, her eyes pensive. For once, it seemed that the whole of her regard was in the library with them.

“Yes! Oscar Wilde’s new playwright. Paula will secure seats in the box for the three of us,” Lizzie suggested, her voice lifting as her own hands clasped together in front of her chest. She still wore her outside mittens, since she immediately rushed to Ciel’s office upon entering the estate, ignoring Sebastian who had wanted to take her overcoat and all other winter gear. If the princess had any criticism about Lizzie’s forwardness, she had yet to voice it. Instead, her leg was bouncing- quickly- up and down, which caused her petticoat to in turn, move. Her heel would have made a soft knocking sound against the wooden floor if there wasn’t a throw rug placed in front of the particular loveseat she sat on.

The princess’s expression was otherwise passive as silence hung in the air once again.

“I believe the idea is counterintuitive to our objective here, but I would be a poor host to allow a guest to remain completely trapped indoors,” Ciel said, begrudgingly endorsing Lizzie’s plan. “Besides, with Sebastian and isolated seating, I can guarantee both your safety and privacy.” As far as Ciel knew, the entire royal family endorsed live entertainment, starting with Her Majesty who vested sums of money into restoring and improving theaters throughout London. At that moment, the princess’s absent expression and fidgeting extremities suggested that she would have preferred anything over theatrics.

“Exactly! And we’ll have loads of fun!” Lizzie said, “please, Your Highness?” She begged, grinning from ear to ear while the princess’s complexion seemed shades lighter than it was minutes ago.

“I- if you’re confident, Lord Phantomhive,” the princess said, her accent more prominent as she quickly stood, the book in her hands still. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Midford. Excuse me,” she said, quickly exiting the library before Lizzie could tell her to call her Lizzie. Ciel found it dubious that she was accepting the invite based on her trust in him. In fact, it was news to him that she possessed any in the first place.

The doors closed again, leaving him alone with his cousin again. Lizzie squealed, “Lovely! I’ll give Paula a ring!”

. . .

The exterior of the Globe Theater was quite romanticized with both streetlights and a quartet playing as guests of all classes entered. The sun was at half-mast in the sky, with hues of purple beginning to hint in the sky and since the crisp winter made sunset come earlier by the day, the three of them had to eat a rushed supper before heading into London by carriage. It was the first full meal that Princess Marie had bothered to stay seated for, rather than excusing herself after taking three diminutive bites off of her plate.

The carriage came to a stop, halting as Sebastian muttered a command to the horse that pulled them. No later, the closed carriage door opened to his smug smirk as he took the hands of each lady- the princess, Lizzie, and Paula to aid their step down. Lizzie was hardly paying attention to her own surroundings, save for the moony stare she looked at the sky with. “We picked the perfect night,” she commented, the other approaching families and couples catching her attention. Everyone- even the middle-class workers, were dressed in their finest.

Sebastian closed the carriage behind Ciel, his hypervigilance an important asset to making sure that no one could lay a hand on the royalty present. The command was presented as an order, to the extent of Ciel removing his eyepatch and staring at the demon whilst Lizzie and the princess were off looking at the German garments in the princess’s armoire (at his betrothed’s request). “Indeed. It’s far too warm to indicate snow, Lady Elizabeth,” the demon said, although ‘warm’ was nothing but an understatement. The January air was cold with the biting wind only absent.

“People of all sorts are present,” the princess said, voicing a thought more than attempting to start a conversation. None of her nervous tics had disappeared since the first mention of going to the theater. Perhaps he would have been more considerate of a host to neglect Oscar Wilde’s playwright altogether.

“What are we waiting for?!” Lizzie asked, linking her arm with Ciel’s as if they were already married, or even in the process of courtship. Immediately, he tensed, finding it difficult to match his pacing with the way her excited skipping dragged him towards the entrance as she ignored Paula’s cautioning pleads. The woman’s presence was mostly to appease the conduct of unmarried ladies needing to be accompanied by a married woman in order to properly be on an outing with an unmarried man. However, the rule said nothing about physical contact being essential and frankly, all Ciel wanted was to recoil from Lizzie’s lasting grasp.

Thankfully, no one bothered the princess or spared so much as a glance at her. The royal family was so expansive- there was no reason besides residual anxiety to have worried about someone recognizing one royal princess out of dozens. Most of the public couldn’t put faces to the names and titles of Her Majesty’s entire family unless they were made to care by the Queen. Ciel knew nothing about the Duke of Clarence until his face was posted on the front pages of papers for days after he died and after Princess Helena went missing, she could have been identified by anyone on the continent. This relocation of Princess Marie was kept as silent as possible, which ultimately, meant that she could show her face safely, for the most part.

However, none of that information was likely to ease the princess’s worry, on the assumption that being in public was the cause of her unnatural silence. It wasn’t Ciel’s position to question her.

Their seats were isolated, with Sebastian standing near the entrance of the section. The Globe Theater was open on top with an opulent threshold over the stage where the curtains were drawn. Rows of seats sat in front of the stage, curving in the shape of a semicircle and in sections. Conversations were low and hushed as both the staff and the cast prepared to begin the show, light music from the hidden orchestra starting in order to create as much tension as possible until finally, the curtains were beginning to pull open.

“Ciel it’s starting!” Lizzie whispered, her arm out of his personal space when they sat down. The moment the princess sat down, her leg began to bounce and naturally, had yet to cease, even as the actors began.

“Look at the moon. How strange the moon seems! She is like a woman rising from the tomb. She is like a dead woman. One might fancy she was looking for dead things,” the actor said, leaning over the fake balcony on the stage, speaking of the woman below himself and the man to his side.

The other man chuckled, narrowing his eyes at the same woman as she ignored them, silently interacting with other nameless actors on the stage. “She has a strange look. She is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver. She is like a princess who has little white doves for feet. One might fancy she was dancing,” the actor’s words reminded Ciel of the indelicate, bothersome princess who wasn’t looking at the stage. Instead, she was staring at the darkening sky, the light grey clouds that moved over the theater. Her hands were tucked into her pocket bags to escape the cold and her shoulders were rigid, matching his own. She looked at him, apparently sensing his eye on her, and in response, she raised an eyebrow. He looked away with a long exhale, and instead focusing on the way his breath showed in the air in front of him.

‘Like a woman rising from the tomb’

. . .

“Tragic. She couldn’t bring herself to love and instead, destroyed others around her,” Lizzie said, her voice quiet with her temporary sadness. They were walking back to the carriage, Sebastian lurking behind them, and Paula linking arms with his betrothed this time. The woman seemed delighted to provide comfort, since it was required of her even less than before and in a way, Lizzie was just as much her daughter as she was of Aunt Alexis and Uncle Francis. “What did you think, Your Highness?”

“The ending was inevitable. All parties were subjecting each other to objectification, and the only way to answer such abuse is death,” The princess stopped walking as soon as they reached the carriage, her hands out of her pockets as she hugged herself instead. That sentence was the most she said at once in the entirety of the evening and Ciel half-expected her to mumble a syllable as simple as ‘fine’ or ‘good’ to answer Lizzie’s question.

“And you, Ciel?” Lizzie asked, fixing her wide emerald hues on his face, but he pretended not to notice.

“It was realistic. People are only driven by their own self-interest and Salomé merely acted on her own...hypersexuality. She danced for the dinner guests out of her desire to tempt and drive them into sin. It was her obsession that caused her to manipulate Herod to fall at her feet,” Ciel responded, glaring pointedly at Sebastian whose smile twitched in interest as he opened the carriage door. Before Lizzie could chastise his crass use of ‘hypersexuality’ Sebastian beckoned the princess to enter the carriage.

“Your Highness,” Sebastian extended his hand to the princess to help her into the empty carriage, but she remained still as she had before leaving the estate. Having the highest status allowed her to be the first to enter, but in both instances, she resisted, for the favor of Lizzie and Paula sitting before her.

“I can wait,” she said, gesturing to the pair with her chin. Paula curtsied again, beaming at the girl.

“You’re quite generous, Your Highness, thank you,” she said, pulling her arm out of Lizzie’s grip to allow her to take Sebastian’s hand and enter first. The princess merely responded with a close-lipped smile, which had minimal effort put into it compared to the smile she wore for their first meeting. Once the two were settled in their seats, the princess (albeit reluctantly) stepped in, followed by Ciel. Now that they were leaving the theater, she seemed to have calmed down enough to not require extensive fidgeting. Instead, her fingertips kneaded the base of her neck for a quick moment, before her hand settled in her lap. Perhaps this was yet another idiosyncrasy of hers. After all, each one was just another inconvenience he’d need to do everything in his power to embrace.

. . .

By the time the estate rolled back into view, Lizzie was snoring, her head leaning on Ciel’s arm like a child’s would, despite being seventeen. He had to squeeze his eyes shut to push out the visage of the stone mansion being engulfed in flames. It wasn’t on fire, nor was it going to be, but all he could see was bright orange flames surrounding his home, smoke hovering in the atmosphere- drawing closer with every clop of horse hooves.

‘Mother!’

‘Father!’

The walls were burning down around him, his lungs full of smoke as he coughed, doubling over. Everything was so hot, the floor groaning with each heavy step he took towards the main living room. His eyes stung from the smoke, pairing with tears of worry and unabashed sorrow. It was hard to see or feel anything except for warmth as sweat began to fall down the back of his neck and down his shift.

Unbearable warmth.

Unbearable heat-“

Are we back home?” Lizzie asked, sitting up and yawning as the princess left the carriage, taking Sebastian’s helping hand. “Ciel?” she asked, groggily rubbing her eyes with each hand. Forced out of his stupor, Ciel took in a lungful of cold, clean air, his chest expanding under his many layers of protective clothing. He quickly looked out the window of the carriage at his waiting estate. It stood proudly, the stones that made up the walls shined in the moonlight. There was no fire.

“Yes. Sebastian, contact her parents and make arrangements for Lizzie and Paula to stay for the night,” Ciel ordered arm in arm with Lizzie, who took sluggish steps towards the main door that was opened by Sebastian. Her Highness was already inside, her black overcoat and gloves being taken by an over-enthusiastic Mey-Rin.

“Certainly, My Lord,” Sebastian said, “Mey-Rin, prepare two guest rooms for Lady Elizabeth and Paula, please,” he instructed, before leaving the whole of them to make tea and contact Lizzie’s parents.

“Alright, Sebastian! I’ll be right there, Your Highness, just you wait!” Mey-Rin exclaimed, quickly scampering up the main stairway to prepare the rooms and tend to the princess’s night routine, whatever that entailed.

“I’ll be retiring now. Goodnight to you all,” the princess said, her complexion having regained some its default tone, although her cheeks were red from walking in the cold from the carriage to the front door. She didn’t care enough to personally address the whole of them, which naturally defied the typical manner royalty had to follow, once again proving herself as the most improper royal he had ever encountered.

“Sweet dreams, Your Highness,” Lizzie curtsied, stifling a yawn as a red-faced Mey-Rin returned to escort her and Paula to their respective guest rooms, leaving Ciel in the main room and the princess to walk to her room alone.

Sweet dreams, princess.

. . .

Tags:

#ciel phantomhive #ciel x reader #black butler #black butler fanfic #strangers to lovers #anime fanfiction #sebastian michaelis #murder #angst #historical romance #historical fiction #victorian era #the indignant pawn #the royal pain

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the-busy-ghost · 4 years

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If you don't mind answering, what are some things that you really, really wish you'd see more of in depictions of medieval Scotland/Early Modern Scotland?

I absolutely don’t mind answering, thank you for asking!

I’m told there are some better quality novels than there are tv shows and films, so there are some aspects that have been done in good novels (though I’m not so familiar with them). There are so many things though that could be done on screen:

- Chiefly I spend a lot of my time wishing that there was more attention paid to the actual geographical make-up of Scotland and its regional variety, e.t.c beyond just splitting everything into Highland/Lowland, or just portraying everyone as being part of a Clan in the Highland sense, or just sticking everyone in Edinburgh as if that was the only place where anything happened. Orkney was very different to Galloway, and the Borders were very different to the Western Isles, and Ross was different to Aberdeenshire.

Now if this was true for the sixteenth century, it is even MORE true for the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Between the early Middle Ages and the end of the thirteenth century, Scotland was settled by a lot of different cultures- so in the twelfth century for example, much of the country (the traditional heartland of ‘Scotia’ north of the Forth) may have spoken Gaelic but Lothian had been settled by speakers of Old English some centuries ago and their language became Scots in time, and spread north of the Forth into Fife, Angus, Aberdeenshire and elsewhere so that by the sixteenth century it was much more widely spoken and the language of government. The south-west, especially the area around the Clyde and Glasgow was a British kingdom for a long time, speaking a language not dissimilar to Old Welsh- this kingdom had (sort of) disappeared by the mid-twelfth century but the language took a while to completely disappear. Up in Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness, rather like in Iceland and the Faroes, Norse settlers had taken over and Norse culture has still left traces there today. From the fourteenth century, Scots began to take over in the Northern Isles but there was still a very clear Norse background in the sixteenth century. Meanwhile in the Western Isles, the Norse newcomers did not manage to erase Gaelic so completely as they did in the Northern Isles, but they did leave their mark on the Hebrides, to the extent that the inhabitants in the Western Isles in the in the twelfth century were descendants of both cultures- they are sometimes called Gall-Ghàidheil in Gaelic, meaning ‘foreigner Gael’. Then over the course of the twelfth century more new immigrants moved in. The ranks of the nobility were swelled by Norman, Breton, and other French settlers- unlike England, there was no ‘Norman Conquest’, and the process was more gradual, but although the French language never had the same power in Scotland as it did in thirteenth century England, these settlers left their mark on the feudal system and other aspects of Scottish society, and in turn they too were affected by the cultures they encountered in Scotland. Other smaller pockets of immigration existed- immigrants from Flanders and the Netherlands, for example, were instrumental to developing Scottish towns and improving agriculture. In the east coast burghs of Fife and Lothian you can still see some architectural elements that may have been the result of trade with the Dutch- crow-stepped gables and red pantiles for example.

Although most of these cultures have altered and changed by the sixteenth century, the fact remains that the cultural backdrop to fourteenth or fifteenth century Scotland was a real mix- Gaelic, English, French, Norse, Flemish, British- and, perhaps, whatever it was that the elusive Picts left behind beyond their wonderful stone monuments. I have perhaps oversimplified things here but the point is that mediaeval and early modern Scotland was not a cultural monolith- something which both Scottish and foreign film-makers would do well to remember.

There are also changes to these regions across the years- Orkney going from being a Norwegian/Danish territory to becoming part of the Scottish kingdom, or the borders which had some of the best farmland and richest abbeys in the country in the thirteenth century becoming a very militarised and rather lawless zone after the Wars of Independence. I think it would be really interesting to see that portrayed on screen.

- Ok so that was the fundamental thing, apologies for the rant. But to go with that, more understanding of the landscape and architecture. In all fairness most tv shows and films involving Scotland, no matter how bad they are, at least have some lovely panning shots of the Highlands but there’s more to the country than Glencoe- you could really work with views like the sun on the sea from the Carrick coast or the beautiful if ruinous religious architecture- like the abbeys of Melrose or Arbroath or somewhere like Elgin Cathedral or Rosslyn Chapel or Inchmahome Priory.

- Costuming! Again this fits into the regional thing a bit, but it’s also more general. It’s a quibble I have with almost any medieval media but especially when it comes to Scotland people get really lazy with the costuming and just slap some shortbread tin stuff together rather than putting any thought into it.

- More traditional music! A surprising number of ballads and songs that are still popular among folk singers today are thought to have their roots in early modern if not mediaeval Scotland. And again the musical heritage of Scotland is varied depending on the culture it comes from.

- More properly developed female characters. Even though half the historical films made about Scotland are about Mary Queen of Scots, there are almost no good depictions of historical Scotswomen- and that’s NOT because there aren’t any interesting women in Scottish history before the modern period! There are lots of fascinating women’s stories from mediaeval and early modern Scotland, and although we are often frustrated by a lack of sources, we know they were there. More importantly, even if every woman was not a Certified Bad-Ass, as a whole women in Scottish history are not invisible and we can often see them in the records, whether operating in domestic, business, religious, or political contexts. Oddly, in their quest to show how Uniquely Misogynistic and Evil the Scottish nobility were to Mary Queen of Scots or Margaret Tudor or whoever, film-makers often end up ignoring women’s stories and therefore perpetuating the sexist view of history they claim to hate. (Though, yes mediaeval and early modern Scotland WAS misogynistic- but show me a country that wasn’t. Also it was misogynistic in a slightly different way to some other countries). I could list off dozens of interesting Scotswomen who lived before 1603- even though we sometimes can’t tell that much about their inner lives from the surviving sources, it’s obvious they were of some importance. And again it fits back into the cultural variety thing, because that was not limited to Lowland, Scots-speaking noblewomen.

- More art and literature and architecture and education and music and EVERYTHING. Scotland lost a LOT during the Reformation and due to Anglo-Scottish warfare (that’s what happens when the main centre of your kingdom is near to a border). But we know that, though it was sometimes an out of the way place, Scotland could be just as heavily tied into European cultural trends as any other northern country. And there are some beautiful surviving cultural artefacts that hint at a more vibrant past- both produced in Scotland (in the Gaelic and Scots-speaking environments) and imported from abroad.

- Equally on that note, more focus on its connections to countries other than England. Scotland had three universities by 1500, and yet many Scottish students still went to study abroad, especially in France, but also in England, the Low Countries, Italy, and elsewhere. An Italian humanist taught at the Abbey of Kinloss away up in Moray in the sixteenth century, and Scottish thinkers were in touch with other great minds of the day. Scots also fought abroad (see mercenaries in Sweden, or James IV’s support given to his uncle the king of Denmark, or the Garde Écossaise), and traded heavily across the North Sea (there were multiple Scots merchant colonies on the continent, not least at Veere). Scotland’s relations with Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, the Papacy, Ireland (both as part of the kingdom of England and with individual Irish families), and other countries could be almost as important as its relationships with France and England. The eternal triangle of Scotland, England, and France, was not actually always the story- there were occasions when England and France played very little role in Scotland’s foreign affairs, let alone its domestic history.

- In particular an acknowledgement of the high quality of Scots poetry in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries wouldn’t go amiss.

- This is one which applies to all mediaeval media- but a more varied and interesting depiction of mediaeval religion would be good. In Scotland, this was also linked to the way people saw their own history- any sixteenth century Scot would have known some of the native saints, and anyone half-educated might have heard the names of David I and St Margaret and Columba, and known where the great abbeys in the kingdom came from.

- Actually a basic knowledge of Scottish history and legends beyond a few famous names. For example family was important in noble society- just because the stereotypical The Clans Are Gathering model is massively inaccurate, doesn’t mean that noble families in Scotland didn’t care about ancestry and kinship. But it would be great if tv shows and movies could actually think about how to portray that- and it really shows how little some of these scriptwriters know about their characters when they’re supposedly obsessed with the honour of the clan but the only piece of their country’s history they know is the name William Wallace. If you’re portraying the Douglases- even the earls of Angus who weren’t directly descended from him- the legacy of Sir James Douglas would have been a source of some pride. For actual ‘clans’, you could be dealing with some of the clans in the west of Scotland who, like some families in Ireland, claimed descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages. Some family histories got warped along the way- the Stewarts, for example, seem to have forgotten that they were descended from a Breton named Flaald by the fifteenth century and instead latched onto a story involving a character named Fleance (the one who later appears in Macbeth). As for legends- you could have a lot of fun with the different kinds of fairy belief that existed in Scotland, from the Borders (where it inspired ballads like Tam Lin) to the Highlands, or you could bring up legendary figures that are shared with other countries like King Arthur or Fionn Mac Cumhaill or Robin Hood or Hector of Troy. Sometimes the legends even cross over into real life- Thomas the Rhymer, hero of ballads and fairytales, seems to have been based on a real person who lived in the reign of Alexander III; while stories about William Wallace and Robert Bruce often became folk tales in the tradition of other greenwood outlaws like Robin Hood.

I think it’s pretty evident that my main issues with depictions of mediaeval and early modern Scotland on tv and film are largely because it’s so utterly unlike anything I see in the historical record. I’d love to list specific details and characters I’d like to see portrayed on screen, but before we even get to that point, the whole Generic Portrait of Scotland needs to change, because it doesn’t currently feel very realistic or interesting. All I really want is for the same level of research to be done with regard to Scotland as is done for England or France or any other country- England is often portrayed inaccurately, but there’s still at least 200% more effort put in than for Scotland.

On that note though, James I’s career (or at least the early fifteenth century as a whole) has been ripe for a television adaptation for years. Also I’m personally fascinated by ordinary rural life, patterns of agriculture and landholding, e.t.c. so even just an ordinary story set in an early sixteenth century fermtoun would be cool. But I don’t really think these stories would make any sense to people if Scotland was just portrayed the way it usually is - a generic country with no culture beyond a few scraps of tartan and alcohol and Anglophobia.

Thank you for the opportunity to rant, and apologies for the screed! I couldn’t express my enthusiasm very concisely I’m afraid. I genuinely don’t mind if there’s some inaccuracies to portrayals of Scotland, but now all portrayals are exactly the same and almost wholly inaccurate so it gets frustrating.

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theviscountbridgerton · 4 years

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Interview with Jonathan Bailey in Style Magazine (October 2020) where he talks a little bit about Bridgerton. The interview was conducted in English, transcribed into Italian, and then translated back into English by Google Translate so, you know, there are some things that get lost in translation.

Love affairs, marriages of interest and intrigues. It is the portrayal of the new Netflix series Bridgerton, a bit of a Jane Austen romance, a bit of sexy in the wake of The Favourite, with the right dose of Downton Abbey-style family drama, but “so modern that it could almost be set in the present day” enthusiastically states Jonathan Bailey, at his great opportunity to really make it internationally, playing the fascinating bachelor Anthony Bridgerton, the quintessential English nobleman of the early nineteenth century, who at the age of 28 finds himself at the head of a clan of seven brothers and sisters. One who “has to play the part of a loving brother and son and instead loves women and forbidden pleasures” ...

The Regency period has been less represented than other moments in British history, but the film industry abounds with period dramas. Do they still make sense today? Our instincts are the same, in 2020 as in 1820, and to observe them in a restrictive and oppressive context such as 19th century England where the will of the individual was stifled, sexuality was suppressed and there was a strong division between the social classes, puts them even more in evidence. Each of us at some point in his life felt forced into a role due to the expectations of others, just like Bridgerton's characters.

Women more than men, but ... Only in appearance: of course all the decisions are up to men, and Anthony for example to decide who should marry Daphne, but they are also forced to repress their feelings, which makes them unable to live a happy life. Patriarchal society has wreaked havoc on both sexes.

Bridgerton also has the virtue of surrounding Queen Charlotte with a court that is not exclusively white: the terrifying Lady Danbury and played by Adjoa Andoh, Regé-Jean Page plays the role of Duke Simon Basset and Martins Imhangbe as his best friend. Is it worth abdicating historical accuracy to be politically correct? We decided to do the opposite of whitewashing that so many historical moments have suffered. Here the question is to be faithful to the events told in the books by Julia Quinn from which the series is based, not to be historically accurate, so we can also imagine that at the time of Queen Charlotte it could have been an inclusive court. custom and the freedom given to the actors to model the characters, to make them current.

The fourth season of The Crown will also arrive on Netflix in the coming months: have you wondered why the public is still so fascinated by the nobility? We all love what we cannot have, which is closed to us. Even without getting to the royal family. Think for example of the world of the Bennet sisters and Mr Darcy of Pride and Prejudice: they were far below the social hierarchy, yet they have been represented countless times in period films. Personally, what intrigues me most about the golden world of the aristocracy is not the parties and privileges, but what lies beneath the surface: I wonder what the human cost of that life is. Bridgerton's characters always pretend to be something other than who they are: the real drama and their distance from the truth in a society of appearance, and this is what intrigues us about them.

Is the society of appearance then different from ours? If at the time classism was based on the distance between people, with the aristocrats who did everything to limit what the people could know about them, today social media allow us to <approach> characters that otherwise we would only idealize and this does so that high society no longer exists. We never knew so much about the royal family, but I don't think it's good.

Speaking of royalty, you started in the theater with the King John of the Royal Shakespeare Company: is the stage still your first love? A love that has only grown since I first saw a musical Oliver! as a child. I love the experience of being in the theater, first of all as a spectator, it's magic. But as an actor I have to admit that it's much more tiring than cinema.

And instead to dub the protagonists of the video games from Anthem and Final Fantasy XIV, how did he end up? That was one of the funniest things I could do. They have a really huge fanbase and I consider them an incredible art form as well as a thriving industry. He played them a lot when I was a kid and I rediscovered them during the lockdown.

What role do you dream of playing? I think it's better for me not to know, I prefer to be stimulated by reading a script. The important thing is to work with people who have a very defined idea of your character: it makes him stronger, you can already imagine him on the page even before taking on his shoes. But I can say that I'd like to play someone who looks a lot like me, who tells my reality, I'd like to find out how I would feel. It sounds like a paradox, but I think Hamlet could never play Hamlet.

And could Hamlet ever be a woman? Thanks to the role of Jamie in Company, who was originally an Amy, you won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical. Amy was transformed into a man, yes, but homosexual, and it is no coincidence: I believe that women and gays, even if in different ways and at different levels, are both oppressed minorities. In Company the goal was to make the reflection on marriage more modern by putting a man in crisis, because, given that gay marriages are now legal in many countries of the world, it almost seems that one has to marry by force. In general, however, I don't think we should cut the female parts on men, both because they are related to purely female experiences, but above all because of complex male roles I would say that there are already enough. Women are finally being given roles with an emotional complexity never seen before: it is interesting to see them act as protagonists in a society that has long been dominated by men, sometimes very weak, others brilliant.

Who is Jonathan Bailey when he's not on set? A boy who loves being in nature. I just finished a week of cycling in the English countryside where I covered about 700km. I think if I wasn't an actor I would retire Cornish hut.

I had read in an old interview with him that as a boy he dreamed of becoming a pilot. I think I was trying to reassure my parents that I would settle down and find a stable job (laughs). But in reality maybe I could have become a teacher, not because I necessarily think I have who knows what to pass on, but I believe in young people, it will be that I recently spent some time with my six year old niece. Instead it is not that I really had the opportunity to choose, fate did it for me.

Does it owe more to fate or to his willpower? I don't come from a family of actors or artists, when at the age of seven I was offered the part of Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol which was to be performed at the Barbican in London I simply jumped at an opportunity. Many kids who love theater go to drama school, but having grown up in a small town in Oxfordshire, I wouldn't have had much choice but to join the basketball team. So I will always be grateful for that chance, but it has never been an easy path. I believe in hard work, which always rewards.

#Jonathan Bailey #Bridgerton #Interview #Style Magazine #october 2020 #translations into English

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gravitascivics · 3 years

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CHOSEN OR CHOOSING?

With Daniel Elazar’s four views of how Americans have seen the relationship between the individual and government were reviewed in the last four postings, this blog can resume its telling of how federalism, the last of the four views, has fared during the history of this nation. By way of review, the other three views are individualism, collectivism, and corporatism and each of the previous four postings describes and somewhat explains what each of these perceptions are and have been.

Again, federalism, as Elazar defines it, is a perspective that denotes that the individual citizen faces his/her social world through his/her membership in various cooperative networks, they include such groupings such as family and local associations, and all the other partnerships one joins through life. It is a view that transcends legal definitions and gets at the very human emotions that are stirred as one interacts with other members of these collectives.

And, as such, it provides a motivation to be cooperative, collaborative, and communal. As one becomes informed of how American social history evolved, one can ask: was any portrayed behaviors or behavior patterns a reflection of individualism, collectivism, corporatism, or federalism? All four were present from the beginning and, from a practical sense, all four provided functional perspectives to the various sorts of challenges a people might and do face.

With that sort of mental scheme – a categorizing model – one can pick up the history of the colonial settlers through the first generation. That story, in this blog, left off with the conflict between the religious intellectuals and the more emotionally based advocates that found the intellects being too beholden to pagan authority of the ancient Greeks and Romans, especially Aristotle and Cicero. In a sentence, the intellects promoted logic and the more “feeling” contingent promoted the will.

Of most relevance to the concerns of this blog was that the “will” contingent added an element of selectivity to the question of who belongs to the church, not a small concern when one wishes to determine who had influence, both socially and politically. They relied on the Puritanical belief that members of the congregation are made of those who have been chosen by God. To remind the reader, one can get a good grasp of pure Puritanical beliefs by reviewing the acronym TULIP.

It stands for the following:

“T” for total depravity; the human condition ameliorated only by God’s grace.

“U” for unconditional election; that is, God determines who is saved.

“L” for limited atonement; that is, God’s grace results from the suffering of Christ.

“I” for irresistible grace; that is, if chosen, a person will not reject God’s grace. And

“P” for perseverance of the saints; that is, the chosen will be accordingly active and known by others.

And of importance here is the “U.” That is, if one is not selected by God for salvation, one is not among the advantaged. This is usually detected by being one of need or otherwise inordinately challenged.

This ran in direct opposition to the Church of England that mandated everyone born on English soil was automatically a member of that church. Therefore, one religion was restrictive, the other open. This had its effects in how open the two sets of believers defined membership to the church, and to the polity. But there was an ironic twist to this distinction.

That turn resides in the fact that it is the individual who claims his/her selection by God. This was done through a willing profession by the person who falls within God’s grace. The individual, through this act, “volunteers” for his/her inclusion into this faith. Here is how Allen C. Guelzo describes this arrangement:

… if … it was the will which ruled, then sincerity could be served by nothing less than the full conscious embrace of those propositions as an act of love, and that could only happen by divine grace. If the Voluntarists were right, then the corresponding notion of the church and society had to be that of the Separatists, who denied admission to the church to all but those who could make a conscious, willing profession of divine grace.

Of course, to embrace Voluntarism meant surrendering the pretense that Puritanism was only about rehabilitating the Church of England. It meant, in fact, revolutionizing it, and junking any basis for establishing a Puritanized version of a natural church in Massachusetts. If that happened, the Massachusetts society would become completely detached from the church. It would, even worse, become exactly the sort of Pagan society described by the classical authorities of which the Puritans were so suspicious.[1]

And if one remembers that the head of the Church of England was the monarch, the king or queen, then this detachment had more to it than just attending another church, it could, if an ocean weren’t in the way, verging on traitorous behavior. In addition, this sense of the individual making a reflective, faith claim put the onus on the person to join. Yes, a certain level of good fortune added legitimacy to that claim, but regardless, it is the individual who decides to join.

This is a very federalist requisite. That is, one, from exercising free will, joins into a federalist arrangement. He/she agrees to the terms of membership which includes the aims and goals of the arrangement. One can sense from this thinking what would become “We the People of the United States, in Order to …”

Here, at this earlier date, one is considering religious commitment, but one cannot ignore the implications this belief would have on the approach one is encouraged to take when defining one’s role in social institutions in general and that includes the polity. But there is not a straight line from this early “revolution” to the political revolution that gained Americans their independence or, later, their lasting compact-al agreement, the US Constitution.

For one thing, the very next generation, born and raised in the years from 1630 to 1660 rebelled against this form of Puritanism, at least the virulent form that the first generation espoused and practiced. For them, they never experienced the direct oppression of the Crown attempting to curtail their religious practice. This, in turn, cooled their sense of rebellion and it wasn’t until 1687 that the English government even exerted any control.

In that year, the original charter was replaced with a document that allowed for the Church of England to establish itself in the colony – more specifically in Boston. They also restructured Harvard that had been giving Puritans, by popular demand, a meaningful presence on that campus. But all of this will be paled by an overwhelming new force emanating from Europe. The Enlightenment is gaining ground and it will prove to be highly influential among the educated class of Americans as the seventeenth century is drawing to close.

[1] Allen C. Guelzo, The American Mind, Part I – transcript book – (Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2005), 30-31. The factual information contained in this posting is taken from this source.

#federalism #Puritanism #Daniel J. Elazar #Allen C. Guelzo #civics education #social studies

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azure-firecracker · 4 years

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Here is another fic, this one written for my friend who doesn’t have tumblr (I know you stalk my blog, hi! I love u!) I’m getting an Archive of Our Own (is that what AO3 stands for?) account soon, so this is the last time a fanfic will take up a ton of space.

My friend’s prompt was « Talking about their younger selves with the ship of your choice. » Here it is!

We’re Not So Different After All.

TW: Descriptions of physical and verbal fighting.

Catherine and Anne were fighting again. Jane sighed as she heard their shouts coming from the second floor, echoing loudly above the music and yelling of the bar.

It had been Anne’s idea to to out for a night of dancing, and all of the queens, though some reluctantly, had agreed. It had actually been going better than some of their other nights out. No one was sick or delirious from drinking too much, Jane had managed to get Cathy to strike up a conversation instead of just reading her book, and even the normally self-conscious Kitty seemed to be having fun.

Then, Catherine’s wine went missing. All of the queens tried to get her to brush it off, to tell her that it was probably a stranger who had made a mistake. Angry drunk Catherine was something none of them wanted to face. The problem was that calming Catherine down was infinitely more difficult with Anne smirking and giggling in the corner. Of course Catherine noticed.

Neither of the queens were completely drunk, but both were a bit tipsy, which meant they put no limits on their fighting. No volume control, no awareness of the people around them, nothing.

Eventually, their fight ended up in an upstairs corridor. People popped out of rooms, yelled at them to shut up, and slammed their doors. It didn’t help.

Looking back on it, thought Cathy, she probably should’ve seen this coming. Both queens had been getting along better lately, but they’d both had a hard week. Catherine had had to do extra shows because one of the alternates was out, and during those shows, everything had seemed to go wrong. Anne had had an unusual amount of nightmares that week, even for her. They both needed to air their grievances one last time, and it made sense to do it after a crappy week. Cathy just wished it didn’t have to be so loud.

Upstairs, the first two queens had taken a break from clawing at each other and screaming. Now they were just screaming. Progress, thought Kitty, who had followed them upstairs to make sure no one got hurt. She fully and completely intended to keep an eye on them, no matter what. Or, she had, until she heard Halo by Beyoncé start playing downstairs.

She’d been having such a fun night.

Anna was waving at her.

It was one of her favorite songs.

Just one song.

How much trouble could it be?

« See?! » screamed Anne, still a tiny bit tipsy. « My cousin ran away from you! That’s how much you suck! »

«��You sound like a drunk stupid person! » shouted Catherine, also a tiny bit tipsy.

« You are a drunk stupid person! »

« You’re a stupid person, period! »

« You’re more stupid! »

« You took my drink! »

« You took my life! »

« You took my husband! »

« You took my sanity! »

« You took mine first! »

Anne glared at Catherine with wildness in her eyes. Catherine glared back.

They lunged at each other and slammed into a wall. Anne grabbed Catherine and pushed her into the elevator. The second she got to the next floor, Catherine shoved Anne down the stairs. Anne pulled her down with her. Eager to start again, only to be faced with an angry mob of pub guests.

« SHUT UP! » yelled a woman in the front.

« We can’t sleep! » shouted a little boy in the back.

« Get out! »

« Be quiet! »

« We’re filing a noise complaint! »

Before the queens knew it, they were out on the roof, the door was locked, and neither of them could get any cell phone reception.

Ten minutes later, Anne slumped against the door.

« I’m cold. »

« Of course you’re cold, Anne. It’s the middle of winter! »

« You’re supposed to give me your coat when I say that! »

« But we’re not dating. »

« So what? »

« I’m not even wearing a coat. »

« Then give me your clothes. All of them. »

« I am not stripping for you on a roof! »

« How about when we get home? »

« Anne! »

« Okay, okay. I’m bored. Let’s play a game. »

Catherine looked at Anne warily. Anne looked back at her with pleading puppy dog eyes.

« Fine. »

So they sat shoulder to shoulder with their backs to the door, hoping a little bit of warmth would seep through the cracks.

« Never have I ever flirted with someone to manipulate them, » said Catherine a little later. Anne paused.

« Well, do you mean in a big way or in a little way. Like, does it have to be to take over a kingdom or something like that, or do you mean, like, to get free food? »

« Any of it! »

Anne put down a finger with a smirk on her face.

« Never have I ever been fluent in French. »

« That is not allowed! »

« There’s nothing that says that! »

« Me! I’m saying that! »

« Did you invent this game? »

« Fiiiiine, » Anne put another finger down, « but this isn’t fair! You have all 10 fingers left, and I only have 5! »

« Alright, you can have an extra turn, but only because it’ll make you stop whining. »

« Never have I ever been fluent in Spanish. »

« You can’t do that. »

« You literally just did the same thing. »

« Fine. »

« Never have I ever been married to multiple people in my life. »

« So unfair. »

« Put down a finger. »

« Alright! »

« I’m cold. »

« I know. So am I. »

« I think I have hypothermia. »

« That’s impossible. We haven’t been out here long enough. »

« You look very pale. »

« I don’t have hypothermia, Anne. »

« Are you sure? »

« No. »

« Me neither. »

« Let’s keep talking. You can distract me. »

Anne paused. « How distracted do you want to be? »

« Very. »

« Okay, » Anne paused once more, « never have I ever had nightmares about my childhood. »

« Yes you have. »

« Doesn’t matter. »

« Why? »

« Because that’s not the point. The point is that you put down a finger. »

Anothe pause. Then, « how did you know? »

« When I was your lady in waiting, I noticed that you never wanted to talk about your childhood. I was nosy, so when you went off alone to avoid us, I followed you. I would see you go to sleep. Every time we talked about your childhood, you went to bed and woke up screaming. I’ve been wanting to ask you about it ever since we got back, but I haven’t found the right time. »

Catherine started at Anne, shocked. « I never knew you both this much. »

« I want to know the rest, » said Anne, all fun and games gone from her face. « Tell me about growing up. »

Catherine smirked. « What’s in it for me? »

« You lose your burden. I tell you my story, and you take on some of mine instead. »

« What if I’m not ready? »

« Then I go first. When I was little, I was a wild child. I broke all of the rules, asked all of the wrong questions, and annoyed the shit out of everybody. They decided to send me to court in France. I actually liked it there, because the people understood me. It was the first time that being smart and a girl was okay. But when my family care back, they were horrified. Instead of letting me stay, they decided to throw me at the king. Even then, they refused to speak to me. Because, »Anne gulped, tears starting to fill her eyes, « there was always something so wrong with me that not even those related to me could love me. »

This wasn’t the first time Catherine had heard stories about the Boleyn family. Kitty had said similar things, and it was common knowledge that both the beheaded cousins had had hard childhoods, but Anne had always seemed so confident when she talked about growing up that everybody had assumed she didn’t care. Now, looking at the second queen, Catherine didn’t know if she’d ever seen her this vulnerable. She looked unstable, like what she heard next would determine her worth for all of eternity. Catherine wasn’t sure what to say.

« For what it’s worth, I bet you were a very cute child. »

« I was a nightmare. »

« Why? »

« Parents are supposed to love you unconditionally. Mine didn’t. I must’ve done something wrong. »

« Has it ever occurred to you that the problem might be them? »

« Well, Henry did the same thing, so no. »

« Henry’s a dick. »

« Doesn’t matter. »

« What if I told you that that also happened to me? »

« I’d have to hear more to believe it. »

« Fine, I guess it’s my turn. » Catherine took a deep breath. « Ever since I was born, I was bred to be the next queen of England. I was raised on English customs, not my own. I learned to be quiet, polite, meek, and submissive. The trouble was, I wasn’t. I was too loud, to agressive, too talkative. I spent too much time sneaking off and playing with swords. My parents found out. » Catherine gulped. « They were warriors, both of them. I’ve never seen anything scarier than them when they were angry. I never forgot the sounds of their shouts. When I turned 15, they were all too happy to get rid of me, but I never stopped wondering how I’d been so awful as to get them to shout so loudly. »

Catherine was surprised to see Anne grinning at her

« What? »

« Catherine of Aragon, you were a wild child! »

« I was not! »

« Oh, you absolutely were! »

« I was a bad child, not a wild one. I’m still bad. »

Anne’s smile broke and she stared intently at Catherine, face filled with worry.

« Still too loud, too bossy... »

Anne looked more serious than Catherine had ever seen her, even when she was comforting Kitty.

« Well, Catherine, we were both unruly children. So if you’re bad, than so am I. »

« But you aren’t! »

« Then neither are you. »

There was a pause, then Catherine broke into a small smile. « We’re not so different, are we? »

Anne smiled back at her. « It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. »

« I still think you were a very cute child. »

« How would you know? »

« Well, you’re a very cute adult. »

Anne’s mouth dropped open as she stared at the Spanish queen. « Catherine of Aragon, are you flirting with me? »

Catherine turned bright red. « What? No! I was only... »

Anne could see how uncomfortable she was, so she decided to change the subject.

« Want to finish the game? »

« Yes. »

They played for a little while longer, but Anne could tell something was off with Catherine. She was glad she’d been able to help lighten her burden, but she also had a feeling there was something else Catherine wanted tonight, something she might’ve never had before. Anne knew she hadn’t. So she took a leap of faith.

« Never have I ever kissed someone and really liked it. »

Catherine looked at her in surprise. « Not even Henry? »

« Not even Henry. I was too busy trying to please my family, and by the time I stopped, he was planning my execution. »

« What about other times? »

« Other times? »

« Making out in bars, people you kiss after three dates, like that. »

« It’s empty. I enjoy it, but it also drains me. I end up worse off than when I started. »

There was another pause, what felt like the millionth that night. Then, « so you’ve never had any really good kisses, then? »

« I suppose not. »

Catherine looked up and stared right into Anne’s eyes. The green of her eyes reflected the moonlight and made the first queen feel like she was staring at two jewels.

« I guess we’ll have to fix that, won’t we? »

Anne looked back at Catherine. Her eyes were like melting pools of chocolate, warm and welcoming and safe. Anne had never seen anything to beautiful. Little did she know that Catherine was thinking the exact same thing.

« I guess we will. »

#six musical #six the musical fanfic #catherine of aragon #anne boleyn #aralyn #i love my best friend so much

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starstruckteacup · 4 years

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Cottagecore Films (pt. 11)

A Little Princess (1995)

starring Liesel Matthews, Liam Cunningham, Vanessa Chester, Eleanor Bron

synopsis

I was extremely disappointed in this film, to put it lightly. The story itself was beautiful, but that is thanks exclusively to the novel on which it was based. The movie itself utterly failed to convey the magic and timelessness of the book. The acting was flat, emotionless, and forced at every point, from every actor (except for maybe Cunningham, but he was absent for half of it). One would think a gaggle of girls would have some form of natural chemistry, whether pulling them together or apart, but not a single child actor portrayed even the remotest semblance of a relationship to another. (Note: I describe in my review of Pan’s Labyrinth what quality acting from a child looks like, for reference.) Even Matthews and Cunningham could not pass a believable father-daughter relationship, despite the story being about that. As far as emotional acting, the adults were just as bad as the children. They couldn’t even feign a single moment of joy, sadness, or anger, regardless of the context. I actually laughed for the entire scene during which Sara nearly died because of how bad the acting from the adults was. At least Chester seemed somewhat worried; Bron and the nameless police officers stood around so vacantly it looked like they forgot what was happening. I really was appalled by the abysmal acting, especially when so much was handed to them in the story. I want to preface my next point by saying that yes, I know computer animation was still a work in progress in the 90s. But this was horrifyingly awful. I have never once, not in my entire life, seen CGI as terrible as the monster in Sara’s stories. I nearly gave up on the entire movie within the first five minutes because of that monster. And it kept showing up, which absolutely ruined whatever favor I tried to hold for this movie. If you don’t have the budget, which this film clearly didn’t, don’t try to animate a monster. It’s that simple. I wish I had more words for it but it was truly so atrocious that I’m at a loss. Any good will I hold for this movie is due to my fondness for the story (no credit to the film), the settings (while not exceptional, they were fairly pretty), and Liam Cunningham’s acting. 2/10

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

TW: blood, mild gore, torture, racism against indigenous people

starring Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen, Abbie Cornish, Jordi Mollà, Samantha Morton

This film is the sequel to Elizabeth (1998) (see part 10 of my film reviews), which continues the story of Queen Elizabeth I as her rule progresses. Tensions between Catholic Spain and Protestant England grow ever greater, escalating to treasonous plots and assassination attempts. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and King Philip II of Spain conspire to depose Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne, restoring Catholicism as the national religion. Even as these events lead to war between the two superpowers, the court provides no sense of stability as new faces and new stresses surround the Virgin Queen. She forms a strong friendship with the pirate Walter Raleigh upon his return trip from the New World, where he seeks to establish colonies under the English flag. However, his stay is extended greatly when Elizabeth’s selfishness and pride take over, and are only broken down in the face of battle when she puts him at the forefront of the British navy. Outnumbered, Elizabeth will need Raleigh’s loyalty and cunning, along with the unwavering loyalty of her people, if they wish to survive the Spanish onslaught.

While still a drama, this film proved to be much more war-oriented than its predecessor, but I’m not sure it did either as well. I liked the deeper look this film gave us into the Elizabeth’s mind, especially with her social and emotional conflicts. They remind us that she is still human, despite the somewhat cold appearance the first film gave her at the end. She is more mature, and even more prideful, but there’s still a limit to what she can take as a person. I think the first film gave a better portrayal of her complicated mind, but this was a solid continuation of what years of ruling can do. I also liked how much detail they put into Raleigh’s character, which the first film didn’t do as well with its secondary characters. We got to know more about him, even if he did still feel somewhat surface-level. I think the dramatic aspects could have felt more high-stakes than they did, especially for the characters who were actually in danger. Even though so many characters were actively committing treason, I only felt that level of tension with one: Mary Stuart. Her death was particularly elegant and laden with symbolism, and even though I knew the outcome historically the scene still delivered the anxiety it was meant to. The others simply didn’t have the same delivery. Even the assassination attempt didn’t project any kind of concern, regardless of one’s historical knowledge. The war focus was a fairly different take than the first had, which I appreciated. The film established a strong balance between the tensions in England, Scotland, and Spain, and did a good job making the stakes very clear for each group. Given the uncritically positive stance on England that this film takes, I would have expected the film to villainize Spain a little more to form a stronger dichotomy between the two rulers, but Spain was presented rather neutrally to the audience. The Spanish ruler and nobles didn’t have much character, despite being the antagonist. As for that uncritical positivity regarding England, I do have a bit more to say. Although to an extent it makes sense that the film would lean in favor of England, given its content and the point of view from which the story is told, it became overbearing at times. England could do no wrong in this film, despite children dying in battle, indigenous people being humiliated and dehumanized for show, talk about slavery, and a complete disregard for the suffering of non-white and non-Protestant groups. In contrast, the first film heavily criticized England, from Mary of Guise shaming Elizabeth for sending young children to war, to Elizabeth frowning upon Walsingham’s torture methods (granted she never stopped them, but she didn’t approve as readily as she did in this film), and so on. Although England in truth did all of these things without rebuke, the film could have handled it more gracefully and came across less like propaganda, at the very least. 5/10

Loving Vincent (2017)

TW: suicide (action offscreen, death onscreen)

Sensory Warning: movement of the impressionistic paintings can be very disorienting for those with sensory processing difficulties. I had to break from watching multiple times so as not to become ill.

starring Douglas Booth, Eleanor Tomlinson, Jerome Flynn, Robert Gulaczyk

This fully hand-painted animated film follows Armand Roulin, a young man with a severe temper, on his way to deliver Vincent Van Gogh’s last letter to a living recipient. When he reaches the town where Vincent died, he begins speaking to a variety of villagers with their own stories about the artist, and their own theories about how he died. Armand tries to piece the puzzle together, wondering if the death was not a suicide as claimed, but rather something more sinister.

This film was spectacularly breathtaking. The amount of work that went into painting every scene was awe-inspiring, and definitely sets the bar high for any other films of its kind. The team of artists that created this film represented Van Gogh’s unique art style exquisitely through their loving application of oil-based paints, and truly brought to life the emotion he put into his works. I wish I hadn’t struggled so much with the constant movement, as I feel I would have been able to appreciate the film in its entirety better, but as it was I struggled to pay attention to the story because the art style consumed too much of my sensory processing capabilities. As for the story, I thought it was interesting, but I found it lacking despite the incredible artwork. Foremost, after some cursory research, I discovered that the homicide theory on which this film was based was only acknowledge by one individual, and spurned by hundreds of others. Although the film leaves the verdict open-ended, both to Roulin and to the audience, the story itself seemed to lean into the homicide theory, then completely give up on it with no resolution, so it came across as fairly noncommittal. I won’t argue for or against the theory, as I don’t know nearly enough about Van Gogh to assert an opinion, but I’m somewhat unsettled by the amount of weight it gave to it without any kind of evidentiary support, only to dump it as if the writers changed their mind themselves. The pacing was also slow for a murder mystery, which is basically what the story turned out to be. I would much have preferred the film to cover Vincent’s life, or even the days/weeks leading up to his death, instead of only featuring him in other people’s flashbacks. This kind of existential impressionism should capture the life of its creator, not the mundane views of people who didn’t understand him or even hated him. There wasn’t anything wrong with the film, per se, but I wish the writing was given as much love as the art was. 7/10

Part 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10

#cottagecore #gardencore #naturecore #flowercore #cozycore #historical drama #period drama #art film #film #film review #movie #movie review #activities #mine

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

Text

#5yrsago A conversation with Terry Pratchett, author of The Carpet People

Cory Doctorow and the famed author discuss building worlds, the legitimacy of authority, and the future.

Cory: You took a bunch of runs at building a world where a million stories could unfold—The Carpet People, Truckers, and, finally, Discworld. Is Discworld’s near-total untethering from our world the secret of its staying power?

Terry: It isn’t our world, but on the other hand it is very much like our world. Discworld takes something from this world all the time, shows you bits of the familiar world in new light by putting them into Discworld. Is that staying power? You tell me.

Cory: What’s the secret to Discworld’s unplumbable depths, and is there something a big world lacks when compared to one that’s smaller (in more than one way), like the Carpet?

Terry: We know about Earth; we know an awful lot about the solar system. When you do Discworld, you, the writer, can more or less change anything if you want to, if you can make it fit. It means you’re god, and that’s a great responsibility.

As a writer, you can take bits of the universe and put it in your own new universe. Working in Discworld, you use the word sandwich, and you think: Can I do this? Now I’ve got to have a reason why a sandwich is a sandwich—in our world, it was named after the man associated with its invention, the Earl of Sandwich. Can you have your own universe and still have sandwiches? You have to do it all yourself and decide if you need to open the door into our reality at the same time.

Once Discworld started moving, as it were, it started moving almost of its own volition, because I would write a Discworld novel, and that novel required that such and such should be available, or whatever, and that means that the next time, that’s real in Discworld and the thing grows. And I must say it grows to be rather bigger than a carpet—but with care, it can have just about anything in it.

I’m finishing up Raising Steam, in which the railroad comes to Ankh-Morpork, and an awful lot of things have to be made and discovered until you get to the top of that pyramid. You can’t have Vaseline until someone’s invented something else. You have to create and understand a lot of things before you can move on. And so, since I work on Discworld almost all the time, it grows because I need it to.

Cory: Do you think that there’s any way you could have kept us in the Carpet for anything like the number of books that we’ve gotten from Discworld?

Terry: I was about to say “No,” but right now I wonder. . . . If the idea had taken, I don’t know. I really don’t. But how would it be? It would be almost a kind of . . . People in the Carpet are more or less tribal. What would happen if I . . . You’ve got me thinking!

Cory: Contrariwise, I feel like Dodger could have been the start of its own saga, about any number of characters from Dickensian England—do you think the world of Seven Dials has enough material to fuel a Pratchett engine through quite so many books?

Terry: The answer is yes. Because it’s all there. The people Dodger meets are real, the places he goes are real, and all I have to do is put in that little touch of fantasy, i.e., Dodger himself. Queen Victoria was real, though it’s hard to believe—and she’s free; you don’t have to pay to use her. There’s a whole lot of people that Dodger could have met. I’m pretty certain he’s going to meet Darwin or his grandfather (more likely) at some point.

If I run with it, no limitations, I could keep it going, I think. I know a lot of the stuff. I know how they talk, I know the history. It doesn’t really matter if I put a bit of fantasy in to make the pie rise. You can go into the world of “What if?”

Cory: So much of your work is about the legitimacy of authority. You write a lot of feudal scenarios, but you also seem like a fellow with a lot of sympathy for (and suspicion of!) majority rule. The witches gain authority through cunning and compassion (Nanny Ogg), through knowledge and force of will (Granny Weatherwax). Kings rule by divine right and compassion for the land; Vetenari, out of the practical fact of his ability to control the city’s factions. The Carpet People is shot through with themes of who should rule and why. Where does legitimate authority spring from?

Terry: The people! The only trouble is the people can be a bit stupid—I know that; I’m one of the people, and I’m quite stupid.

Lord Vetinari is that wonderful thing: a sensible ruler—that’s why he’s so popular. Everyone grumbles about him, but no one wants to chance what it would be like if he wasn’t there. I like Vetinari. I don’t mind authority, but not authoritarian authority. After all, the bus driver is allowed to be the boss of the bus. But if he’s bad at driving, he’s not going to be a bus driver anymore.

Now, an interesting sideline on this is the question of the writer’s position is vis-à-vis authority.

A journalist looks at authority as a target as a matter of course. You don’t actually have to fire, but you see it as a target. Since I am tainted as a journalist, I can’t separate that out from being a novelist, and my personal view is that you look askance (at the least) at authority. Authority must be challenged at every step. You challenge authority all the time to keep it on its toes. Vetinari works because there aren’t enough people who think he’s doing a bad job; they’re all factions, in any case. So he balances the world. It’s not everyone being happy, but rather not too many of them being unhappy.

Now you, Cory, seem like a fellow with a lot to say about authority yourself. Where would you say legitimate authority springs from?

Cory: This is a question I’ve put a lot of thought into as well. I think that just authority arises from systems that fail gracefully. That is to say, the important thing isn’t what happens when the ruler does something that you agree with—the important bit is what happens when she does something stupid and terrible.

I am far more interested in graceful failure than blazing success. If you select a leader by a means that contains robust oversight, a meaningful recall mechanism, and recourse to alternatives (an independent judiciary, say) in the event of substantial wrongdoing, the authority is legitimate, because if things were going badly off the rails, you could replace her.

This is something that worries me about Lord Vetenari. He is, like all of us, imperfect. Lacking any checks on his authority (apart from civic uprising), he is likely to fail badly, even though he succeeds brilliantly.

All that said (and to your question below): the *reason* to have authority is to simplify the task of getting on together. But technology lowers coordination costs and so undermines the case for governance in some instances. I generally refuse to predict the future (on the grounds that SF writers who dabble in futurism are like drug dealers who sample the product—unlikely to come to a good end). But when pressed, I say, “To imagine the future, imagine the cost of coordination trending towards zero in more and more domains. Now we make encyclopedias and operating systems the way we used to organise bake sales. What if we could build skyscrapers that way? Airplanes? Air traffic control systems?

The Carpet People concerns itself with many questions of infrastructure and public works—another theme that has featured in many of the most enjoyable Discworld novels, especially Going Postal/Making Money. Ultimately, it comes down to the builders, the wreckers, and the free spirits. Now that we’ve arrived at a time of deep austerity, what do you think the future of infrastructure is?

Terry: To crack and fall away, I sometimes think. From what I see around me, it’s people doing it for themselves. We know the government is there, but we know they have no real power to do anything but mess things up, so you do workarounds.

On the matter of builders, wreckers, and free spirits, I’d say that Tiffany Aching [beginning with The Wee Free Men] is a builder. Moist von Lipwig [beginning with Going Postal] is a free spirit, but also a builder—I think people can go in and out of sequence. My dad was a mechanic; maybe my interest in builders starts there. You made your own catapult. You made your own crystal receiver. He encouraged in me that kind of thing. Even if it was dangerous, he took the view that I ought to be clever enough to know what I was doing.

My parents were practical people. That’s the word that is missing here: practical about just about everything. The ground state of being of practicality. Sometimes things need tearing down—and that might be, as it were, the gates of the city. But if we talk without metaphors, I would say that building is best. Because it is inherently useful.

And you, Cory? Do you want to make the case for wreckers?

Cory: Never wrecking for its own sake. But disruption, yes, I’ll make that case. There is no virtue in the fact that all of us use toilets, but only some of us clean them. If we invented a machine tomorrow that obviated toilet scrubbing, that would be an unalloyed good, even though it also obviated the work of toilet scrubbers.

That isn’t to say that a just or caring society should cast aside the toilet scrubbers. The Luddite fight is miscast as a fight against technology, but it’s not—the Luddites smashed looms over a difference of how to apportion the dividends from automation, not because they objected to automation itself.

Kevin Kelly has a marvellous “robotics curve” that goes:

1) A robot/computer cannot possibly do what I do. 2) OK, it can do a lot, but it can’t do everything I do. 3) OK, it can do everything I do, except it needs me when it breaks down, which is often. 4) OK, it operates without failure, but I need to train it for new tasks. 5) Whew, that was a job that no human was meant to do, but what about me? 6) My new job is more fun and pays more now that robots/computers are doing my old job. 7) I am so glad a robot cannot possibly do what I do.

I’m not so sure about #6: we seem to be perfecting a system that only provides a living to financiers who invest in robots. This won’t work (if the bankers have all the money, no one can buy the things the robots make). We need a system that distributes automation’s dividends or we’ll end up with nothing at all.

One thing I’ve always enjoyed about your books with feudal settings is that it seems you get something like the correct ratio of vassals to lords. I always get a sense that for every ermine-trimmed guild boss in Ankh-Morpork, there are a thousand potato farmers in a shack in a field somewhere. So much of fantasy seems very top-heavy—too many knights, not enough serfs. Do you consciously think about political and economic considerations when you’re devising a world?

Terry: I’ve never been at home with lords and ladies, kings, and rubbish like that, because it’s not so much fun. Take a protagonist from the bottom of the heap, and in the same way it’s good to have a female protagonist, as she’s got it all to play for. Whereas people in high places, all they can do is, well . . . I don’t know, actually: I’ve never been that high. If you have the underdog in front of you, that means you’re going to have fun, because what the underdog is going to want to do is be the upper dog or be no dog at all. And I’ve never felt the need to have lords and ladies as my champions, as it were.

In Ankh-Morpork there are notables, some of whom are stupid, and some of whom are useful and likeable, but it’s a mercantile place. It’s money that matters. And where do I get that from . . . ?

Cory: Damon Knight once told me that he thought that no matter how good a writer you are, you probably won’t have anything much to say until you’re about twenty-six (I was twenty at the time and he was my writing teacher, at Clarion—ouch!). You’ve written about collaborating with your younger self for the reissue of The Carpet People. Do you feel like seventeen-year-old Terry had much to say?

Terry: That’s the best question you’ve asked all day!

I think the he had a go, and it wasn’t bad. And then he was clever enough to read a hell of a lot of books and every bound volume of Punch. But when I was younger, I didn’t have the anger. I think you have to have the anger. It gives an outlook. And a place from which to stand. When you get out of the teens, well out of the teens, you begin to have some kind of understanding, you’ve met so many people, heard so many things, all the bits that growing up means. And out of that lot comes wisdom—it might not be very good wisdom to start with, but it will be a certain kind of wisdom. It leads to better books.

The Tiffany Aching series is what I would most like to be remembered for, and I couldn’t have written Tiffany Aching when I was seventeen. I just wouldn’t have had the tools.

But the question remains: As a writer of fantasy, can I be a proper writer? I don’t do literature, I do writing—you get paid for writing, for literature you just get plaques to put on the wall. I never really bother about it. I don’t think anyone in the genre does. It doesn’t really matter; it’s what you’re doing: you’re working. Writing happens; it’s what I do. I’m here; I do it. I like doing it. I like getting paid for it. I like the fun.

Being an author is not as much a job: it’s a life.

Thank you, Cory. It’s been fun.

Cory: “Being an author is not as much a job: it’s a life.”

Preach, brother!

It’s been fun for me, too. You certainly have your share of plaques on the wall and a richly deserved sword made of genuine sky-metal, but as a reader of your works, the thing that matters most to me is the books, for which I am heartily grateful.

https://boingboing.net/2013/11/05/a-conversation-with-terry-prat.html

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