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journeythrough-impossiblethings · 5 years

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Journal of Impossible Things Journey Through Impossible Things

John I – Fobwatched Tenth Doctor – David Tennant – #Journal-of-Impossible-Things-Volume-I / #Human-Nature-Family-of-Blood – Doctor Who, Time Traveler’s Wife Whoniverse

The Tenth Doctor was hiding away from the Family of Blood in England in 1913. He used the chameleon arch to become John Smith, a perfectly ordinary human being, a man with his head in the clouds perhaps a bit too much. He was a school teacher who dreamed of being a Lord of Time. His dreams were filled with fantastical, almost fairytale-like adventures with monsters and aliens and a tiny, enormous, impossible box that travels anywhere and anywhen in the universe. And she was there, in his dreams. Her face was in his dreams, even before he knew her (he had proof, too; he drew her in his Journal of Impossible Things before he met her). She made John Smith fall in love and showed the Doctor what it was like to be normal for once. They were married and the Doctor almost had a chance at an ordinary, simple, beautiful life. But they found him, and John Smith had to wake up from his dream of an ordinary life and become the Doctor again. He left her behind, because she was just a fairytale. He didn’t know he would meet her again.

John II – Fobwatched Twelfth Doctor – Peter Capaldi – #Journal-of-Impossible-Things-Volume-II / #The-Newest-Time-Lord – Doctor Who, Time Traveler’s Wife Whoniverse

Anna finds out she is pregnant, and Anna and the Doctor decide it is best to use the chameleon arch to turn him back into John Smith, and settle down on Earth until the baby is old enough for it to be safe for them to travel together. They live in the 21st century, which takes some getting used to for John, since he was from 1913, but he adjusts quickly. He gets a job as a schoolteacher again and continues to write his dreams down in his updated version of the Journal of Impossible Things, only this time knowing it is all real. Anna secretly works for UNIT to do her best to keep trouble away from the Doctor and the baby while the Doctor is human and the baby is young, trying to give them as normal a life as possible. Except for Him, of course. Their sentient ex-war machine “Living Construct” companion who has basically taken on the role of nanny while they’re grounded on Earth. That part is still a little unusual. Also that the Doctor still talks to his son through his watch, and sometimes the Doctor’s doppelgänger (from another life), literally, shows up.

John III – Human John – Eddie Redmayne – #Journal-of-Impossible-Things-Volume-III / #A-Life-Of-His-Own – Doctor Who, Time Traveler’s Wife Whoniverse

After the Doctor gets stuck in the confession dial for four and a half billion years, he has a lot of emotional issues to sort out. He can deal with the pain fine, but what he can’t deal with his the pain his own pain is causing his empathic wife. She can literally feel what he feels, and he can’t stand to let her go through all that pain, so the deal was that she would live on Earth until he recovered enough from the trauma. He wouldn’t be alone. He had Tavin, and he would of course have companions like he always does. He promised he would not be alone. He wouldn’t let her be alone, either, of course. He found a couple on Earth, Sydney and Verity Lambert, in the year 1982. After the birth of their first son, they were unable to have any more children due to complications with the first pregnancy, but they really wanted their son to have a sibling. The Doctor helped them have another child, if it could be John. So he put John’s personality into the new embryo. John was a test-tube baby, but no one knew that except his parents (and the Doctor and Anna). John’s memories of his other lives were suppressed, but they still leaked out, usually in the form of dreams that he wrote down, like always. When he was in his twenties, he was a school teacher as a History teacher at the same school that Anna works at. They started dating, and not long after that Anna helped John’s suppressed memories come to the surface. They got married and had five children together and adopted a sixth, Terra Verity, their identical twins Aiden Daniel and Calder Sydney and their adopted Zygon triplet Pete Basil, Martha Skye, and Sarah Jane II.

John IV – TARDIS Matrix Ghost – Eddie Redmayne / Peter Capaldi / David Tennant – #Journal-of-Impossible-Things-Volume-IV / #In-the-Matrix – Doctor Who, Time Traveler’s Wife Whoniverse

Anna died of old age after the human John died, and Anna was reborn as a man, going by the name of Sean. Sean finds the Twelfth Doctor, who is currently a lecturer at a university, where he and Nardole are guarding Missy in a vault beneath the school. Sean and the Doctor take the TARDIS and go back to find John as he is dying, where John’s consciousness is uploaded to a fragment of the Time Lord Matrix kept in the Doctor’s TARDIS. John stays in the TARDIS Matrix while Sean occasionally sits in the Doctor’s classes and visits John, goes on adventures with the Doctor and his student and companion Bill in the TARDIS. John gets very lonely in the Matrix by himself and they discuss the possibility of finding a way to get him out of the Matrix at about the same time they discover Anna/Sean is actually a fobwatched (second version of) Patience, the Doctor’s Time Lady (now Time Lord) wife from Gallifrey, and Anna didn’t reincarnate into Sean, she regenerated into him. They had tried to keep Anna’s marriage to John and her marriage to the Doctor separate until now (even though it’s been in debate about if they’re even different people or the same person), but when they decided to find a way to get John out of the Matrix they all accepted that Anna is going to be with both of them.

John IV.5 I – HoloJohn – Eddie Redmayne – #Journey-Through-Impossible-Things-Volume-I / #HoloDreams / #HoloJohn – Doctor Who, Time Traveler’s Wife Whoniverse

They project a hologram of John outside of the Matrix, just within the TARDIS, so he doesn’t have to be stuck in there all the time. He travels with the Doctor, Bill and Sean as they figure out their new dynamic, but has to stay within the TARDIS. Patience and Sean decide to stay as one person, so that Sean releases Patience and has both Anna/Sean’s memories and Patience’s, but still goes mostly by Sean/Anna. At the end of The Doctor Falls, Sean stays with the Doctor as he’s blowing up the Cybermen, and the explosion causes Sean to regenerate back into a woman, who is the fourth incarnation of Patience.

John IV.5 II – RoboJohn – Eddie Redmayne – #Journey-Through-Impossible-Things-Volume-II / #Androids-Dream-of-Existential-Crises / #RoboJohn / #John-Synth – Doctor Who, Time Traveler’s Wife Whoniverse

During Twice Upon a Time, when Testimony had the Twelfth Doctor’s TARDIS with John still inside, since he only exists within the TARDIS, they found him in there. They talked to him and found at the Doctor and Anna saved him very similarly to how they save people, but he’s stuck inside the TARDIS. They asked him if he wanted to join them, so he wouldn’t be trapped in there, but turned them down because he didn’t want to leave Anna and the Doctor. Later Testimony helped the Doctor find a synthetic body for John on New Earth from the time that Testimony comes from.

John IV.5 III – WereJohn – Eddie Redmayne – #Journey-Through-Impossible-Things-Volume-III / Howl-on-the-Moon / #WereJohn – Doctor Who, Time Traveler’s Wife Whoniverse

During one of their adventures, they came across a lycanthropic virus that can apparently mutate to infect synthetic bodies, and John got infected with it. The Thirteenth Doctor went back and got pregnant with Sean’s daughter who they name Jamie Alistair. Anna (Patience IV) gives birth to the Tenth Doctor’s son they name Jason Chesterton, and later somehow John gets Anna pregnant with fraternal triplets, two daughters and a son who share John’s lycanthropic virus. Their two daughters Diana and Connor and their son Lowell. Thirteen, Anna and John raise all five of the children together. Later John has a child with Patience V named Eirlys, who has a mutation of the lycanthropic virus making them a wereseal. Sometime later, during the time of the Eighteenth Doctor, Anna becomes Sean II, and he has a baby, Rosalyn, with a version of John from another universe, Kara Jon, and Kara Jon and her Anna, and Sean II, John and Eighteen all raise her, mostly in a split-custody sort of way since there’s a bit of a long distance thing, being from different universes and all.

John IV has interacted with Pete White from the Venture Bros. Fandom and Jareth the Goblin King from the Labyrinth Fandom. We also have a character who is a regular in this verse who is a Warforged OC (called Him) from the D&D Eberron Campaign Setting Fandom.

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John IV from Mainverse - #Journey-Through-Impossible-Things-Unbound - Doctor Who TTW-verse AU/Canon Divergent

Once, before Thirteen was an actual thing, and before I made John III, just after the first Fantastic Beasts film came out, after I saw the movie I really wanted to play Newt Scamander, but Anna hadn't seen the movie yet, so very briefly I made an AU OC version of the Thirteenth Doctor with Eddie Redmayne as the FC who was basically just Newt Scamander but as the Doctor. Later, after I officially made Eddie Redmayne the main FC for John, we briefly talked about combining the two verses where John and the (Thirteenth) Doctor looked like twins. Although, now that I think about it, he could also be the elusive Eighteenth Doctor who is the Doctor during Sean II's time, instead of the Thirteenth. Idk.

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Fobwatched Doctors AU

Fobwatched Doctors – #Fobwatched!AU – William Hartnell (Richard Hurndall, David Bradley), Patrick Troughton (Reece Shearsmith), Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, John Hurt, Christopher Eccleston, Matt Smith, Jodie Whittaker, Peter Cushing – Doctor Who, Time Traveler’s Wife Whoniverse 2

John Smith One (AU Fobwatched!One) | William Hartnell (Richard Hurndall, David Bradley) | Scientific Journalist

John Smith Two (AU Fobwatched!Two) | Patrick Troughton (Reece Shearsmith) | Nursery Assistant

Jon Smith Three (AU Fobwatched!Three) | Jon Pertwee | Mechanical Engineer

John Smith Four (AU Fobwatched!Four) | Tom Baker | Sailor and Artist

John Smith Five (AU Fobwatched!Five) | Peter Davison | Writer and Author

John Smith Six (AU Fobwatched!Six) | Colin Baker | Weatherman

John Smith Seven (EU Fobwatched!Seven) | Sylvester McCoy | Human Nature novel | Teacher

John Smith Eight (AU Fobwatched!Eight) | Paul McGann | Zookeeper

John Smith War (AU Fobwatched!War Doctor) | John Hurt | Diplomat

John Smith Nine (AU Fobwatched!Nine) | Christopher Eccleston | Police Officer

John Smith Ten (Fobwatched!Ten) | David Tennant | English Teacher | Human Nature/Family of Blood Canon Divergent Fobwatched Tenth Doctor

Anna met and married John before she knew the Doctor. She finds out about the Doctor from John's dreams, his journal, and by confronting John's living pocket watch with the Doctor's consciousness inside about it. This version of John also meets Jackson Lake while he believes that he is the "Tenth" (or actually Eleventh) version of the Doctor.

John Smith Eleven (AU Fobwatched!Eleven) | Matt Smith | Toymaker

John Smith Twelve (AU Fobwatched!Twelve) | Peter Capaldi | Teacher

Joan Smith Thirteen (AU Fobwatched!Thirteen) | Jodie Whittaker | Mechanic and Inventor

Dr. John Who (AU Fobwatched Unknown Doctor) | Peter Cushing | Scientist and Inventor

The Celestial Toymaker kidnapped the Doctor, made him use the chameleon arch making him believe that he's a human scientist named Dr. Who, who invented a time machine, and travels with his granddaughters Susan and Barbara and Barbara's boyfriend Ian, and later his niece Louise, as well as a man named Tom Campbell by accident, fight the Daleks and reliving some of the First Doctor's adventures with some small changes.

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doctorattackeyebrows · 7 years

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John Smith

John I - Fobwatched Ten The Tenth Doctor used the chameleon arch to become John Smith to hide from the Family of Blood, where he falls in love with Anna and marries her.

John II - Fobwatched Twelve The Twelfth Doctor used the chameleon arch to become John Smith to hide on Earth and raise his son with Anna.

John III - Human John Anna and the Doctor put John’s personality imprint in a human body (John is a test tube baby given to parents, Verity and Sydney Smith, who couldn’t have biological kids on their own). He meets and marries Anna and they have five kids together and adopt a Zygon son.

John IV - Matrix Ghost John After John in his human body dies, his consciousness is uploaded to a fragment of the Time Lord Matrix kept in the Doctor’s TARDIS.

John IV.5 - HoloJohn They project a hologram of John outside of the Matrix, just within the TARDIS, so he doesn’t have to be stuck in there all the time.

John IV.5 - RoboJohn They build him a robotic body and install his personality into it so he can travel with them outside of the TARDIS.

John IV.5 - (Robo)WereJohn During one of their adventures, they came across a lycanthropic virus that can apparently mutate to infect synthetic bodies, and John got infected with it.

#we're weird #journal of impossible things #journal of impossible things volume II #journal of impossible things volume III: A Life of His Own #journal of impossible things volume IV #journey through impossible things #holojohn #robojohn #werejohn #Time Traveler's Wife #Patience of a Saint

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oberynmartell · 4 years

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the hour of the wolf part IV

[Prologue | Part One] [Part II] [Part III]

Pyrexic heat unfolded between them, disturbed neither by wind nor rain nor the uniquely alpha howls that sifted through the trees like whispers. Ben was almost surprised at the sound, the intrusion, for the start of the mating ceremony felt long ago, as thought it had been days ago when he had first broken through the trees, quick and lithe and hungry.

Stifling heat rose from beneath Rey's collar, the sweat that polished the skin above her brow so mouthwateringly sweet that Ben ached to catch each droplet with his tongue and savour the taste. His fingers were quick, almost clumsy with the desperation that pumped palpably through him, as they worked at the laces clasped between her breasts, the gland that bloomed at the side of her neck beginning to pulse in time with the staccato of her heart and the throbbing between her legs.

They held each other closer, bodies curved against each other, melded together. Alpha and omega become one, so that the heat of her body and the heat of his body soon became the heat of their bodies, and suddenly it felt as though the frigid rain that fell around them was not cold enough, as though the the icy fog that slid down from Alderaan’s massive mountains was not strong enough.

They were fire incarnate, grasping and reaching and razing, burning through their surroundings until only they remained, until they were so engulfed in heat and darkness that there was no longer any need to try and mask it, to try to contain it, to act as though every nerve in their bodies had not been suddenly set alight and electrified with anticipation and excitement.

"Rey..." he breathed against the shell of her ear, and the heat in his voice was new and dark with promise. The word, one she had heard a thousand times before, sent a frisson of exhilaration through her, the silken smallclothes swathing her hips shifting as her thighs clasped together, seeking friction.

The words came out like rolling thunder, gruff and gritty, and so arousing that she could feel her legs begin to shake. "Omega."

The friction of her body against his caused her shift to rise higher up her tanned thighs, Ben relishing in the feel of her soft skin as his fingers curved across her strong legs. He could feel the way her trembling fingers pulled at the bodice of her shift until the rich fabric unspooled in her hands, sliding down her arms to hook at each of her thin wrists and billow in the cold breeze like a specter’s robes.

The fabric ballooned to the ground, useless as a fur cloak in Jakku, and Rey stood before him in only her silken smallclothes, the woven fabric slung so low on her hips, that he could see her properly, bold and bare and beautiful.

He watched her, stunned by her beauty, wishing there would ever be a way to capture the magnificence of his omega, the lustre of her dark curls, the depth of her leonine eyes, the softness of each parted lip. His eyes swept across her, drinking in every inch of her, the slope of her neck and the divot of her collarbones, the roundness of each breast, wishing he could memorise the exact shade of each nipple, pebbled in the cold air despite the hot blood that pounded through her veins and the hot breath that escaped his lips as he bent to nose at the cavern between each breast.

Rey tipped her head back as the pleasure that thrummed through her increased to a steady vibration as his rough thumbs stroked across her nipples, Ben capturing each shuddering breath she offered as he kissed her, long and deep and devouring. Tasting her, taking his time to lavish in her, to pull her against him and swallow every moan she offered.

Ben held her firm against him, dipping his head to press his cheek to the basin of her collarbones, so blinded by desire that he was unable to resist the call of the alpha within, who begged to touch her, to taste her, to claim her. She could feel the hardness fighting against the laces of his breeches as the buttons marching down the chest of his doublet were, the omega inside her preening at the knowledge that she had done that.

He was hungry in a way that flooded every bone in his body, desperate for her in a way only starving men could understand. Desperate to touch her, to pleasure her, to explore her, to learn every detail about her body and her mind and her soul, and memorise it all.

His uncinate nose dragged languidly along the graceful curve of her neck, his eyes fluttering as he nosed at her gland, so blinded by the purity of her scent that for a moment sight was too overwhelming to bear. She smelled of calendula and ylang-ylang, of bushels of sweet flowered jasmine and pods of cinnamon being broken apart for baking, of spiced wine from the coffers of Bespin and sugar just on the fringes of burning, of the gulps of fresh sea air he had taken such pleasure in as a child at his grandmother's Naboo court.

His chest was fit to burst from the rearing of the alpha within, who thrashed and roared loud as the crack of a whip, demanding that he touch her, taste her, claim her.

Blood rushed passed his ears like waves breaking against sand, and before Ben could even utter a word of warning his head had bowed to her neck, his tongue laving languidly across her skin before pressing flush to the warm gland sheltered at the side of her throat.

Sweetness flooded his pallet, coating his tongue and sliding down his throat like a fine fire spiced ale. It was good, so intoxicatingly, unbearably good, that he couldn't help but latch down on the curve of her neck and taste and taste and taste— until he was openly sucking at her gland as though it was the only thing tethering him to this earth.

Her scent seeped into his blood, consuming him like flame eating away at dry brush, and Rey throbbed with need, all teeth and tongue and gasping breaths, keening softly as Rey leaned against him, allowing her alpha to slake his thirst. The effect of her scent was so powerful that Ben could feel an enervating calmness roll through him, a ball of sedate warmth curling and overlapping and unfurling in his chest, flaring through bone and muscle and fiber until he could feel the way his breathing leveled out, the way his heaving chest began to slow.

There was a howl in the distance but he didn't care. He would kill any man who dared touch her, dared look at her.

Ben inhaled heavily, overjoyed to be finally drinking directly from the source instead of scenting her through cloth and space and distance. The prospect of no longer being an unmated alpha thrilled him, his enthusiasm showing in the way his hand carded gently through her unbound hair, cradling her head in his big palms. His free hand slid across the soft plains of her naked back, bare skin on bare skin, so he could feel the heat of her skin beneath his fingers like freshly forged steel.

Her fingers trembled as they worked the laces of his tunic, pulling roughly until they gave way beneath her fingers, and he could have chuckled at her enthusiasm had he not been so occupied with pulling the tunic over his head, removing the final obstacle that stood between them.

Rey looked at him so intensely he couldn't help but shiver, despite the heat that churned through him. Her eyes raked over him, vulturine, sweeping over the firm plains of his chest, the corded iron of muscle and sinew, the ridges that marked his belly like a set of hills she wanted to traverse.

Ben took pride in her reaction, watching the way her tongue dragged across her bottom lip as her eyes roamed over him. Arousal shone in her eyes like shards of onyx, blown wide with lust as she studied him unflinchingly, the attraction she felt written plain in her face, her lips parted in a little moan of pleasure. He could see the way she looked at him, the way she desired him, his scent, his alpha blood, his overwhelming largeness, the thing that had made him skittish as a child and fearsome as a man, as she admired the body he had spent so many years working, honing, for his omega. For her.

Her eyes lowered to the scar that cleaved across his chest. Ben shivered as the pads of her thumb glided over the scarred skin, her fingers mapping a jagged road across the skin of his chest and neck and over the strong ridge of his eye.

Her scent shifted, bittering, no longer the velveteen softness he wanted to bathe in, as fear and sadness flooded her. Instantly the alpha that Ben had pushed back behind the cage of his chest reared its head, launching into action, begging to protect omega, to help omega, to please omega.

He caught her hand and kissed each one of her fingers, biting gently into the meat of her thumb to bring her attention back to him. Rey met his even gaze and waded into the depth of his eyes, the blackness that engulfed them so impossibly deep that they seemed to contain volumes, and Ben reeled in surprise when he bent to claim her lips and found her dancing away.

She lilted up on her toes and kissed him softly, heat blooming out from the spot where her lips pressed to his bare skin.

Even his skin tasted good, cool against the heat that sparked on the back of her tongue like spice. Ben found himself bending to accommodate her, to allow she continue to besot his face with kisses, her lips journeying across the slope of his scarred cheek down to his strong chin, the line of his chiseled jaw, the deific column of his neck and along the remainder of the scars angular curve.

He made a hollow noise, low and grumbled at the back of his throat like the gnarl of an animal, the way she whispered his name against the shell of his ear causing all the blood in his body to rush to his throbbing cock.

Rey claimed his lips again, accepting each hungry kiss he offered until she felt breathless, dizzied, starved, moans rising and meeting until they were gasping. Ben sucked down each of the little, pleasured whines she offered, the way his body responded to hers almost astounded him— for though he had endured many heats over the years, none had ever had such an effect on him, had ever made him feel this way.

His hands splayed across her back as he held her to him, one pressed to the divot between her shoulders and the other sliding down her lower back, warm as steel plate in summer sun and so big that it seemed to spread across the span of her waist and swallow her whole.

Mine, Ben thought, holding her tight. He felt dizzy, felt on fire, felt as though a skin of icy water had been dumped over his head. This is mine.

Her small thighs had moved to sandwich one of his larger ones between them, leaving the weight of her body braced almost completely against him. Her lips parted to allow his tongue to slide across hers, tasting the sweetness of her lips, of her mouth, of each tender touch she offered.

He could feel his heart hammering so loudly in his chest that he wondered if she could hear it too, if she could feel it too, if she knew that it beat just for her.

"Alpha..." Rey murmured, breathless.

Her lips were puffy from the fierceness of his kisses, a shade of red so pretty Ben could not help but kiss her deeper, licking into her mouth, nipping at her bottom lip, and despite the tightness with which Rey clasped her thighs he could still smell her heat, smell her skin, smell the slick that could never be masked, even the strongest or most potent of perfumes.

"What is it, sweeting?" he breathed, the deep timbre of his voice betrayed by the growling whine emitted at the tail end of his question.

There was wine on her tongue but he was already drunk on her touch, her kiss, the way her fingers climbed his arms and grasped hungrily at the firm muscle that flexed there, and no amount of wine could have been more intoxicating.

He cradled her head in his big palms, thumbs running tenderly across the declivity of her cheek, over her lips, feeling his fingers push passed her soft lips and into the cavern of her warm mouth. They moaned in unison, Ben's eyes flashing with something dangerous as he watched her lips close around his thick fingers, taking him so deep into her mouth that his cock could not help but respond.

Her skin shone like silk in the silver-gold moonlight, the sweat that polished her brow nearly glimmering in the semi-darkness. "Alpha I...." she said, her voice muffled by the fingers he couldn't seem to pull away from her mouth.

He could feel spit slide down his finger as she spoke, her mouth so warm and wet that it took every ounce of restraint for him to not fish his cock out of his breeches and test its depth by other means. "Alpha please." Rey said, and the words smudged in the air like sage.

Her voice was high and breathy, punctured by breathless moans that lilted each time she grinded herself down against the thigh wedged between her own. A glimmer of hot pain shot through him and he groaned, knowing at once from the unfamiliarity of the pain that it was his body's response to an unknotted omega in heat being so close.

He pressed his hand to the space between her hips, long fingers spreading across her belly in an attempt to soothe the pain that roiled within, the pressure of his palm and the movement of his leg working to sooth the pain for the moment.

Ben buried his face in the curve between her neck and naked shoulder, inhaling her scent— all perfume and spice and sweetness.

"I've got you, Rey." he promised. His voice was gravel, ice and stone, roiling over her like the stormy thunder that grumbled in the distance of the mountains, and it made her shiver, made her ache, made slick run down her trembling thighs. "I've got you, omega. My omega."

His voice was so rich, so heady with desire and hunger and assurance, so thick with the promise of protection, that not only was the omega that struggled inside of her soothed— but the woman outside of her, all trembling legs and churning belly and wide, lusting eyes, was too.

#in the hour of the wolf #reylo #rey x kylo ren #rey x ben solo #rey x kylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fanfiction #galacticidiots #userashlee #usermeels #thewintersolo #drabbles #fic: reylo

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kiwigreenflame · 5 years

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It’s been a while since the Top 10 religion and comics installments, and I’ve been meaning to post a number of other comics that didn’t make it into that list but are still worth mentioning in passing. No commentary on these apart from the official blurbs. As always, YMMV reading these.

Testament

Creators: Douglas Rushkoff & Liam Sharp Publisher: Vertigo (DC Comics) Date: 2006-2008

From the imagination of best-selling author Douglas Rushkoff, one of the most iconoclastic and acclaimed minds of our era, comes a graphic novel series that exposes the “real” Bible as it was actually written, and reveals how its mythic tales are repeated today. Grad student Jake Stern leads an underground band of renegades that uses any means necessary to combat the frightening threats to freedom that permeate the world. They employ technology, alchemy, media hacking and mysticism to fight a modern threat that has its roots in ancient stories destined to recur in the modern age.

Chosen (American Jesus)

Creators: Mark Millar & Peter Gross Publisher: Image Comics Date: 2009

From the writer of the Universal hit, Wanted, comes his next graphic novel on the way to becoming a feature film! American Jesus Volume 1: Chosen follows a twelve-year-old boy who suddenly discovers he’s returned as Jesus Christ. He can turn water into wine, make the crippled walk, and, perhaps, even raise the dead! How will he deal with the destiny to lead the world in a conflict thousands of years in the making?

The 99

Creators: Naif Al-Mutawa Publisher: Teshkeel Comics Date: 2007-2014

Young heroes gain superhuman abilities when they bond with 99 powerful gemstones. These Noor Stones were forged from the destruction of ancient Baghdad to preserve the wisdom of the ages, and were lost for centuries, but they are being found, one-by-one…

Vampirella Strikes

Creators: Tom Sniegoski & Johnny D. Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Date: 2013

For years, the raven-haired heroine Vampirella has hunted the world’s supernatural threats, all the while fighting back her own bloodthirsty nature. After a night out in Boston leads to particularly brutal violence, she seeks comfort in her Brownstone home… but discovers the most unexpected surprise of all. Angels have been sent to her by God — and they come asking for help! Enter Janus, a former soldier in the legion of Heaven, who skirts the line between the damned and divine. Only a fallen angel can navigate Vampirella through the seedy, demon-run underworld, where she hopes to find the source of an addictive, body-altering drug derived from archangel blood. Will Vampirella’s mission redeem her… or will she uncover secrets so shocking that their discovery will damn her forever?

Loaded Bible: Jesus vs. Vampires

Creators: Tim Seeley, Nate Bellegarde & Mark Englert Publisher: Image Comics Date: 2006-2008

In the near future, nuclear Holy War has decimated North America and humanity’s last stronghold is the dome metropolis of New Vatican City. When vampires attack, the Church turns to a clone of Jesus Christ Himself to protect them! But all is not as it seems for the Test Tube Messiah, as he’s drawn into a web of betrayal, bloodshed, and seduction!

The Sisterhood

Creators: Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Wellinton Alves, & Andrew Dalhouse. Publisher: Archaia (BOOM! Studies imprint) Date: 2008

The Order of the Holy Sepulchre is an elite group of specially trained nuns, the world’s most powerful exorcists. But they don’t just get rid of the demons they exorcise…the Sisters draw the demons into themselves, using their own bodies as cages of flesh. If they die a natural death, the demons die with them, small pieces of the world’s evil gone forever. But if the Sisters should dies violently…the demons are released into the world again!

Now someone has sent assassins to kill the oldest of the sisters, releasing the captive demons out into the world. Eden Parish is assigned the task of discovering who is behind this massacre, and why. In her journey she will uncover dark secrets about the Order, and about their enemies. And the real reason behind all this murder.

Blankets

Creators: Craig Thompson Publisher: Top Shelf Productions Date: 2003

Blankets is the story of a young man coming of age and finding the confidence to express his creative voice. Craig Thompson’s poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence.

Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It’s a universal story, and Thompson’s vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again.

This groundbreaking graphic novel, winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, is an eloquent portrait of adolescent yearning; first love (and first heartache); faith in crisis; and the process of moving beyond all of that. Beautifully rendered in pen and ink, Thompson has created a love story that lasts.

A Contract with God and other Tenement Stories

Creator: Will Eisner Date: 1978

This semi-autobiographical work captures with pen and ink the drama of the city and its all-too-human inhabitants. Set in the same Bronx neighborhood as later works Dropsie Avenue and A Life Force, the four stories that comprise the book – “A Contract With God”,”The Street Singer”, “The Super” and “Cookalein” – examine the world of immigrant life in New York City in the 1930s with a unique look at the emotion and character of its denizens.

Warrior Nun Areala

Creator: Ben Dunn Publisher: Antarctic Press Date: 1994-2002

Follows the exploits of Sister Shannon Masters who is part of a militant Catholic organisation, the Order of the Cruciform Sword, who protect Church and world from supernatural threats. Plays fast and loose with things Catholic the series still manages to portray characters with genuine faith, humility and the odd bit of theology.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Creator: Michael Mendheim; Mike Kennedy; Sean Jaffe; & Simon Bisley Publisher: Titan Comics Date: 2014

Raised by the ancient Order of Solomon, Adam Cahill is one of a rare handful of highly trained warriors bound by bloodline to guard the Seven Holy Seals that contain the End of Days.

But ageless forces have conspired towards a prophetic event foretold by numerous cultures and multiple religions… and when that cryptic date arrives, they strike against the order without mercy!

The Lone and Level Sands

Creator: A. David Lewis and mpMann Publisher: Archaia (Imprint of BOOM! Studios) Date: 2005

Pharaoh Ramses II hasn’t seen his long-lost cousin Moses in nearly forty years. Yet while pressed by the Hittites to the North and construction delays in the South, Ramses must make time for this ancient desert rascal, the long-ago mystery he represents, and the impossible demands of an alien deity. Drawing on the Bible, the Qur’an, and historical sources, writer A. David Lewis (Mortal Coils) and artist Marvin Perry Mann (Arcana Jayne) present a retelling of the Book of Exodus through the eyes of the man who is either its greatest leader or its worst villain: a man trying to rule wisely, love his family well, and deal justly in the face of a divine wrath.

Some New Kind of Slaughter, or Lost in the Flood (and How We Found Home Again)

Creator: mpMann & A. David Lewis Publisher: Archaia (Imprint of BOOM! Studios) Date: 2009

If there is one constant throughout most of Earth’s historical nations, cultures, and religions, it is the threat and the destruction of the Great Flood. In the wake of the recent Indian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and alarm over global warming, the award-winning creators of The Lone and Level Sands return to plumb the depths of the world’s great myths with this graphic novel exploring how this legendary fear may be more relevant now than ever before. Like Noah, sea-bound Ziusudra and other heroes across time must strive against the coming Floods and the baffling will of the gods.

Judas

Creator: Jeff Loveness & Jakub Rebelka Publisher: BOOM! Studios Date: 2009

Judas Iscariot journeys through life and death, grappling with his place in “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” and how much of his part was preordained. In a religion built on redemption and forgiveness, one man had to sacrifice himself for everyone…and it wasn’t Jesus.

Kismet: Man of Faith

Creator: A. David Lewis; Noel Tuazon; Rob Croonenborghs; Taylor Esposito; & Tyler Chin-Tanner Publisher: A Wave Blue World Date: 2018

Punching Nazis used to be more than a meme. In 1944, it was a vocation. And no one put his gloved fist in the faces of more fascists than the Man of Fate, the Algerian Operative, our man in Occupied France — Kismet.

Then, he disappeared. Gone without a trace…until now.

Back from beyond, Kismet finds a new world of gay rights, quantum physics, and computer technology along with the old evils of bigotry, greed, and ignorance at a crossroads. Twenty-first-century America needs more than a superhero. It needs an ally.

Religion and Comics – Wrap Up It's been a while since the Top 10 religion and comics installments, and I've been meaning to post a number of other comics that didn't make it into that list but are still worth mentioning in passing.

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fuguewriter · 5 years

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Will Provoke Your Thoughts ... Could Change Your Life

A review of The Last Year by Amelia Banis - BalboaPress - 216 pages - ISBN 978-1504397575 - Amazon page

Let's start at the beginning: it took a long time to write this review - to be able to write this review - because this book was so singular, in such unobvious ways, that the musing after finishing took far longer than the reading. This is a first indication that a book has much within it: that it isn't swallowed like a cultural chicken nugget and forgotten, but that it demands engagement - unless one only wants a chicken nugget, consumed and then no more. One supposes some could take this book that way, but this reader is not one of them. So it's the path of the unique meal of unexpected delicacies and resonances that keeps nourishing long after one (thinks one) has risen from the table.

On the face of it, the story is simple and clear. Amelia Banis was an adopted child who had a fraught relationship with her adoptive father, Diederich - German-born, fatefully so in 1938, who survived World War II and his father's time in a Soviet prison camp to become almost a caricature of the closed, reactive Teutonic patriarch. His Swiss-born wife, Lilia, is Diederich's polar opposite in her kind, quiet ethereality. Between these two extremes Amelia grows up, and one senses that from the beginning Amelia and Diederich are naturally entangled, the more so for the Diederich refusing to admit the existence of any emotions save irritation, exasperation, and anger - determinedly directed at all but himself.

The Last Year is a memoir compounded of a beginning in the big picture and zeroing down inexorably into an event-by-event recounting of the eponymous final year of Diederich's life.

This is no spoiler, for Ms. Banis tells us at the very start, with a striking first chapter opener with her making hospice arrangements for this monumentally stubborn opposite number and ending with his taking his final breath with Amelia and her husband by his side. There is no escape for Diederich, no roseate deathbed realization. The following twenty-six chapters show how the Diederich-Amelia dyad stretched and spun and writhed - never severing - its way to that final end. Reading this beginning, the author's necessary and ingenious avoiding of the boredom of a linear decline to death (just desserts) or an unlikely pink rainbow scene (the old devil had a heart after all), one feels right away in good hands. She is taking care of us, too, and will make sure it's an interesting ride. One thinks of Akira Kurosawa's epic 1952 heart-movie, Ikiru, which begins with a shocking closeup of the protagonist's abdominal X-ray, which the businesslike narrator informs us shows terminal cancer. Mr. Watanabe is to die, as we are all to die, so this will be the story of what he does with his time, his last months or days or year.

What comes next in Banis' book is one of the great memoirial narratives of the details of a life. One looks in astonishment at the clarity of recall, the outpouring as if from a cosmic high-pressure pipe in which all the facts and details must emerge - not in a chaotic spray, but remorselessly marched forward and set down. The style is accessible, often wry, but the mental intensity is palpable, and one knows through the grip of the force behind it that this book had to be written. This is no guarantee of a book one must read, and at some points this reader, though compelled by something to hold on, blanches at the detailedness of the tale. One does not read an airy summary of happenings showing the working-out of some abstract pattern familiar or new: one reads things as they happen at the moment, in William James' "great blooming, buzzing confusion,” before any narrative or intuitive smoothing and completing. It makes for an inescapable tension if one stays on for the ride and a compelling hold on one's attention.

One could see some readers getting off the ride, perhaps easily. It is a mark of the advancement of Ms. Banis as writer - this is a first book - that she makes things neither easy for the reader nor contrives any difficulties. Her sentences are almost steel-edged in their clarity and decision - one is unsurprised to read in the biographical note that in her working life she is at a high level in business - and are resolutely extrovert in declaring what happened out there, in common space, observable by anyone with eyes and ears. The details, the outward turn, the powerful will behind the word-engraving - it is, as the story goes on, almost too much.

And yet.

Leave aside that one felt compelled to hang on. Leave aside that one knew how it would end. It ended at the beginning, in the extinguishing of the locked, fixed will of Diederich. There is the curiosity to see where it is going - with the end at the beginning, one wonders what beginning will prevail at the end. But that too can be left aside, as a desire that will be closed - fulfilled or disappointed - by the last page.

What came to this reader only in the long musing afterward was that the key to it all was carried by, shown by, could only be displayed by, the unrelenting detail as the tale goes.

To begin, one is given one of the great portrayals of an absolutely fixed will in Diederich. One would have to reach into the non-fiction ponderings of D.H. Lawrence on this same matter, or to Jack London's incomparable Wolf Larsen, to see the male will portrayed as so profoundly locked back in its own redoubt, never relenting, never ceasing its vigilance and teeth-baring at the approach of any who would dare approach the cave.

We then have the narrator, who is no plaster saint and who portrays herself losing patience, wanting to leave Diederich to his own devices, self-doubting, self-berating - yet she, of all, without claiming any great merit for it, takes care of Diederich, endlessly, against his own resistance all the way to the moment of his death.

The driver for the great pour of detail is just this: the locked will of Diederich and the will of Amelia, equally strong, to see him through, whether he rejects it or not. He is an immovable object of refusal, and she is an unstoppable force of care. The explosion of detail comes inevitably from this irreconcilability.

Yet, again, this is not all. There is something carried by means of the detail that is never spoken, never hinted, yet now, after a few months pondering this singular tale singularly told, is clear. Amid all the details there is nearly nothing explicit of the spirit, of the soul, of ethics. Amelia is held to the vocation of care for reasons she cannot, being immersed, fully know - no more so than Diederich understands his position. In their way, each is acting completely truly to their nature, with no time for reflection or artifice. One leaves with the details of an intimately personal story, and for this reader the unspoken came out as they, afterward, arranged themselves as they would, as though the writing were continuing within oneself: that this is a profoundly moral tale, the more credible for being not a fiction and the moral nowhere announced or even whispered.

The moral is this: that at each moment in life, we choose a better or worse course, particularly in dealing with our fellowman. Diederich in time became little more than a ruined body hosting a psyche ingenious in endless forms of rejection. Amelia for most of her journey with Diederich is at the very edge of being able to go on, but carry on she does - for the sake of seeing it through, for caring for the most impossible among us. It is so without reward that it has not even the satisfaction of duty performed. She staggers on because, by some light within her, often buried but still known, it is the right thing to do.

And this was the turning point of finding a deeper sense: at any moment, Diederich could have changed course, even in the smallest extent. At each momentary turn, unconscious as he was of it, he was choosing, choosing to shut himself off from the sunshine of an adoptive daughter caring for him beyond what would even be the expectation of blood. That is his true death, before his heart ceases: that he turned away from the land of life, from a steadfast hand extended from it to help him come as close to it as he liked - or even to cross over. Diederich, refusing to be die and be born again, lives not even once. It is merely an existence that ends.

Diederich dies, enclosed. Amelia, her husband, and their children recover and move forth. Again, as with Kurosawa's Ikiru, the protagonist's death is not the end. There is a coda of dispersion back-into-the-world, of the taking care of things. And so the world of the book ends, and we are back in our own lives. And we wonder that things feel different than before, and wonder at this curious, powerful book that made it so.

This would make a powerful play, readily staged – and even more so a feature film. In the right hands, with the right casting, the two leads could strikingly explore the infinite complexities we humans make – and break – in our relationships.

One hopes for more from Amelia Banis' hands. There are presumably no more Diederichs to be told, so one would see what her determination to tell will do next. In the next volumes one, too, would wish to see beneath the extrovert horizon and within the aura of the author. Through The Last Year we are very much in her strong hands, and one wants, at the end, to challenge the author, in the same manner as her very being challenged her adoptive father, to surrender the control and give more of her subjective self, whether she writes again in the first person or not, and to show us in tale and writing-style more of the unexpected mysteries and potentials for change she drew from within herself in telling the story of a year of crisis.

(end)

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kaette-kita-slayers · 6 years

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Kanzaka Q&As (July-December 2016)

July 2016

Q: After Rezo killed Zel's parents, did he dig a grave and bury them? Does Zel know where their graves are?

K: I think he dug a grave and buried them with great care, though I'll leave it to your imagination whether he did so for appearances or out of genuine feeling. He's never told Zel where it is.

Q: You said in an answer before that "no powerful Mazoku have been created in recent years", but why is that? I thought it might be because they aren't able to increase the numbers of powerful Mazoku any further, since they have to cut away part of their own power in order to create new Mazoku. (Kanzaka already answered this one the previous year. Maybe he forgot?)

K: Of course, the Mazoku accumulate power bit by bit from the negative emotions of humans, but ever since the Demon War, they've been expending more than they've taken in, so they haven't had the reserves necessary to create powerful Mazoku.

Q: In volume 9, from the second half of Slayers, Gourry said he more or less remembered Zel and Amelia, though he pretended to have forgotten them as a joke. So by the time that volume 15 takes place, did he still remember them properly? He remembered Xelloss, and in volume 9, he said himself that he remembers his friends, so I think it's probably all right. It's still bothered me for years.

K: I hope he remembers them.

August 2016

Q: I have a question about Slayers. Two different generations of the kings of Dilse were cursed with Raugnut Rushavna. Is there any possibility that the curse was lifted on one (or both?) of them by the time the second half of the series wrapped up? It seems like there might be, if Dynast wasn't the one who actually cursed King Wells. Also, has the Mazoku who cursed Dilus II appeared or been mentioned in the series?

K: Dynast was the one who cursed the prior king. Raugnut Rushavna is a curse that endlessly inflicts pain and quasi-immortality, and it requires that the person who used it be in good shape, as the source of magical power. Dynast wasn't destroyed but did lose his power. As a result, the curse would have been weakened in some fashion, but it wouldn't have been broken.

Q: Mazoku are fundamentally different from other beings, seeking "destruction". Considering how the Mazoku relate to one another as superiors and inferiors and the various restrictions they have on them---especially the high-ranking Mazoku---they come across as being somehow mechanical (this may be putting it a bit harshly, but like living instruments of destruction), even though they possess individuality. To what degree do they have emotions like humans and dragons do? I've found mentions in the novels of them feeling rage, joy, and attachment to things, but I think that they probably don't feel love, since they want destruction. Can they feel sorrow or admiration, or genuinely care for things? If you've outlined this for yourself, please tell me.

K: The Mazoku try to comprehend the emotions of humans, etc. in order to bring the world closer to destruction. As a result, they display things that appear like human emotions such as happiness, but I don't think that the Mazoku themselves know whether those are genuine or only surface-level imitations.

Q: In the Slayers world, if a mid- to high-ranking Mazoku who can take on human form were to infiltrate human society in order to gather information, which would they enjoy more, something like going drinking with a bunch of middle aged men like Tarim and Daymia and being forced to organize the whole thing, or getting information from girls who are their type (not necessarily romantically)? Do the subordinates of each of Shabranigdu's five retainers have different tendencies? Like the Mazoku under Phibrizzo's command being good at approaching women, or a lot of Gaav's Mazoku being types that are popular even though they don't understand women and lose their motivation if they have to keep talking to men at parties, or the Mazoku under Zelas and Xelloss' command being good at everything.

K: Mazoku are quite diverse in their preferences. There are Mazoku who do things like mingling with a bunch of middle-aged guys out drinking and egging them on when they complain about their own bosses and subordinates, thinking, "Such sweet negative emotions!" There are also types who would mingle with married women and encourage their negative feelings toward their in-laws.

September 2016

Q: Did the piece of Shabranigdu sealed in Rezo's eyes feed solely on the negative emotions from Rezo's own mind? Is it reasonable to assume that the thoughts and feelings of the people around Rezo, such as Zel's hatred for him, had no effect on Shabranigdu? It would be kind of a relief to hear that, compared to Rezo's intense negative emotions, the negative emotions from Zel, who was like night and day compared to Rezo, or Rezo's gang, who weren't really all that bad deep down, weren't that powerful and thus didn't have any effect.

K: The Demon Lord was sealed away at the time, so he wasn't consuming people's negative emotions. However, just by existing, he did in fact have a negative influence on Rezo's mind.

Q: About the Demon Lord of the North---even though the strength of the seal on him has never changed, the most he can manage to do, lately, is to give instructions by talking in his sleep. Does that mean that he's growing weaker? If that's true, then will he eventually be destroyed as time passes? Or will he be reincarnated in another human body? L would be lonely without S.

K: I think you have the wrong impression. In this case, "lately" is referring to a span of time from the Mazoku's perspective. "Lately" means the entire time from when he was sealed in ice until the present time.

Q: Did Rezo's gang ever keep a pet cat at their hideout? Or was it more like "I want a cat, but we'll just have to leave on another journey, so I can't..." since they were always moving from place to place?

K: They had one... ♪ ... to experiment on. (T-T)

October 2016

Q: Why did L base her form on that of the woman Lei Magnus loved?

K: I should explain this so that there won't be any misunderstandings---L has never manifested in that world aside from when she borrowed Lina's body. I meant that the version of L that I've scribbled on greeting cards and things like that looks that way. Though of course, S's lover wasn't a little girl.

Q: Was Rezo ever rejected by someone he liked?

K: To be rejected, you naturally have to approach someone first. I don't think that he would have fallen in love and approached some woman when he had an all-consuming obsession with his research and his eyes.

Q: In Slayers volume 1, page 72, line 10, when Lina and Zel are negotiating over the orihalcon statue, Lina says, "I try to make a practice of avoiding your type at all costs. Call it woman's intuition. (cut) And intuition or not, I'd rather die than be associated with the likes of you." After that point, Zel fights the Demon Lord alongside Lina and Gourry, and then makes it through various other battles along with them. Did Zel kinda think to himself that Lina's "women's intuition" is completely unreliable, despite the big deal she made about it? Or did Zel never believe in the concept of "women's intuition" in the first place? Did Zel not believe at all in something as unscientific as "women's intuition" while Rezo thought "Well, I've been around long enough that I can't say with absolute certainty that it doesn't work..."? (Leaving aside the question of whether Lina's intuition works or not.) (Dialogue from the Tokyopop translation)

K: That wasn't women's intuition in the first place. She was just trying to provoke him, which he was perfectly aware of.

November 2016

(No entry)

December 2016

Q: In Granblue, the Blast Sword was a water element weapon. Is this in any way connected to the original work? Or is it something presented by the Granblue staff that only applies to Granblue? I remember people discussing how the Sword of Light was a dark element weapon because it's a Mazoku...

K: About the elements, I basically left it to them to take care of integrating [the weapons] into the game, so that doesn't mean that the Blast Sword in the original is a water element weapon. By the way, my Granblue party's selection of water element weapons is completely awful. I'd welcome a water event!

Q: I understand that you initially imagined Noonsa as a normal fishman and not a taiyaki. (Of course, I also love Noonsa's current design!) Did you maybe imagine Noonsa at first as something like "a little slimy, but with a handsome face"? (Taiyaki, if you're not familiar.)

K: That's not even possible.

Q: Phibrizzo sent Gourry's Sword of Light back to the Demon Lord of another world. I know it's impossible, but if he could go to that other world, could he get the Sword of Light back? Or was it absorbed as soon as it returned, because it was a part of the Demon Lord, so it's no longer in the shape of a sword?

K: In its original world, the Sword of Light was created in the form of a weapon, just like Dulgofa, so if he could go to that world, he would be able to use it as a weapon, as usual.

#slayers #hajime kanzaka #interview

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junker-town · 3 years

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This balloon race started in St. Louis and accidentally ended in the Canadian wilderness

A balloon in the snow. Not specifically the one in this story, but they didn’t pack their camera so no actual pics. | Getty Images

“And we’ll all float on, alright.”

I have three thoughts about hot-air balloons: they look eerily peaceful, they’re key to one of the internet’s best videos, and I will never ride in one. That last bit has been fully cemented by the story that follows.

There is an international, hot-air balloon race called the Gordon Bennett Cup, which has a unique but simple premise. Each year, teams of aeronauts meet at a location and see who can fly the furthest distance from the launch site. They just kinda … go, then at some point they say, “that’s enough!” But when to say “enough,” can be a tough question, and sometimes it’s not up to the aeronauts to decide. Suspense!

Now, the key to flying a balloon is that you need some weather — ideally weather that is good. But the tricky thing about weather, and what separates it from humans, is that it has the ability to change. While cancellations due to weather are extremely rare in this particular race, a pleasant takeoff doesn’t prevent voyages from wandering into less balloonable conditions.

In 1908, during the third Gordon Bennett Cup, an American balloon hit a large patch of fog, then found itself stranded in the North Sea. In 1926, multiple crews were killed by a lightning storm that set at least one balloon aflame and forced several others to crash-land. In 1995, a Belarusian attack helicopter shot down an American balloon that had drifted into their airspace. Helicopters aren’t weather, but that example also highlights an important lesson when ballooning: expect the unexpected.

I, for one, would have never expected that conditions can also be too good, but then again I will never be an aeronaut. Picture a sky so clear that you can see everything before you. You’re able to reach breathtaking heights. The sun and the moon are simultaneously in view on opposite ends of the horizon. You drift along at somewhere between 10 and 20 miles per hour, hoping to be the last balloon afloat. And then you realize that you’re over the Canadian wilderness with no humanity in sight. That happened to a pair of Americans in 1910.

Alan Hawley and Augustus Post (who was born in Brooklyn in 1873 but I’m certain I saw the other day in 2021’s Brooklyn) departed from St. Louis on October 17th, 1910, in the America II. The fact that they made a sequel to a balloon makes me assume America I didn’t have a great time, but either way, this was America II’s time to shine. Leaving the ground at 5:46 pm, they traveled low during the night, breezing north at an altitude of 200 feet. The pair took three-hour shifts, one observing the horizon while the other rested in the basket. They used rivers for navigation and changed direction as needed by adjusting their altitude, finding a fresh wind current to blow them a new way.

At low altitude they could call down to the gawkers below and ask what town or county they were over. The grounded fools beneath them wished Hawley and Post well, our team pushed on, and by 9:40 am Lake Michigan came into view. America II powered through pressure changes above the water and soared deliberately rose to 5700 feet, continuing on to the northeast.

As the second night came, fog rolled in below them. The northern lights danced overhead. Venus shone to the west. But one thing missing from their view was people. As Augustus noted in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Volume 81, “When full daylight came, we could see no signs of life below us; as far as eye [sic] could reach, nothing but lakes, fringed with forests, appeared…”

Hawley and Post’s route from St. Louis to Quebec

Continuing over the Canadian wilderness, they began to hear the sound of woodcutters. America II began to descend, but not to land. Post noted, “...we hailed them and asked where we were. They said we were over Lake Kippewa … and headed for the wilderness. They offered some advice, which we could not make out.” Onwards!

The aeronauts carried on for another six hours. At times they wished to call it quits, but beneath them was a tangle of lakes and rivers. Returning would be impossible without a boat. It’s common for ballooners to not pack a boat since their intentions tend to involve air — the opposite of water — but for once, this decision came with downsides. They went four hours more without seeing any sign of life, in part due to clouds beneath them — a curious place for those to be. As noon approached, what looked like they might be roads and cultivated fields appeared in view. This lone hint of civilization made it clear to Post that, “it looked like suicide to go farther, particularly as night was coming on.”

Hawley and Post finally elected to descend. America II picked up speed as it approached the ground. Despite plenty of time to find a safe spot to land, no clearing could be found, so they headed towards the next best thing: some trees on the side of a mountain. While dodging escarpments, they snagged the balloon onto a large tree, then hit the ground at 3:45 PM, 46 hours after leaving St. Louis. Somehow uninjured, they tidied up their crash site, as gentlemen do, and surveyed the scene.

But after flying for nearly two days in good conditions, a heavy storm quickly found them on the ground. Although likely relieved to deal with rain and not an attack helicopter, the pair was still in some distress. They hunkered down under the waterproof basket cover and pulled out their maps,not to figure out how to get to safety but to see if they had traveled far enough to claim the world record. Satisfied that they might’ve done it, the grounded aeronauts went to sleep, tucked away somewhere deep in Quebec.

They awoke to good and bad news. The good: it was no longer raining. The bad: it was snowing. With the weather changing like the trickster it is, they began to follow a river towards Lake St. John, the last landmark they’d spotted from the sky. Three hours in, Hawley slipped on a rock and wrenched his knee. Between that and the whole crashed balloon thing, he was just having one of those days.

Once the pair could go no further, they set up for their first night away from the safety provided by a crashed balloon. Augustus took the rifle they carried and attempted to fell a beast of the woods to provide meat for dinner, but his shot missed the squirrel, so he immediately gave up.

In the morning they reached the lake, but their pace slowed as Hawley’s knee worsened. Their days became a cycle: trudge along, stop to eat an egg, keep following the shore, sleep, cry (probably). Snow returned. Rations ran low. In the wild, the construct of time is meaningless. Fortunately, Post had a watch so he knew it was 7:00 am on a Monday when their fortunes changed, one week after leaving St. Louis.

The pair found a tent that to them looked like a palace. To you or me it would have just looked like a tent, assuming you’ve seen a tent before. If this is your first time, it looked like a sheet of canvas hung to provide shelter. They settled in, lit a fire, and waited for the owner to return. The following morning, smoke from the fire drew the interest of a pair of trappers who were starting off on a hunting excursion. The two couples met on the shoreline and after some conversation, Hawley and Post’s journey home began.

By then, the U.S. and Canadian governments had begun large-scale search efforts. Most back in the States assumed the worst — downed over water, eaten by wolves, helicopter attack — but thanks to the trappers, our two aeronauts soon reached a town from which they telegraphed home. Celebrations were planned for their return, both for the fact they were alive but also because they had won the 1910 Gordon Bennett Cup.

America II traveled 1171 miles in 44 hours 25 minutes, winning the race by 40 miles. While their voyage fell 22 miles short of the world record, no one had ever flown as far as they had to snatch the Cup. After being lost in the Quebec wilderness, surviving a crash landing, suppressing man’s natural cannibalistic instincts, Augustus Post and Alan Hawley’s Gordon Bennett Cup record flight of 1171 miles would stand for some time — about two years.

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axekerose54 · 3 years

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Read Book 78VN - All For Strings Book 1: Violin (Download Ebook)

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Let's be real: 2020 has been a nightmare. Between the political unrest and novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it's difficult to look back on the year and find something, anything, that was a potential bright spot in an otherwise turbulent trip around the sun. Luckily, there were a few bright spots: namely, some of the excellent works of military history and analysis, fiction and non-fiction, novels and graphic novels that we've absorbed over the last year.

Here's a brief list of some of the best books we read here at Task & Purpose in the last year. Have a recommendation of your own? Send an email to [email protected] and we'll include it in a future story.

Missionaries by Phil Klay

I loved Phil Klay’s first book, Redeployment (which won the National Book Award), so Missionaries was high on my list of must-reads when it came out in October. It took Klay six years to research and write the book, which follows four characters in Colombia who come together in the shadow of our post-9/11 wars. As Klay’s prophetic novel shows, the machinery of technology, drones, and targeted killings that was built on the Middle East battlefield will continue to grow in far-flung lands that rarely garner headlines. [Buy]

- Paul Szoldra, editor-in-chief

Battle Born: Lapis Lazuli by Max Uriarte

Written by 'Terminal Lance' creator Maximilian Uriarte, this full-length graphic novel follows a Marine infantry squad on a bloody odyssey through the mountain reaches of northern Afghanistan. The full-color comic is basically 'Conan the Barbarian' in MARPAT. [Buy]

- James Clark, senior reporter

The Liberator by Alex Kershaw

Now a gritty and grim animated World War II miniseries from Netflix, The Liberator follows the 157th Infantry Battalion of the 45th Division from the beaches of Sicily to the mountains of Italy and the Battle of Anzio, then on to France and later still to Bavaria for some of the bloodiest urban battles of the conflict before culminating in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. It's a harrowing tale, but one worth reading before enjoying the acclaimed Netflix series. [Buy]

- Jared Keller, deputy editor

The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett Graff

If you haven’t gotten this must-read account of the September 11th attacks, you need to put The Only Plane In the Sky at the top of your Christmas list. Graff expertly explains the timeline of that day through the re-telling of those who lived it, including the loved ones of those who were lost, the persistently brave first responders who were on the ground in New York, and the service members working in the Pentagon. My only suggestion is to not read it in public — if you’re anything like me, you’ll be consistently left in tears. [Buy]

- Haley Britzky, Army reporter

The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry

Why do we even fight wars? Wouldn’t a massive tennis tournament be a nicer way for nations to settle their differences? This is one of the many questions Harvard professor Elaine Scarry attempts to answer, along with why nuclear war is akin to torture, why the language surrounding war is sterilized in public discourse, and why both war and torture unmake human worlds by destroying access to language. It’s a big lift of a read, but even if you just read chapter two (like I did), you’ll come away thinking about war in new and refreshing ways. [Buy]

- David Roza, Air Force reporter

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor

Stalingrad takes readers all the way from the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union to the collapse of the 6th Army at Stalingrad in February 1943. It gives you the perspective of German and Soviet soldiers during the most apocalyptic battle of the 20th century. [Buy]

- Jeff Schogol, Pentagon correspondent

America's War for the Greater Middle East by Andrew J. Bacevich

I picked up America's War for the Greater Middle East earlier this year and couldn’t put it down. Published in 2016 by Andrew Bacevich, a historian and retired Army officer who served in Vietnam, the book unravels the long and winding history of how America got so entangled in the Middle East and shows that we’ve been fighting one long war since the 1980s — with errors in judgment from political leaders on both sides of the aisle to blame. “From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift?” the book jacket asks. As Bacevich details in this definitive history, the mission creep of our Vietnam experience has been played out again and again over the past 30 years, with disastrous results. [Buy]

- Paul Szoldra, editor-in-chief

Burn In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution by P.W. Singer and August Cole

In Burn In, Singer and Cole take readers on a journey at an unknown date in the future, in which an FBI agent searches for a high-tech terrorist in Washington, D.C. Set after what the authors called the "real robotic revolution," Agent Lara Keegan is teamed up with a robot that is less Terminator and far more of a useful, and highly intelligent, law enforcement tool. Perhaps the most interesting part: Just about everything that happens in the story can be traced back to technologies that are being researched today. You can read Task & Purpose's interview with the authors here. [Buy]

- James Clark, senior reporter

SAS: Rogue Heroes by Ben MacIntyre

Like WWII? Like a band of eccentric daredevils wreaking havoc on fascists? Then you'll love SAS: Rogue Heroes, which re-tells some truly insane heists performed by one of the first modern special forces units. Best of all, Ben MacIntyre grounds his history in a compassionate, balanced tone that displays both the best and worst of the SAS men, who are, like anyone else, only human after all. [Buy]

- David Roza, Air Force reporter

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

The Alice Network is a gripping novel which follows two courageous women through different time periods — one living in the aftermath of World War II, determined to find out what has happened to someone she loves, and the other working in a secret network of spies behind enemy lines during World War I. This gripping historical fiction is based on the true story of a network that infiltrated German lines in France during The Great War and weaves a tale so packed full of drama, suspense, and tragedy that you won’t be able to put it down. [Buy]

Katherine Rondina, Anchor Books

“Because I published a new book this year, I've been answering questions about my inspirations. This means I've been thinking about and so thankful for The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender. I can't credit it with making me want to be a writer — that desire was already there — but it inspired me to write stories where the fantastical complicates the ordinary, and the impossible becomes possible. A girl in a nice dress with no one to appreciate it. An unremarkable boy with a remarkable knack for finding things. The stories in this book taught me that the everydayness of my world could become magical and strange, and in that strangeness I could find a new kind of truth.”

Diane Cook is the author of the novel The New Wilderness, which was long-listed for the 2020 Booker Prize, and the story collection Man V. Nature, which was a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award, the Believer Book Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the Los Angeles Times Award for First Fiction. Read an excerpt from The New Wilderness.

Bill Johnston, University of California Press

“I’ve revisited a lot of old favorites in this grim year of fear and isolation, and have been most thankful of all for The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara. Witty, reflexive, intimate, queer, disarmingly occasional and monumentally serious all at once, they’ve been a constant balm and inspiration. ‘The only thing to do is simply continue,’ he wrote, in 'Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul'; ‘is that simple/yes, it is simple because it is the only thing to do/can you do it/yes, you can because it is the only thing to do.’”

Helen Macdonald is a nature essayist with a semiregular column in the New York Times Magazine. Her latest novel, Vesper Flights, is a collection of her best-loved essays, and her debut book, H Is for Hawk, won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction and the Costa Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction.

Andrea Scher, Scholastic Press

“This year, I’m so grateful for You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. Reading — like everything else — has been a struggle for me in 2020. It’s been tough to let go of all of my anxieties about the state of the world and our country and get swept away by a story. But You Should See Me in a Crown pulled me in right away; for the blissful time that I was reading it, it made me think about a world outside of 2020 and it made me smile from ear to ear. Joy has been hard to come by this year, and I’m so thankful for this book for the joy it brought me.”

Jasmine Guillory is the New York Times bestselling author of five romance novels, including this year’s Party of Two. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Real Simple, and Time.

Nelson Fitch, Random House

“Last year, stuck in a prolonged reading rut that left me wondering if I even liked books anymore, I stumbled across Tenth of December by George Saunders, a collection of stories Saunders wrote between 1995 and 2012 that are at turns funny, moving, startling, weird, profound, and often all of those things at the same time. As a writer, what I crave most from books is to find one so excellent it makes me feel like I'd be better off quitting — and so wonderful that it reminds me what it is to be purely a reader again, encountering new worlds and revelations every time I turn a page. Tenth of December is that, and I'm so grateful that it fell off a high shelf and into my life.”

Veronica Roth is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent series and the Carve the Mark duology. Her latest novel, Chosen Ones, is her first novel for adults. Read an excerpt from Chosen Ones.

Ian Byers-Gamber, Blazevox Books

“Waking up today to the prospect of some hours spent reading away part of another day of this disastrous, delirious pandemic year, I’m most grateful for the book in my hands, one itself full of gratitude for a life spent reading: Gloria Frym’s How Proust Ruined My Life. Frym’s essays — on Marcel Proust, yes, and Walt Whitman, and Lucia Berlin, but also peppermint-stick candy and Allen Ginsburg’s knees, among other Proustian memory-prompts — restore me to my sense of my eerie luck at a life spent rushing to the next book, the next page, the next word.”

Jonathan Lethem is the author of a number of critically acclaimed novels, including The Fortress of Solitude and the National Book Critics Circle Award winner Motherless Brooklyn. His latest novel, The Arrest, is a postapocalyptic tale about two siblings, the man that came between them, and a nuclear-powered super car.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Riverhead

“I’m incredibly grateful for the magnificent The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer. This book — a mélange of history, memoir, and reportage — is the reconceptualization of Native life that’s been urgently needed since the last great indigenous history, Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It’s at once a counternarrative and a replacement for Brown’s book, and it rejects the standard tale of Native victimization, conquest, and defeat. Even though I teach Native American studies to college students, I found new insights and revelations in almost every chapter. Not only a great read, the book is a tremendous contribution to Native American — and American — intellectual and cultural history.”

David Heska Wanbli Weiden, an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, is author of the novel Winter Counts, which is BuzzFeed Book Club’s November pick. He is also the author of the children’s book Spotted Tail, which won the 2020 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Read an excerpt from Winter Counts.

Valerie Mosley, Tordotcom

“In 2020, I've been lucky to finish a single book within 30 days, but I burned through this 507-page brick in the span of a weekend. Harrow the Ninth reminded me that even when absolutely everything is terrible, it's still possible to feel deep, gratifying, brain-buzzing admiration for brilliant art. Thank you, Harrow, for being one of the brightest spots in a dark year and for keeping the home fires burning.”

Casey McQuiston is the New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue, and her next book, One Last Stop, comes out in 2021.

"I'm grateful for V.S. Naipaul's troubling masterpiece, A Bend in the River — which not only made me see the world anew, but made me see what literature could do. It's a book that's lucid enough to reveal the brutality of the forces shaping our world and its politics; yet soulful enough to penetrate the most recondite secrets of human interiority. A book of great beauty without a moment of mercy. A marriage of opposites that continues to shape my own deeper sense of just how much a writer can actually accomplish."

Ayad Akhtar is a novelist and playwright, and his latest novel, Homeland Elegies, is about an American son and his immigrant father searching for belonging in a post-9/11 country. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Vanessa German, Feminist Press

“I'm most thankful for Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether. It's a YA book set in 1930s Harlem, and it was the first Black-girl-coming-of-age book I ever read, the first time I ever saw myself in a book. I appreciate how it expanded my world and my understanding that books can speak to you right where you are and take you on a journey, at the same time.”

Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. She is also the co-author of Co-Parenting 101: Helping Your Kids Thrive in Two Households After Divorce, written in collaboration with her ex-husband. Philyaw’s writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, McSweeney’s, the Rumpus, and elsewhere. Read a story from The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.

Philippa Gedge, W. W. Norton & Company

“As both a writer and a reader I am hugely grateful for Patricia Highsmith’s plotting and writing suspense fiction. As a writer I’m thankful for Highsmith’s generosity with her wisdom and experience: She talks us through how to tease out the narrative strands and develop character, how to know when things are going awry, even how to decide to give things up as a bad job. She’s unabashed about sharing her own ‘failures,’ and in my experience, there’s nothing more encouraging for a writer than learning that our literary gods are mortal! As a reader, it provides a fascinating insight into the genesis of one of my favorite novels of all time — The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as the rest of her brilliant oeuvre. And because it’s Highsmith, it’s so much more than just a how-to guide: It’s hugely engaging and, while accessible, also provides a glimpse into the mind of a genius. I’ve read it twice — while working on each of my thrillers, The Hunting Party and The Guest List — and I know I’ll be returning to the well-thumbed copy on my shelf again soon!”

Lucy Foley is the New York Times bestselling author of the thrillers The Guest List and The Hunting Party. She has also written two historical fiction novels and previously worked in the publishing industry as a fiction editor.

“The books I'm most thankful for this year are a three-book series titled Tales from the Gas Station by Jack Townsend. Walking a fine line between comedy and horror (which is much harder than people think), the books follow Jack, an employee at a gas station in a nameless town where all manner of horrifyingly fantastical things happen. And while the monsters are scary and more than a little ridiculous, it's Jack's bone-dry narration, along with his best friend/emotional support human, Jerry, that elevates the books into something that are as lovely as they are absurd.”

T.J. Klune is a Lambda Literary Award–winning author and an ex-claims examiner for an insurance company. His novels include The House in the Cerulean Sea and The Extraordinaries.

Sylvernus Darku (Team Black Image Studio), Ayebia Clarke Publishing

"Nervous Conditions is a book that I have read several times over the years, including this year. The novel covers the themes of gender and race and has at its heart Tambu, a young girl in 1960s Rhodesia determined to get an education and to create a better life for herself. Dangarembga’s prose is evocative and witty, and the story is thought-provoking. I’ve been inspired anew by Tambu each time I’ve read this book."

Peace Adzo Medie is Senior Lecturer in Gender and International Politics at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Global Norms and Local Action: The Campaigns to End Violence against Women in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2020). His Only Wife is her debut novel.

Jenna Maurice, HarperCollins

“The book I'm most thankful for? Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. My mother and father would read me poems from it before bed — I'm convinced it infused me not only with a sense of poetic cadence, but also a wry sense of humor.”

Victoria “V.E.” Schwab is the bestselling author of more than a dozen books, including Vicious, the Shades of Magic series, and This Savage Song. Her latest novel, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, is BuzzFeed Book Club’s December pick. Read an excerpt from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

Meg Vázquez, Square Fish

“My childhood best friend gave me Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle for Hanukkah when I was 11 years old, and it's still my favorite book of all time. I love the way it defies genre (it's a political thriller/YA romance that includes a lot of scientific research and also poetry??), and the way it values smartness, gutsiness, vulnerability, kindness, and a sense of adventure. The book follows 16-year-old Vicky Austin's life-altering trip to Antarctica; her trip changed my life, too. In a year when safe travel is almost impossible, I'm so grateful to be able to return to her story again and again.”

Kate Stayman-London's debut novel, One to Watch, is about a plus-size blogger who’s been asked to star on a Bachelorette-like reality show. Stayman-London served as lead digital writer for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and has written for notable figures, from former president Obama and Malala Yousafzai to Anna Wintour and Cher.

Katharine McGee is grateful for the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. Chris Bailey Photography, Firebird

“I’m thankful for the Redwall books by Brian Jacques. I discovered the series in elementary school, and it sparked a love of big, epic stories that has never left me. (If you read my books, you know I can’t resist a broad cast of characters!) I used to read the books aloud to my younger sister, using funny voices for all the narrators. Now that I have a little boy of my own, I can’t wait to someday share Redwall with him.”

Katharine McGee is the New York Times bestselling author of American Royals and its sequel, Majesty. She is also the author of the Thousandth Floor trilogy.

Beth Gwinn, Time-Life Books

"I am thankful most for books that carry me out of the world and back again, and while I find it painful to choose among them, here's one early and one late: Zen Cho's Black Water Sister, which comes out in 2021 but I devoured just two days ago, and the long out-of-print Wizards and Witches volume of the Time-Life Enchanted World series, which is where I first read about the legend of the Scholomance."

Naomi Novik is the New York Times bestselling author of the Nebula Award–winning novel Uprooted, Spinning Silver, and the nine-volume Temeraire series. Her latest novel, A Deadly Education, is the first of the Scholomance trilogy.

Christina Lauren are grateful for the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Christina Lauren, Little, Brown and Company

"We are thankful for the Twilight series for about a million reasons, not the least of which it's what brought the two of us together. Writing fanfic in a space where we could be silly and messy together taught us that we don't have to be perfect, but there's no harm in trying to get better with every attempt. It also cemented for us that the best relationships are the ones in which you can be your real, authentic self, even when you're struggling to do things you never thought you'd be brave enough to attempt. Twilight brought millions of readers back into the fold and inspired hundreds of romance authors. We really do thank Stephenie Meyer every day for the gift of Twilight and the fandom it created."

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praximeter · 6 years

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I personally love fake history style fics and the level of detail you use in night war (along with amazing well thought out description of Bucky's inner monologue) really pulls me in and enhances the raw feelings Bucky has. I really want to get across that I love your style of writing as it gives a better understanding of all the stakes at play in buckys situation from major incidents to little asides about social expectations etc. 1/2

So what I’m trying to get at is that I admire the amount of research you do for this series and was wondering if you had any favourite resources (documentaries, books, forums, sites) or anecdotes about ww2 era that you found useful/ interesting or enjoyed most? Any recommendations at all to check out for this era/subject thankyou. 2/2

Hey anon! Thanks for writing in, and thanks for your kind comments! 💕 I’m so happy you’re enjoying the story.

Let me apologize in advance for the absurd and hilarious length of this answer. I’ve been meaning to do a “research, sources, and methods” post for a while for meta reasons, and, well, here it is.

My primary source of research material is definitely books, but there are a lot of amazing resources online including material published by the U.S. Government (reports, publications, etc.) that helps me be as accurate as possible when it comes to troop movements, etc. There are about a thousand documentaries out there about the war, but you can’t go wrong with Ken Burns’ The War or World War II in Color.

My favorite single-volume history of WWII is probably Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings. It covers all theaters and it draws very heavily on primary source material–journals and messages and even letters taken from the bodies of soldiers. Its focus is on the human experience of the war rather than on a detailed military history (X brigade of Y Corps marched Z kilometers to fight a pitched battle…etc.). One of my favorite bits from that book (of which some parts made it into The Night War) is this:

“The ground for fifty yards outside is MUD—six inches deep, glistening, sticky, holding pools of water,” gunner office John Guest wrote home. “Great excavations in the mud, leaving miniature alps of mud, show where other tents have been pitched in the mud, and moved on account of the mud to other places in the mud. The cumulative psychological experience of mud… cannot be described.” [p.447]

As much as I wanted to just plagiarize this entire letter, I tried to evoke the horrible exhaustion of the mud in a few places in The Night War, such as:

I want is quiet, just some quiet and rest and to be warm with no fucking rain and no mud and no mortars but most of all I want this to be over. [September 27, 1943)

Freak accident with mortar tube in Harry’s squad and we have two dead because of I think a malfunction with mud or something I don’t know. [October 11, 1943]

Short on rations as it has been impossible conditions—this fucking mud—and we did not get resupplied before this assault so me, Glenn and Castellano have been going to each foxhole to take stock of what we have and split the difference as needed. Which means my own foxhole is a mud pit, these little shits better be grateful. [October 13, 1943]

Another great resource for writing about Bucky’s Sicily/Italy campaign was The Liberator: One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau by Alex Kershaw, who is really more of a pop historian than an academic like Hastings. Nonetheless, he writes on a lot of different WWII-era subjects that are all focused on individual stories, and his works are great gateway books into more rigorous nonfiction about the war.

I’m including below a list that is not comprehensive but rather represents some of the works I’ve either found most helpful in writing The Night War or I just plain enjoyed. I’m so sorry anon, this is not what you were probably looking for!

[holy hell is there a lot under this cut]

Military History

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

A definitive history by a guy who was the CBS reporter stationed in Berlin in the late 30s.

Inferno: The World At War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings

My personal favorite single-volume history, and one that inspired a number of the Commandos’ experiences, such as their encounter with the Czechoslovakian family (Jan and Alžběta) near Kozmice (Operation Umbrella). The focus on Alžběta’s fear for her daughters and the risk of violence she perceived to them came directly from some of the stores in Inferno about Italian civilians who were brutalized and raped by “liberators.”

The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring by Albert Kesselring

Interesting to read the German perspective, though I admit I mostly skimmed this. Kesselring is one of those guys who got bizarrely recast as a “Good German” after the war, like Rommel, but he committed war crimes in Italy. And he was a Nazi, so.

The Few: The American “Knights of the Air” Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain by Alex Kershaw

Again, more pop history, but there was some good stuff in this one about the day-to-day experiences of RAF pilots, though almost none of that made it into The Night War.

With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain by Michael Korda

A pretty good, quick primer on the Battle of Britain. Some details from this book made it into The Night War but only in terms of things that Bucky observes (like signs being missing at railway stations).

Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy by Max Hastings

Hastings is a really superb writer. I didn’t read this cover to cover but I did take some inspiration from it for the Commandos’ Normandy campaign (June 1944 to July 1944).

The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan

Another classic about D-Day.

The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 by Rick Atkinson

Another great history - this is the third in his three-volume history of the war.

Soldiers’ Experiences

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest by Stephen A. Ambrose

A classic for a reason. This is the basis for the wonderful HBO series Band of Brothers, which is highly recommended and probably kickstarted my love of the era way back when I saw it at 11 years old.

Citizen Soldiers: the U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen A. Ambrose

Another classic. A great look at the individual experiences of the actual men who fought the war.

Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, At Home and at War by Linda Hervieux

This is a primer on the institutionalized racism of the segregated U.S. armed forces and the experiences of black soldiers, though it is by no means comprehensive as it focuses on a single unit. Still, I took some inspiration from this book about what Gabe may have witnessed or experienced himself during his training.

The Liberator: One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau by Alex Kershaw

Focuses on a specific commander in the 45th Infantry Division (The “Thunderbirds”) who had a remarkable journey through the war that in some ways mirrored Bucky’s. Kershaw writes pop history but there were some amazing details in this book I used to help flesh out the campaigns in Sicily and Italy especially.

The Road to Victory: The Untold Story of Race and World war II’s Red Ball Express by David P. Colley

Understanding the convoy system was helpful for logistical reasons but also, it gave some flavor to Gabe’s experiences as well. There is one mention of the Red Ball Express in The Night War, after Bucky is injured during Operation Goodwood and is back in England (July 29, 1944):

Thank god for the best friend anybody ever had. Steve busted me out of the clink (this makes the second time)—the sappy bastard tried to carry me like I was his fainting dame. I said no dice pal and hopped along as best I could until we made it outside and there was Gabe with a truck waiting like he was my own personal red ball express.

Politics

Never Surrender: Winston Churchill and Britain’s Decision to Fight Nazi Germany in the Fateful Summer of 1940 by John Kelly

Honestly, had nothing to do with The Night War but I read it because Summer 1940 is one of my favorite stretches of the war and this was a really interesting way to imagine the “what if?” had Britain not held fast against the Nazis.

Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson

One of my favorite WWII historical books ever. It does a stunning job at “setting the stage” of London during the early days of the war.

Resistance Efforts

A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead

Probably my favorite book written on the French resistance, full stop. The character of Geneviève Marcel was strongly inspired from some of the incredible women featured in this book.

Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France by Caroline Moorehead

Did not like this as much as Moorehead’s other work, but it did inspire a really fun Commandos mission that never made it to the final story - basically, the Commandos found themselves in a remote French village in the fall of 1944 and had to organize an ad hoc defense of the village along with several French maquis, who were mostly just boys aged 15-20. Naturally, the Commandos kicked ass and there were some great scenes with Bucky teaching the boys to box and to shoot a rifle. Sadly, it had to get cut for logistics reasons.

Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family’s Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied France by Alex Kershaw

This book was a little weak on its sources (in my opinion) but it did a good job of evoking what it was like to live and operate in Occupied Paris, which obviously became important in March 1944 for the Commandos.

Sabotage, Espionage, Code-Breaking, & Special Operations

The Women Who Lived for Danger: The Women Agents of SOE in The Second World War by Marcus Binney

This book isn’t that well-written, but it gave me some great ideas for Howling Commandos missions. Sadly, several of those ideas – sabotaging a submarine, for example – never made the final cut. I read this book because I was fleshing out my headcanon for Peggy, whom I imagined to have been part of the SOE prior to joining the SSR. In my headcanon, she’s the one who extracted Dr. Erskine from the Continent, and she got a lot of her training from the various SOE training stations.

Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler by Mark Riebling

Honestly, this book was just fun. I liked the little window into German operations and resistance efforts and it also gave me some great insight into the backstabbing, lack of trust, and unhealthy rivalries inside the Reich, which I used in determining how the Hydra organization might function had it been real.

Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War by Ben McIntyre

Some good stuff on how small special operations units actually operated during the war.

The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: the Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay

The inspiration for Peggy’s sister Gwendolyn came from this book. Plus, it’s a very easy, readable primer on codebreaking and Bletchley Park as compared to some of the other tomes that are out there.

Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War, 1941-1945 by Leo Marks

The Cost of Courage by Charles Kaiser

This was the inspiration for Geneviève Marcel’s family’s story.

The Holocaust

So, I studied the Holocaust a little in college and so I don’t have a list of all my sources for it (though the Holocaust doesn’t really play a role in The Night War until February 1945), but here are a few good ones:

Art from the Ashes, edited by Lawrence L. Langer

An amazing collection of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry written about the Holocaust and by Holocaust survivors.

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

One of the best memoirs on the subject.

The Night Trilogy by Elie Wiesel

This had an enormous impact on my understanding of survivor’s guilt and the exploration of one’s psyche following traumatic experiences.

War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust by Doris L. Bergen

Kapò, an Italian film about a young Jewish woman in a concentration camp.

Conspiracy, a film about the Wannsee conference.

Miscellaneous

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning

Learned from this book that the single most-read book by American GIs was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which, fittingly, I had Bucky read in September ‘43 and send a letter to his mother asking her to buy it for Curly for her birthday.

The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America At War by A.J. Baime

There’s a pithy saying about the war that goes like this: “The war was won because of Russian blood, British Intelligence, and American Industry.” Something like 40% of all American industrial output went to arming the other Allies. It’s CRAZY. And the story of how that industry ramped up from 1940 through the end of the war is really interesting, and this one in particular I really enjoyed. Anyway, the only thing from this book that really ended up in The Night War was this:

I remember Castellano in my face yelling “whatever fucking happened to a goddamn bomber an hour?” right after another stuka strafed us not even twenty yards away and Harry yelling “bombers are expensive Frank, you aren’t!”

Fiction

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Amazing contemporaneous fiction written about the French experience in the early years of the war and occupation. The author was a Russian Jew immigrant and was ultimately deported and killed in Auschwitz. Her daughter discovered this unfinished manuscript and published it in the early 2000s.

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada

A fictional account of a German married couple plotting and executing their own small resistance.

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

One of my favorite books of all time, and one that does an incredible job at imagining the effect of warfare on the human psyche.

Redeployment by Phil Klay

Short stories set in the modern OIF/OEF era.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

One of the most important books ever written about war (WWI).

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Another of the most important books ever written about war (Vietnam).

#asks #world war ii - research #the night war meta #the night war research and sources #book recommendations #the night war

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journeythroughimpossiblethings · 6 years

Text

John Smith: The Doctor’s fobwatched personality. Connected with @doctorattackeyebrows / @theclockisstrikingtwelve

John 0 – Fobwatched!Seven: #Journal-of-Impossible-Dreams (Volume 0: Within a Dream) – Book canon (Human Nature)

John I – Fobwatched!Ten: #Journal-of-Impossible-Things (Volume I: Human Nature Family of Blood) – David Tennant – AU TV show canon (New Who)

John II – Fobwatched!Twelve: #Journal-of-Impossible-Things-Volume-II (The Newest Time Lord) – Peter Capaldi – AU Twelve

John III – Human John: #Journal-of-Impossible-Things-Volume-III:-A-Life-Of-His-Own – Eddie Redmayne – AU OC version

John IV – TARDIS Matrix Ghost: #Journal-of-Impossible-Things-Volume-IV (In the Matrix) – David Tennant + Peter Capaldi + Eddie Redmayne – AU OC version

John IV.5 I – HoloJohn: #Journey-Through-Impossible-Things (Volume I: HoloDreams), #HoloJohn – Eddie Redmayne – AU OC version

John IV.5 II – RoboJohn: #Journey-Through-Impossible-Things (Volume II: Androids Dream of Existential Crises), #RoboJohn – Eddie Redmayne – AU OC version

John IV.5 III – WereJohn: #Journey-Through-Impossible-Things (Volume III: Howl on the Moon), #WereJohn – Eddie Redmayne – AU OC version

Journal of Impossible Things Unbound – A branch of the Time Traveler’s Wife Unbound multiverse.

Newt Scamander – Journal of Impossible Things Unbound: A branch of Time Traveler’s Wife Unbound / Harry Potter canon – #Worrying-Means-You-Suffer-Twice – Eddie Redmayne – @fantasticmagizoologist

Jon Symbiont – Journal of Impossible Things Unbound: A branch of Time Traveler’s Wife Unbound / Star Trek AU OC

Tenn Jon – #Jon-One – David Tennant

Beyrd Jon – #Jon-Two – Peter Capaldi

Wolf Jon – #Wolf-Jon – A wolf

Smyth Jon – #Jon-Three – Eddie Redmayne

Frazyr Jon – #Jon-Four – Hadley Fraser

Sylvest Jon – #Jon-Five – Sylvester McCoy

Kara Jon – #Jon-Six – Melissa Benoist

John Simth – Virtual version of John from the PC game The Sims

John Simth II – John II!Sim: #Journal-of-Impossible-Sims (Volume II) – John II, Peter Capaldi (Dawn’s Sims 4 game)

John Simth III – John III!Sim: #Journal-of-Impossible-Sims (Volume III) – John III, Eddie Redmayne (Anna’s Sims 4 game)

@videofaciempraeteriti / @tavinwho / @an-earthly-family

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jugandbettsdetectiveagency · 7 years

Text

The Serpent and The Swan - Ch.2

Thank you to everyone who read, commented, and left kudos - I hope you enjoy!

Calon bach - a Welsh term of endearment meaning ‘little heart’

Ch.1 / Read on AO3

Jughead tapped his foot rhythmically against the floor of the carriage, knee bouncing in time with the gentle sway of the cart as they rode over uneven turf. The prince was uncomfortable, and not just because he was crammed into a wooden box with his man servant, his father, and his father’s right hand advisor. The journey to the Cooper faction had numbed his every limb, his mind becoming just as anesthetised by the endless, manicured green that flew by the window.

“You can’t fidget like that when you’re in front of the Coopers; better get it all out of your system now, Jug,” King Forsythe II smirked, raising an eyebrow at his easily dissatisfied son. Jughead scoffed, not turning his scowl from the window.

“Worried I won’t be on my best behaviour, FP?” Jughead deadpanned. He’d given up on calling him ‘father’ a long time ago. FP sighed, attempting to meet his son’s eye.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but this is for your own good. Just promise me you’ll wait and see – you might be surprised,” he implored, his words not as encouraging as he’d like them to be due to the film of alcohol that covered his tongue. Jughead snorted, shutting his eyes as he tipped his head back to rest against the wall behind him, signalling he was done with the small talk.

“You know as well as I do that promises are easily broken, Your Majesty.”

If Jughead’s eyes had been open he would have seen the brief flicker of surprise that passed through FP’s eyes – a look that both Mongoose and Joaquin diligently ignored – before they glazed over once more, settling back into their unfazed visage.

The remainder of the journey was endured in tense silence. Jughead didn’t mind, as he tried desperately to force sleep that simply would not come; he much preferred silence to idle chatter. He assumed that he would have to engage in far too much of that in the coming months, perhaps even the rest of his life from here on out. The perfect young princess was sure to be the embodiment of every trait he could not stand, and he was to marry her sometime within the year. What he’d heard of the Cooper daughters was everything to be expected of young princesses waiting to be courted: pretty, polite, and able to perform every act that was expected of them with the utmost poise. It was a shock to every faction when the older of the two found herself pregnant out of wedlock, and to a commoner no less. Jughead was almost impressed, but that was not the sister he was to meet.

He knew very well that his mother and father’s marriage had been forced via an arrangement. He also knew how well that had turned out for everyone involved. Jughead’s mother had been his best friend, his closest ally, all throughout his early childhood. Queen Gladys had been beautiful, not just in body but in soul. Jughead had taken everything she had to offer him in the way of wisdom, drinking in her words greedily as she taught him how to be strong.

“Don’t do everything you’re told, calon bach,” she whispered to him, caressing his cheek while her eyes held a glint that Jughead only ever saw elsewhere when the sun would appear from behind thick clouds, casting its rays over clear waters. “Forge your own path.”

But the world is cruel, giving little or no regard to the kind deeds of one so gentle as his dutiful mother. Her second pregnancy was not easy from the start. It had taken over a decade for her to conceive again, and time was taking its toll on the Queen’s body. To make matters worse, Jughead could hear the arguments his mother and father would often have – raging rows about nonsensical things, followed by the shattering of glass or the crash of smashed furniture. His mother would emerge, unscathed yet worn, deep purple shadows beneath her eyes that dipped towards her colourless cheeks.

She would not eat, she would not take her usual turn about the castle. Some days Jughead would visit her separate chambers only to find the door tightly barred against anyone who tried to enter. Those days he would sit tucked beneath the window seat in the library, clutching whatever volume he found that his mother had once read to him when he was a child, teeth scratching the broken skin of his lower lip as he willed himself not to cry.

On more pleasant occasions he would find the door wide open, waiting for him to join her. Jughead sat next to her above the blankets, reading with a slow, measured tone as she listened with a contented expression. A shift in the bedspread caught his attention, sentence breaking off suddenly. His mother laughed.

“She’s enjoying the story,” Gladys cooed, running her hand over the bump. Jughead grinned with pride, watching as his sibling moved at the sound of his voice. “Aren’t you, Jellybean?” It was their nickname for the child, something they hadn’t told FP yet. It had sprung from jovial conversations between mother and son, neither one of them remembering the exact moment when they had christened the baby as such, in much the same way as his own sobriquet.

It was late winter when the door was open one day. His mother paced before the open shutters, hands resting gently on her swollen belly.

“Mother, it’s too cold in here,” he admonished, making to close the shutters. She stopped him, one hand coming to rest on his upper arm. He was already taller than her at fourteen, her upturned eyes slowly dimming in the brash winter light, sallow cheeks attempting to lift in a smile.

“Leave it, calon bach. I like how it feels, don’t you?” Gladys took a deep breath, eyelids fluttering closed as she rocked with the breeze. Jughead’s brow furrowed, she was too pale, too thin, her lips taking on a tone much too blue for his liking. “Like freedom.”

“At least take this blanket,” Jughead worried, settling the thick wool around her shoulders. Gladys caught his hand, grasping it with both of hers, fingers like ice.

“Such a good boy,” she murmured, bringing their joined hands to her chest. “Such-” Her words were cut off with a pained gasp, her hands dropping his as she clutched at her stomach. Jughead caught her before she hit the stone floor, hauling her to the bed as gently as he could.

“Mother?!” he yelled, panic gripping his heart. “Nancy!” he called towards the door, desperate for his mother’s lady in waiting to appear. There was a flurry of movement, women pouring into the room and sweeping Jughead out on a wave of despair, the door shutting him out once again.

He wasn’t sure how many hours passed before a sharp cry pierced the heavy air, shrill and full of grief. Jughead didn’t care for etiquette in that moment, bursting into the room with a pounding in his head that matched the one in his heart.

He stood, frozen, in the doorway as he took in the scene. Nancy was holding a small bundle, his new sister swathed in olive coloured blankets as she cried out for a mother’s warmth. Jughead didn’t regard her for long, something else taking his eye’s attention. The once white sheets of Gladys’ bed were gone, replaced with a nauseating crimson, still seeping with a sickening speed from between his mother’s thighs. His eyes were impossibly wide, cold sweat spreading across his forehead as bile rose in his throat. Persistent hands began to shoo him back into the hallway, his legs not having the strength to resist.

He turned to the window behind him, stomach clenching as it emptied its contents into the snow below. Limbs trembling, Jughead sank to the floor, unable to keep the tears at bay this time.

“We’re sorry, Your Highness.” The words barely made it through the thudding in his ears. He screwed his eyes shut, attempting to make reality disappear. “Would you like to hold her?” A disgruntled gurgle brought him reluctantly back, the wriggling bundle being settled carefully in his arms.

He wanted to hate it, to blame it for taking away the one thing he held so dear. But as she – Princess Thia as she would come to be known by most – opened her blue eyes, locking her gaze with his, he knew he would devote every ounce of love he could muster to the baby. Her eyes gleamed in the warm torch light illuminating the hallway, that glint he knew so well…

Jughead let out a sob, half anguished, half overjoyed, neither winning out as he let his finger drift over the baby’s soft cheek.

Three years had passed since that day, his self-made promise still being fulfilled.

His father, on the other hand, was less forthcoming.

“I won’t let it happen to you, Jug,” FP had hiccupped before him, eyes hazy and movements sluggish as amber liquid sloshed over the side of his metal cup. Another one of their ‘celebratory’ banquets had taken place, for some success that the faction had had in acquiring yet more illegal bounty. “Not like I let it happen to me,” he continued, not elaborating any further.

“Let what happen?” Jughead asked with a sigh, rolling his eyes lazily towards his father. He wasn’t in the least curious, but he had learnt it was best to humour his father.

“This,” the King gestured vaguely around them, hand coming to land on his own chest. “You’ll choose who you love, I promise, and you won’t–” He cut himself off with a shake of his head, slumping ungracefully in his seat. Jughead’s teeth clicked under the pressure he was applying to them, at the implication that his mother was not loved by FP. He always knew that theirs was not a happy marriage, but it didn’t make the admittance of the truth any less painful for the boy born out of necessity.

He hadn’t believed him, and as was now apparent he had every reason not to. For here they were, days into the journey to meet his future bride for the first time. Jughead dug his teeth into his lower lip, impatient for the next time he could be alone.

***

Everything was too bright, Jughead thought as he squinted up at Castle Aeris – his new prison. The blue of the sky, the green of the leaves, everything was overwhelming his senses. There was a cloying smell of roses in the hot air that felt suffocating. His back and legs ached from being still for so long, desperate to walk through the gardens, to get lost in the earth.

A heavy hand on his shoulder ushered him forwards, pushing him towards his fate. He shook FP’s hand off subtly, just before the measured steps of the King and Queen brought them face to face.

“Your Majesties,” FP addressed them with a gracious bow, Jughead reluctantly following his lead. They returned the courtesy with an intense precision. An air of suspicion that Jughead was used to receiving, as a Serpent prince, simmered between the families. “Thank you so much for accommodating us.”

“Welcome,” Hal greeted with a tight smile, extending his arms in a gesture of friendliness. “Prince Forsythe, we are thrilled to meet you. I trust your journey was not too tiresome?” he asked jovially. Jughead was aware that he was going to spend an uncomfortable amount of time being called by his full name, but it still didn’t make him any less warm to the fact.

“Excruciatingly so,” Jughead replied honestly. He saw the muscle in his father’s jaw twitch in irritation. It didn’t matter to Jughead – he knew however impolite he was to this family he was still doomed to become a part of it. Hal faltered for a second before finding his words.

“Well, now that you’re here I’m sure you’ll find your rooms more than satisfactory. Please, come this way,” he smiled, beckoning them inside. The Queen remained silent, eyes disturbingly focused, a fact that Jughead found unsettling.

“Where is Princess Elizabeth?” FP asked curiously, glancing around their party as if he expected her to suddenly appear beside them.

“Resting,” Alice answered shortly, not turning to address them as she marched a few steps ahead. “She has been very busy organising the Solstice festival, and we though it better if she were to meet Prince Forsythe at the occasion, when she has had time to recover.” Her tone left no room for argumentation. FP smiled, something unreadable settling in the depths of his eyes.

“Quite right,” he finally responded, nodding. “I’m sure my son would be glad of the time to rest, too.” Jughead didn’t answer, determined to contribute as little as possible. He knew that the discussion of the princess’ delicate sensibilities was a rouse for her reluctance to meet him. He didn’t blame her, he thought wryly. He intended to delay their meeting as much as possible, too.

***

“Don’t you ever get tired of doing this?” Jughead joked, sending a weary smile towards Joaquin. The man was bent close to Jughead’s face, sweeping a blade over his dampened cheeks.

“It’s my duty, Your Highness,” Joaquin replied, dipping the blade into the basin beside them to clean it. “But yes,” he smirked, tipping Jughead’s chin upwards, “it’s completely tedious.” The prince laughed, pressing his lips together when Joaquin shot him a look to keep still. He sighed, temporary high spirits fading fast as he remember why he was getting ready.

“You still have time to run away,” Joaquin said suddenly, causing Jughead’s eyes to snap to his. Joaquin shrugged as he picked up a towel and patted his cheeks dry. “Between the two of us we could get you out of this castle, I’m sure.” Jughead paused, regarding the offer.

“Do you think I should?” he asked finally. Joaquin continued his tasks, holding out the crisp linen shirt for Jughead to slip his arms into, buttoning it over his torso.

“Do you want to?” he replied instead. Jughead chewed on his lower lip. “It would be a very different life – not necessarily better,” he offered. Jughead groaned, tugging at his dark curls in frustration. His mother’s words came back to him, settling heavily in the back of his mind, but right now he just wanted someone to tell him what to do, to tell him which path to follow. He thought of Jellybean, the little girls ebony curls filling his mind.

“I want your honest opinion,” Jughead sighed finally, looking at his trusted friend with pleading eyes, finally relieving his hair of its self-inflicted torture when his hands fell limply to his sides. Joaquin handed him his pants, perfectly pressed by the hot pan of coals that was being set to cool by the fireplace.

“Happiness is a luxury that not even a prince can afford. It requires luck, and no one can buy that. But it also requires an open mind, and I know you have that.” Jughead busied himself with tucking his shirt into his waistband, wanting to listen to the words of advice but dreading where they were heading. “Being told to marry a beautiful girl is not something that would make many men unhappy.”

“But what of beauty if she is insufferable?” Jughead protested, once again capturing his hair in his fists as he turned to pace his chamber.

“And of hypocrisy? What of that?” Joaquin teased, brushing his hands over the lapels of Jughead’s green jacket, the colour so dark it appeared black, gold spun thread woven into the fabric in a subtle, opulent pattern, curled like the path of a snake through grass. Jughead shoved at his shoulder, a reluctant chuckle slipping from his lips at he turned his gaze to his feet.

“Okay, I understand. But I refuse to like it,” he added, pointing a finger at his confident. Joaquin raised his palms in surrender.

“As you wish, Your Highness.” He took one last look at the prince. “You are ready,” he announced, heading towards the door to hold it open for their exit.

Jughead pulled in a nervous breath through his nostrils. Was he? Would he ever be ready to sign himself over to a woman he’d never met? He had heard of attraction, understood what it meant, but he had never experienced it to the degree with which he often heard his father’s men talk about it. They would brag of their conquests, talk about the woman who were ready and waiting to bed a knight after just one look. Jughead listened silently to descriptions of their velvet skin, supple breasts, and quivering thighs. He knew when a woman was beautiful, had often complimented the ladies of the faction on their looks when he felt it appropriate, had been thanked in the way of delicate blushes and coy smiles. But that desire to touch, to follow the descent of that rosy complexion beneath the laces of their bodices still escaped him.

Yes, he realised he despised this princess for reasons beyond her control, that she just happened to be the unfortunate woman at the other end of their parents’ demands. But he also pitied her, for the love he didn’t think he’d be able to offer her. She would be doomed to settle for a marriage void of desire, and the history that his parents had once endured would be destined to repeat itself.

Once again Jellybean crossed his mind. Perhaps he could get through the remainder of his days by religiously repeating proclamations for the life he would be able to provide for his sister. The air here was less frigid, less fearsome. The little girl could run through the green hills without worry of catching her death or falling through disguised ice. She could own horses and pick berries in the summer, lace her hair with fresh blooming flowers and have the childhood Jughead would wish for her. If she was to be without a mother this was the next best thing he could offer. He had promised her as much.

Jughead straightened, collecting himself one last time before taking purposeful strides towards the door and heading towards the fulfilment of his promise.

#bughead #bughead fanfiction #bughead au #betty cooper #jughead jones #betty x jughead #riverdale #riverdale fanfiction #bughead fan fiction #jetty #writing

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things2mustdo · 5 years

Link

TOM CHIVERS

@TomChivers

4 MINS

18 DECEMBER 2018

I had an odd reading journey recently. I was led by historical fiction into historical fact, and – although the history it recounted was dark and frightening – I found it oddly heartening, as a reminder that 2018 is not a terrible time to be alive.

It started with film. I was watching Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin, which portrays the last hours of the dictator’s life and the scrabble for power afterward in bleakly hilarious fashion, and then Bridge of Spies, the Tom Hanks espionage vehicle, and I realised: I know embarrassingly little about the Cold War.

It’s not that I didn’t know anything. I lived through about a decade of it, for a start. But I mainly knew the big events, and mainly either as little more than names, or as set-pieces somewhat devoid of context: the Cuban missile crisis, the Berlin airlift. I didn’t have a good grasp of the sweep of it, how all the pieces fitted together.

Does liberalism need global conflict in order to thrive?