#the bete epoque

[suzannahnatters]

I asked @scarvenartist to draw Molly and Vasily AND DID SHE EVER 🤣😍😭 Look at their little faces!

There's a moment in DARK & DAWN when Molly imagines a future with Vasily and while I can't always think of moments that would make good illustrations I knew I wanted to see this one:

"I was struck, quite helplessly, by the vision of a domestic life with this man. I imagined a little loft in Paris or Vienna somewhere, wallpapered with sketches of me, in which Vasily lounged comfortably in bare feet and a dressing-gown of figured silk, by turns sipping champagne, ironing sheets, ordering duck, and complaining about the landlady."

#miss dark's apparitions #miss dark #the bete epoque #vasily nikolaevich romanov #molly dark #dark & dawn

[i-gwarth]

now back to our regularly scheduled obsessing over my late 19th century-inspired fictional setting full of morally compromised characters, unholy early science, heathen occultism and impending social catastrophe

#la bete epoque

[lescritiqueschelous]

Vous ne savez pas à quoi ça ressemble le privilège d'un fils de homme blanc hétérosexuel ? Regardez donc le premier quart d'heure de La Belle Époque dans lequel Nicolas Bedos peut se permettre de mettre en scène deux des acteurs les plus brillants de leur génération (Auteuil et Ardant) dans une scène d'engueulade au dialogue digne d'un sketch des Inconnus : " - Merde ! - Putain ! - Fait chier ! - Au prochain croisement, tournez à droite. - Ta gueule, la connasse du GPS ! - J'ai oublié d'acheter du lait, putain !".

Tout le film n'est heureusement pas de cet acabit. Bedos a plein d'idées. Certaines font mouche. Si il s'accommode plutôt adroitement de sa chronique parallèle théoriquement casse-gueule de deux couples en crise, on reste un peu dubitatif quant à sa gestion d'un high-concept qui aurait étincelé devant la caméra d'un Gondry ou d'un Kaufman. Point de vertiges ou de faux-semblants. Dès ses premiers instants sur le plateau (très Plus Belle La Vie) censé reconstituer le Lyon des années 70, la caméra insiste sur les projecteurs au plafond, les feuilles de décor qui se décollent... Une courte séquence, riche en potentialités, voit Auteuil et Tillier, dans un élan d'insoumission à la fiction, explorer les décors avoisinants. Mais l'idée, vite expédiée, ne servira au final qu'à administrer une bonne grosse baffe à Adolf Hitler (certes bien méritée, mais bon...).

Non, ce qui intéresse Bedos, c'est le marivaudage — vitres sans tain et oreillettes ont leur importance — et surtout la possibilité de caler un maximum de dialogues bien balancés sertis de traits d'esprit néo-beaufs. On comprend pourquoi il choisit 1974 comme épicentre de sa nostalgie. Une année où un Bertrand Blier pouvait accumuler presque 6 millions d'entrées avec les Valseuses et durant laquelle son appétence pour le bon mot tenant aurait trouvé toute sa place. Seulement, dans le film, même ses personnages semblent en revenir un peu de ce petit trip vintage. "On était pas si libres que ça au final (...) puis j'avais l'impression de vivre dans un cendrier géant." Dommage que, cinématographiquement, le réalisateur ne suive pas lui aussi ce sentiment et n'élargisse pas un peu ses horizons.

#film #cinema #review #critique #critiques #reviews #french cinema #la belle époque #la belle epoque #la belle et le clochard #la belle et la bete #cinema français #nicolas bedos #doria tillier #movie reviews #movie review

[bossuary]

˜”*°•.˜”*°• 𝕃𝕒 𝕍𝕚𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕠𝕝𝕖𝕦𝕤𝕖 •°*”˜.•°*”˜

{𝒾𝓂𝒶𝑔𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝓃𝒾𝓅 𝒷𝓎 𝓂𝑒, 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝐸ugene Grasset}

      Paris in 1889 was a vicious bitch.

      To know Paris in the throes of the Belle Epoque was to know the refuge of a demon spurned. A creature bound to scarlet wonder, pressing its tongue to clefts of salted earth, seeking the grotesque to forget a pact severed. He grew into her, and she--refusing to crawl into exile--walked tall among those who’d also been used so poorly, and for so long, and would see the world burn for it. 

      Parisss.   A place more bete than belle, where the arts embraced ecstasy and vulgarity, and dram by poisonous dram, all pain was made exquisite.

      Even there, between the windmill and the white heart upon the hill, Crowley was a lady of red repute. 

      Night and day she prowled among women and souls undecided, each in her state of rebellion, all found climbing atop pennyfarthing bicycles or pennywhistle men. Crowley’s dress was the black of injustice. At the sight of her red hair, its waves long and longing, hearts jumped in distress, as when embers were scattered upon a boudoir floor. A pale cloud followed in her wake, the perfume of the righteously Lost. Through fashionable streets and mean ones, she rolled her hips like her cohort, bone-driven by a fever of love’s torment, by hate and hurt, dripping with cigarettes and morphine. 

      Where Crowley walked, men threw wide their dance hall doors just for the chance to smell her smoke. Backstage, dancers beckoned Crowley into their cramped dressing rooms. They didn’t recognize her, but the woman in black was an old companion. Wherever passion had been carved back to its root, to suffering, there too was Crowley.

{𝓇𝑒𝒶𝒹 𝓂𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝒞𝓇𝑜𝓌𝓁𝑒𝓎 𝒾𝓃 𝒫𝒶𝓇𝒾𝓈, 𝑜𝓃 𝒜𝒪𝟥}

#crowley #ineffable husbands #good omens #f!Crowley

[poesitation-blog1]

Freestyle

Quand je prends le mic. 

Tu sais plus ou te mettre 

Donc si jee temene sur namek. Evite que je te la. Mete

Ce serai bete 

Den perdr la. Tete 

Car si dans tous les ca tes leleve 

Moi dand tous les ca jsu le maitre 

Epoque de victime 

C travaille meme pas deux minutes ces rime 

Viens dans ma cave jorganiserai ton sweet sixteen

Et dan nos. Tetes la terre tourne… dentre l’horrible et le sublime

Et…

View On WordPress

[suzannahnatters]

constantly thinking about HER (the protagonist for an upcoming project who I'm pitching to myself as Wednesday Addams x Carrot Ironfoundersson)

#miss short #my books #the bete epoque

[suzannahnatters]

DARK & DAWN out of context spoilers:

Someone asked if this was intentional and not only was it intentional, I was giggling the whole time.

Happy release day to the fourth (but by no means final) MISS DARK'S APPARITIONS book! You can get it now wherever ebooks are sold, paperback coming very soon and audiobook in due course!

#miss dark's apparitions #miss dark #dark & dawn #suzannah rowntree #the bete epoque

[suzannahnatters]

Hey friends! Some important Miss Dark's Apparitions updates:

I have finished editing Dark & Dawn! Sending ARCs today!

Nijam has uttered a girlish squeal

Dark & Dawn will release in just a couple of weeks, DV!

Now coming 5 April 2024!

#miss dark's apparitions #my books #dark & dawn #molly dark #vasily nikolaevich romanov #miss dark #dark & stormy #tall & dark #dark clouds #the bete epoque

[suzannahnatters]

DARK & STORMY has released!!!! The third instalment of my steampunky gaslamp fantasy billed as LEVERAGE, With Ghosts! Has Miss Dark found the perfect practical joke? What havoc can Mimi wreak at the ballet? Will Nijam's appetite for peppermints come between her and the team? Can Alphonse pull off a con? And can Vasily survive his family? Grab it here >>>

#miss dark's apparitions #miss dark #dark & stormy #the bete epoque

[suzannahnatters]

Ok so I wrote a whole steampunk trilogy about these two bejewelled idiots

so let me tell you about George V and Mary ("May") of Teck.

From the photo - woman dressed like a wedding cake, man wearing the Milky Way - you might think that this is a picture of privilege.

Well, yeah. You're right. Mostly.

Her name was Princess May, and she was Europe's least eligible spinster.

Although she was of royal blood, May was descended from a "morganatic" marriage - her grandfather on her father's side had married a commoner - in fact, a countess (gasp!) - on condition that their children would not inherit his small German duchy. May's two aunts never married, because no self-respecting German prince would be seen dead in a ditch marrying the offspring of a mere countess. May's father got lucky because over in England, Queen Victoria was struggling to cope with her cousin, MARY ADELAIDE. Mary Adelaide was fat, thirty-two, unmarried, more popular than the queen, and completely uncontrollable. Under the circumstances, the discovery of an unattached prince too beggarly to be picky was an absolute godsend. The English were too broadminded to care about the countess, and nobody else (as someone joked unkindly) would "venture on so vast an undertaking."

The marriage was happy, but extravagant. By the time May was 16, the family was so deeply in debt that they had to run away from England to avoid their debtors. For the next two years they lived in Italy, where May was able to get an excellent education in art history, languages, singing, and painting.

After returning to England, May took an interest in visiting the poor and collecting funds for charities. Serious, diligent, and intelligent, May hoped that one day she would have an important role to play in the world…but how? She was not royal enough to marry into royalty, but she was much too royal to marry beneath her.

It was Queen Victoria who decided to play the fairy godmother. One day, quite unexpectedly, she invited May to join her at Balmoral. Several days later, Prince Eddy also arrived. Eddy was Victoria's grandson, third in line to the throne, and thus (if you overlooked the affairs with married women, and the scandals, and the venereal disease, and the sub-zero IQ) the most eligible bachelor in the whole British Empire. In Victoria's opinion, what the future King of England needed most was a good, smart, steady wife. She'd already tried to arrange several other matches for Eddy, including one with Princess Alix of Hesse (who would go on to marry Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, a match which would in no way help to precipitate a violent revolution and end in a hail of bullets, blood, and diamonds), but all of them had failed. Now, she thought May would do.

Perhaps May thought it was her only chance to achieve lasting financial security. Possibly she agreed with Victoria that the future of the British Royal Family depended on Eddy marrying someone with half a brain. Maybe she even hoped for love. When Eddy proposed, May accepted.

Just weeks before the wedding, May was staying at Sandringham for Eddy's 28th birthday celebrations when he came down with influenza. The next day, he developed pneumonia. Five days later he was dead.

More than a hundred years later, we can be excused for looking back and feeling that both May and the whole British Empire dodged a significant bullet there. To Eddy's family, it was a crushing tragedy. One who mourned him was Eddy's younger brother, a steady, hard-working, unimaginative naval officer named George. Prince George was not just dull as dishwater and nearly as badly educated as his brother, he was also significantly healthier, smarter, and more disciplined. Now, with George taking Eddy's place as heir to the throne, many immediately began to think that George should take Eddy's bride as well. After all, Queen Victoria had already gone to the trouble of vetting and approving May, and why should all that work go to waste?

Among those who thought so were May's own parents. When Eddy's family went on holiday to the south of France to grieve in peace, May's parents packed up their daughter and followed. George dutifully called on the family, and over the next few months, as May travelled around Europe, she and George corresponded via letter. Emotionally constipated as he was, George had grown used to writing heartfelt notes to his deaf mother. May was also painfully shy. Signs were against them, but the two managed to become engaged in 1893 after significant prodding from both their families. Shortly afterwards, they exchanged these hilariously awkward letters:

MAY: I am very sorry that I am still so shy with you. I tried not to be so the other day, but alas failed, I was angry with myself! It is so stupid to be so stiff together and really there is nothing I would not tell you, except that I love you more than anybody in the world, and this I cannot tell you myself so I write it to relieve my feelings.

GEORGE: Thank God we both understand each other, and I think it really unnecessary for me to tell you how deep my love for you my darling is and I feel it growing stronger and stronger every time I see you; although I may appear shy and cold.

The rest, of course, is history. George married May in 1893 and in 1910 they succeeded to the throne as King George V and Queen Mary of Teck. In between ruling the colonies with a rod of iron (George), amassing a small fortune in fabulous diamonds (May), and wearing some of the era's most luscious fashions (both) the two of them remained as deeply in love as ever. When George took a dive in a newfangled invention named a submarine, May, standing on the Portsmouth quay, could not repress a passionate effusion of concern:

"I shall be very disappointed if George doesn't come up again."

ALSO May had a dollhouse that was a miniature copy of their home! The library contained VERY TINY BOOKS by literary luminaries such as Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling! AND over the bed in the main bedroom there was a tiny sign hanging - "May George? - George May." I'm sorry but I love them. I'm not sorry at all for all the grand silly fun I had writing them both in Miss Sharp's Monsters. Though I'm afraid that at no stage was the real Princess May impersonated by a clever clockwork automaton containing a bomb intended to blow up Queen Victoria. I made that part up.

#history #miss sharp's monsters #the werewolf of whitechapel #mary of teck #george v #historical fiction #gothic #steampunk #gaslamp fantasy #victorian #1800s #1890s #bete epoque #late 1800s