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ellemany · 2 years

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Multiple ways of express love (Based on Valorant's Agents Countries)

It is Valentines Day After All!

Hey hey hey! Here I came with one of that big posts for celebrating the day of love. Actually... For some people are the day of love. In Brazil, we celebrate the Valentines Day in June 12. Someone change the date for moving economy in the month. In other countries, the date changes too for several reasons. I find this so interest! I love to see different cultures meeting.

Fortunately, my favorite game of the time have this aspect. Different people from divers countries together! Oh, so many possibilities!

So, for celebrating all ways of love, i compiled some forms of saying "I love you" in Valorant's Agents native languages.

Chibi Agents for your soul

I made an effort to go beyond the google translator. So i research for videos and sites where i could learn something more. I tried to add some compliments, trivia and, of course, my own comments.

Knowing that, i'm just showing some perspective that i found on internet. If i said anything that doesn't match with reality, feel free to correct me ok? I will add the links where i get most of things :D

Also, i really suggest you to check out the sites and videos. I didn't add everything that is there and somethings are really interesting.

Ok ok, let's talk about love baby!

Index (In case you just want to skip it)

Astra - Twi/Akan and Ga

Breach - Swedish

Cypher - Moroccan Arabic (Darija) and Arabic

Yoru - Japanese

Chamber - French

Reyna - Spanish

Raze - Portuguese

Killjoy - Germany

Sova - Russian

Phoenix - Scottish Gaelic

Jett - Korean

Neon - Tagalog

Sage - Chinese

Kay/O and Omen - ???

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Astra - Twi/Akan

Ghana is a country where more than 80 languages are spoken. This means that isn't easy discover which one Astra uses. Besides that, Astra probably knows more than one language. Akan is the most popular, but it have many dialects. I put Twi here for being the most knowed and... Well, it was the video that i found

I love you = Me dɔ wo (me doo wo)

I miss you = M'afe wo

If you want to use a "too much" on the phrase, you just add "paa" at the end. So, it will be "me dɔ wo paa" and "m'afe wo paa"

My love = Medɔfo (medoofo) (or) Medɔ (Medoo)

Queen = ɔhemaa (Oohemaa)

King = ɔhene (Oohene)

After knowing this, i remembered of the famous Astra's "Chale". I found that is a Ga slang. So... I go research again

(Also, "Chale" means friend and i can't stand with Astra's romantic fics where the authors use "Chale" for Astra refers to her significant others. I can't stop thinking that she is putting them on friendzone)

This one was hard to find exactly what i wanted. I downloaded a book for have sure that one site that i was checking was right

You are beautiful = Nye yɛ fɛo (Nye ye feo)

I love you = Misumoɔ nye (Misumoo nye)

I love thou = Misumɔ bo (Misumoo bo)

I love you very much = Misumoɔ nye naakpa (Misumoo nye naakpa)

I found an article about Same-Sex Love and Female Masculinity in Postcolonial Ghana. You must pay for read the whole article, but the abstract has an information about how Ghanaian demonstrate interesting in a discreet way. They scratched the palm of the potential partner with their right index finger. So, Astra fic writers, that's for you!

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Breach - Swedish

Being honest, this is one of my favorites to speak. I don't remember if Breach has Swedish voice lines, but here we are.

The writing is from this site and from this other site. This last site has some hot expressions that make me want to do a part 2 of this post with +18 phrases. For pronunciation, this video and this other video.

I love you = Jag älskar dig (yah-g el-scar d-eh)

I'm crazy about you = Jag är galen i dig (yah-g er galen i d-en)

I miss you = Jag saknar dig (yah-g sak-nar d-eh)

I want you = Jag vill ha dig (yah-g vill ha d-eh)

Sweetheart = Hjärtanskär (means literally heart's love)

(A)Kiss = puss (peck) and kyss (with tongue)

(I just thought it is cool that Swedish have a word for kissing with tongue. This would be useful in other languages)

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Cypher - Moroccan Arabic (Darija) and Arabic

In Morocco, the official languages are Arabic and Tamazight. Most of people speak Darija, the Moroccan Arabic. It is a multilanguage culture. So, if you don't want to risk with Arabic when dealing with Cypher, you can use English, French or Spanish. I'm pretty sure he knows all of them. Just a feeling.

(The Darija language is different from Classic or Modern Arabic, and other Arabic speakers may find it difficult to understand. It variable depend which side of Morocco it is spoken; The North region isn't alike the rest of the country. I made the option of putting Classic Arabic and Darija here)

Darija (Almost everything from this video and this site, but i get some help for other videos too. This one and This one)

I love you = كنبغيك ( I don't have any idea how these sounds works. I didn't even pass of the basics of Arabic Duolingo. The girl on the video put the transliteration like "Kanbghik", but i heard something like "Kanbahik". Sorry friends, i know i'm a disappointment ;-; )

Also, is important to remember that the Arabic writing system works to the right from the left. Watch out if you are using this on fics.

I miss you = توحشتك (Twahhachtk)

(If you want to use a "so much" in these phrases, just add a بزاف (bzaf) at the end. So it would be كنبغيك بزاف (Kanbahik bzaf) and بزاف توحشتك (Twahhachtk bzaf) (For some reason, this one is writing in the wrong order. Thx Tumblr, always being so helpful.)

I adore you = كنعشقك (Kanachk)

I'm crazy about you = كنحماك عليك (Kanhamak elik)

I'm dying for you = كنموت عليك (Kanmot elik) (So dramatic, so Cypher, i loved this one)

My beauty (specifically men to women) = Zyonat dyali (Sorry i didn't found the words she uses on the video on internet ;-;)

Arabic

So, Arabic has REALLY a lot of dialects. I saw a video with the Palestinian dialect and i get like "ummm, should i use it?". End up it helped me with the site that i found.

I love you = أحبك (Uhibbuk)

I miss you = وحشتني (Wahashtini)

My love = حبيبي (Habeebi) (if the person who you are talking is a man) حبيبتي (Habeebti) (for female)

One of the things that the lady of the video said is that in Arabic you can call persons by body parts as a accomplishment. So, i put here the most relevant one when is about Cypher.

My eyes = عيوني (Enyooni)

Cypher has eyes everywhere, is his mark. So his eyes is a big thing for him. Imagine how important someone must be for him calling they as عيون عيوني (Enyoon Enyooni) (Eyes of my eyes) or نورعيوني (Nour enyooni) (Light of my eyes) Wow, really intense!

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Yoru - Japanese

You already noticed that i avoided showing just "i like you" as a sentence. It's a day for being intense okay? But it is almost impossible to explain how to say "i love you" in Japanese without using the three forms. So, for convenience, i will use "i like you", just this time!

This video for a better explanation and this site for love expressions. And a site with a Japanese dictionary.

I like you = 好きです (Suki desu) (in a formal way)

I really like you = 大好きです (Daisuki desu)

I love you = 愛してる (Aishiteru)

So, personally, i think that the three forms are legit love expressions, but in different ways. I will example this with ⭐ Animes ⭐

In Ore Monogatari (My favorite shoujo anime, great for Valentine's day) Takeo constantly says "Sukida!" (The informal way of Sukidesu) when he his talking about his girlfriend, Yamato. The subtitles rarely translate the sentence for "i like her" because it wouldn't make sense considering his feelings for her. It is always "i love her".

In One Piece, when Bellemere was facing certain death against Arlong, she turned to Nami and Nojiko and said with a smile "Daisuki". This scene really hits hard. It's a mother sacrificing herself for her daughters. How could anyone translate "Daisuki" for "i really like you"?

In Naruto Shippuden, when Itachi released the Edo Tensei no Jutsu, he was dying again and chooses to say somethings for Sasuke (the scene that make all the simps cry). They do the forehead touch, and, looking deep at Sasuke's eyes, Itachi says "Ore wa Omau zutto aishiteru". "I will always love you". It's really intense.

So, the moral of the story is that for a Japanese say Aishiteru, they must die first.

I miss you = 寂しい (Sabishii/Samishii) (Literally, i’m lonely) (From this site)

You’re beautiful = きれいです (Kirei desu) (More usual with women)

You’re cute = かわいいです (Kawaii desu) (Just imagine Yoru saying this. Just imagine.)

You’re handsome/cool = かっこいいです (Kakkoii desu) (Ok, he must really likes this one)

If you want to use the informal way, you can suppress the “desu” or maybe change for “da”. And, if you want to say something like “You’re really beautiful/cute/handsome” you can add “本当に” (hontoni) in the beginning of the phrase. It will be something like “本当にきれいだ” (Hontoni kirei da) (“You’re really beautiful”, informal way) (I use this video for accomplishments)

About nicknames, they do exists in Japanese. It’s common to be some inside joke between the persons (Like, Midoriya calling Bakugou as Kacchan). But i never heard anything especially for couples like “sweetheart” or “darling”. Close persons usually call each other by their first name and add a “san” (for both, men and women), “chan” (usually for women) or a “kun” (usually for men).

Fun fact: In Japanese dub, Yoru calls Skye “Flower girl”, as the English dub. In my heart, it would be cooler if he calls her as “花ちゃん” (Hana-chan). Means “Flower” but in a cute way.

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Chamber - French

Reyna - Spanish

Raze - Portuguese

Chamber, Reyna and Raze native languages are from Romance (ooooown) Language Family. So they are similar at some point, especially Portuguese and Spanish. This means i feel a little bit more confidence for talking about these three. Happily, i also have a friend who speaks French and my dad knows Spanish well, so it´s a all win!

(Yes, i made an Excel Chart just for this)

Now, time for curiosities!

Chamber

I heard once that Je t'adore is like Aishiteru, while Je t'aime is Daisuki. What a misunderstood...

But you can use too. Is also a way of express feelings.

However, you know what's really intense in French? The way of saying I miss you.

"Tu me manques" have a closest translation for something like "you are missing from me". Is a way of saying that you're a part of me.

So adorable!

Also, yes, i know that the writing of "Mon coeur" is wrong. The correct is "Mon cœur"

Also² I just googled how is "My Beauty" in French and gave to my friend correct everything. She said that she learned that for women, in French, we use "Jolie" and for men is "Beau". She explained to me that "Ma beauté" would be closer translated as "My own Beauty". This fits so much with Chamber, who definitely is married to himself, that i just let this way for the meme.

Reyna

The words between parenthesis, in Spanish and Portuguese, aren't very common to use in normal phrases, but they are correct if you want to add. "Yo" and "Eu" means "I" and "Mi" and "Meu" means "My".

If you want to add the too much in the phrases, you put at the end "mucho" for Spanish and "muito" for Portuguese. Ex.: "Te quiero mucho" and "Te amo muito"

"Te amo" as "I love you" do exist in Spanish. But, for expressing casually "I love you" (such as saying bye to beloved ones or just to saying) we use "Te quiero" or "Te necesito" (Just like the Shakira's song)

You probably know the nicknames that Reyna uses, like "corazón" or "cariño". They are common ways of treating especial persons in a cute way.

Buuuut, they can be very mocking too, depending of the context and the tone.

Also, "Cariño" exists in Portuguese as "Carinho". Is hard to translate the whole concept of these words. We can say is a physical and emotional expression to show affection.

Oh yeah, " Mi linda" is for women, "Mi bonito" is for men. You can also use "Hermosa"(women) or "Hermoso"(men) for accomplishment someone.

Ex.: Tu és muy hermosa/hermoso/linda/bonito (You're very beautiful)

Raze

Ok, i must admit, French sounds smooth and romantic. Spanish is kinda hot (Really, take one day for hearing Yoru's voice lines in Espanõl Latino, he sounds like he is flirting with everyone, even the spike. It is delicious to hear)

And Portuguese is the cousin that left.

Don't get me wrong, i love my native language. But, hell, why we are so complicated?

Let me explain.

We use "Te amo" in a common way. We are so used to say this that is pretty much "ok" in any situation. There are people who doesn't say much, but, in the moment they feel comfortable, is normal to say to significant others.

This means the unusual thing is not saying "Te amo". If your partner doesn't say it, even your both love language isn't words of affirmation, something will be missing.

"Te adoro" is more common between friends, family or frenemies. It all depends of the context.

"Te quero" can be a romantic expression, but in a specific context. If you say this out of the blue, will sound kind of sexual.

"Preciso de você" also can be romantic. However, is more used to hear this from our mothers asking to do something for hers. Again, depends of the context.

"Eu necessito de você" do exist, like a similar expression with Spanish. But, if you say it, will sound a little bit needy.

I think that for all this need of context in the Portuguese language that we use big speeches and texts (famous textão) for express our love and care.

Nicknames in Brazil are very common too and so creative. We mixed words, languages and inside jokes for making an unique way of call our beloved ones. So, if you want to write some fic were Raze uses nicknames, use your imagination and it will be beautiful.

Raze must use so much the word "Xodó". It is a affectional way of express that you really like something.

Also, i feel a little bit sad 'cause her voice actress in English isn't Brazilian. She lost her true accent. And, believe in me when i say that Raze saying "Linda" in her Baiana's accent is one of the most pleasing things to hear.

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Killjoy - Germany

Raze's girlfriend COF COF COF

Anyway, i search the phrases on this site. For pronunciation i used this video and this other video (It is very funny)

I love you = Ich liebe dich

When you fell really confortable with someone (don't have exactly translation) = Ich fühle mich wohl bei dir

I'm happy that you exists = Ich bin froh, dass es dich gibt

You are God to me (pretty much intense than I adore you) = Ich vergöttere dich

You are pretty = Du bist hübsch

I miss you = Ich vermisse dich

You give meaning to my life = Du gibst meinem leben einen sinn

Sweetheart = Schatz (Literally treasure)

And some things for Nanobomb, my beloved S2

Opposites attract = Gegensätze ziehen sich an

Girlfriend or female Friend = Freundin (That thing that Riot intentionally add just for confusing us)

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Sova - Russian

Especial thanks to Duolingo for my basic cyrillic acknowledgment.

I used this site and this site for copying the cyrillic letters (Duolingo didn't teach me everything yet) and this video for pronunciation.

I love you = Я тебя люблю (Ya tyebya lyublyu)

You can suppress the Я and change the order if you want, like Я люблю тебя. And have many variables for this phrase. Russian is cool!

Also, i tried to find in the official Russian dub if Sova really says "I love you all" but i didn't find. So maybe it's a urban legend, maybe i just didn't find. Russian speakers, i let this one for you.

I adore you = Я тебя обожаю (Ya tyebya obozhayu)

You’re better than anyone else in the world = Ты - лучше всех на свете (ty - lutshe vsyeh na svyete)

Little Bunny (what? He is THE HUNTER but still likes animals) = Зайчик (Zaychik) for men and Зайка (Zayka) for women.

My soul = Душа моя (Dooshah maya) (This one is more common in classic literature. As i have my Headcanon that Sova likes these things, it's fits well)

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Phoenix - Scottish Gaelic

Okay, you may already noticed that i didn’t add Viper, Brimstone and Skye. Well, i think i told you many ways of express love in their languages. Like, English, you know. Phoenix would be the same thing, just speaking everything with a British accent. However, I saw a headcannon where Phoenix is part Scottish. (Person who made this Headcanon, you’re awesome!) And i get like “Why not?”

Also, Scottish Gaelic is a language near of death. So, let’s try to save a part of a language today! I used this site with pronunciation guide and this other site for more words (with a cool music for bonus).

(I Had to hold myself for not add Irish Gaelic too giving a excuse like "hey, what if Skye is part Irish?")

I love you = Tha gaol agam ort (Ha g-iil ack-am orsht)

I miss you = Tha mi gad ionndrainn (HA mee gahd EEN in drin)

My love = Mo ghraidh (Mo ghry) or in a more intense way Mo ghaol (Mo gh-ill)

My Sweetheart = Mo leannan (Mo len-ann)

You are beautiful = Tha thu bòidheach (Ha oo boy-och)

And a little gaelic proverb just for get into the mood from this site.

Thig crìoch air an t-saoghal, ach mairidh gaol is ceòl.

Which means (in a poetic way): The world will end, but love and music will endure.

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Jett - Korean

She is American Korean? Shanon (Her voice actress) says yes. She just speaks Korean in cinematics? Yes. I’m still putting Korean here? Yes!

I used this video for pronunciation. And this site and this other site for more expressions.

I love you = 사랑해요 (saranghaeyo)

As in the Japanese case, saying this is a big thing. If you ever saw any Dorama, you must know how hard it is for the couple to say this to each other. By the way, there is one phrase used for saying “I love you” at the Japanese video which is kind of different. “月が綺麗ですね” (Tsuki ga kirei desu ne) (Literally “the moon is beautiful”). I first saw this phrase in a Dorama, “Romance is a Bonus book” (Not so good for Valentine's day at the first episodes). This was the moment where the female protagonist “noticed” that Lee Jong-suk (The main reason why i saw that) loved her. I won’t give any spoilers but i got very angry at this scene.

I miss you = 보고 싶어 (bogo sipeo)

I’m crazy about you = 너에게 반했어 (neoege banhaesseo)

You’re handsome = 잘 생겼어요 (jal saenggyeosseoyo)

You’re pretty = 예뻐요 (yeppeoyo)

(I’m not as familiar with Korean as i am with Japanese, so i can’t say for sure if Jett calls Phoenix as “pretty boy” in Korean dub. I KNOW I AM A DISAPPOINTMENT OKAY??)

Baby = 자기 (Jagi)

Honey = 여보 (yeobo)

Kiss = 뽀뽀 (ppoppo) (quick peck) and 키스 (kiseu) (not sure if the tongue is involved in this case)

A hundred hearts would be too few to carry all my love for you = 백 개의 심장도 너를 향한 내 모든 사랑을 담기에는 너무 모자랄거야 (baek gaeui simjangdo neoreul hyanghan nae modeun sarangeul damgieneun neomu mojaralgeoya.)

(You may have noticed that i love a little drama right?)

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Neon - Tagalog

The Philippines also has tons of dialects. I will just put Tagalog because that’s what Valorant Brazil told me that was cannon.

I'm sure this video will warm your heart. This site for more phrases, this video for pronunciation and this other video because it's funny.

I love you = Mahal Kita

I love you very much = Mahal na mahal kita

I adore you = Sinasamaba kita/ hinahangaan kita

I miss you = Miss na Kita (From this site)

I’m not complete without you = Kulang ako kung wala ka

You’re amazing = Ang galíng mo (She says this to her mother… I MEAN SAGE!)

You’re beautiful = Maganda ka

Baby = Beh (From this site)

In the funny video, it is explained that the traditional Filipino Cortege is “Harana”, a serenade. Maybe this won’t happen for real, but i can stop thinking about Neon singing “ENTERTAIN ME GIRL” at Jett’s door in the middle of the night with the help of Raze, Phoenix and Breach. And Sage screaming with her because “NEON! IT’S 3AM! GO TO BED!”

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Sage - Chinese

I made the option of putting Chinese for Sage because is kinda of a sure that she speaks it. But China have tons of languages (+100 according to Ethnologue ). It would be very cool if she speaks another dialect, like Astra.

The video for this one is on Portuguese so... Extra points for me.

I love you = 我爱你 (wǒ ài nǐ)

The expression exists but it is so rare to hear in any case that it really must be a western fanfic for Sage saying it to anyone.

I miss you = 我想你 (Wǒ xiǎng nǐ) (This one is from this video)

Baby, precious = 宝贝 (bǎo bèi)

No, but this one is freaking amazing since i already know that bǎo bun is that food from Kung Fu Panda. And when i learned this, that short animation from Pixar, Bao made the whole sense. Totally mind blowing.

Context is so important

I love you = 520 (wu èr líng)

This one is amazing smart. In Chinese, the pronunciation of 520 is similar to 我爱你, so they use this in texts for express love in a discreet way. Also, March 20 is one of the "Valentine's Day" on China.

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Kay/O and Omen - ???

We don't know where these two are from, so i feel totally free to use my fanfic writer imagination.

Kay/O is a robot, so in his programming he must have a binary code. Then, he can express himself with zeros and ones. So, he use this:

00101000 01111000 10110010 00101011 01111001 10110010 00101101 00110001 00101001 10110011 00111101 01111000 10110010 01111001 10110011

If you decode this binary code, you will have this equation:

(x²+y²-1)³=x²y³

And, if you solve this equation in a graph, you will have this form:

From this video

And for Omen, why not morse code?

I LV U = .. ._.. ..._ .._

Yeah yeah, aggressively nerdy.

So, i showed this to my friend (whose speaks French btw) and she was like "Ahw... This is cute but... Why they just don't buy flowers?"

And i get like "... Damn you smart girl"

As you can see, she is the smart one between us, i'm the one who spend unnecessarily energy.

But, anyway, the point is, exists tons of ways to express love beyond words. Celebrate today with smiles, hugs, kisses, gifts, listening or doing something for someone you love. Don't matter how, just show love at your own way! It is good to receive and even better to give.

That's all.

See ya! s2

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capsized-heart · 4 years

Text

l’ incendie

Pairing: Hal x Reader

Summary: You grew up as witness to the atrocities committed under the British crown. Lord Grey is your father and newly pledged councilman of the royal court. Now, England has a new boy king, one who is set on keeping peace in Europe. You are determined to see England burn, even if it means corrupting the lionhearted boy of Eastcheap.

Word count: 10k+

Warnings: explicit smut, strong violence, sacrilegious imagery a blowjob in a chapel lmao

A/N: l’ incendie ; French translation for fire

..so..I watched The King back in November and have had this idea in my brain for the past 2 months now?? It literally consumed me. All throughout my last few weeks of classes and final papers, this is honestly all I could think about, like I’ve been bumping the soundtrack and rewatching the film to plan this, I looked at Lord Grey’s true lineage (he aint Scottish btw I made that up..but he really was related to King Edward lol).......I’ve just had to get this out of me for so. long. and I’m so happy that I finally have! It feels like this huge weight is gone, but I’ve enjoyed this creative process so much, like it’s so exciting when you hyper-fixate find a new piece of media that you enjoy so much that you dive completely and utterly into everything about it that you can get your hands on, and this is my piece for this!

And my boy Timmy?? Had no fucking clue who this guy was before I saw the film, now I’m writing fics about him a;sdkfjskj but you’re here reading this so. we’re both guilty.

I love story arcs like this where you see a character’s slow descent into corruption and having it revealed that someone was talking in their ear the whole time....i eat that shit right up. Reader’s character is heavily inspired by Lady Macbeth. Using wiles, using sex, etc. Ooh baby. I had fun with this.

gif credit to @michonnegrimes

Scotland was once your true home. Moors, lochs, rugged mountains, biting cold, all. You remember the endless mist and gloom, the wet winters of your childhood that made the creaking wood of your cottage whistle and moan. Summers were warm and mild and the highlands bursting with rich green and sunlight, running through fragrant fields of heathers, bluebells, myrtle with your skirts damp with dew, shrieking and choking on laughter as your older brother, Callum, chased you all throughout your little village of Kirkcaldy. Laughing himself, grabbing at you and wrestling you down into the mud, blossoms, and river water.

“Yield! Yield to the English crown or perish, wretched witch!” Callum would boom in mock play, tickling your sides until you’re gasping for air and tears stung your eyes.

“Aye! I yield!”

“What? You mad girl! Take it back! We are Scots!”

And then Callum would descend on you with all the wrath of England and you’d be howling with giggles and screams.

Returning home at nightfall smelling of wind and rain with vibrant wildflowers tangled in your hair and dirt streaking the skin of your cheeks, still plump with baby fat. Scarce food, but stomach full of adventure and blissful naivete. You were happy.

Your father would scold you promptly before his voice would soften a touch, smoothing back your hair from your face. Round, curious eyes and missing teeth. A feral, untamed child.

Daughter of Lord Thomas Grey. His precious girl. So much of your mother in you, the same fight, the same spark and love for life. Until you had ripped her body from the inside out and she had lost too much blood, the wet nurses unable to stop the bleeding and she had given her last breath cradling you lovingly against her naked chest.

You had killed your own mother.

In your early years, Callum and your father gave you nothing but warmth and protection, the sole surviving daughter of Grey lineage. But a child can only be sheltered for so long. Your world is a man’s world. Your country is no stranger to bloodshed.

The Anglo-Scottish Wars have endured for as long as you can remember, rebel leaders beaten down by English captains and more Christian blood staining the lush lowlands with every day. Robert the Bruce. Percy Hotspur. Blood all the same.

You are bleak, wild, uncivilized in the eyes of the English.

It’s all your people have ever known. Weary, resilient Scotland.

You have no memory of your mother, your earliest memory being the image of William Wallace’s torso strung up in the village square and the ensuing riots that had truly put the fear of God in you, mounted soldiers and civilians clashing in a fury of slick, gory steel, longswords and blacksmith daggers, a fear so raw and primal it struck you frozen and you’d soiled yourself in the midst of chaos. Callum had grabbed you and raced the four miles home as you bellowed atop his back with great, ugly heaves, snot and tears dribbling down your chin.

You didn’t need to understand the politics of rebellion or Wallace’s stake in it all to understand a massacre.

You have no memory of your mother, only murder in the name of the English king.

But you’ve learned to nurture that little glowing kernel of survival, of the fighting spirit and grit inside you that had evidently cost your mother her life. You’ve kindled it, watched it ignite with every passing year of war, your body flourishing into the figure of a young woman with embers in her soul. A stable simmering of flushed coals beneath your skin, glistening in the pools of your irises, ready to flare up and burn all you touch should you choose to.

You feel it now as a jostling carriage takes you to Northumberland, England. You sit quietly, watching the hills of Scotland tremble by, eyes hungrily drinking up as much of its strong landscape as you can.

Your father and brother have already gone ahead to England to make arrangements for Callum’s recent engagement to Isabel, Countess of Essex and only daughter of the Earl of Cambridge. You are reuniting after a lonely week, perhaps your last, to ever see your homeland.

Callum’s betrothal didn’t come as much of a surprise, rather, you’ve been counting down the days until your village lifestyle was doomed for inevitable change; for years, your father has been preparing the two of you for noble life outside of Scotland. Son and daughter subjected to the arts of chivalry, proper etiquette, gentility. The best that your little village could accommodate.

Your father and his maternal ancestry have interestingly long influenced the English courts, as his title of Lord would suggest. Through his grandmother’s side, you are distant descendants of Margaret, Duchess of Norfolk.

King Edward himself. Now cold and buried in London’s Westminster Abbey.

The coals jump, flames twisting at the idea of relatives long dead sitting idly on the opportunity and resources for a coup d'etat, instead choosing to line their own pockets and watch your country crumble from the comfort of their English estates.

The carnage and murder of monarchy feel that much more personal to you.

With your brother’s new marriage, Callum will acquire lordship and be gifted property in Essex. Your father will be secured a seat in the king’s council. You will be given rooms and hospitality in the castle as a noblewoman available for marriage. As Lady Grey.

A lick of fire coils up your throat.

God save the king.

The switch cracks so hard against the skin of your knuckles that your lip draws blood when you bite back a scream. Pain diffuses up your arm in fractured, ringing jolts and your eyes flood with hot tears. You hazard a look at where an angry welt has already started to flush, red and pulsing on the back of your hand.

“Again.” Says Miss Hunt.

Your gaze falls to the open manuscript in front of you, to the passage that you’ve rehearsed aloud for the past two hours. Your tongue works nervously in your mouth, swallowing. Sweat glistens your brow. You think you may even be trembling.

You draw in a quick breath and begin again:

“Time and tide wait for no man.

The life so short, the crafts so long to learn.

People can die of mere imagination.

And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche-”

Another crack and this time you can’t restrain the cry that leaves you. You blink back the heat blurring your vision, set your jaw when Miss Hunt clasps her hands coldly behind her back and looks down at you over her hooked nose.

“Your voiced consonants are absolutely horrid, girl. Don’t close up your mouth. If you are to perfect the King’s English, you are to completely forget that savage dialect before I cut out your tongue. Am I understood?”

Miss Hunt gives you a smart swat to your cheek.

You nod quickly.

Another stinging swat.

“Am I understood?”

“Yes, Miss Hunt.”

Satisfied, she turns on her heel, granting you a few precious moments of quiet, of rest. Afternoon light filters into the chamber in dusty, silvered shafts, hueing the book’s pages in a drab of diluted grey. The inked words of Chaucer bleed back up at you as you settle your breathing.

This English sits like gravel in your mouth, low and rough and choking up your throat. Sharply iambic, as if everyone is talking down to the other.

England’s English sounds slow and stupid.

You wonder if Callum had this much trouble mastering the accent. You wonder if Callum, as a Lord, has ever been slashed with a switch.

Since your arrival to England and for the better part of a year, Miss Hunt has dissected every syllable of your speech through bodily punishment and repetition, ripped out any trace of Gaelic, any remaining trace of Scotland on your tongue and sutured it back together with mouthfuls of Chaucer and pompous, exaggerated vowels.

But pain, degradation, and humiliation are wonderful motivators. And to your horror, it has worked.

Your father recently introduced you to a few councilmen out of courtesy and as the sister of the soon to be Lord Grey of Essex. You politely discussed politics, entertained banter and jests of marriage proposals. None questioned your status as an English noblewoman.

Masquerading with voice and poise.

But that hasn’t stopped your secret, unseen resistance.

Miss Hunt may have taken your language and cadence, but her practices have only shown you the true powers of speech, knowledge, shown you just how intimidated and afraid all of England is of the bold north, of any European empire threatening its legitimacy.

A cowering dog with raised hackles and snapping teeth, but only so out of mad fear.

The harder Miss Hunt pushes, the deeper you dig into your own studies. By day, you are her sole pupil. By night, by candlelight, you are the pupil of Cicero, studying rhetoric and the power of spoken influence. You’ve also begun to study French as a means to bolster your wiles and mental arsenal.

You are already a so-called savage by blood. Learning the language of England’s arch rival will do nothing to hurt your reputation.

You feel a bead of sweat slide down the base of your spine as the switch swishes impatiently in Miss Hunt’s clutches. Oral recitation and the simultaneous reduction of your accent demands every ounce of your concentration. You know already that if you are hit again, the skin will break and you’ll only be reprimanded harder. Miss Hunt is sadistic and cold with her beady eyes and that ugly high starched collar.

“Again.” Her voice clips evenly.

So, you inhale a strong, supportive breath and begin again, pushing down the smolder in your chest.

The day of the wedding is cloudless and full of sunshine, a rarity for England. Callum has been bustling about the chapel’s back rooms in nervous energy all morning, fixing his hair and dress shirt over and over. You send your father to go and calm him down as you tend to Isabel, shooing him away quickly so your father’s mirrored jitters won’t affect her before the start of the ceremony. She gives you a small smile of thanks.

Isabel looks beautiful sitting in front of the mirror as her maids finish arranging her hair. Back straight as a board, plump lips and cheeks the color of a rosy, coral pink. You help to pull the veil over her face and the thin fabric does nothing to mute her radiance.

You see the flickering range of emotions in her eyes as she sees her own reflection. The life that all women are fated to live. Her last moments of true freedom, uncertainty for the future, and that small, significant trickle of vanity at having a perfect day of her own.

You see it all. After all, you are a woman.

She relaxes a bit when you lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her gaze finds yours in the mirror.

“You and I will soon be sisters,” she laughs softly. You give her a pleasant smile.

“I would want nothing more.”

Her throat works as she swallows tears, gives you another radiant laugh. “Someday, you will be sitting here, too.”

The truth of her words causes your smile to weaken, but you quickly hide it by busying yourself with her skirts and lace. Your world is a man’s world, even outside of war-torn Scotland. One man’s world, to be exact.

King Henry IV.

“And I expect you, my dear Isabel, to be at my side when that day comes.” You say to her. She nods kindly.

Your brother and Isabel are married a few hours later beneath the rainbowed, iridescent wash of stained glass and chiming church bells. And as the newly wed couple beam at you and their close company of friends and family, as you see Callum hold his wife proudly on his arm, you think that the bride and groom may truly love each other despite their arranged marriage. The possibility of such a happiness makes you grin wide and the familiar coals to simmer down ever so slightly.

The reception then moves to the chapel’s outdoor gardens. Ornately trimmed hedges, chirping birdsong, bubbling marble fountains, and the sweet fragrance of daisies and roses perfume the budding spring air.

The sun is warm on your skin, the air brisk and comfortable. You keep your fur lined mantle draped around your shoulders, your embroidered sleeves catching hints of daylight, the jeweled metalwork glittering about your waist. And with your hair twisted with ribbon and pinned back with a light linen caul, even Isabel herself murmurs that you look as refreshing and incandescent as the flowers surrounding you. You smile back teasingly, whisper that no one could possibly compare to the blushing bride.

As sister of the groom, you mingle politely, accepting congratulations and kind regards.

You see familiar faces, lords and fellow council members alike, and some of those not yet well acquainted. You meet Cambridge, Isabel’s father and a bird of a man. Gangly limbs and a flittering that accompanies his quick movements, but cordial and gentle. He tells you the union of your families will be prosperous, benign. You agree.

Then, Cambridge is pulled aside by a young man. Cambridge seems to recognize him instantly and clasps him into an embrace, chuckling heartily.

“Hal! You made it!” he exclaims. The two talk together briefly before the young man turns to you.

He’s tall and lean, broad chested with sloping shoulders. The angular planes of his face are undeniably handsome, a strong nose, full dark lashes and brows that frame his bold complexion. Black, unkempt curls and soft, hooded green eyes that hold an undertone of vigor, like his very gaze has commanded attention his entire life. They flicker over you quickly, as if you’d imagined it yourself, a trick of the light.

You don’t miss the way they linger at the exposed dip of your neckline, however.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” He then asks of Cambridge, his voice a soft murmur and his eyes never leave you.

Cambridge looks quickly between the two of you, as if acknowledging your presence again for the first time since this young man’s interruption. He burns bright red, stammering, then gestures to the stranger beside him.

“Of course. My lady, may I present my cousin, Henry. Prince of Wales.”

The suddenness and sheer absurdity of it all almost makes you burst out in laughter.

Cousin? King Henry IV’s eldest son is the cousin of your father-in-law?

With this marriage, you realize your family is now tied to the most powerful family in all of Britain. Yet, no one in the wedding party seems to have even acknowledged the presence of the boy prince dressed simply in dark cloak and tunic.

And then you remember. Prince Hal is a drunk, a dangerous playboy from Eastcheap. His claim to the throne is as illegitimate as the probable dozens of children from his bedded girls.

And asking for a formal introduction from his cousin? It’s utterly laughable, pathetic even.

Hal’s gaze is unwanted, skin prickling from where his eyes trace the curve of your chest in a way that makes you feel vile.

So, you wet your lips, pretend to wordlessly accept his flirtations and give him a slow flutter of your lashes. The reaction he so craves from you as his chin tilts back in delight, hungry to see more.

“Your reputation precedes you, my lord.” Your words drip with venom. Flowery girl with a serpent’s sharp tongue.

The barb makes Hal’s features tick in surprise, shock before settling back into a cool demeanor.

“Then you’ve heard of me.”

Your mask of amour stays firmly in place.

“It is hard to be deaf against such defamatory gossip.”

Hal hums softly with a hint of a smile, breaking his gaze to look out over the reception, ego obviously bruised. Cambridge goes pale as a sheet.

Isabel suddenly swoops in with the apology of wanting to introduce her father to a newly arrived guest and excuses him, hauling him away by the arm. Cambridge looks relieved to go.

And then it’s just the two of you beneath the halo of rose-tinted light.

“Beautiful ceremony.” He says simply. Hal is incredibly soft spoken for a prince and you find yourself unconsciously leaning in to hear him speak. Part of the intimate charm that makes him so alluring to women, you think. A whispered promise only for you.

“I thank you, sire.”

He takes a step forward. It startles you, enough for him to crowd you against the garden trellis wall. Ivy and lavender press into your back, dancing in the same breeze that peppers goosebumps down your spine. You shiver softly. Hal steps closer.

“I pray this is not the last of today’s festivities?” His words ghost over your throat, tickling the shell of your ear.

“No, sire. There will be a dinner tonight,” you reply just as quietly. You understand the game perfectly because it is the same one you have been playing your whole life. You indulge him, fire sparkling behind your fluttering eyelashes. “Surely your cousin will be expecting your attendance.”

Hal leans over you, hair tickling your face, green eyes glimmering. Up close, you see that freckles and beauty marks dot his skin. “I’m sure he will.”

You think you see him incline his head as though to kiss you. For a moment, you’re frozen, entranced.

You turn your cheek and his lips brush your temple. He hesitates with a low chuckle, keeping his close proximity.

“Then, I will see you tonight, my lord.” You whisper. Your fingers graze his arms as you sidle out of his reach. You can feel his eyes on you as you go and rejoin the other guests.

You leave him burning.

The tavern teems with merriment and the sound of fiddle, fife, and drum. You feast on broiled meats, roasted potatoes, greens, sweet breads and cakes until your stomach is full to bursting.

The glow of candlelight is lush and sensual, throwing shadows over the faces that only hours before you had shared with in prayer and communion in the church of God. Now, every attendant indulges in debauchery.

You’re drunk, blood pounding with mulled wine and spiced ale and cider. Pleasantly warm and head swimming, watching Callum and Isabel and friends and family dance about the room as if possessed, twirling in swirls of colored fabric that make you laugh and clap along in breathless euphoria.

You catch a glance of a figure standing in the doorway. You see the motion of a glass moving to lips, throat working to swallow drink. When the glass falls, you lock eyes with Hal.

You beckon him forth with a crooked finger. He grins wickedly and sets down his cup.

Despite the obvious wine in him, his steps towards you are sure and true and his hands feel good against you when they caress your waist, pull you against him.

You play coy and twist out of his arms. He groans.

He follows you like a dog until you’re in the midst of spinning bodies and then you turn to him. Giving him the permission to finally touch you.

His eyes ignite. He splays a hand on the middle of your back, perfect pressure, authoritative, the other gripping you tight and then you’re both cackling with drunken mischief as he guides the two of you across the creaking wooden floor.

You let him support you, lean against his chest, enjoying the sensation of being held so close. The thrill of feeling wanted.

Even if it is all a charade.

The strings and beat of thumping drums careen to a crescendo that has the entire tavern whooping and hollering in delight. You break apart from Hal to join in as the music flows through your limbs, absolutely enchanted, throwing back your head like that feral child from girlhood.

Hal looks just as wild, the rumored wayward prince. Long, dark locks falling in his eyes, tunic unbuttoned and disheveled. Light and shadow dancing across his face in a manner that makes him look devilish.

He pushes a glittering goblet into your hands, eases his strong fingers around your own to help bring it to your lips. You see the unmistakable red slosh of wine and wordlessly drink. He watches you tip back the goblet, watches rubied jewels of crimson spill down the sides of your mouth and down the skin of your throat.

“That’s it. That’s a good girl.” He cooes.

The flames feel desperately hot, flushing your skin and cheeks, burning bright behind your lips. Or perhaps it's the alcohol? Or the prince’s wandering touch that now seems to be cupping your breast, tongue lapping at the trails of wine…

The heat is suddenly too much and you push away to a secluded corner filled with empty tables to catch your breath. Hal slumps beside you. His head lolls, dipping to press another whisper of a kiss to your jaw and his weight feels comfortable against your side.

You don’t know what comes over you. Perhaps you truly are possessed.

You turn into him and then your hand is reaching between his thighs.

Hal exhales sharply in your ear. You harden your touch, feel him widen his stance to accommodate you. He braces an arm behind the small of your back, supporting himself on the space of the wooden bench as your fingers slip below the waistband of his trousers.

He gives a strangled sigh when you grip him tight and begin to coil your hand. His head lolls once more, nuzzling into the crook of your neck, panting, bursts of hot breath fanning over your throat. You feel your own breath quicken, feel yourself getting excited.

You mesh your other hand into his curls and pull him closer, press your body flush against his. Hal moans, keening, his arm now around your waist. You shush him quietly, tightening the hold in his hair.

To any patron, you look as though you’re only consoling a drunken boy, simply talking in the muted light. The shadows hide you both but the flames shine in your eyes.

“Enjoying the festivities, my lord?” You sigh into his cheek.

“Please don’t stop..” Hal whimpers.

You chuckle through a half-lidded gaze and work him harder. It’s delicious, erotic.

You hold all power, all of England in your delicate grip.

You watch his mouth fall open, dark brows furrowing, feel him tense against you before the eldest son to the crown spills himself onto your fevered palm with a sharp gasp, chest heaving.

“Good boy..” you murmur with a cheshire smile, running your fingers soothingly down the line of his jaw. Hal shudders with aftershocks, eyes closed, forehead glistening with sweat.

Before he can attempt to try and reciprocate the favor, you wipe your hand on his cloak and stand to fetch another drink.

You avoid Hal afterwards and don’t see him again for the remainder of the night. You think he must have gone home with another girl to satisfy himself and it makes you smile knowing you are responsible for laying that trap, for letting him taste pleasure, driving his desperation and taking it all away just as easily.

Your brother and Isabel spend their honeymoon in London before returning to her home in Essex. They write to you, informing of their safe arrival at the new estate and that you will have to come visit in the very near future. It warms your heart. You already miss them terribly.

Soon after, your father is awarded the scarlet, fur-trimmed peerage robes of the House of Lords and with your new rank, you experience the privilege of wealth for the first time.

Rich foods, dresses and flowing silk skirts, cosmetics, more books and manuscripts than you can imagine. You glow with health, beauty, pride, and sharpened wit.

But you have not forgotten your burning flame. Aided by money and status, your little light only grows stronger.

King Henry IV dies of sickness on a warm March morning. It had only been a matter of time, the stubborn man had been calling your father and the other lords to his bedside for the past several months to continue to discuss the politics of his own wars. In his dying breath, Henry IV saw that his empire had fallen to civil strife.

Court and kingdom are called to witness the coronation procession and as you stand with the lords and ladies of the crown inside Westminster Abbey, inside the church containing the tomb of your distant descendant King Edward and the generations of his forefathers, the same Gothic abbey where British monarchs have turned men into rulers and tyrants, you watch the archbishop anoint Prince Henry of Wales with holy oil.

His curls have been trimmed clean, his bare skin and body presented to be blessed with the sign of the cross. All old ritual, old prayer and Latin incantations that have been performed for over a thousand years.

So what is a new boy to wear the crown?

Beneath the arched stone cloisters, baptized in the sunlit streams of stained glass, you watch that same ceremony unfold again with burning heart. And harmonized by the tolling of bells, Hal is dressed in royal robes, regalia, scepter and all, shedding the title of prince as you all pledge homage to your new King of England.

“All hail King Henry.” The archbishop calls out to clergy, God, and country.

“King Henry!”

Neither you nor Hal feel the heat of embarrassment when the court is ushered into the dining chamber and you meet again in candle and firelight. The feast is an intimate setting, shared by the company of Hal’s new council, clergymen, and close family. Your father is seated alongside Cambridge, Chief Justice William Gascoigne, and the archbishop; even his sister, Queen Phillipa of Denmark, is in attendance.

Hal’s appearance and demeanor is surprising to you.

He looks striking, handsome as ever in his new robes and you can sense that familiar aire of charisma and confidence you remember from the wedding as Lord Chamberlain presents gifts from the monarchs of the world. A jeweled vase from King Wenceslas of Bohemia, a trinket of a mechanical bird from the Doge of Venice. Hal is jovial, good humored and merry.

The presence of his cousin and sister seems to comfort him greatly. And rightfully so, considering he now sits on the throne of his dead father. Dead as well is the alter ego of the delinquent prince.

Like a spoilt child opening wrapped packages at Christmas. The privilege of royal blood.

When the final trunk is presented, a gift from the Dauphin, you quite nearly let out a low snicker.

A ball for the boy king.

You see Hal hesitate before picking it up and the silence throughout the chamber is long, uncomfortable. The entire court seems to be holding its breath. Yet, you know there is an aspect of truth to the Dauphin’s gesture.

A boy indeed. You recall Hal’s touch and him gasping into your neck, his muffled begging, how quickly he had finished in your hand…

Then, the cool magnetism returns to his features. He locks eyes with you and you wonder if he is thinking of the same moment. You are both proud challengers, wielders of personal charm.

You wonder how long it will take to break him completely.

There’s a glimmer in his gaze you think to be from the blazing hearth as he tosses the ball once against the chamber’s stone wall, then catches it deftly with youthful poise.

After the coronation dinner, the court is dismissed and you find yourself to be one of the last remaining patrons as guests trickle out into the adjacent hallways and disperse through the rest of the castle. You deliberately hang back, watching your father, Cambridge, Phillipa, and William slip through the doors, slowing your step so that Hal can catch sight of you.

“Lady Grey,” you hear. His voice is galant, hushed with that same temptation of seductive promise. With your back still facing him, you can’t help but smirk.

You feign surprise and turn.

“Yes, my lord?”

Hal beckons to where he stands by the fireside. You gather your skirts and join him in the welcoming nimbus of light and warmth. When you bend to curtesy, his fingers find your chin, tilting your eyes to his own and forcing you to rise to your feet.

“None of that is necessary, my dear,” he whispers. He keeps your face cradled between thumb and forefinger, a delicate pressure, one that makes you feel precious as he holds you close. “Tell me, did you enjoy tonight?”

“Immensely.” You smile. Indeed, you have. The Dauphin might as well have spoken on your own behalf.

Hal hums, pleased. His thumb brushes the corner of your mouth, then eases in between the petals of your pink lips. You purse them ever so slightly and watch his self-control start to simmer. The candles burn low around the two of you, the only source of light emanating from the hearth itself. You are reminded of how the shadows flickered on the planes of his face the night of the wedding. Now, you see the same shadows again, but as king.

“I want you to have something.” He says finally.

He looks reluctant to break his touch from you, but you see his hand disappear within the folds of his robes. He then produces a glittering pendant with a golden chain, a necklace that looks ablaze.

Amber, you realize.

The surprise that crosses your features is genuine. Baltic amber set into teardrop sterling silver and gold, a gift from Rupert of the Palatinate and the kingdom of Germany. An extraordinary piece.

Hal’s hand finds your waist and you turn to offer him your bare neck, pulse pounding. You have no say, no power to even deny this token of affection.

His caresses against your skin as he fastens the chain are soft and featherlike and you can feel his breath on the top of your spine. The pendant is heavy, rich with precious stone and gilded metal, settling between the valley of your breasts. It feels cold, but shines like an inferno.

He lingers, tracing your shoulders when his mouth presses to your ear.

“Turn. Let me look at you properly.”

When you do, the weight of Germany itself, of foreign and fallen kingdoms and countries, conquered and pillaged and burned, simultaneously settles between the tender skin of your sternum.

Hal’s eyes cloud with dark delight when he sees the flaming amber. He takes your chin back in hand, angling your face every which way, studying how the firelight glints off the pendant with a sensual curiosity.

“Beautiful.” He murmurs.

Your body begins to react on its own accord, chest rising and falling with faster breaths, your cheeks blooming.

“I thank you, my lord.”

Still cradling your jaw, he brings himself closer with only a whisper between the two of you. His crimson robes seem to swallow you completely, like the gaping maw of Britain’s lion, a mantle of blood. He speaks into the gap between your mouths, yet you feel every word upon your lips.

“With this gift, I expect to see you more around my court, Lady Grey. Am I understood?”

The tension he commands is unbearable. He watches you carefully, dark eyelashes fluttering. Trapped like a pinned butterfly. Then, you understand he’s waiting for a verbal response.

“Yes, my lord.”

He releases you.

The pendant suddenly feels more like a collar.

You’ve underestimated Hal. He is just as much the player as you.

You keep your promise. You see Hal daily in passing, often dressed in full regal attire as he comes from the council chambers, your father, William, and the rest of his train tailing close behind. The twinkle in his eye when he sees you is discreet, reserved only for you. The amber pendant remains fastened around your neck at all hours of the day, even while you sleep and bathe, like fire and ice between your breasts. A piece of Hal always with you.

The two of you are a queer, twisted pair of sweethearts. You’ve yet to be fully intimate since that wedding night, but the pressure that ripples with every fleeting glance, every grazing touch of lips and skin is enough to prove your attraction for each other. Or rather, the attraction to the game.

You keep Hal on his toes, never fully give in even when he invites you out for evening strolls in the palace gardens and the safety of darkness envelops you both. It is your nightly ritual to walk the grounds together amongst hushed breezes and chirping crickets, you as a means to unwind before bed, and a way for Hal to clear his mind of the day’s tolling demands.

And tolling they are. Despite his bravado, he is easily irritable, tense. You listen when he speaks to you plainly about his frustrations for the court and archbishop, how they all expect from him the same swift retaliation of his father.

You find Hal’s consciousness of this want to break tyranny quite curious. Sons are typical to idolize their fathers and see past faults. It is why you know how cruel kingship has endured in Britain for generations; learned behaviors become expected and change more difficult. You’ve even seen that same behavior in your own brother.

And Hal’s trust in disclosing even this to you is telling. The thread to unravel the boy king.

Tonight, you dare to pull at it, heighten your girlish wiles and offer him a lingering kiss and soft words. You tell him that Christendom is damned and tease that it’s his own fault his council is made up entirely of old, graying men, your father included, when he could have anyone else.

Hal’s spirits seem to lift a little with a ghost of a smile, understanding you perfectly as his arm snakes around your waist. He pulls you into a secluded labyrinth and settles into the stone seat of a fountain, pulls you atop his lap. The kiss he returns is fierce.

Without the burn of alcohol to subdue your senses, every touch is intensified tenfold. Hal feels it too, his breath coming ragged as he breaks the kiss to mouth down the skin of your neck, the dip of your collarbone, your chest. His hands wander beneath your skirts.

“It is only polite that I return the favor..” You hear him say.

Your mind is reeling. You knew this moment would eventually come, yet you feel ill-prepared when his fingers brush your core, his other hand gripping the back of your neck. You gasp, finding his lips in another tangled kiss, straddle him completely.

It’s strange, exhilarating to be on the receiving end of your little game.

If you are to truly break Hal, you are to first make him believe that he holds any sort of power over you, to reverse that dynamic you had set the night of your brother’s wedding.

You are to let him touch you.

And like the flaming sword of Raphael, Hal’s pendant, it is time to finally draw upon your fire.

You hate how good Hal is at this. He knows just where to caress inside you, the right amount of pressure, the weak spots at your throat and just below your ear. Your competitiveness takes over and you push him back against the fountain, start to circle your hips, grind yourself down on his hand and grip at the rich fabric of his tunic to better anchor yourself.

His eyes pool with lust with every sigh from your lips, watching you closely. He rolls his thumb, picks up the tempo of his fingers, relishing the sight of you slowly falling apart on top of him.

But it isn’t enough. You lean in and wrap your arms around his neck. He responds in tandem, gathering you close as you rock against him, the friction of his thighs sending you closer and closer to that threshold of pleasure.

“Please..I need t-to…” you whisper into his neck, into his mouth.

Words of magic. Hal’s expression flares with masculine pride, the delight of pleasing a woman.

The last of the day’s golden hour spills over you both in glowing, peached splendor and with the sound of the fountain’s rushing water as your only witness, you muffle your final moan with a desperate kiss, bliss pulsing behind your eyelids. Hal keeps his fingers where they are, coaxing the last waves of your orgasm out of you, cradling your chin with his other hand as his lips part yours, slipping tongue as you come floating back down to earth.

You’re dazed, flushed, lazily kissing when he removes his fingers. Slick when you suck them into your mouth and taste yourself. The velvet of your tongue makes him shiver.

“Now, what ever are we going to do about your council, my lord?” You murmur once you catch your breath. You gently kiss his fingertips.

Hal only smirks and pulls you to him.

Your plan begins to take motion. With each passing month, you worm your way deeper into Hal’s heart with honeyed words and empty promises. He confides in you more and more as he grows wary of his councilmen, trusting only the pretty face he sees in the privacy of his bedchamber each night. Graced against silk pillows.

You sense the crushing pressure upon him, his own doubts and fears. You slowly leech away his magnetism, his charisma, and take it for yourself. His eyes dim, harden with resolve. Gone is the assurance for peace. Hal instead grows cold, timid, questioning his every move.

You only burn brighter.

There is talk that a French assassin has breached the castle.

You hear the conversation for yourself when your father and William are called down to the dungeons, hear Hal speaking directly to this assassin as you linger at the top of the stone staircase.

“Qui êtes vous?”

“J'ai été envoyé par le roi de France pour vous assassiner.”

Hal’s voice is cool, calm as he pries for details. The assassin’s responses are noticeably vague. You infer it to be out of his own self interest.

Then, nothing. Days go by with no direct action from Hal.

You grind your teeth. War with France would be the perfect fruition of your schemes, the final act in a tragedy deemed to be an epic of British monarchy. War with France would show Europe and the rest of the world the extortion and murder of the English crown; not that these neighboring countries needed such a reminder. But England and her king have been blind for too long.

Previous attempts at quelling war had caused Percy Hotspur to rebel, Prince Thomas of Lancaster to push on and die alone on foreign soil.

Is Hal not trying to prove himself in this same way? Proving he is not like his father? Just as Thomas had wished for his peers to see him as a commander and better equipped to bear the crown despite being the youngest son, is Hal not guilty of this same charge of public approval?

And having the privilege to sit idly atop a throne amidst all this makes your blood boil. Idleness is instability, you’ve learned this years ago.

You will be the one to push Hal to war.

You are sewing one afternoon in an empty chamber when the strained voices of your father, Cambridge, and William reach your ears. Hushed and argumentative, it draws you to your feet, possesses you to lean against the frame of the door and just out of sight.

You hear the disgust in your father’s tone when he speaks of the king. The weakness in forgiving France, the lunacy of Hal’s ascension. It amazes you, grips you tight at hearing such passion and loathing; you’ve never heard your father speak this way about anyone, let alone the head of England’s monarchy. Slander and defamation carry swift punishment.

You learn that he and Cambridge have been approached by French agents. The three men debate quietly as you stand against the door, nearly panting. A coup d'etat? The idea excites you more than it should. But you perish the thought quickly before you can get ahead of yourself.

Why only approach the two of them? Surely to turn England’s people against their ruler, a greater number of conspirators would prove to be more efficient? You know distrust is not uncommon among Hal’s council, so possible traitors would not be hard to find.

This approach means your father and Cambridge have been judged weak in character by the French. Insecure, lacking, most likely to bend at the knee for candied prospects in exchange for loyalty.

And now as you eavesdrop on your own father, you know Lord Grey does not have faith behind his king and is too afraid to do anything with it. You know that if you had not gathered this knowledge for yourself, you would never have been told so, unseen as all women are expected to be.

These French agents and councilmen think they hold all power with their debates and their meetings in private, oblivious to the fact that it is women who move the world. Women like you, wielding their very sex to push these men as pawns.

Are men not born into this world by women? Do men not seek a woman’s tender embrace for love and comfort and to carry on long, unbroken lineages of royal blood?

Your own father, as all his peers, are blind to the influence you bear over Hal. Even Hal himself.

You find yourself in the king’s private quarters one cold night, sitting in front of the hearth and watching the crackling, shimmering flames that warm the room. The soft silence is comforting to you as you sit bathed in orange glow, wrapped in furs and waiting for Hal’s return.

Your mind wanders. You think of the French assassin still held captive in the dungeons beneath your feet, how the man had been granted asylum in exchange for a confession.

“Quel était le l'ordre?”

“Que je devrais tuer le roi d'Angleterre.”

And with the French approaching Cambridge and your father, it is certain, undeniable that tension is thick and stakes high for all of England.

You are standing on the very brink of war, standing flush at the edge of a swallowing cliffside with dragging winds and dark, inky waters swirling beneath you down below. Waiting to embrace you, like the jagged shores of St Kilda, the northern shores of Scotland. Calling you home like a siren’s song.

And Hal only needs one final pull before you both fall together.

The chamber door opens and the king steps inside. His presence is stormy, like a cold wind blowing into the room.

He’s dressed handsomely in a navy tunic and dress shirt, a mantle that drapes over his burdened shoulders. Yet, his hair is mussed and disheveled and you can see the tightness around his eyes. His once youthful glow now gone, but a sharpness to him that you think resembles a pike; diligent, wary, and still capable of hurting you if you’re not careful.

You pretend to quickly wipe away tears before you stand to greet him. Hal sees this and his brows draw together in concern, further contorting his expression into one of pain. He comes to the fireside.

“Good evening, my king,” you say as he takes your hands.

“What upsets you so?” he asks you directly. His voice is strained, sets your pulse aflutter more than it should. You give a small, breathless smile, a shake of your head.

“Nothing of your concern, just innocuous thoughts, my lord. Let us go to bed.”

But you do not move in the direction of the luxurious canopied bed, one you have grown intimately familiar with. You stay exactly where you are and let Hal’s mind race.

His fingers grip your chin and when you meet his eyes, they’re bold and smoldering, the first touch of life in them you’ve seen for sometime. His grasp is strong and a muscle ticks in his jaw.

“Speak freely to me. Please,” he whispers. “Of all people. My dear, speak true.” The last word falls like a plea from his lips. You suppose it is one as he pulls you closer. A boy desperate for truth, constricted and poisoned by a council of vipers.

Unknowingly turning to the girl with the pretty mouth as she pours poison into his ear.

At this, you bite your lips and summon tears that spill forth, pool your vision. You let the familiar sensations take over, the shortness of breath, the depleted posture, and pretty soon you’re trembling, weeping in Hal’s arms.

“This assassin. It frightens me,” you say finally, broken. “If he had fulfilled his order and taken you from me, left me here all alone…oh, Hal. I’m so afraid.”

His thumb circles your cheek, silent. You sense that dangerous cocktail of anger and darkness simmering just beneath his skin. Anger at the world, anger reserved for his dead father.

“France means to have you killed, Hal. Then what of us?”

Us? England?

Tears drip down your neck and onto your rising chest. Where you’ve left the first clasp of your blouse carefully unbuttoned. You press yourself to him ever so slightly, look up through tear-soaked eyelashes and embered iresis.

“Then what of me?” you whisper.

Hal’s lips are crushing against yours. You feel every ounce of his anguish, every bit of tension wound tight in his frame, every doubt, every fear. You feel the restraint as he cradles the back of your neck, his other hand finding your waist as he pushes you flush against him. The dichotomy to feel love, to feel comfort and safety and to relieve and dispel just a hint of the pressure building inside him. The dichotomy to conquer, the urge to channel this animosity in a way he must be familiar, to ravish you completely.

With your bosom rising and falling so sweetly, eyes glittering with tears, looking almost divine with firelight circling the shine of your hair in a golden halo, you watch Hal’s walls collapse. You let him succumb to that mirage of safety and warmth, to ease his conscience. You will both get what you want, eventually.

You break apart to kiss the line of his throat, his pulsepoint, where you know he’s weakest. Hal gasps as you thread your fingers through his curls, bring your lips to his ear in a soft lull.

“May I have you tonight, my king? Completely?”

His response is immediate, yet wordless when he tilts back his head and feels your mouth against his jugular, the hand at your waist tightening.

At last, you lead him to the bed with the intent of christening it.

He pulls you atop him, helps you unthread the bodice of your nightgown. Despite the blazing fire behind you, the air chills your shoulders, your chest as you slowly expose more and more skin, finally letting the thin fabric pool around your waist. The feel of his bare hands cupping your body fuels you, act as your catalyst. Soft, firm.

The amber necklace swings like a golden pendulum when you stoop to kiss him again, his fingers ghosting over the skin of your back. Hal’s desires are plainly stated as you feel him harden against your inner thigh.

There is no time for coy deception tonight. You make quick work of his tunic, leave his trousers and instead unfasten and pull him through, positioning where he wants you most. Hal is already nearly panting.

You arch as he settles inside you, a biting stretch that has both of you sighing when you bury yourself into the crook of his neck. Something long-awaited. You stomach the discomforting pressure and set a rhythm, one that has Hal cursing into your hair.

“You must protect the women of England, my lord,” you whisper. “Who will do so if you are gone?” You punctuate your point with a well-timed swivel of your hips and Hal moans low and guttural. “Your wives and children. Can you protect me?”

Hal’s arms wrap around you, nearly choking on pleasure. “I will. Anything for you. Please...”

Unseen by him, you grin. You can practically hear the crashing ocean waves, to feel the quench of water at long last! You think you could make him do anything in this moment with how enthralled he is in bliss.

You sit back and Hal’s hands glide over the smooth expanse of your stomach, watching his eyes grow dark, the amber pendant swinging between the two of you. The discomfort in your belly is gone and you start to mirror Hal’s pleasure, head falling back, sighs growing louder.

And as the two of you finally fall from the cliffside and towards the waiting waters, Hal gives a soft cry, vision rolling and you feel his heat spill onto your inner thigh. You kiss him until the strength drains from his body, a true succubus as Hal at last descends into sleep, relaxed.

You have the king’s word.

You awaken the next morning to find the bed empty and cold. Surprised, you dress alone and return to your chambers to call for your breakfast. When you send for your father to share his company, the servant returns and tells you Lord Grey is currently engaged and his presence cannot be requested.

“A meeting, you mean?” You ask the servant rather crossly. Why must everyone speak to you in riddles? You obviously did not sleep much the night before and had trouble long after Hal had finished, like a slumbering babe beside you. Typical.

Your mood sours further in that you won’t be able to share this meal with your father. You despise spending mornings in solitude. It seems like it’s been ages since you’ve last seen each other in private, with no councilmen lurking about.

“No, my lady,” the servant stammers slightly, the words stumbling out of his mouth. “Lord Grey is condemned and is forbidden from taking meals before tomorrow morning.”

“What?” You growl at his vagueness. Your anger and irritation rise hot and fast and you’re tempted to hurl the glass cup of strawberries at this blubbering young fool.

“Lord Grey and Cambridge await execution tomorrow morning for treason, by order of the king.”

Your world stops. You send the servant away with a ghost of a whisper.

When the door snaps shut, you laugh mournfully. So the gossip had come to naught. Hal had indeed kept his word. Your stomach turns in nausea. Food is suddenly the last thing on your mind.

You rush to your writing desk, overturning bottles of ink, hands shaking when you retrieve quill and parchment, attempt to pen a desperate letter to Callum with a fevered hand. But before you can draft a single sentence, your blood turns cold.

You have not heard from your brother, from Isabelle in weeks. Have your worst fears already come true?

Glass and fruit explode against the far wall.

You tear out of the room like a bloodied banshee in search of Hal, fingers tinted crimson from cut glass and mashed berries.

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and

cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee

that one of thy members should perish, and not

that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

One of Miss Hunt’s chosen passages from the book of Matthew comes crashing into your mind. You are like Eve, you think. Bearing the burden of Original Sin with lust and curiosity. You have tasted the fruit and have seen the evils of mankind. Never in your wildest dreams could you have imagined your plan backfiring so horribly.

Now, hellfire awaits your father, for you when you draw your final breath your last day on this earth. Suddenly seeming to loom that much closer.

You approach Hal like Samuel’s ghost did to King Saul on the eve of war, the Philistines instead of the French. Interchangeable, cycles of warfare that have dawned for milenia and will continue until the end of time.

He looks terrifying, colder and more severe than you’ve ever seen, outfitted in those horrible blood red robes that one coronation dinner long ago you had once thought he looked becoming.

You know with one wrong word you could be joining the two men to die at first light. Your mind races.

“My lord, to think my own father had been plotting against you sickens me,” you speak slowly. The sentence stings like venom in your mouth, damning your father. Hellfire burns brighter. But it is the only way you can protect yourself. Your grisly appearance, your quick breaths, it is all to sell your story. “May I accompany you tomorrow morning as witness?”

Hal’s lips twist into a hint of a smile, the shadow of his former self. “Of course, my dear. Lord Grey may have failed his fatherly duties as protector, but I will not.”

And so, with your hands wrapped in fresh bandages and stitchings, you stand in a courtyard with wind whipping around you, the only Christian woman among councilmen and knights as you watch your father lay his head upon the chopping block. His hair has been shaved off to ensure the killing blow will be swift and true. Shivering, pale, and damp with sweat, he looks like a ghost. Soon, he will be one. You want him to see you in these final moments, for him to know that you will utterly destroy this king, but you cannot risk the danger.

Like the coronation, Latin prayers are recited, only this time they are prayers for your father and father-in-law to find peace in the afterlife. The last time you, Hal, Cambridge, and your father had shared company like this had been at the wedding. You know now that Callum and Isabel are truly dead. In the blink of an eye, Hal has slaughtered your entire family.

Weary, resilient Scotland.

You do not cry. You must show your loyalty.

“Requiescat in pace.”

Weak, fragile as Lord Grey starts to whimper aloud. No daughter should see their father, their protector through girlhood, like this.

The axe glimmers in the sunlight and is brought down with deadly precision. Your father’s head rolls grotesquely off of his shoulders in a wet gurgle. His body is shoved aside and Cambridge is pushed onto the block next, now slick with fresh blood.

Neither you nor Hal flinch.

You are now fatherless, Hal, kinless when you enter the neighboring chapel alone. You sit in the first pew respectfully, head bowed as Hal crosses himself and kneels before the altar. With his back to you, you study the firm line of his spine, his clasped hands with the beaded rosary held firmly between. Unmoving, statuesque. He prays for a long time.

Thou shalt not kill.

You wonder if God is so forgiving.

The images of angels, of Mary and Joseph and flawless purity are what drive you to march up to Hal and kiss him hard. He hums in surprise, brows furrowed, the pressure behind his mouth mirroring yours when you grip the back of his head.

You want to kill him the same way he had murdered your father. But you settle with digging your fingers into the back of his neck and relishing in the way he hisses against your lips. You fumble blindly with the fastening of his trousers.

“What are you doing?” he growls.

“Shut up.” You bite back.

You’ve never been afraid of Hal before today, you’ve had no reason to be. You’ve been so careful to build the reputation and the facade he sees, using words and sex to push him like the chesspiece you had thought him to be. And he’d pushed right back.

You want to hurt him in the only way you can.

He cries out when you suck him into your mouth with teeth and harsh pressure. You’re anything but gentle, taking him as far as you can so that you’re choking and Hal is grunting and pulling at your hair and the lewd sounds of your lips and tongue echo to the tops of the vaulted ceiling.

You’ve both lost family today. You are both selfish and full of quiet rage. The consequence of Hal’s choice is evident in how hard and wet you mold your mouth around him, how his hand tightens and pushes you farther down, wordlessly ordering you to finish him off in this holy church.

Like Christ Himself with bandaged hands, you twist and work at whatever you cannot fit between your lips. His hips snap forward, tears collecting at the corners of your eyes with burning throat, your scalp stinging from where he yanks back your hair, your linen caul disheveled. Saliva dribbles out of your mouth.

When his moans grow high and desperate, you take him out of your mouth and Hal’s release splatters white on the skin of your cheek, mouth still agape. He slumps forward on his knees, panting, as if still in prayer. The rosary dangles between his fingers.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

The cross looms before you, silhouetted by candlelight. It is too much and you turn away.

If the change in Hal’s nature had not already been felt by all, it is seen in his dress. No longer does he donn the regalia of red cape and sceptre, but dark tunics and jackets that fit snug over the expanse of his chest. No more are the billowing robes, now replaced with tight military clothing and jackboots. A captain preparing for battle.

Hal recruits John Falstaff and countless other marshals for his campaign. It’s truly happening, you think. France will soon feel the wrath of England as your homeland and countless other countries have.

The amber necklace sparkles.

Tomorrow, Hal sets sail across the English Channel. Another crusade to add to the Hundred Years’ War. You wonder if French women are just as lustrous as the rumors suggest.

This is the last night you will be together like this for some time. The thought of Hal with another woman makes you quicken the hand you have around him and he gasps into your chest, spilling onto your thigh like that wedding night centuries ago. You’ve already made love countless times tonight, your bodies fitting together because it is only natural for two corrupt souls to find solace in the other.

Masquerading with voice and poise. A boy from Eastcheap and a Scottish girl.

As Hal shudders against you, kissing your throat and twining his fingers into your hair, he tells you he loves you.

You think you may love him too, in that twisted way of how fire craves oxygen. You need each other to fuel chaos.

You understand better than anyone the burden of a child forced to grow up, the weight of decisions and the toll it takes. Only the strong can endure such hardship, only the strong can triumph and come out on top. It has been so forever, a law as old as the world.

The speed at which Hal is already hard again makes you chuckle darkly. He pins you to the bed, hovering, eyes bearing into you before he enters you just the same.

“You were made to be beneath me,” he rasps, gripping your face with a single hand. His eyes glitter in the low light. The double entendre of his words make you rake your fingernails down his back in angry lines of red. He sucks a bite into the skin of your collarbone.

You know that when Hal returns from France, he will no longer be yours. He will be changed, most likely to marry a foreign princess to ensure peace. You think of Isabel and how she had evidently been the one to put you in this position of status, how a marriage is a man’s means to gain power. A law as old as the world.

Do you want him to be yours? The same way the English crown has raped and pillaged for the thrill of conquering the barbaric? A trophy? A prized kill? Still, the thought makes you bitter.

You say you love him back when he finds the spot below your ear, pushes your legs apart to drive into you that much harder.

There’s a bit of you that prays he will be victorious, that he will return to England and be yours again. But even if your paths do not cross in the future, you know you will see him again where the flames grow hot. Be that in his chambers or down below.

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thebibliosphere · 4 years

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My Heart’s In The Highlands by Amy Hoff (Book Review)

Hey fam, we ready to talk about a Scottish lesbian time traveling romance?

Also, just an upfront disclaimer on this one: I received an ARC (advance review copy) copy of this book from the Publisher and am writing this review voluntarily.

A Quick Summary:

My Heart’s in the Highlands by Amy Hoff is a sapphic time travel romance set in Scotland, starting in the late 1880s. Lady Jane Crichton is a learned woman of science (based on the historic ‘Edinburgh Seven’), who has spent her lifetime railing against the restraints of Scottish Victorian life and the expectations placed upon her. Fortunately for Jane, she finds herself in a marriage of convenience (he’s gay and needed a beard to protect his political career, and she needed the financial freedom and support of a wealthy patron. They’re buds about it.) and with the help of her husband, Jane is able to fund her own research and builds a functioning time machine.

Unfortunately for Jane her time machine malfunctions during one of its voyages, and she finds herself thrown back in time, crash landing into the 13th century. And also into Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill, who is next in line to inherit the great Clan Donald. Which is one hell of a way to find out your a lesbian, but also 10/10 would willingly fall back in time and into the arms of a buff Scottish warrior woman. But Jane also holds a secret. She knows what will become of these lands, and to the people that live on them, and she must choose between her fairy tale romance, or the harsh reality of history that lies ahead. Can her and Ainslie’s love survive? Or will they be torn apart by time?

Review:

Okay, so for some perspective going into this review, I am a Scottish editor, and I have worked extensively in the realms of Scottish Historical Romance. Most of you have probably heard of the term ‘Britpacker,’ so if it helps, think of me as a ‘Scots Sifter’—I catch chunks of inaccuracy and gently nudge the phonetic (mis)spellings toward the realms of the accurate. And as a Scottish person who reads romance for both fun and work, it’s a breath of fresh air to read someone who knows what they are doing in this regard. The historical details many readers crave are there in spades, lovingly rendered through beautiful and flowing prose. The (accurate!!!) use of Scots and Gaelic are also masterfully included in the dialect without feeling contrived, and overall enriches the narrative. Hoff is someone who loves Scottish culture and knows it well, and it shows.

(A note for history foodie buffs: I caught one slip-up in the form of potatoes being mentioned in the 13th century when they didn’t arrive in Scotland until 1739. I am, however, willing to concede that perhaps our heroine Lady Jane is perhaps not the first time traveler to have crash-landed into the Highlands. The others were merely better supplied. EDIT: I’ve been informed this error will be corrected in the next print.) As a heroine, Lady Jane is charmingly out of time and place even before she sets foot in her time machine. A woman in her later thirties (a novelty I’ll never tire of in Romance), she holds many convictions and beliefs, both about history and herself. All of which are proven wrong the moment she is flung back in time and meets the charming (and I cannot stress this enough) incredibly buff warrior woman, Ainslie nic Dòmhnaill. Setting aside my more analytical interests in this text, allow me to just say, I would die for Ainslie; something which I feel secure in saying would not happen, as Ainslie would murder anyone that tried. (And I would hold her golden torque and flower all starry-eyed while she did it.) However, there were one or two things that jumped out at me, both as a reader and an editor. While some scenes are concisely eloquent, there are a areas where pacing (and grammar) fall down, and the book feels like it could use with tightening up with another pass at editing. There was very little build up to the romance itself, which is fine, the instant true love trope is a well-loved trope for a reason. But it felt out of character for Jane, who presents initially as either on the demi or ace spectrum, but then falls immediately, if not in love, then certainly in lust with Ainslie. If this was intentional, I cannot say, but her sudden switch in dynamic is jarring and could have used a little gentler development.

Once the romance begins, it is sweet and enjoyable for the most part, but also again not without issue. There’s a distinct lack of verbal consent which modern readers might find discomfiting, especially in the LGBTQ+ spheres which paved the way for better consent and relationship dynamics in modern romance, and if I were asked to tag this book, I’d likely opt to tag it as “dubious consent” just to cover any potential triggers for people who would be unsettled by that sort of thing. (“Tell me no” being met with silence is not the same as consent. It might have worked 20 years ago in publishing, but it wouldn’t/shouldn’t fly now.) I like the characters dearly. Ainslie is smitten with Jane the moment she sets eyes on her, even if Jane is initially very awkward and prickly. Jane is also taken with her glorious redheaded warrior, and frankly, who could blame her? The book also has several of my favorite romantic tropes in it, including the all-time favorite “There’s Only One Bed”, though I wish more had been made of them. The sex scenes are hot and also sweetly endearing at times, though again I would like to see more explicit consent. Overall, it’s not a bad debut novel into the forays of Romance for a first-time Romance author. It’s enjoyable, but I am left with nagging the feeling that it could have been so much more. To my mind, where this book truly excels is Hoff’s love affair with history and Scotland itself. Their narrative shines in moments of reflection, and the subtle and nuanced injections of historical detail, which in my experience, are rarely done so well in this genre. But this is however a Romance novel, and the time-traveling scientist lesbian and her buff redhead warrior girlfriend felt second fiddle to the history at times, which was disappointing because how often do you get to say those words together? Not enough, in my opinion. Overall, I’d rate this as 3.5 out of 5, though it would have been a solid four were it not for the issues surrounding pacing and consent. If Hoff chose to continue the series, however, I’d absolutely be down for more of it. I want to see the characters grow and thrive. I just think a little more experience with the genre (and better editing) is needed first. My Heart’s In the Highlands is available now on Kindle, Paperback, and most other online retail stores. You can also buy directly from the Publisher.

#my heart's in the highlands #amy hoff #book review #arc copy #links #sapphic romance #lesbian romance #time travel romance #highland romance

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meichenxi · 3 years

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Huhu 😊 20, 29 and 31 please. You always have so much interesting stuff to say :D

Heyyy! Thanks Karo :D

20) Do you live in a region where there is a particular language or dialect? What one(s)? Can you speak it? Would you like to?

I have an INTERESTING family situation and move around a lot, so there’s a couple of different answers to this. My mother’s family is from North Uist and are all speakers of Gaelic. Not Irish, Scottish Gaelic - two related but different languages. I was actively discouraged from learning it as a child (which...I’ve definitely talked about in posts before) but I really, really want to learn it properly now I have more experience learning languages on my own. The difficulty is that the community is very defensive (I mean - understandably so) and so finding someone to speak Gaelic or include you in any way is difficult. I do have family there, but I’ve always been the ‘English’ girl, so they’re in no hurry to change that.

My girlfriend speaks Irish very well, so I’ve actually decided to tackle that before I start on Gaelic, because a) she can help me and we can have conversation practice together, b) projects with friends are fun and free, and c) there are significantly more resources for Irish since it’s on the school curriculum than for Gaelic. I haven’t learnt a Celtic language apart from Old Irish before, so one will help the other a lot.

Otherwise - my family speaks Scots, which I can understand but not speak very well. My father lives in Devon, and in the south of England generally there is, technically speaking, a movement to revive Cornish which could be very fun to get involved with. Cornish is a Celtic language too, but much more similar to Welsh and Breton than Manx, Gaelic or Irish, and definitely not mutually intelligible with the second group. It went extinct a couple of hundred years ago (a typical case - English speaking members of the clergy were shipped out, education was in English etc etc...) but there’s been a fairly impressive revival in circles of interest. I’d really love to learn that just for fun, but it can wait for now. Both Irish and Gaelic are further up the list than that!

29) What do you like learning the most? (vocabulary, grammar, writing skills, oral skills… Whatever you can think of!)

Grammar!! I love learning grammar. Grammar is wonderful. Grammar is the lifeblood of the gods. If I could just read grammars, I would. I can tell you literally everything about Japanese grammar (it’s just SO COOL) but can only say ‘I don’t speak Japanese’ ‘Yes, it’s very cold’ and ‘My name is Melissa and I don’t understand’. Same goes for lots of other languages. It’s by far the most fun part for me. I like learning tables, I like figuring out how head-final languages work. I detest vocab learning; vocabulary should just magically appear in my brain.

31) What frequent mistakes do you make in your language learning? Any bad habits?

I used to be quite a perfectionist, especially when I was learning German. Now I'm much happier to make an idiot of myself, but I still sweat approximately enough to fill a football stadium every time I talk to a language teacher. My biggest mistakes now are definitely not spending enough time learning vocabulary, and trying to ‘jump ahead’ to the interesting parts when I’m not really there yet, not really ready. And then I get discouraged because I can’t understand any of the example sentences because I haven’t learnt basic vocabulary...

In languages that are quite similar to languages I already know, the main problem is that I don’t focus enough of the simple things. I make this mistake every single time. Just because I can understand a program or novel in Dutch doesn’t mean I don’t need to learn about basic plurals!!! It leads to a really irritating situation (which is entirely my own fault) where I get bored with the ‘basics’, except I need to learn them because I can’t form actual sentences without just accidentally speaking German...and I don’t want to take classes because I don’t want to be stuck with like ‘Where is the book? It’s on the table’. Which means I don’t get teaching at all. And therefore stay at a high level of comprehension, but very low level of active ability.

Also, numbers. Related to the above. I HATE learning numbers in every language and often put it off as . I have read a whole book in Dutch but still can’t count to 100.

What about you?

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joannechocolat · 4 years

Text

Child’s Ballads: Anything but Child’s Play

Everyone knows Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Most people could name at least half a dozen of them, although they may not be as familiar with the original versions as they are with the Disney adaptations. Most people know the stories of The Little Mermaid; Hansel and Gretel; The Red Shoes; The Snow Queen; Rapunzel; Snow White; Rumpelstiltskin. These European folk tales form an important part of our literary heritage, and writers and artists have found themselves returning to them again and again. And yet, our own Child Ballads, arguably as rich and important a resource as Grimm, remain largely unknown to the general public, except in the world of folk music, and among academic circles.

That’s one of the reasons I chose to draw inspiration for my three illustrated novellas – A Pocketful of Crows, The Blue Salt Road, and more recently, Orfeia - from Child’s Ballads, rather than choosing a more familiar tale. Child’s Ballads are particular to the British Isles. They speak directly to the history and geography of these islands. They are our Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and we ought to know them better.

So, what are the Child Ballads? They are a collection of 305 traditional ballads, collected and anthologized by a man called Francis Child during the second half of the 19th century. The lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, and they exist now as a record of the folklore, language and dialects of the British Isles over more than five centuries. Some of the ballads deal with familiar themes. Some are versions of Biblical tales; some tell the stories of folk heroes like Robin Hood and King Arthur – although people who have been brought up with the Hollywood versions of these may be in a for a surprise. Some of the ballads are historical, some fantasy; some are darkly humorous, and some are murder ballads – the folk equivalent of true crime. Most date from the 17th century or later, but some date back to the 14th century; and most exist in multiple variants, changed by region, dialect or simply over the passage of time.

Like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the Child Ballads are often very dark. Gruesome murder, monsters both human and inhuman, sexual assault, grief, guilt and betrayal feature heavily. Some of the ballads are long and detailed; others exist only as fragments. But as a body of work, they have a definite character of their own, and although Child’s selection of what to include or not to include is perhaps a little eccentric, they form an important link to our shared past, and our shared dreaming.

These are the histories, not of kings and queens, but of the common folk, passed down through generations, not through writing, but through song. They are songs designed to be sung at work; in the home; in the alehouse. Their humour is rude; their view of the world is both bleak, and strangely hopeful.

What they are not is childish, or fanciful, or trivial. Even at their most surreal, they serve as a means of expressing thoughts too subversive, or taboo, or painful to explore without the use of metaphor. They are the songs of revolt against oppression; of anger at the unfairness of life; of hope for a better future; of love and loss and laughter and grief. They are the soundtrack of our shared humanity, depicting the struggle of ordinary folk; their dreams, and sometimes their nightmares. These nightmares are not so different from ours. Monsters of all kinds abound - murderers, rapists, seducers, abusers – and most of their victims are women and girls, crying out for justice.

In choosing Child’s Ballads as the basis for my three folklore-inspired books, I’ve given those women a story outside of their roles as victims. In A Pocketful of Crows, a betrayed woman takes back her power and agency. In The Blue Salt Road, I’ve flipped the traditional narrative of the selkie woman enslaved by human beings, and made it a story of gender and race, seen through the lens of folklore. And in Orfeia, I’ve taken the Orpheus story (told in Child’s Ballads as King Orfeo) and made it the tale of a woman’s grief, a woman’s emotional journey.

And although I quote the original text, I have deliberately chosen to subvert, rather than remain faithful to the original. Anyone who has read The Gospel of Loki will know that I’m interested in retellings that challenge, rather than confirm, the world of the source material. Stories that cannot change are doomed to die and to be forgotten. The Ballads themselves, with their many variants, show how stories mutate and change to suit different times and surroundings. By adapting our stories, we keep them alive. In this way we learn from the tales of our past. In this way we try to correct the mistakes made by our ancestors. And no, they are not comfortable. And no, they are not escapism. And no, in spite of the misleading name, they are definitely not for children.

#folklore #stories

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scotianostra · 2 years

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James Murray, first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary paased away on July 26th 1915.

A couple of things that I love about this, 1; a Scot was the first editor of the most famous English dictionary, a 2; the picture of Murray, he just looks the part!

He was certainly something of a prodigy as a child, despite his humble background. Born in the Borders village of Denholm, near Hawick, the son of a tailor, he reputedly knew his alphabet by the time he was eighteen months old, and was soon showing a precocious interest in other languages, including—at the age of 7—Chinese.

Thanks to his voracious appetite for reading, and what he called ‘a sort of mania for learning languages’, he was already a remarkably well-educated boy by the time his formal schooling ended, at the age of 14, with a knowledge of French, German, Italian, Latin, and Greek, oh and of course Gaelic, along with a range of other interests, including botany, geology, and archaeology. After a few years teaching in local schools—he was evidently a born teacher, and was made a headmaster at the age of 21—he moved to London, and took work in a bank.

e soon began to attend meetings of the London Philological Society, and threw himself into the study of dialect and pronunciation—an interest he had already developed while still in Scotland—and also of the history of English. In 1870 an opening at Mill Hill School, just outside London, enabled him to return to teaching. He began studying for an external London BA degree, which he finished in 1873, the same year as his first big scholarly publication, a study of Scottish dialects which was widely recognized as a pioneering work in its field and was the first ever sustained history of the Scots tongue.

Only a year later his linguistic research had earned him his first honorary degree, a doctorate from Edinburgh University: quite an achievement for a self-taught man of 37.

In 1876 Murray was approached by the London publishers Macmillans about the possibility of editing a dictionary, he accepted the challenged and it was generally thought the publication would take around ten years to complete and run to 6,400 pages, in four volumes, he undertook the work while still teaching at Mill Hill, although he did enlist help in several assistants.

Five years later- no- he hadn’t finished it, he was a genius but not that much, they published the first volume, A-Ant, to steal the words from a future film, they were going to need a bigger book!�� The team sent out the call for volunteers all across the country. one American man, William Chester Minor, even responded from his prison cell in Broadmoor while serving a life sentence for murder. still suffered from paranoid delusions, some saw his work on the Oxford English Dictionary as a form of therapy. Minor became a regular collaborator with Murray as he sent his notes to the editor every week for 20 years. Every letter Minor signed with the closing, “Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire.

Murray soon had to give up his school teaching, and moved to Oxford in 1885; even then progress was too slow, and eventually three other Editors were appointed, each with responsibility for different parts of the alphabet. Although for more than three-quarters of the time he worked on the OED there were other Editors working alongside him—he eventually died in 1915—and although he had a staff of assistants helping him, it is without question that he was the Editor of the Dictionary.

It was not until 1928 that C. T. Onions and William Craigie finally finished the main text. In terms of the methodology he developed, The Oxford English Dictionary is largely Murray’s creation; as the ‘Historical Introduction’ to the OED states, ‘to Murray belongs the credit for giving it, at the outset, a form which proved to be adequate to the end’.

In his private life Murray married an Ada Agnes Ruthven and they found time to have 11 children together, all of whom reached adulthood, and unusual occurrence back then. Some even helped him in the compilation of the OED. The last pic is great and shows him astride a huge ‘sand-monster’ constructed on the beach during one of the family’s holidays in North Wales.

He was never made a Fellow of an Oxford college, to their shame, and only received an Oxford honorary doctorate the year before his death.

He died of pleurisy on this day 1915 and requested to be buried in Oxford beside the grave of his best friend, James Legge

#Scotland #scottish #lexicographer #philologist #editor #history #oxford english dictionary

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letitiapleiades · 4 years

Text

Glasgow based artist, composer/producer, movement practitioner, performer, activist, DJ and teacher.

Working collaboratively currently, and historically, with Bitter, Radical Bodywork Network, Glasgow Open Dance School (G.O.D.S), Herbal Unity, Letitia Beatriz and Asparagus Piss Raindrop.

EDUCATION

2017 BTEC Sound Production Level 3 Distinction, Academy of Music & Sound, Glasgow

2011 BA First Class Honours Degree, Environmental Art, Glasgow School of Art

2007 BTEC Art Foundation Level 3 Distinction, Manchester Metropolitan University

2004 BA Second Class Honours Degree, Communication Studies w/ Drama & Theatre, Chester University College

UPCOMING:

- Counterflows performance, April 2021

SELECTED PAST:

EXHIBITIONS

- Sonic Seance: The Gathering, Exhibition and events programme - White Fragility reading group, CCA, Glasgow, 2019

PERFORMANCES

- Out on the track my ears on my back, SSW is 40!, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden, 2019

- Sonic Seance, VD/A, Take Me Somewhere, Tramway, Glasgow, 2019

- Phase 2 & 3 of R&R Rat Race at The Witch Hazel School, Lunarnova Campout, Jupiter Artland & Radiophrenia, CCA, 2017.

- Positions of Power, Machine Room, Collective, Edinburgh, 2016

- It’s Called Discharge?, Roller Stop, Glasgow International Festival, 2016

-Solo performance, Tectonics, City Halls, Glasgow 2016

- Trans Poncho in Posse, Tectonics, The Harpa, Reykjavik, 2015

- From the Charmed Circle to The Outer Limits, Google Useless Radio, Subcity, Glasgow, 2016

- Club, Spelling Space, The Pipe Factory, Glasgow, 2014

- Sonidos hacia el fin del patriarcado / Sounds towards the end of the patriarchy, Venimos Del Future / We Come From The Future: broadcasting from after the end of the patriarchy in the year 2114 , Beta Local, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2014

- Posiciones de Poder / Positions of Power, Beta Local, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2014

- On Performance, Never Come Ashore, Glasgow, 2013

- Select and Dispossess, WUK FM, Vienna, 2013

RESIDENCIES

- One month residency, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden, 2019

- Two week choreographic residency, The Work Room, Glasgow, 2016

- One month Infestation residency, Transmission, Glasgow, 2015.

- Two week women’s artists gathering, WE (Not I), Raven Row, Flat Time House & South London Gallery, London, 2015

- Five week residency, Beta Local, Puerto Rico, 2014

- Two week choreographic residency, The Work Room, Glasgow 2014

- One month summer residency, Hospitalfields, Arbroath, 2014

- Select and Dispossess Three month long residency with Cinenova, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, 2013

WORKSHOPS & TEACHING

- Practices to sustain, self-care workshops, various, 2018-2020

- Vocal and movement improvisation workshop, MA, Culture Lab, Newcastle University, 2018

- Rough music workshop with Kim O'Neill & Fritz Welch, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2018

- DJ workshops for people with experience of the immigration system, various locations, 2016-2017

- DJ workshops, Grassroots Glasgow who aim to improve representation across music venues and organisations in Glasgow by supporting Female, POC and LGBTQ+ people in the electronic music scene, The Art School, 2017

- Performance tutor, First Year Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art, 2017

- We Touch Talking The Hum, vocal workshop with Cara Tolmie, The Grounds We Tread, The Pump House Gallery, London, 2016

PUBLICATIONS & TEXTS

- Sink! A poem for embodied reading, commissioned by The Common Guild as a response to Sink / Routine for 24 Women by Janice Kernel, 2018

- Retrospective Asparagus Piss Raindrop scores book, Good Press and Publication Studio, CCA, 2017

- Positions of Power, Flat Time House, London, 2015

- Physical Embodiments of Control, MUSEUMS Press at Grafixx, Antwerp, 2015

- Sometimes the struggle is situated on the dancefloor, 5 outdoor stickers, self published, 2014

- Spelling Space, book initiated by Emily Illet, 2014

- eccys text commissioned by Transmission to accompany The---Family, When we lied on difference, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, 2014

- Letitia Beatriz untitled text and images, SALT feminist journal, 2012

OTHER NOTABLE PROJECTS & ROLES

Glasgow Open Dance School (G.O.D.S)

Co-founder & organiser, with Ashanti Harris and Romany Dear

2011 - ongoing

- Upcoming Exhibition Glasgow International 2020

- Take a Score + Make a Score, Humber Street Gallery, Hull, 2019 & The Hunterian, 2014.

- Consent for young adults movement workshop, Ignite, Glasgow, 2018

- GODS Weekend, Glasgow International Festival, The Yoga Barn, Pollok Park, Glasgow, 2018

- In Praise of the Dancing Body, after Silvia Federici, Workshop, World is Sudden: Summer School, Newcastle, 2018

- Facilitated collective experience, Lunarnova Campout, Jupiter Artland, 2017

- B:reach: a radical black feminist retelling of Woman at the edge of time by Marge Peircy, with Gallery of the Streets, Arika Episode 8: Refuse Powers Grasp, Tramway, Glasgow, 2017

- Two week choreographic residency with G.O.D.S community, The Work Room, Glasgow, 2017

- Your body is a temple, bookable Sunday studio, Resource Room and workshops, Dance International Glasgow (D.I.G), Tramway, Glasgow, 2015

- Resource Room and workshops, Romany Dear, Dancing in a circle is a reminder we are part of a whole, CCA, Glasgow, 2015

- Black History Month Project: Four weeks of workshops and film screenings, CCA and KPC, Glasgow, 2014

- Miss Prissy, Queen of Krump collaboration Arika Episode 6: Make A Way Out Of No Way. Tramway, Glasgow, 2014

- Lecturing, Forum for Critical Inquiry at GSA, 2014

- Six week programme of movement workshops, bookable dance studio and the G.O.D.S Resource Room, Market Gallery, Glasgow, 2014

Radical Bodywork Network

Organiser

2018 - ongoing

- Currently developing a website for online resources and practitioners at the intersection of bodywork and social justice

- Developed a practice with Ubuntu women’s shelter and created a handbook, making practices available to other groups who wish to use bodywork in their organising, Transmission, Glasgow, 2018-2019

- Organised a workshop on consent in bodywork settings, The Work Room, 2018

Letitia Pleiades

DJ, producer, percussionist, vocalist

2013-ongoing

- DJ and live music performances: Glasgow International Festival, Doune Festival, Supernormal Festival, Counterflows Festival

- LIve performance practice with turntablist Mariam Rezaei, 2018 - ongoing

- Sonic Seance: Displays performances with Mele Broomes at Romanti Clash, Jupiter Artland & Beyond, The Work Room 10 year celebration, The Art School, 2018

- DJ for Beats Per Minute Show Down, an immersive audio visual experience, Raw Materials, George Square, The Commonwealth Games, Glasgow, 2018

- Composer, Take the Credits!, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Berwick, 2017

- Solo performance, Tectonics, Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, 2015

- The only ones still there are men and women, Radiophrenia, CCA, Glasgow, 2015

- Guest DJ mixes for Rinse FM, Fuego FM and OH141

OTHER NOTABLE COLLABORATIONS

Bitter

co-organiser, quarterly club night for women, trans and non-binary people The Savings Bank, Glasgow

2019 and ongoing

Letitia Beatriz

collaborative artistic practice of myself and Emilix Beatriz, exploring intersectional struggles of womxns* health and or care

2011-2016

Asparagus Piss Raindrop

performance group

2014-2017

Trio with Liene Rozite and Lucy Duncombe

improvisation group

2013

BANDS

Thoth, multi instrumentalist, several UK tours, inc. Cafe Oto, London

2009 - 2017

Fem Bitch Nation, producer and vocalist, toured U.K, self released several EP’s and calendars and tracks on Huntley & Palmers Clyde Built Compilation

2011 - 2016

Palms, drummer and vocalist, vinyl releases on Watts of Goodwill and Some Songs

2012 - 2015

OTHER

Organiser with Herbal Unity, community herbal medicine group 2016 - 2019

Vocalist Androgynous Egg by Georgina Starr, Frieze Projects, Frieze, Regents Park, London, 2017

Zine photocopy parties and library, No Right Way to Cum, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, 2016

Six weeks studying West African Drum and Dance, Tafi Atome, Ghana, 2016

Dancer for Romany Dear, various works and performances, 2014-2017

Two weeks studying dance at P.A.R.T.S Summer School, Brussels, 2015

Organiser, 3 day DIY music festival, multiple locations, Glasgow, 2014

Judge for Scottish Album of the Year Graduate Award, across Scotland, 2014

Ladyfest Glasgow, organiser, 2014

Movement reading group, fortnightly group, held at home, Glasgow, 2014

Who Takes The Rap? screenings and self publication of booklet in English, French and Arabic with Unity Sisters, various venues, Glasgow and London, 2014

Organiser and member of women’s self defence group, Glasgow, 2014

Dialectic of Sex reading group, Arbroath, Cove Park, Glasgow kitchens, 2014

Design & maintenance of research catalogue for Cinenova: Womenʼs Film & Video Distributor, 2013 - 2015

Women’s and queer health zine library, 2013 - ongoing

Participant in Jean-Luc Guionnet Investigation Project and Propositions for an Inhabited Architecture of Listening, Never Come Ashore, Arika and Glasgow University Music Department, 2012

Glasgow Open School, self organised learning collective, 2010 - 2012

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idriltelcontar · 5 years

Text

11/11/11

Thanks @mousetache for the tag! Loved these questions!

1) What book(s) did you adore when you were younger ?

The Hobbit!! It’s the first book I remember reading/having read to me. Ignited my whole love of fantasy (hence my Hobbit tattoo) and of reading in general. Other books from when I was younger: Harry Potter, Inheritance Cycle, Inkheart and classic children’s fiction like Secret Garden. Also the Enid Blyton books!

2) What are your OC(s) favorite color ?

Efira: Green for nature which she doesn’t see very often. Kellin: Gold like the desert. Danica: Yellow. Tarine: Blue, like the sea.

3) If given the choice, what would your OCs choose as their final meal ?

Efira: Something luxurious. She’s a bit spoiled that way. Danica: Something homemade and wholesome. Kellin: Literally anything and everything. He wants it ALL. Tarine: Something spicy from her home country. Can you tell the food aspect of my worldbuilding is a bit underdeveloped???

4) What line from your favorite book really spoke to you ?

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit.

5) Tell us something really embarrassing your OCs have done ?

Efira is so prideful and stubborn that anything embarrasses her. Her most humiliating moment was when Kellin beat her in a fight and stole her prized blades, leaving her tied to a barn. She got over it really well.

6) What languages do you speak ?

English and Scots day to day (though its debated whether Scots is a language or dialect). I studied German all the way through school but I’m still trying to learn it properly (coz only in the UK can you study a language for 7 years and get straight As and prizes and still end up nowhere near fluent). I’m also learning Spanish, mostly because I’m expected to teach it to kids. We’re kind of learning together. I’ve got the first Harry Potter book in English, Scots and German and I’m planning to buy one in Spanish as well to help me with my languages!

7) Have you traveled outside the country before ?

Assuming other parts of the UK count ... England more times than I can count, sometimes just for the day (I’m like an hour or two over the border), Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland (but just for a day trip with school), France (27 hours on a bus/ferry. Almost died), Malta, Florida, Spain twice when I was little and I’m going again next week.

8) Your main WIP is being turned into a movie ! Cast your OC(s) as the people you’d most like to play them.

I’m terrible at stuff like this! Not got a good memory for actors. The only one I know for sure would be Mena Massoud as Kellin. Saw him in Aladdin recently and just immediately thought he would be perfect!

9) What is your favorite movie ?

Lord of the Rings. Like all three extended editions combined as one. EPIC!

10) Do you have any secret talents ?

I’ve played piano since I was 5. I started sitting exams with the Royal Scottish Academy when I was 9. I’m pretty good I guess, just too lazy to practice! I can do a couple other instruments too.

11) Recommend a book that you think everyone should read.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen! It’s a classic for a reason!

Questions and tags under the cut!

My Questions:

1. Which of your OCs is most like you?

2. What was the last book that you read and enjoyed?

3. How do you create your character’s names?

4. Which song would be your MCs theme song?

5. Have you published anything before, online or in print?

6. Poetry. Yay or Nay?

7. Any siblings?

8. Have you ever written fan fiction?

9. Which animals best represent your MCs?

10. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

11. Which of your MCs would panic most in a crisis?

Tagging: @flve-words, @writingwithhotchocolate, @ardawyn, @stand-inthe-rain, @somedeadmagic if you want!

#tag game #me

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mczreads · 5 years

Text

The Golden Hour

Beatriz Williams

Published July 9, 2019 by William Morrow.

3 stars

I was given an ARC of this book by HarperCollins. This does not affect my review. Any details quoted here may differ from the published copy.

I can see why The Golden Hour is touted as a beach read. The sprawling, languid descriptions of the settings in the novel, specifically The Bahamas and Florida, set the reader’s mind in faraway places and other eras that are particularly appealing for summer. The story follows two women: Lulu, a journalist sent to the Bahamas to write about the governing Duke and Duchess of Windsor during WWII, and Elfriede, a woman sent to convalesce at an clinic in 1900 after developing postpartum depression. Both woman fall in love in their new locales and struggle to define happiness, family, and loyalty for themselves. The story alternates between the two women, revealing connections between their lives. While categorized under historical fiction, this book leans more into romance than history. And that’s fine! Just know that if you picked up the book for the real-life details of the Windsors, an unsolved murder, and espionage, those details are passing backdrops for an ongoing love story. I rated this book a 3 because it has its merits--mostly descriptive language that sings, placing the reader right where the author Williams wants--but the writing struggles with voice and accents, and the story would have been so much stronger if the protagonists could have been involved in more of the action.

Spoilers under the cut.

My ARC of The Golden Hour is over 460 pages long; the book should have delivered much more action, or it could have been edited to half its length if unnecessary filler had been cut.

Most of my frustrations are with the chapters narrated by Lulu. The author does give each protagonist her own voice, but with Lulu she narrates using dialogue filler. Narrative sentences include, “didn’t they?” or “if you know what I mean,” and even, “Now, where was I?” I sense that Williams is attempting to characterize Lulu through her voice, but these additions add nothing to the story or her character. She’s the sole American, and this could have been shown in her dialogue with the British characters she works with in Nassau. On my first trip to London, I created a misunderstanding over the word “bacon” in my first 24 hours. A similar disagreement could establish Lulu’s American identity, or her sass and humor could come across by speaking more bluntly than those around her.

Speaking of dialogue, Williams includes characters of different nationalities in this story. Lulu is American, Elfriede is German, Nassau residents are the British colonists and the hired native Bahamians, and supporting characters are from all over Europe, including Scotland. Guess which group of people speak in broken, phonetic English? If you guessed the Bahamian housekeepers and hired help, you’d be correct, and I hope you didn’t strain your eyes rolling them as hard as I did.

Accents can be tricky to write, and from a writing perspective, there’s a fine line between including details that create a living scene and writing something so jarring that it slows the reader down or takes them out of the story altogether. From a human perspective, authors have to be aware of how they’re characterizing speakers through their accents. And in this story, Williams does not treat all accents equally. The Bahamian dialect is written phonetically, a Scottish brogue is described as hard to understand and then “translated” into perfect English, and the Germans are only distinguished by dialogue tagged, “he said in a German accent.” Elfriede’s accent is mentioned once, in an English lesson from her lover, where it’s written to be adorable. The kicker is that much of Lulu’s story is spent with the Windsors during WWII, and their attitudes toward Hitler (sympathetic but not wanting to advertise it) and the Bahamians (straight up racist) are meant to shock because of course these views are wrong and of course anyone who feels this way is a bad person... yet the writing then creates a dynamic where white American, British, and German characters are written to be easier to understand, and therefore easier to sympathize with. And I’m sure that’s not what Williams intended! It’s aggravating to see an author undermine her own point because she didn’t examine her biases, and I wish a beta reader or editor had pointed this out.

The details I was most excited to read about--the Windsors dealing with the ramifications of David’s abdication, and the murder of Harry Oakes--occur around Lulu, but do not involve her. She’s hired to write about the Windsors, yes, and she yearns to write about the real news instead of a glorified gossip column. But nothing comes of her yearning, as she continues to humanize the Windsors, specifically the notorious Wallis, even as she suspects that they’re involved in illicit dealings. There’s no dramatic reveal or dangerous confrontation. The reader is merely informed that the Windsors were plotting treason. Similarly, the murder of Harry Oakes occurs while Lulu preoccupied with her lover, which would be fine if she were at least involved in the fallout. You’d expect a journalist to cover an infamous murder trial, right? Except Lulu’s just a columnist, so the story skips over the investigation and trial, and the reader learns the outcome through gossip at a party (and again, the Windsors are involved in ways that aren’t entirely legal). The final 30 pages of the book include all the best action, but it’s done by other characters while Lulu waits.

The bones of a killer summer read are all present in The Golden Hour. Williams can compose some solid writing. Take this description of a long train ride: “Margaret lights a cigarette and stares out the window at the passing shadows, black on black, while I settle myself against the corner and listen to the rhythmic clatter, metal on metal.” Doesn’t that echo the same “rhythmic clatter” she describes? Doesn’t the sentence feel like the rocking of a train through the dark? But her skill makes the omission of any significant action almost cruel. This could have been a longer story of intrigue and romance, or it could have been a short story of love, but in the end it only partially delivers.

#The Golden Hour #3 stars #historical fiction #book review #MCZ Reads

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howtotrainyouragents · 5 years

Note

For the headcanons ask: Alya Cesaire, Mako from LoK, Mack from AoS, and then any character that you really want to answer for but haven't been asked, if you please! :)

Yayy, thanks for asking!! Here’s the original ask game if anyone’s curious. Haha, this got SOO long, but I had a lot of time to kill soo:

Alya Cesaire, my sweet child who might be the only one in the bunch with a brain cell:

Headcanon A: realistic:

Absolutely does the dumbest things for the scoop. Nora has every right to be worried because her lil sis is a dumbass,

Her website is so freaking legit (She gets interviewed by legit news sites, like come on!) She has bios, dates, damages, and ongoing information about akuma attacks. She’s building up profiles on Ladybug, Chat Noir, Hawkmoth, and the other superheroes. People are shocked to learn there’s not a whole team behind it but just one very dedicated teenager. She’s going for the Pulitzer Prize.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

So she’s a comic book fan right. She’s as nerdy as they come. She cosplays (thank goodness for a genius designer friend) and goes to all the cons (thank goodness for a rich friend). She buys all the limited editions. She does fundraisers for kids. And anyone who is a jerk or gives her a hard time for being a girl/kid is gonna get punched in the face (Thank goodness for a boyfriends who restrain her and then, upon failing, covers for her ass so that she doesn’t get kicked out or grounded).

She loves movies, she loves running outside and exercising, she loves pastries, she loves doing her nails and posting fun videos!

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

She misses Martinique so much. She loves Paris and her friends there but it’s just not the same. The warm weather, the friendliness, the dialect, her extended family. They moved because of Nora and her dad and mom’s jobs, but ugh whenever she Skypes back home, it hurts so much.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

She and Trixx have a complicated relationship because she’s all about the truth and Trixx is all about the illusions. It takes her a while to get it right and a while to see how clever Trixx is with their words and manipulation. She wanted to ask Ladybug for another miraculous, but learned that she was able to see things in shades of gray rather than black and white because of Trixx and that makes her a smarter journalist

Mako (MAKO, MY BABY!!!)

Headcanon A: realistic:

He’s a little nerd. He always wanted an education and could never get it growing up. So he’s patient, he reads, he studies, he’s a fast learner. Lin Beifong is very proud of him; Tenzin wishes he could switch him and Korra out sometimes.

He’s always going to be the dad friend, always looking out for everyone’s wellbeing (no matter how bad he is at it), always providing and taking care of the others. He carries photos of his friends(+ferret) in his wallet and shows them to everyone whether they asked or not. He’s uptight and falls alseep in movies and makes bad jokes. He’s an Ultimate Dad

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Now that’s he’s a cop, he loves to treat his friends. Getting them into the secure events, joyriding, treating them to dinner.

He and Asami love to race each other. He’s usually super uptight and worried, but when he’s relaxed, he and Asami have so much fun testing out new Satomobiles. Bolin always referees. Korra used to race too but she’s been banned because she uses her Avatar powers to win. So she just gets to joyride when the others are taking a break.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

It took him a long time to get used to his firebending. He had started training with his mother but after their murders he became too terrified to firebend. It was only when he learned that he could be a probender that he began to learn his powers for real

Learning lightning was the hardest and scariest thing he’s ever had to do. He had to have so much peace and patience, and he just wasn’t there yet. Their probender mentor taught him the skills but he was still so full of rage and grief. It was only on one afternoon hanging out with Bolin and Pabu that he realized there was still hope and happiness to look forward to. His parents wouldn’t want him to be stuck like this. Fire was ambition. And his ambition was fueled by his love for his brother. He would do anything for Bolin. He took Bolin outside and for the first time he bent lightning. Bolin and Pabu smothered him in hugs and they got his favorite noodles that night.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Make FireFerrets still a thing. I can’t believe we only got one season of the awesomeness that is probending (and all the complicated implications). I wanted Fire Ferrets to last at least for a few more tournaments and have them winning and them being able to use the money to set the brothers up comfortably and for Korra to be able to live a little more independently.

Mack (who literally deserves the world and I will fight you on this)

Headcanon A: realistic:

Learned his love of mechanics from his father. He continues to work as a mechanic on the side even as director, as relaxation and to remind him of his family

He also is the only one who is actively learning the traditional SHIELD training protocol for becoming a spy, i.e. learning languages and such. He’s slow at the languages (#Turtleman) but he’s much farther along than anyone else.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Hosts massive video game tournaments online and is a legend in the gaming community. Also, and absolutely is a gentlemen online. Harassment? Pedophilia? Foul or sexual talk? Mack is coming after you and he will destroy you. Only good people allowed. Newcomers and minority groups worship him for this because he makes everyone feel safe and included

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

He wishes he really did quit SHIELD and went back to just being a mechanic. Everyone likes to tease him about wanting to quit, but he is genuinely so heartbroken over seeing so many friends die or disappear. He has nightmares about the day SHIELD fell. He stayed because he was capable of doing something to help and it was the right thing to do. But selfishly, he wants peace in his life. He wants happiness and normalcy. He doesn’t want nightmares of losing his friends, his love, his daughter

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

He meets up with Bobbi and Hunter all the time. Facetimes them. Plays betting pools with them. Gets drunk. They’re friends for life and F anyone who gets in the way. Honestly he gets a hoot out of their shenanigans and they need him to keep them sane. Also they love Yoyo; half the time they call Mack its because they want to talk to her.

Simmons! Wow, apparently I had a lot headcanons for her. What a good murder child :)

Headcanon A: realistic:

She doesn’t have a freaking MD, so she’s taken accelerated courses in her spare time in order to be able to pull off surgeries and cleanings and whatnot

She’s the leading expert in Inhuman biology. She’s constantly being consulted but also will sometimes make up crap to get the government off of SHIELD’s back

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

After Daisy, she’s easily the most dangerous of the group. Not because she can fight (because she’s only moderate at fighting), but because she has no mercy. She will leave you for dead on the operating table. She will fire your ass. She will throw a bomb at you and syringe you full of poison. She might even shoot you, and she will sacrifice herself when necessary. Simmons believes she knows what’s right and wrong and she’s learned to take matters into her own hands, everything else be damned.

She and Fitz finally get their cozy apartment with the breakfast nook. Everyone visits for brunch on the weekends (Daisy visits for breakfast everyday) and Fitz cooks while she studies because she’s a morning person and it’s a get-up-at-6-workout-study-breakfast routine. She has a study just for herself that’s just full of biochemistry and Inhuman biology stuff. It’s a cutesy English-Scottish apartment (she and Fitz had many rows about how to decorate, more Scottish or more English, and they finally decided on half and half).

She plans all the movie nights and bakes cookies and family dinner. She has weekly late night talks with Daisy, sitting under the covers of Daisy’s bed. She has frequent date nights with Fitz which ends with lovingly bickering while one’s brushing teeth and the other’s showering for bed. She loves to ramble on about her science to anyone who will listen and Mack loves to listen the most because he just doesn’t like to talk much and it turns out they love the same punk rock music so they just hang out and she gets to talk.

Coulson and May have definitely become her adoptive parents because her family doesn’t know half of the stuff that has happened to her (she could tell them but she doesn’t want them to worry about her.) Coulson gives great hugs and tells her take a break. May gives her a drink and lets her vent. And when Elena and Deke join, she’s does the same for them and passes on the love she received.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Even before she joined Coulson’s team, her family was disappointed in her. Ever since the Academy, they had no idea what she does or what she’s done since. She loves her parents and siblings but she feels so damn distant. She’s like a ghost who only comes for Christmas. Just one of her brothers knows what’s really going on with her and when he first found out, he didn’t speak to her for months.

She’s just been through so much that she’s terrifed of being alone. Going undercover, being stranded on an alien planet, being a servant, losing Fitz (she really needs therapy omg), that she’s just scared to be a alone. She’s English, so she doesn’t usually do visible signs of affection. But after everything she’s been through, she stands a little closer to people, she holds onto whosever arm is nearest, she plays with hair and cuddles and reaches for anyone’s hand just to know her SHIELD family, her true family, is still around. And when they’re not: She still carries around a shiv.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

How about she gets therapy? How about she calls out Fitz for some of his crap because they both know that its healthy to be honest with each other? How about she gets her own storylines where she continues to do science and learn inhuman biology and help others because that’s who she is and that doesn’t make her weak or uninteresting *microphone drop*

#ml #aos #lok #simmons #mack #mako #alya #headcanon accepted #agent h #agent asks #hahaha i'm so sorry that got so long #but also I think you're the only one who like is totally fine with long answers #I will get to your other asks soon! Hopefully this weekend #fingers crossed #what a good murder child

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thelanguagecommunity · 6 years

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this post is meant to be a directory of every resource I come across for English (for native speakers and esl). it will be a continuous work in progress so thank you for your patience! if you have any issues or things to add, please reply to this post!

info

about world language

clickable map of the anglophone world

differences between english varieties

english in the world today [mooc]

exploring the english language [mooc]

glottolog

introduction by @ayearinlanguage

inventing english: a portable history of the language [scans]

learning profile

overview of the history of english

playlist of samples

the adventure of english [playlist]

the story of english [playlist]

wikipedia

world atlas of language structures

academic papers

is the english possessive 's truly a right edge phenomenon - alan scott, university of manchester [pdf]

alphabet & orthography

repertoire of letters [pdf]

“ough” / overview of ough

overview of english orthography

apps

beelingual

drops

readlang

blogs

antimoon: how to learn english effectively

grammarphobia

usingenglish.com

world wide words

book recommendations

easy english books to read by fluentu.com

courses

bliubliu

british council

cambridge: face2face [pdf]

colloquial english: a complete english language course - gareth king [pdf]

englishclass101

extensive reading central

lingq

living language: easy english [pdf]

memrise

wordbrewery

cultural & historical info

overview of gender neutrality in english

dictionaries

dictionary.com

dictionary of unusual words

fowler's modern english usage - r. w. burchfield [pdf]

merriam-webster

online etymology dictionary

online slang dictionary

oxford learner’s dictionaries

the american heritage dictionary of the english language

wiktionary

esl teaching resources

a handbook for teaching cantonese-speaking children [scans]

hands-on english: a periodical for teachers and tutors of adult esl [scans]

sourcebook for english teachers [scans]

forums

quora

stackexchange

grammar => [POST HERE]

listening practice

librivox [audiobook library]

lyricstraining [learn through music videos]

lyrikline [poetry library]

transcribing drills

youglish [youtube videos to help pronunciation]

literature

Bahá'i prayers [pdf]

catholic mass book

grimm’s fairy tales

list of english-language poets

loyal books [library & audiobooks]

overview of english poetry

poetry international web [poetry library with translations]

project gutenberg [virtual library]

Quran [scans]

rosary prayers

media

pocoyo [youtube]

ted talks

music recommendations

disney songs [youtube playlist]

news

voice of america [learning english version]

podcasts

the history of english

pronunciation

a report of the standford phonology archive [scans]

collins: work on your accent [pdf]

english to ipa translator

forvo [pronunciation dictionary]

initial-stress-derived nouns

intonation / overview of intonation

ipa key

living language: easy pronunciation [pdf]

overview of english phonology

rhoticity in varieties of english / explanation of “R” / overview of rhoticity

sounds of english and the ipa

stress / overview of stress and vowel reduction

“TH” / how to tell apart the two "TH" sounds in english / overview of <th> pronounciation

quizzes & exercises

digital dialects [vocab games]

english grammar exercises [ebook]

internetpolyglot [vocab games]

learnweek.com [exercises derived from novels]

quia [user-submitted games]

teach yourself english articles with examples you like

verbuga [verb exercises]

social media

english learning [discord]

speaking tips

collins: work on your idioms [pdf]

honorifics / overview of honorifics

interjections

list of english idioms

oxford word skills: idioms and phrasal verbs [pdf]

special topics

common english mistakes of filipinos

overview of several usage controversies

tumblrs

@learnenglishwithkatie

@lifeasanenglishstudent

@michelles-esl

@natalieteachesenglish

@thebeautifulwordlist

@theenglishcrux

@thevocabularyblog

verbs => [POST HERE]

vocabulary

600 important nouns

adjectives of relation list

arities & adicities

collins: work on your vocabulary [pdf]

conjunctions

dialect-dependent homophones

dialect-independent homophones

diminutives

false friends - german

frequency lists

heteronyms

homographs / homographs / list of homographs

homonyms / homonyms [pdf] / true homonyms

most common words

ordinal numbers

prefixes / list of prefixes

suffixes / list of suffixes

words derived from arabic

words derived from brittonic

words derived from celtic languages

words derived from chinese

words derived from dutch

words derived from french

words derived from irish

words derived from italian

words derived from korean

words derived from nahuatl

words derived from portuguese

words derived from scots

words derived from scottish gaelic

words derived from spanish / words derived from spanish

words derived from welsh

words with disputed usage

writing tips

collins english for life: writing [pdf]

commas

commonly misspelled words

daily writing tips

english for work: everyday business writing [pdf]

purdue online writing lab

transitional phrases for writing essays

youtube

easy languages

learning english from the streets [playlist]

resources in other languages => [POST HERE]

#o #english #langblr #english language

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whitewolfofwinterfell · 6 years

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I just finished season three myself and I absolutely fell in love with it. My fave show right now 😍 could you write up some meta on it?

Right, okay, I’m finally getting around to answering this, phew. Sorry it’s taken me so long but when you sent this I’d only seen the first two episodes of the show and so didn’t particularly feel I could write anything more than I already had in response to your first ask. However, I finished season 1 tonight and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings so I felt now was the right time to share them.

Wow, where do I even start with Outlander? It is nothing like I expected it to be, but then again I’m not really sure what I expected. It’s one of the only shows that I’ve gone into completely blind. I’d never seen gifs or videos of it here on Tumblr or any other social media platform. I can only recall seeing something about it once when one of my favourite YouTuber’s (Stephanie Lange) shared on her Instagram story that she was reading the books after watching the show and that they were some of the best books she’d ever read.

The first episode immediately hooked me in for all the reasons stated in my previous ask but after that there were moments where I was like, eh, I don’t know if this is for me. I wasn’t fully warming to the characters (except Jamie, of course) and it felt like the episodes started to follow the same formula of Claire being suspected and accused of being a spy and/or people generally treating her with distrust and then her getting kidnapped/attacked/sexually assaulted and Jamie coming to the rescue. The episode that changed that and the point in which I completely fell in love with the show was 1x07, ‘The Wedding’. Up until that point there were interactions between Jamie and Claire, but there were some episodes where there was only one or two and it didn’t feel like a central component of the show, but the second they got married and that relationship blossomed, I was completely invested. In the last episode of the season Claire tells Jamie that the only way she could make sense of everything that had happened to her in those 8 months since she’d arrived in 1743 is because it was all so they could be together. Essentially, she was saying that everything she’d suffered through, that they’d suffered through, was worth it to her because it was for them and their love. That’s exactly what it’s like for me. Although I enjoyed the show from the beginning, their love is the heart and soul of the show and the reason I’ve become so invested.

Jamie and Claire’s love story is honestly so beautiful. Bearing in mind, I’m still only on season 1 and there’s much more to come, but already it’s so profound and complex. The passion they have is so intense and so raw, and it’s played so well by Caitriona and Sam. In 1x11 when Claire has the choice to touch the stones at Craigh na Dun and return to her own time and her husband, logically she shouldn’t even hesitate to do it. In 1945 she’s safe, she’s familiar with the time period, she has family and friends, her husband and it’s technically where she belongs. There’s only one problem… Jamie is in 1743. When you see the love they have and the person Jamie is it’s easy to see why Claire chooses to remain in 1743 despite the fact that it’s an extremely dangerous place/time for her where she’s been in constant danger since she arrived. It’s that emotion of, “As long as I’m with him and we’re together, it doesn’t matter where I am” and I get it. What Outlander does so well (and I assume it’s the author of the books, Diana Gabaldon who is responsible for it) is make the viewers/readers fall in love with Jamie every bit as much as Claire. You’re not just an outsider looking in, you actually feel like you’re in that relationship with Claire and feeling everything she’s feeling. When Jamie is captured by the Red Coats at the end of the season and she finds out that he’s been sentenced to hang, she just collapses because she can’t bear the mere thought of it and you get it, because you’re right there with her. You feel the pain, the fear, the unthinkable grief of losing Jamie. And when they rescue him and she finds out that he’s suicidal, again, she faints because it’s too much for her to take and she tells him she will die with him right there in the room if he really wants to die. It seems so dramatic, but it’s completely believable and I commend everyone involved in bringing Jamie and Claire’s love to life, because it’s done so well.

Putting Jamie and Claire to one side, because I could honestly talk about them all day, Outlander is fantastic at bringing the periods to life that they’re set in. I’ve watched quite a lot of period dramas, shows and movies over the years, but none have ever immersed me into their world quite so much as Outlander. When I watch it, it feels like I’m really in 1743. Everything from the buildings, the smoke from the fires, the clothing, the way the people act and behave, the violence. It’s so far removed from the modern world I know, it’s actually alien and it makes it so easy to sympathise with how completely out of place Claire feels (although she handles it extremely well and fits in better than I ever could). There’s also something about the way the show is framed and paced that makes it feel incredibly intimate. Like I said, when I’m watching I don’t feel like I am watching, I feel like I’m in it, which is an incredibly rare thing for me to feel. With Claire and Jamie, in particular, I love that there’s no shying away from the depths and complexities of their relationship. With most other shows there’s always a rush to cut to the next scene with other characters, but Outlander allows the focus to remain in one place, in one scene with just two characters for a long time. Using 1x07 as an example, nearly the entirety of that episode consisted of just Jamie and Claire. We got to see everything that went on behind closed doors between them. You can tell there was no fear of boring people, they just allowed the audience to remain in that room with them and I love that. Firstly, I think it’s more realistic because life isn’t chopped up and edited to skip over the boring bits, so it’s good to see the quiet moments between Jamie and Claire and them having sex and everything that’s in between. There’s no rush with anything, the characters are allowed to be together and talk. It makes the characters feel much more realistic and it’s easier to connect to them too. I also love that we learn about the history’s of the characters (particularly Jamie and Claire) and see flashbacks of those pivotal moments in their lives, because we get to know them more. Another thing I love is the sex. When I was reading reviews on IMDb I noticed there were a lot of complaints about the amount of sex scenes and explicit nature of them, but I think that’s amazing. Again, sex is a part of life, it’s part of human relationships and love and I understand for age restricted shows it’s necessary to cut them out, but that’s always really annoyed me, because it’s such a big part of a couple’s relationship. The fact that we get to see every part of Jamie and Claire’s sex life and their passion for each other, is incredibly important to understand their love for one another, because a large part of the way they connect, particularly in the beginning, is through sex and physical intimacy. If you take away those scenes or show them in bed but cut out the actual act, it strips a lot away from their relationship and makes viewers feel less connected to their relationship.

Another aspect of Outlander I love is the Scottish culture and history. It’s not a subject I’m particularly knowledgeable about since I’m not Scottish and the only Scottish history I’ve studied was in my English Civil Wars module I studied last semester, but again, it feels so realistic. The accents, the dialect, the customs, the clothing - it’s all vastly different to English culture and again, as an English woman myself, it makes it easy to put myself in Claire’s shoes and experience it through her eyes. It brings history to life in a very real and authentic way. Again, I know the animosity between the Scots and the Brits, I’ve studied it and I know of the hatred between England, Ireland and Scotland, but the way Outlander brings it to life, it feels like I’m being taken back to it. What’s also interesting is the way in which Claire, through her experiences, comes to care for and sympathise with the Scots over the British, who are her own people. Again, as a viewer I feel exactly the same. It’s not just Jack Randall that makes me perceive the British to be the enemy, it’s the way they invade Scottish lands that they have no right to and stomp around in their big boots wreaking havoc and violence wherever they go. The book/show is very much from the Scottish perspective and I love that, because in popular culture you don’t see much about Scottish history. You have to specifically look for it to find it, yet how many well-known and popular books, movies, shows etc. are there about WWI and WWII from the British perspective? Even when I studied the English Civil Wars, which were as much about Scotland and Ireland as England, the focus was primarily on England. So I love that Outlander is so focused on Scottish history, I’m loving it and it’s making me want to read and learn more about it.

Now it’s time to talk about that most heinous, sadistic, soulless, cretin, Jack Randall. Wow, I loathe this man with everything I have. Of all the shows I’ve ever watched, he is by far the worst villain I have ever encountered and is exactly the way a villain should be written. Again, I have to give praise to all of the people responsible creating the character and Tobias Menzies for playing him, because it’s done so well. I’ve discussed this in a previous post, but I rarely think that any villain in any book, show or movie is done well. The only show that I think write villains well is Game of Thrones, but that’s a different subject. What makes Jack Randall such a brilliant villain is that he is truly irredeemably evil. He is obsessed with power and dominance and using his position of authority to exert that power and dominance over others. It’s almost an addiction for him to have that power and his vendetta against Jamie is purely a result of Jamie challenging his power and not surrendering to him. It’s the first time Randall has come up against someone stronger than him, that is too courageous and brave to give in to him so he does everything he can to break Jamie. The final episode of Outlander is probably one of the most difficult episodes of television I’ve ever watched. To witness the lengths Randall went to just to break Jamie… it was truly harrowing and heart-wrenching. For Randall’s mind to even work in such a way as to do/say the things to Jamie that he did in that prison cell is proof that Randall has a black soul and psychotic mind. What’s even more interesting is that when Jamie told him to do what he must do, Randall said something along the lines of, “Do you think I can’t control the darkness inside me?” and that really shocked me, and made me realise how sick he is. He knows he has a darkness inside of him, but he revels in it, takes pleasure in it. That’s particularly clear when you see the sexual pleasure he takes from the pain he inflicts on others. The evil things he does are very much connected to that sexual pleasure he derives from it. There are just no words to describe how evil Randall is. Again, the fact that Randall is written this way means that I experience everything the characters do. I’m truly scared of Randall, because I know that there is nothing he’s not capable of. If he actively takes pleasure in hurting others and having them at his mercy what is his cut off point? There just isn’t one. I, for one, cannot wait to see Jack Randall die a torturous and bloody death. It better not be too fast either, because he deserves to suffer after everything he’s done.

That’s everything that I wanted to discuss. It’s been a wild ride so far and I’m so excited to get started on season 2. It’s going to be an entirely different experience to see Claire and Jamie in Paris, so I’m looking forward to it. I’m also intrigued to know if they really can change history. I’ve watched enough time travel movies/shows over the years to know that even when you have the best intentions, changing history and the future is incredibly dangerous. If Jamie and Claire do succeed in their goals, they simply don’t know how the world will change.

#answered #my meta #outlander meta

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