#I think this is what Homer meant by wine dark sea
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The photo hardly does this view justice but when I saw the sea for the first time just before crossing onto the Peloponnese from Attica, I thought for a moment that I understood Homer’s repeated use of the phrase “wine-dark sea.” Just there, about 400-500 feet out, the sea darkens and when the sun hits it just right, it indeed appears a bit purple like red wine. Of course no one agrees on what Homer meant, and if he existed at all, he was apparently blind, so who knows what I think I learned here, but it was stirring and a little emotional too. I’ve made it to Nafplio and for those keeping count, tomorrow is the day I head to Mycenae to tell Agamemnon exactly what I think of him and if I can find a private beach, I’m getting into this wine-dark sea.
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Like the Shoreline and the Sea (Ethan x F!MC)
Summary- Ethan is asked out on a date right after Miami in Book 1. Ethan’s PoV
Genre, rating, words- Angst, teen, 2k
Open Heart fanfic tropes- birthday, office.
March Challenge Day 13 prompt Someday; April Challenge Day 9 prompt Smell of the Rain
A/N: nor’westers- violent thunderstorms in northern plains of India, before the onslaught of monsoon.
Title inspired by Leonard Cohen’s Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.
‘This will improve our understanding of adiposity and sarcopenia in this population, help identify thresholds predictive of metabolic risk, and ultimately prevent or ameliorate… ’
Better prevent than ameliorate.
‘...ameliorate the long-term impacts on health and…’
Twenty five years should be long enough.
Hers is a singsong voice, the warm, trilling kind. Mellow sun dances on the frills of her dress. The yellow one.
The man at her side twirls her on the empty kerb. Dips and kisses her. Her laughter is all that is pure and golden.
A child follows them, embarrassed. She bends down to kiss him, and he is furious.
The scene shifts.
The child is on the front porch, eyes set somewhere beyond the wild bergamot bushes.
Tear tracks on pink cheeks mingle and dry with dust from his afternoon’s exploits. Something like a steely resolve troops in his eyes.
Ethan Ramsey has been staring at the same sentence for fifteen minutes now.
Whoever coined the term ‘nostalgia’ from the Homeric nostos and algos was speaking of anguish caused by an inability to return. But they failed to discern the inevitable tethering of reminiscence with habituality.
That is more or less the case with him. Louise Ramsey walked out on her husband, and eleven year old son some twenty five years ago right before his birthday. For a very long time now, home is not about apple crisps or kitchen gardens.
About this time every year, a crevice in his mind he likes to call the amygdala dwells on the same days.
Almost as a ritual.
He is a scientist. A rationalist. And like every year, he reminds himself there is work to do.
Unless there’s a knock at the most unpleasant hour.
He never returns to the article. Never manages a come in. The distraction walks in, messy hair knotted with a pencil. Probably because she has lost another hair tie.
He mustn’t be that aware.
But she talks too much.
‘Dr. Mukherjee.’ He sounds gruff. They’re supposed to be redrawing their boundaries, even if he is the only one making an effort. ‘I thought your shift ended-’
‘Two hours ago.’ Rigours of a sixteen hour shift mark her visage. Her smile is a little too conniving for his comfort. ‘I had work afterwards.’
She starts shuffling papers on his desk, permission be damned. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and manages an exasperated sigh. Since when have interns started walking into his office with… birthday cakes?
‘What do you think you’re- It’s not my-’
‘I heard rumours that Dr. Ramsey had to cancel a date.’ She sounds amused. He does not miss the split second glance she shoots his way before continuing. ‘On his birthday, too. Such a shame.’
He scoffs.
‘No one knows it’s my birthday.’
‘Oh, they do. They’re just too afraid to… ah, invoke the wrath of Dr. Ramsey.’
Of course, she is not one of them. She has absolutely no regard for the immutable drill he has observed for nearly four decades. And why must she, when her sole intent is to swivel the rusty axis of his life.
Ethan has never known the first shower of an Indian monsoon. It is sudden and torrential, just as it is feared and revered. It smells like summer, and mango blossoms.
Ethan has never known one until this year.
‘I’m thirty seven, Rookie,’ He manages weakly.
‘And I would’ve bought the candles accordingly if I knew that.’
The tealights she arranges look so much better, he thinks. The cake is a simple blue and white affair. Not the ones that have more icing than cake, he notes. Not the ones he disapproves of.
Happy Birthday, Dr. Terminator
‘I could’ve whipped something up without sugar,’ She rambles, suddenly starting to blush. ‘Or ordered one. But I only just came to know it’s your birthday. And there wasn’t a lot of-
‘Thank you, Apu.’ Tresses of warmth curl about his chest and the gravel of his voice.
Ethan has avoided birthday cakes for a decade now. Unless it’s Naveen’s birthday, he thinks with a pang.
In his time with Harper or his brief involvements in med-school, no one has ever convinced him to do birthdays. He checks himself. This is just an intern being kind.
But interns aren't kind to Dr. Ramsey, are they.
She assures him the photos are not for social media. They settle on the couch, it’s his first birthday cake in over a decade.
He is glad for an innocuous reason to look at her, laugh at jokes that in any other company would draw his scorn. She is oddly comforting. Unlike most interns who avoid his office at all costs, she moves about it as if she was meant to be here all along.
He must have stalled birthdays worth twenty years only to spend it on a couch with her.
The plates are disposable. It is nothing like the restaurants that come with his status, for there is an endearing simplicity about it.
It almost feels like… home.
He steals occasional glances at her. It has been four agonisingly long days after their return from Miami. And for all his attempts to redraw their boundaries, it has been a non-return of sorts.
Aparna drives him to distraction, flouts each and every one of his rules. Seeks him out in supply closets and muddled dreams. And every time he breaks her heart a little more, he finds himself floundering in his own squalor.
The German counterpart to the English ‘nostalgia’ is ‘sehnsucht’. Like ‘nostalgia’, it has the charm of what has been. But unlike it, it also has the enigma of what has never been. Miami will remain the swansong to an ideal that slipped through Ethan’s fingers.
A surge of anguish ripples through him as he realises all of this is his for the asking, and he will have none of it.
‘It wasn’t a date,’ He blurts out.
He wouldn’t tell her that if he wants her to move on. Not truly.
‘You don’t have to-’
‘She is Declan’s associate in Panacea. She suggested signing the contract with the Diagnostics Team over dinner tonight. So… just business.’
Claudette Wilson is the most promising young face of Panacea, and Ethan needed less than a minute to know why.
Sleek, dark hair styled at her nape played up her high cheekbones. The ruby of her pliant lips, almost risqué for a meeting such as this, always lingered a little longer on the rim of her coffee mug. Even the measured spoons of her laughter came with an all too enticing lilt.
Ethan has met the other type. Vacuous and synthetic. But the steely glint in her eyes came with a weighty intelligence. An unfaltering wit. And when a perfectly manicured hand brushed the contours of his cuff, he knew it was never meant to be just business.
She was irresistible. And so was he.
That afternoon, the bitterness in his mouth had nothing to do with coffee. He learnt he would refuse Claudette even if her pay checks did not come from Panacea.
Aparna falls silent, almost as if discerning in his words everything he left unsaid.
They have run out of jokes and topics for a harmless chat. He is getting terribly comfortable with her again, he realises alarmed. And she is fidgeting with the ring on her finger.
She’s nervous too. He knows. He could define every twitch and turn of those fingers.
Somewhere in their conversation they have edged so close that her knee juts into his thigh. The couch is surprisingly small for two people. Minutes pass, and despite himself, he does not want her to leave.
His fingers rest on her flustered hands, it’s a deep-rooted reflex. Looking down, she weaves his hand in both of her own. Even as the adrenaline surging in his blood incites him to flee, the delirious part of him emerges stronger and more naive.
He thinks she is leaning in. Soaking up the mayhem in his eyes. The slight movement causes wisps of errant hair to slip from the messy bun. There’s new growth around her brows, a faded scar on her forehead. But it’s her eyes that still hold sway over him.
They stroked him with a strange, silent awe on a balcony on the shores of the Atlantic.
She is nothing like interns that hover around him year after year. Sucking up for recommendations. Sometimes more. She can devour him, and just as easily cast him aside without batting an eye.
And yet she is here. Snuggled in his office while her friends call it a night with cheap beer and rowdy escapades.
But she is different tonight. The quiver in her eyes tentative, even wary.
His hand rises of its own accord, tucking strands of hair behind her ear. Inadvertently, it brushes her face, lingers a little longer against her cheek.
She caressed his face as the ocean crashed around him. It was like falling from the top of a precipice. Tumbling into the amorphous, a terrifying weightlessness. He waited.
‘It’s getting late.’
She smells like the hospital, muted shades of honeysuckle, and like herself.
The cool breeze hummed a steady rhyme against the tumble of her midnight blue dress. Bits of the moon bounced off the dark curtain of her hair, plunging into her eyes. Ethan had never seen such fathomless eyes.
‘I should go.’ She leans into his palm, eyes fluttering close.
‘You should.’
And then she caught him. It was the hollow of her neck. It was soft. Like the rest of her.
Neither of them move today, silently imploring the other to charge. Or retreat. The battle drum in his chest is a dull ache. Throbbing and inconsolable.
The ridges of her collarbone bore traces of his ruin. Traces she covered every morning and stripped every night, like the rites of a godless liturgy.
His free hand is still laced in hers, the other drawing her face nearer.
Her lips are inches from his own as he draws a languid finger across them. Her warm breath spills on his lips, warring and mingling with his own ragged ones.
Her mouth was stained with wine. Numbing and inciting. He was battered, and bruised. Marooned at her side. And she was warm. So warm.
His hand traced the pummelling of her heart, kneading the softness of her chest. Her tongue jousted with his own as the ocean lapped at its shore. Tireless and persevering.
She was wild. Like her Gangetic nor’westers on a sultry afternoon. He was bewitched. She was doing something good to him.
Suddenly the air around them is ripped by the sound of his phone.
It’s his father.
The two of them recoil to their own spaces, Ethan horrified that he let himself stray so far yet again. Silencing the still erring device, he faces Aparna bracing for another apology.
‘I know.’
Her smile is placid, all traces of vulnerability gone. He is vaguely aware of the gentle pressure on the hand still clasped in her own.
‘Happy Birthday, Ethan. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
She is gone before he can marshal his thoughts.
Ethan flops back into the couch, shivering and alone. The incandescent glow from the solitary lamp drenches the office in a soft, ethereal haze. She might not have been here at all but for the little things she scatters around him every time she forays into his life.
Today she leaves with him a caesura. It thwarts the cadence of a life he has been putting together since Miami.
After a minute, or perhaps a staggering nightmare, when he rises to pack the rest of the cake, he sees it.
She must have forgotten her hair tie was in her pocket after all.
It stares up at him from the floor, the silken, mute witness of his transgression. He gingerly picks it up, and turns it in his hand as though it houses some ancient sorcery.
Laying it on his desk, he considers texting her. But scarcely does he scroll down to her name when he stops himself. And pockets it.
Somewhere in the Atlantic, waves still crash upon the rocks, moistening, but never quite lingering.
The waves are relentless. Someday, the rocks crumble into fine sand.
Thank you for reading this! Let me know if you’d want to be added or removed.
#open heart#ethan ramsey x mc#choices monthly challenge#fics of the week#choices fic writers creations#openheartfanfics#choicesaprilchallenge2021#cac2021
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Worldbuilding: When Violets Are Blue
No, nothing to do with Valentine’s Day. I’m talking about how your characters see the world.
Violets were actually “blue” for a very long time.
While violet as a plant goes back to Latin and older, the first time we have “violet” recorded as a color name is in 1370. We know people could see violet as a color just fine; heck, we have violet manganese pigments used in cave art at least 25,000 years ago. But what did they call it? We have no idea. Languages differ in what colors they admit exist, and how they carve up the spectrum of visible light. Scholars of color and language find that white and black come first in any language, usually followed by red and a plethora of others; blue is one of the middling colors recognized, and purples come even later than that.
This will affect your world in subtle ways that may be hard to convey through text, when you have to use your own modern language which does have blue and violet. Think of Homer’s “wine-dark sea”. The Greek of the time might split colors into yellow/green as one group, and dark green/blue/purples as another. So we don’t know what color Homer actually meant the sea was - and as people who have visited the Mediterranean have pointed out, sometimes light and waves mean the sea really is kind of purple.
Another possibility is that your characters aren’t standard-issue human, and don’t distinguish violet as a color at all. That probably means their ability to perceive red is off; while humans do see violet as a color in itself, we also perceive violet when what we’re seeing is blue light mixed with a bit of red. That will lead to its own set of knock-on effects, changing what works as effective camouflage and just how garish outfits may be to outside eyes.
Of course, the final reason violets might be blue are that the violets are actually blue. Where I grew up there were two common types of violets in the woods; a small, mostly white one and a larger violet one. But where they grew together? Every once in a while you’d have a stray plant whose flowers were a slightly streaky denim blue.
Not violet. Blue violets.
The world is sometimes weird that way.
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Specific references in Pomegranate Seeds, sorted by chapter
Title of work: Pomegranate Seeds
A reference to the myth of Persephone and Hades, where Hades is the god of the underworld who kidnaps Persephone – the daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and harvest – and makes her queen of the underworld. He gives her a pomegranate to eat, and for every seed she swallows she has to spend a month with Hades in the underworld. During the months she is with Hades, she is gone from her mother, and that’s why autumn and winter exist (since Demeter is grieving the loss of her daughter). Spring and summer are the months when she is back with Demeter, and Demeter is once again happy. The myth has lots of interpretations, but my favourite is the one where it is said to be based on the trauma of both daughter and mother as they are separated when the daughter gets married and enters a new household.
Even though Giorno’s mother didn’t treat him well, her death was most likely traumatic to him. He enters the new household of Dio (Hades) and every time they touch each other in a way that isn’t befitting father and son, one could say that Giorno swallows another pomegranate seed, and it binds him to the underworld. In this case, the underworld would both represent the criminal world, but also the trap of their incestuous relationship that he then cannot leave, should he want to.
No specific references in chapters 1 & 2.
Chapter 3:
Demetra – Giorno’s mother doesn’t have a name in canon, so I made one up. Demetra is the Italian version of Demeter, which is the name of the Greek goddess of agriculture and harvest. The goddess is the mother of Persephone, and the title of this fic – Pomegranate Seeds – is a reference to the myth of Hades and Persephone.
The biblical paintings in the church – John the Baptist (martyr) was beheaded, and Judas (traitor) hung himself. The imagery around Eve, the snake and the red apple, well… depending on how you interpret the story in the Bible, this could mean that the scene doesn’t represent a fall from grace, but rather that it was God’s intention to have humanity step into the broader world.
Dio’s books – I mostly just had a look at my own bookshelf, but I purposely included Nabokov, Machiavelli, and Plato. Nabokov, of course, references his infamous novel Lolita. Machiavelli was an Italian politician and philosopher during the Renaissance, and he’s most famous for his book The Prince, where he gave rulers quite… devious advice, not shying away from unethical and corrupt means. Therefore Machiavelli and the derived term Machiavellian often denotes (political) deceit. And Plato, well, in his text The Symposium he speaks of the ancient practice of pederasty in a very positive manner, and claiming that it is the purest form of love.
Aniara – I picked the book because it’s my sister’s favourite. It is a book-length epic science fiction poem that narrates the tragedy of a large passenger spacecraft carrying a cargo of colonists escaping destruction on Earth veering off course, leaving the Solar System and entering into an existential struggle. This is the “space-travel” Giorno later reflects on while in the bath.
No specific references in chapter 4.
Chapter 5:
The next reference to Machiavelli – Giorno thinks about Machiavelli and the question if it is better to be feared or loved, which is something Machiavelli writes about in his book The Prince, where he states that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved, if they cannot be both.
No specific references in chapter 6.
Chapter 7:
Reckless – Giorno notes that Dio wants him “recklessly, passionately”. This is one of the two times the word “reckless” is used in this story; the only other time being in the first chapter when Giorno’s mother dies after her car collides with a reckless truck. Dio’s desire for Giorno is tied together with that accident, as if it’s equally dangerous.
Jewel – “Yes, Giorno would like something like that; to show Dio that he was a prized jewel, cut to fit perfectly in the curve of his palm.” This line directly references the Song of Songs 7:1 “Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.”
Eden – “How truly unfortunate, that the most tempting fruit should be found in the middle of Eden.” The garden of Eden, in the Bible, is where life is first created by God. It can therefore also symbolise family, where life also is created. So what Dio essentially says here is “what a shame the most fuckable person is found in my family”.
Draconic tendencies – Giorno having “draconic tendencies” is a reference to his earlier thoughts about Abbacchio hoarding Bucciarati like a jealous dragon.
Chapter 8:
Buttercups – Giorno picks a bouquet of buttercups for Dio, and buttercups have traditionally been associated with childhood. It is meant to express that Giorno, no matter how mature he himself is convinced that he is, still has a childish edge to his affection. As a fun aside, the Latin name for buttercups is Ranunculus, which means “little frog”.
Leda and the Swan – the painting Dio has in his study. It is, of course, an erotic yet controversial motif in itself, but there are some references to the Greek myth it is based on. In it, Zeus disguises himself as a swan and copulates with Leda. It is not entirely clear if it is by rape or seduction. Zeus, of course, is known for his sexual escapades, his violent temper and jealousy, but here he disguises himself as a swan, which is an animal that in European culture often has symbolised love and fidelity. This story of a shady person disguising himself as someone loving, to enter a relationship where consent is dubious at best, well… I think the implications are clear. As a fun aside, the name Zeus and the name Dio are directly connected.
Uneasy lies the head – the whole quote is “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”, a saying from Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 2, meaning that someone with great responsibilities won’t be able to rest properly.
The prodigal son – it’s a reference to a parable in the Bible, from Luke 15:11-32. The story goes that a son requests his inheritance early, spends it all irresponsibly, and then returns home to beg his father to let him work for him. His father, however, welcomes him home with open arms and throws a feast, which indicates that he has hopefully waiting for the son to return.
Nakedness – the scene in Giorno’s room, where he lowers his duvet to display his “nakedness”, the word choice here is important. Except for Genesis 42, all biblical occurrences of the common idiom ”to see the nakedness of” or “to uncover the nakedness of” are explicitly sexual, usually referring to incest. The Classical Hebrew word 'erwā is not “nudity” but “nakedness”, in the sense of something that is unseemly or improper to look at or expose; often used to denote forbidden sexual relations.
Chapter 9:
Wine-dark – Dio’s eyes are described as wine-dark, which is a reference to the use of “wine-dark sea” in Homer. It’s an epithet used in the Iliad and the Odyssey, of uncertain meaning. What exactly does it mean that the sea is “wine-dark”? Is it a reference to the stormy sea being unpredictable, like someone who’s drunk on wine? Or does it tell us something about how ancient Greeks perceived colours, where maybe depth and opacity levels were more important than hues?
Ambrosia – Giorno compares the taste of Dio’s seed to ambrosia, which is the food and drink of the gods in Greek mythology.
Lollipop – Giorno is sucking on a lollipop while he’s out shopping. This is a shameless reference to the most culturally recognised image of Nabokov’s Lolita, where Sue Lyon, the actress who portrayed the character Lolita in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaption of the novel, is sucking on a red lollipop while wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. It’s worth noting, however, that the character Lolita doesn’t eat a lollipop in the novel or Kubrick’s film, and the images were only used for promotion. Either way, the lollipop has nonetheless become a symbol for playful, youthful temptation.
No specific references in chapter 10.
Chapter 11:
Dio’s alarming beauty – Giorno reflects on how beautiful Dio is, that he is alarmingly beautiful. This is a reference to a quote from The Secret History by Donna Tartt: “Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”
Chapter 12:
Kisses – there’s a lot of descriptions of kissing in the beginning of this chapter, and it is all a reference to the biblical book Song of Songs. “Honey-sweet kisses that melted his tongue” is a reference to Song of Songs 4:11 “honey and milk are under your tongue”. On a more complicated note… “those kisses, Giorno drank them from his mouth like they were life-giving water” is a reference to Song of Songs 1:2 that should be “I want to drink kisses from his mouth”, however, most translations will read “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth”. It’s really complicated as to why I and others would translate it differently, but in general it has to do with the manuscript and the Masoretic editors’ vocalisation, which in turn has a lot to do with evaluating Classical Hebrew grammar and poetic conventions… I am going to spare you that lecture, but I still wanted to let you know that you won’t find that wording in most English translations of the Bible.
The garden, Eden, and juvenile sex – this all ties together. The garden of Eden is, in the Bible, where life is created and before “the fall of man”, it is a place of peace and innocence. Now, it might seem strange to refer to innocence in a story like this, but there still is a certain kind of innocence to their relationship, especially on Giorno’s end. They are described as “easy and unafraid, in full view of God”, which again is a reference to the biblical creation story; after “the fall of man”, when Adam and Eve have sinned, they are suddenly afraid of God and tries to hide from him, and for the first time shield their nudity, since they have now lost that innocence. So, Dio and Giorno being unafraid in full view of God is another reference to them being fairly innocent. At least that’s how Giorno conceptualises it.
Satyriasis – a word for excessive sexual desire, and an outdated term for hypersexuality. The word was developed in relation to the satyrs of Greek mythology, who were lustful woodland gods.
Nipple play – Giorno sucking on Dio’s tits, well… quite obvious reference, but if you missed it; it’s a reference to breastfeeding and nourishment.
Sunlight – in Stardust Crusaders, Dio tells Polnareff that he too has pain in his life because he can never see the sunlight, since he is a vampire. In this story, Dio isn’t a vampire, but I still wanted to include this pain. Dio’s love for the sunshine, and the depravation of it in his childhood, is my attempt to reconceptualise it.
Chapter 13:
Ice cream – elder flower sorbet has a tendency to taste like laundry detergent if you’re not careful, so Mista definitely picked the wrong flavour that time.
Know thy enemy – “know thy enemy” is a famous quote from The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
Chapter 14:
Paradise burning – more Eden references, they never truly stop.
Loins – in Classical Hebrew, one specifically emphasises that a child has sprung from someone’s loins to indicate that it is a biological child rather than an adopted one.
Deadly sins – Giorno notes that one of the seven deadly sins, sloth (that is, excessive laziness and indifference), doesn’t come as naturally to him as others would (such as lust or pride).
Know thy self – another reference to the famous quote of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
Companion – Giorno thinks about how the universe has blessed Dio with a companion that can keep up with him, which is a subtle reference to the creation myth in the Bible. There, God creates the first human, Adam. Adam attempts to find a companion amongst the other creatures, but cannot find an equal until God creates another human – incidentally, God creates another human from Adam (by his rib), which of course parallels with Giorno being created from Dio, since he is his biological child.
Clay – the dream Giorno has of Dio forming him out of clay and breathing life into him is another direct reference to the creation myth in the Bible, where God forms the first human out of clay/soil/dust from the ground and breathes life into his nostrils. Similar creation myths are found in several ancient Near Eastern religions. If you want a little more “fun” fact, the first human is named Adam, a name he gets from the Classical Hebrew word for “man” (as in human – not male), which is adam, and the word for “ground” is adamah, which ties to all together quite nicely.
Nakedness – Dio uncovers Giorno’s nakedness, and just like in chapter 8 it’s a biblical reference. Except for Genesis 42, all biblical occurrences of the common idiom ”to see the nakedness of” or “to uncover the nakedness of” are explicitly sexual, usually referring to incest. The Classical Hebrew word 'erwā is not “nudity” but “nakedness”, in the sense of something that is unseemly or improper to look at or expose; often used to denote forbidden sexual relations.
Chapter 15.
Cuddling – after having breakfast, they cuddle, and their position is described as Giorno resting his head on Dio’s left arm, and Dio draping his other arm over Giorno’s waist. This position is a reference to the biblical book the Song of Songs 2:6 “His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me.”
Angel lust – Dio gets hard after Giorno chokes him, which he says is a perfectly natural reaction to being choked. Which it is! “Angel lust” or “death erection” refers to the phenomenon of men executed by hanging having an erection, because of the increased downward blood flow. After observing this, doctors in the 17th century started prescribing choking sex to men with erectile dysfunction, and that’s partly where erotic asphyxiation comes from.
England – the phrase “lie back and think of England”, alternatively “close your eyes and think of England” is an old-timey reference to unwanted sex that one doesn’t enjoy – specifically used for sex within a marriage, which at least back in the day was more of an economic arrangement than a love affair. Disgustingly, it means “just lie back and endure it”.
Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh – this is another reference to the creation story in the Bible. The specific verse is Genesis 2:23, when God has created another human to be a worthy companion of the first one. Adam, the first human, has searched for a companion among the animals but been unsuccessful to find an equal. But when he meets the newly created Eve, the second human, he exclaims “At last! This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (since she was created from his rib). That “at last!” is very sweet – and fits in this story too! Dio has finally found a worthy companion to share his highest highs and deepest lows with.
Chapter 16.
Roses – Giorno buys a bouquet of roses for Dio. This is intended as a contrast to the buttercups he picked for Dio in chapter 8, being that roses are a much more “mature” flower than buttercups, therefore showing that Giorno has matured. Also, the fact that he buys the bouquet of roses while he picked the buttercups indicate a certain loss of simplicity and naturalness in their relationship.
Fin.
#/#//#///#////#/////#just fanfiction stuff pls look away#i tried to make this a private post but tumblr be fucking with me#pomegranate seeds references
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A Re(sponse)-Re-Re-Review, Re: The Terror (2018)
I’ve recently read through all of the gorgeous review posts of The Terror (2018) from @rhavewellyarnbag and I just want to say that I think they’re incredibly beautiful and thoughtful responses to this show – all three amazing rounds of them.
I started out simply collecting quotes that were amusing to me, but my notes document very quickly became full of my own responses and confessions. Basically, I ended up making my own response/review of the whole thing, which is what you’ll find in this post.
So, thank you @rhavewellyarnbag for your many insightful thoughts about this show and my responses are below the cut! (Also, your repeated efforts to drive Goodsir to the hospital are a truly noble service, and bring me comfort in these dark times.)
01x01 – “Go For Broke” (One, Two, and Three)
“Ciaran Hinds looks like a grand old walrus.”
This was the line that made me realize I needed to start keeping track of quotes that made me laugh like a seal barking.
“‘You should cherish that man.’ I cherish that fucking line of dialog. I don’t even mean it in a filthy way. That line is so goddamn sweet, I could punch myself in the face.”
Amongst all the beautiful content produced about this show, almost nothing will ever surpass, for me, this description of this line of dialogue paired with that post about “Idiot Boat Caesar, who knows a slow-burn when he sees one.” Sir John has an astonishing capacity to be truly warm on rare occasions, and this is one of the few scenes in which we really get to see James experience that warmth, both genuinely and, here, in the form of a truly gentle, well-meant rebuke that probably cuts James far more than we see.
“This is an interesting scene with the diving suit. This could potentially go very badly. The man in the suit may be dispatched by the mysterious horror following them, or, in order not to give it away, and to show a scientific curiosity, he may die of decompression of the suit.”
Fun fact: one of my great-grandfathers apparently died of decompression from using an early-model diving suit. I learned this when I was word-vomiting to my mother about The Terror. I am now even more terrified of historical diving suits. All diving suits, really.
“If James’ characterization plays around with gender, it does so in this sense: James is constantly acted upon, by the bullet that wounded him, by the disease that fells him, by others’ opinions of him.”
Watch me attempt to cite your reviews of the The Terror in a dissertation, because everything about this description is exactly the gender framework around which I’ve draped the two historical men with whom I’ve fallen in love, one being my actual subject of research, the other being James Fitzjames.
“I’ve previously compared James’ bravery, his very person, to a woman’s beauty: bestowed upon her, not earned; understood to be temporary; dependent upon others’ admiring, desiring of it. Does James exist when no one is around to observe him?”
I adore everything about this description and also it makes me cry.
“There are a great deal of unfortunate classical references in this episode.”
This is my entire mood about The Terror, always. The nods to Philoctetes and Medea as components of the Argonaut myth that Sir John invokes are also distinctly worth exploring in this context, though I’m not going to do so here because the Argonautica (broadly speaking) is not my speciality.
01x02 – “Gore” (One, Two, and Three)
“James and Sir John are about the same height. They look not dissimilar, which James probably liked.”
Oh James.
“Strangely, [Sir John] doesn’t seem particularly pleased with James, who adores him.”
It’s true, and it’s quite painful. I don’t think Sir John is a good role model for James, but it doesn’t lessen the fact that I know James is perceptive enough to know that he’s not being adored in return, and that’s a brutal thing to know.
“You don’t have to be a drunk redheaded sea captain to see that James is empty, hollow, aching, desperate to be the things he tells you he is, desperate to see himself reflected back at himself. Desperate to be loved.”
I have a type, and this is it, apparently.
“Goodsir is a character from another sort of work, entirely. That’s its own kind of tragedy, the tragic juxtaposition. Goodsir is a sweet, gentle, utterly ordinary little pudding, an incidental character plucked from a more innocent narrative, and he’s no-doubt going to die horribly.”
This is the early impression of Goodsir, before any of us see what’s beneath Goodsir’s surface, but it’s also not wrong at all. In another sort of work (perhaps, as noted, a work by Jane Austen), Goodsir is (uniquely, among these men, perhaps) capable of living a sweet, gentle, utterly ordinary little life, with a more innocent narrative.
“It’s strongly implied that Irving’s imagination is so open that he has to work to close it.”
That’s certainly true of the historical Irving, as I read it. I have many more complex thoughts and feelings about Irving now than I did after just watching the series through the first time, but I’m not sure whether that’s because his story-line is actually rich, or because I’ve come to like him separately. (Unlike, for instance, Fitzjames, whom I have come to adore separately, but I can safely say does also have a rich story-line in these ten episodes.) The real Irving is more elusive than I think I at least gave him credit for originally.
“Oh, James Fitzjames, you overly-familiar little strumpet, you.”
I’m sobbing.
“Scurvy doesn’t care what kind of person you are.”
In many ways this is true, because we do see scurvy acting indiscriminately on different men, here, without a care for age or station or morality. But also scurvy, in this narrative, attacks most vividly those with some sort of previous wound that the scurvy can reopen. Notably James, but also Morfin, whose flogging-scars we never see but can assume from his conversation (also, for that matter, Jopson, who, historically, had a major scar on his leg, of unknown origin). Scurvy may not truly care what kind of person you are, but if you’ve led a dangerous life, scurvy has one more way to hurt you.
“Who among us has not been desperate to discuss our interests, to the point where there is almost a flirtatious edge to the broaching of the topic? One must be careful, so as not to give away too much, both for the gentle handling that one’s interests require, and for the sake of not alienating some poor rando who made the mistake of asking a bland, vague question simply to be polite.”
Ah, so I see you understand, then. I’ve taken to apologizing in advance of discussing the gorier elements of the Franklin expedition, as though I’ve exposed myself in public. (But seriously, this is the most excellent description of the discomforting feeling of very more obsessed with something than is socially acceptable.)
01x03 – “The Ladder” (One, Two, and Three)
“John Ross is the Jacob Marley figure, I take it.”
The beginning of many intriguing resonances between this show and Dickens’s Christmas Carol, and I think, one of the most elegant. The actor who plays John Ross would be an excellent Jacob Marley.
“Jopson would not talk about Francis’ drinking! You take that back, Gibson.”
This is what I adore about Thomas “Mr. Hears Everything” Jopson – he’ll only ever tell things about others to Francis; he’d never tell things about Francis to others. That’s a moral compass upon which we can unerringly rely, and one that is in no way affected by the magnetic changes at either pole.
“The spyglass sticks to the skin above Francis’ eye, as though it wished to force him not to look away.”
This is an amazing take, especially re: the way spyglasses are used to show foresight and the future in this show. Francis is forced to know look at what is coming for them, the future that waits ahead, hungrily salivating for his men.
“James is completely shattered, but he looks luminously beautiful.”
He does, doesn’t he?
01x04 – “Punished As A Boy” (One, Two, and Three)
“Lady Jane’s response is: ‘Fuck you. I know Charles Dickens.’”
Much as I detest Dickens, and much as I have my own problems with Lady Jane, she is never anything less than badass, particularly here.
“Lady Jane, clad in burgundy, ‘the wine-dark sea,’ stands between Francis and Sophia.”
Oh good god that’s it, though? It was through Lady Jane that I first found the Franklin Expedition, oh, four years ago (it feels like four hundred), and the first thing I ever said about the matter was “I’m confident that she knew Greek.” I’ve never been able to prove it, but she writes, in her letters, like someone who reads Greek. Lady Jane is well and truly our Homeric Hera. Brilliant and vengeful and matronly and brutal. I do adore her.
“Of course Goodsir’s never been lashed. He’s a nice man. He’s probably had the opposite of a flogging. People probably throw roses at him when he walks down the street. I know I would.”
I’d be happy to attend this rose-throwing Goodsir-parade. I already have a bad habit of bringing roses to the pseudo-graves of historical men whom I love; we can add Goodsir to the list without too much hassle.
01x05 – “First Shot’s A Winner, Lads” (One, Two, and Three)
“[Re: James and “Your nails are a terror, Mr. Wentzall]…the checking of collars and fingernails is a very maternal duty.”
I love spotting feminine traits in James, but what I’m getting out of this is actually imagining James’s adoptive mother Louisa Coningham examining the fingernails of a very young James. It’s an adorable, if slightly tragic, image.
“Irving doesn’t seem like a hard man, but like a man trying desperately to be hard, and often failing. He should have forgotten about the navy, stayed on land, gone to France and become an early Impressionist painter.”
This fantastic description of Irving makes it even more tragic that he DID try to forget about the navy and stay on land, and it didn’t work. Canon divergence AU where Irving moved to France instead of Australia?
“We’re told, repeatedly, including by Goodsir, himself, that Goodsir isn’t a doctor. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding: people think they know who Goodsir is, or who he wishes to be, but Goodsir has no desire to be anything but what he is. Perhaps appropriately, it’s Hickey who recognizes and names Goodsir (“You’re an anatomist.”) One may say that Hickey ‘reads’ Goodsir. Though, Hickey’s understanding is, as it often is, flawed. He may know what Goodsir is, but he doesn’t know who Goodsir is.”
I very genuinely wonder – did Goodsir want to be thought of as a doctor, by any of them? What were Goodsir’s thoughts and preferences on the matter?
01x06 – “A Mercy” (One, Two, and Three)
“What Sir John left them was a means of dissembling, a facade. Cheer in a cheerless time, which holds the dangerous allure of forgetting.”
This is perfect, because Carnevale, at its center, is “the dangerous allure of forgetting,” in no small part because, structurally, Carnevale fills the role of the Homeric island of the lotus-eaters. (It is also a labyrinth, though, and that’s an interesting doubling.)
“The half masks in the trunk have the semblance of the faces of dead men we’ve seen. The creature has the habit or practice of biting a man’s head in two, or biting off part of the cranium.”
I had never noticed this but it’s entirely true.
“Francis is bracketed by Thomas’, neither one of them a doubter.”
I will SCREAM
“‘I don’t like to hear a woman laughing now.’ I suppose it’s fortunate that Jopson’s professional life allows him to be around men, exclusively. What would Jopson have done later in life? Marriage is obviously out of the question if women’s mirth causes him such distress. Would he have stayed on boats? Francis promotes him to lieutenant, but would that have made him happy? He has a love of, an instinct for caring for others that obviously can’t be transposed onto a marriage, both because of Jopson’s limits and because of Victorian gender roles. The best possible course for Jopson would have been valet, a gentleman’s gentleman. His rank and background would have made him an asset, and no more devoted valet would there have been.”
The fanfic writes itself. (I have nothing to say yet, I just adore this speculation; more below, though.)
“The drop of blood falling from James’ hairline onto the mask’s cheek to make a kind of morbid beauty spot is a gorgeous image, like a piece of decadent poetry.”
I personally find James unbearably beautiful, and the whole extended sequence with the dress and the drinking and the blood dripping is so subtle and lovely and I think, like with poetry, what we get out of it is never simple.
“James is dressed as Britannia. Which makes James mother to them all.”
Though I, selfishly, would have loved to see James in something more scandalous than his Britannia costume, I think it’s symbolically the best possible choice for him. This is an outfit that is technically crossdressing, but it’s very subtle thanks to the choices James makes – we don’t see any dramatic woman’s wig or other feminine elements. This is an outfit that reminds the men of home; reminds James of home, and of his adoptive mother, whose poetry was full to the brim and spilling with Britannia.
“Blanky looks great. I wonder if the visual reference to the Ghost of Christmas Present is intentional.”
I’ve always assumed he was meant to be Bacchus, but of course the Ghost of Christmas Present has more than a little Bacchus in him also. All of these Christmas Carol overlaps are exceedingly interesting – John Ross’s Marley warning Franklin’s Scrooge, and now the Ghost of Blanky Present reminding Crozier that others are – for good or ill – having fun without him.
“One may imagine that Edward has disguised himself as someone who enjoys parties.”
OH GOD.
01x07 – “Horrible From Supper” (One, Two, and Three)
“Hickey can’t move on from humiliation, because he would see that as more humiliation. Keeping the humiliation alive in his mind is the only way to gain some mastery over it. He holds the wound open, so that no one can deny that it’s a wound, that it happened, that it mattered, that he matters, but it means that he can never heal, never be whole. Scurvy.”
The Hickey/Fitzjames parallels are STRONG here. Also, this resonates really well with a conversation I had with a friend about Eleanor Guthrie from Black Sails – she’s unable to move past being hurt and I just can’t fault her for it, even as her stubbornness just hurts her more. And I feel that sympathy for James, too – he’s bottled up so much hurt inside, and it has kept hurting him his entire life. If Hickey didn’t “hold the would open” by, you know, making wounds in other people, literally, I’d probably even feel bad for him.
“There is an emotional and psychological toll, which Francis tries desperately to reduce by keeping the men together, reinforcing the bonds between them, persistently humanizing them.”
The Jopson’s promotion scene warms me on cold nights. That’s all.
“Jopson’s role is the opposite of Lady Silence’s: the fact of her gender alters nothing about it; Jopson’s informs it. Make Jopson female, and he clearly functions as Francis’ wife. If Jopson is male, though, what is he? A paid servant, in the literal sense, but his obvious pleasure at caring for Francis long ago eroded the patina of duty. I think we can safely say that Jopson loves Francis, loves and cares deeply for him. Is invested in Francis’ safety, well-being, happiness. Enjoys the details of his service to Francis, beyond the enjoyment of a job well-done. Add a sexual component, and it becomes a marriage. Leave it out, and the relationship is something else. Drop Jopson into a marriage with a woman, and he becomes a husband. Leave him with Francis, and he remains Francis’ wife.”
This is what I find so fascinating about Jopson – everything about his identity has the potential to be contingent, to change, but as the expedition’s tragedy unfolds, we see all of the possible threads of Jopson’s future cut off, one by one. From the beginning, Jopson can’t be female, and thus can’t serve a wifely role in British society, even though he’s clearly fit for it. We learn that Jopson has some very specific PTSD triggers related to women that might prevent him from ever being married to one, even if he wanted to be. Jopson seems to wish to continue serving Francis in perpetuity, to continue being as close to a wife as Francis will ever have, but Francis, sober, no longer needs the same kind of care that Jopson used to provide, and, eventually, Jopson becomes unable to care for Francis at all, so that Francis has to care for him. Jopson is all change, all tragedy.
“I would like to thank the director, cinematographer, anybody else who may be responsible for that stunning shot of James in profile. James really is beautiful, even, maybe particularly, at this stage of his infirmity. I’ve said it at other times, but there’s something, well, I suppose, romantic about his illness, because he is young, and beautiful, and heroic, so desperate to be loved, and so loved, in the end.”
*sighs* I’m not okay about James.
01x08 – “Terror Camp Clear” (One, Two, and Three)
“I don’t know how I didn’t notice before, but James is a leggy creature.”
I will still treasure the term “a leggy creature” when I am in my grave.
“Sir John was not a top, and I know that for a fact, because I just got Lady Jane on the Ouija board, and she told me.”
I WILL SCREAM.
“[Francis] doesn’t look on James as a sick person in need of careful handling. There’s no sense of the separation necessary for pity between Francis and James. He is this way toward James because he cares about James.”
I know we all joke about the quote “it’s rotten work” / “not to me, not if it’s you,” but this is what that quote has always meant to me (the Anne Carson of it, that is, not the original Greek). Caring for someone via pity, via distance, takes effort, is painful, is rotten, even though it is sometimes worth it. Caring for someone via care, via love may still take effort, and may still even be painful, but there is no separation, no alienation, from the service of providing care. That’s where Francis’s tenderness comes from, I think. That closeness.
“James, you big, beautiful racehorse. Even chapped and cracked, he’s radiantly beautiful. He has such a warm quality.”
In the confessional spirit of this review, I will admit: I find James more attractive than I am capable of expressing. The interesting thing, to me, is that I don’t have the same response at all to Tobias Menzies or to any other character I’ve seen him play. He’s a great actor, certainly, but he doesn’t do it for me. But James does. I’m still puzzling this out.
“James’ bravery is treated somewhat like a woman’s beauty, in that he believes it to be conditional, temporary. It’s dependent on others’ appreciation of it; when he’s alone, James doesn’t feel brave.”
I will say, admitting that it’s probably James’ femininity that is attractive to me gets you a long way toward understanding why I do find him so terribly appealing.
“Oh, please, baby Jesus, don’t let Jopson flip. Jopson’s one of the few things I have left to hang onto, here.”
Jopson will never flip, such that Jopson’s death really is the point of no return, here. He’ll die before he flips. (Notably, it’s important to be clear that by “flip,” I mean turn his loyalties away from Crozier. I have reconciled myself to the idea that, though Jopson is upright and innocent in a way even my James isn’t, he is capable of violence and even unjustified, offensive violence. But only ever in the service of his captain.) And again here, Jopson very well might not be immune to the seduction Hickey’s definitely attempting, but bending to Hickey’s wiles means betraying Crozier, and that’s an impossibility for Jopson.
“Bridgens, who’s a cozy old piece of furniture…”
….and Henry Peglar would like to sit on him. (I get it Henry, I do.)
01x09 – “The C, the C, the Open C” (One, Two, and Three)
“Oh, Bridgens. Where’s Henry? Where did Henry go?”
I think a real triumph of this show is getting you to know, by this point, that when you see Bridgens, you should ALWAYS ask yourself, “Where’s Henry?” Because yeah, “They are each other’s loved one,” and there can’t be either one of them without the other. Bridgens knows this, and makes himself into a memorial for Henry. The only kind of monument Henry Peglar can ever have: Bridgens, with his own body, preserves Peglar’s words for the future, for us. I’m just going to cry for Bridgens and for Peglar for a minute, that’s all. Please excuse me.
“Hartnell watches Bridgens pick up Peglar, Peglar’s arm around Bridgens like, ‘… Wait a minute…’ Hartnell also misses Hickey’s innuendo about Armitage. Tom Hartnell tragically has no gay-dar.”
Oh precious Hartnell. This lack of gay-dar is part of why Hartnell had to get written out of what I’m currently writing (I’m sorry Hartnell! It’s not you it’s me.)
“There’s something of a horrible wooing about it: Goodsir, like an unwilling bride, forcibly taken from his own people by unscrupulous men, installed in as luxurious surroundings as can be had, with his trousseau, for the purpose of catering to an unspeakable hunger. His innocence is taken from him, and he’s turned against himself. His body is stripped naked and consumed.”
(a) What a horrible and horribly accurate description. (b) This is another one of those places where this show is unafraid to place male characters into narrative metaphors of womanhood. For me, the most vivid is always Jopson, but Goodsir is also often made to face this sort of feminine role, and for Goodsir it’s so much more often about violence and shame.
“James says “I’m not Christ,” before he tells Francis to feed the men his body. It seems like something of a non sequitur, until one imagines James’ train of thought. As the impulse to give his body to the men occurred to him, so may have also come a last flicker of self-mockery: “What, James, do you think you’re Christ, now?” So that his announcement that he’s not Christ comes in response to this: he knows who he is, and who he isn’t. Finally, he knows this.”
I think that’s exactly what went through James’s head. And more than that, I think back on that beautiful gif-set that placed James’s “I’m not Christ” beside Francis’s “Like Christ, but with more nails.” Francis, whose self-hatred is clear and undisguised, begins to heal by recognizing what is Christ-like in himself: his suffering, and the compassion that is borne from the suffering. James, whose self-hatred is buried under masks and lies and stories and gilded dresses, begins to heal by admitting what is not Christ-like about him: his mortality, his humanity; and that doesn’t make James any lesser, and James finally, finally begins to see so.
“Can’t Jopson’s story end differently, this time?”
That’s what hurts. In no version of this story that happens with Hickey AND the Tuunbaq AND the inevitable deaths of 129 men, should James die any different, or Goodsir, or Bridgens. If they were going to die, they should do so showing bravery and brotherhood; agency and defiance; commitment and love. There are other men who deserved so much better than the ignoble deaths they got (Irving comes to mind) but Jopson is the warmest light and receives the coldest death. There’s no reason for his story NOT to end differently, except for the sheer narrative cruelty of it all. The Terror is brilliant because it knows to reserve this sort of agony for the worst possible gut-punch. Any more than one, or maybe two, utterly, pointlessly cruel deaths, and we would be immunized. But we have no immunity to prepare us for the dizzying nausea of Jopson’s death.
“The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death. Death, ultimately, isn’t mysterious. Whatever might happen to one afterwards is immaterial to the living, still bound to this plane of existence. One may fear it, but once it happens, it’s over. Love is a way of life, though. It changes over time. It changes the person who feels it, and the person they feel it for. Both Francis and Jopson were changed by their love for each other. Jopson goes to one mystery still in the grip of the other: it’s Francis he sees, reaches for, cannot touch.”
Jopson’s death is still haunting me. It’s like Tantalus, all that food that would save Jopson’s life, if only he could eat it, and yet he crawls right past, toward Crozier. What does that say about Jopson? The way the world tortures him is to hold Crozier just outside of his reach – what on earth is Jopson being punished for? (These aren’t intelligible thoughts anymore; I’m just broken-hearted for my boy.)
“In a narrative that encourages empathy for everyone and everything from a colonial expedition to a monkey to an eldritch monstrosity that rips men’s heads off, why should Hickey be exempt?”
A beautiful way of putting it. I’m still working through my initial disgust at Hickey, but intellectually, I can’t help but agree.
01x10 – “We Are Gone” (One, Two, and Three)
“…the experience of being through so much with these characters that I care about so much has been like living several lifetimes.”
My mother, who has not yet watched this show, told me recently that she thinks these characters have become my family. In part, this is due to the historical research I’ve been doing on the real men of the Franklin expedition, but the show played its own large role in making me fall in love with these men, making me desperate to live as many lifetimes with them as possible.
“Why does Goodsir do it, though? He seems to have made up his mind before Francis appears, and with Francis comes the hope that Edward will rescue them. If anything, Francis’ presence makes Goodsir more resolute.”
As another dear friend said, Goodsir definitely had the plan in mind before Francis showed up, but the plan needed a trigger: it needed Francis, a good man worth dying for. Someone for Goodsir to look at and say, “Maybe my actions will help this man.”
“I think I just confessed to being in love with a man who doesn’t exist.”
Ahh, this lovely club. Even the men I’m in love with who actually lived two thousand years ago don’t really exist, at least not in the way I love them.
“The Terror is like a play put on by a theater company that has no female actors, so all of the men must play female roles…without any women to place in certain contexts – caretaker; lover; victim; object of desire – those dramas necessarily play out on the bodies of the men.”
Watch this space. The Terror is a classical Greek tragedy, and I can prove it.
The description of Goodsir’s preparation for death is richer and more complete than anything I will ever write. GO READ IT.
I also think it’s fascinating to see this scene through the eyes of a reviewer who readily admits “This is an unusual case. I like Goodsir. I don’t usually like the men I’m looking at. I care for Goodsir.” I confess that, though I also like and care for Goodsir, when I am looking at “eroticized male bodies” in media, I only really “feel at home in a text” when I also like and care for those men. If a male character is too morally objectionable to me, I find no erotic appeal to viewing him, because I am so distracted by my own sense of his evils. I simply cannot find anything to pull me, aesthetically or sexually, to someone like Hickey. (I can never find anything sensually appealing about Hickey/Tozer, for instance.) I am pulled to James, in contrast, because he is beautiful to me visually, and because his life (as far as I can see) shows me a person who cared, who tried, who loved. Who is worthy of my care and trust. And though I don’t think I’m in love with Goodsir in the same way than I am with James, I care deeply for Goodsir and thus can find the appeal in watching him, visually.
“‘There is wonder here.’/ ‘Then, there will be the angels.’ The first thing angels ever tell any human being who beholds them is not to be afraid. Wonder isn’t always delightful, isn’t always something that humans can understand, or possibly, even, survive.”
Fear is something I don’t often enough examine closely with this show, though it is so terribly central. “Be not afraid” and “We have too much fear.” How can one dispel fear? Wonder obviously isn’t enough; wonder might even make it worse. Being told not to fear rarely works out so well for those visited by angels. I think, sometimes, that all we can do is – as Peglar does – admit to those we love that we have too much fear, and hope that they can help us carry it.
I can’t NOT give you the end of the first round of these reviews, because, like the description of Goodsir’s preparations, it’s literature:
“The Terror, a show taking place one hundred, sixty years ago, manages to be timely without even trying. Lead poisoning. Environmental catastrophe. The baggage of colonialism. The treatment of indigenous people by white people. Information and misinformation. What it means to be a leader. What it means to be in a marriage. The role of women in society. Gay marriage. Income inequality. Ethical consumption. Consumerism. Members of the armed forces working far from home. Mental health. Addiction. All of these fit neatly into what can also be taken at face value, a well-constructed and -acted tale of adventure and loss set in a faraway place and time. The Terror never tries to force meaning on the viewer, never struggles under the weight of its lofty aspirations- because it has no aspirations. It’s an utterly guileless production, seeking nothing but to present its characters and situations honestly. In doing such a simple thing, it has created the world.”
And, finally, I leave you with: “I’m not looking for a way out. I just want more time with the characters. I don’t want to leave them.” To me, this gives an answer to David Solway’s question “Do you have a tolerance for ongoing narratives which generally turn out to be the same narrative?” And that answer is “yes.” I think there’s a tolerance – or, even, a hunger – for ongoing narratives that turn out to be the same narrative, in this fandom, because why would anyone want a way out anymore, if it means the end of our time with these characters?
I know I don’t.
“The end of The Terror isn’t a sad end, nor is it a hopeful one. It’s not even properly an end, because we know what comes next. What comes next? Well, we do.”
#thank you op for the reviews#everyone else go read them if you haven't#what an unending gift this show is#a ship is its captain's confessor#long post#the terror#the terror amc#terrorposting
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Incantations [1]
And whosoever of them ate of the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no longer any wish to bring back word or to return, but there they were fain to abide among the Lotus-eaters, feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of their homeward way. (Homer, Odyssey)
WARNINGS: contains potentially triggering content. Rated Explicit 18+. Tagging will be in comments as i’m in a bit of a rush today. Words: 2840 // Summary: No one ever tells what becomes of common girls, after they ascend. An alternate universe that explores the links that myth and magic have to present day Cordonia. A/N: love you guys!! Thank you for being so supportive, especially @lizeboredom and @ritachacha and @darley1101 and @breaumonts
CHAPTER ONE
"The Queen is not pregnant." The doctor delivers his verdict in the clipped, sterile tones that Riley has begun to dread and expect in equal measure. He strips the gloves from his hands, wiping them off briskly and vigorously, and she tries not to think about his fingers pushing into her, probing her aging ovaries cynically as her ankles dangle in the stirrups, laid bare for her king -- her husband, yes, but first and foremost her king -- to witness.
As if she were being punished.
As if what happened -- what has repeatedly happened -- is her fault alone to bear.
Maxwell would never -- But Riley tries not to think of him.
(Not anymore. Not for a long time. Not since the last time she saw him, a thousand and one things unsaid between them.)
"...instruct her to lie with her legs up after the act of coitus, and no sinful positions. There is only one way that the heir to our blessed country should be conceived..."
Riley thinks of the doctor's words when her thighs are spread so wide they ache and her lover is plowing her deep, cursing and grunting, the sound of their sweaty flesh slapping together in the thick darkness of the room.
To conceive a child, you must cease your sinful ways. The queen shall lie on her back, and think of Cordonia. The king shall lift the hem of her nightdress, inserting his little king into her throne room. The subjects shall be blessed.
The summer heat presses behind the curtains, if it comes into this room, it will blind them, their sins laid bare before all the court to see.
All Riley can think of is how close she is, dipping a finger between her slick thighs, the bud of her clit swollen and engorged. She fists the bedsheets in one hand as his hand cups one breast, the pads of his fingertips creating a delicious friction on her nipple. She twists wildly under him, movement becoming frantic, jerky.
"Not yet." His accent gets thick when they are abed together, it becomes something out of legend and myth, honey and myrrh, stirring the embers into a blaze that will burn down civilizations, and make a new age of men.
•••
"Who is that absolute oaf making a mess of the canapés?"
Lady Adelaide must be getting old, Riley thinks. She would know those broad shoulders and muscled thighs anywhere. The memory of his stubble against her breasts makes Riley dig the tips of her nails into her palm, but only for a moment.
"There's no need to signal the staff. I will take care of it." She touches Adelaide's shoulder, brief, light, like the fanning of the death’s head moth against the cheek, and the older woman nods vaguely, already turned back to her glass of wine and Lord Rashad's slow, deliberate eye fuck.
Riley scans the grounds for her king, out of pure habit if nothing else. Three years after the fact has made Liam a stranger, and she sees him lay two fingers on the shoulder of Kiara of Castlerellian as she laughs prettily with the ambassador of Auvernal, showing her neck. It means: She is mine. She belongs to me.
(Once, it was Riley who was the mistress. Once, she was the one who belonged to the king, not to all Cordonia. Once, she had the world at her feet, and the love of few good men… And now, nothing.)
Even from this distance, Riley can see the ambassador swallow, taking a step back. His eyes avoid her direction, but she knows she will have to patch this up later, and can already feel a migraine coming on. Diplomacy was never her strong forte, even if she played the part back when she was still an imposter, a waitress who dreamed of being a queen.
Arin, The First Courtesan of Rome. Valentina, The Sell Sword. Penelophon, The Beggar Queen.
(No one ever tells what happens to the common girls, after they ascend.)
"Excuse me, sir, guests must use a fork, and not their fingers. We are not all wild animals here." Riley taps the oaf on the shoulder, and squeaks in mock alarm as he drops his plate. He issues forth a roar of laughter, wrapping her in a bear hug and lifting her off her feet.
He smells of the Aegean, blue and green and bronze as the brine in his hair.
(Salt, and sun, and sin.)
She sneaks a glance in Liam's direction. If he has noticed their proximity, he gives no sign. But why would he care? This man is to be trusted.
The petals of the lotus quiver in the breeze, and sleepy dusk grows thick with the sickly sweet fragrance of the blossoms.
•••
“I need my lips on yours when you come for me.” His voice is ragged and thick with lust, and she does not protest as he flips her over, pulling her to the edge of the bed. His cock impales her to the mattress, plunging deep inside of her, and Riley makes a strangled noise in her throat as her lover begins to thrust, her teeth pressing against his shoulder, nearly breaking the skin.
She tastes sun and sea and salt and sin, and when she closes her eyes she hears the sonorous peal of the bells from the last time they were together, three years gone: the household draped in black, her orgasm tasting of hot copper where she'd bitten her lip to keep silent, for a queen must never, ever cry.
(You must bear an heir of royal blood. It is for the good of the country, for we have enemies on all sides. If you cannot conceive, what good are you, except as a figurehead?)
“You are crying.” His voice is as resonant as the caverns under the palace, where before time was time, princes and pythias alike would speak the language of the house snake, and feed it milk and honey to ensure good oracles for the reign to come. “Ah, my queen.” He pulls out, and his breathing is thick, labored: the scent of wormwood is pungent in the small room. The sides of the mattress beside her thighs sinks down as he braces his hands upon it, and he cups her by the chin to gently kiss her forehead, a mark of obeisance.
(But she is not his sovereign. His star had already fallen before hers ever shot across the sky. Their constellations were never meant to align.)
“It is nothing. I thought you wanted us to come like an incantation between our lips.” She feels him tense under her fingertips, stroking down the rippling abdomen, the fuzz is fair and fine from his navel to his cock, and he moans when she takes him in her mouth.
(Sin, salt, sea, sun.)
An incantation.
A ritual tattoo.
The black sails that returned the ships to the harbor after the battle had done, bearing the byre of the regent’s only heir.
“Fuck. Fuck.” His hands fumble, they grip the bedposts. His cock quivers in her mouth, she runs the tip of her tongue up the vein in the center, then deep throats him, hard. His muscles tense, the only sound in the room is that of the tip of his cock hitting the back of her throat and his rasping groans. When he comes, his fist gripping her hair, the deluge floods into her mouth like the waters of the Nile.
Riley licks up every salty drop, the great man dropping to his knees before her with a thud that would bring the guards running if they were not all sequestered in their quarters to escape the heat of the midday sun.
(Except Mara. But Mara will never tell. After all, it is Mara who knows her secret sins, loyal unto death like a handmaiden of old.)
•••
“Duchess, are you always this bored at state functions, or did I arrive at a bad time?" Leo lays a finger on the side of his nose, tapping it with a wink. He is bronzed from the sun, and under his ceremonial suit his muscles bunch and ripple, the seams stretching at the shoulders. He pops a canapé into his mouth, following it with a shot of ouzo from a nearby waiter's tray.
"It's always a time." Riley frowns as Leo passes her a shot of ouzo, clinking their glasses together. “I shouldn't be drinking --” but after a long, measured moment, she does.
Blue eyes search her face, and her stomach roils with guilt. “I'm not.” The memory makes her head swim, and the ouzo tastes like poppy syrup, oozing down the back of her throat.
(Only three years gone, bloody handprints on the wall, the dogs setting up a cacophony of howls for days on end, and all the things that smelled of them, of her, carted away and burnt to cinders.)
What good are you, except as a figurehead?
“That is very fine, especially when you think about what the two of us will get up to later.” Leo’s breath tickles her earlobe when he leans in, and the proximity of his body makes something kindle in her loins, desires she'd thought long dead and buried beyond the garden walls. “I have half a mind to snort a line of blow right off that tight little arse, right here on the lawns, but I think Regina would perish on the spot.”
“Let us consider it done, then.” Riley smiles against Leo’s neck, so he can feel her lips move, and then takes a graceful step back. He grunts, shielding his erection with a carefully angled bottle of champagne, dripping with condensation.
“Your Majesty, the king bids you join him for the closing address.” A servant bows before her, and she thinks she may never get used to this -- the linen dresses with finely beaded necklines, intricate enough to put an Egyptian queen to shame, the way the crowds part for her as she walks in mincing steps through the waving grass, the sudden sharp memory of a small, tiled room, painted with cracked frescoes, the oldest room in the palace.
(There was a lemon tree, and a girl with wide eyes, bangles on her wrists and shackles on her wings. Her wings? But that can't be right.)
Lady Riley Brooks…
The Duchess…
A figurehead…
She closes out the whispers with a Lady Di smile plastered on her face, bright as anything. Liam’s fingertips dig into her wrist, just enough. He knows. The sinking cold dread settles in her bones, and she covers it with her most brilliant, diplomatic smile.
“Darlings, thank you for joining us.” Her kisses on the cheeks of the Auvernese and Panrian ambassadors are sweet as poppy syrup, false as plasticine. When they smile, it is at Kiara, awkward and unsure.
“Your Highness!” One of the reporters for a local vlog, The Golden Apple, jumps up and down frantically, waving to get her attention. Riley picks her out of the crowd, a girl with short pink hair and a leather mini-dress far too on-trend for the noveau riche set. The press badge reads Eris.
Riley mentally steels herself for the same tired question, but is unable to mask her expression for what comes instead.
“Duchess Riley, how is the royal family handling the news about Lord Maxwell Beaumont?”
•••
Maxwell Percival Beaumont.
The hallway is endless.
Riley carries her kaboodle, and Maxwell drags the vintage steamer trunk with seemingly little effort behind him. His designer trainers set up little clouds of dust off the threadbare carpet, an Aubusson which has never seen a carpet sweeper more modern than anything from 1902 (according to the girl upstairs, socialite Fenny Vandervliet, this is an actual historical fact).
She can feel the ghosts of the pre-war building at her back, watching her leave. I'll be home soon. The words are on her tongue, but she does not dare speak what she already fears to be a lie.
She thinks, instead, of Maxwell’s scent on the bed sheets when they woke in the morning, still tangled together.
Bronze, parchment, and the expectations of the ancestors.
•••
After the nightclub, she begs a headache, and Maxwell offers to share a taxi. Liam seems pretty taken with you, you know…
But when he brushes a strand of hair back from her face, she doesn't pull away. And when she offers him a nightcap, he doesn't refuse. When he lifts her hair from the back of her neck to press a kiss at the nape, all the birds in the apartment, hearing her soft sigh, begin to sing.
He unclasps the first button on the dark green dress (abalone and gleaming pearl, borrowed from the girl who lives upstairs, the socialite with enough Old Money to buy all of New Amsterdam), and the silk rustles like the petticoats of the girl who ran away to sea with a pirate she met on the King's Highway in 1612, rapier wit and gold teeth, a pair of blackbirds the two of them.
(But her soul whispers that this man is not the pirate, that man was another path, another chance, and he sits drowning his sorrows even now at a dive bar somewhere south of hell.)
His fingertips are warm against the bones of her spine, and his lips follow, each kiss making her gasp and grip the kitchen sink for stability, as though she might fall apart without him there to keep her steady. Years later, this memory will blacken around the edges like a beaten bronze mirror found at an archaeological dig in the Aegean, back in 1899, just as the old age began to fall into the new. She will take it out and examine it, trying to reconcile the girl she once was with the queen she has become.
(Ah. But that is what will come, and this is now.)
Now is this: a tangle of images and sensation. Maxwell’s fingers lacing through hers as the dress slides to the floor, his tongue in her mouth, she bites his lower lip and drags it between her teeth. The shelves rock against the wall, the train is coming through. The scent of cardamom is in the air, her hands are in his hair and his stubble scrapes against her neck.
Maxwell’s hands move up her thighs, they both fumble with each other’s garments: her moan of dismay as she tries to maneuver his belt, his low groan as he struggles with the clasps of her bra.
Don't bother. She stays his hands and pulls the straps down, her breasts still firm and high and tipped with dusky rose. She feels his cock hard and firm between her legs, he's lifted her up on the counter and stepped in between her thighs, pulling her forward and nudging them apart as he dips his head to take one nipple into his mouth, her cries drowned out by the sound of the train again. Somewhere, a harp is playing, somewhere, somewhere, over the rainbow.
But here and now there is only the two of them: Maxwell's fingers push aside the sodden cloth of her underthings, and she sobs his name as he plunges his fingers into her, in and out, in and out, over her clit and back inside of her until she knows she will go mad with wanting him.
Condoms are in the bathroom, she manages to gasp out, and when he dashes off, she has a moment to study her reflection in the windowpane: a stranger is there, with red lips and tousled hair, and a face to launch a thousand ships.
Riley. His lips brush the nape of her neck and if she kept scrying into the glass for one single second more, she might have seen his doppelgänger there, with a breastplate of beaten bronze, on his knees before his queen in a bedchamber of a palace in some place long forgot to human memory.
They fall into the bed, his hands are on her hips as she sinks against him, their moans and sighs an incantation.
Come back. Come back to me.
Throw the centuries off like the dust on a handful of faience beads. Dance in his arms on a ship's deck lit by Greek Fire, roaring across a wine dark sea. Scream your lover’s name as the blood pools under the locked door that will become your tomb.
Come to me. Come back to me.
A funerary rite.
A hymn to the living.
An incantation.
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pasture, window sill, honeysuckle and peaches 💫💕
pasture - whats your favorite feature about yourself?
honestly, everything I hated about myself growing up--my eye shape, my crooked and slanted nose, my skin, my eyebrows, my hair..could go on endlessly but I'm slowly unlearning all the racist stuff that I've had drilled in me since I started school and im learning to love my features because!! they’re very sexy very not white or eurocentric!!
window sill - whats the most beautiful view you’ve ever seen?
the way the moon sat over the beach while I was standing in a fancy hotel I couldn't afford to stay in let alone sit for more than an hour in. the moon that night looked and felt bigger than any night before then, and it was golden over the horizon, the sky that kind of inky romantic blue. maybe it was because I felt closer to moon but she was huge and beautiful and I remember not being able to leave the balcony patio of that hotel the entire time I was there, that was until the staff came rip
but also the way the sun set hits my dad’s room and how this one time that golden light hit my mom at just the right angle that it made her look angelic and heavenly even as we ate shitty hakka noodles my uncle picked up on his visit
but also the sky looked after this hurricane whose name I literally can’t remember and how, despite the sky being grey, everything was light. yea trees were fallen and my neighbor’s mailbox was mia (it was later found 2 blocks down the road) and how the lake near my house, the one at the park, moved and ached in a new way, a way I've never seen before then. its waters weren’t that dark blue they usually were, it looked black but the lake taught me what homer meant when he said “wine dark sea”
but also the first time I ended up on a hill (man-made but whatever!) and got to see the sun set completely. I was able to see my house from this hill too and watched as the sun engulfed the palms near my house with such a beautiful, glittering light, and how the pool at my neighbor’s house looked like literal jewels in that light. and how the birds flew right towards the sun as the day was ending but I had to go the other way when it was gone.
but also the time I got lost at this park in michigan and I ended up at this lighthouse and just stayed there in the wild grass and trees until someone I knew showed up. the water looked different, nothing like the beaches near my house but it was a different kind of beauty. the other side of the water had houses and even those sail boats with the colorful flags. it was a different view of the water, a beautiful place to get lost too
honeysuckle - most nostalgic movie and why?
not sure if this means nostalgic in the feeling its images/dialogue/etc evokes or that makes me feel nostalgic at the thought of the movie, but to answer both, studio ghibli films! there’s something about them that just screams nostalgia, that makes you want to slow down and just kinda think about things, yearn for things to be a little different. spirited away is THE studio ghibli movie that does that the most, especially since it was my first ghibli movie and I have fond memories attached to it. but when marnie was there, ocean waves, kiki’s delivery service, the wind rises, man I can keep going they all have that nostalgia factor to them (or maybe it’s me that’s putting it there because I've grown such a strong fondness for the films..)
peaches - what makes you happiest in the world?
answered here! + buying books, opening used books and seeing all the marks and annotations, and highlights throughout and how well-loved that book was before it reached me, the idea of domesticity, the color green, those glass trinkets with water inside them, silly little trinkets in general, small backpacks (idk why but they’re literally so tiny but they own my heart), movies that have beautiful cinematography that holds so much meaning, symbolic and literal, than just trying to get to the next scene like the kind of shots that just. suspend you in time and shake you and honestly make the entire movie because without that shot or series of shots the movie might not have been anything different, in that view experimental stuff in art and fashion and whatever like it makes me happy knowing people are trying new things to express themselves and therefore creating new ways to know!!!
send me some cottagecore asks?
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The Assistant: (Appendix 2): The Making of Maxine Valois
Like many fanfiction writers, I spend a lot of time thinking about forming different types of Original Character, and the drafts I have mentally done for Maxine was difficult each time. I have noticed from my habits that I spend a lot of time thinking about what the character looks like and not how the character feels. In terms of Maxine it was completely opposite--I had basic features in my mind, Long and black wavy hair arranged everyday in flapper-style chignon, silk clothes, tall and willowy, pale, sharp and symmetrical features, thin lips and black eyes.
“What’s in a name“? well, when it comes to my story or when I am writing--everything? I had spend a lot of time to name my OC. My first thoughts were really stupid, I went from 1920′s names to classic French names, but none matched her temper, thus I looked into some Latin names feeling that I should make her lineage a little more prominent. My choices were Claudia, Dido, Aurelia, however they sounded too serious; suddenly it clicked that Maxine sounds very regal and powerful, while ‘Max’ sounds very modern, tomboyish and playful which summer up her character in my mind. Coincidentally Letter M and N comes one after another.
Her surname is Valois, in French it means “from the valley”. The Valois name is historically relevant, and I characterise the family as the authoritarian oppression of society on women. Both the houses where Maxine was born and lived were former prisons. This signified that her entire life has been spent as a prisoner--something that clashed with the name ‘Maxine’: the greatest.
I had given her three names: Maxine, Adrienne and Odessa, each representing three aspects of her characters. “Maxine” means ‘greatest‘, ‘Adrienne’ is a French name meaning ‘dark‘ and ‘Odessa’ is just a female version of Odysseus. The Second Epilogue of The Assistant was the homage to her ‘Odessa’ name: Nostoi, on in Greek “homecoming“. When she was born, she was not welcome in her father’s home, neither in the three schools she studied: Durmstrang, Hogwarts and Mahoutokoro, nor in her Auror office as Theseus’ Vice Head, nor as Newt’s lover--a role she sought after so greatly. Her homecoming was possible by acknowledging her feelings for Theseus which she ran from which resulted her encounter with Newt.
The name “Adrienne” seems quite non-symbolic in my story, but this name was specially implemented by me with a very specific intention. ‘Adrienne’ is the French variation of the Greek name ‘Ariadne’. The most popular versions of Ariadne is ‘Ariana’ and ‘Adriana’ but I didn’t want that. The reason I selected one of Maxine’s middle name after Ariadne needs to be elaborated with the myth surrounding Ariadne. Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, the King of Crete, who helped King Theseus cross the Maze to kill the Minotaur. After the matter was over Theseus had a brief relationship with Ariadne. He abandoned her leaving her deeply heartbroken for the Amazon Queen Hippolyta.
JK conspicuously sneaks Greek and Roman myths into HP stories. The dynamics of Leta, Newt and Theseus seemed very ‘mythlike’ to me.By remaining Virgins fro perpetuity, Amazons sacrifice their motherhood which was quite symbolic in Leta’s mistake that killed Corvus Lestrange. Leta could easily be the diminutive of ‘Hippolyta’ the Amazon Queen. Amazons are loyal to both Artemis and Ares, which can easily be compared with Leta’s earlier attachment to Newt, (One of Newt’s middle name is ‘Artemis’). Hippolyta’s status of getting married to Theseus is a transition from Virginity to the subjugated of a King, which can easily be seen in Leta X Newt and Leta X Theseus.
How does Maxine fall in the story? King Theseus abandoned Ariadne for Hippolyta, and Ariadne was loved by Dionysus, God of Wine and revels. Maxine, just after her full name was revealed, was already showed falling drunk on the floor. Her usual material ‘excesses’ is very Dionysian in nature. After their rift with Theseus, Maxine sought comfort in her usual ‘excesses’ because I had imagined that’s what an ‘abandoned’ Ariadne would do. I also often wondered what if King Theseus repented and Ariadne caused him pain just to get a revenge on him? The union symbolizes penance of Theseus for abandoning Ariadne.
It is not only for narrative sake, the ‘Ariadne’ name also describes Maxine’s nature. Ariadne is associated with threads and Mazes; Maxine is deliberately seen messing and tangling with the threads of relationships--profession, familial, sexual and romantic. Ariadne, with her thread left a trail throughout the maze which would later help King Theseus to get out of the maze. Maxine was proposed by Theseus right after Leta’s death. Maxine broke it off and Theseus followed her trail to her first in Newt’s apartment and second in Japan--wherever Newt and Maxine were--Theseus was always present--either physically or mentally. Her character is the most confusing array of emotional mazes. I would describe her character as ‘onion-like’: there is mask after mask: under the face of Audrey there was Maxine; under a face of employee was a crushing lover; under an envious woman was a desperate want of love... if all the masks are removed, there will be nothing left--she is essentially a hollowed out creature.
“Tricksters“ are abundant in literature and media. We have Loki, Joker etc. who are often identified with this type: physically not very strong but highly intelligent who challenges the norms of society just to prove that strength, beauty and authority isn’t everything. We don’t often associate women when it comes to this particular archetype and this made me think about it--women can be mischievous and equally chaotic when they want to so why not! In 1920′s when women can either be Flapper party girl or a modest matron, I chose Maxine as someone different. I imagine her to be capable of walking into a party into her lingerie just to irk the “uptight official people“. Her very introduction is the testimony of her Tricksterdom--she challenges and fools the authority (Theseus) in the support of the Alternative (Newt), she combines her intellectualism with her sexuality, a point which makes Theseus readily fluster around her: snatching his wand and suggesting that she had concealed it between her breasts is not only standard-defying but also an open declaration of feminine sexuality; furthermore she later threatens that she will have Theseus’ wand “for realment”-- it could indicate either “real wand“ (indicating Theseus’ manhood) or “wand“ ‘for real‘. This play of words is so ambiguous that it makes the hearer confused and unpredictable.
It has been indicated that Maxine’s upbringing was very strict where she was constantly reminded of her inferior status: her illegitimate birth. This made her dissociate with her family and compelled her to spend more and more time developing the ways to defy them. This not only brought signs of magic in early age, but made her the innovator that she was. I imagine that she would spend her days creating spells to trick people or to harm people but also to keep her busy in the head. Tricksters are often very imaginative as their character requires it. However in one manner Maxine defers from the Trickster type. Tricksters never change in their heart; they are constant reminder that Exceptions Exist. However a change in heart occurs when she sees her mother and father being killed in front of her, which made her realise that like dynastic curse she will end up finishing herself and Newt in the process. She surrenders and accepts her punishment, something a trickster will never do. At the end she finds the reasons to submit, something she defied doing for so long, but her triumph comes when she almost scares the wedding guests and the groom Theseus to death by answering to the wedding vows “or do I?”
When we are talking about how ‘trickster-ish’ Maxine is, her name “Odessa” is meant to be under scrutiny. Homer’s Odysseus is considered a Trickster hero, whose wickedness of fooling Polyphemus cost him twenty years of detention in the sea. Maxine’s wickedness had cost her too: expulsion from Durmstrang (for murders she committed under Anatole’s manipulations), transfer from Hogwarts to Mahoutokoro (before she finished her Seventh year; only after her detention in Mahoutokoro she gets the graduation from Hogwarts), persecutions at her job etc. More than her it had cost other people: it almost got Newt, Theseus and Tina killed, imprisoned and off their jobs, the Bulgarian secretary in the party was hurt by her and Charlemagne almost lost his job (and life) for her. Her actions patronised people like Anatole who kept feeding off Maxine’s weakness and assumed British Ministry office using her as a bait. However despite all the facts, she continued to use cunning, manipulation and a pretended innocent facade to get to “home”, like Homer’s Trickster hero Odysseus did.
#ranting about oc#my oc writing#maxine valois#newt x oc#theseus x oc#about my fantastic beasts fanfiction
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Picture of Beauty (Ch 2/?)
Summary: Fashion house Jefferson-Mills needs inspiration. Photographer Gold believes a librarian he photographed by accident has what it takes. Now it's up to Gold to turn Belle into a model worthy of Paris Fashion Week. Based on the movie Funny Face.
Rating: This chapter PG-13
A/N: Unbeta'd. I have no idea whether someone had already written a Rumbelle Funny Face, I was too afraid to look.
AO3
Regina leaned her head against the window, reading the sign as they were passing, "Storybrooke," she announced to the others in the car. A second car, carrying her workmen and equipment followed. The cars drifted down Main Street, passing a dozen independently owned shops with names like Granny's and Game of Thorns and Storybrooke Coffee. She wouldn't be finding her triple venti soy no foam latte here. "Quaint," she intoned. "Do these people even know how to read?"
The car slowed in front of a tan building in the center of town, below an enormous clock tower, with a simple white and beige Storybrooke Free Public Library sign. "Looks dismal enough,” she lamented. “Let's get this over with." Regina, Jefferson, Gold, and the model from the previous disastrous shoot, who hadn’t looked up from her phone the entire drive, exited the first town car; the workmen carrying the cameras, laptops and the lighting equipment piled out the second.
Regina made a show of stretching her limbs while Gold shook out the creases in his suit. Jefferson turned in a circle, taking in the 360 view. “This. Is. Adorable,” he proclaimed. He marched toward the double doors of the library and opened them with a flourish. An unmanned mahogany circulation desk greeted them. High shelves were filled to bursting with spines of all colors. Even at a distance you could see that most of them were frayed at the edges. The light streaming in the windows highlighted the dust particles in the air.
Gold strolled past them and into the stacks. It was an old but very well loved collection. He could appreciate that as a collector of old things himself. As a space, there were plenty of windows along the front of the building, but the the deeper you got, the darker it became. "There's not enough light," he called behind him, shoving a book ladder out of his way. A cry rang out from above and Gold found himself with an armful of the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Stunned, he looked up to the top of the ladder he had tipped her from. The books she’d been shelving were in disarray. He glanced back down at the woman in his arms, blinking at her stupidly. Her dark auburn curls were pulled back from her face. Her left arm was wrapped around his shoulder and he could feel her thumb brushing the back of his neck. Those eyes, made all the more startling by the blue apron she wore, studied his face. Her rose red lips parted.
"Thank you," she breathed. His arms tightened around her, drawing her face imperceptibly closer to his. Her gaze dropped to the ground, and Gold noted her long lashes fluttering against her soft looking skin, before comprehension finally dawned on him. The surprise of finding her in his arms was only dwarfed by the shock that he was still holding her long after it was appropriate. He released her abruptly, forcing her to clutch at him momentarily in order to keep herself upright. Even through several layers of clothing he felt the loss of her warm body. She righted herself on her heels, “Thank you,” she repeated.
He took a large step back, a hand genticulating in an awkward wave before he realized what the hell he was doing and dropped it at his side, pretending to straighten his cuffs, “It’s no matter,” he insisted cooly. Someone cleared their throat behind them, a deafening sound in the empty stacks. Gold spun around to find Jefferson, flocked by the rest of the crew, watching them. The girl blushed prettily and put a well practiced but sincere smile on her face, "May I help you?"
Regina emerged from the crowd, pausing to look the woman up and down, "We have everything we need,” she dismissed. “We’re just going to take a few pictures."
The librarian’s brows furrowed, “Pictures?"
Regina turned on her heels, sweeping her arms across the room like a model on a game show, "We’re going to use your little library as the background in a few pictures for Jefferson's lookbook," she announced this like the great honor is was.
But obviously meant nothing to the young woman, "Lookbook?"
Regina ignored her question. She’d already banished the book girl from her mind and was now in complete art director mode. “The gown is green and there’s too many red books here. I don’t need it looking like Christmas, this is a spring collection. Get them out of here." The workmen sprang into action, scurrying in seven different directions and yanking anything with a scarlet, wine or berry shade off the shelves and tossing them in piles on the tables or floor.
The echo of volumes hitting the ground woke the librarian out of her momentary stupor, "Hey, hey, hey! Hey, stop! Stop it! No, no don’t do that! You mustn’t mix them up! They’re in Dewey Decimal!” She scrambled after Doc in one direction, “All the books on that shelf are Language.” She was distracted by Walter clearing an entire shelf, “Those are Philosophy and Psychology. Put them back!" She looked pleadingly at Leroy rushing by with a pile of books balanced under his chin, "Please talk to her, it’ll take me hours to put these put back in order."
He shook his head, "Sister, you don't talk to Regina Mills, you only listen."
Gold took the opportunity the chaos provided to melt into the background and observe, where he preferred to be. He collared one of the men and put him to work setting up the lighting equipment while he went about unpacking his camera. He was here to do the job he was being paid to do and nothing else. He couldn’t concern himself with pretty little librarians and their blue eyes and their books.
Said librarian, meanwhile, had given up on the men dismantling her library and was displaying her foolish bravery by marching right up to their leader, “You can’t do this!”
Regina glowered down at her, “Don’t my tax dollars pay your salary?”
Jefferson, sensing an impending blowup, snatched the librarian’s hand, pulling her into the frame, "I think we should use her in the shot."
“What?” both women exclaimed.
"She's dressed like a milkmaid," Regina bemoaned.
Jefferson, not to be deterred, dragged the woman over to where the model stood, still on her phone. He plucked a hardback from one of the heaps on his way, “Here, you’re selling a book to her.”
Belle stared at him, “I don’t sell books, it’s a library.”
“Sush, now tell our girl here all about the book so we can get out of here,” he jerked his head at Regina.
The librarian reluctantly took the book he shoved at her. The faster she could get this woman and her crew out of her library the better. She peered down at the title. Unbeknownst to him, he’d chosen her favorite. She smiled to herself but then she heard the camera click and, startled, she jumped and looks directly at the man who had caught her. His face was now hidden behind the camera lens.
“Ignore the camera, sweetie.” It was Regina. “Just act natural.”
The librarian ignored her condescending tone and focused on the book in front of her. She took a deep breath, “This is a tale about compassion and forgiveness and a hero named Gideon.” She forgot about the shutter clicks. “Many people think it’s a cheap romance, but it’s not. There’s this one line I love: ‘But Gideon was unafraid. He drew his sword and turned to face the evil Sorcerer, ready to save the people he loved.’ Isn’t that wonderful?”
Regina leaned over Gold, “How are they coming out?” she murmured. He was periodically examining the shots popping up on the laptop beside him. He nodded in the affirmative. “Great,” Regina clapped, “get her in the next dress!”
The librarian, tracing her finger over the lettering on the cover of her book, jolted, “Next? I thought you were done!”
“Almost,” Regina insisted, coming forward and placing a hand on her back. “Let’s find you someplace more comfortable to watch from,” she escorted her towards the front of the library. “We won’t be but a moment,” and then abruptly shoved her out the door, shouldering the door shut and locking the deadbolt. The librarian stood there, stunned. They'd locked her out of her own library. She rushed up and down the sidewalk, peeking in the windows but all she could see was the glare of the lighting equipment and camera flashes, so she gave up and slumped against the wall.
Thirty minutes later, the door to her library swung open and Regina swept past her, “Thanks, you’ve been a real help,” she called back to her. A dozen people followed in her wake and they began packing their belongings in the cars. The librarian crossed her arms and glared but everyone ignored her. She shuffled back into the library.
She was met with a sea of red books. There were piles on the circulation desk, the reading desks, the floor, and stashed randomly on top of shelves. It was going to take her weeks to get all the books back in order. No matter how many times a patron came in and asked her for “that book with the red cover", this would never do. Footsteps reverberated from the back stacks and the photographer emerged with an armful of novels. He held up one of the tomes, "What shelf for Homer?"
"880's. Just hand them to me." The anger she didn’t get to take out on Regina reemerged. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Me?” instead of handing her the book, he crouched down on the floor and began sorting through a mountain, placing them roughly in order.
She slunk into a wooden chair at the table next to him. “A man of your ability, working for them and taking fashion pictures. It's so...superficial. You could be creating art."
It was an argument he was familiar with. “Some would say fashion is art,” he replied. She narrowed her eyes, doubtful. “Be that as it may, the pay is good and I get a trip to Paris every year."
She softened, “I certainly envy you that. I’ve always wanted to see the world. I'd be in Paris now if I could afford it."
He took a moment to imagine her in Paris. "You would love it. There’s parties every night, everyone swimming in champagne, and love affairs around corner.”
She leaned on a stack of books, gazing into the distance, "If I went to Paris, it would be to go to Café de Flore.”
"Who goes to Paris for coffee?" he scoffed.
She whirled toward him, “It’s not just a cafe! It one of the oldest coffeehouses in Paris!” she defended. “It hosted Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Picasso! It’s a piece of literary and artistic history!” She was about to launch into another diatribe until she saw the smirk he was trying to hide and realized he was teasing her. “Oh,” she said sheepishly.
He felt bad for embarrassing her, but not for making her cheeks pinken. He gestured to the shelves, “Which is your favorite?”
She brightened, “910. Geography and Travel,” she answered immediately. “And the 840's,” she added hastily. “My friend Ruby says I never stop talking about Jules Verne.”
“Why Verne?”
Belle hesitated. This was the point when most people’s eyes glazed over when she started talking about books. But his eyes remained alert and on her and he seemed genuinely interested. “Travel. Adventure. And I love French literature. It's the last name.” He looked confused. "French. My last name is French." He grinned at that.
He rose from floor and regarded her, "Well, Miss French, I hope you get to Paris one day."
Her heart dropped. She hadn’t realize how much she’d enjoyed talking to him. It was nice to have someone to talk to for a change. She loved Storybrooke, but not many people shared her interests in books and culture and most found her enthusiasm for it strange. They didn’t understand why anyone would ever want to cross the town line. She had naively hoped he’d stay and they could keep talking while she shelved books. She would’ve made them tea. For a fleeting moment she thought about asking for his name. Maybe he’d send her a letter from Paris. They could correspond, like 84, Charing Cross Road . But that was a silly, romantic idea so instead she simply said, “Goodbye,” and watched him walk out the door and out of her life.
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