#is destroying Paris really a crime?
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The shady bug design is objectively hilarious and therefore I am obsessed
#miraculous ladybug#shady bug#marinette dupain cheng#I know ok I KNOW THIS IS BAD TOO#I was like surely a fun punk/alternative ladybug costume wouldn’t be too hard#I have no idea#but the new design reveals are so fun#like they’re dorky but also#I don’t know they’re just silly and funny#also evil tikki please#that horrible thing#is destroying Paris really a crime?#think about it
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Hey, remember when I asked you if you'd do a top of Gabriel's worst moments?
A N N I H I L A T E
T H I S
V E R M I N
N O
M E R C Y
(Cracks Knuckles)
TOP TEN WORST MOMENTS/CRIMES OF Gabriel Agreste
(And by worst moments, I mean worst things he has done in the show. I will be including the TV specials but not the Movie or Manga(as that is technically a different continuity)
10. Turning his son into a Siri
The whole thing with Alliance was super scummy, and he basically used his son's likeness in ways that are even more disturbing than in some previous cases. But with the genetic likeness he can have Adrien's face say whatever and he used this for several of his schemes, and thats pretty f***ed up.
9. Gaslighting his son in order to hide his identity
(The Collector AND Illusion)
The fact he did this twice and purposefully acted in a way that he knew would make adrien feel terrible is pretty messed up. Sure It may not seem malicious but Gabriel never needed to go that far to hide his identity.
8. Manipulating the emotions of others for his Plans
Now this is a no brainer as this is basically what he does all the time as Hawkmoth, but in several cases he does it directly or indirectly as Gabriel, usually with teenagers. Chloé, Lila, Marinette, Kagami just to name a few.
7. Creating akuma that put his son in danger.
Yanloushi, Star train, Frozer and more. Akuma that had some involvement because of Adrien and thus put Adrien in serious danger. He rarely takes precaution to make sure his son wont be in danger from an akuma attack.
6. Creating akuma that Personally target Adrien.
Gabriel has akumatized people that had a personal interest in causing adrien harm and have even targeted himself and got adrien in the crossfire. Gabriel has shown little to no remorse in doing so as he is so sure it has little matter in it.
5. Terrorism
Creating akumas that attack the city, having destroyed paris on multiple occasions and even went international, nearly causing a nuclear bomb strike to go off in NYC, to causing a city destroying monster in Shanghai. Both incidents had Adrien in those areas, while the former may have had Gabriel send Adrien home, the later Gabriel didnt realize until After he did it. He also showed no remorse for that.
4. The use and abuse of Kwami
DOES THIS LOOK OKAY TO YOU? HE KEEPS THEM CONFINED AND USES THEM FOR THEIR POWERS. The abuse the Kwami go through is shown to actually be incredibly tiring and painful for them. I will also add the wish on here because Tikki and Plagg were forced to do it.
3. The use, abuse and Murder of Sentimonsters
During season 4, Gabriel created countless sentimonsters and snapped them out of existence. Not to mention how in season 4 and 5 he used the amok of his own son like a controller to force his will on him. Felix even was threatened almost getting his amok removed as a result. Gabriel despite having a sentison, shows no love for the sentimonsters, even mocking ladybug and Chat noir for caring about them in season 3
2. Alliance and tech addiction.
Gabriel really out did himself with using technology. All of the data collection, tracking, mental manipulation and enslavement by using the Alliance ring as his master stroke to manipulate and control others. Gabriel had used the technology to even make an AI think his pilot died just to get. the miraculous. But the true evil was in the finale where he made everyone suffer from horrific nightmares and get addicted to the alliance all to turn them into obedient slaves. Unlike with akumatization where it was the users call if they accepts. The users in alliance suffer from withdrawal and are not able to properly make a decision.
1. The Abuse of Adrien Agreste
TIME TO GO BUCK WILD. Lets get the list. Neglect, emotional black mail, Physical violence, mental abuse, SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, Attempted Akumatization, Emotional abuse, and even social abuse. And before people ask about physical abuse and say chat blanc didnt happen. It did happen, if it didnt then Marinette wouldnt have had to have fought chat blanc. In a timeline, Gabriel beat his son like a baseball back with Glee
Cause this is just healthy right? A good redeemable man right there. Ignore his COWERING SON.
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When you say Claudia gets surgery wdym?
Hey!
Okay, so ... BIG SPOILER ahead. For season 2 as already foreshadowed from the scene they gave us and the sixth book, "The Vampire Armand".
In "The Vampire Armand" Armand recounts what really happened to Claudia, because she is not at the farce of a trial when Louis sees Lestat there.
I'm just going to paste the relevant passages here so you can read for yourself, but in real short: the surgery is done ON her.
For the record, she was slain by my Coven of mad demon actors and actresses, for, when she surfaced at the Theatre des Vampires with Louis as her mournful, guilt-ridden protector and lover, it became all too clear to too many that she had tried to murder her principal Maker, The Vampire Lestat. It was a crime punishable by death, the murdering of one's creator or the attempt at it, but she herself stood among the condemned the moment she became known to the Paris Coven, for she was a forbidden thing, a child immortal, too small, too fragile for all her charm and cunning to survive on her own. Ah, poor blasphemous and beauteous creature. Her soft monotone voice, issuing from diminutive and ever kissable lips, will haunt me forever.
But I did not bring about her execution. She died more horribly than anyone has ever imagined, and I have not the strength now to tell the tale. Let me say only that before she was shoved out into a brick-lined air well to await the death sentence of the god Phoebus, I tried to grant her fondest wish, that she should have the body of a woman, a fit shape for the tragic dimension of her soul.
Well, in my clumsy alchemy, slicing heads from bodies and stumbling to transplant one to another, I failed. Some night when I am drunk on the blood of many victims, and more accustomed than I am now to confession, I will recount it, my crude and sinister operations, conducted with a sorcerer's willfulness and a boy's blundering, and describe in grim and grotesque detail the writhing jerking catastrophe that rose from beneath my scalpel and my surgical needle and thread.
Let me say here, she was herself again, hideously wounded, a botched reassemblage of the angelic child she'd been before my attempts, when she was locked out in the brutal morning to meet her death with a clear mind. The fire of Heaven destroyed the awful unhealed evidence of my Satanic surgery as it turned her to a monument in ash. No evidence remained of her last hours within the torture chamber of my makeshift laboratory. No one need ever have known what I say now.
(Re the last sentence here: Of course Armand dictating this to David who will publish it... makes you wonder.)
Armand... cuts off her head, tries to stitch it onto a grown-up's body... and when that fails, he allows the others to put her into the sun.
The show has already teased this event with Armand's comment in the scene we got, and... I don't think they'll skip it, given the history of the real Grand Guignol theater, and the BTS posters we saw already from Prague (if you haven't, let me know, I'll dig them up for you).
#Anonymous#asks#ask nalyra#amc iwtv#iwtv#amc interview with the vampire#interview with the vampire amc#iwtv amc#iwtv 2022#interview with the vampire#iwtv armand#armand#iwtv claudia#claudia de lioncourt#iwtv s2#iwtv spoilers#surgery
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Trick or treat
I had to reformat all of this to be comprehensible to someone who isn’t me, but here is the old version of the scene that takes place during pages 16-18 of Runaway Catwalker (i.e., the scene where Mayura tries to dig for any dirt about Adrien).
In this version, there isn't a lie detector sentimonster keeping the heroes restrained and honest yet, Mayura instead makes a senti of Chat Noir to use as a mouthpiece while she stays safe and sound in her own bedroom. Ladybug is not included in this version of the conversation—she sees Catwalker and SentiNoir talking from afar, but she doesn’t hear anything they say to each other. Catwalker is also a bit more willing to play Mayura's game here, whereas in the comic I thought it made more sense for him to simply stop answering all of Mayura’s nosey questions. While I think a lot of the changes I made were better for the story overall, there are parts of this that I wish I could have included in the final version, I just couldn’t quite manage to find a way to make them fit.
SentiNoir holds up his hands in surrender.
Catwalker: “Is this a set up for making Ladybug guess who the real black cat wielder is? Because I doubt you know her partner well enough to fool her when lesser akumas have tried.”
Mayura (via SentiNoir): “This is Mayura. I only want to talk to you.”
Catwalker: “Don’t come any closer or make any sudden movements, and I’ll consider it. Also, use your powers to destroy something so I know you can’t use it against me.”
SentiNoir destroys his own baton.
Mayura: “Shadowmoth remains unaware of Chat Noir’s secret identity.”
Catwalker: “You expect me to believe that, with all the times you two have tried to unmask the heroes, you wouldn’t immediately tell your partner in crime who one of them was?”
Mayura: “That was before I discovered that I was personally acquainted with Chat Noir’s secret identity. Enough to care about his well-being and not want to put a target on his back. Enough to recognize that it is in everyone’s best interest that no one learn Chat Noir’s identity, Shadowmoth included.”
Catwalker (internally): She knows me? In person? And I never suspected a thing? Thank goodness I was paranoid enough to cut off everyone in my life or I would be so screwed right now.
Catwalker: “Interesting. I presume that your charity towards Chat Noir does not extend to me?”
Mayura: “Our goals have not changed. The wielders of the ladybug and black cat miraculouses are still our enemy. But it is convenient that Chat Noir has removed himself from the line of fire, and for that I will hold off on attacking you today.”
Catwalker: “Very generous of you. Why tell me of your connection to Chat Noir at all? Or is this merely a ploy to get me to reveal information about where he has gone or get him to come back? One problem with that: he never told me anything about his secret identity or intended location. So I couldn’t corroborate your story even if it was true.
Mayura: “You expect me to believe that you don’t know who he is?”
Catwalker: “Ladybug didn’t even tell Chat Noir any of the temporary heroes’ identities after someone else found out. There is no reason for him to leak his identity more than it has already.”
Mayura: “What about to protect his family? You can’t protect them if you don’t know who they are.”
Catwalker: “We protect all of Paris. Chat Noir’s family would be included in that if they were ever put in danger, whether or not we knew who they were to him.”
Mayura: “And what if I were to say that Chat Noir was Adrien Agreste?”
Catwalker (internally): Time to sell this. She needs to believe that I am useless as a source of information about where Adrien is now.
Catwalker: “You really have no shame, do you? Adrien is a missing child and you’re just going to twist his circumstances to spin a narrative that no one in their right mind would believe?”
Mayura: “It’s true: Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir.”
Catwalker: “Let’s assume you’re not lying—leaving aside the logistics of how someone that famous could possibly pull off a superhero double-life. That completely undermines your other outlandish claim, that Shadowmoth somehow doesn’t know who Chat Noir is. Assuming that he is Adrien, the fact that recent akumas have been hunting Adrien would be proof that Shadowmoth knows he had a secret identity.”
Mayura: “Shadowmoth knows that I do not wish Adrien to come to harm and just wants to help me to reunite with him. Nothing more.”
Catwalker: “Whether he was Chat Noir or not, sending akumas after the poor kid is hardly going to make him think that he’s safe to return. Try akumatizing someone else for once and Adrien might consider coming back home.”
Mayura: “He might not come back at all if something doesn’t make him!”
Catwalker: “If you really believe that, then you don’t ‘care about him’, you just want to control him.”
Mayura: “Believe what you want. But know this: if Chat Noir ever wields a miraculous again, I will tell Shadowmoth the truth of his identity. Yes, I could be lying, but do you really want to take the chance that I’m not?”
Catwalker: “What is your proof that you know personally know Chat Noir’s civilian identity as well as you claim?”
[cut a couple alternate exchanges that are redundant here]
Mayura: “You are able to talk to the kwami that powers your miraculous, yes?”
Catwalker: “He starts blowing bubbles if he tries to mention the name of his previous holder to me, so he won’t be a useful source of information.”
Mayura: “No, but he does know the boy well enough to confirm that I know things about him that only someone sufficiently close could know. That should help prove my sincerity, hm?”
[scene break]
Catwalker: “Alright then. Prove you’re close to the real Chat Noir. Tell me something like, I don’t know, his favorite cookie flavor?”
Mayura: “Passionfruit.”
Catwalker (internally): Pretty sure that was published in a magazine somewhere, but the fact that she knew without hesitation means that she doesn’t just know my name and face by casual reputation alone.
Catwalker: “I suppose I don’t have enough information to tell if you’re right, so I’ll just file that tidbit away for now. Does he have any allergies? Wait, never mind, he was always sneezing at Mr. Pigeon, so that isn’t private enough. What are his parents’ names?”
Mayura: “That sounds more like you are the one fishing for Chat Noir’s identity. If I am not telling Shadowmoth who he is, why do you think I would tell you?”
Catwalker: “You come up with something, then.”
Mayura: “Chat Noir at one point was—and perhaps may still be—under the misapprehension that his father made him something for a recent birthday. The gift was actually from someone else entirely. You can tell because the true creator signed it.”
Catwalker (internally): The scarf wasn’t from Father? If it really wasn’t… Wait, this is absolutely a trap. I didn’t take the scarf with me when I left—I didn’t want to chance anything that Father or his company had made being seen on my person. So now she’s baiting Chat Noir to break back into the mansion to retrieve the scarf while she’s on the lookout so she can capture me once and for all.
Catwalker: “If Chat Noir is mistaken about something, how do you expect me to fact check it? If he didn’t know something, it’s unlikely his former kwami does.”
Mayura: “Anything more specific would risk exposing my secret identity. Take my information or leave it.”
Catwalker: “Very well. Anything else you feel like sharing?”
Mayura: “Just that if your predecessor had learned what Shadowmoth and I have been working towards this whole time, he likely would have wanted us to succeed.”
Catwalker: “Somehow I doubt that. You have proven yourselves more than willing to abuse, assault, and murder to get what you want. Nothing is worth that.”
Mayura: “The powers of Ladybug’s miraculous still fixes everything in the end, does it not? In Shadowmoth’s hands, that would not change. But I see I will not convince you. Too heroic for your own good, I suppose. And since my time is almost up, I bid you good evening, Catwalker.”
Mayura snaps SentiNoir out of existence.
#trick or treat ask game#runaway catwalker#deleted scenes#miraculous ladybug#catwalker#mayura#my writing
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omg what happens in Paris??? I'm so curious, I don't mind spoilers! pretty please???
Another Anon asked a similar question that actually has a spoiler in the question, so I've put it and my reply to this one under a spoiler cut:
Anonymous asked:
So I gotta be honest and say I'm a rather casual IWaV viewer so I haven't seen all episodes because I would rather wait for entire s2 to be out to watch it all then but I watched an entire ep 7 and... i fully expected Claudia to die??? but she didn't??? wasn't she supposed to die by being grilled by the sun? (I mean that's what I remember from the movie from '94? )
***
Claudia dies in Paris.
She is killed by the Theate des Vampires, a group of Vampires whom Armand leads.
After Louis and Claudia escape Lestat and go to Europe, they spend time in many places across Europe looking for others of their kind but find nothing.
Then when they arrive in Paris, they discover the Theate des Vampires. Or, more like, the vampires of the Theater discovered them.
Armand and Louis pretty much fall for each other, Louis believing he's found someone more open and honest than Lestat. (Because, in the book, Lestat held back on telling Louis anything, who his maker was, etc. The show has completely changed that point - Lestat actually telling Louis these things, so it'll be interesting to see how the show does it.)
However, the issue is Claudia. Being that she was made a vampire at 5 years old in the book, she does not in any way have the ability to take care of herself. In the movie, she was 10-12 when she was made, and the show has her 14, where she can kinda take care of herself in more ways than either book or movie Claudia could, but still not fully. (As Bruce showed.) If Louis becomes Armand's new companion, who will take care of Claudia?
Well, Claudia herself can see that Louis is going to leave her for Armand, so she takes the matter into her own hands and chooses a human woman named Madeleine to become her "mother" and caretaker. She makes Louis turn Madeleine into a vampire for her, something Louis did NOT want to do because he NEVER has made another vampire and never wanted to. But he does it for Claudia. And in doing so, basically destroys in himself whatever humanity he had left in him (in his view).
But, PLOT TWIST! Unbeknownst to them, Lestat is in Paris! Yep, he made his way there to come and ask Armand to allow him to drink some of Armand's powerful blood so Lestat can heal faster from the wounds Louis and Claudia inflicted on him when they "killed" him. Lestat, for his part, has NO IDEA Louis and Claudia are in Paris when he gets there to see Armand. Lestat tells Armand that it was a "woman" vampire fledgling of his named Claudia that tried to kill him and that his other fledgling, Louis, ran off with her, though Louis had nothing to do with trying to kill him. (Rising up and trying to kill your maker/coven master is against the "Old Rules" that many vamps, particularly in Paris, follow. Lestat never taught Louis or Claudia those Old Rules, so, you know.)
This goes on for like a day or two, and then Armand calls BS, and tells Lestat that Louis and Claudia have been seen in Paris and that Claudia isn't a woman but a vampire child. Which the creation of is a HELL of a big NO. (And hey, some props to amc-Lestat who told Louis - in french - that Claudia was too young when Louis was begging him to turn her.) Lestat stumbles and tries to explain, but it's useless. Armand tells him there is going to be a trial for Claudia's crime of trying to kill her maker.
The trial happens, but it's really just a mockery though, not a real trial. The vampires of the theater wanted to kill Claudia anyway because she was created at too young an age. The whole "tried to kill your maker" thing was just an excuse to put on top of that.
It's kinda implied that Armand is influencing Lestat on what to say because, due to his weakened state, Lestat isn't fully there mentally. And Armand hasn't given Lestat any of his own blood to help heal him like he came to ask for in the first place.
So Claudia and Madeleine are killed via sunlight exposure.
But, PLOT TWIST! Armand was actually the one who, through his Mind and Spell Gift abilities, was the one who really influenced Louis to turn Madeleine. Because he wanted Louis for himself. So at first decided to influence Louis to do that and THEN, when Lestat showed up, just decided to have Claudia killed to get rid of her for good via the mock-trial thing.
Armand tells Lestat - whom Armand STILL hasn't given any of his blood to him to heal himself - that Louis was killed by the other vampires after they killed Claudia. He then throws Lestat off a roof, which just adds to his already weakened state.
Louis thinks Lestat is dead because, in revenge for what happened to Claudia, Louis burned down the Theater. So Armand and Louis go off together as companions. And are so for decades. But Louis knows Armand had a hand in Claudia's death and despises him for it. Armand also told Louis that he influenced Loius to make Madeleine a vampire, which helped to destroy Louis’ sense of self.
And what Armand had loved in Louis pretty much died in the creation of Madeleine and the death of Claudia.
So yeah, it doesn't work between them. It pretty much died because of everything Armand did to try and have Louis to himself in the first place.
The 1994 movie changed this last bit so that Louis and Armand weren't companions for decades and Louis and Armand just part ways a day or so later instead.
So yeah. That's what goes down in Paris.
And it's clear that, in the show, the 2022 scenes are very much Louis post-Claudia death, thinking Lestat is also dead, depressed state of being. (I don't think the show is changing Claudia's fate. Louis having all her diaries, I think, is a MASSIVE hint that she's dead. Plus, her death is what sends him into his whole well-known depressive state in the story as it goes forward anyway.)
Also, writing all this out makes me think we might be in some weird stage where Armand is trying to bring back - via repressed and altered memories - the Louis as he was before Claudia's death. The Louis he first desired when they first met in Paris.
#Armand#Louis de Pointe du Lac#Lestat de Lioncourt#Claudia#Interview with the Vampire#iwtv spoilers#book spoilers#The Vampire Lestat#spoilers#spoiler#amc iwtv#iwtv#ask#ask and answer
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Tina & Credence
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them:
Katherine Waterston: Credence and Tina have a past. He doesn't remember it maybe, but she has been concerned about him for a while before the film starts.
- Mugglenet
Katherine Waterston: I found it really touching that the only thing that will tempt her to break her away from the position she has is if someone is in trouble. But by saving a No-Maj, she exposed herself as a magical person.
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Movie-Making News: FANTASTIC BEASTS 2
Katherine Waterston: She broke the rules in order to protect someone who was in trouble. Though she's really proud to be a part of MACUSA and dreams of succeeding there, when push comes to shove she will abandon the rule book. I found it really touching. She loves the rules, but if someone's in trouble, she can't help herself.
- The Case of Beasts: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Inside the Obscurus, Credence reaches out to Tina, the only person who has ever done him an uncomplicated kindness. He looks at Tina, desperate and afraid. He has dreamed of her ever since she saved him from a beating.
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay
Crimes of Grindelwald:
Katherine Waterston: Tina and Queenie were orphaned very young, Tina, as the elder of the two, felt a great responsibility to take care of her sister. Over the years, that feeling to protect helpless children extended beyond just Queenie. She values her position at work and respects the law, but a child in need－that's her Achilles Heel. If forced to choose, she'll break the rule to help a child, as she did for Credence when Mary Lou Barebone was beating him. Near the end of the first film, she gave Credence her word that she and Newt would protect him, and she is not one to go back on her word.
- Crimes of Grindelwald Production Notes
Katherine Waterston: I think you start to see a bit in the first film that a child in trouble is her Achilles' Heel, particularly an orphan child. As long as he is unsafe in the world, she has that concern to save him, and I think that stems from her own childhood. She and Queenie were orphaned young, and she knows what it's like to be a bit lost in the world, and she pulled herself up by her bootstraps, and she is a very hardy woman. I think she is just going to be forever distracted by Credence and his need until that is sorted.
- Crimes of Grindelwald World Premiere in Paris
Katherine Waterston: Her Achilles heel — the thing that kind of makes her throw the rulebook out the window — is a person, particularly a young person, in trouble, in need. There’s something almost of an obsession I think she has with Credence. She feels very responsible for him.
- Buzzfeed
Katherine Waterston: We find Tina in Paris along many other members of the original cast and some new characters. She is looking for Credence. There are people after him for different reasons, and obviously Tina cares about him a great deal and is trying to get to him first.
- MTV News
Tina Goldstein has been reinstated as an Auror at MACUSA (Magical Congress of the USA), but, while she remains dedicated to the job of enforcing magical law, she has not lost her independent streak. Leaving New York, Tina has traveled to Paris on a cryptic—and wholly unauthorized—investigation of her own. She knows Credence survived MACUSA’s attempt to destroy him in New York, but she is also aware that, as an Obscurial, he is considered a threat to the wizarding community and is in grave danger. Employing all of her skills, Tina is finally closing in on Credence, but her perilous pursuit has also put her on a collision course with other powerful forces hunting him.
- Crimes of Grindelwald Official Character Description
Katherine Waterston: Tina isn't confident that the ministry would approve of her desire to protect and save Credence. They are seeking him for a different reason, and so she's kind of doing this investigation on the sly.
- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - Makers, Mysteries and Magic: Chapter 5
Katherine Waterston: She's continuing a sort of rebellious pursuit in trying to protect Credence.
- Bowu Magazine
Katherine Waterston: It's a little unclear whether MACUSA knows her whereabouts. Tina isn’t confident they would approve of her desire to save Credence. They are seeking him for a different reason.
- Lights, Camera, Magic!: The Making of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Ezra Miller: Yeah, I mean certainly we’ve seen sort of only fragments of a story in which Tina did care for Credence, and that was a rare and noted instance in Credence’s story. But again, when you really think about it, what does Credence actually know about that human being, where she comes from? I mean, the last interaction was a deeply confusing one where there were a lot of things going on on the subway tracks, you know? So yeah, I think that’s one of the connections.
- Collider
ANGLE ON TINA, edging through the crowd, searching.
She spots QUEENIE and, at a short distance, CREDENCE. Whom should she approach first? She chooses CREDENCE, but as she moves, is blocked by an ACOLYTE. They make eye contact. TINA knows she is wildly outnumbered. Under the ACOLYTE'S gaze, she sinks onto a bench.
- Crimes of Grindelwald: The Original Screenplay
#fantastic beasts#crimes of grindelwald#fb analysis#coginterview#tina goldstein#credence barebone#katherine waterston#ezra miller#cogbook#makers mysteries and magic#fbawtftbook#case of beasts#movie making news#screenplay
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Just out of curiosity, what about Loustat makes you not a fan? What is appealing about Devil's minion?
Hey Nonny!
Thanks for your questions!
My answers turned out longer than even I expected them to be so I put them below the break so people don’t have to scroll for a full minute if it comes across their dash and they're not interested in reading it. 🙈
Loustat
I'm just kind of burned out on them as a ship and on cannon-compliant Loustat fics. I wrote some more about why here with regards to fics. I might get back into them as the show and their story progresses.
I love the intricacies of their relationship and how solidly married they are in the show and how the way Louis views Lestat is in part influenced by how he views himself and his own relationship to his own vampirism.
I'd love to see more of their happy times together and them being a relatively happy family with Claudia, and those are the kind of fics I'm still interested in. The show is so rich and saturated and I really think it elevates everything from the books to a higher level, including Loustat.
But at the point in the story where we are now - at the end of S1 ep7/halfway through IWTV book - they just have no business being together, and I'm in no rush to see them get back together on the show.
They got violently divorced for a reason.
I'm convinced the show will make the reunion everything everyone has ever wanted (because the writers and actors are that good), but they need some time apart for both their sakes.
It's the whole 'right person at the wrong time' thing either Sam or Jacob mentioned, though I think a more complete description is that they're both not yet the people they need to be in order for things to be able to work out between them.
Louis needs to figure out who he would be if there was no Claudia and there was no Him (and no Armand), and Lestat needs to be in the dump for a while and think real hard about what he did to end up there.
I love Lestat as a character but I don't particularly like him as a person in S1 (which in this fandom is somehow a controversial stance, when it really shouldn't be). He did some really terrible things and even Lestat agrees that he deserved to get patricided.
And they kill him much harder in the book than they did on the show despite arguably having a much more solid 'case' against him in the show than they did in the book.
Which might also be part of the 'problem'. The writers will have to work really hard to get me to root for Louis taking Lestat back after all the shit he pulled.
Right now, my top 3 ships involving Louis are: Louis/therapy, Louis/Hot Girl Era and Louis/A Nice Boring Man.
But that’s not the type of story this is and Nice Boring Men are not Louis's type, and would make for a much less interesting viewing experience.
(Though I suppose the interview is some variation on Louis/therapy and I haven’t forgotten that casting call for brave homosexual men in the park.)
For now I'm just going to be in my little Armandaniel corner and even smaller Armandiago corner and come May 12th I'll be ready with my popcorn and my screaming crying throwing up gifs to let the tale emotionally destroy seduce me.
Devil’s Minion
Devil’s Minion/Armandaniel are toxic as fuck. Make no mistake. I'm fully prepared for them to be 'worse' than Loustat on the show because their chase didn't start off as a courtship. Armand is going to do some absolutely heinous things to that boy (not to mention the crimes he's about to commit in Paris) and Daniel is going to say a lot more out of pocket shit than he's already done in S1.
It's going to be nowhere near as fluffy as I write them.
They're stalker/victim to lovers, which is a dynamic I would never fuck with in any other genre, because ew (especially in straight ships where the patriarchy gives you an extra layer of power imbalance for free).
And I absolutely hate to be that bitch, but it's gothic horror and they're peak fucked-up gothic romance. 😭
And they're at least semi-self aware of the fact that their relationship is a fucked-up co-dependent hot mess, which somehow makes it more palatable to me. Because I think that's something that Loustat - and Louis in particular - are still struggling to come to terms with about their own relationship, and I don't know if they ever fully get there.
The powerful immortal x just some guy dynamic that I wrote about in my answer to an earlier ask is really what does it for me in terms of making this my favorite TVC ship.
Because Armandaniel also have absolutely no business being together and they're so bad for each other but also so perfect.
This is a very nuance-free, reductive summary, but Armand grows up to people seeing him and thinking "Wow, so pretty, I must possess him". Daniel sees Armand and thinks "Wow, so scary and off-putting, I must be possessed by him". And that's (part of) why Armand likes him back!
Armand has had such a shitty life and he's so done after Louis leaves him. And then he meets this weird little human who sees the darkness in him and wants him despite/because of that and isn't afraid to sometimes call him an immortal idiot, and he reminds Armand that there is beauty in the mundane and it makes Armand want to go on living.
Meanwhile Daniel doesn’t see human life as worth living, doesn’t understand that immortality is a curse and wants that.
And Armand will never be human again and once Daniel becomes a vampire it does actually fuck up what they had, just like Armand always feared.
How beautiful and tragic and doomed can it get?
There's a lot of similarities and parallels between Loustat and Armandaniel and Lestat-Armand and Louis-Daniel are widely understood to be each other’s respective foils. They're all navigating the same themes and issues in their own flawed ways.
I just like how Armandaniel do it slightly better. And because we don't know what we're getting from them in the show yet, it's easier for me to put my own spin on it when I'm writing fic or making feral screeching noises at Armand gifs.
Because right now my perception is based off the The Devil’s Minion chapter in QotD, filtered through my fangirly pink glasses.
In the show we've only seen Armand as Armand for about 5 minutes, 3 of which were in the S2 previews and trailers. And their interactions in S1 are 95% Daniel talking down to Armand because he thinks the power imbalance is skewed in his (Daniel’s) favor.
Which brings me back to likeabilty as a character vs. likeability as a person.
Show Daniel is not likeable. He is a miserable old cunt coming at both Louis and Armand (and Claudia!) from a position of white privilege.
But that doesn’t stop him from being absolutely fascinating as a character.
And, unlike in real life, being fascinating is much more important in a fictional character than being likeable is. Which brings me back to Lestat. 😊
Plus, the The Devil’s Minion chapter is just such a fever dream and an absolute treasure trove for fic writers.
They travel all over the world so DM Era fics can set in literally any location.
I wrote about Armand getting hyperfixated on toothpaste and that works because he gets fixated on much weirder things in canon. You can throw basically any special interest and niche hobby at him and it'll still be plausible.
Human AU where Armand is a billionaire who wears designer suits and only eats organic homemade food? Yes, of course! Human AU where Armand wears the exact same outfit every day and only eats Poptarts and one very specific kind of pizza from one specific restaurant? I buy it!
So much to write about.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. 🙈
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Been thinking about Zeus' feelings/motivations in regards to Troy and its fall, and what other people say it must be.
Both real world-wise in ancient Greece and story-wise you have people claiming Zeus will see/wants to/must see Troy fall because he is Zeus Xenios - it's natural, certainly! Myth/story-wise, in the Iliad Menelaos is one of the ones who repeatedly asserts this claim, and while Poseidon doesn't make any such direct claim (maybe because they're both gods) he does say Zeus "no longer favours Priam and his people".
Well and good.
But myth-wise, what we actually have of Zeus' stated desires and intentions regarding Troy [in the material that has survived] is... nothing to do with Paris' violating xenia.
You have him repeatedly saying he doesn't want Troy and Priam's family to fall/be destroyed, or not wanting particular members of the family to die, on the one hand.
On the other, you have the train of reasoning that appears in other parts of the Epic Cycle (whether this idea is younger than the specific text(s) of the Iliad we have or belonging to the same general mythic idea tradition the Trojan War generally comes from is probably anyone's guess). That is, that the Trojan War was planned before even the Judgement (the Judgement, in fact, is included in the planning), the purpose being to lighten earth/Gaia's load of humanity. In such a case Paris is practically set up not just to make a choice to enrage the goddesses, but one that will cause the necessary damage/spark to set this chain of events moving on the mortal end(*).
On a third, you have the similar idea that is (most probably, since the text is massively fragmentary at the relevant point(s) expressed in the Catalogue of Women, that the war was started to end the Age of Heroes. Again, Paris and the Judgement is a necessary step, provoked into being.
On the fourth, the version that has Zeus starting the war to aggrandize Helen, a mortal daughter who cannot herself participate in war and gain heroic kleos by any manner other than in proxy.
If we allow that there was only one outcome that was acceptable/necessary for the stated end(s) of the war, that is, Paris choosing Aphrodite, he is, again, set up to "failing", because there is really no way he can "get" Helen without committing some crime, but Helen in Troy is what is necessary.
It just is kind of amusing, in a terrible way? That there are others who insist that Zeus ought to, must, and does, care about the violation of mortal xenia that has happened, but from what we have, if it ever was something he cared about, the whole of Troy/the Trojan royal family doesn't seem to be the something he'd want punished for it. But I don't think he cares as such about that; his aims are entirely different. (Look, he even expiates Ixion of both a family-blood crime and one of xenia, after Ixion killed his father in law who he had invited into his home under the pretence of paying the bride price he'd avoided paying up to that point!)
(*Not to say Paris isn't guilty of violating xenia, because he is, and it still is his responsibility what he does even if he can't actually change his mind and refuse Aphrodite's gift. But given that he will always anger goddesses with any choice he makes, and that, if taking Helen is hubris (and violating xenia) then his accepting the other two offered gifts would be as well. There's no way he can avoid it, and he neither chose to be in the position to make the choice nor asks for gifts/bribes to be made.
He is absolutely responsible for what choices he does make, but that responsibility comes under provocation and extremely forced circumstances.)
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Let’s not forget Albert Camus’s final unfinished novel, The First Man. The book’s title is an appeal to a past of a different kind. The biblical connotations are evident, and it is interesting that Camus thought about naming the first character Adam. This is part of a pieds-noirs or colonialist fantasy that is unexpressed but present: the notion that no man was present on this land before him (“terra nullius”), much like Adam and Eve. This is a world vision that places European settlers and European myth respectively at the center of all things. For example, Camus describes the main character as being born “on a land with no ancestors and no memory … where old age found none of the succor from melancholy which it receives in civilized countries …”.
The First Man becomes a platform for the expression of the white settlers’ resentment. In particular, resentment against the metropole is present throughout, for example, in this exchange between the main character, Camus’s alter ego, Cormery, and a pied-noir farmer who tells him: “I have sent my family to Algiers [for safety] and I will die here. They don’t understand that in Paris.” The farmer’s hatred of the metropole is such that he expresses more respect for the Arabs who violently oppose his rule. The farm owner advises his Arab workers to join the Algerian resistance because “there are no men in France”, that is, the pieds-noirs will lose because of the weakness of the metropolitan French. This is the despair of the white settler; he feels abandoned by Paris and as a consequence, resigned to the rise of the Algerian resistance. The First Man reflects both an inchoate desire to negate this new reality (the coming of Algerian independence) and a long mourning of the old colonial order.
Camus does not challenge the racism of pieds-noirs in French Algeria but instead justifies it. He uses class concerns (unemployment) as an explanation for the xenophobic reaction of the settlers. Through the narrator, racism occurs here as part of human nature, as an understandable reaction from ultimately likeable characters. Camus also uses his modest origins like a weapon, at times inferring that these origins give him an awareness and an authenticity lacking in some of his other interlocutors with more privileged backgrounds.
Camus depicts the French settler as a tragic figure: an admirable hard-working man, an old pied-noir, one of those who “are being insulted in Paris.” In a telling passage, a settler who owns a vineyard is uprooting the vines in his property to ensure that Algerians will not be able to profit from them once they take back their land. When asked what he is doing by Cormery, the settler responds with what is meant to be bitter irony: “young man, since what we have done is a crime, we should erase it.” Yet this destruction of the vineyards harks back to one of the most somber hours of the French conquest of Algeria: in 1840 when General de LaMoricière and future governor-general of Algeria, Thomas Bugeaud, agreed to make the systematic destruction of Arab crops a policy to “prevent the Arabs from enjoying the fruits of their fields.” This uprooting of olive trees and the destruction or confiscation of fields were a crucial moment in France’s conquest of Algeria. Forced to leave that conquered territory, the French once again destroy cultivated land, but this time Camus describes them as being victims of an injustice.
I cannot testify about anything regarding this unfinished novel cause any work I read from Camus I did because I was forced to in school and this one wasn’t part of the « let’s study a book from a colonizer without even acknowledging any bias in it » package deal.
So first of all thank you for the informations you’re providing here.
That being said while I can’t say anything about the book itself I sure can talk about the historical context.
Settlers really have that thing where the pretend they discovered the land that the people there didn’t exist and if they did exist they weren’t indigenous anyway they came from somewhere else so it did not belong to them and if it did belong to them then they didn’t deserve it.
They point at roads and buildings saying « we built that so you owe us » except they never mention the roads and buildings that were there before and that they destroyed. They never mention that these roads and buildings were built by Algerians who were not allowed to use them afterwards. They never mention that building one single highway in order to make pillaging the country easier and destroying the beautiful historical building of Algiers to build something to their taste (aka something that didn’t look Muslim) will never make up for all the deaths they caused.
The settlers love their privileges and think they are above everyone else. They don’t love France they love living in a colony. When the settlers realized that France was losing they were hoping and fighting for an independence of Algeria similar to the fake independence of the US. Aka settlers kicking out mainland settlers and stealing Turtle Island from its rightful people. The settlers loved settler colonialism more than anything to the point where it legit broke families. One of my friend wasn’t allowed to talk to her uncle all her life. When she became an adult her mom told her the reason and it was because her uncle was a settler who didn’t want the independence and went as far as torturing Algerians but he had no regrets and to this day still wishes the settlers had taken Algeria from France for themselves and killed the Algerians.
The settlers in Algeria also stayed long enough that they created their own culture so coming back to France wasn’t an option in their mind.
In a Dying colonialism by Frantz Fanon a white settler in favor of the independence explains how him and some of his friends (Muslims, Jewish and Europeans) went to a conference where Camus was invited expecting him to take a stand as an older progressive and how disappointed they got by his both sidism that wasn’t even actual both sidism because he refused to let them collect money to help the Algerian political prisoners taken by France. Eventually in 1956 he felt useless to the revolution so he left and he came to Paris and that while in France he only felt guilt and disgust. He felt even more useless so he tried to raise awareness around him but people didn’t give a flying fuck. So he started hating them. Hating those French people who were sending their sons to torture and kill Algerians. He did meet good French leftist but he realized that he only felt at home when with Algerians. That he didn’t belong to France. Eventually he went back to Algeria but this time he joined the FLN. (He also says that at first he was scared to be treated differently and then he realized that for indigenous Algerians the fact that he was fighting for the liberation made him a brother just like any other Algerian)
Anyway I’m rambling back to the ask. (For more about the settlers I really suggest Fanon’s book mentioned earlier there’s also a testimony from a white cop who made the right decision and Fanon talks about the role of doctors in favor of colonialism and all for example)
Regarding Bugeaud and his “politique de la Terre brûlée” there’s so much to say. Even the livestock were not spared and were killed with the villagers during his infamous “enfumades”. I can say so much about this piece of shit and the fact that he has a statue in France saying “Loved, honored and missed by everyone he was a great man who pacified Algeria” makes me sick.
Anyway once again thank you for your ask I learned more about how much of a piece of shit Camus is.
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How long do you give Putin now that he's shown this much weakness?
Unless an actual full-blown civil war takes place, Wagner will be either destroyed or mitigated within 6mo (more than likely less than that). Putin’ll be like Saddam or Stalin in that he’ll be in power until his dying day or until a larger force (NATO) ousts him and he’s executed for his crimes. And that shit better be recorded on something better than a motorala flipphone.
But historically Russians have been subservient and cowardly when it comes to following their leaders, so I doubt a civil war will go far. Russians will boast about this being some kind of unity for the motherland or some other nonsense, but it’s really just genetic cowardice. Say what you want about America, but at least you can’t call them cowards when it comes to tyranny. Fuck, even France is braver, not wasting a single second to burn down paris over a slightly crooked leader.
Anywho we’re living in the call of duty timeline where Russian loyalists, ultranationalists, and western-backed separatists are all fighting in a pseudo-civil war. Slava ukraiini, inshallah the Russian Federation will dissolve. 1000 years of shameful history.
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i know i’ve only ever lurked on the ML fandom tag but
HHHNNNGHH psychological horror/thriller fic post S5 Finale where gabes perfect world glitches/does something and Adrien discovers the Truth(slowly). With mari and the others who know trying to keep him in the dark for their own reasons and he gets the rabbit miraculous somehow and he starts destroying the new reality W/Plagg and they go on a pseudo Villain arc tearing up the Perfect world to get to the real one underneath. Because in this the Perfect World is less like a total re-wright and more like a coat of plaster, the old reality is still THERE holding everything up, just, hidden.
He just starts world hopping with the rabbit miraculous, dipping into the Void between them and using it to undo what gabe did. the others try to stop them because they don’t understand and think he’s just gone total batshit but Adrien doesn’t really wan’t to talk abt shit RN. he meets Chat Blanc at some point. He commits crimes. He becomes a feral catboy thing because of plaggs powers bleeding into him or something IDK, i just think it would be cool.
After using his powers to undo his dads Perfect World he finds him in the void and just. Fucking Eviscerates him. He threatens to cataclysm him but its a fake-out and he’s like “you can’t run from your consequences anymore father” and he drags his ass back to his world.(NOTE: it is important to state that at this point all the world hopping and void shenanigans with Plagg and the rabbit Kwami [who is 100% OK with this because gabe’s wish fucked with the time stream] have made Adrien into a vaguely Eldritch being so this would be fucking terrifying for gabe).
At this point he’s somehow revealed to Paris that gabe was hawkmoth without outing himself, and when he drags him back he’s all “ha ha, sorry i disappeared and was acting so strange, the reason was because we figured out that hawkmoth faked his death and i had to go track him down” and then he lets paris handle it. Then he drops off the face of the earth again and passes out for like 2 weeks straight BC after all that he’s TIRED, aand then he rolls up to the miraculous squad like “heeeyyy”
So now mari and the squad are like “WTF” because Adrien is still Like That even though he gave back the rabbit miraculous and Plagg just pops in like “yeah he’s just that way forever now, also he’s PISSED for some reason” (he knows the reason, he just wants them to talk things out).
and thats all i got really i haven't thought that far. I probably won’t wright this (yet) because im still new to fics and i don’t know how to wright psychological horror/thriller, but if anyone else wants to take my idea and make something with it thats great!, all i ask is that you hit me up with the link so i can read it.
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watching QI and Stephen Fry just said that PG Wodehouse was friends with Arthur Conan Doyle and based Jeeves and Wooster on the relationship between Holmes and Watson - one smart and one a “blitherer.”
And as I grind my teeth and feel happy to live in the era of reclaiming Watson from accusations of stupidity when compared to a man who can tell what part of London you’ve been in by the mud on your trousers, I turn to Google, which offers me the balm of “a thirty second sound bite from QI does not, in fact, tell the whole story” lol
(On the other hand, given that Fry was Jeeves, maybe he is more just having a laugh at Hugh Laurie? bahahaha)
under a cut for length
Here’s one with this fabulous description:
“Wodehouse’s most famous characters are undoubtedly Jeeves and Wooster — a twentieth century, self-absorbed Holmes and Watson, if they were divided by class and Watson’s bloodline had gone through a few more generations of in-breeding —”
buahahaha. Well, let’s consider that the inbreeding had more to do with the blithering than the Watson influence :)
But the rest of it is a very interesting article about Wodehouse as a German captive, and it’s pretty wow. And I went down a rabbit trail here feeling sympathetic for a guy who does come across as ignorant and bumbling, mainly because politics are boring:
“A news article was released at the same time, exacerbating the situation. Wodehouse stated, ‘I never was interested in politics. I'm quite unable to work up any kind of belligerent feeling. Just as I'm about to feel belligerent about some country I meet a decent sort of chap. We go out together and lose any fighting thoughts or feelings.”
I mean any day of the week I’d be on board with that quote. But not during war, not during times people are “meant” to be angry. And anger very much has its place. It really is a human dilemma: requiring everyone to be angry when there really and truly is something worth being angry about rejects the idea of people whose basic nature is peaceful. I guess you could say they were born in the wrong era, not that we get any sort of choice about it.
“The MI6 officer [in Paris] decided Wodehouse was merely ‘ill-fitted to live in an age of ideological conflict’”
that is so funny. and heart-breaking. not even about Wodehouse - about all the people in the world who are equally ill-fitted for the times, but still the times needs them...
When good people do nothing, we know what happens. But, on the other hand, among those good people is a whole lot of individual people, some of whom simply don’t want the inconvenience, and some of whom are really basically peaceful and developing a warlike mindset would destroy them. As always, humans don’t like humanity. We must fit into boxes - even the people who reject boxes do their best to fit everyone into different boxes. Because of pain - it’s hard to argue with pain.
Anyway back to Holmes and Watson, lol.
My favorite bits in this one begin with a Wodehouse quote:
“Usually we tend to discard the idols of our youth as we grow older, but I have not had this experience with A.C.D. I thought him swell then, and I think him swell now.“
Thanks for validating the idols of our youth for us old fogies who dare to continue to enjoy life past 25!
Oh this is great too:
“As a creator of comedy romances, Wodehouse’s detectives were permitted time off from the study of little known Asiatic poisons to relax at the Senior Bloodstain, and even to fall in love. A hardboiled crime writer could never permit such diversions, as we learn from Wodehouse’s fictional crime writer, James Rodman, in ‘Honeysuckle Cottage’.
‘He held rigid views on the art of the novel, and always maintained that an artist with a true reverence for his craft should not descend to goo-ey love stories, but should stick austerely to revolvers, cries in the night, missing papers, mysterious Chinamen, and dead bodies — with or without gash in throat.’”
take that, you hardboiled detectives you!!
So I found other comparisons of J&W and H&W as well, but nothing that went too deep. I think what I was hoping to find, and which may exist somewhere, is someone considering the role-flopping aspect: Watson is Holmes’s helper, but Holmes equivalent Jeeves is Wooster’s helper. That changes things a lot. If Jeeves were a woman, he might have been perceived by readers as a “nagging wife” sort, for instance. Whereas if Watson were a woman, his stupidity would be forgiven, but he’d definitely need a lot more rescuing from Dastardly Villains, - at least once per story and twice per novel ;)
I like thinking of J&W as Wodehouse going “I really need a Sherlock Holmes in my life to tell me what to do” and poof, Jeeves is born. I would say the same, except I hate to be told what to do :)
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Goodreads Choice Awards 2022: Mystery & Thriller Opening Round Nominees
Pick up one of these mystery/thriller nominees for the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards!
Things We Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier
When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom - covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her - she knows she'll be charged with murder. But as bad as this looks, it's not what worries her the most. With the unwanted media attention now surrounding her, it's only a matter of time before someone from her long hidden past recognizes her and destroys the new life she's worked so hard to build, along with any chance of a future.
Twenty-five years earlier, Ruby Reyes, known as the Ice Queen, was convicted of a similar murder in a trial that riveted Canada in the early nineties. Reyes knows who Paris really is, and when she's unexpectedly released from prison, she threatens to expose all of Paris's secrets. Left with no other choice, Paris must finally confront the dark past she escaped, once and for all.
Because the only thing worse than a murder charge are two murder charges.
Jackal by Erin E. Adams
Liz Rocher is coming home... reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward and passive-aggressive reunions. Liz has grown, though; she can handle whatever awaits her. But on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the bride’s daughter, Caroline, goes missing - and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.
As a frantic search begins, with the police combing the trees for Caroline, Liz is the only one who notices a pattern: a summer night. A missing girl. A party in the woods. She’s seen this before. Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in school, walked into the woods with a mysterious man and was later found with her chest cavity ripped open and her heart missing. Liz shudders at the thought that it could have been her, and now, with Caroline missing, it can’t be a coincidence. As Liz starts to dig through the town’s history, she uncovers a horrifying secret about the place she once called home. Children have been going missing in these woods for years. All of them Black. All of them girls.
With the evil in the forest creeping closer, Liz knows what she must do: find Caroline, or be entirely consumed by the darkness.
More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez
Lore Rivera was married to two men at once, until on a baking hot day in 1986, one of them found out and shot the other. A secret double life, a tragic murder. That's the story the world knows.
It's not the story that fascinates Cassie Bowman.
Carrying the weight of her own family tragedy, true-crime writer Cassie wants to know more about the mysterious woman at the heart of it all, Lore. How did one woman fall in love with two different men? How did she balance the love and the lies? To her surprise, Cassie finds that Lore is willing to talk. To finally tell her heartbreaking story - about how a dance became an affair; how a marriage became a murder.
As the two women grow closer, Cassie finds she can't help but confess her own darkest secrets. But when she slowly starts to realize that there might be more to the night of the murder than anyone has realized, can either woman face up to the thing they've been hiding from: the truth?
The Night Shift by Alex Finlay
It’s New Year’s Eve, 1999. Y2K is expected to end in chaos: planes falling from the sky, elevators plunging to earth, world markets collapsing. A digital apocalypse. None of that happens. But at a Blockbuster Video in Linden, New Jersey, four teenage girls working the night shift are attacked. Only one survives. Police quickly identify a suspect who flees and is never seen again.
Fifteen years later, in the same town, four teenage employees working late at an ice cream store are attacked, and again only one makes it out alive. Both surviving victims recall the killer speaking only a few final words... “Goodnight, pretty girl.”
In the aftermath, three lives intersect: the survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who’s forced to relive her tragedy; the brother of the original suspect, who’s convinced the police have it wrong; and the FBI agent, who’s determined to solve both cases. On a collision course toward the truth, all three lives will forever be changed, and not everyone will make it out alive.
Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened?
Late October. After midnight. You’re waiting up for your seventeen-year-old son. He’s late. As you watch from the window, he emerges, and you realize he isn’t alone: he’s walking toward a man, and he’s armed.
You can’t believe it when you see him do it: your funny, happy teenage son, he kills a stranger, right there on the street outside your house. You don’t know who. You don’t know why. You only know your son is now in custody. His future shattered.
That night you fall asleep in despair. All is lost. Until you wake... and it is yesterday. And then you wake again... and it is the day before yesterday.
Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. With another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lies an answer. The trigger for this crime - and you don’t have a choice but to find it...
#mystery#mystery books#thrillers#goodreads#nominees#library books#book recs#book recommendations#reading recs#reading recommendations#to read#TBR pile#tbr#booklr#book tumblr#book blog#reading blog
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Brickclub 4.13.1 ‘From the Rue Plumet to the Quartier Saint-Denis’
Marius is standing in the Rue Plumet ready to die, and the person who comes to meet him there isn’t Cosette but Eponine.
Where to even start with that.
There’s the fact that I think I he really might have killed Cosette and himself out of love, but Eponine he didn’t recognize, and he wouldn’t have cared enough about her to shoot her. Though she’s planning to die with him anyway.
There’s the way Hugo happens to mention that Marius has the two pistols on him, after he leaves the garden, YES, HADN’T FORGOTTEN THEM, THANKS.
But also, this belated mention of them feels a little like the belated mention last chapter about how the police are pretty sure about who Le Cabuc was? It’s the evidence presented after the crime, and the crime was so subtle (Javert saying nothing about Claquesous; Marius maybe coming to shoot Cosette) that the evidence presented afterwards is the closest thing we have to a hint that a horrific moral wrong came near us.
What does it mean to look for Cosette and find Eponine? That happens to Marius a lot, and he’s always insultingly annoyed about it even when he isn’t being cruel. But this is the first time she’s had the upper hand--instead of going away hurt, she goes away successful in making him do what she wanted. Her ability to manipulate events here is pretty close to supernatural.
But what does it MEAN to look for Cosette and find Eponine? If Cosette is the republican future of France.... I don’t know, I don’t like the way that positions Eponine as the.. tawdry knock-off version? But also, that isn’t how the text sees Eponine--she’s a person who could have been lovely and happy, and her father and circumstances fucked her over; I do feel like there’s a lot to do there with the short-lived republic after the Revolution of 1848, destroyed in its infancy by Napoleon III’s coup and dictatorship. But also... what on earth does that have to do with leading Marius to the barricade now? He certainly stays on the symbolic putting-NIII-in-power path until the end of this book via giving Thenardier the money, the way Hugo gave money to NIII. But there’s a feeling of following the wrong person to the barricade, which dovetails nicely with his wrong purpose for going.
Marius thinks Eponine’s voice is the voice of destiny. I guess that’s largely about the supernatural thing Eponine has become, but it might also be a little bit about the connection between them that’s been there all along, that means so much to her and that makes him perpetually a massive asshole to her, as if cruelty can make the connection not be there.
And, Eponine is heavily linked with fatality by now. Marius hears the voice of fatalité and thinks it sounds like destiny. Because of course he does.
But we also see the two lost horses and hear how they don’t understand what men are doing any more than men understand what Providence is doing. So, there’s room left for the idea that maybe it’s Providence and not fatality that’s leading Marius where he’s going.
The barricade to Marius is such a sordid, horrible thing? This section is called “Marius Enters the Shadow” and it’s a literal massive shadow--the streets have no lights, and Hugo has gorgeous descriptions of Marius feeling his way through the pitch black for blocks and blocks. (And we see Marius’s paradoxical indomitability here, making his way through impossible crowds and impossible darkness, recognizing every street in Paris while absolutely blind.)
But for most people at the barricade, it’s about dawn and light. And for Marius it emphatically isn’t.
So what IS the barricade for Marius?
Providence disguised as fatality, maybe. But we’ll have to see.
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Day 67: Tadeo and Company vs The Law
I thought this was just "a curse has been released, a mummy is missing from the museum and we have to set things right unless we want the world to panic" matter for Agents Pickles and Ramirez.
But then thanks to the trailer it turns out is more than that. A lot if we think of it.
Not only Tad almost ruined an excavation that could have nasty consequences on a Mexican Sacred ground, even if he discovered the sarcophagus he compromised Sara and all those people present to have charges dropped on them.
Then he runs in the museum for what it looks like is a really big rock (Indiana Jones reference) that could and most likely will destroy valuable artifacts in the Chicago museum and he also opens the sarcophagus that made him being fired from the excavation.
Assuming they have cameras, then it could be that the whole "everyone against Tad" aspect is justified by him messing up the museum and compromising a prior excavation. He could be considered a danger for archeology, his childhood dream job. That is in my opinion, very tragic.
And that could possibly be one of the reasons he SO much wants to be famous, not only because Sara deserves better, but because he will think making a big the discovery of the "Emerald Tablet" will justify him messing up with the egyptian artifacts, just like many mighty archeologists have done before in the name of "discovery and science!"
But not only Tad is in deep waters with the international law, oh no. Not surprisingly, Mummy's "status quo" of not being seen and his existence in the living world not "being a big deal to others" is starting to disappear.
He makes videos of himself that he posts online, trying to cover up with the app's fliters but he's not careful about the fact that what he really is. His user name has "mummy" in it and he calls his followers "Mummyfans".
If the movie is to take seriously as many members of the crew say, then we can delete for real the fact that Pickles and Ramirez will see Mummy as just a guy with a really cool mummy costume.
No, if they want to make this movie more adult, we can't get by The Bad Guys logic. These agents can and WILL see the incan mummy for what he is on the outside: A ancient, living monster with the potencial for making trouble in the living world.
And sadly, they are right. Mummy, as he is behaving in the third movie, IS a danger to the living world, just not in the "classic movie" way of draining souls and bringing plagues to the world, but in an accidental, mischievous way.
Like how he is most likely the one that brings Ramona to life by accident or how he, I don't know... VANDALIZED the Mona Lisa because he thought the woman in the potrait wasn't "happy" enough. I could understand if he vandalized a conquistador's potrait or statue giving his background. But THIS.
This has not excuse, and I can't blame Tad if he decides to have one of his angry fits on Mummy because the potrait is a highly valuable historical artifact and now is ruined thanks to Tad bringing his best friend on an adventure and not paying attention to him to notice what happened in the Louvre museum.
And how he finds out? It's not confirmed 100% by now but I'm very sure the reason Tad found out about the Mona Lisa behind a rock far away from Paris is because Pickles and Ramirez told him that in this scene:
They are behind him on a boat, the mummies and the explorer are surrounded by the agents and their staff, agent Pickles has a megaphone on his hand. By this point it is almost confirmed he told the rogue group the crimes that are the whole reason they are in trouble with the international law.
And Tad being angry with Mummy about how careless he is with the whole "hiding from the world" aspect that the Incan cared so much in the first movie enough to murder all those who entered the lost city and cost him his home will be probably the cause of how they manage to escape from the agents, thanks to Mummy becoming full Ammit and flying away.
Because if the theory that he reaches full form when he is really upset is true, then if he doesn't trasform because Tad angrily points out how he makes his life more difficult, then it will be because he realizes, after too many screw ups and random shenanigans, that he just put in danger the safety and peace of Paititi, of its citizens, of Peru and even South America because he wanted to be somebody that could be relevant and loved among humans because he also wants to be recognized.
But that is another theme for another day. I can't promise this is the last time I use this sentence in this countdown but... things really got out of hand.
#and that's not even counting how Sara is dealing with all of this#not only with Tad but also Mummy's screw ups#or if they want Ramona to feel the weight of Mummy's actions instead of Sara#tadeo jones#tadeo jones 3#tad the lost explorer#tad the lost explorer 3#tadeo jones theory#tad stones#mummy (tadeo jones)#agent pickles#agent ramirez#tadeo jones analysis#tad 3 countdown#tadeo jones pickles#tadeo jones ramirez
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Salty Ask Meme: #1, #3, #20 and #31?
ok finishing those hater asks late
1.How has DC/Marvel/publishing company wronged you, specifically?
everytime orion shows up in a comic its a crime. against me. but also like EVERY comic they announce sounds so bad these days. ok personal attacks against me RECENTLY
cancelling ram v's the swamp thing (so so good)
cancelling future state gotham (THE COMIC SUCKED. BUT i stand by red bat hunter and there are so many batman titles just leave this one!! for me.)
rebooting batman inc FINALLY but destroying the characters giving them all 1 skintone and introducing 400 new characters in the first 2 issues instead of just. DC PUBLISH NIGHTRUNNER: LOVE IN PARIS OR ELSE
khalid's future scares me w JSA and then batman w the fate helmet... also i have to be honest i hate his costume. its really bad. hoodie and jeans were somehow better
get constantine away from the JL and the superheroes! you have zatanna and dr fate!!!!!
dc v vampires and DKofsteel being 3984032432 chapters long w spinoffs and ONE jurassic league comic (jurassic league still deals w a trope i dont like (jl vs darkseid) but i will accept it bc the comic is so silly)
employing the toms
whatever piss shit black label is i hate to be "edgy" but its lacking the like.. grostesque and wild of it all. black label could never do face or kid eternity etc
so many more things im sure if i thought harder
3. Who is your most hated comics writer?
ok if it wasnt obvious. TK. caus frankly i think "ex-CIA" is a valid reason alone to dislike him but on top of it i do think the misogyny racism xenophobia is unavoidable in his comics and while i hear "but he works w the best artists!' a lot frankly i dont think any of the artists he's worked with really did particularly memorable work on the interiors except bilquis evely tbh. and like that shit was a book there was so much text i barely had time to look at the art!!!!! frankly also someone told me they think he only watches the cartoons and as time goes on i start to believe that more
20. What’s the worst superhero team?
I HATE THE JSA!!!!! and inf inc. nostalgia circlejerk for the good ol days with a ridiculously large cast that doesnt have any reason being on screen together outside of a "BUT WE'RE FAMILYYYYYY"x1000. w inyfinity inc the like smugness of "HEH we're the REAL heroes becuase our parents were heroes" in the appearances of them ive read just annoyed me
31. What’s the worst animated/live action adaptation you’ve seen?
YJ for sureeeeee the misogyny racism ableism and absolutely the worst version of every character it adapts. and since it spans such a large amount of the dc universe which SHOULD be awesome for a cartoon but it manages to fuck it up every single way. dogshit art. dogshit designs (ok i remember not minding metron + FP's but every other design in the show PUKE). dogshit characterization. "its a reimagining-" and its a bad one
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