Satisfaction Queen 👸

Vanessa Satisfaction Queen

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

Vanessa Satisfaction Queen

Vanessa Satisfaction Queen

My incomparable friend Deirdre T. (aka @sourtimesmachine on here) has posted an article about The Winchesters that perfectly encapsulates how and why the show is a masterpiece, what its depths highlight about Dean’s story in-narrative and out-of-narrative, and how what is ostensibly an exploration of the past is actually commentary on Supernatural and a path for the future.

Nearly every monster on this show takes its victims to another place— hidden lairs, pocket dimensions, buried spaces inside their own minds. Escape, every time, means the same thing: transformative catharsis centered around truth and the breaking of traumatic cycles. Telling your parent you believe in yourself, letting go of your father’s plan even if making your own is scarier, telling your childhood self that you’re going to fight for them and give them back their choices, confessing your guiltiest secrets and allowing your friends to accept and love you as a whole, giving up false peace for real love. Characters are offered ways to forget, to live free of their guilt, pain, and trauma, but this is never the answer. This isn’t real. They learn instead to let themselves examine the bad, embrace that it is part of them, and use it to inform and strengthen their ability to fight for the good as a more complete and centered person. It is fundamentally a story about healing, being told to us by someone whose own story ended with profound pain. Whose story ended in a trap, never escaping the cycle, never getting to speak or fully embrace his own truth or choice. Never getting to live. Rather than avoiding the narrative burden of Dean’s death and all the circumstances, both in story and out, that led us to it, The Winchesters is breaking it down. It is examining each theme that was regressed by the finale and pointedly reaffirming it. It’s telling us that what happened to Dean was wrong, that there is something to be done about it. It’s, maybe, trying to help us heal too.

I cannot recommend this full article highly enough. Unsurprisingly, Deirdre beautifully summarized a bird's eye view of much of my thoughts on this show. I feel like I want to print out pamphlets of this and hand it out in public!!!! But sharing it on this blog will have to be enough.

No matter what the events of the season one finale hold tomorrow, this show could not have been louder or clearer. Dean Winchester spoke to us for 12 episodes by comprehensively deconstructing every aspect of his ending, condemning it repeatedly and consistently, and showing us that he's doing his best to break free of it. And, through him, the real-world team behind this show conveyed the same in kind.

The Winchesters could not have been more validating and (in my opinion) thrilling at every turn. By design, there is SO MUCH in it to examine and talk about, all within the context of it being Dean's story. It's unbelievably dense in clever ways I don't think any of us could have expected.

(And it must be said that I did not watch this show every week expecting to see Chuck Won propaganda, and yet, EVERY WEEK...)

Anyway. Please read this article.

And if you've avoided watching this show, consider this your sign that you absolutely should watch it.

Since we're on the topic what is your favourite kind of romance heroine? It doesn't have to be one specific type just what kind do you gravitate towards.

Hmmm I mean, I love a lot of romance heroines, but I've noticed that I tend to enjoy heroines who've experienced life most of all or are very determined to experience it. This doesn't have to mean a widow in historicals, or even necessarily one who isn't a virgin (though I do prefer a non-virgin heroine over a virgin--and it truly doesn't matter lol, I'll read either very happily, it's just that like... if I HAD to choose I'd pick a heroine who wasn't a virgin, and the hopeful? series I'm trying to write does not feature any virgin heroines, which wasn't planned and sort of just happened). I just like a heroine who's at least somewhat jaded, who knows how the world works. Someone who is closed off.

I do love an ice queen. The lady of the manor, as it were. I also really love an unrepentantly sexual and hedonistic heroine--like, I ADORE this type, virgin or not. Someone who's all "well what happens if I do tHIS?" and very happily teases her partner. I think both the ice queen who's seen too much of the world and is tired of this shit and the very sexual heroine (whether she's done it before or adjusts to it like a duck to water lol) are preferable to me than like... The true babe in the woods innocent who's like "whaaaaat" at every single sexual thing that happens. Like, as an example of how you can handle this with virgin heroines--Evie in Devil in Winter is a virgin, but she's very naturally sexual and doesn't have an issue with adjusting to St. Vincent's appetites and is soooo into sex that she's the one who "makes" him lose the bet. And she's so practical about it. She finds out they need to fuck to make it legit and goes "yeah that sounds about right". She's not all shocked or whatever.

I love very feminine heroines, and will usually gravitate towards heroine that give "divine feminine" vibes over tomboy vibes. BUT THAT BEING SAID. I can get behind most heroines. Very rarely will I turn down a book just because the heroine doesn't seem like my type. I tend to love heroines that people hate. The only things I really can't do with heroines is:

--constant insecurity

--constantly mentioning how plain or ugly she is like shut the fuck up Mr. 6'5" stunnah with a 9 inch cock is railing you at every minute, I don't buy it, this feels like such pandering and I frankly don't want or need it

--subset: heroines who are fat and are always like "I know that because of my ample body he probably doesn't like me" oh my god this romance hero is clearly one of those guys who likes to see it jiggle get ooooover it (I say this as someone with insecurities about my weight--I just can't get behind heroines who agonize over it every other page, she can have body image issues without it being 20% of the novel)

--heroines who fuck the hero over but it's fine because she's the heroine and he's the hero and we never confront these actions ever (ex: I just a read a book I was really loving with an NFL player hero who was a virgin, and the heroine deflowered him, they fell in love, and this Ashley Madison type site put out a $1 million reward for a woman who could prove she took his virginity; someone steals hero's phone and leaks nudes of the heroine she sent him, and it's hORRIBLE and she's understandably traumatized and depressed, but she claims her power by TELLING THE PRESS SHE TOOK HIS V CARD without TELLING HIM IN ADVANCE so she can donate the money to charity???? And when he's understandably mad it's treated as this overreaction on his part??? And dude I am sorry but how the fuck is very intimate info about his sex life being shared without his permission okay???? Anyway sorry that shit blew my mind.). I find that condescending.

Heroines I love that I think sum up a lot of this:

--Greer Galloway/Colchester/Galloway Colchester Moore or whatever the fuck from New Camelot by Sierra Simone. Greer is so self-possessed and cool and smart, but she's also like, this hedonistic wild woman who is fully willing to "why not both?" her marriage. Lol some of the best parts of the sex scenes in those books are Greer in the background like "GIVE HIM THE DICK!!!!!"

--Neomi Laress, Dark Needs at Night's Edge by Kresley Cole. A total temptress(ssss) who flirts first and asks questions later, but is also out for her own (understandable) game and accidentally falls in love with a deeply damaged Conrad Wroth and is like "he is baby". Both tough and jaded and deeply nurturing once her heart opens up.

--Ellie Peirce, Lothaire by Kresley Cole. I love Ellie so fucking much. (And she's a virgin heroine, so again, I love all!) She's tough as nails (her epigraph is literally "steel magnolia? TRY TITANIUM") but has the vulnerability to like, cry and break down when shit gets really hard. She refuses to be disrespected. She's very in touch with her own sexuality and uses it to get what she wants. I love a heroine who approaches a hero that is basically the equivalent to a massive toothy snarling monster and like, solemnly buckles a diamond collar that says "BRAT" or something around his neck, and then he's just her bitch from there on out.

--Eleanor Ramsay, The Duke's Perfect Wife by Jennifer Ashley. A new favorite! I love her your honor! Very fun and nice and perky and confident, but has been around the block and isn't super quick to trust Hart this time around. (Even if they did have sex THRICE like a decade ago, as he constantly reminds her.) She had the dignity to expect better from him and dumped his ass without crying (in front of him). She also, unfortunately, can't resist that dick. And wants to take Victorian photographs of it. The dichotomy of woman. But again, this heroine who just blinks at the hero unimpressed and goes "down boy" is really My Shit.

--Sara Fielding, Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. Sara really encapsulates a specific subset of heroine that I love, and I think this is probably my favorite type of virgin heroine, which is "local woman cartwheels headlong into mortal peril at any given moment while very growly man shrieks in terror and runs after her like she's a priceless vase that just fell off his mantle". Sara is nosy, she's not afraid to learn, she is naive at points but in a very "my b" kind of way, she super doesn't care about cheating on her wet blanket fiance when Derek Craven is on the menu, and she does dumb shit like go "Should I get bangs?" (Derek: I WILL KILL MYSELF IF YOU GET BANGS.)

A brain…

An athlete…

A basket case…

A princess…

and A criminal…

Sincerely yours… the Royal club.

I was looking at my AO3 trying, once more to finish my AT mini series when I realized its been a year to the day I published where is it now, The glory and the dream? nicknamed Glory. Its a story I loved writing and have reread it multiple times and I got a bit emo thinking about that story - about that world.

I wrote a DGM fic in college over the course of a year that started as a speculative fic on past events and became an all out AU once more details came out in the manga. But I became so much more attached to my version of the characters and the story that it became hard to connect with the canon version. I feel something similar with BNHA and Road Not Taken verse. I love those characters who I took from early canon and molded and aged into essentially my own characters. I still get weepy reading rise up and writing glory kind of helped me deal with a bit of anxiety of turning 30.

This whole verse means a lot to me even though it was far from popular even when BNHA was dominating AO3 and is now so far out of vogue people aren't really reading stories much less wild AUs. But it lives close to my heart and is one of the things I think of when BNHA in any context is brought up. I will write the finale fic, it's lived in my brain fully formed since the last few chapters of TLWA. I will write it and it will hurt and I will sob and it will be one of the most satisfying stories because it will finally exit my brain and enter the page. And it will be utterly meaningless to 99.99% of the population and I will not give a damn because as much as I love sharing my stories and getting feedback, these stories are Mine. TLWA and it's sequels more than most.

LOOK AT THAT COCKY EYEBROW. THAT UNNECESSARY FLICK TO HOLD THE STRAIGHTENED SPOON IN A COOL HAND GESTURE.

I BET RITSU PRACTICED STRAIGHTENING OUT BENT SPOONS FOR EXACTLY THIS MOMENT. THIS WAS HOW HE PLANNED TO REVEAL HIS ESPER POWERS. HE HAS BEEN WAITING HIS ENTIRE LIFE FOR THIS MOMENT. LOOK AT THIS BOY, HE'S SO HAPPY.

Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?

THE QUEEN??? FROM DEAD CELLS??? JUST FUCKING KILLED HERSELF

GIRLIE DASHED ON THE LEFT AND SHE FELL AND FUCKING DIED WHAT???

"In total, Leonor governed Navarre as lieutenant, with some minor hiatuses, from 1455 to 1479, making her the effective ruler of the realm for nearly twenty five years. Out of her female predecessors, only Juana I served a longer period; however, Juana I was detached from the governance of the realm and physically distant from Navarre. Leonor however, remained in the kingdom throughout her lieutenancy, making her the female sovereign with the highest record of residency in Navarre.

One of the enabling factors for Leonor’s constant presence in the realm was the “Divide and Conquer” power-sharing mechanism that she employed with her husband, Gaston of Foix. Blanca and Juan had a similar division of duties, but unlike her parents’ often contrary objectives, all of Leonor and Gaston’s actions can be seen to be working toward their joint goals of obtaining the Navarrese crown and politically dominating the Pyrenean region. In order to achieve their ambitions, the couple were adept at working as a team even when physically seperated or carrying out divergent duties.

Politically, it appears that they took on different areas of negotiatiion. Gaston was the designated emissary to the French court, which was entirely appropriate as one of the French king’s leading magnates. One important example of his involvement in negotiations of this type include Gaston’s visit to the French court in the winter of 1461–62 to negotiate the marriage between their heir and the French princess, Magdalena, which ensured Louis XI’s backing for Leonor’s promotion to primogenita. Gaston also conducted negotiations on behalf of his father-in-law, Juan of Aragon, with the King of France, with a successful outcome in the case of the Treaty of Olite in April 1462, which was intimately connected to the marriage that Gaston was orchestrating for his son and Magdalena of France.

Even though Gaston normally took on the role of intermediary with the French crown, there are two letters issued by Leonor during her marriage in December 1466 as lieutenant of Navarre that show her involvement in French affairs. These letters were written during a period of extreme crisis, when Juan II’s difficulties in Catalonia were matched with Leonor’s continuing struggle with the Peralta clan in Navarre. In these letters, Leonor was playing on her familial connection to Louis XI, in hopes of his aid and backing, asking him to “commend this poor kingdom and the said princess to him [Louis XI] as one who is of his house.” Moreover, these letters show Leonor’s independent interaction in crucial diplomatic negotiations with France, both in receiving embassies directly from Louis and in sending her own personal ambassador, Fernando de Baquedano, with detailed instructions on how to proceed.

Gaston appears to have been more engaged with marital negotiations for their numerous offspring than Leonor. However, this may be due to the fact that the couple overwhelmingly chose French marriages for their children. Only three of Leonor’s children did not contract a French betrothal: Pierre who became a cardinal, a daughter who died young, and Leonor’s youngest son, Jacques (or Jaime), who married into the Navarrese nobility. Given the fact that Gaston was more intimately connected to the French court and the nobility of the Midi, it seems reasonable that he would take on the role of chief negotiator for these matches. All of the marital arrangements for their children were made in order for Gaston and Leonor to achieve their joint goals, the acquisition of the throne of Navarre and the consolidation of their power and influence in the Pyrenean region.

Another area where Gaston necessarily played a more central role was militarily. Robin Harris acknowledges Gaston’s successful military career and notes that after his useful military service to the French crown, “the comte was permitted by the [French] king in the last years of his life to employ his military resources in order to further his family’s interests in Navarre.” Gaston also performed many military services for his father-in-law; the agreement of 1455 that promoted Leonor and Gaston to the successors of the realm required Gaston to go to Navarre on Juan’s behalf and retake those areas that had fallen to the rebels “for the honor of the King of Navarre as well as for his own interests and those of the princess his wife."

However, there is some evidence for Leonor’s involvement in one military foray. In the winter of 1471, Leonor took part in a daring attempt to seize the capital, Pamplona, from her opponents, the Beaumonts. Leonor participated in an attempt to storm one of the city gates with a group of armed supporters. Moret notes that “this surprise was reckless; for it exposed the person of the princess to obvious risk and was somewhat rash.” Moreover, the element of surprise was ruined by the cries of her supporters shouting “ Viva la Princesa !” which alerted the Beaumont troops to the threat, and Leonor and her supporters were swiftly ejected from the city.

Like her mother, the noted peacemaker, Leonor was also involved in moves to reduce the civil discord in the realm. Zurita credited Leonor with “making a great effort to resolve the differences of the parties and subdue the kingdom into union and calm.” Leonor represented her father in negotiations for a truce with the supporters of the Principe de Viana on March 27, 1458, at Sang ü esa. Zurita notes, “The princess Lady Leonor was there at that time in Sangüesa and signed the treaty with the power of the king her father.” Leonor was instrumental in the forging of another truce that was contracted in Sangüesa, in January 1473, and she was also present at a conference with her father and her half-brother Ferdinand in Vitoria in 1476 “accompanied by the nobility of Navarre to renew the treatties . . . and attempt to arrive at a stable peace.

Although both spouses were named to the lieutenancy of Navarre, the documentary evidence clearly demonstrates that Leonor appears to have taken on the bulk of the administration of the realm. This was entirely appropriate as it was Leonor, not Gaston, who had the hereditary right to the crown. Moreover, it was logical for Leonor to remain in Navarre so that her husband could look after his own patrimonial holdings and continue to serve as a military commander for the King of France.

Leonor was an active lieutenant but she struggled to implement her rule fully across the kingdom, as many areas were dominated by the Beaumont faction who were opposed to her and her father Juan of Aragon. This meant that at times, she had no control or access to certain key cities in the realm, including the capital, as mentioned previously. Her grandfather’s impressive seat at Olite was the center of her sister’s court, but Leonor eventually regained her hold on the castle and used it as one of her primary residences between 1467 and 1475. Sangüesa remained an important base for Leonor, and she was also associated with Tudela on the southern edge of the kingdom.

Leonor’s difficulty in implementing her rule across the whole of the kingdom is illustrated by a prolonged struggle between the lieutenant and the town of Tafalla, which consistently refused to send representatives when she called together meetings of the Cortes. Tafalla was a center of Beaumont strength, which had supported her brother Carlos in his struggle with Juan of Aragon and was thus bitterly opposed to her appointment to the lieutenancy. Between 1465 and 1475 there is a series of missives from Leonor both summoning representatives from the town and then expressing disappointment when they failed to arrive. During this period, Leonor appears to have called a meeting of the Cortes at least six times, but the town consistently refused to send envoys to the assembly. There is a sense of increasing exasperation and anger in these documents at the repeated failure to participate in these important events. At one point, in late 1471, Leonor personally came to the town to give advance notice of her intent to call another Cortes the following summer, perhaps to circumvent any excuse that the town did not have sufficient time to send representatives, but Tafalla still did not participate in the assembly.

As her authority was contested, Leonor was keen to stress her agency and her position in the documents that she issued. However, at times she even struggled with the chancery; between 1472–73, Juan de Beaumont retained the seals of the kingdom and refused to let Leonor have access to them. In 1475, she granted a reduction in taxes to the important city of Estella acknowledging the reduced capacity of the city to pay after the population had shrunk from the effects of war and flooding. In this document she stressed her efforts to assist all of the urban centers of the realm, to help them recover from the years of civil conflict and devastation, “the other good towns of the said realm have been refurbished by our certain knowledge, special grace, our own change and royal authority.

Leonor’s address clause drew on all of her family and marital ties as a means of establishing her authority:

 “Lady Leonor, by the grace of God princess primogenita , heiress of Navarre, princess of Aragon and Sicily, Countess of Foix and Bigorre, Lady of Bearn, Lieutenant general for the most serene king, my most redoubtable lord and father in this his kingdom of Navarre.”

The signet that Leonor used for the majority of her lieutenancy as well as her sello secreto had heraldic devises that mirror her address clause, bearing the arms Navarre, her family dynasty of Evreux, her husband’s counties of Foix, Béarn, and Bigorre, and finally the Trast á mara connections to Aragon, Castile, and Léon.

To sum up, Gaston and Leonor’s ability to divide up roles and responsibilities demonstrates the couple’s effective partnership, using each partner in the most appropriate arena. Moreover, this division was entirely necessary as the couple’s widespread territorial holdings and the demands of balancing the complicated and difficult political situation both within Navarre and the Midi and between France, Castile, and Aragon meant that both partners needed to be fully engaged and active in order to achieve their mutual goals and further their dynastic interests.

Even though Leonor and Gaston generally employed this mode of “Divide and Conquer” that left Leonor primarily responsible for the administration of Navarre while Gaston oversaw his own sizable patrimony, the couple did work together as a unit whenever possible. Documentary evidence shows that Gaston came to stay with Leonor in Navarre for short periods, particularly during the autumn of 1469 and 1470. There is also some additional evidence to indicate an earlier reunion in 1464, which appears to indicate a desire on the part of the couple to be together. Gaston and his party were stuck in the mountain passes between Foix and Navarre on his way to visit Leonor. The princess issued a series of orders to dispatch men and pay for additional recruits and mules in the mountains in order to clear the passes and roads for Gaston, including one order for 300 men to be sent to help. Gaston’s death in 1472 took place on another journey to see his wife in Navarre; he died en route of natural causes in the Pyrenean town of Roncesvalles.

 Overall, Gaston and Leonor worked together with the mutual goal of obtaining the crown of Navarre, throwing the weight of Gaston’s power, wealth, connection, and military forces behind Leonor’s hereditary rights and were willing to fight off opposition from their own family in order to succeed. They worked in partnership, with each partner taking on the most appropriate role; Leonor was responsible for the governance of Navarre, and Gaston supported her militarily and financially. They both worked on diplomatic efforts to achieve their ambitions; Gaston used his position as a powerful French vassal and general to gain support while Leonor negotiated with her Iberian relatives to maintain their rights.

[...] Tragically perhaps, Leonor hardly had a chance to enjoy the position of queen regnant when it finally came her way. Leonor’s death, only a few weeks after her father’s in February 1479, meant that her rule as queen lasted less than a month. Leonor changed her address clause to reflect her altered position as “Queen of Navarre, Princess of Aragon and Sicily, Duchess of Nemours, of Gandia, of Montblanc and Peñafiel, Countess of Bigorre and Ribagorza and Lady of Balaguer.” Ram í rez Vaquero points out that most of these titles were disputed; several were titles that should have come to her as part of her paternal inheritance from her father but in reality would have gone to her half-brother Ferdinand de Aragon. In addition, the French titles that Leonor had held as Gaston’s wife had already been passed to her grandson. It appears that Leonor had enough time to mount a formal coronation, on January 28, 1479, at Tudela, firmly establishing herself as Queen of Navarre, even if only for a brief moment. Moret remarked that “out of all the kings and queens of Navarre she was the one who reigned the shortest, although she may have been the one who desired [the crown] most.”

-Elena Woodacre, "Leonor: Civil War and Sibling Strife", "The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics and Partnership, 1274-1512" (Queenship and Power)