#= me being very self indulgent with murder women and suits

[paper-ish]

/ tw blood

yor + twilight’s suit + that one charlotte rampling pose

#= me being very self indulgent with murder women and suits #ish draws #spy x family #spy family #yor briar #yor forger #twiyorweek #twilight #yes gun is gold bc her knives are gold and yor is extra in every au #is this au? or did she just find loid’s suit and was like neat #who knows #loid forger #sxf #sxf thorn princess #anya forger #thorn princess #loid x yor #loidyor #twiyor #sxf fanart

[romanceyourdemons]

well, ichi the killer (2001) is an incredibly violent and disturbing film, and i personally did not enjoy watching it. however, i am fascinated by the way in which it parodies the organized crime film/heroic bloodshed genres. i am not very familiar with yakuza film, but in its portrayal of almost hyperbolic loyalty to gang leaders, unarguably hyperbolic violence, and long-distance erotic tension between the hunter and the hunted, this film feels comparable to films like the killers (1989) and a bittersweet life (2005). the relationship between these films and this is like the relationship between watchmen and silver age superhero media: honor is replaced by obsession, tasteful action with brutal and creative violence, homoerotic tension with explicitly sadomasochistic sexual obsession; colors are toned up, visuals are broken up, and we the audience are drawn by beautiful artistry of form and of story to witness the truly, truly disturbing things that follow logically from the tropes and demands of the genre. there is something deeply self-indulgent in the film, in the smug irony of the story, in the scenes of sexual violence against women that drag on and on, in ichi’s superhero-style murder suit which, despite being made out of close-fitting leather, cum can still drip freely out of when artistically necessary. there are many things in this film that made me deeply uncomfortable and seemed to have no purpose beyond making me uncomfortable. this film was not pleasant to watch, and, unlike films like black sun: the nanjing massacre (1995) or belle de jour (1967), i really don’t feel like i got anything special out of that unpleasantness. but it did draw attention to the stiff nobility of standard heroic bloodshed films, and it was a fascinating experiment in what would happen if those films were not bound by their palimpsestic echoes of chivalric literature, and, for that reason, i am glad that i watched ichi the killer (2001)

#of all the visuals that i hate in that film the one i hate the most is muscle jijii #i’m sure it looked better in the manga #but some visuals should not see the light of live action performance #ryddles

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: anything with Jiang Yanli, I’d love to see more of her PoV

part 2 of whumptober 20 (JYL/LXC field medicine)

ao3 link

-

It wasn’t that Jiang Yanli never thought about other men.

After all, she was a female cultivator, and her opinion was therefore one of the ones that was rather eagerly solicited when it came to naming the most attractive young masters in the cultivation world; it was only that it had never seemed to matter. After all, she was engaged, and always had been, to her mother’s dearest friend’s only son, and that, it had seemed at the time, was that.

Oh, her father spoke warmly about marrying for love and not for obligation, but Jiang Yanli had never quite understood what he meant. Even if she didn’t love Jin Zixuan, she loved her mother enough to want to respect her wishes, and it was easy enough to dismiss what negative things she’d heard about him – arrogant, self-centered, impetuous, but of course he was still young, and weren’t most teenage boys like that? – and instead daydream about the life she would have in the future.

When she was young, it was mostly daydreams of having some faceless man (she couldn’t imagine little Jin Zixuan, who at three years younger was barely more than a baby) bring her gifts and tease her and kiss her, then say she was the prettiest person he’d ever seen. The way she’d always heard was supposed to be how lovers talked, the way people said that a marriage ought to be like - the way her parents’ marriage had never been.

When she was a bit older, her thoughts drifted away from retreading romantic stories and to the actual work of being married, of being the mistress of Lanling Jin. In the beginning, her duty would be to first and foremost produce an heir and a spare, to remain healthy throughout the process, and to support her husband as he slowly began to take on the duties that would eventually become his, but later on it would get more interesting. A sect leader could not be everywhere, and his wife would often be left in charge when he was not at home – she would have to know everything about the sect, same as him, enough to make decisions in his absence; she would have to answer correspondence, make decisions, negotiate with traders, collect duties, enforce the peace, and she’d also have to manage the sect’s social scene on top of it all.

She probably wouldn’t have much time to cook, Jiang Yanli thought wistfully, thinking about how Lanling women prided themselves on never having to lift a finger for themselves, and threw herself into her favorite hobby now, while she still could. If she was clever about it, she might be able to get good enough at it that her future husband would find some dish of hers that he liked, something that only she could make, and then her cooking would be something done at his request – a charming idiosyncrasy, an indulgence of sweethearts.

When she got older still, and learned about Sect Leader Jin’s philandering and the iron grip of control Madame Jin imposed on Lanling in order to keep her position in the face of all the backstabbing and politics, she thought to herself that that sounded exhausting. But by that point, all of her childhood daydreams had Jin Zixuan’s name on them – although admittedly not his face, for all that he had grown up into one of the most handsome young men of his generation, and certainly not his mannerisms – and it was far too late to raise a fuss now. So Jiang Yanli studied willpower in addition to trade routes, learned how to exploit social norms in addition to how to manage a dinner party, taught herself how to play people just as well as she played the guqin, absorbed the lessons of both murder and mathematics, and above all figured out how to stand up for herself and what she believed in no matter what overwhelming pressure she might face.

Even though Jiang Yanli was pretty sure that Madame Jin wouldn’t appreciate that last part in a daughter-in-law, especially not one reputed to be as easygoing as her father.

(“Let her be upset,” her own mother had snorted when Jiang Yanli had tentatively raised the issue. “Are you supposed to ruin your own future because she’s a bitter old mother-in-law that’d rather not give up control so early? I may have agreed to marry you to her son, A-Li, but she agreed to marry him to my daughter. If she wanted easy and pliable, she should have thought again.”

“But she’s your friend,” Jiang Yanli had said, frowning a little. “Don’t you want her to be happy?”

Her mother had looked tired. “Once, more than anything,” she’d said. “But the chance for that passed long ago.”)

So it wasn’t that she didn’t notice other men. It was just that there was no point in allowing herself to look, and she knew enough of her parents’ marriage, and of Madame Jin’s, to not want to look.

And then, suddenly, there was.

Her engagement was broken. One could say that it happened at her own beloved brothers’ hands, at her father’s blind dislike of arrangements even when it was one his own daughter had long ago accepted and had even learned to long for, but in truth Jin Zixuan was a proper young master, old enough to make decisions for himself, to exercise some control over his own life, and the first bit of control he’d taken into his own hands was to decide that he didn’t want her.

It was – not fine, no. She spent some time crying over it, and yet more time comforting Wei Wuxian who was distraught at having caused her pain, and the most time of all quietly wondering what the point of her existence was now that she was no longer useful as a marriage tool. She’d never been much of a cultivator, never been especially pretty, never been anything more than average – what was the point of her?

Maybe that was when she’d decided to pick up medicine.

Field medicine was womanly enough to satisfy critics, and yet it was something useful in a practical sense: she could save people’s lives, if she only learned enough, and studying she could do.

Sometimes, she even got the chance to save the lives of very attractive people, like when the First Jade of Lan lay crumpled in the cot before her as she patched him up. So this is the one they ranked first, she thought, examining him with her eyes even as she kept her hands busy, and she was forced to admit that the other female cultivators of her generation had good taste. He was devastatingly handsome.

Kind, too, she soon learned; gentle and courteous in his mannerisms. He smiled often, which she appreciated in a person (if one interpreted Jiang Cheng’s scowls as smiles, he smiled nearly as much!), and he seemed to genuinely admire her efforts at medicine, however rudimentary. Over dinner, which he insisted on sharing with her even after he was well on his road to recovery, the conversation between them flowed easily and well: they both had brothers they loved, which was a conversation topic of which neither of them would ever tire, and they both enjoyed art and music. He didn’t know the first thing about cooking, but enjoyed asking questions (especially after she’d made him a meal he particularly enjoyed, which was often), while she enjoyed the way he blushed when she teased him.

She didn’t think much of it, of course. If she couldn’t keep the husband that had been promised to her since before she could walk – if she was too dull, too plain, too weak, too average to be worthy of an untried young man like him – then she definitely had no hope of catching the most attractive and capable young master of their generation, a dashing war hero and sect leader in his own right.

And then, when they were both laughing over an especially hair-brained scheme they’d concocted to try to get Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian to spend more time together – Jiang Yanli had noticed how much Wei Wuxian talked about Lan Wangji once he’d returned to the Lotus Pier, and Lan Xichen swore up and down that Lan Wangji had been no better – he turned to her and said, “If you were in Gusu, your brothers would be sure to come to visit you.”

“Me, in Gusu?” Jiang Yanli was startled into a laugh. “Why would I be in Gusu? As your guest?”

Lan Xichen coughed. “I had been hoping for something – a bit more permanent than that. If that would be something you would be open to.”

It actually took her a moment to understand, and then she had to raise her hands to cover her suddenly burning cheeks.

“You don’t have to say anything now,” he said hastily. “Just something to think about, if you’re interested…and of course, if your heart is elsewhere –”

“It isn’t,” she blurted out, and had to turn away.

“I’d hoped that was the case,” he said quietly, his voice warm. “I’ll take my leave, Mistress Jiang.”

Jiang Yanli had grown up thinking of herself as the future mistress of Lanling Jin, with its riches and its beauty and its poisonous heart, and then she’d assumed she’d be nothing at all, an old maid that helped Jiang Cheng manage his sect until he finally found a wife to suit him.

She’d never thought about being the mistress of Gusu Lan.

Gusu Lan, which was not as wealthy as Lanling Jin but just as complex – with its own trade routes and subordinate sects and business to manage – with its beautiful and serene landscape, its culture that emphasized harmony and unity rather than backstabbing – with no overbearing mother-in-law that would have barely been tolerable even when her own mother would have been there to hold her back, but would have been impossible without such protection –

She hadn’t dreamt of Lan Xichen as a child, or even as a teenager, but when she thought about all those dreams with a faceless man that she’d named Jin Zixuan regardless of any similarity to the real thing…

Lan Xichen fit in much better to the idea in her head than the real Jin Zixuan ever had.

“I won’t live separately,” she told him when he came over the next day, before he could even say a word; it had been just about the only problem she could see with his proposal. “In another house, certainly, but not an entirely different dwelling, and if I have any children, I would want them to live with me regardless of their gender.”

“I wouldn’t dream of having you so far away,” he said, and he was smiling again, broad and bright and – somehow, impossibly – hers. “Might I kiss you?”

“You may,” she said, and he did.

“Mistress Jiang,” Lan Xichen said a moment later, “you’re the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met.”

Remarkable, Jiang Yanli thought to herself, was better than pretty any day.

#mdzs #jiang yanli #lan xichen #field medicine #no. 20 #my fic #my fics #macgyvertape

[fific7]

That Swept-Back Hair

Billy Russo x Reader

@omgrachwrites 500 Follower Celebration

AU Prompt: Friends with Benefits

Summary: How will Billy Russo react when his FWB finds another lover? Bearing in mind that he’s a complete hypocrite.

Warnings: Swearing, jealousy, fluff with mentions of sex.

A/N: Loosely based on S1 Billy, it’s non-canon & set in my imaginary Punisher universe.

(My GIF)

»»———————————————　⚜　———————-————————-««

Your phone was jumping like a jack-in-the-box on your bedside table, the blue light of the screen illuminating the wall behind it every few seconds.

You rolled over with a groan, taking a moment before picking it up and looking at it. Of course it was Billy Russo, who else would it be at 1 AM on a Saturday morning?

The guy next to you in the bed also rolled over, covering his mouth as he yawned, eyes half-open.

“Everything OK, Y/N?” he asked.

“Yeah, Raf, just a needy friend.... gonna call them back, so do you mind staying hush-hush for the next few minutes?”

He yawned massively again, speaking through it, “Ahhhhrrrrr...yeah... no problem...”

You hit the ‘Favourites’ star next to Billy’s name in your contacts, hearing it start ringing.

It went to voicemail so you hung up, slid the phone onto the table and threw your head back down onto your pillow. Fucking Russo. Blows up your phone with missed calls & “Pick up!!” texts then doesn’t answer when you call back.

It rang two seconds later, just as Raf had turned towards you, opening his mouth to no doubt ask you about your ‘needy friend’. You rolled your eyes and grabbed it, but the screen went dark just as you did so.

You hit redial, it rang out, went to voicemail. “Fuck!” you ground out between your teeth.

Your head had touched your pillow again for about 5 minutes, when there was a staccato series of knocks on your apartment door.

You shot up in bed, quivering - ah hell, it couldn’t be, could it? Really?

Raf had dozed back off in the meantime & didn’t even stir when the knocks rang out sharply in the quiet apartment. Not much of a guard dog, you thought, quickly throwing on your discarded PJs.

You padded barefoot over to the front door, confirming via the peephole that Billy Russo was indeed outside in the hallway, leaning on your doorframe so he could place one eye right to it. You spotted an eyebrow wiggle as you made eye contact. Oh holy hell!

You straightened your shoulders, took the chain off and unlocked the door, swinging it open.

“Billy!” you said quietly, with a small smile, “What brings you here?” You hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him for about three weeks. Not that that was anything new.

He moved gracefully past you like the panther he was, even though you’d been trying to subtly block him from coming in. He was dressed in one of his sharp suits, so you guessed he’d been at one of the never-ending stream of events he attended.

Your mouth drew into a line. Whoever he’d gone there with must have bucked the trend and bailed on him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have turned up at your place when, in his mind, the night was still young.

He turned towards you, placing both hands on your hips as he did so, pulling you up against his muscled chest.

“Now, Y/N, why do you think I’m here, holding my best girl in my arms?” the New York accented voice purred in your ear.

He leant in and kissed you hungrily, deepening the kiss immediately to a passionate one.

You pulled away, escaping his grasp. His eyes widened in surprise, a small frown making its way onto his brow. A few locks of his dark hair had fallen forward onto his brow and he swept them back up with his fingers, a reflexive gesture for him.

“I tried to call you back,” you mumbled, “I’ve... uh... got a friend staying with me at the moment.”

He shot his trademark smirk at you. “Hey, that’s OK. We can be quiet for once, yeah?” Grinning now.

In true romcom fashion, Raf picked that moment to come wandering into the lounge, clad only in his boxers, both hands ruffling through his short hair.

Billy’s mouth dropped open. He made a quick recovery, though. Gestured with a thumb.

“So... this your ‘friend’?”

He looked Raf up and down. He was a 6 feet 3 firefighter with the FDNY, and to put it mildly, he was ripped.

He topped Billy by a couple of inches, and by a few pounds. Billy scowled at him.

Raf eyed up Billy too, turning to you and asking, “This your ‘needy friend’ you were talkin’ ‘bout, Y/N?”

Oh crap.

Billy’s scowl turned to a furious glare, aimed right at you. “Needy?!! Ah, fuck this, Y/N! I think we all know who’s needy around here.”

Your mouth rounded into an offended O, but before you could reply, Billy was out the door and it slammed loudly behind him.

Great - now all your neighbours were gonna be mad at you too.

»»———————————————-　⚜　-———-———————————-««

You had then spent an uncomfortable half hour over a coffee with Raf, explaining the dynamics of your non-relationship with Billy.

“Now,” he’d said, brow furrowed, “let me get this straight. He’s part of your friend group, you see him every so often at a bar or at one of their places - but never his. He sees tons of other women but turns up here for booty calls whenever his busy schedule allows?”

He shook his head. “He’s using you, Y/N. What a selfish prick.”

You bristled, “Look, we go back quite a ways. Since he was in the Marines. I knew Frank first as we were neighbours when we were kids, and I eventually met Billy through him. He’s Frankie’s best friend, they’re Marine brothers.”

“And how long have you been ‘friends with benefits’?”

You muttered your response. “Sorry, what was that you said?” he asked.

“Three years,” you repeated reluctantly.

“Damn.” he said. “And what am I, exactly? Filler for whenever fuckboy isn’t calling?”

“No! Raf, you’re a really nice guy, and I love spending time with you.”

He stood up, heading to the bedroom. “Look, I’m gonna go. I need a few days to try and get my head round your fucked-up relationship with the suit-wearing Marine.”

He’d left shortly afterwards, saying he’d call. You weren’t sure that he would.

You met up with Karen for lunch later that day. You’d been co-workers first off, then had become good friends. She was currently dating Frank, your childhood friend.

You were so glad that he was back out socialising, in a small way, after losing his wife and kids in a brutal gang clash just over a year before. They and several others had been what the papers described, rather callously, as “collateral damage” while minding their own business in the public park the gun fight took place in.

Frank had understandably closed himself off to a large extent as he grieved and after a decent interval, you’d tried your best to draw him back out in a gentle way. You’d decided to indulge in a bit of Matchmaking Lite, and had invited Karen along to a night out with the rest of your friends. You knew Frank would be there and as you’d hoped, they hit it off right away.

You spilled what had happened the night before to her, grateful for a shoulder to cry on. She looked and sounded sympathetic, but you knew she wasn’t a big fan of your arrangement with Billy. She again voiced her astonishment that you still had it going on with him.

“Karen, without making you vomit by sharing too many details, Billy is just the absolute best in bed. He’s got the stamina of an ox. Several oxes, in fact.” You just knew your eyes had a faraway look in them.

Her mouth pursed in a ‘moux’ of distaste. “But still, Y/N, he’s just so damn selfish about it! It’s all on his terms.”

“You know he’s got commitment issues.”

She choked on her espresso martini. “Ya don’t say!!”

“It’s complicated.”

“Look, honey, I’m gonna be straight with you. It is anything but complicated. He spends 90% of his time at Anvil, 9.9% with other gals, and guess who gets the remaining measly 0.1%, the crumbs from his table?” She pointed her finger straight at you. “Coconut for the lady over there!”

You sat in silence for several minutes, turning over in your mind what Raf, and now Karen, had said to you. Eventually you nodded slowly. “You know what, Kar, you’re totally right. I just let the great sex blind me to all the rest of his fucking bullshit.”

Time to cut Billy loose.

Not that you ever had him tied down in the first place. If you were being brutally honest.

And you weren’t sure whether he’d even bother showing up at your place ever again.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

The next day being Sunday meant that some serious ‘Me Time’ was in order.

Sitting on the sofa, you stared off into space, thinking about the two men in your life. You huffed to yourself; you hadn’t heard from either of them so far, and that was probably for the best. You could do without being stuck in the middle of some kind of testosterone-fuelled conflict between the two of them.

Then you laughed out loud at yourself. Who were you kidding? You’d probably never see either of them again! You stood up, stretching out your shoulder and neck muscles. Time for a bit of self-pampering.

You had a long relaxing bath, gave yourself a leisurely mani-pedi, ordered in some pizza, and began to go through some layouts for work the next day.

You were a digital content editor at the newspaper both you & Karen worked for. It was okay as jobs went, but it didn’t set your world on fire. However, what did excite you was that the newspaper’s parent publishing house was about to launch a travel magazine, and you’d applied for a transfer.

What really made butterflies pop up into your stomach, though, was the fact that the magazine’s content editors would also be contributing instead of just collating. You’d already had an interview with the Editor in Chief, and should be hearing back within the next few days.

If someone else got that position you’d applied for, you’d just have to shove them out of your third floor office window at the very first opportunity.

While you were thinking of potentially becoming a murderer, there was a familiar pattern of raps at your door. Your heart sank straight through your boots.

You knew it was Billy before you opened the door. It sounded ridiculous but he had a certain way of knocking. Peremptory, demanding, with military precision.

He stood outside your door, tensed up and rigid, with a carefully blank look on his face.

“You alone?” he barked, by way of greeting.

You crossed your arms over your chest, glaring at him. “Why, hello Billy. How are you? I’m fine, Y/N, how are you? Yeah, I’m great.”

He glared right back. “I asked if you were alone.”

“That’s highly unlikely, Billy, seeing as how I’m so needy!”

He huffed and marched inside straight to the sofa, sitting down and leaning his arms on his spread-apart thighs. He clasped his hands together, letting them dangle loosely between his knees.

“You said I was needy first.” Sulky face.

“Hey, are we back in school or something?”

He looked up at you, dark eyes staring into yours intensely. “Why d’you get with another guy, Y/N?”

Straight to the point, then. OK, you were going to return the favour.

“What, I’m not allowed to have a life? D’you think I’m going to just sit around, waiting to gratefully receive 5 minutes of your attention every few weeks? Like some kind of fucktoy, to be picked up and dropped at will? Seriously?”

He clenched his fingers until the joints went white. “I thought you were happy with the way things are between us!!?... our... our arrangement. You’re important to me. And you know I care about you!” Not meeting your eyes at this last comment.

“Huh!!!” You leant against your kitchen island, you weren’t going to get into Billy’s orbit. Too risky.

“So important that you spend all your time at work, while bedding half of Manhattan? Leaving me with the crumbs from your table, as someone put it recently.”

He shot up from the sofa, fury in his eyes. “Who fuckin’ said that?!”

You shrugged, “It’s not important. What is important is that our arrangement, as you call it, is over. Since you put it in such business-like terms, think of it as a contract which has been terminated.”

Billy stalked across the room until he was an inch away from you, eyes boring into yours. “No.”

You laughed in disbelief, eyebrows arching. “You think that just cos you say ‘No’ it’s not gonna happen? Because no-one ever says no to Billy Russo, is that it?”

He grabbed you, lips finding yours in a ferocious kiss. One hand crept up the nape of your neck, his fingers running through your hair, while the other hand pulled your hips to his. He had an impressive erection. You gasped as you felt the pressure of it against you, but pushed him away, escaping to the other side of the kitchen island.

“Just go, Billy. Please.”

He stared at you, wide-eyed, those dark pools of his looking suspiciously glossy. Was he...? No way.

Billy turned on his heel and slammed out of your apartment. Again.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Billy knocked his beer bottle off the table with his elbow, as he leant forward to drunkenly wave a finger in his friend’s face. Luckily, it fell onto the grassy verge below, rather than the decked patio they were sitting on in Frank’s back garden.

Frank grabbed his finger. “Russo!!! Chill out, man.”

“She tol’ me... t’go, Frankie, I was kissin’ her an’ she jus’ said Go!” slurred Billy. Frank squeezed his eyes shut at the whiny tone then looked back at him.

“Bill! We all warned you she wouldn’t put up with your bullshit forever. You should’ve known this was comin’ bud.”

“Bu’ I... I... love her,” he blurted, then stared at Frank, eyes wide, part horrified, part terrified.

“Got a strange way of showin’ it, Bill. Picking other women over her, until you decide it’s time to hook up. Surprised she’s stood for it so long!”

Billy swayed slightly in his garden chair, just staring back at him, nodding repetitively like a bobble head every so often.

“I gotta get her back, Frankie.”

“Whooo,” Frank huffed out a big breath, “well, ya always did like to choose the impossible missions, Russo.”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

You were beginning to understand what having a stalker was like.

When you left work the following day, the first person you spotted on the sidewalk outside your office building was Billy Russo.

You hesitated, shocked, then nodded and said quietly, “Hi Billy,” before continuing your short walk to the subway.

He fell into step alongside you. “M’gonna show you just how much I care about you,” you heard, then he was gone. Just gone, into the crowd of commuters around you.

That was just the beginning. Every morning, one single rose of the palest pearly pink would be delivered to your office, laying in a swirl of black chiffon within a silver gift box.

Texts would drop into your phone at unexpected hours. “Please forgive me. Let me back into your life. I love you, Y/N.”

The first time you saw those words, you nearly dropped your phone. What the....?

Gourmet meals and bottles of rosé prosecco would be delivered to your door, precisely 30 minutes after you’d get home. Was he watching you or something? A little shiver ran up your spine. He was still a sniper, after all.

You would catch glimpses of Billy when you left the office, and outside your apartment. Without a shadow of a doubt, he meant you to see him, he would never be so visible on a real surveillance job. But he didn’t ever approach you.

Then you got your dream job. You, Karen and a bunch of your colleagues went to your regular bar after work for a quick celebration. There was a toast proposed to your new job at one point, and one of your male colleagues grabbed you in a friendly bear hug after they’d all shouted “Cheers!”

You were looking past his arm as he hugged you, and found yourself staring into Billy Russo’s dark eyes. Casually dressed, he was leaning on a high table near the door, a beer in front of him.

Billy lazily pushed back from his table, strode over to you, swiped you out of the guy’s arms, wrapped his own arms round you and planted a kiss on your temple, with a nonchalant, “Hi, sweetheart.”

Karen, who had heard all about your last encounter with Billy, looked thunderstruck. You’d be getting interrogated later, that was for sure.

He, meanwhile, landed another kiss right next to your lips and said, “See you later at home,” giving you a quick squeeze before walking off.

Your female colleagues meanwhile were swooning over Billy, one of them commenting that she wasn’t surprised you’d kept so damn quiet about your hot boyfriend. You gave Karen a meaningful look and just smiled back at them all, neither confirming nor denying anything.

However the feeling of Billy’s body against yours, the delicious smell of him, his lips on your skin, had set your heart racing at a dangerous speed. You really did try to push those thoughts aside.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

Flopping down onto your sofa when you got home, you laid your head back on it and thought about that evening. As expected, Karen had questioned you ruthlessly as you left the bar together, like the perceptive investigative reporter she was.

Talking as you walked to the subway, you’d given her every detail of all the deliveries, glimpses of him and texts you’d received in the last few days. Karen had stopped walking, looking at you in surprise. “Y/N, why didn’t you tell me about all of this before now? Hell, Frank told me he had some crazy plan to win you back, but I never really thought...” her voice trailed off.

“Is it working?” she asked next. “Mmmm, yes and no, to be honest,” you said. “Don’t let it!” she said firmly, “This is what he should have been doing all along, instead of treating you like a total afterthought.”

You nodded, “Can’t argue with ya on that,” you agreed. “Is he going to turn up at your place, d’you think?” she asked. “Wouldn’t be surprised,” you laughed, “I think that was Billy giving me a heads-up.”

So as you’d been 90% expecting, the familiar knock at the door came about 15 minutes after you’d got back. You got up and after checking the peephole, sighed and opened it. “Hi, Billy.”

This was like déjà vu. Billy brushed past you and sat himself down on the sofa, in the same pose as the last time. Head down, hair falling forward and hiding his eyes from you. This time, you bit the bullet and sat at the opposite end, leaning against the armrest so you were facing him.

“Well, Billy.... leaving aside the stalkerish overtones, I guess I should thank you for the roses, gourmet meals and prosecco.”

He swung his head towards you, eyes wide. “They were just to get your attention. Frankie told me it’s what I shoulda been doin’ anyway, all along.”

You nodded, “Yeah, he’s not wrong.”

Billy heaved out a big sigh, head dropping. “I know I’ve been a complete shit to you, Y/N. Took you for granted.” He met your eyes again, “Truth is, I was fallin’ in love with you, and I really didn’t know how to handle it. I thought it was... just sex to you, so I... I was a coward and tried to ignore it, and acted like I didn’t give a shit about you. I just couldn’t have you kick me to the curb if I told you how I felt.”

You were genuinely shocked - Billy had never talked about his feelings before. You’d accepted this in the past, telling yourself it was due to his upbringing in the system.

“So you meant what you said in your daily texts, then?”

He nodded, still looking straight at you, “Yeah...I meant it, I do love you, Y/N.” Then he quickly looked down again.

Before you could stop yourself, you’d leant along the sofa and your fingers were pushing that silky hair off his forehead. He looked up at you, taking hold of your wrist and kissing your pulse point softly. You stood up, saying “C’mere, you,” and took hold of his hand, pulling him up along with you.

He put his arms round you, burying his face into your hair and just holding you. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled. You laughed, “What?! Even though you hadn’t seen me for weeks before the night you landed on my doorstep?!”

“I know, I know, you don’t need to remind me I’ve been a complete prick. I’ll be honest, I think it took me seein’ you with that guy, and him actin’ like you were his, to give me that kick up the ass I needed.” The dark eyes looked down at you, and he sniffed, “He still around?” You shook your head.

“Nah. I think he thought I was completely insane for still being with you.”

Billy laughed, “Maybe he’s right....” he looked at you, serious again. “You willin’ to give me another chance, Y/N? I promise you I’ll do it right this time. The whole dating thing, asking you to be my girlfriend after three dates, all that stuff... everything.”

“Everything? Like, what if I say no sex to start with? And no running off to other women to scratch that itch? You’ll swear to all that? Really?!”

“I swear to you, on my Ka-Bar.”

“Wow,” you said, knowing that the knife was never out of Billy’s possession. It was an integral part of him. Maybe he was serious after all.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

A small kiss on your cheek woke you the next morning. Those eyes, those dark liquid pools, stared into yours, while a thumb ran over your cheek. “Mornin’, sweetheart,” smiling down at you. Reaching up, you ran your fingers into his hair, moving it off his forehead. “Morning, sweetheart,” you echoed, smiling back.

You and Billy had shared a bed but nothing else, except hugs and hand-holding. You were in your PJ’s - well, camisole top with matching shorts - and all Billy had on were his boxer briefs. You couldn’t deny you’d had thoughts of just leaping on him during the night... let’s face it, he was one hot dude. And he knew how to ‘look after’ a woman in bed, as he himself put it.

But no, you were determined he was gonna have to work for it, just like he promised he would. So you’d had to show some self-discipline, well, a lot of it, actually. He’d passed the first test - he’d actually stayed all night. Usually he was gone before the morning light stole through the curtains.

Now, he kissed your bare shoulder and leapt out of bed, like he was back in the Marines. He stood still for a moment, sideways next to the bed, having a leisurely full body stretch. Billy knew full well you’d be totally enjoying the view. A little tease from him to remind you what you were missing.

The sunlight, which stole through a small gap between your curtains in the otherwise dim room, picked out the sculpted muscles on his back & torso. Then he turned slightly more, ensuring you wouldn’t miss seeing the hard-on he was currently sporting. You shook your head, with a slight smile on your lips. The cocky big bastard.

“Where you off to, Billy?” you asked, thinking to yourself, if he’s headed to Anvil, he can fucking shove his second cha......

“I’m gonna make my beautiful almost-girlfriend a cup of good Italian coffee.”

You smiled at his departing back as he disappeared out of the bedroom. “Oh, Billy?”

His voice drifted back through from the kitchen, “Yeah, darlin’?”

“Can I please get some toast with that, too?”

“Sure, sweetheart.”

You stretched luxuriously, nestling your head into your pillows.

Looked like you were going to find out what having a panther on a leash was like.

#ben barnes #billy russo #billy russo fanfic #billy russo imagine #billy russo x reader #billy russo fanfiction #that swept back hair

[themilky-way]

toil and trouble

gif credit: toyboxboy

pairing: spencer reid x gn! reader

summary: soulmate au!: halloween only comes once a year, and what it brings around tonight is a little more than just scary movies and ghost stories. based on this ask. 

warnings: none i think. pretty sure this is gender neutral reader so i labeled it as such :)

author’s note: THIS IS SO BAD AND SHORT IM SORRY BYE

----------

none of it had been planned. as much as the team persisted that it’d been garcia’s idea, it wasn’t truly anybody’s. to have a simple gathering amongst coworkers to celebrate halloween had been a unanimous decision, one that required the toughest of the toughest to fit themselves into a costume. rossi had proposed his apartment as the location seeing as most of his team’s reunions predominantly occurred there. penelope being her usual preppy self volunteered to decorate, and so she set off to hang orange fairy lights, spooky props with boisterous sound effects, and to throw in a touch of her own glam, a couple of glittery jack-o-lanterns. 

the rest of the unit debated between their most normal choices, and for a while they were puzzled as to what might be the right pick, but the date came too quickly. on halloween night, hotch appeared at the doorway dressed in his traditional suit and tie, claiming to be “too busy” to fix up a costume, and shook hands with an italian renaissance painter, rossi. morgan invested his creativity in wearing a purge mask with all-black loungewear, while to accompany him came penelope as a cat. her faux whiskers aligned perfectly, her pink nose scrunching up at whatever corny joke rossi shared. then, her feline ears picked up the sound of her other two friends, and looking over, she came face-to-face with a ladybug and a fairy. 

“oh, look at these pretty ladies! where did you get those wings?” she animately asked jj.  “nevermind, not important-listen, stay away from morgan, he thinks he’s a murderer or something.”

“what?” emily chuckled. the three women turned to observe what garcia implied towards, and they all discovered said man- mask on and everything- hitting the italian bob ross with a foam stick of some kind. they couldn’t resist breaking out into fits of laughter, eyes glued to the scene before them. “is that a pool noodle?”

“yes, he’s bonking him,” garcia managed to voice. she reached out to grab a hold of each of her friend’s hands to guide them to the kitchen for drinks. still in the effects of what they’ve witnessed, emily grabbed four mugs out of a cherry-red, wooden cupboard-one of them for you, she’d pointed out-and placed them on the counter next to the stove. in the meantime, jj busied herself in making the hot chocolate in a large saucepan. “hey, do any of you guys want some?” one polite refusal came from her boss, and a couple grunts were heard from the men still fighting their dual. so, she continued her portions for her friends who had agreed, and although you still weren’t present, she’d added extra ingredients just in case. 

soon enough, the delicious smell of her concoction started flowing across the apartment, the spicy tinges of cinnamon, mixed with the sweetness of the chocolate and sugar, were enough to settle any tricks at hand. garcia was finished organizing the desserts on a skeleton platter, indulging in one as she rested an elbow on the counter to observe her friend’s cooking. 

“so, what’s in the cauldron, weird sisters?” you’d been sneaky enough to tread inside the kitchen without them noticing, rather odd considering they were supposed to notice a foreign presence. they’d each produced their very own distinct response: prentiss jumped up and reached for a nearby butterknife, jennifer dropped her spoon, and penelope choked on a crumb of cookie. “geez, relax! it’s just me, i swear!” you yelped. 

“you have a mustache, who are you?!” 

“you seriously don’t know- it’s me, for god’s sake!” confused by their newfound inability to actually recognize you, you removed the imitation hair on your upper lip along with your top hat. “see, i’m friendly.”

“young lady, do you want to make me go into cardiac arrest?” 

“no, but it’s halloween, so why the hell not, huh?” that earned you a not-so-friendly punch from the analyst. “i’m friedrich nietzsche, by the way.” 

the rest of the night flowed calmly. board games were brought out, popcorn was made, candy wrappers compiled in a large bundle in the middle of the circle-it was a familial setting, a warmth encircling the room as everyone participated in announcing eerie ghost tales or rolled their eyes at a silly dare. not everyone was exactly present, though; somewhere in the back of your head, there lurked a tiny worry surround spencer’s absence. if he really had turned down his invitation to come, he’d tell someone, right?”

“where’s reid-do you know?” you whispered to morgan, leaning in to the side to ensure your question’s safety. 

“he’s running late. he should be here any minute,” the agent caught the expression of worry, a hint of disappointment lingering in your features at his response. being the teasing friend he was known to be, he continued, “why, you got a thing for him?” 

“what, me? no, i don’t-i was just asking. just being a good friend.” he flashed you his infamous smile, one that knew what you truly felt despite your superficial attempts to disguise those feelings, but said nothing else.

eventually, it was your turn to refill the snack bowls. your suit fit loosely around your form to help you maneuver in the ways you needed to. at the moment, that was to stretch high enough to reach the top of rossi’s fridge, which was ridiculously tall compared to that man’s actual size. seriously, he was five inches shorter than you, how could he reach these damned boxes?

“here, let me help you.” you recognized it instantly, and what made you fall back wasn’t the voice’s spontaneity, but the hand that elongated to grasp whatever the hell you were there for. “here you go.”

struck by the sudden lack of speech, you looked at spencer up and down, then a few more times for further inspection before it hit you. bewildered by this-and you by his attire-the both of you widened your eyes and stepped back. 

“you’re checking me ou-”

“-you’re friedrich nietzsche!” and alas, the young, oh-so-intelligent man took the liberty of scanning you over to observe your claim. it was as if he were looking into the mirror, minus the the ownership of his own fake facial hair and differing height. 

“no way! are we-did we-?”

“he’s my favorite philosopher, i had to,” you clarified. 

now aware he was still holding a box of cheez-it’s, spencer quickly handed it back to you, interlocking his hands behind his back in a nervous attempt to hide his coyness. “he’s my fav-uh-he’s my favorite, too,” he stuttered.

as much as you resisted not to, you beamed at his attempt to sustain his formality, and you didn’t really mind being dressed as a super-ideological crazy man from the victorian era because, well, he was dressed like one, too. he came forward to help you refill the plates once the awkwardness fled the kitchen, and amidst minor cleaning and trash-bag replacing, you learned he couldn’t find a mustache that resembled the one he wanted. the only right thing for you to do was offer yours to him, which prompted a neat rebuttal from reid, yet you kept insisting he take it until his only option was that. 

on the way back, you sat alongside each other with penelope on your left and morgan on his right. unbeknownst to either of you, garcia tugged on your sleeve while morgan pulled on his ear. 

“you know he’s your soulmate, right?-” she’d said to you. 

“-pretty boy, you know what this means, right?”

and with the luminous rays of the full moon, and the fragrant aroma of autumn enveloping you both, you answered in hushed unison. 

“yeah, i know exactly what this means.”  

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid #criminal minds #matthew gray gubler #my writing! #spencer reid drabble

[reysjedi]

My thoughts but mostly my feelings.

This is the 3rd time posting these. Idk how but they keep getting deleted. 3rd times the charm?

*****TROUBLED BLOOD SPOILERS AHEAD******

Okay so I am going to start with the non ship stuff first because once that begins I will become slightly incoherent lol

• I love Barclay. He is so freaking funny. His friendship with Robin is everything. “You need to learn to read the room, mate.” I think he will be coming for Ilsa’s number one spot on the “Cormoran & Robin Shipper” list soon. 

• Speaking of Ilsa “It’s Robin’s birthday, you total dickhead.” I love it so much. Hoping for a miracle baby for her and Nick next book.

• I enjoyed the case. The characters seemed so developed and realistic. I really didn’t see the murderer coming. I also loved how it brought up why we trust certain people without a second thought. 

• I had very few disappointments in this book (besides not having a kiss which I wasn’t truly expecting) but my 2 were 1. That Strike didn’t go to his Dad’s party. Idk I really wanted that for his character even if he ever does reconcile with him it won’t be at a public event, I just really wanted to him to go and of course bring Robin. 2. That Robin wasn’t at Joan’s funeral. The flowers were lovely though. 

• Speaking of Joan <3 <3 <3 “I wish I had met your Robin.” I cried. I think it was really important for Strike to know Joan was proud of him and that he can think of that and her when he looks at the ocean. 

• Delving in to Strike’s psyche more was amazing. Learning more about his childhood. His mixed emotions about Leda. Yes. Yes. Yes. 

• I also loved Robin’s journey in this book. I’m also about to turn 29 and in a transition point in my life and how people kept saying “she was traveling in a different direction than the rest of us” really resonated with me. 

• I’m super excited about Michelle joining the agency. Robin needs another female coworker. Speaking of, I love what Pat brings to the team, especially her dynamic with Strike.

• I CHEERED when Strike manipulated Creed like that will be awesome on screen.

OKAY NOW TO THE SHIP STUFF * cracks knuckles *

• I don’t think I have every loved a literary couple this much. The way JK manages to grow and develop their relationship each book sighhh 

• THE AMOUNT OF TIMES I shouted “COMMUNICATE YOU IDIOTS” WHILE READING THIS BOOK lol but they do and when they do sighhhhh okay sorry can’t skip to the end

• I find it really funny that in a group chat on here I said I wanted holiday fluff L O L

• I was so upset for Robin on her 29th. I can’t believe he forgot but BOYYYY DID HE MAKE UP FOR IT

• Okay so let’s start the holiday fuck ups: Christmas

What a classic man. Waiting the last minute to buy presents and agonizing over it. Then he’s going to buy her perfume which just so happens is exactly what she wanted on her birthday (and yes he gets a major hint from Ilsa but still). 

AND THEN HE PANICS because picking perfume for someone is pretty intimate and he was basically delirious because of fever AND HE GETS HER CHOCOLATES sighhhh I felt so bad for how stupid he was unknowingly being. 

Her gift for him is so thoughtful and the only thing that cheers up his miserable Christmas <3

• Next, bloody Valentine’s Day: What a disaster. Robin finally lets out her frustrations on him and I think he was genuinely shocked. She had NEVER said anything like that to him. Strike has said several times how he appreciates “Robin being the only woman in his life who wasn’t trying to change him.” He thought she had no complaints because she kept quiet. It wounds him.

“And don’t buy me any more fucking flowers!” I was so worried he would take this as wanting no romantic gestures but he didn’t <3 and they even joke about it later <3

Then he thinks women never want him to apologize first (really Cormoran???) and isn’t going to call first BUT HE DOES he calls and it’s kind of a lame apology but HE CALLS FIRST. 

• The banter the entire book was amazing because GUYS THEY ARE BEST FRIENDS.

• TIME FOR CHAPTER 58: “Romantic Whiskey in the Dark” aka THE BEST CHAPTER TILL 73 The intimacy, honesty, and vulnerability of this scene * clutches chest *

“I’d like to go to the Ritz please”… lol little did we know

He finally tells her about his Dad and half siblings pestering him. He even tells her about his childhood (y’all I couldn’t believe it). Picturing young Cormoran with too short pants, anxious to meet his Dad, and then the crushing realization that he didn’t want to see him. Then him calling Strike an accident in front of him. My heart broke.  

Robin FINALLY asks him about Charlotte and he tells her about her overdose and how much anxiety that was giving him.

I feel like typing Strike’s entire inner monologue starting with “How could he say, look, I’ve tried not to fancy you since you first took off your coat in this office…” but just do yourself a favor and read Chapter 58 again (I’ll be reading it & 73 at least 5 times each today lol).

Then he brings up Ilsa trying to set them up. * flails *

They talk about Matthew and Sarah because they are sharing. And guys, sharing is truly caringggg.

Then they have the conversation about wanting to have kids. (I have a few idk meta? thoughts about all the foreshadowing in this book about them having a kid together).

I absolutely love how Robin calls him out on his “self-indulgence.” I’m not saying Strike will ever change his mind about kids but I loved that she challenged his reasoning. They are so perfect together I swear.

Then he calls her his best friend. And Robin dies. And I DIED. It was so perfect and genuine. Her response was so cute because she was so taken aback. 

EVERYTHING WAS PERFECT

Then they both start thinking about the bed that is MEARLY UPSTAIRS AND I THINK I PASSED OUT FOR A BIT.

Seriously guys CHAPTER 58 IS EVERYTHINGGGGG

• I loved how they had an honest conversation about Strike’s protectiveness of her while on the job. 

• Strike chastising himself for considering/wanting to buy her a stuffed donkey <3

• “Ya but you’re exceptional.” He so casually makes Robin’s heart soar. It is perfect. 

• OKAY I THINK I’M READY TO DISCUSS ROBIN’S 30TH I NEVER and I mean NEVER COULD HAVE IMAGINED THIS FOR THEM

Back to Strike appreciating Robin “never wanting to change him” but then she tells him she hates when he’s late (andddd he’s on time NO DARE I SAY EARLY for their meetings for the rest of the book). She often feels underappreciated and wishes he would just make more of an effort. AND BOYYYY DOES HE EVER.

HE CHANGES GUYS… TO MAKE HER HAPPY “People can change. Or so a psychiatrist in Broadmoor told me.”

She thought he forgot again * cries *

He arranges for her to wake up to his donkey balloon and signs it “(Not flowers) Love Strike x” GUYSSSSS

Robin’s little tarot card read (WE NEED TO META THE CRAP OUT OF THIS) T

hen they meet up and HE LETS HER PICK OUT HER PEFUME (what she has been searching for the entire book, the perfume that suits her new life and he buys it for her in the best possible way THE SYMBOLISM COROMORAN IS ONE WITH THE PERFUME THE PERFUME IS ONE WITH HIM * flails *) and HE ADMITS HE FUCKED UP GETTING IT FOR HER ON CHRISTMAS

SHE ASKS HIM TO HELP HER CHOOSE BEWTEEN THE LAST TWO AND HE CHOOSES THE ONE THAT REMINDS HIM OF SEX. I mean I never thought the description of “musky skin and bruised flowers” could be so sexy. 

I DIEDDDDDDDD

THEN HE TAKES HER TO THE RITZ FOR CHAMPAGNE <3 <3 <3

ROBIN WAS SO SHOCKED BUT NOT AS SHOCKED AS ME

“Strike, said Robin, This is thoughtful.” Oh you mean just like you asked him to be? This is him trying. HE’S WOOING YOU ROBIN. 

GUYS WHAT IF THE NEXT BOOK STARTS RIGHT AFTER THEIR DATE (yes it is totally a date) AND THEY HAVE SEX BECAUSE THAT WAS STRIKE FINALLY TRYING (and he changed his phone numberrrrr) 

THAT WAS PEAK ROMANCE (I need fics).

I am seriously so happy with how far they have come together and super excited about their future <3

wow

If anybody read all of that message me so we can discuss (flail) together.

When do we get to read book 6??????

#take 3 lol #strellacott #cormoran x robin #cormoran strike #tb spoiler #tb #strike #strike x robin #i have a lot of feelings #otp: this is what i love #otp: youre exceptional

[sambinnie]

1. Happy Mabon! Every autumn, I forget that the darkness comes clanging down in a great rush in the mornings. One day, I am greeted by a pinking sunrise. 48 hours later, it’s so dark on my run to the river that I have to stop a passing runner and check the time, in case my disturbed sleep sent me dressing and leaving the house at 2am. This summer may not have given us those mornings where it’s so hot I can barely get out of the water, where those early hours feel like full silent days carved out just for me to sit in the light and wait for everyone else to wake up, where the only extra thing I put on to run home is my trainers — I look at my waiting winter gear, neoprene socks and gloves, head torch, two more thickening jumpers, hat, thermal mittens — but every season, every day, is beautiful.

Today we go early for celebrations, and the water is silky, and Orion hangs over us with his phallic sword dangling and Betelgeuse winking on one shoulder. The near-full moon spotlights us and I feel almost ready for the shortening days.

2. Hilary Mantel continues to be a literary god. How does she write with that clarity? How can I ever speak with her calm good sense and wit? 

3. We have two main problems at the moment, as far as I can see. a) What we’re doing (“curating” our lives; twitter spats; purity spirals; division and isolation; wanting ‘debates’ that can only be won or lost; encouraging people to buy more things; trying to buy our happiness; letting marketers tell us how we feel about the world rather than encouraging major moral lessons from throughout the ages to challenge us on our weaknesses; refusing to accept that life is suffering; asking self-care to be a plaster for everything we don’t have) and b) what we’re not doing (joining together to stand against those with more money and power; protecting the people who have even less power and voice than we do as a matter of course; learning from history; protecting nature above all else; prioritising going for walks; learning to repair things and campaigning to make things repairable; having a basic belief in human dignity for all, not just those with whom we agree; accepting that truly, we are all different and no amount of shaming or disgust will change that; working to shape our societies, culture, economies, production, food supplies and communications around improving — not just sustaining — the air, water and land, and fighting to ensure all of those new shapes protect women and children).

Individualism has morphed into something so completely self-destructive that we’ve forgotten we need nature more than anything — literally, more than anything — and we need to unionise and unite and put aside differences and work together even with people we don’t like. 

Because when there are wicked people in power, when it’s genuinely exhausting to think about all the corrupt, venal, toxic, divisive, false, and cruel things they have done since coming to power, those people love to watch everyone below pointing their fingers at one another, saying, You, You’re The Enemy, You’re The Problem, while corrupt populist leaders rub their bellies and chuckle at another promise broken, another mass death on their hands, another building site on a protected forest. Do you understand the stakes here? Do you understand that it’s actual survival? It’s not about being right any more, it’s not about besting someone in the argument. It’s about having decision makers who can not only ensure there is still food to eat and air to breathe, but that relations both within a country and between countries are built on care, and support, and compassion, and believing in human dignity. And while it sounds wishy-washy and hands-clappy it’s the schmaltzy, sentimental truth. It’s the only one, really. 

If we instead continue to believe every single day that my feelings are the most important, that my beliefs are the right ones, that I’ve got to prove those baddies there are evil and awful and wrong, then honestly, what the fuck? If we’re happy to live in a country where hostile architecture is the starting point for all public builds, where we send refugee boats away from our shores, where affiliate links are a career goal, where we haven’t stormed the Daily Mail offices with accounts of all our lovely immigrant friends and family and had a huge feast together and compared our long and tangled family trees, then come on. It’s only a race to the bottom if we all keep running. 

Because, pressingly, whatever the spark of a major global conflict — assassination, fuel shortages, hyperinflation, invasion — the kindling is almost always a populace fed pure hatred for months, for years, until they can’t even taste it anymore but are ready to spew it out again, and are ready to use another populace as the receptacle. And hatred is brewed up in silence and isolation, and in the ashes of bridges burned between disparate groups. 

And on that note, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, mainly because I don’t believe governments are generally competent enough to manage Grand Plans, but it’s annoying that technology and social trends and culture have developed in such a way that no one knocks on anyone’s door for a chat as a matter of course now, that it’s a given that a ringing phone triggers anxiety, that it’s not the norm for cups of tea with your neighbours, that we don’t know each other’s neighbourhoods, that we don’t even talk on the phone, with live words and intonation and synchronised laughter, but in text, in WhatsApp chats, in tapped out words and symbols that we know can be screen-grabbed and misinterpreted, that we know are kept, filtered and sold by the tech companies. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just a reality that every single one of us can choose to do differently. 

Sometimes exactly the right thing comes along at the right time. All of us here watched About a Boy at the weekend, a film which is so wonkily weighted and oddly rhythmed, but a perfect depiction of everything I’m banging on about here. Hugh Grant’s character likes being alone. He’s happy that way. It suits him. It’s his choice. Then, between one thing and another, he finds himself drawn into a world of a suicidal single mother, a duck-murdering young boy, more single mothers, more tricky teens, plus exes and mothers-in-law and awkward support groups. And it turns out that actually, being with people is better. Being uncomfortable often develops you as a person. Constantly prioritising only yourself produces a waxen, pointless baby. Making shared sacrifices might just be the point of being alive. Remember that to be human is to be flawed. That no one is ever completely right, and no one is ever completely wrong. That the boring stuff makes us feel good, and the glossy stuff, if all we strive for is gloss, doesn’t. 

If you want anything practical, here are the things that have really helped me over the last few years:

Writing a letter or email regularly to my MP, to CEOs of organisations, to anyone I want to communicate my strong feelings and how I’d like things to be done better. Tweeting eats your soul. It’s a horrible myth the media pretends is important. It really, really isn’t.

Inviting people to go in front of me in queues, in traffic, getting on to buses and trains. It lowers my stress levels right down.

Learning the names of my neighbours and people I meet regularly on walks and letting them learn mine. (I definitely haven’t just decided I loathe a neighbour because they cut a bird-hatching tree down in their garden on the last day of the year it was legal to do so. It’s fine.)

Joining a few political parties, and the closest thing I have to a union

Making something, anything — everything can be done with love, and learning to not get sucked into the capitalist conceit of having to make it perfect, sellable, exhibitable is a genuine gift to yourself; making a cake or a film or a coaster and not putting it on social media, letting it be ugly or serviceless and loving it anyway. I felt extremely overwhelmed the other evening, but instead of doom-scrolling I knitted a… I don’t know, something flat and woollen, and it helped to have my hands and eyes working on directionless introspective creation. 

Trying to stop hating. Every time I want to tell a negative story in my head about someone, I attempt to turn it into something positive: how unhappy that person must be, what they must be missing out on. It’s so nauseatingly Pollyanna-ish, and of course it isn’t always successful, and of course every single day brings a hundred thousand examples of cruelty and injustice and wickedness, but the alternative only makes my life feel worse, so why would I indulge that? 

Teaching myself the names of birds, trees, flowers, clouds and constellations. I’m still at the most basic levels on all of these, but the difference one feels in the world when you can name things  — let alone use them and know their stories — is a very real sort of magic. (For that reason I hope to read this book very soon.) This episode of The Cut is also good on the wonder and power of learning the names of the weeds that grow in your nearest pavement crack. 

4. Creating anything is always a gamble, isn’t it, but writing a book you actually like for once and seeing it slowly and beautifully sink to the bottom of a river never to be seen again is ever so slightly crushing. However, it turns out even Thom Yorke feels that way, so I am comforted. 

5. I’m sure I’ve mentioned plenty of these before, but if you want some suggestions of where to find joy, here are my favourites from the last year or so:

I was given Lucy Easthope’s book, When the Dust Settles, for work recently, and I was surprised and delighted to discover the most uplifting, hopeful, human and rightfully angry book I’ve read in a long time. Do yourself a favour and preorder it. I bought this other book for my own birthday, gave it to a housemate to give to me, forgot about it, and was delighted to later unwrap He Used Thought As A Wife. Laughed a lot, cried twice. Marvellous. 

Now even the youngest housemate here can recite John Finnemore sketches and sing the songs. Has also taught them various composers, gods, logical fallacies and gothic story tropes. Also v funny. Oh, Kate Beaton! Her two books (Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside Pops) are a bit like a comic-book version of Finnemore, but swearier and sexier and utterly unsuitable for all the housemates who have read it and been educated about the Brontes, Katherine Sui Fun Cheung, Tom Longboat, Nancy Drew, Ida B. Wells, Sacagawea, and the Borgias. 

Had to give Inside a restraining order against me for the sake of us all, but Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade is a masterpiece of writing, acting, sound design and optimism. Spy is dumb action comedy polished to perfection, and Yasujirō Ozu’s Good Morning seems like the inspiration for almost all US arthouse films since 1990, and is also beautiful, funny, thoughtful, and good. 

Taylor Swift’s Evermore, like all brilliant albums, isn’t completely perfect. But most of the songs are. And Hole’s classic Live Through This is still just ideal for turning up very, very loud after a tricky day, for the enjoyment of any neighbours who may have hacked down a bird-friendly tree on the last day of February. 

Watched both series of Liam Williams’ Ladhood when I had a week off this summer, and really relished the location, the intention, and the writing. More please. 

Miles Jupp and Justin Edwards continue to be my comforting bedtime listening in In and Out of the Kitchen. Has it ruined Nigel Slater for me? Well, a bit, but no more than any of us deserved. 

I thought this would be a book I’d mumble through the first chapter of, then let get buried in my To Read pile, never to re-open. Instead, I found Whatever Happened to Margo? laugh-out-loud funny, drily written, and full of humanity. Excellent Women has made me want to read everything written by Barbara Pym, a goal I am slowly but surely working towards. 

6. I’ve spent the last few years trying to find hazelnut trees, and finally found a copse between a car park and a play area, full of nuts the squirrels hadn’t noticed. Now I’ve found them, the spell has been cast and I see hazel trees everywhere, on walks and on pavements and running along motorway slip roads. A tray of green and brown frilled hazelnuts now dries with the laundry. They are so beautiful. 

[seanfalco]

Catch me in the Club | Klaus Hargreeves x Reader

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Pairing: Klaus Hargreeves x Reader (same as from Playing with Fire) Word Count: 1844 Warnings: Swearing, Suggestive dialogue

a/n: So this is completely self-indulgent and honestly ridiculous, but ever since seeing the new season 2 promotional posters and learning more about the plot, plus reading this post about Klaus running a strip joint in the comics (which who knows if it’ll even be part of the show or not), I couldn’t get this scene out of my head.  Basically just an excuse to write my Reader and Klaus being 60s’ fashion icons and the shameless flirts that they are.  Also titles are harddd.  Don’t laugh at me lol.

—

Pride might not be the first emotion one would connect with the idea of a strip club, but damn if you weren’t proud of what you’d built — you and Klaus, together.

Finding yourselves stranded in the middle of Dallas in the year 1960 after jumping back in time, you’d come out on the other side very much alone, only Klaus’s hand still clasped in yours; the rest of the Hargreeves nowhere to be found.  Thinking them dead, the two of you eventually settled down, making a new life for yourselves, deciding if you were stuck there then you might as well at least make the best of it.

As you emerged from the back dressing room to walk the main floor, you bobbed your head to the music blaring over the speakers, singing snatches of the lyrics under your breath as your gaze swept the room -- at least you’d been stranded in an era with good music, you thought.  

In the hazy light several topless dancers gyrated and twirled effortlessly around their poles as patrons watched hungrily from the bar, some nursing beers while others stared transfixed, completely forgetting the drinks growing warm in front of them.  You had to admit, there was a certain elegance to the way they moved, and you often found yourself staring, probably more often than you would admit; picking up certain moves to make use of in the bedroom later -- Klaus never complaining.

Speaking of which, you spotted Klaus behind the large circular bar filling the center of the room and you ambled toward him, catching his eye before leaning flirtatiously over the smooth shiny surface.

“Hey you,” you greeted, grinning up at him as he met you with a roguish grin of his own.

You had to admit that the 60s’ surprisingly suited him.  He’d let his hair grow long; his silky brunette curls artfully framing his thin face as they cascaded down, brushing his shoulders.  You probably spent about half your time running your fingers through it, relishing just how soft it was and the appreciative sighs it coaxed from Klaus’s lips as he practically melted under your touch.  

The long teal and cream coloured Nehru jacket he wore today was one of your favourites; his fashion sense just as eclectic and eye catching in the past as it was in the future and the pair of you had swiftly become connoisseurs of a strange mix of hippy and mod fashion which on anyone else would probably just look like a hot mess, but for some reason it worked for you.

The one thing you couldn’t stand was staring you right in the face at the moment and you tugged on it with a frown as you batted your lashes at your boyfriend.  For some ungodly reason you still couldn’t fathom why Klaus had decided to trade in his dashing goatee for the long scraggly abomination that currently decorated his chin and though you tolerated it as best you could, you never missed an opportunity to remind him of your displeasure toward it.

“Hey you, yourself,” Klaus replied with a chuckle, leaning in closer, gazing at you dreamily.

“How goes the front of house?” You asked, slipping up to sit on the bar next to him, planting your hands behind you and leaning back to gaze around the room.

“Oh, the usual,” he mused, “just a lot of horny guys watching some half naked women dance for them.”  You snorted in response, glancing over at him.  “Everything alright backstage?” 

“Just a little drama, nothing I couldn’t take care of,” you answered and Klaus nodded.

“The same old drama?” he asked. 

“The same,” you said, rolling your eyes.  Two of the women were notorious for not getting along, and while you attempted to keep them apart as often as possible they were both drama queens and liked to start shit over the pettiest things.

“Soooo,” Klaus prompted, his hand slipping toward your bare leg; crossed over your knee, your foot bouncing idly.  “Are we still on for dinner later tonight?”  

When his finger traced along the length of your thigh from the hem of your miniskirt down to your knee you glanced down, your lips twitching.

“Of course,” you replied, pointedly taking his hand from your leg with a teasing smirk and turning it to trace the ‘hello’ tattooed on his palm with your finger.  “Is there anything in particular you’re craving for dessert?” 

You could practically feel the shiver as it ran through Klaus and your smirk widened.  

“I think you know exactly what I’m craving,” he purred in your ear, returning the favour as a thrill ran through you as well, warmth and want filling you.  

Unfortunately there were still several hours left til your little date, and you were now feeling incredibly impatient.

Opening your mouth to make a suggestive retort the sound of raised voices caught your attention and your eyes quickly sought out the source of the disturbance, cutting you off.  Across the bar a rather rowdy patron had stood, grabbing one of the strippers and yanking her toward him, attempting to cop a feel.  Without missing a beat you jumped down from the bar, your face a thunderhead as you stalked across the room.

“Hey!” you snapped, stepping between the man and the dancer, murder in your eyes.  “There is a strict no touching policy in place here.  So get your hands off.”

The man swayed, obviously drunk, his eyes sliding from the woman behind you to you, his gaze lazily traveling downward before finally coming back to your face before he released his grasp on the performer.

”Touch any of my employees again and you’ll regret it,” you growled, your voice lowering dangerously as you met his gaze.  As you confronted him the woman quickly slipped away, hurrying to the back room to compose herself.

“Oh, and what are you gunna do about it, missy?  Throw me out?  I’ll just come back tomorrow,” the smug bastard slurred, laughing raucously, glancing over at his buddies.  Crossing his arms over his chest he turned back around, leering at you.

Having caught up to you, Klaus appeared, sweeping in to stand at your shoulder, silently offering you backup in case you needed it.

“No,” you replied, no trace of amusement in your voice as you glared the man down, “first I’ll break your hand, then I’ll throw you out myself.”

“Oooh, real scary!” he laughed, glancing over his shoulder for support from his friends.  “I’d like to see you try, girly.”

His laughter cut off with a yelp as you snatched his wrist, twisting til you felt resistance, the man’s surprise turning to a panicked whine and his eyes locked on Klaus at your shoulder.

“Hey man, w-what the fuck?  C-control your woman, why don’tcha!” he cried, trying to pull away from your grasp, but you only wrenched harder.

Klaus looked from the man to you, a small smile playing at his lips and he shrugged lightly.  “That’s not really how it works around here,” he explained, the look in his emerald eyes decidedly proud.  “She’s the boss and what she says goes, so unless you uh, want the use of your hand, which ooh that looks painful,” he exclaimed, his brows drawing down in faux concern as he covered his mouth sarcastically with his hand, “then I suggest you do as the fraulein says.”

The man gaped at Klaus, his mouth moving soundlessly, eyes darting back and forth between the two of you.

Lifting your eyebrows impatiently you gave his wrist one more yank before he was cracking.  “Alright, alright!” he cried, his voice climbing in pitch, “I’ll go!”

“See that you do, and if you try to come back, you’ll find we won’t be as welcoming.”  With a tight smile you released him and he instantly stumbled back, pulling his arm tight against his chest, cradling it as he backed away.  

“You and your girlfriend are fucking crazy, man!” he exclaimed before stumbling for the door, bumping blindly into several other patrons on his way and weaving through the two bouncers who were now looking your way.  Turning your fiery gaze on the man’s group of friends they quickly turned back to the bar, their shoulders hunched as if to say they wanted none of their fellow’s problems.

Clapping your hands as if satisfied you turned to Klaus, finding an awe filled grin on his face.  

“I love it when you threaten people, [Y/N], it’s so hot,” he murmured, reaching for your arm and pulling you close.

“Oh?  You like that, huh?” you asked wryly, cocking an eyebrow up at him.  “Too bad we’re on the clock right now.”

Klaus shrugged.  “Y’know, I really don’t care,” he mused, leaning in for a kiss, hooking his finger under your chin to tilt your face up.

When you pulled back you frowned slightly.  “Klaus, you know I love you, but… when the fuck are you gunna lose that God awful thing?” you huffed, tugging once more on his long beard.

“Aw, but you love me more than you hate my beard,” he pointed out, his lips twisting cheekily.  “I’d say that's a real testament to our relationship, you know?”

“Mhmm, and one of these mornings you’re gunna wake up to the damned thing cut off,” you replied, turning to walk back to the office.

“H-hey!  Hey hey hey,” Klaus exclaimed hastily, hurrying to catch up to you, your airy fringed kimono billowing out behind you in your haste before he caught your wrist, yanking you around and back toward him, catching you in his arms to hold you in place.

“I promise I’ll trim my beard once we get home tonight, okay?” Klaus relented sincerely.  “Will that make you happy, [Y/N]?” he asked, staring down at you with those damn effective puppy dog eyes of his.

“Have I told you yet today how much I love you?” you asked, a smile cracking through.

“Hmmm, I do seem to recall, vaguely, you saying something to that effect this morning, while we were in bed,” he mused, “but I’d love to hear it again, if you please,” he said hopefully.

Resting your arms around his shoulders you grinned up at him, your foul mood instantly evaporating and you were past caring who saw -- it wasn’t as if your employees and regulars weren’t used to this sort of thing by now anyways.

“Klaus, I love you, you wonderful, wonderful man.  Now, we really need to get back to work.”

The silly grin that lit up his face at your words was more than worth it and he laid a quick peck to your lips before pulling away reluctantly.

“Yes, [Y/N], I am your willing slaveee!” he called, bowing to you with a flourish.  “Until later,” he drawled, waggling his eyebrows at you suggestively before he swanned off, and you shook your head fondly as you watched him, biting your lip to keep from grinning too much before you too turned to get back to work as well.

#the umbrella academy #tua #klaus hargreeves #klaus hargreeves x reader #klaus x reader #klaus hargreeves imagines #tua s2 spoilers #??? not really spoilers idk #my writing

[amphtaminedreams]

Paris Haute Couture Week S/S 2020 Plus a Little Jacquemus: Okay, Dior DID Suck (Part 2/2)

Hi to anyone reading,

First of all, thank you! I have never had a post do as well as the part 1 of my haute couture week review did and I am so overwhelmed with the positive feedback. This is probably funny to read for those of you getting thousands of reblogs on your posts, me acting like I won an academy award because I got a couple of hundred, but honestly I don’t expect any traction when I write on here (it’s basically just me word vomiting everything I’m thinking as if people want to hear it aka. mouthing off into what I thought was the void) so if you did read it, thank you! I do spend a long-ass time on these so it means a lot:-)

I’ll leave the self-indulgent ramble there though as it’s probably not what you came for and jump straight into part 2 of my thoughts, starting with Jacquemus. Yeah, I knew what I was doing when I tagged that in my last post. Simon Porte Jacquemus is the man of the *fashion* people right now; I’ve even found myself coming round to the Le Chiquito bag despite my original thought being “well, that’s fucking useless”. I know, I know, technically it’s not haute couture; it was part of Men’s Fashion Week, but it happened around the same time and everyone was talking about it on Twitter, so I feel like I have to include it.

In a way, it kind of reminds me of Bottega Veneta’s last RTW show, in that, especially with the women’s outfits, we seem to be sticking with simple, fitted garments and chunky, more statement jewellery. I’ve got to say I like the styling here a lot more though, and in general I’m a fan of this collection. The collared tops with cut outs underneath blazers are cool and I can’t wait until it gets warm enough for me to not feel dumb wearing my headscarfs like this; there’s a LOT of summer outfit inspiration. It’s not a mind-blowing collection or anything but it is effortlessly sexy and that’s something I wish I could say about myself. Most of us can only hope to look half as good as these models do whilst making the effort but at least Jacquemus is aspirational, lol. 

I also fucking adore this colour palette. I’m sick of neutrals literally just meaning brown and white; the navy, sand and muted khaki is a fresh edition to what is usually interpreted as the colours you’d seen worn by Disney’s Riverboat Cruise staff and only Disney’s Riverboat Cruise staff. And I mean, come on-what is more neutral than typical English school carpet blue.

Next for the whole reason I had to make this haute couture week review 2 separate posts: Jean Paul Gaultier’s final show.

In the best way possible, it’s a lot. I don’t even really know where to start, except to say that I guess this is a fitting last show; a celebration of everything campy, messy, weird, performative, and punk is the perfect send off for a brand whose best known perfume of the last few years is called Scandal. More than anything, the final show represented the range of characters and cultures that have influenced JPG throughout his half-a-decade-long career, the lines that supposedly separate what is “masculine” and “feminine”, “old” and “young” and ultimately art and fashion blurred in the most exaggerated way possible. Sure, there are some looks which are individually a bit messy here but the way they were grouped into almost chapter-like segments meant that when you see them all together, they work. Nods to the patterns and structures that recurred from season to season were sprinkled throughout, from sailor stripes to corsets to the expected whirlwinds of colour. I’ll even allow the wellies in that one outfit; if I can get over bucket hats in Peter fucking Pilotto’s last RTW show, I can get over some questionable shoes here. Middle aged fishermen and boys who liked to pose with monster carp in their Tinder pictures as some weird display of masculinity everywhere rejoice.

Now onto a show that I personally found slightly disappointing: Margiela.

I think this one is a bit TOO weird for me. Like if you’re gonna go avant-garde, go all out. Chiffon gimp masks (I don’t know if that’s the intention here but that’s what I’m getting, sorry Maison) are something I’m not particularly fond of and I’ve never been a fan of the Tabi boots in the first place, let alone when they’ve seemingly been blown up to Michelin man style proportions. I didn’t find the show to be a total lost cause-I enjoyed the colour palette and I’ve always liked that contrast stitching detail, plus the bowler hats are interesting-but on the whole considering how much I liked the last RTW show, this is a bit of a let down. 

The looks I included are salvageable but (I feel mean saying this) there were genuinely a lot of pieces that did just resemble bits of fabric draped over each over with no discernible rhyme or reason, so much so that they reminded me of some of the monstrosities I saw at a Drag Race pub quiz this one time where we had 5 mins to make some garms out of loo roll and then have a team member model them for points down a makeshift runway. 

Ralph and Russo was alright. There were a few pieces that I really liked but again, I can’t help but compare this collection to the last, where it felt like the fussy details of bows and sequins and feathers and the Barbie Dreamhouse palette were utilised with a direction in mind. Here, I don’t get that. As ever, the gowns are gorgeous and I’d pay good money just to try one on for five minutes but as an overall collection I’d say there was a lack of higher vision, which is probably the snobbiest sentence I’ve ever written so forgive me.

As for Ronald Van Der Kemp, I could’ve done without including it to be honest, if it weren’t for the few pieces I’m in love with: the velvet cape, fur trimmed jacket and blue satin dress are probably my favourite pieces here.

So onto a collection I liked a lot more: Schiaparelli. 

The influence of nature from flowers in bloom to insects to the organic structure of the human skeleton is as present as ever, though this collection includes a lot more delicate symbolism than usual. Honestly, the details make it for me; the brooches, earrings and facial jewellery are other-worldly touches to outfits that could otherwise be simple fashion magazine editor on-the-go. That’s not in itself a bad thing! The suits are gorgeous. I mean, I’m talking fashion editor in New York in a power suit yelling orders down the phone while she rushes along with a coffee. A Miranda Priestley in the making type woman. THAT’S a modern take on the divine feminine that Maria Grazia should’ve been going for; our goddesses aren’t women who sit around looking pretty (though that helps too) and place curses on mere mortals anymore, they’re women who get shit done. 

With regards to Valentino, which was also a delight, let me start by saying this colour palette is EVERYTHING. It’s ugly sisters in Cinderella fantastic, and we know those 2 were the real fashion icons really. Other than that, I adore the Old Hollywood silhouettes from the gloves to the Liz Taylor-in-Cleopatra-level-dramatic earrings. Everything is opulent and expensive-looking and pretty much what we’ve all come to expect from Valentino. A strong 8/10.

For me personally, Viktor and Rolf was a standout and one of my favourite collections of haute couture week. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and I know it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum to what was probably my other favourite collection, Elie Saab, but this is just my style down to a T, the perfect balance of grungy and cutesy that I want to achieve. 

There’s probably going to be a lot of objections to the temporary face tattoos and I get that, but I think they’re fucking sick. I obviously wouldn’t get a permanent one lest my mother murder me in cold blood however if I did, you bet I would be pairing them with frilly-ass babydoll dresses that you could pick up in Camden Market like this. 

And last but not least (that would be Dior), there’s Zuhair Murad.

Sigh.

IDK, man. Seeing Zuhair Murad dresses on Tumblr and WeHeartIt (remember that site? It still exists!) as a 14 year old was one of the things that got me into fashion, so it sucks that almost every time a new collection comes around, I feel underwhelmed. Disappointingly, the brand hasn’t really progressed all that much since 2013. It goes without saying that the stoning and the embroidery and sequins are stunning and would make anyone feel like a princess but from a critical point of view, I’m just not seeing anything new here. Whereas I feel like Elie Saab, for example, reflected the growing fascination with East Asian fashion and recognition of the supremacy of the region’s street style in his haute couture last collection, Zuhair Murad seems to be stuck designing the same dresses he was 6 years ago. 

To pick one example, the rounded stoned necklines are so outdated that they’ve been making their way onto department store prom dresses for years. I get that it’s supposed to be a reference to Ancient Egyptian style and I respect that, I was one of those 8 year old that was obsessed with mummies and the “Curse of Tutankhamun”, but couldn’t it be done in a more interesting way? It’s Maria Grazia’s spin on Ancient Greece all over again. Now I get how how the I imagine very niche subsection of people who are into fashion and Julius Caesar (okay, so I don’t even know if they still believed in mythology and all that malarky at that point in history but just roll with my comparison here) might’ve felt going through Vogue Runway. Anyway, I hate to end on a critical note and so be clear, these are still absolutely magnificent dresses. If we ignore those ugly round necklines, that is.

So that’s it for this post! If you read part 1 and 2, I hope you enjoyed it! As always, let me know your opinions and feel free to disagree. I’m literally just about to start trawling through all the A/W 2020 RTW collections though I imagine that’s gonna take me way longer to do than this, so I wouldn’t expect that for a month or two. In the meantime, I’m trying to fit shooting a Euphoria-inspired lookbook into my days off work which is looking atm like it’s going to be the end of March, so look out for that, and also a review of the red carpet fashion from this season’s award shows. 

As ever, thank you so much for reading and again, thank you for the reception on part 1 if you were one of the people that read it. It makes staying up til 3am with the jitters seem worthwhile, lol! 

Lauren x

#haute couture #haute couture week #pfw #pfw2020 #paris #fashion #fashion week #designer #jacquemus #style #review #dior #sequins #pretty #aesthetic #zuhair murad #grunge #viktor and rolf #valentino #luxury #schiaparelli #georges hobeika #maison margiela #margiela tabi #jean paul gaultier #jpg #jpgaultier

[sorry-im-unable-to-can]

Clair Aoki is Misunderstood

This is kind of a rant that I’m not sure will even reach people, but I welcome civil debate if anyone does come across any other fans of the show- Also I’m sorry if the rant seems too self-indulgent, I like placing myself through the perspective of characters because I enjoy seeing things through their eyes- also this has major spoilers!

Clair Aoki is one of those rare strong and intelligent girls in fiction that aren’t afraid to say what they think, while also indulging in classic trolling of their peers. There are very few girls like this represented in Western media and oddly more common in anime. When men act like this in fiction everyone treats them like misunderstood comedians, but when women behave this way in fiction and in real life they’re “toxic and crazy”. Watching though season 1 of the anime and reading all of the possible manga chapters out their currently, I felt extremely connected with Clair. She is different from other female protagonists, she cares for people with subtlety, while staying true to herself, not allowing others to take advantage of her all while presenting a fun personality. Imagine my surprise when everyone else interpreted her as “crazy toxic manipulative girl who is just using the male lead”.

To me it is obvious this girl was at her lowest point. Her sister killed her parents and because no one believed her she was ready to kill herself. Even without her backstory it is obvious she has gone through a traumatic experience. Then along comes an “innocent boy” who literally tries to sexually assault her, and “ruins” her suicide. Clair is clever and realizes this boy is the key to her understanding what happened to her family. Despite the way this boy (who is 2 years older which is a big difference in high school mind you) tried to violate her and won’t tell her fundamental information that could help release her from her trauma, she isn’t angry with him. She asks him to tell her and when she realizes he won’t be honest with her only then does she take it to violent measures. When he expresses his own despair in the situation, she doesn’t push him and only warns him not to lie to her. Now I feel like any girl in this situation would be pissed. So of course she messes with the male protagonist. I know that when I’m angry with someone I no longer care about their feelings and I mess with them because I no longer care about how they perceive me. Right off the bat I can tell that is what’s going on. She has every right to behave this way. Shuichi doesn’t deserve her trust even if he tried to save her. Later on throughout the season as they build trust, it is obvious Clair and Shuichi form feelings for eachother along with the foundation of trust. I point to the episode where they venture off to use their powers together and both of them try to protect eachother in their own way. And this happens frequently throughout.

People commonly point to the part where Clair kills the first monster (Hikawa) they encounter despite Shuichi’s wishes as an example of her being toxic. Clair was able to assess that this girl threatened not only her life but Shuichi’s as well. She was also able to tell that Shuichi didn’t have it in him to defend himself so she took the liberty to do it herself. Afterwards when Clair made that badly-received joke to lessen the tension was the most relatable thing I’ve seen in fiction. But no that was because “she’s a heartless murderer”.

To me, Clair is not using Shuichi, but she realizes his importance in having the ability to investiagate what happened to her family. She herself doesn’t have powers and she obviously doesn’t want any because she doesn’t lust for power. She simply wants to understand. And afterwards, when she finds out someone could gather coins to end the world she expresses that she wants to stop that from happening. She sees Shuichi as the second half of herself, which is justified as his powers only really work while she occupies his suit. When Yoshioka occupied the suit Shuichi felt that it was different, that he didn’t feel as powerful, a hint from the show that they really aren’t all that compatible.

The entire arc for Shuichi in season 1 is him learning to be strong even without Clair. His problem was that he wanted to be “normal” and never engaged in conflict due to his own weakness, which could have gotten him killed in the situation with Hikawa had Clair not been there. He learns that being strong isn’t always a bad thing and you can use your strength to protect others. If you didn’t realize that while watching I can’t help you. When they are cornered on the mountain and Clair herself (she is arguably the only character in the show with a brain) comes up with a plan to save the team, Shuichi realizes that he has to shoulder the burden with Clair not because he’s hurting others but he’s protecting people who need his strength (Clair and the team). A similar thing happens when a guy from the evil team declares he’s going to kill Clair and Shuichi calmly kills him, knowing it is the only way to protect Clair.

#gleipnir #clair aoki #shuichi kagaya

[whipped-stream]

I watched: The Night Manager

I find spy stuff a bit difficult really. It’s so smug - long, indulgently complicated stories chock-full of smart men in smart suits drinking man-drinks like whisky or martinis, surveilling each other out of the corners of their eyes, skulking around the charming alleyways of some architecturally opulent urban space. No one is ever insecure in a spy story; no one ever has a moment where they’re at a loss for words; no one ever has acne or eats a burger or even drinks a latte, because the only coffee appropriate for a spy story has to be something tight and elegant like an espresso. Oh, and very few people in these stories are ever female, fat (unless they’re evil) or gay (unless they’re evil).

Of course, this is all completely endemic to the genre. Asking for a spy thriller without these qualities would be like asking for a Judd Apatow comedy without a bunch of scruffy beardy blokes. But like - it’s 2021 now, and you’d think we would be gradually nearing the point where we were ready to retire all the tiresome, difficult stuff about the genre and do something new and interesting with it. Alas, The Night Manager has proved to me that we are nowhere near this possible future.

Don’t get me wrong, this is an enjoyable, easy show if you don’t think about it too much. It’s polished, gorgeous to look at and the basic plot revolving around illegal arms trading in the Middle East is absorbing, albeit a little toothless (for all the action and violence in the Middle East scenes we never really engage on any level with the human impact of this nefarious trade, besides one anecdote which never really lands). Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie are both, predictably, also amazing in this show. Tom Hiddleston is perfect as a hotel manager; his earnest, twinkly-eyed politeness fits perfectly in the luxury hotels his character glides through, just as his luxury suits and luxury face suit the luxury décor. Then, as a secret services mole amongst gangsters, he is perfect again, charming everyone into smitten trust with a gleaming smile as they fall into the glacier-blue lagoons of his eyes, barely noticing him surreptitiously gathering all their secrets.

Hugh Laurie is as charismatic and sinister as a cartoon devil and makes for a terrific villain, fiercely dedicated to chewing the scenery at every opportunity. It is unclear to me why they chose to give him a sortof shabby Friar Tuck haircut for the role, but perhaps he is doing a Harrison Ford and just exerting his Great Actor Famepower to refuse to undergo any kind of personal grooming before a scene.

But yeah. Every time I was enjoying it, the dang show did something to ruin it. Firstly it was the ‘Bond women’. Sure, stunningly beautiful and sexually inviting women are a staple of this genre, and this show tries its best to show good faith by making sure that the stunningly beautiful and sexually inviting women in this instance have some kind of personality and plot relevance. It’s a pathetic effort at best. The first gorgeous woman chivvies the plot along for all of two minutes before flinging her fabulous self at Tom Hiddlestone and being a charming bedfellow just long enough for him to be distraught when he discovers her moments later in a pool of her own blood. Ahh, yes, a classic Woman in Refrigerator - gosh, I haven’t seen one of those employed with such efficiency in quite some time. Despite barely knowing her, Tom Hiddlestone is so devastated that he moves into some kind of massive concrete bunker right at the top of a Swiss Alpine mountain (what IS that house, dude!?!? Do you live in a weather monitoring facility?) and eventually agrees to become an agent for the secret services - which of course presents even more opportunities for some top totty.

The other stunningly beautiful woman in this show is in a relationship with the baddie played by Hugh Laurie, even though the two of them don’t so much have an age gap as an age chasm. She is called ‘Jed’, and she truly is only here for the camera to make long, indulgent pans up her svelte legs and delicate back. The show leaps at any opportunity to show a bit of her boob and at one point she fully disrobes and walks slowly and teasingly into the sea, pointing her arse right at Tom Hiddlestone, in order to make a point about living a carefree life. All the personal details about this woman are arbitrary - she has a kid that she never gets to see, I guess, and like she’s kind of suspicious of her boyfriend the arms dealer or whatever, but the show refuses to waste any time giving these story points any more than a cursory glance. Jed is a hollow, objectified character whose clothes fall off at the slightest jostle.

And then there’s the other thing. The torture thing. What is up with these spy shows? And how the only thing they love more than sexy women is the spectacle of sexy women being battered, tortured and lying dead in revealing poses? Just like her predecessor, poor Jed barely gets to do anything interesting or even proactive before she is ‘found out’ and we have to endure a really queasy scene where she’s being beaten up and repeatedly almost-drowned for her treachery. As her sore, blue-purple face is thrust over and over again into the brimming bathtub and she thrashes for air, her naked breast dangles out of her top in a tactless mush of raunchy objectification and vicarious misogyny. It’s one of the most troubling things I have witnessed on telly in a good while.

Okay - there is one other woman in this show. Olivia Coleman plays the head of this secret service operation, and she is written as a fierce, ambitious agent who knows exactly what she’s doing. Oh, and she’s pregnant, so I guess we’re doing Fargo too, a bit? For the entirety of the programme, which seems to span several months, she appears to be at the end of her third trimester. No one ever asks her when she’ll be going on maternity leave and who will take over this spy operation when that happens. As part of the final showdown, she travels to the Middle East, stalks around a hotel filled with murderous gangsters, shoots people in the knee and hides from even more murderous gangsters WHILE SEEMINGLY MOMENTS AWAY FROM HER FIRST CONTRACTION.

Essentially this woman’s pregnancy is a decorative character quirk, like having an eyepatch or an eccentric moustache. The story doesn’t let the character engage with her pregnancy in any human sense: and sure, the logistics of being pregnant is not exactly thrilling espionage content, but then why bother doing it at all? Leave her unpregged, and let her run around with guns to her heart’s content, or do it properly, and engage with interesting ideas of how we see and define modern motherhood; how we see pregnant women as vulnerable and in need of protection rather than being the protectors; how a woman’s career clashes and harmonises with her biological fate to be the child-bearer. Fargo did all that stuff effortlessly. Watch Fargo. The film, not the telly programme.

I also feel that it’s worth pointing out that this character was a man in the book, which makes it pretty clear that she was the hail-mary gesture to preempt any complaints that the only female main characters are bland eye-candy.

I have one last complaint. Remember that thing I said at the beginning about how the only gay characters allowed in this genre have to be evil? Well yeah, stamp that one on your bingo card too. I cannot believe that we are at a point in society where we can generate edible meat in a lab and yet the most frequent gay characters we see in mainstream TV are still either camp BFFs or acid-tongued villains. Tom Hollander is a completely wonderful actor and I urge you to watch basically anything else he has done besides this. There is no need for this character, Hugh Laurie’s snide and suspicious right-hand man, to be a creepy, predatory homosexual man. He is preposterous - constantly leering at Tom Hiddlestone and making blunt innuendos or just full-on grabbing Tom Hiddlestone’s giblets. A clear conflation is being made: this man is a threat, and the threat he poses to Tom Hiddlestone’s mission is mirrored by the threat he poses to Hiddlestone’s hetero-masculinity, his sexual autonomy. It feels like this character is a charicature of how homophobes see all gay men: malevolent and sexually rapacious, on a mission to assault, harass and render uncomfortable all hetero men who are just minding their own business.

I truly don’t understand this show - how they made such an effort to shoehorn so much deeply troubling messaging into a story which needed none of these things. The bare bones of the spy story is solid and it could have been turned out in so many different ways, but this was what they chose. It all feels so retrograde, so unnecessary. This is the kind of thing that Netflix would not have toyed with - whatever you feel about that streaming platform, they create stories with real, three-dimensional women and all kinds of diverse characters from the LGBTQ+ scene and beyond. Amazon Prime still needs to work on getting woke. But I guess we shouldn’t expect too much from the platform that snapped up Jeremy Clarkson.

The Night Manager, available on Amazon Prime

#the night manager #inclusive feminism #rant #review #misogyny #homophobia

[46ten]

Gouverneur Morris’ thoughts on spousal discipline?

I love posts/essays like this one: http://www.gouverneurmorrispapers.com/2016/09/madam-you-will-thank-me-later-part-3.html

Because they’re sorta gossipy, one gets a real sense of the values and beliefs around conduct that people held in particular situations. 

Gouverneur Morris seemed to be in the middle of a dispute between Grace Coxe and her husband, James Le Ray de Chaumont. Of people previously mentioned on my blog, Grace was the first cousin and sister-in-law of Tench Coxe. (Tench married Grace’s sister, and his own first cousin, Rebecca in 1782. Grace and Rebecca also had a brother, Charles Davenport Coxe, who shared the same name as their father.) Read about James Le Ray here. Tench Coxe promoted Le Ray to AH as being useful in setting up the S.U.M; in 1802, Le Ray, GM and AH arranged the set up of an annuity for the support of Robert and Mary Morris. My point is that they all knew each other.  

Grace Coxe and James Le Ray got married in either 1789 or 1790, sources differ. GM in writing to Le Ray in 1807 states: 

your conjugal Union arose from a Sense of Honor and Delicacy in you. That you accused yourself of having undesignedly, by Attentions which in your own Country pass for Nothing, and of Course make no Impression, interested her Feelings in such Way as (from her Account) to impair her Happiness thro Life.

It sounds like he was attentive to her in a way that was somewhat improper in America (but fine in France), leading her to claim she was so in love with him that she would never be happy with anyone else, and so he acquiesced and married her. Fascinating! 

Lots happens, they seem to become somewhat estranged (and GM always held a low opinion of Grace, as is obvious), leading him to offer this advice to the husband in 1807 (I’ll let the blog writers take over): 

Entreat her, above all Things, not to think of a Divorce the Consequence of which must be both injurious and disgraceful.”

Only to continue with revealing the underlying purpose of his advice:

“If I mistake not, this Course will lead her to insist more strongly on a Divorce. Then, when all is ripe, you will take an Opportunity to say very coolly; well Madam since you wish a Divorce, apply for it to the proper Authority—from this Moment, if you continue to be my Wife, you shall obey your Husband; and if (as I too clearly perceive) you are insensible to Reason, you shall be sensible to Correction. The Law gives me a Right to administer moderate Correction to a disobedient Wife, and at the first Moment you shall receive it from my Hand.”

Is he suggesting some domestic violence would help the situation here?

Morris concludes, clearly satisfied with himself:

“This would I think change a vain foolish Woman into a decent well behaved Wife”.

This reminds that I never finished my post about GM and his wife, Ann “Nancy” Cary Randolph (first cousin to Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph), and I read two books about her! There’s a lot more to the story and stuff about the treatment of women, enslaved persons, etc. but the brief summary with salacious details is that Nancy may have become pregnant by her brother-in-law, Richard Randolph (while living at Bizarre Plantation), who may have killed the baby once born/miscarried (at a different plantation). Richard took the (ridiculous, but we know all about this time period) step of addressing the rumors by publishing an article about it, which led to him being arrested and tried for the baby’s murder (Patsy even testified about providing Nancy with an abortifacient; Richard’s defense attorneys were Patrick Henry and John Marshall) but perhaps because the discovery of the dead baby had been made by enslaved people who could not testify, he was acquitted. Then he died mysteriously three years later, with rumors that Nancy killed him (unlikely). Many years later, in 1814, Nancy offered her side of the story, claiming that she had given birth in Oct 1792 to a stillborn child, having conceived him with Richard’s younger brother, Theodorick, who had died only a few days after the child’s conception (in Feb 1792) but whom she considered her husband “in the presence of God.” This whole story is one of those great ones where you can tease out attitudes about honor, premarital and extramarital sex, abortion, politics, women, and on and on - which is why two books have probably been written about it! 

Back to the 1790s: Nancy was pretty thoroughly ostracized and ended up as GM’s housekeeper around 1805, as I recall; he wrote to her when she accepted the position: "I can only answer that I will love you as little as I can." They surprised their friends with their wedding a few years later (1809), and GM remarked, "If the world were to live with my wife, I should certainly have consulted its taste; but as that happens to not be the case, I thought I might, without offending others, endeavor to suit myself..." Their only child (humorously nicknamed Cutsusoff by GM’s relatives and heirs) was born on February 9, 1813 (GM was 61, Nancy 38). Nancy had inscribed on a stone of the floor of St. Ann's Church (built for her by their son GM II):

Conjugal affection

Consecrates this sport where

The Best of men was laid

until a vault could be erected

to receive

his precious remains.

I have a few more fun anecdotes about GM, like his “hopeless passion” for Kitty Livingston (AH and GM were both writing to her in 1776-77), and some fun quotes: 

"To try to do good, to avoid evil, a little severity of one's self, a little indulgence for others - this is the means to obtain some good result out of our poor existence. To love one's friends, to be beloved by them - this is the means to brighten it."

"I like only the yielding kiss, and that from lips I love."

There are so many GM-AH letters that are clearly missing and the ones we have left have been carefully curated. I’ll link two of my faves that do exist: x  x. And the story about AH making a dare about GM clapping GW on the back never happened. 

#Gourverneur Morris #Ann Cary Randolph #Nancy Randolph #I cannot believe I summarized the whole story of Nancy in a paragraph #It is really interesting

[unsettlingshortstories]

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Edgar Allan Poe (1841)

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture. --SIR THOMAS BROWNE, Urn-Burial.

THE mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition. The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. A chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. To be less abstract --Let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recherche movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate advantage may be derived. These are not only manifold but multiform, and lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to remember distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative chess-player will do very well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to proceed by "the book," are points commonly regarded as the sum total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do his companions; and the difference in the extent of the information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of what to observe. Our player confines himself not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he reject deductions from things external to the game. He examines the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He notes every variation of face as the play progresses, gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or chagrin. From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognizes what is played through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation --all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indications of the true state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is in full possession of the contents of each hand, and thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces of their own.

The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man often remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually manifested, and which the phrenologists (I believe erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18--, I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. This young gentleman was of an excellent --indeed of an illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this, he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris these are easily obtained. Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion. We saw each other again and again. I was deeply interested in the little family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is the theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination. Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain.

Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should have been regarded as madmen --although, perhaps, as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.

It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to be enamored of the Night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed all the massy shutters of our old building; lighted a couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then busied our souls in dreams --reading, writing, or conversing, until warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we sallied forth into the streets, arm and arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.

At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an eager delight in its exercise --if not exactly in its display --and did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up such assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his intimate knowledge of my own. His manner at these moments was frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant in expression; while his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble which would have sounded petulantly but for the deliberateness and entire distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him in these moods, I often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin --the creative and the resolvent.

Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am detailing any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have described in the Frenchman, was merely the result of an excited, or perhaps of a diseased intelligence. But of the character of his remarks at the periods in question an example will best convey the idea.

We were strolling one night down a long dirty street, in the vicinity of the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied with thought, neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen minutes at least. All at once Dupin broke forth with these words:-

"He is a very little fellow, that's true, and would do better for the Theatre des Varietes."

"There can be no doubt of that," I replied unwittingly, and not at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with my meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected myself, and my astonishment was profound.

"Dupin," said I, gravely, "this is beyond my comprehension. I do not hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my senses. How was it possible you should know I was thinking of --?" Here I paused, to ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really knew of whom I thought.

--"of Chantilly," said he, "why do you pause? You were remarking to yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy."

This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections. Chantilly was a quondam cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who, becoming stage-mad, had attempted the role of Xerxes, in Crebillon's tragedy so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded for his pains.

"Tell me, for Heaven's sake," I exclaimed, "the method --if method there is --by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this matter." In fact I was even more startled than I would have been willing to express.

"It was the fruiterer," replied my friend, "who brought you to the conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient height for Xerxes et id genus omne."

"The fruiterer! --you astonish me --I know no fruiterer whomsoever."

"The man who ran up against you as we entered the street --it may have been fifteen minutes ago."

I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his head a large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by accident, as we passed from the Rue C-- into the thoroughfare where we stood; but what this had to do with Chantilly I could not possibly understand.

There was not a particle of charlatanerie about Dupin. "I will explain," he said, "and that you may comprehend all clearly, we will explain," he said, "and that you may comprehend all clearly, we will first retrace the course of your meditations, from the moment in which I spoke to you until that of the rencontre with the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run thus --Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the street stones, the fruiterer."

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest; and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal. What, then, must have been my amazement when I heard the Frenchman speak what he had just spoken, and when I could not help acknowledging that he had spoken the truth. He continued:

"We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before leaving the Rue C--. This was the last subject we discussed. As we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket upon his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile of paving-stones collected at a spot where the causeway is undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the loose fragments) slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky, muttered a few words, turned to look at the pile, and then proceeded in silence. I was not particularly attentive to what you did; but observation has become with me, of late, a species of necessity.

"You kept your eyes upon the ground --glancing, with a petulant expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw you were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the little alley called Lamartine, which has been paved, by way of experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I could not doubt that you murmured the word 'stereotomy,' a term very affectedly applied to this species of pavement. I knew that you could not say to yourself 'stereotomy' without being brought to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus; and since, when we discussed this subject not very long ago, I mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the vague guesses of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid casting your eyes upward to the great nebula in Orion, and I certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in yesterday's 'Musee,' the satirist, making some disgraceful allusions to the cobbler's change of name upon assuming the buskin, quoted a Latin line about which we have often conversed. I mean the line

Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.

I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly written Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this explanation, I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It was clear, therefore, that you would not fall to combine the ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I say by the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You thought of the poor cobbler's immolation. So far, you had been stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw yourself up to your full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your meditations to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little fellow --that Chantilly --he would do better at the Theatre des Varietes."

Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of the "Gazette des Tribunaux," when the following paragraphs arrested our attention.

"Extraordinary Murders. --This morning, about three o'clock, the inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the fourth story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the sole occupancy of one Madame L'Espanaye, and her daughter, Mademoiselle Camille L'Espanaye. After some delay, occasioned by a fruitless attempt to procure admission in the usual manner, the gateway was broken in with a crowbar, and eight or ten of the neighbors entered, accompanied by two gendarmes. By this time the cries had ceased; but, as the party rushed up the first flight of stairs, two or more rough voices, in angry contention, were distinguished, and seemed to proceed from the upper part of the house. As the second landing was reached, these sounds, also, had ceased, and everything remained perfectly quiet. The party spread themselves, and hurried from room to room. Upon arriving at a large back chamber in the fourth story, (the door of which, being found locked, with the key inside, was forced open,) a spectacle presented itself which struck every one present not less with horror than with astonishment.

"The apartment was in the wildest disorder --the furniture broken and thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead; and from this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the middle of the floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses of grey human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were found four Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three smaller of metal d'Alger, and two bags, containing nearly four thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a bureau, which stood in one corner, were open, and had been, apparently, rifled, although many articles still remained in them. A small iron safe was discovered under the bed (not under the bedstead). It was open, with the key still in the door. It had no contents beyond a few old letters, and other papers of little consequence.

"Of Madame L'Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual quantity of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was made in the chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been thus forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance. The body was quite warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the violence with which it had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep indentations of finger nails, as if the deceased had been throttled to death.

"After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house, without farther discovery, the party made its way into a small paved yard in the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of the old lady, with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to raise her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the head, was fearfully mutilated --the former so much so as scarcely to retain any semblance of humanity.

"To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the slightest clew."

The next day's paper had these additional particulars.

"The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue. Many individuals have been examined in relation to this most extraordinary and frightful affair," [The word 'affaire' has not yet, in France, that levity of import which it conveys with us] "but nothing whatever has transpired to throw light upon We give below all the material testimony elicited.

"Pauline Dubourg, laundress, deposes that she has known both the deceased for three years, having washed for them during that period. The old lady and her daughter seemed on good terms-very affectionate towards each other. They were excellent pay. Could not speak in regard to their mode or means of living. Believed that Madame L. told fortunes for a living. Was reputed to have money put by. Never met any persons in the house when she called for the clothes or took them home. Was sure that they had no servant in employ. There appeared to be no furniture in any part of the building except in the fourth story.

"Pierre Moreau, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the habit of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame L'Espanaye for nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood, and has always resided there. The deceased and her daughter had occupied the house in which the corpses were found, for more than six years. It was formerly occupied by a jeweller, who under-let the upper rooms to various persons. The house was the property of Madame L. She became dissatisfied with the abuse of the premises by her tenant, and moved into them herself, refusing to let any portion. The old lady was childish. Witness had seen the daughter some five or six times during the six years. The two lived an exceedingly retired life --were reputed to have money. Had heard it said among the neighbors that Madame L. told fortunes --did not believe it. Had never seen any person enter the door except the old lady and her daughter, a porter once or twice, and a physician some eight or ten times.

"Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect. No one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known whether there were any living connexions of Madame L. and her daughter. The shutters of the front windows were seldom opened. Those in the rear were always closed, with the exception of the large back room, fourth story. The house was a good house --not very old.

"Isidore Muset, gendarme, deposes that he was called to the house about three o'clock in the morning, and found some twenty or thirty persons at the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance. Forced it open, at length, with a bayonet --not with a crowbar. Had but little difficulty in getting it open, on account of its being a double or folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom nor top. The shrieks were continued until the gate was forced --and then suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some person (or persons) in great agony --were loud and drawn out, not short and quick. Witness led the way up stairs. Upon reaching the first landing, heard two voices in loud and angry contention-the one a gruff voice, the other much shriller --a very strange voice. Could distinguish some words of the former, which was that of a Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman's voice. Could distinguish the words 'sacre' and 'diable.' The shrill voice was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it was the voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what was said, but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of the room and of the bodies was described by this witness as we described them yesterday.

"Henri Duval, a neighbor, and by trade a silversmith, deposes that he was one of the party who first entered the house. Corroborates the testimony of Muset in general. As soon as they forced an entrance, they reclosed the door, to keep out the crowd, which collected very fast, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. The shrill voice, the witness thinks, was that of an Italian. Was certain it was not French. Could not be sure that it was a man's voice. It might have been a woman's. Was not acquainted with the Italian language. Could not distinguish the words, but was convinced by the intonation that the speaker was an Italian. Knew Madame L. and her daughter. Had conversed with both frequently. Was sure that the shrill voice was not that of either of the deceased. "--Odenheimer, restaurateur. This witness volunteered his testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an interpreter. Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house at the time of the shrieks. They lasted for several minutes --probably ten. They were long and loud --very awful and distressing. Was one of those who entered the building. Corroborated the previous evidence in every respect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice was that of a man --of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the words uttered. They were loud and quick --unequal --spoken apparently in fear as well as in anger. The voice was harsh --not so much shrill as harsh. Could not call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said repeatedly 'sacre,' 'diable' and once 'mon Dieu.'

"Jules Mignaud, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue Deloraine. Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L'Espanaye had some property. Had opened an account with his baking house in the spring of the year --(eight years previously). Made frequent deposits in small sums. Had checked for nothing until the third day before her death, when she took out in person the sum of 4000 francs. This sum was paid in gold, and a clerk sent home with the money.

"Adolphe Le Bon, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the day in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L'Espanaye to her residence with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the door being opened, Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his hands one of the bags, while the old lady relieved him of the other. He then bowed and departed. Did not see any person in the street at the time. It is a bye-street --very lonely.

William Bird, tailor, deposes that he was one of the party who entered the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two years. Was one of the first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could make out several words, but cannot now remember all. Heard distinctly 'sacre' and 'mon Dieu.' There was a sound at the moment as if of several persons struggling --a scraping and scuffling sound. The shrill voice was very loud --louder than the gruff one. Is sure that it was not the voice of an Englishman. Appeared to be that of a German. Might have been a woman's voice. Does not understand German.

"Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed that the door of the chamber in which was found the body of Mademoiselle L. was locked on the inside when the party reached it. Every thing was perfectly silent --no groans or noises of any kind. Upon forcing the door no person was seen. The windows, both of the back and front room, were down and firmly fastened from within. A door between the two rooms was closed, but not locked. The door leading from the front room into the passage was locked, with the key on the inside. A small room in the front of the house, on the fourth story, at the head of the passage, was open, the door being ajar. This room was crowded with old beds, boxes, and so forth. These were carefully removed and searched. There was not an inch of any portion of the house which was not carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up and down the chimneys. The house was a four story one, with garrets (mansardes). A trap-door on the roof was nailed down very securely --did not appear to have been opened for years. The time elapsing between the hearing of the voices in contention and the breaking open of the room door, was variously stated by the witnesses. Some made it as short as three minutes --some as long as five. The door was opened with difficulty.

"Alfonzo Garcio, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue Morgue. Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered the house. Did not proceed up stairs. Is nervous, and was apprehensive of the consequences of agitation. Heard the voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish what was said. The shrill voice was that of an Englishman --is sure of this. Does not understand the English language, but judges by the intonation.

"Alberto Montani, confectioner, deposes that he was among the first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Distinguished several words. The speaker appeared to be expostulating. Could not make out the words of the shrill voice. Spoke quick and unevenly. Thinks it the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the general testimony. Is an Italian. Never conversed with a native of Russia.

"Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of all the rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the passage of a human being. By 'sweeps' were meant cylindrical sweeping-brushes, such as are employed by those who clean chimneys. These brushes were passed up and down every flue in the house. There is no back passage by which any one could have descended while the party proceeded up stairs. The body of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was so firmly wedged in the chimney that it could not be got down until four or five of the party united their strength.

"Paul Dumas, physician, deposes that he was called to view the bodies about day-break. They were both then lying on the sacking of the bedstead in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found. The corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excoriated. The fact that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently account for these appearances. The throat was greatly chafed. There were several deep scratches just below the chin, together with a series of livid spots which were evidently the impression of fingers. The face was fearfully discolored, and the eye-balls protruded. The tongue had been partially bitten through. A large bruise was discovered upon the pit of the stomach, produced, apparently, by the pressure of a knee. In the opinion of M. Dumas, Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been throttled to death by some person or persons unknown. The corpse of the mother was horribly mutilated. All the bones of the right leg and arm were more or less shattered. The left tibia much splintered, as well as all the ribs of the left side. Whole body dreadfully bruised and discolored. It was not possible to say how the injuries had been inflicted. A heavy club of wood, or a broad bar of iron --a chair --any large, heavy, and obtuse weapon have produced such results, if wielded by the hands of a very powerful man. No woman could have inflicted the blows with any weapon. The head of the deceased, when seen by witness, was entirely separated from the body, and was also greatly shattered. The throat had evidently been cut with some very sharp instrument --probably with a razor.

"Alexandre Etienne, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to view the bodies. Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions of M. Dumas.

"Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several other persons were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so perplexing in all its particulars, was never before committed in Paris --if indeed a murder has been committed at all. The police are entirely at fault --an unusual occurrence in affairs of this nature. There is not, however, the shadow of a clew apparent."

The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest excitement continued in the Quartier St. Roch --that the premises in question had been carefully re-searched, and fresh examinations of witnesses instituted, but all to no purpose. A postscript, however mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had been arrested and imprisoned --although nothing appeared to criminate him, beyond the facts already detailed. Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this affair --at least so I judged from his manner, for he made no comments. It was only after the announcement that Le Bon had been imprisoned, that he asked me my opinion respecting the murders.

I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an insoluble mystery. I saw no means by which it would be possible to trace the murderer.

"We must not judge of the means," said Dupin, "by this shell of an examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for acumen, are cunning, but no more. There is no method in their proceedings, beyond the method of the moment. They make a vast parade of measures; but, not unfrequently, these are so ill adapted to the objects proposed, as to put us in mind of Monsieur Jourdain's calling for his robe-de-chambre --pour mieux entendre la musique. The results attained by them are not unfrequently surprising, but, for the most part, are brought about by simple diligence and activity. When these qualities are unavailing, their schemes fall. Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser, and a persevering man. But, without educated thought, he erred continually by the very intensity of his investigations. He impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found. The modes and sources of this kind of error are well typified in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies. To look at a star by glances --to view it in a side-long way, by turning toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star distinctly --is to have the best appreciation of its lustre --a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, or too direct.

"As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for ourselves, before we make up an opinion respecting them. An inquiry will afford us amusement," (I thought this an odd term, so applied, but said nothing) "and, besides, Le Bon once rendered me a service for which I am not ungrateful. We will go and see the premises with our own eyes. I know G--, the Prefect of Police, and shall have no difficulty in obtaining the necessary permission."

The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the Rue Morgue. This is one of those miserable thoroughfares which intervene between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch. It was late in the afternoon when we reached it; as this quarter is at a great distance from that in which we resided. The house was readily found; for there were still many persons gazing up at the closed shutters, with an objectless curiosity, from the opposite side of the way. It was an ordinary Parisian house, with a gateway, on one side of which was a glazed watch-box, with a sliding way, on one si panel in the window, indicating a loge de concierge. Before going in we walked up the street, turned down an alley, and then, again turning, passed in the rear of the building-Dupin, meanwhile, examining the whole neighborhood, as well as the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I could see no possible object. Retracing our steps, we came again to the front of the dwelling, rang, and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by the agents in charge. We went up stairs --into the chamber where the body of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been found, and where both the deceased still lay. The disorders of the room had, as usual, been suffered to exist. I saw nothing beyond what had been stated in the "Gazette des Tribunaux." Dupin scrutinized every thing-not excepting the bodies of the victims. We then went into the other rooms, and into the yard; a gendarme accompanying us throughout. The examination occupied us until dark, when we took our departure. On our way home my companion stopped in for a moment at the office of one of the dally papers.

I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and that Fe les menageais: --for this phrase there is no English equivalent. It was his humor, now, to decline all conversation on the subject of the murder, until about noon the next day. He then asked me, suddenly, if I had observed any thing peculiar at the scene of the atrocity.

There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word "peculiar," which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.

"No, nothing peculiar," I said; "nothing more, at least, than we both saw stated in the paper."

"The 'Gazette,'" he replied, "has not entered, I fear, into the unusual horror of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of this print. It appears to me that this mystery is considered insoluble, for the very reason which should cause it to be regarded as easy of solution --I mean for the outre character of its features. The police are confounded by the seeming absence of motive --not for the murder itself --but for the atrocity of the murder. They are puzzled, too, by the seeming impossibility of reconciling the voices heard in contention, with the facts that no one was discovered up stairs but the assassinated Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and that there were no means of egress without the notice of the party ascending. The wild disorder of the room; the corpse thrust, with the head downward, up the chimney; the frightful mutilation of the body of the old lady; these considerations with those just mentioned, and others which I need not mention, have sufficed to paralyze the powers, by putting completely at fault the boasted acumen, of the government agents. They have fallen into the gross but common error of confounding the unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from the plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in its search for the true. In investigations such as we are now pursuing, it should not be so much asked 'what has occurred,' as 'what has occurred that has never occurred before.' In fact, the facility with which I shall arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this mystery, is in the direct ratio of its apparent insolubility in the eyes of the police."

I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.

"I am now awaiting," continued he, looking toward the door of our apartment --"I am now awaiting a person who, although perhaps not the perpetrator of these butcheries, must have been in some measure implicated in their perpetration. Of the worst portion of the crimes committed, it is probable that he is innocent. I hope that I am right in this supposition; for upon it I build my expectation of reading the entire riddle. I look for the man here --in this room --every moment. It is true that he may not arrive; but the probability is that he will. Should he come, it will be necessary to detain him. Here are pistols; and we both know how to use them when occasion demands their use."

I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing what I heard, while Dupin went on, very much as if in a soliloquy. I have already spoken of his abstract manner at such times. His discourse was addressed to myself; but his voice, although by no means loud, had that intonation which is commonly employed in speaking to some one at a great distance. His eyes, vacant in expression, regarded only the wall.

"That the voices heard in contention," he said, "by the party upon the stairs, were not the voices of the women themselves, was fully proved by the evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon the question whether the old lady could have first destroyed the daughter, and afterward have committed suicide. I speak of this point chiefly for the sake of method; for the strength of Madame L'Espanaye would have been utterly unequal to the task of thrusting her daughter's corpse up the chimney as it was found; and the nature of the wounds upon her own person entirely preclude the idea of self-destruction. Murder, then, has been committed by some third party; and the voices of this third party were those heard in contention. Let me now advert --not to the whole testimony respecting these voices --but to what was peculiar in that testimony. Did you observe anything peculiar about it?"

I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the gruff voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much disagreement in regard to the shrill, or, as one individual termed it, the harsh voice.

"That was the evidence itself," said Dupin, "but it was not the peculiarity of the evidence. You have observed nothing distinctive. Yet there was something to be observed. The witnesses, as you remark, agreed about the gruff voice; they were here unanimous. But in regard to the shrill voice, the peculiarity is not that they disagreed --but that, while an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, a Hollander, and a Frenchman attempted to describe it, each one spoke of it as that of a foreigner. Each is sure that it was not the voice of one of his own countrymen. Each likens it --not to the voice of an individual of any nation with whose language he is conversant --but the converse. The Frenchman supposes it the voice of a Spaniard, and 'might have distinguished some words had he been acquainted with the Spanish.' The Dutchman maintains it to have been that of a Frenchman; but we find it stated that 'not understanding French this witness was examined through an interpreter.' The Englishman thinks it the voice of a German, and 'does not understand German.' The Spaniard 'is sure' that it was that of an Englishman, but 'judges by the intonation' altogether, 'as he has no knowledge of the English.' The Italian believes it the voice of a Russian, but 'has never conversed with a native of Russia.' A second Frenchman differs, moreover, with the first, and is positive that the voice was that of an Italian; but, not being cognizant of that tongue, is, like the Spaniard, 'convinced by the intonation.' Now, how strangely unusual must that voice have really been, about which such testimony as this could have been elicited! --in whose tones, even, denizens of the five great divisions of Europe could recognise nothing familiar! You will say that it might have been the voice of an Asiatic --of an African. Neither Asiatics nor Africans abound in Paris; but, without denying the inference, I will now merely call your attention to three points. The voice is termed by one witness 'harsh rather than shrill.' It is represented by two others to have been 'quick and unequal' No words --no sounds resembling words --were by any witness mentioned as distinguishable.

"I know not," continued Dupin, "what impression I may have made, so far, upon your own understanding; but I do not hesitate to say that legitimate deductions even from this portion of the testimony --the portion respecting the gruff and shrill voices --are in themselves sufficient to engender a suspicion which should give direction to all farther progress in the investigation of the mystery. I said 'legitimate deductions;' but my meaning is not thus fully expressed. I designed to imply that the deductions are the sole proper ones, and that the suspicion arises inevitably from them as the single result. What the suspicion is, however, I will not say just yet. I merely wish you to bear in mind that, with myself, it was sufficiently forcible to give a definite form --a certain tendency --to my inquiries in the chamber.

"Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. What shall we first seek here? The means of egress employed by the murderers. It is not too much to say that neither of us believe in praeternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle L'Espanaye were not destroyed by spirits. The doers of the deed were material, and escaped materially. Then how? Fortunately, there is but one mode of reasoning upon the point, and that mode must lead us to a definite decision. --Let us examine, each by each, the possible means of egress. It is clear that the assassins were in the room where Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was found, or at least in the room adjoining, when the party ascended the stairs. It is then only from these two apartments that we have to seek issues. The police have laid bare the floors, the ceilings, and the masonry of the walls, in every direction. No secret issues could have escaped their vigilance. But, not trusting to their eyes, I examined with my own. There were, then, no secret issues. Both doors leading from the rooms into the passage were securely locked, with the keys inside. Let us turn to the chimneys. These, although of ordinary width for some eight or ten feet above the hearths, will not admit, throughout their extent, the body of a large cat. The impossibility of egress, by means already stated, being thus absolute, we are reduced to the windows. Through those of the front room no one could have escaped without notice from the crowd in the street. The murderers must have passed, then, through those of the back room. Now, brought to this conclusion in so unequivocal a manner as we are, it is not our part, as reasoners, to reject it on account of apparent impossibilities. It is only left for us to prove that these apparent 'impossibilities' are, in reality, not such.

"There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is unobstructed by furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower portion of the other is hidden from view by the head of the unwieldy bedstead which is thrust close up against it. The former was found securely fastened from within. It resisted the utmost force of those who endeavored to raise it. A large gimlet-hole had been pierced in its frame to the left, and a very stout nail was found fitted therein, nearly to the head. Upon examining the other window, a similar nail was seen similarly fitted in it; and a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also. The police were now entirely satisfied that egress had not been in these directions. And, therefore, it was thought a matter of supererogation to withdraw the nails and open the windows.

"My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was so for the reason I have just given --because here it was, I knew, that all apparent impossibilities must be proved to be not such in reality.

"I proceeded to think thus --a posteriori. The murderers did escape from one of these windows. This being so, they could not have re-fastened the sashes from the inside, as they were found fastened; --the consideration which put a stop, through its obviousness, to the scrutiny of the police in this quarter. Yet the sashes were fastened. They must, then, have the power of fastening themselves. There was no escape from this conclusion. I stepped to the unobstructed casement, withdrew the nail with some difficulty, and attempted to raise the sash. It resisted all my efforts, as I had anticipated. A concealed spring must, I now knew, exist; and this corroboration of my idea convinced me that my premises, at least, were correct, however mysterious still appeared the circumstances attending the nails. A careful search soon brought to light the hidden spring. I pressed it, and, satisfied with the discovery, forebore to upraise the sash.

"I now replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A person passing out through this window might have reclosed it, and the spring would have caught --but the nail could not have been replaced. The conclusion was plain, and again narrowed in the field of my investigations. The assassins must have escaped through the other window. Supposing, then, the springs upon each sash to be the same, as was probable, there must be found a difference between the nails, or at least between the modes of their fixture. Getting upon the sacking of the bedstead, I looked over the headboard minutely at the second casement. Passing my hand down behind the board, I readily discovered and pressed the spring, which was, as I had supposed, identical in character with its neighbor. I now looked at the nail. It was as stout as the other, and apparently fitted in the same manner --driven in nearly up to the head.

"You will say that I was puzzled; but, if you think so, you must have misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a sporting phrase, I had not been once 'at fault.' The scent had never for an instant been lost. There was no flaw in any link of the chain. I had traced the secret to its ultimate result, --and that result was the nail. It had, I say, in every respect, the appearance of its fellow in the other window; but this fact was an absolute nullity (conclusive as it might seem to be) when compared with the consideration that here, at this point, terminated the clew. 'There must be something wrong,' I said, 'about the nail.' I touched it; and the head, with about a quarter of an inch of the shank, came off in my fingers. The rest of the shank was in the gimlet-hole, where it had been broken off. The fracture was an old one (for its edges were incrusted with rust), and had apparently been accomplished by the blow of a hammer, which had partially imbedded, in the top of the bottom sash, the head portion of the nail. now carefully replaced this head portion in the indentation whence I had taken it, and the resemblance to a perfect nail was complete-the fissure was invisible. Pressing the spring, I gently raised the sash for a few inches; the head went up with it, remaining firm in its bed. I closed the window, and the semblance of the whole nail was again perfect.

"The riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had escaped through the window which looked upon the bed. Dropping of its own accord upon his exit (or perhaps purposely closed) it had become fastened by the spring; and it was the retention of this spring which had been mistaken by the police for that of the nail, --farther inquiry being thus considered unnecessary.

"The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this point I had been satisfied in my walk with you around the building. About five feet and a half from the casement in question there runs a lightning-rod. From this rod it would have been impossible for any one to reach the window itself, to say nothing of entering it. I observed, however, that shutters of the fourth story were of the peculiar kind called by Parisian carpenters ferrades --a kind rarely employed at the present day, but frequently seen upon very old mansions at Lyons and Bordeaux. They are in the form of an ordinary door, (a single, not a folding door) except that the upper half is latticed or worked in open trellis --thus affording an excellent hold for the hands. In the present instance these shutters are fully three feet and a half broad. When we saw them from the rear of the house, they were both about half open --that is to say, they stood off at right angles from the wall. It is probable that the police, as well as myself, examined the back of the tenement; but, if so, in looking at these ferrades in the line of their breadth (as they must have done), they did not perceive this great breadth itself, or, at all events, failed to take it into due consideration. In fact, having once satisfied themselves that no egress could have been made in this quarter, they would naturally bestow here a very cursory examination. It was clear to me, however, that the shutter belonging to the window at the head of the bed, would, if swung fully back to the wall, reach to within two feet of the lightning-rod. It was also evident that, by exertion of a very unusual degree of activity and courage, an entrance into the window, from the rod, might have been thus effected. --By reaching to the distance of two feet and a half (we now suppose the shutter open to its whole extent) a robber might have taken a firm grasp upon the trellis-work. Letting go, then, his hold upon the rod, placing his feet securely against the wall, and springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as to close it, and, if we imagine the window open at the time, might have swung himself into the room.

"I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a very unusual degree of activity as requisite to success in so hazardous and so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you, first, that the thing might possibly have been accomplished: --but, secondly and chiefly, I wish to impress upon your understanding the very extraordinary --the almost praeternatural character of that agility which could have accomplished it.

"You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that 'to make out my case' I should rather undervalue, than insist upon a full estimation of the activity required in this matter. This may be the practice in law, but it is not the usage of reason. My ultimate object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to lead you to place in juxta-position that very unusual activity of which I have just spoken, with that very peculiar shrill (or harsh) and unequal voice, about whose nationality no two persons could be found to agree, and in whose utterance no syllabification could be detected."

At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of comprehension, without power to comprehend --as men, at times, find themselves upon the brink of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember. My friend went on with his discourse.

"You will see," he said, "that I have shifted the question from the mode of egress to that of ingress. It was my design to suggest that both were effected in the same manner, at the same point. Let us now revert to the interior of the room. Let us survey the appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it is said, had been rifled, although many articles of apparel still remained within them. The conclusion here is absurd. It is a mere guess --a very silly one --and no more. How are we to know that the articles found in the drawers were not all these drawers had originally contained? Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter lived an exceedingly retired life --saw no company --seldom went out --had little use for numerous changes of habiliment. Those found were at least of as good quality as any likely to be possessed by these ladies. If a thief had taken any, why did he not take the best --why did he not take all? In a word, why did he abandon four thousand francs in gold to encumber himself with a bundle of linen? The gold was abandoned. Nearly the whole sum mentioned by Monsieur Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in bags, upon the floor. I wish you, therefore, to discard from your thoughts the blundering idea of motive, engendered in the brains of the police by that portion of the evidence which speaks of money delivered at the door of the house. Coincidences ten times as remarkable as this (the delivery of the money, and murder committed within three days upon the party receiving it), happen to all of us every hour of our lives, without attracting even momentary notice. Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities --that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration. In the present instance, had the gold been gone, the fact of its delivery three days before would have formed something more than a coincidence. It would have been corroborative of this idea of motive. But, under the real circumstances of the case, if we are to suppose gold the motive of this outrage, we must also imagine the perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to have abandoned his gold and his motive together.

"Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your attention --that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and that startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious as this --let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is a woman strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a chimney, head downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such modes of murder as this. Least of all, do they thus dispose of the murdered. In the manner of thrusting the corpse up the chimney, you will that there was something excessively outre --something altogether irreconcilable with our common notions of human action, even when we suppose the actors the most depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been that strength which could have thrust the body up such an aperture so forcibly that the united vigor of several persons was found barely sufficient to drag it down!

"Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor most marvellous. On the hearth were thick tresses --very thick tresses --of grey human hair. These had been torn out by the roots. You are aware of the great force necessary in tearing thus from the head even twenty or thirty hairs together. You saw the locks in question as well as myself. Their roots (a hideous sight!) were clotted with fragments of the flesh of the scalp --sure token of the prodigious power which had been exerted in uprooting perhaps half a million of hairs at a time. The throat of the old lady was not merely cut, but the head absolutely severed from the body: the instrument was a mere razor. I wish you also to look at the brutal ferocity of these deeds. Of the bruises upon the body of Madame L'Espanaye I do not speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his worthy coadjutor Monsieur Etienne, have pronounced that they were inflicted by some obtuse instrument; and so far thesegentlemen are very correct. The obtuse instrument was clearly the stone pavement in the yard, upon which the victim had fallen from the window which looked in upon the bed. This idea, however simple it may now seem, escaped the police for the same reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped them --because, by the affair of the nails, their perceptions had been hermetically sealed against the possibility of the windows have ever been opened at all.

If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so far as to combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a grotesquerie in horror absolutely alien from humanity, and a voice foreign in tone to the ears of men of many nations, and devoid of all distinct or intelligible syllabification. What result, then, has ensued? What impression have I made upon your fancy?"

I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. "A madman," I said, "has done this deed --some raving maniac, escaped from a neighboring Maison de Sante."

"In some respects," he replied, "your idea is not irrelevant. But the voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never found to tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs. Madmen are of some nation, and their language, however incoherent in its words, has always the coherence of syllabification. Besides, the hair of a madman is not such as I now hold in my hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly clutched fingers of Madame L'Espanaye. Tell me what you can make of it."

"Dupin!" I said, completely unnerved; "this hair is most unusual --this is no human hair."

"I have not asserted that it is," said he; "but, before we decide this point, I wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here traced upon this paper. It is a fac-simile drawing of what has been described in one portion of the testimony as 'dark bruises, and deep indentations of finger nails,' upon the throat of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and in another, (by Messrs. Dumas and Etienne,) as a 'series of livid spots, evidently the impression of fingers.'

"You will perceive," continued my friend, spreading out the paper upon the table before us, "that this drawing gives the idea of a firm and fixed hold. There is no slipping apparent. Each finger has retained --possibly until the death of the victim --the fearful grasp by which it originally imbedded itself. Attempt, now, to place all your fingers, at the same time, in the respective impressions as you see them."

I made the attempt in vain.

"We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial," he said. "The paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the human throat is cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the circumference of which is about that of the throat. Wrap the drawing around it, and try the experiment again."

I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before.

"This," I said, "is the mark of no human hand."

"Read now," replied Dupin, "this passage from Cuvier." It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of the large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these mammalia are sufficiently well known to all. I understood the full horrors of the murder at once.

"The description of the digits," said I, as I made an end of reading, "is in exact accordance with this drawing, I see that no animal but an Ourang-Outang, of the species here mentioned, could have impressed the indentations as you have traced them. This tuft of tawny hair, too, is identical in character with that of the beast of Cuvier. But I cannot possibly comprehend the particulars of this frightful mystery. Besides, there were two voices heard in contention, and one of them was unquestionably the voice of a Frenchman."

True; and you will remember an expression attributed almostunanimously, by the evidence, to this voice, --the expression, 'mon Dieu!' This, under the circumstances, has been justly characterized by one of the witnesses (Montani, the confectioner,) as an expression of remonstrance or expostulation. Upon these two words, therefore, I have mainly built my hopes of a full solution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of the murder. It is possible --indeed it is far more than probable --that he was innocent of all participation in the bloody transactions which took place. The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him. He may have traced it to the chamber; but, under the agitating circumstances which ensued, he could never have re-captured it. It is still at large. I will not pursue these guesses-for I have no right to call them more --since the shades of reflection upon which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth to be appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will call them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, this advertisement, which I left last night, upon our return home, at the office of 'Le Monde,' (a paper devoted to the shipping interest, and much sought by sailors,) will bring him to our residence." He handed me a paper, and I read thus:

Caught --In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the --inst., (the morning of the murder,) a very large, tawny Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner, (who is ascertained to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel,) may have the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and paying a few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call at No.--, Rue --, Faubourg St. Germain --au troisieme.

"How was it possible," I asked, "that you should know the man to be a sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?" "I do not know it," said Dupin. "I am not sure of it. Here, however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and from its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the hair in one of those long queues of which sailors are so fond. Moreover, this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and is peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of the lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the deceased. Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this ribbon, that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese vessel, still I can have done no harm in saying what I did in the advertisement. If I am in error, he will merely suppose that I have been misled by some circumstance into which he will not take the trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is gained. Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman will naturally hesitate about replying to the advertisement --about demanding the Ourang-Outang. He will reason thus: --'I am innocent; I am poor; my Ourang-Outang is of great value --to one in my circumstances a fortune of itself --why should I lose it through idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my grasp. It was found in the Bois de Boulogne --at a vast distance from the scene of that butchery. How can it ever be suspected that a brute beast should have done the deed? The police are at fault --they have failed to procure the slightest clew. Should they even trace the animal, it would be impossible to prove me cognizant of the murder, or to implicate me in guilt on account of that cognizance. Above all, I am known. The advertiser designates me as the possessor of the beast. I am not sure to what limit his knowledge may extend. Should I avoid claiming a property of so great value, which it is known that I possess, I will render the animal, at least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy to attract attention either to myself or to the beast. I will answer the advertisement, get the Ourang-Outang, and keep it close until this matter has blown over.

At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.

"Be ready," said Dupin, "with your pistols, but neither use them nor show them until at a signal from myself."

The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor had entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we heard him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when we again heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time, but stepped up with decision and rapped at the door of our chamber.

"Come in," said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.

A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently, --a tall, stout, and muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression of countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly sunburnt, was more than half hidden by whisker and mustachio. He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us "good evening," in French accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatelish, were still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.

Sit down, my friend," said Dupin. "I suppose you have called about the Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very valuable animal. How old do you suppose him to be?"

The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of some intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:

"I have no way of telling --but he can't be more than four or five years old. Have you got him here?"

"Oh no; we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the property?"

"To be sure I am, sir."

"I shall be sorry to part with him," said Dupin.

"I don't mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing, sir," said the man. "Couldn't expect it. Am very willing to pay a reward for the finding of the animal --that is to say, any thing in reason."

"Well," replied my friend, "that is all very fair, to be sure. Let me think! --what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward shall be this. You shall give me all the information in your power about these murders in the Rue Morgue."

Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly. Just as quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom and placed it, without the least flurry, upon the table.

The sailor's face flushed up as if he were struggling with suffocation. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel; but the next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently, and with the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a word. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart.

"My friend," said Dupin, in a kind tone, "you are alarming yourself unnecessarily --you are indeed. We mean you no harm whatever. I pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of a Frenchman, that we intend you no injury. I perfectly well know that you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. It will not do, however, to deny that you are in some measure implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must know that I have had means of information about this matter --means of which you could never have dreamed. Now the thing stands thus. You have done nothing which you could have avoided --nothing, certainly, which renders you culpable. You were not even guilty of robbery, when you might have robbed with impunity. You have nothing to conceal. You have no reason for concealment. On the other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with that crime of which you can point out the perpetrator."

The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great measure, while Dupin uttered these words; but his original boldness of bearing was all gone.

"So help me God," said he, after a brief pause, "I will tell you all I know about this affair; --but I do not expect you to believe one half I say --I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still, I am innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it."

What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a voyage to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed one, landed at Borneo, and passed into the interior on an excursion of pleasure. Himself and a companion had captured the Ourang-Outang. This companion dying, the animal fell into his own exclusive possession. After great trouble, occasioned by the intractable ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at length succeeded in lodging it safely at his own residence in Paris, where, not to attract toward himself the unpleasant curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded, until such time as it should recover from a wound in the foot, received from a splinter on board ship. His ultimate design was to sell it. Returning home from some sailors' frolic on the night, or rather in the morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own bed-room, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand, and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass, attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt previously watched its master through the key-hole of the closet. Terrified at the sight of so dangerous a weapon in the possession of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it, the man, for some moments, was at a loss what to do. He had been accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon sight of it, the Ourang-Outang sprang at once through the door of the chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a window, unfortunately open, into the street.

The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand, occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its pursuer, until the latter had nearly come up with it. It then again made off. In this manner the chase continued for a long time. The streets were profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three o'clock in the morning. In passing down an alley in the rear of the Rue Morgue, the fugitive's attention was arrested by a light gleaming from the open window of Madame L'Espanaye's chamber, in the fourth story of her house. Rushing to the building, it perceived the lightning-rod, clambered up with inconceivable agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back against the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly upon the headboard of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a minute. The shutter was kicked open again by the Ourang-Outang as it entered the room.

The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He had strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could scarcely escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except by the rod, where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the other hand, there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might do in the house. This latter reflection urged the man still to follow the fugitive. A lightning-rod is ascended without difficulty, especially by a sailor; but, when he had arrived as high as the window, which lay far to his left, his career was stopped; the most that he could accomplish was to reach over so as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of horror. Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had apparently been arranging some papers in the iron chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle of the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the floor. The victims must have been sitting with their backs toward the window; and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of the beast and the screams, it seems probable that it was not immediately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would naturally have been attributed to the wind.

As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame L'Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation of the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and motionless; she had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old lady (during which the hair was torn from her head) had the effect of changing the probably pacific purposes of the Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one determined sweep of its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body. The sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy. Gnashing its teeth, and flashing fire from its eves, it flew upon the body of the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat, retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and wild glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible. The fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the dreaded whip, was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of having deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds, and skipped about the chamber in an agony of nervous agitation; throwing down and breaking the furniture as it moved, and dragging the bed from the bedstead. In conclusion, it seized first the corpse of the daughter, and thrust it up the chimney, as it was found; then that of the old lady, which it immediately hurled through the window headlong.

As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than clambering down it, hurried at once home --dreading the consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The words heard by the party upon the staircase were the Frenchman's exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the fiendish jabberings of the brute.

I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have escaped from the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of the door. It must have closed the window as it passed through it. It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for it a very large sum at the Jardin des Plantes. Le Bon was instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every person minding his own business.

"Let them talk," said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply. "Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience. I am satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. In his wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna, --or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has 'de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer ce qui n'est pas.'"

[secretgamergirl]

A Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People

As a trans woman, I literally can’t go a day without encountering at least a dozen horrible bigots shouting disgusting things directly at me, which I’ve come to accept, but I notice every time it happens there’s this whole crowd of confused people who don’t have that sort of burning hatred for trans people, but do think they raise a couple good points. And people think this because nobody has ever taught them enough basic facts about trans people to recognize the most obvious lies. So let’s work on that a bit.

Trans women are men who wear dresses. - FALSE

This is THE most common lie that gets floated around. Before I even begin to address it, let me just hit you with a few photos of actual trans women to hopefully show just how far off the mark this is.

It should be pretty clear from looking at these photos that these are all plainly women, and as a bonus. I also wouldn’t describe any of these outfits as “a dress.”

So, how is this lie as popular as it is? Well, for a number of reasons I’m going to get into in more detail, it is very rare for the average person to see a trans person and realize that person they are looking at is trans (would you have guessed any of the women above were if I hadn’t said so?) and nearly every time you see a trans person depicted in the media, rather than hire or accurately draw/describe a real trans person, they just take some man and put him in a dress, or take some woman and put her in a suit. Since such portrayals are basically all you ever see when being told you’re looking at a trans person, that’s what you grow up thinking. But, no. Trans women are women, who just look like any other woman, and trans men are men who look like any other man.

Trans women are men who got a bunch of plastic surgery to look like women - FALSE

The photo set used above came from me doing a quick search for trans models, because it’s a lot easier to disprove the “costume” lie if I can show you women wearing clothes skimpy enough to show they aren’t stuffing their bras or concealing big burly hairy arms or anything like that, and I didn’t do any background checks beyond verifying that every woman pictured is in fact trans, so it’s possible some of these women may have had nose jobs or other minor cosmetic surgeries to achieve more idealized faces, but the “bunch of plastic surgery” referred to in this lie refers to some sort of comic book fantasy where you can somehow take someone who looks like Sylvester Stallone or something, bust out a scalpel, and somehow carve away flesh and bone to leave behind some sort of idealized specimen of womanhood like these. That just isn’t how it works. Such surgeries do not exist, and bodies like these women have are all quite attainable without any kind of surgery at all. Just be a woman, eat the right diet get the right sort of exercise and be lucky enough to have a pleasantly symmetrical face, and tada.

I’ve totally seen “before and after” photos of trans women which pretty damn well look like a man and a woman side by side - TRUE

Here’s a truly mind-blowing example from a friend of mine, in fact.

So what’s going on here? Well, the short version is, trans people are people who are actually of one gender, but for some reason, usually a hormone production imbalance or insensitivity, look like another gender until getting that treated.

The effects of this can be pretty damn impressive and dramatic, and some tend to be observable immediately from birth, so what typically happens is our parents attempt to just go off appearances, give us names based on how we look, and do their best to just raise us as that gender, stubbornly ignoring every sign, no matter how obvious the signs that they’re forcing the wrong identity on their child at best, and trying to force us to be what they want in some really messed up ways.

This screws with our heads badly enough that a lot of us go along with it for decades, just being utterly miserable and feeling like fake people for reasons we can’t necessarily articulate. It certainly doesn’t help that society’s overall ignorance about this keeps us from learning all we have to do is take some combination of cheap supplements/blockers for a couple years and everything will just fix itself. Even after hearing that this sort of hormone replacement is possible, and just from off-label usage of extremely well tested and common drugs, normally used for birth control, menopause, and acne treatment, most of us refuse to believe how effective this can be. Which is why I once again have to thank my friend Kiva for permitting me to link that amazing pair of photos showing just how dramatic the effects of fixing this sort of imbalance can be.

Trans people basically walk around in disguise and can make themselves look like men or women at will. - FALSE

I think I already covered this in the first of these, but just to reiterate the point, let me pull another photo off the stack.

Put a woman like this in a man’s suit and you just have what’s clearly a woman in a man’s suit. There’s no weird Cinderella/werewolf thing going on. Trans women look like women (because that’s what we are) all the time. Actually let me do one better. I have a trans woman in a suit right here.

Trans women have penises - SOMETIMES SORT OF TRUE

This is a tricky one to talk about because I try to keep this blog safe for work, and it’s hard to get this across without some sort of visual aid.

Here is a NSFW image in the form of a black and white sketch of human gonadal structure, as far removed and abstracted from looking at someone naked as I can find, but again, hedging my bets, click at your own peril.

You’ll notice, if you click, that this is the same exact structure. So, one of those things that the above-mentioned hormone imbalances tend to do is inflate this structure in women, and shrink it in men, making it appear that most trans women have penises and trans men clitorides (a few other things in that region are affected in similar fashion). This is the main thing that leads to us being miscategorized as babies. And the functionality can even match the size while the hormone issues responsible are untreated.

This too is treatable though. The same hormone replacement leading to Kiva’s shocking before and after photos have a pretty major impact, to the extent that having been on such for years now, if I were to attempt to indulge in self-pleasuring techniques in the fashion a man would, it just plain would not work Structurally, mechanically, texturally, it’s just not on the table. Grabbing a woman’s sex toy and using that accordingly though would work just fine. Now, if I posted a very intimate photo, things would look a bit weird (not manly really, it’s sort of a unique oddity down there), but there’s a surgery that can restructure everything and get it back to the standard factory settings most women have going on, with the exact proper appearance and functionality. It’s expensive, and there’s only like a dozen or two surgeons in the world who perform it (I actually have a full list on my desk somewhere). So some of us can’t do that because we don’t have the money or insurance that will cover it, or surgery is too dangerous, or we can’t reach those couple dozen surgeons, or we can and we’re stuck on waiting lists for years, and some of us don’t care about about standardizing our anatomy enough to want to bother with all that.

The idea that we’re effectively men from the waist down though is a sensationalist exaggeration though, and the notion that those of us who have things corrected have anything “chopped off” is a grotesque lie.

Trans women are fetishists and likely sex offenders - FALSE

I mean, t’s way more common than average for us to be lesbians or bisexual (I think the straight/bi/lesbian ratio is something like 30/40/30), which might qualify as some sort of “sexual deviance” if you’re some weird homophobe from the 1950s or something, but the idea that we get some kind of thrill out of the way we look or the clothes we wear is a total myth. I have a closet full of women’s clothes because I’m a woman. Those are the clothes that fit me best and look good on me. If I tried to put on a pair of men’s jeans or something it’d be really uncomfortable because like most women I carry most of my extra weight on my thighs and butt, and personally I have a good bit of that. If I put a bra on it’s because I need the support and/or don’t want creepy dudes trying to make out the outline of my nipples through my shirt. Nothing particularly sexy about any of that.

And on the predatory front, any stories about trans women being sexually aggressive pretty much just come from hatemongers. This is something they’ve even publicly admitted to. Statistically, trans people are way less likely than anyone else to commit any sort of sex-related criminal offenses, and even in consensual relationships we tend to be real real timid about approaching anyone. A lot of that is because in addition to being orders of magnitude more likely than others to be the VICTIMS of sexual assault, there’s this really horrifying state of affairs where if you aren’t in one of the yellow states, it’s a valid legal defense to murder a trans woman after having sex with her if you decide you aren’t comfortable with that. Or even if you just feel like one of us might be hitting on you.

An overwhelming majority of us just avoid the risk entirely by dating other trans people exclusively.

Trans women have to trick people into dating them - FALSE

This is a basic supply and demand issue really. We are super rare. Depending who you ask, the trans population is somewhere between 1 in 300 people and 1 in 50 people. We tend to look damn good, because years of being mistaken for the wrong gender tends to encourage putting a major effort into presentation to keep it from happening, and again, most of us just hook up with each other because people who decide we’re really exotic and want to hook up have a scary habit of fipping out after the fact (or during, or just before), or have their egos bruised when people bring in the baggage of all the lies covered above an picture them hooking up with men in dresses) and murder us to be sure we don’t tell anyone. And again, like the map above says, the court system buys into us being scary predators enough to give them a pass for that.

So the brave few trans women who put themselves on the market in non-trans dating circles never lack for willing partners.

Men can just self-identify as trans women and barge into women’s restrooms and changing rooms and exploit programs to hire more women - FALSE

Self-identification is a term thrown around in British law regarding trans people in the specific context that trans people are seeking the basic right they have in more enlightened countries to just tell therapists and doctors that they’re trans, and start down the long red-tape filled road towards proper medical treatment and legal recognition, as opposed to going to one specific singular clinic, the only one in the country, and prove that they are trans to the staff thereof. Which in addition to being a decidedly arbitrary barrier. People who aren’t trans don’t have an interest in altering their hormone balance to radically alter their bodies, and even if they did, the effect on their brain chemistry would mess them up severely (meanwhile, one of the most immediate benefits of HRT for trans people is fixing brain chemistry issues that allow us to think more clearly, feel emotions properly, and otherwise end years of feeling like some kind of broken fraudulent zombies, because our brains aren’t getting enough/getting too much of certain chemicals).

It also can’t be stressed enough how this is just the first step of a very long process, with tons of red tape. Here’s the 110 page international manual doctors and lawmakers all over the world follow.for this stuff, when they aren’t adding even more arbitrary hoops on top of this. Before getting that little F on my ID, I had to spend two years “living as a woman” at least a year on HRT, and have multiple medical professionals sign off, who all had their own months or years long requirements to deal with. And that’s in a country where self-identification is the law of the land.

A lot of people also use the term to make disgusting jokes like “I identify as an attack helicopter” or “I identify as black,” in an effort to compare trans people to con artists like Rachel Dolezai or generally paint us as absurd. So, that’s fun.

Trans women completely dominate in sports - FALSE

OK, just pick a sport. Look at the top level competitors and champions in it. None of them are trans. “OK but didn’t I hear about some trans woman running track and just crushing everyone?” No, you didn’t. You’re thinking of Caster Semenya. She isn’t trans. Bigots spread rumors that she is because there’s a long disgusting tradition of racists claiming black women “look like men,” especially black lesbians, and in particular, this one whiny little white supremacist started whining like crazy about how unfair it was that she finished every race behind a bunch of black women, and has been campaigning to have them all kicked out of the sport so she can finish 3rd instead of 6th.

It’s also worth noting that the BS ruling proposed to force Semenya out of her favored event wouldn’t actually affect any trans athletes, as legally qualifying as women already requires us to address hormone balance issues in a way that, if the effects of high testosterone levels weren’t decidedly exaggerated, would put all of us at a severe disadvantage to everyone else in a given sport.

There are actually a good number of trans people involved in various professional sports, none of whom really excel as an additional data point here. The closest thing to an exception is the story of a trans boy on a high school wrestling team who, thanks to poorly thought out rules put in place to preemptively keep trans girls from playing on girls’ teams by ignoring everything but birth certificates, was forced against his will to join the girl’s wrestling team. Something absolutely no one involved, least of all him is happy about.

There are a whole ton of new laws trans women are pushing for that would suddenly mean they were treated as women for purposes of walking into bathrooms and locker rooms and all sorts of other things - FALSE

The existing status quo already has us in such places, as it should, because, again, trans women are women and don’t actually appear to be anything else, and this standard has existed for decades. You’ve been in public restrooms and locker rooms at some point in your life with at least one trans person being present unless you actively avoid ever entering such. You didn’t notice, and there was no reason you should have cared. Because, again, what is there to be upset about exactly?

There’s a scary new trend of diagnosing young children as trans and giving them irreversible surgeries and hormone treatments - FALSE

If you haven’t picked up on it, nobody is proposing any sort of new legislation anywhere to expand the rights of trans people, outside of the aforementoned self-ID thing in England, which is just getting up to speed to where the rest of the world has been for decades.

And again, as previously covered, nobody gets “diagnosed as trans.” Bigots constantly talk up these hypothetical situation where parents who, for some baffling reason, want their children to be trans, take them to specialists for some sort of examination potentially giving them a label as such. Parents like that don’t exist. Specialists like that don’t exist. There’s no trans test. It’s just something you innately know about yourself and have to start twisting arms to get medical help with. And if there were such a test, I’m still not sure how running it on people would be a bad thing. It only makes sense if we’re acknowledging these children really are trans, but want to avoid any sort of official labeling or treatment in the hopes it can somehow be tortured out of them through conversion therapy (which for the record is proven not t work for anything but making those subjected to it suicidal);

Furthermore, we’ve already addressed that radical full body reconstructive surgery is not an actual thing, but even if it were, outside of immediate emergency treatments for failing organs, we generally don’t perform any sort of surgeries on minors. The WPATH standards I linked earlier are pretty clear on all of this as well.

Hormone replacement is also completely off the table for minors. Personally I don’t agree with that, and feel that if a child has worked out that they’re trans before starting puberty, the thing to do would be to start fixing their hormone balance at that age, so they properly develop alongside all their peers, but I’m not out there making a push for it, nor is anyone else I’m aware of.

Instead, the standard we have for such children is to put them on puberty blockers, otherwise typically prescribed for cases of precocious puberty, where children start puberty when they’re like 6 years old and there are potential health risks. These drugs don’t cause any sort of permanent changes. In fact, the entire point is to delay any changes that would otherwise be made by increased hormone levels during puberty, either putting it off until the appropriate age, in the case of the more traditional use, or in the case of trans children, preventing the hormone imbalance rendering them trans in the first place to flood their bodies with the wrong mix, which again, causes really horrible problems with brain chemistry and really undesirable effects like breast/hair growth etc. I lived through it. It was hell. And of course in the hypothetical event that a child was put on puberty blockers until they were 18 who wasn’t trans, the only effect it would have would be them not starting puberty until 18. Really not the end of the world, particularly since no child gets put on such unless they personally request it.

Otherwise the only thing done for trans children is encouraging those around them to use the correct pronouns and not be weird about policing what they wear, so they don’t have to deal with years of abuse, torment, and confusion when they age up to a point to get medical treatment, and get to live a totally normal life, without all their childhood friends having the wrong idea about what gender they were growing up.

Trans people are getting way more common all of the sudden, or only just came into existence recently - FALSE

Trans people have been around literally forever (and this is documented in historical sources should you be curious enough to look), and while, again, different studies disagree on exactly how rare we are, it’s because we’re rare enough that it’s hard to get an accurate count. We make up the same small percentage of the population world wide, with even distribution. We’re not contagious. There’s no “trans gene.” People don’t decide to become trans.

AWARENESS that trans people exist has been on the rise, but that’s just because horrific bigotry towards trans people has been on the rise. And that’s simply because all the people who spent the last couple of decades flipping the hell out over gay marriage have generally conceded defeat on that front, and on the front of keeping gay characters out of the media, preventing gay couples from adopting children, and otherwise keeping gay people out of public life. They felt they needed a new wedge issue to drive down support for LGBT+ people, and figured the total dearth of public awareness about trans people meant they could spread all kinds of scaremongering crap without anyone calling it out as hateful BS, and... yeah they’ve been pretty successful in doing that. Otherwise I’d have had no reason to write up this primer. It also helps that they’ve been so successful in painting a bunch of far-right religious extremists as scholarly left-leaning feminists, so it isn’t as obvious that it’s the same hateful crap coming from the same hateful sources.

But again, BS is what it all is. Hopefully I’ve linked enough reputable sources to make that clear here, and answered at least the bulk of questions you may have had about trans people. There’s one more though.

There are only two genders and the singular they is grammatically incorrect - FALSE

I’ve kept the vast majority of this focused on trans women, because the vast majority of hate and disinformation is focused on women specifically, but not all trans people are women. Trans men also exist. As I did above, I can easily show you a bunch of attractive models who are undeniably men.

I can give you another of those amazing before and after photos too.

And in addition to there being trans men and women, there are people out there who realize that being labeled as boy or a girl when they were wrong was clearly a mistake, but switching to the other label also doesn’t feel right, so they find another option to go with. The English language doesn’t really have any sort of terminology to cover that concept, and for whatever reason, Christian missionaries really did their darnedest to stamp out every culture that has the appropriate language and concepts. Again though, historical records on this go back forever.

Because English sucks for discussing such people, we generally throw them under the catch-all label of “non-binary” (since they don’t fit in with the binary choice of being either a man or a woman, see) and either need to work out new pronouns, or just refer to them as, well, them.

A lot of people who get prickly about this since, well, they’re big ol’ bigots, attempt to rationalize their discomfort with claims that this isn’t grammatically correct, but, it is. The English language has used “they” as a singular pronoun for longer than it’s used “you” as a singular pronoun.

In fact, even the people who raise such objections pretty constantly make use of the very thing they’re complaining about. It is hilariously commonplace for some bigot to get into this big huge speech about how they refuse to use the singular they, get into disparaging a hypothetical person using it, and start rambling about how they were taught to always say ‘he or she’ in such situations, and that they couldn’t possibly adapt, using the word, in that context, about as many times as I just did in this paragraph. It’s so natural nobody ever even realizes they’re doing it unless they’re actively trying to be a jerk about it.

I might edit this if there’s anything big I forgot, but tada. You are now less woefully ignorant about trans people.

#trans #transgender #transphobia #educational resource

[toongrrl-blog]

Part One of Barb Series: Why Barb Died (Character Device Talk)

*Please watch the Betty Draper Francis video first, for extra credit, check out the channel’s vid on Jack Dawson and come with knowledge of Beth March*

Happy end of the 2010s! Before I discuss what Barb could have brought to the Party in Stranger Things I need to discuss how as a character she needed to die.

1. Beth March

In one scene in Little Women, the girls and Laurie discuss their ambitions for adult life. Oldest sister Meg wants to marry and have kids, oldest middle sis Jo wants to become a known and successful writer, youngest sister Amy wants to become rich and famous as an artist and maybe a socialite, and middle child Beth wants things to stay the way they are for her, with her loving family at her side. What’s wrong with this? What the other three sisters have in common is that they are hoping for adult lives which include a lot of change, responsibility, independence (either as a career woman or running a household with little kids underfoot), new experiences, and even new people in their lives (Meg would need to meet a guy to marry and have kids with him, Jo would need to meet people in her professional life, Amy would entertain guests and appeal to patrons). Shy Beth is a talented pianist, vet, and doll collector and is very charitable but she doesn’t seem to want to take the risks it would take to grow as a person and thrive and mature or be noticed for her own merits aside from “Angel of the House” and the future looks pretty hostile; so by the end of the novel, Beth has died in her early 20s while sisters lives have changed (Meg married and had children in a cottage while gaining confidence as a homemaker, wife, and mom; Jo sells her writing and meets a professor who wants to start a school where she becomes headmistress after they marry; Amy goes on a Grand Tour of Europe and marries wealthy and happy).

The series Stranger Things, on a whole, is a coming-of-age series that borrows from the John Hughes and Steven Spielberg films of that era that captured the joys and pains of growing up, while Joyce’s and Hop’s storylines borrow from conspiracy thrillers around that era and somewhat from Hitchcock films. All these films captured ordinary people undergoing extraordinary (E.T., North By Northwest, The Goonies, The Stepford Wives) and life altering events (Jaws, The Breakfast Club, Silkwood) that force them to encounter challenges and make decisions they wouldn’t normally make in their mundane lives. Joyce ends up facing a monster with an axe and even makes demands of people who could wipe her off the Earth, the boys have to ride their bikes to evade murderous men in vans and hide a young traumatized girl, Nancy has to learn to create and use deadly weapons and use her skills of sneaking out for something besides sex, Jonathon has to cut his and another girl’s hand to lure a monster to their trap, Hop sneaks into a morgue just to slit a dead boy’s corpse and find cotton stuffing, Will has to use what knowledge and skills he has to survive another world filled with creatures out to kill him, most of the kids throughout the series have to lie and break laws to save their town. 

While the official guide does list Barb as being a varsity softball player and a mathlete and Shannon Purser concurs that Barb would have been the Velma of the group if she lived, there is one big thing that separates the Velmas from the Barbs and Beth’s of the world: Velma takes risks, she would trespass private looking property and dilapidated buildings to solve a mystery. Barb is a loyal friend and honest and studious and smart, but she’s ultimately the good girl archetype: cautious, obedient to her elders, predictable, conservatively and femininely dressed, chaste. An archetype that Nancy is trying to flee (not that the alternative of being a girl who sneaks out with her boyfriend to makeout is going to help Nancy at all) to avoid ending up like her mother. Barb has the fangs (talent and means) to be a Party member, she just lacks the nerve to jump and sink those fangs.

2. Commentary on the Patriarchy and the Tyranny of Beauty Standards

Most of the female characters in the series don’t fit the strict criteria of their Reagan era Indiana small town regarding what makes a good woman. Joyce is a single mother who doesn’t come with well-coiffed hair and she appears to be hysterical and is a working mother in a time and place where all these factors would label her a “bad mother”, Nancy is a frank young woman who takes risks and even asserts her sexuality and herself when plenty of people (like the shitheads at Hawkins Post) would prefer her to be a delicate virgin in pastels, El is physically stronger than the boys with her powers and she is very direct in her manner despite her soft-spoken demeanor, Max is a girl who is interested in arcade video games and skateboarding and brightly colored summer clothing and reads her Mom’s Cosmo cover to cover and is assertive, Erica is an assertive young girl who can talk truth (and shade) to adults and has a knowledge of My Little Pony and Cold War Politics, Robin is snarky and has a style that makes her stand out from most girls in Hawkins and is a teen genius, Kali’s rage and Joan Jett-esque appearance would make the preppy and pastel and autumnal tone wearing residents of Hawkins in Cardiac Care, Suzie has defied notions about girls in science and math and even the Mormon beliefs of her parents by french kissing and dating a non-Mormon boy like Dustin, and Karen despite her appearance of hot housewife perfection is dissatisfied with her marriage and comes close to cheating on her husband. 

In contrast Barb is pretty much the most conventional character: she dresses conservatively in ruffles and pink, she is seemingly chaste, follows the rules diligently and worries about getting punished by the Holland and Wheeler parents, and has a more common body type found in cis-gender women (correct me if I’m wrong, hopefully I don’t offend trans pear shaped women) and not often found in the older members of the female cast. But despite Barb’s body being common among women in general and specific to her region (the American Midwest is noted for starchy and creamy and fried foods and is historically farming country, where pioneers would find her strong for work in and out of the log cabin and give birth to the necessary amount of children i.e. extra hands for work), the delicate and slender builds of Joyce and Nancy, the classic proportionate and slender grace of Robin, and the leggy and toned image of Karen are closer to the female standard of beauty in the 1980s. In Barb’s lifetime (1967-1983), the image of beauty was dominated by leggy, toned, slim, busty women or lean women with minimal breasts: no room for tall, broad, pear shapes like herself. And in 1983, Molly Ringwald wasn’t yet a household name that freckled redheads with dry wit and atypical images could look on with pride. Hell I remember reading a copy of Color Me Beautiful where they recommend that women with heavy hips and small waists (similar features of Christina Hendricks and Shannon Purser) shouldn’t cinch their waistlines, the celebration of Marilyn Monroe pinups with round hips, pillowy thighs and tummies, rounded tushes were long gone by then. Basically Barb being her natural self, was not seen as “feminine enough” and combined with her glasses and style (any plus sized or early developing gal can tell you that it is hell to find junior styles that suit your body size and shape) have ruled her as “uncool”. 

There is also that Barb does a lot of things that the boys do: being slightly geeky, a loyal friend, has innocent and wholesome interests, chaste, and is quiet (like Will) but she still gets killed. One can sense that #JusticeForBarb came out of an anger with misogyny in media and society that tells women to be a certain way and punishes them whether they fit a mold or not. Women are still underpaid in the workplace, underrepresented in government, still deal with unequal and toxic relationships, are shamed for being virgins or for having sexual experience (Carol pokes fun at the idea of Barb finding the sex sounds too much and yet contributes to the slut shaming graffiti of Nancy), are told on one hand to look a certain way to attract the male gaze and shamed when they indulge in sexual desire (something Nancy can attest to with her glamorous mother who offers to lend her black heels and focuses on Nancy’s beauty before a funeral, the same mom who was angry her daughter had sex), they are either too fat/skinny/busty/flat/frizzy/straight haired/pale/slutty/prudish/dark/feminine/masculine/full-butt-ed/quiet/loud/naive/cynical/smart/dumb/angry/happy, and they deal with a media that sells a very narrow standard of beauty to the point that when they see a drop dead gorgeous actress or model with similar features they feel seen.

Oh Bondage, Up Yours!

*Read this is not a “Barb is a slut shamer!” piece yes that was shitty but she was a teen girl in a small 1980s town and she ISN’T starting a (paraphrasing Kimberly Nicole Foster quote) “no whores allowed campaign” OR trying to pass a law that demands women keep their ectopic pregnancies to full term*

3. End of Innocence

When Barb died, it marked the end of Nancy’s childhood and her needing to grow up. That was the night Nancy went straight from childhood (Barb), teenager (sex with Steve), and then shortly became an adult when she realized that Barb had disappeared. For many women (like myself at ages 9 and 10), the moment they get their period or grow breasts or reach a certain age, marks a dramatic end of their childhood. Suddenly many are told to police their behavior and language around boys, even policing the food they eat or their bodies. There is also extra responsibility and stress, demogorgans being one of them. Nancy is now having to deal with the sorts of issues that adult women dealt with on Mad Men along with scary monsters threatening her town and the fact her parents are not as happy as they look to the world, there is a gap between the experiences of her and Mike, she has a baby sister who probably was conceived to save the marriage, and Nancy can’t confide or trust either of her parents (who are absorbed with their own issues). Now Nancy is making big decisions that Barb, with the sheltering and seemingly close parents, will likely never deal with. Nancy is even taking fashion risks with clothes that are more functional, stylish, show off her figure, and can even withstand flayer blood and exorcising her boyfriend’s little brother.

4. A Huge Threat

Barb was intended to be a character that we connected with, someone to be built up somehow. There was a character like this in a movie: her name was Marion Crane. She was a secretary who has been supporting herself and her little sis since their parents died, patiently waiting for her boyfriend to make more money at his job so they can marry and stop sneaking around sleeping with one another, in desperation she steals a lot of money from her workplace, drives to California where she meets a mild-mannered but strange young man who manages a distant motel in the vicinity of a Victorian house where an older woman is croaking about promiscuity, after talking with him over a dinner of sandwiches in his taxidermy themed office, she goes to take a shower and has decided to return to Phoenix to return the money, then a strange figure comes with a large butcher knife in horribly out of date clothes and starts stabbing her to death.

This was from the Hitchcock film Psycho, the forerunner of the slasher genre that dominated the earlier half of the 1980s, and it premiered to shocked audiences in 1960. The meaning of the grisly murder of Marion, a character the audience was following from the beginning of the film, was that Norman Bates was a huge threat and intensified the need for Marion’s killer to be brought to justice.

The same thing can be said about the deaths of Benny and Barb, to show how much a threat the demogorgan and Hawkins National Lab were to the townspeople of Hawkins (and the world as a whole), basically such big threats that a little boy can be kidnapped from the safety of his home, a young teenage girl could be snatched up and killed from a suburban swimming pool, and a kindly cook and owner of a local diner would be executed for knowing about a runaway child. 

5. The future of Women in Stranger Things

Not all is lost, Barb’s death forced the Duffer Bros to take a look at how women were written and treated in their series, and even helped spurred tv viewers (who ordinarily wouldn’t pay attention to social issues) to take a deeper look and interest in how people especially women are treated. For some reason I like to think: Max, Robin, Erica, and Suzie are a way of recognizing Barb’s potential within the series and even what viewers saw. 

Now stay tuned to where I figure out how Barb could have been beneficial to the party.

#barb holland #justice for barb #StrangerThings #womeninmedia #beth march #betty draper #1980s women #messy #Not A Space For Character Bashing #Role of Women

[swanmciden-blog]

𝓂𝒾𝓈𝒸 𝒶𝓅𝓅 ( deborah ann woll. female, she/her, bare + wildes. ) supposedly, ROSEMARY AMALIA HARING is a SWAN MAIDEN. they look like they’re THIRTY-FIVE, they act like they’ve been on earth for THREE HUNDRED FIFTY SIX YEARS. i just saw them at ALARA’S ANTIQUES, i think they’re an EMPLOYEE there. at night you can always find them going home to STATEN ISLAND by BUS. (mina, 20, she/her, pst)

time to bomb this, because rosemary is forever fighting me about her story and ‘correcting’me. so lets see how much of a mess this ends up being. BUT, i do hope you come to love her as much as i do.

rosemary is a swan maiden, which is fae women (there are men too but it seems that they are just a little too reckless and either stay human forever because ‘why the fuck do i want to be a swan? that is too delicate for MY MANLY NATURE!’ or they just die because of the wars they have experienced so far) who were born from mortal women and the Fae King of Germany. she was daughter #6, and definitely someone who indulged in everything that meant to be a swan maiden. her sisters would travel across germany, enjoying the nature of their beloved country and living in beautiful bliss from the world outside. 

however, the eldest daughter of the fae king, swanhilde, was kidnapped and taken away by a hunter who desired her as his wife. everyone tried to save her, and nobody fought as much as amalia did. however, nothing could occur without swanhilde’s robe of swan feathers that aided her transform. 

the whole swan family had to watch from a distance as their beloved sister lived a mortal life, aging normally and bearing children and eventually dying of old age. they never could find the robe, and it was a warning to them all to be protective of each other, and to be ready to defend yourself. keep your swan feathers close to you no matter what. 

rosemary and her sisters that she lived with (amelira and heleyns) all moved away from germany, being nomads across europe until they arrived to england and heard about America ! (the united states, specifically) by this time, people could sense the tensions in the air and the arrival of what would be world war i arising. amalia (rosemary), amelira and helenys all decided that they would go to the united states, in hopes of a restart of their lives not only as fae women but as ‘pretend’ human women.  

their life had started over, and though they had a feeling of despair for not having anything anymore, they were able to move forward because they still had the one side that was never unchanging. their fae side remained the same, and it followed them no matter where they met. it seemed that no matter what environment they ended up in, they always transcended the elegance and etheral beauty that swans possessed and many fell for them. it seemed to be harder to shun the people away since they were far more persistent than before. however, it also became easier to fight them off, which rosemary appreciated greatly. 

each sister ended up in different fields. one became a factor worker, the other became a nurse, and rosemary became an office assistant. each lived a life they enjoyed, and it was wonderful.

helenys, a factor worker, was able to find the love of her life, a fae man who ended up taking her away to the greater area of canada. rosemary and amelira were left, and they stuck together like two peas in a pot. 

HOWEVER! All good things come to an end, and rosemary was the next to go unvoluntarily.

she didn’t learn from her sister’s life and ended up having her own robe of swan feathers taken from her by a vampire she had a ravishing one-night stand with. he had been someone she had met through work, and they both had an obvious connection. but as rosemary says to this day, “he was a lonely motherfucker who decided i was going to be his companion for life. you know, nosferatu style. or dracula style.” 

she despises this man to this day, and he has dragged her all around new york as she follows  in hopes to get her swan coat back through murder or other methods. though this man is charming, and though she finds him endlessly attractive, the hate within her body possesses her more and she requires some sort of satisfaction. some sort of REVENGE.

unfortunately, the swan coat has a power over its fae women, and it requires them to be dragged along to the person who possesses, so rosemary hasn’t been able to leave this messed up relation. though, amelira was able to figure out her sister’s mistake and has joined her in her travelling around new york. 

they both had established themselves in Staten Island out of their pure intention. quite frankly, they don’t give a shit about the division that the supernaturals have at the current moment doesn’t make sense, and honestly, staten island is not that bad. 

they both opened an antiques shop, amelira being the main manager while rosemary was the dealer and often the one to go and find these items that they sell.

rosemary is seriously such a “i dont give a shit” lady. she doesn’t necessarily watch people, but she has lived long enough to know human nature and is quite over it all. she is straight-forward, direct, and has no time to sugar coat things. she loves being her own person, she loves living her own life. which makes this sort of plot line so hard on her because she is legit having to follow someone else because they have something of hers. 

rosemary does see herself quite blessed to have been swan maiden, and still to this day wishes she could go revisit that. she wishes to just turn back into her swan self and just enjoy the blissfulness that her life was once again. she is still a fae, but also half mortal. so unlike the seelie, she can lie. and she does, only when necessary. 

okay just think of an embodiment of hollywood stars from the 1920s, 30′s, 40′s. that is her, she is quite visually pleasing, she always looks like an elegant working woman, modern society hasn’t quite reached her. some inspiration are grace kelly, marilyn monroe, and like forest nymphs that are like half naked bathing in rivers, lakes, and oceans. 

she loves taking charge, she loves dressing elegantly, she loves dresses, but she has come to quite enjoy nice pant suits, fancy pants with dress shirts. kind of hipstery business styles. her hair is hella long and wavy, and its gorgeous af. she is super confidant in herself, she is lowkey vain, and is honest about her preferences. 

galas? her shit. business parties? her shit. business meetings? she is gonna fuck it up, kenneth. 

she loves to tease people, so don’t be upset if she teases you. 

um um um, she loves fruit so much. meat is okay, but not her favorite thing. sweet juicy shit? that is her shit. 

just omg. she is something else. i love her. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS !

okay lets do this. i would love fae friends / enemies / frenemies. swan maidens are just what humans and a fae king created in germany. so i’m sure there is either speculations of how they are just second best to the seelie / unseelie. some might just respect them as a separate division of fae species, etcs. jazz dance club friends, who are basically people she has met when she has gone to the local jazz club where jazz is often played. if you can’t tell, rosemary is very much stuck in the past of great music, swing dancing, and swaying to dean martin’s voice in the background as she considers rather to take this man home or not. WITH THAT BEING SAID! One-night stands would be great, exs is great too, current people who have a sort of sexual tension with her, people who are enchanted by her because swan maidens are depicted kind of like mermaids / sirens? just, instead of their voice, their very appearance can be enchanting to the human eye, and you best believe she has a tendency to raise the charm level to 2000% all the time when she sees someone looking at her. i need friends who are like her, 7 Rings Ariana Grande, Who run the World? Girls beyonce style. love strong independent woman and she needs that. customers / regulars at the antique shop, because rosemary loves her history, she loves her antique artifacts, and loves talking about those things. and then, i think rosemary could use a super chill friend who just balances her over-the-top personality. just keep her in check and calm her down when she is ready to fight someone.

just like this, and i will pop up in your ims and WE CAN PLOT! just please, she needs this. 

okay, this was a struggle but im done. byyyeeeeee!!

#nightsbound:intro