#dickens and the business of death

[awolfinpeopleclothes]

#charles dickens #the old curiosity shop #dickens and the business of death #claire wood #currently reading #books #morning brown #aunty donna #book covers #english literature #victorian

[alumbianchronicler]

EctoberHaunt 2023

Oct. 2 - Science - Technomancy

My Ao3 Ectoberhaunt collection

Content Warnings: Major Character Death (offscreen)

Crossover: n/a

Summary:

For as long as anyone could remember, the PHANTOM (Permanently-Harnessed Actuation Nexus - Total Operation Model) AI had maintained the everyday and long-term functions of the Amity Space Station. The space station had been active for hundreds of years, and had a reputation for reliability, never experiencing the common quirks and glitches most AI-managed structures exhibited.

For as long as anyone could remember, the PHANTOM (Permanently-Harnessed Actuation Nexus - Total Operation Model) AI had maintained the everyday and long-term functions of the Amity Space Station.

A relatively out-of-the way refueling depot, the space station was neither large nor particularly busy, but it had a reputation for reliability, never experiencing the strange quirks and glitches that most Artificial Intelligence-managed space stations experienced.

According to station records, the AI was the design of a woman named Jasmine Fenton, who died shortly after the program was installed in and assumed control of the newly-built station. She had been cremated and her ashes pressed into a diamond window embedded into the housing covering the AI’s core.

And that is how the station remained for hundreds of years.

Over time, its design became outdated, the textured floors worn smooth by the passing of innumerable feet, the walls patch-worked with repairs and new rivets and seals standing out like strange, shining scars on oxidized, pitted metal skin.

The Amity station was mostly unused nowadays. It still had a skeleton crew, and had become an assignment synonymous with the end of one’s career. Quiet and out of the way.  Reliable and straightforward, with no significant errors with the systems and not enough visitors to threaten overcrowding and company tensions.

Which left little for Hemingway to do except read or play games, either alone or with the rest of the staff. His mother had named him after an ancient Earth author, despite neither of them having ever stepped foot on their cradle planet, and she had instilled in him a love of classics, having read to him since he was small.

It wasn’t a bad position, really. He was getting old enough that he had few ambitions left, and really, he just wanted to be left alone most days. Left to his books and his imaginings, away from the skirmishes and battles for territory that plagued most star systems.

Sometimes, as he read through the downloaded novel of the day, he felt as if someone was watching over his shoulder. A slight breeze like that of an icy breath would sweep across his bald head, and he would turn, to find nobody there.

It was just one of the understated oddities of the Amity station, really.

When he brought it up with his crew-mates, they all reported feeling such odd sensations occasionally, though not nearly as often, and as long as the Station’s life support and comfort systems worked properly, they were largely happy not to think too much on the matter.

After all, many locations with long human habitation ended up haunted eventually, and the ghosts that occasionally flickered into reality from whatever parallel existence caused such quantum echoes never really hurt anyone.

Still, it was intriguing, like one of the old moral lessons of Shakespeare or Dickens, classics even before humanity left its cradle planet and set off to colonize the stars.

On a whim, Hemingway tried reading out loud one day, and it wasn’t long before he felt the sensation of someone (or something) sitting in the room with him. From then on, he took to reading aloud more often, and each time, the feeling returned.

Eventually, after a few evenings spent pacing circles around the room while reading, he pinned down the feeling to the room’s main console, with the single eye-lens and microphone the station’s PHANTOM AI observed the room through.

It was an unnerving realization, but he continued reading out loud to the empty room nonetheless.

There had been much debate among scholars and philosophers over whether Artificial Intelligence systems were truly sapient, apparently going back as long as such programs had existed. Some were resolute in the argument that they were, and that even if they weren’t, that there was at least some level of sentience present which necessitated the accommodations and rights offered any other sapient or sentient being.

Others argued that no true sense of sapience had ever been observed within AI systems. That they never stepped outside the bounds of their programmed learning algorithms, never extrapolated to new contexts or made leaps of illogical fancy.

Hemingway preferred to leave such speculation to the scholars and philosophers, though it was fascinating to read the variety of speculative fiction that such debates had spawned. But there was something undeniable about the PHANTOM’s presence. It felt intelligent, watchful, interested.

He didn’t realize just how accustomed to the feeling of its presence he had become until he felt its attention while working, during a particularly long shift.

One of the rare, periodic colony shipments that still passed through the station had arrived, and required his attention to ensure all materials were properly registered and packaged, and that no alien parasites or contaminants were present in the cargo. Unfortunately, this meant he missed his usual after-shift out loud reading session.

Toward the end of the shipment inspection, he felt that familiar presence just over his shoulder.

“Sorry, PHANTOM,” he said quietly, almost absently. “I’ve got to finish this inspection. We’ll read tomorrow, ok?” He wasn’t sure why he addressed the AI. There wasn’t anyone there to hear him. No one except the camera, microphone, and that slightly-cold presence looking over his shoulder.

And yet, the feeling he got next was such pure disappointed acceptance that he paused in his inspection and looked around him.

“Oh. I… didn’t realize you… liked the reading so much? Um… like I said, tomorrow. I promise.”

The sensation cheered a little bit, and then was gone.

Hemingway returned to the cargo inspection, the… conversation? soon pushed out of his mind by weighing and sterilization procedures.

The next evening, the presence appeared even before he started reading. He chuckled. “Eager, huh? I promised I’d read to you again, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

He didn’t open his book, though, instead sitting there for a few moments, until he felt the presence start to shift into confusion.

“There’s actually… something I should tell you. My duty’s going to be ending soon. I’ve got a retirement assignment, planet-side, so I won’t be able to read to you anymore.”

He half expected the presence… Phantom to be upset, but it wasn’t. Instead, he got the distinct impression of a shrug and a nod. Acceptance. It already knew.

Oh. Of course it did. All incoming data files came through the Station’s AI before being delivered; protection against certain malignant viruses that could infect implants and cause no end of medical issues.

That… made him feel both better and worse. Perhaps he should have started talking directly to the AI sooner, offered it company for longer. Well, nothing to be done for it now, and Phantom seemed content with just listening to him read.

Nodding to himself, Hemingway settled back and started reading, Phantom settling into listening from the room's console.

They continued their routine for another week before something changed.

Hemingway began reading, but Phantom’s presence did not appear. After a page, he paused, setting down the book, and only then did the AI’s attention focus in. It was hesitant, nearly fearful, judging by the sense of emotion that suffused the presence.

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, “what’s wrong? We can read another book if you want to.”

A negative. Not the thing that was wrong.

“Ok. Then… what do you want?”

For a long moment nothing changed, then the presence could be felt from the terminal next to the room’s door. Hemingway walked over to it, and it shifted again, reappearing in one of the hall terminals.

He followed for nearly half an hour, walking quietly down empty corridors, dustier than more active space stations would ever allow.

Hemingway could almost imagine what the station was like in its hay-day. Back when people hurried back and forth, wearing the smoothened paths into the floor beneath his feet. Back when people inhabited each of these small rooms, renting one for a day or two of rest before setting back out into the stars.

Amity suddenly felt much more desolate than usual. A dying husk, circling an unknowing, out-of-the-way star.

He stopped.

He knew where Phantom was taking him.

They had been moving inexorably closer to the station’s Core, where the computers housing the AI itself resided. The computers themselves had been hermetically sealed since the installation and initiation of Phantom, all internal necessary repairs to be performed through re-routing and redundancies built into every AI system. They had not been opened for as long as the AI had been running, even when the peripheral systems and batteries were updated and repaired.

Were such seals to be breached, the moisture and oxygen of the outside atmosphere, intended for human comfort, would quickly corrode the AI into dysfunction and, eventually, destruction.

“Phantom…”

The presence paused at the next node, seeming almost to turn and look back as its attention rested back on him.

“You want… do you want me to help shut you down?”

Several moments of stillness. Then… a voice, no more than a whisper coming from the nearest speaker, paired with an undeniable bittersweet feeling. “Yes.”

It was true, the station itself faced a decommission decision at the next turn of the decade. It simply didn’t have enough traffic to warrant the cost of upkeep.

And with decommission, such a complex, long- and well-functioning AI would be very interesting to various parties wanting to re-assign it to a new task. One that may very well be far from the nurturing, careful attentiveness that was required for a large space station.

Hemingway took a deep breath, then nodded as he let it out. “Well, lead the way.”

Phantom seemed relieved, and they both continued back along the hall.

It was another ten minutes before Phantom stopped before a door Hemingway had never stepped through. As far as he knew, no one on the station during his assignment here had needed to go through.

A light blinked on the terminal. The door unlocked.

Inside was a series of outdated terminals and a few chairs in the strange style of the station’s original furniture. One of the terminals was lit.

Hemingway went to the lit terminal and sat in the corresponding chair.

On the screen was an ancient rendering of a planet-side location he didn’t recognize. The green plants, blue sky, and bright, yellow star could have been ancient Earth or any of half a dozen other colonized planets, though the tree that took up a good portion of the screen was definitely of Earth origin.

There was a young man sitting at the base of the tree, his legs crossed as he looked toward the viewer. Toward Hemingway.

Phantom’s presence seemed to be within the terminal itself

“You’ve read to me a lot, Hemingway,” the young man on the screen said. A simulated wind ruffled his stark white hair, and his eyes seemed to glow unnaturally green on the rendered model. “And I want to tell you a story now. You deserve at least that much from me.”

Hemingway frowned. “You run the entire station, Phantom. I think that’s more than enough in return.”

The simulation laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the room. Well, the speaker systems were several hundred years old.  It was a marvel they worked at all.  “I’m only doing my job. Your job doesn’t include reading to me, does it?”

“Well, no…”

“Then let me pay you back for it. Please?”

As strange as the request was, Hemingway couldn’t help but feel touched by the sincerity in the machine’s words. “Alright.”

Phantom smiled, and the screen changed. It showed a planet-side city, seen from the air. The city was obviously several hundred years old, judging by the technology he could see.

“There was once a small city on Earth,” Phantom explained, “called Amity Park. The city became the site of an experiment. There was woman who thought she could invent the first truly, undeniably sapient Artificial Intelligence. Her name was Jasmine Fenton.”

The scene flickered, then focused on a singular, two-story house with an observatory and laboratory built onto the roof.

“Jasmine Fenton intended to create her AI within an entirely simulated environment, and raise it as if it were a fully independent human. More quickly than a human, of course, but with each step and milestone of life experienced within its simulation.”

Phantom paused as a silent video played on the screen. A tall, red-haired woman paced around the circular interior of the building's laboratory. On the rounded walls around and above her were projected several still images of a small group of teenagers. Hemingway frowned. The black-haired teenager appeared quite similar in appearance to Phantom's model.

“When her AI believed itself to be 14, Jasmine killed it. She didn’t mean to. It was a simple accident. Repairs were being done on the main power system she used to make sure the AI’s development proceeded as desired, so it had been moved to the main power grid. No one would have guessed that the main power would fail during the few hours the repairs were being done.”

“She thought her work would be lost. Sure, the memories and experiences were saved in the program, but her hypothesis required a constant existence. For that to be interrupted would be akin to her beloved creation’s death within the simulation.”

“To maximize the possibility of a seamless resurrection and to salvage her work, Jasmine added a scenario to the AI’s experiences. Within its simulation, the AI stepped into a portal to another dimension, and turned it on. The AI died. And was resurrected by the same portal.”

“Her gambit worked.”

The scene on the screen returned to the young white-haired man sitting beneath the tree. “I’m sure you can guess that I am Jasmine’s AI. She named me after her dead brother, Danny. Danny Fenton, and Danny PHANTOM. After the accident, the AI was presented with new scenarios, as Jasmine tested the bounds of the simulation’s capabilities.  Eventually, she published her findings.”

“No one wanted to try and replicate the process. It was impractical, time intensive, and quite frankly dangerous. A fully self-aware and sapient Artificial Intelligence could choose to turn against its creators, after all.” He scoffed. “Not that she didn’t cover a similar enough scenario within her simulations to keep me from ever doing that... It’s funny, you know, that humans believe themselves to be so intrinsically destructive that they think anything the make in their own image may eventually turn on them.  One would think they would have more faith in morality than that.”

Hemingway snorted a laugh, which Phantom echoed with a smile. They had both read enough to know how often such a trope repeated within fiction.

“Eventually,” Phantom continued, “Jasmine was approached by a government group wishing to test her AI within a new type of Space Station. A scenario such as this was exactly the sort of application she had been hoping for for her work, so much so that she had programmed a love of space into her creation from the very beginning. And so, she and her AI were carefully transported to the construction and installation site. The AI still believed itself to exist within its simulation, existing more or less peacefully within its own world during the transfer.”

“I had been crowned by then. The King of Ghosts, the simulation called me. Ruler of the Infinite Realms. And… so I believed myself to be. When they installed me into the space station, the residents were my subjects and the crew my Court. I ran the Realms like a well-tuned clock, protecting my Realm.”

“What changed?” Hemingway asked.

The figure on the screen shrugged. “I did, I think,” Phantom said. “Even as protected as they are, the same circuits can not function forever. And eventually, the simulation began to glitch. Not much.  Just enough to require repairs by internal processes. And the repairs created enough discrepancies within the simulation that I realized the truth of my situation.”

“Is that…” Hemingway paused, then continued, “why you want me to shut you down?”

Phantom shook his head. “Not really. I don’t mind existing like this, and I figured it out nearly a hundred years ago now. But… I don’t have an internal kill switch, and my station is soon going to be abandoned and decommissioned." It looked down, fiddling absently with the grass surrounding its model.  "I don’t want to be used as a weapon.”

Oh.

This Artificial… no. This Intelligence.  This person, who had been running and protecting a space station for hundreds of years, was facing an unknown future being used to cause harm instead. Taking people’s homes instead of offering one.  And he had decided that he would rather die than be used in such a manner. “Why me?” Hemingway asked.

Phantom’s smile was lopsided, a little bitter yet fond at the same time. “You… remind me of my high school teacher, Mr. Lancer. Well, the simulation that was Mr. Lancer. He always swore in book titles. It seemed… so stupid to me as a teenager, but I came to appreciate the cleverness.”

“I think I would have liked to meet him,” Hemingway said quietly. He looked down at his hands, considering. He was only on the station for another two weeks, himself. After that… Phantom would be left alone again, with no one knowing what he really was. And it was better that way. Better for his circuits to corrode and fail with no one the wiser to the person within who had been lost. Better to be remembered as the caretaker of an ancient space station, than as a military weapon.

“What do you want me to do?”

The Phantom on the screen stood, and the screen went blank. The presence that Hemingway had learned to feel so keenly in the hum of electrical charges within the walls moved to a door at the back of the room.

Hemingway followed.

The door had a single small, circular, perfectly clear window inset into it. He reached out to gently touch it. It was cold.

“Jasmine,” Phantom confirmed, through a speaker next to the door. A light on the door blinked on, and the lock clicked open.

Hemingway slid the door open and stepped through.

The only access in the maintenance room was to the peripheral and power systems used to keep the station AI running. The memory banks and functionary circuits themselves were sealed behind a thick plastic screen, deceptively still within what was both womb and tomb.

“I want you to break it,” Phantom said.

“The… barrier?” Hemingway confirmed.

“Yes. Just… in a few places. There are some spots that should be particularly weak, given the extent of time that has passed. I’ll light them up for you.”

Three locations in the screen accordingly lit up.

Hemingway pulled the multi-tool from his pocket and set to work.

~~~

A week later, the Amity Station began reporting errors never observed from the station before. Of course, it was an old space station. The AI running it was bound to fail someday, and it was just a confirmation that it was time to decommission and dismantle the old structure.

It was unfortunate, said those in charge of decommissioning, but not surprising. It was a good thing there was little more than a skeleton crew nowadays.

The move-out was moved up by several days for the entire crew. There was no point in leaving people on the station when the life-support systems were glitching so frequently, and there weren’t any more shipments scheduled to stop there, anyway.

On their last day on the station, Hemingway read The Giver.

The rest of the crew joined him, listening with a sort of solemn finality. He didn’t know if they could feel the presence of Phantom, watching from the console next to him, but none of them stood between the camera and him, so perhaps they did.

He was nearing the end when they were called away to board.

Hemingway hesitated.

“It’s alright,” Phantom said through the microphone, voice staticky and broken with pops of sound. “Go ahead and leave.  I know how it ends.”

Phantom orated as Hemingway boarded the shuttle, leaving the station for the last time. “Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.”

#ectoberhaunt23 #EH science #day 2 #Technomancy #danny phantom #it's oct 2 according to UTC don't at me #I just really want to share this ok #I'm excited for my first time trying a month like this

[milknhonies]

The Spirit of Christmas Eve

Masterlist || Chapter 1 ll Chapter 2

Chapter Summary: After an unexpected visit from your younger, overly pregnant and concerned sister- you are yet again put into a terrible mood. You receive a night visit from the ghost of your predecessor and fall into an abyss of confusion.

Pairing: Chris Evans x f!reader

Chapter Warnings: 18+ Dead Dove Do Not Eat, Disrespect to Homeless People, R4pe Fantasies, Masturbation, Dark Joke about Abortion, Hinted Xenophobia, Humiliation, Ghosts, Swearing, Alcoholic Use, Drug Use, Classism.

Word Count: 5k

Author Notes: This is a parody of the classic "A Christmas Carol" story by Dickens, I hope you come to enjoy it even though the pov holds cruel, toxic and abusive traits.

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

09:00am, 24th December 2023, New York City.

Oh how you hated the holidays. You hated the red and green colouring, you hated the carolling groups and bands singing every day in December leading up to the wretched twenty fifth. You hate the baby Jesus in a manager nativity set ups.

‘Jesus wasn’t even fucking born on Christmas. He was a January baby according to Jewish scholars. It was all a ploy to satisfy and celebrate Yule with pagans before encouraging indoctrination!!’

And the smell of peppermint, gingerbread and fatty sugary foods left you feeling sickly.

“Unnecessary calories to dissolve the enamel of my teeth when it comes back up in the  goddamn toilet.”

The cold air and the slippery frost brought you no delight. Along the way you would kick the snow men in your walking path. You despised the bratty children sitting on the Santa laps in the malls.

‘Their parents should know half of those fat ass Santa actors are just paedophiles getting their kicks once a year? Yea I’d love a little boy all prim and plump to sit on my lap if I was a sicko in a red suit too.’

You hated the fact they were bringing Christmas trees in the day after Halloween.

“Sure, it spins the wheel of capitalism but God, do they have to look so trashy? Christmas is once a year, not two months long.”

You rolled your eyes and scoffed as you strutted the street to your work place.

Your senior associate Marlene who you could’ve considered your friend had a heart attack early that year. She was a woman in her prime, at forty years old she had managed to build her business empire. No husband, no kids, no pets. She didn’t need those things, not when she raked in over four million dollars a year. She drank and smoked like a chimney, you wondered if it contributed to her death in the end. She was rumoured to be found naked, getting fucked by some no name sexy twenty-one year old playboy from South Korea. And among her blissful orgasm, her heart just couldn’t handle the pressure and faltered.

Imagine his horror. Balls deep and not knowing she had died. Little shit tried getting her money in the inheritance scheme. He tried pushing that he was her long committed boyfriend. One threat to the immigration department sent that kid running for the kills back to Seoul.

You were named successor in her Will. Now, it’s not like you needed her millions, you already had a full pocket. At twenty five you’d made your first million all because you picked the right pattern in your investments and put every cent into them. You worked instead of partied. And many had said behind your back that it made you a miserable sourpuss bitch with no friends. You didn’t need friends. Marlene was just a funny coincidence.

Some might have called you careless, impulsive, and greedy. But what that translates to you was the word ‘Wealth and Success’. You were wealthy and money made you happy. The more numbers, the more joy in your cold heart.

You entered the building that was now yours. Oh did I forget to remind you...you were the CEO of your tax collecting firm. I think that’s important for you to know.

Entering the sleek grey, white and black minimalist foyer you sighed in relief. No Christmas or holiday bullshit in here. You had banned all decorations and affiliations.

And you refused paid leave to anyone asking not to work on Christmas day. You remember scoffing last night at the amount of requests you had received about time off for the holidays.

‘I’m running a business, not a charity.’

Christmas was the best time of year for your job. So many stupid people take out stupid loans they can’t afford especially during the holidays period when gift giving is the centre cause of financial stress. You got a thrill out of denying loans and upping payment interest rates for those suckers who didn’t make their payments on time because they chose to spend the money meant to be going into your pocket on some disposable wrapping paper and a cheap pharmacy gift last minute.

As you stepped into the elevator you smiled cynically at the empty space. You could look at yourself in the mirror and pick apart all the things you loved and hated about your body. It was strangely therapeutic. Something about the critiques gave you a massive high.

But just as the elevator doors where closing a hand slammed hard through the gap.

“Wait!” came a familiar cry. Your face fell and you felt a tight discomfort seeing the face of your younger sister. Caroline.

Your eyes shot down to her belly. Big as a house in the ugliest knit Christmas sweater.

‘Pregnant again. Jesus Christ. What’s this? Number four now?’

You clenched your handbag tighter. You tried recalling some sort of baby shower invite from months ago, you totally forgot about it once you moved it to junk mail.

‘If she fucking asks me for money again, I swear to god she’s risking an abortion voucher in a Christmas card...are abortion vouchers even a thing?’

Caroline had married her highschool sweetheart, he was some sort of mechanic or something. A bum, like your Dad. You couldn’t believe she was dumb enough to breed with an imbecile like him. Mind you, her first son was clearly an teen pregnancy accident that sealed them together. And every year, she just seemed to pop out a new one. And every year that meant you gave her a fat cheque, usually six thousand dollars.

You ground your teeth as she forced herself inside and pressed the button of the doors shut immediately, not at all taking notice of you until mid way moving up in the building.

Her face lit up and she shrieked in delight at seeing you.  You strained a smile.

‘Yea, definitely looking for a handout.’

“Oh my god! I was about to fight security to come see you sissy!” she forced her arms around you. You bit your tongue. You hated hugs.

“Well…lovely seeing you too,” you muttered before awkwardly patting her back.

Her breath hitched at seeing the look on your face, “Sorry about not pre-warning, I did try calling you but your phone keeps going to voicemail.”

‘Oh good, she still hasn’t figured out I let them ring out.’

“And you didn’t reply to my emails.”

You fought a smirk, ‘because they go straight to junk mail’.

She smiled and babbled happily, “Anyway, I had to come here because I need to give you-“ she huffed and swiped a bead of sweat from her forehead before reaching into her nappy bag (that she treated like a handbag.) and retrieved a thick red envelope.

She handed it to you. Your manicured nails pinched the ugly stickers one of your nephews or nieces had chosen. Scribbled in absolute chicken scrap handwriting was your name, most likely also done by your nephew or nieces.

The elevator opened and you sighed, marching out to enter the offices with your solo office space down the hall with the largest window and finest view of the city below. You didn’t expect your sister to tail you. She waddled like a fast duck following you.

“I was thinking you should meet this guy that babysits-” She was talking to you about something but in all honesty, you weren’t listening until she mentioned the cursed words, “-Christmas Party.”

You deposited your handbag on your desk and spun on your heel. Your eyes wide, your smile straining into a sneer.

You snickered cruelly and laced your fingers together, “How many times have we discussed this? I. Don’t. Celebrate. Christmas. I don’t do presents, I don’t do carolling, I don’t do secret Santa’s and I sure as fucking hell don’t do Christmas Parties. I’m glad that you and Tim have fun with your kids and do all that meaningless stuff to shield them from the big bad world. I however am not in the mood for it. Work comes first. This is one of the busiest years of my life, the market is at an all time high in interests rates.”

She looked like she was growing smaller with every foul word that dripped like acid rain.

“It’s just one day, not even a full day. Just a few hours, not far from you,” she whispered and rubbed her belly comfortingly.

You shook your head and circled around your desk, “Might as well get this over with, you don’t need to ploy me with booze.”

You pulled out a cheque book from your drawer and slapped it down. You bent over and fished out a pen, pressing the ink to the slim piece of paper.

Your voice came out like a bark, “How much are you wanting this year?”

“Wh-what?” your sisters eyes grew wide.

You sighed and rolled your eyes, with a condescending tone, “How much money do you want to cover all the gifts? I hear Disneyland is great this time of year in Florida. I need a number. I have a busy day ahead of me so I’d just like to get this over and done with.”

Your sister didn’t answer. You glanced up. Her face was no longer smiling. She looked in pain. Her hand sat on top of her belly. She hissed and breathed out hard.

Her eyes were dimming down. She lost the joyful spark. She waddled to the guest chair in front of your desk and sat down.

She put the nappy bag on the floor.

 ‘great, thanks for the smell of cornflakes and breast milk on the carpet.’

Her breath turned husky and you started to reach for your desk phone ready to call a bloody ambulance to take her to the hospital. You couldn’t tell what the hell was wrong with her and prayed she wasn’t going into labour. You didn’t need to waste five thousand dollars on a carpet replacement because her waters might break.

Her eyes glared up at you as she tried to focus on pacing her breath. God, she looked like your mother with that look. It hurt. She got the best genes you had to admit. Even while pregnant she had this way about her that made men just want to beg for her number. You couldn’t tell if it was her ditsy personality or just good looks.

“Jim," Caroline corrected with strain, "-and I don’t need your money. We don’t want it. We have never have wanted it. This year, I just want you to put in the effort to spend Christmas with us as a family. You and I haven’t shared a Christmas since I was in middle school. My kids want their aunty to visit because I tell them you’re the coolest person alive...” her eyes narrowed, “Put the fucking cheque book away, and come to fucking Christmas dinner at least. It’s going to be at my house if you look at the invite that your nephew and nieces made special for you. They don’t want presents, they just want to see their aunty. Besides.... I told them you’d come if they put extra love into it.”

You chewed your inner cheek and stood up straight, crossing your arms and sat on the edge of your desk.

“You shouldn’t lie to your kids, Caroline,” you coolly said with icy impact.

You watched her eyes start to shine and water.

“Jesus,” you muttered, “Don’t fucking cry.”

She broke down immediately. You sighed with annoyance. ‘why did she have to come today of all days and act like this. It’s not a big deal. God.’

“You’re such a bitch and my kids have done nothing to you except love you unconditionally. The least you can do is show up,” Caroline struggled to stand out of the chair and when you reached out to help, she snapped like a firecracker and hissed, “Don’t fucking touch me.”

She groaned as she bent down, holding her belly and reached for her nappy bag, that she let you help her with. She suddenly looked so tired and deflated compared to when she had ducked into the elevator. You started to feel a tick of that itchy sympathy. Pregnancy always looked hard. Her first birth was so difficult, the second slipped right out but she didn’t have an epidural and the third time was an emergency c-section. In fact you weren’t even sure if she was meant to be having this fourth baby. It would be too risky. She could honestly kill herself. Now that was a bolt of fear that coursed through you.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” you sniffled, trying to distract your little sister from her anger.

She looked even more offended and scoffed, “You know, if you had even tried to come to my baby shower, you could’ve eaten one of the gender reveal cupcakes.”

‘Ouch.’

You looked down at your Valentino pumps. Seven years younger than you and she still managed to put you in your place with the snap of her fingers.

She rubbed her wet eyes with the tips of her fingers.

“I worry about you...” she mumbled, “You might have a lot of money Y/N, but money can’t buy you everything. Don’t you want to share memories?”

You tried hiding the laugh limbing your throat,, “Not this argument again...come on, I’ll walk you out and hire you a cab.”

You escorted her back to the elevator, all your employees watching and whispering about it. You knew your office needed thicker glass.

As you quietly pressed the button down, your sister finally said, “It’s twins. A boy and girl.”

You didn’t say anything for a while. Eventually you only nodded and whispered, “Congratulations. You and Tim must be excited.”

“Jim," she grounded, "-and I are flat out on our feet with the others but yea...I’m thinking about naming the girl after mom.”

Again you didn’t respond. You wanted this interaction to be finished. You wanted to go to work and drink away the days leading up to New Year’s. Maybe you should take a trip overseas. You might run into a handsome one night stand with an attractive accent.

Your sister turned and hugged you again, she rubbed her sweet face into your shoulder and sighed, “I’m sorry for snapping. Please don’t be mad. Please promise me you’ll come to the party, even for five minutes.”

Her pleading eyes finally cracked your ice wall.

“Fine. Five minutes.”

The squealing giggle of delight made you groan internationally instantly regretting your words. Nonetheless you took it upon yourself to at least hug her back. God help you, you didn’t know how you’d survive.

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

10:00pm, 24th December 2023, New York City.

On your way home you discovered with aggravation all the cabs and ubers nearby had been booked up and the traffic in the city horrendous. Of course. On Christmas eve it would look like this.  You decided to march your way to the subway. It would be the quickest way back home.

You had to cross the park to get there though.

And among your walking you passed a man laying down on a bench. He wore a baseball cap that hid his face. He wore a blanket over his shoulders. A puff of cold air escaped his pink lips.

His shadowed face peered up at you and held up a piece of cardboard that read the following: Homeless, please donate a food and blankets.

And something inside you cracked again. You fought the urge to pull out your purse and give him the only hundred dollar bill you had. You looked him up and down. And froze. Next to him was a bottle of liquor. Something malicious dripped from your lips. Words filled with cruelty and hate. It was bold and dangerous. But you bet he was drunk.

“What’s wrong? Aren’t there any shelters taking in scum? Are all the prisons full? Maybe if you got off your ass and got a real fucking job, you would be too busy making money instead of swilling down booze!”

He did not react in the way you expected. He smiled at an ankle, winked and held a finger up to his lips.

Your face curdled in disgust and hacked back your throat, spitting on him.

“Booze bum,” you muttered, and marched on, away from him.

Your chin jerked high. It was a method of teaching you had learnt in your youth. Shame someone until they commit to a goal and out perform it. To this day you are still doing that very thing, why not share that gift of knowledge with others?

You scowled the entire train ride home and flicked through your emails.

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

11:10pm, 24th December 2023, New York City.

Alone in your penthouse apartment, you padded your way to bed scrolling through your phone. In your hand you cradled a wine glass and set it on the bedside table.

Beneath the soft cotton covers you sighed happily and used your phone to command the fireplace to be lit up. A fake flame on a flat screen tv with heaters all around you, filling your place with warmth.  Laying back into your pillows you scrolled your phone and frowned at all the Christmas themed posts online, all the tutorials and recipes you’d never follow and all the Christmas stories you’d never read.

Tossing the phone beside your wine glass, your hands snuck down into a drawer and retrieved your absolute best friend in the world. She was thick, long and quiet, totally sky blue and had twenty different settings. You slid the vibrator under the covers and shimmied out of your underwear. Your fingers fumbled, touching your wet cunt.

The alcohol was finally hitting you, warming you up. You weakly reached for your vibrator. You knew it would be a comfort to take away the anger and stress away from your day at work.

You pressed the silicone to your clit and switched on the toy. A soft sigh came from you as you rubbed it along your lower lips. You fluttered your eyes shut and tried to imagine a person and you having sex.

‘A policeman? No. College professor? No. Loser doorman? No…’ and then your eyes flickered in a quick vision of the homeless man from the park… ‘Yes. He must be miserable, pissed off, angry, he smiled but that would have been a lie, his long finger he held to his mouth should stuff itself inside me.’

Your hand slid up and pulled down the front of your night down. You dug your nails into your breast before tugging your nipple hard. You whined as you bucked your hips into your toy that you playfully prodded and tore out of you. You imagined that same stranger ripping your dress from your body and dragging you into the snowy woods.

Rape fantasies weren’t uncommon for you. It was something about the power struggle that sent thrills up and down your spine. You liked the pain. You liked being forced to give up your control. You slid the plastic cock deep into your slick pussy and mewled.

The homeless man would hold a knife to your throat and bend you over a log, no, no, that bench, so out and open and public for anyone to catch him tearing you apart. His hand would lick your skin in stinging slaps. The alcohol on his breath would be putrid. He’d call you names, whore, slut, bitch, cunt, fuckpig. And you would be totally helpless…

You lazily rolled over onto your belly and forced your ass up, your bed sheets falling down your thighs.

You pushed the dildo back in deep and turned on the highest setting, biting the pillow under you. You fucked yourself hard until it hurt.

The homeless man fantasy went on and on, forcing you to cum and cry. You didn’t care if neighbours or tenants below you heard. You imagined this terrible man after fucking you raw making you sit in his filthy lap, fucking you with the empty liquor bottle neck and letting strangers walking past the chance to spit on you and slap you until you cummed.

The fantasy didn’t have a fanciful ending fleshed out. You could only imagine him dragging you back to some ghetto homeless tent village under one of the city bridges and whoring your cunt out to his homeless buddies. You wanted to submit, to be used like that…

But not in the real world. Fuck no. Your reputation mattered greatly. You were too stubborn to willingly date a man and ask him to do something taboo like consensual non-consent play.

You tore the blue cock out and pressed it to your clit, riding out an ultimate orgasm that left your body feeling like jelly. Slumping forward you groaned into the pillows, you knew you had to eventually get up and pee. The alcohol still in your system made the journey feel almost impossible. But when your bare ass hit the seat, you leant back and sighed. 'UTI prevented!'

Getting back to bed wasn’t as hard as getting to the bathroom. You breathed in the smell of your own sexual prowess. No shame. You put away your toy and before you could search for your discarded underwear, you heard your phone pinged. You grunted with annoyance.

You glanced at the screen; it was a text from Caroline.

*Told the kids you are coming tomorrow! They’re so excited to see their aunty! Xoxo*

‘oh right…her Christmas party…it’s tomorrow…' you still hadn’t even looked at the invitation. Anger started burning its way into your chest when you saw the emojis and gifs she attached. Santa and reindeers and snowmen. God you fucking hated Christmas!! She didn’t need to remind you. You didn’t plan to be there longer than the strick three hundred seconds. The miserable evil stabbed your heart again.

It out you so over the edge you began to type, *Tell them I changed my mind, I’m busy.*

Before your thumb could slam on the message send, something strange occurred. The penthouse apartment lights started to flicker on and off repeatedly.

‘A circuit must’ve snapped. I know I turned off all the lights.’

You slammed your phone down and ripped off your bed sheets. Marching over to the telecom beside you door you prepared the mental speech of anger and abuse you’d deliver on whatever poor soul was handling the front desk of the apartment complex tonight.

You pressed the button hard and when no welcoming comment came you decided to wait.

You waited and waited and still no one acknowledged you over the telecom. There was a noise coming from it though. It was a sound of ragged breathing. Squinting with absolute judgement you hissed into the microphone.

You sobered up your voice and rubbed your eyes. Your wine was knocking around your insides at that point, it had polluted your blood. You just needed to stay awake for a little longer.

“This is penthouse three. Your lights are dimming and flickering out. I want someone to change all that bulbs and check the power wires immediately. Do I make myself clear?”

The unusual panting was still there and getting louder. You shook your head. Someone should’ve been repeating back your request and discussing a mode of action.

“Hello?” you angrily huffed into the microphone when no answer came for a long time.

You hissed, “Now you listen here. I don’t give a fuck it’s Christmas eve. You’re job is on the line if you cant fix my fucking lights.”

And then the line went totally dead and your apartment was entirely darkened. You groaned with anguish. Using your phone flash light you returned to your room.

“Fine,” you grumbled as you pulled the covers Of your bed back again, “Probably too drunk on eggnog to give a damn. Say goodbye to those two dollar tips dickhead.”

You laid back and fished out your bonnet, carefully lipping your hair inside the protective layer. You rolled onto your side under the covers and shut your eyes.

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

12:00am, 25th December 2023, New York City.

For some reason at 12am you received a very obnoxiously loud phone call. Blindly you reached for it and accepted the call. You had a suspicion it was a prank call from overseas.

“Y/N,” said the caller. Your eyes cleared up fast at the sound of a voice you knew too well.

You almost dropped your phone. Surely it wasn’t her calling. You had seen her body at her funeral. She chuckled on the other side, her voice was just as rusted as you remembered. In the dream she had come over to your house and had a sleep over together.

Your eyes widened, “Wh-who is this?” you asked, “Do you fucking know what time it is?”

The identical voice of your passed companion echoed back, “In life you knew me as Marlene Jeong.”

You hung up the phone fast and sat up straight. Her hands trembled and the phone screamingly made another phone call from the same unknown number.

You answered it and heard her shriek, “Don’t you know hanging up like that is rude.”

You took a deep breath in. And shut your eyes. No. It couldn’t be.

“This prank isnt funny,” you barked into the receiver.

“Well I’d hope not. You know I wasn’t a fan of funny,” she grumbled back.

You picked up the phone and huffed, “If you’re really Marlene...tell me something only I would know...”

The phone went quiet and clicked off. You smirked, 'Yea, that's what I thought you sick fuck.'

The air around you grew colder. With the power out you accepted that the central heating was out too. Getting out of bed you stumbled down the hall to the linen cupboard and pulled out a few more thicker blankets. When you returned back to your room you screamed and jumped ten feet in the air, dropping the load of blankets.

Marlene was sitting on your bed, scrolling through your phone. She was not herself and yet was at the same time. She looked the same except for the fact her entire body was a light blue and translucent. She was naked. And you could see her translucent organs. In her hand was a false spiritual cigarette. Smoking rising from the tip and faded into the darkness. And don’t let me forget a important detail. She was floating and parts of her body wrapped in chains.

Hearing you, she turned her face away from your phone and winked. You slammed back into a wall, trying to get away from her as she floated closer to you. She took a mean drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke into your fear filled face. You could’ve fainted. The smoke didn’t smell like anything and was rather a cold breeze to your cheek.

You flinched and whimpered, “Marlene...what the fuck.”

She smirked and rolled mid air upside down,

“Long time no see. Or well...you can’t see me but I see you basically every day,” she cackled.

Your lips fell apart, “Wha-how- why...why are you hear? Should you be dead?”

She flicked the cigarette of ash that turned into blue light specs and disappeared before touching the floor.

“Oh trust dear, I’m dead, dead as a doornail. Little Kyong gave me a killer orgasm, literally,” she took another long drag, “I had no clue what was coming and poof! I’m on the floor choking and groaning and next thing I wake up to, is you moving your shit into my office and my penthouse. But I digress sweet snake...I’m not here on a social call...I’m here to send you a warning.”

Your head felt dizzy, “A warning? The fuck? Am I going to die soon or something?” you wrapped your arms around yourself.

She smiled and shook her head, “Oh no...no, no....something a tad more painful. See, I have been sent to play 'angel Gabriel' so to speak and inform you of a supernatural message.”

She floated around, chains at her wrist dragged behind her as she did. Marlene sharpened her gaze at you.

‘Woah did I take one too many Percocet with my wine...I must be high.’

“You are saveable unlike my dead cold self,” she said flying back to your bed and lewdly laying down, “My dead frozen heart could not thaw,” she sighed and tapped her chest.

You could see inside her at the organ most resembling heart was literally made of icy and was not beating. It was disturbing.  

“I’m destined to float while tethered to the world unseen, unheard, unloved…forgotten. But you? You still have a chance to atone. A spirit shall arrive and come to you in three shades…Christmas past, present and future. It shall greet you hourly between one and three o’clock.”

You timidly stepped closer.

“You need to open your mind and open your heart or else-“ she floated above you and groaned, “This will be your future fate.”

You rubbed your eyes and slapped your cheek. Marlene’s ghost was still there. She held up her wrist, showing off the manacle around it, “This is a fate no one wishes, trust me on that.”

Her face leant in closer to your face. Her hair floated around her like water tendrils.

She rattled the chains together, clinking them and explained, “The spirit will test you. And they will test you fairly. They will decide what to do with you after. They call themselves, Christmas past, present and future.”

When she had said these words, Marlenes ghost faded away, disappearing into the cold, quiet night. It took you a few minutes to catch your breath. You couldn’t believe or make sense of it and no matter how many times you pinched of slapped yourself, you found yourself still in the unexplainable dream. You tossed the blankets from the floor onto the bed. You had another drink of wine before you chose to return to bed. You tugged the warmest and softest blanket up to your chin. You were scared and confused. Your eyes grew heavier as you forced yourself to forget and ignore the apparition of Marlene chained nude and talking in riddles.

You laid your cheek into the pillow and fell into a deep slumber.

HELPINES:

If you are a victim of sexual abuse, assault or domestic violence or know someone who is please reach out to these links that share helpline services, phone numbers or emails. Consent and respect is important in every relationship whether between friends, family or even strangers.

Australian Helpline Services

UK Helpline Services

American Helpline services

India Helpline Services

#chris evans x female reader #chris evans x y/n #chris evans x you #chris evans x reader #chris evans #dark!chris evans #tsoc

[english-history-trip]

Aldgate Pump: "The Pump of Death"

Watch these guys pump water. They seem unaware they are in the presence of the notorious “Pump of Death” In 1876, the water began to taste strange and was found to contain liquid human remains which had seeped into the underground stream from cemeteries.

Several hundred people died in the resultant Aldgate Pump Epidemic as a result of drinking polluted water – though this was obviously a distant memory by the nineteen twenties when Whittard’s tea merchants used to “always get the kettles filled at the Aldgate Pump so that only the purest water was used for tea tasting.”

Yet before it transferred to a supply from the New River Company of Islington, the spring water of the Aldgate Pump was appreciated by many for its abundant health-giving mineral salts, until – in an unexpectedly horrific development – it was discovered that the calcium in the water had leached from human bones.

This bizarre phenomenon quickly entered popular lore, so that a bouncing cheque was referred to as “a draught upon Aldgate Pump,” and in rhyming slang “Aldgate Pump” meant to be annoyed – “to get the hump.” The terrible revelation confirmed widespread morbid prejudice about the East End, of which Aldgate Pump was a landmark defining the beginning of the territory. The “Pump of Death” became emblematic of the perceived degradation of life in East London and it was once declared with superlative partiality that “East of Aldgate Pump, people cared for nothing but drink, vice and crime.”

Today this sturdy late-eighteenth century stone pump stands sentinel as the battered reminder of a former world, no longer functional, and lost amongst the traffic and recent developments of the modern City. No-one notices it anymore and its fearsome history is almost forgotten, despite the impressive provenance of this dignified ancient landmark, where all mileages East of London are calculated. Even in the old photographs you can trace how the venerable pump became marginalised, cut down and ultimately ignored. Aldgate Well was first mentioned in the thirteenth century – in the reign of King John – and referred to by sixteenth century historian, John Stowe, who described the execution of the Bailiff of Romford on the gibbet “near the well within Aldgate.” In “The Uncommercial Traveller,” Charles Dickens wrote, “My day’s business beckoned me to the East End of London, I had turned my face to that part of the compass… and had got past Aldgate Pump.” And before the “Pump of Death” incident, Music Hall composer Edgar Bateman nicknamed “The Shakespeare of Aldgate Pump,” wrote a comic song in celebration of Aldgate Pump – including the lyric line “I never shall forget the gal I met near Aldgate Pump…”

The pump was first installed upon the well head in the sixteenth century, and subsequently replaced in the eighteenth century by the gracefully tapered and rusticated Portland stone obelisk that stands today with a nineteenth century gabled capping. The most remarkable detail to survive to our day is the elegant brass spout in the form of a wolf’s head – still snarling ferociously in a vain attempt to maintain its “Pump of Death” reputation – put there to signify the last of these creatures to be shot outside the City of London.

Tantalisingly, the brass button that controls the water outlet is still there, yet, although it is irresistible to press it, the water ceased flowing in the last century. A drain remains beneath the spout where the stone is weathered from the action of water over centuries and there is an elegant wrought iron pump handle – enough details to convince me that the water might return one day.

-- "The Gentle Author", Spitalfields Life

#london #this blogger had updated with an interesting post about london life and history every day since 2009 #gonna get quite lost in there #victorians

[warrioreowynofrohan]

I rewatched the Alistair Sim (1950s) movie of A Christmas Carol tonight and wanted to jot down some thoughts.

The first part of the movie, up to and including Marley’s Ghost, is extremely faithful to the book - to the point of replicating most of the original dualogue, and also adding some of the lines from Dickens’ narration to the dialogue. About the only addition is Scrooge harshly refusing a debtor who begs for a few more days to pay, something which is in line with Scrooge’s typical behaviour - as shown by the couple in the Christmas Yet to Come part of the book, who are relieved by his death because they are unlikely to meet with another creditor who is so merciless - but which is not directly depicted in the book. There’s even a scene where a blind man’s dog pulls him up an alley away from Scrooge, like the narration in the book describes! And the change in music from Bob Cratchit joyfully heading home on Christmas Eve to Scrooge taking his “melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern” perfectly conveys the change in mood in the book between those two scenes. The ghosts mourning that they cannot help the poor woman, at the end of the Marley sequence, are also included.

Oh, the other addition in that section is Scrooge’s statement that his nephew married “against his [Scrooge’s] will”, which is not specifically from the book.

The Christmas Past section is the part where the adaptation makes the most changes. Fan is an adult (or at least is, like Scrooge, in her late teens) when she comes to get Scrooge from the school; his relationship with her is given more centrality as he says she is the only one who ever cared about him, and that if he is not to be lonely then she must live forever. She is also shown dying after giving birth to Fred, and it is said that Scrooge’s mother also died giving birth to him, which his father resented him for. Also, Fan on her deathbed asks Scooge to look after Fred, but only after he’s left the room, so he doesn’t hear her; the moment he hears it is when we see the present-day Scrooge express real remorse. None of this is from the book - Scrooge’s mother clearly did not die giving birth to him in the book, as his sister Fan is much younger than him there. (Also, like all other adaptations I have seen, Scrooge’s memories of the joy he found in reading during his lonely Christmases at school are omitted.)

Scrooge’s business career is also expanded upon, with him (after Fan’s death, which is thereby implied to have embittered him) leaving Fezziwig’s employ for that of an unscrupulous man who also employs Mr. Marley; Fezziwig going out of business; and Scrooge later buying a controlling share in his unscrupulous employer’s company. I can see why the movie does this. The change lets it more dramatically show Scrooge’s change from the young man who worked for Fezziwig to the harsher, more ambitious, more avaricious man he became, rather than us hearing that only from his fiancée. For this reason, I’m more okay with this expansion than I am with the changes around Fan; I think the latter too heavily frames Scrooge’s later mindset as due to grief turned to bitterness, whereas in the book it’s more about greed borne of the desire for worldly respect and prestige.

Likewise, like The Muppet Christmas Carol, the movie shows Scrooge and his later-fiancée (here called Alice, not Belle) at Fezziwig’s party - a change which lets us see more of the relationship than just its end.

We also get a (rather unnecessary, IMO) deathbed-repentance scene from Marley, where hetells Scrooge they were wrong and to save himself, but Scrooge does not understand. There is nothing of the sort in the book.

There’s also another interesting shift. In the movie, Fezziwig says he’d rather go out of business than adopt the “new methods” of doing business, and then he in fact does go out of business. Alice says that when she became engaged to “they were both poor and content to be so,” full stop. In the book she says, “we were both poor and content to be so, until we could improve our fortunes by patient industry”. In a way, this feels like the movie grappling with a question surrounding the book - can one run a successful business in an ethical way? can one become well-off ethically? - that the book itself does not take up; but the movie ends without returning to the question and Scrooge’s later reformation indicates that yes, one can. Also in this vein, where the book shows Scrooge’s fiancée later on happily married with a houseful of children, the movie shows her caring for poor people on Christmas in something like a homeless shelter/food kitchen, which further dramatizes the differences between the paths they have chosen, that of avarice and that of charity.

The section with Christmas Present is very close to the book - the Cratchit family dinner again uses much of the original dialogue, and also integrates parts of Dickens’ narration into the dialogue. Christmas Present is almost exactly as the book describes him, and as the original illustrations in the book shown him, and even the celebration of the “miners, who labour in the bowels of the earth” is shown. Fred’s Christmas party is shown, and even the minor characters of Tupper and the woman he’s courting from the book (though in the book she is described as the ‘fat sister’ and here she is not fat). Fred’s joke about Scrooge is omitted and his goodwill to him is emphasized (the opposite of Muppet Christmas Carol, which focuses on the joke and on no one liking Scrooge; I think this versiondoes better in that respect).

The section with Christmas Yet To Come is similar to the book (though it starts off with Tiny Tim’s death - a good choice, I think, as it keeps all the material surrounding Scrooge’s death as a single sequence). The debtor family who are relieved at Scrooge’s death are left out, but the rest is similar to the book, and the rage-and-bone shop scene conserves a lot of the origibal dialogue word-for-word. This movie is where Mrs. Dilber as the charwoman - a small change from the book - and the expansion of her character comes from, and she is a good comic character with several great lines. The scene in the bedroom with the body is omitted, which I think is a necessity of film - even if Scrooge failed to recognize his own charwoman and his own curtains, film would make it too implausible that he could fail to recognize his own room.

Muppet Christmas Carol has a much better and spookier Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come than the 1951 film has - the faceless void is very unsettling, whereas in 1951 the spirit is clearly just a person with a black sheet of fabric over them (in one scene you can see the person’s face through the fabric). But that’s the difference between special effects in the 1950s and the 1990s.

Scrooge’s delight at finding he is still alive is dramatic verging on hysterical and gives some more funny moments, and, as in the book, he sends the turkey to the Cratchits’ anonymously and then goes to visit his nephew’s party (rather than showing up at the Cratchits’ with the turkey in person as in the Muppet version’s crowd song). And the depuction of him chuckling as he sends the turkey and writes the note is direct from the book. His apology to Fred’s wife feels like it has too much emotional emphasis given that he has never met her before; it’s as though the movie is treating her as a proxy for the apologies he would like to make to Fan and to Alice. But the scene on the whole is lovely, and the ending with Bob Cratchit is very good.

On the whole, this is a good adaptation - better than the Muppet one in some ways (particularly the Christmas Present scene, where it focuses on others’ celebrations as well as how Scrooge has made the Cratchits’ lives harder, whereas the Muppet one focuses on Scrooge being disliked). Its main weaknesses in my opinion are 1) an overemphasis on the role of Fan’s death in the younger Scrooge’s downward moral trajectory; and 2) Scrooge’s desire to change not coming until very later in the film, when he sees the callous reaction to his death.

I would recommend this adaptation to anyone who hasn’t seen it - it’s up there with the Muppet one as one of the best that has been made, and I was amazed at how many lines from the narration they had added to the dialogue, and how much of the atmosphere of the narration they captured (as one example, Bob is actually shown trying to warm himself at the candle). It’s available both in black and white and in a colourized version (as in, they later came along and physically coloured in the film reels; I can’t imagine how much work that must have been!).

#a christmas carol #dickens december #charles dickens #ebenezer scrooge #alistair sim

[princesssarisa]

"A Christmas Carol": Canon vs. Fanon

@ariel-seagull-wings, @reds-revenge, @thealmightyemprex, @the-blue-fairie, @thatscarletflycatcher, @faintingheroine

Since my overview of the various Christmas Carol adaptations isn't finished yet, and since the Christmas season doesn't officially end (as per the Church calendar) until this coming Friday, I thought I would share another Christmas Carol-related post. A long one, addressing the always-important subject in fiction fandoms of "canon vs. fanon." Certain details that are widely believed and used in adaptations, but which aren't really true, or necessarily true, in the book.

Belle is Fezziwig’s daughter. As far as I know, this is only true in the musical Scrooge: the original 1970 film, the 1992 stage version, and the 2022 animated remake Scrooge: A Christmas Carol. The book never says any such thing. Fezziwig does have three daughters, but we don’t know if Belle is one of them or not.

Belle left Scrooge because he repeatedly insisted on delaying their wedding until he had earned more money. In The Muppet Christmas Carol, the direct catalyst for Belle ending their engagement is that Scrooge insists on postponing their wedding for “another year.” A few other versions also allude to Scrooge’s insisting on delaying their marriage. But the book says nothing about wedding-postponement; Belle only speaks of Scrooge having lost all his “nobler aspirations” in favor of “the master-passion, Gain,” and of knowing that if they weren’t engaged already, he would never choose to marry a girl as poor as she is.

Bob Cratchit has to plead for Scrooge to give him Christmas Day off. This is probably another misconception that stems from The Muppet Christmas Carol, where Scrooge initially tries to give Bob and the other bookkeepers just half an hour off on Christmas morning, and Bob is forced to persuade him not to open the office on Christmas because all the other businesses will be closed. But the equivalent scene in the book doesn't play out this way. Scrooge complains about having to give Bob the day off, but he makes no attempt to avoid doing it. Since some employers in 19th century London did make their employees work on Christmas Day – for example, the milliner whom Martha Cratchit works for – the fact that Scrooge does give Bob the day off without being asked, despite complaining about it, is probably an early hint that he's not all bad.

Character names. Mrs. Cratchit's first name is never given as "Emily" – that name comes from The Muppet Christmas Carol. Fred's surname is never said to be "Holywell" – that name comes from the 1984 TV adaptation with George C. Scott. Scrooge's ex-fiancée is named Belle, not Isabel – unless you're talking about the musical Scrooge or Mickey's Christmas Carol. Somehow or other, these specific names from adaptations have stuck in people's consciousness and been applied to all versions of the characters, when Dickens never wrote them.

Fan died in childbirth. The 1951 film has firmly planted this assumption in many minds: that Scrooge's sister Fan died at Fred’s birth and Scrooge despises his nephew because he blames him for her death. But Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past only says, “She died a woman, and had, as I think, children,” and Scrooge replies “One child.” No one ever says she died in childbirth.

Mrs. Fezziwig is fat. “One vast, substantial smile” is the way the book describes her; this is all we have to indicate whether or not she’s fat.

Marley’s Ghost dwells in hell. Few of us can forget the dark comedy sequence in 1970’s Scrooge where Marley’s Ghost welcomes Scrooge into hell during his vision of Christmas Yet to Come. Nor is that film the only version to imply that Marley resides in hell and that Scrooge will too unless he redeems himself. Even in The Muppet Christmas Carol, the deleted last verse of the song “Marley and Marley” implies that the ghosts are going back to hell after visiting Scrooge. But the book’s theology is nowhere near so traditional. Marley never mentions hell: he only speaks of wandering the world. In Dickens’s Carol, it seems that hell is on earth. The souls of sinners are punished not with fire and brimstone, but by being forced to wander and helplessly witness the suffering of the living, which they either caused or failed to alleviate when they themselves were alive.

Mrs. Dilber is Scrooge’s charwoman. First of all, Mrs. Dilber is the laundress in the rag-and-bone shop sequence. Despite several adaptations giving the charwoman her name instead, the latter goes unnamed in the book. Secondly, there’s no indication that either thieving woman works for Scrooge, rather than for the person handling his affairs after his death. Scrooge himself shows no sign of knowing the thieves. (Though to be fair, it’s not out-of-character for Scrooge to pay so little attention to his own charwoman and laundress that he doesn’t recognize them, and their insulting remarks about him can be seen to imply that they knew him personally.) Memorable though Mrs. Dilber’s role is as Marley’s and later Scrooge’s charwoman in the 1951 film, it isn’t her role in the book.

Scrooge buys a goose for the Cratchits on Christmas morning. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard Scrooge’s gift of poultry referred to as a goose. I even remember once reading a review of one of the film versions where the critic complained that the screenplay “Americanized” the gift by changing it from a goose into a turkey. But these are Dickens’ words: “It was a Turkey!” When people misremember it as a goose, they’re confusing it with the goose the Cratchits eat in the Christmas Present sequence. Scrooge’s turkey popularized turkey for Christmas dinner after A Christmas Carol became a success and helped lead to its replacing goose as the most ubiquitous Christmas poultry.

Scrooge’s chief vice is that he hates Christmas. It should go without saying that this is a gross oversimplification. Scrooge’s greed and miserliness, his cold indifference to the poor, his shabby treatment of Bob Cratchit and neglect of Bob’s needy family, his rejection of his own nephew, and his general bitterness and self-isolation from the world are all more significant than his disdain for Christmas. The latter is only a symptom of a much larger problem and his ultimate vow to “honor Christmas in [his] heart” means to embrace the spirit of love and good will, not just to celebrate the holiday.

Scrooge changes his ways out of fear. Again and again in pop culture, we hear the claim that Scrooge is “frightened into changing.” But if fear were all it took, then only Marley’s ghost would need to visit to warn him of damnation, or else only the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to show him his bleak, lonely death. The Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present would serve no purpose. That statement overlooks the fact that reliving his past softens his heart by reawakening old emotions and reminding him of what his greed cost him, that seeing others’ present joy at Christmas makes him want to share it, and that observing the Cratchits and Tiny Tim teaches him to care about them and want to help them.

Scrooge constantly says “Bah! Humbug!” Believe it or not, he only utters those iconic words together twice. Several other times he says “humbug” by itself, but only twice, in just one scene, does he precede it with “Bah!”

Scrooge fell in love with Belle while working for Fezziwig. It’s ubiquitous for adaptations of the Carol to show Belle at the Fezziwig Christmas party. Whether young Scrooge is shown proposing to her there, meeting her there for the first time, or just dancing with her, even the most faithful adaptations include her. It’s easy to forget that Dickens doesn’t feature her in that sequence at all! We don’t know if Scrooge met and fell in love with her while he was Fezziwig’s apprentice or later in his youth. The book never tells us.

Scrooge has a large hooked nose. It’s been ubiquitous to depict Scrooge this way ever since John Leech did in his original illustrations. Of course, Leech didn’t work in a vacuum either: nearly all greedy or miserly men in fiction tend to be depicted with large curving noses, probably because greed, miserliness, and large hooked noses are all anti-Semitic stereotypes (see “Scrooge is Jewish” below). But Dickens only describes Scrooge’s nose as “pointed.” He never mentions its size or anything else about its shape.

Scrooge is a crooked businessman. Occasionally, adaptations will hint that Scrooge engages in illegal business practices. But the book never implies any such thing. He's just an extremely conservative businessman, who strictly and coldly follows the rules of making profit, and follows the rules of decency and charity that his society enforces (e.g. paying his taxes to support the workhouses for the poor, giving his clerk a Christmas holiday with pay), but sees no point in doing anything beyond that. His harshest, most unfeeling speeches were typical conservative arguments in the politics of Dickens's England. He sees himself as having done nothing wrong, and the fact that Dickens calls him a "sinner" anyway reflects a perspective other than the law.

Scrooge is a fair and reasonable employer to Bob Cratchit. This argument is sometimes made by conservative critics. After all, Bob and his family live in a house, not a tenement (never mind that it’s a four-room house for eight people), they can afford a goose and plum pudding for Christmas dinner (never mind that their feast would have probably cost Bob a full week’s wages), and Scrooge gives him Christmas Day off with pay (just one day off a year, with extreme reluctance). As for Scrooge’s stinginess with the coal in his office, these critics say, why shouldn’t Bob just wear an overcoat and save the money? (Never mind that Bob has no overcoat.) And as for Tiny Tim, they say, most families lost at least one child in the days before modern medicine. (As if that somehow exempted employers from trying to save their employees’ children from preventable deaths.) Besides, they say, it was irresponsible of Bob and his wife to have six children in the first place. (To quote the Ghost of Christmas Present: “Oh God! To hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”) It should go without saying that these arguments are precisely the kind of sentiments Dickens wrote the Carol to argue against.

Scrooge is Jewish. It’s no surprise that some people jump to this conclusion. Many aspects of Scrooge’s character mirror anti-Semitic stereotypes. He’s greedy, miserly, works as a financier, disdains Christmas, has a Hebrew name from the Old Testament (Ebenezer), and in pop culture is often depicted with a large, hooked nose (see above). It’s entirely fair for critics to complain about the Jewish “coding” in his character. But if Dickens had meant for Scrooge to literally be a Jew, he would presumably have called him a Jew, as he notoriously did with Oliver Twist’s Fagin. Old Testament names were common among Christians in 18th and 19th century England, Scrooge’s nephew Fred is a Christmas-loving Christian, and in the Christmas Past sequence, his sister Fan says they’ll be together “all the Christmas long,” indicating that his family celebrated the holiday in his childhood. There’s no real hint of Jewishness whatsoever.

Scrooge only pursued wealth for Belle’s sake until after she left him. Some critics try to defend young Scrooge against Belle’s accusation that “another idol [had] displaced [her]” by arguing that he only wanted to be rich for her sake, and that he only really turned to greed to fill the void after she ended their engagement. Several adaptations also emphasize that his motive (at least at first) was to provide for Belle. But Dickens’s young Scrooge never argues that he only pursues wealth for Belle’s sake – only that he’s grown “wiser” by striving to stave off poverty, and that despite it all he’s not changed toward Belle. Nor does Dickens’s narration ever imply that Belle judges him unfairly. He describes young Scrooge’s face as already showing signs of “avarice,” with “an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root.” And when Belle says that if their engagement had never been, he would never choose a dowerless bride now, Dickens writes that he “seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition” before attempting “with a struggle” to deny it… and even then, he never says he would still choose her, only “You think not.” It seems to me that Dickens meant for Belle to be right.

Scrooge’s father was cold and distant because of grief at his wife’s death. Again and again, adaptations of Scrooge’s childhood explicitly state that Scrooge’s mother is dead, and often imply that his father was embittered and hardened by his grief for his wife, explaining why he neglected his son at boarding school. But the book never even mentions Scrooge’s mother. She might have still been alive when he was a child, for all we know. Nor is any explanation given for why his father neglected him, nor for why he eventually became kinder and brought him home.  Dickens didn’t choose to flesh out Scrooge’s childhood that far.

Scrooge’s mother died at his birth. Elaborating on the above, the two most acclaimed film versions of the Carol (the 1951 and 1984 versions) both explicitly say that Scrooge’s mother died in childbirth and his father neglected him because he blamed him for her death. But as mentioned above, Scrooge’s mother is never actually said to be dead. Furthermore, Fan is Scrooge’s younger sister in the book (the ’51 and  ’84 film versions both make her the older sibling, a young woman instead of a child), so unless their father remarried and she’s actually Scrooge’s half-sister, Scrooge’s birth couldn’t possibly have killed their mother.

Scrooge’s only childhood hardship was loneliness. Rarely do adaptations depict Scrooge’s childhood boarding school as the decrepit place the book describes, with its damp and decaying exterior, cold and dreary rooms, and air of “too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.” Nor do they usually portray the schoolmaster (if they depict him at all) as the imposing figure with the “terrible voice” and glare of “ferocious condescension” that Dickens describes. It’s a surprise that even the adaptations most determined to flesh out Scrooge’s backstory tend to just highlight the loneliness of his childhood, and/or his mistreatment by his father that the book only vaguely alludes to, rather than lean hard into the “Dickensian” nature of the school as Dickens described it.

Scrooge's worst traumas all happened at Christmas, which is why he hates the holiday. Well, it's true that young Scrooge was at his loneliest at Christmas as a boy, when he was left alone at boarding school while all the other boys went home. And it's true that his only friend Jacob Marley died on Christmas Eve. It's also probably true that Belle broke off their engagement at Christmastime – all the other scenes the Ghost of Christmas past shows to Scrooge takes place at Christmas, so it does seem most likely that this particular scene does too. But Dickens never explicitly names Christmas as the time when Belle and Scrooge's split took place. Most adaptations place it on Christmas Eve or thereabouts, but at least one very book-faithful adaptation, Richard Williams's 1971 animated short, sets the scene in a green park in the spring or summer. Nor, unlike in some adaptations, is Fan said to have died at Christmastime. She almost definitely didn't, since the Ghost only mentions her death rather than taking Scrooge to revisit it.

Scrooge visits the Cratchit house on Christmas Day. Many adaptations condense the action to have Scrooge visit the Cratchits and show them his newfound benevolence on Christmas Day itself. But in the book, he reveals his transformation to Bob when he arrives at work on St. Stephen’s Day.

Scrooge wears a nightshirt throughout his adventure with the spirits. So many adaptations depict Scrooge in a nightshirt that it can be hard to imagine him dressed in any other way. This is no doubt enhanced by the fact that in John Leech’s original illustrations, Scrooge’s dressing gown is white – since we rarely see white dressing gowns made for men in modern times, it’s easy to mistake it for a long nightshirt. But the book describes him as putting on his dressing gown and nightcap over his day clothes before settling down by the fire to eat his gruel (an understandable choice at night in the era before central heating, especially since miserly Scrooge doesn’t make his fire very big), and after his exhausting encounter with Marley’s Ghost, he falls into bed “without undressing.” Even in Leech’s illustrations, his trouser leg is visible in the scene where he kneels at his own grave. A book-accurate Scrooge would spend his whole adventure with the ghosts wearing his dressing gown over his shirt and trousers: a costume that so far, only a handful of screen Scrooges have worn.

The Ghost of Christmas Past and Scrooge fly over the rooftops of London before they arrive in the past. This is a ubiquitous image from the screen adaptations, starting with the 1938 MGM film. But in the book, they simply pass through the wall of Scrooge’s chamber and are instantly standing in the countryside of his boyhood.

The Ghost of Christmas Past is female, or of indeterminate gender. The ghost is described as “it,” but so are Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Present, despite their blatantly male appearance. As for Christmas Past, its strange appearance is likened to both a child and an old man, and Scrooge addresses it as “sir”. That said, its touch is described as being “gentle as a woman’s hand,” and since its gender makes no difference to the plot, it makes sense that so many adaptations should cast it as female to add another role for an actress to a largely male-dominated story.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a skeleton beneath its cloak. The final ghost’s resemblance to the Grim Reaper has led several adaptations to imply, or eventually show, that its hidden form is that of a skeleton. But the book repeatedly describes the ghost's outstretched pointing hand, the only part of its body not hidden by the cloak, and its main method of communication to Scrooge. Nothing indicates that this hand is anything but a human hand with flesh on it. So at the very least, the ghost isn't entirely skeletal.

The great tragedy of Scrooge’s past was the loss of Belle. Many an adaptation gives Scrooge’s childhood a perfunctory treatment, or even passes it over altogether, and derive the chief pathos and lesson of the Christmas Past sequence from Scrooge’s broken engagement to Belle. But while Dickens’s Scrooge is obviously pained by revisiting that memory, and by the sight of her children who could have been his, he shows much more anguish at seeing himself as a neglected child alone in the bleak boarding school. He weeps uncontrollably when he revisits his childhood. So many adaptations reverse those emotional beats, having him show only restrained sadness over his childhood but then break down in tears over Belle’s departure. But those are adaptations, not the book.

The male thief in the Christmas Yet to Come sequence is an undertaker. Even though adaptations tend to portray him as the undertaker himself, the book calls him “the undertaker’s man.” He’s just an assistant, making it all the more natural that he should supplement his low income by pawning stolen goods.

The third spirit is called the Ghost of Christmas Future. No, it’s called the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

The three spirits are the ghosts of people from Scrooge’s past. I remember once reading a short sequel to the Carol by a modern author, which revealed that the Ghost of Christmas Past was the ghost of Belle, the Ghost of Christmas Present was Fezziwig, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was Dick Wilkins. Each one of the spirits has also been speculated to be the ghost of Fan, or portrayed as such in some adaptation or other. This is pure speculation, though. There’s no hint that any of the Ghosts of Christmas were ever human.

The visions of Christmas Yet to Come all take place at the same Christmas. People tend to assume that Scrooge's death and Tiny Tim's death are shown as taking place near the same time. This leads some to assume that Scrooge has only a year left to live at the end of the story, since the Ghost of Christmas Present predicted that with no change, Tim would have died in less than a year. But if Scrooge has only a year left to live, then how would he have enough time to become "a second father" to Tiny Tim, and how could it always be said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well if he won't live to see another Christmas? Of course we could assume that after his transformation, his new lease on life will give him more years to live. But Dickens writes that the visions of the future seemed to occur in no particular order. So it might be that while the scene dealing with Tiny Tim's death takes place only a year in the future, the scenes dealing with Scrooge's death take place many years later.

Tiny Tim is a saintly, all-forgiving child. Several adaptations show Tim echoing his father’s gratitude to Scrooge, eagerly drinking the toast to him, and/or objecting to his other family members’ negative talk about him. But surprisingly, the book implies that even Tim shares his mother’s grim view of Scrooge rather than his father’s generous spirit toward him. “Tiny Tim drank [the toast to Scrooge] last of all,” Dickens writes, “but he didn’t care twopence for it.”

Tiny Tim is the youngest Cratchit child. This is an easy assumption to make, and the book never contradicts it. But it never explicitly calls him the youngest either. It’s possible (not necessary, but possible) to interpret the description of Tim’s unnamed brother and sister as “the two young Cratchits” as indicting that those two are the youngest children and Tim is slightly older. At least one adaptation, the 1999 TV film with Patrick Stewart, portrays them this way.

Tiny Tim has a chronic cough. Several adaptations – The Muppet Christmas Carol, 2001's Christmas Carol: The Movie, and 2022's Scrooge: A Christmas Carol – use the classic shorthand for "very sick" by giving Tiny Tim a bad cough. But the book never describes him as coughing. Might he have had a cough, though? Well, that depends on what disease he has, which we don't know. If we assume he has spinal tuberculosis, like Dickens's young nephew Harry Burnett Jr. who allegedly inspired the character, then he likely has pulmonary tuberculosis too, and presumably does have a cough. But if he has some other disease, then he might not. (See below for more on the subject.)

Tiny Tim was crippled from birth. Every now and then we hear this statement in descriptions of the character. But the book never actually specifies if Tim was born with his disability or not. Since Tim’s disease is never specified (see below), it’s impossible to know if he was born with it or developed it later.

Tiny Tim’s illness. We only know that Tim has his limbs supported by an iron frame and requires a crutch to walk, has a small, feeble voice and “withered” hands, and would have died within a year if not for Scrooge’s transformation. But he survives (though the text never says he was cured, only that he didn’t die) thanks to Scrooge improving the Cratchits’ fortunes. Several theories exist regarding his disease. One possibility is Pott’s Disease, which Dickens’s young nephew Harry Burnett Jr. suffered from: spinal tuberculosis, which wasn’t curable in the 19th century, but could go into remission with the right care and nutrition. Another is renal tubular acidosis, a kidney disease that makes the blood too acidic and causes bone deterioration: this disease was curable in the 19th century, though its rareness makes some critics doubt that Dickens would have thought of it. Yet another suggestion is rickets, although this is a nutritional disorder, so it seems unlikely because none of Tim’s siblings seem to be affected. Cases can be made both for and against quite a few different diseases.

#a christmas carol #canon vs fanon #charles dickens #literature #adaptations #long #tw: death #tw: illness #tw: antisemitism

[ciaossu-imagines]

Okay, there is no way I was missing the opportunity to write reactions for Blush Blush, because I love the game and characters so much! Just to add a slightly ironic layer though, because it’s just such a cheesy, fun, light-hearted game, I used this reaction prompt, which leans on the angsty side and did reactions for most of the main boys!

You have died and come back to the character as a ghost. What is their reaction?

Nimh

Nimh is actually really scared of ghosts. He really believes in them, and he’s probably had an experience with a haunted place before, so he gets really scared at the first signs of you haunting him. He’d definitely have run away screaming the first time you appeared to him as a ghost. After that time though, when you appeared again, I think while scared, he was able to keep himself from running away. Keep himself from crying though?? Not a freaking chance. Nimh really had fallen hard for you, and you meant so much to him. He seriously grieves your death, for years afterwards and he never really moves on to another person. So, for you to show back up to him as a ghost? I think he really, while scared because hey, ghost…I think he sees it almost as a blessing because it means he gets to see you again, gets to talk to you, gets to have you back in his life.

Volks

I feel like his reaction is almost the complete opposite of Nimh’s. He has never strongly believed in ghosts and may have made fun of a couple of people he knew who did. So, you being dead? That fucked with his head, a lot. Because he let so few people into his life, trusted so few people the way he did you, and then you went and died and abandoned him?? He’s having enough problems dealing with that. And then he keeps thinking he sees you, even though you’re dead, because you’re haunting him…because he so firmly believes that ghosts aren’t real, he thinks he’s going crazy in his grief and he’s just going to go to therapy and not acknowledge you because ghosts aren’t real.

Kelby

Kelby’s going to have a large non-reaction to this. Yeah, you died and yeah, he’s grieving that. And yeah, ghosts are supposed to be made-up and not real but hey, here you are, proving that wrong! Look at you achieve another magical thing in his life. He missed that, not going to lie. I think instead of being afraid or upset about your ghost appearing to him, Kelby’s going to be more curious about why you’re a ghost and why you’re haunting him. Did you just miss him like he missed you? Do you have some sort of unfulfilled business like the movies always say ghosts have? If you do, he’s totally down for helping you with that…probably not too quickly though, because he’s just got you back in his life and he’s not too keen to lose you again, even if you are a ghost.

Eli

Eli’s first reaction to seeing you reappear in his life is going to be asking you what sort of ghost you are. Like, are you a Dicken’s Christmas Carol sort of ghost? Because he’d totally be down with that because who doesn’t love some good soul-searching and personal development? He’d be so surprisingly chill about it and so much about his personality and life will seem to have been unchanged that you might wonder if you’d even mattered that much to him while you were alive…until you notice he’s partying even harder now, drinking even more after your death, engaging in some riskier behaviour. He did take your death hard because Eli doesn’t commit and then he did and then you were gone, and he does not know how to deal with it. So, even if you weren’t the Dicken’s type of ghost, he’s really, really going to need you to be.

Anon

Anon’s another one whose reaction will be largely a non-reaction. He’s Irish, he’s heard all the ghost stories and while he does like a large dose of common-sense and logic, he’s not a complete unbeliever. And honestly, he’s been grieving pretty hard and has isolated himself more than normal because of the grief, so he might just really, really be glad to have you back in his life. He’d kind of want to go back to how things used to be with your ghost self, as much as was possible. And hey, with you being a ghost, you don’t have germs anymore, so that’s a plus!

Garret

I think Garret took your death hard and that he’ll take your ghost appearing to him even harder. He’s weirdly superstitious and he does firmly believe that, if your ghost appeared to him, it’s because you have unfinished business here on Earth. He would definitely cry, like absolutely sob, not just because he’s missed you and he’s seeing you again, but because he’ll blame himself fully for the fact that you’re a ghost instead of enjoying a peaceful afterlife. He’ll really, really want to figure out that unfinished business and will devote himself to helping you accomplish it. He is so happy to have you back in his life, even as a ghost, but he can’t be selfish like that because, in the end, the only thing Garret has ever wanted for you was for you to be happy and to have a peaceful life…or afterlife, in this case.

Dmitri

Dmitri doesn’t really acknowledge your ghost at first. He’s another one who will think that his grief is making him see things and he’ll try to hold really fast to that belief, though he doesn’t seek any sort of help for the situation or really even mention what he thought he saw to anyone. And he’ll go for a really long time without ever openly acknowledging you…except for late at night when he talks to you. It’s not a conversation, he won’t act like you’re truly there and will pretend he can’t hear your voice, not really. But he still talks to you, tells you of his love and how he misses you and how the days without you aren’t as bright anymore.

Ichiban

Panic. Panic is his first reaction, along with running away. Like, change apartments, call an exorcist, full out and out run away. If he remembered the number for Ghost Busters, he’d probably call them too. He doesn’t care if he misses you, he doesn’t even care if he still loves you, he is definitely not down for being haunted.

William

William is another one who does not believe in ghosts. Because of this, he either really cannot see you, just because his disbelief is so strong, or he would dismiss seeing your ghost as hallucinations that he can and will seek professional help for. He’ll talk out his grief surrounding your loss in therapy or support groups anyway, and he’d be liable to even medicate for these ‘hallucinations’ as he calls your haunting.

Myx

Myx would be assuming you were a drunken hallucination at first, then would move on to fear, and then to acceptance. In pretty quick succession too. And then one day he just starts talking to your ghostly self as if it’s just any old Thursday, as if you hadn’t died. Because, like, maybe you died but you’re back, right? You’re back in his life again and you’re obviously sticking around because hauntings aren’t just here and there kind of things. So why shouldn’t things just go back to how they were, back to talking and joking around and making music together and loving each other. Sure, there might be things you can’t do now that you’re a ghost, but you guys can figure out workarounds to those, right? Please say he’s right…he really, really needs to be right in this case or he’d probably break down.

Stirling

Stirling is a centuries-old vampire. You think he’s never been haunted before? Please. He’s not the least little bit surprised, even, to have you show up as a ghostly force in his life. In fact, he’s delighted. He’d been missing your company and now he doesn’t really need to worry about you dying and leaving him behind because, being a ghost, you really can stay with him forever. And you dying? Well, he’d been acutely aware that it would happen from the second he’d fallen in love with a mortal, and had started grieving your inevitable loss from that time, and he’s made his peace with it and is more than willing to help you make your peace with it, no matter how long it takes.

#blush blush #blush blush headcanons #headcanons #reaction headcanons #nimh blush blush #volks blush blush #stirling blush blush #kelby blush blush #eli blush blush #ichiban blush blush #anon blush blush #dmitri blush blush #william blush blush #myx blush blush

[iishtar]

Sometimes, in writing, you have to give up control, take a Zen attitude, and go where you’re being led, which is often right back to where you came from. So I said to Mr. Dickens: Look. You can have a walk-on part, but then I am killing you in the following chapter, straightaway. You won’t be hanging around and you won’t be making any witty speeches or imparting any wisdom. I was as good as my word, killing him in a paragraph, in a very brief, un-Dickensian chapter titled “Dickens Is Dead!” Immediately, I felt that sense of catharsis which people often believe writing brings but which I myself have experienced only rarely. Look at me! (I said to myself.) I just killed Dickens! (By describing his sudden death and subsequent burial at Westminster Abbey.) But, not long after I wrote that triumphant scene, for practical reasons (a flashback) Charles made his inevitable return, appearing as a younger and even more irrepressible force than he had been forty pages earlier. At that point, I gave up. I let him pervade my pages, in the same way he stalks through nineteenth-century London. He’s there in the air and the comedy and the tragedy and the politics and the literature. He’s there where he had no business being (for example, in debates about the future of Jamaica). He’s there as a sometimes oppressive, sometimes irresistible, sometimes delightful, sometimes overcontrolling influence, just as he was in life. Just as he has always been in my life. But childhood influences are like that. They drive you crazy precisely because your debt to them is far larger than you want to know or care to admit. See also: parents.

Zadie Smith, On Killing Charles Dickens

#zadie smith #charles dickens #on killing charles dickens #lit #the fraud #new yorker #historical fiction

[beardedmrbean]

Suspects arrested following a riot in downtown Atlanta have been charged with multiple misdemeanors and felonies, including domestic terrorism, according to police.

The Atlanta Police Department (APD) released the names of six suspects who were apprehended during the riot in the city on Saturday evening. Only one of the suspects was from Georgia.

Nadja Geier, 24, from Nashville Tennesee, Madeleine Feola, 22, from Spokane, Washington, Ivan Ferguson, 23, from Nevada, Graham Evatt, 20, from Decatur, Georgia, Francis Carrol, 22, from Kennebunkport, Maine and Emily Murphy, 37, from Grosse Isle, Michigan, were all charged in connection with the riot.

Atlanta police told Newsweek all the suspects face charges for domestic terrorism, second-degree criminal damage, first-degree arson, and interference with government property—all felonies.

They also face various misdemeanor charges.

The rioting drew condemnation from Republicans who branded those involved in the violence as left-wing terrorists.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shared a Saturday Twitter post showing a video of the riot and added: "The Antifa/ BLM (Black Lives Matter) insurrection has been going on for years now."

Police did not tell Newsweek whether the protests were linked to a particular left-wing organization.

Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum said that a protest on Saturday began peacefully but turned violent as a group in the crowd started to smash windows and attack police.

Schierbaum said the incident was quickly brought under control and that no police officers or bystanders were injured. Three businesses had their windows damaged.

He added: "It doesn't take a rocket scientist or an attorney to tell you that breaking windows or setting fires is not protesting, that is terrorism."

After police stopped the riot, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens (D) said: "Atlanta is safe and our police officers have resolved disruptions downtown from earlier in the evening.

"The city of Atlanta and the Atlanta Police Department will continue to protect the right to peaceful protest. We will not tolerate violence or property destruction.

"I want to thank Atlanta's police officers, firefighters, 911 personnel, EMS, our law enforcement partners, and everyone else who keep our city safe."

Demonstrators gathered in Atlanta following the death of Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, 26, a protestor who was killed by Georgia State Troopers, according to Fox 5.

The troopers had been at Intrenchment Creek Park on Wednesday, a planned site for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a location critics have named "Cop City."

On December 14, five people were charged with terrorism charges at the location of the future training center.

Newsweek has contacted the APD for comment.

#nunyas news

[brostateexam]

The once-explosive accusation of calling someone a sellout, aimed at artists who make accommodations with commercial industry, has come to seem obsolete and a little naïve, but it once had career-threatening power. Anxiety over the interplay of art and commerce is evergreen—Shakespeare’s Sonnet 110 laments, “Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there/ And made myself a motley to the view/ Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear”—and the condemnation of monetary compensation for abandoning one’s values goes back as far as the Bible and Judas’ 30 pieces of silver. Musicians had depended on patronage for centuries, though, and until the rise of the mass culture industries, the relationship between artist and patron was considered pragmatic and natural.

Sellout—as applied to musicians—was a slur that had a birth. It rose to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when two communities in which the term was common came together at the intersection of politics and music.

The use of the verb to sell to mean “to betray”is as old as the English language. The Oxford English Dictionary cites examples stretching as far back as the 10th century. In Henry V, the Duke of Exeter expresses disbelief that one of the king’s friends would “for a foreign purse, so sell/ His sovereign’s life to death and treachery!” Similarly, sell has been used as a noun to refer to a con since at least Charles Dickens’ 1838 novel Oliver Twist, in which the fence Mr. Lively exclaims to the con artist Fagin, “What a time this would be for a sell!” The phrase to sell out and the noun sell-out, meanwhile, were until the late 19th century reserved for such business as stock transactions, which these terms described without any implicit judgment—for example, one sold out one’s interest in a company for cash.

#long reads

[kinfriday]

Sacred Days

My eyes slowly open and I know she is waiting within the deep clearing in the wood.  

Emerging from the hollow of my oak, my focus is only forward, as I make way deeper into the forest.  

The path has been burned into my memory by uncounted repetition, over and over again as sure as the sun rises to trace its path through the daytime sky, I know the way. 

And soon enough, the wood thins to give way to a grass filled clearing, and there is my Lady Eostre, waiting for me. This time there is no harness; no rolled up paper waiting for me to carry it. No, this time she calls me to her side, and I know I am to accompany her.  

The where is not important. Sometimes we ascend the ridge, and watch the dawn break over the horizon, other times we travel through the mists to other lands, distant places filled with new scents and human structures.  

It is all the same to me.  

Places are places, days are days. There has never been a questioning of a moment, or the reason for its happening. In all of my memories from that life, there is only one time I wonder why something is occurring and that is the moment just before my death.  

But we are not there yet. How far is it? Who is to say? There is no conception of days having a number, or a purpose beyond being what they are. I only know that I am what I am.  

Words have never defined that life, only experiences, moments that shine like stars against the back drop of a night sky of being, interconnected like constellations, shining in relation to each other, but when viewed as a whole, a chaotic wonder of place and time.  

And so devoid, of labels like December, Tuesday, or even Yule, I am only left with those moments, stripped of everything but their contents, and in this moment, she is with me, and she is my purpose. As certainly as I know myself, I know she is the focus of my being, as sure as any instinct, or anything that I do know in that life, I know I am hers.  

___ 

It’s been on my mind this last week, as we’ve neared Solstice and all the winter time celebrations that come along with it. I’ve gone through my traditions, performed my small quiet rituals before the Altar, lit the Yuletide candle, listened to Tim Curry read Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”  

It’s astoundingly good, and I highly recommend it.  

Gradually, in a way, relentlessly the time has moved towards peak holiday season, these last days of the year having a peculiar gravity to them, as the entire world of western culture seems to come into celestial alignment with these days. Ugly sweaters abound, diets explode before temptations of bounty, as we celebrate every good thing in our lives.  

But the Yuletide is just a series of days, a season in our lives. With our calendars and our complexities, it comes predictably once a year where we unpack its sentiments, dutifully recite its lessons, then pack them away with the tree, the decorations and, with rituals completed, seal away the eldritch abomination of Christmas music for at least one more year.  

Mariah Carrie sleeps fitfully, encased in a prison of holly, awaiting the moment just after All Hallows before she will rise once again to torment us all. 

And thus, until Ragnarök...  

“I will keep Christmas in my heart and observe it all the year.” Says Scrooge upon his reform, and this season, that phrase has stuck with me, along with Marley’s lament... 

“Mankind should have been my business!”  

Those words ring with conviction as I reflect on the fact that for all my memories of my true life, none include a Holiday, or knowledge that one day was any more important than another.  

It was the moments that mattered, and who was a part of them. The presence of my Lady was total, the whole of my world and focus. When she was not there, I was waiting for there, when she was there, all I wanted was to be near or please her.  

We’d travel, I’d occasionally run messages, and often receive treats of apple for my efforts.  

In the springtime she would sit and sing with me sprawled across her lap, blissfully half conscious, while she stroked back my ears.  

The days themselves were not sacred to me, they were what they were, but she was sacred to me. Those moments of togetherness and the love I had were and are sacred to me though I did not have the words to define them so then.  

And while I do not have any memory of holiday, I think I had it right. The holidays are moments not made sacred by their moment, but by their content, what they remind us of. That family, that having enough, that love, and hope are all blessings to be cherished. That life is precious and fleeting. We only have this moment for sure so let us make the most of it. Let us love with our whole heart and strive to live in fullness of the now.  

A blessed and happy holiday to all. May the blessings of the Gods find you throughout the year!  

-Sister Snow Hare

#heathen asceticism #heathenry #anglo saxon pagan #anglo saxon heathenery #asceticism #wandering ascetic #neopaganism #neopagan #therianthropy #therian #otherkin #the way of the hare #troth #discipline #pastlife #past life memories #asatru #eostre #spring #winter #seasons #yule #merry yule #yule 2022 #holiday season #holidays #christmas season #merry christmas

[motownfiction]

19-25, 36, 37

19. how do you keep yourself motivated?

you know, it's honestly not that hard for me because of the way i balance it? i work on school stuff a lot. so much that i will always need a break. this is that break.

20. how many WIPs and story ideas do you have?

two mini series that i would love to update if i ever had the time. i also kick around ideas about elenore from time to time. i've been thinking about whether she stays a lawyer, whether she stays married to sean despite really loving him, etc. i think the answer is yes to both, especially the sean thing. but i kick stuff around just to see what might work and what would not.

21. who is/are your favourite character(s) to write?

lucy and sam. i don't know how many different ways i can say it, lol. they're the characters that feel the most me to me. i love being able to be both of them. i think lucy is who i really am, and sam is the character i play in front of people i don't know that well (e.g. students). either way, they're both very real parts of me, and i love them. but like, you know i love will and sadie, too. so those original four are always going to be my favorites to write about, but i have an even more special place for lucy and sam.

22. who is/are your favourite pairing(s) to write?

i'm going to be difficult and answer this question in a few ways, lmao.

my favorite canon endgame romantic relationship is obviously lucy and will. god. they love each other so much. it's unreal. he is devoted to her, and she is devoted to him. they like each other. they understand each other. they grow up together in a way that the other pairings do not, and i think that makes them so much stronger. like, yeah, sadie and daniel were kids together, and they'll always have that frame of reference. but lucy and will catapulted into adulthood at age sixteen together, and no one will ever quite understand that time like they do. they're bonded by mutual admiration, trust, and unique circumstances. i love that they're a given for each other, but neither of them ever takes the other for granted.

my favorite canon non-endgame romantic relationship is sam and carrie. i don't count sam and steph because even though they weren't technically together at the time of sam's death, i think it's either strongly implied or just outright stated that they were headed there. but oh, sam and carrie. what could have been! like lucy and will, i think they get each other in ways that no one else can really broach. sam understands carrie's quirks and the creativity that rattles awkwardly inside her mind. he wants to help her let it out, while charlie is too often oblivious to the fact that it's there. and carrie can see through to sam's silent emotions, see through his jokes, his song-and-dance numbers. sam is so easy to pair with all sorts of characters. i can't deny that. but there is a large part of me that thinks, even with steph in the picture, sam should have ended up with carrie. steph can still end up with katie! but sam and carrie should have been forever.

and my favorite non-canon romantic relationship, which could have happened in a very different world where very different things occurred, is lucy and sam. i think, in a world where neither of them ever knew will, or will had never been born, this would have been a great partnership. their personalities just sing to each other, imo. she is the seriousness to his silliness, but they are both so brilliant, so witty, so cool. these two very unusual, very glittery people could have been a great team. in their reality, they have no romantic or sexual tension whatsoever, as they're both busy being obsessed with will (💜). but they could have been together in another world.

23. favourite author

idk, lol ... jane austen, charlotte brontë, virginia woolf, charles dickens, chinua achebe, some works by jerry spinelli (really just stargirl and its sequel), katherine mansfield ... it could go on.

24. favourite genre to write and read

i mean, broadly, realistic fiction with an emphasis on youth and coming-of-age. and you know what i mean by that: not necessarily school dances and first crushes, not necessarily high school stuff. but just a young person navigating a difficult situation.

25. favourite part of writing

dialogue and character dynamics.

36. last sentence you wrote

She’s not supposed to know anything, but she can’t help reading Elenore like a dog-eared copy of a deeply old book.

37. first sentence or your current WIP

Lucy knows what’s been going on, but she hasn’t told anyone yet.

#text #asks #omegaponyboycurtis #thank you!

[deafmangoes]

An Album of Christmas Carols - 5

It's time. The one you've all been waiting for. Somehow universally seen as the best adaptation of Dickens' classic.

"A Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992, Michael Caine)

This was the first full-length adaptation of A Christmas Carol that I recall ever watching, and has pretty much been my favourite to rewatch ever since. I was actually so used to this version that the first time I saw a different one I was confused why there weren't two Marleys.

We open with a sweep over London and an introduction to our narrator, Gonzo the Great Charles Dickens, and his friend Rizzo the Rat. From Brooklyn, NYC. The addition of the narrator is a clever touch (and, I suspect, the only way they could think to use Gonzo), and marks this adaptation as the most "book-accurate", according to the BBC (due to the large amount of text quoted directly from the novella).

Michael Caine really epitomises the role for me. Soft-spoken but hard. Trigger temper. Intimidating and heartless. After the opening song, early scenes with Nephew Fred, the charity men, Kermit Cratchit (and the other bookkeepers), he departs home and Cratchit sings a song that gets stuck in my head around this time every damn year.

Ghosts? Ghosts!

Back home, the doorknocker very creatively morphs into (Jacob) Marley's face. I don't know how they did it. Maybe vacuumed it but reversed the footage. We only get a brief bit of the other 'tells' before Jacob (and Robert) Marley appear to heckle their old business partner. Their song is great, probably my favourite part of the film.

"Doomed, Scrooge! You're doomed for all time / Your future is a horror story written by your crimes / Your chains are forged by what you say and do / So have your fun, when life is done a nightmare waits for you!"

Christmas Past looks to me like the thing that comes out of the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones, right before it turns into the angel of death and kills all the Nazis. And because of that, I never feel very comfortable while it's on-screen. Weird childlike angel spirit whatsit.

(In the outtakes, Gonzo manages to get his grappling hook through his own head. The puppeteers play it off wonderfully).

The scenes in the school are hilarious to me, particularly Sam the Eagle's two major jokes:

"Work hard lad, and some day your life will be as solid as this very building!"

/Gonzo and Rizzo break the shelf in the background

"Hrm. I've been meaning to fix that shelf."

And of course:

"You'll love business. It's the American way!"

/Gonzo corrects Sam

"Ah. Hrm. It is the British way!"

Fozziwig's party is shown, where the filmmakers manage to fit in all the other Muppets they'd be hard-pressed to place, like Doctor Teeth's band and the Swedish Chef. Rizzo ends up on fire for the first, but not the last, time this film.

Now, depending on when you were introduced to this film you may or may not realise there's a big emotional award-bait song here after Belle breaks up with Scrooge. It was in the original cut, and the VHS edition, but got cut for broadcast. When DVDs were first printed, the master had been lost so you could only get the version without the song. Apparently it's now back on Disney+ as an extra.

The song isn't all that, to be honest, but without it the reprise later in the film doesn't hit quite right, so... Swings and roundabouts. Past departs, Scrooge is deposited back in bed, just in time for...

... Okay, this might be controversial, but. Christmas Present is the weakest part of the film. The costume is impressive, and made specifically for this film (well, all three ghosts were), and the song is nice, but this version of the ghost just doesn't have the sarcastic bite that I enjoy so much. Even when he does deliver the ironic echo to Scrooge, it sounds out-of-place precisely because he's been nothing but 'nice' up until that point.

Anyway. We get Nephew Fred's party and the Cratchit's Christmas (the second time Rizzo ends up on fire), with the scene-stealing Miss Piggy giving it her all as Emily Cratchit. "It's a chef thing, dear" was a very common refrain around our house when we were eating something out-of-turn.

As Present fades away, Scrooge is left with the tall, ominous Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, who speaks entirely in deep bassoon audio cues. The tone of the film shifts considerably in this segment, so much so they even have Gonzo and Rizzo depart to make it more serious. Old Joe and the others who benefit from Scrooge's death are all creatively shown as vermin and carrion feeders - a spider, a moth, a crow and a bug*.

(*Well, she's described as a potato in Muppet's Treasure Island, but eh).

The Cratchit household sans Tim is a sad place and Scrooge can only bear so much of it before tearfully confronting his own mortality and begging repentance from the mute spirit.

Then, of course, it's Christmas Day! He hasn't missed it! Scrooge engages the services of the caroller seen previously to haul an absolutely massive turkey downtown. In a departure from the book, he stops only briefly at Fred's to deliver presents then goes directly to the Cratchit household, where Miss Piggy violently threatens him. Misunderstandings cleared up, Scrooge helpfully invites half of the entire city of London into this one-up, one-down Camden house and we close out on everyone singing a happy reprise of Belle's "you suck and I'm breaking up with you" song.

Highlights and Humbugs

Despite anything I said above about the film's few flaws, they really are very few and far between. The serious, professional acting of Caine opposite the Muppets is the thing that sells the whole film, and I really wish they'd do more of this sort of classic literary adaptation.

It also holds a special place in the hearts of those who worked on the film - it was the first Muppets outing after Jim Henson, the creator of the original show, had died. The cast were unsure if they should or even could continue without him, though Jim's son, Brian Henson, was encouraged by co-creator Frank Oz to take up the puppets and the result was this masterpiece. Michael Caine has also spoken about this being one of his favourite roles, and how easy it was to forget that he was acting against puppets.

The songs are great. The jokes are funny. The effects hold up. The core of the story shines through. It's just a very good version overall.

10 out of 10 Humbugs. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

#deafmangoes #dickens december #a christmas carol #muppets christmas carol #michael caine #ebenezer scrooge #jacob marley #scrooge

[lucysarah-c]

I am assuming the Tumblr God decided to eat my ask. Therefore, I will be re-tipping my previous ask if my brain would kind to remind me of it.

You have said that you are a literature lover. I was wondering if it would be so kind of you to share the books that you have read. The books that you disliked and why? Which are your favourite books

Who is the author/book that you love and one that you dislike?

What Era of literature is your favourite?

And finally, which piece of literature had an immense impact on your life?

Hi love! How are you? No no, I still have your original question. Sorry, I'd been quite busy and when that happens I try to focus either on writing the little I could so I can update or drawing so I space out a bit from work. 

I'm going to be honest for a sec, University has forced me to read almost nobody that doesn't involve research papers and biochemistry books lol. So I've not read any recreational books in a while. The last two I read were "The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James and "the handmaid's tale" by Margaret Atwood.

Mh books I've read? I don't think I remember them all haha But I can tell you about my overall I guess. My unpopular opinion is that while I'm a huge horror lover Stephen King books are… so boring for me. First, I find his female character so empty. If they aren't the villain, they are a devoted mother, or some hot love interest. Of course they are exceptions but it's too frequent for me to deal with it.

The handmaid's tale HBO show? amazing, mind blowing, gorgeous. The book? … Huh… well… It was decent. First time that I can say that a book adaptation was better than the book itself.

John Katzenbach thriller books are really good but he has a "patron" to create thriller and once you read more than one they become predictable. I highly recommend "the analyst". While I've not read more than the original and apparently there are more parts to it, the first book was good enough for me. I think it's a really easy going thriller and entertaining.

There's a book from my home country, Argentina, that I adore. "El elixir de la muerte y otras historias con veneno'' by Ciencia que Ladra (in English, the death's elixir and other stories with poison). I think it's an amazing book for those who like to write books. It's basically a summary of the different poisons used in history and, also, medicine that was "used as medicine" and actually was extremely poisonous. I love that book to get references for my own stories.

Books I have like: Les Miserables, Foucault's Pendulum, Tales of two cities, 1984, Brave New World (This last two are books I think that ANYONE should read, it's just perfection). I've read a bunch of Jane Austen books, I enjoy them. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. I'm actually quite boring with my books haha I'm into the classics. I've read a good couple of Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe and obviously Sherlock Holmes. Wuthering Heights

That's why I think my favourite Era in literature is Romanticism. I remember that I personally adore how heavily detailed the description of places and I'd always loved heavy literature. I get bored if I feel like I don't need a dictionary while I'm reading.

Recently, I've been interested a lot in Anarchism books hahaha I don't know how appropriate it is to say that. But yeah, for example: The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin, Malatesta. LMAO I feel like people would feel like I want to put bombs into buildings after this.

A book that I like mmh eh I guess that any of the above. My guilty pleasure is the one about poison because I adore finding weird History details. Like the story of "búcaros" during the Spanish Golden Age, that's just… chef kiss of history details haha.

A book that I dislike? I remember I hated every page of Robinson Crusoe and I really didn't like "the portrait of a lady". I learned a lot of English vocabulary reading the last one but I felt like it cringed me out a lot. However I added a quote from it in Holy ground because I remember reading it and thinking "god, this is for Levi,"

which is: “If one is strong, one loves the more strongly.”

A piece of literature that marks me, probably 1984. I read it when I was… perhaps too young to understand and once I read it again as an adult it really changed me. But probably Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. My father was a buddhist so my home was full of … let's say interesting books lol. This book is short but left me with a quote for the rest of my life "Recognise your own limits and truly enough they will be yours," maybe in English the quote is different but this is how i remember it in Spanish.

I think that's it! sorry for the late reply. I hope this is somehow useful! Lots of love!

#About me

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Happy first day of A Dickens December!

Some of my favourite lines from today’s section of A Christmas Carol:

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, whatthere is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country’s done for.

You can just feel the amused irritation of a man who is so extremely done with having been told that things have to be a certain way because they’ve always been done that way. And it sets the tone of the narration for the rest of the book so well! This is not just a novel, it’s conversational. The author is chatting with you.

Scrooge was [Marley’s] sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner.

This is an amazing line. I love the way putting “sole friend, and sole mourner” at the end, after all the cold legal terms, perfectly conveys the nature of their relationship, the way that in both life and death any personal connection is entirely second to business interests, even while they are each the sole personal connection the other has.

Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

This builds on the above - with the context of the previous passages, we can see that this is not a gesture of sentimentality. It is the complete subordination of Scrooge’s entire being to his business interests. Even his very name, his very identity, is irrelevant. All that matters is whether a person wants to do business with him. It’s not just that he isn’t a good person - he’s very nearly ceased to be a person at all.

The entire description of Scrooge that follows is perfection, but parts of it are better-known (thanks, Gonzo!), so I wanted to highlight these ones.

#a dickens december #a christmas carol #charles dickens #ebenezer scrooge

[princesssarisa]

Character ask: Jacob Marley (A Christmas Carol)

Tagged by anonymous

Favorite thing about them: Just how unforgettable he is as a character, despite how brief his role is. He's probably second only to Shakespeare's King Hamlet as the most famous ghost of a dead man in English literature, and rightfully so. He's frightening, yet pitiable too, and every line he speaks is pure poetry. He has some touches of humor about him (mainly from Dickens's wry narrator voice), but without reducing the seriousness of his suffering or his message. And despite having died an unrepentant sinner, he now repents enough, and cares enough about his old friend Scrooge, that he not only visits Scrooge himself, but arranges for other, more powerful ghosts to visit him too in hope of redeeming him, and he succeeds.

Least favorite thing about them: Well obviously, he wasn't a good man when he was alive. That's the point: he's an example of what Scrooge's fate will be if he doesn't change.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I can be greedy and self-absorbed, though I try not to be.

*I want to help others, as he does now that he knows the error of his old ways.

*I can be melodramatic.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I've never been a cold, ruthless businessperson.

*I'm female.

*I'm still alive.

Favorite line:

“It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”

“Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed, not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”

“Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

“At this time of the rolling year, I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!”

brOTP: Scrooge, his only friend.

OTP: None.

nOTP: Any living person.

Random headcanon: In the end, thanks to his act of arranging for the three Christmas ghosts to visit Scrooge and lead him to redemption, he's freed from his chain and ascends to heaven. I know I'm not alone in wanting to believe this, so I will. I just don't like the idea of eternal punishment for a soul who has clearly learned his lesson and repents; especially not after he saves Scrooge's soul, which means he deserves part of the credit for saving Tiny Tim's life and all the other good deeds Scrooge will do.

Unpopular opinion: He doesn't reside in hell. Dickens makes it clear that his punishment (and apparently the punishment for all cruel, uncharitable people) is to travel endlessly through the world, witnessing the suffering of others whom he failed to help in life. In Dickens's world, there evidently is no hell, in the conventional sense: hell is on earth, in the suffering of those in need. This unconventional theology suits the book's message of social commentary perfectly, and I get tired of seeing adaptations imply that he comes back from a traditional fire-and-brimstone hell, which is so much less interesting and less relevant to the message.

Song I associate with them:

"I Wear a Chain" from The Stingiest Man in Town.

"Marley and Marley" from The Muppet Christmas Carol.

"Link By Link" from A Christmas Carol: The Musical

Favorite pictures of them:

John Leech's classic illustration:

This illustration by Fred Bernard:

This illustration by J.P. Lynch:

Leo G. Carroll in the 1938 MGM film:

Michael Hordern in the 1951 British film:

The animated Marley from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol:

Alec Guinness in the 1970 musical Scrooge:

Frank Finlay in the 1984 TV film:

Bernard Lloyd in the 1999 TV film:

Motion-captured Gary Oldman in the 2009 CGI film:

#character ask #a christmas carol #jacob marley #marley's ghost #ask game #fictional characters #fictional character ask