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that-one-enby-ranger · 1 year

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Halt O'Carrick Playlist Part 4:

It's continuning on with more songs, and more Queen. Because I am very biased about that band. I am currently litsening to their new collectors edition album right now while writing this. But whatever. Moving on:

You're My Bestfriend by Queen: More Queen :) This song reminds me of Halt and Crowley. Which makes since. Even though the song was originally written for John Deacon's wife, it works better with Crowley and Halt rather than Pauline and Halt. Because I prefer Cralt of Haltine. Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had. I've been with you such a long time, you're my sunshine and I want you to know that my feelings are true. I really love you. Oh, you're my best friend. Things Halt one hundred percent feels but is also one hundred percent never going to say them outloud. Not in a million years.

I'll Be There For You by The Rembrandts: Yes, the F.R.I.E.N.D.S theme tune. This also reminds me of Halt and Crowley. And Halt and Will. And Halt and literally everyone in the entire series that he is protective of. Which is pretty much everyone. This song more reminds me of the all the characters as entire friend group. Well, obviously not all the characters. Like Moragarath and the other villains. But you know what I mean. They are a chaotic friend group and they will always help each other like the chaotic friends that they are.

Friends Will Be Friends by Queen: I kind of feel like I've already done this one. But whatever. More friendship. More Queen. There will be a lot of Queen this time round. The reason for this should be fairly obvious as to why it reminds me of Halt and his should be husband, so I'm not gonna say anymore. Except this we can rule Pauline out of this one, unless you like Craltine, because this was not written for John Deacon's wife. It was just for friends in general. Random side note: Halt and Crowley are gay.

We Are The Champions by Queen: Not done with this band yet. There is just so may good and powerful songs. Sue me. I DON'T. CARE. We Are The Champions is once again another song that fits well with most of the characters, mainly as one big badass fighting group. Pretty obvious as to why. I can't be bothered to explain why. But there is a line in the chorus I would love to bring your attention to: And we'll keep on fighting till the end. Powerful shit right there.

Spread Your Wings by Queen: We're not done yet. This song might more apply to Will actually but whatever. It can still relate to Halt pretty well, with just some changes. The songs about a boy who wants to get away from where he is now to be doing something else. Kind of how Halt didn't want to be king, and didn't want to die, so he left Hibernia for Araluen adn became a ranger. The only difference is that the boy in the song is working at a bar, lives in a hotel room, and is poor and is basically a nothing. The exact opposite of what Halt was. Also the boys name is Sammy.

Bring Me To Life by Evanescence: Emo song. Emo boy. I don't really know what else to say to this. This song could kind of relate to where Halt was most likely feeling depressed, at least a little bit. Like when he had murder attempts against him from his own bloody brother, or when Pritchard died. I don't have anything else to say but emo.

Do I Wanna Know? by The Arctic Monkeys: I dunno. It just reminds me of him. I think this is a song he would maybe sort of like in a modern AU. Like I've said, I think he would actually like some modern stuff, especially since it sounds a lot better than medieval stuff and its all different varities and genres.

Centuries by Fall Out Boy: This is another one that should be pretty self explanatory. I've seen other people say that this song reminds them of RA. Again, this song can relate to most of the characters. Probably more closer to being a Will, Horace, Gilan and Cassandra song. But still relates to everyone really.

Always by Bon Jovi: Again, don't know why. Again, another song that I think Halt would like. The songs about loving and being there for someone always. For some reason whenever I hear it and I think about Halt, I don't think about him being there for Will or Crowley or Pauline, or any of those characters. I think about him and Caitlyn. Even though this is supposed to be a love song, and Caitlyn's Halt's sister which would make it weird, I don't think about it as a love song. I just think about people caring about each other very much. Platonically.

21 Guns by Green Day: And lets end it off with yet another song I don't have a real reason for, other than the feel and sound of th esong, and I think Halt would kind of like it. I guess if you really look deep into the lyrics you could probably find a better reasoning, but I'm too lazy, someone else can do it.

So thats that. Now that I'm done, I'm going to continue litsening to a Queen interview on the radio.

#halt's playlist #halt o'carrick #rangers apprentice

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realityhop · 1 year

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"Does it matter if women ‘lean in’, to quote Sheryl Sandberg, and get positions of power? These sorts of ambitions are only open to a small number of women by definition, and increasing the number of women in positions of power doesn’t seem to change much, ultimately. Succeeding here perhaps only reinforces a particular system of domination and exploitation. [...] Far from possessing great power, men are frequently trapped in systems of other men’s making. […] Patriarchy, if we accept that this term refers to something real, absolutely hurts men too."

— Nina Power, What do Men Want? (2022)

"In the eighteenth century the conviction that man is endowed with certain rights was not a repetition of beliefs that were held by the community, nor even a repetition of beliefs handed down by forefathers. It was a reflection of the situation of the men who proclaimed these rights; it expressed a critique of conditions that imperatively called for change, and this demand was understood by and translated into philosophical thought and historical actions. The pathfinders of modern thought did not derive what is good from the law—they even broke the law—but they tried to reconcile the law with the good."

— Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (1947)

"Men who choose the terrain of reason, as opposed to emotion, place themselves in a position of authority. Only someone in a position of dominance can permit himself to be calm and reasonable in any circumstance, because he’s not the one who is suffering. [...] The thing is, no one likes emotions spilling over, even less so when they’re from a woman, and so it took a long time to reclaim this anger. Now it’s begun to find its voice, and the taboos that have stifled it for centuries are being stripped away: people have started to write about it, to reflect on its causes, to compare it to male anger. It exists. We must cherish this voice and feed the flames of our anger deep in our breasts, heed its calls for justice and reparations, its insistence that we not lose heart."

— Pauline Harmange, I Hate Men (2020)

"If we are to change, it won’t be through rational knowledge, but through emotionally charged values."

— Paul Verhaeghe, What about Me? (2012/2014)

"Intentions are how we enact values in specific situations. They’re ways we turn values into action at a specific time and place. […] There is the basic choice in life: doing what matters, doing what you care about, or having your days focused on trying to escape pain.”

— McKay/Greenberg/Fanning, The ACT Workbook for Depression and Shame (2020)

"What matters to us depends on what we care for, and there is no reason that we must all care for the same thing. Morality should be part of the art of living, not a dictatorial authority ruling over us." — Nietzsche, narwhals and the burden of consciousness (2023)

"When people talk of morality they do not know what it is they are talking about. At the same time they are unshakably certain in what they say. This may seem paradoxical. But it is not, since what they are doing is expressing their emotions. Apart from any facts they may cite in support of them, there is nothing true or false in their judgements of value. That is why there cannot be agreement in morality. If value judgements merely express emotions, there is nothing to agree (or disagree) about." — Feline Philosophy (2020)

— John N. Gray

"The power of rhetorical discourse is often based upon its ability to harness this motivational power of emotions to encourage new beliefs and actions. A rhetor who wishes an audience to reject something will inspire repelling emotions, while attracting emotions will be attached to the preferred belief or course of action. However, emotions do not guarantee action. The larger challenge is to use emotions productively rather than simply arousing them and then leaving them to fester or dissolve away."

— Nathan Crick, Rhetorical Public Speech: The Art of the Engaged Citizen (2007)

"No one has been as effective at mobilizing popular resentment of the [Professional Managerial Class] as Donald Trump. He merely stepped in to take advantage of decades of successful conservative propaganda positioning PMC liberalism as the enemy of the people and popular interests. Trump never pretended to be virtuous: his id-driven politics and lack of self-control formed the core of his appeal to those who felt scorned by the liberal superego. To defeat reactionary politics masquerading as populism, we need anti-PMC class struggle from the Left, not more identity politics, which has become just another vehicle of PMC virtue signaling. The Democratic Party, however, is not the political organization that will lead us in a struggle against capitalism and its deeply destructive system of exploitation and rent seeking.”

— Catherine Liu, Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class (2021)

"As long as enough people can be convinced to see men as the bourgeosie who have always unjustly benefited from their exploitation of women and women as the proletariat who have always been forced to toil and slave without benefit under the boot-heel of those privileged men, you can justify anything. It becomes acceptable, justifiable, and appropriate for women to expropriate men's undeserved and unearned power, wealth, and privilege by any means necessary—including state coercion."

— Karen Straughan, Feminism: Socialism in Panties

#value #power #values #reason #pleasure #ambition #women #men #patriarchy #discourse #mattering #rights

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veritywarner90 · 9 months

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COPIED; If you’re a homeowner, best you read this..ignorance will NOT be bliss!‼️Home confiscation hidden behind the voice referendum. Your very greatest fears acknowledged. A dire warning to all Australian’s who own property or who have parents or loved ones who own property.The VOICE hidden legislation One Step closer towards property confiscations !‼️I was in disbelief that the lawyer Obama’s tour down under was more than based on speaking engagements given any paid engagement would incur a 30% currency drop on AUD/ USA $ currency converted speaking fees, not the most prudent financial move.On that premise I felt any such engagement was a camouflage for political over seeing and as armed with a legal degree and promises of future United Nations leadership. I certainly believe my suspicions were well founded AND spot on.The juncture of the VOICE with hidden legislation further confirms the crafty state of play.Here is a post every person in Australia should absolutely and crucially take on board before voting in the up and coming VOICE referendum, the future of the family home may well rely on your vote.Let me say this, Turnbull hid the legislation behind the SSM referendum which Howard stated “you can not do that to them it’s illegal” In essence Howard’s warning translated to having citizens sign off on hidden as made unknown contractual changes as presenting CONCEALED clauses.We all know the repercussions which have transcended the spirit of the SSM referendum as non disclosed and as since going into the hidden behind the scenes legislation as into areas of Genderisation, and as giving same sex minority rulings in a majority heterosexual environment greater influence in other words enabled minority rule.Democracy Oxford Concise definition = Majority Rules, ask yourself does majority rule in Australia ?Could this lack of democracy support home confiscations ?Here we evidence the duplicitous Australian government sashaying once again refusing to disclose the legislation behind the VOICE which as it appears goes into property confiscation in line with Schwab’s and his World Economic Forum smiling dictate:‘You will own nothing and be happy”Ask if you would sign any legally binding contract with articles and conditions sight unseen, I believe the entire legal fraternity in this country would advise against such actions.Only a fool signs a contract contents unseen supported by the analogy, fools and their monies soon part, or in this instance fools and their assets in the form of properties soon part ?From Suzie Newman, consider her content very very very carefully as follows:Went to hear Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce and Alan Jones speak in town on Friday about “The Voice” and what they really aren’t telling us. I’m sure you are all over it anyway. Pretty bloody scary!!Absolutely, anyone who wasn’t there last night needs to educate themselves.The government are trying to fool people into believing this up and coming referendum on the VOICE is about giving indigenous/ aboriginal people a voice and about equality. It is the opposite.It will and is creating more division and will give all of us including indigenous people less of a voice and more bureaucracy and corruption.The truth is that in this model the corrupt high court of Australia will become ‘the voice’ making decisions for us all.They the Labor Party government want Australian citizens to blindly vote yes or no and they’ll fill us in on what it’s about after the referendum 🤔😳That should be ringing alarm bells for starters!There are likely many agendas involved, but an important one to be aware of is this….(copied)The Australian Labor Party in promoting its “YES” vote for a voice to parliament to have the Constitution changed by referendum. The Labor Party is not being open and truthful as to the real reason it is conducting this referendum.

Read more articles at:

https://veritywarner90.wordpress.com

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gaast · 1 year

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Two classes I took in undergrad were Hebrew Bible and New Testament classes. I went to a Methodist school and you had to take at least one REL course to pass. (It was also a liberal arts school with a notable theater troupe, so we were also required to take at least one Theater course. I mention this in case anyone wants to get on a high horse about this.) Both these classes were held in the basement in the main chapel they have on campus.

So anyway, I'm an atheist, never been to any kind of church service, only ever read some of Genesis as assigned reading in 10th grade, but I was super excited for these classes because I was an English major. Do you know the kinda shit you miss out on in literature when you're not super familiar with the Bible? We weren't required to read the whole thing and I didn't (I did less than what we were assigned because, again, English major--I had so much the fuck to read). If you were following me back on my old blog at this point you might actually recall this era of my life.

The professors for these courses, who I believe were married, obviously treated the courses as biblical studies courses, rather than your Sunday School fare. One made several jokes about how you can get an entire degree, hell, a doctorate just by reading, as he put it, "one book." But frankly, everything I learned about biblical scholarship itself was fascinating. If you want to talk about media archaeology and the intersections of dozens, if not hundreds, of differently scholarly and scientific fields, look no further.

The content of the Bible is one thing--as a foundational text inspiring the thought and lives of billions of people, reading it is an odd experience. Learning about Genesis, the whole Torah really, you learn that several different apparent editors (called redactors) very clearly changed the text that we received over time. These redactors even have names (that scholars have given them). If Exodus was edited to lend more legitimacy to the priesthood, you can bet that P did that shit.

But it also verges into book history. Ancient authors didn't have a concept of plagiarism. If you read lines you liked and wanted to use in your own writing, you just copied them wholesale. This is the only reason why we have some surviving fragments of otherwise completely lost texts--for example, Jesus' beatitudes. And if you wanted to give yourself more authority, you'd sign your work as if you were some other actually famous person. Many of the epistles were absolutely 100% DEFINITELY not written by Paul, but they all say they were because that was the practice. (The epistles are ordered by date and the ones after Paul's execution are way more shit-Christian than anything Paul wrote. But they claimed to be Pauline and maybe that was enough to include them, or maybe their inclusion in the Bible was more because their ideology was agreeable. Speaking of...)

But also, consider this: so many people wrote so many books that could have found their way into the Bible. Religious leaders at the time decided what books to include in the collection, and what books to exclude. The Book of Enoch was incredibly popular in its time, but it's now considered apocrypha. Meanwhile, Ecclesiastes isn't even really religious in tone or subject and it was included. (It's also fun to think about why English style rules exclude canon biblical book names from the otherwise-standard italicization of book titles.)

And one more consideration: ancient biblical texts had this pernicious tendency to be written in ancient Greek, which didn't really use things like "spaces between words." To make more scrolls so more people had access to these texts, scribes, who often couldn't actually read, would have to copy the incredibly cramped handwriting of people who they may not have known, from a language they couldn't understand, whose characters they could easily have confused. This happened in a chain of people, from scribe to scribe from town to town, over the course of centuries. Beyond that, imagine copying a scroll of, say, the Book of Isaiah by hand. Can you guarantee that you'd never copy the same line twice in a row by accident, especially if you, again, didn't know the language?

So what even is "the Bible?" Is it the document we got all these millennia later? Is it the original scrolls as written by the original authors--which we can never and will never have? Is it somewhere in between? Should it include this book, exclude that book?

The Bible is still alive. It's a living document that scholars and faith leaders are still debating to this day. If you don't believe me, why are you a Protestant and not a Catholic, or a Lutheran and not a Quaker, or a Baptist and not a Muslim, or Jewish and not an Episcopalian, or an Eastern Orthodox Christian and not an Anglican? Its meanings and histories will be debated for as long as we do, for better or worse. And frankly, there's no right answer. The Bible contradicts itself. We have Lilith because people noticed that Creation happens twice in Genesis because a redactor added extra versions of the earliest Genesis stories to fit their own agenda. You ever read Genesis? It's right there. Two parallel Creations happen side-by-side. They both contradict each other. Jesus contradicts the Hebrew Bible, using people like Isaiah's words to assert that his coming was foretold, when Isaiah, as a prophet during the time of the split kingdom of Isarael, was speaking metaphorically to damn the people in charge (and the people writ large) who let a culturally and ethnically singular people become separated ideologically. Looking at it from one perspective, Jesus was a rabbi, but he was also a biblical scholar, working to recontextualize meanings that were ancient even to him. And yet many claim it mjst be followed dogmatically. How? It contradicts itself! Do I do nothing on the Sabbath or can I take care of some shit I gotta do? How soon after my brother dies do I need to impregnate my sister-in-law for him? Do you really want me to bring up Lot's daughters?

If this kind of shit doesn't make you want to be a biblical scholar I really don't know what could.

But for one last little thing. The Exodus didn't happen. We can get archaeological evidence for a surprising number of things said to occur in the Bible. We can say with reasonable certainty that yeah, Jericho was toppled pretty quickly, for example (probably not with the mere use of trumpets, but you know). We're also reasonably certain that Jesus existed, because EVERYONE agrees this dude was crucified, and if you were someone's follower at the time you'd do everything in your power to assert that he was execured by any other means because of just how humiliating crucifixion was considered, but allies and enemies of his claim he was crucified so that's honestly enough for us to say, yeah, he probably existed and died that way. But we can't find evidence for the Exodus. Ancient Egyptians were notoriously good record keepers and they never recorded the mass departure of a nation's worth of slaves. We'd also be able to see in the earth evidence of that many people walking anywhere, especially if they were wandering for forty years. But that evidence hasn't manifested. It's very unlikely those events occurred.

But that doesn't mean the Exodus isn't real. How many millions, if not billions, of people have accepted that the Exodus occurred in their shared history as a people? How has the fact of that belief shaped their self-conception and the ways they interacted with the world? How has this simple story influenced hundreds of generations of people, and how did it guide them through the numerous awful diasporas they were forced through over the centuries?

Even if the Bible is fictitious--and much of it is--fiction has a power over people. It influences us. That's why we consume it. The Song of Solomon isn't included in the Bible just because it says Solomon wrote it. It's in there because it reflected the thoughts, beliefs, and culture of the people who produced and read it. Anyone who writes fiction could stand to think a little more deeply about religious texts and the ways they affect people's lives. It might make us feel a bit more responsible.

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sanjosenewshq · 2 years

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He could not shut up and it value him his job

Expensive Abby: My son’s husband is continually speaking. It value him jobs and mates. He’s typically passive and gossip – he likes to speak about different individuals’s weaknesses and issues. Many individuals keep away from him, and whereas he appears to be an excellent worker, it would not take lengthy earlier than he bothers everybody. He’s approaching the age of fifty and depends on others to help him. I chew my tongue, however I really feel prefer it wants a confrontation – perhaps 30 years in the past! What do I do? Tring in Tennessee Expensive Kindness: Compulsive gossip of a 50-year-old will not change. Extra vital, I feel, is what you talked about about his reliance on “others” to help him. I hope it is not your husband. Do not hassle confronting him. Know that your partner’s husband is on his personal path, and must observe him wherever he leads. Expensive Abby: I met a chiropractor pal, and he satisfied me to alter my plans and never go to the flicks however be a part of him for a stroll on the seaside. We made plans to satisfy on the seaside, and as I approached the road nook, I noticed him not ready for me however throughout the road whereas he was on his telephone. Once I lastly met him, he was speaking with a mutual pal. There was nothing pressing concerning the name, however he remained on his telephone. I requested over and over, “Are you actually planning to remain on the telephone whereas we take this stroll?” I do know he heard me, and our mutual pal heard me over the telephone. Persevering with to speak, she turned and left. I assumed it was very impolite and I deserve an apology. I additionally assume that the individual speaking to him on the telephone also needs to apologize. The factor about this pal is that he by no means apologizes for something. What ought to i do now? All of the discuss, do not stroll in California Expensive all discuss: The one who satisfied you to go to the film so you would stroll collectively was impolite. He made it clear that whoever he was on the telephone with was extra vital to him than you. And since he “by no means apologizes for something,” do not count on any apology. As a substitute, spend your time with socially delicate individuals, apply primary good manners and who do not waste your time as he did this. Expensive Abby: You’ve got stopped saying “God bless you” when somebody sneezes. It is a ridiculous behavior that must be retired. I do not assume the soul leaves the physique when an individual sneezes, and I severely doubt anybody else thinks that day. I am not a Christian, and I do not really feel snug invoking the blessing of a god I do not imagine in. Some individuals criticized me for staying silent after sneezing, and soiled seems have been additionally made on my silence. Am I being impolite to not bless somebody who sneezed? Not saying that expensive do not say it: You aren’t impolite. You’re sincere together with your emotions. Should you’d reasonably not say “God bless you” when somebody sneezes, there is no such thing as a rule of etiquette that claims it ought to. A well mannered different may be to say “Gesundheit!” Translated as “good well being”. This sense by no means turns into outdated. Abbey Abbey was written by Abigail van Buuren, often known as Jane Phillips, and was based by her mom, Pauline Phillips. Contact Expensive Abby at www.DearAbby.com or PO Field 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069. Originally published at San Jose News HQ

#San Jose News HQ

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inky-duchess · 2 years

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Good morrow, Your Grace.

I’m entertaining the idea of what if the Romanov children survived the revolution (and had their older sister be placed the throne by the people and become Tsarina) who would OTMA and Alexei have married, how many kids and how would they all fare in the evolving 20th century? Would there still be WW2, would everything that happened still happen accordingly or would things drastically changed?

I think they would have been evacuated to England. I don't think any revolutionary would have ever accepted any Tsar or Tsarina and besides, Olga and her sisters were barred from succeeding to the throne because of the Pauline Laws - no woman could rule Russia again. Alexei may have married Ileana of Romania but I doubt he would have lived long after the Revolution. Olga may have been a prospective bride for Edward VIII but I doubt they would have gotten on well. This marriage in my mind would have been approved and proposed by Maria Feodorovna and Alexandra of the UK. With them married, it's unlikely that Edward would have abdicated. Maria would have almost certainly been a possibility for Louis Mountbatten as he did have a crush on her and they were good friends. I think Tatiana may have married into European royalty or perhaps a cousin such as Prince Andrei Alexandrovich of Russia. As for Anastasia, I do not see her marrying but living a private life either in Paris, England or Canada.

#Ask answered questions

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shivbooks · 3 years

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The Dilemma of Susan Pevensie

If you're a lover of books or Narnia, you know what happens in the end. Susan Pevensie does not go back to Narnia. Why? Well, that's up for debate...

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can." - (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle)

Read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan here. It's definitely interesting. The Susan problem is one that has been debated about because it's so vague. Why doesn't she return to Narnia when everyone else has? People usually use Jill's argument of why Susan was excluded from Narnia. But the real reason is what Polly said. It's not what J.K. Rowling said about Susan liking makeup and sex that got her excluded.

"There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that." - (J.K. Rowling)

The real issue is that Susan chose to forget Narnia. She purposely ignored it. She thought it was childish and stupid. She became vain, uncaring, and selfish. She forgot her values. She was a child trying to be a "grown-up" and wanting to stay youthful and one age forever. She probably partied so much to escape the painful memory of being told that she couldn't go back to Narnia. Deep down she knows Narnia is real but she is actively trying to forget and repress her memories. She thought Narnia was for children and she didn't want to be a child anymore. To be fair, she was a child, grew up and ruled a country, then was stuffed back into a child's body. After that I wouldn't want to be treated like a kid either. But this isn't about readjusting to being a child or adults not taking her seriously, Susan simply wanted to forget Narnia because she thought it was silly and "for children". Lewis said "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." This idea that because something is "made for children" or "childish" that it is somehow lesser, is wrong. It is this notion of superiority that goes with being an adult. That being an adult is somehow better than being a child.

Why is being a child bad? Is it the innocence and naivety? If adults are afraid to be like a child, maybe we should look at how we treat children. They are constantly talked down to and nothing is ever explained to a child and they are dismissed without a thought when they suggest something because they don't understand the "real world". Childishness is associated with stupidity, not being able to take responsibility, immaturity, and naivety. When in fact it's the opposite, we all know an adult who acts immature and a child who is very mature. There is no such thing as being childish. If you want to dye your hair and read fairytales and YA when you're 45, go ahead. Lewis is criticizing the idea of being "adult". Why is being an "adult" good and being a "child" bad? What constitutes being an adult? Being dark and cynical and lying? Apparently, Susan knows because that is all she is focused on being. That is the problem. By wanting to be an "adult", Susan is being "childish". She is abandoning her faith and by extension, her family. It wasn't an accident. It was a choice and she has to deal with the consequences. That doesn't mean there can't be redemption.

In his Letters to Children, Lewis said:

"The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there's plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end... in her own way."

"I could not write that story myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting to Aslan’s country; but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write. But I may be mistaken. Why not try it yourself?" - (1960 letter to Pauline Bannister)

It sounds like he had plans for Susan and never got around to it. He also seems to be encouraging debate or writing your own interpretation of what happens (fan fiction?). Whatever the case, Susan probably has a long and difficult journey but eventually gets back to her family.

You can argue C.S. Lewis was misogynistic, sexist, racist, and yeah it shines through a bit in Narnia where the Calormen people (Indian/Arabesque) are depicted as cruel barbarians. But then there is also Aravis who is a Calormen woman who fights and wields a sword and is the hero (so basically a epic brown princess). For being a misogynist, both Susan (at least in the movies) and Lucy fight in battle alongside their brothers and can hold their own. Lucy, the youngest, a girl, was called the Valiant. It is implied they earned their titles and even if they grew into them, I wonder what exactly you would have to do to be called Valiant. Even the men in Narnia cry and kiss each other's cheeks, which would be considered "gay" or "girly". I would say Lewis is a feminist with chivalric traits. Lewis didn't exclude Susan from the end because she was a woman and interested in having sex and being free, she was excluded because she was afraid of change and didn't trust Aslan anymore. Doubt is one thing. It's okay to doubt but Susan didn't trust and became afraid. As a character, Susan is the "mom" of the group. She is the most practical and sensible and realistic. She sees the world very scientifically and lost her sense of wonder. She fears change and is the least adventurous out of her siblings. She is dismissing anything childish, anything Narnian, as lesser than her. She has become haughty and egotistical which is the problem. Children aren't stupid and "childish" things aren't lesser than "adult" things. Maybe it is a bit harsh to go down to the train tracks and identify your siblings bodies but she didn't want anything to do with them. It sounded as if they had stopped talking. She didn't believe in Narnia anymore because she thought faith and belief was childish. She thought she was better than her siblings. She became vain and self-centered, far from the selfless, gentle woman she really was. As Lewis said, Susan will get back in her own way, once she has learned what she needs.

In a letter, Lewis said: "And why not write stories yourself to fill up the gaps in Narnian history? I’ve left you plenty of hints–especially where Lucy and the Unicorn are talking in The Last Battle. I feel I have done all I can!"

Maybe he was encouraging fan fiction? We'll never know, but the end result is the same; it's all up for interpretation.

See more posts at https://www.shivbooks.com/

#narnia #blog #shivbooks #susan pevensie #neil gaiman #fandom #books #debate #writers on tumblr #jk rowling

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josefavomjaaga · 3 years

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Helfert, “Joachim Murat”, Chapter 4, Part 6

Apologies again for taking so long. I always start dragging my feet when I approach the end of a story. The end is usually bad, and I don’t want to see people suffer...

In contrast to the disintegrating Neapolitan army, with heaps of stragglers constantly troubling the population along all the streets and roads, the imperial troops formed a firm stand in closed ranks, with military severity but at the same time with military decorum, and were welcomed everywhere by the inhabitants as liberators. In his pompous appeal from Rimini, Murat had summoned deputies from all the towns and territories of the peninsula to Rome on 8 May, where a national assembly was to decide on the fate and organisation of Italy. That was long over, and instead of the members of the Italian parliament, who had never been expected, the two beautiful Bohemian regiments of Argenteau and Devaur showed up on one of the following days, kindly received by the Romans, and immediately continued their march to the south.

FML Bianchi, now already united with Neipperg's corps, together about 22,000 men strong, moved into the Neapolitan area in four columns. In Aquila on May 12, Neipperg, who had a diplomatic mission in addition to his military one, received a letter from Prince Metternich instructing him to promise Joachim Murat an annual pension of 1,000,000 fl. if he voluntarily abdicated his throne; however, Neipperg should first discuss the matter with the commander-in-chief. The two generals agreed that they would not offer anything to their opponent, for his downfall was certain. That same day, Bianchi issued an appeal to the Neapolitans, proclaiming himself not an enemy but a liberator from the rule of a son of the revolution imposed on them by peace-disturbing France; he promised strict discipline of his troops, respect for the laws and institutions of the country.

"Murat's party is seriously ill; they are trying in vain to bring it back to strength," an eyewitness in Naples wrote on 11 May. On the following day, the queen held a review of the capital's civic guard; she appeared on horseback in Amazon garb with the colours of the guard; she had a graceful word for each of the higher officers; she delighted the ranks, which burst into tumultuous cheers.

But at the same time a British squadron appeared in the Gulf of Naples, whose commander, Captain Robert Campbell, threatened to blow the city into ruins if the forts were not surrendered without delay, along with the "Joachim" and the "Capri", the two new royal ships of the line, and the royal arsenals with everything in them. Abrupt horror replaced the enthusiasm that had scarcely been exhilarated. The Regent called a Council of State, which was also attended by General Colletta, who had just arrived from camp, and Prince Cariati, who had returned from Vienna. The result was, in spite of the grandiloquent proposal of some members to simply reject Sir Campbell's request, that Caroline sent Prince Cariati on board the "Tremendous", where he yielded to all the Commodore's demands, while the latter promised to refrain from any hostility against the capital, to grant the Queen and her family refuge on one of his ships in case of extreme necessity, and moreover to send one of her ministers to Sir Bellew, now Lord Ermouth, or to London, as she wished, to negotiate in the King's name.

The imperial commander-in-chief's proclamation from Aquila had already become known in the capital. The fugitives, runaways and wounded arriving daily in Naples, who could be seen everywhere in the streets, had spread the word and caused a general commotion. Already the Lazzaroni were beginning to stir, and the civic guard was hardly equal to the task of offering them resistance. In a hurry, Jérôme and Cardinal Fesch, Madame Mère and Princess Pauline left the city to embark for France. The Queen said a poignant farewell to her children, whom she had taken to safety in Gaëta. But no one could see what was going on inside her when, on the evening of the 15th, she drove through the streets of the city in a carriage drawn by six magnificent white horses, surrounded by a detachment of mounted national guards in shining hussar uniforms, blue and silver, greeting her on all sides with friendly grace.

On the same May 15, Prince Leopold arrived in Rome and from there sent a letter to Bianchi, expressing to him "his complete impatience" to meet him "at this important moment when the King, my father, will have to thank you for his restoration to the throne of Naples".

The imperial troops advanced ever closer to the kingdom's capital. In the night from the 16th to the 17th, the imperial and royal Major d'Aspre and a small force attacked the camp of the 4th Neapolitan Legion, about 4,000 men, near Mignano and crushed it so completely that by the next morning everything was out of hand and General Macdonald was only able to reach the road three miles further on at Teano without being able to collect the ruins of his corps. When the Queen heard of this blow, she exclaimed: "Macdonald has gone on the scene to bring down the curtain. - Macdonald est allé baisser la toile". After the accident at Mignano, the royal army numbered barely 9,000 men: 1,000 men from the guard on foot, 3,000 from the first legion, 1,200 from the second, about 1,100 from the fourth; then 2,500 horsemen from the guard and line together; there was nothing left of the third division of Lecchi. Carascosa, to whom the king now handed over the supreme command, still held the Volturno line. But on the 18th his vanguard, which had been drawn up at the junction of the roads leading from Rome and Bescara, was attacked by the Austrians and thrown back into the bridgehead of Capua; a few cannon shots fell from the latter on the imperials without doing much damage.

King Joachim had arrived in his capital on the evening of the 18th, accompanied only by four lancers. "Madame", he reportedly said to his wife, "it was not granted to me to die". All his courtiers and supporters in Naples hurried to the palace to show him their devotion, which never made him feel better than at this moment, but which could not change the desperate seriousness of the situation. On the 19th a royal proclamation was issued granting the Neapolitans the long-promised constitution. It was a long document of a hundred or more articles, issued on May 12, backdated by almost a month and a half, from Rimini on March 30. We need not dwell on its provisions, the common phrases of modern constitutionalism; it never became a deed, and it had not the slightest influence on the mood of the minds. At the same time, Murat decided to enter into negotiations with the advancing enemy. On the morning of the 19th, Bianchi was about to mount his horse to inspect the ancient stone arched bridge on the banks of Solipaca, which was to be repaired for the crossing of the Volturno, when the Austrian Consul General of Naples appeared at the outposts. In a country house belonging to the Patrician family of Lanza, three miles from Capua, the imperial commander-in-chief had set up his main quarters, where Gallo soon arrived in the name of Joachim. But Bianchi, who was assisted by Generals Neipperg and Starhemberg and Lord Burghersh, declared that he was not a diplomat but a soldier; that the conquest of the kingdom was as good as complete, that he would neither cease hostilities nor grant an armistice; that there was no longer a "King Joachim", that it could at most be a question of a military convention from which "Marshal Murat" must be excluded. Gallo and the Consul General withdrew, and the military operations continued; during the night of the 19th to the 20th, Starhemberg crossed the Volturno. Then, on May 20, at 8 o'clock in the morning, the generals Carascosa and Colletta appeared at Casa Lanza, where the conclusion of a military convention was discussed, while the imperial troops continued their march across the Volturno at Cancello and Castel-Volturno without interruption. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon the agreement was concluded, signed on the Austrian side by Count Neipperg and the Commander in Chief; Lord Burghersh had taken part in the negotiations without, however, signing his name on the document. There were 13 articles with 6 additional points. According to the first, Capua was to be surrendered the next day, Naples with all its citadels on May 23, and the fortified places of Scylla, Amantea, Reggio, etc., handed over to the allies; only Pescara, Ancona and Gaëta were not included in the convention, because Carascosa and Colletta claimed to be without authority over them. In the supplementary articles, at the request of the Neapolitan negotiators, the Emperor of Austria guaranteed all the provisions which King Ferdinand IV had undertaken to observe on the repossession of his continental territory.

That same evening, after he had learned the arrangements of Casa Lanza, Joachim Murat - thus and not otherwise we may only refer to him henceforth, although no express renunciation of the throne had been made on his part - departed quietly and with few companions, among them his nephew General Bonafour, all dressed as simple private citizens, from Naples, won the beach at Miliscola, near Puzzuoli, and had himself ferried to the small island of Nisita and thence to Ischia, from where, on one of the next days, a merchant ship hired by General Manhès was to take him to France.

Can I start crying already?

#napoleon #joachim murat #caroline murat #naples #italy1815 #hundred days #bonaparte family leaving the sinking ship what a clan #metternich still trying to save murat #that's why I don't want to see soldiers in political positions

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joachimnapoleon · 4 years

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Meet the Bonapartes--Louis (2/4)

(Part 1 can be found here) (And here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 on Pauline)

***

Napoleon's plan to marry Louis to Hortense was met with a marked lack of enthusiasm by both parties. Aside from having acquired a jaded view of women (possibly as a result of the affliction he suffered in Italy), Louis also happened to be in love with someone else. Prior to the wedding, he would write a twenty-page letter to Hortense containing what was essentially his life story, and in which he confessed his love for a woman named Sophie, describing her, and his feelings for her, in great detail. Hortense, meanwhile, had acquired a negative view of Louis, because of his behavior in an earlier failed love affair between him and one of her cousins. However, Hortense claims, she was willing to give Louis the benefit of the doubt, and dismiss "his conduct toward my cousin" as "merely thoughtlessness on his part." Her former mentor, Madame Campan, visited Hortense to speak in Louis's favor. Hortense was not entirely convinced. "Louis seems to me to be kindhearted and good," she conceded to Mme Campan, "but I do not like the disdain with which he pretends to look upon women and which often appears in his conversation."

[Hortense de Beauharnais]

But Napoleon was adamant about the match, seeing in it a strengthening not only of the ties between the Bonaparte and Beauharnais families, but also as a safeguard for a potential Bonaparte dynasty. "We may never have children," Napoleon told Josephine (according to Hortense's memoirs). "I brought Louis up myself; I look on him as a son. Your daughter is what you cherish most on earth. Their children shall be our children. We will adopt them, and this adoption will console us for not having any of our own." But Josephine, who had initially favored the idea, grew increasingly ill at ease over the marriage as the wedding approached. Hortense also claims that Louis's older brother Lucien poisoned Louis's mind against her, after his own request to marry her was shot down by Napoleon. "I do not know what he said," Hortense writes, "but Louis became uneasy." It was then that Louis wrote his twenty-page letter to her and "begged me in return to describe my past life to him in full. It would have been difficult for me to give him any striking facts on the subject and, when I returned his letter, in accordance with his request, I merely replied that for a long time my life had been known to him."

"If your popularity and society have not spoiled you," Louis replied, "you must be an angel. There can be no middle ground. You must be all good or all bad." Hortense took this as a compliment. "I could not suppose that, admitting the existence of the two alternatives, his opinion could be otherwise than favorable."

The marriage contract was signed on 3 January 1802 at the Tuilleries. Napoleon provided Hortense with a dowry of 250,000 francs, to which Josephine added another 100,000. The civil service took place the next day, and the nuptial blessings were held afterwards. After Cardinal Caprara had blessed the newlyweds, Joachim and Caroline Murat came forward, and requested to receive a nuptial blessing as well, as their marriage had taken place before the religious ceremony was reinstated. "This double ceremony left a disagreeable impression on me," writes Hortense. "The other couple were so happy. They were so much in love with one another.... I felt as though all the happiness lay on one side, all the unhappiness on the other."

The "honeymoon" period was almost nonexistent. Napoleon had flown into a rage at Louis over complaints Louis had made about the marriage not being announced publicly. The personalities of Louis and Hortense never quite managed to synchronize on any level. Louis found fault with Hortense over the most trivial things, and Hortense could barely disguise her increasing dislike for her husband--or the fear his unstable, unpredictable behavior had begun to instill in her.

My nerves gave way. Only tears brought relief. My husband, touched and affected by the sight of my grief, sought to console me, but the harm had been done. My only sentiment towards Louis became one of fear. I dared no longer smile or speak in his presence. It always seemed to me he was on the point of losing his temper.

Nevertheless, the couple's first child--Napoleon Charles Bonaparte--was born the 2nd of October, 1802. Another son, Napoleon-Louis Bonaparte, followed two Octobers later. The Pope himself officiated the ostentatious baptismal ceremony at Saint Cloud.

[Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, first child of Louis & Hortense]

Napoleon continued to show favor to Louis; but Louis occasionally had a different view of these "favors" than his older brother. He saw Napoleon's appointment of him as governor of the "Department beyond the Alps," which would have required his relocation to Turin, as a form of exile, and refused to leave for this new station until after Napoleon's coronation as King of Italy. When the time came, he pleaded ill health and did not accompany Napoleon to Milan for the ceremony. Suffering from acute rheumatism, he had temporarily lost the use of his right hand. By this point he was something of a hypochondriac, and often imagined his illnesses to be far worse than they actually were. His doctors recommended mud baths in St. Amand. Napoleon, still clinging to the idea of making a soldier of Louis, gave his brother command of a reserve corps in the Army of England which would enable him to set up his headquarters close to St. Amand to take the suggested cure. He departed with Hortense and their two children. The mud baths seemed to improve his health.

During the 1805 campaign, Louis remained in Paris as Grand Constable. To everyone's surprise, after his initial reluctance to take over the role of military governor, he displayed remarkable energy. He was not yet aware that Napoleon was in the early stages of preparing him a throne. But rumors soon spread that the Prussians were planning to invade France via the Netherlands. Napoleon ordered Louis to form the Army of the North, to defend the northern departments, as well as Antwerp and the Batavian territories. Louis arrived in Antwerp the day before the battle of Austerlitz; in spite of the war coming to a rapid end, he received orders from Napoleon, via Marshal Berthier, to stay put in Holland. He was also instructed to make sure the Dutch covered "all the pay and supplies of the Army of the North; it must also buy and supply you with all the artillery and transport horses you may need... the Army of the North is not to cost the Emperor anything."

Despite Napoleon's orders, Louis handed over command of his new army and headed back to France upon learning of the peace of Pressburg. Napoleon was not pleased by the unexpected meeting with his brother in Strasbourg. The Emperor finally confided to Louis his intentions of forming a kingdom in Holland, but did not yet go so far as to say that he intended Louis to rule it.

But Napoleon could see only two viable options for Holland: it must either be annexed to the Empire directly, or preserve its independence by accepting an imperial prince--Louis--as its king. The Dutch government were reluctant to forfeit their republic, but recognized that resistance to Napoleon was futile. They assented to the rule of Louis, with the understanding that no French officials would be appointed except in the king's personal household (Louis would break this promise soon enough), that freedom of worship would be maintained, and the current system of Dutch law left in place. Once these points were arranged, Louis was informed by Napoleon that he was to be King of Holland. Louis himself had little choice in the matter.

Louis was initially reluctant to take the throne, but soon warmed to the perceived advantages of being out of his domineering brother's direct grasp. Hortense, meanwhile, dreaded the idea, as well as the visible change in Louis's demeanor.

I admit that my husband's calm manner surprised me. I did not believe he was ambitious, yet I recognized that he was well pleased with what had occurred. Until then every change had been a source of annoyance to him. But now he enjoyed the idea of becoming his own master and, what was more, becoming my master at the same time. No longer would any social decorum, any sense of obligation restrain him from exercising his rights over me. Freed from the proximity of his brother he had no longer any cause to fear him.... For a moment I had the idea of flinging myself at the Emperor's feet, revealing all the torments I suffered with my husband, and begging permission not to be obliged to follow him into a foreign country where nothing would restrain those traits in his character, which I knew so well and dreaded so intensely.

The official Dutch "offer" of the throne was presented as representing nine-tenths of the populace. The formal proclamation of Louis as King of Holland took place at the Tuileries on 5 June 1806. He was solemnly reminded by Napoleon that he was still a French prince. In his response, Louis spoke of his pride in having worked to defend the Dutch people from invasion the year before, the honor he felt in being called to rule over them. He assured Napoleon that his people--he was now referring to the Dutch--would feel love and gratitude towards the Emperor and France.

[Louis Bonaparte]

Louis and Hortense left Paris a week later. The Dutch gave them a joyous reception as they made their way through the country, every small town vying to outdo the other. Hortense held a dismal view of it all. "The martial escorts, the honors, receptions and speeches only wearied me." At one point, she remarked darkly to Louis that the receptions were similar to those the French had held to celebrate the arrival of Marie Antoinette.

Though he had been thrust into the role against his will and accepted it with some reluctance, Louis was determined to be a good king to his subjects, and take care of their interests--which would inevitably put him at odds with Napoleon, just as it would for Murat in Naples years later. "From the moment I set foot on Dutch soil," the newly-crowned Louis declared to his legislature, "I became Dutch." "Which explained in a sentence," writes biographer Andrew Roberts, "the problem Napoleon was to have with him over the next four years."

***

Sources:

Atteridge, A. Hillard. Napoleon’s Brothers, 1909.

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny. 2014.

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: Spirit of the Age. 2018.

De Beauharnais, Hortense. Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Vol I.

Masson, Frédéric. Napoleon et sa Famille, Vol I (1796-1802), 1907.

Roberts, Andrews. Napoleon: A Life. 2014.

#Meet the Bonapartes #Louis Bonaparte #Hortense de Beauharnais #Napoleon #Napoleon Bonaparte #history #19th century #Napoleonic

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lakeamherst · 3 years

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Letter from current owners of the dam on Amherst Lake.

April 24, 2021

Dear Neighbors,

We wanted to make you aware of circumstances surrounding some activities happening with the dam located between Amherst Lake and Echo Lake, and some changes that have occurred.

Many of you may not be aware, but the dam is privately owned. My husband and I became the owners when we purchased our dream property in Vermont about 3 years ago. We fell in love with this area and the lakes and put very little forethought into being dam owners, not realizing the full implications of what owning a dam means. We were assured that there are many privately owned dams in Vermont, and we assumed we would just figure things out as we went along. The previous owners had a very hands off policy with the dam and that seemed fine with us at the start.

Well, since we closed on our property, we have indeed been learning all about dam ownership. Our first shock was learning that the dam is currently classified as a SIGNIFICANT hazard potential. If the dam were to fail catastrophically, 19 low lying homes and Plymouth State Park in the immediate downstream flood zone could be inundated. Additionally, state inspections performed by the Vermont Dam Safety Program, have rated the dam as being in POOR condition since 2005. The first action we took, with a consulting engineer, was to develop an Emergency Action Plan to reduce the risk of potential human life loss and injury and minimize property damage if there was an emergency event. So what options are open for us to pursue at this point?

We have been working together with the Dam Safety Program in the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation and many other state and regional programs including Vermont Wetlands, Fish and Wildlife, Lakes and Ponds, Shoreland Protection and River Management, to develop a Water Control Plan to accomplish some urgent risk reduction measures. At this point in time, it was deemed necessary to remove the wooden flashboards that sit on top of the concrete portion of the dam. This will significantly decrease the chance for any immediate adverse events and mostly maintains the surface size of Amherst Lake. You will notice some changes in the recent summertime lake levels, which is the reason for this letter which we are sending out to all the addresses of property owners around Amherst Lake.

The removal of the flashboards, however, is only a temporary measure. Further, more extensive measures are being evaluated under current dam safety rules and guidelines. To this end we have applied for and recently received a grant to fund a study from the Vermont Watershed Grants program. Working with the Two Rivers Regional Planning Commission, this engineering feasibility study will be performed this summer and will provide details regarding the necessary costs associated with dam rehabilitation, reconstruction or removal.

You should be aware that as private owners, we are not eligible to access public funding for dam repair or maintenance. Once the feasibility study is performed on the dam, we will have actual dollar amounts to refer to when someone asks, “How much will it be to fix the dam?” Until we have real numbers to reference, we are in a holding pattern. My husband and I have been more than willing to gift the dam to the town of Plymouth or the state of Vermont or really anyone who would want to take on this project. For instance, the dams downstream on Lake Rescue and Lake Pauline are owned by the Town of Ludlow. We will continue to work closely with the Dam Safety Program and many other Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation programs in order to solve this problem. We will continue to keep you (our neighbors) informed of any developments related to the dam.

Deb and Mike O’Loughlin

PO Box 242

1534 Scout Camp Rd.

Plymouth, VT 05056

For anyone interested in seeing an actual copy of the Water Control Plan it is a public record and can be viewed at:

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histoireettralala · 4 years

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Joachim Murat: his youth in Quercy.

His steps often joined those of Napoleon. Born 250 years ago in Labastide, Marshal of France, the king of Naples remained, all his life, attached to his native land. His native village now bears his name: Labastide-Murat.

Published on August 29, 17 at 16:05, in ActuLot

Joachim Murat en uniforme de sous-lieutenant au 12e Régiment de Chasseurs en 1792 (Age 25), by Jean-Baptiste Paulin Guérin, 1835

His name will later be inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile. On April 5, 1791, three young people from Quercy (Murat, Bessieres and Ambert), appointed by the Lot Directory to be part of the King's constitutional guard, whose creation has just been voted by the Legislative Assembly, take the road to Paris. Coming from a family of small social status, Murat will reach the highest military glory thanks to the Republican wars and the prestigious imperial epic.

He was born on a causse with unexplored abysses

Joachim Murat was born on March 25, 1767, at La Bastide-Fortunière, a village in the Causse de Gramat. This physical environment has a certain connection with the future King of Naples' life and character. “La Bastide, a small village on the high plateau, looks like a fortress commanding the country. This majestic appearance amidst the drought, the almost desolation of the limestone soil which unexplored abysses hollow out in some places is the very image of Murat's life, a life full of contrasts where the good and the worst intertwine, where the peak honors and glory are next to disasters, mentions Marcel Dupont in his work on Murat. The sometimes violent wind is still a striking image of the marshal's mind, always filled with clouds and where hopes, vast projects, fury and annihilation collide day and night. Here is summarized in a few strokes, the prodigious and fatal destiny of this horseman who would have no equal to descend like a windstorm on the enemy troops.

His mother Jeanne's favorite child

Yet he seemed destined for a peaceful existence. Murat comes from a family that has lived in the town for more than three centuries. They are hard-working peasants, exploiting poor soil in harsh winters. How could a king arise from this modest environment more conducive to the development of country virtues than to warlike exploits?

This required the ardor of his youth, which will never leave him, but also the revolutionary upheaval. His father exploited the lands of "a few enlightened minds" in the village. Not being the owner, he is the manager, receiving earnings proportional to the crops. These are certainly satisfactory because the couple have a large house in the center of the town. This is the mother’s domain. The ground floor has been converted into an inn and the floor is divided between the family apartment and a few rooms for passing guests. This energetic woman who runs the inn is a caring mother. The good Jeanne Loubières, whom he will adore all his life, in fact, makes of the youngest of her eleven children, her favorite. By her constant presence, her desire to provide Joachim with an education, that goes beyond that of his environment, she will shape this son to the point that he will never forget his childhood.

With his curly hair and cheerful face, he's a rowdy kid, sometimes a brawler, as it should be to be respected in this country where endurance is proof of character. His time at La Bastide-Fortunière school made a good impression on his teachers: he is an average student but whose qualities of camaraderie and friendliness are recognized. His loving mother, who has deep religious feelings, thinks that the day will come when young Joachim will enter the Orders and may be parish priest of La Bastide.

His great pleasure is to lead alone the horses to the village trough. At the age when a horse seems formidable to a child, Joachim, who has an unusual vigor, already knows how to subdue them.

An amazing ability to lead

These predispositions did not arouse any suspicion among his parents who obtained a scholarship to send him, at 10 years old, to the Saint-Michel college in Cahors. He will stay there for 8 years. It is there that he will have as a comrade Jean Bessières from Prayssac, a future Marshal of the Empire. An unwavering friendship is born between these two men who would become close to the emperor.

Far from La Bastide, the young Murat discovers unknown horizons which open up new appetites for him. His intelligence is real. But as soon as he crosses the threshold of the class, he takes a singular ascendancy on his comrades, even develops an astonishing capacity to lead. How to blame him? If he goes too far for his age, he knows how to repent, implore and become very sweet again.

His whole life, he will use these weapons. Many contemporaries believe that he is completely sincere. Going from anger to tenderness, from elation to dejection, he is already and will remain, impulsive, even excessive in everything. Not without kindness and generosity.

At 20, he joins the cavalry

At the age of eighteen, he joins the Lazarists' seminar in Toulouse. But wearing the cassock does not make the seminarian. And this handsome young man of 1.85 meters, with a pleasant smile, already leads, outside the establishment, a private life the "good fathers" ignore. Here comes an important moment in Murat's life: his military engagement. It is allowed to think, with Jean Tulard, that after a quarrel, our too fiery seminarian was excluded from the University and dreading his father, takes advantage of the passage of the Cavalry of the Ardennes regiment to sign up for, he says "a life that does not displease him". In fact, the new Chasseur is "thrilled". He quickly stood out for his ability to train the most reticent horses and quickly became sergeant*.

For the simple rider, the days are repetitive and gruelling. After an early awakening (at six o'clock), you must groom sick animals, currycomb and brush them before preparing fodder, water and oats. It is only after this daily work, at ten o'clock that a soup is distributed. Then the upkeep chores of the stables. Strict rules still from the Ancien Régime! Because already Parisian ideas are swarming in the garrisons.

Giving free rein to his temperament, his need to be a leader, Murat, who places a lot of hope in the new ideas, takes the lead of the discontented men of the Regiment. This behavior is little appreciated by his leaders: he is put on permanent leave and expelled from the army. Humiliated, he decides to go back to the Lot. We are in 1789.

Delivery Clerk in Saint-Céré

Very badly received by his father who cuts him off, he returns to Saint-Céré where he is hired as a delivery clerk. For a few months, he was enraged, champing at the bit with impatience, convinced that his place is not here. The villages are buzzing. He became aware of the real state of France, of the mounting demands of the campaigns. Murat takes advantage of this return to his native land to attend and participate in public meetings of local clubs.

The past winter has been harsh and long. The harvest was poor. Lack of food and unemployment strike everywhere. Castles see their dovecote burned down. " Here will be hanged the first inhabitant who will pay the rent to the lord," says a poster from a Cahors merchant. It’s the revolt. Louis XVI summons the Etats Généraux on May 1, 1789 in Versailles. In 1790, for the Fête de la Fédération on July 14, each department must appoint two to three delegates. You can imagine that Murat is volunteering! The sympathetic, sweet talking but proud young man speaks. And it is in Lotois dialect that he expresses himself in cafes, wishing to reach the greatest number. The Revolution is born: Joachim Murat, who is part of the Third Estate by his origins, tries to change public opinion according to events. Every Sunday, he goes to Cahors: he listens, he harangues the crowd. He is on the Montfaucon list and is chosen to represent the Lot department.

The republican patriot leaves for Paris

Murat, 23, can go and explore the capital. It’s the consecration.

A new man is born. After a secular mass celebrated by former Bishop Talleyrand, speeches on the Champ de Mars ignite the crowds. One hundred thousand Parisians came to celebrate the first anniversary of the Capture of the Bastille. A year later, returning to the army, he is appointed to the King's Constitutional Guard, to protect but also to monitor Louis XVI. Indignant, the protester manifests a flawless patriotic commitment, calling himself a "pronounced republican", facing "this hideout of royalists who gravitate around the king". But the wind turns, Robespierre falls. His revolutionary passion almost interrupted his meteoric career. Bitter and worried, he is put on leave and returns for some time to Quercy, "wanting to become a simple plowman again".

Aide de camp

Skeptical about his future, then dejected, Murat quickly reacts, helped by the deputy for Gourdon, Jean-Baptiste Cavaignac, who encourages him to return to Paris. It is on the night of 12 to 13 Vendémiaire (October 5, 1795) that Murat is put in contact with the First Consul who needs him. He orders him to save the Convention threatened by the royalist riot. Forty cannons are placed by Squadron Leader Murat around the Tuileries Castle. Three hundred royalists will be killed. The government of the Republic is saved again. As Tulard points out: "From now on the star of Murat will merge with that of Bonaparte". No more depression, finally power and glory.

Promoted Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, he leaves for the Italian Campaign, direction Marengo. There, "his clothes will be riddled with bullets", but they will know victory.

He becomes Napoleon I's brother-in-law

In 1800, he marries Caroline, the First Consul's youngest sister, becoming the brother-in-law of the future Napoleon I. This marriage will give Murat an outstanding position among the marshals of the Empire. Quickly, he is invited to move to the Château des Tuileries and becomes part of the close entourage of the new master of France.

The rouser of men from the imperial epic will remain kind to his family at La Bastide. Coming from a small inn in Quercy to fly with his squadrons across Europe and into Egypt, Murat seems like a legendary character. Chateaubriand will devote long passages to him in the "Mémoires d'Outre Tombe". He will be admired by Stendhal, Dumas and Balzac. Three words characterize the King of Naples: ardor, ambition and panache. If he remains the most magnificent rouser of men the imperial epic will produce, he will invest much into the Lot whose deputy he will become in 1803.

And he will show kindness for his whole family. Especially for his mother, for whom he will show a deep attachment: he sends her rosaries blessed by the Pope.

The portrait he has done of Jeanne in 1792 will never leave him. It will be with him, in his homes, in his tent during his campaigns and in Naples, in his palace. He will build a castle for his "La Bastide family" in his native village, modeled on the Palais de l'Elysée, where he had resided as governor of Paris.

The King of Naples dies executed on October 13, 1815.

By André Décup

[Translation is mine.

Note: I translated by ‘sergeant’ the grade of Maréchal des Logis, which is its equivalent in the cavalry (and nowadays in the Gendarmerie).

There is no right translation for “entraîneur d’hommes”, I hope “rouser” doesn’t seem too weird in English.]

#napoleonic #joachim murat #newsletters articles #2017 #anyway i love him

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beatrice-otter · 4 years

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Yuletide Recs 2019

Happy Yuletide, everyone! First, I got a delightful little fic written for me: promenade. My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle and Mrs. Higgins. Wonderful story. Mrs. Higgins was superb, and Eliza's reactions to the English upper class abroad are perfect. Here are some other fics I have enjoyed: 4'33"--John Cage The Sound Of A Yuletide Fic Not Being Written. There sure are a lot of cars going by. Great meta look at writing, and 4'33" The Addams Family (movies) An Addams Family Contract (Written in Secret, Signed in Blood). “I’m an Addams,” Debbie protests indignantly. Immediately after making this statement, Debbie realized that it was true. (Or, Wednesday wants to exorcise Debbie. Debbie wants to kill Wednesday. A negotiation begins.) This is AMAZING and hysterically funny, and the thought of Debbie and Wednesday working together is TERRIFYING. Don't I Deserve Love (and Jewelry). The plan to win Wednesday’s friendship did not start well. She shared her admiration for the girl’s blowtorch, then hinted about her own childhood affinity for matchsticks and fire accelerants, but Wednesday was unimpressed. Do better,” she said before lowering her hockey mask and stalking after Pubert. Honeymoon in Transylvania. Ahahahaha, this is wonderful. Gomez and Morticia vs. the TSA! Alien Series A Room with a Crappy View. 17k of Ripley and Hicks awesomeness post-Aliens. This is an absolutely AMAZEBALLS fic, and I LOVE it. I love that they deal with their trauma. I love how they wrote the Colonel, doing the best she could on the evidence she had and how frustrating that was and yet, when you look at it from her POV, what better way could she have handled it? The action is great, the relationships between Ripley and Hicks and Bishop were awesome, this is an absolute treat. All About Eve Getting Back to Being a Woman. Karen knew enough not to go to New Haven. Never let it be said that Margo Channing doesn't know how to take care of her friends. I love this. I could just hear Bette Davis and the others saying their lines, and the ending is perfect--I think Karen and Lloyd will be able to have a much better relationship after this, if he's willing to accept and live into the changed relationship. Till I have the possession of everything she touches. Addison DeWitt/Eve Harrington and their daughter. VERY well done Addison perspective. Aubrey-Maturin series. Vent de Boulet. Jack & Aubrey, Teen. The aftermath of Stephen's escape from the French interrogators at Port Mahon. Wonderful portrayal of the relationship between them and natural consequences of their trauma-filled lives. Babette's Feast Body and Soul. After the French dinner, a new normal established itself among the faithful. Ballet Shoes A Long Way from the Cromwell Road. Petrova visits Pauline in Hollywood after the war ends. Bletchley Circle Logical Recovery. After the showdown with Marta Magro at the warehouses, Jean, Millie, and Lucy embark for Glasgow to find Eliška. Archival research, an extended stay with Jean's cousin, undercover rescue missions, and much emotional processing of past events ensue. Cabaret Infinite Variety. London, 1950. Clifford has coming looking for Sally. Instead he finds a girl who may or may not be her – or their – daughter, the reclusive former Master of Ceremonies, and an annoying parrot. He becomes part of their strange household, full of love and bickering; sorrow, pain and music. No-one will tell him where Sally is, or even whether she’s alive. No-one will tell him anything. Except the parrot, who tells him that life is a Cabaret. Oh, wow, this is painful but SO GOOD and the ending is perfect. DC Teen Titans From Cold to Fire. "Do you want to go out with me?" "What?" Young Justice Getting Stupid in your area. Hang-time includes considerations of evil clones and taking down a newly raised lich lord. Love the banter. Die Hard Your Answers Please. “Come on, kid,” McClane said gruffly. “This place is fucking depressing. You’re coming to stay with me.” Enchanted Forrest Chronicles Best Served Cold. In which Antorell causes trouble in the Enchanted Forest, and Cimorene and Alianora make an amphibious new friend. Hilarious, I love Ribbita! Ghostbusters Better Than Roses. Janine dates. It's...something. The Goblin Emperor Imperial (non) Immunity. Csevet doesn't get sick. Maia's not so confident. Light a Mourner's Candle. The Archprelate finds a chaplain for Maia. Against a Sure Winter. When the opportunity arose to become one of the four ceremonial bodyguards for the new Emperor, Cala Athmaza volunteered. He didn't fully realize what he was letting himself in for, but he knew in his heart he had made the right choice. Sugar Lumps. Maia spends some time with his horse. Greek Mythology beauty, her artificers. Shortly after their wedding, Aphrodite sustains a small wound. Really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus dynamic. a thing of beauty, golden. Olympus’ one-century wonder appears in Hephaestus’ workshop between one strike on his anvil and the next.. Another really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus fic. Hancock yeah I know the shortcut, rather take the long way. Ray daydreams a New York that looks a lot like something out of an old Daredevil comic - towers looming over the city like cragged, jaded sentries, impartial to the neon kaleidoscope of chaos churning along below them. Hancock roosts on the tallest, craggiest one of course, brooding as he watches the slow pulsing heartbeat of the city below him. Ready to dive off his perch and into action with the first cry of distress, and there’s probably lots of those in a city like New York. Lots of zooming around, saving people, saving the world. Hopefully with slightly less metaphorical middle fingers to the world. And less alcohol. Ray’s not an idiot though, and one sparkly life-changing month doesn’t just fix people. History RPF 15th Century. these late eclipses. Anne Neville, like others of her line, is born with a gift. I LOVE the way magic is brought into this, it melds so well with the history. 19th Century/German folklore The Bargain. Bettina finds a secret door at her grandmother's house, one that leads to something very unexpected. The things she learns as a result change her life in small but important ways. Imperial Radch Still Left in Want of Mercy. The Republic of Two Systems is about a month old. Seivarden is having yet another crisis - can Mercy of Kalr get her through it? Maybe, with the crew's and Fleet Captain's help. Interesting Ship perspective. high above the trees. An unexpected embassy. Really excellent, probably the best way I've ever seen "Awn Lives" done. The Incredibles Life of a Superhero, Junior Grade. Fortunately, this was Tuesday night training, not a real villain-chasing experience. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell The Magicians of Starecross Hall. Being a series of interludes in the life of John Segundus, newly practical magician, in the year following the disappearances of Messrs. Strange and Norrell. Including: a new school for young magicians, explorations of the King’s Roads, Lady Pole’s alarming needle-work, unanticipated trips to Faerie, and John Childermass. I love this story! How the school got started, and 'Miss Wintertowne' (although I do think she would style herself 'Mrs' Wintertowne, because she is married and up through the 18th Century 'Mistress/Mrs' vs. 'Miss' had as much to do with age and experience and such as it did with marital status) and how she uses embroidery as a kind of art therapy. I love the slow burn, and I love the stuff about exploring the King's Roads and Faerie. It is excellent and awesome. Lilo & Stitch The Dance. Lilo peeked out from behind the curtains and looked over the stage. A Little Princess Discipulae. "I just realized," Sara said. "Becky, I could have a tutor now. I could hire someone to teach me anything I wanted. All the things that are hard to learn alone from books — Greek and Latin, Sanskrit, algebra, anything I wanted. What would you learn, Becky, if you could?" Really great look at what their lives could be like post-canon. Marvel Captain Marvel Take my hand (and we'll march to the front lines). There's a dream Vers has sometimes. this youthful heart can love you. Carol waited a week before she left with the Skrulls. Space Cases. Monica tried many other times to win her mother over to a pet. A rabbit, a pony, a parakeet. This is not any of those stories. This is the story of Monica Rambeau and a Flerken named Goose. Or: Why Nick Fury is never allowed to babysit ever again. The Tesseract's Wife. A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points: non-linear snapshots of a love story. Fly Me To The Moon. "It's a vacation. Like spring break," Carol says. Monica's eyes widen. "Really? So we can hang out? What are we going to do?" "Well," Carol says, leaning back in her chair and flashing that old, familiar smirk. "I thought we could go to the moon." Into the Spiderverse i got you. Miles thinks he's hiding the truth about Spider-Man, but one unfortunate night, it comes to light. one last leap. Telling his parents he's Spider-Man is a leap of faith Miles can't bring himself to take. My Life to Liv. Liv survived her encounters with her interdimensional Spider-nemeses, of course. So what's next for her? Interdimensional Phone Pals. Gwen Stacy is many things, but open to friendships isn’t really one of them. Or, Five rules Gwen makes for herself, and how Peter B. makes her question them. Into the Spiderverse/Murder, She Wrote Spider, She Wrote. Miles and May visit her old friend Jessica in Cabot Cove. Mulan (1998) the proper order of things. Great outsider perspective. The Mummy After the Mummy. London was becoming Rick's least favourite place, and not just because of all the rain. Loving Evy was one thing: figuring out whether she loved him back after the Egyptian heat faded away was something else. Where's a good rising of the undead when you need one? Don't worry, Jonathan found one. Lovely fun adventure. Course Correction. Jonathan really is serious about staying away from tombs and mummies this time (except trouble always seems to find him). Good thing Ardeth is there to help him stay on-track. Travelers by Night. Very quickly, Jonathan weighed the odds. On one hand, potential death, whether by armed bandits, a mummy’s curse, or people who looked like bandits and who were very angry about someone unleashing a mummy’s curse. On the other hand, potential riches, home ground, and topics of conversation other than what happened at school fifteen years ago and who got it in the neck where. Murderbot How I Spent My Vacation Between Survey Missions. What happens when ART reunites with Murderbot during another break between research survey missions? Media gets viewed, of course, but there might also be some bad news for more shady corporations. Situation Normal. Hi, I said, along with amusement sigil 159 = wave. It seemed a little inadequate, but what do you say to the ship that radically altered your appearance, helped you figure out your past, and also threatened you with terrifying weapons? Amusement sigils seemed like my best bet. My Fair Lady Here We Are Together. Eliza and Freddy are working together. Henry isn't happy, and makes sure everyone knows it. One Day at a Time what they say about the young. Without the kids around, it feels like everything has changed, except for all the other things about Penelope's life that could change, too. a return to normal. Penelope and Schneider's Friday night plans fall through, so they have a movie night instead. Very sweet. Persuasion. The Pen in Their Hands. Five letters that were written, but were never sent, aboard H.M.S. Laconia. (And one that was.) Smooth Water. “If I wanted easy comfort, I should not have become a captain’s wife.” Wonderful Austen voice. A Step Not Taken. What if that day at Lyme had gone just a little differently? Peter Wimsey The Duke's Parlormaid. A story in correspondence, with detective interruptions. Really captured the feel of the books and all the character voices. Poirot The Mice Will Play. When Poirot returns unexpectedly from a case, he finds out something new about Miss Lemon. RED The One Bathtub. “I did have dinner plans,” Han said, grudgingly, and so Victoria kicked the door in and graciously allowed Han to be the first into the bathroom. She understood the pain of missed reservations. Rivers of London Through All the Years, This Is My Home. At night, when the rest of the staff and most, if not all, of the masters were asleep, Molly would wander the moonlit halls and remember what fresh air felt like on her skin. Of Molly, of Thomas, and of the years they've spent together - and of the Folly, strong and everlasting. Lovely Molly perspective. Peelian Principles. "You're very calm about this," Seawoll said on the fifth day. Nightingale's perspective on Peter's time as a hostage, and REALLY AWESOME. UXB. When one the deadliest weapons of the Blitz threatens London once again, Peter finds himself on the front line. Wonderful casefic, just perfect. Saved! Conversation Starters. Cassandra and Roland have five important conversations. Sense and Sensibility Realization and Renewal. As Marianne recovers, Elinor and Colonel Brandon find themselves drawn to one another. Sense8 Blue and Gold. Wolfgang comes home with Kala and Rajan after Paris. Finding a place with them. Star Trek: Rihannsu Day Comes Up New. "I have done something spectacularly stupid," Arrhae said. This is a wonderful extension and meditation on what might happen past canon. Ever since I first read The Romulan Way as a teen, I've wondered what happened to Arrhae in the end, and the subsequent books were great but didn't answer the ultimate question. This doesn't either, but it suggests something further, which I appreciate. Terminator Movies A Fistful of Sarahs. The sky cracks open, and Sarah watches herself tumble out of a rift in the space time continuum. She’s older than she is now, and she’s got a lot more scars, and she’s carrying the biggest and weirdest looking gun Sarah’s ever seen. with all the hope in my heart (and doubt in my mind). Sarah Connor has done this before. Dani has not. Post-Terminator: Dark Fate. Fate, the Future, and Other Sons of Bitches. Sarah and Dani hit the road. Winnie the Pooh In Which Pooh Hunts for the Meaning of Christmas. Pooh finds a mysterious envelope pinned to the door of his house. In Which Eeyore Loses His Tail Again, Or At Least Plans To. It's a bright, sunny day, and Eeyore has a plan to make it tolerable. Now if only his friends will cooperate.

#fic rec #fanfiction #fanfic #yuletide

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thelastranger · 4 years

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Au where Ferris kills Halt, Caitlyn becomes a ranger, and Sean can see ghosts

This is my take on it, but @rangerpippin had a SPECTACULAR take on the idea in the discord so check that out if you haven't already

(It sounds angsty but it is wholesome, I promise)

Au where Ferris manages to kill Halt in the river, but Halt comes back as a ghost and haunts Ferris. Ferris is the only one who can see and hear Halt (that they know of). Halt can't interact with the world but he can talk and float around. He really wishes he could move things, but he'll work with what he's got.

In this universe, Caitlyn fears for her life and flees to Araluen with the help of her boyfriend, Michael. She and Michael meet Crowley and the three of them hit it off instantly. Caitlyn and Pauline become best friends. Caitlyn at first feels bittersweet about being friends with Crowley because he's exactly the type of person who Halt would get along famously with.

Ferris never tried to kill Caitlyn but she felt threatened by him and she couldn't stand to be in the palace with him.

While Caitlyn didn't do as much training as her brothers in the royal court yard, she was expertly trained in archery and had more freedom to sneak around in the woods. Ferris and Halt were trained in swordplay.

As she and Michael are fleeing, they meet Pritchard who helps them across the ocean and teaches Caitlyn everything she needs to know. Michael watches in awe and practices his sword fighting. He hopes that someone will hire him as a knight in Araluen. What he doesn't know is that he will become one of the most respected knights in Araluen and help teach the next generation of knights, including a young ward from Redmont.

Ferris killed Halt before he could start training with Pritchard. A month and a half later, Caitlyn leaves. Ferris doesn't send out large search parties to find her but Halt searches tirelessly, trying to find Caitlyn or even a hint of where she went. This is hindered by the fact he can't really go to many places.

Ghost powers develop slowly and they gain more powers over time. So Halt is initially only able to be around Ferris, but as the years go by he can move throughout the castle, Dun Kilty, Clonmel, and Hibernia. It’s only after a decade that Halt tries to cross the ocean to Araluen.

Halt doesn't appear as a ghost immediately. He spends a few days in the dark and sees some visions, the best including a red headed man laughing with a stunning blonde woman, his friend Michael with the red haired man and someone who looked like... Caitlyn shooting arrows against horrible bear monsters. He’s not sure what to make of these scenes. More importantly, Halt meets a kindly old man before Halt realizes he's a ghost. Halt thinks that he is still alive. They chat and Halt is comforted. As they part, the man expresses his regret that he never got to teach Halt. At this moment Halt realizes that he didn't ask the man his name and the man smiles in a bittersweet way and says "Pritchard." Pritchard isn't a ghost but he's always been able to seem certain ghosts and sort of guide them. Halt realizes that he is a ghost and decides to haunt Ferris.

Ghost Halt generally bugs Ferris and drags him all while commenting on his murderous tendencies and how he doesn't have anyone to support him in the family. Ferris gets so upset during meetings but sometimes Halt genuinely has good ideas so Ferris starts to begrudgingly listen to Halt occasionally. Halt also tries to pull a bunch of prank but it stinks that he can't move anything.

Halt finds it darkly funny that Ferris killed him to become king but Halt is still making decisions.

Eventually the brothers get fed up with each other and they have a screaming match that dissolves into an actual conversation. This is the first real conversation the brothers have had without copious amounts of insults. Ferris deeply regrets his actions and Halt kind of forgives him. To a certain extent though. His brother did kill him after all.

Some people low key think Ferris is crazy after this because he sometimes would be caught talking to the air. Halt finds it hilarious.

Early on in his rule, there was an attempt to get Ferris off the throne. Halt finds out about it and tells Ferris who stops it. When Ferris asks why Halt stopped it, Halt goes "You're the only person who talks to me dummy. And despite the fact that you murdered me, I don't mind it." It may be short and brusque but it's the nicest thing someone's told Ferris in a while and it marks a real turning point in the brothers relationship.

Years go by and Halt still can't interact with anyone besides Ferris and he's never tried to leave the general bounds of Clonmel. Caitlyn never contacts Ferris and both brothers want to know where she is because they are curious and Ferris wants to apologize to her and Michael. They have no idea they have a nephew.

Halt leaves Clonmel for the first time and drifts across the ocean much faster than he expected. Something is drawing him to Araluen. He lands in a part of Araluen, about a few days ride from Redmont, where Crowley just happens to be visiting. Halt recognizes Crowley as the red headed man from his visions. He also feels a connection to the man. He follows Crowley and eventually ends up finding Caitlyn and her family. Caitlyn and Michael can't see him but it seems like Caitlyn's son, Sean, can. Halt is shocked to find out that he has a nephew and saddened that he will never get to meet him. But Sean can see him.

Ghost Halt visits when Sean is 8 and Sean sees a man who kind of looks like his mother in the cabin and he figures that the man is there for the fabled ranger Caitlyn. Caitlyn isn't home right now and Michael is in the house and the man seems kind of overwhelmed with emotion. The strange man doesn't wait for Sean's mama but instead tells Sean to tell his mom to visit her brother in Clonmel. There were things that needed to be said. Halt sees Caitlyn coming back to the house, laughing with Gilan, and knows he has to leave before Sean asks why he isn’t talking to his mother. Halt bids Sean goodbye and floats away when he isn’t looking. Watching from a tree, Halt sees his sister and misses her deeply.

Sean tells Caitlyn this and she is shocked. She hasn't told anyone that she had a brother. Michael knows and that's it. Sean didn't even know he had an uncle. She's suspicious and even more so when Sean says the man kind of looked like her. Caitlyn thinks Ferris is tracking her down and she has no intention of talking to him ever again. She warns Sean not to talk to strangers and tries to put the incident behind her.

Ferris and Halt are disappointed when Caitlyn doesn't come to Clonmel and so a year or two later, Halt goes back to visit.

Sean is feeling conflicted about the new apprentice because Will is cool but he also spends a lot of time with their family and Sean isn't sure if he likes that or not. Halt talks to him about it and Sean feels better.

Ferris and Halt really want Caitlyn to visit them and to bring Sean so Ferris tries to subtly get Araluen to send a ranger or a knight with diplomatic ties to Clonmel. He hopes that Caitlyn wouldn't disobey a royal order. He greatly misjudged Caitlyn's character.

It's the first, but not the last, time Caitlyn has a shouting match with King Duncan. He knows she is from Hibernia but she refuses to go back. In the end, after much fighting and compromises, Michael ends up going back. Caitlyn has a lot of conditions like he has to grow a beard and dye his hair and play up his Araluen accent. He honestly looks ridiculous. She's pretty sure that Ferris wouldn't remember her boyfriend from over a decade ago. And normally, she would be right. But thanks to Halt, Ferris knows who Michael is.

Ferris really wants to befriend Michael enough to get him to bring Sean and Caitlyn over or possibly slip Michael a note to take to Caitlyn, but Halt cautions against it.

Ferris gives Michael a note anyway and Caitlyn finds it. She sees that it's from Ferris and she is about to burn it when she sees a phrase that Halt only said to her. Ferris had no idea what it was. This gives her pause but not enough that she doesn't burn the note.

Ferris and Halt keep trying for several more years. Halt at this point has slightly grown into his ghostly powers or whatever they really are and can move certain objects like an inch at a time. Halt also keeps visiting Sean who has grown into a fine young man who is very interested in the diplomatic arts much to the chagrin of his mother and father. They support him anyway. Plus, he has his father's last name so there's that added protection. He seems like any other Araluen citizens except for there's a twinge of Hibernian in his words.

All four of them ride into Dun Kilty and Sean presents his diplomatic papers and Caitlyn is emanating anger. They go to the throne room and find it devoid of people except for King Ferris. He looks at them and smiles... until Caitlyn comes up and give him a punch to the face. She's tired of hiding and all the constant attempts at futile contact. She wants peace and for Ferris to stop being such an idiot. She honestly hadn't expected him to last so long in power.

Ferris accepts the punch, a bit confused because he assumed that Caitlyn was ready to talk. She really isn't and he starts babbling about how he was so sorry and how he has changed and how Halt had forgiven him until he realizes that there are other people in the room and that Caitlyn is so confused.

Ferris clears his throat and asks if they could clear the room. Caitlyn refuses and says something like so you can kill me without any witnesses? Ferris winces but he kinda deserved that one. "Whatever you have to say can be said to these men as well. By the way, Sean is your nephew you scumbag." Caitlyn figured that Ferris would be a little more shocked but he seems to take it in stride.

Sean, by the way, is freaking out because the mysterious man who visited frequently over the years who called himself Arratay is right there on the throne (Halt isn't in the room yet) but King Ferris, who is apparently his uncle, could not have been the man.

Ferris starts to tell everyone about how Halt is a ghost and Caitlyn scoffs and tries to leave until the door to the throne room opens an inch and Sean sees his old friend walk in, looking exactly like King Ferris. The door scares everyone, but Caitlyn is not convinced. She thinks it's a trick.

Ferris explains the best he can and Sean to the surprise of everyone also jumps in with an explanation. Caitlyn is still skeptical until Halt pushes a piece of paper to Sean and tells him to write down what he says. Halt tells Caitlyn everything that happened and tells her the last words they ever spoke to each other, something Sean would never know.

Caitlyn bursts into tears and scans the room. She swears she can feel Halt when he goes to hug her. Ferris apologizes for killing Halt and forcing her away and she forgives him (but fully reserves the right to roast him mercilessly)

Will and Horace are flabbergasted that there was so much drama with the O'Carrick family and the fact that Sean and apparently Ferris can see ghosts.

Ferris can really only see Halt and for that he is grateful. He doesn't think he could deal with more than one ghost haunting him and roasting him over his fashion choices. That's one of the few things he and Halt don't agree on. Sean, on the other hand, is different. Sean can see Halt clearly and can sometimes see other ghosts fairly clearly but he doesn't know that they are ghosts and often they don't either.

Caitlyn does fall sick with turberculosis several years before meeting up with Ferris for the first time in decades and it almost kills her. Luckily, thanks to the work of Malcolm and several other healers, she was able to pull through. Michael is still hyper concerned whenever she gets so as much as a cold.

Caitlyn in this universe is fiercely protective of herself and her family. She would like to leave almost every part of her past behind except for when she tells Sean about the beauty of Hibernia and his smile lights up his face. Unlike Halt, Caitlyn never snuck into Clonmel to check up on things. She wants to put everything about Hibernia (except for Halt) in a tiny portion of her brain where she never has to think about Ferris again. Caitlyn is very blunt and tells things like it is. She suffers no fools and has a bit of a temper. Almost too competent.

Michael is the milder of the pair. Which, compared to Caitlyn, is not saying much. Despite this, Michael is normally a very mild mannered man who is down for an adventure at any time just as much as he is willing to stay home and rest. Close friends with Sir Rodney and Baron Arald, Michael is first a very willing student at Battleschool and then an enthusiastic teacher. Super devoted to Caitlyn. He is surprisingly petty, but will deny it to his last breath. If Ferris gets a lot of mail that just so happens to insult him in lots of different languages, well, Michael has no idea about that. (His apprentices at battle school are more than willing to write down the worst insults they know in all their languages for their kind instructor)

For the first year or so, Ferris is a horrible king and person. He starts to feel very guilty for killing Halt and for driving Caitlyn away. Halt’s constant comments on these topics help drive these feelings and Ferris changes. He isn’t well loved but people agree that there have been worse kings than him and he does a fair job all things considered. By the time Caitlyn comes back to Clonmel, it’s been twenty five years and he’s been trying to get in touch with her for seventeen years. Ferris just wants reconciliation with his sister and to give Halt some closure. Ferris steadily ignored Halt for the first month since Halt hadn’t gotten a hold of talking yet and Ferris did not tell Caitlyn about how he was seeing Halt’s ghost constantly.

Halt is still the sarcastic, witty, and grumpy man we all know and love. He’s just not a ranger and is a ghost. Halt sticks around Ferris to both roast him constantly (this is a recurring theme) and to guide him because honestly, Ferris needed some guidance. Really wants Caitlyn to come back so he can actually talk to her and for Ferris to get over everything. He wishes that he could live his own life but he makes do with what he has. Pesters Ferris to go into the woods more during the first few years so he can be in nature more.

Sean: Caitlyn and Michael’s son, five years younger than Will. Sean was raised by both a ranger and a knight so while he has a very strict moral code and a strong sense of ethics, he’s willing to break just about any rule or code in order to do good. One of the reasons he became a diplomat (and studied intensively with the couriers) was he wanted to feel more connected to Hibernia where both of his parents are from, but rarely talk about. Preferring to talk things out, Sean can still pack a punch and swing a sword. He's the future king of Clonmel. Feels a connection to Halt even though he doesn't know who he really is. Full time diplomat, part time ghost whisperer.

Caitlyn trains Will and Gilan. The pair lived with the O'Carrick-Reid family. Sean takes the last name Reid and his middle name is O’Carrick. Caitlyn will occasionally give Alyss tips on diplomacy and Alyss is always curious about how the Hibernian ranger knows so much about diplomacy concerning royalty.

Pauline definitely knows about the O’Carrick secret.

(I thought it was only fair that Caitlyn got to be a ranger too in an au)

#Ranger's Apprentice #RA au #Halt O'Carrick #Ferris O'Carrick #Caitlyn O'Carrick #Sean O'Carrick #Ghost!Halt au #Sean and his friends have wacky misadventures ghost hunting #angst but wholesome

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ginnyzero · 4 years

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Completely Harmless Ch. 23

Completely Harmless An SSO SilverGlade Re-imagining Story (Or Fix it Fan Salt fic) By Ginny O.

When Lily and her friends wanted to buy horses and were directed to the Silverglade Manor and its myriad of problems, they didn’t expect to start a revolution. They were just a bunch a stable girls. Completely harmless. Right?

A/N: Things are only canon if I say they’re canon. Pre-Saving the Moorland Stables compliant for the most part. Posted in its entirety on my website. Posted in 2000 to 4000 word bits here. Rated T for Swearing Word Count 177,577

Chapter Twenty-Three Mr. Fussywithers

Bjorn was in charge of drilling the holes in the wall for the dynamite sticks to go into. Then they’d put the sticks in the holes when he was done, attach the wires, run the wires out towards the road or under the bridge towards the Moon Garden, wait until everyone was out of the way, and then detonate the charges.

So, first, this meant making sure that they had fences set up to keep people out. Good thing Bjorn had thought ahead and kept some of the fences that G.E.D. had been using.

“Waste not, want not,” he said in a matter of fact voice.

They set up the fences to his specifications. Then he gave them hard hats. “All right ladies, while I start drilling, what you’re going to need to do is get some wheelbarrows. I’ve got the truck parked. You’re going to load up the wheelbarrows, then load up the truck. When we’ve got a full load, I’ll take it off to the track site to make into concrete later.”

They all nodded as if this made perfect sense. They jogged off to get shovels and wheelbarrows that had ended up scattered around the garden from their efforts of clearing off the weeds.

“Better get the rakes too,” Pauline said.

“Brooms for the dust,” Stacy murmured.

They came back with barrows full of tools.

Bjorn wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Gotta put your back into this to do it right.” He told them with a grin. “Right, the first holes are drilled. Let’s see that dynamite.”

They pried open the boxes with a handy pry bar and some hammers retrieved from the stable.

Bjorn picked it up and examined. “Looks like the stuff. All right, what we’re going to do is cut it down so it doesn’t explode too much.” He brought out what could have been a cigar cutter and showed them how. “Mind your fingers. Wear your gloves.”

They blanched and nodded rapidly.

They cut the first sticks down at his direction and inserted them into the holes he’d drilled into the rock. He showed them how to attach the wires and then they wound the wire out towards the road where a couple other girls had been sent to set up the blast box.

Attaching the wires to the blast box, they were forced to find a hat and fill it with names to see who would press down on the handle and send the first electric spark. Brittany won.

Agnetha and Bjorn moved clear.

“Fire in the hole!” She shouted and gleefully shoved the handle down.

The spark went along the wires and at first there was a puff of smoke, then the dynamite exploded, shaking the ground and breaking up the rock in a great burst of dust, tiny shards of rock, and smoke.

They cheered. Even if they weren’t entirely sure what they were cheering for.

Bjorn chuckled. “Whelp, this would go faster if we had a better way to communicate.”

“James’ walkie talkies!” Lily said.

“James has walkie talkies?” Regina asked.

“Oh, long story,” Lily rubbed her forehead. “I’ll go over and borrow them with a bit of blackmail.” She rolled her eyes. “If he wants help with his photography project, he’ll loan us those walkie talkies. I’ll be back!”

“Photography project?” Elsa murmured.

“I’m not sure if I want to know if it’s James,” Stacy said in a soft voice.

They all had to agree on that, but Pauline having sat through the meeting regaled them in detail about James’ current antics. Bjorn supervised the filling of the wheelbarrows, stopping them before they were too full. “This is rock, not weeds and dirt, girls.” He reminded them.

The girls all reacted in various degrees of outrage and shock about James as they pushed wheelbarrows half full of rock. (Completely full could be too heavy and Bjorn didn’t want them making it too heavy.) They worked together to heft the barrows into the truck and dump them out before going back for more. This was definitely at least a five person job.

Lily crossed her arms and looked down at James. “I’m singularly unimpressed.”

“I need them,” James gestured with his hands.

Lily raised her brow. “To continue your scam with Mayor Peanut?”

James flushed. “You don’t understand. The tourists love him.”

Lily sighed. “James, did it occur to you, I don’t know, that entering a pony into the race for Mayor was a bad idea?”

James shifted on his feet. “I didn’t think anyone would vote for him.”

“Which says a lot about the lack of quality of candidates around here,” Lily looked around. Pia was in an argument with some of the vendors it looked like. Lily wasn’t sure if she cared to know.

Pia’s voice drifted over. “If we clear this area of shops and combine your goods, then we can attract tourists with an art fair or performers!”

“Right,” Lily muttered. “I’m going to stay out of that one. Look James, you seem bright.”

James blinked. “Seem?”

“Until you start trying to defraud people. Which, by the way, is a crime.”

James blinked rapidly.

“So, your schemes could get you in a lot of trouble one day after someone starts looking at you and doesn’t see kid.” Lily patted her horse’s neck. “Then, you’ll lose everything you’ve gained.”

James opened and shut his mouth.

“But you’ve got ideas, and some of them are pretty damn good ideas.” Lily met his eyes. “If you want them to succeed at being good ideas, you’re going to have to put the work into them.” She wrapped the reins around her hand. “We’re willing to help you. Not do 99% of the work for you.”

James flushed. “But I’m not a photographer.”

“Then, dear God in heaven, why did you think that taking photographs of Token was a good idea and not giving Pia the credit she deserves?” Lily’s voice turned tart. “If you think Pia is that great of a photographer. You have an idea, James. But Pia, by all rights, can take whatever plush she likes, run around South New Jorvik County herself, and publish a book so her name will be on the cover, and she gets the royalties if she’s going to be the one doing the work. Getting a publisher and an agent before you even had the photography is,” Lily trailed off. “Talk about putting your cart before your horse to use a Jorvik appropriate metaphor.”

“All right. All right. I get it. I messed up.”

“I think you owe Pia an apology about thinking her work and labor is worth so little.”

James gulped. “What do you mean? How hard it is to pose a stuffed animal and snap a picture.”

“Oh James,” Lily sighed. “For a professional quality picture, there are going to be hundreds of photos and thousands of shots and experimentation with the time of day and the shutter speed and what about the posing, hats, no hats, scarves?”

“Oh,” James pushed at his glasses. “I didn’t think of it like that.”

“And she’ll have to figure out a way to protect your plush, or else Token could get really dirty.”

James’ eyes widened. “Uh,” he bit his lip. “I don’t want him to get hurt!”

“And neither would she, so she’d have to take extra care that he doesn’t.” Lily raised her brows. “You’re getting a reputation as a user, James. And well, someone who’s dishonest. And that’s going to get around and run away business.”

James sputtered.

“So, I suggest you come up with a story like Mayor Peanut has laryngitis and let me borrow those walkie talkies and we’ll come up with a way to salvage your abysmal reputation. But it will take work on your part and some sincere apologies to your fellow business community members.”

“You don’t understand,” James whined.

“You grew up poor. Got it.” Lily snapped.

James jumped. “How?”

“You’re a grifter, James. That was the next tactic, some sob story to make me feel bad for you, so you wouldn’t have to change a bit.”

James flushed.

“Now, you can continue to play the small game, or you can play by our rules and see the bigger picture. That starts with being a good citizen helping out the representative of the Baroness.” Lily held out her hand and opened and closed her fingers.

James sighed. He pulled the walkie talking out of his back pocket and slapped it into her hand. He marched over to Peanut the pony, and dug the one out of his hat. “I already lost money from Ferdinand because of Pia’s meddling.”

“James,” Lily said in a low voice. “Honest, upstanding, member of the business community, that is your goal. Eyes on the goal.”

James handed her the second walkie talkie. “It was a good deal.”

“For you,” Lily looked down her nose at him.

“Ferdinand got what he wanted,” James whined.

“You weren’t exercising them. You were renting them out to tourists who may or may not know how to ride properly. That’s a recipe for disaster and it won’t come back to Ferdinand. It will come back to you. If people get seriously hurt riding horses that haven’t been trained or exercised properly before being taken out, then they could sue you for lots of money.”

James sputtered.

Lily lifted her chin and raised her brows. “You can’t have a stable and have it be empty.”

James shifted on his feet. “I don’t have money to buy horses.”

Lily crossed her arms. “Then perhaps you’re going to have to keep renting from Ferdinand until you do and not try to steal people’s money with ridiculous fines in order to buy said horses.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and hit speed dial. “Linda, this is Lily.” She smiled. “Yeah, I know you have caller ID. Hey, I’m sitting here in front of James, and he doesn’t have the capital to buy horses from Ferdinand at full price. Are there any yearlings left that you sold to us?”

James stared at her.

“I’ll bring him along and you can help him pick out some nice, docile, good for beginners, easily trainable, trail riding horses,” Lily said. “Thanks Linda.” She turned off her phone. “Okay, Jamsie, here is the deal. The horses at the Silverglade Equestrian Center are 350 Shillings each since it was a really good or bad year depending for foals. The bad news is that they’re all three year olds and are still settling into their personalities. The good news is that with the right training they won’t have any bad habits to undo. You can rent ponies for the kids from Ferdinand until you start making money. You’ll have to pay someone like Pia and the girls to train them to be good trail riding horses, but you’ll have your own horses. They’ll need to be fed, exercised, the stable cleaned. Oh, wait, you have a club here. So, pay them to help you.” Lily waved a hand at Pia.

Pia ran over. “Hey, Lily.”

“Lily, I’m taking James to pick out some of the yearlings at the Winery to be trail riding horses here. Linda and the Baroness are willing to give him the same deal they gave to us. The caveat being that someone is going to need to look after them and make sure they’re being fed quality food and given clean water.”

“I’d never!” James yelped.

The two girls gave him a look.

Pia pushed her hair back. “I think that the girls and I are going to take up a collection and buy into your stable, James. Just to keep you honest.”

James sputtered.

“The more people, the more responsibility gets spread around,” Lily said lightly. “And the more hands to do the work.”

“And we’d have vested interest that way in training the horses,” Pia nodded. “We’d also have a place to board ours and the fees can come out of our salaries.”

James opened and shut his mouth as Lily glared at him.

“The fees will be standard market rates,” Pia said. “Which, we’ve been researching.”

Lily smiled. She held out her hand. “Up you come, James. I’ll give you a call, Pia, when he needs help herding them back.”

“Herding?” James said. He stared at her hand. “I, um, don’t really know how to ride.”

“Well, then we’ll have to teach you. Can’t have a stable owner not knowing how to ride,” Pia quipped. She smiled at Lily and it was rather evil.

“We’re taking a transport,” Lily said. “It is what, three hundred feet.”

James took her hand and she helped him swing up onto the back of her horse. “It won’t be long. I’m sure Linda is sorting the horses out now,” Lily told Pia. She nudged her horse into a walk.

“Why is it so far down?” James gulped.

Lily sighed.

“I’ll have the money ready and we can do our transaction at the bank when we get back,” Pia said sweetly.

“You trapped me,” James accused Lily as they rode past the stone wall and out of Pia’s hearing range.

“You trapped yourself,” Lily said. “If you’d been honest and above board from the get go, it wouldn’t have come to this.”

James frowned. “Then I wouldn’t be making any money.”

“No. You probably would have made more because people would have relied on you to be a good trader. You don’t know how much money you’ve lost because you’ve given people shoddy goods and they’ve gone to someone else,” Lily said. “I doubt you’ve had a lot of repeat customers.” She urged her horse into the horse trailer.

The engine started and the truck pulling the trailer drove slowly away. They could see the countryside passing outside the windows.

James didn’t say much. “Why are you doing this for me?” He asked quietly, in a very small voice. “I upset your friends. You called me a user and a fraud.”

“Because, I think with the right guidance and the right people around you, James, that you can be a good force for this county.” Lily glanced over her shoulder at him. “You want to succeed. You want Fort Pinta to succeed. You put in the best you’ve got and do the work. And we’ll be here helping every step of the way, because we’re stronger together than we are apart. Don’t view the Pony race as competition. Don’t view the Fort Pinta Beach Party as a rival. Those are opportunities to help Fort Pinta and Jorvik grow. If someone rents a pony from you and go and does the pony race with Penny and Polly, that’s not a loss, that’s a win for Fort Pinta and South New Jorvik County as a whole. The more money they spend, the more money goes into the County and the better everyone can live.”

James grumbled.

“Other peoples’ visions may be different than yours, it doesn’t make them wrong,” Lily said evenly. The transport pulled to a stop behind the S.E.C. stables. The door fell open slowly, the electronics whirring.

Lily backed her horse out and rode through the arch stopping under the dome.

Linda came out of the sell side. “I think I’ve got them sorted. Howdy James, I’m Linda. I’m friends with your sister, Alex.”

“I know,” James ducked his head.

“You first,” Lily said.

James slowly got down, not entirely sure how to do it. “So, about these horses.”

“You have a race and also rent for trail rides, right?” Linda said. “These are good racing horses, and also are trainable enough to be trail riding horses. I’d send someone out with them that has experience though.”

Lily cleared her throat. “Pia is the President of the Fort Pinta Pinto Ponies Club and they’re willing to buy in. They can lead the rides. I need to take these walkie talkies off to Bjorn and Agnetha for our tunneling project.”

Linda nodded. “I’ll show him the horses.”

Lily rode off quickly.

Linda put her arm around James’ shoulders. “How many scoldings have you had?”

“Three, so far,” James slouched.

Linda pursed her lips. “All right. Consider yourself scolded a fourth time. I’m doing this for Alex, James. Because she loves you and wants to see you succeed.”

James gulped.

Linda tugged him into the stable to look at the horses. She explained their finer points to James as they waited for Lily to return.

By the time she did, one of the stallions had taken to James, playfully grabbing his hat and running off with it. Linda laughed and said that James had made a friend, that the stallion was definitely his horse. Or he was the stallion’s human.

Lily leaned over. “Isn’t that Fussywithers?”

“Yep,” Linda chortled.

Fussywithers was only a nickname, because the young stallion as fussy and finicky. His water had to be absolutely fresh. His food just right. His stall perfectly clean and pristine. There was no margin of error with Mr. Fussy.

Lily giggled. He was the perfect horse for James. Funny, how the horses that everyone found were the ones they needed. She dialed up Pia and told her to come get James and his new best friend.

FOR THE ACCOMPANYING IMAGES PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE MY WATERMARK AND CONTACT INFORMATION. THANK YOU. I get it. Some of you might get excited and want to see this stuff in the game, especially the clothes, tack, and pets. However, the only way I want to see this in the game is if I get paid for it. If I see it in the game and I’m not paid for it, there will be hell to pay. You think I’m salty. I’d be angry. Personally, I’m not going to send this info to SSO. If you do, leave my contact information there! Don’t give them any excuses to steal.

Now, I’ll know you haven’t read this note if you leave me comments about how ‘salty’ I am about the game and if I hate it so much I should do something else. I am doing something else. It’s called Mystic Riders MMORPG Project. Mystic Riders however is a very baby phase game. You can check out our plans on the game dev blog. (Skills, Factions, Professions, Crafting, Mini-Games, 25+ horse breeds!) If you know anyone who would be interested and has money or contacts about game making, direct them to the blog.

#star stable #sso #star stable online #fan fic #jorvik reimagined #star stable salt #completely harmless #silverglade reimagined #many nods to Ruth Westside

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thefinalgirlspeaks · 4 years

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The Future of the Final Girl

“She is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again. She alone looks death in the face, but she also finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued or to kill him herself.” [Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws].

As women watching horror films through the lens of the male gaze, we are often encouraged to place ourselves in the inappropriate kitten heels of the terrorised girl running screaming from the killer. This girl has become a horror staple, the one we can root for, hitch our hopes onto. This girl, unlikely as she seems, will provide the eventual satisfying final blow to whichever murderous villain has slain everyone else.

She is the Final Girl.

As feminism progresses, so must the reflection of women in the media; much of horror is historically misogynistic, which is all the more reason to encourage the effects of female empowerment to trickle through to the way women are represented in horror films. There is a change happening, slowly but surely - the Final Girl is morphing from shrieking, inept victim, to armed, prepared badass. For a comprehensive overview of this mutation, we can examine and score a selection of films from each decade since the beginning of this Final Girl phenomenon and track her progression right up to the present.

“Why not more and better female killers, and why not Pauls as well as Paulines?” [Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws].

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Every horror enthusiast knows that Hitchcock changed the game when he killed off Marion Crane, who - until the infamous shower scene – viewers suppose to be the heroine of Psycho. Instead, the film’s true Final Girl is Marion’s sister Lila, a tenacious, petite woman who arrives late to the party bearing no distinguishable personality besides being Marion’s concerned sibling.

Despite the disapproving way Lila speaks about Marion and her light fingers, she is determined to uncover the truth about what happened to her. She does this by immediately roping in a man to assist her: Marion’s boyfriend Sam. Unlike, Lila, Sam’s actions are helpful and smart – he drives them to the Bates Motel, insists on inspecting motel logbook to find Marion’s name, and even distracts creepy Norman Bates while Lila snoops around Marion’s old hotel room (it should be noted that she discovers nothing of import).

Eventually however, despite the ineptitude that she has displayed throughout the rest of her screen time, it is Lila that, while hiding, stumbles upon the corpse of Norman’s mother, thereby accidentally revealing his ‘psychosis’. As a starter Final Girl, Lila is pretty average. She screams and runs about, prattles on about her inaccurate theories, and annoys the hell out of every male character she interacts with.

Final Girl Rating: 4/10

Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

Italian maestro of horror direction Dario Argento is notorious for his gratuitous, often near-unwatchable depictions of slaughtered women. His most famous films form a trilogy, known as ‘The Three Mothers’, consisting of Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980), and The Mother of Tears (2007). The most famous of these is the first; Suspiria immerses the viewer in a visceral, melodramatic murder-mystery. Within the first few minutes, a young blonde woman is being terrorised, chased, strangled, stabbed, and eventually made to plummet through a glass ceiling, to be hanged before a (different) screaming lady.

I will dub this character, often a feature of the horror formula, the ‘First Girl’. The First Girl is both a decoy and a necessity. In the same way that Psycho’s First Girl Marion makes way for Final Girl Lila, Suspiria’s Pat makes way for Suzy. Suzy is a shy, American sweetheart with a serious case of underdeveloped personality disorder. As a foreign student coming to join a German dance school, she is the perfect outsider, made evident from the beginning, when a few of the other girls are immediately snarky towards her.

It takes a while for Suzy to cotton on to the sinister goings-on behind the scenes of the Tanz Dance Academy, partly due to the mysterious and sudden malady that has her bedridden and unable to participate in classes very soon after she arrives. The creepy doctor prescribes her nightly doses of alcohol to help her sleep, and it isn’t until token ‘Foolish Friend’ Sara points out that she can’t be roused once she’s drunk it, that she realises it might be laced with something else.

Inevitably, after Sara’s mysterious demise, Suzy is the only girl left in the school clued in enough to understand that it’s all a front for a murderous witch coven and must try to defeat the evil. As you may have gathered from the poster, she does this mostly by creeping through the darkened corridors with a lamp, slowly opening doors and sweeping back curtains until she suffers another jump scare and screams.

“The Final Girl looks for the killer, even tracking him to his forest hut or his underground labyrinth, and then at him, therewith bringing him, often for the first time, into our vision as well.” [Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws].

Although it is relatively unclear whether or not Suzy does succeed in destroying the coven altogether, it is probable that the fire she sets does consume everyone inside the academy. She also earns points for tracking down an outside opinion from a local professor not associated with the school to learn how to take down witches. Still, a fairly standard performance; Argento gives us a disturbingly young-looking Final Girl, whose capabilities do not extend much beyond childlike ignorance. She is perpetually stricken by her own paralyzing fear, and only finds the courage to battle the evil right at the last second, by which time her friends are already dead.

Final Girl Rating: 5/10

Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)

“The Final Girl of the slasher film is presented from the outset as the main character. The practiced viewer distinguishes her from her friends minutes into the film. She is the Girl Scout, the bookworm, the mechanic.” [Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws].

Halloween’s Final Girl is perhaps the most notorious of all time, Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie, a smart, introverted babysitter overshadowed by her two promiscuous and outlandish friends. As a sexually inexperienced, rule-following young woman, she is the epitome of what it takes to be a Final Girl, as her survival strategy will not be muddied by drugs, alcohol, or lust. Although Laurie must suffer the horror of seeing her friends be slaughtered and their corpses displayed in macabre dioramas, she is feisty enough to last until the very end. She even manages to fight her way through Halloween II, using her past experience to chase off the dogged Michael Myers a second time.

Laurie is not given a lot of backstory, but as successful Final Girls go, she is one of the first, and the best. She endures the horror, but does not let it weaken her. She channels the injustice of her friends’ murders into anger, and strikes the killer down, very nearly succeeding in killing him before she is rescued. Arguably, Laurie paves the way for future Final Girls in the 80’s boom of female-driven horror, out of which spring Alice of Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980), and Nancy of Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984).

Final Girl Rating: 7/10

Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)

From the outset of Alien, it is made clear that the only rational voice amongst the crew of the Nostromo spaceship is Ellen Ripley, the second in command officer. There are two females amongst the seven members of the Alien cast (not including Jonesy the cat): Ripley and Lambert, and they are polar opposites. Lambert is the embodiment of weakness; actress Veronica Cartwright was told by director Ridley Scott that her character was ‘the audience's fears; a reflection of what the audience is feeling’. As such, she tackles the unfortunate situation of a rogue alien slithering about the ship eating crew members by making rash, stupid decisions, crying, shrieking, and being generally unhelpful.

Lambert is merely a foil, however, for the strong, smart, rebellious performance given by Ripley, the lone survivor of the Nostromo - along with Jonesy. She alone, with her unwavering pragmatism, her cunning strategic mind, and her aptitude for wielding a flamethrower, manages to outsmart the terrifying alien creature, and jet off to safety in the ship’s emergency shuttle.

Treading into and deepening the prints made by Laurie’s dainty feet comes Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, a Final Girl to be revered. She was so impressive to audiences world over that she earned herself three sequels.

Final Girl Rating: 8/10

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005)

This early noughties British flick was an innovation when it emerged due to its all female cast. The Descent follows six adventurous young women who decide to go caving as a bonding exercise following an awful tragedy. The husband and child of one of the group (Sarah), die in a car accident, and in a valiant attempt to move on, she decides to squeeze herself through some narrow underground passages with her friends. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group however, Juno, the organiser of the expedition, has led them into an entirely unexplored cave system, hoping that in discovering the way through, they would all be brought closer together. Unfortunately, this plan goes awry when the passage they came through caves in behind them, and they have no idea of the way out. Left with no other choice, they push further into the caves, only to discover that they are not the only creatures alive down there.

The basis of this film is, unusually, based on the complexity of female relationships. Rather than deriving conflict from sexual dynamics, The Descent uses Juno and Sarah’s strained friendship to maximise the dramatic tension.

“...other filmmakers figured that the only thing better than one beautiful woman being gruesomely murdered was a whole series of women being gruesomely murdered.” [Schoell, Stay Out Of The Shower].

Juno’s immediate reaction to Sarah’s initial misfortune is to run from it, meaning that later in the film, when the group meet to ‘descend’ into the caves, her motivation is guilt. She is desperate to make amends for her cowardice in the face of Sarah’s grief, which is why she makes the foolish decision to lead them all into a death trap.

When Juno explains her reasoning to Sarah moments after they become trapped, Sarah is unmoved by her apologies, and thus the circle of their six-way female bond is broken. From that moment on, each woman has to fend for themselves. By the end of the film, Sarah has accumulated enough reasons to wound Juno and leave her to the mercy of the ravenous ‘crawlers’ while she scrambles for escape. Juno cowered away when Sarah needed her after her family were killed, she led them into an underground labyrinth filled with monsters with no escape, she accidentally murdered Beth with a pick-axe thinking she was one of the creatures, and finally, it is heavily implied that she had been having an affair with Sarah’s husband, Paul. The case for her death sentence in comparison to Sarah, who lost everything and was unwillingly lured into a monster-filled hellscape, is strong; even we, as an audience, want to see her devoured.

The downfall of this mostly progressive horror narrative is that it does, inevitably, play on a fight for a man’s affections. There is no need for the suggested affair between Juno and Paul given all the other reasons there are for Sarah to sacrifice her in the final few minutes, yet it is slipped in as an unnecessary extra motivator. As Final Girls go, Sarah is an inspiration. To go into the cave at all would be a nightmarish adventure for most women, particularly since she is still reeling from the gruesome deaths of her husband and child. But not only does Sarah keep it together in the face of Juno’s treachery, the deaths of all of her friends, and the horrifying ‘crawlers’ that lurk in the caves, she lurks in wait in muddy pools, wields pick-axes, flares, and grapple hooks, spares nobody mercy, and fights her way, bloodied and wild-eyed back to the surface.

Final Girl rating: 8/10.

Halloween (Green, 2018)

In recent years, the most positive representation of women in horror is a Reformed Final Girl: Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween, who reprises her role as Laurie in a continuation story of the same name. In this 2018 Halloween, Laurie is a weathered, tough old woman with her own daughter Karen, and granddaughter Allyson. It is revealed quickly that Karen was removed from her mother’s guardianship by the state as a result of the strict, overbearing and military parenting style of Laurie the Myers veteran. As a result, Karen and her mother do not see eye to eye; this is the central conflict of the film behind the horror, as Laurie is still convinced that Myers is alive and coming for them all (spoiler: he is), whereas Karen is strongly of the opinion that her mother is deranged from the trauma of watching her friends be murdered as a teenager.

There is, of course, great appeal to the idea of the terrorised Final Girl growing up to be a shotgun-wielding badass with a fully fortified house and zero tolerance for unexpected visitors. My problem with this aged-up Laurie is that, despite how she clawed her way through three films to survive, her life, as it turns out, was hardly worth living. By the end of the film Karen and Laurie are back on good terms, but it is implied that they spent most of Karen’s life estranged from one another. Laurie does not have friends, or a partner, only a drinking problem and a psychotic paranoia about a killer returning to slaughter her once and for all. Props to Laurie for being smarter than everyone else around her that underestimated Michael Myers’ ability to spring back up after being stabbed, shot, or blown up, but I can’t help but feel that as a representative of the Future of the trope, she is almost there, but not quite.

Final Girl Rating: 9/10

To consider the future of the Final Girl is to consider the future of female representation. As a character, she is in one way admirable, and in another, a tool to provide public satisfaction of bloodlust. The horror spectator should ask oneself what it is that they truly want to see from a protagonist, particularly a female one, and why. The Final Girl should be a weapon with which the viewer can arm themselves, a lens in front of the most unspeakable situations of horror through which anyone can align their own eye.

The Final Girl has the potential to represent all women, to define our strength and capability through her response to the worst catastrophe, and the resilience of moving on from it, to enjoy the life she has fought for. As feminism progresses, and the constraints of male-authored perversity are lifted from the horror genre, we will surely begin to see more Ripleys, and less Lilas. We will be able to cheer on our Final Girl as she takes ownership of her body, as opposed to having it plundered by knives and saws. The Future Final Girl will rise up against both the killer, and the oppression of generic, outdated horror tropes, and slash her way through to a more hopeful, equal future.

#final girl #horror #horror film #halloween #suspiria #horror trope #feminism

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