#i think i wrote two things for it: joseph getting taken and also i think a crossover with cits

[kirstenonic05]

WAIT YOU HAVE AN AU WHERE JOSEPH IS A "PROJECT HAMON"

YEAH

It's not a very well built AU, but I do have some notes on it!

According to past me:

Joseph was always born with extraordinary powers. He had even used them to fight and befriend the Pillarmen! Caesar was proud that his best friend managed to save the world along side him. The world was now at peace. That is, until government officials knock on his door and take Joseph away and a secret is brought to light: that he's not Elizabeth Joestar's child.

Turns out Joseph was a lifeform created by the government after hearing about Jonathan Joestar and finding some of his, and kinda DIO's, body's DNA to make a "son" (or grandson) able to harness hamon as a super weapon to use in wars.

Elizabeth, upon being tasked by the Speedwagon foundation to crash whatever science experiment they were doing with Jonathan's DNA, broke into a government lab. There she found the JOeStar rEcreation: Project Hamon as a baby in a test tube, who she kidnapped and took back as they were doing horrible experiments on it. Finding out its name is J.O.S.E.P.H., Speedwagon edits its DNA to let it live like a human boy without the liquid that was powering up his hamon and he was adopted by Elizabeth and George II.

After George died, J.O.S.E.P.H, now named Joseph, was taken in by Speedwagon after Elizabeth was found killing a commander and harbouring a government project. Soon Joseph lived life normally, with the added side effect of weak hamon which Lisa Lisa brings out the full potential of during BT.

~

That's the main gist of it. It's not a main AU, but it's definitely in the back of my mind!

It's actually based on a very old crossover AU, where everyone were science experiments and have to escape a crazy facility together. His ability was to be able to use this crazy prosthetic arm he had that could transform into whatever he wanted. But that's a very long crossover AU I won't touch upon XD

It's also one of my first JoJo AUs, so Joseph's kinda ooc?

But that's the AU in a nutshell XD

#i forgot i had this au till i got tagged in a post with a similar idea djfbdjsn #i think i wrote two things for it: joseph getting taken and also i think a crossover with cits #because everything gets a crossover with cits at some point i guess- #i didnt really like the story of this au tho... #too uh... not dark... idk? gloomy #its from caesar's pov as he tries to get joseph back #ive done better science experiment aus lol #kirsten's aus #jjba #au #answer box

[nordleuchten]

Are there any instences Adrienne got mad upset at Gilbert or a situation where they had very different opinions? (Or the other way around)

They got along well and loved each other but they were two individuals with differing values, so I was just wondering whether there were some information about such things.

Dear Anon,

You are absolutely right. Even in the most loving relationships there are times of disagreement and friction and Adrienne and La Fayette were certainly no exception to this rule. They both generally seemed to agree on most subjects and could tolerate each other’s opinion when their ideas and values differed. The La Fayette’s would never quarrel in public or cause some sort of dramatic scene – disagreements were discussed in private, and it is therefore sometimes harder to say where they agreed, disagreed or simply put up a good front. Right now, I can think of one memorable incident where Adrienne very prominently did not go along with La Fayette’s wishes.

The clergy in revolutionary France was ordered to swear the Oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (January 3, 1791) - some clergymen took the oath, some refused to and some even fled the country. Adrienne was absolutely against the idea that a priest should swear this civic oath - and she was quite open about this. The Archbishop of Paris, Antoine-Elénore-Léon Le Clerc de Juigné, who had sworn the civic oath as well, left France in 1790 because he became alarmed by the turn the Revolution had taken. In his place Jean-Baptiste-Joseph-Gobel became Archbishop of Paris. Now, Gobel was never recognized by the pope, he was described by some of his contemporaries as an atheist and he was opposed to some of the pillars of the roman-catholic believe - in short, he was no one with whom devout Adrienne would ever get along. Here is what Adrienne’s daughter Virginie wrote in her book:

My father often received constitutional clergymen at dinner. On those occasions, my mother would express before them her attachment to the cause of the former bishops. She would discuss her opinion with those whose personal character she esteemed, and in these conversations she manifested such enlightened views, gave proofs of so much sincerity, and was, at the same time, so careful of offending, that no one could be wounded by the expression of her feelings. Independently of their conduct or opinions, all were received by her according to my father’s wishes, without her own consideration being diminished, because she preserved on every subject the liberty of expressing her way of thinking. Once only did she depart from the rule she had laid down for herself, that of receiving all sorts of persons equally well; it was the day when the bishop of Paris, after his instalment, came to dine at my father’s. He did not, like his colleagues, come as a private individual and she declined receiving him as bishop of the diocese. Accordingly, she dined out that day, although her doing so was much remarked.

Mme de Lasteyrie, Life of Madame de Lafayette, L. Techener, London, 1872, pp. 194-195.

Now, we do not know what La Fayette’s reaction was. He was himself not the greatest fan of Gobel and he knew full well that religion was one of the very few aspects where Adrienne would never compromise – not even for him. And Adrienne would continue to disobey new laws and practices - if she felt they were restricting her religion.

While I have no written evidence for it, I strongly suspect that money was at times also a matter of dispute between the two of them because La Fayette’s management of money was often less than ideal.

Lastly, I could think of some subjects that bothered one of them or was a cause of anxiety but that they nevertheless would not change about the other person because that was simply who they were.

I hope that helped and I hope you have/had a fantastic day!

#ask me anything #anon #marquis de lafayette #la fayette #adrienne de lafayette #adrienne de noailles #french history #french revolution #history #virginie de lafayette #1790 #1791 #antoine-elénore-léon le clerc de juigné #jean-baptiste-joseph-gobel

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Wednesday 10 July 1833

10 ½

1 50

not noted but I think a grubble or a kiss last night or this morning – fine morning F65° at 10 ¾ am   breakfast at 11 55 - Mr Poynet from 12 ½ to 3 at M-‘s portrait and from 3 to 5 at mine (done in crayons price 2 guineas each) - Charlotte Stuart and Miss Hyriot (the governess) called (walked from St James square) about one and staid perhaps about ½ hour - C.S. waiting to speak to Mr Poynet went into the bedroom for a moment or 2, and saw M- but of course I did not introduce them - Mr Lawton and Mr Sweatenham called at 3, and sat sometime with M- shouting and bawling  I was ashamed of them and thought myself lucky to be engaged and out of the way. Lady Mexborough and Lady S. Savile and Miss York (Agneta Sir Joseph Y-‘s daughter) called about 4 ½ - I was at the moment changing my dress and putting on an evening gown for Mr Poyet - they waited a few seconds - and then Poyet being in a hurry  I somehow begged them to walking to the bedroom and they staid a moment or two and then went away  Lady M- saying she would send me her son’s letters from Russia  I had at the moment congratulated myself on having never before felt so at ease with these people and thought I received them very well till all this comfort vanished and the bugbear gaucherie haunted me again at the thought that I ought not to have shewn them into my bedroom as if intimate with them but ought to have made Poyet wait or let him come again  I said not a word to π- who thinks my fine people all couleur de rose to me how little she dreams the truth! If she did would she exult and be pleased? I fancy if I had more money I could do better but Heaven orders all things rightly - Lady S- and Miss Mayow called at the door about 5 ½ and took me to Thomas’s and fixed for me on the coffee pot and tea pot - choosing also the lamp which makes this second-hand concern come to about forty pounds I could have done better at Rundle [Rundell] [and] Bridges  vexed at heart but said nothing even to π-  may I manage better another time mind how I make promises of coffee pots  they have managed well to get tea pot into the bargain V-  told me at Hastings she had no remorse for me  I had money enough  but she will not get much more I had before told π- if they had asked me to stand and called this child Vere Sibbella it might perhaps  have got a thousand pounds by it never said I had offered and no notice had been taken  I do not mean to offer again and have now no idea of anything more to do in the matter if I can at all help it (it was on Sunday Lady G- asked Mr Cameron what the child was to be called said not fixed Lady S-  and his mother to be godmothers so perhaps Louisa and Ann after them). Just before dinner Lady S de R- sent little note and some fish very fine trout and 4 ditto ditto eels hoping they would be in time for my dinner - Immediately wrote and sent note to Mrs Hall Stevenson and one trout and one eel and had the one trout for dinner meaning the eels for Lady S- tomorrow - very civil of Lady S- de R-  she will do this kind of thing but not give me

SH:7/ML/E/16/0080

letters to anyone  she said I ought to get somebody to speak to Pozzo di Borgo [the Russian Ambassador in Paris vid. Friday 26 November 1830] for me and when I said I did not know anybody who knew him she turned it off and said  oh  it did not signify  I should not stay long enough to want society anywhere  thought I this is enough I am not so dull as not to understand dinner at home at 7 - tea at 10 - had continued to have this quiet evening together before our parting - Mr L- talked of going on Friday or Saturday that I did expecting seeing M- again after tomorrow - wrote note of thanks to Lady S- de R- to go early in the morning - set down accounts in the rough book - π- low cheered her as well as I could without compromising myself - came to our room at 12 ¾ - very fine day – F67° now at one tonight –

[alliluyevas]

Prior to his mission, Joseph had taken an interest in Jane Fisher, the sister of one of his old Mill Creek chums. Apparently, he even proposed to Jane while on his mission but told her she was not to make the engagement public. When he returned, however, things were different. On 26 June, Jane wrote:

“You said you would be happy to hear from me, every month, and I was vain enough to think you ment what you said. . . .Everybody thinks you and I are engaged. Now dont think yourself insulted and trample the letter under your feet till you have finished. . . . Joseph I swear by all I hold dear that I never wronged you so much. Never did such an expression pass my lips. . . When you return, people will find they were mistaken, and pitty me. For that I do not care. I scorn their pitty, as I have their scoffs, but you too would pitty and despise me for dareing to aspire to your affection. . . . But allow me to give you the same advice you did me. Do not marry the hand alone but be Sure She has a heart.”

Uncertain of their feelings, Joseph and Jane continued to see each other through the summer, fall, and early winter. Apparently they broke up in December, about the time Joseph went to Fillmore as sergeant-at-arms for a legislative session. Two months later, Jane’s indignant father wrote him:

“You have been keeping company with my Daughter ever since your return from your Mishion & from the testimony before me you solicited her to be your wife before you returnd whitch indirectly was granted. I will here state that before the Move south you could have had my consent & from that time untill two Months ago you Could have had it grudgeingley & since that time you could not have it at all. I told her at least two months ago to not have anything more to Doo with you for it was my opinion that she would lead a Miserable life. . . . I beleive she would have maried you & Dragd out a few miserable years in broken hearted wreatchedness under the tyranical influence jelousy & self importance . . .You have stood in the way for the last 8 or 9 months when she could have Bettered herself 2 to 1 with out any trouble but your covetynes and jelous disposition would not give her up . . You say your folks are all against you. So much the more you are to be pitied for not haveing a mind of your own . . . You also state that you seen Brother kimble [Heber C. Kimball] & he has Counsald you to do as you have done.”

Three days after this rebuke, Joseph began pursuing his cousin, Levira. Trying to appear as sophisticated as he possibly could, Joseph wrote:

“It is with feelings of true emotion that I attempt to address you a few lines this morning. It is not however without embarisment & difidence that I engage in this taske. I say taske because it is a taske to me to deliniate the feelings of my beating heart, in writing. Still ‘twould be a plesurable taske, Could I but penitrate the future, and see therein, the completion and fulfillment of my ardent hope, but like the divinity of a Cato’s Immortality, “Shadows, Clouds and darkness hang about it.” I would that it was otherwise, but this is not the point. . . . I am aware that our acquaintance has been short, to you, I do not know how pleasant, but allow me to say, that since I saw you first the admiration and respect I first conceived for you have daily grown, till they have changed to something stronger and more fervent. . . . Not knowing therefore; the state of your feelings, It becomes a duty that I owe myself, to simply aske you, cousin how you feel toward me, what you think of “Cousin Joe,” or whether it is agreeable to you or not that I should encourage farther my desires, or scese to know or hope, or dream of thee, as something nearer, dearer, and more Chois than just a Cousin and a friend.”

Six weeks later, on 5 April 1859, Brigham Young married the two in his office. Joseph was twenty, Levira almost seventeen.

19th century Mormon men will get broken up with and immediately start trying to sleep with their cousins

#THIS IS ALL SO EMBARRASSING #jane dodged a fucking bullet tho good on her dad for putting his foot down. i think he was right about him being jealous and tyrannical too #considering how he treated levira #Mormonposting tag

[dainty-fingertips]

a forever thing. ||kars x fem! reader

wrote this one a few weeks ago bc a friend said i should write something with kars,, ended up being too long and i don’t think she ever finished reading it;; also, spoilers for if you haven’t finished battle tendency !!

word count: 2233

summary: training alongside caesar and joseph, you end up being kidnapped by the remaining two pillar men after the death of esidisi. a closet bookworm, you end up spending most of your time cooped up in the library of the rundown hotel, though most of your time is spent thinking of the leader himself. after kars drops some undeniable hints, you decide to test the waters.

trigger warnings: none :)

||

          Being taken for a sort of ransom by aztec gods wasn’t exactly on the agenda today. 

          After Joseph had killed Esidisi, the remaining two were -- as expected -- on edge. Wamuu, the youngest, and Kars, the eldest. You could grasp a fleeting understanding on why they chose you specifically, but nothing enough to make complete sense in your brain. It could have been Caesar, it could have been Lisa Lisa, but no. As of now, they were treating you quite well, actually. You figured Wamuu was the only reason you weren’t bound by rope and eating out of a dog bowl right now. Instead, you were perched upon a plush reading chair in a rundown library, clad in a comfortable robe (thanks to Wamuu, you weren’t stuck in your sweaty outfit from before). You had planned on touring to Switzerland one day after the war, but being trapped inside a rundown hotel with no real access to vitamin D was really taxing your health (mentally and physically) and never intended to be something you spent your time doing while here.

          In your rough-skinned hands, you held a worn copy of In Search of Lost Time. Your reading comprehension had improved over the past few weeks, at least. A rough knock on the door pulled you from your thoughts. “I’m here.” You said calmly, hoping it was the younger Pillar Man. Of course your desires were not met. Kars stepped into the library, his headscarf absorbing some of the light from the candle lit on the table next to you. He eyed you in what appeared to be mild distaste. “Why are you awake?” You looked up from the book with an odd expression. “What do you mean?” You asked him. The god huffed softly, motioning to the boards on the windows. “The sun has gone down. Are you not tired?” You pulled your gaze over to the covered windows. “...Oh.”

          You had failed to notice the absence of flittering rays much earlier. “Wait, what time is it?” You mumbled to yourself. You looked at the grandfather clock on the wall to your right and your expression dropped. “It’s 1 am.” he mumbled, crossing his arms. You pursed your lips and quietly closed the book. You uncrossed your legs and set it back on the shelf. Kars watched you slowly make your way back and forth. “What about you?” You asked, wrapping your fingers around the candle tray. He stared at you. Were you asking why he was up? “What do you mean?” He asked with a sigh. “You’re still up, but you aren’t tired.” You stated while approaching him. He didn’t move. “I’ve told you this. Neither me nor Wamuu need sleep, human. Es-” He stopped himself mid sentence and his cold expression seemed to falter for only a moment. You had learned, in your three weeks here, that the pillar men deemed it inappropriate to show emotion to anyone other than family members or mates. 

          Kars had never slipped up around you before. 

          The gears in your brain began turning. Kars wouldn’t show something like that to Wammu even, at least that’s what you’d been told. Why, even if for a split second, would he let you see that? Did he see you as someone close? The mere idea was laughable. Kars’ cold exterior soon returned, though. Simply brushing aside the sight, you continued to listen to him. “Esidisi didn’t need sleep, either.” He continued, his voice almost strained. Was Kars trying to hide his pain? You looked at him with soft eyes. Kars seemed to get minorly flustered and removed his gaze from you.

          You sighed gently and gazed cautiously into his blooming red eyes, the simple sight of them making your stomach twirl a bit. He made you feel floaty when he looked at you. Your cheeks flushed and you looked away. You saw in your hazy peripheral that he had furrowed an eyebrow. “What?” He asked hesitantly, looking back at you. “Hm?” You couldn’t look back at him. “I was just wondering about something, that’s all.” You begged that the bluff worked on him, but you knew that Kars was smart. He didn’t respond for a few seconds, his eyes flickering across your face and body, looking for a hint of something in your body language. 

          He sighed and motioned for you to follow him. You stood there and glanced at him curiously, his back turned and footsteps echoing. He turned his head to look at you. “I’m taking you to your chambers. Come.” He said with a bored expression. “O-Oh, right.” You whispered. You jogged up to him, but slowed your pace once you were next to him. “What was it?” He asked. You furrowed your eyebrows and looked at him without moving your head. “What?” He sighed through his nose. “You said you were wondering about something.” Your mouth opened to the shape of an O. “Right. I was just curious, uh, Kars. Do you think you could sleep if you tried?” You queered hesitantly, avoiding your original thought of Kars’ sadness. You looked back ahead of you. Kars gazed to his right, thinking. “An odd question, human. Why do you ask?” You shrugged slightly. “I dunno. Curiosity, I guess.” Kars aired out a small ‘hm.’ and inhaled sharply.

          “Curiosity is a dangerous fault in humans. No matter how long I sleep, that will forever remain a constant.” You cocked your head to the side a bit, working up the courage to turn to him as you both walked. “What do you mean?” He looked down at you, a strand of his hair tufting out slightly. “It’s what got that damned Joestar wrapped into this mess. If not for him, we wouldn’t need to deal with this. Our mission would be far less… complicated.” You nodded your head. “And that’s been a forever-thing?” He squinted his eyes. “A what?” 

          “Well, that’s what my dad used to call it.” You said with a gentle chuckle. “Y’know, a forever-thing. Something that’s been around for forever. Literally and figuratively.” 

          “A forever-thing?” He pressed.

          “Mhm.”

          “Humans and their idiotic names for simple terms.” he spat.

          “Oh really?”

           He scoffed. “Yes.”

          “Then what would you call it?” You joked, putting a playfully heavy emphasis on your words. Kars groaned, but deep inside his old bones, he felt something. He could admire beauty when he saw it, especially for a human, but this was getting out of hand. You were completely oblivious to the fact that Kars had taken an especial liking to you, which he was grateful for. His cold demeanor felt almost immoral around you. You were similar to that Joestar boy, but you were somehow more tangible. He could… stand you, sure, but he didn’t know why. He had been surrounded by nothing but cold glares and serious attitudes his whole life, and he magnified it in the way he lived. It’s what earned him the highest rank in what now remained of the tribes, being merely him and Wamuu. 

          Though, having you around was a strangely acceptable change of tone. He began finding himself seeking out your attention, like 10 minutes ago. You weren’t in your bed, so he came looking for you where you normally sat; the library. You were propped in that chair, now claimed as yours, with your knees to your chest and a book in your hands. You seemed almost magnetizing, you seemed almost… well, he wasn’t sure. He’d never felt this way. Why did you grab his attention? You held him in your fingers like putty, rubbing him in all the right ways. Maybe, because of you, his opinion on the human species wouldn’t be so dire. Maybe, in your toothy grins, your glittering eyes, and your gentle hands,  you would change his mind. 

          Only then, did he realize you had taken his hand in yours.

          He quickly pulled it away. “Don’t touch me.” He spat, eyeing you. You chuckled and shrugged. “Sorry, force of habit. Whenever my dad was deep in thought, I’d grab his hand to pull him back to Earth.” Kars scoffed, rubbing his hand as though trying to get the feeling of your rough hands off of him. They were hard and calloused from training, he presumed, though it added to his simple adoration. He had never met a woman like this. His eyes lingered back to your hands for a moment before looking back ahead. “Well, I’m not your father.” You simply smiled ahead and didn’t respond.

          Kars let his hands fall to his sides and the two of you make it up the set of stairs to your room. The door sat closed, and you looked at Kars. “Would you mind, Kars, if I told you something?” You questioned casually, entering your room and looking at him from the inside. He nodded once and silently asked you to continue. Your face grew warm and you looked to the side, unable to look at him for a moment. “You…” You began, unsure how to tell him. He raised an eyebrow. “I what?” He said. You knew he was an impatient man when it came to things like this; you had heard it from Wamuu whenever he’d bring you food. “Spit it out.” You sighed and looked at him, your gaze wavering and nervous. “You aren’t half bad, Kars.” You said with an awkward tone of voice. You knew you were treading on thin ice, but you didn’t know when you’d actually be able to tell him alone.

          Kars’ stance was unmoved. The meaning behind your words didn’t fully strike him until after the two of you silently stared at each other for 20 seconds. His face, twisted in mild confusion, soon loosened up. Realization clubbed him like a wooden baseball bat behind his knees. His maroon eyes darted across your face and his lips parted slightly. “What -- What are you saying?” He said quietly. He was sure his brain was playing tricks, but your face, it seemed so fearfully genuine. Sweat accumulated on the back of his neck in his headscarf. Kars was a god; the most powerful pillar man. He was above this. Why did… Why did it feel wrong to act that way around you? Why did he feel almost guilty when he acted superior?

          You stood motionless. “I mean, y’know. I enjoy… your… your company.” You stumbled over her words. Were you being intimate with him? He’d never seen this side of you. You noticed Kars slipping up on his own standards again, as well. His surprised emotions were clear as day, etched cleanly into his chiseled features. His fangs poked out onto his lower lip, a simple protrusion which you had wished you didn't find cute. You genuinely thought that Kars was attractive.

          Then again, who wouldn’t? He stood tall, around 6’8”. He towered over most all he came in contact with, but that was simply second nature to you now. You were used to craning your neck to get a better look at those blood-red eyes that almost seemed to despise you. A dark loft of his hair would make its cameo every now and again. He’d always get flustered whenever you’d mention it, telling you that he didn’t need the approval of a human. He’d then, a minute or so later, slyly tuck it back in. It’s not that he didn’t know, of course; it’s just that he only cared enough about it if you took the time to tell him.

          Wamuu had noticed his growing infatuation with you and the thought brought him a smile. After sitting down with Kars and listening to him do nothing but wax poetic about you earlier tonight, he told him to go find you. Maybe take a walk with you, if he felt like it. Kars kindly took up the offer; it seemed you had humbled him in that department, too. Normally he wouldn’t bother taking anyone’s advice, but here he was. Pulling him from the crevasse of his rushing brain was your hand, humbly wrapping your fingers around his.

          Kars stared at his hands, fingers being separated by your own, in blatant shock. “You aren’t as bad as I thought you’d be.” You whispered, barely audible to him. He locked eyes with you and without thinking, going against everything he’d ever stood for in the past, he curled his fingers around yours as well. You smiled softly and looked down, avoiding his gaze. Kars’ lips pulled back together, his lips twitching, desperately wanting to smile. “I suppose.” He said hesitantly. “Why are you being nice to me?” He soon asked, turning his gaze back to your face.

          He pulled his hand away, taking a step back. “I…” You murmured, retracting your hand as well. He looked between his fingers as though he’d touched gold, small glittering remnants still freckled along his palm. “I don’t know.” you finished with a heavy sigh. He closed his hand into a fist and looked at you with nervous confidence. “Well, if there’s nothing more, then I will take my leave.” He said quickly, nearly stuttering his words. He turned on his heel and began going the way he came. You gazed at his back as he swiftly left the hallway and sighed in disbelief. You had just grabbed his hand.

          Kars, it seemed, had fallen in love with the enemy.

          The enemy, it seemed, had felt exactly the same.

#kars x reader #kars jjba #pllar men #esidisi #wamuu #jjba part 2 #jjba battle tendency #jjba x reader #jjba fanfic #im actually kinda proud of this #but dont tell anyone ok #x reader #kars jjba x reader #romance fanfic #x reader fanfiction #anime x reader

[sineala]

The gay Invaders

Hi, internet! Today I'd like to talk about one of the chronologically-first canonically-gay couples in Marvel Comics history: Brian Falsworth (the second Union Jack) and Roger Aubrey (The Destroyer). (I mean "chronological" in terms of in-universe timeline rather than RL publication date; I'm pretty sure Northstar is still the first to publication as far as unambiguously-gay Marvel heroes go.)

If you are a fan of reading or writing about Captain America being queer, you should care about Brian and Roger, because they were two of Steve's fellow Invaders in the 1940s, meaning that they are two of the people on the list of Steve's Old Gay Friends And Teammates, because, yeah, Steve sure had a lot of canonically gay friends during the war. Probably more than you'd think he would have had in the forties! (The other two are Percival Pinkerton, who's part of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, and of course Steve's childhood friend Arnie Roth. Pinky is gay by word of Stan Lee, IIRC; Arnie was as canonically gay as DeMatteis could make him in the early 1980s, so they didn't say the word "gay" but it's really, really not subtle. Steve compares what Arnie feels for his "roommate" Michael to what Steve feels for his girlfriend Bernie. Yeah.)

I previously made a Tumblr post about Brian and Roger, rounding up some of the canonical evidence of their relationship, but that post is six years old now, and in the intervening years, Marvel has thoughtfully put the rest of the 70s Invaders run on Unlimited as well as the two Citizen V miniseries that star Roger and retcon his relationship with Brian as romantic. So I've read them now, and I've got panels.

Okay. I should probably begin by saying that Brian and Roger are not canonically gay in their first significant appearance together, which is in Invaders vol 1 #19 and #20, published in 1977. Roy Thomas does not seem to have intended them to be a couple, and they aren't canonically one in any of the original Invaders run. However, if you enjoy gay subtext, it's very nice.

This whole arc is the one that introduces Roger in modern canon. He's been brainwashed by the Nazis and the Invaders rescue him and get him back to his normal self. But in #19 we get his backstory in flashback, as related by Montgomery, Lord Falsworth (Brian's father; yes, MCU fans, the name should look familiar) and it turns out that Roger and Brian were basically best friends since childhood:

They were the dearest of friends!

Anyway, they both ended up captured by Nazis, they presumably changed their minds about appeasement as a policy, Brian got out and joined the Invaders, then they had to rescue the brainwashed Roger, and it's a fair amount of fun in a two-issue arc.

The subtext is even more prominent in Invaders #34, in which they find out that someone going by the Destroyer (which is Roger's codename) has been doing villainous deeds, and the Invaders worry that Roger's gotten himself brainwashed again. Brian immediately insists that it can't really be Roger because he knows Roger and Roger Would Never:

Unsurprisingly, Brian is right. It's not really Roger; Master Man is impersonating the Destroyer, and the villains have taken Roger captive, and the Invaders break him out and there is an extremely significant moment where it just so happens that Roger has to catch Brian, saving his life for a change, and they stare deeply into each other's eyes and Brian seems to be having difficulty finishing his sentences:

Some people who read this therefore concluded that Brian and Roger were extremely gay for each other. While ordinarily this sort of shipping is mostly confined to fandom, in this particular instance, one of the people who started shipping Brian/Roger was Fabian Nicieza, and Fabian Nicieza, as you probably know, writes comics for Marvel. I think you see where this is going.

However, first I must inform you that, sadly, Brian has been canonically dead for years. Captain America vol 1 #253-254 -- the two-parter about Baron Blood in the Stern/Byrne Cap run in the 80s -- establishes that Brian died in a car accident in 1953. (This is also the run where Joseph Chapman -- a friend of Jacqueline Falsworth's son Kenneth -- becomes the third (and current) Union Jack.)

(Roger then appears in a bunch of T-Bolts issues; I assume there's nothing interesting there on the gay front because I feel like someone would have told me. I should probably read more than three T-Bolts issues someday.)

So, anyway, in 2001, Fabian Nicieza wrote a miniseries called Citizen V and the V-Battalion. Roger, who is still superheroing as the Destroyer despite being pretty old by this point, is part of the titular V-Battalion, and he has a very prominent role in this miniseries. And in #1, we have the usual splash page of character backstory, and there's a very, um, interesting line there:

Regarding Brian and Roger's relationship, the narration informs us: "It sounds much gayer than it probably was."

This is interesting, obviously for a couple of reasons. One is that, up to this point in canon, as far as I can tell, literally nobody thought any of this sounded the slightest bit gay at all. (Other than, I guess, Fabian Nicieza.) The other reason is that, as we soon find out, it actually was as gay as it sounds. Thanks, Fabian!

In 2002, Nicieza wrote a second miniseries, Citizen V and the V-Battalion: The Everlasting. Issue #1 opens with a flashback set in 1953; specifically, we see Brian's funeral:

Roger is extremely sad, and when Lord Falsworth expresses his sympathy about the death of Roger's "friend" and saying that he knows how much this hurts him, Roger mutters under his breath that he doesn't have the slightest clue:

All is revealed on the next page, when one of the other characters tries to ask Roger about superhero business and Roger snaps at him because, as he says, "I just watched my friend die in my arms."

Except "friend" isn't the word he starts to say:

Yep. That would be "lover." So Roger nearly outs himself. So, yes, now it's absolutely canon. Hooray.

Later on in the issue, which is set in the present day, we have a couple pages of Roger staring at pictures of the two of them and continuing to be sad:

Yeah. They were a couple.

So the question you -- being a Captain America fan -- might ask yourself is, okay, did/does Steve know about any of this? (The reason I started looking all this up was because I wanted to know if Steve knew.) I don't know if we have a panel of Roger specifically admitting any of this to Steve (and if we do, I would like to know about it), but I would be comfortable saying that Steve probably knew back then -- because, well, he seems like the kind of guy who would actually have been fine with it in the 40s, what with all his gay friends -- and also that I can't think of a reason why he wouldn't know now. Because he's definitely worked with Roger again in fairly recent comics, and also Roger is very much out, these days.

In fact, New Invaders #4 (2004) opens with Roger attending Pride:

So, yeah, he's out.

(Then he has to fight, as far as I can tell, homophobic Nazi vampires. They're yelling slurs in German. Great.)

In All-New Invaders #10, which is from 2014 (and which is not the same series as New Invaders), Roger shows up to help out the Invaders, and in passing, he just happens to mention to another character (Joseph Chapman, the current Union Jack), that he is in fact gay:

He and Joseph don't really like each other much; as far as I can tell, their acquaintance in New Invaders consists of Joseph being vaguely homophobic and Roger being bitter about him being Union Jack because he actually wanted to be Union Jack himself to honor Brian's memory -- you know, that thing superheroes sometimes like to do to honor their dead superhero significant others, viz. Hank when Jan was dead after Secret Invasion -- and now Union Jack is this annoying kid and not, y'know, the love of his life. This exchange from New Invaders #4 seems pretty representative of their relationship:

Anyway, yeah, he's pretty obviously out.

Steve isn't actually present for this conversation in All-New Invaders, but he mentions in a later issue of this run that he knows what Roger and his pals have been up to, plot-wise, so I feel comfortable assuming that he's talked to Roger at some point in the previous ten years or so, and therefore, since Roger is completely out at this point in canon, there's no reason Steve shouldn't know now.

On an unrelated note, it's also a fun issue if you're a Steve/Tony fan because this is clearly running in parallel with Hickman's Avengers run, which means that he spends half a page telling Namor that he's mad at him and the rest of the Illuminati (but mostly mad at Tony because... he's just obsessed with Tony in this run, I guess?) about the mindwipe:

This is the sum total of my knowledge about Brian and Roger. No, wait, I know one more thing, which is that Brian was a character in the late, lamented mobile game Avengers Academy, in which he was also actually gay; Roger does not seem to have been there. There's a CBR article that you can read about the whole thing, which mentions some of these details from the comics in passing. (I have no idea why it says that their relationship was alluded to in the Stern/Byrne run; unless I missed something big, the only thing those issues do is establish Brian's death. As far as I can tell, no one is gay in them.)

So, yeah, that's Brian Falsworth and Roger Aubrey, the two gay Invaders. Steve sure has a lot of gay friends.

#posts i actually wrote

[dreadpoetssociety]

That’s Not Some Girl, That’s My Sister

TW: Abuse, physical injuries

Request: 

I noticed you wrote Spencer X Sister!Reader. I was wondering if you could write a Penelope Garcia X Little!Sister!Reader. When their parents died Y/N was just born so she was put into foster care because Garcia couldn’t care for her. Garcia visits her every chance they get and they keep in touch 24/7. What Garcia doesn’t know is that Y/N is being abused at her foster home. When she turns 16 it gets so bad that she can barely move. One day she walks into the bau bloodied and bruised... (1/?) Morgan notices her, (The team doesn’t know she exists) and is like, “Hey kid you alright?” She drops to the floor and Garcia comes out to prep the team for a case and sees her on the floor. She drops her papers and runs over, holding her close. The team, who don’t know Y/N come out and ask what’s wrong and Morgan says that some kid walked in bleeding. Garcia gets defensive and says, “She’s not some kid, she’s my sister and her name is Y/N” They bring her to the hospital and... (2/3) and Garcia does her magic to get her foster parents arrested and she adopts her. And then the whole team welcomes her and it’s super fluffy ending? Sorry this was so long. Thank you so much❤️ If you don’t want to do this request you can delete it, sorry about that :) (3/3)

Note: Remember how I said there would be no fics tonight because I have school in the morning and didn’t do homework? Well, I lied. Please feel free to send me more requests! To those who already have, just know that I am working on ALL of them. Also, realizing now that I didn’t exactly stick to this prompt regarding the part where Y/N walks in and Garcia sees her, but hopefully it is still okay!!!

Penelope Garcia x Sister!Reader

()()()()()()

It wasn’t so much that Penelope Garcia had kept you a secret, but that you had never come up in conversation. Never once had anyone asked if the tech goddess had siblings. The team never found it their business to question after knowing the water of your parents. She also believed that the less they knew, the safer you were from the criminals that the analyst helped to catch.

Unbeknownst to her, however, this was far from the truth.

You never knew your parents like your sister did. You had just been born, and Penelope was deemed unable to care for you, you had no other family, so you wound up in foster care. You’d gone from house to house, family to family, but no matter where you were, you were always in contact with your elder sister. You were allowed to visit each other regularly, and those visits were the only thing you looked forward to. The only times you felt safe.

You were actually just leaving a visit for lunch with Penelope and walking towards her as you passed by a large building.

“Y/N, I didn’t even realized we walked by, but this is where I work!” the blonde said with a smile.

“Really? The FBI is just out here?” you asked.

“Pretty much.” she replied, and then her eyes grew wide and a gasp escaped her lips, “Oh my goodness, Y/N, you should visit sometime.”

“Finally!” you exclaimed, “I have ALWAYS wanted to visit, but didn’t want to invite myself.” your sister laughed.

“I haven’t really told them about you. I was never really sure how, but it seems like a good enough time now that you’re 16.” As you stepped closer and closer to the car, your mood began to drop, not knowing what pain would face you at home this time. You figured you could tell Penelope, but you’d been in many abusive foster homes, the most they would do is just move you to another one, if anything at all, and you could never ask your sister to take you in as her responsibility. From what she’s said, her job is very stressful, and you figured you would just add to that.

It wasn’t long before you were at your doorstep waving goodbye. Sighing, you turned and creaked open he door that led straight to your living hell. Joseph, your foster father, was on his stingy recliner, bottles of various different alcohols surrounded him. He himself, however, was asleep. You hated him. You could not wait for the day that you were set free from this place, the day you could finally fight him back. The man was a drunk, and a violent one at that. And even then, it’s nowhere near as bad than when he was sober. He knew how to hurt more when he was thinking straight. You tried to tiptoe around him to get to your room, but knocked something over, waking him up. Your heart genuinely stopped. You knew what would happen next.

The greasy man woke, and both of you locked eyes as he slowly sat up.

“Now, what the hell did I tell you about making noise?” he slurred loudly as he approached you, “Huh, brat?”

“I’m sorry, sir, it was an accident, it won’t happen again.” you said nervously. It was then that you both looked down at what had fell, and it was a glass decoration, which had now shattered into pieces. You knew you were in for it in that moment.

And Joseph didn’t hesitate. He hit you across the face, knocking you to the ground with your arm landing on some of the glass. You screamed out in pain, which resulted with more violence from the man standing over you.

“Clean it up!” he screamed, “Right now!” you tried to get up to get the broom, but he shoved you back down.

“With your hands.” he said. You looked up at him, tears in your eyes, when he put his foot on the top of your head, pushing your face down. Small shards cut up your cheek. You began to pick up pieces of the glass, one cutting you every now and then. Joseph kicked or punched every so often when he thought you were not doing a good enough job. By the end, you could barely move. You were bleeding everywhere, Joseph had knocked the wind out of you, hit and punched and kicked in any area he could have. At this point, you really thought you were going to die. And for a split second, you were almost relieved by the thought.

Eventually, Joseph passed out again on his recliner while you laid motionless on the floor nearby. It was then that you decided.  You didn’t care what happened to you next, but you were not coming back to this house.

()()()()()()

How you even made it to the building your sister pointed out to you earlier was beyond you.  It had taken you so long to move your body there that it was late at night now. You moved swiftly through the building, and reading the signs with the departments and their floors, you spotted the BAU. How nobody spotted you was also surprising. This was, after all, an FBI building, and you were a 16 year old girl who could barely stay conscious, bleeding from every pore and bruised at every inch.

The elevator brought you to a set of glass doors. There were desks everywhere, but most were empty. It seemed as though the room at the top of the small set of stairs was having a meeting, though, and you thought maybe Penelope was there. You hoped so badly that she was there. You got blood on the handle opening the door.

A man turned around from a coffee machine at the sound of your entering. He dropped his cup quickly and ran to you.

“Hey, kid? You alright?” he questioned, knowing that you obviously were not. You felt everything slipping away from you in that moment, and the world around you went dark.

‘

()()()()()()

“Guys? Get out here, now!” Morgan yelled as he fell with you to the floor, getting your blood on his shirt and his hands. Your whole team came rushing out of the room where Garcia had been briefing a case.

“What happened?” Hotch asked, practically jumping the stairs.

“I don’t know, this girl just came in and just passed out like this.” Morgan replied. Garcia had been behind Spencer, and when she stepped around him, her whole world was destroyed.

“Morgan!” she screamed, “That’s not some girl, that’s my sister, and her name is Y/N! Oh my god.” she ran to your unconscious body, dropping papers and a remote, and fell to her knees to hold you close. Spencer, even though he knew you had only just fell unconscious, walked over and put two fingers to your neck to check for a pulse, and was quite relieved when he found one.

“Call an ambulance,” Garcia sobbed, “please. Someone please.”

“An ambulance coming here would take too long given the traffic. It doesn’t seem to be fatal, let’s take her in one of the SUVs” Spencer suggested. Garcia nodded.

Morgan picked you up, JJ and Emily helped Garcia to the car, while Spencer drove since he would know the fastest route. Rossi stayed behind. You were asleep in the hospital for hours due to the fact that they kept you under in order to remove all the glass shards hidden throughout your skin. Your eyes and arms and torso were bruised heavily, but thankfully nothing was broken.

You were met with a group of people you’d never seen before when you woke up. Searching around the room you realized you were in a hospital bed, and soon enough remembered what brought you there.

“Huh?” was all you said. Penelope shot up instantly, smiling at you with tears in her eyes.

“Oh my god, Y/N, you’re awake. What happened to you?” she cried. You blinked for a few seconds.

“Garcia, she just woke up, she might not be able to talk about it, yet.” JJ reminded. It was quiet for a moment, until you spoke again.

“Joseph.” you said. You were waking up a little more now, pain spread through your body slowly and you winced with every move. Trying to sit up, you were quickly, but softly, pushed back down by a man in a black t-shirt.

“No, kid, you need to rest.” he said, “Who’s this Joseph? I just want to have a little chat.”

“My foster father.” you sighed. Everybody’s face in the room dropped, especially Penelope’s upon finding out you weren’t safe at home anymore.

“Y/N. . . “ she sobbed, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to bother you with it.” you shrugged, which send a chilling pain from your shoulder to the ends of your toes, and you groaned.

“Take it easy, kid.”

“Y/N M/N Garcia,” Penelope replied firmly, “You have not ever been, nor will you ever be a bother to me. Especially, ESPECIALLY, if you aren’t in a safe situation. I would do anything for you, Y/N. We’re getting you out of that house. When you’re in a dangerous situation don’t you ever think not to tell someone, Y/N.”

She thought for a moment, “In fact, we’re going to do something I should’ve done a long time ago. I’m going to adopt you. No more foster homes, we’ll be together more often, you’ll be safe.”

“Really?” you smiled.

“Yes, really. And we’re throwing Joseph in prison.” you’d never heard anger in Penelope’s voice like you were hearing right now. For a moment, you both cried together. You knew now that you should’ve mentioned it sooner, but that also you weren’t going to have to worry about it anymore. All the pain, it was going to go away. Not mentally, not completely yet, but you were never going to go home and be afraid of what would happen when you stepped through the door. Instead, you would be excited, for every laugh, every smile, every story, every memory that you were going to make with your sister. 

“By the way,” you sniffed, “who are all these people?”

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, “This is my team! That’s Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner, JJ, Emily Prentiss, and Derek Morgan.”

“You,” you pointed weakly at Morgan, “you’re the one who calls her ‘Baby Girl.’” the man laughed.

“The one and only.”

“And you,” you pointed at Spencer, “you’re the genius one right? The one that does magic. Tell me a fact.”

“Uh,” he thought for a second, “V616 is the closest back hole to planet Earth. It’s actually 3,000 light years away. Also, black holes warp time and space. If you put a clock in a black hole, but you stood outside of it, it would actually appear to be ticking slower.”

“Of course.” Morgan says, “Of course you would know that.”

“She asked.” the tall man shrugged with a smirk, “I’ve got plenty more of those, too. And yes, magic tricks.”

You turned toward JJ and Emily, “You guys are like, her best friends.”

The two nodded, “Wouldn’t want to be anyone else.” JJ replied. Lastly, you turned to Hotch.

“Boss.”

“Yes.” was all he said in response.

“Why are you all here though?” you asked, “You don’t even know me.”

All of them were quiet for a moment, trying to think of what to say, when Emily spoke up.

“Garcia’s family. So you’re family.” the rest of them seemed to agree. You smiled at your apparently newfound family, “Welcome to the family, Y/N.”

Although you ended up falling asleep from the drugs that they gave you for the pain, the next few days consisted of getting to know Penelope’s team. Spencer spent hours telling you things and doing magic tricks, while Morgan, JJ, and Emily told you stories of your sister while she sat and laughed. Hotch visited a few times here and there to check up and say hello.

You began to realize soon enough that a new chapter was about to begin, one without abuse, without Joseph, and with your sister that you looked up to more than ever, and her team that treated you like their own. In the beginning, you were told you might not have enough evidence on Joseph to get him arrested, which all of you found to be complete bull. You were completely laid up in a hospital because of him, but in the end, your tech genius sister “accidentally” happened across some illegal files embedded in his computer, along with multiple abuse complaints about him that just so happened to get the court to allow you to live with Penelope, and Joseph in prison.

#Penelope Garcia #garcia #penelope garcia x reader #Penelope garcia x sister reader #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x sister reader #criminal minds x y/n #penelope garcia x y/n #spencer reid #reid #derek morgan #morgan #Jennifer Jereau #jj #emily prentiss #prentiss #aaron hotchner #hotch #criminal minds imagine #imagine #oneshot #onshots #criminal minds onshots

[faintingheroine]

Wuthering Heights Reread - Chapter 3

This chapter is a bit overwhelming, since it is the chapter that is comprised of the most diverse parts and has the iconic ghost scene, but I will try my best.

“While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly. I asked the reason. She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not begin to be curious.”

Heathcliff has forbidden people to lodge in Catherine’s room, which is unsurprising since it is more or less kept as it was during her childhood.

Zillah has been at the Heights for a couple of years since she had taken the job from the unnamed housekeeper who left a couple of years after Linton’s coming to the area. Zillah claims to be incurious about the goings on at the Heights which does fit her apathetic character but which raises the question of whether she had let Lockwood to lodge in the room solely for the sake of charity as this would imply or she was curious about the haunted room.

“Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows. Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself. In fact, it formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table. I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.”

I was able to properly visualize the oak-paneled bed for the first time in this reading. Apparently this type of box-beds were fairly popular in Northern Europe to keep one warm during the cold winter, but here the bed encloses the window which might defeat this purpose.

This bed is the symbol of Catherine’s childhood and Catherine and Heathcliff’s connection within the story. Its solitary state and it enclosing the window may symbolize them having no one but each other and the outside world. It also resembles them lying in a coffin together which is effectively what happens at the end.

“The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton.”

These carvings basically both summarize and prophesy the story. Earnshaw-Heathcliff-Linton is Catherine’s life story, the reverse - Linton-Heathcliff-Earnshaw - will be her daughter’s, the potential “Catherine Heathcliff” actually being realized through Heathcliff’s own machinations. Only in Wuthering Heights a teenage girl experimenting with her potential husbands’ surnames can have a prophetic, almost mythical significance.

“It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the inscription ‘Catherine Earnshaw, her book,’ and a date some quarter of a century back.”

“Quarter of a century” is most likely close to the truth. Catherine’s diary entry that is featured in the text must be from November 1777, 24 years almost to the month before Lockwood reading it in 1801.

“Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph—rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.”

Catherine is characterful and rebellious even in her first introduction. She is also effectively portrayed as an antagonist of Joseph.

Note the use of “hieroglyphics”, Catherine’s childhood memories are given the status of something mysterious and important, just like with the carvings. I love this.

“‘An awful Sunday,’ commenced the paragraph beneath. ‘I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute—his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious—H. and I are going to rebel—we took our initiatory step this evening.”

We first hear Catherine through her own voice which is significant. She is thoroughly sympathetic in this anecdote, acting like a typical tomboyish character except for her harming the religious book given to her by Joseph. She is thoroughly empathetic and caring towards Heathcliff, and I don’t think that this should necessarily be negated through her narcissistic identification with him. They have a beautiful friendship and they are each other’s only allies in a loveless and cold household.

“All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret; and, while Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire—doing anything but reading their Bibles, I’ll answer for it—Heathcliff, myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayer-books, and mount: we were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The service lasted precisely three hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending, “What, done already?” On Sunday evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners.”

Lockwood’s religious dream about Jabez Branderham is clearly influenced by him reading this. In this reread I really noticed how much Lockwood’s two dreams are a consequence of what he read in Catherine’s diary.

Mr. Earnshaw was known to be quite religious, but he did let the children play on Sundays. We must remember that Heathcliff was his favorite though, I am not sure if he would let that if it were Catherine only.

Hindley’s first line is actually “What, done already?” rather than what I posited it to be here. I was mistaken. Still the diary entry introduces us to Hindley’s character and this introduction reflects his character and his role in the story pretty efficiently. He is a tyrant but a fairly incompetent one.

“You forget you have a master here,” says the tyrant. “I’ll demolish the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers.” Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband’s knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables.”

Hindley insisting on perfect sobriety and silence is clearly ironic.

Hindley and his wife’s relationship is clearly portrayed as sexual here. Hindley doesn’t actually care about Catherine and Heathcliff’s religious education, he just wants to be alone with his wife. Catherine and Heathcliff are disgusted by this display of affection which is fairly normal considering their ages.

Catherine and Heathcliff isolating themselves does resemble the isolation of the oak bed.

““Maister Hindley!” shouted our chaplain. “Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathy’s riven th’ back off ‘Th’ Helmet o’ Salvation,’ un’ Heathcliff’s pawsed his fit into t’ first part o’ ‘T’ Brooad Way to Destruction!’ It’s fair flaysome that ye let ’em go on this gait. Ech! th’ owd man wad ha’ laced ’em properly—but he’s goan!””

I love the books’ names, especially “The Broad Way to Destruction” being the name of Heathcliff’s book. If Wuthering Heights is ever adapted as a Kill Bill style duology, let the first film be named “The Broad Way to Destruction” and the second “The Helmet of Salvation”.

Catherine remembers her father as better than Hindley, but here Joseph praises how he was physically violent to the children. This is a reflection of how Catherine’s nostalgic view of the past may be better than the way things actually were, as it always is with nostalgia.

“‘Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back-kitchen;”

Graeme Tytler notes how the kitchen is the place of punishment or the residence of the servants, but also the most resilient part of the house; a lot of significant events happen in the kitchens of WH and TG, and the kitchen is the only part of Wuthering Heights that will not be shut down after Cathy and Hareton’s marriage.

“I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman’s cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion—and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his prophecy verified—we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here.’

I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject: she waxed lachrymose.

‘How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!’ she wrote. ‘My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow; and still I can’t give over. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won’t let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders. He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right place—’”

An important question is whether this scamper on the moors is the same one as their fateful visit to the Grange. There are many indications of them being one and the same. They both feature the dairywoman’s cloak, they are both on a Sunday, they both happen after the children are banished from the sitting room, and they both lead to a difference in the situation of Catherine and Heathcliff’s friendship. But on the other hand Nelly presents Heathcliff’s demotion as happening before their visit to the Grange. I don’t know. It probably is the same incident since the Grange incident is arguably the most pivotal event in the book and it would be fitting if this were the anecdote that Lockwood read before his encounter with the ghost. And there are many details pointing to them being the same incident. But it is still debatable.

“we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here.’” - This is heartbreaking and points to why Heathcliff and Catherine had connected so much with the moors. The “inside” didn’t have a place for them.

What I like about this diary entry is that apart from the possible relation to the Grange incident there is nothing extraordinary or exceptional about it in the context of the book. It is probably a typical day at Wuthering Heights. It probably sounds familiar to people who were raised in an oppressive and abusive household.

“Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper! What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible night? I don’t remember another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering.”

I just like the “bad tea and bad temper”.

“I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality. I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered on, my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim’s staff: telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood to be so denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text ‘Seventy Times Seven;’ and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the ‘First of the Seventy-First,’ and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated.”

I think this is a very well-written account of how dreams work. Especially the first sentence of the paragraph, yes sometimes one dreams while also being half-awake and still half-aware of one’s surroundings. And the way he rationalizes the illogical stuff in his dream and directs the course of the dream according to that rationalization is great. The portrayal of dreams in the novel is ahead of its time.

“We came to the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there.”

And here, my friends, is why Catherine’s corpse didn’t decay. No, Heathcliff wasn’t hallucinating, her corpse genuinely didn’t decay. Catherine Earnshaw’s corpse is a bog body. She was buried in the churchyard and the peat almost buried her grave. The reader doesn’t even have to independently know the concept of a bog body to come to this conclusion, the author explained how it works here.

“The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the clergyman’s stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor: especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than increase the living by one penny from their own pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation;”

This kind of points to a hypocrisy, people were really particular about Heathcliff and Catherine going to the church as children but not enough to actually aid the pastor. On the other hand there are less mentions of the characters going to chapel in the second half of the book which might be related to the dilapidated state of it, but it also might be a coincidence. I will pay closer attention to it when I reach the second half of the book in this reread.

“Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached—good God! what a sermon; divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.”

This religious dream is the most puzzling part of Wuthering Heights since it doesn’t seem to be directly related to anything else in the novel. But it bears some significance for the rest of the novel: It heightens the impact of the ghost dream since it is now not the only dream Lockwood has dreamt. It is clearly a reflection of how much Lockwood was effected by Catherine’s diary entry with his dream being about an overly long religious service. It is also related to the rest of the novel with its themes of forgiveness, revenge and the misuse of religion.

I would like to hear the odd transgressions Jabez came up with, I bet they were funny.

“The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!’

‘Thou art the man!’ cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. ‘Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul—Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgement written. Such honour have all His saints!’”

I love how the transgressions here are an overly long religious service and yawning. This religious dream was much less serious and obviously allegorical than I remembered. It is interesting that Lockwood was the first to use violent language.

“With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim’s staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every man’s hand was against his neighbour;”

This is foreshadowing of the cycles of revenge in the rest of the novel, where the victim of the vengeance isn’t always the original wrong-doer.

“What had played Jabez’s part in the row? Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened doubtingly an instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again: if possible, still more disagreeably than before.”

I did forget about this passage. I remembered this as a “dream within a dream” situation but no, the two dreams are clearly two separate dreams, Lockwood remembers waking up and sleeping again.

“I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten.”

Heathcliff soldered the hook of the window of Catherine’s room after Cathy had ran away through it to see her dying father for one last time.

“I must stop it, nevertheless!’ I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!”

The absence of any blood on Lockwood’s hand or the glass not being broken are indications that this was a dream after all. This does not necessarily mean that the ghost is not real, she could have haunted Lockwood in his dream just like she had presumably done when Heathcliff had slept in the room. But in this reread I have given more credence than ever to the idea that this was a mere dream of Lockwood’s and the ghost is not real. Lockwood’s first dream is clearly influenced by Catherine’s diary entry and so is the second one. In the diary entry Catherine was a sad child wandering on the moors in the cold, and that is also what she is in the dream.

“The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, ‘Let me in—let me in!’ ‘Who are you?’ I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. ‘Catherine Linton,’ it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton) ‘I’m come home: I’d lost my way on the moor!’ As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the window.”

It is interesting that in the diary entry she yearned to leave Wuthering Heights and scamper on the moors, and in the dream the ghost tries to get in Wuthering Heights.

She is “Catherine Linton” because she had only become truly lost and left Wuthering Heights when she had become a Linton. For all of the disorder and violence of Wuthering Heights Catherine feels that she belongs to there. Which is what some children in abusive households might feel, since this is what they are used to.

“Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, ‘Let me in!’ and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear.”

Despite his mamma’s boy antics Lockwood has a latent potential for violence, throughout Chapter 2 he wanted to beat up someone. Now that he has encountered someone both weak and scary he becomes truly violent. This scene is also the first indication of how dark and violent Wuthering Heights really is and especially of how violence in it is depicted so nonchalantly rather than being sensationalized and especially focused on.

“ ‘How can I!’ I said at length. ‘Let me go, if you want me to let you in!’ The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on! ‘Begone!’ I shouted. ‘I’ll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.’ ‘It is twenty years,’ mourned the voice: ‘twenty years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!’ Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.”

20 years is interesting. 20 years ago Catherine was a 15-16 years old engaged to Edgar. This is probably a reference to how Heathcliff had run away about 21 years ago, which is interesting since later in the book the scene adult Catherine returns to is their first separation when she was 12, but here she seems to be haunted by her engagement to Edgar and Heathcliff running away. And 20 years ago, at the time of the engagement, Catherine was 15 years old, not an adult but certainly not a child in the way the ghost is. Is it simply an indication that the ghost lacks logic? Does it point to how Catherine had never really been able to grow up after the age of 12? Is it a reference to how dying at the age of 18-19 she never really had the chance to grow up? Is it proof that this is just Lockwood’s dream after all?

This scene is actually kind of frightening. Not when you are reading it in a Gothic novel in 2021, but it probably was mildly terrifying when it was 1847 and you weren’t expecting to encounter it. It could be fairly scary in an adaptation with the right cinematography and music and to be fair to Lockwood I would be horrified if it happened to me.

“At last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, ‘Is any one here?’ I considered it best to confess my presence; for I knew Heathcliff’s accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet.”

Heathcliff does not truly expect the ghost to be there, which is interesting.

“With this intention, I turned and opened the panels. I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.

Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.”

This is just a really good scene. It paints a very vivid picture.

A conservative older man on YouTube referred to Heathcliff’s face being as white as the wall as proof that he is white. As I have explained here this is clearly just a literary device to emphasize how scared and shocked he is. At most it might prove that he is not very dark skinned, but many non-white people can get pale when sick or shocked.

“Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood! I wish you were at the—’ commenced my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to hold it steady. ‘And who showed you up into this room?’ he continued, crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions. ‘Who was it? I’ve a good mind to turn them out of the house this moment?’

‘It was your servant Zillah,’ I replied, flinging myself on to the floor, and rapidly resuming my garments. ‘I should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it is—swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have reason in shutting it up, I assure you. No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!’”

It is easy to find Heathcliff’s physical mannerisms and reactions overly melodramatic and extreme and even I do sometimes, but I think in this case his anger and shock are wholly understandable.

Zillah might have left or been fired because of this reason. If I recall correctly she isn’t there when Lockwood visits the Heights in Chapter 31.

Did Zillah really wonder about whether the room is haunted? I think that she probably did. She might have wondered about it because it is shut up or she might have heard gossip about it.

“Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of Heathcliff’s with Catherine’s name in the book, which had completely slipped from my memory, till thus awakened. I blushed at my inconsideration: but, without showing further consciousness of the offence, I hastened to add ‘The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the night in—’ Here I stopped afresh—I was about to say ‘perusing those old volumes,’ then it would have revealed my knowledge of their written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I went on ‘in spelling over the name scratched on that window-ledge. A monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or—’”

Lockwood is a well-drawn character and his mental processes are very well-described in this chapter. I love how he tries to save face here, it is really relatable.

“‘What can you mean by talking in this way to me!’ thundered Heathcliff with savage vehemence. ‘How—how dare you, under my roof?—God! he’s mad to speak so!’ And he struck his forehead with rage.”

Heathcliff is offended by the slander against Catherine or maybe he just can’t bear her being mentioned in any way.

“Not liking to show him that I had heard the conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily, looked at my watch, and soliloquised on the length of the night: ‘Not three o’clock yet! I could have taken oath it had been six. Time stagnates here: we must surely have retired to rest at eight!’

‘Always at nine in winter, and rise at four,’ said my host”

Yet more discourse about when to go to bed. Yet another difference between Lockwood’s habits and the habits of the locals.

“‘Always at nine in winter, and rise at four,’ said my host, suppressing a groan: and, as I fancied, by the motion of his arm’s shadow, dashing a tear from his eyes. ‘Mr. Lockwood,’ he added, ‘you may go into my room: you’ll only be in the way, coming downstairs so early: and your childish outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me.’”

Regardless of what the reader thinks about Heathcliff in general, this is a very poignant scene.

Heathcliff is weirdly helpful to Lockwood in this chapter. And it isn’t just because of the ghost thing either, he tells him to spend the rest of the night in this room even before hearing about the ghost. Heathcliff isn’t unnecessarily horrible to people who are unrelated to his revenge and he doesn’t actively dislike Lockwood.

“A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.’

‘Delightful company!’ muttered Heathcliff. ‘Take the candle, and go where you please. I shall join you directly. Keep out of the yard, though, the dogs are unchained; and the house—Juno mounts sentinel there, and—nay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages. But, away with you! I’ll come in two minutes!’”

I find Heathcliff ironically calling the company of oneself “delightful company” interesting. It might point to his growing unsatisfaction with solitude or the fact that he is never truly alone because of Catherine’s spirit.

I like to think that he is subtly making fun of Lockwood’s encounters with the dogs here. He might be nicer and more sentimental than usual in this scene but he won’t just pass up the chance to make fun of someone.

“I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. ‘Come in! come in!’ he sobbed. ‘Cathy, do come. Oh, do—once more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!’ The spectre showed a spectre’s ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.”

Lockwood is surprised by Heathcliff’s superstition which belies his apparent sense. Heathcliff isn’t visibly “mad”. He is rude and asocial but normal at the first glance and can function normally. He has a very specific obsession with a very specific thing.

This scene is our first introduction to Heathcliff as a romantic figure and I have to admit that I find this scene to be one of the rare truly romantic moments in the book. I really like the saying “my heart’s darling”.

“There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony; though why was beyond my comprehension.”

A rare instance of Lockwood being truly empathetic and not making a show of it.

***

The three paragraphs following this are really good slice of life depicting all the characters at the Heights slowly waking up and resuming their occupations. I am not quoting them since I don’t have much to say on them, but I really like the movements of everyone and the general activity in the farm house.

It also makes one realize how irrelevant a character Lockwood really is. We assume he is more relevant to the story and the characters than he actually is because he is the one telling the story. He is probably relevant to Heathcliff and Zillah because of the ghost incident and he is obviously the friend of Nelly, but he is nothing to Joseph, Hareton or Cathy. He is a curiosity as a rare visitor, but he isn’t actually relevant to their lives or their stories in any way.

“He stood by the fire, his back towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah; who ever and anon interrupted her labour to pluck up the corner of her apron, and heave an indignant groan.”

I do kind of pity Zillah here. She is trying to do her job and being scolded at the same time. I think she either left or was fired because of this.

“And you, you worthless—’ he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash. ‘There you are, at your idle tricks again! The rest of them do earn their bread—you live on my charity! Put your trash away, and find something to do. You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight—do you hear, damnable jade?’”

I think “bitch” is the word being censored here. Ironically, as one of the book’s first reviewers remarked, this actually ends up bringing more attention to the word. Heathcliff expects everyone in the household to work, male or female, but it is important that he uses not one but two sexist insults against Cathy here, “jade” is a word meaning “bad-tempered woman”.

“‘I’ll put my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse,’ answered the young lady, closing her book, and throwing it on a chair. ‘But I’ll not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please!’”

I love Cathy.

“Heathcliff lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance, obviously acquainted with its weight. Having no desire to be entertained by a cat-and-dog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to partake the warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any knowledge of the interrupted dispute. Each had enough decorum to suspend further hostilities: Heathcliff placed his fists, out of temptation, in his pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off, where she kept her word by playing the part of a statue during the remainder of my stay.”

It is interesting that Heathcliff cares about decorum? I am guessing that he doesn’t want to lose a tenant by beating up a young woman in front of him.

“My landlord halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the garden, and offered to accompany me across the moor.”

Heathcliff being helpful.

“It was well he did, for the whole hill-back was one billowy, white ocean; the swells and falls not indicating corresponding rises and depressions in the ground: many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, blotted from the chart which my yesterday’s walk left pictured in my mind. I had remarked on one side of the road, at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of upright stones, continued through the whole length of the barren: these were erected and daubed with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark, and also when a fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand with the firmer path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there, all traces of their existence had vanished: and my companion found it necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when I imagined I was following, correctly, the windings of the road.”

Nice description of the road. Sometimes you should just stop and appreciate it.

Some critical essays point to this loss of signs as a mirror of how Wuthering Heights itself doesn’t provide an interpretive framework for the reader. It certainly gives the feeling of uncertainty and being lost in the narrative.

“The distance from the gate to the grange is two miles; I believe I managed to make it four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck in snow: a predicament which only those who have experienced it can appreciate. At any rate, whatever were my wanderings, the clock chimed twelve as I entered the house; and that gave exactly an hour for every mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights.”

I know that Lockwood is “ridiculous” but I really relate to him here.

“My human fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me; exclaiming, tumultuously, they had completely given me up: everybody conjectured that I perished last night; and they were wondering how they must set about the search for my remains. I bid them be quiet, now that they saw me returned, and, benumbed to my very heart, I dragged upstairs; whence, after putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro thirty or forty minutes, to restore the animal heat, I adjourned to my study, feeble as a kitten: almost too much so to enjoy the cheerful fire and smoking coffee which the servant had prepared for my refreshment.”

“My human fixture and her satellites” is very telling of how Lockwood perceives servants.

This is foreshadowing of how relatively normal death is in this place.

It is funny that two chapters in a row end with a drink being given to Lockwood as refreshment.

@dahlia-coccinea

#wuthering heights #wh reread #wh reread 2021 #chapter 3

[nerdygaymormon]

Do you have a link to your thoughts on the CES letter? Because I'm sure plenty of folk have asked you about it. I'm, struggling.

The CES letter has been mentioned to me a few times in asks, but I don’t recall being asked to respond directly to it. 

Before getting into it, I want to make you aware of this post about Faith Transitions, I think it may be useful to you. 

I read the CES letter many years ago, probably the original version, it’s changed a lot since then. I think the CES letter is sloppy, and twists quotes, uses some questionable sources, and frames things in the worst possible way. It’s basically an amalgamation of all the anti-Mormon literature. But many of the main points of the CES letter are important and correct, even if the supporting details aren’t.

In a way, the CES letter has done the Church a favor. For a long time, Elder Packer insisted that anything which isn’t faith-promoting shouldn’t be taught. As a result, most members of the Church were taught a simplified version of Church history, leaving out anything that is messy or difficult. Although those things could be found if someone was looking for them, I found many of them simply by reading Brigham Young Discourses or other works of the early church. 

With the internet, Elder Packer’s approach to history turns out to be a bad one. This information is out there and now most members learn about it from sources seeking to destroy their faith. One response to this has been a series of essays where the Church talks about some difficult subjects. 

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I’m not going to go through all the claims & challenges of the CES letter, but let me address some of the main ones.

1) There are errors in the Book of Mormon that are also contained in the 1769 edition of the Bible.

From the more faithful point-of-view, Joseph recognizes these passages, such as those from Isaiah, and knows they've already been translated into English and copies them from his family’s Bible. The non-faithful point-of-view is that Joseph copied these verses from his family Bible and tried to pass it off as his own translation.

2) DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East or from Israelites but from Asia.

This is correct. The Church has an essay which admits this and then spends a lot of time explaining how genetics works and one day we might find some Middle East connection. I find the Church essay convoluted as it goes through many possible (and unlikely) reasons for why no DNA of the Jaredites, Nephites or Lamanites has yet been found in the Americas.

3) There are things in the Book of Mormon that didn’t exist during Book of Mormon times, or in Central America (assuming this is where the Book of Mormon takes place), such as horses, chariots, goats, elephants, wheat, and steel.

This is also correct. Maybe the translation process was using a common word in English for a common item in the Book of Mormon. Maybe these are errors. Maybe it’s made up. 

4) No archeological evidence has been found for the Nephite/Lamanite civilizations.

Correct. When it comes to archeological evidence, it's true that we haven't found any. For one thing, we don't know where the Nephite & Lamanite civilizations are supposed to have taken place. If you don't know where to look, it's easy to have no evidence. Perhaps Nephites & Lamanites didn’t actually exist and that’s why there’s no archeological evidence. The Book of Mormon does seem to do a decent job of describing geography of the Middle East before Lehi & his family boarded the boat for the Promised Land.

5) Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar (or identical) to many local names and places of the region Joseph Smith lived in.

This seems like a funny thing to get hung up on. First of all, it’s not very many names that are similar. Secondly, many places in the US are named for Biblical places & people. If the Book of Mormon people came from Israel, it makes sense they did something similar. For example, the word Jordan is in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and in many places in America. 

6) He points to obscure books or dime-novels that Joseph Smith might have read and the similarities between them and the Book of Mormon. 

Those similarities are mostly at the surface level. To me it doesn't seem like Joseph plagiarized any particular book, and these specific books seem to not been very popular so difficult to say Joseph, who lived on the frontier, actually read them. Funny how no one from that time period thought the Book of Mormon resembled those books, probably because they hadn’t heard of them. But Joseph did hear and read a number of stories and some of that phrasing or whatever of the time influenced him. Think of songwriters, they create a new song then get accused of plagiarizing because it's similar to another popular song. Even without intending to, they were influenced by things they heard. 

7) The Book of Mormon has had 100,000 changes.

Most of the "100,000" changes to the Book of Mormon were to break it into chapters & verses, to add chapter headings, or to add grammar such as commas and whatnot. There are some changes to fix errors that got printed but differed from the original manuscript. And there's been some clarifications made, but these are few in number. By claiming "100,000" he's trying to make it seem like there's a scam being done. It's easy to get a replication of the first Book of Mormon from the Community of Christ and read it side-by-side with today's version. I’ve done that and occasionally there’s a word or two here or there which differ, but overall it's mostly the same.

8) There were over 4 different First Vision accounts

True. Over the years, the way Joseph described the First Vision changed. I think different versions emphasize different aspects of the experience. I don’t find them to be contradictory. Oh, and the Church has an essay about this.

9) The papyri that Joseph translated into the Book of Abraham has been found and translated and it’s nothing like the Book of Abraham.

This is true. The Church has an essay about it. The Church now says that the papyri inspired Joseph to get the Book of Abraham via revelation, much like his translations of the Bible weren’t from studying the ancient Greek & Hebrew. It is a big change from what the Church used to teach, that this was a translation of the papyrus. The papyri has nothing to do with the Book of Abraham, and the explanations of the facsimiles in the Pearl of Great Price don’t match what the scholars say those pictures are about.

10) Joseph married 34+ women, many without Emma’s consent, some who had husbands, and even a teenager. 

This all appears to be true. Emma knew about some of them, but not all. As for the married women, they were still married to their husbands but sealed to Joseph (I know this is strange to us, but this sort of thing was common until Wilford Woodruff standardized how sealings are done). 

Polygamy was illegal in the United States. Most people who participated were told to keep it secret. So of course there’s carefully-worded statements by Joseph and others denying they participate in polygamy.

The salacious question everyone wants to know is if Joseph slept with all these women. We don’t know, but a DNA search for descendants of Joseph has taken place among the descendants of the women he was ‘married’ to and none have been found. But still, if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, why is he hiding this from Emma? 

11) The Church used to teach that polygamy was required for exaltation, even though the Book of Mormon condemns polygamy. 

This is accurate. The Church says polygamy was part of ancient Israel and so as part of the restoration of all things, polygamy had to be restored, see D&C 132:34. Now we no longer say polygamy is required to get to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom.

12) Brigham Young taught Adam-God theory, which is now disavowed by the Church.

True. Joseph Smith didn’t teach this and John Taylor & Wilford Woodruff don’t seem to have any time for this teaching. It’s a thing Brigham Young was hot about and taught, but seems a lot of the church didn’t buy it as it was discarded after his death. 

13) Black people weren’t allowed to hold the priesthood until 1978, despite Joseph having conferred it to a few Black people during his life. 

Very true and very sad. This and the Mountain Meadows Massacre are the two biggest stains on the Church’s past. There is a Church essay on Race & the Priesthood. The ban appears to have begun with Brigham Young and he developed several theories to justify it, and these explanations expanded over the decades and bigotry was taught as doctrine. The Church now disavows all explanations that were taught in the past.

No reason for the priesthood ban is put forward in the Church essay other than racism. The past leaders were racists and that blinded them to what God wanted for Black people. There’s a big lesson in that for LGBTQ teachings of the Church.

14) The Church misrepresents how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. 

The accounts of Joseph Smith putting a seer stone in a hat and reading words from it, that's part of the historic record. Quotes about it don’t make it to our Sunday School lessons, but if you go back to the Joseph Smith papers and other accounts, it’s there to read. Joseph also used the Urim & Thummim, and wrote out characters and studied them, but he seems to have most favored the stone-in-hat method. I think the main problem here is the Church in its artwork and movies does not depict this, and therefore most members are unaware until they see anti-Mormon literature. Why does the Church not show Joseph looking into a hat? Because it seems magical and weird to modern people. But how much weirder is it than he put on the Urim & Thummim like glasses and could translate that way, or he wrote out these characters from some extinct language and was able to figure out what they mean?

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A number of the main points in the CES letter are true (even if explanations/supporting details in the CES are problematic). Some of the main points have simple explanations and don’t seem like a big deal. Others challenge what the Church has taught. To its credit, the Church put out essays by historians & scholars, with sources listed in the footnotes, addressing several of these controversial topics. 

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Religion is meant to help humans make sense of their world and our place in it. Most religious stories are metaphorical but end up getting taught as literal history and, in my opinion, the same is true of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And that’s why the CES letter has power, it points out things aren’t literally true but were taught by the Church as factual, and the CES letter shows us part of our messy history that the Church tried to hide. 

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The story of Adam and Eve can’t literally be true. It doesn’t fit our evolutionary past, but it’s meant to make our lives important, God created us and we have to account to Him for our choices, and it’s important to find someone to go through life with. We can say the same of Job and the Book of Ruth, fiction with a purpose. 

While there are some real events included in the Bible, much of what’s written is there to teach lessons, culture, and give meaning to life. Jesus taught in parables so at least he was upfront that they were stories that contained morals.

Can I believe the same about the Book of Mormon, that it’s inspired fiction with meaning I can apply to my life, or must it be literally history to have value?

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I went through a massive faith crisis while attending BYU. I had access to materials that told a different story of this religion than I’d been taught (the sorts of things in the CES Letter) and it threw me for a loop. 

It felt like the floor of faith I had stood on shattered and I fell with no way to stop myself. After I had a chance to process through the things I was feeling, I looked at my shattered faith and picked up the parts that were meaningful to me.

I had lined up my faith similar to a line of dominoes. If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was a prophet. If Joseph was a prophet, then this is the true church. If this is the true church, then...

This works until it doesn’t. Once a domino topples over, it starts a chain event.

Now I look at principles and concepts and decide if they’re meaningful to me. 

I love the idea that we can spend eternity with the people we love most. 

I believe we should be charitable and loving to others. 

People on the margins need to be looked after and helped and lifted. 

Poor people deserve dignity and the rich to be challenged. 

We have a commitment to our community and we all serve to make it better. 

All are alike to God, we’re all loved and God has a grand plan for us. 

Those who passed away can still be saved through the atonement of Christ. 

Those are all principles I find in the Bible and Book of Mormon or at church and I find Love flows through all of those. 

This new approach works for me. I don’t have to believe or hold onto problematic teachings. I can drop them and still hold the parts that I find valuable. I can reject the teachings and statements which are bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, misogynistic. Prophets can make mistakes and still have taught some useful things.

That little voice of the spirit and what it teaches and guides me to do, I trust it over what Church leaders say. Overarching principles are more important to me than specific details for how this gets applied in the 1800′s or 1950′s or Biblical times. 

————————————————————

I truly hope some of what I’ve written is helpful.

There’s no use pretending that the CES letter doesn’t get some things correct. It’s also helpful to understand it’s not just trying to share truth, but has an agenda to make the Church look as bad as possible.

What about the things the CES letter is correct about? 

Has this church helped you learn to connect with the Divine? 

The Church has some very big flaws, but also has some big things in its favor. Some of its unique teachings are very appealing and feel hopeful and right. 

Can you leave the Church and be a good person and have a relationship with God? Absolutely. 

I also know this church is a community and it’s hard to walk away cold-turkey with nothing to replace it, without another network to belong to. It’s as much a religion as it is a lifestyle and circle of friends. 

Are there parts you can hold onto? Parts you can let go of?

You have a lot to think about and work through. 

#long post #ces letter #this is a much longer answer than I thought I would write

[consumedkings-archive]

WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic.

chapter ten: the kind of love we gather

word count: 7.5k

rating: m for mature

warnings: there is an interaction with an abusive ex-husband that eludes to physical/domestic violence. also, i think it's fair to warn against joseph himself--whatever argument there is to be had about the sincerity of his feelings, there's a few times where it feels like there's definitely some emotional manipulation happening.

notes: this is an interlude chapter, a little flashback/prelude going through isolde and joseph's relationship--or, at least, a significant part of it (still some secrets to be discovered!). i've had this chapter drawn up for a while and i thought this would be a great cliffhanger/changing point in the story to give their relationship and their dynamic a little more context, so i hope that's alright with y'all!

some of you folks who follow me here on tumblr may recognize a part of this chapter as a smut oneshot i wrote for them; that was the alternate universe to this instance in time, which is firmly rooted in their canon. lmao

it should go without saying that i have yeeted canon out the window for all of ancient names and witching hour, and the way that the seed brothers were pre-reaping and hope county is subject to much the same.

—Before—

The first time that Isolde saw Joseph, she knew she was in for it.

If he had been any other man, she thought, it wouldn’t have been so clearly a disaster waiting to happen. She would have been able to crash and burn with him as she pleased: but he wasn’t just any other man. He was John’s man, his older brother, the one that he tried so hard to live up to and impress. She had only heard of him in passing, but that was all it had taken. Isolde knew exactly how John felt about him.

“Who is that?” she asked, when she spotted the cleanly dressed man across the room. The office was dimly lit with the lights lowered; people mingled and chatted, drinks in hand, as everyone celebrated that they’d been able to move into a nice, new office downtown, with a whole floor to themselves.

John’s gaze followed hers. His expression flattened. “Stop it.”

No fun. Isolde feigned innocence. “Stop what?”

“That’s my brother Joseph, Sol,” he hissed. “Do not try to fuck my brother.”

“You have a couple, don’t you?” she asked. “What’s the one?”

“Fuck off.”

She sighed, taking a sip of her drink. Just her luck. A Seed boy, and yet, so fine. What a waste. “Fine, Johnny,” she said, patting his shoulder. Across the room, she saw Joseph’s gaze land on hers as he politely smiled at one of the other partygoers, and then stay locked, right on her. “I won’t fuck your very hot brother, who is very plainly making eyes at me from across the room.”

“He’s never had great taste in women.” John grimaced. “Off-limits, Isolde, I mean it.”

“Scout’s honor.”

So much for that, anyway, she thought later, when Joseph crossed the party and made his way up to her. He was even more handsome up close, and though long hair wasn’t typically her type, it looked good on him, pulled back and slick. Just enough to look polished.

“You’re Isolde?” Joseph asked, and his eyes swept over her. “That doesn’t seem right.”

“Are you the authority on Isoldes?” she replied. She arched a brow loftily at him. “I didn’t realize I was in the presence of an expert.”

“Well, it’s just that John rarely complains about beautiful women,” he countered easily, the flirtation slipping so seamlessly from his mouth that she might have missed it. “They’re his greatest vice. Yet, he complains incessantly about you.” He paused. “I’m Joseph, his brother.”

That did sound like John. Isolde wrangled a smile, leaned comfortably back against the wall as Joseph sidled over to her. With him in front of her, he almost completely eclipsed out the rest of the party, like he’d suddenly bubbled her and it was just the two of them in the entire room. He was so very good at that—with his eyes on her, it felt as though nobody else in the entire world existed.

“I’m flattered,” she murmured, “that I’ve managed to break John of his greatest vice.”

“I did come to thank you for that.” Joseph’s mouth ticked up into a smile, almost playful, if the rich timbre of his voice wasn’t so soothing. “And for taking good care of John. He’s a...”

Isolde watched Joseph through her lashes. He had no alcohol in his hands, but kept them tucked easily into the pockets of his slacks; he held himself without the easy arrogance that John carried himself. It was more like Joseph knew, exactly, his place in the world, and so didn’t feel the need to assert it. It simply was.

“Handful,” Isolde supplied.

“That’s a good way to put that,” he agreed. A quiet moment stretched between them—an easy silence, and she got the impression that it was going to be like this with him; no pressure to fill the silences—before she shifted on her feet.

“So, how are you going to do it?” she asked him, taking a sip of her drink. Joseph’s gaze, which had drifted to where John was chatting with Jacob and another guest, flickered back to her. The inquisitive tilt of his head followed after, and when she didn’t supply further questioning, he didn’t bother smothering the amused little smile on his face.

“Do what?” he asked.

“Thank me.”

The smile didn’t quite leave his face yet. “Didn’t John give you the same speech about how off-limits we are to each other?”

“Well,” Isolde relented, “whatever is he going to complain about if his brother doesn’t take me out for dinner? I’d be failing him as his vice breaker if I didn’t keep my game fresh.”

“Is that what I’m doing to thank you, then?”

Joseph’s voice was a low, rich sound, rumbling straight through her, vibrating in the cavity of her chest. She thought, instantly, that she’d like to know what it felt like to have him say her name into her skin. Isolde’s lashes fluttered; she hummed thoughtfully and polished off the last of her wine.

Dinner isn’t sex, she reasoned. So technically, I’m not really breaking John’s little agreement.

“It’s an option,” she offered after a moment. And then, in an act of what John would surely describe later as pure spite for his well-being and mental health: “Though you’re welcome to do more, if you feel inclined.”

This finally (finally, a part of her said) elicited a laugh out of Joseph. His eyes slipped from hers, lingering on her mouth before pulling away to the rest of the party, almost reluctantly.

“Tomorrow,” he said after a moment. “Are you free?”

“Technically I’m working,” Isolde drawled, “but lucky for you, I’m the boss and I can make my own hours.”

“Lucky, indeed,” Joseph replied amusedly. “Six, then.”

“And don’t tell John,” Isolde said, as though making a pact. The man inclined his head a little, reaching up and sweeping a loose strand of hair behind her ear and made a low noise of agreement.

“And don’t tell John,” he reiterated. “Yet.”

━━━━━━��━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“I asked you for one thing, Isolde!”

John was, as to be expected, upset.

“That’s not true,” Isolde defended, busying her hands with gathering up a few files and tucking them into her bag. “You ask me for a million things, every day. Namely, tolerating your ego. Not to mention keeping your head from exploding every time someone pays you a compliment, and—”

“You know what I mean.” John exhaled sharply, pressing his fingers to his temples as though Isolde had inspired in him the greatest of headaches. She hoped that she had. It would be the least he could suffer, after all of the brainpower she had to expend on the daily to keep him in check.

Leaning back in her chair, Isolde said, “It was just dinner, John.”

“Do not pretend to be stupid all of a sudden,” John snapped. “Joseph does not date around. He doesn’t ever do something that’s just dinner."

"Funny," she mused, "it feels like that's exactly what it was. Eating food together, at a restaurant, during the evening."

John’s head cocked to the side. He leveled her with a singular pointed look and said, “Oh, yeah?”

She squinted at him. “Yeah.”

“Is that so? Then what did you do after dinner, Isolde?” He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the wall as he waited for her answer. She kept her face wiped clear of emotions even though John’s question instantly inspired in her a flurry of memories; Joseph, snagging her hand on their way out of the restaurant, leaning in and kissing her; and kissing her, and kissing her, keeping her pulled close against him until she thought she was going to go dizzy from it all.

And then, well—

“We’re two consenting adults, John,” she said at last, and he threw up his hands.

“I explicitly said not to!”

“Yeah, well!” There was no good excuse; she knew that. The excuse was that Joseph was incredibly attractive, and Isolde had wanted him, and so that had been the beginning and the end of it. Still, she kept her eyes on the paper in front of her. “I made that agreement before I got a good look at him. John, I’m actually trying to get some work done, so if you could—”

John scoffed. “One, Joseph is related to me, so of course he’s hot, and two—you’ve got the impulse control of a toddler. I hope you know that.”

He pushed off from the wall and started collecting his things to leave her office; a blissful departure, to be sure, but there was something sitting and stinging in the pit of her stomach that wouldn’t let her leave it to rest.

“Rich,” Isolde said demurely, “coming from the man who can’t stop an endless chain of making-up-breaking-up.”

His movements paused. He stared at her for a long moment, before he said. “Hey, Isolde?”

“Yes, John?”

“Fuck you.” John’s movements resumed to the door. “Fuck you, and see you in the conference room in twenty.” Another pause, and then thrown over his shoulder: “If you’re not too busy letting my brother—”

“Alright, point made!” she exclaimed, exasperated. “It’s really not anything serious. Okay? It was just dinner and a date, that’s all.”

This had him stopping again, paused in the doorway with a bit of frustration welling up in his voice when he said, “You don’t know my brother, Isolde.”

“But I know me. Alright?”

He sighed. “Yes, alright. Twenty minutes, then.”

For a moment, it felt like things had been settled between them. John was still young, she thought; younger than her, and the baby of his brothers, which she knew meant he held on tighter to things that maybe he needed to all the time. Too tight, or too loose, to make it hurt less when something didn’t work out.

But the peace only lasted for a moment, because a few minutes after John had settled back in behind his desk across the hall from her, their secretary came around the corner, her arms filled with a fragrant bouquet of lilies.

“Ms. Khan, you have an admirer!” she exclaimed delightedly. Isolde met John’s eyes across the hall, staring at her with an expression that could only have been described with the phrase I told you so. “It looks like they’re from a gentleman named Joseph S—”

“Thank you, Laura,” Isolde interrupted, clearing her throat. “You can set them on the table there, I’ll find them a vase.”

Laura nodded and smiled, laying the bouquet delicately on the coffee table and then making her way out of the office. Isolde left the flowers untouched for about an hour, unable to stand the thought of John catching her keeping them alive (because she would never hear an end to it), but it was killing her a little bit. She had mentioned once, in an off-hand comment, that she didn’t like the typical flower bouquets like red roses or carnations; lilies were her favorite. One tiny comment, and this was the result?

There was only a note with the flowers. It said, Hoping John isn’t giving you too much trouble. Be by at six for you.

It felt a little treacherous; just enough to make it a bit harder to look at John with a serious face and not burst out laughing at the absurdity of their situation. Thankfully, close to the end of the day John made the dramatic announcement that he thought he was going to kill himself if he had to spend even another second sitting across from the elaborate bouquet.

“I’m going to go home,” he said, shrugging into his coat, “and try to retain at least half of my brain cells.”

Isolde hmm’d. “So just the one, then?

“Ha-ha. Goodnight, Sol.”

“Have a good night.”

It seemed like there were only a few moments of quiet between John’s departure and Joseph’s arrival, though in reality it had been a few hours; focusing felt like a chore, like it took a little extra work to get through the depositions she had to prepare and the emails she had to answer.

Just dinner, she thought. Just dinner and a date, and whatever happened after. And just one more date tonight. Not a big deal; adults go on dates all the time. I’m an adult. It’s fine.

But it wasn’t just that, because she was sure her heart rate had plateaued at a solid one hundred and ten since Joseph’s I’ll pick you up from work text. Because Isolde wasn’t the kind of woman who took a man back to her place on the first date, and yet.

By the time Joseph did swing by to pick her up, John had been gone for a few hours and she’d gotten almost no work done, instead completely consumed by the predicament she’d planted herself in. It did break the rules to date Joseph. No business and pleasure, first and foremost. Normally, Isolde would have considered herself a woman of incredible discipline, able to turn down temptations of varying degrees—but when Joseph rolled through her office door with those stupid, hot yellow aviators on his face, she thought maybe she had overestimated herself.

“You look tired,” Joseph said lightly, brushing some snow out of his hair. Isolde’s expression flattened.

“Thanks, Romeo. ‘Hi, Isolde, how was your day?’ ‘Oh, just fine, except for your brother throwing a baby temper tantrum every five minutes’. ‘You poor thing, Isolde, but you have to tell me how you manage to be so exceptionally beautiful still’.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t look beautiful still,” he replied. His eyes followed her as she walked around her desk, having slid her coat on and collected her purse; they stayed trained on her all the way up to when there was no space left between them, until he was gazing at her with amusement dragging his mouth into a smile.

She said, lightly, “You didn’t say I was beautiful at all, actually.”

Joseph reached up. Though the room was empty of everyone except the two of them, somehow it still felt special when he looked at her—it still felt like nothing else in the entire world mattered to Joseph in that moment except for her. The pad of his thumb brushed her lower lip, his gaze drinking her in, admiring and hungry in equal amounts.

“You are,” he said, his voice low, the timbre of it rattling something animal inside of her. “Beautiful.”

Kiss me, she wanted to say, because he was so close and yet seemed to refuse to actually finish the job. She didn’t think she could have mustered the words even if she wanted to; Joseph was a wildfire, eating up all the oxygen around her, sucking it right out of the air until there was nothing left but for her to feel swallowed by it.

“I wasn’t entirely truthful with you, the other night,” Joseph continued, dragging his thumb from her lip down to her jawline, “when I said that John’s greatest vice was beautiful women.” He paused, his head tilting. “They’re mine.”

Isolde’s lashes fluttered. She glanced up at him, and she said, “Well, that’s not the greatest sales pitch for yourself. How many red flags should I be looking for?”

He laughed and brushed his lips against her temple. “I get the feeling you won’t miss a single one.”

It shouldn’t have been quite so endearing, his casual reference to any red flags that he might have. Even his confidence that she’d pick them out (she would; if finding red flags was an Olympic sport, Isolde would have been a gold medalist) didn’t inspire the greatest feeling in her, though if she was playing devil’s advocate she knew that there were things about herself that didn’t make her so very well acquainted with healthy relationships.

“I’m glad I was able to come and pick you up today,” Joseph continued casually as they left her office and headed down the stairs. “It’s been snowing all afternoon. I’d hate for you to have to drive in this weather.”

And then he did things like that—uncharacteristically gentlemanly of him, to not want her to drive herself home in adverse weather. “I think I would have been fine,” Isolde replied. His fingers brushed hers at her side, snagging them and bringing them up to his mouth to kiss.

“Undoubtedly.”

It hadn’t been a lie, his remark about the snow. By the time they were pushing the doors to the lobby open, bidding the security officer goodnight, at least a solid foot of snow had collected and was pushed up against the lip of the sidewalk.

She grimaced. Winter was her least favorite season. Holiday cheer and Isolde Khan were not two concepts that melded well—not that she was a scrooge, per se, but with her only family halfway across the world and, on top, a tenuous relationship at best, it didn’t make Christmas very fun.

As they walked down the sidewalk, passing Joseph’s car in favor of pursuing a nearby restaurant, the blonde kept their fingers tangled together. The gesture was light, and didn’t demand anything, but it was enough to say something: I want you close to me.

“Does your family come here for the holidays?” Joseph asked lightly, disentangling their hands in favor of giving her hip a squeeze, keeping his hand there as they drifted into a warmly-lit wine bar. “I remember you saying they live in Turkey.”

So Joseph did just have that good of a memory. She’d have to be more careful about the things she said to him. “No,” Isolde replied, desperate to steer the conversation elsewhere. “It’s too far. And I don’t go there.”

“Then what do you do on Christmas?” he prompted. He tugged a seat out for her at a spot farthest away from the door and then planted himself across from her, absently reading over the list of wines.

“This,” she said, gesturing vaguely. And then, in an effort to redirect, again: “You, if you’re around.”

Joseph’s gaze flickered up to hers from across the table. She could tell he was trying to stifle a smile. “You’d have to come all the way to Hope County if you had that penciled into your planner, Miss Khan.”

“Oh, Miss Khan, am I? We’re suddenly very formal with each other.” Isolde grinned. “And what does Joseph Seed, in Hope County, do on Christmas?”

“We haven’t spent many holidays together, but this year I’d like have a big family dinner on Christmas Eve, the handful of us.” He settled back in his chair a little, like he was getting ready to be there for a while. “Since John’s moved out here for work, Jacob’s been out of the country, and we only recently found each other again, we don’t get a lot of time together.” He shrugged. “And you, of course. If you’re around.”

Before she had an opportunity to respond, caught off guard by how easily he wielded her own flirtation against her, she felt a few bodies brush past their table and then pause, only to be followed by a dreadfully familiar voice: “Isolde?”

Something sharp and hot brought her pulse to a grinding stop—or it felt like it, anyway, like all of the breath had been sucked right out of her and she had ceased to be alive anymore, a cadaver sat up to play pretend like in those old photos. No, she thought when she felt a hand touch her shoulder, nausea welling up inside of her. No, I don’t want this, not right now.

“It is you,” Alec said, his voice blooming with warmth. “I thought I recognized you. I know you like this spot.” His hand slid from her shoulder and she felt, without even looking at him, the way he turned his eyes to Joseph. “Who’s your friend?”

“Date,” Isolde bit out. “He’s my date.”

Her ex-husband let out what she could only describe as a comical exhale of breath. Joseph was watching her, inquisitive but ever-so-composed, before he turned his gaze politely to Alec and offered his hand.

“Joseph,” the blonde said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The sight of the two men shaking hands made her want to puke. Everything Alec touched in her life was rotten, putrid—brimming with bile and spoiled, forever. She didn’t want it to be like that with Joseph, too.

Alec began, “I’m—”

“Alec is my ex-husband,” Isolde interrupted, her voice hard, punctuating each consonant of the words that came out of her mouth with violent intent.

Joseph settled back in his seat. Suddenly, Isolde was reminded that he had a penchant for remembering even the smallest throwaway details, and that she’d probably let him in on more than she would have liked about how her relationship had been with Alec without even saying anything. Yes, Isolde thought absently, her brain careening like a plane on fire as she watched Joseph fix his eyes on Alec, yes, he can tell.

“Fresh on the dating scene, and only six months divorced,” Alec remarked lightly, his infuriatingly handsome face the only thing filling up her peripheral. “I’m happy for you, Isolde.”

“So leave,” Isolde snapped. She finally looked at him, really looked at him, and naturally he looked perfect; dark curls, stubble neatly trimmed, eyes bright and amused. There were a few thin, gossamer scars on his face from the last time they were together— but he must have paid quite a bit of money to smooth those out.

He lifted his hands in a show of surrender, his gaze sweeping over her. Just that one gesture felt like a violation—she wanted to smash his face into the table and tell him he didn’t get to even look at her anymore.

“Good luck with this one, Joe,” Alec said, his overly-familiar use of a nickname that Isolde had never heard anyone use with Joseph sticking to her ribs like a heavy dinner. “She’s a wicked little thing.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” Joseph replied serenely.

Alec paused; his gaze lingered on her neck and suddenly he was grinning. Isolde knew what it was he was looking at—a bruise, a remnant of the night before, left by Joseph.

“Yeah,” Alec agreed, “it looks like you’ve already figured out how to handle her.”

Who’s going to pity you? If you were me, you would have seen that you were begging for it. You fucking asked for it. 

Isolde stood abruptly, the chair screeching against the wooden paneling of the floor. Sick, she thought, her stomach rolling. I’m going to be sick. “Leaving,” she managed out, only vaguely aware of Joseph also coming to a stand across from her, albeit more composed. “We’re leaving.”

I’m your husband, Isolde. It means it’s my job to keep you in line.

“Not on my account, I hope,” Alec sighed. “You’ve always been so dramatic. Anyway, Joseph—a pleasure to meet you, and—you know, call me if you need help with her. I’m always happy to lend my expertise.”

Everyone knows what it takes to get you under control, and I’ll tell anyone who asks.

She pushed past him, stepping around the table and clutching her coat and purse in her hands. There wasn’t time to put them on; there would never be enough time to get as much space between herself and Alec as she wanted.

I should have killed him, she thought viciously, taking in lungfuls of frigid air, snow dappling her face and sticking to her eyelashes. Right then, I should have bashed his fucking skull in.

Fingers brushed her arm. On instinct she startled, whirling to face the impending threat, half-expecting Alec to have chased her out into the street in an attempt to corner her—a thing that he had taken great joy in before, sweeping things off of the counter to grab and pull and rip—but it was Joseph. He waited two heartbeats before he reached again, his fingertips cradling the crook of her elbow.

It was a question: can I? Will you let me?

“I wish he would die,” she said, without thinking, the words spilling out of her like a poison she just couldn’t hold in anymore. Whatever information Joseph had gleaned about her tumultuous marriage with Alec made him unbothered by this statement; he tugged her closer to him, the hand not holding her arm reaching up to brush the pads of his fingers across her pulse point.

He said, “I know.”

“Joseph—”

“Isolde.” His voice was low, the words murmured against her forehead. “Don’t explain.” Because I already know, is what he meant. Because I already understand what’s going on here.

He tugged her coat out of her hands and pulled it around her shoulders. Bent like he was, leaned into her with something that she thought might be adoration, Joseph brushed their noses together. She felt tension flood her body; she was afraid that he might try to kiss her right then, of what she might do if he did while her body was brutalized by adrenaline, but he didn’t. 

He just held her.

“Here,” Joseph said, taking her hand and bringing it to his neck until she could feel the steady, rhythmic beat of his pulse under her fingers. “I’ve got you.”

It should have frightened her. Joseph’s intensity was an intimidating kind, but in these moments, the intensity was required to cut through the panic. It overwhelmed her fried senses, the neurons firing rapidly stifled and swallowed up by the looming responsibility to recognize his closeness. The smell of his cologne, the bump of their noses, the feeling of his stubble under her fingertips, his hands closing the jacket around her shoulders. All of it meant that her brain could no longer panic, and had, instead, something to occupy itself with.

“Can you take me home?” Her voice felt small coming out of her, like it belonged to someone else. A different Isolde, at a different place and time. The girl she might have been or perhaps was before Alec.

Low, Joseph murmured, “Of course. Whatever you need.”

A sick, macabre part of her wanted to look back behind Joseph at the wine bar. It wanted to see Alec again—the way that you couldn’t stop yourself from peeking through your hands at the monster in a horror movie, the way that you couldn’t look away from a brutal car crash on the highway. Sick, she thought dizzily. He made me sick.

“Take me home,” she said, more firmly this time.

“I’m trying,” Joseph replied. His voice was so soft that she almost had to strain to hear it over the pounding of her heart. His hands came to her face, cradling. “You have to let me.”

Isolde nodded, swallowing back what adrenaline insisted on leaking into her brain. She hadn’t realized that she was bolting her feet to the floor, gritting her teeth against the gentle pressure of Joseph’s hands, until he said, you have to let me. 

“Okay,” she murmured. He nodded and brushed the hair from her face. This time, his guiding pressure actually registered in her brain; when he nudged her away from the bar and down the street to his car, she moved, instead of digging her heels in.

When they reached the vehicle, he opened the passenger door for her and waited for her to climb in before he leaned down.

“I’m—” Isolde started, the words shredding in her mouth before they got out of her. I’m sorry, she wanted to say. “About—the bar, I—”

“I told you, don’t explain yourself,” Joseph insisted, tucking her hair behind her ear. There was something almost earnest about his gaze now as he watched her, her heart thrumming violently in her chest with a different mantra now. Same, it said, when Joseph’s fingers grazed her cheek, tilted her chin up. Same as us. Ours, too. He’s our kind.

“There’s plenty of people I wish were dead, too.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Shoes, clothes, charger, phone. No phone?

“Where did he put my phone?” Isolde muttered, searching through the suitcase on the bed. An array of clothing was laid out, but not yet folded; in fact, the only things that were packed yet were all work things that she’d have to take with her. Joseph would probably be furious—he had, in fact, specifically insisted that no work come on the vacation—but better than anyone he knew what it was like to rely on John for things. Which was that, if you liked things done to the standard that Joseph and Isolde wanted them done to, you didn’t rely on anyone else. Least of all John.

“Soli…” It was Joseph’s voice coming from the bottom of the stairs, not questioning but asking. Beckoning. You’re taking too long. “Dinner’s getting cold.”

“Where’s my phone?” she called back, pacing around the other side of the bedroom. “I’m trying to pack it up for tomorrow so that I don’t have to worry about it.”

A beat, where Joseph was likely collecting his patience, passed. “It’s down here. You left it on the counter.” And then: “Come eat, won’t you?”

He was doing that thing where he phrased it as a question and meant it as a statement. Joseph had learned, in a very short period of time, that she didn’t like when someone told her what to do; as petulant as it was, she’d buck against something like that desperately until it felt like her idea all along.

Isolde sighed. “Yes, I’m coming, Joseph.” One more up-and-down the stairs, ten more minutes of packing, and then she’d be content enough to sit down and eat.

“Full first name?” came the leisurely reply from downstairs. “My, you are in a mood tonight.”

Isolde busied herself with folding clothes, a smile fighting its way onto her face in spite of Joseph’s insistence that she was “in a mood”. She wasn’t; if he wanted to believe that, he was certainly welcome to, but she wasn’t in a mood. She was thinking.

So she put folded clothes over the work files and said, “Joseph, light of my life; the sun which my planet orbits; the fabric by which the stars are made…”

“This sounds more like the Isolde I’m used to.” His voice was closer now, coming from the doorway, and when she looked over her shoulder at him he said, “And definitely not coming to eat.”

“Do you go by Joe?” she asked lightly, dropping the last of her clothes in the suitcase.

Joseph wandered across the master bedroom until there wasn’t any space left between them; his hand came up to her face, trailing the slope of her cheekbone. “I certainly do not.”

“So, definitely call you that, then.”

“You are testing my greatest virtue,” Joseph replied, leaning down and kissing her. Just the once, though; long enough for her to want to lean into it, and not long enough to be satisfying. He pulled back just so far as to let their lips brush when he said, “Come sit down.”

Skimming her fingers along his chest, she asked playfully, “What are you going to do if I say no?”

The blonde eyed her amusedly. “John was right. You really don’t like being bossed around, do you?”

“How dare you say those words, in that order, in my presence,” Isolde murmured without heat. “You know I can’t stand to have someone stroking his ego by admitting he’s right about something.” A low laugh slipped out of Joseph and he carded his fingers through her hair, letting the pads of his fingers skim the back of her scalp as he kissed her temple.

She loved it. She loved when he did this; Joseph was so tactile, taking every opportunity to connect them through touch, like she grounded him. Like she was something precious that he wanted to enjoy every chance he got.

“You are the only one I’ll say something to more than once,” he said, his voice pleasantly low. “But luckily for you, I find your obstinance endearing.”

“If it helps,” she countered, “I don’t mind if you boss me around. Mostly. Why don’t you give it another try?” That wasn’t true. She did. But she liked the way it made Joseph’s ego inflate the second he did, even if it was for something stupid.

“Sweet girl.” His voice was a pleasant purr against her skin. “Always threatening me with a good time.”

This made her laugh. Joseph kissed the slope of her cheekbone, and then the corner of her mouth, his fingers sliding through her hair affectionately. She finally relented and allowed him to nudge her out through the bedroom door, making her way down the stairs. It wasn’t her first time going on a vacation with a… Friend of the romantic persuasion, but it was her first time going on vacation with a friend of the romantic persuasion back home. She’d never introduced her parents to any man that she’d dated—not only because they were eleven hours away by flight, but because there just hadn’t ever been anyone.

Joseph was—different. But she had always known that; she had always known that he was an exception to a lot of people’s rules, not just her own, and she was violating cardinal rule number one of her own personal regiment, which was “don’t mix business and pleasure”. Pursuing a romantic relationship with your business partner’s older brother didn’t exactly adhere to that, did it?

“It’s going to be hot,” Isolde said, “and the flight is long, and the traffic is going to be… Well, insane. But my parents will definitely insist on feeding us the second we get there—”

“That’s fine.”

“—so what I’m saying is, if I blink at you five times in rapid succession, we need to make up an emergency to leave. What’s the emergency? We have to have one ready and on hand, otherwise my dad will see straight…”

Her voice trailed off. The kitchen was not as she’d left it, a little over an hour ago, to pack. In fact, it was dimly lit by candles, the dining table sporting a bouquet—not roses, like someone might have expected out of a scene like this, but calla lilies. Her favorite.

“What—” She stopped in the doorway, but Joseph sidled up behind her, hands on her hips and nudging her forward. “Joseph, what…?”

“I told you.” He kissed just below her ear, reaching for her left hand and bringing it up to kiss her knuckles there, too. “You’re the only person that I’ll say something to more than once—”

Isolde felt something—something both hot and cold, sharp and too soft—whip through her immediately at the leading tone. “You’re not making any sense,” she managed out, trying to dig her heels in, but Joseph wasn’t trying to push her in any further so it didn’t matter.

“I want you to marry me.” Joseph said against her skin, and he slid something cool and metal along her finger. “I want you to be my wife, Soli.”

A ring, her brain said, the alarm bells ringing immediately. That’s a ring. Holy shit, that’s a really big fucking ring. On your finger. Holy shit.

“Isolde.” Joseph turned her around to look at him fully now, brows furrowing at what was surely a look of panic on her face. What she thought had to be the assumption that they were only nerves, he continued, “I know that—”

“No.” The word came out of her mouth before she could stop it, the single-word-statement fleeing her mouth in her panic. She thought she’d feel regret about it, but she didn’t; only about the way Joseph looked at her when she said it.

He seemed to be gathering himself for a moment, like maybe he didn’t think that she meant it, that she was playing some kind of joke on him.

Joseph began, “If this is your idea of—”

“I mean it,” Isolde interjected. “I won’t marry you, Joseph. So—no. Take this—” She fumbled the engagement ring off of her finger and put it into his hand like it was a cursed item, like she couldn’t get it off of her finger any fucking quicker. “Take this back. And—that’s it, I just don’t want it.”

His eyes were fixed on her, no longer soft in their romanticism, but hard, steely. “And why not?”

She swallowed up a sound that probably would have been close to agony. It was agony, having to explain to him; her mind vibrating at an entirely different frequency than his, the panic settling into her bones. She needed to say, I’ve been married before you and I know what it’s like to give yourself over to someone, she needed to say, I won’t fucking let someone own me, Joseph Seed, she needed to say, I told you two months ago I never wanted to get married again, and you just apparently didn’t listen, which is reason enough.

“I don’t need to justify myself to you,” is what she said instead, going to step around him. But his hand caught her wrist, the carefully manicured and polished exterior fading into something that hit an edge of tension, pulling pulling pulling until she thought she was going to watch him finally snap.

But he said, “You do.”

“Fuck. You,” Sol bit out. The anger flared hot in her chest. It was, at last, a familiar emotion; anger and not panic, filling her up. Drowning out the sadness that tried to rip through her like a wildfire. “I told you. I told you I wasn’t doing it again.”

“I’m different.” Now it was his turn to sound almost petulant, his grip on her wrist like iron. “You said that yourself. That we’re—”

“Not different enough,” she snapped. “Apparently, anyway, since you couldn’t wait longer than two months to try and put your name on me, could you?” Trying to pull her wrist out of his grip proved futile, and she managed out with the timbre of her voice vibrating with poison, “And get your fucking hand off of me, Joseph.”

He stared at her for a long moment before he finally loosened his hold on her wrist. Enough to let her pull away if she wanted to. She didn’t. Isolde stayed firmly put, willing her legs to carry her somewhere else—back home would probably be the best thing, driving the hours it takes between Hope County and the nearest lick of civilization.

You said that yourself. I’m different. 

He was. She wanted to say, you are, Joseph, but she didn’t, because she knew that it would only start them in another circle again, a snake swallowing its own tail in an endless cycle. 

So they stood there for a moment: neither of them saying anything, her last threat hanging, jolts of anger fizzing and popping in the air between them. Isolde’s hand slid just enough to catch at the wrist in Joseph’s grip, and he took her hand instead, then, tugging lightly to draw her close to him.

Testing her out. Feeling her boundaries. She’d basically said I’ll tear your hand off if you don’t listen to me, but he didn’t think she would. And now he was going to slam those buttons—slide his fingers under her edges until he found the exact farthest he could push her.

“I won’t,” Joseph said, very low and quiet, “let you do this to me, Isolde.”

She had been expecting something else. Something sweet, maybe—Joseph liked to do that. Sweet girl, he’d say to her, and if anyone else had tried to call her girl they would’ve gotten dumped, but with this viper it was different. It didn’t feel condescending when Joseph said it to her. It just felt covetous. 

And that’s what he was best at: bite, and then soothe. It made his sharp edges more tolerable. It made them nice. But now he was all sharp edges, only hard lines, catching on her and tearing every time the two of them made contact. It had always been this way; John had said that he thought they were poorly matched, and at the time, she’d written it off as John not liking to share even his business partner with his older brother. 

Now more than ever, she thought that he was right. They were both too unwieldy, too wretched, to let someone else sway them from their opinions.

“You are so fucking dramatic,” Isolde said, pulling her hand out of his grip at last and turning on her heel. “We don’t need to be married to be together. And your antiquated notion—”

“There are things I want to accomplish, and they’re best done with a wife—”

“I’m sorry, did you hear a period punctuating the end of my sentence? Don’t fucking talk over me, Joseph,” she snapped. For one split second, she saw something vicious flicker over Joseph’s face—just for that one, tiny second—and then he cleared his face. 

After a second of silence, of waiting for Joseph to try and get the last word in, she finished, “You don’t know me well enough to want to marry me. And—marriage is a scam, anyway. I would know, I handle nasty divorces every day at work.” I’ve handled my own nasty divorce. “If you’re looking for a pretty housewife to sit around statuesque and have dinner ready for you when you come home, then—well, then you really don’t fucking know me.”

Joseph was silent. His jaw worked, his eyes sweeping over her, tension radiating off of her until he said, “I guess I don’t.”

“I guess so,” Isolde agreed. Another moment of silence, where it felt like they were circling each other like wounded dogs, and she said, “I’m going to go—”

“Fine,” he interrupted, the thing that he knew she hated. “When you’ve calmed down, we can discuss this like adults.”

“There isn’t anything to discuss,” she said, gathering up her coat and keys and walking up the stairs. “I’m not going to change my mind, Joseph.”

From the kitchen, she heard him agree, “Not yet.”

“Shut up,” Isolde snapped. “You make me so fucking mad.”

He didn’t respond to that; she heard him moving around in the kitchen, gathering things and putting them away as she hauled her suitcase down to the front door. He met her at the door, opening it for her—which pissed her off half as much as him putting an engagement ring on her finger.

It shouldn’t have, but it did. It was like he was saying, I know you’ll be back, so go on. Feel free to leave whenever you’d like.

Like the gentleman he was, he carried her suitcase out and loaded it into the car, lingering around the driver’s side as she threw her coat inside. And then she was the one waiting, unsure of what to do; the muscle memory of her body said, kiss him goodbye, the fury in her brain screaming to get in the car and leave.

“When you change your mind,” he reiterated calmly, reaching up and brushing the hair from her face, “you know how to get in touch with me.”

Isolde’s gaze flickered at the touch, Joseph’s warm, heady cologne washing over her as the space between them vanished. She said, the amber and vetiver of him welling up inside of her and filling her like a wineskin, “I won’t.”

His lips grazed her temple, fingers brushing her jaw. “I love you, Isolde.”

Fucking narcissist, she thought, venomously, pulling away from him. Her gaze drifted over his face, trying to find something familiar, something that reminded her of the man she had thought she had loved—but who had clearly proven he was incapable of thinking of anyone but himself.

So finally, she bit out, “This is what you think love is?”

She wanted the words to sting. She wanted them to wipe the tranquility off of his face. He had always been so composed; the wretchedness in her wanted to shake it out of him, making him squirm like he was so good at doing to her.

But he didn’t; his mouth ticked upward in a serene smile, eyes fixed on her as he stepped back from the car. He seemed confident in himself—that it was love, that she would see it was. One day.

I won’t let you do this to me, he’d said.

“Have a safe drive,” he called, when she slammed the door. It was an hour to the airport; an hour, and then however long of a flight, however long she’d have to wait for the next flight heading out to Georgia.

Joseph turned and walked back inside as she pulled out of the driveway, as carefully as she could through the snow; in her rearview mirror, she saw him stop at the door and turn to look, eyes fixed on her.

There are plenty of people I wish were dead, too.

#fic: witching hour #otp: i could sleep inside the cold of you #witching hour interlude #joseph seed x ofc #joseph seed/ofc #ch: isolde khan #ch: joseph seed #this felt important to include #a lot of it is polished from my pre-cult canon but it feels!!!!! #necessary to give them a bit more context esp for folks who only see my content on ao3 #thank u everyone for being patient w me <3 #my writing #far cry 5 fic #fc5 fic

[nickandros]

hi! sorry to bother, but do you have any recs for getting into IR/IR theory? (sorry if uve already made a post like this i couldn't find one!!)

turns out i still have the slides saved from my first IR class in 2017 deep in my google drive so! let’s go.

in order to understand IR theory you’re gonna need to become familiar with the main schools of thought/theory so that you understand what assumptions more specific theories are making abt the international system. for example, if you’re reading realist arguments on nuclear proliferation, then you need to be reading them with acceptance of the assumption that states are the most important actors (a realist assumption). and with that:

realism

the prince - machiavelli: you don’t have to actually read this to understand realism, but it’s important to know the foundations of realism in history, and machiavelli is IT.

leviathan - thomas hobbs: literally do not read this, but read a summary of it somewhere. hobbs did a lot of the groundwork for realist theory on statehood and anarchy but this guy sucks and also a video game released in 2010 proved him wrong entirely.

the twenty years’ crisis - e. h. carr: dude was very important to the formation of classical realism, and was also one of the few realists to approach marxism with a somewhat positive opinion. he also wrote a history of the soviet union which is. one of the most interesting western perspectives on the subject.

man, the state, and war and theory of international politics - kenneth waltz: mr king shit himself. waltz is the father of neo-realism and for good reason. bitch had a lot to say. security scholars are obsessed with him. anyway that first book is really important because it establishes the ‘levels of analysis’ which is a very important concept to understand for when you get into things later like game theory.

the tragedy of great power politics - john mearsheimer: what a freak. this guy is responsible for the concept of offensive realism, which is different from waltz’s defensive realism. i still don’t entirely get it, and definitely don’t fuck with it.

liberalism

god i hate liberalism so fucking much. this is going to be so biased i’m sorry.

to perpetual peace - immanuel kant: don’t read this. just understand that kant ruined international relations for everyone. he put forward some ideas about the inherent peacefulness of democracies here and kickstarted a whole lot of imperialist dumbasses to form the democratic peace theory.

john locke: i can’t even recommend a specific book by this fuck because i literally do not care at all about him but like. he’s called the father of liberalism. he’s probably important for anarcho-capitalists and ayn rand but i could not give two shits.

robert keohane - after hegemony: neo-liberalism! slightly more tolerable than classical liberalism, because it focuses mostly on state cooperation and is less depressing about human nature than realism. less concerned with economic liberalism, more concerned with ......

robert keohane & joseph nye - interdependence in world politics: puts forward the idea that trade interdependence between states has become more important than military might due to coercive power.

constructivism

in comparison to realism and liberalism, constructivism is a BABY in the theory world of international relations, but it is so sexy.

world of our making - nicholas onuf: god i can not stress how much of a big deal it was for someone to come forward and be like “i actually don’t think the absence of a world government means we have an anarchic world system”. system level anarchy was just a given in IR at this stage, and other people had challenged it by talking about different kinds of anarchy but onuf was really like hmm. i wouldn’t call western dominance ‘anarchy’ but go off queens. 

social theory of international politics - alexander wendt: king. shit. YES the title is a direct reference to kenneth waltz’s book. i made a joke in an earlier post about how constructivism as a theory absolutely floored the international community and that was a joke but also 100% true. read this one!! read his article anarchy is what states make of it, read this interview with him!!

marxism

>:)

capital - karl marx: presented without commentary.

what is to be done and the state and revolution - lenin: >>>:)))))))

prison notebooks - gramsci: in all seriousness, gramsci is very important to critical theory and cultural hegemony which is important to constructivim. 

the modern world system - immanuel wallerstein: dude got torn to SHREADS for saying that the united states was a hegemon in decline in the 80s and now everyone is sitting there like lisa-simpson-:O.jpeg. king shit.

anyway marxism is a very important and valuable school of thought for international relations but it wasn’t taken seriously or even allowed for analysis until recently thanks to that ugly bitch mccarthy and general red scare propaganda but i strong recommend delving into critical theory and also reading the works of major communist leaders/thinkers and making your own judgements.

and this is a good start!! i can vouch for this youtube channel, i’ve used it before when studying or if i’m confused about something. VERY theory (specifically game theory) heavy. you’ll most likely find an area of IR that interests you when looking deeper at specific ideas or theories. as i’ve said before, i got really interested in security studies (particularly nuclear security) and MARXISM but that’s separate from my actual studies and more personal ideological preference. hope this helps!!

#IR tag #answered #Anonymous

[joachimnapoleon]

Hello, Can you tell me about the relationship between Joachim Murat and Caroline Bonaparte. Thank you.

I've been wanting to write about their relationship more in-depth for a long time, but I've been putting it off for various reasons, so thanks for giving me an excuse to finally get down to it. :) And... this is probably going to be pretty long. Their relationship was very complicated and often tempestuous (I could use that exact phrasing to describe Murat's relationship with Napoleon, but that's another, possibly even longer post, for another day).

I'm still not entirely certain how I feel about Caroline. She has been greatly maligned over the years, and is, in my opinion, the most misunderstood and demonized of all the Bonaparte siblings aside from Napoleon himself. So much of what we know (or think we know) about her, derives from memoirs that were largely hostile to her; she left none of her own (though her daughter Louise and granddaughter Caroline did). Her remaining published correspondence is sparse, and very one-sided; she apparently was in the habit of destroying most of her received correspondence, including nearly every letter she ever received from her husband, and Murat almost never kept copies of the ones he sent her. So there is this gaping hole in their correspondence where you almost never have Murat's voice. This lost correspondence has been the biggest bane of my existence since I started studying Murat a few years ago.

Their first meeting may have been at Mombello in 1797, but if so, it would've been brief, as Murat only stayed there for a short time before returning to Brescia (and his then-mistress, Madame Ruga). But it seems to have been long enough for Caroline to have become completely infatuated with him, and to confess her feelings for him to Hortense while they were together at Madame Campan's school. She didn't see him again until after the Egyptian campaign, but their courtship seems to have taken off once he was back in Paris. Caroline became bent on marrying him, and Napoleon was opposed to it, only reluctantly signing the marriage contract in January of 1800 and then spitefully not attending the wedding. Apparently it was Josephine who persuaded Napoleon to let the two marry, hoping to finally secure an ally among the Bonaparte siblings. She developed a sort of motherly affection for Caroline early on, but Caroline eventually ended up--whether due to the influence of Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte, or her jealousy of Hortense--firmly in the anti-Beauharnais camp, and Murat and Josephine, who had initially had a good relationship, also became enemies over the next few years.

The early years of their marriage were, from all indications, happy. They had four children in fairly quick succession. They were a very affectionate couple--often publicly so, to the point where a disturbed Madame Campan finally asked Hortense to urge Caroline to show some restraint.

They endured a long period of separation very early in their marriage--the first of many, adding up to several total years spent apart between 1800 and their final parting in May of 1815. Murat was sent to take command of a force in Italy in November 1800 while Caroline was pregnant with their first child; they did not see each other again until May of the following year. There are a couple of letters within Murat's published correspondence that hint that, though he at first attempted to remain faithful to his wife during this interim, he may have given up on the endeavor prior to their reunion. The diplomat Charles Alquier, who befriended Murat in Italy, wrote to him in April 1801, lamenting not being able to spend a few days with him in Florence, teasing that he "would like to witness your gallant successes there and hear you talk about your marital fidelity, without believing it in the slightest." The following month, after the arrival of Caroline, Alquier teases Murat again along these lines, in a postscript that reads "It was about time that Madame Murat arrived in Florence, or your hard-pressed fidelity was about to escape you." He had almost certainly resumed his affair with Madame Ruga during this period.

After the birth of their fourth child, Louise, in March of 1805, Caroline was not pregnant again until 1810 (she would end up miscarrying while Joachim was waging his Sicilian campaign). This has led some historians to conclude that there was a "physical separation" between them, a rift of some sort in their relationship. This may have been the case, but I haven't found much evidence on it either way. There is very little remaining correspondence between the two during this period. Murat was away for long periods due to multiple wars, plus the time he spent in Spain in 1808 prior to taking the throne of Naples that year. Neither of them were faithful to the other. Murat, who was in his early thirties and quite set in his womanizing ways when he married Caroline, doesn't seem to have been either capable of, or interested in, monogamous relations, and at some point this seems to have taken enough of a toll on Caroline that she apparently decided to follow suit. Hortense records an encounter with Caroline from the mid-1800s where Caroline's "sole topic of conversation was the joy of loving and being loved. Her affection for her husband, which once had been so violent, seemed to have diminished. She was now attracted by the charms of a pure liaison."

Over the years Caroline allegedly had affairs with Charles de Flahaut (who was also Hortense's lover), Junot, and Metternich. One of her biographers has theorized that Caroline carried out each of these affairs for the primary purpose of future political leverage (Junot, for instance, was the Governor of Paris at the time). Another theory I've encountered is that she picked these men as a sort of game of one-upsmanship over her female rivals--to show Hortense that she could take Flahaut from her; to show Laure Junot that she could have her husband or her later lover Metternich if she wanted, etc. I... don't really have an opinion on this one way or the other. Caroline was definitely ambitious, and also capable of petty jealousies. What affairs she had (or allegedly had), were of short duration and so far I've come across nothing to convince me that she ever actually fell in love with anyone other than Murat.

Out of the two of them, you may as well flip a coin as to which one was more ambitious. I think, in the end, Joachim managed to overtake Caroline in that department, when he got it into his head to try to become the king of a united Italy while Caroline just wanted to preserve their throne in Naples after Napoleon left Elba. But early in their relationship, Caroline seems to have been the one most obsessed with titles--throwing a fit until Napoleon conceded in granting her and Elisa the title of "Princess". Once Caroline was a princess, she wanted to be a queen, especially after her friend/rival Hortense became the queen of Holland via being married to her brother Louis. Joachim and Caroline were essential to each others' elevation, and they both recognized this; and this recognition, along with their devotion to their children, were the two things that kept them united even when they were temporarily at odds with each other. Once he had obtained the title of "prince" by virtue of being Caroline's husband, Murat became as obsessed as Caroline with the idea of having a throne. Napoleon himself later blamed Caroline for putting grandiose ideas into Murat's head, which then, in his words, "hatched chimeras." He also took it for granted that it had been Caroline who had pushed Murat into defecting from Napoleon and signing the treaty with Austria in 1814, and remarked that Caroline had tremendous influence over her husband.

The irony of Joachim and Caroline Murat achieving the height of their ambition by being given the throne of Naples, is that their reign was probably the worst thing to ever happen to either of them. It wreaked havoc on their marriage for years. It was easily the most miserable period of Murat's life.

For starters, Napoleon essentially poisoned the well, so to speak, by making it clear in the Treaty of Bayonne that Murat was only king by virtue of being married to Caroline, language which Murat found deeply humiliating. The humiliation was further compounded by Caroline being named his direct heir, rather than their son Achille, in order that the throne stay within the Bonaparte family.

So Murat started his reign with a certain amount of resentment and jealousy--and a fear that Caroline would attempt to edge him out of power and dominate him the way that her sisters dominated their husbands, a prospect which was intolerably degrading to a man of Murat's pride. There's no real indication that this was ever Caroline's intention--but Murat was prone to paranoia, worried for years about being superseded by his wife, especially as he increasingly fell out of favor with Napoleon, and Caroline (and her faction at court) steadily gained influence. The first couple years of the reign saw Joachim doing everything he could to keep Caroline on the margins of power. She spent much of her time reading, writing letters, and visiting the ruins of Pompeii.

There was a reconciliation (for a time) between the two in 1810, while they were in Paris together for Napoleon's second wedding. After the wedding, when Murat returned to Naples and began preparing for his Sicilian expedition, Caroline remained in Paris for several more months, during which she served as a sort of intermediary between her husband and Napoleon during a time when the two were at odds and Joachim and Caroline were worried about losing their throne. Her letters to Murat during this time are full of tenderness, consolation, and advice. Examples:

"My dearest, this last separation seems to me even more insupportable than the others. You were so good, so perfect to me in those last moments, that your kindness brought me to tears and still fills me with affection. I confess that when you do justice to my true feelings for you, I am the happiest of women." (11 May 1810)

"You will see one day: we shall be the happiest creatures in the world, and we shall owe it to our children. They will give us back all the love we have for them, and our old age will be adorned with their virtues. See as I do--far into the future." (13 May 1810)

"I'm always anxious about your expedition... Do not expose yourself more than the duty of a general requires, I ask you in grace, imagine that your existence belongs to me and is a possession you cannot dispose of." (16 June 1810)

"We can be happy, but in order for that, we need to be content with what we have, you must calm a little your head, which gets hot so easily, and await, with more patience than you've had until now, the moment where we will be more tranquil and more independent. The happiness of our interior will compensate us for our many pains, and you will find with me, with our children, and from all those who sincerely love us, enjoyments worth all the others." (5 August 1810)

Their relationship was fractured all over again before the year's end. Murat's aggravation with his Sicilian campaign boiled over in a scathing letter to Caroline in which he accused her of being disloyal to him; she received it two days after her miscarriage in September, further adding to her heartbreak. It wasn't a permanent rupture by any means, but it was a deep wound in their relationship that took time to heal. The following year, Murat received reports (almost certainly false) about Caroline having an affair with Daure, Joachim's Minister of the Police, who Joachim soon removed from office, writing to Napoleon that Daure had "aimed at forming a party against me. He did not hesitate to attack me in my tenderest affections," but that "his efforts in that respect were far from obtaining the success that he dared hope for." Murat's relationship with Napoleon likewise grew even worse in 1811, and Caroline went once more to Paris to serve as a go-between/peacemaker.

Leaving for the Russian campaign of 1812, Murat had no choice but to leave Caroline as regent, and he spent most of the campaign worrying about what was happening in Naples in his absence. But she proved a capable ruler, and ruled as regent again during the 1813 campaign, and then again in 1815 during his failed campaign against the Austrians. Joachim seems to have gradually gotten over his fear from early in their reign about Caroline trying to edge him out or dominate him, after she had ample opportunities to do so when he was out of favor with Napoleon throughout 1811 but never did; the latter years of their reign indicate something of a happy equilibrium, and Murat was not above consulting Caroline for her views on complicated issues.

Joachim accompanied her to the ruins of Pompeii on a number of occasions. They both shared a love of art, and patronized a number of artists, including Canova, Ingres, and Antoine-Jean Gros. They danced together regularly at court balls, and went to the theatre often. But above all they preferred spending time together with their children, and their favorite place for this was the terrace of the Palazzo Reale, their personal sanctuary, off-limits to all but the royal family and invited guests, where they would often dine and walk in the gardens (and under the shade of the lemon trees Joachim had had planted for Caroline). 

To sum it up, their relationship was extraordinarily complex and they weathered some serious storms which would've broken most relationships beyond repair. The more I read about them, the more I'm impressed by the resilience of their relationship and their determination to keep mending it and making it work, rather than just giving up on it and going the way of Caroline's sister Pauline and her husband Camillo Borghese, who lived mostly separate lives and had minimal interaction. But the Murats had been a love match, and neither of them ever seemed to reach the point of wanting to give up on their relationship entirely. Their relationship--like Caroline herself--has been maligned and badly misinterpreted by earlier historians leaning too heavily on hostile memoirs, and also by those who have been intent on salvaging Murat's reputation by putting all of the blame for his mistakes on Caroline's shoulders.

Thanks for the ask! And sorry if I rambled on too much.

#asks #Joachim Murat #Caroline Murat #Caroline Bonaparte #Napoleon #Napoleon Bonaparte

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Thursday 8 May 1834

6 ½

12 ¼

fine morning rain in the night and recently F59 ½° now at 8 20 having been 40 minutes reading the morning Herald of Tuesday and the trial at full  length of Mr James Norris convicted in dangers of £150 of beating and ill treating Mrs (widow) Nicholls who went to fetch her daughter away from his service in August last year - disgraceful business - vide Halifax and Huddersfield express of Thursday 3 April 1834 page 2 of which 5/8 of column 7 and page 3 the 1st 3 columns and ¼ column 4 - lent me by Miss Walker of Cliff hill while Miss W- of Lidgate was here - downstairs at 8 40/60 - ordering about getting great oatmeal chest and flour ditto let down from the upper kitchen chamber thro’ between the summer trees now the flour is up - the clock obliged to be moved from the stairs foot to near the window - had Lowe - ordered a dress and undress suit and greatcoat and linen jacket for Joseph Booth - set him to weed opposite the hut - till 1 ¾ had Mr Samuel Freeman and his nephew from London about ¾ hour - In Joseph Hall’s land no. 69 Limefield corner next no. 68 Paddock, there may be from ½ to ¾ D.W. of stone, that in the corner worth 3 times as much as that at the extremities from it worth 3/6 per yard but F- seems not inclined to give more than 4/6 a yard for the whole piece - he thinks there is better stone in numerous 64 and 65 Ing top and Ing, in a line across the two nearest to and under the house about 1 acre, this worth 5/. a yard - but from he can learn, the best stone is in George Naylor’s field no. 120 lane-head field some stone got in the top corner next the waste and also in the top corner next Mrs Machans land and close to the Lane, and Ruttle across the field from the last named corner in a line ending about ½ way down the opposite side of the field i.e. side along the waste. Perhaps there may be about 1 D.W. of stone in this field worth as much or more than that in Joseph Hall’s land - say 5/. per yard - should allow 14 years for getting a D.W. - I took fright at the time - he did not think the stone could be forced into the market sooner - great competition - but this would be less by and by - for he thinks the Binns top slate (the best part of it) will be exhausted in 6 to 8 years. Perhaps my stone would pay for keeping - but it might be worth more or it might be less - said the stone should be paid for as got measured off before each rent day - might get 300 yards per annum in Joseph Hall’s land and 200 yards per annum in George Naylor’s land - will come here on Friday or Saturday (I to be at home till 3pm) and we are to walk up together to look at the hole made in marsh land – no. 69 Limefield when the stone is put up for sale by ticket I may take a month afterwards to consider which bid I will take or if I will take any at all - came up to my study and wrote all but the 1st 6 lines of today - if 500 yards per annum can be got at 5/. per yard that would be £125 per annum - shall I try it or not? asleep above ½ hour -  out again at 2 ¾ - off to Lightcliffe at 3 – there in 40 minutes sat with Mr and Mrs William Priestley (Mrs William H. Rawson and 2 of her daughters there the first 10 minutes) till 4 – Mrs P- evidently a little embarrassed – thanked me for my call – we were tête-à-tête the last 10 minutes – talked of alternations at Shibden – then 20 minutes at Cliff hill  - the William H. Rawsons there all the time and left them there – then 20 minutes at Lidgate getting out a few things to go to York by Matthew – Sarah’s daughter taken ill last night - Mr Robinson called in this morning - put 7 leeches on her temples - afraid of inflammation on the brain, but the girl much better this afternoon - sauntered thro’ my walk (had stopt a few minutes talking to Mrs George Robinson about the water - ready to try the matter at York anytime - to tell Mr Joseph Wilkinson this very civilly but turn the water on as fast as  he turned it off) - Joseph weeding opposite the hut all the afternoon - had got on very well - at home at 6 ¼  - dinner at 6 ¾ - coffee –Matthew better tonight but determined not to send him to York till Saturday – came to my study at 8 wrote the last 11 lines – from 8 ¼ to 9 wrote and sent by Joseph 3 pages to ‘Miss Walker Heworth Grange York’ – mention my calls of this afternoon and about Sarah’s daughter being taken ill last night – had Mr Robinson twice this morning – 7 leeches  on her temples and lotion to keep head cool, and medicine - better this afternoon - I saw her - going well – will write again tomorrow evening – better no to name it to Sarah till after hearing from me again - will send Matthew off on Saturday morning if he is well which I hope and expect – had Mark Town from 9 to 9 50 – mentioned having looked at the Hanging Hey – not laid down right �� not cleaned – never ploughed at all since my father ploughed it – the oats will not make much – decline therefore letting him have any more land – he has quite enough - but will see about a small cow house for him in the course of about a month in which time he would like to have it - Letter 3 pages tonight (newspapers not come) from Miss W- not to send Joseph - if Matthew is not well enough can do without him – Smith better and can go to the post office - is she to pack her things for leaving the lodging or not before I go to her – Wilson bookseller writers her word – he has got for me a Juvenal Lubini - is he to send it to Miss W-? yes! ¼ hour with my aunt – bad night last night – poorly tonight and all day – fine day – warm but not much sun – F62 ½° in my study now at 10 ½

[back-and-totheleft]

‘There’s still a presence out there reminding people not to speak about JFK’s killing’

Oliver Stone is not a fan of “cancel culture”. “Of course I despise it,” the Oscar winning filmmaker says, as if utterly amazed that anyone needs to ask him such a dumb question. “I am sure I’ve been cancelled by some people for all the comments I’ve made…. it’s like a witch hunt. It’s terrible. American censorship in general, because it is a declining, defensive, empire, it (America) has become very sensitive to any criticism. What is going on in the world with YouTube and social media,” he rants. “Twitter is the worst. They’ve banned the ex-President of the United States. It’s shocking!” he says, referring to Donald Trump’s removal from the micro-blogging platform.

It’s a Saturday lunchtime in the restaurant of the Marriott Hotel on the Croisette in Cannes. The American director is in town for the festival premiere this week of his new feature documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, in which he yet again pores over President John F Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.

“I am a pin cushion for American-Russian peace relations… I had four f***ing vaccines: two Sputniks and two Pfizers,” Stone gestures at his arm. The rival super-powers may remain deeply suspicious of one another, but Stone is loading himself up with potions from both sides of the old Iron Curtain.

He has recently been travelling in Russia (hence the Sputnik jabs) where he has been making a new documentary about how nuclear power can save humanity. He also recently completed a film about Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev which – like his interviews with Vladimir Putin – has been roundly ridiculed for its deferential, softly-softly approach toward a figure widely regarded as a ruthless despot.

Dressed in a blue polo shirt, riffing away about the English football team one moment and his favourite movies the next, laughing constantly, the 74-year-old Oscar-winning director of Platoon, Wall Street, Natural Born Killers et al is a far cheerier presence than his reputation as a purveyor of dark conspiracy thrillers might suggest. He is also very outspoken. For all his belligerence, though, Stone isn’t as thick-skinned as you might imagine. I wonder if he was hurt by the scorn that came his way when his feature film JFK was released in 1991.

“I was more of a younger man. It was painful to me,” the director sighs as he remembers being attacked by such admired figures as newscaster Walter Cronkite and Hollywood power broker Jack Valenti for listening to the “hallucinatory bleatings” of former New Orleans DA Jim Garrison when JFK came out. “It was quite shocking actually because I thought the murder was behind us. I did think there was a feeling that 30 years later, we can look at this thing again without getting excited. But I was way wrong.”

Garrison, of course, was the real-life figure portrayed by Kevin Costner in the film; he was the original proponent of the theory that the CIA were involved in the killing of the US president, after his 1966 investigation. Garrison wrote the book On the Trail of the Assassins, on which the movie was partly based.

Even the director’s fiercest detractors will find it hard to dismiss the evidence he has assembled about the JFK assassination in the new documentary. Once I’d seen it and heard him hold forth, I came away thinking that only flat-earthers can possibly still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy all on his own. It’s that convincing.

Stone blitzes you with facts and figures about the Kennedy killing and its aftermath. At times, he himself seems to be suffering from information overload. “I am sorry. There are so many people,” he apologises for not immediately remembering the name of Kennedy’s personal physician, George Burkley, who was present both at Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy was first taken, and then at Bethesda, where the autopsy took place. Burkley was strangely reticent when giving evidence to the Warren Commission.

“I think there’s still a presence out there which reminds people not to speak. I’ve heard that in, of all places, Russia,” Stone says. He was startled to discover that the Russians knew all about his new documentary long before it was discussed in the mainstream press. “They said, ‘We heard about it.’ I said, ‘How?’ They said, ‘We have our contacts in the American intelligence business. They are not very happy about it.’”

Stone believes that no US president since Kennedy died has been “able to go up against this militarised sector of our economy”. Even Trump “backed down at the last second” and declined to release all the relevant documents relating to the assassination. “He announced, ‘I’m going to free it up, blah blah blah, big talk, and then a few hours before, he caved to CIA National Security again.”

The veteran filmmaker expresses his frustrations at historians like Robert Caro, author of a huge (and hugely respected) multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson, for ignoring the evidence that has been turned up about the assassination.

“I can’t say [LBJ] was involved in the assassination,” explains Stone, “but it certainly suited him that Kennedy was not there anymore and he covered up by appointing the Warren Commission and doing all the things he did.”

Stone tried to cast Marlon Brando in JFK in the role as the deep throat source Mr X, eventually played by Donald Sutherland.

“I realise now I am grateful that he turned it down because he knew better than I that he would make 20 minutes out of that 14-minute monologue and it wouldn’t have worked.”

Nevertheless, he filled the film with famous faces. He thought that having familiar actors would make it easier for audiences to engage with what was an immensely complicated story.

Getting Stone to stop talking about JFK is like trying to pull a bone from a mastiff’s jaws. To change the subject slightly, I ask if he is still in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He is and is utterly horrified at how Assange is being treated, especially given that Siggi the Hacker, a key witness in the extradition case against Assange, admitted recently that he lied. Stone praises Assange’s partner Stella Morris as “the best wife you could ever have. She really is smart, she’s a lawyer … he has two children. He can’t even touch them or see them. It’s barbaric. It indicates America is declining faster than we know. It is just cutting off dissent.”

The mood lightens when I invite Stone to discuss some of his favourite films. He recently tweeted a list of these, which included Darling starring Julie Christie, Joseph Losey’s Eva starring Stanley Baker and Jeanne Moreau, and Houseboat, a frothy comedy starring Cary Grant and Sophia Loren. “I love films, always have. People don’t know that side of me. I could go on forever.”

Between his darker and more contentious efforts, Stone has made a few genre films himself, for example the underrated thriller U-Turn starring Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez. He notes, though, that even when he tried a sports movie, he ended up right back in the firing line. The NFL was furious about his 1999 American Football film, Any Given Sunday. “They (the NFL) are arrogant, very rich people who close down any dissent, so I had to change uniforms and names… but they got the point.”

Last year, Stone published the first volume of his autobiography, Chasing the Light, which took him from childhood up to his Oscar triumph with Platoon. It was well received but it didn’t make nearly a big enough splash for his liking. “There was a curtain of silence about that. Maybe it is Covid… it was not reviewed by many people,” he says. “I wish the timing had been better. The publisher was terrible. They didn’t really promote anything. So now I have to start over again if I am going to do a second book, which I would love to do. But I have to find the right publisher.”

The book contains a barbed account of Stone’s experiences as a young screenwriter working in London for British director Alan Parker and producer David Puttnam on Midnight Express. “I wrote about it in the book, so you got my point of view. They were not very friendly people. I gave my criticism of Parker that he had a chip on his shoulder. He was from a poor side of the English. There is this phenomenon you see in England of hating the upper classes until they approve of you.”

No, they didn’t stay in touch. “And Puttnam is a Lord, right? He reminds me of Tony Blair. He is such a weasel.” For once, Stone feels he has overstepped the mark. He doesn’t want to call Puttnam a weasel after all. “Put it this way, Tony Blair is a weasel. I wouldn’t trust Tony Blair. Puttnam is a supporter of Blair. Let’s leave it at that.”

On matters English, he isn’t that keen on soccer either. He watched the semi-final between England and Denmark but had no intention of tuning into the final.

“Soccer is a different kind of game. It’s a different aesthetic. It is constant movement. The United States game allows you to re-group after every play and go into a huddle and so it becomes about strategy. I still enjoy it although people think I am brutal.”

Ask him why he so relishes American Football and he replies that he “grew up with violence in America … we were banging – cowboys and Indians, a lot of killing and that stuff. How do you get away from that? We weren’t playing with dolls.”

Stone’s feelings about the US are deeply ambivalent. He is old enough to remember a time in the late 1940s and early 1950s when “everything in America was golden” and part of him still seems to love the country but his mother was French and he talks about the US as a nation now in near terminal decline.

Perhaps surprisingly, his real political hero isn’t JFK. It’s the former President of France, Charles de Gaulle. “He said no to NATO and he said no to America. He understood the dangers of being a satellite country to America. You have no power in Europe. Don’t kid yourself. The EU is just an artificial body that was amazingly stupid in cutting off Russia and cutting off China too now.”

He doesn’t much like Boris Johnson either. “Boris, listen. He’d simply throw you in jail in a second.” He rails against the English for holding Assange in Belmarsh prison.

When he is not on a crusade or unravelling a conspiracy, Stone relaxes through Buddhist meditation. “Moderation in all things,” the man who came up with the phrase “greed is right, greed works” says with no evident sense of irony. He enjoys hanging out with his friends. “I have a nice life. I’m lucky,” he says before quickly adding, “I wish I had been more honoured and respected in my lifetime, but it seems that I took a course that is in conflict with the American Empire.”

Stone’s films have had relatively few strong female characters. Ask if he welcomes the #MeToo movement and the challenging of old gender norms and he gives a typically contrary answer. “It cuts both ways, though. There are reasons for patriarchy through the centuries,” he says. “Tribes tend to have a strong leader. You need strong leaders, but I do see the feminine impulse as being important, especially when situations become too militant. The feminine impulse, I’m talking about the maternal impulse not the Hillary Clinton/Margaret Thatcher version of feminism. They’re men. They’re not women,” he says. “I don’t want women in politics who want to be men. If a woman is a woman, she should be a woman and bring her maternalism. It’s a leavening influence.”

The director deplores the rush to judge historical figures about past misdeeds from a contemporary point of view. “I am conservative in that way… don’t expect to rejudge the entire society based on your new values.”

He met with Harvey Weinstein in Cannes a few years ago to discuss a potential Guantanamo Bay TV series. “At that point, maybe he knew he was on the ropes; he was delightfully charming and humble.” The project was scuppered by the scandal that that engulfed the former Miramax boss, who is now behind bars as a convicted sex offender. Stone’s gripes with Weinstein are less to do with his sexual offences than with the way that he attacked films like Born on the Fourth of July and Saving Private Ryan to boost his own movies.

“The press loved him [Weinstein]. Don’t forget, they loved him in the 1990s,” he says, remembering the disingenuous way in which Weinstein portrayed himself as the underdog taking on the big, bad Hollywood system.

“I think he robbed Cruise of the Oscar, frankly,” Stone huffs at the intensive Weinstein lobbying which saw Daniel Day-Lewis win the Academy Award for Best for My Left Foot, denying Tom Cruise for Born on the Fourth of July in the process.

Stone acknowledges his status in Hollywood has diminished. “All that’s gone. The people have changed,” he says of the days when the studios doted on him and his films were regularly awards contenders. Now, he’ll often finance his work out of Europe. He is developing a new feature film (he won’t say what it is). “Never say die, never say it’s over,” he says of his career.

Stone is based in Los Angeles and also has “a place in New York”. During the pandemic, he still managed to travel to Russia to make his nuclear power/clean energy documentary. “I got my shots over there because the EU is so f***ing stupid,” he says of the of the Europeans’ refusal to recognise the Sputnik vaccine. “It’s ridiculous, part of the political madness of this time.”

Now, he is putting all his energy into his new documentary about nuclear power. He waves away the idea that the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters show what can go wrong – they were accidents.

“Accidents you learn from. If there were not a few crashes, how would you fly?” he says. It’s a line that somehow seems to express his entire philosophy of life.

-Geoffrey Macnab interviews Oliver Stone, The Independent, Jul 15 2021 [x]

#oliver stone #jfk #jfk: through the looking glass #the independent #julian assange #boris johnson #david puttnam #harvey weinstein #born on the fourth of july #covid19 #vaccine #chasing the light #cannes film festival

[alliluyevas]

(deeply disturbing) mormon primary source adventures continue...I have been reading the 1843 diary of William Clayton, Joseph Smith’s official church secretary and close personal friend, which is a really invaluable source for contemporary details regarding when Smith married various women (he did not record anything about his own marriages in his journal, but Clayton did).

What I was specifically tracking in Clayton’s journal was the (much more extensive) documentation of Clayton’s own plural marriage, to his first wife Ruth’s younger sister, 23-year-old Margaret Moon. I have bolded a few lines for emphasis.

27 April 1843, Thursday

At the Temple A.M. went to prests. [Church President Joseph Smith’s] who rode with me to bro. H.C. Kimballs where sister Margt. Moon was sealed up [married] by the priesthood, by the president--and M to me.

11 June 1843, Sunday

Margaret received a letter from Aaron [Farr, her fiance, who had left on a mission trip before she married Clayton] which  made her feel bad. It also gave me unaccountable sorrow.

13 June 1843, Tuesday 

I have had some conversation  with M. she promised she would not marry A if she can possibly avoid  it. And if she ever feels disposed to marry she will tell me as soon as she thinks of it. She will seek my Council & says she will abide it.

8 July 1843, Saturday 

Margt. wrote a letter to Aaron which I dictated informing him that she should not marry.

22 July 1843, Saturday

Mt. and A [Aaron Farr, now returned from his mission] had a long conversation together. She has stood true to her covenant with CW. [William Clayton’s initials backwards] I also  had some talk with him & although the shock is severe he endures it patiently. And I pray the Great Eloheem to make up the loss to him an  hundred fold and enable him to rejoice in all things. My heart aches with grief on his & M's account and could almost say O that I had never known her. But Thou O God knowest the integrity of thy servant. Thou knowest that I have done that which I have understood to be thy will & am still determined to do so and I ask thee in the name of  Jesus Christ either to absolutely wean my affections from M. or give me hers entire and then I am content. But to live in this state of feeling I cannot.

If I have done wrong in this thing, show it me that thy servant may repent of it and obtain forgiveness. But O Lord have mercy on me and by some means release me from this grievous bondage of  feeling & thy servant will praise thee. Prest. Joseph came to see me &  pronounced a sealing blessing upon Ruth [Clayton’s first and legal wife] and me. And we mutually entered into an everlasting covenant with each other.

23 July 1843, Sunday

M. appears dissatisfied with her situation & is miserable O that the Lord will bless my house and deliver us from every evil principle & feeling that we may be saved. For I desire to do right. O Lord make my heart and my affections right and pure as it shall please thee that I may enjoy the blessing of peace and happiness even so Amen. Hyrum preached A.M and Joseph P.M. Evening I had some more talk with M. & find she is miserable which makes me doubly so. I offered to her to try to have her covenant released if she desired it  but she said she was not willing. [Margaret was pregnant by this time, which is probably why she did not feel she could be released from her marriage to Clayton.]

24 July 1843, Monday

M. is still miserable and unhappy and it does seem that  my heart must burst. What shall I do? How shall I recompense? And how long must I thus suffer worse than death for that which I have always  regarded as being the will of the Lord. By the help of the Lord I will  do right. I have repeatedly offered to M. to try to get a release from  the covenant and I have done all I know to make things comfortable but  to no effect. She appears almost to hate me and cannot bear to come near me.

O God if thou wilt give me M's affections, and cause things  to be pleasant and happy between us, If thou will bless her & comfort  her by thy spirit & cause her to rejoice in what she has done, and  bring it to pass that I may secure her truly with all her affections  for time & for eternity. I feel to covenant to try to serve thee with  more diligence if possible and to do all that thou shalt require at  mine hands, wilt thou not grant me this blessing, and relieve my  aching heart from this worst of all troubles which ever befel me in  the course of my life? O God plead my cause and give me thine  everlasting blessing, and do remember M. for good that she may be  comforted even so amen amen and amen

25 July 1843, Tuesday.

M. much as usual.

26 July 1843, Wednesday

M. seems quite embittered against me in consequence  of which I called her to me and asked her if she desired the covenant  to be revoked if it were possible To this she would not give me a  satisfactory answer only saying if it had not been done it should not  be. (meaning our union) I then asked if she would consent if A would take her under all circumstances; but she would not consent to have it  revoked--saying she did it not for her sake but for the sake of the  peace of my family.

Under these circumstances I could not rest until I  had ascertained wether the c[ovenant] could be revoked & although contrary to  her wish I went to see Prest. J. I took A to talk with him & asked him  some questions whereby I ascertained that he would be willing to take  her under all circumstances, I reasoned considerable with him to prove  that I had done right in all these matters so far as I knew it, I called the Prest. out and briefly stated the situation of things and  then asked him if the C. could be revoked. He shook his head and  answered no. At this conclusion my mind seemed for the moment to get relief for the two fold reason that I had done all I could and I did not want the C. revoked.

I came back & M & A. were together in Farrs garden. I told them the answer I had got & advised them to take the  best measures to make all things right between them. I cannot help thinking that M. has treated me not only unkindly but meanly & cruelly, but I forgive her before the Lord for I sympathize with her  in her grief, but cant console her for she will not speak to me. My  earnest prayer to God is that all things may soon become right & pleasant & that the Lord may bless her & save her from sinning against  him. And if I have done wrong in asking if the C. could be revoked &  seeking to have it done O Lord forgive me for I desire to do right in  all things that I may he saved, I feel that I have done right in the  sight of God and that he has abundantly blessed me for which I thank  him and something tells me that the time will come when M. will love those whom she ought & when she will feel perfectly satisfied with her situation & rejoice that things remain as they are. And now O God  bless thy servant and handmaid & stamp the peace upon us and fill us  with the spirit of truth for Jesus Christs sake Amen--

11 August 1843, Friday

J. told me to day that ``Walker'' had been speaking to him concerning my having taken M away from A. & intimated that I had done wrong. I told him to be quiet and say no more about it. He also told me Emma  was considerably displeased with it but says he she will soon get over  it. In the agony of mind which I have endured on this subject I said I  was sorry I had done it, at which J told me not to say so. I finally  asked him if I had done wrong in what I had done he answered no you have a right to get all you can.

The little snippets of Margaret’s feelings and the way they are sort of bracketed by Clayton’s commentary are really telling and disturbing. Poor Margaret :( Also the way that Joseph Smith is encouraging Clayton not to feel guilty about any of this and justifying it to him. Woof.

#mormonposting tag

[yetanotherreader]

One Day

Fic Type: Stand-alone/One-Shot

Genre: Drama (Heavy Angst)

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Y/N Y/L/N

Characters: Dean Winchester, Y/N Y/L/N, Sam Winchester, Joseph Hughes (OC)

Word Count: 3,032.

Warnings: Angst, Depression, Anxiety, Marital Abuse, Mentions of marital rape, abusive marriage, physical violence.

PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS AND DO NOT READ IF ANY OF THIS IS TRIGGERING FOR YOU.

Mobile app doesn't support the cut, so pardon for the no read more thingy.

A/N: Hey guys. I know I went on this little(big) break and I haven't updated useful in a while. I'm going through a writer's block again, trying to write and stopping after a while. and I have so many college projects to do during quarantine. I hope y'all are keeping safe. I wrote this one shot in hopes of getting back at writing. Woke up all night writing this, so I really hope you all will like it. But again, since I woke up the night writing this, it may or may not be up to your expectations. Please heed the warning above, girls. I really do not want any of you going through more stress during these stressful times.

Also, I used the same tag list as Useful in this one too. I don't know if everyone of you will like to be added to any of my other works so let me know if you want your name removed or added. :)

-------

His eyes were locked on the big gates of the hall, both waiting for and dreading the moment that particular person entered who he'd been missing for months. He gave a once over to the venue. This place was gorgeous, a palace in fact. A big chandelier graced the double ceiling and there was a colorful fountain in the garden outside. The lights were the right amount of bright and the drinks tasted just about perfect. Even the waiters wore their uniforms more expensive than his suit. It was something Dean had always seen in those Disney movies which, don't tell anyone, were his guilty pleasure.

He and Sam had come here for a case—the only reason that gave them the privilege to get into a place like this one. People have reported weird occurrences happening around here, followed by the abduction of everyone who saw it. Turned out, it was a serial killer and the police had taken care of it even before they reached.

Something about that place, though, made him want to stay. For some reason, he didn't make a U-turn and go back. Maybe it was the fact that it was the annual ball of the city where only the rich and reputed were invited, that he wanted to feel reputed for once, or that here he would see someone he hadn't seen in a while, someone he missed everyday he lived. He knew it would shatter his heart when he saw her, but he was willing to take a heartbreak if it meant seeing her once. Sam didn't say a word against it, but Dean knew better than to think he was okay with him going through all that torture.

Just when his eyes reached back to the doors, he saw, once again, the most beautiful woman he had ever laid his eyes on. The woman who made his heart flutter and break at the same time, the woman he loved the most. She was dressed in rose gold, the drape hugging her curves as perfectly as he remembered. Her hair was up in a messy bun, which only she could pull off that good, with few softly curled strands coming out to shape her face. Her lips were colored wine red, as tempting as ever, and her face was covered in a darker make up than he ever remembered her wear. In a better shape than when he last saw her, her posture screamed royalty. She looked breathtakingly gorgeous. The only thing was, she wasn't herself. Or at least, her old self. Does time change people that much? It took him all his power to remove his gaze from her, her arm entangled with the other man's, helped. 

She wasn't his to call anymore, she never was. Maybe the only woman who he liked but never kissed, the only woman who made him go all hot and bothered but he never dared touch her the way he desired. The only woman he loved enough to not make a move. He knew his feelings were mutual, he saw it in her eyes when they sat on the hood of the impala, chatting through the sleepless nights. He saw it every time she laughed at his piss poor jokes or narrowed her eyes at the women who flirted with him. He saw it when she cried for the first time in front of him and yelled at him because she thought he got himself killed. He saw it when he felt her heart accelerate everytime they hugged, like his own, and when she refused to leave him in the worst. He saw it when he saw her build walls to hide her broken heart after he asked her to leave. He saw it in her indifferent expression and a lone tear escaping her eyes when he told her he'd be better off without her.

And boy did he regret every word he said. He called her as soon as he realized what he did. That in order to save her, he might have just given her the biggest of the insecurities. It was a month later that it happened. He apologized to her, told her he never meant whatever he said, tried to explain why he did what he did. And she forgave. He couldn't believe his ears when he heard her say those words, he wanted her to yell at him, hate him, punish him for what he did but she said nothing more than a 'It's okay, I understand.'. And maybe that one sentence hurt him as much as he hurt her. She didn't even think of him good enough to be mad at. She shouldn't have understood, she should have argued. He might have lost the best thing that ever happened to him like that. And his fear proved right when he saw her photo in the newspaper, two months later, with a man. Joseph Hughes, a big name, apparently. The man he ran into, not so long ago, in missouri.

"Mr. Winchester." He heard the deep, masculine voice as it approached him, "Didn't know we'll meet again so soon."

If running into that man earlier made his heart heavy, meeting him with his arm around Y/N's waist made it fall down with a thud, "Mr and...Mrs Hughes. Fancy seeing you here, too."  He shook his hand with a firm shake, forwarding it toward the man's wife to do a similar action. Instead, she folded her hand in a namastey greeting, as she looked at him shocked, and scared. Maybe she didn't want her husband to know about him.

"I would ask how did you know she was my wife, but I guess you read newspapers." The man said in his smooth accent with a laugh, which Dean returned halfheartedly.

"Got that one right," he smiled at Hughes, his eyes lingering a little longer on Y/N, "Your wife is beautiful."

At the comment he saw her husband's hold tighten around her in sudden possessiveness, his fingers almost digging into her flesh as she flinched a little. He tore his gaze away from her, reminding himself she was someone else's wife and he had no right to be staring at her. But something about this whole situation felt wrong, that touch felt wrong.

She didn't look at him once after that. The tension in the air suffocated them both, and he was sure the shorter man in front of him felt it too, "Let's get you meet some of my friends, darlin'. If you could excuse us?"

Dean gave them the way, as he contemplated whether his decision of staying was even right. It crushed his heart seeing the woman he loved in someone else's arms. He felt like throwing up. Seven months ago, he couldn't have thought there'd be a day like this. He hated himself for that.

"Dean, do you want to go?" Sam's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"N-no," He cleared his throat when his voice came out rough and hoarse, "No, I guess I'll just go to the washroom. Go find some hot chick for me " he winked at Sam, who clearly saw right through it but didn't say anything. He stayed in the bathroom for a while, to calm his aching heart. People knew Dean as a man, as strong as an alpha, but here he was, falling weak. 

After splashing water on his face a few times, he got out of the bathroom just to see people frozen in their spots. His eyes went to his brother, immediately worried about his safety only to find him silently, but furiously glaring something, his hands were fisted like a beast about to attack its prey. When he followed his line of sight, he felt something similar inside of him. There stood Joseph Hughes towering his wife, glaring her down and his nails digging into her, now pale, arms, "I said, Tell. Me. The. Truth."

"I told you. He w-was a f-friend." Dean heard her voice for the first time in a long while, and his chest hurt at how small and scared it was. Y/N wasn't a hunter but she was fearless and brave. She had put her life on her palms so many times to save him and Sam without hesitating. That was one of the reasons he pushed her away, but here seeing her so helpless and terrified, he didn't know how to react.

"A friend, huh? A friend shouldn't look at you like that." His voice came out in a growl, audible in the pin drop silence, that sent visible shivers running down her spine, "That's why I don't leave you around men, you pathetic whore. I'm done being okay with you slutting around-"

Dean charged forward, enraged at the man's audacity to even let those words out of his mouth, but before he even took two steps, Y/N pushed that douche with enough force to make him stumble, pausing Dean mid-walk.

"You're done being oka-I AM DONE BEING OKAY!" Y/N raised her voice, violently shaking out of fear and rage. Joseph looked shocked, as if he never expected her to speak like that, as if she never spoke to him like that. The thought alone made Dean's eyes tear up, what had that monster done to her, "I am done being okay with the things I'm not okay with! I am done being okay with you touching me without my consent and I'm done being okay with getting slapped everytime I say no! I am done being okay with you locking me in and I am done being okay with you hitting me with whatever you find! I AM DONE WITH YOU!" She broke down into tears as she was done with her little speech.

"You are saying this here on purpose. You want me to lose my reputation." He said low, his eyes trying to scare her down.

"Y-yes, I'm saying this here on purpose because if I said it at home, you'd beat me to a pulp." She said, trying to sound low, but the eerie silence in the room making her damn well audible to his ears. Dean saw nothing but hot, white rage. Seeing Y/N so scared, so broken, Dean wanted nothing more than to break the bastard's bones, every single one of them. And when Hughes charged at Y/N, he lost whatever little control he had on himself jumping at the said man. Sam, immediately, went to Y/N's side as she hid in his chest, shaking like a dry leaf. Sam had never seen her so scared and so vulnerable. He felt a sharp pain in his heart seeing the sight of his best friend so broken, as he tightened his hold on her. Dean kept on hitting the man, like an animal that got out of its cage. His knuckles were bloodied, with which he didn't know was his blood or the other one's but he wasn't stopping. After what felt like forever, Dean was stopped by two strong arms around his own, from behind.

"Dean, stop. You'll kill him." Sam's calming voice fell into his ears, "stop"

It took Dean a while to register, as he tried to release his hands from his brother's still kicking the battered man that lied in front of him, "I don't care."

"Y/N wouldn't want you to kill him, Dean." And at that, he stopped. Y/N. Where was she? He stood up and searched for her, seeing her frozen at the same spot as earlier, zoned out and shaking violently. His heart hurt so bad seeing her like that, he couldn't stop tears from welling in his eyes.

"Y/N," he whispered as he took a few long strides to reach her and pull her into a careful hug.

She went stiff under his touch, as he loosened his hold on her, scared he might scare her before he heard her, barely, speak out, "Dean.." as she clinged to him for dear life. Hearing her say his name again wasn't as pleasant as he'd imagined a million times before, rather it was gut-wrenching. It was painful, because this was the last thing he had imagined that made her say his name. He wrapped his arms around her fully and spoke comforting words to soothe her.

"Let's go home, Y/N."

It had been a week she returned to the bunker, moving into her old room. Hughes was arrested, and divorce agreements were signed. He got to know that the thing between Y/N and Joseph was more of a business arrangement than a marriage proposed by her father, who had no idea about his son-in-law's abusive habits. Sam and Dean kept a positive atmosphere around the bunker, not going out for any cases, but there was no change in Y/N. She, mostly, kept herself locked up in her room, not talking to anyone. They thought it was necessary to give her her space but that was just deteriorating her health more. She ate too little for survival.

Dean stepped into her room with the plate of her favourite food. She loved it when he cooked for her, he just hoped to God, she still would. His eyes fell on her form, lying down on the floor, her back resting by the bed. She looked into a distance, zeroing her vision. As he went and sat beside her, keeping the plate on the floor, she spoke up, "He'll come back for me, Dean. He'll take me and he-"

"He won't," Dean cupped her cheeks and made her look at him as he met with the broken sight. Her eyes had sunken in, dark circles forming around them, face paler and her natural blush around her cheeks gone, "I promise I will not let anything happen to you."

She looked at him like she wanted to believe, but a sudden wave of anxiety stopped her, "No..no no no no, Dean! You don't understand! He..he will come back and he won't leave me. He'll beat me and...and those chains. He'll tie me up again and he'll...he'll-

She stopped mid-sentence, a horror coating her features. This new piece of information startled Dean, breaking his heart into two..enraging him, too. He didn't know how to react to it, so he did what his impulse told him to, he hugged her tight, hiding his face in her hair. More than comforting her, it was for himself. He wanted her close and safe, "He used knives, Dean. He said he loved seeing me bleed..it was so painful" Dean shut his eyes tight, trying to push away the horrifying images from his head, as he let the tears flow free. What all she had endured because of his one mistake. She sniffled as she continued in a small voice, "you won't be able to do anything, Dean. He's very powerful. You can save me from monsters, you can kill them..but him-"

"I'll kill him if he laid his finger on you ever again." Dean spoke with determination.

"N-no...No, Dean. You won't kill him. Don't kill him please, don't be like him." She shook her head violently in his chest, "not like him..no, no, no.."

"Hey, hey," he soothed her rubbing a hand on her back, "I won't. I won't be like him, okay? Shh.." It took Y/N a few minutes to calm down, while he rocked her in his lap, "You hungry?"

She shook her head, mumbling into his chest "I never feel hungry."

He sighed, "Okay. Eat a little, with me? Please? Because I'm starving."

Her eyes sparkled a little when she saw the food, "You made it?" He smiled and nodded, proudly, "Can I..can I eat the whole thing?"

He chuckled, heartily, "madam, all yours." She smiled up at him, hesitantly. As if trying to remember how to smile, at which his eyes softened, "when did you eat this last?"

She dug into the food, liking the taste of it. The taste of home, "with you. He didn't let me eat this, wanted me to look good like his wife should." 

Dean clenched his jaw at this, wanting to practically undo that man's existence. The things he did to her, he was sure if he saw him someday, that'd be his last.

Y/N looked at him, a little scared and a little more sheepishly, "Can I get some more?" Dean smiled at her and got her some more. He looked at her eating, his eyes filled with unshed tears. She was so, so pure, only if he could take away all her pain, make her forget those dark months. Only if he could give her all the happiness in the world, because there was no one he knew who deserved it more than her.

Later that night, Dean asked Y/N if he could stay with her because his nightmares scared him. He knew she understood what he meant, and the fact that she didn't deny made his heart flutter. Y/N hadn't slept in days. Either she would wake up from a nightmare, yelling, or not sleep at all. He just wished she'd have a goodnight sleep in his arms, and she did. But he didn't miss what she said just before she fell into the slumber, something the Y/N he knew would never say. Something that hurt his heart and made him make a silent promise to her, and himself. 

"Dean, don't send me away ever again. Please."

Never. He would never let her out of his sight again. He'd save her from every monster, supernatural or not. He didn't know long will it take her to fall for him again, or if she'd ever fall for him again. All he knew was, he'd shower her with so much love, she would forget every pain that son of a bitch caused her. He'd love her so much that she'd start loving herself one day. He would hold her so dear, that her scars would stop scaring her.

One day. One day, he'll make everything okay.

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