#i would also have lived for the entirety of the 21st century | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wlykjh · 25 days

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knight in shining armor

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

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can you tell I’m in love with writing period pieces 🤭 (even if they’re not that historically accurate…) ALSO PLEASE SEND ME REQUESTS 🙏🙏🙏 btw, italics is y/n's thoughts and bold is euneok's thoughts.

summary: y/n’s a college student majoring in history on a school trip to a historical castle in england. somehow she and her academic rival, eunseok, get stuck in a secret chamber in the castle which ends up transporting them to the 1300s! will the pair overcome their differences and manage to get back to the 21st century? (not proofread)

date: 04/09/24

scenario themes: time travel, enemies to lovers, period piece

idol: song eunseok or eunseok of riize

concept: fluff, fantasy

warnings: swearing

word count: 12k (i got a bit carried away)

song eunseok is an exchange student from korea who makes your college life a living hell.

you love studying history, especially the entirety of medieval england. you’re even writing your senior thesis on english nobility during the medieval period.

unfortunately for you, eunseok excels at history as well.

since you have such a huge passion for history, you’ve always naturally excelled at it. you tend to be a bit of a try-hard when it comes to school and that bit increases tenfold when it’s anything history-related.

it’s immature to compete so openly with a peer at this age. to many, ‘rivals’ are a high school concept. and yet, something about the way eunseok knows every detail about chinese foot-binding practices and confidently leads discussions about the cold war makes your eye twitch.

history is your thing.

you know you sound crazy, but it’s not like it was completely one-sided. eunseok hates not being the smartest in the room.

he worked his ass off to learn english, leave korea, and get a scholarship at your university. there’s no way he was going to settle for mediocrity.

and of course he noticed how intensely you glared at him when he answered a question you were dying to answer.

just like you noticed how annoyed he was when you would mention getting a slightly higher grade than him on a paper.

you were both in the same major which meant you had a lot of overlapping courses, and unfortunately for your professors and classmates, you almost always ended up in the same class.

for the most part you tried to ignore eunseok outside of class. sure he was the bane of your existence for the hour and a half lecture on roman architecture, but outside that he was none of your concern.

eunseok on the other hand found himself thinking of you quite often. it’s not like he always disliked you. in fact, he found your passion for history admirable, and he thought your dedication to your coursework was cute.

but when you began treating him coldly and sending him glares from across the room, he was quick to react in the same way.

eunseok isn’t stupid, he knows why you dislike him, and that if he was less of an overachiever, you’d maybe warm up to him. but he’s not going to jeopardize his grades and hard work to please some girl… no matter how much he’d like to get to know said girl.

you’d be lying if you said you didn’t find him attractive, but there isn’t a soul on this earth that could waterboard that information out of you.

to put it simply, you can’t stand each other.

but right now that doesn’t matter. nothing matters. because you’re going on a trip set up by the history department to riize castle in england.

it might just be another old site to everyone else, but it's your absolute favorite castle. you know the entire history of the building, you've studied the floor plans an embarrassing amount of times, and have spent most of your childhood yearning to go there, and that dream is finally coming true.

and not even eunseok could ruin it for you... or so you thought.

your flight was set for 3 am, and while the other students were groggily arriving at the airport one by one, annoyed at both the timing and the expenses they'd have to cover for the trip, you were elated.

that is until you received your boarding passes and found out you would be spending the entirety of the 10-hour flight from california to england seated next to the one person you abhor.

maybe he's less insufferable outside of class, you thought to yourself.

after your group boarded you sat down next to him and the two of you continued to sit in awkward silence until takeoff. but once the plane began moving, you noticed eunseok starting to shuffle around and breathe heavier.

"are you alright?" you asked, glancing at his trembling hands gripping onto the armrest. "yes." he responded immediately.

"don't you go back to korea every school break, how are you scared of flying-" before you could finish your sentence, eunseok grabbed your hand, squeezing it tightly.

you were about to interject but you realized the plane was beginning to ascend so he must've been frightened.

his hand was warm and soft, despite his trembling, the foreign feeling of his hand on yours was comfortable.

as soon as the plane was fully in the air, he let go of your hand as if nothing happened and picked out a book from his carry-on.

"um.. are you okay?" you questioned, confused at his sudden behavior change. "i get a bit nervous during takeoff and landings, i'm usually fine during the rest of the flight so you don't have to worry about me holding your hand for the next ten hours." he deadpanned.

"a bit? you were shaking like a leaf." you chortled. he rolled his eyes in response, going back to his book.

it was then that you realized you stupidly hadn't brought any entertainment with you for the trip, and your flight didn't have wi-fi either.

you decided the only thing you could do to remain sane in this situation is fall asleep, it was 3 in the morning after all.

leaning your head as far back as the stiff seats would allow, you closed your eyes and drifted off.

approximately five hours later, you woke up with a crick in your neck and an odd numbness on the side of your mouth. opening your eyes slowly, you were greeted with the site of eunseok's shirt directly beneath you with a large wet spot.

holy shit.

you fell asleep on eunseok's shoulder and drooled all over his shirt. if he didn't say anything this far he's probably going to the next 5 hours you're on this flight.

you haven't moved your head yet, scared that if you indicate you're awake, he's going to hold this against you until the end of time.

panicking, you accidentally jolted your stiff neck up, causing your chin to collide directly with eunseok's.

fuck. well there goes my cover.

"ow!" you both exclaimed in unison. "was drooling over me not enough? you had to break my jaw too?" he grumbled, rubbing his chin.

"you could've moved my head!" you defended, flustered. straightening yourself up, you wiped the side of your mouth awkwardly.

instead of responding, he grabbed a napkin from his bag and handed it to you.

"thank you." you said, taken aback.

why is he being so nice?

"i'm... sorry for ruining your shirt," you mumbled. "it's no big deal." he shrugged.

was this the same eunseok that commented "worst thing I've ever read." on your peer-graded essay?

maybe you could mend things with him during this trip. after all, he did seem pretty excited when the announcement was made.

"so... have you ever been to england before?" you began, initiating small-talk.

"can we just sit in silence?" he replied coldly.

nevermind, he's still just as much of an asshole as ever.

shit. why did I say that? eunseok thought to himself.

the truth is, you made him nervous. whether it was your icy stare or your intimidatingly vast knowledge on history, he could never let his guard down around you.

the rest of the flight was spent with the two of you refusing to so much as face each other until landing.

as the plane was about to descend, you noticed eunseok starting to take deep breaths. part of you wanted to extend a hand, but the other part of you wanted to throw him off the plane.

deciding to be the bigger person, you asked "are you alright?"

"I'm not a child." he croaked.

"I didn't say you were." you sassed.

"then stop talking to me like I am one." he began, growing more irritated.

the two of you began to go back and forth, and before you knew it you had landed. eunseok managed to forgot all about his fear because of how unbelievably petty the two of you were.

"will you guys shut up!?" a passenger behind you shouted, causing the both of you to stop arguing.

annoyed, you got out of your seat as quickly as you could and made a beeline for the baggage claim, waiting for your bags.

how do you keep getting forced into these kinds of situations with him? were you some kind of monster in your past life? was he your karma?

once you and the rest of your group received your luggage, you headed to the hotel. due to the time zone difference, it was already 9 pm in london so your group supervisors told everyone to get some sleep so you could head to the castle in the morning.

whether it was because of the nap you took on the plane, or simply how excited you were, you couldn't sleep at all.

staring at the clock reading 1 a.m. in your hotel room, you decided to try catching a glimpse of the castle before everyone else woke up at 7. it wasn't your brightest idea, but it's not like you had anything else to do.

you managed to get past your sleeping roommates, throwing on a jacket and slipping out the door. coincidentally, eunseok couldn't sleep either, and he decided to go for a walk around the hotel at the same moment you decided to leave.

spotting your figure leaving the hotel and heading off towards the street, he couldn't help but follow you.

was this extremely stalker-ish? yes. but what if she got hurt or kidnapped? we're in a different country after all. not like I care if she gets hurt or kidnapped... but if she did it would ruin our trip! so I have no choice but to follow her eunseok reasoned.

it didn't take long for him to figure out where you were going. the hotel is extremely close to the castle, after all. once you reached, you stared at the castle from afar, marveling at it.

you waited for this moment your whole life, and it was even more beautiful in person. there's no way you could turn back now. you have to see it closer.

carefully maneuvering past the gates, you managed to miraculously sneak in, and there didn't seem to be any security guards present.

what the hell is she doing? this is illegal!

what the hell am I doing? this is illegal!

you thought about turning back, but your curiosity was eating you up inside. you had to go see what the interior of the castle looked like.

thanks to your insanely intensive study of the building, you managed to find a secret opening that not many people knew of and you quickly slipped inside, hoping nobody would notice.

however, someone--that someone being eunseok--definitely did notice. and he mentally cursed himself for following you this far, wondering why he couldn't bring himself to turn back.

slipping through the opening, he entered a completely dark hallway, unsure of where you were.

you had dreamed of walking these corridors your whole life, and even without any light you were able to manuever around the halls.

unfortunately, eunseok couldn't say the same, and when he started walking, it didn't take long for him to bump into a stand of knight armor.

the loud crashing was enough to trigger an alarm system and turn on emergency lights, which exposed both eunseok and you to one another.

"what the hell are you doing here?" you shrieked "what the hell are YOU doing here?" he retorted.

you knew it wasn't long until authorities would arrive, so you grabbed eunseok and began running further into the castle.

"what are you doing? we need to leave!" he yelled.

"if we leave, they'll just catch us on our way out. we need to hide somewhere they won't look."

dragging him by the arm, you rushed into the old servant chambers, diving into the closet. well... what you thought was the closet.

what it actually was was a secret set of stairs that the two of you fell down, leading to a small room that you've never seen before.

impossible. i've watched every virtual tour, studied every reconstruction plan, read every primary source document... and i've never heard of this room.

"great. now we're stuck in a dark, cramped, dusty room in the middle of a castle that's going to be searched any second now and it's all your fault-" eunseok ranted, stopping midway when he saw you staring bewildered at the room.

"what's wrong with you?" he poked your shoulder.

"i... didn't know this room existed." you whispered.

"it's an old castle, I'm sure there's plenty of secret rooms everywhere... you think this is where the servants used to smash?"

"shhh" you urged him, hearing distant footsteps.

"what are we gonna do?" he sighed.

"let's just lay low until they leave. I doubt they'll look for us here. and don't touch ANYTHING. this room might be undiscovered and contain hundreds of year's worth of preserved artifacts-"

you were interrupted by eunseok toppling over a candle.

"EUNSEOK!" you whisper-shouted. "I'm trying to get some light in here." he defended.

fishing in his pocket, he pulled out a lighter before picking the candle off the floor and lighting it. once the room was illuminated, you could see your surroundings much better.

the room was stacked with cabinets and shelves containing miscellaneous items, it must've been used for storage. it seemed to have some personal items that belonged to servants.

you heard the footsteps start to get closer, and a voice appeared right outside the closet doors. looking to eunseok, you began panicking.

"blow the candle out! now!" you whispered.

eunseok blew out the candle and right as he did, the door creaked open.

shit.

"I know my rights!" eunseok yelled at the foreign figure coming closer.

"what are you talking about?" a woman's voice echoed throughout the room.

a middle-aged woman appeared with a candle in hand, dressed in a long cloth dress, similar to the ones maids would wear centuries ago.

"are you some kind of role-play tour guide? I didn't even know they did those tours this late into the night." he asked, confused.

"what? why is he speaking like that? and why are you two alone in here? and what happened to your clothes?" the woman interrogated.

the both of you had messed up your clothes running through the castle and falling down the stairs. your shirt was ripped up and dusty and his jacket was covered in cobwebs.

"oh, I see. the two of you are following eleanor and harold's example and fooling around in here! how many times must I tell you kids not to fornicate in the storage closet! go back upstairs and fulfill your duties." she reprimanded the two of you.

"told you they fucked in here." eunseok whispered to you.

you shoved him in the arm before responding "ma'am I appreciate your dedication to your job, but can you just tell us if you're going to turn us into the cops or not?"

"what are the... cops?" she exaggerated. you fought the urge to roll your eyes. you might be obsessed with history, but at least you can accept the fact that you live in the present.

"let's just leave." you turned to eunseok. "and get arrested? absolutely not." he crossed his arms.

"who is getting arrested?" the woman gasped. "you know damn well who, lady." he scoffed.

"lady?! I'm simply a chambermaid! have you hit your head?" she exclaimed.

"you know what, you're right. I'd rather get arrested than deal with this crap any longer." he sighed as the two of you began making your way up the stairs.

when you reached the top, you noticed the decor had changed drastically and the windows were letting in sunlight. wasn't it just 1 in the morning?

men and women dressed in modest, cloth clothing were running in and out of the halls and rooms.

"y/n... what's going on?" eunseok tugged at your dirty shirt. "it must be some kind of role-play experience? I'm not sure... how long were we in there?"

"you two must change out of your soiled garments!" the elder woman said, handing you a long dress and eunseok a matching set.

"wait! what's your name, and what's going on?" you sputtered, just as the woman was about to walk away.

"now I'm sure you've hit your heads. I'm agatha, head chambermaid and in one week from now is the duel of knights. we are hosting for the first spell in a decade and tis in a week. now get up and get to work!" agatha demanded.

dumbfounded, you and eunseok simply stared at the clothes she handed you. "let's just go along with it. maybe we can pretend we're a part of whatever this is and avoid getting in trouble." you urged.

"what about the rest? won't they notice we're gone?" he worried. "let's just focus on getting out of here."

he nodded in response and the two of you rushed to find a place to change into your clothes. once you were changed, you walked out and led eunseok back to the secret entrance.

to your surprise, the parking lot that was once set up in front of the castle had been replaced with a moat. a large moat at that. with a ginormous drawbridge leading to a dirt path. the city looked different as well, with the cars being replaced with horse carriages and once large, gray buildings now appearing much smaller and made of stone and wood.

"is there some city-wide renaissance fair happening? are we getting pranked? where's the cameras?" eunseok whipped his head around, waiting to see john quinones pop up at any second.

"is this a dream? did i go unconscious during the fall down the stairs? quick, y/n! pinch me."

you did so eagerly.

"ow! what the hell? I didn't mean literally." he complained, rubbing his arm.

"will you shut up? i need to find out what's going on." you huffed. pulling out your phone, you saw that there was no signal or wi-fi network available nearby. "that's weird, I swore the website said the castle had guest wi-fi." you muttered.

"i have an international data plan, let me try," eunseok whipped out his phone, only to find there was no signal on his device either.

"do you think... maybe, we're actually back in the medieval times?" you shuddered.

eunseok never laughed louder in his life.

"yes, y/n. we time traveled like we're in back to the future! should I call you marty? or do you want to be the old scientist?" he cackled.

"his name is doc brown. and I'm being serious," you began, "how else would all these buildings change overnight, and why else would all these people be wearing clothes from a different time period. look around: there's not a phone, car, or even pavement road in sight. there's no way we were in the castle long enough for them to make all those changes either."

"let's just talk to an actual sane person here and I'm sure they'll explain everything." he assured.

just then, a young woman wearing a silk blue gown walked past, surrounded by two men in armor.

"excuse me, miss. sorry to interrupt your little role-play party but my friend and i were wondering if we could use your phone to make a quick call." eunseok asked.

one of the men rushed forward, "halt! how dare thee speak so freely to her highness, the crown princess."

eunseok rolled his eyes, "i'm not hitting on your chick, dude, i just want to use a phone."

the armor-clad man suddenly put his sword up to eunseok's neck. "what the hell?" eunseok exclaimed.

"release him! who are you sir and why doth thee use such... peculiar language?" the princess implored.

"you people are psychos. no way you're taking this shit so seriously." eunseok grumbled, rubbing his neck after the guard let him go.

"answer her highness!" the other guard insisted.

"we are travelers, here to observe the duel of knights! I must apologize for my companion, he is delirious from traveling all day." you interjected, grabbing eunseok and beginning to walk away.

"wait! your companion is… quite handsome. and his odd way of speaking is rather charming. i wish for him to compete for my hand during the duel!" the princess chirped.

"yeah right, you're crazy if you think I'm gonna-" eunseok was interrupted by your hand slapping over his mouth.

"whatever you wish, your highness." you responded, bowing curtly.

"wondrous! I would also like to invite thee to stay at my manor. surely a handsome man like you is a person of importance." she batted her lashes at him.

"no thanks weirdo-"

"we would love to! we thank you kindly for the offer your highness!" you interrupted eunseok again.

"oh I must have misspoke. I did not invite your mistress, only you." she spoke, shooting daggers at you.

"mistress?!" you gasped which made eunseok send you a shit-eating grin.

"actually, I would prefer my mistress stays with me, if that's alright 'your highness'" eunseok mocked.

the princess rolled her eyes and agreed reluctantly. once the princess and her guards were out of sight, you turned to eunseok. "see how those men didn't hesitate to hurt you? we're clearly in a different place!"

"yeah, a place where people have lost their minds." he scoffed.

"and her dress! it was real silk and embroidered with gold! I doubt a cosplayer has enough money to pull that off, especially in this economy." you tried convincing him.

"fine. lets say we really time-traveled to the 14th century and the princess wants me to join a little duel for her hand. does that mean...

... that i'm hot by both modern and medieval standards?"

you may not like eunseok, but he is quite attractive. it's no wonder his looks attracted the affections of a princess.

"eunseok! will you take this seriously? she wants you to participate in the duel of knights for her, do you understand how dangerous that is?" you practically screamed at him.

"yeah yeah the duel of knights is a fight to the death between the most skilled swordsmen of a kingdom for the right to court noblewomen and the princess. i know it may be hard for you to believe but i passed our medieval history class y/n." he quipped.

"and you realize you will be fighting those men to the death, right?" you asked.

"sure, i'll fight a bunch of history nerds in party city costumes." he chuckled.

you grabbed him by the arm and began pulling him in the direction of the city center… or what used to be the city center and now looked like a town square.

"we really need to talk- about boundaries because you-hey! can't keep dragging me around like a ragdoll-" he struggled as you continued tugging him into the busy streets.

"i'll stop when you quit being so stubborn. i'm gonna show you just how real this is." you stormed.

by the time you reached the city you were greeted with a sign that read 'SM's southern district' in big letters and below it in a smaller font was inscribed 'taverns, traders, and shops'.

perfect.

the two of you went inside a tailor's shop since you deduced that if you were going to pretend to be people important to stay at the castle, you should dress the part.

as soon as you stepped inside, the tailor called out "good morrow strangers, thou must be travelers from far hence."

"why yes, and we were-" you started before the tailor cut you off, "is there anything I may help you with, good sir?" he ignored you for eunseok.

you forgot that as fun as the medieval period was to learn about, it was hell to live through as a woman.

trying to bite your tongue, you waited for eunseok to respond.

"yeah, can we get some fancy clothes?" he asked nonchalantly.

you sent him a glare as the shopkeeper stared at him puzzled, "I'm afraid I do not understand your way of speaking."

"what he means to ask is if we may purchase some refined garments?" you asked, clearing your throat, only for the tailor to continue to ignore you.

sighing, eunseok repeated, "may we purchase some refined garments?" the tailor's head snapped up and he grinned, "of course, good sir! for the lady as well?"

"yes." you stated through gritted teeth. no response. "yes." eunseok repeated once again, to which the tailor nodded.

as the tailor went off to find some clothing for the two of you, you turned to eunseok, "I thought you were a history buff, how do you not know how to speak to these people?" you interrogated.

"first of all, i specialize in east asian history. second, I didn't think I'd ever actually have to rely on my shakespeare lessons from high school."

the tailor came back rather quickly with suits for eunseok and a few uncomfortable-looking but beautiful dresses for you. at least they didn't wear many corsets in medieval england.

"I shall fit them to the both of your measurements and you will be able to pick them up in a few days time. services included, the charge will be 30 pounds, good sir." the man said, awaiting eagerly for eunseok to pay.

"right... one second, good sir?" eunseok hesitated awkwardly, turning to you "you don't have any money, do you?"

"my wallet should be in my pocket... shit I left it when we changed our clothes in the castle. ask him if we can pay him when we come back to grab our clothes." you urged eunseok.

"how the hell do I say that?" he panicked. "just try your best!" you whisper-shouted.

turning back to the tailor, eunseok sputtered out "may we pay... in a few day's time... perchance?"

the shopkeeper looked confused before laughing, "doth thee wish to pay at which hour you come to pick up the garments?"

eunseok nodded vigorously which was enough to communicate the message across to the tailor.

once you left the shop, eunseok breathed a sigh of relief "okay, I believe you. we time-traveled, nothing makes sense, and I'll do anything to get back to the 2020s."

"let's head back to castle, grab my wallet, and we'll figure out what to do from there. we already have a place to stay anyway." you declared.

"if you weren't... yourself, I'd find it hot how calm and collected you are about this," he admitted. you shot him an annoyed look.

"sorry I don't know how to regulate my emotions... or my thoughts... or words. we traveled back in time. we're marty and the doctor guy." eunseok began rambling.

"it's doc brown. and calm down." you grasped his shoulders. "we're going to get out of here, because i need electric plumbing and I refuse to die of syphilis. but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy our time here. you and I both love history right? well now we get to experience it ourselves!" you exclaimed.

there's that look in her eye, the one she always gets when she's talking about history. I could stare at her forever... what the hell am I thinking? it's been a long day and I should get some rest.

you noticed eunseok spacing out while looking at you so you shook his shoulders a bit which jolted him awake, "so what do you say?"

"fine. let's experience your nerdy little medieval fantasy. but, we find out how to get out of here as soon as possible in the meantime." he agreed.

as you guys made your way back to castle, you were stopped by guards in front of the moat. "who art thee and what business doth thy have at riize castle?" a guard barked.

"we were personally invited by her majesty the princess to stay at the castle until the duel of knights." you reported. you saw the guard contemplating a bit before giving the other guards the signal to let you in.

breathing a sigh of relief, you headed towards the castle doors. after a few steps you realized eunseok hadn't moved from his spot.

"what are you doing? let's go back inside!" you scolded him. he looked completely pale and visibly shaken as he started towards you, "y/n. if we're really in medieval times... does that mean I have to fight during the duel of knights?" he fretted.

"i can't die yet. i haven't gotten cross-faded yet! do they even have weed here? I told myself once I leave korea I'd try it but what if I don't even get to experience that-" he began rambling once again.

you grabbed onto his hand, similar to how you did in the plane before trying to calm him down, "you won't die, because you won't fight anybody. we'll find a way to get back to our time before then, it's in a week so we have plenty of time. and you can always just try getting out of it by asking the princess!" you assured.

"you're right!" he exclaimed, squeezing your hand and pulling you into a hug. by the time you processed what was happening, you felt butterflies in your stomach.

that can't be right. butterflies... over eunseok? maybe I'm just touch-starved.

he pulled away rather quickly though, awkwardly trying to move past you to rush into the castle gates as if it would somehow undo his action.

fuck. did I make things awkward? did I kind of like the hug? wait-why do I care? we're just classmates who time-traveled together, nothing more and nothing less.

you followed after him until you reach the room you stumbled out of a few hours prior. digging through the pile of your old clothes, you were able to find your wallet.

fortunately, you exchanged some of your dollars for pounds at the airport. unfortunately, modern-day pounds look nothing like the ones they used in the 14th century.

"I don't think he'll even take these." you sighed, waving around the colorful bills with queen elizabeth's face stamped on them.

"we'll just say it's currency from... wherever we're from." he shrugged.

"and where's that?"

"uhhhh... america?"

"europeans haven't even heard of america yet." you rolled your eyes.

"which is why it'll work perfectly, they'll think it's some secluded, far away town." eunseok reasoned.

you don't know if it was eunseok's annoying presence or the lack of sleep you've had in the last 24 hours, but you felt a migraine coming on. massaging your temples, you decided you should take a nap before you try to find a way back to the future.

"let's get some rest, we can worry about everything else later." you yawned.

"where are we gonna sleep? the princess didn't even tell us which room we'd be staying in." he remarked.

"maybe we could ask agatha." you figured, walking towards the center hall.

"stop wandering off! we could get lost, this place is huge." eunseok argued.

"we won't. I know this place like the back of my hand." you assured.

"nerd." he commented, under his breath. for the sake of your sanity, you pretended you didn't hear anything.

with all the people rushing around the castle corridors it was nearly impossible to pinpoint agatha, and you ended up walking headfirst into the chest of a tall, handsome man wearing a padded shirt, usually worn by knights underneath their armor.

the man was slightly sweaty and holding a leather-wrapped sword in his hand, he must've been a knight coming back from training.

"art thou alright, madam?" the man asked. i am now.

eunseok let out a loud cough behind you, "she's fine. let's go, y/n."

"doth thou not recognize me? perhaps the two of you are not from here." the man reasoned.

"we're travelers, from... america." you hesitated.

"america? where is that?" the man questioned.

"tis a small town up north." you stated, trying to sound as sure of yourself as possible.

"makes sense." the man nodded "what business do you have in my castle. i've never seen you around, and I reckon I would remember a face as enchanting as yours."

am i getting hit on by a hot knight? maybe staying here isn't such a bad idea after all.

"your castle?" eunseok replied.

"yes. i am the crown prince, anton. now remind me again what you're doing in my castle?" anton asked.

"the crown princess invited us, my... brother here is to compete in the duel of knights." you quickly added.

"brother? I thought you were supposed to be my mistress-" eunseok started before you cut him off.

"do you know where the princess may be? she hasn't yet told us in which room we shall be staying." you asked the prince.

"ah, forgive my sister for she is very easily overexcited. I doubt she put much thought into housing you two as guests. I'd usually turn two strangers away, but you're an exception," he stared at you intently, "i'll arrange a room for the two of you shortly. in the meantime, would you care to join my family and I for dinner? it's the least we can do as hosts for you as you've traveled so far."

"we'd love to!" you exclaimed. "wondrous! I shall see you in two hours for dinner. the maids will help you to get ready." he smiled, kissing your hand before he walked away. you felt your cheeks heating up as you waved him goodbye.

"I thought you were tired. now you wanna have dinner with the royal family?" eunseok grumbled.

"eunseok, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. eating dinner in a castle with medieval royalty! how many people can say they've done that?" you beamed.

eunseok held back a smile as you gushed about the opportunity. why is she so cute today?

in a matter of minutes, a young woman approached the two of you, ushering you into a room.

"...here is the closet, and finally, the washroom. I shall give the two of you your privacy now." the woman bowed her head before exiting quickly.

"that was a quick tour." eunseok joked. "she must be busy preparing for the duel." you figured.

"ugh, don't remind me of the duel." he dramatically collapsed on the bed. "wait... is there only one bed?"

am I being lazy and using the one bed trope? guilty!

"I'm honestly too tired to care. scooch over." you shoved him to one side of the bed as you made yourself comfortable on the other. you wouldn't usually be so bold, but you were exhausted. after nearly getting arrested and getting stuck in the 14th century, you deserved a nap.

eunseok, on the other hand, was more wide awake than ever. he didn't want to look immature and get up the second you laid down, but he was even more nervous around you right now than usual.

looking over at your figure, he was shocked to see that you had already passed out. he couldn't hold back the small smile on his lips while watching you.

what the hell am I doing? I look like a creep. he thought, snapping himself out of his daze. deciding to wash up, he headed the the bathroom.

great. a large tub, a couple of buckets, and a hole in the ground. not a single source of running water in sight.

venturing out of the room, he tried calling one of the maids rushing past for some water but everyone seemed to be preoccupied.

annoyed, eunseok decided to try finding water himself. just because y/n's annoyingly obsessed with this castle and knows how to talk like these people, doesn't mean I'm completely lost without her.

after a few minutes of wandering around the castle, eunseok was completely lost.

unknowingly, he stumbled into the throne room while the princess was in the middle of receiving a lecture from her advisors.

"you mustn't invite complete strangers into the castle. do you understand how harmful that could be?" one of the advisors warned.

eunseok tried leaving as quietly as possible but it was to no avail as the princess spotted him almost immediately.

"you! traveler! what is your name?" she chirped, jumping up and heading towards him.

fuck.

"eunseok, your highness." he shared through gritted teeth.

"what an odd name! I suppose tis because thou are from a far away land. my brother told me you were from am-amiri? amera? what ever it's called." she rambled.

"i am princess giselle, and between you and i, you're my favorite contender for the duel of knights. oh how I hope you win and earn my hand." she gushed.

"i hope so too." he responded nervously.

"the prince told me the woman you were with is your sister, did you not refer to her as your mistress earlier... sir is your sister your mistress?" the princess gasped.

"umm, no! where I'm from we use the word mistress instead of sister. silly, isn't it?" he hesitated, holding his breath as he waited for giselle's reaction.

the princess burst into laughter, "how amusing! oh please don't die during the duel so you may make me laugh for the rest of my life." she cooed.

the hairs on the back of eunseok's neck stood up. even if he manages to survive the duel, he'll have to spend the rest of his life married to a loud-mouthed princess in a castle with no electricity.

I have to find a way to get out of this time.

"if you would excuse me, I should wake up my, er, sister for dinner!" eunseok mumbled, turning to walk away.

"nonsense! I'll have a servant do so. you may have the privilege of sitting with me until then." she assured.

"well, I was actually thinking of washing up before-"

"why would you need to wash up? you look perfectly clean." the princess interjected.

eunseok was anything but perfectly clean, but then again, that was by 21st century standards. in 14th century england, even royalty only bathed about once a month.

I can't believe it's gotten to this point, but I really wish y/n were here right now.

as princess giselle kept eunseok company, you were lightly shaken awake by a familiar figure: agatha. once you finally sat up, you heard her gasp.

"aren't you the servant from earlier? what are you doing in the guest bed?!" she shrilled.

"well... we're travelers invited by the princess. besides, it was you who assumed we were servants." you tried shifting the blame.

she put a hand above her heart, "goodness! that explains your odd clothing and speech. oh I apologize deeply. how can I make up for my terrible mistake?" she begged.

you felt bad seeing how apologetic agatha looked, but you remembered there was a favor you needed. "very well, then I demand full access to the storage room in the servant chambers." you declared.

agatha sent you a puzzling look, "what's so special about the storage room, my lady?"

well for starters, it's an opportunity for me to study a room never heard of by most historians. and a way for me to figure out how we got here, and hopefully, how to get home.

"i... liked it?" you said lamely. agatha simply nodded, "anything else?" she added.

"a piece of paper and a writing instrument, please."

"for your lord?"

right. most people, especially women, were illiterate during this time.

"um... yes!" you lied, not wanting to make yourself stand out anymore.

"I shall see to it." agatha dismissed herself.

as soon as she left the room, you collapsed back onto the bed. all you needed was some quality alone time-

the door burst open again, with a flock of servants pouring in. "we must prepare you for the dinner!"

for the next thirty minutes, you were stripped, clothed, had your hair done up in an elaborate hairstyle, and exposed to powders and cosmetics you were 99% sure were toxic. you almost didn't recognize yourself in the mirror, but you had to admit the dress was flattering and you might even copy the hairstyle when you get back to your time.

as annoying as it was, it was fascinating to experience everything you've read about in books up until now. the history nerd in you couldn't help but marvel at it all.

by the time you arrived at the dining room, you were greeted with the sight of eunseok sitting next to the princess, looking mildly irritated. you spotted an open seat next to the prince directly across eunseok and decided to sit there.

shooting the boy a small smile, you sat next to anton who immediately began talking to you.

eunseok took in your appearance, staring intensely at you.

she looks stupid... with her big hair, obnoxiously red lips, long gown, perfect smile-snap out of it!

"lord eunseok, why are you staring at your sister like that?" princess giselle asked loudly, catching your attention.

you turned your head quick enough to see eunseok staring at you with a look of... admiration? impossible.

he turned tomato red and cleared his throat, "I was... wondering what we'd be eating for dinner! I'm famished."

"once mother and father arrive, we may begin eating." prince anton assured. he turned to you, "tell me about your family, lady y/n. aside from your brother here, of course."

eunseok rolled his eyes. why's he so concerned with y/n? and why is this princess on my case?

after a few minutes of you and anton conversing and eunseok stealing glances of you while giselle talked his head off, the king and queen arrived.

you immediately got up and curtseyed to them, gesturing for eunseok to bow. "your majesty, tis my pleasure to dine with you." you resounded.

"my children have told me much about you. do tell me about this 'america'" the king mused.

the rest of the dinner consisted of you and eunseok making up ridiculous facts about america and your backgrounds. occasionally, you'd send each other knowing looks and have to stifle your laughs. it was the closest the two of you got to bonding this whole trip.

by the time the dinner came to a close, anton rose up slowly. "I wish to make an announcement." once he had everyone's attention, he continued, "I have completed my knight training this year, and I have father's word that I will be able to compete in the upcoming duel of knights."

"excuse me?" the queen cried out, "it is far too dangerous. and whose hand will you be competing for? your sister's?"

"of course not. I will be competing for lady y/n's hand."

"WHAT?" you and eunseok yelled in unison. "I understand this may come as a surprise to you, my sweet y/n, but I truly feel we have developed a connection."

we met two hours ago!!!

"NO!" you screamed, resulting in horrified looks on everyone else's face, "I mean... no, your highness. I could never expect you to put your life at risk for my hand, PLEASE reconsider." you begged.

"nonsense. the last ten knights left standing win the duel, and I am sure my son is capable of coming in tenth place at the very least." the king argued.

"charles, he is but a boy-" the queen began, angrily.

"he is twenty for christ's sake! I was even younger when I competed. there will no more discussion, anton will be competing for lady y/n's hand and lord eunseok will compete for giselle's." the king settled

fuck.

"what the hell are we going to do?" eunseok panicked once the two of you were back in your room. "if we don't leave before next week, I'm going to die fighting for a girl I don't even want and you're going to get married to that guy!"

"you care about whether or not I get married to the prince?" you teased. "what? no, I- shut up." he deflected.

"relax. I got us unlimited access to the storage closet. whatever brought us here is in there, I know it. we'll look through it tomorrow and find out how to go home." you determined.

"and if we don't?" he gulped. "then we'll figure something out." you resolved, holding onto his shoulders. "we'll be alright, we have eachother." you smiled.

you couldn't explain why you were being so nice to the man you swore you hated just yesterday, but something about the vulnerability of your situation made you desperate to hold onto the only ally you have.

eunseok's heart rate increased in response to your words and close proximity, he couldn't help but stare at your lips. "they overdid it with the lipstick." he commented, mindlessly.

"it's a mixture of berries. and I know." you giggled.

before you could say anything else, eunseok began leaning in. his lips were on yours in a matter of seconds, and it felt completely natural.

your friends always joked that the two of you were just covering up sexual tension with the whole rivalry thing, and you're embarrassed to admit you may have fantasized about kissing eunseok before, but you never in a million years thought it would actually happen.

the kiss was slow yet passionate, there was an unprecedented amount of emotion in it, you felt like you were drowning in it.

eunseok was on cloud nine, it was better than any other kiss he's ever had. his hands wandered to hold your waist tightly as yours flew to his hair.

you don't know how long the kiss has lasted so far, but you know that you never want it to end.

except it does. when the prince and princess walk in on the two of you.

as soon as you heard princess giselle scream, the two of you pulled away, but it was too late. they had seen enough.

"you people are sick! I should have known it when you said you call your sisters your mistresses!" the princess cried out.

before she could say another word, you and eunseok dragged the siblings inside and shut the door. "what the hell are we going to do now?" eunseok frantically whispered to you.

"we have to come clean." you said, which eunseok shook his head 'no' to almost immediately.

"anton, giselle, we lied to you." you confessed while eunseok stayed silent.

"I knew it! there is no america. are you thieves? or spies? who sent you?!" giselle accused.

"there is an america, and we did come from there. but we came from a different america than the one that exists today... we're from the future." you shared.

it didn't take long for both siblings to burst into laughter. "the future? do you take us for fools?" anton choked out.

"it's true! eunseok, show them your phone." you insisted. he pulled out his phone and tapped the screen, causing it to illuminate.

"sorcerers!" giselle screeched.

"it's not sorcery, it's technology! it's made from various metals and allows you to communicate with people across large distances." you explained.

"sounds like sorcery to me." anton commented.

"y/n, you've spent years studying this stupid castle, don't you know anything about the residents? there has to be some information you have on the royal family that could convince them." eunseok looked to you.

"well I wasn't able to study much on these two because they both died young..." you said quietly.

"WHAT?" giselle screamed. "how dare you even suggest that?" anton stood up angrily.

"the records I read said you passed away during the duel of knights when you were 20 and that giselle was unable to take over the throne afterwards because she disappeared one night and was presumed dead... but some say she fell in love with a commoner and eloped with him." you shared.

this caused giselle to gasp loudly, "you... i... i believe them."

"how?" anton interjected, "she just said I'll die and you'll elope with a commoner. you show interest in every nobleman you come across and get over them in a matter of days. there's no way you'd fall in love with a common man and elope."

"I've been pretending to be boy-obsessed so nobody finds out that i..." giselle hesitated "i'm in love with mark."

"the stable boy?" anton cried out. "he always mentions the possibility of eloping but I never took it seriously-" she began.

"you two can sort out whatever's going on with mark later, can we go back to y/n and I time-traveling?" eunseok interrupted.

"how did you even end up here?" anton asked.

"in our time, your castle is a historical monument. eunseok and I managed to sneak in, but we were about to get caught so we hid in a storage room. when we emerged, we were transported to your time." you explained.

it took the siblings a while to process your story, but they agreed to help the two of you find a way to get back to your time. once everything was settled, anton asked to speak to you privately--which eunseok did not like.

"I'm sorry for lying, anton, I was just trying to avoid getting in trouble." you apologized, breaking the awkward silence.

"I understand. I've been meaning to ask about you and eunseok. are the two of you...?" he began.

"I don't know what we are. this whole day has been confusing for the both of us." you answered honestly.

"right." he replied, sadly. "well, I wanted to ask you specifically about my death. does the future really say I die in the upcoming duel?"

"i'm sorry anton... i know how excited you are for it."

"excited? i'm dreading it." he chuckled dryly. "i've only ever shown interest in being a knight because of my father. he was a knight back in his day, that's how he courted my mother and became king."

"wait, so you don't want to compete in the duel?" you queried.

"absolutely not! I'm terrified. I've always wanted to be a writer, but my father told me I have no time for silly dreams like that. I'm the heir to the throne, after all."

I feel horrible, most of the documents i read mentioned anton as an eager knight-in-training, but I guess history books aren't always accurate.

you grabbed anton by the hand and began taking him back to where eunseok and giselle were.

"so you really don't think I'm handsome?" you overheard eunseok asking giselle. "you're okay-looking... but I just needed a cover-up for my late-night rendezvous with mark." she shrugged as eunseok's face fell.

"eunseok. giselle. we need to do something before we go back in time." you announced.

"and what's that?" eunseok responded.

"we're getting anton out of the duel of knights." you declared.

"but how? father is adamant on him competing." giselle protested, "and I doubt he'll believe your time-traveling story."

"we'll just have to figure out a way." you said stubbornly.

although eunseok and giselle seemed uneasy, anton sent you a grateful look which was enough.

the next few days were spent with you and eunseok exploring the storage room and you writing down as much as you could about the contents of the room as well as the royal family.

eunseok agreed to help giselle meet with mark in secret and you agreed to help anton with his writing. in return, the siblings helped you look through the castle library on anything related to time-travel.

to avoid the awkwardness of sleeping in the same bed with eunseok after the kiss, anton offered up his room and slept with him instead.

there was now four days left until the duel, and you still had no idea how to get back or take anton out of the competition. anton and eunseok seemed to get a lot closer though, either through sharing a room or the mutual dread of having to fight to the death in a few days time.

"y/n, can I speak with you. it won't take up much time." giselle asked you. "of course, what's up?" you responded.

"what's up?" she repeated, "what is the matter." you corrected yourself. you and eunseok let down your guard when it came to speaking in old english since the siblings already knew your secret anyway.

"you said in the future, I disappear. mark keeps asking to elope, especially with the duel of knights approaching as many men will be aiming for my hand." she worried, "I'm scared, y/n. I don't wish to leave but I don't wish to lose my beloved either. what do I do?"

you honestly had no idea. maybe it was a bad idea telling them their fates, but if i can try helping them avoid it, I should.

"I think you should try telling your parents. how bad could it be?" you said, stupidly.

"are you serious? they would murder him and i for even suggesting it. royals and commoners don't belong together, of course you wouldn't understand." she stormed.

"okay, okay I'm sorry. I really don't understand. I'm used to modern royalty, where the prince of england married an actress and left the royal family, then got to go on oprah." giselle shot you a confused look, "but if you never try, you'll never know."

"i suppose you're right. but I'm far too terrified of my parents." she sighed. before you could respond, eunseok called out to you, ushering you and giselle to join him and anton.

"we found a way to get out of the duel!" he shared excitedly.

"and how is that?" giselle asked, unconvinced.

"knights are covered head-to-toe in armor, right? we'll just pay two knights to replace us! anton said he's got the money covered."

"yes, I have the money covered, as they say in future america." anton added enthusiastically.

"and you've already found these knights?" you asked, "how do you know they won't tell the king?"

"we did, and anton made them swear because they are under an oath to serve him." eunseok shared proudly.

"don't you think that's a bit wrong, abusing your power? and what's gonna happen at the end of the duel when you have to take your helmets off?" you badgered.

"will you stop being such a baby, y/n? we'll tell them to keep their helmets on, and both you and giselle will be there anyways so you can cover for us." he argued.

"well i'm sorry that I want to make sure your little plan is foolproof so you don't, y'know, die." you fumed.

and just like that, the two of you began arguing again. giselle and anton gave each other a worried look before rushing out of the room, leaving the two of you yelling at each other.

"you're getting a bit too comfortable here, don't you think?" you scoffed.

"comfortable?! you think I want to spend the rest of my life in the 14th fucking century?" eunseok retorted.

"well you've barely been any help in looking for a way back. i've been the only one searching that stupid room for any traces of how we got here!"

"maybe because we've been searching that room for four days and haven't found anything. excuse me for trying to make sure I don't die before I find a way to travel back, if there even is a way."

you stepped closer to him, still seething "you piss me off to no end, song eunseok. you're the last person I wish I was trapped with in this stupid century!"

"do you really think you're my perfect idea of a travel buddy? my life is a mess, all thanks to you!" he snapped.

"I didn't ask you to follow me like a crazed stalker, did I? so why did you?"

eunseok finally went quiet. it seems like he didn't really know the answer either.

you were irritated, but you didn't want to keep arguing, so you decided to walk away before he started up again, "I'm going to town to pick up our clothes from the tailor."

up until now you've been wearing the servant clothes agatha brought you to bed and borrowing the royal sibling's clothes during the day. it'll be nice to finally have our own sets of clothing.

you tried to organize your thoughts but you were still thinking of eunseok. it's not like you haven't argued with him before, but they've never been so... personal.

it pained you to say but his words hurt you. you don't know when you started caring about what eunseok has to say but some time along the last four days you've been trapped here, you started to feel more strongly about him.

and you definitely can't forget about the kiss. you can't believe the two of you just acted completely normal after that. you were too scared to bring it up and so was eunseok.

he's so confusing. one day we're making out and the next we're screaming at each other... and it doesn't help that I can't read him at all.

by the time you were done reflecting on your entire relationship with eunseok, you reached the tailor's shop. walking in, you greeted one of the workers there before informing them of your prior visit.

as the worker brought out your clothes, he held his hand out waiting for the payment.

shit. I didn't bring any money. and it's not like the money I had would've done much anyway.

"I-um, I don't think I can give you the payment just yet," you stuttered, nervous.

"why not?" the worker asked, already putting the clothing back.

"because-"

"because i'll be paying." you heard a familiar voice ring from behind you. what is he doing here?

eunseok walked past you and handed over the old-timey pounds to the worker, taking the sets from him in the process.

once the transaction was finished he walked past you and out of the shop, completely ignoring you. confused, you caught up to him.

"did you seriously follow me again? what's your problem?!" you exploded on the street, catching the attention of nearby townsfolk.

"I saw that you left your wallet and didn't even bother asking for money from the prince or princess. you're welcome for saving you the embarrassment and a trip back-and-forth from the castle." he retorted, stopping to turn to you.

"I don't want to argue. not right now, and not in public." he sighed "good. because neither do i." you sassed, walking past him deeper into the district center.

he rolled his eyes and continued after you, "where are you going?"

"does it matter? or were you planning on stalking me again." you retaliated.

i should just leave her alone if she's going to be so difficult... but this place is sketchy and confusing, and it's getting dark.

"I don't think it's safe to walk around alone here, it's almost sunset." he called out.

"I'm a grown woman, I can handle myself." you refused.

"fine." eunseok said, turning to walk back to the castle.

you spent the next two hours making a mental map of the district, excited to write all about it later. you had to admit this was a much more fun way to learn about history than sitting around with a textbook and reading all day.

unfortunately for you, there weren't any clocks around, so it was easier to lose track of time. you figured it must be around 9 p.m. and decided to head back to the castle.

after about 15 minutes of wandering the streets, you realized you were lost.

fuck. I can't believe I'm about to prove eunseok right. whatever, he's probably living it up at the castle, especially since I'm not there.

on the contrary, eunseok was worried sick. "what if she was kidnapped, or fell down a well or something?" he ranted to anton.

"we shall find her, there's no need to worry." anton assured as they headed out the castle gate.

as the two of them began walking, eunseok couldn't help but overthink.

I shouldn't have let her walk away. and I can't believe the last conversation we had was an argument. what if something bad happened to her? how will I forgive myself?

eunseok doesn't know when or how he became so worried about you, but what he did know was his heart was pounding just thinking about you.

"what... relationship do you and y/n share?" anton inquired as they walked. "we're just school peers." eunseok answered coldly.

anton laughed in response, “peers do not thrust their tongues into each other's mouths."

eunseok's ears turned red upon hearing the younger boy's comment.

"they also wouldn't worry as much as you are right now." anton added.

"she's my ticket back to the 21st century, of course I'm on edge. I need her help finding the way home." eunseok shrugged.

"whatever you say." anton smiled.

"are you into her or something?" eunseok asked, trying to sound casual.

"pardon me?"

"do you wish to wed her?" eunseok sighed. I'm definitely not gonna miss these shakespearean conversations.

"well... she is strikingly beautiful... and strong, and intelligent, and-"

"okay I get it." eunseok cut him off, erupting another laugh in anton.

"but she seems to only have eyes for you. besides, I'm a bit more preoccupied with the duel as of now." anton commented carelessly.

she has eyes for me? eunseok thought to himself again and again until they reached a nearby tavern.

it was then that the pair spotted your figure arguing with a clearly drunken man. before he knew it, eunseok rushed to your side to defend you from the man until he heard your conversation.

"you've gone mad if you think euripides is anywhere close to sophocles!" you yelled.

"you're the mad one, sophocles couldn't have written medea but euripides could have easily written oedipus rex in his sleep!" the man yelled back.

of course she's arguing over history. what a nerd.

"pardon us sir." eunseok interjected, dragging you away by the arm.

"hey! I wasn't finished. and stop dragging me." you ripped your arm away. "now you know how I feel." eunseok scoffed.

"y/n! are you alright?" anton asked. "yes, I'm fine. and I was just about to make my way back to the castle." you asserted.

"point in the direction of the castle." eunseok challenged. you pointed in a random direction hoping it would be somewhat close.

"you were going to head north, further into the town when the castle is down south." eunseok smirked.

if he didn't look so good right now I'd smack that smirk right off his face.

the walk back to the castle was dead silent, with poor anton making the occasional comment trying to spur conversation, but you and eunseok weren't having it.

when you finally reached the castle, anton excused himself leaving you and eunseok alone.

sighing, eunseok broke the silence first, "I was worried about you."

you whipped your head up. did i hear that right?

"I don't hate you. I hope you know that." he went on.

"I don't hate you either." you added. for the first time in a long time you looked at him in the eye.

the tension was palpable, but before you could act on any of your emotions, eunseok turned away. "goodnight, y/n." he walked off.

ouch. I know I said I wanted him to leave me alone, but not like this.

time passed by until it was the morning of the duel. you and eunseok had been growing even more desperate to find a way back home, and giselle and anton were getting even more nervous about the duel approaching.

eunseok had remained distant since that night, and although you hadn't argued since then, you also haven't really spoken much.

you missed him, but you had more important things to focus on.

as the knights began suiting up, you and giselle headed to your seats at the top of the arena. the arena was full of thousands of people, ranging from commoners to nobles.

if everything went to plan, the knights pretending to be anton and eunseok would win the duel, one of them would pretend to be injured and the other would carry them off into the stables where they would switch places with the real eunseok and anton.

of course, nothing ever goes according to plan. 'eunseok' was slain within the first ten minutes.

despite you having no connection to them, it hurt you to see young men lose their lives for a tradition meant to please the rich and powerful. and it hurt even more knowing that this tradition would continue for a few more centuries.

however, not everyone else shared your sympathies, as the majority of the crowd cheered excitedly with each kill. that was... until 'anton' was slain an hour in.

the entire arena went silent and the king jumped out of his seat, "stop the tournament! stop it now!"

oh shit.

the king ran down to check on his 'son' only to reveal a complete stranger under the helmet. still teary-eyed, the king roared "what is the meaning of this?"

we're screwed. we're so so screwed.

just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, the real eunseok and anton entered the arena, assuming the silence meant it was over.

"son! what have you done? answer me, boy!" the king seethed. "i... i don't wish to be a knight." anton confessed, eliciting gasps from the crowd.

"what on earth has gotten into you? is it that boy next to you influencing you?"

"no! I never wanted it. you know I've always wanted to pursue writing-"

"nonsense. you are to be a king. and a king is to be able to fight for his people. will words on paper solve wars? no. only a sword will protect your throne."

dejected, anton nodded before eunseok interrupted, "weren't you just crying over your son's death?"

another round of gasps travelled through the arena. "how dare you speak to me that way? I should have your head cut off!"

"all I'm saying is, if anton listened to you and fought, he'd be dead right now. is forcing him into combat worth losing your son?" eunseok reasoned.

the king faltered for a moment before recovering, "he is not enough of a man to look me in the eye and you want me to let him pursue his childish fantasies?"

in that moment, anton snapped, raising his head, "if I am to be heir to the throne than you will treat me as such. my whole life I've done what you wanted me to do, and look how that would have ended," he paused, pointing at the corpse on the floor.

"father, i assure you I am grown enough to discern what I want and don't want. and what I don't want is a life of a knight. I am not an extension of you, I am my own person, and most importantly, I am a writer." anton concluded.

the crowd erupted into cheers at the prince's heroic delivery until giselle ran down, seemingly inspired.

oh no.

"and I am in love with a stable-boy!" she declared loudly.

just like that, the arena was dead silent again and the king went red with anger.

"this is all your fault!" he pointed at eunseok "you, and that sister-mistress of yours!"

the crowd began murmuring, confused.

"guards, execute them!" he declared.

now you were definitely screwed.

you saw eunseok running out the back as giselle and anton held their father back. panicking, you ran through the back of the arena, meeting up with eunseok.

"what the hell are we going to do?" he panted. you grabbed onto his hand and began running into the castle. you're not sure why, but your gut was telling you to head to the storage room.

once you reached the room, eunseok whispered "won't this be the first place they'll look for us?"

" just hurry up and light the candle, I have to grab my papers." you rushed. he found a set of matches and lit the candle as you frantically searched for all your research.

you heard voices gathering around the outside of the door.

"y/n. if we really do die, I need to tell you something." eunseok began dramatically.

"I love-"

he was interrupted by a banging noise on the door. you quickly blew the candle out, hoping the darkness would somehow make the two of you invisible.

but it was too late, the door flew open, and a man came down the stairs holding a... flashlight?

"stop there! london police, you are under arrest for trespassing."

"what?" you muttered, confused.

"oh my-OH MY GOD. we're back... we're back! what year is it?" eunseok asked the officer desperately.

"are you two on some sort of narcotics?" the officer asked.

the two of you were then escorted to the police station where your group supervisor had to bail you out. you and eunseok were grinning ear-to-ear the entire time.

you were informed that you couldn't go on the tour as a result of your trespassing and you couldn't care less. "I know how much you were looking forward to it, are you sure you'll be okay?" your friend asked, worried.

"I'll be fine! go enjoy it for me." you assured. I'm sick of that damn castle anyway.

after taking a long, warm bath, you settled onto the hotel couch before hearing a knock on your door.

opening it, you were greeted with the sight of an awkward eunseok.

"hey... can I come in?" he asked, nervous. "yeah." you smiled.

"I'm still trying to convince myself that was all real." he chuckled.

"me too." you breathed "but at least it's all behind us."

"yeah, thank goodness." he agreed.

"what was it you were saying before we got arrested?" you asked innocently.

"um- I was saying, i... wonder whatever happened to giselle and anton! surely there's some more information on them now that anton survived the duel." he changed the topic.

"you're right!" you exclaimed, rushing to your computer to google their names.

"it says here that the king passed away from a heart attack due to shock and anton inherited the throne, but he didn't want it so he passed it onto giselle. he went on to become a successful writer and giselle married a common man named mark, they had a son and a daughter named... eunseok and y/n!"

"you think they're sister-mistresses?" eunseok joked.

"gross. anyways, anton's most famous book is called across centuries and it's about a pair of lovers that time traveled." you gasped.

"well that definitely can't be about us, we're far from lovers." he laughed.

"right..." you agreed quietly.

"well, I guess that now that we're out of the medieval period, I can get out of your hair." eunseok began, standing up.

"wait." you spoke up suddenly. if giselle and anton could confess in front of an entire kingdom, than i can confess to a single guy.

"eunseok, i..." you began.

fuck. I can't bring myself to finish my sentence.

"you what?" he asked.

"I'm..."

"are you alright?"

"no! yes-i mean no?" you sputtered.

"i'm gonna go let you rest." he nodded, slowly backing away.

"I love you! I'm in love with you. please-please don't leave yet." you practically begged.

eunseok's jaw fell to the floor.

"I don't know how or when I started feeling this way, and I get it if you don't feel the same way but I had to tell you. I'm-"

you were interrupted by eunseok's lips crashing onto yours, and for once you didn't mind the interruption.

"will you be mine, lady y/n?" he asked dramatically, shortly after you two parted from the kiss.

"why yes, my knight in shining armor." you laughed.

#kpop reactions #kpop scenario #riize reaction #riize scenarios #riize imagines #riize x reader #riize fluff #eunseok #song eunseok #anton #riize #sm entertainment #kpop ff

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buckymilf · 2 years

Note

When there's a discussion on whether Steve's ending was good or not, there's one thing that actually bothers me, and it's when people say that it was always meant to happen because it was already planned and the entirety of Steve's arc throughout the movies was purposely made to have that ending regardless. Like, that's just not true.

The creators confirmed a few times that the script for Endgame had a lot of changes and that they had different versions for the movie. I'm pretty sure that the Russos said at one point that in one of these versions Steve died during the battle and was decapitated. Steve dying was an option, and probably one that was going to follow through because it would just be easier and it wouldn't leave the public confused after previously stablishing a good and understandable enough explanation for time travel. It would also save Marvel from now having to explain what happened after Steve came back, the comment in FATWS about people believing that he's on the moon, and having to keep everything vague enough for the possibility of Evans agreeing to come back.

But the evidence of this ending definitely not being planned years before it's the movie itself. If Steve was really meant to end up with Peggy, they wouldn't need to bring her up so many times during the movie, it shouldn't be necessary to explain again and again how much she means to him, that's something that the audience should already know. When there's Civil War discourse people argue about who's right, the political perspective of Tony and Steve, whether Steve should've told Tony about his parents, or if he shouldn't have dragged the other avengers to battle, whatever, but I've never seen people question why he's so intent on defending his views and protecting Bucky from the government, because in CAFTA and CATWS the audience got to see and understand that Steve acts based on what he thinks is right and that Bucky is important to him. It's stablished, and so in Civil War people don't need flashbacks of the 40's or constant reminders to understand Steve's actions.

If Steve talked about his friends that were gone with the snap in the group therapy session, if the compass was replaced for a wrinkled photo of him with Sam and Nat or if he paid attention to SHIELD'S basement when he went to get the capsules and saw traces of Zola's work, and even then, ended up going back to the past, many more people than it did when the movie came out would get really upset about his ending. I mean, one of the main reasons why some people didn't believe the spoilers when they were leaked on Reddit was Steve's ending making no sense. Of course they had to try to make it seem like not getting to be with Peggy was Steve's biggest regret, because what the audience knew about them together was that that she was kind of the first woman that paid attention to him, she kissed him once, then told him that he had to live his life because she already had, and then enter his new love interest. If his ending was meant to be like that and was really planned in advance, we wouldn't need constant reminders of her character and their relationship, and in the previous movies it would've been clear that Steve hadn't moved on and that him being in the 21st century was still his biggest problem.

At the end of the day is media, you can like it or not, but there's no need to try to justify the way that a multimillionaire company fucks up characters' storylines and characterisation.

THIS 👆👆👆 FUCKING THIS 👆👆

you know what i think it's the sickest part? if they wanted us to belive that peggy was the most important thing in Steve's life, enough for him to comeback to the fucking segregation era, that they were always "mean to be" why would they made him kiss her niece???

it's clear that marvel just wanted the most heteronormative ending possible for the character, even if that means ruining his entire arch, beliefs, and ignore the best mcu trilogy aka the Capitan America one.

#Yes I'm STILL salty about endgame and this anon ROCKS!#anti endgame #steve rogers #steve #anti mcu #anti steggy #captain america

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nullcanary · 1 month

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57, 63, 74!!

Thank you for the ask!

57. Do you believe in ghosts?

No, but I used to and have a ton of unexplainable experiences.

63. First concert?

Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown Tour August 2009

So.... I was really REALLY into Green Day when I was younger and I essentially got to see my favorite band for my first concert. This concert fucked so HARD. Genuinely one of the best concerts I've ever been to. They know how to not only read the crowd, but how to interact with them. They got one guy from the crowd up on stage to play guitar for the entirety of Jesus of Suburbia which is like a 9 minute song. I got to shake hands with Billie Joe. Like, talk about impressionable.

74. What is your favorite book?

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Frankenstein contains such beautiful prose.

"I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."

The Monster is such an interesting character and any media that has followed never seems to deliver him the justice he deserves (which may be saying something in and of itself). In many ways, he can be fascinatingly relatable. I also enjoy the notable influence of Paradise Lost and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner that can be felt through out the book. I feel like Shelley really gripped me when I was younger and has personally influenced my taste for gothic horror and dark romanticism.

#thanks for the ask!#nerendus #ask game

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joysmercer · 2 years

Note

the kids successfully perform the ceremony instead of the adults and frobisher wakes up ‘good’

ok first things first, the entirety of 3b just. wouldn't have taken place if this happened haha

backstory: the kid's plans to get the adults out of the way still fail, until there's a legitimate fire alarm at Anubis (eddie may or may not have deliberately burnt a batch of cookies) and they evacuate every building on that side of campus, including the gatehouse. Patricia and alfie grab jerome and joy and force them to circle back as soon as they can without anyone noticing, and they perform the ceremony (harriet appears somehow too idk). jerome and joy are confused but trust their friends more than the teachers so they go along with it. the teachers come back, re-perform the ceremony (incorrectly, but it doesn't matter), and discover RFS awake the next day.

obviously, the adults are overjoyed with robert waking up. Victor (and Sweet, to an extent) immediately demand he help them with the elixir, although Robert doesn't know the formula either.

Victor also gives him a rundown on what happened to sarah/Anubis/the chosen one-osirian drama/etc since he was put to sleep (obviously making himself look g r e a t in the process, lest RFS think any less of him for, y'know, treating his daughter, the chosen one, the society, the descendants, etc like crap.)

sweet then takes some of his $ to set up some kind of education scholarship, maybe help send some of the kids at the school to uni if they couldn't afford it otherwise.

denby is found out immediately because RFS knows she's not the true Keeper. the other two use their connections to that police officer and nurse delia to have caroline arrested and harriet released from the hospital/given the care she deserves to recover from whatever caroline had done to her

after taking like a week to acclimate himself to the 21st century, Robert just…leaves. there’s not really a reason for him to hang around now that his home is an entire school that he has no part in running

He goes to say hi to KT first, though

he takes the opportunity to explain exactly why Charles was sent away and give KT whatever inheritance she's entitled to

but then she realizes that it's all stolen/produced through colonial means and she insists he go back to egypt, return the stuff, and "make things right"

he's a bit reluctant at first but then Patricia bursts into the room out of nowhere like "you made my life a living hell, you know that" and he's so taken aback by this girl who a) looks exactly like his old coworker; and b) is scolding him as if he isn't her elder (kids these days, am I right) that he ignores her in favor of KT just because that seems to be an easier conversation to have

so anyway, he leaves. he's gone. he's absolutely no help in this au

Sweet gives all 4 descendants straight A's because he finally comes to his senses and realizes they deserve it after being re-traumatized for like no good reason, actually

no mystery or anything pops up until the end of term (tor) for the kids. so, meanwhile,

the sibuna members sit joy and jerome down and explains what was going on during the eclipse ceremony. they're horrified, particularly joy—after what that man indirectly did to her, she can't fathom why anyone would want to wake him up.

it's not until fabian explains that it was either them or the teachers, and it had to be the former if they wanted any chance of him not being Evil, that she calms down

she still thinks it was a stupid idea though. "what were you going to do if it failed??? dumbasses"

the revenge plot: starts off the same. however, everyone is now actively involved in the sisterhood, enabling Patricia and KT to immediately put a stop to the fake-dating idea because they realize how ridiculous it is (joy and willow are too close to think rationally about it, which is partially why it went on for as long as it did in the original show). mara has a lot of support and encouragement and moves on in a healthy way.

patricia and eddie: ok so it starts off at a sisterhood meeting soon after the revenge plot is resolved…patricia's basically the only one with tea so they're all teasing her and she reluctantly admits that she misses eddie and has feelings for him yadda yadda.

KT offers to figure out if he feels the same and goes about it in basically the same nonsensical way it happens in the show. she then gives patricia the idea for the fake date but forgets to tell mara about it, so the whole "No!…okay, this is a conversation I can't win" thing at the breakfast table still happens

the fake date is also pretty much the same but afterward, instead of going straight to eddie, patricia chickens out a bit (because she didn't really see his reaction and therefore doesn't know for sure if he likes her still) and the girls are like "r u stupid"

patricia refuses to listen even when joy drags fabian in ("oh, be quiet mara, it's only for a minute") to confirm that eddie is, in fact, still pining. irdc how cliché this but fabian and joy are so fed up of this nonsense that they "accidentally" lock them in a closet or abandoned classroom or something, and that's when they finally make up – *cue bottle episode*

patricia doesn't get paired off with ben during the trust exercise thing because they have a competent business studies teacher who doesn't make up lessons to manipulate her students, but she and ben do end up as partners for a drama lesson and eddie gets heated watching them practice Shakespeare with each other

she goes to Isis dodgeball practices, but not to cut oranges—she knows how important the tourney is to eddie so she goes to take notes on their strategies or whatever, with plans to share it with Anubis. Eddie's behavior ends up pissing her off though so she doesn't

that weird date still happens where he takes a call from his mom and refuses to tell her that it's his mom.

the bits where she clocks him with his arm around KT still exist too

they have a pretty intense argument after the tournament's over and she tells him they need to take a break if he can't trust her and she can't trust him

KT basically knocks him upside the head, he goes and apologizes but also asks exactly what she meant by the fact that she couldn't trust him and then tells her she has nothing to be jealous about etc

after establishing that communication is important and they both have issues but they can work those out together, they're good for all eternity because i say so

eddie and sweet never quite recover their relationship. something about the casual way he was just shipped off to the hospital alone makes eddie mistrustful, and sweet never really forgets how eddie almost ruined the ceremony for them

but honestly? it's okay. he has a family still.

jerome and joy: so obviously the fake dating doesn't happen and honestly joy just avoids him because of the whole cheating thing.

but then mara inherits Letdown, joy offers to wash him, and jerome just happens to walk into the kitchen when that's happening and decides to help. they bond

the play isn't about jara at all but mara still ends up writing it (with fabian, this time) and joy and jerome end up co-directing because their drama teacher is the Epitome of All Evil (aka she drew names out of a hat)

the first kiss happens after eddie and KT, the leads at the time, refuse to rehearse that scene, so they have to do it instead.

“see guys? it means nothing, it's just acting." *cue eddie and kt’s eye rolls*

jerome walks into joys room afterward and asks her out because "we both know that wasn't just acting." she says no.

--sidebar about the play--no one disappears and they all pass drama…eventually. they do have to completely rewrite the script two days before opening though because they wrote in another fabian-as-victor-for-laughs thing and victor found out and was not amused. so they hurriedly hold auditions in the living room and willow demonstrates the life cycle of a tree for hers (because that's too iconic not to exist).

also alfie has way too much time on his hands now that sibuna has nothing to do so he makes a life-size RFS paper mache sculpture, brings it into the house, uses it in his audition for no reason. he has no idea there's an identical one six-feet under the Anubis foundation, though

anywho

joy and jerome spend a lot of time together during the play production and he falls for her. hard.

she does the same but it's super complicated because she's also around fabian a lot, plus the whole mara thing

until mara confesses that fabian's actually really smart and funny and she's never had more fun working on a school assignment in her life

and joy is not only not jealous at all, she's actually relieved to hear that

meanwhile jerome's at his wit's end because he really really likes joy but she keeps having deep and/or flirting conversations with him and then #disappearing. so he goes to trudy for help

he writes her a letter (very similar to the one he did in the show, except without the "you might not truly like me" parts) and gives it to her like two hours after she has that conversation with mara

and they're also happy together forever because I say so

mara/fabian: so mara starts to have feelings for the guy during the writing process but doesn't want to say anything because she's convinced he's still hung up on nina

especially because nina re-establishes contact with all of them right after the eclipse ceremony and The Original Trio has group facetime calls, like, all the time

except one day, nina calls mara instead

"hey, so I got asked to winter formal by someone, and not as friends, and I said yes. I know you and fabian are close…could you help me break the news?"

mara says no only because she thinks this is a private conversation and she's not going to meddle

but when fabian comments "yay! have fun you two!" on the pic nina posts of the asking, mara knows her path is clear

so she asks him if he'd like to grab lunch with her in town the next day.

"like as a date?"

"yeah."

":)"

willow and alfie: mostly the same as in the show except he doesn't miss a date for sibuna matters.

they go on double-dates with peddie for a while until one day they come back covered in paint and slime and trudy makes a rule that they can't go out unsupervised anymore

now that KT isn't worried about her great-grandpa, she has time to get a girlfriend

amber's constantly texting or facetiming someone in the house, so much so that there are times they've forgotten she doesn't actually live on the continent anymore

all the kiddos study/write college apps together every Thursday evening and go into town together every Friday (for grocery shopping/restocking their sweet and alcohol stash). Saturday evenings they make dinner (trudy insisting they have to learn some life skills before uni) and then sneak into the cellar for a midnight feast.

Victor turns a blind eye to that last bit

also they're all terrible liars so mara and willow eventually learn about Sibuna during said midnight feasts

a few weeks before graduation, RFS sends a letter to KT (because he doesn't quite understand email) and lets her know that he saw Sophia milling about when he was at the school and immediately recognized her as Evil. said letter also has the locations of the touchstones, so TOR lasts like 10 minutes in this AU

the osirian still gets sacrificed

overall, though, they're all just happy and content and get a break because god-knows they deserve it.

#asks #thebratzmovie #house of anubis #my writing

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arcticdementor · 2 days

Text

TLDR: I wouldn’t recommend it, except for it’s maybe being amongst the most important films of the Century, and 100% necessary pre-watching if you plan to visit India. NSFW, NSFL, Warnings for everything humanly possible, refused rating, beyond NC-17, contender for scariest/most disturbing film ever made, IRL Infohazard, IRL Lovecraftian Horror, IRL Spiritual danger, might be a crime to view/own/recommend in Europe, probably read the review first.

…

It is said by the wise anons of 4Chan and Twitter that one can never be truly Fascist until they watch the first season of the anime series K-On.

…

Only by immersing oneself in Japanese sentimentality can one see an approximation of what Victorian and Edwardian sentimentality was, and why Fascists were willing to fight so hard against the sudden imposition of Weimar’s Proto-21st-century culture and conditions.

…

In that case then, the “Nature Doc” India: The Worst Country on Earth, also known simply by the Anti-Indian Racial slur Pajeets (Akin to Cunts, Kikes, or Niggers), is a film much more unique than simply being the first AI Feature Film and the first proof of concept that an Amatuer with AI can now compete with Hollywood… or atleast with the BBC and Michael Moore. Made by the mysterious creator known only as “Thames”, It is the immediate opposite and ideological complement of K-On. If the light of K-On’s innocence does not permanently kill your egalitarian universalist values and sense of human brotherhood, convincing you that some people and ways of life are uniquely worth fighting for, then, for the purposes of analogy, Pajeets’ pitch black horror would almost certainly convince you there are certainly some uniquely worth fighting against.

…

It is a testament to the writer’s extraordinarily refined sense of racist 4Chan humor that the film remains as watchable as it, indeed the raw quantity of racist humour and ironic references required to stomach any of these realities is almost certainly why so much of this is vaguely felt but almost entirely unknown and certainly unexpressed in the West. Even then, by the time we reach the title card, precisely at minute 3, I wouldn’t be shocked if a great number of viewers had already turned off the film in sheer physical revulsion. Many who make it that far report turning it off by minute 16. I’ve watched it in its entirety multiple times now. And still I find myself intuitively bracing for cuts and edits… not specific cuts and edits, but in general. Any shot that lasts too long creates a brief window of comfortable familiarity, and resultant nervous anticipation… knowing that safety will end any second. However those who bear through to reach the title and hear the inspired musical choice of Open Your Eyes by Guano Ape soon see the sight of men touching live high-voltage wires, dead bodies floating in the Ganges, dozens of deaths of stupidity, multiple rapes, scatalogical and hygenic horrors straining comprehenision, and even worse things I cannot bring myself to describe.

…

And, oh yes, it is all real. Artificial intelligence has only been used to digitally draw David Attenborough from his aged retirement, and add a few humorous cartoon-ish stills. Thames has assembled presumably hours of viral videos, internet memes, 4chan gross-out clips, liveleak clips, documentary footage, TikTok videos, and news stories to make this film. I recognize many of the clips, stories, and “cultural curiosities” having seen them make the rounds on Twitter and 4Chan to memery and disgust.

…

Thames has just assembled it all into a feature film length package so violently racist it is doubtful the likes of Goebels, Bull Connor, or the racist terrorist factions of Revisionist Ultra-Zionism such as Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira or Moche Orbach, have ever produced its approximation. The humor and conceit of the BBC nature documentary format, as well as his technical and literary mastery of the 2000s-2010s environmentalist polemic, merely serve as the artistic structure for perhaps the most uninterruptedly hateful film ever produced.

…

And this is why I think the film is artistically significant. Setting aside Thames’ Attenboroughian auditory appeal to abhorrence and animosity, as a connoisseur of horror films and shock productions I can't really think of anything so unbroken in its aesthetic hatefulness, its visual vitriol and verisimilitude of valueless violence. The pestilence of it! I’ve never seen such gross gangrenous gutter gore portrayed so unflinchingly and unbrokenly.

…

However aside from the depressing damage to the environment, epidemiology, world cuisine, animal welfare, and the gag reflexes of the poor viewer… the most disturbing part of the documentary is the Sexual violence: against woman, child, man, and beast. I have never seen a documentary with so much real footage of real rape and sexual assault. I’ve seen footage of sexual assaults, one cannot peruse Twitter or 4Chan without the seeing the newest outrages, likewise the presentation of real criminal sexual assaults in documentaries is not unheard of, but on top of everything else you see in the documentary, if the cruel and unhygienic horrors imposed on animals and wallowed in by men did not tempt you to shut off the film, the sexual horrors certainly might.

…

Why make this the first film reviewed on Anarchonomicon if we don’t count Macbeth 2015 and Blackberry (neither of which anyone read). Am I just scoring points in my unending quest to become the great curator of Forbidden Knowledge, to gain clout amongst extremiscists and connoisseur of the callous? Maybe… but I think there’s something more here. The Shocking is necessarily the surprising, and the disturbing is necessarily the confusing.

…

Meanwhile surgeons and anatomists do not find gore disgusting, they might find violence or jump scares difficult… but they’re used to bodies coming apart. Seeing it happen vividly on film doesn’t violate their intuitive subconscious expectations and models of the world the way it does for most people. Likewise veterans of major wars (notably several of Napoleon’s Marshals) have been noted to seemingly ignore gunshots or grievous wounds even to themselves the second they find they’re non-fatal. They’ve seen it countless times before and it’s merely a nuisance for it to have afflicted them as opposed to others. Likewise farmers, butchers, paramedics, and horror fans are often shockingly calm in comparable medical emergencies even when it’s themselves. So if even gunshot wounds and maimed limbs can be ignorable discomforts to those already familiar with their like, in the immediate second and even first person… How is it so much visceral shock, horror, and lasting disturbance can be attained through a screen… depicting archival and documentary footage!

…

This isn’t some great violation of all expectations and norms. When Samara crawls out of the TV Screen at the end of The Ring after an hour and half of built up tension and filmic and narrative tricks to get your mind feeling threatened and expecting a violation of all laws of physics, whilst employing every editing and pacing technique to subtly trick your mind into fleetingly thinking that she’s crawled out of your TV and she’s coming for you! That provokes a lesser reaction in most people.

…

Whereas India: TWCoE has people shutting off the video before the Title and opening song at minute 3. For archival and cellphone footage! Nothing fictional, no jump scares, no ghosts coming out of the TV itself, no tricks or spooky artificial atmosphere. The only filmic conceit: an AI voice changer meant to make the subject matter funnier, more tolerable, more intellectually distant. “It’s disgusting” Do you react to footage of farm animals in manure covered barns this way? What about photos of roadkill or decaying animals carcasses? I see both all the time on long bicycles rides through the country. I showed this to a family member who immediately wanted to turn it off… she regularly watches horror movies of the most disgusting violence, the film Ready or Not which she considered a fun horror/comedy, had a scene in which a woman shot in the hand falls into a “gore pit” of animal carcasses, and must crawl over the decaying flesh using her mangled bleeding hand to escape (it is a genuinely fun/funny movie). Yet she could endure that laughing and wincing, but not this.

…

This has been the state of a country of 1.4 billion, comprising 1 in 6 human beings on earth, for the entirety of your life. Why is this shocking? Why is this surprising? What overwhelmingly massive truth has been purposefully concealed from you, such that this experience is maybe amongst the most violently unpleasant and soulshaking experiences a western can endure without leaving their living room?

…

But whereas most countries and societies are improving… India is one of the few countries in which such metrics are getting worse. Indian height and penis sizes are shrinking, both proxies for nutrition as well as exposure to pollution and parasites. Indian civilization is quite literally “degenerate”, they are physically deteriorating before our very eyes. And while I cannot bring myself to describe the hygenic horrors, one need not watch much of the documentary to more than sufficiently understand why.

…

Egalitarian minded Westerners, even after accepting that IQ stats measure meaningful differences within national and ethnic groups, or who accept many of the tests and proxies for intelligence, protest that if the average IQ was so low as the international scores suggest, then low IQ societies would not be able to function at all, that they’d go about in a violent, horrifying, screaming, shit-covered madness… Such Egalitarian minded westerners react less than happily when you point out that they in fact do so go about.

…

The dark truth is that morality, cleanliness, and almost all ordinary exercises of will and judgement necessary for any human functionality, are all IQ tests. Very simple and easy IQ tests… but ones which billions of people are incapable of. Indeed according to many classical western definitions of “person” the bottom 1-2 billion are not “people”. If you define “man” as the moral or rational animal then these are not men. Many dissident linguists have noted many sub-Saharan languages do not have any functional way to express abstractions and indeed the concept of promises or other moral commitments are alien to the tribes who speak them, or only are expressed through elaborate metaphors taught to them by white missionaries.

…

But Whilst Africa has countless slums equally as horrifying, as of yet the population density is such that the Africans are not universally forced into the urban and sprawling horrors we see in india. Whilst they pollute at comparable rates, one may still see large areas that are tribal, post-tribal, and suitably primitive such that the median African settlement is not sickly and decaying as what is witnessed in India, primevally wild Africans still go in states of relatively noble health, analogous to the beautiful wildlife of Africa, they are not yet past the population density event horizon of becoming the sort of decaying hive societies beset by cults of Nurgle, which we witness in India. Median Height, intelligence and Penis size is not yet shrinking. Indeed the much maligned African Warlord, acting as apex predator, serves to keep various regions and populations thinned to a less than truly horrifying state of health. In India, and as Egyptian and other commentators have noted, in an expanding suite of countries, we see the true nightmare scenario of the modern state just barely existing in an anarcho-tyrannical form able to sustain and regulate the human organism well past the point of degeneration, and able to prevent the wars and violence so desperately needed to restore the slow march of IQ and other markers of genetic and physical fitness.

…

The violent discomfort and horror felt by the Western egalitarian at India: The Worst Country on Earth which is not felt upon viewing Pigs wallowing in manure or seeing roadkill or animals dead in equally bizarre, miserable or stupid manners, The reason we recoil at the sexual horrors of India but feel relatively little for the incest sexual assault and worse that occurs in the animal kingdom… is because the Western Egalitarian is trained to identify with the brown foreigner, in many instances even beyond their identification with their own ethnicity or race. In their religious and now post-religious ecstasies, purity spirals, and consciousness raising, in their more than decade of moral instruction under the priesthood of the public school teachers, and the legacy priesthood of the lamb of God; in their daily prayers and religious contemplations of diverse television, film, and media, the modern westerners are taught the belief in the universal moral merit, intelligence, worthiness, and nobility of man irrespective of race, religion, sexuality, and creed… it is not simply A moral good, but THE moral good. The Axiom upon which all civilization, moral worthiness, and hope of salvation rests. At the moment of death their passing or failing the final judgement of God or “History” depends on how sincerely they earnestly believed, in spite of the constant knawing of evidence, in this universal equality and brotherhood. India: The Worst Country on Earth inflicts violence of a spiritual and metaphysical variety upon the westerner. If only Samara was crawling out of their TV to kill their physical body, they might die cursing a white girl and their salvation would be assured. Instead India: TWCoE attacks their very soul. The Westerner MUST identity with the foreigner. MUST empathize. MUST psychically place themselves in the Indian’s shoes. MUST Imagine themselves one and the same.

…

They MUST empathize, and their gag reflexes must activate and they must feel their skin crawl as if beset by parasites and sexual diseases welcomed in through a million disgusting wallowing practices. They cannot do what Hundreds of millions of high caste indians and upper class third worlders do every day: Stop Empathizing. Stop looking on them as your fellow man, and instead look upon them as revolting stupid bottom feeding animals, akin to diseased racoons or possums…or various mamilians who wallow in their own filth, or seek their missing nutrition in the droppings of more noble creatures such as the bovine. For to stop empathizing, so the western thinks, to stop believing “there is only one race the human race” or “that all men are created equal” would be to abandon all that is good and true and transcendent in this world. Except for the what is obvious to plainly see: it is neither good, nor true, nor transcendent.

…

Of course if one disagrees, and still believes in the universal egalitarian brotherhood… they can just Watch the Movie.

…

In the end I can guarantee you the most offended by this film or this review will be a white westerner. Intelligent and upper-class people from the third world are very aware of the decayed state of their lower-classes and keenly aware of the Caste, ethnic, class, and genealogical differences that separate them from those horrific masses. Amongst the intelligent aristocratic upper-classes of more decayed countries they develop very specific exclusionist identities to describe their separateness from the masses about them (mostly accurately, some are delusional… but none who read this blog). Ironically the people who suffer the most racial panic upon accepting HBD ideas are intelligent mixed race westerners who, in the egalitarian doublespeak of the west, never have anyone to tell them that they actually are exceptional or actually can achieve great things, or actually should feel empowered and confident… as opposed to all the fake empowerment, fake expectations, and fake encouragement we pour upon the 75 IQ illiterate urban criminal classes. One need only speak to people in commonwealth countries to see many of the most opposed to mass immigration are earlier waves of Immigrants who had to pass a higher standard and were of that aristocratic upper class, and now don’t want the people they’ve escaped following them to the west.

…

But the most significant impact of the film, which is already showing a surprisingly viral interest, is going to be on Western political discussions around diversity and Immigration. “This is what we’re importing” as the warning goes. But beyond that the wider politics of disgust, and its relation to conservative, fascist, ethno-exclusionist and other right wing politics is a long established phenomenon. A film this vomitously moving, cannot but become a modern staple of the online right. Like K-On it too immediately sums up the worldview of far-right politics to be ignored I may have been the first to write a review of this film, and I am almost certainly the best. But I will not be the last.

#kulakrevolt #movie review #india: the worst country on earth

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my-separate-sky · 9 months

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This year I discovered lots of good artists and some of the albums which I found are amazing in its entirety. I thought it would be nice to share my findings somewhere so I thought my Tumblr would be nice. So here's my CD's recommendations 🎶

I know there's a lot of Polish artists but some of them are also creating music in English (I'll mention it near the album title). It's also a good idea to check them out if you want to listen to Polish music but prefers to discover smaller artists ^^

Take Me Back To Eden - Sleep Token

This album amazed me on so many levels: it's an outstanding mix of different genres, the lyrics are amazing and the overall aesthetic is interesting. I'm always getting chills while listening the last song on the album. Full of amazing musical surprises. My favourite songs which I think are worth checking out: Take Me Back To Eden, Chokehold, The Summoning, Rain

My 21st Century Blues - Raye.

TW: suicide, body dysmorphia, sexual abuse

I discovered Raye last year, I saw an ad with her song Hard Out Here on Instagram and I instantly fell in love with her music. Waiting for the whole album to come out was totally worth it! It's about her personal life expirences. Most of the songs are really touching and emotional. She's singing out of her heart with pure passion and everything feels truly. Songs worth checking out: Hard Out Here, Ice Cream Man, Oscar Winning Tears, Flip a Switch

Atak - Waluśkraksakryzys

TW: depression, suicidal thoughts, addictions

Well the first album by Polish artist on our list. It's a alternative rock artist which is not afraid to experiment with different genres. The whole album is telling a story about heartbreak and living with a feeling that you don't belong anywhere. It's about feeling empty or sad inside and having depressive thoughts which makes the narrator being afraid to open up to other people who are close to them. Also it's not afraid to talk about sensitive topics like suicidal thoughts or being addicted. Most of the lyrics really moved me personally (when I heard it for the first time I broke down crying for the rest of the evening) and I can feel the sadness and the anger in Waluś voice while he's singing.

Songs worth checking out (all of them are in Polish but you can DM me, I'll be happy to help translate them so you can understand): Najgorsze Rzeczy, Atak, To co między nami, Muszę robić te głupoty, Wszelakie wady

Fantastista - Käärija

After Eurovision I was hungry for more music made by green Cha Cha Cha guy so I checked out this album and it's amazing! Totally different from the song from the contest but it's fun mix between rap, rock and a little bit of punk. A good album to jump and move around to the songs.

Worth checking out: Fantastista, Rock Rock, Mic Mac, Kiertävä sirkus, Hirttää kiinni

Czułe Kontyngenty - Karaś/Rogucki

A chill mix of electronic and alternative rock music They were two completely separate artists: Karaś was playing in electronic band called The Dumplings and Rogucki was a singer in band called Coma and they decided to work together to fuse their styles together. It's a perfect album to listen to in the evening at the end of the day. Lyrics are amazing and I love the overall aesthetic.

Songs worth checking out: Justro spróbujemy jeszcze raz, Bezpieczny lot, Zobacz jak się ładnie pali, Zapasowy tlen, Carmex

Łezki - Ania Leon (she have some of the songs in English!)

I discovered this album by accident but I'm happy that I did. It's hard to give this album a certain genre but I think it's a great mix of chill electronic and sometimes upbeat tunes. Most of the lyrics are about a heartbreak and how much it affected her everyday living. Dancing to sad lyrics - yes give it to me. It's even better listening live, she's amazing singer in person!

Songs worth checking out: Tańcz, Łezki, Paranoid (in English), Duszno, Outro

That was a long one - if you reach the end thank you for reading! Let me know in the comments if you liked some of my recommendations ❤️

#music recommendation #sorry i'm bored

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grandhotelabyss · 11 months

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—Jason Farago, "With Hannah Gadsby’s ‘It’s Pablo-matic,’ the Joke’s on the Brooklyn Museum"

Gadsby's desire to rape Picasso, like the anti-fascist's desire to purify the polis of human pathogens, is another one for the "anti-[X] is [X]" file we've been developing this week. (My fullest reflection on this topic comes in my essay on Thomas Mann's "anti-fascist" classic Mario and the Magician—an ironical novella about how fascists should be slaughtered because, basically, when you think about it, they're Jewish, African, and queer! It made for great reading in the Trump years.) Also compelling is this from Farago:

Most bizarrely, the routine rested on a condemnation of art as an elite swindle, and modernism got it particularly hard. “CUUU-bism,” went Gadsby’s mocking refrain, to reliable audience laughter. (As it is, Picasso’s own Cubist art appears at the Brooklyn Museum through a single 6-by-4.5-inch engraving.) The sarcasm, from a comedian with moderate art historical bona fides, had a purpose: It gave Gadsby’s audience permission to believe that avant-garde painting was actually a big scam. “They’re all cut from the same cloth,” Gadsby told the audience in “Nanette”: “Donald Trump, Pablo Picasso, Harvey Weinstein” — and the art you never liked in the first place could be dismissed as the flimflam of a cabal of evil men.

Not long ago, it would have been embarrassing for adults to admit that they found avant-garde painting too difficult and preferred the comforts of story time. What Gadsby did was give the audience permission — moral permission — to turn their backs on what challenged them, and to ennoble a preference for comfort and kitsch.

Here is a distinctly 21st-century problem crossing the whole political spectrum; here is a problem that has afflicted the entirety of American artistic culture pretty much since the publication of The Corrections the week before 9/11. (Franzen wrote the bestselling novel out of a Gadsby-like hostility to modernist experiment and preference for "story," though he was a good deal more ambivalent about the implications, as his later contretemps with Oprah would prove.)

I've written before about how I wish "the CIA funded modern art" hadn't become such a meme, since it gives philistines of all ideological persuasions a political excuse to dismiss what they don't understand—as if Pollock or Rothko were not discovering actual latent potentials in the form of painting. On the other hand, I live in the 21st century, too, and I judge some extremes of 20th-century avant-gardism to have been dead ends, to have led to machinic wastelands with no human presence.

There are syntheses available here, to us, but none of them involve taking some spuriously politicized pride in our own ignorance. I am somehow better about resolving these crises in my fiction than in my criticism, so I will give you, for free, an excerpt from a late chapter of my novel-in-progress for paid Substack subscribers, Major Arcana:

“I’ve learned a lot, you know. ‘That Diane, what a dumb slut’—I’m sure that’s what you all used to think. Christ, even Ashley thinks that half the time. People are going to think whatever they want. Fuck ’em, that’s what I say. I’ve been painting every single day since Ashley went to college, and I’m starting to learn what the whole thing is about. When Ashley saw that last one”—here Diane del Greco pointed her paintbrush at the canvas to the right of the door, the hot colors in their sea of black—“do you know what she said? She said, ‘Mother, you’ve seen to the end of painting.' It was the first time in her whole life she ever sounded impressed with anything I’ve done. It scared me, to be honest. I’ve seen to the end of painting? Does that mean I should stop? I thought about it, though, and I realized that I could keep painting if I carried the lessons from the end back to the middle. At the end of painting—whatever she meant by that, she really is the strangest girl, Ellen—I stopped wanting to paint a picture of anything. I just wanted to push the paint around, see how the colors looked next to each other. That’s the end, but it’s also the beginning—a little kid smearing food or dirt around with her fingers to see how it feels, see what develops. In the middle, you want to turn it into a picture of something real. I said to myself, what if you try to keep the two feelings together: the feeling where you want to smear the colors around and the feeling where you want to make a picture of what something looks like. You know I didn’t go to college, Ellen, I’m just ‘that dumb slut Diane,’ but I believe this is called romantic realism. Now hold still.”

#hannah gadsby #pablo picasso #jason farago #modernism #avant garde #painting #literature #art criticism #art theory #literary theory

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margarethx · 2 years

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Okay... this might be a controversial opinion, but I find it pretty weird and unrealistic when people write Bucky as if he was this weirdly progressive Gen Z kid who’s entirely up-to-date when it comes to using politically correct terms and phrasing. Like... I don’t want him to just be blatantly offensive and throw some slurs around like it’s nothing. I also don’t want him to do anything bad deliberately or be malicious about it, hiding behind “I was raised like that” excuse. But, from my point of view, it doesn’t make sense for him to be fully understanding of everything that changed since the 1940s... because a lot has changed and he wasn’t given much time to even start processing that.

(It’s even shown in tfatws that he’s not really aware how to behave when the police stops him and Sam in the middle of an argument, so I’m not just making this up about him.)

I kind of wish more people would try to make him at least a little bit... confused. It’s not like being gay was invented in 2007 and many people knew that “racism is bad” long before any huge movements against it started, but living in such bigoted times for the entirety of his youth had to have an effect of him. And I feel like a lot of people who like Bucky are afraid of mentioning this aspect of him, because it would destroy his idealized image. But let’s be real. A man born before women had voting rights in the US would not just wake up in the 21st century and go write essays about the complexities of gender expression.

And I also think that this lack of knowledge would at some point affect his relationship with Sam. Because it’s pretty likely that one day Bucky would just casually use some outdated term that sounds inappropriate for someone more familiar with the current way of speaking. And he might also have some problems with falling in love with another man (let alone a Black one, because Bucky was still stuck in Syberia, or whatever, when the US legalized interracial marriages, so a relationship like this one could never happen in the 1930s for more than one reason).

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As I always clarify: I do not expect casual fanfiction writers to deal with heavy topics and do a ton of research to make everything realistic and serious. If you want to write about two guys who fall in love and nothing (except for their stupidity) stands in the way... go for it! If you don’t feel like a right person to tackle difficult issues like these it’s even better if you wait a little until you’re more skilled to try or if you stick to lighthearted one-shots about fake dating. These are good too. I love them.

(Also, many people like fanfiction, because it can give you this fake reality, where things like internalized homophobia don’t exist and everything is nice. Sometimes you’re just not in the mood to read about social issues in your romance about fictional people. I’m often not.)

I just think it would be pretty interesting to see a version of Bucky that does not constatnly act like a leftist Twitter user, age sixteen, because I highly doubt Hydra gave him regular updates on progressive vocabulary. (I had over two decades to learn about all of that and I still have huge gaps in my knowledge. Meanwhile, Bucky had maybe two years of barely normal life and I don’t think that being politically correct was at the forefront of his mind. Also: it gets more complicated if you speak multiple languages. Vocabulary differs. I’d know – referring to gender and gender-realted issues in English is nothing alike compared to the language I normally use. There are opinions that seem progressive here, but would look obsolete or weird for Americans.)

To be clear... I don’t mean that Sam should be forced to teach him everything, however, if they’re spending so much time together it would make sense for him to sometimes hear what Bucky’s saying and, jokingly or not, be like: “okay, you shouldn’t say that; they’ll kick you out of Delacroix”. I even believe that something like holding hands with Sam in public and being openly affectionate in front of other people could be an issue for a while, because Bucky’d be too nervous (for reasons explained previously) and they’d need to work through that together.

(Seeing Sam’s behaviour towards Bucky in tfatws I’d assume he’d be reasonably understanding and patient about it, but wouldn’t just let him do and say whatever he wants. Mostly to have a healthy relationship with Bucky, but also because both of them are public figures.)

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By the way... I’d also love to see more stories where Sam has some issues with, for instance, accepting his sexuality (there are a few reasons why he would struggle with that, for example: his dad being very religious – which is canon in the comics, him being from the South – which is canon in the MCU, him hiding his relationship with Riley in the military – which is canon in my heart, etc.). Or stories where Sam is a little confused about how the language evolved during the Blip and those two years he spent in hiding... But that’s a topic for another discussion.

#james bucky barnes #bucky barnes #sam wilson #samuel thomas wilson #winter soldier #white wolf #captain america sam wilson #captain america #the falcon #sambucky #sam x bucky #winterfalcon #tfatws #the falcon and the winter soldier #mcu #marvel

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xu-ren · 3 years

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Genshin gods and their connection to demonology and mythology

I’m no expert on demonology nor mythology, simply someone that enjoys both and the connection between them and Genshin Impact. I think that Mihoyo did a splendid job on the choices they made when deciding which demons in The Lesser Key of Solomon to use. Anyways, I hope that you enjoy.

Barbatos

Barbatos in demonology is one of the earls of hell, ruling thirty legions of demons and has four kings as his companions to command his legions. His name seems to derive from Latin 'barbatus', bearded, old man, philosopher. He is the 8th demon in The Lesser Key of Solomon, while Pseudomonarchia Daemonum listed him as the 6th demon.

So far it does not really have anything to do with Genshin, except maybe the fact that Barbatos refers to Morax as old man when his name means old man, so that’s a little ironic.

Barbatos is very known for his command over archery, which is why Barbatos in Genshin uses a bow.

Alright, here is the fun part, Barbatos, unlike some of the other demons in The Lesser Key of Solomon, doesn’t have anything to do with foreign gods. Foreign gods in this case refers to gods not belonging to the Abrahamic religions.

In fact, Barbatos is a fallen angel and was once of the order of the virtues of heaven. This is a delicious piece of irony, given that Barbatos’ godly form greatly resembles an angel.

Barbatos takes upon the name ‘Venti’ as a mortal. The name Venti is most likely Latin instead of Italian. Venti in Latin means wind, and can either refer to the entirety of the four wind gods that serve Aiolos, the Roman Lord of the Winds, whose Greek counterpart is Aeolus or a specific type of wind spirit in Roman mythology, whose Greek counterpart is known as Anemoi Thuellai. The wind spirits are violent storm winds, sons of the monstrous hurricane-giant Typhoeus and were kept locked up in Aiolos’ floating fortress.

The four wind gods that served Aiolos are Aquilo, the north wind, Favonius, the west wind, Notus, the south wind, and Vulturnus, the east wind. Their greek counterparts are Boreas, Zephyrus, Notus and Eurus respectively. I brought this up because of the Knights of Favonius.

Another of the four winds gods appear in Genshin, although this time with a Greek name. Andrius, the Wolf of the North, is also known as Lupus Boreas. Lupus is the Latin term for wolf while Boreas, as stated above, is the Greek god of the north wind. In conclusion, the name Lupus Boreas itself more or less means Wolf of the North.

Morax

Morax in demonology is one of the presidents of hell, ruling thirty legions of demons. His name seems to come from Latin 'morax', that delays, that stops. He is the 21st demon in The Lesser Key of Solomon.

So far, similarly to Barbatos, the only thing that has anything to do with Genshin is his name, mostly because rock is the most likely to be able to endure time.

Morax appears as a great bull with the face of a man, which is interesting in a Chinese context, as Liyue is based on Ancient China. In the Chinese zodiac, an ox has a fixed element, which is earth. The Chinese zodiac sign Ox is disciplined and orderly in his or her thoughts and actions. They are known for the strength of body, mind, and character, and tend to be very conservative. They do well in business, not because of ingenious inventions or clever self-promotion, but by hard work and long hours. Sometimes considered old-fashioned, Chinese Oxen are well-known for their moral fiber. They live by a code that may no longer be popular, but they have a clear sense of what is right and wrong. While others may see them as slow and plodding, inside, they are romantics who want to look at the world as it once was (or at least how they know it was).

This makes the ox a very fitting animal for the Morax we know in Genshin.

Furthermore, another belief for his name is the Egyptian goddess Maat, the goddess of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. This makes it fitting for the Morax in Genshin in my opinion.

Alright, back to demonology, Morax teaches Astronomy and all other liberal sciences, and gives good and wise familiars that know the virtues of all herbs and precious stones. The precious stones part is fitting for the Morax in Genshin but also the fact that Morax in demonology likes to teach, just like the Morax in Genshin.

Morax descends upon Liyue as a dragon. Dragons in East Asian mythology is commonly associated with good luck, propitiousness, power, and nobleness. In ancient times, only emperors were allowed to use a dragon as a symbol. This is probably used to further reaffirm Morax’s position as the highest of the adepti. The colours used in Morax’s dragon form are simple, brown for the earth and gold for the gold that flows in his veins. Even if he did not create Mora, it is typically said that immortals bleed gold, which is commonly known as ichor.

“The Dragon is believed by the Chinese to present power and valiancy, excellence and determination, dignity and divinity. A dragon is believed to have the powers to overcome obstacles to see success. He is spirited, confident, enthusiastic, intelligent and determined.”

As a mortal, Morax takes the name ‘Zhongli’. Chinese names are a bit more difficult to decipher, compared to Latin names since they depend more of the characters used to make up the name as compared to just the sound of the name. Different characters in Chinese could make the exact same sound but mean very different things. Zhongli’s name in Chinese characters is 钟离, the Zhong in his name means clock while the Li in his name means leave. A interpretation of his name would be off the clock, symbolising his retirement.

His name is likely from a figure in Chinese mythology, 锺离权, Zhongli Quan, one of the Baxian, the Eight Immortals of Daoism. Zhongli Quan is also sometimes known as , 汉锺离, Han Zhongli because he is said to have lived during the Han dynasty. In legend, he wields a large fan which can resurrect the dead and transform stones into silver or gold. The Zhong in his name is actually the same Zhong used in Genshin’s Zhong but in traditional Chinese as opposed to the simplified Chinese used in Genshin.

Baal

Baal in demonology is a Duke of Hell, with 66 legions of demons under his command. His name comes from a Canaan and Mesopotamian god, specifically the god of fertility and storms. The Semitic word Baal means lord or master, and the ancient people believed he was in charge of all of nature and humans. He is the 1st demon in The Lesser Key of Solomon.

Baal in Genshin forms herself as a ruler or lord and master of Inazuma. Unlike Barbatos, who is mostly absent or Morax, who descends once a year, Baal seems to be a god that rules with an iron fist, appropriate for someone whose name means lord or master.

Baal in Genshin claims that her ideal is "nearest unto Heaven," calls her body the "noblest and most eminent of all in this world," and sees her reign as eternal which is again, fitting for someone whose name means lord and master.

Baal in demonology is also commonly associated with Satan or at least as his primary assistant. The arrogance shown in Baal in Genshin is therefore fitting, given that Satan was once Lucifer, the most perfect of angels before he rebelled against God and fell to heaven. He too believed that his ideal was the nearest unto Heaven and that his body is the noblest and most eminent of all in this world. Another interesting factor is that Baal in Genshin believes that humans are not deserving of visions, similar to Satan’s reason for his rebellion against God, for he believed that humans did not deserve God’s love or protection.

Baal as a god was believed to be the "giver of life" and mankind was dependent upon him for providing what was necessary to sustain the farms, flocks and herds. Baal was the god of fertility and storms, it is fitting as storms meant lighting and therefore electricity. In Ugaritic and Hebrew, Baal’s epithet as the storm god was He Who Rides on the Clouds.

The question on how a powerful ruling god, similar to Zeus in Greek mythology, became known as a demon is fairly simple.

“According to the Old Testament, after the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, they arrived in the fruitful land of Canaan where the prime deity was Baal. Before they entered the Promised Land, the Hebrew people were warned not to worship the pagan gods of Canaan. However, after wandering in the desert for all that time, they weren’t quite sure that their god was the right choice since the Canaanites were living it up on the fertile soil. Many split their allegiance and decided to worship both their god and Baal.”

Many pagan gods were demonised by the Abrahamic religions as the Abrahamic religions did not allow worship of gods that weren't their God. They called it idolatry and deemed it a sin.

Baal’s primary prophet was Jezebel, if you are not familiar with the Abrahamic religions, she is symbolically associated with false prophets. The original Jezebel instituted the worship of Baal and Asherah on a national scale and violently purged the prophets of Yahweh from Israel. Through the centuries, the name Jezebel came to be associated with false prophets. By the early 20th century, it was also associated with fallen or abandoned women. In Christian lore, a comparison to Jezebel suggested that a person was a pagan or an apostate masquerading as a servant of God. By manipulation and seduction, she misled the saints of God into sins of idolatry and sexual immorality. In particular, Christians associated Jezebel with promiscuity. The cosmetics which Jezebel applied before her death also led some Christians to associate makeup with vice.

Personally, given that the records of Jezebel are mostly from Abrahamic religions, I would advise that it be taken with a spoonful of salt. I mentioned Jezebel because she was said to have violently purged the prophets of Yahweh from Israel, similar to how Baal in Genshin purged the vision holders in Inazuma.

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mysticstronomy · 3 years

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HOW DOES TIME WORK IN SPACE??

Blog#81

Wednesday, April 21st,2021

Welcome back,

We customarily consider time something straightforward and crucial. It streams consistently, free of all the other things, from the past to the future, estimated by clocks and watches. Throughout time, the occasions of the universe succeed each other in a methodical manner: pasts, presents, future. The past is fixed, the future open ... but the entirety of this has ended up being bogus. What we call "time" is a perplexing assortment of constructions, of layers. Under expanding examination, in ever-more prominent profundity, the time has lost layers in a steady progression, piece by piece.

Let’s begin with a simple fact: Time passes faster in the mountains than it does at sea level.

The difference is small, but it can be measured with precision timepieces that you can buy on the internet for a few thousand dollars. With practice, anyone can witness the slowing down of time. With the timepieces of specialized laboratories, researchers can detect this slowing down of time between levels just a few centimeters apart: A clock on the floor runs a little more slowly than one on a table. It is not just the clocks that slow down: Lower down, all processes are slower. Two friends separate, with one of them living in the plains and the other going to live in the mountains. They meet up again years later. The one who has stayed down has lived less, aged less, the mechanism of his cuckoo clock has oscillated fewer times. He has had less time to do things, his plants have grown less, his thoughts have had less time to unfold. Lower down, there is simply less time than at an altitude.

Is this surprising? Perhaps it is. But this is how the world works. Time passes more slowly in some places, more rapidly in others. The surprising thing, perhaps, is that someone understood this slowing down of time a century before we had clocks precise enough to measure it. His name, of course, was Albert Einstein. The ability to understand something before it’s observed is at the heart of scientific thinking. In antiquity, the Greek philosopher Anaximander understood that the sky continues beneath our feet long before ships had circumnavigated the Earth. At the beginning of the modern era, the Polish mathematician and astronomer Copernicus understood the Earth's turns long before astronauts had seen it do so from the moon.

In the course of making such strides, we learn the things that seemed self-evident to us were really no more than prejudices. It seemed obvious the sky was above us and not below; otherwise, the Earth would fall down. It seemed self-evident the Earth did not move; otherwise, it would cause everything to crash. That time passed at the same speed everywhere seemed equally obvious to us. But just as children grow up and discover the world is not as it seemed from within the four walls of their homes, humankind as a whole does the same. What's going on now in a far-off place? Envision, for instance, your sister has gone to Proxima b, the as of late found planet that circles a star around 4 light-years from us. What is your sister doing now on Proxima b?

The lone right answer is that the inquiry has neither rhyme nor reason. It resembles asking, "What is here, in Peking?" when we are in Venice. It has neither rhyme nor reason, since, supposing that I utilize "here" in Venice, I'm alluding to a spot in Venice, not in Peking.

On the off chance that you ask what your sister, who is in the room with you, is doing now, the appropriate response is generally a simple one: You take a gander at her, and you can tell. On the off chance that she's distant, you telephone her and ask what she's doing. Yet, be careful: In the event that you take a gander at your sister, you're accepting light that ventures out from her to your eyes. That light sets aside some effort to contact you — suppose a couple of nanoseconds, a minuscule part of a second. Thusly, you're not exactly seeing what she's doing now yet the thing she was doing a couple of nanoseconds prior.

On the off chance that she's in New York and you telephone her from Liverpool, her voice takes a couple of milliseconds to contact you, so the most you can profess to know is the thing that your sister was up to a couple of milliseconds prior. Not a huge distinction, maybe.

What's the significance here, this "alteration of the design of time"? Definitely, the easing back of time portrayed previously. A mass hinders time around itself. The Earth is a huge mass and hinders time in its area. It does so more in the fields and less in the mountains, on the grounds that the fields are nearer to it. This is the reason the companion who stays adrift level ages all the more gradually.

Subsequently, if things fall, it is because of this easing back of time. Where time passes consistently, in interplanetary space, things don't fall — they drift. Here on the outside of our planet, then again, things fall descending on the grounds that, down there, time is eased back by the Earth.

Thus, despite the fact that we can only with significant effort notice it, the easing back of time by and by has vital impacts: Things fall as a result of it, and it permits us to keep our feet immovably on the ground. In the event that our feet cling to the asphalt, it is on the grounds that our entire body slants normally to where time runs all the more gradually — and time passes more gradually for your feet than it accomplishes for your head.

Does this appear to be unusual? It resembles when watching the sunset, vanishing gradually behind removed mists, we abruptly recollect that it's not the sun that is moving but rather the Earth that is turning. Also, we imagine our whole planet — and ourselves with it — turning in reverse, away from the sun.

CREDIT: "THE ORDER OF TIME" Book by CARLO ROVELLI

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, April 24th,2021)

“A FASTER-THAN-LIGHT WARP DRIVE-POWERED SPACESHIP MAY BE POSSIBLE??"

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theradioghost · 4 years

Note

Do you have any podcast recs that are super easy for those of us with audio processing problems? For me specifically that means one voice (or maybe two if they’re very distinct) and minimal complexity in the soundscaping, though if you have recs that don’t fit those that you think might apply to other people w/ different audio processing issues you can talk about those too! :)

I can certainly try! I feel as though I should put it out there that I often have a difficult time gauging where a podcast sits re: audio processing/HOH listeners; the literal entirety of my day job is being good at telling what people are saying in audio, and my own audio processing problems mostly just result in my near-inability to keep up with actual plays, so if any of these are misjudgements on those terms I apologize in advance.

* means that I know there are also transcripts available for the podcast in question!

SAYER: scifi dark comedy/horror. In a morally questionable tech corporation’s moonbase facilities, advanced artificial intelligence SAYER directs employees about their daily routines; this then turns over time into possibly the best story about AI I’ve ever heard. Especially in the first three seasons, virtually all speaking is done by one voice. (Caveat that a few other characters come in later, and they’re actually all voiced by one guy with different filters, but the filters are pretty distinct and characters tend to identify themselves by default at the beginning of every conversation.)

*The Cryptonaturalist: comforting supernatural folksiness. The titular expert on all things strange and wonderful reads poetry, admires nature, and talks about wonderful creatures like foxes that live within library shelves, stick insects that camouflage themselves as whole trees, salamanders that swim in parking lot asphalt, and Owls.

*The Hidden Almanac: comforting supernatural weirdness. Hagiographer, avid gardener, and Mysterious Dude In Plague Doctor Getup known as Reverend Mord gives tidbits of the history of his strange and fantastical world, along with gardening advice. Sometimes his tequila-swigging accidental necromancer best friend coworker Pastor Drom shows up. Written by fantasy author Ursula Vernon and mostly voiced by her husband Kevin. Extremely relaxing to listen to; the show ended last year but they put out five-minute episodes three times a week for eight years so there’s plenty of it. The first year or so actually doesn’t appear on most podcatchers so maybe check out the website.

Everything Is Alive: poignant, heartfelt interviews with inanimate objects. While there’s a different object featured each episode, it’s mostly just them and the interviewer, plus occasional phone calls with an expert on some subject brought up during the interview. Hits so much harder than you could possibly imagine given the summary. You WILL be upset about a can of off-brand cola.

*Quid Pro Euro: bizarre comedy mockumentary. A satire of the European Union in the style of a set of instructional tapes for EU employees made in the ‘90s, predicting what the EU would look like in the 21st century. Their predictions are somewhat off. Only one voice and delightfully it is Felix Trench. I don’t know anything about the EU but I still think it’s hilarious.

*Glasgow Ghost Stories: spooky supernatural. A resident of Glasgow is unexpectedly able to see the many ghosts that reside in the city -- but the ghosts have started to notice her too, and not all of them are friendly. A beautiful and atmospheric single-voice show; plus the feed also contains the very good miniseries Tracks.

*Palimpsest: poetic and haunting. An anthology series about young women experiencing supernatural happenings, each 10-episode season tells a different story in monologue (I think there are literally two episodes with other voices in them). Poignant, gorgeous, and sometimes heartbreakingly sad in the best way. In season one Anneliese wonders about the strange neighbors at her new apartment. In season two, Ellen takes a new job as companion to a supposed fairy princess imprisoned in a strange showroom in turn of the century America. In season three, former codebreaker Josie begins to see the spirits of the dead on the streets of London during the Blitz.

*Within the Wires: alternate history scifi found footage. From a world where a calamitous global war resulted in the installation of a new Society where nations and family ties are banned, an anthology of voices telling their stories. Each season is a single voice. Season one, a set of relaxation tapes deliver unexpected instructions to a government prisoner in a strange medical facility. In sSeason two, a series of museum exhibit guides spin out the mystery of two artists and their work. In season three, a government employee dictates notes to his secretary and begins to suspect a plot. In season four, the traveling leader of a secretive cultlike commune leaves sermons for her followers, and instructions for her daughter.

*Alice Isn’t Dead: lesbian americana roadtrip weird horror. Keisha’s wife Alice was missing, presumed dead. Now Keisha is a trucker, traveling the vast American emptiness to seek her out; but she’s about to become embroiled in the same vast secret war that may have drawn away her wife, and she’s not alone on the roads. Starts with one voice, adds a new one each season for a total of three. Also is finished.

*Station Blue: psychological horror. Matthew takes a job as the lone caretaker of an Antarctic research station for several months. This goes about as well as you’d predict. Very much a slow burn, strange, brooding horror of isolation. Heavy themes of mental illness based on the creator’s experiences of bipolar disorder.

*Mabel: dark, poetic faerietale horror. Live-in caretaker Anna attempts to contact the absent granddaughter of her elderly employer, the lone resident of a strange and ancient house in Ireland. A love story, a haunted house story, a fairy tale with teeth. This one might be hit or miss; it sometimes tends to the abstract a bit, and there’s more soundscaping and some other occasional voices besides the main two protagonists. Definitely worth trying out, though, this is absolutely an underappreciated gem.

*Janus Descending: tragic scifi horror. Two researchers, Peter and Chell, travel alone to a distant planet to survey the ruins of its extinct civilization. Unfortunately, they discover exactly how that civilization died out. Excellent if you like movies like Alien, and also being extremely sad. Only two voices. Really unique story structure: it’s told via the two protagonists’ logs of the events, but you hear Chell’s logs in order, and Peter’s logs in reverse, with their perspectives alternating. The result is a tragedy where technically you know the ending from the start, but it’s told so cleverly that just what happened and how remains a tantalizing, tense, heartbreaking mystery right until the end.

*I Am In Eskew: poetic, surreal horror. Only two voices and few sound effects. David is a man trapped in the twisting, malevolent city of Eskew, where the rain always falls, streets seem to lead the same way twice, and nothing can be trusted. Riyo is an investigator, making her way through rumors and questions in search of a man long missing and a place that seems not to exist. Maybe my favorite horror media ever? Deeply disturbing and yet even the most awful things are somehow beautiful. Like if Lynch, Escher and Mieville had a terrible, wonderful baby.

*Tides: contemplative hard scifi. When biologist Dr. Eurus is wrecked alone on a distant alien world shaped by deadly tidal forces, her struggle to survive also becomes a meditative exploration of the ecosystem around her, and a recognition that here, she is the alien. Mostly it’s Dr. Eurus; sometimes you hear from her coworkers. It’s got Julia Schifini, what’s not to love?

*Midnight Radio: ghost story/romance. A 1950s radio host who broadcasts a late-night show to her small hometown begins to receive letters from a listener and respond to them on air. I wrote this! It has a total of three voice actors and virtually no soundscaping. I promise it’s good.

#podcast recs #bobbie recommends things #I hope this is useful!!#Anonymous #asks #my posts

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tsuzuruchipalace · 3 years

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the other day i came up with, what i think is, a funny and great idea for an a3! american community college au fic, but i don’t think i have the mental strength to see it through. the last long fic i cared about was started in 2015 and i haven’t touched it since january 2018.

idk i may just write little ideas and scenes and keep them in a compilation, but i’d really like to flesh out the au more. but honestly, this is basically me vicariously living the toxic lifestyle i’ll never have through this au.

The working title is “vlog2/26” and I plan to make it a tsuzuru-centric tsuzuita fic

for reference, this story takes place during the school year of 2018-2019 in a fake little town I called Byles Ridge, Pennsylvania. I based it heavily off the city I live in. It’s a shitty northeastern suburb near Philly with a community college five minutes away from my house. In this au, most of Mankai are Asian-Americans attending or working at Byles Ridge Community College. In my characterization, they all act like typical American gen z kids or millennials, if not slightly exaggerated. My main inspiration was the fic, now book, 006. I also drew inspiration from Community and my real life

here are some of my favorite lines from my outlining:

(fair warning: there is definitely not pg humor in this. if this is going on ao3, it’ll most likely be rated m)

Excerpt from the synopsis: Tsuzuru is like any other emotionally repressed American teenage boy in the 21st century; his hobbies include being single, jerking off, and pretending not to cry when he watches Toy Story 3.

Tsuzuru: “God is Dorothy from Finding Nemo and I’m that little goldfish she shook to death.”

Tsuzuru: “I’m atheist, but everyday I thank god that I wasn’t born British, ‘cause I don’t know how I would’ve handled having to pretend that Mr. Brightside is a good song.”

Tsuzuru: Being friends with Masumi sucks because it means that he’ll refuse to give anyone the aux. I’ll admit, Masumi can have good music taste. He introduced me to a lot of new artists on his “going to Taco Bell” playlist, but when he’s in a pissy mood, he’ll exclusively play XXXTentacion and now I know all the lyrics to Sad! and that’s not the person I want to be.

Masumi: “Sakuya, what the fuck is The Prince of Denmark. I talked up Miss Tachibana about Romeo and Juliet and said I was a big Shakespeare fan, then she started reciting old English.”

Sakuya: “Tsuzuru, are you okay? You look like you’re having another Michael in the Bathroom moment.”

Excerpt from Chikage’s profile: Does Zumba and weed on the weekends.

the entirety of tenma’s profile i’m so proud of this one

Tenma: is a popular football player who is still living off the high of being the Gerber Baby of Lucky Charms in 2003. He’s a first-year theatre major like Sakuya. Thinks he’s Troy from High School Musical. He uses Axe body spray and TikTok thirst traps to hide his increasingly apparent homosexuality and his middle school obsession with One Direction... There are two wolves inside you. One wolf is homophobic. One wolf finds Zayn Malik hot. You are Tenma Sumeragi.

Tenma: “It’s not gay to watch High School Musical bro. HSM is a cultural phenomenon and belongs in the Library of Congress. If you don’t like it, you’re a traitor to America.”

Yuki: “I have more balls than either of you and I’m wearing a Hello Kitty bath towel right now.”

Misumi: “Of course I do weed. I’m autistic, not a loser.”

Excerpt from Kazu’s profile: Has 100k followers on Tiktok for shaking his ass and being a local nuisance. Cried when Vine shut down.

Kazu: “How many times do I need to dance to Doja Cat before I get my clout?”

Excerpt from Taichi’s profile: Considered opening a cat femboy OnlyFans back when he didn’t have enough money to pay for his growing Bakugan collection. Kissed a boy once for a dare and didn’t like it, but still vibes to Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl cuz that shit slaps.

Banri: *after listening to Troye Sivan for the first time* “I hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me.”

Taichi: “Everyone rise for the national anthem: Sk8ter Boi by Avril Lavigne.”

Azami: “I’m gonna go listen to Pierce the Veil and cry until Gerard Way comes back.”

Tsumugi: “At this rate, I’m going to have to find a man on Christian Mingle.”

Excerpt from Tasuku’s profile: Has repressed the idea that he’s in love with Tsumugi ever since they kissed in Christian summer camp when they were 12. Doesn’t remember that, due to the repression. But Tsumugi does.

Excerpt from Homare’s profile: He either dresses like it’s 1940 or like he’s the hero from the children’s show Lazytown. Will start crying if someone brings up the Library of Alexandria

Azuma: “Do I sleep with strangers? Yes. Do I take money from strangers? Yes. Am I a prostitute? No, because those are two separate occasions.”

Guy: “Can you inform me what a Juul is?”

“That’s a fucking Baja Blast in his hand.” “What the shit.” “Itaru Chigasaki orders fucking Baja Blast from Taco Bell. Unbelievable.” “Who doesn’t. Baja Blast fucks.” “I’m snapping this.” “You’ll put that camera down right now before I snap your neck.” “The public deserves to know.” “A man has a right to privacy, especially when it comes to his eating habits.”

And if you’re interested in this au, here’s my playlist for it, subject to change (feel free to suggest songs). Some songs are what I imagine the main characters would listen to and some just fit the vibe of the au:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIjsgyx8Ea22wwH4eO-QlywAiIVWZNcCx

#a3!#sorry for putting this in the main tag i just think i'm way funnier than i am #mod tsuzu writes #sorta??#vlog2/26 #fic

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chaoticdean · 3 years

Note

As another big Green Day fan, I'm curious to know what are your opinions on each Green Day album (studio albums only, not recopilatory, but feel free to add the live ones) and why you like/don't like that album 🖤

OH MY GOD THIS IS SUCH A COOL QUESTION TO GET MARA, THANK YOU! Buckle up ‘cause this will probably, inevitably go long. I’m also gonna use this to catalog each album in order, with dates and shit because a lot of people have actually reached out asking how much material there was before American Idiot got released in ‘04, and my dudes, my peeps, THERE’S A LOT.

#1 — 1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hour (1991)

So this is probably the one I listen to the less to this day, not because I don’t like it but because I discovered most of the tracks on that album through live bootlegs or videos, which in turns made me like the live versions way more than the studio version (Knowledge, looking right at you). That said, this is the epitome of Sweet Children/Green Day, and it’s pretty nice to be able to go back and listen to this album knowing it’s a compilation of their first two maxi albums that came out in ‘89 and ‘90. That being said, I still think it’s criminal not to have Paper Lanterns recorded live on any live album to this day — Billie Joe, imma sue your stupid ass.

#2 — Kerplunk (1992)

THE PRODIGAL SON. Knowing that this is the album that got them to have some form of recognition among the punk community at the time, so much so that Warner was able to get a whim of this Bay Area band, is enough of a tell. There are so many good songs on this album, and you can already sense Billie Joe’s storytelling through some of the songs. I have a very soft spot for 2,000 Light Years Away, even if like most of the older songs I do prefer any live version to the studio version. Like I also said earlier, Green Day were my introduction to a lot of older bands, and I’m pretty sure I discovered the Who by listening to their cover of My Generation on this album. Honorable mention to Tré’s first delight of a song, Dominated Love Slave. Keep slaying, my chaos demon. 💚

#3 — Dookie (1994)

Well, how do you talk about an album that rocked your entire world without turning into a puddle of tears? I discovered Dookie shortly after I bought American Idiot for myself and realized there was more to this band than just this album, and I was blown away. I distinctly remember falling asleep at night with me hear glued to my stereo with the volume on low as to not wake up my parents, and I’d just listen to that album on repeat. I don’t know if it was so much about the music than the lyrics, really. I was about 10 or 11 and hearing Billie singing on Coming Clean felt like a breeze of fresh hair to a little girl that already figured out she wasn’t straight. Dookie holds a lot of good tune but the subject they’re touching are so in touch with society even still today. This is an album that is forever going to hold a very special place in my heart, and I still can get enough of it. It’s actually sitting on my turntable right now.

#4 — Insomniac (1995)

Insomniac is the album I’ll listen to whenever I have a bad day, because it’s so angsty. It’s very different from what Dookie felt like despite being released only a year after. To me it’s also the first album where Billie starts making some sort of bolder statement, especially with a song like Walking Contradiction. Panic Song is also another of those songs that I keep going back to because it’s musically extremely interesting (that bass line! that drums opening! that guitar riff! yes, fucker, gimme more!) and the subject it touches (panic attacks, essentially) is something that I’ve been struggling with. Again, when you’re a young girl struggling with this, it’s comforting hearing your favorite band talk about that same subject. That album is riddled with good songs and it’s a shame that Insomniac still doesn’t get nearly as much credit as it should have.

#5 — Nimrod (1997)

To me, Nimrod is really the first album they started experimenting with a wide variety of different styles. A lot of people (Billie included) would probably argue that Warning had a deeper dive into diversity, but hearing songs like Walking Alone or Last Drive In, god, even King for a Day was not something they would’ve done before. Another solid album that holds one of my major favorite songs, the first song I’ve ever learned on guitar: Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). Billie’s songwriting on that album is a bit different from what we’re used to, he’s diving deep into his personal life and I think it’s probably the rawest we’ve seen him be at that point. Another one of the album that doesn’t get enough recognition (but then again, the next one too).

#6 — Warning (2000)

It’s... I’m not gonna lie, it’s a peculiar album. I love it, but I know it’s an album that’s been dividing fans for two decades. It’s still Green Day exploring, but to a very wider pace than they did on Nimrod, and this is SO GOOD. Misery is a very good example of that, actually. It’s also Billie’s first ‘real’ dive at politics with songs like Minority and Macy’s Day Parade. Hell, even Warning can be held as some sort of statement. I do love that album, but you can also sense that at that point the band is not doing well. We know that now because they’ve talked about it at length, but you can sense in the music that they’re searching for something that they aren’t able to find.

#Comp — International Superhits! (2001)

Not gonna go in great length about this, but the two exclusive songs (Poprocks and Coke, Maria) are some of my favorite b-sides that they’ve ever released.

#Comp — Shenanigans (2002)

This is a peculiar compilation, I don’t really think I’ve ever seen a compilation of b-sides and rarities being put out as a compilation in any of the other bands I’ve been following around for decades, but it’s a nice one.

#7 — American Idiot (2004)

How do you talk about an album that literally changed your life? I’ve talked about it earlier today, but American Idiot was the first album I’ve ever bought for myself, with my own money, and it blew me away. I wasn’t raised in a house where music was prominent. Both my parents aren’t really fans of rock music (I mean, my mom listens to Dire Straits a lot and has a soft spot for Alan Parson but that’s pretty much it), so my taste in music stopped at what the radio gave me. And then Green Day came along, American Idiot started spinning in my room and that was some sort of a revelation for me. This is such a bold album. It got released during the Bush presidency, 3 years after 9-11, and there’s such an intensity to the songs that it’s still an album that you can listen to today and go “it still holds the same meaning”. Without even a shadow of a doubt, this is the best album they’ve put out so far. This is a masterpiece, and it’s no short of a surprise that it went this far in terms of number. Let’s not forget that it also birthed a live album, several gigantic world tour, a European Arena tour, a play that’s been on Broadway for more than a year at the time, and a soundtrack album from the play. This is something that is bigger than just an album. This is my #1 album, all artists included. I don’t think any album can top that one for me, not only because it’s a masterpiece both musically and songwrittingly (i don’t care if that’s not a word), but it holds an extremely personal connexion in my heart.

#Live — Bullet in a Bible (2005)

This was filmed in Milton Keynes (UK) at the end of the European Arena Tour that Green Day did in 2005. I cannot even begin to count the number of time that I’ve watched it. I started a band because of this live album. Just like American Idiot did, this blew me away. It’s a shame they still haven’t put that much more live material out in recent years, because this is a band that is so good live. Anyone would tell you that they’re absolute monsters on stage, even people that aren’t Green Day fans.

#8 — 21st Century Breakdown (2009)

Anyone will tell you that putting out another album after such a strong success as American Idiot would be a sink or swim. This is a swim, and a very good one at that. Politically speaking, I feel like this goes even further than Billie went on American Idiot. This album continues to blow me away even after 12 years, I keep going back for a listen and discovering new layers underneath Billie’s lyrics, and I love it. I have a very soft spot for Last Night on Earth because it’s a song for Adrienne, Billie’s wife, and we hadn’t gotten an Adrienne song in a long while ❤️

#Live — Awesome as Fuck (2011)

I have a love/hate relationship with that live album. I absolutely love the fact that they decided to release some more live material, but I don’t understand what they tried to do with it. By that, I mean that I don’t get why the live footage we get to see has been taped in a different country than the tracks on the album (which are all from different venues and different shows across the world). That being said, it’s still live Green Day and it’s still so damn good.

#9 — Uno! / #10 — Dos! / #11 — Tré! (2012)

I know that I have a pretty different opinion about the trilogy than most of the fans I’ve met so far, but I, for one, absolutely loved it. That being said, the style is different from regular Green Day, closer to garage rock/surfer pop-punk than anything else they’ve put out. It reeks of live recording and club shows, and yeah sure Billie’s songwriting is not at the heights he was on the previous albums, but the songs are so raw and personal that I connected with those three albums instantly. That said, you can sense how deeply depressed and struggling he was at the time by just listening to songs like Lazy Bones or Nightlife. The entirety of Dos! is a statement, it’s a cry for help. So yeah, I’m fairly certain this is some sort of unpopular opinion, but even if the band’s state of mind wasn’t good, these albums are a good spin to me.

#Comp — Demolicious (2014)

If I’m not mistaken, that’s a compilation that was specifically put out for Record Store Day in 2014. Another bold choice for a compilation, and one I love because people often don’t know what demos sound like (and I LOVE IT). I hold that vinyl very tightly in my record collection, it’s a clear pressed vinyl and it’s very good-looking lmao.

#10 — Revolution Radio (2016)

Green Day returns to making bold statements and higher songwriting! This is an album I didn’t really connect with at first because I was going through some really deep shit in my personal life. This was also the first time I was gonna be able to go and see them live, and I ended up missing it, so that’s a forever burn on my calendar lmao. This is a solid album that holds some very good songs (politically, but also personally). I tend to view Still Breathing as an answer to the song Lazy Bones on Dos!, and it’s no coincidence that it was one of the most massive hit on this album. Bang Bang is literally American Idiot’s little sister. I feel like a lot of the songs on this album are answers to earlier songs actually, and I’m just realizing that now by writing it and browsing the tracklist lmao.

#11 — Father of all Motherfuckers (2020)

Until that album was released, I didn’t think Green Day could ever disappoint me. I was... well, I was wrong. I don’t understand what they tried to do with that album, and I’m saying that with love. This is a band that’s used to experimenting with different styles (I mean, just have a listen of Warning or Nimrod), but this... This feels hollow. This feels like they’ve been pressed to put out a record and they just went with the cheapest thing they could. Now, I don’t hate that album, I just don’t see the intent. Some of the songs are good enough, but they aren’t up to the standards of enough Green Day used to give us. I still give it a listen every now and then because I’m one of those people that think some records need to be “tamed” before you really start liking them, and I do like some of the songs (Oh Yeah, Graffitia), but this feels more like Billie Joe having fun recording stuff in his garage than the band being hard at work in the studio with a producer.

Okay, as promised, that got excruciatingly long! I do hope that was entertaining enough though lmao.

#I NEVER EXPECTED TO GET SUCH A COOL ASK BUT HERE WE ARE #inacatastrophicmind #green day #listen........ i told y'all i could go feral for green day #this is me going feral #i can talk about that band for HOURS #my knowledge knows no bounds #though sometimes i'd like to have some bounds

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kaleidescope-writes · 4 years

Text

Heart of Audrilluria- Chapter I; Simplicity

Modern Fairytale AU

Prince!Tom Hiddleston x Theif!Reader

“Tell me again what we’re after?” Y/N asked for the umpteenth time since they arrived at the airport. After being in the airport for seemingly endless hours,Y/N and Amelia were almost to the entrance of the terminal. The airport, as usual, was crowded with people who'd spent an unbearable amount of hours there. Whether it was business, leisure, or family visits, everyone had somewhere to go. Simple people living simple lives. Y/N had almost forgotten what that looked like. Usually, when she traveled, it was to a specific place for a specific target. Today was no different.

This time around, they were boarding a flight to Blythenon, an Isle directly in the center of the North Sea. It’s only about 5,512mi sq.(about the size of Puerto Rico) and despite its relatively close distance to the United Kingdom, Norway, and Germany, it has its own government. The island has a population of about 3.254 million and is home to the Kingdom of Audrilluria. Even in the 21st century, people still ruled as kings and queens.

The benefit to this, in Y/N's eyes, is that instead of having to charm a rich man and take his money after a few distasteful dates, she had a specific target that required little to no up-close interaction with the Kingdom's nobility.

"We are after a necklace called the Heart of Audrilluria." Amelie reminded her with a snarky tone. "It's the crown jewel most valuable to the country. The necklace itself is worth more than $900 billion. There is a replica worth only half, but it's still substantial. The target is the authentic necklace, but if we can get our hands on the replica, it would be hard to tell it apart from the original." Y/N nodded, the wheels in her head turning. She already began to develop a plan to get to their target without creating suspicion to the presence of the supposed daughters of the Spanish Marquess.

"What's your plan?" Amelie asked, knowing the look on her sister's face all too well. "I'm working on it. So far, it's the same as always; find someone close enough to the target, form the false-bond, and wait for the perfect moment." Y/N replied, a hint of a smirk graced her features.

"Ah yes," Amelie teased, "The ol' reliable false-bond." She giggled, earning a playful glare from Y/N. "Hey," she retorted, "How many times has the false-bond made a job quick? How many times were other methods we've tried failed?" Amelie laughed once more. Every time they fight, the reliability of the false-bond somehow makes its way into the conversation.

"Ok, ok! Just don't let the false-bond plan keep you from boarding the plane," Amelie snorts as she walks past her sister to the entrance of the terminal.

Y/N sighs and starts to follow Amelie. This is the first time the target was worth more than a few million. This was a high-risk job that required more than just a false-bond approach. If any little thing were to go wrong, they were screwed for sure. If they failed, being permanently incarcerated in a foreign country was the very least of her worries. They had a lot more to lose than their own lives. The entirety of the flight would be spent devising plan A through Z and an "In case of Emergency" per plan.

This was going to be a long flight.

_________________

Prince Thomas William Hiddleston of Audrilluria, soon to be king. This single thought circled his mind endlessly as he looked at himself in the mirror. Dressed to the nines in his royal white and gold garments, he prepared himself, more mentally than physically, for the upcoming onslaught of questions from the press. This is something he should be used to, but there is more pressure on him now that his father, King James, is bestowing the throne to him.

It's not so say he was unprepared for the upcoming coronation. His father taught him all he needed to know. He simply felt that there were certain things he wouldn't experience. Amongst those were working an honest job, learning from personal mistakes, and truly falling in love. After he is crowned, there would be a high expectancy for him to find a queen. It would be rushed and not feel genuine.

Thomas sighed, looking away from the mirror to the window beside it. He was conflicted between the acceptance of responsibility that comes with the throne and longing for some sort of normalcy. Maybe it just wasn't for everyone.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. He turned to find that the person that interrupted him was none other than his beloved cousin, Charles.

"Am I catching you at a bad time," Charles asked making his way into the room. Thomas shook his head, "Not at all cousin. You know you are always welcome." Charles gives him a puzzled look, "Are you sure? Brooding while looking over your kingdom seems like something to be done in privacy. Are you practicing for when you become king?"

Thomas chuckled, shaking his head slightly. He walked up to his cousin and fixed the slightly messy tie from Charles's suit. "Is there a reason you're here, or are you simply making sure I haven't run away before I address the people?"

Charles smirks, "Actually yes, I'm making sure you don't run away to that life you dream of so fondly." He knew all too well that Thomas dreamed of the simple life he would never get the chance to experience on his own."I'm also here to inform you that we need to start making our way to the meeting room. You wouldn't want to make the press wait too long and begin to spread rumors!" Charles walked out of the room as suddenly as he came in, leaving Thomas alone once more.

"The rumors would be the very least of my worries today," Thomas said to the empty space his cousin once occupied. It was true that he wouldn't experience simplicity with his lifestyle. It's so odd how something so trivial could be seen as a luxury to him. He'd been in the spotlight all his life, so why was this just now bothering him?

Thomas shook his head, it was best he didn't think about such things now. He had to give his royal address regarding the next two weeks. He could think about that after the press. After all, two weeks was enough time to come to terms with his future arrangement as king. The next two weeks would be his final goodbye to the life he longed for since childhood.

For now, he had to put on a show for the media. They've waited long enough, he thought to himself as he finished the final touches on his garments before heading out the door. Let the show begin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: First Chapter done!! Let me know what you think!! Chapter 2 will be posted sometime next week!

Taglist is Open!

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Why Turner Classic Movies is Reframing Problematic Hollywood Favorites

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Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a movie Alicia Malone fell head over heels in love with during childhood. Seeing it more times than she can remember in her native Australia, the future author and Turner Classic Movies host still recalls failed attempts to launch a high school film club with Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly as the star attraction.

“I thought for sure people were going to get excited about classic movies if they watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s because it has so much life to it!” Malone says today. How could they not fall for Hepburn’s iconic performance, which Malone still describes as luminous? “Holly Golightly is a complex female character, and for the times it was quite sexually progressive.” Yet there was always another element, even in those halcyon days, which Malone recognized as uncomfortable—that discomfort has only grown to modern eyes.

Beyond the movie’s bittersweet romance between a pseudo-call girl and the kept man living in the apartment upstairs, there’s a grossly racist caricature of Japanese Americans in the movie’s margins, and it’s portrayed no less than by Mickey Rooney in yellowface makeup. It’s technically a small part of the movie, only appearing briefly and sporadically, but each time the character arrives, it’s like a sledgehammer swung across the screen. For decades the performance has been rightly criticized by Asian American advocacy groups, and even Rooney acknowledged late in life that if he knew people would become offended, he “wouldn’t have done it.” Nevertheless, the shadow that character casts over the movie has only loomed larger with time.

“I just kind of hold my breath and half shut my eyes every time Mickey Rooney shows up,” fellow TCM host Dave Karger says during a Zoom conversation with Malone and myself. “Mercifully, he’s gone pretty soon, and I’ve chosen actively not to let that performance ruin the movie for me, because ‘Moon River’ and the party scene, and George Peppard looking so great—there’s just so much to love and appreciate, so I actively choose to focus on that.”

Despite those personal struggles with the movie, Karger and Malone are both unafraid to examine the full implications of Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi head-on. It’s why they hosted, alongside Ben Mankiewicz, a lengthy discussion of the character’s legacy last week during a special Turner Classic Movies presentation. That conversation was part of TCM’s Reframed series, a new season of content from the network which looks at some of the most beloved Hollywood classics of the 20th century—the crème de la crème, as Karger describes them—and studies why they can also be problematic and, in some cases, stunningly offensive. In the case of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, that can even lead to larger discussions about prevailing anti-Japanese attitudes and stereotypes in American society that persisted in the immediate decades after World War II… and can still be found as echoes in the anti-Asian stereotypes of today.

For Karger and Malone, these are the types of discussions TCM hosts have been having off-screen for years. So bringing those dimensions to the forefront for new generations of viewers felt only natural with Reframed.

Says Malone, “We often talk to each other about how we approach certain films when it comes to writing our scripts for our intros and outros for each individual film. We also talk with the producers about what we should bring up, what we shouldn’t bring up; if we should talk about an actor or director’s problematic past during that particular film, or if it doesn’t go with the content of the movie.”

So the five main hosts of TCM–who also include University of Chicago Professor Jacqueline Stewart and author Eddie Muller–were eager to have these frank discussions on screen while offering historical context from a modern perspective.

“All of us at TCM are watching the world change and watching the culture change,” Karger says, “and even though we show movies by and large from the period of the ‘30s to the ‘60s, we all realized that it doesn’t mean we can’t be part of today’s cultural conversation. It’s not a stretch at all to talk about classic movies from a point-of-view of the 21st century; that’s very possible to do, and I think a lot of our fans are looking for that kind of context when they watch the channel.”

The Reframed series, which was spearheaded in part by Charlie Tabesh, the TCM head of programming, and organized by producer Courtney O’Brien, looks to balance what Karger describes as the push and pull between nostalgia and criticism. Both Malone and Karger are acutely aware of the hesitance some classic movie fans might have about evaluating works from nearly a century ago through a 21st century prism, however the new program is intended to renew engagement with these movies—particularly in an era when there are just as many loud voices that attempt to dismiss or wipe away the legacies of these film’s from the cultural canon.

“That’s really important to remind everyone that this series is not here to shame these movies or to tell anyone that they can’t love these movies,” Karger says. “And if there’s a frustration that I’ve had in this last month, it’s to see some of the reaction to this series be along the lines of ‘you’re part of cancel culture with this series.’ It could not be more the opposite of that. We’re not cancelling anything; we’re showing the films a hundred percent in their entirety, we’re just talking about them.”

Malone further emphasizes this is what can keep so many of these movies vital in an era when sequences like the aforementioned Rooney scenes in Breakfast at Tiffany’s are being deleted from a Sacramento film festival—effectively erased from the collective memory.

“I think everyone at TCM sees this as the way forward,” Malone says, “the way that we can continue to make sure these movies stay alive for younger generations. We can continue talking about them, discussing them, they can change over the years, our feelings can change about them; you can love a film and not be able to justify parts of it at the same time. What’s so important though is just to have the discussion, to talk about these problematic areas and face up to them rather than hiding them. To me, if you take out a film from existence or you just delete parts of a film, you’re in a way saying these problems never existed.”

Indeed, even the opinions of folks as steeped in this history as the hosts of Turner Classic Movies can evolve as the culture does. Ben Mankiewicz, for example, is TCM’s unofficial statesman but he surprised some viewers two weeks ago when he revealed during a Reframed discussion that he can no longer comfortably watch Gunga Din (1939), a rollicking adventure movie set in British India. Based on a Rudyard Kipling poem, that classic film’s influences can still be felt in more modern blockbusters like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). However, Gunga Din is also a movie that glorifies the British Empire at the expense of then-contemporary Indian independence movement, with the villain being a character who Mankiewicz noted is physically modeled after Mahatma Gandhi, who would’ve been seen as subversive by some white audiences in the ‘30s.

“I’ve never been a huge fan of that movie, even though Cary Grant is my favorite actor,” Karger says. “And I was even a little surprised when Ben and Brad Bird included it on [the TCM program] The Essentials last year. Not because it’s not a revered classic movie, but because it’s more than a little offensive. And it was fascinating to be part of that conversation with Ben, talking about the evolution of his feelings for Gunga Din, because he’s been with the network 15 years. I can’t imagine how many times he’s talked about that movie, and it’s just showing you that culture and history are living, breathing things.”

Opinions change. Malone had a similar experience when she joined Mankiewicz and Muller to discuss John Ford’s seminal Western, The Searchers (1956), a movie where the director began reckoning with his depiction of Native Americans on screen. The film is a touchstone to this day for filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and George Lucas. Mankiewicz and Muller note that Ford is grappling with the racism of his earlier films via John Wayne’s lead character, an unrepentant bigot who becomes both the movie’s protagonist and antagonist. However, the film still bathes Wayne’s character in heroic imagery, and still relies on Native American stereotypes.

“Watching The Searchers again with the lens of talking about it during Reframed, I just saw so much,” Malone says. “I know John Ford was trying to have a conversation about racism involving Native Americans, but there’s just no doubt that many of his films contributed to the very dangerous and horrific stereotypes based around Native American people. And I think Native American people have suffered greatly because of the way they’ve been stereotyped in Hollywood films.”

That subject of intent comes up quite a bit during the Reframed series; Karger describes the movies they discuss as running the gamut from mildly problematic to extremely offensive, yet that ambiguity should invite education about the times they were made in, as opposed to preventing audiences from knowing about those eras.

Says Malone, “I think [Reframed] does show an attempted evolution on the parts of the filmmakers, and that’s interesting. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Searchers, and My Fair Lady are trying to comment on a particular issue. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers comments on the sexism of the brothers in the film; My Fair Lady comments on the misogyny of Henry Higgins; and The Searchers comments on racism. But at the same time, they are also sexist, misogynistic, and racist.” She ultimately concludes movies can be both progressive and not progressive because of the times they’re made in.

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My Fair Lady (1964) will be the centerpiece of TCM’s final night of Reframed programming this Thursday. A lavish big screen adaptation of Lerner and Loewe’s Broadway musical, which itself was an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play, Pygmalion, it deals with the story of cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) being remade into Professor Henry Higgins’ (Rex Harrison) ideal woman through diction lessons. And the fact the musical, written in the 1950s, changed the more transgressive ending of the original play where Eliza leaves Higgins behind, will invariably come up on Reframed.

“Some people would look at that and say, ‘My Fair Lady? What could be the problem with that? It’s a very strong female character who stands up for herself and has so much agency and power in the movie,’” Karger admits. “But then when you really look at specific scenes, particularly the end of the movie, which is what I think we talked about a lot, there are certain things that just kind of make the movie, for me at least, have the tiniest bit of a sour note.”

The question of whether My Fair Lady is a sexist movie or rather a movie about sexism became the heart of its Reframed discussion.

Adds Malone, “We also talk about the fact that that ending has been changed by some stage productions. That is happening now, and we also talk about the idea of the makeover movie. I think the Pygmalion myth is something that’s fairly sexist and outdated when you look at it, but there’s also so much to love about My Fair Lady.”

The opportunity of having these discussions has been a gift for Karger and Malone. They both stress they don’t have the answers to all the questions they raise, and that even with added time for the outros on Reframed, there is no way to cover everything that needs to be said about a film in a handful of minutes.

“I thought about multiple things I wish I said or I forgot to say, or just didn’t have time to say,” Malone says. However, she hopes the series gives viewers the tools to begin engaging more seriously with these films and embrace a greater curiosity about the past. On tonight’s line-up alone, Malone and Karger will both get to engage in discussions of films they lobbied to have included in the Reframed series.

“I had just a brief conversation with Charlie [Tabesh] about including something around the idea of gender identity, or the transgender community, because I wanted to delve into that,” Malone says. “And of course from there, it becomes what do we have the rights to? What’s in license, what can we show? So there are certain limitations on the types of films we can show in the series.” The film they ended up agreeing on is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

“I love the fact that it is one of the classic movies that everyone should watch, a horror classic,” Malone adds.

Karger by contrast will be discussing another Audrey Hepburn movie, this one dealing with Hollywood’s history of depicting LGBTQ characters on screen.

Says Karger, “I will never forget watching the documentary The Celluloid Closet in the mid-1990s when it was released, and that was one of the seminal moments for me, as far as looking at film critically. This was a history of LGBT characters in film history over the years, and one thing you learn when you watch a documentary like that, there was this trope in films where if there was a character who was gay, that character would not live to survive at the end of the movie. That character would either be murdered, have some kind of horrible accident, or end his or her own life.”

He continues, “So you think of The Children’s Hour in the early 1960s and at first you think, ‘Oh this is something to applaud. Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn playing two women who may or may not be lesbians. Wow! This is a great thing to bring attention to.’ And then you realize they couldn’t even use the word lesbian in the movie… then the character who ends up being gay also ends up being dead by the end of the movie, and I just think it’s this unfortunate trope that tells people, consciously or not, that you can’t be gay and you can’t be alive in society… It’s a shame, because it came so close to getting it right but you realize it didn’t have the opportunity to get it right in 1961. It couldn’t with all the restrictions in the film industry and society in general.”

It will be the last night that TCM dives so directly into the murkier waters of some of Hollywood’s legacy, although both hosts hope for a second season of Reframed. Karger, who admits he shouldn’t spend so much time on social media, has seen the predictable social media reactions of “you’re ruining these movies” by talking about these elements. But he’s also been heartened by responses from fans who wished TCM provided Reframed discussions on movies that aired later in the evening, like Stagecoach (1939) or Tarzan, The Ape Man (1932). Karger says if he has it his way, they’ll include all those movies in a second season of Reframed.

Meanwhile Malone would really like to continue a thread begun with the screening of the Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy classic, Woman of the Year (1942), from several weeks ago.

“I love having discussions for films where we talk about the representation of female characters,” Malone says. “That’s something I’ve done a lot of work on, so that’s something I’d like to continue—to talk about the way women have been portrayed in films throughout Hollywood history, and we could talk about that in terms of their beauty and how that was seen to be the most valuable quality a woman could have, or the way they could search for love. I love all the women’s pictures that forces the woman at the end to give up everything for love, but for most of the movie she is a fantastically independent woman.”

Other examples of this trope she cites are His Girl Friday (1940), and nearly every movie Katharine Hepburn made after The Philadelphia Story (1940).

Karger conversely would be interested in revisiting movies with extreme age differences between couples.

“I’d love to look at films like Gigi or Love in the Afternoon,” the host says, “because I think there are some people who have issues with the much older man and much younger woman pairing. And I think I’d love to hear what my fellow TCM hosts have to say about that, because you never see it in the opposite direction.” In fact, based on just this one comment, Malone began thinking aloud about all the ageist movies spawned by Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), a camp horror classic that kicked off what Malone describes as “hagsploitation.”

When it comes to revisiting (and reframing) Hollywood classics, the options for learning more are limitless. Not that the lessons should be intimidating.

“I think it’s quite exciting the way things change,” Malone says. “Society changes so quickly, and you learn more and have different opinions, [including] on films. I love being more educated and finding out more of my own blind spots and trying to fix them.”

Reframed continues that search on Thursday March, 25, beginning with My Fair Lady at 8pm EST.

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