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joanxwagner · 6 months

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THE HIEROPHANT

When the Hierophant tarot card is upright in a reading, it represents a necessity to follow existing conventions, rules, or a well-established procedure. It advises you to maintain conventional boundaries that are considered a standard method. Rather than being inventive and breaking norms, you will be familiarized with certain traditions, beliefs, and systems that have existed for a long time.

STATISTICS

FULL NAME : Joanna Victoire Wagner ALIAS : Joan AGE : 36 DATE OF BIRTH : February 12th, 1987 RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Widowed, Married to Lukas Ricci HOMETOWN : Kismet Harbor, OR, USA TIME IN KISMET HARBOR : All her life RESIDENCE : Cresthill Meadows FACECLAIM : Katie McGrath trigger warning: death, neglect

EDUCATION : Business and management degree at Kismet Harbor University OCCUPATION : Co-Owner of The Home Genies GENDER : Cis-Female PRONOUNS : She/Her SEXUALITY : Bisexual HAIR COLOUR : Brown/Black EYE COLOUR : Blue and Green HEIGHT : 5'5" /165 cm BUILD : Slim ACCENT : American LANGUAGES : English, French, Korean. TATTOOS : hand prints of both their children taken at birth on her ribcage. SCENT: J'Adore Dior ZODIAC : Aquarius LOVE LANGUAGE : Physical touch and Quality time. CLOTHING: Classy, Business Chique HAIR STYLE: ( x )

CONDITIONS : Heterochromia ALLERGIES : Gelatin EATING HABITS : Vegetarian EXERCISE HABITS : Works out at her home gym 2-3 times a week SLEEPING HABITS : Adjusted to her children's schedules. ADDICTIONS : None DRUG USE : None ALCOHOL USE : Occasionally

POSITIVE TRAITS : Nurturing, Giving, Trustworthy NEGATIVE TRAITS : Jealous, Resentful, Stubborn PHOBIAS : fear of heights FEARS : Harm coming to her children. Losing her brother. HOBBIES : arts and crafts with/for the children, decorating, horse-riding, reading, volunteering. HABITS : chews gum, doodles on paper, online shopping when bored. USUAL DEMEANOUR :Calm.

FATHER : Nick Wagner MOTHER : Naomi Wagner † SIBLINGS : Johnny Wagner PARTNERS : Jae Kim † (2013-2021), Lukas Ricci (2023 - present) CHILDREN : Henri Kim (2016), Lynn Kim (2019), Ariana Ricci (2022) PETS : A Main Coon called Felix

BIOGRAPHY

Joanna was born to Nick Wagner and Naomi Wilson, a union that shook the foundation of Kismet Harbor. Not even having graduated high school, the pair had welcomed their bundle of joy into their love nest, ready to take on the world together. Growing up, Joanna seemingly had everything one could ever need. Doting parents, loving grandparents, a brother when she was two years old and everything she ever needed to grow up into a strong and confident woman. One rarely remembers anything from their early life years, so Joanna wouldn't be able to think back of memories where they traveled with her father to wherever his rising career took him. Being on the road together, standing on the sidelines cheering for daddy.

No Joanna's memories went back as far as her resentment started. She would come home to her mother and brother only, seeing her grandparents often. Whenever her father was home, things would be good, things would be great. Yet the older Joanna got, the more she started to miss her father. Started to resent what he was doing for a living and hoped over and over that one day he would choose her. That he would choose her brother and come home, be there when she would come home from school, eat slices of apple together, help her with her homework, play on the swings in the park.

Her prayers were answered when she was at the tender age of thirteen, but Joanna was far from happy. She had hoped that with his retirement, Nick Wagner would put all of his time into her and her little brother. Instead, a year prior to his retirement, close to her birthday, the two siblings were sat down and were told that they were going to welcome another addition to the family. Joanna had been confused in that moment. Were they talking a dog? A cat? A horse even? Her mother wasn't pregnant, and she knew how babies worked. She hadn't met someone who shared with her the story of how they had been adopted into a family, and so when Nick and Naomi explained they had adopted a babygirl, Joanna was less than thrilled. She hated the idea. Why adopt a baby when they had them? It was something the parents had hoped she would grow out of. That it was just a moment of confusion and surprise that took the upper hand, being presented with an unknown and not knowing how to respond.

That never happened. Instead, Joanna found herself frustrated with the fact she had to share her father's newfound time with a small being she felt no connection to. Her playtime with her father was cut short by an infant's wailing. Her shopping time with her mother also included her little sister and her dolls had to be shared as well. Anyone who knew Joanna , at any single point in her life, knew that she could hold a grudge and she would keep it close to her chest. She never gave the girl a chance, never accepted her in her life and focused solely on Johnny, making sure he was loved and that he got the attention he deserved. Meanwhile, Joanna decided to get the spotlight in a different way. Joanna always had her wits about her. Managed to learn things very quickly and expand her knowledge. It was to no one's surprise that the girl skipped grades like she skipped on the sidewalk of her parental home, graduating at the young age of sixteen.

She studied at Kismet Harbor university, knowing that that was an important milestone for her maternal grandparents and Miranda would be damned if she didn't live up to them. So she graduated with not one, but two degrees, hoping that that too would give her the undivided attention she so yearned for. Of course it was selfish of her to assume that a dinner or anything to celebrate with the four of them was something that would happen. It was unrealistic to assume that Nick and Naomi would exclude one of their children, yet Joanna was upset by the notion it would be all of them. So she passed, deciding for herself that she was done hoping, done expecting. So she moved away from Kismet Harbor, closer to her brother in North Charleston in North Carolina, a few miles away from the base he was stationed at. Here she was going to start a new chapter, one she was going to grow without the roots of her family tree clinging to the pages. Where she could focus on herself and herself alone.

Her career was a whirlwind, she was a young woman at the age of 21 with two degrees in her pocket who knew what she wanted and how to get it. Her ambition caused her to climb the corporate ladder, taking her colleagues by surprise. She was one of the youngest COO's, a female at that, to be portrayed in Forbes magazine, an article that focused on the success of her academic and career path rather than her personal life. She enjoyed the perks that her job brought, sending her to multiple countries each month for business meetings, sponsordeals and anything else that Wincorp Global was involved with.

It was in 2010, when Joanna traveled all the way to Johannesburg with her company, visiting the World Championship of soccer when she met Jae Kim, a soccer player for the U.S.A. soccer team. She found herself enjoying the attention he gave her, even more so when his team didn't make it to the Quarter finals, giving the two of them more time to bond. One could say that Joanna was used to having someone away from home, even though she would passionately deny it to anyone bringing it up. While she was working in North Carolina, Jae was in Europe, playing for the high leagues, coming home to her whenever he could. She was happy when he was around, focusing on her work whenever he wasn't. She even rose to becoming CEO of Wincorp Global after a scandal surrounding her predecessor forced him to step down.

Life seemed a little more perfect when Jae proposed to her, getting down on his knees during a romantic private rooftop dinner date. The two tied the knot in a romantic Honolulu wedding, grand and lavish as was expected from a global corporate CEO and a well known soccer player. The two had often talked family before they got married and they knew that they wanted to grow their family as soon as they were able. Joanna made the decision to step down from her demanding job, instead wanting to focus on her family, rather than being occupied with work from six in the morning til ten in the evening. Jae convinced Joanna to move back to Kismet Harbor, settle down and rekindle her relationship with her father.

Taking her place in the Wilson dynasty, she took up a managing job at the Wilson, coming to find that event planning was like second nature to her. She had well time to settle into the position before she finally got pregnant. Henri was born on March 10th, 2016, a spitting image of his handsome father. The couple made it work, with Jae being home more often than not. They tried for a second child, with Lynn being born on June 6th, 2019. Soon they decided to try for a third figuring they would have all the time in the world, what could possibly go wrong?

2021. A year that Joanna refuses to speak of. It was a day of excitement, standing on the sidelines of a soccer match, cheering her husband on, her son on her hip when her husband fell down. Except he wasn't getting up. Looking back at the footage, she was hysterical, being comforted by one of Jae's teammates while they tried to resuscitate him. A week later, she spoke at his funeral. The house felt empty after that, so much so she spent more time with her little brother or at her parents, making sure Henri wouldn't notice the sadness in the air. It hit her out of nowhere. Her mother was hospitalised, and within the next day, she was gone. An illness that had been kept from the Wagner children for years. Joanna had missed her signs, hadn't looked while she dealt with her grief. Losing two of the people she held most dear in her life took a toll on her, and she lashed out. Her bitterness and rage towards her father from her inner child came to the surface and lashed out towards him, blaming him for her mother. After burying her mother, she had cast her father out from her life and that of her children, not looking back.

Joanna focused on Henri and Lynn, making sure she was home whenever she could, working from her home office and bringing him to the Wilson if possible. Leaving him with her brother or a close friend whenever it wasn't. Unexpectedly, she found comfort with one of Jae's teammates: Lukas. The one who had comforted her on that dreadful day. She hadn't meant for it to happen, hadn't intended for it to, but before she knew it she found herself falling for the man, caught in a whirlwind and allowing herself to rest easy whenever he was near. It took both of them by surprise that she ended up pregnant within the first year of them being a couple, and while she had understood if he would have left her by herself, she found herself with a ring around her finger instead, the prospect of a marriage in the spring of 2023.

Joanna gave birth to a baby girl just before 2022 came to a close, marrying her Lukas in April 2023 in a small and private wedding at the Wilson. She loves her job, growing well into her function and beyond, yet her family will always be her priority. Doting on her son and daughters every moment she has available for them. She misses Jae every day, and she counts herself lucky that Lukas held him as dear as she did, sharing her grief for Jae and her love for each other at the same time.

TIMELINE

1987 - Joanna is born February 12. 1989 - Johnny is born July 5 1992 - Joanna starts school. 1999 - Nick and Naomi adopt Neena. 2000 - Nick retires. 2003- Joanna graduates early (aged 16) and enlists into Heywood University 2006 - Joanna graduates for her management bachelors degree 2008 - Joanna graduates for her business masters degree 2008 - Joanna moves to North Charleston, North Carolina. 2009 - Joanna becomes COO of Wincorp Global. 2010 - Joanna meets Jae. 2011 - Joanna becomes the first female CEO of Wincorp Global after a corporate scandal. 2013 - Joanna and Jae marry in a Honolulu wedding. 2014 - Joanna steps down from her function to pursue a different career path. 2014 - Jae and Joanna move to the Cresthill Meadows neighbourhood in Kismet Harbor 2014 - Joanna starts working at the Wilson, taking her place in the family business. 2016 - Joanna gives birth to Henri, March 10th. 2019 - Joanna gives birth to Lynn, September 21st. 2020 - Jae dies suddenly of a heart attack. 2021 - Naomi passes away, revealing years of illness. 2021 - Joanna cuts Nick out of her and her child's life. 2021 - Joanna starts a relationship with Lukas. 2022 - Joanna gives birth to Ariana, December 30th. 2023 - Joanna and Lukas marry in a small intimate April wedding.

#( intro. )

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aristidetwain · 3 years

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The Shared Dalek Universe of the 1960s: A Case Study

In 2011 (a little over ten years ago!), El Sandifer cited my dearly-beloved 1960s Who Annuals as examples of stories which ended up influencing the TV series many years down the line despite making an unrepentant hash of continuity.

Her first example is that the Doctor is called Dr. Who, and that he alternates between being from Earth on one page, and not being from Earth three pages later. I would point out that TV was doing much the same thing in those days, and went on flip-flopping basically until Jon Pertwee, so it’s not a terribly good argument to begin with.

However, she spends more time pondering the Daleks of the comics. These Daleks, she notes, are very different from those on television at the time. There are hordes of them, they travel in fleets of saucers, and they’re ruled by the Emperor. This contradiction, she argues, later fed back into the TV series in the RTD era, when huge fleets of Daleks became the norm and, earlier but still well after the first burst of Annuals, in the form of Patrick Troughton facing a very different Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks.

In no way do I wish to undermine Sandifer’s ultimate conclusion that “canon” in the sense of diegetic consistency is a red herring of little importance, and what matters for any sane definition of ‘canon’ is whether a story is referenced at all, not whether it’s contradicted.

However.

Having gone back to 1966′s The Dalek Outer Space Book, I have made a very startling discovery, in the story entitled The Secret of the Emperor. The rest is after the cut; I will leave you with a delightful panel from this story, showing the “bewildered” Dalek Emperor being bullied by knights at the Battle of Agincourt. (This is one of my favourite Doctor Who images ever, and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face I am not sure I want to take you seriously.)

So, famously, when he debuted in the comics, the Dalek Emperor was not the giant, static Dalek later shown on television in The Evil of the Daleks and The Bad Wolf of the Ways; instead, he was golden, squat, and had a bulbous head; to house all the ego, one expects.

Thus, most people will point at the fact that when the Doctor met “the Emperor” in The Evil of the Daleks, he resided in a huge tower-like casing in the Dalek City, as evidence that although ideas received a first treatment in the comics which later made it to screens, no direct continuity was intended; the comics’ Emperor was an alternate, a first draft, to be discarded once a more definitive TV portrayal emerged.

And yet, of course, it is somehow appealing to think of the two as the same Dalek, isn’t it? John Peel (Dalek writer voted most likely to be a 19th century Victorian man who stumbled into a time eddy; it’s mostly the remarkable sideburns) spent a lot of time in his Dalek novels establishing the life story of the Dalek Prime, the First Dalek Ever, who transitioned from the globe-headed casing to the towery Evil one and then deeply regretted it, what with the “getting killed by his own infighting troops with no way to escape”.

But this is usually viewed as a retcon. A cute retcon, an admirable retcon even, but a retcon. My good friend and esteemed fellow canon-welder, @rassilon-imprimatur, espoused such a view four years ago:

Well, all of this is, if you’ll pardon my French, bollocks. John Peel didn’t make anything up, except for the snappy name of “the Dalek Prime” as a designation for the individual. The Dalek Emperor in Evil of the Daleks was always the Emperor of the 1960s comics, and there is a very good reason for his seemingly-contradictory change of appearance. What’s more, I am not talking about murky authorial intent: these are things that the discerning Dalek fan in 1967 was meant to have known.

Let me wind back the clock to 1966. A Dalek master-plan is unfurling, a multi-media agenda spanning several years, more ambitious perhaps than even Time Lord Victorious in its scope; for the ultimate aim of a small cabal of men including David Whitaker, Terry Nation and Brad Ashton is nothing less than spinning the Daleks out of Doctor Who and into their own non-BBC TV show — to be made in America, and in colour, if you please!

For over a year now, a Dalek story arc has been running in the pages of TV Century 21, tracking the early rise of the Dalek Empire and its early interactions with 2060s humanity. Though the Daleks encroach over other parts of the book, including the headline stories, the bulk of this story arc comes in the form of weekly one-page comics making up one long serialised history of the Daleks, under the minimalist title of The Daleks.

Also under the solo brand of “The Daleks”: Annuals, an exclusive audio story, and, of course, toys. Time for Phase Two. It is time to end the Daleks’ endless confrontations with Dr Who on television, and set the stage for a new status quo able to support the TV series Nation dreams about.

Important background: Terry Nation, famously, does not like the Dalek Emperor. Whitaker made him up without consulting Nation, who maintains that the highest rank in the Dalek hierarchy should be the Dalek Supreme. The Emperor was hard to do away with in the comics, since he was basically the protagonist of the TV21 strip, but one imagines Nation was keen to jettison him from the world of the planned TV series.

I am speculating, of course, but I picture Nation sitting in his office, pondering the two great thorns in the side of the Independant Daleks Masterplan.

Thorn one: the Daleks are entangled with the Doctor both diegetically and symbolically; unless something can be done, the Daleks will remain “the Doctor’s enemies”, and a show where they commit evil and the Doctor fails to show up would ring false with the kids watching. The Daleks must be removed from Doctor Who in a sensational and definitive manner, or the whole enterprise is a nonstarter.

Thorn two: I, Terry Nation, have foolishly allowed David Whitaker to shape the lore of the Daleks, and he has made this Dalek Emperor guy very central to early Dalek history, leading up to the 22nd century Dalek Invasion of Earth that most of the Doctor’s subsequent conflicts with the Daleks have stemmed from. But I do not like the Dalek Emperor. I wish I could get rid of him in my new status quo.

…………Aha.

A triumphant Terry Nation adds a post-it note to the ever-widening corkboard representing the multimedia Dalek Masterplan setting up the TV series, which must already include things like “convince Jean Marsh to come back as Sara Kingdom”. Notes distilled from this corkboard will form the backbone of The Dalek Outer Space Book, this year’s Dalek annual, which exists principally to set up the prospective main characters of the new TV series: Sara Kingdom and Agent Mark Seven, of the Space Security Service.

The new post-it note reads:

Construe the Daleks’ enmity with the Doctor as a personal enmity between the Doctor and the Emperor, a la Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. Have the Doctor triumph over the Emperor on TV in a big ‘event’ story.

Result: the Doctor-vs-Daleks storyline is over; the Emperor is dead; I get everything I ever wanted.

(Except maybe a pony.)

Then he phones David Whitaker, smirking all the while like an evil genie preparing to grant a badly-worded wish.

“Good news, old chap, I’ve decided you can write a new Dalek story for the BBC, all by yourself. I promise I won’t interfere.”

*confused and delighted David Whitaker noises*

“ And you can even bring in that Dalek Emperor of yours. Yes, you heard me!”

*Whitaker enthusiasm intensifies*

“Ahhh, but there’s a catch. The Dalek Emperor must DIE.”

Of course, like all good Faustian bargains, this is irresistible even though it is ruinous and the victim knows it to be ruinous. Whitaker agrees to the scheme. He and Nation begin planning out the events of the great finale of the Dalek-Doctor confrontation, which will hit the screens in 1967 as the mildly racist, but otherwise quite well-loved, ‘The Evil of the Daleks’.

Quickly enough, it is decided that Patrick Troughton crouching to berate the short and bubble-headed Golden Emperor would look silly. If the Emperor appears on TV, alongside human performers, then it should tower over them. Besides, this is to be the archvillainous Dalek Emperor’s last stand, and certain traditions must be followed.

Hence another task is added to the bucketlist of the Dalek Outer Space Book: tell the story of how the Emperor transformed from the globe-headed dwarf to some huge and terrible towering form under the Dalek City, for the Doctor to stumble onto later. This rebuilt Emperor may be teased, but must not be truly seen or truly defeated in the book; that would defeat the whole idea.

Hence, The Secret of the Emperor, a story which sees the Emperor becoming self-conscious about his own efficiency and letting the Scientist Daleks rebuild his casing from scratch. The final page is a splash panel, a delightfully nonsensical diagram of the mechanical components of the new casing.

The almost surreal array of colours and shapes is so arresting as to obscure an important detai. Many have seen this page over and over, and yet still missed it. The recent(ish) ‘Anatomy of the New Dalek Emperor’ artwork from Time Lord Victorious clearly looked at this page for reference, in spite of the fact that the TLV Emperor is much more inspired by the old Emperor than the rebuilt one.

Let me spell it out for you: look at the Scientist Daleks in the top right and centre-left. Look at them.

The new Emperor is huge.

And what else?

That Scientist on the left is plugging huge wires snaking from the wall into the tower-casing.

He now resides in the Great Hall of the Dalek City.

The background wall is a weird checkered pattern.

In addition, the following facts are seeded throughout the earlier pages of The Secret of the Emperor.

The point of moving to the new casing was to grant the Emperor increased brain capacity (suitable for concocting masterplans).

He acquired said increased brain capacity to help the Daleks attempt to overcome humanity once and for all.

The Emperor has recently had a trautmatic but eye-opening experience with time travel.

Ignore the fact that the Emperor was here depicted with what appears to be a still fairly bulbous, and golden, head, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is very, very direct setup for how the Doctor finds the Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks — tower-like, in an imperial throneroom in the Dalek City, with a checkered wall pattern, planning out a complicated scheme to harness time travel as a means of defeating humanity once and for all!

Yes, the designs don’t quite match — but how could the artist behind the visuals of Secret of the Emperor have known precisely what Shawcraft would build, a year later, based on the same basic description by Nation & Whitaker? The parallels far outweigh the minor differences in execution. (It’s worth noting that elsewhere in the Outer Space Book a different artist drew what was clearly intended to be the Golden Emperor as a large, golden, but normally-proportioned Dalek, so it’s not like the visual descriptions of these scripts were exceedingly precise…)

The rebuilt Emperor is never seen in the Outer Space Book outside of this ‘dissection’: he is heard throughout The Brain Tappers but kept carefully off-panel, and his new and dangerous new casing is pointedly not destroyed in the story’s conclusion. Well, of course not. That’s what Dr Who is for.

tl;dr: it is not a post hoc retcon, or even a secret, that the round-headed Emperor of the comics became the Dalek Emperor of Evil of the Daleks. A holistic view of the state of Dalek media in 1966-1967 shows that, in fact, it was the whole point that this be the Emperor of the comics; and that the comics had begun setting this up long before Patrick Troughton encountered Edward Waterfield on TV.

And thus, to circle back to Sandifer’s 2011 post, it is not enough to simply say that the “seemingly non-canon” comics inspired the show down the line. In fact in this instance, what appeared on Doctor Who existed for the benefit of the Daleks spin-off — not vice-versa!

#Daleks #Canon-Welding #Doctor Who #Analysis #Doctor Who Meta #Dalek Emperor #Dalek Prime #The Evil of the Daleks #Terry Nation #David Whitaker #Brad Ashton #The Secret of the Emperor #El Sandifer #Canon #Jacob Black

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cartoonfangirl1218 · 3 years

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Give them what they want ch. 7

After that disastrous choice of drowning her sorrows in alchohol, Jordan decided to take the time off in general to sleep off her hangover and avoid people.

That left with nothing to do but schoolwork. Frankly compared to all the social pressures, it was a perfect solution. At least there was a right and a wrong and no big failure if she said the incorrect answer.

After the breeze of paperwork, she went to the more creative side of art class.

The assignment was to do a drawing filled with symbolism and an essay explaining the choices. She called up and transported Calix for her model.

He had a cream white cape draped over his right shoulder in the style of old Roman emperors, clutching a book to his chest and holding out a candle and laurel in the other.

"And I have to be nude while holding this because...?" Calix questioned, fidgeting after an hour of standing still.

"Nudity is the transparency of the soul. Duh." Jordan snapped "Stop moving your head, I'm trying to draw your hair."

"Can I sit at least?" Calix complained, shaking a leg.

"Yes you can sit." She rolled her eyes.

Calix sighed as he plopped down to sit cross legged.

Jordan was happy that any feelings she had for Calix had disappeared. Foolish, ridiculous romantic feeling from the stupid needy part of her that agreed with the Aurodonian statement that she need love to be happy. No, what she needed was to not be alone.

Calix was still one of her closest friends, annoying, fun and loyal, nothing more. Hot too...but he was with Morrían Le freakin Fey.

Even her name sounded enchanting and slightly exotic, it was disgusting.

"Hmm Calix do you think I should just use my middle name instead? Jordan is so boring." She murmured as she traced the outline of a strand of hair that stuck to his forehead.

"Desiree? I guess if you wanted to. Say do most genies have a name that sounds like they're strippers? I mean Genie, Eden, I hear Karma is popular..."

And there was the man that so loved to irritate her. Usually on Tuesdays.

"Is that your perverted way of saying that I shouldn't?" Jordan flung an eraser at him.

"Watch where you throw that." Calix deftly caught it before it hit his thigh. "A name is a name. I think you're fine, you're entertaining enough to make up for it."

Jordan smiled, when the door opened.

"So I was thinking you could pose, OH MY WOW!" Mal cried with Ben by her side.

Calix made no move to hide himself, almost preening at their reactions.

"Sorry" Ben squeaked ducking his head, looking frantically at another direction while Mal opened her mouth, closed it, and babbled.

"I guess...I just,.. so sorry, we thought. I hope we aren't interrupting? This is for art right?"

If the situation hadn't been so awkward considering that the king of Auradon was witnessing it and that Mal thought they were about to do unspeakable things, Jordan would have laughed at how shocked the bad fairy looked.

One doesn't usually see naked boys in Auradon Prep after all.

"Well it's not like it's for math and she has to measure my.." Calix almost finished his sentence. Jordan flung a couple of paintbrushes at him.

"What is with the abuse!" He cried

She turned to the blushing couple, "It's for art, we'll be done soon."

"We'll find another place it's fine." Ben said. Then the two ran off, slamming the door behind.

Jordan turned to Calix who was failing at keeping his laughter in.

"Measure! Measuring you!"

"I was joking. I mean who would be so insecure to have to measure their body parts?"

"Only you would be so immodest enough to suggest that." Jordan cried.

"I'm as modest as you are a lady. And we both know you ain't no lady." Calix joked.

"I'll make you mute." Jordan half-heartedly threatened.

"I'll make you fall in love with an ass." Calix shot back.

"Ooo an ass, how Shakespearean." Jordan blew a kiss at him.

She paused, "Speaking of love, have you've told Morrían?"

Calix rolled his eyes at her and made a "Do you even know me?" face.

Love was not a word used lightly in Auradon. Once you said it, you sealed your fate to be committed forever until your wedding day. If you made it through that. You are set for your future children, grandchildren, respective kingdoms, family reunions, anniversaries on and on...

Calix, the quarter-siren/sorcerer seducer of many who've fallen for his song, would never use that word to describe a relationship. Too risky. He only reserved that word for his parents, and for Metsovone platters.

"We are at the stage of mutual like where we have enjoyable afternoons, nights and morning afters together where we do a variety of activities depending on our moods and wants. Ending with satisfaction for both parties. Is that you want to hear?"

"Mm hmm,” Jordan murmured, casually turning her attention back to her drawing.

She wasn't jealous that he was in happy mutual relationship. She wasn't annoyed that it wasn't with her. She was merely irked that she had everything Morrían and yet, she didn't have any of the perks.

She had looked up Morrían herself just to see if she was as special and as hot as Aziz and Calix claimed.

Fine, Morrían was pretty. Wavy, waist-length black hair, violet eyes, gleaming white skin that reminded Jordan of polished crystal. Most posts showed her A+ grades, her at parties, some intellectual magic debate.

She was witty, she was smart, she knew of some of the world based on her many vacation photos in various parts of Auradon.

So?

If Morrían, who could be close enough to be her equal in beauty, personality, and magic contests, was so sought after as a girlfriend. why wasn't she! Sought after in a genuine romantic relationship with actual feelings.

She drew a line that went off course across Calix's face, and realized she should probably stop obsesssing over what Morrían had that she didn't.

"I'm done. I'll do the finishing touches later." She announced, erasing the offending line.

"Sweet Aphrodite, finally!" Calix cried, hurriedly shoving his jeans up his legs.

Jordan smiled at how awkwardly he dressed, balancing uneasily from one foot to the other.

"Wanna go to Nonstop to hang out?" Calix asked as he put on his shirt.

"Sure, I'll meet you there." Jordan packed up her sketch pad and left.

"Jord? Did you hear? Zahrat and Samir found out it's going to be a girl." Aziz called excitedly, hurrying to her side in the hallway.

"She called me this morning. They're already arguing over baby names. She wants Hajar, he wants "the most ridiculous girl name in the world." She quoted

"What is it?" Aziz asked, almost dropping his French book.

"She didn't tell me, just that it was "the most ridiculous, horrible girl name in the world."

"Well with an argument like that, she must be right." Aziz joked, "Where are you going?"

"Nonstop." Jordan replied, and before he could ask, "You can come too."

"Great, their hamburgers are delicious." Aziz moaned

Nonstop was located in the backstreets of Auradon City, near the recess of the infamous woods where Beast fought the wolves to save Belle. No mortal dared to go.

Nonstop, it was own by Circe (as most fae clubs were) and had a special, illegal invisibility spell protecting the exterior from curious eyes.

It was fae-only. A haven for magical creatures to show their true forms, use their powers and have fun and relax and not pretend to be mortals and do menial labor. There was at least one in every state in Auradon. The more popular ones were in Agrabah, near the shores of Atlantica, Neverland, by the tavern of Snuggly Duckling. But Nonstop was where most of the fae student population in Auradon Prep resided to relax.

Aziz was an expection since Jordan basically threatened everyone who came near them, that he was allowed to be in without harm.

Calix led them through the backway so they could eat in Circe's office. It was lavish, Roman-inspired room with lounges, and drapes and Greek statues. A small platform raised the mahogany desk facing the door.

"So we could eat here, and you can study." Calix suggested looking at the schoolbooks the two had brought, "Orrrr.."

"Hey, Alexandria is here!" Aziz poked his head out of the office door to look at the club.

"Orrr we could hang out with the peoples." Calix smirked as Aziz went off to flirt with Attina's daughter.

Jordan rolled her eyes, and took a fresh breath of air as she entered the pulsating club room. Club room #3 to be precise. Nonstop had five different rooms. The main one was about the size of Beast's ballroom and looked like Moulin Rogue and Great Gatsby had exploded together into one mega party. Two others were simpler dance floors with a bar, booths, and couches arranged in the front of the room and by fireplaces.

Another was a more sophiscated, simple parlor room for taking and poetry readings. The fifth one was the outside area with rock gardens, and an outside cafe. Each place had pools in the center just for the mermaid/merman patrons.

"So Alexandria, how is it down there?" Aziz asked with a wink.

"Horrible as usual." Alexandria signed, letting a light brown lock fall on her eye, "The tourists make a mess everywhere! It may be a museum for Aunt Ariel's story and home, but people live there."

Jordan went to talk to Jonathan Thatch, Milo and Kida's son. He had a lot of his mother's appearance with dark skin and white streaks in his tan, blonde hair but he was most defiantly his dad's son. He could talk about anthropology for days.

"Kuzco's empire was amazing!" He enthused, "The had invented astrology and mathematics without the help of modern sciences and how they did it is just fascinating. You see, they based it on the solar and lunar calendars.."

Jordan amiably smiled as Jonathan babbled on until Calix caught his attention, "Calix, what would you say is the one architectural wonder Dad and I should check out while we visit Greece?"

With his attention diverted, Jordan got caught up in a family reunion story Philocetes II, Madora and Herksper were telling.

"And then Uncle Hermes and Uncle Loki decided to team up against Aunt Freya and Aunt Aphrodite!" Phil cried "They replaced all their makeup and clothes with hydra skins and Minator drool. Damn, you should never prank a beauty goddess, never!"

After the story was finished, she and Madora went up to the stage and danced and sang to Madora's mother's famous song, "Won't say I'm in love."

"I wish I could move my hips like that." Madora sighed as she flopped onto one of the couches by the fireplace.

"You were a fine belly dancer for a demigod." Jordan shrugged, "I have more of an advantage after all since I can make my body do whatever I want." She took off her hand, and three extra arms sprouted from her sides in a demonstration. "Belly dancing is hardly a problem."

"Don't you show it. Do it again." Herksper, (Or Herkie as most Auradon Prep students called him since they found his name so hard to do.) suggested with a shining, white smile.

"Oh why not?" Jordan smiled and went to center stage. The bright lights hit her, warming her body all over in a way the her attempted alcohol binge never did. She moved her hips in time to the haunting wail of the snake charmer's Pipe.

She closed her eyes, letting herself go with the motion, but when she opened them, she was struck with a new feeling.

The audience was staring at her every move, they looked entranced and under her power. Gazing at her lovingly. She winked at one, and he stepped backwards in shock.

A surge of confidence went through her. She was in control of the audience's reaction. It was wonderful. They were watching her, only her. They weren't thinking of themselves, just focused on what she was going to do.

She licked her lips, and thought of a song she had heard long ago. Her mom had this huge idea to make an album, back when bands were a thing. But she had gotten bored after three days and abandoned the project. Typical. Nothing was too exciting for long for a genie.

No one had heard the song, but now they would.

She didn't usually sing in public. No big fear, she just felt her talent laid elsewhere. But now, she had them in her hand, and they were going to pay attention to her every word.

"Tell me all your wishes, I'm here to make them true. No need to rub a lamp because I'll take care of you."

She smiled as seductively as she could while dancing across the stage. Each move slow and deliberated, leaving the audience waiting for the next step.

She never felt so exhilarated before. She had total control of how they saw her. They saw her as sexy, beautiful, unattainable, and she was going to milk that feeling for as long as it was worth.

"My new resolution is to trust you. My business to love you until you've had it. I'm not going to miss out on the good stuff. The grass would be so much greener with us on it."

She poofed off the stage to the round of couches where Jonathan, Calix, Madora, Alexandria, Herksper, Phil, and Aziz stared at her in amazement.

"You deserve this." Madora handed her a bottle of sparkling cider.

"Aww I deserve a lot of things, finally someone had the bright idea of actually giving it to me." Jordan smiled.

Calix lightly smacked her on the temple, "Seriously though. That was one great act. Usually you need my help.."

"Shut up." Jordan rolled her eyes at him, "I'll get the next round of drinks, what do you want, guys?" She asked.

"Water" Jonathan, Aziz and Alexandria called.

"Gin on the rocks" Calix requested.

"Wine." Hercules' children asked for.

Jordan strutted to the bar happily, basking in the glances men and women were throwing her way.

"I am pretty. I'm so pretty." Jordan hummed "And witty, and giddy and gay. And I pity anyone who isn't me today."

While she waited for the bartender to get to her orders, a pixie girl and Bacchae sat on her right side.

"So genie girl?" The Bacchae leaned to rest his head on her shoulder, "Wanna get on the grass?"

"Get off me." Jordan shoved him.

"But-but you said you would take care of us." The Bacchae whined with a leer.

"It was a song." Jordan replied, grabbing Calix's order.

"You're still a genie. It's what you do." The pixie girl said, grabbing her shoulder with sharp nails."I know how it works. So where is your lamp?"

"You're right, I am a genie. Not an idiot. I'm not telling you." Jordan poured the glass of gin over the pixie's head.

"Your business is to love us till we had it." The pixie girl mocked, shaking her head like a wet dog.

"Yet I don't trust you." Jordan huffed, taking the rest of the drinks and leaving.

The Bacchae cackled as she stalked off. "Fae these days, don't know what their job is."

Jordan closed her eyes, and tried to push away the thoughts of being tied down away. Once she reached the others, slammed the tray of drinks at the table.

"You'll have to get your gin, Calix. While you're at it, kick out the Bacchae and pixie I poured it on." She pointed at the duo.

Calix got up from his seat, "I can't kick out every person that hits on you, that you don't like." He turned to look at her direction, "I mean it's just- why is he staring at his crotch?"

"Why is the pixie playing with- EWW THIS IS A PUBLIC PLACE!" Alexandria cried

Herksper covered his eyes, "I think I just saw inside of him."

"Alright, I'm kicking them out! They will be banned." Calix lowered his eyes.

"Don't let them touch you." Jonathan grimaced.

"I don't WANT them to touch me, so your warning is a bit unecessary." Calix said before going to talk to the two.

"So that happened." Madora shuddered.

"They can't be our age." Aziz stuck out his tongue in disgust.

"They could be. Shape shifters and fae with disguise spells." Vidia's son, Kyro flew over, eavesdropping on the conversation.

"Like her in mortal clubs." Aziz cocked his head toward Jordan.

"What?' Kyro grinned mischievously, sitting next to her. Most fairies change to their natural fairy size in the club, but some chose to stay mortal size for the sake of not getting squashed.

"I'll explain" Jordan threw a annoyed glare at her adoptive brother, "Biological I'm 17. I act 17, look 17. But if people counted by human years, I'm 21. So when I go to mortal club, and they ask my age I NATURALLY assume they want my mortal age."

They all looked at her dubiously.

"Okay, I know what I'm doing. But you go along with it." Jordan added with a side eyed to Aziz.

"Adult clubs are fun. They have good finger food." Aziz shrugged

"They think you're 21?" Kyro snickered

Jordan shifted her body. Taller, bustier, angular features, she intoned deeply "Believe me now?"

"I can see it." Kyro nodded his head in approval. With that confirmation she changed back to her normal form.

"What are adult clubs like anyway?" Phil asked intrigued

"Basically a bunch of them sit around having tea and crumpets while discussing politics, philosophy and books." Aziz answered.

"And recite poems in their original languages or do opera." Jordan put in.

"Pretentious asses." Kyro snorted

"How's your twin?" Alexandria changed the subject.

"Avari is going out with Azul." He answered, flicking his long black bangs off his eyes.

"Rani's son?" Calix returned to the conversation.

"It's weird, I know." Kyro said

The conversation drifted away from that to new topics until it was 3 in the afternoon.

"We better go." Alexandria muttered, frowning at her watch.

Calix let her and Aziz go out through Circe's office and headed back to party.

Thankfully Aziz's dorm room was empty so she could take one bed while Aziz jumped onto his, and covered his eyes with his textbook.

"I feel super productive." He murmured sarcastically

"How much work?" She asked

"Too much." Aziz threw the book to the floor. "I'll do it after dinner."

Jordan rolled over to her side, "I want to sleep already."

"Do it. No one has seen you at all because you've been studying all weekend."

"I can't." She complained

"The Bacchae and the pixie?" Aziz asked softly

"I think too much. It's nothing." Jordan sighed, "Go do your work. Wake me up when your roommate comes."

Aziz sighed much too overdramatically in her opinion as he got up to sit on the bed she was on, and pushed her onto her stomach.

He started to do back tracings on her. Dammit, he knew she loved tickle massages. She found it so soothing and always made her fall asleep. She would willingly stay still forever if there was someone giving her one.

"Aziz, please, I'm fine. You don't have to help me go to sleep." Jordan murmured

"Let me. Think of it as you're helping me procrastinate in doing a half-hearted job on my French homework." Aziz told her

"When you put it that way..." Jordan closed her eyes.

Author's Note: Another chapter done, I hope you enjoyed. It's a nice breather chapter, isn't it? Go thank screamingeternally for that. She was the one who reminded me that not every chapter has to be full of angst.

Anyway the song, is "Good Stuff" by Shakira.

The little hummed tune was "I feel pretty" from West Side Story.

I'm sure, everyone can guess what musical inspired my club name choice ;)

I put a lot of Descendants characters of Disney people I like. Attina, Milo, Rani, etc. That was fun.

And if anyone is wondering or if a name nerd like me, Avari was inspired by Avarice. As Vidia had been inspired by Invidia.

Kyro inspired by Kyto, the dragon Vidia fell in love with in the books.

#jordan #aziz #calix #bal mentioned #disney descendants #my fanfiction #my fanfic #ocs #give them what they want #chapter seven

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mxliv-oftheendless · 4 years

Text

Ruining KISStory: A Filthy, Filthy Story About Benjamin Franklin

So in celebration of surviving my French midterm (my anxiety over it was through the roof for some damn reason), I decided I would post this crazy little thing for y’all! So in like, actual real life, Shane for a while did his own show called Ruining History, which I totally recommend for you guys to actually watch. So this is a spinoff of my KISS Unsolved AU, appropriately named Ruining KISStory (a name I’m super fucking proud of actually XD), in which our resident Queen of the Trolls Paul Stanley gives us his own creative spin on historical events. And yes, it’s going to be just as chaotic as Unsolved lol. Here’s the link to the original episode if you want to watch that first.

And now, without further ado, enjoy!

Tag list: @cosmicrealmofkissteria @ashestoashesvvi @kategwidt @retronova

[camera opens on Paul, who is sitting at a panel. A map of the world is hung up behind him. The sound of tuning violins plays in the background]

PAUL: Some people think history is boring. But I think Benjamin Franklin might have been in some weird sex parties!

[intro, then title card. Grand orchestra music plays in the background]

[cuts back to the panel; the shot has been widened so the entire panel is visible. From left to right: Vinnie, Gene, Paul, Eric C., Tommy. Labels showing their names come up on screen]

PAUL: So what do you guys know about Ben Franklin?

VINNIE: … Kites!

ERIC: Ethics?

TOMMY: Oh! He used the kite and a key and discovered electricity!

GENE: Oh yeah, we learned about that in school.

PAUL: Pretty sure every school tells that story.

GENE: He also helped Nicholas Cage find treasure.

PAUL: [gives him a withering look before turning away] Okay. [Tommy laughs]

[screen cuts away to a title card:

CHAPTER I:

THE AMERICAN OVERACHIEVER

screen then cuts to animations as Paul narrates, while inspiring music you would hear in a film set during the American Revolution plays in the background]

PAUL [voiceover]: Born in 1706, Benjamin Franklin is often thought of as the model American citizen. Throughout his life, he was… well, he was a lot of things. Seriously, a lot of things.

[a list of text boxes appears on screen next to a picture of a statue of Benjamin Franklin:

POLITICIAN

AUTHOR

SCIENTIST

CIVIC LEADER

POSTMASTER

MEDIA MOGUL

INVENTOR

DIPLOMAT

I COULD KEEP GOING BUT YOU GET IT]

PAUL [voiceover]: Beyond all that, though, he seems like the kind of guy you wouldn’t mind having a drink with. But, if you did spend some quality time with Ben Franklin, things might get weird.

[cuts back to panel; Vinnie looks intrigued]

VINNIE: By weird, do you mean [waggles his eyebrows] weird or just eccentric-weird?

PAUL: I mean [waggles his eyebrows] weird.

ERIC: [looks a little nervous] Oh no… I really liked Ben Franklin as a kid.

GENE: Well, he’s gonna ruin the history books for ya, Eric.

TOMMY: Oh is that why it’s called Ruining History?

PAUL: Yep!

TOMMY: Nice, I like that.

PAUL: Thank you. [cuts back to animation sequence]

PAUL [voiceover]: In the years during and after America’s fight for independence, Franklin spent much of his time serving as a diplomat in Europe. And it’s a good thing he did. Author Walter Isaacson has argued that America wouldn’t have won the war without Franklin’s excellent diplomacy in France. It wasn’t all politics, though. At the time, Paris was regarded as one of the most cosmopolitan cities at that time in history. And a wave of cultural enlightenment paired with a strong economy gave the upper class the means to… well… [music intensifies] have many crazy, crazy, crazy… crazy nights…

But we’ll get to that in a second! Franklin seemed to find himself right at home in this environment. To give an idea of his bohemian life abroad, here’s a curious morning routine he picked up during his time in France.

GENE: I bet it was, powder on the balls. [Eric laughs]

PAUL: [snickering] Powder the wig, powder the balls.

TOMMY: Powder the balls, get out on the street, and do something! [Vinnie laughs]

PAUL [voiceover]: While writing to a friend of his, Franklin described his habit of taking what he called “air baths.” Quote, “I rise almost every morning and sit in my chamber without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. The practice is not in the least bit painful, but on the contrary, agreeable.”

[cuts to the left side of the panel. Gene looks uncomfortable, while Vinnie just gives a raised eyebrow]

GENE: I don’t know what it was about how people wrote during this time, but describing sexual acts in this kinda language makes it dirtier than it actually is.

PAUL: There’s nothing sexual about this.

VINNIE: There’s no sexuality here, Genie, your mind is just dirty.

TOMMY: Yeah, he’s just sitting around his house naked.

VINNIE: I mean if the hand just happens to fall…

GENE: Vinnie, I can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but guys—we don’t just jerk off on accident!

ERIC: I mean… I have no idea how to respond to that.

PAUL: I think some guys do.

TOMMY: Peter does.

PAUL: [raises an eyebrow at him while they all turn to stare at Tommy] … How do you know that?

ERIC: I could’ve gone my whole life without hearing that. [cuts back to the animation sequence]

PAUL [voiceover]: Franklin’s social calendar in Europe was full of invites to gluttonous but incredibly classy all-night ragers, where his status as an American statesmen made him a pretty interesting guy. The women of France allegedly couldn’t get enough of him. One account describes hundreds of women surrounding him, placing a beautiful wreath upon his head, and lining up to kiss him.

ERIC: That didn’t happen… right?

PAUL: [shrugs] I dunno, it could have happened.

VINNIE: That sounds like something you would do to your old grandpa, though.

[silence. Everyone on the panel turns to stare at Vinnie in confusion]

TOMMY: What?

GENE: So you’re saying, at family gatherings—

VINNIE: No! I’m just saying, that doesn’t seem like something you’d do to someone you wanna get with. Like, would you put a funny hat on them? No. [silence] I’m just saying, you guys!

[cuts back to animation sequence]

PAUL [voiceover]: Ben’s home life was, according to accounts, equally spicy. When famous painter Charles Willson Peale paid Franklin a surprise visit one afternoon, he spied the elderly diplomat with a young woman seated on his lap. [cuts to a sketch showing a man with a woman on his lap] This sketch of his is believed to depict the two. Kinda weird that he would sketch that, but hey.

[cuts to the panel; everyone is looking at their own copies of the sketch]

GENE: She seems to have a pretty good grip on his balls.

TOMMY: That’s a, a vice-like grip there.

VINNIE: They’re still wearing pretty much everything.

ERIC: Did you guys notice their eyes? Their eyes are open and they’re just staring at each other.

PAUL: Yeah, their eyes are pretty striking.

VINNIE: Yeah…

ERIC: They’re kissing, but it’s, it’s a little unnerving. Wonder why the guy would sketch this…

PAUL [voiceover]: Some historians have evaluated Ben Franklin’s habit of charming the elite women of Europe as a strategic ploy, suspecting that he hoped that they would speak favorably of Franklin and his case for American liberty to their policy-making husbands. But many others argue that he was just a vulgar old man. Author Albert Henry Smith wrote that Franklin’s, quote, “animal instincts and passions were strong and rank.”

VINNIE: [looks mildly disgusted] Well that’s descriptive.

GENE: [snickering]: Y’know, good old animal Ben.

PAUL: An animal…

GENE: Hey, hey: I’m an animal.

PAUL: [stares for a second, then smiles] Ah!

GENE: Ah! [high-fives Paul]

ERIC: Wait, if he was born in… when was he born?

PAUL: 1706.

ERIC: If he was born in 1706… then how old was he when all this was happening?

PAUL: He would have been… probably between his late 60s and early 70s.

[Eric’s face looks very shocked, slowly contorting into disgust]

TOMMY: Oh man, he was as old as my grandpa!

GENE: [shrugs] Hey, if it still works… [cuts back to animation sequence]

PAUL [voiceover]: Based on Franklin’s party-animal-rock-star lifestyle, it makes sense that he would be in the same social circles as some of Europe’s more notorious scoundrels; and so he was. So let us now turn our attention to a man whose life would soon intersect with Franklin’s: Sir Francis Dashwood.

VINNIE: [snickering] Very English name. [mock British accent] Sir Francis Dashwood!

[screen cuts away to a title card:

CHAPTER II

THE FANCY ENGLISH SEX MAN

lighthearted music plays]

PAUL [voiceover]: Born in 1708, Sir Francis Dashwood was the only heir of a wealthy merchant. He’s perhaps best summed up by one author’s description: “An enormously rich man with a genius for obscenity.” Dashwood’s primary interests were seemingly set in stone when in his formative years, he embarked on his Grand Tour, a traditional rite of passage during which wealthy young men traveled through Europe on a cultural odyssey. As Dashwood’s tutor put it, he, quote, “fornicated his way across Europe.” In one instance, he even seduced the Empress of Russia while claiming to be Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, a man who was, at that point, dead.

TOMMY: Wait, did she not know Charles the Twelfth was dead?

PAUL: I mean, if she got fooled by this guy, I’m pretty sure she had no idea.

VINNIE: This was the era before email and the Internet, so word traveled pretty slowly. Also, [laughs] I love how his tutor says he pretty much fucked his way across Europe.

GENE: Wonder how he got her to sleep with him…

ERIC: I don’t think we need to know the details, Gene.

GENE: Maybe you don’t.

PAUL [voiceover; tense music plays]: These travels also inspired Dashwood’s fascination with sacred rituals of the past. He wasn’t really a fan of the religious institutions of his day, but he was simultaneously fascinated with Europe’s rich history. So when he wasn’t womanizing, he was sauntering through dusty catacombs lined with mummified corpses, or sitting in old Roman ruins imagining the orgies of the past. So it’s this odd mutual appreciation for debauchery and sacred history that would lead to Dashwood’s crowning achievement and ultimately his friendship with Ben Franklin: the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe. Or, as it was more popularly known…

[music reaches a climactic peak as the name appears on screen over burning flames. Paul reads the name]

THE HELLFIRE CLUB!

GENE: Oh shit.

VINNIE: That sounds awesome.

PAUL [voiceover]: Dashwood’s Hellfire Club was meant to attract the most depraved and intellectual men of the time. And over the course of its history, its lineup would allegedly include such notable men as the Prime Minister of England, the Lord Mayor of London, several of England’s greatest artists and poets, the Prince of Wales, and possibly, as evidence would strongly suggest, Ben Franklin. See, Dashwood was publicly known to sympathize with the cause of the American rebels, and he had exchanged letters with Franklin many times. Furthermore, Franklin actually visited Dashwood’s estate at West Wycombe for an extended period in July of 1772, and during his stay, there is a record of a club meeting taking place. According to one author, quote, “there seems to be no reason why Franklin should have gone to Wycombe at this special time unless he was a member. Only club members were allowed at Dashwood’s estate during club meetings.” So, keeping in mind Franklin’s likely involvement, let’s look at what he would have encountered during his visits with the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe.

The members of the club reportedly donned white monk’s robes, and were each allowed to invite along, quote, “a lady of a cheerful, lively disposition, to improve the general hilarity.” These women also dressed up, wearing nun’s robes and masks to avoid an embarrassing run-in with a husband or acquaintance.

GENE: This is some freaky stuff.

VINNIE: [looks enthralled] This is awesome.

TOMMY: Eyes Wide Shut…

PAUL: [nods] Yep.

PAUL [voiceover]: The first location of the Hellfire Club was on the shores of an island in the Thames River. Shrouded in a thick grove of elm trees, the island was the perfect location for the not-monks to spend an evening with their dates away from the prying eyes of the public. It was also ideal because it was home to the crumbling remnants of an old medieval ruin built in 1160 known as Medmenham Abbey. Dashwood actually set about reconstructing the site, but since he had a flair for the dramatic, he asked that it still resemble a creepy old ruin. But he did install a few upgrades:

A series of stained glass windows depicting the club members in, quote, “indecent poses.”

A brilliant pornographic fresco that John Wilkes, who wasn’t known to shy away from vulgarity himself, described as, quote, “unspeakable.”

And an expansive library stocked with classical literature as well as, quote, “the finest collection of pornographic books in Great Britain.”

PAUL: So to help us get more immersed in what went down at a club meeting, I’ve provided for all of you the proper tools.

[everyone looks under the table and takes out boxes. In the boxes are black robes, 1700s-style hats, some with feathers sticking out, and Venetian masquerade masks that are black and a different color. Vinnie has black and gold, Gene has black and red, Paul has black and purple, Eric has black and orange, and Tommy has black and blue]

GENE: [as they’re all putting on their costumes] Man, you really went all out, didn’t you?

PAUL: Oh, just wait.

ERIC: I will say, I do feel more immersed in the experience now.

TOMMY: This is pretty awesome.

PAUL: Okay, now that we’re all dressed up, let’s get into the juicy stuff!

VINNIE: [looks incredibly excited] I can’t wait.

GENE: [laughs] You look so excited.

VINNIE: Because I am. [bangs rhythmically on the table] Get to the juicy stuff, Paulie!

[screen cuts to a title card:

CHAPTER III

THE DEBAUCHERY BEGINS

slow, tense music plays and animations show events as Paul narrates]

PAUL [voiceover]: In the cover of night, the hooded monks and their dates would arrive to the island on a red gondola. Stepping ashore, they were greeted by the far-off drone of the abbey’s organ and the ringing of a ghostly church bell. Outside the abbey, they’d come upon an ominous statue of Harpocrates, the Egyptian god of silence. [a statue of Harpocrates is shown with a finger over his lips, and a voice that sounds like Paul’s whispers “Shhhhhhut the fuck uuuup…”]

Once inside the abbey, Dashwood would pour his guests a special cocktail of brandy and brimstone, and they’d all raise their glasses in a toast to the powers of darkness.

VINNIE: This sounds fucking a-ma-zing! I love theme parties, and this is just, just fucking amazing. I wouldn’t stay for the sex, though.

GENE: You’d just be there for the theme part?

VINNIE: Yeah, I’d do all this, then when they start doin’ it, I’d just duck out.

PAUL: Also, before we continue, I was actually able to, to make this more immersive… [reaches under the table and pulls out a bottle of wine]

VINNIE: Ooooh, nice!

TOMMY: Is it the brandy and brimstone cocktail?

PAUL: [laughs] Heh, no, it’s not, it’s just wine. I also have… [reaches under the table and pulls out five silver ornate goblets] these babies! [passes them out]

ERIC: [looks over his in fascination] Wow, these are awesome! Where’d you get these?

PAUL: [laughs] The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. [Eric laughs]

GENE: Oh yeah, you took Erin there for her birthday a while ago.

PAUL: Yep, and I got these. [they all pour wine into their goblets and raise them in a toast] To Ben Franklin and the Hellfire Club!

PAUL [voiceover]: With the striking of a gong, the monks would move further into the abbey and file into the chapel. Here, it is suspected they practiced a black mass, in which a woman laid naked on the altar and the monks proceeded to drink sacrificial wine from her navel.

ERIC: We’re not doing that, are we?

PAUL: Oh no, we’re not doing that.

ERIC: Okay…

GENE: [laughs] Disappointed, Eric?

ERIC: No, I just—fuck you, man.

TOMMY: Would’ve been interesting.

PAUL [voiceover]: Now I should say, since I know you’re all wondering, it’s generally thought that the members weren’t actual Satanists, despite all these weird rituals. Some members actually found this aspect pretty boring. John Wilkes actually found the rituals so dull, that he once dressed up a baboon as a demon… bear with me… he locked it in a trunk, and he stowed it in the abbey. Then, when the members called upon Lord Satan to appear, Wilkes pulled a string to release the frightened animal. For a moment, the members stared in disbelief…

… And then they lost their minds.

[music grows chaotic as the animation shows the baboon leaping over terrified figures while screams are heard] The terrified baboon leapt onto Lord Sandwich—yes, that Lord Sandwich, the guy who invented the sandwich—causing him to allegedly shout, “Spare me, gracious devil! I never knew that you’d really come or I’d never have invoked thee!”

[cuts back to the panel, all of them laughing]

VINNIE: I love how, even among this weird society, there was that one guy who was like, “This society is dull!”

PAUL: Also, after this happened, the baboon jumped out the window, and they weren’t able to catch it.

GENE: [laughing] That’s hilarious.

ERIC: [laughs and waves] Bye, suckers!

TOMMY: Bye, Felicia!

PAUL [voiceover]: As the alcohol continued to flow, the monks and their guests might share dirty stories, or read from the era’s more popular works of pornographic literature.

PAUL: I’ve provided you all with a piece of pornography. These are all from a piece published in 1740 called, “A Dialogue Between a Married Lady and a Maid.” So without further ado, [gestures to Vinnie for him to begin] Vinnie?

[dramatic piano music plays as Vinnie starts to read, looking like he wants to laugh]

VINNIE: “There is between the thighs, just at the bottom of the belly, a piece of flesh… Underneath, hangs in a bag, or purse, two little balls, pretty hard, and the harder the better. They call them stones, and in them is contained that white thick liquor.” [he wheezes, then bursts out laughing, joined by Tommy]

GENE: “He took hold of that place which distinguishes us from men. At the same time he cried out, ‘O! I have a maid! A virgin to my share!’”

VINNIE: I love that they seemed to not know the exact words. [laughs]

PAUL: Well, it was a different time. They were more prudish, I think.

VINNIE: True. I’ve seen some stuff online that’s pretty vulgar. There’s this one person online who likes pugs that writes some naughty, naughty stuff. [looks at the camera smirking] You know who you are. I see you.

ERIC: Okay, my turn. “His member was stiff and hard as a horn. Just as he had finished…” oh God, why? “… my mother, who had heard me shriek, came into the room.”

TOMMY: “‘What a happy girl you are!’ said she. ‘Pluck off this smock, which I will keep for a relick, since it is stained with thy virgin’s blood.’”

GENE: [to Vinnie] I feel like we got the lesser of the four passages.

VINNIE: I dunno…

ERIC: You did! Mine and Tommy’s were pretty explicit. You just got a playful description of balls!

VINNIE: Hey, that’s pretty tame compared to some of the smut that’s out there today.

GENE: Fifty Shades of Grey? [Paul frowns and glares at Gene as the rest of the panel silently stares at him] … What?

PAUL: How dare you. [Tommy laughs] How dare you bring that crap into my show. [cuts back to the animations]

PAUL [voiceover]: With bellies full of drinks and minds full of smut, guests would start to pair off and retreat to any of the private cells, which were prepared and stocked with the, quote, “proper objects for lascivious activities.”

[cut back to the panel. Eric is slumped over the desk]

PAUL: [looks over in slight amusement] You okay there, Eric?

ERIC: I just… I don’t even want to know what they got up to.

VINNIE: [grinning and trying not to laugh] It seems pretty obvious to me what they got up to.

ERIC: I don’t want to—

VINNIE: [still grinning] They got some of that dirty rhythm.

GENE: [also grinning] They indulged in some sweet pain.

ERIC: Gene, no—

TOMMY: [just assume everyone is grinning widely] They went for a rocket ride.

PAUL: They rocked hard all night.

GENE: Took each other down below.

ERIC: Guys, c’mon—

VINNIE: Got some tough love.

TOMMY: Pulled the triggers of their love guns.

PAUL: Put the X in—

ERIC: STOOOP!

PAUL [voiceover]: After operating in secret for many years, the details of the Hellfire Club at Medmenham Abbey were recounted in a popular novel in 1760. It captivated the public’s imagination, to the point that tourists would line the shores to try and spot the sex monks arriving. But, not wanting to give up his elaborate sex parties, Dashwood bounced back by having an elaborate system of caves dug on his own private property a few miles away from the abbey, and it was here that the monks of the Hellfire Club continued to have their parties in total privacy. This new location, and the fact that it was gated from the public and accessible only to club members, lends further plausibility to Ben Franklin’s participation. As he once wrote in a letter, “The exquisite sense of classical design, charmingly reproduced at West Wycombe, is as evident below the earth as above it.” Author Daniel Mannix argues that Franklin’s letter must be referring to the underground caves, and also adds that, quote, “Franklin would have been shortsighted if he hadn’t joined the club. He was a diplomat trying to help his country, and the club gave him the entrée to some of the most influential men in England.”

But as the guest lists for secret societies are kind of hard to figure out, we will never know for sure if Ben Franklin really did attend the Hellfire Club. But his documented friendship with Dashwood and his time spent at the estate puts it well within the realm of possibility. And, if you’re left wondering if a sex club fits with Franklin’s moral compass, then let’s take one last look at the man’s true character with some passages from an infamous piece penned by Franklin himself titled, “Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress.” This is a letter in which Ben Franklin encourages his friend to go after older women. It was written in 1745, a copy of it sits in the Library of Congress, and it’s kind of gross.

PAUL: And here to read us the letter, through the magic of theatre… [he turns and gestures off camera] Mr. Benjamin Franklin!

[the panel applauds and whoops, then they all start laughing as Ace walks in with a chair, dressed in 1700s style clothing with a wig that is long grey hair sewn to a bald patch, but we can still clearly see his real hair underneath. A text box appears on him as he sits down between Paul and Eric:

NOT A LICENSED BEN FRANKLIN IMPERSONATOR]

ACE/BEN: Tis I, Benjamin Franklin! Who by some extraordinary means, has come to a strange future time!

VINNIE: [has a hand over his mouth while he’s laughing] This is amazing.

PAUL: So, Ben, we’ve learned a lot about you and some possible details concerning your personal life.

ACE/BEN: Okay.

PAUL: But we still have a few questions. Guys?

VINNIE: Why did you enjoy the company of older women?

ACE/BEN: [reads from his paper] “Because as they have more knowledge of the world and their minds are better stor’d with observations, their conversation is more improving, and more lastingly agreeable.” Wouldn’t you say?

VINNIE: [shrugs and nods] Yeah, I guess.

GENE: Wasn’t he like, 70 years old when he wrote this later? How is he so young right now?

ACE/BEN: “Because the sin is less—”

PAUL: No, wait—

ERIC: [bursts out laughing]

PAUL: You have to ask him. He’s—He’s an old man.

ACE/BEN: I’m old.

GENE: Ben?

ACE/BEN: Go ahead, son.

GENE: Why do you prefer the company of older women?

ACE/BEN: “Because the sin is less,” my dear boy. “The debauching a virgin may be her ruin, and make her for life unhappy.”

ERIC: Huh.

GENE: Deep.

TOMMY: Do you have any more reasons?

ACE/BEN: Uh, yeah. [takes out another sheet of paper while Tommy and Eric silently laugh] “Because in every animal that walks upright, the deficiency of the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the highest part. The face first grows lank and wrinkled; [cut to the left side: Gene is doubled over silently laughing while Vinnie is listening thoughtfully] then the neck; then the breast and arms; the lower parts continuing to the last as plump as ever. So that covering all above with a basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two women to know an old from a young one.”

PAUL: So… you’re saying, when you put a basket over their heads…

ACE/BEN: Yeah. I don’t know. [panel bursts out laughing]

VINNIE: You don’t know?! You wrote it!

ACE/BEN: History will tell. History will tell.

PAUL: I, uh, I think history has told. Do you have any final thoughts?

VINNIE: It was a different time, maybe stuff happened that you couldn’t do nowadays.

TOMMY: He got pretty freaky.

ERIC: I mean, it would be a pretty cool movie, but I wouldn’t really want to hang out with him.

PAUL [voiceover]: Well, there you have it, people! Ben Franklin; a surprisingly multi-faceted individual. History: it’s never that boring if you know where to look. That’s been Ruining History. Thanks for learning with us!

#kiss unsolved #ruining kisstory #this episode was short enough that i could post it all at once without having to break it up into parts #which is great because i really don't like having to do that #but anyway #yep #I thought of this like way back in december but never got around to writing it until quite recently #there's also one on darius the great that i really wanted to do but thought it would make more sense to do the pilot episode #also Ash if you're reading this: yes that was a callout XD #hope you guys enjoyed this crazy thing #because i really enjoyed writing it lol #all those sex jokes had me cracking up #kiss au writing #my writing #thanks for reading!

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the-astra-system · 4 years

Text

Ravenclaw House

Name: Agni

Emoji: ☀️

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Self-Helper

Relationship Status: Taken (Soma from our partner system)

Extra: ☀️ I am a fictive from Black Butler.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Alode

Emoji: 💐

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Caregiver

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 💐 Bonjour. I'm a french plague doctor.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Anny

Emoji: 🦜

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Unsure yet

Relationship Status: Taken (Mary)

Extra: 🦜 I’m a pirate.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Bobby

Emoji: 🧢

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Gatekeeper

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🧢 I'm a fictive from Supernatural. Yes I understand that it can be "cringy", don't be sending Vixen hate you idjits. I'm the gatekeeper for Ravenclaw.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Carlisle

Emoji: ⚕

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Trauma Holder

Relationship Status: Taken (Grace from our partner system)

Extra: ⚕ I'm a fictive from Twilight. There's a lot of us here so please don't bully Vixen about it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Clary

Emoji: 🥐

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Protector

Relationship Status: Taken (Jace)

Extra: 🥐 I'm a fictive from Shadowhunters, the tv show version.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Danny

Emoji: 🧮

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Head of House

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🧮 I'm a fictive from Doctor Who. I was put in charge of the Ravenclaw house. If you have any questions regarding my house or a general question about the members, you can ask me.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Draco

Emoji: 🎼

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Protector

Relationship Status: Taken (Agnes from our partner system)

Extra: 🎼 First of all! Call me Malfoy and I'll hex the hell out of you. I'm a Black and I'm nothing like my birth father. I'm a white fox animagus and Hermione is my twin.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Five

Emoji: 5️⃣

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Self-Helper

Relationship Status: Taken (Baby from our partner system)

Extra: 5️⃣ I'm a fictive from The Umbrella Academy. No I don't have a coffee addiction 😑

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Genie

Emoji: 🧞‍♂️

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Caregiver

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🧞‍♂️ Heyo! I'm a fictive from the new Aladdin movie. No I can't grant any wishes and please don't send me jam, I'm still recovering from that mess 🤦🏻‍♂️

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Ghoulia

Emoji: 👻

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Self-Helper

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 👻 Hello 👋 I'm a fictive from Monster High!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Isabelle

Emoji: 💋

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Protector

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 💋 I'm also a fictive from Shadowhunters. I keep Jace and Clary (mostly Jace) from being stupid.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: June

Emoji: 👓

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Self-Helper

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 👓 I'm a fictive as well from Suicide Squad though I'm very different. I'm also a system, the Enchantress is part of my subsystem.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Enchantress

Emoji: 🏛

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Protector

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🏛 Also a fictive obviously. Part of June's subsystem. If you mess with her then you deal with me.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Meghan

Emoji: 🌺

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Caregiver

Relationship Status: Taken (Neville from our partner system)

Extra: 🌺 Hi!! I'm a fictive from a Harry Potter fanfiction that Vixen used to cope with for a few years. I'm the daughter of Sirius Black! I have a pet rat too.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: MJ

Emoji: 🦋

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Self-Helper

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🦋 Sup ✌🏻 I'm a lesbian so please don't ship me with Peter. He's cool but that's Ned's department.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Phelix

Emoji: 📷

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Unknown

Relationship Status: Taken (Tobias)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Selene

Emoji: 🌑

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Self-Helper

Relationship Status: Taken (Kass)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Daisy

Emoji: 🖱

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Protector

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🖱 I'm a fictive from Agents of Shield.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Fleur

Emoji: 🥖

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Protector

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🥖 Bonjour! I'm a fictive from Harry Potter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Castel

Emoji: 🧝🏻‍♀️

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Self-Helper

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🧝🏻‍♀️ Hello, I'm an elf!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Benny

Emoji: 🐎

Pronouns: He/Him

Role: Self-Helper

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🐎 I shapeshift between a horse and human form.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Nephele

Emoji: 🌬

Pronouns: She/Her

Role: Gatekeeper

Relationship Status: Single

Extra: 🌬 I'm a cloud nymph! I’m the gatekeeper for the whole system, Bobby is specifically the Ravenclaw gatekeeper.

#Ravenclaw house #meet the alters #d.i.d.#alters #dissociative identity disorder #fictives #system

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crimsonblackrose · 4 years

Text

One of the first things that I learned when I picked up all my passes at the Big Bus information office was that the Louvre required a reservation. The museum is always busy so making a reservation online is highly suggested. For general admission or special exhibits check here. Since I had a museum pass I picked a time slot and filled out the forms here. Because I was so tired rather than make my reservation at 9am like I had planned I made it for 9:30am. I didn’t have any difficulty getting the date or time I wanted, which is lucky. I also was in Paris during the off season. I was sent an e-mail with the information for my pass and then I screenshot it so that I could show it to the guards when I arrived. I highly suggest doing this just to make your life easier. You enter via the glass pyramid.

My plan for my second full day in Paris included cramming three museums into one day. So I had a goal of just seeing the highlights in the Louvre. Anything else I managed to see would be a bonus. The main goal was to, of course, find the Mona Lisa. But first, because I’d gotten such a late start and then felt rushed to be at the Louvre exactly at 9:30 so I wouldn’t miss my spot I hadn’t eaten. So within the Louvre I popped into a cafe right before going through with my museum pass and quickly ate a brioches suisses which was absolutely delightful. Brioches suisses is a french bread (brioche) with chocolate chips and vanilla custard in the middle. There wasn’t any seating within the cafe but there was some seating outside of it under a pillar with tables every couple of feet. So I sat there to eat my breakfast before going through with my museum pass to enter the actual Louvre. I felt the same sort of rush that I felt when trying to get into Harry Potter at USJ the first time.

While some highlights are included on the map so you can easily make a goal of what to see, others are not. On my way to find the Mona Lisa I ran into a couple famous statues.

First was the Venus de Milo or Aphrodite from 100 BC which is located in the Sully wing on the ground floor in the Parthenon room (room 346).

Then in one of the stair cases on my way to the Mona Lisa I found the Winged Victory of Samothrace which is thought to be from 190 BC and is located in the Denon Wing on the ground floor in the staircase (room 703).

If you’re lost and looking for it just ask because the “gallery” it’s in is the Winged Victory of Samothrace stairwell.

Mona Lisa is an Italian painting also known as Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo by Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was located in the Denon wing on the first floor in the Mona Lisa Room (room 711) Please note that sometimes it moves.

You don’t get much time with the Mona Lisa. It’s probably one of the most popular paintings in the Louvre, let alone maybe THE most popular part of the Louvre in general. To deal with crowds they’ve created a line with two entrances, you can either go up to the left or you can go up to the right and then security will give you a couple minutes to take a few photos before sending you on your way. While the rest of the Louvre is set up so you can sit and take in the paintings and sculptures due to the large amount of people who want to see Mona Lisa it is not possible. In the grand scheme of things when I visited it probably wasn’t that busy. The line didn’t spill out past at least half way through the winding ropes they’d made for the queue.

The Louvre actually doesn’t insure the Mona Lisa. And no one knows how much it’s worth. It’s one of the world’s most famous paintings and instead the Louvre puts it’s money towards protection for it. The Mona Lisa has been stolen, someone’s tried to graffiti it and someone else has tried to throw a rock at it. Security seems to be a better idea then insuring it anyway.

Because I was in the area, an area of vast paintings I decided to stop and taken in July 28. Liberty Leading the People a painting I remember seeing often in my high school French classes. the painting is by Eugène Delacroix and is located in the department of paintings near Mona Lisa. No matter how many times I saw it in my French book or online I never realized just how massive of a painting it was.

After checking out a couple other giant paintings in the area I stopped at the in-Louvre cafe for a special Louvre tea called thé du Louvre Côté Cour: Courtyard tea. The little pouch the tea came in was quite pretty and the area around The Café Mollien was beautiful.

If you’re there I highly suggest trying to get a window seat. They’re the most popular and even though the cafe wasn’t busy all of those seats were taken when I visited. They have a stunning view and during the summer the terrace is open so you can enjoy your drink or snacks outside while enjoying the view of Cour Napoléon and the garden.

After a nice tea break I went off in search of more art. My main goals were to see The Coronation of Napoleon , Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, and The Lamassu.

The Coronation of Napoleon, also known as The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon I and the Crowning of the Empress Joséphine in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804 was quite easy to find. It was painted by Jacques-Louis David and is located in the Denon Wing on the first floor in Daru, room 702.

The painting was mentioned on the tour of Versailles, about how the painting was requested done by Napoleon with some subtle changes. Some things including his mother who refused to attend being painted in the background. It shows Napoleon crowning his wife as Empress after being crowned himself.

The Lamassu was also quite easy to find though a bit further away. They’re located in the Richelieu wing on the ground floor in the Mesopotamia, Assyria Khorsabad section in room 229.

The Lamassu are protective genies that guard entrances in Dur Sharrukin which is now in modern day Khorsabad, northern Iraq. These creatures are part man, part bird and part bull and known as shedu or lamassu.

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss however I had an awful time trying to find. The reason why is because the museum is broken up into three main wings. The Richelieu, Sully, and Denon. I had gone down to the ground floor on the Richelieu side and thought I was crossing through Sully and into Denon, but in reality what I was doing was walking in circles around a statue courtyard in the 200’s rooms of the Richelieu. It took me awhile to figure it out. Too long. Embarrassingly too long. I didn’t realize the grey space in the center of Richelieu map was a courtyard. I thought it was the main one with the pyramid. And I couldn’t figure out how to cross over. It was very frustrating. I’ve circled on the map of the ground floor below the area in which I kept walking in circles.

Eventually I asked security for directions and they told me I had to leave and re-enter. Apparently you can do that, at least twice. So I popped out, went back into the main lobby, scanned for the Denon wing and went back in.

I think in other areas and on other floors it’s easy to travel between the three wings, but for some reason when I got down to the ground floor I had an awful time of it. But I did eventually find Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss which is located in the Denon wing on the ground floor in the Michelangelo gallery in room 403.

I saw a lot of other really cool things as I rushed around. I’ll make sure to list the wing, level, and room number for each of them if you click on the image or below it.

Daphnis et Chloé by François Gérard Denon Wing 1st floor Mollien room 700

I think the Louvre is massive. The way you’re suppose to enjoy art is to sit with it and take it in, but I think because of the Louvre if there’s a lot you want to see in a short period of time it makes it difficult. I think because I was also trying to run around on my Museum pass before it expired I felt extra pressure to rush, which isn’t the way you’re suppose to enjoy a museum let alone art. If you have more time I think it’ll be better.

My favorite part of the museum was really seeing other people enjoying it. The amount of artists I saw camped out in the Louvre sketching the sculptures just instilled something warm and fuzzy in me. I wanted to grab a notebook and join them, like I did in my high school art trips. But I just felt like there was no time.

Crown of Louis XV: Denon wing, 1st floor Galerie d’Apollon Room 705

The Louvre is open from Wednesday through Monday. They are closed on Tuesdays, January 1st, May 1st and December 25th. On Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays they are open from 9am until 6pm. On Wednesdays and Fridays they are open from 9am until 9:45pm. Double check online that they are open and their hours before you go. When I went the strikes were happening so they warned that some rooms/galleries might be closed and that the museum might close early. It’s considered fastest to book your tickets online ahead of time and to arrive in the morning.

Hercules, Dejanira and the Centaur Nessus Richelieu wing 1st floor Rotonde Jean Boulogne Room 526

Grand sphinx Sully wing Lower ground floor Crypt of the Sphinx Room 338

The Athena of Velletri

Attached to the Louvre is also a mall like area called Carrousel du Louvre. There’s a food court here with a McDonalds and various other restaurants as well as shopping. I grabbed a late lunch here, debating between different things because all I needed/wanted to do was find a corner to sit in and charge my wifi buddy because it had died suddenly. (The fuse at my hotel had blown for all my outlets so nothing had charged, I didn’t realize it until that night) I wandered around the food court trying to decide what I should get. I felt like I had to get French food, even though there were other options and it had a long line. The McDonalds had more available seating and less of a wait and while McDonalds tends to be better in any country outside of the U.S. it felt like a bad choice for my limited amount of time in France. I hadn’t even scratched the surface of my dream food list.

quiche lorraine set 13.60 euro

So I got in line, looked at what they had and ordered a quiche lorraine. It came with a salad that I didn’t particularly want but couldn’t turn down because it was a set. It only came with one type of dressing, an oil and balsamic dressing that needed to be shaken up. They took it off the bar and popped my quiche back into an oven to reheat. During my trip I had two quiche lorraines, both had to be reheated and came inexplicably with a side salad with the same oil and balsamic dressing. This was the better of the two.

The Carrousel du Louvre is open Wednesday through Monday from 10am until 8pm. On Tuesdays they are open from 11am until 7pm.

“Artemis with a Doe” Sully wing Ground floor Salle des Caryatides Room 348

Hercules Wrestling Achelous Room 105, Richelieu wing

galerie d’apollon

The Louvre One of the first things that I learned when I picked up all my passes at the Big Bus information office was that the Louvre required a reservation.

#art museums #france #paris #the louvre #travel

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mystery-deer · 5 years

Text

When Did You Know

“I have a favor to ask.” Greg’s words seemed to echo back to him. He could feel how they stuttered and petered out, unconfident. There was the sound of pages turning, silence, then his voice. “I’m not in the habit of granting wishes, Inspector.”

He could picture him. Mycroft, dressed to the nines despite the solidarity of his daily routine. From what he gathered he WAS a sort of genie. Or a magic eight ball. Sherlock had told him once while smoking a cigarette that had a heady, sweet smell to it; “My brother IS the government. If it’s a body, he’s the brain. The one behind it all.” He’d then told him that the murderer they were chasing was feeding his missing wives to his dogs, which had kept him up for weeks. God, the carnage. The barking.

And every night, on every one of those nights after the barking had faded and the viscera had cleared. He saw Mycroft there, sitting behind his desk as always, still and stately as a statue. And his heart lurched instead of his stomach.

“You can call me Greg you know. Sherlock does.” “Sherlock has only ever referred to you as Inspector Lestrade or Lestrade.” “Will you come to my ex-wife’s thing with me?”

Silence on the other line again. He waited as Mycroft shuffled papers around and stapled something. “Why are you going to your ex-wife’s-” “It’s not- okay it’s more like my sister’s party but she’s friends with her. They’ve been friends forever that’s how we met.” Greg looked down at his scruffy boots, ran a hand along his jaw for stubble. “And she invited me. My sister, but I know she’ll be there.”

“...and why should I come?” “I don’t know. I just.” He breathed. “I need a date. And...I don’t really, I don’t have a lot of people who’d go right now.”

After the divorce he’d been a wreck. Drinking, showing up late to work, always tired. He felt like there was a dark, oppressive cloud weighing him down, blinding him. People had tried to help at first but it was too much, he was too much. So when the cloud lifted enough for him to see again he saw how alone he was.

“You don’t have to come you know, I know it’s been...hard for you.” His sister had said. He knew she’d said it because she cared, because she loved him but in that moment he felt nothing but rage roiling in his gut. It was so difficult to distinguish care from pity these days. Maybe the only difference was how you looked at it.

“I’m coming.” He’d said, and hung up.

“Fine.” Mycroft said. Greg blinked and looked up even though there was no way the other man could see him. He could see himself though, reflected in the window to his apartment. “What?” “I’m coming.” He said, and hung up.

John was a good doctor, friend, and conversation partner and so after this jarring phone call Greg immediately hailed a cab to 221B. He didn’t know of any other address that John resided in, despite him mentioning multiple times having an apartment and a medical practice somewhere in the city. He was always at Sherlock’s flat, and tonight was no different.

“Greg? It’s late isn’t it?” “Is this about a case?” Sherlock yelled out from somewhere behind the door. “No!” Greg yelled back, John wincing from being stuck between them. “Yes yes, no case!” The doctor grumbled, turning so that Greg could no longer see his face. “Sherlock, I’m going out to the pub with the Inspector.”

Greg half-listened to their hushed conversation. As John said goodbye he leaned back, the door obscuring him partially and his tone becoming a kind of syrupy he usually reserved for patients or young children.

They found their usual pub and ordered their usual drinks, settling into the booth tucked into the corner. Neither of them were showmen and the privacy, even amidst the somewhat rowdy bar crowd put them at ease.

“So, what’s this about?” John asked, looking tired. “Sorry, were you sleeping?” “No, no nothing like that.” He smiled to himself before schooling his expression. “This is about you! Don’t change the subject or I swear I’ll call Sherlock down here to deduce what’s wrong.”

He could imagine it. Sherlock swooping into the place, ignoring all the eyes on him and launching into a gleeful deduction about how he had the hots for his brother. Greg shuddered.

“God no, please have mercy.” They laughed. Somewhere in the bar the music changed to something slow and someone whistled. “I...do you think if you and Sherlock-” He paused, scratching his head. “Do you think if Sherlock was a woman you’d, you know...be interested? In him?”

John took a drink from his mug, looking off into the distance. Greg’s heart pounded, worried that he’d somehow figured something out. It was sometimes easy to forget how smart the doctor was in his own right when he was next to Sherlock.

“I don’t...I don’t think that the nature of our relationship would change.” John said carefully, and Greg wondered if it was the lights or the heat of the bar that made his face appear so red.

Watson coughed and looked away. “Why do you ask?” “I...Mycroft-” Greg started. “Sherlock’s brother!?” “Oh, have you met?” John made a noise that indicated that if they had met, he didn’t wish to meet again soon. In the booth behind them someone began speaking on the phone in french. “Oof, that bad?”

“He isn’t the most pleasant man. Gave me the creeps honestly, don’t know how Sherlock and him came from the same woman.”

Greg thought of Sherlock and Mycroft. The way they spoke too fast sometimes, how when they were in the same room together it was like they were in another, private world. He thought about their eyes. Sherlock’s piercing, brimming with curiosity and good humor while Mycroft’s were dull like pennies, brown jewels plucked and placed in a doll’s head. Mycroft's eyes... He remembered how he looked, surrounded by the ever-changing content of his office. Everything around him was as fluid as the river and he was a rock in the middle, letting the water run off him. Sturdy, calm, watchful. He couldn't think about that right now. Shouldn't. John was looking at him.

“Yeah. Uh, he’s going to a party with me.” Greg winced at his friend's startled laughter, his drink spraying across the table. “Jesus!” “God! Sorry! I just- a PARTY? What’d you do to him!?” “Nothing! I just - I asked, but it was a joke!” He felt his own face flush as he took a swig of his beer. Why had he even come here? “A joke…” he mumbled. He felt like he was being watched, like the universe was wagging its finger at him. "I don't know. Anyway..."

He and John continued drinking throughout the night and when they finally stumbled outside the sky was a light pinkish blue. “Uh-oh! The missus gonna be pissed at you?” Asked Greg, half-carrying John back to 221B. “Who?” “Sherlock!” “Ah, Sherlock? Oh! There’eis!” John slurred, suddenly lurching away from the inspector and into the arms of Sherlock, who was exiting the apartment building in a hurry. His face lit up when he saw the doctor approaching and Greg wondered if he was going to go looking for him.

“Hm? Watson! Good to see you in good health.” “‘Mso...tired.” “I can see that. Come now, up…”

Greg watched as the two of them held onto each other, Sherlock helping John up the stairs without glancing back at him. Neither of them did, too wrapped up in each other to notice. He felt his heart ache a little as he spun on his heels with a wolf whistle and vanished into the throng of people. The image of Sherlock’s gaze, so lovingly and completely focused on John, was nearly haunting in its intensity.

How lucky, he thought. To be so singular to someone in this crowd of millions. (this is a multi-chapter fic, check it out https://archiveofourown.org/works/20127160/chapters/47681659)

#mystrade #my writing #fanfic #mystrade fanfic

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dannyreviews · 5 years

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Last Night (1998)

One of the unsung heroes of late 20th century/early 21st century indie cinema is Don McKellar. I was first introduced to his writing and support roles through his work with Francois Girard on the films “The Red Violin” and “Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould” and his scene stealing performance as Darren Nichols in the Canadian TV series “Slings and Arrows”. “Last Night” represents McKellar going out on his own for the first time and producing an bold and inspiring original piece of film.

The title “Last Night” refers to the end of the Earth and civilization. In the heart of Toronto, several figures are coping with the inevitable Armageddon. Patrick (McKellar) is a loner who reluctantly gets in touch with his family, including his sister Jennifer (Sarah Polley) and their parents (Roberta Maxwell and Robin Gammell). Sandra (Sandra Oh) is on her way home when her car is destroyed and she ends up stranded. Sandra’s husband Duncan (David Cronenberg) works for the power company and calls every one his customers assuring them that the heat will be turned on all night. His secretary Donna (Tracy Wright aka the late Mrs. McKellar) wants to sow her wild oats. Patrick’s friend Craig (Callum Keith Rennie) is spending his last hours trying to have various types of sex with different women, in particular he and Patrick’s old French teacher Mme. Carlton (Genevieve Bujold). In the Earth’s last 6 hours of existence, these people’s lives will intersect, affecting whatever time they have left.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I am not a big fan of Canadian cinema as a whole. However, “Last Night” falls under my personal and exclusive class of Canadian films that are well written, acted and directed. McKellar’s very original story fills things with tension and unpredictability. The scenes of rioting and mayhem in the streets are purely heartbreaking and makes “The Purge” films look like child’s play. Coming out the same year as the horrid disaster flick “Armageddon”, McKellar’s own story about Armageddon doesn’t go off into the depths of maudlin soap opera hysterics and cheap special effects. Each character has their different traits with an aura of humanity. You want to know more about these characters in a matter of the 6 hour window of time and the feel of humanity’s death sentence cuts like a knife to the heart.

As Patrick, Don McKellar is terrific. He doesn’t overact, but rather makes good use of underacting to convincingly show his character’s hermit status. Callum Keith Rennie, in his Genie Award winning performance as Craig provides the comedy relief to counteract Patrick’s dramatics. The scene where he writes on the walls his various sexual dreams, he manages to keep a straight face, which is the mark of a good acting job. He is almost a precursor to Richard Coyle’s perverted character Jeff on the British TV series “Coupling”. David Cronenberg joins the group of directors that make good actors like John Huston with his soft spoken and timid Duncan. Not diminishing these performances at all, Sandra Oh’s namesake character puts these three to shame at key moments. She is probably the most true to life person in the whole film. Taking a simple plot line of a helpless woman, Oh manages to turn her role into a fascinating character study. If there was a performance that deserved the Genie Award, it’s her work on this film.

In addition to Oh and Rennie’s Genie Award wins, Don McKellar won the Claude Jutra Award for Best First Feature, an irony considering that Jutra was a sub-par director, but that’s another discussion. The film received an additional 10 nominations including 3 for McKellar in the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay categories, as well as two Supporting Actress nominations for Roberta Maxwell and Genevieve Bujold. It lost the majority of the awards to another film that McKellar was involved with, “The Red Violin”. McKellar won the Award of the Youth at the Cannes Film Festival and various awards around Canada. “Last Night” remains an unexpected, yet well deserved nugget in Canadian film history and also a film that should be made more aware to international audiences.

8.5/10

#dannyreviews #last night #don mckellar #sarah polley #roberta maxwell #robin gammell #sandra oh #david cronenberg #tracy wright #genevieve bujold #genie awards

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southeastasianists · 6 years

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Built in 1372, the temple of Wat Phnom stands on the only hill in Phnom Penh, which lent the the Cambodian capital its name. According to legend, the temple was originally built to house four statues of the Buddha found in a tree floating in the nearby river.

Back in 1372, or so the story goes, a wealthy widower named Daun Penh came across a fallen koki tree floating in the river near her home. Inside the tree she found four bronze statues of the Buddha. Amazed by this discovery, Penh and her neighbors built a temporary shrine on a piece of raised ground near her house. The locals called the small hill Phnom Penh, or “Penh’s Hill,” in her honor.

About 60 years later, King Ponhea Yat, the last king of the Khmer Empire, moved to Phnom Penh. He gave the order to increase the size of the hill, and to build a wooden temple atop it. This was the first rebuilding of Wat Phnom—one of many over the following centuries—and the remains of Ponhea Yat are still housed in a stupa behind the main temple.

The main temple was rebuilt in 1434, 1806, 1894, and 1926. Its importance rose and fell over the years, depending on the whims of kings, and extensive renovations were made to fit the ideologies of various rulers, including the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. New shrines and statues have been added, and the original walls plastered and painted over on numerous occasions.

Today, the temple is an amalgam of styles and structures from across its more than 600-year history, including gardens built by the French in the late 19th century and shrines that represent Taoist, Confucian, and Hindu beliefs.

The grand main entrance runs up the eastern stairway, its path guarded by lions and naga, the mythical snakes of Hinduism and Buddhism. Inside the temple sits a large bronze Buddha, the walls covered by paintings that tell his story, and murals that recount the Reamker, the Khmer version of the Ramayana.

Many more shrines dot the sides and base of the hill, but few are more important than the shrine to Daun Penh, the supposed founder of the wat. The front of her shrine is often crowded with people leaving offerings of food and praying to Daun Penh, and many women come here to pay tribute to the temple’s female founder.

Other notable features include a little shrine dedicated to the spirit or genie Preah Chau, which is thought to offer protection from enemies and is especially popular among the Vietnamese community. There’s also the over 200-foot-wide flower clock, originally a gift from France in the 1960s, but replaced in 2000 by a new version given as a gift by China.

#Southeast Asia #Cambodia #Wat Phnom #Religion #Buddhism #Architecture

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idkwhatimdoing-nothere-blog · 7 years

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Blog by: Rhys Davies Photos by: Bear Krutsinger

At some point in ones life, we think about traveling to Paris. Maybe with that one person who completes your heart, maybe with your future kids, your best friend, maybe just by yourself because you say screw it I want to go. Thousand upon thousands of reasons you could give yourself to go to this place. Use any of them, because you have to visit this city. From the people, to its’ history, the beautiful architecture and monuments, and of course the food. Paris is a place where you will never regret going.

Just some advice to those who do wish to do the backpacking travel style, I recommend getting your own flat via Airbnb or whatever you use. Bear and I were lucky enough to find one for relatively good price and it really made the whole trip so much more worthwhile having our own space to go home to. Another tip, for visiting any part of France really, is try and learn a few words and phrases of French. Keep practicing even when your there. It really pays in spades both for yourself and for the people you meet, because the people honestly will respect you more for trying then not at all.

Our day of arrival was fairly pleasant, as we got to Paris right when there springtime was starting so it was very sunny and warm. A nice change of pace from the rain and clouds we were used to in the UK and Ireland. We took the evening nice and easy, eating out that night on something simple, as we wanted to really get our research together before trying to venture forth. Best part of our flat was we had a really nice window where you could just sit on the sill and hear the sounds of Paris. Bliss.

Our first outing was to the train station to grab tickets. So funny situation, the system for getting tickets for a train that doesn’t leave for a few days or more is eerily similar to the DMV. You get a ticket with a number on it and then sit in a designated place for an hour or more until they called you up. Safe to say Bear and I had played this game before and we weren’t interested in sitting on our ass twiddling our thumbs.

We ventured to best Patisserie (Pastry) shop known in Paris, La Pâtisserie Cyril Lignac. A bit pricy but damn worth it, even just for one of their creations. Perfect snack to grab and when we got back we had only about a 15-minute wait left. So of course we snacked on our treats. Every person in that little sitting area was eyeing our treats with such envy, but we did not care. Play the game boys and girls. Don’t let it play you.

After that our adventure really did begin. Paris is a lovely city to walk through but they also do have a great metro system. But I’d recommend walking if it’s not to far. If you do decide to grab the metro, depending on how long you are there for, grab the ten-pack of tickets. You get a slight discount. Our first stop of course was the Eiffel Tower. Coming up on it from the garden section is good and all, but if you want to get some great pictures, head up to the Palais De Challiot, just across the Pont d’lena. It’s just behind the tower with a huge fountain as the big marker to look for.

After photos, we had some lunch by the tower and just enjoyed the sun. Something we really didn’t learn until later down the line is France timing for food is fairly different than anywhere else. From eight AM to about two PM breakfast, brunch, and lunch are served just about everywhere, but after 2 most cafés and small restaurants close for about four to five hours. So the between time when you get hungry again, I recommend either packing yourself some snacks or grabbing a baguette and some cheese/meat to snack on in a park. Bring a bottle of wine or some beer as you are allowed to drink within every park.

As we were in the area, the Arc du Triumphe was our next stop. The Arc is truly a remarkable piece of architecture. Stunning and strong, it stands proud in the center of a storm of traffic that, if you like, you can try and dodge to run up to it. Or you could use the underground tunnel. But what’s the fun in that? (I believe the saying is if you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball) After walking so much, we decided a sit down was in order so we visited the Jardin des Tuileries, a fairly large park. Nice area to just chill at with a bottle of wine for a couple of hours with friends.

That night we snacked on some food that was really tasty. It’s at a place called Gustave le Claps. It’s a sandwich shop that is open most of the day and the night and damn it is good. They don’t use traditional bread, instead using this type of thick tortilla that they grill after making the sandwich to make it nice and hot. If you’re looking for a simple dinner or a really tasty lunch, this is the place to go.

Our next day we decided to venture towards the northwestern section of Paris, stopping at another top rated sweet shop, this one called L’Eclair De Genie. We had two each and they were absolutely amazing. The pastry chef working that day was kind to give us a taster of his special for the day. Apparently he appreciated our attempt of French, which he said most tourists don’t even try to learn when they visit. See what you get for trying? We then found, quite by accident, the Le mur des je t’aime also known as the “I love you” wall. It’s a wall that has I love you written in every language in the world, including ASL to my happy surprise. Brilliant.

After climbing numerous steep hills we found the Sacre-Coeur, an extremely large white church that sits atop a giant hill that gives an absolute gorgeous view of Paris. Oh and we also got to see the famous hookers of Paris in broad daylight on our way down to the Palais De Royal. A fun game to play when you catch sight of them is Who’s the Pimp? It usually is the one guy in a leather jacket sitting alone with his arms across his chest. While down in the area, we decided to check out the pyramid of glass that the Louvre is famous for. Really spectacular to see when the sun hits it just right.

While we were in the area, I got to witness something absolutely amazing. So faint at first, I heard music playing in the area and immediately I was entranced. I started searching for the source until I finally found her. She was playing a haunting melody on the violin and I couldn’t stop watching her play. She looked so peaceful, dancing to her tune while she played with her eyes closed. I can still hear the music, even days later. Stunning.

That night we decided a taste of home was in order so we grabbed tacos and queso at this lovely little restaurant (Run by a girl who’s mother lives in Texas) called Le Noperia Toqual. Some small advice for this place, grab the burrito instead of the tacos. The tacos are tasty but fairly small and won’t fill you up. Still, the fact that we were able to find a taco place in Paris that was actually good made me feel pretty happy.

We then visited the Paris Catacombs. This is a place you have to go! Tip: pay the extra online to pass by the line or you will be waiting for hours. After satisfying our scare factor for the day, we had a lovely French lunch at Le Lithographe, and went walking around the Luxembourg Palais and the park surrounding it. There is an amazing statue in the area, the Le Fontain De Medicis that is breathtaking. We also grabbed ice cream at a place called Berthillion, best ice cream in Paris so they say. I was very happy with that, because while enjoying our treat we caught sight of Notre Dame in a beautiful afternoon light.

The Kiss of Death

Because of that sight, we decided we needed to visit the church and the towers above. The church itself is breathtaking, though fairly noisy from the amount of tourists, but the towers are worth the long wait. You get a great view of the bells inside and a panoramic view of Paris from so high up. They have netting all around though, so it ruins the ambiance of the area. While up that high we noticed the Pantheon was fairly close so we decided we should check it out as well. Nice surprise, because of a mess up of ticket costs by the service desk, we were given complimentary tickets to climb up to the top of the Pantheon, giving us in my opinion an even greater sight of Paris.

That night we met up with a friend of ours from Texas who had been living in Paris for a few months, Jacob. He was kind enough to show a few fun spots to catch some music and a couple of drinks. That and gave us another sampling of French cuisine, this one being meats, cheese, and veggies on a platter with a large helping of bread. Couldn’t have asked for more. Of the bars we checked out, La Fontaine was my favorite. That night we got fairly drunk, so we slept quite well. The morning however was another story.

Hangover with Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. Though the morning was rough, we decided to push through and visit one of the oldest cemeteries in Paris, where the famed Jim Morrison is buried, whom Bear very much wanted to visit. This cemetery is massive and honestly if you want a quiet place to write some poetry and eat some lunch, this is the place to go. Another famed member of the worlds’ history buried here was Oscar Wilde, a person I very much wanted to visit.

So fun fact about Paris, on Fridays just after 6 the Louvre Museum, home to works by Da Vinci, Raphael, and many more is free to the public. Including foreigners. So naturally we took advantage of this time to explore one of the biggest museums in the world. We maybe got through a third of it, max. It’s not something you can do in a few hours. It’s a day trip just to get through it, after you will feel burnt out with the amount of information and sights coursing through your brain.

With all of that info coursing through us, we felt like we needed a breather of sort. Here comes Jacob once again to save the day, bringing us to a Paris house party with some pretty fun people, where we got to try Pastis, which is very similar to Absinth. We actually ended up partying till about four AM and because of that we missed the last train for the night a few hours earlier. So we caught the first one out at 5:30 am, which we caught by staying outside the train station till then. Drunk. So that was fun.

Our last day was a very French day, beginning with a Parisian brunch, and then getting together with some friends that we met via Jacob. Emmanuel thank you again for showing us a fun time for our last day in Paris, and introducing us to savory crepes. These are the kind with cheese, meat, and other goodies in them instead of the regular sweet kind. Couldn’t have asked for a better last day.

Au revoir Paris. Thank you again for such an experience. We are now off to Bordeaux, center of wine in France. Super excited for that. Thanks again for tuning into the adventures of the Bear and the Lion. If you liked the blog, leave us a comment. We love hearing from everyone. Till then, santé.

A Walk Through Paris Blog by: Rhys Davies Photos by: Bear Krutsinger At some point in ones life, we think about traveling to Paris.

#Adventure #Bear #Catacombs #Eiffel tower #Lion #Notre-Dame #Pantheon #Paris #Travel

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Jennifer Lopez at the Super Bowl? It’s the Role She Was Born to Play

Some time in 1998, riding high on critical acclaim for her performance alongside George Clooney in Steven Soderbergh’s sultry crime thriller “Out of Sight,” the rising actress Jennifer Lopez approached her manager with an unconventional idea: She wanted to make an album.

Lopez recalled his response was not encouraging in a recent “CBS Sunday Morning” interview: “Well, you know, you won’t be taken seriously as an actress now if you make a record, so how about we just stick to the acting right now?” That was not an option. The experience of playing the Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in a 1997 biopic had reignited a fire. “Once I did the movie ‘Selena,’ I was like, No, I’m doing it,” she said with a flash in her eyes.

On Sunday, Lopez will headline the Super Bowl halftime show with Shakira, joining the recent ranks of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Katy Perry. Her status as a triple-threat pop cultural polyglot by now feels so inevitable that it can be easy to forget what she risked in 1999 when she released her debut album, “On the 6.” A Los Angeles Times profile from that May — headline: “It’s Not ‘La Vida Loca’ to Her” — wondered why she would “put her red-hot film career on hold for more than a year to make an album.” (It’s hard to think of a contemporary equivalent to this surprise: Perhaps if Timothée Chalamet announced a break to focus on his rap career?) Even in the waning boom days of the recording industry, J. Lo’s music career was far from a guaranteed triumph.

But the gambit worked, of course. Her debut single, “If You Had My Love,” held No. 1 on the Billboard chart for five weeks that summer; “On the 6” went multiplatinum and was nominated for two Grammys. Her 2001 follow-up, “J.Lo,” fared even better, and its debut atop the album chart made her the first person in history to score a No. 1 album and a No. 1 movie (“The Wedding Planner”) simultaneously.

In some sense, though, that manager’s prophecy came true. “The Wedding Planner” was not exactly “Out of Sight”: The daffy, predictable rom-com that asked its audience to believe that Jennifer Lopez was Italian currently holds a 16 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “Gigli” would soon follow — and that’s all that needs to be said about that. In pursuing a pop career, and thus a less solemn and obedient identity as a Serious Actress, Lopez telegraphed early on that she was a bit too restless to play by Hollywood’s rules. Pop music offered Lopez more flexibility anyway: Leading roles weren’t exactly flowing to Latinas, and meaningful conversations about diversity in the movie industry were more than a decade away.

Now, over 20 years after her first pivot to music, a jilted Hollywood seems once again to be thumbing its nose at Lopez. Though she was widely expected to receive her first Oscar nomination for her complex, defiantly unsentimental performance as stripper-turned-grifter Ramona Vega in the hit movie “Hustlers,” the Academy left her in the cold. (“First of all, ‘Hustlers’ is not an Oscar movie,” one 91-year-old Academy voter recently told Page Six.) The supporting actress nominees are all white.

It does not feel entirely coincidental that this rebuke happened on the heels of yet another year when Lopez worked overtime to remind the world that — far from a side-hustle or a part-time vanity project — she is still very much an active musician. In April she released a new single, “Medicine,” which features the rapper French Montana and has a surreal, Busby-Berkley-meets-haute-couture music video. Then, following a successful Las Vegas residency that ended in 2018, last summer Lopez embarked on the 38-date (and $54.7 million-grossing) It’s My Party arena tour; her performances were an entertaining and impressively athletic blend of showgirl glitz and South Bronx grit.

The tour was also evidence that Lopez is particularly well-suited for the Super Bowl halftime show — an event that calls for a glitter-encrusted ringmaster’s charisma, a catalog of hits that anyone can sing along to, and a kind of professionalized sass and sex appeal that does not quite veer into the territory of an F.C.C. violation (as Janet Jackson and M.I.A. can attest). It should be an especially fitting display of her talents: The quintessential Jennifer Lopez experience is an audiovisual one, allowing her to glide fluidly between music, movement and the theatrical star-power that can keep an audience riveted. And given both Justin Timberlake’s somnolent 2018 performance and Maroon 5 and Travis Scott’s haphazard, cringe-inducing celebration of Adam Levine’s chest tattoos, the past few halftime shows have offered plenty of room for improvement.

Lopez’s musical career has not been without its misfires, but she has remained tenaciously committed to it as a necessary creative outlet. Its duration alone, in the fickle and ageist world of pop, is staggering: The 50-year-old Lopez has stuck around long enough to ride the wave of two different “Latin booms,” from “Bailamos” to Bad Bunny. She’s moved relatively nimbly with the changing tides, from the airy confections of the “TRL” era to the harder crystalline beats that accompanied the EDM-crazed 2010s. One of the most successful singles of Lopez’s career, the driving, sing-song-y Pitbull collaboration “On the Floor” came in 2011, a full 12 years after her debut album.

But from “On the 6” to her recent Oscar snub, Lopez seems to have found, in her pop career, a sense of freedom and validation that has eluded her in Hollywood, where she continues to vibrate at a slightly different frequency. She founded her own production company and in 2016 starred in one of its creations, the network cop show “Shades of Blue,” while others were leaning toward prestige TV. The figure of the Serious Actress is still cut from a stiff, restrictive cloth. But if you know one thing about J. Lo, it’s that she has an innate desire to move.

At least in the pop-cultural consciousness, Lopez was first known as a dancer. There she is grooving in the video for Janet Jackson’s 1993 hit “That’s the Way Love Goes,” and backing New Kids on the Block in an American Music Awards performance that screams 1991. (Even before then, she’d cut her teeth in musical theater, appearing in regional productions of “Oklahoma!” and “Jesus Christ Superstar.”) In 1992, she bested 2,000 other hopefuls when she snagged a coveted spot as a Fly Girl on the sketch comedy show “In Living Color.” But Lopez didn’t want to be hemmed too tightly into that role either: She turned down an offer to be a backing dancer on Jackson’s tour because she wanted to act.

By the time she’d established herself onscreen — “Selena” was her breakthrough — and finally got around to giving pop stardom a go, Jenny had been around the proverbial block. On the Billboard charts and MTV, Lopez suddenly found herself competing with upstarts nearly half her age. Remember that 1999 marked not just the year of “On the 6,” but also the arrival of “Baby One More Time” and “Genie in a Bottle” — by 17-year-old Britney Spears and 18-year-old Christina Aguilera. Lopez turned 30 that July.

Especially for women, pop is often considered the domain of the almost criminally young. But in her most iconic music videos, Lopez’s age actually gave her something of an edge. Compared to the nymphets sharing her “TRL” airtime, Lopez projected a grown woman who was in full control of her image, at ease with her sexuality and confident in her incessantly Googled body.

On an episode of the podcast Still Processing, the New York Times writer Jenna Wortham suggested that Lopez’s music videos created a space in which she could express more of herself than she could in almost any of her movie roles — whether it was the bumbling and questionably Italian rom-com heroine, the cat-fighting rival (“Monster in Law”) or the tragic victim (“Enough”). “You see this woman who knows exactly where she is, in space and time,” Wortham said. “She’s not tripping over things, she doesn’t have to fight with anybody, she’s paying her own bills, her life is not in danger. She is exactly where she’s supposed to be, and she looks like she’s loving every minute of it.”

Perhaps because of her varied resume, Lopez isn’t always thought of as a pop superstar. But when she’s good, she is better than she gets credit for. The pulsating “Waiting for Tonight” remains a Y2K dance floor classic; her brassy 2004 single “Get Right” is an eternal fan favorite; even “Dinero,” her playfully raucous 2018 collaboration with Cardi B and DJ Khaled proves she can ham it up with a new generation of kindred spirits. She has admitted recently that she accepted the gig as a judge on “American Idol” in part to garner a little more respect in the music world. “I don’t think I had been taken seriously up until then for what I knew about music,” Lopez told Variety. (She was a judge on the show from 2010 to 2016.)

Plenty of Hollywood types told her that job might jeopardize her film career, too — but Lopez had heard that one before. “I was like, ‘The truth is, I’m not getting offered a whole bunch of movies,’” she said, “so what are they not going to offer me?”

The major cultural events of the next two weeks will once again draw attention to the duality of Lopez’s stardom. That will probably be to her advantage. The Oscars are poised to be especially bland this year, with their lack of diversity, predictable narratives and old-fashioned reverence for movies about white male rage. It would have been an honor to have been invited, sure, but that’s not J. Lo’s kind of party anyway. Maybe the greatest gift the Oscar ceremony can offer her is the opportunity to upstage it the weekend before.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/jennifer-lopez-at-the-super-bowl-its-the-role-she-was-born-to-play/

#Entertainment

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qualitytacolover · 4 years

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15 best high ponytail ideas

New Post has been published on https://www.easypromhairstyles.com/15-best-high-ponytail-ideas.html

15 best high ponytail ideas

A high ponytail is a hairstyle that has gathered all of the hair and secured it in a section on top of the head. Casual + sporty + elegant = it is incredibly unbelievable how versatile this hairstyle is!

Are you going to a long dress event? Wear it smooth and straight! Conversely, huge beach waves look just as breathtaking for your everyday fashion. Matching bangs, braids and cute hair accessories, the look becomes unique and outstanding!

Follow the direction of Hollywood showstoppers Alison Brie, Elle Fanning, and Zendaya when it comes to your high fashion high ponytails!

This quick update is a handy choice to save you on your lazy days. With just a little bit of product for hold, shine or volume, you'll instantly look fab and ready-to-go in minutes.

Read on to get the trendiest ideas on how to make the freshest high ponytail!

15 best high ponytail ideas

How would you like this look?

This look is a cornrow pink ponytail. It's my favorite look because it's a fresh girlish look and looks great on almost all face shapes. My favorite is that this look makes women more confident, and it's so amazing that everyone will look at you.

Any advice for someone considering it?

If you need a hairstyle that is easy for a month, my advice is a ponytail. You can also add colors to your ponytail. As products you can use olive oil edge control gel and shea butter for your scalp. It is a recommended hairstyle, especially for summer months.

Slim and tall

How would you like this look?

This high ponytail is slim and versatile! It is the perfect event hairstyle and adds a violent look to any outfit! It is perfect with a wing liner or a statement red lip!

Any advice for someone considering it?

Straightening your hair first is definitely the key! If you have shorter hair, this can easily be done with an elongated ponytail. I know Silk of Morrocco has just released some nice ones that are so easy to use!

If you have long hair, I find this style easier to create with two sections of hair at the front and back, then pull it together at the crown. Use a flexible hairspray to straighten baby hair as you comb and trace the line from your ear to the crown to find the perfect position for your ponytail. Wrap a small section of hair around the hair tie and pin with a bobby pin underneath, then you're ready to go!

Long high ponytail

How would you like this look?

Well, this high ponytail was inspired by singer Ariana Grande from her Manchester concert, which supported victims of the bombing where her hair wore a similar style. My favorite thing is the sharp and gentle one. It's like fun and challenging.

Any advice for someone considering it?

When I request a client this look, I would be looking for someone who would like to have your hair off your face or want to look stylish, fresh and sexy, and you don't have to worry about your hair falling apart or falling during your event , I also found that it was a huge success with festivals for something else.

For this look I used Keune styling gel to get the smooth shiny finish with the head and in my micro braids to keep them in place. I finished the bangs with some texture just a lift and hold and then finally some hairspray and shine spray to give the "hairspray" a solid look from the hair. A great hair artist once told me that having a successful hair must feel like cotton but look like silk.

Messy ponytail

How would you like this look?

This messy high bangs is an effortless up style perfect for straight too wavy hair. This high ponytail is a classic and wearable style, and my favorite thing about it is how it can be disguised for a wedding, prom, or other formal event.

Any advice for someone considering it?

Think about how you will style your look around this ponytail. Think about how tight or loose you want your curls to be, how high you want your ponytail to be on your head, how much volume you want and if you want loose pieces to frame your face.

I would suggest that this style be done on straight or wavy hair that is shoulder length or longer. The longer the hair is, the higher the ponytail can go. For best results I would come to the salon with dry hair.

As for the product selection, I would recommend starting with a heat protectant before curling the hair and working with a texturing hairspray to add the curl volume and matte texture. Once the hair is in the ponytail and the customer is happy with the look, I would hold a medium to high hair spray that is a matte layer. You don't want to give this look a shine. This messy high ponytail is a versatile and effortless upstyle perfect for your special day.

Braided ponytail

How would you like this look?

This high ponytail is a mix of edgy and bohemian style that is totally what I love to create! It's a fun balance that more people enjoy. My favorite thing about this look is probably the accent braids and hair rings. I feel like without it, it would just be a simple ponytail. The little accents in the hair can totally make or break a look and I'm a little extra, so I went for it!

Any advice for someone considering it?

Make sure you have enough hair or it will definitely translate differently. The length enables a softer flow, which counteracts the angularity of the braids and accessories.

Texture spray will also be your go-to product to get that fuller ponytail. Volumizing hair powder will also help you get height and fullness! Some of my favorites are Moroccan Oil Dry Texture Spray and Puff Me.

A braver personality will do the best to pull this off since it's more of that mood. When you see the leather jacket and high pony with the fun accessories, it makes you want to know who she is! It-girl-status!

High weave

How would you like this look?

This is a fun, flirty illusion ponytail. My favorite part of this ponytail would be the color of the extensions and the length of the extensions.

Any advice for someone considering it?

I would start with your hair type and length. To achieve this high ponytail, you would need shoulder-length hair. Your hair should be straightened with a flat iron.

The products that I would recommend you would be a pomade / control, hairspray, needle and thread and two rubber bands. This style is for the girl on the go. It's a very low maintenance ponytail, and this style would take about a week.

French braid

How would you like this look?

These are Dutch braids in a high ponytail, with braid extensions that come in all sorts of colors. We added hair rings as a little feature that I think completes every look!

What I love most is the long, colorful, thick ponytail. It's impossible to get this bright look with natural hair, so the braid extensions look really nice!

Any advice for someone considering it?

Girls often don't know what type of braid style they want, but they want the ponytail. I say I can do anything you want and make it into a ponytail – some go with braids underneath and some go up and down. You can literally do anything and it will look amazing!

Most would leave a ponytail in place for more than a week. Maintenance is not too difficult. Simply brush with a wide tooth comb. You could put it in a bun and you will look very different.

The ponytail does not slip or comes off easily because it is fixed in the braids. If you want to get them out, you take out all the style. At least you know that your hair won't fall apart at an event.

These styles are most popular for music festivals. A handful of people go natural and close to your hair color.

Curly ponytail

How would you like this look?

This high ponytail is fun, natural and yet clean makes me think hip hop.

Any advice for someone considering it?

Use your natural curls or sprinkle your hair with a curl cream, and you can touch some curls with 3/4 ″ iron. Sleek up your hair high bangs, making a double stacked bangs to make your hair appear longer if necessary. Tease under each pony to make it appear more voluminous. Sleek back the tip with boar bristle, with your baby hair with hairspray on a small teasing brush or toothbrush.

Formal high ponytail

How would you like this look?

I call it a formal tail! It's just an elegant, elegant take on our daily ponytails. I love this high ponytail because it is very versatile and fits so many women.

Any advice for someone considering it?

It is perfect for those who are a little concerned about an upstyle and are looking for or feel that it is just too formal or fancy the event.

In order to have this style, you definitely need to have length and thickness to your hair or a large amount of human hair clip in hair extensions! In fact, this style also has a couple of clip-in hair extensions to add volume and a little more length.

Ponytail with curls

Elegant during the day, dramatic at night. Go from savvy to sultry by adding eye-catching jewelry for that extra shimmer.

Ponytail braid

A unique way to spice up a seemingly normal high ponytail! Get braided and even as a hair tie for your ponytail.

High ponytail with volume

Ponytails often go off for a decent hairstyle. But do you know that even this simple tied up style can be presented in multiple manners? Take this classic approach, waves, colors, and the body can definitely turn an apparently normal ponytail into a coveted look.

Half ponytail

This creates the perfect illusion of full-bodied hair. You can also do more styling with the loose hair for more versatility.

Genie ponytail with bangs

Wrap everything in well-combed hair and a certain posture. Look like a fountain of beauty with this goddess-looking ponytail variation.

High ponytail with bangs

Only a Roman goddess could pull off this graceful hairstyle. Tousle the hair up to the knot and add some waves for a volumized look.

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