#mount indefatigable

[suzannahnatters]

My final Love Like the Galaxy reaccs!!! the tl;dr:  I loved it and it's the sort of show that probably demands to be seen twice because TWISTS and HINDSIGHT so IDK, one day maybe! Anyway it's either on Viki or on YouTube for anyone who wants to see what happens when Jane Austen comedy of manners meets The Count of Monte Cristo, but, like, in Ancient China, featuring an epic romance between a naive sledgehammer engineer girl and the terrifying murder general who cannot help looking utterly besotted with her every time she drifts past: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZZZLpfFwcBprNI6msl3NWt3pdX6F-eGs And now: for the reaccs for episodes 43-56, including the famous Murder Party (TM), check under the cut!!!

If Yang Yang ends up with Smug Scholar instead of her sweet little marquis I WILL throw things (thankfully, the sweet little marquis is getting actual screentime with her)

oh I LOVE this: the Empress apologises to Consort Yue for stealing her husband, and Consort Yue points out that if it's anyone's fault it's the Emperor's, and why should the Empress apologise? it's the little things, you know?!

I love that in amongst all this scowly strategising and betrayal and people's families in mortal danger…there's a whole running joke about whether the armour Niao Niao made her beloved makes him look more like a chicken or a mandarin duck

cdramas asking the real questions

wow they really kept like 90% of the action budget for this episode and money well spent say I

once again murder general is rushing off to save our girl, only this time he guesses precisely where she is and what she's doing, and knows she's probably doing a great job of it :')

GASP we are suspicious of Elder Brother Snacks now???

I've got a bad feeling about him and the crown princess turning out to be bad eggs - almost as though we're building up to a BIG BETRAYAL between our babies

Wan QiQi swaggering into prison in a wedding dress is the energy I aspire to

Hmm… Lou Ben feels very very foreshadowy of an obsessive man making a self destructive choice to grab what he wants no matter how it hurts the woman he loves

All the foreshadowing is REALLY mounting up now - Snacks still caring about NN but not wanting to see her after what she's done, NN observing of another couple that they were birds on the same tree but flew apart when trouble came

Anyway we are all headed for a heck of a third act breakup aren't we

is zisheng,,, allergic to almonds

what an absolutely bonkers twist

poor little Wang Ling! how terrible does her family have to be that she is trying to save her murderous traitor of an elderly husband, just because he treated her better than anyone else in her life?

"he even had a flower garden planted in my courtyard to please me, although he has life-threatening asthma! which means that he can't visit me very often! he's the best husband, Niao Niao!" okay Mrs Charlotte Collins

"Cheng Shaoshang, it seems you really don't know anything about Ling Zisheng" OOOOOOHH

Smug Scholar: a voice of reason. a stickler by the rules. an indefatigable drama queen who is quite ready to beg murder general to go right ahead, be his guest, do crime, because then Smug might get to marry Niao Niao instead

torture is always wrong, revenge kids! that said, it's very funny that murder general has been busy with hot iron and boiling oil all night and found out nothing, while NN has put herself fully abreast of the situation armed with nothing more than…a conversation with a female acquaintance

"wait - all that stuff you did in my name was ALSO in pursuit of your revenge plot? who are you really?" this show keeps serving the best stuff

matching bite marks on the arm is a way cooler idea than matching tattoos tbh

why are you not telling her, zisheng, she already knows!!!

she's sworn up and down (with bitten arms!) that she won't mind, it's keeping this from her that she can't forgive, get a clue!!!!!

ooooo - we have been cordially invited to a MURDER PARTY love the gearchange from Jane Austen Romcom to Jacobean Revenge Tragedy

OK LET'S GO, WHERE'S THAT MURDER PARTY I WAS PROMISED

Glad that we were given this scene of Marquis Chengyang being delusional and Chunyu being Justly Terrified that the young man obsessed with revenge has finally agreed to come to his father's birthday party, it doesn't quite explain how nobody realises this is Very Bad News but at least lampshades it

Since filial piety is the norm in this society, I guess it's hard for the elders to realise just how at risk they are from someone unfilial!

I LOVE that Chunyu (sp? the stepmother) gets a whole speech to point out the hypocrisy of HER continually bearing the blame of "climbing into the master's bed" after so many ppl in the show have ridiculed her for it as though it wasn't a decision made by the marquis

oooooooooooohhh this is amazing: Yang Yang is disturbed that NN's farewell before the wedding sounds like she doesn't ever intend to return home. and from NN's response, she KNOWS murder general is about to do something crazy and is fully prepared to suffer the consequences alongside him

it's…really amazing that during the stretch of the cdrama when the male lead traditionally starts Machinating and Scheming and lying to the female lead about it, THIS show keeps the heroine's agency intact, she sees right through his lies, she is still front and centre. Chef's kiss.

she knows where it's happening; she knowns when it's happening; she's sending someone for news. she's amazing and so are these writers.

meanwhile: murder general refusing to enlighten the marquis as to his true identity is Irene of Athens-level pettiness and I love it

the way this show keeps this whole episode focused on the story's main character even though she has little to do with -

oh wait never mind she has decided to involve herself anyway!!! now we get the entire Cheng family charging into battle? with NN at their head on a black horse? EPIC?????

well THAT was the best of Jacobean revenge tragedy

shocked to discover that Zisheng has Always Known who was really behind the fall of the lone city - he's just been quietly, methodically working through the destruction of all the perpetrators, COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO style

I love a protagonist who holds cards so close to his chest that not even the audience knows what's going on

more than that, it really adds nuance to the show's themes about revenge. Sometimes the system is broken, & even in a good system people will sometimes get away with murder. What to do then?

I can't support the vindictiveness of the leads (& I'm not sure I'm meant to) but as revenge plots go, I like the weightiness of the themes - how to fight for yourself in a world where laws and manners tell you you shouldn't? - better than Dumas' more superficial take.

where did these two henchmen come from, because they are NOT being paid enough to be part of this absolute disaster

also WHEE Niao Niao gets to swoop in and save HIM for once! Well done our girl!

oh what an idiot. what an absolute peanut.

I was pulling for you, murder general, but I'm not sure how you'll manage to come back from doing the One Thing (abandoning her) she asked you not to do

she's still calling him by his false name T_T

something something she only ever knew him by his false name and identity not his true one

moment of silence, please, I'm experiencing an emotion

well, duh - of COURSE Third Prince is here to collect NN to go help him plead for murder general, who has obviously been quietly helping him all along. even better: we don't know if NN is just figuring this out now or has known it for months but she understands it perfectly, just like we do, the moment she sees Third Prince's face

!!! murder general has been deceiving everyone in so many other ways too???????

it's not just that he knew all along who was responsible for the lone city's fall and has just been working silently to gather evidence on them: he ALSO has been playing four dimensional speed chess with palace politics, supporting a totally different faction to the one he was supposed to be aligned with?

IT WAS HIM IN THE PAGODA ALL ALONG????

I just love the sort of character who plays certain things SO close to the chest while also being utterly open and vulnerable about certain other things. like, as long as we trust their judgement for hiding the certain things and know it's not for purposes of control. and while NN does interpret his secretiveness as control, due to her upbringing, it's also easy in hindsight to see things from zisheng's POV: he is playing not one but several high stakes political games, treading a tightrope between the prince he is supposed to be supporting versus the prince who would clearly be a better choice, and now suddenly thrown into the middle of all this is a naive and well-meaning sledgehammer fiancee who is an absolute force of nature but who is not yet quite insightful enough to see and understand where the deep waters run; she's simply driven by personal loyalty to protect her empress' son. and she keeps forcing choices on him: protect her, or serve the Third Prince? and he makes tremendous sacrifices, as with the Tiger Tally, to save both of them. so is he going to take the risk and tell her and trust in her, or is he going to keep her in the dark just about this, until the game is over (it's so close to being over) and he can be as candid about these things as he can be about everything else?

but at the same time, he was so frustrated with her for not being candid with him, for not telling him when the mean girls tried to KILL her, for lying to him about choosing to help the crown prince - he should have known better than to reproach her about this when he was doing exactly the same things to her all along.

I love that the show just doesn't support him in this. for two people who both say they want to work as a team, these two both spend an awful lot of time keeping things from each other. and it's only after going away and thinking about it that I start to see his side of the story at all, because she is so totally front-and-centred in the way the story is told.

oh wow - now she gets a whole speech and thesis statement about how just because she's a woman she shouldn't be shut out of her husband's confidence, and ends: "Ling Buyi is my most beloved person in the world. But I am still me."

I love this show so much

It's really wild that murder general, who everyone knows went on a murderous rampage to kill the entire Ling clan, goes from being condemned to death to the apple of the emperor's eye based on his surname changing

no doubt it's historically accurate and murder uncle, at least, deserved it - but for me it's just another sign of how irretrievably this system is broken, that bloodline so clearly outweighs right and wrong.

I'll be chewing over the question of whether this last-minute aversion of filial impiety ("it's ok! he was doing it to avenge his REAL father!") undermines NN's previous point about the right to filial reverence depends on a parent's conduct, or whether it's an author's saving throw to secure a HEA

"but I can never forgive him for abandoning me - he even swore it was for my sake" aha! How To Critique The Break Her Heart To Save Her Trope (Without Actually Using The Trope??????) this show didn't HAVE to hunt down and kill every bad Asian drama romance trope like this but is that stopping it? no

Empress telling NN that whatever decision she makes, she will support her in - hits like a punch because the only person who's told her this till now is murder general. On the other hand it is comforting, and underlines the themes of NN being a whole person without him, bc she still has love and support!

as an aside, I also like how the show has handled NN's terrible parents. by the end of the show, she's fought for, and won, their respect and support, & has come to understand the pressures they are under. but she will never love them the way she loves the Empress, bc they haven't earned that love. I feel this consolidates the filial piety critique.

we finally get to hear murder general's side of the story - and it's fascinating to hear him say that he failed. he did everything to bring ling yi to justice - and couldn't. the murder party was his failure.

I'm finding the murder party less problematic at this point than the Censorate beating

whoah, the empress is sailing in to admit that she spoiled her children until they were useless, so she's not upset about the crown prince being demoted? seems a rather unfortunate theme if children are only ever bad because of bad parenting

NN still taking absolutely no prisoners in the romance, though: "oh, I understand you perfectly. the problem is that you never understood ME" that's quite a burn

The Empress is now requesting to be deposed, and it's a complicated scene - is she blaming herself, or voicing regrets? I think she's regretting not fighting for herself: as she points out, her accepting a menage a trois has not spoiled Consort Yue's life so much as it has spoiled her own chance at love.

while the show has sometimes been finger-wagging, it's saved here bc she also blames the Emperor for going along with the flow, too, and tamely accepting a three-way marriage.

meanwhile at home, everyone's like "Niao Niao is so mature now!" and I'm sitting here like NO SHE'S NOT, SHE'S HAD ALL THE HAPPINESS CRUSHED OUT OF HER and…….along comes Not-Quite-So-Bad-Mum to say that precise thing, and confess to having been wrong all along???? This show just keeps hitting.

Love that NN's 3rd brother is completely on her side at this moment. he understands the assignment ("break up with murder general and send him away with a flea in his ear") and executes it with prejudice.

oh…mum has repented too late. I'm not sorry for her, but I AM sorry for the way NN chooses to spend the next forever - when there were so many things she wanted to see and do!

and now: five years' worth of mutual pining in excruciatingly aesthetic slomo, thank you

meanwhile everyone in the Cheng family is getting married? Yang Yang is getting married? Mum's warrior maid is getting married? Good for you warrior maid!

Smug Scholar, otoh, has remained UNmarried for our girl, and I actually love the choice he's presenting her - NN doesn't much care who she marries if it's a business arrangement; she just won't marry the man she loves knowing he was willing to lie to her and abandon her

is it really weird that I suddenly want to write the story about the coldly pragmatic fake marriage of convenience between NN and Smug Scholar

!!!! she IS going to get engaged to him??? murder general is going to come back from five years of picturesquely scruffy suffering to find her engaged to Smug Scholar??!?!?!!!??!

oh this will be GOOD

"thanks, but I can ride without stirrups these days" I love that this show is allowing the heroine to establish a life of her own apart from the hero - they have to be complete on their own before they can be good for each other.

and now: a break from reality for an absolutely bonkers carriage chase, which, because this is a cdrama, comes complete with one of the parties trying to extort a proposal of marriage from the person chasing them

I swear this is the third time this exact same cliff has cropped up in this show, one would think that people would know better than to gallop madly down the DEAD END CLIFF ROAD

Empress pays her last respects to the emperor: "I know that if it wasn't for Emperor Li's tyranny you would have asked nothing more than to live a simple life" LIESSSS this man requires a constant stream of drama to live, how would he have survived as a gentleman farmer?

"if you are truly filial, don't exchange your life for mine. Live well." while this show has come down in the end in favour of filial piety, I think that for the most part it keeps filial piety where it belongs: subordinate to ethics - and that's something I can get behind.

With NN decided that murder general is not the man for her and murder general determined to accept her decision, I really don't see how this will get believably sorted out in the next…3 eps. Bc she's absolutely right, he had his chance and he blew it. That said, I was really worried the show would blame her for being unreasonable, but only the recent antagonist has done that

even NN's mother is now telling him: we don't need you to perform guilt for us, we also had our chance with NN and blew it, now we can only defer to her conscience AND YOU SHOULD TOO

so, I guess we're headed for an "undeserved grace" ending, and I hope they make it a convincing one and not cheap, bc it's too late to show him doing any work to prove his repentance.

oh I love this scene: she tells him she forgives him but cannot trust him, and he without defending himself, vows to live well and take care of himself (because quietly protecting the people she cares about is the one last thing he can do for her)

and he won't ever tell her that he's been doing this because he knows it would only make her despise him more!!!

time for the bad family to apologise, the grandmother in particular for trying to control her children, and Niao Niao to decide no longer to carry resentment, but to dwell on the people who love her instead

I love that the themes have largely to do with resisting control, even when it's from family members, and fighting for yourself. Even more, I love that the highest expression of this theme comes in the trust there's supposed to be between husband and wife. Sometimes, lack of communication IS an attempt at control - although on thinking it over I'm not sure it always has been that on murder general's side. but if there's one thing the past five years must have taught him, it's that he's going to have to be be particularly open with this particular woman, because her family HAS tried so hard to be controlling in the past, and she can't take even the appearance of it from him.

somehow, yet another of NN's old enemies has an overly complicated plan to kill her sigh

loving how murder general jumps into this trap and promptly becomes useless and it's time for the lil henchmen to save the day

stop shouting his name and figure out how to open the trapdoors Niao Niao, smoke inhalation is no joke

murder general looks amazing for someone who was just blown up

TEARFUL RECONCILIATION SCENE

ahaha Snacks has fallen in love with his wife, we love to see it

Smug Scholar, meanwhile (exact words): are you all done flaunting your love?

EXPLODING PICKLES

flailing I love it NN is deploying her secret weapon….the family Cheng

"you can't be in two places at once, General!"

maybe not, but wifey and he can

"i'd like to see who interferes with my best granddaughter's marriage!"

*smash cut to the emperor having a hissyfit because he can't interfere with the marriage *

it's over? pokes couch cushions for spare episodes

OK I LOVED that murder general's grand gesture in the final ep comes in the form of a dilemma. should he go rescue his beloved as everyone is telling him - or should he stay on task, submit to everyone's ridicule for not protecting his woman, and risk her thinking he's abandoned her again?

his answer shows that at last, he has come to truly understand her (five years after she told him he'd never understood her). it's not physical abandonment she truly fears. what she fears is not being trusted & allowed to act as his equal. So he leaves her to protect Guo village while he stays on HIS task. His grand gesture, after so many rescues, is not to rescue her at all.

SCREAMING at that moment when Third Prince is like, seriously, mate, you'd better not abandon her! she needs help!!! go on I'll be fine!! and Zisheng VISIBLY WAVERS and then pulls himself together and shouts GUO VILLAGE HAS NIAO NIAO! GUO VILLAGE WILL BE FINE!!!

since the root of the contention between them was always him not treating her as an equal, this is probably the best proof of change we could get in the screentime. and the show is very insistent to tell us that if NN bends to take him back, it's because it's what SHE wants, not bc she can't survive without him.

the show does give her that moment of fright during the explosion to rush her past her abandonment issues, but since the real issue was always about control, I can make my peace with it. Similarly, she taught him a 5-year lesson about not consulting her. He knows - & her family makes it explicit - that he can never pull something like this again.

final overall thoughts: I have rarely seen such a well done romance in Asian drama, especially cdrama. The show was long & got repetitive, especially in the 2nd half, even though it had some of my favourite stretches as NN starts fighting for respect & equality within her marriage.

The themes about family, state, and fighting for oneself got fingerwaggy at a lot of points, many side characters were brutally humiliated and many of the numerous female characters became nonsensically villainous just to give NN antagonists. So, I would say the show is quite flawed.

that said, what this show does well, it does SO WELL. I was absolutely invested in this romance to an extent that is very rare for me. I was delighted by the way the show critiques asian romance tropes, there's a wonderful Dumas-level revenge plot, the fight scenes while rare are terrific, the show remains laser focused on its female protagonist all the way to the end, and if you are not delighted by the utterly besotted looks murder general serves up five times per episode, I don't know what to do with you.

#love like the galaxy #lltg #ling buyi #cheng shaoshang #cdrama #asian drama

[theyuniversity]

For example,

Henry, with his indefatigable spirit, never gave up on his dream of climbing Mount Everest. 🧗‍♂️

Website | Twitter |  Instagram | Medium | Pinterest | Ko-fi | eBook

#vocabulary #indefatigable #word of the day #WOTD #English #English class #learning English

[susansontag]

With each progressive retelling, the hundreds became thousands, the thousands tended towards infinity, and the lice multiplied, becoming settlements and then townships and then cities and then nations. In my mother’s version of the story, these lice caused traffic disturbances on my hair, they took evening walks on my slender neck, they had civil war over territory, they recruited an enormous number of overenthusiastic child soldiers and then they engaged in out-and-out war with my mother. They mounted organized resistance, set up base camps in the soft area of the scalp above the ears and in the nape of the neck where it was always harder to reach, but they were being decimated slowly and surely by my mother’s indefatigable efforts. Every war strategy was deployed, Sun Tzu was invoked: appear weak when you are strong and appear strong when you are weak; when your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him with more chlorinated washes than he can handle; attack him when he is unprepared; force your enemy to reveal himself; be as rapid as the wind when you are wielding the paenseeppu (the merciless narrow-toothed lice comb that removed as many hairs as it removed lice and lice eggs and baby lice); make use of the sun and the strongest shampoo; above all, do not spend time bothering about lice rights and genocide tribunals when you are defending a liberated zone.

This is how my story of Young Woman as a Runaway Daughter became, in effect, the great battle of My Mother versus the Head Lice. And because my mother won this battle, the story was told endlessly, and it soon entered the canon of literature on domestic violence. The Americans had trigger warnings and graphic-content cautions attached to the course material, but otherwise it picked up a lot of traction elsewhere. It was taught in gender studies programmes, and women of colour discussed it in their reading groups (it was still a little too dirty and disorienting for white feminists, and it was perhaps considered a touch too environmentally unfriendly for the ecofeminists, and the postmodernists disregarded it because my mother’s telling ignored the crucial concept of my husband’s agency to beat me), and even those who forgot the original context of the story or the bad-marriage setting always remembered it as a fable about one mother’s unending, unconditional, over-conditioned love.

— Meena Kandasamy, When I Hit You

#what I'm reading #meena kandasamy #quote #moth.txt

[abolafia]

The Final Countdown: The Panthers' March to Playoff Glory

In the final countdown to the playoffs, the Florida Panthers displayed a symphony of skill, strategy, and spirit, each game a crucial step towards cementing their place in postseason lore. The stakes were clear, and the team responded with performances that echoed their depth of character and ambition.

A Week of Mastery and Resolve

From the outset, the Panthers were on a mission, delivering a masterful performance that set the stage for what was to come. Their adaptability and cohesion were on full display, captivating fans and sending a bold statement to their competitors.

Despite facing adversity midweek, the Panthers' tenacity shone through. Their resilience in the face of defeat, their capacity to mount a comeback, spoke volumes of their indefatigable spirit—a hallmark of their identity.

The finale was a defining moment, a testament to their quest for excellence. In a game that could shape their season, the Panthers excelled, clinching a decisive victory that underscored their offensive depth and tactical brilliance, ensuring their place in the playoffs.

Champions of the Week

This crucial week saw the rise of key figures, players who stood tall in the face of pressure. The agility and scoring finesse of their premier forward, coupled with the stellar performances of their goaltender, underscored the depth and prowess of the team.

Forward into the Fray with Hope

As the Panthers pivot to the playoffs, this concluding week serves as a testament to their capability and determination. They enter the postseason fray not just as contenders but as a team imbued with the belief in their ability to transcend expectations and etch their legacy in pursuit of the Stanley Cup.

[catkittens]

The Woman Who Took the Local Paper

Seicho Matsumoto

  The Woman Who Took the Local Paper

  Seicho Matsumoto is recognized and acclaimed in the East as Japan’s leading mystery writer and the most important figure on the Japanese detective-story scene today. He ushered in the second period in the history of the modern Japanese detective story. The first period, called the Tantei Era, began with Edogawa Rampo and ended just before World War Two; the second period, called the Suiri Era, shifted technique from “unrealistic” puzzles to “social” detective stories, and in this second period Seicho Matsumoto was the dominant influence, as he continues to be in the current period, called the Neo-Social Era.

  Mr. Matsumoto’s novels, which epitomize contemporary life in Japan, are consistently among Japan’s best sellers. He has published approximately 50 books, with an average sale of 400,000 copies each, 100,000 in hardcover, 300,000 in paperback. His indefatigable curiosity and his enduring passion to learn have led him recently into the world of archeology and history, and his studies of Japanese society and economy have been praised for their depth and insight.

  “The Woman Who Took the Local Paper” is shrewdly plotted, its details released slowly to keep the reader in suspense until the very end. . .

  Yoshiko Shioda sent in her money to the Koshin newspaper for a subscription. This newspaper company is located in Kofu city, which is about two hours by express train from Tokyo. Although it is a leading paper in that prefecture, it is not sold in Tokyo, and if one wants to read it, one has to become a subscriber.

  She sent the money by registered mail on February 21 and enclosed the following letter: “I would like to subscribe to your newspaper. Enclosed is my payment. The serialized novel, The Brigands, in your paper looks interesting and I want to read it. I would like my subscription to begin from the issue of February 19th.”

  Yoshiko Shioda had seen the Koshin newspaper only once before. It had been at a small restaurant located in a corner of a building in front of Kofu station. The waitress had left the paper on the table while Yoshiko was waiting for her order of Chinese noodles. It was a typical local paper, with rather old-fashioned type, very provincial actually. The third page was devoted to local news. A fire had destroyed five homes. An employee in the village office had embezzled six million yen of public funds. The construction of an annex to the primary school had been completed. The mother of a prefectural assemblyman had died. That sort of news.

  At the bottom of the second page there was a serialization of an historical novel. The illustration showed two samurai warriors engaged in a sword fight. The author was Ryuji Sugimoto, a name unfamiliar to Yoshiko. She had read about one-half of the serial episode when her noodles were served and she put the paper aside. But first Yoshiko wrote down in her notebook the name and address of the newspaper and publisher. She also remembered that the name of the story she had been reading was The Brigands. Under the title there was a notation that it was the 54th installment of the serial. The newspaper was dated the 18th. Yes, that day had been the 18th of February.

  It was about seven minutes before three when Yoshiko left the restaurant and walked around the town. The square in the middle was crowded with people. Above their heads fluttered white banners printed with the words: Welcome Home, Minister Sato. A new cabinet had been formed the previous month and Yoshiko realized that the name on the banner was that of a local diet member who had been appointed one of the new ministers.

  Then suddenly there was a stirring in the crowd and the people became agitated. Some of them cried, “Banzai!” A great clapping arose. People who were walking some distance away ran to join the crowd.

  The speech began. A man had mounted a platform and his mouth was moving. The winter sun struck his bald head. A large white rose was pinned to his breast. The crowd became silent but at times the applause was thunderous.

  Yoshiko looked around. A man standing near her was also watching the scene and he too was not listening to the speech. He seemed to have his way blocked by the crowd.

  Yoshiko stole a look at the man’s profile. He had a broad forehead, sharp eyes, and a high-bridged nose. There had been a time when she had thought of them as an intelligent brow, trustworthy eyes, and a handsome nose. But that memory was now an empty one. The spell the man held over her, however, remained the same as it had been before.

  The speech ended and the minister descended from the platform. The crowd began to disperse. An open space appeared in the crowd and Yoshiko began to walk. The man also began to walk away—with another person.

  The Koshin newspaper arrived five days later. Three days’ issues came together. There was a polite note thanking Yoshiko for her subscription.

  As she had requested, the subscription began with the issue of the 19th. Yoshiko opened it. She turned to the local news. A robbery had occurred. Someone had died in a landslide. Dishonesty had been exposed in the Farmers Cooperative. Elections for assemblymen had begun. There was a large photo of Minister Sato in front of Kofu station.

  Yoshiko opened the issue of the 20th. There was nothing special in it. She looked at the issue of the 21st. Here too there was only the usual news. She threw the papers into the corner of the closet. They could be used later for wrapping paper.

  The newspaper arrived by mail daily after that. Her name and address were mimeographed on the brown kraft-paper wrapper. After all, she was now a monthly subscriber.

  Every morning she went to the mailbox in the apartment house to get her paper and slowly read it from beginning to end. There was nothing which attracted her special attention. Disappointed, Yoshiko threw the papers in the closet.

  This was repeated for ten days. And every day she was disappointed. In spite of this, she was always filled with anticipation before cutting the brown wrapper.

  On the fifteenth day a change occurred. It wasn’t an article in the paper but an unexpected postcard she received. The card was signed by Ryuji Sugimoto. Yohiko remembered seeing that name somewhere. It wasn’t someone close to her, but she had a clear recollection of it. Yoshiko turned the postcard over. The handwriting was almost indecipherable, but managing to read it, she immediately knew who it was.

  “I understand you are reading my novel, The Brigands, which is being serialized in the Koshin newspaper and I would like to thank you for your interest.”

  No doubt someone had told the author that she had subscribed to the paper because she wanted to read his story. The author had evidently been touched and had sent a card of thanks.

  It was a small change from the daily newspaper routine. It was something different, however, from what she had expected. She hadn’t been reading the novel—like the handwriting on the postcard, it was probably poor.

  But every day the paper arrived promptly. Of course, this was only natural because it had been paid for in advance.

  One morning, nearly a month after she had subscribed to the paper, she glanced over the various items of local news. The head of the Farmers Cooperative had fled. A bus had fallen from a cliff and fifteen people had been injured. A mountain fire had destroyed three acres. The bodies of a man and woman who had committed suicide had been found at Rinunkyo.

 Yoshiko read the report about the double suicide. The bodies had been discovered in the forest in Rinunkyo. The person who had found them was an inspector of the Forestry Bureau. Both bodies were partly decomposed. It was about a month since death and the bodies were partially skeletonized. Their identity was still unknown. The valley, with its crags and deep gorge, was famous as a suicide spot.

  Yoshiko folded the paper, lay down, and pulled the quilt up to her chin. She gazed at the ceiling. This apartment was old. The boards in the dark ceiling were on the verge of rotting. Vacantly Yoshiko continued to stare.

  In the following day’s paper there was a report on the identity of the dead couple. The man was a 35-year-old guard at the Toyo Department Store in Tokyo; the woman, aged 22, was a clerk at the same store. The man had a wife and children. It was seemingly an ordinary, run-of-the-mill case of double suicide.

  Yoshiko raised her eyes from the paper. Her face was devoid of expression—emotionless and at the same time, peaceful.

  Three days later she received a postcard from the circulation department of the Koshin paper.

  “Your subscription has ended. We hope you will renew your subscription to our paper.”

  Yoshiko wrote back: “The novel has lost its interest for me and I do not wish to continue my subscription.”

  On her way to the club, where she worked as a hostess, she mailed the postcard. As she walked on, it occurred to her that the author of The Brigands would probably be disappointed. “I shouldn’t have written that,” she thought.

  Ryuji Sugimoto read the subscriber’s postcard which had been forwarded to him by the Koshin newspaper and it displeased him considerably.

  This subscriber was the same person who had taken the paper because she had found his novel interesting. At that time too the paper had forwarded her letter to him. He was sure he had sent her a note of thanks. But now she was saying that the novel had lost its interest, so she was discontinuing her subscription.

  “These women readers—they’re so fickle,” Sugimoto said angrily.

  Since The Brigands was written for a mass market, the primary purpose had been pure entertainment; nevertheless, he had taken considerable time and care in writing it, and was confident it was not hackneyed or dull.

  Sugimoto laughed bitterly, but gradually he became angry again. He felt as though he were being made a fool of. As a matter of fact, the story was better now than when she had first expressed a desire to read it because it was “interesting.” The plot was now more complicated and the characters were engaged in a series of colorful encounters. Even he was pleased with the way the story had developed. He expected it to be well-received, and that was all the more reason he found this capricious woman so annoying.

  This is really unpleasant, he thought, and for two days he couldn’t rid himself of the bad taste in his mouth. On the third day the hurt had faded, but it still remained in his subconscious. Occasionally it would flicker through his mind. Because he had worked so hard on the story, he felt worse than if a professional had criticized him. Besides, even though it might seem exaggerated, he felt he had lost prestige with the paper.

  Sugimoto shook his head, stood up from his desk, and went out for a walk.

  That woman began to read my novel in the paper midway. Now, where did she first see it?

  The Koshin newspaper was sold only in Yamanashi prefecture, not in Tokyo. So she couldn’t have seen it in Tokyo. Therefore, that woman named Yoshiko Shioda, of Tokyo, must have been in Yamanashi at one time.

  If that was so, there was no reason why a person who had taken the trouble to subscribe to a paper because she had found the serial interesting would have dropped her subscription after one month. Especially since the novel was undeniably more interesting now than before.

  The more he thought about it, the odder it appeared. Obviously the real reason for subscribing to the paper was not to read his novel. She must have used that as an excuse; she was really looking for something else. And because she found it, she no longer needed the paper.

  Sugimoto rose from the grass and hurried home. Ideas were whirling through his head.

  When he got home, he took the original letter from Yoshiko Shioda out of his file.

  “I would like to subscribe to your newspaper. Enclosed is my payment. The serialized novel, The Brigands, in your paper looks interesting and I want to read it. I would like my subscription to begin from the issue of February 19th.”

  The handwriting was neat and precise. But that was beside the point. The puzzling thing was why she specified that the subscription should start two days prior to the date of her letter. In quick cases, newspapers carry news of the previous day. The Koshin did not publish an afternoon paper. Therefore, if she wanted to get the paper from the 19th, it meant she was looking for news of something that had happened from the 18th on.

  He had copies of the paper which the company sent him daily. He opened them on his desk. Starting with the one dated February 19, he looked carefully through it. He read the local news and, just to be sure, he also looked at the tourist ads.

  He decided to limit his search to something which would connect Yamanashi prefecture with Tokyo. He looked at the various items. During the month of February nothing fitted into this category. He started going through the March papers. Up to the 5th there was still nothing.

  The same through the 10th. The 13th, the 14th. Then, on the 16th, he found the following story:

  “On March 15, at two o’clock, a member of the Forestry Bureau discovered the bodies of a man and woman who had committed suicide. The bodies were partly decomposed and it has been about one month since the time of death. The man was wearing a gray overcoat and navy suit and was approximately 37 years old. The woman had on an overcoat of large brown checks and a suit of the same color and was about 23. The only thing found was a handbag with women’s cosmetics in it. It is assumed that they were from Tokyo because a round-trip ticket from Shinjuku to Kofu was found in the woman’s bag.”

  The identity of the couple appeared in the next day’s paper. “The man found at Rinunkyo was a guard at the Toyo Department Store, named Sakitsugu Shoda (35) and the woman was Umeko Fukuda (22), a clerk at the same store. The man was married and had children.”

  “This is it.” Sugimoto uttered the words without thinking. There was nothing else to link Tokyo and Yamanashi. On seeing this paper, the issue of March 17th, Yoshiko Shioda had decided to stop her subscription. There was no doubt in Sugimoto’s mind that this was the reason she had started taking the local paper. It was the type of news that would hardly have appeared in the Tokyo metropolitan papers.

  “Wait a minute, though,” he thought.

  Yoshiko Shioda specified that the paper was to start from February 19th. The bodies were discovered on March 15, approximately one month after the deaths. Therefore, the suicides had occurred around February 18. Time-wise, it tallied. She knew about this double suicide. She subscribed to the paper so she could learn when the bodies were discovered. But why?

  Ryuji Sugimoto suddenly found himself becoming deeply interested in Yoshiko Shioda.

  He studied her address on the postcard that had been forwarded to him. . .

  Three weeks later, Ryuji Sugimoto received an answer to his inquiry from the private detective agency.

  Ryuji Sugimoto read the report twice and thought to himself, “When they put their minds to it, they do a remarkable job. They certainly managed to find out a lot, even that Yoshiko Shioda and Sakitsugu Shoda had been having an affair.”

  There was now no doubt that Yoshiko Shioda was somehow involved in the double suicide of Sakitsugu Shoda and Umeko Fukuda, and that therefore she knew they had committed suicide in the forest at Rinunkyo. One took the Chuo Line to Kofu to get to Rinunkyo. Where had she seen them off? At Shinjuku station in Tokyo or at Kofu station?

  He thumbed through the train schedule. He saw that there were about 20 special express and express trains from the Shinjuku Terminus to the Kofu district daily.

  According to the private investigator’s report, Yoshiko had left her apartment that day at around 11:30, so it was fair to assume that she had got on the one o’clock special express Azusa #3 which reaches Kofu at 2:53. From Kofu station to the scene of the suicide at Rinunkyo, by bus and on foot, would have taken a full hour. Shoda and Umeko, the suicide couple, would have finally reached the fateful spot just as the winter sun was about to set. Before his eyes, Ryuji Sugimoto could visualize the figures of the two in the craggy ravine, surrounded by woods.

  Until their decomposed bodies were found approximately a month later, and the news was reported, only Yoshiko had known about them. She had been reading the local papers to learn when the deaths would come to light. Just what was her part in the whole affair?

  Once again he went through the February 19th issue of the Koshin paper. Landslide. Dishonesty in the Farmers Cooperative. Election of town officials. There was nothing exceptional. There was a large photo of the local diet member, Minister Sato, in front of Kofu station.

  Sugimoto pushed aside the manuscript which was due the next day, and holding his head in his hands, he sat, sinking deeply into thought. He never dreamed that one reader’s rejection of his novel could have involved him in detective work like this. . .

  Yoshiko was one of several hostesses at the Bar Rubicon, a club in the Shibuya district. She was busy taking care of customers when one of the girls said to her, “Yoshiko, someone is asking for you.”

  Yoshiko stood up. She went to the booth and there sat a plump man of about 42, with long hair. She had never seen him before and he was not a regular of the club.

  “You’re Yoshiko Shioda?” he asked with a smile.

  Yoshiko had not changed her name on coming to this club, but when the man addressed her by her full name she was surprised. In the dim indirect lighting, even though there was a lamp on the table with a pink shade, she searched his face, but she could not remember having seen it before.

  “Yes, I am. And what’s your name?” asked Yoshiko, seating herself beside him.

  “Let me introduce myself,” he said, taking a slightly bent name card from his pocket. When she saw the name, Ryuji Sugimoto, printed there she gasped.

  Watching her face closely, he said, with a little laugh, “Yes, I’m the fellow who is writing The Brigands which you have been reading. The Koshin paper told me about your subscription and I dropped you a note of thanks. I happened to be in your neighborhood yesterday, so I stopped by your apartment. You were out but I was told you worked here. So tonight I came here—I wanted to thank you in person.”

  Yoshiko thought, “Is that all? So he was just curious. I never read his story seriously anyway. What a character to be so pleased by one person’s interest in his story!”

  “Oh, how kind of you to take the trouble, sir. I’ve enjoyed your novel so much,” gushed Yoshiko, moving closer to him.

  “Don’t mention it,” replied Sugimoto good-naturedly; then, looking around him, he remarked, “This is a nice club.” Next he looked at Yoshiko sheepishly and mumbled, “You’re a beautiful girl.”

  With a sidelong glance at him Yoshiko poured beer into his glass and smiled. “Really? I’m so happy you came tonight. You can stay a while, can’t you?”

  So he still believed she was reading his novel. He couldn’t be a very popular writer if he made such a fuss about meeting one of his readers. Or maybe he was impressed because she happened to be a woman.

  Sugimoto evidently couldn’t drink very much because after one bottle of beer he became quite flushed. Of course, Yoshiko was drinking too, and several of the other hostesses had joined them, so by this time there were half a dozen bottles on the table, as well as some snacks.

  The girls kept calling him “sir,” which evidently pleased him, and he stayed for more than an hour.

  Just after he left, Yoshiko noticed a brown envelope on the cushion where he had been sitting. She picked it up, and thinking it was his, went to look for him; but he was nowhere in sight.

  “He’ll be back. I’ll just keep it for him,” Yoshiko thought and slipped the envelope into the bosom of her kimono, completely forgetting about it.

  She became aware of it again after she returned to her apartment. As she undid her obi, the brown envelope fluttered to the floor. Remembering, she picked it up. There was nothing written on the outside of the envelope. It was unsealed and seemed to contain only a newspaper clipping. She decided to look at it.

  It was a newspaper clipping about a quarter of a page in size and neatly folded. Yoshiko unfolded it and her eyes widened in surprise. It was the photo of Minister Sato in front of Kofu station, the photo from the Koshin newspaper.

  Over the dark crowd were several white banners. The minister could be seen above the heads of the people. It was a scene that Yoshiko had actually witnessed, exactly as it was in the photo.

  Yoshiko stared into space. Her hand shook slightly. One of the cords of her kimono still hung loosely from her waist.

  Was this just a coincidence? Or had Ryuji Sugimoto intentionally left it in the club for her to see? She became confused. Her feet were tired, so she sat down on the floor. She didn’t even bother to put down her sleeping mat. What did Sugimoto know? She began to feel that he had left the envelope for some special purpose. Her intuition told her so. This was no coincidence. No, it certainly was no coincidence.

  Ryuji Sugimoto, whom she had taken to be a pleasant popular novelist, suddenly began to appear in an entirely different light.

  Two days later Sugimoto snowed up at the club again and asked for Yoshiko.

  “Why, good evening, sir,” she smiled, sitting beside him; but her face felt stiff.

  He smiled back and he didn’t look at all like a person with an ulterior or sinister motive.

  “You forgot this last time you were here.” Yoshiko took the brown envelope from her handbag. The smile remained on her lips, but her eyes watched his expression closely.

  He took the envelope and put it in his pocket. There was no change in his expression, but for a moment his narrowed eyes seemed to glint as he met her gaze. Then he quickly looked away and raised the foaming glass of beer to his lips.

  Yoshiko felt restless, nervous, apprehensive.

  The relationship between Yoshiko and Sugimoto deepened quickly after that. On the days when he didn’t come to the club, she called to invite him. She also wrote to him, not the usual letters a hostess would write to her customers to solicit their continued patronage, but very personal letters.

  Anyone looking at them would assume theirs was an intimate relationship. Considering the actual number of times he came to the Bar Rubicon, the liaison formed swiftly. Proof of how far it had developed was shown one day when Yoshiko approached Sugimoto, saying, “Couldn’t we go away somewhere together? I could take a day off.”

  Sugimoto looked delighted. “If it’s with you, I’d love to. Where would you like to go?”

  “Wherever it’s nice and quiet. How about some place in Izu? We could leave early in the morning.”

  “Izu? That sounds better and better.”

  “Look now, I’m only suggesting a short excursion.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked in a disappointed tone.

  “I don’t want to get too deeply involved—not yet. So let’s just make this a pleasure trip. To make sure there is no misunderstanding, why don’t you invite a girl friend to go with us? I’m sure you have one.”

  “I won’t say that I don’t,” Sugimoto said.

  “I’d like to get to know her. That’s all right with you, isn’t it?”

  Sugimoto frowned.

  “You don’t seem very happy.”

  “There’s no point in going if I can’t be alone with you.”

  “Oh, please. That can be the next time.”

  “Do you promise?”

  Yoshiko took Sugimoto’s hand in hers and drew her fingernail lightly over his palm.

  “Okay. If that’s the way you want it, that’s how it’ll be, this time.” Then Sugimoto added, “We might as well decide on the date and time now.”

  “What? Oh, all right. Wait a minute.”

  Yoshiko went to the office to borrow the train schedule.

  Sugimoto arranged for a woman editor he knew to accompany them. He didn’t give her any special reason. Because she knew and trusted him, she accepted the invitation promptly.

  Ryuji Sugimoto, Yoshiko Shioda, and Fujiko Sakata, the editor, arrived in Ito on the Izu Peninsula just before noon. The plan was to cross the mountains from there, over to Shuzenji, and return by way of Mishima.

  Sugimoto wondered what was about to happen. He knew there was danger and his nerves were tense. It was an effort to look as though he suspected nothing.

  Yoshiko appeared composed. She held a plastic-covered parcel in one hand. It probably contained a lunch she had packed. The three of them looked for all the world as if they were off on a happy picnic excursion. The two women seemed to be getting along fine.

  The bus left Ito and began to climb the mountains. As they climbed, the town of Ito looked sunken and small, and before them spread Sagami Bay, the water purplish in the late fall and blending with the clouds in the distance.

  “It’s absolutely lovely,” commented Fujiko.

  Gradually the ocean disappeared from sight as the bus crossed the summit of the Amagi Mountains.

  “Let’s get off here,” suggested Yoshiko.

  The bus halted at a bus stop deep in the mountains.

  Yoshiko suggested that they explore the area and then take either the next bus or the one on to Shuzenji.

  “Wouldn’t you like to see where this goes?” asked Yoshiko, pointing to a mountain path leading into the forest. She looked cheerful and her forehead shone with perspiration.

  In some places the path was deeply rutted. The shades of green of the different trees were breathtaking. The silence was so intense that it was oppressive.

  They came to a thicket of shrubs. Here there was a break in the forest and the sun poured down onto the grass.

 “We can take a rest here,” said Yoshiko, and Fujiko agreed.

  Sugimoto looked around. He realized they had gone deep into the woods. Seldom would anyone come here, he thought. In his imagination he saw the forest in Rinunkyo.

  “You can sit here,” said Yoshiko to Sugimoto, spreading the plastic wrapper she had undone from her parcel for him to sit on.

  The two women sat down on their handkerchiefs and stretched their legs straight out in front of them.

  The editor said, “I’m so hungry.”

  “Then why don’t we have our lunch?” asked Yoshiko.

  The two women unwrapped the lunches they had brought. Fujiko had made sandwiches. Yoshiko had prepared Sushi. These were placed on the ground along with three bottles of fruit juice.

  Taking a sandwich, Fujiko said to the others, “Please have some.”

  “Thank you, I will,” said Yoshiko, taking a sandwich, and added, “I made some Sushi and was about to eat it.”

  “Watch out, Fujiko!” shouted Sugimoto, striking the Sushi from her fingers. His face had turned white.

  “There’s poison in it!”

  Fujiko looked at him dumfounded.

  Sugimoto stared at Yoshiko’s pale face. She looked back fiercely and didn’t lower her gaze. Her eyes flashed.

  “Yoshiko, this is how you killed those two at Rinunkyo, isn’t it? You’re the one who made it look like suicide.”

  Yoshiko bit her trembling lip. She looked ghastly.

  Stammering in his excitement, Sugimoto continued, “On February 18th you invited Sakitsugu Shoda and Umeko Fukuda to go to Rinunkyo with you. You poisoned them just as you intended to poison us now, then returned alone. No one would have dreamed they had been murdered. That area is famous for suicides, so it was a perfect setup. People would just think, ‘What? Another suicide?’ and not give it a second thought. That was what you were counting on.”

  Yoshiko remained silent. Fujiko was staring wide-eyed. It seemed as if the slightest movement would tear the air.

  “You accomplished your purpose. But there was just one thing that troubled you,” Sugimoto went on. “You were worried about what would happen to the bodies. You left when they collapsed, but you wanted to know the final outcome. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to rest, isn’t that so? They say a criminal usually returns to the scene of his crime. You chose to do that through a newspaper. Or maybe you were worried whether the police would call it a suicide or suspect murder. But such a trifling incident was unlikely to appear in the Tokyo papers, so you subscribed to a Yamanashi paper, where Rinunkyo is located.

  “That was smart, Yoshiko, but you made two mistakes. You thought you had to give a reason for subscribing to the paper. So you said you wanted to read my novel. You shouldn’t have done that. That’s what made me suspicious. The other mistake you made was in ordering the paper from the 19th. Therefore, I guessed that something had happened on the previous day, on the 18th.

  “My inquiries revealed that you hadn’t gone to the club that day. Using my imagination along with the facts, I decided that you must have taken the 1:06 express train from Shinjuku. This train arrives in Kofu at 2:53. You would have to go to Rinunkyo from there, but it just so happened that the local diet member, Minister Sato, was making a speech to a throng of people at that very time. This was reported in the paper, with a photo. I was sure you would have seen it. So I decided to test you with that photo.

  “I had a private detective investigate you and Sakitsugu Shoda, and it became clear that you and he were involved with each other. And Shoda was also involved with Umeko Fukuda, the other girl. If they were made to look like a double suicide, it wouldn’t cause much of a stir. As I became more and more convinced that my reasoning was correct, I purposely left that photo of Sato for you to see. I knew it would make you suspicious of me. In other words, I wanted you to know that I was testing you. It must have made you nervous, and then you probably became afraid of me. Now it was my turn to wait for you to make the next move. You didn’t fail me.

  “You suddenly became more friendly and finally, this invitation today. You insisted I bring a girl along. That’s because if I were found dead by myself, it wouldn’t look like a suicide. If Fujiko and I had eaten your Sushi, the poison you put in it would have acted immediately. You could have left us here. Three minus one—that would leave another couple in the mountains of Izu who had evidently committed double suicide. People would be shocked to learn that we two had been so intimate. My wife would probably hide my ashes in a closet.”

  Suddenly a laugh erupted. Yoshiko Shioda threw back her head and laughed. Suddenly the laughter died and Yoshiko spoke sharply.

  “I must say, you really are a fiction writer! You couldn’t have made up a better story. So you claim that this Sushi is poisoned?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then let’s see if it will kill me. I’ll eat it all myself. Watch me. If there is poison in it, it should take about three or four minutes to kill me. If it’s a slower-acting poison, I’ll be in agony.”

  Yoshiko took the box of Sushi from the shocked Fujiko and began to stuff the food into her mouth.

  Sugimoto watched fascinated. He couldn’t utter a sound.

  There were seven or eight pieces of Sushi in the box. One by one Yoshiko chewed them and swallowed.

  “There, I ate them all. Thanks to you, I’m full. Now we’ll see if I drop dead.”

  And so saying, she lay down full length on the grass.

  The warm sun played on her face. Her eyes were closed. A nightingale was singing nearby. Time passed. Sugimoto and Fujiko didn’t say a word. More time passed.

  Yoshiko seemed to be sleeping. She didn’t stir. But, from the corner of her eye, tears made a track down her cheek. Sugimoto was tempted to speak to her, but at that moment she jumped up. It was like a spring uncoiling.

  “It’s been enough,” she said, glaring at Sugimoto. “If the Sushi had been poisoned, I would be dead now, or in agony. Yet here I am, perfectly normal. Is this proof enough that you’ve let your imagination run away with you? You should be more careful about making such wild claims!”

  So saying, Yoshiko collected the lunch box and bottles and tied them up into a parcel, stood up, and shook the grass from her skirt.

  “I’m going back. Goodbye.”

  Yoshiko strode back down the path. Her step was firm. Soon her figure was lost in the tangle of branches.

  Sugimoto received the following letter from Yoshiko Shioda.

  “You were completely right. I did do it. It is true. I am the person who killed those two people at Rinunkyo. Why did I do it? Well, there was no other way, was there? It was just the usual story of a man and two women.

  “The way he died is just as you deduced. When I invited the two of them to go with me to Rinunkyo, Shoda was delighted at the prospect of such a picnic. No doubt it gave him a perverse sense of pleasure to be accompanied by his two mistresses.

  “I reserved seats on the 1:16 express at one o’clock. I didn’t want anyone we might know to see the three of us together. I had about thirty minutes before the other two arrived. During that time I went to a little restaurant in front of the station and had some noodles and that’s when I saw your novel in the paper. When I met them, Sato was making a speech in the square.

  “At Rinunkyo I gave Shoda and Umeko some sweet cakes that I had made, in which I had put potassium cyanide. They died almost immediately. I got rid of the remaining cakes and returned, leaving the bodies there. Everything went perfectly.

  “What a relief! The only misgiving I had was whether the police would suspect murder. Therefore, I decided to take the local newspaper, using your novel as the pretext for subscribing to it. Because of that I ended up arousing your suspicions.

  “So I decided to kill you. In the same way I had killed Shoda.

  “But you saw through my plan. You suspected I had poisoned the Sushi, but actually the poison was in the fruit juice. I thought you would drink the juice after eating the Sushi to quench your thirst.

  “I brought the bottles of fruit juice back with me. They won’t be wasted. I will drink one now...”

[showmethesneer]

Funny how I was saving The Hunger Games books for when my semester was over, and then the standalone I chose to hold me over until after finals just so happens to be the perfect little appetizer: OG dystopia/sci fi classic, Brave New World.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite parts:

-"the principles of mass production at last applied to biology"

-"a T for the males, a circle for the females and for those who were destined to become freemartins a question mark, black on a white ground." ~enby feels~

-"in the vast majority of cases, fertility is merely a nuisance." ~quite literally about meee~

-"though the Epsilon mind was mature at ten, the Epsilon body was not fit to work till eighteen. Long years of superfluous and wasted immaturity."

-"Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks—already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder."

-"Reflexes unalterably conditioned. They’ll be safe from books and botany all their lives."

-"A love of nature keeps no factories busy."

-"“These,” he said gravely, “are unpleasant facts; I know it. But then most historical facts are unpleasant.”"

-"when you’re not accustomed to history, most facts about the past do sound incredible."

-"“And do you know what a ‘home’ was?”

They shook their heads." ~queer and abuse survivor and Latin American diaspora feels~

-"Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy."

-"Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy."

-"Feeling lurks in that interval of time between desire and its consummation. Shorten that interval, break down all those old unnecessary barriers."

-"There was also a thing called God."

-"And what makes it worse, she thinks of herself as meat."

-"Slowly, majestically, with a faint humming of machinery, the Conveyors moved forward, thirty-three centimeters an hour. In the red darkness glinted innumerable rubies."

-"The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone."

- “Fine to think we can go on being socially useful even after we’re dead. Making plants grow.” ~ #afterlifegoals ~

-“But queer that Alphas and Betas won’t make any more plants grow than those nasty little Gammas and Deltas and Epsilons down there.”

-"The saxophones wailed like melodious cats under the moon, moaned in the alto and tenor registers as though the little death were upon them. Rich with a wealth of harmonics, their tremulous chorus mounted towards a climax, louder and ever louder—until at last, with a wave of his hand, the conductor let loose the final shattering note of ether-music and blew the sixteen merely human blowers clean out of existence. Thunder in A flat major."

-"to be excited is still to be unsatisfied."

-“I’d rather be myself,” he said. “Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.”

-"'Even Epsilons are useful’! So am I. And I damned well wish I weren’t!”

-"He was a mine of irrelevant information and unasked-for good advice."

-"Suddenly it was as though the whole air had come alive and were pulsing, pulsing with the indefatigable movement of blood."

-"Lenina liked the drums. Shutting her eyes she abandoned herself to their soft repeated thunder, allowed it to invade her consciousness more and more completely, till at last there was nothing left in the world but that one deep pulse of sound."

-"Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous … Like drums, like the men singing for the corn, like magic, the words repeated and repeated themselves in his head."

-"He held out his right hand in the moonlight. From the cut on his wrist the blood was still oozing. Every few seconds a drop fell, dark, almost colourless in the dead light. Drop, drop, drop. To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow … He had discovered Time and Death and God."

-"The scene in the orchard had delighted him with its poetry; but the sentiments expressed had made him smile. Getting into such a state about having a girl—it seemed rather ridiculous. But, taken detail by verbal detail, what a superb piece of emotional engineering!"

-"We've sacrificed high art. We have the Feelies and the scent organ instead." ~the gut punch of a scene that fucked me up the most~

-"We could synthesize every morsel of food, if we wanted to. But we don’t. We prefer to keep a third of the population on the land. For their own sakes- because it takes longer to get food out of the land than out of a factory." ~literally The Hunger Games~

-"Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy. Yes, even science.”

-"God in the safe and Ford on the shelves."

-"what you need is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here."

-“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

#brave new world #aldous huxley #liveblog of me reading #classic literature

[magnumversum]

“Il est L’Homme Rouge,” said the man, roughly meaning, “He is the Red Man.” He expanded further on this train of thought. “He rides a red motorcycle, wears a red cape and a red helmet, wears red boots and a red jacket. You can’t see his face, but you don’t have to see his eyes to see his regard de détermination.”

Another man further supported what he was saying, “Oui, he makes for a dangerous foe, and his friend the spy.” The two men were drunkards sitting at a bar, retelling something that had happened days earlier. “Bravo à L’Homme Rouge.”

“Bravo à L’Homme Rouge,” repeated the other man.

L’Homme Rouge

Starring Guy Red

Guest Starring Joran

His crimson motorcycle was just blur, extra noise in the busy streets, its gutters coughing up a trail of smoke, blinding people standing by the road. Leaping from street light to street light was a man dressed in a black suit, quickly trailing the rider—a crimson-clad vigilante. The L’Homme Rouge… the red man… this was Rasheb Nevim—this was Guy Red.

A truck swerved out of its path, pulling onto the roadside. The scarlet bike flew off a construction ramp, a crimson shooting star flying through the night sky, outshining every other star and sun. The white headlights illuminated the road ahead, as well as the tail lights in the car in front of them—a white lamborghini.

The swift, dashes of silvery red and a fluttery suit-cape caught up to the lamborghini, and the spy appeared on the sunroof, sleek black suit, flowy tie and all. Guy Red took off his helmet and breathed in the fresh air. He had luscious black braids that puffed out from his head, that ran down his neck and flew in the wind. He climbed up to the sunroof next to Joran.

Bullet holes suddenly drilled through the roof, the Herculean crimson vigilante and his indefatigable friend dancing like ballerinas. Guy Red jumped out of the path of one of the bullets, jet thrusters on his feet igniting at the same time, an exuberant, torrid display of steadfastness par excellence following him into the sky. The glass sunroof practically melted, the lamborghini caught on fire, the men in the lamborghini running away before it blew up, ducking behind their crashed getaway vehicle.

Guy Red rolled up his sleeves, revealing metal plates replacing his flesh, wiring weaving in and out, stitching together flashing red lights and blue screens with pixelated sad faces and charismatic robot voices imbued into those screens. Like a wizard preparing to cast an epic magic spell, flickers of light came from his fingers… and then more than just flickers; entire orange, red and yellow swirls of light left his fingers, an enthusiastic light show melting the windows to smithereens. Wailing sirens closed in.

Blue and red lights flashed in front of a shattered red visor, then slowly dissipated. One flickering, dim yellow light shined onto a door, where a red jacket chewed through by caterpillars was mounted on a coat hanger. On the floor next to the coat hanger was the doorknob, also subjected to insects. This crime scene was discovered seven hours later, though.

Right now, the assiduous, battlemented man—scarlet arrayed; and the intransigent, recalcitrant spy were in an ineluctable impasse. Guy Red leapt into the air and unleashed a tidal wave of scorching heat everywhere…

Joran’s brimming self stood over Guy Red with a sly, halfway smile across his face, offering him his smooth, delicate, dark hand. “You’re a tough opponent—you certainly gave them a run for their money.”

“Thank you—” Guy Red was about to say, before a tall, wrinkly woman with long black hair, wearing an orange tee shirt under a black vest crept up to Joran and stole his attention. It was peculiar, because Joran didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him.

The only reason why she, Lucia Frances, approached him was to ask for his phone number because Joran was “so awesome and talented, stopping those bad guys back there…”

“Here you go, ma’am,” Joran said, typing his number into her phone. “And what’s your name?”

Then the woman turned to Guy Red and asked for the same thing, which Guy Red hesitantly obliged to. This was peculiar, but she parted ways, taking Joran with her, and it was just Guy Red standing on the streets, watching them behind his visor, with a passive, detached expression and dwelling in motionless action.

A sign calling for one Luciana Francesci, who went under the alias of Lucia Frances, was posted on city streets. The blinds for the windows of her apartment were mangled. Guy Red’s jacket was still there on her coat hanger. Detectives for the Cartertown Investigation Department walked in, held their badge to the maid—he wore a black suit and a white tee shirt underneath, and his sunglasses were folded away and his deep blue eyes followed them across the room—and they entered the tiny apartment.

But that was eight hours later. Now, Guy Red stood at the side of the road, holding a white umbrella over his head to keep the rain out. A series of gray cars trickled past him, blurring with the storm ahead to create an intransparent smog. Parked across the street was his motorcycle… he found himself zipping across the wet road, rain pattering down his neck and onto his arms and legs.

His thick red gloves gripped the handle, rain splashing off his fingers. Behind him was a sea of artichoke green cars, an assembly of cars painted in a color muted not too unlike the tone of the grays and boring blues of the buildings around him. He heard his own retching behind the visor, and the temptation to pull over, take off his helmet and puke into it overcame his rational mind.

His motorcycle was wrecked, the wheels still scratching against the dirt, crashed into a foot-deep ditch, and he was crawling away, and there was red on his motorcycle jacket that wasn't there before. His motorcycle stayed in the ditch where it saw the Sun rise and sleep thrice until a man wearing a taffy fedora, a watermelon suit and tie, and fuchsia suit pants and shoes walked across it six hours later. He examined the motorcycle, making sure that it belonged to who he thought it was, then rode off on it, cradling the helmet he found next to it with reverence—

—But that was six hours later. Right now, Rasheb Nevim just crawled out of the ditch and walked the rest of the way home while sick, drunk and emotional. He made his way into the kitchen and gathered two slices of burnt white bread from the pantry and a slice of frozen cheese from the refrigerator, which cast a whitish, bluish glow onto his face.

He sat down on his deep blue couch, quasi-grilled quasi-cheese sandwich in hand, watching the TV while nibbling. A heavy tear rested in his lap, like a big husky sitting in its owner’s lap, under its owner’s comforting hand, watching bright, artificial colors flash in front of its eyes but not understanding what’s going on.

A second tear rolled down his face, absorbed on the bottom lip. He grabbed a sofa pillow next to him and curled up, nestling his head into it. His hair fell around him. The blue pillow absorbed the second tear, and a small, stifled whimper could be heard in his voice.

He looked back at the TV screen. His helmet was still at the crash sight—the thing that he felt made him him and he lost it in a blurry series of memories. A third tear dripped down his face.

His body melted into the couch, humpback whales watching him sink, a fourth tear streaming from his eye and parting with him as he neared the abyss.

Before he could sink into the abyss permanently, however, a force reached into the darkness and took him by the hand. Perhaps it was nature, or the mercy of a god, or his own willpower, something else entirely, but something reached in, took Rasheb Nevim by the hand and awoke him from his malaise. He found himself standing next to the coffee maker, waiting for his dark coffee to finish brewing.

He pounded on the door, his scarlet gloves leaving dents in the wood, and shouted, “Luciana Francesci, step out of your apartment. I have a warrant with your arrest. Harlem PD, open up!” No answer, but he heard a faint jingle on the other side, followed by a quick conversation by a man and his wife about leaving groceries behind at the store, obnoxious applause and cheer from at least a hundred people. Then the opera house in the apartment followed the man and wife into a new composition, the music they played implemented of a series of high notes and a comical ding at the end. A gimmicky soap playing on the TV. “If you don’t answer, I swear to God I’m breaking in!”

Posters calling for Luciana’s arrest were stapled onto street lamps around town, handed out to men in orange suits at the airports flagging down taxis—newspaper headlines read of a plane that flew over Minneapolis farmland puking wanted signs out of the left window.

Luciana held a suited arm by the windowsill, a puff of white smoke masking her date. Mayonnaise-drenched ramen noodles engulfed her chopsticks, and her candy red lipstick kissed the spoon.

Joran kept his shades folded away, tucked into the front pocket of his black buttoned up suit, a glimmer of crimson light from the TV hitting them and ending its journey on the doormat. His eyes were focused on Luciana the entire time, a deep, charming, sensitive glimmering blue behind his frown. Scarlet light climbed up his windowsill, resting on Joran’s front pocket. Joran’s polite smile slipped away, revealing a wide grin.

A helmeted figure appeared in the shadows and a man burst through the room, landing on the carpet. His helmet tumbled away, a web of splinters running across the visor.

He zipped down the road, kicking up gravel pellets, the engines coughing smoke trails into the ashy horizon; past old, happy barns; and windmills whistling a cheery tune; and buildings that failed to climb past the inevitable, smoldering flames; and buildings starting the climb in their place; and snow-capped, indomitable mountaintops where at night, wolves climbed to the peak and let out a shrewd, ragged howl; and valleys; and a pretty cottage with people outside, sitting by the campfire and crying out cheery campfire songs; he looked out to everything in life and reflected, still trapped in his own conscious.

At the end of the road was a small, shriveled up house with cobwebs scraping the door handle, vines engulfing it in mossy green flames, cobwebs strung across gray support pillars like Christmas ornaments, and a candlelight Thanksgiving dinner sitting at the end of the hallway for one—him. The rotisserie chicken was still fresh, but the casserole had become infested by a small ant colony.

This was his house, and he could barely call it a home. He had a tea kettle bubbling in the kitchen, a ubiquitous hiss as it simmered, as if a snake was slithering faintly into the laundry room to shed its skin on his clothes. He brought the tea to his chin and removed the visor to take a sip, but couldn’t even suborn himself when he caught a whiff of bitterness. He picked up his fork and attempted to eat some of the apple pie he had left from two weeks ago. He walked into the living room, picked up the dial-up phone and put in a number. Then after he had held the phone to his ear and spoke for a while, he fell asleep on the orange couch…

…until he heard a knock on the front door. Then he got off the sofa and let Joran in. They talked for a while on the couch, until Rasheb Nevim left Guy Red to hug Joran.

Guy Red was a personality with deep connections to his past, but that wasn’t all Rasheb Nevim was. He was a human being, something more than a moniker or a keychain to decorate a backpack or an emblem. He was a human being that actually existed, someone worthy of being seen. Guy Red was the helmet, but Rasheb Nevim was the man behind the cracked visor.

Rasheb Nevim climbed onto his motorcycle and removed his gloves; they reeked of benzene. Rasheb Nevim turned around to take one last look at the house, before throwing a sparkling matchstick at the porch. The gray house drenched in gasoline exploded with strong, expressive, warm colors as a scarlet motorcycle and a black Camaro (with a black suit with a white tee shirt, red tie and folded away sunglasses painted onto the hood like a Hot Wheels car) gleefully sprinted into the sunrise together.

[thesiroccoofthesea]

The Indefatigable was once a 100-gun ship of the line of one of the world’s forgotten kingdoms. She was converted while under construction to accommodate steam power, with one engine driving a central-mounted main propeller and a second engine powering two chain-driven propellers on port and starboard. She enjoyed a long career, even serving several times as the flagship for the royal fleet, and fought through a number of tough battles. However, in the aftermath of one of these battles, Indefatigable having been split off the main fleet to return to port to seek repairs, was ambushed by elements of the enemy fleet. While she succeeded in severely damaging her opponents, fires started raging out of control, injuring her aerial buoyancy and prompting her crew to abandon ship. However, unknown to anyone at the time, Indefatigable remained buoyancy and engine power ended causing the ship to continue on for several miles, into a large lake. Anoxic environments at the bottom of the lake would see Indefatigable’s remains well preserved for several decades, Raised by a faction of her former kingdom, Indefatigable was raised and rebuilt into a relatively model central battery ironclad. Both her bow and stern were lengthened and reshaped the form to rebalance the ship and provide additional room, the latter to accommodate a multi-prop shaft design to increase speed. Her boilers were replaced with more powerful units, and her original twin engines were replaced with a single more powerful one. The armour scheme of indefatigable’s new configuration was very extensive, featuring a full-length belt, as well as an armoured citadel for the main gun battery, and an armoured conning tower. The main battery itself was replaced with 10 10-inch guns on the main gundeck, with five per side. A number of 6-inch guns were mounted on the deck above capable of firing through multiple gunports, with a single swivel gun mounted on the stern.

Decades later, Indefatigable would undergo a second major refit, one that would see the general shapes of her current form emerge. Her internal engine would be supplemented with a pair of powerful aeronautical diesel engines mounted In two nacelles near the stern, not far from where her original chain-driven propellers were. Her sailing rig was eliminated and replaced with two military masts with spotting tops and halyards, and the original secondary battery was completely removed and replaced with quick-firing deck guns. Furthermore, two of the 10-inch guns were placed in around sponson casemates, allowing Indefatigable to fire 4 10-inch guns fore and aft, as opposed to the original two. Finally, a new enclosed bridge was constructed atop her armoured conning tower.

#my art #my design #airship #steampunk #dieselpunk #ironclad

[k4yak]

Mount Indefatigable My photo, do not remove caption

#original photography #photographers on tumblr #verical #vertical nature #vertical landscape #landscape #nature #lensblr #canon #mp #landscape photography #nature photography #canada #explorealberta #kananaskis #mount indefatigable

[entertainmentnerdly]

Mount Indefatigable reflected in upper Kananaskis Lake. Alberta (4032 x 1908) [oc] via /r/EarthPorn https://ift.tt/3w0OHdM

#reddit #Earthporn #Science #Geology #Earth #Our World #Mount Indefatigable reflected in upper Kanana

[erendyl]

Mount Indefatigable.

#Mount Indefatigable #Upper Kananaskis lake #Canada #original photographers

[theyuniversity]

For example,

Henry, with his indefatigable spirit, never gave up on his dream of climbing Mount Everest. 🧗‍♂️

Website | Twitter |  Instagram | Medium | Pinterest | Ko-fi | eBook

#vocabulary #word of the day #indefatigable #English #English class #learning English #ESL #EFL #ELA #ELT #WOTD

[thegodemperorsmycopilot]

I will not be the only one to die upon Armageddon.

Artarion, Priamus, Cador, Nerovar and Bastilan. We are the knights of Squad Grimaldus.

Within his veins, Cador carries the blessed blood of Rogal Dorn with what seems like weary honour. His face is shattered and his body tormented – now half-bionic due to untreatable wounds – but he remains defiant, even indefatigable. He is older than I, older by far. His decades within the Sword Brethren are behind him now; he was released with all honour when his advancing age and increasing bionics left him less than the exemplar he had been before.

Priamus is the rising sun to Cador’s dusk. He is aware of his skills in the unsubtle and undignified way of many young warriors. Without even the ghost of humility, his roars of triumph on the battlefield sound like cries for attention, a braggart’s declarations. A blademaster, he calls himself. Yet he is not mistaken.

Artarion is… Artarion. My shadow, just as I am his. It is rare among our number for any knight to lay aside personal glory, yet Artarion is the one who carries my banner into battle. He has joked more times than I care to remember that he does so only to provide the enemy with a target lock on my location. For all his great courage, he is not a man blessed with a skilful sense of humour. The mangling wound that fouled his face was a sniper shot meant for me. I carry that knowledge with me each time we go to war.

Nerovar is the newest among us. He holds the dubious honour of being the only knight I chose to stand with me, while all others were appointed to fight by my side. The squad required the presence of an Apothecary. In the trials, only Nerovar impressed the rest of us with his quiet endurance. He labours now over his arm-mounted narthecium, blue eyes narrowed as he tests the flickering snap of surgical blades and cutting lasers. A sickening clack! sounds as he fires his reductor. The giver of merciful death, the extractor of gene-seed – its impaling component snaps from its housing, then retracts with sinister slowness.

Bastilan is last. Bastilan, always the best and least of us all. A leader but not a commander – an inspiring presence, but not a strategist – forever a sergeant, never fated to rise as a castellan or marshal. He has always said his role as such is all he desires. I pray he speaks the truth, for if he is deceiving us, he hides the lie well behind his dark eyes."

-'Helsreach' by Aaron Dembski Bowden

Art by mrcoon

[randomvarious]

Sturgeon General - “Live the Life” Boycott Radical Records 1999 Third Wave Ska / Reggae

Although the bio from this group's Facebook page is kinda long, it really seems to capture a lot of the irreverent essence of being a small-time touring ska band in the 90s:

The decade of the 90’s was a distant time: the internet was in its infancy, “texting” was unheard of and climate change…was still a myth. Seattle grunge may have been an institution, but close on its heels SKA music was making waves. Nowhere else was this more evident than along the somewhat obscure, conservative Wasatch Front in Utah where the likes of Swim Herschel Swim, Stretch Armstrong, Insatiable and Sturgeon General were whipping crowds into a frenzy on a nightly basis. Formed in the early nineties by front-man and bari-saxophonist Craig Waddell, Sturgeon General epitomized the cozy underground followings SKA had generated around the country. In direct opposition to grunge’s baleful dirges and angst-filled bravado, SKA proffered a carefree, hyperactive outlet of brass energy underlying its reggae-on-steroids tempo. The band filtered many members through its fraternity over the years, but staples Zach Griffen, Bill Hosack, Ken Marvel, Devin Affleck, Joe Kaufman, Pablo Anderson, Nate Robinson, and Richard (Phish) McCallister were welcome anchors for a band that eventually toured for more than four years nationally while promoting two albums of original material.

Sturgeon began playing at Salt Lake City’s Bar-and-Grill (9th south), Ashbury Pub and their ever-staple gig at Burt’s Tiki Lounge. In the Sundance burrow known as Park City, Sturgeon regularly played to sellout rooms at The Alamo and Jammin’ Salmon where they attracted their manger, Ben Rosch. The energy of performances were electric and it was often difficult to determine who was more wired: the band or the ‘skankin’ crowds, as many a busted stage floor can testify to! Fan favorites Mojave, Edge of the Knife and Shut Up seldom left the dance floor empty or dry from sweat and spilled beers. One of the great advantages of watching Sturgeon play was that fans would sweat out as much as they imbibed, making the bartenders happy while accounting for an intense aerobic exercise session.

Life on the road was filled with all of the glory, frustration and insanity that many have come to associate with the rock-star life. Sturgeon General wandered far from Utah, frequenting the east coast and making a name for themselves in small college towns and metropolises alike, gaining fans wherever they went.

How crazy you ask? Band highlights from the road include streaking the campus at Mount Holyoke (a conservative women’s college), performing semi-regularly at the SKA Brewery in Durango Colorado, getting their own beer named after them by the Mt. Olympus Brewery: Sturgeon General Stout, 4th of July gig at the VFW in San Antonio, Texas with Monkey (band), and touring the east coast when 1999’s hurricane Floyd struck the region making for a crazy set of weeks! Sturgeon also recorded a radio commercial for Corona beer in the late 90’s featuring their song “Saturday” that teased with vaulting them into the national spotlight. Then there’s the time tenor player Jacob(his body still painted green from an Incredible Hulk Halloween costume, and currently lead in the E street band), nearly drove the tour van off the road in a blinding snowstorm. Kicked out of hotels, stiffed by club/bar owners, fights, music label disputes, out of money, getting lost; all in a day’s work for the indefatigable touring SKA band! Through it all, Sturgeon General endures.

Always particularly enjoy reading about bands that come from strait-laced places like Utah. It's just fun to imagine moms and dads and clergymen losing their cool because of the combined sequences of musical notes and words they just heard. Just a funny thing to imagine someone being pissed off about. There's something to the idea of a thing being cool and attractive because the people in charge find it objectionable and uncouth. Controversy rocks, and the more uptight a place is, the easier it is to rustle its jimmies. And at the end of the day, that's just plain ol' fun, right? A tale as old as time, really.

This silly song appeared on two albums in 1999: Sturgeon General's eponymously titled second and final album, and Radical Records' Boycott Radical Records various artist compilation. Not really sure why or how this particular song ended up on a Radical comp since SG never released anything through them, but it happened!

I guess the most striking and interesting thing about “Live the Life”—besides its "Dueling Banjos" open(??? 😂)—is that while "third wave ska" and "ska-punk" are terms that tend to get used interchangeably, this third wave ska song brings all the speed of a skatepunk type of jam, but without any of the actual punkiness; there's no scratchy guitars, no bratty vocals, and no fast-mashed drums. But it has fun breaks from all of that breakneck speed that see the song suddenly shifting in and out of varied bouts of chilled-out reggae grooviness.

Maybe you find Sturgeon General's choice to use this song as the title track to their second album to be a bit odd, but you gotta remember that they were primarily a touring band, and I don't think it's all that hard to imagine them tearing down every venue that they wound up playing it at. Gotta be a fun one to experience live for sure 😊.

#third wave ska #ska #3rd wave ska #reggae #music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music

[fyeahmeninroyalnavy]

A Letter to the Forester Estate and the Writers of Horatio Hornblower, the TV Series

This is my letter from Horatio Hornblower and the fans of Archie Kennedy to the CS Forester Estate and also the Hornblower writers who killed off Archie Kennedy and then discarded him as if he meant nothing, particularly to Horatio. You may see their relationship as platonic or not. This is nothing against Lieutenant Bush who is a lovely man and a compelling character.

So, you think I’m such a heartless bastard that I could just move on without my best friend who gave up his good name for me to spare my “now purposeless” life? A life without my sun to my moon?

He’s probably still warm as he’s taken to a pauper’s grave or worse and I’m given a fucking promotion and a ship! I just lost my dearest friend, my brother in arms, my companion to whom I could

communicate without words, and he to me. The man I silently vowed to protect from that evil bastard Simpson. The man whose face I tenderly caressed as he writhed in fits, or nightmares, who I carried through the rain, begged to live, to drink. Whose bedside I sat vigil at, watching over him, feeding him, helping him to grow stronger. Because I said it myself. “I can’t do this without you. I won’t make it.”

Never mind that my men gave me hell, most of them anyway. We weren’t going anywhere without Archie and he would not be left behind. I would not, could not fail him again.

When I had to hit my friend in the head as he fitted, agony was clearly written on my face. And my heart broke as I saw the jolly boat drifting away taking a piece of my soul along with it.

And of course there’s more. Perhaps you didn’t notice how Archie and I called one another by our Christian names. And that he inspired courage, light, and greatness in me that I never knew I had. I was just a scared, awkward, seasick little boy that first day, thrust into the bowels of a Hell I never knew existed. And there was that bright faced animated ray of sunshine cheering me on. “Jump! You’ll be allright.” Then grinning at my no doubt green hue, “Welcome to Purgatory!”

How he still had such cheer and optimism after all he had been through on that hell ship is difficult to understand. After all, he was just a boy as well, only months older than me. And he had been on that ship far longer. Only later, after getting to know just what sort of person my dear Archie was would I understand.

Because there is, “was” no one else like him on this earth. I would have been entirely unmanned and crushed to bits had I endured what he had. I will never have that sort of courage, resilience and optimism, and I’ll never love anyone again now that he’s gone.

It is all I can do merely to get through a single hour, let alone a day. My soul is in agony without him and I look forward to my own death.

End of Part One.

Part Two

Did the writers not notice how very close Archie was to me? Because the viewers damned sure did! Any chance we had to gently touch or comfort one another, we took advantage of. When I returned from the hole in El Ferrol, Archie couldn’t get to me quickly enough. He was so loving, and concerned, and even stroked my chest. If the viewers took it as we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves, then they would be right.

And my loyal Archie went back to the prison hell he had been in, not even fully recovered to show his faith in me, his respect, and his love.

Then there was the disaster that was Muzillac. I believe that’s when I realized there was no going back.

I was so proud of my new Lieutenant’s uniform. I actually began to feel worthy of my promotion. And Archie was obviously just as pleased. I saw that look in his warm blue eyes. The look of love and something more. He’d had a drink you see and as he began admiring my new uniform I realized he was flirting with me. And I flirted back!

Neither of us knew what was coming as we escorted Moncoutant and his men to Quiberon. But as always we would have one another’s back. And if one of us should falter, the other would be there for support.

As it came to pass, it was my dear still wounded Archie who held me up, indeed saved my life at the end. My brother in arms serving as acting Lieutenant in his Majesty’s Royal Navy, not truly recovered from El Ferrol or from the terrible abuse from that scab Simpson, would rise to the occasion for me. Indeed risked his very life without hesitation to save mine.

He was still bantering with me in the beginning as he always did, loving nothing more than to tease and annoy me. Knowing I wasn’t fond of horses, let alone using them as transportation, I saw the sparkle in his eye, the smirk of his lips as I struggled to mount the beast. Secretly I enjoyed the teasing and we both knew it. Anything to get that sunshine smile from him was always worth it to me.

Is it not evident to anyone with eyes and two brain cells how well the two of us understand and care for one another?

Then came the turning point. When Archie became what he was always meant to be. A hero.

After all Archie had been through so recently with being in prison and the events preceding it, he struggled with anxiety about the situation we found ourselves in. I tried to make light of things to reassure him but I don’t believe he was buying it. Still he remained with our men, doing the best he could while I was off playing the gallant hero. I‘m not sure what I was doing or why. Yes I had a crush on Mariette. Yes, I wanted information from her about our enemy. Maybe I was trying to find a ray of sunshine in a black cloud of misery; a failed mission of pain, grief, and loss of life. If not for Archie I would be among the losses.

Acting Lieutenant Archie Kennedy. The man was a true hero. He was there for his men and led them in spite of his fear and panic.

Then he came through for me in a big way. He saved my life.

Archie agonized about lighting the fuse to blow up the bridge in Muzillac. His voice had a slight break when speaking to Matthews about whether I was still alive or not. He kept delaying and hesitating, hoping I would show. Eventually Matthews offered to take on that burden, lighting the fuse himself.

When I suddenly appeared with Mariette over the hill, Archie sprung into action immediately. Holding fire of our marines and asking for protection of us both as Mariette was suddenly shot. As I fell to pieces and the fuse came closer to blowing up not just the bridge but me along with it, Archie bravely broke into a run, arriving to pull my weeping form away from Mariette and certain death. He put his arms about me, gently saying there was nothing more to be done for her, and pulling me away as we ran for our very lives, barely escaping. He provided comfort with an arm around me, empathetic looks and touches. As we made it back to the Indefatigable and I was called to brief Captain Pellew, my dearest friend looked at me and lovingly touched my arm. It will all be okay Horatio he said without words. End of Part Two

Part Three to follow

#ioan gruffudd #jamie bamber #horatio hornblower #archie kennedy #hornblower #age of sail #cs forester #archie/horatio #horatio/archie #my thoughts #indy husbands #brothers in arms #hornblower fanfic #archie x horatio

[oneshotolive]

Mount Indefatigable reflected in upper Kananaskis Lake. Alberta (4032 x 1908) [oc]

📷: scodon

#Nature #mothernature #beach #sunset #landscape #sunrise #animal #animals #naturephotography