Harry studied my face with an intensity too painful to bear. Was it sadness I saw in his eyes? Pity? Worry? Regardless, I couldn’t see the one emotion that I deserved to have him focus on me— anger. After the way I had treated him during the past two weeks, it should have been anger. But it wasn’t, and I couldn’t understand why.
With tenderness I didn’t deserve, Harry stroked my face.
That was all I could handle. Carried by a sudden surge of energy and need, I crushed my mouth against his. Straddling him, I unzipped his jacket and worked it off.
“Talia,” he breathed out.
I cut him off with another kiss. It wasn’t words that I needed. Words would only lead to more feelings, and I couldn’t take the pain. I needed to feel good, and I knew of only one sure-fire way to accomplish that. I reached for the clasp of his pants.
Harry grabbed my wrists and pulled me away. “Talia, stop.”
I blinked. Never— and I mean never— had a man refused my advances at that point in an encounter. If we were alone and he was interested in me, it should have been inevitable. Granted, I had never before pursued a long-term relationship, but it was jarring nonetheless.
Harry’s face was flushed, and he was clearly aroused. Yet, he held me away from himself like something dangerous. “Not like this,” he panted, as if it took all of his self-control to speak those words. “Please, not like this.”
Embarrassment rushed through me like a cold wind, and I scrambled to my feet. I paced away from him, but was unsure of where to go or what to do next. We were in my quarters, so I couldn’t just leave. Part of me wanted to scream at him to go, but the rest of me desperately needed him to stay. I wrapped my arms around myself and crumpled to the deck. Sobs shook my whole body.
A moment later, Harry was there, folding me into his embrace once more. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. Captain Janeway and Chakotay were gone forever, and the whole goddamn thing had been my fault. I was the one who found the planet. I had suggested we change course to investigate. Apart from that, Janeway and Chakotay would still be on Voyager, where they belonged.
Instead, they were gone, and I was the one to blame.
*hugs you all* Because today is a day for hugs, and I’m going to run out of spoons if I go putting hugs in everyone’s ask box.
Feel free to reblog this to give a hug to every one of your followers.
*who is comfortable with being hugged. If you do not like hugs or are uncomfortable with physical contact, or even just prefer not a hug from someone not a mutual friend, cookies or other snacks suitable for your dietary needs and restrictions.
I want to start off today by saying a MASSIVE THANK YOU to everyone who helped out with my campaign for last week, getting me the funds needed to make an AMAZING dress for the Aveda catwalk for water.
I didn’t win the full ride scholarship. Why? Who knows. BUT WE DID SO GOOD. My model was amazing, the concept was outstanding, and the whole thing was possible because this community made it so. Because of your help, I have a 1000$ scholarship IN THE BAG.
I’m completely funded for school tuition through both a Pell grant and federally subsidized loans. However, I don’t get any overflow disbursement until possibly August, most likely October.
SO WE ARE ON THE FUNDRAISING TRAIN AGAIN!
I’ve set up a gofundme, since they offer ongoing campaign contribution support as well as a longer campaign contribution. I’m potentially going to set up a smaller youcaring, since I know a lot of people DO have issues with gofundme, but I’m not familiar with the particulars. I also have paypal alive and well!
Below are my links to the campaign, donations accepted at any point.
The full breakdown of my expenses are as follows, so that y’all can see my budget for the next 6 months! I hope this also helps people who are looking to either budget for themselves, and offers insight as to where I get my numbers! These include expenses for April 2018 through the end of October 2018.
Rent: $3000 (THE BIG ONE, but also one that I can fundraise for over time! I pay 500 a month right now, and I do owe some back rent.)
Groceries: $2400 (This includes meals for school, and groceries for home. If you want my full budget breakdown of this I can post that!)
Transportation: $1080 (Metro rides during peak hours for six months. This does not include Uber or Lyft fares, parking, or gas money. This number is likely to change if I manage to get a student discount metro card, but that’s not done yet.)
Household expenses: $800 (This is for things like toiletries, personal supplies, cleaning supplies, and any small household repairs that may crop up.)
Phone: $300 (So that I can stay connected with the world!)
Again a MASSIVE THANK YOU to all of the people who donated to my paypal to create my Catwalk for Water dress! She came out STUNNING and I will be posting an album of the progress to the final product in a different post, to be linked here when it’s up! I just don’t want to clutter this post with photos. And as before, signal boosting is just as important and helpful as donating! The more the word spreads, the more we can raise!
Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!
Ways To Give:
strugglingtobeheard has experienced a series of financial setbacks and needs to raise $2K to cover back rent for the past month and a half. They’re raising funds through YouCaring and are also offering tarot readings. You can read more and give at their youcaring.
nivcharayahel has developed accute tendonitis and been unable to work as a freelance transcriptionist since. She should be able to work again soon but needs help with bills, especially rent which needs to be paid by the 15th to avoid eviction proceedings. You can give at her PayPal link here.
jabberwockypie linked to deadcatwithaflamethrower, who is raising money through jewelry sales and donations to repair the second floor in her house after the previous tenants trashed it; repairs have been delayed because everyone in the family came down sick. There’s a post with all the fundraising info is here, and there are updates about the reno work posted regularly to the tumblr.
Molly Stratton is holding a series of queer-focused classes in the DC/MD/VA area called Sew Queer DC, which will cover things like tailoring pants, sewing bowties, and putting pockets in skirts. Tickets for “Skirts for Every Body” are now on sale. They’re also offering “support a queer tickets” where your ticket purchase, rather than allowing you to attend, allows a queer person to attend a future Sew Queer class for free. You can read more and buy a ticket here!
Anon linked to a post about Raven: Pirate Princess, which is in danger of cancellation because of small audiences and lack of awareness around it. It features a lot of LGBTQIA women of various races and body types, and they’re asking for people to spread the word if they can’t or don’t want to purchase. You can read more, reblog, and find purchase information here.
And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you’re not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help (or ask for help!). If you’re new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.
under privacy legislation it should be possible to retrieve the information that a company has collected about you and also exactly what they have shared and with which third parties they have shared it.
And it’s no one else’s business what the trauma is, or why the person who went through it is comfortable with the particular label they chose for their sexuality, not someone else’s business to determine the validity of that person’s chosen label.
(And hey, if they change thier mind later, than that’s ok too, because sexuality can be fluid, and recovery is not a “point a to point b” journey, but an ongoing process that can sometimes take an entire lifetime.)
Mostly I have been glaring at AO3 because there aren’t a lot of Janeway/Chakotay fics that don’t manage to set off a rant about JANEWAY IS NOT FRAGILE, DAMNIT.
I did, however, find a couple, and bookmarked them. (And why, why is it that the people who write pregnancy-fic are the ones most likely to avoid the descriptors “delicate”, “fragile”, or “small” for Janeway?)
I haven’t finished looking, though, and if I find more at some point, I’ll reblog this post with more recs. Both of these are 30-40k range, and I’m working my way down by word-count because I tend to prefer longer stories.
Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway Characters: Chakotay, Kathryn Janeway, B’Elanna Torres, Tom Paris, Seven of Nine, Alynna Nechayev, Gretchen Janeway, Phoebe Janeway
Admiral Kathryn Janeway and Captain Chakotay had one night together on Proxima station before he left on a ten month mission to the Yaris nebula. With a plan to meet in Venice when he returns, they both go about their lives, content to wait, without knowing that they’re tied to each other forever by a child neither of them had planned. After spending so much time apart, both by choice and by circumstance, do they know how to be together?
My Notes: There is also background lesbians, Nechayev gets to be more than an ice queen, and Seven of Nine being an awesome trip planner and travel companion.
Chapters: 18/18 Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway Characters: Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay (Star Trek) Additional Tags: Action/Adventure, Babyfic
This is an alternate universe story. It spears off mid-season seven, sometime after Lineage and before Workforce. Kathryn is on a supply mission, dealing with an obnoxious planetary leader. Chakotay decides to take matters into his own hands and a new journey begins.
My Notes: The main part of the story is getting them together and their first child, and the wrap-up of the rest of the journey home at the end is well-done, and it ends with a glimpse of Janeway and Chakotay several years later that is lovely.
Sure! Not likely to be in depth, ‘cause not my usual area of interest and day 2 of a migraine, so take it with a grain of salt.
Beyond that this movie is one of my favorites, regardless of anyone’s opinion on any of the flaws I’m sure exist and often don’t matter at all when I’m in the midst of watching it again…
I don’t have enough background knowledge of Eastern Europe to be able to comment on any of the costuming that is theoretically from that area.
Victorian England is also generally Not My Gig, but it at least tends to ping as accurate for the overall aesthetic – but I’m fuzzy enough on the details of what was fashionable when to be able to say if they mixed and matched or not.
The dresses the brides wear feels more like they stepped out of a painting than something that would be of general use. Definite influences from Ancient Greece, and needs someone more familiar with 19th century art to say if that’s accurate to the period.
His hair when he’s looking old always makes me giggle, and the armor. Although for whether that armor would be accurate for the mid-15th century Wallachia… *shrugs* ( @petermorwood – you wouldn’t happen to have an opinion on the armor?)
And regardless of the accuracy to history – Bram Stoker did less research than most fanfic writers into his source material for his primary character, so it’s really a question of if the costuming is accurate to a Victorian ideal, and I usually lose interest in more than a gloss of European history about the time of Elizabeth I of England.
My opinion is that
though it’s based on a generic mid-15th century western European field armour,
it’s just a vacuum-moulded* plastic costume appearing in a fantasy-horror film.
I can’t say whether Vlad the real Wallachian voivode would, as some modern art suggests, have worn western European plate armour (expensive, imported and of necessity made to measure) or would have worn central/eastern European armour of smaller plates and mail
as more patriotic, or would have worn Turkish armour (also small plates and mail) as more practical because it could be easily replaced and also because, as a political hostage of the Ottomans, he might have been used to it.
This costume armour is realistic enough for me to name the parts from sabatons to cuisses, pauldrons to gauntlets but after that, realism is like Dracula’s wife and goes out of the window. Mostly because the thing doesn’t look right in how its parts fit together.
Once you know what proper armour looks like, you notice when a costume meant to be historical armour looks a bit off – and “a bit off” is more annoying than armour which is complete fantasy as in ”Lord of the Rings” or “Game of Thrones”, because you can see where “off” could be “on” if someone had noticed it or, having noticed it, bothered to fix it.
This repro is by Valentine Armouries and is metal, not plastic; it recreates the good and the bad parts of the original.
It has too many spaces where the parts don’t meet or overlap properly; arm and leg plates
look right while tassets (thigh-plates) look so wrong I wonder how the designer managed both at once; not enough holes in the helmet for breathing yet eye-holes far too big; and of course the overall “flayed body muscle-striations” more appropriate for House Bolton.
There was a real armour pattern
about 60 years after Dracula, the Maximilian style, which had fluting along its plates as a strength-and-deflection measure, but they all ran in the same direction and didn’t try to represent musculature, flayed or otherwise.
The most obvious foolishness is the pair of Batman ears. They’re silly additions, since helmets are meant to deflect blows, and any crests etc. are lightweight add-ons of stiffened leather or parchment. They’re not part of the helmet.
What’s worse is that the vampire bat look doesn’t make sense in the context of the movie.
When he was shown wearing his armour, Vlad Dracula wasn’t a vampire but still a defender of Christendom against the Turk, and even if Gary Oldman’s acting as he renounces God (YouTube link) was a bit batty, he’d already taken the helmet off and IIRC is never seen in it again.
(*When watching that scene, look at (a) how the plates flex, which is why I think they’re vac-moulded plastic and (b) how the parts of the armour open up big vulnerable holes as Oldman raises his arms.
Also – nothing to do with armour – marvel at how Vlad didn’t tread on the late Mrs Vlad as he leapt forward to impale the cross with his sword, even though from my viewing of that scene, she was right under his feet…)
There's a Mirror on the Wall 