Does anyone have any of the old Adventure Zone patches? I burnt my star blaster one when moving it over to a different jacket for tonight and I can't find my pine guard one...
The moment we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived! Check out our shop to grab your zine!
All orders placed before 11:59pm CST on July 18th will receive a free “early bird” gift from us! Our Organization Mod, Morf, has created metal eye of Lyoko pins—so place your order today to snag one🌟
It is our express delight to finally bring this project to life, and can’t wait until you’re able to hold it in your hands!
Click here to see our shop!
Pre-orders will close at 11:59pm PST on August 15th—don’t miss your chance‼️
All proceeds from this project will be donated to PCRF.
Also like to point out that when her mother says “I was your mother much upon these years that you are now a maid,” (translation: I had you when I was your age) you have to remember her father’s words: “earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,” (translation: all the other children died.) The whole plot point of Juliet being an only child is explained by her mother being a Margaret Beaufort type who had her first child too young and it damaged her past the point of being able to bear more children.
Margaret Beaufort died in 1509. She was a major player in the Wars of the Roses, the swirling on-again-off-again civil wars that consumed England from 1455-1487. Romeo and Juliet was written and first performed in the early 1590s. Your average English person of Shakespeare’s day would probably have had at least a vague understanding of who she was and what happened to her, because she was a key figure in recent history and was still getting passed around as a cautionary tale.
There are two great problems with what happened to Margaret (and that her parents are trying to do to Juliet). One is easy for modern people to spot (but was also a common response back in her own day). And that’s the moral implications of what was done to her. She was too young to be married, and it was horrifying that she was forced into it so young. Every one of the adults around her either acted immorally or failed to protect her. They were wrong. This is what modern people see, and it’s important to remember that people back in her day mostly agreed with it. You’re supposed to think it’s fucked up! When girls were married that young (and it didn’t happen often!) it was a formality 99% of the time. It was for dynastic or financial reasons (the girl has lots of money and/or land and/or a title that her husband wants), but the “couple” don’t consummate their marriage for years. And it’s not just that they would have separate bedrooms. They might not even live in the same country until the girl was in her late teens and physically and mentally mature enough to bear and raise kids. Hell, a lot of times they didn’t even meet until the girl was older! They had this thing called “proxy marriage” where you would have two separate ceremonies, in two separate places, with each party saying their vows separately, one in one city and the other in a different one. So, yeah, sure, the girl was technically married at 12, but she didn’t actually meet her “husband” in person until she was 17 and they didn’t start sleeping together until she was 20. That was a thing they did.
The other problem, the one that modern people don’t notice, is dynastic. See, marriage wasn’t generally because you loved someone. It was because you had the resources to support a family, and you or your family wanted to pool those resources with someone. It’s about “our family has these resources, and we want that to continue.” It’s about continuity across generations. It’s about making sure that your children and grandchildren have the best possible resources to survive and thrive, whether those resources are land or a trade or a title or money or whatever. In order for this to work, you have to have kids! The family and the family’s resources depend on the married couple having children. If the couple doesn’t have children, the marriage is a failure. And that failure affects not only the couple, but both families. This is a really big problem. And you can’t have just one kid to pass on the family name, because half of all kids die in early childhood. If you want to be safe, you need several kids, to be sure at least one will survive to adulthood (when they can marry and pass on the family name and resources.
You know what happens when a girl has her first pregnancy too young? She is very likely to either die in childbirth, or have complications that destroy her future fertility. Just like Margaret Beaufort. Just like Juliet’s mother. In other words, the marriage is a failure, not just for her, but also for her family, and her husband (who can’t divorce her, it’s not allowed except in extremely rare circumstances), and her husband’s family. So even the people who didn’t have a moral problem with adult men having sex with pubescent girls had a practical problem with girls married too young because you are very likely to destroy the entire purpose of the marriage by doing it. As Shakespeare reminds us in the play through Juliet’s mother having been married too young and only having one child.
Shakespeare is telling us “yeah, this is fucked up. but even if you’re the kind of awful person who doesn’t think girls marrying too young is morally wrong, it’s also a problem for practical and dynastic reasons, don’t forget that by doing this wrong thing you are very likely to destroy what you most want out of it.”
another thing i noticed, the year my local community shakespeare theater did r&j, and i made the costumes so i got to watch the show every night: part of why capulet is telling paris, take your time, get to know each other, no rush, is that he still has his nephew tybalt as his heir. as long as tybalt is in the picture, there is no pressure on juliet to go further with paris, than get acquainted. once tybalt is killed, then suddenly capulet needs an heir, he needs a husband for juliet, now, this week. (the role of capulet is best given to the actor in the company that can do over the top apoplexy, you need to believe his urgency comes at least in part by how clearly he could drop dead any moment from giving himself a stroke)
i feel like this play is often taught in middle schools as if it was somehow relevant to, or about, teen hormone storms. really it's got more to do with the social structures around family and inheritance. leaving that context out makes it confusing, why is capulet suddenly flipping from nice dad to evil dad?
I've been thinking about this play a lot lately. I really wanna highlight that Lord Capulet asks Paris to wait and get to know her, and to woo her, while Tybalt lives. While Tybalt is alive, Juliet has something of a reprieve, and her wellbeing as his only child matters more to Capulet. But once Tybalt has died, the gloves come off. Lord Capulet was worried about his daughter's wellbeing when he felt he had the space to care, but as soon as his dynasty is at stake, as soon as this becomes larger than Juliet's happiness, his consideration for her health and mental wellbeing get thrown away. Which also is due in part to the fact that Capulet's family is implicated in a brawl that has left several dead after the Prince's family EXPLICITLY told the Capulets and Montagues to stop fighting or face dire consequences, AND Capulet is trying to align himself with the Prince's family by marrying Juliet off to County Paris, a relative of the Prince. So to Lord Capulet, it is now less important that Juliet is happy, and more important than he reminds the Prince of his loyalty via this marriage and aligns his family with the Prince's before it's too late. And he believes this must be done, at any cost...until Juliet kills herself. And that's when he realises the devastating cost of treating his family as chess pieces. He realises his wrongdoing far too late.
Seriously Romeo and Juliet is HEAVY on the dynastic politics, and I think you can't fully understand the play without understanding how that all works, especially because the impact of dynastic marriages on women and girls is like. THE POINT of the play
“I think that she can be very brave and a nice person, when she wants to be!”
Sissi almost tripped but she caught her balance, and managed to keep walking. A part of her wanted to turn around and question it. The other half wanted to ignore it. To just keep walking as if she’d not heard heard anything.
To just pretend that Odd Della-Robbia’s weird, crybaby cousin hadn’t said something so nice about her. Why would Aelita have any complements about Sissi of all people?
Sissi inhaled, held her head up high and kept walking.
---
Hours later, in the comfort of her room. Sissi’s mind kept returning to Aelita’s complement. She growled, throwing her heart-shaped pillow across the room. Huffing when it bounced back off her closest and nearly hit her.
Maybe she shouldn’t have ignored it.
Aelita probably had a barb ready for her if Sissi had reacted. Aelita had been getting better at those. Either she or one of her friends would have been ready with a joke at her expense. They always did.
They’d have laughed at her again.
But at least then she wouldn’t be still thinking about it in the middle of the night. She was going to have such bad bags in the mor-
Screaming.
Sissi didn’t even need to check where it was coming from. Even if she’d just woken up she wouldn’t have needed three guesses to work out who was making the racket. She sighed, swinging her legs out of bed. Crossing the hall and grasping the door handle.
“Hey!”
Sissi watched as the pink blankets flinched, then they jolted as Aelita jerked up. Her red-ringed eyes met Sissi’s and… she flinched again.
Sissi… Sissi had wanted to yell and scream like she’d done every other night. But that flinch. She wasn’t sure what how to feel about that. How did she look to others if Aelita seemed scared? The weary stare she was getting made her shift.
It… She was tired.
She wasn’t sure when she’d stepped forward. Or when she’d sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight. Sissi wasn’t sure who was most surprised. Her who had moved or Aelita who’d watched her the whole time.
Sissi also wasn’t sure how long they were sat with only the sound of Aelita’s sniffles. Apparently everyone was used to Aelita’s night terrors now, it didn’t seem like Jim was checking anyway.
...It’d be awkward if she just got up and left like this, wouldn’t it?
“So…” Urg, her voice was so scratchy. “What was it about? The dream?”
For a moment there was only more sniffles. Aelita shuffled, bringing her legs up. Hugging them to her chest as she rested her chin on her knees. Her damp, green eyes staring at Sissi the whole time.
Sissi swallowed. This whole thing was dumb. She should have just told Aelita to shut up and gone back to bed. Aelita’s bed creaked under her as Sissi shifted to stand, only to freeze and Aelita’s mumbling.
“...wolves.”
“Huh?” Sissi had barely heard it. If it’d been raining outside, she wouldn’t have. She turned to look. “Wolves? … Like when you called Emily one in the showers?”
Okay. Wrong thing to say because now Aelita was glaring at her.
“I didn’t call her a wolf. I saw a wolf and it started chasing me. Like they do in my dreams.”
“Right…” More silence. Because what was she supposed to say to that? Why would Aelita think there’d be wolves in bathroom? Sissi thought she was smart… But the silence and Aelita’s staring. Sissi couldn’t take it. She looked away, focusing on almost empty desk.
“Wolves huh? Doesn’t Canada have bears? I’d be more scared of them.”
And now Aelita was just giving her that blank stare she occasionally did. The one that made her friends crowd around her and start whispering.
“Bears?”
“Yeah, you know-” Sissi turned again. Holding her hands up and curling her fingers and growled. “Bears. Like- nine foot tall, hair and they get real mad when people wake them up.”
More silence. Great. Maybe she should have stayed in her room. Then she wouldn’t feel so dumb.
Then Aelita gave a snort of laughter, her hands coming up to muffle the noise.
“That… That just sounds like Jim.”
Sissi’s breath caught for a second as Aelita’s hands moved away and she finally smiled. Sissi returned it, leaning back until she was against the wall. Feeling lighter than when she’d been in her room. Even though the sun was beginning to rise and she’d gotten no sleep at all.
“I meant what I said, you know? You really can be nice when you want to.” Sissi huffed, only glancing at Aelita with one eye.
Enjoy some post-Xana vacation shenanigans! Had a lot of fun making this, and even dipped my toes into 3d modeling to help out with some of the more complex parts!
Hey, @crimson-vampire! It's me, your Code Swap gifter!
I saw your second and third prompts (Sissi part of the Lyoko gang and Lyoko girls sleepover with Sissi included, respectively) and decided to combine them. So have a nervous Sissi's first virtualization, and whatever the girls are discussing is up to you.
Here is my @code-swap gift for @ti0n-00 ! I went mostly with your first prompt of Sissi hanging out with the Lyoko warriors, with some inspiration with the Lyoko Warrior Sissi idea, so I hope you'll enjoy it! Sissi is one of my favorite character, so it was fun to explore her relationship with the rest of the group!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: It has been a few weeks since Jeremy and his friends have invited Sissi to become a part of their friend group. Still, as they constantly interrumpt conversations or change topic around her, she can't stop but thinking that maybe they don't actually enjoy her being around.
Or: Sissi is slowly becoming friends with the Lyoko Warriors; but building friendship takes time, especially when some secrets are left untold.
amandla
areudirty
dailybridgerton
jacobvanloon
2087
prguitarman
