#completely fine!

[capricornlevi]

ngl the way some people talk about reader-insert authors online (particularly for Levi) makes me v v v sad lol!!! it mightn’t be everyone’s cup of tea but if it’s harmless is it really so hard to leave people alone? 🥲

[aandrezel]

[cantquitu]

Sam Smith has been sprung on me when I’m at my most jetlagged and exhausted.  I’m going on for 35 hours without sleep and am watching last night’s Graham Norton episode. I couldn’t get to the remote control fast enough to stop the song starting...my defenses were slow...

...but hold on! Just as my eye started twitching and my migraine returned at the end of verse one, Sam broke the falsetto at the chorus.......and I WILL LIVE TO SEE ANOTHER DAY!

[cherryscape]

I am sorry,that you have to deal with this anon hate. I give you a hug through this message. ^.^

Hug received! Don't worry I'm not even bothered by it! It's hilarious yet sad. Stuff like this never bothered me cause like what can they do online? But thank you for the support!

[aandrezel]

Let’s put these side by side while we’re at it:

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

[aandrezel]

“Mr. Collier’s appearance always suits the occasion,” François deflected. He looked as if he would have abandoned the whole of his father’s fortune to have declined Her Grace’s invitation and passed a quiet evening alone, instead. But it was too late for that.

Jordan seated Jan to my right and settled back into her chair at François’s left. Jan scanned the faces at the table, considering his audience.

“I’m not immune to flattery,” he thanked François’s non-compliment in the stunning Kambrücke accent that he’d honed for years in Jøberg’s bed. “But judging by the Captain,” he protested, “I’d say I’m underdressed.”

“I always like to look my best for a customer,” I told him.

Jan poured his own champagne and raised a toast.

“To the things we have in common!” He laughed. His fingers moved gently to the Emperor’s medal, reflecting its light from my chest. “City knows I love a uniform,” he added more quietly, “But I’m sure that the bank would prefer to see the Captain in something more casual. How is your brother?”

[aandrezel]

Tobacco Production, Culture, and Etiquette in the Three Cities (Part 7)

Character Preferences and Customs - Western Style

Helena

Helena’s cigarettes are from the same estate but a different blend than that of her eldest brother. They developed their preference for the warm, dry-flavored cigarettes with their green, fennel freshness while vacationing together as teenagers on the sparsely populated western Italian coast. Helena smokes primarily in private, refraining from smoking in larger social circles in deference to conservative eastern attitudes. This is an attempt to settle eastern displeasure and soothe its wounded pride at the choice of an unknown Italian for Ferdinand-Kristoff’s wife over his irreproachable and powerful Viennese servant in Elsa-Marie Wittlin.

Levarlet

Armand Levarlet buys his own blends of tobacco from a handful of exclusive Rhine valley producers. The cigarettes themselves are rolled daily by His Grace’s valet, Laurent. Their temperament is medium in body and strength, with refined flavors of barrel and paper—lifted with a gentle addition of fennel. They smoke very slowly and burn very hot. They project taste, restraint, and the same abhorrence for frivolity as broadcasted by the rest of His Grace’s demeanor. Handsome and inoffensive, they probably neither please nor disappoint him, personally. They’re a prop for the consumption of the viewing public. He doesn’t care enough about the habit to have a truly personal preference that he smokes in private. Levarlet has smoked Viennese tobacco exactly once, in the penthouse suite of the Hotel Konstantin.

[aandrezel]

Mikhail’s reception for Helena in Amsterdam was more than enough to illustrate what Eden had always told me about his Balkan manners.

Our train was met before it pulled into the platform at the station. Helena was ushered into the automobile and whisked away down the side street before there was any chance of a rush of students or other protestors in the unlucky station.

In all of my travels—privately and in the Guard—I’d never been to Amsterdam. The remarkable skyline tumbled and climbed over its own shoulders like the deepest parts of Mann. But rather than the imposing reach of the Tower, the leaping architectural waves were crowned with dark circlet of God’s Eye. Hypatia was as pale and luminous as any ghost that Ferdinand-Kristoff might have imagined, prowling the streets of his ancestral possession. She was radiant in the combined midday light of the stars and the sun—seated beside me on the fine upholstery, two feet from the mother of the next emperor of all the world.