Les Miscéllanibles

i love you, but do you have legbones? combeferre/enjolras

Enjolras/Combeferre, AU where supernatural creatures (werewolves, fairies, merfolk - take your pick) are real and one of them is a human and one is the creature.

“Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Les Amis de la Mer,” Enjolras says with an annoyed twitch of his tail. Combeferre presses a kiss against Enjolras’s gills and slides his hand down Enjolras’s pelvis, trying to feel for vestigial legbones. “I have no idea what you mean,” Combeferre replies.

tyrian purple looks black at night. combeferre/courfeyrac

Combeferre/Courfeyrac, Roman Gaul.

Courfeyrac drew the purple cloak closer around his body, letting it cling to where he was still flushed and bloody from their battle with the Romans. Combeferre fisted his hands in the soft fabric and pulled Courfeyrac in for a kiss, tasting sweat and the first of many cups of wine.
“You know, more snails were dyed for that cloak than men died today on the field,” Combeferre said.

Chapter 3: she was perfect. enjolras/grantaire

E/R Black Swan.

Enjolras didn’t smile as she settled over Grantaire, her red mouth drawn into the same predatory line as her spine. Grantaire shivered at the touch of Enjolras’s hair against her skin while Enjolras seemed to flay Grantaire with only a look; Grantaire was dwindling to nothing but the feel of Enjolras’s fingers trailing down her body. When Enjolras pressed merely the tip of her tongue to Grantaire’s sex, she knew she would be devoured.

Chapter 4: you have contracted dysentery. bossuet/grantaire/joly/musichetta 

joly/bossuet/musichetta/grantaire oregon trail au

Bossuet and Musichetta’s dysentery had started to put a crimp in their sex life, though it hadn’t stopped Musichetta from killing all the local wildlife every time they stopped so Bossuet could violently void all fluids from his body. Grantaire remained mysteriously unaffected, despite nursing the two invalids to the best of his limited ability and interest.
“There must be some reason why only half our number has fallen to this scourge,” Joly muttered to himself, taking another swig of whisky (he had avoided water ever since Bossuet had fallen ill, since there was no chance of it getting him drunk) to keep his courage up as the wagon turned into a place of pestilence, “some connection between myself and Grantaire; perhaps a freak of constitution, or a similarity in diet.”

3/4 sisters. ant au

les amis d'abc are female carpenter ants

Les Amies des Fourmis were a group which barely missed becoming historic; they were in greater part soldiers on good terms with the workers, and here are the names of the principal ants: Enjolrant, Combefourmi, Jehant Formaire, Formy, Courmyrac, Baformel, Bossuant, Jormy, and Grantaire, although Myrius Pontfourmy was known to occasionally frequent their secret gatherings in remote corners of the nest.
Enjolrant was once again infused with the scent of republicantism, her antennae gesticulating wildly as she released the pheromones of war, forelimbs akimbo and gaster upraised as she declared all ants 3/4 sisters. Grantaire did not stir from her sugary stupor except to lift the aphid’s anus to her lips and declare, “what fine chitin!”


Les Amies des Fourmis
Hey This Chair You Gave Us for the Barricade Has Carpenter Ants

Although to be an ant meant to be constantly at work, they did not deny their society enrichment. In the twisting and dark galleries of the fourmilière the scents of long-dead ancestors had immortalized their aspirations.
Familiar as the scents of their comrades, those ancestors warned, inspired, and continued, after the death of their authors, to strive.
 The great scent-trails of Plato-Formicidae recalled the lost scent of Socratant, from a fourmilière of antiquity. These scents said that they were born from the wood in which they lived -- and therefore they loved it; with unutterable loyalty and would die for it and for all their sisters.  Their souls were wood as well, Socratant had said -- the queen had a soul of teak, the soldiers souls of oak, and the workers souls of elm.
In their private meetings, held among the tangled scents of ’93, Enjolrant defied that philosophy: “For we are all made from the same wood, do we not have the same qualities? And therefore if we are deserving according to our nature, do we not all deserve to swarm one another equally, all our ¾ sisters together, when our pheromones call us to the orgiastic ritual of mating?”
A few antennae twitched, signifying interest, at that.
“Brava,” said Courmyrac. “But what’s to be done?”
“Everything depends on the workers,” said Enjolrant. “We must talk to them.”
Grantaire let forth the unmistakable scent of skepticism, and Enjolrant rose, offended.
“Well? You have an objection, that is plain, let us have it.”
“The workers will not listen to you. The workers like the way you look and they like what you have to say, but they’ll never block off our narrow pre-Haussmannt galleries for you; Enjolrant! Be serious.”
Enjolrant raised her forelimbs. “Have you not heard,” she said. “I am Ant-inoüs, farouche.”

 

Chapter 6: unwelcome visitors. courfeyrac/joly 

genderbent amis mermaids vs nightmare space moths thank

Joly could hardly remember the last time she could look out at the stars without fear, without watching for the black shadows of the Visitors; death came on wings thin as paper and delicate as a feather star, and her hand tightened on her spear as she watched the sky. She startled when she heard a splash at her side, but it was only Courfeyrac, come back from her patrol with a brace of severed antennae and long red scratch on her chest from a proboscis, though she grinned at Joly as if she were unharmed.
“Don’t frown, mademoiselle, lay down your spear and dance a spell,” Courfeyrac sang, laughing as she took Joly’s hand and pulled her back into the water, “it won’t do for our merriest to moan at moths – why, you can fly yourself on your four wings!”

Chapter 7: mad about the boy. courfeyrac/marius 

courfeyrac tries to get out of marrying his own sister in hellenistic/roman egypt your choice

It wasn’t that Corfeiranus disliked his sister, or found her unattractive; no, the problem with marrying her was that he didn’t want to settle down with someone simply because she happened to come from the same womb and it would keep all the money nicely in the family.
Naturally, the solution was to convince his family that he was so hopelessly queer there was no chance of grandchildren from the union, and Corfeiranus decided to employ his friend Marius to that end (although he had not yet consulted Marius on the matter, he was sure that Marius would figure it out eventually and would support Corfeiranus wholeheartedly).
Corfeiranus had draped himself over Marius at a family gathering and suggestively eaten a sausage, which left his family sadly unconvinced after Marius made a strange sequence of outraged noises and went pomegranate red; then there was the incident when Corfeiranus almost embarrassed himself by lunging for Marius’s body when his uncle joined them in the baths - Marius foiled that attempt with a girlish shriek and flapping his arms about like some sort of lunatic, knocking Corfeiranus’s head painfully against the tile, which was what finally made Corfeiranus realize that he had a bit of a thing for the boy after all.

Chapter 8: is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? enjolras. 

modern au where enjolras reads "atlas shrugged" at college and comments on it

Enjolras entered the Café Musain in a great hurry, his face flushed from the cold and a thick book in his hand. He rushed to the small, barely functional fireplace and threw the book inside with a dramatic flourish that was wasted when the weight of the book put out the meager flame.
“It’s so selfish, it won’t even give off warmth,” Enjolras huffed.

Chapter 9: how do you solve a problem like nuntaire? grantaire. 

grantaire is legitimately a nun. grantaire is a nun c. 1300s England I guess? grantaire is a nun anywhere. any nunnery. just do this.

The following scrap of parchment was found in the walls of the convent of Chichester. Modern punctuation has been added to ease reading comprehension.
‘To my dear sister in Christ,
I must recommend the relocation of Sister Continentia – she has become even worse since the incident with the communion wine, which she drank after being banned from working in the brewery. She attempted to repent for drinking the wine by leading the evening prayers, but instead of beginning the Pater Noster, she proceeded to recite some obscenity on ‘sol natis’ before vomiting dangerously near to the monstrance and passing out. Sister Continentia tempts her fellow sisters into all manners of vices – or at least she tries, if they would only respond to her constant mooning about. Though she has considerable talent for illumination, her marginalia are perpetually indecent and she is a sloppy copyist. I cannot suggest how Sister Continentia should be put to work, as I have detected no bent towards industry in her, other than towards the consumption of spirits and the representation of genitalia. Nevertheless, please – take Sister Continentia somewhere else.’
Written in the marginalia of the epistle, in a different hand, was the note saying ‘the wine wasn’t even very good,’ accompanied by a picture of a woman in nothing but a wimple.

singlesticks more like rubbin' dicks. enjolras/grantaire 

For someone who claimed to be good at singlestick, Grantaire seemed to be uniquely bad at it; he was, granted, much more nimble than Enjolras had expected and he was quick to use his scarf to deflect a blow, but Grantaire kept tangling their feet together and setting them tumbling onto the floor, offending both Enjolras’s spine and his dignity as Grantaire repeatedly rubbing against his groin provoked a reaction.
Grantaire’s latest misstep had Enjolras falling on his already bruised tailbone, Grantaire’s solid weight pressing him even harder against the floor and Grantaire was already mumbling an apology, incapable even at getting up as his hips jerked once and Enjolras found himself letting out a breath that sounded too much like a moan.
“Grantaire,” Enjolras said, speaking very low and forcing Grantaire to look him in the eye by tugging on his curls, “you are going to finish what you very clearly started and we are never going to talk about this again.”

i got yr cherry bomb. javert/montparnasse 

Javert/Montparnasse, wallsex.

The rough brick of the wall scratches at Montparnasse’s cheek as the inspector fucks him, Javert’s hand on his throat keeping Montparnasse in place even when Javert thrusts hard enough to set Montparnasse on his toes, scraping his lip against the brick and he knows it’s split, he can feel the blood welling up and threatening to spill on his clothes.
“You can do better than that, old man,” Montparnasse says, pressing his tongue into his cut lip.
Javert’s hand tightens around Montparnasse’s throat; at last Montparnasse’s heart beats faster and he can feel the weight of it in his chest, aching more than his own untouched cock as Montparnasse’s head spins and he imagines what a beautiful corpse he would make, laid out in the snow with a crimson smile.

the tongue of saint-simon. combeferre/courfeyrac 

fem!courfeyrac going down on ANY LADY canon or genderbent pLS

“I am not certain that this was what Saint-Simon meant when he spoke of the rehabilitation of the flesh,” Combeferre says, stretching out on their shared bed and opening her legs, letting Courfeyrac trace a path up Combeferre’s thighs with her tongue.
“Both the spirit and the flesh are an expression of Heaven’s love,” Courfeyrac replies, looking up archly before pressing her mouth to Combeferre’s sex, kissing the most sensitive part with her eyes closed in an affectation of spiritual reflection.
Combeferre struggles to keep herself from moaning too loudly as she feels Courfeyrac’s tongue slip inside her, so gentle and quick and eager to please as always, and Combeferre thinks there is much more of the paladin than the priest in her friend.

what goes unsaid. enjolras/grantaire 

E/R Enjolras owes Grantaire money

It was going on the third week that Enjolras owed Grantaire three francs; Grantaire couldn’t even remember what Enjolras had needed, there was only the memory of Enjolras looking vaguely embarrassed when he realized he’d left his wallet at home and Grantaire offering to pay, receiving a ‘thank you’ for the trouble and three interminable weeks of wondering if he would ever see his money again.
“You must broach the subject with him, my friend,” L’aigles said, chewing thoughtfully on the shared lunch they’d brought with them to the Luxembourg, “for otherwise, he will never pay you back – rich people have no concept that money exists, because it is something they never worry about, and I am certain that if you only asked him, Enjolras would erase the debt and likely give you some interest, which you must nobly refuse, because he won’t realize he’s being patronizing.”
Grantaire watched longingly as Enjolras and Courfeyrac engaged in an unseemly bout of wrestling in the grass, hoping that Enjolras’s wallet would accidentally fly out while Courfeyrac struggled to pin him and spare everyone the pain of mentioning the unmentionable.

m. de dents has cils-ed your fate. enjolras/grantaire 

Enjolras and Grantaire, first meeting

Gros points him out first, the tall young man who stood out from the crowd by the fineness of his clothes and his foppish blond curls, declaring that M. de Dents (for he has truly exquisite teeth when he smiles at his friends, even from the polite distance the Baron and Grantaire are keeping) would be a fine artist’s model only so long as he kept away from the fearsome Mlle de Hors, out for his money and a sprawling country mansion.
Grantaire picks up the narrative, trying to fill in the mysterious past of M. de Dents – oh, there is great tragedy there, for M. de Dents is not only fleeing the Mlle de Hors and the bastard child they had conceived during a night of ill-advised and illusory passion, but also from himself, and his strange, crippling addiction to wheels of brie and its imminent threats upon his delicate figure.
Then Lesgles, of all people, seems to pop up from nowhere at all, greeting M. de Dents as a friend before catching sight of Grantaire and dragging the handsome monsieur over, introducing him with an Occitan mouthful of a surname which sounds like Angel-something or other, and Grantaire bursts out laughing.

the love doctor. courfeyrac/joly 

Joly is checking his tongue in Courfeyrac's exquisitely polished pocket watch. Courf suggests something better to do with said tongue. Things proceed from there.

Courfeyrac was a bit startled when Joly’s hand went sliding into his coat pocket, disappointed when Joly was only reaching for his pocket watch, and bemused when Joly took advantage of its polished silver to check his plump tongue.
“Have you ever considered suffering from a more glamorous illness – say, erotomania – and checking for it orally?” Courfeyrac asked, feeling like the question was hardly unwelcome to the person who had been sitting in his lap and wiggling his arse for the past hour.
Joly snapped the pocket watch shut with a flick of his wrist and after implying that Courfeyrac was some variety of nun (untrue), pulled Courfeyrac into a kiss full of tongue and the taste of shandy.

the ingeNU. courfeyrac/marius 

Courfeyrac has a thing for people taking their clothes off. Marius has no shame.

“Marius, as a guest in my house, I would prefer you spend the evening nude,” Courfeyrac said, because he found himself in a perverse mood and Marius would never fulfill his freak of a request.
“If that’s what you would like,” Marius replied with a shrug, before undressing with more efficiency than Courfeyrac had ever seen the boy display elsewhere.
Courfeyrac had the mind to ask if Marius was coltish because his father was very clearly a horse.

No moaning of the bar when I put out to sea

Courfeyrac adopts Booby!Marius.

 
The bird had large blue feet, a wide and maniac stare, and an awkward way of moving that was not suited for land or sea. Its disposition was frantic. It struggled to wander off, but Courfeyrac set it on the table.
Joly, who had only just arrived, regarded the bird shortly, and said: “How diverting, a cormorant with a circulatory disorder, but what is its purpose?”
“Diverting,” Courfeyrac said, drawing himself from his chair and into an oratorical pose, “would be bringing the seabird — not a cormorant, but Sula aubreyi, the blue-footed booby — to the café to say, I have a new and exotic pet. A laugh would be for me to introduce him. Thus: Please make your acquaintance with Marius, inverted comically from Mamurius Veturius. But a true joke — one to send to the lists, to bet on, is also his purpose: I have through art I dare not reveal (for I hold the lady in great esteem) enrolled young Marius in the law school.”
“You haven’t,” said Joly.
“And yet, I have. He’ll be a plaignant in a month if he’s studious, and as I confidently expect him to be studious, we shall have our own man before the bar, though he is a perfect booby.”
Bahorel laughed, and as he was drinking wine, he choked. He recovered himself and drew a hand across his mouth. “You’ve gone through days of toil to lay the groundwork for ‘though he is a perfect booby’? I applaud you, Courfeyrac, I drink salutaria to you. I venerate and revere you — with fearful worship. I couldn’t waste so much time if I labored at it, and I have trained in the very field this young booby is to enter! So I shout bravo, and I admit I am a dilettante where you should be a doctor of loafing.”
“Trained in the field,” said Courfeyrac, trying to pet the bird on the face and getting his gloves bitten continuously. “That is one thing. But only if you work at it every day, and combine practice with study, can you reach distinction. “
“Where did you even find this creature?”
“It could be said that he has been kidnapped,” said Courfeyrac, with speculative length to his words. “Or even stolen. But it would be affirmed that he once gave his address as the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes, and now he shares my lodging. Though I am positive that at some point he was refuged at Minturnae in Latium — I pray that you have not forgotten his name is Marius. “
“You can’t care for a seabird,” said Joly.
“The devil,” said Courfeyrac. “He is quite content. He does rather clutter the place with law books, but that’s the condition to which he’s promised himself and can’t be helped.”
The booby had at this point fixed his shocked stare on the map of France.
“He has quite an interest,” Bahorel observed.
“I should mention that his inclinations make him something of a Bonapartist,” said Courfeyrac. “There’s no doubt he’s gazing in rapture at the borders of empire. But then he’s in a good position, for I will indulge him in anything.”
“Except the appropriate diet,” Joly was heard to mutter.
Courfeyrac ignored him coldly, and went on: “For isn’t it just nearly that parody Combeferre sings of Alcest: If Caesar had given me glory and war, I should say take your scepter and chariot! J’aime mieux mon oiseau de mer, ô gué! J’aime mieux mon oiseau de mer.”

1. Sorry not sorry Tennyson
2. Canon and backstory stolen from Carmarthen's amazeballs O Sula Mio - The lady Courf' mentions is of course Cosette, whom Booby!Marius met at the zoo ;)
3. Okay so the backstory on Sula aubreyi is that the blue-footed booby needed to be discovered way earlier than Darwin (which wouldn't have been reported until like 1836?) so obviously the answer is that Stephen Maturin discovered them and named them after Aubrey. Every kudo on the planet to Carmarthen for Making it Work.
4. Not sure how booby jokes and oiseau de mer can work in the same fic (two jokes in two different languages) so
(looks around furtively, backs toward the wall and crashes through the window)

the booby chamber. prouvaire+marius

Jehan attempts to introduce Actual Booby Marius to poetry.

“I do not think this booby knows anything of poetry,” Prouvaire said, observing how Marius looked askance at the Purgatorio, but he could not blame the bird terribly for it and found himself stroking Marius’s neck feathers, ignoring for the moment his inability to scan lines or read Italian.
“This is what you get for trying to teach a lawyer immensity – it will shit on your efforts, make a sound like a piping kettle, then waddle on the destruction (I recommend you take Dante away from his feathered backside) – lawyers are of the lineage of Gilles de Rais, and this one is no exception, but with blue feet in place of a blue beard,” Grantaire replied, contradicting his avowed sentiments by feeding Marius jarred anchovies.
“His dancing is entirely disruptive to my melancholy; I can compose nothing in the face of – well, in his ridiculous face,” Prouvaire said, avoiding the earnest bird’s worshipful gaze to glare at Courfeyrac’s latest letter, begging Prouvaire’s pardon for extending his trip in the country to wring money from his relatives and never once acknowledging that Marius was too perfect a booby.

Our Lives (Thy Song) 

For the adorable Kinkmeme prompt: "Some years on, bluestocking 30ishCosette is making a living writing; her elderly pet seabird always sits on her writing-desk to keep her company."
(The title is a little tribute to my college, where I've made friends with way too many winged fauna. Plus, bluestockings were very common here back in the day.)

It was an odd settlement, all the ladies of the Bas Bleus agreed. Mmselle. Fauchelevent was, even at 35, an attractive woman with excellent taste in fashion and in planning soirées of any type (when she chose to throw them, that was...).

Why on Earth, then, did she devote herself to a ridiculous seabird?
*****

“Marius, do you like that line?”  Cosette asked with a giggle as the awkward bird titled his head and shifted from one blue foot to another.

“And so the young man strode on to the apple field, knowing that living through the here and now was to be in a greater war than any his father had fought in.” At the sound of her voice, the bird squawked and opened his wings a bit, prompting Cosette to laugh again and give him a little pet on the head.

“Be careful, mon cher!  You aren’t as young as you were, now!”  she scolded, reaching for a tea cracker in the drawer of the newspaper-covered table next to hers (“Marius’s desk” she called it fondly) and held out her hand to the bird.  Marius quickly snatched the treat out of her hand and gobbled it down as Cosette smiled.

“My, I’ll have to go to the market tomorrow to get you some fish...you’ll grow fat if all you eat is tea crackers!” 

Cosette calmly turned back to her writing again, pen and inkwell hard at work while Marius continued to snort and squawk softly, watching his mistress with utmost devotion.  

*****

A quarter hour had passed in relative quiet when Cosette heard the chiming of the bells and straightened up.

“Ten o’clock, Marius!  Come here, mon cher, and let me put you back into your cage-we don’t need another 5th of Junr, now do we?”

At this, Marius quirked his head and stomped his feet, seemingly ready to do battle. 

“No, no, Marius, you’re right,” Cosette amended quickly, “I shouldn’t be trivializing that...what a horrible day!  You new to the Rue Plumet and a revolution breaking out!  Dear Papa, chasing you through the streets and coming home half...”

Cosette felt her eyes burn, and quickly turned away from her pet, who immediately waddled over her papers to curl by her side.

After a moment, Cosette recovered herself enough to speak again. “Or do you simply not want to go to bed?  Silly thing,”  she inquired fondly as she stroked his sleek feathers, calming herself with the mindless motion.  “You’ll be right next to me, like always.  You know that.”

Seemingly satisfied with Cosette’s answer, Marius allowed her to lift him into his cage and carry it with her into her bedroom, making happy noises all the way.

Les amis des homards 

Combeferre and foil of your choice, lobsters and mechanical flight, go!

“I dreamt of flying,” said Combeformard, when someone asked what he was contemplating. He made a gesture with his maxillipeds that described an upward motion. “I wonder if it is possible -- what art or mechanism could take us from the sea, from our caves and crevices? The world is vast.”
“To what good?” said Grantairephropsis. “Like that seabird you met on a rocky shoal one day said. Lobsters are admired by all. A gilded race, Titans who can conquer the world twice, by force and by dazzling, to be a lobster is to be sublime! And you wonder about flying. What noise.”
Grantairephropsis had only one chela, the other having been left in the sand some thirty years ago after a vicious duel. His carapace was a mottled brown; he was unbeautiful, but he was also rude -- anticipating the reaction he caused, this made him a cynic. If he believed in one thing, it was Chelaenjolras, who said often and beautifully that their own nature did not permit death — aside from accidents, to be a lobster was to be eternal. It was the same philosophy that had appealed to Combeformand so many years ago.
“I wonder about flying,” said Combeformard, “because I wonder about being free.”
They were grouped inside one of those undersea structures that appeared often enough. Seeing it, Chelaenjolras had let a current carry him inside to inspect, and the rest had followed.
As Grantairephropsis prepared his reply, they unexpectedly shifted, falling against the walls.
“Is this moving?” said Jolobster. “It is moving.”
The structure was being lifted from the sea floor, and accelerating. The floor was a hash of metal wires; their legs and maxilipeds fell through and they struggled to right themselves.
“Well,” said Grantairephropsis. “You have your flying mechanism! Now let us see if the result is that you shall have freedom!”

Note: It was a lobster trap.

THE PIRATES OF SAMHAIN

Hugtto Pretty Cure
Episode 38 - My Own Review

THE PIRATES OF SAMHAIN

In the beginning of the episode, Harry and Hug-tan were wondering what with the Halloween decorations near the park and asked the girls about it. (Not after seeing a Halloween poster that scared the heck out of Harry and Hug-tan)


Hugtan decides to investigate, and is immediately freaked out. Harry has a similar reaction after he takes a look to see what made Hugtan cry. It’s a poster for a big Halloween event that is being sponsored by Hugman and Sumire’s magazine, so Hana thought she’d help out by designing a poster.

Emiru likes kaiju

The main event is a costume dance party, with the theme being dreams; that they just dress up as whatever they like. For Emiru, that would be a reptilian monster, whilst for Saaya it would be a megazord. Everyone is getting into the Halloween spirit, but there are two or three who don’t quite understand.

Ruru and Harry don’t really get Halloween

It falls to the others to explain just what Halloween is about. 

Saaya, being more informed, looks it up and tells them that the 31st of October was the night where the ancient Celts ancestors’ spirits would return to them. Samhain, pronounced SAA-win.

Lulu and Harry still don’t quite get it, so Emiru decides that they should just go a little overboard to make up for it.

Saaya and Lulu remain as competitive as ever

Following that, everyone starts preparing for the Halloween event. 

I don't think I even seen kids dressed up as Precures in previous seasons but it is nice to see the townspeople acknowledging the Precures.

Lulu didn't understand either about Halloween and the other girls showed them by getting decorations and costumes and learning more about Halloween. Harry commented that their world does not have Halloween since Crisis took over the world in their timeline. Harry and Hug-tan later walked around the festival and felt a sense of regret; he was hugging Hug-tan tightly and something was going on with him...
The event starts, and Harry is looking a little sad. He quickly puts that behind him, and focuses on the event. Of course, – the other girls are in their costumes as well.

I guess Saaya chose to be a fallen angel for Halloween. I like it

Lulu and Emiru looked wonderful as Pirate girls!

Seeing our Twin Love OTP as pirates, well, in pirate costumes means that the Master & Commander analogy is still red hot (well, Jack and Steve were royal officers, not pirates, but still heroes of the Age of Sail)... Even though Emiru still wanted a reptilian kaiju suit... PS. When is Talk Like A Pirate Day? The 19th of Sept, over a month ago...

Emiru and Lulu dressed as pirates – so good

It’s not just our friends who are preparing. Even Daigan is making sweets, though he finds himself struggling a bit with the finer points. He also gets an unexpected visitor.

Papple and Charalit were out promoting their agency while Daigan was left with the food decorations. (With little success) Ristle appeared and offered Daigan a high position at Crisis. 

Ristle tells Daigan he can return to Criasu

Ristle shows up, and tells Daigan that he is welcome to go back to Criasu if he wants. He doesn’t have to decide immediately, but Ristle does give him a business card.

Although Daigan refused, Ristle left his card behind and Daigan placed in his pocket when Papple and Charalit returned.

The girls also happen to have several costumes for Hugtan to wear. They have a try a few, but that only increases Hugtan’s weariness levels.

Lulu detects that Angel!Hugtan’s weariness has increased by 78%

The girls stop dressing Hugtan in different costumes, and Hana just asks what she wants to dress up. Hugtan simply wants to dress as a PreCure. With that, the girls decide to get to work on Hugtan’s costume.

Daigan finds himself unable to resist the allure of Criasu, so he ends up summoning a Wild Theender. As it causes havoc at the event, the others go to confront. 

Later, Daigan was getting annoyed over his food decorations and saw a girl complaining of friction blisters and is giving out negative energy. He decided to create a theender from the girl and was wrecking havoc in the festival.

A super special Halloween PreCure show

The fight against the Wild Theender is framed as part of the event, with each PreCure getting in an attack against their foe before they finish it off.

The girls entered the battle but they decided to make it part of the show in order to calm the crowd. Of course, the girls won and Daigan was left in defeat. Papple knew something was wrong with him and reprimanded him. She commented that people are enjoying his sweets and he learned his lesson already.

Papple admonishes Daigan

After the battle, Papple finds Daigan and gives him a good smack on the head. She also lets him know that the treats he made went down really well with the kids. All that hard work paid off.

Following that, Harry talks about how things would be if time stops, but is assured that the others will be there to meet the future head on.

Hugtan’s costume change is complete

After hearing from Saaya that Halloween or Samhain is a festival to remember the dearest who were lost to them, Harry felt a sense of sorrow and couldn't help thinking about his world. He told that he has no idea what kind of festivals they have since Crisis has his world in this freeze state. Luckily, the others gave some word of encouragement and promised him that they will free his world from Crisis.

Hug-Tan wore a Precure costume and everyone adore her. Although Harry swore he saw a blonde figure that looked like an older Hug-tan as a Precure!? But he kept mum (pun intended) about it as they continue to celebrate Halloween...

A familiar face briefly appears before Harry

The episode ends with everyone deciding to enjoy the rest of the night.

Despite being a Halloween episode, it is more of a set-up for the next few episodes as we are approaching the final quarter of the season. The focus was on Harry and Hug-tan since we learn that there was no concept of festivals or celebration since everyone was frozen in time by Crisis. Harry in particular felt that he lost a lot of things in his time and after seeing everyone happily celebrating, he knew that they must succeed in freeing everyone from his timeline. 
You got to love the shot of Harry walking past in shadows, as it showed that he still has secrets yet to reveal to the girls and probably knew the true identify of Hug-tan. Seeing now it is confirmed that Hug-Tan is a Precure from the future and was reverted into a toddler for some reason. Furthermore, Ristle was getting desperate after failing to recruit Daigan and seeing how the next episode preview, he finally did the unthinkable and brought the girls and Harry to the future. A showdown is inevitable.

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
Seeing our Twin Love OTP as pirates, well, in pirate costumes means that the Master & Commander analogy is still red hot (well, Jack and Steve were royal officers, not pirates, but still heroes of the Age of Sail)... Even though Emiru still wanted a reptilian kaiju suit... PS. When is Talk Like A Pirate Day? The 19th of Sept, over a month ago...
Harry went for a furry... I mean, lycan ensemble with ears, tail, and paws in a silver gray and matching whisker and snout make-up, and, just like Lulu, he hails from a dystopian future where autumnal celebrations are something that has not been celebrated for decades, or maybe even centuries. As expected, it was Saaya who gave the two time-travellers a lecture on Samhain -pronounced SAA-wan or SAA-win; Celtic orthographies are deeper than the Marianas Trench- and later on dressed as a fallen angel (when I had expected something more druidic; voilà, she overturned her angelic transformed mode by making it all dark and leathery)... Werewolf!Harry was a nice touch to his characterisation as the Beast, while Homare went in a ten-gallon hat instead of... Wait. Jessie. Belle. Jessie-Belle. Jezebel... I see what you did there for a visual pun (smirk!).
Also... did Harry just remember Lenore? All while not identifying Homare as her? #FriendZone! The fact that he also saw Lenore in Hug-tan made me also think of the theory (we'll see if it's canon, but it's the most likely scenario) that Lenore is Hug-tan as an adult! (If not, there is always the possibility of a Les Mis AU where Lenore is Fantine, Harry is Valjean, and Hug-tan is Cosette -Ristle would be Javert, Papple and Daigan would make excellent Thénardiers, and Henrisato as Enjoltaire in a barricade subplot would be the icing on the cake!-...)

Daigan is back to the dark side, but only for today because he was under pressure... Also, at his sweetstand he sold moray eel-shaped sweets (patterned after the Muraena helena, or Mediterranean moray). Also, Ristle pulling His Card out once more. But Daigan's Moment of Weakness came, this time, from a pretty stubborn chocolate pen. So much ado about nothing!
The victim and source of the week was a twenty-something trick-or-treater, dressed as a ghost ragdoll, who is upset when she got a friction blister when walking, right when the festival's costume contest was about to begin, and thus thought that it was the worst time for her to get a friction blister (she hadn't pocketed any painkillers or bandages)...
The post-battle twit-slap Papple gave Daigan was adorable. I can already see this straight woman and funny guy as husband and wife, of the kind that have been married for decades - and Charalit as either their child or nephew.
This was a fun episode. Emiru and Lulu (our les OTP for this continuity) wearing matching pirate outfits was great, and I do like Saaya’s fallen angel costume a lot as well.
We got some more hints about the connection between Harry and Hugtan. I am curious about the ‘lost things stay lost’ line though. Speculation suggests that Hugtan’s true form is the girl Harry sees at the end of the episode, but Hugtan hasn’t exactly been lost. I wonder if the situation is a little more complicated than that.
This episode had some great funny moments as well. I’m glad to see that Saaya and Lulu remain competitive with each other. A decent Halloween episode.

WHAT ARE YOU IN THE DARK?

This rhetorical question is clearly not bereft of meaning.

What are you in the dark, when all you can see is pitch black and looks exactly the same, when there is no light at all, so that no mirror gives back your face?
After all, in the reflection left is right and right is left, and letters and numbers are reversed and arranged backwards.
What is more elusive: a mirror image reflected by the light or the absence of it in the form of utter darkness?
Whoever is wise enough and, by seeing how the reflection is reversed compared to real life (left and right, letters and numbers), says of their reflection: "THIS IS NOT ME!" is wiser than the one who thinks one sees oneself in the looking glass.
Yet, in the dark, without even a spark of light, no one can see their reflection. There, there is only one's true self...

Othello is a story of the loss of identity, of what happens when we question our inner mirrors, when we discover what we are in the dark, when and where we, and our images, cannot be seen.
The tale takes place in springtime (in between freezing winter and searing summer), in an outpost community on the fringe of two great powers (the "good" republic and the "evil" empire), during a rare period of armed peace.
Just like in The Breakfast Club, in Master and Commander, in Billy Budd, in the four first Potterverse novels/films (Sorcerer's Stone through Goblet of Fire), in Alien, in The Thing, in The Finishing Stroke, or in Christie's most famous stories (And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, The Mousetrap...), the key to creating all the tension is taking a cast of diverse characters, the fewer and the more diverse the better, and lock them in a single place which they cannot leave (a fortress, a ship [whether ocean ship or starship], a boarding school, a snowed-in estate or a snowed-in train...), "crowded within narrow walls" to quote Lew Wallace. And then just watch the dynamics between them unfurl. To see how there is tension between these characters, they become suspicious, some of them are already friends or lovers, while others are complete strangers to one another... we see how bonds are forged and broken, some of them reforged and others not, we see conspiracies, even our greatest fears coming to life...
Maybe Othello was the first modern Enclosed Space story, the first huis clos story to employ the French expression, ever. (IMOHO, it IS). And there is a psychological name for this reaction to being enclosed for a long time: cabin fever.

Returning to the themes of light and darkness, left and right, and elusive reflections, on whether to prefer an elusive reflection or the true selves we are in the dark, let's talk a bit more about this question and introduce it with a little song that would surely be on a present-day Iago's playlist.
Larvae of all stages, adolescents of every gender, may I perform... "The Art of the Possible!":

One has no rules,
is not precise...
One rarely acts
the same way twice...
One spurns no device
practicing the art of the possible 

One always picks
the easy fight...
One praises fools,
one smothers light,
one shifts left to right...
It's part of the art of the possible 

One always claims
mistakes were planned.
When risk is slight,
one takes one's stand,
with much sleight of hand...
It's part of the art of the possible 

One has no rules,
is not precise...
One rarely acts
the same way twice...
One spurns no device
practicing the art of the possible 

Again, we have talked before about Othello and loss of identity, on how Iago's icons --the corruption of language, drunkenness, counterfeit letters, lies, and monstrous births-- are motifs of the loss of identity.
Now, Andersen opens his Snow Queen with a short story that could as well be a standalone and a wellspring of many other stories: there is a certain magic mirror, the so-called Mirror of Truth, which only reflects the dark side of reality, lowing out what is good, true, and fair altogether. One day, this looking glass shatters, and the countless shards are scattered left and right all over the wide world. Some of them are used to make other mirrors, window panes, and spectacles... yet most of the shards are so tiny that they cannot be seen by the naked eye. These fragments enter human bodies and lodge in the victims' hearts, which then turn as cold and hard as the ice and steel used for creating the Mirror of Truth: those unfortunate people become entirely rational and bereft of emotions.
Here be the start of darkness, maybe, of the Wicked Queen in Snow White. And of Iago. A former article of mine gives the conjecture that a shard was involved as well in his case.
Like Andersen's looking-glass, Iago brings out the sinister side of those he befriends, and unlocks the worst potential within both men and women. 
Furthermore, Iago, like the frozenhearted Kai, is emotionless, cold, critical, calculating, unable to see the beauty and the goodness in his surroundings and despising positive values altogether. One may say the ensign got a shard of the Mirror of Truth, or Mirror of Reason, in his own heart as well... or that he has been a soldier since childhood, unable to be a child and forced to grow up, to fight the enemy... like the robber boy in Elspeth's Snow Queen fic:
"I have been cutting men's throats all my life, I am merciless as the winter, and I have never been a child. But maybe, with this musket and this helmet, I can go south to the Low Countries where the great kingdoms of the world are forever fighting their wars, and try my luck at being an honest soldier."
They maybe put a gun in Iago's hands at let's say 8 or 9, and he was born and bred in camp. No surprise that he envies the aristocratic, learned stripling who got the lieutenancy that should have been his by right, not merely for attaining the commission, but also for "the daily beauty in his life." It's everything about Cassio: he's good-looking, learned, well-spoken, young, with a sunny and happy aristocratic childhood devoid of hardships, as well as innocent and full of good will. In comparison, Iago himself feels that he never will be that fortunate in any way himself. This is the catalyst for the whole play. The part where the lieutenant gets drunk and furious, stripped of his reason and of his commission, as Iago looks on in schadenfreude, pretending to be well-intentioned (and getting it surprisingly right), is when the theme of loss of identity begins to pervade it all. We feel sorry for Cassio, trying to warn him not to drink anymore as Iago refills his tankard... and we're powerless as we hear one gulp after the other and watch the young officer get more and more intoxicated. Then, we have fallen under the spell of Iago, and under the spell of Shakespeare, as well... The suffering of the innocent and the irony that the wicked prosper, as well as the fact that we are powerless in front of this injustice, are themes that captivate us and tug at our heartstrings, pulling us into a maelström of keeping on watching the show from which there is no escape until the curtain falls, Cassio rules from the keep, at last forgiven yet wounded within and without (the sole survivor is broken, completely bereft of his former identity), and Iago is arrested for torture and execution... yet, somewhere in our minds, lingers the idea that, come hell or highwater, he will take to flight, and corrupt language, lie, and intoxicate others to strip them of their identity and confront them with their inner strangers elsewhere.
Sometime, surely this summer, I will present my theory "An Abundance of Jamies," according to which all the Shakespearean characters whose name is a form of James are one and the same person, Iago being one of the many personae this chameleonic character takes. Just like the Thénardiers, IMOHO, he fled Cyprus and started anew elsewhere.
Now what drew me to Othello? The leading trio of Othello, Desdemona, and Cassio, at first. A man of the world and a sheltered noblewoman, as different as night and day yet happily married, plus her learned officer childhood friend thirdwheeling. ENTER IAGO. Now reducing his motivation to "not having become the leader's right hand" is as little fleshed out as using the same words to explain why Stalin did what he did to Trotsky, or Stannis to Renly, to quote other two examples of the same scenario (Unlike Trotsky and Renly, however, Cassio survives, yet the disability Iago wrought upon him has caused his social death as a military officer). Then, I was hooked. Iago wants to shatter this idyl.
We would all of us, geeky or awkward or bookish female middle-class students, have a romance with Count Jean de Satigny, or Major Charles Eastwood, or Monsieur Gustave, or Oberyn Nymeros Martell, or Sirius Black, or someguy who is as cultured as oneself as well as a bon vivant or a man of the world. That's why I daydream, and read visual novels, and write fiction. Desdemona's two men, her childhood friend and her exotic husband, incarnate the cultured fellow and the man of the world, respectively. She has basically got one guy on each arm, one on the left and the other on the right (which middle-class European fangirl wouldn't like the prospect: the Count/Gustave/Eastwood/Jasper Whitlock for a childhood friend and Oberyn/Sirius/Lord Byron for a spouse?), and, when both of these men fall out, she tries to reconstruct the broken bridge of trust between them. Though well-intentioned, her efforts, due to miscommunication and deception, lead to the tragedy. And to nearly everyone's demise...
Now... Most renowned stories end with a happy ever after. Othello, on the other hand, begins with a happy ever after: the leading cast having everything they wished for within their reach. The war is over. Victory is theirs. Lovers are either just happily married (Othello and Desdemona) or about to tie the knot (Cassio and Bianca). It's springtime, the sun is shining, songbirds are chirping, flowers are in bloom, a cool Mediterranean breeze has replaced the storm that wiped out the enemy...
And here they are, just seven characters: the grizzled self-made outsider, the prim and proper ojou (diva/young noblewoman), the by-the-book young lieutenant, the savvy maidservant, the flirtatious tsundere coquette, the friendzoned spurned suitor, and Iago. The latter has many faces, each one meant for interacting with a person in particular, with one of the other six.
Now I would like to quote a few Yeats verses you will surely recognize (as heading for Book III of the Baratheon Saga):

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
the best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity."

W. B. Yeats

Those words could apply to either Westeros, the Ringstetten Saga, Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal, Sailor Stars, DokiDoki! Precure, or any of the Enclosed Space narratives mentioned at the start of this article. As well as to Othello, of course (I will later on write my defenses of Zexal and Stars, of why I regard these seasons as my personal favourites within their respective franchises).
As I have said before, most renowned stories end with a happy ever after. Othello, on the other hand, begins with a happy ever after. Other Shakespearean tragedies do NOT. Hamlet opens with the usurper having already claimed the throne. Romeo and Juliet, with a Montague-Capulet brawl. The Scottish tragedy, with the war already ongoing. King Lear, with the old ruler about to abdicate and asking his three daughters how much they love him, clarifying that the two eldest are snakes and Cordelia is the pure-hearted one, who is subsequently driven into exile. By contrast, Othello opens with everything going right as rain, peachy keen, and Iago as the friendly faithful servant stage left. Then, WHAM.
Like Ty Lee disabling her opponents by swiftly and deftly hitting their acupressure points, Iago contrives to strike, one by one, their softest spots.
Long story short: Iago, just like Azathoth, may be entropy incarnate. The whole universe tends towards entropy, as life, being rather complex chemistry at the end of the day, has always struggled against entropy. From protozoa to people via plesiosaurs, we all tend towards decay and death and disorder, every day we breathe a victory in this conflict as old as day. Though we win each and every battle against entropy, we all (from protozoa to people via plesiosaurs) are doomed to lose the overarching war at the end of the day. The ending of Othello, with mostly everyone dead, the two survivors (Cassio and Bianca, analogous to the Livtrase/Livslust and Liv, respectively, at the end of Ragnarök) alive yet disabled and traumatised, and Iago vanishing like the Cheshire Cat... exemplifies the core of the story's themes: this Shakespearean tragedy is, at the core, the story of the everlasting, futile yet always elusively hopeful, struggle between Life and Entropy.

If I have mentioned Billy Budd, another story about military officers "crowded within narrow walls" (though on a clipper rather than in a fortress) rife with homoerotic tension, it is not by chance. The titular character is the ranker version of Cassio, the captain is the aristocratic version of Othello, and the villain, non-com officer Claggart, is Iago 2.0 (basically, Iago with the serial numbers filed off). There are no female characters: the closest there is is Budd, the fair and blue-eyed bishónen stripling who has become the commanding officer's right hand over Claggart himself.
Queer scholars agree that both Iago and Claggart are motivated by unrequited homoerotic love, of the "If I cannot have you, then nobody will" variety. Their feelings for their respective younger and more innocent comrades change from admiration to something more than friendship, then to disappointment since the younger lover is beyond their reach, then to envy and hatred.
In Zexal and Sailor Stars, there is also a lot of such subtext. The former series has got, furthermore, an Iago figure in the form of the Barian known as Vector, AKA Ray Shadows/Shingetsu. Other Barians appear within the series as soon as their arc begins and corrupt human victims of the week: first Dumon/Durbhe, Girak, and Alitho. All three reveal their Barian selves pretty quickly, yet the protagonist team, Ray's "friends" on Earth, are unaware that the new kid is an enemy fifth-columnist in their midst, as well as the villain who started it all. When Ray reveals that he has been Vector all along, WHAM. Like Iago, Hans, or Littlefinger, or Claggart, or Schneizel, or Nakago, or (insert Iago figure's name here)... One of these fellows we luuuuuuve to hate.
Sailor Stars... I could devote a whole cycle of posts to it: first to the Snow Queen story arc, then to the ThreeLights, the Galactica empire and its pursuit of starseeds, the phages, the final battle... Ditto Zexal: the Astrals and Barians and their war; the expedition into the Astral World; the struggle between the Faker faction, the Vetrix faction, and the leading cast for the number cards; the victims of the week possessed by the number cards; the Barian lords and their agenda; the reveal of who Reggie and Rio actually are... these series are as complex and layered with existential meanings as DokiDoki! and Go! Princess Precure, or Othello, or the Potterverse, or A Song of Ice and Fire. Perchance I will do it this summer.