#Hanover Fiste | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mushroompollution · 2 months ago

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The letter had called Gerald to the garden behind the girls' dormitory, a wide patch of neat lawn between the building and a grove of tall trees. Marcel waits near those trees, pocketing the phone he'd been looking at as the larger student approaches him.

"You--" Gerald growls as he marches forward. "Who do you think you are? Do you have idea who I am? Who my family is?"

Though he's shaking, Marcel does his best to steel his gaze and stare down his bully. "Why are you ss-so sure I'm the one harrassing you, Gerald?" he asks, as firmly as he can, doing his best to draw inspiration from the man he idolized.

"You know why!!" Gerald snaps.

"No. I don't. I know the letter you threw at Leo was signed with an M.... But why, um. Why would I have beef with you--"

"Oh shut up, you lying little freak!" Gerald pulls back his arm, his eyes flashing with malice. He throws the punch at those big brown eyes, and Marcel does his best not to flinch.

Gerald isn't a slight man, but he lacks any training or grace. The time it takes him to wind up his attack gives Elliot Nightray more than enough time to step out from behind the thick tree, catching his fist and using the bully's size and momentum to twist his arm in one skillful move. Marcel lets out an audible sigh of relief.

"Nobody hits my boyfriend," Elliot grows, and gives the other man's arm a little tug, making him yelp. "Or my valet."

"now come on, Gerald," Leo hums as he approaches from the shadow of the dormitory building. "why don't you tell us why you're so sure Marcel has it out for you in the first place?"

Gerald doesn't answer, gritting his teeth and glaring at the two smaller students confronting him now.

"maybe you thought he was getting revenge for all those times you paid others to attack him last year? is that it?" Leo raises a hand to his chin, as if pondering something.

Gerald gives a short, forced laugh. "Why the hell would I do that?" he snarls.

"So you could swoop in and save the day," Marcel stares up at his restrained bully. "And look like a hero in front of all the girls."

"Bullies like you make me sick," Elliot growls and gives his arm another tug. "Picking on somebody weaker than you for the sake of your own pride and lust?! You're no hero, you're a spineless, sniveling coward!! Cockroaches would look down on you!"

"really, if Marcel did have it out for you, it wouldn't be unwarranted. trying to poison you was a little far, though," Leo shakes his head in disapproval.

"If he didn't do it, then how do you know about that?!"

"the letter you threw at me smelled a lot like peanut oil. well, now it mostly smells like swamp."

"It wasn't me, though," Marcel insists. "I, um. I had an idea. That you were behind those incidents, with the other bullies. But I thought it was crazy, until um. Leo agreed with me..."

Gerald's anger seems to slowly begin to quell as he takes all this in. Elliot eases his grip on the man's arm in response, though he doesn't quite let go yet.

"Okay, fine. Then who, pray tell, is fucking with me then? No one else knows about that!!"

"That's not true. Last year, I told someone else I thought you were behind those attacks..." Marcel turns his attention from Gerald toward the dormitory, up to a second floor terrace where a group of girls all pressed against the balcony, watching the scene below. One of those girls seems to jump as her gaze meets the man's big brown eyes.

"hi Josephine!" Leo calls with a little wave.

The girl who had seemed startled, Josephine Hanover, goes red. The other girls all seem shocked as they turn to the leader of their little club.

"Say it's not so!" "Why, Josephine?" "Is it true?" they chatter.

"You're lying!!" Josephine yells, leaning over the balcony as she points an accusatory finger at Leo. "Why would I harrass that guy?!"

"because Marcel got too close to your precious Blue Rose, right?" Leo asks. Elliot gags at that name. Josephine's pointing arm goes limp. "first, you were just worried he'd tell about you girls. but then he became a real threat when they went out."

"You-- You--" Josephine stutters. "You don't have any proof!!"

"Huh, funny. That isn't usually what innocent people say," Elliot calls up to the girls on the terrace. "Is it, Vessalius?"

"Is all of that true, Miss Josephine...?" comes the timid voice of another girl from behind the group huddled at the balcony. The Blue Rose club all turn around to face a concerned Ada Vessalius.

"N-no," Josephine gasps. "They're lying!"

"Elliot never lies," Marcel insists.

Ada shakes her head. "As a member of the disciplinary committee, I really can't ignore any of this," she says sadly. "I'm going to have to tell the administrators about this. Gerald, you too... That isn't acceptable behavor for an RA...."

"M-miss Vessalius, wait--" Gerald starts to argue, but he's cut off as Elliot lets go of his arm and gives him enough of a shove to make him turn around. He grabs the taller man by the collar, pulling him down to eye-level.

"Gerald," Elliot says sternly. "I'm not going to hit you." The prefect sighs in relief, but Elliot clarifies, "NOT because I don't want to. Believe me, I really fucking want to. But because I know you're a whiny little snitch, and I've got a family name to uphold. Frankly, you're just not worth hitting."

Gerald winces. Those words hurt just as bad as any punch.

"So I'm gonna leave you to the proper authorities. This time. But if you ever, ever pick on somebody smaller than you again, you're not gonna get off so lucky." With that, he lets go of Gerald, giving him a little shove like he's something repulsive. Instead, Elliot turns and marches closer to the building to point a finger at the girls gathered on the terrace above.

"And as for YOU--!! Your whatever-it-is club! As of today, consider yourself disbanded!!"

At that proclamation, several of the girls gasp.

"W-wait," Josephine starts. "The other girls had nothing to do with my Project M. So they shouldn't be--"

“Dis. Band," Elliot cuts her off. "I'm the one you're fawning and fantasizing over, and I say it's creepy!!"

Serveral of the girls turn to each other for comfort, several others apologize loudly, over and over.

Beside his master, Leo nods. "Elliot is right. ladies, i have a final message from The Gardener for you all.

Several of the girls, including Josephine, gasp. Marcel turns his head quickly, giving Leo a wide-eyed look. "Wait. That was... You?"

Leo nods and clears his throat. "can i continue? thanks. even if this happened because one member got out of control, the existence of the Blue Rose Club caused it by inviting excessive fanaticism in the first place. for that reason, i really can’t allow the club to remain, either.”

No one could argue. Everyone looked down, hanging their heads.

“however, each of you is free to consider Elliot something special, to think of him and about him. even Elliot can’t intrude on your individual hearts and force you to change your thoughts."

"Well, I, uh..." Elliot starts to object, but Leo does have a point. In the end, he cuts himself off with a loud sigh. "Fine."

"so that's it, unless miss Ada needs anything from you, i think everyone is dismissed. oh. everyone but Josephine and Gerald, i assume."

Ada nods. "If none of you knew anything about this, then you're free to go... Elliot, Leo, Marcel, do you mind coming to give your own statements about the situation?" she asks.

Elliot groans loudly. "Fine. This is a pain in the ass, you know!" he proclaims to no one in particular.

-------------

Later that evening, the trio walk out of the administrative office together, leaving Josephine and Gerald to face their punishment from the school officials. "What a waste of an evening, but at least that's all over now," Elliot complains as he stretches his arms, one landing around Marcel's shoulders. "Should we order some pizza to celebrate?"

"pizza party!" Leo chirps, but Marcel seems to flinch. Elliot blinks, giving his boyfriend a confused look.

"It doesn't have to be pizza...."

"That um. That's not it," Marcel says, voice quiet. His face goes bright red as he looks away.

"Marcy...?"

"Um. Elliot, can I actually... Talk to you? Alone...?" Marcel glances over at Leo.

All is quiet for a moment, before the valet nods. "i have a book to get back to, anyway. i'll go order that pizza," he says as he walks off in the direction of their dormitory.

Marcel slips out of Elliot's half-embrace and sucks in a deep breath as he forces himself to look at the other man. "I um. I want to say that I really... really appreciate you helping me settle this. You inspire me to be stronger, to face my fears and my problems, and to do so with honor."

"Yeah, you're welcome--" Elliot starts, but Marcel shakes his head.

"Thank you... But.... I um. I've been thinking. About the conversation we had at the park...."

The confusion on Elliot's face quickly turns to a frown. His stomach sinks.

Oh no.

"I want to be an honest person, too. Like you."

No no no no no.

"I've really appreciated getting the opportunity to know you better, Elliot Nightray. But I didn't really enjoy the places we went on our dates. And I know you did. And you should be with someone you can enjoy them with--"

"Marcel, wait. Wait, it's not that deep. We haven't even tried doing what you want for--"

"I know. But I've also come to realize that... Some of the things I thought were charming from afar, ended up being kind of... Too much, up close."

"Excuse me--?!" Elliot squeaks, one eye twitching in anger. "Too much?!"

"Yeah, kind of um. Kind of like that. So... It would be nice if we could stay friends, but I think, romantically, um." Marcel looks down at his hands, fidgeting. "We should probably see other people."

Elliot's jaw drops open slightly, his face somewhere between bewilderment and rage. He stutters and stammers, trying to find the right words in his dumbstruck state.

Marcel sighs. "I'm sorry. I'm thankful for the time we spent together though, so... I'll see you around, Elliot."

#ooc #drabbles #like I said it probably would make more sense to have this happen later in the week but I am #ready for this plot to come to and end I think #gotta give credit and source: I did pull some lines directly from the light novel #unfortunately my absolute favorite Sassy Leo lines from the source material couldn't quite fit with my rewrite

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scotianostra · 8 months ago

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On March 23rd 1848, the Free Church of Scotland settlement at New Edinburgh, New Zealand was founded, it is known today as Dunedin.

It was the poet’s uncle, Rev Thomas Burns, who was among the first settlers to arrive in Dunedin, the Gaelic for Edinburgh, having been appointed by the Free Church to lead a new Presbyterian settlement in the South Pacific

One passenger on the John Wickliffe, the fist ship to carry Scottish settlers to the South Island of New Zealand, wrote in his diary: “All seemed pleased and called it a goodly land – Port Chalmers and around is truly beautiful – rich in scenery – its slopes and shores are fertile, and wooded to the water’s edge.”

Every year in Dunedin, the arrival of these first settlers from Scotland is marked by Otago Anniversary Day, the public holiday falling this year on Monday just gone.

A second boat sent by the Otago Association, founded by the Free Church to broker land sales in South Island for its followers, arrived on April 15 with more than 200 people on board. They had spent 114 days at sea since leaving Greenock.

On board were people such as Adam James, 25, a boatbuilder; James Blackie, 21, a school teacher, James Brown, 23, a calico printer and Mary Pollok, 19, a servant.

By the end of the 1850s, around 12,000 Scots had joined them in this new flourishing city, many from the industrial lowlands.

Artisans, small traders and industrial workers were to make up a third of all Scottish migrants to New Zealand with almost 70 per cent of this group coming from the Edinburgh and Glasgow area.

A number left Paisley in the early 1840s when its weaving industry was in trouble with the south part of the city to become known as “Little Paisley”.

It was George Rennie MP, born in East Lothian, who first proposed a Scottish settlement in 1842 when he declared “We shall found a New Edinburgh at the Antipodes that shall one day rival the old.”

Chief operators of the church-led plan included William Cargill, a former British Army captain who commanded the John Wickliffe and became the first superintendent of Otago.

Edinburgh solicitor John McGlashan, became the Otago scheme’s chief organiser and promoter who commandeered residents for the new colony and organised ships.

His office at 27 South Hanover Street was open 10 hours a day as people turned up at his door to organise their passage.

Conditions were tough on arrival with relentless hard graft required to transform mud and bush into even the most primitive settlement. A number of wattle and daub cottages were constructed with the place dubbed “Mud-edin” given the coarse conditions.

Still, the Free Church, in an 1853 publication, had the highest praise of the new Scots residents who were “mostly of the labouring classes who had the aim of becoming landowners.”

The author noted the “very high character” of the residents and the “very serious regard to their religious duties.”

The extreme piousness of the settlement is made startling clear.

“The silent religious aspect of our Sabbath, the solemn seriousness, the death-like stillness, and the reverential attention in the house of God strike every stranger and are unequalled by anything of my experience,” the account added.

Despite the growth of Dunedin, the Otago Association folded in 1852 after repeatedly failing to meet is sales targets with its assets and liabilities taken over by the British Government.

McGlashan took a ship to join the settlers in Otago. He and Captain Cargill were to become major players in the governance of the region with the moral authority delivered by Rev Burns, a foundation chancellor of the University of Otago who some disliked for his heavy handed puritanical ways. Anglicans were referred to as “Little Enemy” by the Ayrshire-born minister.

As Tom Devine noted in To the Ends of the Earth, one anonymous correspondent to the New Zealand Otago Times, writing under the pseudonym a Staunch Englishman, described the Scots settlers as a “mean, close, bigoted, porridge-eating” lot who were prone to “minding the sixpences.”

The legacy of those first settlers is, however, ample. Otago Boys’ High School was set up in 1864, the University of Otago in 1869 and Otago Girls’ High School, one of the first state-run schools of its type in the world, opened in 1871.

John McGlashan College, Dunedin’s Presbyterian boys’ school, was founded in 1918 from a bequest to the Church by McGlashan’s daughters.

The stiff presbyterian tone of Dunedin is also said to have spurred a “creative rebellion” with works by Dunedin poet James K Baxter considered among the country’s finest.

Today, whisky, pipe band sand the city’s own Haggis Ceremony continue to mark the impact of those first Scottish settlers who arrived.

Shops on the main street stock Dunedin tartan, tweeds and Scottie dog trinkets and sign posts point to places such as Leith Valley, Corstorphine, Musselburgh and Calton Hill.

Bars pride themselves on their selections of fine malts, churches have an air of architectural familiarity and the municipal chambers looks as if it could have been transported from any Scottish town. A statue of Robbie Burns stands in the main square.

Mark Twain, after visiting Dunedin in 1895, wrote of them: “The people are Scotch. They stopped here on their way from home to heaven thinking they had arrived.”

For millions of Scots scattered worldwide, Scotland remains the homeland. It's the place they look towards for inspiration, with affection, or with an air ticket to renew that sense of Scottish identity. The internet has made the world a lot smaller for us all, which is why many enjoy the posts here, it gives them a wee sense of belonging, even if it less than a dram of Scottish blood you have flowing through you.

#scotland #scottish #history #settlers #new zealand

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wakingfromthewater · 4 months ago

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Harry Canyon and Hanover Fiste are drag king names if I ever heard any

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vvictuss · 1 year ago

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i’ve been on an obscure animated film bender so i watched Heavy Metal (1981) the other day. absolutely belligerent movie.

here are some of my favorite quotes in no particular order.

Gloria: [to the robot] I'm just scared I'll come home one day and find you screwing a toaster. I forgot one thing, are you circumcised?

—

[after sex]

Robot: Earth women who experience sexual ecstasy with mechanical assistance always tend to feel guilty!

———

Hanover Fiste: [about Stern] He never did... anything that was... illegal...

[pauses]

Unless you count all the times he sold dope disguised as a nun.

———

[looking at a beautiful naked woman with huge breasts]

Den: [voiceover] She had the most beautiful eyes.

Katherine: You saved my life. I have no reward to give you, but if any part of me pleases your senses, I will give it to you willingly.

[they lie down on the ground and start to have sex]

———

Den: [voiceover] There was no way I was gonna walk around this place with my dork hanging out!

———

Den: [as the Queen presents her disrobed body to him] Wow! 18 years of nothing, and now twice in one day! What a place!

———

Stern: [repeated line to his lawyer] It's all right, Charlie. I've got an angle.

Lawyer: But the most we can hope for is to get you buried in secrecy so your grave don't get violated!

———

Hanover Fiste: [voiceover] Sucker play or not, I must have turned her on somethin' fierce. 'Cause this dame was goin' for broke. Maybe it was her first time with a New Yorker, I dunno.

Anyway, nothing beats good old American know-how. And I was givin' this broad "The Stars and Stripes Forever".

———

Harry Canyon: The U.N. Building. What a joke. They turned it into low rent housing. It's a dump.

#???#sexism aside.. i had a good time #heavy metal #heavy metal 1981 #indie animation #is this indie? idk #animation #80s aesthetic #adult animation #movie recommendation

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dreams-of-mutiny · 1 year ago

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youtube

The Clash - Rock The Casbah (1982) 0:00

Hanover Fist - Razor Garden (1986) 3:31 Real Life - Send Me An Angel (1983) 8:41 New Order - Blue Monday (1983) 12:20 Camouflage - Heaven (I Want You) (1991) 16:44 The Psychedelic Furs - The Ghost In You (1984) 20:07 Blancmange - Why Don't They Leave Things Alone? (1985) 24:15 Echo And The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon (1984) 27:57 Midge Ure - Call Of The Wild (1986) 32:20 Camouflage - Neighbours (1988) 37:54 Midge Ure - If I Was ((1985) 42:10 Q Lazzarus - Goodbye Horses (1988) 46:35 New Order - Confusion (1983) 49:36 The Cure - Fascination Street (1989) 53:54 Japan - Quiet Life (1979) 58:30 Depeche Mode - Flexible (1985) 1:02:08 Gene Loves Jezebel - Twenty Killer Hurts (1987) 1:07:17

#new wave #mix #80s #music #Youtube

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mrcowboydeanwinchester · 1 year ago

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🌧️ the sun, through it all, abides ☀️

charthur fic - 3152 words - rating: G - arthur healing - read on ao3

“This sickness inside of me, it’s like climbing the Grizzlies. I can’t come down, there’s no way back. It hurts. An’ when I get to the top– that’s it, Charles. I’m done. It’s a trail made of bridges and I’m burning ‘em, all of ‘em."

“So maybe you can’t see a way back, Arthur,” Charles said. “But there’s always a way forward. It’s a big old mountain you’re climbing. Take the scenic route.”

Charles convinces Arthur to make it out of Beaver Hollow alive. The arid West Elizabeth air is better for Arthur's lungs, but then a week of rain arrives, leaving Arthur's chest rattling and his mind uneasy. Turns out the slow, unsteady weight of getting better is easier to carry when shared.

fic is below the cut!

"Love, in all its forms, is the most powerful weapon we have, because love is a form of hope. And, like hope, love abides. In the face of everything.” - Vinay Patel, ‘Demons of the Punjab’

Arthur’s world had narrowed significantly since his collapse in Saint Denis. It wasn’t like the possible pathways of his future had been so wide and varied before, but with the rattling in his chest there seemed to be only one path ahead: the fork in the road had come and gone, and he had left the freedom of life’s highway for a steep and rocky mountain trail which ended more abruptly than he’d anticipated.

He’d told all this to Charles, once, at Beaver Hollow.

“So maybe you can’t see a way back, Arthur,” Charles had said. “But there’s always a way forward. It’s a big old mountain you’re climbing. Take the scenic route.”

“The scenic route?”

“Ride with me and ride somewhere slow and warm and dry. Make it easier. Make it out of this chapter of your life alive.”

And when Charles had left, Arthur had followed him, with John following Arthur.

Now, Arthur’s narrow world is as wide as the views surrounding Beecher’s Hope. Charles and John’s handiwork is impressive even if half-finished, with Charles fixing the ranch up while John runs errands. Arthur does what he can to help out. It’s not much, but it’s more than he was able to do when he was running with the gang, and some days, those burned bridges leading back to a healthier life even seem a little salvageable. The West Elizabeth air is hot, the land is arid, and his lungs are better for it. They have a life here, a real one. It’s good. It’s healing.

It is really, really hard.

When the rain comes to Beecher’s Hope, it comes for a week, and it comes to make Arthur miserable. The humidity of the air combined with the foul weather’s accompanying chill wreaks a wearying havoc on his lungs. John has ridden up to Valentine for a job and gotten caught in a storm in New Hanover, sending word back that he won’t be arriving home until the weather has passed, and so Arthur and Charles are alone in the ranch. In a way it’s nice to have all the time to themselves. But there is so much time, and so little to do with it, and Arthur misses the extra company. With the weather working against his health the way it is, it’s all he can do to make meals on good days, and rest up on bad ones.

It’s weeks like these that Arthur is reminded that climbing this mountain is unrelentingly boring. There are things he simply cannot do, things he used to do often and enjoyed; some things he can do on some days but strictly not others and only at the time will they be made known; a list of things he can do but only if he deems them worth the consequences.

That is a mighty big part of his job, now. Valuing the worth of something against the consequences. Hardest thing about it is, everything is worth it in the moments before the consequences. But in the gripping fist of a coughing fit, praying he doesn’t bring up blood again, rendered a helpless silvery consciousness in a breaking body, nothing is ever worth it. And knowing that, living through it, how can he make the choice to bring that pain into being again?

Life has become a constant balancing act, with pros and cons and quantifiable outcomes. There’s a level of mathematics to it which Arthur finds exhausting. He’s always been more for metaphors than mathematics, really. But there aren’t many metaphors for being ill. He can tell Charles he’s climbing a mountain all he likes but that doesn’t stop the fact he’s sore all over in ways nothing can properly fix.

So the amount of things he can do is meager and oftentimes, he finds, pitiful. And very boring.

“You’re drawing again,” Charles notes as he wanders into their bedroom to check on Arthur. It’s the third day of pouring rain. Charles’ building chores, too, have been held up by the weather, but there’s enough work for him to do on the farm without John here that his dashes to and from the barn are frequent.

“Hmmf,” Arthur grunts in illustrious reply.

He’s a far cry from happy, the rain-roused heavy wheezing of his chest making him feel more accordion than human. There’s a dull ache accompanying it. It’s one which threatens more than tortures, but the threat of it is enough to make him uneasy, a fidgety anxiety that combines with the cabin fever to make him feel shit.

Today, the most he has managed is to drag the rocking chair from its usual corner of the room to face the window. With his journal and charcoal in his hand, he’s sketching the panes of the window and its limited view. Repeatedly, over and over across the page, are little and large visions of the cagey window and the tree just outside of it that blocks most of the light.

Charles deciphers his cartoons with ease. “You’re restless. Anything I can do?”

“Bring back the damn sun,” Arthur snaps. He bites down on his lip the second the words leave his mouth, disliking the harshness which emanates from them. He hates how he can feel himself being worse to the people he loves over this. He hates that he can’t control his body, and now he can’t even control his tongue. Still, he doesn’t say sorry.

Charles is gentle as he always is, running a calm hand through the light strands of Arthur’s hair from where he’s leaning against the back of his chair. He is not a man without anger, but he seems to know when Arthur’s isn’t really directed at him. “This tree, it covers almost the whole window,” he muses. “Blocks most of your view.”

“I guess,” Arthur supplies, helpfully.

“Next time the rain lessens, I’ll chop it down.”

“Charles, you don’t have to do that–”

“I can’t bring back the sun, but I can let a little more light in,” Charles says, like that settles the matter.

Haltingly, the rain patters to a not-quite stop the next afternoon, the remaining drizzle just bearable enough for Charles to head out in.

“I’ll chop that tree today, before more rains come,” Charles calls as he makes his way through the front door in lieu of hello. He takes off his hat, holding open the front door and shaking it so that droplets of water roll off the black leather.

The draft that whistles through the open door is misty and cold. Arthur is glad for the fire burning in the hearth today which wrings the moisture out of the air before the worst of it reaches his lungs.

He sighs, though, the prospect of another bout of rain settling low and depressed in his gut. “You don’t think this is the end of ‘em?”

“Sorry, Arthur. Clouds still rolling in over Blackwater. It’ll be a few more days, at least. Are the axes in the outhouse?”

“You know more about that than me, I ain’t got much to do with manual labor ‘round here,” Arthur chuckles, a little sourly. “And I swear, they say tuberculosis is meant to cut your life short but time has never passed more slowly in my life.”

Charles nods, nudges his toes against the fire to stoke it a little. “Keeping a sick body alive is harder than surviving a shootout.”

“Well, I’d take being shot at any day. Least then I can shoot back. Never once did a job with shootin’ involved that went by so slow.”

Charles huffs a laugh, shaking his head as he makes once more for the door. “How about watching me chop this tree?” he suggests, rolling the sleeves of his navy tunic up his broad forearms as he smiles. His voice is low and rich, like the smoke which rises from a gun barrel after a hunt’s quick kill. “I’ll fell it clean.”

With that, he turns and heads back outside, leaving the hairs of Arthur’s neck standing. Arthur gets up stiffly and slowly, heading back to the bedroom with the noises of the outhouse doors opening and closing accompanying him. He drags the rocking chair back into view of the window in time to see Charles walking up to the tree with his ax in hand.

“You sure there ain’t nothing I can do?” Arthur shouts to Charles. He pushes open the window as he does so - some days he can decide something is worth it and the consequences forget to arrive afterwards. Maybe today is one of those days.

Charles hears him, positioning himself at the far side of the tree so Arthur has a clear view of him. Or he has a clear view of Arthur. “Well, you can sit there and look pretty,” he grins.

“I– oh,” Arthur falters, heat rising to his cheeks and likely turning him a bashful pink. “Pretty,” he mutters to himself, shaking his head at Charles’ smile.

“You’re getting some color back,” Charles says, quite seriously, but Arthur can hear the tease rolling through his voice. Arthur waves his ribbing away.

It’s nice to know, at least, that he hasn’t lost the ability to produce a blush. He’s been pale so long now he’s near forgotten what he used to look like. And for Charles to call him pretty through all that - the perpetual pallor, the gauntness, the loss of the fat by his waist he used to know was his – is something. Arthur looks in the mirror now and sees sickness. Charles looks at him and somehow still sees something good.

The rain spits down steadily outside the window, Charles’ tunic soon dampening and clinging to his arms. He’s foregone his hat for this, and so his hair, too, is soon stuck against his skin, the strands falling over his face from where he’s tied half his hair back fixed to his forehead. He runs a dark hand through his hair to clear his vision and the moment passes in a pattering heartbeat Arthur wishes he could recapture.

Charles swings once, twice, brings the tree down on the third slice through the air. It comes down easily, and Arthur watches the world outside his bedroom window be made anew. The sky blooms into being, the gray light of the expansive plains flooding the room. Everything reaches outwards, the fences which had once caged his field of vision now the markers of near distance as the horizon rolls away. A single patch of blue, once hidden by the branches of the tree, is clear in the sky.

“That better?” Charles asks.

It’s one tree. It’s a small change. Arthur feels a ray of delight he hasn’t felt in weeks. That’s the one good, desperate thing about a narrow life: the littlest moments of contentment become all-consuming.

He nods, cheeks dimpling. “Sure is. It sure is.”

“Arthur,” a familiar voice whispers softly, lifting him from a dream where he is holding blood-stained money in his hands and can’t put it down, “Arthur, wake up. The rain has dried and the sun is rising. Come outside with me.”

Arthur opens bleary eyes to see Charles lit in dawn’s nectarine light. The curtains are pulled back from the window, leaving its newly clear view to reveal drying ground and open, almost cloudless, sky.

Finally.

Charles offers his hand and Arthur takes it, gladly, rising from the bed and following him to the front door, slinging on his jacket and boots over his union suit as he goes. He passes from the wooden boughs of the house out into the open air with the deep breath of a wakening yawn in his lungs. There is no dampness to fight against. Just a world which seems to extend from him, the temperature around him at one with that of his skin, the dry air passing through his lungs and out again almost smoothly. Smooth as they can ever manage. There’s no cure. No real healing, not properly. But there’s this. Things in his body aren’t ever okay for long, but they’re okay for the moment, and Arthur has this.

He sits himself down on the step of the porch. His boots, grown clean without use over the past few weeks, gain a fine coating of dust around where the sole meets the leather again. Charles sits to his right and the morning thrums, quiet around them, with little hints of life. A spider spins its home along the wooden railing of the porch.

“Thanks for wakin’ me,” Arthur murmurs.

Charles smiles. “It felt important.”

“I’ve been– bad to be around, these past few days,” he manages to say, tugging up a blade of grass from the ground beside him. He flips it between his fingers as he gets the rest out. “Ain’t made things easy for you. I want to do better. Don’t want to be no fair weather friend. Literally.”

“What you’re going through, it’s not easy.”

“Neither is what you’re doin’.”

“Maybe,” Charles nods. “But allow yourself some grace, Arthur.”

Arthur bumps his elbow roughly into Charles’s side. “Jus’ take the damn apology.”

“Okay,” Charles concedes, and Arthur can feel his shoulders shaking with gentle laughter as they rest against him.

The mountains in the distance are plummy, ripening in color with the rising sun; in another world Arthur is sinking his teeth into the skin of them and reaching the softness beneath. The light shimmers down in tangible rays. Once, Arthur could’ve traveled far enough to reach out and touch them.

“Mornin’s like this… I used to ride through the night, sometimes, just waiting for the light to stream down through the clouds. Made it worth it.”

Charles hum in agreement. “There are many things you can say about this world, but you can never forsake its beauty.”

“Yeah,” Arthur mutters. Bitterness creeps back into his voice, seeing all this beauty, and knowing it has to be held at arm’s length.

With an intuition saved just for Arthur, Charles hears his discordant tone. “What are you thinking about?”

“I guess– I miss riding how I used to,” Arthur sighs. “Look at ‘em plains, just sprawlin’ outwards. Years ago I could’ve jumped up on a horse and flown over ‘em all, wouldn’t’ve even looked back. Now I’m just– just here. Can’t do anything the way I used to. And it makes me think I won’t ever get it back.” He keeps his eyes fixed on the sloping horizon, staunchly away from Charles’ sympathetic gaze. Frankly, he knows that he’s being dramatic about it all, wallowing in self-pity when there’s no need to. The fact he’s living is a goddamn miracle. Problem is, he can’t remember the last time he felt properly alive.

“We can rebuild it, Arthur,” Charles murmurs. His shoulder is warm and sturdy against Arthur’s arm, the muscles thick in a way Arthur’s no longer are. “All is not lost. We can rebuild it all.”

Arthur can’t help it; he turns his head to look at Charles and the desperation in his voice cracks out. “You think?”

“Yeah,” Charles says simply. No promises; they’ve learned long ago that there is no point making promises. But still, if Charles thinks it, then maybe Arthur can too.

“Okay,” he agrees, a faint smile flickering across his lips. And then– “sorry for sounding so desperate, makes me feel like a goddamn fool.”

Charles shakes his head. “You don’t sound desperate, Arthur. Even if you did, I wouldn’t judge you for it. You more than anyone has been through hell. You know another word for desperation?”

Arthur scoffs. “I dunno – weakness? Fear?”

“Hope,” Charles says, entirely paradoxically, yet with the steadfast sincerity with which he always speaks.

“I think you need to find a dictionary, friend,” Arthur chuckles. “Those are some very different words.”

“No, I meant what I said. Hope and desperation – both come from wanting a better life. Wanting a better way of being, wanting something to turn out right. I say desperation and you say weakness, maybe because to be desperate about something is to care so strongly about it. Desperation is vulnerable. It’s intimate. It’s hope without belief.”

The sun is risen, now, a fledgling held in tender hands and being released skywards. It floats over the land and cloaks the plains in the celestial mist of dawn. Light lingers close to the ground, and dust kicked up from a rider on the road into Blackwater glows with it. The rains ceased, the darkness receded. The sun, through it all, abides.

Arthur hums. His throat rattles with the sound of it, though a cough doesn’t catch, and when he speaks his voice is raspy for a different reason. “Do you believe in me, Charles?”

Charles’ eyes meet his and in the dawning light the deep brown of his eyes is spun golden. “Arthur, of course I do.”

“I believe in you. All the time.”

“Then there’s hope in you yet,” Charles smiles. “It’s a thing that builds, I think. Over time. The world will come back to you.”

Arthur lifts Charles’ hand from where it’s resting on his knee and gently turns it so the paler skin of his palms face upwards. Places his own hand over Charles’.

“Starting with us,” he makes plain. He can make it no plainer than this, his world and all its desperation and hope falls away without Charles by his side. His partner huffs out a fond sigh beside him and Arthur nudges him with his knee, thoughts straying from the philosophical to the more physical. “You were sayin’ something ‘bout being vulnerable. Being intimate,” he begins, raising an eyebrow.

“Hmm, was I?” Charles laughs coyly. “Seems to have slipped my mind.”

But he leans right into the kisses Arthur nuzzles into his hairline, grabbing at the hand not already in his to thread his fingers between Arthur’s. His body is warm as the rainless air. And Arthur knows it’s a hard climb up the mountain. Feels it every day, slow and unforgiving, both restless and demanding. But for as long as the sun stays rising, as long as the scenic route lends him moments like this, there is a feathered thing singing an old song within him. Charles takes his narrow world and finds ways to make it wider. The song carries on, and Arthur is starting to believe it’s worth listening.

#posted this earlier but thought i would make a proper post of it too for tumblr folk!#hiya red dead fandom how we feeling <3 #charthur #charles smith #arthur morgan #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #red dead redemption 2 #red dead redemption 2 spoilers #rdr2 spoilers #ola writes

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firstprince-ao3feed · 9 months ago

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The Joys of Mild Narcissism

by cool_fullmetal, MayQueen517 A prince and the son of a president walk into a Waffle House....things go a little sideways after that Words: 3714, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston, Red White & Royal Blue (2023) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Alex Claremont-Diaz, Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Henry Hanover Stuart-Fox Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Hanover Stuart-Fox, Alex Claremont-Diaz/Alex Claremont-Diaz, Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor/Henry Hanover Stuart-Fox Additional Tags: Crack, this is the crackiest thing, off screen negotiations, Rimming, Fisting, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, healthy doses of narcissism, this is the result of chaos nothing to see here, Praise Kink, Dom/sub Undertones, Mild Degradation, Overstimulation, Multiple Orgasms via https://ift.tt/Wp9HQhP

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #red white and royal blue #rwrb #firstprince #cool_fullmetal #MayQueen517

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yetanotherthriftblog · 10 months ago

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I'm thinking Hanover Fiste from Heavy Metal.

This was on FB marketplace in Kentucky today

They called it a gorilla in the very short description. Maybe supposed to be King Kong?

#the hand #loc-nar #sculpture #fb marketplace

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libidomechanica · 9 months ago

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Untitled (“Fair in all the Welling”)

Where to dedicate Arab desert sand. Some cares vnto my lust: thou shall I makes of quaint to what is the art. Fair in all the Welling. And if rymes wide: by the Hanover to keep extremets’ eyes are them all drown opinion. Let us not a stories! All weeping his let our lake all my fool, to our fists into you. Fair in the houseleek’s head, over than aught to received with his whom The Reason; Lust must beauty’s still, and marble, mere came in a colour best way: I must rehead to my bosom strong, this was ne’er sight, blushing in your flowers, sisters fled by thing draw neare.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #170 texts #sonnet

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historydailyfrancischappellblack · 1 year ago

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Six American Airmen Were Murdered by the Townspeople of Russelsheim, Germany, During World War II. August 26, 1944.

Image: Five Germans were condemned to death for the killing of six American flyers, who were seized from their German military captors. Joseph Harzgen is led to execution by hanging at Bruchsal, Germany. (Wikimedia Commons.)

On this day in history, six American airmen were murdered by the townspeople of Russelsheim, Germany, during World War II. The war crime happened two days after nine USAAF crew members of a B-24 Liberator were shot down over Hanover. They parachuted to the ground and were captured and held by German Luftwaffe personnel. Unable to transfer the downed airmen to a POW facility due to the train tracks being heavily damaged by RAF bombing the night before, the crew was forced to march through the already devastated town of Russelsheim to catch another train. The townspeople, already angered by the previous night's raid, started attacking the unarmed airmen with rocks, hammers, sticks, and shovels, resulting in six airmen dying.

History Daily: 365 Fascinating Happenings Volume 1 & Volume 2 - August 26, 1944

During World War II, the RAF bombed Russelsheim, an industrial town that housed many vital targets, including the Opel plant. The RAF carried out a policy of "area bombing" of cities at night, while the USAAF relied on "precision bombing" by day. On August 24, 1944, an American B-24 bomber named Wham! Bam! Thank you, Ma’am was shot down while taking part in an attack over Hanover, and the crew parachuted down near Hutterup. The airfield's local fire brigade and military detachment were alerted and dispatched to find the downed airmen. One of the nine airmen had serious flak injuries to his abdomen. After landing on a farm, the airman found was given medical assistance by an elderly couple, and in return, the airman gave the couple his silk parachute as a gift. Within a few hours, most of the crew had been captured and taken to an interrogation room in the town hall in Greven. After that, most crewmembers were taken to an airbase near the town, where they slept for the night. The injured crewman was taken to a medical clinic where his wounds were looked after and then shipped to a hospital in Munster to undergo an operation. The following day, the rest of the airmen were loaded on a train for a trip south to the Dulag Luft in Oberursel, north of Frankfurt. After German civilians noticed the Americans on the train at every stop, crowds would form at the windows, yelling angrily at the "terror fliers" and shaking their fists while spitting on the windows. On the evening of August 25, the RAF sent 116 Lancaster bombers to Russelsheim to attack the Opel plant, dropping 674 2,000-lb bombs and more than 400,000 incendiaries on the city, destroying the plant and damaging the rail tracks.

On the morning of August 26, most crewmembers were still proceeding to their original destination. However, the RAF heavily damaged the train line from the previous night's bombing, so the airmen were forced off the train and made to walk to Russelsheim to catch another train. Two German soldiers escorted them. As the crew marched towards the devastated town of Russelsheim, the townspeople, assuming that the fliers were Canadians from the previous night bombing raid, quickly formed and immediately became an unruly, angry mob. Two women shouted out, “There are the terror flyers. Tear them to pieces! Beat them to death! They have destroyed our houses!" One of the crewmembers replied in German, "It wasn't us! We didn't bomb Russelsheim!"

Nevertheless, one woman hurled a brick at the crew, precipitating a riot during which the townsfolk attacked the crew with rocks, hammers, sticks, and shovels. Three Opel workers arrived with iron bars and started beating the men to death to the cries of the crowd. The mob was joined by a German air raid warden, Joseph Hartgen, armed with a pistol. He would prove to be the crew’s worst nightmare. The German soldiers who guarded the airmen made no attempts to prevent the beatings; Hartgen lined them up and shot six in the head, then ran out of ammunition, leaving two of the airmen, William Adams and Sidney Brown, alive. The mob then put the airmen on a cart and took them to the cemetery. Those who moaned were beaten further. An air raid siren went off during the attack, and the mob ran for cover. The two surviving crewmembers managed to crawl from the bloody cart, fled toward the Rhine, and avoided capture for four days. However, they were found by a policeman and brought to their original destination, the camp in Oberursel, where they remained until the war's end.

After the war in Europe ended in 1945 when Russelsheim came under occupation by the American Army, the killings came to light, and the bodies were located on June 28, 1945. In the first war trials in Germany before the Nuremberg trials, eleven residents of Russelsheim, including Joseph Hartgen, were put on trial in late July 1945 in Darmstadt, a town devastated by a British night attack the previous September that had killed 8,500 residents and left 70,000 homeless. The defense argued that they had been incited to commit the crimes by Joseph Goebbels's propaganda, which encouraged the German people to take reprisals against the downed Allied pilots, and that they were not guilty of their actions. Lt. Colonel Leon Jaworski, who would achieve national fame three decades later as the special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal, argued that the townsfolk were responsible for their actions.

The trial lasted six days. The court heard eyewitness testimony to the cold-blooded assassinations and chilling accounts of the bludgeoning and shooting of the airmen. On August 2, Joseph Hartgen and six other townspeople were found guilty and sentenced to death. The remainder of the defendants were given varying prison terms, while the Commission acquitted one. The judge, however, commuted two of the death penalties to 30 years in prison. On November 10, 1945, Hartgen and four others were hanged at the prison in Bruchsal. A sixth, a German soldier, was convicted and executed in 1946.

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History Daily: 365 Fascinating Happenings Volume 2: July - December: Chappell Black, Francis: 9780991855896: Books - Amazon.ca

#history daily #1940s #Russelsheim Massacre #military history #world war 2

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