#Robert M. Coates

[ultraozzie3000]

Art of the Machine

Above, at left, self-aligning ball bearing from SKF Industries, featured in MoMA's 1934 Exhibition of Machine Art; at right, judges for the exhibit were aviator Amelia Earhart and professors John Dewey and Charles R. Richards, holding first, second and third prizes, respectively. (MoMA) The notion that machine-made objects have aesthetic value has been with us for some time, dating back to…

[burnyouwithacigarettelighter]

TOEING THE LINE ─── robert fischer ✧𖦹

ೃ⁀➷ “Love him. Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?” — ‘Giovanni’s Room’, James Baldwin.

pairing. robert fischer x secretary!reader

summary. being robert’s secretary means doing everything for him. everything.

warnings. swearing, oral sex (m), creampie, p in v, mention of handjob, sex as stress relief, intimacy issues, quickies, crying, fluff, SMUT UNDER THE CUT! 

word count. 6.8k

a/n. honestly this is just downright filth. robert & reader’s relationship/the way they treat each other is also a little confusing so i apologize LOL

i. 

Being Robert’s secretary means doing everything for him: sending congratulatory gifts to his clients, picking up his drycleaning, answering his emails, and even booking his dentist appointments.

It means doing everything he asks, and everything you think he needs; he trusts your judgment, he said, because you know more about him than anyone in the entire world — even himself. 

It means doing everything for him. Everything.

Robert had heaved a large sigh as he sat down in the backseat of his car; undone his tie; ran a veiny hand through his gelled hair. From that much, you could tell he was stressed. You knew him like the back of your hand, and, after being his secretary for three years, you also knew what relieved him best.

Your lips are wrapped around his cock the moment he gets home. 

You were kneeling between his legs, hands curling around the base of his cock and stroking whatever you couldn’t fit - which wasn’t much, your throat having long since been trained to take his length all the way. 

Grunts and groans spilled out of his mouth above you, but you didn’t look at him; you never looked at him - he’d been adamant about that, when you first sucked him off. Robert never told you why, just that your gaze should never reach his; you thought it had something to do with his vulnerability, his parental issues rearing its ugly head in every part of his life, even his sexual one. 

Robert’s hands wrapped around your wispy locks, giving you a makeshift ponytail, and you flicked small licks on his tip before descending back down on him. His grip on your hair tightened, and as you curled your warm tongue along his shaft, he began to bob your head up and down on him, faster, harder, hard enough tears formed in your eyes. 

He was stressed, so he was rough. But you took it in stride: he was your boss, after all, paying you the big bucks for your service, be it actual secretarial duties or requests just a step away from prostitution. 

You gag, once or twice, on account of how brutally the head of his cock is bruising the back of your throat, and Robert slows down; stills like he’s nervous you’ll break, but you continue expertly, focussing on lapping up the beads of precome spilling from his slit. You breathed in and out shakily, ignoring the ache in your jaw. 

His hands then left your hair, instead fumbling for the armrests of the leather chair and squeezing down on them as his back arched and his head threw back: he was close.

When one of your hands left his length and reached down to fondle his balls, Robert let go, a stuttered moan leaving him, and he released his load straight down your throat. You felt it spurt and coat your mouth, wet and thick. The only thing left in the room was your breathing, his high and tinny, yours haggard and desperate for oxygen. 

After a moment, you got up, noting how tight your legs felt while wiping a drop of come from the side of your mouth with your thumb. “Rest up, Mr. Fischer,” you insisted gently, resuming immediate professionalism, “you have a nine-o-clock with the head of Proclus Global tomorrow.”

Between breaths, Robert finally looked at you with heavy-lidded eyes, buttoning his dress pants back up. “Saito?” he wondered aloud. 

You nodded silently in response. It was certainly odd to inform Robert about his schedule and meetings like you didn’t just have his hard cock in your mouth, but after three years it became part of the job. You reckon you could ride him and still arrange his doctors appointments by phone. 

“I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Fischer.” You addressed him with that title, ‘Mr. Fischer’, to keep a distance. Despite what you often did for him, you still considered yourself just his subordinate; just his secretary. 

You then turned, kitten heels clacking quietly on his hardwood floor, primly and properly leaving his condo with the taste of his salty come still imprinted on your tongue. 

ii. 

By eight am sharp, you’ve returned to his condo. Robert would need a little more than what he got last night, especially since he’d be meeting Saito, like you said. 

You mapped out his habits and what he was like a long, long time ago. He’s got a higher-than-average sex drive, but no time to be in a relationship with anyone — thus, your duties. Blowjobs after a long day and a quickie at least five times a week are a must, and never, ever, kiss him. 

Robert’s… well, a slight sex addict, having to regularly fuck or get pleasured just to keep sane, but intimacy’s got him hiding under the covers like he’s just seen a ghost. You, on the other hand, can’t discern the difference between if you have sex and kiss or just have sex - it's both sex. 

It’s just a thing that needs to be done in the end, and in Robert’s case, it’s like eating or sleeping: he needs it to live, so he gets it and lives. Simple as that. There are no feelings between you two, and it’s been that way for as long as you’ve been his secretary. 

You entered Robert’s condo easily, having a key and all, where you then found him pacing in his large walk-in closet, fiddling with his rings. 

You knocked lightly on the wall to alert him, stepping in when he noticed you and visibly relaxed. “Good morning, Mr. Fischer.” you stated, setting his drycleaning down on one of the velvet settee benches in the middle of the room. 

“Morning,” Robert said absently. Without warning nor another word, he stepped closer to you, hands immediately pressing into your waist. His palms were sweaty, a feverish need radiating off him as he kneaded at you, pressing you against one of the many closet doors. 

He was nervous, no doubt the result of the impending meeting with Saito, which equated a frenzied mood sexually. So, you wasted no time, quickly unbuckling his trousers and unzipping his fly, letting your stockings pool at your ankles, hiking your skirt up to your hips. 

Robert’s hands grasped at your soft thighs, lifting a leg around him as one of your hands slipped down the waistband of his underwear, pulling his cock out. You pumped his length slowly, before spitting into your other hand, pushing your panties to the side and coating your cunt in the slick. You decorated your lips with the wetness, then carefully lined up his thick head with your entrance. 

You bit your lip, wincing as he pushed in; no matter how many times you’d fucked — which was plenty — you always felt that stinging stretch when he first entered you. 

From then on, Robert focussed solely on his own pleasure; on ridding himself of that anxious need, trying to fuck his insecure feelings deep into your cunt prior to seeing Saito. He grunted, a string of breathless curses leaving his mouth with every harsh thrust, just snapping his hips against yours repeatedly and chasing his high. 

Your face was pressed flat against the shoulder of his cashmere suit jacket, and you shut your eyes, letting Robert use you - use your hole, specifically. You’d asked him once why he didn’t just masturbate or use a sextoy, and he told you that nothing beats a hot, wet cunt. 

It didn’t matter to him what the girl looked like or what she cost, as long as her pussy felt good. That’s how he hired you: you’d spent an entire month by his side, and before returning to America from his vacation in Sydney, he confessed he’d never taken a cunt as delicious as yours. He didn’t have time to date, but he did have time for a secretary. 

That was the most vulnerable you’d ever seen him, pleading for you to work under him, just so he could feel your plush pussy clenching around his cock once more. You’d never been a secretary before, but he promised you’d be taught, that the pay would be good, and that once he got married you could be whatever you wanted in the company - as long as, while you were still his secretary, you’d fuck him when he asked.

“Fuck,” Robert growled out near your ear, pounding mercilessly into your sopping cunt. Despite the selfishness of this quickie, him paying absolutely no mind to you, you couldn’t help how your mouth went ajar and your hips rutted into his. 

Robert had the best dick you’d ever fucking felt, average length but girthy, stretching you wide open. That first time you’d fucked, the one night stand, he kept telling you how tight your cunt was around his thick cock, and the next time after that, he remarked how you were just as tight as before. He was impressed, it seemed, how after each round of splitting you open with his dick, you always seemed to tighten back up.

You bit your lip, fighting back any moans from leaving your mouth, and focussed on gripping your arms around Robert’s neck. You noted how one of his hands dug into you soft thighs, pulling you toward him and sliding in and out of you desperately, like he’d never fuck again, while his other hand came up to the crown of your head, petting you softly. 

Though your mind was foggy with pleasure, you knew it was an out-of-character gesture: being gentle with you, acknowledging your presence rather than just your cunt. Robert wasn’t a romantic man - you didn’t think he knew how to romance someone, especially since his parents' marriage certainly wasn’t winning any awards for perfection.

So, just doing that had the gears in your mind turning. You’d fucked him for three years straight, and not for a moment did he ever do something like that. 

But then, as you were building toward an orgasm, that familiar pull in your stomach sending heat over your body, begging to go faster, Robert came, jetting his creamy load deep within you — and you forgot all about his odd actions. 

“Feel s’good,” he mumbled, fucking you still. You were unsure whether he meant his high or your cunt, but nonetheless, he came down from his orgasm by shoving his come deeper in your cunt with his length. 

Then, “What - time is it?” he said breathlessly, quickly pulling his softening cock out of your pussy and turning away so as not to face you. 

You blinked rapidly, leaning against the wall and trying to regain your composure, ignoring the grief swelling in your insides at the incompletion of your orgasm. “8– 8:10, sir.” 

Robert hummed in acknowledgment, still not looking at you as he redressed himself. You took in your boss’s form, how quickly his attitude changed from desperate to stone cold after sex; after receiving what he needed, like a fucking transaction, and you suddenly felt shameful: this here was one of the most powerful men in the world, owner of Fischer Morrow, and there you were, his secretary and fucktoy he could replace at any time. 

You weren’t special - you weren’t anything, especially not to him. If - no, when, he meets someone who pleasures him better, you’re out of a job. He said he’d help you when he got married, but you don’t think that’s happening anytime soon… and you know Robert: he’ll get tired of you, like the spoiled little kid he probably was, and will just find some other toy to play with. 

“I’ll be waiting in the lobby, Mr. Fischer.” you informed him numbly after pulling up your panties and stockings, shakily stepping out of the walk-in closet. It wasn’t often you felt like this - this being pathetic and used, because on the surface, this job was perfection. Good pay, good reputation, a boss who fucks you - and fucks you good. 

Sure, you could probably count on one hand how many times he made you come in these past three years, but it still felt nice, even if he never drove you past the edge. But, these days… you started wondering if this was the rest of your life. 

You couldn’t get a boyfriend, no, not without lying to him about what you did for a living, and there was still that uncertainty in the stability of this job. Robert had deep parental and intimacy issues - as stated by his therapist, in which, after eight weeks of seeing him Robert left in a fitful, teary, suffocating rage - and, beneath his cold exterior, was a hotpot of bubbling emotions he never deigned to reveal until he was seconds away from blowing up. 

In short: Robert was the most moody, unpredictable person you’d ever met, and working under him was like balancing on a tightrope. Because he never said what irritated him, always emotionlessly telling you to stop if he preferred you didn’t do something, you could never tell what was actually pushing all the wrong buttons. 

Before waiting in his condo’s front lobby like you said, you ducked into one of his many bathrooms and wiped the warm come dripping down your leg, flushing as you saw the ruined state of your panties and stockings: his white load had smeared all over the fabric, and, while you could get most of it off your dark stockings, it stayed on your underwear. 

You had to wear his come on your panties for the entire day, and in a way, it felt like Robert owned you. 

That’s why… you had decided to quit. You wrote your two weeks three months ago and have been holding onto it ever since — because you didn’t know how to tell him you wanted to quit, especially since your heart didn’t want to. 

Your head knew you were meant for more than secretarial duties and a quick fuck, but your heart ached for the lonely being that was Robert Fischer. That young CEO whose grievous relationship with his father was aired out in the newspaper, the man who went through succeeding the company as well as any young person could: fumbling, being crushed by the weight of his late father’s suffocating legacy, and the boy who didn’t know why he could never get his fathers love or approval. 

The heart wants what it wants, but the head knows best. You resolved to hand him your resignation by the end of the day, listening to your head, and got ready to leave this part of your life behind; to leave Robert Fischer behind. 

iii.

“What's this?” Robert asked in his office without looking up at you, gaze still trained on the papers he was signing. You had entered his office to deliver his mail and ask questions about various appointments - when best to schedule that lunch with his godfather, that kind of stuff. 

And… to hand him your 2-weeks. 

“It’s my 2-weeks, Mr. Fischer.” 

“…What?” Robert set his weighted fountain pen down, looking up in disbelief.

“I’m resigning, sir.” You said gingerly, gaze trailing away from his own, ignoring how his expression went from neutral to crestfallen.

“I pay you well enough, I’m sure?” He said, sounding frantic and not doing the best job of hiding it with the shaky smile on his face. 

“It’s not - about the pay. I’m just… I’m ready to do other things.” 

There it was: you didn’t want to wait until he got tired of you and kicked you to the curb. This job was fucking comfortable, and that unnerved you. Working diligently, fucking him diligently, saving up money your younger self would’ve never thought could ever come your way - it was comfortable and you were used to it, but you just… couldn’t take it anymore. 

You weren’t going anywhere like this. Not with Robert, not with your life, not with yourself. When you first took this job, you wanted to help him. Call it naive pity, but you thought the terribly mournful Robert Fischer could be fixed by getting fucked. God, your younger self had been out of her mind. 

So, here you were, three years later and resigning from one of the wealthiest men in the world, heart begging you not to, head wanting to leave immediately. 

Robert sighed, but nodded slightly. “Okay. Okay. I’ll send you your wages as soon as possible, and I can write a recommendation for your next—“

“There’s no need, Mr. Fischer,” you protested quietly. “My duties here weren’t exactly… just secretarial.”

Robert blanched, but agreed quietly. As you were about to leave, he spoke up. “Are you… free tonight?”

You tilted your head slightly, processing the topic change. “I have no plans for the evening, if that’s what you’re asking. I can come over after work—“

“No— no, not…” Robert grimaced, pressing two fingers between his eyes. “Proclus Global’s holding a charity gala. Tonight. Come with me; it’ll be your last event as my secretary.”

Your face warmed at your previous assumption he just wanted to fuck. “…Certainly, Mr. Fischer. There’s no need to ask, I’m obligated to agree.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to ruin any plans you have.” Robert’s lips pressed into a thin white line at your words. “If it - you don’t—“ He sighed, unable to say what he wanted properly, “You don’t have to say yes to everything I ask of you.”

“Work takes precedent, sir. You’re my boss - it’s only natural I follow orders.”

Then: “If that’s all,” you said, before promptly exiting his office, turning away and ignoring how crestfallen he looked. 

It was normal for you to accompany him to various events, seeing as he was single, and you were his hot, young secretary — and it was an expected duty of yours after the first time you went with him. 

You couldn’t figure out why his behavior had suddenly changed, why he’d become considerate— but perhaps it was because you were quitting. Although Robert’s emotional state was generally unpredictable, you supposed the professional part of him wanted to send you off nicely; have these last two weeks of yours not be soured. 

Anyway, it seemed inviting Robert to the gala was what Saito was here for - and, presumably, to add some pressure onto Robert, since their companies were rivals. Robert was always… bothered, you could say, prior to seeing Saito. 

The man made it a habit, consciously or unconsciously, to set Robert off, either by not-so-innocently referencing the late Maurice Fischer in their conversations, or by down right comparing Robert to him. It certainly wasn’t motivated by a personal grudge, no, Saito just wanted to see Fischer Morrow suffer, and for Proclus Global to rise. It was business politics, something you couldn’t - and didn’t want to - wrap your head around. 

The only thing you had in mind now was if you’d dressed up well enough: you had a small collection of gowns that you’d gathered over the years attending events with Robert, but every time, he gave you his card and told you to pick out something nice. You guessed that he was the kind of man who preferred to always show up in something new, something better — and that translated to whoever was perched on his arm.

That, being you, who’d bought a black satin and lace dress with a slit on the left thigh. You knew what Robert usually wore to these occasions, so you dressed accordingly - and it was an accurate foretelling, to say the least. When you’d entered Robert’s condo, he was standing in the lobby, strapping a Tudor onto his left wrist. He was head to toe in black satin, just as you were, hair neatly coiffed against his forehead. 

Your heels clacked loudly on the lobby tile, and he noticed your presence. “Black satin,” he scanned you up and down, “good.”

“Of course, Mr. Fischer.” You said politely, taking his arm when he lifted it up. The two of you headed to the car, and you didn’t miss how Robert opened the door for you first, like you really were his date for that night. 

His behavior throughout that entire day had been downright weird, and even more so now, because if you really pressed Robert, he’d tell you you were just a piece of eye candy for his clients to ogle over, so they’d lower their guards; get distracted and forget to pry him for information regarding the company. 

When you got to the event — which was taking place in a grand banquet hall in one of the many buildings Saito and his wife owned — a flock of people amassed, all greeting Robert and not-so-subtly alluding for him to head over to their table and discuss business matters. 

There were also various clients and colleagues of Robert’s who’d come over to catch up with the young CEO, and many of them commented, as usual, about the plus-one by his side. 

“And who’s this beautiful young lady?” One of the older men asked, raking his gaze all over you. It was clear as day: all of the men there were undressing you with their eyes. 

You didn’t shy away, however, instead smiling thinly. “I’m Mr. Fischer’s secretary,” you told the group, tilting your head slightly and baring your canines. They could stare at you all they liked, but you weren’t interested in letting them know much more about you than your position. 

It didn’t matter, anyway - finding out you were just his secretary made them see you differently. In whispered tones, they’d tell Robert they’d give anything to see you squirming beneath them, and he’d laugh a hollow laugh that didn’t reach his eyes and certainly didn’t come from the heart. To keep up appearances, buttering up his clients and letting them believe he was an easygoing guy, Robert would agree good-naturedly, but not without looking abashed, like he was too professional to actually ever breach that line. 

Like his hand hadn’t disappeared from your arm, trailing across your backside and groping the soft fat of your ass, digging into you. Like you hadn’t stroked his cock in the car, gently pumping him with your spit-slicked hand.  

You then broke away from Robert and the large group of businessmen to chase after a waiter who was holding a tray of champagne. In doing so you found out that Saito’s wife was, really, the main host of this charity ball when she, and several other women and wives of said business men, crowded around you, not unlike their husbands did to Robert. 

You greeted them kindly, blandly replying to their invasive questions: no, I’m just Mr. Fischer’s secretary, no, he is not accepting marriage proposals, sure, I can set up a meeting between you and one of our energy advisors if you give Fischer Morrow a call tomorrow. 

You let them talk circles over themselves, silently nodding, for Robert always reminded you to speak as little as possible. It would do no good for them to assume you and Robert were together —  they’d tear you apart. 

When the conversation drew its focus away from you entirely, you skittered away to find the waiter from earlier. An hour or two had passed since you’d arrived at the gala, and you indulged, letting yourself down a couple more glasses of that addictive drink. You were just about to grab one more, when you conveniently reunited with your boss and date for the night. 

Robert looked peeved, perhaps something to do with how boisterously Saito was laughing across the hall, and in a moment of quick thinking, you pulled him closer to you. “Mr. Fischer,” you whispered, voice tranquil, “if all has been accomplished for the night, I suggest we take our leave.”

He looked up at you, oddly, like he was seeing you for the first time. “Yes,” he agreed quietly, “yes… you’re quite right.” 

Without any goodbyes, the two of you swiftly hooked arms once more, and exited the building. The cool night air bristled around you, nipping at your skin, and Robert’s hands dropped from your arm, instead slipping into your own and keeping you close to him. 

At the car, he opened the door for you again, helping you in gently, before sliding in on the opposite side. When you turned to face him, he absently brushed something out of your hair with his long, nimble fingers. “Dust,” he said simply, peering deep into your eyes. 

You stared back at him, but your thoughts were elsewhere. He’d never toed the line like this before; 

he’d never looked you in the eyes so much, held your hand, plucked something out of your hair or pet you or held you so close — out of the context of sex —  that you could smell his cologne. He had never been so compassionate, so romantic, like this relationship of yours was organic and authentic, not transactional and emotionless. 

The car ride back to his condo was quiet. His hand did not find yours again, not even to hungrily snake up your thigh and under your skirt — Robert was frozen, staring out the window and nowhere at all meeting your gaze. 

Finally, when you got back to his place, you trailed after him — he trusted you to do what he asked and to do what you thought he needed, and that look of vexation he’d had before leaving only meant one thing to you: he was bothered, and a bothered boss does not mean good business. 

When you’d both entered his bedroom, Robert stopped, and turned to face you. His hands found yours, tenderly slipping his fingers into your own and pulling you close to him, and you backtracked. 

“Mr. Fischer?” You murmured, feeling how his rough skin brushed against you. “What are you… doing?” you questioned, your mind filled to the brim with the same question: what was Robert feeling right now? About you? For you?

He called your name out softly, like it was the only word he knew, shining blue eyes examining you intensely and flicking down to your lips every so often. “Don’t quit. I - I… need you.” 

Your brows knitted - so it was about your resignation. “Mr. Fischer, you don’t need me, you… you need sex, you need someone to - to fuck you—“ You protested, wrenching yourself away from his grip.

“No! No. I don’t need you like that. I need you, not - not your fucking cunt, I - can’t live without you.” Robert’s hands pulled you back to him, holding you close like you’d crumble into ash if he didn’t. 

Then, he kissed you, soft lips benevolently pressing into your own, long and deep like he was trying to melt into your touch. He was slow and chaste but there was a hint of desperation in his saliva, like he wanted to consume you, and you him. 

You pulled back, alarmed, your chests rising and falling in sync. Robert had kissed you; he had crossed the line he vehemently set, the line he commanded be kept in place. You blinked, mouth opening and closing, unable to form words. 

“Robert,” You said at last. Robert, not Mr. Fischer. Not Mr. Fischer, not now, not with how quickly his face had fallen from feverish to devastated. “you don’t think you love me, do you?”

Robert’s brows furrowed. “Think?” He repeated incredulously. “Do I think I love you— god, I… I do love you. I don’t think I love you, I know I’m in love with you.”

You looked at him dolefully, willing your heart not to beat out of your chest. “But why? I am certain you can’t answer that, Robert, because you don’t love me, you are - are merely feeling abandoned—“

“I love you because you know more about me than anyone in the entire world—“

“That is my job, Robert—“

“No, it’s not, and you fucking know it. You did more than I’ve ever asked of you: you know me, Robert, not Mr. Fischer, CEO of Fischer Morrow. You know me.” His finger dug into his chest, enunciating each point, and you couldn’t help the way his words swayed you - consciously or not. 

In your silence, Robert continued. “And - and, I adore the way you think, how you laugh and how you see the world, how - how you understand people, people who’ve never had someone take the time to ever fucking do that. How you care. So - so… stay. Stay by my side.”

In the kiss, you two had found yourselves perched on his bed, and he looked at you, lips bitten between his teeth nervously. “Please,” he murmured, hand coming up to your cheek and meekly tracing shapes on your skin.

“…I can’t do this. Not with you. Robert, you - you don’t fuck a woman you say you love then pretend you didn’t.” You replied, shying away from his touch like he’d burnt you. 

“I - I didn’t want to push that on you, not when - when we were…” he trailed off, hands leaving you and instead scrubbing his grimacing face. 

“What, when I was your personal prostitute?”

“Don’t say it like that,” he said weakly, but didn’t protest. “I just… I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want you to think it was just another part of the job.”

“Is it not?” You questioned, watching his expression change and flit through several emotions. “You’re telling me you love me, and you’re asking me to keep being your secretary. Robert, is this not just part of my job?”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he pleaded. “It - you, can be more than that. You are the woman I worship and adore and - and will listen to, no matter what. So don’t leave.”

The words “me behind” did not come out of his mouth, but you felt it, like he etched it on your heart. Your eyes searched his own for even a semblance of fallacy — but it was so terribly real, truthful, that you felt a lump in the back of your throat form. 

You pressed your forehead to his own, trying to digest this information: the reveal of his feelings… and the remembrance of your own. 

His idealistic talk, his professions of love, his raw, long-suffering pleading made you remember the deep seated, stirring warmth in your heart that you’d beat to death all those years ago. 

You remembered the fondness you’d felt for a melancholy man back in Sydney, the man with the demure demeanor, the charming words; the man who you spent a month with, the man who took you on sweet dates, who wormed his way into your life like he belonged there; the man who fucked you slowly and graciously and cherishingly; the man who, at the end, had to go back to America, to the life he never talked about; the man who you wanted to explore a forever relationship with, but had offered you a job instead. 

“You love me?” you asked, vulnerability apparent in your tone. 

“More than anything in the entire world.”

“Then kiss me.” 

And Robert did, his hands sliding down your back to your waist, bringing you closed to him. This kiss was passionate, but patient and sheepish like you’d never kissed one another before. It was a sweet dance, all tongue and no teeth; curling around each other tenderly, desperately, like there was never going to be enough time in the world to express how you felt about each other, because you felt so infinitely. 

Your fingers carded through his hair, tugging lightly on his feather-soft locks, and his movements grew eager, gripping your thighs and pulling you onto his lap. “I’ve never wanted anything so badly as I did you,” he mumbled against your neck, pressing hungry kisses on the delicate skin. 

“I dreamed of this, in Sydney,” you told him, slipping off his suit jacket and unbuttoning his shirt and dress pants, “I dreamed of forever together.”

He shrugged off the many articles of clothing, then began unzipping the back of your dress without looking, “I dream of us and forever without an end: you are my ever-present thought.” 

You paused your movements, looking at him squarely - though not without allowing your dress to fall off your shoulders - and pulling him into another kiss. “How could I ever have been content with just fucking you,” you murmured, more to yourself than him, “when these are the things you say to me?”

Finally, the two of you were reverently tossing and turning on the bed, completely naked and completely feverish, not just in lust, but in dizzying adoration and love for the other. Then, he was on top of you, holding himself up by the arms. His leg slotted between your thighs, your soaking wetness practically dripping onto him, and he could’ve fallen apart right then and there if not for your arm digging into his left bicep kept him grounded in reality.

His hard cock rested against your thigh, and after a moment longer of watching eachother intently, memorizing each and every feature you both had, he spread your legs wide and pressed his fat tip plush against your clit, introducing himself slowly. 

“Is this okay?” Robert asked, biting his lip and reveling in how good you took him, even if it was just the head. 

You looked at him blearily, barely registering his question, mind already losing itself to the pleasure he was inflicting on your cunt; how, the slower he was with you, the easier it was to completely succumb. 

“Yes, fuck,” you ground out, squeezing your eyes shut and sucking him in, his groans growing louder as he pushed the rest of his length in. 

“Oh my god, oh my god,” you blurted simultaneously to his various noises of pleasure, your fingernails digging deep crescent moon shapes into his back. 

“Best cunt I ever fucking had,” he grunted, hands gripping the sheets beside your head for dear life. He stilled for a few moments, letting you get used to his whole length in you — yes, when he’d fucked you all those times before, he was so desperate to come he hadn’t bottomed out his entire length in you, which… had already filled you to the brim. 

“M’gonna,” he shuddered, feeling your walls bear down on him suddenly, “gonna move now.” 

You nodded breathlessly, arching into his touch as he set a steady pace. He would drive into you slowly, teasingly, almost torturously, before suddenly pulling out, then thrusting into you regularly for a few moments, and finally starting all over again. It would’ve made you mad, if not for how sweetly he was handling you: his hand stroking your forehead shyly, gaze flitting over you like you were the only thing left in the entire world. 

Robert leaned down to your bare tits, brushing his wet tongue over your nipples, which had grown sensitive and erect. At his touch, you let out a small squeak, “Oh, Robert,” you keened, rutting your hips up into his own on instinct.

You could feel him smile against your skin, and then, he slipped one of your nipples into his warm mouth, suckling loudly and making you tremble. His tongue devouring your tits, his hips snapping into you, his hands caressing you gently; fuck, you realized, it was all too much, but still just enough. 

The way Robert fucked you was absolute perfection, the way he ravished and pleasured your body was heavenly; divine. Sweet moans left your mouth as Robert’s pace grew more frenzied, your sticky cunt making a sick squelching noise whenever he pulled out. You were like a fucking suction; even your pussy knew how delicious Robert’s veiny cock was, and held onto him desperately. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Robert sighed, pressing his face into the nook of your neck, inhaling your scent. “Your are the only one for me— fuck— its you, and only you.”

Though your thoughts were growing foggier, only focussing on feeling pleasure, you still had it in you to beam at his words, your arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him into a close embrace.

“Faster, please, god, I adore you,” you said after letting go, a string of words barely coherent. Still, you thought that even if you’d not said anything at all, Robert would have understood, for he began sliding his cock in and out of you rapidly. His hands found themselves at your hips, and he began pushing you up into him as he slammed down into your cunt. 

His thrusts drew breathy moans from your lips, and you could tell how swiftly it affected him, knowing his cock made you shudder and whine like that, writhing beneath him, because he commanded gently for you to: “Look at me,” he said, and you obliged, taking in those sweet, wet blue eyes, lashes fluttering as he blinked. He wanted to look at you, and he wanted you to look at him. 

“I’m looking,” you responded, barely able to speak. 

“Good,” he said breathily, “I wanna know what you look like when you come.” Then, his cock began pounding into you, not cautiously and delicately, like he had been earlier, but insatiably, unable to think of much else but making the woman he loves orgasm. You could count on one hand how many times Robert made you come, but it seemed that’d be the only thing he’d be thinking about for the foreseeable future: devoting his time to making the odds even. 

His words made your insides twist, the knot in your abdomen growing larger; it turned you on much more than you thought it would, for the notion of him coming in you because he wanted to, because he wanted to fill you with his seed and mark you as his, not just because he wanted to release and didn’t have time to clean it up elsewhere. Suddenly, you found yourself knowing the difference between sex with kissing, and just sex.

You hadn’t realized how close you were, steadily building toward an orgasm when your brain has turned off thinking and let you melt completely into the ecstacy, and only really comprehended it when Robert mumbled, “Jesus, you’re so wet, taking me so well,” and his praise sent you off the deep end.

Honestly, you couldn’t describe how it felt. You could, however, do so in comparison to your previous orgasms with Robert. Usually, it would feel good, but like it ended too fast. You’d conveniently orgasm when Robert came in you, and he’d drive out his high in your cunt, then pull out immediately. If you’d had your way, you’d keep him thrusting until you couldn’t take it anymore, wanting to drag out your blissful orgasm as long as possible.

That’s what happened here. The heat that encompassed your body was unfamiliar, but damn well fucking delectable, making your body buck up uncontrollably into his cock. You were high on the pleasure, drunk on his length, and he knew this, still gliding in and out of you. Your climax was like entering a deep pool: it took you over completely, and was a little hard to come out of. 

“S’good,” Robert mumbled, not unlike he did earlier that day, but you knew it was different. “Your face look s’fucking gorgeous,” he commented, mind growing fuzzy as he saw your expression change throughout your high. 

Your hands found themselves back in his hair, and you tugged him slightly so you could whisper in his ear. “Thank you, Robert,” you spoke warmly, though still panting, “for loving me. For letting me love you.”

You swore you saw light tears well in his eyes, but you couldn’t be sure, because he cocked his head back, neck clenching and his mouth falling open as he released his cream deep into your cunt, flush against your cervix. He let out a low moan as he climaxed, thrusts still coming but considerably slower. It felt like he’d been coming forever when his arms gave out and he finally went limp, falling down beside you. 

“You don’t have to thank me,” is what he said first, peering up at you and brushing an eyelash off your cheek. “I’d have loved you no matter what you did.”

Now you felt the waterworks coming. How was it, that through such a strained relationship and broken examples of intimacy, did Robert know how to be so sweet? Or was that just him, just how his thoughts came to him; was it just his instinct and nature that made him so darling?

Weakly, you slip your arms under his, combining the two of you in a sweaty embrace. The room smelt like come and sex, the lights impossibly bright and beaming down on the two of you uncomfortably, but you could deal with it— and everything, so long as you were with Robert. 

“If only I knew sooner how cheesy you were, Mr. Fischer.”

“Well, you’ll have the rest of your life to keep finding out… Mrs. Fischer.”

[rustedhearts]

just friends (again) (roommate!steve harrington x fem!reader)

summary: you’ve convinced everyone around you that you and steve are just friends. now you just have to convince yourself—but it proves difficult when steve finally admits how he feels.

uses she/her pronouns and female anatomy.

✶ just friends (part one) ✶ the library

tags: pining, yearning, they want each other so bad they're so stupid, little angst/hurt/comfort, oh steve harrington the man that you are. didn't proofread so ignore any mistakes oops.

buy me a ko-fi! (my blurb commissions are also still open!)

“I’m having a little carpet picnic.”

Julia Roberts’ voice filled the living room with a familiar warmth. The pinks and whites of the Beverly Hills hotel room from Pretty Woman coated the coach and the surface of your face with a gentle glow. The Chinese food you ordered a few hours ago was starting to stink. Even Ted, who was curled at your feet for most of your movie marathon, could no longer stand the vegetative life and scampered away.

It had been a week since Eddie broke things off. After Steve punched him, you spent the Sunday post-knockout calling and texting, hoping to sort things out. But Eddie never picked up. Eddie never replied. You figured stopping by the shop was a bit too far—if he wanted to talk to you, he would’ve by now.

So here you were, spending another weekend on the couch. Single. Broke. Lonely.

“He thought I was cheating on him,” is the excuse you have for getting dumped.

But the look on Theresa’s face when you told her is the first time it made you recoil. The first time you doubted that Eddie was 100%, entirely out of his mind.

Theresa winced into the overpriced lattes you were drinking at a curbside patio on Wednesday. “Well…I mean…”

And you gasped, mouth agape and heart hammering in your chest. What the fuck did that mean? Because you were just friends. All Steve ever was and is: your best friend. Why did everyone act like you were having a secret affair when the doors were closed on the public?

“You’ve gotta be kidding me—“

“I’m not defending the prick,” Theresa justified. “He was an asshole for talking to you like that. But I can see why he might have thought that. You and Steve are really close. Like…very close.”

“We’re friends,” you insisted.

And Theresa dropped it, holding her hands above her latte with innocent agreement. But her words haunted you the entire week. Every time Steve filled your coffee and had it ready on the counter for your commute to work (he even used your favorite travel mug). Every time he came home with a bag of peanut m&ms when he dropped by the store because it was the little treat you always asked for, but he didn’t even need to be asked anymore.

But like any other Saturday, the apartment was void of him for most of the day. He mumbled some excuse about going to the mall through your door this morning, and when he came home twenty minutes into Pretty Woman with an Abercrombie shopping bag, you knew he’d been date shopping.

“Hey,” he called to you, door clamping closed behind him. His keys jingled on their toss toward the table cluttered with half-opened mail.

Cheek squished against a throw pillow, body splayed flat on the couch, you cut him a glance sideways and adjusted the volume. “Hey.”

Steve kicked off his shoes and set his bag near the door, making your chest tighten when he immediately sauntered toward the couch. He turned to the tv with his hands on his hips.

He asked what he always asked, despite his eyes watching the very thing. “Watchya watchin’?”

“Pretty Woman.”

“Did you already watch Mystic Pizza?”

“Yep.”

Steve sighed. “Damn. Alright, well, scooch over.”

When he plucked your feet up and flopped down under them, he smelled like the sickeningly sweet butter of a soft pretzel, and the overwhelming stench of Abercrombie & Fitch. You couldn’t believe he still shopped there.

His hands were still resting on your ankles, bracing your feet against his jean-clad thighs. His touch was warm, soft, all-encompassing—and suddenly all you could think about even as Richard Gere came on screen. Steve's touch, his heat, the body those hands came attached to resting just inches away. He was wearing blue today. He looked so good in blue.

You swallowed and coughed, cheek rubbing on the pillow. Steve’s finger twitched around your calf.

“You okay?”

“Mhm,” you croaked.

His eyes bored into you for a moment before he turned back to Julia Roberts. "Notting Hill or My Best Friend's Wedding after this?"

Your lips parted to reply, but then his finger began tracing shapes into the patch of skin between the bottom of your pant leg and the elastic of your sock. Air choked in your throat. Your eyes bulged on the glowing television screen. The muscles in the center of your body knotted and squeezed like nausea.

In your stock-still state, it didn't even occur to you that Steve somehow knew your entire I'm-sad-and-can-only-watch-Julia-Roberts-movies marathon setlist, but it certainly crossed your mind later on. You and Steve are really close. Maybe Theresa had a point.

"Um..." Your tongue darted out to lick your suddenly-dry lips.

"You good over there?" Steve chuckled, head tipping to gauge the features and their current predicament on your face.

You buried it further into the pillow, as far as it could go without hiding completely. "Yes, Steve, I'm fine."

Steve pulled back, settling into the couch again. "Jeez, oh-kay."

He waited a moment, and you inched free from your pillow enough to bring your eye back to the television, doing your best to focus on the movie you'd seen a million times and not Steve's hand sweeping under your pant leg. He'd done that a million times, too. Touched you. Felt you.

He held your hand when you crossed the road like a child that needed guidance. He braced your back to move you which way he wanted, and to pull you close when public situational occurrences arose that made him uncomfortable. He brushed your hair once when you were victim to an ungodly illness that had you picturing death. He removed your makeup on your birthday last year when you got so drunk you puked in the doorway.

His hands were always so gentle. His touch was always so soft.

But, God, why did it feel so different right now? Why did it feel so good?

"Want a mall haul?" Steve asked, too uncomfortable in the sudden silence of the living room. He was already standing and placing your feet back on their own before you could reply.

In your periphery, he headed toward the door to retrieve the bags he neglected. "Got a couple shirts to try. Also, am I too old for that store? I swear, everyone in there was like a little Taylor Lautner wannabe from 2012—meaning they were fourteen and on steroids—"

"Steve!"

He stopped. Standing at the edge of the rug with both hands on the corded handles of his Abercrombie & Fitch shopping bag to pull it open. The snicker gathering in his throat hitched into a snort, smirk drooping into wide-eyed surprise.

You never yelled. Not at him. Not at anyone that didn't deserve it, like the neighbors when they were arguing too loud again and you were trying to nap. Like the guy that tried to steal Steve's package a few months ago that you nearly tackled down the hall.

But never Steve.

You shot up on the couch, hands flying to your pounding head. "Just...please! I don't want a mall haul, I don't want to talk, I just...—I just wanna be alone."

Steve blinked, cheeks colored pink. He closed the bag slowly, paper crinkling as he went. He took it in one hand and backed up, stepping off the rug foot by foot. He glanced at Ted, who skittered in surprise at your outburst and was standing with an arched back and black pupils near the tv stand.

"Uh...yeah, okay. Sorry," he mumbled, scratching at the nape of his neck.

Your shoulders slumped, deflating into the couch as Steve turned his eyes to the floor and tugged at the back of his hair. That stress tick again—the one you hated causing. He turned slowly, caution stiff in his spine. You watched his finger twist and wind into a lock of chestnut hair as he trudged into the hall. His door clamped closed a moment later.

A heavy, moaning sigh shuddered from your mouth as you flopped back on the pillow. Two arms locked over your head, pressing down on your eyes to blind them and the horror you created.

"Slippery little suckers," Julia Roberts snickered on the screen.

"It happens all the time."

✶ ✶

You ate dinner separately. It was the first time you'd ever eaten dinner separately within the same four walls. Even the night you moved in together, when you were nothing but a pair of strangers gauging how weird it might be to live with the opposite sex without something romantic or sexual in the undertones—even then, you ate a greasy cheese pizza together on the living room floor with an empty box as makeshift table.

He asked all the right get-to-know-you questions, and when he successfully made you laugh with all his snarks and quips, you knew Steve Harrington would be an alright roommate. You never figured he'd become your best friend.

Tonight, you pouted into the salad you regretted purchasing yesterday because a "healthy" lifestyle was born and had died within the span of your forty minute shopping trip. And now, you wanted nothing but another wet, shiny pizza, and Steve Harrington's dumb jokes.

He ate in his room. Shuffled out while you were finishing Notting Hill and made another bland chicken-rice-and-broccoli dinner. And then he shuffled past you, shut his door, and ate it alone. Never even giving you a chance to tease his unseasoned plate for the purpose of "gains." You thought he could remain just as toned and handsome with flavor on his food.

By the time you were showered, redressed, and gurgling with lingering hunger, you were properly sour with guilt.

And maybe the black sweatpants with the bedazzled jewels on your ass were pulled on with manipulative purpose before you shuffled to Steve's door. You lingered there a while, gnawing on the skin around your thumbnail and glancing between the wood grain of Steve's door and the plush surface of your yellow slippers. At this proximity, you could hear the low hum of his radio behind the door. He had a strange affection for the 70s and 80s station.

If only you knew that it was because Steve knew "the all time hits of the 70s and 80s" were your favorite.

The radio dimmed, and a moment later Steve's voice called through the door. "I can hear you lingering out there."

You jumped, stepping away from the door. Your thumb returned to your mouth, teeth piercing the skin to nibble it away. The shuffle of feet and jingle of the doorknob came too swiftly for you to evade, and then the door swung open to reveal Steve in grey sweatpants and a tight red t-shirt. He looked good in red, too.

"Oh. Hi," you murmured, hand instantly dropping to your side.

Steve caged the doorway, biceps bulging on either side. You averted your eyes with a swallow.

He sighed. "Hi."

Steve watched you sweep a slippered foot back and forth like sloshing through water. He tipped his head and bit away a smile when he caught the edge of a jewel on your hip. His favorite sweatpants.

"Are you mad at me?"

Steve sighed again, this time a little shaken with laughter. "No, kid. I ain't mad at ya."

To prove his point, he nudged the door open with his palm and motioned toward the bedroom behind him. "Come on in."

You flopped on the edge of his bed, bounced up and down by old springs. Steve swung the door closed and joined you, easing back against his wooden headboard to reassume his rumpled position. He reached toward the nightstand and turned the knob on the radio to lower the Elton John song playing.

Steve snatched the small plastic basketball from behind the radio and tossed it in the air. "So, what's goin' on?"

You watched the ball soar into the air and come back down into his palm. "I didn't mean to snap at you. I was just...cranky."

Steve quirked a brow, catching your eye over an orange blur when he threw the ball again. "Yeah? That all?"

The corners of your mouth pulled down. "Yeah...? What else would it be."

Steve shrugged, chin turned up toward the ceiling as he watched the basketball fly toward it. Elton John died down and switched to Def Leppard. "Hysteria" was one of Steve's favorite songs.

"You tell me. You were having a Julia Roberts marathon."

"So?" Your thumb returned to your mouth, teeth ripping at the skin.

"You only watch Julia Roberts when you're sad."

"Not true."

Steve fixed his head straight again, eyes narrowing into a pointed look. The basketball sat in his right palm against his chest. You huffed, angling yourself toward the door to glare at it instead of your roommate and his smug, all knowing expression.

He waited a while, like he always did—waiting out your stubbornness and refusing to let it break him. You could talk to him, you knew that. He wanted you to know that.

"I guess..." You sighed, throwing yourself back on the bed with your arms locked over your eyes. "I guess I'm just upset that Eddie still hasn't called. I've been calling and texting him, but...he doesn't wanna see me."

Steve immediately felt every blood cell in his body curdle. Like they were burning and festering, irritated under his skin. He swallowed, bringing the basketball to sit between his knees where he could pick at the design with blunt fingernails.

"And you want to see him?"

You dropped your arms, letting them plop to your sides. "I mean...yeah."

Steve couldn't help it—he scoffed.

The sound had your head turning, brows furrowed his way. His head was shaking, eyes focused distinctly downward to avoid yours. All the smugness of his expression dimmed into something distasteful and angry.

"What the hell was that for?"

"Nothing."

"You scoffed."

"I sighed."

"No, you scoffed."

"Well—"

This time, Steve did sigh. He took the basketball in his hands and chucked it toward the door, causing it to boomerang off the wood and catapult back toward the mattress again. The sharp smack had you jolting upward, and your eyes widened on Steve when he hopped from the bed and stood to his feet.

"What the hell—"

"He's not good enough for you!"

You paused on weak wrists used to push you upward. Steve stood a foot away from the bed with pink cheeks and outstretched hands. They curled back toward him to sweep through his hair and tug hard at the roots.

"Steve—"

"He sucks. Alright? All your ex boyfriends sucked, but especially Eddie. He didn't understand you, he didn't appreciate you. He made you cry, for fuck's sake, and you want him back? I just don't get it."

Your lips parted, but it felt like gulping for water on dry land. And Steve watched, helplessly, as you stammered for words in the face of his impending and inevitable confession. Inevitably painful, he knew, but he could no longer stomach the tireless routine of finding the body closest to yours in another dark bar, hoping she would comfort him enough to soothe the ache he had for you.

You, who slept across the hall and shared the sofa with your head on his shoulder. You, who looked at him like some sort of light source with those little round eyes. You, who made his heart pound and weep endlessly every second that you were near, and every moment you were away—leaving him in a constant, centrifugal loop of torture.

So—knowing it might ruin every bit of good the pair of you worked so hard to keep—Steve stepped closer to the bed and swallowed. He prepared himself to form the words he'd practiced a million times over in his head.

"I just figured that eventually...you'd get tired of all the wrong guys, and realize that...I'm here. That it was me, that you loved me. Because I love you—don't you love me?"

He paused, but it would never have been enough time for your mind to process his proclamation. He had a look of such anguish embedded in his features, all scrunched and screwed together with wet, shiny eyes.

"And I figured it was easier to sleep my way around than sit and watch you waste your time with these idiots. But they were never you. And I never bothered to get to know them, because I only wanted to know you."

Your breath hitched when Steve crowded your corner of the bed, hands clasped over his chest. You had to tip your head back to meet his eye, and you felt your arms shake in their locked position holding you up. The sight of him blurred with the onset of your own hot, salty tears.

Steve sniffed: a wet slurp proceeded by a tear slipping down his cheek. He wiped it quickly and sank to his knees before you on the bed, hands coming to cradle your bent knees.

"I just can't take it any longer," he whispered, and his hazel eyes were like shiny coins gazing up at you.

His lips were wet with his own tears. His tongue swept them away. Every breath inhaled rattled in his chest, and every exhale shuddered his cheeks full. He chuckled when he rubbed his palm into his eye and turned it red, sweeping his forearm over his face to clear the tears again but they just kept coming.

"Fuck, say something, please," he huffed, lacing it with laughter despite its absence of humor.

Your throat felt like it swelled to twice the size. Sickness rolled in your stomach. But it only grew at the thought of breaking Steve's heart with your silence. Because the longer he looked at you with those almond eyes, and the longer he sniffled and massaged your knees to comfort himself—the more your heart crumbled.

"I...I don't know what to say," you croaked.

Steve inhaled again, stuttering through a sniffle. He wiped his cheek on your knee and chuckled again. "Yeah. Yeah, of course—it's okay."

"Steve—"

"It's okay," he insisted, scrambling to his feet. He backed away toward the door and you finished pulling yourself upright.

"Steve, wait—"

"Really, it's okay, honey. I'm just gonna...—we ran out of ice cream, so 'm gonna g-go—go get some. Mint chip, yeah? Okay."

He sniffled again upon his exit, slipping through a small crevice he opened the door to. The front door slammed shut moments later, and you rolled onto your stomach to unleash a scream into Steve's mattress.

"Stay tuned for more all time hits of the 70s and 80s!"

✶ ✶

Steve did not return with the mint chip until nearly midnight. It came in a plastic bag that announced his arrival even before the clamber of keys. Yet, it was the squeal of old hinges that woke you from your couch slumber, and you jolted upright as the door swung open.

Steve closed the door and stood there for a moment, spotting you in the dimness of the living room. You rubbed your eye and he shifted on his feet. Ted scampered off the couch and butted at Steve's calf.

He held up the plastic bag. "Got the mint chip. It's uh...it's all melted now, though."

You wanted to reply, to make him feel better again. His eyes were still pink and puffy, and you hated the thought of him spending hours in his car or another dark bar agonizing over what you might be thinking. Worst of all, regretting any of what he said.

Because you spent the past few hours doing plenty of thinking. You laid in his bed, curled on your side, and looked at all the pictures pinned to a cork board above his desk.

The sepia toned film strip from a wedding last fall where you took him as your date. You were smiling in every one, and to the unbeknownst you might have already appeared as a couple.

The Polaroid from his most recent birthday, where you were sitting on his shoulders and clutching onto his hair for dear life. His sister took the picture.

The black and white he printed from his phone of just you on a park bench, feeding the ducks. You never even knew he had that one.

And when you shuffled to your room, you suddenly stopped. The clack of hard-bottomed slippers caught your attention, and you looked down at the plush yellow footwear around your toes—a gift from Steve.

You stood on the other side of your bed and stared at the windowsill full of miscellaneous yellow items all gifted from Steve. The movie ticket stubs shoved in your mirror and the hundreds thrown in a box on your dresser because you'd probably seen a thousand over the years with Steve, who loved movie theater popcorn and sitting close to you in the dark.

The birthday cards he wrote extensive messages of well wishes and gratitude for your friendship in with terrible penmanship. The purse he bought you for that you said you liked in passing but would never spend that much money on, and the note still tucked inside the zipper that came pasted to the bag on Christmas morning:

Because you deserve it.

Love, Steve

And then you ended up on the couch, falling asleep watching the door and waiting for it to open.

Steve trudged to the kitchen while you were lost in thought, and you hurried to catch up as he swung the freezer open. He wrapped the plastic bag around the pint of the ice cream and stuck it on the top shelf, hand reaching to close the door—when he was pushed forward by a force crashing into him.

And then there was warmth around his stomach: two arms curling around his ribs. Two hands pressing to his stomach and pulling him in. Steve stopped, immobilized in the open freezer door.

"I'm sorry," you breathed into his shirt, eyes closed tight. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything, I was just so stunned. And I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, Steve, for letting this go on for so long. Of course I love you, of course you love me—God, I just never wanted to ruin everything. But you make me so happy, and I—"

Steve spun around, causing your head to lift off his back. You went to drop your arms, but he instantly brought them around his neck. Two hands, still frozen from melting ice cream, braced your cheeks.

"You mean it?"

You nodded in his hold, happy to see his hazel eyes free and clear of tears. "Yes. Yes, of course I mean it—"

"Oh, thank fucking God," Steve breathed, and then his mouth descended on you.

You curled to the tops of your toes to press into his kiss, whimpering at the warmth and softness of his lips. It felt exactly as you thought it would—anticipating their plushness every time he pressed his lips to your cheek over the years.

It lasted until the pair of you were breathless, and you heaved for air upon release. Steve brushed his thumbs over your bottom lip, smearing spit and hemming your airless grin.

He kissed you all night, and let his hands roam where they could not roam before. You fell asleep in his bed tucked under his arm, and when you woke you shared the refrozen pint of mint chip with one spoon.

And when Steve called his sister while you were showering to share the good news, all she did was laugh.

"Jesus, about fucking time."

[aliorsboxostuff]

Can I request grey house x male reader fluff or smut is fine , if that's not too much

Yessss honestly i was in the mood to write some fluff but if this turns out slightly bitter sweet erm,,,, i can only apologize hgdhdghjfjgh i can only write House so much before he goes out of character HAHAHA 

Within his arms.

Tags: Greg House x M!reader, Greg House, male!Reader, doctor!reader, Allison Cameron, Robert Chase, Eric Foreman, fluff, slight OOC on House's side whoops, Cuddling, Bantering, just pure cuteness and maybe bittersweet at the end.

The tests are done, and the results are on House’s desk. Surely he wouldn't mind you taking a short nap before checking in with the patient, right?

—

It was midnight, precisely 15 minutes past 12 AM. 

For the past 3 days, the current patient House’s team is diagnosing has been going from stable to unstable in a matter of hours. With each problem they solved, another pop-up, and with the week ending it seems like you'd have to cancel your weekend plans if the patient's condition keeps deteriorating. 

You’ve just finished the last batch of blood tests, eyes grimy as you try to blink away the claws of sleep. There were a couple of times where you had to violently jerk yourself away, and then hold the urge to stick a needle of adrenaline into yourself just to keep testing stuff.

Somewhere in your head, about a couple of hours ago, Cameron came by to tell you that House might still be in his office until late. She was the only other doctor who knew of your little crush on the diagnostician, and pity you for it. You don't blame her. After knowing what the girl went through with him, you can't help but be sympathetic, though, despite her blatant warning, your heart can't seem to stop doing flips whenever House is around. 

A machine beeps. You grumble, standing from where you sat to retrieve the result.

“I should check in on House…” You mumble, betting on him still being around. 

Stumbling through the halls, you finally made it to your Boss’ office, and while it’s disappointing, you're not surprised he’s no longer present. The man must've gone home ages ago, he probably was packing up when Cameron informed you of his overtime possibility. You sigh, dropping the results of the blood tests on his desk before your eyes glance at the couch, enticing you with its soft cushions. 

The tests are done, and the results are on House’s desk. Surely he wouldn't mind you taking a short nap before checking in with the patient, right?

You check the perimeters, around the office and into the hall. House is nowhere to be seen. The night shift nurses as milling about, busy with their patients to monitor. Finally, you nudge the door to close softly, the glass making a short clink, before you drape your aching body onto the sofa. After hours of testing and sitting hunched on the stool, the sofa comforts your back. Groaning as you stretch your arms above your head, fringe dropping slightly as your head leans back.

You sigh, relieved, a mixture of boredom and sleepyness a toxic concoction luring you to close your heavy eyes. You drape your arms around yourself, your lab coat long forgotten somewhere in the office. Bringing your legs to your chest, you lean slightly to your left, resting your cheek on the headrest, eyes fluttering close. Surely House, if he was still even here, wouldn't mind, right? 

If he did he would've shouted at me by now, that was the last thought you had before darkness slowly engulfed your vision, even the insistent tapping of a familiar cane didn't wake you.

—

“–ow are they so comfortable together? That couch is way too small,” 

“And House is all long limbs and- Honestly its impressive,” 

“Can't you two just hurry up and grab my phone? I can take a picture of them!” 

Soft light slowly penetrates your grogginess, eyes blinking open, trying to adjust to your slow-awakening nerves. You yawn, sighing at the feeling of being well-rested, it felt comfy and warm, something soft draped over your body, and someone’s long arms wrapped around you. Leaning back slightly to try and greedily soak up what is left of the person's warmth, a small smile makes it way to your lips when-

Wait. Someone? 

“Are you three going to keep gawking or should I test how hard I can throw my cane?” House’s voice snaps at your senses, vibrating through you as your ears are pressed beneath his collarbone. You hear the man behind you groan, knowing House he probably gave the team the worst eye roll known to mankind. 

“I thought I asked for the test results last night? I don't see them on my desk,” His tone drops lower. Instead of seeing, you hear a quick sequence of shuffling and shoes shuffling on carpeted floors, knowing it must be your other co-workers hurrying out of the office. 

You gulp, finally finding your voice after you're sure it won't crack. “The results are already on your desk, know…”

House nods above you. His chin rests atop your head. “I’ve read through them.” 

He pauses. “You got the PTT wrong.”

“No? I’m sure it didn't…” Your voice fades.

You feel House shift. He moves your legs to drape over the couch’s armrest, alleviating more of his limped leg. “No, but I just bought us another half an hour, so unless you want to go back to acting professional, I suggest you-”

“No,” You croak out. “No it’s…. Fine. Thanks,” 

You feel House sighs. Either way, you decide to push your luck as you lean deeper into the doctor's neck, sighing, and pull at the blanket further. Something deep in you worries, a ball of anxiety growing steadily. You don't know if House knows of your little infatuation, if he resents it or lets it fester to consume you whole. He and his puzzles are too advanced for you to understand, though eventually, it boils down to his entertainment. Is he letting you do this to see how far you’ll go? 

Suddenly, you feel House’s hand rest on your shoulder, one finger tapping gently. “You lucky I was also staying late last night,”

You hum, relief settles in. Despite the outcome of this predicament, sleeping in House’s embrace while the man himself seems content enough to let you off the hook, you cherish this and compile it into your memory. 

Requests are open! Reblogs appreciated <3

[eddieintheocean]

Big news for hagfish fans!!

references

Bardack, D. (1991). First Fossil Hagfish (Myxinoidea): A Record from the Pennsylvanian of Illinois. Science, 254(5032), 701–703. https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.254.5032.701

Fernholm, B., & Mincarone, M. M. (2023). A new species of the hagfish genus Eptatretus (Myxinidae) from the Bahamas, western North Atlantic. Journal of Fish Biology, 102(4), 962–967. https://doi.org/10.1111/JFB.15343

Fudge, D. S., Levy, N., Chiu, S., & Gosline, J. M. (2005). Composition, morphology and mechanics of hagfish slime. Journal of Experimental Biology, 208(24), 4613–4625. https://doi.org/10.1242/JEB.01963

Hirasawa, T., Oisi, Y., & Kuratani, S. (2016). Palaeospondylus as a primitive hagfish. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40851-016-0057-0

Miyashita, T., Coates, M. I., Farrar, R., Larson, P., Manning, P. L., Wogelius, R. A., Edwards, N. P., Anné, J., Bergmann, U., Richard Palmer, A., & Currie, P. J. (2019). Hagfish from the Cretaceous Tethys Sea and a reconciliation of the morphological-molecular conflict in early vertebrate phylogeny. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(6), 2146–2151. https://doi.org/10.1073/PNAS.1814794116/-/DCSUPPLEMENTAL

Parasramka, V. (2023). Manufacturing synthetic Hagfish slime skeins using embedded 3D printing. https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120467

Siu, R. (2023). Additive manufacturing methods for fabricating synthetic Hagfish skeins. https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120593

Zintzen, V., Roberts, C. D., Anderson, M. J., Stewart, A. L., Struthers, C. D., & Harvey, E. S. (2011). Hagfish predatory behaviour and slime defence mechanism. Scientific Reports 2011 1:1, 1(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep00131

[catherinetheprincessofwales]

The Irish Princess and her dynastic marriage to a Norman that helped shape Europe. Aoife, Princess of Leinster -> Catherine, The Princess of Wales. The Princess of Wales is Aoife, Princess of Leinster and Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke 26th Great-Granddaughter  via her paternal grandfather’s line.

** Aoife or Eva, Princess of Leinster, played a pivotal role in the history of Ireland and the Norman expansion. She was the daughter of Diarmaid MacMurrough, King of Leinster, who sought the help of the Normans to secure his throne and defeat his enemies. As part of this alliance, Aoife married the Norman leader Richard de Clare, known as ‘Strongbow,’ on 25 August 1170. This marriage marked the arrival of the Normans in Ireland, just 104 years after their conquest of England by William the Conqueror.

Through their daughter, Isabelle de Clare, The 4th Countess of Pembroke, the union of Aoife and Strongbow forged a lineage that would shape the future of European nobility. Isabelle became an ancestor of nearly every reigning monarch across Europe. Within a few generations, her descendants included much of the European aristocracy, including all the Kings of Scotland since Robert the Bruce (1274–1329) and every monarch of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom since Henry IV (1367–1413). 

Family Line

Aoife MacMurrough, Princess of Leinster and Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Painting of their wedding, depicting the political and cultural consequences. 

Isabelle de Clare 4th Countess of Pembroke m. William Marshall 1st Earl of Pembroke. 

Eve Marshall m William de Briouze, born  Pembroke Castle.

Eve de Briouze m. William de Cauntelo, Coat of Arms

Millicent de Cauntelo m. Eon la Zouche, Coat of Arms

Eva la Zouche m. Maurice de Berkeley, 2nd Lord Berkeley, buried St Mary's Church, Portbury. 

Thomas de Berkeley, 3rd Lord Berkeley m. Catherine Clivedon

Sir John Berkeley m. Elizabeth Betteshorne, burial location.

Eleanor Berkeley m. Sir Richard Poynings, burial tomb.

Eleanor de Poynings m. Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland

Lady Margaret Percy m. Sir William Gascoigne 

Anne Gascoigne m. Sir Thomas Fairfax - Gawthorpe Hall, family seat.

William Fairfax m. Anne Baker - Gilling Castle, family seat. 

John Fairfax m. Mary Birch - Master of the Great Hospital at Norwich, Norfolk

Rev. Benjamin Fairfax m. Sarah Galliard - Preacher at Rumburgh, Suffolk.

Benjamin Fairfax m. Bridget Stringer - died in Halesworth, Suffolk.

Sarah Fairfax m. Rev. John Meadows - died in Ousedon, Suffolk.

Philip Meadows m. Margaret Hall

Sarah Meadows m. Dr. David Martineau

Thomas Martineau m. Elizabeth Rankin - buried at Rosary Cemetery, Norwich.

Elizabeth Martineau m. Dr. Thomas Michael Greenhow - died in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland.

Frances Elizabeth Greenhow m. Francis Lupton

Francis Martineau Lupton m. Harriet Davis

Olive Lupton m. Richard Middleton

Peter Middleton m. Valerie Glassborow

Michael Middleton m. Carole Goldsmith 

Catherine Middleton m. Prince William of Wales

*Catherine is also a descendant of Aoife via her mother Caroles maternal line.

[april-is]

April 7, 2024: The First Line is the Deepest, Kim Addonizio

The First Line is the Deepest Kim Addonizio

I have been one acquainted with the spatula, the slotted, scuffed, Teflon-coated spatula

that lifts a solitary hamburger from pan to plate, acquainted with the vibrator known as the Pocket Rocket

and the dildo that goes by Tex, and I have gone out, a drunken bitch,

in order to ruin what love I was given,

and also I have measured out my life in little pills—Zoloft,

Restoril, Celexa, Xanax.

I have. For I am a poet. And it is my job, my duty to know wherein lies the beauty

of this degraded body, or maybe

it's the degradation in the beautiful body, the ugly me

groping back to my desk to piss on perfection, to lay my kiss

of mortal confusion upon the mouth of infinite wisdom.

My kiss says razors and pain, my kiss says America is charged with the madness

of God. Sundays, too, the soldiers get up early, and put on their fatigues in the blue-

black day. Black milk. Black gold. Texas tea. Into the valley of Halliburton rides the infantry—

Why does one month have to be the cruelest, can't they all be equally cruel? I have seen the best

gamers of your generation, joysticking their M1 tanks through the sewage-filled streets. Whose

world this is I think I know.

--

Poetry nerd extra credit: How many repurposed bits from famous poems can you find? I count 7 and I'm probably missing some!

Also by Kim Addonizio:

+ For Desire + Mermaid Song* + Onset + My Heart

* (Weird fact: this is about her daughter, Aya Cash, who starred in the sitcom You're the Worst. What!)

Today in:

2023: Insha’Allah, Danusha Laméris 2022: To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall, Kim Addonizio 2021: You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon?, Elizabeth Acevedo 2020: Let Me Begin Again, Philip Levine 2019: Hammond B3 Organ Cistern, Gabrielle Calvocoressi 2018: Siren Song, Margaret Atwood 2017: A Sunset, Ari Banias 2016: Coming, Philip Larkin 2015: The Taxi, Amy Lowell 2014: Winter Sunrise Outside a Café Near Butte, Montana, Joe Hutchison 2013: The Last Night in Mithymna, Linda Gregg 2012: America [Try saying wren], Joseph Lease 2011: Boston, Aaron Smith 2010: How Simile Works, Albert Goldbarth 2009: Crossing Over, William Meredith 2008: The World Wakes Up, Andrew Michael Roberts 2007: Hour, Christian Hawkey 2006: For the Anniversary of My Death, W.S. Merwin 2005: The Last Poem About the Snow Queen, Sandra M. Gilbert

[fangirlvibez]

The Festival Of Hearts (a Royal Au) - part 1

Characters: King!Jake “hangman” Seresin x Queen!female!reader, Royal Huntsman!Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, Master of Arms!Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, lady-in-waiting!Natasha “Phoenix” Trace, Royal Advisor!Robert “Bob” Floyd, King Champion!Javy “Coyote” Machado, Queen Champion!Reuben “Payback” Fitch and Queen Champion!Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia

Warnings: mention of arrange marriage, mention of dead parents, mention of killing, mention of attacking a person, inaccuracies in terms of the Middle Ages (Let me know if I forgot a warning)

Summary of the story: princess, now Queen Y/N (Y/M/N) Y/L/N was forced into marrying King Jake “Hangman” Seresin. Leaving her own kingdom, Eldoria, behind, she left to live and rule Jake kingdom, Misthaven. The time for an age-old tradition in Y/N kingdom came. Miraculously the Queen convinces Jake to invite her old village to come celebrate the tradition with them. This is the story on how the ruthless King learns how to love his Queen.

A/N: English is not my first language, so if there is any spelling or grammar errors: please let me know

Previous part - Next part - masterlist

Princess - now Queen - y/n (y/m/n) y/l/n, never saw her life going down this road. It's not like she didn't picture herself walking down the aisle to her future partner. No, she's had dreams about this magical day since she was a little princess. Sharing imaginary stories about the most important day of her life with her lady-in-waiting Natasha Trace. She knew exactly what she wanted during her wedding day. She knew what dress she wanted to wear, which colors and flowers would decorate the church, the ballroom, even the town. She knew what music should be played and what food should be served to not only other royals but the whole village. She knew what she wanted, and this was not it.

King Jacob “Hangman” Seresin of Misthaven wasn't exactly her dream partner. She wanted to get married to a partner she met herself. Someone she got the chance to meet on her own, spend time with and actually fall in love with, naturally. Not in this arranged marriage circus. She knew her father meant the best when he passed away. She knew protection was needed for their kingdom, but why? Why did her father chose King Jake, the most ruthless king to ever exist. People described him as the baddest of the bad kings. And she went through all this at the age of 19.

Y/n stood in front of King Jake. On her left side stood the priest, slowly reading from the Bible. Y/n’s hands were laying softly in Jakes hands. Her eyes drew towards Jakes face. She decided to take in his appearance while he was watching the priest talk. He didn’t seem happy to be there either. The young king shifts his gaze back to his future wife. Y/n’s eyes left his face and met his chest. He was wearing his royal suit, the Misthavens coat of arms visible on his right peck.

Her eyes traveled to her shoes and her long wedding dress. The wedding dress was beautiful, a gift from her future kingdom. But the dress was not her style, she felt like she was wearing someone else's style. This wasn’t the wedding dress she dreamed of when she was knee-high. Her eyes wondered to a decoration piece in the church. The colors were dull, or at least duller than she hoped the decorations would look like on this day.

Her eyes caught a moving foot next to the decoration she was looking at. The foot belonged to Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, the Royal Huntsman of the kingdom. He was the third and last man standing next to the king. Y/n had never talked to Bradley before. Come to think of it, she never talked to any of the Kings acquaintances, apart from Javy “Coyote” Machado, the kings champion. He was the one welcoming her into the kingdom.

Next to Bradley stood Robert “Bob” Floyd, the Royal Advisor. Looking over the four men, Y/N already liked Bob the most. He looked the nicest. He even looked like he didn’t belong there, like he belonged to a whole different kingdom, not Misthaven. Y/n’s eyes met Bobs. He could see the fear in her eyes and gave the princess an assuring smile. For whatever reason that made Y/n less nervous.

Het eyes moved over to Javy, he was looking at the priest as well. The words of the priest faded in her ears but her eyes caught the movement of Javies arms, moving to hold the pillow with both rings in front of her and Jake. It was time, time to give each other the rings.

While she was repeating the words of the priest and looking into Jakes green eyes, she felt her veil move. Natasha must of fixed her veil to make it presentable. Y/n cried tears of joy when she found out not only Natasha but also Mickey and Rueben could come with her to Misthaven and leave Eldoria. It gave her a little hope that she won’t feel alone in a new place like this.

Mickey “Fanboy” García was standing next to Natasha, following by Rueben “Payback” Fitch. The sight was odd, seeing two men stand in a place where bridesmaids should stand. But the whole place looked odd. At the doors of the church stood Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, together with three other guards. Their swords reflected in the light, ready to attack when needed.

Looking over the crowd in the church, wasn’t pleasing either. The crowd wore dull colors as well and their faces represented more like they were attending a funeral instead of a wedding. Y/n felt a pinch in her hand, her eyes met Jakes again and the words of the priest came back in her ears: “You may kiss the bride”.

————————————————————

Y/n was seated next to Jake in the carriage. Her hands layed nervously in her lap. She looked outside. The streets were filled with families, throwing rice at the newly-wedded couple. Around the carriage was Bradley and Pete with 4 other knights. The only sound Y/n could hear was the rice hitting the roof and sides of the carriage. There was no music, barely any laughter. The supposedly most joyful day of the woman’s life, wasn’t the most joyful day of her life.

A throat cleared next to her. She shifts her focus to her newly-minted husband. “Maids will show you your new room when we will arrive at the castle. You can ask them anything and they will bring it to or do it for you. There will be a celebrating dinner at 7:30 pm for your companions and mine” king Jake spoke with his deep voice. He wasn’t looking at her, but staring outside. “I will be away with Rooster until then, you can explore the castle, but I expect you to be ready when time will come.”

Y/n swallows, then asks in a small voice, “What about the villagers? When will the feast start for them?” Jake let out a chuckle, he turned his head towards her. “If the villagers want a feast to celebrate, they should organize one themself. I have more important tasks to accomplish then organize a feast on the costs of the castle.”

Y/n frowned, the kingdom of Misthaven didn’t get to celebrate their new queen? In her homeland, any big or small event was cause for a town-wide celebration. Holidays, weddings, arrivals of newborns, the castle and village wouldn't miss a moment to enjoy life. Whenever a new king or queen joined the royal line, they would organize a marvelous feast for the villagers, with live music, a huge buffet and dancing until the sun rises the next day. This wasn’t the wedding Y/n wanted, nor the life she'd imagined.

Taglist: @mirrorball-6 @corriegrace06 @dempy @the-romanian-is-bae (let me know if you want to be tagged)

[ani-antiquities]

The Melancholic Woman: Eva Hesse, Ennead (1965), and Trauma, De-strung

(source: ICA Boston)

I will open this essay with a line from art historian, Anne M. Wagner’s essay, Another Hesse, on her journal October, vol. 69 – wherein she writes of our subject, American sculptor Eva Hesse:

Hesse’s self-scrutiny, we learn once again, is a means of coping with “environment” – with the inheritance of the past. But it is also the measure – even the proud badge – of her “difference”, the difference, we remember, of being an artist. (p. 131)

Anne M. Wagner’s essay on Eva Hesse will be one of the main sources of this paper.

Here, we will be able to trace Eva Hesse’s art and its asymbolia to the artist’s melancholia and her journey of sublimation and working through. We will also thereby arrive at more questions to ponder Hesse’s life, and inquire about the connections among art, melancholia, and the semiotic – and possibly ponder a perspective that ties the end-goal of these Kristevan concepts together.

(Before I go on, I just wanna say that this essay may draw on similarities EVA HESSE: POST-MINIMALISM INTO SUBLIME, by Robert Pincus-Witten. I wrote this specific essay more than a year ago for my Cultural, Literary, and Critical Theory class, and I only found this essay just today, as I am writing and doing more research for this piece. LOL. However, I would like to justify that the content of my essay is to draw connections between Hesse’s art and Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory. I did enjoy Witten’s essay, though!)

(Source: pbs.org)

Eva Hesse

At the height of Nazi Germany, Hesse’s family fled to America for protection from religious persecution, but it was not long until sanctuary proved to be fickle as well, in the land of the free. Due to trauma implicated by the Second World War that vehemently caused the deaths of Hesse’s extended family, the serious circumstances of (Eva Hesse’s mother) Ruth Marcus House’s bipolar disorder worsened. These events dominoed to Wilhelm Hesse’s divorce from Ruth Marcus, and Ruth’s suicide. Adding salt to the wound, Wilhelm would marry a woman named Eva. Upon the new marriage, the young girl and her step-mother would share the same name.

Identity crisis aggravated young Eva’s trauma – from the persecution of family whose faces she had never known, to losing her to suicidal mother at ten. It seemed like grief was her very being.

Graduating from Yale, she exhibited works whose style displayed that of Abstract Expressionism and paved the way for Minimalism.

Art historians speculate how these traumas were sublimated into her art. Her self-portraits showcase distorted images of faces and figures. They are almost like a child’s attempt at creating a figure painting, except that their tone is so somber that only an adult can express such a feeling.

(Untitled, 1965, oil on canvas: From: mutualart.com)

However, the most intriguing work of Hesse does not come from two-dimensions – but three. This includes Hesse’s sculpture, Ennead (1965).

(Ennead, 1965, oil on canvas. From: icaboston.org)

Eva Hesse’s Ennead (1965)

All that there is to the piece: acrylic, paper mache, some resin-coated strings, plywood, some plastic, and a title possibly referencing the Egyptian pantheon.

The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, describes the artwork as such:

The orderly, formulaic application of the threads devolves into an increasingly chaotic composition as they accumulate and tangle toward the floor. A few strands are affixed to the adjacent wall, cordoning off a wedge of space that becomes part of the sculpture itself. This gesture also draws the viewer’s attention to the corner of the gallery, activating this normally overlooked area. Additional material hangs to touch the floor, thus uniting three planes. “Ennead” means a group of nine, in this case referring to the nine points from which the strings extend.

How can we interpret art whose surface presence is devoid of any points from its meaning? Baroque art can be so interpreted by its gargantuan number of details that fit on a four-cornered canvas. Poetry can be dissected among its metaphors, language, and enjambments. How can we possibly describe a sculpture so bare of material and overly abstract in its form? Was it meant to be this way – stripped down and bare?

Asymbolia and Melancholia

Many of Hesse’s works portray a distinct use of asymbolia, and the stimulation of asymbolia to its audience.

It is impossible to speak of Ennead without speaking about Hesse – primarily because Hesse and her art are one. Hesse even says: “My life and art have not been separated. They have been together.”

Ennead is no exception – however, with absolutely little to no “initial and final'' interpretation of meaning when you see the sculpture. What can we then say about Eva Hesse through the piece? Even art historians themselves, up to this day, consider Ennead to be an enigma on its own – its minimalism minimizes itself, to the point of devoiding any meaning, making us doubt if there is any at all.

First, we must discuss the asymbolia in Ennead – the art itself. Though by instinct and intuition, the substance of Ennead is uninhabited on its own, I would like to shed a few pointers on the piece and its asymbolia through its deliberate absurdity.

The strings were meant to be orderly at first, until its tail-end, wherein Hesse describes them as a jungle. Hesse even took in the effort to dye the strings to possibly add more aesthetic depth to them. Hesse describes the process of this piece in one of her journals.

The further it went toward the ground, the more chaotic it got; the further you got from the structure, the more it varied. I've always opposed content to form or just form to form. (Quoted in L. R. Lippard, op. cit., p. 62)

However, even when Hesse describes her decision to irrationalize the hinds of the strings, the art still talks gravel to the path towards the most inane question: What does it mean?

So, we shall secondly address the audience’s confusion, that stems from the asymbolia of the audience themselves – the very inability to attach any familiarity or meaning to the symbols the art presents, because of the very fact that it lacks anything.

The only thing that makes sense of Hesse’s art is nonsense – the asymbolia found in Hesse’s art, that stems from dissecting, stripping down, and representing her trauma. Hesse states in one of her interviews: “There is no abstract art. You must always start with something… A painter paints to unload himself of feelings and vision.”

Must her own “something” be from her depression – from the trauma of losing her mother, identity, and other factors throughout?

We take the theory behind this inquiry from Julia Kristeva’s illustration of asymbolia and melancholia in her book, Black Sun – “The negation of that fundamental loss opens up the realm of signs for us, but the mourning is often incomplete. Melancholia then ends up in asymbolia, in loss of meaning…” (p.42).

Hence, to study the bare Ennead is to study Hesse’s bare melancholia.

We may never have the opportunity to bear witness to Hesse’s trauma, as only she and herself can live it, so we turn to her journals,

Throughout her life, Hesse seems to be on good terms with working through with her depression, as she sublimates it with her art – if it means going against the conventions imposed on her by four-cornered dimensions of papers and canvases, and the one-platform norm of past sculptures (Ennead takes up two adjacent walls, and thereby two dimensions).

Asymbolia and the neglect of the pre-conceived semiotic can be seen in her journals – which instead of letters and intelligible words, consist of drawings that penetrate any dividers and lines.

Kristeva furthermore explains this psychoanalytic mechanism as she illustrates the control of the preverbal in aesthetic creation: “When the struggle between imaginary creation (art, literature) and depression is carried out precisely on that frontier of the symbolic and the biological we see indeed that the narrative or the argument is ruled by primary processes” (p.65) – explaining the subnormality of Hesse’s art and entries, and how the manifestations of obscurity stem from the mere struggle of Hesse’s melancholia.

(Figure 3: Hesse’s journal. From: sugarcandymtn.com)

Other than these, her excerpts write of her own feelings of depression and anxiety: “I must write, my sanity is involved. I cry and cry, the pages are wet. I have no one, to go to and the edge of hysteria and insanity is not far apart” (October 19, 1964).

Anne M. Wagner writes: “Anyone who wants to make a serious contribution to remembering Hesse will likewise have to speak about a wound. For what is striking about Hesse’s art is its utter inwardness, with artistic languages of the day: her imagery and effects are not learned by rote, only to be parroted back more or less unchanged” (p. 159)

With this: Must her melancholia still be the root of her asymbolic art? Or was this art a testament to her ability to self-scrutinize all along? Furthermore, will there be anything to self-scrutinize when there is no trauma?

Conclusion: The Futile Point of Interpretation

Hesse intended her work to be autobiographical, but never understood – and thus reflecting the paradox of identity: to know, but never understand. Even her journals were not meant for the purpose of understanding: “Hesse’s journals and their users have meant that it is no longer possible for viewers “not to know the artist” – or at least, not to feel they know her, and to prepare themselves accordingly when looking at her art.”

Yet, even when we have read Hesse’s journals, watched documentaries, and studied countless journals from art historians – the impossibility to fully understand still looms over her audience. So then we ask the question: What should we feel to know of Hesse? The illness caused by both personal and socio-economic circumstances of her time? Must her works be cursed with the fallacy of perpetually being tied to her trauma.

On Dostoevsky, Kristeva writes: “Works of art thus lead us to establish relations with ourselves and others that are less destructive, more soothing.” Hesse’s artifacts are therefore not records of her mania, but documentations of her survival from it. Her illness, therefore, is not what should be reflected of her life – but her sisyphean triumph over it.

Maybe it is for the better – as the point of art itself is to sublimate the traumatic aggression of the artist, and (like a monster) to never let it out of the cage of the canvas. Kristeva can even attest to this, saying: “Art seems to point to a few devices that bypass complacency and, without simply turning mourning into mania, secure for the artist the connoisseur a sublimatory hold over the lost Thing” (p. 97)

Hesse did this concealment well, so much so that it is said the artist herself might not have realized this. As Wagner would write: “If Hesse’s life did enter her art, it did so by a process that Hesse herself was in a position to describe. We would be looking for ways (Hesse’s unconscious) repeatedly configured. I think such imagery exists in Hesse’s art, and I take it to concern the artist’s feelings toward her mother above all” (p. 165) So much so, that even daring to question the trauma behind Hesse’s art, we do not only turn a blind eye to the artist herself, but arrive at a futile destination when we do: “Yet, in asking them [questions on Hesse’s art] we risk losing sight of the workings of Hesse’s unconscious – a notion that, after all, was the motivating impulse of this discussion. But the artist and her unconscious are not far away.” (p. 173)

Conclusion

I will close with another one of Wagner’s concluding lines:

“To claim that Hesse’s art aims to remember and express a common human quality or experience is not the same as attributing to it some universal force or purpose. It gives its own account of that experience.” (p. 186)

This aim of art is reminiscent to how beauty sublimates melancholia in the form of art, much like giving its own account of an experience. Kristeva writes:

“Beauty emerges as the admirable face of loss, transforming it in order to make it live. Melancholia to the point of becoming interested in the life of signs, beauty may also grab hold of us to bear witness for someone who grandly discovered the royal way through which humanity transcends the grief of being apart.”

(p. 100)

Hesse’s journey as an artist is proof that asymbolia – another result of melancholia – paves the way into sublimation. Art is therefore not rooted in the melancholic, its her way of forging a path deeper underneath it. Art is agency from the trial of inner-disagency. Art is therefore the artist’s most individual and subjective struggle, not of her depression, but one of working through. Precisely through this art, we unlock the beauty sculpted from the marble of melancholia. Hesse and Ennead are just among the myriad of melancholic beauty in the realm of art.

SOURCES

Kristeva Julia. Black Sun : Depression and Melancholia. Columbia University Press 1989. https://archive.org/details/blacksun00juli. Accessed 27 Feb. 2023.

Artincontext. “Eva Hesse - The Brief Life and Incredible Works of Eva Hesse the Artist.” Artincontext.org, 4 Apr. 2022, https://artincontext.org/eva-hesse/.

Branaman, Bianca. “Love - Eva Hesse.” Sugar Candy Mountain, Sugar Candy Mountain, 4 Sept. 2018, https://sugarcandymtn.com/blogs/the-brand/love-eva-hesse.

“Ennead.” EVA HESSE, https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-315751.

“Ennead.” Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, https://www.icaboston.org/art/eva-hesse/ennead.

Evemy, Benjamin Blake, et al. “Auctions, Exhibitions & Analysis for +500K Artists.” MutualArt, MutualArt, 17 Feb. 2023, https://www.mutualart.com/.

“The Sickness of Being Disallowed: Premonition and Insight in the 'Artist's Sketchbook'.” O A R, https://www.oarplatform.com/sickness-disallowed-premonition-insight-artists-sketchbook/.

[redfurrycat]

🤠🏉🥇🥊🐓Sports Fic Recs🐓🥊🥇🏉🤠

Check the Top Gun Masterlist post for the latest updated version. 💕

Ao3 Authors: Abliafina, Barnes_Brain, Discosleaze, Ginnydear, Greenstuff, Halestrom, Hangmanbradshaw, Hypnagogicpunisher, idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo, Infinitejaust, KatofKanals, Marchrain, Midnight___phoenix, Ok_thanks, Playingwiththeboysisagayanthem, Vahosi, SunMonTue, Teacupivy, Trinipedia.

Different Strokes by infinitejaust {E}

{Olympic swimming}

Jake looks over at Bradshaw, who’s got his arms crossed, biceps flexed. Outside the box, huh? Jake smiles. He has a wonderful awful idea.

and they were rivals (oh my god they were rivals) by ginnydear

{NFL}

unsportsmanlike conduct {M}

He didn’t expect there to be highlight reels of him and Jake Seresin arguing and jawing at each other after their first game against each other. His Uncle Mav’s recorded it, saying it’s the beginning of his long, successful career - to have a rival. Bradley thinks it’s a pain in the ass. or - the hangster nfl au

jersey swap {M}

“I think you’re right, and I’d dare to say that’s Bradley Bradshaw next to her. He and Robert Floyd have been friends since college, if you remember that from their draft.” The camera stays on the group for a second longer and then it switches to where Floyd is standing on the sideline, a large blue coat covering his body. He’s talking to Jake Seresin and the camera catches the moment they both look up towards the stands, Floyd waving excitedly. The screen splits in time to see Natasha waving back, as well as everyone around her. or - a hangster nfl au slice of life

skills test {E}

“I don’t have all day, Bradshaw,” Jake yells, dribbling the ball a few times. Bradley pauses and bends his knees, bouncing the ball between his hands. “Such impatience,” Bradley says, starting to move the other direction. Jake takes the ball in one hand and cocks his arm back, watching with glee as Bradley’s eyes widen a bit. “Take the shot then!” or - jake and bradley are selected to the pro bowl.

play-action fake {T}

“Come home with me.” Jake breathed against Bradley’s lips. His shallow breaths break up his words, but he gets them out all the same. Bradley chuckled and brushed his thumb across Jake’s bottom lip. “I’m always gonna come home with you.” He muttered, pulling his thumb down and leaving Jake's mouth agape. or: Jake asks Bradley to come home to Texas with him

top gun hockey au by ok_thanks

{Hockey}

invisible string {M}

Jake being traded to San Diego should definitely not cause Bradley to feel so unhinged. Not at all. He can be teammates, they've done that before, except that Jake is just as annoying and attractive to Bradley as he was when they were younger.

such great heights {E}

“Not sure if it’s clear by now, but I sort of had a huge thing for you.” No words come to mind — no, scratch that. Too many words flood Jake’s brain and sit at the tip of his tongue, but none of them seem fit for expressing the gooey feeling overtaking his heart.

Sliding Series by Barnes_Brain

{Baseball}

Parts 1-6 are the original Sliding Into Home Part 7 is an Alternate Universe Where Bradley is a reliever and Jake is his catcher

Sliding into Home {E}

{Baseball player!Bradley & Social Media/In-game host!Jake}

Bradley is the star shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals. The announcers adore him, his teammates love him, and the fans, mostly female, relish that at 29 he’s still single. Right before the start of the season he meets Jake Seresin, the new in-game host and social media admin. Jake has a smile that lights up the sun, an ass that Bradley could stare at for hours, and abs that go for days. Most important? He does not seem to give a shit about the fact that Bradley’s one of the best shortstops in the game. Jake Seresin did not expect to end up in fucking Missouri of all places, but after 4 years in the Navy to pay for a Public Relations and Communications degree? He’s gonna fucking use it. So Imagine his surprise when a moustached hunk runs into him in the tunnels of Busch Stadium. Literally. Jake won’t lie he’d climb the man in front of him like a tree, and might actually if he lets him. The only problem? He doesn’t even know what a shortstop does? When Bradley finds out Jake doesn’t know the difference between a foul post and a goal post he makes it his mission to make Jake fall in love with the sport that changed his life. He never imagined he’d get Jake falling for him instead. He wasn’t going to complain.

Caught Looking {E}

{Pitcher!Bradley & Catcher!Jake}

After spending three seasons in the Japanese Major leagues, also known as the NPB, pitcher Bradley Bradshaw has finally made it back to The Show. Signed to the Seattle Mariners, not only does he have to get reacquainted with the league, he also needs to get adjusted to their new catcher, Jake Seresin. The only problem? No one knows that they fucked through the minors together. What if the accident never happened in Sliding into Home? What if Jake actually showed up to one of Javy’s games? This is how things would change.

You gave me time to find out what my heart was lookin' for by trinipedia {E}

{Boxer-Personal Trainer!Bradley}

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw is a personal trainer, among other things. He specializes in preparing young actors for their next action role, but when he's given the task of turning dancer/actor Jake "Hangman" Seresin into a believable boxer, he has his work cut out for him.

An Inside The Park Home Run by Midnight___phoenix {T}

{Baseball}

Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw was a First round draft pick for the New York Yankees. He was highlighted while in the minors as the next best Third baseman of our generation. He likes to think the hype was true. He bats over .300 every year (well despite his rookie year where he batted .282 and ended up winning Rookie Of The Year, but he likes to think of that year as a fluke when it comes to his batting average.) and has won the Gold Glove award three times in 10 seasons in the big show. He is without a doubt one of the best current ball players. He just wishes he wouldn’t get compared to Jake “Hangman” Seresin so much.

Formula 1: Deceive to Achieve by greenstuff {E}

{F1}

When new teammates, Jake and Bradley, agree to pretend they’re in a committed relationship to land a sponsorship deal, they probably should have factored in the possibility they might fall for their own lies.

Two-Way(s) Forward by Barnes_Brain {M}

{Hockey player!Jake & Rink owner!Bradley}

Jake Seresin was the LA King’s best two-way forward, leading not only his line, but his team with the coveted C on his chest. But when an injury sends him to Bob Floyd, PT extraordinaire, in hopes of getting back on the ice, he finds a little more than a path back to his career.

Desire is the only motivation by trinipedia {M}

{Rugby}

After a life-altering accident, Bradley Bradshaw moves to Texas to change his perspective. Bradley has decided not to think about American football ever again, but the chance meeting with an arrogant Texan, Jake Seresin, might change it all, not only for him but for the aforementioned Texan, as well.

IWTBY Verse by hangmanbradshaw

{NFL QB!Jake}

I want to brainwash you into loving me forever {E}

“So…this is fucking weird and I have no clue what to say here.” Bradley smiled warmly and leaned his forearms against the table. “Don’t worry, Mav already filled me in, and I’ll do it.” Jake blinked. “You’ll do it?” “Yeah.” Bradley sat back with a nod. “You want to come out, right? If us appearing to be in a stable relationship will help, then I’m in.” Or, Jake Seresin has it all- fame, money, a NFL MVP trophy, a Super Bowl appearance, a lonely house, and a problem. He wants to come out on his own terms. Enter Bradley Bradshaw, the solution to said problem, or maybe, the beginning of a new problem. After all, you don't fall in love with your fake boyfriend.

Wanna Be Your Left Hand Man {E}

Europe calls. Jake & Bradley answer.

I find myself running home to your sweet nothings {E}

Nine months into their official relationship, Jake and Bradley navigate a new season of the NFL, life, and their relationship. Or Ice and Mav get married, the gang all celebrates, and Bradley and Jake find home in each other once again, in more ways than one.

love thorns all over this rose {_}

Bradley's friends watch him lose himself, find himself, and then find something even better. Or Bradley doesn’t really do dating, until he does. Aka Bradley pre-IWTBY, and a little during, according to Reuben, Callie, and Jonathan.

these blokes warm the benches, we been on a winning streak {E}

Bradley & Jake prepare for the next season.

this love is ours {_}

The season before their wedding throws a curveball at Jake and Bradley. But they face it as they always do- together.

Watson Wildhearts by KatofKanals {E}

{HS Football}

16 year old Bradley Bradhsaw is new to Watson, Texas in the summer of 2000 and he is downright miserable—he hates the whole town and all the people in it. That includes Jake Seresin, the star quarterback and rich boy at the top of the social pyramid. Eventually, though, Bradley starts to wonder if maybe there’s more to Watson and Jake Seresin than he saw at first glance. Maybe there’s something special there after all.

get your head in the game by abliafina {T}

{Volleyball in Corporate setting}

Hangman thought he'd thrown in the towel when it came to his volleyball days, but when Rooster, the handsome team leader from another company, invites him to join the summer tournament he knows he's done for. There were worse fates than spending the day on the beach.

Love (Suite Love) by hangmanbradshaw {T}

{NFL QB!Jake}

Jake never thought he'd leave a pop concert with a public crush. Bradley was on vocal rest. Really, he was.

sparks fly (sereshaw's version) by marchrain {T}

{College Baseball & Football}

Bradley Bradshaw, the freshman starting pitcher for Pacific Harbor University, meets Jake Seresin, the new hot-shot quarterback. He hates Jake, there's not a single thing likeable about him. He hates the way his hair is held up by gel, the look in those stupid emerald eyes of his, the fact that he's a football player of all sports—Jake's insufferable. But then, why does he enjoy their banter? Why does he like the dumb toothpick that sits between Jake's teeth? Why does his stomach flip when Jake laughs? Why do his eyes keep flicking down to Jake's lips? - or, sereshaw sports uni slice of life au

when bradley falls in love (goose & carole's version) by discosleaze {T}

{NFL QB!Jake}

Snippets of i want to brainwash you into loving me-verse, from Goose & Carole's perspectives, aka watching their son fall in love.

I talk a big game that I'm scared of losin' by hangmanbradshaw {E}

{Boxer!Bradley}

Jake's a professor ready to jump back into the dating pool, Bradley's a little rough around the edges, and Nat swears they're perfect for each other. She might be right. Or Jake dumps his loser ex and moves to California to be near Nat and Javy. Nat knows a guy, and sometimes opposites attract.

cuz you know I love the players and you love the game by hangmanbradshaw {E}

{College Baseball & Football & Cheerleading}

Jake's the star quarterback, Bradley's the star baseball captain. They both like playing games, turns out they want the same prize. Or Bradley dresses as a cheerleader for the team and Jake hates him (except that he totally doesn't)

suburban legends ✈ by vahosi

{NFL QB!Bradley}

we were born to be suburban legends {G}

unmarked numbers in my peripheral vision (july) — chapters 1-12 flush with the currency of cool (august) — chapters 13-24 where the spirit meets the bones (september) — chapters 25-36

we were born to be the pawn in every lover's game {_}

you kiss me in a way that's going to screw me up forever (october) — chapters 1-12 dare to sit and watch what we'll become (november) — chapters 13-24 my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand (december) — chapters 25-36

and they were batterymates by teacupivy {E}

{Baseball}

They’ve been teammates for just a few months now, but plenty long enough to have the whole dick-measuring-in-the-locker-room, fist-fight-on-the-field, make-up-behind-the-scenes, suddenly-best-duo-in-the-MLB speedrun.

red river rivalry by hypnagogicpunisher {M}

{College Football}

He’s heard the buzz about the new 4-star on the Texas team. It piques his interest. Oklahoma had been dominating the last few years of the rivalry, but betting odds were hot against the Sooners going into the game week, partially because of this Seresin kid. A true freshman, with his kind of stats, was a rarity. Bradley wonders just a bit what his passing stats would look like with him, who seemingly has fucking magnets for hands and the ability to stretch for a pass like he’s made of rubber. -- He can feel the frustration snaking through his body, settling with a numbness in his fingertips. At 2nd and 10, his pass is tipped and ruled incomplete. He can hear a jeer from the sideline, and he fucking knows it’s Seresin.

Team Player by SunMonTue {E}

{NRL ➡️Not an AU but fits my kinda vibes}

Jake's cousin plays for the Sydney Roosters and gifts him with merchandise. Regularly. Bradley has an unexpected realization.

he's written mine on my upper thigh only in my mind by hangmanbradshaw {E}

{College Baseball & Tennis}

Jake is absolutely not going to spend his summer vacation alone at his family's beach house with his ex boyfriend and said ex's new boyfriend. Bradley needs a place to stay for the summer. Faking a relationship solves both their problems, until it creates a new problem when they start to fall for their own ruse. Unless it ends up not being a problem at all. Or Jake's a trust fund, tennis star at Vanderbilt. Bradley's an orphaned baseball star on scholarship. Their worlds are very different, but all they need is three months in Rhode Island to build a new one together.

this is me flying, this is me trying, this is what keeps me alive (like my daddy before me and his daddy before that) by playingwiththeboysisagayanthem {E}

{Barrel Racing}

" Bradley eyed his godfather questioningly and Mav sighed again, “I either break Carole’s rules behind her back or risk never being able to see her compete,” he stroked a soft hand over the horse’s nose, “And I don’t like either option.” The silence hung in the air for a long moment before Bradley broke it, “Soooo…” Mav chuckled and then sighed again, “I guess you just got your wish, kid, 'cause it looks like I’m about to have to teach you to be a barrel racer.” " --------------- aka, what if Mav and Goose were barrel racers instead of pilots? And Bradley followed in their footsteps?

but daddy I love him by hangmanbradshaw {E}

{Boxer!Bradley}

Bradley's life is far from perfect, especially with his injury and career going up in flames. Jake Seresin's life is gilded- golden and untouchable from his castle. He's everything Bradley's not- the son of one of Manhattan's most prestigious families, and the star of the New York Ballet. He's also, unfortunately, what Bradley needs right now, his last shot at getting back in the ring. He might end up being everything Bradley didn't know he needed, in the end. And as for Jake, well, it turns out he may need more than Bradley imagined.

nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years by idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo {T}

{Olympic pole vaulting & diver}

going to the Olympics to, hopefully, win gold in pole vaulting would be a lot more fun for Bradley if Jake Seresin, diver and asshole extraordinaire, wasn't also competing and making his life miserable. or would it?

got a shot of kerosene in my veins by halestrom {E}

{Fighter!Bradley}

Fighting was the only thing Bradley could do to help his family when they found themselves in a mountain of debt, and he didn't regret it, not if it meant they would be okay. But he never expected to meet Jake Seresin, nor to get drawn deeper into a world he didn't want any part of, even though, as time wore on, he realized he wanted Jake. More than he should.

[mariacallous]

Allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán will hold a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine, the Guardian has learned.

Members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and staff from the Hungarian embassy in Washington will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank.

The first day includes panel speeches about the Ukraine war as well as topics such as Transatlantic Culture Wars. It is expected to feature guests including Magor Ernyei, the international director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights, the institute that organized CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Hungary. Kelley Currie, a former ambassador under then president Donald Trump, said she was invited “but declined”.

According to a Republican source, some of the attendees, including Republican members of Congress, have been invited to join closed-door talks the next day.

The meeting will take place against a backdrop of tense debate in Washington over Ukraine’s future. Last week the White House warned that, without congressional action, money to buy more weapons and equipment for Kyiv will run out by the end of the year. On Wednesday Senate Republicans blocked an emergency spending bill to fund the war in Ukraine.

A diplomatic source close to the Hungarian embassy said: “Orbán is confident that the Ukraine aid will not pass in Congress. That is why he is trying to block assistance from the EU as well.”

Orbán is a frequent critic of aid to help Ukraine against the Russian invasion. Seen as Vladimir Putin’s closest ally inside the EU for the past few years, he was photographed smiling and shaking hands with the Russian president two months ago in Beijing.

Orbán recently demanded that Ukraine’s European Union (EU) membership be taken off the European Council’s agenda in December. The Hungarian leader posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “It is clear that the proposal of the European Commission on Ukraine’s EU accession is unfounded and poorly prepared.”

The Heritage Foundation is leading Project 2025, a coalition preparing for the next conservative presidential administration, and has in recent months hosted speeches by leading British Conservative party members Liz Truss and Iain Duncan Smith.

The thinktank has also been a vocal opponent of US assistance to Ukraine. Last year Jessica Anderson, the executive director of its lobbying operation, released a statement under the headline: “Ukraine Aid Package Puts America Last.” In August, Victoria Coates, Heritage’s vice-president, posted on social media: “It’s time to end the blank, undated checks for Ukraine.”

When Heritage celebrated its 50th anniversary last April, Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán (no relation), was invited as a speaker for the event. Heritage’s president, Kevin Roberts, repeatedly praised the Hungarian leader on X: “One thing is clear from visiting Hungary and from being involved in current policy and cultural debates in America: the world needs a movement that fights for Truth, for tradition, for families, and for the average person.”

In recent years Orbán has championed a transatlantic far-right alliance with a hardline stance against immigration and “gender ideology”, staunch Christian nationalism and scorn for those who warn of a slide into authoritarianism.

Hungary has been portrayed by conservative media as an anti-“woke” paradise and model for the United States. Some far-right Republicans, such as Kari Lake and Paul Gosar, said they would like to see the “Hungarian model” transplanted to the US, especially when it comes to immigration and family policies. CPAC went to Hungary for the second time this year, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson shot multiple episodes in Hungary touting Orbán policies.

Orbán has returned the favour by lavishing praise on Trump. During this year’s CPAC, where Roberts was also featured as a speaker, he claimed that if Trump were president, “there would be no war in Ukraine and Europe”. The Hungarian prime minister has criticised the multiple federal indictments against the former US president and called the judicial procedure a “very communist methodology” in a recent interview with Carlson.

Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute thinktank in Washington, said: “The Hungarian embassy in DC has been very active lately, trying to repair ties with the Republicans and strengthen them where it’s appropriate.

“It is also not surprising that Heritage is the venue of these talks because they are different from other thinktanks in DC; they are more partisan, and their funding model heavily overlaps with the Trump base.”

But, Rohac said, despite his good relations with some Republicans it was “unlikely” that Orbán would have any leverage over US funding for Ukraine.

Supporters of Ukraine have also been making their case to Republicans in Congress. This week David Cameron, the British foreign secretary, held meetings on Capitol Hill. He told a press conference: “I am sure that goodwill will prevail and the money will be voted through, and it will have a huge effect not just on morale in Ukraine but also making sure that European countries keep asking themselves what more can they do.”

[postambientlux]

BEST AMBIENT OF 2024

BEST AMBIENT ALBUMS of 2024 curated by @holsgr

50 : Phexioenesystems - Tone Colour Garden Salmon Universe

49 : 0N4B - Somewhere, left behind 3XL

48 : Daigo Hanada & Yoko Komatsu - Where Clouds Are Born Moderna Records

47 : Ezra Feinberg - Soft Power Tonal Union

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45 : Hans Hjelm - Into The Night Self-release

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43 : Sachi Kobayashi - Lamentations Phantom Limb

42 : Sarah Neufeld, Richard Reed Parry & Rebecca Foon - First Sounds Envision Records / One Little Independent

41 : nonkeen - All good? LEITER

40 : PJS - Flora Dronarivm

39 : Félicia Atkinson - Space As An Instrument Shelter Press

38 : Anthéne - Cloudburst Home Normal

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36 : Princ€ss - Princ€ss wherethetimegoes

35 : G.S. Schray - Whispered Something Good Last Resort

34 : Jasmine Myra - Rising Gondwana Records

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32 : ann annie - The Wind Nettwerk Music Group Inc.

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29 : Fennesz - Mosaic P-VINE, Inc.

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13 : Sam Wilkes - iiyo iiyo iiyo Self-release

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10 : Fergus McCreadie - Stream Edition Records

9 : Fabiano do Nascimento & Sam Gendel - The Room Real World Records

8 : Robert Rich & Luca Formentini - Cloud Ornament Self-release

7 : Ludwig Wandinger - Is Peace Wild? light-years

6 : Aidan Baker & Stefan Christoff - Januar Time Released Sound

5 : Hatti Vatti - Zeit R&S Records

4 : Larum - The Music of Hildegard von Bingen | Live at Public Records Puremagnetik

3 : Florian T M Zeisig - Planet Inc STROOM.tv

2 : Alva Noto - Xerrox, Vol.5 NOTON

1 : Lorenzo Montanà - VION n5MD

• BEST EP's 10 : Logic Moon & Henrik Meierkord - Ewiger Wald Dronarivm 9 : Roman Nagel - Home Bigo & Twigetti 8 : Snorri Hallgrímsson - Longer shadows, softer stones Deutsche Grammophon GmbH 7 : Oliver Patrice Weder - Grand Piano Works - Vol. II Moderna Records 6 : Wil Bolton - Quiet Sunlight Dronarivm 5 : Thaddeus - Orbiting Dreams Shimmering Moods Records 4 : PHI-PSONICS - Morning Sun / Arrival Gondwana Records 3 : Jeroen Dirrix - Feel Moderna Records 2 : Max Ananyev - Wings & Winds Self-release 1 : Arborra - Arborra 7K!

• HONORABLE MENTIONS Nicolas Jaar - Archivos de Radio Piedras Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution Horacio Vaggione - Schall / Rechant Laura Misch - Sample The Earth Oliver Coates - Throb, shiver, arrow of time Nils Frahm - Paris Nala Sinephro - Endlessness Adaa - …img… Lau Andersson - The Weeping Siege MatC - Utoscapes Olivia Belli - Intermundia Alaskan Tapes - Something Ephemeral Mike Nigro - Leaving/Returning Michael Scott Dawson - The Tinnitus Chorus Bill Laurance & The Untold Orchestra - Bloom Bill Laurance & Michael League - Keeping Company Vegyn - The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions Shay Hazan - Wusul وصول Sam Gendel & Sam Wilkes - The Doober Blake Lee - No Sound In Space T.R. Jordan - Dwell Time II Perila - Intrinsic Rhythm Tristan Arp - a pool, a portal Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice - Phantasy & Reality Matthew Ottignon - Volant Holy Tongue & Shackleton - The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now

• BEST REISSUES Fennesz - Venice 20 Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume II [Expanded Edition]

[brooklynbutterflyarts]

King Kong Movie Poster Framed King Kong Framed Movie Poster Dry mounted on a vacum press for a perfectly flat and smooth finish. This magnificent framed poster is printed at the highest resolution and thick specially coated paper for maximum detail and color brilliance. You will be amazed at the bright brilliant colors, contrast and detail of the print. King Kong is a 1933 American pre-Code monster adventure film[4] directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. The screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose was developed from an idea conceived by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. It stars Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot and Robert Armstrong, and opened in New York City on March 2, 1933, to rave reviews. It has been ranked by Rotten Tomatoes as the fourth greatest horror film of all time[5] and the thirty-third greatest film of all time. The film portrays the story of a huge, gorilla-like creature dubbed Kong who perishes in an attempt to possess a beautiful young woman (Wray). King Kong contains stop-motion animation by Willis O'Brien and a music score by Max Steiner. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[7] A sequel quickly followed with Son of Kong (also released in 1933), with several more films made in the following decades.

[thevegandarkelf]

Finding Myself, Finding You: Part Twenty-Seven

Masterlist

AO3 link

Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist <3 (18+ only, MDNI)

Please please please proceed with caution for this one & read the TWs for this chapter below. This is your warning. Take care of yourself first 🖤

Story is 18+ for mature content/themes, minors do not interact please

TW/CWs for this story--implied/referenced past rape, canonical violence, non-canonical violence, blood, gore, referenced past suicide, swearing, surgery, excessive drinking, nightmares, panic attacks, mention of scars, vomiting, amputation, medical procedures, non-con medical procedures, referenced past medical torture, referenced past drugging, attempted sexual assault, panic attacks, mental health struggles, referenced sibling death, referenced parent death, PTSD

Each chapter will have its own TW/CWs listed

This story, Lydia Vector, her family & bestie (c) me, TheVeganDarkElf

TWD & its characters (c) AMC & Robert Kirkman, the writer of the comic series

TW/CWs for this chapter--swearing, discussion of the following topics: past rape (no details of the act are discussed or mentioned or than “waking up in the middle of it.” Discussion primarily includes what happened before and after), being tied up, being held at gunpoint, drugging, non-con medical procedure, amputation, victim blaming, attempted suicide, memory loss around a traumatic event, queasiness/nausea/vomiting, and nightmares.

Word count: 2.9k

After a very, very long time, I lifted my head from my knees. My face was stiff from being coated in dried tears, and my eyes burned. They had to be bloodshot, I was sure of it. My face felt puffy, and my hair was as disheveled as could be. I looked up at the tiny window of the infirmary. The sun had just started setting, and it was beginning to get dark now. Given that it’d been the middle of the afternoon when I locked myself in, I’d been in there for hours.

Not once had someone come knocking on the door, calling out to me asking to be let in so they could ask if I was ok. I figured either Carol or Daryl, likely Carol, was telling people to leave me alone & give me space for a while. Part of me was grateful for that, as I wanted to be left alone. But another part of me, a much smaller one, was screaming for someone to show up. Screaming for someone to come make sure I was alright & hadn’t done anything I would regret. Fuck, I begged, let someone just come check on me, please.

I didn’t believe in a god, but something answered my prayers.

I dropped my head back to my knees when I heard someone fiddling with the doorknob. Upon realizing it was locked, I expected to hear a voice call out to me, or to hear footsteps walking away, but I heard neither. Instead, I heard more fiddling with the doorknob, but this time, it sounded like someone was trying to pick the lock. And I knew only one person here who would do that.

The ‘click’ of the door unlocking echoed through the silent room. The door swung open slowly, the creaking of its hinges louder and more prolonged than normal. Daryl’s familiar, heavy footsteps made their way into the room, and I heard him close the door behind him. He stepped over slowly, careful to not approach me too quickly. He slid down the wall next to me, leaving a little space between us. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. We sat there in silence, the only sound being an occasional hitched sob from me.

“’m real sorry, Vec,” Daryl sighed, the hurt still lingering in his voice, “for what Jake said…for what happened to ya…for not trying harder to help more.”

“Nothing you could’ve done. You didn’t know. You did the right thing though, not asking too many questions,” I assured, “I should’ve known it would come out at some point or another.”

Yes, if Daryl and I’s relationship continued in the direction it seemed to be, it eventually would’ve had to come to light. I had just hoped that day was farther off in the future than right now.

"I knew that traveling alone as a woman meant I would always have a target on my back. I just thought I'd be able to fight my way out of any situation I got into,” I explained. I pulled my head up from my knees and leaned back against the wall, and I immediately felt Daryl’s eyes on me. The tears were still flowing consistently enough that I couldn’t see anything, which I was grateful for. That meant I couldn’t see whatever facial expression Daryl was giving me. Meant that I couldn’t see him looking at me.

“I’m sorry for blowing up at you like that,” I apologized, “I just…I felt like I was going to explode. No sleep, Jake’s comments, bottling everything…I was bound to pop off eventually. But you didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of it.”

“Apology accepted, of course. No hard feelin’s. It’s understandable,” he reassured. I tilted my head back and leaned it against the wall, staring up at the cement ceiling.

“It was probably around a year ago,” I began before Daryl cut me off.

“Vec, you don’t gotta talk ‘bout it if ya don’t wanna.”

“And if I do?” I snapped.

I didn’t move from looking straight up, but I could hear him shifting around. He propped his legs up, resting his arms on his knees. “Then I’m all ears.”

“I was out on the road, just like I was any other day. I was walking by these really dense woods, and this guy comes sprinting out, screaming for help. He told me his friend was injured, got bit real bad, and needed help. Like I always did in these situations, I told him I was a doctor and offered my help. The whole time he’s talking to me, though, I have this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that’s telling me to run as fast as I can in the opposite direction. I try everything I can to shake it, but it doesn’t go away. Anyway, he takes off back into the woods, way ahead of me. I try to keep up, but I eventually lose him. I never find him or his supposed friend. And then everything goes dark…”

I chewed at the inside of my bottom lip, not stopping even when I began to taste blood. “I, umm…I woke up in the middle of it. I’d been heavily drugged. I don’t know how long I was out for, or how long it’d been happening. I had my hands tied above my head.” I held my hands out and flipped them around, highlighting my scars. “That’s what these are from. They’re rope burns.”

My tears were starting to flow into my ears from having my head tilted back, but I didn’t care. Anything to drown out my thoughts, even salty water in my ears, was welcomed.

“It took a minute for me to fully come to, and when I realized what was happening, that’s when he shoved a pistol in my mouth. Told me he’d kill me if I screamed. I almost wish he’d just pulled the trigger.”

Now that I’d acknowledged what happened, that meant it was real. I couldn’t run from it anymore. It felt like it was written all over my skin, and now everywhere I went, people would know. Everyone would know. Humiliated was the only word that summed up how I was feeling, but that didn’t even feel like it did it justice.

“He kept calling me ‘doll.’ Like I was just some thing.” I heaved when I said ‘doll.’ Even the thought of the word made me queasy. “I don’t remember how I got out. All I remember is my wrists were bloody from all the writhing against the rope, and at some point, he ended up unconscious on the floor. I don’t think his friend existed. It was just a ploy to lure me somewhere alone where he could knock me out. I don’t know if he’d been following me, or if I was just the first person he’d come across, wrong-place-wrong-time kinda thing. I guess it doesn’t matter how he picked me. All that matters is that it happened.”

“Ya said there were things I didn’t know ‘bout ya that might change my view of ya,” Daryl recollected, “ya really think somethin’ like that would change how I see ya?” I shrugged my shoulders in response. “Ya wanna know what I see? I see someone real good who had somethin' real terrible happen to 'er. Somethin’ that never should’ve happened. She’s still my favorite person though.” That pulled a little smile from me. An almost unnoticeable one, but a smile nonetheless.

“I haven’t even told you what I did to him afterward,” I said, “that’s what I’m more concerned about changing your perspective.”

“Ya said ya didn’t kill him.”

“I didn’t. Well, not right away.” I took a few deep, shaky breaths. “After he was unconscious and I’d found my clothes, I found his set up. He’d been camped out there for a long time. He’d gathered medical supplies, food, clothes, the works. And that’s when I came up with an idea to exact my revenge. After I disinfected and bandaged my wrists, I drugged him up, prepped him for surgery, and I…I cut his arms off at the elbows…and reattached them on opposite sides. Then I did the same with his legs…cut ‘em off at the knees and reattached them backward. I don’t think his limbs would fully reattach like that, it shouldn’t be possible. He eventually would’ve died, whether that be from being found by walkers, dehydration, starvation, or infection. So yeah, I guess I did kill him.”

The silence that followed was brief but deafening, and I thought I would suffocate on it.

“Can I ask why ya didn’t kill ‘em right away?” Daryl inquired.

“Killing him felt too easy. It felt like he was getting away with it. I wanted him to feel even a fraction of the fear that I did.” The rest of my words came out in broken sobs. “I wanted him to feel the fear of waking up and realizing he had been violated. I wanted him to feel alien in his own body. Like I did. Like I still do.”

I curled back up into a tiny ball and continued crying. I was a little impressed that the tears just kept coming. I thought I would’ve run out at that point. I heard Daryl scoot a little closer until we were right up next to each other. He placed a hand on my back, rubbing gently up and down and drawing circles with his fingers. He probably didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t blame him.

I kept my face buried in my knees as I continued my story. “I’ve spent the last year wanting to crawl out of my own skin and light myself on fire. I tried drinking gasoline once, but the smell was so putrid that I just immediately threw it back up. I thought about putting a bullet in my head, throwing myself into a hoard of walkers, trying to find some random group to rob and hope they’d just kill me in the process. I even thought about going back and begging him to kill me. The only thing that kept me going was the possibility of seeing Jay and my dad again."

My body felt limp. I don’t know how I was able to keep myself sitting up. My head was pounding, and I was starting to feel lightheaded. “I feel so fucking stupid. I had that awful feeling in my gut telling me to run, and I ignored it, and look what happened. I’m such an idiot. I don’t know how I could’ve been so stupid.”

“Don’t say that,” he insisted, “it wasn’t your fault.”

Those four sweet little words. That’s all it took to send me careening into a fit of heaving sobs. Four little words that I’d been dying to hear from anyone else. Because I certainly didn’t believe it.

“Hey, you’re ok,” Daryl reassured, “just breathe. You’re ok.”

I was shaking with every inhale and exhale. I felt pathetic, humiliated, embarrassed, and even those words didn’t feel like they scratched the surface. I wanted to shrink down so small that I disappeared. I wanted to melt into a puddle and evaporate into thin air. To vaporize before his very eyes. For the ground to open underneath me and swallow me whole. Anything that would’ve kept me from having to sit in these feelings.

“God, this is so fucking humiliating,” I whispered as I tangled my hands in my hair.

“Nothin’ ya gotta be embarrassed about. Not in front of me,” Daryl replied.

“This is why I can’t sleep,” I heaved, “I relive the same snippet from that day every single night, over and over and over again. It starts off fuzzy, like when I was waking up from being drugged, then it all comes into focus. I can see the bright lights, the wooden walls. I taste the gunpowder from the pistol. I feel his weight on top of me, the cold floor underneath me, the rope around my wrists…everything. When I realize what’s happening, the gun gets shoved in my mouth, and I scream. And that’s when I wake up. I can’t even shower without having a panic attack just from having to look at myself. And I have to look at these fucking scars every time I do anything with my hands. I can’t avoid it, can’t hide from them. I have to stare at them every single day.” The last three words came out as a scream.

The pain in my chest is what I imagined a heart attack felt like. My eyes burned so bad, I couldn’t keep them open. My tears were flowing into my mouth, mixing with the blood from biting at my lip and creating an awful salty-penny taste. I wiped my nose on my sleeve and rolled them up.

“So how do you see me now?” I asked. My throat was scratchy from all the sobbing. “Disgusting? Psychotic? Gross? Crazy? Say whatever you want. Just rip the band-aid off, make it quick.”

There was silence for what felt like an eternity. He eventually stopped rubbing my back and pushed on it lightly, signaling for me to scoot forward. I uncurled from my little ball just enough to move myself away from the wall. He maneuvered in behind me, leaning back against the wall and resting his legs on either side of me. He took my hair in a ponytail and laid it over my shoulder. He continued rubbing my back up and down, this time with both hands, as I stayed curled up in a ball.

“I see…a girl with a lotta love in her heart. She’s kind, understandin’, loyal to the people she cares about. She seems to think I’m pretty great. Maybe that makes her a lil’ crazy.” Daryl leaned forward, his chest flesh against my back, and planted a kiss on the back of my head, continuing to rub my back as he talked. “I see an incredible woman who’s been to hell & back and is still stronger than most guys I know. I see someone I care a lot about in a lot of pain. And I wish I could make it go away.”

Once again, for a man who claims to not be good with words, he sure was good with them when he wanted to be.

“You don’t think I’m insane for what I did to him? Disgusting for what happened?”

“Hell nah,” Daryl comforted, “what he did to ya wasn’t your fault. And what ya did to him…bastard had it comin’. Messed with a surgeon and got to deal with the consequences.”

The relief that flooded my system nearly gave me whiplash. Did I actually believe that Daryl finding out about my past would make him see me differently? I don’t know. But it was a concern nonetheless, and I’d never been more thankful to be wrong.

“Can I ask another question?” Daryl checked, and I nodded, “that why ya go by Vector?”

I hesitated at first, debating on how many of the details I wanted to share. But we’d come this far. Might as well go all the way, right?

“Yeah. Yeah, it is. I, uh, started going by Vector after everything happened. Thought that might help me put it all behind me. I could move on, pretend like it never happened. Vector could go on like normal because it didn’t happen to Vector, it happened to…” My tongue tingled. My voice dropped to a near whisper, like I was afraid everyone outside would be able to hear me if I was too loud, “…to Lydia.”

I almost winced at the sound of it. I hadn’t said my own name in so long that it sounded foreign to me. It tasted awful. It tasted like poison, shame, regret, guilt, pain. And death. Because it was. Lydia had to die for Vector to survive.

“There you go,” I said, letting out a shaky and exasperated sigh, “my name is Lydia.”

“If it’s any comfort, it’s pretty,” he said in response.

“Thanks.” Regardless of what my name was, I was sure he would’ve said the same thing, just because it was mine. I tilted my head and peered out the tiny window on the far wall. “Guess that's why I like daisies and sunrises,” I chuckled softly, “they both represent fresh starts. Vector gave me a fresh start. Allowed me to survive, to make it here…to meet you.”

Daryl snaked his arms around my waist and pulled me snug against his body, giving me a tight but tender hug. “Glad ya made it here.” Being encased in his warmth, in such comfort and adoration and safety, sent me into another fit of sobs.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed under my breath.

“Whadaya apologizin’ to me for?” he asked.

“You’ve just been sitting here, listening to me cry, scream, heave like I’m gonna throw up…” I buried my face in my hands.

“Ain’t nothin’ ya gotta be sorry for,” he assured.

“I don’t know how I’m gonna be able to sleep again, Daryl. I see his face every time I close my eyes. Every single night, it’s like I’m right back in that barn,” I cried into my hands. The aching that radiated from my chest had only gotten worse with each heaving sob. I was sure my ribs would start cracking.

"You're not there. You're here. You're safe. In Alexandria. With me." His voice was both gravel and silk, tickling my ear as he rested his head on my shoulder. “You’re ok, sunshine. I got ya.”

Taglist: @raddydaddydude @lovenormandixon @angeldemoncrowley

[psalm22-6]

Comoedia, 5 February 1934 (note the picture of Harry Baur by the masthead!) So I learned that the 1934 Les Mis film premiered two nights before a far-right anti-government riot! And you can feel that there was a crisis about to happen in this account of the movie's premiere:

A rough start to the night: there’s the taxi driver’s strike and there’s the parliamentary crisis. The latest information passed from mouth to mouth and most journalists arrived late, bearing the most recent news. “So Emile Fabre is jumping ship?” [Fabre was the director of the Comédie-Française and was apparently being pressured to leave.] “It’s a scandal!” “It’s disgraceful!” “What folly!” “And who is replacing him?” “George Thomé.” [Thomé was a musician as well as the former director the Sûreté.] “Seriously?! They’re going to be cuffing the Comedie-Francaise.” Emile Fabre makes his entrance, followed by his charming daughter. He is just as soon surrounded and interrogated. “I don’t understand! I don’t understand!” “No one understands.” “There is too much to understand.” Our editor-in-chief, who has not always been fond of Emile Fabre, is spotted by his side; he shakes his hand cordially and I note that Pierre Lazareff [editor-in-chief of Paris-Soir] notes this effusive sympathy. A political star enters!...M. [François] Piétri [briefly the Minister of Finance]…thoughtfully and hurriedly, he passes by on swift feet which recently exercised a wise retreat that was, if I dare say, a step ahead of wisdom. He joins Mme. Piétri….It’s impossible to get him to open up!... Caught up in the commotion of the crowd, I hear this brief dialog between a political columnist and a deputy: “And how are your ‘misérables’ doing?” “They are waiting for their Monseigneur Myriel!” The huge Marignan theater is too cramped for this crowd of guests. Luckily Jean-José Frappa and his second in command, Mme. Audibert, thought of everything, took care of everything… And everyone is able to get to the coat check and find his place easily. Because the taxi strike and political events delayed hundreds of people, who then arrived all at once and with haste, this was not an easy task. Who was there? Tout-Paris...I randomly noted with my pencil: Messueirs Paul Abram, Achard, De Adler, Berneuil, Archimbaud, André Aron, Arnaud, Louis Aubert, Aubin, Kujay, Kertée, Azaïs, Bacré, Barthe, Baschet, Baudelocque, Harry-Baur, Bavelier, Robert de Beauplan, Antonin Bédier, Pierre Benoit, Mme Spinelly, Charles Delac and Marcel Vandal, Léon Benoit-Deutsch, André Lang, René Lehmann, Bellanger, Mag Bernard, Tristan Bernard, Jean-Jacques Bernard, Louis Bernard, Dr. Etiënne Bernard (all the Bernards!)...Bernheim, Bernier, Guilaume Besnard, Bétove, Bizet, Blumsteien, Mme Rocher, Boesflug, Pierre de la Boissière, Bollaert, Bouan, Boucher, Robert Bos, Pierre Bost, Paul Brach, Henry Roussell, Charles Burguet, Pierre Brisson, Simone Cerdan, Henry Clerc, Albert Clemenceau, Pière Colombier, Germaine Dulac,Henri Diamant-Berger, Julien Duvivier,Jean Epstein, Fernand Gregh, Mary Glory, René Heribel, Tania Fédor, Alice Field, Jacqueline Francell, Mary Marquet, Florelle, Marguerite Moreno, Françoise Rosay, Becq de Fouquière, Jean Servais, Vidalin, Maria Vaisamaki, Orane Demazis, Rachel Deviry, Rosine Deréan, Jacques Deval, Christiane Delyne, Renée Devillers, Jean Chataigner, Germaine Dermoz, Léon Voltera, Robert Trébor, our director, Jean Laffray, Lucie Derain, Paul Gordeaux, Jean Narguet, Parlay, Suzet Maïs, Antoine Rasimi, Renée de Saint-Cyr, Jean Toulout, Mady Berry, Yolande Laffont, Jean Max, Parysis, Charles Gallo, Léo Poldès, Jean Fayard, Edmonde Guy, Mario Roustan, Paul Strauss, Cavillon, Emile Vuillermoz, Josselyne Gaël, Charles Vanel, S. E. Si Kaddour ben Gabhrit, the duke and duchess of Mortemart, Madame Henry Paté, Marcel Prévost, Louise Weiss, Alfred Savoir, Henri Duvernois, Paul Gémon, magistrate Maurice Garçon, magistrate Campinchi, Sylvette Fillâcier, Jean Heuzé, Pierre, Heuzé, Mona Goya, Simon-Cerf, W.E. Hœndeler, Georges Midlarsky, Michel, Nadine Picard….and others I must be forgetting…pardon me!....Silence!....

In the glow of the half-light from the screen….there are applause! Not since les Croix de bois has a movie been so highly anticipated and now it is time for the verdict….Raymond Bernard can be sure that the audience is rooting for him. Our eyes are full with light and pretty colors. This Paris night is practically magical…and departing from that magic, we are plunged into the great river of les Misérables, into the furious waters of this social storm. Luckily André Lang and Raymond Bernard have made the trip for us. What contrast!  From the spectacle of an elegant and distinguished gathering, we move to the misfortunes of Jean Valjean.

The audience picks up on everything that could be an allusion to the present times. But of all these allusions, one stands out. It’s the lament of two gossips, at the moment when the barricades are rising. “What sad times!” “We’ve barely made it through the cholera…and here is the Republic!” Thunderous applause and mad laughter. When, on the barricades, the Republic calls on us to act, the spectators think of other promised actions which haven’t happened and they forget to applaud. But the whole audience is prodigiously virtuous; whenever a good deed is shown on the screen, when some sentence about the heart graces the white canvas, it is punctuated by applause. After the first film, stop!... Time to eat! There’s a mad dash to the punchbowl. In the haste of this day of crisis and running late, many in the audience did not have time for dinner….the buffet, in the blink of an eye, is emptied and the dry drinks make vindictive and impassioned discussions flow. High and low, here and there, everyone was speaking of the Parliment's chances and the intermission bell sounds in an atmosphere charged with electricity. The two other parts of the film, cut by another intermission, each end with a double ovation for Harry Baur, both in the lobby and in the theater. The little Gaby Triquet is passed from person to person towards a chocolate eclair, which she leaves a trace of on the cheeks of Harry Baur. And then as usual everyone rushes to the coat check.  Then we go to the fifth floor of the Marignan building. There, in an unoccupied apartment, dinner waits for us. There are more than a thousand of us around little eight-person tables. Ten thousand meters of film, that will make you hungry! Three orchestras pour out waltzes, tangos, and other tunes, while the masters of the hotel fill up our cups. And that continued to six thirty in the morning, in an atmosphere of charming cordiality as each person attested to the pleasure of seeing French cinema accomplish such a feat. Bernard Natan and Raymond Bernard were too surrounded for me to speak to them. Besides, what could I say to them that they haven’t already heard ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times that evening, which was the apotheosis of cinema and of Les Misérables. -Jean-Pierre Liausu

[coochiequeens]

Men shouldn’t be  obstetrician-gynecologists. Example one of many

Disgraced ob-gyn Robert Hadden was convicted Tuesday of preying on and luring vulnerable patients to sexually abuse while he worked at prestigious Manhattan hospitals for nearly two decades.

Hadden, 64, who spent his career at well-regarded hospitalsassociated with Columbia University and New York-Presbyterian, was convicted on all four counts of enticing women to travel across state lines so he could abuse them. 

He will face a maximum of 80 years in prison when he is sentenced on April 25 by Judge Richard Berman.

Over the course of the three-week trial in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors called an array of witnesses who testified in detail how Hadden carried out his abuse. 

In her closing statement Monday, Assistant US Attorney Jane Kim told jurors the evidence and testimony presented at the trial was “devastating” and “damning” to the disgraced doctor, describing Hadden as a calculated predator who abused women for his entire career. 

“He donned his white coat and took the oath all doctors do to ‘do no harm’ and then he did the exact opposite,” Kim told the jury. 

“Robert Hadden is a sexual predator,” she said. 

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