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if-you-fan-a-fire · 2 years ago

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“ARRESTATION, AU MARCHE BONSECOURS, DE LA “TERREUR DE VALLEYFIELD”,” Le Petit Journal (Montreal). November 13, 1932. Page 1 & 22. ---- L'arrestation du “Roi des voleurs de poules”, — Larcins de peu de valeur, mais bandit dangereux. — Il à empoisonné plus de 50 chiens. — Ce voleur variait ses moyens de transport et les lieux de ses exploits. — Le vol final, la poursuite dans la nuit et la tentative de meurtre. — Dix ans de bagne. ---- Où habitait cet étrange pilleur de basses-cours? ---- Le citadin reçoit d'ordinaire avec un tantinet d'humour, le récit des exploits d'un voleur de poules. Le peu de valeur marchande du larcin, le peu de risques encourus par le détrousseur de basse-cours, tout contribue à le lui montrer comme un être chétif, gagne-menu et peu dangereux.

Cependant, l'arrestation du “roi” de cette catégorie de criminels et la découverte de procédés feront revenir ce bon public de ses illusions. Il verra dans la suite, l'existence mouvementée de ce triste individu capable de tout oser, empoisonnant les chiens, endommageant par ses trucs, tout le réseau téléphonique d'un village, assommant les cultivateurs et fuyant les poursuites de La police, de toute la vitesse de son automobile. Tout ça pour un razzia dans des poulaillers. ---- La police provinciale détient aujourd'hui et vient de faire condamner à dix ans de prison, Onésime Sauvé, pour vol et tentative de meurtre. En effet, tel était le désir de ce bandit de mener à bien ses entreprises malhonnêtes, qu'il ne recula pas à tirer avec un fusil sur un voisin qui voulait lui reprendre son bien. ,

L'arrestation du dangereux individu fut faite en plein marché Bonsecours, par le sergent-détective René Lasnier, assisté du détective Lucien Berthiaume, et sur les instructions du chef Jargaille. Ces agents de la police provinciale maîtrisèrent leur homme avant que celui-ci ait pu mettre en action les redoutables moyens de défense qui Jui donnaient sa force herculéenne.

LE FIER-A-BRAS DE VALLEYFIELD Depuis huit ans, Sauvé était la terreur du comté judiciaire de Valleyfield. Colosse puissant, grand de 6 pieds 3 pouces, et pesant 215 livres, il régnait par sa force sur tous les villageois. Ses déprédations sont innombrables. On parvint quel- quefois à le coffrer mais avec combien de difficultés. Il n'en tient qu'à l'habileté et le courage du sergent-détective Lasnier, si on a pu enfin, le mettre sous verrous. Toujours vêtu d'une culotte “kaki”, d'un “Mackenna” et chaussé de souliers ferrés, il baladait sa barbe rousse et touffue à la face des villageois. Ceux-ci sentaient monter en eux des colères sourdes, reconnaissant en Sauvé, le massacreur de leurs poules, mais ils se contenaient: on se rappelait en effet qu'au mois de juillet 1924, l'homme avait été condamné à trois mois de détention pour assaut.

LES CHIENS EMPOISONNES Comment il procédait, c'est ce qu'il a révélé à la police provinciale. Il repérait d'abord une basse-cour bien peuplée. A la nuit tombante, il s’approchait de la maison choisie, et j’etait aux chiens des morceaux de viande. Ceux-ci. mis en appétit, mangeaient. Quelques instants après, ils mouraient sans un hurlement: la viande était empoisonnée à la strychnine.

Dans un seul district près de Valleyfield, on compte plus de 50 chiens empoisonnés par Onésime Sauvé. D’ailleurs, personne n'a jamais pu découvrir où il prenait cette strychnine.

TELEPHONES MUETS Prudent, malgré cette précaution, Sauvé, afin de ne courir aucun danger, interrompait le service téléphonique, rattachant la demeure de sa victime aux postes de police. Pour obtenir ce résultat, il procédait d'une façon très ingénieuse. Une corde appesantie par une pièce était lancée par-dessus les fils. Aussitôt que ceux-ci étaient encerclés, Sauvé les rapprochaient l'un contre l'autre. Personne dans le village ne pouvait plus se servir des appareils. L'AUTOMOBILE-FANTOME Sauvé choisissait surtout les “soirs de veillée” pour commettre ses crimes. Bien des fois, des propriétaires avaient essayé de l'empêcher de fuir, Un solide direct à la mâchoire les étourdissait. Avant qu'ils eussent pu se remettre sur pied, on entendait le ronronnement d'une automobile qu'on ne voyait point dans l'ombre et le voleur était disparu. On avait surnommé son “Ford”, dans les environs, l’automobile-fantôme. C'était un “touring” dont le siège d'arrière avait été enlevé, pour permettre d'y introduire une cage.

Du reste, le coquin variait ses procédés autant que les lieux de ses exploits. Parfois, le fameux Ford était remplacé par un vieux camion, ou mêine par un cheval et une antique voiture,

Il accomplissait ses déprédations sur une distance de plus de 60 milles. Une nuit, il faillit se faire pincer par des poursuivants dans le village de Caughnawaga. A la faveur de l'obscurité, I’abandonna sa Ford au bord d'un fossé, chargea la cage de poules sur ses épaules, et s'enfonça dans le bois.

Comment poursuivre un homme dans la forêt, en pleine nuit? Les Iroquois de Caughnawaga n'ont tout de même pas le flair de leurs ancêtres. Ils supposèrent même que l'auto laissée pour compte appartenait à quelqu'un ayant été chercher un mécanicien au village, et ils ne touchèrent point à la machine.

Notre homme, le lendemain, vin: tout simplement reprendre sa Ford ...et s'en retourna vers sa mystérieuse demeure, avec ses poules volées!

OU HABITAIT-IL? Où habitait donc c mystérieux maraudeur, haut de puis de 6 pieds et pesant plus de 200 livres? On l’ignore. Une de ses autos fut retrouvée auprès d'une masure à peu de distance de Valleyfield, mais on doute que ce fut là sa maison.

Enfin, au bout de huit ans, durée interrompue par de brèves condamnations, il arriva à son dernier “exploit”. Après avoir tout mis en oeuvre, pour préparer un cambriolage chez M. Arthur Amesse, Saint-Timothée de Valleyfield, il commença son ouvrage. Cependant, le chien de M. Amesse n'avait point mangé la viande offerte par Sauvé et jeta l'alarme par ses abois.

UN COUP DE FEU DANS LA NUIT Ceci se passait le 23 septembre. M. Amesse constata aussitôt le vol dont il venait d'être victime. Avec son cousin, un voisin nommé Lauzon, il se lança en voiture-automobile à la poursuite de Sauvé. On le rejoignit à Maple-Grove. Sauvé décharges un fusil vers Lauzon. Heureusement celui-ci ne fut pas touché. Plein de colère, en dépit de sa petite taille, il fonça sur le criminel. Sauvé, peu habitué à une telle furie, trouva bon pour se défendre, de frapper son adversaire À coups de crosse de fusil sur la tête et aux épaules, et put s'enfuir. Lauzon fut ramené inconscient et on craignit pour sa vie, à l'hôpital où il était alité.

Le sergent-détective Lasnier aidé par le détective Berthiaume, de la police provinciale, se mit aussitôt en campagne. Un piège fut tendu. Sauvé fut surpris bientôt. II était à vendre le produit de son vol, au marché. Aussitôt, une bagarre éclate. En un Instant les deux policiers eurent maîtrisé leur homme. Il à été condamné, comme il est dit plus haut. Ainsi, finit, l'aventure tragique du “Roi des voleurs de poules”, terreur de Valleyfield et bandit capable de devenir assassin.

Voici la liste des condamnations de Sauvé depuis huit ans. Année 1924: condamnations pour assaut. 3 mois, pour vagabondage, 3 mols, pour vol de poules, 3 mols; année 1926: deux condamnations de 6 mois chacune, pour vols de poules; année 1927: vol de poules, § mols; année 1928: vol de poules, 6 mois; année 1920: deux condamnations de 6 mois chacune, pour vols de poules; anne 1930: vol de poules et vente de volailles sans licence, & mols; année 1932: vol & main armée, 5 ans de bagne; tentative de meurtre, 5 autres années de bagne.

Enfin, les poules et les fermiers du district de Valleyfield seront tranquilles... pour quelques années.

Photo caption: Onésime Sauvé, surnommée ‘‘roi des voleurs de poules”et la “terreur de Valleyfield” a été arrêté par les détectives de la police provinciale au marché Bonsecours. La vie de ce dangereux bandit, qui ne craignait pas d’assommer ses poursuivants, après avoir isolé les fermes en interrompant les communications téléphoniques, est toute remplie de péripéties dramatiques. Cet homme d’une stature de plus de six pieds changeait son aspect, en portant une barbe rousse ou en ne conservant qu’une moustache. ll n’avait pas de domicile connu. La masure près de laquelle on découvrit sa vieille Ford n’est pas à lui. ll fut arrête au marche, ou il était en train de vendre des poules volées. On l’a condamne a dix ans de bagne. Voir en page 22 le récit de ses aventures.

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toky502 · 5 months ago

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UNITALE (An alternate tale) Sans

Sans is a somewhat reckless and rude skeleton monster most of the time. But deep down, when you get to know him better, he's a pretty nice good guy who flirts with the ladies a bit. He always will do anything possible to protect his race and family. Sans loves to fight, always looks for a reason to measure his strength against someone who is strong since he likes complicated challenges. Even so sans has not killed any monster in his life. In his free time, sans relaxes in the trees and enjoys his freedom more than anyone since from his point of view he considers it something wonderful.

CURIOSITIES

* Sans along with papyrus are successful attempts at super soldiers.

* Sans in HITTALE is a decorated and very famous hero.

* Sans is a rather cautious and quick thief.

* No monster in HITTALE knows that sans has been stealing from other monsters or humans in other au's.

* The scarf that sans is wearing is stolen.

* Sans has a universal timer.

* Sans has been stealing from many humans and monsters throughout the au's.

* Sans's claustrophobia is due to a traumatic event that lasted about 3 weeks...

* Sans didn't like stealing at first but over time he liked the danger and adrenaline rush of stealing something that wasn't his to the point of considering it fun.

* Sans only steals things he likes.

* Sans's birthday is July 5.

* Sans likes compliments, diamonds, good food and cute gifts.

* Sans always distrusts everyone a bit in other au's as he first wants to confirm if they are harmless or hostile.

* Sans favorite food is fried chicken meatballs in celery sauce.

* Sans has a great resistance to alcohol since he doesn't get drunk easily, he would need at least 178 bottles of alcoholic beverage to be drunk.

* Most sans robbery victims don't know they've been robbed unless sans is caught or is very obvious in the robbery.

* Sans is very good at lying and even more so when he wants to avoid something.

* Sans has killed humans, but for some reason he doesn't absorb their souls.

* Sans possesses multiple physical and magical abilities.

* Sans has horrible body odor when he sweats.

* Sans always has a special cloth sack with him to steal.

* Sans is a dangerous driving cars, he will always end up crashing and destroying them in the process.

* Sans doesn't let anyone touch his sweatshirt except his brother, it's a very special piece of clothing for him.

* Sans hates being made fun of for his height, he reacts somewhat aggressively.

* Sans literally had no childhood as he was born an adult as an experiment of the monsters state just like his brother.

* Sans is heterosexual.

#UNITALE (An alternate tale)#Sans #Hit!Sans #HITTALE #Reference basic #Ut AU #Ut AUS

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honeydots · 5 years ago

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200. “He loves you, you know? He’s just afraid of admitting it.” ~~ This has some Vibes and I kinda like them so? I'd like 2 humbly request your take on this w/ shukita or akeshu if it's ok to ask for!! -- dorky-arsene (a sideblog)

“He loves you, you know? He’s just afraid of admitting it”

Hello no I didn’t forget about these I am just slower than a little baby turtle!!!!! Anyway

Summary: Goro’s new job leads him to discover that dealing with both a crush and an idiot while flipping burgers is, unarguably, the worst turn his life could’ve taken.

cw: sexual themes (+p5r spoilers)

(ao3 link)

“Hello! Would you like to try our Big Bang Special Combo Shot-Straight-Through Promotional Meal for ‘Thy Father of Corruption 2: The Daughter of Rejection’ for ¥850?”

Goro wanted to quit.

You need this job. You need this job. He’d repeat to himself each time a customer decided they were feeling peckish. You will have no money if you quit and then you will have no home and then you will drop out of college and then you will die.

He’d left the police department after graduating. With his past plans of an 18-year life expectancy having slipped down the drain, he hardly had a reason to stay. High school had been an uphill battle with cases of murder and robbery breathing down his neck, and he’d hesitated to even make an attempt at trying to juggle his priorities in university. Dropping the detective gig meant dropping the media attention, too, which gave him breathing room he certainly knew he needed, but never really had.

The problem was, after three years of fading out of fame and living off his savings, he realized this wouldn’t stretch as far as he’d predicted. He hadn’t accounted nearly enough for the expenses that came with the unwelcome enforcement of trying to live as a proper human being. His bank account was growing meager. If he wanted to keep living (which was arguable) in the way that he was (which he did) he’d need an income. Almost anything would do, as long as it would bend and break to his schedule.

And, all things considered, he technically had connections here. And ever since… that, the pay had actually increased to a respectable amount. The management had rehired, retrained, and improved. It was fast food, but it was livable. Nothing shameful about being livable.

And god fucking dammit he had already done three interviews with no hires and he needed food other than half-cooked ramen noodles and bread slices.

“Can I get you anything else, sir?”

That didn’t mean he didn’t loathe every minute.

It was bad enough that he had a job at Big Bang Burger. And, bad enough that he’d been desperate to get it. It was bad enough that he had to bring in his homework like some anguished used-to-be honors student now getting barely passing marks. And christ, it was bad enough each time a customer would walk in, a hamburger-shaped icepick would slam itself into his frontal lobe, forever ingraining the memory of his premeditated brain murder of the former CEO of this very restaurant.

All of that, and he couldn’t stress this more, was bad enough. It was entirely shitty all around. Completely awful, and damming, and humbling, though he hated to admit it. He’d like to say it couldn’t get any worse. That this was the end of the line, get off the train before it turns around, don’t get stuck in the never ending cycle of beef patties and sesame seed buns.

But, god, of all the coworkers.

“Ya know,” said Sakamoto, leaning down on the front counter after their customer had left, “I dunno if clenching your teeth like you’ve got peanut butter stuck in there counts as ‘service with a smile.’”

Sakamoto Ryuji. The boy who had the opposite of a filter, and more like a megaphone spewing recordings of every profanity in the Japanese language. He, who had walked in on Goro’s second day and loudly declared, ‘I thought I smelled something, what’s this a-hole doing here?’ Really, who else could he tolerate spending eight-hour shifts with; greasy stoves, piss poor customers, and the ruthless scent of lysol on tile included?

Ah, right. Anyone else.

Goro pressed his lips together. “Hm. Well you know, I was almost certain that elbows on the counter was a fireable offense.”

Sakamoto snatched himself up in a second, elbows up high. He hung there and looked around the empty restaurant.

He pouted. “Not cool, dude. That’s only when there’s customers.”

Goro raised his eyebrows. He was really just going to stand there? He looked like an idiot, or a chicken. A hybrid that, if anyone could pull off, would be him. He was making a great show of it, too.

Sakamoto narrowed his eyes. “Unless you’re a snitch.”

Goro spoke in his most syrupy sweet voice. “Are you implying then, that your job is in my hands? An entertaining thought, Sakamoto.” If it were only that simple to really get him fired. Unfortunately, their manager seemed to love his enthusiasm. Every moment he spent enthusiastically mopping floors and singing into the handle was a moment Goro could’ve been writing soliloquies of his growing and newfound hatred for Carly Rae Jepsen.

Sakamoto folded his arms in a huff. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about, man! Look at that fake-ass smile.” He shook his head. “And I get customer service blows and stuff, but you use it for everything. Lighten up dude! Take a break.”

Sakamoto said things with such confidence, such surety. It made his teeth grind.

“I’d prefer to keep my job,” Goro said, and gave him the sweet smile Sakamoto was arguing against. “Though, if you’d like to pay my rent for me, you’re more than welcome.”

He acted like he hadn’t even heard him.“Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re so gloomy all the time, your face just doesn’t know how to work it. Look it, check me out.” Sakamoto pointed his thumb at himself and flashed a toothy smile. “Just like that! All natural, bro. It’s easy. Come on, you really try it this time.”

Goro very clearly did not. He stared with his most obsolete and ‘stop-trying-to-have-a-conversation-with-me’ look he could muster. He’d communicate it telepathically, if given the chance.

“That doesn’t look like trying to me,” Sakamoto said expectantly.

Couldn’t they just sit in silence and wait for their fabrication of getting-along time when the next inevitable customer came in? “Perhaps, and please let me know if this is too complicated, I simply have no intention of trying, because I don’t believe there’s anything to fix.”

“Nah, that’s not it,” replied Sakamoto, as if he was being thoughtful.

Another reason why he was completely obnoxious was because the longer they knew each other, the less that Goro’s flawless stone faced looks worked. Sakamoto kept spewing hot air. He’d gained some kind of tolerance, and it was tedious to work around.

Sakamoto leaned back down, previous elbow warnings forgotten. “I bet you’re the kinda guy who’s super ticklish, so you act all boring so no one suspects it.”

“I’m not,” Goro snapped.

“Quick reply there, buddy.”

Goro didn’t answer to that. He didn’t owe it to him. This was pointless; why did Sakamoto find such pleasure in talking about pointless things?

He slouched further down. “So it’s silent treatment now. You’re checking all the boxes over here.” He waved his finger through the air. “Check, n’ check, n’, check.”

Goro was getting a headache. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Betcha you’re super ticklish. And like, one of those cry-laughers.”

“Sakamoto, did you hear what I just said.”

He stretched up from his position on the counter. “Like if I poke you in the side, I bet it would make ya jump.”

“Do not.” He could just try it. Goro would bend his finger back so far it’d break. He wondered if that would be a viable option to get him to stop talking sometime.

“Didn’t say I was gonna.” He rested his arms behind his neck. “You’re just proving my point more, though.”

Sakamoto was annoyingly stubborn at times. Once he found a niche with Goro, he’d hack his way in and grab on like a tick. Bother him like it was his last chance he’d ever get, as if they didn’t work shifts together four times a week. He was bound to get lyme disease at this rate.

Goro felt like a very frustrated pair of tweezers.“Can we talk about anything else, please?”

Sakamoto went quiet. He was just looking at him now. Goro tensed up. Was he really going to try and poke him? He meant it, he’d break his hand.

“Ya know, there is something I wanna talk to you about,” he said.

Goro did not like the sound of that. “Oh really.” He tried to sound like he was just told he was about to be given a lecture on the intricacies and details of lentil soup. Which, perhaps could be more interesting than whatever topic Sakamoto was about to pull out of his ass.

Sakamoto sniffed. “Yup. It’s about Akira.”

Oh, he really didn’t like where this was going. “Sakamoto, I—”

“When’re ya gonna like, confess.”

Goro visibly winced. Dammit. He knew he’d bring this up one day. He was absolutely infuriated Sakamoto knew about that, and he hadn’t even told him. He’d been making guesses and Goro had been just tired enough during his shift to let a hint of a sigh out, and Sakamoto had taken that to new heights. Another example of conversations being had that Goro would’ve just about died to get out of.

Sakamoto was still staring at him. Didn’t he have anything better to do? Goro knew they didn’t at this good for nothing job, but what was so hard about just acting like you’re busy. You’re pretending then, at least, and that’s something.

“Well, dude?” asked Sakamoto.

Any conversation is better than that one.

Mother of fuck.

“I…” Goro started, adjusting a piece of his hair, “I suppose I am a little ticklish.”

Sakamoto’s face lit up. “Dude, for real? Called it,” he said triumphantly. Had Goro not known him as well as he did, he’d think the divergence in conversation was a trick to get him to admit he was a bit… touchy. But he did know him, and he wasn’t one for games like that.

“Most people are, it shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s skin sensitivity, nothing more.”

Sakamoto shrugged. “Still funny you admitted to it.”

Sure. Very hilarious. Yet another fact Sakamoto now knows about him that he’d really have rather not shared under any circumstance.

“Satisfied, now?” Goro asked, but it wasn’t really a question. He didn’t plan on expanding, this was embarrassing enough as it was.

“Nope,” he replied, “cause that’s great and all, but I really gotta know the game plan.” He leaned in close to Goro, and he in turn leaned farther away.

“There’s no ‘game plan,’ Sakamoto. Please don’t get so close to me.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” He moved back, obviously not finished. “Come on, though, you gotta have something.” And back down on the counter he slouched.

‘Something,’ he’d said. Yes, and that something was to keep his mouth shut and go about his life keeping each and every one of those mortifying feelings to himself. It was humiliating enough that Sakamoto knew. Telling Akira? He didn’t even want to imagine it. He’d rather face Okumura-san herself and ask her to buy one of their Shot-Straight-Through combo meals.

“There’s nothing. And I don’t plan there to be anything. And, it’s not really much of your business, is it?” Goro could feel himself growing irritated.

Sakamoto melted further into the counter. “I just don’t get why you’re not gonna ask him out if you like him. You might as well, man, it’ll be fine.”

What simple ways of thinking. Do this, get that in return. Black and white, and right and wrong. Spill your fleeting moment of vulnerability and try not to think about the extensive hole of commitment you’re burying yourself in. One turn of phrase, one word, one misplaced breath to Akira would forever rupture the sorry excuse of acquaintanceship they’d been flip flopping through for the past three years. Akira was a blank slate and simultaneously the person he knew best. He knew him, but didn’t really, and he could never tell what he was thinking. Suddenly he was gambling again, and this time it came entirely unwelcome. Risks you face before death and risks that you’ll keep living through no matter the outcome tasted different. One was tangy and sweet and thrilling, the other was bitter shit. Not to mention that Akira was too kind to him for his own good. He couldn’t even tell what was a lie.

But, Sakamoto didn’t need to know all that. “You say that like there’s nothing to consider. As if I’ve never even given this thought. You do not belong in my head, Sakamoto. And I do not need to give you, an obvious outsider on the entire dilemma, any sort of justification for why I’m going to continue to abstain on something as trivial as a confession.”

Sakamoto huffed at him. “What if I said that I gua-ran-tee he’s not gonna say no to you.”

Goro was already sick of this. What, had Sakamoto expected his heart to skip? His pulse to rise? That just the very thought of mutual feelings would send him into some flustered mess? Please. He told the tingling feeling going up through his legs and down his arms and up the back of his neck to shut the fuck up.

He couldn’t stay quiet for long. Sakamoto could and would get ideas. “Then why doesn’t he just tell me that himself? Why are you playing wingman for him?”

“Cause he’s not gonna say anything cause he’s got to be worried that he’s gonna freak you and your crazy attachment issues out!”

Of course, there it was. The blind bet. Sakamoto’s one-way thinking at it again, and Goro would not have it. “I’m not going to start playing some game with him about the complexities of whatever idea of consent he has in his head. I don’t need his sympathy, and I am certainly not looking for it. I don’t have time for something messy and half-assed. I don’t want that, and surely he doesn’t, either. If he feels any way about me, he’d ought to tell me, because then maybe we’d find some kind of leeway. But I will not let him sit there and wait for me to make the first move, like a key element in his plan. This is not some teenage romance, and I am not a caricature of his love life. He can wait patiently all he’d like, but I’m perfectly content as I am now.”

Sakamoto seemed a little stunned.

“Man, he’s just…” He trailed off. They sat in silence.

So ways still existed to get Sakamoto to stop rambling on. He was sure he’d regret saying this later, for a multitude of reasons. He didn’t hate Sakamoto, even saying dislike felt strong, but he always talked about things that Goro had no interest nor inclination to discuss. Maybe silence was for the best between them, for now.

“He loves you, you know? He’s just afraid of admitting it. That’s all it is, dude,” said Sakamoto.

Goro inhaled. So he wasn’t done, then. “Love… is an entirely different conversation.”

“Okay, fine, you want me to say he ‘like-likes’ you like some fifth grader? Cause he does.”

Goro didn’t reply. He’d made his point.

“He isn’t playing one of your weirdo mind games,” Sakamoto continued. “I think you’re thinking too hard about this. He’s just a guy. He just wants to make sure you’re all comfortable and shit. Cause it’s not like we don’t all know the bullshit that was goin’ on for you.”

“I am not looking for his pity.” A fine thing to say while working at a Big Bang Burger in a bright yellow shirt and starred apron. It didn’t matter. He didn’t wear this with pride, per say, but he wouldn’t ask someone to feel sorry for him.

He didn’t exactly want to be seen, either. Especially not Akira, but of course he’d make habits of visiting. That was just like him, and it was just like his pity, too.

Sakamoto looked frustrated. “He ain’t pitying you, man! He’s tryin’ to respect you! He knows you got things to go through on your own and he’s trying to give you space and everything.”

Goro clicked his tongue. “If you know that’s his tactic, why are you trying to pressure me into this?”

“Cause I don’t care, dude!” Sakamoto said, and then stopped himself, and promptly looked very guilty. “Well, okay. I do care. Like, I do. But sometimes…” He looked like he was trying to pick his words out carefully. He had an idea, just no way to form it.

He settled. “Sometimes, you just gotta get laid, man.”

At this point, Goro found himself shocked that he wasn’t banging his own head against the counter.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re twenty one years old! Dude, I know you haven’t gotten any,” Sakamoto argued. “Your gay ass with emotional problems? Get outta here.”

“This is not—”

Sakamoto put his hands up nonshalontly. “And like, yeah, no judgey stuff, take your time if you gotta. But have you considered it? Tell me. I betcha you haven’t.”

Goro opened his mouth, expecting to reply with an incredibly well thought out ‘fuck off,’ but the automatic doors slid open, and suddenly Goro was all smiles and greetings, so what came out instead was, “Hello! Welcome to Big Bang Burger! Would you—ah.”

Sakamoto snorted loudly, and Goro wanted to kick him so bad.

And actually, what was stopping him? Sakamoto had earned this, and it’s not like this customer would care.

Because, who else could’ve been just about summoned by the trouble than Kurusu Akira himself; strolling in so casually through the doors, like he hadn’t just become the most unpleasant topic of conversation Goro had ever had with Sakamoto. Speak of the devil was an understatement, or perhaps he was the devil himself.

“What the eff, man!”

“Hey you two,” said Akira, hands in his pockets and clearly bagless. He didn’t even register Goro’s kick, like that was just some normal occurrence. Somehow, that made him angrier.

“Yo,” said Sakamoto, recovering annoyingly quickly. Goro wondered if he should’ve considered breaking his finger.

Sakamoto reached out to Akira for a fist bump. “You don’t have the cat with ya?”

Akira bumped him back. “Nope. Just me today.”

“Sweet,” Sakamoto replied, a smile growing wide. Goro hated the look. It was the hungriest and most dastardly shit-eating grin he’d ever seen him dare to make. So, knowing Sakamoto and his terrible poker face, he had thought up some idiotic ploy.

“What’s up with you?” Akira asked, and thank god it wasn’t directed at Goro. Sakamoto’s obviousness did not go unnoticed.

“Oh nothin’, nothin’,” said Sakamoto, entirely conspicuously, “I gotta go, though, grind never stops. Super secret stuff in the back.”

Goro glared at him. So now he would pretend to be busy?

“Burger secrets,” Akira said, and Ryuji gave him a finger gun in reply. He walked off without a word, but apparently felt the inclination to jerk his head back at Goro, as if he didn’t know what he was doing.

He sighed. No amount of alone time would ever compel Goro to confess at a Big Bang Burger, of all places. At least Akira tended to be a little more bearable in conversation. He hoped he’d be an in and out customer. “Can I get you anything?”

Akira looked at him for a moment. “You look flustered.”

Goro felt himself twitch. He wasn’t flustered, like some preteen who can’t hear the word genital without bursting into laughter. If anything, Sakamoto had caught him off guard with his stupidity. He obviously was not one to be so affected by such a topic. He was an adult, and a professional. He would again not think about the fact he was wearing an orange visor right now.

“I’m positive that isn’t a menu item,” he replied, keeping his pleasant smile plastered on, keeping any stray annoyance from showing.

Akira examined him closer. “Do you have a fever or something? You look red.”

Goro drummed his fingers against the counter impatiently. What was he supposed to say? Sorry, Akira, Sakamoto just decided to kindly push the image of you railing me as a form of twisted therapy into the forefront of my consciousness. Would you like any drinks?

“I’m fine. I’m not the type to go to work sick,” he decided on instead.

“Really?” He didn’t seem convinced.

Goro folded his arms. “While living in a society where health is determined by the trust of the majority, I have no plans to spread my germs to an unsuspecting businessman, in that I expect the same from him.”

Akira considered that for a moment. “So you’re embarrassed, then.”

Goro’s expression turned sour. He was not in the mood for a debate. “Everyone seems to be presuming things today, have I missed a memo?”

Akira didn’t miss a beat. “Ryuji said something?”

Goro dragged his fingernails into his palm. He was hardly being that obvious, he wasn’t a bumbling idiot who couldn’t keep a straight face. Akira was just acutely good at reading people, (namely, reading him) and it drove Goro up the wall. It was unfair, for one thing, since Akira continued to maintain blank expressions in the face of clowns and hookers, keeping his inner thoughts kept behind lock and key. And, as of more recently, he was the one person Goro really desperately wanted to hide every wandering emotion from possible. Just his luck, fall for the bastard who analyzes people as a side job for his savior-complex living.

This was making him more frustrated. “Would you just order?”

Akira looked at the menu, but Goro knew it was bullshit. He ordered the same thing every time— a shake and a burger, no tomatoes. He certainly already knew what he wanted, but was just causing trouble in the meantime. What an annoyance. Goro punched it in, and made no moves to go and cook. If Sakamoto was going to have his “business” in the back, then he could stay there and do his job.

“Sit over there, we’ll bring it to you when it’s done,” he said, and Akira silently obliged. He gave a small smile before he turned, leaving Goro completely alone with his thoughts as he sat at his table and scrolled through his phone.

He couldn’t believe the timing of Sakamoto’s distasteful comment to Akira’s unseasonable entrance. Things always seemed to fall into place with Goro, just not the right places. The right place, but a little down, and to the left, the left, he said. He wished Sakamoto would mind his own business, let him quietly pine until his untimely death; which kept getting put off, might he add.

Sakamoto emerged from the back end of the restaurant. He was holding the bag of presumably Akira’s food, and his shake. He waved them enthusiastically.

“Go on, dude,” he smirked.

Goro was blunt. “No.” He’d pissed him off enough today. He wasn’t going to walk over there and serve the food. Sakamoto’s little idea of love, romance and marriage in a burger joint would have to wait. Ideally, it would get itself stuck in wet concrete, and drown way down under where no one could see it and where the light of day would never reach.

Sakamoto seemed to catch his drift. “Jeez, fine. Huffy, huffy.”

He walked over to Akira with a spring in his step, and they started chatting idly. Goro couldn’t hear. In all honesty, he was trying to tune them out. His headache was growing worse. Pounding in his head, every light too bright and repetitive music blurring together his thoughts. And of course there was the elephant in the room, who was whispering to him Sakamoto’s crude suggestions, and the irritating notion that maybe he was right, just a little bit.

He needed to get himself together. He was acting like some horny teenager. Get fucked, you raunchy elephant.

Sakamoto left to let him eat, and made a show of going back to the other end of the restaurant, all while wiggling his eyebrows at Goro. In turn, Goro made a show of rolling his eyes and planting himself facing away from Akira. It made Sakamoto laugh, for whatever reason, and Goro just ignored him.

He watched the door idly and tried to relax. He’d been clenching his teeth, and his jaw ached. He tried to focus to get his headache to fade into obscurity. He couldn’t find much to concentrate on, was his issue. Other than the obvious, which he would ignore without remorse. He wanted to go home. No lights too bright there, no sloppily cleaned windows, and especially no crush (the word left a bad taste in his mouth. Boy who has left him emotionally compromised after giving him no reason to deny he had worth in the world and keeps him up at night thinking about the way he really tried to will him back into existence when he could, god, have anything else in the world, and he wanted him. Was that a better option?) sitting out of view, chewing quietly and doing absolutely nothing to draw so much attention to himself. At home he could drown it all out in a cold bath, and let himself think of nothing but his numbing toes and pruning fingers.

“Hey, catch,” Akira said, suddenly there and startling Goro out of his bathlike daydream. He tossed something onto the counter. Goro did not catch it.

It was a napkin, all folded up in a careful way. It didn’t hold the shape well, but the intention was pretty clear. “Um. A crane?”

“Yup. Present for you.” he started, rubbing his neck, and he had the nerve to look bashful. “I got bored.”

Goro hadn’t noticed him making it. Which, alright, did make sense, he was purposefully keeping his neck away from that entire half of the restaurant. “Sorry we aren’t quite the height of entertainment here.” Goro lightly touched its head. He didn’t know Akira knew how to make these. “Well, thank you, I guess.”

Akira pushed his glasses further up his nose. “You’re welcome to name him.”

“I think that I won’t.”

“That can be pretty trendy, too,” he replied. “I’ve gotta go. Class. Tell Ryuji I say bye.”

“Bye, dude!” Sakamoto shouted from the back. There was that tiresome enthusiasm again.

It made Akira smile.“Nevermind, then. See you.”

Goro just barely lifted his hand by the wrist to wave. “Bye.”

Akira turned, gave him a small trill of his fingers, and left. Sakamoto did not return to his exit, and Goro savored the moment. It was just him and the crane, now.

It was pretty shoddy. Unfolding, and barely standing up on its own. Cheap paper napkins were not the ideal material for origami, it seemed. He watched it slowly fall apart, wings losing shape and the head relaxing into its neck. Akira had hardly stayed long, so that meant he was probably pretty good at this sort of thing. He wouldn’t have guessed.

…He thought about how it might look on proper paper. The creases sharp and crisp, the ends pointed and still. What would Akira’s hands look like while they worked? He could hear the sounds of the folding, and the wedging, clean paper being bent and rippled. Delicate fingers, working through, meticulously checking every last inch. Sometimes a pinch, just where it’s needed. And then finished, folded tight, wrapped together in itself. Very quick work, with the touch of a hand.

“The heck is that?” Sakamoto said, getting an actual jump out of Goro.

“What?” he gasped, and took a second to collect his thoughts. At work. Sakamoto came back. In a Big Bang Burger. Headache present. Good fucking god. “It’s just…” He pressed his fingers into the side of his temple “It’s a paper crane. Akira made it.”

Sakamoto let that sink in.“You tellin me you were just sitting here staring at the thing Akira made you?”

“I wasn’t,” Goro replied, trying desperately to catch his breath as casually as possible.

“Uh, you literally were.” Sakamoto got uncomfortably close to him again. Goro physically moved away, because now was not the time.

It didn’t deter Sakamoto whatsoever. He put his hands on his hips and gave an annoying grin. “Bro, you gotta tell him… You’ve obviously got it preeetty bad.”

Goro was fed up with this. This conversation needed to end, or he thought he might explode. “I don’t ‘have it bad,’ Sakamoto, stop bringing this up.”

Sakamoto smirked at him. “You so do though, is the thing.”

“I don’t. Leave me alone.”

He shrugged his shoulders, and kept his mouth shut. He was acting so haughty, like he’d won the argument. Which, he hadn’t, for the record.

That stupid crane. All it’d done was make things worse. And what was it even doing? Sitting here crumbling away into uselessly folded paper. A cheap napkin made of other recycled cheap napkins. Clean and crisp paper was a long sought after dream, a fantasy and nothing more.

You know, this was just it, really. This is what he meant. Akira would try and fold him up and he’d inevitably fall back down. He didn’t know just what fantastic method he’d try, but it wouldn’t matter— he was made of what he was made of, and nothing would hold him up. Trying was pointless, risking for naught, it would be better for everyone if he stayed just how he was and didn’t overstay his use.

He would not fit into Akira’s plans or his pities. He couldn’t.

“…Bruh. What does that even mean.”

Ah? “What?“ No. He had not said that out loud. Sakamoto did not just hear all that nonsense.

Sakamoto was giving him a funny look. “You’re not a napkin, man.”

God, shit. Shit shit shit. “I— I know that, this is just—“ The unpleasant feeling of blood rushing to his face was just as intolerable as it was unpreventable.

“For real? Cause you sure sounded like you were calling yourself a napkin.”

Absolutely unbelievable. How unruly was he that he’d just spouted all that like it was nothing? He couldn’t believe he had to explain himself now, but letting him get ideas was undeniably worse. “It’s supposed to be… symbolic, Sakamoto.”

He could practically see the gears turning in his head. That wasn’t something difficult to understand, you dunce. Every second of this humiliating scene felt like a knife turning in his back.

“Why does your brain work in such effed up ways. You gotta work on that,” Sakamoto said, not letting up his judgemental look.

He crossed his arms, trying to make his mortification appear like annoyance. “Don’t you start with me. As if you ever have something useful to say. At least I’m— I’m thinking, here.”

That riled him up a bit. “I’m thinkin’! I almost flunked literature so maybe I’m not so good at this analysis stuff, but you know what? Hear me out.” Goro did not want to hear him out. He continued despite that. “I get it, you got your problems. But I really don’t think you callin’ yourself some shitty crane is fair, you know? Like, you’re a whole guy.”

He did not appreciate how genuine Sakamoto was acting. It was odd, and it felt awkward coming from him. He didn’t want to feel guilty for being rude to him earlier, either. Just another topic to bother him to sleep.

Sakamoto went on. “Gahhh, it feels weird sayin’ this but like, you’re not a napkin, okay! And Akira doesn’t think so either. You’re more… complicated. Napkins don’t pay taxes or anything.”

Ah, alright. So it was mostly bullshit. He could ease the guilt away in one fell swoop.

Goro’s disinterest seemed to show itself well to Sakamoto. “Just, okay. Lemme get my thoughts here. You gotta like… be your own first step. I didn’t get my own shit sorted out until I actually tried to. And I’m not sayin it’s easy to do. But Imma tell you right now your first step is gonna be to stop thinking you’re a napkin or a bucket or a plate of green beans or whatever else you come up with. And I mean it, man.”

Goro knew he had things to say to that. He had thought out replies and phrases that Sakamoto would need more headspace to begin to understand. But none of them came to him. So he decided to stay threateningly quiet.

It was well received. “Okay okay, you’re gettin’ mad, I can tell. I’m gonna take my break,” Sakamoto relented, and turned on his heel. “I ain’t really trying to tell ya what to do but give it a thinking about, alright? ‘Least for Akira’s sake,” he said over his shoulder, and left Goro almost more alone than before.

It wasn’t even Akira’s sake Goro was worried about. Not in the way Sakamoto seemed to think. And he didn’t need to be told he wasn’t some inanimate object, he wasn’t that out of mind.

Any sort of sensible argument would have to come to him after the fact, apparently. To tell him this wouldn’t be a “first step,” more like a hundredth. How many paces did crawling out of the hole he’d buried himself in count for? How many miles had he gone by now, barefoot and bleeding all the way.

Such a stupid conversation. Needless, too, since for whatever reason his filter decided to leave him to fend for himself. Just another addition to this embarrassing excuse of a shift today.

The paper crane sat still on the counter, though it hardly resembled one anymore. He almost felt bad. He had his typical pit in his stomach, but nothing exactly to pinpoint it on. Was he wallowing in that much self-loathing?

Perhaps.

Goro adamantly refused to have any more dramatic revelations at his part time job, so any introspections would have to come later.

He put the crumpled crane in his pocket. It was certainly not going to be a crane once he took it out again, but he didn’t really know what else to do with it. Throwing it away felt wrong, to him. Though he wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do with it when he got home.

Akira hadn’t given this to him in hopes of causing some mental anguish. Or at least, he assumed so. Sakamoto had said he didn’t play mind games, but if not those, what was he doing? It felt better to know it was a game, in that way there was something about Akira’s mystery of a consciousness he could pry through.

Was he reading into things? For sure. Reading too deeply into anything had been a talent of his for as long as he could remember. It had saved his life before, many times and in the most difficult of times.

This crane wasn’t life threatening, but it felt like it was. Not in the thrilling way, but in the shitty way.

His shift was over soon. Which reminded him, Sakamoto had surely already taken his break. He was a dip, but Goro preferred his own thoughts to any conversation they’d had today. And that was saying something, since getting out of his own head was a much needed relief that he’d take almost any chance he got.

He was overthinking, and there was nothing he could do about it. He would continue to overthink until someone stole his brain and dunked it in acid. Where was the enjoyment otherwise? It was all he knew how to do.

And even he didn’t overthink this— if Akira had given this to him in earnest and in playfulness, and if Sakamoto hadn’t been overtly pulling his leg through their shifts today. There wasn’t even anything remarkable about it. If there was a chance that maybe things were just okay, and getting better, and he wasn’t a living metaphor for a tissue. Oh just, say he invited him out for coffee, and Akira surprised him with a new little creation, less spur of the moment and made something almost sweet. He’d never drop his pride so low as to ask for a lesson, but if he did, maybe he could learn to make something, too. And maybe he wouldn’t hate every moment of it, and maybe he’d like getting so close, and maybe he’d appreciate the mistakes as much as the praises.

…Hm.

That was just a fantasy, of course. And surely, nothing was all that great about it. Anything could go wrong in any number of ways, his own interventions just one category.

Maybe it was the headache, or the dragging on shift, or the terrible lights, or the distant humming of his coworker, but Goro must’ve been caught off guard today. Because otherwise, why else would he have thought, not long and not convincingly, but still a thought as present as can be, that maybe, despite everything.

It could be nice. Just for a little bit. Maybe that didn’t sound quite so bad.

Not so bad at all.

#it is shuake btw!#thank u for requesting this sorry i took ages #i hope you’ll enjoy it...... and sorry if youve been avoiding spoilers!!!#i know the games out but i also know not everyone has seen all the Content #but i will leave it at that #also its 6k cause i just dont know how to stop talking #my fics #my p5 fics #ask #dorky-arsene

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years ago

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GUM MACHINE

April 8, 1949

“Gum Machine” (aka “The Principal of the Thing” aka “Demand Your Rights”) is episode #38 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on April 9, 1949 on the CBS radio network.

Synopsis ~ George tells Liz that she needs to stand up for her rights and stop letting people push her around. So when Liz loses a penny in a broken gum machine, she vows to get her penny back no matter what the cost.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Gale Gordon and Bea Benadaret do not appear in this episode.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz (above right), a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

GUEST CAST

Hans Conried (Milkman / Eddie) first co-starred with Lucille Ball in The Big Street (1942). He then appeared on “I Love Lucy” as used furniture man Dan Jenkins in “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8) and later that same season as Percy Livermore in “Lucy Hires an English Tutor” (ILL S2;E13) – both in 1952. The following year he began an association with Disney by voicing Captain Hook in Peter Pan. On “The Lucy Show” he played Professor Gitterman in “Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet” (TLS S1;E19) and in “Lucy Plays Cleopatra” (TLS S2;E1). He was probably best known as Uncle Tonoose on “Make Room for Daddy” starring Danny Thomas, which was filmed on the Desilu lot. He joined Thomas on a season 6 episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1973.

Frank Nelson (Cop on the Beat) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”. This is one of his 11 performances on “My Favorite Husband.” On “I Love Lucy” he holds the distinction of being the only actor to play two recurring roles: Freddie Fillmore and Ralph Ramsey, as well as six one-off characters, including the frazzled train conductor in “The Great Train Robbery” (ILL S5;E5), a character he repeated on “The Lucy Show.” Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs.

Florence Halop (”The Brooklyn Blabbermouth” aka “Nasal Hazel”) was first seen on television with Lucille Ball in “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8) in which she reprised her role as the party line phone hog. She wouldn’t work for Lucy again until 1974, when she played a Little Old Lady on a Western-themed episode of “Here’s Lucy.” In 1985, she replaced Selma Diamond (who had died of lung cancer) as the bailiff on “Night Court.”

Johnny McGovern (Boy) was just 13 years old when he did this episode. During this time he also played Little Beaver on the radio series “Red Ryder”. He was eventually replaced by Sammy Ogg, who played one of the Hudson Twins on “I Love Lucy.” On television, he played Will Thornberry in four episodes of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” from 1953 to 1955.

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers today, it is breakfast time and at the table a little domestic drama is taking place. George is engrossed in the morning paper and Liz finds herself sitting there with no one to talk to. This of course is a scene, which never happens in any other home. One thing about George though, no matter how interested he is in the paper when Liz speaks he comes right to attention.”

George doesn’t respond when Liz asks for a morning kiss. She lights his newspaper on fire!

Lucy Ricardo also did this to get Ricky’s attention in “Be a Pal” (ILL S1;E2).

LIZ: “Ever since spring training started there are eleven of us at breakfast: you, me, and the Dodgers.”

George promises to put the paper down... as soon as he finishes the article about golf and Demeret.

Golf pro Jimmy Demaret (1910-83) appeared as himself on “I Love Lucy” in 1954, then again on “The Lucy Show” in 1964. In real life, Lucille Ball and her husbands Desi and Gary were golfers.

Liz begs him for a kiss, and without paying much attention, he complies. Instead of her lips, he has kissed Liz’s morning grapefruit without even noticing!

Lucy Ricardo also did this to Ricky in in “Be a Pal” (ILL S1;E2).

Liz begs him for a favor: tell Katie the maid she cannot have Saturday night off. They have guests coming, and Liz was afraid to ask for herself. George asks her himself, and Katie isn’t bothered at all. Liz agrees that from now on she’ll stand up for her rights.

When George finds the cream for the coffee has soured, he insists Liz tell the milkman about it - stand up for her rights. The milkman arrives, delivers the milk, and then leaves. Liz chickened out. George calls him back to tell him Hogan’s Frolicking Milkmaid Cream was sour. The milkman (Hans Conried) says that Mr. Hogan will take it out on the cow! He gives them free items instead of losing their business.

MILKMAN: “You see, we can’t afford a radio program!”

It was common that large companies would sponsor radio programs, their names becoming part of the title, and the stars doing live commercials for them. Pet and Carnation were two of the most ubiquitous dairy sponsors on radio.

While downtown shopping with Katie, Liz is bragging about how she told off the butcher. She stops for a piece of gum from a gumball machine. It takes her penny, but doesn’t give her any good. Liz is angry. A crowd gathers, including a cop (Frank Nelson). He says that someone has been robbing the machines of their pennies, and wants to know if Liz knows anything about it.

LIZ: “Yeah, I’m the ring leader: Two-Gun Jean the Chicle Queen!”

Chicle is a natural gum traditionally used in making chewing gum and other products. The American Chicle Company was an American chewing gum company, incorporated in 1899. Its products eventually grew to include breath mints, antacids, cough drops and other items. American Chicle was acquired by Warner-Lambert in 1962, which in turn was acquired by Pfizer in 2000.

Liz demands to know the name of the company who owns the ‘one-finger bandit’.

When she gets home she finds their phone number for the Ballyhoo Vending Machine Company. When she tries to call, the ‘Brooklyn Blabbermouth’ aka ‘Nasal Hazel’ (Florence Halop) is on the party line, talking to her boyfriend, Eddie.

ANNOUNCER: “Liz is embarking on a battle for her rights with the Ballyhoo Vending Machine Company. As we find her now, she is on her way to do battle, and George is dropping her off in front of the vending machine company.”

George needs to visit the bank, so he says he will meet Liz in an hour for lunch at Nickodells.

Nickodell Restaurant was located at 5511 Melrose Avenue, built into the side of RKO (later Desilu) Studio. Nickodell was the place folks working on the lot escaped to for a mid-day cocktail, and many important deals were made at its tables. When “I Love Lucy” was casting Desi Arnaz got a call from an actor named William Frawley and they arranged to get together and discuss the role over drinks at Nickodell. It closed for good in 1993.

GEORGE: “So long, Carrie Nation!”

Caroline Amelia Nation (1846-1911) was an activist who was a radical member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol before the advent of Prohibition. Nation is noted for attacking alcohol-serving establishments (most often taverns) with a hatchet. Lucille Ball played Nation in a sketch in 1962′s “The Good Years” on CBS TV.

Liz enters the ‘crooked’ gum machine company, and demands to see the complain manager. It is ‘the Brooklyn Blabbermouth’! Despite their differences, Liz tells her that she wants her penny back.

BLABBERMOUTH: “Why you so in love with that penny? Did Lincoln give it to you personally?”

Rather than fill out a refund form (which asks for her birth year) she vows to hire a lawyer to get her refund.

LIZ: “I’ll get that penny back if it takes every cent I’ve got!”

On her way to lunch, she sees a little boy (Johnny McGovern) crying that he isn’t tall enough to reach the gum machine! She tries to convince him he’s better off short! She agrees to put his penny into the machine to get him a piece of gum. Naturally, no gum comes out. She doesn’t have another penny of her own. The little boy tells her to hit it on the side. She does and a flood of pennies spill out on the sidewalk. They both take a penny for their refunds. The cop finds them standing in a pile of pennies. He accuses her of being the ring leader, just as sarcastically said earlier.

COP: “You’re going to jail, Mrs. Fagin!”

The name ‘Fagin’ was borrowed from the Charles Dickens’ 1838 novel Oliver Twist. In the preface to the novel, he is described as a "receiver of stolen goods”. He is the leader of a group of child pickpockets and prostitutes. Alec Guinness portrayed Fagin in David Lean’s 1948 film adaptation of Oliver Twist, The release of the film in the USA was delayed for three years on charges of being anti-Semitic. It was finally released in the United States in 1951. Fagin will also be mentioned in “Liz and Iris’s Easter” (March 24, 1951), in a scene also featuring Frank Nelson!

Later, George has paid $50 bail to get Liz out of jail, and is not happy about it. Liz jollies him into kissing him - in the middle of the street. Before going home, George wants to get some cigarettes - from a machine! Naturally, no cigarettes come out. Just when George is jiggling the handle, you-know-who comes by!

COP: “Well, if it isn’t Mrs. Fagin. I see you’re working with older boys now.”

He arrests them both!

End of Episode

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the-marx-brothers-will-live-on · 4 years ago

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Leonard Joseph "Chico" Marx (March 22, 1887 – October 11, 1961) was an American comedian, musician, actor and film star. He was a member of the Marx Brothers (with Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, and Zeppo Marx). His persona in the act was that of a charming, uneducated but crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat. On screen, Chico is often in alliance with Harpo, usually as partners in crime, and is also frequently seen trying to con or outfox Groucho. Leonard was the oldest of the Marx Brothers to live past early childhood (first-born Manfred Marx had died in infancy). In addition to his work as a performer, he played an important role in the management and development of the act in its early years.

Chico was born in Manhattan, New York City, on March 22, 1887. His parents were Sam Marx (called "Frenchie" throughout his life), and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Minnie's brother was Al Shean. The Marx family was Franco-German Jewish. His father was a native of Alsace who worked as a tailor and his mother was from East Frisia in Germany.

Billing himself as Chico, he used an Italian persona for his onstage character; stereotyped ethnic characters were common with vaudevillians. His non-Italian-ness was specifically referred to twice on film. In their second feature, Animal Crackers, he recognizes someone he knows to be a fish peddler impersonating a respected art collector:

Ravelli (Chico): "How is it you got to be Roscoe W. Chandler?"

Chandler: "Say, how did you get to be an Italian?"

Ravelli: "Never mind—whose confession is this?"

In A Night at the Opera, which begins in Italy, his character, Fiorello, claims not to be Italian, eliciting a surprised look from Groucho:

Driftwood (Groucho): "Well, things seem to be getting better around the country."

Fiorello (Chico): "I don't know, I'm a stranger here myself."

A scene in the film Go West, in which Chico attempts to placate an Indian chief of whom Groucho has run afoul, has a line that plays a bit on Chico's lack of Italian nationality, but is more or less proper Marxian wordplay:

S. Quentin Quayle (Groucho): "Can you talk Indian?"

Joe Panello (Chico): "I was born in Indianapolis!"

There are moments, however, where Chico's characters appear to be genuinely Italian; examples include the film The Big Store, in which his character Ravelli runs into an old friend he worked with in Naples (after a brief misunderstanding due to his accent), the film Monkey Business, in which Chico claims his grandfather sailed with Christopher Columbus, and their very first outing The Cocoanuts, where Mr. Hammer (Groucho) asks him if he knew what an auction was, in which he responds "I come from Italy on the Atlantic Auction!" Chico's character is often assumed to be dim-witted, as he frequently misunderstands words spoken by other characters (particularly Groucho). However, he often gets the better of the same characters by extorting money from them, either by con or blackmail; again, Groucho is his most frequent target.

Chico was a talented pianist. He originally started playing with only his right hand and fake playing with his left, as his teacher did so herself. Chico eventually acquired a better teacher and learned to play the piano correctly. As a young boy, he gained jobs playing piano to earn money for the Marx family. Sometimes Chico even worked playing in two places at the same time. He would acquire the first job with his piano-playing skills, work for a few nights, and then substitute Harpo on one of the jobs. (During their boyhood, Chico and Harpo looked so much alike that they were often mistaken for each other.)

In the brothers' last film, Love Happy, Chico plays a piano and violin duet with 'Mr. Lyons' (Leon Belasco). Lyons plays some ornate riffs on the violin; Chico comments, "Look-a, Mister Lyons, I know you wanna make a good impression, but please don't-a play better than me!"

In a record album about the Marx Brothers, narrator Gary Owens stated that "although Chico's technique was limited, his repertoire was not." The opposite was true of Harpo, who reportedly could play only two tunes on the piano, which typically thwarted Chico's scam and resulted in both brothers being fired.

Groucho Marx once said that Chico never practiced the pieces he played. Instead, before performances he soaked his fingers in hot water. He was known for 'shooting' the keys of the piano. He played passages with his thumb up and index finger straight, like a gun, as part of the act. Other examples of his keyboard flamboyance are found in A Night at the Opera (1935), where he plays the piano for a group of delighted children, and A Night in Casablanca (1946), where he performs a rendition of "The Beer Barrel Polka".

Chico became the unofficial manager of the Marx Brothers after their mother, Minnie, died in 1929. As manager, he cut a deal to get the brothers a percentage of a film's gross receipts—the first of its kind in Hollywood. Furthermore, it was Chico's connection with Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that led to Thalberg's signing the Brothers when they were in a career slump after Duck Soup (1933), the last of their films for Paramount.

For a while in the 1930s and 1940s, Chico led a big band. Singer Mel Tormé began his professional career singing with the Chico Marx Orchestra. Through the 1950s, Chico occasionally appeared on a variety of television anthology shows and some television commercials, most memorably with Harpo in "The Incredible Jewelry Robbery", a pantomime episode of General Electric Theater in 1959.

His nickname (acquired during a card game in Chicago in 1915) was originally spelled Chicko. It was changed to Chico but still pronounced "Chick-oh" although those who were unaware of its origin tended to pronounce it "Cheek-oh". Numerous radio recordings from the 1940s exist where announcers and fellow actors mispronounce the nickname, but Chico apparently felt it was unnecessary to correct them. As late as the 1950s, Groucho was happy to use the wrong pronunciation for comedic effect. A guest on You Bet Your Life told the quizmaster she grew up around Chico (California) and Groucho responded, "I grew up around Chico myself. You aren't Gummo, are you?" Groucho is heard in videos pronouncing it "Chicko", as in a Dick Cavett episode with Groucho talking to Dan Rowan.

During Groucho's live performance at Carnegie Hall in 1972, he states that his brother got the name Chico because he was a "chicken-chaser" (early 20th century slang for womanizer).

As well as being a compulsive womanizer, Chico had a lifelong gambling habit. His favorite gambling pursuits were card games, horse racing, dog racing, and various sports betting. His addiction cost him millions of dollars by his own account. When an interviewer in the late 1930s asked him how much money he had lost from gambling, he answered, "Find out how much money Harpo's got. That's how much I've lost." Gummo Marx, in an interview years after Chico's death, said: "Chico's favorite people were actors who gambled, producers who gambled, and women who screwed." Referring to Chico's love life, George Jessel quipped, "Chico didn't button his fly until he was seventy."

Chico's lifelong gambling addiction compelled him to continue in show business long after his brothers had retired in comfort from their Hollywood income, and in the early 1940s he found himself playing in the same small, cheap halls in which he had begun his career 30 years earlier. The Marx Brothers' penultimate film, A Night in Casablanca (1946), was made for Chico's benefit since he had filed for bankruptcy a few years prior. Because of his out-of-control gambling, the brothers finally took the money as he earned it and put him on an allowance, on which he stayed until his death.

Chico had a reputation as a world-class pinochle player, a game he and Harpo learned from their father. Groucho said Chico would throw away good cards (with the knowledge of spectators) to make the play "more interesting". Chico's last public appearance was in 1960, playing cards on the television show Championship Bridge. He and his partner lost the game.

Chico was married twice. His first marriage was to Betty Karp in 1917. Their union produced one daughter named Maxine (1918–2009). His first marriage was plagued by his infidelity, ending in divorce in 1940; he was very close to his daughter Maxine and gave her acting lessons.

Chico's second marriage was to Mary De Vithas. They married in 1958, three years before his death.

In the 1974 Academy Awards telecast, Jack Lemmon presented Groucho with an honorary Academy Award to a standing ovation. The award was also for Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo, whom Lemmon mentioned by name. It was one of Groucho's final major public appearances. "I wish that Harpo and Chico could be here to share with me this great honor," he said, naming the two deceased brothers (Zeppo was still alive at the time and in the audience). Groucho also praised the late Margaret Dumont as a great straight woman who never understood any of his jokes.

Chico died of arteriosclerosis at age 74 on October 11, 1961, at his Hollywood home. He was the eldest brother and the first to die.

Chico is entombed in the mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Chico's younger brother Gummo is in a crypt across the hall from him.

#marx brothers #chico marx #classic hollywood #comedians

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newstfionline · 5 years ago

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Headlines

Trump Plans to Suspend Immigration to U.S. (NYT) President Trump said on Monday evening that he intended to close the United States to people trying to immigrate into the country to live and work, a drastic move that he said would protect American workers from foreign competition once the nation’s economy began to recover from the shutdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak. “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, “I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” The president’s late-night announcement on Monday signals his most wide-ranging attempt yet to seal off the country from the rest of the world. A formal order temporarily barring the provision of new green cards and work visas could come as early as the next few days, according to several people familiar with the plan.

“I just can’t do this.” Harried parents forgo home school (AP) Frustration is mounting as more families across the U.S. enter their second or even third week of distance learning—and some overwhelmed parents say it will be their last. Amid the barrage of learning apps, video meet-ups and e-mailed assignments that pass as pandemic home school, some frustrated and exhausted parents are choosing to disconnect entirely for the rest of the academic year. Others are cramming all their children’s school work into the weekend or taking days off work to help their kids with a week’s worth of assignments in one day. That stress is only compounded for families with multiple children in different grades, or when parents work long hours outside the home. In some cases, older siblings must watch younger ones during the day, leaving no time for school work.

A century later, victory gardens connect Americans again (AP) During World War I, posters proclaiming “Food will win the war” encouraged Americans to grow victory gardens. A century later, home gardeners are returning to that idea in the fight against a global pandemic. Backyard gardeners are coming together, mostly virtually, to learn and share stories on how to grow vegetables, fruits and flowers as the novel coronavirus raises fears about disruptions in food supplies and the cost of food in a down economy. “World War I, to me, is a pretty stark parallel,” said Rose Hayden-Smith, a historian and author of “Sowing the Seeds of Victory: American Gardening Programs of World War I.” “Not only was there a war, but there was an influenza pandemic.” Now, gardeners new and old are getting online and on social media to post pictures of freshly tilled backyards, raised garden beds, seeds germinating under grow lights or flocks of chickens. Some of these gardeners are newly unemployed, or working parents stuck at home with bored kids. Others are gardening enthusiasts who never had the time before to delve deep into the hobby. Urban community gardeners are ramping up production to feed families who have lost income and kids who no longer get meals at school.

Mexico’s president praises inmate amnesty as ‘humanitarian act’ (Reuters) A prisoner amnesty law in Mexico aimed at releasing non-violent inmates as a coronavirus containment measure won praise from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday, coming as health authorities expect the virus to spread faster in the days ahead. The Mexican Congress passed the amnesty late on Monday. It will allow for the release of low-level offenders, including those convicted of robbery and small-scale drug possession, as well women jailed on abortion charges. It will also apply to indigenous convicts who did not receive an adequate defense due to language barriers and those who were coerced to work with criminal gangs.

British tabloids: ‘Distorted, false, or invasive beyond reason’ (CJR) Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have written to the British tabloids promising never to work with them again. The couple, who moved abroad and ended official royal duties last month, sent the letter to four of the main British tabloids—The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Mirror—on Sunday evening. The former royals said they were implementing a new media-relations policy toward the outlets after the publication of what they believed were distorted and invasive stories. “It is gravely concerning that an influential slice of the media, over many years, has sought to insulate themselves from taking accountability for what they say or print—even when they know it to be distorted, false, or invasive beyond reason,” the couple said.

Normal influenza cases all but vanish in Europe (Reuters) Influenza, which each year kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, all but vanished in Europe last month as coronavirus lockdowns slowed transmission, according to EU data and scientists. The northern hemisphere’s winter flu outbreak normally runs from October until mid-May and in some seasons has claimed lives on the scale of COVID-19, despite the existence of a vaccine. Influenza killed 152,000 people in Europe in the 2017-18 winter. So far, COVID-19 has taken nearly 100,000 lives across the continent, albeit in a shorter period of time.

Virus forces cancellation of iconic events like Oktoberfest (AP) Spain canceled the Running of the Bulls in July, the U.S. scrapped the national spelling bee in June and Germany even called off Oktoberfest, making it clear Tuesday that the effort to beat back the coronavirus and return to normal could be a long and dispiriting process.

India’s migrant workers start heading home (Reuters) In one of the biggest mass movements of people in the country since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, after the shutdown, the cities themselves began to empty. Dayaram Kushwaha and his family were among the first to move. As the days went on, and the situation became more desperate, hundreds of thousands of migrants emerged from factories and workplaces in search of a way home. Indian officials say the shutdown is necessary to beat coronavirus in the densely populated country of 1.3 billion people, with a health infrastructure that can ill afford a widespread outbreak. But for Dayaram and many of India’s estimated 140 million migrant laborers, the epidemic is much more than a threat to their health—it endangers their very economic survival.

Assertive China (Reuters) As the coronavirus crisis eases in China and rages elsewhere around the world, it is becoming increasingly assertive in the region. In a significant strike against democracy activists in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, police in the city arrested 15 people on Saturday, just days after a senior Beijing official called for the local government to introduce national security legislation “as soon as possible.” China has also been flying regular fighter patrols near Chinese-claimed Taiwan and has sent a survey ship flanked by coast guard and other vessels into the South China Sea.

Netanyahu’s Power Is Extended as Rival Accepts Israel Unity Government (NYT) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his former challenger, Benny Gantz, agreed Monday night to establish a unity government, a deal that finally breaks a yearlong political impasse and keeps Mr. Netanyahu in office as he faces trial on corruption charges. After three inconclusive elections in the past year, the creation of the new government forestalls what had appeared to be an inevitable fourth election and offers a deeply divided Israel a chance for national healing as it battles the coronavirus pandemic. For Mr. Netanyahu, the agreement buys him time to try to resolve two contentious issues central to his legacy: to sidestep his prosecution or at least prevent it from driving him from power, and to extend Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian territory.

#headlines #news

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genderdysphoriablues · 5 years ago

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11/11/'19

Today was a busy day for sure. I got up at 8:00 to meet with @starmin-marmin for an interview on being a member of the Church as well as LGBT (it’s for a school project). She’s a great friend and I like talking about myself, so I was happy to comply. Plus, she bought me food (we met at McDonald’s).

We went our separate ways, and even though I wanted to take a nap I knew that I would not get up in time if I did, so I played Syndicate instead. I’ve gotten to that bit where there’s like, a tear in the Animus or something and you meet some goddess and get to play as Jacob's granddaughter during WW1. It’s exciting stuff! I do prefer the 1860′s, though.

When my alarm went off at 11:30 I got dressed and went to work. Because it’s a government holiday normally I would have the day off, but because the library is closed anyway it makes it a convenient day to make all of the staff get together in one place and do things. It’s called Staff Development Day.

Some of the said things include: boring lectures, fried chicken, a raffle, a talent show,a meeting, and a less boring lecture. Not necessarily in that order. The less boring lecture was actually first, and it was about emergency preparedness. We discussed earthquakes, fores, and tornadoes. We also talked about what to do in the event of an active shooter and a lot of the “warning signs” to look out for are typical traits of people who have antisocial personality disorder, so I was pretty attentive during that bit.

We had a break and the split into our individual branches to talk about what to do if someone is attempting to steal from up. Not like, a robbery, but moreso larceny theft. We’ve got secret codes and everything.

After that we had a boring lecture on retirement and then one on mindfulness (equally boring). In order to keep myself sane I doodled all over my arm with neon and glitter pens. So glad that I thought to bring those.

The we had dinner, announced awards to our pumpkin contest (my branch did not win), had a talent show (I shared this poem, and I sang a song with my branch coworkers), and a raffle. I didn’t get anything, but that’s okay.

I am exhausted now, after nine hours, so I am going to bed.

#Mormon transgender #transgender #LDS transgender #LGBT #Mormon LGBT #LDS LGBT #haha I accidentally posted this on the wrong day so I fixed it now

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countdowntillseason3 · 5 years ago

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Review and Recap : “The Fate of the Roommates” (Spoilers Ahead)

Now that I have a copy of both “The Fate of the Roommates” and “Muira-Horror!”, thanks to my lovely followers and @atruehiro ^-^! I’ll be working on their R&Rs today. I won’t be doing “Muira-Horror!” till later today though since classes. Spoilers abound!

RECAP

We begin the episode with Heathcliff driving Fred home from his “Comic Book Club”. While Fred is droning on about Mr. Cameo and whatnot, Heathcliff avoids a weird neon car that nearly rear-ends the limo. A lot more neon cars appear, prompting Heathcliff to essentially dodge all these cars while causing as little collateral damage as possible.

After the intro we are now at SFIT, where Fred is freaking out about the future looking cars. Hiro mentions a bank robbery occurring the night before and says that the cars might have been the get-away cars. Hiro says they’ll go on a stake out that night but Honey says she can’t come because she’s throwing another Sticker Party, which is now BYOS (Bring Your Own Stickers). Gogo expresses sadness (well it was more sarcasm) about how she can’t come to the Sticker Party, but Honey tries to cheer her up saying they can have a Sticker After Party, much to Gogo’s dismay.

At Gogo and Honey’s apartment, Gogo is cleaning her discs when she notices the temperature increased in the apartment. Honey said she turned the heat up because warm stickers stick best. Also she has mood stickers that change color depending on the person they are on’s mood!

During the stake out, Gogo is getting tired of Honey’s happy antics. While talking about her problems, the futuristic cars drive past the team, starting the chase. Baymax attempts to stop one of the cars peacefully, but it jumps over him. Gogo manages to relieve a car of one of it’s wheels by throwing her disc at it, causing the car to loose speed. When they open the car, they find out it as a remote control driven car and Fred finds a token that says “Maximum Insane Driving Challenge,” which reveals this to be a plot of Mr. Sparkles.

At a warehouse(?), Mr. Sparkles eliminates the first contestant of the challenge. He says whoever wins the challenge will win Kashmir Lined Driving Gloves, which for some odd reason make the other contestants excited. Back at Gogo and Honey’s apartment, Gogo walks in to what she assumes to be a Sticker Party. Honey is aware the she is invading Gogo’s space and tells Gogo that she can return to the dorms, allowing Gogo to have her apartment back. Gogo seems to be disappointed about this (not in front of Honey though).

At Joe’s Diner, Hiro and Fred consult Globby and Felony Carl for some information on the Maximum Insane Driving Challenge. Carl says that Mr. Sparkles is running some racing challenge for well-to-do thrill seekers, or basically rich people who are also thrill seekers. He also says that Sparkles is working with Yama.

At SFIT, Honey tells Gogo that she will be out by the end of the week. Gogo is still sad about this but hides it from the rest of the team, but Baymax can tell. He is a healthcare companion after all. Baymax tells Gogo that sharing her feelings might help, so Gogo tries to share her feelings about Honey leaving to Honey, but doesn’t.

At Frederickson Mansion, Fred, Wasabi, and Hiro try to find a way to infiltrate the racing league. They can’t send in any of the Big Hero 6 themselves as Mr. Sparkles and Yama would recognize them, and they would need someone that looks rich to show up in order to infiltrate the league. Heathcliff walks in and the group find the person they’ll need for the infiltration. In the secret room, Fred asks his father (which is one of the last cameos recorded before Stan Lee’s death. R.I.P. Stan Lee) if he has any advice for Heathcliff. It was revealed that after Heathcliff graduated Butler School (that exists in this universe apparently), Mr. Fredrickson taught Heathcliff the art of undercover work.

At SFIT, Baymax still tries to support Gogo, but Gogo says she is already emotionally supported (yeah right).

At the racing league warehouse, Heathcliff successfully infiltrates the league. Mr. Sparkles reveals that the racing league is just a diversion so that Sparkles and Yama can commit crimes, and their final heist is to steal the most valuable comic book. Captain Fancy #8. Meanwhile at the apartment, Gogo tries to tell her feelings to Honey but is interrupted as Hiro notifies them that Sparkles and Yama are planning on raiding Richardson’s shop.

The race begins while the Big Hero 6 confront Yama at the comic book store, only for both of them to find out Yama was tricked by Mr. Sparkles. The race goes as well as you would expect, Heathcliff managing to pull a backwards driving to distract the other driver that would allow him to go through the right path while the other driver drives off into the bay. Fred checks the safe the money was previously in only to find it isn’t there, and neither is Mr. Sparkles. Mr. Sparkles hijacks one of the futuristic looking cars, prompting a race between him and Heathcliff. During the race, Mr. Sparkles summons the giant robot chicken and manages to total Heathcliff’s car. Gogo goes out on her own in a new fancy looking... I don’t know what to call it, windowed motorcycle, and begins to chase Mr. Sparkle’s car. She short circuits Mr. Sparkle’s car, but Mr. Sparkles ejects from the car and escapes.

Honey gets ready to leave the apartment, but Gogo stops her and talks to Honey expressing her feelings about not wanting Honey to leave. Honey agrees to stay with Gogo and they have an emotional moment selfie.

At Sycorax, Mr. Sparkles talks to Liv Amara as he heard she can give villains interesting abilities. He shows Liv the money, and she smiles.

REVIEW

It was an interesting episode. I love the friendship between Gogo and Honey Lemon and I’m glad they will still be living together! Mr. Sparkles makes a nice antagonist and I’m curious as to what Liv will give him. Also Yama got arrested again so that happened. And I love how badass Heathcliff is this episode, I’m glad he got some time to shine. Also Baymax gets a lot more screentime this episode too, which is great! Overall, 8/10.

#big hero 6 #big hero 6 the series #bh6 #bh6 the series #big hero 6 season 2 #big hero 6 the series season 2 #bh6 season 2 #bh6 the series season 2 #big hero 6 spoilers #big hero 6 the series spoilers #bh6 spoilers #bh6 the series spoilers #the fate of the roommates #fate of the roommates

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radiojamming · 6 years ago

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lil fic for my own indulgence of josie and javier’s first kiss hell ye

also hi my name is DJ and i use the same made up town for every fic and i feel no shame! aaaand this takes place ~1896 ish, so javier’s been with the gang for about a year.

- - -

The lawmen of Copperbell must have boring lives, as apparently they’re hawkeyed enough to see trouble before it even happens. For a tiny, exhausted mining town, it’s not so much surprising as it is frustrating. Scoping for jobs and planning heists doesn’t work quite as well when those oh-so fine gentlemen of the law are hovering only a few feet away.

For Josie and Javier, it means several miserably boring days in the Peacock Hotel, waiting for the opportune moment to do something other than trying to make sense of the gaudy decorations around the hotel room and wiping the floor with drunk folks at the poker table downstairs. Copperbell’s distinctly lacking in an entertainment district (they did have a lovely travelling show come through on Thursday, advertising chickens who could jump through hoops and a goat that could eat and spit up jewelry), so Josie and Javier are mostly left to their own devices. This, decidedly, isn’t for the best.

For nearly twenty miles in each cardinal direction, there’s nothing but scrublands and washes. A train comes through twice a day, carrying the mail and a few passengers who have sought work in other, more fruitful places. Around three in the afternoon, the winds have a tendency to pick up and cause small dust storms that whip up ruddy dust devils on the main thoroughfare, rendering promenades impossible. At night, the sun dips below the violet ridge of mountains to the west and the nightlife that follows is about as lively as a boneyard. The most exciting thing is when a coyote paws through someone’s garbage.

On the late afternoon of their fifth day in Copperbell, Josie worries about the damage that Javier’s done to the left side of the door frame. It’s riddled in knife-shaped pockmarks from practicing his throws. Hours are filled with fhwip-thunk! and his footsteps, then the creak of the wicker chair in their room.

Josie sprawls on the bed and tries to read from the hotel’s limited library. She gets about a quarter of the way through a book about the flora and fauna of the wash before she realizes that she hasn’t retained a single word. After another fhwip-thunk! thump, thump, creaaaaaaak, she decides that she’s about had enough.

“Either we need to try another town, or we do something,” she says, rubbing at her good eye which feels like it’s full of Copperbell’s famous omnipresent dust.

Javier shrugs and thumbs the tip of his knife. “Don’t know what we can do,” he says slowly, still mindful of his developing English. It’s gotten significantly better in the year that he’s been running with them. “Law’s everywhere.”

Josie grimaces and sinks back against the pillows. They’ve tried to play the newly married couple card, opting for enterprising tourists in the glorious locale of Copperbell. As far as a ruse goes, it’s a poor one. No one comes to Copperbell unless they have to, which means the law is probably right to be suspicious. That, and Javier acts like a startled rabbit whenever she introduces him as her husband.

It also doesn’t help their case that she’s apparently a new, blushing bride with an eyepatch and a limp like a pirate, and he looks like a desperado straight from a penny novel.

He throws the knife again--fhwip-th-thunk as it misses the door frame and lands blade down on the boards--and Josie rolls onto her side, staring out the window thoughtfully. Outside, the evening has gone from burning orange to inky blue. The coyotes are probably already yipping a symphony in the distance with only the stars as their audience. It’s a waning moon tonight, so--

She sits up, startling Javier again who almost drops the knife on his foot. He stares at her, and she stares at him, a smile starting to spread across her face.

“I say we do it tonight anyway.”

“What?”

“We do the heist. That big copper magnate fella’s house that Hosea was talking about.”

Javier looks confused, and for a moment, she thinks that he didn’t understand her. Then, he shrugs. “We’ll get caught,” he says.

“Not if we’re smart. Keep to the shadows, don’t use the whole married couple bit, and do a good old fashioned house robbery before the sun comes up.”

He squints at her. “And if the law comes?”

“Then we run.” She cocks her grin like a pistol. “What are they gonna do? Chase us into the wash?”

That’d be ruination for multiple parties, and the officers would probably figure them for dead between the distance and the rattlesnakes. Fortunately, she and Javier are a little better adjusted to great swatches of wilderness than most people.

Slowly, like the crawl of the sunrise, Javier grins at her and slides his knife back into its sheath. “Okay,” he says at last. “What can it hurt?”

- - -

Plenty, apparently.

First of all, the wealthy people of Copperbell are few and far between, and apparently very defensive of every last bit of finery in their houses. So much as an embroidered napkin goes missing and suddenly every dog in Copperbell is up and barking, and every lawman finds liberal use for his whistle.

Secondly, there are only a handful of places to hide in the town. The church is an option, but that’s just asking for a standoff with the law. There’s the aforementioned wash, but unless there’s a big enough sagebrush bush to hide both of them, it’s not something that can be done in under ten minutes. With men shouting, whistles being blown, and mutts braying like bloodhounds, their options are fewer and fewer.

At the very least, Josie’s gotten away with a pocket watch, a solid gold letter opener (with a very charming naked cherub on the top), and a lovely silver necklace. Javier hasn’t had time to list off what little he managed to grab before the shouting started. He’s a little more concerned with navigating through the shadows, as they had planned, trying to find some obscure nook that no one’s found yet. Mostly, he’s performing impressive, long-winded strings of curses in Spanish, hardly pausing to take a breath as he does it. Josie would be even more impressed if they weren’t running for their lives.

They skid around a corner, and even in the dark, Josie recognizes the back wall of the Peacock Hotel. They can’t very well burst into the lobby, covered in dust and sweat, panting like they’ve run a mile (she thinks by now, they probably have). It’s as good as a dead end, and Josie can only hope that Copperbell’s jail cells aren’t as dusty as everything else, and that they’re not fond of the noose as a primary source of entertainment.

Then, Javier yanks them back into the shadows by a pile of crates and unmarked barrels. He’s breathing hard, glancing back and forth like a pendulum in quick step. Finally, he catches his breath and nods to her.

“I have an idea,” he says. At the same time, they hear more shouting.

“Can’t hurt, what ever it is.”

“Can’t hurt,” he agrees.

Pauses.

Looks at her with his eyes just pale flickers of light.

And kisses her like their lives depend on it. (They do.)

Josie staggers back against the wall in surprise. Javier presses her against it, his right hand rising up to her jaw, the other hand pressed against the wall beside her waist. It takes Josie a moment to realize what he’s attempting to do, and she has to give him credit for it-- It’s very clever.

She responds by hooking one arm around the back of his shoulders, and the other hand finds a spot under his coat, right at his waist. If she needs to, she can slide that hand down and grab his revolver, provided either of them stand a chance at surviving a firefight. She inches her legs apart just enough for him to slot one of his between them. As an added thought, she quickly reaches up from his shoulders to knock his hat off and ruffle his hair to make it look like they’ve been at this for awhile. She almost laughs outright when he makes an interested ‘hmm’ sound against her lips (which feels very pleasant) and returns the favor, tugging her braid loose.

There are a few things that she realizes at that moment. One of them is that Javier is far more clever than anyone’s given him credit for. It’s been a little less than a year since Dutch picked him up, and that time has been full of lessons, small missions, and him attempting to find his niche in a gang of strangers. He hasn’t exactly been shy, per se, but he also hasn’t been given much opportunity yet to really let his skills be used to their advantage. He’s a quick thinker, and Josie makes a mental note to pass that along to Dutch and Hosea when she gets the chance.

The second realization is that he is one hell of a good kisser. She doesn’t have much to compare to, but even she knows that this is a good thing. He tilts his head just so, and his lips are warmer and softer than they look. When they finally hear the lawmen start to approach, he takes the opportunity to slide his tongue into her mouth, which technically isn’t necessary, but is a pretty good touch considering the illusion they’re trying to keep up. She responds in turn, a little happier to oblige than she probably should be.

Someone kicks up gravel near them, and all Josie hears is, “You there! Stop-- ...Oh.”

She doesn’t look up. Javier’s not giving her much of a reason to.

The officer makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “I-- Uh-- P-pardon me, sir and uh-- miss.”

Josie tilts her head back just enough to speak, but Javier just occupies himself by kissing a trail down her jaw to her neck. “Missus,” she corrects. “Just married.”

She gets about three seconds to look at the stunned lawman before Javier’s kissing her properly again, and Josie’s so far from complaining that she might as well be standing on another continent.

“I... W-well, congratulations! That’s--” He clears his throat again. “Yes. Well. Carry on.”

He doesn’t linger long after that, and after another minute or so (a very, very blissful minute), the shouts and barking gets further away. Then, it’s almost completely quiet save for the soft, wet sounds of their kisses and the whipping of the wind in the eaves above them. Finally, Javier leans back and grins at her. She does the same, until both of them finally crack and laugh with relief.

“Mierda,” Javier breathes, wiping at his eyes. “That was a miracle.”

“That was brilliant, Mister Escuella,” Josie corrects. She hasn’t moved her arm from his shoulders yet, and that’s yet to bother her.

And then she sees that little bit of Javier that she’s coming to understand is the real him. That clever fox look on his face that she’s hoping to see a lot more of. “Señora Escuella, it’s been a pleasure,” he says.

They laugh again, at the absurdity of it all, at just about everything about this damn trip. Then, Josie kisses him on the cheek, and can’t ignore how Javier just seems to lean into it. “Come on,” she says. “I’m exhausted, and I don’t think they’re gonna bother us now.”

They stumble into the lobby of the Peacock, arms around each other, dizzy and grinning. For the first time, Josie thinks they probably actually look like the newlyweds they’ve been claiming to be, and that thought makes her laugh again as the receptionist gives them a polite smile.

And honestly, the sleep that follows is probably the best Josie has ever had.

#rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #javier escuella #oc: josie bishop #javier/oc #this was so fun #they're just miguel and tulio tbh

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csowmya · 3 years ago

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How Remote Working has Increased the Cyber Threats

Remote Working Employees might be unconsciously putting your organization's information in danger. Telecommuting might possibly prompt information breaks, character misrepresentation, security penetration testing consultants and a large group of other adverse results. Continue to peruse to get familiar with the best five different ways that distant representatives can present network safety dangers to your association just as hazard relief tips.

Phishing Schemes

Your distant workers can be the greatest danger to your organization's security. By unwittingly following digital protection most exceedingly awful practices, workers can wind up giving programmers and digital hoodlums admittance to your organization and your organization's touchy information.

At the point when business tasks abruptly or briefly change to remote work, representatives can become befuddled regarding how to keep on functioning safely.

Phishing plans affect an individual or element acting like a real source, typically over email, to fool a casualty into giving individual login certifications or touchy data, which would then be able to be utilized to hack into accounts, take more delicate data, complete character extortion, and the sky is the limit from there.

Phishing messages have become so refined that it is progressively becoming more enthusiastically for workers to identify them, particularly when phishing messages make it past email channels directly to a representative's fundamental inbox.

So what should be possible?

Preparing workers on the best way to distinguish and stay away from phishing messages can enormously lessen the danger that phishing messages posture to organization information security. To assemble an extensive digital protection mindfulness preparing program, carry out it from the second recently added team members stroll in the entryway.

By instructing representatives about phishing and digital protection best practices from their first day and proceeding with schooling with pamphlets, phishing tests, and intermittent trainings, a work environment culture of solid network safety will be imparted broad.

Passwords

Regardless of whether your organization utilizes Vpn's, firewalls, and other network safety programming to ensure your remote organization, human blunder becomes an integral factor when workers defend their records with feeble passwords.

Programmers realize that human blunder is simpler to take advantage of then attempting to move beyond a modern security programming, which is the reason they'll attempt to break account passwords to get to touchy organization data.

Digital lawbreakers utilize an assortment of measures to break passwords. For example, they'll gather arrangements of generally utilized passwords that can be utilized to handily get to inadequately secured accounts.

Programmers will once in a while compose code intended to persistently endeavor to break a secret word by evaluating various variations. With sufficient opportunity, a bot can probably break one's secret key except if it is incredibly mind boggling.

Rehash passwords are another normal shaky practice that programmers exploit. When programmers break the secret phrase to one record, they will attempt to get to different records with that equivalent secret phrase. Representatives who rehash passwords, particularly across close to home and business accounts, are at a higher danger of having their organization accounts hacked.

So what should be possible?

Secret word strategies can assist with cultivating a culture of moral obligation in your association. Passphrases and prohibitions on utilizing individual data and rehash passwords for account logins are suggested secret key arrangement conditions.

Passphrases, which are made by hanging all together of words, are one of the top tips shared by digital protection specialists. Secure passphrases can be somewhere in the range of 4-12 words or more, with longer passwords being more diligently to break.

For example, a passphrase could be "chicken G0og7e blue Hawaii". To make passphrases safer, one can add accentuation, character replacements, and numbers.

In the period of web-based media, individual data normally utilized in passwords, for example, birthday events and alma maters can without much of a stretch be found on the web. In the event that a programmer peruses a representative's Facebook profile, for example, they can utilize the photos, posts, and "About Me" data to discover normal data utilized in passwords.

However workers might be enticed to remember normal individual data for their passwords, they ought to be deterred from doing as such in your secret phrase strategy.

At whatever point you record a secret key, regardless of whether it's on a tacky note or in the Notes application on your telephone, you set out a freedom for someone with terrible goals to discover it.

Mean to add a statement in your secret phrase strategy that debilitate recording passwords. On the off chance that workers should record passwords to recollect them, they ought to consider a safe secret word putting away program.

Remote Work Cyber Threats

While organizations might think to scramble information that is put away on their organization, they may not consider encoding information when it's on the way from area to another. Your representatives share such a lot of delicate data consistently, from customer account data to records and then some, that your organization can't stand to not get this data from being caught by a programmer. On the off chance that delicate organization data is blocked, it can prompt character misrepresentation, ransomware assaults, robbery, and then some.

So what should be possible?

Touchy information ought to be scrambled when it's sent over email or telephone. With regards to email encryption, Outlook, a well known email stage, has highlights that can change over plain message messages to mixed code message so just the beneficiary with the key can unscramble the message. You can likewise utilize email encryption stages to get email information, connections, and contact records.

Voice message data can be scrambled with the right business telephone situation. Some business telephone suppliers have highlights that can encode and safely email voice message information to guarantee that touchy information is ensured.

Information can likewise be scrambled by utilizing a safe record sharing stage like Dropbox and OneDrive. These stages guarantee that data is scrambled from start to finish.

Home Wi-Fi

While organizations for the most part think to get their distant representatives' work workstations, many don't consider how the Wi-Fi networks that their workers work off of at home might be representing a danger to the security of organization information.

For example, while many individuals know to refresh their cell phone or antivirus programming, updates to home switch programming are frequently ignored. Like when updates aren't finished on different gadgets, for example, your cell phone, switches that aren't refreshed will not have security holes fixed, which can prompt information break chances over the long run.

Also, while organizations ordinarily have firewalls in their office to screen network traffic and square malignant action, many individuals don't have a firewall to monitor their home's organization. While a few switches are cross breed switch firewalls, these firewalls are not excessively secure, which can prompt potential organization security holes for distant workers.

So what should be possible?

Occasionally refreshing your switch's product when updates are free guarantees that any current security holes are immediately fixed before a programmer can take advantage of them. Also, verify whether your switch has any encryption includes that can be empowered.

On the off chance that your organization has the financial plan for it and representatives will be turning out distantly for some time, consider giving every worker, or essentially the individuals who work with a great deal of delicate information, with a firewall to more readily get their home's Wi-Fi.

Individual Devices

Step by step instructions to Work Remotely Securely

At the point when representatives work distantly, they regularly don't get together their whole office and get back innovation, for example, printers and work area telephones. This implies that they might turn to utilizing individual cell phones and home printers to lead business distantly.

While working from individual gadgets can understand opportunity and adaptability, these gadgets can present network safety hazards.

With regards to individual cell phones, a great many people don't think to scramble them, particularly with regards to information as hackneyed as voice messages. In any case, when work is directed on an individual cellphone, for example calls and logins to business accounts, this information might conceivably be gotten to by programmers except if the telephone is scrambled.

Printers have numerous components that, while they can apparently work on one's daily existence, can have security holes that programmers can take advantage of to get to information put away on it. At the point when telecommuters print business records from individual home printers, this can represent a potential security issue.

While numerous organizations furnish representatives with work PCs, some permit distant representatives to work from PCs.

Albeit these approaches are regularly put forth trying to further develop working environment culture by making business tasks more adaptable, these strategies can likewise leave organization information in danger since PCs are normally not so gotten as work PCs.

So what should be possible?

Step by step instructions to Secure Phones

On the off chance that your workers lead business on close to home telephones, consider requesting that they abstain from doing as such except if they scramble their telephones. Information can without much of a stretch be defended with straightforward activities, for example, empowering a severe password on the telephone, yet extra measures can be taken also.

On Android telephones, an encryption element can be empowered in the security settings. On iPhones, you can empower a setting that naturally wipes the telephone after a specific number of bombed admittance endeavors.

Step by step instructions to Secure Printers

Home printers have various unreliable provisions that you ought to suggest that your representatives turn off when they're working distantly.

For example, "print from anyplace" highlights let one print reports at home in any event, when you're away from the workplace. In any case, this element has little security since it needs to make an opening in your firewall to permit you to speak with the machine from anyplace. Consider suggesting that your workers have this element wound down.

#securityconsultant

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race-jackson · 7 years ago

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Maladjusted Chihuahua Tempers

Fandom: MCU Characters: Bucky Barnes, Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers Summary:

When his best friend from the 1940s meets the daughter he'd recently reunited with, the result is everything Bucky ever feared: chaos. Utter. Chaos.

alternatively: five times Darcy and Steve get Bucky arrested and the one time it's on him.

Read here on AO3.

Back when Darya had been growing up, there were times that Bucky wondered what life would be like if Steve had survived his plane crash to meet Bucky's kid. If they would get along, if he would be the Cool Uncle or the Strict Uncle, if he would recognise the person Bucky had become. At times, he even wondered if Steve wouldn’t just take Darya away from him, take her somewhere safe where he couldn’t hurt her.

It was hypothetical of course; Bucky's bizarre yet terrible history with HYDRA ensured that. But still, he couldn’t help but wonder.

And then he forcibly ejected the thoughts from his brain, because if one stubborn bisexual with the temper of a maladjusted chihuahua was bad enough, two would be an utter nightmare.

The Dad!Bucky of his youth had been right. The two of them were a nightmare.

By the time he'd managed to get his shit together enough to go back to his family, Dary–Darcy and Steve had been good friends for some time. They hadn't been at first, from what he could gather. As Natasha told it, in the beginning, the both of them were too stubborn to get along without knocking heads and spent several weeks either ignoring each other or exploding into raging arguments. Not that that was completely unexpected, considering their infuriatingly similar personalities and ethical codes.

Evidently, that had changed. As he found out within an hour of moving into the Tower, Darcy and Steve were as thick as thieves. Much to their significant others’ consternation – and Bucky's, definitely Bucky’s – the two had clearly decided that their efforts were better spent in tandem rather than in opposition, and thus had become very close.

It was everything Dad!Bucky had hoped and feared. That became very clear the first time they all went for a walk in Central Park together.

Warm for early November, the walk had nevertheless started out pleasantly enough. It was quieter than usual on a Sunday afternoon, with fewer people milling around than Bucky would have expected, but that only made it nicer. As they ambled around the Reservoir, Darcy and Steve chatted a bit, Bucky only a step behind them. Though they kept throwing him (what they thought were) subtle looks here and there to join the conversation, he stayed silent.

He wasn’t exactly sure how to convey that he was remaining quiet out of contentment than anything else. Knowing them, they would probably think he felt left out, or something equally stupid, and would then go to such great pains to include him that he would only end up annoyed.

Unfortunately, pissing him off seemed to be at the very top of their lists. At least, that’s what he reasoned when they came across the protest.

For a protest, it was pretty small. The counter-protest seemed, to Bucky at least, to be much larger. There were about one hundred or so people on one side, crowding about with placards and pamphlets. A banner proclaiming “New York State Right to Life: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things” hung above them. On the other side, a much larger group also had placards to wave about, and, though the few closest to the other group were quite angry, most of them seemed

they had even started a sing-song chant.

“Keep your rosaries off our ovaries!”

It was creatively done, he’d freely admit.

Apparently, Steve and Darcy thought so too.

“Come on, dude, it looks fun!” exclaimed Darcy, tugging his metal arm towards the protestors.

Though HYDRA had left her strong, she was not nearly muscly enough to drag him wherever she wanted, and so she stood there for a moment with her biceps trembling with the effort of moving him. It was only when he relented that she was able to make any headway, falling over a little in her scramble to join the protests. Despite not saying anything, Bucky could feel the excitement emanating from Steve too, no doubt left over from Mrs Rogers’ impassioned speeches during their boyhood on reproductive health.

Bucky couldn’t hold back the sigh as they were eagerly handed spare signs that proclaimed “If it’s not your ute, you should scoot.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t agree, because he did, wholeheartedly. The problem was that Darcy and Steve … well…

“How dare you?! What gives you the right to dictate that?!”

Neither of them had what anyone would call–

“The fuck did you just say? Come back here and say that to my face you fucking cowardly piece of shit!”

–impulse control.

Th odd feeling in his chest as Natasha bailed them all out post-protest was hard to name. Maybe it was apprehension as he saw the almost-identical, satisfied grins and knew that this would only be the first of many times, or maybe it was resigned tolerance as he realised he would only be useful to minimise their bullshit. He wasn’t sure.

He did recognise a slight twinge of pride but quickly shoved it down. Such a thing would only encourage them.

It happened again when they went out to lunch the next week and Darcy overheard the man in the booth opposite theirs telling his girlfriend that she ought to order a salad.

The lunch date was another of their attempts to integrate him into society, like the walk in Central Park and trips to the downstairs coffee shop. Like the first big outing, however, it was ruined as Darcy, in over-alert puppy mode, perked up upon hearing the jerk in the booth over.

Darcy tapped the table in front of Steve’s bowl, but the lug was too engrossed in his chicken soup to notice. She then proceeded to kick him. Only she didn’t, because she missed and nailed Bucky’s shin instead, and so Steve remained oblivious until Bucky elbowed him in the ribcage after Darcy’s second failed kicking attempt got him in the knee.

“What?” he yelped.

Darcy jerked her head in the direction of where the man was saying something about weight loss programs while his girlfriend’s eyes filled with tears. After a moment, Steve’s jaw clenched shut, the rest of his face growing stormy with poorly-disguised disgust.

But when Darcy made as if to leave her seat, Bucky put his foot down.

“No,” he said sharply, though quietly enough that only Darcy and Steve could hear. “Don’t. You don’t know either of ’em and it’s not your place to get involved in other people’s relationships.”

“But–!” Darcy started to protest.

“No,” repeated Bucky. “We’re in public place and the wait staff don’t need to be dealing with your lack of self-control. Sit down.”

“But she deserves better,” said Steve. He’d gotten that glint in his eye which said he was disappointed with Bucky’s life decisions, which, what a fucking hypocrite. “You can’t think she deserves that, someone should say something.”

“I don’t think she deserves that,” Bucky responded, an aura of fake calm overtaking the need to pummel Steve’s face into the ground. “But I do think that you two have no idea what “escalation” means.”

Steve looked as if he was going to say something else, but at that moment, the guy from the other table exclaimed, loudly enough that the whole café could hear him, “I deserve better than a girlfriend who thinks shovelling food in her face is more important than my happiness.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Bucky cursed. And next thing he knew, Darcy had leapt out of her seat with pie in hand and an already-lecturing Steve at her side and proceeded to threaten the guy with pie face. In the next moment, it ceased to be a threat.

Luckily for Bucky, that time, the plainclothes officer that had been conveniently sitting at the breakfast bar was sympathetic, issuing only a warning.

The next police officer was not so sympathetic.

“There was an armed robbery, which we stopped. We were literally stopping an armed robbery. Which is, y’know, your job. We did your job for you. No need to thank us.”

The cell door was locked with an audibly loud clang. Without even looking at them, the officer stalked away to sit at his desk and continued to ignore them, seemingly unable to hear Darcy’s exclamations. She huffed, and Steve turned to her with a serious expression on his face.

“You just made that worse,” he told her.

Her eyebrows jumped in derision, her mouth curling, and she snorted.

“Says the guy who threw the robber into the aisle and damaged five thousand dollars’ worth of wine.”

“Yeah,” retorted Steve, having the grace to blush slightly, “but at least I–”

“Both of you are equally dumb,” said Bucky, stretching his arms. At an audible crack, he winced and reclined back into his corner. “Neither of you are smart enough to call the other dumb. You’re both dumb.”

If he hadn’t been languishing in a prison cell, he might have worried over the twin glares they sent him. As it were, he was languishing in a prison cell, so he didn’t give a fuck.

The next time they were arrested due to Steve and Darcy’s bullshit, Bucky gave even less of a fuck about their anger than the last. Especially since it was over Bucky being called a “hobo”. He did, however, realise that he should have been more apprehensive about their meetings in his retrospectively insane Dad!Bucky wonderings.

(He didn’t know why he called the period of time when he raised Darcy that. It was probably Darcy’s fault.)

The time after that, though, he could genuinely say he wasn’t mad.

By then, Bucky had improved a lot. Calm was his usual setting, and the slightest stressful moment no longer had him running for the hills. Which was useful, considering he spent most of his time around the two most stressful people on the planet. So yes, yay for improvement and all that. Apparently, though, that meant he had to start pushing himself to be out in very busy, very public places.

With the two most stressful people on the planet.

(Ok, so he didn’t have to. He just felt obligated to. At least one of them was his fault, and he hadn’t managed to stop the other from engaging in bullshit the entire time he’d known him. It was, therefore, his responsibility to protect the world from them.)

So they were out at a bar, one of the ones Darcy called “a complete dive”. Though they all nursed glasses of Jack, she’d managed to pinch some of the Asgardian mead Thor favoured, which was, incidentally, the only stuff that would get any of them even the least bit drunk. They were all slightly tipsy as a result, and from there the conversation had just gotten strange.

“On a scale of odd to really freaking weird, how weird is it that I’m out drinking alien liquor with my dad and his best bud who happens to be one of my best buds but both of them are from the 1940s and it's currently 2016?”

“I think,” said Bucky, pushing her glass away, “that you’re jumbling up your grammar and need some sleep.”

She nodded but made no move to leave. Instead, she curled up into Steve’s side, resting her head on his shoulder and dozing off the second her crown hit skin. Even Steve’s chuckles weren’t enough to rouse her.

“She’s got moxie, this one,” said Steve, his voice pitched low so as to not disturb her. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “You have a good kid, Buck.”

Bucky shook his head, a grunt of self-deprecation escaping his throat.

“Hardly,” he said. Feeling Steve’s eyes on him, he looked up and continued, “I’ve fucked her up more than anything.”

“I doubt that,” said Steve softly.

Meeting his gaze squarely, Bucky replied, “I almost killed her when she was three. She woke me up while I was having a nightmare and I almost gutted her like a fish. And that’s not mentioning HYDRA, or the moving around, or my apparent death. If anything, she’s a good kid in spite of me."

Before Steve could disagree, as Bucky could tell he vehemently wanted to, they were interrupted by Darcy. She jerked awake suddenly, hitting Steve’s chin with her forehead and nearly knocking him out as she did so. As Steve cursed loudly much to Bucky’s amusement, Darcy’s gaze zoned in on the bar.

“Did you hear that?” she asked, focused unwaveringly.

Bucky shook his head no.

“What is it?” he said, also turning to focus on the bar.

Nothing out of the ordinary was happening, just a few clusters of people here and there. One guy in a purple shirt was accepting a drink from the man he was chatting to, and another couple were sequestered in the corner between the bench and the wall. Everyone there seemed to be having a good time. The only thing of note was that the bartender, a heavyset woman with beautiful tatts running up her bronze arm, looked a little bit flustered from having to deal with so many people by herself.

He turned back to his daughter, eyebrow raised, but she wasn’t paying attention. Gaze still fixed on the bar, she was eyeing the man talking to the purple shirt girl with a familiar single-mindedness.

“Darcy,” he said slowly, yet she still acted as if she hadn’t heard him. Far more forcefully, he hissed, “Darya!”

“He’s going to put something into his drink, or he already has,” was all she said. Her body had gone stock-still, zeroed in on the object of her scrutiny. “I heard the scumbag talking about it. He’s having his friend distract the bartender so she won’t notice him.”

The stillness was infectious, it seemed. As Darcy relayed what she’d overheard, Bucky felt himself becoming rigid. That voice in the back of his head that he’d fought so long to control got just a bit louder. Next to him, Steve had stopped cursing and had gone quiet, also intent on watching the scene play out by the bar. And true to prediction, as soon as the purple shirt guy had turned around, his companion had leant around him and tipped something into his glass.

Instantly, Darcy was out of her seat and partway to the bar. The only thing holding her back was Bucky’s hand, a restraint on her arm with its metallic grip. Steve halted too, sending Bucky puzzled yet anxious looks that urged him to speed up his explanation.

“We are going to alert the bartender that this has happened,” said Bucky, quietly so as to not alert people around them. “She will call the police and while she does that, we will go and watch to make sure that that man is ok, and get him out of there.”

Both of them nodded in agreement, and with that in mind, Bucky sidled over to the bartender, waving her over with his most urgent “there is an issue” face. In a low voice, he relayed to her what he’d seen. Meanwhile, as her face went white and she fumbled for her phone, out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Steve and Darcy approach the couple at the bar. Whatever they said was too quiet for even him to pick up (though that may have been the music), but the expressions on their faces?

There was no way he could misunderstand that.

“Shit,” he cursed, launching himself across the bar in time for Darcy to take a swing.

From there, the fight wrapped up pretty quickly. Scumbag put up a shit fight and went down quickly. Then the scumbag’s friend took obvious offence to his friend being beat on by a girl, but then Steve was there. When body-checking him didn’t work, the tap he delivered to his head did – an effective knock that would leave the guy with a headache the next day.

Even so, the cops weren’t exactly thrilled with them. The time they spent in cuffs was shorter than usual, though, so that was a plus.

+ 1

Bucky didn’t like to admit it (mostly because it undermined the parental aura he purposefully exuded to command respect from his wayward child and to scare off potential threats), but while Darcy reminded him of Steve, a lot of the shit-stirring behaviour she had was inherited from him.

Out of necessity, he had become good at being the cautious friend. The one who pulled his mate out of strife whenever it occurred, who wiped up split lips and dragged Steve from the fray. The only reason he didn’t get into trouble as often as he could was mostly because he was too busy chasing after Steve and making sure he didn’t get beat to death to get involved in anything else. But before Steve?

Well, Winnie Barnes had some stories. And after that day, so would Darcy Lewis.

It was late, so late in fact that it was almost early, and they were walking back from the dive bar from the week before. That particular time, Steve had gotten more than a little drunk and became quite cuddly and weepy as a result, so Bucky had an arm slung around his shoulders to help him walk back. As usual, tipsy Darcy was more interested in waving around the bi flag she’d pinched from the bar and was no help with Steve, not that Bucky blamed her. Helping Steve walk was like accepting a ton of bricks onto your back.

“I love you, bud,” slurred Steve into Bucky’s jacket. “You’re the – the bestest.”

“Betterest,” corrected Darcy.

Steve nodded.

“Yeah, that. Betterest.”

“Oh boy,” Bucky sighed.

But only three blocks from the bar, they encountered the Problem™ of the night.

For once, it wasn’t Steve or Darcy starting shit. It was a group of rowdy, possibly-drunk men instead. The three were the kind that overdrank at sports events and got themselves kicked out of the stadium for racist remarks. Or beat their girlfriends because they weren’t quick enough to bring them sandwiches or something along those lines. They were the kind of drunk, angry men that Steve Rogers had spent his teen years standing up to, and so Bucky was surprised when he, not Steve, was the one that threw the first punch.

“How have you fags been tonight?” the one with a nose that looked like it had been punched one too many times called. No doubt someone who thought that calling out two very obviously buff men and a similarly muscly woman got punched in the face a lot. “Had fun sucking each other off?”

Despite being so inebriated that he could barely stand properly, Steve was conscious enough to flip them off, much to their amusement. Their laughter ringing in his ears, Bucky resolved to ignore them and sent Darcy a look warning her to do the same. It was really too bad that she didn’t listen.

“Why don’t you fuck off back to your jail cells, you homophobic pricks?”

Oh boy.

“The fuck did you just say, bitch?” shouted the second one. This one’s face was bright red like a tomato, but Bucky couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or from overeating. Then the man’s piggy eyes spotted the flag Darcy had tucked into her back pocket, and he let out a howl of laughter. “Well, well, a couple of fairies and a dyke! No wonder you’re such a cunt.”

Oh boyyyyy.

The uneasiness of the Winter Soldier, that uncomfortable rage he had spent so much of his time since HYDRA controlling and smothering, reared its head. He pushed it down, suffocating the flames with bullshit rationalities, and while he tackled his literal demons, the other men had moved closer.

“The fuck you just say, you disgusting fuck? How about you say that to my face when you don’t have all your little friends standing around?” Darcy retorted, almost falling over as she took what she no doubt thought was a threatening step towards them.

The men were still far enough away that Bucky and Co. could leave, but it was a close thing. Motioning for Darcy to stand down so that they could leave, Bucky hefted Steve up on his shoulder and started walking, trusting that his daughter would follow, which she did with only minimal grumbling.

“Where are you going, baby? Don’t you want a real man to show you a good time?” one of them called at their backs.

And then they said it.

To Darcy’s resounding no, another of them shouted, “You don’t have to want it for it to be good, I promise!”

One look at the well-concealed fear flickering in Darcy’s eyes was all Bucky needed.

In one moment he was transferring Steve over to Darcy’s capable hands, and in the next, he was throwing Pig Eyes into Cracked Nose and high kicking the third in the ribs. Pig Eyes jumped up for more almost immediately. Holding up his fists menacingly but feet arranged in a weak, indefensible position, it took less energy than Bucky expelled in waking up to dispatch the guy. Cracked Nose took one look at his friend and held up his hands for mercy.

Within seconds, the men lay groaning on the floor. Nursing their various bruises, they looked far more pitiful than they had before, and not at all likely to go for another round.

As became apparent quite quickly, though, someone had called the police when they’d seen the men have a go at Bucky’s family. All too inconveniently, those police turned up as Bucky doled out the last of his vengeance, and the cuffs they clapped on him made it clear that they weren’t exactly impressed.

Usually, Bucky wouldn’t be impressed with his own behaviour either. But when he caught sight of the ugly pricks as he was carted away, he couldn’t find it in himself to care all too much.

After all, less chihuahua-like than not, Bucky’s temper was also pretty maladjusted itself.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #darcy lewis #darcy lewis fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #mcu #mcu fanfic #mine

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sunnysidewrites · 7 years ago

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Angel Down | Jeonghan

Genre: mafia!au, seemingly fluff for 10 seconds and then the angst kicks in and now im crying goodbye

Pairing: Jeonghan x Reader ft. NCT’s Johnny LOL

Word count: 2354

Synopsis: Despite being so sleepy all the time, Jeonghan has trouble falling asleep unless you’re with him. You make him his favorite chicken dish to help ease his stress, but he never got to eat it.

A/N: wow yall im actually tearing up so have fun with this :’))) here is the last present I had for Jeonghan’s bday!!! and this is also to celebrate vocal unit’s song “Pinwheel” and yes i will now retreat to my corner and bawl!!!!

Warnings: 1 bad word, gun violence, mentions of blood, my actual tears

The soft pitter-patter of small drops lightly stained the glass windows as the darkness engulfed the corners of your bedroom. Soft puffs of breath filled in the deafening silence the ungodly hours of the early morning welcomed.

“I can’t sleep,” he murmurs, his eyes blinking slowly as he scans your face to drink in all the shadows falling upon every curve and line. You giggled just as tired as he looked and scooted closer to him. “Says the boy who looks like he’s about to pass out any second.” He pouts in defense. “You know my sleeping habits by now… Today was just a tiring day without you.” You let out a small breath of playful disbelief. “Leave it all to Yoon Jeonghan for still being cheesy even when he’s deprived of rest.”

His melodic soft chuckle brought warmth to your chest. “Can you hold my hand? I need to feel you here with me to help me sleep.” “Alright, you big baby,” you laughed and gently took ahold of his right hand. He instantly closes his eyes and squeezes your palm, the mere feeling of your presence a lullaby for his racing thoughts. You can already see his chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm as he barely gets out the words of “goodnight.”

“Goodnight, my angel,” you squeeze his hand back and snuggle closer to his chest.

The routinely morning comes after that: he sleepily stumbles in the kitchen half-awake, gives you a hug and a thank-you kiss for the breakfast, eats it in 10 minutes flat, quickly adjusts his tie, signals to his bodyguard who’s practically your second one to leave, gives you one last kiss, promises he’ll be back by dinnertime, and is out the door with his bodyguard giving you a small wave.

Once the door shuts, your raised hand falls limp against your side. You lean against the kitchen counter, your head in your hands as a heavy sigh heaves out of your chest. Your personal bodyguard curiously quirks his head but makes no move to speak. You ask him the same question:

“He’ll be okay, right?”

And he gives you the same answer:

“He always is with you by his side, is what he frequently tells our department.”

You felt weak, powerless, and utterly useless. The last time you talked work with Jeonghan only ended up in a circled discussion about not getting you involved for the best. You numbly turn back to the marinated chicken in the wide plastic tub. “The only thing I can do is cook his favorite chicken…” He shakes his head in disagreement. “Y/N, you wield more power over Mr. Yoon more than you know.”

You shrug and start searching the fridge for more ingredients. “Am I supposed to stay sheltered because I’m a weapon then?” You talked over the loud crisps of the produce bags Jeonghan went a little too crazy with the pears on sale. “He’s only trying to keep you safe from his enemies. You probably know that better than Mr. Yoon himself.”

You sigh and pull out the kimchi in the back of the bottom shelf. “Yeah, I know… I know. Well,” you rolled up your sleeves, “this stew isn’t going to cook itself. Pass me the cutting board.”

“Chan.”

The younger man scurries quickly in front of his boss, tripping over his own feet in the process. He gulps and hastily wipes away his minuscule beads of sweat on his forehead before clearing his throat. “Xu Minghao has last been seen with Kwon Soonyoung at an underground club with seemingly one of the other Families. Kim Mingyu and Wonwoo have been attempting to discreetly purchase weapons from low-end unknown shops but our people are connected with the owner’s friend’s cousin.”

“So that’s the game they’re playing,” a bitter chuckle escapes from his lips before the tension refocuses on his next heavy words. “And Choi Seungcheol?”

“He… hasn’t been able to be tracked down. He��s covered up his tracks fairly well…”

Jeonghan smiles to himself and clasps his hands on his abdomen. “Of course. He was never one to sloppily do his job. Thank you, Chan.”

Another male on his left speaks up, “They’re clearly trying to rebel against us. This is what they’ve been plotting since the robbery.” Jeonghan nods knowingly. “Cheol showed the signs leading up to the incident. I must say this doesn’t surprise me in the slightest; he’s always been a strong headed person, someone who was meant to be a leader. Now is his real chance if he’s about to go against his own people.”

“Were. We were his own people,” another voice chimed in. “I can’t believe that bastard went against us…” The man on Jeonghan’s left sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Junhui… No one expected Minghao to leave so readily.” Junhui merely shrugged, signalling an end to the discussion. “Maybe this is just helped us see where our loyalties lie.”

Jeonghan slowly got up and placed his hands on the intricately carved wooden table. “Well, we have to defend ourselves somehow, right? They could be attacking us anytime, whether it’s in an hour, later tonight, next week… Everyone knows the drill?” Once they all nodded or said scattered “yes”-es, he turned to his left. “Notify the others immediately, Jisoo. Defense Plan will be in effect from this moment on.”

His confidant nods and hesitates before questioning, “What about your partner, Jeonghan? Is it safe over there?”

Jeonghan drops his gaze for a second before gazing back up again. He claps Jisoo’s shoulder and gives him a smile that’s hopefully reassuring to him as much as to himself. “Y/N has a bodyguard and the emergency button, and I don’t suppose there will be much travelling unless it’s to the nearest grocery market which is about three minutes away. In any case, it’s best to just stay in the apartment, and I’ve reiterated that too many times to the point Y/N can probably recite my speech about it.” Jisoo looks at him worriedly, his eyebrows furrowed together. “I can send more bodyguards over there. Perhaps one is inadequate?”

Jeonghan nods and sighs. “Send our best ones. We have to defend as much as we can, and there’s no way I’m risking any more people.”

You sigh dramatically as you plop your body on the soft black leather armchair. You glance at your bodyguard, a stony expression fixed on his face as usual. You sigh loudly again but he shows no reaction.

You sit up and lean forwards on one of the arms. “Johnny! You never talk! Are you always this quiet? I have no other human contact other than you, but it would be real nice to get a conversation going.”

He turns to you quizzically. “My job is to protect you, no? But if it really bothers you, we may talk.”

“Okay, great!” “...” “...” “How is the weather today?”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” you groan, your forehead in your palms. You raise your head only to see Johnny completely emotionless and stoic. You sigh and start getting up. “Where are you going?” He scurries after you. “We cannot leave until Mr. Yoon is back.”

“Well, Johnny, it’s already six pm and I have dinner to prepare.” You slide on your sneakers and the black windbreaker Jeonghan got for you a few weeks ago. “I’m making additional side dishes, and we’re all out of eggs. You know, things like that.” You grab the keys and your bag when his hand firmly grips your wrist. “Y/N, it’s not safe, and you know it. Don’t risk your life for a few more dishes.” You wriggle your wrist out of his grasp and pat him on the shoulder. “You’ll be with me, right? You’ll do your job just fine.”

He opens his mouth to protest further but you’ve already opened the door at that point. “Those fried eggs aren’t going to cook themselves, Johnny!” You shout from behind your shoulder.

After your eventful grocery shopping, you and Johnny are making your way back to the apartment with a bag occupying each hand. Both of you are walking in comfortable silence when he abruptly stops in his tracks, causing you to follow suit. You cock your head and tension creeps down your back. “Johnny, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer and scans the area. Every second that passes brings you more to the edge, the silence as loud as ever. You wait for him to speak but before you could even have a chance to take a breath, he yanks your body to the ground. One second too late and the shattering glass of the window could have been you.

He curses under his breath as he swiftly pulls out his walkie-talkie. “They’re here, Jeonghan. Send backup now.” You can hear the concern raising in Jeonghan’s voice as he speaks a whirlwind of incoherent words about your safety. “Y/N is right next to me, and we’re both fine for now. Get here ASAP!”

“I’m already nearing the corner!” are his last words before the static takes over. He looks over at you and grabs your shoulders. “We can’t stay behind this car forever. You heard Jeonghan -- he’s about to get here any moment, and I’m sure he has his men with him. Defense Plan is in action, and I know he’s prioritizing you a lot more than other things. You’ll be safe as long as you’re with his people, alright?” All you can do is nod your head quickly, but the rest of your body is paralyzed in fear. His words are almost inaudible, your heartbeat pounding in your ears. He says something to you, but you can’t register anything.

“Y/N, snap out of it! I just saw Jeonghan and several of the other guys down the street. We have to get you to him, okay?” All you do is numbly nod again, and he readies himself to escape from the bullets. “We have to be really quick running along these cars. When I say ‘go,’ you run as quickly as you can while crouching. Ready?” You gulp and shakily respond, “No, but… I have to be.” He gives you a small smile and nods.

“Ready, and…” He waits for the bullets to slow down for a second. “GO!”

You take off from your crouching position with Johnny right behind your heels. The only thing you can register is the ear-splitting gunshots from his gun and wherever the enemies are. A bullet barely whizzes past your arm and you have to do everything you can to not collapse from fatigue and fear. You see Jeonghan more clearly in your line of vision as he’s hunched behind a car firing more bullets.

“Where’s the car, Jeonghan?!” Johnny yells over the noise. Jeonghan throws his head back to signal the car parked behind a store. “Over there, let’s go!”

He grabs your arm and immediately makes a dash for the vehicle as Johnny and Jeonghan’s guard run behind to guard the both of you. However, the moment Johnny turns his head around to check on the both of you…

“Jeonghan, duck!”

He saw it too. He saw the man who he thought he had trusted once upon a time. The man who had butted heads with him but only for the good of the group. The man who was indeed meant to be a leader. Of course he knew all of Jeonghan’s steps. He was always plotting something.

Bang!

“Agh!” He starts crumbling down to his knees, but when you try to support him, Johnny tears you away from your partner. “We have to get you to the car!” You shake your head furiously, almost hysterically as you glance back at your loved one. “We can’t leave him! He’s your boss and my boyfriend!” “His bodyguard will take care of it! In the car, NOW!”

Johnny manages to graze Seungcheol’s dominant hand and makes him drop the weapon with a dull thud on the concrete. “GO!”

Your eyes blur as you’re practically pushed in the back seat where three other men are waiting. You look at the back window and see Jeonghan’s bodyguard struggling to carry him, but he eventually plops his body on the seat.

You rip off a section of your shirt off to help clot his stomach wound. “Stay with me, Jeonghan,” you shakily speak as your trembling hands rip more cloth from your jeans and unsteadily tie the cloth around his abdomen. His labored breaths get heavier with each second and it gets harder to prevent the waterworks from leaking.

“We have to get him to the hospital now! Can you go any faster?!” You address the driver. “I’m trying!” Junhui yells as he swerves violently. “Do you not see me running all of these red lights? We’re almost there!”

As soon as you enter the emergency unit, the gang and you scramble to find doctors nearby with one guy going up to the front desk to explain the situation. They quickly roll out a gurney and gently place his body as they can. As the doctors are scrambling for other accompanying surgeons for his immediate surgery, he looks at you with glassy eyes. You rush to his side and caress his face, his now beautiful features contorted with pain and even paler from blood loss. He swallows and licks his dry lips before breathily asking you something that sent bullets through your own chest.

“I’m falling asleep, Y/N… Can you… hold my hand?”

The brimming tears threaten to spill over as you look down at his pale hand and nod slowly. You take his hand in both of yours and try to transfer your warmth to his cold ones. “You’re such a baby… but you’re my baby,” you try to choke out in between your efforts of holding back your sobs.

“Okay, let’s get him in!” One of the doctors announce, and the team starts rolling him away through the doors. Your hands slowly separate and all you can see is sleep overtaking an angel.

Based on this prompt: Imagine Person A always holds Person B’s hand till Person B falls asleep. One day Person B gets shot and is bleeding pretty bad. When Person A hurries to rescue them, Person B says: “Hold my hand, I am falling asleep.”

#my post #write-svt #seventeen #seventeen jeonghan #jeonghan #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen headcanons #seventeen au #jeonghan imagines #jeonghan scenarios #jeonghan headcanons #jeonghan au #mafia au #angel down

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thisisheffner · 5 years ago

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The Clash's 40 greatest songs – ranked! | Music | The Guardian

A historical artefact, not for the proto-punk music, but because the lyrics epitomise the new wave’s perceived threat to the old guard. “No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones / In 1977,” sang Joe Strummer, hardly about to let his love of such pop greats get in the way of punk’s declaration of year zero.

39. White Riot (1977)

Guitarist Mick Jones now dislikes the first Clash single, its lyrics written by Strummer after the band were caught up in the 1976 Notting Hill riots and he concluded white people needed “a riot of our own”. The sentiment hasn’t aged well, but the song exemplifies the amphetamine-fuelled punk the band would leave behind.

38. What’s My Name (1977)

A Clash curio in that it’s the only one of the group’s songs to bear a writing credit for Keith Levene, the band’s original guitarist. Levene showers melodic gold dust all over this otherwise shouty punk stomper, but is better known for his work with John Lydon in Public Image Ltd.

37. Know Your Rights (1982)

From Combat Rock, the final album by the classic quartet of Strummer, Jones, bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon. The tank was getting emptied, but Strummer’s black humour brims through lines such as “You have the right to free speech / As long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it.”

36. I’m So Bored With the USA (1977)

This hugely anthemic track on debut album The Clash began life as I’m So Bored With You, a song about Jones’s girlfriend, before Strummer’s ad-libbed “… SA” took it in a new direction. The blistering critique of US imperialism and exported culture (“Yankee detectives are always on the TV”) didn’t stop the Clash’s love of American iconography, cars and clothes.

35. Janie Jones (1977)

Original Clash drummer Terry Chimes – uncharitably credited as Tory Crimes on The Clash – propels the debut’s storming opener, a eulogy to a 60s pop celebrity and libertine who had been jailed for vice offences in 1973. On release, the convicted madam returned Strummer’s affections in the song Letter to Joe.

34. Charlie Don’t Surf (1980)

By the epic three-disc fourth album, Sandinista!, the Clash arguably had too many ideas for their own good, but within the 36-song sprawl are undoubted treasures. Titled after a Lt Col Kilgore quip in Apocalypse Now, there’s an element of the doo-wop era to this sweet song about, well, cultural imperialism.

33. Brand New Cadillac (1979)

This bracing cover of a 1959 Vince Taylor and the Playboys track refers to the early Brit rockers’ glamorous dream car (when most of them probably had to make do with a humble Ford Anglia). From the double album London Calling, the Clash’s creative zenith.

32. The Guns of Brixton (1979)

Brixton boy Simonon wanted some songwriting cash and so penned this memorable song about police harassment and discontent in his London neighbourhood, two years before the district exploded into rioting. In 1990, Simonon received an unexpected windfall when Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim) sampled the groove for Beats International’s hit Dub Be Good to Me.

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31. Clash City Rockers (1978)

Year zero meant many punks hurriedly buried their pasts in pub rock bands with long hair, but this 1978 single reworks a song from Strummer’s old pub rock band, the 101’ers, around trademark Clash self-mythology. The shift from aggressive guitars (surely copied from the Who’s I Can’t Explain) to something more mournful suggest musical adventure to come.

30. Rudie Can’t Fail (1979)

According to long-time Clash associate Don Letts, this London Calling gem is the fruit of a long hot summer that the Clash spent smoking herb and going to reggae clubs. It’s a horns-drenched homage to Caribbean culture, “drinking brew for breakfast” and the “chicken skin suit”.

29. Tommy Gun (1978)

A great single from the not universally adored second album, Give ’Em Enough Rope. Strummer is scathing about the idea that terrorists see their cause as glamorous, yelling: “You’ll be dead when your war is won”, while Headon’s snare drum rolls resemble gunfire. This didn’t stop the singer posing for photos in a T-shirt honouring Italian-based violent leftist organisation Brigate Rosse (the Red Brigades).

28. Police and Thieves (1977)

This cover of the Lee Scratch Perry-produced Junior Murvin hit stands out a mile on The Clash. It’s their first attempt at reggae, played punkier, with a new, Jones-penned intro. That summer, Bob Marley (working with Perry) acknowledged the burgeoning punk/Jamaican music love-in with Punky Reggae Party.

27. London’s Burning (1977)

Also from the debut album, this most captures those punk rock summers of 1976 and 1977, with its bone-crunching verse and rabble-rousing chorus. The imagery is a comprehensive list of the band and movement’s inspirations, from high-rise living above the Westway (where Jones lived with his gran) to a capital city “burning with boredom now”.

26. Somebody Got Murdered (1980)

According to Pat Gilbert’s superb book Passion Is a Fashion, the Clash were approached by producer-arranger Jack Nitzsche to provide a song for the William Friedkin movie Cruising, but he never called again. Thus, the song lit up Sandinista! with its effervescent tune and film noir-ish imagery about a random killing.

25. Career Opportunities (1977)

The limited youth employment of the 70s is timelessly skewered (“Career opportunities, the ones that never knock”) in this gem from the debut. The line “I won’t open letter bombs for you” refers to an actual job once held by Jones, checking government mail for explosive devices.

24. Pressure Drop (1979)

The B-side of the slightly hackneyed English Civil War and one of the Clash’s great covers, of Toots and the Maytals’ 1970 reggae/ska classic (as heard in the 1972 film The Harder They Come). Later, Strummer was at pains to point out that they recorded it in 1977, hence it pre-dates 2-Tone.

23. This Is England (1985)

Headon and Jones had been sacked by now (for heroin abuse and behavioural issues, respectively) as a remodelled, five-piece Clash made a sixth album. The otherwise unloved Cut the Crap did herald this final terrific single. Keyboards and guitars drive Strummer’s withering take on our national strife.

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22. Gates of the West (1979)

The Clash had been singing about the US since I’m So Bored With the USA. Based on Rusted Chrome, an early Jones composition, this stormer from the Cost of Living EP describes their New York experiences, the characters, imagery and anthemic tune all reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen.

21. Hitsville UK (1980)

From Sandinista!, this eulogy to pop is a bubblegum delight that namechecks the UK’s emerging independent labels and argues that a great “two minutes 59” single can triumph over industry sharp practice. With its Motown (the original “Hitsville”) groove and sugar-coated duet between Jones and his girlfriend, Ellen Foley, the Clash’s remaining hardcore punk fans hated it.

20. Police on My Back (1980)

Another terrific example of the Clash’s ability to cover a song (the original was by Eddy Grant’s old band, the Equals) and make it sound as if they had written it. Jones’s guitar wails like a siren, and the song has all the adrenalin rush of a police chase.

19. Lost in the Supermarket (1979)

In the tradition of the Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction and the X-Ray Spex back catalogue, this is a great Strummer-penned/Jones-sung song about the dehumanising effects of advertising and the consumer society. (“I came in here for that special offer / A guaranteed personality.”)

18. I Fought the Law (1979)

The band reputedly heard the Bobby Fuller Four original on the studio jukebox in San Francisco while recording Give ’Em Enough Rope. Writing credits aside, this is a trademark Clash smash, full of outlaw rebel posturing and laden with Headon’s six-shooter drum cracks.

17. Death or Glory (1979)

Strummer’s ferocious blast at ageing, sellout rock stars builds to a hurtling climax on a lyrical twist as he fears a similar fate himself. Presumably it was ruled out as a single because of the infamous, hilarious line: “But I believe in this and it’s been tested by research / He who fucks nuns will later join the church.”

16. Safe European Home (1978)

Strutting around Kingston, Jamaica, in full punk regalia (in theory to stir the creative juices for Give ’Em Enough Rope) proved a rude awakening, but did produce this untypical example of Clash self-mockery. “I went to the place where every white face / Is an invitation to robbery / And sitting here in my safe European home / Don’t want to go back there again.”

15. Clampdown (1979)

Strummer’s view that capitalism was endangering people and the planet was sharpened by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, which inspired this London Calling highlight. The Clash were exploding with musical ideas by now, and packed rock, funk and disco into this fiery, timeless anthem.

14. Garageland (1977)

The rock critic Charles Shaar Murray’s dismissal of the Clash as a “garage band” in an early live review prompted this defiant riposte, which also reflects the band’s fretting that signing to a major label would be selling out. It’s a furious but somehow melancholy anthem: “People ringing up making offers for my life / But I just wanna stay in the garage all night.”

13. The Card Cheat (1979)

Surely channeling Jones’s love of Mott the Hoople, this is the sort of thing that presumably inspired the Libertines. Horns, drum rudiments, a sublime piano hook and vivid imagery (“To the opium dens and the bar room gin ... The gambler’s face cracks into a grin”) combine in a song about a card sharp who is shot for cheating.

12. Spanish Bombs (1979)

A favourite of the late INXS singer, Michael Hutchence. The melody is glorious and Strummer’s lyrics contrast the freedom fighters of the Spanish civil war with modern tourists. The singer partly sings it in what he called “Clash Spanish”. Olé!

11. Rock the Casbah (1982)

Headon wrote and played most of the music on Combat Rock’s club/chart smash, which innovatively combines rock, funk and a slightly eastern feel. Strummer’s lyrics are inspired by Iran’s post-Islamic revolution ban on pop music, the singer’s idea being that the people would rise up and “rock the casbah”.

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10. Train in Vain (1979)

After a planned NME flexidisc fell through, this sublime Jones unrequited love song was added to London Calling too late for listing on the initial sleeves. Pete Townshend’s favourite Clash tune, this is the band at their unashamedly poppiest. Headon’s killer drum intro fires one of the rhythm section’s funkiest grooves.

9. Stay Free (1978)

Jones’s sublime, heartfelt eulogy to his old Strand school friend Robin Crocker, who became known as Robin Banks after a sting of heists landed him a stretch inside. Some fans were delighted to discover that Banks subsequently punched the song’s producer, Sandy Pearlman, who had previously worked with Blue Öyster Cult and is largely blamed for Give ’Em Enough Rope’s not exactly punky gloss.

8. The Magnificent Seven (1980)

Having rattled through punk, reggae, ska, dub and rockabilly inside five years, our boys assimilate the emerging hip-hop sounds they heard while in New York, and Strummer turns white rap pioneer. A terrific groove forms the platform for daft-but-inspired wordplay: “Italian mobster shoots a lobster.”

7. The Call Up (1980)

Following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, as the US geared up to reintroduce the draft, the Clash spearheaded the resistance with this fantastic Sandinista! single. “It’s up to you not to heed the call up / I don’t wanna die ... I don’t wanna kill,” cries Strummer, over a magnificently eerie reggae-ish backdrop.

6. Bankrobber (1980)

So many great songs poured out of the Clash that this Mikey Dread-produced gem was almost thrown away as an import-only 45, which didn’t stop it making it No 12 in the UK charts. It’s dub music with folk storytelling – Strummer’s “daddy” wasn’t really a bank robber, but a diplomat.

5. London Calling (1979)

The Clash’s highest-charting UK single, until Combat Rock’s rather banal Should I Stay Or Should I Go reached No 1 in 1991 after being used in a Levi’s ad. Years before the climate crisis and flooding sparked public concern, Strummer fears an imminent biblical apocalypse, hence “London is drowning and I live by the river”.

4. Armagideon Time (1979)

The flip of the London Calling single, this superb reworking of Willie Williams’ social justice anthem is the definitive example of the Clash playing reggae. Strummer’s “OK, OK, don’t push us when we’re hot” is his shouted rebuff to then-manager Kosmo Vinyl, urging him to scrap the allotted three-minute length and keep the tapes rolling.

3. Complete Control (1977)

After CBS infuriated the Clash by releasing Remote Control as a single against their wishes, the band responded with their punk-era high watermark. Lee Perry produces, and Strummer’s yelled “You’re my guitar hero!” during Jones’s blistering guitar solo is one of many goosebump moments.

2. Straight to Hell (1982)

Headon’s bossa nova rhythm and a haunting hook (later sampled by MIA for 2007’s Paper Planes) power Combat Rock’s finest. The band’s unity was already fracturing, but Strummer rightly called this vengeful tirade against imperialism and American soldiers in Vietnam who left local women pregnant (“Go straight to hell, boys”) “one of our absolute masterpieces”.

1. (White Man in) Hammersmith Palais (1978)

Any of the Clash’s best songs could grace the top spot without too much argument, but this edges it. The collision of reggae (verse) and rock (chorus) epitomise what the critic Lester Bangs described as the Clash’s fusion of “black music and white noise”. Lyrically, a disappointingly lightweight reggae gig (in the Hammersmith Palais) triggers Strummer’s blistering state of the nation address, in which he considers everything from music (“Turning rebellion into money”) to racism and rising nationalism (“If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they’d send a limousine anyway”). Forty-two years on, it remains a tour de force and as relevant as ever.

Various 40th anniversary super deluxe editions of London Calling are out now on Sony.

This content was originally published here.

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