#Theodore Douglas one shot

[justanoasisimagines]

I don’t want to sleep alone - Preference-Set A

Warnings; Mentions of anxiety and past trauma, typical canon violence. Requests are open! Guidlines are pinned at the top of my page A/N; Part two will be up in a few days! So if you don't see your favourite character here, they might be in Part 2 Credit to @cafekitsune for the divider and banner

Rick Grimes; The two of you nearly died after an encounter with the Saviours. Both of you are dragging your feet, both physically and mentally exhausted. When you turn to head towards your bed for the night, Rick stops you. He te;;s you he nearly lost you today and he doesn't want to sleep without you. Taking hold of his hand, you ask him which bedroom. He leads you toward his room because in Rick's opinion, your bed is like sleeping on concrete.

Abraham Ford; Ever since the two of you started getting serious, Abraham began to fear losing you. It comes from losing his wife and children. One thing is for certain he refuses to let that happen. This leads to Abraham asking you if you want to stay the night or insisting you two sleep close to each other for safety. Abraham wants to hold you close to reaffirm your there. It does begin to ease his anxiety when you agree.

Shane Walsh; It's you who tells Shane you don't want to sleep without him. The new world is ferocious, unpredictable, and deadly. Shane has adapted to the new world quickly, without question. So it makes sense for the two of you to share a space. Shane accepts because he doesn't like the idea of you being so far away from him when anything could happen.

Father Gabriel Stokes; Before the dead rose, Gabriel couldn't imagine sleeping with anyone whom he hadn't married. It was a sin in his eyes. The realization death is around the corner for anyone forces Gabriel to realise he doesn't want to miss out on these experiences with you. Gabriel eventually picks up the courage and expresses his feelings, you made sure he's adamant before agreeing.

Merle Dixon; Merle doesn't want to sleep without you. For a couple of reasons; one he doesn't like waking up alone. He wants to wake up with your bodies pressed together. Secondly, if Merle was being completely honest with himself, he doesn't trust anyone in Woodbury, There's no way in hell someone's going to hurt you while he's around. He'd gladly die trying to protect you.

Luke; Luke doesn't want to sleep without you. He feels like it's the next natural stage within your relationship. Living together, sharing a bed etc. Luke is grateful the two of you have found each other. It's only natural he wants to progress your relationship as normal as possible. For Luke, sharing a bed feels like the next step.

Siddiq; Siddiq is shaken from his encounter with the Whisperers. He's never been more terrified of dying before. He's struggling to adapt back to real life, constantly dealing with nightmares When you make the suggestion, Siddiq agrees. He'd thought he'd never see you again. He considers your warm embrace will help him sleep through the night again

Eugene Porter; Eugene is taken aback when you tell him you don't to sleep without him. He can't fathom why you would want to share a bed with him. His reaction is adamant, of course, he does. The entire interaction is awkward, soft and endearing as you both decide who's bed to share.

Benjamin; Benjamin never expected to fall in love. Never expected to find someone in the apocalypse, but he has. He's lying in bed one night, tossing and turning, struggling to sleep. His feet instinctively head him in the direction of your room. When he knocks, you are half asleep. He blurts out he doesn't want to sleep alone. You reply by opening the door wider and allowing him in

Beta; Beta insists you don't sleep alone. Living outside with the Whisperers is dangerous, there's danger at every turn. Beta hasn't cared in the past. When you two get together. things change. Suddenly, he's scared to lose someone. There is someone in his life that he wants to protect. So he insists you two sleep side by side.

Theodore "T-Dog" Douglas; When everyone's sorting out sleeping accommodations in the prison. You surprise him when you tell him you don't want to sleep alone. T-Dog immediately goes in search of a comfortable place for you to sleep. It's nice at the end of the end of the day, to know he's going to fall asleep with you in his arms.

Alden; You and Alden are sitting together reading, your eyes drooping, struggling to stay awake. Alden makes the suggestion you go to bed. However, you refuse telling Alden you don't want to sleep without him. Alden smiles, he truly adores it when you're sleepy and completely honest. Alden replies with you don't have to. Alden leads you up to his room.

Justin; Justin doesn't want to sleep without you through jealousy. He doesn't like the way Daryl's been staring at you. He wants to remind everyone, especially Daryl who you come back to after your day has finished. Who keeps you warm on those cold nights

Noah; Things are always tense in the hospital. There's always some politics going around. Noah's favourite part of the hospital is you. You two are hanging out, when Noah brings it up. He doesn't want to sleep alone, because its time he could have spent with you. The sentiment is sweet and when you agree, Noah asks you which side you prefer.

Jerry; You come to Jerry in the middle of the night, tears running down your face, pain-stricken. Immediately Jerry opens up his arms, embracing you. Jerry sets into consoling you. The world is harsh and cruel and even the strongest people break. When you tell Jerry, you don't want to sleep without him, he tells you you don't have to because he's right here.

Axel; Axel struggles to get accustomed to the harsh reality of the world. You are the best thing to come out of it. Companionship, patience, love. So when you come into his cell asking to sleep with him, he scoots to the side, pulling back the blanket. He tells you, you don't have to ask. He'll protect you from the nightmares.

Gareth; Axel struggles to get accustomed to the harsh reality of the world. You are the best thing to come out of it. Companionship, patience, love. So when you come into his cell asking to sleep with him, he scoots to the side, pulling back the blanket. He tells you, you don't have to ask. He'll protect you from the nightmares.

Micheal Mercer; Micheal is always busy. He takes the job seriously because it's important. However, sometimes he can feel like he's not spending enough time with you. It's why one night, he decides to ask you, to stay. He tells you, he doesn't want to go to bed alone anymore. Not when he can fall and wake up to something beautiful

Negan; Negan smirks when you tell him you don't want to sleep alone. He's been waiting for you to come to him. He didn't want to put any pressure on you, but he's been wanting to share a bed with you for a while. In Negan's mind, it's another way to be close to you. An excuse to feel your body against his.

[byneddiedingo]

Clint Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965)

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volontè, Mara Krupp, Luigi Pistilli, Klaus Kinski, Luis Rodríguez. Screenplay: Sergio Leone, Fulvio Morsella, Luciano Vincenzoni. Cinematography: Massimo Dallamano. Film editing: Eugenio Alabiso, Giorgio Serrallongo. Music: Ennio Morricone.

Most of us didn't realize it until much later when he was an Oscar-winning director, but Clint Eastwood was a very smart man. When Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars became a hit in Italy in 1964, he asked Eastwood if he would make a sequel. Eastwood hadn't seen the movie, which hadn't yet been dubbed in English and released in the States, so Leone sent him a print of the Italian version. Even though he didn't speak Italian, Eastwood immediately recognized Leone's skill, and signed up to do the sequel. It was a gutsy move: At the time, making genre films like Westerns and sword-and-sandal epics in Italy and Spain was a job for has-beens and never-weres. Eastwood was on the brink of becoming one of the latter: His career to that point had been mostly in TV, on the long-running series Rawhide, with a few unmemorable movies. But cultivating a persona distinct from that of Rawhide's callow Rowdy Yates, that of the taciturn Man With No Name* of the Leone films, proved to be precisely the right thing to do. By the end of the 1960s, he had become a major star. Narratively, For a Few Dollars More is not quite as tight as the first film -- for one reason because it lacks the well-tested framework of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) that was the underpinning of Fistful. Also, setting up a rivalry between Eastwood's character and that of Lee Van Cleef's Col. Douglas Mortimer tends to diffuse the story a bit: As in Fistful, Eastwood's character is beaten to a pulp by the bad guys, but so is Mortimer, and the double mauling feels gratuitous, especially since there's no particular reason why the bad guys shouldn't just kill them. But the sequel shows Leone growing in style and technique, with a fine use of widescreen in establishing shots and a deft use of closeups in establishing the characters, especially the bad guys in the mob headed by El Indio (Gian Maria Volontè, who had also been the chief villain, Ramón Roja, in Fistful). Am I the only one who suspects, from Leone's closeups of the mob's faces, that Leone had been influenced by Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1929)? One standout in the mob is a superbly twitchy Klaus Kinski as a hunchback named Juan. Ennio Morricone's score is integral to the film's success. The spareness of the music, scored only for a few instruments, serves as a contrast to the sweeping orchestral scores for Hollywood Westerns by composers like Dimitri Tiomkin and Max Steiner. Morricone and Leone recognized the need for silence, punctuated only occasionally by a penny-whistle tweedle or a guitar riff, to maintain the film's texture.

*Actually, he has a name in both films: In Fistful he is called "Joe," which is obviously just a generic name for an americano, while in the sequel he is known as Monco, the Italian word for "one-armed," in reference to his tendency to use his left hand while keeping his gun hand under his poncho.

[even-more-than-before]

top 10 youtubers who have consumed human flesh

#10: Cr1tikal. Cr1tikal, AKA Charles Theodore White Jr., AKA. Penguinz0 has been well known for his people-eating escapes as of recent. As just one example, in his most recent video, he has mentioned how much he enjoys the taste of Human Skin, saying "I dunno man, I just really like it-- Anyways, that's why I really don't think what he did was too wrong, I mean, who cares what some fuckin' goobers think, they probably haven't even eaten anybody's liver." He speaks about his hobbies more in his new book: How Flesh Changed My Life by Thomas Ruley

#9: Riley Savage / Hivemind. While he has not yet spoken about his cannibalistic tendancies, he has been caught on multiple occasions feasting upon the rotted by dark, moist alleyways, as one eyewitness said: "The only things I could hear were the faint humming of the street lights in the distance and the sudden crunch of bones breaking, the flies buzzing around the newly deceased's opened stomach cavity, and That... That savage taking large, squelching bites of his organs, blood dripping from his mouth. I couldn't even recognize whoever he was eating -- his face was already too far mangled by whatever had gotten to him before Riley did."

#8: DougDoug. Douglas W. Douglas, Creator of the Stanley Parable, has unfortunately not tasted it yet.

#7: Logan Paul. Logan Paul has often mentioned on his hit podcast "Distractable" that he has eaten a human heart before -- How romantic! (CLIP ROLLS) "Uh, oh! Yesterday I decided to finally give that whole people-eating trend or whatever a shot -- Honestly? Not as bad as I was thinking it'd be. Tried out a heart yesterday... Top tier stuff. Would recommend"

#6: Drew Gooden D

[underatedcharactersunite]

Summer Lovin’

Summary; While out scavenging out for car parts, you and T-Dog realise that you haven’t been able to spend much alone time with each other lately. So both of you set out to change that.  WordCount; 672 Pairing; Theodore “T-Dog” Douglas x Reader Warnings; 

Day 4     Day 5

                                 ➽───────────────❥

Trying to discover car parts was not the most enjoyable task to do. However, you and T-Dog were glad of the escape from the camp. As much as you had begun to care for everyone, sometimes it could be a little too much.

"No one ever thinks to take car parts, do you know why?"

"Because most car parts are heavy and not thought of as a necessity." 

"Alright you have a point, but they don't understand of all the other possibilities that they can apply to." Removing a screwdriver from the tool case to help remove a part that Dale needed.

"Do you know what I think? You've been hanging out with Dale too much." As you removed the part, you placed it into your nearby car. Dale would be thankful for all of the parts now available to use, as you observed Theodore struggling to locate a tool, you swiftly discovered it and handed it to him. 

"Oh and I've been paying too much attention to Dale. Before all of this started, you couldn't even recognise a wrench." Playfully, you shoved Theodore as he glanced up at you.

"Do you remember when we used to have a date night every Friday? We used to take turns on choosing what we did. We were supposed to go on a date before everything got bad. Now it feels like we get hardly any time alone." Resting your hand on Theodore's shoulder, a gentle squeeze provided it with some a minute amount of reassurance, but lately, it didn't seem enough.

"We were supposed to be going to that mini-golf place that had just opened up. The loser had to do anything the winner wanted." Standing up,   Theodore grabbed hold of your hips, lifting you onto the car bonnet. Opening up your legs, you allowed him to stand comfortably between them.

"What says we have a date night tonight? Just you and me. We'll have dinner with the others, then the rest of the night alone together." Inching his face closer towards yours, you struggled to prevent yourself from giggling.

"I feel like there's about to be a challenge involved." As his lips hovered against yours, you responded by wrapping your arms around his neck.

"Baby, it wouldn't be tradition if it didn't involve some playful bet now, would it? The challenge is to try and locate entertainment for tonight. You up for it?" Nodding, you agreed to the terms and was more than willing to break down this chore into something more interesting. 

"Kiss me first?" Who was Theodore to deny your request? With his lips finally landing on top of yours, the two felt energised by the contact. Truthfully, the two of you couldn't remember the last time you kissed unless it was in the safety of your tent.

                                       ➽───────────────❥

"Baby, look what I've found," Theodore called as you rummaged through your abandoned car. Getting out of the car, you wandered over curiously.

Theodore held up what looked like a collection of CDs. You couldn't remember the last time you even heard music. Ecstatic with the find, you jogged over to him.

"That's one hell of a find."

"That's not the best part, the car we drove in has a working CD player, which means back to camp we can listen to some music. Find anything?" 

"Not a lot, apart from some colouring books I figured Carl and Sophia could use, a pack of cards and a set of dominoes. What about you?"

"Nothing, apart from battleships, looks like date night is going to be a failure. I'm sorry baby, I tried."

"I wouldn't say that. What says we have an impromptu game night. The loser who loses has to give the winner anything they want. Just like before." With that said, you and Theodore finished up taking the remaining parts that would be fit for use before the drive home. In the madness that the world had provided, it provided to be difficult to partake in regular activities. However, the two of you continued to try creating new ways to escape to a place that only the two of you built. 

[blog-of-a-multitude-of-fandoms]

Safe- Theodore ‘T-Dog’ Douglas

Pairing: Theodore Douglas x Reader

Characters: Theodore Douglas

Warnings: N/A

Request: N/A

Word Count: 412

Author: Charlotte

Confusion struck you when you saw your group lowering themselves to the ground. They all crawled under the cars that surrounded you, but until you turned around you had no idea why they were acting in such a manner. When you turned around you saw a herd of walkers making their way towards you. You held in the gasp that fought to escape, not wanting to draw attention to yourself.

You looked for the best place to hide but all the cars near to you were too low to the ground. To your right you could see T-Dog crouch down, so you decided to make your way quietly and quickly to him.

Before the shit hit the fan, you hadn’t known him but since joining the same group you had become fast friends. He made you feel safe, granted so did the others; he just didn’t seek as much conflict as the other men in your group did.

As you reached him, you found an unpleasant sight that you hoped you’d never have to see. T-Dog was injured; blood poured from his arm uncontrollable as he attempted to grasp onto it. In panic you ripped off your cardigan wrapping it around his arm to help stop the bleeding.

“It’s going to be okay,” you whispered to him hoping that not only would your words comfort him but also yourself.

You popped your head up above the car to look at your surroundings, to grasp what could be done in the current situation. The walkers were getting closer but luckily, they hadn’t noticed you yet. There was little you could do as neither you nor T-Dog could get under the cars by you. Not sure what else you could do, you quickly opened the back door of the car to force him into it, whilst you crawled into the front. It certainly wasn’t a fool proof spot, but it was the best you could think of when put under that pressure.

You threw the corpse that lie in the driver’s seat to lay between the chairs, to partially cover yourself but also T-Dog to hopefully hid your scent from the incoming walkers. You crouched down towards the foot well to hide the best you could.

You looked at T-Dog whom looked equally on edge as yourself. Your heart felt as though it couldn’t beat; the fear and terror only falling once the walkers stopped trickling past and for now you were both safe.

[ultimatebethylficlist]

Veteran Author of The Month: August 2021

The featured veteran author for August is none other than a co-admin right here at UBFL, @courtneyshortney82 !

Courtneyshortney82 can be found on AO3.

When asked what got her into Bethyl and what the fandom means to her, she said:

My love of Bethyl started with the hug. I was absolutely in love with the thought of the show pairing those two together. Of course a certain show runner decided that we didn’t get that, but I was already in over my head! I hadn’t really explored the fanfic world at that point, but a few years later I was running out of fics for another ship of mine and decided to look and see if anyone had ever written something for Bethyl. The first fic I read was Surprise by @leighj11. I started reading everything she had written and then explored just about every tag I could find and soon all of my bookmarks and read later lists were Bethyl. Bethyl means so much to me. I’ve made some amazing friendships because of this ship. I started talking to @im-immortal because of her fic Most Wanted and now she’s one of my best friends and the person that encouraged me to start writing and the person that reads everything I write as soon as I finish it. I truly didn’t think that I would become so active in the fandom, but now I’m part of the team that runs Ultimate Bethyl Fic List and posting as much as I can.

For her personal fic rec list, she recommends:

Most Wanted by SquishyCool 

I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Aireabella 

Surprise by LeighJ

Home isn’t Always A Place by leftmywingshome

Marilyn by wandering_gypsy_feet 

Scrubs & Grease by Piper1016

Call Me Friend But Keep Me Closer by pietromavximoff

between the beginning and the end by sheriffandsteel

Fog on the Windows by thedevilyouknow106

Magnolia by galadrieljones

Summer Hire by veecws

Linger by deerntheheadlights

What Signs Remain by lindentree

Fifty Four Days by LemonStar

Courtneyshortney82′s Works & Personal Thoughts:

In My Blood Summary: Rick Grimes had been either a Deputy Sheriff or a Sheriff since he was 20 years old, so a phone call at 10 p.m. was nothing new. Phone calls like this were part of the reason he now checked the Divorced box when filling out paperwork. But this call was the first to ever make him feel like he had ice coursing through his veins. "Rick, it's T… you're gonna wanna get every man you got to the Greene Farm, but you gotta get to Beth." "How bad is it?" Rick asked T-Dog. Theodore Douglas was Hershel Greene's right hand man and he wouldn't willingly request for the cops to come to the farm if things hadn't gone south. Rick also knew that if T was telling him to get to Beth, it meant the youngest Greene was in danger. "Hershel’s dead - that's all you need to know, man. You promised the old man if this ever happened, you’d protect Beth. So play cop later and get her the fuck outta Georgia!" If T-Dog had been capable of slamming the phone down, Rick was sure he would have. Thoughts: This was my first fic I ever attempted to write and the first I posted. I think this will always be one of my favorites because it was the first time I really put myself out there into an unknown situation. I love my little mob AU world. I can’t wait to finish this fic and take everyone on the journey that I’ve had in my head for the past two years. 

Gracie Summary: It wasn’t just the blonde hair. But those same pale blue eyes, same pale skin—pale skin marred by scars, but still perfect. They’d put her in sweats like they’d done to him, but hers were clean and light pink. Still had that fucking handle on the back for one of those assholes to lead her around. The look on her face was most likely a mirror image of his own. Shock. Trying to figure out if the person in front of them was real or just an effect from being stuck in this place. Thoughts: This one has been such a surprise to me. I still can’t believe the response that I’ve received. I was afraid to even mention this idea that had been swimming around my head, but I threw the idea out there and it went from a fic I might write one day to the fic that I had to get out. It’s quickly becoming my most popular fic and I’m so grateful to everyone that has been reading and responding!

The Perfect Gift Summary: Convincing Merle to join them to pick out a tree had been easy. She offered him dinner and a new bottle of Jack Daniel’s if he would help Daryl get the tree loaded on the truck and set up in the house. She also planned to get him in on the decorating, but he didn’t need to know that part yet. Merle was all bad words and crude phrases, but underneath it - when he let down the guard he’d built up - you could find the child that still lived inside of him. Thoughts: My first one shot! This was all about Merle. It definitely has Daryl and Beth, but Merle takes the stage and made me love writing him! I also learned I like to write stories to make people laugh!

Early Arrival Summary: He let go of one thigh to put an arm across her hips, pinning them to the bed, while his other hand went to the back of her thigh and pushed her leg up higher, opening her up wide to him. Beth dug her nails into his scalp and his answering groan vibrated through her. Fuck, she wasn't sure she could get more aroused --but this man was doing amazing things with his tongue and she felt like every nerve in her body was responding. Thoughts: I was always afraid to write smut, but I finally did it! This is my favorite smut I’ve written. I wrote it based on a request from @im-immortal​. I had no idea it would be a certain kink a lot of us shared.

Roots & Wings Summary: There's something about the fresh Montana air early in the morning. Especially in the fall, when there's a bite to the wind. This was Beth's favorite time of the day. Sitting on the wrap-around porch in the rocking chair her granddaddy had made for her grandma when her dad was born, the blanket her mom had crocheted for her wrapped around her shoulders, and a strong black coffee in her hands. The heat of the mug keeping them warm. Thoughts: This was an idea from @raginglittlehurricane​. We both love the show Yellowstone and noticed the parallels between Daryl and Beth and one of the couples on the show. A fic just had to happen. All I can say is - Cowboy Daryl! 

Who Let Dog Out Summary: Opening the door, the answer to one of his questions was answered. The damn dog couldn't be barking in the house because he was sitting outside. On the porch. Looking very pleased with himself. He'd also brought along the leggy blonde with the big blue eyes from across the street. Thoughts: I wrote this for the Ultimate Bethyl Fic List event - Matchmaker Merle. I always intended for it to be a one shot, but I kept getting requests for me to continue it. I also fell in love with this universe and just couldn’t tear myself away from it so now it’s a multi chapter!

[brrahbrrahcharacterimagines]

Outbreak (Glenn Rhee x Reader)

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Glenn Rhee x Reader

Word Count: 1193

Warnings: Allusions to violence, cannibalism (kinda?) mention because of walkers

Request: Hi, could I request an imagine for Glenn Rhee from TWD? I've been reading through your work and it's really really good! -(Anon)

A/N: I know there isn’t a whole lot of romance in this one, but that’s what Part 2s are for, right? XD Also if anybody has a better title please let me know! I thought about it for a while and really couldn’t think of one!

The night had started off normal enough. After working all day, you changed into some sweatpants and settled down on the couch. You ordered your favorite pizza, as well as some bread sticks, turning the TV on for background noise as you pulled out your phone.

The guy on the phone said that your pizza would arrive in 30 minutes, and the time flew by as you scrolled through your apps. You paid no attention to the TV, not hearing the news anchors as they began reporting about crisis in the streets. You had heard about people attacking others, and not stopping even as they were shot. You, like many others, assumed it was due to a new type of drug and brushed it off. Perhaps you should have been listening more closely to the television, but instead you fiddled with your phone until your doorbell rang.

You hopped up, rushing to answer the door so you could get your pizza. You opened the door, seeing a rather attractive man on the other side.

“Hi,” you said awkwardly.

“Hi,” he replied. You tried, and failed, not to blush at the way he was looking at you. His smile left you feeling jittery. “I, uh, have your pizza.”

Remembering why he was here, you handed him a twenty and took the boxes from his arms.

“Thank you,” you muttered, embarrassed. 

“No problem,” he said, “I would deliver for you anytime.”

You laughed as he scrunched up his face in embarrassment. He was so cute as he flushed.

“That sounded a lot better in my head,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I’m sure it did,” you teased. Suddenly, the TV increased in volume and startled both of you.

“WARNING,” said a mechanical voice. “TAKE SHELTER NOW.”

A message of warning began to play, and the man looked at you with wide eyes. You pulled him into your home quickly, locking and latching the door behind him. You set the pizza boxes on the counter, stepping towards the TV. The warning continued playing as words scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

PEOPLE EATING PEOPLE, it read. MILITARY TAKING ACTION. STAY INSIDE, STREETS ARE NOT SAFE.

You began shaking. Moving your eyes up the screen, the picture showed tanks beginning to drive through the streets of Atlanta. A group of people, what you assumed were people at least, began shuffling towards one of the vehicles. As the tank began firing, the camera quickly cut back to the pair of stunned anchors.

“For those of you just tuning in,” said the woman, “you need to take shelter immediately.” She sounded on the verge of tears, but she was keeping herself together thanks to years of practice on the news. “We don’t have all of the details yet, but as of right now all we know is that you must remain indoors for your safety while we all await further government instruction.”

A loud knock at your door startled you and the pizza delivery boy, making you look at each other fearfully.

“Help!” Yelled a man’s voice from the other side. “Please let me in!”

You began to move towards the door, but the pizza man grabbed your arm.

“How do we know it’s safe?” He asked.

“I don’t,” you admitted, “but from those videos I’ve seen going around, none of those demented people have talked yet.” He let go of your arm, and you ran to the door to unlock it. As soon as it was unlocked, the man flung the door open from the other side. He scrambled inside, both of you hurriedly locking the door again behind him. He was breathing heavily, and you gave him a moment to catch his breath before beginning to interrogate him.

“Who are you?” You asked.

“Theodore Douglas,” he replied through labored breaths. “But most people call me T-Dog.”

“I’m Y/N L/N,” you introduced yourself.

“And I’m Glenn. Glenn Rhee,” said the pizza delivery man.

Glenn, you thought. In all this confusion you hadn’t even caught his name.

“Alright T-Dog,” you said, keeping your distance. “How do we know that we can trust you?”

“I’m not bit,” he responded.

“Bit?” Sputtered Glenn. “What in the world do you mean ‘bit’“?

“You guys don’t know?” He asked, stunned. “If one of those infected people bite you, it’s all over for you. It kills you and turns you into one of them.”

Your heart dropped and you felt like you would puke.

“What?” Glenn nearly whispered.

“I know, it sounds crazy. I didn’t believe it at first either. But I’ve seen it first-hand,” defended T-Dog.

You grabbed on to Glenn for support, afraid that your legs may give out. 

“So what do we do?” You asked as tears formed in your eyes. You felt Glenn wrap a comforting arm around you, pulling you closer to him to help calm you down. In the silence of your small group, you could hear the anchors on the television again.

“The military is urging everyone to make their way to large cities. For anybody tuned in to this broadcast, this means head to Atlanta. The government will keep all of us safe if we can stay contained in certain areas,” said the male anchor. You nodded your head, but heard noises of confusion from both of the boys.

“No, no way.” Sputtered Glenn. “I’m no expert, but I can promise you if a bite spreads this infection, any government camp will get overrun fast. We can’t be herded together with a bunch of people who may or may not be healthy.”

“You’re right,” agreed T-Dog. “I’ve heard this is happening across the country. Pretty soon we won’t be able to leave city limits for what they call our safety.”

Your heart jumped into your throat again as you processed the information.

“Let me pack a bag,” you said, collecting your thoughts. “Then we can all leave together.

You ran to your room, grabbing a duffel bag and filling it with whatever you thought you would need. Not knowing if you would ever come back, you shoved all the clothes you could fit inside as well as necessities like your hairbrush and toothbrush. You grabbed a framed family photo off your dresser, rushing back to the men in the living room.

“Alright,” you said. “Let’s go.”

“Not yet,” replied T-Dog. He sighed before continuing. “I don’t think we should leave unarmed, in case we run into any trouble.”

“I don’t own any guns,” you answer.

“That’s okay,” assured Glenn, “do you have anything else we could use?”

“I used to play softball,” you reveal, opening a closet to reveal a metal baseball bat. Glenn grabbed it as T-Dog made his way to the kitchen. He returned with a pair of steak knives. 

“I know it isn’t perfect, but these will do,” he said, handing you one.

With a final deep breath to collect yourselves, you slung your back over your shoulder and gripped the knife tightly. T-Dog unlocked the front door, and you all exited into the dangerous city. You only hoped that you would somehow make it out alive.

[thecomicsnexus]

BATGIRL #1-4 NOVEMBER 2011 - FEBRUARY 2012 BY GAIL SIMONE, ARDIAN SYAF, VICENTE CIFUENTES AND ULISES ARREOLA

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

Somewhere, an elderly Graham Carter waters his garden. A mysterious figure comes up behind him, and identifies him as a man who survived the sinking of a transport ship, when all 27 others of the crew did not. The strange man introduces himself as the Mirror, and then takes the hose from Mr. Carter, jamming it down his throat, and drowning him with the water within. Crossing Carter's name off the list, the name Barbara Gordon is written below it.

Later, Barbara Gordon patrols Gotham City, finally having returned to her role as Batgirl. High above the city, she spots the killers she's been trailing.

A group of masked thugs are holding the Ortega family at gunpoint while their leader explains why he likes home invasion and murder. He shows them a scrapbook documenting all of their recent killings, and introduces his gang as what the media has dubbed the "Brisby Killers." The leader notes that he picked the Ortegas out of the phone book, and that if the parents cooperate, they may leave the kids alone.

Suddenly, Batgirl smashes through a window, knocking one of the thugs to the ground. She loves the exhilaration of leaping into melee combat, noting that her upper body strength is greater than most, as she knocks out a thug with one punch by accident. After taking out all of the others, only the leader - the gunman - remains. She can see it in his body language that he intends to shoot the Ortegas.

Thinking on her feet, she tosses a batarang into the leader's wrist. Angrily, he tackles her, launching both of them out the window. He winds up dangling at her mercy, and she ties him to the balcony before securing the others and leaving the scene.

That night, Barbara dreams of the past. She was once the Batman's star pupil, but one night, she answered her door to find the Joker standing there with a gun pointed at her. He shot her, and the bullet went through the first lumbar of her spinal cord, paralyzing her from the waist down for three years.

She wakes from her nightmare, and remembers where she is. Fortunately, she regained her ability to walk, since that night. She walks in on her father, James, enjoying a cup of coffee. He informs her that it is actually evening, and she has slept all day. She has plans to move out today; to move into her own place, and "stretch her legs."

Barbara's new place is in a building called Cherry Tree Hall, and her roommate is a bartender by night and painter by day. Despite her new roommate's quirky personality and penchant for activism, Barbara thinks they will get along well. She offers to help Barbara move in, but becomes distracted by the wheelchair lift in the van. She tries not to admit that it was once meant for her.

At Sacred Hands of God Hospital, the thug that Batgirl injured with her Batarang is receiving treatment, and remains under watch by Detective Mel McKenna and her partner. In the same hospital, The Mirror asks to see a Theodore Rankin before punching the receptionist in the face and shooting a security guard. McKenna and her partner hear the shots, and prepare to face whatever awaits them.

Barbara has rigged her phone to receive her father's messages, so that she can follow up on any calls for police assistance. Discovering what's happening at the hospital, she gets her motorcycle out of her van, and rides to the scene. She rides her bike right into the building and onto the elevator.

As the Mirror makes his way to their room, McKenna and her partner warn that if he doesn't get away from the door, they will shoot. In response, the Mirror blasts through the door, shooting McKenna and her partner in the process. McKenna survives, but her partner is not so lucky.

The Mirror approaches the injured thug, claiming that he should have fallen to his death during the altercation with Batgirl, and that has put him on the list. Barbara reaches the scene, and attempts to intervene, but the Mirror aims his gun at her in just the same area that the Joker had when he crippled her. Lost in her memory, she freezes long enough for the Mirror to shove the patient's bed out the window, into a long drop to the street below.

Having watched the whole scene, McKenna accuses Batgirl of being a murderer as she stood there and did nothing to stop it.

Batgirl realizes that she has not fully recovered psychologically from the shooting that crippled her years ago. When the Mirror pointed a gun at her, she froze, and failed to save Detective Douglas Paulson from being shot to death, and failed to stop the leader of the Brisby Killers from being thrown out of the hospital window to his death.

The Mirror prepares to make his escape, but Paulson's partner, Detective Mel McKenna - who blames Batgirl for his death - points her own gun at the killer. She is unfortunately suffering from a likely concussion, and can't aim her weapon properly. She is forced to impotently shout after him as he leaves and Batgirl gives chase.

Batgirl vows to catch the Mirror, chasing him across rooftops and finally leaping down and kicking him from behind. Unfortunately, she misjudges her speed, and both of them are thrown off the edge of a building. Desperately, they both grip an outcropping gargoyle. Strangely, the Mirror seems to have unfinished business. Sympathetically, Batgirl reaches down to help him, but he reveals that she is on his list of intended victims, and wrenches her by the arm from her foothold, throwing her into a free-fall.

Desperately, Batgirl releases her Batrope, grappling onto another outcropping. Unfortunately, her trajectory brings her to street level, and she slams hard into the side of a moving taxi. Naturally, this angers the cab driver, and Batgirl is forced to drag herself up, nurse her cracked ribs, and shuffle away.

Back at the hospital, Detective McKenna refuses medical attention, despite being quite shaken. Eventually, Commissioner Gordon appears, and commands McKenna to allow the attending physician to look at her. He orders that she take mandatory bereavement leave and return after the department psychologist clears her. Before she leaves, McKenna warns that there will need to be a second warrant; one for Batgirl's arrest. The Commissioner is visibly shaken.

Batgirl follows Mirror's trail to the Hollows, an exclusive cemetery reserved for Gotham's rich and privileged. He senses her presence quickly, and calls out to her. She leaps out, but she is no match for him, and he lands a heavy punch in her gut. Knowing that she can't take another hit like that, Batgirl resorts to her wits instead, trying to tire him out by dodging his attacks. Charging him, she manages to steal his list from within his robes. He swipes it back from her hand, enraged that she would dare to look at it. Then, the sound of sirens fills the air, and before she can react, the Mirror is gone.

Without anywhere else to go, Barbara Gordon changes out of her costume and winds up at her new apartment. When her roommate Alysia Yeoh answers the door, she is surprised to see Barbara there, crumpled, wounded, and seconds away from blacking out. Barbara wakes in Alysia's bed. Alysia spares little time in drawing attention to Barbara's obvious injuries, and warns that she is one minute away from calling the police. Barbara assures her that she is not being abused, and is not a criminal - but she won't tell her what's really going on. Barely convinced, Alysia offers to make Barbara some soup. Awkwardly, Barbara asks to borrow something cute to wear.

Later, in her borrowed dress, Barbara has a date with Gregor, her physical therapist. He has worries about the ethics of dating a patient, but Barbara reassures him. They walk through the park, and he asks her why she doesn't talk about when she regained the use of her legs. Barbara responds that she doesn't believe in miracles, and wonders why - if someone is handing them out - she was a recipient. Gregor tries to assure her that some miracles do happen, and that her recovery doesn't have to come at a price.

Later, Barbara does some research at the library, following a lead she picked up on from Mirror at the cemetery. He had mentioned fire, and she assumes that it must have been significant to his reason for being there. She cross-references fires with people who match the Mirror's physical description, and finds the story of a federal agent, Jonathan Mills, who was the sole survivor of a car crash.

Batgirl heads to his apartment, finding that the windows have been rigged with alarm trip wires. The alarms seem to be deactivated, though, and she breaks in. Inside, she finds a veritable arsenal of weapons. Suddenly, the Mirror appears on a large video monitor and addresses her. He explains how he had been forced to watch as his family burned to death in the back of his car while he survived. He feels responsible, and believes that he should have died too.

The Mirror shows her a news clipping showing a man who collapsed on some train tracks, but was saved by a stranger. In response, the Mirror has placed a bomb on the train that the man rides to work daily - for a sense of closure. The Mirror plans to use whatever means necessary to bring an end to all miracles.

With the Mirror mocking her through her ear-piece, Batgirl races to one of Gotham City's trains in order to save a man whom the Mirror has marked for death merely for having survived an event miraculously. Rupert Ansell had fallen onto the train tracks on his morning commute, and had been saved at the last second by a good Samaritan going the opposite direction. The Mirror's MO sees him murdering anybody who seems to have been saved by a miracle, because he doesn't think miracles should be believed in. Batgirl knows better, because the fact that she's standing at all is a miracle.

Banging on the engineer's window, Batgirl determines that the train can't be stopped, and the doors can't be opened. Frustrated, she gets inside by smashing in through one of the windows. Rather than try to find the bomb that the Mirror has planted, she searches for Ruper Ansell himself. When he comes forward, she sends the other passengers out of the car. Understanding the Mirror's method, Batgirl banks on the fact that she is also on his list.

She wraps her arms around Rupert Ansell, knowing that the Mirror can't blow him up without blowing her up too. Batgirl is on the list because she miraculously survived a fall during an encounter with the Brisby Killers. If she dies by explosion, it will thwart the Mirror's plans. However, the Mirror has the upper hand, as he reminds her that the good Samaritan also survived by a miracle. Moments later, the train going in the opposite direction blows with Rupert Ansell's saviour on board. Batgirl saved one man, but allowed another to die.

Two hours later, Det. Mel McKenna tries to convince Commissioner Gordon to let her come back in to work. The Commissioner reminds her that protocol requires her to see a psychologist about her partner's death before she can come back to work. Grumpily, McKenna decides to hold her own investigation into Batgirl, who she blames for her partner's death.

Barbara visits her father at work, and invites him to lunch. She is obviously shaken about her encounter with the Mirror, and the man she allowed to die. Her father sees it, but rather than open up, all she can do is tell him that she misses him. Seeing that she's upset, her father expresses worry that she's taking on too much. She has only just recovered from her injury, and he worries that she will relapse if she works too hard. He can't take lunch with her because of a lead, and Barbara watches him go, wondering if people really see her as that breakable.

That night, Batgirl breaks into the police impound lot, having left her Batcycle outside the hospital the night before. She is interrupted by Nightwing, though she claims to have known he was tailing her the whole time. She invites him onto the back of the bike, and they crash through the fence, speeding through the twilight streets of Gotham.

Though she loathes to admit it, the feeling of Dick's arms around her on that bike makes her feel very good. Parking the bike, Barbara demands to know what Dick is doing there. Awkwardly, he admits that he's checking in on her because he and Batman are worried that she could end up back in the wheelchair if she's not careful - just like her father does. Frustrated, he is forced to simply ask whether she can handle the Mirror on her own. In answer, Barbara kicks his feet out from under him, and rappels off into the night.

She recalls how she and Dick used to chase each other like this even back when they first met - he an acrobat, and she a ballerina. Despite his cockiness back then, his kindness made up for a lot of it - and it became easy to like him. Richard Grayson was the first boy Barbara ever had a crush on who wasn't a scientist. Admittedly, she still feels the way she did during that first crush when she's around him - but it's an admission she can barely make to herself.

When Dick catches up to her, Barbara decides that she's had enough of well-meaning boys, from Dick to Batman - even her father. She will have no more of men trying to protect her when she doesn't want or need it. She says that if men keep on trying to protect her, she would send them back with blackened eyes. She begins physically sparring with Nightwing, offering little quarter, and forcing him to defend himself. Finally, he yells out that the reason that he and Batman have been worried is not because they doubt her, but because they love her. Shocked, Barbara realizes that she has been pushing away those who love her because she craved understanding more than pity; respect more than comfort.

Playing off her realization casually, Barbara states firmly that she has to do this - face this - alone. She cuts off a lock of her hair and places it in Dick's hand, stating that if he can't let her do it alone, then they can't be friends. Reluctant, but understanding, Dick lets her go.

Barbara Gordon's dreams are full of guilt and symbolism. She blames herself for recovering from the injury that kept her trapped in a wheel chair until nearly a year ago. She wonders why she was allowed a miracle when so many others don't. The dream is recurring, and Barbara wakes up in a sweat.

Wandering out of her room, she finds her roommate Alysia sitting near their Christmas tree, having just got off of her late shift at work. Barbara sits down beside her, and the two of them discuss Christmas. Barbara awkwardly describes her best Christmas gift, how her mother walked out when she was twelve, and a year ago that night, her father gave her news of a South African clinic which might be able to help her. Alysia correctly deduces that the wheelchair ramp in Barbara's van was for her. Barbara feels uncomfortable talking about something so personal to her, and hurriedly makes excuses to leave. She's so flustered that she forgets to put on shoes.

To get away from all of the questions, Barbara goes out as Batgirl. She happens upon a gang of thugs holding up an affluent couple. The thugs are using an app for their smartphones which shows them where the Batman is at any given time based on reports, to be sure that he won't interrupt their crimes. Which means that they are not expecting it when Batgirl appears.

Thinking about her case, Barbara is glad that her eidetic memory has allowed her to remember all of the names on the list that she stole from the Mirror, before he stole it back. Naturally, that memory has other uses, like making it easy to take out predictable thugs with inadequate weaponry. Quickly, she disposes of the thugs with surgical precision. The couple are grateful, hugging her to them, glad to be able to see their children again.

The mention of children gives Barbara an idea. Knowing that Mirror feels a responsibility to his murdered wife and daughters, she leaves a note for him at the Hollows Cemetery. The note condemns him for murdering when his own family was murdered, claiming that his feeling that miracles should not happen is no justification for murder. She invites him to Sprang Park for a showdown, after revealing that she has already given the GCPD all of the names on his list, as well as his modus operandi.

At Sprang Park, Batgirl lures the Mirror into the Hall of Mirrors. In the ensuing fight, Barbara realizes that she is outmatched, but still manages to land a powerful kick to his face that smashes the mirrored mask which covers his face. Using the distraction, she activates a projector, which causes the image of Jonathan Mills' family's destroyed car to appear on every mirrored surface in the room, including Mills' own armour. The image shakes him, and he collapses, allowing Batgirl to land a heavy punch which sends him into unconsciousness. Standing over him, she states that sometimes, extraordinary things happen to the worst people, and the best people do suffer. Sometimes, people get their miracles whether they deserve them or not. As she says this, she begins to come to terms with her own survivor's guilt.

Later that night, Barbara and Alysia exchange gifts, and grow closer. When Alysia asks about Barbara's family, she responds that she is used to simple holidays with just her father and brother. Suddenly, the doorbell rings, and Barbara is surprised to find a woman who bears a strong resemblance to her standing there. The woman introduces herself as Barbara's mother.

REVIEW

I have mixed feelings about this story.

First of all, by the editorial decision of returning to Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl. Many agreed that Barbara becoming Oracle was an amazing role model for people facing disabilities. At the same time, Nostalgia played a big part on this and when you have to reset your universe... would you make Stephanie the first Batgirl?

Gail decided to leave the “killing joke incident” in continuity, and Barbara instead of overcoming that tragedy by becoming a different type of hero, she made her go back to be Batgirl. This is also an inspiring story for people with disabilities, but the fact that she got help from science that doesn’t exist in our world, is not that inspiring.

I also don’t have fond memories of this run, other than the appearances of James Gordon Jr, but my guess is that, that happened because of the many crossovers and because I was reading it month by month. When I think of the new 52 Batgirl, I think of the DCYOU one.

Reading the full story in one sitting is different though. Both Barbara and Mirror have similar inner conflicts, and while at the end, looking at herself in the mirror makes her stronger (or at least, makes her face her fears, another inspiring story), when Mirror looks at his reflection, all he sees is death (well, those photos of his dead family were probably the reason). So the story itself is well crafted in it feels personal.

What I didn’t buy much was the villain. I know of survivor’s guilt, and it is strange that this character was also an ex soldier (he managed to survive the war without this issue). It’s just that I have problems believing that a person with this problem would go on to kill survivors of completely disconnected accidents.

Still, some of these changes made a good impression and Alysia Yeoh became a regular supporting character of the DCU. A character with double diversity (Asian + transgender).

The art looks nice, but maybe that is one of the reasons I do not remember this story that much. There is nothing that really moved me about it, and there were moments that should have (the many instances when Barbara was afraid of losing her legs again). I don’t think it’s bad, and at least it isn’t too sexual, but still, didn’t make a mark on my memory.

I give this story a score of  8.

[ao3feed-darus]

Songs of Love and Pain

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2XFyixL

by EeveeGurl

This is going to be a series of song fics that are all tied together, but can stand alone as their own one shot... kind of... Idk... I'm making it up as I go...

Words: 2663, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M, M/M

Characters: Daryl Dixon, Rick Grimes, Sasha Williams (Walking Dead), Theodore "T-Dog" Douglas, Carol Peletier, Jesus (Walking Dead)

Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes, pre Daryl Dixon/Jesus

Additional Tags: Angst, Song fic, Infidelity, Rick's an ass, Daryl Needs a Hug, Paul's appalled

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2XFyixL

[docrotten]

THE CRAWLING EYE (THE TROLLENBERG TERROR, 1958) – Episode 129 – Decades Of Horror: The Classic Era

“Alan, we’re in big trouble. The cloud is splitting up!” The cloud is splitting? Run for your lives! Join this episode’s Grue-Crew – Whitney Collazo, Daphne Monary-Ernsdorff, and Jeff Mohr – as they make a trip to Trollenberg for an eyewitness account of the terror known as Tempean’s The Crawling Eye (1958), aka The Trollenberg Terror.

Decades of Horror: The Classic Era Episode 129 – The Crawling Eye (1958)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! And click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

ANNOUNCEMENT Decades of Horror The Classic Era is partnering with THE CLASSIC SCI-FI MOVIE CHANNEL, THE CLASSIC HORROR MOVIE CHANNEL, and WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL Which all now include video episodes of The Classic Era! Available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, Online Website. Across All OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop. https://classicscifichannel.com/; https://classichorrorchannel.com/; https://wickedhorrortv.com/

A series of decapitations on a Swiss mountainside appear to be connected to a mysterious, radioactive cloud. The cloud turns out to be inhabited by horrible alien creatures who like to decapitate humans and are also in telepathic communication with certain people.

  Director: Quentin Lawrence

Writers: Jimmy Sangster (screenplay); Peter Key (aka George Kerr, Jack Cross, & Giles Cooper) (story)

Produced by: Robert S. Baker, Monty Berman

Production Company: Tempean Films

Music by: Stanley Black

Cinematography by: Monty Berman (director of photography)

Selected Cast:

Forrest Tucker as Alan Brooks

Laurence Payne as Philip Truscott

Jennifer Jayne as Sarah Pilgrim

Janet Munro as Anne Pilgrim

Warren Mitchell as Professor Crevett

Frederick Schiller as Mayor Klein

Andrew Faulds as Brett

Stuart Saunders as Dewhurst

Colin Douglas as Hans

Derek Sydney as Wilde

Richard Golding as first villager

George Herbert as second villager

Anne Sharp as German woman

Leslie Heritage as Carl

Jeremy Longhurst as first student climber

Anthony Parker as second student climber

Theodore Wilhelm as Fritz

Garard Green as pilot

Caroline Claser as little girl

Jeff chose this one and he loves it! Even though the effects may be a bit cheesy, he stares agog at the title characters. Janet Munro, Forrest Tucker, the terribly but awesomely acted professor, and a well-paced script make The Crawling Eye a fun watch.

The Crawling Eye is a pleasant sight to behold for Daphne, who shows up for the podcast as Daph-eye-ne, complete with costume. She likes how it starts off with a bang, (actually a decapitation) and she loves the “leg-a-cles.” Whitney also describes the effects as wild and cheesy but then reminds Grue-believers how much she loves cheese. The Crawling Eye is a fun, crazy film, what with all the ocular shenanigans. Chad is reminded of a Quatermass film with a tinge of film-noir with some of its dark shots and characters knowingly walking into danger. He lauds the well-thought-out, Jimmy Sangster-penned script.

Your Classic Era Grue Crew unanimously labels The Crawling Eye a fun movie that includes its share of tension. At the time of this writing, the film can be streamed from the Classic Horror Movie Channel and the Classic Sci-Fi Movie Channel.

Jeff shows off his fresh copy of Little Shoppe of Horrors, issue 48, featuring Robert S. Baker, Monty Berman, and the films of Tempean. Of particular use to the Classic Era Grue Crew is “The Trollenberg Terror” by Clive Dawson. New and back issues of Little Shoppe of Horrors (The Journal of Classic British Horror Films), are available at https://www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com/ 

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era records a new episode every two weeks. Up next in their very flexible schedule is one chosen by Daphne: Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby… Kill! (1966).

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: leave them a message or leave a comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com

To each of you from each of us, “Thank you so much for listening!”

Check out this episode!

[mozgoderina]

Through a legend, darkly (The Globe and Mail) / Chet Baker

When Bruce Weber's Let's Get Lost had its world premiere in September, 1988, at the Venice International Film Festival, it was hailed by some as both a masterpiece -- and a masterpiece of good timing.

The reason: On May 13 of that same year, the subject of Weber's film, jazz legend Chet Baker, had plunged to his death from a hotel window in Amsterdam -- just a year after Weber had spent six months, off and on, filming Baker in various locales across Europe and the United States.

Not surprisingly, Let's Get Lost came to be seen less as a portrait of a talented, troubled artist than an invitation to read every crease in Baker's once-pretty face, every lovelorn lyric he sang and every moody melody he played as an intimation of doom. Was Baker's end a suicide? Murder? An accident precipitated by the drug abuse that, along with music, had been the major motif in Baker's life?

Visitors to this year's Toronto International Film Festival get to consider all the singer's highs and lows anew when Let's Get Lost is screened tomorrow as part of the festival's Dialogues series. Weber, now 60, will be there, talking with Canadian broadcaster Ross Porter (who prepared a Chet Baker documentary of his own for CBC Radio several years ago) and Douglas Brinkley, head of the Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization at Tulane University in New Orleans. Weber is also bringing Scottish singer Angela McCluskey to perform the Baker classic, My Foolish Heart.

Weber's appearance is a homecoming of sorts: Let's Get Lost had its North American premiere, just a few days after its Venice launch, at what was then called the Toronto Festival of Festivals. The TIFF screening marks the start of a second commercial life for Let's Get Lost, for which Weber spent almost a year preparing a restored print. It's going to be re-released in theatres early next year, in tandem with the release of an expanded version (28 songs in total) of the soundtrack issued in 1989, followed by the DVD of the film.

The man who would go on to become a world-famous photographer first became interested in Baker when Weber was still a dreamy 16-year-old living in rural Pennsylvania, and spotted a photo of him in a Pittsburgh record store on the cover of the 1955 vinyl LP Chet Baker Sings and Plays with Bud Shank, Russ Freeman and Strings. Included among the 10 tracks was Baker's cover of the Jimmy McHugh-Frank Loesser composition Let's Get Lost.

Later, Weber would say that seeing Baker's chiselled features and muscular physique in a knit T-shirt "was sort of the way I always wished I had looked, or wished I had known somebody like that."

But it wasn't just Baker's looks that appealed to Weber: Playing Chet Baker Sings, he told James Gavin, author of a controversial 2002 biography of Baker called Deep in a Dream, "I heard a sound . . . that was beckoning me to go West. It was a sound you felt when you listened to the ocean, when you were at the beach late in the afternoon."

In 1986, Weber directed his first feature film Broken Noses, a documentary about a hunky Olympic hopeful named Andy Minsker and the troubled youngsters he coached in a boxing club in Oregon. When it came time to do the soundtrack, Weber went to the cool California sounds of his youth -- Joni James, Julie London, Gerry Mulligan and, of course, Baker.(It's now Weber's belief that "you can literally film anything and put Chet's music with it and it'll work, you know?" he said in our interview. "Someone will say to me, 'Bruce, I'm doing a film about my grandmother.' And I always say, 'Oh, why don't you put some Chet Baker music with it?' ")

It was while finishing Broken Noses that Weber finally connected with the object of his adolescent desire, at a club in New York. Except Weber was by then a bearish 40 and Baker a hollow man of 57 dreaming of speedballs and looking, in the words of one writer, "more like Jack Palance than Jimmy Dean."

Nevertheless, Weber was enamoured. After persuading the trumpeter to do a photo session, then a three-minute "documentary" in a vermin-infested tenement, he suggested the two of them do a longer film and Baker assented. Shooting began the following January. That May, when Weber premiered Broken Noses (whose sole opening credit reads "To Chet Baker") at Cannes, he brought Baker and Minsker along with him -- and shot footage for Let's Get Lost along the way.

Today Weber describes Let's Get Lost as "a very ad hoc film. When we had some money and some time, we'd just go and do it." By the end, he had poured more than $1-million (U.S.) of his own money into the film, which he now calls "my grad-school project."

Working with an often cranky junkie who had an ill-fitting set of dentures and "no concept of holding onto 10 cents for tomorrow," was occasionally a strain. But 20 years later, Weber confesses that he kind of misses him.

"Chet was really fun when he was in a good frame of mind," he says. "He saw the world like a kid. There was this strange kind of innocence about him. . . . He really took pleasure in simple things. He had this kind of backyard mentality, 'I'm just happy sitting under the apple tree.' When the waves are spraying just so, the wind's nice, I still like to say, 'It's a Chet kind of day.' "

One of the most striking conceits of Let's Get Lost has also proved to be its most controversial: Weber staged numerous events -- such as the visit to Cannes, a reunion with photographer William Claxton (who had immortalized the young Chet), and cruises in a convertible down Santa Monica Boulevard.

Weber also convinced Baker to don some posh threads and have himself worked on by a hairstylist, makeup artist and dresser. Occasionally, he surrounded the trumpeter with attractive young women -- the sort Baker no doubt had partied with 35 years earlier -- and men (Minsker, singer Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Chris Isaak) whose unlined good looks Weber contrasted with Baker's cadaverous visage.

Later, the filmmaker brought that same blend of fantasy and reality to bear on Baker's estranged third wife, Carol, and their three children, Dean, Paul and Melissa (all of whom are now in their 40s), when he filmed them at their home in Stillwater, Okla.

"I don't think Bruce Weber's a true documentary maker," Baker's widow told me in a recent interview. Now in her mid-60s, she met Chet in 1960 when she was a 19-year-old English showgirl in Italy, married him in 1964, and never divorced. Since this past June, she has been living in Toronto, where she is considering settling for good after meeting local promoter-artist Jhames Lee and naming him executive director of something called the Chet Baker Foundation, which recently put on a three-day tribute to the artist in the city.

"Giving you haircuts and telling you what clothes to put on and driving you around in an expensive convertible isn't about making a documentary," said Baker's widow. "A documentary, to me, is about what you are."

She is writing her own story of life with her famous husband and, Lee promises, "It'll be the definitive book . . . since there's nothing definitive about Chet out there at all," including, she says, the Gavin biography, which she characterizes as "a trash job, so disgusting -- negative, negative, negative."

Weber is quietly unapologetic. "I kind of like films where they're kind of like a project on how to live your life. . . . They're not like a tunnel view of the subject where, you know, you're locked in a chronology or you just talk with the people you're supposed to talk to and it's all about the old days."

It's likely Weber's go-with-the-flow approach will be fully in evidence in another upcoming feature: a documentary about Robert Mitchum, which Weber started filming in the mid-1990s, but put on hold when the actor died in 1997, and, he says, "I got hauled off into other stuff."

Now Weber says he's going to have that doc finished for a 2007 release and -- get ready for it -- there are going to be scenes of Mitchum singing with Marianne Faithful, Dr. John and Rickie Lee Jones. For Weber, it seems, the stranger the bedfellows, the better the biopic.

  Source: The Globe and Mail / Written by James Adams. Link: Through a legend, darkly Illustration: William Claxton. 'Chet Baker at the piano, Hollywood', 1954. Moderator: ART HuNTER. ✓ FAcEBook pAGE →  ✓ piNTEREsT BoARD → 

[shimmershaewrites]

Merry and Bright *9* (a Walking Dead One Shot, Caryl AU).

Title:  Merry and Bright *9*

Rating:  T. 

Warnings:  mild language, sexual situations.      

Characters/Pairings:  Carol Peletier/Daryl Dixon, background Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Eric Raleigh/Aaron, Michonne/Andrea Harrison, Sophia Peletier, mention of past Carol Peletier/Ed Peletier, Glenn Rhee/Maggie Rhee, Theodore ‘T-Dog’ Douglas, Rosita Espinosa, Bob Stookey, Lilly Chambler, Meghan Chambler, Denise Cloyd, Merle Dixon, Jerry, Carl Grimes. 

    Merry and Bright *9*

    His stubble rasps against the nape of her neck in the most delicious way and she shivers, from her head down to her toes, melts into the warm, protective circle of his arms for the briefest of moments before reluctantly pulling away and putting some needed distance between them.  It’s the only way she’s going to manage to walk out that door and be a productive adult today and they both know it.  The pleased smirk she glimpses on his handsome, unshaven face tells her as much, but she can’t find it in herself to be angry or even offended.  If she hadn’t promised, what feels like a lifetime ago now, to help out Lori when the time come and it apparently has, they might still be in that bedroom now with the whole wide world locked out and their bedsheets tangled at their feet.  “Don’t,” she warns him. 

  His smirk only grows wider, making his teeth gleam in the soft light of the nearby Christmas tree.  “Didn’t say nothing.” 

  Her own smile twitches at her lips, but she hides it well, tucking the ends of her red and white scarf around her neck.  She pulls her jacket up over her shoulders and winces when the simple motion makes heat flood to her cheeks and brings memories that are barely a few hours old to the forefront.  He’d certainly given it his best shot, convincing her to call in.  With his beautiful mouth and his gentle hands, he’d touched her and loved her until she’d been reduced to a great, quivering sea of overwhelming need.  Even now, she feels the phantom ache of him between her thighs, everywhere else.  “Daryl,” she chastises softly when his fingers catch the drawstring to her scrub pants and tug.  His calloused thumb dips into the well of her navel and she whines.  “I really need to go.” 

  “Ain’t stopping you.”  Her brow arches in disbelief and he grunts out a laugh, feathers a semi-penitent kiss across the furrowed lines of frustration in her forehead.  “M’sorry.  S’just…you really have to go?”

  Carol sighs.  “I wish I didn’t.  You don’t know how much.  But Dr. Carson put Lori on bedrest, and we’re short already as it is.  I can’t leave Lilly to shoulder the work load alone.” 

  He matches her sigh with one of his own, long and drawn out for effect.  “Just something ‘bout the holidays, huh?  Merry Christmas.” 

  She fists the soft gray material of the shirt stretched snug across his broad shoulders and leans up on her toes to press her mouth to his grumbling one.  “Bah humbug to you too, Pookie,” she teases.  “At least it’s not the evening shift.”  A deep, wordless rumble of agreement is the only response she receives before he pulls her into a hug that steals the breath from her very lungs.  She nuzzles her nose in that inviting crease between his neck and his shoulder and inhales deeply, willing her fluttering heart to calm.  She’s not sure who she’s trying to reassure more, him or herself, when she murmurs a quiet reminder.  “It’s just twelve hours.  Maybe less if things are slow.  I’ll be home before you know it and you, me, and Sophia?  We’ll have plenty of time to make it to the party.” 

  “Shit,” he swears, rocking back on his bare feet and raking a hand roughly through his hair, upending it every which way.  “That’s tonight?” 

  He looks impossibly boyish to her in that moment, even if the gray-blond scruff on his cheeks proves otherwise, and she nods.  This year, Glenn and Maggie are hosting and she doesn’t want to disappoint the young couple no matter how tired she can already tell she’s going to be thanks to their earlier amorous activities.  “It’s a cookie swap, remember?  Sophia and I had plans to bake cookies today but little Miss Grimes had other ideas.” 

  “Yeah, well.  I’d expect nothing less knowing her mama,” he mutters. 

  He puts on a good show, but Carol’s not fooled by the act.  He’s been just as solicitous toward their friend during her difficult pregnancy as Rick has, maybe even more so in his own gruff way, and it’s endeared him even more to her, something she hadn’t previously thought possible considering the origin of their life together.  In the grand scheme of things, they’re still new to this marriage thing.  She doesn’t count her whole relationship with Ed because her daughter had been the only thing of value the man had ever gifted her with, however reluctantly, and they were only a family in the loosest sense of the word, bound by biology but not the heart.  With Daryl it’s different.  It has been since he’d done the impossible and brought her lost little girl back to her.  So she feels free to make a suggestion that never would have crossed her mind with Ed.  “Maybe you and Sophia could make them?  Store bought ones are fine.  Glenn and Maggie aren’t going to say anything.” 

  He quirks a half-smile at her, his blue eyes twinkling and bright.  “You saying you trust me not to burn the house down?”   

  “More than that,” she laughs as she shoulders her purse and scoops up her lunch bag.  “Think about it, okay?” 

  “Come back to me, Woman.” 

  The promise doesn’t take any thought.  “Always.” 

          The kid comes padding out of her room before the sun’s all the way up, rubbing her small fists at her eyes and yawning so big he can hear her jaw pop clear across the living room.  Draining the last dregs of his coffee, he reaches out to set his mug on a nearby coaster and scratches at the back of his neck as he watches her linger in front of the tree that’s been the focal point of the house since the weekend after Thanksgiving.  He still remembers the way she and her mama had batted them big pretty eyes at him before dragging him all over King County looking for the perfect tree.  It’d been a good day.  He’s had a lot of those since he found ‘Phia and found love as a result.  He hopes today can be one of those, even if he hasn’t been able to think of much else but how much he misses her mama since she left through the front door.  Clearing his throat to get her attention, he asks, “What you doin’ up so early?” 

  “Didn’t sleep so good,” Sophia mumbles, her mouth all cottony still with sleep and her nose wrinkled as she joins him on the sofa, slumping back against the pillows and tucking her growing, gangly legs beneath her. 

  “Didn’t?” Daryl ventures, though he has a sneaking suspicion why, more than a sneaking suspicion actually.  He still don’t know what had come over him, taking his wife so thoroughly apart with their girl sleeping just a few feet away.  He just remembers watching her sleep in the waning moonlight and the way she wore the freckles on her skin like stardust and wanting to know the taste of something so wondrous and sweet.  He can still picture the way she’d arched beneath his touch, like the building of an oncoming wave, and how she’d reached behind herself to find purchase as he’d framed her hips with his rough hands and nuzzled deep, her mouth open on a silent scream as she’d pulsed around him and flooded his mouth.  He’d barely given her time to recover before he was covering her body with his own and working his narrow hips between her trembling legs, working toward his own release and taking her with him.  That time, they hadn’t been quite as quiet.  He was sure of it and he feels the heat of embarrassment color his cheeks and crawl all the way up to the tips of his ears.  Working around the mortified lump rising up in his throat, he volunteers, “Bad dream?” 

  “No,” Sophia says.  “Maybe,” she amends.  “I don’t remember,” she finally admits.  Turning her sleep-rumpled head to the side, she studies him through a veil of strawberry hair.  “You look tired, too.” 

  “Yeah, well.  You’d be tired, too.  If your girls forced you to watch hours of cheesy Christmas movies.  Ask me, Hallmark needs to stick to cards and shit,” he grumbles half-heartedly.  “Ain’t nobody out there got an original idea no more.  What you smilin’ so big for?”

  The kid just smiles bigger and shrugs, burrows deeper into the pile of pillows at her skinny back and fumbles for the television remote.  When she doesn’t find it, she looks over at him again.  “Where’s Mama?” 

          “Somebody call X-Ray?”                                                                                                                                               

  Carol looks up from the chart she’s perusing and breaks out into a smile, walking toward the big man with an even bigger smile and stepping right into the bear hug he engulfs her in.  “T.”  Tucked safely beneath his chin, she returns the embrace wholeheartedly.  “It’s been so long.” 

  “Too long,” T-Dog agrees.  “Let me look at you.”  Holding her at arms’ length, he studies her with astute eyes, from the top of her silver head to the tips of her Dansko-clad toes.  “Dixon looks good on you.”  When she blushes in response to his particular phrasing, he chuckles.  “Dixon looks real good on you.  Damn, Girl.  You’re glowing.” 

  Much to her chagrin, the moment doesn’t go unnoticed by the young medic packing up her gear nearby and she’s quick to hush her friend because T’s teasing is one thing, but Rosita’s?  Well, it’s another animal altogether.  Her partner Bob just takes it even further, and Carol’s pretty sure she’s not equipped to withstand the onslaught today of all days.  “Stop.” 

  T-Dog can’t resist making one more good-natured jibe.  “Man’s really rubbing off on you.” 

  “I called X-Ray.  Not a wannabe comedian.” 

  T-Dog grabs his chest in feigned shock, winks at her.  “Ouch.  That hurts.” 

  “You deserved it,” Carol quips as she leads him to a curtained cubicle.  Drawing the curtain back, she smiles gently at her patient, a pale man with ginger hair and sweat beading on his upper lip.  “Mr. Raleigh, X-Ray’s here.” 

  “Theodore Douglas at your service,” T-Dog introduces himself, immediately setting up shop.  “Man, you ain’t looking so good.” 

   “Eric,” Mr. Raleigh is quick to correct them both.  “You mean the broken ankle doesn’t do much for my fair complexion?  Darn.”  Turning to Carol, he fixes overly bright eyes on her face.  “Any word from my husband?” 

  “He’s on his way,” she reassures him with a gentle hand upon his shoulder.  “Last anybody talked to him, he was about 15 minutes out.” 

  “Knowing Aaron, that means he’s really only 7 or 8 minutes out.”  He tells them both with exasperated fondness.  “Unless he got stopped by the police.  Oh, I hope he’s being safe.” 

  “Want me to go check on him again?” Carol offers. 

  “Oh, please.  Would you?” 

  Giving his narrow shoulder a comforting squeeze, she nods.  “Of course, I will.  You try to relax, okay?  You’re in good hands with T.” 

          They’re both still in their pajamas when they embark on their most challenging endeavor yet as new daddy and daughter, and it’s a good thing, too, because they ain’t even got started good and from Daryl’s standpoint, they’re making an unholy mess.  Might be they should have followed Carol’s suggestion, but it’s too late now.  It only gets worse when his brother makes an unannounced visit. 

  “The hell y’all two doin’?” Merle demands in a whiskey-rough drawl, one hand on his hip and the other rubbing the whiskers on his chin. 

  Daryl knows what it looks like.  It looks like they’ve detonated a flour bomb inside the kitchen because it’s spread far and wide.  It smells like an elf threw up in the place, too.  At least that’s what ‘Phia claims.  He ain’t so sure.  “What’s it look like we’re doin’?  Makin’ our own snow?” he snaps with a roll of his eyes that makes the kid giggle.  Of course, it could be those absurd antlers Merle’s sporting on his fat head.  “You high?” he blurts before he has a chance to censor himself. 

  “Think I should be askin’ you that question, Baby Brother.”  Merle pulls up a barstool and plants his lazy behind on it, winks at Sophia and pokes a blunt finger in the bowl nearest to him.  When he sticks it in his mouth, his lips purse for a split second before he smiles.  “Not too bad.  Nothin’ a little booze can’t fix.” 

  He can’t help himself.  He growls.  “Ain’t makin’ drunk gingerbread men.” 

  Merle shrugs his big shoulders.  “Suit yourself.” 

  Ignoring him, Daryl goes back to studying the directions and he frowns.  “Says here we’re ‘sposed to divide it up, wrap it, and put it in the fridge for at least 3 hours.”  Glancing at the digital clock on the microwave, he mentally calculates how much time they have until the party and shakes his head.  “Gonna have to cut it in half.  At least.  Probably more.”  Fixing his gaze on the kid, he presses, “What’s your mama do?” 

  “I don’t know,” Sophia admits with a helpless shrug.  “I just help decorate them.” 

  “Girl after my own heart, skipping to the good part like that.” 

  “Merle,” Daryl warns.

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong in what I said, Darylina.  Some of us just like to be a bit more…”  He pauses for effect, eventually finishing with an obnoxious leering grin twisting his lips.  “Direct.  Go right in for the kill.  Then there are some of us love to build up the anticipation until they forget the whole point.  Am I right?” 

  Feeling his ears flame when he glimpses the tiniest glimmer of understanding spark in Sophia’s innocent hazel eyes, Daryl’s quick to change the subject, kind of.  “Think Andrea might have a difference of opinion.  Heard she really hit it off with somebody at some work party of hers.  You might have seen her around a time or two.  Name’s Michonne.”  

  The smile freezes on Merle’s face and he flips him off as soon as the kid’s otherwise distracted. 

  Behind ‘Phia’s back, Daryl does it right back. 

        Lilly’s got her phone out, FaceTiming her daughter when Carol sneaks a few moments of peace in the break room.  Peeking over her coworker’s shoulder, she greets the giggling little girl with a wave and a smile.  “Hi, Meghan.” 

  “Ms. Carol, hi!” 

  Her freckles and her bright eyes put her in mind of Sophia and she excuses herself, holes up in the tiny single stall bathroom and takes out her own phone.  Typing out a few words, she presses send and almost immediately, her baby girl answers her back on Daryl’s phone with half a dozen emojis.  She laughs softly and sends back a response that earns her a bunch of acronyms she’s still isn’t completely up to speed on.  “What even…” she wonders underneath her breath.  The back and forth lasts for quite a while, and when she emerges from the bathroom again, she’s all alone in the break room with nothing but her thoughts to occupy her.  At least she starts out that way.  She looks up from picking absently at her salad when she hears a throat clear quietly. 

  “Mind if I join you?”  Dr. Denise Cloyd offers her a brief shy flicker of a smile and waits for her nod before claiming the seat at the opposite end of the rectangular table and opening up a plain brown paper bag.  “I can’t hear myself think in the doctor’s lounge.”  She withdraws a plastic wrapped sandwich and sighs, letting her shoulders drop.  “I need to hear myself think sometimes.” 

  “We all do,” Carol agrees amiably.  Unscrewing the cap from her bottle of water, she takes a careful drink.  She looks up, startled, when she realizes the young psychiatrist is talking again, mostly to herself. 

  “There’s a man out there convinced he’s Santa Claus, and I mean absolutely convinced.  He’s even got a couple of patients’ kids fooled.  What do I even do with that?  I mean, how do I approach treating him without becoming the Grinch in their eyes?  Sorry.  I shouldn’t have said anything to you.” 

  “Sounds like you have yourself a real dilemma,” she muses kindly. 

  “I really shouldn’t have said anything.  HIPAA,” she elaborates needlessly after a pause.  “How could I have ever thought psychiatry would be less complicated and stressful than surgery?”  Shaking her head, she murmurs an apology.  “I’m sorry.  I’m ruining your lunch, aren’t I?” 

  “Not at all,” Carol reassures her, repacking her salad and zipping it back up in her lunch bag.  “My husband’s always telling me rabbit food isn’t very appetizing.  Today, I’m inclined to agree.”  Propping her chin in her palm, she glances up at the muted television and smiles at the little blond boy outwitting two bumbling would-be thieves.  Sophia had always harbored a particular fondness for Home Alone.  Every time it plays on television during the Christmas holidays she just has to watch it and somehow, she knows she’s doing exactly that right now across town, Daryl by her side.  Paying the soft rustle of plastic no mind, she continues to watch the movie, at least until the smell of tuna reaches her nose.  Then it feels like all the blood drains from her face and her stomach rebels.  She barely has time to excuse herself before she’s up and dashing to the tiny bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her and dry heaving like she hasn’t in weeks. 

  The soft, anxious cadence of Dr. Cloyd’s voice almost doesn’t penetrate the barrier of the door when she leans against it from the other side.  “Should I offer an apology or congratulations first?” 

      Merle’s long gone and the last batch of cookies are cooling in the kitchen.  They’ve got another couple hours before the shift Carol’s working for Lori is over and Home Alone is playing for the second time that day.  The kid’s barely paying any attention, though.  It seems to Daryl there are other things weighing on her young mind.  “Hey.  What you thinkin’ ‘bout?  Lookin’ awful serious over there.” 

  Sophia sighs. 

  It’s a long-suffering sound, a sound that sets his nerves on edge.  “You happy, Kid?  With me and your mama, with me and you and her being a family?”  It ain’t ‘til he looks down that he notices his hands are clenched into fists and it takes several seconds and some deep, calming breaths for him to relax enough to let them go. 

  “I am,” the girl insists earnestly.  “The happiest I ever been.” 

  “You are?”  He can’t quite believe it, most especially because the look on her youthful face seems anything but happy to him.  He knows worry when he sees it.  He’s lived a lifetime in its stranglehold.  That was ‘fore he met ‘Phia and her mama, though.  “Really?” 

  “Really,” she tells him. 

  Still, she’s wearing that same furrow between her brows her mama gets and he feels concern start to eat at his gut.  “You’d tell me if you weren’t?” 

  She curls those skinny arms around her legs and murmurs into the shield of her knees.  “I would.” 

  “Know I’d do whatever it takes to make sure you and your mama get all the happiness you deserve?” 

  “I know.  I do.  It’s just…” 

  “S’just what, Kid?  Ain’t got to keep it all bottled up.  Not from me.”  She’s got a smudge of flour on her crinkled nose, dots of the stuff peppering her freckled cheeks, too, and his fingers itch to brush it away.  They ache to cradle her little face in the palm of his hand and promise her whatever he needs to so the worry will go away, but first she has to talk to him.  He knows how hard that is sometimes, too.  “’Phia.  Got to talk to me, Sweetheart.” 

  “Sometimes, I’m afraid it’s not real.  Like a dream.  Like magic.  Like…” 

  “Santa?” he offers, knowing instantly by her guilty expression that he ain’t telling her nothing she don’t already know, even if she tries to convince her mama otherwise.  Girl ain’t snowin’ her mama either.  She just ain’t realized it yet.  “You afraid it’s all pretend?  Something that only lasts ‘til you grow up and know better?” 

  “Maybe.” 

  “You’re stuck with me forever, Kid,” he promises her.  “Shitty cookies and all.”  That surprises a giggle out of her, and her arms fall to her sides, fidget there for a moment before they’re reaching for him and she’s curling herself around him like she did when he found her in them woods. 

  “They really are pretty bad.” 

  He hides his tremulous smile in the softness of her hair.  “Can’t be any worse than Lori’s.” 

      She’s got her scrub pants loose and low around her hips, her hand covering her trembling lips when the curtain is pulled back and Jerry’s big, friendly body backs into the small cubicle. 

  “Somebody page for an…Ms. Carol.  I mean, Mrs. Dixon.”  Jerry’s beside himself, his dark eyes glittering with a healthy mixture of affection and worry when he takes in her pale face, her exposed abdomen.  “Are you…do you need a…I need to get you a doctor.” 

  Her hand shoots out then, fingers curling around his forearm.  “Jerry, wait.  Don’t.” 

  Frowning, he shakes his head.  “But somebody paged for an ultrasound and you’re…you’re…what’s going on?” 

  Sitting up, she sighs.  “Close the curtain, Jerry.  Please.” 

  He does as she asks and crowds necessarily close, lowers his normally jovial voice.  “I don’t understand.” 

  Taking a deep breath, she lays it out for him.  “I’m pregnant.” 

  Comprehension dawns on his face and his happy grin splits wide, making his eyes twinkle and shine.  “Dude, congratulations.  That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”  He smile dims when he realizes her expression doesn’t quite match his own.  “Wait a minute.  This is happy news, is it not?”

  Feeling tears warm her eyes, Carol nods wordlessly.  It is happy news, her longstanding reluctance to open her eyes to the reality notwithstanding.  Yeah, she’s been watching her diet.  She’s even upped her vitamins just in case.  It’s just, there’d been others besides Sophia.  Babies she’d never held in her arms.  Babies whose hearts she’d never heard beat.  Hope, before Daryl, hadn’t been a possibility.  It hadn’t even been a viable option and now, when it’s so real she can almost touch it, so real she can see it in the gentle curve of her belly, the rich fullness of her breasts?  She’s been so terrified if she gives voice to it that it will somehow vanish, and she wants to spare her husband that hurt at least.  He’s borne enough pain to last several lifetimes.  They both have.  But that’s the thing about hope.  Once it’s earned possibility, it gains the ability to grow into reality, and God, does she want this to be real.  She wants it so bad she can almost taste it, Daryl holding their baby in his arms.  She wants to give Sophia a baby brother or a baby sister.  She wants to give them all the promise of a lasting forever.  “It’s happy news,” she finally manages.  “I just…I…” 

  Jerry takes her cool hands in his own and gives them a reassuring squeeze.  “Let me make it real for you.  You’ll see.” 

  Giving him a tearful smile, she can only nod again, murmur a soft, “Okay.” 

  “Why don’t you lie back?  Make yourself comfortable while I boot up the machine, okay?” 

  “Thank you, Jerry.” 

  “No worries, Mrs. D.  No worries at all.” 

        The kid’s all dressed up, pretty green ribbons in her hair, a matching scarf looped around her neck.  She’s practically bursting at the seams in the back seat, but Daryl’s got his mind on other things.  He’s got his mind on other people, namely the woman sitting in the passenger seat beside him.  She’s got her eyes closed and a soft, serene smile on her face, one that’s been there since she walked through their front door in a happy daze, and he’d be lying if he pretended he wasn’t itching to ask her what it was all about.  He’d be lying kind of like he had about all them cookies boxed up in the back seat.  There’d be time ‘nough for those revelations later, though, because Glenn and Maggie’s house is just ahead and shit if the whole place didn’t look like Candyland in lights. 

  “Mama, look!” 

  Carol’s eyes flutter open and her lips part in awe.  “It’s magical.” 

  Daryl grunts out a laugh at them both.  “Magical?  Place is tacky as all hell.  Looks like the Griswolds decorated it.” 

  Sophia’s nose scrunches with confusion.  “The who?” 

  Watching Home Alone on endless loop gives her little time to discover the joys of other holiday classics.  He’s gonna have to rectify that.  Eventually, he will.  Maybe by next Christmas, he thinks.  “Never you mind ‘bout that right now.  You got everything back there ready?” 

  Carol’s blue eyes search his face and the barest of smiles tugs at her pretty mouth.  “Just how many cookies did you two make?”

  “Too damn many,” Daryl smirks, easing the car in the driveway behind Rick’s cruiser.  He can barely make out Lori’s heavily pregnant silhouette behind the drawn curtains.  Bed rest, his ass.  As if he’d heard him, the swaying Frosty that guards the stone pathway gives him a knowing smile and bows before him.    

  “Uncle Merle helped,” Sophia pipes up behind his shoulder. 

  “Daryl didn’t tell me that.” 

  Course, he didn’t.  “Yeah.  Helped eat some of them.” 

  “Decorated them, too.” 

  Carol’s eyes widen at that little tidbit of information, and he panics, just a little bit.  Clearing his throat, he jabs a finger toward the front of the Rhee house and the shaggy haired boy scampering through it.  “Better go catch up with your boyfriend.” 

  Aghast, ‘Phia’s mouth drops open in horror.  “Carl’s not…he’s ain’t…I don’t…hey.” 

  Daryl winks at her.  “Better hurry.  Get inside ‘fore he gets all his gross boy cooties all over ya.”  He chuckles when the car door slams behind the kid and she puts at least two good feet between her and the Grimes boy all the way back up to the house. 

  “Gross boy cooties, Pookie?”

  Put on the spot, he grumbles uncomfortably.  “Yeah, well.  You seen the way that kid looks at her?” 

  “They’re babies.” 

  There’s something about the way she says babies that twists his insides up into soft, squirmy knots.  Warmth creeps past his collar and makes its way up his neck as she fiddles absently with the buttons there, undoes a couple of them.  She leans into him, softly kisses his lips, warms them with her own and lingers there, gentle and achingly sweet until he almost forgets his name, much less his train of thought.  “Won’t be for long,” he reminds her. 

  “Maybe not,” she concedes.  “But tonight?  They’re babies.” 

  He swallows hard and loses himself, for the moment, in her glittering eyes.  “Seem to like that word an awful lot tonight, Sweetheart.”  When she just gives him an enigmatic smile in response, those soft, squirmy knots grow wings that flutter fast and furious against his ribs as a faint glimmer of suspicion starts to form at the back of his mind.  “Something you…fuck.”  He almost hits his head on the steering wheel when a horn blares behind them and his brother climbs out from behind the wheel of his old truck, crashing the party with a bottle of cheap wine in one hand and some quality bourbon in the other.  “Dammit, Merle!” 

  “I’ll get the cookies,” Carol offers, pushing open the passenger door and climbing out. 

  “Wait.  I’ll…” 

  “Oh.” 

  “…get them,” Daryl sputters. 

  “You made gingerbread zombies?” 

[brokehorrorfan]

The new trailer for The Alienist will take you into the darkest corners of New York City during the Gilded Age. The event series now has a premiere date: Monday, January 22, 2018, at 9pm on TNT.

Based on Caleb Carr’s best-selling 1994 novel of the same name, the serial killer thriller is directed by Jakob Verbruggen (Black Mirror: Men Against Fire), who executive produces alongside by Cary Fukunaga (True Detective).

Daniel Brühl, Luke Evans, Dakota Fanning, Brian Geraghty, Douglas Smith, Matthew Shear, Matt Lintz, Robert Ray Wisdom, and Q'orianka Kilcher star.

The previous trailer can be viewed here. Read the extended synopsis below.

Turner's TNT will take viewers into the darkest corners of New York City during the Gilded Age with the eagerly anticipated series The Alienist based on the Anthony Award-winning international bestseller by Caleb Carr.Set in 1896 amidst a backdrop of vast wealth, extreme poverty and technological innovation, this psychological thriller stars Daniel Brühl (Rush), Luke Evans (The Girl on The Train), Dakota Fanning (American Pastoral) and Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker). The Alienist is slated to premiere on Monday, Jan. 22 at 9 p.m. ET/PT across TNT platforms.

The Alienist opens when a series of haunting, gruesome murders of boy prostitutes grips New York City. Newly appointed police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt (Geraghty) calls upon criminal psychologist (aka alienist) Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Brühl) and newspaper illustrator John Moore (Evans) to conduct the investigation in secret. They are joined by Sara Howard (Fanning), a headstrong secretary determined to become the city's first female police detective. Using the emerging disciplines of psychology and early forensic investigation techniques, this band of social outsiders set out to find and apprehend one of New York City's first serial killers.

The Alienist also stars Douglas Smith (Miss Sloane) and Matthew Shear (Mistress America) as Marcus and Lucius Isaacson, twin brothers who help unravel the disturbing mystery; Matt Lintz (Pixels) as Stevie, a tough, young boy employed by Dr. Kreizler as a driver and errand boy; Robert Ray Wisdom (The Wire) as Cyrus, Kreizler's valet, a man with a dark past who has been reformed by Kreizler; and Q'orianka Kilcher (The New World) as Mary, Kreizler's mute maid with whom he shares a special unspoken connection.

Shot in Budapest, Hungary, The Alienist is a co-production of Paramount Television and Turner's Studio T. BAFTA-nominee Jakob Verbruggen (Black Mirror) serves as director and executive producer along with Emmy® winner Cary Fukunaga (True Detective), Academy Award® winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Academy Award® nominees Hossein Amini (Drive) and E. Max Frye (Foxcatcher), Anonymous Content's Steve Golin and Rosalie Swedlin, along with Chris Symes. Serving as co-executive producers on the series are Marshall Persinger (Rectify) and Jamie Payne (The Driver).

[countrymadefoods]

11 Presidents related to the Roosevelts (above)

10 Things You May Not Know About the Roosevelts

“It seems like every day there is a new report tracing the genealogical roots of the American presidents: Abraham Lincoln and George W. Bush were seventh cousins (four times removed), and Jimmy Carter and George Washington were ninth cousins (six times removed). No president, however, can boast as many commander-in-chief connections as Franklin Delano Roosevelt who, by blood or marriage, was related to 11 other former presidents: John Adams, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft and, of course, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR’s fifth cousin.”

“Roosevelt’s famous family tree doesn’t end at the White House. He was also reportedly related to several other historic figures, including Winston Churchill, Douglas MacArthur and two famed Confederate leaders: Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.”

(via 10 Things You May Not Know About the Roosevelts | History Channel)

U.S. Presidents Who Were Related to Each Other

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt (the 32nd president) was a fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt (the 26th president). Genealogists have determined that FDR was distantly related to a total of 11 U.S. presidents, 5 by blood and 6 by marriage: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Ulysses Grant, William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, James Madison, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Zachary Taylor, Martin Van Buren, and George Washington.”

(via U.S. Presidents Who Were Related to Each Other | Fact Monster)

General Robert E. Lee's Buried Treasure — Washington's Silver

“Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee, Martha Washington's great-grand­daughter and wife of General Robert E. Lee, buried her family heirlooms and avoided the destruction of valuable Washington objects during the Civil War.”

(via General Robert E. Lee's Buried Treasure — Washington's Silver | Mount V ernon Ladies Association)

The Favorite Foods of the Presidents, from Squirrel Soup to Cottage Cheese

“There's something about the President of the United States. It's often hard to see candidates and office-holders as everyday people when they hold one of the most powerful titles in the world. However, if there's one thing that brings people together, it's food. Everyone's gotta eat.So, to make some of our favorite historical icons seem more, well, relatable, we've scoured the internet for every President's favorite food. A large part of research is due with gratitude to Food Timeline, a group that continually scours food writing to compile historical and academic databases...

45. DONALD TRUMP: PEANUTS

44. BARACK OBAMA: BLACK FOREST BERRY HONEST TEA

43. GEORGE W. BUSH: HUEVOS RANCHEROS

42. BILL CLINTON: CHICKEN ENCHILADAS

41. GEORGE H.W. BUSH: CORN PUDDING

40. RONALD REAGAN: HONEY-BAKED APPLES

39. JIMMY CARTER: BAKED GRITS WITH CHEESE

(via The List of Every President's Favorite Food, from Trump to Washington)

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton revealed to be distant cousins as family trees show they share same set of royal ancestors

“Clinton is related to John of Gaunt and his mistress-turned-wife Katherine Swynford through her father’s side while Trump is related to the royal through his mother Mary Anne MacLeod...In 2008 it was revealed that she was a distant cousin to Celine Dion, Madonna and Alanis Morissette.”

Hillary Clinton has a couple famous cousins! Madonna & Angelina Jolie!

“Hillary recently discovered she is cousins with both Madonna and Angelina Jolie...Madonna and Clinton are 10th cousins...Jolie and Clinton related...the two are 9th cousins twice removed...she also had blood line ties and distant relation to both Celine Dion and Alanis Morisette.”

(via Hillary Clinton has a couple famous cousins! Madonna & Angelina Jolie! | kiis 91.7)

How Queen Elizabeth is related to Count Dracula (Vlad the Impaler)

“Vlad was from a Romanian noble family known as the House of Draculesti and was Voivode (Duke) of Wallachia...The British Royal Family is not directly descended from Vlad the Impaler but they are however descended from his brother, Vlad the Monk.”

(via How Queen Elizabeth is related to Count Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) | Useful Charts)

Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde

“Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde was the Hungarian wife of Duke Alexander of Württemberg. Her son, Francis, Duke of Teck, was the father of Mary of Teck, queen consort to George V of the United Kingdom.”

“The Countess was born in her family's castle in Erdőszentgyörgy, Transylvania (then part of the Austrian Empire, today...Romania) to Count László Rhédey de Kis-Rhéde...the Hungarian prince of Transylvania between 1657 and 1658. At birth, she was styled as Countess Klaudina (Claudine) Rhédey de Kis-Rhéde.”

“Prince Francis of Teck...married Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of George III and became a member of the British Royal Family. His only daughter, Mary of Teck, married Prince George, Duke of York in July 1893, becoming queen consort on her husband's accession to the throne in May 1910. The current British monarch, Elizabeth II, is Mary's granddaughter.”

Her Majesty’s Transylvanian great-great grandmother 

“In 1830 Claudine met Duke Alexander of Württemberg, nephew of King Frederick I of Württemberg. At [the] time...the duke could not speak Hungarian. For that reason, Alexander learnt the Hungarian language and five years later he could marry Claudine.

Due to the German laws relating to the line of succession, she was viewed as being of non-Royal rank and the marriage was declared morganatic. She was denied the title of Duchess. However, she was later created Countess von Hohenstein and her entire family were granted German titles and styled as Dukes and Princesses of Teck.”

“Claudine and Alexander had three children: two daughters, Claudine and Amelie, and one son, Francis. Francis married Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III. Their eldest daughter, Mary of Teck, was to marry the future King George V.

Regretfully, Claudine...died in 1841 in either a horse or a carriage accident, while visiting her husband at a military training camp in Austria, at the young age of 29.”

(via Her Majesty’s Transylvanian great-great grandmother | Transyvania Now)

Could Anyone Have Saved the Romanovs?

“Nicholas' five children were shot, bludgeoned, stabbed and then shot again. Could the Romanovs' many royal relatives across Europe have helped prevent the slaughter?”

“Nicholas and his family were related to many other royal families, thanks to Queen Victoria’s habit of arranging marriages for her offspring across Europe. In the 15 months from his abdication to his death, royal relations still in power debated if and how they should grant the family asylum, with many of the Romanov descendants believing King George V of England, the tsar’s cousin and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, could have saved them...The web of royal marriages across the continent was so interconnected that King George V of England was first cousins to both Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra.”

“[T]he new Provisional Government in Russia...faced its own looming threat: what if pro-monarchist groups try to restore Nicholas to the throne? Because of this, they wanted to Romanovs out of Russia—and fast. They asked other Governments to grant the Romanovs asylum. The British agreed. Britain regretted the offer almost immediately. The government was nervous having the Romanovs on British shores, while George V...feared an uprising against the monarchy. The king soon urged the government to rescind the offer, leaving him open to claims that he abandoned his family for politics...Members of the British royal family had hoped to at least save the children. In 1919, the British sent a ship to Crimea to evacuate the remaining Romanovs. Descendants of Nicholas II’s two sisters, Olga and Alexandra, survive, as do descendants of previous tsars.”

(via Could Anyone Have Saved the Romanovs? | History Channel)

Prince William to Genghis Khan

“Thocomerius "Toq-Timur", Prince of Wallachia ~1290-~1310. Toq-Timur was born the son of Mongke-Timur who was the 5th Khan of the Golden Horde. Mongke-Timur ruled the Golden Horde from 1266 to 1282 when he died.In Wallachia arose a Prince Basarab I who ruled from about 1310 to 1352 when he died. His father is called "Thocomerius". The speculation is that Thocomerius and Toc-Timur are the same person.“

(via Prince William to Genghis Khan | County Historian)

One of the world's largest tombs is a keyhole-shaped forest

“When viewed from above, however, the massive forest becomes a green keyhole surrounded by three moats in the shape of a doorway.This is Japan's Daisen Kofun, an ancient burial mound shrouded in mystery, massive in scale, and surprisingly little-known to the rest of the world...Between the early 3rd century and the early 7th century A.D., during Japan's Kofun period, an estimated 200,000 keyhole-shaped tombs were constructed throughout the Japanese archipelago.”

(via One of the world's largest tombs is a keyhole-shaped forest | Mother Nature Network)

Yamato period

“Most scholars believe that there were massive transmissions of technology and culture from China via Korea to Japan which is evidenced by material artifacts in tombs of both states in the Proto–Three Kingdoms of Korea and Kofun period, as well as the later wave of Baekje refugees to Yamato.

Several kinds of goods were imported. Books from China were one of the most important trade goods. Chinese philosophy that had been introduced in this era, had a big influence on the history of Japan. Decorated bronze mirrors (Shinju-kyo) were imported from China. Japan imported iron from Korean peninsula until the latter half of the 6th century...In this period, Baekje received military support from Japan. According to the Samguk Sagi, King Asin of Baekje sent his son Jeonji to Japan in 397 and King Silseong of Silla sent his son Misaheun to Japan in 402 in order to solicit military aid.”

“Yamato Imperial Court officially edited the Shinsen Shōjiroku in 815 as a directory of aristocrats which lists 1182 names of clans which were in Kinai area, it lists a number of clans from the Han China, Silla, Baekje and Goguryeo.  According to the directory, 174 clans have roots in China, 120 clans have roots in Baekje, 48 clans have roots in Goguryeo, 17 clans have roots in Silla, then 9 clans have roots in Gaya of the Korean peninsula.

There is suspicion that Emperor Keitai (c. 500 AD) may have been an unrelated outsider, though the sources state that he was a male-line descendant of Emperor Ōjin. However, his descendants, including his successors, were according to records descended from at least one and probably several imperial princesses of the older lineage.”

“Since the 1947 constitutional reforms, the imperial family has been supported by an official civil list sanctioned by the Japanese government. The largest imperial divestments were the former imperial Kiso and Amagi forest lands in Gifu and Shizuoka prefectures, grazing lands for livestock in Hokkaido and a stock farm in the Chiba region, all of which were transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.”

Kinai

“Kinai is a Japanese term denoting an ancient division of the country. Kinai is a name for the ancient provinces around the capital Nara and Heian-kyō. The five provinces were called go-kinai after 1760...The region was established as one of the Gokishichidō ("Five provinces and seven roads") during the Asuka period (538-710).”

Kinki region

“The Kansai region or the Kinki region lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū...While the use of the terms "Kansai" and "Kinki" have changed over history, in most modern contexts the use of the two terms is interchangeable. The urban region of Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto (Keihanshin region) is the second-most populated in Japan after the Greater Tokyo Area.  

The terms Kansai, Kinki, and Kinai have a very deep history, dating back almost as far as the nation of Japan itself...the Gokishichidō system established the provinces of Yamato, Yamashiro, Kawachi, Settsu and Izumi. Kinai and Kinki, both roughly meaning "the neighbourhood of the capital", referred to these provinces. In common usage, Kinai now refers to the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto (Keihanshin) area.

Noh and Kabuki, Japan's traditional dramatic forms both saw their birth and evolution in Kyoto, while Bunraku, Japanese puppet theater, is native to Osaka... Kansai's unique position in Japanese history...resulted in Kansai region having more UNESCO World Heritage Listings than any other region of Japan...Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto...and Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.”

Emperor Keitai

“Emperor Keitai also known as Keitai-okimi, was the 26th emperor of Japan... Sumeramikoto or Amenoshita Shiroshimesu Ōkimi (治天下大王), meaning "the great king who rules all under heaven." Alternatively, Keitai might have been referred to as the "Great King of Yamato.”

If Emperor Keitai began a new dynasty as some historians believe, then Emperor Buretsu would have been the last monarch of the first recorded dynasty of Japan... Keitai was not the son of the immediate previous monarch. According to the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720), Buretsu died without a successor, at which time a fifth generation grandson of Emperor Ōjin, Keitai, came and ascended the throne.”

“[M]any scholars acknowledge the blood relationship with the Okinaga clan, a powerful local ruling family or the collateral line of the Imperial family-governed Ōmi region (a part of present-day Shiga Prefecture). This family produced many empresses and consorts throughout history. According to the Nihon Shoki, Ohohoto no Kimi, the great-grandfather of Emperor Keitai, married into the Okinaga clan...Regardless of speculation about Keitai's genealogy...Among his sons, Emperor Ankan, Emperor Senka and Emperor Kinmei ascended to the throne." 

Giru of Baekje

“Giru of Baekje (기루왕) was the third king of Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea...[Giru’s uncle] Tokusa-Ō - his name in Baekje would have been Buyeo Deokjwa, recorded in...the Shinsen Shōjiroku as ancestor of several clans making him one of the earliest people from Baekje to settle in Japan.”

Emperor Kanmu

“Emperor Kanmu was the 50th emperor of Japan...reigned from 781 to 806...According to the Shoku Nihongi (続日本紀), Yamabe's mother, Yamato no Niigasa (later called Takano no Niigasa), was a 10th generation descendant of Muryeong of Baekje.”

Emperor Kanmu's Imperial family included 36 children.

Nyōgo: Ki no Otoio (紀乙魚; d.840), Ki no Kotsuo's daughter 

Court lady: Ki no Wakako (紀若子), Ki no Funamori's daughter

Seventh Son: Imperial Prince Asuka (明日香親王, d.834)

Court lady: Fujiwara no Kawako (藤原河子, d.838), Fujiwara no Ōtsugu's daughter 

Thirteenth Son: Imperial Prince Nakano (仲野親王; 792–867)

Thirteenth Princess: Imperial Princess Ate (安勅内親王; d.855)

Imperial Princess Ōi (大井内親王; d.865)

Imperial Princess Ki (紀内親王; 799–886)

Imperial Princess Yoshihara (善原内親王; d.863)

”In 2001, Japan's emperor Akihito told reporters "I, on my part, feel a certain kinship with Korea, given the fact that it is recorded in the Chronicles of Japan that the mother of Emperor Kanmu was of the line of King Muryong of Baekje." It was the first time that a Japanese emperor publicly acknowledged Korean blood in the imperial line. According to the Shoku Nihongi, Emperor Kanmu's mother, Takano no Niigasa, is a descendant of Prince Junda, son of Muryeong, who died in Japan in 513 (Nihon Shoki, Chapter 17).“

Yenisei Kyrgyz

“The Yenisei Kyrgyz, also known as the Ancient Kyrgyz or the Khyagas (Khakas), were an ancient Turkic people...By the fall of the Gokturk Empire in the eighth century CE, the Yenisei Kirghiz had established their own thriving state based on the Gokturk model...The Kyrgyz Khagans of the Yenisei Kirghiz Khaganate claimed descent from the Chinese general Li Ling, grandson of the famous Han Dynasty general Li Guang...the Tang royal Li family also claimed descent from Li Guang, the Kirghiz Khagan was therefore recognized as a member of the Tang Imperial family.”

“In 758, the Uyghurs killed the Kirghiz Khan, and the Kirghiz came under the rule of the Uyghur Khaganate...However, the Yenisei Kyrghyz spent much of their time in a state of rebellion. In 840 they succeeded in sacking the Uyghur capital, Ordu-Baliq in Mongolia...driving the Uyghurs out of Mongolia entirely...When Genghis Khan came to power in the early 13th century, the Yenisei Kirghiz submitted peacefully to him and were absorbed into his Mongol Empire, putting an end to their independent state. During the time of the Mongol Empire, the territory of the Yenisei Kirghiz in northern Mongolia was turned into an agricultural colony.”

Marriage of Nicholas II and Alexandria

Royal Intermarriage

Qin Dynasty (China’s 1st imperial dynasty) coins

China

“Marriage policy in imperial China differed from dynasty to dynasty. Several dynasties practiced Heqin, which involved marrying off princesses to other royal families.The Xiongnu practiced marriage alliances with Han dynasty officers and officials who defected to their side. The older sister of the Chanyu (the Xiongnu ruler) was married to the Xiongnu General Zhao Xin, the Marquis of Xi who was serving the Han dynasty. The daughter of the Chanyu was married to the Han Chinese General Li Ling after he surrendered and defected. The Yenisei Kirghiz Khagans claimed descent from Li Ling. Another Han Chinese General who defected to the Xiongnu was Li Guangli who also married a daughter of the Chanyu.”

“During the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), emperors chose their consorts primarily from one of the eight Banner families, administrative divisions that divide all native Manchu families. To maintain the ethnic purity of the ruling dynasty, after the Kangxi Period (1662–1722), emperors and princes were forbidden to marry non-Manchu wives. Imperial daughters however were not covered by this ban, and as with their preceding dynasties, were often married to Mongol princes to gain political or military support, especially in the early years of the Qing dynasty.”

Korea

“The Silla Kingdom had a practice that limited the succession to the throne to members of the seonggol, or "sacred bone", rank. To maintain their "sacred bone" rank, members of this caste often intermarried with one another in the same fashion that European royals intermarried to maintain a "pure" royal pedigree...Joseon Korea was forced to give several of their royal princesses as concubines to the Qing Manchu regent Prince Dorgon... married the Korean Princess Uisun.”

Japan

“The Japanese may not have seen intermarriage between them and the royal dynasties of the Korean Empire damaging to their prestige either...In 1920, Crown Prince Yi Un of Korea married Princess Masako of Nashimoto.”

“[I]n May 1931, Yi Geon, grandson of Gojong of Korea, was married to Matsudaira Yosiko, a cousin of Princess Masako. The Japanese saw these marriages as a way to secure their colonial rule of Korea and introduce Japanese blood in to the Korean royal House of Yi.” 

Korean Princess Dukhye and Prince Takeyuki

Pujie

“ Pujie was a Qing imperial prince of Manchu descent. He was born in the Aisin Gioro clan, the imperial clan of the Qing dynasty. Pujie was the younger brother of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, Pujie went to Japan, where he was educated and married to Saga Hiro, a Japanese noblewoman.

After graduating from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, Pujie agreed to an arranged marriage with a Japanese noblewoman. He selected Saga Hiro, who was a relative of the Japanese imperial family, from a photograph from a number of possible candidates vetted by the Kwantung Army. As Puyi did not have an heir, the wedding had strong political implications, and was aimed at both fortifying relations between the two countries and introducing Japanese blood into the Manchu imperial family.”

“As Puyi had no children, Pujie was regarded as first in line to succeed his brother as the emperor of Manchukuo; the Japanese officially proclaimed him the heir apparent. However, Pujie was not appointed by his brother as the heir to the throne of the Qing dynasty, as imperial tradition stated that a childless emperor should choose his heir from a subsequent generation instead of from his own generation.

Pujie was arrested by the Soviet Red Army...along with his brother and other relatives. He spent about five years in the Soviet prison camps until 1950, when the Sino-Soviet rapprochment allowed him and his fellow captives to be extradited to the newly founded People's Republic of China. On his return to China, Pujie was incarcerated in the War Criminals Management Centre...A model prisoner, he was eventually pardoned and released from prison by the Chinese government. He joined the Communist Party and served in a number of positions...Pujie was also a technical adviser for the 1987 film The Last Emperor directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.”

Is ruling in the genes? All presidents bar one are directly descended from a medieval English king

“What do Barack Obama, Thomas Jefferson, George W. Bush and the other past U.S. presidents have in common? Besides holding the coveted title of commander-in-chief, it appears that all of them but one are cousins.  The remarkable discovery was made by...BridgeAnne d’Avignon, of Salinas, California, who created a ground-breaking family tree that connected 42 of 43 U.S. presidents to one common, and rather unexpected, ancestor: King John of England...The only former commander-in-chief not linked to King John is the eighth president, Martin Van Buren, who had Dutch roots.”

(via Is ruling in the genes? All presidents bar one are directly descended from a medieval English king | Daily Mail UK)

Ancestry of Alexander Hamilton

“Hamilton is considered one of the great patriots and Founding Fathers of the United States...His portrait currently adorns the U.S. $10 bill...Unfortunately Hamilton's life came to a tragic and early end at the age of 49...in a duel at dawn...Alexander Hamilton was mortally wounded from a shot by then Vice President Aaron Burr.

His ancestors includes Scottish nobility such as Sir Reginald de Crawford and Margaret de Loudoun...and Sir William Wallace. Sir William who was a Scottish knight and one of the main leaders during the Wars of Scottish Independence. Sir William Wallace's story was brought to the big screen in the Academy Award winning film Braveheart in 1995.”

(via Ancestry of Alexander Hamilton | Famous Kin)

[papermoonloveslucy]

Lucy the Stunt Man

S4;E5 ~ October 18, 1965

Synopsis

When Lucy needs money to buy a fur coat, she takes a job as a Hollywood stunt man.

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Gale Gordon (Theodore J. Mooney)

Mary Jane Croft (Mary Jane Lewis) does not appear in this episode.

Guest Cast

Joan Blondell (Joan Brenner) was born into a family of vaudevillians in 1906. She made her New York theatre debut with the Ziegfeld Follies and appeared in several Broadway productions.  She made her film debut in 1930. She was nominated for an Oscar for 1951's The Blue Veil. In 1978 she had a small role in the film Grease. Although she was active in Hollywood concurrently with Lucille Ball, this (and the previous episode) is the first time she has appeared with her on screen. This is her final appearance on the series.  She died of leukemia in 1979.  

Don Magowan (Chuck Casey) worked on many westerns during his career, but was a regular on “The Beachcomber” (1962) playing Captain Huckabee. He will do one episode of “Here's Lucy” in 1970.  

Lou Krugman (Mr. Wilson, Director) was born in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1914. He made a memorable debut at Desilu as the ever-patient film director in “Lucy Gets Into Pictures” (ILL S4;18). After that episode was filmed, Lucy sent him a telegram telling him how impressed she was with his acting. She rewarded him with appearances in “The Great Train Robbery,” (ILL S5;E5) and the role of the Club Babalu’s Manager in “Lucy and Bob Hope” (ILL S6;E1) and “Lucy Meets Orson Welles” (ILL S6;E3). He previously appeared in “Lucy in the Music World“ (S4;E4) and “Lucy Takes Up Chemistry” (S1;E26). This is his last appearance on the show.

Eddie Quillan (Mr. Briggs) was born in Philadelphia in 1907. At the age of seven he was already performing in vaudeville with his sister and three brothers in an act called "The Rising Generation.” He made his screen debut in 1926 in a Mack Sennett short and went on to appear in such classic films as Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), and Brigadoon (1954). He previously appeared in “Lucy Buys a Sheep” (S1;E5). In 1964 he was seen in Advance to the Rear starring Joan Blondell. He also made two appearances on “Here’s Lucy.”

Burt Douglas (Slim Jones, below left) appeared in more than sixty films and TV shows from 1956 to 1992.  This is his only appearance with Lucille Ball.  

Chuck Hicks (Buzz Perkaby, above right) was a stunt man and actor who's career began in 1953. Hicks was a long-time stunt double for Brian Dennehy. He will appear on “Here's Lucy” in “Lucy and Wally Cox” (S2;E21).  

Jack Perkins (Saloon Brawler) was often cast for his ability to play drunk.  He also has quite a few credits as a brawler and a bartender.  He will appear in two more episodes of “The Lucy Show.”

Dale Van Sickel (Saloon Brawler) was a Hollywood stunt man and actor whose career began in 1933.  He appeared with Lucille Ball in the films Roberta (1935) and There Goes My Man (1937).  He will also appear in both of the upcoming 'Iron Man Carmichael' episodes of “The Lucy Show.”

A few additional background performers take part in the saloon scene.  

This is the first episode written by Edmond Beloin and Harry Garson.  The two will pen five more episodes together.  This is the first of three ‘Iron Man Carmichael’ episodes, all written by Beloin and Garson. The other two are "Lucy and the Return of Iron Man" (S4;E11) and "Lucy and Bob Crane" (S4;E22).  

The date this episode first aired (October 18, 1965) actor Henry Travers died. Best known as Clarence the Angel in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), he co-starred with Lucille Ball in A Girl, A Guy, and a Gob (1941).  

A clip from this episode was part of the season four 'kaleidoscope' opening credit sequence.  

“The Lucy Show” stunt coordinator was Jesse Wayne who amassed over 500 credits as a stunt performer and actor. Due to his small stature he started out as stunt double for Hollywood's young actors. He wrote an e-book titled Confessions of a Hollywood Stunt Man.   

The casting of Joan Blondell was another attempt to replace Vivian Vance as Lucy's 'partner in crime.' Ball and Blondell did not get along off stage, resulting in heated arguments. After the final shot of this episode, with the studio audience still present, Lucy made a 'flushing' motion in Blondell's direction. Blondell shouted, 

“Fuck you, Lucille Ball.” 

The two never reconciled. The very next episode Lucy brought back Ann Southern as the Countess Framboise.

Lucy brings up Danfield where she and Mr. Mooney used to live.

Lucille Ball resurrects her famous toaster gag that was so often seen on “I Love Lucy”: grabbing a piece of toast mid-air as it popped out of the toaster. She also did it on “The Lucy Show” in “Lucy Takes a Job at the Bank” (S2;E21), but with passbooks instead of bread!  

Lucy gets a laugh by saying the line “Jiggle it a little, it'll open” very quickly. When Mr. Mooney said it there was no reaction from the studio audience.

Lucy Carmichael previously had trouble with her refrigerator back in Danfield in the episode “Lucy the Disc Jockey” (S3;E26).  It is possible that this is the same set piece she ruined back east but repainted apple green. Despite deliberately wrecking the fridge to con Mr. Mooney into giving her money, the refrigerator is till in the kitchen in the next episode.

Lucy wants to spend $99.50 on a new leopard coat from Felix Franco the Friendly Furrier. Adjusting for inflation, this is more than $800 today. Back in Danfield, Lucy's friendly Franco furrier was Madame Fifi (Fifi D'Orsay).  

'Iron Man Carmichael' says he's been out of the country working in Lawrence of Arabia. His gruff voice is attributed to being kicked in the throat by a camel. Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 historical film based on the life of T.E. Lawrence and taking place mostly in the desert. It won seven Oscars including Best Picture. The film was previously mentioned in “Lucy the Disc Jockey” (S3;E26). 

Lou Krugman (Mr. Wilson) also played a film director in “Lucy Gets Into Pictures” (ILL S4;18), his first job with Lucille Ball. It is fitting that he bookends his Desilu experience by playing another one.

When Gale Gordon addresses Lou Krugman as “Mr. Wilson” it is a bit of deja vu since Gordon played Mr. Wilson on “Dennis the Menace” just before he joined the cast of “The Lucy Show.”

As a dance hall girl in the saloon scene, Joan Blondell wears the same can-can style dress that Lucy wore in “Lucy and the Beauty Doctor” (S3;E24).  

Mr. Mooney jokingly tells Joan that he's testing for the male lead in Liz Taylor's next picture. Elizabeth Taylor will appear with her husband Richard Burton (playing themselves) in a 1970 episode of “Here's Lucy.” Gale Gordon (Mr. Mooney) is also in the episode.  

Callbacks!

The plot of this episode starts off very similar to “The Fur Coat” (ILL S1;E9), including the scene where Lucy Ricardo does dishes while wearing her cherished fur. 

Lucy's drag cowboy stuntman looks nearly identical to the one she created in “Home Movies” (ILL S3;E20) in 1954.

“Lucy the Stunt Man” rates 3 Paper Hearts out of 5

[musicalgamingdorks-blog]

Character Masterlist 😁

This is a list I’ve compiled if Characters and people I accept for different shows/games/movies/ fandoms.

YouTube

Markiplier

Jacksepticeye

Crankgameplays

Danisnotonfire

AmazingPhil

Pewdiepie

unfortunately, I don’t do Septiplier, Phan, Crankiplier, Septipie(?), or any other ship including these five YouTubers together. Sorry. Might change or make exceptions in the future

Bands And Artists

Fall Out Boy

A/N #1: Please say Album time, Tour time, or Year. It’s Very Helpful

A/N #2: mean NO DISRESPECT TO THE MEMBERS OR THEIR HUSBANDS/WIVES! I am quite fond of their significant others and mean no harm or disrespect.

Patrick Stump

Pete Wentz

Andy Hurley

Joe Trohman

Panic! At The Disco

Brendon Urie

Ryan Ross (;-;)

Spencer Smith

Jon Walker

Brent Wilson

Dallon Weekes

My Chemical Romance

Gerard Way

Mikey Way

Frank Iero

Ray Toro

Twenty One Pilots

Tyler Joseph

Josh Dun

(I was going to add the old members as well but idk if anyone would really want them lol)

Supernatural

Dean Winchester

Sam Winchester

John Winchester

Jo Harvelle

Castiel Novak

Any other person or character you can think of. I am only on season two so if you have a character you want to request for, just send it in, I’ll do my research and try to make it as best I can :)

American Horror Story

(I am very sorry, i am not able to finish Freak Show OR Murder House of AHS until NEXT YEAR, so this list will most likely not change for that time or longer. i do not know some of these characters very well, but i will do research and try to write about the character as BEST I CAN.)

Tate Langdon

Violet Harmon

Vivian Harmon

Ben Harmon

Constance Langdon

Adelaide Langdon

Hayden McClain

Moira O'Hare (young or elder)

Freak Show

Jimmy Darling

Maggie Esmerelda

Elsa Mars

Ma Petite

Any other character you can think of from this season, and ill do my research :)

Harry Potter

(Years 1-3 only until I read more. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks :))

Harry Potter

Hermione Granger

Ron Weasley

Fred Weasley

George Weasley

Percy Weasley

Ginny Weasley

Draco Malfoy

Neville Longbottom

Tom Riddle

Rubeus Hagrid (Add him for laughs lol)

Albus Dumbledore

Seamus Finnigan

Dean Thomas

Lee Jordan

Blaise Zabini

Oliver Wood

Minerva McGonagall

Pansy Parkinson

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

Newt Scamander

More in the future as I read on I promise

The Walking Dead

Im on Season 5 ,working up to 6, so NO SPOILERS PLEASEE

Carl Grimes

Rick Grimes

Lori Grimes

Andrea ???

Daryl Dixion 

Merle Dixion

Glenn Rhee

Maggie Greene

Hershel Greene

Carol Peletier

“The Governor”

Beth Greene

Michonne 

Theodore “T-Dog” Douglas

Shane Walsh

Disney’s Descendants 

Mal (Maleficent’s Daughter)

Jay (Jafar’s Son)

Evie (Evil Queen’s Daughter)

Carlos DeVil (Cruella DeVil’s Son)

Lonnie (Fa Mulan and Li Shang’s Daughter)

Doug (Dopey The Dwarf’s Son{Mother Unknown})

King Ben ({Former} King Beast and Queen Belle’s Son)

Audrey (Aurora and Prince Phillip’s Daughter)

Jane (Fairy Godmother’s Daughter{Father Unknown})

Chad Charming (Prince Charming and Cinderella’s Daughter)

(My OC) Faith (Dr. Facilier’s Daughter)

Teen Wolf

Stiles Stilinski

Scott McCall

Allison Argent

Lydia Martin

Jackson Whittemore

If I think of any more characters to include, I will definitely add them to this list!

These are the characters/ People I accept for requests! Don’t forget to add what you’re requesting!! (Imagines, One-Shots, Head-Cannons, ECT.) Thanks!!!