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fire-lady-ilah · 4 years ago

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More good dad! Ozai AU? Even if you didn’t ask for it, you’re getting it and I’m picking up right where I left off. This is my reminder that, while Ozai is a good and non-abusive dad and husband in this, he is still very much an imperialist and a cruel person in general.

Parts [1] and [2] if you’d like. This is part 3. Here’s part [4]

The siblings venture into the capital, although they make it known that no one should inform their parents that they are nearby. The moment they step off the ship, Captain Jee sends a letter to the Fire Lady. He was loyal to the Prince and Princess above all, but he did not feel like being executed or exiled that day when Lady Ursa inevitably finds out.

In a large house just outside Caldera City, Lord Ukano lives with his wife, Michi, his daughter and heir, Mai, and his newborn son Tom-Tom. The Dragon Emperor and the Blue Spirit sneak into the bedroom of the heiress and steal her away.

In that I mean, Mai leaps at the opportunity to escape her home with her best friends, who she’s seen wearing the same theatre masks dozens of times, and follows willingly. It takes an hour longer than the siblings had expected, if only because Mai has far more knives than they had truly expected and they get caught up in the palace kitchens stealing Azula’s favourite mochi and some bags of fire flakes.

Then they are caught by Fire Lady Ursa, who is gathering a late night cup of cocoa after a nice night with her husband, not that her children need to know that part. Her children, who are wearing her theatre masks that had very recently gone missing from her collection, stare at her innocently. Her daughter carries two entire boxes she knows are full of mochi. Her son carries the fire flake bag they use for festivals. Her one day daughter-in-law is making a cup of cocoa and the Fire Lady calmly requests one for herself from the girl.

That night, the fire Prince and Princess sleep in their own rooms, with Lady Mai in one of the many available. In the morning, they take breakfast with the Fire Lord and Lady, discussing trivial matters of politics and domestic affairs.

Mai leaves on the request of the Fire Lord, bringing everything they took from her home and the palace (along with what Ursa and Ozai insisted they take) to the ship with the help of some soldiers.

Azula and Zuko sit with their parents. Ursa gives them each two potent bottles of poison. Ozai’s voice has a worry that only his family knows how to detect through the facade of boredom as he inquires how their firebending and blades practice has been, as to the state of their weaponry. They try to soothe their parents worries with assurances: their practice has been going well in both bending and blades, Azula has achieved perfection in lightningbending and Zuko has achieved lightning, their blades are sharp and well maintained, they weren’t harmed when the temple blew up—

It slips through Zuko’s lips. He was never the actor like his mother and sister. For their part, his parents do not react overly beyond a flickering of the flame and a long sip of tea.

“Your mission has changed.”

Ozai is smart. Everything he does is to serve his goals the best they can. In canon, the premier of those goals is to gain more power for himself. In this world, that goal is to secure the ideal outcome for his family. (Of course, his second goal is as much power as possible. But it is only considered after his first goal).

Allying themselves with the Avatar, at least in appearances, will secure the best outcome for his children. And he has no doubt that his brother (so weak after the death of his son. And yet, Ozai cannot find it within him to scorn him overly. He knows that were he to be left childless, he would break. It is merely that Ozai would break in an explosion, whereas Iroh’s flame fizzled into embers.) would eagerly help his children betray him. Even if it was just in appearances.

His children are loyal and dutiful. They protest, but only out of a desire to maintain that loyalty. He wishes the Avatar had remained hidden, at least until they were both adults. They are prodigal, yes, but they are just siblings.

“You have our permission to reveal your mother’s ancestry. Use it wisely.”

The children know their lineage for at least five generations on each side. That, of course, is in addition to their knowledge of every Fire Lord that has reigned since the unification of the Fire Nation. They are well aware that their Grandmother Rina (who feeds them chocolate and tells them stories whenever she visits) ‘s father was Avatar Roku. Just as they knew of the friendship between Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku.

It is necessary for the people of their nation to hear pretty lies. It is not their responsibility to worry about the nuance and complexity of life. It is one of their responsibilities as Angi’s heirs in the mortal world. To worry of such things is a burden they should not have to bear. It is necessary for the people to believe the Avatar hated the Fire Lord.

The siblings don’t know everything, of course. They are just children after all. But they understand the nuance, the conflicting beliefs. They were told the truth (and carefully kept from necessary propaganda before then) when they were old enough to look critically at the situation. It was their duty to bring the Fire Nation’s good to the other nations, to liberate their populations, the siblings decided.

The Avatar is just a child, but he seemed able to connect with his past lives. And he had pointedly not hurt them, at least as Avatar Roku.

If nothing else, they have the Dragon Emperor and Blue Spirit on their side.

“Zhao has asked for permission to launch an invasion on the Northern Water Tribe. He is a fool, but he claims he has knowledge that will ensure his victory. Tomorrow, I will send him a letter approving his asinine idea. You will stop him— kill him, if you must— and use that act of perceived treason to ally yourselves with the Avatar.”

Ozai wants power, but he is no fool. The invasion is risky at best. He cannot find it within himself to care for the tens of thousands that would doubtlessly die in it, the Northern Water Tribe had the advantage in multiple ways. It would serve its purpose to get his children at the Avatar’s side.

The tone lightens after his orders and Ozai steps back from his role as Father Lord into just being a father. He teases his son on his interactions with his betrothed. He teases his daughter and asks if she would be visiting the circus soon, taking note of how she had learned to prevent a blush but not the squeak in her voice. They are not infallible, they are children.

As they see their children for the last time in the foreseeable future, the Fire Lord and Lady both think as to how much they will miss them. Ursa blinks back tears as she hugs them both, smiling as they react identically, burying their faces into her chest to hide them and breathing in the scent of fire lily perfume.

Ozai is not usually physically affectionate with his children. He had never received it from his father and was much more competent in other ways. That being said, no one commented on the kiss he pressed to the top of Zuko’s head (still shorter than him by quite a bit. Sometimes he acted so adult, but he was so clearly still a child) before repeating the action with Azula.

“I am so proud of you. Both of you.”

I’m just now realizing Blue Spirit is supposed to be after the whole Roku thing. Oh well.

For appearances’ sake, the siblings and Mai continue to chase the Avatar. Zhao attacks the Avatar while he trains under the Deserter. Princess Azula ensures the forest doesn’t burn while Prince Zuko uses all the bottled up anger at both Zhao himself and Azulon (really, what is with grown men trying to kill 11/12 year olds?) to yell at Zhao for acting so recklessly.

And if, perhaps, he manages to endear himself to others by knocking Zhao’s feet out from under him, all the better.

The Avatar and his friends escape and the siblings celebrate another success as Zhao nurses his bruised ass and ego.

(“Hey, did the Deserter look like that dude in Master Piandao’s painting in his main hall to you?”

“Admiral Jeong Jeong and Master Piandao were married, Zuko. Obviously that was him.”)

Zhao attempts to order their crew away from them, citing his rank as admiral as above prince and princess.

Azula’s sharp tongue reminds Admiral Zhao that Zuko is not only a prince, but the Crown Prince, and thus he is equal in rank to Zhao. As was their uncle a general, retired or not.

Behind the royalty of the ship stands Captain Jee, his eyes locked with Zhao’s. His eyes promise mutiny even if he were to somehow take them. His eyes swear loyalty to the Crown Prince, to his sister, above all else.

Zhao turns to leave.

“Of course, that is not to say we will not join your invasion.” Zuko sounds like his father sometimes, and never more than when his voice holds a hint of smug satisfaction. “Merely, do not presume to think you can order us in any way. We out rank you, and our crew is the best our Nation has to offer.”

Their ship joins, at least in appearance, Zhao’s fleet. That being said, they obey no orders from the Admiral and only allow his “inspections” of the ship and their crew once. For all intents and purposes, they are just there to observe.

And observe they do. The siblings watch the way Zhao treats his subordinates and twin righteous flames burns in their chests. The truth of being raised by a loving father means that Zuko and Azula are both rather sheltered in comparison to their canon selves. They are raised on ideals of honour and the divine responsibility of a monarch, rather than on the truths of war and practicality of rule. It only results in a hotter fire and more questions as to if Sozin’s way was truly the one to follow.

They still have absolute faith in their father. After all, he is the one that raised them, that taught them of honour and the ideals of a monarch. He is the one that sheltered them. He is the one that suggested they befriend the Avatar to keep them safe.

On the ship, only three people know the entire plan. The first two are the siblings, of course. The third is Captain Jee. He is the one that will keep their ship away from the invasion itself so there is no risk of their crew being harmed in the doomed attack. He is the one that will direct the ship to the colonies once the siblings are with the Avatar. Captain Jee has no qualms about technically commuting treason.

Mai knows some of the plan. In that, Mai knows exactly what Zuko and Azula tell her and then what she observes. She sees the way they stick together, now more than ever. Sees the way that Azula trains her non-lethal lightning (because even she, a nonbender, knows it’s far harder to bend lightning that doesn’t kill than that that does). She hears the way they drop the title of Fire Lord when speaking of their royal great grandfather. She catches whispers about Fire Lord Roku. About the Avatar.

Mai, in a way, knows more than the siblings themselves. She knows that they are genuinely sympathetic toward the Avatar in a way that they don’t yet realize. She begins to keep all her knives on her person, along with an easily grab-able bag for travelling in her room. There was no way she’d be letting her best friends turn traitor without her. This is the most exciting thing she’s done in years.

Iroh knows less than he believes. Oh, he gets the dropped title just as well as Mai, but he does not know the intricacies of Zuko and Azula the way Mai does. He sees Azula’s practice and writes it off as her ever-present search for perfection. He catches the tail end of a conversation between siblings and does not stop to consider who exactly “great grandfather” may be referring to. It would be unthinkable for his brother to tell the children of their heritage.

Despite this, Iroh also knows more than most. He knows from conversation exactly what Zhao intends to do in the Northern Water Tribe and it turns his blood to boil.

They reach the Northern Water Tribe. The siblings sneak off the ship in an emergency boat. Mai enters at the last moment and neither send her away.

Iroh has already left the ship, though he is currently in one last meeting with Zhao in an attempt to convince him not to continue with his plan. He will not check back with his niece and nephew, believing them to be safe on the ship.

In the Northern Water Tribe, the three Fire Nation teens remain tucked into the shadows. They, unfortunately, have no idea where the Avatar is and wander through the city. However, they reach the Avatar’s friends before Zhao does.

(“Is he... alive?”

“He’s just meditating.”)

It goes far better than they could have expected. The siblings’ act of releasing Sokka and Katara from Zhao’s bindings results in a part of water tribe siblings being quite willing to hear them out. Princess Yue gives them an odd look but remains quiet.

Zhao shows up. Iroh shows up. Azula and Zuko denounce him (though they cannot bring themselves to denounce their father, even though they know they should). Zhao declares them all traitors, a koi fish in a bag in his hand.

A bolt of lightning hits Zhao straight in the back. Both he and the koi fish fall into the pool of water. He does not emerge.

Azula’s face is carefully blank, even as she watches the water. She cannot stop to consider whether it is her or the water that just killed the admiral, or if he was even dead at all. She could not even see his body in its depths. She used non-lethal strength.

Despite Princess Yue’s backing, the Northern Water Tribe wants to take the siblings prisoner (hostage, everyone knows). After all, everyone knows of the devotion they show to the Fire Lord and vice versa. If nothing else, they would be excellent bargaining pieces in a more formal treaty.

They had not factored this into their plan. Admittedly, they had not factored the Northern Water Tribe into their plan at all.

The three Fire Nation teens are thrown into a prison cell. A rather comfortable prison cell, but still a prison cell. Iroh is taken somewhere else.

Within five hours, they sit on the back of a flying bison, Sokka handing them food he had smuggled out of the meal as Katara was smuggling them out of prison.

(“We tried to get your Uncle too,” the Avatar says in a remorseful tone, “but we couldn’t find him.”

“Uncle will be fine.” Azula declares, her mind set only on the future as she tries not to think about the way Zhao sunk beneath the still surface of the pond.

Zuko nods in agreement and clutches her hand in a comforting way.)

The Gaang now consists of six people:

Aang, a twelve year old Avatar with a mastery in air and a decent proficiency in water. He looks at the Fire Nation teens and sees his friend Kuzon, sees a time from before the war when an Air Nomad could wander freely through the Fire Nation. He attempts to use Fire Nation slang with them but it’s a century old and results in only laughter.

Katara, a master waterbender and healer (a concept that intrigues Azula to no end, although she tries to keep her questions polite). She tends to have a short temper when it comes to matters of the Fire Nation, but even she can be coaxed into trying a few sweets that Zuko has stored in his bag.

Sokka, a hunter and warrior who may or may not be engaged to the NWT princess (Zuko says he is, Azula says he isn’t). Azula laments that her jokes are even worse than Zuko’s, to which Mai agrees. It is that comment that leads Sokka and Zuko to start bonding, having nothing better to do on the bison’s back than exchange bad jokes.

Crown Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, who Sokka would insist is walking Fire Nation propaganda as he goes on at least one rant about Fire Nation culture and technology a day. Who surprisingly helps Katara with the cooking because it was one of the things Fire Lady Ursa carried over from before she was Fire Lady and taught to her children.

Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, who has a sharp tongue and a sharper pair of twin daggers that she seems to enjoy threatening her brother with for any inconvenience, even though they both just laugh at it. (Katara and Sokka have to be assured by them both that they truly love each other and that threatening each other with weapons carried over from the theatre scrolls they used to act out as children).

Lady Mai talks the least, seemingly content just to talk to Zuko and Azula. Aang makes it his mission to get her to warm up to him and spends a good portion of his time trying to talk to her. He succeeds when he brings up air ball, of all things. Mai’s parents had discouraged her from sport, believing it to be unfitting of a young lady just as they had discouraged her interest in knives until Zuko and Azula had ganged up on them. Partially for that reason, Mai enjoyed sports quite a bit, a shock to even Zuko (though Azula knew). After that, she talks mainly to Zuko, Azula, and Aang.

Captain Jee guides his ship to the Fire Nation colonies, unable to confirm that his Prince and Princess were okay. He hadn’t expected the worry he feels now, but he knows he will be awaiting a letter at Yu Dao if they are safe.

Prince Iroh is startled to discover that, while meeting with Master Pakku, the Avatar, his friends, his nephew and niece, and Mai had all disappeared.

As had his ship.

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strelles-universe · 3 years ago

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Cats of ShadowClan: Tigerstar

Name: Tigerstar, Tigerclaw

Meaning: Honorable and Skilled Fighter

Identity: Cisgender Tom - He/Him

Orientation: Heterosexual

Rank: Leader

Former Rank(s): Guard, Secondary, ThunderClan Exile

A massive broad shouldered tabby with deep red almost brown fur. His stripes are thick and braided like a member of TigerClan’s and his eyes are a sharp amber. Tigerclaw has a scar across his nose and his left ear is torn. Tigerclaw’s claws grow extremely fast but rather than constantly shortening them, he considers them a gift from the Souls and allows them to stay long. As such, his claws are almost perpetually sticking out from his paws.

He puts on a front of toughness and was known as a bullheaded apprentice who wouldn’t admit to being injured unless sat on. Being the only survivor of his litter, Tigerclaw has always worked hard to prove to his clan that the Souls weren’t wrong for letting him live. He was very close to his mother and when she died, he was devastated and closed himself off to the world.

Tigerclaw feels nothing but resentment towards his father, remembering him only as someone who scolded him even when everyone else was praising him and his eventual leave. Fiercely determined to prove he could surpass his father and angered at the farms for “taking” his father from him, Tigerclaw took to Thistleclaw’s more aggressive style of training like a fish to water and treats known kingdom cats viciously. Though they were close in his youth, Tigerclaw and Thistleclaw eventually had a series of bad falling outs that resulted in them not being able to sleep in the same den as one another. When Thistleclaw was eventually revealed to have died, he only sat vigil as a courtesy. Despite this, he still thinks of Thistleclaw as more of his father than Pinestar - hence the reason he kept his suffix.

Tigerclaw holds a deep sense of resentment towards Whitestar for - in his eyes - stealing away Bluestar and Thistleclaw. When Snowblossom died, Thistleclaw began focusing intently on his blood-son; almost to the exclusion of training Tigerpaw. When the apprentice tentatively broached the subject, Thistleclaw made their training sessions short but brutal. They mostly consisted of running him ragged and bruising him to the point of trembling then criticizing his skills with little praise and dragging him home. Determined to prove he could handle it, Tigerpaw bore the ain without speaking up and let anger curl in his stomach towards Whitepaw who was praised and coddled by his father.

Tigerclaw believes himself a tough cat destined for greatness and will lead ThunderClan into a golden age. Tigerclaw is willing to do whatever it would take to ensure ThunderClan’s survival and is quick to resort to violence when solving his problems. He feels a combination of disgust and aggression towards Fireheart for being from the kingdoms.

Now leader of ShadowClan, Tigerstar is bent on seeking revenge on his former clan and raising ShadowClan into a noble and courageous clan. Though frustrated by the new customs, Tigerstar is rather eager to discard everything he had left of ThunderClan in him and is steadily adapting to the new traditions - especially with the amount of authority they brought him. Killing Goldenflower was an accident - he had no intention of killing her but when she caught him, it was inevitable.

Some part of him is torn to shreds, confused and conflicted by the emotions of grief and loss he feels knowing that he was responsible for Bluestar’s death. He remembers her stern but loving demeanor from when he was an apprentice and the world feels almost wrong without her in it. When he has time to stew in his thoughts, Tigerstar snarls and beats himself for being foolish enough to choose Thistleclaw over her - he wonders if he’d chosen her over his mentor if she would’ve made him deputy sooner. Though he remains firm in his conviction that he’s doing what’s right, that he’s achieving his destiny, Tigerstar sincerely hopes that Bluestar is at peace now and that she be reunited with her family.

Mentor(s): Thistleclaw (deceased)

Apprentice(s): Thornrustle

Parent(s): Leopardfoot (dame/deceased), Pinestar (sire/deceased)

Sibling(s): Nightkit (sister/deceased). Mistkit (sister/deceased)

Nephling(s): N/A

Cousin(s): N/A

Mate(s): Goldenflower (separated/deceased)

Crush(es): N/A

Kit(s): Bramblepaw (son/estranged), Tawnypaw (daughter/estranged)

#tigerclaw was spoiled rotten in my world #tigerclaw #character profile #allegiances with references #fanfiction #fanfic #strelles #the cats of strelles #warriors #erin hunter #erin hunter warriors #character design #I forgot to tear his ear but he took so long idc #strelles tigerstar #strelles tigerslash

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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And one more bit from the “Kings of the Sky” AU albeit several installments in, because I just......don’t know when or why I stumbled into an obsession with the dynamics between Dick and Jason and Cass as the eldest three Wayne siblings, but its there, its real, and its happening. I’ve stopped fighting it. I just....enjoy writing those three being dumb siblings who are dumb like so, so much.

Anyway, in this AU series, Jason doesn’t go to Ethiopia and die, but rather eventually joins Dick at Titans Tower more regularly and is Flamebird. Both are closer with Bruce here than in canon because Dick helped Bruce and Jason get through the Garzonas stuff and Jason helped kick Bruce in the direction of Dick and adoption papers right after the Brother Blood storyline. Then Cass is actually the third to join the family, by way of Babs, and she’s Batgirl and then Black Bat, but there’s a period of time when its just Dick, Jason and Cass as the Wayne kids.

(PS - this is the same series as where Jason ends up with his own age group of Titans, and accidentally falls into a love quadrangle of doom that is absolutely NOT a polycule dammit, with Tom Bronson (Tomcat), Ray Terrill (The Ray) and Todd Rice (Obsidian). Which amuses his brother and sister to no end).

Tim and Duke are both next, but sorta at the same time? Like Tim’s story takes a sharp turn when Robin II never dies and obviously is Flamebird now like Robin I is Nightwing, and Tim winds up in foster care after his parents die differently than in canon. Duke is also in foster care at this time, though a different placement, and while no Robin has died here, its been awhile since there’s been one in Gotham, and to kids who grew up with the idea of there always being a Robin, that feels weird and wrong ultimately.

So Tim and Duke both hit on the idea of being Robin like, at around the same time and totally disconnected from one another, and that leads to them both joining the Batfam around the same time, and co-sharing Robin until Damian arrives much later and they both move on to new identities. But there’s no real confusion between Robins because Duke is the daytime Robin with more yellow coloring in his costume and Tim is the nighttime Robin with more red, and people say Red or Yellow if they ever need to differentiate which Robin they’re talking about. Anyway.

************

So [Tim and Duke] run into trouble eventually and then when running from trouble they run into each other and they’re like….huh. Awkward. And then they decide well, might as well both run from trouble in the same direction, I guess. So they do.

“Did you have a plan for dealing with these guys?” Tim yelled at Duke. The other boy looked back over his shoulder briefly and gave what would probably have been a half-shrug if he didn’t awkwardly try to barrel-roll over a car two seconds later.

“Umm, sorta?”

“How sorta are we talking about? Maybe the two of us together could fill in the gaps in the plan and come up with one full plan?”

“Uh yeah, no, its not that kinda sorta. I meant sorta in the sense that I thought I had a plan but it didn’t work and that’s why these guys are after me. Sooooo…”

“Not helpful, basically.”

“Yeah. Pretty much. And hey, I don’t hear you offering up a plan! Did you even have one at all?”

“Uh….I mean I kinda didn’t think I was going to need one because I figured some kid running around in a mask making a nuisance of himself was the sorta thing that was bound to attract Batman. And so I was just pretty much running around until that happened, and then I’d make a case for how I obviously need training and Gotham needs Robin and if its not me its likely to be someone else trying eventually anyway so why not be me?”

Duke paused just long enough to squint at him. “That’s a terrible plan.”

Tim rolled his eyes. The effort didn’t pair well with his huffing and over-all exertions from running for his life and all that, but necessity demanded. “Yeah I know, that’s why I never said it was a plan! It was mostly….more…idea-ish.”

“I’m just saying, I thought I was doing this wrong, but at least I had a plan! I mean yeah, it might have ended up with me accidentally busting in on what I thought was a bunch of Riddler’s henchmen setting up some kind of clue thing, only it was actually a bunch of Intergang type guys with alien space guns or some shit all dressed up as Riddler henchmen for some reason? I dunno what they were trying to do honestly, but so yeah I might have ended up running away on foot from like twenty of them and some kind of hovercycle -”

“I’m going to cut you off there and say wherever this is going its probably not the superior vantage point I think you think you have.”

Meanwhile, Batman was not going to be coming because he’s off on a JLA mission. However, in his absence Dick and Jason are in town filling in, and they finished taking out the bad guys several blocks back and caught up to whomever was running from them, figured out the situation and are currently sitting on the edge of a rooftop watching them realize they’re totally lost and trying to figure out where to go from here. Mostly because Dick and Jason are incredibly amused listening to their back and forth and also just…this whole situation.

Dick justifies not piping up to let them know they’re safe now by saying this is good intel gathering so we can offer Bruce our assessment as to whether they’re gonna try and keep doing this whether we train them or not, and also how they handle this whole being lost situation. Not knowing they don’t have to run anymore isn’t going to hurt them and really, this is a good field exercise almost.

Jason justifies not piping up by saying this is fucking hilarious and I will hurt you if you end this any sooner than we have to, I deserve this, I had a rough week.

Which is right around the time that Cass pipes up from where she’s been lurking unnoticed behind them this whole time: “Oh no. Was it Tom? Or Ray? Or was it Todd?”

And she does it right in Jason’s ear so he kinda aborted-shrieks and almost falls off the roof except Cass is ready for that and grabs his arm to steady him.

“I hate when you do that!” Jason growls in an attempt to cover up how badly she got him and also because he hates when she does it which is why she does it a lot. Again, they don’t hate each other at all, but they do seem to act like it a lot, and neither of them is entirely sure why. They kinda just started doing it and have each been trying to get the other back ever since and ended up locked in an unending spiral of gotcha-gotchaback, except, y’know, Batfam style.

Dick occasionally picks sides just to muddy the waters. And then he randomly switches sides without warning, so neither of them ever wants to risk getting too peeved at him even when he’s helping the other, because that might push him fully over to the other side and leave them permanently outnumbered, so they’re kinda stuck, which is exactly as he likes it, lol.

“Why are you Satan,” Jason hisses dramatically as he gets up and stomps over to the other side of the roof to sulk, lest she almost knock him off again. Its not the almost falling part that bothers him, its that she’s the one that snatches him to safety each time. She’s like a freaking cat toying with a - yeah not going there, just blaming Selina. Knew them hanging out was going to be bad news for me somehow, he gripes.

Cass just shrugs and smoothly sits down cross-legged right where she is, grinning Cheshire-cat style at him from there. “Childhood trauma,” is her answer.

“Great, and now you’re stealing my comeback on top of it?! Is nothing sacred to you?”

She offers another shrug. He would like to return those for store credit please. Maybe get something useful instead. “Haven’t decided yet. Babs is still helping me explore my options. We’re going alphabetically and we’re only on the E-religions.”

“God, you’re the worst. I can’t believe you ruined sisters for me.”

“You already used that same line last week when you came out of your room still half-asleep and she was just sitting directly across from your door waiting and staring unblinking and you yelped and dropped your laptop on your toe, and then cursed so loud that B came running around the hall thinking we were being invaded,” Dick reported idly, still perched in the same position he’d been in all along and watching the boys below them. “Just in case you thought no one noticed when you recycle.”

“I noticed too,” Cass added solemnly.

“I have no siblings,” Jason intoned. He threw up his hands dramatically and then loudly jumped down to the street below with a little help from the fire escape. It drew both Duke and Tim’s attention and they startled before realizing it was Flamebird. And that he’d landed on the street and was stalking past them while barely acknowledging them. And that that was Nightwing standing on the roof now with his hands on his hips yelling after him.

“Oh, reeeeeeal subtle. You’re not having fun anymore so you gotta make sure nobody else does either. Wow, the Brat-like behavior, just jumped out of the shadows with that one!”

And that was Flamebird not even turning around and just yelling back. “I HAVE NO SIBLINGS!”

And also they were both pretty sure that was Batgirl crouched on the roof next to Nightwing now, and she was…..sticking her tongue out at Flamebird’s back? No, Batgirl very much definitely was sticking out her tongue, that wasn’t in doubt, it was more just….very unexpected to see.

What was happening right now?

********

Eventually Tim and Duke have inevitably worn down [Bruce’s] resistance to training them by insisting they’re gonna keep doing this and if its not them its gonna be someone sooner or later anyway. Because, as they put it, you guys may not know this but Gotham’s gotten used to Robins by now and it freaks people out not to see one and Robin’s as important as Batman really and there needs to be a Robin and its not just us that will think that, like look at the fact that already two of us had the exact same idea, huh? And also, we’re gonna keep doing it anyway, sooooo….there’s that.

And then Cass vouches that they’re both 100% serious about that.

And then Dick vouches that as a former determined daredevil kid that was absolutely going to keep doing the same thing no matter whether you’d helped me or not, B, I also am of the assessment that these two mean it all the way.

And not to be left out and just to have something to contribute but also grumpy because his brother and sister are picking on him and he’s eighteen going on ten, Jason throws in: “And my assessment is that they both definitely seem dumb enough to keep doing this without help anyway and they definitely need help or they definitely will die, I’d give it a month, month and a half tops.”

And then Bruce dryly thanks his children for their contributions, their keen insights in this matter have been absolutely invaluable, he has no idea how he would make a decision here without it.

“Oooh, a rare sighting of Bat-snark in the wild. Someone call Nat-Geo quick, maybe he’ll do it again,” Dick says.

Bruce sighs. Duke and Tim look like they’re trying to decide if they’re allowed to be amused or if that’s also part of some weird Bat-test that they’re probably taking without even knowing it.

So Tim and Duke move in, start training together, and then also get sent to school together and it takes a month or so of settling in before they decide whether or not they actually are happy about this. There’s a period of deciding they’re supposed to be bitter rivals who snipe at each other back and forth across the dining table at every available opportunity, but that changes the first night Dick and Jason come back from the Tower since Tim and Duke have moved in and where Cass is also home instead of at the Clocktower with Babs.

Since all three of the older Batkids, upon seeing Tim and Duke squabble at dinner, decide to obnoxiously coo about how adorable it is watching the kids play. Which pretty instantly cements Duke and Tim as realizing their best chance of surviving the sudden acquisition of three older superhero ninja foster siblings who all can be as obnoxious as they are dangerous but also as much as they are - Duke and Tim are convinced - all quite insane.

A belief further cemented the next morning, with all three of them having spent the night at the Manor as well. Treating Duke and Tim to their first Saturday morning episode of the Cass and Jason show.

In this episode, Jason emerged from his bedroom in his pajamas still but warily peeking his head out first to look both ways down the hall before deciding it was clear…..and then makes it just almost to the end of the hallway leading to the stairs, when Cass drops down from where she’d been waiting perched above the other side of the door, in such a way as to suddenly fill the doorway just in front of him, hanging upside down suspending herself just with her feet wedged above the doorway, all while keeping her hands crossed her chest, a dead-eyed expression on her face, and with her tongue hanging out like she’s some kind of vampire hanging upside down in mid-slumber.

Jason shrieked and stumbled back a foot before catching himself and shoving two fingers in a cross shape in her direction.

“Demon! DEMON! Goddammit, I abjure thee, that’s supposed to fucking do something about having a demon sister, now what the fuck does it take to banish you!?”

“Can’t be banished,” Cass informed him, still upside down. “Can be bought though.”

Jason halted. “What?”

“I’m really surprised you never figured it out,” Dick said from his room further down the hallway. He was leaning against the doorjamb, arms casually crossed.

“Why did you think she never goes after me?”

Jason swiveled back and forth between his siblings suspiciously, trying to scry both their inscrutable (and in Cass’ case, still upside down) faces for signs they were telling the truth. “You’re telling me that Little Miss Monstrous has been a pain in my ass from day one and the reason she’s never so much as eked a single boo in your direction is you’ve been bribing her all this time?”

Dick shrugged. “Its all about getting in on the ground floor.”

Jason squinted, still unconvinced. “Nuh-uh. No way. You’re just fucking with me. Like if this is for real, what have you been buying her off with?”

Dick smiled beatifically. “Cuddles and hugs.”

“NO! NO! Bullshit! I am NOT falling for this crap again, you are not gonna get me this way this time. I call BS, fuck you, nuh uh, you’re lying out your ass and your ass-face both.”

“Wait, what is this ‘this’ that I did before? What ever are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Is this about the Care Bear you had when you were fifteen?”

“Shut upppppppppppppppp, I didn’t have a Care Bear then, you’re such a - “

“Oh, I dunno, I’m preeeeetty sure there’s some holiday photos from that year that would say otherwise, pretty definitively in the form of you and your Care Bear….”

“That I only had because you literally just gave it to me as a present solely so that you could claim that I had a Care Bear when I was fifteen, you douchebag!”

“Just because I gave you the Care Bear didn’t mean you had to keep the Care Bear and hold the Care Bear and love the Care Bear, Jay. You chose to do all that.”

“I only kept the damn thing because you’re an asshole who lied about it being a family heirloom so I felt like I had to or I’d be a total jerk. Is nothing sacred to you?”

“I didn’t lie! It is a treasured family heirloom! Its the first Care Bear I gave to my little brother to teach him the important and valuable lesson that Care Bears - say it with me now - “

“Finish that sentence and they will never find your body.”

“CARE!” Cass shrieked from behind him before jumping on Jason’s back and bearing him down to the floor in an undignified tangle as she splayed atop him like a starfish and he stared up at the ceiling in a kind of strangled frozen fury, like there was so much emotion he wanted to process he’d overheated and now was stuck like that until he cooled down.

That was when Dick leaned over him and solemnly added one final thought, as though it was a crucial addition of the gravest importance:: “A lot.”

Jason’s eye twitched.

Dick’s eyes went wide in response. “Uh oh. He went to the Danger Zone. Run Cass. We’ve unleashed the dogs of war!”

Cass was off and on her feet in a second, taking off down the hall like a rocket. “Not the dogs of war!” She yelled.

Dick was only seconds behind her when behind him, Jason rose like an eruption, growling wordlessly and sparks practically flashing from his suddenly flinty eyes. He charged after them like an enraged bull.

“Kenny Loggins wouldn’t want this!” Dick yelled over his shoulder as he rounded the doorway and vanished. Jason rounded it in hot pursuit.

“Poison Ivy won’t even be able to make compost from what’s left of you when I’m through!”

The yelling and running vanished into the distance. Duke and Tim finally looked at each other blankly.

“What?” Tim asked. Duke shrugged helplessly.

A door opened at the end of the hallway. Bruce stuck his head out. “Is it safe?”

Tim just stared at him.

“What?” Duke asked.

**************

LOL mostly I just want to get to the tail end of the series, when Dick and Jason go undercover as supervillains in the Society of well, Supervillains....Dick as War Shrike and Jason as Gray Jay. (A kind of bird usually known for or referenced as being thieving and unpredictable and unexpectedly dangerous despite its size. Jason never went into the Lazarus Pit here and so isn’t as huge as he is in canon, he’s on the smaller side due to his early life’s malnutrition. Living with Bruce helped him catch up enough that he’s not TINY tiny, but he’s still smaller enough that this particular mantle fits him a little better than it would his massive canon depiction).

Cass also partakes in the undercover storyline, just showing up uninvited in a persona she’s crafted for the mission and calls Black Swan. And War Shrike and Gray Jay are both so startled and obviously a little freaked by her unexpected arrival, that combined with her being ticked at her brothers for leaving her behind, RUDE, and them sufficiently cowed and guilted by her wrath, that it all adds up to the other villains as being clear evidence that she is the boss and they are her advance minions.

Which mollifies and satisfies Cass immensely, and leaves Jason grumpy that their mission was hijacked and also his sister is The Worst, and leaves Dick temporarily disgruntled because This Whole Thing Was His Idea DAMMIT but then five seconds later finding it hilarious because Dick is a chaos connoisseur and he has an appreciation for whimsy and the unexpected.

“I can’t believe you not only gate-crashed our extremely sensitive and delicate undercover operation, but you completely hijacked it as well! This is so typical,” Jason grouched.

Cass simply swept ahead of him and strode down the hallway with lethal grace. “Silence minion.”

Jason spluttered behind her and she grinned to herself. He really made it too easy sometimes.

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acatfishconfession · 4 years ago

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Chapter 1: Who am I?

If someone - anyone, had bothered to ask me (other than my elementary school teachers) where I could see myself at age twenty-nine, pushing thirty. It sure as fuck wouldn’t be here.

“Where is ‘here’, exactly?” Here, is sitting in a broke down computer chair. Listening to sad instrumentals on YouTube auto-play while I sip my Dunkin refresher, binge eat munchkin donut holes and cry over my laptop keyboard.

I wish I could say that was the worst of it. Truly, I do. But the real depth of it - the most heinous and offensive thing of all that I am doing right now is why I am here and writing this with my D.D. and emotional bullshit.

Most of my time is currently occupied flipping between five fake Instagram accounts, three fake Facebooks, two fake Twitter accounts, a fake Tinder, a fake Bumble, and my three personal accounts on social media where I’ve already lined up my next potential ‘mask’. Which is what I like to call the unwitting victims of image theft.

That’s right, world.

I am an online catfish.

Hate me. Hate me as much as I do.

I keep hoping that maybe if I feel enough of it - it will somehow trick the overly sensitive, non-confrontational, and social anxiety-riddled side of me into once and for all stopping this madness. Or at least making me feel guilty enough to just want this be over - in whatever way this sort of insanity can end once and for all.

I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit considering the two ways it most likely will. As well as the one that I don’t dare to even mention because it’s as foolish and more unlikely than any other.

The two main ways it will likely end are death or prison. The likelihood of death being by my own hand though, is slim. Not impossible, but most definitely unlikely. Purely for the fact that I am without doubt, the biggest pussy I know. Hell, most of my tattoos were just a means to try and impress friends. Which sucks even more now because I hate damn near all of the friends I wanted and equally the tattoos that I have.

Still not sure if it’s because I hate the tattoo artist that did them or just their artwork in general. Either way, there it is. I’m a pussy. If you were concerned for a moment that I might kill myself and by partisan obligate you to contact someone for help - you can relax now.

No. If I die it will most likely be homicide via crime of passion. I am fully aware that I may inevitably piss off the wrong person in my catfishing ventures, and end up at the bottom of a river somewhere. But that would probably be good old karma just doing what she’s best at. After all... When you play a dangerous game with emotions, those emotions can become the most volatile weapon anyone can wield. Especially when they are tested and toyed with enough. As for prison... Well... I know there are many legal actions people can take in regard to how their photos are used and what is said about them. How they are portrayed by others online or otherwise falls under the realm of slander - if I’m not mistaken. Not entirely sure if we can call it genuine identity theft. I’m pretty sure the entire point of being a catfishing is to work in a lucrative enough way to which the content owners will be forever (or at least prolongingly) never the wiser to what you’re doing. So you change things like name, locations, ages, birthdays, etc. Avoid them and their circle of friends with prejudice. I don’t just mean ‘don’t send them friend requests’ or ‘don’t check their pages’.

If you’re good at catfishing (if one even call the level of depravity you have to hit to do it well ‘good’), you pull out all the stops. Finding all of their accounts on every site and app and blocking them, their friends, their friend’s friends, and families. Whole geographic locations sometimes. Anyone from their area or who went to their school. You vanish from their potential radar.

And believe me when I say.... At catfishing... There are none better than me. At least, not that I’ve ever heard of.

That’s not to be confused with boasting. I feel disgusted with myself in even stating it. Because that’s what it is - disgusting. This is the first time I’m admitting this in my entire life. So, I suggest you take a deep breath with me before you read what I’m about to confess. Ready?

In - one, two, three, four, five, six.

Out - seven, eight, nine, ten.

I have catfished as (yes, I’ve counted)… One-hundred and twenty-seven people.

I know... I know... It’s impressive. Horribly and disturbingly so. And that does not account for the number of accounts I’ve had for each of them. Emails, Instagrams, Facebooks, etc. Even a few Vampirefreaks and Darkstarling accounts back in the day. I can’t even remember the names of most of them anymore. Only their faces. But even those fade over time.

You’d think for as prolific as I’ve been with getting to know them, their lives, and those around them so intimately to pull off the amount of catfishing I have - I’d remember more clearly. But I suppose if you do anything for as long as I’ve been catfishing, you’re bound to lose track of a few memories or blips of time.

I know you’re all dying to know exactly how long I’ve being doing this for. So I’ll tell you. The answer may be as equally shocking as my ‘mask count’. Realistically, take a moment and try to guess how old I was when I started. Here’s a tip. As I sit and write this, I’m 29. Just a few months shy of my 30th birthday. Now go on.... Give it your best shot.

Got a guess?

Ladies, gentlemen, and thems. I have been catfishing since I was eight years old.

That’s right. Only eight years old. I’m sure you were thinking surely fourteen or even fifteen. Technically, you’re right. Somewhere around there is when I actually became aware of what it was exactly that I was doing. But things were much different then. When I was eight, the internet being a modern in-home comfort was relatively new. We had dial-up. Screechy AOL start up sounds that were most likely close rivals to what would be Cthulhu’s mating call. The days of poorly moderated chatrooms and weak HTML coding. Not even Myspace existed at that point (I really miss Tom. We took him for granted. Zuckerberg’s rules kind of make him seem like a bit of a cuck. But I digress.)

Before I was twelve years old, no one knew what the hell ‘catfishing’ was. We’d never experienced enough of it to have to worry that people online would lie about something as outlandish as their face. Their age, name, or location - maybe. Shit, people have been lying about their relationship and marital statuses since the dawn of man. The internet didn’t breed lies like that, (though I’m certain it made it a great deal easier to do). Those were the kind of lies that you’d think of when it came to telling lies on the internet. But nothing like this.

Now look at us. For every ten of your actual friends on Instagram, there is at least one catfish following you or trying to make friends with you. Not that it’s a factually proven ratio or anything, more so an idea. I’m clearly not a scientist or research analyst, and as we’ve already established - I’m way too busy maintaining fake accounts to actually look up factual catfishing statistics.

So why? Why did I do it? Why do I continue to do it? Why confess now? Most importantly, who the hell am I? The ‘whys’ are a bit more complex than just selecting reason A or B. But if you’re really curious to know and willing to hear what I have to say and find out what makes up a catfish. Or at least - me. The most prolific online catfish likely to date (here’s hoping I am because I’d hate to know there is anyone crazier than me out there). Then stick around, because I’m ready to tell you - all of you. Everyone who cares to read this story. I am going to do my best along the way to help you answer some questions you might have. What is it like, how does it make me feel, do I really feel guilty, are there other kinds of catfish, and which one am I? And of course - how to spot and potentially stop a catfish.

Maybe by the end of this blog series, and once you are past out-right hating me (if you can find it in you to get past out-right hating me.... *Insert nervous and shameful laughter here*). You’ll be at least thankful to have learned some new things and gained an understanding that you hadn’t expected to from this. Or at least be thoroughly entertained - because, who the hell doesn’t love a controversial story line? As for who I am....

I really wish I could give you an answer. Because truth be told - I don’t even know anymore.

Maybe in writing this series, I’ll figure that out. Hell, you might even help me get there a bit. Aside the most obvious and recently discovered portion of that answer being, that I am first and foremost, a massive piece of shit - for stealing people’s photos and lying about who I am.

#story autobigraphy catfish controversial writing series book author blog blogging internet fake faking socialmedia

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fenrys-moonbae · 5 years ago

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A Bright Star in Centuries of Darkness--Chapter 1

Eleanor Ashryver, noble lady and Princess of Wendlyn, swore viciously as she looked over at Evalin and hissed "...Is he....singing?"

"I believe so, cousin." Evalin tried and failed to hide the smile spreading across her face, her eyes flicking over to the open window where a lovely tune waltzed, "it seems you've got yourself a tom cat yowling at your window."

Bloody gods.

----

A take on the story of Aedion's mother and Gavriel's meeting, relationship and eventual parting. Pre-Throne of Glass but follows all established canon points. Rating due to future sex scenes and some coarse language.

Hi All! This is a little short side project I decided to work on since I recently re-read Kingdom of Ash. Not much information is given on Aedion's mother in the canon or on what her relationship with Evalin and Rhoe was so I took creative liberty and established one.

The waulking song used for this chapter is located here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRcXCdwfM9k

Enjoy!

----

Shafts of warm sunlight slipped through the high arches of the servants’ quarters of the palace in Varese as they worked, swathing the room in a buttery golden hue. The sparkling rays danced across the fibers of the wool as it thumped rhythmically across the table, setting the threads shimmering like emeralds.

Each press of the freshly dyed fabric against the wood thrummed through the sun-warmed hall as it was passed from hand to hand, tugging and stretching. Beautiful, lithe voices raised in unison in time with its cadence.

He mo leannan,

Hó mo leannan,

‘S e mo leannan a’ fear ùr—

An old fae ditty, reserved for waulking--- and one of Princess Eleanor Ashryver’s favorite tunes to sing during one of her most beloved pastimes. She’d routinely sneak away from palace duties to participate in it, spending her time singing and sitting thigh to thigh and elbow to elbow with the servants, her friends, kneading and stretching the bolt.

With a twist of her hands, she worked the fabric beneath her palms, feet tapping in time as her voice rose and fell along, her nail beds already saturated with deep emerald. The wool in her hands was freshly woven cashmere soaked in Terrasen green, crafted specifically for its future princess, Evalin Ashryver, soon to be Galathynius.

The lovely lady whose intellect and grace could crack even the hardest of foes, who was renowned for carrying a presence of wisdom and strength.

That was, if you didn’t know of the bashful creature she could become behind closed doors, the bright flush that overtook her pale skin when flustered or the rare but clever curses that could slip through her delicate lips when no one was listening.

It was those parts of her cousin that Eleanor knew and loved the best, the parts she knew that Evalin’s future husband would grow to love as well. That was, if they could get the blushing bride to walk down the aisle without her turning the shade of a tomato or spluttering like a broken spigot.

Fortunately, the event was still months off.

Enough time for dear Evalin to pull herself together enough that she might string coherent sentences together before being bound to her handsome and daring Prince Rhoe, heir of Terrasen’s great throne.

Eleanor couldn’t help but grin, the lovesick expression of her cousin’s fair face still dancing through her mind.

She’d never let Evalin hear the end of it.

Not that the young prince had responded much better according to the gossip that flitted through the palace in the wake of her return. Apparently, King Orlon had had a jolly time teasing the lovebirds throughout Evalin’s stay and had laughed quite loudly and openly at his brother’s attempt at courtship upon the princess’s departure.

Two birds of a feather then, destined to rule a bright and glorious kingdom.

She could not find room for more joy in her heart at the prospect.

Even if part of her panged at the emptiness that would follow her cousin’s nuptials and inevitable departure. While born a princess, Eleanor’s right was only in name, not poised to inherit any power or lands, and her future had always been somehow . . . flat and vague.

And without Evalin’s constant presence and companionship…

She gripped the fabric tightly as the next length was passed to her, her mind willing the worm of sorrow away.

Now wasn’t the time for such idle thoughts. Even if the prospect had chased sleep from her in the previous weeks, leaving her mind to wander in the darkness of her chambers.

Even if Evalin had looked prime to invite her to go with her, to whisk her off to Terrasen so that they would never be apart . . .

She banished the thought.

No, she could not go. Wendlyn was her home and where she would stay. Even if her dearest cousin was to set sail for foreign lands.

Close in age, she and Evalin had been hand in hand since they were children, nearly identical in appearance and thick as thieves and twice as mischievous.

The palace staff had bemoaned their more . . . adventurous endeavors. Even as encroaching adulthood had slowly stripped them of the freedom they’d relished in their youth, they’d still found ways to entertain themselves and stir up trouble in the way that only two young princesses might.

Old Nan had still yet to forgive them for stealing Lord Edgar’s wig six summers before, their teenage curiosity getting the better of them. They’d merely wondered if the rumors of it being made of cat hair were true.

The rumors, much to her and Evalin’s eternal disappointment, had been false.

Lord Edgar’s fit of rage and spewing had not been, however, the lord having fled the castle in such a rage that he’d forgotten to dress himself properly and had loaded himself into his carriage in only his underthings.

He’d yet to visit the palace again much to her cousin, the crowned King Glaston’s, annoyance.

Eleanor had remained unruffled when confronted, justifying that the man was insufferable anyway, hardly fit for life as a human much less as a lord. Evalin, ever the pacifist, had supported her claim, albeit in far fewer, much less damning words.

They’d been sent to drudgery duty as punishment: Evalin to the kitchens and Eleanor to seamstresses, in hopes that separating the girls might dampen their exploits. Much to everyone’s disappointment, Eleanor had discovered a love of weaving and now made a habit of sneaking off to join the servants. Evalin, for her part, had taken an interest in the culture of the demi-fae staff she worked with, going so far as to visit a small demi-fae village called Mistward to better understand their plight.

The same place where Evalin returned from now, due back any moment.

Far too close to the border of Doranelle and that heinous Fae-Queen Maeve, Eleanor thought with irritation. Maeve’s unexpected fascination with Evalin had left everyone in the Ashryver estate unsettled, the ancient queen’s wickedness preceding her.

The sooner Evalin was home, the better.

Waving her hands, Eleanor flicked the excess bits of dye and diluted urine from her fingers before gripping the fabric taut again, brushing her leg against the woman next to her.

The tune they were singing came to a slow end, fading on both her tongue and those of the women around her. Shifting her gaze, her eyes landed on one of the younger servant girls at the end of the row who quickly selected another, slapping the fabric in time, and began to sing jovially, her broad smile contagious.

Eleanor almost snorted at the song the girl had selected, sung in the common tongue--a tale of a handsome fae lord who had come to town to woo the prettiest lady and sweep her away off to his fine kingdom.

Oh, he comes o’er hill and dale,

Sword strapped right,

Bonny and bright,

Come to bid his tale--

Gods help any woman foolish enough to run off with one of the fae males, she thought harshly, With their immortality and brute strength . . . even if they aren’t difficult on the eyes. Not that she and Evalin had taken a habit of watching the visiting emissaries ride in, speculating on what was beneath those fine tunics--

Even caught up in the song and her work Eleanor didn’t miss the servant’s door opening or the soft scrape of boots as Evalin peeked her head into the room, her turquoise eyes searching as she scanned the room.

Relief flooded her.

Home and safe.

Tossing up a hand she waved Evalin over, who must have just arrived as she was still clad in her traveling dress, a cloak wrapped about her slender shoulders.

Watching her cousin’s approach, Eleanor immediately noted that her normally slim, proud shoulders were tight and her lovely mouth seemed pinched, even as she smiled sincerely at her. Sensing something amiss, she rose from her seat, leaving her portion of the fabric on the table to be rapidly swept up by surrounding hands.

“Greetings, cousin,” Evalin chimed, reaching out delicate hands to wrap around Eleanor and pull her close, the smell of smoke and the forest wafting from her cloak, “I am so very glad to see you.”

“As am I.” Pushing away, Eleanor looked over Evalin once, furrowing her brow in concern, the formality, the tight posture-- “Eva, is everything all right?”

Evalin’s eyes flickered behind them toward the servents, her pink lips down turning slightly—no, it wasn’t—but this wasn’t the place to discuss it.

Eleanor was about to suggest they go somewhere to talk when Lucielle, an elderly servant whose hair had once been as fiery as her temper, sent a knowing look across the table at the two princesses.

“Your Majesties,” she chimed, slipping away from the waulking table and dipping into a slight curtsey, “if you wouldn’t mind, could you perhaps take the old dye out? It would save an old woman with terrible knees a trip up the stairs.”

“Of course, Lucielle,” relief flooded Evalin’s face, her shoulders loosening, “we’d be happy to help.”

“Oh good, good, such lovely, kind ladies both of you.” The woman waved a withered hand over her shoulder. “There’s only a few bowls that need to go. Pour them in the buckets and dump it off into the grass.”

“Yes, of course,” Eleanor murmured, watching Evalin with an eagle’s gaze, “we’ll go now.”

“Bloody whore,” Eleanor swore as she slammed the buckets of dye and urine down on the battlement, her regal face set in a cool rage. If she ever got her hands on that dark queen--“How dare she address you like that?” “Language, Elle,” Evalin reprimanded, sending a long glance at the guards at the edge of the battlements. Their attention was averted from the princesses as they had been trained, but they still had ears. “And . . . it is what it is. She would listen to none of my pleading.” “Of course not,” Eleanor quipped, her sweet voice harsh as she threw one of the buckets they had carried up the stairs over the battlement walls and onto the grass below, splashing the ground with green dye and the urine used to set it. “How dare anyone call out the illustrious Maeve on her brutal rule.” Evalin had recapped the hardships the demi-fae faced, the scorn they received from both the humans and the fae. A people caught between two races with no home of their own--many of whom spent their lives trying to win the favor of the fae queen only to live their days out in poverty in the small rural villages between the human and fae lands.

“It would be a blessing on this kingdom and the next if she’d rutting keel over,” Evalin paled at the insinuation, even as Eleanor hissed in fury, “Gods above know that royal bit—” “Eleanor,” Evalin warned again, ever the water to Eleanor’s fire, “Ears, cousin. Ears.” “Piss on them,” she shot back, her vision nearly red as she thought on the fae queen. “If she’s so offended by my words then Maeve can come here and address it with me, but Gods know she won’t leave that stone throne or the harem of pretty warriors she collects.”

Evalin cringed as the words flowed past Eleanor’s lips.

But what reaction had she expected when recounting such news? Not only was Evalin the crown princess of Wendlyn and Eleanor’s greatest friend, she carried the bloodline of Mab, which entitled her to more respect that Maeve had ever given.

And going so far as to bargain with Evalin about her firstborn in exchange for the demi-fae’s rights--

“You shouldn’t be going back to Mistward, Eva.” She shook her head, the gall of the queen to try and barter with Evalin’s future child . . . “Stay as far away from the woman as you can.” “They are my friends, Elle,” Evalin murmured, running a hand through her golden locks as she glanced towards the mountains and the village that dwelled deep within, as though she could see all the way to that fortress, “and no one else will stand for them.” “And of your own safety?” She knew Maeve wouldn’t be so foolish as to attack a crown princess, but using magic to coerce-- “That has to be taken into account too.”

“I know, Elle,” she placed a hand on her stomach, as though her thoughts drifted to the life that would one day grow there, to the life that Maeve had so casually predicted. “I know.”

“Foul demon woman,” Eleanor grumbled as she lifted third bucket of dye to dump over the battlements edge, perhaps it was best her cousin was going to Terrasen, if for no other reason to be away from gods damned Maeve, “I hope I never see the likes of her.” “Me either, Elle.” Evalin shook her head, her honey-colored locks catching the light of the fading afternoon sun, before smiling up at Eleanor, finally, a true smile. “Though I am glad to see you. I’ve missed you in our weeks apart.” “Me too Eva, the castle has been too quiet without you.” A laugh. “I thought you’d quiet enjoy your time alone without me tailing after you.” “Well, a bit,” Eleanor conceded, smiling mischievously, “though with word of you and Prince Rhoe’s engagement I haven’t been able to be away from even the mention of you.” A delicate blush rushed up the princess’s cheeks as she averted her gaze from Eleanor.

Better, Eleanor thought as she watched her cousin nervously run her fingers over her cloak, her mind no doubt lost to the prince who awaited her across the sea.

“Let’s celebrate your return tonight and stay together, like we did as children.” Something sparked to life in Evalin’s eyes at that, at the long conversation they would have through the night, the mischief they might get into.

“Yes, let’s.” She rose from where she leaned against the stone and watched Eleanor, her eyes finally full of the mirth and warmth Eleanor was accustomed to.

She mulled on the thoughts of Maeve, of the idle threats she’d made to her dear cousin as she walked over and picked up the final bucket of waste, testing its weight in her hand. “Do you know what I say, Eva?” she inquired, swinging the bucket and sending its contents sloshing all over the stone as she stomped towards the edge of the battlements, the image of the dark-haired queen sharpening in her mind.

Evalin turned her attention back to Eleanor, her mouth opening as though to speak, her hand lifting as though to stop her. “Elle, wait—" She lifted the bucket above her head and smiled ferally. “Piss on Maeve.”

Ignoring her cousin’s warning, she slung the contents of the bucket over the wall with a flick of her arms, willing somewhere, somehow that damned queen also had a bucket of green dye and piss being dumped on her.

A loud splash sounded as the liquid splattered down the stone, followed almost immediately by a soft grunt of surprise.

She froze.

Evalin cringed, even as she couldn’t help the amusement that darted across her face. “You threw it over the wrong side, cousin.” Embarrassment flooded Eleanor as she realized in her fury she’d thrown the waste not onto the grass but onto the street below the battlement, the one that led to the palace gates. Right atop some poor fool strolling up the path at the wrong moment. Blinking in shock, she braved a look down the side of the battlements to see a tall figure below, soaked in the urine and dye she’d tossed over the side, his fine grey cloak stained a blotchy green. He was armed to the teeth, daggers and swords adorning his body, an intricate bow strapped across his back along with a large pack. Someone who had been on the road for a long time. With growing horror, she watched as he pulled his hood free with predatory ease, revealing pointed ears and long blonde locks that were now also tinged green and most certainly smelled like urine.

He turned his head upwards to see where his unexpected shower had come from—

Beautiful, was the only thought that flitted through Eleanor’s mind as she took him in, devastatingly beautiful and undoubtedly fae.

Eleanor couldn’t bring herself to move, the breath rushing out of her as she took in his features, the tawny eyes, the broad shoulders and shapely throat encrusted with black markings—

And hanging loosely atop his tunic was a silver medallion now also dripping in murky green, a medallion in the shape of an owl that indicated the ruling house of Doranelle-- Evalin was now next to her, a hand covering her mouth as she muttered, her eyes wide.

“‘Oh, piss on Maeve indeed.” A hole opened up beneath Eleanor as she blinked, breaking eye contact with the fae male before quickly stumbling away from the battlement’s edge, her bucket tumbling to the ground in front of her.

She’d gotten her wish, no doubt. She’d just soaked one of Maeve’s soldiers in dye and urine.

She slid down the battlement wall and placed her head in her hands, ignoring the stifled chuckles that quickly turned into full belly laughs from Evalin.

Couldn’t she keep her damned mouth shut?

Evalin wasn’t certain Eleanor’s face would ever return to its natural shade as they wound down the staircase back to the bottom floor of the palace. No, she assumed she’d probably stay tinged pink until the darkness claimed her.

She’d tried to warn her that she was dumping the bucket off the wrong side of the wall.

And, as was Eleanor’s style, the rancid mixture had splashed all over one of Doranelle’s soldiers, no doubt from Maeve’s personal guard.

Her stomach had dropped at the sight of him, an uneasiness settling over her with his sudden appearance.

Eleanor had merely muttered “Traitorous Gods” before swiping up the bucket and rushing down the stairs, her skirt swishing as she took them two at a time.

No doubt her brother Glaston would be less than pleased with their cousins’ actions. He’d grown cold since their father’s death and his ascension to the throne--the young man she’d loved so fiercely as a child was now a shell of who he’d once been.

His coldness tended to manifest as criticisms of herself and Eleanor. Mostly wild, free Eleanor. He was going to be furious.

Not that anything could be done to right it now.

“Majesties, there you are,” an old woman crowed as she rounded the corner of the hallway and spotted the two Ashryver princesses making their way down the hallway, “Your presence is requested at dinner tonight, and seeing as you’ve been on the road all day, Evalin,” a look towards her dusty cloak and scuffed, muddy boots,” you need to bathe and change.”

Old Nan was as stalwart and round as she’d ever been, her harsh eyes buried beneath bushy brows as she looked over both girls with that assessing gaze. Evalin instinctively straightened her spine, correcting her posture.

Eleanor beside her made no attempts to remedy hers.

Evalin had to resist the urge to reach out and nudge her, a gentle reminder to keep them both out of trouble--

The old woman stopped her approach suddenly, tentatively sniffing the air before gasping, “Is that . . . urine?”

Evalin tried to keep her face neutral as she heard her cousin clear her throat, smoothly slipping into a protected position behind her, letting her take the brunt of their nursemaid’s fury. “Nan, please—” Evalin began, trying to placate the old woman before her temper flared, knowing it would likely be unfruitful-

“Eleanor!” A reprimand, sharp and unforgiving. “I’ve told you before, princesses do not waulk fabric. Lucielle will be hearing of this. I’ve told her again and again to not let you sully your hands with the piss of servants.” “And I order you to leave her out of it.” Eleanor snarled from her position behind Evalin, still cleverly hidden as she peeked up over her cousin’s shoulders and narrowed her brows, “Princesses may do as they like, need I remind you.”

An argument as old as the castle itself, one Eleanor and old Nan had had from the time Eleanor had been able to muster the word “no”.

Evalin could already feel the headache creeping in.

She desperately needed to bathe, to sort through her thoughts concerning the conversation she and her aunt had a week before, when, over tea, she’d nonchalantly inquired after the prospect of her and her betrothed’s future heir, violet eyes smoldering as she’d carefully gauged Evalin’s reaction.

When she’d presented the idea that, should she bring her heir to Maeve for training, she’d gladly grant the demi-fae access to Doranelle and rights to all its splendors, as Evalin had been tirelessly working to achieve over the previous years.

The conversation had left her feeling oily, eager to depart Doranelle and return to Wendlyn where she might confide in someone she trusted, in Eleanor, what had been asked of her, in private and without the watchful eyes of her family or the fae.

And now with one of her soldiers arriving here at the palace within an hour of her return home—who was now covered in dye and refuse thanks to Eleanor’s careful hand—there was much for her think on.

“Nan,” Evalin interrupted the argument beginning to build around her, reaching a soft hand out for her nursemaid, “I would very much like to bathe and have Eleanor help me dress if you’d be willing.” Nan’s dark eyes narrowed with simmering fury but she nodded anyway, sidestepping the young princesses and allowing them to pass.

“Be quick Majesty,” she called after, wiping her hands in the apron at her waist, “we’ve a guest tonight.”

“Wonderful,” Eleanor muttered under her breath, only hissing slightly as Evalin surreptitiously stepped on her toe, silencing her. Evalin had assumed as much, knowing precisely who their guest would be. She’d known it from the moment she had noted the tell-tale grey clothing of the warrior from earlier, the fine weapons strapped across him.

He wasn’t an ordinary foot soldier, but one of Maeve’s bloodsworn. The medallion was only a courteous marker for anyone who did not know of them. But any who did . . . it was not hard to identify them, lethal and vicious in the way they moved, their ancient presences near palpable.

Sent, no doubt, at the behest of her aunt.

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adalheidismimisbrunnr · 5 years ago

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Magickal Beings

Elves & Other Spirits

The world of ancient Paganism was hardly limited to the worship of the Gods. There are various other beings who were honored, and. Elf worship. was often the hardest part of Paganism for Christians to destroy. It was easy enough to substitute one God for another, but it was quite another to tell the common people that the elves which brought fertility to the land were not real!

In the various folktales and sagas, we find very little which would lead us to a concrete system of what spirit was responsible for exactly what. We are sure of the place of the Valkyries, who were responsible for bringing the slain to Valhalla, and for choosing who in battle would die. They seem, judging by their actions, to be supernatural beings of some type. However, Valkyries appear in various places as very human figures and their exact nature is difficult to determine. Sigrdrifa was a Valkyrie who was cursed by Odin because she refused to bring victory in battle to those whom he had chosen. Her punishment was to be married to a mortal, and the implication is clear that this would end her days as a Valkyrie. It’s equally clear that she has great knowledge of the runes as she tutors Sigurd after he awakens her. In most respects she seems to be a normal human woman, although a very wise and independent one with great powers. Elsewhere, Voland and his brothers are said to have found three Valkyries sunning themselves without their swan-coats. When the brothers steal their feather-coats and hide them, the Valkyries again appear as otherwise normal women. This does not seem entirely in keeping with a supernatural origin, and it’s possible that some kind of magickal order of Priestesses has become confused over time with the supernatural beings we know as Valkyries. The swan-coat seems very similar in description to Freya’s falcon-coat and the entire issue may be something related to the practice of seidhr. As far as we know, the Valkyrie were not worshipped as such, but were considered more the messengers of Odin. They also serve the mead at Valhalla, and because of this whoever pours the mead into the Horn at Blot or Sumbel is today known as. the Valkyrie.

The other spirits whose place seems fairly clear are the Disir. These are spirits who are intimately linked with a family. There is also some indication that they are linked with the land, but this would be in keeping with the old ways. We forget sometimes that many landowners in Europe have been living in the same place since before this continent was discovered. The land becomes an intimate part of the family and its identity, so it is natural that family spirits would also oversee the family land. Disir inevitably are seen as women who appear at times of great trouble or change. They are somehow linked to the family bloodline and seem most closely linked to the clan chief. There is one scene in one saga where a spirit, apparently a Dis, is passed on from one person to another who are not blood relations. However, these two friends are closer than brothers, so while the link is apparently not genetic, it is definitely familial. We know the family Disir were honored with blots at the Winter Nights and that they have great power to aid their family. As far as their origin, it’s possible that they are ancestral in origin. They may be ancestors whose power was so great that they were able to continue to see to their clan. Or it’s possible that the Disir are the collective spirit of the family ancestors. Freya is called the great Dis and there may be some linkage here to her position as a seidhr woman. We know from the sagas that Seidhr was involved with talking to various spirits (including the dead) and its possible that this is the source of Freya’s name. It is also possible that she performed much the same function as a Dis to her tribe the Vanir.

Closely linked to the idea of the Disir is the Fylgia. These spirits are attached to an individual person in much the same way that the Disir are associated with a family. Fylgia usually appear either as animals or as beautiful women. They correspond to the. fetch, totem, or. power-animal. in other cultures. Most of the time the fylgia remains hidden and absent, it is only with truly great or powerful persons that the fylgia becomes known. They may have something to do with Seidhr as well, because many sagas offer evidence of spirit travel in the shape of animals. This corresponds exactly to notions of shamanism found in other cultures.

The remaining spirits include Alvar or elves, Dokkalvar or dark elves or Dwarfs, kobolds, and landvaettir. While some have defined one being as doing one thing and another serving a different function, I’m not inclined to draw very sharp distinctions between these various creatures. They all seem. elfish. in origin, and there seems to me to be no pattern of associating one name with a specific function. We know that various landvaettir or land spirits were honored with blots. We also know that Frey is the lord of Alfheim, one of the nine worlds where the alvar are said to live.

Of all the remaining spirits, the dwarfs are the most consistent in description. We know that the dwarfs are cunning and misanthropic in character and incredible smiths, capable of creating magickal objects so valuable they are considered the greatest treasures of Asgard. Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, Freya’s necklace Brisingamen, and Sif’s golden hair are all creations of the dwarfs. They live beneath the earth and have little to do with mankind or the Gods unless one seeks them out. What place they had in the religion we no longer know. It would seem wise to invoke them as spirits of the forge, but I can think of little other reason to disturb them.

Elves are the most difficult magickal race to pin down. Mythological sources tell us that the Alvar or light elves live in Alfheim where Frey is their Lord. However, we also have the enduring belief in folklore of the elves as faery-folk: beings associated with the natural world. These two conceptions of elves might still be linked, however, as Alfheim is known to be a place of incredible natural beauty, and Frey, their leader, is an agricultural deity. To further confuse this issue, Norse folklore has a strong belief in the Landvaettir, or land spirits who may fit into either or both of these categories. I’m inclined to lump them all together as similar beings that we simply don’t.t know enough about to tell apart. What is important is that Asatru, like all Pagan religions, honors the natural world and the earth very deeply. Whether one calls the spirits of the land as the elves, the faeries, or the landvaettir, or uses all of these terms interchangeably, respect is all important. Asatru is known for being one of the most politically. conservative. of the modern Pagan religions, but you’ll find few of us who aren.t staunch environmentalists.

One of the most important spirits to honor is the house-spirit. Folklore is also filled with stories of various spirits variously called faeries, elves, kobolds, brownies, tom-tin, etc. who inhabit a house and see to its proper conduct. In the usual form of the tale, they offer to perform some housekeeping functions, but eventually turn on the owners of the house when they are insulted by overpayment. We don’t.t have any concrete evidence for how our ancestors honored these beings, but this is not surprising because such a thing would not be a public observance and it’s unlikely it would be recorded in the sagas or Eddas. Folklore indicates that such beings should be honored with a simple bowl of milk or perhaps beer, but no more.

In general folklore does not paint the various elves and spirits as particularly benevolent figures. With the exception of house spirits, who as spirits of a manmade object are bound to us on some level, they seem most interested in staying out of the dealings of mankind. There are numerous stories of people who spy upon elf women and force them to become their brides. Inevitably the women are unhappy and eventually escape, leaving their husbands devastated. There are also numerous stories of spirits who haunt the woods and who will drag wayward travelers into rivers to drown or to some other untimely death. When people do have dealings with the elves these beings seem to operate on an entirely different set of expectations than we do. Most of us would be gratified by the gift of a. bonus. from our employer, yet time and time again in folklore this is the easiest way to anger a house spirit. We know that elves were honored with blots, but it’s just as possible that these ceremonies were made in propitiation to them rather than in kinship as are our blots made with the Gods. We suggest caution in dealing with beings with a set of values so foreign from our own. They should be approached in the same way one would approach a person from a country whose ways are very different.

In general, we.re also very reticent to make decisions about classifying the various. other peoples. It would be very easy to draw lines and place certain spirits into little boxes which label their function, but that seems overly mechanical and of little utility. Elves and other. wights. are not human, and it might be too much to try to classify them in other than subjective terms. It’s probably best to simply make your intent clear, experiment, and use the terms which work for you, remembering only to be true to the sources.

Demi-Gods

There is a whole classification of Gods which are not truly part of the Aesir, Vanir, or even the Jotunn. Wayland the Smith is the best example of this that we can offer. Wayland, called Volund in the Norse version, is the greatest of smiths, but it’s clear in the mythology that he was more or less a human man. The myth tells of how he lost his wife and was enslaved by a human King. While his powers allow him to outwit and take vengeance on the king, it’s clear throughout that he’s not on the level of a Thor or an Odin. What one does about these demi-Gods or local Gods is a good question. I see nothing wrong with pouring a blot in their honor and dealing with them as you would any other God or Goddess. On the other hand, they are not part of the Aesir, and I think it might be disrespectful to honor them with the Aesir or as part of a ceremony dedicated to the Aesir as they seem of a different nature.

Ancestor Worship:

Honoring one’s ancestors was one of the most sacred duties of the Norsemen. One of the most important parts of greeting new people was the exchanging of personal lineages at sumbel. The worship of the Disir is closely linked to ancestor worship. However, it is difficult for modern day Pagans to seriously engage in ancestor worship. We are for the most part without a strong connection to our heritage, and even if we feel motivated, we would probably need to skip at least a thousand years back to find ancestors who would not have been appalled by our Heathen beliefs. One substitution for ancestor worship in the modern Asatru movement has been the veneration of heroes from the Sagas and legends of our people.

The manner of how we honor ancestors is also somewhat troubling. I reserve the blot ritual to Gods and other powers, and I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to pour a blot to an ancestor, no matter how important he was. It’s touchy when you are honoring someone that you knew was a mortal. I think the most important part of ancestor worship is remembering, and the sumbel seems the most important part of that.

While we discuss ancestry, I must mention that some modern Asatru groups, in part because of holdovers from 19th century cultural movements, have placed a great deal of emphasis on ancestry in terms of race. Many have held that Asatru was a religion for whites or Northern Europeans only. In my not particularly humble opinion, this is pure idiocy. The basic argument for this is that people of other cultures do not share the same background and values. This is certainly true, but the key word in my opinion is culture, and all Americans by definition share a culture. Also, while I admit I would think it doubtful that people from outside of our own cultural heritage would be attracted greatly to Asatru, if they are it is for a reason and they should be welcomed and not shunned. It proves the worth of our religion and way of life that it is so strong that one would leave his own cultural path behind to take up ours.

As far as culture is concerned, the ancestry of the ancient North is alive and well in modern America. A thousand years ago settlers sailed to Iceland to avoid the growing influence of powerful kings and centralized government. This centralization of power was one of the things which Roman Christianity brought with it. Two hundred years ago we in America rebelled against our king for much the same reasons. Our culture is much more profoundly influenced by the Vikings than most would care to admit. Our law is based on English common law, which in turn has roots in Norman and Saxon law. (Both the Saxons and Normans were descended from Germanic tribes.) Our culture is based on many of the same ideas which the Northmen held dear: the importance of the individual and the belief that individual rights outweighed collective rights. Thus, it is my assertion that we are all descended, at least in part, spiritually from the ancient Norse.

The Jotunn

The Jotunn or giants are the sworn enemies of the Gods. While the Aesir represent order and the Vanir represent the supportive powers of nature, the Jotunn represent chaos and the power of nature to destroy man and act independent of humankind. In the end, it is the Jotunn who will fight the Gods at Ragnarök and bring about the destruction of the world.

In essence despite being called Giants or Ogres, the Jotunn are Gods just as much as the Aesir or Vanir. In many cases they correspond very closely to the Fomoire in Celtic mythology. Most simply put, the Jotunn are the Gods of all those things which man has no control over.

The Vanir are the Gods of the growing crops, the Jotunn are the Gods of the river which floods and washes away those crops or the tornado which destroys your entire farm. This is why they are frightening, and this is why we hold them to be evil.

The Jotunn are not worshipped in modern Asatru, but there is some evidence that sacrifices were made to them in olden times. In this case, sacrifices were probably made .to them. rather than shared. with them. as was the case with the Vanir and Aesir. It would be inappropriate to embrace them as friends and brothers in the way we embrace our Gods. One doesn.t embrace the hurricane or the wildfire; it is insanity to do so. However, we must also remember that fact that we see their actions as bad, they are not inherently evil. The storm destroys the crops, but it also brings cleansing and renewal. We humans are only one species on this planet and in the end, we are both expendable and irrelevant to nature. This is the manner in which the Jotunn act, and it is not surprising that we see this as evil.

However, one must also take into account the premonitions of Ragnarök recorded in the Edda’s. If the Jotunn are merely amoral, why are they the sworn enemy of the Aesir and why will they bring about the end of the world? It’s possible that Jotunn was more of a catch-all term for dangerous Gods rather than a reference to a specific family. (It is the case in many languages that there is one word for people that speak the language, usually translating as people, and another term for those persons of other cultures and tribes.) The dangerous forces of nature are. Jotunn. because we cannot control them, but there are other forces, principally those of chaos, that are considered. Jotunn. as well.

There is abundant evidence for this in the Eddas. Various Jotunn are seen to marry into the Aesir without a great deal of trouble from the Gods, but at other times the mere sight of one throw Thor into a rage. The obvious conclusion is that they are more than one specific race of deities. The destructive powers of nature were tolerated to some extent, and often married into the Aesir bringing them more under control. However, other. outlander. Gods were completely destructive to the Aesir (and thus mankind) and the Gods only thought for them was death.

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mdnect · 3 years ago

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Reasons to Select Cloud Storage to Upload Documents Online Free

What are you waiting for if you have not yet backed up your computer to the Cloud yet? It is very simple to start plugging in and playing. Upload your documents online free to the Cloud from anywhere you have an active internet connection that allows you to access them on the go. The Cloud would also act as a backup server safeguarding you and your information from hard drive malfunctions and malicious trolls and hackers.

The following are our top 5 reasons why you should be using cloud storage if you have not yet already:

Hacker Protection

More and more hackers these days are targeting businesses of almost every size. Surely, there are ways to safeguard yourself if your computer gets hacked. You can protect almost everyone's identity while you are storing information on a separate server in the Cloud, whether it's your personal information they are after or your clients. Cloud storage services are meant to offer some other level of encrypted protection to keep the hackers out of your business.

You will start earning greater credibility with the clients who can notice you being completely capable of their business as you confirm that their information is safeguarded in the Cloud. You can even rest easy at night in understanding that your profits and identity are protected well.

Hard Drive Failures

It is inevitable in terms of having your computer malfunction. Older computers cannot always compete as the landscape of the digital world changes constantly as new smartphones, tablets, and laptops hit the market. Software updates can overwork the older systems, and at times, user error can break the computer flat out where the websites become incompatible. But, it does not mean that you are losing everything in this process just because the system breaks down.

It is important to upload important information on the Cloud server to protect the files from the inevitable failure of the hard drives. You need to access proper information from the rest as you can access them from the smartphone even as you are backing them up in the Cloud if your computer breaks. You can easily predict when the computer breaks as you can safeguard yourself and your business by planning ahead and using Cloud storage to your advantage.

Stay Organized

You do not have to store the whole hard drive in the Cloud. Only store the important information and data. Cloud can be used to store your family photos, business portfolio, and even your inventory information and payroll. It is a handy feature to aid you in staying organized. You can easily visualize your business goals by creating a portfolio, even your family's finances, without thousands of files that clog your hard drive.

The Cloud would allow you to create folders that can be used for storing and organizing the information, and you are the designer of your own Cloud storage layout. Uploading the information to the Cloud can be the motivation you need to clear out the old hard drive and organize the important documents easily.

Share and Access Information Anywhere

The ease of access to the Cloud would become one of the most popular features for the smaller business and people on the go. You can easily conduct your business from anywhere. Gathering the information that you need right off the table and working from home would become easy as you can reach out to the Cloud server from almost every device.

Sending the files becomes easy on the go. You can select to email someone directly or simply give them entire access to the part of the Cloud that you wish to share. It is where the company will come in handy. There are designated beings who can check out some other good features that would make sharing information easier as it can protect you from the peeping toms searching to steal your personal information.

Save Money

Cloud storage can and will save you thousands of dollars at the end of the day. You need not have to fork out the funds to rescue the information and files out of the malicious malware or broken hard drives. You can also save a lot of money on your virus protective services since you will be using Cloud backup that offers you additional security as you will not be training any high-tech team in offering the protection to your systems or the Cloud.

The ease of access and user-friendly interface make it easier for even the least computer savvy person in the office to use to upload documents online for free. It does protect your uploaded information if anything goes awry at your end, thereby spending less on your tech support needs and more on the things that matter, while cloud storage cannot completely replace your virus protection or tech support.

#upload documents online for free

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years ago

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%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

Fox news Myles Garrett, Nick Bosa among NFL's top 10 disruptors of 2019 - NFL.com

Fox news

Desire a second to think the predominant names in soccer and the positions they play.

The predominant acknowledge is easy: Quarterback. A team goes as its quarterback goes.

The second acknowledge, though, would possibly perchance perchance also merely be various looking out on who you query. Some would possibly perchance perchance also jabber huge receiver, and others would possibly perchance perchance also lean in direction of cornerback or left kind out.

But one set apart community has taken on elevated significance within the closing half decade or so, which most attention-grabbing makes sense when enthusiastic about the upward thrust of the passing sport. The set apart must opponents invest their resources? In those that hunt the quarterback.

Now we discover seen these avid gamers -- defensive ends and out of doors linebackers, looking out on the defensive contrivance -- in actuality evolve into their very contain classification: edge rushers. They're accountable for wreaking havoc and sending future Hall of Famers residence empty handed within the game's biggest contests. Judge back to the 2015 marketing campaign, when Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware knocked Tom Brady out of kinds within the AFC Championship Sport. Or deem closing season, when the Patriots had Sam Darnold seeing ghosts.

They're effective. They topic. And they're no longer merely on the threshold of defenses (hi there, Aaron Donald).

So, who were the greatest disruptors of 2019?

Love we did in our earlier (and debate-challenging) pieces from this series, we're focusing on one Subsequent Gen Stat that offers us the acceptable indication of how effective a defender is on a per-scurry-speeding-down basis. The stat: Disruption Charge, which is the whole number of disruptions (the blended total of hurries, pressures or sacks, with most attention-grabbing one counting per play) divided by the whole number of scurry-hotfoot snaps.

In present to procure a tight steal of effectiveness over a substantial volume of scurry rushes, we quandary the baseline at 250 scurry hotfoot snaps. Of us who did no longer hotfoot the passer no longer lower than 250 cases in 2019 did no longer make the slash.

These are the greater of those that did.

Myles Garrett

Cleveland Browns · DE

Disruption rate: 18.5%. Sack rate: 3.5%. Total disruptions: 53. Sacks: 10.

Garrett performed in merely 10 games, as the indefinite suspension that resulted from his actions one day of Cleveland's Thursday night affair with Pittsburgh introduced his season to an conclude, however he had been performing to the level of a frail No. 1 total take dangle of until that point. Cleveland's scurry hotfoot suffered a drastic dropoff in effectiveness after his departure. The Browns had a 32.9 percent stress rate with Garrett on the field in 2019; with out him, that resolve dropped to 21.5 percent.

Garrett's disruption rate used to be the acceptable within the NFL. He registered a stress on 17.1 percent of dropbacks in 2019, which used to be the supreme share posted by a participant for the reason that 2016 season. He additionally changed into one of merely three avid gamers to publish a stress rate of 12 percent or bigger in every of the closing three seasons. The different two: Aaron Donald and Von Miller. With every Browns contest, there used to be a second or two in which a quarterback would hit the turf and there'd be most attention-grabbing one phrase to articulate in response: Myles.

Za'Darius Smith

Green Bay Packers · OLB

Disruption rate: 17.5%. Sack rate: 2.8%. Total disruptions: 84. Sacks: 13.5.

Smith's disruption total is bigger because, in half, he performed a beefy season, however his efficiency is practically on par with that of Garrett. Smith used to be the face of a turnaround for the Packers protection, offering instant returns on the profitable free-agent deal he inked closing offseason. He used to be a menace, pressuring the QB on 19.4 percent of scurry rushes when aligned on the inner. That rate used to be the supreme amongst all defenders speeding from the inner (minimum 100 inner scurry rushes), main second-set apart finisher Stephon Tuitt (14.1 percent) by bigger than 5 share aspects. Smith used to be second in total stress share at 14.8 percent, trailing most attention-grabbing Garrett. He and Packers DT Kenny Clark blended for 120 QB pressures closing season, doubtlessly the most by any teammate duo within the NFL.

Smith is formally within the class of the elite, and happily for him, he's being paid as such.

Robert Quinn

Dallas Cowboys · DE

Disruption rate: 17.2%. Sack rate: 3.3%. Total disruptions: 60. Sacks: 11.5.

Robert Quinn used to be smartly price the price Dallas paid to create him closing offseason, even when it used to be most attention-grabbing as a one-three hundred and sixty five days condo, and he's quandary to make the cash he deserves after signing a five-three hundred and sixty five days deal with the Chicago Bears in March. Quinn loved worthy success with the Cowboys while working opposite DeMarcus Lawrence, pressuring the QB on 14 percent of scurry rushes, the third-most attention-grabbing rate within the NFL (minimum 250 scurry rushes) in 2019. His ability to bend while affirming high-tail and energy around the threshold can be a nightmare for opposing tackles, and he'll doubtless abilities identical success as half of 1 other amazing tandem in Chicago in 2020. Quinn registered 49 QB pressures in 2019, which is the the same number his new Bears teammate Khalil Mack posted, however Quinn did it on 116 fewer scurry rushes. Peep out for that duo.

Gash Bosa

San Francisco 49ers · DE

Disruption rate: 16.4%. Sack rate: 2.1%. Total disruptions: 71. Sacks: 9.

By now, this chronicle. Bosa used to be the final share for a defensive line loaded with first-round abilities, which helped the 49ers reach the Unheard of Bowl. The Pro Bowl selectee and 2019 Defensive Rookie of the Year earned his accolades, racking up the fourth-most QB pressures within the NFL (60) while ending with a stress share of 13.9, which used to be additionally merely for fourth-most attention-grabbing within the league. Bosa is merely getting started, and boy, what a approach to launch a pro profession.

Josh Allen

Jacksonville Jaguars · LB

Disruption rate: 16.2%. Sack rate: 3.1%. Total disruptions: 54. Sacks: 10.5.

Oh, look! It be one other youngster! It be unrealistic to articulate Allen did no longer help from playing on a protection that additionally integrated Calais Campbell and Yannick Ngakoue, so 2020 figures to be a more difficult test for him, with Campbell now a Raven and Ngakoue, who has yet to set apart his franchise designate as of this writing, looking out out of town. Allen had rather a debut, though. Becoming a member of Bosa as a rookie Pro Bowl selectee, Allen feeble his athleticism and size to his help in 2019. His 10.5 sacks on 54 total disruptions areas him amongst a pair of of the acceptable rushers within the NFL, nonetheless it additionally sets him as a lot as receive extra consideration from offenses in 2020. We are going to ogle if he can help the the same high-tail.

Aaron Donald

Los Angeles Rams · DT

Disruption rate: 15.7%. Sack rate: 2.5%. Total disruptions: 90. Sacks: 12.5.

Sixth?! Aaron Donald is sixth on this checklist?! I'm in a position to hear it now and I understand your effort, so spare my Twitter mentions. Donald performed extra total snaps (882) than someone else on this checklist, so it is inevitable that his disruption rate is going to be somewhat decrease. We're ranking these avid gamers with disruption rate taking priority over everything else, in relate that's why he ranks within the bottom half. But it absolutely used to be additionally a shock to me when I started to pore over these stats following the conclusion of the customary season to ogle yet every other particular person (Za'Darius Smith) had in actuality registered extra disruptions than Donald, who most incessantly dominates that class on an annual basis. Donald is unruffled supremely effective, and his 267 QB pressures since 2016 are doubtlessly the most within the NFL in that span. His 69 QB pressures were second most within the NFL in 2019, and his stress share (13.5%) used to be the supreme amongst inner linemen with no longer lower than 300 scurry rushes (a key difference in baseline than that of Smith, who performed on the inner less usually than Donald). The five-time All-Pro is unruffled nice and an absolute nightmare to halt. Don't desire his ranking right here as me saying the rest less.

Shaquil Barrett

Tampa Bay Buccaneers · LB

Disruption rate: 15.4%. Sack rate: 3.8%. Total disruptions: 78. Sacks: 19.5.

Ah, sure, allow us to roll out the crimson (and pewter) carpet for the NFL's 2019 sack king. Barrett's ascension from afterthought in Denver to premier hunter of quarterbacks used to be amazing -- I indicate, he had 5.5 extra sacks in 16 games closing three hundred and sixty five days than he did in 61 games with the Broncos. His 78 total disruptions paint an image of a defender who used to be constantly inflicting complications for opposing offenses, and he capitalized on such opportunities extra most incessantly than someone else on this checklist, as evidenced by his sack total and sack rate. No shock Bruce Arians most incessantly assured the Buccaneers would get a approach to help him.

Love Donald, Barrett additionally performed a ton of snaps (836, including 508 scurry rushes), bringing his total disruption rate down a tad. That is a bunch it is probably going you'll perchance perchance study in two various systems, though -- a bigger sample size is virtually repeatedly going to bring a participant's success rate down, however conversely, extra scurry rushes skill extra opportunities. Appropriate a bit of food for thought before you procure to typing.

Dont'a Hightower

Fresh England Patriots · OLB

Disruption rate: 15%. Sack rate: 2.2%. Total disruptions: 38. Sacks: 5.5.

This is the purpose within the ranking the set apart we quietly shock whether or no longer the baseline would possibly perchance perchance also merely be a bit of too low (Hightower merely barely crosses the threshold with 253 scurry rushes), however most attention-grabbing because the Patriots linebacker is no longer most incessantly one of many predominant names that merely about mind when mulling scurry rushers. He's a disruptor, though, and a key share of a Fresh England protection that used to be traditionally effective within the predominant half of the 2019 season. Hightower leads your entire avid gamers on this checklist in tackles, with 71, and is fourth in stops (tackles that consequence in a successful play for the protection in conserving with yards to scurry by down), with 33, while additionally recording five hustle stops (defensive stops the set apart the participant covers 20-plus yards of in-play distance from snap to kind out). His scurry-speeding stats don't appear to be the gaudiest, however they're rather impressive when enthusiastic about his conventional starting up point on the field before every snap.

Adrian Clayborn

Atlanta Falcons · DE

Disruption rate: 14.5%. Sack rate: 1.4%. Total disruptions: 41. Sacks: 4.

Clayborn, who signed with the Browns this offseason, had extra sacks in one sport in 2017 than he had in all of 2019, however that most attention-grabbing illustrates how incomplete sacks are as a stat. Clayborn used to be an effective participant for the Falcons' protection closing three hundred and sixty five days by making the many of the scurry-speeding snaps he used to be afforded, recording 35 QB pressures on merely 282 scurry rushes. These pressures, plus his 24 hurries, comprise the backbone of his bigger disruption rate.

Seek, carry out I in actuality feel worthy about Clayborn making this checklist over guys love Chandler Jones, Joey Bosa or Cameron Heyward (to call a pair of)? Fully no longer. But his disruption rate wasn't some distance off from Myles Garrett's with a identical number of scurry rushes. The numbers say the chronicle right here. I'm merely the messenger.

Von Miller

Denver Broncos · OLB

Disruption rate: 14.4%. Sack rate: 1.9%. Total disruptions: 60. Sacks: 8.

Drastically surprised? We are too, a bit of. Miller posted his first single-digit sack season since 2013 and most attention-grabbing recorded 46 tackles. While no longer as dominant as he's been for noteworthy of his profession, Miller unruffled made an influence over the stretch of his 791 total defensive snaps in 2019. His 52 QB pressures were 29 bigger than the next closest Bronco (Derek Wolfe), proving the three-time All-Pro used to be unruffled the particular person in Denver. And it is an achievement for Miller, who turned 31 in March, to remain one of many league's most surroundings pleasant disruptors, posting a bigger rate than the likes of Joey Bosa (14.0%), DeMarcus Lawrence (13.9%), Yannick Ngakoue (13.8%) and T.J. Watt (13.4%). A closing show on Miller's success over the closing four seasons: His 235 QB pressures since 2016 lead all edge defenders and are second within the NFL most attention-grabbing to Aaron Donald. His QB stress rate one day of that identical span (14%) ranks No. 1 across the league (min. 1,000 scurry rushes).

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robertsiciliano1 · 6 years ago

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How Smart Speakers Are Exposing Cheaters!

Did you know your home’s smart speaker can land you a divorce? And quickly.

The nation’s top security consultants, including myself, agree that smart devices now contain enough of your personal information to know if you’re participating in a secret relationship.

Americans are becoming more concerned with the lack of privacy associated with “smart” devices (i.e. speakers, bulbs, locks, TVs…etc.). Data advisers employed by the U.S. government have recently warned that certain data (such as taped conversations, location data…etc.) could be used against owners by uncovering unfaithful behavior.

The popular “Amazon Echo”, “Apple HomePod” and “Google Home” speakers can all pick up steamy dirty-talk among the culprits of an affair. Also, they can show when lovers commingle in the same bedroom via features such as “Alexa Guard.”

Duke Professor Dr. Machanavajjhala was recently interviewed clarifying that “Smart meters can tell you whether an individual is at home and what appliances are used. Smart light bulbs and Wi-Fi access points can reveal occupancy. Social relationships between building occupants can be inferred by analyzing sensor logs. Smart TVs and voice assistants can pick up living room chatter, some of which may be shared with third parties.”

Smart speaker adoption is beginning to become a global norm just like smart phones – making home assistants a hot industry for the biggest companies like Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook who all produce their own versions.

But despite these devices selling rapidly, the mass public is not clear on what tech companies do with the data they collect. Companies trying to creep their way into your data is nothing new; recorded chats and locations will inevitably be used for research, stored in the cloud and used to help sell to you.

Dr. Machanavajjhala was open in admitting that he does not own a smart speaker because he is scared of them. He strongly feels speakers are a threat to his privacy. “I am waiting for privacy protections to come in. We need to know what is being collected about us, whether or not we have anything to hide,” he said.

According to TheSun.co.uk, when they asked the major companies about losing privacy with recorded conversations, Amazon was the only company who replied stating, “At Amazon customer trust is of the utmost importance, and we take privacy seriously. By default, Echo devices are designed to only capture audio after it detects the wake word. Only after the wake word is detected does audio get streamed to the cloud, and the stream closes immediately after Alexa processes a customer request. No audio is stored or saved on the device. Customers can also review and delete voice recordings in the Alexa App or by visiting www.Amazon.co.uk/privacy.” Google, Facebook and Apple did not comment.

One of the largest mysteries still today is who are they sharing our data with once it’s in the cloud? Dr. Machanavajjhala added, “Smart devices move data to the cloud so they can be analyzed using sophisticated algorithms. Once data is on the cloud, users lose control over it. There is little transparency about who it is shared with.”

One thing is for sure, you must stay up to date and informed because these companies are not slowing down.

“The Alexa service is always getting smarter, whether you’re using the Echo you bought three years ago or an Echo Show you buy tomorrow. We have thousands of engineers and scientists inventing on behalf of customers, and today we’re excited to introduce even more features…” – Tom Taylor, Senior Vice President, Amazon Alexa.

There will continue to be issues that we will face as a society when it comes to smart devices. For example, Amazon Echo had problems over holidays due to users accidentally logging into the smart phones of the individuals who gave the speakers as gifts. For the past 30 years, I have been warning that in the hands of the bad guy, your information can be used to steal money from your bank account or unlock smart locks to enter your home.

To learn more, please visit my education page complete with both paid and free content designed to help you stay safe.

Robert Siciliano personal security and identity theft expert and speaker is the author of Identity Theft Privacy: Security Protection and Fraud Prevention: Your Guide to Protecting Yourself from Identity Theft and Computer Fraud. See him knock’em dead in this Security Awareness Training video

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car-loanz · 6 years ago

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10 best Hollywood chase scenes you really must catch

Some of the most memorable scenes on screen involve chases. Pulse-quickening car pursuits with danger at every turn. Imperial troops on the tail of rebels and smugglers in a galaxy far, far away. Man vs. plane, with everything at stake. Whatever the scenario, they captivate us with elements of surprise, stress, sometimes comedy, and always top-notch action.

Here are 10 of the best chase scenes in Hollywood history for you to check out, and the fun trivia behind the epic entertainment.

Fast Five (2011)

The Fast and the Furious franchise is loaded with over-the-top car chases and “Fast Five” is no exception. In the finale, Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) are racing through downtown Rio de Janeiro in their modified Dodge Charger SRT-8s while being tailed by the Rio police. The catch? Attached to the cars is a vault that belongs to Rio’s biggest crime lord, Hernan Reyes.

Trivia

Some of the downtown Rio scenes in the chase were actually shot in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico.

More than 200 vehicles were destroyed by the vault during filming.

Six versions of the eight-foot high vault were created with specific uses – some for close-up shots, others to drag through the streets.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Though the whole movie is one big car chase, the finale takes the cake with Furiosa (Charlize Theron), Max (Tom Hardy) and the Vuvalini tribe driving back to Citadel and clashing with Immortan Joe and his armies. The scene features vamped-up cars and plenty of weapons as the two sides speed through canyons and desert, battling each other to the death.

Trivia

More than 80 percent of the effects in the film are real, practical effects, stunts, makeup and sets.

The older actresses playing the Vuvalini did their own stunts.

The film used three identical war rigs based on a Czech all-wheel-drive military vehicle.

The Dark Knight (2008)

The first showdown between the Joker (Heath Ledger) and Batman (Christian Bale) does not disappoint. This memorable scene shows the Joker and his clowns chasing down and attacking Harvey Dent’s (Aaron Eckhart) convoy, which inevitably lures Batman into the fray, on his übercool Batpod. What ensues is an epic ride through the dark, underground streets of Gotham City as Batman attempts to capture the villainous Joker.

Trivia

The Gotham City license plates were based on Illinois license plates.

One very pricy IMAX camera was destroyed while filming the chase scene. It was one of just four in the world at the time.

As filming took place in downtown Chicago, citizens called police to report that “police” were in pursuit of a dark vehicle of an unknown make and model.

Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Pursued by four TIE fighters, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and C-3PO enter the Hoth asteroid field trying to lose Imperial ships while simultaneously avoiding massive asteroids. Not the easiest feat, even for Han. Mixed with comedy and fast-flying action, it’s here that Han utters the famous line, “Never tell me the odds.”

Trivia

The Millennium Falcon model was made much lighter than in the previous film in order to have the ship move and turn more fluidly.

During the scene, a pilot briefly can be seen bailing out with a parachute after the TIE fighter is hit by an asteroid.

When the Millennium Falcon first enters the asteroid field, the third asteroid to appear in the top-left corner is actually a potato!

North by Northwest (1959)

One of the most iconic scenes in movie history is when Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is attacked by a crop duster plane, while waiting for a meeting with the mysterious Kaplan, at an isolated bus stop. Alfred Hitchcock’s camera angles create panic throughout the scene as Thornhill ducks and dives for his life.

Trivia

The crop duster chase scene featured a real airplane while the scene in which the plane crashes into the fuel truck included large models of both the truck and plane.

The crop duster scene was meant to take place in northern Indiana, but was shot on location on Garces Highway in Kern County, California.

This scene inspired the helicopter chase in the James Bond movie “From Russia with Love.”

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

In the third installment of the Bourne series we find Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), still tracking down his true identity, in a high-speed, adrenaline-pumping pursuit through the streets and homes of Tangier, Morocco. This time Bourne is after Operation Blackbriar asset Desh Bouksani, and prevents him from killing Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), who has been helping Bourne.

Trivia

While filming in Tangier, the crew had to close down the busiest square in the city for several hours.

The meeting place Nicky chooses in Tangier is Café de Paris, which was a popular spot for spies and emissaries back in the day.

Because Tangier is a very crowded city, the flow of people was hard to control and the actors had to push through a crowd of locals, not extras.

What’s Up, Doc? (1972)

They don’t make them like this anymore. The 11-minute chase is relatively slow-paced by today’s standards, but perfectly choreographed for comedy. It features the two protagonists, Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand) and Howard Bannister (Ryan O’Neal), stealing four suitcases and being pursued by multiple characters all wanting their possessions back. Starting on a delivery bicycle in downtown San Francisco, the duo take their lives in their hands as they ride through Chinatown, down the steep inclines of Lombard Street, and end up crashing a stolen Volkswagen Beetle in San Francisco Bay.

Trivia

The chase scene cost $1 million to shoot, took 19 days and required 32 stuntmen.

Shots of the floating Volkswagen Beetle were a parody of the vehicle’s ability to float on water, which was shown in advertisements at the time.

The comedic scene was a spoof of the 1968 movie “Bullitt.”

Point Break (1991)

When federal agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) goes deep undercover to find bank-robbing surfers he finds himself chasing leader of the pack Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), who’s wearing a Ronald Reagan mask, through a Southern California neighborhood. It’s a high-paced and enthralling foot chase.

Trivia

Keanu Reeves observed real FBI agents in Los Angeles to study for his role.

Director Kathryn Bigelow used a stripped-down, hand-held 35 mm camera nicknamed the “Pogo-Cam” to film the chase scene.

Patrick Swayze, who usually did his own stunts, did not do the stunts his character performs while wearing the Reagan mask – they were carried out by a stunt double.

The French Connection (1971)

Detectives Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) are on the hunt to intercept a massive drug shipment from France. Naturally, an awesome car chase follows. Popeye takes over a civilian’s car and goes after an elevated train, with the hit man aboard, through the streets of New York.

Trivia

Many of the near-collisions in the movie were real and unplanned since the chase scene was filmed without the proper city permits.

Gene Hackman did a lot of his own driving throughout the chase scene.

The most famous shot of the chase comes from a camera mounted on the car’s front bumper, giving a low-angle viewpoint.

Bullitt (1968)

For perhaps the best car chase scene of all time, “Bullitt” gives us a 10-minute pursuit, with unmistakable ‘60s cool, on the streets of San Francisco. Here, Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) is careering after criminals up and down busy roads in a green 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback GT. This full-throttle, tire-squealing scene became the inspiration for later Hollywood car chases.

Trivia

Steve McQueen made a point to keep his head near the open car window during the chase scene so audiences would know he was driving.

The car chase called for speeds of 75 to 80 mph but the cars actually topped speeds of 110 mph.

Filming the chase scene took three weeks and resulted in 10 minutes and 53 seconds of footage in the film.

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lookbackmachine · 7 years ago

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Episode 1 Transcript

Transcripts w/ Deleted Scenes: Episode 1

__ Opening

Paul: Joe once came into my office. I’ll never forget this did I tell you this story already? And he came into my office one day looking like this, he marched into my office like this, and he had these two framed photographs and he put one on my table like this, and I said what’s that and he said it’s a picture of Ullyses s grant. Didn’t I tell you this? And then he said here’s my picture that going on my desk, and it was a picture of General Sherman.

Joe: And I said, and I went to this thing and I said Paul, I know you’re upset and he was like I’m just so upset and I said but let’s look at this differently, let’s look at this as you’re Grant and I’ll be Sherman, let’s march through Georgia, let’s just go.

Paul: And he said we are going to burn a path through disney, that’s what we’re gonna do. You’re Sherman, You’re Grant and I’m Sherman and we are going to march through Disney.

Joe: And Paul he just had this, he just slowly smiled and he said yeah that could be kinda fun if we think of it, and I said yea.

Paul: And I knew just what he meant… No mercy.

As strange as it may seem, “No Mercy” became one of the guiding principles of a saturday morning cartoon show. Those are the voices Paul Germain and Joe Ansolabehere and that strategy stems from earlier in their careers when both men had lost battles for creative control and artistic credit, which in turn left major scars. They were jointly determined not to let it happen again.

So in 1996 when they were developing their new show Recess, they implemented the tactics of William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea. Sherman is best remembered for making Georgia Howl during the civil war by burning homes, destroying rail lines, and stealing supplies, a strategic brutality in efforts to end the war with the South as quickly as possible.

In Paul and Joe’s adaptation of this “hard war” policy, this meant contesting every single creative battle with such vigor that the studio would eventually see the futility of arguing with them and simply let them have their way. And so Paul and Joe fought about content, animation style, music, and Jim Neighbors which is to say just about everything.

Joe: It got to the point, where he they would be saying, we’d call BLEEP and say we need something. And they’d say BLEEP’s really busy. He’s in the middle of something. Tell him we’re coming down. And we would get down there and he’d be already gone like he’d be gone for the day like he didn’t want to see us. So we would be like Don’t Tell him. We’d call up and say is Tom down there? ‘Ummm yea I don’t think he’s here right now. And we go now’s the time to go.

And we’d run down there and say BLEEP we need more of this and he was like uuhhh and we would double team him so he couldn’t get out of the office and stuff like that.

Their adversary was a company that historically, had ignored, usurped or minimized creative efforts of anyone other than the figurehead Walt Disney. A practice which continued even after his death.

And yet Paul and Joe’s scorched earth policy worked, Recess has the look and feel of a show that couldn’t be further from the usual Disney fare. Instead it would be more in line with the new Hollywood filmmaking of the 1970s complete with its staunchly liberal politics including episodes about gender identity, peaceful protest and the falsehoods of religion.

Joe: I had a dream, well not a dream but one of those things when you wake up in the middle of the night and write something down. I just wrote the recess gang. And I called paul and I said I got an idea it’s called the recess gang. And Paul said uhh I don’t like gang, let’s just call it Recess and I said ok. But I just, even that night I remember thiking, it’s a group of kids all looking at camera going “fuck this.” And it’s silly to think back on it now in a way, but we saw this as where the 70s filmmaking, where you could still do some of that stuff. We saw these shows as growing out of things like Taxi or Mary Tyler Moore or you know Harold and Maude or something like that those kinda great comedies that we liked that had meaning, and were really funny as character comedies.

Paul: What Joe and I have always said about Recess and he’s going to confirm this right now, is that it’s for better or worse, whatever you like about it whatever you don’t like about it. It’s our show. We did it the way we wanted to. And we feel, it’s one of the few things we can look back on and say, it’s purely us, whatever people, you know there’s nobody to blame and there’s nobody else to take the credit, whatever it is, it was us.

The show was a it was hit. Recess took ABC’s Saturday Morning line-up from last to first, which led to an animated feature release in 2001. The movie took the subtle leftist ideas of the television show and went full-blown hippy. To put it simply: Robert Goulet sings Green Tamborine over the credits.

Paul and Joe had indeed burned a path through Disney, but something else happened when they reached the sea. In the long run, by fighting to put their personal stamp on Recess and making it their way, the show is consistent with Paul and Joe’s aesthetics, but not their patron’s.

It does not look like a Disney show, it does not sound like a Disney show, and although Walt’s name is on it, it is not Disney canon and never could be, it is only Disney in name. It is likewise dismissed from Disney history. In fact, it’s been buried. Even in a time with an abundance of content services and despite its proven track record, the Recess television series is not available on DVD, it is not on iTunes, and it is not available for legal streaming in the US. Instead it is in the Disney Vault and may remain there for the foreseeable future.

That is not to say it is too controversial or too progressive or that this is the show that Disney doesn’t want the public to see. It’s a far greater likelihood that Recess was incompatible with what Disney was then and what Disney is now. The show was not even of its own time period, Paul and Joe created a cartoon steeped in 70s filmmaking in 1996. A style, which was dashed on the blockbuster rocks of Jaws and Star Wars by the end of the 70s. And in the 21st century, Disney would further the doctrine of the big Blockbuster with not only sequels, but linking franchises with crossovers in the massive and the massively profitable Marvel Universe. Recess at the time was a small show and with time it has only gotten smaller in the vast sea of the Disney library.

So how did this little oddity get made in the first place? The asnwer is it was a different time, and time is everything.

Paul: There are these little pockets of time that happen, that you can fall into, that you can jump into if you’re lucky enough or if you’re wise enough to see them, you can find yourself in them and all kinds of amazing things happen.

This is the story of Created by Paul and Joe.

The Early Life

Some people have pictures of their wives on their desk, their kids, a dog perhaps, rarely are those photos next to civil generals, but the more you get to know Paul and Joe, the more Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman desk portraits make sense or were perhaps inevitable.

Paul Germain is bearded and bespectled-- he looks as if he played a pivotal role in developing the first Macintosh. Paul was described in a New Yorker article back in 1993 as “rather intense,” which is a fantastic description if you scratch out the word rather. Take a listen to the ferocity of which he tells stories that are over 20 years old:

Paul: and the first time I did it, Robert Goulet walks in the room and he’s a little tiny short guy. So I went to Vegas and walked in the door and said the joke is you’re going to sing you’re really oging to sing this with heart it’s like you’re singing Mozart, and he goes, I say it’s like an opera, like Mozart, and he goes, “Mozart didn’t do Opera.!” You don’t know what you’re talking about! And it was so scary because you know cause it’s Robert Goulet! But he calmed down after a minute and then we did it. And it was great! It was so much fun!

During his interviews, Paul would ask for a break at about an hour in. During his break, Paul wouldn’t use the restroom or ask for water, instead he’d keep on talking and then eventually ask if I wanted to record what he’d been saying.Did you just want to record this?

The point is Paul Germain does not take breaks. He is John Henry and life is the steam drill.

Paul: When I was on and I was producing… I was, I just I was like a storm like passing through I’d talk really fast and my level of energy is really really high, and I know what I want and sometimes people are just, I just leave the room and they go… “wooo, woah.”

And yet despite his fierceness, he and his stories can take a surprisingly reflective and emotional turn:

Paul: It was a period where I was learning to find my you know, to find myself as a producer and how it worked and what I could fight for. And I was reluctant to take people on, I’m much less reluctant to take people on than I was in those days. And it’s hurt me and the degree to which- it’s hurt me- it hurt me in those days tremendously- that I wasn’t able to- I wasn’t brave enough, I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t sure of myself enough in those days, and one of the ways I wasn’t was in defending him.

And of course, It would be remiss not mention his infectious laugh:

Paul: Hahaha, that’s right I forgot, I thought that was brilliant.

His partner in crime is Joe Ansolabehere. Joe has a white head of hair and is as deepingly engrossed in thought as any of the students in Rapheal’s school of athens . He is a talker and there are signs it has gotten him in trouble now and again:

“And again I don’t know how much of this stuff is important or how much Paul would want to be told, but-”

And Again

Joe: Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, you’re asking me, I’m telling you”

And Again.

Joe:“I’m going to get in a lot of trouble saying this stuff, but that’s what it feels like anyway

And again

Joe: “You know, anyway that’s it, I don’t want to say anything more about it, but I’ve probably said too much”

And again

Joe: “You’re asking me something, that we should probably cut the this whole thing out, but now I’ve said it, I’ve let it out of the bag”

And again

Joe: “You’re asking a question that really gets to some stuff that I almost don’t want to say cause it’s---but I’m going to.”

Joe has the energy of a protestor who maybe lost some of his idealism after one too many bouts with the man. There are times when he is remininscent of one of his own characters in Recess Principal Prickly, who lost the passion he used to have for his field, and is waiting for inspiration to take hold again:

Joe: If I were fighting for something that was-- something that was about characters, who I thoguht were really interesting or a world that I thought was really interesting, or a thematic thing that I thought was really interesting and subtle-- that was an extension of that 70s filmmaking , I’d think I could probably go back there and fight...hopefully. But when you’re fighting about the kid who lives in outer space and rides a surfboard around or whatever it’s like if they want it to be different then I don’t care, which is not necessarily the way to make something in this world. , you know if you really want to like make something good. You have to really be that passionate about something I think.

However, it’s essential to remember that it was Joe, who stormed into Paul’s office with headshots of Grant and Sherman all those years ago, and not the other way around. He once had an intensity that rivaled Paul’s and at times exceeded it:

Joe: I remember getting really angry, and all the writers were in the room and I was getting angry and I was kinda yelling at somebody on the phone and I pulled the phone, and I was like ‘Goddamn it!” And I pulled the phone out and I just threw it across the room. And I was like so mad.

And intensity that even scared Paul Germain:

Paul: I said, ‘Joe, you know you just destroyed your phone.’ And he goes, ‘I know.’

They are a self-admitted married couple. And they do all the cute things that old married couples do:

They interrupt each other:

Paul: That was at the very end of 1995, we thought it was-

Joe: I thought it was the beginning-

Paul: We thought it was going to go-

Joe: Cause there was, we were doing it over Christmas and into January

Paul: Were we?

Joe: So we kinda had a sense that- that it might not happen-

Paul: Yeah, it did, it felt like it wasn’t going to happen-

Joe: but it was like

Paul: You could feel when these things are going south, when like you go the executives aren’t enthusiastic about it, you can just feel that it’s not going to happen

Joe: They were happy, and now they’re not-

Paul: They were happy now they’re not- that happens. Ok so-

They protect each other:

Paul: Yeah, there’s one famous meeting-

Joe: Don’t use names.

Joe: I’ll tell you a secret about Paul, mind if I do?

Paul: I don’t know what it is…

They try to remember names of friends together:

Joe: It was Joe Roth?

Paul: No, no, nah- it was… it was...Joe he was gone- it was uh, what’s his name?You know. You know the guy-

JOe: TOm?

Paul: No. It was before Tom. I can’t think of his name. Anyway doesn’t matter.Um.. it’s that even in the movie it didn’t really affect us that much-

Joe: Peter Schneider?

Paul: Yeah.

Joe: Peter Schneider.

Paul: Don’t you remember? Yeah he saw it and he wasn’t that thrilled with it, he didn’t like the 60s music. Don’t you remember that?

Joe: I don’t know.

And like most older couples they try to remember if someone is still living:

Joe: So one of the things, we got this great guy named um...what was his name again? It was…

Paul: John…?

Joe: John

Paul: I can’t think of his last name, he died,

Joe: I want to say--- no he didn’t, I don’t think so.

And there’s also the occasional moment when their voices become one:

Joe: Joe and Paul

Paul: Joe and Paul

Joe and Paul: Paul and Joe

Joe and Paul: Hahaha.

Together their pace is manic, they feed off each other in a symbiotic relationship, pushing each other to new heights. The best way to think of it is if you put an object between two mirrors, the mirrors bounce the object’s reflection back and forth back and forth until the end of time, that’s what Paul and Joe do with a question. When the partnership is clicking they’re two giddy cops on the verge of solving a 20 year old cold case.

That’s the relationship of Paul and Joe in 2017, but their their journeys to Hollywood and Grant and Sherman began all the way back in the 1950s.

Joe: You know, I don’t know if he told you this, but his parents---he’s raised Communist basically. His parents were communists.

It would be difficult to start anywhere else than that quote by Joe. It’s the best quote. Joe’s words fill the mind with scenes of Paul’s parents singing communist lullabies over his crib with a mobile of hammers and sickles above his infant head and a stuffed Karl Marx doll held close to his chest. Joe’s quote is short, it’s powerful, it’s bold, and it’s funny. If it had been Paul was raised Catholic or Mormon or Republican, it’s not nearly as potent. Not only that, it’s a quote if said in the 1950s would’ve ended Paul’s career. The only problem with the quote is it doesn’t happen to be entirely true:

Paul: HA! You know that’s an exaggeration, I was raised in a pretty left wing family.”

Throughout their story, there will be many competing narratives, misinformation, and misremebering, over-exaggeration as in this case and sometimes flat-out lies. It calls to mind, Pliny the Younger who wrote letters to Cornelius Tacitus detailing Mount Vesuvius’ Eruption which destroyed the city of Pompeii in the year 79. This is the only account of that event from an eyewitness in history. In effect, Pliny’s version is the oral history of Pompeii’s Destruction. One guy, one story. As far as we know, he was first to tell the story, he was the last to tell the story, but had there been another eye witness whose letters had survived to the modern age, rest assured that they would say Pliny the Younger was full of crap.

So enjoy these stories that these people remember to be true, but beware of the great quote because no matter how flashy, it does not tell the whole story, but the danger is it can be the only thing people remember, especially if it has the great fortune of being said first.

And so Paul was raised “Not exactly” communist.His grandfather, Simon Lazarus was a different story entirely.

Paul: My grandfather was a Stalinist. He wasn’t a communist, but he was a Stalinist. And he would get angry when people would criticize Stalin. And this is in the 1980s, when The Soviet Union, itself had condemned him 25 or 30 years before.

To understand paul germain, you must understand simon lazarus, and to do that a little history is required.

Paul’s name comes from his grandfather’s story, which can’t be understood without a brief history of the blacklist, HUAC, and Stalin. (Important because that name Paul is actually a reference to the Blacklist Created by Paul and Joe. The credit here, not on purpose, is a call to the past, a time where names were names were ruined and writers had to work under names that were not their own and they did not receive credit, and somehow I think that makes created by Paul and Joe a little bit more important. And that Credit shares a title card with someone who was in favor of the blacklist)

Communism was birthed by the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Marx, if you will remember was referenced as a stuffed doll in Paul’s crib, he was also one of the most influential political thinkers in modern times as was Engels. In a nutshell, the communist Manifesto is this: the rich exploit the working class and own the means of production (factories,material, wealth), and it was these political philosophers belief that the working class should start a revolution to overthrow the wealthy and create a world in which man works for man, the means of production are publicly owned, and the exploitation of the working class stops, which in theory is a utopian, but when it was put into practice it became distorted.

[Sounds Like I’m yelling this A revolution in the spirit of communism would take place in Russia. And one its first leader had all the inspiration he needed from the gallows. After Alexander Ulyanov as part of the People’s Will was arrested for plotting to kill Alexander III Czar of Russia. He was publicly hanged, his last words were “Long live the People’s Will.” His brother was there to watch him die and from that day forth he set upon vengeance against the Romanovs. His name was Vladimir Illyuch Ullanov, or as he would later be known Vladimir Lenin. There were a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, starting in February, the first forced the Russian Czar to abdicate his thrown, then the revolutionaries then established their own provisional government. Vladimir Lenin was not a key figure in the original revolution, in fact he was in exile, but when he returned he helped overthrow the provisional government with the Bloshevik Red Army. Lenin would stay in power until his death, but in his Last Testament he gave a foreboding warning about one of his potential successors, Josef Stalin “Man of Steel.”

He wrote:

Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.

In the Post Script, he added another caveat to Stalin’s rule.

Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.

Too rude seems like an odd criticism of a potential Soviet Leader to make in one’s last testament, but it emanates from an incident when Stalin cussed out Lenin’s wife, which is an important lesson for everyone: don’t cuss out someone’s wife and grudges will be held.

The letter did not stop Stalin’s rise to power, Stalin positioned himself as the Supreme Ruler, after several political alliances and betrayals, including forcing his chief rival Leon Trotsky from the Soviet Union in 1929. Trotsky continued to critique Stalin’s government until 1940 when Trotsky was in Mexico, it was there that a soviet agent, Ramon Mercader, murdered Trotsky by using a moutaineering ice axe on his head.

Stalin’s early days with the Bolshevik party included running their newspaper the Pravda and organizing a 4 million dollar bank heist to support the Bolshevik cause in 1907. Once Stalin was in power his rule was characterized by surveillance and a purge known as The Great Terror, which lasted from 1936 to 1938.It is estimated that 13 million lives were taken during Stalin’s Purges.

In light of this, Stalin’s words concerning mass death are especially chilling.

He was once asked how long he would continue killing people? He replied as long as is necessary. This was at a party.

And then there is his most famous quote which in popular culture has overshadowed his actual actions. This was when he said, “ The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” Perhaps Stalin was attempting to be funny, after all he was quoting German Satirist Kurt Tucholsky. However when he made the retort, he was being told about starvation in the Ukraine.

Stalin was the leader of USSR during the beginning of the Cold War a term coined by writer George Orwell. Cold war politics was defined by international clashes as the US tried to stop the spread of communism and the Soviet Union tried to stop the spread of Western and American influence.The Cold War politics would result in the Korean War, The Vietnam War, The Space Race, The Bay of Pigs, and the war at home McCarthyism, and the Nuclear Arms Race.

There was hysteria that the Russians were going to launch a nuclear strike at the US and in turn the US would fire back leading to mutually assured destruction,this wasn’t far from the truth, in fact there were numerous close calls to nuclear war with even the slighest provocation, like the incident of a bear climbing a fence at a base in Duluth Minnesota which set off the wrong alarms during the Cuban Missile Crisis almost resulting in friendly nuclear fire.

The USSR was a legitimate threat, but it’s the American response to that threat at home which included disregarding Constitutional rights of its citizens that made America its own enemy. There was a fear that AMERICAN leftist groups and AMERICAN communists were planning tolead to a revolution like the one seen in Russia, right leaning groups claimed that the New Deal was more than enough evidence.

In 1938, Martin Dies a Republican Senator persuaded Congress to form HUAC, House UnAmerican Activities Comission. Intially, its objective was to ferret out subversives in the country, Communist or otherwise. Over the years, that goal would transform, and committee would turn into a red-baiting witch hunt.

Not only was it anti-communist, but had strong undercurrents of anti-semitism- ten of the first 19 people called before the committee were jewish. If a person had changed their name Actors that a jewish name to a waspier name, the more likely they were to be suspected of communist connections, like Edward G. Robinson and Danny Kaye.

First Amendment rights were spurned by the committee, Communist beliefs and political affiliation were seen as designs to overthrow the government or at the very least espionage. Stalin’s Communism had tainted the political ideology and as tensions with the USSR grew so did the Committee’s reach. PAUSE HUAC re-record took Hollywood by storm in 1947 when 41 people from the industry were called to testify. The committee was welcomed to Tinseltown with forced open arms by Jewish studio heads, who feared being labeled red or even pink.

It was a period of enhanced self preservation in Hollywood, judging by the answers to the question Have you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party? The responses varied from renouncing the party to claiming allegiance to the United States or naming names of people they knew to be communist, whatever their answer because the committee didn’t need the information, they had their suspects, but the groveling and squealing before the committee was a public demonstration of strength in fighting the communist menace.

However, the Hollywood 10 broke from normal proceedings. A group of writers, producers, and directors refused to name names when called before HUAC or dignify the committee by answering its questions and they were sentenced to prison for contempt of congress. After their release from prison they were forced to write underneath false names because Hollywood studios, despite knowing their talent, refused to hire them out of panic that the American people would boycott their movies if they did killing their profits and potentially their lives. The writers were forced to take lesser salaries and get zero credit for their writing, if they didn’t they’d be out of work entirely.The blacklist had begun.

In 1954, with the blacklist still in effect, Director Herbert Bieberman, one of the Hollywood 10, and a crew full of blacklisted or greylist members would make the film Salt of The Earth. The film was funded by IPC, Independent Production Company, whose President invested 5,000 dollars of his own money in the film. His name was Simon Lazarus. The film had to be made outside of Hollywood because many Hollywood elites, newspapers, and studios feared it was Communist Propaganda funded by Moscow Gold. They did everything within their power to stop the film from being released, including the deportation of one of the films leads and firing rifles at a crewman’s automobiles.

Another tactic, was to bring Simon Lazarus before HUAC, but it backfired, Lazarus was of course steadfast in his beliefs and he went on to tell the committee exactly what he thought:

““A Motion picture is a most public document,” he said. “ It is meant for the public and the public has its constitutional rights and its human rights to receive it or reject it. To interfere with this honored American process is not merely unconstitutional, but is an insult to the intelligence and patriotism of the people themselves. Pause too long I will not join in any attack on upon the competence and intelligence and patriotism of the american people.”

The film was released, but had little success stemming from the litany of attacks. On June 27th 1956, when the IPC filed a lawsuit, the headline in Variety read: “Salt of the Earth Owners V Everybody” because a total of 65 film, theater, laboratories and 16 individuals were defendants, sued for anti-trust damages of 7 and a half million dollars.

Even before his testimony, Lazarus was being watched by the FBI beginning in 1951. The Bureau would turn up the pressure by placing neighbors on the payroll to provide information about the man next door, the family gardener was pressed for secrets, the spying resulted in over hundreds of pages of notes until 1973, when it was finally called off and they found nothing.

Simon Lazarus’ connection with the blacklist ran even deeper. One of his best friends was Paul Robeson.

Paul Robeson: (singing) “I get weary and sick of trying, I’m tired of living and scared of dying, but Old Man River, he just keeps rolling along.”

Yes, that Paul Robeson.

Old Man River was the song that made Robeson famous, but eventually he’d be labeled as the “Black Stalin”, which is probably why Lazarus liked him so much. The process by which he fell from fame to American villany began with a quote at the Paris Peace Conference in 1949.

Robeson: “It is unthinkable that American Negros would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against the Soviet Union which in one generation has lifted our people to full human dignity.”

This was speech as it was reported by the Associated Press was taken as verbal treason by the American Public.It is the best quote, but it’s not exactly true. The New York Times’ and other publications’ recounted the event differently:

”We in America do not forget that it is on the backs of the poor whites of Europe…and on the backs of millions of black people the wealth of America has been acquired. And we are resolved that it shall be distributed in an equitable manner among all of our children and we don’t want any hysterical stupidity about our participating in a war against anybody, no matter whom. We are determined to fight for peace. We do not wish to fight the Soviet Union. ”

The Times’ version of events has Robeson calling for peace rather than touting the Soviet Union as morally superior to the US. However, Robeson still acknowledges the plight of African Americans in The United States. It would take another 15 years from the time of the quote for segreagtion to be outlawed with the civil rights act of 1964. Robeson was an outspoken African-American with communist tendecies at a time when African Americans were often prevented from expressing their opinions even within the privacy of a voting booth. The AP isn’t directly to blame for his fall, it was an American society that actively sought to disenfranchise a portion of its citizens and was incapable of accepting anything contrary to America being the greatest country on earth. That is to say, Robeson never had a chance, he was an African American, which was one nail in his coffin in the 40s and 50s, the second nail was that Robeson wasn’t shy about his affinity for Russia he did after all record this in 1945:

Robeson: (singing)

We fought for the future, destroyed the invaders,

And brought to our homeland the laurels of fame.

Our glory will live in the memory of nations

And all generations will honour her name.

Long live our Soviet motherland,

Built by the people's mighty hand.

Long live our people, united and free.

Strong in our friendship tried by fire.

Long may our crimson flag inspire,

Shining in glory for all men to see.

When he recorded that tune the United States and the USSR were allies, but in 1949 they were were not and in that year the USSR dedicated a mountain to him outside of Kirghizia aptly named Mount Robeson. So when HUAC was looking for Communists in Hollywood, Robeson was not a bad place to start. When he was called before the committee, he was courageous and stood by his beliefs. In his testimony he stated: “You gentlemen belong with the Alien and Sedition Acts, and you are the non-patriots, and you are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

Robeson was of course blacklisted after the impassioned speech. In his fall from grace, His yearly earnings went from $150,000 to less than $3,000. He became a Phariah, a leper abandoned by both black and white culture, it went so far that recordings of his work were erased. And yet He was more than welcomed at the Lazarus’ household and allowed to bring guests.

Paul: My mom told me a story recently that I had never heard before. That Paul Robeson came out to Los Angeles at one point. And he would do this, he would come out to Los Angeles and stay with my grandparents. And I think my Mom told me just recently, that he was with this writer that she had never heard of or something. She was introduced to this writer and his name was Langston Hughes. Ok? (laughs) So it was Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson came out and my grandmother had only that Paul Robeson was coming, but he brought Langston Hughes and maybe other people and my grandmother who was gonna make dinner for everybody wasn’t prepared for that many people, so they had to go out to dinner right? And they decided to go Chasen’s. It was a big fancy, you know Hollywood restaurant that people went to. Chasen’s wouldn’t let Paul Robeson or Langston Hughes in cause they were black. So they wouldn’t let them into the restaurant, so they had to go someplace else to eat.

Their unique friendship continued throughout the tumultous years of the blacklist and on June 6th 1959, Simon Lazarus’ daughter now a Germain, gave birth to a young boy and named him Paul after Mr. Robeson. A little more than a year later, the blacklist would be broken after Dalton Trumbo’s name was officially recognized on the films Exodus and Spartacus.

Musical transition

Paul: I was born here in Los Angeles, in Hollywood as a matter of fact and I grew up in Los Angeles, but then when I was about 10 years old my family moved to San Diego for about 6 years. So from about 5th grade to half way through 11th grade I lived in San Diego. And then we moved back to Los Angeles and I graduated from high school at Taft High in the Valley. My family never stayed in a house longer than about 6 years, that house in San Diego was the longest we ever spent in one house when I was growing up. We were just moving all the time. Sometimes one year, two years, three years we’d stay in a house and then move. It’s kinda nutty. You know like some families move because dad’s in the military or something like that, my family moved because kinda a strange relationship between my parents and my grandparents. And so my parents were always kinda moving because they were angry at my grandparents and they moved away and then they moved back, kinda nutty, but that’s the story. My dad was a high school teacher at Uni High here in Los Angeles and he retired in 1969 and after that he managed property for my grandfather, his father in law. He owned a bunch of theaters in Los Angeles in the 1930s and was pretty well off by the 1950s, he didn’t own any theaters then he sold them all off in the 1950s before I was born and then he invested in property and my father kinda managed the property that he had and they didn’t get along. I was kinda interested in animation when I was younger when I was a teenager and I remember that they used to show Eastern European films on the local PBS station in San Diego and I kinda loved those crazy Eastern European kinda grungy animated movies from that period. I just remember thinking oh, those are kinda cool, they’re not nicey-nice, you know? Like you think of Disney animated movies and they’re all kind of sweet and nice and all the characters have way big eyes and their kinda sentamental, not my thing, right? The Eastern European stuff was ugly and kinda mean and grungy and funny and kinda you know, black humor kinda stuff and that really appealed to me. But animation was never a particular interest of mine, I’m not fond of Disney animated movies they were never my thing, it just wasn’t an interest of mine, animation in general wasn’t that much of an interest of mine, I was more interested in Live-Action stuff.

Yeah I watched all that stuff we watched cartoons on Saturday Morning, everybody did in my generation and I liked them fine, but it wasn’t something I ever had any big ambition to be involved in. I was interested in movies, I wanted to make movies, that’s what interested me. I mean you know live action movies. I love the great films of the 70s you know The Godfather, Chinatown, I could go on and on, there were so many. My favorite film back when I was younger was The Third Man the Orson Welles film. I was into- I loved the Apartment, I loved Billy Wilder, I just loved you know kinda gritty more realistic stuff, and was really interested in storytelling and using movies to tell stories.

His writing partner, Joe Ansolabehere was born 12 days after Paul on June 18, 1959. Joe also comes from a very left place, but still marvels at Paul’s family history. He’s like a childhood friend that thinks your family is so cool because you eat dinner with the television on.

Joe: Paul is named Paul because of Paul Robeson, do you know Paul Robeson? And that was a family friend, so it was like he was really communist. His grandfather was an out and out communist. So anyway Paul was raised in the middle of all that. And I was just raised by a liberal guy, you know liberal parents, so...My dad was from Bakersfield and when he was a kid he kinda ran away, not ran away, but he kinda wanted to get away from Bakersfield and he was raised in the ‘30s, it was like so to him it was like I always call him a Steinbeck liberal, you know, because he was trying to, he saw the books being burned, you know, he saw the Grapes of Wrath being burned on the street. So he was always like a liberal, but and you know it was the 60s and he was interested in the Vietnam War and all this kinda stuff so when I was a kid we used to move around a lot. My dad was a school teacher and then he then he wanted something more I guess. So we came out here in the Summer of 65’ We came down here for the Watts Riots, basically. Then we went to Detroit for the riots, and then we went to Champagne Illinois---just missed the Kent State riots. We were just looking for wherever the politics was happening, he was actually just getting higher educated, getting masters degree and PHD and stuff. So eventually, we ended up going back to Sacramento and moving to Reno Nevada, which is where I was living. It was kinda odd, it was a very liberal time so all of us kinda have that liberal politics.

His family history is not rich with Hollywood tales, spies, or the FBI, so there’s only a couple of things to remember about Joe’s childhood:

I have a bad thing in my family of quitting jobs, you know, I’m the guy, my dad was kinda a bit of a job quitter and I’m a bit of a job quitter too, you know, where I’ll just say “Enough!” Either you do it this way or I’m going to quit! And then eventually people won’t do it your way, and then you’re just like I’m quitting then!

In my family, Paul and I have both have the same thing, we’re very loud, um, Paul and I both the oldest, did he tell you this? We’re both the oldest of all boys so there were 5 boys in my family and 4 boys in his family. And yelling and screaming and hitting is kinda how you say stuff to each other you know?

Joe: I always wrote. I mean that was the other thing that was happening when I was getting my, when I was loving history, I was also doing really well in English and I was writing short stories and stuff. I think I always had it in my head that I was going to be doing something with movies or something. So when I was in high school, I remember saying I wanted to write a screenplay, which I didn’t even know what one was. This is like the 70s, and it wasn’t like the days where everybody was writing a screenplay, but I just how do you do that? And my teacher said well, I’ll get you a screenplay and she got me a screenplay, I had no idea what I was doing, and I tried to write a screenplay and it was really bad. She gave me High Noon, which is not necessarily the best thing to give- well it’s a fine thing to give a kid, but you know, even in the 70s that was written in the 50s. And the writing had changed already at that point so much because of William Goldman and all these guys, they just wrote differently then those old screenplays. I don’t know if you’ve ever read any old screenplays, but they’re really detailed and really long and every shot is described then you get to William Goldman and it’s like dashes, you know. It was really--- so that’s just not how people were writing screenplays by I got down here. It’s a complicated story, so I was always going to be like a high school teacher or something, I always loved history, which I think is just, when you’re in school and you like stories that’s a place to go. So I loved all these histories, Rome and all that kinda stuff. And when I was a kid, when I was in high school, there was a guy named Fred Horrlacker who was a history teacher, he taught Nevada history and he would take us around to the ghost towns and stuff and tell stories around the campfire and my uncle was a big story teller and my grandfather was a big storyteller, so I always knew I wanted to have something to do with storytelling, but I think when I was in highschool I thought you know history, I’ll be a history teacher.

Joe and Paul often see their lives in terms of film. Like their television shows, their personal stories take on a cinematic quality, especially the events that altered the course of their lives. There are two events that shaped Joe, the first positions him as a Benjamin Braddox character drifting in the wind.

Joe: So I was going to the University of Nevada to be a history teacher, but I could never get film out of my mind, you know I just loved films. This one night, there was this film class, I just always remember there was this film class that I took over and over, a guy by the name of Howard Rosenberg, who not the famous critic down here, but there was a critic up there in Reno and he always taught this film class and I took every film class over and over Hitchcock, horror films, whatever. And I kept taking the class over and over, and he finally said ‘You can’t take the class anymore’ I was like ‘Yea, but there’s always new movies, I want to watch movies.’ He was like you can’t, but I would still go to the class, you know and I had a lot of friends in the class so this one night. I guess it was my, between my junior and senior year, well two things happened. I’ll finish this story first, so I went this one night to class, and bunch of friends, my friends were in the class, but they were taking a final and I, so I went outside and I was sitting on the steps and this woman walked up the steps and she was probably about 40, but i thought this is an older woman, but she was really beautiful, you know blonde woman and she went in and she looked in the class and she came out and she was pacing around like she was waiting for somebody from the class.

And I said, ‘Oh, they’re taking a final, it’ll be awhile.”

And she goes, ‘Ohh.’ And she was kinda pacing around and she said, ‘So what are you doing here?’

And I said, ‘I’m waiting for my friend.’

But she said, ‘What are you doing here? In Reno?’

And I said ‘Ummm, well I’m a history major, ‘

So she said, ‘What do you want to be?’ or something like that.

And I said, ‘I want to be a filmmaker.’ And it was the first time I had ever said it out loud.

And she said, ‘Well, what are you doing here then? You should be at USC or UCLA.”

And I thought, ‘I should, shouldn’t I?’ It was the first time it had ever crossed my mind. I just didn’t- it had never, I had never spoken it out loud, I don’t know why I said it to this woman. I don’t know who she was. I just thought ‘ I’m going to apply for film school and I did, it was that or become a, get my masters degree in history from the University of Nevada. I don’t know who she was, you know how people like say things like that and all of a sudden that changes your whole life. Something somebody says or something, just how somebody looks at you or whatever, you know, so yeah.

And then there are other the events that are abrupt and life-changing in a way that is unspeakable that films can never quite capture.

Joe: And then some other things happened, I had a brother who died around that time in a car accident, who I really loved and um- and I think all these things sort of conspired to make me think that I didn’t want to waste my life, you know that everyday is precious and I wanted to do what I want to do. Um- so anyway.

And so Paul and Joe were now at UCLA.

The UCLA film program had the newly acquired distinction of being the alma mater of Francis Ford Coppola. The director had quickly come to fame in the 1970s by directing The Godfather, Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now while having directed Tonight for Sure in 1962 a softcore pornographic film.

He was part of a cinematic revolution called the New Hollywood along with directors like Martin Scorcese, Peter Bogdonavich, Hal Ashby, and Robert Altman. Their films were grittier, darker, and artist driven. Directors were given far greater autonomy than they were accustomed to. In the late 60s, the once tried and true formula of epics with epic stars had seen catastrophic financial failures of grandiose epics and nearly bankrupted the studios that made them like Cleopatra for 20th Century Fox. As smaller films became giant successes, the studios increased their independent productions, hoping for another low budget cultural phenomenon like Easy Rider.

The film was directed by drug-crazed Dennis Hopper, the drug use on camera was real, the drug use off camera was real and it was a major hit, but Hopper never repeated the success. On his next film The Last Movie, part of his directorial preparation was to plot out which drug to take during which scene. The result was a disaster. Like Hopper’s directorial success, 70s filmmaking was as iconic as it was ephemeral.

The studios soon realized that the only thing more important than artistic priestige was money, this epiphany came in the form of the box-office juggernaut Jaws directed by New Hollywood Filmmaker Steven Spielberg.Then came Star Wars and Star Wars toys, the studios returned to bigger blockbusters marketed to high school crowds and children rather than adults, a process that would be further expanded upon with Disney’s Marvel universe when several franchises would effectively intertwine. The blockbuster could change a studios’ fortunes in one fowl swoop, and the right franchise could last forever, which left 70s filmmaking out in the cold.

Paul: I had always loved movies my whole life, but I had really loved them, you know. All the great movies of the 70s, Joe and I, one of the ways that we connect is we both loved the films of the 70s, we both really connected with them and felt like, you know if you’ve read Easy Riders and Raging Bulls you know about all these great films of the 70s, well we were living that, it was so vibrant and rich, and exciting, and the politics was just our politics and we would go ‘Yeah, that’s what we want to do.’ But by the time we started film school in 1980, all that was over. We didn’t know it, but it was over. The dying breath of those 70s films was Raging Bull and that bombed, you know at the time and after that we were into the 80s and it was a whole nother ball game. But we didn’t know that we thought that it was just going to keep going.

Unaware of the seismic shift in the industry, Paul and Joe were about to meet. Neither of the two really repair. their first meeting. Based on their current relationship, you’d expect Dreamweaver to have been playing in their initial meeting. There was no-meet cute or anything.

Paul: Joe and I were both in film school and we had a lot of mutual friends, but we hadn’t had any classes together. He was kinda in the writing program and I was in the production program. And we didn’t really know each other and then both of us ended up working at Audio Visual Services at UCLA, which are the guys that came in with the camera, projectors, and laced up this stuff. And we became friends there, and we were buddies, we kinda knew each other, and we had a lot of mutual friends, but we weren’t really that close, we considered ourselves friends, but not important friends, you know. I’m sure Joe will tell you the same story. So we kinda knew each other, casual friends, we had a lot of friends in common.

Joe: He was just a guy I knew from film school, I liked him, you know he was a friend, but we weren’t that close.

Strangely enough, they were both better friends with a guy by the name of Steve Viksten, and Steve Viksten deserves special attention.

There’s a story that best describes him and also gives you an idea of the work that both Paul and Joe appreciated, but it happens all the way in the future when Steve was writing on the Nickelodeon show Hey Arnold! And it has to has to do with Christmas (play christmas music underneath this probably starting with bells at the end of Hey Arnold there).

Helicopter chopper overpowers the song and then quietly goes down to Joe’s voice. Maybe still some music under Joe’s voice. (quick thought what if we added things to the background like if they talk about a gun shot, it goes off, might give the stories some more dynamic feel, but pick and choose which ones).

And Vietnam

(Have Chopper noise from Apocalypse Now cut over the top and eventually drown out the Christmas toons):

Joe tells the story.

Joe: I’ll tell you that story, so that’s Steve. That’s kinda a good description of who Steve is, but it is also kinda an interesting way of how weird things happen. So, the thing with Steve was, and I love Steve, I really loved this guy, but he was a strange guy, you know, he was an odd duck and he considered himself like the highest-- the most important thing was the art, the writing and getting what his world view was across right? There was going to be a Christmas Episode of coming up and Steve was stumped and he said, ‘Would you go to dinner with me and just say- what can we come up with a Christmas episode.’ Well, I was listening to him and he was telling me that he wanted to do this secret Santa thing, and he wanted to do somebody in the apartment building that Arnold was going to give a gift, but he wasn’t sure what the gift was and how that would be a whole half hour and he wasn’t sure what to do. And I don’t know why I had the thought, but he had pitching also for years this story of about Mr. Hyunh, who was the Vietnamese guy in the apartment building finding out that his daughter who he had left on the top of the building in Vietnam as the helicopter were going off that he somehow reconnects with his daughter and Arnold helps him reconnect and it kept getting rejected this story, but Steve kept saying he wanted to do it. This was classic Steve. So I said, ‘You know, why don’t you take that story and make that the Christmas Story.’ And I just remember, and we had worked together so long we kinda knew what the other guy was thinking all the time and I just saw him smile and I could tell he thought- he said to me, ‘Do you think they would let me do that?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know, but if you did, that would be the first Christmas show that I’ve ever seen where you cut to Vietnam and for sure the first animated Christmas show I’ve ever seen where you cut to Vietnam. So he wrote it. He went off and wrote it. He gave me credit as story by, which wasn’t what I needed, and he didn’t have to do that, it was nice of him, but I really had nothing to do with it beyond that. So what what happened was he went off and wrote this script, now one of the things Steve used to do is now I don’t know if he did it in this case, but if he got notes from executives, he liked to be sneaky, he thought he was smarter than everybody else, not realizing you do something like this once, it’s like the statue of Liberty Play you get to do it once you know. But he would do this all the time where he would get notes from executvies he would make the changes and give the scripts to the people, and then he would take the first draft to the recording session and get them to record it the other way so that the executives when they would finally see it would go wait a minute, was that the line? And they’d have to look it up, it would be a lot of work for them and then they would have to have it re-recorded and everything. So he was always doing stuff like that and this was kinda one of those things. He just wanted it his own way, he wanted his thing, which is cool. So he, somehow, he got this thing through, I don’t know how he did it, and they kept approving it with notes and he kept changing it, adjusting it and finally, he got a really good version, the way he liked it all the way through animatic, which if you know what an animatic is it’s like a film story board with sound. And then the executives saw it, now let me preface this before I go into the rest of the story here by saying that I remember this story really well partly because I left the show, so those memories are like in amber. If you check with Craig, he’ll say I don’t remember that, and Joe Purdy will say, I asked him the other day and he said, “I don’t remember that.’ Somebody told me they even tracked down Catherine Whites, I think is her name, the name of the executive and she said ‘I don’t really remember that either.’ But I remeber this perfectly and I remember talking about it with Steve multiple times cause it was so classic Steve and it hooks in to who he would be, everything about it makes sense to me. So anyway, so the story Steve told me was that he tricked them, he got this thing there, they had this vhs, and they all went, ‘What the hell is this?’ We didn’t approve this! And Steve said, ‘Oh Yes you did!’ ‘No We didn’t!’ Now they haven’t animated yet they could pull the plug right here. And Steve begged them according to Steve, and maybe Craig did too, to at least give it a chance. So catherine Whites, I think is her last name, Catherine something took the tape home to watch it over the weekend and she popped it in her machine and she was watching it and thinking, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this or not. I’m not sure if this is a good idea and her son who was I guess like 8 or 9 years old was watching it with her, the impression I got, the way it was describe to me is like he’s almost on the floor watching it, and he watched the first 11 minutes, which ends with the Vietnam scene, which is very emotional, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but it’s an amazing piece of filmmaking and the little girl gets separated from her dad and the dad, it’s the crowd, and the dad pushes, holds up his little girl, the baby, and the soldier takes it, and takes the baby, and the helicopter flies off and it ends with Mr. Huyhn saying I wish I could- I know she’s in the United States somewhere, but I don’t know how to find her and then 11 minutes ends with Arnold saying I’m going to find this little girl for Mr. Huyhn, that’s going to be his Christmas present. It’s very emotional and supposedly the little boy, Catherine’s son, watched the end of it and turned to his mom and said, ‘ Is that what Vietnam was all about, Mom?’ Is that how it happened? And what Steve said happened was that Catherine told him, she just thought in that moment, ‘ok, we’re going to let him do it.’ So, and again, I’m the only one telling this story now, but if Steve was alive still, I’m sure he’d say, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember that because that was such a big deal to him cause I remember him telling me the story.

Christmas meets Vietnam, that’s Steve Viksten. The fun, sweetness, and laughs of the holidays mixed with the darkness of Captain Kurtz.

Paul: It was getting toward the summer of 1983 and I needed a job and I had a friend who I was ---I’m recutting this part. At a party, I was at a party that a friend of mine through, and I said hey I’m looking for a job for the summer do you know of anything? He said actually I do, do you know the show Taxi? And I said, “Sure.” And he said, ‘well, I work for, I’m a PA on Taxi, the show’s coming to an end right now and the partners are- the executive producers partners on that show are all kinda going in different directions. Two of them are doing a new tv series and the third one is doing a movie, but it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere and all of us have gone over to work on the other tv show, but they need some PAs on the, these guys are all PAs, these guys were all my age and they were PAs, he said that the guy that’s doing the feature he needs some PAs, would you be interested in doing that? I said, “Sure, I’d love to do that.” That’s just the kind of thing I want to do. He said well I’ll get you an interview with these people. So I went in and I interviewed and it was- that other producer was Jim Brooks, right?- And he was doing a feature, I didn’t know what it was so I go in to apply for the job and his secretary looks at my resume and she said, ‘Gee you’ve graduated in economics from Berkeley, and you’re at UCLA film school, you seem a little--you’re kinda overqualified for this PA job. And I looked at her and I said, ‘I will do anything. I will clean toilets, I will do whatever you want, please hire me. And she said, ‘You really want this?’ And I said, ‘Yea, I really want it. I don’t care.’ And she said, ‘Ok.’ and she hired me.

Paul ended up in the perfect place for his predilections. The production company of James L. Brooks. Brooks began as a Page at CBS then became a newswriter, but left as the young and crazy do for Hollywood, he jumped to an unstable job of working on documentaries for David Wolper. The job inevitably fell through and Brooks was out of work-

Later on he reflected back on the period:

I don’t know if this is true for everybody, but I had this image of the job I’d have to get, if I couldn’t have the job I chose. For me it was always selling shoes. Either I got a good job or I sold shoes, there seemed nothing else in between.But I met Allan Burns socially, and I wrote a spec script for the show that he’d created, My Mother the Car. That sold, and I started to pick up a few more. I did That Girl, I did Hey Landlord, and within a year and a half I’d created Room 222. It went very quickly right in there.”

Later on he would develop Mary Tyler Moore with Burns that would put him on the map for life. In the 70s, he would also create Lou Grant, Rhoda, and Taxi. The shows were progressive and character based and they changed television. After his success on the small screen, Brooks attempted to break into movies, but in trying to master his first script he noted it was the hardest thing he wrote in his life, the difficulties would continue and from script to screen, and the film Terms of Endearment would take 4 years to come to life.

The studio it would eventually land at was part advantage part disadvantage. When Brooks couldn’t crack the script before deadline, he asked Paramount Studios to exercise the option on the script so he could finish writing it. They agreed. When Brooks had finally finishedThe reaction wasn’t positive, Brooks found himself explaining that the film was a comedy even though it was about cancer. In fact, Brooks thought if he couldn’t get a laugh on the word cancer the script wouldn’t work.

There were also deeper ideological issues to overcome at Paramount Studios. In 1974, owner Charles Bludorn hired Barry Diller then 32 to be Chairman and Chief Executive of Paramount, who had gained fame at ABC TV for the miniseries Roots and the Movie of the Week. In 1976,Diller hired Michael Eisner as President of Paramount Pictures Eisner was the the writer and practitioner of the Paramount coda, which he released in a company memo in 1981. It read:

“We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history,. We have no obligation to make a statement.But to make money, it it is often important to make history, to make art, or to make some significant statement. In order to make money we must always make entertaining movies, and if we make entertaining movies, at times we will reliably make history, art, a statement, or all three. We cannot expect numerous hits, but if every film has an original and imaginative concept, then we can be confident some will break through... We should generally resist making expensive overall deals with box office stars and top directors, because we can attract them later with strong material.”

Eisner wanted High Concept films which could be pitch quickly in an elevator. He preferred low-budget films that could be singles and doubles, but he wasn’t immune to the glitz and glamour of the home-run the studio after all did pick up Indiana Jones from Lucas and Spielberg. Eisner loved the low-budget hit, but the content had changed in the 80s, the films were now easier to digest: Flashdance, Footloose, Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hrs!. There were still challenging films, but even David Lynch made a straightforward narrative for Paramount with the Elephant Man.To put it more succintly, Rosemary’s Baby was now Friday the 13th.

The budgetary policy would directly affect Terms of Endearment and almost stop it from being made: In an interview with Film Comment Brooks said:

Then after 6 or 7 months after the script was done, Michael Eisner wrote this note. He said “Okay, we’re going to make your picture.” And I said Put it in writing. So he puts Terms of Endearment. Go picture at 7 ½ million. Delivery Xmas of ‘82. And he signed it. I perma-plaqued it. The movie would not budget out at 7.5. Even with closing your eyes here and there, it would not budget out. Paramount felt that you had to draw the line someplace. So 7.5 million he said, 7.5 million he meant, 7.5 milion I couldn’t do it for unless I was willing to not make a location picture, which I was unwilling to do. So the picture went into turnaround.

Everybody turned it down. Nobody even took a meeting with me. Nobody called me in and said well we might be interested if you could get so and so. Just absolute cold turn downs. One exception: Paula Weisntein and Willie Hunt, who were at MGM/UA under David Begelman, said they’d like to do it, but there was a certain amount of turmoil going on at their company. I could never quite get people on the phone, I could never quite get a drive on to the lot. Then nobody was there and I was dead. But I still had my office here at Paramount, and I was speaking to Michael Eisner and he said “I still like it. I still like it for 7.5” and then my agent thought of MTM ( the Production Company of Mary Tyler Moore) for the money that I needed and Arthur Price agreed. He said to me later that his associates told him he was crazy to make the investment said, and he said, “ I don’t expect to make money but I think it will do well enough to where we will break even.”

By fighting to make the film he wanted to make and not compromising, Brooks fighting to make the film the way he wanted to make it, Brooks delivered a hit to Paramount, Terms grossed over 100 million dollars and won 5 oscars including best picture and best director.

A small portion of the 8 million dollar budget was to pay for post- production assistant Paul Germain, who came on the film after it was already done shooting.

Paul: So this is the summer of 1983, well it turns out that the film was Terms of Endearment, which was destined to win like 5 academy awards, but they didn’t know that, nobody knew that it was going to be this big thing. So I came in and it was already finished, the film had already gone through production, it was just in post, so I was a PA on post on that movie, I was never on set or anything for it. So I just did PA work you know that kinda work you’re just getting people coffee, or delivering things or running around from place to place, it was on the Paramount lot here, it was really fun, I was 24 years old I had a blast. One day, it was that same summer 1983 when I started working for him. He was doing post production on that show, I was a PA I was doing whatever I was told and stayed out of the way. My idea was do what you’re told do what you can, be quiet, be a little mouse in the background, don’t be noticeable. And one day- one of the things that Brooks used to do is, he used to ask me to drive him to and from his house right? He had a house way, way, way north in Malibu, right? Way up the coast of Malibu, at the time, I’m sure he doesn’t live there anymore, but he did. We were at Paramount, so to get from his house to Paramount or the other way could be as much as an hour and a half. It was a long way. So I would drive him back and forth, one day, he asked me to drive him home, he said, ‘Listen I’m having a screening of the movie and I’d like you to come to it.’ I went ‘WOW, this major motion picture- I’m being invited, I was so blown away. So I went to see the movie and it was an early cut of the movie, and it didn’t work for me. I’m sitting there watching it and I kinda snuck out in the screening, cause I thought I don’t want to tell my boss that it doesn’t work for me. Cause I didn’t think it worked yet, it was an early screening, early cut, so the next day, his secreetary calls me and says Jim wants you to pick him up at his house in Malibu and drive him back to the studio and I thought, “Oh shit.” So I go to pick him so I prepare some banal things to say cause I don’t want to tell him, I don’t want to---WHO AM I TO CRITICIZE, HE’S HE’S JIM BROOKS AND I’M like some little putz out of film school, you know. So I have these little niceties and I pick him up and we are talking a little bit as I drive him, it was just him and me in the car.I think that was my car. And we are driving to the studio. And he started asking me questions about what I thought about the screening and I was just kinda saying, I remember just trying to say kinda banal lies because I just didn’t want to say what- I didn’t want to WHO WAS I to criticize him. And he just kept asking me questions rapid fire until I could not come up with little nicieties quickly enough, so finally I just started saying what I thought, but you know politely, but I started saying what I thought, I don’t- this is the summer of 83, so it’s 33 years ago. I don’t remember what it was that I said, but he asked me questions and I started telling the truth in as polite of way as I could. He would just listen, he didn’t get angry, he just listened to what I had to say. And then Low and behold he implemented some of the things I said in his movie, I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe it. He was always like that, he was always really open to hearing what people had to say, and allowing the possibility that they might have something to contribute. It’s kinda a valuable lesson, nobody’s is an idiot that doesn’t have anything to say, no one is an ignorant little putz that doesn’t have anything to say. Everyone has value. It’s kinda a way he operates and I think it shows in his movies.

The world of Hollywood was beginning to enchant Paul Germain.

And I remember I got a burger for Jack Nickelson once, and he said to me, “Thanks, kid.” And I still remember that it was a big deal for me in 1983. One time I was, so he had a secretary, who worked with him a woman by the name of Barbara Duncan, who worked for him for years and years and years and she became a friend. She was the woman who hired me, that story I told was about Barbara. She would be at the desk, and someetimes she would go to lunch and i would take over while she was at lunch and be at the desk and answer phones and do whatever Jim needed. One time I was, and he was always busy, and during the first few months that i worked there I had very little connection with him, I was just a very lowly person there, his secretary would tell me what she wanted me to do and I would just do it. But I remember one time, I was at his desk and I was sitting there and this woman walked in and it’s Carol King. He comes out and he greets her, and they go into his back office, where he had a piano and she starts playing Carol King songs and singing. And the door is half open, and I’m hearing Carol King sing the songs of the 70s, that I remember from being a kid, and hearing Jim every once in awhile go “Great! That’s Great!’ Like that and I thought this is the weirdest experience ever, so I had a lot of experiences like that, I don’t remember the first time I ever met Brooks, but he was kinda an amazing figure and kinda an exciting guy. Just kinda this person who could do anything and was revered by everyone who worked with him. He was just an amazing writer and thinker and famous for being able to solve script problems instantly, people would come to him some script problem and he would think for a second and go what if you did this and solve the problem. He was just an amazing guy. So I stayed at Brooks company, which became Gracie films, it didn’t have a name at that point, after Terms of Endearment he formed a company and called it Gracie films and I was there for 6 years and in fact I never graduated from film school. I kept taking a leave of absence and it eventually ran out, I never went back. So that’s how I got into the film business.

Joe: I don’t know if Paul told you this story, Paul went off and got basically an internship working with James L. Brooks and we were all like ‘See you later Paul!’ see you in September. ‘Ok, bye!’ and he just never came back, so he was gone and one of his really close friends was Steve Viksten. He and I started hanging out all the time and talking about movies and he lived in Beverly Glen, he lived in a garage next to John Lee Mahan, do you know who that is? He’s an old screenwriter from the 30s, he’s an old old man and he would say that’s John Lee Mahan right next door. And I would go ‘No Way’ cause we had watch his movies, these old Clark Gable movies Red Dust and all these movies, but anyway I would stop, I lived in Sherman Oaks, and I would stop on the hill cause I had this old Volkswaggen and I had to put oil in it, like I could only get it over the hill. I had to put as much oil as gas basically, so the oil would just run right through. So I had to like put in the can of oil then I could get up to Steve’s house and I’d put another can of oil, cause I couldn’t get my car fixed, but I would stop at Steve’s house---really bad for the environment, but I would stop at Steve’s House and we would just talk about movies. I had all these theories, we both had all these theories, and we liked Robert Altman movies and Truffuat, and Goddard and stuff like that. And we would talk about all these crazy things. We wrote a bunch of screenplays, we wrote one called Surfing CIA that was really succesfful, did well got us a lot of meetings, then we wrote one called The Exterminators about some pest control guys who accidently were mistaken for killers by the mob, anyway we wrote a bunch of these screenplays and around 1987 or 88 around that time things were coming to an end and we weren’t able to sell, we had been doing it for like 4 years, and we thought we should’ve sold a script by now, well got something made, so the writer’s strike hit in 87 88. I was like Oh my god, I had a baby on the way, my wife was pregnant, oh my god I can’t, keep this going, you know what am I going to do? It was actually an interesting way of getting into animation kinda from the side because what happened was I had never really thought animation was something I was going to do, but I had always loved animation, I loved Warner Bros especially when I was a kid. But when I was in film school, it seemed like everybody I knew was involved in animation my roommate was an animator, David Silverman was there from the Simpsons, there was a really great animation school going on. Because my roommate a guy named Neil Richman was an animator I had great respect for it, people were bring in this artwork and I was seeing, I was going hanging out at the animation dept and seeing kids drawing this stuff, they’d draw right on the film, I was like ‘Wow’ who else was actually dealing with the actual physical film...animators. Anyway so around that time I was working for, I wasn’t sure what to do wasn’t sure how to get a job, was just working at UCLA with some other friends in the medical department thinking I’ll do something else this isn’t going to work. Around that time, this friend of mine and that roommate said ‘Hey, there’s going to be a movie playing this weekend, why don’t we all go down to the Westwood and go to the movie, and it was Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And I didn’t really know that this was going to be the beginning of something, which I kinda think is the point you never know when something’s going to change. So we all went to go see Roger Rabbit and it was this guy Charlie Gibson, guy I knew from film school, but mostly knew him as a friend of Neil’s and we watched Roger Rabbit, and we were all talking afterward and he said what did you think of that movie? We just kinda hit it off talking about the movie. And then Charlie said, I started a company called Rythm and Hues, with these other firend of mine, would you be interested in being a producer? And I said, well what does a producer do? And he said, can you type? And I said yea. And he said you can be a producer. ANd I was like ok. And I started being a producer at Rythm and Hues and it was a real eye opening experience, it was a whole different thing and it was really exciting times, things were changing things were breaking, I remember John Lasseter coming down talking to them and pitching things, I remember Krisfalusci showing up and pitching, wildly pitching all over the place, but we were making commercials and they were just starting to get into film.

Paul was being groomed for an executive role at Brooks, and at times he didn’t see all the opportunities laid out before him. On one particular occasion:

Paul: I mean there was a little bit of a disconnect there because that’s not really what I was interested in. I was interested in the creative side of things. I couldn’t get my act together to try writing a sample which would’ve been the smart thing to do. Somehow for all kinds of different reasons I just never got my act together to do that and so I was on track to be a young executive or a line producer or a non writing track, if you were to get anywhere at that company you really wanted to be a writer. Now I ended up doing that later but not at that time so I had the oppurtunities but was too much of a dumbass to take advantage of them back then. I remember one time so one of the jobs that i had there starting in 1984 through my time there from the start of my work there to end of my work there in 1989 I spent allot of time as a script reader reading scripts for Brooks and writing coverage, which if anyone has ever had that job, it’s an awful job, you just read, someone comes in with a mountain of feature scripts and one is worse than the next. There just so bad and you have to write a summary of them and then you have to critique them, so it gave me an opportunity to sharpen my wit about criticitizing stuff and saying how much I hated everything, which they appreicated because they liked my taste, Brooks liked my taste. And one day a book came through called confederacy of dunces, are you familiar with that book? I read that book and I loved it. I just loved it. And I went to my immediate boss a guy by the name of Richard Sakai, who still works for Brooks, who was my boss there, and I told him how much I loved this book which had been submitted, I can’t remember if they just submitted the script or they just submitted the book as a project and Brooks read the book or he heard that I was really interested in it and that I was pushing for how great I thought this book was. And so he asked me to come in to his office and I walked in to his office, and he said ‘Heard you think this is a really great book.’ And I said, ‘Yea, I really think it’s wonderful.’ And he said ‘Well, I have, well I read a little bit of it, and I have some issues with it. And I said, ‘Oh, ok, yea, what are they?’ and he said ‘well,’ I can’t remember what he said specifically, but he said this doesn’t make sense to me and I kinda think this would make it very difficult to write a feature, what do you think of that?’ And I said, ‘Well… I think you made some good points, maybe that would be a problem’ and he said, ‘Ok, well what do you think,’ and I said, ‘Yeah those seem like legitimate issues. And so he said ok thanks. And I left. And as I came out, my immediate boss Richard said, so what happened? And I said I told him why I thought it was a great book and he said, but he had some problems with it-you know where this is going don’t you?- Well, what did you, when he presented those problems what did you say, I said, ‘Well I told him I thought he had some good points, some of those things are real problems. And he said, ‘Did you propose any solutions?’ And I said, ‘Well nobody asked me to propose any solutions.’ And he said, ‘OHHH, you really screwed that up and I said, ‘Why?’ and he said, ‘He was going to figure out if you would be the guy to write that script. And I said, ‘Oh my god.’ I was being tested and I didn’t know it. That’s an example of how I blew an oppurtunity, I was just too dumb and naive to see that’s what that was about and to say, ‘Let me think about that or I’ll come back with a solution.’ I just didn’t do it. I had, I was a young guy, I was even though I had been bold in many ways as a student at UCLA working for him I was in awe of him and all the other people there and I knda didn’t understand that what was expected of me was to like take the bull by the horns and come up with creative stuff and make it work and show what I could do and prove it and demand it which I think is what you need to do in Hollywood. I think Hollywood is about there is no room for insecurity there’s no room for modesty, it’s a place where you have to be aggressive, you have decide what you want, you have to go after it, you have to let nothing get in your way, I really wasn’t in that space at that time, that’s not where my head was at, and I didn’t do that. It was a tremendous mistake I wasted 6 years not taking advantage of opportunites that at the time, I was too naive to see.

In our next episode: From Rabbits: A brief history of television animation and the rise of the Disney Afternoon

From Rabbits to Ducks: From Crusader Rabbit to The Disney Afternoon

The sources for today’s show can be found on wabacmachinepodcast.tumblr.com. That’s Wabac, W-A-B-A-C.

The Thank Yous:

This episode was edited by Matt Brousseau. You can listen to his podcast with comedian Kevin ANderson called Bleak in Review on Itunes.

A special thanks to Greg Gonzalez for his helping me at the Brand library in Glendale you can listen to his podcast LA Meekly on ITunes, which provides a dazzling history of LA with Greg and Daniel Zafran.

Cesar Rossal for helping me master Skype interviews.

A special thanks to Fidel Browne for playing Paul Robeson. And everyone who listened to the original cut of the episode and gave copious notes: Jesse Reffsin, Pat Barker, Rishi Arya, Onely Flores, and Nick Taravella.

And my undying gratitude goes to the people interviewed for this episode Bill Kopp, check out his new show Dumb Bunny and Jackass, which is coming soon. David Silverman for putting up with constant facebook messages, and Wes Archer for taking the time to speak with me. And of course Paul Germain and Joe Ansolabehere for giving me the opportunity to tell their story.

And to my family for always pushing me to better and indulging me as I told stories about 90s animation during Mother and Father’s Day.

And to Donut for emotional support, love, and cheerleading, typing out a lenghty interviews, keeping me sane and everything else like doing donut things.

#recess #hey arnold #rugrats #history #podcast #paulgermain #joeansolabehere oralhistory nick disney onesaturdaymorning robertgoulet

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