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husheduphistory · 2 years ago

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No Laughing Matter: The Clowns and the Turmoil that Changed Toronto

In the summer of 1855 the city of Toronto was a far cry from the bustling capital city that it is today. Much closer to resembling the Wild West, the city was filled to the brim with bars, liquor shops, and brothels catering to the rotating population of approximately 40,000 people. Mary Ann Armstrong ran one of Toronto’s many “clubs” on the corner of King and Jarvis Streets and the combination bar and brothel was always busy, especially when new faces were passing through town. The sights, sounds, and stories that originated there are incalculable, but on one July night Armstrong’s establishment was the setup for an incident that sounds like a joke but was unfortunately very real with a horrible punchline. “A clown and a fireman walk into a bar…”

On the morning of July 12th 1855 a large group of travelers made their way into Toronto, but these visitors were a little more unusual than the normal passers-by, this was the S.B. Howes' Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus. S.B. Howe was one of the first circus companies to bring their act on tour traveling to one city and taking up residency for a few days before packing up their tents and disappearing from the scene. The circus was only supposed to be in town for two days and after their first performance a group of clowns decided to take in the town, eventually ending up at Mary Ann Armstrong’s building.

Illustration of King Street in Toronto circa 1855. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The image might sound funny, a group of clowns walking into a rowdy, tough, and intimidating brothel and bar, but these clowns were not to be messed with. Their jobs went far beyond entertaining and included the physical labor of building, breaking down, packing up, and moving their entire community to each city on the tour. They were strong, bold, and did not back down from a fight, which was a recipe for disaster considering the other people visiting Armstrong’s that night.

Advertisement for the circus. Image via torontodreamsproject.blogspot.com/com/.

At this point in time fire departments were not formally established and individual companies formed privately and functioned for profit, racing to fires and charging a price before putting them out. It was not uncommon for rival fire companies to clash in the streets, sometimes requiring local law enforcement to intervene. Only two weeks before the circus came to town one local company, the Hook and Ladder Firefighting Company, was involved in a violent street brawl with another fire company that became known as the Fireman’s Riot. They were an aggressive group, and tonight they were visiting Armstrong’s establishment at the same time as the clowns.

There has never been a singular cause identified for what happened next. One account says that the clowns cut the line to get into the building. Another says one of the firemen named Fraser knocked a hat off the head of a clown named Meyers and refused to pick it up when asked. Others simply say it was a case of someone getting loud with someone else who did not take kindly to their tone. The result was an all-out brawl and by the time the police arrived the firemen were all beaten to a bloody pulp with two of them requiring medical attention at a hospital. The band of clowns simply went back out into the night to continue partying.

The situation was bad enough as is, but the political climate of the area made the conflict cut deeper. Much of Toronto’s population was made up of Irish Catholics but the city government was deeply Irish Protestant and Tory elite, supported by the Orange Order, who were also firmly in the corner of the bloodied Hook and Ladder Firefighting Company. As far as the fire department was concerned the clowns had just declared war.

When the S.B. Howes' Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus came into town they pitched their tents along the waterfront at the site of Fair Green, near the St. Lawrence Market. On the day after the brothel brawl, Friday the 13th, the merchants in the market were few and far between, there was word that something bad was brewing. Slowly they began to arrive to the circus grounds, a large mob of Orangemen of the Orange Order, and before long the rocks began to fly. The circus performers were able to hold back the assault for a short amount of time but when the fire department arrived it was not to help the entertainers, it was to destroy them. The members of the Hook and Ladder Firefighting Company arrived carrying pikes, pipes, and axes. They tore apart the circus tents, beat anyone in their paths, set fires, and knocked over wagons with a bloodthirsty ferocity. Police Chief Samuel Sherwood, a former tavern owner with no formal training, arrived and brought in a handful of constables throughout the day but never put a focused effort into quelling the violence. How could he? He was a part of the Orange Order himself and when later questioned about the level of power he had in his position as Chief his answer was “A very small one indeed…I give orders and instructions to the force, but cannot get them obeyed. As soon as I am out of sight, the men do as they please.” When the Mayor arrived at the scene he took matters into his own hands, wrestling an ax from a fireman who was about to murder one of the clowns and calling in a militia to finally put a stop to the violence. The clowns and other performers took what was left of their belongings and fled the city as quickly as possible.

Painting of Toronto showing the site of Fair Green. Image via http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.com/

The aftermath of the riot was unfortunately familiar. When the Fireman’s Riot happened only weeks beforehand the memories of the police department and the firemen involved were suddenly and inexplicably fuzzy and they could not recall a single member of the Orange Order that was on the scene. One constable said it was too dark out to see any faces and another even said that the entire ordeal was carefully planned so that only people unfamiliar to the police would be involved. The exact same scenario played out again after the attack on the circus clowns and suddenly no one who advanced on the tents could recall anything that happened. Out of the entire mob only seventeen people were ever arrested and when they went to court every single person who attacked the circus that day was acquitted.

Article about the investigation of the Toronto Circus Riot. Image via torontoist.com.

The official word on what happened may have been hazy but the public saw the corruption very clearly and while they could not create change overnight, the Toronto Clown Riot proved to be a fatal blow to the too-long accepted state of things. After the riot it became much more common to question the conveniently selective memories of the police force that was given absolute power with no form of training. The formerly iron-clad coverups for the actions of the fire departments corroded and began to lose strength. The voices against the Orange Order got louder and louder.

One of the biggest indicators that the public had had enough came with the next election when for the first time in twenty years a mayor was elected that was backed by the Irish Catholics despite the hardest efforts of the Orange Order to prevent it. Reform and organization was needed and in 1858 the first provincially approved board put a restructuring of the new city government and police force into motion. In February of 1859 the entire police force was fired (roughly half that were not part of the Toronto Clown Riot were reinstated), a new chief was brought on board, and finally Toronto had a police force that was out of private hands, nonpolitical, and under close watch by the newly established city government.

The fates of many of the S.B. Howes' Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus clowns are greatly unknown and the clown named Meyers has faded into time. Little could he or any of the clowns imagined on that July night that getting into a fist fight with a gang of firemen in a brothel would lay the foundation for the establishment of Toronto’s first formal police department.

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

Sources:

“Hidden History: The Toronto Circus Riot” by Lenny Flank. August 20th 2019

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/20/1870769/-Hidden-History-The-Toronto-Circus-Riot

“The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855 — the day the clowns picked the wrong Toronto brothel” by Adam Bunch. October 2nd 2012.

http://spacing.ca/toronto/2012/10/02/the-toronto-circus-riot-of-1855-the-day-the-clowns-picked-the-wrong-toronto-brothel/

“How a Fight With Clowns Led to the Birth of Modern Policing in Toronto “ by Patrick Metzger. September 12th 2013.

https://torontoist.com/2013/09/how-a-fight-with-clowns-led-to-the-birth-of-modern-policing-in-toronto/

“Infamous Clown Brawl in Brothel Gets Entire Toronto Police Force Fired “ by Sean Kernan. November 29th 2021.

https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/infamous-clown-fight-in-brothel-gets-entire-toronto-police-force-fired-ceca014addc6

“Clowns fighting firemen in Canada in 1855.” opposite-lock.com/topic/22965/clowns-fighting-firemen-in-canada-in-1855

“The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855 “ http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-circus-riot.html

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bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher · 5 years ago

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Pirate AU! I just read the one where Geralt and Jaskier where dancing. How does Jaskier's friends from Oxenfurt react to seeing pirate Jaskier. Like what if one of his friends... or better yet his rival Valdo Marx, was on a ship that the Wolves were looting and Jaskier went full pirate on his ass???

“Geralt, my darling, we have to take this ship. Please, I’m begging you.”

“It’s an eight gunner, Jask. I’m not risking it.”

“First of all, that is a Redanian merchant ship so I know for a fact that only two of those canons actually work. Second, I can see my rival from university strolling the deck with his lute and I want to hit him over the head with it.”

“Jaskier has enemies aboard that thing?” Eskel asked. “Why not just take it?”

“Men,” Geralt called from the helm. His crew turned to him expectantly. “Vote’s up. Do we take the Redanian Galleon or not?”

“Did I hear that Jaskier has enemies aboard?” someone asked.

“Aye. A rival from school.”

“Let’s kick their asses!”

Jaskier, the little minx, let out a giddy whoop and kissed Geralt full on the mouth. The crew jeered and teased as they made their way belowdecks to arm the canons. This would be a short fight, Geralt knew, but it would certainly be one to remember.

---

Jaskier would forever covet the memory of Valdo Marx’s face when he swung across the short distance between their ships and landed on the deck with a graceful thud.

“Hand over your finery and cargo and we’ll happily be on our way, good sirs.”

“J-Julian?” the other, lesser poet gasped. “You can’t be serious! I thought I’d heard a rumor that you’d run off to join the circus but piracy? Oh, dearest Julian, this is just too good.”

“Did you read the name of my ship, good sir?” Jaskier asked, drawing his cutlass rather casually. “I’m not just any pirate.”

Geralt crossed the boarding planks behind him, then. He felt the weight of those strong hands on his hips and he smirked. Valdo’s face went pale and rigid with anger, shock, hatred, humiliation, and was that jealousy? Jaskier loved each and every one of the other man’s disbelieving expressions.

Well, he had dressed Geralt up a little bit this time. He was wearing the black velvet coat, the tight trousers, the shiny black boots and his most impressive hat. Standing next to Jaskier, who’d stuck with a plain white shirt and breeches (while barefoot of course, he hated shoes) he made a rather stunning picture.

They made a rather stunning picture.

Jaskier personally held Valdo at sword-point while Geralt and the others unloaded the ship of its valuables. They were carrying cloth, honey, gold, and even some more exotic wines and liquors from Redania. Things Jaskier was familiar with. He nonchalantly quoted price estimates to the crew as they passed with certain items, only serving to make Valdo angrier and Geralt more impressed.

The risk of danger had been well worth their reward.

Once the ship was empty and the boarding planks were nearly all pulled back to the deck of the Kaer Morhen, Jaskier lowered his sword and slid it back into his belt. “Lovely seeing you again, Valdo. Do send your wonderful Mother my warmest regards.”

“Time to go, little nymph,” the Captain announced, appearing at his side once again.

“So soon?”

“What are you waiting for, a kiss goodbye?” Valdo snarled.

“That would be lovely, actually,” Jaskier smirked. Geralt took the hint and grabbed him by the waist for a passionate kiss. It only served to anger the little siren’s rival even more, which is exactly what he’d hoped for.

“You’re welcome,” Geralt teased when he finally pulled away.

“One more,” Jaskier pouted. “For good measure.”

Geralt wasn’t going to argue with that. Arguing against Jaskier when he wanted something, it turned out, was rather counterproductive.

#geraskier pirate au #geraskier swashbuckling au #swashbuckling au #swashbuckling!geraskier #geraskier pirates #geralt x jaskier #geralt/jaskier #permanently-exhausted-witcher #you send good prompts fam #this was fun #geraskier ficlet #geraskier fic #geraskier story #geraskier pirate fic

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smallerinfinities · 4 years ago

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mad woman (nessian)

a/n: In which Nesta copes and Feyre interjects

hello! again, new here ☺️ this kind of just...happened? the idea came upon me late talking with @harryandmolly idk anyways hope you enjoy! if you don’t like modern AUs then this probably isn’t for you, but if you’re into that sort of thing and all the warnings that go with it then I would love to hear what you think!

tw: angst, coping with death, sex work, language

original art by the incomparable charlie bowater

Things were great until they weren’t.

Nesta Archeron had been engaged. She had a father who loved her and a sister she adored. Until the plane crash. Until a faulty navigational system sent her fiancé, her father, and her sister into the side of a mountain on the way to her destination wedding.

She had gone to Hybern early, to get settled and calm her nerves, to plan around the security that Feyre had hired so that Rhys could attend the wedding. Nesta had told her not to bother, Rhys could stay in Velaris for all she cared. She’d gone and set it all up anyway. But it had all exploded when Nesta got the call that her world had ended and all she had left was a sister she resented and a brother-in-law with too high a profile. She was a tragic headline. A fucking media circus.

High Lord Rhysand’s sister-in-law left at the altar in tragic plane crash.

The press camped outside her Velaris studio for weeks. They’d only left when she had thrown a maelstrom of empty glass bottles out of her windows at them. Empty because she’d come back to Velaris and crawled inside a whiskey bottle and stayed there. She might be more whiskey than person now. The days were passing at a rate she couldn’t gauge anymore. Had it been hours or days or months since she’d picked up the phone in the middle of placing name cards on tables in the reception hall? She didn’t particularly care. Everyone who mattered was dead and being drunk was better than counting the minutes since her future had evaporated.

A knock sounded at the door.

Nesta removed the eye mask she was wearing and squinted at her phone. 7:15 AM. She’d been up all night again, had just laid down to try and sleep. Who the fuck was at her door at this hour?

She knew but she opened the door anyway.

Feyre Archeron, High Lady of the Night Court, was in the hallway looking worried. Well, Nesta assumed she was looking worried. She could only see Feyre’s furrowed eyebrows between the oversized sunglasses and the wide-brimmed sun hat. She had wrapped her red-gold hair, twin to Nesta’s own color, into a low chignon to hide it away from prying eyes. A disguise. Nesta snorted. Feyre Archeron could be noticed in this city by a blind man a hundred yards down a busy avenue. It was the way she carried herself, the easy confidence. No one could mistake her for anyone but their High Lady.

“What do you want?” Nesta crossed her arms over her chest, blocking the view into her apartment.

“Well, to start, a little respect for the person who has been footing your liquor bill for the last eight months.” Her red lips were turned down at the corners, tight. She angled her head past Nesta’s shoulder and crinkled her nose, “God, I don’t even need to see in there to know what it must look like. I can smell it from here. And I can see you.”

Nesta kept her face a mask of annoyance but considered how she must look. Compared to Feyre’s heavy cream sweater and perfectly tailored tan pants, anyone would look slovenly but Nesta knew she'd let herself go.

A while ago, she’d taken to wearing Tomas’ shirts to bed. Then eventually she wasn’t getting out of bed so it was all the time, changing only when she found the strength to shower. Today’s shirt—more like this week’s shirt if she was being honest with herself—was an old striped dress shirt, one Tomas had maybe worn twice with a suit. It now had several stains from whiskey and whatever takeout she had ordered last night. She couldn’t quite remember. Chinese? Greek?

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Her marriage was supposed to be one of convenience. They had been friends, had both gotten older and then tossed in the towel on dating. Tomas needed a cover for a lifestyle his parents forbade and Nesta...well Nesta wanted to be comfortable. Nesta wanted her sister to stop meddling and leave her alone. At least, she thought she did.

But, no one had known. No one except Elain.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.

Her hair hadn’t been washed in days, it was matted in some places, stuck to her face in others. She knew her eyes were hollow, sunken in and lacking that fire people saw when they looked at her. She’d been avoiding her own reflection for weeks, had even covered the mirror by the door. Months ago, apparently. Eight months.

Had it really been that long? Had she really been moving from bottle to bottle, takeout container to takeout container, for eight whole months? She’d barely left the apartment, had lost her job, happy to exploit Feyre’s seemingly unending pity. Pity she guessed had run out.

Today.

She didn’t care about that either.

“Come all this way to chide me, dear sister?” Nesta curled her lips as she moved aside to let Feyre through. Might as well let her see.

“Thank you.” Her sister breezed into the little sitting area and stopped dead.

Her eyes scanned the room, marking the recycling bin first, overflowing with empty glass bottles. All different labels. Whatever Nesta could find quickest. Then the kitchen counters, filled with boxes of crackers and empty ramen noodle packages, cans of tuna and an open jar of peanut butter, anything that could be quickly consumed with minimal effort. She didn’t want to die, but she hadn’t exactly been concerned with living either.

At last her eyes darted to the corner, over by the window, where a white dress hung from a hunting knife that had been punched through the wall. Straight through the center of the sweetheart neckline. Nesta had lost count of the weeks it had been there. A reminder. A memorial. Little circular burns littered the fishtail skirt, remnants of late nights with too much booze and an ashtray full of half-smoked blunts still on the windowsill.

“Oh, Nesta.” Feyre’s hand came up to cup her mouth. Nesta raised her chin, refusing to feel reprimanded. “I’m sending Alis this afternoon.”

“I can look after myself,” Nesta hissed through her teeth.

“Clearly,” Feyre threw her arms wide and turned in a circle, “you cannot. You know I came here hoping you were getting better. I gave you space, knew you blamed me for what happened. At least partially. But it’s time, Nesta. I lost them too. But I don’t have the luxury of drinking and smoking my way into oblivion on my sister’s dime.”

“Is this just about the money?” Nesta asked incredulously, “I’ll fucking pay you back if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, no,” Feyre brushed a lock of hair out of her face, frustrated, “it’s not the money. I don’t care about the money. Neither does Rhys. We just want you to come back to the land of the living.”

“Ah, yes. The royal We.” Nesta sat abruptly on her sunken couch and leaned forward, not caring that she was just wearing a pair of underwear beneath the oversized shirt, “how is dearest Rhys? High Lording as well as ever I presume. Now with better reasons than ever to hate me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” she said too quickly, wringing her fingers for a moment before she whispered, “we...we missed you at the funerals.”

Nesta’s blood ran cold. Her eyes swam with tears that wouldn’t fall.

“I know why you didn’t show,” Feyre couldn’t look at her, “I almost understand it...but we still missed you. Father was interred with full honors of the Night Court. I’m having a garden planted for Elain up at the estate. You should come see it when you’re ready.”

Nesta really needed a drink. Feyre needed to leave. She couldn’t do this. Not now. Not today. Not ever.

“Get out.”

“Nesta—”

“Get out.” Nesta’s voice was low, lethal.

“Fine,” the High Lady voice was back in full force, “I only really came to give you this.” She pulled out what looked like a business card from her freshly pressed pant pocket, “this might seem...forward. But, I think it might help you. Rhys and I use the service sometimes when we’re looking for something different. I know you won’t go see someone. This might be a different kind of therapy. Tell her I sent you, she’ll know what to do.”

“Fine, fine,” Nesta took the card from her, hoping it would get her to leave faster, “get out.”

“Nesta,” Feyre stopped and took a breath, her hand wrapped around the doorknob, “please do be discrete.”

Nesta furrowed her brow, but nodded. She had been, for the most part. Except on nights she was too blitzed to remember her own name, let alone that her sister was High Lady of this region.

“I’m still sending Alis,” Feyre wrinkled her nose again as she opened the door and strolled out. And that was that. No goodbye. They hadn’t ever been good at those.

Nesta blinked at the door, the apartment suddenly feeling small and cramped. She turned over the card in her hand. It had only a name and a number. AMREN. 202-555-0187. She flicked it onto the table. Whatever, she thought as she sauntered over to the kitchen and took a swig from the nearest whiskey bottle.

↞↠

“Ms. Archeron.”

“Yes?” The tone of the man’s voice made her drop the place card she had been holding.

“There’s been an accident. A plane crash,” he hesitated. Her eyes stopped seeing. Her body shivered with a bone-rattling chill despite the summer sun streaming into the room through the open windows. They couldn’t be—

“Say it.” Her voice was a breath on the wind.

“There were no survivors.”

She didn’t hear the rest. Someone was screaming. A crash, glass breaking, warmth sliding down her leg. A sharp, metallic smell in the air. She couldn’t hear them calling her name, couldn’t feel their fingers gripping her skin, feel the pressure of the towel collecting the blood from the gash in her leg.

A plane crash, he’d said. No survivors.

Tomas was dead.

Her father was dead.

Elain…she had just planted flowers for spring.

A fresh scream ripped from her throat.

↞↠

She woke up with it echoing in her ears, heart pounding. Wrenching the fresh sheets off her clammy skin, she felt for the scar on her thigh, catapulting her back into the present. Nesta hadn’t let them stitch it for days, had wanted to remember. It had almost festered. Feyre had held her down while they numbed and sutured. Most of those days were lost now, either to shock or sleep, she didn’t know. It hadn’t taken long for the drinking to start.

Her head was pounding. Alis had stormed the apartment hours earlier, tut-tutting about the stale stench, throwing open every window. Nesta actually appreciated the fresh air. She didn’t appreciate the old woman’s silent appraisal of her ruined wedding dress.

“Don’t touch it,” Nesta had snapped. Alis had tut-tutted some more, cleaning as she went, but she left the dress alone.

Now, with a clean apartment and nothing to keep her company but her own self-pity, she laid spread-eagle in her bed that felt too big in clothes that felt too clean. Nothing matched her insides anymore. The small, decrepit thing inside of her that shrivelled that day and rejected everything still living. Even herself. She had never been a particularly warm person, but Elain, sweet and beautiful Elain, had made her care about something outside of herself.

She got up to find something to dull her head. A bottle of ibuprofen sat on the coffee table, next to a decanter of scotch. She washed the pills down with the brown liquor and sat on the edge of the sofa, her head in her hands.

The silence pressed her on her eardrums. An oppressive lack of sound, only the barest of sounds audible on the street. Too quiet. For the first time in months it was too quiet. Her head shot up and focused, eyes darting to the card neatly placed in the corner of the table.

Amren.

What had Feyre meant, “a different kind of therapy”? Hell would have to freeze over before Nesta crawled onto a couch to talk about her feelings, Feyre had admitted as much. So what was this?

She picked up the card and flipped it over. Simple, white, just the number in embossed black. The curiosity was going to kill her if she didn’t just call the number. She reached for her phone, hauled out from between the couch cushions by Alis earlier. It had been dead for weeks. She’d given up on ignoring the condolences calls and just let the battery drain. Probably why Feyre had shown up yesterday unannounced. She swiped past all of the missed call and voicemail notifications and pulled up the keypad.

It only rang once.

“Yes?” A clipped, cold voice answered the phone.

“Uhh, is this Amren?”

“Speaking,” her voice didn’t soften, “can I help you?”

“My sister gave me your card,” Nesta didn’t like this woman. She wracked her brain to think of how this person could help her, especially when she didn’t particularly want anyone’s help.

“And who, my dear,” Nesta could hear the snide smile in Amren’s voice, “is your sister?”

“Feyre,” Nesta huffed, “Feyre Archeron.”

“Oh, Feyre darling! Why didn’t you say so?” Amren warmed immediately. Well, at least to a level above stone cold. “Yes, Feyre told me about you.”

“You must have read—”

“I don't read the news, dear girl,” Amren said, flippant. “I have someone perfect for you. I will send him. Already have your address.”

God, she really needed to have a conversation with Feyre about boundaries. Who is she sending?

“Who are you sending?” Nesta had not been sober long enough for this. Her brain wasn’t firing quick enough to deal with whoever this person was sending to her apartment.

“His name is Cassian. He’ll be at your apartment in two hours.”

Two hours?!

“I can’t have anyone in my apartment in two hours! What is this??”

“We call it therapy,” just like Feyre had, “you don’t need to do anything to prepare.”

“But I don’t even—” The line went dead.

Nesta stared at her phone. How could I prepare if I don’t know what to prepare for?

↞↠

Two hours later, Nesta was pacing. Nervous. She was rarely nervous but she was also rarely unprepared. This felt like a bad omen, like suspense in a horror film. Like this Cassian might jump out of the shadows at any moment from some secret portal.

She had washed her hair but no makeup. She had put on leggings but no real pants. There were concessions she was willing to make and others she wasn’t. It didn’t matter that they were only concessions to her own pride. Feyre got one opportunity to meddle in Nesta’s life, one opportunity to try and control how she coped with losing everything. Nesta would endure it in her own home, in her bare feet, or she wouldn’t endure it at all.

An assertive knock at the door made her jump.

Her heart thundered. She hadn’t talked to a man in months, let alone been in a small space with one. Now there was one at her door. She padded across her expensive rug, smoothing her hair as she went. Her hand gripped the doorknob, giving herself a second to stop shaking. Breathe in, breathe out. She jerked the door open only to be left utterly speechless.

The most beautiful man she’d ever seen was leaning on the door frame, forearms crossed over his massive chest.

“Nesta?” one corner of his full mouth curved upward. He inclined his head behind her left shoulder after she nodded. “Gonna let me in?”

“Why should I?” She challenged, angling her chin up at him.

“Because,” his shoulder length black hair slid into his face as his towering frame looked down at her. He came closer and held her chin between his rough fingers, “you’re at least a little curious about what I’m doing here.”

Nesta ripped her face from his hands and took a step away from him. His hazel eyes stripped her bare. How does he do that? He appraised her frankly, taking in her sloppily thrown together appearance. The baby hairs that clung to the side of her face, unable to stay in her top knot. Her soft curves that the oversized t-shirt she wore only hinted at. All the way down to her toes, the cracked polish left over from her wedding manicure, just a couple of splotches of color left.

His gaze sent a warmth through her. She tried to will it away, send it back to the hell she belonged in. Shaking her head, she stuck him with a glare.

“Fine,” she stepped aside, “come in and tell me what you’re doing here so I can tell you to get out.”

He walked in smoothly, his gray slacks gripping his toned thighs with each stride. Too casual, Nesta thought, for a therapist, especially with his white shirt open at the collar and rolled to his elbows. Not that she actually believed whatever this was even approached therapy.

He stopped in the center of Nesta’s living room and turned, giving the place as detailed a once-over as he had given her. His eyes only paused briefly on the wedding dress still hanging in the corner, but he faced her again as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

“So,” he took up so much space as he spoke, too big, too much life for this apartment that had only contained her hollow soul for so long, “everyone up to this point has referred to this appointment as therapy, correct?”

“Yes,” Nesta replied, curt. “But you’re no therapist, are you, Cassian?”

He snorted, a challenge to her fire temper. She didn’t like to be mocked and somehow he knew that. “No, I’m no therapist.”

“I’m what is referred to in the circles you run in as an escort, a friend, of sorts.” He looked her dead in the eye. No shame, no fear. Just a professional. “We call it therapy, first and foremost for discretion, but also because I’m here to make you feel better. Feel alive again. In whatever form that might take.”

Nesta stiffened. Her mouth dropped open. No. “My sister sent me a hooker? You’re telling me that, my sister, the High Lady of the Night Court, sent me a hooker?!”

She could barely keep up with the 100 mile an hour thoughts racing through her head. It wasn’t long before the pacing started again. Feyre said she uses the service sometimes...with Rhys?! She maybe could have guessed that her sister and her ass of a husband were freaky but prostitutes?! Couldn’t they just ask someone?

Nesta, please do be discrete, she’d said as she walked out the door. She guessed paying for silence was easier than risking a secret. Money is always the best form of currency.

Well, I guess I fucking know why. And she set this up for me?! What in hell’s fire did she think she was doing?

Cassian just stood there while her brain worked, while it exploded with all of this new information. So still, a statue compared to her frantic pacing. He must deal with this a lot. But wait, don’t people usually know what they’re asking for?!

“You’ve never–“ she couldn’t finish the question out loud. Sharing was something foreign to Nesta even when she wasn’t talking about sexual partners.

“No,” he shook his head, “Amren wouldn’t have sent me here if I had. She just told me the context of the visit.”

“So, you’re here,” Nesta stopped in front of him, “to have sex with me?” The words came out a whisper. They sounded so foreign, so ridiculous.

“I’m here to help you.” He took a step toward her. The walls came down fast.

“And why do you think you can help me?” The words cut through the space like a knife. Accusatory, incredulous, they almost stung passing over her vocal cords.

“Because, dear Nesta,” he took another step toward her, and another, “I’m very good at helping people.”

The warmth in her blood returned and warred with the acid coursing through her veins, the hate. It came raging back from this morning, from the past months, from ten minutes ago when this cocky prick knocked on her door. He was staring again, close enough to have to look down at her, just an inch or two from touching.

“I don’t need help from a high-dollar whore,” she spat. The only sign that she’d hit her mark was a faint twitch in his eyebrow.

“I’ve been called worse, sweetheart,” he drawled. “But let’s get one thing straight. I think you need help more than you’d ever admit. I don’t think you’ve taken a breath since then. I read the papers. A beloved dead sister. Absent from the funerals. You blame yourself for not being there, for not dying with them. The guilt warms your bed at night while you lie awake, as much a part of you as the alcohol that twinges your breath. It’s become so familiar you don’t remember what it’s like without it. Who would Nesta Archeron be without that dark stain on her conscience following her like a storm cloud? Will all those liquor bottles I saw outside answer that question for you? Will that tattered wedding dress?”

“How dare–“ she felt the door press against her back, unconsciously moving with him while he lashed at her burning soul, fire for fire.

“Oh, I dare,” he continued, planting his hands on the door behind her, trapping her with his eyes. “Because take it from someone who knows, when you decide to wake up and live with what you have left instead of existing with everything you’ve lost, there may not be anything left to live with. And trust me, guilt makes a very lonely bedfellow.”

Nesta had barely blinked this whole time, refusing to let him have that victory. Even if everything he’d said had hit home. Even if everything he’d said had flayed her open and raked her insides across the coals. She still burned with that unyielding rage.

“Is that what you say to all the girls that pay for your time?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. She was close enough to smell him, the warm spice of clove and sandalwood with a distinctly male musk. It was intoxicating. It was infuriating.

“Some. Some of the men, too. I’m an equal opportunity tough lover.”

She swallowed hard. He was close enough that if she moved an inch his hair might brush her cheek. “Is that what this is? Tough love? For someone you just met?”

“It’s the truth,” his breath tickled her face, the tension crackling like static electricity around them, “isn’t it?”

He sounded tentative for the first time, like maybe he’d overstepped. Is it really so obvious?

“Did Feyre pay you to say those things?” Or were they just written so plainly on her face?

“Nooo,” he said, lower than before, gentler, raising one of his hands like he might stroke her cheek. She cursed herself silently for hoping. He came closer then, his lips a hair’s breadth away from her ear, “Feyre paid me to fuck you senseless.”

Goddamn him. Fire shot into her veins. Not the simmering fury of her anger but something deeper, hotter, pooling in her core. Her breath caught in a little gasp and he smiled. A wide, full grin with teeth that made him look more predator than man.

Her body was a traitor, but it made no difference. She was already burning in hell.

Cassian held still, letting her make the next move. Part of her wanted to make him stand there forever, punish him for what he said, what he knew about her, daring to say what no one else would with just one look. A different part of her wanted to rip him apart.

“Come on, Nesta,” a prince of cats toying with his prey, “show me that fi–“

Her lips crashed against his. God, he was big. She reached around him, fingers tensed to claw at his back, and savored the muscles and sinews that made up the terrain. He pressed her into the door. His hands cupped her face, so gentle for a kiss that was anything but. Flames licked her skin everywhere he touched, at every point their bodies connected through clothing.

He leaned and gripped and suddenly she was taller than him, her legs wrapped around his middle, his fingers pressed into the curve of her ass. She gripped the sides of his face and guided him to the side, forcing herself deeper, her tongue brazenly exploring his mouth. He even tasted wild, like fresh mint and adrenaline. Her heart beat in her ears, deafening over the silence of the apartment. He moaned, so deep it vibrated in her chest.

Nesta broke first, pupils blown and breath ragged.

“Finally shut you up?” she asked, sagging back against the door, her head falling against the wood with a low thud.

He….well, he growled. There was no other word for the sound that rippled through his whole body and found a home between her legs. Her toes curled and she thanked every god that he couldn’t see.

“Pretty little acid tongue,” he pushed them off the door and walked her toward the bed, almost tripping twice over the plush rug. Nesta didn’t notice. She was too busy tearing at the buttons down Cassian’s chest. Each one revealed inch after inch of smooth golden skin. Licks of black ink stretched from his shoulders, mostly hidden by more shirt. She huffed, trying to shove it off, but instead caught his nipple by accident with her nails.

His nostrils flared as he hissed and dropped her unceremoniously on the mattress. She bounced, breathless. Dangerously close to a giggle. Traitor. She schooled her features back to bored disdain. The only hint of lust was the glassy haze in her vision, honed in on Cassian’s bare chest.

He had removed his shirt while she had been distracted by her traitorous body, discarded it somewhere above her. The black inked lines Nesta had seen stretched around his shoulders and down his arms in dark whorls and spirals. The tattoo was almost feminine in its pure decoration, a stark contrast to his cut biceps. It was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

“Careful, Nesta,” he chided, “someone might think you like what you see.”

She gave him a filthy gesture. A deep, rumbling laugh escaped him as he took a step closer, his fingers grazing the outer seams of her leggings. From her ankle to her knee, where he stopped to make circles. He curved around her knee and gripped her legs, tugging her to the edge of the bed. The palms of his hands burned her skin straight through her leggings. He hadn’t tried to remove her clothes. She couldn’t decide if it was a tease or an insult. Probably both.

“Are you just going to talk?” she cocked an eyebrow at him, “or are you going to do something productive with that mouth?”

His eyes narrowed, “are you sure that’s what you want?”

She wanted him. Damn her, she wanted him so bad she could barely stand to look at him. The guilt roiled in her stomach, that she should take pleasure while everyone she’d loved could no longer. He’d offered her help, but it would be her damnation. No, this was just a distraction. No amount of distraction could bring back Tomas, or her father, or Elain.

Light from the city outside shifted and spread into the corner drawing her eye. The dress. Her wedding dress. In the night shadows, the blunt burns looked like angry, gaping voids. They whispered to her as she stared. Traitor, traitor, traitor.

I’m here to help you. His words were poison. Bred from a kind of hope only Feyre, with her perfect life, could ever have again after what they had lost. Her want for Cassian’s body burned her from the inside, stoked the fires of the self-inflicted hell she’d cast herself into. Nothing more than a catalyst. She could take his body and burn for doing so, but she would not accept his help.

“Cassian,” Nesta’s voice didn’t belong to her. She pulled her t-shirt up to just below her breasts, exposing her flat stomach and drawing his eyes to her waistband. “just do what you came to do.”

The air chilled as he stiffened. Her heart raced, waiting for him, fingers teasing her bare skin. He didn’t move. She lifted a bare foot and ran it along his pant leg, coaxing him to touch her. He nodded, as if making some decision Nesta wasn’t privy to. His face, lit so beautifully by the moonlight, hardened into a mask. A smooth, smiling mask. Prince of cats no more.

“Cassian?”

“Dear Nesta, I do believe our time is up,” he leaned down and reached over her, his chest just grazing her belly, the only skin to skin contact they’d had. She swore she felt him shudder, but it was over in an instant. He quickly retrieved his shirt from behind her and pulled it on.

She gaped at him, “what do you mean our time is up?”

“I mean,” his eyes shot right through her with cool confidence, “it’s getting late and I do need my beauty sleep. I must be going.”

“But–“ she didn’t understand. Isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t this how he gets paid? How can he leave?

He buttoned up his shirt, swift and efficient. Little feeling or warmth. Nesta wasn’t sure what to do. Confusion quickly gave way to anger, boiling in her veins, flushing her skin.

“So, you’re not just a whore,” she hissed, “you’re a bastard whore that can’t even finish the job.”

“So lovely meeting you, dear Nesta,” he turned with a sweet smile and opened the door, sending any tension between them out into the hallway. He breezed through the door, clicking it shut behind him so gently he might have been a phantom.

Nesta slammed her head against the mattress and let out a frustrated scream so loud she had no doubt the bastard whore heard it.

taglist: @sleeping-and-books @greerlunna @sjmships @cupcakey00 @queenestarcheron

Cassian’s POV is next ❤️

#acotar #acotar fic #nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #acotar au #acomaf #acowar #sarah j maas #sjm #my writing

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dragonrajafanfiction · 4 years ago

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Club Takamagahara (End) - Dating Game

Woo Doggy! This has been fun to write and I mean FUN. Having no real holds barred and getting really silly was a lot easier than I expected and I had a great time with this arc.

One of the biggest complaints in the mobile game fandom is the Main Story offers no love interest for the MC and it trails off at this part as the MC is reduced to a go-fer for every NPC’s sidequest. Well I say NO MORE, you will be quite literally the center of everyone’s attention from here on out.

Cars lined up around the entire block of the street and women were lined up along the sidewalk for their tickets. From 8 to 10 p.m., the busiest time of the night was when the stage was filled with shows by the performers, from ancient erotic dramas like Cleopatra and Marc Antony to Chu Zihang's swordplay; off stage, the guests were already drunk. The guests who came late were often groups of girlfriends who had eaten dinner elsewhere and came to join the singing and dancing party in Takamagahara, the performers had to go over and greet them, there was a shortage of manpower everywhere. Both the escorts and waiters were running to work, Whale was roaring outside the dressing room backstage, like the circus troupe master.

The message of the Romanceable MC Contest had caught fire and boosted to epic proportions. Princess Night was in full swing and featured all the top names in Male Escort business. Even before they got out of the cars, the women were screaming and taking pictures having lined up for hours.

The white Cadillac Escalade stretch limousine rolled like an anaconda and reflected the millions of electric lights of the Tokyo night. It took up half the block, but there was space left for cars like this, reserved for the VIPs of the Takamagahara elite. No one could park there on pain of towing and a hefty fine.

A man in a hooded cloak pulled the lollipop out of his mouth. His bright green eyes scanned the crowd waiting outside. He crossed his legs one over the other and leaned back. “What percentage of the fans out there are mine?”

“From the ticket sales it seems that you are about 30% of the crowd today, Master Inoue.” The driver, a veteran and son of drivers, had been there for him since he first made it big hosting the Bliss Hall. This driver was so skilled at avoiding paparazzi that he put him under a lifetime contract. Now he was much older, but his driving was still as sharp as ever.

The man in the back seat was barely visible, dressed in all black and keeping the lights down so that it looked just like an empty limo. He huffed with a slight smirk. He crossed his arms and looked down. “Wow. And I’m supposed to have competition?”

“You are the top male escort in Tokyo, Master Inoue,” rumbled the driver again.

That sharp green eye flicked up to the rear view mirror. “Second… to the top. If you would, sir. But apparently Ruri Kazama isn’t competing.”

Ruri Kazama. The name was so legendary among the escorts of Japan that they scarcely dared to utter it. Although he rarely appeared outside private showings, the man reigned supreme as the king of the male escort business.

“He’s unlikely he would have been able to respond on short notice, Master Inoue…”

“No one skips the Takamagahara…” He looked back outside, pushing back the thick velvet curtain slightly.

“You’ve skipped it by 3 hours sir.”

“I”m only here to see one woman. There’s no need to see any others or stay here too long. I come here, win her little heart, and leave with my prize money.”

“You’re really not going to entertain your fans, sir?”

He grinned, his radiant and white smile shining in the dark of the limo. “There’s value in scarcity. If I popped up in full all the time, there’d be no chase. And as you know very well, my most excellent driver… It's all about the chase! If you would, please?”

The driver put the truck in park and stepped out in his sharp suit and driver’s hat. He pulled the handle on the pearly side door and opened it.

Shining black cowboy boots covered in sparkling rhinestones stepped down from the limo. He moved as smooth and graceful as a dancer in skin tight leather pants. His black leather jacket was open to reveal his bare chest and sculpted abs. His hair, bleached white streamed from a black cowboy hat decorated with shark’s teeth.

His appearance sparked immediate mayhem, screams, and mad panting. Dozens of hands reached out desperately, stretching their fingers towards him as though they were pulled by an extremely powerful magnet. They were all screaming, “Diamond!”

Master Inoue - or to his fans, Diamond - stood still as a statue, hat tipped over his eyes, listening to their desperate pleas with his eyes closed.

It seemed arrogant, but for him, it was always like this. From the time he was a child, people couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. When they caught sight of his brilliant green eyes they were drawn to him before he even knew the difference between boys and girls. Sitting in the stroller, all he had to do was smile and the women would come and coo and smile and ask, please, can I hold him. Please!

“Please! Hold me, Diamond! Never let me go!”

Diamond lifted his head toward the voice. It was a woman in her thirties, tears in her eyes, begging with the desperation of a leper before Christ. If he just wanted to, he could heal her broken heart. He walked casually towards her and saw her eyes get bigger and bigger and then he took her delicate hand in his and gently kissed it.

The woman, struck with a Pentacostal frenzy, trembled and fell to her knees sobbing in desperation, clutching her hand and rocking back and forth. She would probably never wash that hand again.

The little favor revved the up crowd even more and the bouncers hurried to line up and make a barrier. That kiss was all he would grant. He turned and walked through the velvet rope staffed with burly workers with black masks over their eyes. They opened the doors to Takamagahara and he stepped inside. Immediately, two more workers turned to lead him to the VIP area.

“So who’s the lucky lady tonight?” Deep down, he was quite excited. His clients were usually 35 and older. For thousands of dollars, he would have dinner at a fancy restaurant, followed by drinks in some VIP Lounge. Or he would be asked to clean the house naked. Or pretend to be her boyfriend for the night. There was the common misconception that his clients were old or undateable. But that wasn’t his experience at all.

People who had $5,000 to spend on a naked butler could have anyone they wanted.

And they wanted him.

This challenge was new for him. The club picked his woman and they would be paying his escort fee.

His only task would be to ‘Love her.’ If she felt that then she would give him tickets. Whoever got the most tickets was the winner. When she picked his ‘route’.

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

It wasn’t that you got a private party, MC. This was a show. You were on the floor with everyone else. Rather than sticking to the edge of the crowd you got your table in the shape of a figure 8 in the middle of a raised platform filled with fish swimming about and surrounded by plush red couches in the shape of women’s lips. And already, the bottles were open.

You’re wearing another dress, not a cheongsam this time. It was a light green satin tube dress that hugged your figure and barely covered anything. Your hair was long and down your shoulders and your make up again was light. For such a simple look, you had spent hours in the spa that day while they made sure your hair was softer than it ever had been. You smelled like lilac and roses.

A man with short blond hair cropped above his ears, blue eyes and a black shirt so tight it conformed to every muscle in his body yelled above the music. “Where are you from?”

“Uh… Russia!”

“Russia! Woooow! Are you some sort of Oil Baron?”

“Yeah!” You yell figuring nothing you said mattered. They wouldn't remember anything anyway would they?

He flicks his wrist and produces an unopened rose stem, seemingly from thin air and offers it to you. “To me you’re worth more than all the oil in the world. I hope we get to know each other well, MC.”

Below the shirt, He wore pale form fitting jeans that hugged his considerable muscle just like Caesar’s outfit did. But his shoes were casual sneakers without ornamentation.

You accept the rose he offers you, feeling a bit shy.

Another man in a golden blouse that is made of fabric so sheer you could see the belly button piercing underneath, pulls out a cigarette and lights it up. He puffs out a perfect ring of smoke between his thin lips. “That would be Oil Baroness, Calypso…” He says. “She must have more pull than just money to bring us all to the same table.” His voice was deep and carried through the noise. He pulled another drag and sipped his liquor. But he was looking at you with calculating dark eyes.

A silver coin goes spinning on the table. A man in fiery red hair tied back in a ponytail, puffy red coat and a long chain over his bare chest lifts his chin at you. His eyes are as silver as that coin. “Heads or Tails, MC?”

“What am I betting on?” You ask.

His smile spreads further. “I just said heads or tails.”

“Hey, go easy, she’s new!” The man in the skintight black shirt returns with a bottle of vodka and pours it into a glass.

The redhead slaps his hand over the coin. It’s painted with an elaborate henna tattoo, elaborate, like stained glass. “You’re not going to win by going easy…”

The smell of the vodka is the mix of rubbing alcohol and gasoline. Light a match and it might produce a plume of flame! You lean away, repulsed, but the man next to you brazenly pours himself a glass and downs it. Sighing roughly like he might breathe fire, he grins. “That’s the good stuff! But you must drink it every day right?”

“Yeah!” You take cautious sips but the burn builds and builds until it overwhelms you and forces you to stop and cough into your arm.

Caesar, Mingfei and Chu Zihang were nowhere to be found. It was clear this club was over occupancy and over staffed so there was no rescuing you. All the waiters were running around. From somewhere in the hall, glass breaks.

A finger taps your shoulder. You’re met by a bright green gaze in a pale face.

You flinch as a crown is laid on your head.

“Your Majesty…” The man bows to you.

“Your Majesty!” They all echo with bows and kittenish smiles. For years, you’d never considered trying to date anyone. You lived like you were preparing for war. Then the war came and never let up. Now, you’re surrounded by men who could honestly be called the handsomest in Tokyo who were placing their hands on their broad chests and bowing their heads in fealty.

Off stage, the women on the floor whooped with delight.

Cowboy hat tipped over one eye, shirtless in his jacket, with a bare hairless chest, the man who gave you the jeweled tiara leaned over the couch. Every muscle stood out in carefully carved relief and your eyes followed them down to where they disappeared below his waist. The elastic band of his boxers peek up from the pants. You’d seen naked people before. But they were all familiar, people you knew and were fine with. This is the first time encountering the bare chest of a complete stranger and he’s so close you can smell his sweat. “Wow…” He says quietly, in a low purr next to your ear.

“I’m sorry?”

“You are… beautiful.” His eyes roamed about your body with a lopsided smile, his eyebrows raising. “I have to say I am caught by surprise.”

If your face gets any hotter it might catch fire.

He vaults over the couch, plops next to you and leans in, filling your vision. He gives a quick wink. “I’m yours for the night.”

“Diamond is always this forward but the truth is, he’s the most inexperienced of all of us.”

Diamond shoots the yellow shirt a glare. “I’m experienced in everything she would possibly want, Armani.”

“Yes, but we must go gently, gently…” The black shirt lightly rustles your hair. “We don't want to scare her off.”

“I’m here to do what she wants me to do…” Diamond waves the other men away before addressing you again. “Well, what’s your name?”

You tell him.

“Beautiful… let me guess? Russian?” His hand crept over to envelope yours in a steady grip. His fingers were so much larger than yours and soft like they were bathed in milk every day. There were no calluses. When Mingfei or Caesar touched you, there were roughened, thick patches of skin from hours of practice at the shooting ranges. His nails were even, shining and unbroken.

He raises your hand to his lips and gives it a small kiss. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. You can call me, Diamond.”

“Okay, Diamond.” You glance up at his eyes. He follows your gaze down when it falls again, trying to hold it as much as possible to the point where he leans over and tilts his head to do so. Every time you look up, those eyes are there, to catch that glance, like a serpent hypnotizing his prey.

He holds your drink out to you and you accept it with thanks.

“Are you cold? I noticed you’re keeping your feet tucked under.”

“Yes, it’s… a little cold.”

He shrugged off his jacket and laid it over your shoulders. It was very warm and you realized that the smell of the cologne he was wearing surrounded you like a thick heavy fog. You could now see his body in all its glory. You belatedly realize that the observation of your being cold was just an excuse for him to remove one of the few pieces of clothing he had!

His shoulders.. The way his neck curved into them and then down to his back. You’d seen shoulders like his before but for some reason, in seeing someone new, made your eye rest on it that much longer, on the way the muscle hugged his bone . The cold in the room made his nipples stand out and...

“Anything else I can do to make you more comfortable, Your Highness?” He stayed turned to you. The way his abs wrinkled. That little valley on his side that disappeared when it met the leather pants. You were naturally observant. Everything you saw was getting laser etched into your mind. In an effort to stop it, you return to his eyes but even that wasn’t safe. He was so close, you could notice small flecks of blue and gold that enhanced the color.

“Your eyes are really pretty.” You say this, but it doesn’t sound right even in your own ears. It wasn’t really his eyes you wanted to say something about.

He gives an easy relaxed smile, his eyebrows lift once. “Your eyes are prettier.”

“No they’re not.”

“I think I’m gonna barf. Let a pro show you how it’s done.” The redhead plants one arm between you and Diamond and ignores his furious glare.

His lips were really pink, almost cherry red, but you don’t see any sign of gaudy lipstick that Caesar wore. Everything about this man was gorgeous, even the light smatter of freckles on his nose. And everything about him was natural, save his hair color. The breath from his nose tickles your lips. He’s not backing away, he only tilts his head a bit.

You start to imagine what it might be like to kiss him. He draws a bit closer… closer. You close your eyes and wait. Wait… nothing.

“Can I?” He asks, quietly pleading.

“Uh...huh?” You press the words out from a stomach that was already squeezed tight like a fist.

“Good. I’ll keep that in mind for later.” The redhead pulls back and sashays back to this spot on the couch, giving Diamond a sharp snap of his fingers, just inches on his face. “Get on my level.”

“Alright, Alright, point taken.” Diamond pours himself some vodka.

The man in the yellow blouse, Armani, tilts his glass a bit. “Popularity is just a sign of good marketing and ubiquity. None of us can doubt your social media prowess, Diamond, but this is much higher class.”

He’s then staring at you with a half-lidded gaze. “Perhaps the baroness should accustom herself to someone who has dined with high officials. The ones with real power.”

“Okay…” You whisper, you’re completely captivated, unable to move.

“But that’s boring.” The Redhead sighs. “She needs to have more anticipation and suspense!”

“Your name is Chance because whether or not you’re any good is a complete crapshoot.” Armani sips his whiskey.

“But you could hit the jackpot.” He winks at you. “I’m one in a million.”

A loud popping sound made you suddenly duck but he held you close. Confetti and glitter rained from the ceiling and cascaded over your skin. You look at your arm and watch the play of the disco lights on the sparkle.

“It’s time to give out Star-Heart Tickets! Who is the Ikemen who’s won this round?!” Whale is still emceeing this event and apparently was watching you. A waiter comes by with a basket full of stars with hearts in the middle.

You look at face after glorious handsome face. They were all leaning forward, smiling, waiting. Off stage people were yelling. Bets were being taken. “Diamond! Diamond!”

“PIck Armani he’s the best!”

“You’ll love Calypso!”

“Go with Chance!!”

“I don’t know…” You say, your voice weak. You look at your glass but it seems like the level has hardly moved even though you already feel dizzy.

“No one!” Whale shouts loudly.

There must be a microphone because you’re not sure how he’s hearing what you’re saying. A gasp ripples through the crowd surrounding you and they fall to a confused silence. All the men sitting around you sit up straight, their faces each registering different levels of surprise and consternation. Save Chance, who whooped loud. “Yeah! Now this is what I’ve been waiting for! Let the games begin!” He pumped his fist.

Chance makes a mighty leap on the table and stands in front of you, all six feet of masculine bravado. “Let me give it to you straight. It’s true, I’m not always everyone’s cup of tea, I go buck wild sometimes.” He sweeps his arms across the table at the other men. “But if girls just fall into your lap at the first sight, how do you know how to compete? Ya don’t!”

Armani stares up at Chance and slowly sets his whiskey down. The others also suddenly changed their demeanor, grave determination and desire in their eyes.

#Dragon Raja

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give-me-back-my-rhodey · 5 years ago

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Let’s Burn the World Down - AUgust Day 6

Title: Let’s Burn the World Down

Author: Purple_ducky00

Rating: Teen

Relationship: Clint Barton/Tony Stark, Background relationships: Bucky/Natasha, Steve/Sam

Link: Read on AO3

Summary: Tony falls in love with the guy he keeps meeting in the ER. Too bad the guy already has a girlfriend... or does he?

+++++++++++

For a billionaire, Tony has to go to the hospital very often. Whether it’s a lab accident, a car accident, an assassination attempt, and/or anything else, Tony finds himself in the ER at least once a month. His insurance is higher than his standards, which isn’t saying much, Tony surmises, because he’s halfway in love with the guy he sees almost every time he goes.

They’ve seen each other so frequently that they’ve started nodding to each other and saying, “What are you in for?” like they do in the movies at the police station.

Although he’s being truthful, Tony knows that most of his incidents sound very made up. “Oh, they sent someone to assassinate me, but I managed to flirt my way out of it with only a stab wound.” “My lab exploded.” “My robot dropped a steel sheet on my foot.” “I tripped on something and fell off my porch to the porch below.” But he is even more disbelieving of this man’s injuries.

The guy says stuff like “I shot myself with a boomerang arrow.” “I was skydiving with my dog and my parachute got caught on a tree branch, and an eagle attacked me.” “I think that pizza I ate was too old.” “My old circus buddy tried to kill me. He failed.” “I fell out of the vents, and the bad guys beat me up.”

Today Tony comes in because he had to jump through a window to avoid Sunset Bain. He now has glass sticking out of his side, and he’s sitting calmly until a doctor can see him. The man limps in, bloody and skin mangled on his leg. The others in the ER gasp as he signs in and takes a seat beside Tony. “Hey man, what you in for?” He asks.

“Jumped out a window to avoid my ex.”

“Mood.” The man nods sagely. “I just battled a cougar and won. Before you ask, yes it was the cat kind, although I don’t doubt that a middle-aged woman couldn’t do this if she was rejected.” He gestures to his leg. Tony barks out a laugh.

“Oh, they could. Trust me. By the way, I never got your name. Or did you want to stay anonymous?” Tony asks.

The man shakes his head. “We’d go great no matter how we do it. Name’s Clint.”

“I’m Tony.”

“Yea, I know.” When Tony looks at him, surprised, Clint pats his shoulder placatingly. “You’ve got these people fooled with your greasy shirts and hats, but I never forget a face. Don’t worry, I won’t rat you out. But why do you come to this crappy ER all the time? Aren’t you supposed to go to the ones that are made for rich people?”

Tony shrugs. Truthfully, the first couple time he came, it was because he had happened to be in the neighborhood when disaster struck. He had struck up conversation with Clint, and he decided that if he were able to talk with him, Tony would keep coming to this ER. “I don’t know. I’m in the area a lot, I guess.”

Tony gets that he has problems. He knows that he quickly falls in love with anyone who will show him kindness or even just the time of day because he didn’t get enough love and attention from his parents as a child. He goes to therapy, and he does make an effort to figure out which people are being nice only because they want something, which people are just simply being nice, and which people are flirting. It’s still hard sometimes, like now. He doesn’t think Clint wants something because 1.) he just said that he won’t rat Tony out and 2.) he could have taken Tony’s wallet very easily many times. But is Clint just a nice dude, or does he like Tony?

A nurse gets Tony just as another comes for Clint. Tony lies on his side for far too long as they pull glass from his body. When he’s cleared to go, the doctor tells him, “You have to be more careful, Mr. Stark. You’re not invincible, and I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”

“Thanks Doc. I’ll do my best.” He shakes the man’s hand.

On his way out, he sees Clint talking to a beautiful redhead. She is reaming him out in Russian, calling him and idiot and a few other unsanitary words. Clint tries to console her, but she grabs his hand and pushes him into her car. She speeds off, still shouting in Russian. Tony’s heart drops. He has no chance with Clint now. No one would give up a woman like her for him unless they wanted something.

The next time Tony gets hurt, he goes to the ER near his home. He is in and out shortly, but Tony feels incomplete. He misses the easy camaraderie with Clint. I can still joke with him as friends, right? There’s no harm in that. He reasons, but he chickens out the next time, when he accidentally burns his arm with his blowtorch, and then when he gets shot. This keeps happening until it has been at least three months since he last saw Clint.

Tony gets drunk in a bar | in Brooklyn. Very, very drunk. The thing about being a Stark – you can hold your liquor very well, and even when you are so drunk most people black out, you can still walk and talk albeit hindered a little. Well, Tony is that drunk, and this is when he tends to overshare. He’s telling the bartender, a beefy man with long brown hair, about Clint. “So, there’s this guy, you know. Only time I see him is when I go to the ER. He’s really cute, he’s got like tons of biceps, and he’s funny. We used to see each other all the time, and I think I love him. But one time, I saw him, and he had a girlfriend. Super, smoking hot redhead – like I don’t even stand a chance. So, I’ve been avoiding him. It’s dumb because he doesn’t know I like him, and I keep convincing myself that I can still talk to him as friends and such, but then my brain just tells me he has a girlfriend, and I end up going to an ER near my house. You know?”

“Not really.” The bartender grins. “But I’m not an ER regular.”

“That’s too bad. It’s fun there sometimes.” Tony pats his hand somberly. “Sometimes we freak people out with our injuries. But we’re calm. It happens so much that we’re just like ‘meh’. The doctor told me to be careful because I wasn’t invincible, and I was like ‘ok, I’ll tell my enemies to stop trying to kill me. I hope it works.’”

The bartender throws back his hand and laughs. Tony drains his glass of Scotch and asks for another. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” The bartender asks. What was his name? Barney? Barn?

“Barnes!” Yells someone from the other end of the bar. “I need a mimosa stat!”

“Shut your whore mouth Wilson!” Barnes yells back. “I’m not serving you anything after what you and Steve put me though last night!” He turns back to Tony. “The dude’s dating my step-brother, and our walls aren’t soundproofed. I hate them so much.”

“I could soundproof your walls for you.” Tony offers. He’s not sure why he offered, but he did. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before.

“Thanks for the offer, but Nat and I will get them back at some point. Maybe we’ll do it on the couch.” Barnes grins. “Someone else can make Sam’s mimosa. Wanda’s working that end of the bar anyways.” He gives Tony one more Scotch and says, “This is your last one. I’m going to have to cut you off because I don’t want you to die.”

Tony quietly sips on his drink while Barnes makes other drinks. Once done, he stuffs a few hundreds in the tip jar and turns to leave when a scarlet-haired woman sits on the stool beside him. Tony blinks at her for a second, thinking that she looks familiar. Barnes’ face lights up, and he comes over to her. “Hey, come here often?” He asks, fake seductively.

“Don’t be an idiot,” She tells him and pulls his face in for a kiss. Tony realizes why he thinks she looks familiar. She’s Clint’s girlfriend!

He spins on his stool to face them. “You bitch!” He yells at her, then clamps a hand over his mouth as Barnes growls a warning. “I am so sorry. I don’t know your situation. You could have broken up with him, or hey, you’re a threesome, or an open relationship. I’m sorry. I was just caught up… and I’ll just go.”

Tony stumbles off the stool and heads out of the bar. Mind swirling with liquor and shame, he doesn’t notice he’s in the street or the ugly purple car headed towards him until it’s too late. Frozen, he stares down the lights until the car smacks into him.

Lying on the ground, the last thing he remembers is a person jumping out and yelling, “What are you doing, you idiot? Tony?”

Tony wakes up in a strange place. He feels like he should be in the hospital, but he’s not. Looking around, he sees a lot of… purple. “Ugh, no one should have this much purple anything,”

“I take offense to that.” A voice says. Wait… that’s Clint. Tony wildly tries to sit up, and Clint comes into his line of vision. “Hey, hey lie back down! I don’t think anything’s broken, but you should probably just let your body rest for a while.”

“What happened?”

“I hit you with my car because you were standing in the middle of the street. Why were you standing in the middle of the street?” Clint looks worried.

Tony tries to wave him off. “You know, just for the thrill.”

“Tony, most things I do are just for the thrill, and I know it’s idiotic to stand in the middle of the street.”

“Yeah well, the thing I did before it was idiotic, too, so I’m pretty good at that.” Tony sighs. He doesn’t really want to get into it because Clint will probably make him leave. Tony’s good at leaving. Everyone makes him leave after they learn his true self. Ah, well, what does he have to lose but the love of his life?

“So, last time we were both at the ER, I saw the woman who picked you up. I guess I just figured you were dating the way you both interacted with each other,” Tony explains. “Well, at the bar last night, she came in and made out with the bartender. I called her a bitch because my first thought was that she was cheating on you. Then I remembered that it had been three months, and I didn’t really know anything about you – you might have broken up, or were poly, or open relationship. Point is, I’m an idiot who speaks before he thinks then faces the consequences, even if they’re not direct.” He is very confused when Clint starts to laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“I can’t believe you called Natasha a bitch and still live to tell the story.” Clint says between gasps. “That’s fuckin hilarious. I am sorry that I hit you with my car.”

Tony is thoroughly confused, and Clint takes pity on him. “Natasha is dating Bucky, the bartender. She’s my best friend and confidante. She gets angry when I do stupid things, but I still do them. We are not dating, never have, and never will. Hopefully, that clears things up.”

“A little.” Tony just feels disoriented. This is not something he has ever had to deal with before.

There’s a knock at the door. This “Natasha” pokes her head in. “Hey Clint, is he ok?”

“Yea, come in. Tony meet Natasha Romanoff. Natasha, this is Tony Stark.” Clint gestures to the both of them.

Natasha smirks. “Hi Tony.”

“Hi,” He says weakly. “I’m sorry for calling you a bitch. I sometimes talk before I think, and I’m sorry.”

“Just don’t do it again. Are you guys hungry? Bucky’s making blini.”

Clint nods. “Tell him I love him. We’ll take two plates. You like blini, right?” He directs the question at Tony.

“I think so. I’ve only had them once or twice,” Tony says. When Natasha leaves, he tells Clint, “You don’t have to stay with me. I’ll be fine.”

“Well this is my room, so I want to stay here. By the way, how have you been? I haven’t seen you in a while. I was starting to think you took my fancy ER comment seriously.”

Tony grimaces. “Well, it’s a long story. But I did end up going to the ER near my house a couple times. It’s hard to get no injuries in the stuff I do.”

“Well, I don’t blame you for going to the uber fancy ERs, you know, because there’s better service or whatever. But if you do, can we hang out somewhere other than the ER, then? I kind of missed you, man.” Clint looks at Tony earnestly.

“The main reason I stopped going to our ER is that I saw you with Natasha and thought, ‘how could I ever compete?’ I would tell myself to just go. I could talk to you as a friend, and not me crushing on you, but I always psyched myself out when I got hurt, and I just went to the ER by my house.”

“You’re crushing on me? Wow. I did not know that. I crushed on you the first day I saw you, and I thought you were just being nice. I’m a dumpster fire on my best days.”

Tony shoots him a wicked grin. “Then let’s burn down the world together.”

#ironhawk #background buckynat #background samsteve #au_gust_2020 #i write!#hospital au #no powers au #tony stark #clint barton

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rokutouxei · 4 years ago

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the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

ikemen vampire: temptation through the dark theo van gogh / mc | T | [ ao3 link in bio ]

The challenge seemed pretty simple: to try to befriend the university bookshop’s most sour employee, Theo van Gogh. As a literature major with a boatload of book recommendations on her back, it ought to be a simple task indeed. But as she uncovers what lies between Theo’s pages, the more she finds it harder to become closer to him without having to put the feeling directly into words. What can she learn from Theo about what it means to stay—and how can she teach Theo about what it means to let go? | written for ikevamp big bang 2020!

[ masterpost for all chapters ]

CHAPTER 8 OF 22

And how impossible it still is: to train the heart to sit. - "The Kindest Thing She Almost Did", Blythe Baird

The College of Arts’ student council has rotating schedules on who gets to organize the university-famous Halloween party. This year, it was the Literature Department and the Film Department that paired up to choose a theme, decorate, and make sure the party is getting smoothly—and the very specific, not-required but entirely funny, theme this year was “Film or Book that you’d love to be turned spooky, but isn’t exactly spooky.”

This is why she thought of coming in as characters from the Night Circus. The black and white stripes matched with red really gives off a very Halloween vibe to begin with, but all the circus-y magic that goes on in the book itself also makes it very viable for the spooky vibes.

She’s now standing in front of the College of Arts’ event hall, where the event is set to happen. She tugs at the locks of hair dangling at the side of her face, the ones she couldn't get to obey her planned updo, even with all the bobby pins.

There's something about scavenging a costume on your own that is so nerve-wracking. There's something more when you're portraying a character from a book someone introduced to you. It feels like it's a duty to get it right. She couldn’t find any entirely matching dresses in the thrift stores she went to, so this was the best she could do: some sort of modern but 1890s-inspired fortune teller mash-up of a costume. The dress was fashioned out of this dizzying deep blue-black velvet fabric, with little speckles of silver glitter like stars across it; she wore a striped black and white petticoat underneath it to give it some volume since the dress ended around the knees. She’d re-sewn the sleeves and the neckline to be similar to that of the era, revealing a nice V along her back and a nice, wide boat collar. Then, she’s put on a small, decorative hat with some red flowers on the corner of her head, and then draped a sheer black scarf with little rosy red designs on the ends over her shoulders. Then she put on some knee-high lace-up boots to add a little grunge to the entire attire. Lastly, she had a few Rider-Waite tarot cards in her pocket (The Chariot and Temperance) just for the vibe of it.

(All this costume preparation was really to wind herself down after submitting her initial requirements to the scholarship selection committee earlier that week.)

Just as she begins to spiral in her thoughts, “Sorry I’m late,” she hears Theo’s familiar voice call out, and she looks up from staring at her shoes and gasps out loud.

Theo’s wearing his hair a little curlier than usual, a lightly-tinted pair of green contacts on his eyes and—as he’s promised—a well-tailored suit, in black and white and red, to suit the general aesthetic of the circus itself. She figured he would come in a suit, but—she wasn’t expecting him to take the extra effort with the hair and the eyes, either. She could even see the little silhouette of a journal peeking from underneath his jacket—he’s obviously prepared even to the smallest details! Maybe, maybe he does look like the Marco in her head. Just a little. Maybe if his hair was darker. She finds herself staring at him for a ridiculous amount of time, so much so that he has to cough to get her attention again.

"The green eyes look lovely on you," she comments softly, hand curling up to gently press his finger at his cheekbone near instinctively, allowing her to observe his eyes better. Theo feels himself flinch in surprise, but he does not pull back.

"Thank you, grey-green was a very specific color."

She nods. "I do prefer your usual blue though." Her hand falls back to her side. "Too bad I can't magic it back?"

"You see it blue all the time. Stop complaining when this was your idea," Theo says, but he offers his arm anyway.

"So sour," she pouts. "How unbecoming of you, Mister Alisdair," she says, as she slides her arm into his.

Theo only snorts; he does not hide the half-smirk. "Only to match you, Miss Martin."

The event hall is lavishly decorated in some sort of spooky, old vampire mansion vibes, with all the matching spiders and fake candles. It is a little silly to see the DJ on the far end of the hall, with his set-up on top of what seemed like a desk older from three centuries ago. The caterers set up the food on a buffet table—also beautifully decorated, how many fine arts majors did the production team get to bully into helping them out?—to get it ready before dinner at six.

But the bar—the bar is open.

“Do you drink?” she asks casually, already one foot towards the bar.

He takes a nervous gulp she pretends not to notice. “Not a lot,” he answers.

“Then a glass will be alright. I told Arthur we’d meet at the bar. Come on!”

Because her college stupidly attempts to seem puritan, official drink menus are not allowed to actually say out loud that they contain hard liquor, so instead have really creative names. This time, they are references to different, random books and films, with fine-print descriptions of what it is. She orders a glass of Pride and Prejudice and Theo gets a serving of Kafka on the Shore. Both of them had just received their drinks when her phone begins to ring, and with a short excuse me she heads to a quieter part of the room and answers the call.

“Dazai?”

“Hello, Toshiko-san. I’m waiting outside the hall, but you’ve entirely forgotten that I haven’t actually met who I’m bringing in.”

Oh! “Well, I told him to wait on a stone bench there… Dark blue-ish hair, blue eyes, a mole on the side of his lip? He responds to ‘Arthur’.”

“‘Responds?’ Are your bookstore friends all a bunch of dogs?”

“Well, this drools at the sight of meat,” you say, unapologetically. “I didn’t see him there yet when I was still out, but—”

She hears a shuffle from the other side of the line, and Arthur’s familiar voice through the phone, a small “Hello, could you be Dazai?” and her friend’s very, very meaningful pause—she can almost see Dazai looking Arthur up and down—before he answers, “Yes, and you must be Arthur.”

The phone call ends and she grins for only a half a moment before realizing what she’d done.

She walks ever so slowly back to the bar, letting it sink in. But once she’s got her glass in her hand, she downs it in one go, surprising both the bartender and Theo. She shakes her head and then sits back down on the stool, half-laughing.

“Something happen?” Theo asks.

She groans. “I may have made a mistake with Arthur.”

Theo takes a sip of his drink, just the littlest bit smug. “Everything is a mistake if Arthur is involved.”

“I didn’t think he’d—”

“Hello, lovebirds,” says the devil, Arthur coming up behind them with—

With Dazai glued to his hip.

She’s known Dazai for a few years at this point, and because they’ve known each other for so long, there are little things she knows Dazai does that may not seem obvious to the onlooker.

First: Dazai is not fond of touching, but he is rather great at tolerating it. It usually takes a few months before Dazai is fine with being touched by someone. Even she took around half a year before Dazai would allow her to hug him freely. When he’s being touched by someone he does not particularly like, he clenches his hands and fits them into his pockets, so it’s not as noticeable.

Observer’s note: Arthur’s got his hand around Dazai’s waist. Dazai’s hands are wide open, resting at his hip.

Second: Dazai is also good at having his practiced smile. He says he practices it in the mirror, did it every day for a year until it became natural to him; it looks genuine and otherwise believable, that is, if you haven’t seen his actual smile. And even if you have, sometimes it’s still hard to tell. His actual, genuine smile, that goes up to his eyes, crinkling the sides of it, and he flushes sometimes too; it’s so wide it reveals the little dimple on his cheek.

Observer’s note: Dazai’s dimple is very, very visible right now.

Third: Dazai has this thing where the longer he considers a person, the less he becomes attracted to them, for some reason, even if the extended thinking time only makes him feel like they’re a better match by the second. Dazai is only genuinely, passionately, instantly attracted to people he knows will pose him some sort of danger and excitement.

Observer’s note: Dazai met Arthur today.

She bites back the groan that’s bubbling out her throat and grins. “Hello, Arthur, Dazai. Having fun?”

“Where’d you been hiding this cutie all this time?” Arthur teases, squeezing Dazai closer to him. “Much fun now that he’s here. I see you’ve started drinking ahead of us.”

“Just a little,” she says. “Shall we find a table?”

The four of them choose a table in the middle of the chaos—Arthur’s suggestion—somewhere midway the bar and buffet. The tables are for six, and the number makes her remember.

“I couldn’t get Isaac to come.”

Dazai shakes his head. “I told you he said he wasn’t interested. Must be working overtime like he usually does.” He nods towards her direction. “Good attempt, though.”

She frowns. “He should really let loose sometimes… I know he’s good at what he does, but a little, one-night-a-year party isn’t going to hurt him is it?”

“Ohoho, what’s this, have another cute friend I have to know?” Arthur interrupts.

Dazai taps Arthur’s nose gently and she wants to vomit. What has she done. “Isaac Newton, a Ph.D. student from the physics department. Too serious for his own good.”

Surprise fills Arthur’s face. “My, isn’t that Newt? Teaches classes sometimes?” She and Dazai nod. “Small world!”

“Next year we’re really finding a way to drag him in,” she says.

To which Dazai laughs, “you won’t be here next year, Toshiko-san.”

There’s a small sliver of silence that settles in between them, just long enough to be felt but not for the conversation to come to an abrupt halt. It makes Theo flinch a little.

“Then it’s up to you guys, isn’t it?” she takes her second glass of literary cocktail—she doesn’t even know what’s in this one, just pointed at the menu, it was titled Wolf Totem—and downs half of it in one go.

“Maybe if a girl came around to bring him, he’d be more persuadable,” Arthur teases, “Look at my chap Theo over here.”

“So you’re Theo, huh?” Dazai purrs. She throws a glare at him that goes ignored. “Nice to finally meet you, I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Theo only nods as a response and she takes the chance to get the conversation back in a direction that makes her a little safer from their teasing. “But no, really, Isaac? Coming for a girl? You don’t know him at all, Arthur.”

“Oh, even the toughest guys fall back to romance, don’t they, Theo?”

Theo throws a glare towards Arthur; it is shrugged off as the newly-formed suddenly-a-couple laughs in unison.

Despite the ruckus, the four of them still have some good fun at the party. Arthur Arthur’s non-stop insisting that they play the party games has them rewarded with many things: a stupid award here or there, minuscule amounts of cash that could be used in the future for dine-outs, and even a nice bottle of high-end “water”—it was definitely vodka, the organizers just couldn’t announce it out loud. She and Dazai had to stand up a couple of times to go meet their college-mates in their department, but the four of them stayed mostly together until past dinner—that is until the dance music started to rev up, getting ready for the long night ahead.

“Excuse the two of us, we’re going to do some actual dancing, like people do at parties to have fun,” Arthur says, but his face is already littered in glitter from the poppers and his face is dusted pink from all the alcohol. Obviously, dancing isn’t required to have fun at all. Taking Dazai’s hand like a gentleman, sliding his arm around the other man’s waist, Arthur makes a comical bow to which she makes a face. The two disappear into the crowd of people dancing on the dance floor, and the sight of them so obsessed with each other makes her lean back on her chair to take a sip on her—fifth? Sixth? Ah, who is counting?—nth glass of alcohol.

Wary of being the killjoy, Theo gently asks, “Don’t you want to dance?”

“I mean… you don’t want to, do you?” she asks, facing him properly, glass still in hand. “I just felt like it’d be great to hang out with you here and if you’re not up for dancing…”

“If you want to we should go.”

“I’m not going if you’re forcing yourself to.”

“No, I’m not, so—”

“Theo, sit down!” she says, laughing. The alcohol’s given her skin a beautiful pink flush, and her smiles have turned wider, more relaxed. “It’s okay, I promise. Just sit here and drink your—drink. It’s just nice to have company.”

He nods as she turns back to watching the crowd. A smile still settles on her face as she watches the mass of people dancing and shouting to the music. Theo asks, “Do you always go here with someone?”

She shrugs, taking another sip from her glass. “I came alone the first time, and then the next I went with Dazai. He’s pretty popular—when he’s alone, without anyone slung on him, you know? Lots of people dance with him.”

“And you?”

“Me?” she asks, forehead wrinkling. “I’m normal. I sit and drink until my liver begs me to stop. And then dance until my legs beg me to stop when I’m drunk enough.”

He scoffs, but only in that friendly way of defeated acceptance. “Sounds like fun.”

“So much more fun with you around though,” she asserts, tilting her glass to him. “Cheers?”

“For what?”

And she’s quiet for a moment, before she raises her glass again, saying, “To friendship and literature, of course.”

Theo thinks that’s good enough. They clink their glasses gently and then drink.

For the slightest of moments, Theo considers asking the one question that had been on his mind since she invited him to the party. Preparing the clothes to wear to the event only made his curiosity even stronger, but at the same time, he didn’t feel like he had the right to ask. Theo feels content sitting in his uncertainty, the mystery of it hanging in the air.

But the alcohol has made him a little more courageous.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot!”

“Why didn’t you go as Celia?”

It’s common for a pair of people to attend a costume party in matching outfits with characters that are paired as well. Celia is Marco’s natural pair in the book. Isobel is not. Why didn’t she go as Celia? Theo would not have minded if she did. Celia was fiery and romantic and could see through Marco’s every disguise.

And Isobel longed and longed and never got what she wanted.

“I kind of felt for Isobel, you know?” she answers, in that hesitant way that makes the asker wonder if it’s because of the embarrassment or because of the half-lie. “She was running away, after all. Didn’t you say that was what I was so fixated on?”

And Isobel is only the circus because she was the way for Marco to get to who he loved. Even before he knew who he loved.

“Wouldn’t have expected that from you,” Theo remarks, taking out his little Marco-journal to dust it away idly. “You seem like the type who always feels extensively for the protagonists.”

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, but then, suddenly, her eyes widen brightly. She puts down her glass and quickly swipes the journal Theo kept with him before pulling him up by the wrist. “C’mon, let’s do the photo booth?”

“What?” Theo staggers up. Why so suddenly? “Who’ll watch over the table?”

She places her little hat on the table. “That’ll save it, let’s go.”

Theo can feel his pulse thrumming under his wrist where she’s holding on to him. Theo does not have the will to argue as she drags him to the makeshift studio on the far end of the hall. Instead, he focuses on her—the way her hair’s held up in an intricate braided bun on her head, the fall of her dress over her shoulders, the feeling of his hand around his arm.

She’s such a weird girl, he thinks.

When they get to the end of the line—a short one, bless the universe—she takes out the two tarot cards in her pocket and hands them to him.

“Switch props for the photo,” she explains.

When they get to the photo booth, they opt for two photos; one for her to keep, and another for Theo. They don't even bother with the poses, both half-drunk, holding up their character props as the cameraman fixes the shot. She settles, standing by his side, arms twined, head leaning toward him as the camera flashes once. And Theo can’t help himself when he turns to face her because of that, and before he knows it—the camera flashes once more.

She’s too far into her drinks to have time to think why Theo’s so concerned about seeing the photos first and choosing which one he wants to keep for himself.

It is just a little past midnight when she, Theo, Arthur, and Dazai hop out of the hall. She insisted that it would be better to wait until the end of the night before leaving—making most of the ticket, or something—and the most that they had gotten out of that was a free coupon to a fast-food chain.

That, and this:

She’s half-slung over Theo when she yells at Arthur and Dazai, who are very obviously becoming a little too comfortable with each other, handsy as they huddle together. She shouts: “Jesus, guys, get off each other!”

“Hmm? Right now? Sure, we’d love to, if you don’t mind—”

“NO! NO NOT LIKE THAT!” she yells, pushing away from Theo to nudge Arthur away from Dazai. The new lovebirds just laugh mildly at each other as she huffs and frowns, falling back into step next to Theo. “Oh god, I’ve made the worst mistake of my life.”

“Best mistake of my life,” Dazai says with a slurred laugh, leaning against Arthur. She makes a gagging motion, to which Theo snorts.

Relative to everyone else’s lodging in the university, the van Goghs’ apartment is the one closest to the hall, so the four of them make their way to it, drunk feet stumbling on uneven pavements all the way there. Arthur and Dazai are walking ahead of them—Theo doesn’t know how Arthur knows where he lives, not when he’s never brought him there; that’s a question for a more sober time—and she and Theo walk side-by-side a few feet behind.

She’s not entirely drunk, no, but she’s a little closer to drunk than tipsy, and it shows when she speaks. “Did you have fun today, Theo?” she asks, ignoring the little misstep her conversation has cost her.

Theo has his hands in his pockets, but they’re only seconds away from grabbing her by the arm to steady her. Any minute now. “It was okay.”

She grins. “Great! That’s all I want.” She looks back up in front of them, and Arthur throws one glance upon hearing their conversation, but then quickly looks away. “It’s kinda, uuuuh,” she squints, the words lost. “Different, to hang out with you with ‘thur and ‘zai around.”

See, this is exactly why Theo capped himself off at three drinks. Look—he’s long accepted his less than average tolerance, but to have to babysit a group of drunk college kids… “Bad different?”

“Nuh-uh,” she says. “Jus’ different. Used to only us. ‘t’s nice being alone with ya.”

I don’t want to take care of a drunk you on my own, she hears in her head, and she isn’t quite sure if Theo had actually said it or if it was just a figment of her imagination.

Soon enough, the four of them stumble onto the van Gogh’s front porch, Theo just not-drunk enough to get the key in through the hole. With a click, the four of them are greeted by the bright light of the living room. Arthur must have been the one that hissed. They stagger in, Dazai slamming onto the sofa, Arthur right after him, and she, heading to the refrigerator for some water.

Theo disappears for a moment to check on Vincent in the studio and to tell him that he’s brought his unfortunate group of friends to sober up, and it’s a good thing the drunkards aren’t around with him because the brightness of Vincent’s smile would have knocked them right out.

“I’ll go take a shower,” Theo announces to no one in particular, shouting down the hall as he disappears into his shared bedroom with Vincent. She tries not to think of what that would look like, blaming her wandering thoughts on the alcohol. She’s about on her second glass of water when she spots Vincent headed to the kitchen.

She beams. “Vin-ny~” she reaches out to him and Vincent catches her before she falls.

“Did you have fun at the party?” Vincent asks, half-laughing, as he helps her to sit on the counter—which was what she was trying to do. “How much did you drink?”

She raises her hands up to her face and tries to count, fully knowing she stopped counting after the second glass. “Enough to make me happy,” she answers instead, smiling dumbly at the older van Gogh. “Theo was so grumpy.”

“He was so excited to go, though,” Vincent says, standing next to her. Of course he has no qualms ratting on his younger brother like that. “You should have seen him, preparing for his costume. Did he look just as you imagined?”

“…And better,” she admits, before taking a sip of the water again to sober up a little more. The ice in the glass is helping her brain to chill. “I’m not sure if he had fun, though. I feel kind of bad.”

Vincent hums. “He looks like he had fun. He wouldn’t have brought you guys here otherwise.”

“You think so?” she asks, eyes wide. The blond man laughs.

“I know so.”

By the time Theo comes out of the shower, he’s a little more dressed down, in jeans and a button-up shirt. He looks at Arthur and Dazai, both already long out like a light on the couch, and sighs.

“I suppose you’re sleeping here too,” he asks, looking toward her. She shoots him an awkward grin.

“She can sleep on my bed,” Vincent offers, but Theo shakes his head.

“She can sleep on mine. You sleep on your bed tonight, Vincent. I can sleep in the studio. I’ll just pass by the drugstore a few blocks down for some…” he frowns at Arthur and Dazai, “…Ibuprofen, for tomorrow.”

“Take care on your way out,” Vincent answers, taking a scan at Theo up and down to see if he’s sober enough to go out. Theo really didn’t drink a lot—purposefully, he knew this was going to happen—so he’s standing pretty straight. He nods and makes his way out, the door closing with a gentle click.

After that, she slouches next to Vincent, like she was just holding herself up to seem a little put together for Theo. Vincent pats her on the head gently, like a little child.

“Is something wrong?” he asks.

She sniffles a little, looking down at her shoes. “I was just thinking h’much I’ll miss this.”

“Are you going away?”

“Maybe,” she says, idly. “I want to. Don’t want to. Want to.”

Vincent smiles, the kind of disappointed-but-not-surprised, non-judgmental, gentle smile of an older brother one would give to a younger sibling. Carefully, he hooks her arm around his shoulders, saying, “C’mon, let’s get you to bed,” as he leads her to his shared room with Theo. She is pliant in his arms, legs wobbling but still planted with a balance onto the floor.

The costume she’s in doesn’t look entirely too comfortable to sleep in, so he offers her a loose shirt and some sweatpants to change into. It takes her two minutes too long to fumble into them, but right before he begins to get worried that she’s gotten stuck in the fabric, she knocks at the door to tell Vincent she’s done. He walks in with a glass of water.

“One last before you sleep,” he says, assisting her in drinking. “I hope you don’t have a headache tomorrow.”

But she’s intoxicated, and her brain doesn’t follow along with Vincent, so as she’s drinking the water her eyes are wandering the walls, where various canvases are hung. All of them are Vincent’s, and most of them are unframed, and perhaps have never been seen by anyone besides Vincent and Theo. Once the glass is empty, she turns to Vincent with a glazed look in her eye.

“Do you think there’s going to be something greater for us outside of this place?”

He blinks, taken off guard. She has officially transitioned from clingy, whiny drunk, to having an existential crisis, philosophical drunk. He only laughs lightly, placing the glass on the bedside table as he coaxes her into bed, tucking her under the blanket.

“I sure do hope so.”

#the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart #ikemen vampire #ikevamp theo

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greatatmakingmemes · 4 years ago

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Wooden Overcoats: Antigone in the Spotlight

RP sentence starters from Season 3, Episode 5, “Antigone in the Spotlight” from “Wooden Overcoats”. Feel free to change pronouns, etc. to better suit your muse(s)! TW for arson, death, mild sexual content.

“Everyone’s here!”

“Quick, take these matches and copy of the script, go on and start a fire!”

“You’ve got nerve talking to me after what I saw in that dressing room.”

“You know, I actually thought you were my friend.”

“I should have listened to you.”

“As of that little incident just now, we are no longer on speaking terms.”

“If I could only travel back in time, I’d make sure we’d never started.”

“Look! This place has got coffee!”

“What’s wrong with live performance?”

“That’s not a table. That’s her coffin.”

“Are you sure it isn’t sacrilege? I haven’t got coasters.”

“She wanted to be present at the reading of her last play. That isn’t too much to ask, is it?”

“You make her sound like an egomaniac.”

“It’s the most ridiculous venture we’ve ever engaged in.”

“If this is our production, why is he starring in it?”

“There are no small parts, only bad ones.”

“The smoking hot, fit one from the circus?”

“Is she bringing the whip?”

“I think she’s here. An elephant’s just pulled up.”

“Who can’t sweep forty dead clowns under the carpet these days?”

“Her top hat was alarmingly jaunty.”

“So, we meet again.”

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

“I am doing this for my old friend, [name].”

“Though I run a circus, I will not tolerate clowning around.”

“I’m surprised they let us back in after last year.”

“He bellowed some fairly unholy language.”

“Where is the one they call, [Name]?”

“I was the Phantom of the Opera for a few weeks on Broadway.”

“Your anecdotes are wasting time.”

“I’ll park the car.”

“She loves him but never told him.”

“You could tell the story in three minutes if they stopped being silly about it. All the talking is self-indulgent.”

“Now you’re an expert on the human condition?”

“Do you recall our parents ever speaking to each other?”

“What do you know about theatre, [name]?”

“It’s also a load of crap.”

“Together we shall make these dead words live!”

“Are you with me?”

“That was strong work today and strong work deserves strong liquor.”

“I want her to pick me up and put me in her hat.”

“I don’t want to make it better; I want to do it as it is.”

“He didn’t offer to buy me a drink.”

“You think I’m blind?”

“Do you want someone to rub your feet for a while?”

“We make a great team.”

“I can’t believe I’m back so soon.”

“Yes, God moves in mysterious ways.”

“I should never have left.”

“There are some needs greater than any one man’s.”

“I believe she has something to say to you.”

“We haven’t even got a real car.”

“It should be sexy.”

“What if [Name] took his shirt off?”

“You can jump him.”

“Whatever helps you out.”

“Who prefers sex?”

“She can’t just walk into a room and get what she wants.”

“How can you possibly care about someone who can’t admit to what they want?”

“Go away!”

“Have you gone mad?”

“Sucks to be you!”

“You will rue this day.”

“I’m running away to rejoin the circus.”

“I’m in charge! You have to do what I tell you or else!”

“I had to crush the coffee beans with my teeth.”

“We can cancel the show.”

“Let’s all put our heads together and devise a plausible excuse.”

“I could burn the theater down.”

“If you get caught, then we don’t know each other.”

“[Name], you’re not helping.”

“One must accept one’s limitations and avoid lost causes.”

“I was never meant to be in the scouts.”

“That was just ridiculous scheme in a long line of ridiculous schemes for a cause so lost it might as well be in another universe.”

“If anyone can do it properly, I can.”

“Can you see me and [Name] ever happening? I could.”

“Can you test me on my line?”

“It was too much, too late.”

“Between the two of us, we can do this.”

“This man - you want him. You want this man deeply, but he doesn’t know and he never can know.”

“Do you like yourself?”

“Is this the day you step from the shade or will you forever be confined to the darkness?”

“Please tell me this wasn’t a mistake.”

“If things go proper pear shaped, I’ve got a plan. You give the word and I’ll hit the fire alarm.”

“I’ve been looking forward to this! I’ve heard its dreadful.”

“You’re girlfriend isn’t here?”

“Break a leg.”

“Why was I even born?”

“I should really let you solve this.”

“What’s going on and why should I care?”

“If you’re here to kill me, can you do it now?”

“I am not here to harm you. In fact, quite the opposite.”

“The two of us have reached an understanding.”

“You have me now.”

“That’s quite a change of heart.”

“I read the whole thing again and again until I could see it through your eyes.”

“No one has ever dared to confront me the way you did.”

“You are unique.”

“You are a Titan.”

“I am in love with you.”

“Do not speak. Despite what i have said, you must not accept me.”

“For the sake of our art, you cannot accept me.”

“Why do you deny me?”

“You’re so cruel.”

“I offer you everything, yet you throw it away.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“It is everything you think and more.”

“Who cares about her?”

“I don’t know what’s happened!”

“I can’t handle anything else right now!”

“Couldn’t you lie to me, just for an evening?”

“I don’t have pity for you.”

“I am not angry. You were honest and I am honest.”

“No one could have done it better.”

“Why is anything?”

“Why won’t anyone help me?”

“I think the chauffeur should be Scottish.”

“That was unkind.”

“We need a plan… sort of… now.”

“The show must go on.”

“It’s gonna work, okay?”

“I see, you’ve got some secret plan worked out to make it all better.”

“She’s difficult to root for.”

“Her life’s gone by. It’s kind of pathetic. I feel sorry for her more than anything.”

“You’re stealing ideas!”

“Corruption in the media gets worse every day.”

“It really is you! And it really is me!”

“I feel like I’ve been wasting my time and if I told you why, I’d be wasting even more of my time.”

“I suppose all I have to say to you, ultimately, is that I have nothing to say to you.”

“Does someone have a tissue?”

“I would say we’re about equal now for embarrassing public performances.”

“Well, I suppose we’ve learned you can’t please all the people all the time, but you can please one of the people for three minutes of amateur theatre.”

“At the risk of always being the messenger, there’s someone over there who’d like a word with you.”

“I am sorry about the sprinklers.”

“You are never going to top that for an ending.”

“Maybe some things are better left unsaid.”

“Timing is everything.”

“The guys are going out for drinks… you wanna come?”

“I’d had enough drama for one night.”

#rp meme #roleplay meme #sentence starter meme #wooden overcoats #wooden overcoats s3 ep5

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lihikainanea · 5 years ago

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23! 23 from the Xmas promts! “Aren’t you afraid of setting the house on fire with all the lights?” 😭😂😭😂

**Happy Christmas, friends! I’m doing the 25 days of Christmas with Bill and tiger, so go on and send me a prompt from the list, or any list, or make up your own–to read about all the troubles these two morons can find themselves in during the holiday season

Day 1/ Day 2/ Day 3

23. Aren’t you afraid of setting the house on fire with all the lights?

It had taken forever to warm the place up, most of the afternoon in fact, but the setting was unbelievably perfect. Nestled further into the Swedish archipelago than you had ever been, the old log cabin was every bit the perfect backdrop for the holiday season—quiet, cozy, serene. It belonged to Bill’s great grandfather once upon a time, and he thought some quiet time away from the circus that was his family would do the both of you some good.

You were tired leading up to the holidays, work had gotten crazy with the close out of the year before it had gotten quiet and in the time leading up to your Christmas vacation you had pulled long days, late nights, and barely any break between. And on the first day you had to relax, Bill had whisked you off to his motherland with his entire family and the two of you had barely gotten a few minutes of quiet solitude since you arrived.

Some time out from your time out was needed, he thought, so with instructions to pack a weekend bag, he loaded you onto a ferry.

The house was beautiful, the town sparse and blanketed in the quiet cover of snow. It was perfect. He had gotten the fire started when you arrived, lit up the other wood stoves while the electricity kicked in, then he had gone off to get some dry firewood from the shed and to pick up a few groceries from the only store in town.

“So how do you summon the dogs for your sled, anyway?” You joked as you followed him out to the front porch. He rolled his eyes, kissing your nose affectionately.

“That’s ridiculous, nobody here takes dog sleds,” he chastised, “…there’s a ski-doo in back.”

You laughed, but he wasn’t kidding.

You kept moving while he was gone, if only to keep warm. The cabin was beautiful but lacked a few Christmas touches, ones that you had taken with you for this very purpose. Making your way around you hung a few baubles, some of his favourite mistletoe, and then you strung fairy lights from anywhere you could reach. It was almost perpetually dark in his home town around this time of year, and the lights illuminated a soft glow that was both romantic and soothing. You hung them everywhere—around the door frames, scattered around the wood table, over the mantel in the living room.You looped them through the headboard in the bedroom, weaved them around the staircase, and when you were done the entire house held a calming glow.

Satisfied, you rummaged through your bag for another surprise. It was daring, a little out of character for you, but you had wanted to do something a bit special for him. He had been so supportive these past few weeks, letting you work as much as you needed to and always being on standby with a cup of tea, some food, a warm hug when you needed it.

You pulled the lacy number out from the bottom of your clothes and held it up. It was…festive, to say the least, however little material there was to it. Tiny triangles of red velvet held together with white fuzzy strings, a few silver sequins just for added pizazz, you gulped as you brought it with you into the bedroom—stopping at the liquor cart in the living room for a swig of liquid courage.

It took some shimmying, some careful maneouvering and hopping before all of your bits had made it into the lingerie set. You were just finishing setting the Santa hat on your head when you heard the front door open.

“I’m back, kid,” you heard him call out, “Are you hungry?”

“No, but can you come give me a hand with something up here?” You called back. You heard him shake off his coat, whack his head lightly on a low doorframe before his footsteps creaked up the stairs.

“The lights are a nice touch,” he said as he made his way to you, “But there’s a lot. Maybe we should—“

His sentence died on his lips as he appeared in the doorway, his eyes landing on you. You smiled, placing your hand on your cocked hip.

“Merry Christmas,” you purred.

He stood completely still, his eyes wide as saucers as he drank you up.

“Bill?” You tried again, starting to feel the embarrassment creep up your chest. He still didn’t move except for his bottom lip being dragged in by his teeth, his eyes moving up and down your form.

“Please say something, bud,” you shifted nervously on your feet, a wave of self-consciousness crashing into you as you crossed your arms over your front. It seemed to jar him from his trance as his eyes snapped to yours.

“Jesus Christ,” he growled, taking a slow step towards you, “You could kill a man, tiger. You know that?”

You smiled shyly as he advanced on you.

“You like?” You asked, but the dangerous look in his eye was all the confirmation you needed. He stopped in front of you, running his hands down your front and coming to rest lightly on your hips.

“Twirl for me,” he commanded, “Make it slow.”

You obeyed, turning slowly as his hands palmed over your ass before coming to a stop facing him again.

“My god, kid,” he sighed, and then he was on you. Hands grabbed at your thighs and lifted you, wrapping your legs around his waist as you looped your arms around his neck. He laid you out on the bed underneath him, his lips sucking on your neck as he ran his palm down your front, cupping you gently between your legs.

“This present is almost too pretty to unwrap,” he purred and you moaned, tilting your hips to grind more into his palm.

You hooked a leg over his waist, flipping him over onto his back as you straddled his waist. Running a hand into his hair, you gripped it and tilted his head back for a searing kiss. He moaned into it, but before he could close his eyes, something caught in his vision.

The Christmas lights. Hanging in strings, everywhere. Across a very, very old wooden house.

You nipped at his lip and he sighed, raising up so you could take his shirt off before you peppered kisses along his jaw. He drew in a sharp breath when your hand squeezed the bulge in his pants, but the worry started to creep into his mind. He shook his head lightly, trying to focus on you—you, in the most incredible lingerie set he had ever seen; you who had never worn something like this for him before but now here you were dolled up, ready to ravish him.

He wanted to focus. And as you laid another searing kiss on his lips, circling your hips down hard onto his, he really tried to focus on you. On how good you were making him feel.

But it was futile and you caught on quickly enough when his lips stopped moving during the kiss, when you opened your eyes and saw his peering up at something above you. You broke apart from him.

“Alright, what gives?” You asked, and he bit his lip.

“It’s nothing. It’s fine kid, come back here,” he reached for you but you moved out of his grasp.

“Oh god, it’s…this, isn’t it?” You gestured down to the scraps of clothing, “God I knew this was a bad idea. I just wanted to try something new—”

“Kid, it’s not—” he tried to interrupt, but you were rambling.

“And I thought you’d like this but it was a stupid idea, so stupid, I feel like an idiot and—”

He cut you off by grabbing you, hauling you back onto his lap and kissing you firmly.

“It’s not this,” he tugged at a fuzzy string, “This is fucking incredible.”

“What is it, then?” You mumbled lowly, avoiding his eyes. He ducked his head for another kiss.

“These are just….there are a lot of…” he stammered, “Aren’t you afraid of setting the house on fire with all these lights?”

You paused, pulling away from him slightly with a look of total bewilderment on your face.

“No,” you said slowly, “Are…you?”

He bit his lip, and you pulled back from him more.

“It’s just a really old house, that’s all,” he shrugged.

“How fucking old is this house that a few strings of Christmas lights run a fire hazard, Bill?”

He contemplated a moment, nodding to himself as he pulled you closer.

“You’re right, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said. He laid back down, pulling you back on top of him as you giggled. You kissed along his neck, nipping at his Adam’s apple before making your way down his chest. You licked at his skin, sucking softly as your lips descended.

“Actually yeah,” he said, and then you were being moved gently off of him as he clambered upright, “Let’s just go ahead and unplug all of these.”

“Bill.”

“Safety first, kid,” he said as he quickly unplugged the few sets int he room before making his way down the hallway, “Don’t you dare move, I’m coming back to finish this.”

You huffed, flopping back onto the pillows as you heard his low cuss when he whacked his head on another low doorframe.

#christmas #bill skarsgard #BFF!Bill #bill skarsgard drabble

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timeless-hollywood-classics · 5 years ago

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William Lawrence Boyd (June 5, 1895 – September 12, 1972) was an American film actor who is best known for portraying the cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy.

Boyd was born in Hendrysburg, Ohio, and reared in Cambridge, Ohio and Tulsa, Oklahoma, living in Tulsa from 1909 to 1913. He was the son of a day laborer, Charles William Boyd, and his wife, the former Lida Wilkens (aka Lyda). Following his father's death, he moved to California and worked as an orange picker, surveyor, tool dresser and auto salesman.

In Hollywood, he found work as an extra in Why Change Your Wife? and other films. During World War I, he enlisted in the army but was exempt from military service because of a "weak heart". More prominent film roles followed, including his breakout role as Jack Moreland in Cecil B. DeMille's The Road to Yesterday (1925) which starred also Joseph Schildkraut, Jetta Goudal, and Vera Reynolds. Boyd's performance in the film was praised by critics, while movie-goers were equally impressed by his easy charm, charisma, and intense good-looks. Due to Boyd's growing popularity, DeMille soon cast him as the leading man in the highly acclaimed silent drama film, The Volga Boatman. Boyd's role as Feodor impressed critics, and with Boyd now firmly established as a matinee idol and romantic leading man, he began earning an annual salary of $100,000. He acted in DeMille's extravaganza The King of Kings (in which he played Simon of Cyrene, helping Jesus carry the cross) and DeMille's Skyscraper (1928). He then appeared in D.W. Griffith's Lady of the Pavements (1929).

Radio Pictures ended Boyd's contract in 1931 when his picture was mistakenly run in a newspaper story about the arrest of another actor, William "Stage" Boyd, on gambling and liquor charges. Although the newspaper apologized, explaining the mistake in the following day's newspaper, Boyd said, "The damage was already done." William "Stage" Boyd died in 1935, the same year William L. Boyd became Hopalong Cassidy, the role that led to his enduring fame. But at the time in 1931, Boyd was virtually broke and without a job, and for a few years he was credited in films as "Bill Boyd" to prevent being mistaken for the other William Boyd.

In 1935, Boyd was offered the supporting role of Red Connors in the movie Hop-Along Cassidy, but he asked to be considered for the title role and won it.[6] The original character of Hopalong Cassidy, written by Clarence E. Mulford for pulp magazines, was changed from a hard-drinking, rough-living red-headed wrangler to a cowboy hero who did not smoke, swear, or drink alcohol (his drink of choice being sarsaparilla) and who always let the bad guy start the fight. Although Boyd "never branded a cow or mended a fence, cannot bulldog a steer" and disliked Western music, he became indelibly associated with the Hopalong character and, like the cowboy stars Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, gained lasting fame in the Western film genre.

Boyd estimated in 1940 that he had starred in 28 outdoor films in which he fired 30,000 shots and killed at least 100 "varmits". He wore out 12 costumes and 60 ten-gallon hats, rode his horse Topper more than 2000 miles and rode herd on 5000 head of cattle. A score or more of heroines had been saved, but were never kissed.

The films were more polished and impressive than the usual low-budget "program westerns". The Hopalong Cassidy adventures usually boasted superior outdoor photography of scenic locations and name supporting players familiar from major Hollywood films. Big-city theaters, which usually wouldn't play Westerns, noticed the high quality of the productions and gave the series more exposure than other cowboy films could hope for. Paramount Pictures released the films through 1941. United Artists produced them from 1943.

The producer Harry "Pop" Sherman wanted to make more ambitious epics and abandoned the Hopalong Cassidy franchise. Boyd, determined to keep it alive, produced the last 12 Cassidy features himself on noticeably lower budgets. By this time, interest in the character had waned, and with far fewer theaters still showing the films, the series ended in 1948.

Boyd insisted on buying the rights to all of the Hopalong Cassidy films. Harry Sherman no longer cared about the property—he thought both the films and the star were played out—and regarded Boyd's all-consuming interest with skepticism. Boyd was so single-minded about his mission that he sold or mortgaged almost everything he owned to meet Sherman's price of $350,000 for the rights and the film backlog.

In 1948 Boyd, now regarded as a washed-up cowboy star and with his fortunes at their lowest ebb, brought a print of one of his older pictures to the local NBC television station and offered it at a nominal rental, hoping for new exposure. The film was received so well that NBC asked for more, and within months Boyd released the entire library to the national network. They became extremely popular and began the long-running genre of Westerns on television. Boyd's desperate gamble paid off, making him the first national TV star and restoring his personal fortune. Like Rogers and Autry, Boyd licensed much merchandise, including such products as Hopalong Cassidy watches, trash cans, cups, dishes, Topps trading cards, a comic strip, comic books, cowboy outfits, home-movie digests of his Paramount releases via Castle Films, and a new Hopalong Cassidy radio show, which ran from 1948 to 1952.

The actor identified with his character, often dressing as a cowboy in public. Although Boyd's portrayal of Hopalong made him very wealthy, he believed that it was his duty to help strengthen his "friends"—America's youth. The actor refused to license his name for products he viewed as unsuitable or dangerous and turned down personal appearances at which his "friends" would be charged admission.

Boyd appeared as Hopalong Cassidy on the cover of numerous national magazines, including Look (August 29, 1950) and Time (November 27, 1950). For Thanksgiving in 1950, he led the Carolinas' Carrousel Parade in Charlotte, North Carolina, and drew an estimated crowd of 500,000 persons, the largest in the parade's history.

Boyd would eventually start a production company of his own, U.S. Television Office, to handle the legacy of Hopalong Cassidy. This company continues to hold full rights to the Cassidy name, trademark, films, and television material.

Boyd had a cameo role as himself in Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth. DeMille reportedly asked Boyd to take the role of Moses in his remake of The Ten Commandments, but Boyd felt his identification with the Cassidy character would make it impossible for audiences to accept him as Moses.

Boyd was married five times, first to wealthy heiress Laura Maynard, then to the actresses Ruth Miller, Elinor Fair, Dorothy Sebastian and Grace Bradley. His only son, William Wallace Boyd, whose mother was Boyd's second wife, Ruth Miller, died of pneumonia at age 9 months. After his retirement from the screen, Boyd invested both time and money in real estate and moved to Palm Desert, California. He refused interviews and photographs in later years, preferring not to disillusion his millions of fans who remembered him as a screen idol.

Boyd was a lifelong Republican and supported the campaign of Dwight Eisenhower during the 1952 presidential election.

For his contributions to the film industry, Boyd has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1734 Vine Street.[14] In 1995, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The inner sleeve of the original American Pie album by Don McLean featured a free verse poem written by McLean about Boyd, with a picture of Boyd in full Hopalong regalia. This sleeve was removed within a year of the album's release. The words to this poem appear on a plaque at the hospital where Boyd died.

In 1972, Boyd died from complications related to Parkinson's disease and congestive heart failure.[1] He was graced by his fifth wife, the actress Grace Bradley Boyd, who died on September 21, 2010 on her 97th birthday. He is buried in the Sanctuary of Guiding Love alcove in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale).

#william boyd #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #golden age of hollywood

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aurorofconfidence · 5 years ago

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Beyond Belief Sentence Starters Part 1

A selection of sentence starters taken from The Thrilling Adventure Hour’s Complete Beyond Belief Vol. 1:

“Darling, if you had to choose, would you choose me or liquor?”

“Look who it is! ...A person!”

“There you are, darling, ____ has returned your dignity!”

“Have a drink, person whose name I’ve forgotten due to not attempting to remember it.”

“To our friend, dropping by to give us a fine scotch without asking anything at all in return!”

“Do not interrupt a toast.”

“Wake up your manners, won’t you?!”

“Well that sounds made up.”

“Is it your imaginary friend who is possessed? Have him sit down and we’ll begin.”

“Why that’s strange - when I left there was no priest sitting patiently outside.”

“God made you forgo your breakfast in order to get you here lickity-split... and then made you wait outside?”

“We love the times we spent with this booze.”

“I’m sorry, the demon you’re trying to reach is unavailable. Would you care to leave a message?”

“Boo! The opposite of encore.”

“Oooh, I’m so evil. I totally wouldn’t say no to murder.”

“This bottle is exorcised of spirits.”

“Open up and say ‘ah’, or ‘aaah’m a liar’ as the case may be.”

“As you are the one looking at me and noticing a difference, why don’t you take a turn at guessing?”

“Who do you think would win in a fight - a really strong guy or a really weak guy who is, y’know, bad at fighting?”

“I’m not stout! You’re stout!”

“You young boys went and tracked down the fellow who’s been murdering young boys all these years. Do you young boys have a sense of irony yet?”

“I’ve got a plan, and it’s only a little clever.”

“Would you say this place is creepier than it is spooky, or the reverse?”

“Cloooooown!”

“Sinister clown, not like circus.”

“It will be a great pleasure to meet you, and an even greater pleasure to eat you, ____.”

“You look so funny, you.”

“Oh, look, he’s walking towards me. Do not slip on a banana peel... I secretly hope he does!”

“____ please, do not taunt the nightmare clown monster.”

“May I tweak your nose?”

“My heebies are properly jeebied.”

“I got bogeyman all over my loafers I’m afraid.”

“Perhaps it’s an old acquaintance. Shall we forget him as the song suggests?”

“Trouble with dames is dames is trouble and this one was no different.”

“Do I really look like the sort of guy who wants ice-cream for his trouble?”

“Do I really look like the sort of girl who buys a guy ice-cream for his trouble?”

“If I’m to protect you, I’ll need ____ to protect me.”

“The word ‘no’ just fell right out of my dictionary.”

“Hello! My name’s ____ and I brought my party hat!”

“She’s just like you described her! Curves! Explosions!”

“Come catch me! ...In like, half an hour.”

“Once you meet someone new, there’s no turning back. You’ll know him, and that will be that.”

“My jealousy is as fleeting as the contents of this glass.”

“Don’t be alarmed, but I do believe there’s someone at the door.”

“Despite your admonition, I am alarmed.”

“He has the most comical goat legs I’ve ever seen!”

“Ooh, a goat called, requesting the return of his legs.”

“Let me eat your hands.”

“In my desire for martinis, my will is as strong as the martini for which I wish.”

“Did he realise he didn’t deserve you and head straight to the nearest bridge to practice his swan dive?”

“Shall I console you? Let me console you in my embrace, which I happen to keep on me at all times.”

“Come. Come, come... you’re not coming.”

“Allow me to introduce my yellow streak. You may notice he’s taller than me.”

#meme #my stuff

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garden-ghoul · 6 years ago

Link

listen to and share my podcast where I talk about being a baby witch and having to learn to manipulate the fabric of society! it doesn’t get more autistic than this!

transcript below the cut.

Before reading: THIS IS THE BEST TIFFANY ACHING BOOK! Because it’s about navigating new peer groups and feeling like an idiot and being weird even among the weirdos who should be your people! Tiffany is SO multiple and so relateable and I kind of want to have kids just so I can read them this book and tell them “See, if you feel this, you’re in good company.”

Also I should introduce Tiffany, since this is the second Tiffany book. In this one she’s 11 years old. She’s a witch who grew up on chalk instead of hard stone and sometimes people look down on her for that. She’s a little pretentious about how perceptive and thoughtful she is and how she knows a bunch of big words she can’t pronounce. I believe she whacked the queen of the fairies on the head with a frying pan, or something similar. And she briefly met Granny Weatherwax at the end of her first book, and Granny gave her the eponymous hat full of sky, which is a pointed witch hat that nobody can see. I’m not exactly clear on why. The point is she’s the perfect picture of a good half of all autistic children and she’s very dear to my heart.

SO the book starts by presenting a bodiless, frightened thing that has lost the brain it used to live in, drifting slowly over the hills. And then Tiffany does a spell that allows her to step out of her body and look at it from outside and it notices her. Perfect! A strong mind! Filled with lots of little nested minds! There’s the setup of the plot, this creature called a Hiver. Now to the action.

Tiffany is going to the mountains, and on the way we get a flashback about that time Tiffany was briefly the ruler of a colony of pictsies—the Nac Mac Feegle. I mention this because there’s a bit with the new ruler, the new kelda she’s called, who gives Tiffany a get out of here this is my turf now look—and this territoriality theme was a very strong in the last book. We also get a lovely bit of editorial from the author on the new kelda, Jeannie: he says that because she’s new, because she’s moved here from far away and is frightened and unsure and alone, she makes a mistake. And that mistake is telling her clan not to protect Tiffany from the Hiver that is following her.

I want to read some excerpts from the later part where we see Jeannie’s husband, Rob Anybody, having some existential dread about it. Because it’s some great comedy and some great pathos, all in one. Jeannie comes out to try and stop him brooding about how he’s not allowed to keep Tiffany safe—offers him a drink of extra strong liquor that may or may not be made from turpentine and when he refuses it she starts yelling that he’s died. A couple of his brothers come out and start crying, it’s a great bit. But then Jeannie, as his wife, asks him not to go save Tiffany. Heavy-hearted, Rob agrees… and the next moment, as his kelda, she tells him he does have to save Tiffany, because Tiffany is the hag of the hills and she tells the land what it is. But be careful, won’t you?

“You've got something to come back safe to me for, Rob Anybody,” said Jeannie. “An' I beg ye to use your heid for somethin' other than nuttin' folk.”

“I thank ye, Kelda,” said Rob Anybody. “I'll do as ye bid. I'll tak' some lads and find the big wee hag, for the good o' the hills. It cannae be a good life for the puir wee big wee thing, all alone and far fra' home, among strangers.”

“Aye,” said Jeannie, turning her face away. “I ken that, too.”

I just love this growing sympathy between Tiffany and Jeannie, as women who have to make their own way to power and self-confidence.

There’s a bit of intrigue for Tiffany on the way to the mountains, with her escort making these divination devices cum curse nets called shambles and having them explode with some kind of oppressive power, but she does make it. We meet her new mentor Miss Level, who has two bodies and used to work in a circus because it seemed like she was reading her own mind. She’s desperate for a bit of company because the last three girls who came to apprentice with her found her too unsettling and left.

She takes Tiffany out to the nearby villages that are on Miss Level’s beat, as it were, collecting gossip and free food and tending to the sick. The witch’s life is presented as this sort of a web of implication and subtlety, manipulating the social fabric so as to do good and get paid without causing any resentment. Although Miss Level says it’s VERY important that a witch never expects to get paid.

“Pretty soon people will be killing their pigs for the winter,” said Miss Level, “and I'll get more brawn, ham, bacon and sausages turning up than a family could eat in a year.”

“You do? What do you do with all that food?”

“Store it,” said Miss Level.

“But you-“

“I store it in other people. It's amazing what you can store in other people.” Miss Level laughed at Tiffany's expression. “I mean, I take what I don't need round to those who don't have a pig, or who're going through a bad patch, or who don't have anyone to remember them.”

Witches are agents of communism! From each according to ability, to each according to need. I think it’s cool that they’re here to sort of smooth out economic inequality.

Miss Level also asks Tiffany about her Granny Aching, and the way she used her influence. I really like this bit.

“Did she help people?” Miss Level asked.

“She made them help one another,” Tiffany said. “She made them help themselves.”

Miss Level sighed. “Not many of us are that good.”

So a witch’s job is to subtly manipulate everyone around her into being a better person.

So Tiffany is doing a lot of boring taking care of people. She doesn’t like it, it’s not very glamorous. Another apprentice witch named Petulia Gristle, who has an inconvenient amount of occult jewelry, stops by to invite her to the ‘sabbat’ the other apprentices have. But Petulia keeps asking Tiffany whether she doesn’t want to dress to fit in, and using strange jargon. Petulia is VERY good at fitting in, in the kind of quickly-back-up-your-opinions-and-turn-them-in-a-different-direction kind of way. We’re also introduced to Annagramma, who is the leader of the apprentices in the same way Granny Weatherwax is leader of the witches: which is to say, everyone cares a lot about her opinion but of course witches don’t have leaders. Annagramma says.

Annagramma is the type of insufferable teen who insists on being the only clever person in the room. This is a tall order because most witches are a bit like that, and Tiffany certainly is. But Tiffany is younger and doesn’t have as much experience manipulating the social fabric, and Annagramma uses her inexperience to humiliate her. Oh sure of course you kicked the fairy queen out of your village. Uh huh. And Tiffany does a little analysis of how Annagramma manages her underlings: she’s like a dog worrying the sheep so much that they don’t have time to do what she says, so nothing gets done. She’s getting in her own way because she, too, is a teen and doesn’t know anything. Aww. I almost like her. I have a soft spot for teens.

Tiffany tells the other apprentices that she’s met Granny Weatherwax (to general disbelief) and that Granny gave her this hat. Everyone asks, What hat? And what follows is maybe my favorite scene from the book.

Long afterwards, and long after all sorts of things had happened, she'd go 'la la la!' to blot out the memory whenever something reminded her of that evening. Miss Level tried to talk to her as she ran upstairs, but she bolted her door, kicked off her boots and lay down on the bed with the pillow over her head to drown out the laughter echoing inside…

Tiffany's First Thoughts were running around in circles. Her Second Thoughts were caught up in the storm. Only her Third Thoughts, which were very weak, came up with: Even though your world is completely and utterly ruined and can never be made better, no matter what, and you 're completely inconsolable, it would be nice if you heard someone bringing some soup upstairs . . . The Third Thoughts got Tiffany off the bed and over to the door, where they guided her hand to slide the bolt back. Then they let her fling herself on the bed again. A few minutes later there was a creak of footsteps on the landing. It's nice to be right. Miss Level knocked, then came in after a decent pause. Tiffany heard the tray go down on the table, then felt the bed move as a body sat down on it.

Just this very sweet and relateable baby teen moment where Miss Level tries to comfort her. The other thing I really love about it is the Third Thoughts being the part of you that makes sure that even when you’re low you still take care of yourself. Because I’ve named that part of myself too and it makes me feel close to Tiffany.

Tiffany is feeling so miserable and insecure and homesick that she really just wants to see the invisible hat. So she uses her “See Me” spell to step outside herself and sees the hat right there on her head… but when she tries to reverse it the Tiffany she’s looking at says, “We see you. Now we are you.” Then: Lightning struck somewhere nearby. The window blew in. The candle flame flew out in a streamer of fire, and died. And then there was only darkness, and the hiss of the rain. Damn, that’s a good end for a chapter.

The next morning Tiffany seems to be back in her body, and feeling just great. But discontented with boring nonmagical chores. She wants to climb mountains! BUT she’s losing tiny bits of time, during which she seems to be trying to leave messages, asking for help. Once again, a multiple witch is able to resist not just mind control, but total annihilation of the mind. It seems like her Third Thoughts are somewhat able to curb the nasty temper of the new Tiffany because they’re already used to regulating her. Which is how it is, right, when you’re going through puberty? But she’s seeing things that were seen by minds the Hiver already consumed, and speaking in their voices. She can read minds and she’s telekinetic. She just wants to ACTUALLY USE SOME MAGIC. She leaves the cottage, and Rob, who’s been worriedly tracking her, talks to Miss Level about her.

Miss Level is bewildered at the idea of Tiffany being a powerful witch because she can’t do everyday magic on command—Rob says no, it’s a deep magic tied to the land, not to be used for party tricks. It kind of reminds me of a recent discussion on ADHD, and how it makes ‘simple’ tasks like doing the laundry or making lunch very difficult, but complex tasks like spontaneously producing a podcast much easier. Tiffany is very much in the mold of a hyperlexic child who doesn’t fit in anywhere and is bad at what people expect her to be good at, while being good at things no-one expects her to be able to do at all. Makes me wonder some things about Sir Terry.

So she goes to Annagramma’s to threaten her and try to recruit her as a crony, because the Hiver likes to amass power. Wherever she goes, shambles and curse nets disintegrate, presumably because her very existence is a curse—the type of magic she uses doesn’t play nice with anything else. She goes to a magical paraphernalia shop and turns someone into a frog to get a good discount. Comes home and kills Miss Level. In the ensuing struggle within Tiffany’s mind, she passes out and the Feegles have to go inside her mind.

Inside the part of Tiffany’s mind where Tiffany still is, it looks like the Chalk, and there are the hills and Granny Aching’s shepherd hut. On the door in chalk is written a list of smells that belong to the hut, and if the Hiver smells them it will be brought there—this is important because as long as Tiffany is on her own turf she’s pretty well unstoppable since her power comes from the land. So Rob sends a raiding party to steal the smells, and meanwhile he’s got to fight a bunch of trees that are trying to steal the sunlight from the hills. When the Hiver appears on Tiffany’s turf the Feegles all start fighting it, because of course they do! The earth shakes; the trees start to fall over; and the hills grow taller and start to move, because they’re the shape of a sleeping girl. Yes! That’s right! Tiffany IS the land, and she is SO much bigger than the Hiver, which she picks up between her two fingers. The Feegle bard begins to weep because he’s not good enough to write a song that will do justice to their hag of the land.

And Tiffany wakes up under a green quilt that looks like the chalk hills. She’s really dissociated but someone tells her to milk the goats, so she does. When she comes back to herself Granny Weatherwax is there and explains that one of the previous hosts, a wizard who studied Hivers, explained everything in Tiffany’s sleep. Hivers collect people, and Tiffany now has a head full of ghosts. That’s right she’s DOUBLE MULTIPLE.

We also have a very good bit with Miss Level, who you will recall lost one of her bodies in a Hiver accident, still going about her business as if she still had four hands without realizing it. And because she’s a witch, she can just do that! To me it reads as a parallel for the hat full of sky Granny gave Tiffany, something you can’t see but that nevertheless exists and does its job. I mean, I’m also a sucker for magical workarounds for disabilities, especially if the disability is something strange like ‘only having one body.’ Granny does a little speech on how magic is the easy part of witching, and dealing with people is both the hard part and the more important part.

Now this is something very important to me! Pratchett’s witches, the good ones, are ALL about tikkun olam. They don’t ask ‘who will repair the world?’ They say, ‘I will do it.’ When I was young this made a huge impression on me, that Pratchett presented these witches as the people to admire. I still find it very comforting, this permission to be able to be nasty and self-confident and know I can’t expect thanks for my good work. This is not necessarily to say that I approve of anyone telling children that selflessness is The Right Way To Be—just that for many reasons I have chosen to try to be generous and hardworking, and Pratchett tells us this is difficult and irritating and uncool. I love him. I’m probably going to witter about this during every single witch book but whatever, Granny Weatherwax is my own mean grandmother who raised me.

So now Tiffany has to repair the world. She’s got to do the medicine for everyone and she’s got to visit old Mr Weavall whose money she stole while she was possessed. But when she checks in the box, lo and behold, it’s filled with gold from the barrow where the Feegles live! Mr Weavall is delighted, gives Tiffany a gold coin, and decides on the spur of the moment to get married.

Which is a very cute way to show that sometimes you’ll get rewarded when you don’t think you deserve a reward, but you’ve got to be humble about it even so. “It’s an unfair world,” Granny tells Tiffany. “Be glad you have friends.” And that’s it, isn’t it?

Granny and Tiffany spend the night up in the mountains stalking the Hiver (unsuccessfully) and then go down the Witch Trials, which is a bit like a fair where all the witches show a cool thing they can do. The Hiver finally starts to move in.

Tiffany builds a shamble, an inconsequential piece of witchery she hasn’t been able to do for the whole book. She can do it now because the stakes are high enough. Yep! That old familiar ADHD feeling, where you can’t make anything happen unless you’re panicking and half mad with guilt! Like us, her power comes from being stressed the fuck out, and it’s correspondingly huge: when she creates her shamble, a curse net to catch the Hiver, the carved horse on the hillside down in the Chalk gets up and leaps away toward the mountains. I’m sorry I haven’t communicated all the great imagery that Pratchett brings back for the climax; he’s excellent at weaving together the details of place in a way that make them important and real. Any book about Tiffany Aching is also a book about her whole country, because in many ways she is the avatar of the Chalk.

And she talks to the Hiver. It’s afraid of endlessly continuing to experience the world, which is a real mood. It wants Tiffany to teach it to die, but it feels that because it isn’t a single person it can’t possibly die. Tiffany tells it a lovely story:

'I'm made up of the memories of my parents and grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So who is “me”?'

She tells the Hiver it might as well just construct an identity and inhabit it, in the same way humans do. And now that your name is Arthur (she names it) you just have to cross this endless desert behind this creepy door that I’ve just invented. So the Hiver goes off to learn how to die! But Tiffany is trapped here forever because her door has vanished. She has a few minutes to sink into despair before Granny Weatherwax opens the door from the other side and goes “Come on now, I’m an experienced psychopomp and so will you be, but we haven’t got all day.” And, importantly, Granny says witches never talk about the psychopomp thing. One of those open secrets.

Tiffany wakes up surrounded by the other apprentice witches. She tries to tell them what she’s seen but Annagramma is pretty set on making it seem like Tiffany must have been imagining things. But she takes off her boots and they’re full of black sand that moves weird, and Petulia has heard the rumors about the dark desert, and they believe her.

“Petulia, we're not supposed to talk about this,” said Harrieta, gently.

“No!” said Petulia, her face red. “It is a time to talk about it, just here, just us!”

This feels very important to me, that there’s a space for girls to have secrets and to explore taboo topics together. The camera cuts away for the actual conversation, but I’m glad they got to have it.

Gossip travels fast among the witches. All of them want to see Tiffany and Granny Weatherwax pitted against each other in the Trials—everyone seems to want one or the other taken down a peg. But neither of them enters. They just stare at each other through all the performances, and Tiffany feels that she’s already won because Granny, the only witch who matters, gave her approval already. It seems a bit shortsighted when I put it like that, but it’s such an important an buoyant feeling to have a mentor figure you admire and trust tell you that you’ve done well. Tiffany doesn’t care what Annagramma thinks any more, and in Pratchett’s universe this takes away her sway over everyone. Not quite how it works, but certainly how it feels in your heart.

Later she goes to visit Granny and gets another lecture on how the trappings of station aren’t as important as what you do with them, and she thinks about how Granny feels a lot of pressure to keep being The Best and would secretly like someone clever to beat her at her own game. It’s a very sweet moment. The books ends with Tiffany going home for a couple weeks to help with the lambing down in the Chalk, and throwing away her fancy witch hat with the stars on it. She replaces it with the hat made out of the sky, which, as night falls, fills up with stars.

It’s a special kind of fun to dissect young adult novels because by reading them we can understand what the author wants children, here especially young girls, to know and believe. In this one we have:

People can’t make you feel small and stupid if you don’t play along with them

Understanding people is more important than any technical skill, and more difficult to learn too

It’s extremely embarrassing to be a weird mentally ill kid but you can do great things if you see your strangeness as an asset instead of trying to destroy it

Regulating your own worst thoughts and impulses is a power that takes careful honing but can become a superpower

Capable friends are the best thing in the world to have.

This, and the very last bit where Tiffany turns up for Jeannie’s first kids to be born, also lead us to an important message: that women should support each other even when circumstances or other people seek to pit them against each other. We see this too during the Trials when the other witches want to see Granny and Tiffany compete. Allying yourself with other women is better all around, and additionally it might surprise other people in a very satisfying way. I’m not a woman and I don’t believe I’ve ever thought I was, but I’m VERY interested in women learning to love themselves and each other. And of course, witches have also got to love themselves and each other, and I am a witch.

Thanks, A’tune in next week, theme song by et c et c.

#rips off shirt to reveal TIFFANY ACHING FANCLUB PRESIDENT shirt underneath #discworld #audio #it's yelling all the way down

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ellanainthetardis · 6 years ago

Photo

The temperature increases today! Let me know your thoughts!

[ff] or [ao3]

Chapter 5 : Escapism

Two weeks later Haymitch had proved his point that a circus ran far more easily when there was a foreman and a crew to handle the manual labor, but it still hadn’t been enough to win the troupe to his side. The show was slowly getting better but the others were changing things at a snail pace. The only one truly willing was Trinket – in the spirit of encouraging the others to do the same, he figured – but aside for insisting she used a safety net until Chaff had had an opportunity to replace the busted ropes, there wasn’t a lot he could say about her and Finnick’s act. It was good, it didn’t need changing.

He was starting to settle in though and the others were starting to include him, which was good.

Now if only the weather would cooperate… It wasn’t that fun living on the road when winter was this harsh.

The knocking on his door distracted him from those considerations and he stopped glaring at the portable heater in the corner of the trailer to call out for his visitor to come in.

Trinket stepped inside with obvious relief, shivering despite the fur coat that she shed almost as soon as she had closed the door behind her. She was wearing a blue dress that day with a matching scarf holding her puffy curls away from her face. She always looked classy even when it wasn’t show time, no matter that the rest of them preferred to run around in comfortable clothes.

“Rue said you needed me?” she asked.

Her eyes roamed around by reflex even though she had been in his trailer once or twice by that point so she knew what she would find: a mess that had her wrinkling her nose in distaste. Clothes were tossed around, the props that hadn’t been crammed in one of the storage trucks were stuck in a pile and the bed was unmade. Her gaze lingered on the couple of liquor bottles but she didn’t comment. It was for the best because… He had been trying to ease off the stuff a little and he was grumpy about it.

“Yeah.” he confirmed, glad that the kid was fast at running errands. He was still contemplating the assortment of chains and handcuffs spread on the bed. “I need you to tie me up.”

He couldn’t keep on pulling rabbits out of his hat. He needed to go back to daring acts or he would get bored before long and being bored meant more drinking. He had always been good at escapology and had the vague idea of making a whole spectacular act out of it. Assuming he could convince Trinket to spare the money for a human sized fish tank and that she would be willing to trap him into one…

“Do I get to gag you too?” she joked, getting to work without protest.

He was so shocked by that comment that he barely realized she had put the handcuffs on before his arms were secured at the small of his back.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected the flirting. Flirting was all they were doing when they weren’t fighting – and sometimes even the arguments themselves felt like an odd sort of seduction act. But that was taking it a little further than simply commenting on the shape of each other’s body or hinting at stuff… This was… Really not what he had thought she would say.

A girl like her… A girl who came from where he suspected she came from – money, privilege – you didn’t expect that girl to know about that kind of things. You barely expected her to know about sex at all because it wasn’t proper and shit. Sex, to people from her background, was still something linked with marriage and…

Maybe she hadn’t said it like that. Maybe it was his mind, a little too feverish when she was concerned, that was taking leaps. Still…

He let out a low whistle. “And there I thought you were a proper lady…”

He was careful to sound teasing, a little vague just in case she really didn’t know what she was implying. She still might have taken it as an insult but she laughed it off instead.

“Your mistake, then.” she hummed, wrapping the chain around him without much efficiency. She secured the padlock and considered her work with amusement. “I find tied up men are much more likely to comply with my demands.”

He turned around to face her with lifted eyebrows. “Don’t need to tie me up, sweetheart… I’d be more than happy to let you play around…”

Her lips twitched. Her blue eyes were sparkling with amusement but watching him carefully, considering maybe.

“Somehow, I have the feeling you are more fond of giving orders rather than taking them.” she replied.

He took a few steps toward her, backing her against the wall of the trailer. She went willingly enough though. She was still looking amused when he pinned her between him and the hard surface.

“Is that a bad thing?” he challenged.

“Not necessarily.” she replied in the same tone. “Although you are the one currently tied up so…”

“Am I?” he smirked.

Did she see it coming? A flick of his elbow was all it took for the chains to fall. He didn’t give her time to react. He had the handcuffs around her wrists in a flash and her arms stretched over her head in shorter time than that. She gasped in surprise but not in fear and he leaned a little closer, his smirk deepening when he felt her heart racing up against his chest. He placed his free hand on her waist, running his thumb up and down the thick fabric of her dress… Could she feel it? He wasn’t sure.

“You play with fire, you’re gonna get burned, Princess.” he said.

“Is that so?” she hummed, arching her back a little, pushing her breasts toward him. His fingers were clenching around the chain holding her wrists together.

“Don’t be reckless…” he warned because somehow… It wasn’t how he had expected this to happen. He wanted it. There was no doubt. And she wanted it too, that too he knew for certain. There were signs and the tension between them for the last two weeks had been thick enough to slice with a knife. But she was…

Classy.

And her propositioning him in his trailer wasn’t how he had seen that going. He had thought she would make him work for it, make him chase her a little longer before surrendering… He hadn’t thought she was the kind of girl who gave in that easily. Not that he wasn’t happy for it or that he judged her but… He hadn’t expected that.

She kept on surprising him, that girl.

“I dance on a tightrope for a living.” she reminded him. “Don’t you think I am a little reckless?”

“Point taken.” he snorted, letting his hand wander up her waist to her breast, hesitantly stroking the swell of it over her dress. Her breath caught and she licked her lips. He pressed his hips hard against hers, leaving no room for doubt as to what he wanted. She pressed back.

He almost fell into her.

He brushed his mouth against hers, grasping her breast a little more firmly… It was on the small side but it fitted so well in his palm… She gasped again and he smirked because he could tell she would be vocal and… That turned him on.

“Guess we need to get it out of our system anyway, yeah?” he mumbled distractedly, searching her mouth.

She drew back a little. “Out of our system?”

“Once should do the trick…” he shrugged, dropping a kiss on her jaw. “Then maybe we’re gonna be able to talk without jumping at each other’s throat…”

“Once?” she repeated and her tone was icy enough that he frowned and stopped retracing the line of her jaw with his lips to look at her. She was frowning and that wasn’t good. “You do not want this… You do not want me…”

“Sweetheart, I very much want you…” he scoffed, jutting his hips forward to prove his point.

She didn’t gasp or press back this time though and he took his hand off her breast to place it back on her waist, not really enjoying how unresponsive she had become.

“But only once.” she huffed.

“Ah.” He winced, finally getting what the problem was. He stepped back, giving her back her space. “I ain’t interested in a relationship. Sex is… Sex is alright but…”

“Of course, sex is alright.” she deadpanned with enough sarcasm to chill the whole room, letting her bound hands fall in front of her. “My apologies, I clearly misread the situation and you clearly mistook me for what I am not.”

“Hey, you’re the one who waltzed in all knowledgeable about gagging and shit…” he retorted and then winced again. “Look, I’m sorry… For what it’s worth, I never thought you were…”

“A slut?” she finished when he let his sentence trail off. “No, you simply thought I was the kind of woman who slept around for fun apparently. And why? Because I am an unmarried woman running a circus by myself? I thought you were different.” She pursed her lips. “I think it is far better for the good of the troupe if we forget this even happened. Let’s remain friends.”

Haymitch had a bad taste in his mouth. He felt guilty and for no good reason of his own. He hadn’t promised her anything. He hadn’t courted her or some shit… He hadn’t even really initiated this. She…

“Let me get those off you…” he awkwardly mumbled, nodding to the handcuffs still encircling her wrists.

“No need.” she snapped and, in clicking sounds that seemed almost deafening, the handcuffs slipped off her wrists and onto the floor. He must have gaped a little because when he looked back up at her, she looked both smug and irritated all at once. “You are not the only one who is gifted at escaping, Haymitch.” The fact that she could have gotten out of the shackles at any moment somehow made him feel even worse. “I trust you not to blab about this around the others.”

“Course not.” he scowled. “Ain’t that kind of asshole…”

She snatched her coat and slipped it on with jerky angry moves. He watched her toss her hair over the collar with an impatient flick of her arm. He tried to catch her eyes but she wouldn’t look at him. He thought they were shiny and, more than anything, that made him want to reach out, to salvage this.

He didn’t dare try to touch her again.

“Effie…” he whispered and she froze for a second. It was the first time he had used her name, he realized.

“Let’s stay friends.” she insisted. And then she was gone.

The door swung shut quietly behind her and he would have preferred for her to have slammed it.

#hayffie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #thg circus au #The Greatest Show

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minatsuki-on-main · 7 years ago

Note

for the character meme: laica 😏

…And this one is going to get exceptionally long…

(Ask meme)

What I like about them: To preface, I’ve had a thing for both quiet bodyguard type characters and edgy, tragic supervillains, so when you conglomerate those two tropes into one person, there’s no doubt I’m gonna like them. Since I finished watching BTB it was obvious. It was so obvious that I would be fucking obsessed with the Hat Man. It’s like somebody just made a character to appeal to my specific taste. It’s scary, really.

I feel like there’s something about villains that’s really hard to write; making them sympathetic without having them fall into some generally accepted ‘good person’ category. The fact that it was so well-done with him is the reason itself I realized this was a problem for me with other series. You know Laica is terrible, but he’s also not where the fault lies, which Keith even specifically mentions. It’s another good thing that the trauma he suffered was more internal than external (Gilbert just told him a bunch of lies and that was the shock, not some more generic dire outside circumstance, I don’t know if I’m explaining myself). It’s a smarter way of going about bad pasts.

Laica just really made me think a lot, he feels a lot more real than characters who have a schematically completed development and story arc just to obey the laws of fiction. For him it was cut short in the most tragic way before he could even find out half of his own backstory. His way of thinking is also messed-up on so many levels once you start musing on it, it just doesn’t end... He grew up in circumstances that would demonstrably ruin a person’s healthy development, there was Gilbert’s influence on him that he seemed almost unaware of, he has a disastrous way of conceiving human relationships (from what I’ve concluded after way too many considerations). Laica is a huge mess, but in a very deep and kind of subtle way.

What I dislike about them: Listen, I’m in so deep he could do anything and I’d like it because he did it. If there’s anything... I’m disheartened by how absolutely batshit obsessed he was with the Jetblack, just because it’s what forever prevented him from having a better life.

Favourite moment: When he talks about how he used to listen to the others through the window at Jaula Blanca because it just kills me inside. Or when he restrains Kamui because he’s all cool and it’s asmr to me.

Least favourite moment: Having his head chopped off would mayhaps be one.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more: ANYTHING. I’M DYING OF THIRST.

An interesting AU for this character: Anything sci-fi where his brainwashing translates to messing with artificial consciousness. Or AUs where he’s actually Koku’s brother and they’re constantly frustrated with each other, in any shape or form. Then I had another AU I actually started writing where he’s a bodyguard. Shove him in any AU and I’ll like it.

A crossover: At one point I realized that what I call ‘prohibition era mafia AU’ is really just a 91 Days crossover... It might be the fact that Laica already kinda dresses like that, but I want him to be surrounded with those good aesthetics. Maybe be that one person in the mafia who does all the mundane jobs and carries around liquor but is secretly very important. What goes in canon, just in that setting.

OTP: Minatsukicest, also known as the bane of my existence because I can’t stop craving content and writing fics constantly, I’m really invested in it.

Other ships: I’ve reached the stage where I started shifting away from ships with him and anyone other than Minatsuki, but either way. Laica/Koku sin. Extra sin. I wash my hands because it was someone else bringing it to my attention. Laica/Izanami I still prefer as brotp, but not bad, as I already said.

BROTP: With Izanami; I already ranted about why in the other ask.

NOTP: I’m shifting towards having everything non-minatsukicest in this category... And either way, I’d be the last person to give ideas for bad ships with Laica, I don’t want to start reflecting on it.

An assortment of headcanons:

To elaborate on what I already mentioned; he doesn’t know what a human relationship is to a tragic degree, which would be unsurprising since he spent most of his childhood either alone or being raised by Gilbert. He thinks manipulation is part of it, sort of (considering who he learned from).

The extent of his fatalism comes from how many psychological boundaries he has; he can’t go up against Gilbert, he has to behave how he was instructed to at Jaula Blanca, he has to do this, and that, etc. so it feels right to him that nobody would have a choice in anything besides what the Jetblack says.

He has a hard time controlling his eye and keeping it from randomly transforming in some situations purely out of anger, hence the sunglasses.

The reason he implanted resentment towards Koku into Yuna is specifically that he knew Izanami was also in love with Koku and thought they’d like it as a sort of gift to try and fuck it up for kokuyuna. The followup to this hc is that Izanami didn’t appreciate at all and was mostly just terrified.

His is not just a resting bitchface, it’s him not knowing appropriate facial expressions because he didn’t learn from seeing them on other people’s faces a lot when he should have. The creepy ep12 smile is kinda just instinctive and due to the epiphany of fighting Koku.

All he did as a kid besides looking out the window was drawing; only the very few times he was given tools though.

He’s the one responsible for the clown aesthetic, and it comes from Gilbert taking them to see a circus once and small Laica thinking it’s the coolest thing in existence. (This was from a convo from long ago but I just had to bring it back.)

Gilbert taught him some very basic medicine so he could give the reggies their dose, check the drug’s quality, inject it properly, etc.

(I could continue the hc list forever onwards but I won’t exhaust it here, I’ll just keep talking about Laica on the daily because that’s how we roll here.)

#k-intsukuroi #ask meme #laica #ask #i dont think my laica hcs ever end #but i had to keep this post within limits

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gutterdreams · 7 years ago

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Can I request number 24 with Billy please and thank you! Btw, I love your writing in case you haven’t noticed yet 💕💕💕

124. “I only have good memories of you” for this babe

It was hard to stay in touch over two thousand miles away. Billy had no idea what any of his friends lives were like now. It had been six months since he drove away with his dad's new family. Foolishly, he assumed that everything would stand still like in a photograph and just wait until he returned to resume. Looking around at the other faces in the church, all solemn in a way he had never seen them before, he realized how far out of the loop he was.Billy anticipated his friends limbs clawing at him, old hook ups to press their bodies tightly to his, but since this was a funeral, people just waved and lifted a single corner of their mouths to welcome him back. This was not the time for keg stands and skinny dipping. Billy and his group always liked to raid their parents liquor cabinets. They got high in each other's basements and cars. It seemed harmless. The occasional bump off someone's knuckle or the back of a debit card felt as dangerous as dipping your toes into the ocean. Billy figured they were all messing around the same way. He hadn't been around to see Justin Moody become a walking coke addiction. When Billy left town, his friend was still hellbent on being drafted to the MLB one day. Everyone assumed that with his arm, he would. Next to him, a pink haired girl sobbed as if she was being paid to. Billy just clasped his hands between his knees and kept his arms to himself narrowly. Other people's emotions always made him uncomfortable, probably because he had such a hard time expressing himself. He didn't know her, but she was cuddling up to Christina Adams on her other side, so Billy figured that he would if he had stayed back in Oceanside. Christina's house was where most parties or after parties took place since she had a sauna, pool table, and incredible tequila selection thanks to her Dad who owned a chain of Mexican restaurants. Wayne slid Billy further into the pew right before the service started, the two boys squeezing each others shoulders and then exchanging sorry expressions. "Your old man here?" Wayne checked, glancing over Billy's head, but only seeing the girls there. "No. I came alone." If it hadn't been Susan telling Neil how important it was for Billy to go, Billy would have been in a world of trouble being back in California now.There wasn't a single one of Billy's friends who wasn't scared shitless of Neil Hargrove. Billy's house was always off limits when they were looking for a place to hang out even if it wasn't to party, but just to lay low and watch TV. If Neil was there, they all tried to keep their distance from the mustache man with a gridlock grip and tamale hot temper. Wayne nodded to confirm that he heard and then pulled a folded Klennex our of the inside of his blazer that he borrowed from his older brother. He reached behind Billy's head to offer it to his crying friend, but Christina took it instead and mouthed 'thank you'. The funeral had begun, but Billy couldn't concentrate. He couldn't begin to fathom that Justin was dead when he could barely accept that Wayne wasn't hitting golf balls off a roof and that Christina wasn't lathered in baby oil and drinking tequila from a Big Gulp thermos. He spent every day in Indiana waiting to return to Oceanside, but it didn't feel like home now. It felt like somewhere he didn't know or belong, like Hawkins. Billy made it to the end of the service, but he didn't know how. The picture of Justin grinning from ear to ear in his Oakland A's hat at the head of the church had his eyes stinging, but Billy was proud of himself for not crying. Wayne let a few tears stream down, but nothing like Joshua West. He was up at the front near the family, choking on his own emotions. It was to be expected, Billy supposed, from the person who found Justin dead and covered in his own vomit of bile, blood, and Lucky Charms. As soon as everyone started to leave, Billy pushed his way through the crowd. He needed fresh air and he needed a smoke. Quickly, he was on the first cement step of the church where he was met by a few other smokers, offering one of them his lighter for a second. He was letting the inhales relax him, his stressed heart beginning to find a regular beat while he kept to himself on the crowded stair.Right in front on the church was the unmistakable glistening red Mustang. Billy couldn't begin to guess how many times he had sat in the front seat, throwing his head around to Black Flag while Justin drove through the night. Billy only drove it once when Justin really wanted to win a drag race against these two douchebags from St Vincent High School. Billy saw his first pair of real life tits in that car, Lisa Womack's, even though Christina bitterly told anyone who would listen that Lisa's were not actually real. They had hot-boxed in that car, they had filled the floor with empty cans, and Hell, Billy slept in it a handful of nights when his dad had booted him out.He was drawn to the car, pulled in by a force of nature. It wasn't until he was a couple steps away from the beautiful Mustang that Billy saw that the windows were down and you, Justin's little sister, were sitting behind the wheel. You had grown up from the girl forever stuck a year behind them, drowning out their circus with her bedroom door shut and headphones on. The mirror was down and you were dabbing concealer under your hurt eyes with your fourth finger when Billy leaned in. He tossed his cigarette onto the road before folding his arms over the open window and started looking over the interior of the special car."You're pretty lucky to get this car." He assumed correctly. There was no way you were letting anyone else drive it or your parents sell it to the highest offer. "She's a babe." He admired.It wasn't until the latter comment was made that you looked Billy on completely. He couldn't avoid the obvious sadness, dry, in your eyes that were running a sleep defecit. You were supposed to be in the reception room with your family accepting sympathies, but you needed a second to yourself."I know you probably think I'm an asshole." Billy certainly did. He had abandoned his friend when he obviously needed someone around. He was all the way in Indiana while Justin was veering down a complicated path. It wasn't just that fact though. Billy had never been nothing, but a party animal when around. He wasn't at your dinner table politely thanking your mom for a delicious casserole. He was passed out on a floating lounge chair in your pool or high watching MTV in your basement. "Justin was my friend though.""I know." Nodding, you told him very plainly. "My mom was surprised you made it in, but I wasn't." His brows rose as you had peaked his interest with your kind, but misguided faith in him. "You and Justin were friends since like grade two." You couldn't be certain, but you knew Billy's curly head of hair had been bouncing around your house for a long time. The memory provoked a bright smile on his face, the first non bittersweet one of the day. "I only have good memories of you." Pushing up the mirror, you told him with a sniffle and then tightened the lid on the concealer dish on your lap. "You always made sure your friends were okay when you guys partied," which was constantly. "You kept Christina from leaving with assholes all the time, you ate my vegetables when my parents weren't looking, and you always fixed everything you broke in our house." The list trickled off your tongue effortlessly, but Billy had never realized any of the memories. He was too wrapped up in surviving at light speed to realize that he wasn't a total piece of shit."Still, I should have been there." Bowing his head to you, Billy mumbled with evident guilt."Well, I was here and it happened really fast." Threatening to cry again , you mumbled mostly to yourself. The road stretched out in front of you was a long one and with so much grief in the passenger seat, you weren't sure how enjoyable the journey would be. "Justin knew you didn't have a choice, but to leave, Billy. He wasn't mad." You tried to be assuring. It silenced Billy for a few seconds, his mind void of the right words to say. Nothing felt good enough. He didn't know what you were supposed to say in a moment like this. He was only five when his mom died. He just remembered people constantly telling him that this was the way God intended it and that she was always watching him. Billy hated those sentiments, but now he loathed how they were sitting in his mouth."Do you want to go for a drive?" Bringing his blue eyes back to you and your hands on the steering wheel, you asked. "Don't you have to go in there?" "You think Justin would be shaking hands and eating finger food if one of us died?" Billy grinned ferociously at the answer. He knew his buddy would be cruising with the windows down, listening to sports highlights or Black Flag, and recalling all his favorite things about the person they were supposed to be honoring.With curled fingers, Billy opened up the car door and slid in. This was the only car he would be okay riding shot gun in. It felt right actually. He liked that he was adding to your positive memories of him, driving around Oceanside in the prettiest car on the road; thinking good thoughts.

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