#great september gale

[pinkblanc]

The Great September Gale, 1815

[bargainoriley]

Here’s something I’ve been translating on and off for the past week or so! I was looking at old German youth magazines in order to find interesting articles about classic rock bands (specifically Pink Floyd) and came across this in the 01/1978 issue of BRAVO magazine (One of the most famous teen/young adult magazines in Germany that’s been there since 1958 and is still going strong today!) A lot of youth magazines back in the day had articles and posters about rock bands because, well, that’s the people who were celebrities at that time! This page includes both short descriptions of the band members and a short history of the band up until that point when the issue came out! Enjoy ;)

Here’s the original picture

And here is the translation! (Italized text are context comments added by me to add to the understanding of this text!)

Warning: Some of the information here is obviously incorrect!

Pink Floyd: Their profiles

Nick Mason:

Born on the 27th of January 1945 in London, plays drums, has black hair, brown eyes, is 1,72 m tall (for non metric peeps it’s approximately 5 foot 8), is married to Lindy, has two daughters, owns a vineyard and collects old cars (old timers in German means old/vintage cars)

Rick Wright:

Born on the 28th of July 1945 in London, plays the organ/keyboard, piano, cello, and Moog-synthesizer; has blonde hair, blue eyes, is 1, 74 m tall (approximately 5 foot 9), is married to Juliette, has a son named Jamie, and a daughter named Gaia, loves football (or soccer for American peeps)

Roger Waters:

Born on the 6th of September 1944 in Great Bookham near Cambridge, plays bass, Moog-synthesizer, and sings as well; has blonde hair, grey eyes, is 1,83 m tall (approximately 6 feet), is married to Caroline, and has a 15 month old son named Harry.

David Gilmour:

Born on the 6th of March 1946 in Cambridge, plays lead guitar and sings; has brown hair, blue eyes, is 1,78 m tall (approximately 5 foot 10), is married to Ginger, and has a 2 year old daughter named Alice.

The diary/summary of their career; All their albums

1965

The three architecture students Roger Waters, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason meet and get to know each other, establishing the band Sigma 6.

1966

February: Sigma 6 gets their first fee for a performance in the London Marquee Club and mostly cover popular rock and blues songs. During this time they meet art student Syd Barrett. He writes songs and joins the band as a guitarist and singer. Under his influence Sigma 6 evolve into their own music style: The group does electronic experiments and uses spotlights, reversal film, and recorded footage as part of their stage shows. Thus psychedelic music is born. Syd Barrett is as well (psychedelic), who now comes up with new names for the band almost every month — they call themselves “T-Set,“ “Abdabs” — and in this group a girl sings as well from time to time: Juliette Gale. She later marries keyboardist Rick Wright.

June: The group could pay for a band bus for approximately 200 Mark (the German currency at the time of this article), but decide to separate for the time instead. No one is interested in performing, since the boys want to enjoy the semester holidays as well as after them improve and work harder on their studies; music is fun but a real job is more important. Syd Barrett then has a new idea for a band name: The Pink Floyd Sound. He comes up with his idea through combining the names of two American blues singers: Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The owner of an artist agency, Peter Jenner, sees a performance from The Pink Floyd Sound in the Marquee, and then from there on decides to manage the band, not knowing the band wanted to break up.

July: Peter Jenner gets the band gigs, and thus Pink Floyd stays together.

October: Pink Floyd are now the stars of the London Underground. They perform in the Roundhouse to 2000 fans, with even Paul McCartney being there to see them.

December: On the 23rd of December the UFO club opens, with Pink Floyd performing there daily henceforth.

1967

January: The English music magazine “Melody Maker” write an article about Pink Floyd, which makes record companies curious about the band. The band accepts the best offer, and as they sign the record label contract, they cash in an advance payment of 40 000 Mark.

February: The first single “Arnold Layne” gets recorded.

March: Arnold Layne goes to the English hit charts.

April: The single is on number 20 in the charts and then falls off. But this beginning success gives them the push they needed to record their first album “The Pipers at the Gates of Dawn.“ Norman “Hurricane” Smith serves as producer for this album, and began his career as a recording engineer for the Beatles. While Pink Floyd work on their album in studio 3 of Abbey Road studios, the Beatles work on their album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” at the same time in studio 2; two decade defining groups working next door.

June: Pink Floyd join as a supporting act along with Jimi Hendrix and the Move (runner up band to Electric Light Orchestra) for an England tour, but only get to play 17 minutes.

July: The second single “See Emily Play,“ becomes part of the English hit charts, coming in at number 6, and the first album “The Pipers at the Gates of Dawn” releases.

September: See Emily Play also goes into the German hit charts and reaches number 28. Syd Barrett at this time also creates a speaker system which is still useful today, where the speaker boxes are placed all around the room.

1968

At this time, it is practically impossible for Pink Floyd to continue performing with Syd Barrett. He is more and more off in his own world and mind, often not knowing where he is. Out of necessity, the band thus searches for a second guitarist who could join the band.

February: David Gilmour joins Pink Floyd. Syd is still part of the band, but during concerts his amps are often not even turned on, so that the audience doesn’t know any better about his mistakes.

April: On the 6th of April Syd definitively leaves the band, with manager Peter Jenner going with him. Pink Floyd begin working on their second album “A Saucerful of Secrets.“

June: At a free open air concert on the 29th in the London Hyde Park the band officially announces and debuts David Gilmour as their new lead (and only) guitarist. On the same day the new album releases as well.

1969

July: The soundtrack album Pink Floyd worked on for the film “More,” releases.

October: Pink Floyd have their first concert in Germany on the 11th of October at the Pop and Blues Festival in the Essen Grugahalle venue. On this day, Deep Purple celebrate their first concert in Germany as well.

November: The double album “Ummagumma” releases and makes the group successful worldwide for the first time.

1970

March: The soundtrack album Pink Floyd worked on for the film “Zabriskie Point” releases.

June: Pink Floyd perform the title track of their upcoming new album “Atom Heart Mother” worldwide at open air festivals with recorded footage, dry ice fog, and light bombs as part of their special effects on stage.

October: The album “Atom Heart Mother” releases and leads the album charts in England and America.

1971

The album “Meddle” comes out. This year Pink Floyd is particularly busy; they go from one concert to the next and have multiple tours worldwide.

1972

The soundtrack album Pink Floyd worked on for the film “La Vallée” releases under the title “Obscured by Clouds” as their new album. The rest of the year the band spends inside the studio.

1973

March: The album “Dark Side of the Moon” releases and is on the English and American album charts for over two years, and also goes gold in Germany. It is to this day the band’s most sold album.

October: Pink Floyd perform their last German concert for a long time on the 12th of October at the Olympiahalle in Munich, and it becomes the sensation of the year. Pink Floyd also make their way into the English and German single charts again with the single “Money.”

1974

Pink Floyd are tired of success and go back to their private family lives, with rumors appearing that the group will break up. In autumn, the double album “A nice pair” comes out, which is a rerelease of their first two albums.

1975

September: The album “Wish You Were Here” releases.

1976

This year, Pink Floyd doesn’t appear publicly that much as well, except for some performances at festivals.

1977

January: In Dortmund Pink Floyd start their first German tour since 3 years ago on the 23rd. They have 2 concerts each for Dortmund, Frankfurt, and Berlin, with Munich having 3. All concerts were sold out 2 months before the tour started. Simultaneously the 11th album of the band, “Animals” releases. Even before the album released, “Animals” goes gold, with 250 000 records being preordered. This German tour is also the starting point of a months long worldwide tour — the most comprehensive one that Pink Floyd have undertaken yet.

Written originally by: K. E. Siegfried

Translated from German to English by: me! (Vik)

(Btw my source to where I found this is the Internet archive, love that place!)

also here are some pictures that were included in the magazine of the band!

[rambleonwaywardson]

Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 2

Part 1

AU Summary: Had some ideas about the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is about to head to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is back-up commander and CAPCOM on the ground at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who read and liked part 1! I have this whole story very loosely plotted but have no publishing schedule. I'll be out of town this week, so it may be longer before part 3 is up. Also, fun fact, this was originally going to take place in the 70s during Apollo, but I really wanted to write Clegan as out and proud. I think you can see why.

See end notes for term definitions.

--

September 8, 2025 Houston, TX

Growing up, Gale Cleven was always just Gale Cleven. Top of his class, quiet but kind, a little something wild but innately good. He doesn’t talk much about his childhood, about his parents. He grew up too fast, learned too early that life is unfair, that people are unkind – even the ones who are supposed to take care of you. He grew up with his head in the clouds, dreaming of elsewhere. He wanted to be someone, to do something. He wanted to fly away. 

So when he needed money to go to college, he took a scholarship from Air Force ROTC. He would become a pilot. He would get a degree in aerospace engineering. He would learn about math and physics, and about the giant universe he dreamed of. He would do something important, something worthwhile, because he needed to be better than the man who raised him. 

Weirdly enough, being an astronaut was never a serious consideration. The space program was about impossible to get into as it was, and getting smaller. The heyday of Apollo and the shuttle were over. NASA was under fire once again in the early 2000s following the Columbia disaster, and space travel just didn’t interest the public, or the politicians, as much as it once did. Gale was fascinated by it, always had been, but he was much more interested in the physics, the math, the engineering. Even as he wanted to be a pilot, he hardly entertained the idea of being an astronaut. 

All of this, until he met John Egan. 

Freshman year of college, a talk, lanky, dark-haired boy with the most beautiful smile Gale had ever seen barreled into their assigned dorm room and hit Gale’s life like a freight train. He called himself Bucky, and he started calling Gale Buck, no matter how many times Gale repeated his actual name. Bucky Egan was also in AFROTC with dreams of being a pilot. A mechanical engineering major, not because he wanted to be or because the Air Force wanted him to be – physics really was not suited to him to be honest – but because he knew NASA would want him to be. And Bucky Egan fully intended to be a NASA astronaut. 

Gale could tell from day one that nothing would stop this boy; he was a force of nature, and if something stood in his way he simply jumped over it. 

What Gale did not know from day one was that, 16 years later, this was the man he would marry. What he did not know was that this man would completely change his life. 

It was John Egan that, one random night during their time in college, drunk on tequila shots, looked at Gale and said “still think it’s crazy you don't wanna be an astronaut. You’d be NASA’s poster boy.”

Gale Cleven was always just Gale Cleven, future pilot and engineer. Until he met John. Now, standing in a crowded bar in Houston, Texas, he’s Major Buck Cleven, astronaut. One of NASA’s poster boys. 

The Hundred Proof Bar, just down the road from Johnson Space Center, is a long-time local favorite of astronauts and JSC employees. It’s decorated with military and space program memorabilia, with a tradition almost as old as the bar itself: once an astronaut goes to space and returns from their mission, they get their astronaut portrait hung on the wall behind the bar, joining a small and coveted community of great pilots, explorers, and scientists. Among the Houston NASA community, having your picture behind the bar almost means more than having it at NASA. 

Over the bartop, Gale stares at his own portrait. Like most of the others, he’s in a bulky white EVA suit, one hand resting on top of a space helmet, an American flag in the background. The photograph was taken nearly three years ago, ahead of his inaugural six-month ISS mission, the culmination of over a decade of hard work in school, the Air Force, and astronaut training. You can read the expression on his face like a book in that picture: pure excitement, like it was everything he had ever dreamed of. 

Bucky’s picture is right next to his. Even though their first missions didn’t coincide, Jackie, the owner of the place and head bartender, insisted that putting them beside each other was the only correct course of action. Bucky looks just as ecstatic as Gale. Soon, though, there will be a new portrait of him in its place, one specific to Artemis 3.

“Here you go, love.” Jackie sets a glass of soda with lemon in front of Gale and he thanks her before taking a sip. He stands there at the bar, one hand on his glass and the other shoved in his pocket, just staring at the photographs. A little legacy to the world that’s representative of something far greater. They’d really made it, in the end.

“I’m proud of you, you know,” a voice says beside him. Gale looks over at Marge and smiles as she wraps an arm around his back and squeezes. 

“Thought you weren’t coming tonight,” Gale says as he hugs her back.

When she steps away, she shrugs. “Miss John’s birthday? He’d kill me.”

Gale laughs, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “Please, you can pretty much do no wrong in his eyes. He’d forgive you.” Bucky had come to love Marge like a sister over the years. Gale was worried at first that they wouldn’t click, back when Marge visited them in college for the first time, but he had rarely been so wrong. They get along like a house on fire, for better or for worse.

Marge shakes her head and chuckles. “No babe, that would be you. Pretty sure John would help you get away with murder if you asked.”

“Who says he hasn’t?”

Marge just shakes her head again. “Well, I just popped in to say hi, wish the birthday boy well.” She pokes Gale in the chest, looking pointedly at him. “I meant what I said. By all means, have fun tonight, but I don’t want to hear about any scandals, okay? I’m good at my job, but the press will have a field day if they get a whiff of the next moon walkers doing anything… unruly.”

“Marge,” Gale says, pushing her finger away gently. “They’re young astronauts. Unruly is their middle name.”

Marge cocks her head and stares him down. Gale tries not to squirm under the intense, disapproving gaze of a terrifying woman several inches shorter than him. “Please just-” 

“HEEYYYY!” Cheers erupt around the Hundred Proof as the front door swings open. Marge sighs and looks at Gale with an expression that says ‘you’re not off the hook and you better do as I say,’ but she drops it. Bucky walks inside, followed by Curt, Rosie, and Alex. He smiles and laughs and shakes hands, thanks people for the birthday wishes, hugs friends he hasn’t seen in too long. The place is packed with astronauts, NASA employees, space program families, and even some Air Force friends that were able to make a quick trip in. Gale turns around and leans back against the bar, watching Bucky work his way through the crowd.

He’s changed into a white tee shirt and an old black leather jacket on top of dark jeans, a timeless look that’s followed him since he first met Gale in college. He’s pretty sure the jacket itself has been with him through many of those years. Once he spots Gale, his smile gets wider and he pushes his way towards the bar. First he leans in and hugs Marge tight. “Happy birthday,” she says, ruffling his hair before he lets go.

“Thanks for coming,” he tells her. “I promise I will not be on my worst behavior tonight.”

Marge rolls her eyes. “That may be all I can ask for.” She pats him on the arm lovingly. “Enjoy yourself, okay?” She looks at both of the men standing in front of her – two men that she still sees as college boys; men who she is endlessly proud of and who also endlessly test her patience. “Sorry I can’t stick around, but I have to fly over to Cape Kennedy in the morning for some press. I’ll see you boys in a few days.”

They both hug her again before she walks off, slipping through the crowd effortlessly even in her heels. Bucky turns and looks at Gale, glances him up and down before breaking into a grin again. “You wore something cute.”

Gale looks down at himself, picking at the cuffs of his shirt. He’d picked out a black on black outfit: some nicely tailored black jeans and a black dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, complete with polished black leather oxfords – a look he admittedly knew would please Bucky with the way it fit his body so perfectly, the way it accentuated his shoulders and his waist at the same time. “Did I?” He asks innocently. Bucky nods, biting at his lower lip. Truthfully, everything looks good on Gale anyways. Gale shrugs, smirking at him. “Well, I live to please.” Before Bucky can really get any ideas in his head, though, Gale leans in and puts a hand on Bucky’s hip as he kisses him on the cheek. “Happy birthday, John,” he whispers.

They’re pulled away from each other by the sound of someone tapping loudly on a whiskey glass. Curt is standing on a nearby table, bringing in the attention of everyone in the room. He glances at Gale and Bucky. “Sorry lovebirds, but it’s not your wedding night yet. Give it a rest so I can say some words about Bucky here.” Gale blushes and pinches the bridge of his nose as their friends laugh around them. Bucky takes a step to the side, but still grabs Gale’s hand in his. Curt nods and goes on. 

“Most of us are here tonight to celebrate Bucky’s birthday. Quite frankly I’m shocked he has this many friends, but thank you for being here.” He laughs with the crowd as Bucky holds a hand dramatically to his heart. “No, really though, Bucky’s an amazing guy. I’m real lucky to know him, and I’m lucky to have him in that Artemis lander with me when we go to the moon in November.” Raucous applause and cheering fills the room at that and Curt puts his hands up as he yells over them that he ain’t finished yet. He looks at Bucky and raises a glass. “Happy birthday, brother. You’ve worked hard to get here, and you deserve every bit of it. May we make history this year!”

Applause rises again, louder now, and people stomp, holler, and shout as Curt motions for Bucky to take his place on the table. He climbs up and takes in the room. “Very touching, Curt, thank you,” he says. “I’m honored to be commander of this mission.”

“Of all the drunks in this joint!” someone calls out jokingly from the crowd.

Bucky laughs and puts a hand up defensively. “Listen, someone’s gotta make a nest for the rest of you dodos. Make sure it’s safe. Just think of me as an overpaid guinea pig. Or, actually, rather underpaid for the circumstances.” This gets some laughter as well, even as no one in the room would ever truly doubt Major John Egan’s capabilities as a pilot or as an astronaut. They all know it’s true, however, that astronauts are not compensated enough for the risks they face. The money really isn’t why they do it though. “I’m not gonna stand here and wax sentimental,” Bucky says. “So thank you all for being here tonight. Now let’s get this party started!” 

–

The evening is a blur of drinks, music, friends, and more drinks. It starts innocently enough, with Bucky making the rounds and greeting everyone he can. He and Gale talk shop for a while with Albert Clark, flight director of Artemis 3, and a few of the flight controllers tasked with monitoring the crew and spacecraft for the duration of the mission. Harry Crosby, FIDO; Jack Kidd, FAO; and Joseph “Bubbles” Payne, GNC. Bucky then declares that they need shots, and he remembers a lot less after that.

At some point, Gale loses track of him while he chats with a few of the engineers at JSC, including a hell of a woman named Helen who flew on the ISS with him. They’ve remained good friends ever since, and she’s about the smartest person and one of the best engineers he knows. He’s happy to talk about EVAs and the astronaut vs. engineer experience working in the neutral buoyancy tank, rockets and lunar rovers, even office gossip and who has the cutest dog (Gale, hands down, no room for objection). But it’s been a long day, and Gale – despite finding himself smack in the middle of the public eye with interviews and networking and photo shoots to the point that he isn’t really sure where he ends and the extroverted facade he’d crafted begins – is starting to feel drained. He talks and he smiles and he nods, but he can feel autopilot starting to take over. He brushes his fingers over the glass in his hand, smearing the cold condensation as he takes a sip of soda water. He’s perfectly sober but the music is starting to make his head pound. He blinks and rubs a hand over the back of his neck.

“Hey Buck,” Helen says, trying to hide her laughter with a hand over her mouth. Gale turns to see what she’s staring over his shoulder at and lets a quiet fuck slip out of his mouth.

“Hold my drink please,” he says to Helen, shoving the glass into her waiting hand before pushing through the crowd to where Bucky is standing in front of the dart board, crouched down so the top of his head is below the bullseye with a hand over his eyes. “And what exactly is this about?” he cries as he pulls Bucky away from the wall.

“Hey!” Curt exclaims, echoed by Alex. They’re both visibly drunk, darts in their hands as they look at Gale with displeasure all over their faces. 

“We gotta settle this, Buck,” Bucky insists, trying to tug away from the hand gripping his arm. Bucky may be bigger and stronger than him, but Gale is more sober by about a thousand miles.

“Settle what?” he asks, incredulous. 

“Well we ended in a tie,” Alex explains, like it makes all the sense in the world. “So now we gotta settle it somehow.”

The four of them stand in a loose approximation of a circle, staring each other down. Bucky has given up resisting and is leaning lazily back against Gale’s chest, fiddling intently with Gale’s fingers. Gale stands with one hand on his hip and the other wrapped around Bucky’s middle, holding the other man still while he tries to make sense of this. “And… the best way to settle that… is to throw darts at your commander? At my fiancé?”

Curt perks up defensively but his words are slurred. “Oh fuck no! We’re throwin’ ‘em above our fiancé.”

“My fiancé,” Gale corrects, as if that’s the most important part of this altercation.

Curt tilts his head and looks at him, his eyes shifting back and forth like he’s trying to make some sort of calculation in his head. Then he nods and points to Gale. “Yeah, yeah. Your fiancé.” He points to himself. “Our commander. Thassit.”

Alex adds, “whoever gets the dart closest to the top of his head wins.”

Gale rubs his face with one hand, groaning quietly. “No,” he finally says.

“No?” Curt asks, pouting. 

“No,” Gale asserts again. “Last thing we need is for John Egan to get kicked off Artemis cause he’s lost an eye. Now give me those.” He pushes Bucky gently to the side – which is met with a grumpy protest – and grabs the darts from Alex and Curt, who are surprisingly willing to hand them over.

“Buucckkk,” Bucky whines, tugging at Gale’s free hand as he gives the darts to Jackie to keep behind the counter for a while. “You’re no fuunnnn. Woulda been jus’ like when Tommy threw one at me tha’ time. Was fine.”

“Curt and Alex are a lot drunker, you dummy. You’ll thank me later.” Very unlikely. He probably won’t remember this later. Gale turns to address all three of the men. “Now go entertain yourselves in less destructive ways.”

–

An hour or two later – who can really say – as the crowd starts to thin out, heading home in hopes of getting some semblance of sleep before a full work day tomorrow, Gale finds Bucky standing at the bar, talking to some of their military friends. Jackie – saint that she is – had switched just about all of them to non-alcoholic beverages some time ago. When Gale tries to pull Bucky away, Bucky pouts and leans against the bar. “Come on, Buck, the night is still young.” It’s past midnight, actually. It’s officially Tuesday, and they have to go to work in the morning. Schedules are packed a couple months out from launch.

Gale shakes his head and wraps an arm securely around Bucky’s mid back, pulling him close. Bucky struggles at first but then pauses, turns his head to press his nose into Gale’s neck. “You smell good.” He sniffs again before Gale feels lips gently kissing his neck, making him freeze and try to keep from blushing too hard. 

“Okay,” he grunts, pushing Bucky’s head away from his collarbone while he tries to wrestle the rest of him away from the bar. “It’s definitely time to go home. Come on.”

Saying some hurried goodbyes, Gale pushes his way through the thinning crowd with Bucky half hanging on his shoulder and half stumbling beside him. Turning to look around is not an easy feat with 6’2 of muscular astronaut weighing him down, constantly switching back and forth between shouting out to friends across the room and trying to kiss Gale anywhere he can reach. But Gale manages to find who he’s looking for. Pushing between a small group of tipsy women with a mumbled apology, he reaches a hand out to grab Rosie by the shoulder. “You seen Alex?” he asks, raising his voice over the music.

“He left a little while ago!” Rosie yells back despite their proximity. Gale doesn’t know if he should be relieved that the number of drunk guys he has to wrangle has decreased or concerned over whether or not Alex was capable of getting home alone. But then Rosie adds, “Macon drove him home, don’t worry.”

Gale nods and steps closer. “You drunk?”

Rosie tilts his head to think for a moment, looks around the room, wriggles his shoulders back and forth like he’s trying to test his balance. “Eehhh.” He holds up a hand and tilts it back and forth in a ‘sort of kind of maybe’ motion.

Gale sighs as he pulls away Bucky’s hand, which is grabbing at his chin, and pins it down at his side instead. “Alright, you’re coming with me,” he says to Rosie. Then he points across the room to Curt, who is dancing on a table with a man and a woman to cheers from the crowd around them. He wonders how many people Curt has kissed tonight alone. “Grab him and meet me outside. Y’all can crash at our place.”

Rosie nods and heads off to extract Curt from… whatever is happening over there. Gale looks at Bucky, who is staring at him with his pupils blown wide. Bucky smiles drunkenly and kisses Gale sloppily on the mouth. Gale chuckles, long suffering, and presses his lips to Bucky’s temple. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”

Bucky taps him on the nose. “Cause you love me.” He can’t argue with that.

–

It takes some wrangling, some arguing, a little bit of threatening, and a lot of protesting, but Gale and Rosie manage to drag Bucky and Curt out of the car and through the door of the pretty ranch-style home on Nassau Bay. The second they walk in, they’re assaulted by two giant huskies all too excited to welcome them home. Meatball – who is really Demarco’s dog but has found himself in a weird co-parenting situation between Benny and Gale as the two alternate space missions and other work trips – just about knocks Curt to the tile floor right at the entryway. Pepper – the one year old husky who Gale and John adopted from a rescue earlier this year – slips and slides her way across the floor in her excitement to press her nose lovingly against Bucky’s legs.

“Hiya Pep!” Bucky immediately drops to the floor by the doorway to give Pepper all the hugs and kisses she deserves, laughing as she, very much not small enough to be a lap dog, wriggles her way into his lap anyways. Curt, meanwhile, stumbles away to the living room. “Couch!” he exclaims, before dramatically collapsing onto the couch and burying his face into a throw pillow.

“Shoes off!” Gale calls. Curt groans but awkwardly tries to kick off his dress shoes to no avail. Rosie rolls his eyes and goes to help. Gale bends down to scratch Meatball under the chin. “Benny’ll be home soon, bud.” He’s been on the ISS for over 6 months now and is due for splashdown next Wednesday. Meatball licks Gale’s hand before running out the door into the yard.

When Gale looks down at Bucky, still on the floor even though Pepper has run outside after Meatball, he’s staring forlornly at his feet. He looks up at Gale. “Buck, can you help me tie my shoes?”

“Your shoes are tied,” Gale says matter of factly, hands on his hips.

Bucky looks back at his shoes thoughtfully, touching the laces with oddly gentle fingers. He tugs halfheartedly. “Buck?”

“Hmm?”

“I can’t get them off.” 

Gale flexes his jaw, unimpressed, and nods. “Mkay.” He kneels down on the floor and carefully removes Bucky’s shoes, sets them neatly by the door. Then he hauls the man back to his feet. As he leads Bucky awkwardly to their master bedroom, he looks in on Curt, who is already passed out on the couch. Rosie had managed to get his shoes off and ensure he wasn't lying on his back. He then peeks into the first guest room where Rosie, mercifully still in his right mind, has already claimed a bed. “You good?” Rosie nods and gives him a thumbs up. Gale nods back. “See you in the morning.” They are in for a hell of a training day tomorrow. The only saving grace is that at least half of Johnson Space Center will probably be just as hung over.

Gale manages to get Bucky out of his jacket and settled on the edge of their bed before he goes about changing out of his own clothes, stripping down to his underwear before pulling on a pair of sweats. He is acutely aware of Bucky’s eyes tracking his every move until he goes into their en-suite to brush his teeth. Once he’s done in the bathroom, he returns to find Bucky staring out the big picture window at the full moon lighting up their backyard. 

He turns his head to look at Gale with wonder in his eyes. “I’m going to the moon, Buck.”

Gale smiles fondly as he sits beside him to look out at the night sky. He wraps an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and presses a kiss to the side of his head. It really is everything Bucky has ever dreamed of, for as long as they’ve known each other.

“Yeah, John. You’re going to the moon.”

--

--

Part 3

Terms: EVA = extravehicular activity (space walks and moon walks)

FIDO = Flight Dynamics Officer; monitors the flight path and trajectory of the spacecraft

FAO = Flight Activities Officer; in charge of preparing the flight plan; manages changes in the flight plan and crew activities

GNC = Guidance, Control, and Navigation Officer; operates spacecraft navigation and control software during flight; responsible for spacecraft orientation

ISS = International Space Station

Neutral Buoyancy Tank = giant water tank at Johnson Space Center used to simulate working in zero gravity

[bg3-npc]

Various Baldur's Gate Tag Numbers

As someone starved for non-Astarion BG3 content, I decided to look up the most popular tags for the game. I wanted to compare content and following discrepancies between each. Here's what I found as of September 29, 2023:

Baldur's Gate 3: 17k followers

BG3: 11k followers

These were the most common and followed tags for the game itself. Any other tag variations didn't have enough followers/content to display numbers.

I looked at the "Astarion" tag first and found:

Astarion: 14k followers

Astarion alone has more followers than the abbreviation for the ACTUAL GAME. Okay, that's fine, the main tag still has more followers than his character. Now let's look at the the numbers for the other five main playable companions:

Karlach: 3.4k followers

Shadowheart: 2.5k followers

Gale of Waterdeep: 2.2 followers

Gale: 1.9k followers

Gale Dekarios: 1.3k followers

Again, any other tags didn't have enough interaction to display numbers. This means there are TWO ENTIRE COMPANIONS with so few followers and content, we don't even know how many people are actually following/posting them.

I genuinely don't want to start Fandom Discourse™️, but how can I not? How can I not talk about the blatant sexism/misogyny when a similar female companion has so little love? How can I not state the obvious racial prejudice against the only canonically black origin companion? I mean come on, the other white guy has THREE tags with visible numbers. The only black companion doesn't have ONE.

Characters aside, this is an open world video game. You can complete it, whatever that means to you, with as little character interaction as you want. You're probably doing YOURSELF a disservice to focus solely on Astarion.

Look. I'm not here to tell you how to play this game or enjoy it's content. I'm not here to tell you how to participate in fandom. However, while Larian Studios seemed to prioritize Astarion, he is NOT the single most interesting experience in the game.

If he's what got you into the game, great! Love having you here! If he's the only thing you enjoy though, please consider why a white dude (even if he's a fictional vampire) is the only thing that has your engagement. Especially if you're like me and HAVEN'T. EVEN. PLAYED. THE. GAME.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

seven degrees east - chapter one

Fandom: Masters of the Air Pairings: Gale x Bucky; Nash x Helen; more tbd Rating: T (may change) Chapter: 1 / ? Word Count: 3798

Summary: It's 1996. Soundgarden's on the radio, Charles and Diana are headed for divorce, and seven American PhD candidates are studying literature at the University of Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk, England. Between taking Prof. Harding's summer class and obsessing over their favourite authors, the boys will kick asses when they must, and fall in love if they can.

Spring was about to fall headlong into summer and Bubbles had decided Princess Di was the woman for him. They were all in love with her. Tabloid magazine photos of Diana in black and lavender—torn with care along the crease—decorated the walls of their dorms, overlapping posters for Superunknown and Crimson Tide, pieces they’d had published in the literary journal, and mundane scraps of paper elevated by their status as vessels for the phone numbers of girls they’d met at parties. Naturally, their Princess took supremacy, especially as they expected imminent, official news of her divorce from Charles. Lucky Bubbles.

It was mid-June 1996. They spent their days horny and sunburnt from laying out on the school’s big English lawn. These long stretches of apparent leisure were punctuated by the summer course in which they were all enrolled: “Thoreau’s Walden,” taught by Professor Harding. He was transparently attempting to instill in them a sense of self-reliance alongside an understanding of transcendentalist thought. The class wasn’t mandatory—the rest of their cohort would rejoin them in September—but their small group comprised a brotherhood of dedicated scholars. (Dedicated to having fewer courses to take come fall semester.)

Bubbles was their Great American Novel man, obsessed with Faulkner’s long sentences and Steinbeck’s long books. Crosby envied and lionized his best friend’s focus, but had come to accept that he was irresistibly drawn to the lower-brow, femme-fatale charm of Chandler and Hammett’s hard-boiled novels. Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal was their resident 19th-centuryist, plotting the spread of both his dissertation and his mustache on the fertile—if possibly cursed—intellectual ground of Edgar Allan Poe. Herbert Nash was Rosie’s chronological compatriot. Though he’d begun the doctoral program with a proposed focus on the works of Mark Twain, he had a literary wandering eye for anything that struck him as romantic. In the face of Nash’s flakiness, Curt fought (sometimes physically) for the pure pleasure of reading, but then he was often under the hedonistic, lunar-like sway of Oscar Wilde—a deviation (guided, he claimed, by his Irish heritage) from the later, hedonistic influence of his preferred poison: the Beat Generation.

If their ragtag band of chronic dogear-ers had a leader, it should’ve been Jack Kidd. Kidd was an upper year student, nearly finished with his PhD (unless his PhD finished with him first). He was secretive, perpetually put-upon, and capable of delivering heart-shattering criticism in a tone that made it sound like mercy. In short, he was everything they longed to be. When asked about the subject of his dissertation, he would drop his face into his hands with all the enthusiasm and surrender to gravity of a bridge suicide. In lieu of possessing the middle-aged-divorcé jadedness that seemed to come naturally to Kidd despite his being only 29, the seven younger candidates had taken up smoking the preceding November.

Because they did need a leader to make sure they did things like readings and laundry and correcting their posture after hours spent curled over, under, and around the library’s long oak tables, they had Bucky. And they had Buck, because it was smart to have a backup. “Bucky” was really John, and “Buck” was Gale, and when any of the other five called them out on being pretentious fucks, they would both grin and offer no correction. While John directed his furrowed brow at Lost Generation titans like Hemingway, Stein, and Fitzgerald, Gale was dreamily engrossed in a fin-de-siècle love affair with Henry James. At any given time, at least three of them (including John) were waiting for the pair to realize that who they were actually head over heels for was each other.

They were all students at Thorpe Abbotts—the Norfolk satellite campus of the Connecticut university. They knew people studying Goethe and Voltaire, Tolstoy and Shakespeare and García Márquez, seriously, they did. They just happened to be a collection of Americans reading Americans. In England. For one reason and another, they’d decided to study overseas, intrigued by the allure of matched tuition fees, rainy reading weather, and the proximity to older and fancier universities, which were fun to visit if they were looking to instigate a winnable fight against other easily-provoked academics.

That particular evening, they descended upon a bar favoured by students from the University of East Anglia. John and Rosie had both offered to drive. To decide who’d had to go with John (concealed as who’d wanted to go with John), Crosby had flipped a coin—well, a double-sided Batman pog he’d produced with minor embarrassment after fishing around in his pocket for a coin. As a result, Gale and Curt tumbled from John’s Wrangler (Gale from the passenger’s seat, Curt from the bench in the rear) looking half-drunk already from John’s weaving, lead-footed panache behind the wheel. Rosie pulled up smoothly, with no complaints from Bubbles, who might not have complained even if they’d slid into the parking lot on their roof, Crosby, whose motion sickness had not been triggered, or Nash, who’d ironed a shirt for this outing in hopes of meeting a nice girl. The rest had openly teased him, then tried not to feel self-conscious about their own attire.

“You look like Hugh Grant,” John leveled at Nash when he saw him sweeping his hair back as they made for the bar.

“Thanks.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

Fortunately for Nash, he was impervious to most insults. John knew this and took it as licence to tease him all the more.

“Ladies love Hugh Grant,” Nash reasoned.

“Don’t say ladies,” Curt whined. “Fuck’s wrong with you?”

“The thing Hugh Grant has going for him is he’s British,” John explained.

“And he’s a movie star,” Gale offered, nonpartisan.

“Stellar addition, Buck: and he’s a movie star.” He turned back to Nash. “You’re non-movie-star, American Hugh Grant. Capisce?”

“Don’t say capisce.” Curt took out his frustration on the loose chunk of asphalt he booted across the parking lot.

“Ah, don’t listen to him, Nash,” Rosie instructed, slinging an arm around Nash’s neck and hauling him close so his steps stuttered and skipped.

“You look good, Nash,” Gale said.

“Like a real gentleman.”

“Too bad he’s just Nash disguised as a gentleman,” John lamented with a grin.

Nash cracked a telling smile.

“Whaddaya think, Croz?” John demanded. He looked around and found Crosby and Bubbles trailing them, laughing about something that was part of their own conversation. “Croz! Nash in disguise! This some kinda hard-boiled, sleazy villain shit?”

Crosby shrugged.

“Nash is Nash.”

“Nash is Nash,” Bubbles agreed, and then they were all saying it, speaking over one another, until their voices dropped into sync and it turned into a chant as they shoved into the warmth of the bar.

They fell into a booth together, then forced Crosby and Bubbles back out to get the first round since neither of them had driven and even if you tried to send one without the other, they’d both go anyway, as though attached by a tether. They returned with pitchers.

“Croz got carded,” Bubbles gleefully announced, handing out glasses from the stack in his hand.

Everyone awwwed. Crosby erupted in a flaming blush.

“Don’t worry about it, Croz,” Gale told him. Crosby nodded gratefully, but then Gale tacked on, “When I was your age—”

Crosby’s protestation that they were the same age had Rosie laughing until he had tears in his eyes. He tilted sideways into Nash, who did his best to scoot away.

“I love you Rosie, but I will slash your fucking tires if you wrinkle my shirt.”

This just made Rosie laugh harder.

“You alright to drive back?” John checked with Gale, leaning in to speak quietly below the hilarity.

“I gotcha, man.”

John nudged Crosby out of the booth a second time and came back with a pitcher of water for Gale, who’d smoke weed and cigarettes with the rest of them but drew the line at carbonation. Crosby’s hand hesitated between the pitchers of beer and water.

“I’ll drive,” Rosie assured him, brushing away Crosby’s wordless offer with a wave of his hand.

Crosby looked relieved to be let off the hook. He poured himself a beer.

John pointed at Rosie.

“You’re too damn self-sacrificing.”

“Maybe you’re too sac-selfrificing,” Curt countered, making John twist to face him with an expression of extreme indignation.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna take this outside?” John squared his shoulders. Even though it was all in play, Gale held out his hand, palm down, suggesting they chill out a little. They’d been bounced from this bar before.

“Might as well stay put,” Curt said. “If I knock you on your ass while you’re already sittin’ down, you got less far to fall.”

John smacked the brim of Curt’s ballcap down over his eyes and they broke into a scuffle in the booth, legs scrabbling beneath the table, Curt giggling wildly as he jerked away from John’s hands while protesting that he couldn’t see. Crosby, sitting on Curt’s other side, attempted to right his hat, but ended up having to dodge Curt’s elbow instead.

“Bets?” Rosie asked.

“What’s on the table?” Bubbles wondered. Somebody’s knee slammed the actual table from underneath and Bubbles’ hand shot out to steady his glass. “Figuratively.”

“Losers have to format the winners’ essay citations.”

“That’s not ba—”

Crosby saw Gale whack the back of his hand into Bubbles’ chest to shut him up, but it was too late. Rosie was grinning.

“And type up their essay.”

They groaned. Bubbles, Nash, and Crosby shook their heads, bowing out, but Gale stuck out his hand for Rosie to shake.

“You’re on,” he said.

“Who’s your money on?” Rosie asked.

“Who d’you think?” Nash cut in.

It really was silly to ask; Gale took John’s side in everything, always. Crosby was going to point that out, begin recalling supporting evidence, but John started fighting really dirty—his hands dove to Curt’s sides, tickling hard, and Curt hopped back. Crosby bailed out of the booth and stood.

“Maybe they should take it outside,” Bubbles observed, reading Crosby’s concern on his face before he could voice it.

Just then, there was a scoff: “Typical.”

John ceased his attack on Curt as they turned to look with the others. Curt fixed his hat. There were three guys standing there, just past Crosby, who took a step towards the table to show his allegiance. Like most people they encountered off the Thorpe Abbotts campus, the trio were British. They looked about their age, maybe a little younger, and enough sheets to the wind not to mind that there were fewer of them than members of the group they’d accosted.

The pause after that single word seemed to go on and on. None of the seven had a doubt in their mind that it was a criticism of their behaviour—their Americanness. The Brits would expect them to get angry, to fly from their booth and jab their impolite American fingers in their faces, wet American spittle spraying from their mouths as they shouted rude American words. They didn’t know that this was what these particular Americans did for fun. That even now, in the pause, they were just deciding how they wanted this one to go.

“Can we help you?” Gale asked calmly, while his compatriots wordlessly downed their drinks.

“We’re just fine,” one of them replied. “Try helping yourselves.”

Gale glanced around at his friends as though confused.

“Did one of you need help with something?” he asked.

Curt had just poured himself a second beer. He held up a finger, signally for everyone to wait as he took a long swallow. He sighed in satisfaction.

“I actually do need help,” he said, looking not at Gale but at the Brits.

“Want us to teach you to tie your shoes?” a different one taunted.

“Nah,” Curt said, tone dangerously placid to the ears of his friends. “Nah, got that one figured out. I actually got a question for you: loserssaywhat?”

The first one frowned, head cocking slightly.

“What?”

Rosie guffawed, prompting the change in the trio’s expressions: superior to insulted. Angry. But Curt was beaming. He took another swallow of beer before slowly enunciating, “Losers. Say. What.”

And then he burped so loudly that Crosby, recounting the story to Kidd later that night, would swear it shook the walls.

“That wasn’t part of the question,” Curt clarified.

The strangers surged towards the booth and Crosby got in their way, Bubbles and Gale jumping up too to put a wall between them and Curt.

Gale said one word to them, and he said it like an order: “Outside.”

“Fucking right, outside,” was thrown back at him.

The three on their feet watched the Brits out the door, then turned back to the group.

“Who’s holding down the fort?” John asked.

“Not me,” Curt said. He clambered from the booth and started shadow boxing. As he ducked and wove, eyes fixed on an invisible opponent, John spun his hat around, brim at the back.

“Let’s all go,” Nash said from his spot against the wall. “Nobody’s gonna…”

He trailed off as his gaze landed on something beyond their prizefighting trickster, beyond the inseparable Bubbles and Crosby, beyond the deep-running still waters of Gale. There was a girl. A beautiful girl. Thick, dark hair, talking with another girl Nash barely noticed. As he watched, she laughed. She was even more beautiful when she laughed.

“Actually, I’ll stay,” he amended distractedly. He tilted his head to see around Curt as Curt decided to add footwork to his routine. “The rest of you can fuck off.”

Rosie looked where Nash was looking and smirked.

“Ah, no way, buddy. Wouldn’t leave you here all alone!”

“No more than three of us can go,” John declared. “It’s not…”

���Sportsmanlike,” Gale supplied.

John snapped his fingers and agreed, “Sportsmanlike.”

“I guess it’s you three then,” Bubbles deduced glumly, glancing between John, Gale, and Curt.

“Sure is,” John said, considerably more gleeful. He rose and clapped Bubbles on the shoulder. “Hang tight.”

“But—”

“If you go, Croz’ll come too, and we can’t go five-against-three; they’ll think we’re chickenshits.”

“Who cares about their opinion?” Crosby wanted to know.

“Me,” Curt said. He stuck out his lower lip in a pout. “They hurt my feelings.”

Crosby rolled his eyes.

“Get the fuck outta here.”

“Yeah, and do us proud!” Rosie shouted at their backs as Gale, Curt, and John trekked towards the exit. John pumped his fist into the air.

When they’d gone, Rosie smiled slyly at Nash.

“So. Are we calling her over here?”

“What?”

“YO!” Rosie yelped at the top of his lungs.

The girl, her friend, and a dozen other people in the crowded bar turned their heads, searching for the source of the sound.

“What the hell?!” Nash blurted.

Rosie frowned at him.

“You think she’s pretty, right?”

“Duh. Look at her—”

“MY FRIEND THINKS YOU’RE PRETTY! YEAH, YOU! BLUE SHIRT!”

“If I wanted her to think I was a total jackass—” Nash began.

“You’ll get your chance. I just got you started. Wave her over.”

“You ever think there’s a reason you don’t have a girlfriend?”

Nash slid along the seat until he was free of them all, though Crosby did offer an encouraging thumbs-up.

“Watch and learn,” he called over his shoulder. He locked eyes with the girl—the beautiful girl, who was miraculously staring back at him with an expression of amusement rather than scorn—as he headed her way.

—

Outside, the tension was thickening. The Brits should’ve gotten some kind of points for holding their ground, John thought, because they looked nervous now that he, Gale, and Curt were all on their feet, not folded up in that booth. He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders to make himself as big as possible. And he smiled, not as massive as Curt though. That seemed to be pissing them off, maybe making them stay: that Curt was full-on grinning.

“Thorpe Abbott?” the mouthiest of the three asked, like an accusation.

“Abbotts, numb nuts,” Curt corrected.

“What do they grade you with there? Scratch-and-sniff stickers?”

“I wish!” John said. There was a threatening gleam in his eyes.

“You know it doesn’t mean anything when they give you all hundreds right? Your degrees don’t mean shit.”

“It actually does mean something,” Curt said. He suddenly sounded so serious that his friends looked at him from the corner of their eyes. “We go in this special room, ’k? Maybe not so fancy as the rooms at wherever you boys go—”

“East Anglia,” was offered.

Curt nodded.

“Yep, Easy Anglia, whatever. But we go in this room and then—true story—this woman shows up. Like, our dean calls her up to let her know another one of us special boys—”

“Us special American boys,” Gale emphasized.

“—got himself another fuckin’ hundred. Takes her maybe half an hour to show up. And then, guess what, you guys?” Curt looked at the befuddled Brits eagerly. “She blows us.”

Their reaction was a blend of highly skeptical and stunned by the turn Curt’s story had taken. Shit’s sake, Curt, John was thinking. This is gonna be a hell of a fight.

“And, you know, she did mention she had a son,” Curt said measuredly, homing in on the mouthy guy now, “but, damn, you’re her spittin’ fuckin’ image.”

The Brits lunged at them.

—

Nash wanted to ask her to dance, to hold her by the hips and sway along to whatever rhythm she chose. He didn’t care if it didn’t match the beat of the music. He didn’t care that no one else was dancing, or that this wasn’t really a place where people did that. “Helen,” she’d said her name was.

“You read much?” he asked stupidly, but he wanted her to like him more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. More than anyone in the history of humankind had ever even dreamed their descendants could want. The only thing he could think to talk about was books. Talking about books, he could start to sound smart again, reassemble his brain in the background while most of him got lost in Helen’s eyes.

“Yes.”

Nash loved how she said yes. His heart, thumping happily in his chest loved it. The rush of blood to his groin loved it. The sound of “yes” in her mouth. She was American. He tried not to think how easy it would be, the two of them moving back home after school. Or staying here, a pair of expats. Whatever she’d prefer.

“I’m actually studying creative writing.”

“Where?” he asked, starry-eyed.

Her eyes darted to her friend before returning to his face. The reaction said he was being sort of stupid now, but then her expression shifted to something like guilt. She’d felt bad for thinking it. for writing him off so quickly.

“At the University of East Anglia.”

“Oh. So, like, right nearby.”

“Right nearby,” she confirmed. “Hence…” She glanced around. Hence this bar. Hence. Totally. Nash gave her a smile, weak with adoration.

“Why there?” he asked.

“Kazuo Ishiguro studied there. I admire his work.”

“I loved The Remains of the Day.”

Helen smiled at him. The clouds parted. Probably.

“Me too,” she said. “Are you in the arts as well?”

“English,” he told her. “Thorpe Abbotts. Working on my PhD.”

She was sufficiently engaged now that her friend moved off, giving them space.

“What’s your field?”

“American,” he admitted, and she got it, and she laughed. An American studying Americans in England. He shrugged, embracing her reaction.

“Who do you like?”

You. But she’d meant which authors.

“Twain,” Nash said, “and Hawthorne.”

Helen’s eyes lit up.

“Yes! My greatest influences are second-wave. You know, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem’s exposé on the Playboy Club, obviously…”

“Well, sure,” Nash said, just keeping up as she spoke in an impassioned rush.

“But I love the early feminists too. Hawthorne and Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Alcott.”

“Little Women!”

“It’s probably still my favourite novel of all time.”

For the first time, Nash took a careful, calculated pause, and he gave her a look. A Nash look. It was a look that usually communicated let’s get out of here, but this time, he wanted more. He’d worn the shirt.

“I’ve never met anybody who was as much of a Jo as you are,” he said, meaning it.

It was noisy, but he heard Helen’s pleased gasp. That she was actually an Amy was something Helen had not yet admitted to herself, and so Nash’s compliment hit its target with full effect. He watched as her lips parted—to thank him? to kiss him? to say some other unforeseen thing that would change his life even further? make him feel the earth move under his feet? did she like Carole King?—but there was a hard tug on his elbow.

Nash turned to find Bubbles standing there. He was the one person Nash wouldn’t snap at for interrupting, and the others knew that. He’d been sent.

“I am so sorry,” Bubbles said, addressing Helen. He was beginning to slur his S’s. “I gotta steal him back for a minute.”

“I swear my friends don’t speak for me,” Nash said as Bubbles physically dragged him away from the conversation. “I know it’s happened twice now, but they don’t!”

Was it worth it, to be removed from Helen’s side and brought back to the booth? Nash was surprised to feel that it almost was—almost—when his eyes landed on their smiling trio of champions. Gale had a cut on his cheek where a fist must’ve connected, or at least glanced off; John had the dark promise of a bruise below one eye; and Curt didn’t have a scratch on him. Nash laughed, shaking his head.

“What was he tryin’ to say though?” John was asking.

“Mumbling some shit about our hundreds,” Gale replied. “Our ‘bloody hundreds.’”

“Yeah,” Curt said. “But it was after I’d clocked him square in the mouth. That’s why he was lispin’. ‘Bloody hundredth,’ it sounded like.” He chuckled. “Bloody hundredth.”

“To the Bloody Hundredth,” Crosby proposed, raising his beer.

Rosie passed Nash his refilled glass, then lifted his own for the toast.

“Bloody Hundredth,” the rest of them intoned.

“And to Princess Diana,” Bubbles’ voice rang out when the rest of them had a glass to their lips. “Wherever she may be tonight.”

Crosby adopted an expression of deep solemnity, but Rosie ruined it by snorting into his water.

“Alright, men,” John addressed them. “Back into the booth. We got some fuckin’ drinking to do.”

“Spoken like a true Hemingway scholar,” Gale observed.

John gave him an affectionate smile.

“I try.”

[evita-shelby]

It's Only a Paper Moon

Diane x Bucky

Cw:allusion to premarital sex?

For @yorkshirekiwi

Based around this version of the song

She offers a carved flask, and he accepts it with a muttered thank you. She looked like Collen Moore with those eyes of hers, one brown, one blue. Very pretty too.

“Gin?” He asks after handing the flask back mostly empty. Tasted like Shelby Gin if you asked him, just as sweet as he likes it.

“My dad’s personal recipe.” The nurse said with a shrug and emptied the rest of it herself. The Shelbys were English, what were the odds the Shelby Gin heiress was the pretty nurse with the strange eyes sitting here with him?

If it had been a shit day for him, it would have been about as bad for her as well. Her hair is falling out of the impeccable bun she’d had on when they arrived, her uniform stained with blood and grime and looks older than she looked when he last saw her.

She doesn’t smoke, and yet she took a cigarette break. More like an excuse to just calm down before having to go back to the triage.

“Name’s John, everyone calls me Bucky.” He smiles and wipes a smudge of blood off her cheek with his sleeve.

“Diane, Nurse Shelby when I’m om the clock and Di when I’m not.” She returned his smile and Bucky knew he just had to take out this posh English girl dancing.

“Any plans for tonight, Lady Di?” he needs a drink, to sing and maybe even a fuck too. Good thing he had no prior commitments to keep him from doing that last bit.

Those RAF Officers would hate it so much if they saw him with her, wouldn’t they? What was it that they’d said, an American thinks he can fuck a duchess?

“Free as a bird, Major.” Lady Di answers and tells him where he can find her.

“Call me Bucky.”

They talk about him as if he were a Hollywood star, him and his friend, Gale. They had the looks and the charm, even if Bucky often did all the talking.

She wore pale pink with red earrings, red as her lipstick and her shiny heels that barely had her reach his shoulders. Not that it matters, John Egan was too good of a dancer to care about the disparity in their height.

He’s great fun, sings along to the music and yet knows his limits despite having the same intention as every man before him. She’d fuck him of course, she needs the release as much as he does, might as well send him off to die having had a great night.

“How do you live in a place like this, no sunshine no good food?” he asks ordering them both drinks. He knows who she is given by that grin when he gets them Shelby Whiskey.

“My mother’s foreign, from Mexico, and my dad is Romani, a gypsy if you aren’t familiar with the word. So, I get great food and I can always chase the sun whether on land or over the water.” She thanks the barkeep and wonders if he’s done his research on her like the some of the others have. “Besides, it has its charms, Arrow House is known for gardens and woods you can get lost in.”

Diane had done her homework on him, there was always a need to properly vet the people she slept with, especially since her father was in the House of Commons and his factories supplied so much for the war effort.

Perhaps made the connection between her and the gin. The Americans wouldn’t be so careless as to have him spy on her, or realize she was here to see what sort of shit the yanks weren’t telling the Crown.

John Clarence Egan, from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, born September 9, 1915. A shit singer, with a devil may care attitude that made you forget this war and not some movie. He had a girl back home, Josephine Ada Pitz, the first female pilot in their town. He was fond of Shelby alcohol, something that had cemented itself in the hearts of the American working class even before prohibition ended.

“The best of both worlds, then.” He said and proposed a toast to it.

“I heard you sing, Major.” Diane mentions and feeling her heart flutter when he grins widely.

“Like a donkey in a church choir, but it doesn’t matter if you’re loud. Do you, Lady Di?” Bucky asks with his eyes shining in mischief.

“How about you pick the song, Bucky, and I’ll show you?” No wonder the ladies here were crazy for him and his friend. John Egan could get dowdy Queen Elizabeth to jump into his bed if he set his mind to it.

“Paper Moon.”

Its not long before they’re sneaking around for more than just a few drinks and couple of songs that same night.

“You know what I want?” he asks as they move into the sparse woods on the base in search for privacy. The supply closet was already claimed, neither wished to risk their sleeping quarters and there was no way to go to the bed and breakfast nearest the base.

“I hope its not a virgin, Bucky.” She teases kissing him again and tugging him to her by his belt buckle.

“No, not that, Lady Di.” He presses her back to the tree, not caring they’ll be discovered and punished for this. But he’s a good kisser, and the rough bark turns her on even more. “I want to feel something other than whatever the fuck’s gotten into me, Di.”

“Don’t we all, Egan. Only a paper moon, isn’t it?” The singing, the dancing and the feel of understanding as they gave into their attraction for each other, all of that was just to sate their needs for the night and go their separate ways once it was over. Not that Diane judged him for it, not one bit.

They could die tomorrow and no one but a handful of people would care about it.

Only a paper moon sailing over a cardboard sky after all.

It becomes a habit, she is Bucky’s girl even if they are technically only friends who fuck each other and sing together.

She reads cards and knows the future, not that he’s ever believed in that bullshit, but she’s not been wrong when she tells him he’ll come back each time he leaves.

Wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed me, she sings when he doubts her predictions out of habit most days.

Still this is all a paper moon and she’ll move on soon enough. They all do.

“Won’t your girl back home be angry you’re singing and fucking an English girl?” Diane asks as they devour each other in the little bed and breakfast every soldier has used at some point. Before the Americans came in it was the RAF and before that just normal people with no fear of dying after.

“Shit’s been over since I came here, not the pen pal type, Di.” he hadn’t thought about Jo since he got command of his squadron and returned to flying. She’d sent some letters then once she saw he wasn’t going to write back, Jo stopped writing. They always do.

“Just making sure I’m not your dirty little secret.” The nurse assured him as their paper moon hung in the sky.

“Are you gonna come dancing tonight?” he asks once the moment is over and they pretend they don’t have other shit going on. They’re just another pair of lovers making use of the bed and its warmth.

“Only if you ask me nicely, Major.” She flutters her lashes and kissed him sweetly.

He likes her, likes the feeling of knowing she’s here waiting for him.

Strange how he sought her out so he could feel something else for a change, and got more than he’d even asked for.

Everything’s make-believe until you believe in it.

That night he gets the band to play Paper Moon.

He sings to it and she blushes feeling every single damn thing he is now trying to tell her. Perhaps she really was a witch, after all.

“But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed me,” Di sang softly, just to him, as she kissed him like she loved him.

“Do you want me to bring you back anything from my next flight, sweetheart?” he asks knowing whatever she answers won’t make sense until after his mission.

“Last nice thing you see in Algeria, preferably jewelry of some kind.” Her mismatched eyes gleam in knowing he finds it hard to believe her words.

John and those who survived Regensburg stay in Algeria for a week, and no matter how hard he tries he can’t find something nice for her before his tine there is up.

On his last day in Algeria, he buys a silver locket with a carved moon where he puts a picture of himself.

He loves her, as strange as it feels to admit it even to Buck, who only teases him for it.

“You should’ve gotten the ring instead, Bucky.” Gale jokes and Bucky hates to admit that he’s right, but there will be time for that if he is to believe his witch.

They celebrate his return with gin and she wears the locket as he takes her on the same tree they fucked against that first night.

He takes her picture with him on missions and likes the kiss she pressed on the back of it along with the lyrics to the last bit of Paper Moons as part of their inside joke. Bucky is a skeptic and no matter the proof to what she envisions, he still does not put much stock on her words.

He didn’t believe her that he’d survive this long, he is only about ten missions away from the holy number and she tells him she sees him surviving the war. Bucky believes that part after Regensburg, tells her himself as he grieves for his friends who didn’t make it.

“I wanted to feel something that night and now I think I feel something else tonight.” He admits as they sit under the tree, and he wraps his sheepskin over her shoulders even if he is the one not used to English autumns.

Gale may think the sheepskin ugly, but Diane likes the comfort of it, of John’s aftershave and cologne, the faint smell of his own sweat and even the detergent used to wash it. It is him almost as much as he is himself.

She wears it when he lets her, once she surprised him wearing only it at their little rented room. Bucky had undone the zipper slowly and kissed every inch he freed from its confines.

She loves him, and he loves her even if he cannot make himself say it outloud…yet.

“And what is it that you feel, Major?” the witch asks loving the way he smiles at her question.

“I think I’ve fallen in love with you, Lady Di.”

He believes her until he doesn’t.

“You have to be wrong, check your cards again.” He cannot believe her words.

Gale Cleven wasn’t gonna be shot down over Bremen. No, he couldn’t. Not Buck.

“I’m sorry, Bucky, I can’t change things just because you ask.” The witch said and put away her tarot cards after a fourth reading.

He shouldn’t have believed her, why did he do this to himself? He’d never believed in this bullshit and now he won’t.

Buck was gonna live, he wasn’t going to go down in his next mission because Diane’s psychic bullshit is just a fucking paper moon.

Bucky can’t even find the words to warn Buck that night and before he knows it, he’s been given a two-day pass to London. Di offers to set him up at her parents’ house since they’re not there, but he refuses because he cannot even look at her without being angry.

He can’t even tell who he is angry at, her, her cards or fucking God himself.

She gives him her address either way and after giving up trying to forget her with the Polish Widow who didn’t care he had his Lady Di; Bucky finds himself watching the bombs from the window in her bedroom.

Bucky Egan doesn’t wake until noon and calls from the telephone on the desk of Thomas Shelby MP OBE praying to God Diane was wrong.

“Norfolk 7322, please.”

Diane finds him crying and raging against God for taking Buck.

“I’m gonna kill those fuckers, for Gale.” He vows as he breaks apart in her arms.

“He’s not dead, you’ll see when you meet him again.” The witch assures him and he is too out of it to even consider she might be right, just as she was before. “I said he’d be shot down, not killed, Bucky.”

She stays in London while he returns to duty a day earlier than planned.

When packs her picture for his next mission, he reads what she wrote on the back of it on his birthday last month.

It’s phony, it’s plain to see

How happy I would be

If you believed in me

Bucky leaves without asking her how Munster will go and asks Crosby to give her his sheepskin for him.

When Diane saw what would happen in Munster, she could not speak.

He wouldn’t die, no, she’d feel it in her heart if he was, but knowing he wouldn’t be coming back from this mission has her doubting her own visions.

She loves him, loves him so deeply she cannot imagine a life without him in it. They’d joked about marriage, about he’d take his Lady Di and marry her in Manitowoc in the same parish he went to with his parents all his life, how they’d be Mr. and Mrs. Egan and have a daughter named Rosemary Gale after Rosemary Clooney and Gale Cleven because Gale’s a girl’s name.

Harry Crosby comes to give his condolences and Bucky’s jacket at her doorstep, but she refuses to accept his word that he’s gone.

“Bucky’s not dead, he’ll come back here. I’ve seen it.” She lies as she takes Bucky’s sheepskin and cries herself to sleep in it while humming ‘It’s only a paper moon.’

Lady Di keeps herself busy working as a nurse as if she were possessed until a letter from a prisoner of war camp in Germany arrives written by John Clarence Egan himself.

‘I need a new picture, Lady Di, I believed in you so much I lost it in a German field’, he writes and adds, ‘Buck says hello.’

Diane sends her picture with the same words as before and sprays enough perfume on her letter for it to still smell of her when it arrives several months after it should’ve been.

And because he believes her now, she works with the Crown and the Americans to keep him and his comrades safe until they’re brought home.

‘If you can stay put for me, I’ll let you take me to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Bucky,’ she writes on the postscript of her letter to him. In the same letter she makes sure to name drop her dear friend Lilibet Windsor, the Princess of Wales, who agrees to send her regards if it means he and the rest of the prisoners are not executed by the Nazis.

“You were right, I should’ve picked the ring instead of the locket.” Bucky tells his friend who’s gone distracted by his Marge’s letters.

“Can’t be your best man nor you mine if we have a double wedding, Bucky.” Gale jokes after sharing his good news.

"Our girls deserve their own day, don’t they?” he laughs with renewed strength knowing he and Buck aren’t going to die in this shithole.

He consults with his witch, plans accordingly and so far everything goes well even if they have to wait until she finds what day is best for their escape.

When they escape on January 27th of 1944, he is humming Paper Moon to himself and tells Buck that’s going to be the first dance he and Mrs. Egan will dance at their wedding.

Bucky’s not been a whole day back on Thorpe Abbotts when he finds her waiting in only his sheepskin and the locket at their hotel room singing Paper Moon with two glasses of champagne.

She sings beautifully, she’d be a star if she wanted, but she’s perfectly happy as she is, as the soon to be Mrs. John Egan.

He’s bought the ring, a silver one to match the locket with moons carved all around it. Inside it says the same words as her picture.

“Only if you ask me nicely, Major.” She whispers knowing everything with those pretty eyes of hers.

John Clarance Egan elopes with her the moment the ring is done, on February 14th, 1945, with Buck as his best man and Diane’s best friend who came all the way from Margate, as her maid of honor at the dance hall with the chaplain officiating and the Valentine’s Day dance serving as their reception.

“I heard you sing, Bucky.” Allie Solomons asks, having only heard of him through letters and Diane’s words.

“Like a donkey in a church choir,” his wife grins and he took the bait.

“Pick a song, sweetheart, and I’ll show you.”

[mbappreciationyear]

My fellow @separatist-apologist enthusiasts and I were talking, and we think that we should definitely be integrating Red Bull, Gale Dekarios, Dragons, and Sea Monsters for some of the MB Appreciation Year prompts. What do you think?

We think that's a great idea, fellow MB enthusiast who is in no way associated with this blog!

It's our pleasure to announce the following @separatist-apologist Appreciation prompts for the remainder of the year:

August Prompt: Red Bull

September Prompt: Gale Dakarios

October Prompt: Dragons

November Prompt: Sea Monsters

December Prompt: Free Month!

[sweetestcersei]

A Journal of Ice and Fire #1: Origin Stories and Treading Old Ground with New Eyes

Hello! I'm jack aka sweetestcersei on tumblr dot com. This is my first journal entry reflecting on my A Song of Ice and Fire re-read project I started in June of this year. I didn't expect this first blog to be so emotional or personal, but I've already cooked the goose, haven't I? I've put the read more after the first paragraph out of respect for your scrolling experience, but I'd greatly appreciate anyone willing to engage in parasocial intimacy by reading my thoughts and feelings about our favorite dragon books as they apply to me and my life.

It was the summer after 8th grade on a beach trip I was forced to take (I was an “indoor boy” by my own admission at age 4). I was 14, and deeply, insecurely committed to my interests and the search of self the way only a 14 year old can be. The near audible roar of teenage testosterone, the icy condominium HVAC gales, the smell of the sea, the grossly greasy fried Gulf oysters -- the sensoriality that accompanied the introduction to a great love that has waxed and waned over the years, but never quite left me. This was a week with a biblically-sized tome that I finished before I could even realize it. This love, of course, was and is my obsession, hyperfixation, and study of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.

I was certainly a bit young to read something so “adult”, even despite my gifted student reading habits, but I had 7 days to kill and 800 ½ inch-margined pages as my murder weapons. My mother offhandedly introduced me to A Game of Thrones after getting me a Kindle for graduating middle school, mentioning a fellow nerd she worked with (who in many ways served as a sort of otaku mentor when I was younger and slightly more impressionable) said he thought I’d enjoy the yet-to-be cultural phenomenon Game of Thrones on HBO. There was no HBO at my grandparents' condo, and my attention span hadn’t completely left me yet, so I settled for reading before watching the titillating tit show.

After an hour or so with Amazon support, we got the novel downloaded to my beloved OG Kindle. I went in expecting something like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. If I’m being honest, it’s because the HBO marketing tie-in cover with Sean Bean on the Iron Throne looked like the kind of crunchy late-aughts RPGs of my childhood, with unsettlingly wooden dialogue and eldritch uncanny face animations. I was thankfully proven wrong. At the time, those first 200 pages felt like the first real literature I ever read, and were more animated than any video game I could have played at the time. I still think the series is deliciously pulpy pop art; not quite McDonald’s but not quite foie gras either. But at 14, freshly pubescent, in the closet, and directionless? It was a revelation.

I finished my re-read of AGoT back in September of this year. It was an emotional experience I wasn’t expecting to hit me the way it did. And not in the nostalgic 2012 Tumblr “oh the feels” kind of way. It struck me because I realized how much this series helped me process my identity and my youth, and how that fateful week I spent poring over the first novel changed my sense of self for years to come. Reading George’s work has been a balm for the hurts of a year that has been by turns joyous, tumultuous, invigorating, demoralizing and exhausting. It’s not lost on me that my first time reading this series as an adult coincided with the start of my Saturn return. The next three years of my life are about as do-or-die as things will get (before the inevitable resource and class wars thanks to…everything in this world). More on that later!

Much like the subject matter of this journal, I’m long overdue to start putting my thoughts down about this re-read. Nearly 14 years since my first and only full read of ASOIAF, and I’ve fallen back into Westeros harder than I did as a teen. A world and intellectual property that felt forever tainted after #that show’s ending -- or so I thought. Fiction can find its way back to you, I guess, and five years is a long time to process the ill-fated culmination of, arguably, your second fondest obsession.

Over and over, just re-reading the first entry of the series, I was forced to reckon with the way so many characters carried me through my very real, very silly teenage troubles. Daenerys’ dragon dreams and doubt-tinged inner monologue were a solace for my endless anxieties around who I was and wanted to be. Cersei’s theatrics, mania and glamour felt like something to armor myself in, a crude mirror for what I viewed myself as when I wasn’t quite sure if I was even a man. As a kid whose hair helped him express his muddy gender identity “...and hair grows back” went hard as fuck. Honestly, a lot of the” loss of hair as an arbiter of change” themes throughout the series still hangs over my head. 

I could list a majority of the POV characters’ names and draw a comparison to my own problems in some shape or form because of the way I drew power from them. My point in bringing any of this up in regard to myself is that it has brought a quote to the front of my mind ever since I cracked this long winded anti-war romp back open: “we need fantasy to survive because reality is too difficult.” While this Lady Gaga quote does feel especially prescient now more than ever, it was the essence of my love for this series, long before I could recognize it. I was the blood of the dragon, I was a lion (or lioness, depending on the day), I could be underhanded like Tyrion or fierce in my despair like Catelyn. But my world shaking events were trying to pass algebra, or coping with first loves and crushes that would never be reciprocated – not ending slavery or picking up the pieces of a broken kingdom. My flare for drama has not waned, thankfully, and it feels good to be a self-assured drag queen that knows my miniscule problems do and should feel the same as a magic dragon woman learning to rule a city.

Now, as an adult, I find myself understanding why these stories affected me so much as a teenager. I’m even finding greater inspiration as an adult, who has now known illness, grief, strife, love, lust, and myriad other “”””adult”””” experiences. There have been moments where bits and pieces would come back to me, especially during traumatic or trying life experiences.

In 2022, I was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I had a textbook prognosis, and was back to “myself” within a year of starting treatment. That being said, I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over the trauma of watching myself wither and change. But, I took some choices into my own hands, like forcing myself to shave my head before I could watch it all fall out (and hair grows back) or donning wigs and makeup to look “healthy”. The entire time I was getting my head shaved, I felt like Daenerys stepping into the fire, Cersei swallowing her pride, Arya being sent on her great trek north, Jaime escaping the dungeons of Riverrun born anew. It was impossible not to feel like I was doing my own walk of shame or vision quest in the Dothraki Sea, a husk of a person with hair falling out in clumps and darkness behind my eyes. This was probably the first time I remember finding strength in the stories of ASOIAF since adolescence. It’s hard to put myself back there, emotionally, but it’s a good kind of hard, because it helps to remember how and why I was able to survive it.

At this point, I’m rambling through a rolodex of bruises that never quite healed, but have been soothed through my obsessions, ASOIAF or otherwise. Who would have thought a grimdark fantasy series would evoke this kind of navel-gazing histrionics? Heartbreak feels good in a place like this, or whatever Nicole Kidman said. My intention in putting all this to ink is that I feel so strongly about this series and the power fantasy and fiction can hold over us. What I’m really trying to say, mostly to myself, is that I am so grateful to have healed whatever part of me that allowed me to escape myself and my problems. My next journals will likely take another form, more focused on my observations and shower thoughts around themes, parallels, and character work. Until then, I’m off to battle on the Blackwater Rush.

[ilguna]

weekly update!! hello beings!!!

i have finally finished the celebration requests (as we’ve seen). that took me for-fucking-ever. yikes. i started that back in september of 2023, it’s been so long.

ANYWAY!!

i have about 34 requests in the inbox, and i will be going through them as fast as i can!! here’s the ones that are coming up:

my tears ricochet pt2 (finnick odair)

it’s been six months since you were banished from district four. since then, you’ve been trying to lay low and keep your nose clean. one night, you and gale go to the local bar to wind down after a long week, and he helps you come to a realization that changes everything.

the great war (finnick odair)

your relationship has been rocky with finnick lately, and each time you think you can let it go, it comes back full force. it isn’t until you’re injured on the way to storm the capitol, are you able to slow down and fix what’s wrong.

mentor! finnick

you’re shaken after your win in the arena, and finnick knows how to comfort you on your first night of freedom.

NFWMB pt2 (finnick odair)

you and finnick protect each other. that’s what you do. there’s nothing that can come between you two.

too close pt2 (finnick odair)

it’s been a couple weeks since you’ve last seen finnick after that dinner. you think you’ve finally done it; pushed him away enough to get him to leave, until he shows up at your door again.

—

if you have any questions, let me know!!

[cursed-iris]

tell us about your oc lore!!!

you want to hear about my oc lore? 🥹 i've been waiting years to talk about my oc lore! i don't know how long this has been in my inbox but thank you for the ask, anon! i don't want to yap too much, so for now, i have the sparknotes version. TW for mention of death, mention of guns and brief descriptions of being dead (which i tried to keep very pg, but just in case)!!

🎪🎡🎠

the carnaval du mystique is the name of a 1920s traveling carnival of performers, all of whom have a strange ability of some kind. it appears in random places across europe every fall and spring.

main cast: monsieur magnifique: the magician, divina alonto: the trapeze artist, lady henriette: the fortune teller, mirage: the tightrope walker, jeremiah gale: the gunslinger

monsieur magnifique, magician of the macabre

born: april 1st, 1885

monsieur magnifique is the eccentric resident magician of the carnival, known for dangerous tricks that involve audience participation and usually end... not great. he's practically mad, always looking for the next big, terrifying trick.

he has had several different names throughout the years to the point where he can't really remember his given one. the ability to perform magic acts was passed down by his mother. he grew up in a devoutly religious town that still hadn't evolved past their fears of witches, and his mother was executed at the stake. after her death, he had to run away from home. he ended up joining the royal flush circus, and he lived most of his childhood and early teen life under the new name "spade," assigned by the cruel circus ringmaster. long story short: he did not, in fact, have a great time there.

he's arrogant, flamboyant and dramatic. also, he's always smiling, unless someone calls him a "circus freak," which has happened on more than one occasion. that sets him off.

the only stipulation with his powers is that every trick he does is based on some magician gimmick. can he fly? no. can he turn invisible? nope. can he pull literally anything out of his hat? you bet he can. do his gloves walk off on their own to get things for him when he's too lazy to do so himself? absolutely.

his best friend is divina, and they are the only two who have known each other before they joined the carnival.

he is dreadfully afraid of fire.

divina alonto, belladonna with wings

born: september 21st, 1886

divina has had the ability to fly ever since she was in boarding school, but she didn't learn to control that power until several years later so it was constantly a problem. there were times when she would just start floating randomly in front of teachers and it was such a constant issue that the literal headmaster had lead shoes commissioned for her to wear. they weren't the most comfortable thing in the world, but also desperate measures are called for when you're constantly three seconds away from randomly launching into the stratosphere, so you win some, you lose some i guess.

on a mandatory school fieldtrip to europe, they straight up left her there on accident, not realizing she wasn't on the boat until it was too late. home alone style. but worse.

anyway, she is able to control her abilities now, and though she always wanted to be a ballerina, she's become the closest carnival equivalent: a trapeze artist of the carnaval du mystique.

the only stipulation is that she can only take off from solid ground, kind of like a plane.

she is surprisingly short tempered and is under the impression that she's the smartest person there. she's not.

her best friend is monsieur magnifique, but partially because of an incident at a show back when he was just starting out at the carnival, she always bickers with him about something.

mirage, master of illusions

born: december 12th, 1884

mirage is the tightrope walker, though he has notably never walked a tight rope in his life. his whole talent is that he makes people see things that aren't there or aren't happening. when he 'walks on a tightrope,' he really is just walking on a solid platform.

why is he a tightrope walker and not in charge of something that relates more to his powers? well, he used to be in charge of the now abandoned house of horrors alongside another member of the carnival, but after frightening a person to death, he decided he better choose a different career path.

mirage is known for being aloof and reserved, but not unkind. he's just the calmer counterpart to his partner magnifique.

he is the only one that actually has a family that's alive, that he has a good relationship with (aside from maybe jeremiah with his wife, but he can't see her). he sends them postcards from every place he's visiting and writes to them often.

lady henriette, the den mother seer

born: june 12th, ????

lady henriette doesn't like to talk about her life with people. if anything, she is more concerned about other people's lives and futures. she has the ability to see the future and the ability to speak to the dead. the only future she cannot see is her own. she tells people's future through whatever medium they are most comfortable with, but most people gravitate towards tarot reading.

she also kind of has an obligation to make sure othe people's fortunes are set in stone, because she knows from experience that if they aren't, they could become much worse.

she's been at the carnival the longest and is business partners with the actual ringleader, so she's pretty much the second in charge when it comes to all the performers. she ensures everything runs smoothly in the ringleader's absence, while they're out finding new people with peculiar powers.

she's the most logical out of everyone.

jeremiah gale, deadshot

born: march 8th, 1834

died: may 17th, 1864

jermiah gale is literally dead. not figuratively, not metaphorically, like actually. rip, died 56 years ago. fly high.

that probably should've been where it ended, living a pretty standard mid-19th century life with his wife before joining the union, but no. a few weeks after he was buried and they had a funeral for him, he just woke up in his grave, unable to get out. any normal person would probably come to the conclusion that they had been buried alive, but jeremiah definitely remembered dying, and his skin was translucent. sure enough, the wound that killed him was still very much in the back of his head.

he is a zombie in the most basic sense; he's undead, but he has retained all his mental faculties and he's very much harmless. not gonna lie, brains do not sound appetizing to him.

he was still dead and the laws of nature did not stop for a body that might've been conscious but still needed to decompose. the only reason he looks the way he does is because mirage works to make him appear normal to guests. it would be kind of jarring to see a skeleton in a cowboy hat walking around. but there's only so much mirage can do for him; he's still very pale and his eyes almost white so he has to wear shades to protect them from the sun.

jeremiah is the best shot from the west in europe; he's never missed a single target.

he's probably the friendliest of the main carnival troupe. he's a people person, even if he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. honestly, he just wants to get back home to his wife, but he knows that's probably not the best idea. being dead also isn't so great; he tired but he can't sleep, he's hungry but he can't eat, it's pretty much torture. his unwavering, annoying optimism gets him all through it.

thank you for the ask, anon! you have given me an excuse to ramble.

[rabbitcruiser]

​Back to the Future Day

Throw on your Nikes, pop in a VHS and rev up your DeLorean because October 21 is Back to the Future Day! First celebrated in 2015 (a significant year for serious fans), the original “Back to the Future” is a 1985 sci-fi classic that grossed nearly $400 million worldwide!

When is ​Back to the Future Day 2023?

Marty McFly, Doc Brown, and all the other memorable characters of the iconic “Back To The Future” trilogy are celebrated on October 21.

History of ​Back to the Future Day

Today, where we’re going, we don’t need roads. The iconic, nay, epic Back to the Future series gave millions of people in 1985 a glimpse of what the future could be like. Sure, we didn’t invent time travel (or hoverboards for that matter, we’re still salty about that one) but we did get an interesting look at the future that has actually come to pass. More on that later. Back to the Future day is celebrated on October 21, because that is the date Marty McFly originally travels to the past and sets in motion his undoubtedly existential adventure.

In the original film, there are various plot twists and turns but what really makes the film worthy of its own honorary day, is the vision of early prototypes of today’s tech, like large flat screens, virtual reality eyewear, video conferencing, computer tablets and biometric scanners. 

A 2015 CNN Back to the Future Day anniversary article tells us that, ironically, the most innovative part of the film was the VistaGlide motion-control system which allowed Fox to share scenes with himself. Bottom line, Back to the Future Day not only gives the audience of 1985 a glimpse into our current techno-packed lives; but “Back to the Future” lets you time-trip with a very cool movie!

The date for Back to the Future Day, is itself, doubly significant. According to the “Business Insider”, October 21, 2015 is the day the screenwriter, Bob Gale, chose for the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series, something, Gales says, “was the most absurd thing we could think of”  in 1985 (turns out he was a year off, the Cubs won the series in 2016). The idea of the Cubs’ winning the Series gives Marty McFly something to bet on as a “hook” for the film’s second story line. In the sequel, “Back to the Future Part II,” Fox’s character, Marty McFly, travels to the future in 2015 to save the children that aren’t even a “twinkle in their dad’s eye.” 

Back to the Future is required viewing for nearly every science fiction fan and continually holds up as a fun, energetic jaunt through time with some memorable characters and truly great catch phrases. So this October 21, pop in this film and say “Great Scott.”

​Back to the Future Day timeline

​1985

John DeLorean's "thank you"

​The creators of the movie, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, decided to use a DeLorean as the car that enables Marty McFly and Doc to time travel; after the film’s release, Zemeckis and Gale received a thank-you letter from John DeLorean for using his car in the movie.

September 9, 2011

Those Nikes Though

As part of their Back 4 the Future campaign, Nike auctions 1500 pairs of limited edition MAG Replica shoes with proceeds going to Michael J. Fox’s foundation to fight Parkinson’s Disease.

October 21, 2011

The first Back to the Future Day

The very first celebration of the day Marty McFly became the second time traveler in history (we love you Einstein) was held in 2011.

October 21, 2015

Back to the Future Day proceeds go to charity

In honor of Michael J. Fox, who plays Marty McFly in the movie, by 2015 Fox was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease and all proceeds from the Back to the Future Day activities go into his foundation.

Traditions

“Back To The Future” is a classic franchise that has a cult following. The much-loved movie trilogy is celebrated zealously today by fans around the world. The most common tradition is to watch the movies, whether by yourself or with friends. Movie discussion forums buzz with topics on “Back To The Future,” with fans voting for their favorite movie from the trilogy, and discussing fan theories. 

By The Numbers

1985 – the year when the first “Back To The Future” movie was released.

40 – the number of times the original script was rejected. 

$1.99 – the price of the solar shades sold by Pizza Hut as part of the movie’s promotions. 

2015 – the year to which Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled. 

3 – the number of months it took to film the movie. 

3 – the number of “Back To The Future” movies. 

96% – the Rotten Tomatoes rating for the first movie in the “Back To The Future” series.

$210 million – the total revenue of the movie at the box office. 

No.1 – the ranking of the movie in 1985. 

​Back to the Future Day FAQs

What is Back to the Future Day?

It’s a day honoring the fictional story of Marty McFly and his companion,  Doc’s, time travel back to October 21, 2015 in “Back to the Future II,” the sequel to the original 1985 film, “Back to the Future.”

Why is there a backwards 99 in Back to the Future II?

When the DeLorean reaches 88 mph and time travels it leaves behind a trail of flames. In the scene in BTTF II, the DeLorean is flying when it is struck by lightening, causing it to spin on it’s axis and distorting the normally straight flame trails into the shape “99.”

Will there be a Back to the Future 4?

In 2016 when director Robert Zemeckis was asked about a Back to the Future 4, Zemeckis replied that, “There will be no more ‘Back to the Future’.”

​Back to the Future Day Activities

Create a time capsule: Just like you did back when you were a kid and if you have kids they’ll love doing this, too. Fill a box with items you’d want your future self to enjoy opening like pictures, tickets from a concert or items from your wedding. Once your box is full, put it in your basement, in the back of a closet or, if you know you’ll be living in the same house for awhile, bury it in the backyard. Don’t forget to include a letter to your future self with all your goals and aspirations written down.

Hold an "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance" Party: You may not be able to get Marty McFly to shred on the stage but you could invite some friends to don their best bobby sox, make some punch (spiked if you're of age), and boogie to some oldies like they did at that iconic dance. Who knows, maybe you'll come up with something "that really cooks."

Try to invent time travel: We've all got a little "wild-eyed scientist" in us and what better way to let that flag fly than by trying to emulate Dr. Emmet Brown? Ok, we know this one's a little out there but it's fun to dream, and who knows, maybe you'll surprise yourself (and, ya know, the entire world).

​​5 Reason To Rewatch "Back To The Future."

The film predicted three technological advances: ​Although most of the futuristic details in the movie have not come true, it did include communication similar to FaceTime, voice recognition, and thumb print technology.

​It wasn’t a popular script: Major movie studios passed on the original screenplay.

​Some executives hated the movie title​: A Universal Pictures executive wrote a memo saying he wanted the title of the movie changed to "Spaceman From Pluto," to which director Steven Spielberg responded by thanking him for the “joke memo.”

​President Reagan used a quote from the movie: President Reagan liked the fact that he was mentioned in the movie several times. He used the quote “Where we’re going, we don’t need cars” in his 1986 State of the Union speech.

​Royalty attended the premiere​: Princess Diana made an appearance at the movie’s premier in 1985.

Source

[mariana-oconnor]

The Five Orange Pips pt 1

the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British bark Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case

Another round of 'look at all the fun cases I won't be talking about today 🤣. I feel like the Amateur Mendicant Society is a bit like Neville St Clair, as mendicant means beggar, so it feels like a group of people who dress up as beggars for the fun of it. Paradol is apparently a chemical found in peppers and ginger that makes it spicy, but I have no indication of when that chemical was first named, so whotf knows what that was about.

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage.

I love this description. It's so extra. Also the phrase 'equinoctial gales' is lovely. Watson, you should have taken up poetry.

My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.

Watson can't be left alone for more than a day at a time. Mary had to ask Sherlock to Watson-sit for her as she went to see her 'mother' *winkwink*. He needs enrichment in his enclosure.

He stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit.

Interrogation lighting! WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?!

"You have come up from the south-west, I see." "Yes, from Horsham." "That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite distinctive." "I have come for advice."

Sorry, Holmes. This guy does not gaf about your creepy knowledge of clay and chalk mixes.

AH... hello racism. All the racism... So much racism. I mean, I know the story so yeah... but dear god if ever there were a literary character who deserved to die, it's this one. Fuuuuuck Elias Openshaw.

'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!'

The world's tiniest violin was unable to perform because it did not give a fuck.

" 'I wish you, John,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will. I leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy."

Well that's one way to say you always hated your sibling. And also to tell your nephew you hate him too. This guy is the absolute worst in so many ways. Like he just keeps piling on more reasons that he's the worst onto the already huge steaming pile. Yes, the people hunting him are even worse, but he's still just a terrible terrible person.

We found him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden.

A fitting place for him to be.

No, I will not be feeling any sorrow at his passing.

I'm sorry that his brother's getting the same treatment, though. He doesn't seem like the most pleasant person in the world, but the fact he doesn't know what the initials stand for already puts him head and shoulders above his dead brother.

The attitude of his son to Elias and his war record and postwar activity doesn't exactly indicate that the pair of them are not-racist, though. But they don't appear to have actively murdered anybody or fought in order to perpetuate slavery, so... the bar is low. The bar is really really low on this one. Is there somewhere lower than the centre of the Earth's core?

And the threat of death for something they know nothing about... which, why did Elias not tell people what the fuck was going on? Why did he not...? Well, we'll get onto that bit. Just fuck Elias. Really, truly, Fuck Elias Openshaw.

[forestofsongbirds]

Moments Like These

a gadge modern day AU

Finally wrestling her two toddlers to bed- that is if bed were her very own body on her bed instead of their own- Madge relaxed her tired achy body into the soft mattress. The rational side of her yelled obscenities about proper bed time routines and sleep training for when the new baby arrived in less than 2 months but the very pregnant, very sore, very tired part of her won out. And if she was being honest, she welcomed that side winning. The mom guilt hit her hard in moments like these- a three and two-year-old, and now a newborn soon to make her arrival. She wasn’t sure she did all her children enough justice with alone one-on-one time but one positive pregnancy test after another, her OBGYN came to the conclusion that cycle tracking instead of birth control was to blame and the added very healthy sex life of herself and her husband didn’t exactly help matters.

She looked down at her sons, Ash and Rowan, cuddled against her in each arm, legs thrown across her body, arms cradling her growing bump- both almost carbon copies of their Papa. Olive skin and dark onyx hair with long limbs they were often mistaken as twins and Gale’s clones- the only things remotely resembling their Mamma being Ash’s soft waves in his dark hair and his little button nose, and Rowan’s blue eyes. She hoped her little girl on the way looked more like her but Hawthorne DNA were just about as strong as they were and she wasn’t sure her Undersee blood was winning anytime soon.

The quiet rumble of an engine coming up their driveway and dying down broke her out her thoughts. The jingle of keys and the click of the door shutting meant her husband was finally home. 8pms became the new normal these last few months with a major client’s project deadline being moved forward for her engineer husband.

“I knew you’d all be in here,” he said entering their room, removing his watch and kissing her hello all in one fluid motion.

“They wouldn’t settle in their own beds and wanted to cuddle with Mamma and baby sister,” she explained, watching him remove his blazer jacket and undo his shirt’s sleeve cuff buttons. “I couldn’t say no.”

He flashed her a grin that made butterflies dance in the bottom of her stomach- after all these years she still had the fattest crush. “I don’t blame you, they’ve got that Hawthorne charm- very hard to say no. Besides, they’re doing their Papa a great favour- there’s no better view to come home to.”

“I’m not so sure,” she replied as he leaned cross-armed against the en-suite doorway, grey eyes full of mischief. “I’m afraid there’s no space for you on the bed- all spaces and Mamma’s arms are occupied.”

“It requires a litle simple engineering,” he replied making his way over to her. “Just need to adjust this little arm here, move this foot over there.” He commented all while gently untangling his sons from their Mamma. “And now Mamma is all free and Papa can have her all to himself.”

Holding on both her hands, Gale tugged her off the bed and onto her feet in front of him before wrapping an arm around her waist and capturing her lips in a deep kiss. She sighed, snaking her arms around his neck.

Massaging her tongue with his, he let his other hand travel: up her jaw and into her hair unclipping her the claw that held it up and followed her long golden waves that fell in cascades down, settling on her exposed lower back. It was already the beginning of September but the relentless Texas sun and a very pregnant Madge warranted the cool summer dresses.

Gently nipping at her now plump bottom lip and brushing his nose against hers, he whispered, “Come join me for a bath. I promise relaxing music and a nice massage- no funny business.”

Grinning against his lips and then taking them slow and hard between hers, she replied, “Oh no, I’m here for the funny business too.”

With a groan punctuated with one his dimpled smiles, Gale gently scooped up his pregnant wife into his arms, carrying her into their connected bathroom, all while a funny surprised sound escaped her lips while she exclaimed, “Gale! I’m huge, you’re going to throw your back out!”

With long strides, he reached their claw foot tub and set her down. Cradling her face and planting a gentle kiss on her forehead, he answered with a simple, “Never.”

Shaking her head, Madge dimmed the bathroom lights whilst her husband drew the bath. He exchanged his phone for her organic blend of relaxation essential oils from Mrs Evedeen. With soft notes of a romantic piano instrumental filling the air, Madge made her way to Gale who was half perched on the edge of the tub.

She settled herself between his long legs and wound her arms around his neck. Reaching under her hair, he tugged free the string tied into a little bow that held the short dress together at the back. Slipping the cuffed lantern sleeves down her arms, the white dress billowed to the floor. She was left bare in front of him the only modesty being her small, pre-pregnancy white lace panties that stopped below her bump. Maternity underwear albeit supporting and snug, was way too hot and, besides, the lace underwear was cute and it matched the dress (underwear coordination was Madge’s fatal flaw).

Deciding she didn’t want to be alone in the nude, Madge undid the buttons on her husband’s dress shirt while he openly ogled her. She shook her head, her cheeks turning pink. She couldn’t understand what there was to appreciate- her ankles were more like cankles, her stomach was much bigger than it had been at this point in her last pregnancy and fine pink lines snaked up her hips onto her belly. She supposed the only positive were her ever growing breasts which had gone up 2 sizes.

Standing up, he shrugged his shirt off and placed another kiss atop her head, “You are incredibly beautiful.” She responded with a soft kiss to his pec which he only went on to return with a kiss to her bare shoulder, then crouching down, he hooked both his fingers on either side of her panties and brought it down her legs, punctuating that with another kiss to the base of the growing pink vines on her hip. The feel of his soft lips and the brush of the cold metal on her skin from his wedding band sent shivers up her spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

With a soft smack to her behind, he instructed her to get in the tub, lending a hand while she stepped in. The water sloshed as she sat down, nearly tipping over the sides. She waited for her husband to join behind her, settling snug right against him before allowing herself to feel the warm water and oils relax her tense muscles. Running her hands down her husband’s large thighs on either side of her, she sighed contentedly, relishing the feeling of just the two of them alone together.

It was a rare moment these last three years for Madge and Gale to be just “Madge and Gale”- not “Mamma and Papa” or “Gale the Mechanical Engineer” and “Madge the Teacher turned Stay-At-Home-Mom”. Sometimes it felt like all these new titles were sinking “Husband and Wife” but somehow they always found a way to revive it- no wonder they basically had “3 under 3”.

“I’m sorry,” he softly said against the side of her head. Madge let out a confused “Hmm?”

“That you’re doing all of this,” he gestured nonspecifically, “basically on your own. I- it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Me leaving at 8 and coming home at 8- just barely enough time to say bye to you and the boys in the morning and then coming home late enough that they’re already asleep.”

He sighed, linking their hands together. “And now we’re 2 months away from another one and you’ve Superwomaned your way through this pregnancy and dealing with two Hawthorne toddlers,” he shook his head, a wry smile on his face. “I wanted this so bad- the white picket fence with the wife, the kids and the dog but I didn’t want the cliché.”

She squeezed their linked hands. She understood it all, it wasn’t easy for either of them but she made the decision to stay at home after Ash. She wanted that home for her kids- the one full of love and light, where Mamma was always there for them to kiss their ‘owies’ better, be apart of all their little milestones, build a beautiful world together where they read all the stories, baked the yummy goodies and ended the day feeling the fullness of life.

She didn’t want them having even half of that- seeing Mamma and Papa just at the end of the day and having an empty lonely home. They were lucky that Gale’s job paid well and with his promotion to lead engineer, they were more than comfortable so she didn’t need to work. If he ever thought she resented him for it, it was quite literally the opposite.

She turned and kissed his jaw, the corner of his mouth and then his lips. “I love you. I love our little family. I love our home. I love this life we’ve built. Nothing is ever going to be perfect but we’re a team and we’ll figure it out together.”

He sighed and responded with just a kiss and an, “I love you.” wrapping his arms around her, rubbing soft circles on her belly.

They stayed in the tub savouring the closeness of each other, Gale keeping to his promise of a massage, kneading at her achy muscles but not to his promise of no funny business. The pleasure coursed from her core all the way to the tips of her toes, leaving her satiated and sleepy. The tips of her fingers were prunes and the water a gross tepid temperature when they finally got out. He wrapped her in a soft towel and massaged stretch mark oil across her belly, peppering kisses and whispering sweet nothings to their growing baby girl.

Clad in their pyjamas, they made their way to their babies, gently peeling back the duvet and snuggling in tight- all five of them. Stirring with the little commotion Ash, drowsy with sleep, welcomed the presence of Gale with a, “Papa!”, throwing his arms around him, burying his little head in the crook of his Papa’s neck.

Parenting was hard- life was hard- but Madge would take the worst days everyday if it meant having moments like these.

[evita-shelby]

They didn't know we were seeds

Chapter 22

Cw: mentions of starvation, alcohol withdrawal

@justrainandcoffee @emotionalcadaver @peakyswritings

Aveline/Linnie belongs to @justrainandcoffee

Laurie gets a whole week with his father before school starts in September.

He is entering kindergarten where he will be taught what every five- and six-year-old child must know in Panem. Compulsory education with free meals and free supplies was one of the few good things Snow did in his career even if the quality and available things depended on the wealth and number of victors in each district.

Eva remembers how every child in 10 looked forward to schooling because it meant being inside an air-conditioned building and being fed a whole meal each day, two if you were lucky enough to need tutoring after school. From what she’s heard from her fellow mentors and Jack, the career districts had enough food and variety that it was even thrown away by the kids.

Laurie who has never wanted for anything ---except more time with his dad and grandma and a little sibling to play with--- will go with new clothes and shoes that fit and a belly full enough to complain of the lack of variety in the school cafeteria. They have taken care to teach him not to be rude and if he simply wasn’t hungry to give his food to someone else, and now came the most important thing they had to cover before he starts kindergarten.

Eva had tried to do it, but Laurie had not taken it well. Instead, Eva watches the conversation from the kitchen pretending to be busy with Paquito and Lola’s food bowls while Jack consoles their son in the living room.

Even if Jack’s dirty and sweaty from tinkering with the new security censors Beetee made for their basement all day, Laurie doesn’t care as he hugs him tightly as he cries his little heart out. Their kid will never know suffering like they did, he will never have his name in a reaping bowl nor fear the wrong words will get him lynched by Peacekeepers or the Mayor.

“Why can’t I tell my friends?” he asks, crying into Jack’s chest because at four and a half he doesn’t know this is illegal. “Why, daddy?”

It hurts, but it’s a relief to know they won’t have to ever do this again. Next year they won’t ever have to say goodbye and lie about who they see.

But today, it falls on Jack to explain because Laurie doesn’t want to hear it from his mother, Laurie needs the father --who he sees less of with each month every year--- to explain why this great injustice must be endured.

“’Cause I’m from a different district, kiddo, not supposed to leave 2 just like you’re not allowed to leave 10 with your mom.” Jack stroked Laurie’s soft dark hair and explained as best as he could. “You can tell them I’m your dad, but you can’t tell anyone me and your grandma come here because we could get into a lot of trouble even if your mommy and me are Victors.”

Because we’ll all be dead if you tell the wrong person.

But you can’t tell your little boy that.

“I promise, daddy.” The little boy murmurs, still buried in his father’s chest unaware of how serious this crime was.

So when Laurie is asleep in his bedroom and his parents abed ---inside the real bedroom and not the holographic projection they feel safe in---, Eva rakes her fingers on the hairy arm wrapped around her and brings up Jack’s plans of spiriting their families away from Snow’s hands. “Is the offer still available?”

“Aveline has access to the network in 11 and Gale, the kid from 12, is sweet on the mayor’s girl even if he hides it well. I don’t trust Cray with anyone, but if he’s still Head Peacekeeper in 12, we can get out of Panem.” Jack doesn’t sound as sure as he was a year ago as he tucks his wife under his chin and his hold on her grows a little tighter.

He had made these plans with Lyme and Aveline and everyone in the underground railroad to 13, but the changes Katniss and Peeta’s win brought had disrupted many things. Even Shelby was having trouble with his network after so many crackdowns in the rebelling districts.

“Do you think we can get everyone out before the Quarter Quell next year?” Eva asked knowing the answer was no, but Jack is sweet enough to lie with a.

“Depends how well the kids from 12 can lie on their tour.”

“There’s been a change of plans, fuckwad, ma'am.” Haymitch begins as they meet with Lyme in the attic. He is sober and his handshakes not from the withdrawal but from real palpable fear. “Kid’s been threatened by Snow, personally. Whatever plans you have need to be postponed until we have Plutarch and 13 completely onboard with us.”

The last time someone was visited in person by Snow was when he convinced Jack to kill Eva. Snow hadn’t left his castle in almost fifteen years; he never left it unless the threat was as real as him.

There were uprisings in 8, 7, and 11 and smaller acts of defiance sprouting everywhere. 2 had some workers unionizing and the union organizer murdered in broad daylight, 10 and 4 had more people caught for wanting to flee south in their fishing boats and even people in the Capitol were becoming bolder.

All bore the symbol of the Mockingjay, the bird the Capitol never planned to exist when they made their Jabberjays and set them lose into the wild. That coupled with the four-note song of 11 and 12’s salute had ignited fires that even the Victory Tour and all its killings couldn’t suppress.

“Then we’ll plan accordingly, get the phone Beetee fixed for you and be on high alert for more changes.” Lyme stops being their friend and becomes their commander, she commanded 2 and parts of 10 in the name of the Rebellion and was the true commander of the Victor contingent. “Chaff and Linnie said they’ve changed the officers and even the rank-and-file peacekeepers in 11, Paylor’s not been able to get word to Cecelia in months and they live in the same fucking place, Mags said they been restricted from going too far away from the shore and 10 still has Campbell running the joint. It’s only a matter of time before Cray and the others in Shelby’s pocket are working in the sewage department without tongues.

If you trust your kids to know the truth, then tell them. Keep an eye on Gale and Johnny Dogs, they are your men, and you, like it or not, are the Commander for 12 until the time comes, Haymitch.”

The blonde woman makes her orders clear and Haymitch’s fists tighten as he tries his best to hide his fears, especially now that Lyme has made it clear what his role in the Rebellion is.

No more drinking to forget, no more pretending he’s not important. The rebels needed his money and status to protect and lead them to freedom.

Barely a few months after the games and the storm was already on the horizon. Eva’s prediction that the Quarter Quell would be the final domino was becoming even more likely with every second.

November turns to December and once the weather clears up enough, Jack readies himself to make the trek south to see his family. He could try the riot gear and new identity as Sulla Felix but chooses against it and deciding it was easier to brave the elements and head straight to the farm.

He never misses Eva’s birthday nor a chance to be with his family.

Things should be calmer now that the kids are engaged and the Capitol too engrossed in the wedding bullshit to care about all the shit going on in the districts.

Jack’s barely gotten to Lyme’s place as when he learns Snow is far from pacified.

“The fences are now electrified 24/ 7 from 1 to 12, I’m sorry, son.” Lyme put a comforting hand on his shoulder as she stopped him from leaving and saw it for himself.

In the time he’s been kept from here due to shitty weather, the fence has become larger and harder to climb. And for the first time in years, it’s fully operational.

For the first time in years, Jack and Eva spend December 1st apart.

[cerezaxiii]

Some extra Astarion romance tips

Hi. Other users already gave you a bunch of useful comments about romancing Astarion as a good-aligned or non-evil character, and I would like to add some more.

You can ungroup him and park him somewhere far away whenever you enter a dialogue with an NPC with the intention of making a decision he won't approve of. It's cheesing, but it keeps you from getting stressed out about his approval levels changing.

Witty, pragmatic, intimidating -- Astarion loves all three approaches. If there is an option to talk shit back at the enemy, go for it. If there is an option to fling shit back at the enemy -- go for it too.

There will be a location where you can get chaotic without worrying about harming someone undeserving. Believe me, they all deserve it there. Great place for farming Astarion's approval.

Generally, choosing neutral phrases when agreeing to help allows you to dodge disapproval. Most of these options have been removed from EA, but then, once again, you have cheesing options.

Underdark is one of the best places -- Astarion approves most of the decisions your morality aligns with.

Good luck! Astarion is a bit challenging to court compared to Gale or Wyll, but he is totally worth the effort.

Thanks a lot 🙏

I'm so grateful for all the tips you are giving me. I'm confident for my first playthrough in September. I just hope the PS5 version is running well on release.

Rare footage of my Tav:

[starlingsrps]

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: roselyn eloise anson clark REASONING: anson is her mother's maiden name and that's a whole thing but otherwise no, not really NICKNAME(S): ro or rose is fine if you know her well but rosie is off the table completely. PREFERRED NAME(S): roselyn or miss clark. BIRTH DATE: september 3 AGE: twenty eight ZODIAC: virgo sun/rising/venus, scorpio moon. she has many feelings but she's going to organize them away. GENDER: female PRONOUNS: she/her SEXUAL ORIENTATION: straight on thin ice NATIONALITY: american CURRENT LOCATION: new york LIVING CONDITIONS: she moved from the family base on 83rd when her father remarried and this would sound like someone finally moving out on their own to their first apartment but her first apartment is a unit in the dakota she inherited from her great-aunt sabrina so. it's not exactly a studio apartment.

BACKGROUND

BIRTH PLACE: palm beach, fl. never remind roselyn that she isn't technically born and bred new york. she blames her mother deciding that the beach house was a much better place to give birth. HOMETOWN: new york. she'll never leave. SOCIAL CLASS: well there's old money and then there's old as balls money and that's roselyn. EDUCATION LEVEL: yale for her undergraduate and an mba from nyu. she's much smarter and sharper than she's ever given credit for and it is finally starting to bother her. FATHER: stephen clark, 57 MOTHER: gale anson, 55 SIBLING(S): not direct but she was recently presented with a step brother named sterling. sterling is eighteen months old and if you think she can't have a sibling rival with a baby, you're a fool. RELATIONSHIP WITH FAMILY: up until three years ago, roselyn would have said that she was very close to both of her parents and closest to her father. and then he had a post heart attack crisis and filed for divorce to marry a former saks fifth avenue sales associate named sophie. roselyn sided with her mother who sided with her divorce attorney to get a crazy good settlement and now she feels like she barely has parents at all. her father has sophie and sterling (gag) and her mother moved to palm beach. she's finally talking to her father again but it's still through his assistant 50% of the time. BIRTH ORDER: only as far as she's concerned. CHILDREN: absolutely not. PET(S): she'd kind of like to get a cat but she's not married to the idea yet. OTHER IMPORTANT RELATIVES: sophie clark, 32, step mother. yes she knows how close she and her stepmother are in age. she doesn't want to think about that. PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS: extended flirtations with any guy in her age range on the social register, a brief engagement with teddy york that she knew was a terrible idea but her pride being bruised pushes her to make some pretty awful decisions. she's been dumped once and that was by teddy and no, she did not take it well. ARRESTS?: absolutely not. PRISON TIME?: besides, people like her don't go to prison, come on.

OCCUPATION & INCOME

PRIMARY SOURCE OF INCOME: the family trust SECONDARY SOURCE OF INCOME: she's very good at the stock market though. CONTENT WITH THEIR JOB?: she doesn't have a job exactly but she keeps herself busy. she's on a few boards and recently joined the american ballet theater guild. she was shadowing her father at singer but ever since things iced over between them in the past three years, that's happening less and less. he's going to start grooming sterling for it when he gains object permanence, she just knows it. PAST JOB(S): no. SPENDING HABITS: reasonable but reasonable in a 1% way. she'll take regular ubers instead of uber black. MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION: she has a very large collection of Things, many of which cost a lot of fuckin money. her gown from the crillon ball and some of the jewelry she's inherited from her mother's side of the family are up there for monetary but she's also a soft bitch who still has her stuffed rabbit from childhood.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

PHYSICAL STRENGTH: SPEED: a fast walker but not too speedy. INTELLIGENCE: very - she went to some of the best schools in the world and would have considered a waste to not learn as much as she can. she has good instincts for business and it kills her that she's being replaced by a BABY WHO CAN'T EVEN COUNT. ACCURACY: fine AGILITY: fine STAMINA: depends. she can smile and be nice at society events but she also has limits. when she's done, she's done and she's going home. luckily no one is hovering on her shoulder to tell her that's rude anymore. TEAMWORK: it's best if she's in charge but she's very good at listening to others. smaller groups though. TALENTS: poised and hard working - if she knows what she wants, she'll find or make a way to get it done. SHORTCOMINGS: poised and confident can very easily turn into being unapproachable and she definitely uses that as a shield. LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: english, a little conversational french and mandarin. DRIVE?: in theory. she's very rusty. JUMP-STAR A CAR?: no. probably could figure it out with instructions. CHANGE A FLAT TIRE?: see above. RIDE A BICYCLE?: yes but better acquainted with a spin bike. SWIM?: yes PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: nah PLAY CHESS?: yes and well. a game where the idea is to think ahead in order to best your competition? perfect. BRAID HAIR?: yes. TIE A TIE?: nope.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

FACE CLAIM: jessica alexander EYE COLOR: blue HAIR COLOR: light brown HAIR TYPE/STYLE: long and swishy shiny. it's very good hair and she's vain about it. GLASSES/CONTACTS?: nah DOMINANT HAND: left HEIGHT: 5'6 BUILD: lean and toned. EXERCISE HABITS: she does work out because she likes the discipline of it. she danced as a kid but quit as a teenager and still enjoys a barre class now and then. SKIN TONE: fair TATTOOS: nope. PIERCINGS: ears, two holes in one ear. she doesn't know why she did it either. MARKS/SCARS: some moles and such, no real big scars. USUAL EXPRESSION: resting bitch face. CLOTHING STYLE: classic preppy, occasionally with a fun accessory or silhouette but she's a ralph lauren bitch. JEWELRY: tasteful, always. ALLERGIES: peanuts. DIET: whatever. she's eating before an event every single time unless she knows the catering is good - absolutely not worth it half the time. PHYSICAL AILMENTS: nah

PSYCHOLOGY

MORAL ALIGNMENT: lawful neutral TEMPERAMENT: melancholic ELEMENT: air MBTI TYPE: ISFJ MENTAL CONDITIONS/DISORDERS: bad bitches got bad anxiety. SOCIABILITY: roselyn is very charming and excellent with people but she also really enjoys when it's time to go home. EMOTIONAL STABILITY: steady as hell because ladies simply don't make scenes but she's cruising for a crash. PHOBIA(S): she recently read empty mansions and frankly that. that's it. DRUG USE: she keeps a nip of weed around because it's 2024 for god's sake but she doesn't partake often or with others. ALCOHOL USE: socially, makes an excellent gin martini. PRONE TO VIOLENCE?: not personally.

MANNERISMS SPEECH STYLE: low and a little husky, definitely uses "summer" as a verb. ACCENT: slightly mid-atlantic old money but not excessively so. QUIRKS: she cleans her own apartment - it's her thinking time and she really doesn't care to have """"staff""". she can cook and clean for herself just fine. is this quirky? not really but in her little echelon it sure as hell is. HOBBIES: she likes to go to a museum a week. she's been to all of them so far so she's on round two and three with most and the guggenheim is her favorite. she studied business and has a business brain but she likes pretty things. HABITS: meetings and socializing. she takes it all seriously and never shows up to shit unprepared. does this mean she'll survey a friend's instagram if they haven't spoken for awhile and are getting a drink? sure does it's called research. NERVOUS TICKS: sighing, fussing with her handbag. roselyn's sighs carry the weight of the entire world. DRIVES/MOTIVATIONS: controlling her own narrative and making herself happy. POSITIVE TRAITS: clever, charming, hardworking, observant, passionate NEGATIVE TRAITS: perfectionist, competitive, judgmental, blunt, intense SENSE OF HUMOR: bone dry. DO THEY CURSE OFTEN?: seldom publicly, mouth like a sailor privately.

FAVORITES

ACTIVITY: her museum time and walks. she spent a lot of time growing up and in her twenties doing everything she was """supposed""" to be doing and now she just wants to do what she wants. ANIMAL: cats BEVERAGE: iced coffee for all seasons BOOK: COLOR: blue DESIGNER: ralph lauren and oscar de la renta. she can't stand flashy shit. FOOD: pizza. anything from a dollar slice to some shit that's got caviar on it. all pizza is good pizza. FLOWER: white roses GEM: emeralds HOLIDAY: summer. newport. the hamptons are getting tacky. MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: walk or uber. MOVIE: you've got mail SONG: "heart of glass" and "karma" SCENERY: the view of the park from her balcony and the ocean SCENT: amber, wood polish, oranges SPORT: nah. not even going to pretend she cares. SPORTS TEAM: nah. TELEVISION SHOW: completely and unironically gossip girl. baby roselyn loved blair waldorf and yeah, you can tell. WEATHER: either a brisk fall day or boiling sunny summer. no in-between. VACATION DESTINATION: the amalfi coast

ATTITUDES

GREATEST DREAM: long term, she would like a family and all that but for the now, it's mostly just figuring out what makes her happy. GREATEST FEAR: never being or doing anything more than right now. it's fine for right now but if she isn't building or growing, then what the hell is it for? MOST AT EASE WHEN: in control of a situation LEAST AT EASE WHEN: when things that she should be able to fix cannot be fixed by her alone. rude. WORST POSSIBLE THING THAT COULD HAPPEN: welp. she's been pretty publicly embarrassed (in her social circle) twice which was pretty shit. her parents divorce was pretty shit. so she doesn't think it can get worse. BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT: she hasn't done much really which gets her. she was a debutante at the crillon ball which is a really big deal but that was also ten years ago and that's because of her last name. being proud of her education feels like something she's supposed to be past at this point so she doesn't know! accepting ideas! BIGGEST REGRET: she's just trying to be philosophical and say that she has no regrets because regretting one thing means regretting everything but going along with her mother's batshit idea to marry her off to teddy york to take the heat off of her during the divorce? woof. BIGGEST SECRET: she's much softer than she lets people think.