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basilone · 4 years ago

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This is a really, really unexpected follow-up to the “blind dates with your muse”-thing that I posted not too long ago, in which I created an OC and put her with one George Luz for a little adventure in Normandy. It seems that Bette had a whole lot more to say, still, and so we’ve now landed with a part II to Salvage. (You can read the first part right here!)

I suppose I owe a thank you to @softspeirs, who reviewed the first part saying she’d love to read a bit more of this story, and to the fact that my brain doesn’t want to be held hostage by my big project just yet. 😂 Please keep in mind that I have absolutely no plans, still, to build this out to a big fic..

salvage (II)

George Luz would be an asset in the field.

It’s an assessment she doesn’t make lightly, these days, having been stationed in Europe for longer than comfortable and unfortunately having met several field agents who wouldn’t know how to fight their way out of a paper bag. She’s not sure how George is with the fighting, but he can mimic just about anyone he’s ever heard speak and memorize people’s mannerisms while he’s at it. It’s something useful – how to become someone else, like a second skin – and once he stops cracking jokes he actually listens to her musings.

“Hey, George, who’s the broad?”

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the majority of his compatriots.

“This is Bette,” announces George, patting her knee and smiling up at the latest bunch of soldiers to make it to Sainte-Mère-Église. “She’s OSS.”

“No fucking way,” says the man who’d asked, and there’s a glint in his eyes she doesn’t quite care for. He sounds like he’s on his way to starting a fight – and maybe that’s just the way he speaks, all Philadelphian grit – and is surprised to find a woman mixed up in the potential brawl. “Did ya hear that, Joe? One of ’em agent types!”

There’s something entirely long-suffering in the demeanor of the man she thinks must be Joe. “Yeah, I heard,” he confirms, eyeing her briefly. His voice is more of a rasp – almost hoarse, which she thinks must be from shouting at the Philly fellow – but his eyes aren’t unkind. “Winters said the fella we came in with, Jack, is another agent. Dunno why you’re surprised to find more of ’em, Guarno.”

“Jack’s here?”

“Yeah, down that way with the officers.” Joe jerks his head toward the busier hustle and bustle closer to the town. “You know him?”

“Yeah,” she offers as she slides down from the haybale. “Have to go down there for my debrief. George, if you still want that radio..”

They hadn’t had much luck so far, with people yelling over each other to be heard and everyone clinging to their supplies like a lifeline, to uncover a new radio for George to use. Some of the Fox Company soldiers had wanted to trade her part of a radio for the knife of German make, as if having part of a radio would somehow weigh up to the very real asset of a weapon in her hands. It’d taken George’s hissed intervention – you fucking yokels, he’d snarled, leave her the hell alone – and some glaring on her part to dissuade them from trying to make the trade.

Jack might have a radio, though. Jack’s always got something useful, or knows his way around something that could garner something useful.

“Sorry about Guarnere.”

She’s turned a mostly deaf ear to the very Philly complaints about women at war and just what the fuck does everyone think they’re playing at letting a couple of broads join in that arose behind her back as soon as she’s turned it on him. Bette isn’t surprised to find that none of the men in the vicinity jump to her defense aside from the apology George offers her now.

“It’s fine,” she says determinedly. Her cheeks burn as another suggestion – what’re they gonna do, seduce the Krauts – hits a little too close to the truth. “Used to men saying dumb stuff. As long as you don’t go around saying things like that, George Luz..”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

George is a shadow at her back as she moves toward the town. She doesn’t mind half as much as she should, to have a paratrooper at her back who’s not once wolf-whistled at her or looked at her with obvious distrust. Though, in this morning light, the blood on her clothing does more to dissuade anyone from getting in her way than George’s presence does.

She pulls her sleeves down over her hands. Curls her fingers around the stiffened, bloodiest parts of the coat. There’s something of armor in this – I’m at war like any one of you – that moves men out of her way while she wobbles her way up the muddied path. She almost curses as her ankle rolls treacherously out of sync with the rest of her body. Steadies herself on George’s arm, which had shot out like lightning at the first sign of a near-stumble.

A radio for George, and some boots for her. That’s the goal.

“I bet you’re glad your companions are all right,” she offers him with a slight smile. George carries himself a little better now – he’s less pale beneath that war paint, at least – and she wants to bet seeing more of his own company trickle in might have had something to do with the spring in his step. “It wouldn’t do to get stuck with Fox, huh.”

“Yeah, that’d be bad,” laughs George, and she likes him just a little bit more for the way his grin broadens as he glances at her. “Guarnere and Toye are good guys, ya know? Everybody listens to them.”

“Sergeants?” she assesses knowingly. “That’ll be helpful. Seen any others like that?”

“Yeah, Malark,” he says, nudging her side and nodding at a red-haired man and his rather hassled-looking companion, “and Martin over there too. Haven’t seen Tab or Chuck yet, though.”

“Well, lots of folks aren’t here yet.” Bette pats his arm in reassurance. “I’ve got a friend, Susan, down in the area of the 502nd right now. She fought with some tank crew in Italy before, so I know she’ll probably be right as rain, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying about her something fierce.”

“More women, huh.”

“Yeah, that’s the way it is. We’re less suspect than you.”

“Oh, is that what it is?”

“You’re damn right,” she grins as she expertly swerves one of the more harried-looking medics and his patient. “Who else would you use for undercover jobs, huh? Susan’s been down fixing comms and working with some of your pathfinders. I’ve been stuck here keeping an eye on the Germans and getting as much info out of them as I could before you all landed.” She doesn’t detail how she got the information. Doesn’t want the pitying glances, or worse. It’s best that he doesn’t know. “I’ve got another friend up here, Darlene, who’s mostly worked with Air Force but has a great eye for trouble.”

“And Jack?”

“Our long-suffering superior,” she clarifies. There’s no use keeping things secret, not when they’re on the same side and she’s been compromised to the point where she knows she faces extraction sooner rather than later. “I have to debrief with him and make sure that I – oh, hi, lieutenant Speirs.”

“Agent Peters.”

The man’s face is unreadable as she stutters to a halt in front of him. Smoke curls out of his nostrils and leaves his mouth in an exhale. His eyes travel down to her bloodied sleeves and muddied legs. Flicker back up to her face relatively quickly, then narrow.

“Good to see you made the jump okay,” she says breezily. Flashes him a grin that’s entirely too conspiratorial to be genuine. “Think I saw some of your men down that way. They’ve been arguing with Fox about the use of prisoners.”

Dog Company’s lean, smiling, trouble-spelling sergeants are the ones who’d nodded at her once in recognition and then proceeded to argue with Fox over her head in increasingly irate terms. She hadn’t bothered to listen too closely, but she knows the man in front of her doesn’t suffer foolishness from anybody. The little she’d heard of the argument had been stupid – Fox’s rebukes most of all – and she very much wants to get Speirs out of her line of sight.

“Thank you, agent Peters.”

Unflinchingly polite. Impassive, too, though there’s a slight falter in his step as he moves out of her way. She almost grins at its appearance. Knows he’s thinking of the same things she is, in that moment, and these aren’t exactly the sort of things that suit a war.

“You know Speirs?” asks George as soon as the man moves relatively out of earshot. There’s a hush to his voice that makes her purse her mouth into a grim line. He nudges her side again, though, and there’s something soft in it this time. “Learned your full name now, huh. Bette Peters.”

She doesn’t have the heart to tell him it’s not her real name. She’s carried it so long, like a second skin, that it almost feels like home. She’s been Babette, Bette, Bettina, Bernadette, and any variant thereof. Has been Peters, Plantier, Pelletier, Perrault, and a bunch of other names since she set foot in Europe. But what use is a name, really, beside something that feels right or wrong in someone else’s mouth? The way George says Bette Peters sure sounds safe enough to her.

“Know him?” she says instead, and nudges his side too. Drops her voice down to a near-whisper. “He was in England well before the rest of you lot showed up. They wanted him in intelligence, but he wouldn’t leave his men.” She’d respected that, then, and still does even when she thinks staying with his men was the easiest way to say he has a war brewing beneath his skin. “Last I saw him, he was giving Darlene a pretty good time.”

She grins at the memory of the pillow that had been flung at her face at lightning speed when she’d chanced walking into Darlene’s room without knocking. It hadn’t precisely been the first time, either, that she’d waltzed in and caught an eyeful of some man or other, but it’d sure been the first time it’d been an Airborne officer instead of the usual Air Force buddies Darlene seemed to land with. Then, as now, he’d met her eyes rather unflinchingly.

George’s whistle is low. “He remembered that just now.”

“Yeah, I think he must’ve,” she laughs. Is pleased to find that George startles into laughter as well. “Hard to forget, what with Darlene shrieking at me and me laughin’ at the whole thing before I hightailed it outta there. He’s.. not my type o’ man.” She wrinkles her nose. “Fine to look at, but there’s somethin’ wrong about him. Think that’s the same with the rest of Dog, yeah?”

“Bette,” he says, then, and there’s something so abruptly serious in his tone that the smile dies on her face, “you gotta stay with us, okay? Ask this Jack or somebody to put you with Easy.”

“Why?”

“I dunno.” George shrugs. His mouth quirks into the semblance of a quick joke. “Maybe three days and three nights of rough fightin’”– he mimics, likely pitch perfect for the way it draws laughter out of the soldiers that pass them –“and we’re gonna be back in England. You can’t go back to where you were before I met you, either. I saw your face earlier.”

“What brought this on?” she asks, not willing to admit how right he is and cursing the fact that she apparently still can’t school her face quick enough around people she wants to trust. “You’re gonna get more than three days here by the way this is going, anyway, and I doubt your fellow soldiers want me to stick around..”

“You know people. You’ve got Dog down within seconds of knowing them. Fox, too. And Toye liked you just fine, I could tell, and Guarnere’s gonna be no problem at all once he knows you can take a joke.” He’s rushing his words out. His hand’s warm on her arm. “Think about it, okay? I dunno what happened before you probably saved my life back there, but it doesn’t look good. And I don’t want somethin’ to happen to you, you know?”

“That’s sweet.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he grins, unapologetic, “sweet and totally right about this.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll think about it.”

It’d solve some issues to just stay where she is. To blend in with the masses of soldiers who’ve now landed in Normandy, perhaps act as a nurse the way Darlene had been adamant they should at least learn, and then regroup somewhere familiar where she can figure out a new way to be useful. Compromised within an inch of her life, Bette’s not sure a quick extraction’s on the table anymore now that the Allied invasion of Europe is on the way. Staying with Easy – with George – seems like one of the few valuable options she’s got left.

Bette squares her shoulders the second she lays eyes on Jack. Marches up to the flint-eyed man without hesitation dogging her footsteps, though she still has to hold on to George’s arm to stop a stumble in all this damn mud. Jack’s conversing with soldiers she doesn’t know – one so white-haired he seems like he was sired by snow, the other red-headed and cautious in movement – but that’s never stopped her before.

“Sir.” She skids to a halt in front of him. “Good to see you.”

“And you, agent Peters.” Jack’s smile is warm. His grip on her hand as he briefly shakes it is as firm as ever. “I take it you ran into trouble?”

“Schmidt,” she affirms sourly.

Bette unbuttons her coat now that she’s safe, now that she doesn’t have to guard this with her life, now that it can be of use. She almost smirks at the near-blush that appears on the red-haired man’s cheeks, but raises an eyebrow at the interest of the white-haired one. Normandy’s warm air brushes against her bare skin as she extracts papers from her tattered chemise.

“I had to make the call,” she says as she hands the small stack over to Jack’s waiting hands. “This is all the intel on Carentan. His unit’s set to move there today, but it’s probably gonna be stalled a bit now. It’s gonna take them a bit to get new command running.” She shrugs. Doesn’t want to detail the fact that Schmidt and Weber both didn’t survive her last night. Doesn’t want to admit to the things she does to keep these men safe. “I hightailed it out, ran into George – he needs a radio, by the way – and probably blew my cover pretty good all in all.”

“Thank you.” Jack’s eyebrows rise in obvious appreciation as he rifles through the papers. The next word out of his mouth is a command. “Mayfair!”

“Sir?”

“Get this George fellow a radio. And try to stay out of trouble this time, Darlene, yeah?”

Darlene Mayfair’s gap-toothed grin is the most welcome sight in the world. Bette finds herself grinning back as the woman affirms the order. She looks a little worse for wear, too, Darlene does, all slightly singed-looking red hair and dark smudges on her freckled face, but that smile doesn’t change so easily.

“George, was it?”

“Yes ma’am,” says George. He sounds rather strangled now that he has obviously connected the dots on the fact that the Darlene from the story and the Darlene in front of him are one and the same. “Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, quit it with the ma’am,” waves Darlene, “and just call me Darlene like the rest of these fellas do. We’re all dyin’ together, anyway, so all this formality’s just a little too much. Ya can forget about salutin’, too, while you’re at it. Ain’t anybody got the time for that, right, Bette?”

“Not if you’re getting shot at, no,” she affirms, winking at George as she buttons her coat back up. “Told you we’d have a radio for you, didn’t I?”

“You’ve been tellin’ tales, I can tell,” hums Darlene, not even sounding terribly put out about it. She extends a hand toward George. “Come along, then. Ya can tell me all about your landin’, sugah, how ’bout that?”

Bette shakes her head, still smiling, as George shoots her a glance that she thinks signifies I am walking straight to my doom. She likes the man’s no-nonsense manner of being. Thinks Darlene might appreciate it, too, even when he’s far too sweet to fit Darlene’s views of warfare and necessary sacrifice. Darlene sure seems content to chatter away at George as they walk off toward another group of men who’re unloading a lot of boxes.

A hand on her arm startles her out of her reverie.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, Jack.” Bette shakes her head in a bid to clear her mind. “Please tell me the papers are useful.”

“They are. Let me think about extraction, okay?”

“Yeah.” She swallows thickly. “I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m not.”

“Well,” she flounders, gestures, sighs, “I’m a bit put out about it. Could be of more use –”

“No. It’s all right. Let me introduce you to these gentlemen, yeah? Stop your fussing.”

Jack nods at the white-haired man first, and introduces him as Compton. Buck Compton, to be exact, which seems to be another nickname like some of the other names she’s heard around here since they got to town. The red-haired man is called Winters, which is a name she recognizes.

“You’re George’s lieutenant?” She hedges the guess out loud. Isn’t surprised when the man nods. “He mentioned you. Said you’re a good sort.”

She likes Winters, she decides, when the man startles into a near-smile and his light eyes soften a little. Likes him more than Compton, who’d offered a frosty nod and nothing else, and certainly likes him a whole lot more than the steel trap called Speirs.

“Nice to meet you, agent.. Peters, was it?”

“Yes, sir.” She smiles. Extends a hand. “Nice to meet you as well.”

Winters’s hand is warm and firm in her own. And she can imagine following that, she thinks, when Compton next extends a hand to her and echoes his leader’s sentiment. If he can change one man’s mind about her presence within merely a few seconds, he can likely help change his company’s mind about a woman at war.

“Jack,” she decides, “I might have an idea about my extraction..”

#band of brothers #george luz #oc: bette #basilonefic #you know what this is? this is me avoiding what I need to write #but it was fun and needed to come out #I'm not making this a full fic I'm not #(I say as I publish 3k of this lmao)#writing20202021

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alisoncooper · 4 years ago

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we’ll meet again some sunny day | a captain/havers fic | read on ao3 ↳ Since he was a child, no matter what happened to him or his family, The Captain kept meeting William Havers. But that meant he kept losing him too. From children coping with the Great War, young men navigating the intoxicating world of the Roaring Twenties, and adults seeing the impending threat of another war, The Captain hopes he can find a way to keep Havers by his side this time.

chapter two | the boy: ii

Little feet padded heavily on the frozen grass. The clouds were a heavy slate-grey above their heads, and they used the light layer of frost to help them pick up speed, using the smooth soles of their shoes to their advantage.

The wind whipped his cheeks as he passed Havers, a smile brightening his face as he staggered into the haybale with a triumphant whoop, his breathing heavy and hard as he leaned against the straw, watching Havers slow down for the last few strides.

“I get to be captain!” the boy shouted proudly before climbing the haybale, which for the past few weeks, had been their pirate ship.

Havers stared up at him with a pout, his arms folded across his chest. “Why do you always get to be the captain?”

“Because I’m the oldest and the fastest,” he said, leaning forward as Havers began to climb. The boy put his hand out for him, and Havers appreciatively wrapped his fingers around his as he heaved himself up and over.

#bbc ghosts #ben willbond #the captain #six idiots #my writings #we'll meet again some sunny day

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canyonroads · 4 years ago

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The cafeteria, first day of the fifth grade,

I face the demons of loneliness and fear.

You call my name across a crowded room,

And I don't know it yet but

Youre finding me, dug me out of the dirt

Like an old forgotten locket.

First friends always hurt the hardest,

And they say you never really shake them.

II.

In the field behind your house,

Stacking haybales into something like a stage.

I wasnt a dancer or a singer until I met you,

Always brought out the best in me.

Hold your soft hands in

My calloused ones,

I know your parents told you to stop talking to me

Always happy that you never did.

III.

Skip to ninth grade, our first high school dance,

We dont talk much anymore these days.

You have new friends,

So do I, but still,

You always smile when you see me.

And when you're done shining too bright for this room,

You save a dance for your best friend.

IV.

Shooting whiskey in the country,

You, your not-boyfriend, and my freshly broken heart,

Arms around me on the porch step as I

Pray for some holy relief to fix me.

And when I felt broken and

About ten degrees past unlovable,

You fixed me up and slugged my shoulder,

Picked my mess up and told me I was fine.

Walmart bathroom in a strange city,

Leaning against the sink while we wait

For the blue results on a

Cheap-ass back-shelf pregnancy test.

You say you dont want it, but

The hope in your face says something different.

For the first time I look at you and

I dont like what I see.

VI.

At nineteen you and I are healing from

Mutual heartbreaks and one big death.

I stare at you across the pews

So I won't stare too long at the casket

And risk breaking my own

Too-fragile heart in my ribcage.

You squeeze my hand and tell me

We may lose, but not each other.

VII.

A summer spent in your car together,

Driving everywhere these wheels will take us.

Tracing my feet through

The veins of the mountain forests.

I smile for the first time in months as

You sing our favorite song at the top of your lungs.

Compare the stars above to a new love,

From the passengers seat I dont see your jealousy.

VIII.

Outside my boyfriends house one year later,

My stomache sinking to my knees.

I see your car parked there and

He wont answer any of my calls.

I ask myself how I could be so blind to

Glancing over dinner and drunken touching.

I throw my foot into the gas and

I leave behind every trace of you and me.

IX.

Another year, an awkward coffee,

This has to be the longest I've gone without you.

I apologize for overreacting then,

But not for my lingering suspicions now.

But they dont matter,

I tell myself that we are different.

Told myself you couldnt be to blame,

Not when I needed you to be my salvation.

I look at you across our table,

I just dont know who this person is anymore.

We have been under this roof together

For what feels like a century.

I dont know if it's the eggshells I walk on,

Or the gas you lit inside my skull.

But when I walk away I hurt the most

That a friend has ever made me feel.

EPILOGUE.

I dream you're doing well, but I cant

Pretend I never saw the way you

Coveted me like a precious art piece,

Never let anyone else get too close to me.

I am not yours anymore,

Now I just pray I never see you again.

I just have 3 things I wanted you to know,

Before I try to put you behind me;

That I never forgot these scenes with you,

That I ache because I think I could have saved you,

But rest assured that I am

Ready to move on from you.

#poetry #my poetry

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brunhiddensmusings · 7 years ago

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Wait wait our idea of dirty medieval peasants is based on a *tax aversion scam*??? Please tell me more I need to know this. *bounces excitedly*

shortly after william the conquerer came to power he initiated something known as ‘the doomsday book’- he sent envoys to survey his new lands to record the properties he now controlled so they could pay accurate taxes. every acre of field, every mill, livestock, buildings and their relative size- all would be recorded to determine the wealth of each settlement so a percentage could be expected as rent. for an example of what this book meant; the previous king was aware of and collected taxes from about 20 grain mills in england, william’s audit shot that number above 200. you dont know the meaning of ‘pedantic’ untill you start reading about medieval grain mills, theres a church that paved its floor with confiscated ‘illegal’ millstones to ensure that the town had to get its flour from the church’s official mill and one war simply about stealing the same millstone back and fourth for quite a few decadesof course word of these envoys traveled faster then they did, virtually every town they came to had time to claim they had far less taxable wealth then they actually did have by the time the audit arrived. in one of the more over the top cases an entire village pretended to have caught insanity- when the taxmen arrived they saw screaming laughing idiots with underwear on their heads so they left as fast as they could considering at the time insanity was thought to be literally contagious. it would be over five years before anyone tried to audit that town again. its safe to assume a large number of other villages also had sudden cases of strange diseases, mysteriously disappearing cows, or very large shrubberies and haybales shaped like buildings and you dont need to look over that hill either. thats not even touching how many small communities just plain didnt technically exist because they were too small, somewhere weird, or in legal limbo of who owned itof course when the feudal part of feudalism started moving its gears you found that the local lord of that village was unlikely to divulge the exact amount of rents they could collect to THEIR lord either, knowing that the more they admitted to receiving the more they were expected to hand over. this was not exclusive to england either, the more you learn about feudalism the more you have to ask how all these minor lords out in the boonies kept having the money and soldiers to do all the political intrigue bullshit, the answer is also tax evasion. each village kept claiming it had fewer people living in shittier houses with less land and fewer livestock then they actually had, and each local lord kept claiming they were receiving less rents then they actually took so were also adverse to an accurate audit.their knowledge of tax loopholes also extended to finding out that clergymen were either exempt from tax or received a far lower rate of tax, so proving you qualified as a clergyman was an endeavor that paid dividends. specifically to prove you were clergy you proved that you could read and write enough Latin to satisfy an official, so you could spend some money to hire someone to tutor you enough Latin to fake it. its estimated that due to this fully ten percent of medieval english households wrote ‘clergy’ on their tax forms.another and even more extreme example was the peasants revolt of 1381, london was swarmed by the unwashed masses from all sides instigated by an official trying to collect (a lot of) unpaid poll taxes, an angry mob driving a teenaged king Richard II to retreat to a boat in the river, and culminating with 1500 peasants being executed by an emergency militia. this doesn't sound like a huge success untill you dig into some of the details- peasants from a large number of villages all arrived at london at the same time, leaving dedicated forces specifically to stop ships from acessing london to break the siege, the peasants executed a select number of court officials and started burning paperwork- but systematically only burning the ones detailing who owned plots of land, debt records, and a few criminal records. the peasants who besieged london and scared the king into the river had successfully purged a whole lot of debts and reclaimed a lot of land in one very ballsy and highly coordinated move that relied on them being seen as illiterate dirt farmers with no ulterior motives besides pitchfork mob riot and trying to kiss the queen mother while they touch everything in the tower of london with their grimy hands

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ilovethetalkingclock · 6 years ago

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ii looney tunes au that doesn’t make much sense

Lightbulb-Bugs Bunny

OJ-Daffy Duck

Taco-Elmer Fudd

Bomb-Porky Pig

Fan-Tweety

Paintbrush-Sylvester

Balloon-Pussyfoot

Suitcase-Marc Anthony (she be protectin Balloon)

Trophy-Speedy Gonzales

Baseball-Pepe Le Pew (dont ask)

Nickel-Penelope Pussycat

YinYang-Road Runner

Test Tube-Wile E. Coyote

Soap-Granny

Microphone-Foghorn Leghorn

Knife-Yosemite Sam

Cheesy-Tasmanian Devil

Paper-Marvin the Martian

Salt and Pepper-Mac and Tosh

Traffic Light as Gabby Goat

Thermos as Claude Cat

Haybale and Bandana-Hubie and Bertie

Kumquat-Pete Puma

Chives-Sylvester Jr.

Black Hole-Witch Hazel

Baxter-Squeaks the Squirrel

(some choices were recommended by @nb-vulpix!)

#inanimate insanity #battle for dream island #looney tunes #wat #shitpost #funny #au #no i dont ship saljay

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aka-xn · 5 years ago

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Back in August I climbed a mountain. In fact I climbed a #mountain four times. Within just a matter of days. Then again, it was Mount Saint Pieter in #Maastricht. And it’s considered one of the smallest mountains in the world. In fact, often larger governments then the #Netherlands try to argue that it’s not a mountain at all, and just a big old random plateau. I don’t try to tell this to the residence of Maastricht; they have a deep pride in this mountain and it’s remarkable history, so they will argue you tooth and nail defending its title as a true mountain. there are only a few select #geological surveys that would even agree that the barely-561-foot-tall rise is a mountain. Most of a say that mountains don’t start until about 1000 feet. However, being the highest “P” in the Netherlands, these folks are not going to buckle quietly to the larger global geologic agenda. After all, there of been so many #Paleolithic and #Mesozoic #fossils found in this lime stone monolith. Literally #dinosaurbones, from #Holland was full of #Dutch #dinosaurs. Likewise, #JuliusCaesar plopped one of his favorite forts here, and it was the scene of countless battles from #medieval times right up to World War II. With such a remarkable and layered history, you can understand why the locals want the little mountain given proper distinction. but frankly, the first time I climbed it it was quite by accident. I just thought I was going up the hill on my bike. Granted I got a little steep, but I didn’t realize I was even on the mountain until I was nearly at the top. The top is mostly flat; it rolls and undulate, but kind of levels itself off rather than having a full peak. And there are charming little farms up here, and the remains of tons of forwards from all different eras. Being one of the easiest mountains to climb in the whole world, it makes sense why everybody loves the vantage point. So yeah. Now I guess I’m a #mountainclimber. A lot easier — and prettier — than I ever imagined it to be. ▫️ #bucolic #haybale #grass #farmlife #akaXN #TheRealXN (at Caves of Mount St. Pieter) https://www.instagram.com/p/B42i7j-nruV/?igshid=1qfi0zyjex810

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garkgatiss · 8 years ago

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#Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'!

Great news, everyone: legends-only Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat plan to not only

a) write canon romantic Johnlock, but

b) do it by writing an explicitly queer homage/fix-it fic for the subtextually queer tragic play that was used as the basis of the acclaimed musical Oklahoma!

Oklahoma! ! A second reference, and a direct reference to the musical this time. Apparently Sherlock’s parents weren’t linedancing in Oklahoma, they were linedancing in Oklahoma!. Weird, right? Why a reference to an American musical about cowboys in a British show about a detective?

Just wait.

Let’s first take a look at what happens in the first act:

Sweet orphan farm maiden protagonist Laurey has two suitors: Curly, a hunky sweet-talkin’ cowboy who visits her farmhouse regularly to a cautiously positive reception from Laurey and bald-faced encouragement from spinster Aunt Eller; and Jud, the two women’s goonish hired farmhand who has a brutish, violent obsession with Laurey and a brutish, violent jealousy of Curly’s frequent visits.

In Act I, Laurey impulsively commits to going to the Box Social dance with the goonish farmhand in the process of playing hard-to-get with her will-they-won't-they dashing cowboy. She immediately gets the sense that she will regret this, but she's too scared of goony farmhand to back out on him and too stubborn to come crawling back to cowboy. Cowboy Curly is frustrated by this apparent indecision, and confronts Jud alone in an ominous scene that foreshadows their final, fatal clash. At the end of Act I, Laurey gets high on "smelling salts" (camphorated laudanum) that she bought from a peddler in order to understand what to do. A fifteen-minute dream ballet reveals a happy life with Curly that is ruined on her wedding day when Curly transforms into Jud, and the church transforms into a saloon full of can-can dancers. Dream-Curly returns to confront Dream-Jud and they fight, but as a tornado rages, Dream-Jud kills Dream-Curly and carries off Laurey. Laurey wakes, terrified, and doesn’t argue when Jud tells her what time he plans to pick her up for the party.

You can substitute Sherlock for Laurey, John for Curly, and Mary for Jud and recreate several key scenes and dynamics from Sherlock without too much stretch of the imagination. You can see Sherlock and John’s stubborn, teasing banter in Laurey and Curly from the first scene, as well as Mrs. Hudson’s blithe encouragement of their relationship; John’s “people will talk” line gets its own musical number in “People Will Say We’re In Love”; food-sex metaphor is fully integrated into the plot; Curly threatens Jud and proves his sharp-shooting ability by shooting through a knothole in a wooden post “the size of a dime”. The entirety of The Abominable Bride is a visual and structural homage to Oklahoma!’s fifteen-minute opium-induced dream ballet, but one that foreshadows an unambiguously happy ending rather than tragedy. Truly, just watch it -- you could easily rename the dream ballet The Abominable Groom.

This musical is a baffling but blatant muse for Sherlock, going all the way back to the very first episode. One explanation is that Sherlock is a fairy-tale romance, and what better way to demonstrate that than to follow the romantic arc of a golden age Broadway musical?

But what makes even more sense (and is ultimately far more poignant) in explaining why Sherlock fits so well as Laurey and why Sherlock seems to borrow so much from Oklahoma! is that Laurey’s character was intended to be read subtextually as a gay man from the very first draft.

"Green Grow The Lilacs is a very bleak play about homosexuality. Would you get that from Oklahoma!? I don't think so." - Stephen Sondheim

Green Grow the Lilacs was first staged in 1931. A pseudo-musical play showcasing the folk songs and regional dialect of pre-statehood Oklahoma, it ran for its full contract of sixty-four shows and toured the states a bit afterwards. A modest success in terms of Depression-era theater.

Rodgers and Hammerstein both independently discovered the show and wanted to adapt it into a full musical theater production with original music. Oklahoma! would be the very first collaboration for the legendary composer-librettist duo. The pair added their songs, preserved much of the original dialogue of the play, fleshed out the secondary romantic subplot, changed the tragic ending to an unambiguously happy one, and made themselves a hit.

“I like the bridesmaids in purple--”

”Lilac.”

(Can we now tally a third reference to Oklahoma! in Sherlock?)

Green Grow the Lilacs was originally written by Lynn Riggs, a closeted gay man who set his play in the Indian Territory (soon-to-become Oklahoma) town of Claremore where he grew up. Functionally an orphan, his mother Rose Ella “Eller” Lynn died when he was a baby and he spent significant time as a child with his Aunt Mary: a divorcee with eight children, mostly daughters, and the stated inspiration for the character of Aunt Eller. Though his stated inspiration for Laurey is one of these girl cousins he grew up with, it's clear that Laurey’s true role is as a self-insert of Riggs himself.

This makes the entire play snap immediately into focus. Why else is an orphan woman even considering the overtures of a consolation prize farmhand goon when her only apparent kin is virtually begging her to get hitched with her cowboy dreamboat true love? It’s what first struck me as so similar between Sherlock and Oklahoma!: there is NO NARRATIVE REASON why they shouldn’t get together in the very first scene! Curly invites Laurey to the dance, and then he pretends to have been joking when she deflects his invitation. Is this sounding familiar yet? Why else is she worried about people saying they’re in love? There’s no father with a shotgun to hide from, no factional violence keeping them apart. And yet she has to get high like a certain detective we know in order to make what should be the most obvious choice of her life.

It means that dirty, brutish Jud is suspicious because smooth-talking slick-dressed Curly always visiting their farmhouse without having any real business there. It means that Curly’s disinterest in Jud’s porn stash and Jud’s hostility in response suddenly feels ominous. It means that the implication that Jud killed and burned down the farmhouse of the last family he worked for because he caught the farmer’s daughter, whom he was sweet on, with another man in the hayloft was less to do with violent, murderous jealousy and more to do with violent, murderous bigotry.

It means that Aunt Eller, who throughout the musical miraculously interrupts and prevents the commission of at least three different subtextual hate crimes, is less a spinster aunt eager to marry off her orphan niece and more a champion and guardian of gay love. (She’s also a naked-lady-picture-lookin’, red-petticoat-wearin’ lesbian, but that’s an analysis for another time.) Glad we have our own Mrs. Hudson, not to mention another character literally named Ella, watching out for our boys.

So, back to Sherlock. We’ve seen the dream ballet. We’ve started the second act. What comes next?

In Act II, the Box Social is in full swing, and the fundraising auction of food-basket-plus-a-lunch-date-with-the-woman-who-made it is about to begin. Laurey’s is the last basket to be auctioned, and Jud immediately outbids several lowball offers, determined to win her whatever the cost. Then Curly appears, and the two engage in a bidding war, with Jud bidding all the money he has in the world, requiring Curly to sell his saddle, his horse (effectively giving up his profession as a cowboy for love), and finally (and ominously) his gun to the crowd in order to top it. Once Curly wins, Laurey finally is able to tell Jud to get lost (he reacts poorly to this so she fires him as well), and Curly and Laurey become engaged to be married.

They marry, but Jud haunts their celebration. On their wedding night, during the humiliating tradition of “shivaree” which involves a mob dragging the couple from their marriage bed to mercilessly heckle them while banging pots and pans, Laurey and Curly are standing atop a haybale receiving this dubious honor when Jud appears with a knife and lights the haybale on fire. Helping Laurey to safety first, Curly jumps from the flaming haybale directly onto Jud, causing Jud to be killed by his own knife.

‘By his own knife.’ After an entire song in the first act where Curly suggests that Jud ought to hang himself while delivering a string of insults disguised as a eulogy? Right. Definitely an accident.

(“It’s not possible for the victim to have done it!” We’ve been told?)

This is where the play and the musical diverge. In the original play as written, “Curly is arrested, but breaks jail and returns to Laurey. The marshal’s men follow, but the couple is permitted to consummate their marriage in privacy, with the understanding that Curly will be taken into custody in the morning.” (x)

Theresa Helburn, the producer of the play and the person who first brought it to the attention of Richard Rodgers, wants assurance that Curly will be acquitted, but Riggs fights hard for his tragic queer-coding, so together they wrangle it into something more ambiguous for the final edit.

But when Rodgers and Hammerstein get their hands on it, the ending becomes unambiguously, unrecognizably happy: Aunt Eller comforts Laurey about Curly’s implication in Jud’s death (is this sounding like a familiar theory yet????), and then she demands an impromptu kitchen table trial for Curly so that Curly and Laurey can still catch the train on time for their honeymoon. The federal marshall objects, but at Aunt Eller’s demand, the town’s judge rules Curly innocent. With the bang of a soup-ladle gavel, and Laurey and Curly ride off into the sunset.

The only thing left to fix is to give this happy ending to an actual gay couple.

Can you picture it yet?

#oh what a beautiful morning #sherlock meta #oklahoma!lock

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