#hold your temper 1943

[vintagedreamsofsennett]

RKO Plot Recycling Collection

Many Unhappy Returns (1937) / Pretty Dolly (1942) / In-Laws Are Out (1934) / Hold Your Temper (1943) / Bad Housekeeping (1937) / Home Work (1942) / A Returned Engagement (1935) / Man-I-Cured (1941) / Crime Rave (1939) / Two for the Money (1942) / Maid to Order (1939) / Mail Trouble (1942) / A Rented Riot (1937) / Rough on Rents (1942) / Good Housewrecking (1933) / Inferior Decorator (1942)

[whereflowersbloom]

Alfred’s farewell

The sky had begun gloomy since even before the sun had the chance to rise. Mist was overshadowing the city of Gotham, and drops of dew are still littering every surface. The birds were unusually quiet, nestling safely under the warmth of their nest. A large group of grey clouds lingering above the place, promising unpleasant weather to deal with later on. Lighting crackled in the grey sky and snatched away any hope of a golden day. Only songs of sadness spread around, feeling the sorrow taking place. Even the world is holding its breath and everything is still, the earth seemed to be mourning as well the unexpected loss. The atmosphere was exceptionally dark and lifeless, each face filled with silent and bitter grief and regret. Tears do not fall, there’s a blackhole forming in place of his heart. This date…this date would be burned into his soul for the rest of his existence, it would be a permanent reminder to himself of how foolish he was, how everything…could change in matter of seconds. Seconds only a few more seconds would have made the difference. The tree that was once full of life, the one Alfred looked after kindly, because he planted it himself after coming to work for Thomas and Martha Wayne, was now barren as the weather grew colder and the icy wind blew the leaves away.

There’s people gathering, familiar faces and unknown ones. The solemn mode had settled between them, and soon the ceremony comes to an end. It’s time to say farewell.

Will I always, from now on, be this cold? Was Pennyworth really gone? He didn’t dare to pronounce his name. He discerned the sounds of footsteps slowly fading away and all that was heard afterwards was the thud of knees hitting the ground. Grayson. Even Dick was so lost and crushed, the man who always looked so high-spirited and brave, so even-tempered and filled with honor, seemed so weak now.

“Alfred, I am so sorry…” Richard whispered with a low-pitched and desperate sob as he caressed the stone with his trembling hand. His face, marred for life, had an even more painful expression plastered on his face as tears started to fall slowly onto the dirt. But it’s not your fault. Damian wanted to let him know. He wasn’t there to stop it. Unlike you his mind whispered.

Jason Todd remained silent. Todd had always been quick to emotion in general, to tears when someone else was sad, to contagious laughter when their siblings were smiling, quick-tempered, choleric when provoked. Surprisingly an empathetic sensitive soul, spent many years alone, hungry for tenderness and familial ties. And yet he was wearing an expressionless mask, but his body betrayed his affliction, shaking so badly that Tim had to grasp tightly at his arms to prevent him from going down. Drake. Tim was clearly having so much invisible burden on his shoulders. His curved jaw clenching tight, and his dark blue eyes cast downwards and unblinking. He didn’t have his daily cup of black coffee. No, he didn’t have a single drop of his precious caffeine today. He kept his head low the entire ceremony, maybe he didn’t have the heart to look up at the crying mess everyone was. Perhaps he thought somebody had to tough it out, specially considering Father’s absence.

Stephanie standing close to him, blonde curls dancing with the autumn wind, biting her lips the entire time. Stephanie who tried to be strong and now, after holding in for too long, the tears break out like a leaking dam. She was devastated and weeped openly, clinging to Tim’s coat as if her life depended on it, as if she were drowning, the sight made the hole in Damian’s chest squeeze around his heart. Guilt. Distress.

Cassandra was hardly moving from her spot. She had a deep crease on her brow, and face as hard as rock. She hugged herself in the arms, shielding her frame from the icy wind, when Duke swiftly placed his Armani cashmere coat on her shoulders, her hands were going cold, and the moment Duke noticed the way she shivers with small movements. He considerately held them between his, providing temporary warmth, trying to find some kind of comfort in each other, but Cassandra avoided making eye contact with anyone, her mind was really blank as a void. Possibly still attempting to process the reality. Duke Thomas, the only one that hasn’t lost his mind amid this consequent emotional instability, drops of tears still hanging from the corner of his eyes, while the rests were slowly drying on his cheeks. Damian wasn’t exactly close to Duke but he wondered how he managed to carry on. Where did he find the strength to persist? Damian walked closer to the tombstone, feeling resignation seep into his bones.

Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth, beloved father, grandfather, mentor, friend, heroic veteran, a talented cook, a man of family, with a great big heart. Alfred Pennyworth had been a man with many facets. He brought balance to this dysfunctional family, he was the peace and voice of reason. Alfred who made Dick stay in bed when he was badly injured and encouraged him to eat proper meals, lectured Jason for his vulgar language, introduced Jason into the culinary arts, trusting him with the top secret Pennyworth recipes, who secretly switched Tim’s coffee for decaffeinated when he had too much, who prepared Stephanie waffles after a night out patrolling, didn’t say a word of the nights she sneaked out with Kara, who enjoyed the company of Cassandra lurking around the manor, when she’s having a bad day he used to watch the stars with her, listening to Cass make up stories about each star, Alfred who never had to fix anything Duke broke because Thomas instantly apologized and offered to fix it himself, Alfred that found intriguing sudden Duke’s interest in gardening. Alfred... who who spend each and every Damian’s birthdays with him ‘every birthday is special and must be celebrated Master Damian’, gifted him a cat because it made him think of him, offered him a cup of hot chocolate or tea sleepless nights. Alfred, who told him he was proud of him. Alfred, who raised him and loved him wholeheartedly until his last breath.

Damian ran his hand down a large polished stone, ‘Wayne’ carved into it expertly. He sighed wearily and stood beside a gravestone, right next to the family stone, he absentmindedly ran his fingertips along the engraved letters.

‘Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth’

August 16, 1943

-

October 10, 2019

‘The light of our household is gone. Leaving only haunting echoes lingering in this home. A place is vacant in our hearts, which will never be filled.’

It was indeed fitting. Their light was Alfred and he was gone for good. For good the words echoed in his head like an incessant prayer. He felt a pang of pain surge through him as he recalled his last moments with the man who raised him. It felt as if his life was torn apart just yesterday.

‘I miss him already.’ Cassandra gestured in sign language, a single tear rolling down her cheeks. Damian didn’t know if she was saying it to him or his siblings, maybe she just wished to get the weight off her chest, when he didn’t think it could, his heart broke even more.

“Fuck.” Jason swore with pained voice, his turquoise eyes blurring with angry tears that he wiped away roughly. Not particularly at his siblings but himself. For not being able to protect the man who offered a ray of kindness to him, who nurtured his severely malnourished body to health. He didn’t blame Bruce or the others. He was supposed to be better, strong enough to defend his father. Dick was a fucking mess in the dirt,embracing the tombstone with all his strength, like it would somehow bring the dead man back to life. Steph wouldn’t stop crying. Tim was silently punishing himself in his own way, and Cass had been in a mental limbo until a a minute ago. Bruce wouldn’t leave his room for Pete’s sake. He isolated himself from everything and everyone, he simply existed in his bedroom. Not surprised. He should be here, saying goodbye to Alfred, who dedicate his entire life to help him, instead of retreating to a dark room and lying in bed, brooding over his problems. Damian. Damian was so young, he looked like hell, devastated as everyone else. Jason could detect the shadow of regret in his green eyes. He’s seen it before because he experienced it and he saw it every day in Bruce’s eyes. But at least Damian was here, dealing with the crude reality and his anguish.

It felt unreal, like this was only a horrible slow-motion nightmare and they would wake up any minute, a sharp knife that bore a hole through their hearts yet they kept on standing still.

Perhaps it was time to fulfill Alfred’s wishes. He wanted Bruce to set his thirst for justice aside and find happiness, maybe a companion, spend quality time with the children, who clearly weren’t children anymore. The youngest being Damian, who just turned fifteen a couple of months ago. He wanted Richard to start a family of his own with Barbara. He wanted Jason to come back home and stop fighting with a Bruce. He wanted a Tim to seek professional help, see a counselor, quit drinking that damned coffee in excess. Stephanie to stop denying her feelings for Tim and give their relationship a chance. Cassandra constantly suppressing her emotions, fearing to get attached, she was human not a machine trained to commit murder when ordered. Duke should leave behind any doubts to forge his own path and accept he was loved by their family. Damian who Alfred loved like his own grandchild, no matter what he did or what type of person he decided to become, Alfred would always be proud of Damian. ‘In the end, you makes you. No one else, Master Damian.’

“How are you holding up, shortstack?” Jason asked him unexpectedly, snapping out of it, he didn’t know how long his mind had been replaying fond memories with Alfred, he felt the weight of Jason’s hand falling on his shoulder, wearing a genuinely concerned expression.

A cold wind passed by, gracing the leaves and making some brief sounds. The wind leaving with a trail in the form of chilly, close to freezing air. Damian weighted the question in his head. There was only ever-growing emptiness in his chest. After a long moment he spoke.

“I will live.” Damian answered softly, eyes completely fixed on the stone. “I’ll miss him, too...brother.” The young Robin unreservedly confessed, Jason looked slightly taken aback at the words Damian muttered. Damian’s emotions were expressed with snarky comments, throwing daggers and knives, making deadly threats and intimidating stares. He had an aggressive and confrontational demeanor. Damian has never called Jason brother, but it made his lips curl into a small smile. Yes, he was his brother.

Damian was vaguely aware of Jason’s body heat now at his side, followed by Richard who was helped by Tim to stand up, his chest sore from sobbing, black suit covered in dirt but he didn’t seem to care. Meaningless material assets, nothing compared to the irreparable loss they suffered hours ago. Steph took a couple of steps closer to them, her eyes, twins pools of sadness, red and swollen, soon the Wayne siblings gathered around their youngest brother. Embracing tightly the teenager into a group hug.

They shared the same deep numbing pain, but it's more agonizing for Damian because he had been there when it happened, they all knew Damian was suffering so much. The feeling ate him inside, consuming and breaking every part of him miserably. But he isn’t alone anymore, he has his family with him. Damian’s tears are hot and travel down his tanned cheeks, he didn’t want to cry but he couldn’t hold it in any longer, the heartache, the loss, agony, guilt, everything was hitting him all at once. It hurt so much knowing full well that Alfred won't wake up ever again from this neverending deep sleep, buried under the ground lonely and cold and breathless. His grandfather.

It'll be just the the eight of them and it is frightening to accept the truth, that Alfred wouldn’t be around anymore to look after them like he did after all these years. Ever since he first set foot in the Wayne manor. He would me missed every single day. Rchard’s heart broke at the sight of Damian in such crumbling state, his characteristic composure fallen and so alien after living together so many years. Damian was broken too. Dick did the only thing he could think of, patted him affectionately on the back, rubbing it soothingly, mumbling quietly “We are here, Dami.” Letting him know they were all there for him in every possible way. They would try to carry our Alfred’s last wish, for them to get along, integrate, be an harmonious family. Be true siblings. Always Alfred’s children. Together they sang farewell to Alfred with broken chords.

I am not sure if I want to edit this later but here s the progress. I might add Bruce’s part later or tomorrow. My tribute to Alfred 💜❤️❤️❤️

@sofiii @chromium7sky @deep-in-mind67

[littleredlie]

Lieutenant - Part Two: 1943

Series Masterlist | Master Masterlist

Marvel x black!OC, Bucky Barnes x black!OC On her trip to the Stark Expo, Jackie is reunited with Steve and Bucky, but ditched by her husband. How is she supposed to juggle the negative feelings she harbors towards her husband and the romantic feelings she has towards a man that she’s not supposed to love.

5.6k+ Words

Featuring: Jackie Johnson, Bucky Barnes, David Wilson, Andre Wilson, Steve Rogers (mentioned), Connie, Bonnie, Mama Gloria Johnson, Jordan Johnson, Freddie Johnson (mentioned), Felicity Johnson, Howard Stark (appears) Warning: Cursing. Mentions of cheating. Domestic abuse. Racist Microaggressions (I don’t remember if it’s this chapter or next) A/N: Let me know how you like it! The chapters just get longer and longer. But Bucky and Jackie are 🥺

Part One: 1943

______________________________________

Despite having a dark skin tone, Jackie could see a purple bruise inhabiting her left cheek where her husband hit her yesterday afternoon. She noticed it when she first woke up that morning and had tried her hardest to hide it any way she could, but her attempts weren’t going anywhere. It was the night of the expo that Bucky invited David and her to, but she was dreading to go. Bucky and Steve were always protective of her; being a young black girl in the only black neighbourhood of Brooklyn, she tended to get in a bit of trouble. They assigned themselves to be bodyguards and it hadn’t changed as they grew up; so, with the bruise on her face and the obvious tension Bucky observed between the husband and wife yesterday, the soldier knew who the culprit would be. 

“The expo is gonna start soon,” David snakes an arm around her waist, settling his chin on her shoulder. She tenses slightly and he notices. “I’m sorry about that, I really am.” She doesn’t answer, because she doesn’t know how to answer.

“It should be gone by tomorrow,” her monotone voice brings a frown to his face and he pulls her closer to his body.

“Let’s try to make our last few days together remarkable, starting tomorrow.” At his words Jackie turns around and leans against the counter, her arms folding across her chest. His eyes are sincere and there’s a small grin on his face. And it was small  moments like this where Jackie remembered why she loved him. He wasn’t always short-tempered and bad, but the two did get married five months after they had met; so, maybe Jacquelin didn’t know who her husband was all too well. She gives him a soft grin right back.

“Why not start today?”

“Well,” he now puts his hands on her arms leaning a little closer, “tonight, we are joining a bunch of white men to a ridiculous expo and I do have to finish some things before I ship out. But after tonight, we can leave Andre with your mother and enjoy a few days to ourselves.” David gives her a soft kiss and places his forehead on hers.

“You’re leaving early?”She pulls away a little, obvious confusion sitting on her features.

“Yeah, but I promise that I am all yours until we leave for duty.”

“Well, you can’t necessarily abandon your son before you’re gone for who knows how long.”

“I know that, woman,” He chuckles and Jackie joins him. “On our final day, it’ll just be us.”

“Just us?” Jackie is skeptical for a moment. They haven’t had a day with only the family since Andre was first born.

“I promise.” David kisses his wife one more time before stepping away to start getting ready. Jackie was already dressed since she had to take Andre to her mother’s house. The baby was sleeping in his crib already dressed for his day at his grandmother’s. After double checking his baby bag, she scoops him up.

“I’ll meet you there okay?” She plants a soft, but hesitant kiss on David’s cheek and leaves the room without waiting for an answer.

It was warm outside, the sun was sitting on the horizon allowing for a bit of sunlight to guide her to her mother’s. A few neighbors greet the mother and sleeping baby, a lot of people noticing the bruise but not commenting on it. There were rumors of David that when he was a little too drunk or Jackie was a little “out of place,” he would lay his hands on her. Some said every night and some would say not very often. No one knew the truth, but they knew the type of man David was even though the little family had only been in the little apartment for a little under a year. He had high confidence and the means to prove how much of  a man he was, and ironically, that’s what attracted Jackie to him in the first place (and of course the fact that she couldn’t really have who she really wanted).

  However, last night was the first time David put his hand on her with such force, he usually gripped her too tight and said things that crushed her spirit to nothingness, but never before had he put his hand on her. She knew what her mother was going to say, but Jackie couldn’t leave him. He was the father of her son and in semblance, she loved him.

It doesn’t take her long to get to her destination. Her knocks on the door are answered by her little brother, but he doesn’t open it for her. He greets her with a quick, and sloppy hug before running off.

“Jordan!” Jackie exclaims and he turns around momentarily.

“I’ve gotta go!” He waves back and then continues running down the sidewalk. Jackie shakes her head before stepping into the quaint townhouse stacked between two similar townhouses.

“Ma!” She shouts through the house, taking off her shoes at the door and pushing herself through the space. The house looked the same, the only thing knew was the vase of flowers adorning the coffee table.

“Jackie, you’re here already?”

“Yes mom, the expo starts in about an hour, David’s already headed down there.” Jackie continues walking until she makes it to the kitchen. “I just brought you your favorite grandson.” Jackie places Andre into the crib that was in the kitchen, trying to hide her cheek from her mother.

“I won’t tell Frederick you said that, he already thinks I spoil Andre more than his girls.”

“Well of course you do, ma. Freddie moved himself down south so all you have now is my baby. If he has a problem with it, he can move back.” Jackie tucks the blanket around her son, her face still turned around from her mother. She places a kiss on Andre’s head and smooths out his curly black hair.

“Why hasn’t David shown himself around here in a while?” Ma’s stirring the pot, but her eyes are on her daughter’s back.

“Guess he’s just been busy.” Jackie shrugs. She is so preoccupied on her fussing son that she jumps when her mother places a soft hand on her arm.

“Rumors spread around fast here Jacquelin. And you don’t wanna talk to me, so I always be assuming the worst.” 

Jackie slowly turns her head towards her mother and a quick gasp escapes the lips of the older woman. The bruise is hidden partially under the makeup applied, but Gloria can still see it on her daughter’s dark skin. She touches it and the new mother winces, the pain still radiating.

“He laid a hand on you?” Gloria whispers, not believing the sight that was in front of her. A tear escapes out of Jackie’s eye and she rips her face out of her mother’s grasp.

“It’s not as bad as you think.” Jackie pulls her jacket closer to her body. “It was an accident, entirely my fault.”

“I don’t know what that monster has been pouring into your ears, but don’t you dare defend him! He does not have the right to put his hands on you!” Her voice rises as the words spill out from her throat, concern, worry, and anger coating them as well.

“And you don’t have the right to get into our business!” Jackie yells back.  

“I am your mother!” Gloria spits back, glaring at her daughter, who was unrecognizable.

“I told you, it wasn’t his fault. It was an accident.” Gloria is shocked by Jackie’s words, her feet taking a few steps back and her hand grasping the baby crib.

“Jackie Ann, stop lying to yourself. Everyone sees it, when will you?”

“You think I don’t see it, mom?!” Jackie hisses, but her voice begins to tremble. “I know that when he’s with me, he’s not with me. His mind is off floating to his little side piece as he neglects loving me and loving his son. I see his anger all the time and it scares me, because he is not the same man that I married. I see that more than anyone.” Tears have fully escaped Jackie’s face, the makeup around her eyes becoming slightly smudged.

“Then why are you staying with him.” Gloria puts a hand on the crying woman’s unharmed cheek, curiosity obvious on her face.

“Mama,” Jackie grasps her mother’s hand and holds tight. “Andre deserves to be brought up right. I will not be the reason that his father disappears from his life. After Papa died in the war I saw how you struggled with the four of us and I saw how much Freddie has changed since he doesn’t have his pops anymore. I don’t want that for Andre.”

“You shouldn’t put such expectation on yourself. You can’t control the world. You and that bastard ared both soldiers in this war and you know you can’t change the outcome.”

“I will try my hardest.” With those parting words Jackie grips herself from her mother’s hands and proceeds to exit the house. She was glad that her small heeled shoes slipped right on, she didn’t want to spend another second in that house. 

Jackie notices her youngest sibling sitting on the stairs that sat in front of the door. 

“Don’t go.” Jackie’s knees weaken due to her sister’s eyes. Although she wants to immediately leave, she knows that she can’t leave Felicity like this. The older sister kneels in front of the younger one.

“Hey, everything’s gonna be okay,” Jackie caresses Felicity’s chin and forces a smile on her own face. “It’ll all be okay, promise.”

“It doesn’t seem like it will be. You and Frederick are going off overseas. Rumors about David are going around the neighborhood. It just doesn’t seem alright.”

“Freddy and I will make it back. And don’t listen to those rumors, David and I are just going through a rough patch. When this war is over and we come back home, everything will be okay,” Jackie rises and gives her a comforting look before leaving.

The sun had already set when Jackie made it to the destination. Everything that had happened earlier that day seemed to escape her as she took in the bustling crowd that floated around. Despite the sneak looks that many whites gave as they moved, Jackie could tell that it was going to be a good night.

“Hey Bucky!”

The exclamation causes Jackie to turn her head to where it came from. She sees two young white women standing off beside a statue, the brunette has her hand raised in a wave to someone approaching them. Jackie follows the trajectory and notices Bucky and Steve. She makes her way over, nerves clawing away at the insides of her stomach and a sense of security rising around her as she happened to be a lone black woman in a crowd bustling with those who didn’t want her there. 

The nurse catches up to the group and Bucky immediately notices her. “Jacquelin!” He says, wanting to take a step towards her to embrace her, but Steve and the blonde lady stand in his way.

“Evening James.” Jackie grins and then looks to her other friend. “Steve.” Her hand brushes his outer arm slightly as she finally sets her eyes on his small frame. “Thank you again for inviting us.” Her eyes quickly sweep over the group before landing back on her intertwined hands.

“Where’s David?” Bucky asks, something familiar to hope dancing in his eyes.

“He said he was making his way here. I just arrived.” Jackie forces herself to look everywhere but at him, especially when that brunette lady was stuffing herself beside James like he was hers to claim. She didn’t know where this ferocity came from, just yesterday she had told herself that he couldn’t possibly be hers, but seeing him in another woman’s arms did something to her beating heart. The brunette’s actions forcibly stopped Jackie’s heart a few times and Jackie couldn’t bear that feeling. So she rips her eyes away to look for her husband.

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon.” Steve answers and that brings a smile to the black woman’s face. Something he was always able to do.

“Thanks Stevie.” The nickname slips out of Jackie’s lips as a quiet whisper which only Steve could hear and he nods. 

“Jackie!” James says as if to bring Jackie’s attention back to himself, “this is Connie and Bonnie.” He points to the brunette and blonde respectively. “Girls, this is Jackie. A friend.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Jackie smiles, holding her hand out to shake, and they all greet each other. The group all begin walking deeper into the convention, time passing by around them.

“Welcome to the Modern Marvels Pavilion and the World of Tomorrow. A greater world. A better world.” exclaims of a Mr. Stark begin to rise from the surrounding crowd.

“Oh, my God! It’s starting!” Connie exclaims, giggles spilling out of her and her friend’s throats. Connie grabs James’s hand and pulls him toward the grand stage that sat in the back of the large hall, Bonnie follows along while Steve and Jackie are left behind, walking together.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Howard Stark!”

“How’ve you been Steve?” Jackie asks, the two of them getting closer to the group of three in the front.

“I’ve been better.” He shrugs and Jackie nudges him with her body, a small smile appearing on his face.

“I heard you’ve been trying to enlist. I’m sorry that that isn’t working out for you.” They finally stop behind the trio. She places a hand on his arm and he looks up to her. “I know that you’ll find your calling. James’s trying to prove that the whole universe can’t keep the three of us apart.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she smiles a full smile and then grabs a piece of popcorn from the bag he is holding. “And you know what, I kind of want him to prove it wrong.” She shrugs and at the mention of his name Bucky looks back at his two best friends talking. Jackie feels his eyes on her and she looks up at him, giving a loving grin. He absolutely adored how easily she could bring a smile to Steve’s face and he missed the bond the three of them used to have. She averts her gaze from him and finally pays attention to the man on stage who just placed a kiss on the female announcer. 

“Ladies and gentleman,” Howard begins. Steve offers popcorn to his ‘date,’ which she silently refuses and turns her face back to the front.“What if I told you that in just a few short years, your automobile won’t even have to touch the ground at all?”

“It’s okay,” Jackie pats Steve’s shoulder. When the small white man settles himself back beside her, Jackie looks around for her husband, who she can’t seem to find. It shouldn’t have been hard to find him, she seemed to be the only black woman – black person – in the crowd. 

Mr. Stark continues showcasing his invention, but Jackie’s mind is somewhere else as she begins to think about where her husband could be. But she knew.

A slam brings her attention back to the stage up front and the vehicle seems to be spitting out smoke. “I did say a few years, didn’t I?” Stark says and the crowd begins applauding, Jackie’s hands joining in claps as well but she wasn’t really paying attention.

“Hey Steve, what do you say we treat these girls –” James turns and trails off when he notices that Steve has disappeared from Jackie’s side. He looks to the short black woman, whose gaze is off to the side, tears beginning to brim. “Jackie?”

She slowly turns her head towards him and notices the look he’s giving her. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” He looks as if he is going to wipe the tear away from her cheek and his hand raises, almost making its way to its destination, but Jackie beats him to it and wipes it away.

“Are you o–”

“Where’s Stevie?” Jackie interrupts him and he forces a sigh out. It was always one step forward but ten steps back when it came to the relationship between the two of them.

“I’m not sure. Wanna help me look for him?” Jackie nods and begins walking away from the stage as James turns to sas something to the other two girls. 

Jackie doesn’t make it too far when James reaches up to her. She doesn’t spare him a glance, because surprisingly he hasn’t noticed the bruise peeking out from under her makeup. His attention was probably focused on the beautiful brunette and bimbo of a friend.

“I’m sorry that your hus–”

“Please don’t James. It doesn’t matter.” She shrugs dejectedly, her eyes now looking for Steve and not her husband. “I just wish sometimes that we can go back, you know. Back to when we were children sneaking out of the house so we could play some made up game at the park.” She gives out a sad sigh, her hands swinging by her side which would occasionally swipe against James’s warm one.

“I do too. But then you wouldn’t have your son.” Jackie slightly nods at his truth. “And I wouldn’t get to see how beautiful you’ve become.” Jackie chuckles shyly at that and shakes her head. She finally glances up at him and he shoots her a smirk, but then spots it. The bruise. His hand comes up to her almost at a superhuman-like speed and it stops her in her place. Jackie notices what is happening and tries to step away, but James’s hold is firm.

“James, let me go.” She quietly hisses and his eyes roam on the purple mark. The makeup was accidentally smudged by Jackie so now it was more prevalent on her dark face.

“Did he do this to you?” He hisses back, taking a bit of a step closer. She doesn’t answer and Bucky pulls her around a corner that is secluded from the rest of the crowd. Here he can finally place a hand on her cheek. The touch brings a heat to Jackie’s body and if it weren’t for the current situation they were in, she would keep his hand there. It was gentle and genuine, something that she hadn’t felt in a long time and the fact that it was him touching her, made it more special. But for now she just wanted to step away. “Jackie, what happened?” His tone changes into a softer one and his thumb softly grazes her skin, a chill swimming down her spine. She didn’t know how a man so much larger than her could soften himself up just to make sure she was okay.

“James, it is none of your concern.” She couldn’t bring herself to spill some lie to him, he would see right through her. 

“Why not? He put his hands on you!” His other hand now cups her other cheeks and he is looking into her eyes, sincerity and care swimming in them. “Was it because I stopped by yesterday?” When Jackie doesn’t answer, he chokes out a tortured sound and his eyes close. His forehead rests on hers and she closes her eyes with him.

“James,” she chokes out and he opens his eyes, leaning back a little. “I promise you don’t have to worry.”

His eyes glaze over her face, noticing the dried tear streaks on her face. Jackie’s eyes are still closed so it allows for him to finally look at her, without her shying away. “When are you gonna understand that I am always going to worry about you?” 

“But you can’t James. You know you can’t.” She then opens her eyes and lets them linger on her friend. Softly, she takes his forearms and leads them back to his side. Her hands then hesitantly slid off of him.

“He’s lucky he didn’t show up.” The fury is still present in his eyes, his hands now balled into fists as his thoughts wander to Jackie’s abusive husband. 

“And that would cause more problems that neither of us could deal with.” She steps back and leans against the wall that was beside them. “Besides, you don’t see me causing any trouble with that girl you brought.” This leaves her mouth nonchalantly, but it puts James on alert.

“Really Jackie?” He scoffs before putting himself beside her. “I brought her and her friend to cheer Steve up and I really didn’t want to watch you and your husband smooching and whatnot.”

“Well I guess David didn’t get the memo.” Jackie pushes herself off the wall and begins walking toward a recruitment building in the distance.

“Jackie, you’ve become a little unfair since the last time I saw you.” He cups her elbow and slows her down a bit.

“Well James, it’s not like we can travel back in time to relive our glory days, or go to a different dimension where we can be together.” The two of them pass a photo booth and James stops for only a second to address the photographer within one side.

“I know that, I know that you believe that that's the easiest way to address...us and maybe it is.” He stops walking and so does she, taking just a moment to look at his beauty. “But for just this second, before we resume looking for Steve and before we have to go our separate ways, let us not think that way.”

“And how do you suppose we do that?” 

James lightly takes her hand and begins walking backward, pulling her toward the photo booth that remained ready for them. There’s a teasing smile on his face and Jackie rolls her eyes, but honestly she was taking this carefree moment. It was like they were teenagers again and there was no one around that could possibly bother them. For once Jackie didn’t care what was going on around them.

James leads Jackie into the booth first and then he steps in behind her, his hand finding its way to her waist. He marvels at her innocent beauty, something she always tried to put to the sidelines as they grew up but he always noticed. And now the only thing that disrupted it was the purple bruise on her cheek.

“I’m sorry about what he did to you. You don’t deserve it.” He whispers, the space between them small. The hand that isn’t lying on her waist delicately traces her cheekbone and its sending chills throughout her body.

“It’s okay.” She says back. The tension building in between them was too much for her to handle so she turned her face to the camera. “Are we just going to smile?” 

When Bucky doesn’t answer, she faces him only to find that his eyes never left her. A lazy grin decorates his face and Jackie chuckles, removing his hand from her face and turning his face to the camera just in time for it to flash. “That should be a good picture, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, should be good. But let’s take one more.”

“James, we have to look for Steve.”

“Just one more.”

James’s hand returns to cup Jackie’s cheek and he pulls her forward, his lips almost touching hers. And he wants to, but he sees the hesitance in her eyes and he would never put her in a difficult situation.  His lips turn up to show his happiness and Jackie lets out a hesitant laugh. It’s that moment when the second flash goes off, but neither of them really notice.

“Can we go find Steve now?”

“Yeah, I guess we should.” But he doesn’t move and if Jackie wasn’t married she would’ve kissed him that second. But she was a good person, too good of a person. And she was a black woman in 1940s America, she didn’t need anything to be harder for her.

“Bucky, we have to go.”

“Now you call me Bucky?” He rolls his eyes before grabbing her hand and exiting the booth. When they make it out of the little space they created together, Jackie pulls her hand out of James’s hands and  into a position in front of her body.

“It seems to be the only thing that can get you out of whatever trance you were just in.” 

“Fair enough,” he shrugs with a grin. “I bet Steve’s in here.” He leads her into the very same recruitment building she noticed minutes ago. The crowd around them bustles with movement, no one seeming to notice the short break they took from reality. The white soldier and the black woman. Oh, how she yearned for a time where the didn’t have to hide. 

When they make it inside, it isn’t hard for her to find Steve. She grabs James’s forearm and pulls him toward their smaller friend.

“Come on. You’re kind of missing the point of a double date.” Bucky shouts to Steve and it takes everything in Jackie not to roll her eyes. “We’re taking the girls dancing.”

Steve looks between the two of his friends. Trying to comprehend what could possibly happen tonight especially with an abandoned Jackie and an accompanied Bucky. “You go ahead,  I’ll catch up with you.” He brushes them off instead so that he can fulfill what he wanted to.

“You’re really going to do this again?” The uniform clad brunette says when it finally dawns on him what Steve’s gonna do.

“Well, it’s a fair. I’m gonna try my luck.” Steve answers back and Jackie tries to comfort him by stepping closer and placing a hand on his arm, as if to ground him.

“As who, Steve from Ohio?” Bucky grimaces, and Jackie tries to place herself between them while hoping that no one’s attention would be on them. “They’ll catch you. Or worse, they’ll actually take you.”

“Steve, you need to be careful. Bucky can bust you out of all of things, but jail isn’t one of them.” Jackie’s hand grip Steve’s forearm tighter, as if it were a warning.

“Look, I know you guys don’t think I can do this.”

“That’s not what I’m saying Stevie.” Jackie says simultaneously with Bucky’s answer.

“This isn’t a back alley, Steve. It’s war.”

“I know it’s a war.”

Bucky speaks before Jackie can say anything, and she pulls herself closer to Steve. “Why are you so keen to fight? There are so many important jobs.”

“What do you want me to do? Collect scrap metal in my little red wagon?” Steve rebuttals, annoyance and a little anger minimally hidden in his words.

“Boys, let’s not cause–” Jackie tries again.

“Yes! Why not?”

“I’m not gonna sit in a factory, Bucky.” Bucky says something again, but Jackie’s attention is on the people around them. “Bucky, come on.” Steve exclaims and both Bucky and Jackie stop. “There are men lying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about me.”

“Right. ‘Cause you got nothing to prove.” Bucky nods, annoyance obviously on his own face.

“James, that’s unfair.” Jackie says, standing right beside Steve and looking up to the soldier in front of her. He looks down to her, his jaw clenched. She shakes her head at him to stop him from saying something he’d regret.

No one can speak up again because Connie’s voice arises from behind. “Hey Sarge! Are we going dancing?” something changes in James as he turns around to address her and it pisses Jackie off. This time she doesn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. Steve catches it and gives her a little chuckle.

“Yes, we are.” He turns back to Steve and shakes his head, before addressing Jackie. “You coming?”

Jackie looks from him to the two ladies behind him, her arms crossing in front of her body as if to shield herself. “No thank you, I think I’m just gonna head home early.” She doesn’t really look at him this time, and those few intimate moments they spent with each other seemed like it was nonexistent. Bucky shakes his head in disbelief before making his way to join the two white ladies.

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” He says to Steve.

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” The joke causes a laugh to explode from Jackie’s chest and she quickly places her hand over her mouth, looking down to the ground.

“You’re a punk.”

“Jerk.” Bucky walks back towards Steve and envelops him into a hug.

“Be careful.” He then steps to Jackie and grasps her hand in a little, secret hold.

“Make it back, okay?” Jackie whispers and James softly grins. 

“I will.” He whispers back before beginning to back off. “Are you sure you don’t wanna come?”

“I don’t have a dance partner.” Her eyes finally flick up to meet his and she gives him a sad grin. He understood.

“Don’t win the war till I get there.” Jackie nudges Steve and he nudges her back. James salutes and his face finally disappears from the two’s view.

“Steve, you are an absolutely crazy man. But I understand you, I do. I wouldn’t have joined the Army if I didn’t. Being a black nurse during these times isn’t easy, but I wanted to do my part. And nothing was gonna stop me, now look at me.” Jackie is still looking at Bucky’s receding back. Sad that this was how they parted. She turns to the shorter man. “Please don’t get yourself caught. Or killed. Cause Steve, I know you’re meant for great things.” She pulls him into a quick hug as if to say goodbye and walks away in a different direction.

Jackie doesn’t stop by her mother’s house to pick up her son. She instead walks into her empty home and sits in the dark living room. Her mind wanders to the events of her day. Her husband’s false promises. Steve’s urgency to join the ear. Connie and Bonnie and their quest for a good time. And Bucky.

Glorious Bucky.

James Buchanan Barnes.

A man Jackie forced herself to move on from because there was no place for the both of them. They didn’t have the power to create a world for them both. That’s the real reason she left and disappeared and didn’t appear back into his life for another year. She couldn’t deal with the reality that she couldn’t have him to herself. And now she was married to a two-timing bastard working to the bone to become the perfect wife. But if she could hold Bucky close, his hand in hers and on her waist and dance with him to some irrelevant background as the only thing keeping them grounded would be each other.

It really was a shame. And Jacquelin sat there as it went over her mind, over and over. Even as she tidied around the house and put her things together. Even until her tipsy husband stumbled through the front door a little past midnight. She only thought of her and Bucky, and the life that never could be. 

Jackie just watches David as he makes it into their home, he looked to be having a headache. When the door is locked and closed, he walks over to the couch Jackie was sitting on and places himself beside her. He tries reaching for her hand, but she yanks it away and settles it on the arm of the sofa.

“You let me look like a fool. A damn fool. Just so that you can go mess with some...bitch that can’t keep her legs closed.” Before he could react, Jackie pushes herself up and paces to the other side of the room, creating some distance between the two of them. “I don’t care that you are backing out of the vows that we made 18 months ago even though I have been faithful to you. Took care of you. And loved you. And you go out and shame this family, humiliate me, put your hands on me.” Her voice has risen, but it trembles with tears. Her throat stiff as she tries to keep her composure. David stares at her, his jaw becoming stiff and his brows becoming furrowed. He looked like he wanted to hit something.

“I have only kept up with your bullshit for our son! Our son! A boy that doesn’t even recognize your touch! Doesn’t know your voice or your eyes! How sad is that?” Jackie stops pacing, hands on her hips, and looks at her husband. She takes her wedding band off and throws it at him. It clatters to the ground and lets out a small chime as it settles on the wood floor.  “I will only be your wife when it concerns our son.” Her voice had become menacingly low. “And if you do anything that will jeopardize the happiness of that dear boy, I will leave and he will never know your name.” Again Jackie doesn’t give him a chance to answer, he can barely get himself off the couch as she quickly grabs the bags that sit right next to the door.

“I’m gonna go stay with my Ma. You try and fix yourself up so that you can properly get to know your son.” With those final words and bags in hand, Jackie walks out of the small townhome and towards her mother’s home.

__________________________

Part Three: 1943

[rinah-creates]

Thank you @flashfictionfridayofficial for the prompt! This wasn't easy to write, because it was difficult to pick just one idea, but I enjoyed it.

Title: To alleviate boredom

Setting: 1943, Nazi Germany, a country house (yes, last week's AU had more to give apparently)

WC: 895

Sophie once again found herself in her chair by the window, reading a book. It seemed to be her most common pastime recently. When her sisters were home, she would occasionally help them with their studies and homework. But of course, they weren’t at home now. Her little brother, annoying three-year-old brat as he was, provided some distraction. But he too was absent, her mother took him with her grocery shopping. That left her, alone in the big house, bored and forgotten.

She was staring at the page in front of her, reading the same three lines over and over again, her mind wandering. Footsteps outside her door brought her to reality. Two pairs, one heavy and equal, her father no doubt, the other one lighter, but unknown, so not her mother. She put her book down and turned just in time to hear the knock.

“Come in?” She wondered who was the other woman. Surely, her father wouldn’t keep a mistress. And if he did, he wouldn’t parade her around the house, within her earshot, or come talk to her, leaving the other woman in the hallway.

“Sophie?” Her father’s tone was concerned. “Are you listening to me?”

“Sorry, Papa, I was miles away. Can you say that again?”

“I asked how are you. Other than pensive.” He smiled in the corner of his mouth, not sure if his comment would be heard as a joke, or welcomed as one.

“Bored.” Sophie returned her father’s smile half-heartedly.

“I might be able to help with that. Your mother and I decided we need a bit of help now, with Ernst needing round the clock supervision and Clara joining the HJ...”

“You mean you hired a nurse to take care of me.” Sophie interrupted, categorical and hurt.

“Think if her as more of a... companion, shall we say.”, he tried to appease her. It was of no use, however; Sophie’s temper flared, her usually short fuse even shorter now.

“Will you pay her?” not waiting for an answer, she continued “Will she move me? Wash me? Bring me food? Call her what you will, but she is a nurse. One you hired so you don’t have to deal with me anymore. It’s too hard, isn’t it? Too much work, caring for your broken child?”

“Will you at least give her a chance? Try. It might be actually better for all of us, including you.”

Sophie sighed and conceded with a vigorous nod that brought her hair cascading over her face. She tried crossing her arms as well, but the burned one refused to bend properly, so the result was more like a relaxed fold than the annoyed knot she was aiming for. She huffed, irritated. Her father stood and opened the door, inviting the woman inside.

“Hello. My name is Adelheid...”

Sophie snorted at the irony. Clara was her sister’s name, not hers, but her so called companion was named Heidi. Her life was turning into a children’s novel.

“...but you can call me Heidi, most people do.” The woman purposely ignored Sophie’s outburst.

Sophie jumped, surprised by an extended hand hovering just a few inches away from hers. She shook it as a reflex and only then realised the woman had offered her left hand instead of her right.

“I’ll stick to Adelheid, if you don’t mind. I’m Sophie. But you probably already knew that.” She looked up from behind her curls, taking the newcomer in.

She had blonde hair, cut short, near her head, and pale blue eyes. She was young, probably not older than 25, but her eyes carried a depth of compassion and understanding. It made Sophie feel bad that she had behaved like a spoiled child. She had a clear, light face, shaped like an oval, with a button nose. There was a flush to her cheeks and a vitality to her face that only came with spending hours upon hours outside. She smiled, a kind hearted smile that carried a mischievous undertone in the curl of her lips. Her lips. Cracked by wind and rosy red, the lower one more so than the upper, she probably bit it while waiting outside.

With a start, Sophie realised she was still holding Adelheid's hand and she quickly let go, blushing. She dropped her gaze from the woman’s face, which gave her a chance to notice the rest of her appearance. She was wearing grey trousers, military issued by the looks of them, clearly a masculine cut, and a plain cream blouse. Probably her husband’s trousers, Sophie thought, surprised at her own disappointment.

One thing was clear. Adelheid was queer. And her presence did queer things to Sophie. Had she really just stared at this woman for God knows how long? While her father was still in the room? As if reading her thoughts, Adelheid smiled. Sophie’s stomach fluttered. She had her fair share of soldier boys in uniforms courting her, but none had made her feel quite so... smitten. Adelheid was queer and Sophie was curious. Was it possible she was wrong about the whole situation? Had she actually fallen for the older woman? And if she had, what would that be like? Questions rose, fell and spiralled in her head. Sophie returned Adelheid’s smile, genuinely happy, and allowed her mind to become muted, drowned in the pale blue of her eyes.

Criticism is always welcome, as long as it is constructive.

Tagging @rainy-rose, for once I post before you do and get to do the tagging =)))

Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list.

[bunimalsfiberdolls]

~Early Spring, 1943~

           Madonna Maria ibn-La’Ahad crossed her legs, slowly, deliberately, and watched the man seated on the loveseat across from her track the movement with his eyes.  She knew that he knew that she never wore anything under her skirts except a garter belt, to keep her stockings up.  His eyes went dark with desire and she savored the savage satisfaction that observation brought her.            “Tea?” she offered, indicating the tea service an elf had deposited on the low table between them.  “Lemon, no sugar, correct?  Or would you rather have it black?”            “What do you want, Maria?  I’m a very busy man,” Grandmaster Mario Auditore rumbled, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowing.  He openly stared at her cleavage, the creamy tops of her breasts displayed to him by the wide gapping neckline of her blouse as she leaned forward.  She curled her lips into a smile and took her time pouring herself a cup of tea before settling back into her armchair, teacup and saucer delicately balanced on one hand.  He did not return her smile.  She hadn’t bothered to pour his tea.

           “As I’m sure you are aware, my son intends to bring his pregnant young bride for her first visit to Italy during Holy Week-”            “Our son,” he corrected her. “Giovanni has been dead for twelve years, Maria.  After all this time, can’t you at least privately acknowledge that Ezio is mine?”            “So that you can successfully brand me an adulteress and steal this house from me, like you and your mother stole everything else after your fool of a brother got himself and my eldest son killed?  No, Mario.  Your family has taken enough from me.  I will acknowledge no such thing.  Ezio and Mari are mine, and mine alone.  I will not give you any further claim on them.”            “So, is Mari mine as well?”  He glowered at her.  “All these years you’ve let me think… You treacherous, lying bitch.  God damn you, Maria!”            She arched an eyebrow at his outburst and took a careful sip of tea.              “Don’t pretend that you have ever wanted a daughter, Mario,” she scoffed. “After the difficulty of Mari’s birth left me unable to have further children you were only too happy to write us off to Gio and leave both of us to starve when he died.”  She took another sip of tea, carefully calculated to give her enough time to make sure her voice was perfectly cold and even before she continued.  “I have accepted, years ago, that I was never anything more to you than another part in your petty rivalry with your pathetic brother.  Don’t you agree it’s time to stop pretending otherwise?”            “That’s not – you were never – that’s not even remotely true!” he bellowed, lurching to his feet to loom over her.  “Falling in love with you poisoned my relationship with my brother, and having you in my bed ruined me for other women.”            She sighed, finished her tea, and then set the cup and saucer back on the table with the rest of the tea service while she waited for Mario to conclude his tirade.            “You fucking destroyed my life, Maria!  I had great prospects before Gio brought you here.  Everyone acknowledged that one day I could rise to Al Mualim, and now, now I can never publicly acknowledge my own son without admitting that I cuckolded my brother and risk my position in the Order. Because of you.  You and your forked tongue and treacherous cunt!  My god, you have no fucking idea how it gutted me, whenever Gio was with you, imagining you moaning like a whore in his arms while I laid alone in bed-”            “Hardly,” she tersely interrupted him.  “I didn’t ask you here to rehash that tired old argument-” she curled her fingers and nonverbally cast a silence when he opened his mouth to interrupt her – “and I refuse to accept any of the blame for your shortcomings and rampant alcoholism.”            He shrugged off the spell and glowered at her.  She didn’t bother trying to cast another; Mario was waiting for her to do just that, and she’d already effectively derailed his diatribe. In some ways, her brother-in-law was almost laughably simple to manage.            “What do you want from me?”            “An armistice.”            “An armistice,” he scoffed.  “After all this time?  Why now?”            “Because, less than a year ago, Ezio was so unhappy he tried to kill himself-” her throat constricted with distress at the memory of her son, pale and half dead, after Cesare had pulled him out of the river and Mario’s expression softened, slightly.  “I almost lost him then, and now that he’s been transferred to Alamūt, neither of us will see much of him, or his child, if he finds visiting Roma stressful or unpleasant.  I want to see my son.  I want to get to know his wife and hold my grandchild.  And I know you want that as well.”            Mario sighed and collapsed back down on the loveseat he had occupied previously.            “Yeah,” he rasped.  “I want that too.”  He leveled a hard, calculating look at her.  “I want him to know he’s my son.”            She clenched her teeth and glared back at him.  From her voluminous correspondence with her family and old friends at Alamūt, it was clear to her that Ezio’s mental state was still fragile, and his current ability to assimilate a revelation of that magnitude was dubious, at best.  Once that became clear to Mario, he’d do what would be best for her son, one way or another.            From a purely strategic point of view, it hardly mattered who Ezio’s father was at this point; Federico had been the heir to the Auditore estate, while he’d still been alive, as the eldest male issue of Mario’s younger brother, Giovanni.  Fredo had loved his siblings completely and unconditionally, learning that they didn’t all have the same father wouldn’t have changed anything for him; they were still all Auditores, after all.  When Fredo fell – even after so many years, something sharp and jagged twisted in her chest whenever she thought of her elder son’s death – Ezio legally became the Auditore heir.  That Ezio was actually fathered by her husband’s older brother technically made him illegitimate, but the stark truth of the situation was that there were no other potential male heirs to challenge his claim and her mother-in-law, La Donna Claudia, desperately wanted the estate and all other ancestral Auditore holdings to remain in her branch of the family.            However, Madonna Maria had absolutely no intention of ever telling Ezio the man he’d always known as his uncle was, in fact, his biological father. His sire.  She didn’t think of her children as having fathers – not like how she was their mother – the brothers who’d gotten her with child had never been forced to give up anything to spawn her children, whereas she had been forced to give up everything – her home, her first language, her ability to serve the Order in the only way she’d ever known – years of sacrifice and suffering and training rendered meaningless with the stroke of a pen.            “I want – if you won’t say it yourself – I want you not to deny it when I tell him,” Mario continued ruthlessly.  He hesitated a moment, scowling at her tea service and clenching and unclenching his teeth, before raising his eyes to hers with a searing look. “And I want to know the truth about Mari, Maria.  Is she mine as well?”            Despite his numerous other shortcomings, she grudgingly had to acknowledge that Mario had always been good to Ezio and he prioritized what was best for her son above anything else – including his duty to the Order, at times.  She always put the Order first, like a true and devoted Assassin; that’s how she and her sisters had been raised.  She threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin.              “Mari is mine, and no other’s.  She has no father.”            Mario snorted.  “It’s a little too late to take the same line your crazy sister did when people asked about her bastard.”            She hated how sharply that decades old barb still stung; Aaliyah’s service to the Order had been absolute, her sister had willingly sacrificed everything at the command of Al Mualim, and only after she had fallen did lesser people – people like Maria’s in-laws – feel secure enough to slander her sister and use that word against her nephew.            “Aaliyah was a seraph, a pearl before swine who was murdered by an old man too weak to wield the blade himself,” she seethed.  “Don’t you dare speak of her like that.”            Mario’s mouth twisted and she braced herself for further insult, but then he heaved a tired sigh and slouched back against the back of the loveseat.            “Don’t you ever get tired of hating me, Maria?” he asked, scrubbing a hand across his face.  “Gio’s been dead and buried too long for him to still come between us.  Can’t we, can’t we at least try to be friendly, for Ezio’s sake?”            “I was being friendly,” she informed him, tapping the nail of her index finger against the armrest of her couch.  “My invitation was cordial.  Any unfriendliness in this conversation has been your doing, Granmaestro.”              Mario narrowed his eyes and harrumphed in response.  She watched him for a moment, letting the silence between them lengthen, before she reached up to adjust the delicate chain supporting the Roman Cross of pearls she had selected from her jewelry cache that morning. The elf had been skeptical of her choices; that particular pendant was far too heavy for such a thin chain, but she liked how they looked together, and if the chain happened to break during her meeting with Mario, she’d turn that to her advantage.  She usually could.  Mario assumed a suspiciously benign expression and cleared his throat.            “You’re right, of course,” he said, far too graciously to be even the least bit sincere.  “I should not have brought up, your sister, or said that about her son.  It was, unnecessary, and rude.”  He exhaled a slow deep breath and she watched the fingers of his right hand, previously splayed at rest against his thigh, curl into a fist.  “I know Ezio is very fond of his cousin, and that Altaïr’s companionship has been a source of great comfort and support to him in these difficult times.”            “Yes,” she agreed, tone artfully tempered pleasant.  “Ezio has always been close to my nephews, and I know that both Malik and Altaïr love him like a brother,” she replied automatically, before a shrapnel burst of pain across her chest reminded her that the present tense no longer applied to her elder nephew.  She must have let something bleed through her expression because Mario’s brows momentarily drew together and he started forward, towards her, before he caught himself and leaned back against the couch.            “We have all been lessened by the loss of Malik, and his family.”  He offered the platitude stiffly, expression wooden and posture ridged.  She gritted her teeth and focused on drawing slow, careful breaths through her nose until she could trust her voice to be perfectly even.            “Some of us more so than others.  You never liked Malik.  Please don’t insult his memory by lying about that fact.”            “Don’t play the martyr, Maria.  You’ve only got me for an audience.”            A hard retort almost slipped past her lips before she thought better of it and twisted her lips into something like a smile instead.            “I thought you said you wanted us to try to be friendly, Mario?”            He sighed.  “Maria…”            She deliberately uncrossed her legs, noting the way his eyes again tracked the movement with satisfaction as she stood and made her way over to perch on the edge of the loveseat beside him.  His breathing had quickened and gone shallow; Mario had never been as good at suppressing his emotional responses as she was.  It seems some things never change.            “What are you doing?” he rasped as she reached over and uncurled his clenched fist and smoothed his fingers against his thigh.  He could have easily pulled his hand away or pushed her back; he did not.            “Being friendly.”  She smiled and leaned closer.  They’d gone through the steps of this particular dance countless times over the years and her body ached with anticipation.  “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”            “You’re only interested in what I want when it suits you.”            “Isn’t that true of everyone?” she parried, sliding her hand upwards along the inside of his thigh.  “Besides, we’re both invested in doing what’s best for Ezio, aren’t we?”            “We have very different ideas about what’s best for our son-”            “My son.”            “Our son,” he corrected her. He’d leaned closer during their exchange and his eyes drifted shut as he closed the space between them, brushing his lips against the side of her neck as he inhaled deeply.  “Christ, you smell good.  They never should have married you to Gio; it should have been me.  Think how differently everything would have gone, if I’d been your first, instead of him.”            “But you weren’t.”  She shifted her thighs apart as his hand slid further up her skirt.  Neither of the Auditore brothers had been her first, as they liked to put it, but there wasn’t any advantage to correcting that assumption and it had never really mattered – to her, at least - anyway.  “Things are what they are and there’s no point to wishing they were any different.”            “Cold-blooded as always, aren’t you, Dolcezza?” he murmured, hand moving from her inner thigh to graze the underside of her jaw before tangling in her upswept hair and pulling her forward to meet his lips.  She distractedly noted that the chain of her necklace had broken as the heavy pearl pendant tumbled down her blouse between her breasts.            Mario had always kissed exceedingly well; even when sloppy drunk, his lips and tongue were devilishly clever.  She sighed and melted into the kiss.  He’d be so good at oral sex if he had any willingness to give as well as receive.  She broke their kiss and hitched her body closer to his, tracing the seams of his robes with a single fingertip.            “You’ve broken the chain of my necklace, Sevgili,” she hummed, brushing her lips against his.  His cheek was satiny-smooth to the touch, still softly scented of his shaving soap.  He took the time to shave, how telling.  She parted her lips in an artfully languid smile, dropping her shoulders and lifting her chin to elongate her neck. “My cross must have fallen.  Will you help me find it?”            “Why not just summon it into your hand?”  His lips curled in a self-satisfied smirk as he traced the curve of her clavicle with the callused pads of his fingers.              She would have liked to snap the smile off of his face, it would be so satisfyingly easy with a few sharp words, but she suppressed the urge.  Things are going so well, don’t sabotage yourself now.  She carefully smoothed a loosened lock of hair back into her coiffure and then rolled her shoulders slightly inward, the movement drawing Mario’s eyes from her collarbones to her cleavage, as intended.            “Am I being invited to investigate, Madonna?”            “You broke the chain, Maestro, it’s only good manners to help find it.” She could feel a rough edge of the cross snagging the handmade needle lace of her slip and clenched her teeth into a wider smile.  “Ezio brought me this cross after a contract in Venezia.”            “Then it must be valuable.”  Mario slid his hands up her torso over her blouse, fingers splayed ostensibly in search of her pendant, smile widening when he located it against her breasts.            Not necessarily.  Ezio brought her things he thought were pretty, with seemingly no real thought as to their value.  Her sister Aaliyah had had an exceptionally good eye for valuable things, which was rather unexpected, considering how little interest she had in amassing money.              Most fidā'ī – herself included, to some degree – sought out contracts based on the value of the contract itself, or the likelihood of acquiring valuables, with an eye on clearing their debt and amassing enough to provide for themselves or loved ones when they were no longer able to actively serve the Order.            That had never seemed to matter to Aaliyah.  Even after she’d had her son and adopted her daughter, Aaliyah seemed to select contracts for the challenge they presented, to prove a point to their father and the Order, or perhaps because it suited her.  She’d taken contracts in Cairo because she’d wanted to take her children to the British Museum there, in Istanbul to visit Doğan or some other friendly acquaintance, or in French Morocco simply because it would be a convenient place to buy a new hat.  There was also the inescapable fact that Aaliyah liked to kill.            Killing hadn’t especially bothered her, when she’d been allowed to serve the Order as a fidā'ī.  It had been a little upsetting, at first.  Before too long, however, the shock of taking a life faded and it became merely something that was vaguely unpleasant, although decidedly less so than completing the closing report and attendant paperwork required for each completed contract; somehow, that never became less tedious.  It was hard for her to understand why her husband and brother-in-law seemed to feel so much guilt for doing the Order’s work, that they seemed to view serving as a fidā'ī as a burden instead of an honor. She wondered if Mario would feel mostly relief, instead of regret, when he eventually would be forced into retirement as a rafīk.  He’ll probably expect me to pack up and follow him wherever he’s reassigned, she thought with a sharp spike of annoyance. She had no intention of abandoning the powerbase she’d constructed from nothing in her exile, and was more than happy to avoid that undoubtedly unpleasant conversation for as long as feasibly possible.            “Jeegaretō bokhoram,” he breathed against the side of her throat. She resisted the urge to correct his pronunciation.  Somehow, in over twenty years, Mario still hadn’t bothered to learn how to properly pronounce the few words of Farsi he’d managed to pick up.  It would have been less offensive if he just used Turkish or Italian endearments with her, but at least he seemed sober; there was no reek of alcohol on his breath.            “Gooshe sheytoon kar,” she murmured in response.  May the ears of the devil be deaf.  Naturally, Mario didn’t understand what she’d said and seemed to assume it was just some answering endearment.  Perhaps, in a way, he was not wrong.  The particular devil she had instinctively hid the nature of their relationship from had been dead for fifteen years at this point and his successor was mostly a friend.  Little did Mario suspect that Al Mualim knew of and allowed her shadow management in Rome, probably in redress for unjustly denying her custody of Aaliyah’s children after her father had fallen.            The doorknob rattled just before the parlor door swung slowly open and Filomena entered, apologetically clearing her throat with a demur little cough. Mario huffed a sharply annoyed breath through his nose as she turned her attention to her Solak.            “Madonna-”            “She’s busy.  What could possibly be so important that it can’t wait?”            “Peace, Grandmaestro,” she murmured, having caught sight of the black wax seal on the letter clenched in Filomena’s hand.  “I think it might be best to continue our conversation at another time, don’t you?”  She took the letter from Filomena, tilting it so that Al Mualim’s seal was clearly visible.            “Of course, Madonna,” Mario rumbled, smoothing his moustache and straightening his robes as he rose to his feet.  “Another time, then.”  He wordlessly tipped his chin towards Filomena before turning back to her when she also rose and stiffly offering his arm.  “I trust you have time, at least, to escort me to the door.”            It wasn’t a request.  She forced her shoulders down and back, lifted her chin, and smiled serenely in response as she took his proffered arm.            “Of course, Grandmaestro.”            They left the parlor in roaring silence and proceeded down the hallway.            “What is Al Mualim writing to you?” he finally asked in an undertone as they approached the grand staircase, tone clipped and low.  “Is it something to do with Ezio?  Tell me, woman.”            “How should I know?”  She arched a meticulously groomed brow at his rudeness.  “I haven’t even opened the letter yet, have I.”  She dropped her hand from his arm when they reached the stairs. “My apologies for not accompanying you any further.  Good day, Grandmaestro.”            He caught her around the waist as she turned away and roughly pulled her body back against his own.  Her blood heated in anticipation and she knew he’d noticed her response by the way his hands slid down to her hips and tightened their grip.  He would have me now, in whatever way I wish, if I allowed it.  She savored the satisfaction that knowledge brought her.            “Leave your door unlocked for me this evening,” he hissed in her ear.  “Tell me everything you’ve managed to learn about our children and you’ll get your armistice.”

 ~Summer, 1916~

            He’s absolutely perfect, she couldn’t help thinking as she watched her infant son noisily nursing at her breast.  Unlike Federico, who had been fussy and frustrating at first, Ezio had taken to nursing immediately.  She caressed his head as he fed, running her fingers through his thick fine hair before cupping her palm around the curve of his tiny skull. My perfect, beautiful boy.  Federico had inherited her pale complexion; Ezio, apparently, had not.  He’ll look more like his father, she thought as she ran a finger up her infant’s chubby arm and tickled his tiny palm with her finger.            “You’re playing with fire, Maria-joon,” Cesare commented as he stretched across her bed, where he’d been napping in a patch of sunlight only moments before like an oversized cat.  “Those brothers are going to fight over you like two dogs with a bone once Giovanni sees Mario with that baby.”            “Gio doesn’t care what I do so long as I’m not interfering with his whoring,” she retorted, casting a quick glance at her older son, still sleeping on the settee beneath the window.  Federico had fiercely resisted being put down for a nap.  She’d finally resorted to a spell to help things along.  Ezio had obligingly slept for an hour or so after being fed, but had just woken up demanding to be fed again, which was fine with her; she loved nursing her son.            “No man likes being made a cuckold,” Cesare hummed, settling on his back and lacing his fingers together behind his head.  He flashed her a roguish smile as he lazily eye-fucked her. “Especially not with his older brother – positively cold-blooded on your part, jāné del-am.”            Ezio sneezed and kicked his legs in distress at the momentary loss of her nipple.  She guided his tiny mouth back before he could start crying.            “Sometimes, I almost think you might be a little fond of me, Cesare.” She gently stroked the back of her finger over the curve of Ezio’s cheek as he resumed nursing.  “Isn’t that silly?”            “I am fond of you, Maria-joon,” he chuckled.  “You’re so delightfully ruthless and practical.”  He slithered off the bed and across the space between them to skitter his fingertips up her thighs.  “And impatient for Mario to arrive.  I can taste it on you – naughty girl – lusting after your husband’s brother. Tisk, tisk.”  He playfully wagged a finger at her before chucking her under the chin.  His lips were pillow soft against hers and his tongues were hot in her mouth, heat spilling down her throat to settle in the floor of her pelvis.  “Shall I have you first?”            “Not in front of my children,” she murmured, watching the incubus lightly caress her son’s small body.            “This one is going to be a charmer when he’s older.”  He flashed her a brilliant smile.  “Un ometto così bello.”  Cesare’s accent, as always, was flawless.  She hated how much she envied that.            “Hopefully not too charming for his own good.”  She sighed and glanced over to make sure Federico was still asleep.  “Will you summon an elf for me?  I want Fredo moved into his room before Mario comes.  He’s too young to keep secrets, Cesare.”            “He’s going to have to learn at some point.”  The pulse of summoning magic he released prickled across her skin and Ezio flinched in her arms at the feeling of it.  “Especially in this family.  The sooner the better, Maria-joon.”            He’s not wrong.  She startled at Ezio’s weak mewl of protest and relaxed her suddenly tension-tight grip on her infant son and forced a smile at Cesare.            The incubus watched her in the falling silence with a ghost of a smile on his lips, head cocked slightly to the side and eyes glowing.  She’d become accustomed to the bioluminescence of his eyes years ago and found it flattering that he no longer made any effort to hide his otherness from her.  It was refreshing, and surprisingly comforting, to be around someone with whom there were absolutely no pretenses between them. Something outside the room drew his attention and he momentarily flicked his eyes towards the door.            “I’ll take Federico back to his own bed.  The elves are taking too long and I suspect it would be better for you if I make myself scarce.  Safety and peace be upon you.”

 ~Autumn, 1916~

            “Look at this hair!” her sister Berenice, seated on the couch beside her, laughed as she ruffled her fingers through Ezio’s admirably thick cap of curls.  “I thought most of it would have fallen out by now – it usually does, you know – but not only has he kept all the hair he was born with, he’s grown even more!  Malik, come see your new cousin.”            “Babies are boring,” Maria’s six year-old nephew groaned, shoving a shock of dark hair back from his face.  “They don’t do anything, except sleep and poop.”            “And cry,” her son, Federico, added emphatically, knocking over a whole battalion of tin soldiers with a sweep of his arm.  “Babies are noisy!”            “Some far more than others,” Aaliyah observed dryly in Farsi.  “Those two are much too loud to ever make it far as fidā'ī.”            “They’re just children, let them have their fun,” Berenice scolded and Maria slid a reproachful smile at her younger sister, who was slouched against the leg of a Louis XIV loveseat while she supervised her son as he played with a wooden toy biplane.  Aaliyah’s son, Altaïr, was preternaturally quiet for a toddler, watching everything around him with his strange antique gold eyes in almost total silence.  She’d never heard Altaïr properly cry, like all children do from time to time.  Berenice liked to claim that he howled like an afrit whenever he was separated from his mother, but Maria had yet to witness that reaction for herself; Aaliyah didn’t allow her child more than half a dozen feet away from her, and usually kept him within arm’s reach.            “Not in your mouth,” Aaliyah admonished.  There were fresh teeth marks on one of the plane’s wings.  “Are you hungry, my treasure?” she asked when her son began to fuss – breathless huffs and soft mewling – and tug at the bodice of her robes.            “You should encourage him to use words, Aaliyah,” Berenice reprimanded their younger sister, the critical edge in her voice scraping across Maria’s already raw nerves as she watched Aaliyah’s posture stiffen defensively. “It isn’t normal that he hasn’t even tried to talk yet.”            “Leave it alone, Berenice,” she said quickly, before Aaliyah had the chance to say something unpleasant.  “Once they start talking it’s hard to get them to stop.”            As though to underscore her point, Federico shrieked with unabashed delight as Malik scattered another battalion of tin soldiers with a clumsy burst of force magic.            “Again, Mal!  Do it again,” Federico shouted, bouncing on his heels with excitement.            They’re going to wake Ezio.  Ezio had been colicky for the last ten days and caring for her usually sunny, easy going baby was getting progressively harder as fatigue and frustration set in.  Maria clenched her teeth and cast a silence over her son and nephew.            “Maria,” Berenice scolded in an undertone with a cluck of her tongue and a disapproving look.            “Our sister doesn’t approve of lazy parenting,” Aaliyah drawled with a sweetly serrated smile as she settled her son into her lap to nurse.  “Do you, dear Berenice?”            “What, exactly, counts as lazy parenting?” she asked, noting the way their eldest sister’s brows had drawn together and lips thinned as Aaliyah nursed her toddler son and continued to smile, without breaking eye contact, chin lifted defiantly.  While she appreciated that Aaliyah was intentionally drawing the full brunt of Berenice’s high-handed indignation to spare her a lecture, it wasn’t necessary. She’d been bickering with their sister for the last four years over child rearing and had plenty of experience making her point, while keeping the peace, which was something for which Aaliyah had woefully little talent.            “He’s getting too old for you to still be nursing him, sister dear,” Berenice declared with a sharp smile of her own.            At least her sisters were careful to keep their voices low and light, smiles firmly fixed and body language relaxed around the children; her husband and his brother did not.  Giovanni and Mario fought like two stallions with their blood up over a mare – noisily and bloodily, thundering against one another and trampling anything unable to get out of their way.  She’d learned to draw Federico close and cast a silence over the combatants as she spirited her son away.            “I’m making him strong,” Aaliyah retorted, smile stretched thin and brittle.  “He hasn’t been ill even once since he left my body.  Two years now and not even so much as a cold-”            “Peace, my sisters,” she interrupted, pointedly flicking her eyes towards Malik, who was watching them warily.  She almost forgot, from time to time, that Malik knew the language they were speaking and would increasingly understand what they were saying.  Her own son did not.

~Winter, 1922~

            Her sons were still sleeping soundly, the light from the lamp beside her just barely strong enough to outline the features of their beautiful young faces. She reached over and dimmed the light further when she felt the first scalding drop of moisture escape from the corner of her eye to roll down her cheek.  Several drops then overflowed from her other eye and she struggled to steady her breathing as grief and pain and frustration and bitter simmering anger poured out of her eyes and down her face.  Droplets of saltwater fell on the letter she somehow still had clenched in her hand, barely strong enough to even blur the sharp slanting lines and hard angles of her father’s handwriting.  Of course he cast a water resistance charm on this letter.  It wouldn’t do if his Very Important Words were to become blurry or illegible because his Over Emotional daughter just couldn’t control herself.            “Mari-joon?” he murmured questioningly from the doorway.  “Whatever is the matter, jigar talâ?”            She wiped the moisture from her cheeks and looked up at Cesare – dark copper hair worn a little too long for the current fashion, flawless butter-pale skin and glittering greenish eyes that always reminded her of the Caspian Sea back home – then drew a shaky breath and cast a silence around her sleeping sons.            “There’s been an accident,” she croaked, voice buckling under the strain of keeping it even.  “Berenice’s little boy, Kadar.”            “What happened?”            “They went out to play in the desert – Malik, with Kadija and Altaïr, and Kadar tagged along – there had been rain, which is why they went into those wadis, treasure hunting-” her voice cracked and she gulped a breath to steady it, the stiff parchment of her father’s letter crinkling in her white-knuckled grip “-and they got caught in a flashflood.  He never had a chance, not really.”            “Have they found him?”            She choked down the inappropriate laughter that somehow bubbled up her throat and the effort made her eyes stream again.  It took an embarrassingly long time to get herself mostly back under control. Cesare waited, his silence providing more comfort in that moment than any spoken word or sentiment.            “My father says, here, I’ll read you his exact words, so you get the full effect.”  She swiped a hand across her eyes and cleared her throat.  “I have sent fidā'ī to recover the body. If Allah spares any mercy they will find it before the jackals do.  Your sister’s widow is behaving disgracefully and requires physical proof to accept that his youngest son has fallen.”  She hated how brittle and angry her voice sounded as she read her father’s words aloud. “He didn’t use a white seal on his letter; he cares that little.  Losing Kadar is so inconsequential to him that it doesn’t even warrant a proper death notification-”  She would have said more, railed against at her father’s cold-blooded callousness, but her voice betrayed her as her throat closed itself with stupid, senseless grief.            “Peace, Maria-joon,” Cesare murmured, suddenly beside her and sliding a comforting arm around her shoulders.  “As unlikely as it seems, they may yet find the child alive. Perhaps your father also clings to that hope, which is why he used his customary seal on the letter and dismisses Darium’s grief.  It is barely three years since Berenice fell and that wound is still fresh for him. He loved your sister very much.”            “My father loves his family best after they have fallen,” she retorted. “The dead have lost the ability to bring disappointment or shame, unlike living daughters.”            “You should allow yourself to grieve for your sister and her youngest son.”            “Why?” she demanded.  “Would grieving bring them back?”            “No-”            “Then what’s the point?  Why would I waste my time on something that accomplishes nothing?”            “Spoken in your father’s voice,” was Cesare’s sardonic rejoinder, and she hated how much it stung.  “Has holding on to so much anger really brought you happiness?”            She clenched her teeth and pointedly avoided his eyes.  The parchment crinkled loudly in the silence she’d cast around them as her father’s letter finally began to crumpled in her hand. After a long moment Cesare took the letter from her, skimmed his eyes across the sharply sloping script and then sighed, eloquently.            “His timing leaves much to be desired, doesn’t it?”            “Does it?”  Her throat was tight and her eyes were burning again and she hated, hated, hated how much she felt.  “I am getting older.  I’ve only had two children and they were born years apart.  Unless I am able to conceive again soon, it seems unlikely that I ever will. He’s not wrong to chastise me; a tradition practiced in our family for over seven hundred and fifty years will end because I’ve failed to conceive a daughter.  Because I’ve failed to do my duty.”            “Berenice could have tried harder to have daughters.  Aaliyah still lives.  I fail to see why the brunt of this should fall upon you, Maria-joon.”            Federico whimpered in his sleep and kicked one leg out from under the covers to hang over the edge of his bed, his pale scrawny ankle and bare foot exposed to the cold night air.  She’d made him put socks on his feet before tucking him in that evening, but somehow, he’d already lost at least one sock while asleep in bed.              “Aaliyah is unmarried, whereas I have both a husband and a lover,” she sighed as she got up and tucked her son’s already cold foot back underneath the covers, then smoothed the blankets over his slim body and pressed a kiss against his temple.  She inhaled deeply, savoring the scents of hyssop and rosemary and clean boyish skin. Her arms ached to hold him, but her eldest son always been fiercely independent and he’d wake up cross and defiant if she tried to cuddle him.  Federico seemed to have outgrown her arms as soon as he had learned to walk. Sometimes, it felt like he was outgrowing her.            “I want to have another baby, Cesare, but I don’t know if either Mario or Gio will give me one.”            Cesare hooked a finger under her chin and forced her to meet his eyes, head tilting as he studied her, his expression surprisingly soft and lacking his customary shade of hard-eyed cynicism.            “You are tired, and your heart is heavy, whether you will let it grieve or not,” he murmured.  “You belong in bed.  Let me make you feel better.”            She leaned into his kiss, suddenly hungry for his otherness, to feel his tongues and his chin splitting open, desperate to be taken by this man who was not actually a man at all and yet somehow managed to be so much more, and so much less disappointing, than any other man she’d known.  He broke their kiss to retrieve the lamp she’d brought to read her father’s letter and then guided her from her sons’ room to her own, leaving her side only to deposit the extinguished lamp on the mantle and light a fire in grate before returning to undress her and take her to bed.            “I’d give almost anything to have a daughter,” she murmured softly afterwards, cheek pillowed against his chest.  “You could help me, Cesare, couldn’t you?”  She sat up and studied his expression, searching out any hint of his thoughts.  “If we made a deal, you could ensure that I have a daughter, couldn’t you?”            “I could,” he confirmed, eyes narrowing slightly.  “What exactly do you want, Maria-joon?”            She rubbed her tongue against the inside edges of her bottom teeth as she considered her response, choosing each word with care.            “I want a daughter, a Maria of my own, a legacy.  I want to see her grown and serving the Order as I should have been allowed to serve. Aaliyah would train her to be great, I know she would.  And I want you to protect her, Cesare, protect her from men who would do to her what they’ve done to me.  Could you do all this for me?”            “You demand many things, Maria-joon,” he finally responded as he slowly sat up and shook his hair back over his shoulders.            “Too many things, you mean,” she sighed, making no effort to conceal her disappointment.            “I did not say that.  You are fortunate that I am so fond of you, Maria-joon; my kin would demand much in return for what you request.  Indeed, my sister has commanded much more for far less.” He rubbed the tips of his fingers over the cushion of his bottom lip thoughtfully as he studied her, head tipped slightly to the side as his lips curved into something not quite a smile.  “You are not so close to the end of your childbearing years for it to be impossible for you to conceive a daughter without my intercession.  Why are you so eager to deal with the Maraas?  Most avoid us, and only seek a deal as a last resort.”            She averted her eyes, gaze flickering over various objects discernable in the frail starlight filtering through the high mullioned windows of her bedroom – the large, heavily carved white jade jewelry casket her father had given her when she’d come of age, for the spoils you will collect on your contracts, jeegaram; the Chinese cloisonne vase Selim had sent her when Ezio had been delivered, now filled with waxy white Madonna lilies on the cusp of blooming; the muted metallic sheen of the antique astrolabe Aaliyah had sent from some ottoman contract as a belated wedding present not long after her marriage; the last gift Berenice had given her, a handblown glass eagle enclosed in an ornately gilded cage – before settling on her hands as she picked at her cuticles.            “I may conceive another boy, only boys, and never a daughter.  If I am fortunate enough to have a daughter, she may die young – many children do – illness, accident, malfeasance.  I want certainty, Cesare.”            “Nothing is certain,” he murmured.            “Some things can be certain,” she insisted.  “You can make them certain.”

[donttalkaboutmemes]

Saludos Amigos (1943) Sentence Meme

Under the cut you fill find 100+ sentences from the 1943 Disney movie Saludos Amigos to use for your roleplaying experience!

1.      “Here’s an unusual expedition.”

2.      “Adios Hollywood.”

3.      “Lake Titicaca has been prominent in Inca history and folklore for generations.”

4.      “Wood is scarce at this altitude.”

5.      “There’s plenty of color and excitement here on market day.”

6.      “Just the kind of material the artists were after.”

7.      “Their music is strange and exotic, melodies handed down from their Inca ancestors.”

8.      “The more dignified llama will carry just so much and no more.”

9.      “A llama can make you feel awfully unimportant.”

10.   “At this great height many visitors are subject to altitude fever.”

11.   “Dizziness? Ah, phooey!”

12.   “It’s built to withstand the fury of the elements. In fact, it seems to be impervious to practically everything.”

13.   “Crossing the lake is often filled with adventure.”

14.   “A strong wind may arise very suddenly.”

15.   “In the village we find this quaint old bakery, where the tourist may loaf around to his hearts content.”

16.   “For the artist in search of local color, the marketplace presents an excellent picture of village life.”

17.   “The precipitous terrain in this region offers no problem to these hardy folk.”

18.   “Wherever the visitor points his camera he finds a picture fit for framing.”

19.   “The llama is an odd looking individual with considerable personality.”

20.   “Let’s see how he responds to a few notes upscale.”

21.   “My, my, my! It’s amazing!”

22.   “The visitor never seems to be satisfied until he tries on the native costume.”

23.   “The llama is obviously not a jitterbug.”

24.   “If you want to explore this precipitous country, he’ll solve all your transportation problems.”

25.   “One soon becomes accustomed to the low, fleecy clouds that steel like silent ghosts across one’s path.”

26.   “Far below us we see the village.”

27.   “Give me that flute, ya big palooka!”

28.   “The traveler should be cautioned against any reckless behavior at this high altitude.”

29.   “And above all, one should never lose one’s temper.”

30.   “Shut up, ya big windbag!”

31.   “Plenty to see and remember on this spectacular trip.”

32.   “Since no cameras are allowed here, the boys have to cover this from memory and sketches.”

33.   “The mail must go through. I hope.”

34.   “Don’t go near Aconcoqua.”

35.   “Give ‘er the gun, boy!”

36.   “Don’t lose your flying speed!”

37.   “Each and every trip through this pass is an adventure itself.”

38.   “Pulled out of that one alright…”

39.   “Handles himself like a veteran.”

40.   “So this was the big bully they’d warned him about.”

41.   “Well, the worst is over.”

42.   “Uh-oh! Careful! That cargo is precious.”

43.   “I bet his mother and dad would be proud of him.”

44.   “Just a natural born flier.”

45.   “Hm. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

46.   “Hope he got that out of his system.”

47.   “The little fellow had completely forgotten his responsibilities.”

48.   “All these warnings come back to him now.”

49.   “Climb above the storm.”

50.   “Forget about the mail! Let it go!”

51.   “Climb above the storm! I know you can make it!”

52.   “Drop the mail! You’ve got to save yourself!”

53.   “Just a little more and you’ll be in the clear!”

54.   “They know that he couldn’t hold out this long.”

55.   “It’s too bad it had to end this way.”

56.   “Well, don’t ask me how he did it.”

57.   “It wasn’t exactly a three point landing.”

58.   “Buenos Aires is a beautiful city.”

59.   “They were really impressed with the big city.”

60.   “Seeing these pictures made them more nervous than ever.”

61.   “They lived up to their pictures.”

62.   “A real wild west show, but just part of the days work for a gaucho.”

63.   “This garments called a chiripa.”

64.   “The same tunes to which their grandparents had danced.”

65.   “Gathering picture material here was a pleasure.”

66.   “Another story was underway.”

67.   “They reached way back into Texas to find a leading man.”

68.   “Howdy strangers!”

69.   “The cowboys of both Americas have much in common, although their costume differs in a few minor details.”

70.   “The gauchos closet friend and inseparable companion is his horse.”

71.   “While is appears complex at first glance, the saddle is really simplicity itself.”

72.   “While riding the range at night, the saddle may be quickly converted into a bed.”

73.   “Over an open charcoal fire thick, juicy, tender steaks are prepared. And, amigos, it fairly melts in your mouth.”

74.   “Note the action of wrist and elbow, as knife and food synchronize in deft, graceful rhythm.”

75.   “One, two. Bite, cut, chew.”

76.   “The bolas consist of three hard weights with rawhide and is often used for sport, such as capturing.”

77.   “Did he say bolas?”

78.   “Straight and sure it flies until it finds its mark.”

79.   “With delicate balance and clocklike precision of timing, man and beast moving as one.”

80.   “When night falls the lone gaucho oft finds himself far, far out on the Pampas.”

81.   “Listen to the melancholy strain of a sad, romantic ballad.”

82.   “Come let us dance to the lively beat.”

83.   “Here we leave him with warm and tender memories of his visit to the gay, romantic land.”

84.   “A city of amazing beauty and a perfect setting.”

85.   “This is the kind of atmosphere the artists were after.”

86.   “These designs are a tribute to patience and artistry.”

87.   “Here are some of the first impressions.”

88.   “This is what can happen to a big city when a crowd of cartoonists are turned loose.”

89.   “The music of Brazil, a samba.”

90.   “It’s the same rhythm that captivates a while city when carnival time comes around.”

91.   “Carnival in Rio, three hilarious days and nights. Singing, dancing, and celebrating.”

92.   “The spirit of Mardi Gras and New Years Eve rolled into one.”

93.   “Each year hundreds of songs are written especially for this occasion.”

94.   “The dream of every composer is to have his song chosen.”

95.   “One number stands out as a perfect background.”

96.   “What happened? Where am I? What’s going on?”

97.   “My card? I know I brought one from the States.”

98.   “Or as you Americans say, let’s go see the town!”

99.   “I will show you the land of the samba!”

100.   “Samba? What’s samba?”

101.   “Now you have the spirit of the samba!”

[join-the-joywrite]

Women in War -- 13

All Maggie Maravillla ever wanted was to help people. She never imagined losing damn near everything when winning a war.

WiW masterpost

Chapter 13

February, 1946

"Olivier! We're going to be late!"

"I'm coming!"

Maggie sighed. "We're going to come back in two weeks! What are you packing?"

"Necessities!"

"You do this every time we visit Brooklyn!"

"J'arrive, j'arrive! Calmez-vous!"

Maggie sighed again. She glanced at the frame above the mantle. Months ago, she'd gotten the sketch coloured in. The original was folded up and jumped from pocket to pocket of the clothing Maggie wore.

"I can't believe you left me alone with the kid," she told the photo, "he's driving me nuts."

"I'm not driving you anywhere," Olivier said as he walked in with a crate. The white mass inside hissed and clawed at the bars.

"Oh, that necessity. Hello, Alpine, did you bite Olivier?"

"Not today, surprisingly. Come on, we're late."

"Excuse me, hijo!" Maggie yelled, following him out of the apartment, "you're the one who took two hours to lock the cat up!"

"You could've helped, Mags."

"You never asked! I didn't even know you were bringing him along!"

"Mags. Alpine is your cat."

Maggie scoffed as she locked the door. "He's a bitch."

Olivier sighed. "Will you at least carry the crate?"

"Fine."

///////////////

Maggie was thrilled to see who had come to get them from Howard's private airstrip. The man got richer and richer everyday.

"Becky!"

Becky squealed and hugged Maggie.

"Did you bring the bitch?"

"Yeah, Olivier is here."

"She meant the cat, Maggie."

Becky grinned and leaned down while Maggie lifted the crate. "Hey, Alpine! How was the flight, little bitch?"

Alpine hissed at Becky.

"Wow, he actually responded to you," Maggie said with a laugh. "How bout that?"

"The bitch loves me. This is my peak. I will never rise further."

"Or maybe he wants to kill you," Maggie said, passing the crate to Becky and taking her bag from Olivier. "I wouldn't be surprised if Alpine started an uprising and won."

Becky lifted the crate and tapped the gate with her pastel nails. "You're not gonna start an uprising, are you, Alpine?"

"Pretty ring," Olivier commented, nodding to Becky's hand, "mean something?"

Becky smiled. "That Howard is trying very hard with this relationship thing and is failing adorably. He says it was a birthday present, but I know he's just trying to work up the gall for it."

"You wearing it there to ease him into proposing, aren't you?"

"Maggie Maravilla, always knowing what goes on in my head. Come on, Howard's driving us to mom's place."

Maggie smiled and rolled her eyes, nodding for Olivier to follow Becky back to the manor.

///////////////

"On this incredibly sad day," Maggie said at the table, "I would like to pop a bottle of champagne in honour of one dumbass Bucky Barnes whom I love very much, but who also would throw a temper tantrum if we cried. Seeing as Olivier is only nineteen, he gets to make sure we don't give ourselves alcohol poisoning. In two weeks we take several vodka shots because as much as I love Steve, he was a bigger dumbass with a ridiculously large need to be the hero."

Evelyn laughed first. "You sound like him," she said softly.

"Good. So, who wants--?" The knocking at the front door cut Maggie off. Hugo stood up. "I'll get it, papá," Maggie said, leaving with the bottle still in her hand.

"Are we sure Maggie's okay?" Winnifred asked, slightly concerned.

Alice nodded. "Maggie used to always say that if we don't laugh, we cry. If we cry, we don't see any good things. Maybe she learned to listen to herself."

Maggie opened the door with a smile. "Hello and welcome to the first anniversary of. . ."

"Hi. I'm sorry, I think I've got the wrong house. I'm looking for the Ba--"

"Steve?" Maggie whispered, otherwise frozen.

"Who is it, Mags?" Howard called.

"Sorry, do . . . do I know you?"

The bottle slipped from her hand. Still, she didn't move.

"I got it," Howard said, getting up from the table as soon as they heard the crash. "Oh, Mags, look at this mess. Come on, hop over here. Who's at the. . ."

Steve's eyebrows lifted. "Mr Stark? What are you doing here?"

"Mr Stark?" Howard echoed, wondering when Steve had become so formal. Unlike Maggie, he still hadn't grasped the fact that a dead man stood in their doorway.

"We buried you," Maggie whispered, her grip on the door handle tightening. "I watched them bury you."

"I. . ." Steve laughed nervously. Maggie noticed that he looked a bit older than she remembered. "I'm sorry. Have we met somewhere?"

"Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for Peggy -- Peggy C--"

"I know who Peggy is. What do you want?"

"I . . . I wanted to see her. I didn't know where else to go looking."

Howard tiptoed over the broken glass and took hold of Maggie's hand, gently tugging away from the door. "You're going to break something, Mags. Come on." He gently nudged Maggie in the direction of the kitchen. "You wait here," he told Steve.

"Who is it?" Peggy asked.

"It -- it's Steve."

"It's who?!"

"Peggy, wait!"

Howard shoved Maggie in Becky's direction and went after Peggy. He found her standing exactly where Maggie had been, although with a much softer expression on her face. "Peg?"

"You're not Steve," Peggy whispered.

Howard turned her to face him. "Peg, why don't you and Mags get something to clean this up with, hmm? We can't have the cat scratching himself on the glass."

"Yes, the poor dear."

Once Peggy was gone, Howard stepped over the glass and closed the front door behind him.

"I got nothing, pal."

"Okay, I know this is gonna sound crazy, Mr Stark--"

"Nothing can be crazier than you coming back from certain death," Howard drawled, eyebrows raised. "Trust me."

"No, that's the thing. I never died in the crash. I survived and ended up frozen in the ice and now, eleven years after they fou--"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, pal. When Mags said we buried you, she didn't mean we had an empty coffin and buried that. No, we buried you. We pulled you and Becky out of that ocean and we brought your body back here and we buried you right next to Buck. You. Died."

Steve paused. "Who's Mags?"

"Who's-- she's-- how could you forget her? Peggy was right. You're not Steve."

"I am, though. We met in 1943--"

"1940, actually. It was November. You caught a cold and I kissed your best friend's sister nine days later."

"Wait, what?"

"Why don't you just tell me who you really are and what you want here?"

"I'm telling the truth. My name is Steve Rogers. I was born in 1918. My best friend's name is Bucky Barnes. You gave me a shield made from Vibranium. We took the fight to Schmidt and I crashed that plane into the water. What more do you want from me?"

"You're unbelievable. How can you forget everything Mags and Beck have done for you? With you? How can you stand there and list off these things you've done without even mentioning them? Maggie's saved your life more than once! From what I've heard, she's been doing it since you were twelve, she and Beck and Bucky. You owe this super strength to Maggie. Without her, Erskine would have taken years to perfect the serum and you would have probably never made it to Project Rebirth."

"Look, Howard, I'm telling you. I don't know any Maggie. And Beck? You talking about Bucky's sister? Rebecca? As far as I know, she got married in 1941."

Howard glanced down. "Maybe you are Steve. But you're not our Steve. Our Steve would never forget Maggie Maravilla -- even if he wanted to."

"Oh," Steve said, suddenly looking like he understood everything.

"What?" Howard asked, looking up again.

"Theres this kid I know -- very science-y -- kept going on about some multiverse thing to distract himself. I think -- I think he was right. See, I'm from seventy-eight years in the future. But I'm beginning to wonder if I jumped through one of the tips in the universe."

Howard folded his arms. "You know, that would explain so much-- no, that would explain everything. Obviously, you can't stay. Who knows what the complications will be. Still, I suppose now that she's seen you, Pegs'll want to talk to you. But this is actually believable. It would explain why you don't know Maggie, how you're alive, and why you look like you've seen hell."

"Oh, I have." 

Howard went on as if Steve hadn't even opened his mouth. "But if you're from the future, then wouldn't you being here and interacting with people change it? Of course not! If there are a number of universes, then it's likely that it was always meant to happen that you would jump from your universe to our universe, which means your present won't change because you're not affecting your past. But what if you succeeded in travelling back down your own timeline? What would interacting with yourself bring? Pocket universes? Alternate versions of the future? Implying that your own timeline remains intact, but each choice you make in your past creates a new timeline where that version's future is different to your own. Why are you here?"

"What?"

"Why not visit the Peggy in your own timeline? In your own universe? Why come here, one year after your actual death?"

"Look, I didn't mean to come here. I meant to go back, not jump through universes or whatever you just said. All I wanted was to see Peggy one more time before we destroyed the machine. I never meant to stay, of course. I know that I have to go back, to my time, to the new friends that found me, to Bucky, and to face what I've lost--"

"Bucky's alive?"

Howard glanced back to see Maggie slowly opening the door fully. "Mags."

Now, as she stepped out of the house, Steve really looked at her. She looked dressed for an event of some kind. Her dress was clearly old and worn, but she had also taken good care of it. Steve wondered if it was special to her. For the first time, he noticed the chain around her neck. He followed the chain down, almost hidden by the bright yellow it rested on, to the tags at the end.

"No," Howard said, "well, yes, but not our Bucky. Not your Bucky. See, this is Steve, but he's not--"

"Are those his?" Steve asked, nodding to the chain. "Bucky's?"

Maggie nodded. "He gave them to Beck to give to me if he . . . guess he knew I'd do everything I could and more to keep him safe if I knew he thought there was a chance he wouldn't come back."

"How . . . how did he die here?"

"He fell off a train in the Alps. Part of me wonders if he would have survived if he'd only had himself to worry about. I fell with him. I'm alive because he broke the fall and . . . and he died."

"It's not your fault, Mags," Howard said softly.

"I know. But knowing it doesn't stop me from feeling it." She smiled bitterly at Howard before turning to Steve. "Is there any way I could see him? I just . . . there's a version of him that survived and I just want to see him again."

"That's not a good idea, Mags. We don't know anything about the kind of travel Steve's using. What if this doorway closes? What if you get stuck there? What if you and Steve get stuck in universes you don't belong in?"

Maggie shrugged. "It'd be worth it."

"You really loved him, huh?"

"Just because he's not here anymore, doesn't mean I stopped loving him."

"I'm sorry."

Maggie shrugged, fiddling with the tags around her neck. "It's not your fault. What's he like? Where you're from?"

Steve scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, a little broken, truth be told. He's . . . he's finding himself all over again."

Maggie turned to Howard. "Is there nothing you can do? Please, I just want to see him. I just want the same thing Steve came here for. I don't even need to speak to him. I just. . ."

"I know, Mags, but there's no guarantee you'd even make it there. What if you get stuck somewhere -- some-when -- else? What if you can't come home?"

"Howard's right, Mags."

Maggie lifted her gaze as Becky stepped out of the house too. She smiled sadly and rubbed Maggie's shoulders. "I want to go too, you know that, but I know it's not safe."

"I can get you there," Steve said, "but coming back is uncertain. I came here by mistake. There's no way to be sure you'd make it back."

Both turned to look at Howard, who sighed. "I'll think about it. I said think! If I can't be sure you're coming back, you can't go. Understood?"

Becky let go of Maggie to hug Howard. "Thank you."

///////////////

Maggie sat at the cleared table, drumming her fingers against the dark oak.

"What happens if Howard gets it right and we go?"

Maggie shrugged. "Steve said that if we went, we would reappear where he left. I assume that means the platform thing he was talking about. I assume that also means he's going to be waiting for Steve. Which means we will have to talk to them. Explain it all. Then . . . then we come back."

Becky nodded. "Right, but what if something goes wrong and we can't come back?"

Maggie shrugged again. "Beck, I know you have Howard here and your sisters and parents, but this is a risk I'm willing to take. If you're afraid of what's going to happen, you can stay. I can promise you that any version of Bucky would understand."

"No. I have to come with you. He's my brother. It's just . . . one of those things we gotta do, right?"

"Mm. How's Pegs?"

"She's with Steve. Talking. Asking him what she went on to do, what he did after they pulled him from the ice. She's jumping on her curiosity because otherwise she'd cave for him."

"I don't blame her," Maggie murmured. "Listen, if we get stuck. . ."

"Mags. I'm choosing to go with you. I'm choosing to take this risk. I wouldn't blame anyone but myself."

"What if Howard can't find a way to secure our trip back? Would you still go?"

Becky shrugged and sat down across Maggie. "He's my brother. Even if he's not the same one, he's still my brother."

Maggie nodded slowly. "You know that he won't recognise you."

"True, but do you know that he won't even know you?"

"I know. I still think it'll be worth it."

"Okay, Mags. If you're sure."

It was three days later when Howard came to a conclusion. They stood in the kitchen of the Barnes home, around the island counter. Steve was back in the uniform he'd been wearing when he arrived. Maggie and Becky were both in their army-issued uniform.

"We don't have the kind of technology to navigate an interdimensional space-time wormhole and by the time we do create it, the wormhole could close."

"How long would it take?" Becky asked.

Howard shrugged. "Years, probably. I'm sorry, ladies, I--"

"I'd still like to go," Maggie said, looking up. She turned to Steve. "If you're willing to take the risk that neither of us could be able to return."

Steve glanced at Howard, Becky and Peggy. "I . . . I don't know."

Howard slowly nodded at Becky, who offered him a small smile. "I'd still go with you, Mags."

Steve glanced at Howard. "You know, you can't travel through without the quantum suit. The force would tear you apart."

"So that means only one of them can go?"

"No. Bruce sent me back with two spare sets -- just in case. It means you can go with her."

Howard frowned for a second. "Beck, I need to talk to you for a minute."

Leaving Steve to explain the mechanics of travel to Maggie, Becky followed Howard outside.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't come with you," Howard blurted.

Becky laughed nervously. "Why not?"

Howard nodded towards a lonely figure heading away from his car.

"Isn't that Olivier? He said he was going to plant some flowers for Steve like he did for Bucky."

Howard nodded. "If you and Mags get stuck, kid's got no one. She's all he has."

Becky bit her lip. "You're sending him with us instead?"

Howard shrugged. "I'm sorry, Becky, but I know what it's like to lose everyone close to me. I almost lost both you and Maggie on the same day. I can't do that to him."

Becky sighed. "I . . . you're a good person, Howard, despite what the papers say about you."

Howard smiled. "I'm gonna miss you, Beck."

"It'll be okay, Howard. We'll try to come back, I promise. But know that if I don't, I will always love you."

Howard smiled. "I know, doll. I know."

///////////////

"If we get stuck," Becky said, narrowing her eyes at Steve before glancing at Peggy beside him, "you take damn good care of Peggy, okay?"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Yes, ma'am."

Becky turned to Maggie. "Ready?"

"One second. Olivier, hold still! Voulez-vous être déchiré en lambeaux?"

"Non! Je peux le faire moi-même, maman!"

Just like every odd time it happened, both pretended that Olivier hadn't just called Maggie 'mom'.

"We're ready."

"Okay, sync up," Steve said, "make sure you all have the same data input."

"On three?" Maggie asked.

Becky took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay, one."

"Two," Olivier said.

"Th--"

"Wait!" Becky cried. Maggie paused with her hand over the button. She smiled as Becky grabbed Howard by his shirt and kissed him. "Bye," she whispered quickly.

The trio vanished in a flash. Howard's smile vanished just as fast.

"How long until we know they're coming back or stuck?" Peggy asked.

Howard left his lab.

Steve held out his hand for her. "Howard and I gave them co-ordinates down to the second for about a minute before they left. If they could have returned, they would have been able to watch themselves leave."

Peggy titled her head as she took hold of Steve's hand. "So . . . that means they're stuck?"

Steve shrugged. "It looks like it."

"Oh, Howard," Peggy whispered, glancing at the door.

prev || next

WiW masterpost

[savegraduation]

On maturity and blaming the rebel

When I was perusing the NYRA Youth Rights Discussion group on Facebook the other day, Nightvid Cole posted something that really blew me away:

When a parent lashes out by hitting a child in response to something the child says, it is "corporal punishment", but when a child does exactly the same to a parent for exactly the same reason, it is a "temper tantrum". This doublethink is precisely what is so wrong about the concept of "maturity" -- it is essentially defined to pre-suppose that the parent or adult is objectively correct no matter what simply because they are the adult. Therefore, using "immaturity" as an excuse for depriving the young of rights is often just circular reasoning in disguise. If this example seems silly, note that a very similar double standard has been used to deny teens the right to refuse medical treatment, as for example in the case of Cassandra C., the Connecticut teen who lost the legal battle to avoid forced chemotherapy. She was considered "immature" by the judge, largely because she ran away from home to avoid forced chemotherapy. But the entire idea that "running away from home" is "immature" rather than "assertive" when faced with a forced invasion of basic bodily autonomy, is the same type of self-serving adultist doublethink as the distinction between "corporal punishment" and "temper tantrums", except at a much higher level.

This is why I think that youth liberationists should question the concept of "maturity" rather than simply arguing that all or some youth are "mature". When you live in a world where you are forced to live by decisions made on your behalf without your input, it is only natural that you would sometimes behave in ways that are outside the bounds of the social norms that were put in place by the oppressor class. Using that as an attempt to justify unequal rights is one giant Catch 22 -- and the individuals doing this are guilty of participating in a dehumanizing disregard for the position of the oppressed.

Now, this is a great insight, and I'd like to discuss this some more. Circular arguments are grist for the mill of ageists. They will argue, for instance, both "You shouldn't have any legal rights because you're still in K-12 school", and "You need to attend school because you don't have any legal rights". Or the variation: "Teens need to stay in school because they don't have the life experience to choose otherwise", and "Teens don't have enough life experience because they're still in school". They will tell their children both "You have to follow my rules because you live in my house", and "You have to live in my house because you have to follow my rules". They'll say, "Children shouldn't swear, because profanity is inappropriate", but also "Those words are inappropriate because children might hear and learn them". (If the only thing wrong with those words is that children might learn them, rather than something inherently evil about those words, then what's the big deal if children learn and use the F-word or the SH-word?) Some will even argue "We need compulsory education because some parents are abusive fascists who try to indoctrinate their kids with KKK values", but also "Parents need to have the power to make whatever strict rules for their kids they feel are appropriate, because otherwise how would they make sure their kids go to school and do their homework?"

If you google the word "immature", the dictionary that pops up will provide to you the definition: "having or showing an emotional or intellectual development appropriate to someone younger". When lexicographers are forced to find a definition for "immature", all they come up with is acting the way younger people act and thinking the way younger people think.

Firstly, it is awfully presumptuous to say that something is "bad" or undesirable because younger people do or believe it. Today, teens are less likely than fiftysomethings to be homophobic, or even to believe that homosexuality is morally wrong. A 2018 Pew poll found that Millennials (born 1979-2004) are less likely than Xers (born 1964-1978), Jonesers (born 1958-1963), Boomers (born 1943-1957), or Silents (born 1925-1942) to consider global warming unsupported by science, or merely natural rather than anthropogenic. (The Pew Poll used somewhat different generational boundaries from me, defining Silents as 1928-1945, Boomers as 1946-1964, Xers as 1965-1980, Millennials as 1981-1996, and "Generation Z" as starting in 1997. I'm not down with breaking late Millennials off as "Gen Z" -- the real change starts in 2005 with the birth of those too young to remember life before the Crash of 2008, which changed the zeitgeist more fundamentally than 9/11, and even then the name "Generation Z" is derivative of "Generation X" and then "Generation Y" (a much worse name than "Millennials"; "Generation Y" sounds like a linearly progressing extreme version of Generation X). I call the kids born 2005 to today the Fifth World Generation, because most of them have their first memories of the world during the Fifth World, as per the Mayan calendar.)

In fact, if one looks at the generational conflicts over the course of history, one sees the pattern that it has been the older generation that was in the wrong and the younger generation that was in the right, for everything from the Vietnam War (Boomers vs. the Greatest Generation (born 1911-1924)) to the emancipation of African-American slaves (the Transcendental Generation (born 1792-1821) vs. the Republican Generation (born 1742-1766)). When kids are 4, 5, 6, they have the ability to question authority and think positively of other people, without becoming leery of outgroups. Thirtysomethings, twentysomethings, teens, and even children have led new social movements, including such movements of today as Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives, Antifa, the Battle for Seattle, Occupy Wall Street, the Global Climate Strike, the Free the Music movement, Boobquake, and, yes, the youth rights movement.

Youth rights opponents like to use the argument that youth have brains that have "not finished developing", but if they believe that, then shouldn't they support the ideas that under25s have, since their brains are supposedly still malleable enough to be open to new ideas whereby people can see injustices and systemic problems to which previous generations were blind? When the Interbellum Generation (born 1901-1910) was young, they wore T-shirts as outerwear and their young women smoked (smoking was viewed as a male activity at the time, and society believed T-shirts should be undershirts only). Interbellumers had sit-down strikes to fight for the labor reforms of the Great Depression, and often became Communists, socialists, or anarchists. When the Interbellum Generation became middle-aged, they were still accepting of women smoking, T-shirts, and leftist economics, but the Old Left couldn't handle the even newer innovations of the New Left: gay rights, cohabitation, interracial dating and marriage, miniskirts. Today the same Boomers who were, and are still, perfectly fine with blue jeans, Black boys dating White girls, the Rolling Stones, and couples living together before marriage are shuddering at music piracy, sexting, JUUL, suffrage for 16-year-olds, and non-binary teens who ask to be called "they" or "zie".

Secondly, this kind of circular thinking and concern with "maturity" and "life experience" creates a vicious circle. Because teens are believed by society to lack maturity, current laws abrogate the right to make most decisions, even simple decisions like what clothes kids may wear, to the parents, hold parents responsible for keeping their kids safe, and even punish parents for their minor children's misdeeds (punishing Person A for the wrongdoing of Person B is unspeakably wrong, but that's a topic for another day). Because of this, parents then say, "I'm responsible for my child until s/he is an adult", and become very circumspect about whom they allow their kid to see and where they allow their kid to go. They micromanage what courses their kid takes at school and how their kid spends his or her time. This helicopter parenting then creates learned helplessness and infantilized kids ("learned helplessness" and "infantilization" are two hot words within the youth rights community). These helpless overgrown babies are then made into Exhibit A as evidence that today's teens "aren't mature enough" to be trusted with even basic and essential "adult" rights, like, oh, getting vaccinated even though their parents don't want them to. Reasoning in circles correlates with vicious circles.

Thirdly, it is too easy to fall into the fallacy I call "blaming the rebel". Ageist adults will see a teen, or a whole generation of teens, filled with angst or righteous indignation about school uniforms, or a curfew, or gestapo parents who won't let their sons be (platonic) friends with girls, and then said ageists will latch on to the emotionally charged rage, the righteous tone, the subsequent disobedience which they've come to believe is always "irresponsible", and they'll argue, "If teens react like this to something adults believe is in their best interest, these hysterical, petulant, irresponsible kids don't deserve rights".

But what if those restrictions on teens didn't exist, and teens enjoyed all the same legal rights and socially recognized freedoms as 35-year-olds (recall the vicious circle mentioned above)? Then that angst and those "petulant" behaviors would not exist, and there would go ageist adults' argument for why teens don't deserve rights. In his Scientific American article "The Myth of the Teen Brain", psychologist Robert Epstein explains how for most of human history and in hunter-gatherer societies into the present day, people Anglophones would call "teen-agers" were simply young members of the adult community; juvenile delinquency and teen angst are nonexistent problems in those societies. Epstein writes:

Even more significant, a series of long-term studies set in motion in the 1980s by anthropologists Beatrice Whiting and John Whiting of Harvard University suggests that teen trouble begins to appear in other cultures soon after the introduction of certain Western influences, especially Western-style schooling, television programs and movies. Delinquency was not an issue among the Inuit people of Victoria Island, Canada, for example, until TV arrived in 1980. By 1988 the Inuit had created their first permanent police station to try to cope with the new problem.

As a matter of fact, the uppity behavior of young people ias been used before as an argument against affording teens new rights that people now take for granted. Back in the sixties and seventies, when Boomers were fighting to get the voting age lowered from 21 to 18 because of the draft in Vietnam, the old guard leveraged the unrest among college students as an argument that 18-year-olds weren't mature enough to vote. Stuart Goldstein, who fought to lower the voting age in New Jersey to 18, said: "It was kind of an uphill battle for us trying to convince people young people were responsible, because it was an era when, from a national political point of view, the national leaders were pitting young against old. Our thing was, 'We're going to try and work within the system.' There was all this tumult going on across the country. We didn't think that would help us convince people that they should lower the voting age." And yet 18-year-olds got the vote not long thereafter, and have been using it well.

Blaming the rebel has been done not only to youth, but also to other oppressed groups throughout history. In 1851, Samuel A. Cartwright, a physician who practiced in antebellum Mississippi and Louisiana, posited a mental disorder called drapetomania. He identified drapetomania as a mental illness whereby Black slaves would run away from their masters, attempting to become free. Cartwright wrote that this was the result of masters who "made themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals". (That line makes me flinch, because it reminds me a little too much of the "Be a parent, not a pal" line directed towards permissive parents today.) This was an argument levied against granting freedom to African-Americans, as if it were innate to the Black race to "irresponsibly" disobey. Today, virtually all Americans realize that fleeing slavery was only a perfectly proper response to humans being legally treated as someone's property, and would find the idea that Black people are somehow undeserving of the right to be free by virtue of their Blackness to be preposterous.

Also, are you really so sure we would not see rage, uprising, even tantrums, if an age restriction were imposed on Boomers today? Howe & Strauss attribute to Boomers a tendency to be idealistic, impassioned, quick to anger, emotional, easily outraged. A recent comment on the NYRA Youth Rights Discussion group put it so well: "If all age restrictions were applied at both ends of standard 'adulthood' we would see much less of this shit. Boomers would fume if they couldn't buy alcohol after age 52."

Would this fuming be proof that sexagenarians were unworthy of the right to drink, vote, drive, sign contracts, or make their own medical decisions?

I say no. What say you?

[elizgeli]

DuckTales 2017 Premiere: Woo-oo!

I watched the premiere as it debuted at midnight on 8/12. It’s going to rerun for 24-hours, so check it out if you have Disney XD!

This is my SPOILER RECAP. Fair warning. 

-- 

We begin with a seagull flying, so I guess non-anthropomorphic, non-verbal animals existing in this universe.  Must be a class struggle a la “Wicked.” 

Donald has no job and the nephews are teasing him but they make him a fish breakfast to say they believe in him. It kind of looks like the casserole from Kiki’s Delivery Service and “WE BELIEVE IN YOU UNCLE DONALD” is written in ketchup around the plate.  Before they shoo Donald away to his job interview Dewey gets caught trying to hotwire the boat. He must be like the Donatello of this group. 

Donald sets his GPS to take the boys to Scrooge McDuck. They know of him as some legendary billionaire. I guess that they don’t know they are related yet? 

Scrooge’s board is telling him that they are cutting funding to historical research and experimental tech. Lucius Fox won’t be happy about this. St. Canard is mentioned...so I’m assuming we’ll be getting Darkwing Duck at some point? #LETSGETDANGEROUS

Launchpad is his chauffeur in a car...no planes yet. Donald is blocking Scrooge’s driveway and they greet each other. When Donald calls him Uncle the boys begin celebrating in the backseat. They obviously hate each other but who knows if we’ll ever find out why. He tells Donald to “jettison that Jalopy,” which I’m assuming is a reference to the 1943 Donald Duck short “The Flying Jalopy.” *cricket...cricket* He agrees to watch the boys for a few hours mostly to spite Donald. Beakley urges him to talk to them but they ask a lot of questions so he shoves them in the attic with Beakley. She is British now and not as cuddly like before. I guess there’s no Duckworth...he never made sense to me anyway since he was a dog, but now Beakley has to take on the role of icy British servant.

Scrooge is offended that the boys said he “used to be a big deal” so he locks them in attic with a bag of pre-counted marbles that they have to return. Webby ties up the boys and it is revealed she is obsessed with the Duck Family. She has a Homeland-style bulletin board about them, which is mildly unsettling. She is desperate for friends and immediately declares HDL as such. Louie is established as the evil triplet. 

They start climbing through the air vents and overhear Scrooge saying that family is nothing but trouble and get sad. Webby shows them Scrooge’s “Wing of Secrets,” which I’m assuming is the West Wing. A bunch of things from the original cartoon credits sequence is shown. A painting reveals Donald used to be Scrooge’s sidekick and a daring adventurer, which they can’t believe. 

Donald is shown struggling with a stapler at the interview, where he is seated in the waiting room next to Max’s girlfriend Roxanne from The Goofy Movie--at least that’s what she looks like. He obviously loses his temper and destroys everything. 

The boys don’t believe Webby until an actual Pirate ghost appears, as well as a “Headless Man Horse.” Scrooge discovers them and them saves them. But then hits a cursed gong that releases a gold-hunting dragon (Smaug?) that goes straight for the money vault. 

Scrooge rides the dragon with Daenerys-like skill (not actually).  Struggle ensues and Scrooge ends up falling into the money pit to the horror of the kids that think they are about to see him die. However his superpower of viscous money is revealed and he joyfully swims through the gold. “Family truly is the greatest adventure...oh no the ground!” says Launchpad as he crashes. 

Scrooge gives a Mulan-Emperor speech about everything they ruined but then praises them. The greatest gift of all is having you all for nephews and my indentured servant’s daughter. 

Donald gets the job! BUT as a sailor for Glomgold, Scrooge’s archrival! Oh no! Launchpad leaves notes for all the cars he hit with the plane because he is a BRO. 

THEME SONG NOW. I guess the first half hour was a cold open. TITLE CARD. Ok now another open is a commercial for Glomgold industries and reveals his entire corporation revolves around finding the lost treasure of Atlantis and becoming the richest duck in the world. 

The whole crew is in a sub looking for the treasure. They’re pretty sure he doesn’t know their names and Scrooge calls one of the boys SONNY JIM which can only be a TWIN PEAKS REFERENCE. Launchpad doesn’t actually know how to drive the sub so Dewey programs in a “short cut.” Havoc and sea monsters ensue. 

There’s already been an ESPN product placement, so I’m sure that’s gonna make the shareholders happy. Donald is unknowingly headed with Glomgold to the same treasure with a bunch of hunters.  They all arrive at the City of Atlantic but not THAT Atlantis. There’s probably a reference here to the Disney movie but I’ve never been able to stay awake for all of it so I dunno. The boys try to teach Webby how to call Beakley and lie about being at a friend’s house but she is really bad at it. 

Temple searching ensues. Lots of death traps, including the laser hallway from Resident Evil. With his knowledge, Dewey navigates the lasers against Scrooge’s wishes. “Maybe I could just hire a family. Then they’d have to listen to me!” Sadly not true.  I’ve looked into it. Glomgold reveals Donald is working for him and Scrooge is bummed. That’s cold, even for this rivalry. Donald claims he had no idea they were enemies. Glomgold takes off and floods the chamber, leaving all three of them to die?! Worst boss ever. 

The other three kids and Launchpad are discovered by Glomgold’s associates. Donald is trying to hold the water by stuffing the money in holes. Dewey and Scrooge figure out that they need to let the room flood to get the treasure. “This is a surprising insightful deathtrap” says Dewey.  They break out with the jewel and save the others from the thugs, but it’s revealed Glomgold ditched all the employees. One of the thugs says “I thought you said employees were the greatest treasure of all?!” “No!” says Glomgold, “Treasure is the greatest treasure of all, that’s why it’s called treasure!” 

The good ducks agree to take everyone back and escape in the sub. Upon arrival at Duckberg harbor, Glomgold is showing off his jewel to the media when Scrooge upstages him with a bigger, family jewel...ahem. It’s revealed to be a clean energy source that could power Duckburg for 50 years! So Scrooge is now in the energy business. When asked about Glomgold’s jewel, Scrooge says “It’s nice but it’s obviously super cursed.” Turns out he’s right because Glommy is immediately devoured by a giant octopus. 

Donald admits he’s been too overprotected of the boys and agrees to let them hang with Scrooge sometimes. The houseboat explodes because Dewey is cray and they all have to move into the mansion after all.

A reporter says Scrooge McDuck is back, “Solving mysteries and rewriting history.” Finish your drink. Back in the west wing, Dewey sees the old painting and puts up a folded over corner saying “Mom?!” WHAT THE HECK?! So we’re gonna explore that? 

Some overall thoughts: Much like Girl Meets World, the new Mickey Mouse shorts, and the maze, this reboot is not meant for me. That being said I still found it pretty entertaining and it’s something the whole family can enjoy together. There were plenty of things for today’s kids mentioned (photoshop, smart phones) but it didn’t feel too over-the-top. Ninety’s nostalgia seekers should feel welcome. The plot was similar to the original series pilot, just minus all the uncomfortable racial caricatures. Instead they used the mythical Atlantis. It will be interesting to see how they keep this up since most treasure is rooted in ancient mythology. Donald clearly will have a bigger role, and Webby is much spunkier, as still the only girl, but this time without all the thumb-sucking and crying.  I guess there’s no Duckworth...he never made sense to me anyway since he was a dog, but now Beakley has to take on the role of icy British servant. Hopefully she loosens up too. She lost weight, while Glomgod gained about twice his body mass. He no longer looks like Scrooge + beard. 

There were lots of fun jokes that went by so fast I couldn’t even type them. OVerall I enjoyed it! I plan to keep watching! What did you think?

[anastpaul]

Saint of the Day – 22 May – St Rita of Cascia – (born Margherita Lotti) Patron of Impossible Causes, Abused Wives and Widows – (1386 at Roccaparena, Umbria, Italy – 22 May 1457 at the Augustinian convent at Cascia, Italy of tuberculosis)- Mother, Widow, Stigmatist, Consecrated Religious, Mystic, – Patron of Lost and impossible causes, sickness, wounds, marital problems, abuse, mothers,  against infertility or sterility; infertile people, against loneliness, against sickness or bodily ills; sick people, wounds; wounded people, desperate people, forgotten people,  difficult marriages, parenthood, Cascia, Italy, Dalayap, Philippines, Igbaras, Iloilo, Philippines.   Attributes –  nun holding a crown of thorns, holding roses, holding roses and figs, with a wound on her forehead.  Her Body is Incorrupt and lies in the Basilica of Cascia.   Pope Leo XIII canonised Rita on 24 May 1900.

Blessed by God, you were a light in darkness through your steadfast courage when you had to suffer such agony upon your cross. You turned aside from this vale of tears to seek wholeness for your hidden wounds in the great passion of Christ. . . . You were not content with less than perfect healing, and so endured the thorn for fifteen years before you entered into the joy of your Lord.

This poem was engraved on the casket of St. Rita of Cascia and is one of the few contemporary sources that tell us about her.   St. Rita received her “hidden wounds” in an unfortunate marriage.   Shewas born in 1381 in the city of Roccaporena (near Spoleto, Umbria, Italy) where various sites connected with her are the focus of pilgrimages.   Her parents, Antonio and Amata Ferri Lotti, were known to be noble, charitable persons, who gained the epithet Conciliatore di Cristo (English: Peacemakers of Christ).   She was married at age twelve to a nobleman named Paolo Mancini.   Her parents arranged her marriage, a common practice at the time, despite her repeated requests to be allowed to enter a convent of religious sisters.   Her husband, Paolo Mancini, was known to be a rich, quick-tempered, immoral man, who had many enemies in the region of Cascia. Rita had her first child at the age of twelve.  For eighteen years she endured the abuses and infidelities of a violent husband.   She also suffered the rascality of two sons who were strongly influenced by him.   She was delivered from these miserable circumstances in a horrific way:  one day her husband was brought home dead, brutally slashed by his enemies.   Her rambunctious sons planned to get revenge, but died before they could obtain it.

Rita was then free to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a nun.   She applied to enter the Augustinian convent at Cascia of Italy, in 1407.   But her suffering was not over.   Even though orders customarily received widows, the Augustinians three times refused Rita because she had been married.   Only after six years did they acquiesce and install her as a nun.

The poem said Rita “sought wholeness” in the passion of Christ.   In her meditations she preoccupied her imagination with his agony.   On Good Friday, 1441, she prostrated herself before a crucifix and begged Christ for some small share of his suffering.   As though punctured by a crown of thorns, a single wound opened on Rita’s forehead.   For fifteen years it caused her daily pain and embarrassed her, as its putrid odor frequently offended her sisters.   In 1450, when she was preparing to visit Rome for the jubilee year, the wound temporarily healed.   But it reappeared when she returned to Cascia and remained until her death.

Rita died of tuberculosis on May 22, 1457.   Three days later, Domenico Angeli, a notary of Cascia, recorded eleven miracles that occurred upon the saint’s death.   He left us this brief profile of her religious life:

“A very honorable nun, Lady Rita, having spent forty years as a nun in the cloister of the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene of Cascia by living with charity in the service of God, followed the destiny of every human being.   God, in whose service she persevered for the aforementioned time—desiring to show all the faithful a model of life, so that as she had lived serving God with love by fasting and prayer, they too, all faithful Christians, would live also—worked many wonderful miracles and through the merits of Saint Rita, especially on 25 May 1457.”

The Legend of the Roses

It is said that near the end of her life Rita was bedridden at the convent.   While visiting her, a cousin asked if she desired anything from her old home.   Rita responded by asking for a rose from the garden.   It was January and her cousin did not expect to find one due to the season.   However, when her relative went to the house, a single blooming rose was found in the garden and her cousin brought it back to Rita at the convent.   St. Rita is often depicted holding roses or with roses nearby.   On her feast day churches and shrines of St. Rita provide roses to the congregation that are blessed by the priest during Mass.

The Legend of the Bees

In the parish church of Laarne, near Ghent, Belgium, there is a statue of St. Rita in which several bees are featured.   This depiction originates from the story of her baptism as an infant.   On the day after her baptism, her family noticed a swarm of white bees flying around her as she slept in her crib.   However, the bees peacefully entered and exited her mouth without causing her any harm or injury.   Instead of being alarmed for her safety, her family was mystified by this sight.   According to Butler, this was taken to indicate that the career of the child was to be marked by industry, virtue, and devotion.

Legacy

A large sanctuary of St. Rita was built in the early 20th century in Cascia. The sanctuary and the house where she was born are among the most active pilgrimage sites of Umbria.

French singer Mireille Mathieu adopted St. Rita as her patron saint on the advice of her paternal grandmother.   In her autobiography, Mathieu describes buying a candle for St. Rita using her last franc.   Though Mathieu claims that her prayers did not always come true, she testifies that they inspired her to become a strong and determined woman.

In 1943, Rita of Cascia, a film based on St. Rita’s life, was made starring Elena Zareschi. The story of St. Rita increased in popularity due to a 2004 film “Santa Rita da Cascia”, filmed in Florence, Italy.   The latter film altered the facts of St. Rita’s early life.

St. Rita is often credited as also being the unofficial patron saint of baseball due to a reference made to her in the 2002 film The Rookie.

[manualstogo]

For just $3.99 Released on February 5, 1943: Irene Ryan threatens to leave Edgar if he cannot control his temper, and she will take her medling mother and brother with her. Genre: Comedy Duration: 17min Director: Lloyd French Actors: Edgar Kennedy (Edgar), Irene Ryan (Edgar's wife), Dot Farley (Edgar's mother-in-law), Jack Rice (Edgar's brother-in-law), Isabel La Mal (neighbor), Eddie Dew (young boy), Casey Johnson (unknown), Marte Faux (unknown) *** This item will be supplied on a quality disc and will be sent in a sleeve that is designed for posting CD's DVDs *** This item will be sent by 1st class post for quick delivery. Should you not receive your item within 12 working days of making payment, please contact me so we can solve this or any other questions. Note: All my products are either my own work, licensed to me directly or supplied to me under a GPL/GNU License. No Trademarks, copyrights or rules have been violated by this item. This product complies with rules on compilations, international media, and downloadable media. All items are supplied on CD or DVD.

[cwalshuk]

Doctor Who review - Spyfall Part Two

Spoilers! Obviously.

If you haven’t watched the second episode of the 2020 series, then go watch it now. Seriously.

Spyfall Part Two sees The Doctor, Yaz, Ryan and Graham attempt to survive the rather tricky situations they were left in at the end of part one.

You can catch up on it on BBC iPlayer in the UK, check local listings for your own country.

Spyfall Part Two begins with a ‘Previously on’ - it's been a little while since we needed one of those! And, armed with the knowledge from the cliffhanger, we can see C’s murder in a new light. He tries to tell Thirteen and fam that he suspects O! Lovely stuff.

Post-titles, we’re back in that somewhere weird place, temporarily home to Yaz, currently to The Doctor. As she's alone, the Timelord is consoling herself by thinking out loud. And what would she say to Yaz, Ryan and Graham, currently on Daniel Barton’s crashing plane? Don't Panic.

I’m tempted to see that choice as a reference to Douglas Adams, not least because there are a number of references to the work of other writers from past eras of Doctor Who, but ‘Don’t panic’ is pretty good advice anyway, right? Particularly as there really isn't any need to, when you’re friends with someone with a time machine.

Y’see, The Doctor (eventually) uses her Tardis to go back in time and install in the plane exactly what Ryan, Yaz and Graham need to land safely. It's a great funny action sequence, and, whilst this sort of solution will be familiar to a big chunk of the audience, new fans need to know that Doctor Who can do this with it's sort of time travel, and does it with panache. I particularly like the reference to Blink, Yaz calmly realising how Ryan's new app can help, and Graham just being Graham.

Meanwhile, The Doctor is exploring the somewhere weird place, theorising that she’s inside something, noting the electrical pulses snaking about, and hoping she isn't in someone's liver. Not because that’d be eurrghhh, but because people tend to take offence! I love that sort of joke, where we end up wondering what happened all the other times she was in someone’s liver.

But then she hears a voice! Thirteen finds a slightly creepy lady called Ada and deduces with her help that their only way out is via a Kasaavin, the light-up alien spies. Introducing pre-marriage Ada Lovelace this way, but not her full name, was cool, and intriguing, keeping my attention through the next scene with the fam - all exposition, the plane will land itself wherever Barton was intending to go.

The Master’s Tardis is in the vortex! Fantastic! He’s in there, congratulating himself with a less than impressed Daniel Barton, when his console and Barton’s phone clue them in to Thirteen’s escape.

Having The Doctor wake up tasting the time period like a fine wine is a lovely touch. She’s back in Ada’s time, at a 19th Century inventors convention, with Charles Babbage! Who wonders how Miss Gordon and The Doctor appeared in their midst. A magic trick, decides Thirteen, so she can carry on without further interruption. Babbage is still unconvinced, not least because The Doc has to ask him what year they’re in. Confirmation of her exact plight brings Thirteen’s thoughts back to the fam.

Ryan, Yaz and Graham have kept out of sight as Daniel Barton discovers from an airport employee that his plane landed autonomously, but empty. We’re back in Blighty, luckily, and Essex too, as Barton has a speech in London that evening. Graham’s joy at being back in his manor is tempered by Yaz’s fears for The Doc’s safety. And Barton is sending some goons after the fam!

Inquisitive Ada gets brought into the loop by Thirteen (with Babbage eavesdropping), but the trio are interrupted by The Master, who must've dropped Barton in the present before raiding his own Tardis wardrobe for his big entrance. Timelord showdown!

Sacha Dhawan is chilling and funny - ‘Hands on heads!’ - as his Master shrinks random convention goers and orders Thirteen to kneel - ‘Call me by my name!’ He does let slip that he isn't in control of the Kasaavin though, but can't divulge ‘news from home’ because Ada’s commandeered a number of prototype weapons from the convention to turn on him, despite her being ‘a lady’. Ada gets The Doc’s grudging approval with her violence, in a way that brings to mind the Seventh Doctor and Ace. The Master gets to disappear in a cloud of smoke, like a panto villain, though he is wounded.

Ryan, Yaz and Graham don’t get far from the airport before Daniel Barton is turning the full force of his tech empire on them. Yaz gets to call her mum before the three of them smash their phones and scarper.

Back in 1834, The Doctor realises she’s in the company of Babbage and Lovelace and is a little star struck. She gets Charles talking about his Difference Engine, an early ancestor of the modern computer, and decides her presence there is a clue. Also catching her eye is the Silver Lady, a gift to Babbage from The Master. It moves and makes apparitions, says Charles. Piecing together everything she knows so far, she concludes that the Kasaavin have been studying Ada by transporting her to their dimension. And they’ve had the Master’s help stabilising themselves in our dimension, readying themselves for an attack in the present day. Thirteen sonics the Silver Lady to bring out a Kasaavin, explaining to Lovelace and Babbage her hope that she can get it to return her to the present day. But Ada doesn't like the risk The Doc’s taking, so grabs her hand. Thirteen shouts ‘No!’ as they both disappear. Charles, now alone, downs his drink.

And that's the last we see of Mr Babbage, brought wonderfully to life by Mark Dexter, who you might remember as the Dad of the little girl in Stephen Moffat’s River Song introducing two-parter Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead.

Graham, Ryan and Yaz meanwhile have hidden out at a building site. They realise how little they know about The Doctor, and Graham states his intention to ask for more, sure that he’ll get the opportunity. Yaz channels Thirteen and both Ryan and Graham admit to keeping hold of some of C’s spy tech, just as the Kasaavin appear outside!

Back to The Doctor, who is surprised to find herself and Ada transported to Paris 1943, where a young woman rushes them inside, out of sight of an approaching Nazi patrol. The music swells, the patrol halts, and out of the car steps The Master, still angry, but this time in full Nazi uniform, Doctor-detecting gizmo to hand.

Fleeing the Kasaavin, Yaz, Graham and Ryan risk using the Laser shoes Graham had borrowed from Q, which holds off the aliens.

Meanwhile, Daniel Barton argues with his mother, who he has tied up. She isn't proud enough of his achievements, apparently. That’s enough for him to set the Kasaavin on her, the first victim on this ‘last day’. Pretty ruthless for the fake-out villain, right?

Back in 1943, the Nazi patrol raid the young lady’s home, with The Master hobbling in behind them. ‘You’re new.’ she notes of the injured Timelord. Beneath the floorboards, The Doctor spies radio equipment, and Ada. The Master orders the Nazis to shoot the floor, with just a tap of his cane, but hearing no screams, and getting nothing from the young lady by staring her down, he leaves with the Nazis. As the young lady frees Thirteen and Ada from their hiding place, the Timelord puts two names to the face. ‘Code name: Madeleine, real name: Noor Inayat Khan. First female wireless operator to be dropped behind enemy lines.’ The Doctor’s a fan! And she has a theory about how they ended up in World War II when she was aiming for the 21st century - Ada grabbing her hand knocked them off course.

Noor and Ada are confused, so after The Doctor explains the time travel stuff, Noor tells Ada of the horrors Paris has suffered through. Ada, shocked to learn that the devastation outside the window has happened twice, is consoled by the Timelord that ‘the darkness never sustains’. After assessing Noor’s skills and resources, Thirteen comes up with a plan.

I’m a big fan of The Doctor meeting real people from history, particularly when they can inspire the younger side of the audience, as Noor and Ada surely can. I seem to recall one or both ladies being suggested as new faces for British currency, an honour both merit, though neither succeeded this time around.

Yaz, Ryan and Graham get the better of Daniel Barton’s goons by revealing their location, accidentally on purpose, and then steal their car with the aid of Graham’s laser shoes.

Back in wartime Paris, The Doctor is tapping out a four beat pattern on Noor’s radio equipment. ‘The rhythm of two hearts’. The Master cannot resist responding, allowing Thirteen to make telepathic contact with her old friend. ‘Old-school’ he notes. ‘You’re not the only one who can do classic.’ she replies. They agree to meet at the obvious place - the Eiffel Tower - though it's less of a date, more like a trap.

I love that Chris Chibnall’s script acknowledges how much influence he’s drawn from past Master encounters. The return of Tissue Compression Eliminator, which the Master uses to shrink people to death, suggests that this incarnation has reverted to a personality last seen in the classic era of the show, but elements of Sacha Dhawan’s performance bring to mind more recent ones. I don’t think we’ve seen The Master’s Tardis onscreen for a while either, but that doesn't narrow it down as much as you might think.

Thirteen and The Master use their Eiffel Tower rendezvous to reminisce, which gives us a subtle reference to Logopolis, and The Doctor a chance to pin down exactly which crimes The Masters committed so far in this story. Intriguingly, he also reveals that the Kasaavin were already a looming threat to Earth before he got started meddling, comparing them to modern day Russia, and teasing that he merely improved upon the aliens’ plans.

Yaz, Graham and Ryan, arriving too late to save Daniel Barton’s mum, but just in time for him to gloat before his big speech, learn that the tech CEO allowed the Kasaavin to experiment on 7% of his DNA, and that he has designs on the entire human race. They gather around the Silver Lady.

Noor, at her base, messages London, but doubts she should be trusting The Doctor. Ada reassures her, though neither understands the device the Timelord left with them - a flip-phone! They search Paris by night, discovering ‘something anomalous’, and alert The Doctor.

Hiding the message from The Master, the pair, still high above Paris, interrogate each other. Thirteen reckons she and Yaz survived their encounters with the Kasaavin due to the artron energy they’re covered with, as time travellers. She gets The Master to gloat about his manipulations of Daniel Barton and the Kasaavin. ‘Win, win, win!’ he reckons. She doesn't understand why The Master doesn't stop his games, after all these years, and although he claims its for chaos’ sake, he also concedes that he wanted The Doctor’s attention. He says he visited Gallifrey, their home planet, and found it in ruins, but Thirteen thinks it's another trick. Before he can continue, some Nazis arrive to confront him. The Master, not best pleased, grabs The Doctor by the throat, pushing her to the edge of the viewing platform. Now it's her turn to gloat! She’d got Noor to send a message back to London describing The Master as a double agent, ensuring it could be intercepted by the Nazis. Now they’ve got him at gunpoint - How’s he going to get out of that one!

Daniel Barton walks onstage for his speech, whilst, in 1943, The Doctor catches up to Noor and Ada, who, thanks to Noor’s local knowledge, have discovered the Master’s Tardis. He hadn't even bothered to change it from its Australian outback home appearance! Breaking in, she uses the console to find out another part of The Master’s plan. He’d helped the Kasaavin to spy on people key to the rise of the modern computer age, so that they and Daniel Barton could collect enough data for something they are working on. Something that is connected to human DNA - experiments of some kind!

Barton delivers his speech. His time to gloat. Humanity has allowed itself to be spied upon through our addiction to tech, and it has left us vulnerable. To being reformatted as hard drives. Barton and a few others will be spared, of course, but the rest of us are finished. The Silver Lady spins and glows ominously as humanity begins to be rewritten. Stolen spy tech can't stop it and now The Master arrives (via the slow path) to gloat some more. But then it stops spinning. So Barton flees and humanity is saved.

In strolls The Doctor with Noor and Ada! Thirteen explains that they traced the Silver Lady from its first owner Babbage right through to Barton, and that she hacked it, to ensure it would shutdown if ever loaded up with a massive amount of Kasaavin energy. Angry at the foiling of their plan, the Kasaavin arrive, but before they are exiled by The Doctor, they turn on The Master when she plays them a recording of him gloating earlier on the Eiffel Tower, of his plan to double cross them. He ends up in their somewhere weird place screaming after The Doctor.

Yaz notes that the Doc has more explaining to do, with Graham worried that Noor and Ada are replacing them, and Ryan asking how the Timelord saved them from the crashing plane. Turns out she hasn't, yet! Quick montage to prepare the plane in advance, then back to her own Tardis - hope she keeps The Master’s one somewhere safe!

Before she comes back for the fam Thirteen stops in 1943 to drop Noor back. After reassuring her that the fascists never win, so long as there's people like her, the Timelord wipes Noor’s mind of their whole adventure, to preserve history. She does the same to Ada in 1834, despite the young lady’s protests, assuring the now unconscious Ada that she doesn't need a preview of future tech, since her own imagination helps dream up those advances.

These mind wipes are presented as necessary evils, but leave a bitter taste nevertheless. Couldn't both brilliant women have been slipped the names of fellow Tardis travellers from their respective eras? Perhaps that would be a little too much referencing to previous stories.

The Doctor decides to visit Gallifrey, hoping not to witness the ruins The Master claims, but is disappointed. Devastated, she discovers a device deposited discreetly in her coat. A message from The Master. He destroyed Gallifrey in revenge at his own species for covering up ‘the lie of the Timeless Child’. His words stir a fragment of memory in The Doctor’s mind, but he won’t reveal more out of spite, she Thirteen can only hurl The Master’s device across her console room in rage.

She stews in this mood for days, ‘five planets’ according to Graham, before she gives in to the fam’s questions. She finally tells them - her home planet, it's constellation, her species and that they can regenerate their bodies. She tells them she ran away in a stolen Tardis, and that The Master was one of her oldest friends, but takes a very different path. That’s enough for Graham right now, but Yaz has one more thing to ask. ‘Can we visit your home?’. So innocent, too perceptive. ‘Another time.’ replies Thirteen before rushing to the edge of the console room, back to her fam, to conceal her sadness, her fear. The camera lingers for a second.

Credits roll.

Looks like next week is a lot less heavy, if James Buckley’s appearance in the Next Time trailer is anything to go by. I think we need it after that!

A momentous conclusion to the story (for now), Spyfall Part Two is a triumph.

Chris Chibnall has succeeded in opening the series with a bang, and kicks off what is presumably a series arc by picking up the remnants of one dropped in series 11.

Let's see what Ed Hime brings us on Sunday!

[currentbalochistan]

Akbar Bugti: A man who lived and died as he wished

Sajid Hussain

It’s the first-ever comprehensive profile of prominent Baloch leader, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, written by Sajid Hussain. We appreciate if his family members and supporters point out factual mistakes or provide us with additional information.

 

Despite his scandalous politics, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti is the most talked-about person in Baloch society. With his twirling moustache, keenly trimmed beard, over six-feet-tall stature, candor, bravery, unbending backbone and uncompromising pride, he epitomized a model Baloch character. Ask anyone in Balochistan, they tell you he was the truest Baloch ever, even if they are ignorant of his 60-year-long politics.

Born on July 12, 1927 in Barkhan, he was assassinated on August 26, 2006 in a military raid on the orders of the then military dictator General Pervez Musharraf, who termed it a great military achievement.

His death was followed by days of violent protests and he became the undisputed hero for the Baloch people.

He was the eldest son of Nawab Mehrab Khan Bugti and grandson of Sir Shahbaz Khan Bugti. His father named him Akbar, but, after the incorporation of his grandfather’s name, he was called Nawab Akbar Shahbaz Khan Bugti.

His father died in 1939, and he became the chief of his tribe when he was only 12. Due to his young age, the British Political Agent assigned his half-uncle, who Bugti believed poisoned his father, as the regent and sent him as a ward to famous educationists Allama I.I. Qazi and his German wife Elsa Qazi.

He studied at the Karachi Grammar School and then at the Aitchison College Lahore. He was not allowed to visit Dera Bugti, his hometown, for his safety. He spent his holidays with Qazis.

But he seemed to have enjoyed his time at Aitchison. He excelled in sports: he was the captain of the polo and swimming teams and was good at cricket. He was one of the first CSP officers of Pakistan, but he rather preferred leading his tribesmen than serving as a government official.

At nine or perhaps ten, he was “betrothed to a second cousin, an incident of which he has no memory,” as he told Najma Sadiq, 35 years back in an interview with the Herald magazine.

“Soon after his 15th birthday, the respective mothers and other relatives suddenly turned up in Lahore and Akbar was informed that he was going to be married. It was a quiet affair and in 1943, when only 16, his first child was born. For two consecutive summers he and his brother Ahmed along with the Kazis and their wards, vacationed at a hill-station thirty miles near Simla, his family accompanying too, staying at an adjoining separate house.”

Later he married two more times: once with a Pakhtun woman and then with an Iranian.

Akbar Bugti’s first trip abroad was to attend the crowning ceremony of England’s Queen in 1953. He described the event to Najma Sadiq as: “It was a fine ceremony and I was struck especially by Queen Salote of Tonga; she was seven feet tall and with her huge bulk, she was an impressive figure indeed.”

Despite his modern education, he was a traditional tribal chief. He was five when he shot his first shotgun. “It was a small bore shotgun – not 12 or 16 but 28 bore – one of the smallest. I sat on my haunches and fired. Immediately I was thrown back and the gun fell from my hands,” he told Najma.

But he was not deterred. At the age of 12, he killed his first man.

“Well, the man annoyed me. I’ve forgotten what it was about now, but I shot him dead. I’ve rather a hasty temper you know, but under tribal law of course it wasn’t a capital offence, and, in any case, as the eldest son of the Chieftain I was perfectly entitled to do as I pleased in our own territory. We enjoy absolute sovereignty over our people and they accept this as part of their tradition,” a 21-year-old Bugti told Sylvia Matheson, a British traveler and writer who spent several years in Dera Bugti to research the lifestyle of the Bugti tribesmen. She wrote her experiences in a book, The Tigers of Baluchistan, first published in 1967.

When she asked Bugti about how many men he had killed, he responded he had lost the count.

His long-time friend and the late writer Ardeshir Cowasjee called him “arrogant and handsome”. In September, 2006, Cowasjee wrote for Dawn that when they first met in 1960s in Karachi, Bugti asked him why Cowasjee spelt his name wrongly.

“That I did not react did not please him. He went on to tell me that we silly Parsis did not even know the correct name of their own prophet. He was Zardost and not Zarathustra as many of us ignoramuses were wont to refer to him. He knew all about how the Zoroastrians had fled Iran after the Muslim invasion, fearing for their lives…” Cowasjee wrote.

His knowledge of history was impeccable. An insomniac, who couldn’t sleep at all, he read book after book all night, when everyone else was asleep. He read extensively about English literature, Balochi classical poetry, politics and history. He owned one of the largest private libraries in Pakistan which was destroyed in a 2005 bombing by the military at his Dera Bugti palace, also killing over 60 women and children. A large number of the victims were from the Hindu community who he had allotted lands around his house.

After the videoed aerial bombing that almost killed Bugti, he decided to go to hiding in the mountains. Musharraf blamed him and his tribesmen for bombing military and government installations and launched a full-fledged military operation against him.

Although Bugti never accepted any role in the Baloch armed insurgency that started after 2001, he expressed his support for the Baloch insurgents, saying they were fighting for their due rights.

He was particularly close to Balach Marri, the then head of the Baloch Liberation Army. He said in a televised interview that the military wanted to wipe out him and Balach.

Initially, he claimed he wanted greater autonomy for Balochistan, but as the military operations escalated he said, at least on one occasion, this fight is now for an independent Balochistan.

Despite being among the first few Baloch chieftains to support Balochistan’s amalgamation with Pakistan and supporting Pakistan Muslim League, he had a tumultuous rapport with successive Pakistani governments.

In 1947, he voted in Pakistan’s favour in a Shahi Jirga, which was boycotted by most Baloch politicians, in Quetta.

In 1950, he contested elections for Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly but lost against Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s brother.

In 1958, he was elected as a member of the Assembly in a by-election. He served as Interior Minister of State but his tenure was short-lived as President Iskandar Mirza declared martial law in October the same year and dismissed the cabinet.

Due to his opposition to Ayub Khan, he was arrested for allegedly murdering Haybat Khan, his own uncle. He was sentenced to death by a military court but later Ayub Khan ordered his release, commuting the death sentence.

He told journalist Sohail Waraich in a television programme, aik din Geo ke saath, that he spent eight years in jail.

Bugti mocked Cowasjee for writing an apology letter to the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1976 for the latter’s release. Bhutto had shown that letter to Bugti. Cowasjee’s letter to Bhutto read:

“Dear Mr Prime Minister, I believe I have caused you annoyance and if I have, I sincerely apologise. I have been your sincere friend and remain so.”

Bugti went on teasing Cowasjee that he was jailed too but he never sought pardon.

Seasoned Baloch politician Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo managed to unite Bugti, Ataullah Mengal and Khair Bakhsh Marri on National Awami Party’s platform in the political battle against the infamous one-unit, which had merged the four provinces of West Pakistan as a single polity to undermine the majority of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

The one-unit programme, established on November 22, 1954, was eventually dismantled in 1970 and Balochistan got provincial status. Elections were held the same year.

Bugti had been banned from holding political office by the military court since 1960, thus he could not contest the elections. But he campaigned on behalf of the NAP, which formed a coalition government in Balochistan.

Bugti’s younger brother, Ahmed Nawaz Bugti, was elected as a member of the first Balochistan Assembly. Ataullah Mengal became the chief minister and Bezenjo the governor. However, their success was short-lived.

Bugti soon developed serious differences with the NAP government. According to him, he was once attending a NAP meeting, and as the meeting was about to start someone shouted “those who are not formal members of the party should leave”. As Bugti was not a formal member, he realized it was him being referred to. He said he tried to ignore the situation. But the man repeated himself, and Bizenjo, who was present, remained silent. It offended Bugti and he left.

When Bhutto dismantled the Balochistan government in 1973, Bugti supported his move to avenge the “disrespect” shown to him by NAP leaders.

Mengal, Marri and Bizenjo were jailed and a military operation was initiated in Balochistan which lasted till 1977.

Bhutto also took advantage of the sore relationship of Bugti with other Baloch leaders. He appointed him as the governor of Balochistan on Feb 15, 1973. But Bugti said he realized he was being used and he developed serious issues with Bhutto, and eventually resigned, nine months after his appointment.

He remained silent during most of Ziaul Haq’s dictatorship. He did not contest the non-party elections in 1985.

He formed the Balochistan National Alliance in 1988 and contested general elections the same year. He was elected as a member of the Balochistan Assembly and eventually the chief minister. He served as the provincial chief till 1990 when the assemblies were dissolved by the federal government.

In August, 1990, he set up the Jamhoori Watan Party. In the elections the same year, he was again elected as a member of the Balochistan Assembly.

In 1993, he supported Benazir Bhutto and was elected as the member of the National Assembly. Their alliance didn’t last long either, and he initiated an opposition campaign against her.

The last time he held an office was in 1997 when he was elected as a Member of the National Assembly.

He confined himself in Dera Bugti after the murder of his son, Nawabzada Salal Bugti, whom he considered his heir, in June 1992.

On January 2, 2005, Dr Shazia Khalid, a female doctor at the Pakistan Petroleum Limited, was raped by an army captain.

Bugti demanded punishment for the rapist as the incident had happened in his area and he considered it a dishonor to Baloch society. However, the then dictator General Musharraf straightaway spoke in support of his officer and declared the captain innocent without any investigations. It was the beginning of a cold-war between Musharraf and Bugti which eventually turned into a full-fledged battle.

Musharraf’s political advisers — Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Mushahid Hussain – tried to resolve the issue through talks.

Sherbbaz Mazari, a seasoned politician and Bugti’s brother-in-law, told this author Shujaat and Mushahid came to his Karachi residence urging him to persuade Bugti for talks.

He said Bugti was initially reluctant because he knew the military leadership was not serious and that they want to get rid of him.

After much persuasion from Mazari, he agreed for talks. The government’s negotiators met him in Dera Bugti. But the talks failed, and Bugti claimed the negotiators had not been given any authority to resolve the issues.

After the 2005 bombing at his residence by the military, he went into hiding in the mountains. He was 86 and couldn’t walk properly because of a tumour. He seemed certain he will be assassinated.

According to Sherbaz, he called him a few days ahead of his assassination to say good-bye to him.

“It’s better to die with your spurs on, Instead of a slow death in bed, I’d rather death come to me while I’m fighting for a purpose,” he told Time Magazine in his last interview.

On August 26, 2006, his hideout was bombed, killing Bugti and dozens of his supporters. Twenty-one army soldiers were also killed in the ensuing battle.

Violent protests erupted throughout Balochistan. Government offices and machinery were burnt into ashes by angry protesters. His body, sealed in a coffin, was buried in Dera Bugti without the presence of his family.

Bugti’s murdered changed Balochistan’s politics forever. It not only gave a new impetus to the Baloch insurgency for a separate homeland, it also made Bugti the undisputed hero of the contemporary Baloch politics.

He is no longer remembered as the young man who voted for Pakistan. For the Baloch separatists, his image is that of an old but strong man on a camel leading the Baloch fighters.

[infolibrary]

Last Words of 25 Executed Criminals

New Post has been published on http://www.infolibrary.net/last-words-of-25-executed-criminals/

Last Words of 25 Executed Criminals

Here is a list of Last Words of 25 Executed Criminals.

01. George Appel

Crime: Murder

Executed: By electric chair in 19280

Last Words: “Well folks, you’ll soon see a baked apple.”

02. George Engel

Crime: Accessory to murder (Haymarket Affair)

Executed: By hanging on November 11, 1887

Last Words: “Hurrah for anarchy! This is the happiest moment of my life!” (in German)

03. Aileen Wournos

Crime: Murder (x7)

Executed: By lethal injection on October 9, 2002

Last Words: “I’d just like to say I’m sailing with the Rock and I’ll be back like ‘Independence Day’ with Jesus. June 6, like the movie, big mother ship and all. I’ll be back.”

04. Daniel Wayne Cook

Crime: Rape and murder (x2)

Executed: By lethal injection on August 8, 2012

Last Words: “I’d like to say sorry to the victim’s family. I know that’s not enough… Where am I? To my lawyers, thank you. Red Robin, yum. I’m done. I love you.”

05. David Castillo

Crime: Murder

Executed: By lethal injection on August 23, 1998

Last Words: “There is no man that is free from all evil, nor any man that is so evil to be worth nothing.”

06. Thomas Arnold Kemp Jr.

Crime: Murder

Executed: By lethal injection on April 25, 2012

Last Words: “I regret nothing.”

07. Eddie Slovik

Crime: Desertion

Executed: By firing squad on January 31, 1945

Last Words: “Don’t worry about me. I’m okay. They’re not shooting me for deserting the United States Army – thousands of guys have done that. They’re shooting me for bread I stole when I was 12 years old.”

08. Herman Ashworth

Crime: Murder

Executed: By lethal injection on September 27, 2005

Last Words: “A life for a life, let it be done and justice will be served.”

09. Robert Walter Avery

Crime: Murder

Executed: By firing squad on February 5, 1943

Last Words: “It’s getting light. What’s holding those fellows up?”

10. William Prince Davis

Crime: Murder

Executed: By lethal injection on September 14, 1999

Last Words: “What about them Cowboys?”

11. Anna Antonio

Crime: Murder

Executed: By electric chair on August 9, 1934

Last Words: “I don’t care what you do to me. I am not afraid to die. I have nothing on my conscience. I never killed any one.”

12. Marvallous Keene

Crime: Murder (x5)

Executed: By lethal injection on July 21, 2009

Last Words: “I have no words.”

13. John Deering

Crime: Murder

Executed: By electric chair on October 31, 1938

Last Words: “When I was a kid raising hell everyone told me I’d end up on the gallows, so I thought I’d fool them. Also, there’s an old saying I like: Live by the sword and die by the sword.”

14. Jeffrey Matthews

Crime: Murder

Executed: By lethal injection on January 11, 2011

Last Words: “I think that governor’s phone is broke. He hadn’t called yet.”

15. Gary Gilmore

Crime: Murder (x2)

Executed: By firing squad on January 17, 1977

Last Words: “Let’s do it!”

16. Gerald James Holland

Crime: Murder of a 15-year-old

Executed: By lethal injection on May 20, 2010

Last Words: “I’m really deep down in my heart sorry it happened. I wish this would bring her back. I want you to know that I’m very sorry this ever happened. I knew it was wrong but it was alcohol, despair and temper that caused it. That’s it.”

17. James French

Crime: Murder (x2)

Executed: By electric chair on August 10, 1966

Last Words: “How’s this for your headline? ‘French Fries’”.

18. Robert Alton Harris

Crime: Murder of two 16-year-olds

Executed: By gas chamber on April 21, 1992

Last Words: “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the grim reaper.” (He misquoted Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.)

19. Omer R. Woods

Crime: Murder

Executed: By firing squad, January 18, 1924

Last Words: “Say good-bye to my brother and daughter.”

20. John Marek

Crime: Murder

Executed: By lethal injection on August 9, 2009

Last Words: “Jesus, remember the sinners.”

21. Jose Villegas

Crime: Murder (x3), including a 5-year-old

Executed: By lethal injection on April 16, 2014

Last Words: “I would like to remind my children once again I love them. Everything is OK. I love you all, and I love my children. I am at peace. It does kind of burn. Goodbye, goodbye.”

22. Kenneth Hogan

Crime: Murder

Executed: By lethal injection on January 25, 2014

Last Words: “There’s a chemical taste in my mouth. I’m going. I’m going. I’m going.”

23. Robert Charles Towery

Crime: Murder

Executed: By lethal injection on March 8, 2012

Last Words: “I love my family. Potato, potato, potato.”

24. Ray Gardner

Crime: Murder

Executed: By firing squad on September 29, 1951

Last Words: “I’m ready to go. No one will miss me. My life has been worthless.”

25. Robert Gleason Jr.

Crime: Murder (x3)

Executed: By electric chair on January 16, 2013

Last Words: “Well, I hope Percy ain’t going to wet the sponge. Put me on the highway to Jackson and call my Irish buddies. Pog mo thoin. God bless.” (In Irish Gaelic, the phrase “Pog mo thoin” loosely translates as “Kiss my ass”.)

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[whatisonthemoonarchive]

'Just as the conviction about Jesuits controlling the world deserves our consideration periodically, theories still have to be proven.'    Frank F

  Glad you asked for proof. According to a frequent contributor of this blog:

'I can just hear them say, “Well, Moon stopped Communism”. What utter, complete bullshit. Moon was just as likely to collaborate with Communists as he was with fascists. The way to stop Communism is simply stop financing it. The history of International finance and Communism is an important study in itself. One that is totally absent from most school history books for obvious reasons.'  Frank F

Yes, quite right.

Who financed communism? The  people who financed communism are the same ones who financed Hitler.  Many historians and researchers have proven that the true originators of communism were not Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Nor, was the true originator of Nazism, Hitler. Research has shown that the people behind Marx Lenin and Stalin are the same ones who control Wall Street and the privately and foreign owned Federal Reserve Banking system. These are the culprits behind the world's wars and unrest:

 'In 1915, the American International Corporation was formed in New York. Its principal goal was the coordination of aid, particularly financial assistance, to the Bolsheviks which had previously been provided by [Jacob] Schiff and other bankers on an informal basis. The new firm was funded by J.P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, and the National City Bank. Chairman of the Board was Frank Vanderlip, former president of National City [and McKinley assassination co conspirator  -fwf,]  and member of the Jekyll Island group which wrote the Federal Reserve Act in 1910…*  No one would seriously believe that bankers of this magnitude would finance an "anti -capitalist" revolution for the Communists, yet this is exactly what happened. These same men financed Woodrow Wilson's political campaigns, and it was these same men to whom Wilson referred in his opening address to the Paris Peace Conference, when he said,

 "... There are men in the United States of the finest temper who are in sympathy with Bolshevism because it appears to them to offer that regime of opportunity to the individual which they desire to bring about." (The Great Conspiracy Against Russia, Seghers and Kahn.)

The men of "the finest temper", to whom Wilson referred, the Morgans and the Rockefellers, did not really desire opportunity for the individual; what they desired was of slavery under the World Order, and this is the goal which they continue to strive to achieve, on a world wide basis.'   From THE WORLD ORDER Our Secret Rulers by Eustace Mullins

The Federal Reserve Banking system is part of a larger worldwide privately owned central banking system which forces sovereign nations to borrow their own national currency from privately and foreign owned central banks at interest, instead of printing their own money as would be proper.  Who controls this worldwide privately owned central banking system? The Vatican Jesuits* (with the aid of the Rothschilds who hold the title of 'Vatican Treasurer):

Karen Hudes former World Bank employee exposes Vatican and Jesuits    https://youtu.be/9uIzhDDBFV8?t=110

Network of Global Corporate Control Jesuits    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtYdQamXyMM

World banker Karen Hudes: Banking control under the Jesuit Order    https://youtu.be/Weu6pgQ4E8Y?t=2707

Karen Hudes, Former World Bank Senior Legal Counsel-Turned-Whistleblower exposes Jesuit control  November 5, 2013                  by Jerry Robinson, FTMDaily.com Editor-in-Chief

Editor’s Note: Karen Hudes has quite a story to tell. As the former senior legal counsel at the World Bank, Karen claims to have witnessed — and documented — immense levels of financial and political corruption. Recently, Karen Hudes contacted our office with a large number of documents exposing corruption within her former employer, the World Bank. In a world dominated by a handful of powerful families and corporations, I believe we need more people like Karen who will take a risk to spread the truth. I recently sat down with Karen and asked her to share her story about the corruption she witnessed firsthand during her employment at the World Bank.

Jerry Robinson: Karen, you are a former senior legal counselor at the World Bank, which is an institution that was created by the Bretton Woods Arrangement back in 1944. The World Bank’s official mission is to “help eradicate poverty,” but you claim you saw corruption. What exactly did you witness at the World Bank? ….who actually profits from the corruption and money laundering?

KH: If you look at Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo, these are all one entity because their boards are all interlocking. This group is in control of the Federal Reserve system, and of the central banks of the 58 countries that belong to Bank for International Settlements. These [central banks] are not government entities, they are private entities. This group thinks it sits above the law, and that’s why we never truly know what’s going on because this group has bought up control of the press and is bound and determined not to let the citizens of these countries know what is going on.

JR: Very interesting. Now this group of people, this cabal that you are speaking of, how big is it? Who is involved?

KH: What I found out actually is that there are layers upon layers and that there are secret groups that go around acting like the enforcers or the coordinators or whatever you want to call them. So I can tell you who these groups are so you can get a good picture of how this group operates. There’s something called the Knights of Malta, there’s something called the Council of Foreign Relations, there’s something called the Bilderberg Group, there’s something called the Trilateral Commission, and fasten your seatbelts, folks… there’s something called the Jesuits. These people are the ones that are determining and have mapped this out… you know, these groups are kind of like the successors of the groups that were operating to assassinate Lincoln, and of the group that assassinated JFK. And they have had a plan that they are systematically implementing.     https://followthemoney.com/world-bank-corruption-whistleblower/

__________________________________________________

*Vatican & Jesuit Order research resources:

In Minnesota, the news of Lincoln's assassination was reported hours before it actually occurred:

"Three or four hours before Lincoln was murdered in Washington, the 14th of April, 1865, that murder was not only known by some one, but it was circulated and talked of in the streets, and in the houses of the priestly and Romish town of St. Joseph, Minnesota. The fact is undeniable; the testimonies are unchallengeable: and there were no railroad nor any telegraph communications nearer than forty or eighty miles from the nearest station to St. Joseph.

... there is not a man of sound judgment who will have any doubt about that fact, the 14th of April, 1865, the priests of Rome knew and circulated the death of Lincoln four hours before its occurrence in their Roman Catholic town of St. Joseph, Minnesota. But they could not circulate it without knowing it, and they could not know it, without belonging to the band of conspirators who assassinated President Lincoln."    Fifty Years in the Church of Rome By Charles Chiniquy    http://exmoonagainstnwo.freeforums.net/thread/8/foreign-subversion-who-president-work?page=2

Charles Chiniquy - (1809—1899) He exposed the Jesuits as the assassins of President Lincoln during the 1880s.

Charles Chiniquy collection

José Rizal - (1861-1896)                                                  joserizal.ph

Emmett McLoughlin - (1907-????) "Irishman, who exposed the Roman hierarchy as responsible for the excessive crime among Roman Catholic peoples, in forbidding the public school system to teach about the Inquisition, and for carrying out the assassination of Abraham Lincoln." (book: "Vatican Assassins", 2001)

Hiram Dukes - (1914-1990)

Avro Manhattan - (1914-1990) author

toresearch: "He was educated at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics. During World War Two he was jailed in Italy for refusing to serve Mussolini's army. Later during the war, he operated a radio station called "Radio Freedom" broadcasting to nations occupied by the Axis Powers. For this service he was made a Knight of Malta. His friends included H.G. Wells, Pablo Picasso, George Bernard Shaw and scientist Marie Stopes." [1]

to research: "His aristocratic roots meant that he was a Knight of the House of Savoy as well as a Knight Templar and a Knight of the Order of Mercedes." [2]

Books linked here: 911:Vatican_&_Jesuits#Literature

Malachi Martin - (1921–1999), a former Jesuit who authored critical books on the Jesuits and the Vatican.

Jack Chick - (1924-) comic author, and critic of the Catholic Church

Edmond Paris - author

Edmund Paris ~ The Vatican Against Europe PDF

Edmund Paris ~ The Secret History of Jesuits (1975) PDF

Alberto Rivera - (1936-1997. multiple assassination attempts, murdered ) ex-Jesuit general 1997 who told the public about the Jesuit infiltration actions.

multiple articles on chick.com (do a search on "Alberto Rivera")

assassination info

small article

google-links

todo: Nuri Rivera

 ? Look up name

Youtube Spanish video confession of a jesuit (spanish)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi7rzZrjmyc

Tupper Saussy - (1936-2007) artist/musician/author. Author of "Rulers Of Evil: Useful Knowledge about Governing Bodies".

"Finding the lost" (2001), article on his discovery of the Jesuit/Masonic mafia influences in the US.

Milton William Cooper (Bill Cooper, lured and shot by police men, murdered) - (1943-2001), author, shortwave broadcaster,

Book:

Behold A Pale Horse

audio clip

video: The Hour of Our Time - The Legacy of William Cooper

video: William Cooper - Behold a pale horse lecture

Walter Veith

official site (Total Onslaught video series)

Ian Paisley

ianpaisley.org European Institute of Protestant Studies

In 1988, when Pope John Paul II delivered a speech to the European Parliament, Paisley shouted "I Denounce you as the AntiChrist!" and held up a red poster reading "Pope John Paul II ANTICHRIST" in black letters. John Paul continued with his address after Paisley was ejected from the hemicycle by fellow MEPs. Some reports claimed that other MEPs assisted in expelling him from the chamber, and that Paisley was booed and struck by other MEPs, who also hurled objects at him, leading to his hospitalisation. The elderly Otto von Habsburg helped to wrestle Paisley out of the room (wikipedia)

Jim Arrabito - (1950-1990, murdered?), artist and evangelist

"On September 2, 1990, while returning from a photography trip in Alaska, Jim and two of his sons (Tony and Joey) were killed in a plane crash which also took the lives of the pilot and a young missionary from New Zealand."

video:A fascinating comparison of ancient religious symbolism

video:Jesuit Order Occult History

video:The Inroads of Spiritualism

video:The Babylonian Connection

video:James Arrabito John the Revelator

video:Home from the Heavens

Richard Bennett (Ex-Jesuit Priest)

google-links

archive.org works

video's

video: Vatican Control Through Civil Law

Eric Jon Phelps - secret society researcher (Jesuit Order / Vatican / masonic cults)

interviews and book excerpts

google video's

youtube video's

"Throughout history, the Jesuit Order has been tied together with war and genocide, being formally removed from many countries, including France and England. As researchers claim the Jesuits are the real spiritual controllers of the New World Order, author Phelps has also called for the Order's banishment in this country. However, with more than 28 major universities from coast to coast, the Order has created a strong political and financial foothold here, including secret control of the CFR and control of many banks like Bank of America and the Federal Reserve banking system, making Phelps' call for banishment a difficult if not improbable task." [3]

C.T. Wilcox - author and actor

Book: "Transformation of the Republic", 2006

"an expose of Vatican and Jesuit intrigues and interference into the political structure of the United States and Europe. It contains shocking revelations and fully authenticated documentation, much of it hidden for almost 100 years, to support the conclusion that the United States has been transformed from a beacon of light and hope into an empire with beast-like tendencies and that the world is headed for a Vatican led and instigated cataclysm while it sleepwalks towards the edge."

J. Crowley - "Irishman, who, at the turn of the Twentieth Century warned of the Jesuits’ conspiracy to destroy the bulwark of America’s popular liberties – the Public School System – furthering the quest of "making America dominantly Catholic." Authoring The Pope—Chief of White Slavers, High Priest of Intrigue, Crowley also warned of the Jesuits’ power in Washington, D.C. and their plan to use American political and military might to restore the Pope’s Temporal Power in Rome and extend its influence around the world. This was accomplished during the Second Thirty Years’ War (World War I and World War II – 1914-1945) and the public schools were destroyed by Supreme Court decisions handed down by a Chief Justice who was an arch-conspirator in the Kennedy Assassination, Earl Warren." (book: "Vatican Assassins", 2001)

"Papal Despotism" (Chapter VIII of Romanism)

more info

Gerard Bouffard - former Catholic Archbishop of Guatemala and Vatican insider. (contracted bone cancer)

"Besides painting a dark picture of the Black Pope in Rome, Bishop Bouffard claims the evil power of the Jesuits extends throughout the world, including solid infiltration of the U.S. government, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and major religious organizations."

Thomas Richards - a former Roman Catholic who is warning Americans about the evil Vatican and Jesuit hierarchy trying to destroy America.

podcast (Nov. 07, 2006)

Bill Hughes - author of The Enemy Unmasked and The Secret Terrorists, telling listeners that the Vatican through the Jesuit Order are the real spiritual controllers of the New World Order.

podcast (Oct. 17, 2006)

videos: Catholic infiltration of the SDA

Bobby G. Limeta

Madelin Murrey O'Hair - " Just before O'Hair, and her family, was to go to New York, to protest the Pope, she and her family disappeared without a trace. Again the media silence was deafening."

toresearch:

Category:Anti-Catholicis

Slats Grobnik

Richard Bennett (short bio)

Stan West

Ralph Moss

Tony Alamo

al

Pasted from <https://www.thebabylonmatrix.com/index.php?title=911:Whistleblowers>

[wayneooverton]

Best Wreck Diving in Europe

In the last of our six-part series on the world’s most dive-able wrecks, we’re highlighting the best wreck diving in Europe. (Check out our stories here on wreck diving in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the United States and Caribbean). While divers have, unfortunately, removed or salvaged parts from some wrecks, many are still in the same condition as when they sank. Equipment, tools and everyday objects often appear frozen in time from the moment the ship down. If you’re looking to round out your warm-water wreck diving with some worthy entrants in temperate waters, look no further than our picks for the best wreck diving in Europe.

The Zenobia

Trucks on the Zenobia wreck

Where: Lanarka harbor, Cyprus

The MS Zenobia was a roll-on-roll off car ferry that capsized and sank on its maiden voyage in June 1980 with no casualties. It was carrying over 120 vehicles, many of which are still on the wreck. Experienced wreck divers can utilize many penetration points, and novice divers can cruise along the starboard side of the ship at around 50 feet (16 m).

Maximum depth is 138 feet (42 m) with the shallower parts of the dive starting at 52 feet (16 m). Water temperature ranges between 63 and 82 F (17 to 28 C) from February to August, with the main diving season falling between March and November. 

SS Excellent

Where: Gibraltar

The SS Excellent steamer was at anchor in 1888 in Gibraltar Bay with a cargo of fruit bound for the United States. A strong current caused it to drag anchor and the ship subsequently collided with the Saint Asaph and the Memling. It sank near the Detached Mole (a breakwater in Gibraltar Bay).

The damage from the collision is visible in the wreck’s midsection. The anchor is located near the starboard side and while the wreck is partially buried, divers can clearly see the two-cylinder steam engines, the boilers, one furnace, and a large four-bladed propeller. Penetration is possible, although visitors should take care as strong weather conditions have moved the wreck in recent years, making penetration a bit trickier and somewhat dangerous.

The stern lies at 82 feet (25 m) while the bow is at 92 feet (28 m). Water temperature ranges from 57 F (14 C) in March to 72 F (14 C) in August. 

Blockship Tabarka

A blockship at the entrance to Scapa Flow

Where: Scapa Flow, Scotland

Part of the underwater ship cemetery of Scapa Flow, the Tabarka was one of three vessels scuttled in Burra Sound to prevent the enemy’s access Scapa Flow bay. The wreck is upside down and has multiple entry points with vibrant marine life.

Although the Tabarka only has a maximum depth of 52 feet (16 m), it is an advanced dive due to strong currents. The wreck is only accessible at slack tide. Water temperature ranges between 39 and 57 F (4 to 14 C) from April to September so a drysuit is a must. 

Pietro Orseolo

Where: Glénan Islands, France

The Pietro Orseolo was an Italian cargo vessel that transported food, weapons and tools for the Germans in WWII. It sank near Penfret Island in 1943. Some of the holds have disintegrated and many of the upper parts have been levelled, making penetration only suitable for extremely experienced wreck divers with the proper skills and training. The outside of the wreck, however, still offers much to see. A sea-fan clad propeller shaft, three caterpillar trucks, a large engine and connecting cables between the front and back of the vessel are all worth exploring.

The Pietro Orseolo sits slightly tilted toward starboard at between 56 and 100 feet (17 to 30 m). Water temperature ranges from 48 F in February to 61 F in August (9 to 16 C), so you’ll want a drysuit whenever you visit. 

Dellec wreck

Where: Brest harbor, France

The Dellec is an unidentified wreck from WWII. German occupation authorities armed and positioned this 72-foot (22 m) barge to defend Brest against an Allied seaborne assault. It is unclear how it sank. The wreck is mostly intact, sitting upright on a sandy bottom. Presumably wooden, the top decking has rotted away and left the metal framework and parts of the interior exposed. There are large rolls of chain on the stern and bridge and weapon-control stations on each side of the hull. The amidships has four spectacular torpedo tubes as well. Penetration is easy due to the absence of the deck. Inside you can see large rolls of cables and wire, control panels, pipes, the crew’s washroom and the compressor used for torpedo launches.

The Dellec sits at 26 feet (8 m). Water temperature ranges from 48 F in March to 61 F in August (9 to 16 C). You’ll definitely want a drysuit.  

SS Empire Broadsword

Where: Normandy, France

The SS Empire Broadsword sank nearly a month after D-Day. It struck two mines and became airborne thanks to the explosion, which subsequently broke the ship’s back and sank it. The wreck sits on the starboard side. Divers can penetrate the engine room, bridge and boiler room, but strong tides, gales and the shallow depth have weakened the wreck’s structure. Outside, divers can see a huge rudder, deck guns, ammo and anti-aircraft guns. The wreck sits between 49 to 88 feet (15 to 27 m) in water ranging from 45 F in March to 66 F in August (7 to 19 C). 

SS Norfolk

Where: Normandy, France

The SS Norfolk struck a mine while on active duty off the coast of Normandy. It then became a blockship for the American military off Omaha Beach. The wreck is upright and divers can penetrate the engine room and accommodation areas. The wreck sits between 46 and 66 feet (14 to 20 m) meters in water ranging from 45 F in March to 66 F in August (7 to 19 C). 

Le Rubis

Where: Cap Camarat, France

The French Navy sank the Le Rubis submarine in 1958 as a sonar target. Divers can see the masts floating in mid-water, the compressed air cylinders used for the ship’s buoyancy inside the wreck, three trapdoors and the protrusions that held landmines while the vessel was in action. There is a platform at the front of the turret thought to be a lookout point while the ship was on the surface. In many areas the metal sheeting has decomposed, exposing the valves and pipes underneath. Divers can enter the central trapdoor but it is extremely narrow and only one person can enter at a time. Only extremely experienced and skilled divers should attempt penetration.

The Le Rubis sits between 104 and 130 feet (32 to 40 m) and there is a near-constant current that can be quite strong. Water temperatures range from 53 to 68 F from January to August (12 to 20 C). 

Um El Faroud

The deck of the Um el Faroud (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Where: Malta

The Um El Faroud was an oil tanker from Libya. It was scuttled in 1998 to form an artificial reef off the coast of Wied Iz Zurrieq after being damaged in an explosion three years earlier. The wreck sits upright in two parts, broken by a winter storm in the 2005-2006 season. The doors and windows are gone, and entry and exit holes have been cut into the wreck for easier penetration by experienced wreck divers. Divers can find a brass memorial plate dedicated to the dockyard workers who died in the explosion that damaged the Um El Faroud on the wreck.

The funnel of the wreck sits at 49 feet (15 m) while the propeller is at 118 feet (36 m). Water temperature ranges from 57 F in March to 75 F in August (14 to 24 C). 

Entella

Where: Italy

The Entella avoided a torpedo hit on April 10, 1943, only to become stuck on a shoal and subsequently struck and sunk by a torpedo the next day. As it was obstructing navigation for other vessels, further explosions finished the job and sank it all the way. . The wreck is mostly twisted metal and the remainder of the superstructure. The coal the ship was carrying is thickly scattered along the bottom around the wreck. Due to the damage the vessel received, lots of light penetrates the wreck, making it for underwater photographers. The wreck sits between 46 and 59 feet (14 to 18 m) in water ranging from 55 to 72 F (13 to 22 C) from February to August.

    The post Best Wreck Diving in Europe appeared first on Scuba Diver Life.

from Scuba Diver Life http://bit.ly/2V4qAZN