#monks barton

[lil-doodles]

Well, for those who are curious, here is the project I was working on for my wife. She has a collection of perfume bottles that she wants to display and she wanted art to accompany them. I took her pop culture interests and made them into faux scent products. Boa Noite is from Love Actually, Grantham is from Downton Abbey, Monks Barton is from Midsomer Murders, Black Ash is the type of tobacco that Sherlock Holmes smoked, and Pemberley is from Pride and Prejudice.

[a-river-of-stars]

Watching Monk and in S6E7 there is an Eastern European daredevil circus acrobat and a Dr. G and in the very next episode there is a character named Maxwell Barton. There was at least one Gundam Wing fan on staff feeding these writers names and backstories and I need to know who it was lol

[thatgeekwiththeclipons]

Happy 66th Birthday to Emmy Winning, Golden Globe Nominated character actor extraordinaire John Turturro! ^__^

[darsynia]

They Show Their Truth (one single time) | Oneshot

gif from @marvelheroes

Summary: Steve's managed to keep how he feels about Natasha a secret, but the vision he saw in South Africa shook him.

Caring about Natasha Romanoff this much means that when there's a chance to heal her wounds by revealing his secret, Steve throws himself on the grenade, because of course he does.

Length/Warnings: 5,443 | Porn with plot, unrequited love. Minors DNI

Tags (please forgive me if this isn't your thing, feel free to ignore if so 💚): @ronearoundblindly @munstysmind @chickensarentcheap @themaradaniels @starryeyes2000 @deepbatched @chibijusstuff @caplanreblogsfics

This was written as a request for my friend @salovie a while back!

They Show Their Truth (one single time)

“I don’t trust a guy without a dark side.”

The worst part is that Stark would probably appreciate what Steve is struggling with. He might even trust Steve more because of it, and isn’t that just exactly the worst conclusion to draw, tonight?

Steve’s on his back on the floor in the Barton family room. He’d feel more comfortable if he could rest on his side with his back against the couch, second best to the wall, but every square foot of wall in this room is filled with shelving. Toys, books, puzzles; the accoutrements of a life he’ll never live, all stacked up with the chaotic order of an unexpected visit. The couch is ready for Natasha, with a sheet covering the cold, worn leather. He’s left her the handcrafted afghan and the better of the two pillows Clint’s wife had offered, and kept the sports fleece for himself.

It makes sense that they’ve put the two of them in here; whatever is going on between Bruce and Nat means it would be irresponsible to force them to share. Stark’s by himself on an air mattress in the laundry room instead of in the guest room with Bruce, because out of all of them, he’s the one most likely to accidentally set Banner off-- and just like Clint said, it’s not that they don’t trust Bruce. They don’t trust Tony.

Steve likes Laura Barton. It seems to him that she understands the purgatory they’re all putting themselves through, most of them, anyway. He sure as hell hopes she hasn’t caught on to his, but she couldn’t have.

If she had, she wouldn’t have put him in a room with Natasha.

He gets up and turns off the overhead light, using the chain, then flips off the switch. The ceiling fan’s breeze is just on the edge of too much, but if Nat wants it on, it’ll be set up so the light won’t disturb her. He walks over to the door and cracks it, listening. Laura and Natasha are still talking quietly in the kitchen. Steve pushes the door mostly shut again, and turns off the light that’s across the room from the couch, leaving just the one lamp directly next to it. 

He winces. The room is now bathed in an orange-yellow glow that reminds him of the quality of light in the vision he’d seen in South Africa. The truth is that practically everything here reminds him of the vision.

The glint of the sun off of the axe had reminded him of the flashbulbs.

One of Barton’s kids had spilled juice, and its blood red color had been like the wine on the soldier’s chest.

A rare moment of collective laughter in the dining room with Nick Fury had pulled Steve out of the moment and thrust him, unwillingly, back into the vision.

He’d had to walk away, away from the mirth, away from her red hair as she faced away from him, so similar to the twice-damned vision where Peggy Carter had asked him to dance. As he’d turned to say yes, she’d spun away, dress flying off to reveal a tight-fitting black jumpsuit, the brown wig falling away to red, her familiar, beloved face morphing into Natasha Romanoff’s familiar, beloved face.

Because she is. Beloved. Despite everything. No amount of brutal training at the gym until his hands are numb and bruised, no amount of self-denial or self-recrimination has cured him of it. Hell, no monk has ever kept himself as pure for the sake of his God as Steve Rogers has, for fear of thinking of his teammate in a way that is definitely unholy.

The result has been the exact opposite of his intention; all roads lead to Natasha in his mind, because as ever, Steve Rogers aspires for that which cannot be. The only thing he’s learned from being chosen for the program, from rejecting orders and saving his best friend despite everything, from crashing the plane to save the world, from waking up after seventy years on ice, is that fate loves to give him what he wants.

And he wants her.

“Not this time,” Steve murmurs from his position on the floor, one knee up, arm behind his head.

“Well, if that’s the way it’s gonna be,” Natasha says in a sultry, teasing voice from the doorway.

Steve launches himself into a stand as if she’s the personification of an enemy, and in a way, she is.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Steve, but you’re a little edgy.”

“You and Clint are always telling me to rough it up a little, just trying to follow orders,” Steve jokes, backing up out of her way as she walks into the room.

“We were thinking more along the lines of getting you to watch some porn, grow some scruff,” she tells him. “So, you trying to be chivalrous, leaving me the couch and the best blanket?”

The tingling awareness he’s been fighting down for hours rears back to life at her provocative words, even more so when she immediately tempers them with a challenge about the couch. He knows her. Her behavior tells him that she thinks her words were reckless, that’s why she’s covering them. That means there was some truth to what she said, that they were revealing. If he were an enemy, it might be a trick to let him lower his guard, but she doesn’t know that he’s been fighting her in his mind for months. At least, he hopes to hell she doesn’t.

“Not at all,” Steve lies smoothly. “It’s pure math. I don’t fit.”

Nat turns her warm, impish gaze towards him and Steve feels a jolt of pure, unadulterated desire. Don’t, sweetheart. Don’t, he begs in his own head. She’s vulnerable, open, teasing, coy. Because she trusts him.

“Now, come on, soldier,” she says, sweetly mocking. “That’s boy scout math. Unimaginative math. I could probably fit the whole team on that couch if I had to. They might even enjoy it.”

He’s hardly ever seen her like this, but he knew she had it in reserve. “Well,” he says in his best regimental, Team Captain voice, hoping she won’t hear the regret he feels in pulling it out to dash water all over her lush, flirty flames. “That might be so, but that has nothing to do with sleeping.”

“Oh no, Steve,” she says, amused concern woven through the husk of her voice. “Turn it off, I absolutely cannot sleep with a Steve Rogers figurine in the room with me tonight!” Natasha comes over to him, her lips curved into a smile under furrowed eyebrows, and before he can fully understand what she’s doing, she’s got her hands on him, stroking along his back, and he’s hard, his heartbeat spiking, she’s going to know, fuck, fuck… 

“Nat, what--” he chokes out, throwing his arms out wide in hopes that he can talk himself down before she walks back around.

“I’m looking for the pull cord,” she says, resting a hand on his arm so she can lean over and catch his eye. “For your sayings. You know, ‘It’s the American Way!’ and ‘Do it for your country!’”

Every single thing she says sounds like innuendo to him. To think that Tony fucking Stark thought he doesn’t have a dark side. He’s sworn more in silent frustration about this gorgeous, unattainable woman than Stark probably has in the whole year, on purpose, out loud.

“Lay back and think of Uncle Sam?” Steve suggests, forcing his limbs to move, walking toward the other side of the room as he pulls his arms out of the long-sleeved overshirt he’s wearing.

“I’ve actually done that, you know. Multiple times,” Nat tells him, chuckling.

“Are you going to sleep in that? Do you want me to leave the room while you change?” he forces himself to ask. She’s got her own dark, long-sleeved shirt on, over a soft, grey thing that clings to her curves in a wholesome, farmhouse way that doesn’t stop him from finding it sexy in the slightest.

“You wouldn’t have to even if I wasn’t,” she tells him in a voice that chastises him for even asking.

I don’t trust a man without a dark side, Tony’s voice repeats, in his mind.

He should have just confessed to Stark. ‘Some nights I’m so desperate for thoughts of Natasha that I’ve tied my hands to my own bedpost. Just enough resistance so I wake up if my hands drift down to touch myself. It’s her face in my erotic dreams, her body in my everpresent thoughts. Not Peggy’s. I’m not wholesome, Stark. I’m a sinner. A hypocrite.’

“The figurine comment was metaphorical, Steve,” Nat is saying. She’s inches away from him somehow, because once again he’s caught up in his thoughts. “You okay? Tony said you were unaffected, but--”

“He’s wrong. She got to me.”

“Yeah,” Natasha breathes, looking up at him. “Me too.” Her eyes are troubled, hurt, practically anguished.

Steve’s resolve weakens, and he smiles down at her with a fraction of his feelings showing through as reassurance. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Nat looks up at the ceiling and does a little frustrated shiver. “Talk, no. I either need to--” she breaks off and looks at Steve, her eyes shining with repressed tears. “There’s something really wrong about punching Captain America in the face because I need a release of tension.”

He thinks he knows what her aborted sentence was. I either need to hit someone or fuck someone.

Steve says what he was thinking out loud. “People see me as standing for the way things ought to be. Fairness. Doing your duty. Things working out the way they’re supposed to.” He lets out a short, frustrated sigh. “Life doesn’t always happen that way, and reacting with frustration against that fact is very reasonable. If you need to, go ahead. Punch me.”

“She really did get to you,” Nat whispers.

“I mean it. You know I can take it, Natasha. Physically, I mean. I won’t take it personally.” He wants her to. If he can’t have her softness, he’ll take hardness over nothingness.

The regretful vulnerability is back on her face. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew why I need it.”

“They’re trying to tear us apart, Natasha. The best way not to tear is to reinforce the connections you already have.”

“It’s not about what I saw. At all. It’s about wanting someone and being rejected, not even because I’m not enough, but because he’s too broken.” She reels back in reaction to even saying the words, and impulsively, Steve reaches down and takes her wrists, shakes them until she responds by resisting his actions.

“You didn’t want to set him off in Clint’s house. You won’t set me off,” Steve lies. She already has, in exactly the wrong way. “Shove me, hit me, punish me. Get it out.” He pulls her hands, despite her resistance, until they’re flat on his chest. “He said he was too broken?”

Natasha’s lovely face crumples for a split second before her jaw tightens in anger. She shoves him; Steve was ready for it, doesn’t stop himself, lets the momentum carry him back a little.

“As if being broken is some kind of contagious!” she bites out, her voice angry but restrained. There are children sleeping in the house somewhere, after all. “As if I’m not a shattered teapot--” another shove. “--held together by the kind of toxic glue that builds up--” she punches his shoulder in a jab that does more than sting. “--in your system until I’ve killed you just by doing my job!”

For the word ‘job,’ Natasha drops back and her foot flies out, catching him in the chest. If they had been anywhere else, Steve would have let the full force of it knock him across the room, as intended, but he can’t risk the sound bringing someone who might see the heat he’s trying to repress. Instead, he takes the hit, his foot braced on the door, which shakes but doesn’t make much noise. Steve ends up on one knee, looking at Natasha, who is breathing heavily out of fury rather than exertion.

“Isn’t that just the perfect kind of symbolism,” she sighs, sounding defeated.

Steve raises his eyebrows, biting his cheek inside his mouth against the way his pants are pulled tight and uncomfortable against his arousal. That should be enough to kill it, but she’s walking toward him and all he can focus on are her hips, the way they sway. He wants to see what they look like with his hand gripping them, his thumb pressing against the thin, delicate skin that curves toward her inner thighs.

“You have my shoeprint on your chest, Rogers,” Nat says.

“What, it’s visible now?” he quips. The hold she’s got over him has been too close to the surface for too long.

“Now don’t go trying to make me feel better,” she says in that rich, amused voice of hers, tossing him a look before starting back toward the couch. It reminds him of the first time he ever wanted her; she’d said something in that tone and he’d found himself suddenly desperate to trace the origins of the sound with his lips and tongue against her neck.

“Any man who doesn’t want you is definitely broken,” Steve tells her, standing.

If she doesn’t recognize his confession, is that his fault?

“Even if that’s true, and I know it’s not, I’m just as easy to brush off,” she says, nodding at the way he’s wiping away the dust of her shoe so it doesn’t soil Laura Barton’s bedclothes. His hands still, not just because of what she’s said, but because Natasha’s rolling up the sheet and tossing it to the side, adding the pillow seconds later.

“What are you--” he starts, cutting himself off when she tugs the couch cushion off of the frame of the couch and sets it beside his makeshift bedroll. “Nat?”

He can’t sleep beside her. He can’t not sleep beside her, not after Bruce seems to have done his best to fracture her confidence into little pieces just so he could sweep her away more easily.

“You asked what you can do? You can do this.” Her words are short, choppy, defensive. “I can’t sleep next to Clint and take my confidence from him, not when he’s doing that for Laura right now. Unless you--”

“Here, my arms are longer,” Steve says, picking up the sheet and unfurling it over the cushions for her before she finishes that final, uncertain sentence.

“Thanks, Captain,” she tells him, her lips twitching up into a tiny, precious smile.

“At your service, Ma’am.”

He doesn’t let himself watch her wriggle into a comfortable sleeping position, choosing instead to walk over and turn out the light. He seeks out his own sparse sheet and too-short blanket in the fresh darkness, turning his back so his arms can’t seek her out in his sleep. Steve does scoot back far enough that he’s up against her cushions, the only concession he’ll allow himself to her nearness. He reminds himself sternly that it is just to give her the warmth and closeness she said she needed, nothing more.

Steve wakes to the feeling of a small hand worming its way under the tight shirt he’s wearing. He can feel Natasha’s body pressed up against his back, all softness and curves and forbidden sweetness.

Is she awake??  

This is the stuff of his nightmares, dreams he’s forcibly categorized as such because of the moral implications. Her arm has snuck under his, so he lifts his arm, hoping the change of pressure will be enough to wake her up. Instead, this earns him a closer snuggle, one where he can identify her breasts along his back, the dip of her pelvis molding against his ass.

“Nat?” he whispers.

“Cold,” she says, her lips and nose nuzzling the word against his shoulder. Steve doesn’t know what to think. Her hand on his stomach is warm. In his sleep-fuzzed laxity, he decides to react the way he assumes he would if he didn’t have an attachment to her, which is to roll over and encourage her to curl up against him to warm herself up.

Steve rolls onto his back, the movement brushing his body against her in thrilling ways.

“Mmm,” she murmurs, chasing his heat as he carefully scoots over so that she can slot into the warmth of the place he’d been lying. Steve only succeeds in moving about three inches before Natasha throws her right leg out and twines it around his left leg as she slips down from the thick cushions toward him. Before he fully understands what’s happening, she’s mostly on top of him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, her hot hand tucking ever so slightly into his waistband.

“Natasha, this can’t be what you do with Clint,” Steve hisses at her, desperate for her to stop moving before he shames himself with the speed of how fast he hardens for her. So far he’s controlling himself through sheer embarrassment on her behalf, but that won’t last much longer if she keeps squirming.

“Mmm, you’re right. He would have shoved me off by now, and we would have sparred about it or I’d have headed off to have a hot shower and a thorough conversation with my own hands,” she says, her voice wavering between an actual whisper and a tone husky with vocal fry.

Steve is nearly speechless. “Shower it is, then?” he suggests.

“Fresh out of hot water.” Natasha tells him, using a firm grip on his waistband to haul herself across his body to straddle him. Steve lifts both of his hands up over his head in self defense, but he’s essentially lost the battle. She’d removed her pants at some point in the night, and she’s sleep-mussed and gorgeous. Their enemies’ mental handiwork has done its job, led him right to what he’s always wanted, and it’ll be the end of them. She has to feel his reaction to her.

He closes his eyes and turns his head away. “I’m not going to fight you,” he says.

“That much is obvious,” she observes.

“What do you want me to say?” he asks between gritted teeth. “Put any man in this position and he’ll react the same.”

“Anything but that,” Natasha says in a small voice. Steve looks at her and sees pain in the angle of her head, the tightness around her eyes, the straightness of her back. She’s not putting all of her weight on him, he can tell, and just imagining the coiled strength that she’s exerting to rest so lightly and devastatingly against his thighs is undoing him.

She’s holding steady, but it feels like she’s pressing down thanks to his reaction to her. His body is gorging itself on a futile hope, and there’s no way that Natasha Romanoff doesn’t know this.

“I’m not Bruce,” he says, simply.

Her smile is a slice of pain. “Obviously,” she says, lowering herself fully and rocking her hips, pinning him with a challenging gaze.

Steve’s instinct is to stop her, but when he tries, his hands clutch naked skin and soft lace. The smile she offers him in response freezes him in place.

He shakes his head, delighted, miserable. “What are you looking for? Validation?”

“Goddamnit, Rogers, stop trying to fix everything,” she says, grinding against him again, making him gasp. “If the team’s fucked, the team’s fucked, so why not fuck the team, right? That’s what I’m trained for.”

The agony in her voice is all the worse because she doesn’t sound vulnerable anymore, and her eyes have lost the sheen of regret. She’s bitter, determined, and so broken in the process that Steve aches for her in a whole new, terrifying way. He reaches up to touch her face and she slaps at him before grabbing him, tearing open her shirt and clutching his hand to her breasts, fighting to keep him from fisting it.

Steve sits up, alarmed at her violence, and she tightens her thighs against him, rocking rhythmically.

“This is just sparring with different weapons, Nat, don’t do this,” he says.

“It’s all I have,” she snaps. “It’s my role. Tony would do it, you know he would.”

The jibe hits him in just the right way to be really painful, and Steve wrenches his hand away from her breast, trying to mitigate the way she’s ramping his desire up so skillfully with the drag of her body.

“Tony couldn’t, not in the way you want,” he says, his heart pounding, realizing that her plea for him not to fix it will have to be the one that will go unanswered. He knows exactly what she needs. Exactly. It’ll rip him apart to do this, in all of the best, soul-destroying ways, but it’s what she needs. Steve Rogers, throwing himself on the wire for his team.

“You and your stupid fucking rivalry--”

Steve interrupts her by arching his back, thrusting up against her, holding her gaze. “That’s not it.”

Natasha’s still hard-edged, scoffing. “I should have realized that would set you off. It must drive you crazy that his giant tower puts him ahead in your dick-measuring contest.”

“You think Tony wants you the way I want you? He doesn’t,” he says, blunt and honest. Her hips stutter in surprise, and Steve lets himself slide one hand up to the front clasp of her bra, flicking it open. “He’s known you longer, sure.” Natasha’s green eyes are wide, stunned. He takes advantage of her momentary stillness to hold her steady as he sits all the way up, sliding his other hand up to cup her face. “But would he throw away everything he has at the very thought of kissing you again, on purpose this time? No.”

“Steve?” she breathes, hesitant, haunted.

“Say the word and I’ll sleep on the porch and never mention this,” he tells her, hoping to hell she doesn’t.

“What even is ‘this?’” Natasha asks, tracing his face with doubtful eyes. “You trying to make up for Banner? I’m not a grenade, Rogers.” Her words are vulnerable but her voice isn’t. She’s using it as a weapon, pushing her sex appeal into the tone, sultry and challenging.

He watches himself push one of her wild curls back behind her ear, indulging a long-held desire that has nothing to do with the other ways he wants to touch her. “Seems like you’re trying to blow up like one. You just picked the exact wrong person to prove your point.” Steve makes eye contact with her. “Since when do I lie to you? About anything?”

“You want me,” she states dubiously, tossing her head, shaking it as she questions him, as if even saying it at all is too much to be believed.

“Very much.”

“I find it hard to believe this is anything more than a seventy-year--”

Steve buries his hand in the curls at the back of her head and kisses her, pouring all of his longing into the sweep of his lips, coaxing her to respond. For all the time he’s wanted this, he’d always thought if he got the chance again, it would be like the first time. Unexpected, unplanned, uncomplicated, unrepeatable. Not like this. Not with ardor, affection, adoration.

Natasha shifts toward him after a few seconds, letting out a small noise and tilting her head to deepen the kiss. Her movement sparks the napalm in his blood, little explosions of pleasure that follow her hand as she grabs his shirt, dragging it up his back to bare it for her fingernails. Steve can’t help it, he thrusts up into the sweet heat of her thighs in his lap, even as she gasps her mouth open for him to taste her. Natasha pulls back and rips off her shirt.

“Touch me, please, Steve, touch me,” she begs, grabbing his hand from where he’s been gripping her hip like a lifeline.

“I--” he starts, completely forgetting what he was going to say as he watches her throw her head back as soon as he palms her breast, shifting his grip so he can trace his thumb across her nipple. “Ahhhh, fuck,” she groans. Steve dips his head to suck an open-mouthed kiss against her neck at the same time he uses both hands to circle his thumbs across her nipples again. The sound she makes in response is as resonant and aching as he’d always hoped it would be, from the outside.

“Do you believe me now?” he says, each word a kiss.

“I might need more proof. You could be very dedicated to my well-being,” she laughs. It’s throaty and sexual, and he surprises her and even himself by the way he abandons what he was doing to hold her down as he grinds his hardness against her yet again, blatant and demanding. “Yeah?” she encourages.

“Yeah,” he pants, screwing his eyes shut to settle the overpowering urge he has to wreck everything about himself and the team, rip off their clothing and rut with her. He wants to keep this, and to hell with Banner and his reticence.

“So, you’re saying…” she dangles, reaching down and unbuttoning his pants, taking down the zipper, and lifting herself up long enough for him to yank everything down in a frantic rush. Steve can barely believe what’s happening until it happens-- she takes him in her hand at the same time she curls her other hand around his neck to haul him down for a filthy kiss. Every single nerve ending in his body is a conductor for her electricity, and the two of them together prompt a chemical reaction that send his pleasure centers into overdrive.

With a herculean effort, Steve pulls back from the kiss, cupping her face with one hand, the other fisted in the fleece beneath them, channeling all of his excess energy and desperation. He’s not in control, and he knows he could hurt her by accident.

“Was supposed to be about you,” he manages to say between a gasp and a groan at the way she’s working him with expert movements.

“Are you kidding? You should see your face,” Nat says in that rich, sensuous voice of hers. “Very complimentary. But how did you keep this from me?”

Steve drops his head, overcome, when she leans over and tongues his nipple in a completely unexpected, devastating move. “S’wrong,” he slurs. “Ahhhhh, stop, stop, Natasha, you-- stop.” She stills her hand slowly, easing him into the loss of it, and it’s so thoughtful, so thorough, so Natasha, that the action cuts the last threads that held his heart back from its inevitable fall.

“Bet you never thought you’d try to stop me,” she whispers in his ear, hooking her chin over his shoulder for a second, her various movements inexplicable until suddenly they’re not, she’s naked and sinking onto him, and Steve’s gone, he’s gone, his back arching, hips chasing her heat and tightness.

“Shhh, shhh,” Nat reassures. Her hands smooth over his back, his arms, his face, and finally he can open his eyes and see her, sweat-touched and exquisite.

“Natasha,” Steve whispers, shaking his head. He has never felt so clumsy and imprecise in his life. “I wanted to make you see,” he tries to explain. She’s given him everything he’s wanted, freely, somehow, but his goal had been to tear apart her insecurities, not force her to support him in exposing his own.

“You did. You are,” she says, but he shakes his head, noses a caress onto her shoulder.

“We’re all a mess in so many ways, the team,” Steve tells her, groaning as she tightens around him, seeking out her lips to taste the groan when he strokes his fingertips over her nipple. “Most of our strengths are outside-in. Yours is inside-out. You’re made of steel, coated in silk.”

“You always fuck so poetic?” she teases, but her eyes are luminous.

“Gotta get it all out now,” Steve whispers, seeing his peak on the horizon and craving as well as dreading it.

“Steve,” she warns, and he shakes his head.

“You know I’m right.”

Natasha leans over, kisses his neck just under his ear, and whispers, “That why you haven’t really touched me?” she challenges.

“I’m inside you, that’s not enough?” he groans, knowing it’s not, feeling caught out, hating and loving the way she absolutely knows him. His avoidance had been subconscious, but she’s a master of that domain.

Oh my, is she.

Natasha sets a hand on his shoulder and caresses him all the way down to his hand, pulling him, unresisting, to just above where they’re joined.

“Touch me, Steve. Make it so every time I see your hands I remember this. If I can’t keep you, if this is it, if this is all I get, give me that to remember this by,” she whispers.

“Fuck, Natasha, you can’t just--” he groans, so close to coming his vision is whiting out, but she stills her hips.

“You kept this from me,” she says.

She’s right.

As penance goes, it’s appropriate.

Steve turns his hand, lightly probing and swirling his fingers exactly where she wants him to. Her reaction rattles him to the core; Natasha had always struck him as an inherently sensual person, even if she only let small glimpses of that show at any given time, and rightly so. But even a light graze of his fingers against that sensitive part of her takes her apart. It’s wrecking to watch, and he craves the chance to see it over and over, again and again, in any and every possible way, even as his orgasm approaches exactly like the tiny death the poets call it.

“God, Steve, yes. Yes, fuck, please, please,” she babbles, her mouth pressed against his shoulder to muffle the noises just enough for propriety, or so he hopes. “Please, sweet-- ahhhhh!”

Because fate loves to give Steve just what he wants, they come apart at the same time, the cloying, clenching, glorious pleasure bearing down on him just as the woman he cares so much about shakes and shudders and begs in his arms.

They hold still for long enough that each of them has to know it’s just to prolong the inevitable.

“Count of three?” Natasha finally whispers.

“No need,” Steve says, and they slowly pull apart, avoiding eye contact. He’s trying to decide which shirt to soil when she brings him a package of non alcoholic baby wipes.

“Thanks,” he says.

“No, thank you,” Natasha says. It’s sincere, he realizes. No sarcasm, no innuendo, no amusement, just a sincere, heartfelt gratitude that feels simultaneously like a slap and a caress.

“You’re important to me,” he mutters, pulling his clothes back on.

“Right back at you, Cap,” Natasha tells him. It’s the transition, he can sense it. He settles back onto the sheet, facing her this time, a tiny concession to plausible deniability. She’s perceptive enough to catch it, of course, but they’ve got a shared secret, now, and that’s just the way things are. There’s just one more thing to do, one final rip through a single word written on a mostly torn piece of paper.

“Don’t give up on Banner,” Steve tells her, his tone as kind and matter-of-fact as he can make it, right now. “Today was probably the worst day of his life. People don’t make rational decisions on days like that.” The smile feels bitter and truthful on his lips.

Natasha’s lying on her side, lifted those few inches above him by the height of the cushions she’s resting on top of. Her expression had been sober, maybe even sad, but on hearing those words, a tiny fraction of lightness crosses her face. One corner of her lip turns up.

“Really?”

Steve’s paper metaphorically flutters to the floor, the bold block letters of the word landing imprecisely, but readable. UNRE QUITED, it reads. The meaning of the first four letters of the second half are not lost on him.

“Really.”

[droughtofapathy]

The Gilded Age's Broadway Divas MASTERPOST

Welcome to my passion project. It has come to my attention that some viewers of HBO's The Gilded Age are unfamiliar with the extensive theatre credits, alcoates, and vocal talents many of the actors possess. As the resident Broadway Diva expert, it is my responsibility to fix that.

Pictured: 20 Tony Awards and 52 nominations. Audra McDonald...well, she kind of inflates the numbers a little. Edit: Justice for Tony winner Debra Monk. She's main cast.

Introducing my new series of blog posts where I will be highlighting two theatre veterans per day in the lead-up to our much-anticipated season two finale episode.

This series will heavily focus on a select few musical performances that are widely available for viewing, in addition to a brief career rundown. I will be limiting myself to no more than five videos per Diva, otherwise we'd be here for a lifetime. These performances will include popular songs and hidden gems alike, all curated to specifically show off the actress's considerable range in the theatre, especially juxtaposed against their roles in the show.

With respect to Michael Cerveris, Nathan Lane, and the other theatre gentlemen, I will be focusing this series on the women because I am a lesbian and this show is about the women, dammit. But fear not, they will most certainly be making appearances throughout because everyone has worked with everyone on stage.

The Divas:

Christine Baranski (Agnes van Rhijn) Donna Murphy (Caroline "Lina" Astor) Kelli O'Hara (Aurora Fane) Katie Finneran (Anne Morris) Debra Monk (Armstrong) Celia Keenan-Bolger (Mrs. Bruce) Laura Benanti (Susan Blane) Linda Emond (Clara Barton) Amber Gray (Bea) Denee Benton (Peggy Scott) Audra McDonald (Dorothy Scott) Jeanne Tripplehorn (Sylvia Chamberlain) Bonus: Duets, Trios, and Other Crossovers

[toomanyfandomstocountlol]

Marvel DND part 1

Soooo… avengers win (obviously) so yeah.

Tony Stark/Iron Man: I mean. Come on. It’s artificer, obviously.

Steve Rogers/Captain America: I mean, I could definitely see paladin. But fighter fits like how he attacks more? I’m not sure how to say it. I guess I’ll go with fighter

Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk: obviously barbarian while raging (hah) but him as Bruce is just… artificer I guess. I don’t know. And then there’s ’Smart Hulk’ so idk. He also might have some levels in monk? I mean, he very rarely uses a non-improvised weapon

Clint Barton/Hawkeye; ranger, duh doy

Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff: rouge with a couple levels in fighter

Thor Odinson: paladin, obviously. Hansel’s how he has lightning crap quite nicely

Wanda Naxamoff/Scarlet Witch: sorcerer

Vision: warlock with the mind stone being his patron

Scott Lang/Ant-Man: not sure if he counts as an avenger, but whatever. Rouge with some (stolen) artificer armor.

War Machine/James Rhodes: I mean m.. fighter? I guess? I’m not sure what would really fit…

Sam Wilson/Captain America: fairly simple, fighter. I can’t remember if he makes his wings or not, so depending on that, held have some levels in artificer

Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soilder: same as cap, fighter

King T’challa/Black Panther: again, not sure if he counts, but whatever. Monk, I think

I feel like I’m forgetting someone…Captain Marvel +Dr.Strange are labeled under non-avengers hero’s, as well as The Guardians. Peter’s a kid (I mean, not technically, but I’m lumping him in with them. Comment if you have any alternative classes, someone you think I forgot, or a fandom request for something like this

[fideidefenswhore]

The edifice constructed around Elizabeth Barton now began to fall aprt, as people flocked to dissociate themselves from her. The monks of Bocking's own monastery, as a whole body, felt it politic to write to the King seeking his forgiveness for the actions of their 'miserable brother.' After speaking with Cranmer, they also offered money-- £200 or £300-- to Henry [VIII], which they hoped might help him see his way to forgiving them. On 25 November 1533, the Marchioness of Exeter also wrote an abject letter to the King, entirely condemning the 'most unworthy, subtle, and deceivable' Barton. By 16 November 1533 it was reported that Barton had 'confessed herself not only a traitoress but also an heretic.' She had 'mocked all of Kent' with her 'marvellous hypocrisy'.

The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women (Norton, Elizabeth)

[ayteezmooveez]

The (Currently) Complete Favorite Movies List

Favorite Movies of 1920's-1960's

1. The Wizard Of Oz

2. To Kill A Mockingbird

3. City Lights

4. It's A Wonderful Life

5. Casablanca

6. Psycho

7. Roman Holiday

8. 12 Angry Men

9. Rebel Without A Cause

10. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid

11. The Philadelphia Story

12. Gentleman's Agreement

13. Citizen Kane

14. On The Waterfront

15. Rear Window

16. Mary Poppins

17. The Birds

18. The Gold Rush

19. A Streetcar Named Desire

20. Miracle On 34th Street

Honorable mention:

Breakfast At Tiffany's

Charade

East Of Eden

My Fair Lady

Planet Of The Apes

Sabrina

Favorite Movies of the 1970's

1. Harold & Maude

2. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

3. Dog Day Afternoon

4. The Godfather

5. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

6. American Graffiti

7. A Clockwork Orange

8. Kramer vs Kramer

9. All The President's Men

10. Halloween

11. Taxi Driver

12. Monty Python & The Holy Grail

13. Jaws

14. Chinatown

15. Blazing Saddles

16. Star Wars

17. The French Connection

18. Young Frankenstein

19. Superman: The Movie

20. The Exorcist

Honorable mention:

Carrie

Duel

Grease

Enter The Dragon

Rocky

The Warriors

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

Favorite Movies of the 1980's

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off

2. The Princess Bride

3. Back To The Future

4. Ghostbusters

5. The Breakfast Club

6. E.T.

7. Die Hard

8. Raiders Of The Lost Ark

9. Brazil

10. Heathers

11. Who Framed Roger Rabbit

12. The 'burbs

13. Gremlins

14. Stand By Me

15. Beetlejuice

16. Clue

17. Scrooged

18. Big

19. Rain Man

20. Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back

21. Batman

22. The Goonies

23. The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen

24. Spaceballs

25. Real Genius

26. Dead Poets Society

27. Say Anything

28. Back To The Future, Part II

29. Pee Wee's Big Adventure

30. Lethal Weapon

31. Three O'Clock High

32. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

33. Planes, Trains & Automobiles

34. Fast Times At Ridgemont High

35. Star Wars - Return Of The Jedi

36. The NeverEnding Story

37. Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade

38. The Terminator

39. The Karate Kid

40. WarGames

Honorable mention:

Blade Runner

Legend

The Little Mermaid

Poltergeist

Starman

This Is Spinal Tap

When Harry Met Sally...

Guilty pleasure:

Just One Of The Guys

The Lost Boys

Weekend At Bernie's

Favorite Movies of 1990

1. Edward Scissorhands

2. Goodfellas

3. Pump Up The Volume

4. Dick Tracy

5. Quick Change

6. Pretty Woman

7. Back To The Future, Part III

8. Home Alone

9. Gremlins 2

10. Joe Versus The Volcano

Honorable mention:

Cry-Baby

I Love You To Death

Mermaids

Guilty pleasure:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Favorite Movies of 1991

1. Dogfight

2. Terminator 2: Judgement Day

3. The Fisher King

4. L.A. Story

5. Defending Your Life

6. Barton Fink

7. The Silence Of The Lambs

8. My Own Private Idaho

9. The Addams Family

10. Beauty & The Beast

Honorable mention:

Doc Hollywood

Only The Lonely

Rush

Guilty pleasure:

Johnny Suede

Point Break

Favorite Movies of 1992

1. Reservoir Dogs

2. My Cousin Vinny

3. A League Of Their Own

4. Batman Returns

5. Chaplin

6. Malcolm X

7. Bram Stoker's Dracula

8. The Muppet Christmas Carol

9. Hero

10. Of Mice And Men

Honorable mention:

Leap Of Faith

Singles

Favorite Movies of 1993

1. Dazed & Confused

2. Groundhog Day

3. Jurassic Park

4. Benny & Joon

5. Schindler's List

6. For Love Or Money

7. What's Eating Gilbert Grape

8. The Nightmare Before Christmas

9. Heart & Souls

10. Mrs. Doubtfire

Honorable mention:

The Fugitive

Rudy

The Sandlot

Searching For Bobby Fischer

Sleepless In Seattle

The Thing Called Love

True Romance

Untamed Heart

Guilty pleasure:

Last Action Hero

So I Married An Axe Murderer

Favorite Movies of 1994

1. The Shawshank Redemption

2. Speed

3. The Crow

4. Ed Wood

5. The Lion King

6. Dumb & Dumber

7. Quiz Show

8. Pulp Fiction

9. The Professional

10. Reality Bites

Honorable mention:

Clerks

The Client

Forrest Gump

Four Weddings & A Funeral

Interview With The Vampire

Little Women

The Paper

The Ref

Guilty pleasure:

Brainscan

Favorite Movies of 1995

1. Seven

2. Before Sunrise

3. Twelve Monkeys

4. Dead Man

5. Toy Story

6. The American President

7. The Basketball Diaries

8. Clueless

9. Living In Oblivion

10. Empire Records

Honorable mention:

Apollo 13

Get Shorty

Mallrats

The Usual Suspects

Welcome To The Dollhouse

Favorite Movies of 1996

1. Jerry Maguire

2. That Thing You Do!

3. Beautiful Girls

4. William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet

5. Scream

6. The Rock

7. James & The Giant Peach

8. Ransom

9. The Frighteners

10. Tin Cup

Fargo

Hard Eight

Mission: Impossible

Sleepers

Swingers

Trees Lounge

Guilty pleasure:

Independence Day

Favorite Movies of 1997

1. Good Will Hunting

2. As Good As It Gets

3. Titanic

4. Boogie Nights

5. L.A. Confidential

6. Donnie Brasco

7. The Game

8. Scream 2

9. Face/Off

10. Cop Land

Honorable mention:

Chasing Amy

Gattaca

Grosse Pointe Blank

Jackie Brown

Two Girls & A Guy

Wag The Dog

Favorite Movies of 1998

1. Saving Private Ryan

2. Rushmore

3. Out Of Sight

4. Dark City

5. Shakespeare In Love

6. Pleasantville

7. Buffalo '66

8. The Truman Show

9. American History X

10. Enemy Of The State

Honorable mention:

A Bug's Life

Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas

Meet Joe Black

Pi

Playing By Heart

A Simple Plan

The Wedding Singer

What Dreams May Come

Guilty pleasure:

Godzilla

Favorite Movies of 1999

1. Fight Club

2. Magnolia

3. The Matrix

4. Notting Hill

5. 10 Things I Hate About You

6. Three Kings

7. Toy Story 2

8. Sleepy Hollow

9. Being John Malkovich

10. Man On The Moon

Honorable mention:

The Cider House Rules

The Green Mile

The Insider

The Iron Giant

The Sixth Sense

Favorite Movies of 2000

1. Requiem For A Dream

2. Memento

3. Almost Famous*

4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

5. Unbreakable

6. Traffic

7. Wonder Boys

8. The Way Of The Gun

9. O Brother, Where Art Though?

10. Snatch

Honorable mention:

Billy Elliot

Cast Away

The Cell

Erin Brockovich

Frequency

Gladiator

High Fidelity

X-Men

Favorite Movies of 2001

1. Donnie Darko

2. Vanilla Sky

3. Amélie

4. The Royal Tenenbaums

5. LOTR - Fellowship

6. A Knight's Tale

7. Ocean's Eleven

8. Ghost World

9. A Beautiful Mind

10. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Honorable mention:

Frailty

From Hell

Gosford Park

The Others

Shrek

Spirited Away

Favorite Movies of 2002

1. Adaptation.

2. Gangs Of New York

3. LOTR - Two Towers

4. Catch Me If You Can

5. Punch Drunk Love

6. Chicago

7. Minority Report

8. Insomnia

9. Death To Smoochy

10. About A Boy

Honorable mention:

8 Mile

28 Days Later

The Bourne Identity

The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys

The Good Girl

Igby Goes Down

Moonlight Mile

Panic Room

Road To Perdition

Signs

Guilty pleasure:

The Mothman Prophecies

Favorite Movies of 2003

1. American Splendor

2. 21 Grams

3. Big Fish

4. Kill Bill, Vol. 1

5. LOTR - Return Of The King

6. X2: X-Men United

7. Mystic River

8. Pirates Of The Caribbean

9. Matchstick Men

10. Finding Nemo

Honorable mention:

The Last Samurai

Lost In Translation

Phone Book

School Of Rock

Seabiscuit

The Station Agent

Guilty pleasure:

The Room

Underworld

Favorite Movies of 2004

1. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

2. Garden State

3. Spider-Man 2

4. The Aviator

5. Harry Potter & The Prisoner Of Azkaban

6. Before Sunset

7. The Incredibles

8. Napoleon Dynamite

9. Finding Neverland

10. Kill Bill, Vol. 2

Honorable mention:

Dodgeball

In Good Company

Million Dollar Baby

Sideways

Team America: World Police

The Village

Favorite Movies of 2005

1. Batman Begins

2. Walk The Line

3. Brokeback Mountain

4. Brick

5. King Kong

6. Serenity

7. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

8. Wedding Crashers

9. Breakfast On Pluto

10. Sin City

Honorable mention:

The Chumscrubber

Constantine

Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith

Syriana

Thumbsucker

V For Vendetta

War Of The Worlds

Favorite Movies of 2006

1. Little Miss Sunshine

2. The Fountain

3. The Prestige

4. The Fall

5. Pan's Labyrinth

6. The Departed

7. The Science Of Sleep

8. Superman Returns

9. A Scanner Darkly

10. Clerks II

Honorable mention:

16 Blocks

Babel

Stranger Than Fiction

Wristcutters: A Love Story

Favorite Movies of 2007

1. Across The Universe

2. There Will Be Blood

3. Zodiac

4. Superbad

5. Lars And The Real Girl

6. The Darjeeling Limited

7. Sweeney Todd

8. Funny Games

9. No Country For Old Men

10. Stardust

Honorable mention:

3:10 To Yuma

The Bourne Ultimatum

Gone Baby Gone

Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix

Juno

Knocked Up

Live Free Or Die Hard

Michael Clayton

Ratatouille

Favorite Movies of 2008

1. The Dark Knight

2. The Brothers Bloom

3. Role Models

4. Slumdog Millionaire

5. Be Kind Rewind

6. Iron Man

7. In Bruges

8. Tropic Thunder

9. The Wrestler

10. Wanted

Honorable mention:

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

The Go-Getter

Me & Orson Welles

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Wall-E

Favorite Movies of 2009

1. (500) Days Of Summer

2. Where The Wild Things Are

3. Up In The Air

4. An Education

5. Inglourious Basterds

6. Star Trek

7. Fantastic Mr. Fox

8. Whip It

9. The Hangover

10. The Road

Honorable mention:

Adventureland

Avatar

Coraline

District 9

I Love You, Man

Up

Favorite Movies of 2010

1. Inception

2. The Social Network

3. Black Swan

4. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

5. Blue Valentine

6. The Fighter

7. Winter's Bone

8. Toy Story 3

9. Shutter Island

10. The King's Speech

Honorable mention:

Buried

Due Date

Kick-Ass

Let Me In

Never Let Me Go

The Other Guys

The Town

Favorite Movies of 2011

1. Super 8

2. Hugo

3. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

4. Crazy Stupid Love

5. Moneyball

6. The Descendants

7. My Week With Marilyn

8. Bridesmaids

9. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

10. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Honorable mention:

10 Years

50/50

The Beaver

Horrible Bosses

The Muppets

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

Source Code

Dishonorable mention:

Sucker Punch

Favorite Movies of 2012

1. Silver Linings Playbook

2. Moonrise Kingdom

3. Lincoln

4. The Avengers

5. The Dark Knight Rises

6. Looper

7. Ruby Sparks

8. Django Unchained

9. Argo

10. Mud

Honorable mention:

21 Jump Street

Jack Reacher

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

Premium Rush

Safety Not Guaranteed

This Is 40

Favorite Movies of 2013

1. 12 Years A Slave

2. Her

3. Snowpiercer

4. The Wolf Of Wall Street

5. Star Trek Into Darkness

6. The Way Way Back

7. Before Midnight

8. The Spectacular Now

9. American Hustle

10. About Time

Honorable mention:

Begin Again

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers Club

Fruitvale Station

The Heat

Inside Llewyn Davis

Prisoners

Rush

Warm Bodies

Favorite Movies of 2014

1. Wish I Was Here

2. The Skeleton Twins

3. Boyhood

4. Nightcrawler

5. The Imitation Game

6. Whiplash

7. Birdman

8. The Grand Budapest Hotel

9. St. Vincent

10. Inherent Vice

Honorable mention:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes

Edge Of Tomorrow

Gone Girl

Infinitely Polar Bear

Interstellar

Love & Mercy

Veronica Mars

What We Do In The Shadows

X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Favorite Movies of 2015

1. Me & Earl & The Dying Girl

2. Ex Machina

3. Inside Out

4. The Walk

5. Sicario

6. Creed

7. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

8. Spotlight

9. The Martian

10. Brooklyn

Honorable mention:

Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Bridge Of Spies

Joy

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Revenant

Room

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Steve Jobs

Favorite Movies of 2016

1. Sing Street

2. Midnight Special

3. La La Land

4. Hell Or High Water

5. Arrival

6. The Nice Guys

7. Hidden Figures

8. Manchester By The Sea

9. A Monster Calls

10. 10 Cloverfield Lane

Captain America: Civil War

Everybody Wants Some!!!

The Founder

Hacksaw Ridge

The Jungle Book

Loving

Silence

Split

Swiss Army Man

Dishonorable mention:

The Neon Demon

Favorite Movies of 2017

1. Wonderstruck

2. War For The Planet Of The Apes

3. Phantom Thread

4. mother!

5. Blade Runner 2049

6. Call Me By Your Name

7. Dunkirk

8. Wind River

9. Logan

10. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Honorable mention:

Baby Driver

Coco

It

Lady Bird

Logan Lucky

Molly's Game

The Post

The Shape Of Water

Stronger

Favorite Movies of 2018

1. A Quiet Place

2. BlackKklansman

3. If Beale Street Could Talk

4. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

5. Mission: Impossible - Fallout

6. Isle Of Dogs

7. Ready Player One

8. Incredibles 2

9. Stan & Ollie

10. Thoroughbreds

Honorable mention:

Avengers: Infinity War

Bumblebee

Christopher Robin

Eighth Grade

Halloween

Summer '03

Favorite Movies of 2019

1. Rocketman

2. Jojo Rabbit

3. 1917

4. Blinded By The Light

5. Booksmart

6. Toy Story 4

7. Ford v Ferrari

8. Joker

9. Parasite

10. Knives Out

Honorable mention:

Avengers: Endgame

The Lighthouse

Marriage Story

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Yesterday

Favorite Movies of 2021

1. Licorice Pizza

2. West Side Story

3. Dune

4. A Quiet Place, Part II

5. Belfast

6. Spider-Man: No Way Home

7. C'mon C'mon

8. King Richard

9. Ghostbusters: Afterlife

10. CODA

Honorable mention:

Free Guy

The French Dispatch

Last Night In Soho

Nightmare Alley

The Power Of The Dog

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

tick, tick...BOOM!

The Tragedy Of Macbeth

[leanstooneside]

London (CROSSBONES)

- Joe Manganiello's grippy neck

- Jon Gosselin's grippy neck

- Robin Roberts's grippy neck

- Pink's grippy neck

- George Lopez's grippy neck

- Holly Montag's grippy neck

- Gabourey Sidibe's grippy neck

- Jada Pinkett Smith's grippy neck

- Zachary Levi's grippy neck

- Heidi Klum's grippy neck

- Aaron Carter's grippy neck

- Denis Leary's grippy neck

- Jenna Ushkowitz's grippy neck

- Skrillex's grippy neck

- Dane Cook's grippy neck

- Tim McGraw's grippy neck

- Josh Lucas's grippy neck

- Aubrey O'Day's grippy neck

- Tony Parker's grippy neck

- Howard Stern's grippy neck

- Balthazar Getty's grippy neck

- Donald Faison's grippy neck

- Jennifer Lopez's grippy neck

- Matthew Morrison's grippy neck

- Leonardo DiCaprio's grippy neck

- Lauren Graham's grippy neck

- Andrew Firestone's grippy neck

- Eric Dane's grippy neck

- Taylor Swift's grippy neck

- Paul Wesley's grippy neck

- Chad Ochocinco's grippy neck

- Nicolas Cage's grippy neck

- Matt Bomer's grippy neck

- Roberto Martinez's grippy neck

- Jessica Alba's grippy neck

- Carey Mulligan's grippy neck

- Shay Mitchell's grippy neck

- Brian Austin Green's grippy neck

- Elizabeth Banks's grippy neck

- Nicole Kidman's grippy neck

- Jesse Williams's grippy neck

- Ellie Goulding's grippy neck

- Sophie Monk's grippy neck

- Ethan Hawke's grippy neck

- Mischa Barton's grippy neck

- James Rodriguez's grippy neck

- Angie Harmon's grippy neck

- Rupert Grint's grippy neck

- Princess Diana's grippy neck

- Rob Lowe's grippy neck

[thebibliomancer]

I don’t think this is historically accurate to either medieval spies (which were apparently mostly monks and priests) or archers.

You’re an idiot, Clint Barton

[dentedhalostories-blog]

Advent 2023 - Day 2

During my junior year in college, I spent spring break in Washington, D.C.

One night, I went out with a group of people to provide soup, sandwiches and hot chocolate to homeless folks around the capital.

We rode around in an old bakery truck, stopped in designated spots and set up two stations, one for the food and one for the drink.

At one of the stops, I worked the hot drink station.

There was a long line of people in front of me.

The night was bitterly, unbearably cold and the wind off the Potomac River cut through my coveralls and chilled me to my bones.

My eyes glazed over from the crowd and the cold, and though I said, “God bless you,” and, “Go in peace,” with every cup of hot chocolate I gave to every person who held out hands to me I stopped seeing the tired, sad eyes and grizzled faces of the people in front of me and started thinking about the gentle warmth of the heater in the truck and in my room back home.

I felt a tug on my arm.

I looked down and the face of a little girl came into focus.

She was so slight and thin I would have missed her, would not have seen her, were it not for the tugging.

She put her little hand into my hand.

In that moment our hands formed a small, open space between us.

“Excuse me,” she whispered, so softly I could barely hear her, would not have heard her, were it not for careful listening.

“Could you give some hot chocolate for my mom?”

Her mom was sick at home, she told me.

This small one did a big thing and came out into the cold and braved the crowds to find something for her mom to eat and drink.

I made a little package of food and drink, put it in her hands, and sent her on her way.

“You’re a kind, wonderful person,” I whispered to her, “And your mom is lucky to have you.”

She walked away into the mass of people and disappeared.

I would never have seen her, would never have heard her, would never have been moved by her kindness, had she not reached out for my hand, had she not created the small, open space between us.

Here is a poem.

I wrote it in Fibonacci form, and I write most of my poems in the rhythm of the Fibonacci sequence.

I love the shape of the graphed numbers of the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21...), a swirl you can find in a conch shell by the sea, a pine cone in the woods, a sunflower, a Thelonius Monk song, and many other places in nature and art.

A swirl you can find in the heart and life of that little girl on that cold night in Washington D.C.

I hope we can find and nurture the small space between us.

Small Space

We

stood

closely,

side by side.

She reached out for me

and took my hand inside of hers.

Our fingers intertwined and our palms made a small space.

This space was warm in the midst of the deep snow that covered the frozen ground of Point Hope,

was warm against the icy wind that blew off the rocking waters of the Chukchi Sea.

“Life is in these small spaces between us,” she whispered.

We stood quietly hand in hand

with the small space, and

then we smiled

holding

small

space.

- Trevor Scott Barton, Advent Notebook, 2023

[teachandwrite-blog]

I am a writer.

I write mostly non-fiction about the life I live and the work I do as a teacher in a Title I elementary school in west Greenville.

Sometimes, though, I turn to writing fiction when I’m trying to understand and express the deepest parts of me.

This small story, a “palm of the hand story” as the Nobel prize winning Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata called stories like these, tries to introduce the wonderful Latino students in my classroom to the world.

I hope you like it.

Most of all, though, I hope you love them.

Hilcias, his abuelo and his mami were migrant workers from El Salvador.

They made their way to the United States when life in El Salvador was...well, life was mostly death and that’s a hard thing.

A kind priest heard their story and led them to an Underground Railroad that took them to a church on the border that gave them sanctuary.

They began a migration across the country, dropping their blood, sweat and tears onto the ground of Southern states all the way to South Carolina.

They were many thousands of miles from where they began.

They were far from home.

They began picking tomatoes and peaches near the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

Hilcias didn't know where they would go next, only that they would go.

He used to despair about the going, about the migrant path, until he learned that blue whales are migrants, too.

They went many thousands of miles, season after season, year after year, like him.

That made his heart feel hopeful.

Hilcias knew that if a blue whale's brain was a motor, it would be a Formula 1 race car engine. He also knew if a human being's brain was a motor, it would be a VW Beetle engine.

His brain was like the blue whale's brain.

He could solve complex problems simply.

He was a living Occam's Razor.

It was the little Franciscan monk of the Middle Ages, William of Occam, who said, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one," and Hilcias’ mind always tended toward those simple, best solutions.

When he looked at a problem, any problem, it was as if the problem began to glow with the light of a halo and the answer began to show itself to him in that light.

He understood people in this way, too.

When he looked at a person, any person, it was as if the person began to glow with the light of a halo and the essence of that person began to show itself to him in that light.

He found beauty in the plain, genius in the simple, wonder in the ordinary and courage in the plain.

"Whales are the most intelligent creatures in the world," thought Hilcias. “Maybe I am like them.”

That made his heart hopeful, too.

- Trevor Scott Barton, Brown Eyed Stories, 2023

[lesbian-deadpool]

Clint: I never vote. It only encourages them.

[incorrectgundamwingquotes]

Trowa, looking at his wedding photos: I remember, during the service, Quatre was crying so hard he couldn't even say the words "I do". Have you ever seen anybody cry so much?

Heero: That was you, Trowa. And no, I have not.

[itsagentromanoff]

Clint: Hey, Stark!

[Clint shuffles uncomfortably for a moment]

Clint: I’m sorry.

Tony: You don’t have to say that.

Clint: Yes, I do. Cap is making me.

[droughtofapathy]

The Gilded Age's Broadway Divas: Clara Barton (Linda Emond)

Based on the real-life historical figure, Clara Barton spends half of season one drumming up money to get her field hospital operational. Presumably she is off doing important work during season two while all the ladies piddle, twiddle, and resolve about the opera.

I will be honest. I know Linda Emond primarily for her straight play work, so I was wholly unfamiliar with her singing until making this series. And now that I'm listening to it, I'm a little in love. As is often the case for me. But I digress.

Linda Emond is a three-time Tony nominee for her work in Death of a Salesman (Linda Loman), Cabaret (Fraulein Schneider), and Life (x) 3 (Inez). The 2014 Cabaret revival did not receive a cast album (probably owing to Alan Cumming reprising his role) so there is no recording of Linda singing "So What?" and I'm furious about it.

#1: "Yours, Yours, Yours," & "Compliments," 1776 (1997)

Linda Emond made her Broadway debut as Abigail Adams in the 1997 revival of 1776. As one of two female characters in the show, Abigail appears sporadically, writing letters to her husband and generally being an encouraging wife to this founding father. Eventually, Linda was replaced by Carolee Carmello (who, according to a Facebook comment, couldn't even get an audition for Gilded Age, and that's a crime unto itself).

Another Gilded Age actress who has placed Abigail Adams, though not in 1776, is Donna Murphy, who voiced this character on the Liberty Kids show we all know and love.

#2: "He Always Comes Homes to Me," John Kander – Hidden Treasures, 1950-2015 (2015)

I need you to understand what a deep cut this is. The Kander Hidden Treasures album features nearly fifty tracks, most consisting of demos with Kander himself laying down the songs. It is a marvel of a CD set for those of us who love the theatre, and includes a 64-page booklet with detailed notes about each song. In it, a select few songs have been newly recorded. Linda Emond appears on one from a show called All About Us.

And now I need to go on a tangent about this show. A musical based on Thorton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, it held its first workshop in 1996 with Debra Monk (hello, Miss Armstrong) and Bernadette Peters in the cast, and later moved to staging in 1999 with Linda Emond, and Bebe Neuwirth as Sabina (a role originated in the play by Tallulah Bankhead). However, shortly before it opened, Bebe was fired and replaced by Sherie Rene Scott. I have no details about why or how or what they were thinking, but back in those days, people only saw her as the "frigid" Lilith on Cheers, and I need to stop before poor Linda Emond's post becomes just a five paragraph tirade in defense of Bebe Neuwirth.

At any rate, the musical was abandoned in 2004 following Fred Ebb's death, and though it had a brief resurgence in 2007 with Eartha Kitt and Karen Ziemba, it has since largely disappeared. But thanks to this recording, we have at least some of the music.

LINK TO MASTERPOST