#part of my Caroline Travels The World

[sahara-silver]

ATTENTION:

I am doing art commissions in exchange for donations to the gofundmes of the many Palestinians that have reached out to me. Any donation will get you something as every bit counts, but the higher the donation the more I will make for you

For under 5$, you can get:

A profile picture in black and white, traditional or digital.

A sketch of any animal traditional or digital.

A color palette based on a prompt.

For 5$, you can get:

A full color profile picture of anything.

A Chibi drawing of any character in black and white.

A color palette with simple drawing.

For 10$, you can get:

A short fanfic about anything you want, about 1-2 pages.

A simple colored drawing, digital or traditional. Any subject.

2 Chibis of any characters in full color.

For 15$, you can get:

A 5 page fanfic of any subject.

A drawing on any character in simple cartoon style, fully colored.

For 20$ or more, I'll draw, write, or edit anything you want! Just ask and I'll do it!

THIS IS ONLY PART ONE! I LITERALLY COULD NOT GET TO ALL OF MY ASKS IN TIME, SO I WILL ADD ADDITIONAL CAMPAINS LATER

HERE ARE THE GOFUNDMES TO DONATE TO!:

@abdalhadiaburas Rebuilding Hope For My Family And Saving Them

@abdelmutei Please help save my family

@abedalazeiz Help us build new hope for me and my family

@abedallhferwanagaza Urgent Appeal: Save Ola' family evacuate Gaza war

@abood-gaza2 Help Abood From the War

@aboodnemer From War to Education: Abdelrahman Resilient Journey

@/Abu-samir Save Gaza: A Brighter Future for Shady and Family

@ahedalshaer Help Gazans family get to safety

Anonymous Donate to Help Bisan and Her Family Survive In Gaza

@ahlam910 Help Mahdi family to survive to get better life

@ahmadelser Help Ahmed’s family escape the war

@ahmad-syam-blog Help Ahmed Jehad and his newborn survive!

@ahmadresh Donate to Ahmed's Journey to Safety and Education

@ahmeadhilles Helping the Ahmed Fathi family achieve a better future

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@ahmed79ss Help my family to get out of Gaza

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@ahmed-ziad Help Ahmed family to travel to a save place

@alaakhaled0 Help the child survive the Gaza war

@alhabil Assist in evacuating my family from the war in Gaza.

@alimeq92 Help us survive 10 months of hunger, aya & ali

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@anasalshrofa Donate to allow my family to survive.

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@amnyaburas Help me to give a save life for my children

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@areej1982 From Gaza, help me to study and follow my dream

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@aseelo680 Support Asil Fight for Life and Family in Gaza

@ashraf-baker5 Hope for Gaza: Support Ashraf's Family Rebuild Their Lives

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@asmaayyad Help me and my family escape the war in Gaza

@a-ss-123 Save Our Children: Emergency Relief for a Family in Gaza

@atalah-mohammed Bone Grafting Operation for Muhammad & House Reconstruction

@aya2mohammed Assist in evacuating my family from the war in Gaza.

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@ayayassir Help me and my family in Gaza

@ayoosh-gaza Helping my family to evacuate from Gaza

Azaxa Support Family escape from rafah to save place

@burningnightgiver Help my family to get out of Gaza

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@dinamahammed99 Help me save my children from death in the Gaza war

@doaaomar1234 Help my son to live a normal live

@emanzaqoutt Help my family survive famine and have secure life

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@falestine-yousef Help Palestine and Family Survive the Gaza Crisis

@family1234567 @familyetaf1234567 Familymaria1234567 Please help us get out of life's crises and the woes of war.

@fatimaalbalawi2 Help save my family to survive the genocide in Gaza

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@freepaleatine95 Please Save What's Left of My Family

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@haneenmohamed Help haneen and mohamed evacuate and get treatment

@hani-family Rebuilding the Homeland and Restoring Hope: Hani's Journey

@hasanamasi22 Help Hassan and his family get out of Gaza

@hashemabd Help Hashem's Family Escape Gaza, organized

@hashemsh92 Help my family survive and start a new life

@hashem-fromgaza Help evacuate our family and complete our studying

@hayanahed Emergency: Help Evacuate My Family From GAZA WAR

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@helpfamily Please Save What's Left of My Family

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@hyamshehab222 Help Zaen and Yehya to get out of Gaza

@ibrahimposts Help Ibrahim's family escape the Gaza war

@isra-elazaiza Aid Gaza's Displaced Family Find Sanctuary

@jody-family Help jody and her family evacuate from Gaza

Please look in the reblogs for the full list!

[outsideratheart]

Happiness (Alexia Putellas x reader)

A/N: This is the third and final part of History and Hope. I hope you enjoy!

It was hard being friends with Alexia but that is the situation you found yourself in. After her injury you forget all about the past because what she was going through was much more important. It resulted in multiple trains to Spain and in the end you were able to mend your friendship. 

But here’s the thing: could two people who once cared about each other unconditionally ever be just friends?

You were beginning to find out the answer to that the hard way. You loved Caroline and deep down you knew you loved alexia, it was a feeling that would never change. The question was which one were you in love with. 

The public hadn’t seen you and Alexia together since before her injury so when the footage of you two arriving together at camp was posted the entire Sefutbol fanbase lost their minds. It didn’t help that every comment was about how it reminded them of the past and how they suspected something was going on between the two of you even though you were still with Caroline. 

Caroline trusted you and she told you this but whenever you called her during camp she questioned the how deep your relationship with Alexia went. She knew of your past and you were honest with her when you spoke of the love you had for your former best friend and co captain. 

You reassured her that you and Alexia were friends and nothing more but you could tell that she didn’t believe you. For the past few of months you could use the fact Alexia had a girlfriend to back up your statement but now they had broken up. You were the person Alexia came to when it happened and Caroline hated that your bond had returned to its unbreakable state.  

You and Alexia were told you’d be roommates for the pre World Cup camp and for the tournament. It was something the two of you were both happy about because you knew the pressure you would be facing in the upcoming weeks and it would be each other that would  keep you sane. 

After a tense phone with Caroline you didn’t know how to feel. Photos had been released from training of you and Alexia and to the rest of the world the two of you looked very close but it was simply the way Spaniards acted around each other. 

“Is everything ok?” Alexia asked as she exited bathroom pretending to not have heard every word you said.  

“I think so” truth is you didn’t know “it’s hard trying to explain, well us”

“It is. That’s why my relationship ended” Alexia knew your struggles well. 

This isn’t something you knew. You wasn’t sure why they broke up, you never asked, but you didn’t for a second think it had something to do with you. 

“I’m sorry” 

“It wasn’t your fault. She knew that I still loved you” 

“Alexia”

“I know you’re with Caroline and I don’t want to jeopardise that but it is true. I do love you, part of me always will and she couldn’t understand that” 

This is why it was hard. Friends don’t say stuff like that to other friends. 

“I’m with Caroline, Alexia. We can’t have this conversation”

“But you admit there is something here, something that we can talk about”

“There’s nothing to talk about. We are in a good place and we need to keep it that way. There’s too much at stake” 

The pressure on the two of you was enormous. The entire world was watching and waiting in anticipation and you weren’t go to let your relationship current or what could have been ruin that. 

“I understand” 

And that was true. Alexia did understand because before you fell in love with each other, you fell in love with football and winning the World Cup was something you dreamed of doing when you made your debuts together. 

The team had a couple of days off between camp and travelling to New Zealand. You took the opportunity to go away with Caroline and it was just what the two of you needed. You could back up your words of reassurance with actions. By the time you boarded the plane to go to World Cup things couldn’t have been in a better place. 

Throughout the group stages you played some of the best football you had in a long while. Every one of your team mates said it was because you and Alexia were in the best place you had been in years. This was true and you knew it was a huge reason why the two of you had been performing like you had. 

Up until now you never had a thought of straying from your relationship or thinking about being with anyone but Caroline. This all changed after the quarter finals. You had scored the second goal and the only person you wanted to celebrate with was Alexia. 

“What just happened!” you shouted as you jumped into her arms. Alexia truly did plan on wrapping her arms around your back but the speed in which you jumped almost caused you to fall if not for Alexia’s hands on the bottom of your thighs. 

“You’ve just sent us to semi final” Alexia kisses your neck. 

The feeling of her lips against your bare skin had the power the teleport you to the night you shared your first kiss in Paris. Your surroundings became blurred for matter of seconds but that is enough to let your mind stray. In that moment you wanted to kiss Alexia, you wanted to cheat on your girlfriend. You hated yourself for it but it was feeling you could no longer deny.

A similar thing happens in the semi final only Alexia isn’t on the pitch for your game winning goal. This doesn’t stop you from celebrating though as you ignore all of you screaming team mates and run straight to where she is cheering on the bench. 

“That one was for you Ale” the nickname made a return, you didn’t dislike it and it wasn’t an accident.

Once again you are in her arms and you can feel her firm grasp on your waist. 

“Mi estrella” 

This time you kiss her cheek even though you know it’s wrong. You tell yourself it is innocent as it isn’t on the lips.

The final whistle blows and you fall to your knees. You were in shock knowing that Spain were through to the World Cup final. The whole team celebrates the achievement and as the team gathers in a circle you spot Alexia opposite you. This is what you have been working towards for years and now you only have one game left to play and one team left to beat. 

Just as you were about to go to Alexia you get pulled away by Olga and Athenea.

“Come with us MVP. We have a surprise for you” your Real Madrid team mates pull you through the tunnel.

With these two anything was possible so you keep an open mind. As you reach the end of the corridor you see the surprise they were referring to and she did not look happy although to anyone else her smile was believable.

“Caroline” you truly are happy to see your girlfriend and having her in front of you makes you forget all about Alexia. 

“Congratulations Y/N” she pulls you in her arms but her hold isn’t as strong as it normally is and you know that something is wrong.

“Thank you Carino” you lean forward to kiss her and are met with a battle for dominance, something with doesn’t normally happen.

“My girlfriend is through to the final” you are too focused on the kiss that just happened that you don’t pick up on the possessive tone that Caroline uses when she says the word mine.

“Let’s get out of here” you are still dressed in your kit although you had swapped shirts with Asllani.

“What about your team mates?” Caroline asks even though she wants nothing more than to have you to herself.

“I can celebrate with them later. I have missed you”

“Looks like it” She whispers under her breath but it is loud enough that you hear it.

Once in the locker room Alexia’s eyes search for you and she even goes back out to the pitch to see if you had stayed out there knowing that this is something you do. Even as she returns to the rowdy Spanish locker rooms she is almost certain that you would be in there by now, only you’re not.

Jenni asks her what’s wrong but she shakes it off.

“I was looking for Y/N but she must be doing media” Alexia says as it is the only explanation she can come up with.

“Y/N wasn’t needed for media. Salma did it instead” their media manager confirms.

Alexia was beginning to worry as to your whereabouts but Olga is quick to put her out of her misery even though what she says makes Alexia a lot more than miserable.

“Caroline came to surprise her“ Olga says.

“And we saw them leaving the stadium just as we came back here” Athenea adds.

The Catalonian was at a loss for words. Had she been reading the signals wrong?

“She did?” Esthers says excitedly “That’s nice. They really are inseparable in Madrid and I think I speak for everyone when I say we can tell Y/N has been missing Caroline”

The players that were listening to the conversation agree with the forward and every agreement made Alexia’s blood boil. It was enough to stop celebrating and leave the room in search of some alone time.

The pitch was the place Alexia thought would be the quietest and she was right. It’s funny how much bigger it felt when it was empty and silent. She took the time to go over the past couple of days and it made her come to the conclusion that she didn’t just love you, she was in love with you. So much that it scared her because you had the power to hurt her although part of her believed she deserved it.

“Here” 

The voice makes Alexia jump. She turns and finds Misa standing next to her with a beer in her hand.

“I don’t drink during tournaments, you know this”

“You’re going to need it for the conversation we are about to have and before you say you don’t want to talk about it you should know that you need to talk about it Alexia”

Whatever was going on between you and Alexia was enough to gain the attention of the goalkeeper. This alone filled Alexia with a little bit of hope.

“I’m in love with her Misa and I don’t know what to do. We have these moments and it gives me a sense of deja vu. I am transported back to 2019 where I wanted nothing more than to kiss her and ask to be mine. I want that, I want her” 

Misa isn’t the person Alexia thought she would be having this conversation with but the two of them had grew close over the past couple of weeks and it helped that she knew you very well. She would be able to give an insight as to how you may be feeling.

“That isn’t going to happen” Misa says before taking a huge mouthful of the ice cold beer in her hands.

“I know but I can’t lose hope. Without hope I have nothing. I won’t have her and I won’t be able to have the thought of us been together”

“I wasn’t finished. It isn’t go to happen right now. She is in a committed relationship and no way will she do to Caroline what you did to her. Her heart is too pure”

Deep down Alexia knew Misa was right. You never wanted to cause pain for anyone and you definitely wouldn’t do it to the woman you love.

“I know. I don’t know what to do” Alexia hangs her head in defeat but not before taking a sip of the drink she swore not to only minutes ago.

“Do you want my opinion?” Misa asks and Alexia nods but doesn’t make eye contact “I think you need to tell her how you feel and don’t hold back”

Alexia wasn’t sure if that is something she is capable off. If she tells you then she risks losing you all together and she couldn’t have that happen. The two of you were in a good place and she’ll be damned if she is the cause for that to change. She needed to the think or more appropriately not think and her team mates that were none the wiser to her feelings would be the perfect distraction or at least that is what she is hoping.

“Alexia” Misa shouts causing the midfielder to look back at her “For what it’s worth I think part of her feels the same way. Ever since arriving in New Zealand I have seen a side of Y/N that I haven’t seen before and I think you’re the reason for that”

When the team arrive back at the hotel they do so just in time to see Caroline leaving. Given the amount of Real Madrid players on the team, most of them stop to say hi but Alexia notices that you are nowhere in sight. Now is her chance. 

She gives up on waiting at the elevator and runs up the stairs two at a time. She is breathless when knocking on your door at a rapid pace. After thirty seconds she takes a short break before trying again. This morning she didn’t plan on having this conversation with you but now she wanted nothing more. She is determined not to admit defeat but her red knuckles beg her to do just that. Maybe you weren’t in the room. 

The team is gathered in the common room when Alexia enters but still you are not there. Her gut was telling her something was wrong and she never ignored her gut.

“Have any of you seen Y/N?” She asks the entire room hoping at least one person would know where you were.

“She is in her room” Jorge states and it makes Alexia take a step back in disbelief because it means you were ignoring her reluctant knocking “She told me that she isn’t feeling well so she won’t be down for team meal tonight”

“Ok, I will take a plate up to her if I can get a key” Alexia knew that if anyone had the power to get a key for your room it would be the coach.

“No Alexia. Y/N asked me to be left alone tonight and given that she has been our saving grace the past couple of games I am going to do as she asked and I’m going to make sure everyone else does too”

Alexia was confused. You were fine an our ago, what could have changed in such a small amount of time and why where you hell bent on being left alone. Being respectful to your wishes Alexia left you alone that night and instead would talk to you in the morning only she doesn’t get the chance because the next day you avoid her at all costs. 

You didn’t intend on hurting Alexia with your behaviour but it is what you needed to do to get through the next couple of days. There was a World Cup final to prepare for and you needed to have a clear head if you had any chance of winning. 

By the time the 20th August comes around you can count on one hand the amount of times you have spoken to Alexia and you would have fingers spare. You heart was all over the place but head was locked in on the task at hand and that is all that mattered or at least it was for the next 90 minutes which would then turn into 120 minutes because the score remained 0-0 after extra time. Like many other games, this one would be decided with penalties. 

“Y/N” Alexia grabbed your hand before the team walked to the half way line.

“Not now Alexia. I need to focus” you pull out of her grasp.

It all came down the 5th penalty. Both team have scored all penalties so far and given that Spain went second the pressure was fully on your shoulders as you were the fifth penalty taker. Misa hands you the ball but doesn’t say a word. Besides she knew that you wouldn’t hear a word she said anyways.

When you hit the ball you know you didn’t get it quite right. You always went for the side netting and you had a 100% success rate. You did until this moment because instead of hitting the netting the ball hits the post and rolls away form the goal. You had just missed and cost your team and country the title of World Cup champions.

You didn’t fall to the floor, nor did you walk back to your team mates. You stood in the same spot as if rooted to the ground. If you had to describe the way you were feeling you would use the word shock. How could you miss, this one out of them all. 

Misa the first person to enter you line of vision as she crouches down to reassure you that it was ok and that it wasn’t your fault but it was. You knew it and the rest of the world did too. The next thing you do it turn your emotions off, knowing that it was better to feel nothing at all. This did mean that you shut off the world around you. The sounds in the stadium became muffled as if you were under water and the presence of your team mates didn’t register.

“We are a team. Win or lose, we do so together” Alexia wraps her arms around your shoulder and tries to pull you close to her but it’s as if the contact burns and you recoil from her touch.

“I am the captain today, not you. I missed the penalty, not you. This is on me Alexia so don’t try and make this about you” 

“Y/N, that’s not what I’m doing” Alexia tries to reach out for you. She knows once you give up the urge to fight that you will need comfort.

“Why don’t you go to Jenni! It’s what you did after the last World Cup” your words were like venom and you spat them straight at her.

Alexia remained in her place even when watching you walk away, seeking comfort in your co captain at Real Madrid Ivana Andres. It was her side that you stood as you watched the other team lift the trophy. As soon as you were allowed to and when it respectful enough to do so, you left not only the pitch but the stadium.

The energy is the locker room was awful, it was as if somebody had died. To the outside world that might seem dramatic but losing a final had an effect that was hard to explain to those who had never experienced it. Some players were still crying, some had cried all the tears they had and others sat in silence still processing what just happened.

Ivana picked up on Alexia’s wandering eyes and it didn’t take a genius to realise what or who she was looking for.

“She’s left Alexia” This not only caught the attention of Alexia but the entire locker room “She said she needed to be alone and I couldn’t argue with her. The pressure she faced during this tournament is enough to crush some people and it seemed Caroline breaking up with her was the last straw”

“What did you just say?” Alexia wasn’t sure if she heard the defender correctly.

“The pressure was too much”

“No about Caroline”

“She broke up with Y/N. She didn’t tell me but I think it was the night of the semi final”

Selfishly Alexia wasn’t focused on the fact that you had been dumped. You were now single and now was the time for her to tell you how she really feels. Still, she is torn on what to do. She is a captain of this team and with you gone they need their other captain.

“Go” Misa tells her.

Alexia waits for someone, anyone, to disagree with the goalkeeper but nobody does and that’s enough for Alexia. She thinks fast. You wouldn’t go back to the hotel because that’s where the rest of the team will be very shortly. Australia isn’t a country you knew well so it did narrow it down a little bit. Alexia’s mind is blank until she remembers you posting almost identical photos to your instagram stories of a beach. You always loved the beach so it made sense that is where you would go.

She was right. As Alexia walks down the small hill that leads to the ocean she sees you sitting close to water with your knees pulled up to your chest. Even from a distance she can tell your crying by the way you body is moving.

“It’s all my fault Alexia” you don’t need to face the figure next to you to know who it is. She is the only one that would go against your wishes and truth is you had been hoping she would because in this moment she is the only person you want to see.

“No it’s—“ Alexia wanted to reassure you but the look she received from you told her that it was best not to finish that sentence. 

“It’s not only your fault” she corrects herself but didn’t quite have the affect she desired. 

“Alexia!” 

You fall back onto the sand and turn your focus onto the stars above you. With the ocean at your feet and the universe above you, you couldn’t help but feel small. 

“Spain is going to hate, the team will hate me and you will hate me. Please don’t hate me Alexia, anybody but you” it’s almost a plea. 

“Y/N I could never hate you. I love you” 

This confession had you sitting up right in a matter of seconds. 

“Alexia in a different life maybe we could be happy together but we are not meant to be in this one” 

“Why? I love you Y/N and I know part of you loves me too. I felt it in the quarter final and again in the semi final. Give me one good reason why?”

“We just aren’t. First I loved you and you didn’t love me, then you loved me and I loved Caroline and now you love me and I don’t love myself. Love should be this hard Alexia” 

Alexia had enough. She couldn’t understand why you were so adamant on standing in the way of what could be. 

“Love is hard Y/N but it is also the most rewarding thing in the world. We spend our whole lifetimes trying to find our soulmates. I found mine when I was 15 and it was you, that wasn’t hard” 

“Alexia I don’t know what you want from me. You’ve said this before and look what happened. I gave you my whole heart and you broke it like it was nothing. I don’t think I can do that again” 

“I want to tell you I am in love with you Y/N and I know I’ve hurt you before but that will never happen again. You deserve the world and I want to be the one to give you that” 

You didn’t know what to say but you knew what you wanted to do. You lean forward, cup Alexia’s cheek and kiss her softly. Never had a kiss felt so right, so good. You pull away knowing that maybe you shouldn’t have done what you just did. Alexia on the other hand didn’t share the same belief because that kiss was nowhere near enough for her. 

She leans forward but with enough force to knock you back. She now hovers above you waiting for your permission because in this moment you held all the cards. You reach up and kiss her only for Alexia to take over. You had never experienced a kiss filled with so much love and passion. You didn’t need to listen to what your head was telling you because your body make it crystal clear that you wanted Alexia.  

Her hands began to roam your body and found their way under your shirt. It was getting heated and knew where it was going. You also knew that this couldn’t happen on a beach in Australia. 

You push her off you but when you she the look of sheer panic in Alexia’s eyes you quickly peck her lips to reassure her this is not something you want to stop. 

“I love you Alexia and if I give you a chance, if I give you my heart again, then I need you to promise me that you’ll look after it” 

Alexia stands to her feet and holds her hands out to help to you up. Once at eye level she takes both of your hands in her own. 

“I promise Y/N. I will take care of you. I will protect your heart as if it was my own. I will love you with every fibre of my being. If you give me a chance, I promise I will never hurt you the way I did”

“Ok” your tone is quiet but the smile on your face is wide. 

“Ok?” Alexia asks as if needing a double confirmation. 

“Yes Alexia. I love you and I will give you another chance” 

Alexia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She really did think that the outcome of this conversation would be different but right now in the moment, even after losing the final, she has never been happier. You had given her the chance to rewrite a wrong from four years ago and she wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.

[fleechin]

This is my 2024 @portal-secret-santa for @villafordefeatedvillains, they told me they were a huge fan of stuff that combines Portal and Half Life, as well as Caveline and Cave x Breen, and also Portal Stories Mel, so I had the idea of a bunch of different scenes I could do. In the end I found myself doing a sort of in depth analysis of Breen, Cave, and Caroline all together and comparing and contrasting their histories and perspectives. This gave me the chance to reference Mel and even some stuff with Entropy Zero 2 (which I know they didn't mention, but it's kinda the gold standard when it comes to combining half life and Portal and I have a tooooooon of headcanons about Caroline's role at Arbeit, so I just knew I had to bring that in).

There's some slightly suggestive stuff with Caveline and Cave x Breen (mostly Caroline's imagination running wild - who can blame her?), but nothing NSFW though.

But there you go, enjoy and a happy 2024 Holidays!

        Part 1: According to a Small Fish

The year was 1975. 

A crucial year for many people, perhaps, in ways that each and every one of them could recount. War stories, scandals, a casual fling with a one time lover that would eventually become the story to recount to future generations. The one who got away. A flame that nostalgia and the shitty marriage you’ve found yourself stuck in leaves you hoping to maybe, just maybe, rekindle. You wouldn’t get it, you say to your nieces, nephews, kids, grandkids, even your spouse before he or she leaves for good this time. You weren’t there. 

For one man, who absolutely was there, it was the start of a career that would jettison him into notoriety. The fact he knew. The extent he did not. 

An applied science and research facility, especially as prestigious as Black Mesa, would immortalize him, at least in some fields. Watch any documentary about the next Einstein, open up a textbook about the first man on Mars, and there was a good chance the name Wallace Breen would have appeared outside of the footnotes once or twice. Maybe they’d even interview him.

 No one could have predicted how ubiquitous his name would have become, not even him. And yet, although deep down, had somebody come back with, say, a time travelling boat, and told him just how he would save the world and unite the human species with its benefactors, a part of him would have believed it. Imagined the escapades he would have gone through to get there. 

For now though, Wallace Breen was on the path to greatness. He’d just become the new administrator of Black Mesa, and he was ready to clean house. Standard safety regulations that kept Black Mesa out of the news more than once had proven to be more of a nuisance than anything. There was no such thing as bad press, provided you can drown it out with achievements. Scientists frequently insisted that their equipment had limits. Limits that couldn’t be stretched or tested, lest they break something. Lest they accidentally create something. 

Breen understood that limits were meant to be broken. If the technicians were unhappy with the machines they had, they could simply do what he was paying them to do and build a better one. Would people complain? Of course. Right up until the very end they complained. But they could not argue with his results. The Hazardous Environment Suit, before he’d arrived, was nothing more than a modified spacesuit, useless without a clunky power cable that was perfect for tripping on. Neither jack-of-all-trades, nor a master of one.

But Breen saw potential. Standardization of the parts, emphasis on compactness and multi-use. People objected of course, we need this component, they shouted, but they quickly shut up when they realized just how comfortable, mobile, and applicable the brand new Mark II suit was. 

But as always, this was no time to celebrate. The cable had been reduced already, but the next iteration of the suit needed its own internal power supply. Humanity’s worst base instinct, aside from the urge to reproduce, that old tyrant, was complacency. It needed to be forced into action in order to survive. 

The underground nature of Black Mesa had made him think a great deal about fossils. Calcified impressions of remains of beasts that, had they known what came before, would have thought themselves the pinnacle of evolution, the end of geological history. If only they had bothered to look to the stars. 

Humanity could not make the same mistake.

        Part 2: According to an Old Shark

For another man in Michigan, 1975 was a very different year. 

Cave Johnson had been the talk of the town for more than half of his life, for better or worse. In the beginning, as a shower-curtain salesman, perhaps the biggest lesson he’d learned was how to sell anything and sign his name on it. It brought him wealth, power, fame, all the things he needed to retire.

But that was an easy life. The life of a showman who wanted nothing more than to make a nickel or two. And last he looked at his TIME Magazine interview, his name wasn’t PT Barnum. 

Even during the war, he’d read up on what scientists were up to. The big names, Heisenberg, Einstein, Schwarzschild. Lots of Germans. Though he hadn’t read their exact papers or browsed the formulas, he knew they were onto something. Wormholes, warping of space-time continuum, nuclear decay. He had only one chance to board the underground train to wherever they were going. 

And so he hopped on board and went down, down, down. 

Purchasing the salt mine had been easy enough. Building everything was challenging, but he had no tolerance for doubters. Hiring had definitely eaten its share of the budget - scientists were happy to come along, but Olympians had convinced themselves that they deserved even more silver dollars than the big ones around their necks. War heroes were a hit or miss, some were more than happy to brag about their tales, and others wanted nothing more than anonymity after what they’d been through. Cowards.

And then there was Caroline. Where would he be without her?

Starting off as another one of the many girls he’d hired to man the typewriters and do the formulas that the Men Upstairs were much too important to think about, she’d made a name for herself by interning with him, and eventually applying on a whim to be his assistant. He took one look at her file and made his decision. It took even less time for them to become more than business partners. 

Could he have settled down? Married her, taught Cave Junior the ropes of Aperture, gotten a picket fence somewhere and called it a life? Maybe. But Caroline didn’t seem like the kind of woman to want to quit like that. That just made him like her even more.

Cave and Caroline had taken Aperture Science Innovators to fame and infamy alike, assuming one believed that there was even a meaningful distinction between the two. Cave Johnson did not. The Quantum tunneling device and Repulsion Gel had quickly become household names. Unfortunately, so had Melanie Flanagan. 

So what if her sleeping pod had failed and locked her in deep sleep? She’d taken one for the team! She contributed something to the world beyond almost bringing home a Silver in 36! Did you? Not that the press had cared about that. They could talk about Aperture, and their impression of its inner workings all they wanted. None of them however truly understood the nature of what one journalist had so pretentiously dubbed modus operandi aperturae, Aperture’s Way of Doing Things. They wouldn’t complain so damn much.

They’d managed to survive the Senate hearings in ‘68, but their reputation, and by extension their finances, were a whole nother story. The nerve of actually paying people, especially these people, to do what Olympians had desperately applied to do not that long ago… 

Black Mesa had already been a thorn in his side, but now, with Aperture’s Reputation in the gutter, it wasn’t like anyone would have cared. The courts might have cared about IP theft, but the public didn’t, and besides, what lawyer could they afford? 

But alas, there was Science to do. Repulsion Gel was already showing promising results, and with the moon landings along the way, Johnson saw the potential for a true Aperture revival. Black Mesa would never see it coming. Especially this fresh meat of an administrator of theirs. He knew how to read a book, but only Cave Johnson could play ball.  1975 would not be a year of stagnation.

        Part 3: According to an Octopus, or a Medusa (Whichever you prefer)

For one woman, 1975 was the beginning of a new Era. 

Her work in the past decades was paying off, even if her boss hadn’t seen the extent of it yet. Her greatest invention, the portal testing chamber, had become the gold standard. The existing portal technology was already well beyond what the folks at Black Mesa were even dreaming of – and she wasn’t just guessing, corporate espionage was a forte of hers. Zero point energy field manipulation, while never progressing beyond lifting small objects directly in front of the user, had been thought impossible by most of Black Mesa’s top “experts”.

Even larger-mass teleportation was still in Aperture’s favor. The Borealis Project, while largely considered a failure by those who worked on it closest, had proven the possibility of teleportation, and the remoteness of Arbeit Communications, whose acquisition she’d managed, had kept the worst of it a secret. Even the few Black Mesa spies she’d caught didn’t know. And she knew how to get them to squeal.

This new hire at Black Mesa. He was cute, naïve, still seeing himself as the man who would guide the world to greatness. All of the idealism, and none of the experience to boot. She knew the drill. Start off cordial, try to befriend him, juuuuust long enough to get him to show any weaknesses he had. 

He’d even visited Aperture a few times. Each time he’d found something to comment on - always just the thing to get on Cave Johnson’s nerves. Johnson’s strategy, nine times out of ten, was to copy another well known Johnson (who people quickly learned to never ever ask him about), that is to say, get right in their faces. Too close for comfort. Had he and Breen gotten any closer, they might have kissed. That would be fun to see. 

She thought about that way too often. Breen talked a big game, but Cave Johnson’s mouth was a beast unto itself. That sad excuse for a man would never know what hit him. Was it healthy, normal, to be thinking about her boss and his rival making out passionately? Yes, she decided one day as she took a drag of a well earned cigarette. Yes it was.

Oh, but things got heated all the time, of course. For all his talk of “evolving humanity beyond its basest of impulses”, Breen was more than happy to indulge in a shouting match with his rival over the phone. She’d taken the liberty to write down some insults she thought of throughout the day. What could she say, it was great stress relief.

In the past, her way to cope with whatever Cave Johnson had thought to do that day (and there were many of those days) was to find a closet she’d snuck an old couch into, and scream as loud as she could into the pillows. Over time however, that strategy (and her vocal cords) began to work less and less. Thankfully, now she had her own brand new punching bag.

As far as she knew, the two rivals had never come to kiss each other. Or if they had, she hadn’t gotten to watch. What a shame, she thought. Her insight on this man, however, had come to pay off. She’d learned the ins and outs of what made this man tick. And she’d learned to play her cards right.

“Doctor Breen”, as he always insisted on being called, certainly knew how to talk to important men in suits. Securing contracts, making connections, slow incremental steps, even she recognized he had a talent there. But even he fell victim to that age-old need to be known. Anyone, if they talked just the right game, could string him along whatever path they wanted, and he’d go willingly. 

 So why didn’t Caroline do the same? She’d been the impetus and the drive to acquiring Arbeit after all. Even after Cave Johnson would go on to keel over with his lunar fascination, secrecy became the new modus operandi aperturae. But therein was the true difference between the two: while Breen understood the value of confidentiality, or rather that it had some non-zero value, Caroline understood that secrecy was meaningless without obscurity. No one would ever try to investigate you if they did not know who you were.

She’d cut her teeth on Aperture’s operations and ownership of the Arbeit facility, its existence and location kept secret even to most employees of Aperture, and the extent of its research kept secret to most who worked at Arbeit. Cave had let her turn it into her own little playground, perfect for thought experiments and ideas that even her boss might not have approved. 

It was her idea however, long after Cave Johnson and his ways, to run Aperture on that principle. You never quite know who you’ll have to hide this from later on, she insisted. If time travel exists, they’re already listening in.

Caroline ended up being far more right about that, and about Wallace Breen, than even she could have imagined back in 1975.

[mariacallous]

I am looking at a colour photo of a woman with auburn hair entering the courthouse in Avignon. Around her, the impassive faces of her lawyers.

This woman is about to hear a verdict. How much will he get? How much time in prison will be given to the man who drugged her senseless and remorselessly raped her?

As the answer comes and the news filters out around the world: 20 years, I wonder what it is worth to her. A woman to whom nothing will be given back.Not an inch of her body.

What’s a number like this when there’s nothing left?

This man is the father of her children. The judge reads out the prison sentences for his convicted acolytes, his mates, his accomplices in horror – his partners in the pleasure of destroying others.

This woman is not smiling.

Her eyes are wide open, unblinking. They never blink.

Her name is Gisèle Pelicot.

That name left the little village of Mazan and travelled the world. That name is now allowing us all to shout out loud: Gisèle Pelicot did it, so I can do it.

She is us.

This morning in Avignon, as she has done every other morning for months, Gisèle stared at the greedy camera. She made no effort to avoid its glare.

She hoped, she said, by her actions, to change our patriarchal society.

To do that, she looked us all in the face.

That face is also a body.

The body is also ours.

A body that a society made up of ordinary men chose to reduce to nothingness, to nonexistence.

But Gisèle decided to shine the spotlight on these men.

They wiped their shoes as they walked into her house, washed their hands in her washbasin, and hung their coats on the coat hook before setting to work.

Destroy everything? They “didn’t think” so, they had said.

Once upon a time, in a small village in the south of France – that part of France that people so love to visit – lived a woman named Gisèle Pelicot.

For as long as she could remember, Gisèle loved life.

Then one day, over a café au lait, a man – her husband, infinitely multiplied – decided to bring her down. Then to knock her out, to penetrate her, to insult her, to pry open her limbs and body parts. Like a serial killer turning a home into a morgue.

Like any other woman, Gisèle had countless things she liked to do in her daily life. It was a life of reasonable expectations. A life that, as the years passed, was shaped by childbirth, too.

In this small village in France too, lived her daughter Caroline and Caroline’s brothers when they were children. Children usually call their fathers Daddy.

Caroline doesn’t use that name now, and never will again. She too is waiting for justice to be done, as they say.

In a small village in France, our hearts lie shattered.

The denial of Gisèle’s humanity by her rapists is the denial of violence done to every woman, to all of us.

At her side, after this verdict,we can now look the world in the eye.

Deep in our entwined souls, we can only hope that society will rise to the challenge thrown down by the superhuman determination of Gisèle Pelicot.

I stayed silent for 30 years about sexual assault and rape. And now, the law in France considers that the statute of limitations has expired on the crimes committed against me. But I can still fight for those who do not have a voice. Like Gisèle’s, my own story speaks for all of them.

[senselessviolets]

"don't wanna be alone."

Roman Roy x Original Character

Rated T (Angst/Feels, Drabble)

Word Count: 1.6k

AO3 Link

WARNINGS:

Cursing, canon typical humor, descriptions & themes involving PTSD/depression. Roman is kind of a dick.

Author's Notes:

Heavily inspired by "Calling U Back" by The Marías. I realized there was some unintentional overlap between this fic and the headcanons about being Rome's assistant that I made so shared universe I guess? /s

Set during Caroline's Wedding in Italy at the end of season 3.

Summary: After a business trip in Turkey ended with her and her boss being held hostage, personal assistant Maxine Lee has some big questions to ask herself; why has he now gone cold on her? Will they be able to work through these unresolved feelings? And most important of all---is the paycheck really worth it?

I could feel two hazel beams searing into my back as I stood across the party from him. There was nothing that stated in the e-vite he forwarded me that I was to be his armpiece for Italy. And yet, Roman’s unshakeable gaze nearly had me feeling guilty or at the very least—unresolved. I knew jetsetting was going to be a part of the job and my brief stint in PR for the luxury fashion label ALMEN had gotten me well acquainted with travel of the sort. Instead of preparing statements for reporters about the brand’s upcoming collection for the spring-summer season; I was having to be a pincushion for the World’s Wealthiest Brat/Fuckboy.

It was a rather impromptu thing in the beginning. My father had gone to Wharton with Waystar’s CFO Karl Mueller and according to him; they “go way back.” Funny how Karl’s name had never once come up until his youngest daughter needed a cushy job in the city. All because someone (me) had to bite off a little more than they could chew. 

“It’s, uh, nice that you stuck around even after the whole Turkey…thing,” Cousin Greg emphasizes, using his hands.

The briefest mention of Turkey had my stomach doing flips. I didn’t speak to Roman for weeks after. Beyond the now bi-weekly video calls with my therapist; I became something of a recluse. I didn’t dare to leave my apartment. The meals I did remember to have were left at my doorstep. I convinced myself this leave of absence was helping me cope and all it was doing was prolonging the inevitable. Sooner or later, I was going to have to face him even though the last time he would’ve seen me, my face was hot and wet with tears. Tears I’d done everything to keep from spilling over.

There was just so much uncertainty at that moment. Being the lone female companion on that trip left me more vulnerable. In ways that Roman, Karl, or Laird weren’t or would ever think about. Beyond that, I was the most objectively expendable member of the group. I wasn’t a big-name banker like Laird, much less a high-level exec like Karl. If I were them, I would without a doubt choose me first to get thrown overboard if it came down to it. 

I wouldn’t fucking think twice about it, in fact.

But Roman, as powerless as even he was at that moment, did everything he could to assure me that wouldn’t be the case no matter what. He was sweet. Why’d he have to be so fucking sweet? There were a couple of nights I’d spent awake in bed, eyes trained on the dark ceiling above me asking myself that same question over and over again until I either drifted off to sleep or the ache in my heart dissipated. Usually, it was the first one.

“It’ll…um…no, d-don’t…don’t cry. Please. You’re gonna be okay, w-we’re gonna be okay actually. Yeah. I mean, w-we got Laird. He’s like a fucking behemoth. And I know he sorta…got pulled away but we do have Dave. Dude is jacked. Y’know Colin? My dad’s security? Dave’s that but not as scary. We’d be covered. We a-are covered. We got you, Max. I got…,” he assured, almost rhythmically, “...I’m gonna…make sure you stay okay, okay?”

Was it incredibly verbose and clumsy? Yes. 

Did it make me feel any better in that moment? Somewhat. 

It was something to hold onto when there wasn’t anything else; it was something. I remember feeling weak and sick. All these powerful men occupying various corners of this decadent hotel lobby and here I am; a little girl dabbing snot into her sweater sleeve like I was eight years old again, legs criss-crossed in the church pews during my mom’s funeral service. Being utterly alone had been the bane of my existence for some time. Not just simply being by myself as I actually preferred that a lot of the time. Some mindless Netflix binge and takeout was enough most nights. “Utterly alone” to me meant being nothing in the eyes of the people around you. An organism, a space-filler—being interminably interchangeable. Roman had done what he could to assure me I was the opposite at my most terrified.

Though I didn’t owe him anything and I was on his payroll and a result, had received the fruits of my labor—I felt innately that I was indebted to him. An entire year later I had still yet to rid myself of this feeling. There was a heaviness to it. It usually occupied any prolonged gaps of silence in between our conversations. It was tangible to me but I often wondered if it was for him too. 

I figured it was; otherwise, he might not be as much of a hellish prick as he had been to me lately. He’d spontaneously request revised versions of the business plans he’d drafted. Late into the night, he’d call me, harshly demanding I send over the revisions. At a certain point, I realized he wasn’t even checking to see if I had sent them or not. Like he just needed somebody to bitch out for the hell of it. I remember when I shrewdly accused him of doing so during one of his random calls, this one occurring around 2 AM.

“Do you even read my fucking notes? I feel like you don’t otherwise I wouldn’t be fuckin’ calling you at odd hours of the night to remind you to do your fuckin’ job.” he chastises, in a voice that’s made gravelly due to the phone and fatigue. 

I was calling from my bed, propped upright by some pillows with my bedside lamp turned on. Likewise, I could tell Roman was sprawled out on his mattress due to the shifting of the bedsheets the mic picked up. The sound of sleep was always palpable in his voice. 

“Well, if you bothered checking if I’d sent them over before calling to bitch me out for not sending them at all; it could save us both the fucking headache, yeah?”

“...lookit you, being all big-bad-bitch out of nowhere. Was wondering when I was gonna bring that outta you. I’m legit so proud of you right now, Max. Keep killing it, Kween!” Roman taunts, “Makes you wonder where this Max was when we were living it up in Turkey way back. Okay, okay, if you can admit right now that the only reason you were putting on the waterworks then was that you were weeping over the possibility of losing your meal ticket…I’ll leave you alone. Promise.”

What kind of twisted ultimatum was that? 

Unfortunately, my throat becomes too dry all of a sudden and I’m unable to question what possessed him to ask such a fucked up thing this late at night. Instead, I’m only able to bid him a choked-up farewell and hang up. 

“...I-I’ll send you my next round of revisions soon. I appreciate the follow-up call. Thank you, Roman. Have a good night.”

It wasn’t exactly a secret that Roman could be incredibly cruel with his words when presented with the opportunity to be. I’d had a litany of expletives hurled at me over the most minor of mistakes. That’s not even including the constant sexual innuendo but even he had the common sense not to push things too far with that. For all of his kindness; there was always an edge. Gestures of appreciation were undercut with sarcastic comments and name-calling. “Thank you” was most commonly followed by a well-timed “fuck you” or “fuck off” if he wanted to evoke his father’s bitterness.

  This was by all means the norm.

But that’s why Turkey had been so different. That’s why it had been sitting in my craw so strangely these twelve-odd months. Sure, he had been trying to keep things light-hearted and get a smile, better yet a laugh, out of me since things were so dire. However, there was no “edge” to be found. No rug to be pulled out from under me and him to snicker at. 

Cliche sure, but I could just feel the difference. 

I could feel him trying to make a genuine connection which I’d come to surmise was typically quite difficult for him. Then again that seemed to be the case with most who shared his status; especially his siblings. His little-spoken-of partner Tabitha was evidence of this failure to connect. As were his handful of Raya dates that ‘never panned out’. 

He was my boss. I was his first-ever assistant; meant to ‘help him acclimate to the increased levels of responsibility he hoped to gradually take on.’ At least that was how Ms. Kellman further described the position in my follow-up interview. While having Waystar’s General Legal Counsel conduct my second job interview was beyond intimidating, I was under the impression she was attempting to mentor him. Clearly, the two had history and that was none of my concern. Though I’d be lying if I’d said I hadn’t thought about asking her what his deal was. If he’d ever been the way he was at the hotel in Turkey to her. Maybe he had. 

Or maybe she wouldn’t know a serious, genuine Roman if he was looking her dead in the eyes. 

He was a confounding person who contradicted himself all too often. It made him impossible to decipher sometimes and intolerable to be around other times. And yet, I was stuck making the same mistake I suspected many individuals that came before me had too made; trying to make sense of this person named Roman Roy while at my core hoping that maybe he’d break through and be better. 

If not for me or his would-be-girlfriend or his deeply flawed family—at the very least for himself. Because regardless of all he’d said or all he’d done, it’s what he deserved.

End.

{ Feedback is always welcome! Let me know if you want to see a follow-up to this! <3 }

[scotianostra]

The Scottish Polymath Mary Somerville died on November 28th 1872 in Naples.

Today Somerville’s name lives on in an Oxford college, but her wider legacy is largely forgotten. She is the face of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s £10 banknote – the first non-royal woman to be honoured in this way.

Born in Mary Fairfax, Jedburgh on 26th December, 1790, Somerville grew up in the Fife seaside town of Burntisland. She was fascinated by the natural world from the start, collecting shells and fossils, and observing birds and sea creatures.

When her father returned from the sea, he discovered 8- or 9-year-old Mary could neither read nor do simple sums. He sent her to an elite boarding school, across the Firth of Forth, Miss Primrose's School in Musselburgh.

Miss Primrose was not a good experience for Mary and she was sent home in just a year. She began to educate herself, taking music and painting lessons, instructions in handwriting and arithmetic. She learned to read French, Latin, and Greek largely on her own. At age 15, Mary noticed some algebraic formulas used as decoration in a fashion magazine, and on her own she began to study algebra to make sense of them. She surreptitiously obtained a copy of Euclid's "Elements of Geometry" over her parents' opposition.

Four years after marrying, Mary Somerville and her family moved to London. Their social circle included the leading scientific and literary lights of the day, including Ada Bryon and her mother Maria Edgeworth, George Airy, John and William Herschel, George Peacock, and Charles Babbage. Mary and William had three daughters and a son who died in infancy. They also traveled extensively in Europe.

In 1826, Somerville began publishing papers on scientific subjects based on her own research. After 1831, she began writing about the ideas and work of other scientists as well. One book, "The Connection of the Physical Sciences," contained discussion of a hypothetical planet that might be affecting the orbit of Uranus. That prompted John Couch Adams to search for the planet Neptune, for which is he is credited as a co-discoverer.

Mary Somerville's translation and expansion of Pierre Laplace's "Celestial Mechanics" in 1831 won her acclaim and success: that same year, British prime minister Robert Peel awarded her a civil pension of 200 pounds annually. In 1833, Somerville and Caroline Herschel were named honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society, the first time women had earned that recognition. Prime Minister Melbourne increased her salary to 300 pounds in 1837. William Somerville's health deteriorated and in 1838 the couple moved to Naples, Italy. She stayed there most of the remainder of her life, working and publishing.

In 1848, Mary Somerville published "Physical Geography," a book used for 50 years in schools and universities; although at the same time, it attracted a sermon against it in York Cathedral.

William Somerville died in 1860. In 1869, Mary Somerville published yet another major work, was awarded a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

By 1871, Mary Somerville had outlived her husbands, a daughter, and all of her sons: she wrote, "Few of my early friends now remain—I am nearly left alone." Mary Somerville died in Naples on November 29, 1872, just before turning 92. She had been working on another mathematical article at the time and regularly read about higher algebra and solved problems each day.

Her daughter published "Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville" the next year, parts of a work which Mary Somerville had completed most of before her death.

[loisfreakinglane]

What are your top 5 Dollhouse characters and episodes and also just moments in general?

okay okay okay lettuce get into it! i must warn you ahead of time, i am about to ramble incoherently for entirely TOO LONG!!!!!!!!!!

top 5 dollhouse characters:

priya. always priya. my judgey dorky lil vagabond. she's an artist she's a world traveler she's a survivor. she confronts her problems head on, she is brutally honest. she doesn't give a fuck about money or prestige. she loves loudly, through acts of service. infiltrating a military compound to save tony. coming back to the dollhouse to save her friends. introducing baby tony to his father. i love her rage and her perseverance and her bitterness. i love her willingness to forgive and start anew. she's an all timer for me.

tony. priya's other half. i really want to crawl inside his brain to try and understand him. what is it that made him sign up for the dollhouse to recover from ptsd, only to immediately turn around on his release day and sign up to be a soldier again- only with no individual identity, part of a mass hive mind. he had no wants for himself, not until he met priya and she became the center of his world. he could be so cavalier, so lighthearted in the face of horror. making smalltalk with priya in the middle of a gun fight. joking that she should wound him if he was imprinted with someone evil, but to ~stay away from his junk~ did he only truly value his personhood when it came to protecting priya and their son? I DON'T KNOW BUT I KEEP FLIPPING HIM OVER IN MY BRAIN LOOKING FOR ANSWERS.

topher. on first blush- an amoral asshole, so focused on stroking his own ego with his giant genius brain, he never stopped to worry who was peering over his shoulder. i think he gets dismissed as a dick a bit too much, when on rewatch, his biggest flaw to ME was naivete and carelessness. he convinced himself he was a good person- he ~fixed~ priya, he ~cured~ a fuckton of soldiers' ptsd, he imprinted echo to reach out to abused children. and he never worried that the dollhouse couldn't be trusted- he trusted adelle, he trusted her ability to retain control. he's a goofy, dorky childish dumbass. and he ends the fucking world (or at least heavily speeds up humanitys downfall). but his arc from careless dick high on his own prowess to traumatized, guilty, grieving, desperate to actually be a good person for once. and that's not even taking the epitaph's into account! and whatever it was in that decade between the hollow men and the epitaphs that drove him entirely off the deep end. anyway topher makes me sad and i love him and i think his ~redemption arc~ is very engaging

boyd. STOP JUDGING ME. DON'T DO IT. I LOVE WHO I LOVE. okay like first off- obviously- THE WRITING IS A MESS. THE REVEAL IS A MESS. WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH IT ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE TAKEN AS A WHOLE. but right now, coming off this rewatch? i just??? love him???? i love my evil dad, a total wackadoodle mastermind, taking an entry level job at his own fucking company because he's fixated on a new innovation he discovered- caroline, her weird body quirks, her innate capacity for revolutionizing the dollhouse tech. he was so intent on guiding her progress while pretending to be some lowly ex-cop. and then he went and fell in love with his coworkers. much as he ruined their lives, he had genuine love for echo, adelle, topher. perhaps claire. (when did she become clyde? was it right after she left the house?) beyond them, i'm not entirely sure how far his adoration spread- i like to think he was fond of priya and tony too. he guides echo's development, he's genuinely upset when he is removed as her handler. he prods topher about his sense of morality for 2 seasons straight, pushing him to consider the consequences of his actions. helping topher and priya cover up nolan's (righteous, justified, absolutely self-defense) murder. he throws more and more opposition adelle's way until she takes charge. he wants them all to be their best selves- and he wants them all to save each other. AND BE A FAMILY. TOGETHER FOREVER DURING THE APOCALYPSE. and there's something very funny to me about him hating paul, while he spent two years arguably pretending to be a man very much like paul.

caroline. echo. i still struggle to grapple with the differences. is this like a holy trinity thing, is caroline just another facet of echo, alongside all her other imprints? is echo a facet of caroline? have echo and caroline turned into the same entity? did echo truly remain the porchlight, waiting for caroline to come home? YOU KNOW WHAT DOESN'T MATTER. tho carolecho should be considered nonbinary i am just saying. both alpha and echo should be enbys. sometimes i struggle with echo when her plot becomes very paul-centric, because while i very much love tahmoh and enjoy paul in his dynamics with other characters, the echo/paul relationship is not for me. but outside of that? i love her. i love that she's a warrior, before and after becoming an active. her fixation on rossum, her willingness to lie, manipulate to get to them. she found rossum first, and that got them interested. and her wacky health stats got them laser focused. she wanted so badly to save animals, save humans, save the world. having the weird bodily capacity to manufacture a vaccine was just a bizarre stroke of luck. but it was her choice, again and again and again, to do good things, to help people.

honorable mentions: adelle dewitt. laurence dominic!!!!!! ivy. alpha. margaret bashford.

TOP 5 EPISODES!

204 belonging. our priya-centric episode. the only priya-centric episode? which is very unfortunate, but hey, I'll take it. finally seeing her whole story. priya taking her power back, priya getting her revenge, priya making her own choices. priya/tony content. topher grappling with his complicity in horror. obviously he has always been complicit in horror but now he finally has to confront it head on, and it makes him second guess everything up to this point. and it makes him struggle with his relationships with both adelle- who he thought he could trust, who pushed him to do the wrong thing out of self preservation, and boyd- who he still believes he can trust, who protected him and priya, and helped topher do something fucking HORRIFYING for the right reasons. topher choosing to help priya, for real this time. after the bullshit help he was fooled into giving her. with a side of!!!!!! echo is still BECOMING herself, still exploring her mind, but this time it's boyd figuring her out, warning her of potential consequences from her actions, but helping her anyway. hiding her secrets, giving her the keycard for future use. god boyd in this episode..... warning echo of the consequences of her future actions, and helping topher deal with the consequences of HIS actions. helping cover up a murder. well. an act of self defense. righteous revenge. THE BITCH HAD IT COMING. which was soooooooo cathartic and beautiful and i LOVED IT.

209 stop-loss. OUR TONY-CENTRIC EPISODE! c'mon you knew i had to do it. another priya/tony episode. one of our only episodes featuring the crime fighting trio we could have had for multiple seasons in echo/priya/tony. echo getting to use her abilities to access her imprints. the journey we see tony take during this episode tho- being discharged from the dollhouse, given a pile of money and a new future. we got bits and pieces of this process through madeline, but it's given more time and depth here. seeing that although topher may have ~cured~ tonys ptsd, he is still isolated and traumatized by his experiences. and he knows something is missing- he sees priya in a club, only it's not her. and of course he's immediately swooped up by a rossum adjacent military outfit using active architecture to create a hivemind army. it was VERY dark angel x-7 series in a fascinating way. this should have been a multi-episode arc, but i'll take what i can get. echo and priya saving tony, tony having to overcome mind control to save priya. IMPECCABLE. but also! seeing our lil group of freedom fighters truly start to form! boyd, echo, topher, ivy, paul, priya, and tony. and our brief glimpse into adelle as THE BAD GUY. as well as! finally seeing adelle hit what we later find out was her breaking point. she got drunk, she got shot down by tony (in deleted scenes), she has that amazing moment where she goes down into the dollhouse, strips off her clothes and showers with the actives. this is the moment she chooses to join team TAKE DOWN ROSSUM. she had regained control over her house, but this is when she decides to take her power back. she's not playing rossum's game anymore.

108 needs. this episode!!!!!!!! our first time TRULY MEETING caroline, priya, tony and madeline. i mean i'll be upfront- i hate the beginning of this episode. i hate a dream depicting two women in a madonna whore dichotomy. angel devil shit. i hate it. BUT ONCE WE GET PAST THAT!!!!!!!!! 10/10. even the reveal that this ~awakening&escape~ was manufactured doesn't impact my enjoyment because the feelings are real, the experience is real. we get to see priya and tony be in love without understanding where that came from. madeline grieving a daughter she cannot remember. priya confronting the man who stole her life. tony protecting priya, the way he was unable to with joe hearn. and caroline- caroline gets to confront adelle and topher over the morality of their actions. and she gets to lead the dolls out into the light (which i do have to ask- they're 8 stories underground. did they take the elevators in shift? did echo ride up and down with the gun out every time? how did this go? you know what ignore me i don't need to pick this apart). which- what a goddamn moment. and to top it all off with the discovery that it was all claire's idea- and boyd takes issue with her over playing her own games with the dolls. she views it as necessary for their emotional states, but is he wrong? this was such an emotionally cathartic episode. and so so important for me and my connection to these people we usually only ever see as other fake people

109 a spy in the house of love. FLAWLESSSSS. first off, the framing device. following every active throughout their imprints day. missing bits and pieces every time. i loooove playing with perspective- everyone seeing different aspects, having different parts to pick over. priya and echo in parallel roles of a sort again, both hunting down a spy in very different ways. the revelation that dominic OF ALL PEOPLE was a fucking spy for the nsa. topher showing his soft side again when he suspected boyd and gave him the chance to run. in retrospect, while dominic was obviously... not a 10/10 person..... he tried to kill echo, he was prepared to torture and kill ivy, and kill topher and echo, to keep his cover....... he wasn't actually wrong about the dollhouse? the technology WAS too dangerous to let run rampant. adelle WAS naive to trust rossum. and echo WOULD be the one to bring this entire house of cards down. too late, but still. we also get to see the softer side of adelle here. she's not all boss bitch, she has vulnerabilities and dreams, she breaks down after dominics betrayal. she has no one to confide in but a person who is not real. oh my god not to mention! the reveal to paul that mellie is a doll!!!!!!!!! there are too many secret dolls this season probably, but the emotion with this reveal was so intense. it was so heavy and hurtful, so damaging. a great episode for topher, for dominic, for echo, for adelle. and at the end- adelle genuinely believing echo's progress is a GOOD THING because it protected the house. one of the best ENSEMBLE episodes.

212 the hollow men. not a choice i would have expected, but hey. i fucking loved that episode. much as it's hard to make sense of boyds secret evil mastermind identity, the reveal in context of this episode hits so hard and works so well for me. and the twist back around from 'boyd is evil' to- but also he still loves you guys a lot and wants to hang out forever while the world burns down around you! makes me feel so many feelings actually. clyde!whiskey is stupid hot. the mellie/paul teamup is fun until it's horribly depressing, and it makes me wistful for a timeline where these two actually did fall in love in some fashion. the chemistry is there, whether she's mellie or madeline. priya and tony coming back to save everyone- and the return of topher!tony. the hints toward tony's future with him already starting to be programmed with extra skills. the fakeout happy ending quickly followed up with an apocalyptic ten years later. everything here worked very well for me on an emotional level. echo and boyd still striking that beautiful balance of devotion, only now it is twisted and ugly. god truly just watching boyd navigate this episode, still basically acting the same way with the rest of the characters, but we see so much more in his face. there's an edge there, there's an eerie undertone. for however much this was sprung on us so suddenly, harry lennix was up to the task of selling it. he truly deserved more time to explore this aspect of the character.

#5 is more dubious and i wonder if it'll retain its top slot once i'm a little more removed from this rewatch but i'm rolling with it for now. it doesn't escape my notice that 4/5 of my top episodes heavily feature priya/tony lmao i am what i am. other top contenders- 110 haunted, 113 epitaph one, 210 the attic, 211 getting closer.

FAVORITE MOMENTS! i'm actually gonna use this slot here to talk about some of my favorite like...... ideas? things that keep bouncing around my brain? random shit!

priya/tony are the only ship that don't exist in a multiverse that perfectly fit that quote about how in every universe i will find you and i will choose you. also for years there, enver had appeared in the avengers as a young cop in modern day, and in agent carter as a war vet in the 40s. and in agents of shield dichen was an immortal inhuman we saw in both the 40s and modern day. so for literal years there i had a long running daydream about her the tragic immortal, and her love, the man constantly reincarnating. AND THEN AGENTS OF SHIELD WENT AND MADE ENVER A TIME TRAVELER WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH DICHENS DAUGHTER. I MUST LOL AT MYSELF. another impeccable ship, tho. has to be said. daisysousa5ever

the whole thread throughout 111 briar rose through 112 omega about sleeping beauty. echo telling susan to think of herself as the prince, who is fighting to save briar rose. she is both the prince and the princess. 111 making us think it is paul who is coming to save the sleeping beauty echo from the dollhouse- we even have him literally waking her up from her sleeping pod- the end of 111 revealing it was actually alpha who came to wake echo up from her doll-state and bring her back to life by making her MORE like he is- only for 112 omega to flip that entirely on its head and give us echo and caroline as two separate entities. echo given the chance to save caroline, first as a human girl trapped in the wrong body, and then on a hard drive. they kind of ruin it at the end by having paul catch the hard drive of caroline, but hey. whatever. I'M STILL SAYING ECHO AND CAROLINE ARE THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF THIS STORY.

i have little use for mag and zone as characters on their own merit, but that little moment in epitaph two where they ask what the other did before the apocalypse. it's something that always fascinates me in postapocalyptic content, who people were before they became an apocalypse survivor. kind of reminds me of lost in that way too.

topher v echo as progenitor of the apocalypse and the messiah respectively. adelle v boyd as parallel mentor figures. the initially villainous presenting character who eventually chooses good, ends the series trying to save humanity, and the character that initially presents as heroic, only to reveal he had evil, selfish motives all along. adelle and boyd have pretty equal parental/mentorship claims to echo and topher (tho adelle/caroline had a deeply sexual vibe i am just saying). it's just..... fascinating how they all four relate to each other. and the men both die, boyd in echo's efforts to stop the apocalypse, and topher in his own effort to END the apocalypse. echo ends her story underground, isolated and yet surrounded by (and filled with) people. adelle on the surface ready to shepherd a new flock into the light. there's just!!!!! a lot to pick apart and play with!

sort of thinking a lot about how the first time paul met topher in 111 he tased him and then alpha helped him carry topher into the office. then the second time the three of them were in that office together paul found topher on the floor, having been attacked by alpha, and lifted him onto his feet. there is SOMETHING THERE eating at my brain. and that being the like...... last act paul had as his actual original real self, pre-dollification. THINKING THOUGHTS.

multiple times characters call out how protective echo is of sierra. i want so so so much more of that. plz.

topher!tony. dominic!tony. TOPHER!TONY. GIVE ENVER AN OSCAR FOR THIS TV ROLE.

the TO REMEMBER wall of photographs. especially its appearance in epitaph one, it always makes me so weirdly emotional? that wall, the song, the pictures of cast and crew. 10/10

i'm gonna cut myself off here or i'll never shut my mouth

THANKS BABES <333

[cancerian-woman]

I wish we saw some bonding between Bonnie and Qetsiyah or something, like imagine meeting your ANCESTOR who started all of this shit (besides Dahlia, Inadu, and Esther, the whole doppelgänger thing existing is what I’m talking about). How would you have wanted Bonnie and Qetsiyah’s relationship to have been like? Like Qetsiyah is arguably the most naturally powerful witch on the show, more powerful than Dahlia and Esther (I’m sure there’s like 20 posts on reddit explaining their feats), I just wish her and Bonnie could’ve had more interaction ughhhhhh.

Like isn’t Qetsiyah Egyptian or Greek or something? Wouldn’t it have been cool to incorporate that into a storyline with Bonnie and her magic?

Isn’t it crazy that even outside potential romantic relationships, there’s still so much lacking in Bonnie’s writing in the show? Like besides the MFG, she has ZERO FRIENDS. Stefan isn’t really her friend, she wasn’t friends with Damon until the whole prison world shit, I think, Stefan and Caroline were friends with Klaus (Caroline being more of a fling than a friend, but whatever), I forgot who Elena was friends with, but my point is that Bonnie is actually more sidelined than I thought. Bonnie never even had enemies that were strictly HER enemies. Kai could count as one, but he was more focused on Alaric and the Parker family when he left the prison world, Elena was one of the vocal points of the show, so she had all that shit, Caroline had that whole thing with Tyler and Klaus and other storylines, where was BONNIE’S STORYLINE.

Like isn’t it crazy that Klaus and all these people talk about how powerful and epic the Bennetts are, so why isn’t Bonnie considered a threat? Like… it literally doesn’t make sense. Like you’re telling me that everyone knew Bonnie was crazy powerful and had a crazily powerful ancestral background, she’s a psychic, she can create dimensions, etc… but she’s somehow just the MFG helper… right.

It’s giving mammy in the form of the magical negro. A motherly figure who is always moral and takes care of everyone and is so strong and blah blah blah, I’m so sick of it.

And I don’t mind black witches being a thing in shows. As an African, it really intrigues me to see how shows tackle the topic of black people and witchcraft but WHY do us black folk have to be helpers to EVERYONE. EVEN IN SHOWS. GOSH. She doesn’t even get a proper ending in the show. “Bonnie travelled to Africa”…😐😐😐. Wow. Ok.

And I wish we saw more scenes of Bonnie just LEARNING. Like yeah, great. We have like one or two scenes of her playing with feathers, but imagine if she was in the originals and Vincent was mentoring her or some shit. Idk. Or if her and white Bonnie!Freya or white Bonnie!Davina were just chilling and practicing witchcraft together or whatever. We never really get to see Bonnie CHILL or just learn without having the goal of saving Elena or someone in the MFG. Do we ever see her relax? Nope. My brain just reminded me of Plec tweeting to Megan Thee Stallion that she sees black women as superheroes that will save us all and I’m even more mad now.

Sorry for the rant.

You summed up everything perfectly! I’ll answer the Qet part.

I would’ve liked to see Qetsiyah and Bonnie see each other as family. Have Qetsiyah uplift Bonnie rather than cause her pain by being the anchor. Qetsiyah was arrogant as hell. Why should Qetsiyah lessen who she is? Everything ties back to her as the oldest Bennett witch we meet.

Qetsiyah made Silas suffer for his manipulation and abuse of her magic. Bonnie’s in the same position Qetsiyah was in. A young Bennett witch being used by vampires for their own deeds. So why not have Qetsiyah remind Bonnie she’s not just any witch she’s a Bennett witch. She’s stronger than them, she doesn’t have to take their shit just because she loves them. Fight back.

TVDU has no value for their characters of color and doesn’t want the Bennett’s as a family. I do think it would’ve been nice if Bonnie’s magical education was handled better but Bonnie being a self taught witch through it all really makes her stand out more.

[andreal831]

What are your top five ships on TVD?

Top 5 TVD Ships

*this is just TVD ships and not TVDU

5. Jalaric/Jolaric -- Jenna and Alaric/Jo and Alaric

These ships felt very similar to me so I am ranking them together. Jo&Alaric very much felt like they were having the life that Jenna&Alaric were meant to have if they hadn't killed her off so early.

Both ships ended tragically, but I loved the journey. This was of course when I liked Alaric. Both ships felt very natural and I loved the development. I wished Alaric would have been more open with Jenna, and maybe it would have prepared her more for dealing with the supernatural. But I loved both ships and hated their endings.

4. Beremy -- Jeremy and Bonnie

I normally don't put this ship on my top favorites but after writing about them recently, I've started really liking them again. I just love a good friends-to-lovers. I loved how supportive they were of each other, always trying to put the other first. I hated the cheating and wished it hadn't happened, but even with the cheating, it was clear they always loved each other. They may not have been endgame, but they were so important to each other.

3. Forwood -- Caroline and Tyler

Forwood should have been endgame. Their development was beautiful. They truly helped each other become better people. They did an amazing job balancing each other out. I always felt like their was so much unresolved for this ship that we never got to see. They were childhood friends and seemed to lose that along the way. Unlike Beremy, Forwood seemed to forget they were friends first and foremost. The fact that we hardly got to see Caroline mourn Tyler's death and not even show her being angry at Damon for it really ruined the ship. But the beginning of the ship keeps them ranked fairly high.

2. Steroline -- Caroline and Stefan

While I loved Forwood, Steroline also felt so inevitable. They were such close friends for so long, but there was obvious underlying attraction that always teased at more. They weren't each other's first loves, but they were a true and pure love. They loved each other as friends and family and then romantically. It was one of the few ships that truly had a strong foundation and wasn't just sexual attraction.

1. Bonenzo -- Bonnie and Enzo

Bonenzo has long since been my top TVD ship. While I wish we could have seen more of their relationship, I loved the parts we did see. It is one of the few times I actually liked an enemies-to-lovers ship and it was because they never had anything against each other personally and their "enemy" phase was very evenly matched. I loved how their interest in each other came from understanding and getting to know one another. They became the most important people to each other and both of them deserved it.

They deserved to travel the world together and in my head they are.

I hate that all of my favorite ships ended so tragically.

Thanks for the ask!

[kirythestitchwitch]

Klaroline WIP Wed - Freaky Friday Time Travel AU - Klaus is a Master Baiter

It's been a while since put some of this out but i've been working on my plot issues and writing so here is some FFTT! as always @galvanizedfriend your tag!

Part One here Part Two here Part Three here Part Four here Part Five here

Pulling down a pink jacket, she wondered as she slipped it on if she’d be breaking any time laws if she brought it home with her. Shoes on, she went in search of Klaus.

The bedroom opened on a hallway lined with paintings with two closed doors and a staircase at the end, which curved around down to the landing. A living room was through one doorway, a kitchen and dining room through another. Klaus’ voice, sharp in tone, came from behind a door to the left that was cracked a smidge, and she padded quietly to the door to listen.

She needn’t have bothered, first off, he was speaking a language she wasn’t familiar with, and secondly, the moment she got within range of the door, he called out to her. “Caroline, do come in, love.”

Only slightly annoyed, she pushed the door open. The room was some kind of study or office, with a desk in the middle of the room and a couch over by the window and a corner fireplace, currently lit and casting patterns of light on the built-ins filled with books and small trinkets. A tumbler of some amber liquid in one hand, Klaus gave her a small smile, a phone held to one ear. It sounded like he was speaking maybe Icelandic or oh! probably Old Norse. She caught Kol's name flung out with irritation before he switched to English.

“I aim to enjoy time with my wife after that mess with the ifrit in Tehran that you elected not to join us for.” Klaus gestured to her to make herself comfortable, and trying not to think about how many times her future self had probably fucked Klaus on it, she sat down on the couch. Really tried not to think about it.

Looking at the firelight playing across Klaus' body, the jumble of necklaces tumbling over the neck of his shirt, Caroline very privately had to guess it was a lot of times for the couch. 'Stop that,' she told herself, 'You're with Tyler, and none of this has happened yet. You could make it all not happen.'

Kol's voice, heard by Caroline only once or twice before this, came through the phone clear to her hearing. "I knew you had it in hand, Nik. What's one teeny little fire spirit to the Original Hybrid?" His tone was mocking of Klaus' self-aggrandized title, and Caroline had to admit she was starting to see a future where maybe they could be friends, she and this nutjob brother of Klaus'.

"I don't suppose any of the Bennett witch's books happened to mention they're eight feet tall? Hmm?“ Klaus' voice was the epitome of murderous intent; he calmly took a drink, the corner of his mouth curling mischievously into a dimple that spoke volumes about how much he was enjoying leading his brother on.

”Uh. Eight feet? Really, they uh. Made them seem kind of... tiny.” Kol finished lamely. “We're at the Greek house for the month, don't have all the grimoires, you see.”

“So you've mentioned. I'll be sure to inform Caroline of your incompetence, little brother.”

“Caroline?” Kol's voice turned a little sharp. “She's okay, right? Nothing... happened?”

“Caroline's fine.” Klaus' voice was terrible and final, and for once Caroline thought he was speaking from the heart, like he was saying she would be fine because he willed it so.

“Nik, now just—”

“Like I said.” Klaus did a good impression of gathering himself. “I'd like to indulge in my wife without the family making a nuisance of themselves. Stay out of Brazil for the next month if you know what's good for you.” He hung up the phone.

“We're going to Brazil?” Caroline asked. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. The part of her that desperately wanted to see the world was thrilled. The other part of her that was already freaking out from being in Paris didn't know if going to a second location was a good idea.

Klaus smiled. “No, we're going to the library. Kol is going to Brazil.” Beckoning with one hand, he pulled her to her feet. Pinching the edge of the fabric between two fingers, he gave her jacket a small tug. “Excellent choice, will blend you in nicely, and you look lovely.”

Caroline beamed at him, and he licked his lips, sighed almost regretfully, and then turned away, draining his glass and setting it on the desk. Tapping a touchscreen in the corner of it, the fire went out, and Klaus waved at her to follow him. Feeling a little off-kilter, she did.

[theroyalthrones]

Behind the Scenes | Motillier Hall | Grenoble, Lavande

beginning | previous | next

Transcript Under the Cut

ost of you have traveled hundreds, even thousands of miles to be here, and your presence warms my heart more than you can imagine. To my cherished family and friends, your love and support have been my constant. Each one of you has added a layer of joy to my life, and I am grateful for the countless memories we've shared.

To my incredible family, you are the roots that ground me, the branches that lift me, and the leaves that bring color to my world. Thank you for being the foundation of my happiness.

And to my love, [Fiancé's Name], meeting you was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle I didn't know was incomplete. Your love has added a new and beautiful dimension to my life, and I can't wait to spend forever with you.

Tonight is not just about celebrating our engagement; it's about celebrating the love that surrounds us—love from family, love from friends, and the love that binds us together. Thank you all for being part of this magical journey. Here's to love, laughter, and a lifetime of happiness.

GIRL 1 Is that your brother, Your Highness? GIRL 2 He looks.. Good CAROLINE D'ALAIRE Does he? GIRL 1 It's almost like he's changed (Laughs) GIRL 2 They've kidnapped your brother and replaced him with… What? GIRL 1 A decent guy. (all laughing) CAROLINE D'ALAIRE (chuckling) Hmm, Maybe you're right. He helps her into the car, and while they're in it, Caroline looks over to him. Staring at him LAURIE ALAIRE What? CAROLINE D'ALAIRE … LAURIE ALAIRE Is there something on my face? CAROLINE D'ALAIRE … You're doing really well, Laurie. You've surprised me. LAURIE ALAIRE (Laughs) I had hoped you would have had more faith in me, Caroline. CAROLINE D'ALAIRE Seriously, I think you can actually pull this off. CAROLINE D'ALAIRE I can actually see you being a leader, Laurie. A king, maybe. LAURIE ALAIRE … (chuckles) Thanks for the confidence, Linny. I couldn't ever do it without you. He looks out the window, clearly happy. They continue to drive, the scene isn't over yet. After a few minutes in silence, Caroline speaks again CAROLINE D'ALAIRE So Laurie, you know how I'm getting married and all that? LAURIE ALAIRE Be a little more excited about it than that, Linny. M8 CAROLINE D'ALAIRE (Laughs) My engagement party is next week idiot. And I need you to be there. It's important to me. LAURIE ALAIRE I know it is, I would never miss it. CAROLINE D'ALAIRE … I want no drama, Laurie, None. This is about me… for once. LAURIE ALAIRE … CAROLINE D'ALAIRE And I want everyone I love to be there to celebrate my future with me. LAURIE ALAIRE Of course, I still don't get why you're being so ominous. Spit it out. CAROLINE D'ALAIRE I love my family, Laurie, everyone. You're apart of it, and so is Dorian. CAROLINE D'ALAIRE He'll be there. LAURIE ALAIRE Oh-.

[yourlittlevirus]

The Guardian, December 11, 1991.

“With her long pale form, blonde tangle and scarlet pout, Courtney Love is the ideal candidate for male journalists seeking another broken siren for their catalogue. Men, it seems, have trouble with her.

Love sings, screeches and plays a vicious guitar with Hole, the latest, hippest rock 'n' roll thing to come out of Los Angeles. Their name comes from Euripides' Medea ("Come flame of the sky/Pierce through my head!") and warnings to Love from her mother "not to carry a hole around inside me just because I suffered a problematic childhood."

Currently on tour, Hole's debut album, Pretty On The Inside, topped the independent charts earlier this year and sent the music press into lip-smacking frenzies over such lines as, "Is she rotten on the inside, ugly from the back."

But while Love may rattle with conflict, she's just a normal woman, telling it like it is.

"It's not on purpose," says Love of her graphic use of physical imagery. "But writing songs has a lot to do with your sexuality. I danced for a while and just being around that made me aware of what people use. And if you grow up blessed with a certain beauty or a certain intelligence that enhances your beauty, you can get into a better position in life."

Years of being fat brought this home to Love. "When you're fat, no one looks you in the eye, they think you're bitter and ranting. Personally it makes me hate those people."

Despite her abhorrence of such physical prejudices, Love realised the advantages of a svelte outline once she'd decided to make music. After a rootless childhood spent travelling across America and New Zealand with hippy parents, a role in Alex Cox's Straight To Hell and a short spell singing with San Francisco rock band Faith No More, Love deliberately settled in the creative void of LA and began searching for women who shared her taste for a more subversive expression. She eventually went for Caroline Rue on drums, Jill Emery on bass and, surprisingly, Eric Erlandson on guitar.

"The pool of women to play with is small. I've kicked girls out of this band for playing too much like guys. Even Eric plays like a girl. Girls' playing is compassion and rage, and it can also be ugly and jarring. To deny my femininity and just rock out like a guy would not be part of evolution. At school, women are discouraged from learning maths but when it comes to writing good songs, you need maths. You can't just do it primally."

Her tattered beauty image is as much a part of Love's peculiar femininity as is her playing. Her smeared eyeliner and torn baby doll dresses have earned her the status of a wayward Cinderella. In truth, she simply likes pretty things, but her inner conflict between a desire for adornment and a feminist ideology tempts her to make a mockery of girlhood trappings. "I'm not embarrassed about being a feminist and I'm not opposed to pretty dresses. On the other hand, girls are supposed to like pretty things and I don't want to do what I'm supposed to."

Like all women, Courtney Love is confused. She doesn't pretend to have any answers, but she is not the lost, vulnerable creature many have intimated. This woman wants to kill rockstars, open for Guns 'n Roses and "have 50,000 people throw shit at me". She wants to wrench open the attitudes towards women in the predominantly white male game of rock 'n' roll. "The American male runs half the global world and grows up on rock music from day one. If you can alter the psyche of someone who's growing up to be a rapist or a total misogynist, you're creating values and instead of making the void bigger, you're making it smaller."

With Madonna's lawyers currently pursuing Hole's legal representatives in the hope of signing the band to the pop icon's new label, and virtually every major record company queuing up to breakfast, lunch and dine her, Courtney Love looks set for stardom.”

[suchathrilltobeagirl]

“Hi and Good Morning Girlfriend!”

You are exactly 150% correct that Jesus didn’t come to this world in the flesh to judge anyone whatsoever. Jesus’ whole purpose in coming was our, everyone’s, salvation by becoming “our sin” as “His sin” on the cross. That is totally what Jesus’ mission was and what Jesus completely accomplished by taking “my sin” away from me by washing it away by His blood when I obeyed Him in the waters of baptism and being sealed by my Sweet-Sweet Holy Spirit. Faith in God thru Jesus has saved me! I chose the narrow gate that leads to eternal salvation. That is the choice I took being “clothed in Christ”! “Praise be to God Almighty that the blood of Jesus took away God’s wrath and reveals God as my adopted Father and His Son continues walking with me thru my Holy Spirit in dwelling forever within me as One. That no one can ever take away from anyone. Thank you for your heart and spirit Katie!

I will be traveling this weekend with my wife to the mountains of Colorado. We will be gone a week. Seeing God’s marvelous creation. Although I see His marvelous creation in Kansas almost every day as well. I’ve never been to England, although I would love too. What part of England do you live in girl? I praise God for you as I believe He gave you as a beautiful gift of friendship in this relationship of heart and spirit.

Heather Caroline H., “the gal Jesus loves!”

Hope you have a blessed time in the Colorado mountains! I love it there, the serenity, the 'loneliness'! Just bear in mind that, at 5,000 feet, the air is much thinner and oxygen levels reduced. You will tire more easily and you must rest whenever you feel the need to do so. It could also be an age thing!

I live near Cambridge in the south of England, and I love it here. It is much like Boston in that it is a university city, but it has a much longer history, as you can imagine. Cambridge University was established in 1209 (!) and was England's second university behind Oxford, which was established in 1096, 30 years after the Norman conquest and almost 300 years before England colonised the New World (aka America!)...

What you can see in the foreground is a favourite pastime in Cambridge and it is called 'punting', pushing a long narrow boat using a pole, bit like Venice but less stressful. If you ever make it over here and fancy having a 'punt', I'd avoid wearing heels - in case you make a hole in the boat, and make sure you do not wear a short dress, else your dignity will be lost should you sit down. I speak from experience on the latter!

Katie xxx

[colleenmurphy]

"I don't think you understand why we reacted the way we did when we couldn't find you, Lib..."

Charlie was cut off by the distinct ring of the landline phone in Colleen's office. The Bat Signal as Caroline and James their eldest two children had taken to calling it. While Caroline was not Charlie's biological daughter he helped to raise from the time she three, stepping up to fill his best friend Hank's exceptionally large shoes so when he heard the "Hang on baby, Mama's coming." it stopped his heart momentarily. A whirl of Jasmine Vanilla scented fury stormed into the room searching for it's car keys and the nearest blunt object she could get her hands on.

"Mama panics when she can't find you. Libby June, I love you more than anything and right now I want you to know I'll be home as soon as I can. Listen to your Daddy and go on and cuddle Goose."

Goose, the large blue grey hunting dog perked up from his spot on the leather couch and wandered over to Libby's side resting his head on her lap giving her his 'c'mon kid scratch my ears.' look.

Planting a kiss on the top of Libby's blonde head she grabbed Charlie's collar and kissed him deeply. Rubbing Goose's ears she gave him a look. 'Behave and I'll be home.' Leaning over to the locked end table drawer she gently turned Libby's head away as she grabbed a pearl handled something from the past. Charlie knew that Col had known her away around firearms but he'd never actually seen her use one. God willing she wouldn't have to tonight.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at my Mama's getting my hair done. I'm taking the truck and I'm taking Red."

Red was the downright vicious to anyone except the core Wilbury family but he had been Hank's prized hunting dog and Caroline's steadfast protector when she just toddling around so it was fitting that he would ride shot gun to maul the human trash that tried to hurt their Caroline.

"We're goin' hunting again, Red."

The ancient bloodhound's ears perked up and a new sense of youth had overtaken him. The front door burst open and Goose galloped towards them intent on helping them as a pack. Opening the door to the truck both dogs piled in looking at her urging her to hurry up. Firing up the engine she sighed deeply and headed south towards the covered bridge that led to the older part of the holler. The backroads soon turned to a one lane path that opened up to Miller's Creek, a spring fed creek that lead into the Copperline basin. Killing the headlights before she passed the mile marker sign, she remembered traveling these roads by moonlight with Hank many moons ago. There was a difference, she had wanted to be here. Caroline was terrified and as Colleen pulled up it looked like Jacob Northup's Trans AM was rocking softly. Sliding the truck into park Goose and Red waiting and watched, growling softly.

Gripping the hand gun in her right hand and the door handle in her left Colleen got down very softly and walked toe to heel she reached the driver's side door and opened it swiftly.

"Get out and get on your knees, boy."

The pock marked face of Jacob Northup turned in complete surprise his mouth opening awe before Colleen made a grab for his shirt collar. He let out a yelp as his head connected with the roof of his own car.

"Get on your knees and don't you dare move a muscle."

"Please...please.."

"Caroline you're safe. Please c'mon out. Your uncle's one of the Benson boys isn't he?"

The shape of his face and the color of his eyes gave away his answer before his mouth could even form a word.

"I'm letting you off with a warning. Don't go talking to Caroline ever again. If I see you anywhere near my property I will shoot you."

Cocking back her hand she brought it down onto his left cheek the full weight of her wedding ring set and the weight of a loaded heavy handled handgun came down and sent Jacob Northupp's world into a severe bell clanging tilt as he fell face first into the dirt. A swift kick to his ribs and he groaned into the red clay.

"I suggest you go and talk to your uncle on how this town operates. Do anything like that again and I'll make sure you end up on a milk carton."

Swiftly looking over towards her wide eyed bruised daughter Colleen attempted to keep herself together. Stepping over the man child that lay in the dirt pissing himself she tucked the hand gun into the band of her jeans and pulled her daughter in for a bear hug before wrapping her oversized sweater over Caroline's slender shoulders and setting her in the passenger side of the pickup truck. The old '70 F body was painted a cheery sunshine yellow that would always remind Caroline of her mother dressed in her 'backwoods tuxedo' of worn jeans and denim flannel lined barn coat her red hair thrown up into a wild bun. Her boots had sunflowers etched into the leather.

"I'm sorry Mama..."

"You haven't got anything to be sorry for, baby girl. Nothing at all. I know you fought him off I'm sorry it took me forever to get here.."

"He didn't...do anything...but I think I sprained my wrist punching him..."

"We'll get you checked over. We're going to Pop's to file a report about this..."

Harvey Starling was the sitting Chief of Police in Sloughbridge County so Colleen figured this was a matter of public interest to have another violent Benson related individual out and about in their small community.

"I can't let Granddad Harvey see me like this."

"I know...but it has to be documented. God forbid he moves away, sure he's out of our hair but what about his next girlfriend?"

Caroline considered this, for the first time in her nineteen years it dawned on her that trouble just didn't stop when it left town never to be seen again. It could come back somewhere else twice as bad.

"Only if you teach me how to use that thing. Is the safety on? I don't want you hitting a bump and the next thing we know that thing goes off..."

Caroline's ramble assured her mother that her daughter, while shaken was very much herself. The safety was indeed on. She passed it out to Caroline to put in the glove compartment.

"I'm not touching that thing!"

"The safety's on! Just put it in the glovebox please. It's easier for me to drive with it out of my pants. Oh hush up."

A shuffle and sigh as the glovebox popped open and a scent hit the two of them making Colleen chuckle at Caroline's face.

"Not only does she play with gun she smokes pot!"

"Hurry up and close it and for the love of god don't tell your granddad."

"Noted. No narcing on Mom."

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Miss Underwood's pig collection

By Jonathan Monfiletto

The L. Caroline Underwood Museum is named for the woman – whose given first name was Lucy, though she always went by her middle name of Caroline – who was a prominent, lifelong citizen of Yates County and a distinguished, longtime teacher in the Penn Yan school district. While she taught for nearly 50 years – reaching the mandatory retirement of 70 years old – and served as a substitute teacher for another year or two after that, Caroline had a vision to turn her home into a museum.

The Underwood Museum, of course, is not that home; throughout most of her adult life, Caroline lived in a home at 425 Liberty St. in the vicinity of the Yates County Courthouse. In the late 1990s, toward the end of Caroline’s life, when Yates County decided to expand its courthouse complex and construct an office building, the county gave Caroline the choice of selling her home to the county or forfeiting it through eminent domain. She did agree to sell her home to the county with the stipulation she could live in it until she died, which she did in December 1998 a week shy of turning 96.

Through Caroline’s bequest, the Yates County History Center established the Underwood Museum in the home at 107 Chapel St. to bring her vision to fruition and acquired her collections and belongings, which are on permanent exhibit on the second floor of the home. Being an only child and never having married nor had children, Caroline inherited many items through her parents, acquired possessions of her own, and purchased souvenirs on her travels across the country and around the world as well as at yard sales and estate sales.

Though Caroline Underwood is not a household name, even among the local history of Yates County and the Finger Lakes, her collections fascinate me. Particularly, there is a display case on the second floor of the Underwood Museum that houses souvenirs Caroline purchased on her many vacations. Having several of her travel journals in our collection, we at the Yates County History Center can match up many of the items in this display case to the several trips Caroline documented.

Still, one section of this display case has mystified me for the two and a half years I have worked at the History Center. That is Caroline’s ceramic or porcelain – it’s described as both in our collections database – pig collection. It stands out prominently on one of the lower shelves of the display case and typically draws visitors’ attention more than anything else in the exhibit. But I haven’t known as much about this part of Caroline’s collections as I would have liked to, and I still don’t.

Did Caroline acquire this collection for herself, or did someone purchase it for her? The 59 pieces all seem to be part of a related collection, but did other people – perhaps students – give her pieces of the collection at separate times? Why did Caroline like pigs so much? Did she even like pigs that much (I have a weird theory to go with this regard)?

Until now, the most I had known about Caroline’s pig collection came from former Yates County Sheriff Ronald Spike, whose father, George, was the sheriff before him at a time when the sheriff had quarters inside the county jail. Ron lived with his parents inside the jail on Liberty Street, near Caroline’s home. In his youth, Ron apparently struggled in school and needed extra help, so he would go to Caroline’s home after school for tutoring. Afterward, so the anecdote goes, he would tell his friends about seeing Miss Underwood’s pig collection and how the teacher told him not to touch it.

Recently, though, through a couple of visitors to the exhibit, I learned this collection may be examples of what are called fairing pigs, or fairings for short. Fairings were small porcelain or ceramic – again, the articles I found in my research describes them both ways – trinkets given away as prizes at fairs (hence the name) or sold for just a few pennies each. They were generally produced during the Victorian era, from 1840 to 1900, and they were German in origin – Germans believing pigs are a sign of good fortune or luck.

The figurines were usually 2 to 3 inches in height or width at a maximum, according to an article from the Polohouse. “Some where (sic) match holders with a match strike area, some were small banks, vases, or lidded boxes,” the article states. “And others were sweet little figural pieces without a purpose – many with a humorous inscription.” Indeed, one of Caroline’s figures features a mother pig peering into a cradle perhaps, with three piglets pictured on its side with the phrase “Triplets, O fancy.” Another of her figurines depicts a mother pig wearing an apron with a bell at her eye level and is labeled “The Dinner Bell,” as she calls her piglets to the table. Yet another of Caroline’s pigs, which is also pictured in the Polohouse article, shows a mother pig leaning over her piglet’s crib; the side of the pig reads: “Hush a bye baby, don’t you cry, you’ll be a sausage by and bye.”

An article from the Treasures in Your Attic column adds that fairings functioned as small dresser boxes, toothpick holders, chamber sticks, match holders, and ashtrays as well as small figures riding in early automobiles, playing piano, posed beside a bean pot, sitting on a sofa, or mailing a letter. Polohouse describes fairings as being painted with the same green paint and the same peachy pink paint for the pigs, along with metallic gold and deep orange-red and other colors. While Caroline’s pigs aren’t identified in our collections database as fairings, they certainly fit the bill with these color schemes on the figurines in her collection.

Based upon the evidence in these articles and a few others I consulted in my research, I am almost certain (I feel like I cannot be fully certain without documentation) that Caroline’s pig collection is indeed a set of fairings. Now, my next is where and how did she acquire this collection or from whom did she receive these pieces?

Since the pieces were made between 1840 and 1900, perhaps her parents acquired them and passed them down to her. Since the pieces are German in origin, maybe Caroline purchased them on one or more of several trips overseas to Europe. Since the pieces are collectible trinkets, it’s possible Caroline found them at one or more of the many yard sales and estate sales she is said to have visited.

[saiilorstars]

For the summertime writer's ask! ^_^ 🦋, 🍉, 🌸, 🌷, 🍬, 🌤, 🍀 annnddd 👒. Enjoy!

Thanks for asking!

🦋 tell us about your current wip

I've started working on a new tvd oc, Rosalie Hendrix. I'm trying to make her fit for the beginning of s5. She's somewhat of a witch, but I want to add a bit of mythology in the mix. For the moment, I have her planned to help the gang defeat Silas and Qetsiyah but she’ll have some trouble with the Travelers due to her past. 

It’s really until season 6 where she kind of starts to open up about herself and her past. This is also where she actually starts trying to live in the modern world — she’ll be rooming with Caroline near the border of Mystic Falls, trying to help bring down the barrier. But like I said, s6 is where Rosalie starts to learn who is her friend, who isn’t, and maybe who could be more than a friend to her. Still deciding between 2 love interests though whoops

🍉 favourite wip

I love all my favorites but I think my favorite is between Seren Soul & Maleny Rowan. To me, Seren radiates “comfort character” so I always end up going back to her to keep writing?? And for Mal, I love the lore I’ve built for her throughout her fics and I even went and recreated her story with a long AU. 

🌸 wip you've been working on the longest

Technicalities would say it’s Minerva (she’s got 7 long fics under her name + an unpublished one for dw s10) but I haven’t really gone back to her fic in such a long time. I love her — she’s my first ever wip and oc (from like 10 years ago) so she’s got a special place in my heart <3. She's gone through 6 incarnations in a span of her 7 fics. She's all grown up <3

🌷 writing achievement you want to brag about

I’m not entirely sure…maybe that I have a lot of ocs? Not sure if that’s a brag-worthy thing or just chaos xD

🍬 a song for your favorite character

Hmm, I’ve always liked Enchanted for my doctor who oc Avalon Reynolds. Her whole theme is fairy tales and I always thought that song embodied her <3

🌤 name the hardest thing you've had to do for writing

Research. You don’t understand, I love to write but I hate the research part. The only thing I ever like doing is researching names. I have an obsession with that~

🍀 character you would kill off if they were not vital to the plot

Tricky. I love all my ocs ,,,,, side characters maybe? If I had to choose one. Avalon’s sister kind of outlived her role in the fics and doesn’t really do much anymore lmao (i feel terrible about it because I love Lena).

👒 nicest thing you've done to your characters

I give them love and besties <3

Send over some summertime writers' asks if you'd like!