#plot twist the salt is entirely self-supplied

[incorrect-hololive]

Amelia: dude my heart genuinely hurts right now

Gura: oh no bro did they put too much salt in your lunch again? D:

[thegreenfairy13]

No Country For Heroes - Becoming a Superhero (final)

Plot: the GCPD turns Jim in, in turn for Oswald’s protection who takes the opportunity to bend the detective to his will. (TW for torture, mind control, dub con). Originally written for the prompt ‘beg’ by @justsimplymeagain. Special thx to @whomerlockwood. I sincerely hope the last chapter meets your expectations! 

Read the entire fic on Ao3.

Chapter 12 - Being a Superhero:

It turns out, Oswald has indeed never lied. Not to Jim that is. All he did was load an already existent gun and wait for it to go off.

Jim Gordon walks the streets of Gotham once more now that he’s been set free, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. He started off with Jeremia, the clown who set their beloved city on fire, and in turn, Jim sets him on fire, burns him to cinder until no magic pit will ever be able to bring this plague that the man was back to Gotham.

It’s liberating, Jim thinks, extinguishing what has been tormenting them all without the usual guilt, without consequences, without any fallout, without any paperwork to follow. This time no fear-stricken jury will for him allow to walk free, no corrupt judge will twist the truth.

To the world, Jim is gone, disappeared like an especially annoying mosquito that has finally flown into the light.

Jim knows he isn’t missed, not by Gotham’s citizens who had been as quick to condemn him as to declare him their hero. He’s certainly not missed by the GCPD who had regarded him as a nuisance on good days, and as a threat on bad days. The only person mourning him is Harvey, yet even he can’t muster up the courage of asking too many, too uncomfortable questions. As loyal as Harvey was to him in life, he’s also interested in saving his own skin. Maybe he simply believes the Penguin. He isn’t dead after all - just very different.

With his face hidden and his body enshrouded in layers of protective gear, it’s easy to make his way around the city unnoticed, to stalk on his prey. Once more Gotham celebrates a hero when rumors arise about the horrible demise of the next rogue. And then another.

Oswald had been honest. He never interferes in Jim’s quest. Whoever he deems worthy of his death, is free for the taking - ally to the Penguin or not. Maybe he doesn't care, with the Penguin, today's ally will always be tomorrow's enemy, anyway.

When the news reports another mobster being found on the shores of Gotham’s river, Oswald merely shrugs his shoulders as he tends to his knight’s wounds. Jim shudders when Oswald wraps the bandages around his bruised arms, utter devotion writ clear on his face, adoration leading his every action.

Jim finally understands what unconditional love looks like.

It’s beautiful.

He has to silence the traitorous voices yelling at him how that isn’t the truth. In his head, he can’t marry the concept of the man kneeling before him with the one torturing him. But was it really torture? Hasn’t he freed him?

Jim has to test Oswald, needs to see how far he can really take it. When Edward, the Riddler, forces his little games upon the citizens once more, Jim steps in, and makes sure there will be no more riddles to solve.

He certainly notes the brief flash of pain on the other man’s face upon receiving the news. Yet before Jim’s jealousy can spike, the expression is gone. Oswald simply takes the bit of information as if receiving the weather report.

When taking Jim to bed, he maybe fucks him just a bit harder, is a tad bit rougher than usual, but then Oswald has always liked a bit of dominance.

“I know why you did it,” he whispers, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

Holding his breath, Jim waits for him to elaborate. “You feared I’d tire of you,” he declares smugly. “Exchange you for the Riddler.” Pulling Jim close, he presses a delicate kiss against his forehead. “My silly darling,” he tells him fondly, “I knew exactly I’d get my revenge once I’d let you be you.” He laughs softly at Jim’s confusion. Eyes shining brightly, he claims him again. “Don’t be afraid,” Oswald pants. “Now that you’re mine, I’ll never let you leave, never tire of you.”

The next day, Jim walks into the night again, saves a young woman from getting mugged, and feels like he has never been more beneficial to the city he vowed to protect. If only he had seen earlier how far he needs to go, he might have been able to prevent so much more, to rectify so many wrongs.

The robber bleeding out in the streets is not even nineteen years old. Jim feels a pang of guilt as he watches the light fade from his eyes. But he had a choice, didn’t he? He could have simply not robbed the poor woman.

Jim tries not to think about how a city like Gotham, a city in which the rich bathe in golden bathtubs, and the poor starve to death, probably forced his hand.

He merely turns around and runs away. Away from another corpse and away from his conscience. The next morning, the Gazette will celebrate an anonymous hero.

They all fall by Jim’s hands: the rogues, the little thugs, the worn-down mobsters, the corrupt cops.

Jim sees Harvey one day. Knows full well he isn’t better than the rest, not when he can afford again his apartment in the inner-city. He’s looking over his shoulder, clearly nervous now with a self-proclaimed hero, a vigilante, running wild. Jim knows he’s being a hypocrite here, is making a small exception, but he hasn’t any evidence to back his suspicions up, isn’t digging for it either, and of course, there’s another issue.

He remembers Harvey. It’s not a real memory, more like a vision from another life. True, the man held him back, was in his way of being who he truly was supposed to be, but looking at him, there’s a something stirring in his chest, an ache he can’t place. He swallows and tries pushing the feeling back down.

He wants to run over to him, tell him how he will never have to fear him. He doesn’t. If his colleagues knew he was collaborating with the crusader, he’d truly have a reason to grow a second pair of eyes on his back.

Jim is desperate. Two months have passed since he first set out to be the hero Oswald regards him to be and the city isn’t better off.

True, the bridges have been rebuilt, Gotham is once more connected with the mainland, nobody’s starving to death, but that would have happened anyway.

Jim is a hero. The media are praising the unknown warrior who made it his mission to keep the streets safe for the citizens to walk. Even Bruce Wayne gives a comment on his efforts, points out with a man like the Ghost , a name he had been given for his ability to flee the scenes of his crimes so quickly, his parents might still be alive. He condemns him murdering people, though.

“You’re not committing crimes, James,” Oswald scoffs when the blonde buries his head in his hands. “You’re doing what should have been done ages ago.” And then he kisses the sorrow right off his face, pulls him to bed, and takes him apart. Jim listens to him whispering sweet nothings in his ear, basks in the feeling of finally being at home.

Now, he has someone to come home to. And whatever Jim does on his crusade, Oswald won’t judge any of it, will encourage him while looking up at him with big, shining eyes. To Oswald, Jim became the hero he always saw in him, and to Jim, Oswald turned into his adoring sweetheart, the maiden waiting at the shores for him to come home.

Of course, it’s a charade, a play for both their entertainment. Oswald is no blushing virgin, and Jim is no white knight. But together, they can pretend.

The voices in Jim’s head keep getting louder each day. Yet another criminal ends up with a bullet between their eyes and the blood splatters Jim’s chest, coats his face, his lips.

He wipes it off, but he can still taste something on the tip of his tongue. The taste is not how it’s supposed to be, lacking the familiarity of salt and copper. It’s wrong in a way Jim can’t tell, nothing like blood should taste.

Staring down at the corpse, he wonders what it changes. Yesterday, he killed another one, and tomorrow he’ll probably kill one more, yet each time he takes a criminal off the streets, another man or woman takes their place as if his actions meant nothing.

Jim wipes his face once more, smacks his tongue against his teeth, but the taste won’t fade. He rolls the body over, until it’s facing the pavement, not judging him with its lifeless eyes.

He kneels down, digs his fingers into the dirt. Jim needs to feel again. As his knuckles turn white, his fingers turn bloody. He wishes he could rip out the entire pavement.

Whatever he is doing, it’s useless. And then he remembers. The real reason he wanted to become a cop, to look for evidence, to connect the dots, make arrests, and not simply shoot a murderer on sight: he wanted a real change.

Now, he’s merely taking pawns off a board while the board itself stays the same. He can remove token after token, yet if there’s an infinite supply of them, what does it matter? As a hero, a vigilante, he’s just another wild card, the game stays inevitably the same.

Yet what he always wanted to do, was changing the rules of the game, or rip away the entire board.

The cry thorn from his throat sounds like a broken howl.

Jim turns on his heel, runs home, only to throw himself into the Penguin’s waiting arms. Everything clicks into place as he remembers what this truly is, what they truly are. If Jim is a pawn, Oswald is the entire board.

The pale man rubs soothing circles against his back as he holds Jim. When their eyes meet, the blonde swallows heavily. How could he have ever forgotten? Like a spider in the center of a web, Oswald controls the entire city.

But then Jim wouldn’t or couldn’t take him down before. He had betrayed himself and this city all those years, and it had been done out of love. And even if Jim Gordon’s life had become a lie, that one bit was true.

Therefore his voice steady as he speaks, even if the sobs made it hoarse. “I taste rotten milk,” he whispers, looking terrified at the Penguin, who in turn merely sighs.

“Oh Jim,��� he says. “And here I really never wanted to hurt you again.”

[britishassistant]

Mr. Hale’s Art 301

August— Before Class

7 Months Earlier

Peter needed to remind himself more often that, high schooler or not, Lydia Martin was a force to be reckoned with.

She and the rest of the original Hale-now-McCall pack vowed revenge on him not long after he revived, but all went about it in different ways.

Scott McCall simply punched him in the face and left it at that.

Stiles Stilinski somehow managed to find and break into his apartment and sprinkle crushed wolfsbane into enough garments and towels that Peter was still wary when he was getting ready for the day.

When Allison Argent was alive, she repeatedly left arrows bearing her family sigil in both his home and places he frequented— presumably, like Stiles, to violate his sense of territory and just to show that she could.

Derek just brooded and looked by turns murderous and guilty whenever his uncle was in the room before he left town, though his stint as Alpha could be called punishment enough.

Lydia Martin, however, played the long game.

He still wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed it.

Somehow, despite Peter never sending in his resume or going for an official interview, Lydia Martin had arranged for him to become Beacon Hills Middle School’s new art teacher.

She’d even managed to have a touching, heartfelt story printed on the front page of the Beacon Hills Daily about the miraculously recovered coma patient attempting to give back to the community via imparting his gift to impressionable young minds.

How she’d found out he was capable of art despite all of his portfolios and most of his dissertation research burning in the fire was also a little beyond him, but he digressed.

Scott appeared so moved by the article that any attempts to suggest that Peter wasn’t actually going to take the job resulted in the alpha’s claws and fangs coming out in a way that promised either a maiming or expulsion from the McCall pack entirely.

And Peter had too many irons in too many fires to allow that to happen.

So he’s standing in the front office of Beacon Hills Middle School, contemplating the rictus of existential pain on the face of something he thinks is meant to be a beaver.

It’s one of the better methods that he’s devised so far of blocking out the scent of emerging hormones, social anxiety and too strong body spray belonging to over 300 adolescents that are sleepily beginning to shuffle into the halls of the building.

While waiting to meet the Principal and Assistant Principal of this farce of an educational facility at 6:30 in the fucking morning.

So yes, Lydia Martin needs to have a closer eye kept on her in future.

For the good of man- and werewolf-kind really.

Finally, finally, he’s able to hear a man’s footsteps walking towards where he’s been waiting and politely avoiding the leering gaze of the elderly secretary. For some reason the man’s heartbeat, as choked by cholesterol as it is, sounds vaguely familiar.

“Well, well, well. Long time, no see, Hale.”

A portly man with a large bald spot has swung open the door and stands there with his hands on his hips as though he’s in some kind of soap opera. He has the beginnings of jowls and a shiny badge with the words ‘Assistant Principal’ on it that smells like it’s recently been polished. He’s also got a look of cocksure smugness on his face that seems out of place for some reason—

Peter’s mind supplies an image of a gangly teenager with overlarge glasses, a perpetually resentful expression, one ill-fated month with a fedora, and several pathetic attempts at a beard.

“Tommy!” Peter exclaims, smothering as much delight into his tone as he possibly can. It’s galling that he has to work for this sniveling toad, but he’ll be dammed if he lets the scum of his high school know it. “It’s been ages since we graduated, how have you been? You seem to have done well for yourself.”

Tommy’s face drops into the nostalgic expression of sour resentment that Peter so fondly remembers. “It’s Assistant Principal Thorne to you, Hale.”

He turns sharply on his heel. “You’re late— not a promising start. Follow me.”

‘Because you kept me standing out here for 30 minutes while you primped for your grand entrance, you miserable tapeworm.’ Peter thinks, but does not say, plastering on his widest devil-may-care smile on his face instead.

Memory serves him well despite his brief sojourn into the great beyond, because Thorne’s face twists further in response before he feebly tries to not look like he loathes Peter’s guts.

He is lead into a warren of corridors that end in a door that is marginally nicer than the others, with the plaque ‘Principal Melinda Johnson’ on it.

Thorne knocks on it, and opens it when a pleasant female voice bids they enter.

The Principal is a professional, pleasant woman with cropped hair and prominently displayed family and wedding photos on her desk. She looks him in the eye when shaking his hand and tells him honestly that she is honored to have him on board her staff, without a whiff of arousal to be found in her scent to Peter’s subtle relief.

She is clearly more used to dealing with the administrative affairs of the school as her speech about her school and students makes it evident that she is laboring under the slightly misguided assumption that her successes as a parent have translated to successes as an educator.

Thorne continually shoots his boss dark glances that were overlaid with the warring stink of contempt and arousal.

Peter kept a disgusted snort to himself. The toad really hadn’t changed since high school. He’d been like that around Talia, loathing her for her position as Student Body President and objectifying her in the same breath.

It was one of Peter’s most cherished memories, watching his sister casually verbally tear the covetous little bastard a new one when he tried to suggest that she was somehow unsuitable for her position due to her “womanly concerns”.

It was just a shame she’d shot down his suggestions to tear Thorne’s gaseous black sedan a new one as well.

“And once again, Mr. Hale, may-I-say that your decision to come in so early for your new position shows remarkable promise for your future teaching career.” Principal Johnson enthuses, oblivious to the mutinous glares of her subordinate.

“Early, ma’am?” Peter inquires pleasantly, feeling the prickles of both righteous outrage and not-quite-so righteous homicidal urges at the sight of Thorne’s now sickly grinning face.

“Oh? Well, I thought Mr. Thorne had sent you the package that outlined the time slot for your class this year–1:30, wasn’t it Mr. Thorne?”

“12:30, Principal Johnson, just before A-lunch.” Thorne replies in a tone that does very little to disguise how smug he sounds.

Peter needs to clench his hands slightly to force his claws back in.

Don’t rip his throat out now. It’s too quick. Too painless. Wait until McCall’s pack is suitably weakened, then tear apart this farce of an educational facility while the toad whimpers, and string his guts from the rubble.

Maybe total his car beforehand just to rub salt in the wound.

Peter smiles sheepishly, making sure none of his intentions for the school or certain members of its incompetent staff are visible. “Unfortunately, my apartment’s mail system is a bit byzantine; it wouldn’t surprise me if one of my neighbors ended up with my packet and forgot to return it to me.”

“Oh dear! Well, I’m sure Mr. Thorne can easily print you off another copy, can’t you, Mr. Thorne?”

“Mr. Thorne” curls his lip and then attempts to straighten his expression into a genial smile at the small frown that flits across Principal Johnson’s face.

Peter keeps his look of boyish, charming innocence, and begins to plot exactly how he can have the assistant principal removed from office, and maybe even from the great state of California.

He’s got to amuse himself somehow during this torment, after all.

Peter wishes he’d been able to go home and at least nap for one of the six hours between his meeting with the principal and when he was due to start his class.

But no. Assistant Principal Thorne decided it was imperative for him to meet every member of the faculty that the school building had to offer.

After the third lunch lady and the fourth janitor, the adults began to blur together into an amorphous mass of names, ink and stress-soaked scents, and awful, awful fashion sense.

Really, Peter should be commended on his self-control for not ripping out Thorne’s throat in the boys’ locker rooms then dragging the body outside to claim that it was a random vicious mountain lion attack.

But he digresses.

A couple do stand out.

The gym teacher—Brody or something— who starts out acting like he belongs on McCall’s high school lacrosse team, before breaking down in hysterics over his ex-wife and children. The long-suffering faces of his students suggest that this isn’t an uncommon occurrence.

The mathematics teacher— a Ms. McGrath—who reeks unpleasantly of resentment and poorly concealed fear. She is in the Derek Hale School of trying to control people via shouting and threats, though hers are more geared towards grades than bodily harm.

The english teacher— Mr. Joshua Nord— is a name Peter takes the trouble to remember simply because he appears to be the least afraid of his own students. He could be tolerable company or the one most likely to stand up to Peter if he gets bored and decides to make his own fun.

By the time 12:00 rolls around, Peter already feels exhausted. He hasn’t even had to deal with any of the actual children yet.

He was suddenly very glad for Principal Johnson’s insistence that he only hold one small class this year, as though exposure to too many middle schoolers at once would send him back into a coma.

Still, at least the scents of paints, inks and clay was familiar enough that it loosens something in Peter’s chest a little.

Funny, the things you don’t realize you miss until they’re suddenly returned to you.

He decides to peruse the back rooms, see exactly what he’ll be working with and how much he’ll need to compensate for budget limitations.

It’s mostly cheap paints, crayola color pencils, crayons, markers, a few sharpies, and some watered-down india ink, but at least there’s a decent set of lino blocks, some traditionally “craft” materials, and several air-sealed bags of clay that make him grin in anticipation.

A pair of small footsteps approach his classroom, and the door creaks open.

Peter contemplates emerging, but none of his students should be here yet. The footsteps that creep into the room are cautious, hesitant, ready to turn and run at any moment.

There’s a couple of high-pitched whispers of “It’ll be on the desk!” and “Quickly, quickly!” and Peter shifts so that he’ll be able to spy on the intruders into his territory through the glass window in the back room door.

The brown hair that rests on the child’s shoulders reminds Peter of a beagle’s floppy ears. The bags under her eyes (it’s usually a her with that sort of hairstyle) only furthers the similarities as she looks around wide-eyed on her twitchy, overly-cautious journey to his desk, clutching a brightly colored piece of plastic.

There’s a scent of heavily applied makeup emanating from near the door, combined with high-pitched snickering, suggests that her lookout is most likely a girl as well.

The child finally gets to his desk, and Peter rolls his eyes at the sound of rustling papers.

Really, how does this child ever sneak anything past her parents or older relatives? It’s almost cartoonish how obvious she is— she makes Stilinski at his most discombobulated seem subtle and discrete.

There’s a soft scratching sound, and the scent of graphite. So a basic graffiti prank then. He hopes she at least does something more creative than a simple penis. Though it could make for a good first critique project...

The acrid burst of Sharpie ink gives him pause. Well, either she’s going above and beyond in the call of duty or, as the repetitive sound of the mark making suggests, she’s looking more to conceal something than to add.

Peter’s lips curl into a slow smirk.

The pencil scratches a few more times against the paper before the girl loses her nerve and barrels back towards the door of the classroom, bumping into her lookout, and the two sets of footsteps pound off down the hall, nervous giggles floating in their wake.

Peter lets himself out of the back room, and rearranges the freshly photocopied syllabi and scattered codes of conduct. He pauses to take in the results of the intruder’s meddling.

The smirk widens.

This promises to be interesting.

[thisweekingundamwing]

TWIGW May 13-19

Hello Amazing Fandom!

Thanks to everyone who submitted something, and thanks to everyone who keeps contributing and helping our tiny fandom truck along! 

Here’s the round up for this week - if we missed anything, drop us a line! And don’t forget to leave the creators some love!

XOXO

Mod CB

Fanfiction:

A Little Piece of Gundam Wing

The archive is being ported to AO3! Check it out!

ammiehawk

What Do You Say?

On the road with a new companion after the events in St. Louis, what will Sam and Dean do with a supposed civilian now traveling with them? Will Sam and Dean be able to keep their secrets? Or will secrets between the brothers break them apart?

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Trowa Barton, 1x5

Warnings: Supernatural crossover, slash, supernatural elements

@anaranesindanarie

Death Unspeaking - Final Chapter!

What happens when a Gundam Pilot is mute? Will the other Pilots look down at him because of it? Will he overcome the odds or will the odds overcome him?

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Graphic Descriptions of Violence, Underage, Mute!Duo, Gundams, Eventual Canon Divergence, Mobile Suits, Fighting, Eventual Yaoi, AU, Sign Language, just pure awesomeness, Blowing Shit Up, blowing ships up, Circus

@claraxbarton and @kangofu-cb

Bad Company

"The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown

Years after the wars, Preventers has decided to tackle one of the most powerful and oldest of all the Terran crime syndicates. Embedded dangerously deep in an undercover operation targeting the violent and bloodthirsty Sinaloa Cartel, Trowa Barton is pushed beyond even his flexible morals - and when his new "partner" arrives in the very unexpected and unwelcome form of Duo Maxwell, the one person he'd been trying to protect at all costs, both men must deal with the realization that preserving peace for humanity is turning into a bloodsport. What follows is race against time to uncover the evidence they need to bring Sinaloa, and its beautiful but deadly leaders, down - all while keeping each other alive in the process

Pairings: 2x3, 1x4

Warnings:  Graphic Depictions of Violence, Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Moral Dilemmas

@duointherain

Perfection

Heero is a very good Preventer agent. Duo used to be his partner. Now he's stuck with Burt Gummer. If he could find Duo, he'd love to confess his love. Life is not fair. Then, in order to get Burt to resign from Preventers, Heero, Wufei, Quatre, and Trowa agree to an easy mission of delivering supplies to Perfection National Monument. There they find Duo. Things are going to get grabby, and not just with the graboids!

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4

Warnings: none

Terminal Velocity

Duo comes looking for Heero after a long absence.. there is make-up sex. Well, then they have the whole effort of learning to live together like normal people. Mistakes will happen.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: none

@gundamwing-ellesmith​

Heero's Inheritance

A headcanon/drabble: Heero has often wondered what it might be like to have something to hold onto...

Pairings: none

Warnings: headcanon-ish, illustrated

KageKagi

The Heir of House Black

Harry attends Sirius's will reading and learns that there was more to the black family than anyone expected,

Pairings: 2x4, Drarry, Ron x Hermione, 1x2

Warnings: none

Lithle

Salt

Three months after the events of Like Oxygen, Duo shows up on Wufei's doorstep. As familiar, dangerous patterns assert themselves, Wufei's left wondering if there is, or could be, anything between them beyond self-destructive desire.

Pairings: 2x5, 1xR

Warnings: Unhealthy Relationships, Post War Trauma, Suicidal Thoughts, no EW, Post-War, Explicit Language, Sex, Bad Decisions, POV Chang Wufei, everyone is broken, But Maybe Trying to Get Better?

LittleMouse

WarCraft

Alternate Fantasy World - A world where people have ‘Talents’ that allow them to control certain elements. Different Talents can ‘Join’ to become a specific entity - some can heal, some can repair damage to land and buildings, some are weapons. The Talents you ‘Join’ with are called your Others. The perfect Joining is of five separate Talents. One lonely Fire Talent far to the North has given up waiting for his Others - good thing they haven’t stopped looking for him.

Pairings: none

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, Alternate Universe, Fantasy, Non-con touching

luvsanime02

Identifying the Problem

Wufei has a problem. The other guys want to help, once they can figure out what the problem actually is.

Pairings: None

Warnings: None

A Cocktail Friday submission

Maldoror

The Source of All Things

Center, a planet where magic and technology blend. Or more accurately, fight tooth and nail. A planet of Sources, holes in our boring dimension letting through arcane power, chaos and pseudo-deities. In this hot-house of myths and very real dangers, Trowa and Quatre find a mysterious man at the end of a shamanic voyage. Portents suggest this Heero Yuy is crucial to Center’s survival. He’s important enough to have some interesting enemies after him, at any rate: a devious killer and thief called ‘Shinigami’, and a very irate Dragon. Beyond them looms an even greater threat. Indeed, the greatest of them all.

Pairings: 3x4, 2x5, 1x2x5

Warnings: alternative universe, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Plot Twists, fairly graphic depiction of sex, Mild description of self-harm, Mathematical Magic, weird science, crones - Freeform, Magic and Technologyl brawling and eventually screwing, Eventual Threesome, Kinda, Insanity of arcane origin, The universe is a pile of marbles and other dubious allegories

Two Halves

The two kingdoms of Sanq and Lin were at war for years; a conflagration involving magic, armies and political murder. The conflict left both nations devastated and strewn with refugees. The king of Sanq finds his infant son, lost at birth, among the death and the ruin, a miracle he barely dared to hope for.  But there isn't just one boy, there are two, clinging together like two halves of a whole that cannot be separated.  Decades later, the truth behind that second child’s existence will put a hole in the world, or possibly save it.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Fantasy AU, medieval setting with magic, starts with our heroes as children, Cousin Incest, sort of, eventually, being royalty this is in fact the norm and rather expected of them, Canon-Typical Violence

Shinigamiinochi

A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)

Duo Maxwell has been stuck his entire life. With an abusive father, a mother who doesn't even realize he exists, severely bullied at school, and hiding his sexuality, he has given up all hope for a better life. When he falls in love with his bully's boyfriend, he needs to make a choice about his future. Will he continue to let himself be abused or will he fight back?

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 2x3, 1xR

Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Noncon, Underage, Child Abuse, Bullying, Angst, Suicide, Incest, Alternate Universe

@stoic-rose (Alithea)

Lose By Winning

Wufei goes in for an interview. Short drabble takes place after Endless Waltz. Inspired by @lbro009

Pairings: none

Warnings: none

Sylvieforaday

Neighbors

A/U - Meilan is learning, not everything happens the way you thought it would. Sometimes you fall for the perfect girl next door when she gets knocked off her pedestal.

Pairings: RxM

Warnings: none

white_fox

Life Is A Highway

On an impulsive plan to travel from California to New York City to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Heero Yuy did not plan to pick up a hitchhiker in nowhere Texas. Faced with some setbacks and a growing attraction to his passenger, Heero goes through more challenges than he planned on facing.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR

Warnings: light slash, Fluff, Road Trips, Dubious Morality

Snippets:

@lifeaftermeteor

The Vote, pt 1

The Vote, pt 2

@remsyk-blog

Feel good fluff

@terrablaze514​

Teaser Tuesday - Secret Magic AU, Rated M; I’ve pulled this scene out just to play with the pair itself, for a late 2x5x2 (Duo/Wufei) moment. It is a combination of silly, dark, and h/c. 

@vegalume

From Collide, a 13x1

Black Adder quote prompt

WIP Wednesday

Photo Edits/Manipulations

@gundamwing-ellesmith

What if Gundam Wing was real? - Chang Wufei’s office ft. Sally

Headcanons / Meta / Discussions:

@disturbed02girl

Postcard 11

@lbro009

Characterizations by Japanese vs non-Japanese fans

@lifeaftermeteor

Quatre’s (not)sleeping habits

@terrablaze514

HeadCanon Time (Secret Magic AU): The G-Boys encounter problems behind the scenes + how Quatre and Wufei reconnected. 

@whenwillmailcome

Chang Wufei - MemeLord

Multiple Contributors

Q&A with Gundam Wing producer Hideyuki Tomioka and fans

Wufei and stringed instruments

Why was Zechs kept alive?

Fanart:

@chronicwhimsy​

Duo and Wufei for Mermay

@duointherain

Duo

Duo

@lemontrash

Duo chilling

@zibelinbelt

Gundam Wing minifanbook about Gundam Wing 

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[chiseler]

IT’S QUARTER TO THREE... IDA LUPINO SINGS

“I have a lovely voice. I sang ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ five times. He was loaded.” Thus Ida Lupino explains how she came by a $50 tip in Private Hell 36, the last, leanest, and in many ways best of three films in which she played nightclub singers—canaries very much at home in the coal mine of noir. She makes a perfect 3 a.m. saloon singer, with a sound that brings its own dim lighting and haze of nicotine. She sings for the lonely, for the losers, but without a trace of tears or sentiment. That lovely voice is so dry it could be used to salt sidewalks. It belongs to a woman who has no more pity for others than she does for herself.

Girlishly slight, with big widely spaced eyes, Ida Lupino played a lot of hard-luck waifs with bruised hearts and faces. As Warner Brothers’ backup for Bette Davis she played a lot of glamorous sufferers and scenery-chewing neurotics. But playing women who sing for their supper, Lupino settled into another character: the wised-up, independent dame who more than holds her own in a man’s world ruled by muscles, money and guns.

In The Man I Love (Raoul Walsh, 1947), Lupino’s singing was dubbed by Peg La Centra. Her throaty contralto is fairly plausible coming from Lupino’s mouth, but it’s a rather glossy, weepy sound—a fitting sound for the rather glossy, weepy melodrama this turns out to be. Nonetheless, there is much to enjoy in the tale of a nightclub singer named Petey who visits her family in Los Angeles for Christmas, sorts out their problems (a wartime tsimmes of shell-shocked husbands, straying wives, and kid brothers falling in with bad company), while fending off a lecherous nightclub owner and smiling through an unhappy love affair.

Petey is a standard tough-on-the-outside, soft-in-the-center woman’s-movie heroine, who can easily stand up to a grief-crazed gunman (she simply steps in and beats the stuffing out of the would-be assassin, sending both him and his intended victim home with their tails between their legs) but who self-punishingly devotes herself to a man who treats her badly. She falls for San (Bruce Bennett), a once-promising pianist who has been stewing in booze and self-pity ever since being given the brush by his socialite wife.  San is mopey and churlish, and he plays the kind of pretentious symphonic jazz that Hollywood took for high art, but we just have to buy that she loves him. Part of the problem, of course, is that he’s played by Bruce Bennett, who is adequate but lacks the dark appeal and tortured charisma that someone like Robert Ryan or John Garfield—both of whom had terrific chemistry with Lupino—could have supplied.

The real music in the film is not Lupino’s singing but her dialogue. The lines aren’t really so brilliant, as you realize if you try to quote them, but the quick, casual way she tosses them off creates the impression of someone so sharp, so with-it, that she can’t help herself. Take her marvelous exchange with a cab driver who spouts corny old saws; she responds with an off-hand, half-amused, half-annoyed teasing that goes completely over his head. A huge hit that marked Lupino’s peak as a popular star, The Man I Love illustrates two sides of her screen persona: one high-strung and emotional, the other wisecracking and deadpan—a “strong, aged-in-the-wood woman,” to borrow from another Gershwin tune.

Just such a dame takes the spotlight in Road House (Jean Negulesco, 1948). Eyeing her in a bar, a man remarks admiringly, “She reminds me of the first woman who ever slapped my face.”

This time Lupino does her own singing, thank you very much. The script gives her cover with a story about how she studied opera in her youth, was pushed too hard and lost her voice; and with the back-handed compliment delivered by Celeste Holm, “She does more without a voice than anyone I ever heard!” It also gives her terrific songs to sing and excellent, bluesy piano arrangements. Lupino was highly musical (it was in her blood—she was descended from a long line of English music-hall entertainers), and her delivery and sense of rhythm, conveyed as much by her naked shoulders as by her face or voice, make her entirely convincing as a professional. But that voice—hoarse, spent, like the sound of someone who gargles with cheap Scotch—needs no excuses. It’s not pretty or melodic, but it sounds the way a good drink makes you feel: dry, self-possessed, casting a calm and amused eye on its own depth of feeling. Lupino stakes a solid claim to the great Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer standard “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” which was written for Fred Astaire and claimed by Frank Sinatra. (It is interesting to note that the other essential saloon song, “Angel Eyes,” was introduced in the Lupino vehicle Jennifer, though she doesn’t sing it.) She makes “Again,” an alluring but potentially sappy tune, into an elegant vermouth concoction. And she really gets hot with the boogie-woogie number “The Right Kind,” standing up at the piano and giving way, just once, to uncomplicated enjoyment.

Like The Man I Love, Road House introduces Lupino as a tough cookie and then feels obliged to dunk her in a pretty soggy plot. Her early scenes are priceless: playing solitaire with her shoes off and her legs propped up on the desk of a man she’s never met; setting her cigarettes down on the edge of the piano while she plays, so they leave a row of burn marks like the notches on a gunfighter’s piece; slapping Cornel Wilde hard across the face and then crooning mockingly, “Silly boy.” She’s Lily Stevens, an entertainer from Chicago hired by the smitten Jefty (Richard Widmark) for his road house in the woods near the Canadian border. She’s magnificently jaded, with a bored mask of a face that dares you to judge her blonde hairdo rather silly; an air all the time of being detached, preoccupied, yet never missing a trick.

It might be credible that Lily would—out of sheer boredom in this wholesome one-horse town—decide to toy with Pete (Cornel Wilde), Jefty’s hostile, sulky right-hand man. But that she would find true love with this chiseled block of wood, who teaches her to bowl and takes her swimming in the lake, is not something one wants, at any rate, to believe. Halfway through, the movie shifts gears to become the story of an innocent couple persecuted by an obsessively jealous lunatic. Richard Widmark takes over, giving his fans what they want—maniacal giggles, spine-chilling cackles, and twisted streaks of pathos—but the story devolves into an overheated drama played out in a very fake sound-stage forest flooded by an overactive fog-machine.

Finally, in Private Hell 36 (1954), Lupino plays a canary who’s not required to trade her wry quips for damp hankies. By now the aging-in-wood process is complete. No smoke gets in her eyes, though there is plenty in her voice. Tears in her baby blues would be as out of place as rain-clouds in the Sahara, and her heart is now as bone-dry as her pipes. The one song she favors us with, more talked than sung, is a warning—or taunt—to any suitor that she won’t fall in love, she’s not like other women—“Didn’t you know?” The man she sings it to falls for her like a ton of bricks.

Her name is Lilli Marlowe, and when a cop who comes to question her suggests that sounds a little phony, she doesn’t deny it, but claims it’s so long since she used her real one that she can’t remember it. Bored with the interrogation, she quips, “You know, I’ve seen all this on Dragnet,” which hints at the movie’s attitude towards the genre conventions of the police procedural.

It starts like any standard-issue policier, with a robbery and murder that will spark the plot when some of the stolen money turns up in Los Angeles. A pair of detective sergeants, Cal (Steve Cochran) and Jack (Howard Duff), are assigned to track down the hot bills, which is how they wind up in a nightclub in the sleepy afternoon hours, pitching questions at the house chanteuse while she sits between them, giving nothing away except an endless supply of evasive, needling wisecracks.

Directed by Don Siegel and co-written by Lupino, Private Hell 36 was a production of The Filmmakers, the production company she formed with her then-husband Collier Young in 1948. Her original desire was to make socially conscious films about ordinary people: her early efforts cast a compassionate eye on unwed mothers (Not Wanted) and the handicapped (Never Fear). When these earnest films predictably failed to catch fire at the box office the company turned to crime, releasing tough, stripped-down gems like Lewis R. Foster’s Crashout and Lupino’s own masterpiece, The Hitch-Hiker. There was more pulp melodrama behind the scenes at The Filmmakers than in front of the camera. Lupino divorced Young but continued their business partnership; she married frequent co-star Howard Duff, though you would never guess there was anything between them from watching Private Hell 36, in which he shares a bed with Dorothy Malone while she plays sexy scenes with Steve Cochran. Collier Young would go on to marry Joan Fontaine, whom Lupino cast as her fellow wife in The Bigamist. One can only imagine what the mood was like on the sets of these films.

The central relationship in Private Hell 36 is between the two cops, longtime partners and friends but near opposites. Cal, introduced through a realistically violent brawl in which he shoots a would-be robber, is quickly established as glib, vain and callous. When Jack, a straight-arrow who has a wife and baby, mourns the death of a fellow cop, Cal shrugs, “Stop taking it so hard. He wasn’t your brother.” But the men have an easy, fraternal rapport; when Cal complains that the attempted robbery has made him late for a date, Jack suggests, “Tell her you’re sorry, you had to shoot a man. If she loves you she’ll understand.”

When the two finally track down the original thief and find a suitcase full of cash, Cal pockets some of it, urging his partner to “relax” and “take it easy.” Jack is horrified, and objects—yet he goes along with the theft, even as guilt poisons his life. Does he do it out of greed, out of loyalty to Cal, or out of fear of exposing his initial lapse? It’s hard to say, but his combination of righteous talk and weak will makes Jack hard to like, while the unscrupulous Cal grows more sympathetic as he falls for Lilli.

Their scenes together are the high point of the film. At first, they share that brand of hostile banter that film noir took over from screwball comedy, slowed down and left to simmer on the back burner. “If you’ve got time to kill, why don’t you blow your whistle and arrest somebody?” Lilli sneers when Cal shows up at her door. She doesn’t like cops. Cal pretends he’s come to follow up on the questioning about the man who gave her the $50; when he asks how long she’s known him, Lilli responds with bright bitterness, “All my life. Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed I’d meet a drunken slob in a bar who’d give me fifty bucks and we’d live happily ever after.” She takes most of the conversational tricks, but Cal can talk her language. When she sarcastically says she doesn’t know how to thank him, he leers, “I bet you do.”

If only life were like this.

Without the tiniest trace of effort, Lupino gives us a woman of the world; only the perfection of her jaded poise suggests how hard it was won. How old is she? Lupino was 36, but Lilli Marlowe is both ancient and ageless. She has heard all the questions and knows all the answers—to quote Barbara Stanwyck in The Purchase Price (1933), another world-weary nightclub singer who can’t sing worth a damn. Lilli is always tired; it always seems to be 3 a.m., and her feet hurt and her shoulders are sore and she’s seen it all and she’s sick of cops and drunks in bars who want you to sing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” while they cry in their beer. She lives in a drab hall bedroom with a small Scottie dog named Murgatroyd. But she hasn’t given up hoping—for a diamond bracelet, for a trip to Acapulco, for the right man to come along. More than any of these things, though, she wants her independence; to go where she wants and do as she pleases. When Cal starts getting too possessive, she tries to ditch him and head to Las Vegas.

Steve Cochran is on Lupino’s wavelength in a way that Howard Duff, onscreen, never was. Handsome and swarthy, Cochran played a lot of slick, cruel, egotistical gangsters like Big Ed in White Heat, probably his best-known role. But he was capable of much more, as he proved in Tomorrow is Another Day, an unusually delicate and character-rich B noir, and in Antonioni’s bleak, melancholy Il Grido. Cochran had a strangely sweet smile and an unexpectedly light voice; both could contribute to his icy menace, but they could also suggest a gentle soul under the macho exterior. As Cal, he portrays a shallow, selfish man who is nonetheless capable of tenderness and deep feeling; his love for Lilli is the one true thing in his grabby, amoral life.

Like so many noirs, Private Hell 36 (the number is that of the trailer Cal rents to stash their stolen loot) is about the corrupting force of money. Even Jack is not immune; when they spend time at the racetrack searching for a criminal, he speaks with bitter awe about the sight of so much money being tossed around like confetti, while he works hard for a modest living. Lilli is always talking about her desire for money and the things it buys, not so subtly implying that a man who wants her had better have the dough to afford her. Cal is acutely susceptible to this pitch, eager to dazzle her with his ill-gotten gains. She quickly intuits what he must have done and doesn’t blame him, but in the end she suddenly realizes that perhaps they don’t need the money; perhaps their love is enough.

Alas, this mature, intelligent, tough-minded film is badly marred by its ending. It’s a typically moralizing, simplifying, Code-imposed conclusion, made much worse by being far too abrupt, sketchy, and dependent on events that have happened off-screen. And it does not, as it should, give the last word to Lilli, though we can easily imagine how she will shrug her shoulders and keep going, not missing a beat. If she had the last word she would say: well, that’s how it goes. There’s no cure except to move on, so you might as well have one more for the road.

by Imogen Sara Smith

[anneedmonds]

Life Update: Linen Changes and Losing My Sh*t

This could be interesting; I’ve given myself forty-five minutes to write my monthly life update and I’m writing it, perhaps unwisely, from bed. Because it’s bloody freezing isn’t it? And we have now entered the month of May, which means that it is now illegal to turn the heating on. In this house, anyway. So I am wearing two cardigans and have scurried upstairs to put my legs under the duvet, which is why I have broken my self-imposed rule of never writing from bed.

It just feels wrong, writing from bed. Like I’m doing fake work. Mind you, I can’t eat or drink in bed either – unless it’s a hotel bed. I think it’s because the thought of having to change the bedding if I spill something is so utterly horrifying to me; it’s bad enough having to wrestle with the mattress cover and the fitted sheet and the duvet cover on the designated linen-change day, I’m not going to risk putting myself in the position where an additional change is necessary. No hot drink is worth that. Changing the duvet alone takes about eight days and that’s once you’ve worked out which way around it goes. Snapping the fitted sheet back on requires the strength and dexterity of twelve world class athletes and don’t even get me started on the complexities of the mattress protector. The only part of linen changing that I find remotely compatible with my skillset is the pillow cases, so I take my time with those and hope that Mr AMR will do the rest.

Anyway, life update: I have forty-five minutes because I am determined to be reading my Kindle and ready for sleep by 11pm and I want to fit a quick bath in before then too. I’ve been taking nightly baths with loads of epsom salts and they’ve been completely knocking me out! It’s brilliant! The deep sleeps coupled with my new exercise regime (I try to do two exercise classes a week, one pilates and one barre class) mean that I’m feeling significantly better than I did at the start of the year. Slightly less stressed (I’m developing something of a c’est la vie sort of attitude towards petty things that are out of my control) and definitely physically fitter, although I must admit that I type this with my belly lying across my lap like a weird, smooth, boneless pet.

It’s actually quite amazing that I think I’m less stressed because when I analyse my actions over the last week, I’ve blown my top at least five times. All with the kids. Can someone please advise on how it’s possible to deal with two simultaneous toddler/small child breakdowns and not completely lose their sh*t? Honestly, when one of them is screaming about an apple not being the right sort of apple and the other is using a chair to climb up into the sink that is filled with dirty pans and sharp knives, and then the doorbell goes and the dog barks and also a work email pops up asking if you’ve remembered the 4pm deadline for the post that needs to be with a client for approval and then the first child starts crying because they are hungry and they really, really need the correct type of apple, peeled and chopped into seven chunks, HOW IS IT POSSIBLE NOT TO COMPLETELY LOSE THE PLOT?

Other battles we’ve had this week; the requests for what amounts to a continuous supply of snacks. Even if they eat loads at mealtimes, they want crackers with peanut butter. Fruit. Not any fruit, just the sort of fruit that’s pricier than gold leaf – blueberries, raspberries, mango. They want slices of ham, small pieces of cheese – “just a tiny piece Mummy!” – and I stand at the cupboard like a big bird feeding morsels to my baby birds, their heads tilted upwards and mouths open, squawking loudly between drops.

Bless them.

How, also, is it possible to feel such gigantic swings of emotion? Elation one moment, when you get a spontaneous cuddle, or there’s a genuine heartfelt laugh at something, and deep despair the next, when you realise that the shadow on the carpet is, in fact, an entire beaker of spilt milk and that both children have been dancing in it whilst you’ve been on the phone to the electricity company.

Angelica (three years and nine months old) has a new hobby: rhyming. She can sing a made-up song for well over half an hour with lyrics made from utter nonsense, but each line ends with perfect rhymes. She’s like a tiny modern Shakespeare – she even adopts a strange, thespian sort of voice to deliver her poetic musings. I don’t know where she’s witnessed this, because she hasn’t yet been to a theatre, but it’s uncanny – she sounds like she’s been on tour with the RSC. Though I have to say that I listen with my heart in my mouth when she gets to certain sounds – “the wizard he likes ducks, in forests he does mucks, and I like doing lucks, and I don’t give two -“

So she likes rhyming, and she also likes throwing herself around in really dramatic power-move sorts of dances. Sometimes at the same time. I’ve had to hide the microphone. Although that’s mainly because Ted (two years and three months old) gets it in his little chubby grip and screams into it with his entire mouth wrapped around the top. It’s excruciating – like nails down a blackboard.

“LOOK MAMA!” he says, now. “LOOK, DADA!” At everything – cars, trees, birds. Objects that have been in the house since the day we moved, that suddenly become a great source of interest, as though they’ve just appeared from a different dimension. “SAUR, MAMA!” he says, pointing at the dinosaur head on his bedroom wall. “BOOKS, MAMA!” “DRAWER, MAMA!”

We’re still safety-pinning Ted into his sleeping bag – forget the pin at your own peril, because you will go up an hour later to find him still awake, naked bottom in the air, mattress soaked in wee and his clothes, nappy and sleeping bag completely dry and neatly cast aside on the floor at the foot of the cot.

Ted’s favourite object of the month: books. Any and all. Angelica’s favourite thing: the kitchen timer. Actually they both love the kitchen timer and they’re always going off with it and twisting the dial to set the alarm. It puts my nerves on edge, I tell you – always dinging at some random moment so that I’m half-expecting a pan of pasta to boil over or a cake to burn in the AGA. (Don’t make me laugh: I’ve never baked a cake in the AGA. I can’t remember the last time I baked a cake full stop!)

It has been an excellent month for non-bribed cuddles – Angelica has thrown herself around me a number of times and not just when I’ve been playing (under duress) the Prince from Cinderella. My most hated role. I even prefer being the evil stepmother. My favourite role of all is being the patient in the doctor’s surgery, because I get to lie down – although you have to be careful when Ted is the doctor because he hits you with the wooden hammer really hard. Clonk! on the knee. Clonk! on the ribcage. Clonk! on the top of your head.

It’s actually quite terrifying when Ted plays the GP – waddling over with his little red bag of tricks. “Teeth!” he says, so that he can check your teeth with the plastic mirror. It’s amazing I have any teeth still in place, the force with which he rips the mirror back out. And he’s a menace with the injection – good God! The look on his face when he administers the shot. Pure sadism.

Ted is the master of cuddles, despite also being a very convincing psychopathic doctor. The way he drapes himself around my shoulders and asks to be carried down the stairs utterly melts me. I still think of him as a baby, but it’s a coping strategy if I’m entirely honest; it’s hard to accept that your babies are no longer babies and then that’s it. When you have babies, you think that they will be like that forever and – although it’s a bloody good job they’re not babies forever – it’s a shock when you realise that you’ll never be needed in the same sort of way again.

Ho hum, moving on �� my bath awaits and I have the latest Shardlake book (book seven!) waiting for me on my Kindle. A salt soak, a ten minute snoozy read and I’m off to the land of nod. I wish you all a wonderful bank holiday weekend if you’re in the UK – and a very happy birthday to Rach, my right hand woman and wonderful friend. I’m pretty sure Angelica’s rhyming obsession is your fault, Rach…

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Life Update: Linen Changes and Losing My Sh*t was first posted on May 3, 2019 at 11:16 pm. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at contact@amodelrecommends.com Life Update: Linen Changes and Losing My Sh*t published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley