#station inspector imagines

[bound-up-feelings]

Station Inspector

Station Inspector: The Regular

Station Inspector: Unexpected Meeting

Station Inspector: First Time

Station Inspector: Fooled

[thatmexisaurusrex]

What if Tommy met Buck when Buck was still doing his fire inspector job? What if Buck came to Tommy's station for a surprise inspection and Tommy was the one who hung back at the station that day?

What if Evan was so distracted by seeing Tommy topless as he worked on the engine of a helicopter that he called himself Buckley Evan before quickly correcting himself? What if Tommy laughed at that in a way that made Buck's heart skip a beat? What if Tommy introduced himself and shook Buck's hand and Buck's imagination drifted as he thought about how big those hands were?

And.

What if Buck apologized for spacing out when Tommy, feeling nervous about a random inspection of Harbor Station, asked if Buck was okay?

What if Tommy, stressing out and spiraling a bit, did his best to undersell so that maybe the inspection would go well (the station was in perfect order, Tommy really didn't need to do this)? What if Buck got lost in Tommy's natural charm, trying to assure Tommy that the station was probably okay as they walked over to the station proper (and it was better than okay - it was the most well-kept station Buck had ever seen in his life)?

What if Tommy kept babbling; explained that he just finished most of the reorganizing that he did at the beginning of every month and just finished most of the deep clean of the station, but he apologized if it was still a little messy (the station was practically spotless)?

What if Buck placed a hand on Tommy's arm as he told Tommy that Tommy was going to be fine; that what Buck had seen of the station so far was all in fantastic shape? What if Tommy's face heated up at that touch; the heat creeping all the way to the tips of his ears; down to his chest?

What if Tommy, in a flurry, went through the safety manual basically verbatim, practically memorized as he showed Buck around and talked about how he kept the place up to snuff?

What if Buck, supremely impressed, gushed (honestly so) that Harbor Station had no dings at all? That it was the most up-to-code station that Buck had ever seen in his life?

What if they had a moment?

Just.

Staring at each other?

What if Buck swore as he got a call from his bosses? Hated that he had to take it, but he did take that call? What if the rest of Harbor Station came in, the shift over? What if in the blur of the shift change, Buck and Tommy missed each other?

That Buck hung up only to find out Tommy had already left for his condo?

What if Tommy, alone, wonders distantly if there really was a spark there with that fire inspector or if he was just fooling himself? If this was some rom-com sensibility taking hold of Tommy every time he wasn't distracted with a hobby? If this was Tommy deluding himself into believing someone like Evan Buckley would want a man like Tommy Kinard?

Probably fooling himself.

Hadn't Evan said he was an ally?

What if Buck, frustrated and very, very horny for some reason, finds his mind drifting to Tommy as he - as he -

And in the middle of the night, Buck found himself staring at his ceiling; wondering if it was normal that he kept thinking about the firefighter pilot with the hot ass every time he was single? When he was alone at night and he thought about that cleft and that ass and those hands and how the man knew how to goddamn keep a place up-to-code? And organized?

And what if, now transferred back to the 118, Buck, Eddie, and Chimney need a pilot to help Hen out on her hunch about the missing cruise ship Bobby and Athena are on?

And what if Chimney calls someone up, proclaiming that he knows a guy?

And what if Buck and Tommy cross paths again, as if serendipity?

What if?

[joezworld]

Christmas Story

Merry Christmas you guys.

Christmas Day

Morning broke over one of the most subdued Christmases Tidmouth sheds had ever seen. 

For most of the engines, it had started early: 

Gordon had vanished before the sun, taking some morning train - which one it was, nobody was quite sure; the limited-service Christmas day timetable was a baffling mystery that only became clear on the day of.

Edward, who woke at five-thirty in the morning out of habit, had elected to leave the shed while silence still reigned. Whichever train Gordon didn’t take, he did. 

James and Delta woke together as twilight began to dapple the sky, and slipped out of the shed with a bare minimum of noise or fuss. Where they went off to was anyone’s guess. Oliver, who missed their departure despite being awake, could only guess. They’d said something about the harbour?

That left just the three Westerners in the room. Oliver was the only one awake, and he regarded the scene with worried eyes. Bear and Duck hadn’t exchanged two words since Bear’s new “paint” had been applied, and he did not want to be around to hear what they said. Shortly before seven thirty, an inspector groused his way in, looking for an engine willing to run a P-Way service down the Little Western to finish up the various issues with the line, and Oliver jumped at the chance.

That left just two… 

-

Bear awoke to the morning sun finally making an appearance. The shed appeared to be empty, but… 

There was a quiet clatter to one side, and he lazily looked over to see Duck’s crew staring at each other in accusation while an oil can rolled on the ground. 

Bear didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything he particularly wanted to say. 

“Um.” Unfortunately, Duck did. “Bear. About…”

“Duck.” Bear cut him off. “I understand your… position right now, or at least I think I do, but I don’t want to talk to you right now.” He sighed deeply. “Or perhaps for a while. Maybe you should try this again later.”

There was a quiet sniffle from the tank engine, who then departed with a minimum of noise or fuss. 

Bear didn’t feel a bit of bother about how he made his fellow engine feel, and that bothered him more than anything else. 

-

Eventually, a crew came for him. It was pushing ten in the morning, and he set off with a strange working: an empty coaching stock move all the way to Kirk Ronan. 

“There’s a guaranteed connection with the ferry from France,” his driver explained. “Usually there’s another train, but not today.”

“Damned Christmas timetable…” 

“You know,” the man continued. “It’s strange. Gordon was supposed to take this train, but he insisted on having you take it. Couldn’t begin to imagine why.”

Bear rolled his eyes. “It’s easy work. This is probably his idea of a Christmas present.”

“Who knows?”

-

Bear didn’t put any more thought into it, and brought the train into Kirk Ronan right on schedule.

The ferry, a big red and white one named Chartres, was already there, moored tightly to the dock, and absolutely festooned with lights and decorations. «Joyeux Noël, mon petit ami!» She boomed. “It is a time of joy and happiness, no? Where are all the decorations?”

Bear looked around; the ferry terminal was quite drab - he remembered hearing something about the snow being worse along the coast. Maybe they couldn’t decorate. “They must be saving them for next year!” he said, trying to seem upbeat. 

The ferry made a noise of assent, and then any chance for further conversation was lost as a flood of passengers made their way down the boarding ramps and into the coaches. Soon afterwards, the train departed back the way it came, express service to Tidmouth station. The ferry heralded their departure with an earth-shaking foghorn blast, and then they were into the distance. 

There were almost no other trains on the line, and Bear had plenty of time to think. Goodness me. It really is Christmas, isn’t it? I made it through the month, and all it cost me was one friend, most of my sanity, and my identity. 

He laughed bitterly to himself. This is a terrible Christmas. 

As he went further down the line, another thought came to him. I can’t believe I let them use this paint on me. I thought blue was too much? This itches!

-

The train arrived at Tidmouth a few minutes ahead of schedule, just as the clocks struck noon, and Bear was surprised to see that there was a “restricting-diverge” signal ahead of him. “They’re sending us around the loop?” 

“The loop”, a section of line that Gordon had famously been mis-routed down once (James still needles him about it, once in a great while), was not actually a single line, but was rather a series of feeder tracks that connected the various dockside industries with the harbour itself, as well as the big station. In the early 1900s, some bright spark (probably Sir Topham Hatt, although the Dry family had significant involvement in the development of Tidmouth’s dockyards) had realized that making a full “loop” to connect both sides of the big station to the docks may be beneficial, and so many of the lightly built industrial spurs were connected into a rambling branch line that snaked through Tidmouth’s waterfront before ducking underneath the high street in a cutting, eventually meeting the Little Western just outside the station’s “rear”. Doing this added almost fifteen minutes to a journey, and so it was restricted to only the most dire of emergencies (or if you really irked the signalman). 

As Bear trundled over, under, around, and through Tidmouth, he had the distinct feeling that he was being played with. There weren’t any signals out of order, he wondered. Why am I going this way?

He got his answer soon enough, as he eventually entered the station through the Little Western’s platforms, gliding to a stop about three-quarters of the way down the platform. 

To his confusion, he was not the only engine there:

Duck and Oliver were face-to-face on the platform to his left, and each looked like they’d rather be anywhere else. 

Gordon was parked directly in front, with a worryingly inscrutable grin on his face. 

Toby was parked next to Gordon, and looked like he was only now understanding what was going on. 

In the background, Truro had been pushed just inside the station’s glass canopy, clearly so that he could hear what was going on. Amusingly, he also wasn’t meant to interrupt whatever was going to occur, as there was a red-and-white checkered tablecloth shoved into his mouth to gag him. Even better, nobody had bothered to set or splint his nose at any point. It looked like it really hurt. Shame about that. 

Alongside the porters and other staff meeting the train, there were several members of the station staff lining the platform, each in their “dress” uniforms, complete with shined shoes and buttons. 

Finally, and perhaps most concerningly, the… Yugoslav-Mexican band that the Fat Controller had sourced was tuning their instruments on the platform next to Gordon. 

-

“Do I even want to know?” he asked Gordon as the passengers poured out of the train. 

“Just go along with it,” Toby said, looking resigned to whatever was about to happen. 

“Brother Toby,” Gordon chided. “Is that really the tone you wish to take in front of the initiates?”

“Gordon,” Toby began. “You are treading upon a line that I didn’t even know existed three minutes ago. Get on with it.”

“In due time…” Gordon said beatifically. “Once we have privacy.”

And so they waited for another ten minutes while the passengers departed. Everybody except Gordon felt increasingly awkward as time stretched on, but eventually the last stragglers had made their way to the waiting room doors. Once they swung shut with a solid click that could be heard four platforms away, Gordon cleared his throat. “Let us begin.” 

Bizarrely, the stationmaster then stepped forward. He was dressed up even more than the other station staff, and was wearing white tie, complete with a top hat. He was holding a pad of paper in his hands - while they’d been waiting, Bear had seen a glimpse of it, and it looked like it was some sort of speech-  oh no.

“OYEZ! OYEZ! OYEZ!” The stationmaster bellowed at the top of his voice, scaring everyone except Gordon and the band. “WE NOW CALL TO ORDER THIS EMERGENCY SESSION OF THE EXCEPTIONAL AND MOST RESPECTABLE GRAND OLD ORDER OF THE LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY!”

“The what.” Someone said. It might have been Bear.

“TO START THIS SESSION, WE TURN TO THE HONORABLE MEMBER FROM THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY, WHO HAS BEEN GRANTED POWERS PLENIPOTENTIARY DUE TO THE EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES!” 

“Granted what.”

“From where.”

Gordon had the audacity to look like something normal was occurring. “Thank you, sir,” he said with remarkable aplomb. “Ordinarily, these sessions would begin with a great deal more pomp and circumstance, however in light of yesterday’s events, I have elected to set those aside in order to get down to business.” 

He looked around the station, ignoring the absolutely baffled looks being sent his direction. “Since the year nineteen hundred and twenty three, the Grand Old Order of the London and North Eastern has claimed, in due time, every locomotive who has ever rolled out of one of our most esteemed workshops. Under the banner of the North Eastern, and our numerous predecessor railways, countless deeds of mechanical excellence have been performed. Mountains have been moved, cities have been evacuated, and nature herself has been tamed by our steel and metal, brick and stone.” 

He paused his stentorian address for a second, again surveying the increasing bafflement, before continuing. “To serve under our flag was to commit yourself to greatness, in one form or another. And for the last sixty-one years, this has been enough; we have recognized greatness, and greatness has come unto us.”

“However!” he exclaimed with great drama. “Recent events have forced a change in our calculus. Before this day, we have only ever accepted locomotives from our own workshops into our ranks - our own kind. Before today, that was seen as sufficient. No more!” 

He again surveyed the room, and Bear got the distinct feeling that Gordon wasn’t actually looking at faces at all. He tried to follow the gaze and found it lingering on the ‘GREAT WESTERN” insignia on Duck and Oliver’s sides, and the Western Region crest on his own, just visible under the paint.

He began to get an inkling of where this was going…

Gordon continued. “We had never felt the need to expand our own ranks before this day, because we had committed an act of hubris. We had assumed, like children, that all other railways within this great nation behaved in the same way as us! That they recognized greatness within their own ranks just as we did in our own.” 

His face turned serious. “This was an error. One that we shall never make again.”

Behind him, behind all of them, City of Truro’s eyebrows began to knit together. Clearly Bear was not the only one thinking along these lines. Something was mumbled against the gag. 

The next few sentences felt shouted, despite Gordon never raising his voice. “Over the month of December nineteen eighty-four, it has become known to us that City of Truro, the so-called “Greatest of all Westerners”, and the de facto leader of their kind, is nothing but a duplicitous charlatan! A murderous brute, who uses subterfuge and dirty tactics in ways not seen since modernization some twenty years past! He is no better than the worst examples of diesel-kind!”

There was a muffled shout from behind Gordon. It was ignored. 

Gordon continued. “But lo! He is the public and private face of the Great Western! One hundred fifty years of history, resting squarely upon his deceptive and ill-tempered buffers! Truly he is the worst of us, and is unfit to lead his clan.”

There was yet another muffled noise. Truro might actually be biting on the tablecloth now. 

“However, we are not in the position to make decisions for another railway, let alone one as ancient and prestigious as the Great Western.” Gordon intoned. Bear didn’t like the sparkle developing in the blue engine’s eyes. That could only mean trouble. “But, we can make amends in our own way!” 

Bear’s train of thought screamed into the station, brake-blocks smoking. Oh he is going to, isn’t he?

“HONOR GUARD,” roared the stationmaster. “PRE-SENT!” 

Someone had actually gone to the trouble of painting a coal shovel gold. Truro sounded like he was going to eat the tablecloth. 

Then the band started playing. It was, after a moment of harmonizing, a very jaunty version of Pomp and Circumstance. 

Bear was actually going to go insane. 

He’s going to do it. He’s going to induct me into the damned LNER like it’s going to make things better. 

The porter carrying the shovel turned on his heel and marched over to Duck and Oliver, marching like this was a drill exercise at a military academy. All three Western engines blinked. 

“Now,” Gordon said. “With the aforementioned facts now known, I, as the most honorable member from the Great Northern Railway, do hereby nominate Oliver to be enjoined with our ranks, and formally inducted into the Grand Old Order of the London and North Eastern. Brother Toby, as the Right Honorable Member from the Great Eastern Railway, will you second this motion?”

“Gordon, I-”

“Will you second this motion?”

A sigh. “Yes, I will second this motion. As the… righteous and honorable member from the GER.”

“Thank you, Brother Toby. The motion has been seconded!”

“Gordon, I-”

“Thank you.”

Gordon turned his attention to the “honor guard”, who dropped to one knee next to Oliver’s buffers, and laid the shovel gently across the nearest one. 

Bear momentarily managed to tear his eyes away from the spectacle, finding Toby in the sea of insanity. Is this happening? He mouthed. 

Yes, this is actually happening. Came the response. 

“Oliver!” Gordon boomed, snapping Bear’s gaze back to the insanity occurring in front of him. “Your years of loyalty and honorable service have not gone un-noticed! For too long you have labored away without reward, without the fruits of your own labours. For your tireless service to your railway, your own kind, and to yourself, you shall be honored. Do you Consent to be joined to the Order of the London and North Eastern? Do you Swear to follow and uphold their Ways, ahead of all others?”

Oliver looked absolutely dumbstruck. “Uhh… I, uh….”

“Say yes or we’ll never be done with it!” Toby hissed. 

“Uh- YES!” Oliver squeaked, suddenly realizing that he wasn’t in a position to say no. “Yes I do!”

Gordon looked immensely pleased with himself. “Then I dub thee ‘Brother Oliver’, and formally induct you into the Order. Welcome.” 

Oliver looked overwhelmed, a feeling that Bear mirrored, especially once the “honor guard” stood and marched over to Duck with precise marching steps that wouldn’t have been out of place in a military drill. 

Duck looked… well he looked almost vacant, staring off into the middle distance as events happened around him. It took little intuition to figure out where he was looking: there, in the middle distance, was City of Truro, furiously raging behind the tablecloth. 

The shovel was laid on Duck’s buffer, and the whole process began again. Gordon began an even longer and more pompous sounding prattle about Duck’s service at Paddington, how he’d dispatched Diesel, and how he’d managed the Little Western in the years since. There wasn’t a mention of how he’d acted during the last month, but even the most uncharitable part of Bear’s mind couldn’t really square a month’s worth of inaction against a half-century’s worth of work. 

There is no way I can be agreeing with Gordon on this. The big diesel thought to himself. He’s insane. He’s trying to… show up Truro by ‘adopting’ us. 

Gordon had launched into an identical spiel about “Consenting”, but Duck had barely let him get the word out before saying “Yes.” in a quiet but undeniably firm manner. 

Gordon managed to keep his surprise contained to an upward quirk of his eyebrows, but everyone else, Bear included, were thoroughly shocked. 

What? I would’ve thought that he wouldn’t… couldn’t… I mean, it’s the Great Western, that’s his life!

Duck didn’t take his eyes off of Truro the entire time. The forcefully silenced engine was turning a worrying shade of purple.

Bear had a sudden moment of understanding. But it’s his life… as defined by Truro. 

He doesn’t want this anymore than I do. Truro isn’t god. He’s not Brunel. 

But he is the Great Western. 

He looked at Truro, who was again trying to eat or spit out the tablecloth. A group of porters carrying a ladder, a shunter's pole, and some amount of canvas were approaching him menacingly. 

And if that’s the Great Western. 

He looked at Gordon, who was finishing Duck’s “induction” with a mix of surprise, seriousness, and well-earned pomposity. And that’s the LNER…  

Then… Maybe…

The “honor guard” turned to face him.

Gordon’s speech was shorter than his praise of Duck, but longer than Oliver’s. “Bear! Your continued service to this railway has not gone un-noticed! For over twenty years you have taken on every job asked of you with a dignity, grace, and competence that has made you not only a sterling member of this railway, but of your class as a whole. It would be my honor to induct you into the Grand Old Order of the London and North Eastern Railway!  Do you Consent to be joined to the Order? Do you Swear to follow and uphold their Ways, ahead of all others?”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Yes, I do.”

----

Later that night

“I’m sorry,” Edward stared in a rare moment of bafflement. “The Grand Old Order of the what?” 

“There’s no such thing.” James said firmly. “Do you think that he’d talk about anything else if there was?”

"I’m well aware of that," Edward said, still deeply confused. "The Southern and LMS had elite, secret brotherhoods, that's well known. I'd never heard anything about the LNER, and if Gordon hasn’t said anything before now…”

BoCo smiled faintly. "There might not have been one before last night," he said, "but if Gordon says there is one, then I think it exists now."

"That's rubbish," scoffed Delta. "How can you have an LNER order with Gordon, Duck, Oliver, Bear, and Toby? That’s over fifty percent Great Western."

"If Gordon's started it, every Eastern engine still around will hear and want to be in on it by the end of the month."

"Well, maybe so."

"Blimey.” James said, looking suddenly pensive.” This is going to be a whole thing, isn't it?"

“Oh yes,” Edward agreed. “In fact, I’d say that there’s a decent chance he’ll try to induct us next, so everyone be on your guard if you care about your old allegiances, or at least the appearance of them. 

Bear listened to them with a raised eyebrow. “What do you mean? I thought he was trying to get back at Truro?”

The other engines looked at him funny. 

“What?”

“Did you not get it?” Delta asked, in a tone that implied that she wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. “This isn’t about Truro, this is about Gordon.” 

“What do you mean?”

The other engines looked at each other. 

“Bear,” Edward began. “Gordon doesn’t care about Truro in that way. I can’t say his exact reasoning for letting him witness the whole event, but I daresay it wasn’t anything more than kicking an engine when he’s already down. That ceremony, on the other wheel… wasn’t about Truro at all.”

“Then what was it about?” 

“You!” several voices said at once. The other engines looked at each other, before James of all engines spoke up. 

“Bear, Gordon’s an idiot, but he’s our idiot. And he thinks, because he’s an idiot, that he can only care about someone if they’re…” he searched for the right word. 

“Related?” BoCo said after a second. 

“Not the word I was looking for but close enough.” James continued. “He doesn’t think he’s allowed to care about you unless you’re… related to him, somehow. Or at least that it’s not proper. Stupid Londoner nonsense if you ask me, but he tries to care anyways, which means that when someone like you gets bossed around and treated like yesterday’s ashes by the… what’s the word?”

“Embodiment?”

“Yep that’s it - the embodiment of your railway, he doesn’t think he can help because… “well that’s a Great Western issue”.” James could not imitate Gordon at all but he did it anyway. “And so when he has to do something - and trust me somebody was going to have to do something about that berk - he’s going to get…”

“Inventive?” 

James glared at Edward, Delta, and BoCo. “Would you three like to say it?”

“No, I think you’re doing a fine job.”

“Nope.”

“You’ve got it under control.”

James sighed deeply, and opened his mouth to say something more, but was cut off by Bear. “So, wait. Gordon did all that because he… cares about me? Us?” 

“If you must know,” Gordon’s voice rang out as he backed into the shed in a flurry of smoke and snowflakes. “I did it because you would otherwise be forever yoked to that infantile and childish railway and its monstrous figurehead. By “staking a claim” in you, for lack of a better phrase, you are once and forevermore freed of any association with that brutish monstrosity.”

“And the fact that you now have a guilt-free reason to be nice to him is just a perk, hm?” Delta said smugly. 

“Delta,” Gordon said as he was turned on the turntable. “If you would like for me to have a ‘guilt free reason’ to be nice to you, all you have to do is ask. 

“I like my heritage.” She said, all too quickly. “Really!” 

Gordon laughed regally, and backed into the stall between Bear and Edward. “Yes, I’m sure. The offer will stand, however.”

His crew hopped down and began cleaning out his ashpan. Bear took the momentary clatter to whisper to Gordon. “You really didn’t have to do that, you know. I could’ve handled it.”

“I did have to, actually.” Gordon said just as quietly. “There is a time for passivity, and a time for action. The instant he laid buffer on you, the time for action was upon us.”

He said it so firmly, so utterly final, that Bear’s response died in his throat. Gordon looked at him for a second, before turning his attention to the other engines. 

Bear sat there for a while, absorbing his words. My god. They do care about me.

[ginandoldlace]

Flower Sellers on Piccadilly Circus. c. 1900. By 1889, there were 2,000 flower sellers in the city. They had not been a fixture on London streets for long, but had become plentiful so quickly that it was hard to imagine the metropolis without them. They stood in the main thoroughfares, and at the entrances to hospitals and cemeteries, and they sold to people of all classes.

With so many sellers on the streets, competition was fierce. Newspapers through the late 1800s carry mentions of flower sellers getting in drunken brawls with their rivals, blocking roadways with their laden baskets, and pushing flowers into people’s faces to urge them to buy. It would seem there were too many sellers and not enough buyers, which perhaps had something to do with the bizarre story that unfolded in Hackney in June of 1891.

One Friday, late in the afternoon, a man approached a young girl named Ethel Roundtree. He was carrying a small paper bag and asked, “Will you give these two buns to that woman standing on the corner selling flowers?” Ethel thought nothing of the request, and brought the bag to flower seller Jane Bass. The treats inside looked like Bath buns — normally sweet, sticky and delicious — but when Bass broke one open to have a taste, “some yellow stuff come out of it.... It smelt nasty.” Bass brought the buns to the Hackney police station, and an inspector had them analyzed by Dr. Henry Gould, who confirmed they contained phosphorus paste.

Ethel Roundtree helped the police find the man at a local pub. The “repulsive-looking elderly man” described by news papers was named Patrick Costello, whose wife sold flowers in the same area as Bass. Costello claimed, “I never bought no buns.” But on his person police discovered “a box of zinc ointment, some blue stone, and little box containing phosphorus paste marked ‘poison.’” He was sentenced to nine months in prison.

[redstuffs-ig]

i've just found out something super funny so apparently in the "Scum and Villainy: Case Files on the Galaxy's Most Notorious" canon book, written in part by Inspector Divo from the Clone Wars TV show (remember him? me neither) they had a section on Krayt's Claw with this to say: Sourced from Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki: Divo finally learned what had happened to Fett in the last year of the war when Sedra Hoxin, a constable from the prefect of Mos Eisley, a spaceport on Tatooine, contacted him. The constable sent Divo a holographic image touting the services of the "Krayt's Claw," a posse of bounty hunters stationed on Tatooine, among them Fett.

They had fucking ads.

This band of mercenaries, a bunch of them wanted, had fucking ads. Could you imagine browsing the HoloNet, watching space YouTube when your video of Twi'Lek dancers gets interrupted by an advertisement that goes "Hey, want a fucker dead? Need to guard a train carrying important cargo? We're your people! Dial Krayt's Claw at 066-22-1313, Mos Eisley Spaceport, Tatooine, and hire a team of professional bounty hunters for all your gunslinging needs"

i'd kill and murder to see this shit brought to life. was it like a stylized animation made by Latts, did they strap a camera to Highsinger or something, I NEED TO KNOW

[misssharrington]

— ✧ ˚ · girl of steel !!

. . . ࿐ྂ ❝ one | the morning after ❞

wattpad | playlist

The creaking of the train echoed through the emptied carriage of the early morning. Passing lights of tunnels and the sunrise shone through the windows, softly coating my face in faint warmth. I sat in the seat closest to the door, resting my aching head against the glass as I took in my reflection.

My black bra was perfectly visible through my barely-there top. The mini-skirt I wore had ridden up more than you could possibly imagine, lace stockings unclipped and hanging around my shins. I held my black heeled pumps in my hands. Any makeup I had worn the night before was rubbed off, the only remaining remnants being the black eyeliner smeared over my eyes, and glitter along my cheekbones and all in my hair. I couldn't tell if it was the train glass making my reflection all distorted or what was leftover in my system.

I sat with my legs tucked into myself, fading in and out of sleep. I rubbed my eyes with my hands groggily, debating whether I should stay on this train instead of going home.

There were a handful of people in the same carriage as me. A middle aged man seemed to wear a perverted smirk as he ogled me. I stuck my middle finger up at him, and his expression turned sour. I laughed at his reaction. Across from me, a concerned mother was trying to keep her son as away from me as possible.

The carriage doors opened and a ticket inspector came walking through. I cursed under my breath and went to get up, but there were too few people around to distract him from my movement. 

"Ticket?" He asked me. 

"Um, yeah." I replied hesitantly, feeling around my non-existent pockets for a ticket.

The inspector stood impatiently in front of me, tapping his foot on the metal floor. The pervert smirked at my obvious trouble. 

"Miss, if you don't have a ticket, I'm going to have to fine you." He told me. 

"Please don't do that." I asked tiredly, my voice hoarse from last night. 

He sighed. "If you pay for a ticket now, I won't fine you."

I groaned. 

"What's the problem?" He asked. 

"I don't have any money." I told him, cringing my face at his reaction.

"I'm going to have to fine you." He told me sternly. 

"Listen, man-" I began, before I was interrupted. 

"I can pay!" A boy not so far from me intruded on the situation. 

"Young man, this is her problem, not yours." The ticket inspector told him. 

"No, really, it's okay. I can pay for her ticket." The boy insisted. 

The inspector looked between him and I suspiciously. I shrugged at him, just as confused as he was. 

He sighed. "Alright." 

The boy paid for the ticket, and the inspector begrudgingly left. The boy handed the ticket to me with an awkward smile. 

He looked about my age, with dark hair and a dorky lopsided smile. 

"Thanks..." I trailed off, waiting for his name. 

"Tim." He told me sweetly. 

"Tim. Thanks, again." I said. 

"No problem..." He waited for me to do the same. 

"Bianca." I told him. 

"Bianca." He repeated, the name sounding melodic on his lips. 

"That was really nice of you." I said to him truthfully.

"It was really no problem. Don't worry about it." He told me. 

We well into a silence next to each other. The only noise between us was the train bumping on the old tracks. 

"So," I began, "where are you headed?"

"School." Tim told me. 

"Cool." I nodded my head. "Me too."

He tilted his head in slight confusion. "Does your school not have a dress code?"

"Watch." I told him, standing up. I put on the jumper I was carrying with me, which covered my whole chest. I pulled my skirt down so it wasn't so short, clipped my stockings back, and put my shoes on. 

"Ta da!" I said in a sing songy voice, my appearance now more presentable. 

"Cool party trick." He said, grinning. 

"Thanks!" I smiled back. 

The train pulled into my station. I felt a pang of annoyance that my conversation with Tim had to be cut short. 

"This is me." I said. 

"Oh." He hummed lowly. "Well, have fun at school."

"See you round Tim. I owe you. For the ticket, I mean." I told him, smirking. 

"Yeah, you do." He retorted, a glint in his eyes. 

I chucked to myself, stepping off of the train and into the dingy station. As it began to leave, I looked back to the carriage. He was looking back at me. I sucked in my cheeks, watching the train leave, butterflies in my stomach. I shook my head at myself, snapping out of my own silly thoughts.

As I entered the school's office, the lady who worked there didn't lift her head to acknowledge me. She continued to tap her long-nailed fingers on her keyboard in front of her. I cleared my throat, and she looked up. 

"Hi." I waved at her innocently. 

"You're late." She told me blankly. 

"I know, I'm here to sign in." I told her.

"You can only sign in if you have a reason to be late." She said. 

"I had a doctors appointment." I said, lying through my teeth.

"Did you now?" She replied sarcastically. 

"Yeah?" I said, unsure of how well this was going. 

She said nothing, and handed me a plastic ziplock bag. 

"Aw, why?" I moaned at her.

"You're late. Again." She ground through her teeth, tapping her pen on her desk in annoyance.

I huffed as I emptied out my pockets. I put my phone and lipgloss into the bag, and handed it back to the lady. She raised her eyebrow at me, and crossed her arms. 

"Fine." I sighed, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter I had hidden in my bra. I put them in the bag and sealed it up. The lady snatched it out of my hands. 

"Collect it at the end of the day." She told me, before turning her back on me, and continuing to do her work. 

I rolled my eyes at her, and walked to class. 

The hallways were empty and dim. Lifeless is the word I would use. This was Bakerline Prep, a reform school for troubled teens. I had been expelled from school a couple of months ago, and admitted into this institution not long after. It was a prison for sixteen year olds - literally. Everything was clinical. All the rooms were white. All the desks were metal. Any sharp edges were harm proofed. There weren't even locks on bathroom doors. 

I came up to the classroom, and peeked through the glass of the door. I debated running away and hiding in a closet somewhere. Sighing, I opened the door with a creak. 

"Bianca, you're late." The teacher told me. 

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I grumbled, and made my way to my seat through a maze of sullen faces. 

The teacher continued to speak, and I sunk down in my seat, overcome with boredom. I hung my head backwards, looking at the boy behind me. 

"Hi." I whispered to Luke. 

He leaned forward, smirking at me. 

"You should be paying attention." Luke teased. "You've already missed the first half of the lesson."

"You should be paying attention." I said. "Otherwise you'll get held back another year."

He kicked my chair and I giggled. 

"Pass these around the classroom." The teacher began. "Please write your name and age. Read through and tick the boxes of what sounds interesting to you. We will do our hardest to get you placements according to your preferences." He droned on, reading the lesson plan from a sheet of paper through his thickly rimmed glasses. 

The sheet of paper was passed back to me. I wasn't paying enough attention to know what was happening. I looked back to Luke for help. 

"Placement year forms." He told me. I continued to stare at him, not knowing what that was. 

"Work experience." He simplified it. I made an 'o' shape with my mouth, understanding. 

I read the form in front of me, tapping my pen on the metal desk. The chairs and desks were firmly screwed into the ground, so no one can try and throw them. I learned the hard way. 

I began to fill in all the forms. Name: Bianca Romano. Age: 16.

I put my hand up, and the teacher came over. 

"Can I have a pen reader?" I asked him. 

"Yeah, sure." He told me, and handed me one from his desk drawer, with some headphones.

I plugged them in and dragged the reader over each word. It repeated them into the headphones, reading the words out to me, rather than me trying to struggle through my dyslexia. 

Write reports. No.

Work in an office. No. 

Work with animals. I ticked that box.

Take care of children. Hell no.

Act in a TV show or movie. I didn't tick it. I wouldn't like those many cameras on me all at once. 

Write for a newspaper. Newspaper? I stared at that option, hesitantly ticking the box. I didn't even think people read newspapers anymore. Maybe the workload would be minimal. 

I made my way through the rest of the list, leaving the remaining boxes blank. These were all terrible, but I didn't expect any respectively good companies to want troubled children with criminal records working for them. 

I looked around once I was done, realising I was the last one in the empty classroom. I stood up and handed the paper to the teacher, and left. 

"Hey." I heard someone call me. I turned around, to see Luke following me into the school garden. 

"Hey yourself." I said, sitting on one of the tables outside, resting my feet on the seat attached to it. 

He came to stand in front of me, and pulled out a cigarette from his pocket. Luke offered me one, and I accepted. He lit it for me with a grin. I eyed him cautiously. He was tall, and handsome, and he had a sharp smile that cut like a knife. 

"What did you do to your hair?" Luke asked, brushing his fingers through my blue streaked blonde locks. 

"I dyed it." I told him, bored. 

"It looks... distinctive." He struggled to find the words. 

"Thanks." I said dismissively, having no care for his opinion. 

"What did you pick for your placement?" He asked me, switching the conversation.

"Animals and newspaper." I told him. 

"Newspaper?" Luke laughed at me. 

"What?" I asked.

"Why would you pick newspaper?" He asked, confused.

"Like Sex In The City!" I defended myself.

"You know that involves, like, actually doing something." Luke teased me.

"No, really? I thought I would tick the box and suddenly the newspaper fairies would appear and carry me to an office far far away." I replied sarcastically. He rolled his eyes at me. 

"I didn't realise I don't meet your standards for work placements." I told him, feigning innocence. "God forbid I'm even seen with you in public." I said, getting up to leave. 

"C'mon, I was only messing around." He said, moving in front of me so I don't leave. I tilted my head at him, annoyed. He brushed his hands over my shoulders, down to my waist. 

"I'm only playing, don't be mad." Luke said charmingly. His cropped brown hair glinted more auburn in the midday sunlight. 

I gathered the material of his shirt in my hands and pulled him forward, so his face was close to mine. 

"Don't be fucking rude." I told him sweetly.

I put out my cigarette on the sleeve of his jacket, and went to leave for the cafeteria. I felt my stomach begin to rumble in hunger. Luke stayed where he was, but gave me some money for food. 

"Drop me home later?" I asked, fluttering my eyelashes. 

"Always." He told me. 

I smiled, pleased with his answer. I wasn't exactly asking. 

I thanked Luke with a kiss for driving me all the way home. He had asked to come up to my room, but I hadn't let him. It wasn't that I didn't like him - I was just embarrassed of what my life would look like compared to his. Luke was from the Luthor family - his father was the CEO of LexCorp. They shit gold. 

And me? They wouldn't touch my gold with a ten foot pole. 

It was something I didn't want to think about. Luke lived with his father in a penthouse apartment that had more bathrooms than I could count on one hand. And I lived in one small flat with my family of eight, with three bedrooms between us. 

I made my way up the stairs to our apartment, and bumped into Camilla, my younger sister. 

"Where are you going?" I asked her, eyeing her blue and yellow cheer uniform.

"I have a pep rally." She said, brushing her curly brown hair out of her face, barely looking at me. 

The sound of Luke's expensive car leaving the street echoed through the tattered building doors.  We watched the car drive away through the glass. Camilla scoffed at his obnoxiousness.

"Why do you even hang out with him?" She scoffed. "Oh, that's right. He's rich, and single, and male. Of course you'd throw yourself at him." My sister smirked at me viciously. 

I held back my anger at her comment. "Good luck at your pep rally, Cami. And good luck on the top of the pyramid. Hopefully you don't slip, fall and break your neck." I told her sweetly, venom lacing my tone. 

"Whatever." She said, storming off down the stairs. 

I arrived at our door, and knocked, not having my keys. No one answered. I tried the door handle, and it was unlocked. If we ever get robbed, we'd probably deserve it. But I pity the robber that comes into our apartment looking for anything nice at all. 

I walked into the kitchen, sighing when I saw Tina, my older sister. 

"You look like shit." She told me, eyeing my appearance like a vulture. 

"Not all of us can be perfect like you." I told her, looking her up and down. Her hair was straightened, dark silky waves falling down her back. Her makeup was perfectly done, and her workwear was pristine. 

"Where were you last night?" She asked me. 

I got a bowl out of a cupboard and poured myself some cereal. I huffed when there was only scraps left in the bag for me to have. 

"I was at church." I told her sarcastically.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at my lack of an answer.

"I ran into Cami in the hallway." I mentioned, pouring some milk into the bowl. Tina nodded uninterested. "She still hates me." I continued. 

"You did have sex with her boyfriend." She bit back. 

I slammed the milk down on the counter angrily, splitting the bottom of the plastic bottle. 

"He is not her boyfriend!" I shouted. "He never was!"

"Jesus, Bianca-" Tina began.

"I had sex with someone she wanted to and she's still sore I got there first, and now she's a massive bitch to me every second of my life and everyone defends her!" I continued to shout. 

Tina stared at me, quiet. "Having tantrums about your mistakes won't fix things." She told me lowly. 

I sucked my cheeks in with anger, pursing my lips and sticking my middle finger up at her. She rolled her eyes at my behaviour, ignoring me. I turned to storm out of the room. 

"Your cereal?" Tina reminded me. 

"Why the fuck would I want the scraps left for the least favourite child?" I retorted, hurt lacing my words. 

I got to my room and slammed the door shut, loudly. 

I was so overcome with anger, I grabbed a pillow from my bed and screamed into it. I smashed it with my fists until I became tired, and lay on my bed in defeat. Everything was so shit. The world was tinted in a permanent grey. I didn't know how much longer I could take it.

remember to like and reblog !!

[witchofthesouls]

The last option for the Decepticons/Autobots to discover a Gadget is hilariously on point. No one but the whackiest inspector around would stumble upon actual aliens on their break but also ruin the enemy faction's cover. Spike just staring when the bots mention the encounter before he shows them the Inspector Gadget movie.

Prowl being friends with a Gadget just gives me Good Cop/Bad Cop vibes as the latter definitely isn't that threatening in an interrogation. Plus Go Go Gadget Toothpaste Slick is a funnier possible way to deter the science bots cause its sticky and feels weird. Also something a Cybertronian shouldn't try to rub off their optics haphazardly cause it smears.

A Gadget could happen in Aligned, Animated, and Earthspark. The latter being in the same (sorta) universe as G1 so it's a bigger possibility. For Aligned, it's because of Rescue Bots side since the whackiest shit tends to happen there, like Optimus going T-Rex, so a Gadget being made plus ending up entangled in Prime's shenanigans can happen.(Prime deserves an extra dose of weirdness.)

Finally Animated is another possibility cause the human villains being insanely diverse from serious to absurd leads to the possibility of a Gadget hero. Plus Captain Fanzone as their police chief makes it funnier. The poor man knows what shenanigans their rookie gets into and them accidentally kicking Sentinel in the bearings because of a glitch is expected for him.

Exactly! Just imagine the resident Autobot-aligned humans going, "Are you sure? Did Megatron throw too hard? Ratchet needs to look at the dent in your helm."

Meanwhile, the Decepticons are furiously searching for such a terrible and terrific monstrosity! Megatron is howling that "abomination" under his command!

Prowl and Inspector friendship because both of them understand how to be an outsider from their own kind from specialized equipment and situations outside their hands/choices. Prowl helps the poor Inspector from being shanghaied by the science 'bots. They become known as Prowl's "squishy new bird" since the Inspector is generally found perched on the mech's shoulder or using the propellor to buzz around him.

The Inspector is very much aware of how much their supplies are written off by taxpayers' dollars. If they're not on the job or in danger, they don't want to utilize the armed gadgets. At least the propellor can use gasoline. It's awkward to fuel as a station, so they have an empty fuel container they lug around on vacation or their downtime in the car trunk.

Ngl, I thought of TFA as well, but there's a whole lot of dark implications in that universe and I wanted to keep it light-hearted fun. Plus, you would think with all that sci-fi, futuristic stuff going on, there would be humans with cybernetic prosthetics and a lot of other supplemental or augmentation gear. Something from I, Robot, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, My Hero Academia, or Overwatch. Having an Inspector Gadget wouldn't be so far-fetched or as fun and hilarious.

Same reasons why TFP/Aligned and Earthspark were out as well.

[greentrapped]

Imagine if you will: A land of ruins - a fallen civilization rests upon these plains and hills. The ruins themselves are of stone and metal, char and rubble, grass and dirt. Hints of gold among the cracked arches, animals wandering through the cities long fallen, trees and flowers flourishing inside and around the collapsed walls...

But this land is not forgotten. Wander long enough and you'll likely meet someone - robed, masked, short and stout folk exploring, dismantling and salvaging whatever they consider useful - always in a group, save for the rare outlier that seems to do something entirely different - hunting.

When I say masked, I don't mean a white, porcelain mask you'd see on actors in a tragic opera, I mean something that looks like a mix between a gas mask and an astronaut helmet. A rounded visor and an air filter, with attached tubes connecting to a machine on the wearer's back - wires, lights, indicators and an air tank. Yet just when you think it might be some kind of life support - you see one of them grab the other's mask and rip it off, cackling with delight whilst the prank victim complains and puts it back on. Turns out they're not vital, but are merely making the people more comfortable up here - a sign of long days of work.

Who are these people? Well... They're Dwarves.

Explore a bit more and you'll find several checkpoints guarding heavily armored doors - entrances to their civilization. Go through and an expansive network of underground tunnels will appear before you - sturdy and industrial. Some trucks move along the roads, hauling salvage down below, others, completely empty, are followed by vans with crews wearing the same uniforms as the folk above - more people heading out to begin their shift. They put on their masks after the inspectors make sure everything is in order (a process that takes around 20 seconds on average, if we don't take into account some casual banter between them).

Meanwhile, some checkpoints serve a different purpose - they're not for the working crews, but instead the outsiders - depending on where in the region you are, you'll see either a transport or two, or heavy traffic through wide, arch-like gates leading to the surface - All of them inspected right before the tunnel roofs conceal the skies above (or the other way around, if they're leaving). These range from simple civilian transports to large, industrial lorries hauling all sorts of goods across the border.

Let's go deeper, then! As the roads go deeper, some of them split, whilst others merge. The smaller off-shoots lead to all manner of areas, though they aren't anything novel or impressive typically. Fuel stations, Garages, guard stations - the like. The bigger roads naturally lead to bigger locations - and more important by association. Moving up on the hierarchy from 'Jim's Wheels' workshops and 'Roadside Upside' stores we find villages and farms where hardy crops and adapted livestock is grown for produce, towns and mines where precious metals and fuels are extracted and later shipped to cities and industrial areas where the raw product is turned and refined into products with quality sought after across and outside the entire continent - for it is of Dwarven origin.

When you want absolute assurance in the quality of materials - you turn to Dwarves. When you want the most reliable equipment - you turn to Dwarves. When you want manpower for construction of critical projects - you turn to Dwarves.

When you want hard work done right, you turn to Dwarves.

You turn to Talamrab.

Talamrab, With it's expansive underground megalopolises and workregions, is a nation of hard-working, skilled folk who make up for their height and with expertise tenfold. You come here to find people who were driven underground long ago by their masters, elves. Their class was deemed unworthy of the surface, for the sun was for the beautiful, elegant nobles and their foreign guests. Over time they adapted to full lives in the depths - tolerance to cold, physiques forged by cave threats and hard work.

At one point they had enough.

Their numbers were bigger, as was their strength and discontent. In a manner of weeks the uprising proved successful as noble, now disgraced Elves were exiled from their former kingdom while the poor, now empowered Dwarves claimed the kingdom they once built for their oppressors. They didn't wish to move back up onto the surface though, spare for a few. Instead, they grew accustomed to the underground - finding it much more comfortable and promising.

Centuries later, those promises held up.

[ukrfeminism]

5 minute read

A woman was sexually harassed by a firefighter as he responded to a blaze at her home, as he asked her 'why are you single?' and suggested he call around again after his shift had finished. 

The mother of one said the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service watch manager's "predatory" and "insidious" advances left her feeling “really uneasy” at a time when she was at her most vulnerable – alone in the house with her daughter and dressed only in a dressing gown. 

The woman, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, was prompted to speak out about the incident for the first time after learning the man had since been promoted.

“He was behaving like he was drunk in a bar, being quite laddish and strutting around the house,” the now-46-year-old told The Independent. 

“He kept commenting on me being a single parent. He said it at least three times. One time he turned to his colleague and said, ‘Oh, she’s single.’ Later [asking] ‘So, why are you single?’”

It comes after an HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) report, published in March, warned discrimination, bullying and harassment were rife in fire services after a review uncovered incidents in which firefighters “acted out a rape” and used the n-word.

In response, The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) on Wednesday launched a drive to tackle “decades of harassment, bullying and discrimination” in the fire service following multiple damning reports. The union pledged to create its own set of reforms, as it slammed failures as going “right to the very top of fire service management”.

Describing her experience in 2016, the woman said she was with her then-six-year-old daughter when a fire broke out in her garage at night. 

Neighbours alerted the fire service after spotting the flames and the pair escaped the blaze safely. But the unwelcome advances of the fire officer began when the watch manager and two other fire officers went into her home to do safety checks.

“He was looking at photos on my walls and commenting on what my friends looked like,” she said. 

“He offered to call round after his shift. He didn’t imply anything but to check on me - but it just felt a bit odd. I wouldn't imagine that is protocol.

”It felt really unprofessional, and the fact that he was the watch manager left me feeling really uneasy.”

The woman said she minimised her experience at the time but someone who witnessed what happened later approached her to raise concern, saying: “He was really inappropriate with you.” 

The woman said this validation of her experience encouraged her to make a formal complaint.

The station manager later visited her home to take down details of what had happened and she received a letter of apology letter from the watch manager. 

Although, rather than an admission of guilt, she said it was phrased in a way that implied “sorry if I made you feel that way”.

Beyond that letter, the woman said she does not know if any other action was taken. 

The man is still working at Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service and, according to his online profile, has since been promoted. 

That knowledge made the woman "hope I never ever have another fire”.

Alex Waller, chief fire officer and chief executive of Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, said of the woman's case: “A station manager swiftly investigated the complaint in line with procedure and found the watch manager's behaviour fell short of our expected behaviours and values. Proportionate action was taken and he apologised to the complainant.”

Reacting to the woman's case, HM Inspector of Fire and Rescue Services Roy Wilsher told The Independent “the public should be able to trust fire and rescue staff implicitly”.

“There is no room in any service for someone who behaves inappropriately or perpetuates toxic culture,” he added.

The HMICFRS has called for greater transparency on sexual harassment within the service, telling The Independent that no official body currently collates figures on such complaints and called on the Home Office to do so. 

Most individual fire services appear not to publish the information either, although the London Fire Brigade began doing so in November after a separate independent review found it was “institutionally misogynist and racist”.

The National Fire Chiefs Council confirmed to The Independent that while a national code of ethics was published in 2021 there is no independent national body that deals with issues raised about the fire service. Instead, each service acts as its own employer with its own disciplinary procedures, dealing with issues internally.

FBU General Secretary Matt Wrack revealed the union will launch its own set of standards on equalities and will hold fire services to account against these. He added it will launch a nationwide poster campaign aimed at changing the conversation around discrimination in the service.

The Home Office told The Independent it was “carefully considering the [HMICFRS] report’s deeply concerning findings”.

[mooseyspooky]

A mindless ramble about Maudlin Street for @wolfstrong

So 'Late Night, Maudlin Street' is the sixth song on Moz' first solo album Viva Hate, an album Moz was forced to write contractually by the record label. An album that had to credit Johnny even though he didn't write anything on it - due to stipulations in the contract.

Maudlin Street is the last song on Side One of the vinyl. Right before it comes 'Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together,' which refers to the film Angel, Angel Down We Go from 1969. The plot of which is listed on Wikipedia as: "The overweight, emotionally troubled daughter of an affluent but brittle Hollywood couple becomes involved with a charismatic rock singer and his friends. The singer proceeds to seduce and manipulate her entire family." I find that incredibly interesting since, as we all know, Moz did actually admit to writing Angel, Angel about Johnny.

And I don't think it's possible to listen to Late Night, Maudlin Street without Angel, Angel. I firmly believe these two songs are a conversation - where Angel, Angel is Johnny directly speaking to Moz. Whether this was a real conversation that happened after the break up or an imagined one, I don't know.

The reason I'm so personally set on this with no facts to back it up is because in Angel, Angel, Johnny says: "Don't take your life tonight." And in Maudlin Street, it feels like we hear the other side of the conversation from Moz: "I took strange pills, but I never meant to hurt you." I added this to the original post with all the songs, but it's important to repeat it here.

Another important thing to remember is that this song was written maybe 2 to 3 months after Johnny left in June 1987, maybe around October or November 1987 (hence 'winter coming, winter push on'). This would have been an incredibly tough time for Moz, and there's been rumors talked about on Moz Solo that say he actually did attempt to take his own life around this time, though these rumors are not verified and only reported by a second or thirdhand source.

Some parts of Angel, Angel may be Moz speaking to Johnny ("I will be here, believe me"), but I think the central refrain is definitely Johnny speaking to him.

Maudlin Street itself is an interesting mix of things both real and imagined. There are book quotes (Elizabeth Smart, By the Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept: 'Inspector? Do you not believe in love?'), movie like imagery, and childhood experiences like the 1972 miners strike that led to power cuts (Mozzipedia page 272, Simon Goddard): 'don't leave your torch behind, 1972, you know.' Then a massive amount of the song was rewritten for a handful of live performances from 2002, and oftentimes Moz sings songs live how he truly wants them to be heard.

We also, of course, have parts of the 'conversation' Moz is having with Johnny (again, it could be an imagined conversation. It might not have been one that actually happened): 'I sleep with a picture of you by the bed,' 'truly I do love you,' 'we crept through a park,' 'but you without clothes...'

Many of the lines echo sentiments in other Johnny songs. In 'You Must Please Remember': 'you, too beautiful. I can't look.' Then in 'Stretch Out and Wait' there's icy cold hands leading the way (you without clothes). 'Suedehead' refers to Moz' diary being in his room - and oftentimes Moz glues in images or draws portraits when he's writing as we saw in the Robert Mackie letters, thus 'a picture of you by the bed' -> 'So many illustrations.'

And of course: 'I could list the detail of everything you ever wore or said, or how you stood that day.' Passionsjustlikemine notes Moz changed this to 'how you stood on the day' in the few live performances there were. This is undoubtedly in reference to the day they both met in 1982 - and, interestingly enough, Johnny listed exactly what they were both wearing in Set the Boy Free in 2016. Which I find so fascinating.

Mozzipedia also mentions this quote from Sandie Shaw on page 218: "Shaw remembers first hearing the track during the making of the album when Morrissey turned and caught her eye 'with such a pained expression...I cried, he cried. I sensed his fear and I felt so frightened for him.'"

All of this to say, basically, I feel like these two songs together combine to make a longer narrative. Where Johnny is trying to help Moz not fall apart and Moz is lost or maybe even trapped in his own memories - because the pain of reality is too overwhelming ('every hag/slag waving me on', 'i never stole a happy hour around here'). And so memories of childhood, of driving in the van, of creeping through the park are all preferable to the actual conversation they're meant to be having.

[justacanofcorn]

quam amiterre ludum (losing the game) James Moriarty x OC

Chapter Twenty: ludo finitum.

Chapter Nineteen

Finally, Anora gets closure. finishing the game.

Two days later, James's sentencing is postponed due to insufficient evidence. Days after that, due to backroom arguments and political strains, sentencing is postponed indefinitely. James will sit in a prison cell for days, for weeks, months- how long? Will it go on until they forget him, and then is it really justice?

John tells Anora not to worry. Sherlock tells her that he won't let the forgetting happen. She knows there's nothing he can do. There's nothing any of them can do, except try to move on. And while it seems that Sherlock, Irene, and John have made that look easy enough, every day Anora feels as though she's made some grievous error. There's no way she could've been any more prepared for that day in court, nothing more she could have said to make her case, or weaken James's. She told the truth as it is.

Yes, human tragedies and human judgment indeed.

Human error, too.

Because, on a particularly early, freezing morning in early January, Anora bundles up in her coat, scarf, and gloves, and quietly departs from 221b Baker Street. She quickly catches a carriage and makes for Scotland Yard. Surely this will get around to someone, but she's hoping that the early hour will save her some time. 

When she arrives, she asks to speak to Lestrade, which is difficult enough, given his busy schedule and propensity to make things needlessly complicated, but eventually he finds her in the waiting area.

“Miss Leeds. Awful early to be making calls, isn't it?”

They don't shake hands and there's no proprietary greetings. Anora doesn't mind this.

“I need a favor,” she says. Lestrade chuckles. 

“Yes, I see why you and Holmes get on like a house on fire.”

“I've never asked you for anything. We've hardly ever spoken unless there's a battle raging in the background. Could you at least hear me out, please?”

Lestrade’s facetious smile dwindles and he stands with his hands on his hips. Anora takes his silence as an allowance to continue.

“It's a personal favor. I… I feel as though I didn't get closure with him. All I want is a conversation.”

Lestrade studies her.

“I'll have to search you for weapons.”

“I'm tired of him beating death, so I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying again.”

Lestrade likely doesn't miss her inclusion of the word ‘again’, but he allows it to slip by. 

“You're not worried how it'll look?”

“They've made their decision; they're just toiling over it at this point. They've cast their judgment on me- faster than his, I imagine.”

“You think yourself rather important, don't you? Enough to have some sort of reputation.”

Anora sighs and stands. “Yes, Inspector. I do think that because it's true. My actions can have dire consequences and I'm aware of them. Just as you. However, I don't plan on wielding that for personal gain, so let me speak with him or don't. But please, let's not waste each other's mornings.”

Lestrade takes a long moment to think, working his jaw, staring her so uncomfortably in the face that Anora has to fight the urge to look away. But she doesn't. 

“Alright. I'll give you a few minutes. He's due for his walk, anyhow.”

Lestrade begins to walk further into the station, so Anora follows.

“His walk?”

“You and I are both well aware that I am not the ultimate voice when it comes to decisions, and those who are, are particularly partial to bribes. I'll say this for the professor: he spends his money on strange favors.”

Anora thinks to ask him what he means, but realizes that she'll likely soon find out.

He leads her back into the holding cells, which Anora is still vaguely familiar with, given that she had spent an afternoon here with Sherlock. But the cell on the end, the larger one, is not sparse like the others. It's furnished nicely, almost comically so, with a proper cot, a desk and oil lamp, and a small stack of books. At the desk sits James, writing intently. Anora watches him for the brief moment she has while he's in this state. Unaware. Like a predator vulnerable in a zoo, unknowing or uncaring that it's being watched. 

Lestrade finds a guard. “Let him out early. He's got a visitor. Keep an especially close eye on him.”

The guard nods. James finishes his writing, replaces the pen to its font, and blows lightly on the paper to dry the ink, before folding it and placing it carefully within one of the books.

“Professor?” The guard calls. “We're taking you out early. You've got a visitor.”

Anora realizes that Lestrade has been lingering next to her and she wonders why. When James retrieves his coat from a hook and turns to put it on, he sees her. He freezes. For the first time, he's caught off guard. Anora takes small pride in that.

“Well,” he says, finally slipping his other arm into the coat sleeve. “Good morning, dear Anora.”

At this, Lestrade nods and leans in to Anora. 

“Let me know if you need anything, alright?”

He suddenly sounds very serious and as he departs Anora realizes why he had stayed. He wanted to see how James would react, whether he'd be composed or volatile. It isn't a well thought out consideration, since James plays any emotion close to his chest, but it's a consideration nonetheless.

The guard goes to the cell door and unlocks it a bit too casually for Anora's liking, considering the man inside. James approaches her cooly; she's still at the opposite end of the row of cells. However, instead of his trademark smirk to make her feel small, he offers her his arm. 

“Shall we go for a walk, my dear?”

With great caution and a look at the guard, who's keeping a safe distance with an intense gaze, Anora loops her arm around James's and they walk from the holding area to the yard. Snow coats the ground but regardless, birds hop around and settle on the benches. Once they're out in the brittle, grey cold, the guard clears his throat.

“The birdseed, sir,” he says, and hands James a small bag. He accepts it with a grin.

“Yes, thank you Benjamin.”

They begin at a leisurely pace, though there isn't much to see, and Anora keeps her eyes either firmly ahead of her or on the ground. Eventually they come to one of the benches, which James brushes the snow from before they sit. He uncurls the top of the bag and scoops birdseed into his hands, then sprinkles it onto the snowy ground. Surprisingly fast, pigeons and doves flock to their feet to peck at their breakfast. Anora finally finds her words.

“I didn't know you liked birds.”

James looks at her and crinkles his brow.

“I never took you to feed birds?”

All Anora can do is shake her head. James hums in thought before he continues. He offers her the bag. 

“I'm not hungry,” she quips, and it feels so strange coming out of her mouth, like an unexpected knee jerk or a forgotten instinct. James laughs loudly, enough to make her jump, and his breath clouds the air. 

“I've missed that,” he says before rolling the top of the bag to seal it again. He sets it beside him and clasps his hands together. He leans forward to watch the birds, his gaze occasionally flicking up to take in the morning London sky. 

“What do you hear?” He asks. Anora shudders in the cold.

“Nothing. I don't know what their decision will be. I have no means of guessing.”

“What do you hope?”

Anora looks at him and frowns.

“That's not fair.”

His eyes look over her face before returning to the birds.

“No, I suppose it's not. Forgive me.”

As if it were easy.

When James places a hand on her knee, Anora starts and looks over her shoulder at the guard, who has remained stationed at the door.

“Oh, I pay him enough to turn a blind eye, but I have no intention of hurting you.”

That doesn't ease Anora's blanking mind or racing heart. His gloved hand lifts and sits atop where hers are clasped in her lap. He leans in and she forces herself not to be afraid. He looks at their hands as he speaks.

“Do you still love me in spite of it?”

Anora, somehow, isn't shocked by the question. 

“Do you, with me, in turn?”

“Would my answer matter, since I am now the one with considerably less to lose?”

“And I more?”

He nods.

“Well, then would my answer feel genuine, since I have to be calculated? Since I have more to lose? Could you trust me?”

His other hand finds the side of her face and gently turns her head to him. 

“Yes, I could. You always knew how to weigh risks.”

He strokes her cheek with his thumb. Anora allows the cold to sting her eyes.

“We're never going to see each other again,” she says. “Whether they hang you or not. That's a decision I'm making.”

He nods in understanding. She hadn't expected him to fight.

“Alright.”

Anora feels like she has more to say but she can't think of it. In her silence, he carefully leans closer and gently kisses her on the forehead. That's as far as he tries to go and Anora is grateful. For the remainder of their final time together, in the frigid cold with the birds cooing around them, she allows him to hold her hand.

A few days later, they have a small, belated birthday gathering for Sherlock. It's the residents of 221 Baker Street, the Watsons, and Mycroft. Anora has Monty driven over, and after Sherlock blows out on the candles on the cake that Mrs. Hudson had baked, Anora brings him in. Mrs. Hudson gasps, Irene claps in glee, and Sherlock stares. Monty sits in the center of the room, thumping his tail against the floor, and looks around. 

“Hey,” Anora whispers to him, and leads him to Sherlock. “Here's your new caretaker. His name is Sherlock, and he seems strange, but he's actually very kind. Sherlock, this is Monty.”

Monty and Sherlock stare at each other. Lizzie, sitting on John's lap, makes a happy sound once she realizes the fluffy dog.

“Well,” Sherlock extends a hand to Monty. “What do you say, Monty?”

Monty lets out a little “bwoof” and presses his shaggy head into Sherlock's awaiting hand. 

An air of celebration takes over the room and Sherlock ends up sitting on the floor with his new companion. Lizzie gets passed to Anora, who cradles her in her lap. She's a little over a month old now and is watching Monty, lifting her arms but keeping her fists curled. 

Likely noticing the warm scene between Anora and Lizzie, Mycroft smiles and stirs the cup of tea in his hands.

“So, Anora, what comes next for you?”

Anora smiles shyly and allows Lizzie to grab onto her fingers.

“Actually…” She looks to Sherlock, who is too absorbed with who is now his new best friend to notice her hesitation. “Obviously I'm going to finish my degree, but Sherlock, Irene, and I were discussing career plans. We thought we'd collaborate on a new agency.”

“Holmes, Adler, and Leeds: Investigative Agency,” Irene says. “I'm not sold on the name, though.”

John looks at Sherlock in surprise. “How much of a fight did you put up?”

“Fight? It was my idea,” Sherlock says and returns to his chair. Monty wanders to Irene now, who scratches behind his ears affectionately. “What's better than having one person do the boring work? Two people. That means that whenever I want to steal you from Mary, we can run amuck.”

Anora shoots Sherlock a mean look. “No, we agreed that the fun would be shared amongst all, and you will be forced to learn the logistical aspects.” She turns back to John. “Honestly, I don't know how you managed it all alone for years.”

“He's just that fond of me,” Sherlock quips. 

The happy chatter in the room nearly drowns out the sound of the doorbell, but Anora still catches it. Mrs. Hudson begins to stand but Anora waves her away.

“I'll get it,” she says as she hands Lizzie to Mary. Straightening out her skirt, Anora goes downstairs to the front door. When she opens it, a quick burst of cold air makes its way inside, and at the door stands a young courier.

“Afternoon, ma'am,” he says, his cheeks red from the cold. He's young, but more than that, he seems nervous, fidgety.

“Afternoon,” she greets warily. “May I help you?”

The young man thrusts an envelope towards her.

“It's the verdict, ma'am. Detective Holmes requested it be delivered here as soon as it was determined.”

Anora's eyes stick to the envelope and it isn't until the young man moves his hand again that she gets the idea to take it from him. Her fingers move like stone as she holds the paper in her hands. She thanks him, he bows quickly before sprinting away. She closes the door. Sits on the steps.

To 221b Baker Street

Attn: Detective Holmes, Ms. Leeds, Ms. Adler, Doctor Watson, Mycroft Holmes

Anora almost considers herself lucky that it was her who answered the door. If it had been anyone else, maybe they'd have immediately opened it and read its contents. Then, she'd have to hear, have to know. But on the steps, with the featherlight envelope in her hands, Anora only stares at it.

She must be missing for some time, because the stairs creak behind her and she turns to see Sherlock coming around the landing. He looks from her face to the letter in her lap.

“I didn't know you requested to have it sent,” she says quietly. Sherlock leans against the bannister.

“I thought it would be easier if we all heard together, at once. No room for surprise or being blindsided. Have you opened it?”

Anora shakes her head. “No. Honestly, I don't want to. Not right now, at least. It's not going away, so it can wait. Is that alright with you? If we just let ourselves have this time?”

Sherlock lends a hand to help Anora up and she takes it. She extends the letter to him, but he shakes his head.

“You hold onto it. We'll read it later. Yes, I think we can have this time. You're right. It's not going to change.”

Anora nods mutely and slips the letter into the pocket of her skirt. Sherlock puts a hand on her shoulder, hesitates, then pulls her into and embrace. Any pride and inhibitions gone, Anora presses her face to the front of his shirt and locks her arms around him. 

“No matter what happens, we'll live on. We'll be here, together. We'll be safe and life will go on.”

She nods against him. After a few more moments, once she feels calm enough, they pull apart. When they return upstairs, John watches them in curiosity and Irene tries to pry information from Sherlock, who gives her a quick explanation. She stops asking after that.

They'll reckon with it. Whether it's a prison sentence or a hanging, it'll find a way to creep into Anora's veins and her mind and her heart, and it'll hurt, but she also knows that she has a room of friends- of family. Anora begins to recognize that what Irene had said was correct. No matter what happens, she has them. And for the first time since Joseph's death, Anora Leeds finally feels at home.

[avoteforme]

okey so it requires some stretch of the imagination but i am thinkin about if phryne was 1920s detective inspector fisher (yis a v small part of me is like 'historically inaccurate' and a v big part of me is like no collingwood kid would EVER but for reasons of hotness pls follow me)

the reasons of hotness- she'd refuse to abide by whatever di dress code there is and the force/comish would unofficially 'allow' it bc of her SPECTACULAR solve rate, and she'd absolutely swagger about the station and be brilliant and run rings around all the other di and melbourne would be the safest city in australia and the especial safest for women (that last one is just- all of the 😍)

[quill-of-thoth]

Letters from Watson: The Boscombe Valley Mystery

Part 2: The Fun Bits

Lestrade is a "Lean, ferret-like man." Let us all imagine Fur Noodle! Lestrade.

Holmes deferring his investigation of the case since it's unlikely to rain strikes me as him being potentially tired of traveling. It's presumably a period of fair weather, and there was a kid picking flowers, so likely spring, summer, to early autumn. He would have still had decent light if he'd gone, even if it is nearly four o clock.

The modern train ride from Paddington to Glouchestershire is about an hour and a half. Presuming that victorian trains were slightly slower, AND that lunch at Swindon was an occasion that they got off the train for, and that they had to get a ride in a cart from wherever the main Glouchestershire train station... 11:15 AM to about 4 PM still strikes me as a long time for this trip to take.

"Violet Eyes" I'm assuming that this means dark blue, though I was not able to quickly google when the English speaking world started considering violet and blue separate color categories.

Watson chucks a book again.

Also Watson's medical knowledge comes in clutch in this case. For those concerned, the occipital bone is the portion of the skull stretching from the spinal connection upwards, in the exact back. Parietal regions are around your ears.

The marriage that apparently James McCarthy and the Bristol barmaid have despite the barmaid being previously married isn't totally implausible. In the late 1800's you could literally just move and leave any records of your life - name, marital status, prior convictions - behind. Nobody was going to investigate unless you were already under suspicion of something else. Also, the first husband being in the Bermuda Dockyard suggests to me that he's a sailor, and therefore away a lot of the time. Sailors are not, stereotypically, necessarily faithful to their wives, or reliable about sending money home, so I imagine a nice young country gentleman made a pleasant social and financial change of pace for her.

George Meredith was a poet and novelist of the day. Noted once more for a focus on psychology and social change, like most of Holmes' other favorite authors.

"You do find it very hard to tackle the facts" on this reread I'm leaning more towards banter than rudeness in interpreting this one. Lestrade does not appreciate it though.

Left foot with an inward twist: I don't know if this means Lestrade is pigeon toed (toes point inward when the feet fall naturally) or if he has some other obvious shape discrepancy with his feet. Either way, my sympathies to the inspector, as my left foot is also not a prize specimen

Nous Verrons: french for "we will see."

[denimbex1986]

'In Italy, according to American television, the sunlight is always golden, the seas are azure blue, the flora is every shade of green, and the marble statues scattered across city piazzas are always creamy white. Ripley rejects all that. With a chilly, textured black-and-white palette for the boot-shaped country in which con man Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) reinvents himself, Netflix’s Patricia Highsmith adaptation becomes one of the most conceptual, visually uncompromising TV shows of the year. Steven Zaillian’s version of Ripley is fascinated with the 16th-century Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio, so famed for his use of contrasting light and dark that he spawned stylistic acolytes termed the Caravaggisti. Once the series establishes the comparisons between Tom and the Old Master, it becomes clear that Ripley itself is a kind of Caravaggisti, an experiment in black-and-white that relies on motifs to reflect its central character’s ominous alienation. That approach is thematically appropriate, sure, but it also absolutely rips.

Longtime collaborators Zaillian and cinematographer Robert Elswit engage the eye with reflections, shadows, and patterns, push the limits of the frame with ultrawide compositions and dueling foreground and background images, and go to bat for the discomfiting power of negative space. Every frame of Ripley deepens the series’ emotional disquiet and visual splendor, and Italy has rarely looked this beautiful or cruel. Here, a list of 37 setups, frames, and moments in Ripley that would blow Caravaggio’s mind (and already did mine).

Tom as abstraction, monster, creep? Yes to all! Look at how often Ripley presents him as the the outline of an intruder, dissolving others’ tranquility or secrecy before disappearing into the darkness from whence he came like a specter in the night. The shadows enveloping him as he enters Carlo’s lair of stolen goods is a personal favorite.

“It seemed like everywhere we went there were stairs,” Zaillian said of location-scouting and shooting Ripley. Those flights take on special meaning as Tom moves up and down and up and down in his chase for a comfortable life. The labyrinthine caves of steps he climbs in Atrani to find Dickie isn’t as starkly angular as the apartment staircase he later encounters, but the general idea of Tom needing to move through these spaces to literally and figuratively end up where he wants to be holds, his desire for upward mobility physically rendered over and over Ripley’s eight episodes. And for people who aren’t Tom, the pentagon-shaped stairs Inspector Ravini takes to the morgue for Freddie’s autopsy make it look like he’s descending into Hell.

M.C. Escher’s impact! Ripley’s repetition and refraction — the reality-challenging lines of train-station stairs and post-office boxes, Tom’s reflection in Dickie’s balcony glass doors, the misshapen edges of cobblestone streets — remind us that Tom, trapped within systems of order he’ll need to manipulate in his journey toward becoming a mid-century Narcissus, isn’t who he says he is. The series’ established visual language is so clean and rigid, it’s unsettling when Ripley breaks its own code, as it does when Tom tosses the scarf Marge knit for Dickie over an elevated walkway onto the disjointed stone pattern below. The scarf is an interruption that Tom, and Ripley itself, can’t abide.

Yes, Ripley is in black-and-white. But its gradients are so rich and deep, you can easily imagine the garnet-maroon-scarlet-sangria-rust shades of blood gushing out of Dickie’s and Freddie’s bodies, washed away by Tom in his sink or discarded in his bathtub, and — in the series’ most jarring shot, a rare instance of color — tracked around his apartment building by the cat who knows what Tom’s been up to. The series is also inundated with religious imagery, and there’s a delightfully macabre quality to how Freddie’s body falls with his arms outstretched as if he’s Christ on the cross, a sacrifice Tom has to make to become his desired self.

Italian architecture, it’s neat!

In a series where the main character experiences a sort of epiphany about art, creativity, beauty, and God when looking at the paintings of Caravaggio, the viewer will, of course, have to behold said Caravaggios. Ripley depicts the works, including The Seven Acts of Mercy (ca. 1607), The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (ca. 1599–1600), David With the Head of Goliath (ca.1605–10), and a replica of 1609’s Nativity With St. Francis and St. Lawrence (the original was stolen in 1969), in a way that reinforces Tom’s own smallness against the large-scale paintings and ancient, holy buildings that house them. He’s a tiny figure absorbing it all, the spaces gigantic around him, the shadows dark and dense. The finale’s flashback to Rome, 1606, where police find Ranuccio Tomassoni’s body and pursue Caravaggio for his murder, is also unbelievably lush with its lighting, particularly in the flickering fire of lanterns and the blood oozing out of Tomassoni’s wounds.

Here’s Ripley taking Caravaggio’s lessons and applying them to itself. Look how the light seemingly appears and disappears out of nowhere, illuminating or darkening its subjects without announcing its source. Tom’s hand, now wearing Dickie’s ring, seemingly floats in shadow, and he glows from within when sitting on the ferry. The light in his imagined face-off against Bokeem Woodbine’s detective streams in from nowhere, an angle later mirrored when Tom hangs up the Picasso he stole from Dickie. An early shower scene in New York City, when Tom is still living at the crummy boardinghouse, gives us both extremes, with the light from the showerhead forming a kind of halo around Tom’s head and the churning water emerging from the shower drain an excess of murk. It’s striking and unnerving, which is basically Ripley’s whole thing.

Tom is always grasping, watching, reaching, his want communicated best in moments that maximize the rule of thirds. Ripley ends by asking us, “Who is Tom?”, and these images, with their visual emptiness and loaded yearning, are an unforgettable answer.'

[adamwatchesmovies]

Hugo (2011)

Martin Scorsese is not known for his family films. You associate the name with gritty crime stories. So what drew him to Hugo? Perhaps he wanted to try something different? On top of being suitable for the whole family, the picture makes impressive use of 3D and special effects. If you’ve seen Hugo the whole way through, you’ll know why. I suspect Scorsese connected to this story on a deeply personal level.

In 1931 Paris, 12-year-old Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) maintains the clocks at Gare Montparnasse railway station. His alcoholic uncle Claude officially does the work but he’s been gone for months and as long as the machines keep the time, Station Inspector Gustave Dasté (Sacha Baron Cohen) won't ask any questions. This means Hugo is free to focus on the automaton he and his father were repairing before he became orphaned. Hugo keeps to himself, occasionally stealing parts from a toy store owner, Georges (Ben Kingsley). After he is caught and his book on the automaton is confiscated, Hugo befriends the toy maker’s goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz). He hopes she can help him get his book back.

There’s no way you can guess where this movie is going. The surprises along the way are a big part of the fun and the screenplay by John Logan (based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick) is in no hurry to get to its big reveals. As Hugo goes about his day, we meet all the characters who frequent the station. Richard Griffiths plays a man pining for a dog owner (played by Frances de la Tour) whose pooch can’t stand him. Shy Inspector Dasté wants to approach a beautiful flower saleslady (Emily Mortimer) but is embarrassed by an old war injury. Christopher Lee plays the owner of a book store who probably knows more than he lets on, Papa Georges is hiding something from Isabelle. And then there’s the automaton Hugo is repairing. How is it tied to his father? There’s enough going on with these characters that it doesn't matter if you don't know where the plot is going. You’re having a great time simply getting to know them, admiring the performances (Moretz does a flawless accent) and enjoying Scorsese's direction. Check out the way the camera moves down chutes, through crowds and then into the secret openings into Hugo’s home or the breathtaking shots of a long-gone Paris.

Ultimately, this is a small, personal story. The world’s fate does not rest in the hands of Hugo. The secrets we uncover deal with very human tragedies but it’s shot like all of reality hinges on the lonely boy finding a friend. After Hugo is over, you remember specific shots, specific characters and the emotions you felt while watching them. These would attract any director but I suspect Scorsese wanted this project specifically because the film contains numerous references to specific events in the history of cinema. We see a clip of Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last! and the film’s most iconic shot is re-imagined later on. The Montparnasse derailment of 1895 is reimagined and Scorsese gives us to opportunity to relive the shocked reaction audiences would’ve had while viewing “L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat” - that famous shot of a train coming towards the camera that supposedly had audiences falling out of their seats in terror - by shooting it in 3D - literally having the train come right towards the screen and frighten us. There are many other references to the history of cinema throughout. If you love movies, you’ll get an extra kick out of these scenes.

Hugo is moving, warm, romantic, tragic and exciting. It goes in unexpected directions and the surprises make the movie feel big while also keeping it small and intimate. The performances are excellent, the characters fully realized. The only mark against it comes from the presentation. This movie is meant to be seen on the big screen and in 3D. Few people will be able to see it that way now. If that’s the only flaw you can find in a movie, it's doing a lot of things right. (On Blu-ray, September 25, 2020)

[emotionalsupportbastardmen]

Round one of the Bastard Man (affectionate) championshionships is complete!

Let's take a moment to appreciate everyone who got knocked out in round one, and everything I like about them.

Mammon (Obey Me)

Mammon the love of my life Mammon. </3 Yes he's a demon, yes he's the avatar of greed, yes he's "the scummy brother", but with a heart of gold, deep down inside. Very deep down. Plus he's funny and secretly sensitive and he likes to cuddle. <3 I'm honestly shocked he got knocked out in round one, I always thought he was quite a tumblr darling.

Hercule Flambeau (Father Brown)

Everyone loves a gentleman thief, don't they? Especially one with a homoerotic relationship with his narrative foil? A master of disguise? A secret sadboy with a tragic backstory? A man who broke out of prison? World's sluttiest absent father? When will your man ever.

Inspector Mallory (Father Brown)

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH YOU HAVE NO IDEA. He's such a funny character. Little angry northern bastard man. He's awful, and should be easy to hate, but he just suffers so often and suffers so beautifully, you can't help but root for him to win, just once. And he loves his kids! A short king and a DILF.

James E. Negatus (Yonderland)

Listen. Listen. I could never love anyone like I love Negatus. He occupies a special and unique part of my heart just for him. He's babygirl. He's daddy. He's cringefail. He's badass. He's gender. He's really really kinky. I cannot understate this, this is the fetish fuel show and it's like 70% his fault. He's on a mission to kill the hero but he's also sort of in love with her. I'm never not going to go feral for that. He has a tragic backstory and a softness for small children and small animals. He's canonically committed multiple warcrimes, several murders, and also demon-genocide. He's done nothing wrong ever in his life <3

Louis Fairhead (Casualty)

My sweet prince when will he return from war? It's been so long since the show ever even so much as acknowledged him. He wasn't even at his own father's wedding to a woman Louis was practically part-raised by. I think he's fallen into a crack in space and time. Anyway I love Louis. I don't even think he's a bad guy. He's had the most traumatic life imaginable. His mother died in a car accident while he was in the car. He got kidnapped once. One time he nearly got blown up. This was all before he was ten. Then as a teenager he became a drug addict. And as a young adult he had a heroin overdose. I think he's within his rights to be an angry and emotionally distant man. I would defend him to the death. I just want him to be safe and happy and healthy. Feel like pure shit just want him back.

Aristide Valentin (the Father Brown books)

First of all Aristide Valentin did nothing wrong so jot that down. YES he committed murder. But he murdered a Catholic pro-guillotine billionaire so it barely counts. He also stole human remains but this is tumblr, we're used to that. He's a skilled swordsman with a vast sword collection which is just the sexiest thing imaginable. YES he's rude to everyone but you don't UNDERSTAND, he's a genius surrounded by idiots, he gets frustrated. Also he's Parisian, they're just like that I think, he can't help it. Honestly his only real crime is smoking while on the underground platform at Liverpool Street station. That's unforgivable.

Barclay Beg-Chetwynde (BBC Ghosts)

Honestly one of the funniest characters in the show, I don't even care. Every episode he's in is a delight. Every single line delivery is so deliciously bastardly. And he makes a brilliant foil to my two favourite characters, Julian and Alison. He's great.

B.Z. (Santa Claus The Movie)

I love this movie. I love this movie a lot. I've watched it at least twice a year every year since I was a toddler. Often more. I could quote the whole film by heart. And my guy B.Z. is by far the most quotable character. Highlight of the whole film. Every single line of his lives rent free in my head. He has beef with Santa Claus for literally no good reason. He chained up a child for even less good reason. He invented Christmas 2. He exited the movie by eating too many magic flying lollypops and floating away into the stratosphere. Utterly unhinged from first scene to last. Literally no-one could ever compare.

Kerr Avon (Blakes 7)

Ah, Avon. I was obsessed with him as an edgy teen. I think in many ways he is the edgy teen appeal character of his genre. He's like the Shadow the Hedgehog of dystopian sci-fi. I mean this as a sincere complement. And he's once again by far the most quotable character in the show. I feel like that's a very important factor for a good bastard man. Quotability.

I won't say I could fix him, because I don't think anyone could. But I wish someone could.

Cat (Red Dwarf)

My sweet underappreciated boy. In many shows he would be the beloved bastard man. It's not his fault he shares a show with Arnold Rimmer, and you simply can't outdo the do-er.

But everything he does, he does it in ~ style ~

Randal Graves (Clerks)

This character means such a lot to me. He's the worst, of course. He sucks. You wouldn't want to know someone like that in real life. But that's part of what's so tragic about him. He's already resigned himself to the fact he's an unlikeable asshole loser, and has long since given up even trying to make new friends, and now he's a deeply lonely weirdo trapped in a toxic co-dependant relationship with the only real friend he has, who he's simultaneously obsessed with and sort of in love with (no homo) (maybe homo) and would die for, but also treats terribly. He's just such a sad odd man. I think about him often.

Ray Carling (Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes)

Ray my best friend Ray. Yes okay so he's wildly homophobic and misogynistic, but like. Underneath that he's a very sweet and compassionate man, I promise. He's just trapped under the crushing weight of insecurity and self-loathing and societal expectations of masculinity. His backstory is heartbreaking. Absolutely devastating. I won't go into details because spoilers but Jesus Christ. He's the world's number one most single man, being the only one left not paired up out of the seven main characters across both shows, which hardly seems fair. He deserves a nice love interest I think. Give him a nice girlfriend, or lean into the "Ray is suffering from internalised homophobia" implications that Ashes to Ashes leant into occasionally and give him a nice boyfriend if you want, I don't care which, just give him someone.

Mentally I am holding his hand and buying him a pint right now.

Julian Cantley (literally one single episode of Heartbeat)

Choo choo, all aboard the brainrot express. Get in loser we're forming deep emotional attachments to characters with like 20 minutes total screentime. Anyway I'm obsessed with him right now. It's disrupting my drive to create content for characters with actual fanbases because I just keep thinking about Brooding Spy Man Whomst Only I Care About instead. He's just so quiet and angry and brooding. I have so many headcanons for him. I've even headcanoned what his entire flat back in London looks like. Send help.

Ryan Reeves (The Dumping Ground)

Ah he's just a baby. Just a little guy. Who could stay mad at him. Yes the way he'd learn his lesson only to go back to being evil again 2 episodes later got frustrating, but like. He loves his sister and he rescued Harry and Finn. He's not all bad. Apart from when he's being a teenage supervillain lurking in the shadows for no reason. But it's all because he's SAD, you don't UNDERSTAND,

Michael Doyle (Grange Hill)

Look. He stopped being racist after he turned like 13, okay? He just became a petty criminal and politically corrupt instead. And his dad sucks, his dad says worse stuff than Mickey ever did, he was clearly just parroting his dad when he was wee. And there's something so sad and lonely about him. The way he always tries to join in with the group only get pushed out because everyone finds him unbelievably awful. The way he so wants to be Alan's friend. The way he only has the two friends he's got because he pays them to be his friend. Poor little guy. I have to believe he got it together eventually. I have to believe him and Justin were pals by the time they went to sixth form together. I have to.

Ralph Passmore (Tucker's Luck)

It's Mr Passmore! He means such a lot to me. I'm so happy they started portraying him sympathetically in series 2 because honestly? His rage is so justified. He's unemployed and he's already been cast aside as unemployable. His family have already given him up as a lost cause. His only friend and ally in his family is his younger sister, who ends up leaving home to get away from how verbally abusive their parents are. He drinks to cope and joins a gang for the companionship. He finally gets a job after years of unemployment but finds out it's exploiting vulnerable fellow working class people in his community so he angrily and aggressively quits, after befriending and supporting an old lady. What a king.